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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: exhon2004 who wrote (6199)	4/30/1999 11:30:00 PM
From: George Papadopoulos	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

The Balkans: Lies Vs. Facts By Gary Wilson President Bill Clinton says that the U.S. must bomb Yugoslavia because its leader, Slobodan Milosevic, is like Hitler and must be stopped. Clinton even says that if the U.S. doesn't do this, a new world war is certain. Clinton's words are clearly meant to justify the U.S. war against little Yugoslavia. No one in the world believes that Yugoslavia is in any way a threat to the U.S. So Clinton has to say something to justify what would otherwise be seen clearly as a criminal bombing campaign by the U.S. military. But Clinton's statement is so inflammatory that it is clear he does not want any kind of negotiated settlement. The U.S. government is demanding the full surrender of Yugoslavia on terms dictated by the State Department. That's why Clinton is making such extreme statements. However, the facts do not in any way justify U.S. military action against Yugoslavia. Here are some of the things the Clinton administration claims justify its war on Yugoslavia and the answers to those claims. CLINTON SAYS THAT MILOSEVIC IS LIKE HITLER. FACT: Germany under Hitler was a major industrial country, an imperialist power that invaded its neighbors. Yugoslavia is primarily a farming country that has had its small industrial base severely weakened by years of U.S.- imposed sanctions. Yugoslavia has not invaded any other country and has never made any threats to do so. The United States military, on the other hand, has attacked four countries-- Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia--in the last six months. This puts the U.S. at the top of the list of aggressor countries in the world today. CLINTON SAYS THAT THE YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT IS CARRYING OUT NAZI-LIKE GENOCIDE. FACT: The Yugoslav government's policy of defending its own country from attack, both internal and external, cannot be characterized as different from what any other government in the world would do under similar circumstances. A civil war, abetted from abroad, has broken out in Kosovo. As in any civil war there have been casualties, some of them involving innocent people. War is terrible, but it is not genocide. To call what is happening in Kosovo genocide is an affront to those who have been victims of genocide. What is happening in Kosovo now is nothing like the Holocaust of the Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe or the genocide of the Native peoples of North America by the U.S. military in the 1800s. The stories being propagated by the White House, the Pentagon and NATO are intended to justify their military aggression. This is a war against Yugoslavia, and in a war the first thing to question is the daily barrage of propaganda from the officials of the attacking countries. For example, thousands of civilians are reportedly fleeing Kosovo. Why are they fleeing now, after this monstrous high- tech war has begun? The explanation carried by the media comes completely from U.S. and NATO military authorities, who claim the refugees are victims of a Serbian "rampage." No really independent reporting is allowed. The possibility that they may be fleeing because their villages are being destroyed by U.S. and NATO missiles and bombs is curtly dismissed. While the Pentagon claims to be bombing only military sites, its record in every other war says it is hitting both military and civilian targets. In fact, according to a study done by the U.S. Congress, only 40 percent of the bombs used against Iraq during the Gulf War actually hit their targets. Civilian casualties were quite high in that war, and were all caused by U.S. bombs. After just four days of the attack on Yugoslavia the U.S. had killed over 1,000 civilians, according to reports by the Russian government. Yugoslavia is not releasing casualty figures, for the same reasons that the U.S. government refuses to release militarily sensitive information about its planes that are downed. Since most of the NATO bombs have been dropped on Kosovo, that would indeed be a very good reason to flee. CLINTON SAYS THE U.S. IS ENGAGED IN A HUMANITARIAN MISSION. FACT: This isn't the first time Washington has used the humanitarian excuse for outright intervention. The U.S. said it was involved in a humanitarian mission in Somalia in 1993. But U.S. troops were finally forced out by an enraged populace after they assaulted the population and killed 500 Somali civilians, according to the just-published book, "Black Hawk Down." The U.S. also claimed the invasion of little Grenada was part of a humanitarian mission to rescue medical students. There are, however, many places in the world where genuine liberation struggles are being repressed by reactionary governments. And in not one case has the U.S. acted to support those who've been brutally oppressed. Here are just a few examples: * the Palestinian fight for self-determination against the Israeli oppressors; * the Kurdish fight for independence from Turkey, where over 35,000 Kurds have been murdered by the government; * the Tamil fight for liberation in Sri Lanka; * the East Timorese fight for independence, in which a third of the Timorese people have been massacred by U.S.- armed Indonesian forces; * the Zapatista liberation struggle in Chiapas, Mexico, where a massacre by pro- government forces took place in December 1997; * the revolutionary liberation struggle in Colombia that is fighting U.S.- trained death squads. Big powers usually claim self-defense when they launch aggression. They seldom declare they are launching a war for purely humanitarian goals. That has happened only three times in this century. JAPAN'S INVASION OF MANCHURIA in 1931. Japanese imperialists said the invasion was necessary to protect Manchuria from Chinese terrorists. The so-called terrorists were actually fighters for Chinese independence. The attack led to a long and bloody occupation by the Japanese military. MUSSOLINI'S INVASION OF ETHIOPIA in 1935. Mussolini claimed the invasion was necessary to free people enslaved by the Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie. In fact, Italian imperialists wanted to be the slave masters. Selassie's crime was that he resisted their claims to Ethiopia. HITLER'S INVASION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA in 1938. Hitler said the invasion was necessary to end ethnic violence in the Sudeten region. The Nazis had encouraged an anti-Czech movement in the region and then used the repression of that movement as an excuse for invading. Clinton's war against Yugoslavia fits into this same imperialist pattern. Yugoslavia is the only country in Europe to refuse U.S. military bases. At the talks in Paris, the Yugoslav authorities agreed to the autonomy terms for Kosovo demanded by the U.S. government. But they refused to allow Kosovo to be occupied by foreign troops from the U.S. and NATO. For insisting on their rights as a sovereign nation, they were attacked by Clinton's "humanitarian" bombers. -- truthinmedia.org iacenter.org anotherside.org iisd1.iisd.ca

To: exhon2004 who wrote (6199)	4/30/1999 11:33:00 PM
From: George Papadopoulos	Respond to of 17770

This is a definite MUST read, downright hilarious! British Military Convoy Gets Lost ========================= Thursday, April 29, 1999; 1:49 p.m. EDT SALONICA, Greece (AP) -- Dozens of NATO trucks on their way to the [FYR] Macedonian border got lost and ended up at a Greek vegetable market Thursday because protesters removed road signs. The trucks were part of a British convoy carrying military containers and vehicles from Greece's northern port of Salonica. NATO had marked the 38-mile route to the border but locals removed some of the signs to protest NATO's airstrikes against Yugoslavia and the new traffic through Salonica. About 50 of 200 trucks took the wrong turn before leaving the city, said British forces spokesman Maj. Ian Seraph. They wound up at a wholesale vegetable market, from where they had to be escorted to the border by Greek police. ''This was an effort to prove to NATO that the people of Salonica and of Greece are against the bombings,'' said Agapis Sahinis, one of the protesters. ''We wanted to get the message across in a humorous way.'' Greeks maintain friendly ties with fellow Orthodox Serbs in Yugoslavia, and there have been almost daily demonstrations around the country against the alliance's air campaign. There also have been widespread protests against the movement of NATO troops through Salonica, the main supply point for the alliance's forces in [FYR] Macedonia. © Copyright 1999 The Associated Press

To: exhon2004 who wrote (6199)	4/30/1999 11:34:00 PM
From: George Papadopoulos	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

Yugo vs NATO: THE HAGUE hearing on May 10, '99 Yugoslavia institutes proceedings against ten States for violation of the obligation not to use force against another State and requests the Court to order that the use of force cease immediately Hearings on provisional measures to open on Monday 10 May 1999 THE HAGUE, 29 April 1999. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) today instituted proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against (separately and in the following order) the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Portugal and Spain, accusing these States of bombing Yugoslav territory in violation of their obligation not to use force against another State. In its Applications, Yugoslavia maintains that the above-mentioned States have committed "acts by which [they] have violated [their] international obligation [s] not to use force against another State, not to intervene in [that State's] internal affairs" and "not to violate [its] sovereignty"; "the obligation to protect the civilian population and civilian objects in wartime, [and] to protect the environment; the obligation relating to free navigation on international rivers"; the obligation "regarding the fundamental rights and freedoms; and the obligation[s] not to use prohibited weapons [and] not to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to cause the physical destruction of a national group". Yugoslavia has requested the Court to adjudge and declare inter alia that the ten States against which it has instituted proceedings are "responsible for the violation of the above[-mentioned] international obligations", that they are "obliged to stop immediately" that violation and that they are "obliged to provide compensation for the damage done". According to Yugoslavia, the above-mentioned States, "together with the Governments of other Member States of NATO, took part in the acts of use of force against the FRY". Yugoslavia asserts that both military and civilian targets have come under attack during the bombings, causing many casualties ("about 1,000 civilians, including 19 children, were killed and more than 4,500 sustained serious injuries"), enormous damage to schools, hospitals, radio and television stations, cultural monuments and places of worship, the destruction of a large number of bridges, roads and railway lines, as well as oil refineries and chemical plants, resulting in serious health and environmental damage. As the legal basis for its claims, Yugoslavia cites the obligations not to use force against another State and not to intervene in its internal affairs, the provisions of the Geneva Convention of 1949 and of the Additional Protocol No. 1 of 1977 on the Protection of Civilians and Civilian Objects in Time of War, the 1948 Convention on Free Navigation on the Danube, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Yugoslavia further points out that the activities of the States involved are "contrary to Article 53, paragraph 1, of the Charter of the United Nations". Yugoslavia also filed today, in each of the cases, a request for interim measures of protection (provisional measures), asking the Court to order the States involved to "cease immediately [their] acts of use of force" and to "refrain from any act of threat or use of force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". It maintains that if the proposed measures are not adopted, there will be "new losses of human life, further physical and mental harm inflicted on the population of the FRY, further destruction of civilian targets, heavy environmental pollution and further physical destruction of the people of Yugoslavia". At a meeting held today, the Court decided that hearings on provisional measures would open on Monday 10 May 1999 at 10.00 a.m. They are expected to last two days. Vice-President Weeramantry will exercise the functions of the presidency in all ten cases, President Schwebel being a national of one of the Parties. ____________ The full texts of Yugoslavia's Applications and requests for the indication of provisional measures will be available shortly on the Court's website (http://www.icj-cij.org). ____________ NOTE FOR THE PRESS 1. The public sittings will be held in the Great Hall of Justice of the Peace Palace in The Hague, the Netherlands. Mobile telephones and beepers are allowed in the courtroom provided they are turned off or set on silent mode. Any offending device will be temporarily retained. 2. Members of the Press will be entitled to attend on presentation of a press card. The tables reserved for them are situated on the far left of the public entrance of the courtroom. 3. Photographs may be taken for a few minutes at the opening and at the end of the sittings. Television crews may film, but advance notice should be given to the Information Office (see paragraph 7). 4. In the Press Room, located on the ground floor of the Peace Palace (Room 5), the Court's proceedings will be relayed through a loudspeaker. 5. The verbatim records of the public sittings will be published daily on the Court's website. 6. Members of the Press who wish to make telephone calls may use the phone located in the Press Room for collect calls or the public telephones in the Post Office in the basement of the Peace Palace. 7. Mr. Arthur Witteveen, Secretary of the Court (tel: 31-70-302 2336), and Mrs. Laurence Blairon, Information Officer (tel: 31-70-302 2337), are available to deal with any requests for information and for making arrangements for television coverage.