I wondered if anyone would have a response to that. I'd never read anything
like it before. I found it on another list and it certainly did sound like a
very different interpretation of the facts than anything I'd ever seen. So I
would certainly be glad if you wanted to respond to it in detail. It isn't
something that represents what I think. It's just something that I saw and
thought would be of interest.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of abdulah aga
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2016 4:43 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: NATO & THE HUMANITARIAN DISMEMBERMENT OF
YUGOSLAVIA - SHAY LAFONTAINE
Hi to all
Miriam I am angry on this propaganda, on text what you post and link from
world press.
Link and text is Serbian propaganda, and pleas don't me teach that I don't
know what is happenings in this time there:
I was all time there and know excellent what is happening, why nato make war
agenst Serbia.
thanks Abdulah hasic.
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2016 4:29 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] NATO & THE HUMANITARIAN DISMEMBERMENT OF
YUGOSLAVIA - SHAY LAFONTAINE
NATO & THE HUMANITARIAN DISMEMBERMENT OF YUGOSLAVIA - SHAY LAFONTAINE
https://proletarianize.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/natoyugoslavia/
NATO & The Humanitarian Dismemberment of Yugoslavia May 11, 2016May 18, 2016
/ shay
Shay Lafontaine
Description: yugoslavia11_1733209419
Belgrade, Serbia burning in April, 1999 during the NATO bombing campaign
On March 24th, 1999, NATO launched its 78-day round the clock aerial assault
on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia without the approval of the United
Nations Security Council. Over a thousand NATO warplanes delivered over
2,000 airstrikes in nearly 40,000 sorties, dropping over 20,000 bombs over
the former Yugoslavia, killing thousands of civilian men, women, and
children, as well as upwards of a thousand Yugoslav soldiers and police.[1]
[2] [3] NATO employed weapons considered criminal by international law such
as depleted uranium and cluster bombs.[4] [5] [6] [7] The popular narrative
is that is that the Western powers dropped these bombs out of humanitarian
concern, but this claim falls apart once the distorted lens of Western
saviourism is dropped and actual facts are presented. In truth, NATO
intervention in Yugoslavia was predicated on the imperialist, colonialist
economic and ideological interests of the NATO states, masquerading for the
public as a humanitarian effort, that in fact served to dismantle the last
remnant of socialism in Europe and recolonize the Balkans. This becomes
apparent when the economic interests and actions of the NATO bloc in the
decades leading up the breakup are analyzed, when what actually occurred
during the intervention is further explored, and when the reality of life in
the former Yugoslavia in the aftermath of the 'humanitarian' intervention is
more closely examined. It becomes clear that the most suffering endured by
the Yugoslav people since Nazi occupation was the result of the actions of
NATO with the United States at its helm.
Description: 739px-anti-american_protests_liu_kai_c7
Chinese protester after NATO bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade
As the Ottoman Empire crumbled in the late 1800s, the other empires set
their eyes on Turkish possessions in the Balkan peninsula. The Slavs of the
Balkans struggled for independence, aided by the Russian Empire. In
response, the Western powers attempted to prop up the Ottomans to circumvent
the growing Russian sphere of influence. Eventually the Great Powers called
the Congress of Berlin to redivide the Balkans amongst themselves. Leon
Trotsky wrote of this process:
The states that today occupy the Balkan Peninsula were manufactured by
European diplomacy around the table at the Congress of Berlin in 1879. There
it was that all the measures were taken to convert the national diversity of
the Balkans into a regular melee of petty states. None of them was to
develop beyond a certain limit, each separately was entangled in diplomatic
and dynastic bonds and counterposed to all the rest, and, finally, the whole
lot were condemned to helplessness in relation to the Great Powers of Europe
and their continual intrigues and machinations.[8]
Borders were strategically drawn across artificial ethnographic lines in a
process that came to be known as 'Balkanization'. The newly independent
Bulgaria had its interests in Macedonia, which was still Turkish, whereas
Serbia's interests laid within Austro-Hungarian borders, and Romania's to
the north in Russia and Hungary. Therefore, Pan-Slavism was no longer a
viable uniting force within the Balkans against empire. Nonetheless, leaving
the peninsula in this semi-liberated state could merely delay the inevitable
and eventually war would break out in the First and Second Balkan Wars,
followed by the First World War. In the wake of these wars the first
Yugoslavia would finally be born. It would last until World War II, when
fascist occupation once again divided the Balkans. Many regions were annexed
by the Axis empires outright, while Croatia was expanded and transformed
into a Nazi puppet state. The Yugoslav people once again rallied behind the
banner of Pan-Slavism and the dream of the re-establishment of a multiethnic
state - this time led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, aiming to expel
fascism and establish a socialist Yugoslavia. In 1945, the Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia was built around six socialist republics and two
autonomous provinces in Serbia. The right to self-determination of all
nations was guaranteed. The state provided education, employment, healthcare
and housing, and most importantly, ethnic tensions ran at an all time low as
nationalism was stamped out in favour of 'brotherhood and unity' between
nations. Unlike the Eastern Bloc countries, Tito's Yugoslavia took a more
open approach to foreign policy and established relations with the West and
the capitalist bloc (at the expense of their relations with the USSR). This
friendliness with the West would sow the seeds for the demise of Yugoslavia.
Description: 1029568933
Anti-NATO grafitti in Montenegro [src]
The multiethnic and socialist Yugoslavia achieved a life expectancy of 72
years, near full literacy and averaged 7% GDP growth in the 60s.[9] Free
medical care and education were provided, as was the right to an income and
housing. Yugoslavia was temporarily tolerated by the west as a buffer
between the Soviet sphere and Western Europe, but in 1984, the
destabilization of Socialist Yugoslavia and the imposition of the market
became official U.S policy with National Security Decision Directive
133.[10] After the failure of the Vietnam War, U.S foreign policy avoided
direct intervention and instead opted for the funding of contras or the
imposition of market reforms and 'shock therapy' via U.S dominated
institutions such as the World Bank or IMF. Fortunately for the US,
Yugoslavia's 'non-aligned' stance in the Cold War meant it had been taking
on IMF loans since the end of WWII, and by 1981 the SFRY had racked up
nearly $20 billion in foreign debt. The IMF and World Bank demanded an
economic 'restructuring'. Neoliberal austerity reforms were imposed on
Yugoslavia - wages were frozen, state subsidized pricing was abolished,
worker-managed enterprises were dismantled and social spending was cut. The
national wealth was directed towards debt payments as unemployment
skyrocketed. The economic reforms "wreaked economic and political havoc.
Slower growth, the accumulation of foreign debt and especially the cost of
servicing it as well as devaluation led to a fall in the standard of living
of the average Yugoslav. The economic crisis threatened political stability
. it also threatened to aggravate simmering ethnic tensions".[11] Growth in
industrial production shrank from 7% to negative 10% by 1990 as foreign
capital and imports flooded the republics, smothering domestic production.
In 1989-1990 alone the World Bank created 600,000 layoffs; an additional
hundreds of thousands of Yugoslavs worked without pay for months at a
time.[12] The IMF froze wages as inflation skyrocketed and by early 1990
real wages had dropped 41%.[13] Overall the IMF and World Bank programs
greatly undermined the federation and fuelled ethnic tensions and
secessionist movements which would tear Yugoslavia apart, namely by freezing
transfer payments from Belgrade to the republics.[14] [15] As the IMF took
control of the Central Bank and rendered the federal government almost
completely powerless, secessionist movements began gaining traction in the
republics. Germany, a NATO member, backed these secessionist movements in
Slovenia and Croatia.[16] This included arms shipments and training. [17]
Slovenia and Croatia were among the richer republics, and as the IMF imposed
economic crisis worsened they became increasingly opposed to having to
subsidize the poorer republics. In 1991 they both declared independence and
were immediately recognized by Germany. The leader of the newly independent
Croatia was one Franjo Tudjman, who wrote in 1989 that there was a need to
"be rid of the Jews" and that Holocaust death tolls had been inflated.[18]
The Western backed leader went as far as to hail the fascist Ustaše (Nazi
collaborators, who established the first independent Croatia during WWII)
and apologize for their crimes - namely the ethnic cleansing of Serbs.[19]
The Krajina Serbs inside Croatia made clear that they wished to remain a
part of the Yugoslav federation - they were not recognized by any NATO
members. Tudjman's Croatia followed in the fascist Ustaše's footsteps and
between 1991 and 1995 the US backed Croatia drove out half a million Serbs.
In 1992 Macedonia also declared 'independence' and accepted occupation by US
troops. In the same year fighting broke out in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the
situation was more complicated - no single nationality held a majority.
Nonetheless, the United States and Germany backed the Croatian and Bosnian
separatists, providing training and arms, and thus fanning the flames of the
conflict.[20] The Western-backed leader of the Republic of Bosnia &
Herzegovina[21] was Alija Izetbegović. Unlike Tudjman, he did not simply
apologize for fascists; during WWII he joined the Young Muslims, a group
which advocated for an Islamic Bosnia and collaborated with the Nazi SS.
[22] He did not hide his desires for an Islamic state and declared "[t]he
media should not be allowed. to fall into the hands of perverted and
degenerate people who then transmit the aimlessness and emptiness of their
own lives to others. What are we to expect if mosque and TV transmitter aim
contradictory messages at the people?".[23] Foreign Islamist fighters
flooded the country, with passports provided by the Bosnian government. The
only thing that was missing was Osama bin Laden himself - one Bosnian
newspaper noted that "If bin Laden does not have a. passport, then he has
only himself to blame. He should have asked for it in time".[24] In 1992,
the Carrington-Cutileiro plan proposed a degree of autonomy to the Bosnian
Serbs in order to prevent war. After a meeting with US ambassador Warren
Zimmerman, Izetbegović was convinced to withdraw his signature, and the
Bosnian war broke out.
Description:
during_the_1999_nato_bombing_of_serbiax_to_halt_attacks_on_kosovo_civilians_
and_rebelsx_thousands_of_protesters_took_to_the_streets_of_the_serbian_capit
alx_belgrade-_13768633372
1999 Anti-NATO protest in Yugoslavia
The NATO powers (namely the U.S) had facilitated Slobodan Milosevic's rise
to power as president of Serbia in 1989 to further open up the Yugoslav
markets, but the Milosevic leadership and the Yugoslav people refused to
completely dismantle Yugoslav socialism in Serbia - as late as 1999, as much
as 75% of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's (FRY)[25] basic industry
remained publicly owned.[26] Over half a million Serbian workers engaged in
massive walkouts and protests against IMF restructuring - often joined by
Croatian, Bosnian Muslim, Roma, and Slovenian workers.[27] In Bosnia, a
large number of Muslims refused to give up on the Yugoslav idea - rightly
believing it was only way to keep the Balkans free from conflict.[28]
Bosnian and Croatian Serbs clung to the Federation when Croatia and Bosnia
declared independence. In the West this was spun as Serbian expansionism -
Western media often parroted the claim that Milosevic wanted a "Greater
Serbia". In fact, the Serbs were simply holding on to what remained of
Yugoslav socialism while the Federation was being ripped at the seams by
foreign powers and their proxies. When it became clear that socialism in
Yugoslavia was resilient and was withstanding IMF restructuring and the
conflict that came with it, NATO intervened militarily. 1992's
'humanitarian' UN sanctions on Yugoslavia isolated the country economically.
Per capita income fell to $700 per year, unemployment rose to 60%, Serb
civilians endured a 37% increase in infectious fatalities and their caloric
intake fell 28%. Most astonishingly, inflation reached 363 quadrillion
percent.[29] No sanctions were placed on Tudjman's Croatia, which in the
same time period, with the support of private military companies composed of
U.S veterans, ethnically cleansed nearly 200,000 Serbs through rapes,
executions, and shelling.[30] [31] When starving Yugoslavia didn't end the
conflict, NATO began bombing Bosnia into peace in 1994. The U.S brokered the
Dayton Peace Accords in late 1995 between Yugoslavia, Bosnia, and Croatia -
without the Bosnian Serb leadership present. Milosevic made many concessions
- willing to do near anything to end the isolation of Yugoslavia[32] and
agreed to the partitioning of Bosnia into a Muslim-Croat Federation and a
Serbian Republic - both became IMF/NATO neocolonies with a non-Bosnian "High
Representative" appointed by the US and EU with full executive
authority.[33] Radovan Karadžić, president of the Serb Republic, who still
opposed secession, was forced out of power. A right-wing monarchist took his
place and promptly purged the army, police, and government of any anti-NATO
or leftist Serbs. Dissident radio stations were shut down and protests were
suppressed with NATO armour.[34] With all dissent crushed and the state
purged of any officials not approved by the West, the transformation of
Bosnia into a NATO colony was complete. A similar fate awaited the
autonomous Serbian province of Kosovo. The 'Kosovo Liberation Army', which
was recognized by the US State Department as a terrorist organization,
received British and CIA training and arms.[35] The group received the
majority of its funding - and many members - from the Albanian diaspora,
Islamist fundamentalist groups, and the international drug trade. The KLA
relied on drug trade, assassination, intimidation (of not only Serbs but
also ethnic Albanians who opposed them), destruction of Serbian property
(namely homes and churches), and other acts of ethnic cleansing of
non-Albanians. The Milosevic government was provoked and cracked down the
KLA terror, in turn it was portrayed as genocidal against Kosovar Albanians.
At this point, the Yugoslav federation was still suffering from economic
collapse and had no interest whatsoever in another war, let alone more NATO
bombs. Allegations of mass expulsions of the Albanian population by
'Serbian' (Yugoslav forces) began to surface, but a OSCE monitor reported no
international refugees and only a couple thousand internally displaced
before NATO bombing. Hundreds of thousands of Albanians would be displaced
by NATO bombs, as were 100,000 Serbs (who were supposed to be the
perpetrators of the genocidal ethnic cleansing).[36] One Albanian woman
crossing into Macedonia put it bluntly and told a news crew "There were no
Serbs. We were frightened of the bombs."[37] Allegations of systematic, mass
rapes and 'possible sites of mass graves' were made. One NATO spokesperson
alleged that the 200,000 Albanian women in refugee camps amazingly gave
birth to 100,000 babies in the span of 60 days, apparently due to 'Serbian
mass rapes'. Genocide allegations were popular; vastly different figures of
100,000, 500,000, 225,000, and 10,000 dead or missing were made by the U.S,
NATO, UN, Kosovo and various NGOs. The FBI carried out an investigation
across the "largest crime scene in the FBI's. history" in June 1999. They
found not hundreds of thousands of bodies, but 200 total across 30
sites.[38] Of course, the Yugoslav army, and especially Serbian paramilitary
groups did carry out massacres and rapes - but nothing on the level of the
systematic and genocidal allegations that were made to justify bombing
(Different Serbian forces surely carried out genocidal acts, the point of
contention is whether these were official policy of the Milosevic
government). In fact, NATO committed a slew of war crimes in the 1999
bombing campaign - the bombing was illegal from the very beginning and was
launched without the approval of the UN Security Council. The 1995 and 1999
NATO bombings aided ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia, and
Kosovo. Cluster bombs were dropped on highly populated urban areas. NATO
estimated 350 would be killed in the bombing of an office building in
Belgrade housing TV and radio stations, and political parties - the bombs
were dropped anyway. NATO insisted afterwards that the civilian deaths were
'unintended'. NATO jets bombed a refugee convoy, killing dozens of non
combatants, first trying to pin the attack on Yugoslav forces before
retreating and claiming it was an 'accident'. When a hospital was bombed,
the only excuse NATO could muster was that it was actually a military
barracks. Journalists who visited immediately after found only the remains
of civilians and a hospital in ruins.[39] State owned and only state owned
firms and factories were bombed, as were state owned housing projects, water
supplies, railroads, bridges, hospitals and schools. This amounted to
"privatization by bombing."[40]A Spanish NATO pilot confirmed that NATO jets
were "destroying the country, bombing it with novel weapons, toxic nerve
gases, surface mines dropped with parachute, bombs containing uranium, black
napalm, sterilization chemicals, sprayings to poison the crops and [more]",
going on to call it "one of the biggest barbarities that can be committed
against humanity."[41]
Description: nato-go-home
US Marines in Greece headed for Macedonia/Yugoslavia walk past an anti-NATO
banner in June, 1999. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
The situation in the former Yugoslavia has not improved since the NATO's
'democracy' bombs were dropped. The FRY finally collapsed in 2006 and the
Balkans have been Balkanized once again. 'Yugonostalgia' has swept across
the Balkans - many remember the days of the SFRY as ones where they lived
better.[42] [43] [44] As many as 81% of Serbians believe they lived best in
the age of socialism.[45] Similar trends exist in Slovenia, Bosnia, and
Macedonia. [46] [47] [48] A 'Yugoslav' identity persists in the Balkans.
[49] In the wake of the tons of depleted uranium dropped on the former
Yugoslavia, there has been a spike in leukemia and cancer.[50] [51] Serbia
is still host to hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced peoples.
The neocolonial protectorate installed in Bosnia has proved hugely unpopular
- many call it a 'failed state'. Corruption is rampant and economic growth
is slow. In a 2013 survey, half the respondents chose the word "lethargic"
to describe their current state of mind - less than 15 percent used positive
words such "optimistic" or "content".[52] The citizens of Bosnia and Kosovo
see their governments as corrupt, and worse still see government efforts to
curb corruption as essentially useless. The anniversary of Milosevic's death
is still honoured across Serbia - he is seen as a man who stood up to the
NATO forces that would soon destroy their country.[53] Anti-NATO
demonstrations in the country gather thousands, if not tens of thousands in
the streets.[54] Many Serbs still wish to see NATO punished for war crimes
during the bombing campaigns - it seems NATO imposed democracy has not been
accepted with open arms in the Balkans.
Description: skopje_flag
A child burns a mock U.S flag with the stars replaced with Nazi Swastikas at
an anti-NATO protest in Macedonia in April, 1999 (AP Photo/Eric Draper)
By the year 2000, Yugoslavia had been ripped apart with NATO bombs, IMF
restructuring and ethnic conflict. Serbia was destroyed and the rest of the
republics were transformed into neocolonies of the Western powers. The most
popular narrative is that the West intervened in the region out of
humanitarian concern - to stop genocide. However, this claim doesn't hold up
when actual facts are brought into play. In reality, the NATO intervention
in Yugoslavia was not a humanitarian one; it was instead motivated by the
colonial-imperialist, economic and ideological interests of the member
states of NATO - namely the United States and Germany. Although the bombing
was dressed up as 'humanitarian', all it really served to do was dismantle
all that remained of socialism in Europe and once again 'Balkanize' and
colonize the Balkans. This truth becomes obvious upon a principled analysis
of the economic interests and actions of the NATO bloc before formal
intervention, an investigation into how the actual intervention was handled,
and a look into the current state of the former Yugoslavia. The
'humanitarian' and 'democratic' bombs dropped on Yugoslavia resulted in
hundreds of billions of dollars in economic damage which dramatically
reduced the living standards of the Yugoslav people - the most damaging in
the region since the Nazi occupation during WWII. The strategy of
Balkanization and 'humanitarian intervention' has become the West's (often
through NATO) modus operandi; the same strategy of partitioning unified
economically nationalist and independent states first exercised over
Yugoslavia has also been practiced in Iraq, Libya, and now Syria. The
results are always the same - a drop in living standards, a huge resentment
towards the West and NATO from the populations of the targeted countries,
and a profit for the imperialist powers.
Description: 504380_img650x420_img650x420_crop
The leader of the far-right Serbian Radical Party holds a burning NATO flag
