The Global Reflexion Foundation contributes, according to her ability, to the distribution of information on international issues that in the media does not recieve proper attention or is presented in a distorted way. We receive information from different sources, that does not necessary reflect our opinion. If you don't want to receive it, please send us an e-mail. ************************************************************************* Monday, September 25, 2000 1. Election Day Meddling 2. Report of Canadian Election Observer in Yugoslavia ************************************************************************* http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/doncheva/electionday.htm Election Day Meddling A letter from Blagovesta Doncheva in Sofia, Bulgaria (9-24-2000) Dear friends, Enclosed is the rough translation of an interesting, informative article, published in 'Monitor.' Here's my opinion about the "parallel vote counting" discussed in the article. They have repeatedly carried it out here. It is a way to manipulate people on the day of the elections! What do they do? All day long they give figures and graphics. In most cases deliberately wrong figures and graphics. And thereby manipulate people most blatantly! (They are usually very active in the afternoon hours of the election day, which is logical.) What will they do now? They will deliberately announce that Kostunica leads with, for instance., 20-30%. They might even insist that he is nearing the 50 %. They will quote towns and whole regions. They will give graphics. Some people who would vote for Milosevich will say to themselves: "What's the use of voting? The other one is already elected!" And they will stay at home. Others will stay at home out of sheer fear. "They have already elected the other one. It is better to lie low now." Etc. Some words about some names quoted in Monitor article. Velko Valkanov is a Bulgarian Socialist party (BSP) MP but he is not a member of BSP. He is firmly at anti-NATO position (a kind of inner opposition inside the BSP Parliamentary group.) I don't know what to make of him: if he is so very much against the pro-NATO orientation of BSP, why is he still in the BSP group? But in this one he is right. Evgeni Dainov - is the most faithful Bulgarian US-government flunkey and a totally amoral ass. Money is his God, his morals, his ethics, his love and his hate. Good is every cause that spews Money. Bad is every one that does not pour fresh Money or especially if it threatens his own Money. If his mother is still alive, and his Money Masters tell him to cut her into pieces, then fry them and last give them to the street dogs against a certain sum (or a position that goes with a nice package of money!), Evgeni the Rat will do it without hesitation. In his comment he reveals that he has given cell phones to the "kids" from Otpor but that monster Milosevich's people have taken them at the boundary. (There was an information that the Yugoslav Customs have confiscated 20 (!) cell phones from Otpor 'activists' on their way back from Bulgaria to Yugoslavia.) It is the Election Day. God help the Serbs.. God help us all.. Blagovesta Doncheva Sofia, Bulgaria [The 'Monitor' article follows] URL for this article is http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/doncheva/bulgmed.htm www.tenc.net [Emperor's Clothes] Bulgaria Meddles in Yugoslav Vote 'Monitor,' [Bulgaria] September 22, p. 1-2-3 Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marin Raikov, is behind an unprecedented plan for parallel Yugoslav vote counting from Sofia. Kostov threatens Milosevic with "categorical/decisive actions" if he 'manipulates' the vote on Sunday. Yugoslav charge d'affaires, Danko Protic, warns that the elections are "exclusively an internal problem." By a Monitor Team Translated by Blagovesta Doncheva Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marin Raikov, is most probably behind a plan for parallel Yugoslav President vote counting from Sofia, [Bulgaria,] a high level governmental official told 'Monitor.' "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has nothing to do with it. Those are NGO activities," the Foreign Affairs Ministry Speaker, Raiko Vlaikov, declared. On Sunday the UDF Political Academy and the U.S. organisation, "Freedom House," will organise parallel Yugoslav vote counting. The single Information Centre outside Yugoslavia will be in Hall 4 of the National Culture Centre and will closely observe the vote counting. Meantime, in a special statement for Monitor, the Yugoslav charge d'affaires Danko Protic warned about the increased external pressure on his country: "Those who are intervening in our inner affairs, keep talking about unrest in Yugoslavia if the opposition lose and are repeating the fabrications about an armed conflict between Serbia and Montenegro, increase additionally the pressure on Yugoslavia, and an alibi is thereby created for fresh interference in our internal affairs," the diplomat declared. Premier Ivan Kostov, broadcast yesterday "the government position" on the Yugoslav election after a lunch in the Embassy of Germany with the NATO Countries' ambassadors in Sofia. The premier warned President Slobodan Molisevic in his Statement not to falsify the Yugoslav citizens' vote. Kostov's Threats Premier Kostov threatened that "there will be very strong reactions on the part of all the European governments in case of election manipulation....In case they are not honest, I admit that the actions will be very categorical," Kostov added. But he did not say if Bulgaria would take part in those "decisive actions". "Let's see what will happen," the Premier said in the German Embassy building in Sofia. Together with the German Ambassador in Sofia, Ursula Zeiler-Albring [sp?], he made a statement after a luncheon meeting with the other NATO countries' Ambassadors. "We share the worries and misgivings about possible manipulations while the Yugoslav elections are going on. My misgivings do not include the possibility for a civil war there, but it is a fact that all of us in the region, including the NATO countries' ambassadors, are debating those problems, are interested in them, and we will watch the day September 24 very attentively. Lots of things will depend on it,' Kostov added. Official Belgrade Misgivings "When we talk about the elections in Yugoslavia, we have to underline that we are witnesses of unprecedented pressure with the aim of ensuring results which will be in the USA and NATO countries' interests. That fact additionally is destabilising our country," Danko Protic said. According to him, "it is not by chance that the European Union declared from Brussels just before the elections that it will lift the sanctions against Yugoslavia only if the opposition wins at the elections. Besides, those in Brussels are constantly repeating their unprecedented undemocratic position that the elections will not be recognised if the Yugoslav President wins," the Yugoslav charge d’affaires continued. According to him, "insinuations are constantly being made that election stealing is being prepared in Belgrade, and in that way conditions are created for explaining the opposition's defeat by charging election manipulations on the basis of some untrue public opinion inquiries, giving great advantage of the opposition parties." "The elections in all sovereign countries are exclusively inner affair because it is expected that the citizens express at them their will and their position on the different parties' policies and on some persons who want to take part in ruling their countries," Danko Protic sates. The Blue (UDF) Academy and Freedom House commission "scrutineers"[scrutinisers?] "The parallel vote counting is a mutual project of the Political Academy for Central and Southeastern Europe and of the U.S. NGO, "Freedom House," with which we have very close contacts", Orfei Duevski, explained to 'Monitor'. He is an MP from the UDF and the head of the Political Academy. According to some high-placed UDF officials, he has headed that organisation's Board of Directors thanks to Hristo Biserov's support; Bisserov is the UDF's First Secretary. The Board of Directors consists of two more MPs from the UDF, three Americans from the International Republican Institute, and the specialists in policy sciences, Evgeni Dainov and Ognjan Minchev. The Republican Institute had been that Academy's main sponsor last year. It still is its main sponsor. (1) "I want to explicitly underline that it is not a UDF project. It is a project of the Academy, mainly of its expert members. The ideas come entirely from the experts and they are being realised with the help of their colleagues from Belgrade", Duevski claims. The Academy has sent to Belgrade Vassil Zanov, the head of the mathematicians’ group at the Sofia Central Election Commission. His team is to send from Belgrade the raw election results, which will be reworked by the people in the Faculty of Mathematics at "Clement Ohridski," the Sofia University. Zanov is a professor there. The data will be sent to Sofia via E-mail. On Election day Mr. Zanov will work in the office of the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy in Belgrade. "That is an analogue organisation to the Bulgarian Society for Honest Elections on the territory of Yugoslavia", the head of the Political Academy explained. According to an official press release of the Academy, the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy in Belgrade supports Voislav Kostunica, Milosevic's opponent. Unprecedented vote counting "They have no experience in the parallel vote counting in Yugoslavia. That is why we, with the assistance of Mr. Zanov, have decided to help the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy in Belgrade" Orfei Duevski told. But he could not explain what will be the interaction between 'our' specialists and the official Yugoslavian power and if the Bulgarians have an official authorisation for the elections on September 24. "I hope that the official authorities in Belgrade would co-operate with such initiative which might disprove the accusations from everywhere that the Yugoslav elections will be manipulated", Duevski would only say. However, experts in that field claim that the parallel vote counting will be unprecedented if the Bulgarians are not authorised by the official authorities in Belgrade. According to an official information of the BTA (Bulgarian Telegraph Agency), quoting the Bulgarian Society for Honest Elections, "60 of its activists will take part as scrutineers of the presidential election in Yugoslavia". Together with the Yugoslavian Centre for Free Elections and Democracy in Belgrade they had to form Vassil Zanov team according to the Political Academy. "We will not send any data from Yugoslavia to Bulgaria and we even do not know if we will be allowed to go there", Anton Hidgov said. He is the head of the Bulgarian Society for Honest Elections. "We will be only international scrutineers there. I do not want any information to come out from my name that might be used against us and we might not be authorised," Hidgov added. Last week the Bulgarian Society for Honest Elections had sent an official note to Belgrade to be authorised as scrutineers for the elections. The Yugoslav Mission in Sofia says that such a demand for authorisation has not passed through them. Who pays "The parallel vote counting project is financed by Freedom House," Duevski explained. It is an American NGO and its members are Republicans and Democrats alike, influential businessmen, Trade Union leaders, experts on foreign policy and former administration employees. Zbignev Bzezinski, Kenet Adelman and Pol Volfovitz are among the more well-known names in the Freedom House Directors' Board. "I have offered projects of mine many times to the Freedom House, but they react now for the first time", Evgeni Dainov, the member of the Director Board of the Political Academy said yesterday. He thinks though that "the money is not enough". "I am almost certain that we will spend more," Dainov added. Raikov's Role "The Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs has very good contacts with the Serb opposition and it is very probable he offered "parallel vote counting" at some of his confidential meetings with the Serb opposition leaders," 'Monitor'’s source from the Government explained. He could not specify though when exactly Raikov had launched his idea. In the middle of July our Ambassador in Belgrade Ivailo Trifonov personally engaged himself as a translator for the opposition Serb mayors, who were called in Sofia to receive instructions by Sofia Mayor, Stephan Sofianski. Marin Raikov is responsible for the Balkans in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Some years ago he was a First Secretary in our Embassy in Belgrade. He is a Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a son of Raiko Nickolov, Bulgarian first diplomat in Yugoslavia for years on a run. Marin Raikov accompanied Kostov at all the meetings that year with the representatives of the Serbs and the Albanians from Kosovo, although they had taken part in the UDF Party building at "Rakovska" 134. Comments An MP commented on the parallel vote counting from Sofia: VelkoValkanov, BSP The parallel vote counting is a drastic and incorrect interference in Yugoslavia internal affairs. There is even a greater manipulation than that one. The West promises to lift all the sanctions and to pour the horn of plenty over the Serbs if they vote against Milosevic. Isn't that an attempt at buying a whole people, isn't that the most disgusting manipulation ever known? Our government and the ruling party join to that policy of manipulation. I will be very pleased indeed if the Serb people box the ears of both those Western politicians and our pro Western ones, and vote for Milosevic, refusing to be bought out. A centre of diversion/sabotage in relation to Yugoslavia is being created here, and that press-centre is only the beginning. *** 1) The International Republican Institute has offices in 15 lands including Albania, Angola, Nicaragua, Russia, Yugoslavia and South Africa. It is one of the "core institutes" of the National Endowment for Democracy and therefore part of the network of US government agencies which recruit local activists and set up front groups with the goal of exercising indirect colonial rule in the guise of building what is called "civil society" (which amazingly refers to the groups they set up and fund!) and "Democratic institutions". "Democracy" is here not defined as something the people choose (as one might think) but rather as being aligned with the Establishments in the NATO countries. A rather partisan definition. The Monitor article notes that this particular civil society group (the "Political Academy for Central and Southeastern Europe") works closely with Freedom House, a US NGO, receives funding from the International Republican Institute, and plans to coordinate its "monitoring" with the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy in Belgrade, which, in turn, supports the candidate of the "democratic" coalition in Yugoslavia. Both the Centre for Fair Elections and the Yugoslav "democratic" opposition receive funding and training from US and NATO-country government agencies. For more on how the U.S. is fostering indirect colonial rule in the guise of building "civil society" and "democracy" go to http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/scam.htm ****************************************** URL for this article is http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/canadian.htm Report of Canadian Election Observer in Yugoslavia by Antoinette Martens [9-24-2000] [Ms. Martens is a Canadian election observer reporting from Belgrade, Yugoslavia.] The international observers of the Yugoslav presidential and parliamentary elections have arrived in Belgrade - some 200 of them from (so far) from 54 countries. Contrary to the reports that "they have not been allowed in," there are registered observers from the following Western European countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Sweden and UK. (So far, the single American observer is an active senior participant in the Gore presidential campaign.) Among the observers are parliamentarians, delegates from political parties and organizations, as well as independents like the two participants from Canada. The Canadian delegates have attended political rallies of the three major presidential candidates, in Belgrade and Novi Sad. These events were noisy and lively affairs, without any observable disturbances and any noticeable police presence. Literature was freely distributed and received at these events, in a way no different from political rallies in Canada. One of us (Marjaleena Repo) has paid particular attention to election posters as she has been involved in the long standing and not-yet-finished fight for the right to poster in Canada. And she can report that posters are everywhere in the street scene, accompanied by graffiti and the defacing of each others posters even-steven fashion, it seems. Repo has seen posters at work in downtown Belgrade, with posters urging women to vote, on top of other election messages! She had a chance to discuss this contradiction with five English-speaking Yugoslavian youth, with their buckets and sponges. Unlike in Canadian cities, the posters appear not to be scraped down by city workers, but live to suffer the indignities from competing political parties. In addition, there are huge billboards advertising the three major presidential candidates all around the Belgrade cityscape. All in all, Belgrade has all the appearance of democracy in action... While the Canadian and other Western media have already declared the election to be "rigged" (without any evidence, of course), we believe that the actual evidence for rigging and distorting the Yugoslav election results has been found in the once-democratic countries of U.S. and the European Union, who in an wholly illegal and undemocratic fashion are interfering in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country. This, of course, must be condemned by all true democrats, be they individuals, organizations or nations. www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes] *****************************************
