WAMM YUGOSLAVIA COMMITTEE
Regarding the U.S./British Kidnapping of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosovic

We caution our WAMM members and any others concerned with peace with justice: the arrest of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosovic is being falsely promoted by the U.S.-controlled media as a triumph for democracy. We believe it is exactly the opposite. It is a violation of laws and treaties, including U.S. laws. It sets a fearsome precedent which may result in global anarchy. It has no legitimacy. As was done in the past, foreign relations decisions are being made in closed rooms without debate, enforced at the point of a gun. Once more our administration, in our name is declaring the U.S. to be above the law. We are earning the label of "a rogue nation."

We, in the U.S. get very little hard and documented evidence about events in Yugoslavia from either our politicians or our media. First hand witnesses have contradictory accounts. There have been lots of reports of atrocities but these are given to us in suspiciously timely spurts. Careful reading of these stories reveal that they are anecdotal and often hearsay with testimony from "witnesses" unwilling to identify themselves. We can't be sure whose bodies were found nor who were the perpetrators of the killing. Many reports have proved false (such was the incident of burning bodies in the Trepka mines-the subject of a documentary by Minnesota Public Radio). Some of the pictures have been doctored. Other massacres attributed to Serb cruelty were later revealed to be perpetrated by Muslim provocateurs who killed other Muslims. Retractions of misinformation are never made. Above all, the fact that there were no massacres or so-called "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo before NATO started bombing is rarely stated.

U.S. citizens aren't used to the idea that our much vaunted "free press" can now be manipulated and turned into a propaganda machine with all the skills of persuasion that Madison Avenue has to offer. Many fail to see that the major media speaks with one voice without any policing by an information czar, or that total censorship of facts and events that run counter to what our policy-makers want us to think can silence dissent without firing a shot. This is as a result of the media monopoly (not only of the print and electronic press, but of all means of communication) which was achieved by the 1996 Communications Act. The owners of this media monopoly are the same as the ones formulating national policy: transnational corporations. When the subject at hand is about a part of the world remote from most voters at the grassroots, the propaganda/censorship can operate freely. This is the case of Yugoslavia.

However, instead of sorting out the bizarre and contradictory reports coming from Belgrade and our suspect media, we urge our justice loving friends to concentrate on what we do know about what our own government has been doing. There is no disagreement about the fact that we have armed and trained the Albanian "rebels," starting long before there were outright hostilities in the Balkans. Any report from Yugoslavia that says nothing about that role should be regarded as suspect. Furthermore, any report should be dismissed that fails to mention NATO's illegal and immoral bombing and the civilian deaths and destruction it caused. Even if much of what we are told is true, by concealing an important part of a story, the unsuspecting reader (or listener) can be cruelly deceived.

Does Milosovic present a danger to the United States? We are told that he is guilty of corruption but his own accusers admit they have found no evidence that could be used in court. But this is not our issue, unless our government was party to the corruption. What should concern us is whether he could threaten our security. There is no record of his having considered attacking anyone beyond his own nation's borders. Surely we didn't fear his military capability. He was already in jail awaiting a trial by his own people when he was extradited. Furthermore, the U.S. had to offer a billion dollars of the world's capital, which the U.S. now controls through the World Bank and the IMF, in order to get the Yugoslavs to acquiesce to his kidnapping. The sole purpose of this kidnapping seems to have been so that the U.S. could control his trial by having him tried in a court over which our government holds sway.

The Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal has no legitimacy because the Security Council, which established the tribunal at the behest of our ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, had no authority to do so. It is staffed with Albright's chosen people and financed, in large part, by financier George Soros, a known Croation sympathizer. One wonders what the U.S. government fears. What might have Milosovic said in a Yugoslav courtroom? In any event, what right had we to judge him or judge his judges?

Some comparisons with similar situations reveal enormous, inexplicable contradictions. Even as preparations proceed to try Milosovic we are not insisting on extraditing the Saudis who are harboring the thirteen terrorists whom a grand jury in Virginia indicted for the Kobal Towers bombing which killed nineteen members of the U.S. military (including a Minnesotan.) There is no charge against Iranians who, we are told, helped direct that bombing.

Our own war criminals from the Iran/Contra scandal (who conducted, supplied, and orchestrated a war in Central America, in violation of orders from Congress) were, with one exception, never punished. They were pardoned by George Bush the first and now serve in his son's administration. Is it a coincidence that some of those who trained and supplied the Contras were also involved in training and supplying the Albanian Uck (the forces which were breaking up the Yugoslav Republic and against whom Milosovic was trying to defend his country)?

Ambassador Negroponte, U.S. envoy to the U.N., was ambassador to Honduras when the Contras were devastating Nicaragua. He assisted the conspiracy. Eliot Abrams, one of the architects of the plan to sell arms to the Iranians and use the proceeds to support the Contras (who were trying to bring down the elected Nicaraguan government), is now a member of George W. Bush's Security Council. He admitted that he lied under oath to Congress. William Walker, who collaborated with Oliver North in arming the Contras, was appointed head of the ad hoc Kosovo Verification Commission, which gave the go-ahead to NATO to intervene. Many of these men were tried, convicted, and confessed. Now they are not only free, they are making policy for the U.S.

The world is now full of individuals who have been indicted or accused of war crimes. Most are being extradited and tried in their own countries, having been expelled from those to which they fled. But some of our own accused war criminals top the list-especially Henry Kissinger. Belgium has now asked for the extradition of Ariel Sharon, recently a welcomed guest at our White House. His crime was the massacre of unarmed Palestinian refugees at Shatila and Sabra.

We acknowledge that villains should be made accountable for their crimes, lest they repeat them-as in the case of the Iran/Contra conspirators. Other countries such as South Africa are trying to find an orderly process that can have a positive outcome. But kidnapping a nation's formerly elected president, against the wishes of their legislative and judicial bodies, and hauling him before a kangaroo court is not a solution. Will we, some day, be bombed and isolated until we are desperate enough to sell our politicians for economic relief?

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to arm and train dissidents wherever we please. Currently, we are supporting the Albanians who are trying to bring down the Macedonian government, even as we claim to be trying to broker a peace there.

Twice Women Against Military Madness has held open hearings on these questions. We have had important and credible testimony about a point of view the media have refused to publicize. The propaganda and self-imposed censorship reaches right down to Minnesota. We ask, in all fairness, that our friends in the peace movement search out other sources than our mainstream media. We realize that by now another point of view must sound incredible to a general public, which has been so bombarded with images and text supporting one side. For the sources of the information in this statement, please call Mary Shepard (651-454-3918) or Sarah Standefer (651-429-4794). We will provide you with a list of material that will help you gain another perspective.

July 5, 2001



NATO and the War on Yugoslavia Series