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1 Greg Elich has published over 40 articles on Yugoslavia and the Balkans. In August 1999, only two months following the end of the NATO bombing, Greg visited Yugoslavia with an international delegation. His skilled photography and audio-taped interviews with people he'd photographed have created a testimonial of the war and NATO's bombing through the eyes of those who experienced its bloody reality. Greg Elich has presented his audio-visual program in New York City, Cleveland, and Ohio University, and the Berne-Elich program has been presented in Dayton and on select midwestern campuses. A sequence of photos of maimed Yugoslavian war dead taken from now-closed Serbian state website war files makes particularly stark documentation. (back)
2 "The Hidden Empire," 3-part MSNBC series. (back) 3 David Wood, "Army girds for bold Third World role," Newhouse News Service (Trenton Times, NJ) January , 1990. (back) 4 See "Serbia plans state sell-offs," BBC News, 5/7/01: "First on the auction block will be three Serbian cement plants -- part of an industry set to have a key role in rebuilding of infrastructure destroyed in bombing by Nato forces in 1999. . . But the key sale will be of Zastava, one of Eastern Europe's largest arms manufacturers and maker of the Yugo car, and the national airline JAT which has a good reputation, modern planes and well-trained pilots. Under the new law, effective from 1 June, 70% of a privatised company will be sold to Serbian and foreign investors, with just 15% for the workers and 15% for citizens. This abolishes the 1997 privatization law introduced under the Milosevic government which allocated 60% of shares to workers. The government hopes this will encourage foreign investors, by allowing them to take majority stakes and overall control of companies. Yugoslavia became one of the most successful communist countries with a system of 'social ownership' under which equity was split between the workers and the state." (back) 5 See George Szamuely, "In Bed with NED," "The task the U.S. Government has assigned to Otpor is to act as the local bully scaring people into not voting for the socialists or the nationalists." Szamuely documents funding by the CIA-connected National Endowment for Democracy of the so-called democratic reform organization Otpor who led the March on Belgrade in September 2000 that forced Milosevic's election concession. The CIA's history of funding political organizations and coups against recalcitrant national leaders came to light most notably in the 1973-75 hearings of Senator Frank Church's Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. The Church committee exposed American intelligence's massive covert actions in the 1960s to destabilize the election campaigns of -- and from 1970-1973 the Presidency of -- Marxist Salvador Allende in Chile. Along with assistance to the Chilean military that plotted Allende's assassination, micromanagement by Americans of the Chilean political opposition that failed to defeat Allende is described in this passage from the committee's report to Congress: "[The CIA station in Chile] financed Chilean groups who erected wall posters, passed out political pamphlets (at times prepared by the Station) and engaged in other street activities. Most often these activities formed part of larger projects intended to influence the outcomes of Chilean elections. . . Of thirty-odd covert action projects undertaken by Chile by the CIA between 1961 and 1974, approximately a half dozen had propaganda as their principal activity. Propaganda was an important subsidiary element of many others, particularly election projects. The CIA supported -or even founded- friendly media outlets which might not have existed in the absence of Agency support. From 1953 through 1970 in Chile, the Station subsidized wire services, magazines written for intellectual circles, and a right-wing weekly newspaper. [In 1964] the Central Intelligence Agency spent more than $2.6 million in support of the election of the Christian Democratic candidate, in part to prevent the accession to the presidency of Marxist Salvador Allende. . . In a sequence of decisions in 1971 through 1973, the [American covert assistance] authorized nearly $4 million for opposition political parties in Chile." - Church Committee Final Report. (back) 6 Suzanne Daley, "Use of English as World Tongue is Booming, and So is Concern: In Europe, Some Fear National Languages Are Endangered," The New York Times, 4/16/01 (back) 7 "Milosevic's Speech to the Nation," October 2, 2000. (back) 8 "Speech at Kosovo Field," June 28, 1989, in commemoration of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo. (back) 9 Elif Kaban, "Trail running dry in the hunt for Milosevic assets," Reuters, April 12, 2001. (back) 10 Extract from Slobodan Milosevic's defence against allegations of abuse of power : "The money put into the economy through the Beogradska Banka went to help the most vulnerable social and economic hotspots during conditions of crisis. They were not stolen by anyone. As for the funds spent on weapons and ammunition and the other needs of the Bosnian Serb Republic Army and the Croatian Serb Republic Army, as these were state secrets they could not be shown in the budget, which is a public document. The same is true of the expenses for equipping the security forces and counter-terrorist forces." The Guardian, April 4, 2001. (back) 11 NATO press spokesman Jamie Shea made clear that the ICTY takes its orders from NATO: "When Justice Arbour starts her investigation, she will do so because we will allow her to . . . NATO countries are those that have provided the finance to set up the Tribunal, we are amongst the majority financiers." Transcript of press conference in Brussels, transcribed by M2 Presswire, May 17, 1999. (back) 12 Scott Ritter: from 1991-1998, chief of UN Concealment Investigations Unit (weapons inspector), United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) for overseeing the elimination of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles in Iraq. Ritter has become an outspoken opponent of the idea of an Iraqi nuclear missile threat. See www.cnn.com.SPECIALS/2001/gulf.war/legacy/wmd/ (back) 13 The New York Times, Op-Ed, June 24, 1992. (back) 14 "Ceasescu's Aides Recall Last Days," The New York Times, February 10, 1990. (back) 15 Guy Trebay, "Were the Photos of the Romanian Mass Graves Faked?" Village Voice, February 6, 1990. (back) 16 My saved, but undated, New York Times clipping from January 1990 reports that the wounded soldier, interviewed at a military hospital in Panama, "said he was on duty when he heard the shots. He said he ran out to the street to see what was happening and saw a car accelerating from the scene, despite a flat tire, which had apparently been shot out at the nearby roadblock. He said he ran out to the street to see what was happening and saw a car accelerating from the scene, despite a flat tire, which had apparently been shot out at the nearby roadblock. Corporal Correal said he was then hit by bullets in the left arm and the left buttock. He apparently was saved from more serious injury by his wallet and a checkbook cover." (back) 17 The New York Times, January 24, 1990. (back) 18 Quoted in Michel Chossudovsky, "NATO Aggression Against Yugoslavia: An Overview." (back) 19 For a Russian view of the war in Yugoslavia as a paradigm for future NATO incursions into the former Soviet east see Mikhail Delyagin, "Yugoslavian Scenario for Ukraine?" Rossiiskaya Gazeta, April 28, 2001. www.wps.rule_index.htm (back) 20 The elder (ex-President) George Bush's current job title is investor and senior adviser for The Carlyle Group, a $12 billion private equity firm that is the nation's 11th biggest defense contractor, owning companies that make tanks, aircraft wings, and a broad array of other military equipment. What wealth he earns from this activity will be passed on to [among others] son, and now President, George W. Bush who reaped wealth from war as director of on oil drilling company, Harken Energy Corp. Harken's offshore oil drilling in the emirate of Bahrain benefitted from military protection courtesy of dad's Persian Gulf War. See Curtis J. Lang, "It's Oil in the Family," Village Voice, February 5, 1991. (back) 21 Paul's bill would not only require enforcement of the Constitution's vesting of war powers in the Congress, but would replace the 1973 War Powers Act that gave Presidents a 60 day grace period before having to petition Congress for a formal declaration of war. The Paul bill eliminates the 60 day window. For information contact the War and Law League (WALL). (back) 22 "Humanitarian War: Making the Crime Fit the Punishment," by D. Johnstone. (back) 23 "Study Finds Poverty Deepening in Former Communist Countries," The New York Times, October 12, 2000. (back) Back to the beginning of the transcript AFTERWORD |