By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
August 13, 2001
Truth is a stubborn thing, as the House Impeachment managers said, a few weeks before Clinton began bombing Belgrade. But, little by little it is coming out - the depth of the lies told about what was going on in the Balkans. . It seems as if the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic has shamed those who know the truth to finally tell what they know. While the American people were told story after story about "Serb atrocities," most of which turned out to be untrue, the atrocities against the Serbs have been covered up. Many of those atrocities have been covered up since World War II. Yet, they are recorded in the Holocaust Museum.
The most recent Balkan Hell began on June 25, 1991 when Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia. At that point, according to census records, there were 4,763,000 people in Croatia. Eighteen percent of them, or 857,340, were Serbs. The Croatians wanted a Croatian state. In fact, they sided with Hitler during World War II because they wanted to create a Croatian state.
On February 21, 1992, the UN Security Council approved a peace-keeping force for Croatia, which was supposed to enforce the truce then in effect and protect the minority Serbs living in Croatia. Slobodan Milosevic, then president of Serbia, welcomed the UN Decision and said it marked the end of the Civil war.
However, shortly after Bill Clinton was sworn into office in January 1993, war again broke out in Croatia. In 1995, with the help of American bombers, and supplies from Muslim Fundamentalists that Clinton allowed to go through the UN blockade. Croatians and Muslims, who were then allies, drove an estimated 200,000 Serbs from their homes or killed them in the Krajina area of Croatia, where many of their families had lived for centuries. In 1996, according to the world almanac, Croatia had a population of 5,004,112 Yet, only 12%, a 6% drop, of that population, or 600,493 people were Serbs. In five years 256,847 Serbs had disappeared from Croatia. By the year 2000 the population of Croatia had dropped to 4,676,865, reflecting an additional loss of 42,016 Serbs in the country. The number of Croatians rose 75,704.
By 2001 the number of people in Croatia had dropped to 4,676,865, with a reported Serb population of 12% or 561,223. In ten years the Serb population of Croatia dropped from 857,340 to 561,223 - a loss of 327,247 Serbs. Yet, the 2001 New York Times Almanac says that the SERBS were doing the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. From 1991 the number of Croatians had risen from 3,572,250 to 3,647,954, an increase of 75,704 of Croatians in Croatia.
In one of the first posted articles on this subject, in the first few weeks of the Reagan Information Interchange, which I edit, going on line on www.reagan.com, I wrote:
February 28, 1996
In December, as the first NATO troops began to trickle into Bosnia, UN officials reported that Bosnian Croats were continuing to implement a scorched earth policy on Land in Central Bosnia they were required to turn over to the Bosnian Serbs. .Serbs were beginning their exodus from areas of Sarajevo and it's suburbs which they were required to turn over to the Bosnian government, under the Dayton Accord.
In the Gorazde area, after a Bosnian Croat campaign burned 40% of the Serbian houses and factories, the Serbs began burning Croat houses. NATO worried that all sides "will pursue a scorched earth policy in areas that are to be handed over."
UN spokesman Alex Ivanko warned, back in December 1995, only two months ago, "We see at least half a dozen to a dozen houses being burned and looted every day. We have protested to the Croatian authorities locally, but nothing is being done, though we were promised these actions would cease immediately." ,
In 1991 the population of ,Sarajevo was 525,980 . It was 49% Muslim, 29.9% Serb, 6.6 Croats and 14.2 other. More than 155,000 Serbs and 262,000 Muslims lived in Sarajevo and its suburbs before the war. Today, the Associated Press reports, "only about 30,000 Serbs in a population of "300,000 remaining" inhabitants." -It would seem that most of the 262,000 Muslims are still there, and 125,000 of the 155,000 Serbs are missing.
"Kris Janowski, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, expressed dismay at the NATO-led peace implementation force's decision to allow Bosnian Serb military trucks into the districts of Vogosca, Ilijas and Rajlovac to pick up refugees and their belongings. Officials of the force said they did not want the Serbs to go, but that they were facing reality. Most Serbs preferred leaving to submitting to the rule of Bosnia's Muslim-led government."
"UN and NATO officials are anxious to avoid presiding over the destruction of significant amounts of the Bosnian Capital," the Voice of America reported in December. "including dozens of tall apartment buildings and factories, but there seems to be little that can be done...After three and a half years of bitter war, it seems that the new (NATO) soldiers will have to enforce an equally bitter peace."
Nearly 150,000 Serbs that were in Sarajevo four years ago are gone. Yet, the Associated Press report today left the impression that the fleeing Serbs were "fleeing because they are ashamed of what they did" and because they were "in a Muslim house, so I dare not stay."
Where are the missing 150,000 Serbs? That's rather a large number of people to disappear out of a city of a half million people without the world noticing what became of them. It would appear that, by the time the NATO troops leave, Bosnia will be swept clean of any multi-ethnicity in its various "sections."
On Sunday, the Toronto Sun, which has been filing one-sided and very anti Serb reports for years, has suddenly printed an article entitled "Truth lies buried in Balkan hell holes" reporting on the:
"Medac pocket in 1993 when Croat forces attacked the Krajina, then held by Serbs. The horrors they witnessed were close to unspeakable. The young soldier looked at the camera lens, and beyond. He remembered what he had seen: "They the Croats) were using people from the villages to carry the belongings they had stolen. We trailed them towards the mountains, and as we got close, they started to kill people - a warning for us to stop the chase."'We tried our best' "We radioed what was happening and were told not to go any further. I'm sorry, sir. We really didn't know whether or not we got the right body parts in the right body bags. We tried our best, sir."
What I reported years ago, based simply on readily available data, is now being fleshed out. Finally, after years of secrecy, Croat Maj. Gen. Rahim Ademi gave himself up on July 26, 2001 to the Hague War Crimes Tribunal to face charges of murder, plunder, wanton destruction and crimes against humanity. For years, even members of my own family discounted these stories because, they said, "They weren't reported on the Networks." And, they weren't. Ademi has finally been arrested and sent to the Hague
Bob Petrovich, who wrote the article in the Toronto Sun, recalled:
"The horrors of the Medac pocket were obvious the day I arrived in the battle zone. Maybe it was the child's bicycle lying in the mud at the crossroads -run over by tanks. Or the gutted buildings. But for sure there'd been horror there. Everything was destroyed. Everything gone. All animals, even chickens, had been slaughtered. And, of course, the smell.Balkan hell hole. Unreported.
"It would be two years before the Canadian media picked up the story and explained that this was the biggest battle Canadians had been involved in since the Korean War. Canadians, under the United Nations, had put a stop to the slaughter of Serbs by the Croats reputedly under the command of Croat Maj. Gen. Rahim Ademi.
... "As a film-maker following the Canadian involvement, I have covered the Balkans extensively for years and have always tried to remain impartial. But what happened in the Medac pocket is beyond most atrocities that I've tried to record, including the killing fields in Kosovo.
"My conscience is not clear. I covered the Medac pocket and allowed the National Film Board and other so-called Canadian national news agencies to turn a blind eye to what happened there. The common thread in the Medac pocket and Krajina, is what happened to Serb civilians. For a reason I can't comprehend, the same yardstick is not being used by the Canadian media and now The Hague to judge Croats as is used in judging Serbs and Muslims in other parts of the Balkans. It appears that evidence of war crimes against Croats in the Krajina has been lost. So now, Croatian general staff officers are giving themselves up to the tribunal.
"Something very strange is under way here. There is one absolute in all this: Canadians were involved, and Canadians know what happened. In 1995, Gen. Alain Forand was in charge of the UN contingent in the Krajina when the Croats swept through in a five-day blitzkrieg that displaced 185,000 Serbs. Canadians under his command know the truth and have tried to speak out. But their voices haven't been heard.
"The same holds true for the Canadian soldiers at Medac, 1993. Shelling of Knin Canadian Capt. Phil Berkhoff, now retired, explained to my camera what happened in the 1995 shelling of Knin. An old lady, holding her dead husband in her arms, her eye blown out, refused to leave her husband's side as the captain pleaded with her to go before another mortar attack.
"We did the best we could," said Capt. Berkhoff. "It was horrible. These were civilians. We lifted one man to put him in a body bag, and his brain spilled on my foot.
"We moved body bags across some grass near a fence, and when we came back Croat tanks had crossed the grass deliberately and run over the body bags. We didn't know if these dead were Serb, Croat or Muslim. Neither did the people in the Croat tanks."
"Gen. Forand and his small contingent of Canadians in Knin saved and protected 780 refugees for two months while the UN called them "displaced persons" and wanted them released to the street and the Croats. Forland refused. Not on his watch. Not Rwanda all over again. Not this time.
"Knin was smashed. Civilians were slaughtered. Animals were castrated and shot. Farms were burned. The Krajina was ethnically cleansed of more than 185,000 human beings whose roots were there for the ages. What occurred on the highway that led to Serbia has not been told: An old woman told me that when her farm was shelled, her son was hit and died in her arms. She turned to tell her husband that their son was dead, but he was also dead. Thousands of vehicles littered the landscape, overturned, burned, shot full of holes.
Bullet-riddled body
"Tens of thousands of little piles of personal belongings lay in the open, some neatly stacked, others scattered - an old woman sprawled in an ancient car, her body riddled by a machine-gun; the bodies of a family of farmers, thrown down the farm's well, probably while they were still alive.
"I documented much of this. The National Film Board and CBC refused any part of it. The Canadian media? To them, the main story at the time was two trailers that caught fire at a barbecue Canadian military personnel had. Where were the stories of Canadian soldiers in flak jackets lying on top of people who had none, to protect them from bombardments going on?
What happened at Knin's main hospital? I was told the sick were thrown out of windows, the basement piled high with bodies. Were the Croats given permission by the UN and United States to attack the Krajina? Where the hell did all their tanks come from? Who trained the crews? There are many Canadians who know the truth. One Canadian, who worked for the UN, tells of staggering amounts of money paid by him to Croats - in cash. If a UN contingent needed the Polish tanks for mine clearance, the UN received an invoice for damage to Croatian roads - again to be paid in cash.
Unbelievable amounts of money, always in cash, were paid out to billet UN soldiers in blown-out buildings. There were monthly meetings, parties, cash paid out. When UN helicopters landed at Croat airports, cash was handed over for landing rights.
Were the Croats told to clean up the evidence of war as soon as possible? For sure, they were painting the lines back on Krajina's roads within days of the five-day blitzkrieg. For sure, the UN was saying the Krajina hadn't been seriously damaged.
"In fact, the main street was destroyed and most of the buildings in town had been hit by mortar artillery fire. As for the hospital that had bodies lying around it, thrown from windows - quickly cleaned up. A few days later it was actually functioning.
"In Knin, as in the Medac pocket, there were unspeakable atrocities. The Canadian media chose to ignore both events, although thousands of Canadian soldiers were there. Canadian peacekeepers did not pick sides and saved thousands of lives. It now appears that all evidence of war crimes has disappeared - except in the minds of young Canadians who served there.
"The National Film Board of Canada, which sent me there, did not do a documentary on the Krajina, although I was there with my camera. Instead, they chose to do a one-hour documentary on ballroom dancing in Germany.
Jeopardize lives
"The NFB ordered me to give my footage to the War Crimes Tribunal people who I met in Toronto. I was against this, believing that film-makers should never give unedited footage to any court without being legally obligated to do so. Otherwise, I believe we jeopardize the lives of directors and cameramen who go to the world's war zones.
"To give unedited footage to the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague without legal paperwork demanding it is wrong, especially if there's been a decision not to make it into a documentary for the public consumption.
"Today, evidence of war crimes in the Krajina appears to be missing. Canadians know the truth, even if there's no documentary showing the results of the Medac pocket and Krajina. And for this I am truly angry. Maj. Gen. Rahim Ademi, the reputed commander of the Croat troops at Medac, may claim to have a clear conscience.
"I do not."