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ELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 19 — In his race for re-election, President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia is running against NATO and the United States, not against his democratic opposition.
He is not entirely mistaken to do so. The United States and its European allies have made it clear that they want Mr. Milosevic ousted, and they have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to get it done.
Portraying himself as the defender of Yugoslavia's sovereignty against a hostile, hegemonic West led by Washington, Mr. Milosevic and his government argue that opposition leaders are merely the paid, traitorous tools of enemies who are continuing their war against him by other means. In March 1999, NATO began a 78-day bombing campaign to drive Serbian forces out of Kosovo.
The Yugoslav elections are on Sunday, but there has hardly been a day since the bombing began that state television news has not railed against "NATO aggressors."
With the campaign at its height, the government has spread its attacks to include all opposition political parties, independent newspapers, magazines and electronic media, the student organization known as Otpor — or Resistance — and any nongovernmental organization working to promote democracy, human rights or even economic reforms.
While Mr. Milosevic is trailing the main opposition leader, Vojislav Kostunica, in opinion polls, the anti- Western campaign is having an impact. The money from the West is going to most of the institutions that the government attacks for receiving it — sometimes in direct aid, sometimes in indirect aid like computers and broadcasting equipment, and sometimes in suitcases of cash carried across the border between Yugoslavia and Hungary or Serbia and Montenegro. Most of those organizations and news media could not exist without foreign aid in this society, which is poor and repressive and whose market is distorted by foreign economic sanctions.
Even with foreign aid, government restrictions on newsprint supplies and high and repeated fines after suspiciously quick court cases make it hard for the independent news media to reach their natural market.
As for the opinion polls that show Mr. Kostunica in the lead, the information minister, Goran Matic, charges that the polls are orchestrated and manipulated by the Americans and the Central Intelligence Agency, who help pay for them. According to Mr. Matic, Mr. Milosevic is actually far ahead of Mr. Kostunica, and the polls simply serve as a vehicle for the opposition to claim that the government stole the election once Mr. Milosevic wins.
Mr. Matic asserts that the Atlantic alliance has come up with various scenarios, such as infiltrating soldiers wearing Yugoslav Army and police uniforms, to make it possible for the opposition to start civil unrest in the streets after the election while claiming that the police and the army are actually on their side.
Mr. Matic has attacked various nongovernmental organizations, including the Center for Free Elections and Democracy, which is trying to monitor the fairness of the election, as paid instruments of American and alliance policy. Many such organizations have been raided by the police, who confiscate computer files and also appear to be gathering evidence about foreign payments.
"President Milosevic will win this election," said Ljubisa Ristic, the president of the Yugolav United Left party, founded by Mr. Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic. "This is not Hollywood." Washington and the West, she said, "are like little kids, wanting something to happen so much they're fooling themselves."
Mr. Ristic said the alliance's war produced a new solidarity among Yugoslavs and "killed many illusions people had about the West and about their own opposition leaders, who went to the countries that were bombing us to seek their support."
The issues, Mr. Ristic said, are clear now. "It's a decisive time," he said. "This is not an election so much as a referendum, a decision on being an independent country or a colony. People see what's happened in Kosovo, what happens when NATO troops enter the country, and they are not going to allow the alliance's hand- picked candidates to win."
Even before the Kosovo war, the United States was spending up to $10 million a year to back opposition parties, independent news media and other institutions opposed to Mr. Milosevic. The war itself cost billions of dollars. This fiscal year, through September, the administration is spending $25 million to support Serbian "democratization," with an unknown amount of money spent covertly to help the failed rallies of last year, which did not bring down Mr. Milosevic, or to influence the current election. For next year, the administration is requesting $41.5 million in open aid to Serbian democratization, though Congress is likely to cut that request.
Independent journalists and broadcasters here have been told by American aid officials "not to worry about how much they're spending now," that plenty more is in the pipeline, said one knowledgable aid worker. Others in the opposition complain that the Americans are clumsy, sending e-mails from "state.gov" — the State Department's address — summoning people to impolitic meetings with American officials in Budapest, Montenegro or Dubrovnik, Croatia.
But there is little effort to disguise the fact that Western money pays for much of the polling, advertising, printing and other costs of the opposition political campaign — one way, to be sure, to give opposition leaders a better chance to get their message across in a quasi-authoritarian system where television in particular is in the firm hands of the government.
While that spending allows the opposition to be heard more broadly, deepening the opposition to Mr. Milosevic, it also allows the government here to argue that it has real enemies, and that the Serbian opposition is in league with them.
Just today, in the state-run newspaper Politika, a long article used public information from the United States — including Congressional testimony and Web site material — to show that the United States is financing the opposition.
" `Independent,' `nongovernmental' and `democratic' are the standard phrases the C.I.A. uses to describe organizations established all over the world to destroy the governments and the societies that the U.S. government wants to colonize and control," the paper wrote.
The Congressional testimony, from July 29, 1999, cited American officials then involved with Yugoslav policy, like Robert Gelbard and James Pardew, telling Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware about their projects. They describe the creation of a "ring around Serbia" of radio stations broadcasting into Serbia from Bosnia and Montenegro, the spending of $16.5 million in the previous two years to support "democratization in Serbia," and another $20 million to support Montenegro's president, Milo Djukanovic, who broke away from Mr. Milosevic in 1998.
The testimony listed some of the recipients of American aid here, including various newspapers, magazines, news agencies and broadcasters opposed to Mr. Milosevic, as well as various nongovernmental organizations engaged in legal defense and human rights and projects to bring promising Yugoslav journalists to the United States for professional training.
All such projects are portrayed by Politika and state television as a way to undermine the legal government, and the recipients are labeled traitors to their country.
Opposition leaders like Mr. Kostunica regard such tactics by the government as crass propaganda, but even he is skeptical of American intentions in paying for nongovernmental organizations, some of whom, he believes, are even unconsciously working for American imperial goals and not necessarily Serbian values.
Other democratic leaders, like Zoran Djindjic and Zarko Korac, regard such attacks as an indication of Mr. Milosevic's desperation and anxiety on the eve of the first election he is likely to lose in his entire political career. Given the stakes for Mr. Milosevic, they believe that he will do all he can, including the wholesale stealing of votes, to ensure a victory in the first round of voting.
"The stakes are fundamental for Milosevic," Mr. Korac said. "These elections are crucial, not necessarily for the immediate handover of power, but because for the first time Mr. Milosevic will be delegitimized in the eyes of his own people. He was an elected dictator, with popular and legal legitimacy. But from now on he's a true dictator, and he will only be able to rule by force — that's a big step for Serbia."
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much of this article first appeared at www.tenc.net, the haughty erlanger quotes extensively from www.tenc.net w/o attribution.
This information also appeared on Freerepublic a few days ago. As always Freepers are way ahead of the curve.
fyi
fyi
bttt
URL for
this article is
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/scam.htm
Click here for printable version.
The Nuts & Bolts of a Scam...
How the U.S. has Created a Corrupt Opposition in Serbia
www.tenc.net
[Emperor's Clothes]
A statement by
1. Jared Israel
(www.emperors-clothes.com) USA
2. Max Sinclair (www.emperors-clothes.com) USA
3. Professor Peter Maher, USA
4. Karen Talbot (Covert Action Quarterly) USA
5. Professor Michel Chossudovsky, Canada
6. Niko Varkevisser (Global Reflexion) Netherlands
We the undersigned care very much what happens to Yugoslavia. The loyal Yugoslavs have shown us the meaning of bravery and dignity. They have shown us and millions of others that we can stand up to the nation-destroying empire called the New World Order, led by the Establishment in the USA.
From our vantage point in the West, we would like to relate what we know about Western interference in Yugoslav society and the current elections.
The Yugoslav opposition coalition calls itself "democratic and independent."
However, our research shows it is controlled by Washington, by the same people who spent the last ten years trying to break up Yugoslavia.
In July, 1999, the US Senate held hearings on Serbia. The Special U.S. Envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, his assistant, James Pardew and Senator Joseph Biden all testified. They stated clearly that the US pays and controls the so-called "independent democratic" opposition.
The day before the hearings the United States Senate voted to give this opposition one hundred million US dollars. Special Envoy Gelbard said: "In the two years leading up to the Kosovo crisis, we spent $16.5 million on programs in support of Serbian democratization." He added that more than $20 million had been given to Milo Djukanovic who heads the government in the Yugoslav Republic of Montenegro.
This money has funded, or even created, political parties, radio stations, even trade unions. If any hostile foreign power did that in the USA their local agents would be thrown in jail.
Here's Gelbard's assistant, James Pardew:
Sen. Joseph Biden didn't feel that the measures which Pardew described went far enough:
Gelbard tried to defend US government policy, pointing out that during last year's war against Yugoslavia, the US had indeed "shut down" Serbian TV - by bombing it:
Senator Biden interrupted, afraid that Gelbard would say too much:
"GELBARD: Well, as far as I'm aware, Serb television has still been cut off the EUTELSAT facilities, and we have made sure that whenever they made an attempt, we shut them off those."
The Mechanism, for Subverting Yugoslavia
Gelbard testified that the US government distributes money in Yugoslavia through "The National Endowment for Democracy" which calls itself a "non-governmental organization." But it is NOT non-governmental. It is funded by the US Congress.
The National Endowment was created in 1983 to solve a problem. People knew that the CIA bribed people and set up phony front groups to carry out US policy.
"When these covert activities surfaced (as they inevitably did), the fallout was devastating." ('Washington Post', Sept. 22, 1991)
So Congress set up the National Endowment for Democracy to try to do openly what the CIA used to do secretly. This had a big advantage. Since the subversion wasn't secret, how could it be exposed?
With vast sums of money, the National Endowment and its daughter groups recruited "democracy activists" and "peace activists" and "independent economists" from target countries. These people were wined and dined and paid well. Plenty of expense money. Fellowships and scholarships and internships. They were made to feel they were tomorrow's leaders in the American Empire.
These "activists" proceeded to set up "independent organizations" in their home countries and then applied for money from the National Endowment (which had recruited them in the first place!) Isn't it amazing? The National Endowment always gave them the money!
Meanwhile, the National Endowment recruited reporters from the same countries. These were also wined and dined and paid and thus were transformed into "independent journalists." They took over newspapers, radio and TV stations, or set up new ones. These "independent journalists" could then use their newspapers or TV shows to defend the "democratic activists." If anyone accused the "activists" of being agents of the U.S., the "independent journalists" would denounce this as an attack on "freedom" by "entrenched, corrupt interests" who hide behind "nationalism"!
Allen Weinstein directed the research study that planned the National Endowment. He explains:
How clever! Like magic, "agents" became "activists." Organizations and people who did what the US government told them to do were "the institutions of civil society." Leaders who opposed US attempts to destabilize their countries were "corrupt nationalists " who "opposed to freedom". Listen to this statement from US Secretary of State Madeline Albright, delivered to a meeting of the National Endowment for Democracy, held by the US State Department, in Germany:
Never has bravery been so well funded.
What is the point of this huge network of "independent" front groups? It is used to soften up the target countries, making it easier for the US to take over, politically and economically. And if the US succeeds in taking over, the "institutions of civil society" can be used to undermine resistance to the horrible effects of being made a US colony.
Buying Democracy
In a Dec., 1998 report, The National Endowment for Democracy described some of the groups it has set up and/or taken over in Yugoslavia. This is not a complete list. We hope to uncover more:
"Western organizations should increase direct support to the independent media in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. Special attention should be given to supporting the independent electronic media in Serbia, such as Radio B-92 and TV Negotin, Assistance should target the establishment of small "underground" print shops and distribution networks.
"The West should help the democratic political opposition develop a concrete program which offers positive alternatives to the destructive policies of the Milosevic regime. Democratic think tanks, independent research organizations and expert groups should be supported to develop these alternative policy recommendations. In addition to assistance in policy formation, [National Endowment for Democracy] organizations should continue to provide opposition political parties with expertise in coalition building, message development, media outreach, improving the operations of party branch offices and election monitoring.
"Democratic forces in Montenegro, including media, think tanks, student groups, human rights organizations, must be supported financially, and nurtured.
"One of the most important tasks is to increase cooperation between trade unions and political parties. In addition, independent media must be encouraged to report on the work of independent organizations." [End of Quote] (1)
We urge you to keep in mind that the terms "independent," "democratic" and "non-governmental" are codenames used by the National Endowment for "Democracy" to describe organizations they create around the world to bring down governments and societies which they wish to re-colonize, break up or control.
Meanwhile, back at the Senate Hearings, Senator Biden and Special Envoy Gelbard had the following exchange about the Serbian "democratic opposition":
"GELBARD: No, he's actually given access to Studio B to Radio B-92, [which] has just reopened as Radio B-292. We want Draskovic to open up Studio B to the rest of the opposition, and that's a message that he'll be getting from us in the next few days."
Gelbard was Clinton's top adviser on Yugoslavia. Biden is a leading anti-Serb US Senator. These two men are so involved in the control of the Serbian "independent" opposition that they know - up to the minute! - whether Draskovic, Djindjic and Djukanovic are properly sharing office space and broadcast time at Studio B in Belgrade.
One of the supposedly independent groups funded through the National Endowment for Democracy is the G-17 group of so-called "independent" economists. G-17 and the "democratic opposition" have been doing what Gelbard and Biden want them to do. They have been meeting for months to plan for the current Yugoslav elections.
Backing a Single Candidate
On August 2, 'Agence France Presse' reported that a delegation from the "democratic opposition" met behind closed doors with the Montenegrin leadership, trying to convince the Montenegrins to support the "democratic opposition" candidate for President:
"The Serbian delegation, included Zoran Djindjic of the Democratic Party and Vojislav Kostunica of the Democratic Movement for Serbia (DSS), the most likely Milosevic challenger.
"The meeting took place a day after US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic in Rome and urged Yugoslavia's opposition groups to drop threats to boycott the elections and unite to defeat Milosevic. ..." ("Agence France Press," August 2, 2000)
Here's some more information on the trip Albright made to Rome, where she met Djukanovic:
"In addition to election issues Albright said she had discussed with Djukanovic ways in which to increase assistance to Montenegro which is in the throes of an economic crisis. ("Agence France Presse," Aug. 1, 2000, my emphasis)
So Albright offered Milo Djukanovic money if he would support the so-called "independent" opposition.
At first Djukanovic refused. Kostunica criticized him publicly for not joining the team. Then, on September 11th, Djukanovic endorsed Kostunica. Albright got her money's worth.
It was a stroke of luck for the US agents in Yugoslavia, working with their National Endowment for Democracy handlers, to maneuver Kostunica into the no-win situation of joining Djindjic and Djukanovic and numerous others under the umbrella of USA sponsorship.
Kostunica has a very weak organization. He therefore depends on the US-controlled parties, groups and mass media to campaign. If he were to win the Presidency, the local US puppets (Sorry! the "democratic activists") would staff his government.
This "democratic opposition" has endorsed a Program written for them by G-17, the group of neoliberal economists in Belgrade, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy. This Program is posted on the websites of both G-17 and the "student group", Otpor. The program has a list of points which the "democratic opposition" is pledged to carry out were they to win the presidential and/or other elections. Here are some of the main points:
1. The "democratic opposition" program proposes the option of adopting the German Mark as a legal currency for the whole of Yugoslavia, following the lead by NATO forces in Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro. This would immediately impoverish the Yugoslav people by making the country an economic dependency of Germany.
2. The "democratic opposition" program calls for ending all price controls. No subsidized food, no social protections. Working people, including a million refugees whose conditions are already difficult, would be buying food at Western prices but without Western wages.
3. The program calls for the immediate shock treatment of introducing a full capitalist society without first providing Yugoslavs with the necessary financial means to participate in such an economy. The result would be the transfer into foreign hands of control of the entire Yugoslav economy. Similar provisions for the application of so-called "modern economic ideology" have already succeeded in destroying Russia's economy.
4. Curiously the "democratic opposition" program makes no mention of NATO's criminal aggression against Yugoslavia.
5. The program calls for slashing public spending, demilitarization, radical tax changes, drastically limiting the power of the central government. All these measures set Yugoslavia up to be controlled from the outside.
6. The program would accept the US dictate that Yugoslavia no longer exists and that Serbia must come on bended knee to Washington to be recognized anew. This would mean the immediate surrender of all the assets and historical rights of the Yugoslav state. These assets include billions of dollars worth of embassies, the Yugoslav navy, the air force, bank accounts frozen all over the world, foreign assets, property assembled by the Yugoslav people since the end of World War I.
Kostunica's candidacy is nothing more than an effort to paper over the easily recognized faces of the United States' discredited agents in Yugoslavia.
An Honor Roll of the Discredited
The coalition backing Kostunica includes:
What is the US Government Trying to Do?
The US government wishes to crush the Serbian and other pro-Yugoslav people as a force capable of resisting US/German domination of the Balkans and the East. There is nothing new about this. The German establishment has been trying to crush the Serbs as a political force for more than a hundred years.
Senator Biden said it quite clearly in the July 29, 1999 hearings:
Note that by "extremes" Sen. Biden means: people who refuse to kneel before the U.S. boot.
Do Biden and Gelbard and the other U.S. puppet masters believe Kostunica can get enough votes to win? We doubt it. After all, his campaign apparatus consists of people who are discredited as US agents.
But if Kostunica did win, it would be great for the US government. Regardless of Kostunica's intentions, he has a very small organization and the US-paid opposition forces, who are numerous, would flood his government apparatus.
The US would then use its dominant position in such a Yugoslav government the same way it has used its dominant position in Kosovo. Since NATO marched into Kosovo 15 months ago, about 350,000 ethnic Serbs, Gypsies, Slavic Muslims, Croatians, Jews, Turks and anti-fascist ethnic Albanians have been driven out. Even the UN admits that Kosovo has been turned into a gangster's paradise. Tens of thousands of women have been kidnapped by the US ally, the Kosovo Liberation Army, and forced into prostitution. This is what Yugoslavia could expect if the US agents got their hands on the government.
Look how the US has treated its allies, the pro-Islamist Bosnian Muslims and neo-Nazi Croatians. All things considered, these groups did not profit by being obedient to their US and German masters. By every standard of measurement they are worse off today than before they illegally left Yugoslavia. Or one can look at other countries. Take Russia. The Russian government was fully obedient and adopted every horrible measure the US "advised" . They helped the United States crush the Russian economy. And what did the people get? The worst poverty since World War II. A falling population. But the population of Serbia has resisted for the last ten years. If they were to stop now, if they were to fall for the nice words, "freedom" and "democracy" and "modern economic measures", as others have fallen for these words, what could they expect? Could they expect to be treated as "well" as the Russians and Bulgarians who as nations have not resisted? No. Yugoslav loyalists would get the special treatment the US gave the American Indians. Do you know what they used to say? "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
If the US, were to get control of the Yugoslav government apparatus they would try to crush the people. KLA terrorists would infiltrate all over the country. NATO would try to disarm the people while fascists destroyed Serbian culture. People would be expelled with nowhere to go. Prices would shoot sky high. Industries would be seized. Secret lists of phony "war crimes" suspects would be used to arrest or shoot any leader who resisted. It would be open season on Serbs and other Yugoslav loyalists. Of course, the Yugoslavs would not take this like lambs. Such a government would be driven from power by the ordinary people.
For ten long years the people of Yugoslavia have seen the evidence that the US government has no mercy. We believe the Yugoslavs will not drop their resistance now.
Footnotes:
1. The full text of the July 29, 1999 Senate hearings on Serbia can be read at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/hearin.htm
2. The NED report is a "Statement by Paul B. McCarthy, National Endowment for Democracy to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe". It can be read at (http://emperors-clothes.com/news/ned-1.htm )
3. For more on G-17 see the article "Who is G-17, IMF Medicine in Disguise" by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky. (It will be posted shortly at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/G-17.htm )
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bmp
To read what this country is doing around the world and especially in the Balkans makes me want to puke, right on clinton's famous desk. Bush and that other war monger Cheney are even worse, if possible. God help this country, it's in bed with the Devil!
If this goes down as the author of this article has described, then I believe it is safe to say that World War III has begun and we will sow the harvest we so richly deserve for allowing such demons as Biden and others to float along with a free hand for so long. I believe that if Yugoslavia has it's back to the wall - then it will not matter who is their leader - Milosivic or otherwise - they will fight to the last man and this will erupt all over Europe and the Caucusus. At that point it's 'Katy bar the door!"
I would not say that the whole country is in bed with the Devil because a great majority of people here are true believers in GOD. Unfortunately, most powerful decision makers in present (and next coming) government believe in Lucifer and THEY definitely are in bed with the Devil. That makes you, me and all other honest people of this country responsible and subject to Last Judgment, since WE elected them and gave them power to act like brutal masters of the world.
It's not the question of us knowing what is going on and what is our governmet doing to innocent people around the world and particularly in Serbia, anybody with little bit of brain and intelligence can see that - the question is HOW TO STOP these madman from of destroying whole Serbian nation? By insisting that they already "know" oposition is going to win elections in Yugoslavia this coming Sunday (September 24th) and that Milosevic will not recognise that victory, they are already preparing public for military intervention (this time for full occupation with ground troops) to "help democratic people of Serbia".
Again, is there any way to stop these madman of even trying to realize their evil plans?
And the United States citizens are having their money sent to other countries to control the politics there? The United States government has problems in the United States, so sounds as if we need a party other than the republicrats. We are voting 2nd party.
Hey, the first two started here. Every time a nation has had the ambition of conquering the "Guardians of the Gate" as the Serbs are called, their empire turned to dust. Witness the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Nazis and their Axis-power friends.
It would bode well for our local boys who would wage war on such a state to look at and learn from their history - or they too shall be doomed to repeat it.
You are right, Red Wizard, except for one thing. World War II did not start in the Balkans. It started when the Germans invaded Poland.
In skimming this article, I see nothing to support the hyberbolic "Suitcases of Cash" to Yugo opposition headline. Maybe I missed it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
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