[CTRL] American Puppets vs. Slobodan Milosevic, A Genuine Leader

[Mrs. Jela Jovanovic, Secretary General]

-Caveat Lector-

American Puppets vs. Slobodan Milosevic, A Genuine Leader
September 22, 2000

By George Szamuely
www.emperors-clothes.com

"These elections are a sort of referendum at which it will be decided
whether
we continue to live as a free state and a free country" thus Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic the other day. He is right. The United States
has poured millions of dollars into the country to try to get Milosevic out.
It has bankrolled politicians, political parties, magazines, radio and TV
stations, publishing houses, printing presses, student organizations, street
demonstrators, think-tanks, trade unions, polling organizations, lawyers'
lobbies, human rights groups, and, no doubt, chess clubs and
stamp-collectors' associations too. In the last three years alone, over $75
million of US taxpayers' money has ended up in "opposition" bank accounts.
And still, Milosevic could well pull off an election victory. The US
Government is taking no chances on Sunday's elections. It has already
declared Milosevic the victor the consequence of ballot rigging, needless
to say. According to James O'Brien, described in the press rather sinisterly
as "special Balkans democracy adviser to the President and the Secretary of
State," Milosevic will steal the election by "printing pre-marked ballots,
manipulating voting districts, intimidating opponents and planning to claim
votes from UN-controlled Kosovo."

O'Brien offered no evidence for his claims. It would be a little hard to do
so, since the events he is talking about have yet to take place. His firm
prediction is but preliminary to his real message, directed at the Serbs:
vote the wrong way and you risk US military action. Milosevic "does not have
a free hand" to rig the vote, O'Brien warned. The United States is willing
"to stand up for the stability of the region." Since the US Government has
already stated that a Milosevic victory is only possible in the event of
vote
rigging, his threat is as unambiguous as it is crude. A US-led bombing
onslaught on Yugoslavia to ensure a "democratic transition" looks to be on
the cards. Already the papers are filled with laughably absurd stories of
British troops foiling alleged plots by Serb special forces to launch bomb
attacks in Kosovo to during the elections.

In the United States, it is illegal for political parties to receive money
from foreign sources, let alone foreign governments. A US organization
funded
by a foreign government has to register as a foreign agent. Yet the Clinton
Administration thinks it perfectly reasonable to corrupt the entire
political
system of another country by flooding it with vast sums of foreign money.
The
"civil society" we are allegedly fostering is total fraud, with no genuine
roots among the people and entirely dependent on US Government largesse.

On July 29, 1999 during Hearings before the European Affairs Subcommittee of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Gelbard, US Special Envoy to
the Balkans, outlined the extraordinary scope of US interference in the life
of Yugoslavia. There were, first, the opposition parties. They are "best
served," he explained somewhat condescendingly, "if we provide them with
technical assistance and first-class political advice, the kinds that may
seem commonplace to us but represent a whole different way of thinking to
them." Then there are the "youth and student organizations, as well as
independent labor unionsundoubtedlyimportant sources of mobilization in
the future." Gelbard then spoke of something US policymakers refer to as
"independent media" paid agents of the US Government touting the US
Government line: "What we're trying to dois support an alternative
indigenous voice for the Serbian people through mechanisms such as ANEM, the
Network of Independent Radio and Television." The use of the word
"indigenous" is priceless. One wonders if he managed to keep a straight face
as he said it.

Fashioning a Yugoslav "opposition" made to order for Washington has been a
major preoccupation for some years. Paul B. McCarthy of the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED) testifying to the Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe that "the West should help the democratic political
opposition develop a concrete program which offers positive alternatives to
the destructive policies of the Milosevic regime. Democratic think tanks,
independent research organizations and expert groups should be supported to
develop these alternative policy recommendations. Furthermore, dissemination
of this new democratic thinking to the broad public must be encouraged by
fostering close cooperation among the think tanks, opposition parties and
the
independent media." Note the way the NED does not for one moment doubt its
right to reorganize Yugoslav civil and political life for the sake of US
interests.

One of the organizations receiving money from the NED is the International
Republican Institute (IRI). Starting in 1997, the IRI has been bankrolling
political parties and student organizations in Yugoslavia. The IRI claims
that it has "supported pro-reform political parties and student
organizations
through technical support programs that training and consultations to
strengthen and enlarge the parties' grassroots organizations and help them
devise communication and coalition building strategies that would solidify
their combined support. Opinion polls taken during this period suggested
that
a substantial majority of the electorate did not support the coalition of
Serbian governing parties controlled by Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic. Only 20 percent of Serbs supported the coalition's lead party,
the
Socialists." Note that the language the US Government to describe the
"opposition" is almost always identical. Everyone is continually being
enjoined to unite to oust Milosevic. Disagreements, however important
essential one would have thought to the very "pluralism" the United States
likes to lecture others about must be set aside for the sake of the of the
common good, as determined by Washington. Moreover, the 20 percent figure is
illuminating. The recent opinion polls being trumpeted to show how badly
Milosevic is trailing all repeat the 20 percent figure. Not 15 percent, not
30 percent always 20 percent. Apparently, no departures from the official
script are to be permitted.

The IRI boasts also of having "worked with opposition leaders to devise ways
of increasing their voter identification and ability to influence the
national political agenda." In other words, US funds were going towards
providing free propaganda for US-approved politicians. As for the
much-vaunted Otpor, a favorite of the Western media circles, here is what
the
IRI says: "In the fall of 1999, the student resistance movement OTPOR began
to organize protests against crackdowns on media and academic freedoms.
OTPOR
is currently preparing plans, with IRI's technical support, for a
Get-Out-The-Vote campaign for elections in 2000."

Not surprisingly perhaps, Otpor sounds very much like an organization run
from Washington. Yugoslavia must undertake "full cooperation with The Hague
Tribunal For War Crimes." There is to be "full protection of private
ownership rights, proceeded by compulsory and fair privatization, the
establishment of a free market economy, and the opening of the economy to
international financial organizations and international investment." This
stuff is straight out of the IMF playbook. Needless to say, Otpor also urges
the formation of "a unified block of all relevant democratic forces in
Serbia
with the principal objective of replacing Milosevic and his government"
all
entirely in accordance with the official US Government line.

The NED funds the G-17 group of "independent economists" which, we are
happily informed, is "conducting a research program to identify barriers to
private sector development at the local and federal levels." The G-17 ideas
about the future of Yugoslavia are apparent in the "Proposal to the
Stability
Pact for South East Europe to Organize a Regional Funding Conference for the
Reconstruction of Post-Milosevic Serbia," put forward by Serbia's Democratic
Opposition with, we are told, "assistance from G17 PLUS." The program
pledges
that "privatization is our great concern and a commitment to swift and
efficient privatization is crucial for economic reconstruction." However, it
goes on, the "first political priority for the new reformist government will
be to address the issue of the fiscal deficit. That will require the change
of both the current tax and public expenditure policies. Fiscal reform is a
prerequisite for monetary stability and the renewal of Serbian international
credibility. Radical fiscal reform will demand hard political decisions for
the reduction of expenditures, changing the priority in public spending and
measures to increase the effectiveness of tax collection. We, the
democratic
opposition of Serbia, are willing to explain the significance of these
reforms to our political public. We are also ready to undertake this
political risk as we deeply believe that fiscal changes within a general
reform of the state and its apparatus are critical to the country's future
and its speedy development." Note that a statement such as this does not
even
pretend to address the people of Yugoslavia. It offers nothing to ordinary
voters. Why on earth would anyone vote for a political group that promises
to
cut public expenditure, close down so-called "inefficient" industries, and
open up the country to predatory foreign investors hunting for bargains? The
pledge of the so-called "Democratic Opposition" is directed entirely towards
the Governments of the United States, the European Union, foreign investors
and bankers, the IMF and the World Bank evidently the only constituency
worth considering. Hilariously, the NED also boasts of funding trade unions
in Yugoslavia such as UGS Nezavisnost described as "a multiethnic trade
union
confederation which opposes the Milosevic regime." One wonders if this
"trade
union" is also obligated to support the goals of "market democracy,"
"privatization" and "debt reduction." The mind boggles at how much
grassroots
support it must enjoy.

The NED is an ardent promoter of "independent media" in Yugoslavia, which
are
to "break the stranglehold of government-dominated media in Serbia by
strengthening influential sources of objective information." "Independent"
and "objective," of course, are used to describe voices that parrot US
Government policy. NED has given money to newspapers Nasa Borba, Vreme, and
Danas, the news agency BETA, as well as Radio B-92 and TV Negotin.

"Independent media" are a favorite of USAID as well. One recipient of USAID
funds is Internews. This is a film production company whose self-proclaimed
goal in Yugoslavia "is to overcome the political propaganda and hate speech
that have been promulgated for years on government television." To that end
it "supports the efforts of independent stations in Serbia to create a
viable
alternative television network to balance the power of the
government-influenced media." Just to show that it has the US Government
script down pat, it talks of supporting "the emerging new democratic
broadcasting and producing companies in the reformed Republic of
Montenegro."
It talks of "stirring debate on sensitive issues such as ethnic tolerance,
economic reform, and government corruption." It produces a weekly program
called "Kosovo: A View from Inside," with the aim of allowing Albanians to
"show their real-life dilemmas in an intimate and direct way and to get
those
messages to viewers in Serbia/Montenegro via local television stations." The
goal is "confidence-building, reconciliation and conflict prevention." Note
the tendentious spelling of Kosovo. The show may not appeal much to Serbs,
but it pleases the producers' US patrons, which is all that really matters.

Another major recipient of US taxpayer dollars is Montenegrin President Milo
Djukanovic. Larry Gelbard told the Senators that he used to meet Djukanovic
regularly, even before he was elected President of Montenegro. Evidently, US
bribery long predated his electoral victory itself almost certainly the
product of US chicanery. In January USAID announced the award of a $7
million
grant to Montenegro. This money was to serve as budget support by paying off
the pension obligations of the Government of Montenegro. "This action,"
USAID
announced, is the last "grant for Montenegro from Fiscal Year 1999 funds,
completing a program that totaled $44 million." The United States, of
course,
is great champion of free markets, free trade and balanced budgets. While
the
US Government insists that any indebted country must undertake painful
austerity measures to balance its books, it happily whips out its checkbook
several times a year to and wipes clean Montenegro's financial obligations.
It certainly pays to be a "strategic partner" albeit of an extremely
minuscule kind of the United States.

Sunday's election is between a genuine leader of Yugoslavia and an
"opposition" movement, which is entirely a dependency of the United States.
The choice is not exactly a difficult one.

***
George Szamuely was born in Budapest, Hungary, educated in England, and has
worked as an editorial writer for The Times (London), The Spectator
(London),
and the Times Literary Supplement (London). In America, he has been equally
busy: as an associate at the Manhattan Institute, editor at Freedom House,
film critic for Insight, research consultant at the Hudson Institute, and as
a weekly columnist for the New York Press. Szamuely has contributed to
innumerable publications including Commentary, American Spectator, National
Review, the Wall Street Journal, National Interest, American Scholar, Orbis,
Daily Telegraph, the Times of London, the Sunday Telegraph, and The New
Criterion.

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