[Marxism] Fw: "Our film announced the dramatic events. Why weren't we heard?"

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"Our film announced the dramatic events. Why weren't we heard?"
----- Original Message -----
From: Michel Collon
To: Pravda
Sent: 28 March 2004 01:11
Subject: "Our film announced the dramatic events. Why weren't we heard?"


- "They threatened us three weeks ago"
- The gas about the drowned kids
- What about the media today?
- Secret richness of Kosovo
- NATO: 'failure' or a cynical double-cross?
_____________________________

Interview with Vanessa Stojilkovic and Michel Collon,
authors of The Damned of Kosovo

"Our film announced the dramatic events. Why weren't we heard?"

Killings, pogroms, houses burned down, churches destroyed: all this is
already laid down in The Damned of Kosovo by Vanessa Stojilkovic and
Michel
Collon. This documentary film (available on cassette, see below) already
denounced the complicity of NATO and its secret objectives. Were the
authors
prematurely correct?

Do you feel personally involved?

Vanessa Stojilkovic: For me, it's anguish! Since Saturday morning,
I've lost contact with my family down there. My Aunt Leca and my
cousin Alexander live in Gnijlane. He works occasionally as an
interpreter for KFOR (NATO troops). But 'living'! Just to go out, for
the smallest activity, they have to ask for a protective escort. . . ;


KFOR came to put a stop to this, right?

Vanessa: Yes, it was a big green light for the Albanian extremists.


What did they tell you before you lost contact?

Vanessa: Brian, a KFOR soldier, came to tell them to leave, because it
had become dangerous. They hid out at some friends'place in a Serb
village nearby. The peasants have armed themselves and stand guard
around the village.


KFOR doesn't protect them?

Vanessa: No. My family had to leave everything, yet during the 78-day
bombardment in 1999 they didn't budge! After they'd left, some
Albanians got into their apartment and started stealing stuff, then
sacked the place. The same scenario described in our film.


Do we have to blame Albanians in general?

Vanessa: Not at all. In our film, many victims talk about how their
Albanian friends helped them, protected them, warned them. This is
confirmed by our interview with a French UN representative. It was the
extremists and terrorists of the KLA, a minority.


What's going to happen to them?

Vanessa: I asked Alexander. "Can you find refuge in Central Serbia?"
He said, "When we want, KFOR really wants to help us with that! But
that would mean losing everything we have: our homes, our land, our
livestock... Our grand parents, our ancestors have always lived
here!"


Michel Collon, you went to Kosovo as a reporter . . .

Michel Collon: Yes, and I can't stop thinking about these poor people:
What's going to become of them? Silvana, without news of her
kidnapped husband, Balog and Maria, stuck off in a refugee center, the
peasants of Stare Gradsko where fourteen were killed in '99, and today
are left to themselves, the teachers and students of the little school
in Lipljan, a town scattered with burned-out homes. . . .
I think about them, and I get terribly angry because
our film said all this was going to happen, showed that the KLA program
was
a
radical ethnic cleansing and no one was doing anything. . . .


Was your film censored?

Vanessa Stojilkovic: Pretty much, yes. We were able to get it shown
in some movie theatres, but not on any European TV. And the big print
media were silent... We had to organize alternative screenings in
some independent venues and with cassettes. With good results because
are
really asking for alternative information. But if
European opinion had been correctly informed, the inhabitants of Kosovo
would
have been protected in time.


But they were saying Kosovo was calm?

Vanessa: Dead false! In the last five years more than 6800 attacks,
2300 killed and wounded, 1200 'disappeared'! Europe's asleep or what?

Michel: We were just preparing an international mission to inspect the
area and set up a dossier, collect witness reports. Too bad we didn't
have the means to get this done sooner.


Certain NATO officials on the ground are talking about a 'complete
surprise'...

Vanessa: What hypocrisy! My family, like many others, received
warnings, three weeks ago : "Get Out! Kosovo is our land. We will
drive you out with 'oluja' (complete cleansing) just like the Croats
did."


They said it all started as a reaction to three Albanian kids being
drowned
by some Serbs!

Michel: Be careful! Reread Anne Morelli's excellent little book,
Principles of War Propaganda, or my analysis in Monopoly of the
so-called massacre at Racak which justified the NATO bombing of 1999...
Every big war (and what we are seeing here is a phase of the war)
starts with a media lie, a story of some atrocity.
It is terrible that the Western media could have opened this thing
with this lie about drowned children. They ignored (and most continue
to ignore) the very clear statement of the NATO spokesman, Derek
Chappell, the night of Tuesday-Wednesday, immediately after the event:
"The surviving child told his parents that he and his three friends had
gone into the river and were immediately swept away by the current."
There were no Serbs around the place.
Despite that, Le Monde and several other media liars, even when they
speak of 'doubts', continue to propagate the myth of all this being a
reaction of revenge. March 22, in describing the funerals of the
children, Le Monde presented the Albanians as the victims of the
current situation. It presented the KLA leader, Hashem Thaci, as a
dignified and prudent man, while, according to all the experts, he's
still directing these KLA commandos that the West promised to
demilitarize in 1999, and who continue their murderous rampage...

You still criticize the media coverage ?
Michel. Yes. Some articles express a part of the horror, even sometimes
mentioned as « ethnic cleansing ». But, most often they continue the
fiction
of « interethnic clashes ». As if it was a battle between Serbs and
Albanians. But this happened only in Mitrovica where Serbs were
organized
for defence. Actually it was "pogroms", programmed violence. A UN
officer
spoke about "Kristallnacht", referring to the night of terror of the
Nazis
against the Jews in 1934.
Most of the time, they hide the fact that it was a well-organized plan.
Violence erupting everywhere at the same time, buses bringing KLA
rioters
everywhere needed...
"Orchestrated", explained the German colonel Horst Pieper. "Planned
operation", added Chappell, UN spokesperson. Their "organizing capacity
was
confirmed by the number of weapons that emerged immediately in the
'peaceful
demonstrations", confirms the Albanian journalist Surroi.

Vanessa : And the media continue to speak only about Serb victims, while
are
also attacked Roms, Jews, Turks, Moslims, Gorans, etc... These other
nationalities are presented in our film but their existence is still
hidden
now. The fiction of "revenge against Serbs" must be protected.

Belgium (but not France) pretends to send the Roma back to Kosovo...

Vanessa : Just last week, Belgian minister Dewael and his
administration,
after having tried to send back Afghan and Iranian refugees, refused the
asylum to the Gasi's, a Roma Kosovar family. Isn't it incredible to
throw
them back into the hell of Kosovo ? In solidarity with this family, our
film
will be presented in several Belgian cinemas next weeks...

What have they got to hide ?

Michel: No media examines the real causes of the present situation.
Nobody
asks why "we" supported and brought to power the KLA, hyper-racist
organization, whose program was always ethnic cleansing. Isa Barjani,
now
chief of the "Corpse" "demilitarized" they said, is suspected to have
burnt
fifty houses. That KLA was supported by the US (followed generally by
Europe) and armed, knowing who they were. This is why public opinion
must be
prevented to think about the real lessons of these events.

Which lessons?

Michel : Well, the war against Yugoslavia happened, as we explained in
our
previous article, to control the Balkan roads of pipelines, to destroy
and
privatize the Yugoslav economy. Public opinion may not know how far it
has
been manipulated during the 99 war...

Economic war in Kosovo too?

Vanessa : Of course! Kosovo is rich : the Trepca mines are worth 5
billion
$, tells US businessman George Soros, quoted in our film. Coal, lead,
zinc,
gold, silver, nickel, chromium. Some multinationals are waiting
impatiently.
If Kosovo remains part of Yugoslavia, they cannot plunder as they would
like. The "independent" Serbs are an obstacle.

Still media speak about the "failure" of Nato? Which keeps silent as you
can
observe on their Web site...

Michel : "Failure" is not the right word. They are embarrassed with what
is
happening, but Nato does not consider this as a failure, if you think
what
were their real goals, first install in Kosovo the huge military basis
of
Camp Bondsteel. As everywhere in the world, the USA do not need a calm
situation but obedient allies. And conflicts!
You know, our film showed that Kfor helped the ethnic cleansing since
five
years. When Silvana went to complain about her missing husband,
kidnapped by
Albanians working for Nato, telling the names, a Western officer
answered to
her : "You have to understand that Nato did not come to protect you,
Serbs
but the Albanians" ! This was in the film.

Vanessa : I am angry when I hear all the same testimonies : today, Kfor
is
not protecting, but helping the ethnic cleansing. Nato realizes the KLA
program. Since 99, they said to the Serbs and other attacked
nationalities
to "quit Kosovo".
Listen to Dragan Antic from Svinjarevo : "I do not blame the Albanians,
I
blame Kfor. Thanks to them, our village does not exist anymore." (Blic,
March 22). Indeed, 2.000 Kfor soldiers were present and authorized the
Albanians to come in and burn the village. In many places, the armed
Kfor
troops looked passively at the pogroms, burnings and lootings.

Michel : About this also, you could hear many testimonies in our film!
You
know, general Wesley Clark, chief commander of the Nato, had clearly
announced his program: "Albanians in, Serbs out". Exciting the hatred
was
necessary to justify a Western protectorate and economic colonization of
the
above mentioned richness.
USA and Nato were not the fireman, they were throwing oil on the flames.

Are the lessons from Yugoslavia valid for Iraq?

Michel : Absolutely. First, violations of international law did not
start
with Bush. War against Yugoslavia was illegal, because the UN charter
forbids to use war. Even more to impose economic colonization ! As the
methods used : bombings of factories, civilian targets, use of cluster
bombs
and uranium weapons. Clinton violated international law and most of the
left
helped him. Conclusions have to be taken.
Second lesson of Kosovo : the US tell us now that in Iraq, if you wait a
little bit, things will go better. Everything is presented as "temporary
problems". Well, Kosovo shows since five years that a US occupation does
solve nothing.

Vanessa : Today, after five years of US - and European - occupation, you
hear testimonies as that of Mitra Reljic, professor calling his Belgrade
colleague : « One of the few Serbs living alone since five years in a
house
in Pristina, voluntarily hiding in her house, with a daily danger, is
now in
a refugee camp in Kosovo Polje. She is desperate. I called her on the
mobile
of father Miroslav, responsible of a church in Pristina. The church is
burning. Encircled by rioting Albanians. Father Miroslav is in the
cellar.
They do not know who, when and if somebody is going to save him."
The professor from Belgrade is sending an appeal : "I beg you, tell to
everybody you can what is happening here. Here, it's a pogrom against
Serbs
in front of the armies of the "civilized" forces of the world. Nobody
must
close his eyes and ears!"
In the same time, you feel the will of resisting, of staying in
Kosovo...

Is it too late ? The Kosovo case is "finished" ?

Michel : No injustice will last forever. Palestinians were chased fifty
years ago. But they are still fighting.

Vanessa : I am fighting not only for my family, but for the peoples of
Yugoslavia. And all countries under threat. Because the same methods are
used and will be used in Africa, Asia, everywhere. This tragedy must
bring
the right lessons to unmask the real responsibles. And reinforce global
resistance.

What can be done ?

Vanessa : The first battle will always be information. If we expressed
all
these sufferings and these lessons, in a film that you can get in
cassettes,
it is precisely in order to give everybody an instrument to promote,
wherever you are, the debate with a few friends or colleagues...

Michel : To become active on information, that would be lesson number
one.
At the end of our film, we say : "Reconciliation comes only with the
truth".
Our task for all of us.



QUESTIONS, ANSWERS and DOCUMENTATION BEHIND THE FILM
The Damned of Kosovo

* Intolerable war propaganda of 1999, intolerable silence today.
Why did we make this film and how can it help you?


* Report of the Red Cross on the current situation in Kosovo
"Fewer than 2% of the people forced to flee have returned to their
homes."


* What's happening today in Kosovo? A film breaks the silence.
Interview : Michel Collon & Vanessa Stojilkovic about their Damned of
Kosovo


* France 2 : Economic War USA -- France in Kosovo
Multinationals on the make under cover as NGOs and 'reconstruction'


* The country no one talks about anymore: Where is Yugoslavia?
Explosions in prices, lay offs, cancer, and suicides. The IMF
government.


* "I work up to 13 hours a day, 6 days a week, for a miserable wage"
Scenes of workers' lives today in Serbia.


* Media Quiz: Kosovo, True or False?
Alastair Campbell also 'informed' us about Kosovo


* Media Quiz : about our information on the break-up of Yugoslavia
How many years will we have to wait before we learn the truth behind the
war?


* "Let's bust up Iraq like Yugoslavia!"
US strategy suggests . . . ethnic cleansing as a way of sorting out the
mess


* The news that's still hidden from us
Oil, USA & the mafia, Bernard Kouchner, Jamie Shea, Macedonia. . . .


* Will Wesley Clark do the opposite tomorrow... ?
Latin America, Yugoslavia, China and some other targets. . . .


* Can you help us get the word out on The Damned of Kosovo?
A practical program

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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