US IN THE BALKANS 8…ALLIANCE WITH TUDJMAN AND ISLAM

by Felix Quigley

The issue of the defence of Slobodan Milosevic and of all the other prisoners in the Hague, including Seselj, is a vital one for us on 4international. This raises the most vital issues of revolutionary theory and practice, issues which are totally connected with Trotsky’s development of strategy and tactics, represented above all in his continual exposition of the United Front.

As the following material shows Milosevic was faced with a cruel enemy that was out to smash not just himself but the Serb people as a whole. And as this material also shows, the Serbs and Milosevic as leader were very quickly finding that they were facing not only their traditional enemies inside the Federation of Yugoslavia, but also the very advanced war technology of especially the US and Germany.

Faced with that reality Milosevic very quickly understood what he was up against. It required a very special kind of leadership, one which history has only had the merest glimpse of. And for historical reasons that leadership did not exist in the Yugoslav cauldron of war. Let us look at the forces ranged against Milosevic.

We first of all go back to 1992 to an interview given by the US Ambassador to Yugoslavia to a Croatian Magazine. Here we will see that the US Ambassador was opening up a chapter where the US was playing the most blatantly Imperialist role in the Balkans. This was published by Jared Israel in Emperors New Clothes and this interview placed along with material connected to US involvement in Operation Storm is explosive reading. Please pay attention to the notes by Jared Israel, especially his very first comment:

[start quote here]

[Zimmermann:] Yes, but I also want to add that this does not mean in any way that Serbia or the JNA have any right of veto in the American recognition policy. This is not the case.

[DANAS:] Many claim that you generally support Europe, but at the same time aren’t too confident about the European policy?

Zimmermann: I wouldn’t say so. I know that Lord Carrington believes that recognition of Yugoslav republics that have requested it could be premature in these circumstances. We have tried to clear a path that I believe could lead to the result you want, which is a truly independent Croatia, free of occupation and enemy forces.
_________________________________________________________________

[Jared Comments:] Zimmermann refers to the Army of Yugoslavia, a country to which he was U.S. Ambassador, a country which included Croatia, as an enemy force. Amazing.

From the legal point of view, the Croatian secessionists who had declared, six months earlier, that Croatia was independent, simply had no case. The Yugoslav constitution included explicit legal requirements for secession that Croatia did not follow. Moreover, from a moral point of view, the JNA would have had as much justification in waging an all-out war against the Croatian secessionists as Abraham Lincoln did in waging such a war against the US secessionists a century earlier.

In both cases, the secessionists represented the most racist forms of society at the time. In the case of the US it was slavery, in the case of Croatia the secessionist movement modeled itself on the Croatian Ustashe, arguably the worst fascists of World War II. [2]

The Croatian secessionists were Serbophobic. They attacked ordinary Serbs with murderous violence. They brought back the same flag as the W.W.II Croatian Ustashe, the same black uniform, the same coin, the same fascist straight-arm salute. And they slaughtered the same people.

It is this illegal and fascist movement on which Mr. Zimmermann lavishes such passionate praise.

Just for the record, unfortunately the JNA did *not* wage all-out war against secession. This was for many reasons, not least of which was that, under pretense of being neutral, the European Community had pressured Yugoslavia into making the militant Croatian secessionist, Stjepan Mesic, the President of Yugoslavia. Mesic, a close aid of the Croatian fascist, Franjo Tudjman, boasted that he would be the last president of Yugoslavia, and he made good on his promise. This would have been the same as if England forced the US to accept a southern secessionist as President just before the US Civil War.

_________________________________________________________________

[Zimmermann:] We very decisively told the Serbian and Army leadership that they have to honor the obligations they accepted and completely leave Croatia. We also said – and I think we have been able to do it with more authority since we have not recognized Croatia – that the recognition of Croatia by European countries cannot be the reason for Serbia or the Army to try reversing Croatia’s independence or imposing solutions on Croatia by force.

[DANAS:] This is maybe a personal question. You are the American Ambassador, but it is hard to say which country you are the Ambassador to. Does Yugoslavia still exist?

[Zimmermann:]  That is a very good question, and a question that is very hard to answer. We are now precisely in that situation where a world is dying and another, different world is struggling to be born. In other words, it is a transition and as I said many times before, our main concern in it is peace. While these changes are going on, our foremost task is to contribute that they happen in a peaceful, rather than violent, environment.
_________________________________________________________________

[Jared Comments:] As subsequent events demonstrated, ‘Peace’ meant the US and its proxy forces could do whatever they liked but the Yugoslav Army was not allowed to fight back.
_________________________________________________________________

From

“Nothing is Forever”

In 1992 the US ambassador called for dissolving Yugoslavia.

* Jan 21st 1992 interview in Croatian newspaper DANAS with US ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmermann. *

Comments by Jared Israel
Editor, Emperor’s Clothes
[Jared Israel's Comments were written in June 2000
and reposted with minor changes 10 February 2003]

http://www.emperors-clothes.com/interviews/nothing.htm

If you have paid particular attention to the first comment by Jared Israel then you will have understood something of this amazing scenario presented to the world by US “diplomacy” in the form of this US Ambassaador. This man is an Ambassador to a sovereign country, specifically Yugoslavia. Yet towards the Croat secessionists (and enemies of Yugoslavia) the Ambassador is consorting and fomenting hatred and rebellion to the host country. Yet he was a guest of that host country. This is akin to say a US Ambassador going up to Ottawa and there giving his support to Quebec secessionists. Or to London at the time of IRA terror in London and Birmingham and pledging support to the IRA against Britain and the Ulster nationalists. Or a US Ambassador to Spain speaking in Madrid in support of ETA.

So having understood the deep meaning of this interview and of US attitudes on the world stage we can move on a little better prepared to examine an outstanding piece of research dealing with the way that the US Imperialists (some call it an Empire but Imperialism still remains more precise in an historical sense) were involved in the very worst murder and ethnic cleansing which took place in the Yugoslav Wars.

The following is an article published by www.Cryptome.org and is the best description of all that happened in the ethnic cleansing of the future state of Croatia.

This article is a fantastic piece of research and I have no doubt whatsoever that if the material contained in this research is brought into the light of day then the hyenas who run Harr’s Place, Kamm, Hoare and others will try to refute it by means of ad hominem attacks.

Before printing this research it is necessary to place what happened here in an historical context. Very briefly, we live in a world of Imperialism, which is as Lenin said the “highest stage of capitalism”. It is a period when in the struggle between nations and for power and influence the US is at the top of the heap.

We on 4international are convinced that the starting point, or a starting point, in understanding this role is the Russian workers revolution of 1917. This provided a fright and a lesson which obviously the Imperialist capitalists of the world would not and could not forget.

And to sum up in the briefest terms possible, when a nation like US Imperialism looks out at the world it does not see Islam as just a reactionary force, which it does, but as a reactionary frce which if harnessed can be used in their grand scheme, which at the very bottom will always remain the maintenance of the system of capitalism, and the prevention of socialist revolution.

In that light then the prospect of US Power alliance with Islamist states and individuals is no longer strange at all. The US Imperialism understands very well that the centre of the Universe is not Paris, or London, or even Kansas, but is in the teeming billions of Asia.

This, and this alone, gives a key to all US action today on the world stage. Khomeiny was aided, not opposed, by the US Government, The Iraq war has not been to promote democracy, Bush did not oppose Islam even though Islam motivated 9.11, and above all the “Palestinian” Arabs are the child of the US and Britain, now also Europe.

Islam is the force which can discipline the masses for US Imperialism. Do not forget that IBM provided the software which enabled the Nazis make those death trains run to schedule and on time. So the alliance we describe here between US technology and personnel and the Croatian Tudjman Fascists is not at all extraordinary.

And as we move along a little further we shall see that the alliance with Izetbegovic falls right into that category also…promoting the interests of capitalist and imperialist rule, and its maintenance as a system of exploitation.

Here it is Croatia and Tudjman. Let us remind ourselves again who the US were dealing with in this case. A leading Jewish organization sent this letter to the New York Times which tells us a lot about the new best friend of the US, Tudjman:

[start quote here]

Published: January 10, 1993

To the Editor:

Your Dec. 18 article about President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia speaks of his efforts to foster nationalism in his people to justify annexation of Bosnian territory. Mr. Tudjman has also expressed blatantly anti-Semitic views and tried to whitewash the Nazi puppet state of Croatia, which participated eagerly in Hitler’s policy of killing Jews.

Croatian Jews, Mr. Tudjman wrote in his book “Wastelands: Historical Truth” (1988), used their supposed traits of “selfishness, craftiness, unreliability, miserliness, underhandedness and secrecy” to gain control of the Jasenovac concentration camp (where tens of thousands of Yugoslav Jews and others perished) and victimize others. Jews, he alleged, are commanded to “exterminate others and take their place” because they consider themselves the chosen people. Israeli policy toward the Arabs, according to him, makes them nothing less than “Judeo-Nazis.”

President Tudjman asserts that the bloodthirsty Ustashi regime that ruled Croatia and exterminated its Jews a half century ago “reflected the centuries-old aspirations of the Croat people.” This does not bode well for a new, enlarged Croatian state. DAVID A. HARRIS Executive Vice President American Jewish Committee New York, Dec. 24, 1992

[end quote here]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE1D61E3AF933A25752C0A965958260

People should keep the above quote in mind when they read the following. And remember Jews suffered terribly in the Balkan Holocaust but the Serbs suffered as well, and numerically much more.

[begin analysis below]

US Role in Storm

Author: Ivo Pukanic

Source: Nacional, Croatian weekly magazine

http://www.nacional.hr/index3e.php?broj=2005-05-24&kat=english&id=516

May 24, 2005

Thrilled with Operation Flash, President Clinton gave the go ahead for Operation Storm

============================

The United States was actively involved in the preparation, monitoring and initiation of Operation Storm: the green light from President Clinton was passed on by the US military attache in Zagreb, and the operations were transmitted in real time to the Pentagon

============================

Considering that the US was much more interested in the situation in BiH than in Croatia, they asked Croatia to permit them to install a military base with ummanned aircraft. The United States not only monitored the complete Operation Storm, but they also actively participated with the Croatian Military in its preparation, and in the end directly initiated the operation. The green light from the White House and then President Clinton for Operation Storm was passed on by Colonel Richard C. Herrick, then US military attaché in Zagreb. Several days prior to the commencement of Operation Storm, Herrick visited Markica Rebiæ in Zagreb. Rebiæ, Miroslav Tudjman, then director of HIS and Miro Medimurac, then head of SIS, held the most intensive communications with the American military and intelligence agencies. As such, in 1996, Rebiæ was awarded the Meritorius Service Medal by Peter Galbraith, then US Ambassador to Croatia.

Herrick passed on the message that the US had no opposition to the beginning of Operation Storm, that the operation had to be ‘clean and fast’ and had to be completed in 5 days time. As Nacional has learned, Rebiæ was surprised that such an important political and military message would be passed on through those channels, and following Herrick’s visit, he immediately informed the state administration of the message in writing, and there is certain record of this today in the archives. As such, it is important to note the Ambassador Peter Galbraith was completely left out of the chain of ‘command’, and that this message came directly from President Clinton, Anthony Lake (then National Security Advisor) and Willian Perry (then Defense Secretary) via Rebiæ to Minister Gojko Šušak and President Tudjman.

This was the climax of the cooperation between the US and Croatia, which began to develop in 1992 at the beginning of the Serbian-Muslim war. In 1995, Clinton was preparing for his re-election, and Bob Dole was the Republican candidate who had requested that Congress remove the arms embargo for the Muslims in BiH. For Clinton, the Balkans became an important issue due to internal matters in the US and his stay in the White House. In their strategy to resolve the crisis, they decided to use Croatia to attack the Serbian forces in BiH, and therefore the Split Declaration was signed by Izetbegoviæ and Tudjman, which permitted the entry of HV forces under the leadership of Ante Gotovina into BiH for the purposes of cooperation with Army BiH. In order to realize that operation, HV had to climb the Dinarid mountains above Knin and liberate the city and Krajina through Operation Storm, and then immediately transfer their troops into BiH in order to pressure the Serbs and force Miloševiæ to sign the Peace Accord in Dayton.

This was a battle against the clock for Clinton, for he needed a quick solution to the crisis in order to halt Dole’s initiative and to prove himself before his voters as a decisive president who could resolve such great crises such as the one in the former Yugoslavia, the horrors of which were shown daily on CNN and other American TV stations. In order to keep the English and French off his back, Clinton bypassed the classical diplomatic channels, in order to be able to claim that he had not participated if the operation were to go sour. However, considering that the operation, led by Richard Holbrook on his behalf, ended successfully, and the men emphasized their success in their respective books.

The first contact at the highest intelligence levels began in 1992, when James Clapper was director of DIA (the Defense Intelligence Agency). His men in Croatia were Colonel Richard Herrick and his assistant Ivan Šaraè. Šaraè was a fourth order [master] sergeant, the highest rank for a non-commissioned officer. Of Croatian descent, he emigrated to the US when he was 17 years old. After a few years, he enlisted in the army and was sent to Zagreb at the beginning of the war there as he was familiar with the circumstances and knew the language. Colonel Herrick was a construction engineer, however, over time he climbed the ladder in the American military and became one of Clapper’s most trusted men.

Quickly a sort of ‘trade’ between the two agencies began. Croatia gave DIA Russian 500 kg underwater mines and the most modern Russian torpedos as well as the encryption codes used by the Yugoslav Army and the Russian army. These weapons were transferred to the US via the Split airport. When the transport was conducted, the entire airport was closed off. Hercules C-130s landed in the night, the arms were loaded and transferred to the US or one of their European bases under the greatest security measures. Also, the Croatian agency revealed the location of a chemical weapons factory in Bijelo polje near Mostar which the Serbs had transferred to Serbia. This was a well-concealed factory which was unknown even to General Bienefeld, who was the greatest expert for chemical weapons in Croatia. With the help of samples found, the American experts were able to uncover all the types of toxins produced there which had possibly been sold to Iraq or other potential enemies of the US. This was only the beginning of cooperation, by which the US immediately delivered wiretapping equipment aimed at monitoring Serbia and Montenegro, a system which could simultaneously record 20,000 telephone conversations. This cooperation was conducted with the US NSA.

Prior to Storm, the operations Summer 94 and Summer 95 had to be carried out. In planning the operations of bringing Croatian troops above Knin, the US assisted in the intelligence part of the operations. In order to precisely plan the penetration into the Bosnian mountains inland of Knin, much information was needed on the movement of Serbian troops, their communication system, codes and establishment of shelling points.

Considering that the US was much more interested in the situation in BiH than in Croatia, they asked Croatia to permit them to install a military base with ummanned aircraft. The basic condition was that this be the best-kept secret, so that it would not appear that the US had taken sides in this war. The island of Brac was selected, as it could be well protected. There all the equipment and personnel led by the CIA experts, with the long-range unmanned aircraft which could cover the entire territory of BiH to the Serbian corridor on the Sava River. The entire Krajina region in Croatia was also in its range. At that time, no one had any idea what was going on and what was being hidden on the island of Brac. Nor did the US allies, the Germans, have any idea. They sent their military attaché there on 1 January 1994. He hired a rent-a-car and drove the outer fence of the base and began taking pictures, thinking that the alertness in the base had faltered on New Year’s Day. However, he was quickly spotted by SIS and arrested. Only when he was brought into Gotovina for questioning was it learned that this was the German military attaché in Zagreb, Hans Schwan.

After this incident, the entire base was transferred to Šepurina near Zadar, and a triple line of defense placed around it. Equipment was brought in from the US overnight, and from Šepurina, the unmanned aircraft could cover every corner of Krajina and BiH. The Americans had a silent agreement with HV to hand over all the photos of the terrain and the Serbian troops, while the images were transferred via satellite in real time to the Pentagon. Three US and three Croatian officers monitored the situation at all times.

Prior to Operation Flash, which was supposed to serve as a dress rehearsal for Storm, at exactly midnight, six hours prior to the beginning of the operation, Herrick and Šaraè were called into the police and were informed that the planned action would begin in a few hours time. In the Police Ministry, at exactly midnight, the staff of Operation Flash was formed, which was transferred to the Defense Ministry at 6 a.m. When the staff was moved, the American military attaché moved with it. He constantly requested updates and sent them directly to Clinton in the White House. Each morning, the American President was informed of the preparations and every part of the operation. The Americans were thrilled by the way Flash was carried out, they realized that this model of cooperation with the Croatians was ideal, and could be decisive in the battle against Miloševiæ in BiH and could ultimately result in removing him from power. The Pentagon coordinated the entire action via Richard Herrick, and the CIA activities were coordinated by Marc Kelton, head of the CIA branch in Zagreb, who cooperated closely with Miroslav Tudjman, then head of HIS.

At the time Storm was under preparation, the Americans supplied HV with intelligence on the movements of Serbs in Krajina and the movements of YNA on the eastern borders of Croatia. They feared that Miloševiæ would launch a counter-attack with two tank brigades in eastern Slavonia if the Croats launched an attack on Knin. Through intensive monitoring of communications between Belgrade and Knin, and within Serbia, they came to the conclusion that there would be no counter-attack. It was risky that the Serbs might launch an attack from Knin itself when Gotovina and his units arrived on the Dinarid mountains above the city. Had the unmanned aircraft and monitoring showed offensive maneuvers by the troops, Storm would have begun ten days earlier.

In the wee hours of 4 August 1995, the Croatian units were issued the command to turn off all telecommunications devices between midnight and 4 am. Later it was learned that the Americans had used that time to electronically intercept and destroy the Serbian telecommunications devices.

HV was left with one hour, from 4-5 AM to use their radio ties to coordinate the operation. Just prior to Storm, the American military attaché was again called to the operation staff. Ivan Šaraè was again with him. One or two days prior to Storm, Herrick, who had prepared Storm with the Croatian officers and gave the operation the green light on Clinton’s behalf, was replaced by Colonel John Sadler. At exactly midnight, they arrived at the operative staff and from there followed all the events in the field. This time, the entire Operation was transmitted in real time via satellite to the Pentagon, where these images remain archived today. The signal transmitted to the signal by the Americans was also received by HV, and with the help of those images, the firing upon Serbian positions and the military base near Knin could be monitored to within millimeters. In addition to electronically destroying the Serbian communications, the US military also acted militarily against the Serbian positions, when it fired on the anti-aircraft battery near Knin from American combat planes that flew over the battle area. That news was released only once, on the 6 o’clock news. Afterwards, the US sharply condemned this, and that news was never repeated. No one believed the official American explanation for the rocket attack, and today the general perception is that this was direct US assistance to HV, only that even ten years after Storm this must not be admitted, due to US-British relations, as Britain had a completely different perspective on how to resolve the Balkan issue. And it still does today.

The US was thrilled with the how fast and clean the operation was conducted, and with its outcome, which permitted the lightning fast entry of HV into BiH and penetration all the way to Banja Luka and, finally, Belgrade’s consent to sign the Dayton Accord. The American control and satisfaction of the complete operation was later confirmed in the statements that the operation was carried out properly, and as such, the US-Croatian cooperation in intelligence and military matters intensified. General Colonel Patrick Hughes, Clapper’s successor as director of DIA, visited Croatia, intensified cooperation in the sector of electronic monitoring of Serbia and Montenegro, other intelligence was swapped, MPRI began its intensive training of the Croatian military and Rebiæ was decorated for his efforts.

The first word that Croatian officers might have to stand trial for the events during Storm was heard in 1997. The US immediately responded and requested on a dozen occasions in discussions with the Hague Prosecutor that Storm, as a militarily-clean operation, be left alone, as Nacional has learned from a high-ranking diplomatic source. At that time, there was a problem concerning the extradition of Mladen Naletiliæ Tuta to the Hague, and the US promised Croatia that the Hague would not raise charges for Storm if they handed Naletiliæ over. Naletiliæ was extradited, and Carla Del Ponte outwitted the American administration and began with her demands that the Croatian generals be investigated as suspects in Storm. The US was dismayed but was not allowed to show this, trying to resolve the matter through quiet diplomacy instead, which to this day has not succeeded. Therefore it would be a step in the right direction for the Hague to request that the Pentagon hand over all the images recorded by the ‘Predator’ unmanned aircraft during and after Storm.

Furthermore, for the interests of truth, all of the high ranking American military and intelligence officers involved in the entire operation, which ended the war in the Balkans and removed Milosevic from power, should be called to testify in the Hague. Those responsible for the crimes which took place after the operation are known, and they are the ones which should stand before the court, as they should have eight or nine years ago. Had these men been tried then, Carla Del Ponte today would have no aces up her sleeve, and Croatia would not have the problems it has, with the entire operation proclaimed a ‘criminal operation’ and the entire state administration of the time a ‘criminal organization’.

[end analysis here]

http://cryptome.org/us-op-storm.htm

This organization cryptome has come under intense attack from the ruling class intelligence agencies. But it remains a small organization run by a couple of individuals.

This is the paradox of the situation.

What we have printed here is vital information which should be known by everybody. It represents the truth as to the role of the US, Britain and Germany in the Balkan wars.

It raises the reality that these representatives of these ruling classes in these countries were real war criminals. This understanding goes along with what we have written about the Media in general, and the ITN expedition to the Balkans led by Penny Marshall which produced that picture…”The picture that fooled the world”.

[end quote from Cryptome here]

The Media has worked to keep this knowledge under wraps so that ordinary people will not be able to understand the role of their rulers.

As we said the Serbs and their leader Milosevic were not just fighting secessionist forces from the Federation. They were running slap bang against the most powerful states that the world has every known, with the most powerful technology being used against them, the Serbs.

As this makes clear:

“ This time, the entire Operation was transmitted in real time via satellite to the Pentagon, where these images remain archived today. The signal transmitted to the signal by the Americans was also received by HV, and with the help of those images, the firing upon Serbian positions and the military base near Knin could be monitored to within millimeters. ”

[end analysis here]

This information is explosive. It explains why the paid agents inside the British Media and blogosphere must go on the attack against anybody who will expose the truth.

But this information is an important cog in building up the whole picture of what happened in the Balkans. We will next move on to the so-called “massacre” of Srebrinica which is totally bound up with the above – Operation Storm.