US Government Sent "Suitcases full of cash"

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URL for this article is http://emperors-clothes.com/news/erlang.htm

'NY Times' Confirms Charge that U.S. Gov't Meddles in Yugoslav Internal
Affairs
Introduction by Jared Israel and Max Sinclair (9-21-2000)

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[Emperor's Clothes]

The following article from the NY Times is most important. In it, the
reporter concedes that the charges many people have raised about US meddling
in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia are true. Indeed, he adds information
that we had no way of knowing. For example, that suitcases full of cash are
sent across the borders into Yugoslavia to fund the "democratic opposition".
Doesn't our assertion, that "democratic" means "following the dictates of the
US State Department" appear to be a simple statement of fact?

Note that despite the shocking evidence he presents to the contrary, Mr.
Erlanger still manages to call this self-styled "democratic" opposition
"independent":

[Start quote] "Independent journalists and broadcasters here have been told
by American aid officials "not to worry about how much they're spending now,"
that plenty more is in the pipeline, said one knowledgeable aid worker.
Others in the opposition complain that the Americans are clumsy, sending
e-mails from "state.gov" - the State Department's address - summoning people
to impolitic meetings with American officials in Budapest, Montenegro or
Dubrovnik, Croatia."[End quote]

The article includes various attacks on the Yugoslav government in general
and Mr. Milosevich in particular. Those readers who do not read the US press
should be aware that it is impossible for a large US newspaper to write
anything about Yugoslavia without including a number of such attacks:

[Start quote]"When speaking of the Serbs it is considered proper to say
something negative. More than one thing is optional. But one is
obligatory."[End quote] (From 'The Obligatory Bash' at
emperors-clothes.com/analysis/obligato.htm )

Mr. Erlanger refers to documentation of US meddling, which appeared in the
Yugoslav paper, 'Politika'. That documentation comes from an Emperor's
Clothes article, which Politika reprinted. (1) The article was also shown in
full on Serbian Television this past Monday at 7:30.

Notice also that Mr. Kostunica now appears to concede that our charges are
true. Or, rather, he is quoted first saying they represent the ravings of
"the regime" (one must refer to the elected government of Yugoslavia as a
'Regime') and then saying that the so-called "nongovernmental" organizations
who take this money "are even unconsciously working for American imperial
goals." I am not sure what it means to "unwittingly" take millions of US
dollars. But that aside, it is good that Mr. Kostunica says this, but I
wonder if he sees the implications. Are these people, who take the US money,
not the G-17, who wrote the so-called "Democratic" Opposition Program, which
he endorsed? Aren't they the members of the "democratic" opposition
coalition, for which he is the candidate? Aren't they groups like Otpor, who
according to the US press put up his posters and hand out his fliers?

Let us make no mistake. The fault for corrupting the Yugoslav political
process lies in one place: Washington, with its "democratic" this and
"independent" that, and all the time they are trying to buy people,
especially young people, with the lure of a traitor's gold.

When, and it will happen, the American people learn what crimes are being
committed in their name, God help the State Department.

***.

The New York Times September 20, 2000

Milosevic, Trailing in Polls, Rails Against NATO
By STEVEN ERLANGER

BELGRADE, Serbia, Sept. 19 - In his race for re-election, President Slobodan
Milosevic of Yugoslavia is running against NATO and the United States, not
against his democratic opposition.

He is not entirely mistaken to do so. The United States and its European
allies have made it clear that they want Mr. Milosevic ousted, and they have
spent tens of millions of dollars trying to get it done.

Portraying himself as the defender of Yugoslavia's sovereignty against a
hostile, hegemonic West led by Washington, Mr. Milosevic and his government
argue that opposition leaders are merely the paid, traitorous tools of
enemies who are continuing their war against him by other means. In March
1999, NATO began a 78-day bombing campaign to drive Serbian forces out of
Kosovo.

The Yugoslav elections are on Sunday, but there has hardly been a day since
the bombing began that state television news has not railed against "NATO
aggressors."

With the campaign at its height, the government has spread its attacks to
include all opposition political parties, independent newspapers, magazines
and electronic media, the student organization known as Otpor - or Resistance
- and any nongovernmental organization working to promote democracy, human
rights or even economic reforms.

While Mr. Milosevic is trailing the main opposition leader, Vojislav
Kostunica, in opinion polls, the anti- Western campaign is having an impact.
The money from the West is going to most of the institutions that the
government attacks for receiving it - sometimes in direct aid, sometimes in
indirect aid like computers and broadcasting equipment, and sometimes in
suitcases of cash carried across the border between Yugoslavia and Hungary or
Serbia and Montenegro. Most of those organizations and news media could not
exist without foreign aid in this society, which is poor and repressive and
whose market is distorted by foreign economic sanctions.

Even with foreign aid, government restrictions on newsprint supplies and high
and repeated fines after suspiciously quick court cases make it hard for the
independent news media to reach their natural market.

As for the opinion polls that show Mr. Kostunica in the lead, the information
minister, Goran Matic, charges that the polls are orchestrated and
manipulated by the Americans and the Central Intelligence Agency, who help
pay for them. According to Mr. Matic, Mr. Milosevic is actually far ahead of
Mr. Kostunica, and the polls simply serve as a vehicle for the opposition to
claim that the government stole the election once Mr. Milosevic wins.

Mr. Matic asserts that the Atlantic alliance has come up with various
scenarios, such as infiltrating soldiers wearing Yugoslav Army and police
uniforms, to make it possible for the opposition to start civil unrest in the
streets after the election while claiming that the police and the army are
actually on their side.

Mr. Matic has attacked various nongovernmental organizations, including the
Center for Free Elections and Democracy, which is trying to monitor the
fairness of the election, as paid instruments of American and alliance
policy. Many such organizations have been raided by the police, who
confiscate computer files and also appear to be gathering evidence about
foreign payments.

"President Milosevic will win this election," said Ljubisa Ristic, the
president of the Yugolav United Left party, founded by Mr. Milosevic's wife,
Mirjana Markovic. "This is not Hollywood." Washington and the West, she said,
"are like little kids, wanting something to happen so much they're fooling
themselves."

Mr. Ristic said the alliance's war produced a new solidarity among Yugoslavs
and "killed many illusions people had about the West and about their own
opposition leaders, who went to the countries that were bombing us to seek
their support."

The issues, Mr. Ristic said, are clear now. "It's a decisive time," he said.
"This is not an election so much as a referendum, a decision on being an
independent country or a colony. People see what's happened in Kosovo, what
happens when NATO troops enter the country, and they are not going to allow
the alliance's hand- picked candidates to win."

Even before the Kosovo war, the United States was spending up to $10 million
a year to back opposition parties, independent news media and other
institutions opposed to Mr. Milosevic. The war itself cost billions of
dollars. This fiscal year, through September, the administration is spending
$25 million to support Serbian "democratization," with an unknown amount of
money spent covertly to help the failed rallies of last year, which did not
bring down Mr. Milosevic, or to influence the current election. For next
year, the administration is requesting $41.5 million in open aid to Serbian
democratization, though Congress is likely to cut that request.

Independent journalists and broadcasters here have been told by American aid
officials "not to worry about how much they're spending now," that plenty
more is in the pipeline, said one knowledgable aid worker. Others in the
opposition complain that the Americans are clumsy, sending e-mails from
"state.gov" - the State Department's address - summoning people to impolitic
meetings with American officials in Budapest, Montenegro or Dubrovnik,
Croatia.

But there is little effort to disguise the fact that Western money pays for
much of the polling, advertising, printing and other costs of the opposition
political campaign - one way, to be sure, to give opposition leaders a better
chance to get their message across in a quasi-authoritarian system where
television in particular is in the firm hands of the government.

While that spending allows the opposition to be heard more broadly, deepening
the opposition to Mr. Milosevic, it also allows the government here to argue
that it has real enemies, and that the Serbian opposition is in league with
them.

Just today, in the state-run newspaper Politika, a long article used public
information from the United States - including Congressional testimony and
Web site material - to show that the United States is financing the
opposition.

" `Independent,' `nongovernmental' and `democratic' are the standard phrases
the C.I.A. uses to describe organizations established all over the world to
destroy the governments and the societies that the U.S. government wants to
colonize and control," the paper wrote.

The Congressional testimony, from July 29, 1999, cited American officials
then involved with Yugoslav policy, like Robert Gelbard and James Pardew,
telling Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware about their projects. They describe
the creation of a "ring around Serbia" of radio stations broadcasting into
Serbia from Bosnia and Montenegro, the spending of $16.5 million in the
previous two years to support "democratization in Serbia," and another $20
million to support Montenegro's president, Milo Djukanovic, who broke away
from Mr. Milosevic in 1998.

The testimony listed some of the recipients of American aid here, including
various newspapers, magazines, news agencies and broadcasters opposed to Mr.
Milosevic, as well as various nongovernmental organizations engaged in legal
defense and human rights and projects to bring promising Yugoslav journalists
to the United States for professional training.

All such projects are portrayed by Politika and state television as a way to
undermine the legal government, and the recipients are labeled traitors to
their country.

Opposition leaders like Mr. Kostunica regard such tactics by the government
as crass propaganda, but even he is skeptical of American intentions in
paying for nongovernmental organizations, some of whom, he believes, are even
unconsciously working for American imperial goals and not necessarily Serbian
values.

Other democratic leaders, like Zoran Djindjic and Zarko Korac, regard such
attacks as an indication of Mr. Milosevic's desperation and anxiety on the
eve of the first election he is likely to lose in his entire political
career. Given the stakes for Mr. Milosevic, they believe that he will do all
he can, including the wholesale stealing of votes, to ensure a victory in the
first round of voting.

"The stakes are fundamental for Milosevic," Mr. Korac said. "These elections
are crucial, not necessarily for the immediate handover of power, but because
for the first time Mr. Milosevic will be delegitimized in the eyes of his own
people. He was an elected dictator, with popular and legal legitimacy. But
from now on he's a true dictator, and he will only be able to rule by force -
that's a big step for Serbia."

Footnote:

(1) 'How the U.S. has Created a Corrupt Opposition in Serbia'
http://emperors-clothes.com/engl.htm

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[Emperor's Clothes]