Byzantine Blog

An opinion writer and contributing editor for FoxNews.com and JewishWorldReview.com, Julia Gorin is a journalist known for her courage and honesty, great sense of humor and a rare and admirable ability to see through the smoke screens and go straight for the jugular.

Her well-researched articles about the truth behind the Serb-bashing, published and republished in numerous online magazines with the astounding number of regular daily visitors, like FrontPageMagazine.com, OpinionJournal.com or JewishWorldReview.com have managed to cut through the misinformation, half-truths and outright lies regarding the civil wars in former Yugoslavia and continuous demonization of Serbian nation.

A member of the Advisory Board of American Council for Kosovo, Julia has taken an active role in helping Serbs keep their Jerusalem within Serbian borders, thus permanently adding her name to the rather short list of Serbian friends at the time when the only thing that pays off is being an enemy to Serbs.

Julia Gorin now has the show we can support by giving it five stars (and it deserves all five of them), in order to help ourselves for a change, by helping our great friend and a precious truth-speaker get even more prominence. (I don’t know about you, but I would definitely prefer seeing Julia Gorin as Larry King’s guest once a month, instead of having to suffer through Bill Mahr’s narcissistic ramblings every now and then, for the rest of Larry’s life!)

Please vote for Julia’s “America Show,” both on Yahoo Talent Show and YouTube - that is the least we can do for Julia as a small way of saying “Thank You” for saying the things no one else will!

Posted by Svetlana at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Croat Vandalizes Jewish School in Vienna

Jerusalem Post, Austria school vandalism ‘no surprise’, by Rachel Beitsch

A man in police custody admitted vandalizing a Jewish school in Vienna, an investigator said Monday.

The man, whose name has not been released, is probably a Croatian from Zagreb who came to Vienna as a tourist a week ago, said Andreas Krajcsy of the Vienna police’s section on state protection and anti-terrorism. Windows at the school were smashed early Sunday. He is suspected of smashing windows and damaging other objects inside the school.

Austrian authorities were sending a photo and fingerprints of the man to their Croatian counterparts to confirm his identity because he did not have a passport on him, Krajcsy said. Croatian authorities have already confirmed the existence of a person bearing the name given by the suspect.

“It was anti-Semitic. He told us he didn’t like Jews,” Krajcsy said.

Austria Protects Croatian Nazi War Criminals

Following the act of vandalism, Ephraim Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that it was not surprising “that events like this take place in a country that protects Croatian Nazi war criminals.”

He referred specifically to the case of Milivoj Asner, “a Croation Nazi war criminal living in Klagenfort whose extradition has been sought for over a year by the Croatian authorities who want to put him on trial for his role as the police chief of the city of Pozega during.”

The Austrians, he said, “refuse to send Asner back to Croatia despite the fact that he’s not an Austrian citizen and there is ostensibly no reason that they haven’t acceded to Croatian extradition request.”

He concluded by pointing out that Austria “has not successfully prosecuted Nazi war criminals in more than 30 years, and in that atmosphere of impunity, perhaps it’s not surprising that such terrible events take place.”

Ariel Muzicant, the head of Vienna’s Jewish Community, expressed shock and disbelief at the devastation. “One asks oneself however, what goes through the mind of a man who attacks a school and destroys so much,” Muzicant was quoted as saying.

He did not provide an estimate of the damage caused.

“We’re now in the process of putting everything in order,” he said.

Croatia Whitewashing its WWII Genocide Against Serbs Again

On the other hand, reporters-turned-lobbyists like Nicholas Wood will tell you Serbs are paranoid and like to “exegerate” the genocide of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies committed by the monstrous Croat Ustashas in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina during the WWII, “for political reasons.”

In a recent article about the new museum in Jasenovac, the site of Croatian concentration camp which the German General Von Horstenau called “the most wicked of all (...) where no ordinary mortal is allowed to peer in,” Wood miraculously manages to avoid the single word that is at the very core of the subject he used two pages to cover: genocide.

Not surprisingly, this reporter/lobbyist remains conveniently blind to the fact that the new Croatian government, supposedly democratic, supposedly “trying to shed light on dark chapter in its history” (not what it really was -- organized, planned, open and celebrated genocide, but merely a “dark chapter” in otherwise spotless Croat history), is shamelessly revising and downplaying the number of its Jasenovac victims AGAIN.

The “new” Jasenovac museum puts the number of its victims at less then 70,000 -- over ten times less than Serbian Orthodox Church recorded, and almost ten times less than the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s records show. Both Nicholas Wood and Croats seem to be blissfully unaware that Croatian hero Petar Brzica has alone, singlehandedly, slit the throats of 1,360 Serbs in only one Jasenovac-night, thus winning a title of the King of Cut-Throats and the prize (a gold watch, a silver service, a roasted sucking pig and wine) in Ustasha competition of who will slaughter the largest number of Serbs during one night. Over 10 thousand of Serbs were slaughtered in that one night alone. To say that during the entire war no more than 69,842 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were killed in the worst Croatian slaughterhouse is offensive beyond words.

Not only is the new “museum” purposefully avoiding to even mention that the vast majority of Ustasha victims were of Serbian ethnicity and Eastern Orthodox faith, it also focuses on few personal stories of the survivors, erasing every trace of the horrendous cruelty and degradation (“the unspeakable swineishness,” as General Horstenau called it) Ustashas were notorious for, capable of making even the German stomachs turn.

To top it off, Wood is citing “museum’s” director, who had the audacity to boast of creating a politically correct-ed, sanitized version of a genocide “memorial,” while blaming the Serbs for remembering their dead, adding: “There is nothing here that can be used for political propaganda or hatred.”

What a bizarre, ludicrous, shameful statement! One would think the purpose of the memorial was to honor hundreds of thousands of innocent victims of a mass-slaughter during the WWII that took place at Jasenovac concentration camp, by (finally!) telling the truth: what went on there, why, to whom and by whom -- JUST TELL THE BLOODY TRUTH, THAT’S YOUR JOB, don’t talk to me about “political propaganda”!

This way, apart from the fact the “museum” itself is nothing more than a monument to Croat/Nazi propaganda, with the sole purpose of continuing the whitewashing of genocide of Serbs perpetrated by the Croat fascists in WWII; apart from the fact the Politically Correct-ed Jasenovac is just the latest Croatian Holocaust revision; apart from the fact this exhibition (showing nothing, blaming no one, honoring no one, hurting no one and disturbing no one’s digestion) serves only to advance Croatia’s bid to enter the (equally Nazi) EU... apart from all that, there really is nothing that can be used for “political propaganda” there whatsoever: there is nothing BUT (Croat) propaganda enshrined in the new Croatian “museum,” a mockery of a memorial and an insult to the memory of every single victim, butchered for no reason other than the fact they were not Roman Catholic Croats.

After visiting the Whitewashed Jasenovac, the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Israel office, Ephraim Zuroff blasted the new monument to Croatian Propaganda:

“I saw an exhibition which was a big disappointment,” Efraim Zuroff wrote in an article published in the weekly Globus.

“To my disbelief, there was not a single photograph of the commanders of Jasenovac,” he said of the camp at which his organization [Simon Wiesenthal Center] estimates some 600,000 mostly Serbs and Jews were killed during World War II.

Zuroff said that any young visitors to the museum would “leave probably more confused then they were before” they visited an education center on atrocities committed at the camp by the Ustasha regime.

“In a museum dealing with nameless Ustasha (members), no individual can be made responsible,” said Zuroff.

“More importantly, it lacks materials or explanations about the development of the Ustasha ideology before the war -- hatred against Serbs and Antisemitism, which helped the spread of genocidal policy,” he added.

Then again, perhaps Croats and truth simply can’t be used together in the same sentence, regardless of which government comes to power.

P.S. The book about genocide Croat Ustashas have perpetrated in the fascist Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, The Vatican’s Holocaust by Avro Manhattan is available online in its entirety.

Posted by Svetlana at 08:46 PM | Permalink

Kosovo Albanians Launch Attacks at the U.N. in Serbian Province

Source: Reuters

PRIŠTINA, Serbia, 28 November 2006 -- U.N. police in Kosovo fired teargas to disperse ethnic Albanian mob attacking the U.N. HQ on Tuesday.

Thousands of protesters demonstrating against U.N.-led efforts to decide the fate of the breakaway province smashed windows and threw blocks of concrete and red paint on the U.N. Headquarters in Pristina, Kosovo parliament and government building during a surge of violence in the province capital. The violent Albanian mob has also partially dismantled a wall around the UN’s HQ.

A Reuters reporter said they dispersed after U.N. riot police fired teargas from inside the U.N. compound.

The U.N. mission in Kosovo province has been targeted by grenade attacks and shootings before. The current wave of violence targeting UNMIK came in response to decision this month by major world powers to delay a decision on the demand for independence of Serbian Albanians occupying southern Kosovo province until next year.

The United Nations, which has run Serbian southern province since NATO’s aggression on Serbia in 1999, reported “credible threats” against its personnel and property in Kosovo province on Monday. It said it was stepping up security but did not link the warning to Tuesday’s protest.

The organizer of the violent demonstrations, a group called Self-determination, has in the past vandalized U.N. vehicles and buildings, and the group’s Albanian Muslim leader, Albin Kurti, a former prisoner in Serbia, has been apprehended by the U.N. police and released several times already. The U.N. statement said attacks against U.N. personnel and property are “destructive and counterproductive” and represent a setback for Kosovo at a critical stage in the negotiations with Serbia.

Kurti has promised more violence in the Serbian province, telling the crowd “Pristina is the center and source of all the bad things that are happening to Kosovo.”

Speaking of Kosovo province’s Albanian political leaders, he said: “We are 99 percent, and they are only 1 percent, sitting in their offices.” The mob gathered around Kurti claims Serbian Albanians in the Kosovo province should have the right to vote for their independence, rather than negotiate with Serbian government.

Negotiations began in February, but have produced little sign of compromise. U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari (a.k.a. Adolfsen) is due to present his proposal on “final status” after the Serbian election.

Albanians in Serbian State Remove Serbian, Display Albanian Flag

PREŠEVO, BUJANOVAC, Serbia, 28 November 2006 -- Albanian minority in Preševo removed the Serbian flag off the municipal building and instead displayed three Albanian flags.

Preševo municipal president Ragmi Mustafa told journalists that the display of Albanian flags instead of the Serbian should “not be viewed as an incident”. Meanwhile, Democratic Union of the Valley president Skender Destani, also an Albanian Muslim, expressed his dissatisfaction with the act, and said it left him “surprised, depressed and offended.” He told journalists that had he seen the flag removed and replaced, he would have left the Flag Day celebrations. He also asked the authorities to establish who is responsible for the event.

Local minority Albanians gathered in another town of the region, Bujanovac, have placed the Albanian flag alongside the Serbian, displayed on the municipal parliament building.

Some 2,000 local Albanians, mostly elementary and high school students, took part in the Preševo Flag Day celebrations.

The organizers played the Albanian national anthem, after which the gathering paid tribute to the dead members of the officially disbanded branch of terrorist KLA/UCK -- Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac Liberation Army (UCPMB). The stage holding the choir collapsed at the end of the ceremony, but no one was injured.

Albanian terrorist KLA organization has attempted to spread its brand of terrorism beyond Kosovo and Metohija province, into Serbia proper and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, right after NATO troops occupied Serbian Kosovo province, in 1999. At the time, they changed their terrorist organization’s initials, from KLA (UCK) to UCPMB on the north of Kosovo province in Serbia (in the area of the so-called “demilitarized zone”), and NLA in FYR Macedonia, in order to create confusion and the impression these are different Albanian terrorist groups operating in neighboring areas. On the Serbian side, they were quickly pushed back to UN/NATO-created KLA safe-haven -- Kosovo province -- by the Serbian forces.

Posted by Svetlana at 07:42 PM | Permalink

Spain Requests Respect of Serbian Territorial Integrity

Spanish Foreign Minister Migel Anhel Moratinos stated that Spain believes the territorial integrity of Serbia regarding its Kosovo province must be respected and that everyone in the international community must adhere to principles of the Helsinki Charter on inalterability of borders in Europe.

He pointed that the international community cannot impose right to self-determination of Kosovo and Metohija as a region within Serbia as a sovereign state. Moratinos said that the independence of Serbian Kosovo province would present violation of principles the EU defined which relates to unacceptability of creating states on a purely ethnic basis. The EU resolutely supported these principles in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and their violation in the case of Kosovo province might lead to destabilization in the region, warned the Spanish Minister.

Confirming Minister Moratinos’ statement, Spanish State Secretary for European Affairs Alberto Navarro has reiterated the position of Spain that Madrid is opposing the independence of the Serbian province. “We believe that it would not be a positive step towards strengthening the stability and democratic forces in the region. In our view, the Helsinki principle of the integrity of internationally recognized borers is still in power,” said Navarro. He stated that independent Kosovo province would be in opposition to the EU principles, i.e. the establishing of multi-ethnic countries, adding that the experience of Spain is a good example for resolving the Kosovo issue.

Romania Against Granting Independence to Serbian Kosovo Province

BOR, Serbia, November 26 (Beta) -- The Romanian ambassador to Serbia says Kosovo’s independence would destabilize the region.

“Romania favors broad autonomy for Kosovo, agreed on though a direct dialogue of Priština and Belgrade. In case of an unprecedented decision to grant Kosovo independence, other separatist regions throughout Europe would see this as encouragement to continue with their demands,” ambassador Ion Macovei said today in Bor, where he attended a meeting of the Vlach Democratic Party of Serbia.

According to him, this position was recently relayed to NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop-Scheffer.

The ambassador also said Bucharest had no territorial claims over those parts of Serbia inhabited by majority Romanian and Vlach population.

“The Romanian minority in Serbia and the Serb minority in Romania must enjoy all the rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, and continue to be loyal citizens of the states where they live,” ambassador Macovei said.

Few days earlier, Romanian President Traian Basescu confirmed Romania’s opposition to formation of another Albanian state on the Serbian territory, warning that such move would create a precedent affecting dozens of frozen conflicts around the world.

According to the APA Eastern bureau, President Basescu considers that the recognition of Kosovo’s independence can be precedent in the solution of other frozen conflicts. “If the reason for the recognition of Kosovo’s independence is that 84% of its population consists of Albanians, this precedent can be applied to Transdniestria and other conflict regions,” he said.

Romanian President said that the extent of autonomy, the preservation of culture and traditions of national minorities, not the establishment of new states, can be discussed in the process of solution of frozen conflicts.

Russian State Duma: Russia’s Principled Stand on Kosovo

Recently, Deputy Chairman of Committee on Energy, Transportation and Communications of Russian State Duma, Mr. Sergei N. Shishkarev felt compelled to respond to Washington Post iditorial, explaining that Russia’s opposition to Kosovo independence is a principled stand firmly rooted in the international law, and not a whim or a sentimental caprice as Washington Post would have you believe. Mr. Shishkarev wrote:

Right now the United States and Russia need to deepen their cooperation on such top-tier issues as North Korea, Iran and the Middle East. In this context, The Post’s suggested “in your face” approach to Russia’s role in finding an equitable and stable solution to the festering problem of Kosovo is both surprising and troubling [“Here Comes Kosovo,” editorial, Nov. 10].

It is ironic that The Post accuses the Putin administration of a policy based on threats and violence, when it is in fact precisely threats and violence that underlie the demand for Kosovo independence. (Or as it is euphemistically phrased in the editorial, “Putting off Kosovo’s independence would only enrage the province’s 2 million Albanians and trigger the Balkan meltdown that the West hopes to avoid.”) It is just that kind of violent rage that has driven from Kosovo two-thirds of the province’s pre-war Serbian population (and many people in other ethnic groups) and destroyed some 150 Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries. Rewarding such behavior with an imposed solution would only encourage more of the same and lead to a meltdown all parties hope to avoid.

The Russian government properly insists that the future of Kosovo can only be decided through negotiation and adopted in a manner consistent with the U.N. Charter and the Helsinki Final Act.

This is not a cynical ploy, as The Post supposes, but the principled position of a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

American voters sent their government a strong message regarding the consequences of actions undertaken in violation of norms of international behavior. I trust that message was not limited to Iraq.

Ceku’s Visit to Moscow Unofficial, Based on Consultations with Belgrade

WASHINGTON, DC, November 27 (American Council for Kosovo) -- Regarding the forthcoming unofficial visit to Moscow of so-called “Prime Minister” of the Serbian province of Kosovo, Agim Ceku, the American Council for Kosovo submits for the consideration of the Russian government and people, and of international opinion generally, the following:

Ceku’s visit to Moscow is not an official one, as confirmed by the Russian Ambassador in Belgrade, nor is his visit on the initiative of Russian authorities. To the contrary, his visit was agreed to by Moscow only after repeated requests from Ceku himself and, according to press reports, following consultation with Belgrade.

Bolstering Serbia’s Territorial Integrity

Accordingly, Ceku’s visit to Moscow should not be taken as a sign of a shift of Russia’s position in favor of Kosovo Albanian demands for the illegal and forcible detachment of Kosovo from Serbia. To the contrary, as stated by State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachyov, the Russian decision finally to agree to Ceku’s request is aimed at “bolstering Serbia’s territorial integrity and preventing [an imposed] decision on Kosovo’s status.”

The fact that Russian authorities are even willing to meet at all with a person of Ceku’s odious record is a testament to the extent to which Moscow is determined to consult with all sides of the Kosovo conflict in an effort to reach a just settlement. Ceku, formerly military commander of the so-called “Kosovo Liberation Army” (KLA), is a terrorist and a war criminal, no better than the late Shamil Basayev and Khattab in Chechnya.

War Criminal Agim Ceku

According to the 2002 Serbian indictment for genocide and other grievous offenses, Ceku bears command responsibility for the murders by KLA terrorists of 669 Serbs and 18 members of other ethnic groups, 518 counts of inflicting serious bodily harm (including torture) and wounding, and 584 counts of abduction, many of the victims of which are presumed dead.

Ceku was named military commander of the KLA in May 1999. The following month, after the end of hostilities between Serbia and NATO forces, KLA terrorists under Ceku’s command intensified their attacks on civilian Christian Serbs, driving two-thirds of them from the province, as well as against Roma (Gypsies), Croats, Jews, Ashkalis, Gorani, and other non-Muslim or non-Albanians in Kosovo. Over 150 Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries have been demolished or desecrated. Prior to his affiliation with the terrorist KLA, Ceku was responsible for numerous atrocities in other parts of the former Yugoslavia. (Further background about Ceku’s record and his unfitness to claim leadership of an independent state is available from the American Council for Kosovo, specifically the Council’s statement of June 19, 2006).

Albanian Failure to Secure Russian Support

Ceku’s visit to Moscow comes as Kosovo Albanians and their supporters have launched a desperate diplomatic and public relations blitz in an effort to regain lost momentum in light of the postponement of any decision on Kosovo’s final status, once said to be “inevitable” by the end of 2006. Despite claims that independence will be announced soon after Serbia’s January 2007 elections, there is no credible expectation that an illegal solution to the Kosovo problem, imposed under threat of terrorist violence from Ceku and his associates, will be any more viable than it is now.

The American Council for Kosovo appeals to the Russian government and people to ensure that Ceku’s Moscow visit is used as an opportunity for a firm and conclusive restatement of Russia’s principled position: that no solution may be imposed on Serbia without Serbia’s agreement or in violation of the United Nations Charter. The unmistakable reality is that Kosovo independence is off the table.

The prospective failure of Ceku to secure Russian support for his cause should be seen as an opportunity for the international community to shift decisively to an effort to find a real and lasting solution for Kosovo within a democratic, European state: Serbia. Such a “European solution” for Kosovo, in accordance with the U.N. Charter and the Helsinki Final Act, would address the legitimate needs of all of Kosovo’s residents regardless of ethnicity or religion, and would be the product of genuine negotiations -- which have yet to begin. It’s now time for responsible representatives of Kosovo’s Albanian community to step forward to work with Belgrade for such a solution.

Posted by Svetlana at 09:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Freedom-Loving Serbs Do Not Seek Admission to Autocratic Clubs

Recently, Mary asked for assistance on one of the lists I’m a member of. Her grandson’s high school teacher has asked the students to write an essay in response to the question “What has Serbia contributed to the world that would give reason for them to be permitted to become a member of the European Union?”

After a number of interesting letters and suggestions listing great Serbs and Serbian sacrifices through the history, John Bosnitch responded with the following letter. It is, to date, the most thorough and the most educated snapshot of the world history and the role of Serbia in it that I have had the pleasure to read, so I’m passing it on:

Dear Mary (Last Name),

Might I ask you to please pass this letter on to your grandson with my best regards? You said he was a good student, so I hope he likes reading -- this is long, but the correct way to respond to (not answer) the question he has been posed requires extensive historical background.

I have been reading with interest all the responses that have flowed in to help your grandson tell his teacher why Serbia should be permitted to join the European Union. It has been a pleasure to read the many interesting stories and historical facts submitted by our list members. But I have yet to read the response that I expected most of all:

Serbia and the Serbian people have no reason, now or ever, to justify themselves or their conduct to anyone other than God. Not only that, but furthermore, it is the essence of the freedom-loving Serb not to seek admission to any club in which he would be anything less than the most sought-after invited guest.

This is the answer that the teacher needs to hear because it is the answer most consistent with our character, our history and our destiny.

Anti-Serbianism Goes Far Back in History

The fact that our nation is being dragged through the mud by the media today is nothing new. We were a primary target of Hitler’s propaganda machine ahead of and during World War II, and before that of the racist Austro-Hungarian press and that of German Kaiser Wilhelm as they prepared their public to applaud the butchery that their forces practiced against civilian Serb men, women and children in World War I. They killed us in the millions.

As for America’s belated involvement in both of those wars, they joined those wars as our allies, supporting our struggle and not the other way around. The “Allies” was our club -- they were the “Johnny-come-lately.” When the Allies paraded in Paris, we marched in the place of honor. Internal Central Power documents show that World War I was decided when Serbian forces broke through the Salonika front and threatened to drive straight to Vienna. German General Ludendorf passed the Kaiser the news that all was lost and Germany surrendered. So, although the allies helped divert the Germans, we beat them. In World War II, the delay that Hitler needed to defeat Yugoslavia before attacking Russia is considered the main reason for his defeat -- he was subsequently beaten in Russia by “General Winter” in a campaign that was supposed to have finished before it became so cold that his tanks’ tracks would freeze solid.

Leaving the World Wars aside, the anti-Serbianism goes much further back. Bismark considered Serbia to be the main threat to Germany as well. It was he who orchestrated the German policy of interference in the Balkans. It was Germans who supported and continue to support the most extreme Albanians against the Serbs, just as they support the Turks against the Russians. We are known as the stone that can’t be swallowed in the Balkans and indeed, in Europe as a whole. When Hitler conquered Europe, the resistance started in Yugoslavia, among Serb monarchist guerrillas. (The Partizans joined the resistance only later, when Stalin reversed his orders for them to assist the German invaders of Yugoslavia -- after Hitler surprised him by invading Russia).

Proud and Free Nation

So you might be wondering, what did we do to deserve all this hatred?

It certainly originates in response to our national character. We once had a great empire and thanks to our Church and national epic poems/songs we have remembered that fact. A nation is like a baby -- once it has stood on its feet, it seldom wants to get back on its knees. And our empire was one known for its principles and for the rights it gave its people. We were lucky to be guided by our national patron and religious leader, Saint Sava, who instilled the principles of Christianity in the bosom of the state. This kind of a background is hard to wipe away. We certainly started out no more noble than any other nation, but our leaders in those old days led us to the high road and the Church maintained our identity through an amazing effort of national survival during 500 years of occupation under the Ottoman Turks.

Suffering makes good, strong people. The trait of perseverance, once learned through hardship is hard to lose. The Turks hardened us, they made us more stubborn than we were and more determined than almost any other nation in Europe. So, when we emerged by force of our own arms from enslavement after Black George’s [Karadjordje] uprising in 1804, we rose as a nation, proud and free. Families like mine, who were well-to-do, automatically donated as much as they could to the uprising. My family donated carriage-loads full of sugar to Karadjordje’s troops and asked for not a cent back after the uprising succeeded. The nation came first. Money wasn’t even a close second -- for any of us.

Unforgivable: Following a Pig Farmer Instead of a German Prince

So Serbs re-emerged on the European scene, but surprisingly there was little welcome for us. Think about it. There were a mere handful of countries in Europe, most of them grand empires. At the start of the 1800s there were Great Britain, Spain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Russia in Europe with few small states at all. Then, suddenly, Serbia arrives and insists on recognized, equal statehood. And it does so under a leader who was not a so-called “blue-blood” (Black George Petrovic, called “black” because of his uncontrollable temper, was a pig farmer before taking up the sword for his nation). The old noble families from the Nemanjic imperial era, mine included, without any second thought ceded any hereditary claims and instead supported the creation of a new modern popular monarchy, leaving Serbia’s extinguished medieval empire to history. And so a pig farmer became our leader. It was unheard of in the whole of Europe. And more important still, when we finally did get international recognition, we refused to accept a German-blooded prince as the head of our statelet.

Being in high school, especially in America, you might be wondering what I am talking about when I speak of German-blooded princes. Here’s the story they don’t teach in most schools:

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Western Europe descended into a period of barbarism seldom even imagined. Law meant nothing and bandits harassed travelers and raided towns and villages across the lands. Vikings attacked the shores, raping, raiding and murdering. The papacy was traded among families like a trinket. In response to all this, warlords eventually sprang up in centers of population, building castles into which villagers could flee when the masses of bandits raided their lands. These warlords slowly extended some minimal protections to areas around their castles in return for lifelong servitude of the people who lived as serfs on the land -- unable to travel or leave their feudal master’s domain on pain of death.

Amid all this servitude, the [Roman] Catholic church attempted to reassert some kind of order, although it continued to conduct its religious masses only in Latin so that no normal man had any idea what was being said (serfs were illiterate, there was no schooling, and Latin -- well that was something only the feudal lord and his family might have learned from an imported tutor). Even reading the Bible was impossible, for it too was only available in Latin. So there was a mass of uneducated people, enslaved as serfs, led by brutal warlords who maintained such nice customs as the “right of the first night” in which every groom could be ordered to send his beautiful new wife up to the “lord’s” bedroom before he, as her husband, could spend his first night with her. Even if such institutionalized and generally brutal rape sounds a “bit” un-Christian, there was nothing to worry about -- the “lord” could summon the [Roman] Catholic priest to the castle the very next morning, pay him some money and give him some wine, and have the priest absolve him of his sins... routinely. The Protestants hadn’t surfaced yet.

German Warlord Inherits Roman Empire

This horrid society all took some form of permanent order after several hundred years of brutal animalism. Then the Pope in Rome realized that he could make a deal with one of the rising great warlords named Karol. Karol was a warlord of the largest nation in Europe, the Germanic tribes. Karol had gone far beyond conquering and subjecting only the lands around his castle. He was such a powerful warrior that he conquered neighboring warlords as well. Eventually he had what looked like a real kingdom. But he wanted his creation to last. What is taken by the sword can be lost by the sword just as quickly. He needed legitimacy. He wanted to create something like the Roman Empire, which still existed far to the East in Constantinople, but was only a distant dim memory in Western Europe.

Remember, at the end of its existence, the Western Roman empire was not the empire of Julius Caesar or Nero. It had learned of the usefulness of wrapping itself in the cloak of divine legitimacy -- it had adopted Christianity to become simultaneously a military empire and a religious system. When the empire fell, the church tried to retain its power. The Pope wore an imperial crown just like an emperor (something they no longer do for public relations reasons, although they still keep the crown) and ran a control system modeled on dioceses that mimicked the former Roman imperial administration. They also ran the world’s most advanced spying network -- everyone who wished to avoid eternal damnation had to report once a week to the church to make a confession of all their sins to the priest. The priest usually worked hand-in-hand with the feudal master, so the two of them knew of every crime, every lie, every case of incest or rape, right from the perpetrator’s own mouth... and effectively had a complete grip on the community through blackmail. That system is something the CIA or former KGB could only envy.

Well, the bloodied warlord and the spying Pope made a deal. Warlord Karol would travel down to Rome with his barbarian lieutenants (they all stayed for just a few days) and the Pope would crown him, not as a king, but as the emperor! Yes, the emperor of Rome, simultaneously extending Karol’s kingdom across Europe and extending the [Roman] Catholic church to the north out of its physical enclave around Rome. And so a deal “made in heaven” was reached. And from then on, [Roman] Catholic priests rode out into battle beside German Christianized barbarians bringing death and destruction to any who would not convert to the new world order. How do you think that the Polish Slavs ended up being 99% Catholic and not Orthodox like the rest of the Slavs? Simple, the Teutonic (Germanic) Knights drove east into the Slav lands carrying a cross in one hand and a sword in the other. These German “Christians” killed with no hesitation anyone who did not convert -- after all, killing an infidel was not a sin. So the Poles became Catholics, and from this “noble” origin they eventually got Pope John Paul II.

German Barbarian Turned Roman Emperor Conquers Europe

In any event, from the glorious start of Karol, the German barbarian turned “Holy Roman Emperor,” there was a new order in Europe. As the emperor, he become the blood source of almost all European monarchies. The system was both genetically based (to gain legitimacy, all monarchs were expected have some kind of blood link to the emperor or to marry a woman related to him) and religiously based (the crown of each king had to be blessed by the Pope). Even we Serbs came close to joining this system at one stage -- the first crown ever delivered to a Serbian king in the Nemanjic era came from the Pope in Rome, before our nation turned its eyes irrevocably east to Orthodoxy and sent back the poisoned crown.

In the modern era, by the time Serbia regained its freedom from the Ottomans, the European monarchies were all German. Of course the Germans ruled the many German principalities, the German Hapsburgs ruled Austria, the German Hanovers ruled England (they changed their name to Windsor in WWI for better public relations), the French Bourbons were the descendants of Karol, who was called Carolus Magnus by the Pope (in Latin) and thus Charlemagne or Charles the Great in French and English, the Spanish Bourbons were and still are of the same family, the Italians would be ruled by Lombardi Germans, and then Piedmont-based Germans, the Greeks would soon get a German king, as did the Bulgarians and Romanians and so on. Even the Romanovs of Russia were so intermarried with German princesses that starting from the founder of the dynasty, Mikhail, every single reigning descendant (except Aleksander III) married a German princess... including the final Tsar Nikolas II, whose wife Alexandra of Hesse was denounced as the “German” by rebelling Russians, just as the French people turned on the wife of Louis XVI likewise decrying the “German” (she was an Austrian Hapsburg) for exactly the same reason: People don’t like being ruled by foreigners.

Serbia Endures Without a Degenerate German Princeling at its Helm

You might have heard of Serbia being described in recent years as a “pariah state” (an outcast, coming from the term for the “dirty” untouchable caste in south India). If you have, take no heed. We have been a pariah nation since long before the demonization that we have suffered in the past two decades. We were considered pariah from the very moment at which we chose a native king to rule our land instead of inviting some degenerate unemployed German princeling to become our titular head. It might not seem like much of an issue today, but it was about as unimaginable an idea in Europe to have a native, non-German king as it would have been to have a Black president in the USA in the 1950s.

Yet we endured. We had our native Church, our native monarchy, our native language (Croats were speaking Hungarian under Austro-Hungarian rule for centuries; Slovenes spoke German, Bosnians were still occupied by Turkey...), and our own unique phonetic alphabet. All of this helped make us the strongest nation at the center of the Balkans, blocking German expansion to the southeast and to their anti-Russian ally Turkey. The mix of hatred and secret envy of Serbian freedoms (remember we were never serfs, but the Croats and all other Europeans were) generated anti-Serb cartoons in European papers over the past two centuries that make the lies they have been telling about these days seem tame by comparison. Only the Jews and maybe the Gypsies (Roma) ever suffered anything like the discrimination we have faced.

For example, now you can see the roots of Yugoslvia’s involvement in the non-aligned movement even during Tito’s era. We have a tendency toward independence and freedom that comes to us naturally.

European Union Grown Out of the Rivalry of German Tribes

Which brings me to my advice as to what you should write in your report to your teacher....

[...] The question was:

What has Serbia contributed to the world that would give reason for them to be permitted to become a member of the European Union?

So let’s dissect this nonsense question. Since when was a “contribution to the world” a condition for EU membership? (Was Germany’s world contribution the Holocaust? And was Spain’s the Inquisition -- or was it its wanton rape and pillage of the New World?) Since when should we Serbs, at the heart of Europe, need permission from anyone to be European? (Remember all that opportunistic Western propaganda about Sarajevo being the very heart of Europe -- well, let’s flip it back at them.) And then let’s ask what authority the EU had in international law to appropriate for its currency the name “euro” without automatically allowing all Europeans right up the Ural mountains the right to call it their own. They certainly have no trade mark on the word Europe -- it belongs to all of us. So, the EU is obviously not synonymous with Europe. Which means that we need to define what, in fact, it is...

If you search a little bit, it won’t take you long to find that the EU grew out of an economic alliance between the ruling capitalists of Germany and France to end their hundreds of years of civil war. Why do I use the term “civil war” to describe World War I and World War II and the many France-Germany wars before that? Because all of them were based on the rivalry between two groups of Germans; those who stayed in Germany and the Franks (a German tribe) who left Germany to drive West and subjugate the Gauls (who lived in the old Roman province of Gaul that has since been renamed “France” in honor of its German conquerors). The Germans on both sides of Alsace-Lorraine then fought over that territory for centuries after King Lothair, one of three German descendants of Karol, died without a successor and his cousins to the east in Germany and to the west in France could not agree on who should get his kingdom... (Lothair’s kingdom = Lothair’s regnum (Latin) = Lorraine).

German Saddle Doesn’t Fit on Serbian Back

Many millions of deaths later, these two groups of Germanic peoples decided to stop massacring each other and build a common market based on cooperation first in steel development and production, later in other areas and finally in the form of the EU. The French ruling elites revealed their true roots by submitting largely to German leadership and we now have a new Europe ruled primarily by Germans who have enticed other nations to join through economic incentives -- bribery if you like. For many, the financial offer is more important than anything else -- after all, these are nations that have all been ruled by foreign, German kings for most of their history, so the saddle still fits nicely on their backs.

But Serbia is different. We have never submitted to the German-dominated systems -- neither Hitler’s, nor the Kaiser’s, nor Bismark’s, nor the Austrian German variants before that. We have grown to love freedom more than money, or at least that has been our character until now.

Joining the German-Led Europe Involves Surrender of Sovereignty

And so we face a historic challenge. Shall we finally join the German-led Europe after all these battles for our freedom?

If it were merely a free-trade deal like NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) the loss of sovereignty would be limited and Serbia would remain an independent state. But that is not what the EU represents. Instead the EU represents an effort of the ruling classes of each member state to form a common union in which the economic reward is merely a bribe in search of the surrender of sovereignty -- which is their trophy. With national independence snuffed out, the EU ruling elites will eventually operate the place as a single country, ruled mainly from Berlin and the European central bank in Frankfurt. It will have its own army and all the member states will have to send troops to participate in its “adventures.” In Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Sudan, and maybe even in Russia, young Serb men would be in arms, extending Western-style “freedom,” the essence of [Roman] Catholicism and “human rights” to our brother Slavs at the end of a rifle barrel.

The costs sound bad, so what about the benefits? Well, being at the far end of the new German empire, instead of seeing things flow our way, we would certainly see all of our best and brightest youth heading to the center of European power in flows so great that they would dwarf the past flows of Yugoslav gastarbeiters (guest workers) into Germany, the brain drain that we have seen during or since these latest Balkan wars, and certainly the period of forced indoctrination of Serb youths in Ottoman Turkey as kidnapped janissaries.

Most of the main economic activity in the EU is based in the center of the EU -- in Germany and France. They make the AirBus planes and Mercedes cars -- we might be “permitted” to make some tires for each of them. Our free-for-all agricultural industry will be totally mechanized and the early-morning markets in the piazzas (public squares) will be replaced by sterile supermarkets full of frozen foods -- have you ever tasted a tomato anywhere in the EU (or even America) that tastes as good as a fresh tomato from an open market in Serbia? No, I did not think so.

As a sign of things to come, as soon as the pro-EU opposition seized power in their October 2000 coup in Serbia there were hundreds of truckloads (hundreds of thousands of tons) of genetically modified soy beans (unwanted anywhere else) being dumped into northern Vojvodina as the first doors opened to “superior” Western and EU goods. Since then, German investors have bought up most of the privatized Serbian industries, and even the media. Today, Germans own the main newspapers that Serbs read in Belgrade. Entry to the EU will make the surrender of Serbia’s independence and the collapse of national self-sufficiency even more complete.

And all trade, not just agriculture, will be regulated by the most massive and inhuman bureaucracy ever seen... a bureaucracy based not in Serbia but in faraway Brussels. For more reasons to stay out of the EU, check the web site of the United Kingdom Independence Party (it is very interesting to hear people talking this way from INSIDE the European Union).

Serbia Should Stay Out of the EU

So in fact, your teacher’s question should not have been the misleading one that you received. Countries entering the EU are not judged on their world contributions, but instead on their level of servitude and willingness to be ruled from abroad in return for some small change. One day, the EU might become a better thing, after this model collapses, and it might be replaced by a real free-trade zone without the loss of national freedoms. That might be something to consider. But for now, Serbia’s best bet is to stay out, raise financing independently (perhaps from the booming economies over here in Asia, where I have lived for years) and build a vibrant economy that serves the interests of the Serbian people before all else. With that goal achieved, we could wait for the inevitable gold-embossed invitation from the EU or its likely successor organization and negotiate whatever we like from a position of strength rather than from our knees as beggars.

Don’t let the wrong question confuse you... no matter how many Teslas or Pupins or raspberries, soccer championships, or guerrillas wars of resistance, or anything else we can claim, the only thing that counts is our willingness to submit, be ruled and smile at the thought of it. Serbia is the richest country in the Balkans. It sits on the crossroads of land and water transport to the east and the south. We can name our price for anything we are asked to do for Europe. But if Serbia is thrown open to the EU now, before we can compete properly, it would only be because our current rulers hope to skim a nice percentage for themselves, personally.

Let’s stay in step with people like the British UKIP (Independence Party), Switzerland, and Iceland... people who know the difference between a con and a good deal.

Correct Your Teacher’s (Misleading) Question

Back to the classroom scenario... Might I suggest that you rewrite the question and answer your own new question? Simply tell the teacher that the premise of his question was false -- world contributions are not criteria for EU admission. Then, to prove that point, refer him to this page, which lists the Copenhagen Criteria which are the REAL conditions for EU membership.

It might be of some interest that even I, a staunch anti-communist, doubt that the EU membership condition of having a “market economy” can be reconciled with the EU’s stated commitment to “democracy.” The European Union cannot really be democratic when its own charter outlaws Communist “planned economies” even if the people of an EU state freely elect a Communist government. So there is certainly more here than meets the eye... and less freedom in the EU than you might imagine.

I suggest that you might write a much more interesting and informative paper, entitled “The pros and cons for Serbia seeking EU membership, now or in the future.”

I was also a top student in high school and my best teachers appreciated it when I “corrected” their questions. But even if we aren’t dealing with your “best” teacher, I would still correct his question...

Why? Because it would be the Serbian thing to do!

Sincerely,
John Bosnitch
Tokyo

Posted by Svetlana at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Slovenia Forcibly Removes Its Undesirables

A frequent Balkan news commentator and reporter Nicholas Wood (who probably can’t remember what he had for breakfast, but won’t forget to mention, in one way or the other, that Serbs are guilty for just about everything) will tell you the violent outbursts of racism exhibited in former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia are something rather new and unexpected.

In his latest article about the forceful expulsion of Roma families, threats, violence and even murder of Gypsies by the Slovenians who simply don’t want anyone with darker skin or non-Slovenian living among them, Nicholas’ shock and disbelief is almost palpable, from the title (Hounding of Gypsies Contradicts Slovenia’s Image) down:

Half a mile short of this picturesque village in central Slovenia, two brick houses and a cluster of sheds lie empty. A baby’s stroller sits abandoned outside, and chickens and geese race about, apparently unfed, all evidence of a rapid departure by the family that lived here until just over a week ago.

The Strojans, an extended family of 31 Gypsies, 14 of them children, fled the property on Oct. 28, after it was surrounded by a mob from Ambrus and nearby villages, threatening to kill them and demanding their eviction. While the police kept the crowd back, Slovenian government officials negotiated the family’s removal to a former army barracks about 30 miles away.

The scene is at odds with an image of Slovenia as the most advanced and wealthiest of the 10 Eastern European states that joined the European Union two years ago. Slovenia prides itself as being free of the ethnic tensions that dominate the rest of Yugoslavia, from which Slovenia broke free in 1991 after a 10-day conflict. Since then Gypsies, also known as Roma, have been the victims of sporadic assaults, including a grenade attack last year in which two women, a mother and her 21-year-old daughter, were killed.

While none of the Strojans were seriously hurt in the incident here, rights groups say the government’s role in the forced removal of the family makes it one of the most serious such incidents in Europe in a decade. And now other municipalities are calling for the removal of Gypsies.

“Gypsies Raus!”

The reporter also notes that the Gypsies from the Slovenian Ambrus village had to flee to the woods where they were hiding from the region’s angry mob. When they tried to go back home...

...“People were coming on foot through the woods, they were shouting, ‘Kill the Gypsies, kill the Gypsies!’ ” said Miha Strojan, Mr. Strojan’s brother. He said he remembered someone shouting, “We’ll string you up on a cross!” Photographs that Borut Peterlin, a local photographer, took of the crowd show both menace and boisterous spirits, with people laughing.

...[when Slovenian government officials informed the crowd Gypsies will be removed from their village] “They were singing the national anthem and other songs,” Mr. Peterlin said. “There were also shouts of, ‘Gypsies raus!’ ” he said, echoing a taunt used by the Nazi’s during the deportation of Jews and Gypsies during the Holocaust.

But none of this helps remove the cobwebs from Nicholas Wood’s eyes -- he’s still entranced with Slovenia’s alleged advancement and wealth, and enamored with the fact Slovenia was allowed to join the European Union (Fourth Reich) two years ago, as if that in itself has inoculated Slovenians from racism and has given them some kind of eternal perfect alibi no matter what.

Slovenian Racism Doesn’t Count

On top of everything, despite the fact that Serbia remains the only truly multi-cultural Balkan country with the greatest number of minorities, including Gypsies who have an equal status to all the citizens of Serbia and often seek shelter among Orthodox Serbs in regions where Muslim violence is rampant (like in occupied Kosovo and Metohija province), in a story that has absolutely no connection to Serbia or Serbs, neither Nicholas Wood, nor the Slovenian human rights activist Matjaz Hanzek have resisted the urge to point their fingers at Serbs:

According to Slovenia’s ombudsman for human rights, Matjaz Hanzek, the government and public reaction illustrate a deep-rooted prejudice that permeates Slovenian society. “They really don’t understand they are using discriminatory speech,” he said in an interview. “Our neighbors are watching this very closely. If this can happen here in the European Union, then nationalist groups in countries like Serbia and Croatia will know they can get away with the same.”

So, according to this fine reporter and Slovenian human rights activists, Slovenians simply don’t know what they are doing (forget the speech, look at the actions for a change) and they don’t understand the words coming out of their own mouths -- they are just stupid, ignorant or, at best, infantile; but, unlike Serbs, innocent in any case. Advanced, wealthy, fresh little Europeans, their only sin being that they are setting a bad example for their troglodyte neighbors, mainly backward Serbs, who will now use these fascist outbursts of their better-in-every-way Europeanized neighbors and start expelling Gypsies, Muslims, Jews, Croats, Romanians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Montenegrins, Gorani, Armenians, Turks, Egyptians and every other of few dozens of minorities living with Serbs for generations. THAT’s the only problem here, see, since Slovenian racism really doesn’t exist -- it can’t, they’re the members of the European Union, and Clinton went there immediately after he bombed Serbia back into the stone age, to tell Slovenians what a good example they are for the rest of us, remember?

Despite the fact that impoverished Serbia hosts the greatest numbers of refugees from all the regions of former Yugoslavia, despite the fact that there was no retaliation and nobody was expelled from Serbia by the Serbs, not even during the wars when Croats ethnically cleansed up to 400,000 Krajina Serbs, when mujahedeen from all over the world were waging a jihad on Bosnian Serbs and rivers of refugees of all confessions and ethnicities were pouring into Serbia, nor when Serbia was bombed by the 19 wealthiest nations in the world on behalf of Albanian minority’s terrorist KLA and both Albanians and Kosovo Serbs were running into Serbia proper... despite all that, western mainstream reporters and Slovenians have the nerve to hold sermons to Serbs, suggesting that now, when they get to see how the Fourth Reich Slovenians are expelling their Gypsies, there is a real danger the Serbs will start doing the same.

Slovenia Prefers Administrative Genocide: The Erased

In reality, Slovenians have given the entire world a score of despicable examples regarding the human rights and their violations on a mass scale, revealing that “Slovenia’s image” is nothing but a thin glaze of varnish covering deeply rooted rabid nationalism and racism. The latest Nazi flare-up and the expulsion of Gypsies is far from being the new and surprising ‘incident,’ rather it’s the continuation of the old story -- much older then Slovenian state (read “Tito’s Flawed Legacy” by late Nora Beloff, Balkan expert par excellance and former chief political correspondent of the London Observer).

If Nicholas Wood and the likes ever decide to take their blindfolds off, they’ll have no difficulties learning about the so called ”soft genocide” or “administrative ethnic cleansing” Slovenian government undertook immediately after unilateral declaration of independence. While nothing similar has ever occurred in Serbia during its thousand years old statehood, this dastardly act by Slovenians (similar to the way Croatia treats its refugees), has ensured Slovenia’s ethnic purity and is better known as Izbrisani -- The Erased Citizens of Slovenia:

On February 26, 1992, the newly independent state of Slovenia deleted the names of some 30,000 residents from the nation’s civil registries. The targeted population, which came to be known as izbrisani (erased residents) were not of Slovenian ancestry, but were so-called ‘new minorities’ including ethnic Serbs, ethnic Croats and ethnic Bosnian Muslims, ethnic Albanian Kosovars and ethnic Roma which the government sought to force out of the country. (In contrast ‘old minorities’ include ethnic Italians and ethnic Hungarians, specifically mentioned in the December 1991 Constitution.)

Twelve years later the Slovenian Government has still not yet acted to fully redress this massive violation of human rights. Critics of this radical action by the Slovenian government have sometimes characterized the mass erasure as ‘soft genocide’ or ‘administrative genocide.’ A more appropriate term is probably ‘administrative ethnic cleansing’ or ‘civil death.’ By whatever description, redress for the mass ‘erasure’ is still badly needed. In other historical contexts this kind of radical action which in and of itself is a massive violation of human rights, has been a step toward more extreme actions including mass expulsion and even genocide. In the case of Slovenia, the izbrisani were targeted for elimination solely on account of the non-Slovene groups into which they were born. Furthermore, this ‘administrative ethnic cleansing’ on February 26, 1992 in Slovenia can be viewed as a contributing factor to the radicalization in former Yugoslavia which only a few months later saw violent ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The policy of “mass erasure,” which could also be called mass denationalization, must especially be condemned because it was a partially successful policy, causing over one-third (12,000 out of 30,000) of the targeted population to leave Slovenia. When officials asked an izbrisani for his old Yugoslav passport the top right corner would be cut off, making the document useless and marking the bearer for further discrimination. The izbrisani (erased residents) were not forced out at gunpoint and their homes were not burned down as in Bosnia, nevertheless they lost their jobs, medical benefits and sometimes were deported for minor offenses. The multiple possible translations of the term “izbrisati” (erase, red pencil, rub out, score out, scratch out, delete, expunge, obliterate) shows the impact the policy might have on a person. In Slovenia, seven izbrisani committed suicide. Ultranationalist politicians characterized the izbrisani as war criminals, swindlers and undesirables.

The radical ‘mass erasure’ of February 26, 1992 took place eight months after Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia on June 25, 1991. The erasure occurred just days after Slovenian Athletes participated for the first time in Olympic competition at the XVI Winter Olympic in Albertville, France. Acceptance into the United Nations was still three months away (May 22, 1992). Notably, Slovenia was not at war at the time the ‘mass erasure’. The previous summer war with Yugoslavia had lasted only a few weeks ending a with European Union sponsored agreement calling for withdrawal of Yugoslav Federal troops from Slovenia and the demobilization of Slovenian troops. Furthermore the ‘mass erasure’ came after the completion of a new Constitution is which Slovenia committed itself to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms (Article 5, and Articles 61 to 63).

In other words, if Slovenian human rights activists are correct and Slovenians really don’t know what are they doing, the UN, EU, and everybody else who welcomed them into their elite clubs in spite of such an appalling evidence of pure racism in all segments of society, up to the highest, state level, should have known better. Clintons included.

Following the fate of Strojan family is a photographer Borut Peterlin, who took the picture of Strojan children above and was also cited in the article by Nicholas Wood. Borut is collecting links about the unfortunate Gypsy family from around the world, along with various commentary, like the one presented here.

Posted by Svetlana at 09:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Serbian Forces Resisting German Invasion

Washington, D.C. Thursday, November 19, 1987.
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

Mr. CRANE

Mr. Speaker, on April 6, 1941, the German Government made an unprovoked attack on Yugoslavia. By April 13, the Germans captured Belgrade. By April 18, the Yugoslav Army officially surrendered. Col. Draza Mihailovich did not surrender, but retreated to the mountains where he organized resistance to the enemy occupying forces. King Peter promoted him to general and appointed him Minister of War. In this capacity he was recognized as an ally by the United States during World War II.

For a brief period following the German invasion, there is evidence that General Mihailovich and his Serbian forces were not the only Yugoslavs resisting the Nazi invasion. But in the autumn of 1941, the so-called Partisans - Yugoslav Communists - ceased cooperation in resisting the Nazi and began attacking the Mihailovich forces from the rear. At the time, General Mihailovic was acting as the duly authorized Minister of War of the recognized Yugoslav Government. That was 46 years ago this month, Mr. Speaker, and today in the United States Congress we are gathered together, as in the past, to pay our respect to General Mihailovich upon the anniversary of his betrayal and execution at the hands of the Communists in Yugoslavia.

Halyard Mission: Rescue of American Airmen

The reason for our tribute to General Mihailovich is first and foremost our gratitude to him for saving the lives of over 500 American airmen whom he rescued. Those of us in Congress who have studied the history of this period have striven to fulfill the desire of those saved American airmen to memorialize General Mihailovic with the erection of a monument in his honor in our National Capital. Despite communist disinformation both during World War II and after, preserved historical documents and facts conclusively demonstrate the General Mihailovich was an heroic anti-Nazi, but also an anti-Communist. It was the latter that led to his murder, but also the effort by our own State Department to conceal the fact that President Truman - upon the recommendation of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower - had conferred the highest honor upon General Mihailovic that this Nation awards to foreign nationals: the Legion of Merit. The official United States policy position after World War II was to accept the fiction that Yugoslavia was a nonaligned Communist state and thus acting wholly independent of the Soviet Union. To nurture this fiction, any information that confirmed the Yugoslavian Communists’ betrayal of our war objectives had to be suppressed. It took over a decade for Under Secretary of State, Ed Derwinski, when he was a Member of Congress, to make public the heroism of General Mihailovic and to reveal the betrayal of the United States commitment to freedom by the Communists in Yugoslavia both during and following World War II.

Through the historical documentation of Communist methods, yesterday and today, a rear picture emerges of the communist clique which murdered General Mihailovich as well as a majority of his followers and soldiers. The Communist successors to Nazi tyranny destroyed any knowledge of Mihailovich in his own country and benefited through financial assistance from the United States as well as other Western democracies.

Reasonable questions arise, after all these years and the irrefutable documentation of the Communist betrayal of freedom in Yugoslavia after defeat of the Nazis, as to why our State Department continues to attempt to perpetuate the absurd notion that Yugoslavian communism represents some kind of blessing to the West. Stalin has to be laughing at Western gullibility from the grave.

State Department Bureaucrats Suppress the Truth About Serbs

Why are the lifestyles of the red and famous untouchable? Why is there so little challenge to the reliability of Communist-produced evidence? Is there something in the generous, compassionate nature of Americans that precludes a recognition that the world is divided between the Good guys and the bad guys? Do our own State Department bureaucrats succumb to the charm school appeal of a Gorbachev because his background and Communist history dictate that, or are they simply wishful thinkers? America, as the torch of freedom for mankind at this juncture in history, must critically evaluate the players in the world arena. Why, for example, is General Mihailovich still off limits?

His relegation to nonperson status by the Communists who stole Yugoslavia is understandable, for General Mihailovich detested Red Nazis as vehemently as he did Black Nazis, and he was fully aware of the ideological kinship between the two. For freedom loving allies to succumb to a phony distinction between these mutual affronts to every decent value emerging from Western civilization would have baffled General Mihailovich as it baffles every student of history. And yet the United States State Department has still suppressed the mistakes of policymakers who were misled by Communist moles both in British intelligence and our own at the end of World War II.

Coverup and Deceptions

The consequence of this logic tight compartment mentality is that 41 years after the brutal murder of General Mihailovic by the Communists, there is still no record, no memory, no grave, no monument to a certified Western hero.

As a result, it is incumbent upon the Congress of the United States to expose the cover-up and deceptions both for the sake of history and to vindicate a great patriot. Our efforts to memorialize courage, justice, integrity, honor, and truth today is essential to secure freedom tomorrow.

Hopefully, we can generate within our State Department and amongst our Western allies an awareness of the plight of the defenseless people of Yugoslavia. Just as we must account for every idle word, we must account for every idle silence. Silence, in this instance, means that we have failed our task - that of carrying forward the torch of freedom.

Simply labeling the clique of dictators around the world “Marxist” - as if they represent a kind of humanistic approach to life that differs from traditional belief only on the question of embracing transcendentals - is in fact an obscenity.

General Mihailovich, ruthlessly murdered by the Communists and relegated to obscurity, is in fact a victim of this obscenity.

God Willing, the Battle for Truth and Justice Will Ultimately Prevail

Suppressing documented facts is a part of the 40-year campaign of disinformation directed against General Mihailovich and his Serbian freedom fighters. God willing, the battle for truth and justice will ultimately prevail, and General Mihailovich’s dream for a Yugoslavia free from tyranny will at least become a reality.

Mr. Speaker, the following statement comes from Aleksandar Milosevic, Who served as an artillery commander under General Mihailovich. He was an eyewitness to the heroic efforts and sacrifices of the Serbian people to save the lives of downed American airmen:

The written statement by Aleksandar Milosevic:

I would like to offer eyewitness testimony regarding the rescue and evacuation of American Airmen who were forced to parachute into Serbia. The units of the Ravna Gora Movement, under the command of General Mihailovich with the assistance of all the Serbian people, rescued these fliers and kept them from falling into the hands of the enemy. All in all there were approximately 600 airmen evacuated of which over 500 were Americans. If the Germans were to attack... [we] would have defended the American Fliers to the last man.

Mr. Speaker, to summarize the expressions of appreciation to General Mihailovic and his Chetnik forces for their devotion to liberty, their courage and heroism, and their commitment to the United States, the Allied cause, and a free Yugoslavia, let us turn to the remarks of one of the over 500 downed American airmen whole lives were saved by General Mihailovic. I refer, Mr. Speaker, to Maj. Richard L. Felman, USAF, retired, who in a speech before the Serb National Federation [SNF], on July 17 of this year, summarized the feelings of the surviving American airmen as well as those of freedom lovers everywhere:

The statement by Maj. Richard L. Felman:

I owe my very life to General Mihailovich, the Chetniks and the Serbian people... when I was shot down in Yugoslavia, I had the opportunity to know first hand what truly remarkable people the Serbians are... In every Serb I met I always found a sense of honor and sense of freedom that is second to none... Not once did I hear anything but the highest praise from the 500 Americans rescued by General Mihailovich...

A few days after the Germans had seen us bail out and counted ten parachutes, they sent an ultimatum to the Chetnik Commander in the hills to either turn over my crew of ten to them or they would wipe out an entire village of 200 women and children...

But Gen. Mihailovich would hear none of it... He told us how life is just as precious to the Serb as it is to the American. But because it is so precious, the price comes high! The Serb had spent his entire history fighting off different enemies in order to protect his freedom, and that life without freedom meant nothing to them..."

Read “An Open Letter To Our Troops In The Former Yugoslavia From Over 500 MlAs Saved By The Serbian People During World War II,” written in the Spring of 1999, by the USAF Major Richard L. Felman

Read the Tribute to the WWII veteran, one of the greatest friends Serbian nation was honored to have, USAF Major Richard L. Felman, Goodbye To a Tireless Warrior

WWI Part: Valiant Serbia, Our Ally

Posted by Svetlana at 07:55 PM | Permalink

When the Serbian Flag Flew Over the White House

On July 28, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson gave the following message to the American people. It was read in churches throughout the country and published in virtually all major newspapers. The Serbian flag was raised over the White House and all public buildings in this nation’s capital. The message read:

To the People of the United States:

On Sunday, 28th of this present month, will occur the fourth anniversary of the day when the gallant people of Serbia, rather than submit to the studied and ignoble exactions of a prearranged foe, were called upon by the war declaration of Austria-Hungry to defend their territory and their homes against an enemy bent on their destruction. Nobly did they respond.

So valiantly and courageously did they oppose the forces of a country ten times greater in population and resources that it was only after they had thrice driven the Austrians back and Germany and Bulgaria had come to the aid of Austria that they were compelled to retreat into Albania. While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken. Though overwhelmed by superior forces, their love of freedom remains unabated. Brutal force has left unaffected their firm determination to sacrifice everything for liberty and independence.

It is fitting that the people of the United States, dedicated to the self-evident truth that is the right of the people of all nations, small as well as great, to live their own lives and choose their own Government, and remembering that the principles for which Serbia has so nobly fought and suffered are those for which the United States is fighting, should on the occasion of this anniversary manifest in an appropriate manner their war sympathy with this oppressed people who have so heroically resisted the aims of the Germanic nations to master the world. At the same time, we should not forget the kindred people of the Great Slavic race -- the Poles, the Czechs and Jugo-Slavs, who, now dominated and oppressed by alien races yearn for independence and national unity.

This can be done in a manner no more appropriate than in our churches. I, therefore, appeal to the people of the United States of all faiths and creeds to assemble in their several places of worship on Sunday July 28, for the purpose of giving expression to their sympathy with this subjugated people and their oppressed and dominated kindred in other lands, and to invoke the blessings of Almighty God upon them and upon the cause to which they are pledged.

Woodrow Wilson, President,
The White House, July, 1918.

(Provided by Bill Dorich, forwarded by Stella Jatras)

Posted by Svetlana at 05:38 AM | Permalink

Grenade Lobbed in the Serbian School in Kosovo and Metohija Province

KOSOVSKA KAMENICA, Serbia, November 21 (Tanjug) -- An explosion shook an elementary school in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo early Tuesday, minutes after the classroom was cleared of children, an official said. No one was reported injured in the blast, which police believe was caused by a hand grenade being put in a stove.

Head of the school administration for the Kosovsko Pomoravlje region Zivorad Tomic, confirmed to Tanjug that an explosive device, most probably a bomb, exploded in the stove of the classroom sometime before 8 a.m, causing huge material damage.

“Fortunately, since one of teachers was absent, the fifth grade classroom in which the blast occurred was empty, so the tragedy was avoided,” Tomic said, adding that at the moment of the blast less then some 200 pupils were in the school building.

According to the Beta news agency, the explosion completely demolished the classroom and was so strong that the door was blown out of its frame.

As many as 450 pupils of Serbian nationality attend this elementary school and there is also a day care center near the school. This incident came as a shock to the pupils and their parents, so that classes which are organized in two shifts have been interrupted.

Albanian Muslim police spokesman Veton Elshani said they believe the hand grenade exploded as the stove was heated in the morning hours. Police did not provide an explanation of how the grenade was placed inside the stove.

School Bus with Serbian and Roma Children Stoned in Obilic, Kosovo Province

Yesterday, Tanjug reported that a group of ethnic Albanians stoned a school bus with Serbian and Roma children in central Obilic. The bus was on its way to Plemetina, Obilic coordinator Mirce Jakovljevic has told Tanjug.

Since the Kosovo Kristallnacht, Albanian organized and coordinated pogrom directed against Serbian residents and their property between March 17-20, 2004, there are no more Serbs living in the city of Obilic.

Although a police station is located next to the Obilic City Hall, no one emerged during the incident and the bus driver continued driving, reporting the incident to the first police patrol only after he was well out of the city center, on the outskirts of the town.

Obilic municipal coordinator Mirce Jakovljevic said that the attack on the bus carrying schoolchildren is another proof that the alleged security the Kosovo interim government and members of the international community wish to show is a falsehood:

‘After today’s developments, the schoolchildren decided not to attend classes anymore until the police provides an escort. This incident is proof more that the basic standards have not been realized in Kosovo and Metohija, despite attempts by the ethnic Albanians to convince the international community to the contrary,’ Jakovljevic said.

Humanitarian Disaster Threatening Serbs in Kosovo Province

BRUSSELS, Belgium, November 21 (Tanjug) -- Deputy President of the Coordination Centre for Kosovo-Metohija and head of the Economic Team for Kosovo and southern Serbia Nenad Popovic told EU officials in Brussels on Tuesday that humanitarian disaster threatened Kosovo Serb enclaves if power cuts continued during the winter and unless Serbian government’s assistance of 50 million kW of electricity per month were not accepted.

The situation in Kosovo is dramatic because humanitarian disaster is threatening in view of the fact that Serbs in enclaves do not have electricity several hours per day, which is not normal for the 21st century and is a human rights violation, Popovic said after a meeting with EU special envoy to negotiations on Kosovo Stefan Lehne.

“We insisted the most on the Serbian government’s humanitarian assistance, based on the letter which Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has sent to Javier Solana, on the assistance of 50 million kW per month for mostly Serb-populated settlements,” Popovic said. He voiced hope that UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo) and authorities in Pristina would take this offer.

“Unless this is done soon, humanitarian disaster may occur,”' Popovic said and added that “discrimination against Albanians is out of the question, because they will use this assistance too.”

Popovic informed his interlocutors in Brussels about nine Serbian government initiatives for Kosovo-Metohija province - primarily in the electric power aid, trade, transport and telecommunications sectors. “All interlocutors generally received all ideas positively,” Popovic said, explaining he had insisted that all initiatives be in keeping with UN Security Council Resolution 1244 and to be coordinated with UNMIK.

He said that the Economic Team would arrive in Brussels again in late December and present a long-term strategy for the economic development of Serbian southern province.

Popovic warned his EU interlocutors that independent Kosovo would be not economically viable.

“This would be an economic disaster and would result in major instability throughout the region in the long run,” he said.

“From the economic point of view, essential autonomy for Kosovo would be the optimum solution and would offer a possibility for the attraction of foreign direct investments,” Popovic said.

He also met in Brussels on Tuesday with head of the European Commission’s West Balkans Directorate Theresa Sobieski and head of the delegation for South-East Europe at the European Parliament Doris Pack.

Popovic will on Wednesday meet with European Commissioner for Energy Andris Piebalgs.

Posted by Svetlana at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Proof of the Pudding

Columnist and author M. Bozinovich recently published an article Kosovo Albanian Jihadist Undercurrent, proving once again the myth of supposed Albanian secularism is nothing but a wishful thinking on behalf of Kosovo Albanian lobbyists operating in Washington, Brussels and London.

Following the good old “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” phrase, instead of listening to people paid to spread misinformation and further muddy the waters, Mr. Bozinovich suggests looking at the media and publications coming out of “liberated” Serbian province to learn the truth about the society being formed in the Muslim terrorist-occupied Serbian region:

‘Albanians got to know about hadith [islamic tradition] since early days of Islam in Albania. The content of the Prophet’s (p.b.u.h) traditions has strongly influenced their moral and awareness,’ writes Dr. Ramiz Zekaj, a professor in Tirana, Albania, and the author of The Development of the Islamic Culture Among Albanians In the XXth Century. Among other things, the work cites an example of a text by Ahmed Kondo that ‘enlightens in an indirect and direct way the activity of an orientalist for the good of Albanian culture.’

… and a quote by Sulejman Rexhepi, leader of Islamic Community of Macedonia, on a monograph of Demir Behluli, an Albanian scholar that wrote Original arabesque in a mosque in East Kosova.

Says Rexhepi: ‘It is to be appreciated his tendency in putting Albanian arabesque besides original ones, national symbols besides religious ones.’

Really?! So, contrary to the popular mythology, Albanians are not so ignorant about Islam and its teachings as the Western propagators of their “secularism” would want us to believe. And it’s not just Serbia’s Albanian Islamic leaders that are promoting jihad, it is also their professors, publishers and journalists that have a soft spot for al-Qaeda’s war, targets and operatives.

I thought that the un-named “independent academic experts on Kosovo [who] are highly skeptical of the notion that a new state would provide Islamist extremists with a foothold on the edge of Europe” could be trusted and that jihadist bent of Albanian Muslims is purely a “misconception about the involvement of religion in the Kosovo conflict,” used by the Serbs as “a part of the nationalist propaganda (...) to manipulate popular emotions” (from the ICG’s propaganda piece, used to lobby for amputation of Serbian province; sorry, guys, no links -- Albanian lobbyists don’t get a free ride here).

Following the Western mainstream media one could easily be persuaded Serbia’s Albanian secessionists are nothing more then honest, decent, hardworking secular Muslims, eager to support the Western goals of spreading freedom and democracy throughout the world, and will do just that as soon as they are given their own state on the territory of Serbia (the second one, since they already have the state of Albania, right next door to Serbia).

But once you start eating that pudding, you’re bound to be unpleasantly surprised with completely unexpected bits revealing an entirely different, poisonous cuisine.

Posted by Svetlana at 09:11 PM | Permalink

German UN Official Backs Oppression of Non-Albanians in Serbian Province

KOSOVKSA MITROVICA, Kosovo and Metohija, Serbia -- In a press conference called in reaction to power cuts that are continuing for days and to vandalism toward Serbian Telekom equipment in Kosovo, the representative of Kosovo Serbs Marko Jaksic said that UNMIK chief Joachim Ruecker is acting like a member of Albanian Muslim interim “government,” rather than a high UNMIK official.

“Ruecker is one of those who authored the looting privatization and the economic discrimination against Serbs and Serbian-owned companies, and is charged with driving everything that even reminds of Serbs and the Serbian state away from Kosovo,” Jaksic said.

In his words, “out of 190 privatized companies in Kosovo not a single one is owned by a Serb, which means that the property belonging to one nation is taken away and given to another.”

Jaksic said that beside the physical violence and persecution that the Serbs suffer at the hands of the Albanians, UNMIK is undertaking torture on the economic level, and called on Ruecker to “stop jeopardizing Serbian interests making the lives of Serbs impossible.”

Serbian National Council (SNV) President Milan Ivanovic said that the situation in the province has deteriorated to the level of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Business as Usual for Albanian Muslim Mafia

And, while Serbs are being left to despair without electricity, heat and food in their ghettos, until they finally pack up and leave after getting fed up with life in constant fear and misery, the good news is that Albanian mafia is doing just fine, except for a tiny hiccup here and there, like two days ago when Serbia’s customs officers seized 33 pounds of heroin hidden in a vehicle that tried to cross into Croatia.

According to the media, the heroin valued at $640,000 on the black market was stashed in 28 packages in the upholstery and in fenders of a car with German registration plates driven by a Macedonian of Albanian origin.

Serbia’s Albanian Secessionists Losing Support in the EU

Regarding the expected proposal on Serbian southern province’s final status, representatives of the breakaway regions in three former Soviet republics claim there are more legal and political grounds to grant ex-Soviet regions independence than Kosovo.

After a recent vote for independence in which 99 percent of South Ossetians backed the secession from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, some Western analysts are starting to question the reasons for denying South Ossetians the same luxury Kosovo Albanians are encouraged to pursue.

However, the “support” for the secession of Serbian Kosovo province is not so solid and unanimous as one is led to believe in the EU either. Most recently, Spain has joined Greece and Romania in its opposition to the amputation of Serbian Jerusalem, insisting on the respect for the international law, Helsinki Act on inviolability of borders and Serbian constitution, while Italy keeps wavering back and forth, backing Serbia one day and Ahtisaari (i.e. Adolfsen) the next.

Posted by Svetlana at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Glorious Constantinople Church Turned into Mosque, then to Museum

From Angeliki Papagika’s web site about Hagia Sophia Initiative

Hagia Sophia is not a public building that changed ownership with the conquest of a war. Hagia Sophia is a place of God, Christendom’s grandest place of worship for over 900 years, and arguably the most perfect and beautiful church that has been erected by any Christian people. The splendor of its overall effect, its “paradise-like” beauty and architectural brilliance were often comprehensible only in terms of repeated divine intervention.

The magnificence, spirituality and prestige of the Great Church led to its being appropriated as an imperial and religious symbol by the Ottoman sultans. The church of Christ was possessed and converted into a mosque, until it was decreed a museum. During this long time, it has been subjected to more than its fair share of abuse and denigration.

Hagia Sophia, an essential element of Christianity, a second Jerusalem, the most revolutionary and daring church conceived in Christendom, has been turned into a museum considerably impaired by the loss of all its Christian furnishings and much of its original setting and atmosphere. At present it is part of an increasingly elaborate area of monuments, museums, and rug and souvenir shops. The Great Church, transformed into a monument/museum without life…The conquest of war does not and cannot change its spiritual nature into a civil-cultural-secular institution. For as long as the injustice done to the soul of Hagia Sophia is ignored and forgotten Christianity cannot be whole. Hagia Sophia’s reason for existing is vitally important to restoring religious integrity.

It is a disgrace and disrespect to a religion and God when holy places are unwillingly turned purely into tourist attractions. How would the Muslims feel if one of their holiest places was turned into a museum for tourists by a conquering power?

With its conversion into a museum in 1934, Hagia Sophia was frozen in some past age, vaguely Byzantine. Directed by the then historicist paradigm that saw the past as unchanging, Hagia Sophia was also understood through the aesthetic of the great museum, that is, aloof and imposing. Both traits were useful to a Turkish government that wanted to break with the Ottoman era that lasted until after World War I. The church of Heavenly Wisdom became thus what the official Turkish act of secularization called a “unique architectural monument of art” and hence was valued more for its age, art and historical value than for its practical and religious use.

Petition to the EU Parliament

If you believe in the just case that Hagia Sophia should be restored to its proper religious role as a church, for which it was built in the first place, then please support this petition to the EU Parliament that Turkey should not be admitted as a member of the European Union until it restores Hagia Sophia to its original purpose as a church and not a museum.

A minimum of 1.000.000 signatures are needed in order to persuade the European Union to consider this proposal seriously.

As you know, Turkey is doing everything it can today to convince the European Union that it is a worthy country to join it. If you believe that Turkey should not be admitted to the EU before restoring justice to Hagia Sophia, please click on “Your Signature” and send your message.

Posted by Svetlana at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Consider Facts (Before Publishing Another Iditorial)

Article by Michael Mennard, Consider Ko