The unusual trial of Nicholas Rebic for a hostage taking incident in Bosnia is proceeding in Ottawa at this time
.Hostage taking is a ruse of war that has been used since time immemorial. It is certainly repugnant to contemplate, but it is not generally the subject of a criminal charge against an individual, presumably acting under military orders. During the Civil War in Yugoslavia. a Canadian citizen, Nicholas Rebic, returned to his homeland and acted as an interpreter for the Serbian forces in Bosnia who were fighting to be allowed to remain in Yugoslavia. Under the skillful public relations campaign mounted by the U.S. firm Ruder Finn and the broadcasts by Christine Amanpour of CNN. the Serbians had been stigmatized as guilty of "ethnic cleansing". In consequence NATO in February 1994 began to act as an Air Force for the Muslims who are simply the descendants of Serbians who took the Muslim religion when the country was conquered by the Turks In order to prevent the bombing of their Artillery positions and ammunition dumps the Serbians in late 1994 seized a total of forty military peace keepers including some Canadians and proposed to secure them in the target areas as human shields. Among these hostages was Canadian Army Captain Rechner. Directly involved in his capture was fellow Canadian Nicholas Rebic who was already known to him through occasional social meetings. Rechner was chained to some object in an Ammunition dump at Pale over several weeks., but not otherwise ill treated . . The charge against Rebic appears to be the only one laid out of forty incidents. It clearly relates to his Canadian Citizenship and the circumstance that he was a Serbian. No attempt is made to charge those others who were involved in this incident, nor those involved in hostage taking of other Canadians . It is well known that a number of Canadians of Croatian origin returned to Yugoslavia for service to that defecting Republic. One prominent Ottawa business man who raised ample funds in Canada for Croatia became the Defense Minister in Franzo Tudjman's regime . Geoffrey Wasteneys 259 Faircrest Road K1H 5C9 Tel:,613 7336152 ======= http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20021010/UB OSNM /International/international/internationalEuropeHeadline_temp/1/1/4/ Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
