The Truth As We Know It
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It is important in our search for the truth to set the base line for the process. The point of this discussion is not to justify Serb’s behavior in this war. Yes, the Serbs have committed atrocities and war crimes. So have Bosnian Muslims and Croats, m ost likely numerically fewer than the Serbs. One could suspect that we shall never know the whole truth, even when the new territorial boundaries are determined.
But there is yet another aspect of the crime in this conflict. The European Union and the United States are as guilty of it as the Balkan warring parties. Western allies have induced civil war in the former Yugoslavia by recognizing the independence of Sl ovenia, Croatia and Muslim Bosnia too soon. Even worse, they accepted every propaganda manipulation that was served to them and consequently ended up plainly on the side of the Croats and Bosnian Muslims.
The conversion of the West to Croat/Bosnian point of view was a slow and deliberate process that involved many different facets. The United States media and the United States Congress were used as the main conduit for the achievement of Croat’s and Bosni an Muslim’s political and territorial goals. It was easier for the Croats since they already had influential friends (the Republic of Germany and the Vatican) as well as a vibrant, amply financed emigrant organization in the United States. But the Muslims caught up with the Croats quickly. With hundreds of millions of dollars donated by the Arab countries, Bosnian Muslims embarked on a crafty manipulation of the facts.
First, they selected well-spoken personalities who are appealing on television: Haris Silajdzic, Muhamed Sacirbay and Ejup Ganic. They have good command of the English language and became their main spokesmen. Then, they created events to talk about: the market place and the bread-line massacres, the shooting of an old woman at the cemetary, firing rockets at the Muslim presidency building in Sarajevo during the international visits, just to name few. All of the atrocities that, by the reports of the Unit ed Nations personnel serving in Bosnia, were inflicted by Muslim armed forces on their own people, in order to blame the Serbs.
Television events were also carefully orchestrated for the international press corps, such as the trial of Borislav Harek, interviews with the raped women, horrible pictures of children disfigured by explosions, and crafty news segments designed by the ch ampion of Bosnian Muslim cause, CNN reporter Christiana Amanpour, etc. The timing of those events was essential as well. Every time the American media showed the signs of loosing interest in this dragged-out war, some new and even more outrageous event took place. The next step was to select proper semantics that were accepted uniformly throughout all of US media. It was a subtle, but effective campaign. It took few years of careful crafting by paid PR firms and lobby groups. Here is the laundry list of the most fr equently used phrases: "Self-proclaimed Serbian Republic" ..."Self-styled parliament"... "Serbian strong-hold of Pale" ... "Rebel Serbs vs. Government troops"... "Rape camps"... "Ethnic cleansing" ... "Serbian aggressors"... "Greater Serbia" and two recy cled terms from WW II: "Genocide" and "Holocaust."
The use of this kind of language was dangerously misleading and must be debunked. It might have felt soothing as the soul food for the Western "save face" need, or as a morale booster for the macho school of war-mongering. But the truth is really quite di fferent.
"Serbian aggressors": The Serbs simply could not be the "aggressors" since they are the indigenous population of Bosnia. They lived there since the eighth century AD. Sixty percent of the region is land legally owned by the Serbian farmer families . On March 2, 1992 The New York Times reported on the Bosnian election results: "The Serbs, most of whom boycotted this weekend’s vote, have formed a parallel ‘Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina’ and have threatened to secede from the existing republic if it is recognized as an independent country. Serbs control about 60 percent of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s territory and warn that they are ready to defend it with arms if need be."
When the war started on April 1992, the same newspaper insisted that the Serbs "seized 70 percent" of Bosnian territory, a lie that has become the cornerstone of every article written about Bosnia in the United States. The Serb Republic of Bosnia’s gover nment clearly stated that they were ready to negotiate the peace and the establishment of new borders on the bases of the "Contact Group" plan, yet the Muslim government is the one that did not agree - former President Carter and Gen. Donovan testified to that at the Congressional hearing in June 1995. Shortly after the expiration of truce that President Carter negotiated, Muslims started new attacks on the Serbian positions that precipitated in the Serbs taking over the towns of Srebrenica and Zepa in Ea stern Bosnia.
"Ethnic cleansing": The phrase is used as if the Serbs have invented the newest and the most evil deed. The fact is that some kind of "ethnic cleansing" existed in any war since time immemorial. Every nation on the face of the Earth is guilty of it . From Babylonians and Romans to the Turks, Pakistanis and Germans. Let us not forget that the one who practiced it for a long time and with extreme zealousness was the United States of America. Native Americans could tell us the stories of "ethnic cleans ing" that equal the ones in the former Yugoslavia. Of course the impartial observer could say that this is different since it is happening today, and in Europe, mind you! Yes, it is true. Western culture is still chauvinistic. The plain truth is that the Croats are doing it, the Muslims are doing it, and the Serbs are doing it. They all must stop. And the American media would serve the cause of peace much better if it stops being biased against the Serbs.
Croats "cleansed" 58,000 Serbs from Western Slavonia in 1991 and an additional 12,000 in May 1995. They razed 180 Serbian villages and destroyed more than 100,000 Serbian homes. They also "cleansed" 24,000 Serbs from Mostar. And finally, the grandest "eth nic cleansing" of the whole war in the former Yugoslavia was performed by the Croat war machine when they expelled 175,000 Serbs from Kraina in August, 1995. United States ambassador to Croatia rushed immediately to explain to the world that this act was not the act of "ethnic cleansing." Yes, Mr. Ambassador, sir, it was a pleasant walk on the beach!
What the Croatian Nazi government began in 1941 in the concentration camp Jasenovac, known throughout the world as the Yugoslav Auschwitz, by murdering 650,000 Serbian civilians; the Croatian government of the Nineties have completed, with the tacit appro val of the European Union and the United States government. After fifty years of dormancy Croatian nationalism triumphed. The Croatian army, trained by the retired American generals and amply supplied by the German government, finally created ethnically p ure Croatia.
And the world stood still in consent. Not even a slap on the hand!
Unlike the reaction to the Serbian expulsion of Croats and Bosnian Muslims, when the NATO’s bombs and guided missals rained on Serbian towns and villages. The Serbs stood alone again.
Also, Bosnian Muslims "cleansed" 28,000 Serbs from Bihac; 63,000 from Zenica; 67,000 from Tuzla; 20,000 from Gorazde and Srebrenica, just to name the major cities.
"Rape camps": In Newsweek issue of January 1993, a sensational story claimed that 50,000 Muslim women were raped in the Serbian "rape camps." The leading article writer, Tom Post, admitted a few months later that he interviewed only 22 women on wh ose stories he based his estimate. Furthermore, the entirety of all Bosnian Muslim government records about the alleged rapes is astoundingly slim. Instead of 50,000 cases it shows only 125 victims, 113 incidents and 73 witnesses. All major US magazines a nd newspapers jumped on the bandwagon and spread the lies about 50,000 rapes.
UN’s document #S-24991 contains the legal deposition of 800 Serbian rape victims. These rapes occurred from May to September 1992. These rape stories appeared on the international wire service on 22 separate occasions, however not one single story was wri tten in any US magazine or newspaper, nor reported on any TV or radio news.
The most revealing proof that 50,000 rapes were the invention of Muslim propaganda machine is that Bosnia was not inundated with tens of thousands of new born babies a year later.
"Genocide" and "holocaust": Genocide is a deliberate and systematic destruction of racial, ethnic or religious groups. Holocaust is a sacrifice consumed by fire. Both of these words are grotesquely inappropriate for the events of the Civil War in the former Yugoslavia. These two expression are forever reserved for German Nazis’ deeds, and must not inflame the already hot situation in the former Yugoslavia. The Muslim propaganda machine was working overtime to implant these terms in the US Senators vocabulary. Sadly they succeeded.
No one should accuse the Serbs of committing "genocide" when there are 50,000 Muslim refugees who live in Belgrade alone. None of them are hiding in the attics or basements from the "Nazi Serbs," like the Jews had to do in Germany, but they live a normal life. More than 10,000 Muslim solders fought side by side with their Serbian counterparts against Bosnian Muslim government troupes in the area of Bihac. If one accuses the Serbs of "genocide" practice, then the Croats and the Bosnian Muslims are guilty o f the same. There are more then 600,000 Serbian refugees who are "cleansed" from Muslim and Croat-held territories.
"Greater Serbia": The right to "self-determination of the people" is enshrined in the several major international documents such as the Atlantic Charter, United Nations Charter, and The Universal Convention of Rights. Yugoslavia’s birth was based on these documents; so should be the Yugoslavia’s dissolution. There is also a long legal trail of internationally guaranteed rights for Serbian people to be free and united.
The London Agreement of 1915 contains an explicit commitment by the Entente Powers to respect the "ethnic and historic right of the Serbs to the entire territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to the Adriatic coastline south of the city of Sibenik." The Co rfu Declaration of 1917, where all South Slavs agreed to form Yugoslavia, stated: "It is fully implicated in the Corfu Declaration that the right of secession, should the Yugoslav union be dissolved, resides also with the constituent people of the newl y created state, and not with the administrative units within it."
Point 11 of President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points of 1918, granted Serbs access to the sea.
"Greater Serbia" is not the monster that the Western media characterize it to be, but represents the legal right of all Serbs for self-determination. It is worth noting that all Serbs from Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Kraina prefer to prese rve "Yugoslavia" as the name of their country. It is truly ironic that the whole European Union and NATO rejoiced when Greater Germany was reborn, but the Serbs are threatened to be bombed into oblivion for fighting to retain the same rights. |
