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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
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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.
******
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