The Balkan Turmoil (examined by elle aka mbpl)

The topic of the Balkan wars has been brought into the limelight once more following the arrest of Radovan Karadzic. To some, he was a monster who practiced genocide against the Bosnian Muslims, but to the Serbs he is a national hero who fought to preserve his country and his culture from being eliminated. So there are two sides to this story. I will try to illustrate the other, less known side of this saga.

“More than four years of war have turned once-beautiful Yugoslavia into a living nightmare, and into one of the bloodiest battlefields in Europe's recent history. We see the images -- refugees bearing children and suitcases, war-wearied elderly women, crying soldiers. But many of us don't understand exactly how the turmoil began. Here's a brief look.

The rivalries between Serb, Croat and Muslim communities in Yugoslavia date back centuries. Created in the aftermath of World War I, the country was first known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The name Yugoslavia was adopted in 1929.

During World War II, Croats joined the Nazis in exterminating Serbs and others. The Serbs took up arms -- and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians were killed on both sides. Josip Broz Tito, a partisan leader, led the resistance against the Nazis, ultimately driving them from Yugoslavia.

Following the war, Tito was elected to lead the newly created Yugoslav Federation. Tito ruled with an iron fist, keeping ethnic rivalries in check. Despite such problems as astronomical inflation, the nation held together for a decade after Tito's death in 1980.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, democratic movements swept across much of Eastern Europe, including Yugoslavia. With the election of non-communist governments in four of Yugoslavia's six republics, the Federation began to crumble and ethnic divisions resurfaced.

By 1991, the prosperous Croatian republic sought to create a loose confederation or to dissolve the union entirely. Less wealthy Serbia opposed this. In June of 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence. Fighting soon began as the Yugoslav army, consisting primarily of Serbs, tried to prevent Slovenia from establishing its own border posts.

In July, fighting also broke out between Croatian forces and Serb militiamen. Among the other republics, only the smallest -- Montenegro -- sided with Serbia. The two remaining republics, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, voted in favor of independence.

In 1992, the Serbian minority in Bosnia, helped by the federal army, attempted to carve out enclaves for itself, laying siege to Sarajevo. By the time the United Nations dismissed Yugoslavia from its General Assembly, some 20,000 people had died and up to 2 million had become refugees from fighting and "ethnic cleansing."

A plan to divide Bosnia into 10 provinces along ethnic lines was accepted by Muslims and Croats, but rejected by Serbs. Fighting resumed, and the Croats and Muslims, who were previously allied, began to battle.

The United Nations has attempted to mediate between the warring parties, and has placed more than 45,000 peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia. In Bosnia, dozens of ceasefires worked out by international mediators have broken down.”

http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/Bosnia/history/index.html

As we all realize this war split along ethnic and religious lines and it developed into an ugly and brutal war. The Bosnians were largely Muslim, and the Serbs basically orthodox Christians. Here is a brief description of the faith and culture of the Serbs:

“The Serbian Orthodox Church (Serbian: Српска Православна Црква / Srpska Pravoslavna Crkva; СПЦ / SPC) or the Church of Serbia is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria [disambiguation needed], Antioch, Jerusalem, and Bulgaria. It is the second oldest Slavic Orthodox Church in the world, as well as the westernmost predominant Eastern church in Europe. It exercises jurisdiction over Orthodox Christians in Serbia and surrounding Slavic and other lands, as well as exarchates and patriarchal representation churches around the world. The Patriarch of Serbia serves as first among equals in his church; the current patriarch is His Holiness Pavle.”

But it was not a simple rivalry of the different sects of Yugoslavs, it became a war with foreign interventions and intrigues and maneuverings. There were of course Islamic interests (Bosnia was the eastern edges of the old Ottoman empire), Russian interests, American interests to establish their sphere of influence in the Balkans. The Serbs and the Bosnians now became pawns of the BIG interests.

Mercernaries in the Balkan conflict (mostly swept under the carpet)

The Bosnian War, which was fought between Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia, attracted large numbers of foreign fighters and mercenaries from various countries. Volunteers came to fight for a variety of reasons including religious or ethnic loyalties and in some cases for money. As a general rule, Bosniaks received support from Islamic countries, Serbs from the Eastern Orthodox countries and Croats from the Western Christianity. The presence of foreign fighters is well documented, however none of these groups comprised more than 5 per cent of any of the respective armies' total manpower strength.

“Mujahideen

During the Yugoslav wars, Bosnia-Herzegovina received humanitarian aid from Islamic countries as well as from the West, because of intensive and widespread killing, mass rapes, death camps, ethnic cleansing committed by Serb and, to a lesser extent, Croat forces. The main targets were Bosnian Muslim civilians. The ICJ concluded that these crimes, committed during the 1992 -95 war, were "acts of genocide" and crimes against humanity according to the Genocide Convention.[1]

Following such massacres, Arab volunteers came across Croatia into Bosnia to help the Bosnian Army protect the Bosnian Muslim civilian population. The number of the El-Mudžahid volunteers is still disputed, from around 300 [2][3] to 1,500.[4]

These caused particular controversy: foreign fighters, styling themselves mujahiddin, turned up in Bosnia around 1993 with Croatian identity documents, passports and IDs. They quickly attracted heavy criticism, who considered their presence to be evidence of violent Islamic fundamentalism at the heart of Europe. However, the foreign volunteers became unpopular even with many of the Bosniak population, because the Bosnian army had thousands of troops and had no need for more soldiers, but for arms. Many Bosnian Army officers and intellectuals were suspicious regarding foreign volunteers arrival in central part of the country, because they came from Split and Zagreb in Croatia, and were passed through the self-proclaimed Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia without problems unlike Bosnian Army soldiers who were regularly arrested by Croat forces. According to general Stjepan Šiber, the highest ranking ethnic Croat in Bosnian Army, the key role in foreign volunteers arrival was played by Franjo Tuđman and Croatian counter-intelligence underground with the aim to justify involvment of Croatia in Bosnian War and mass crimes committed by Croat forces. Although Izetbegović regarded them as symbolically valuable as a sign of the Muslim world's support for Bosnia, they appear to have made little military difference and became a major political liability. [3]

On August 13, 1993, the Bosnian Army decided to form a unit, Kateebat al-Mujahideen ("Battalion of the Holy Warriors") or El Mudžahid in order to impose control over the foreign fighters whose number increased. Initially, the foreign Mujahideen gave food and other basic necessities to the local Muslim population, deprived many necessities by the Serb forces. Once hostilities broke out between the Bosnian government (ABiH) and the Croat forces (HVO), the Mujahideen also participated in battles against the HVO alongside Bosnian Army units.[5]

According to the Arab fighters who testified as the prosecution witnesses at the trial of Bosnian general Rasim Delic indicted by ICTY on the basis of superior criminal responsibility, the El Mujahid Detachment was only formally part of the Bosnian Army chain of command. All decisions were taken by the emir and the shura, the Mujahideen commander and the Mujahideen supreme council respectively. This was because the ‘Army couldn’t be trusted’. [6]

It is alleged that mujahideen participated in some incidents considered to be war crimes according to the international law. However no indictment was issued by the ICTY against them, but a few Bosnian Army officers were indicted on the basis of superior criminal responsibility. Amir Kubura and Enver Hadžihasanović were found not guilty on all counts related to the incidents involving mujahideen. Furthermore, the Appeals Chamber noted that the relationship between the 3rd Corps of the Bosnian Army headed by Hadžihasanović and the El Mujahedin detachment was not one of subordination but was instead close to overt hostility since the only way to control the detachment was to attack them as if they were a distinct enemy force.[7]

During and after the war, Bosnia granted citizenship to at least 700 foreigners (mostly Muslims, but also Orthodox and other Christians) who fought in the war, of which 367 were revoked in 2007 as illegal. These included citizens from: Algeria, Egypt, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. [8][9]

The mujahideen units were disbanded and required to leave the Balkans under the terms of the 1995 Dayton peace accord. Although the US State Department report suggested that the number could be higher, a senior SFOR official said allied military intelligence estimated that no more than 200 foreign-born militants actually live in Bosnia”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_role_of_foreign_fighters_in_the_Bosnian_war

And the saying is that “there is no smoke without fire” I submit this article for authentication:

“Three senior Bosnian Muslim commanders have pleaded not guilty to war crimes charges at the international tribunal in The Hague.

The three - arrested last week by the police in Bosnia-Hercegovina - are accused of murder and other crimes committed against Croats and Serbs during the war in central Bosnia in 1993.

Charges against the three

Murders

Inhumane treatment causing great suffering

Wanton destruction

Illegal detention

The three men are the highest-ranking Muslim officers to face trial at the International War Crimes Tribunal.

They were charged with murder, wanton destruction and inhumane treatment among 19 counts on the indictment.

Bosnian 7th Muslim Brigade on parade in Zenica

Muslim fighters are accused of a range of atrocities

The indictment alleges that General Enver Hadzihasanovic, General Mehmed Alagic and Colonel Amir Kubura were responsible for executions and massacres following attacks on towns and villages.

Their alleged victims were mainly Croat, but also Serb prisoners-of-war and civilians.

The prosecutors claim the worst of these crimes were carried out by foreign Muslim fighters known as mujahideen - or holy warriors - under the command of the three accused.

Witnesses

The men have already appeared before the tribunal as court witnesses in ongoing trials.

Hague Tribunal: Key moments

3 July: Slobodan Milosevic appears on charges of crimes against humanity

5 July: Serb "Adolf" Goran Jelisic acquitted of genocide

26 July: General Rahim Ademi is the first Croatian to appear at the court

2 Aug: General Radislav Krstic receives first ever conviction for genocide

General Hadzihasanovic gave the final testimony in the trial of the Serb General Radislav Krstic, who was convicted last week of genocide at Srebrenica.

These three men are not the first Muslims to go on trial at the tribunal.

Two camp commanders were sentenced three years ago for crimes against Serbs.

But now the military chiefs are being held accountable for atrocities carried out by their subordinates.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1481613.stm

A Major Key Player in the Balkans War (The nigger in the woodpile)

“Bondsteel Camp: Kosovo Independence. American Game Behind it.

KBR’s strategic masterpiece is Camp Bondsteel - the largest and most expensive US Army base since Vietnam, still in use today, complete with roads, its own power generators, houses, satellite dishes, a helicopter airfield and of course a Vietnam-style prison. By a fabulous coincidence, Camp Bondsteel is right on the path of the Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil (AMBO) Trans-Balkan Pipeline. This key piece of Pipelineistan is supposed to connect the oil-and-gas-rich Caspian Sea with Europe. The feasibility project for AMBO was conducted by none other than KBR.

From Martial Law, Inc. KBR: A Halliburton Subsidiary, by Andrew G. Marshall:

KBR in Bosnia and Kosovo:

As economics professor at the University of Ottawa, Michel Chossudovsky, noted, “Throughout the 1990s, the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) was used by the CIA as a go-between — to channel weapons and Mujahideen mercenaries to the Bosnian Muslim Army in the civil war in Yugoslavia.” Quoting a report by the International Media Corporation, Chossudovsky wrote:

Reliable sources report that the United States is now [1994] actively participating in the arming and training of the Muslim forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina in direct contravention of the United Nations accords. US agencies have been providing weapons made in … China (PRC), North Korea (DPRK) and Iran…

… It was [also] reported that 400 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran) arrived in Bosnia with a large supply of arms and ammunition. It was alleged that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had full knowledge of the operation and that the CIA believed that some of the 400 had been detached for future terrorist operations in Western Europe.

During September and October [1994], there has been a stream of “Afghan” Mujahedin … covertly landed in Ploce, Croatia (South-West of Mostar) from where they have traveled with false papers … before deploying with the Bosnian Muslim forces in the Kupres, Zenica and Banja Luka areas…

The Mujahedin landing at Ploce are reported to have been accompanied by US Special Forces equipped with high-tech communications equipment, … The sources said that the mission of the US troops was to establish a command, control, communications and intelligence network to coordinate and support Bosnian Muslim offensives — in concert with Mujahideen and Bosnian Croat forces. (Michel Chossudovsky, Osamagate. Global Research: October 9, 2001)

Osama bin Laden in 1998

Further, a Congressional report issued in 1997, “confirms unequivocally the complicity of the Clinton Administration with several Islamic fundamentalist organisations including Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda,” and that, “The “Bosnian pattern” described in the 1997 Congressional RPC report was replicated in Kosovo. With the complicity of NATO and the US State Department. Mujahideen mercenaries from the Middle East and Central Asia were recruited to fight in the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1998-99, largely supporting NATO’s war effort.” It was revealed that, “the task of arming and training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services MI6.” (Michel Chossudovsky, Osamagate. Global Research: October 9, 2001)”

http://hidhist.wordpress.com/category/bosnian-muslim-army/

Further evidence of the degree of American involvement is even more sinister when we examine the following evidence:

“MPRI (formerly known as Military Professional Resources, Inc.). Its client: the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

MPRI is one of a handful of Pentagon contractors known as private military companies providing support to the KLA, according to retired Army Colonel David Hackworth, in an interview with Fox News's Catherine Crier. According to Hackworth, MPRI has used former U.S. military personnel to train KLA forces at secret bases inside Albania.

According to its web site, MPRI was founded as a Delaware-based corporation in 1987 by eight retired military officers. Its present board of directors is a virtual Who's Who of retired Pentagon brass. Members include one retired admiral, two retired major generals, and ten retired generals. One of those is former U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Carl E. Vuono. MPRI employs more than 400 personnel and, more importantly, has access to the resumes of thousands of former U.S. military specialists, from Green Berets and helicopter pilots to supply clerks and cooks. The firm--which, according to Jane's Intelligence Review, is involved in internal conflicts in Angola and the Congo, as well as the Balkans--did more than $48 million in business in 1997. MPRI's motto is: "Our integrity is our most treasured asset."

Some of the military leadership of the KLA includes veterans of MPRI-planned Operations Storm and Strike, 1995 Croatian military offensives that resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from eastern Croatia. One former CIA official confided that he is not surprised that MPRI is now involved with the KLA. "It fits the pattern," he said.

The military commander of the KLA, Agim Ceku, is a former brigadier general in the Croatian army, and, according to the London Independent's Robert Fisk, an "ethnic cleanser" in his own right. Along with MPRI military advisers, Ceku helped plan the Croatian offensive that drove some 350,000 Croatian Serbs from Krajina province. Croatian forces also destroyed more than 10,000 Croatian Serb homes.

Another KLA leader is Xhavit Haliti, who is not even a Kosovar. He is a former officer of the dreaded Albanian secret police, the Sigurimi, an entity that has chalked up innumerable human rights violations inside Albania.

KLA leaders have been accused of assassinating moderate Kosovo Albanians, including some of those who agreed to the Rambouillet peace accords. In fact, according to Albanian State Television, the KLA had sentenced to death in absentia Ibrahim Rugova, the democratically elected president of the Republic of Kosovo. (The KLA boycotted the election he won in 1998.) Apparently, Rugova, whose government-in-exile signed the Rambouillet accord, was too moderate for the KLA.

Until last year, the KLA was regarded as a terrorist organization by the State Department.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported last May that "officers of the Kosovo Liberation Army and their backers, according to law enforcement authorities in Western Europe and the United States, are a major force in international organized crime, moving staggering amounts of narcotics through an underworld network that reaches into the heart of Europe."

The Congressional Record indicates that the United States may have actually shipped arms to Serbia and Montenegro in the name of the War on Drugs. In the aftermath of the Dayton Accords on Bosnia, the Clinton Administration viewed Milosevic as an ally against America's other great enemy: international drug dealing.

Testifying before the House National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice Subcommittee on May 1, 1997, Clinton's drug czar General Barry McCaffrey stated he wanted several Congressional "614 waivers," or what are called "national interest waivers," to ship weapons to various nations, including some with questionable human rights records. "I have fourteen waivers that the President granted ... for Serbia, Montenegro, Haiti, Somalia, Jordan, the list goes on and on," McCaffrey told the panel headed up by a then little-known Illinois Republican Representative named Dennis Hastert, now Speaker of the House. Hastert said he personally was "very supportive" of McCaffrey getting the money for the arms on a "long-term basis," or whatever basis he needed to get weapons to the Serbs and Montenegrins under file provisions of both the Foreign Military Sales program and the waiver provision.

There was apparently some delay in shipping the arms to those countries, and this annoyed Hastert, who pressed McCaffrey at the hearing to hurry up and see that the weapons made their way to their intended destination.

Hastert may have helped the weapons get into the hands of Serbia's Special Police and similar paramilitary forces in Montenegro. One month after pressing McCaffrey on the weapons waivers, Hastert told the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee that the waiver process was "under way." McCaffrey's Office of National Drug Control Policy has chosen to remain mum on the subject.

These days, no one in Washington is pressing for aid to the Serbs. During the recent conflict between NATO and Serbia over Kosovo, the U.S. government changed its position on the KLA. U.S. officials shoved aside more moderate representatives of the Kosovar Albanians in favor of KLA guerrillas during negotiations with Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Still, "suspicion of criminal associations taints the KLA's newly acquired legitimacy and clouds its recent efforts to press NATO for money, guns, and other supplies," The Wall Street Journal reports. "NATO so far has said no, despite concern that the refusal will only entrench the KLA's reliance on murky groups and make it less suitable for a role in a postwar Kosovo government."

One of those "murky groups," not mentioned in The Wall Street Journal article, is Washington's own MPRI.

MPRI has been involved in the Balkans for years. In 1996, after the ethnic cleansing in Krajina, MPRI received a $400 million State Department contract to "train and equip" the Bosnian Croat-Muslim Federation Army.

In a caper reminiscent of the Reagan Administration's solicitation of funds for the contras, the United States managed to get Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Malaysia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates to pony up more than one-fourth of the cost of the Bosnian military contract. Retired Major General Walter Yates runs MPRI's Bosnian operation, which is officially known as the Military Stabilization Program. The company's good fortunes in the Balkans are advertised on the firm's web page. The page shows a map headlined "Where in the World Is MPRI?" Arrows pinpoint Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia as centers of MPRI activity. Serbia is also mentioned as a country where MPRI mercenaries are active. MPRI has also helped set up a number of arms factories and military training schools in Bosnia that are staffed by veterans of the Croatian war against Serbia as well as Bosnian Croats and Muslims.

In early April, MPRI was caught off-guard when Bosnia's army arranged for millions of dollars worth of arms to be secretly transferred from Bosnian caches to KLA guerrillas in Kosovo and Yugoslav Muslims in the province of Sandzak. As a result of the arms transfers, the State Department "temporarily suspended" MPRI's "train and equip" program.

Retired Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll Jr., deputy director of the Center for Defense Information, says such weapons traffic is a predictable side effect of mercenary companies like MPRI. "The military loses control of material twice. First, they turn it over to a commercial enterprise, and they turn it over again," he says………..”

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_8_6/ai_55309049/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1

With the above background Serbian Nationalists do not stand a chance at the Hague

The depth of American involvement in the Balkan War has never been acknowledged by anyone in my circles. There is a wall of silence. NATO fought on the side of the Muslim Bosnians and subdued Serbians mercilessly. And now their patriotic national heroes are going to be charged with War Crimes and Genocide.

Do they stand a chance? No because the might of America will be against them. NATO was involved, Saudi Arabia was involved, Bosnia was involved. Why was Clinton involved? There is plenty on the web on that issue but the following does indicate that the Saudis likes Bill Clinton.

“Clinton Library Got Funds From Abroad

Saudis Said to Have Given $10 Million

By John Solomon and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 15, 2007; A03

Bill Clinton's presidential library raised more than 10 percent of the cost of its $165 million facility from foreign sources, with the most generous overseas donation coming from Saudi Arabia, according to interviews yesterday.

The royal family of Saudi Arabia gave the Clinton facility in Little Rock about $10 million, roughly the same amount it gave toward the presidential library of George H.W. Bush, according to people directly familiar with the contributions.”

So, I see the cards stacked against Radovan Karadzic, and he will be silenced as Slobodan Milosevic was silenced. I see that this is simply the price for having lost the war. But what is more sinister is the fact that America is going to bed with their worst enemy.