Volume 4 No.1 - 2000
Reflections on the Balkans
Ray Bryant
I. End-of-Millennium Madness
It was not the blackened topmost storeys of the high-rise focal-point Sava Centre, which had housed offices of the Serbian Socialist Party, as well as others belonging to various Milosevic family interests; it was not, close by, in rigorously square and soulless Novi Beograd, the ultra-modern and accurately-holed Chinese Embassy - most categorically not "targeted by mistake". Nor was it witnessing the shocking affluence of mansions (Arkan's easily more imposing than that of Milosevic) in the vicinity of the leafy, hillside suburb of Dedinje; neither was it the gutted and spectral Ministry buildings and police headquarters - former award-winning architectural elements of Belgrade's urban topography - lining Kneza Milosa street. It was not even impressive and once proud Bulevar Revolucije, plied by frequent, but thoroughly dilapidated 1960's buses, its side-streets - a poignant sign of the deleterious effects of almost a decade of economic sanctions against Yugoslavia - populated by abandoned and aimlessly wandering dogs, some of whom had long given up all hope; condemned to a miserable roadside death in turn-of-millennium Europe.
It was, rather, the sight that awaits the pedestrian as, walking away from the city-centre, he passes the Federal Parliament and Central Post and Telegraph Office, before entering the serene oasis of chestnut trees handsomely set out behind St Marko's church - an exact replica of the spiritual heart of Serbian Orthodoxy in Gracanica, Kosovo. All of a sudden, quite unexpectedly, the visitor is confronted with a sliced-open building whose rear facade has been crudely and violently blown away. All around, immersed in an eerie silence, the other buildings appear blissfully untouched - apart from shattered windows, bits and pieces of plaster strewn on the ground, and a shredded balustrade where, one supposes, a secluded terraced café must once have paid host to an infinite number of stolen rendezvous. Amidst the fall-out of the previous April's bomb-blast, in nonchalant testimony to nature's powers of repair and renewal, the nearest chestnut, its fin-de-saison leaves gently caressed by the soothing late September breeze. Compellingly, however, one cannot avert one's gaze for very long; I was forced to stand there, perfectly mute, surveying a scene I never imagined seeing in my entire life: an act of war; nothing more, nothing less - deliberate, heartless and thoroughly futile. The emotional solitude of that longest of moments spent trying to comprehend the remains of Radio Televizija Srbije - and those who had lost their lives therein - could find no adequate means of egress. Helpless, hopeless, and utterly ashamed of my own guilt through association by nationality, I just stood there, immobile.
II. 21st Century Shocks
I was utterly shocked and paralysed by disbelief the night in March 1999 when NATO launched its attacks - and subsequent war - against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: material bombs and destruction for those populations, and virtual bombardments and propaganda for us. Despite the fact that I was living in Italy, local news manipulation was no different to anywhere else in our consciousness-cleansed West. Using a complex, but highly effective macro-media equivalent of high-street hearsay, our governments had led us into acts of belligerence against a country which threatened European security little more than the worst segments of our constituent nations' football followers.
Therefore, since mainstream information sources seemed to yield precious little about my country's involvement in a shooting war - the gravest manifestation of a break-down in the international relations system - I decided that, in a socio-cultural context now absolutely devoid of any genuine objectivity or impartiality, I would investigate by other means: I delved into the parallel world of internet. By collating and cross-checking sources, I quickly learnt that the 'Racak massacre' - ratcheted up to squealing point by western governments and their essentially dependent media - contained numerous elements hinting at a possible KLA mise-en-scène.
Moreover, I soon irrefutably discovered that Western representatives, with the US as undeniable ringleaders, had also stage-managed the Rambouillet 'negotiations' in order to provide NATO with its necessary saleable rationale for unleashing a total of around 35,000 air incursions (around 500 per day) against Yugoslav industry, infrastructure and homes. Daily, as I followed our disproportionately barbaric destruction of Belgrade, Pancevo, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Nis, Surdulica and Pristina, I felt more and more distant from UK prime minister Blair's pronounced 'good against evil' crusade. I reasoned, instead, that this whole shabby affair had to be about considerably more than just a few Albanians: here in Italy, we know a great deal about Albanians - very little of which, it must be said, is in the least edifying.
It is now fairly widely surmised that the former Soviet-controlled Caspian Sea region of south-west Asia contains around 160 billion barrels of oil, as well as up to 340 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Only recently has this abundance of natural wealth begun to be exploited - mostly (though not exclusively) by consortia led by NATO members: as late as November 1999, in fact, an agreement was signed in Istanbul (what exactly is the current plight of the Turkish Kurds?) to construct oil and gas pipelines linking Caspian Azerbaijan, Black Sea Georgia and Mediterranean Turkey.
As opposed to a Russian (which European country is typically described as being closest to Moscow?), or even a Chinese (whose Belgrade embassy was most accurately punctured?)-dominated Balkans, is it mere coincidence that a NATO-controlled south-eastern Europe would quite clearly be more conducive to safeguarding supplies of one of the West's most essential commodities? And, if so, what else will NATO be prepared to do in the apparently unmentionable name of our collective well-being?
Amidst all last year's pandemonium over Albanian refugees, Serb genocide plans, and Milosevic as Hitler reincarnated, a few matters seem to have been overlooked; deliberately suppressed, one might say.
More NATO aircraft may have been shot down than we were led to believe: by analysing non-NATO and non-Yugoslav news agencies, and on the basis of virtual confirmation where cited by two non-aligned sources, I estimate that the USA lost at least 15 fighters (plus 4 helicopters - maybe more), Germany 3, and the UK 2. Moreover, it also emerges that, on 18 April 1999, a mixed expedition of Yugoslav planes attacked and almost certainly destroyed a NATO Advance Control & Command Centre in the vicinity of Tuzla, Bosnia.
A week later, on 26 April 1999, in a foray by Yugoslav MiG-21's (this time over Rinas airfield, near Tirana, Albania), two-thirds of the purportedly irresistible US Apache helicopters - which we were told would blow the Serb army out of Kosovo and into Vojvodina - were probably put out of action. Did no one in any media, anywhere, ever wonder why the Apaches were never deployed - or was the issue just too 'sensitive'?
Quite plainly, the moral of the 1999 war against Yugoslavia is that essential interests remain more important than the truth. Devoir d'ingérence? Plus ça change, mesdames et messieurs...
III. When the Music Stopped...
Following the implosion of the Soviet empire, there was every indication that the Cold War had stopped with it. Perhaps this is not the case: with altered parameters, the plot may have continued...
A year after the 1999 War against Yugoslavia, what will probably turn out to be illusory floodgates have been inched open: dribs and drabs concerning something closer to what really happened (e.g. the illegality of NATO attacks on civilian targets, the RAF's perpetuated use of cluster bombs, CIA-KLA links, and tantalising - but curiously vacuous - spy-stories) are finally beginning to drip-drop into the public domain. Unfortunately, by dint of the UK's 30-year rule, we must assume that the hard facts could take until 2029 to come out. By that time, the Western media may be disseminating information on the latest humanitarian-inspired NATO intervention - covertly aimed at curtailing the geostrategic pretensions of what will overtly be described as 'a ruthless combination of Sino-Russian might' probably, if current trends continue, in or around the vicinity of Transcaucasia.
My, perhaps misguided, impression is that news-gathering is predicated on the quality, diversity and verifiability of sources - even when, 'obviously propagandised', they belong to the adversaire du jour. Had there been the desire to seek it out and investigate its news potential, just as NATO was embarking on its March offensive, a great deal of non-aligned information appears to have been available to Western media (in English, too!). Some Tanjug releases (Yugoslavia), for example, ultimately proved well-founded, whilst Russia's ITAR-TASS clearly had little reason to mislead public opinion grossly. However, perhaps assessing 'opposing' output would be considered too unpatriotic: what, then, is international news reporting actually all about? I believed I came from a rather more sophisticated political culture - what happened to all that fabled British objectivity? Or is it merely a case of 'if you can't beat them...'?
Prior to the NATO campaign, well-documented papers were already in circulation by, inter alia, Diana Johnstone (regarding Serb demonisation) and Michel Chossudovsky (concerning the CIA-KLA-heroin-arms link) - we may not like their politics, but their arguments were well reasoned. Moreover, France's Le Monde, on 28 March 1999 - just a few days after the bombing had commenced - published an article which relayed the opinions of certain individuals from the ranks of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission intimating that a top-level 'alternative American agenda' had led to the mission's premature withdrawal. On 24 April 1999, meanwhile, Algemen Dagblad (Netherlands) featured an article illustrating how NATO's claims of discovering mass graves in Pusto Selo and Izbica, Kosovo, were strongly questionable.
At war's end, furthermore, numerous international agencies noted the departure of 11 Yugoslav MiG-29s from Slatina airport, Pristina - every single one of which, we were led to believe, had already been 'neutralised' by NATO. From Seattle to Sicily, however, such an important news item never reached a single living-room. Somewhat later, on 1 October 1999, the International Herald Tribune published a largely-ignored report suggesting how perilously close to political and diplomatic disaster NATO's whole Balkan escapade had actually come. In the Anglo-Russian dash for Pristina, which took place in the small hours of June 12th, not only did a British Hercules carrying troops crash near Kukes, Albania, shortly after take-off (this was quite widely reported); but only Bulgarian, Romanian and Ukrainian resolve in denying Russia over-fly rights had prevented the latter from airlifting 7-8000 troops to Slatina - which, de facto, would have signified immediate restitution of part of Kosovo to Yugoslavia (was this why Milosevic decided to sign the Kumanovo Agreement?). The Russians were to join the already positioned and previously dispatched co-national SFOR contingent from Bosnia. Had this ploy succeeded, the rest of the British contingent - already condemned to a lonely breakfast beyond the airport's perimeter - would, in all probability, have been back in Macedonia by elevenses.
IV. Bamboo and Chinese Whispers
Entering the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) from Hungary, and travelling southwards on the more-than-adequate three-lane highway connecting Novi Sad, Belgrade and Nis, one crosses the broad flow and majestic expanse of the Danube river valley just south of Vojvodina's chief city, where the green and easternmost hillocks of the Fruska Gora range gradually dissolve into the arable vastness of the plains which constitute Serbia's bread-basket.
Quite unsuccessfully, NATO bombed this crucial arterial bridge last year without, however, completely destroying it. By September 1999 it had been re-opened - quite an impressive sight, too. For the record, nearby Novi Sad now boasts two major new bridge projects, whilst throughout the rest of Serbia a veritable smattering of spans are now newly (or nearly) functional. On its outskirts, the southern city of Nis possesses a fine new highway intersection, whilst capital city Belgrade comprises numerous suburbs where a surprising plethora of new structures and building-sites may be seen. Why, following the destruction lavished upon Yugoslavia during its 'charred spring', have our information media not told us more about these remarkable engineering and reconstruction achievements? Mr Milosevic's government may not currently be receiving the ravest of reviews, but one must assume there would be an element of public interest in such developments... or not?
In spite of the array of sanctions imposed by the 'international community' (how long will it be before this term is purely synonymous with NATO?), certain sectors of the Serbian economy - particularly construction - seem to be positively booming: so, where is all the money coming from? We can certainly deduce that swingeing government taxation, plus the illegal black-marketeering of drugs and all manner of contraband by its own cartels may, in part, be responsible but, given the state of FRY's now dire economy, the sheer scale of construction work surely exceeds any such measure of domestic enterprise. It would appear, moreover, that these activities are not confined solely to the present: a Yugoslav correspondent informs me that, in one guise or another, this has been the case for about the last ten years - the political bamboo, therefore, may actually have been planted some time ago... and we are not talking about the Titoist era of 'Brotherhood and Unity', either.
For almost a decade, Yugoslavia has been denied inward resources and investment: is it so odd to imagine that its government - irrespective of who is at the helm - might nevertheless try and seek such funds? Over the centuries, Serbia happens to be the same country, and Serbs the same people who, rather than cede national sovereignty, have been prepared to sacrifice millions of lives in order to maintain their independence. In terms of more recent (former) Yugoslav history, Marshall Tito, as part of a programme envisaged to foil foreign - Soviet or Western - attempts at breaching federal territory, had a series of important underground defence complexes built throughout the federated republics: Zeljava, near Bihac (Bosnia), was one; amongst numerous others, the subterranean aircraft hangars at Batajnica (Belgrade) and Slatina (Pristina) - which NATO bombed to absolutely no avail - were other, smaller examples. With an economic problem-fraught Russia now in the costly midst of rebuilding its geostrategic position in the Caucasus - and, thus, unlikely to be subsidising FRY to any significant extent, it appears extremely feasible that an ever more self-assured People's Republic of China may just be interested in thwarting too much NATO encroachment into mineral-rich Central Asia: after all, whose Belgrade embassy was deliberately bombed in May 1999?
Western information disseminators apparently choose to ignore these and other related aspects of an intriguing Yugoslav affair which may just be infinitely more complex than merely protecting Albanians, terrorists and drug-traffickers in Kosovo; does public opinion in the NATO 'Community of Interests' quite simply no longer have a 'right to know'? In the meantime, any foreigner wishing to enrol on one of the well-organised srpski jezika (Serb-language) courses at Belgrade's State University, will almost certainly find themselves in a class positively brimming with the most enthusiastic Chinese students...
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