FROM PHOENIX, ARIZONA Come and join the big anti-war rally being held at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, on Saturday, June 5, starting at noon at the Vietnam Memorial. Your editor is supposed to be one of the speakers. Let's tell Bill Clinton we don't want a KOSOVO MEMORIAL next to the Vietnam one. Here is your chance to STAND UP AND BE COUNTED! So that one day, with your head held high, you can tell your children or grandchildren: "During the Days of the American Infamy, I did not remain silent; I stood up against Washington's Evil Empire, and defended America the Beautiful which our Founding Fathers had created." For those who can't make it to DC but are close enough to San Francisco, there is a companion anti-war march being held there the same day (June 5). For details, check out www.iacenter.org. The Special Truth in Media Global Watch Bulletins on NATO's war on Serbia, such as the one enclosed below, can also be accessed at our Web site: www.truthinmedia.org which is being updated throughout the day. Issue S99-94, Day 68 --------------------------- May 30, 1999; 11:30PM EDT HEADLINES Belgrade 1. Eleven Killed, 40 Wounded in Another NATO Bridge "Kill" Belgrade 2. Crossing the Bridges: Only Under the Sign of Cross? Pristina 3. Foreign Media Convoy Bombed: One Dead, Two Injured Sarajevo 4. Serbs Said to Snatch Away Six NATO Soldiers; Release Them after Eight Hours of Questioning Belgrade 5. Yugoslav Jews Stand by Their Serb Neighbors: I'd Rather Be Poor in Belgrade Than Rich in Tel Aviv! Belgrade 6. ...As Did Belgrade's Ethnic Germans -------------------- 1. Eleven Killed, 40 Wounded in Another NATO Bridge "Kill" BELGRADE, May 30 - Add at least 11 more counts of murder, and 40 counts of attempted murder causing bodily harm, to the growing list of NATO's war crimes, after today's bombing of yet another bridge. Plus one damaged hotel, one church and one city hall. This time, all these NATO "military targets" were in Varvarin, a small town 110km (65 miles) south of Belgrade. Three missiles struck the bridge while civilian traffic was flowing across it. More deaths are feared as a number of vehicles fell from the bridge into the swollen Velika Morava river. Ironically, the town's name - Varvarin - means Barbarian in Serbian. Now, the town's residents can see that real barbarians live high up in the sky. And may consider renaming their town after the war - "Barbarians' Target." Meanwhile, back in Brussels, the NATO leaders rejoiced in another "successful" day at the office, having launched a record 1,000+ sorties, along with over 300 strike sorties, in that 24 hour-period. A NATO spokesman confirmed the Varvarin bridge "kill," calling it a legitimate military target. ----------------- 2. Crossing the Bridges: Only Under the Sign of Cross? BELGRADE, May 30 - Crossing a bridge in Serbia these days is a crap shoot with your own life, as the above Varvarin story illustrated. But not all casualties are directly attributable to NATO. One person was killed and another badly injured in a traffic accident on Belgrade's Gazela bridge last night (May 30). Fearing possible bombs, a driver reportedly sped up, lost control of his vehicle, and crashed through the fence and into the river below. When this writer visited Serbia in late April, he had a similar experience, though with a happier ending. As you can see... by being able to read about it. One of the three highway bridges near Novi Sad was still standing at the time. As we approached it after a brief stopover in downtown Novi Sad, the driver crossed himself, and asked everyone in the van to say a prayer. Then he gunned the vehicle across the bridge. Half way across Europe's longest waterway, his eyes glued on the roadway ahead, "De Gaulle," the nickname which the driver, a tall wiry Serb, earned for having lived a few years in Paris, motioned to the right. "This is where the missile hit," he said. Indeed, the damage was extensive and obvious, though the bridge was still standing. Back then. It no longer is. A couple of weeks later, NATO came back and finished the job. No wonder many taxi drivers in Belgrade have crosses hanging under their rear view mirrors, having to cross the bridges across the rivers Sava and Danube numerous times every day. Only under the crosses, of course. Incidentally, "DeGaulle" almost caused an accident a few days later right at the Kneza Milosa exit off the Gazela bridge in downtown Belgrade. As this writer was walking along Kneza Milosa street to take pictures of the bombed-out Interior Ministry buildings (see the photos at our Web site - http://www.truthinmedia.org/Kosovo/photos-rsd.html), a van suddenly came to a screeching halt on one of Belgrade's busiest streets. Several other vehicles behind the van also hit the breaks. But it was the van's driver, and not those behind him, who kept honking his horn more frantically than a Manhattan cabbie might during a presidential visit (see "Taking a Little Bite Out of the Big Apple" - http://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins/tim98-11-3.html). When I finally looked up to see what all the kaffafle was about, I recognized "DeGaulle," my from Budapest to Belgrade, a few days earlier. "DeGaulle" seemed so happy to see me again, that he jumped right out of the van, ran across to the sidewalk to give me a big hug. After I returned the hug, he ran back to his vehicle. Meanwhile, if something like that were to happen, say on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan, what do you think would be the reaction of the drivers behind the abandoned van? Could maybe even the folks in New Jersey hear their impatient honking, let alone those in Queens? Well, guess what... No one behind the abandoned van minded the two "old friends" (they thought, but in actuality two strangers who had met two days before) giving each other an impromptu hug, even if tying up the traffic for a minute or two. At least no one "audibly" minded it. So if you want to see examples of civilized behavior, head out to wartime Belgrade. It's a hell of a more humane place than a peacetime New York. Or L.A.... Or Phoenix... (for a related letter from a Yugoslav Jew about his experiences in Israel - "Better a Poor Jew in Belgrade Than a Rich One in Israel"). ---------------- 3. Foreign Media Convoy Bombed, One Dead PRISTINA, May 30 - A group of foreign journalists traveling in a convoy in Kosovo was hit in a NATO air strike on Sunday May 30, the official Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said. Tanjug said the convoy "came under NATO fire" at 4:30PM (local time) at Krk Brod, on the road linking Brezovica and Prizren in southern Kosovo. A convoy driver was killed, and at least two people were injured - the French philosopher Daniel Schiffer, and an unidentified British journalist. Tanjug said the injured had been taken to hospital in Prizren, a major town in southwest Kosovo. --- TiM Ed.: Another "good day at the office" in Brussels; another "legitimate military target" hit... ---------------- 4. Serbs Said to Snatch Away Six NATO Soldiers; Release Them after Eight Hours of Questioning SARAJEVO, May 28 - What goes around, comes around. At least that's the way with most things in life and war. On May 28, a group of Serbs snatched away six NATO soldiers who were on a patrol in the Rudo area of Bosnia, and took them to Serbia for questioning, the Reuters newswire reported. No shots were fired and the NATO troops were released after eight hours of questioning. Col. Lee Hockman, a NATO spokesman in Sarajevo who refused to identify the nationality of the detained soldiers, said the six NATO "peacekeepers" had been "heavily outgunned and outmanned," but had not resisted the Serbs. --- TiM Ed.: Any wonder they had not? Meanwhile, here's a flashback from the TiM memory lane.. Back on Apr. 3, NATO's Special Forces came under fire from local Serb civilians while destroying a major Belgrade-Bar railroad line through Bosnia-Herzegovina, the UPI newswire reported from Sarajevo (see Day 11, Update 1, Item 2, Apr. 3). Nobody was hurt. But the SFOR (NATO's evolving euphemism for its occupation force in Bosnia) said the operation rendered the tracks of the Belgrade-Bar (Montenegro) railroad line, which crosses through the Bosnian Serb territory, useless. The SFOR Commander, Gen. Montgomery Meigs, said at the time, the railway had been cut because of indications that Yugoslav troops intended to use it. He refused to elaborate. You don't suppose this little Rudo Serb-NATO tussle, therefore, was a retaliation for the damage the NATO "peacekeepers" did to the Belgrade-Bar railroad line, while ostensibly keeping peace in a neighboring country? If so, that was surely is an odd way of peacekeeping, just as bombing a country into the stone age is a bizarre "humanitarian action." Either way, the unidentified 8-hour NATO POWs should thank their lucky stars that they were captured by the "uncivilized" Serbs. Which is why they are still alive today. And free to kill more Serbs. God forbid! ---------------- 5. Yugoslav Jews Stand by Their Serb Neighbors: I'd Rather Be Poor in Belgrade Than Rich in Tel Aviv! BELGRADE, May 29 - The tiny Belgrade Jewish community is flouting the world opinion, writes Frank Brown, a religion correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. Along with that of most American Jewish organizations which have supported Bill Clinton in his strikes against Serbia, a country which had been a safe haven to many Jews during the Holocaust. As you have seen from the earlier TiM Bulletins, some Jews in America and in Israel may have been trying to cleanse their own conscience by alleging that the war criminals, like Madeleine Albright, Wesley Kanne Clark, William Cohen or Sam Berger, aren't real Jews (see the "Jews vs. 'Jews:' Victims Don't Care About Quotation Marks" - S99-74, Day 49, Update 2, Item 4, May 11). They tried to do it by labeling these New World Order Jewish "Nazis" as "Jews." Meaning, the "converts." Not the "real Jews." As if the putting of quotation marks around their names will make it all right for all the thousands of innocent Serb civilians they have killed. "Bull!," also say the real Yugoslav Jews, without any quotes around their names, who are now suffering the new kind of a Holocaust, along with their Serb neighbors, courtesy of the "Jews" who are running NATO's war against the Yugoslav civilians. The Jews or "Jews," take your pick, they say the American Jews should not try selling their "snake oil" remedies to the New World Order's victims - the Jews of Yugoslavia. David Pesah (38), a Jew living in Belgrade, is a refugee, having escaped from the ethnic cleansing ( by the Muslims!) in Sarajevo by the skin of his teeth in 1992. Now that he and his wife, a Serb, are being bombed again, Pesah vows not to leave, not to emigrate to Israel, or to become a refugee twice over. For Pesah, comparisons of the Kosovo Albanians' situation to that of the Jews in the Nazi Holocaust are particularly galling. "The American Jews don't know what the Holocaust was. Maybe a few survivors, but that's all. I'm very disappointed in them," said Pesah, an earnest man with a salt-and-pepper beard and wire-rimmed glasses. "If they call Kosovo genocide, then I compare Yugoslavia to Auschwitz. We are trapped and every night they (the NATO-Nazi bombers) pick a few people to kill." Pesah said that Yugoslav friends, and a strong attachment to Serb culture, had helped keep him in Belgrade despite the promise of material comforts in Israel, where he is entitled to claim citizenship under the country's Law of Return. He visited this Jewish state once - in 1995. "The spirit is different there. Money is everything in Israel," said Pesah, who, with income from his Serb wife's job, currently lives on $180 a month. "If I am just going to work all day, and go directly into my pajamas when I get home, then I'd rather be poor here and live a life." Even under NATO's bombs. And that's a life philosophy which many Americans may also consider. About 500 of Yugoslavia's 3,500 Jews have fled the NATO attacks, mostly to Israel and neighboring Hungary, the Chicago Tribune reported. Those remaining often share Pesha's feelings of solidarity with their Serb neighbors, and indignation at, what they perceive as, the U.S. and worldwide Jewish organizations' endorsement of the NATO bombing. ---------------- 6. ...As Did Belgrade's Ethnic Germans BELGRADE, July, 1994 - Karolina Maria Derovic, or just "Teta Lija" (Aunt Lia), 86, is how this woman with a foreign accent introduced herself to this writer during a bus ride from Budapest to Belgrade in July 1994. She said that she was German-born, had been married to a Serb, and had lived in Belgrade ever since 1947. After her husband had died, a little while ago, she moved back to Germany. Now (in July 1994) she was returning to Belgrade - "permanently," as she says. The reason? "Germans are such cold people," she said. "I didn't like it there at all. So I am going back to Serbia where people are so nice to me. I have good friends in Belgrade. I missed them." As we approached the Hungarian-Yugoslav border, Aunt Lia started to curse the Hungarians for humiliating the Serbs at the border. She also used some harsh words in criticizing the German government's treatment of the Serbs. Later on, I told a broadcaster at Radio Belgrade, of this German lady. I said I did not understand why she was so mad at the German government. DM helped explain it with a personal example: At one point during the battle of Gorazde (in April 1994), foreign embassies had withdrawn all their staff from Belgrade (hoping to intimidate the Serbs into believing that BG would be bombed next). It so happened that at that time the famous Serb Dragacevac brass band was asked to participate at a cultural event in Germany. Which meant that the nearest place at which they could get the German visa was Budapest. The woman who was organizing the tour talked to the German Embassy there and was told that all people who wished to travel had to come to Budapest in person and bring their passports. And so, 14 of them did (12 band members, the organizer and DM, as the reporter who was supposed to accompany them). They traveled all night, and were at the German Embassy in Budapest as soon as it opened in the morning. The consular staff took their passports and told them to return at 2 p.m. to pick up the visas. In the meantime, the woman-organizer had assisted the German embassy staff with translation for the four Muslims from Tuzla, who claimed to be refugees. They did not even have proper documents. One had some sort of an ID, but even that was without a photo. Nevertheless, they were issued German visas on the spot. When the 14 Serbs returned at 2PM., they were told that their visa applications had been denied. The woman-organizer asked for the reason. "According to the German law, we are not required to state the reason," she was told coldly. "You see, that's the kind of humiliation the Serbs are subjected to everywhere in Europe," DM commented. "We've become a fair game. Anybody can do anything to us with impunity." --- TiM Ed.: Just as with the Jews in the 1930s. So please, the Jewish-Americans who still believe in forgiveness, spare us the quotation marks! Join the decent Yugoslav and American Jews without who are as "mad as hell" with the likes of Bill Clinton, as is any decent Serb. Drop Clinton, not bombs! ---------------- NOTE: To cancel the e-mail editions of our reports, just reply REMOVE or UNSUBSCRIBE, followed by the e-mail address at which you're receiving them. ---- Bob Djurdjevic TRUTH IN MEDIA Phoenix, Arizona e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit the Truth in Media Web site http://www.truthinmedia.org/ for more articles on geopolitical affairs.
