>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Is the CIA Murdering Yugoslav Leaders? >IAC Condemns Bulatovic Assassination > >The International Action Center condemns the murder of Yugoslav >Defense Minister Pavle Bulatovic. The minister was gunned down in a >Belgrade restaurant Feb. 7. The assassination was "part of a chain of >organized terrorism orchestrated from abroad," Yugoslav Information >Minister Goran Matic charged at a Feb. 9 press conference. It >coincided with a new wave of terror against Serbs who have refused >to leave their homes in the NATO-occupied province of Kosovo. > >Over the past three years at least a dozen Yugoslav officials have >been assassinated. Most were members of the Yugoslav United Left >or the Serbian Socialist Party. Is this a CIA "executive action" >campaign to destabilize the government of Yugoslavia? > >Last October, at a session of the information committee of the United >Yugoslav Left, Goran Matic had "warned that subversive and terrorist >actions are being planned abroad in order to destabilize the country's >political and economic system," the Yugoslav press agency Tanjug >reported. He charged that Washington's policy would "increasingly >rely on destructive and illegal activities ... relying on an existing >network of secret agents." > >During the US-NATO bombing of Yugoslavia last spring, US missiles >destroyed the bedroom of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, >and the Pentagon openly declared Yugoslav political leaders to be >military targets. This was in brazen violation of the Geneva >Convention, which prohibits political assassination. To set the stage >for the bombing, the CIA-backed "Kosovo Liberation Army" >murdered dozens of Kosovar Albanians, Serbs, Roma and others >who opposed secession from Yugoslavia. > >As well as being Yugoslavia's defense minister, Bulatovic was a leader >of the Montenegro Socialist People's Party, which wants Montenegro >to stay part of Yugoslavia. The US and NATO have been >encouraging a separatist movement in Yugoslavia, as they did >previously in Slovenia, Croatia. Bosnia and, most recently, Kosovo. >The Pentagon has gone so far as to warn the Yugoslav government >not to "interfere" in Montenegro's affairs. Montenegro has been a part >of Yugoslavia since that country was founded. > >>From the 1961 murder of Congo President Patrice Lumumba through >the repeated attempts on the life of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, from >Operation Phoenix in Vietnam to the murder of tens of thousands of >Latin Americans by CIA-supervised death squads, the CIA and >Pentagon have long used assassination as an instrument of war and >policy. The CIA overthrow of Salvador Allende's pro-socialist >government in Chile in 1973 was preceded by a wave of political >assassinations. Nor can we forget the FBI-CIA domestic >assassination program—the COINTELPRO murders of members of >the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement and other >activist organizations in the '60s and '70s. There is evidence that Dr. >Martin Luther King was among COINTELPRO's victims. > >The corporate-owned major US news media have not even raised the >question of a US hand in the assassinations in Yugoslavia. Ignoring the >Yugoslav government's statements, they have implied the victims were >involved in criminal activity—a classic "make 'em look dirty" means of >blunting outrage-or insinuated the Yugoslav government itself had >carried out the murders. The media made similar allegation about the >January murder of anti-NATO Serb nationalist leader Zeljko >Raznjatovic, popularly known as Arkan. > >This is the same corporate news media that uncritically repeated wild >and now disproven Pentagon allegations of mass murder by the >Yugoslav army in Kosovo, claims used to justify last spring's >undeclared war. They have refused to report non-government efforts >to investigate NATO war crimes in Yugoslavia, such as the >Independent Commission of Inquiry founded by former US Attorney >General Ramsey Clark. They have completely censored any news of >the recent US-orchestrated presidential coup in Ukraine, which >threatens to bring US troops to Russia's border. This level of media >complicity with the State Department and Pentagon has not been seen >since the height of the Cold War in the 1950s. > >The Bulatovic assassination and the new attacks on Serbs in Kosovo >coincide with other bellicose moves by the US toward East Europe >and the former USSR. The past few weeks have also seen a pro- >NATO coup against Ukraine's parliament, the US Navy seizure of a >Russian ship in the Persian Gulf and the State Department's >declaration of support for anti-government forces in the former Soviet >republic of Belarus. The Pentagon has also revived its "Star Wars" >program and is planning NATO military exercises in July in Ukraine, >Bulgaria and Estonia. For decades the Washington warmakers have >dreamed of the military conquest of East Europe and what was once >the Soviet Union. Now they appear to believe they can make this >dream a reality. They must be stopped. > > __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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