CONTEMPORANEOUSLY DURING THE

"TOUR DE SERBIA:"

"Tour de Serbia" - Part I (Sept. 13)

"Tour de Serbia - Part II (Sept. 15)

"Tour de Serbia - Part III (Sept. 16)

                                           TiM's "TOUR DE SERBIA" - STAGE 3

                                           Aleksinac - Photo Album         Sept. 14, 1999 (8 images)

Aleksinac - Meetings, Tour, Interviews

ALEKSINAC, Sept. 14 - Our visit to Aleksinac started with an early morning meeting with the Mayor, at his Town Hall office.  After that, the TiM editor and his wife toured the sites of NATO's April 6 bombing of the town center, accompanied by reporters and cameras of Vesela Televizija (a local TV channel) and other Serb media. 

Thats is why start our Aleksinac "Tour de Serbia" photo album with the shot of the devastation in an Aleksinac residential neighborhood which circled the globe within hours of being published at the TiM Web site (see S99-31, Day 14, Update 2, Item 1, Apr. 6). The following is an excerpt from that report, filed contemporaneously (on Apr. 6):

1. AP: "A Yugoslav Town Bathed in Blood"

ALEKSINAC, Apr. 6 - "Pools of blood, two corpses and parts of dismembered bodies lay in the wreckage of a large apartment building today in this central Serbian town after an overnight air strike," the Associated Press reported today from a scene of carnage in this small mining community of 17,000, some 100 miles southeast of Belgrade
(see the map).

Yugoslav authorities said five people were killed and at least 30 injured when NATO missiles hit a residential neighborhood Monday night. Journalists permitted by authorities to visit the area today saw a destroyed apartment building. Some bricks, wooden boards and roof tiles were tossed more than 500 feet from the site. Three two-story homes were also flattened.

In the town's center, shop windows were smashed. Closer to the blast site, several nearby apartments caught fire. A young physician, Dr. Bratislav Miladinovic, stood at the entrance of a hospital, dazed and in shock. He was on duty at the time of the strike. He said his sister and father were killed and his wife and child injured.

About 30 people were taken to the hospital, some with head injuries. An entire street was wiped out,'' a local doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity, told journalists (see the photo).

Now, five months later, everywhere around Aleksinac town center there are signs that its residents are busy trying to rebuild their town and their lives.  At the bomb blast site depicted in the Apr. 6 photo, a young man (Bojan Marinkovic) insisted the TiM editor went with him to the third floor apartment, which he shares with his mother and a younger brother.  "You'll have the best view from there of the bombed out neighborhood," he said (see photos Nos. 1 through 4).

While the TiM editor was at the apartment taking the photos, his wife was taken to a nearby local market (see the photo No. 7).   rs. Djurdjevic and her entourage stopped at a stall where an old farmer was selling his peppers.  She asked him through an interpreter how much he wanted for them.    He named the price. Then the interpreter asked the farmer if he would give the American vistior some peppers.  "No way," he relied angrily.   "I give her my peppers, and she gives me her bombs!" 

Later on, as the TiM editor's wife retold this story a number of times during the rest of our "Tour de Serbia," she would always sum it up by saying,   "the farmer's anger was understandable. The devastation was incredible.   How was he to know who I was.  He just "saw someone from America and lashed out."  

Naturally. Hillary Clinton doesn't buy her peppers in Aleksinac. If she did, she probably would get some of them in her ear, too. If she is lucky...

Meanwhile, thanks to the war criminals like Bill Clitnton and his cohorts, all Americans, including those who had protested the NATO bombing throughout the war, are now being tarred with the same brush. And an apparent target for all people with anti-American sentiments worldover.

The TiM editor's visit to Aleksinac concluded with the taping of an interview at the studio of the independent TV station "Vesela Televizija."

Back to Tourde Serbia Index

Also, check out... Truth in Media Statement on the Kosovo War, "Wither Dayton, Sprout New War?", "On the Brink of Madness", "Tragic Deja Vu's," "Seven U.S. Senators Suggest Ouster of Milosevic", "Biting the Hand That Feeds You", "A Balkan Affairs Potpourri", "Put the U.N. Justice on Trial", "International Justice 'Progresses' from Kidnapping to Murder", "Milosevic: 'A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery'...", "Kosovo Lie Allowed to Stand", "New World Order's Inquisition in Bosnia", "Kosovo Heating Up", "Decani Monastery Under Siege?", "Murder on Wall Street",  "Kosovo: 'Bosnia II', Serbia's Aztlan",  "What If the Shoe Were on the Other Foot?", "Serb WW II General Exhonerated by British Archives," "Green Interstate - Not Worth American Lives", "An American Hero or Actor of the Year?" (A June '95 TiM story) and/or "Clinton arme secrètement les musulmans bosniaques", "Kocevje: Tito's Greatest Crime?", "Perfidious Albion Strikes Again, Aided by Uncle Sam", "Lift the Sanctions, Now!" (1993)

Or Djurdjevic's WASHINGTON TIMES columns: "Chinese Dragon Wagging Macedonian Tail,"  "An Ugly Double Standard in Kosovo Conflict?", "NATO's Bullyboys", "Kosovo: Why Are We Involved?", and "Ginning Up Another Crisis"

Or Djurdjevic's NEW DAWN magazine columns: "Washington's Crisis Factory,"  and "A New Iron Curtain Over Europe"