{"id":654,"date":"2019-06-21T18:49:40","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T17:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.balkan-conflicts-research.com\/archive\/?page_id=654"},"modified":"2019-07-05T15:13:52","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T14:13:52","slug":"natasa-kandic-and-the-propaganda-war-against-yugoslavia","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.balkan-conflicts-research.com\/archive\/natasa-kandic-and-the-propaganda-war-against-yugoslavia\/","title":{"rendered":"Natasa Kandic and the Propaganda War against Yugoslavia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Natasa Kandic & the Propaganda War Against Yugoslavia\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Natasa Kandic & the Propaganda War against Yugoslavia.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

The nineteen Nato countries that attacked the sovereign state of Yugoslavia in 1999 had a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 1300 times that of Yugoslavia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly with the respective media outlets the same imbalance applied, namely 1300 to 1.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(Given the universality of the English and French languages the relative world wide impact of the media from the Nato countries could be said to be much more).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Following the Nato destruction of Yugoslavia\u2019s RTS television station the media ratio between aggressor and victim became 1300 to zero.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Consequently it became relatively easy to promote anti-Yugoslav propaganda, because after all who would counter it?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Under these conditions” <\/i>, wrote Edward Herman in his work, Propaganda System Number One,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“remarkable structures of disinformation can be built, institutionalised, and remain parts of historic memory even in the face of ex post confutation\u2019s, which are kept out of sight.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Out of this propaganda onslaught came shocking stories which ranged from \u2018Serb concentration camps\u2019, \u2018ethnic cleansing\u2019 and \u2018genocide\u2019, to the childish claim that Yugoslav soldiers were deliberately killing dogs because the Albanian population were devoted to their pets. This story, aired by the BBC, was aimed directly and exclusively at Britain, on the grounds of its impact on a pet loving nation. Of course none of it was true but the adage that \u2018a lie can be half way around the block before the truth has even got its shoes on\u2019 served the Nato countries well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the outset of the break- up of the sovereign state of Yugoslavia, the Washington based public relations firm, Ruder and Finn Global Public Affairs, was handed the task of demonising the Serbs and their leadership.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the advantage, as outlined above, of 1300 to zero, Ruder and Finn managed to turn the truth onto its head. It was the Serbs who were now incredibly decreed as being guilty of systematic ethnic cleansing, a policy that no one more than the Serbs had suffered from. Indeed the aim of Serbia was the preservation of the Yugoslav federation, not its disintegration, thus opposing the very essence of ethnic cleansing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

James Harff, director of Ruder Finn, when boasting of his propaganda achievements to French TV2, stated, “Speed is vital, it is the first assertion that really counts. All future denials are entirely ineffective.” <\/i>Ruder Finn uses several hundred journalists, politicians, representatives of humanitarian associations and academics to create public opinion. When asked of his proudest public relation endeavours Harff responded , “To have managed to put Jewish opinion on our side. Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps yet we succeeded masterfully.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Harff later clarified that his firm never actually claimed that \u2018genocide\u2019 or \u2018ethnic cleansing\u2019 was taking place, but merely publicised the fact that someone, somewhere, had made such claims. However these two charges in particular are still today the overriding impressions of the Yugoslav conflict in the mind of much of the western world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That the western media readily accepted these claims without seeking any confirmation was a reflection of their subservience to the requirements of their own governments. That we now have \u2018embedded\u2019 reporters in Iraq, broadcasting government and military hand outs as if they were independently verified news, is merely a further example of this journalistic degeneration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This propaganda success allowed Nato to claim that the bombing was justified on the grounds of \u2018humanitarian intervention\u2019. In reality it enabled Nato and particularly the United States to pursue long held foreign policy objectives. In her book, \u2018Fool\u2019s Gold\u2019 author Diana Johnstone clarifies it this way:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Apparently, many people on the left, who would normally defend peace and justice, were fooled or confused by the claim that the “Kosovo war” was waged for purely humanitarian reasons. The altruistic pretensions of NATO’s Kosovo war served to gain public acceptance of war as the appropriate instrument of policy. This opened the way for the United States, in the wake of 11 September 2001, to attack Afghanistan as the opening phase of a new, long-term “war against terrorism”.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The bombing of Yugoslavia marked a turning point in the expansion of U.S. military hegemony. For the first time, a European country was subjected to the type of U.S. intervention usually reserved for Central America. It also marked the end of Germany’s postwar inhibition about foreign military intervention, and saw Germans returning to the scene of Nazi crimes with a clear conscience. For the first time, NATO abandoned its defensive posture and attacked a country that posed no threat to its member states, outside the NATO treaty area, and without seeking UN Security Council authorization.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

International law was circumvented in the name of an alleged higher moral imperative. A precedent was set. When the United States subsequently arrogated the right to bomb and invade Afghanistan on moral grounds, its NATO allies could only meekly offer to tag along. In a world with no more legal barriers to might proclaiming itself right, there was nothing to stop a U.S. president from using military force to crush every conceivable adversary”.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In his opening statement at the beginning of his defence case President Milosevic explained what happened in Kosovo prior to the NATO aggression, establishing the truth about the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, which was in fact a terrorist organization aiming for the creation of an ethnically pure and independent Kosovo that would later be associated with Albania to create a Greater Albania.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He also exposed the fact that the KLA was funded and trained by the West and exercised a murderous regime over Serbs and Albanians in all areas of Kosovo and Metohija where it managed to take over control.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The prosecution, of course, now denies all this. Yet the fact is that the US and Britain knew the true situation in Yugoslavia before the 1999 bombing campaign, particularly the situation in Kosovo, and had known for some considerable time. This can be seen from the following quotes:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“The Albanian nationalists have a two point platform,\u2026\u2019first to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger with Albania to form a greater Albania\u2019”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

(New York Times 12th July 1982).\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

“In reality, the Albanians control every phase of life in Kosovo: the police, the courts, agriculture, the factories, the villages and the cities. . . At present, the Serbs are fleeing, faced with growing Albanian violence. Twenty thousand among them have left Kosovo in the last seven years. . .”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(The New York Times 10th November 1987)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On February 22, 1998, Special US envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, declared publicly:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“I know a terrorist when I see one. And I’m telling you, these guys in the KLA are terrorists.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Only later, when their objectives had been achieved would politicians from within the Nato countries, in rare moments of candour, occasionally admit that the propaganda was merely a cover for their aggression.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Former cabinet minister in the Blair government, Michael Meacher, wrote an article in the Guardian newspaper of 27 th March 2004 where he revealed the following:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“The 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999, directed by the US general Wesley Clark, was said to be stopping an alleged “genocide” by the Serbs in Kosovo (some 2,000 bodies were later exhumed, a horrifying number but far short of the 100,000 the US predicted). The US goal was to assist the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Yet the year before, the US state department had branded the KLA a terrorist organisation, financing its operations from the heroin trade and funds from Islamic countries and individuals, including Osama bin Laden”.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In June 2001, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea admitted ” there was no genocide in Kosovo.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Moreover, two weeks before the war, an official report of the German foreign ministry declared: “There was no ethnic persecution of the Albanians as a group. Only the confrontations between two armies.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And on the eve of the Nato bombing campaign Bill Clinton informed a group of federal employees;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“If we want solid economic relations, permitting us to sell in the whole world, Europe must be the key. . This is what the thing in Kosovo is about.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

(Monopoly – NATO and the Conquest of the World. Michel Collon EPO, 2000 Brussels).\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

PROPAGANDA.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

It would be reasonable to assume that a media imbalance of 1300 to zero against Yugoslavia could not get any worse. However if you assumed that then you would be wrong.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of Nato\u2019s 78 day bombing campaign information revealing the truth of the break-up of Yugoslavia did appear in limited form, mostly thanks to independent media outlets. However the mainstream media continued to promote the Nato propaganda version, not least because of the requirements of The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), an organ, although illegally created and purely a political tool of the western powers, portrayed itself as a legitimate legal body. Its task being to exonerate the aggression of the Nato countries and criminalise the victims of that aggression, an objective that would need a considerable amount of deceit and hypocrisy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to the overwhelming dominance of Nato propaganda, and since the 5th October 2000 western backed coup against the government of Slobodan Milosevic, the new leadership of the now named Serbia and Montenegro, with their position totally dependent on the grace of the United States, became an echo within the country for the propaganda of the very people who had bombed them. Furthermore the Serbian media was now being used to broadcast this same propaganda and began to actively encourage the handing over of their own citizens to the ICTY in The Hague.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This incredible state of affairs, treason is the only word that is suitable to use, was exacerbated further by the activities of prominent individuals within Serbia, individuals who fully supported this prostration before the might of the United States.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One such individual is Natasa Kandic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

NATASA KANDIC.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

In his article \u2018The Fabrication and Dissemination of Deception\u2019 from 2001 Gilles d\u2019Aymery notes the following:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Many news reports of atrocities and “genocide” allegedly committed by the Serbs and widely disseminated in the Western main media have originated with a little known NGO in Belgrade, Serbia, the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC). The story of the refrigerated truck filled with corpses that was purportedly dumped in the [river] Danube in April 1999 is a good example.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The HLC was created in 1992 by Natasa Kandic, its present Executive Director. It has been funded by George Soros as well as the National Endowment for Democracy and this year the Ford Foundation provided HLC with a $80,000 grant.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Kandic is a darling of the Western Human Rights crowd. She’s received tons of awards and was conferred an honorary doctorate by the University of Valencia, Spain, for “her longstanding work in the field of human rights and her humanitarian activities.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

According to a July 18 editorial by Justin Raimundo of Antiwar.com, “It was Kandic who, as the organizer of an OSCE media conference held in Montenegro, told Serbian journalists who walked out in protest at the NATO-crats’ high-handedness: ‘They pay you and have the right to question your conduct during the war.’ Heavily subsidized by interventionist sugar-daddy George Soros, Kandic is a weird, isolated figure in Serbian politics, one of the few who openly sided with NATO during the bombing.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

So, one could entertain the idea that if “they” pay, “they” also have the right and the expectation to a return on their investment. Natasa Kandic has undoubtedly been quite a profitable investment!”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Here are some examples of the work of Natasa Kandic and her HLC:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the ICTY on the 6th April 2005 defence witness Danica Marinkovic, the Investigating Judge who led the inquiry into events at the Kosovo village of Racak, was cross-examined by prosecutor Geoffrey Nice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Having failed to refute Mrs Marinkovoc\u2019s testimony on the Racak incident Mr Nice attempted a character assassination of the defence witness. His claim that Mrs Marinkovoc had ordered the Serbian police to commit murder was so outrageous that even the Nato judges asked him for corroborating evidence. Mr Nice had to withdraw the accusation because his one and only source was an article written by Natasa Kandic which was only notable precisely because it offered no supporting evidence for the accusation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The New York Times of January 26, 2004 published a report commenting on the resignation of USA Today correspondent Jack Kelley over an article he had written in 1999.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Times report commented:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“In his July 1999 article, Mr. Kelley referred to a three-ring notebook with a black vinyl cover that contained a direct order “typed on army stationery and stamped by the Supreme Defense Council of the Yugoslav Army Headquarters in Belgrade, which is headed by Milosevic.” The order, which Mr. Kelley said was typed in Cyrillic letters and intended for a lieutenant, read: “The aim of the military activity should be to cleanse Cusk and the surrounding villages and terrain.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And further:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“In the article, Mr. Kelley wrote about a Yugoslav Army notebook that had a typed order to “cleanse” a Kosovo village, although he did not identify the person who showed him the notebook. He added that United Nations investigators considered this “the strongest and most direct evidence linking the government of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Kosovo.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Announcing Kelley\u2019s resignation, the USA Today issue of 13th January 2004 stated that they had concluded a seven-month investigation into “whether Kelley might have embellished or fabricated stories.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

According to the New York Times Kelley had claimed as his source for the story, “A human rights advocate” <\/i>and confirmed that source as “The rights advocate, Natasa Kandic,\u00a0<\/b>the executive director of the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On 30th April 2001, what later became known as \u2018the freezer truck hoax\u2019 broke in the western press through Associated Press who under the headline, “Rights Activist Says Yugoslav Army, Police Destroyed Evidence Of Kosovo Atrocities.” stated:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“\u2026[Natasa] Kandic [from the Humanitarian Law Center]\u2026cited a report in a local magazine in the eastern Serbian Negotin region, describing how on the night of April 6, 1999, a refrigerated trailer truck was lifted out of the Danube near Kladovo, at the border with Romania”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

“The vehicle bore license plates from Pec, a western Kosovo city, and allegedly contained 50 bodies. According to Kandic\u2019s center, the bodies were subsequently transferred to a truck with Belgrade plates and driven away.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And the piece continued:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“\u2018Our investigations produced witnesses who can testify that many people were killed, their bodies buried only to be dug up again and later moved to another place,\u2019 said Natasa Kandic of the Humanitarian Law Center, a leading human rights watchdog organization in Yugoslavia”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The point of this story was to claim that Mr Milosevic had ordered a cover-up of the alleged atrocities in Kosovo and was removing the evidence, but unfortunately for him a truck carrying Albanian bodies from Kosovo had crashed into the Danube.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This story was very timely for Nato and the new Serbian government because at the time Nato was demanding the transfer of Mr Milosevic to the ICTY and as the Independent newspaper commented approvingly, “The bodies are the evidence the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague needs to prove its charge of crimes against humanity against Mr Milosevic.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The story was published worldwide and the BBC even presented a 45-minute documentary on it, on the 27th January 2002 as part of their holocaust memorial season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However subsequent investigations into this story revealed the following:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The local magazine quoted in the AP article was Timocka Kriminala Revija (criminal review) owned by Dragan Vitomirovic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Timocka published two articles about a refrigerator truck full of bodies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first article, dated 15th September 1999, stated that the truck contained dead Kurds and that the licence plates were Swiss.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the second story, published 1st May 2001 the one that Natasa Kandic presented to the world and the source of the allegations against Slobodan Milosevic, the dead Kurds had become the dead Albanians and the Swiss licence plates had become Kosovo license plates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It further transpired that Dragan Vitomirovic had a brother with a record of smuggling illegal aliens across the Romanian border and moreover, had been encouraged to write the second article by Interior Minister Mihajlovic, a member of the newly installed Nato backed Serbian government.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In regard to Kandic\u2019s claim that, “Our investigations produced witnesses who can testify that many people were killed, their bodies buried only to be dug up again and later moved to another place <\/i>” it is important to note the following:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Police officer Captain Dragan Karleusa, who was appointed to investigate the allegations, appeared in July 2002 as a prosecution witness at The Hague against Mr Milosevic and admitted that not a single witness deposition had ever been taken. (Trial transcript).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Given that as of July 2002 the investigating officers had not taken a single witness deposition and had not a shred of evidence to substantiate the allegation, how was it possible for the BBC to broadcast six months earlier, on the 27th January 2002, their \u2018factual\u2019 documentary programme \u2018Mass Killings in Kosovo\u2019?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Noting the above examples of the work of Kandic\u2019s Humanitarian Law Center it is laughable, if not tragic, to hear Hague prosecutor Geoffrey Nice along with the mainstream media describe this HLC as “a very reliable human rights organisation.” <\/i>One wonders what an unreliable one would be like!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us just recap for a moment and reflect on Kandic\u2019s history as cited in the few samples above.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She sided with Nato as the bombs dropped on her own people and it was she who berated Serbian journalists for not showing respect to their Nato masters, claiming they pay their wages. It was she who was named as the source for the USA article originally printed in 1999 which forced the resignation of Jack Kelley after an investigation that USA Today held to determine, “whether Kelley might have embellished or fabricated stories.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In 2001 it was she who supplied The Hague with the Freezer Truck Story, second version, the rewritten second version naturally. Also, at The Hague this year Prosecutor Nice was forced to drop his character assassination attempt against a defence witness as his one and only source was an article written by Kandic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You would think that given this history any self-respecting newspaper, when confronted by a new allegation from this same source, would immediately realise that some corroborating evidence would be needed before publication. One would like to think that the editor\u2019s thoughts would be something like this: “Oh dear, it\u2019s that fairy tale queen again. Hold the presses while I get this checked and double checked.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, bearing in mind the history of previous HLC accusations it should at the very least have given the media a degree of suspicion concerning future \u2018stories\u2019supplied by this NGO. However in June 2005 this \u2018very reliable human rights organisation\u2019 <\/i>was at it again, riding to the rescue of a desperate, not to say disastrous, prosecution case with a story instantly embraced by a subservient media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On Wednesday 1st June 2005 the prosecution in the Slobodan Milosevic case at The Hague introduced a video tape, apparently showing the execution of six people by a \u2018Serbian unit\u2019 known as the \u2018Scorpions\u2019 which it is claimed occurred in 1995. The \u2018Scorpions\u2019, the prosecution alleges, were under the command of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), which oversaw state security and policing in Serbia. The tape was then broadcast on Serbian television. The tape was supplied by, you\u2019ve guessed it, Natasa Kandic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet The Hague court already had prior knowledge of the so-called \u2018Scorpion\u2019 unit, and knew they were not under the command of the MUP.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Milan Milanovic, the Deputy Defense Minister of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) testified as a prosecution witness at The Hague on October 14, 2003 where he confirmed the unit was subordinated to the command of the Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They used them initially in 1992 as security guards for the Krajina Petroleum Industries oil company.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, a viewing of the video in full would reveal that this was the case. The prosecution showed a few minutes of the two-hour long video, whereas a full viewing would indeed confirm by the insignia on their vehicles that Milanovic\u2019s testimony was correct. Therefore there is no connection with this, essentially mercenary unit, to the Belgrade government whatsoever.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The prosecution should have learned that lesson from the testimony of their own witness, Milanovic, in 2003, yet they chose not to heed the satirical maxim, “If at first you don\u2019t succeed give up, it\u2019s no use making a complete fool of yourself.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We are dealing here, once again, with a complete red herring. Of course it is the first blast of media propaganda that will be embedded in people\u2019s minds, and not the later refutations. As James Harff, director of Ruder Finn, boasted ,<\/i>“Speed is vital, it is the first assertion that really counts. All future denials are entirely ineffective.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite this Mr Milosevic made some telling points about the videotape. While stating that if the tape was authentic, this was indeed an \u2018horrific\u2019 act, he noted however that the video had some technical irregularities which gave rise for concern and pointed out that although the prosecution is linking this tape with Srebrenica and claiming the killings took place in Trnovo, the two places are more that 160km apart, and that there was nothing on the tape to suggest a link, nor anything on the tape to confirm where it was actually filmed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In regard to the \u2018discovery\u2019 of this video and its showing at The Hague, it should be noted that the prosecution case concluded last year, yet the prosecution was allowed to present it six months later, and furthermore, present it without disclosing its existence to the defence, thus breaking all legal norms and even breaking the Hague tribunal\u2019s own rules of procedure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Before leaving the issue of this tape it is interesting to note two news reports which purported to give some background details. The first report is from Reuters and the second from The Observer, written by one Tim Judah, who for those not aware, comes from the London-based IWPR (International War & Peace Reporting) stable, an organisation known for its previous collaboration with Kandic and an organisation about as trustworthy as a rattlesnake with a headache.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reuters dispatch of 4th June 4th 2005 stated:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“The video was obtained last December from an unnamed and now protected source by Hague prosecutors and Natasa Kandic, a Serbian human rights activist.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

They spent months authenticating it and investigating the men it showed. It was shown to Serbian war crimes prosecutors a week ago and its broadcast to a national audience was coordinated with the government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The Observer of 5th June 2005 included this passage:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“On 23 May she (Kandic) gave it to Serbia’s own war crimes prosecutor. He promised to investigate, but no arrests were made. She also gave it to The Hague’s prosecution team, who showed it on Wednesday. Immediately afterwards she gave it to Serbian TV”.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The Reuters report claims \u2018 They spent months authenticating it and investigating the men it showed.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Yet the Observer report states that Kandic gave it to the Serbian authorities and The Hague prosecution team on 23rd May, just eight days prior to its showing. So who \u2018spent months authenticating it.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FUNDING.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

To understand the workings of an organisation, its intentions and philosophy, it is necessary to examine where its funding comes from.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As documented, both the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and American billionaire financier George Soros have provided funding for Kandic\u2019s Humanitarian Law Center.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The National Endowment for Democracy is a United States government agency. Founded in 1983, the NED took over functions that were once the responsibility of the CIA. Unlike the CIA however the NED receives open congressional appropriations, as opposed to the previously covert funding, and thus their activities are more openly documented. For instance NED programme operator Paul McCarthy revealed in his testimony to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe that the NED, in 1998, was responsible in Yugoslavia for, amongst other things, the newspapers Nasa Borba, Vreme and Danas, the TV station Negotin, the news agency BETA and the Belgrade station Radio B-92.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is worth noting that among the directors who have served on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy are: Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of Nato, Richard Holbrooke former Assistant Secretary of State, and Francis Fukuyama, author of the anti-communist diatribe, \u2018The End of History.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

George Soros is responsible for the creation of many organisations, one such being the Open Society Institute. Journalist Neil Clark commented in the New Statesman magazine that:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Soros deems a society `open’ not if it respects human rights and basic freedoms, but if it is `open’ for him and his associates to make money. And, indeed, Soros has made money in every country he has helped to prise `open.’ In Kosovo, for example, he has invested $50m in an attempt to gain control of the Trepca mine complex, where there are vast reserves of gold, silver, lead and other minerals estimated to be worth in the region of $5bn. He thus copied a pattern he has deployed to great effect over the whole of eastern Europe: of advocating `shock therapy’ and `economic reform,’ then swooping in with his associates to buy valuable state assets at knockdown prices.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In her article \u2018George Soros \u2013 Imperial Wizard\u2019 published in the autumn 2002 issue of Covert Action Quarterly, Heather Coffin quoted Soros as saying:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“In each country I identified a group of people, some leading personalities, others less well known – who share my belief…”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Coffin also noted:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“He was part of the full court press that dismantled Yugoslavia <\/i>.Calling himself a philanthropist, billionaire George Soros’ role is to tighten the ideological stranglehold of globalization and the New World Order while promoting his own financial gain. Soros’ commercial and “philanthropic” operations are clandestine, contradictory and coactive. And as far as his economic activities are concerned, by his own admission, he is without conscience; a capitalist who functions with absolute amorality.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Gilles d\u2019Amery reported further details on Soros in \u2018The Fabrication and Dissemination of Deception\u2019:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“A prominent hawk on Yugoslavia, Soros pressured Bill Clinton, as early as 1993, to escalate the war by lifting an arms embargo against Bosnian separatists. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Emboldened by U.S. support, separatist rebels launched “ethnic cleansing” campaigns against Serb civilians living in the territories they claimed. The bloodiest such action was Operation Storm, an August 1995 offensive by Croatian forces, in which as many as 300,000 Serbs were driven from Krajina, and an unknown number of Serb civilians slaughtered.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The blood was not dry in Krajina before Soros and his fellow hawks confronted Congress in December 1995 with a petition, signed by 40 prominent policy makers, urging massive U.S. intervention in the Balkans — not to protect Serbs from further atrocities, but to escalate the war by intensifying support for separatist rebels.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

George Soros is also a notable contributor to the funding of the ICTY itself. Another organisation that supports the ICTY is the Coalition for International Justice (CIJ), which was founded and funded by Soros and it is the CIJ that supplies many of the ICTY\u2019s legal staff. Moreover the ICTY also has provision for the obtaining of evidence by, among others, George Soros\u2019 Open Society Foundation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Between them the NED and Soros can be said to fund the \u2018human rights\u2019 organisations (Soros is also involved with HRW) that highlight \u2018atrocities\u2019, they also control large parts of the Serbian media that publicises these \u2018atrocities\u2019 and they contribute to the ICTY who conduct the resulting trials. A tidy circle indeed and within this circle where is the allowance for any opposing voice?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These then are the masters that Natasa Kandic and her HLC serve. In essence Kandic is merely a Nato foot soldier.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

EVIDENCE.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

As for the accusations of \u2018ethnic cleansing\u2019 and \u2018genocide\u2019 levelled against Slobodan Milosevic the ICTY have not a scrap of credible evidence. They have not got one single document or other exhibit that suggests Mr Milosevic or the Yugoslav government are guilty of these grave charges.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the contrary, the ICTY have in their possession a mass of documents and sworn testimonies to confirm that the Milosevic government and the Yugoslav authorities took all available steps to prevent any possible crimes against civilians.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, General Gojovic, who was the head of the Legal Directorate at the Yugoslav Defense Ministry during the 1999 Kosovo war, testified in March this year that war crimes were severely punished by the Yugoslav Army.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He exhibited a large file of documents laying out the work of the Yugoslav military justice system. These documents detailed the type of crime committed, whether this be robbery or a more serious offence, the files identified the soldiers who committed the crimes, and the relevant action taken by the Yugoslav courts as of 2001. For example the Yugoslav authorities successfully convicted over 2000 perpetrators in Kosovo alone with some soldiers receiving the death penalty for their crimes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Further, the ICTY have in their possession copies of the orders from the Yugoslav Supreme Command that instructed soldiers to abide by the Geneva Conventions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, during General Gojovic\u2019s testimony Slobodan Milosevic exhibited numerous pamphlets containing codes of conduct that were distributed to the personnel of the Yugoslav Army, which clearly stated that all personnel were ordered to respect civilians, treat enemy prisoners humanely and observe the laws of war.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That the Yugoslav government did this while engaged in a life and death struggle against internal and external enemies is to their everlasting credit and proves that the charge against them of a “Joint Criminal Enterprise” of President Milosevic and others to ethnically cleanse Kosovo and Metohija of non-Serbs, on which the “indictment” relies, is inapplicable, and a complete and utter nonsense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course all this would be relevant if the aim of the ICTY was to objectively establish the truth about the break-up of Yugoslavia and punish those responsible for any crimes committed. However this is not the case.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The ICTY is a political tool. It is a creation of the United States and its function is to justify the Nato aggression and to punish the victims of that aggression. The real guilt of the Yugoslav prisoners is that they defied Nato and fought for the independence of their country. Moreover, the ICTY exists to serve as a warning to anyone who thinks of trying to resist US foreign policy in the future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The tribunal\u2019s rules are unique and have nothing to do with justice or discovering the truth about the break-up of Yugoslavia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It has 1300 employees, it has lawyers, legal secretaries, investigators and judges who are all primarily from the Nato countries that attacked Yugoslavia. It has assistance from the governments and intelligence services of those countries that attacked Yugoslavia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is therefore hardly neutral.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When commenting on the illegal weapons used by Nato against Yugoslavia, weapons that are forbidden by the Geneva Convention such as fragmentation bombs, graphite bombs, used to paralyse the electrical grid and weapons of Depleted Uranium which cause cancer and birth defects,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

US Congressman Lester Munson stated:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“You will never see these NATO pilots brought before a UN tribunal. NATO is the accuser, the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the executioner, because it is NATO that pays the bills for the ICTY. NATO does not have to submit to international law. It is international law.”\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

(Monopoly – NATO and the Conquest of the World. Michel Collon EPO, 2000 Brussels).\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Given this scenario it is easy to see people such as Natasa Kandic as an obedient servant of Nato, and every \u2018smoking gun\u2019 story that is produced by her ilk is not only testimony to the fact that the prosecution lacks any factual evidence, but testimony to the correctness of the battle for justice and historical truth being undertaken by Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And even a media advantage of 1300 to zero will ultimately not be enough to conceal the truth about the destruction of Yugoslavia and the false demonising of its people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ian Johnson\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

June 2005.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Natasa Kandic & the Propaganda War Against Yugoslavia\u00a0 Natasa Kandic & the Propaganda War against Yugoslavia.\u00a0 The nineteen Nato countries that attacked the sovereign state of Yugoslavia in 1999 had a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 1300 times that of Yugoslavia.\u00a0 Similarly with the respective media outlets the same imbalance applied, namely 1300 to … <\/p>\n

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