--- Begin Forwarded Message --- Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 03:13:49 -0600 (CST) From: Sendic Estrada Jimenez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: M-I: Serb-Us (fwd) Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Marxism-International <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.980330031313.20487K-100000@fismat1> There goes the third part of the thread.... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 11:31:56 -0500 From: Joe Friendly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Kosovo Thank you Andrew for this chance to advance the cause of truth thru dialog. At 01:21 PM 3/23/98 -0800, you wrote in response to my plea: > >on a defensive note, that the US causes bloodshed and is there to colonize >does not make 'us' all-wrong. >that aside, Joe, your assertion that the US is there to colonize sounds >accurate to me. First, thanks, Andrew, for conceding the US is over there to colonize, a degrading thing to do to a country that has already climbed civilization's path to nationhood. Albania is already being colonized by the US, its military coopted by the US military. The American public is totally unaware of the massive naval and army base buildup in Albania. But you are over there so you must get the word about what is happening nearby, right? For the Albanians living in Kosovo to pull their geography away politically from being part of what presently remains of that country still existing named Yugoslavia, seems a small step from eventually being swallowed up willingly or even unwillingly by Albania, the colony of the US next door, as in "out of the frying pan into the fire." Rarely is such a fate pleasant. The Riches of America are usually not enjoyed by the people of its colonies, wouldn't you say, Andrew? Nor is real democracy enjoyed as distinct from sham democracy. Albanian numerical superiority in Kosovo was artificially imposed by the expelling of 200,000 Serbs in the 1950's, but Kosovo is sacred ground to Serbs, considered their birthplace, like Jerusalem is to the Jews. By simply presently outnumbering the Serb population they can holler, Kosovo for the Albanians! so they can assert domination over the Serb population, like the Croats and Slovenes did when they illegally seceded, ignoring then their national constitution's requiring better than a simple majority. The Serbs had gone along with the way the boundaries of the Republics were drawn in the setting up of the Yugoslavian federation even though not corresponding to their widespread population distribution that extended throughout the other republics on the strength of the Constitutional provision limiting secession to more than a plurality. I think the requirement was a 3/4 vote. It is an international disgrace that the US quickly joined Germany in recognizing the illegal secession as a done deal. So much for the US being a champion of constitutional democracy. US public opinion is not well informed of this facet of the conflict, right, Andrew? Like when Yeltsin had tanks fire shells upon their Parliament, those big black marks on what the Russians called their White House, rather than his standing for popular reelection along with the legislature he arbitrarily disbanded, as their newly amended constitution clearly required. Yeltsin had the peacefully surrendering members of the Russian parliament each physically beaten, ribs broken, sculls cracked, for no good reason. He did considerable killing of unarmed civilians who came to the streets of Moscow to defend their fledgling democracy, even resorting to hauling unidentified bodies by barge into the sea, the equivalent to the War Crime of mass graves. The US, suprise suprise, had no problem with ignoring the niceties of constitutional democracy and respecting human rights. No calls for corrective action of the Yeltsin regime as it freely demands of Yugoslavia's President Milosevic. Incidentally US puppet Yeltsin's latest move the last couple days firing so many of his ministers in the name of further privitization and Free Market Capitalism seems a desperation move, doesn't it, an enraged tyrant's tantrum, so out of touch with the people. Do you share my view, Andrew, that his old tricks of scapegoating flunkies around him will not deflect public scorn this time? >What evidence do you have that Serbia is 'the most democratic' and >'progressive' force in the region? >How do you know this? Just out, take a look at an important article in the current US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT of March 30, 1998, page 34, about Croat/Catholic atrocities against Serbs and Jews during WWII that have gone without redress all this time, largely ignored even by Jews as part of the Holocaust. If justice were done at Nuremberg, the concentration camp of the Croats at JASENOVAC would be a household word along with Buchenwald and Auschwitz and Treblinka. By only German reports we know more than 500,000 Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies were brutally murdered by the Croats. Many were first mutilated. The brutality led to even the Germans complaining to Croats that it was excessive, according to the US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT article. This is the same Ustasha organization whose symbols the Croatia regime of Tudjman resurrected when they seceded and many of the Ustasha characters who fled around the world have been brought back into power in Croatia. Upon secession they immediately started chasing Serbs from their homes and lands, firing Serbs from their jobs. The Croats started the ethnic cleansing, not the Serbs. In contrast, Andrew, in Serbian Yugoslavia the Croats and Muslims and Jews are not discriminated against. They were not fired from their jobs like Croatia did to the Serbs. All ethnics are well-treated in Serbia, they haven't been driven from their homes and lands as was done to Serbs by Croats. Refugees of all ethnics are cared for. Milosevic has not advocated racial hatred. The Serbs were the ones who resisted fascism in World War II, whereas both the Croatians and the Bosnian Moslems sided with the Nazis. The Serbs suffered great casualties in fighting the Germans in both World Wars. They were heroic and helpful allies against the Axis powers. Serb resistance in World War II forced Germany to deploy 45 divisions to try to quell them. Serb heroism in resisting fascism is credited with delaying Germany's advance into Russia some crucial weeks that resulted in Germany's getting stuck in poor positions when the notorious Russian winter came in on them. It may well have been a key element to the Allied victory over the Germans. Both Tudjman and Izetbegovic have revealed in their public statements and writings that they still hold fascist views and advocated racial hatred. Neither is much of a democrat. They have used repressive tactics. Tudjman openly defied the popular will in Zagreb, refusing to recognize the mayor the people had voted, simply because he didn't like the guy. Elections in Serbia/Yugoslavia have for the most part been fair, and where there was a question of irregularities it was less than 4 per cent of the electoral districts in the last election. Milosevic's response in those cases was to try to correct the problem by holding new elections in those electoral districts where there had been questions. He respected the results even when they were unfavorable to his party. Therefore, the big student demonstrations against the elections seem to have been manipulated by the US to embarass Milosevic. Which brings me to your surprising allegation that Milosevic is a puppet of the US. >Tell us, how does having Milosevic be a puppet of the US 'help' US >interests? >Why is Milosevic 'necessary' for the Dayton Peace Accords to work? >Why is the US attached to that? The US has done everything to get rid of Milosevic short of assassination. Their criticism of him has been unrelenting, in contrast to their not criticizing Tudjman and Izetbegovic for their misdeeds, who are US puppets. If all 3 were puppets there would not have been a civil war, right? The US manipulated the UN into voting for severe economic sanctions against Yugoslavia by withholding already prepared reports favorable to the Serbs until after the vote. The US was able to put enormous pressure on Milosevic and destabilize Yugoslavia.. Without raw materials the factories had to close down and the workers sent home. The US has blocked loans to allow them to rebuild, counting on buying them out eventually at pennies on the dollar. Serbian nationalists feel that Milosevic has been intimidated by the US but his choices were quite limited in what he could do with the Colossus of the West. What else could he have done with the US led Croatian massacre of Krajina, or the NATO bombing of Serbs in Bosnia? He has been trying to play Chess with the US as best he can, but he is so outmaneuvered by the magnitude of his opponent, plus of course all the other opponents, Germany and Turkey and the rest. There has been a proliferation of periodicals in Yugoslavia, a vigorous free press, many foreign owned, which is tolerated in 'progressive' Yugoslavia under Milosevic. I would grant Milosevic has not been that free with TV but, come on, he is no fool, that would be the END to let the US/German superiority in TV production wipe him out by manipulating emotions, rather than the light of Reason, that the Press arena arguably offers. They are trying to come up with a new law to get each media organization to disclose who is behind the scenes supporting them financially so viewers and readers will be aware of it. Yugoslavia's efforts to create this new law of public communications is a model of democratic process, with the public participating in the molding of the law, discussion solicited by the Minister of Information and Communications as she travels from town to city. >What is 'progressive' about this: >The Serb regime rector of the University of Prishtina, the >Milosevic associate, Dr. Radivoje Papovic, told a crowd of Serb >students yesterday a compromise with Albanians - allowing Albanian >students access to the University of Prishtina premises - would >amount to nothing less than "betrayal" of Serb national interests. Milosovic's policy has been to allow Albanian's full access to the University, even allowing them to complete their coursework in their own Albanian language. Such a wide difference between the positions of the 2 men would argue against their being 'associates' or cronies as you suggest. Andrew, while acknowledging the US aim to colonize you failed to acknowledge the "destroy" part of the phrase I used, "colonize and destroy." Is it your patriotism that keeps you from bad-mouthing America, even when your head might tell you they are in the wrong? The US Foreign Operations Appropriations Law 101-513 passed by Congress November 5, 1990 had 23 lines of text buried in there that called for cutting off all aid, credits, and loans to Yugoslavia in 6 months and not to be resumed until the separate Republics voted to secede from Yugoslavia and chose governments the US deemed acceptable. The law even went so far as commanding all US personnel in international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF to enforce this cutoff policy. (pages 48-49 of Sara Flounder's article in NATO IN THE BALKANS) This greatly exacerbated the economic destabilization begun by the IMF and World Bank in 1981. A leaked CIA report published November 28, 1990 predicted this would result in a bloody civil war. Bloodshed engineering. "By March 1991 Croatian Fascists were organizing attacks and demonstrations calling for the overturn of the socialist federation and the expulsion of all Serbs from Yugoslavia." (page 51) Sure enough, exactly 6 months later on May 5, 1991, Croatian separatists, emboldened by massive infusions of Germany money into Croatia to tide them over a secession, staged violent demonstrations and attacked the Yugoslavian military base in Gospic. The Yugoslav army fought back. The bloody civil war had begun. Slovenia and Croatia declared independence on June 25, 1991. Andrew, it seems the sentiments that motivate you and your associates over there, a people's right to self-determination, are the very sentiments that have driven Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia to separate themselves from rule by alien or hostile ethnic regimes, just as West Virginia was created by Lincoln's recognizing the rights of citizens of part of Virginia who did not want to secede from the Union along with the whole state of Virginia. But the US was not willing to afford the Serbs that opportunity in Bosnia, or the Krajina, or Croatia. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- --- End Forwarded Message --- -- Rosser Jr, John Barkley [EMAIL PROTECTED]