A response to D.G. [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- D. G. is an Australian on another list. He applauds the arrest of Milosevic, and is angry at the crowds in Belgrade demonstrating against the arrest. I sent him this response: D. G. wrote: So let's go after the others instead of demonstrating in the streets for impunity for the few butchers who _are_ caught. It sounds logical, Dion. US newspapers echo your sentiments, acknowledging that Americans are beyond the reach of international justice, but, they say, arresting Milosevic is a start -- a welcome new trend that should make Kissinger uneasy. Newsflash: It's not a new trend. Dominant Europeans and Americans have been arresting international criminals for centuries. Those who resisted the takeover of Australia and America were regarded as international criminals, even if the word international was not in use at the time. They were arrested or scalped here, or given smallpox blankets. You'd know better than I what methods the UK's emissaries to Australia used to deal with the criminals who didn't want to give up the best bits of land to the colonizers. Multiply these acts of genocide by some three-digit number, and we might approach the beginnings of this new trend. The British arrested Gandhi in the 1940s, as a criminal. The U.S. assisted in the arrest of Nelson Mandela a few decades ago, as a terrorist. The CIA administered justice to Patrice Lumumba, by killing him. The same outfit helped Pinochet murder Allende and thousands of other Chilean leftists. None of these arrests or assassinations were challenged by the mainstream Western media. Au contraire, they were applauded. The US, with the help of Holbrooke, the man who dictated the Rambouillet accords, supplied Suharto with arms to kill one third of the inhabitants of East Timor -- all terrorists. British forces have been arresting and killing Irish patriots for how long? Oh, the list is far too long, and my feet are far too cold. Nazis, as they spread out through Europe, never said they were hunting down defenseless scapegoats. They claimed, and the German people believed, they were rounding up terrorists. The Phoenix Program in Vietnam arrested over 20,000 criminals, administering justice by throwing them out of helicopters. The US public mostly believed at the time that good guys were getting rid of bad guys. So this isn't about some new trend. It's the same old story. Criminals in the West create the list of most wanted, and then tell the rest of us, through a passive and complicit media, who the bad guys are. The West's malefactors have something miles better than impunity. Since they write the list, they just leave their names off. That saves them from having to employ impunity. They kidnap and arrest those who oppose them or accuse them. That's what the protesters in the streets of Belgrade are angry about. They don't believe the bloody-pawed foxes will give the goose a fair trial. The arrest of Milosevic, like the arrest of Noriega doesn't bring Kissinger or the criminals in NATO closer to retribution. Just the opposite. __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: lies, lies and more lies [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ListBot SponsorIn a message dated 7/1/2001 8:52:17 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: But despite the absurdity of this particular charge, the thought occurs to me -- If any Yugoslav tried to kill Blair, wouldn't self-defense be so obvious a plea as to throw the case out of any truly just court? We're not dealing with a just court and Milosevic isn't an assassin of world leaders. Cynthia To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fwd: san: RTS Lawsuit Update (please circulate) [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- In a message dated 01/07/01 16:25:58 Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This spring we finished all the preliminaries in regards to the the lawsuit launched against the Toronto police by myself and Kevin Thomas. This lawsuit was launched as the result of our arrest on the charge of Unlawful Assembly which were laid as a result of our participation in the 1998 Reclaim the Streets Celebration in Toronto. The most recent hurdle, the examination for discovery, was an effort by both sides to examine witnesses and evidence that would be potentially used in court. Undertakings were made by both parties to provide additional evidence including, on my part, to try and provide copies of material I may have had posted around the 1998 RTS efforts in Toronto. This process was instructive in many ways. In my particular case, the police in their defence (through their lawyers) are alleging a leadership role as evidenced by, among other things, my writing about the RTS event and encouraging participation in it through web postings. This does have other potential connotations, especially in light of trial disclosures by police (in Hamilton around the 2000 Hamilton War Show and in Ottawa around the 1999 Homes Not Bombs action) that I seem to be a leader or organizer. While my ego doesn't mind the claim, I must confess I can barely organize my filing let alone a successful action. By the fall, we are hoping to have all the transcripts from the examination for discovery in hand and examined. We should then be in a position to finally set a date for trial. In light of recent developments (i.e. the detention of Jaggi Singh, the denial of bail for John Clarke), keeping alive a struggle for years is hard. There are new examples of the criminalizing of dissent that need to be addressed. One hopes that in dealing with the current crisis, one does not stop supporting other forms of resistance and activism against the the arrest of political activists. I was surprised to read the following piece on U.S. RTS movement. The following article gives some indication of the seriousness that the powers-that-be are taking an effort to attack the celebration of life and freedom in a public space. Note: Those wishing to help with defence costs can send donations to our lawyer. Cheques should be made payable to Brian Shiller in Trust and mailed to Shiller Layton Arbuck, 70 Bond Street, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario M5B 1X3. Brian Burch [EMAIL PROTECTED] +++ [EMAIL PROTECTED] posts: Reclaim the Streets NYC - http://www.rtsnyc.org News for Anarchists Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygohttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo Is Dancing Terrorism? by PB Floyd Slingshot FBI brands Reclaim the Streets as terrorists - what the fuck have they been smoking?! In another sign that the growing anti-capitalist, anarchist, anti-car movement is gaining effectiveness, the FBI recently listed Reclaim the Streets amongst the Threats of Terrorism to the United States. In a May 10 statement before the Senate Committees on Appropriations, Armed Services and Select Committee on Intelligence, FBI director Louis Freeh listed Reclaim the Streets as a potential threat to the United States along with assorted terrorists from Egypt and Lebanon. The report reads in part: Anarchists and extreme socialist groups - many of which, such as the Workers' World Party, Reclaim the Streets, and Carnival Against Capitalism - have an international presence and, at times, also represent a potential threat in the United States. For example, anarchists, operating individually and in groups, caused much of the damage during the 1999 World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Seattle. The list also included extreme fringes of animal rights, environmental, anti-nuclear, and other political and social movements as well as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Getting included in such a list is always both a good and a bad sign: it means we're doing something right and are threatening the system, but it also vastly increases the likelihood of infiltration, frame-ups based on planted evidence, government-sponsored internal movement splits, police use of deadly force, etc. Reclaim the Streets is actually more of a tactic than a movement or an organization. In 1996, activists in England decided to hold the first RTS street party by holding a day-time rave, complete with sound system, dancing, and party games, all with a political spin in a busy intersection. The party aimed to temporarily reclaim the street from
Re: HELP...FW: bbc website - and a warning! - a week BEFORE the event! [WWW.S... [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- In a message dated 02/07/01 00:38:05 Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Can anyone give me the low down on one the latest machinations directed against Milosevic and Serbia, i.e., this supposed recently unearthed mass grave ? My nerves can't also tolerate all these fabricated charges, so, sometimes I completely ignore stories on the subject. David O Q Well David, no need to read the papers b/c the pattern is already familiar. Here are some things you should consider: 1) These discoveries came soon after Milosevic's lawyer had demanded that his client be released b/c in three months the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities weren't able to produce ANY evidence of corruption. 2) The potential press coverage of this FACT was buried under press reports of new discoveries of mass-graves, thus shifting the focus just as Milosevic's culpability was begining to be questioned both in Yugoslavia and abroad. 3) We are told that dozens of bodies are being unearthed, yet so far the available, yet really limited, footage has shown very few marks of real mass-graves (i.e. bodies mangled together, many bones from different corpses tied together, huge pits with skulls and bones prominently jutting out) but some very vague images that really don't seem like anything if looked at closely - although its been proven that people will often see what they what they want to believe they should be seeing when shown an image - other than mud, rocks, and maybe, maybe some bones, of something... 4) Recently the BBC ran an article on how these gravesite finds may actually secure the ICTY's conviction, meaning that no concrete prior evidence existed to these finds. 5) The Republic of Serbia is under the full security control of DOS and the police and many of the security forces are wholly under the thumb of Djindjic. Furthermore the border between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia has proven to be extremely porous and completely controlled by NATO, there is nothing, and I REPEAT, nothing, to prevent NATO and its loyalists from planting these bodies (if they are bodies). 6) A likely scenario is that these aren't even bodies, or that they are bodies (of humans or animals?) reburied from other places to set Milosevic up. Just recently a similar tactic was used in the Peruvian election to discredit Alan Garcia when suddenly bodies were found near an army base and attributed (without any proof) to Garcia's previous tenure as President. This was done to secure the victory of Alejandro Toledo, Washington's man in Peru. The pattern is almost identical in both cases were bodies are discovered near sites controlled now by Washington's allies in order to forward Washington's interests and discredit its regional rivals. 7) You see it would be different if thousands of bodies were found, then maybe one could say there was a cover up...but so far it has been a dozens. Let's just say for a moment that these are all Albanian civilians and that they are all women and children (the first being very doubtfull as most of the bodies are apparently, according to Yugoslav news, those of men and the second patently false)...Why would Milosevic cover up a few dozen victims if he really personally directed the killing of 10,000 Albanian civilians (as the press now routinely states)? You see it makes no sense for him to go out of his way, and potentially discredit himself in the process, in order to cover up a few crimes if so many were committed. 8) Of course the stories of the one (unamed) lorry-driver talking about mountains of corpses piled on top of each other - which has accompanied the press reports - is: a) a classic attrocity story propaganda (unverifiable, designed to shock and to elicit outrage and moral revulsion at the object of demonization), b) a tool to perpetuate the myth that there are more from were these bodies came from (although in all probability this is the last we will hear of these bodies, as they served only as a justification to extradite Milosevic), and c) a means of giving new ammunition to proponents of the ICTY and appologists for NATO, seeing as all their other accusations have crumbled into dust and more and more people are becoming aware of this with each passing day. 9) There is no reason to believe anything the Western press corp and self-appointed experts in the Balkans says about anything in the region.
USA's continental fascism??? [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- In a message dated 02/07/01 01:28:57 Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Seventy years ago Germany set about dismantling borders with Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Poland, France, Holland, Belgium and the USSR. That agenda was called Fascism. Now the USA wants to dismantle borders with Canada and to harmonize immigration, energy etc. Is this a benevolent agenda, or is it Fascism? National Post, June 30, 2001 U.S. Aims to dismantle borders New U.S. ambassador wants to harmonize immigration, energy and more: 'Is there a NAFTA-plus?' Robert Fife and Alan Toulin National Post Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, meets the press in Ottawa yesterday. While not interested in a European Union style arrangement, he thinks North America should ease the flow of commerce and people. OTTAWA - Canada, the United States and Mexico should forge closer links as part of a ''NAFTA-plus'' relationship based on harmonization of border controls, law enforcement, energy, environmental and immigration policies, Paul Cellucci, the new U.S. ambassador to Canada, said yesterday. Mr. Cellucci, the former governor of Massachusetts and a close friend of George W. Bush, the U.S. President, suggested the borders between Canada, the United States and Mexico be dismantled with the aim of achieving a more fully integrated economy. ''If we look at [the North American Free Trade Agreement], I think we can conclude that NAFTA has been a good thing for Canada, the United States and Mexico and I think the question is: Is there a NAFTA-plus, and I think there is,'' he said in an interview. While Mr. Cellucci said there is no interest in a comprehensive European Union style economic and political union, the flow of commerce and people should be eased. The U.S. is promoting special entry points for overseas travellers to North America that would be jointly run by Canada and the U.S., while opening up most border crossings to relatively free passage for American and Canadian citizens. ''We have to talk about being more consistent [in policies]. We don't want Canadian citizens or U.S. citizens to be spending three or four hours trying to cross the border. No one wants to go down that road. If we don't want to go down that road we need to use technology and some more consistent policies to make it more convenient.'' Mr. Cellucci's discussion of a ''NAFTA-plus'' continental economic coalition follows a call from David Zussman, an independent policy advisor to Jean Chrétien, the Prime Minister, for a public debate on economic and social union between Canada, the United States and Mexico. Mr. Zussman, president of the Public Policy Forum, is planning a November trip to Europe, bringing 15 to 20 senior federal and provincial civil servants to investigate how the nations in the European Union have coped with the end of borders for the European market, and the implications for policing, immigration and social policies. Mr. Zussman said the think-tank will issue a report that will link the European experience to the context of North America. Maurizio Bevilacqua, a Liberal MP and chairman of the influential House of Commons finance committee, welcomed a debate, saying North American integration is occurring more quickly than people generally realize. ''I think the debate certainly should take place on North American integration and it should be a no-holds-barred debate where nothing is taboo,'' Mr. Bevilacqua said. ''With NAFTA, the economies of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico are becoming increasingly integrated ... we have to take the logical next steps in maximizing the benefits of such an agreement.'' Mr. Bevilacqua added: ''Canadians are more open to change than people may suspect.'' Lorne Nystrom, the New Democratic Party finance critic, said the Liberals are ''testing the waters'' to get the public prepared for potentially closer ties to Mexico and the United States. Along with Mr. Zussman's speech calling for debate about Canada's future in North America, the Liberals are moving toward a continental policy, Mr. Nystrom said. ''I'm beginning to suspect that there is an orchestrated move to soften us up toward political and economic integration with the U.S.,'' he said. Bob Mills, Canadian Alliance foreign affairs critic, also believes the Liberal government is attempting to spark public debate on
More Nazi Revivalism for NATO? [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- [Here is an interesting piece in the NYT on Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Observe how the Nazi past is brushed aside - What intrigues Mr. Schröder is not so much his father's role; everybody did that, he said. He was a lowly soldier, no sort of leader, and was sent to the slaughter like everyone else. Having brushed this ugly fact aside - going on to spend much more time on the country's communist past - Schroeder goes on to pontificate on his vision of a federal Europe which would effectively concentrate power in Germany's hands (just the sort of thing his father was fighting for!!!). The fact that this is the same project that the Nazi's committed to, and given Schroeder's nostalgic forrays into his own families Nazi past (he visited the battlefield in Romania were his father died in support of Hitler's brutal Drang Nach Osten earlier this year), is it any wonder that many European's, and victims of German genocides and holocausts, remain doubtful of Euro integration as advocated by Germany? On top of all this, the new government has reocuppied the old Imperial capital of Berlin and initiated its first session in the capital back in the spring of 1999 at the same time that German troops were illegally bombing Yugoslavia, a country that had been under Nazi occupation. You can be sure that NATO's move East will be accompanied by further attempts to rewrite the history of the 20th century to justify its ignoble and Naziesque project of extending its dominion over Europe to Russia's borders and beyond. These personalized propaganda stories should be seen for what they are, attempts to humanise this inhuman objective that has become the pet project of the military-industrial wing of the neoliberal elite.] July 2, 2001 Schröder, Like Germany, Is Looking Harder at the Past By ROGER COHEN BERLIN, July 1 â It is a scene of modern Germany: Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in his new office opposite the Reichstag gazing in wonder at a photograph of the father he never knew, Cpl. Fritz Schröder with a Nazi swastika on his helmet. I only recently was given this photograph, Mr. Schröder said in an exclusive interview. Before that, I never had a mental picture of my father, and only a very limited relationship to him. For me, in a sense, he never existed. So only now, for the first time, am I beginning to deal with him. The turbulence of modern Germany as it passed through two world wars, Nazism, Communism and division has been such that almost no family has escaped some form of personal anguish. And Mr. Schröder, like his country, is treading his personal way out of the labyrinth of the past. Now approaching his fourth year in office, he has been obliged by the move of the capital back to Berlin to confront this past in a way more direct than his predecessors. Perhaps his most conspicuous achievement has been to allow the airing of German trauma in a new atmosphere of openness. So here the chancellor sits with the newly discovered image of his own trauma: a handsome, clear-eyed young Wehrmacht soldier, seen in half-profile, some years before his death on the eastern front in Romania in October 1944. Mr. Schröder had been born six months earlier, yet another German child of war who would be fatherless. What intrigues Mr. Schröder is not so much his father's role; everybody did that, he said. He was a lowly soldier, no sort of leader, and was sent to the slaughter like everyone else. It is more the uncanny physical similarity that inevitably prompts reflections on how fate determines the dilemmas of each generation. There's a picture of me when I was about the same age â you have to see it, Mr. Schröder, 57, said. It's exactly the same, without the steel helmet and uniform, naturally, as if it were a twin brother. That makes you think. That is very interesting. Certainly the very existence of this intimate conversation is interesting. Germany is opening up. It is partly the passage of time: ever fewer former Nazis are still alive. It is partly unification and the resolution, at last, of Germany's borders: a state no longer at risk is inevitably freer in spirit. It is partly the arrival in power of Mr. Schröder's postwar generation: these people tend to be more moved by Tuscany than by Bismarck. The family circumstances that led to the discovery this year of the photograph have also presented the chancellor with cause for ethical reflection. Research by the newspaper Bild led to three first cousins of Mr. Schröder in the former East Germany with whom he had lost contact. All the cousins were the daughters of Kurt Schröder, the brother of Fritz. One of them had
More Nazi Revivalism for NATO? [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- [Here is an interesting piece in the NYT on Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Observe how the Nazi past is brushed aside - What intrigues Mr. Schröder is not so much his father's role; everybody did that, he said. He was a lowly soldier, no sort of leader, and was sent to the slaughter like everyone else. Having brushed this ugly fact aside - going on to spend much more time on the country's communist past - Schroeder goes on to pontificate on his vision of a federal Europe which would effectively concentrate power in Germany's hands (just the sort of thing his father was fighting for!!!). The fact that this is the same project that the Nazi's committed to, and given Schroeder's nostalgic forrays into his own families Nazi past (he visited the battlefield in Romania were his father died in support of Hitler's brutal Drang Nach Osten earlier this year), is it any wonder that many European's, and victims of German genocides and holocausts, remain doubtful of Euro integration as advocated by Germany? On top of all this, the new government has reocuppied the old Imperial capital of Berlin and initiated its first session in the capital back in the spring of 1999 at the same time that German troops were illegally bombing Yugoslavia, a country that had been under Nazi occupation. You can be sure that NATO's move East will be accompanied by further attempts to rewrite the history of the 20th century to justify its ignoble and Naziesque project of extending its dominion over Europe to Russia's borders and beyond. These personalized propaganda stories should be seen for what they are, attempts to humanise this inhuman objective that has become the pet project of the military-industrial wing of the neoliberal elite. It's no wonder then that the article includes a portion on the importance of trans-atlantic ties between Germany and the USA.] July 2, 2001 Schröder, Like Germany, Is Looking Harder at the Past By ROGER COHEN BERLIN, July 1 â It is a scene of modern Germany: Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in his new office opposite the Reichstag gazing in wonder at a photograph of the father he never knew, Cpl. Fritz Schröder with a Nazi swastika on his helmet. I only recently was given this photograph, Mr. Schröder said in an exclusive interview. Before that, I never had a mental picture of my father, and only a very limited relationship to him. For me, in a sense, he never existed. So only now, for the first time, am I beginning to deal with him. The turbulence of modern Germany as it passed through two world wars, Nazism, Communism and division has been such that almost no family has escaped some form of personal anguish. And Mr. Schröder, like his country, is treading his personal way out of the labyrinth of the past. Now approaching his fourth year in office, he has been obliged by the move of the capital back to Berlin to confront this past in a way more direct than his predecessors. Perhaps his most conspicuous achievement has been to allow the airing of German trauma in a new atmosphere of openness. So here the chancellor sits with the newly discovered image of his own trauma: a handsome, clear-eyed young Wehrmacht soldier, seen in half-profile, some years before his death on the eastern front in Romania in October 1944. Mr. Schröder had been born six months earlier, yet another German child of war who would be fatherless. What intrigues Mr. Schröder is not so much his father's role; everybody did that, he said. He was a lowly soldier, no sort of leader, and was sent to the slaughter like everyone else. It is more the uncanny physical similarity that inevitably prompts reflections on how fate determines the dilemmas of each generation. There's a picture of me when I was about the same age â you have to see it, Mr. Schröder, 57, said. It's exactly the same, without the steel helmet and uniform, naturally, as if it were a twin brother. That makes you think. That is very interesting. Certainly the very existence of this intimate conversation is interesting. Germany is opening up. It is partly the passage of time: ever fewer former Nazis are still alive. It is partly unification and the resolution, at last, of Germany's borders: a state no longer at risk is inevitably freer in spirit. It is partly the arrival in power of Mr. Schröder's postwar generation: these people tend to be more moved by Tuscany than by Bismarck. The family circumstances that led to the discovery this year of the photograph have also presented the chancellor with cause for ethical reflection. Research by the newspaper Bild led to three first cousins of Mr. Schröder in the former East
More Nazi Revivalism for NATO? [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- [Here is an interesting piece in the NYT on Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Observe how the Nazi past is brushed aside - What intrigues Mr. Schröder is not so much his father's role; everybody did that, he said. He was a lowly soldier, no sort of leader, and was sent to the slaughter like everyone else. Having brushed this ugly fact aside - going on to spend much more time on the country's communist past - Schroeder goes on to pontificate on his vision of a federal Europe which would effectively concentrate power in Germany's hands (just the sort of thing his father was fighting for!!!). The fact that this is the same project that the Nazi's committed to, and given Schroeder's nostalgic forrays into his own families Nazi past (he visited the battlefield in Romania were his father died in support of Hitler's brutal Drang Nach Osten earlier this year), is it any wonder that many European's, and victims of German genocides and holocausts, remain doubtful of Euro integration as advocated by Germany? On top of all this, the new government has reocuppied the old Imperial capital of Berlin and initiated its first session in the capital back in the spring of 1999 at the same time that German troops were illegally bombing Yugoslavia, a country that had been under Nazi occupation. You can be sure that NATO's move East will be accompanied by further attempts to rewrite the history of the 20th century to justify its ignoble and Naziesque project of extending its dominion over Europe to Russia's borders and beyond. These personalized propaganda stories should be seen for what they are, attempts to humanise this inhuman objective that has become the pet project of the military-industrial wing of the neoliberal elite. It's no wonder then that the article includes a portion on the importance of trans-atlantic ties between Germany and the USA.] July 2, 2001 Schröder, Like Germany, Is Looking Harder at the Past By ROGER COHEN BERLIN, July 1 â It is a scene of modern Germany: Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in his new office opposite the Reichstag gazing in wonder at a photograph of the father he never knew, Cpl. Fritz Schröder with a Nazi swastika on his helmet. I only recently was given this photograph, Mr. Schröder said in an exclusive interview. Before that, I never had a mental picture of my father, and only a very limited relationship to him. For me, in a sense, he never existed. So only now, for the first time, am I beginning to deal with him. The turbulence of modern Germany as it passed through two world wars, Nazism, Communism and division has been such that almost no family has escaped some form of personal anguish. And Mr. Schröder, like his country, is treading his personal way out of the labyrinth of the past. Now approaching his fourth year in office, he has been obliged by the move of the capital back to Berlin to confront this past in a way more direct than his predecessors. Perhaps his most conspicuous achievement has been to allow the airing of German trauma in a new atmosphere of openness. So here the chancellor sits with the newly discovered image of his own trauma: a handsome, clear-eyed young Wehrmacht soldier, seen in half-profile, some years before his death on the eastern front in Romania in October 1944. Mr. Schröder had been born six months earlier, yet another German child of war who would be fatherless. What intrigues Mr. Schröder is not so much his father's role; everybody did that, he said. He was a lowly soldier, no sort of leader, and was sent to the slaughter like everyone else. It is more the uncanny physical similarity that inevitably prompts reflections on how fate determines the dilemmas of each generation. There's a picture of me when I was about the same age â you have to see it, Mr. Schröder, 57, said. It's exactly the same, without the steel helmet and uniform, naturally, as if it were a twin brother. That makes you think. That is very interesting. Certainly the very existence of this intimate conversation is interesting. Germany is opening up. It is partly the passage of time: ever fewer former Nazis are still alive. It is partly unification and the resolution, at last, of Germany's borders: a state no longer at risk is inevitably freer in spirit. It is partly the arrival in power of Mr. Schröder's postwar generation: these people tend to be more moved by Tuscany than by Bismarck. The family circumstances that led to the discovery this year of the photograph have also presented the chancellor with cause for ethical reflection. Research by the newspaper Bild led to three first cousins of Mr. Schröder in the former East
REUTERS: Defence Material Goes Missing [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- [A plan to meet Milosevic at noon (1000 GMT) was disrupted when baggage [the defence team] had been bringing in for him from Belgrade was found to be missing after their JAT Yugoslav airlines flight from Belgrade arrived at Schipol airport near The Hague. We were waiting at the airport for one and a half hours to get luggage for Mr Milosevic. His personal things have disappeared, Tomanovic told Reuters. They had not been found. Yugoslavia's Tanjug news agency later quoted him as saying the lost suitcase contained materials needed for the hearing.] Lawyers in Hague to defend Milosevic By Paul Gallagher THE HAGUE, July 2 (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic's lawyers flew in from Belgrade on Monday to prepare his defence on war crimes charges at The Hague -- but hit a snag when luggage for the detained former Yugoslav president went missing in transit. Five days after being handed over to the United Nations, Milosevic face his accusers for the first time on Tuesday. He is expected to plead not guilty in court to charges of crimes against humanity for Serb ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in 1999. The lawyers said they expected to spend several hours at the U.N. remand centre in The Hague where Milosevic has been held in isolation since being surrendered last Thursday in a stealthy manoeuvre by the reformist opponents who toppled him in October. Attorneys Zdenko Tomanovic and Dragan Krgovic will discuss Tuesday morning's brief arraignment hearing. They met officials at the International Criminal Tribunal building to begin the process of registering themselves formally as defence counsel. A plan to meet Milosevic at noon (1000 GMT) was disrupted when baggage they had been bringing in for him from Belgrade was found to be missing after their JAT Yugoslav airlines flight from Belgrade arrived at Schipol airport near The Hague. We were waiting at the airport for one and a half hours to get luggage for Mr Milosevic. His personal things have disappeared, Tomanovic told Reuters. They had not been found. Yugoslavia's Tanjug news agency later quoted him as saying the lost suitcase contained materials needed for the hearing. Asked by Reuters how his client would plead, Tomanovic said: We will see (about) that when we meet Milosevic. A trial is not expected to start until next year. DEFIANT DEFENCE It will be the first visit Milosevic has received at the Scheveningen detention centre and his first face-to-face discussion in The Hague with the legal team, reported to have been picked by his strong-willed wife, Mira Markovic. Tomanovic has been on an eight-strong team defending Milosevic since his arrest in April on corruption charges. The lawyers were carrying packages from Milosevic's family, believed to be books, clothes and money he had requested. Milosevic has refused to recognise the authority of the court, which he sees as a tool of the Western NATO forces which bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 during the Kosovo war. In his telephone conversation with Mrs Markovic, he said he wanted his defence to be political as he considers all the accusations against him to be political, one legal source privy to the discussions with the family in Belgrade told Reuters. He said the real war criminals were the leaders of NATO and that they should be tried and not him. Such defiance is unlikely to cut much ice in The Hague but is typical of a man who, insiders say, has lost touch with reality after 13 years at the pinnacle of power in the Balkans. Yet lawyers familiar with the case said chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte would also have her work cut out making the charges stick and proving Milosevic was personally responsible. I think we cannot underestimate the case, Nancy Paterson, an American lawyer who has just left the tribunal's prosecutor's office, told the New York Times on Monday. There are pieces missing, said Paterson, who helped draw up the indictment in 1999 that made Milosevic the first head of state ever to be charged with war crimes while in office. You need to establish what the real chain of command was. It remains to be seen whether further evidence against the former strongman will be delivered by the new authorities in Belgrade, who are struggling to defuse a political crisis sparked by nationalist opposition to handing Milosevic over. HISTORIC TRIAL With the final composition of the defence team far from settled, Belgrade newspapers said on Monday that Milosevic and his wife were considering hiring foreign attorneys. Vecerne Novosti said former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsay Clark, who served under U.S. President Jimmy Carter and is sympathetic to Serb hardliners,
More on Missing Baggage... [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- Baggage hitch delays Milosevic war crimes lawyers THE HAGUE, July 2 (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic's lawyers ran into a delay on Monday as they arrived at The Hague to prepare his defence on war crimes charges when baggage for the jailed former Yugoslav president went missing in transit. Attorneys Zdenko Tomanovic and Dragan Krgovic had been expecting to meet their client at the UN remand centre in the Dutch city around noon (1000 GMT) after flying in from Belgrade. But Tomanovic told Reuters as they arrived at the International Criminal Tribunal building to request permission to see Milosevic that baggage they were bringing to the ousted leader had gone missing at Schipol airport and had held them up. It had still not been found. Tomanovic was also quoted by Yugoslavia's Tanjug news agency as saying one of two suitcases had disappeared. The suitcase with Mr. Milosevic's personal belongings has been lost and we spent an hour and the half at the airport persuading the authorities to find it, Tomanovic said. He said books were in the other suitcase, adding that the one which has been lost contained items Milosevic needed for Tuesday's arraignment hearing in The Hague when he is expected to enter his plea to charges of crimes against humanity. Among other reasons, he needs these personal belongings for his first appearance in the court on Tuesday when he is expected to enter his plea, Tomanovic told Tanjug. Today, we should discuss with Mr. Milosevic the elements on which our defence will be based and a possible expansion of the defence team. 06:35 07-02-01 __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
IHT - Bush preparing to go to war with China? [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ListBot Sponsor Copyright © 2001 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplhArticleId=24686What's the Rationale for Seeing China as Enemy? William Pfaff International Herald Tribune Monday, July 2, 2001 PARIS Why is the new Bush administration preparing to go to war with China? The question may seem a provocation, but that is what the administration seems to be doing, and it is important that it explain itself. Since January the military estimations and foreign policy speculations of the vice president and the secretary of defense, and their principal advisers, have been consistently framed in terms of eventual conflict, if not war, with China. The supposed conclusions of the Pentagon's strategic review, as leaked to the press, demand redirection of the main military effort from Europe to Asia. Forces and weapons are to be designed or reconfigured to project power across the Pacific.Self-fulfilling prophecy? If China is treated as an enemy, it will become one. A second consequence is to undermine the existing U.S. position in the Far East as an ally of Japan and South Korea. Neither wants a war between Washington and Beijing, into which each would risk being drawn. Neither sees any reason for such a war. Yet the course the administration is following undermines relations with both countries. It could end in a crisis in alliance relations and an eventual end to American base rights.There are now a U.S. Army corps command, the 5th Air Force command and two large permanent naval bases in Japan, plus 20,000 Marines on Okinawa, where they are a constant irritant to U.S-Japanese relations. There are army and air force commands, and 36,000 troops, in South Korea.The best realistic contribution to good U.S. relations with Japan and South Korea, as well as with China, would be negotiations to reduce and eventually withdraw those troop deployments - the exact opposite of current Bush administration policy. If the United States does not move in that direction on its own initiative, it could eventually find itself ordered out.The administration seems convinced that there is no political solution to the Korea or Taiwan problems. Yet sooner or later there have to be political solutions. Neither North Korea nor China has the military means for any other kind of "solution."China's threats to invade Taiwan are bluff; the attempt would fail, even if the United States did not intervene, and the consequences would devastate China economically. The American and South Korean confrontation with impoverished North Korea is an anomalous legacy of the Korean War. North Korea has cleverly managed and exploited the existing state of tension with South Korea, but it has absolutely nothing to gain from a war.China's foreign policy today is entirely predictable. It is a reasonable policy, in terms of China's position, past and national character. China has never been a global power or thought of itself as one, like the European great powers or the United States. It has always considered itself the unique "Middle Kingdom," culturally superior to everyone else, surrounded by "barbarian" neighbors, the latter expected to defer to Chinese primacy, pay tribute etc., but never considered equals or legitimate rivals.It has no military forces capable of projection beyond its frontiers. It has a large army that one could call irresistible in defense, incapable of offense and, overall, an expensive liability, unless someone is so unwise as to invade China. It possesses limited and essentially defensive air and naval forces.China currently has some 20 nuclear missiles capable of reaching the United States, and absolutely no second-strike capacity. It has no rational reason to attack the United States, except in retaliation for an American attack on China.Today, Chinese policy is to reincorporate its historical territories, even when they are, or have been, in dispute (Hong Kong, Macao, Tibet, Taiwan, islands in the South China Sea). This is inconvenient for some of its neighbors but poses no threat to fundamental U.S. interests. There is no evidence that China has further ambitions, although it would no doubt defend itself if it were challenged. Meanwhile, Japan, the world's second economy and a far more important trading partner with America, has installed a new government with more nationalistic views than any of its postwar predecessors. Its new prime minister has proposed rewriting Japan's American-imposed pacifist constitution.The mainstream Japanese press discusses whether the American model of society and economy really is appropriate to Japan. There is open discussion of negotiating an end to U.S. military base rights that, in the context of conflict between the United States and China, threaten to become a liability. Japan absolutely does not share
Re: Meaningless Details on arrest [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- I just thought I would mention this lest someone actually bought into the whole history-of-mental-problems argument concerning Milosevic and family -- something that has been popularized by the media throughtout the destruction of Yugo... Recall, that in his groundbreaking study on suicides, Emile Durkheim categorized suicides into different groups (e.g. Strain suicide, Altruistic suicide) and then provided various reasons for persons taking their lives. What he showed is that there's always the possibiliy a suicide in no way connects to some mental defect within the individual, as opposed some motivation or another related to one's social environment. For example, a soldier may commit suicide to further the cause of his fellow soldiers. A mother or father may commit suicide out of fear of the child's safety (I'm sure this was common during the WW2 for victims of the Nazis and their collaborators). In other words, there are a 101 reasons why Milosevic's parents might have taken their lives (if that's even the case, at all), least of which relate to some mental defect or genetic predisposition to commit suicide. David O.Q On 2 Jul 01, at 9:17, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- In a message dated 7/1/2001 10:07:04 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: According to a report on Milosevic's arrest, which appears in the current issue of Newsweek, after a search of his small suitcase, the guards took hidden pill bottles, which Milosevic said were only nitroglycerine for his hypertension. He referred sarcastically to public speculation that he might commit suicide, as both his mother and father had done. Don't worry, none of these medicines are poison. Don't be surprised if he has a stroke before the trial. __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Austrian Security Forces Use Trains to Deport Dissidents!!! [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- [In scenes unseen in Austria since WWII, dissidents are being deported on trains out of the country! After the shooting of protesters in Goetemberg, and the 200 body-bags prepared for this months Genoa Summit of the G8 leaders, the deportation of 400 protesters on specially organized trains marks a new and ominous level of repression orchestrated by the neoliberal elites in the West. Of course, this as well as other crimes including murder, assassination, and terrorism of dissident activists has been a routine occurence in the global South in attempts to implement the globalization agenda. Obviously the borderless world of the few is increasingly becoming a bordered world for the many (even in the West).] In a message dated 02/07/01 11:58:01 Eastern Daylight Time, Kilibarda78 writes: Monday, 2 July, 2001, 13:40 GMT 14:40 UK Salzburg expels protesters http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1418000/1418470.stm Protesters blamed police for escalating the situation Four hundred people have been removed from the Austrian city of Salzburg after violent clashes erupted between police and anti-globalisation protesters on Sunday. Thirteen people were arrested following the protests and at least three police officers and one demonstrator were injured in the clashes. Around 1,000 people are estimated to have descended on Salzburg to protest at the economic summit taking place there. The police drafted in at least 4,000 reinforcements in anticipation of trouble after the EU summit in the Swedish city of Gothenburg was overwhelmed by protesters last month. Police blamed Authorities in Salzburg organised special trains late on Sunday to remove a hard core of 400 demonstrators from the city. At least three police officers were injured They were taken to the capital, Vienna, and to Germany and Switzerland. The protests began peacefully outside the train station on Sunday afternoon but violence broke out when a small group tried to enter the city centre where protests had been banned. Demonstrators threw bottles, stones and bricks - police retaliated with batons. The protesters accused the police of having escalated the situation, saying that they had not wanted the situation to turn violent. Salzburg's mayor, Heinz Schaden, negotiated between the two sides to defuse the situation. The summit, organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is being attended by heads of state and government from some 15 countries, as well as government ministers and hundreds of business leaders. European Commissioner for Enlargement Guenter Verheugen opened the summit on Sunday with a call to push ahead with plans to expand the European Union. __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Monday, 2 July, 2001, 13:40 GMT 14:40 UK Salzburg expels protesters http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1418000/1418470.stm Protesters blamed police for escalating the situation Four hundred people have been removed from the Austrian city of Salzburg after violent clashes erupted between police and anti-globalisation protesters on Sunday. Thirteen people were arrested following the protests and at least three police officers and one demonstrator were injured in the clashes. Around 1,000 people are estimated to have descended on Salzburg to protest at the economic summit taking place there. The police drafted in at least 4,000 reinforcements in anticipation of trouble after the EU summit in the Swedish city of Gothenburg was overwhelmed by protesters last month. Police blamed Authorities in Salzburg organised special trains late on Sunday to remove a hard core of 400 demonstrators from the city. At least three police officers were injured They were taken to the capital, Vienna, and to Germany and Switzerland. The protests began peacefully outside the train station on Sunday afternoon but violence broke out when a small group tried to enter the city centre where protests had been banned. Demonstrators threw bottles, stones and bricks - police retaliated with batons. The protesters accused the police of having escalated the situation, saying that they had not wanted the situation to turn violent. Salzburg's mayor, Heinz Schaden, negotiated between the two sides to defuse the situation. The summit, organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is being attended by heads of state and government from some 15 countries, as well as government ministers and hundreds of business leaders. European Commissioner for Enlargement Guenter Verheugen opened the summit
FW: [C-I] Fw: CPC release on the Milosevic Extradition [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ListBot Sponsor -Original Message- From: mart [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 12:37 PM To: W W; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; NY Transfer News; New Worker Online; Miroslav Antic; Marcellino; iac; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Gordon Flett; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Bob Petrovich; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Communards; wolfgang mueller; Eleanor; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Michel Collon; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; KIM; Rick Rozoff; Vladimir Krsljanin; Mrs. Jela Jovanovic; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Roger Romain Subject: [C-I] Fw: CPC release on the Milosevic Extradition Forward from mart. Please distribute widely. - Original Message - From: Communist Party of Canada To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 12:33 PM Subject: CPC release on the Milosevic Extradition July 2, 2001 For Immediate Release Canadian Communist Leader Denounces Illegal Extradition of Milosevic Miguel Figueroa, leader of the Communist Party of Canada, has strongly condemned the unlawful extradition of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to face war crime charges before the International Tribunal at The Hague. The illegal abduction of Milosevic violated not only the Constitution of the Federal Republic, the decisions of its Parliament, and the ruling of its Constitutional Court; it has also been condemned by the current Yugoslav President Kostunica himself, Mr. Figueroa said. This act, taken under immense and unprecedented economic and political pressure from the U.S. government, constitutes a shameful denial of elementary democratic rights and due process. It also reveals the true character of the International War Crimes Tribunal as an instrument of political vengeance and the imposition of a winners justice, the Communist leader added. The trial of Milosevic will be nothing more than a show trial to further demonize and punish all Yugoslavs who resisted NATO aggression, and who continue to oppose the trampling of their sovereignty and the imposition of a New World Order as dictated from Washington. Why is it that this nominally U.N. court continues to target those who resist U.S. imperialism and aggression, while real war criminals like Arial Sharon -- who was directly responsible for 1982 massacre of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Chatilla camps -- and Henry Kissinger -- who as National Security Adviser to the U.S. government oversaw the slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians in Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor and Chile -- have never been brought to account for their crimes against humanity? It is certain that President Milosevic will never receive a fair trial at The Hague tribunal, which is under the financial and political control of the NATO countries and private corporations. The pending trial of Milosevic, by all counts illegal and illegitimate, can only worsen the situation in Yugoslavia and dangerously destabilize the Balkan region as a whole. Mr. Figueroa demanded that the Hague Tribunal immediately release President Milosevic, and that no other Yugoslav nationals be sent to The Hague. Instead, he called for the establishment of a truly impartial committee of investigation into all allegations of murder and genocide in the Balkans. The CPC leader also called on the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities to end the arbitrary kidnapping, arrest, harassment and persecution of former Yugoslav leaders, soldiers, and working people and for the immediate release of the 250 members of the Socialist Party of Serbia and United Left who have been arrested on trumped up political charges. Instead of applauding this vengeful and illegal abduction, Canada should demand that all war criminals responsible for the Balkan calamity be brought to justice, including the NATO leaders themselves who launched a flagrant and murderous aggression against the people of Yugoslavia, and who continue those crimes today in Macedonia, using Albanian mercenaries and other proxy forces. =30= For more information, contact Miguel Figueroa at 416-469-2446. *** Communist Party of Canada 290A Danforth Ave., Toronto, Ont. M4K 1N6 416-469-2446 (voice) 416-469-4063 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.communist-party.ca Communist Internet Web Site Homepage: http://www.billkath.demon.co.uk/cw/cw.html Communist-Internet eGroup Homepage: http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet Subscribe send email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubcribe send email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
THE TREASON OF VOJISLAV KOSTUNICA [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
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Send this article to a friend! www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]
THE TREASON OF VOJISLAV KOSTUNICA
By Chris Black, Richard Hugus and Jared Israel [2 July 2001]
A chorus of voices of remarkable diversity is proclaiming Vojislav Kostunica
innocent of kidnapping President Slobodan Milosevic. This chorus includes not
only the mainstream media, which uniformly supports the kidnapping, but also
various groups and individuals who oppose the kidnapping. Their common view
is that Kostunica was out of the loop; that the kidnapping was a big surprise
or even an attack on him by Serbian Prime Minister Djindjic.
The evidence doesn't support this view.
KOSTUNICA BLAMES THE VICTIMS
Yesterday Mr. Kostunica issued a statement on the kidnapping. In it he blamed
everyone but himself. Remarkably, the blame extended to the Montenegrin
Socialists (SNP).
According to Kostunica, by refusing to support his proposed extradition law,
the SNP had blocked an:
opportunity to legally regulate cooperation with the tribunal so that our
citizens could be protected. {Kostunica's statement, as translated by
Emperor's Clothes}
Huh?
Mr. Kostunica's proposed law would have established regulations to speedily
extradite anyone demanded by NATO's Hague Tribunal. How can that be portrayed
as protecting citizens? When a government regulates Injustice, does that
make it Just?
In his statement, Kostunica whitewashed Washington and blamed Mr. Milosevic
for getting kidnapped:
From the arsenal of Milosevic's politics, which was truly defeatist for the
state and the people, are now adopted and revived precisely its most
undemocratic elements: illegality and the pulling off of humiliating
maneuvers that no one in the international community asked for, at least not
explicitly. {Ibid.}
Huh?
First of all, the international community definitely did demand Milosevic
be brought to The Hague. And they praised the kidnapping once it happened.
Why does Kostunica deny these publicly known facts? And what is the meaning
of at least not explicitly?
Second, as far as the kidnapping having roots in Milosevic's practices, what
practices? Kostunica doesn't say.
Did Milosevic kidnap people and send them to the Tribunal? No. Did he rule by
decree? No. If Milosevic was such a terrible dictator, how come he didn't
even arrest Mr. Kostunica, whose Presidential election campaign last year
accepted tens of millions of illegal U.S. dollars, smuggled into Serbia in
'suitcases of cash?' (1)
SHOW PROOF OR BE SILENT
It seems that every time Vojislav Kostunica makes a statement he manages to
include an attack Slobodan Milosevic, accusing him of various crimes. But
Kostunica never provides evidence to support his accusations.
A hundred times Kostunica has said, Milosevic should be tried at home for
his crimes. This suggests to the casual listener (that is, most of us) that
the existence of crimes is a proven fact.
The opposite is true.
Mr. Milosevic was arrested and held in Belgrade jail for 13 weeks, supposedly
for purposes of investigation. He was not allowed out on bail because he
might try to influence witnesses. During that time no evidence of any kind
was presented. No witnesses testified against him. Is it a coincidence that
Milosevic was kidnapped from jail precisely when the legally allowed three
month investigation period had expired? When prosecutors had to produce
evidence or release him?
If Vojislav Kostunica possessed facts implicating Milosevic in any crime he
would have turned that evidence over to prosecutors. Therefore he had no
evidence. Therefore Kostunica's constant accusations have been lies that
relied on and reinforced the evidence of rumor and smear spread by the
Western media and the Yugoslav media controlled by Mr. Djindjic and - Mr.
Kostunica.
Kostunica's accusations are frequently quoted in the Western media where they
help NATO sustain anti-Milosevic (read: anti-Serb) public opinion. Why do
Serbian patriots tolerate this man? Isn't it obvious that his slanders do
great harm, particularly now that Slobodan Milosevic (read: the Serbs and all
loyal Yugoslav people) stands accused at NATO's Hague?
Which brings us back to the question at hand:
IS KOSTUNICA GUILTY IN THE KIDNAPPING OF MILOSEVIC?
It is a matter of record that Vojislav Kostunica worked hand in hand with
Zoran Djindjic to 'deport' Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague.
Their campaign
Illegal Tribunal - Illegal Indictment. Dr. Hans Koechler April [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]2001.
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- The URL for this article is http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/prog2.htm Illegal Tribunal - Illegal Indictment Statement of the International Progress Organization on the Hague War Crimes Tribunal's indictment of Serbian Leaders Dr. Hans Koechler, President [posted 23 April 2001] [The following statement was written just after the 'War Crimes Tribunal' brought 'indictments' against Slobodan Miloshevich (Milosevic) and other Serbian government leaders in 1999. The text was sent to us recently by a contributor from Germany. It was published by the International Progress Organization, an NGO (non-governmental organization) which has worked in various associations with the United Nations for almost 30 years. It makes excellent points, especially about the sheer illegality of the War Crimes Tribunal. We post it for your information - Jared Israel.] The International Progress Organization hereby presents the following legal observations on today's indictment by the International Criminal Tribunal: 1. The indictment issued by the Chief Prosecutor of the so-called International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is legally invalid because this Tribunal has no jurisdiction whatsoever in the present or any other case. 2. The Tribunal derives its raison d'être exclusively from Security Council resolution 827, adopted at the Council's 3217th meeting on 25 May 1993. In this resolution, establishing the so-called International Criminal Tribunal, the Security Council states that it acts under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations. 3. When adopting the above resolution, the Security Council acted ultra vires. According to the provisions of the U.N. Charter, the Council has no competence whatsoever in judicial matters. The provisions of Chapter VII determine the Council's competence in matters of international security but not in matters of criminal justice or other judicial matters. The sole authority in international judicial matters rests with the International Court of Justice. 4. The determination, in the preamble of Security Council resolution 827, paragraph four, that the widespread and flagrant violations of international humanitarian law on the territory of the former Yugoslavia constitute a threat to international peace and security does not provide a sound legal basis for the Security Council acting as a surrogate judicial authority or establishing an international court with jurisdiction in this or any other case. 5. It is regrettable that the institution of the Security Council, while being unable to stop the undeclared war waged by NATO countries against Yugoslavia in violation of international law, and while being prevented, because of the veto power of countries conducting the present war, from restoring international peace and security in Yugoslavia, is now being used to take a so-called judicial action against the legitimate Head of State and other high officials of the country under attack. 6. Under the present circumstances, the move by the Chief Prosecutor of the so-called Tribunal, Ms. Louise Arbour, can only be considered of political nature. This interpretation is confirmed by today's statement of the President of the United States who declared that the indictment by the Tribunal can be seen as an endorsement of NATO's campaign. 7. The purely political nature of the indictment and the lack of any legal validity of this decision can further be seen from the fact that the President of the so-called Tribunal, Ms. Gabrielle Kirk McDonald (United States of America), the Chief Prosecutor, Ms. Louise Arbour (Canada), and the investigating judge in the present case, Mr. David Anthony Hunt (Australia), are citizens either of NATO member countries directly responsible for the undeclared war against Yugoslavia or of a country fully endorsing the NATO war. If the Tribunal would have taken general legal standards of impartiality seriously, it would have been obliged to determine that there is a conflict of interest for judges from countries waging an undeclared war against Yugoslavia to sit on such a panel initiating judicial action against the Head of State of the country under attack. 8. The political nature of the indictment was further made obvious by the Chief Prosecutor's press statement earlier today in which she expressed her view that the indicted Head of State cannot be considered a partner of any negotiations about a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Such a statement makes a mockery of whatever legal standards the so-called Tribunal claims to adhere to. By her statement, the Chief Prosecutor has tried to act as a surrogate politician and to influence political events in the interest of those NATO
FW: Marxists and Neolib Economists Debate Globalization in Cuba [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Bob Everton Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 5:27 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: san: Marxists and Neolib Economists Debate Globalization in Cuba Subject: What is Globalization? Cuba: Jan 2001 - In our countries we don't have economic policies, commented the president of the National College of Economists of Bolivia, we sign annual statements of intent between the government and the IMF. An excellent review of presentations by a range of economists - neo-classical to Marxist and shades in between at the 2nd Meeting on Globalisation and Problems of Development held in Cuba, January 24-28th, by the National Association of Cuban Economists and the Association of Economists of Latin America and the Caribbean. Talks focused on What is Globalization?, Globalization and Crisis, meaning of Seattle, Cuba, and solutions to problems through taxation, regional integration and the future of socialism among other things. fyi-janet = http://jinx.sistm.unsw.edu.au/~greenlft/2000/392/392p14.htm Globalisation -- understanding and resisting the monster By Dick Nichols HAVANA, Cuba -- What happens when you pour into one pot more than 800 economists from 58 countries representing nearly every viewpoint on the analytical and political spectrum? That's what occurred here on January 24-28 when some bold cooks, the National Association of Cuban Economists and the Association of Economists of Latin America and the Caribbean, held their Second Meeting on Globalisation and Problems of Development. The resulting stew was not as unpalatable as might have been feared when Chilean neo-classical economists are added to Latin American Marxists of various stripes, and dollops of every other school as well. The conference, a direct initiative of Cuban President Fidel Castro, began with a presentation from Ignacio Ramonet, the editor-in-chief of Le Monde Diplomatique. For Ramonet, globalisation represents a new phase in the world economy in which finance capital and the multinational firm dominate, turning compete or perish into a universal imperative. In economics, globalisation has killed the national market and led to the takeover of the public by the private, Ramonet said. In politics it has confiscated democracy, destroyed the basic values of the bourgeois revolution and established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank as a planetary executive. In culture it means the universalisation of banality and violence. Ramonet was passionate in his support for global movements and campaigns, such as the revolt at Seattle, the proposal of US economist James Tobin for a tax on short-term international capital movements, the Campaign to Abolish Third World Debt and the demand that First World governments devote 0.7% of gross domestic product to Third World development. What is globalisation? Ramonet was followed by Jan Kregel of the United Nations Council on Trade and Development, who outlined how development as an issue for the international community had totally dropped off the agenda. However, Ramonet's extreme globalisation thesis was the target of all the subsequent discussion. Globalisation is predominantly a cultural phenomenon, argued Jaime Loring, from Spain's University of Cordoba. Others stressed that there's nothing in recent economic statistics for international trade, foreign investment and even the concentration of capital that hasn't been equalled or topped in previous periods. The most virulent comment was to come from Canadian analyst of the transnational firm, Frederic Clairmont: globalisation was a vile buzzword designed to drug the peoples with the feeling that struggle against the world-system is useless. However, while less apocalyptic in tone than Ramonet, most of the Marxist analysts present accepted that a qualitative change in world economy has taken place over the past 15 years. They differed, however, in the aspects stressed. For many, including the governor of the Central Bank of Cuba, Francisco Soberon Valdes, the central feature is the ballooning of global financial transactions of all sorts, and the terrible dangers posed by a stock market crash, a trading house bankruptcy or loan default by a Third World country. With a candour that no capitalist central banker could permit himself, Soberon told of the response he had received when he asked former IMF director Michel Camdessus and James Leach, the chairman of the banking committee of the US Congress, what measures were in train to control the activities of such operations as Long Term Capital Management. (In 1998 this US hedge
cue the laugh track [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ListBot Sponsorhttp://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/milosevic010702_money.html Sloboâs Millions World Watches for Milosevicâs Alleged Millions of Embezzled Dollars By John K. Cooley A T H E N S, Greece, July 2 â The trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the international war crimes tribunal is expected to shed light on some of the darkest chapters in Yugoslavia's history, including the flight of millions of dollars of Yugoslavia's money, allegedly siphoned out by the former Yugoslav president and his cronies. As Milosevic awaits his Tuesday appearance in court in a comfortable but spartan single cell at the Scheveningen detention center, the fortune he is believed to have amassed during his 13-year reign is unlikely to ease his circumstances during the trial. It could, however, help him hire defense lawyers, some of whom arrived at The Hague today to plot the strategy for his arraignment Tuesday before the tribunal. Milosevic was sent to The Hague on Thursday to stand trial for alleged atrocities committed in Kosovo in 1999. But while the "Butcher of the Balkans" is behind bars, little is known about the hundreds of millions of dollars of Yugoslav assets Milosevic is believed to have illegally moved into accounts in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Cyprus, Greece and possibly other bastions of bank secrecy. "Serbia Inc." â as Western intelligence officers refer to Milosevic's illicit financial empire â was just one in a host of economic factors that turned Yugoslavia, once the most prosperous of the former communist countries, into a war-ravaged, impoverished nation. All in the FamilyBefore embarking on his political career in the Serbian Communist Party, Milosevic worked as a manager in Yugoslavia's Beobank in the 1970s and 1980s, a period where he is believed to have learned how to manage complex financial deals. But while his alleged stash of millions increased the financial worth of his inner circle and his family members, neither Milosevic, nor his Serb wife Mira Markovic, nor their youngest daughter Marija flaunted their wealth in public. The same cannot be said for his son Marko, a flamboyant "playboy" who was often spotted dropping in at Belgrade nightclubs and gambling dens in fast cars. He was known to be a prime player in the black market economy. Marko, believed in hiding in a former Soviet-bloc country, was said by Yugoslav prosecutors to control the cigarette smuggling and gasoline bootlegging trade. He owned a villa and a yacht docked on the Greek seacoast near Athens, and commuted between the Greek mainland, Greek islands and the island republic of Cyprus. Assets Across EuropeInvestigators tracking Serbian assets located foreign accounts attributed to Milosevic under cover names and offshore firms in Cyprus, where the Central Bank froze Serbian accounts in the early 1990s. Days after his arrival at The Hague, officials at The Hague asked the Cypriot Central Bank to cooperate in locating assets which may have been misappropriated by Milosvic or his associates. "The Cyprus Central Bank cooperated by sending us more than 30 cartons of relevant documents," a source at The Hague court told ABCNEWS.com. Switzerland is also reportedly cooperating with The Hague. Both Switzerland and Liechtenstein have been obliged to loosen their banking secrecy laws under international pressure. A War-Ravaged EconomyBut while investigators chase Milosevic's alleged missing millions across a labyrinth of foreign accounts, the Yugoslav economy, shattered by four wars and a pummeling of its infrastructure over the past few years, struggles to limp back to its pre-war standard of living. A $1.28 billion pledge made by the United States and other Western donors at a conference in Brussels on Friday is widely believed to ease some of the economic burdens facing the country. But with most of the money expected to go towards servicing the country's crushing $12.2 billion foreign debt, ordinary Serbs are likely to see only a sliver of that money. A large chunk of international aid is expected to be plugged into rebuilding the country's infrastructure, which was damaged by NATO during its 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dangerous U.S.-Japan military nexus flailed [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- [Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . .Dangerous U.S.-Japan military nexus flailed Pyongyang, July 1 (KCNA) -- Japan and the United States reiterated the importance of strengthening Japan-U.S. Security Alliance at recent talks held between the Japanese senior diplomat and the President and the State Secretary of the U.S. the Japan Defense Agency is trying to establish a working officials consultative council under the military authorities of Japan and the U.S. while underscoring the need for closer coordination with the U.S. Defense Department. Describing this as a highly disturbing development, Rodong Sinmun today in a signed commentary says that the strengthened Japan-U.S. alliance called for by the U.S. and Japan means tightening the military nexus between the two countries. Saying that by strengthening the military tie-up with the U.S. Japan seeks to emerge as a military power with the backing of the U.S. and openly embark upon overseas aggression, the commentary continues: Japan is employing a crafty trick to increase the combat capability of its self-defense forces and lay a legal groundwork for overseas aggression, while talking about strengthened alliance and defence cooperation with the U.S. these can not be construed otherwise than very dangerous military moves. The Japanese reactionaries are taking great pains to realise their ambition to become a military power backed by the U.S. and realise their old dream of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It is the U.S. intention to realise its aggressive strategy toward Asia with Japan as a war servant. The military nexus between Japan and the U.S. is primarily targeted against the DPRK. It is their sinister intention to invade other Asian countries with the Korean peninsula as a springboard. The nexus is very detrimental to peace, security and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region. The Asian people should be vigilant against the U.S.-Japan military nexus aimed at aggression and war and make efforts to curb it so as to prevent horrible disasters. __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ceaseless U.S. anti-DPRK moves [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- [Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . .Ceaseless U.S. anti-DPRK moves Pyongyang, July 1 (KCNA) -- The U.S. imperialists committed more than 130 cases of aerial espionage against the DPRK in June with overseas- and South Korea-based strategic and tactical reconnaissance planes on various missions, according to military sources. On June 29 U-2 high-altitude strategic reconnaissance plane committed aerial espionage on all the areas of the DPRK, flying over Tokjok islet and Phochon and Sokcho areas from east to west for many hours. On June 5 and 13 RC-135 strategic reconnaissance plane also committed espionage on strategic targets of the DPRK. The case of espionage by these reconnaissance planes numbered 36 in June. EP-3 special operation plane, P-3 patrol plane, RC-12 and RC-7B tactical reconnaissance planes were involved in espionage on forefront and front line and eastern and western coastal areas of the DPRK. Meanwhile, the U.S. imperialists staged aerial war manoeuvres against the DPRK in June with the sky above South Korea as an operational theatre. From June 26 to 28 they sent more than 400 fighter planes including f-16 fighter bombers and a-10 assault planes belonging to the U.S. army, naval and air forces to the sky above Phyongchang, Kongju, Paeka islet and Ryoju areas for aerial strike, ground strike and close air support drills. Such very reckless war manoeuvres are aimed to make simultaneous preemptive strikes at strategic areas and targets in the DPRK. __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Yugoslavia Thrown Into Uncertainty After Milosevic's Extradition [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- [Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . Yugoslavia Thrown Into Uncertainty After Milosevic's Extradition Yugoslavia has been thrown into political uncertainty after the government of Serbia extradited former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic to the Hague Tribunal Thursday, ignoring a ruling from the Constitutional Court. Following Milosevic's transfer, western countries promised Friday to grant 1.28 billion U.S. dollars in aid to the Balkan country. The extradition, branded as illegal by Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, spelled the end of the ruling federal coalition and caused a split of Kostunica's Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) alliance. At a meeting with President Vojislav Kostunica on Friday, Prime Minister Zoran Zizic said he had decided to resign because the extradition had undermined the cooperation between the Socialist People's Party (SNP) of Montenegro and the DOS alliance, the two partners of the ruling coalition. Zizic, SNP vice president, said Milosevic's extradition was a price beyond any dignity. Under the Yugoslav Constitution, if the prime minister resigns, his cabinet must also step down, and if the president could not form a new cabinet in three months, he must call federal polls in the country. The DOS alliance holds only 58 seats in the 138-seat Chamber of Citizens (lower house of parliament) and 10 seats in the 40-member Chamber of Republic (upper house), while the SNP has 28 and 19 seats in the two chambers respectively. Without support from the SNP, Kostunica looks difficult to find a replacement of Zizic and form a new federal government in the near future. The Milosevic bombshell also prompted Kostunica to leave the DOS alliance. Kostunica, who claimed himself a moderate nationalist, has distanced himself from the extradition, describing it as unlawful and dangerous to the stability of Yugoslavia and the region. He reiterated several times before the extradition that the cooperation with The Hague tribunal must be conducted within the framework of Yugoslav law. To protest against the extradition, the president's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) said it was quitting the parliamentary group of the DOS alliance. Moreover, the unfolding political turmoil is set to encourage secessionist movements in both Montenegro and the U.N.- administered Kosovo, putting the future of the Yugoslav federation in danger, analysts said. Montenegro is the smaller republic which together with Serbia forms the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The pro-independent Montenegrin authorities hailed the extradition and the retreat of the SNP from the federal government, claiming it is the death of Milosevic-made Yugoslavia. Montenegrin Prime Minister Filip Vujanovic said that it would be easier to reach an accord between Serbia and Montenegro over establishing new relations in the federation. In Kosovo, ethnic Albanian leaders also applauded the handover, saying it was just too late for the Serbian government to extradite the former president and urged Serbia to extradite more war criminals to The Hague. They read the extradition as a sign of changing Serbian policies toward Kosovo and hoped the Serbian government will give up its firm objection to their ultimate goal for an independent state. __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: cue the laugh track [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- In a message dated 7/2/01 8:32:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: (ABC News says) with most of the money expected to go towards servicing the country's crushing $12.2 billion foreign debt, ordinary Serbs are likely to see only a sliver of that money. A large chunk of international aid is expected to be plugged into rebuilding the country's infrastructure, which was damaged by NATO during its 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. The foreign debt, well now, that ought to be paid back to those sweet little IMF/World Bank bankers. So they'll make multimillions on that debt service, won't they, while the vigilantes search yet again in vain for the millions Milosevic is alleged to have stolen. (Strange that this is yet another lie to make him look bad that cannot be proven by evidence. THEY HAVE NO EVIDENCE FOR ANY OF THEIR ACCUSATIONS.) But the international bankers can steal the ordinary Serbs' money fair and square, can't they? They can just take it out of their hides with that debt service, just like they do in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe! So the ordinary Serbs can languish, as their health care, food subsidies, and educational systems are cut in the interest of austerity and the interest of interest. And the patrimony of these ordinary Serbs is now privatized: stolen with the legal assistance of Traitor Djindjic and Prevaricator Kostunica and their magisterial knowledge of international law. Oh yes. The Yugoslav economy, shattered by four wars and a pummeling of its infrastructure over the past few years. . . (However did that happen? Milosevic bombed himself and destabilized and divvied up his own nation, right? ) Plugging that $1.28 billion into rebuilding the infrastructure, are they? Then the billions can just be poured into the coffers of American or Western corporations which will be rebuilding that infrastructure that NATO bombed so humanitarianly! Getting the cash back to the USA and into the hands of American billionaires and millionaires. Just like Marshall Plan money went back to the US corporations back in the 1940s, used to buy US goods which put European businesses out of business. Isn't democracy terrific? So nice to know that the money will be siphoned out of Yugoslavia by foreigners with the help of well paid Serb nationalists who truly care about what's left of their country's people. Neither Milosevic, nor his Serb wife Mira Markovic, nor their youngest daughter Marija flaunted their wealth in public. I wonder how Kostunica and Djindjic are living? Not modestly, I'll wager. It just gets clearer and clearer, doesn't it? __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[CLM] CLM: Urgent Action - CUT Colombia [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- Subj:CLM: Urgent Action - CUT Colombia Date: 7/2/01 6:56:01 AM Mountain Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Colombian Labor Monitor) Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR www.prairienet.org/clm Monday, 2 July 2001 * * URGENT ACTION * * The following is an Urgent Action appeal from the Human Rights Department of the CUT Colombia which was issued on Friday, 29th June 2001. Send protest e-mails, faxes and letters demanding a) protection for trade unionists under threat and b) the removal of state impunity from those carrying out the assassinations to: Doctor Andres Pastrana Arango President of the Republic, Palacio de Narino, Santafe de Bogota DC E-mail: rdh@. presidencia.gov.co Fax: 00571 3362109 / 337 1351 / 2867434 / 286 6842 With copies to: CUT Trade Union Federation, Departmento Derechos Humanos, Calle 35 No 7-25 Piso 9, Bogota, Colombia. Tel/Fax: 00571 288 8577 / 323 7550 E-mail: cutcol@. col3.telecom.com.co Colombia Solidarity Campaign, PO Box 8446, London N17 6NZ E-mail: colombia_sc@. hotmail.com Colombian Labor Monitor E-mail: clm@. prairienet.org BARBARISM AGAINST COLOMBIAN TRADE UNIONS CONTINUES Through its Human Rights Department, the Colombian United Workers Federation (CUT) denounces the state of insecurity of trade union leaders, which is clearly and categorically reflected in the violations of human rights that have so far this year left 55 trade unionists assassinated. ASSASSINATION In the night hours of 27th June 2001 comrade CRISTOBAL URIBE BELTRAN was kidnapped by unknown persons. He was a worker in the Health Secretariat in North Santander and a member of CUT affiliated union ANTHOC - the Association of Workers and Employees in Hospitals, Clinics and Organisations dedicating to Protecting the Health of the Community. This kidnapping took place in the Municipality of Tibu in North Santander and ended up with the assassination of comrade Cristobal who was apparently killed by bullet wounds on 28th June. THREATS Comrade JORGE NISPERUZA, president of the executive of CUT - Cordoba, was forcibly displaced from the city of Monteria, in the Department of Cordoba as the consequence of an ultimatum obliging him to leave the region within 24 hours or be executed. Right now we do not know in what city or region our displaced comrade might be found, he had to leave his activities and his family because of this serious threat on his life. Comrade MARIO DE JESUS CASTANEDA, president of the CUT - Huila departmental executive found himself under death threat, on a list of trade unions in Neiva, the capital city of Huila. It is important to make known that up to this point the Colombian government has not established the necessary protection measures so that the comrade is not assassinated and to guarantee his trade union activity. Comrade GERARDO RODRIGO GENO GUERRERO, president of the National Bankworkers union of Bancolombia S.S. - SINTRABANCOL has in the last three years been the target of many telephone threats that clearly show his life is in danger. These calls have also been trying to extort money. To date, despite the history of danger in which the comrade and his family live, the Colombian government has still not adopted protection measures. These recent cases of violations of our Human Rights leave it very clear that the government of Doctor Andres Pastrana Arango, President of the Republic of Colombia, does not have the will nor the political commitment to implement real and immediate mechanisms to protect our lives. The government is thereby violating the National Constitution, agreements and international treaties, and the most recent recommendations of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations and the International Labour Organisation. The Colombian Government, to avoid assuming its political responsibility, says, especially to the international community, that it is unable to guarantee lives in the situation of armed conflict in the country. This is an excuse that cannot be accepted because whether in times of peace or in times of war, the government is obliged to guarantee the right to life and to provide the means of us conducting free trade union activity. Via Andy Higginbottom andy@. tetrachoice.demon.co.uk
CLM: US officials outline Bush's Andean Regional Initiative 1/2 [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- [This message is being sent in 2 parts] Subj:CLM: US officials outline Bush's Andean Regional Initiative Date: 7/2/01 6:20:03 AM Mountain Daylight Time From: xx738@. prairienet.org (Colombian Labor Monitor) Sender: owner-clm-news@. prairienet.org To: clm-news@. prairienet.org COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR www.prairienet.org/clm Monday, 2 July 2001 * * U.S. CONGRESS * * 1. AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE-Thursday, 28 June 2001 US State Dept officials outline Bush's Andean Regional Initiative 2. U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES-Thursday, 28 June 2001 Statement of James Mack Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs U.S. Department of State 3. U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES-Thursday, 28 June 2001 Statement of Michael Deal Deputy Assistant Administrator Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean U.S. Agency for International Development * 1 * AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE Thursday, 28 June 2001 US State Dept officials outline Bush's Andean Regional Initiative - WASHINGTON - State Department officials on Thursday outlined President George W. Bush's Andean Regional Initiative, a group of programs aimed at addressing the challenges of democracy, drugs and development in the area. The initiative is seen as an extension of Plan Colombia, a Colombian proposal to address that country's complex war- and narcotics-related problems, backed by the United States to the tune of one billion dollars. ARI balances the need to address the continuing challenges in Colombia with the competing priority of working with the rest of the region to prevent a further spreading of Colombia's problems, said Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, James Mack. US funding for the plan was controversial as some lawmakers feared it could drag the United States into Colombia's conflict with the guerrillas believed by Washington to be profiting from the drug trade. Nations bordering Colombia also said they feared the intensive anti-narcotics push would result in rebel activity and refugees spilling over into their nations, and demanded US aid to help them deal with that. Our support to Plan Colombia was the first step in responding to the crisis undersay in Colombia, Mack told a House subcommittee hearing on the ARI. The Andean Regional Initiative is the next stage of a long-term effort to address the threat of narcotics and the underlying causes of the narcotics industry and violence in Colombia while assisting Colombia's neighbors to ward off those same dangers. Bush has proposed 882 million dollars for ARI, 731 million dollars of which would be earmarked for the anti-narcotics fight, and also includes funding for developmental and economic support programs, and a small amount of Foreign Military Funding. ARI covers programs in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Panama and Brazil. Speaking at the same hearing, Republican congressman Ben Gilman called for the reinstatement of anti-narcotics shoot-down policy over Peru and Colombia, suspended after Peru's air force downed a missionary plane, killing a young mother and her infant child. US surveillance flights had been used to detect and track suspected drug flights for the Peruvian air force. Copyright 2001 Agence France Presse * 2* U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Friday, 28 June 2001 *** * HEARING * *** HOUSE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE JAMES MACK DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I am pleased to be here today to discuss with you the status of Plan Colombia and to describe for you the Department of, State's programs envisioned under the Administration's proposed Andean Regional Initiative, or ARI. First, I'd like to provide you background on the origin of the President's Initiative. In July 2000, Congress approved a $1.3 billion supplemental appropriation to carry out enhanced counternarcotics activities in the Andean region. Of that amount, approximately $1 billion in Function 150 funding through the State
CLM: US officials outline Bush's Andean Regional Initiative 2/2 [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- [Part 2 of 2] Holistic?? [RERUN] STATUS OF EQUIPMENT DELIVERIES Turning now to our equipment deliveries, I can say that they have proceeded smoothly, generally adhering to the anticipated schedules. Some have even been accelerated from their original estimates. As of June 22, 2001, the status of UH-60, UH-1N, Huey-II and spray planes is as follows: COLAR and CNP Black Hawks: A contract was signed with Sikorsky on December 15th for fourteen Black Hawks for the Colombian Army (COLAR) and two helicopters for the Colombian National Police (CNP). Specifications for the aircraft configuration were based on SOUTHCOM recommendations with input from respective Colombian organizations. Arrangements are being made for next month's delivery of the two CNP aircraft and the first COLAR aircraft. Remaining deliveries will be made in increments through December of this year. The contract includes one year of contractor logistics support (CLS). We expect to extend this contract pending availability of FY 2002 funding. COLAR UH-1Ns: The UH-1Ns supplied to Colombia earlier continue to provide air mobility support to the troops of the Counterdrug Brigade. CNP Huey-IIs: INL and the CNP agreed to use the $20.6 million CNP Huey-II and $5 million CNP aircraft upgrade budget lines from the Supplemental to modify nine additional aircraft to desired specifications and retrofit twenty-two of the earlier produced Huey-IIs to include additional options, such as floor armor and passive infrared (IR) countermeasures. A delivery order has been issued for four modifications to be accomplished by U.S. Helicopter (completion expected approximately August/September), and the other five modifications will be done by CNP in-country with kits furnished by INL. (Note: Twenty-Five Huey-II helicopters have been delivered to the CNP from previous FY 1998 and FY 1999 funding). COLAR Huey-IIs: SOUTHCOM presented their recommendations on the configuration of the COLAR Huey-IIs on February 22nd. An interagency team then selected a configuration that includes a passive IR engine exhaust system, floor armor, M60D door guns, secure radios, and a radar altimeter, along with other standard equipment. We estimate that twenty-five Huey-IIs modified to this standard, along with individual crew equipment (NV Gs, survival vests, helmets, etc.) and some spares will be possible within the $60 million line item of the Supplemental Appropriation. We have established a contract delivery order for the accomplishment of the initial 20 modifications, with options for additional aircraft. Work is in progress on these aircraft and we believe that aircraft deliveries to Colombia can begin by approximately January 2002. Additional OV-10D Spray Planes: Three aircraft are currently undergoing refurbishment/modification at Patrick Air Force Base and are expected to be completed in August of this year. Additional Ayres Turbo-Thrush Spray Planes: A contract is in place for nine additional agricultural spray planes. The first aircraft should be delivered in August, with the balance phased in through February 2002. AERIAL SPRAYING Plan Colombia-related aerial spray operations began on December 19, 2000 in the southern department of Caqueta and moved into neighboring Putumayo on December 22. Operations later shifted to the northern and eastern parts of the country. Some allege that the glyphosate used in the spray program results in health side-effects to exposed populations. First, let me stress that glyphosate is one of the least harmful herbicides available on the world market. Subj:CLM: US officials outline Bush's Andean Regional Initiative Date: 7/2/01 6:20:03 AM Mountain Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Colombian Labor Monitor) Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR www.prairienet.org/clm Monday, 2 July 2001 * * U.S. CONGRESS * * PART II: ATPA RENEWAL Renewal of the Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA) is perhaps the single largest short-term contribution to economic growth and prosperity in the Andes. By renewing the Act and expanding its benefits, we can continue to provide economic alternatives to narcotics trafficking in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. The Act has already succeeded in doing so without adverse economic impact for the U.S. The original justification for the legislation still stands, but it expires at the end of the year, and should clearly be renewed at the earliest possible date. ATPA renewal would serve to strengthen the credibility of democratically-elected governments in the region and provide them with a
[CJAZZ] Canada Day Star Wars Action [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- Subj:Canada Day Star Wars Action Date: 7/2/01 2:09:48 AM Mountain Daylight Time From: command@. interlog.com (Gary Morton) Reply-to: command@. interlog.com To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (cjazz@. interlog.com) Canada Day Star Wars Action - July 1.2001 Two Reports and Photos 1. Canada Day or Independence Day by Gary Morton (Canada Day Essay and notes on the Star Wars action) 2. Canada Day at CFB Downsview from TASC (Report on the Protest Action and Canada's military involvement) Digital Photos - Star Wars Action (CitizensontheWeb.com) Ladies hold the Homes Not Bombs Banner http://home.eol.ca/~command/cstar1.jpg Canada Out of Star Wars Banner http://home.eol.ca/~command/cstar2.jpg Canada Out of Star Wars Banner at the military base http://home.eol.ca/~command/cstar3.jpg With the Soldiers http://home.eol.ca/~command/cstar4.jpg Little Boy Commando http://home.eol.ca/~command/cstar5.jpg Canada Day or Independence Day? By Gary Morton Today's Canada Day action against Star Wars involved a 2 km peace walk in a rush of wind and bright sunshine. We went to CFB Downsview then on to the Canada Day fair at the park. We passed military people on the road to the park and one woman soldier smiled, waved and shouted hello to us. At the fair we stood next to a military display where soldiers in combat gear with a tent and jeeps were dressing kids in war outfits and camouflage greases. We put a banner on either side of the tent. Matthew and others handed out flyers on the Star Wars issue and we ended up talking with soldiers. One wanted us to move as he felt the banner would scare off the kids by causing them to equate the military with Star Wars, Darth Vader and evil stuff. He went on to tell us that Canada's role is as a peacekeeper with observers in the Congo, Bosnia, etc. Since I grew up in a military town, I'm aware that most Canadian soldiers see Canada as a peacekeeper. It is unfortunate that Canada's policies have abandoned peacekeeping. We tied ourselves to the New World Order war machine in Iraq/Yugoslavia and are now developing a dangerous space warfare capacity through involvement with President Bush and his Star Wars plan. The Homes Not Bombs news release points out that Defence Minister Art Eggleton is a major booster of Star Wars. He has stated that Canada is ready and willing to go to war even if it violates international law. So our soldiers want peace when we've in fact gone a long way from it. On Canada Day this year we have also gone a long way from Canada. There really should be a Canada Day award for the most American Canadian. As well as Star Wars, we have Mike Harris calling for a Niagara Free Trade Zone and an advisor to the Prime Minister calling for the dismantling of the border with the US and the elimination of Canadian sovereignty through adoption of the American dollar. Environment Minister David Anderson wants a NAFTA deal for disposing of hazardous wastes, which would mean our environmental policies would be set by Bush in the USA. And U.S. ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, agrees. He is calling for a NAFTA-plus relationship to harmonize border controls, law enforcement, energy, environmental and immigration policies. This absolute abandonment of the Canadian people, our beliefs, democracy and culture is so bold that it has shocked right-wing fanatics from the Fraser Institute. They feel we should sell out softly, and that our neo-liberal government is going to provoke a backlash by making the Canadian people aware of what is going on. July 4 is Independence Day in the USA so I suppose that by next year our government will be proposing harmonizing Canada Day with the US holiday to create a new Canada Independence Day that will celebrate our takeover by transnational corporations and George Bush. Since nothing is really taught at the Canada Day fairs, it would be easy to do. Chretien could replace our flag with the harmonized American version and feed the people with the same junk hotdogs, popcorn and silly games. The real question is whether we as Canadians will allow it. We could rise in revolution and create genuine independence and a Canada without Star Wars, Nike and George Bush. --- Report on the Protest Action Canada Day at CFB Downsview (a report from Toronto Action for Social Change) Despite gale-force winds that started out the day, a hardy band of 15 souls paraded with banners and placards along the Sheppard Ave. West boundary of Canadian Forces
IMF kicks NATO ally in the teeth [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- [Apparently no amount of killing off leftist Kurdish insurgents and civilians will stop the IMF from getting nasty if you don't at the same time privatise, privatise, privatise] Monday, 2 July, 2001, 16:32 GMT 17:32 UK IMF puts off key Turkish loan http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1418000/1418839.stm The Istanbul stock market: Waiting for good news from the IMF The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has postponed a crucial loan to Turkey, claiming that there has not been sufficient progress on reforms. The Fund had been due to begin work on Tuesday on a review of the Turkish economy, ahead of the payment of the latest $1.6bn (£1.1bn) tranche of its $8bn economic rescue package. But the Fund said the review was to be indefinitely postponed, pending fulfilment of a few prior actions. The IMF has accused Turkey of dragging its feet over reform in the banking sector - in particular the closure of some loss-making banks. Turkish financial markets had not expected the postponement. Just before the IMF announcement, the Istanbul stock market had closed up some 2%, in anticipation of a trouble-free loan payment. Tough love The IMF loan package was agreed earlier in the year in an attempt to stave off a financial crisis in Turkey. But it was tied to stringent terms, including a shake-up of management at Turk Telekom, the main state telephone company, and tough action in the financial sector. Some progress has been made. Last week, the government appointed a new board to Turk Telekom. And minutes after the IMF announcement, the government said it was closing down Emlak Bank, a loss-making state bank. But the IMF and other lenders have not been satisfied: the pace of bank closures has been slow, and Turk Telekom's new board is not reckoned to be free enough from political influence. Testing times The IMF's decision has ratcheted up uncertainty in Turkish financial markets, which had seemed to stabilise over the last few weeks. The Turkish lira: An unstable currency The Fund said it looked forward to beginning the review soon, but is unlikely to start work on it in less than a week. IMF money is seen as crucial to rescuing the Turkish economy from its current slump. The country's gross national product shrank by 4.2% in the first quarter of 2001, and the Turkish lira has been jittery since a 40% devaluation after it was allowed to float in February. Approval of a total $1.7bn in World Bank loans for the financial sector and agriculture is also due in early July, and is unlikely to go ahead without IMF support. __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(PLEASE READ) Milosevic's REAL Legal Strategy (As Usual, the Papers are Lying) [WWW.STO... [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- Dear Richard, Thanks for the insightful comments on this - thoroughly - distressing topic. The most perplexing, most damnable aspect of this whole affair has been the enthusiastic support of, when not aggressive agitation for, NATO's wars in the Balkans by many ostensibly anti-establishment and even on the left. I'll add a few additional sources after your comments. It's the old we haven't/didn't do enough line, to pysche up establishment liberals/ left to support the policy and campaign for it. What they are saying is the West's governments and establishment politicians were always doing deals with Milosevic, so liberals/lefties will demand MORE action and feel good in themselves at attacking the establishment for their misdeeeds, thereby transforming the anti-Jugoslav campaign into a trendie liberal/left ie one. If anyone doubts this I have had bitter arguements with such people for the last DECADE, I repeat DECADE, all convinced we must intervene more and the Jugoslavs are monsters/fiends/invading themselves etc. Also the same technique was the basis of American/British propaganda to get America into WW1 As you've perceptively picked up on the prototype of this betrayal being that of World War I, the single most important historical writing I know of on this analogy is that of the American radical Randolph Bourne written 1n 1917 - War And The Intellectuals. I'm appending it below, as I went back to it again and again during the war against Yugoslavia in 1999 and, if a few person/place names were changed, it seemed perfectly contemporary in its analysis and accusations. As supplements, see also (though it's not a perfect piece) Philip Knightley's Propaganda Wars from The Independent of June 27, 1999: http://www.transnational.org/features/propagandawars.html for an insightful study of the origin of atrocity stories during the Boer War and World War I used to build up war fever. See also Part Two of Diana Johnstone's Yugoslavia: Through A Glass Darkly at Emperor's New Clothes (http://www.emperors-clothes.com - Search) for an investigation of the role of public relations firms, reporters and so-called NGOs, and the role of all in both subverting local community control and in beating the war drums in the Balkans. http://www.bigeye.com/thewar.htm Reprinted from The Seven Arts, II (June 1917), pp. 133-146. The War and the Intellectuals Randolph Bourne To those of us who still retain an irreconcilable animus against war, it has been a bitter experience to see the unanimity with which the American intellectuals have thrown their support to the use of war-technique in the crisis in which America found herself. Socialists, college professors, publicists, new-republicans, practitioners of literature, have vied with each other in confirming with their intellectual faith the collapse of neutrality and the riveting of the war-mind on a hundred million more of the world's people. And the intellectuals are not content with confirming our belligerent gesture. They are now complacently asserting that it was they who effectively willed it, against the hesitation and dim perceptions of the American democratic masses. A war made deliberately by the intellectuals! A calm moral verdict, arrived at after a penetrating study of inexorable facts! Sluggish masses, too remote from the world-conflict to be stirred, too lacking in intellect to perceive their danger! An alert intellectual class, saving the people in spite of themselves, biding their time with Fabian strategy until the nation could be moved into war without serious resistance! An intellectual class, gently guiding a nation through sheer force of ideas into what the other nations entered only through predatory craft or popular hysteria or militarist madness! A war free from any taint of self-seeking, a war that will secure the triumph of democracy and internationalize the world! This is the picture which the more self-conscious intellectuals have formed of themselves, and which they are slowly impressing upon a population which is being led no man knows whither by an indubitably intellectualized President. And they are right, in that the war certainly did not spring from hysterias, of the American people, however acquiescent the masses prove to be, and however clearly the intellectuals prove their putative intuition. Those intellectuals who have felt themselves totally out of sympathy with this drag toward war will seek some explanation for this joyful
Re: Suprise! mysterious Paramilitaries appear to spark further war... [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- You're right, Kosta, what a surprise! I see the OSCE/CIA have even backdated the non-existent paramilitaries a year so as to suggest that Commander Hoxha and his KLA contras are only acting - we all saw it coming - in self-defence. And of course Washington-based Human Rights Watch - a State Department operation pure and simple, if not entirely acknowledged yet - is playing their indispensible role also. Does it all sound distressingly familiar? It should. It's a shoddy remake of Kosovo: The Humanitarian War. --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- Macedonia Paramilitary Threat Emerges By COLLEEN BARRY .c The Associated Press SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - Pamphlets emblazoned with a lion symbolizing a group calling itself Paramilitary 2000 delivered a powerful threat to ethnic Albanian shopkeepers: Close shop or we'll burn down your businesses. Most stall owners in and around the trash-strewn industrial wasteland called Madzari packed up and left after receiving the threat 10 days ago from the recently activated paramilitary group, which considers some Albanians who arrived in the last few years illegal residents of Macedonia. The emergence of paramilitary threats in the capital, Skopje - a direct response to the insurgents' assault on neighboring Aracinovo and evident in riots outside Parliament last week - brings a new escalation to Macedonia's conflict between ethnic Albanian militants and government troops in this troubled Balkan country. Immediately following the threat, rebel Commander Hoxha announced that his forces in the hills surrounding the capital were prepared to defend Albanians in Skopje if they came under attack. That spread unease among the Slav population. The Albanian businessmen of the Madzari district say they have been menaced by a black jeep with the Paramilitary 2000 logo, but so far there have been no direct confrontations or violence. But they also say Macedonian police have refused to protect them. ``The police said that all Albanians who work here should remove their stock and leave the area,'' shopowner Ibrahim Baftjari said. He has remained, but has removed his most expensive goods. Since the threat, up to 30,000 Albanians, mostly from Skopje, have left for Kosovo, bringing the number of refugees who have taken refuge in the Serbian province to 100,000 since the insurgency began four months ago. It is a pattern that has repeated itself in more than a decade of Balkan conflicts: Irregular units form in response to dissatisfaction with military and police action against an insurgency. Western observers worry that the slightest spark - a slain policeman or Macedonian Slav civilian - could lead to full-blown civil war. They cite not only the new irregular units but also the vast number of armed reservists. Already, reservists were blamed last week by President Boris Trajkovski for bringing the country to the brink of civil war when, massed outside Parliament, they opened fire amid a crowd of Macedonian Slavs enraged at the rebels' safe passage from Aracinovo under U.S. escort. ``There's a coalescence of different extremist elements into more formal networks,'' said Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch. ``We're talking about a region where there's a pattern of civilians involved in conflicts.'' The government denies the existence of any irregular paramilitary organization in Macedonia. Off the record, a government source dismissed the Paramilitary 2000 as ``a bunch of drunks who number no more than 20 people,'' and estimated the total number of paramilitary fighters at ``no more than 200.'' The real threat, the source said, is from reservists who have been issued arms by the Interior Ministry, like those outside Parliament last week. Not all the guns were given to people on the reservist list, the source said, and some were distributed specifically to members of the ruling government party. But bigger
U.S Donates Banned G.M Soybeans to Serbs [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay -- === From the Centeralk Europe Review. www.ce-review.org Yugoslav Science Minister Vuko Domazet told the daily Gradanski list, from Novi Sad, that Yugoslavia had become a polygon for experiments of US genetics scientists, because it has accepted an American donation of 50,000 tons of genetically modified soy, although science has not yet determined the effect of transgenic organisms on humans or animals. === __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
TRUTH IN MEDIA: America's War in Macedonia (By Michel Ch [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]ossudovsky)
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- 3. Americas War in Macedonia (By Michel Chossudovsky) PHOENIX, June 30 - The following is an article contributed to TiM by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa in Canada. Weve omitted the numerous footnotes which back up Prof. Chossudovskys analysis: Washington's covert war in Macedonia purports to consolidate America's sphere of influence in southeastern Europe. At stake is the strategic Bulgaria-Macedonia-Albania transport, communications and oil pipeline corridor which links the Black Sea to the Adriatic coast. Macedonia stands at the strategic crossroads of the oil pipeline corridor. To protect these pipeline routes, Washington's goal is to install a patchwork of protectorates along strategic corridors in the Balkans. The promise of Greater Albania used by Washington to foment Albanian nationalism is part of the military-intelligence ploy. Amply documented, the latter consists in financing and equipping the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and its National Liberation Army (NLA) proxy to wage the terrorist assaults in Macedonia. The development of America's sphere of influence in Southeastern Europe --in complicity with Britain-- supports the interests of the oil giants including BP-Amoco-ARCO, Chevron and Texaco. Securing control and protecting the pipeline routes is paramount to the success of these multi-billion dollar ventures: AA successful international oil regime is a combination of economic, political, and military arrangements to support oil production and transportation to markets. The Anglo-American consortium which controls the AMBO Trans-Balkan pipeline project linking the Bulgarian port of Burgas to Vlore on the Albanian Adriatic coastline largely excludes the participation of Europe's competing oil giant Total-Fina-Elf. In other words, US strategic control over the pipeline corridor is intent upon weakening the role of the European Union and keeping competing European business interests at arms' length. WHO IS BEHIND THE TRANS-BALKAN PIPELINE? The US based AMBO pipeline consortium is directly linked to the seat of political and military power in the United States and Vice President Dick Cheney's firm Halliburton Energy. The feasibility study for AMBO's Trans-Balkan Oil Pipeline, conducted by the international engineering company of Brown Root Ltd. [Halliburton's British subsidiary] has determined that this pipeline will become a part of the region's critical East-West corridor infrastructure which includes highway, railway, gas and fiber optic telecommunications lines. And upon completion of the feasibility study by Halliburton, a senior executive of Halliburton was appointed CEO of AMBO. Halliburton was also granted a contract to service US troops in the Balkans and build Bondsteel in Kosovo, which now constitutes the largest American foreign military base constructed since Vietnam.5 Coincidentally, White and Case LLT, the New York law firm that President William J. Clinton joined when he left the White House also has a stake in the AMBO pipeline deal. MILITARISATION OF THE PIPELINE CORRIDORS The AMBO Trans-Balkans pipeline project would link up with the pipeline corridors between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea basin, which lies at the hub of the World's largest unexplored oil reserves (see map of http://www.bsrec.bg/taskforce/SYNERGY/oilprojects2.html). The militarization of these various corridors is an integral part of Washington's design. The US policy of protecting the pipeline routes out of the Caspian Sea basin (and across the Balkans) was spelled out by Clinton's Energy Secretary Bill Richardson barely a few months prior to the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia: This is about America's energy security It's also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west We would like to see them reliant on western commercial and political interests rather than going another way. We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right. The Anglo-American oil giants, including BP-Amoco-Arco, Texaco and Chevron
Ramsey Clark Joins Milosevic Defense Team [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --- ListBot Sponsor -- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb -- The Times July 2, 2001 TOP US LAWYER JOINS MILOSEVIC DEFENCE From Janine Di Giovanni in Belgrade A TOP US lawyer is to join the defence team of the extradited former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague. Ramsey Clark, a former US Attorney-General who worked in Jimmy Carter's Administration, is known for his human rights involvement. He visited Belgrade in 1999 during the Nato bombardment and was said to be moved by the city's plight. Other American and Canadian lawyers will also be joining the Milosevic team. Mr Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, has begun preparations to join her husband in The Hague and oversee his legal defence. She is on a European Union list that bans her from travelling outside Yugoslavia, but has applied for a Dutch visa and is now looking for an apartment in The Hague. Mr Milosevic will be joined today by the Belgrade lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic before his initial appearance at the tribunal at 10am tomorrow. The former President will be asked about his crackdown in Kosovo in 1999. According to Mr Tomanovic, they will discuss defence strategy. Mr Milosevic, who has rejected the legitimacy of the UN court, is expected to plead not guilty. The Hague tribunal is a political circus set up to destroy the Serb nation, he said last week. Mr Tomanovic said that Mr Milosevic was a proud and intelligent man. He was doing his job, protecting our country against Nato. He sees The Hague as a political court so we will fight a political battle. In Belgrade Mrs Markovic, who has been protesting her husband's innocence, is attempting to hold together what remains of her family. Her son Marko, who faces allegations of corruption and smuggling, is in Russia where he is believed to be under the protection of gangsters and harbouring the family's funds. Mrs Markovic's daughter Marija and daughter-in-law Milica have stuck close to her. Mr Tomanovic said that although Mrs Markovic and other members of the family were prevented from leaving the country by the list barring them from EU visas, he believed that she would be allowed to visit her husband. The list of banned names was drastically reduced after the Belgrade revolution last October, but includes about 200 cronies of Mr Milosevic and suspected war criminals. Mr Tomanovic said: It's just a question of time when they will issue (a visa) to Mrs Markovic. Her husband was arrested; she has the right to go to The Hague to be with him. A member of Mrs Markovic's JUL (Yugoslav Left) party said that she was distressed but trying to remain strong for her husband, who had sent messages from his cell that he needed books, money and clothes. She will continue her political fight and the fight for her husband's innocence, the party member said. Mr Milosevic's extradition has deepened the conflict between President Kostunica of Yugoslavia and Zoran Djindjic, the Serbian Prime Minister. On Saturday Mr Kostunica formally announced that he did not know about plans for the extradition, although it is widely believed that he handed the dirty work over to the already unpopular Mr Djindjic. Mr Kostunica has been an outspoken critic of The Hague, claiming that it is biased against Serbs. He has realised, however, that co-operation with the tribunal is essential to opening financial and diplomatic doors to the West. The extradition came after Mr Djindjic, backed by all 17 leaders from Serbia 's ruling DOS coalition except Mr Kostunica, took advantage of a loophole in the country's constitution that, ironically, was introduced by Mr Milosevic himself in 1990. __ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
