A rchive Date
[ 15-04-2001 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Yugoslavia ]
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[The Balkans: Always volatile and emotional
By PETER WORTHINGTON -- Toronto Sun
April 15, 2001
For those interested in knowing how the Balkans got that way - Bosnia and Kosovo - a rare, three-part TV documentary concludes tomorrow (Monday April 16) at 10 p.m. on the History Channel.
Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War is a product of New York's Frontier Theatre and Film Inc., co-produced by George Bogdanich and German TV producer Martin Lettmayer.
Four years in the making, the documentary has been amended as events unfolded, including the Kosovo war and its effects, and was judged the Best Social Documentary at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.
There is a minimum of editorializing or unsubstantiated comment in the documentary - unusual for a topic as volatile, controversial and emotional as the Balkans. The segment on Kosovo is of special interest to Canadians, since we joined the war because the U.S. wanted a united front, not because we had a clue as to what was going on, or why.
Canada's former ambassador to Yugoslavia, James Bissett, argued against the war, and history is proving him right. Truth in Kosovo - the Balkans - is cloaked in half-truths and propaganda.
The documentary shows Madeleine Albright, first as UN ambassador and later as U.S. Secretary of State, not only opposing Serbs, but mindlessly endorsing Bosnia and eager for war in Kosovo. She hand-picked Canada's Louise Arbour to be war crimes prosecutor, who had no experience with the Balkans and tended to believe every atrocity claimed by the Muslims.
Video footage shows Albright rejecting evidence that Bosnians bombed or mortared their own people, then blaming the Serbs in order to persuade NATO to attack the Serbs - a ploy as ancient as warfare itself, and repeatedly proven both in Bosnia and Kosovo.
The supposed massacre at Racak, in Kosovo, which lit the fuse for the 78-day air war, has been shown to be a hoax - dead Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fighters (since given military funerals) were arranged in a gully to appear as if massacred, complete with mutilations and torture - proclaimed by both Albright and Clinton.
President George Bush (Dubya's dad) was also captive of anti-Serb mania, perhaps because the Bosnian and Kosovo sides hired New York public relations firm Ruder-Fenn. Serbs were too dumb to do likewise.
U.S. ADVISORS
Retired U.S. generals were actively involved in advising and guiding both Bosnians and Croats against Serbs of Krajina, massacring and "ethnically cleansing" some 300,000 of them in Operation Storm - mindful of Desert Storm (the same planners). To his credit, Canada's General Alain Forand defied orders in efforts to save Serb refugees in Knin from massacre.
In conflicts, we - the allies - like good guys and bad guys to be clearly defined. Who is right, who is wrong; who are victims, who villains. White hats versus black hats.
The Balkans don't work that way. The tragedy of the Serbs (apart from having Milosevic as president) is that their public relations was so inept that they were effectively demonized. From the start, Croatia got clandestine help and weaponry from the U.S and Germany, despite reviving Nazi symbols (checkerboard flag) of the Ustashe. The West conveniently forgot - and wasn't reminded - that Serbs were first to fight the Nazis in Yugoslavia and at enormous risk saved downed allied airmen in WWII.
In Kosovo, after WWII, 80% of the Serb population was pushed out by Albanians. Post-war Albania was the world's most paranoid country - too recalcitrant for even the Red Chinese.
KLA atrocities to incite reprisals by Yugoslav security forces, in turn incited anti-Serb reaction from the U.S. - overriding European reluctance to get involved. The U.S. pushed NATO from being a defensive alliance into an aggressive one.
Interviewed in the documentary are the likes of Lord Carrington, Lord Owen, the New York Times' wise David Binder (with laser-like insight about the Balkans), Generals Lew MacKenzie and Britain's Sir Michael Rose (whose proof that Muslim atrocities were committed against Muslims in order to blame Serbs was ignored).
In a perfect world, what the U.S. and NATO did in the Balkans might constitute a war crime. But the international tribunal in the Hague is winners against losers; a conspiracy of silence among 19 NATO belligerents guarantees protection. What's done is done, but have lessons been learned? Doubtful.
So far, some 2,100 bodies have been recovered in Kosovo (no mass graves), while the Red Cross lists 3,368 missing among all ethnic groups - a far cry from the 100,000 dead initially announced by U.S./NATO.
Canada's former ambassador Bissett put it succinctly and sadly: "There's no question that Kosovo was an unnecessary war ... an attempt to bomb Yugoslavia into submission that should be of concern to all people ... We have the United States as a very powerful military force that no longer sees diplomacy and negotiation as worth their while."
In retrospect, if Yugoslavia had been left alone, Balkan people would have worked things out with fewer casualties, less misery and more hope for the future. The U.S. blew it - as it often does when it dabbles in areas it knows nothing about.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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