Byzantine Blog

Archduke Assassination Used as a Pretext to Try to Wipe Serbia Off the Map

Part 4 of late President Slobodan Milosevic's opening statement at the Hague, August 31, 2004 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

[Continuing the expose on Germanic bloc's efforts to destroy Serbia since before the WWI] Here's one more quotation from the German archives, which reveals what the German ambassador conveyed to his government, regarding the content of his conversation with Count Berthold, Austrian Foreign Affairs Minister. Minister said, according to the ministerial archives, that he considers it his duty not to leave the German Government unaware of the seriousness of the position of the monarchy. "The Southern Slavic issue, in the sense of the unhindered possession of the provinces populated by Southern Slavs, is the vital issue for the monarchy, as well as for the Three-Sided Pact [Trojni Pakt]. The Southern Slavic provinces of the monarchy cannot be held against the country such as Serbia, which is superior in the Balkans. Accordingly, the monarchy could be forced to undertake an intervention, in case Serbia defeats Bulgaria and conquers the territories beyond the territory of the old Serbia. To my question what does he think would be the right time for that intervention, the minister noted that the opportune psychological moment could be found."

And the pretext showed up soon after — the assassination, the well-known Sarajevo assassination, when Gavrilo Princip, member of the organization Young Bosnia [Mlada Bosna], assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand. The fact that 20 young men took part in the conspiracy and the assassination, members of both Serbian, Croat and Muslim nationality, is never even mentioned. This was that Young Bosnia. Although no involvement of the Kingdom of Serbia in this assassination was ever established, it was Serbia and Serbian nation that were immediately accused, while in Austro-Hungary and Germany a tsunami of total anti-Serbian hysteria was launched.

In the already quoted book, Ambassador Harman says: "A fierce anti-Serbian campaign was launched in Austro-Hungary and Germany, which overshadowed everything seen by then, and it motivated the German ambassador to London, Duke Karl Max von Lichnovsky to remind the German State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gottlieb von Jagow, that the entire Serbian nation, as the nation of evil and murderers, must be branded." He is obviously jeopardizing your copyright on this indictment here and its approach. And for few decades already.

So, in fact, the essence and the meaning of that evil above all evils, the Greater Serbia, is something no one wished to examine or go into. It has been adopted so arrogantly and with such ease, that it is being used here as well. No-one has investigated its meaning, background, the origins, because had they done so, this whole propaganda exercise would burst like a soap bubble.

It is well-known that on July 23, 1914, an Austro-Hungarian ultimatum was delivered to the Serbian Government, after the false accusations about the involvement of Serbian state in the assassination. Serbia was conditioned with the series of demands no sovereign state in the world could have accepted. Shocked with the text of this ultimatum, non-fulfillment of which was expected and the only purpose of which was to actually cause a war, the same way as in Rambouillet, but entirely shocked back then, British Minister of Foreign Affairs Sir Edward Grey characterized that text as, I'm quoting Grey, "the most shocking document diplomacy has ever produced".

Series of the Most Shocking Ultimatums to Serbia Follow the 1914 One

The most shocking document diplomacy has ever produced. Grey probably never could have imagined that in the same century, Serbian nation and Serbian state will be exposed to a whole series of similar, and perhaps even more brazen and more shocking ultimatums and that his country, Great Britain, will share the authorship of those new ultimatums with Germany, Austria and some other Western states, including some of the Serbian allies from his time, like France and, somewhat later, United States. Just as it would share the authorship and participation in the realization of the murderous conquests against Serbian nation towards the end of 20th century, conducted through the unscrupulous lies which will be dismantled here publicly and clearly, through the merciless economic sanctions and finally bestial military assaults against their former Serbian allies, whose greatest sin consisted of attempts to protect their state and their people, and preserve what was acquired through great hardships, with the help of the allies in two world wars. It is hard to imagine the kind of shame Sir Edward Grey would have felt if he knew about the great role his country played in sealing the decade-long crime committed through all those events toward the Serbian nation at the end of 20th century — the role which is being acted out precisely here, in front of this institution, formed through the flagrant violation of the international law and the basic human ethics.

Because it might be the very resolution by which this illegal tribunal was established that Sir Edward Grey would define as "the most shocking document diplomacy has ever produced."

Instead of "Greater Serbia" it was Offered, Serbia Chose to Drown its Statehood in a Common State with Croats and Slovenes

It is well known how the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was established, the Kingdom which was later given the name Yugoslavia, as a common state of Southern Slavic nations, creation of which the Germanic bloc fiercely wanted to prevent. And, as the part of failure from the First World War, and afterwards the Second, it was designated to be wiped off the face of the earth. The old myth of Greater Serbia remained, as one of propaganda tools for obscuring reality and covering up one's own crimes by someone else's invented sin.

It is precisely here, in this institution, where that very lie of Greater Serbia has found its natural roots and grew up into a monstrous creation of unprecedented magnitude. To make the irony and the absurdity even greater, and so that the lies and the injustice against Serbian nation are made even more horrific and malicious in contrast to their Balkan neighbors, it was in fact only the Serbian nation in that part of the world which, even though it had ample opportunities, and much better opportunities than the others, has not been trying to extend its state. It is well known that, in 1915, Serbia's allies have offered Serbia through the London Agreement, to expand its territories after the victory in the war onto Bosnia and Herzegovina, part of Dalmatia and Slavonia [present-day Croatia], and so on. All this is well documented. Serbia chose not to do so. Instead, Serbia accepted and embraced Serbs and Croats and Slovenians alike from the former Austro-Hungarian territory, and that is how the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes came to life, which would later be called Yugoslavia.

Now, this choice of Serbian Kingdom to create a common Yugoslav state, instead of Serbian state, has in this way offered a protection to Slovenian and Croat brothers from territorial fragmentation and turned them, from the parts of the defeated state, into the members of the victorious camp. But, despite this, since the last throes of the rotting Hapsburg monarchy until today, Serbs have remained branded as the Greater Serbia nationalists. This historical falsification is being kept alive all the while.

German Verdict: Serbia Must Die!

In order to understand the whole issue, it is useful to take a look at the other side of the World War I front. Namely, in 1915, German theoretician Friedrich Naumann published his book "Middle Europe" ("Mitell Europa"), where he laid out a project of reorganization of Europe. This was, of course, at the time it was expected that Germans will win the war. The reorganization of Europe meant creation of Greater Germany which would encompass the entire Central Europe, and which would be surrounded by the small weak states Naumann calls 'the satellite states'. These satellites of Greater Germany would be completely dependent on the great and powerful German state. Naumann doesn't mention Serbia even as a satellite state, because according to him, quote: "Serbia, as the fortress which is an obstacle in this part of the world, must be wiped off the map."

Let me stress that this creator of the Greater Germany project, which presupposes wiping Serbia off the map, in accordance with the anti-Serbian propaganda waged at the time under the notorious slogan "Serbia must die" -- "Serbien mus terbien", with an 'i' added to the word "treben", so that it rhymes with "Serbie" -- this theoretician is regarded as an the ideologue of the German Liberal Party [FDP, Die Liberalen], a political party which has long served to balance the German political scene and which, for more than two decades, has held in its hands the German foreign policy at the time of Genscher and Kinkel. The same Kinkel who in 1993 felt compelled to reveal the concept of German revision of historical processes, and who said: "Towards the outside world, something Germany has failed to do twice, must be accomplished."

German Present-Day Liberals Uphold Naumann's Death Sentence to Serbia

The importance German Liberals, especially the two mentioned leaders of German diplomacy, attach to the ideas and work of Friederich Naumann is best exemplified in the fact that the Liberal Party's Foundation is called the Friederich Naumann Foundation -- "Friederich Naumann Stiftung". The same name was also given to the party's headquarters, while the loyal and pedantic following in the vital issues is best reflected in the mindlessly destructive Genscher's and Kinkel's diplomatic efforts in regards to Yugoslavia and Serbia, and in the drive to confirm and ensure German domination in Europe through the fragmentation of the Central Europe and East Europe, which is precisely what took place. You have an example of Czechoslovakia, not to mention the example of destruction of USSR, the leading winning power in the World War II.

When Serbia, sentenced to death in this perverted approach by the exponents of the Greater Germany hegemonic tendencies, drowned its statehood in the newly formed state of Southern Slavs, denying by this act in a most eloquent way the propaganda about the Greater Serbia aspirations, it was only natural for this death sentence to be carried onto the newly formed state, Yugoslavia.

Two War Criminals, Hitler and Clinton, Share the Same Views on Serbs

It is well known that in Serbia, in protest of its government's decision to form a pact with Hitler's alliance, the massive demonstrations erupted which have overturned the government. At that time, Winston Churchill said: "Yugoslavia found its soul again." This was said on the one side, the side of the Allies; on the other side, on the very day the attack against Yugoslavia was launched, Hitler said that his military assault on Serbia was, quote, "directed against the very same criminal clique, the very same creatures who, through the assassination in Sarajevo, pushed the world into the unspeakable misery."

The claim incredibly reminiscent of the one a new fuhrer uttered 58 years later, ahead of the new round of bombardment of Serbia and Yugoslavia. Namely, Bill Clinton, then-President of the United States, while explaining to the American TV audience the decision to start, as he called it "the air campaign" against Yugoslavia, on the night of March 24 [1999], stressed: "No, the Serbs did not only cause the World War I, no -- without them, there would have been no holocaust either." So much for the knowledge and acknowledgment of history by these two criminals.

Germany Recycles Goebbels Propaganda for Present-Day Wars

It remains written in the German archives, from the Hitler's meeting: "The Fuhrer is determined to destroy Yugoslavia militarily and as a state." This part on "destroying Yugoslavia as a state" can be easily linked with the report notorious by the evilness and cynicism, by then-President of the SFRJ [Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia] Presidency Stjepan Mesic, given to the Croat parliament on December 5, 1991. Quote: "Thank you for honoring me with your trust to fight for the interests of Croatia in the part assigned to me. I believe I have performed my task: Yugoslavia is no more."

As far as these efforts and the crime which was committed against Yugoslavia, just like against the other countries that were the subject of the assault, prior to the attack against Yugoslavia, directives were given for propaganda issues in Germany. Ambassador Ralf Hartman speaks about the familiar, traditional outlines of the German propaganda for the Balkans. These outlines are as follows: "a) German opponent is exclusively the Serbian Government which fanned the flames of struggle against Germany; b) Since the Serbs implemented a ruthless dictatorship primarily against the Croats and Macedonians" -- all of which is entirely absurd, "they are to be clearly made aware that the German Vehrmacht is not coming to their country as an enemy of the Croats, Bosnians and Macedonians. Furthermore, in this way, they [Croats, Bosnians and Macedonians] will be protected from the slaughter by the Serbian chauvinists."

German Willing Satellite, Croatia, Also Preserves the Old Course

And protection "from the slaughter by the Serbian chauvinists" in the German puppet creation of Independent State of Croatia [NDH] has resulted in the genocide against the Serbs, Jews and Gypsies which, on the territory of that monstrous state, exterminated a million of Serbs, more than half of whom were driven to death through the most horrific sufferings. This gruesome undertaking was certainly aided by the Joseph Goebbels directive, which later remained alive and still active in the German political practice, "the Croats should be flattered so that they fan the hatred against the Serbs".

It is more than obvious to what extent this same approach was employed in the German relation towards the Balkans at the end of 20th century. But the continuity of the invariable German policy is perhaps best illustrated by the following statement by the Croat fuhrer Ante Pavelic from 1941: "I am fully aware that we owe gratitude for the freedom of Croatia exclusively to the power of Fuhrer, Reich and Europe". This continuity is particularly visible once this statement is compared with the musical one, "Danke Deutchland", from the end of 1991 and the beginning of 1992 [a Croat hit-song], or with the Stjepam Mesic's assurances of the especially significant role Genscher and Pope John Paul II played in dismembering Yugoslavia.

Vatican: Serbia Must be Destroyed as the Orthodoxy Stronghold

When it comes to the second key international participant, according to Mesic, in destruction of Yugoslavia -- the Holy See, it is also characterized by both the historical continuity in the anti-Yugoslav orientation and activities, on the one hand, and by the stability of the alliance with those who fought against the creation of Yugoslavia, before and after the WWI and who fought throughout its existence, especially in WWII against it, on the other.

The deep roots of this policy of Vatican and its anti-Serbian warmongering activities are attested by the following quotation from the report Austro-Hungarian envoy to the Holy See wrote in Vienna, back in July 27, 1914 -- before the war was declared against Serbia. Describing his conversation with the Cardinal's State Secretary Marie Del Vallo, he said, quote: "During the past year, His Holiness expressed several times its regret that Austro-Hungary has failed to punish its dangerous Danube neighbors. The Pope and the Curate regard Serbia as a putrid disease, which is slowly eating away the marrow of the monarchy, causing it to become extinguished. For the church, the destruction of this bastion would represent the loss of the firmest stronghold in its struggle against the Orthodoxy, and the loss of their strongest veterans. The Cardinal's State Secretary expressed hope that the monarchy will go all the way, to the end."

So, according to the official Vatican position, Serbia was to be destroyed in order to strengthen the Austro-Hungarian Empire as the geopolitical support of the Roman Catholic church in that part of the world, and especially as its base for spreading to the East. It is more than evident to what extent all of this is entirely removed from the Christ's teachings, but it is also more than evident how much all of this is connected with the "teachings" Hitler was spreading two decades later, obsessed with the insane and blood-soaked idea about his own divine mission to achieve the German "Drang nach Osten".

Genocide Against the Serbs in Hitler's Satellite Croatia Unprecedented

This is why it was not surprising that the alliance of the Holy See, headed by the Pope Pius XII, with the Axis powers, headed by Hitler, was very easily established. In Croatia, this alliance was implemented through the close ties of the Roman Catholic church with Pavelic's Independent State of Croatia. Pavelic's Minister of Education Mile Budak stated in Gospic: "We shall destroy part of the Serbs, expell the other part and convert the others to the [Roman] catholicism, turning them into Croats. In this way, we shall eradicate their traces and the only thing that shall remain, will be a bad memory of them."

Professor Edmund Paris in his book "Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941-1945", [published in] Chicago 1961, said that the "greatest genocide during World War II, in proportion to nation's population, took place not in Nazi Germany but in Nazi-created puppet state of Croatia."

Professor Helen Fein in her book "Accounting for Genocide", New York, The Free Press, 1979, said that Croatia, quote, "The Croat state planned and executed massacres against the Serbian Orthodox minority and Catholic clergy approved these massacres". According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, pages 323-328, quote: "In the Independent State of Croatia more than half a million Serbs were killed, a quarter million were expelled and another 200,000 were forced to convert to Roman Catholicism".

Vatican and USA Rescue of Croat Ustashas the Best Kept Secret of 20th Century

The genocide against the Serbian population in NDH is one of the best kept secret of 20th century, as concealed as the rescue of the Ustasha criminals to avoid facing justice, conducted through the cooperation of Vatican, United States and the other Western states. In fact, after the defeat of the Axis powers in the WWII, and the Ustasha NDH along its side, the Roman Catholic church played the extremely important and extremely sinister role together with the American and British secret services, in organizing and conducting the rescue and fleeing abroad -- primarily to the South, but also North America -- of the large number of Ustashas, especially the highest ranking ones, including Fuhrer Ante Pavelic himself.

The reasons for the rescue of Ustashas and the other Nazis, and their organized transfer through the Vatican "Ratlines", was the interest shared by the USA and Vatican to fight against the USSR and the communist threat in which no methods were spared. Apart from that, Vatican also wanted to rescue the criminals, the loyal Roman Catholics it gave its blessing to during the war. This rescue of the criminals and concealment of the crimes was also a consequence of the fear that, in case the role of Vatican and Pope Pius XII in the WWII crimes was publicly revealed, the communists could win the elections in some of the main Roman Catholic countries in Europe, where the communists had strong support after the war, especially in France and Italy. These criminals were later used to weaken the communist countries in Europe and to carry out terrorist actions.

Vatican Finally Succeeds to Establish a Secret Alliance with the US Leadership

Vatican's constant efforts to establish the closest possible ties with the main Western power among the WWII winners, the United States, was finally rewarded at the beginning of the 1980s, when after the meeting between Reagan and Pope, the only thing that was leaked to the public was that they talked about the solutions adopted in Yalta in 1945. What followed was the series of meetings in the presence of the associates, in the course of which the strong ties were established, the kind of ties Richard Allen, White House Security Adviser, characterized as one of the most secret alliances of all times. There is a book by Carl Bernstein... [statement interrupted by the judge]

About the nature of this alliance, Professor Smilja Avramov said the following in her book "Opus Dei": "Even though the three fervent Roman Catholics [Zbigniew] Brzezinski, [William] Casey and [Vernon] Walters prepared the ground for alliance forming while having in mind the Roman Catholic imperative, even though President Reagan placed the Roman Catholic activists to the most prominent post in the administration -- for example, Alexander Haig, whose own brother was a bishop -- it would be wrong to claim that the Roman Catholic faith was the decisive factor in the United States policy of that period. The US Administration did not see the expression of the religion in the alliance, but the power of the church as an institution placed within the realpolitik context.

"Washington instrumentilized the Holy See, i.e. the Roman Catholic church, in the same way it will, a while later, try to do with the Islam. Through this alliance, the geopolitical map of the world was reshaped, the style in conducting policies was changed, and a clero-political bloc was created as a decisive factor in the US foreign policy, which will have the most fatal consequences for Yugoslavia."

The cited words of the intellectuals regarding the key role the Holy See plays in the global changes are also confirmed by Mikhail Gorbachev, who told the Italian La Stampa on March 3, 1992: "Everything that happened in the East Europe during the past years could not have been possible without the involvement of the Pope John Paul II".

In those few years, in East Europe, Yugoslavia was being dismembered in the pool of blood, the very state Vatican wanted to prevent from being created during the WWI and destruction of which and the great bloodshed which followed that destruction it already took part in once before, by supporting Hitler and the Ustasha state and Ustasha crimes during the WWII.

Pope John Paul II Justifies Ethnic Cleansing of Serbs from Croatia, Calling it a "Humanitarian Intervention"

The policy of Vatican towards Serbia has been shaped, as shown by the cited letter from 1914, from before the time Yugoslavia was formed. After the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was created in 1918, this multi-confessional state was labeled as the main obstacle to spreading the Roman Catholicism to the east. Apart from that, Vatican viewed Balkans as its key region for proselytizing. Due to all this, the policy of Pope John Paul II and of the Roman Catholic church in general during this pope's reign towards Yugoslavia represented only the final phase of the activities of the Roman Catholic church in destroying Yugoslavia. I will skip the series of examples of the meetings held in 1991 and 1992 which confirmed this, but I will include this in the submitted text, because the time doesn't permit me to quote all this.

After recognizing Slovenia and Croatia, and then also Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vatican suddenly switched to a peace-making policy, expressing, in 1994, a desire for pope to visit Zagreb, Belgrade and Sarajevo. The expulsion of Serbs from the territories in Croatia they populated for centuries, in the "Storm" and "Flash" operations, the Vatican diplomacy dubbed the "recapturing of the territories", and I will remind you that Lord Owen has stated that Operation Storm was the biggest ethnic cleansing on the territory of former Yugoslavia.

On October 19, 1995, in regards to that, pope said that in certain situations the use of force is not ruled out if this is necessary for defense of the justified right of one nation. In such situations, at issue is a "humanitarian intervention" for protection of human lives. No human lives were threatened at the time, nor were there any attacks from the territories of UN protected zones of Krajina [Serbian region in Croatia] to the surrounding areas. Unlike, for example, another UN protected zone of Srebrenica, from which during all those years the attacks were continuously conducted resulting in hundreds of Serbian villages being razed to the ground, Serbian population slaughtered and their villages burned.

US Army Chaplain: Vatican Responsible for the Bloodshed in Former Yugoslavia

A retired chaplain in the US Army, Colonel Biegler, said in Pittsburgh on January 1999 that the Vatican is guilty for all the misery that took place in the territory of Yugoslavia and that he had personally seen the Vatican bank accounts, confirming that the Roman Catholic church, together with the German Government, has destabilized Yugoslavia and instigated a decade of bloodshed. Biegler said that Vatican had 'pumped in' millions of dollars to separatists in Yugoslavia, and that the Roman Catholic church was very active in the events which took place in Croatia and Slovenia.

It is well known that Vatican and the press supported Albanian demonstrations in Kosovo and Metohija in 1989, and the same was done by the Ljubljana and Zagreb archbishops. During the visit to Albania in 1994, Pope supported demands of Albanian separatists in Kosovo and Metohija. Pope was the first to request the energetic action against Serbia in 1998, and then turned into a peace-maker once again, first on March 30, when he called the meeting of the ambassadors of the NATO member states and the Security Council, to start the initiative for ending the war against Yugoslavia. In April 1, he wrote the first letter to Clinton, asking to stop the bombing during the Easter holiday.

Once all these Vatican activities aimed at destruction of Yugoslavia are taken into account, pope's message on March 12, 2000, sounds frightfully insincere: "We cannot fail to admit the betrayal of the Gospel committed by our brothers, especially in the second millennium. The admissions of the mistakes in the past leads to awakening of our consciousness and to the compromise in the presence". Recalling this pope's plea for forgiveness of the sins of the Roman Catholic church, Professor Smilja Avramov in the earlier cited book Opus Dei, on pages 170-171, reminds to critical reactions to it, especially emphasizing the following words of the Dutch catholic thinker Leo Lyndaker, quote: "Pope expressed regret for what was done in the past, but there are no indications that he might be considering to change his behavior in the presence."

To be continued...