April 30, 2001
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Over a decade ago the Euromerican chancelleries spearheaded by Germany, the USA and Britain concocted or hastened the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by dousing petrol on the nationalistic fires fueled by economic dislocations in the Balkans. It was a deliberate choice. At the time it was said that to let the fires spread, to actually fuel the fires would open Pandora's Box and would engulf the entire region in chaos. It was argued that the secession of any one republic of the federation would lead to the complete dismemberment of Yugoslavia. The Serbian constituency was particularly alarmed and raised its worried voice in protest. It was not heard and the process began with Slovenia.
The rest is wrenching history. The federal forces faced the secessionist forces in a decade-long civil war. Euromerica sided with the secessionists. During that protracted descent into hell the Serbs kept warning the Western Powers of the dire consequences. They in turn became the villains. The responsibility for all the misery, all the tragedy that befell the Balkans was squarely put on the Serbian framed intransigence and brutality. Serbs failed to use the tools of modern warfare and were converted into nefarious killers and rapists through clever PR campaigns parroted in the main media. The more they reiterated in all possible fora that they wanted to prevent the dissolution of the federation, that their aim was to keep the peoples of the South together within the framework of the multi-ethnic federation or, if that was not feasible at least preserve the interests of the Serbian minorities in the respective areas, the more they were demonized, accused of territorial ambitions (Greater Serbia) and physical atrocities (ethnic cleansing). Serbs were transformed, metamorphosed into subhuman demons. Slobodan Milosevich came to symbolize all that was wrong with the Serbian people. He was at first labeled as a strong politician, the "guarantor of peace in the Balkans," a man with whom the U.S. could work (remember Dayton?); then an autocrat, a corrupt leader, a dictator, a tyrant and finally a latter-day Hitler. He once asked a reporter who subsequently described him as the "perfect dictator," "Why are you lying about us?" Simply because he and his people were expendable and treated accordingly, like chicken feed, being sacrificed on the geopolitical altar of resource based economics, ideology and greed. Euromerica funded and trained the secessionists in Croatia, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in the Presevo Valley and went to war twice against Serbia in the name of humanitarianism and multi-ethnicity. Serbia was crushed, its people banned from "civilization," thrown into a purgatory, reduced to dismal living conditions and her leader indicted for Crimes Against Humanity by a newly-constituted tribunal. The U.S. Government put a $5 million bounty on Milosevich's head, let the Serbian people know that so long as he was in power they could expect no reprieve from the "humanitarian" International Community (that is, really, Euromerica or about just one tenth of the world population), financed the opposition to the regime and helped plot a coup that deposed the fiend. Finally, the new regime while in desperate need for financial aid to alleviate the consequences of the NATO's 1999 illegal war was blackmailed: Arrest Milosevich by March 31, 2001 or the $50 million in aid, budgeted out of heartfelt congressional generosity under the condition the monies are spent with American contractors, will be withheld. (50 million dollars, not even a fistful of green when compared to the $3 to 5 billion blank check signed to Israel every year, the $2+ billion to Egypt, the $1.5 billion to wage war in Colombia, and certainly miserly when balanced with the $30 billion destruction spree wrought upon Serbia -- some estimates go as high as $60 billion.) Eventually purged from power, internationally condemned, indicted for war crimes, depicted as a pariah by the Euromerican elites and even by some in his own country, Milosevich finally surrendered to his unenviable fate on April 1, 2001 (April Fool's Day) after a couple of botched attempts to seize him. Let's forget about the immediate depiction by the pundits of a disturbed man (with the usual reference to the suicidal fate of his parents). Let's forget about the opportunism of the present Serbian prime minister and the sang-froid of the Yugoslav president. Instead, let's explore Milosevich's alleged crimes of corruption and "crimes against humanity," and touch upon the present Serbian dilemma. A Corrupt Leader This is unfathomable, a corrupt leader! This man had cronies and they were making a bundle when the common Serbs were deprived. A legitimate alleged accusation (it is "alleged" until proven, isn't it?) that deserves close scrutiny. Close scrutiny is something Milosevich has had to live with for a long time; he shouldn't mind. Obviously, this is a matter the Serbian people -- and, one could argue, the former components of the Yugoslav Federation -- may want or need to address. It has little to do with the "international" community (again, that means Euromerica, just about one-tenth of the world population). But if this great community of elite-thinking and compassionate human beings wants to delve into the matter -- they have the privilege to do so; after all they are the "victors" -- it may be useful, as a community service, to remind those so-ever-moralistic, good Christian people about a few indicators. For example: - Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the leader who so strenuously backed Slovenia and Croatia to secede, will pay a fine of $133,500 so that the enquiry that he accepted illegal contributions when he was in power is closed. - A French magistrate has evidence that President Jacques Chirac of France was involved in a major kickback scheme when, before he was elected to the highest office of the land, he was the mayor of the state capital, Paris. - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton got an $8 million advance for her memoirs, just before being inducted in the Hall of…the Senate, thus avoiding any legal scrutiny. Senators defend their own…as well as their future opportunities. This, of course is not corruption de jure since the law was written quite precisely to avoid the charge… - Neither is Bush II's entire business life legally corrupt, just an admirable illustration of what cronyism can do for you; and the appointment of executives from the military-industrial complex the Pentagon depends on and oppositely to senior Pentagon positions is nothing more than a dance among friendly cronies -- the revolving-door policy; but again it is not legally corrupt since this kind of corruption has long been legalized in America, and this certainly is not a story about morality! - Finally, what about the cronyism of the 1 percent of Americans who most legally control the wealth and the destiny of the USA? Seriously, the alleged corruption of Milosevich and his cronies brings to mind the famous line of Captain Renault in the 1942 movie Casablanca, "I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" and then accepts his winnings from the croupier! Crimes Against Humanity These charges are critical, of the utmost importance to Euromerica, as they are the basis and the only overt basis for the justification of the NATO illegal intervention. The entire case for the war was built on the allegations of mass executions, mass graves, massacres, and once the bombing campaign began, mass expulsions. Without a guilty verdict against Milosevich that he and his government instigated and plotted ethnic cleansing and genocide, the 78 days of bombing destruction, civilian devastation, illegal use of cluster and radioactive ordnances loose their practical and ethical justification. Without such justification how can Euromerica rationalize the violation of practically all the laws in the book (NATO charter, UN charter, US constitution, Geneva convention, etc.)? Hence the $5 million bounty, the campaign of internal destabilization, the blackmail of the new regime. Milosevich MUST be proven guilty. This can only happen if he is handed over to The Hague, the court created by Euromerica, the "victor's court" modeled, it is said, on the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. Let's note for the record that this author is not a jurist, but former Nuremberg Prosecutor, Walter J. Rockler, is; and Rockler said, "The attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen international aggression since the Nazis attacked Poland to prevent Polish atrocities against Germans" (emphasis added). For those who don't remember, don't know or are not sure, it is worth reminding that the "Polish atrocities" had been entirely set up and staged by the Germans! There is some instruction to be gained by reviewing the 1999 staged massacre of Racak in light of the 1939 "Polish atrocities" (a.k.a. Operation Canned Goods*). Humanitarianism is not such a recent concept, after all! Meantime, Carla Del Ponte, the present chief prosecutor, has yet to produce a Serbian My Lai, a Serbian Charlie Company ("Hey man, did you hear what we did? We went in there and lined up all these people and massacred them -- massacred a whole village." - A proud member of the company) or a Serbian alter ego of former Senator Bob Kerrey. One would suspect that had she any evidence, even flimsy evidence, of at least 13 Albanian women and children massacred by any Serb, be he a Slavic media darling à la Kerrey or a Slavic "gook" (is it not the name Americans used to call Vietnamese?) she would have produced it, don't you think? Then the Christiane Amanpour and Thomas Friedman of our "civilized" world would have been all over the media, licking their chops and gravely announcing "I told you so;" and Richard Holbrooke and Madeleine Albright would be giving interviews and hitting the speech circus at $50 thousand or more a pop. But they are not, are they? With Racak and the genocide by now pretty much debunked the transfer of Milosevich takes on a matter of urgency. The longer Milosevich remains in Serbia the harder it will become not only to justify the past actions but the ones yet to come, like the 75-year lease that the U.S. government appears to be quietly negotiating for the Camp Bondsteel property in Kosovo (the U.S. bases in Germany may not be there for ever). The longer he is hosted (against his will) in the Belgrade central jail while the situation on the ground in Kosovo keeps deteriorating, with KFOR troops being shot at by the formerly friendly Albanian Freedom Fighters, the more demanding the task to carry on accusing the Serbs for all the ills of the Balkans will turn out to be. So long as he is not officially hung with a guilty verdict of a genuine, bona-fide crime against humanity by the "victor's court" the prestige of Euromerica and the self-indulged moral superiority of the USA can be challenged. The case must rest. Euromerica needs a ritual war criminal. Milosevich will do. The Serbian Dilemma Here lies the conundrum: There is nothing written here above that the Serbian political apparatus does not know. They would candidly acknowledge that they are "no angels" -- actually Milosevich himself said it -- but while no one is an angel in the Balkans and the Euromericans are no choir boys either only the Serbs have been identified as evil. That too is known to them with full appreciation of the consequences, past, present and future. If Milosevich is handed over to The Hague, with an outcome glaringly established, they will be tagged like a Texas Bush's herd with collective guilt branded on the forefront of their identity and culture for generations to come. Henceforth they will have to surrender all rights upon Kosovo and Mehotjina as well as the Krajina and the right for Serbs to live in any parts of the Balkans as a respected and recognized minority (freedom of speech, of faith, of education, of language, etc. -- freedoms which were enforced within the former socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia); and one needs no expertise in the region to appreciate that the issue of Kosovo will still be alive when this author and all the readers of this article as well as the actors and leaders of the respective entities are six-feet under. The power game should be clear to all and goes far beyond the fate of one man, be he Milosevich, whose real "crimes" were to be at the wrong place at the wrong time; a leader of a federation, three times democratically elected, who attempted with the powers at hand to prevent its dismemberment, wanted to safeguard its socialist character in the midst of deep economic dislocations during an historical period when socialism has, to put it mildly, bad press; possibly a man who misjudged the odds, accommodated too much (Dayton), hung on to power too long and was eventually cornered (Rambouillet) into having to draw a line in the sand on the question of Kosovo, a stand that would have been taken by any Serbian leader; in other words, a character with which Greek Tragedies are made. Neither can the power game remain hidden behind the prude fig leaf of humanitarianism and multi-ethnicity. There is today more hatred and religious intolerance and exacerbation in the Balkans than anytime in the past 50 years. There are practically no more multi-ethnic countries with the exception, ironically, of Serbia (Macedonia is mostly bi-ethnic and Bosnia is essentially divided among ethnic lines). It is indeed raw and naked. It is about ritually hanging a man to justify the past actions, consolidate the fait accompli, carry on with the engineering projects like Corridor V and VIII (the old Roman "Via Ignatia," from Varna in Bulgaria to Durres in Albania) to open up south-eastern Europe in an East-West direction and move on eastward (Corridors IX and X, etc.) -- all projects, the Pan-European corridors, devised in the 80ies; raw and naked like raw materials, resource based economics, new markets and cheap labor. In this environment the Serbian dynamic seems split between short-term pragmatism and long-term interests for the nation and its culture. To hand over Milosevich to The Hague incurs the risk of having the entire Serbian psyche tainted for generations to come by fabricated horrors and "crimes," and the Serbs viewed as and be reminded of their "evil" deeds for decades. There is a strong constituency in Serbia that opposes the transfer of Milosevich to a Kangaroo court; and not only in Serbia. The Serbian Diaspora which by and large is quite conservative, loathed Tito, communism and socialism, a Diaspora that had put the West on a pedestal and, again in its majority, would never have voted for Milosevich, is vehemently against this transfer not out of affinity or respect for the man but out of contempt for the "victor's" despicable system of justice, the reject of demonization with which they have been labeled for too long and the dignity of their culture. So, whether Milosevich dies of "natural" causes in his jail or a nearby hospital he has already been ritually murdered. The question now is how far Euromerica will pursue her vindictive triumph, further humiliate the Serbian people, taint their heritage for decades, McDonaldize and Hollywoodize their culture before moving on to bigger, more grandiose exploits. Meantime, in America, a woman can be thrown in jail for not having buckled up her and her children's seat belts with the support of the US Supreme Court and the Oregon supreme court finds the right to carry concealed weapons into schools constitutional. All in the name of Freedom and Civilization, I suppose. * Operation "Canned Goods:" I now offer in evidence Document 2751-PS, which is Exhibit USA 482. It is an affidavit of Alfred Helmut Naujocks, dated 20th November, 1945. This affidavit particularly refers to the actual occurrences in connection with the Polish Border incident. I believe it was referred to by the witness Lahousen when he was on the stand. "I, Alfred Helmut Naujocks, being first duly sworn, depose and state as follows: 1. I was a member of the S.S. from 1931 to igth (sic) October, 1944, and a member of the S.D. from its creation in 1934 to January, 1941. I served as a member of the 'Waffen S.S.' from February, 1941, until the middle of 1942. Thereafter, I served in the Economic Department of the Military Administration of Belgium from September, 1942 to September, 1944. 1 surrendered to the Allies on igth (sic) October, 1944, 2. On or about 10th August, 1939, the Chief of the Sipo and S.D. Heydrich, personally ordered me to simulate an attack on the radio station near Gleiwitz, near the Polish border, and to make it appear that the attacking force consisted of Poles. Heydrich said, ' Practical proof is needed for these attacks of the Poles for the foreign Press, as well as for German propaganda purposes.' I was directed to go to Gleiwitz with five or six other S.D. men and wait there until I received a code word from Heydrich indicating that the attack should take place. My instructions were to seize the radio station and to hold it long enough to permit a Polish-speaking German, who would be put at my disposal, to broadcast a speech in Polish. Heydrich told me that this speech should state that the time had come for the conflict between Germans and Poles, and that the Poles should get together and smash down any Germans from whom they met resistance. Heydrich also told me at this time that he expected an attack on Poland by Germany in a few days. 3. I went to Gleiwitz and waited there 14 days. Then I requested permission from Heydrich to return to Berlin, but was told to stay in Gleiwitz. Between 25th and 31st August, I went to see Heinrich Mueller, head of the Gestapo, who was then nearby at Oppeln. In my presence Mueller discussed with a man named Mohlhorn plans for another border incident, in which it should be made to appear that Polish soldiers were attacking German troops. Germans in the approximate strength of a company were to be used. Mueller stated that he had 12 or 13 condemned criminals who were to be dressed in Polish uniforms and left dead on the ground of the scene of the incident, to show that they had been killed while attacking. For this purpose they were to be given fatal injections by a doctor employed by Heydrich. Then they were also to be given gunshot wounds. After the incident, members of the Press and other persons were to be taken to the scene of the incident. A police report was subsequently to be prepared. 4. Mueller told me that he had an order from Heydrich to make one of those criminals available to me for the action at Gleiwitz. The code name by which he referred to these criminals was 'Canned goods '. 5. The incident at Gleiwitz in which I participated was carried out on the evening preceeding the German attack on Poland. As I recall, war broke out on 1st September, 1939. At noon on 31st August, I received by telephone from Heydrich the code word for the attack which was to take place at 8 o'clock that evening. Heydrich said, 'In order to carry out this attack, report to Mueller for Canned Goods.' I did this and gave Mueller instructions to deliver the man near the radio station. I received this man and had him laid down at the entrance to the station. He was alive but he was completely unconscious. I tried to open his eyes. I could not recognise by his eyes that he was alive, only by his breathing. I did not see the shot wounds but a lot of blood was smeared across his face. He was in civilian clothes. 6. We seized the radio station as ordered, broadcast a speech of three to four minutes over an emergency transmitter, fired some pistol shots and left." And that was sworn to and subscribed before Lt. Martin. The Trial of German Major War Criminals Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany - The Nizkor Project and this specific page. 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