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>*************************************************************************
>Thursday, September 21, 2000
>
>1. New York Times on Yugoslav elections
>2. Federal electoral commission issues statement
>3. More than 210 foreign observers arrive in Yugoslavia for elections
>
>**************************************************************************
>
>URL for this article is http://emperors-clothes.com/news/erlang.htm
>
>'NY Times' Confirms Charge that U.S. Gov't Meddles in Yugoslav Internal
>Affairs
>Introduction by Jared Israel and Max Sinclair (9-21-2000)
>
>The following article from the NY Times is most important. In it, the
>reporter concedes that the charges many people have raised about US
>meddling in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia are true. Indeed, he adds
>information that we had no way of knowing. For example, that suitcases full
>of cash are sent across the borders into Yugoslavia to fund the "democratic
>opposition". Doesn't our assertion, that "democratic" means "following the
>dictates of the US State Department" appear to be a simple statement of fact?
>
>Note that despite the shocking evidence he presents to the contrary, Mr.
>Erlanger still manages to call this self-styled "democratic" opposition
>"independent":
>
>[Start quote] "Independent journalists and broadcasters here have been told
>by American aid officials "not to worry about how much they're spending
>now," that plenty more is in the pipeline, said one knowledgeable aid
>worker. Others in the opposition complain that the Americans are clumsy,
>sending e-mails from "state.gov" - the State Department's address -
>summoning people to impolitic meetings with American officials in Budapest,
>Montenegro or Dubrovnik, Croatia."[End quote]
>
>The article includes various attacks on the Yugoslav government in general
>and Mr. Milosevich in particular. Those readers who do not read the US
>press should be aware that it is impossible for a large US newspaper to
>write anything about Yugoslavia without including a number of such attacks:
>
>[Start quote]"When speaking of the Serbs it is considered proper to say
>something negative. More than one thing is optional. But one is
>obligatory."[End quote] (From 'The Obligatory Bash' at
>emperors-lothes.com/analysis/obligato.htm )
>
>Mr. Erlanger refers to documentation of US meddling, which appeared in the
>Yugoslav paper, 'Politika'. That documentation comes from an Emperor's
>Clothes article, which Politika reprinted. (1) The article was also shown
>in full on Serbian Television this past Monday at 7:30.
>
>Notice also that Mr. Kostunica now appears to concede that our charges are
>true. Or, rather, he is quoted first saying they represent the ravings of
>"the regime" (one must refer to the elected government of Yugoslavia as a
>'Regime') and then saying that the so-called "nongovernmental"
>organizations who take this money "are even unconsciously working for
>American imperial goals." I am not sure what it means to "unwittingly" take
>millions of US dollars. But that aside, it is good that Mr. Kostunica says
>this, but I wonder if he sees the implications. Are these people, who take
>the US money, not the G-17, who wrote the so-called "Democratic" Opposition
>Program, which he endorsed? Aren't they the members of the "democratic"
>opposition coalition, for which he is the candidate? Aren't they groups
>like Otpor, who according to the US press put up his posters and hand out
>his fliers?
>
>Let us make no mistake. The fault for corrupting the Yugoslav political
>process lies in one place: Washington, with its "democratic" this and
>"independent" that, and all the time they are trying to buy people,
>especially young people, with the lure of a traitor's gold.
>
>When, and it will happen, the American people learn what crimes are being
>committed in their name, God help the State Department.
>
>***.
>
>The New York Times September 20, 2000
>
>Milosevic, Trailing in Polls, Rails Against NATO
>By STEVEN ERLANGER
>
>BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 19 - In his race for re-election, President
>Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia is running against NATO and the United
>States, not against his democratic opposition.
>
>He is not entirely mistaken to do so. The United States and its European
>allies have made it clear that they want Mr. Milosevic ousted, and they
>have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to get it done.
>
>Portraying himself as the defender of Yugoslavia's sovereignty against a
>hostile, hegemonic West led by Washington, Mr. Milosevic and his government
>argue that opposition leaders are merely the paid, traitorous tools of
>enemies who are continuing their war against him by other means. In March
>1999, NATO began a 78-day bombing campaign to drive Serbian forces out of
>Kosovo.
>
>The Yugoslav elections are on Sunday, but there has hardly been a day since
>the bombing began that state television news has not railed against "NATO
>aggressors."
>
>With the campaign at its height, the government has spread its attacks to
>include all opposition political parties, independent newspapers, magazines
>and electronic media, the student organization known as Otpor - or
>Resistance - and any nongovernmental organization working to promote
>democracy, human rights or even economic reforms.
>
>While Mr. Milosevic is trailing the main opposition leader, Vojislav
>Kostunica, in opinion polls, the anti- Western campaign is having an
>impact. The money from the West is going to most of the institutions that
>the government attacks for receiving it - sometimes in direct aid,
>sometimes in indirect aid like computers and broadcasting equipment, and
>sometimes in suitcases of cash carried across the border between Yugoslavia
>and Hungary or Serbia and Montenegro. Most of those organizations and news
>media could not exist without foreign aid in this society, which is poor
>and repressive and whose market is distorted by foreign economic sanctions.
>
>Even with foreign aid, government restrictions on newsprint supplies and
>high and repeated fines after suspiciously quick court cases make it hard
>for the independent news media to reach their natural market.
>
>As for the opinion polls that show Mr. Kostunica in the lead, the
>information minister, Goran Matic, charges that the polls are orchestrated
>and manipulated by the Americans and the Central Intelligence Agency, who
>help pay for them. According to Mr. Matic, Mr. Milosevic is actually far
>ahead of Mr. Kostunica, and the polls simply serve as a vehicle for the
>opposition to claim that the government stole the election once Mr.
>Milosevic wins.
>
>Mr. Matic asserts that the Atlantic alliance has come up with various
>scenarios, such as infiltrating soldiers wearing Yugoslav Army and police
>uniforms, to make it possible for the opposition to start civil unrest in
>the streets after the election while claiming that the police and the army
>are actually on their side.
>
>Mr. Matic has attacked various nongovernmental organizations, including the
>Center for Free Elections and Democracy, which is trying to monitor the
>fairness of the election, as paid instruments of American and alliance
>policy. Many such organizations have been raided by the police, who
>confiscate computer files and also appear to be gathering evidence about
>foreign payments.
>
>"President Milosevic will win this election," said Ljubisa Ristic, the
>president of the Yugolav United Left party, founded by Mr. Milosevic's
>wife, Mirjana Markovic. "This is not Hollywood." Washington and the West,
>she said, "are like little kids, wanting something to happen so much
>they're fooling themselves."
>
>Mr. Ristic said the alliance's war produced a new solidarity among
>Yugoslavs and "killed many illusions people had about the West and about
>their own opposition leaders, who went to the countries that were bombing
>us to seek their support."
>
>The issues, Mr. Ristic said, are clear now. "It's a decisive time," he
>said. "This is not an election so much as a referendum, a decision on being
>an independent country or a colony. People see what's happened in Kosovo,
>what happens when NATO troops enter the country, and they are not going to
>allow the alliance's hand- picked candidates to win."
>
>Even before the Kosovo war, the United States was spending up to $10
>million a year to back opposition parties, independent news media and other
>institutions opposed to Mr. Milosevic. The war itself cost billions of
>dollars. This fiscal year, through September, the administration is
>spending $25 million to support Serbian "democratization," with an unknown
>amount of money spent covertly to help the failed rallies of last year,
>which did not bring down Mr. Milosevic, or to influence the current
>election. For next year, the administration is requesting $41.5 million in
>open aid to Serbian democratization, though Congress is likely to cut that
>request.
>
>Independent journalists and broadcasters here have been told by American
>aid officials "not to worry about how much they're spending now," that
>plenty more is in the pipeline, said one knowledgable aid worker. Others in
>the opposition complain that the Americans are clumsy, sending e-mails from
>"state.gov" - the State Department's address - summoning people to
>impolitic meetings with American officials in Budapest, Montenegro or
>Dubrovnik, Croatia.
>
>But there is little effort to disguise the fact that Western money pays for
>much of the polling, advertising, printing and other costs of the
>opposition political campaign - one way, to be sure, to give opposition
>leaders a better chance to get their message across in a
>quasi-authoritarian system where television in particular is in the firm
>hands of the government.
>
>While that spending allows the opposition to be heard more broadly,
>deepening the opposition to Mr. Milosevic, it also allows the government
>here to argue that it has real enemies, and that the Serbian opposition is
>in league with them.
>
>Just today, in the state-run newspaper Politika, a long article used public
>information from the United States - including Congressional testimony and
>Web site material - to show that the United States is financing the
>opposition.
>
>" `Independent,' `nongovernmental' and `democratic' are the standard
>phrases the C.I.A. uses to describe organizations established all over the
>world to destroy the governments and the societies that the U.S. government
>wants to colonize and control," the paper wrote.
>
>The Congressional testimony, from July 29, 1999, cited American officials
>then involved with Yugoslav policy, like Robert Gelbard and James Pardew,
>telling Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware about their projects. They
>describe the creation of a "ring around Serbia" of radio stations
>broadcasting into Serbia from Bosnia and Montenegro, the spending of $16.5
>million in the previous two years to support "democratization in Serbia,"
>and another $20 million to support Montenegro's president, Milo Djukanovic,
>who broke away from Mr. Milosevic in 1998.
>
>The testimony listed some of the recipients of American aid here, including
>various newspapers, magazines, news agencies and broadcasters opposed to
>Mr. Milosevic, as well as various nongovernmental organizations engaged in
>legal defense and human rights and projects to bring promising Yugoslav
>journalists to the United States for professional training.
>
>All such projects are portrayed by Politika and state television as a way
>to undermine the legal government, and the recipients are labeled traitors
>to their country.
>
>Opposition leaders like Mr. Kostunica regard such tactics by the government
>as crass propaganda, but even he is skeptical of American intentions in
>paying for nongovernmental organizations, some of whom, he believes, are
>even unconsciously working for American imperial goals and not necessarily
>Serbian values.
>
>Other democratic leaders, like Zoran Djindjic and Zarko Korac, regard such
>attacks as an indication of Mr. Milosevic's desperation and anxiety on the
>eve of the first election he is likely to lose in his entire political
>career. Given the stakes for Mr. Milosevic, they believe that he will do
>all he can, including the wholesale stealing of votes, to ensure a victory
>in the first round of voting.
>
>"The stakes are fundamental for Milosevic," Mr. Korac said. "These
>elections are crucial, not necessarily for the immediate handover of power,
>but because for the first time Mr. Milosevic will be delegitimized in the
>eyes of his own people. He was an elected dictator, with popular and legal
>legitimacy. But from now on he's a true dictator, and he will only be able
>to rule by force - that's a big step for Serbia."
>
>Footnote:
>
>(1) 'How the U.S. has Created a Corrupt Opposition in Serbia'
>http://emperors-clothes.com/engl.htm
>
>*******************************************************
>
>YUGOSLAVIA - ELECTIONS
>
> FEDERAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION ISSUES STATEMENT
> BELGRADE, September 19 (Tanjug) - The Federal Electoral Commission held a
>session on Tuesday chaired by Borivoje Vukicevic and noted that all
>preparations for the implementation of the upcoming presidential and
>parliamentary elections were nearing completion according to plan, the
>Parliamentary Press Service said. The printing, packing and distribution
>of election materials has been completed. These operations were monitored
>by the Federal Electoral Commission and representatives of political
>parties running in the September 24 elections.
> Representatives of political parties who supervised the operations had no
>objections and confirmed that all electoral materials were correct.
>However, some party leaders are spreading rumours that already filled out
>ballots are being distributed, and that people are being threatened to
>force them to use such ballots. The Commission strongly protests against
>such lies and points out that such irresponsible conduct is unnecessarily
>misleading the voters and violating their right to free choice.
> Condemning all manipulations with lies, the Commission urges for the
>creation of legal and constitutional conditions for enabling voters to
>freely elect the lists and candidates of their choice. The Commission has
>consequently taken measures and requested state institutions to protect the
>democratic rights of the citizens.
> This year's polls will be attended by over 200 observers from 50
>countries, including parliamentarians and eminent public figures, whose
>presence will enable the world public opinion to witness the democratic
>character of free and fair elections in Yugoslavia, the Commission said.
>
>************************************************
>
>MORE THAN 210 FOREIGN OBSERVERS ARRIVE IN YUGOSLAVIA FOR ELECTIONS
>
> BELGRADE, September 20 (Tanjug) - President of the Yugoslav Electoral
>Commission Borivoje Vukicevic and Supervising Board President Ivan
>Radosavljevic will organize a cocktail on Wednesday evening to welcome
>foreign observers who have arrived in Belgrade to monitor the federal
>presidential and parliamentary elections and local elections in the
>Yugoslav Republic of Serbia.
> More than 210 foreign observers, including parliament members and
>officials from 52 countries have arrived so far. They are from: Albania,
>Angola, Argentina, Belgium, Belarus, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Chad, Czech
>Republic, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, France, Ghana, Greece, India, Indonesia,
>Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Armenia, Jordan, Canada, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Cyprus,
>Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Libya, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Germany, Nepal,
>Nicaragua, Palestine, Portugal, Romania, Russia, the U.S.A., Salvador,
>Slovakia, Sweden, Spain, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine, United
>Kingdom, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
> Among the foreign observers is a joint delegation of the Parliamentary
>Assembly of Russia and Belarus. The foreign observers have attended the
>final rallies of various political parties, and will be present at most
>electoral stations all day on Sunday, September 24.
>
>******
>Global Reflexion - Amsterdam - The Netherlands
>
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