Le Colonel Chabert leads us to the Cultural Parody Center, which in turn leads us to the documentary Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War, Parts I and II. It is fascinating and I hasten to call attention to it although I have not even finished watching it. The Cultural Parody Center quotes from the NYT review of the film:
The film asserts that partly because of American television’s need for clear-cut heroes and villains, a scenario of good guys (the oppressed Bosnian Muslims) versus bad (the evil, barbaric Serbs) came to dominate mainstream news coverage of the war. After one reporter heard a Serbian use the words ”ethnic cleansing,” for instance, the term, with its repugnant genocidal associations, was seized on by the Clinton administration as a buzzword and used to bash the Serbs, when in fact all sides were equally intent on ”cleansing” their territories of undesirables.
This heroes-and-villains mentality, the film contends, also served American interests by giving the United States an excuse to preserve and strengthen NATO in the post-Communist era when its relevance had become debatable.
It allowed us to keep our power base in Europe. The film bluntly calls ”an occupying force” the NATO forces (led by the United States) that remain in Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia without an official date for withdrawing, and it goes so far as to accuse that 19-nation army of conspiring to commit war crimes.
Almost anything we thought we knew about the Balkan wars is thrown into question by the film. Did a highly publicized civilian massacre of Bosnian Muslims by Serbs in Kosovo that prompted NATO to intensify the bombing of Yugoslavia really take place? Or did Bosnian Muslims transport the bodies of dead soldiers (not civilians) overnight to the site and then cry massacre?
And what about the numbers? Subsequent investigations, the movie claims, have shown that the tally of casualties at the hands of Serbs, including the supposed mass rapes of Bosnian women, was outrageously inflated.
Whether or not you’re convinced by the film’s assertions, many of which are based on information provided by the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organizations that investigated reported events after the fact, ”Yugoslavia, the Avoidable War” does an impressive job of relating the complicated history of the war and of filling in the background. Some of that background has been overshadowed by the designation of the Serbs as the villains. The Croatians, it reminds us, collaborated closely with the Nazis during World War II in the slaughter of 750,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies in their territory.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
could you imagine if history books were collusions of the conquered and the conquerors and a third, uninvolved party? you could have versions, like in the bible, different parts in each chapter. let the reader assimilate the truth from the Overlap and the Gap. i would love that.
Yeah, Clinton’s illegal bombing of Yugoslavia violated the UN Charter, the North-Atlantic Treaty, and the Geneva Conventions. On top of the embargo on Iraq which killed hundreds of thousands, there’s really no question that Clinton, Albright, and Cohen are war criminals. Something you don’t often hear about from liberal critics of Bush’s war crimes.
Thanks for the heads-up about the documentary! I look forward to checking it out.
Peace.
I still need to finish watching it, but what I have seen is brilliant. Clinton, Albright, Cohen, war criminals, oh yes. Bush is worse all around than Clinton, but this does not make Clinton good, and I do not understand why more people do not see that.
I’m afraid the Professor is displaying a lack of familiarity with Yugoslavia issues as well as unknowingly allying with ultra-rightists who certainly would not return the favor in opposing the atrocities committed by the Somocistas, Guatemalan and Salvadoran dictatorships, or the authorities in Chiapas. The film in question, featuring as repulsive a collection of Muslim-haters as you would ever want to see in one place, denies the many well-documented war crimes committed by Serbian forces in the 1990s wars in Bosnia and Kosovo.
For a thorough review of the film, see http://www.offoffoff.com/film/2002/yugoslavia.php3
The Professor seems confused by the difference between Kosovo Albanians and Bosnian Muslims – possibly more confused than the film itself.
Did I comment on that? Your tone and reading skills are not recommending you, Roger. –Z
At any rate, there is massive documentation of the Racak massacre, to which he is attempting to refer.
I? This post consists of links to the film and a quotation from the NYT review. Once again, your poor reading skills are looking pretty poor, Roger. –Z
You’ll find it at http://www.glypx.com/BalkanWitness/Racak.htm
Just because the US government and Serbia were enemies does not mean we have any reason to endorse Serbia’s genocidal actions. Progressives need to be capable of more sophisticated thinking than to endorse minor-league fascists in their anti-US positions.
Who here endorsed any genocidal actions? I would be more inclined to take you seriously, Roger, if you dropped the condescending tone and the insinuation. Does someone more expert than myself wish to take on this comment? –Z
An aside to the webmaster: the hot links you included in my last reply include the final period, so they won’t always work. Could you correct the formatting so people can use them. Thanks.
It is not I who added them, it is you who included them, and that’s how you wrote them, Roger! Maybe next time try to do it right – I am not your maid! –Z
You are far more generous than I am. I would delete the whole damn post and let him get his word out however he sees fit since he cannot show a drop of appreciation.
Profacero, I think it’s undisputed that Serbian top brass ordered rapes for genocide of Bosnian Muslim and Roman Catholic women. Although all of the males on all sides were raping females on all sides, only the Serbian military brass issued specific orders for rape, for the establishment of rape camps, and so on. I think this was well established by the Special U.N. Rapporteur, by the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, and by the lawsuit brought by survivors of rape camps in the United States, pro bono, by Catharine MacKinnon, under an obscure law that allows victims of war crimes to bring civil claims against perps if they are on U.S. soil. Sixteen rape camp survivors brought suit and won a $600 million dollar judgment against top Serbian officials, at least one of whom has died, and last I heard, some are still out there unapprehended.
There was a massive effort — millions of dollars — expended by the Orthodox Church which amounted to a propaganda campaign designed to depict the Serbs as persecuted and vilified, when, in fact, the Serbs inherited virtually all that was left of the weaponry and armaments of the old Yugoslavia and Bosnia and Croatian had to scramble to put together any sort of actual response at all against tanks, machine guns, and again, rape campaigns, ordered by top brass.
There has been an effort underway for years now to erase this history, including the rape camps, including the death camps. It will not do to participate in anti-Serb hatred for its own sake, and there is plenty of that, but it also will not do to participate in any way in the erasure of the atrocities committed by the Serbian army and government, particularly against women. One reason for absolute vigilance here is the death of Slobodan Milosevic which meant war crimes tribunal proceedings against him will never be completed, and many will, and have, moved to make him a hero.
I have written extensively on this subject and wrote a paper on it a few years ago. I should update it and post it.
This is a cautionary tale for all feminists. Bosnian and Croatian feminists attempted for years to tell EVERYBODY, including western feminists, that they were being raped in rape camps, raped until they were impregnated, raped for genocide by the Serbian army. There was silence in response, including among liberal feminists in the West worried about behaving as “cultural imperialists,” when in fact, some, not all, of the Serbian feminists who were their friends and who they supported had been, by and large, puppets of the Yugoslavian regime and later the Serbian regime, treated well so long as they toed a pro-Serb party line and demonized rape victims as “anti-Serbian” and “nationalists.” In time, rape victims and newly formed feminist organizations in Bosnia and Croatia contacted Catharine Mackinnon, who listened to them, believed them, and brought the suit in the U.S., which factored in in a huge way in the way rape eventually was made to be a crime against humanity in international law, as opposed to collateral damage of war.
There was a lot of antagonism towards MacKinnon on the part of — guess who — anti-radical feminists who had old axes to grind and ground them, of course, all the while thousands of girls and women were raped, tortured, with pornography made of their actual rapes and tortures, something nobody — especially anti-radfems — wanted to hear about, but which was proved to be true by the U.N. Special Rapporteur and other investigative groups sent in via NGOs, and journalists as well. (And no, the UN was not heroic; tons of UN “peacekeepers” also raped/prostituted women in the former Yugoslavia, but the UN Special Rapporteur did not. I have read every page of his extensively documented and researched report written over several years.)
Well, as you can see, a hot button for me! Very, very important that feminists learn all we can about this chapter of history or it will be repeated and repeated and repeated, and women, above all, will suffer.
Heart
Professor Zero, Mr. Lippman is obviously not informed that Serbia was cleared of genocide charges by the ICC:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/yugo/article/0,,2021765,00.html
which casts even more doubt than the documentary itself on the widespread propagandistic lies about Serbian massacres in the war.
But since Mr Lippman, as a human rights activist on behalf of the Empire, is obviously paying lip service to the ”humanitarian profiteers” that have been swarming around Serbia ever since the troubles started, I did not exactly expect any kind of objectivity to come from that sordid alley.
His designation of the speakers in the documentary as ”rightist” is so blatanly false, while he VASTLY underplays the fact that Lord Owen is in the documentary.
I apologize for not underlining the fact that yes, indeed, Bogdanovich is a member of the Serbian lobby, but I don’t see where and how Mr. Bogdanovich tried to obscure that fact for the insidious propagandist purpose that Mr. Lippman ascribes to him; Bogdanovich’s film was reviewed positively by the New York Times, and they didn’t seem to have a problem with his membership in the Serbian lobby.
The feminist complainer on the other hand should try and realize that the Empire uses feminism for demonization, and the constant harping on alleged Serbian rapes contributed greatly to the project of dismantling Yugoslavia, as well as the demonization campaign against Serbia being portrayed in this film. I believe she should also think a bit more about the way feminist tropes are abused in the Iraq war (Lieutant Lindy in Abu Graib) – as a political weapon!
Yes I can appreciate that. The topic does seem to be a hornet’s nest worthy of sorting out and learning about.
Thanks for your visit, Parody Central, and to everyone for your comments! I never figured the whole Balkans situation out, which is why I am interested in the film. Roger knows more than I do about the Balkans for sure, but I am pretty hip to the workings of much U.S. propaganda, including its cynical deployment of news about rape, and to guys who take the kind of tone Roger takes here. So: I’m taking Roger’s info under advisement – he may have a point, or several. But as the NYT reviewer pointed out, you do not have to agree with every assertion in the film, or draw all of the same conclusions it draws, to find it worthwhile. That seems fairly balanced to me.
I hear you re the U.S. and reports of rape, but in this instance, the U.S. government, the U.S., period, media, military, spokespersons, did not take any particular interest in the rapes for genocide on the part of the Serbian government, or in rapes, period, in the former Yugoslavia. Feminists took an interest in the rapes. It was feminist publications, by and large — Ms Magazine, Off Our Backs and others — which drew U.S. attention to the rapes, whatever attention there might have been early on. There was certainly nothing “alleged” about the rapes for genocide and certainly, there is nothing alleged about the many children who resulted from the rapes. In fact in 2001, the Hague Tribunal convicted three top Serbian military officials of mass rape and sexual slavery and sentenced them to 60 years in prison.
Off Our Backs article about the convictions
Common Dreams article on the way the decision means that for the first time, rape and sexual slavery have been regarded as war crimes, with implications for prosecution of those responsible for genocide in Rwanda, Kosovo, and East Timor
As to the ICC clearing Serbia of genocide, I (and many others) believe Serbia’s withholding, censoring and redacting of key military documents, and the Tribunal, for reasons which are mystifying, failling to subpoena the documents, is responsible for that unfortunate decision.
http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2007/03/icj-perverse-judgment.html
Article on Globe and Mail article on children born of rape coming ofo age
Heart
I wanted to say that I *will* see the film you and Chabert are talking about, Profacero, definitely, and I have no doubt the actions of the U.S./the Clinton administration were not motivated by human rights concerns, ethical considerations, or anything praiseworthy. I get fired up around this subject and have a hard time keeping my passions in repose, because what I am thinking about, concerned about, is the women and what happened to them at the hands of the men — something I am absolutely positive was of little concern to the U.S. government unless, as you suggest, there was opportunity for some kind of strategic advantage in making it an issue. That’s what was so horrible about this war, or one thing. Women were being raped, murdered, tortured, and nobody cared, unless for some other reason, it was in their interests to care, or unless, in the case of soldiers, it gave them an excuse to rape, murder and torture the other side’s women.
Heart
I hear you, Heart! And do not disagree. FYI there is related news today: 4 Serbian paramilitaries sentenced to jail terms in Serbian war crimes court for a small part of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. BBC says: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6540645.stm (and has video).
Womensspace, rape undoubtedly happened. It happens in all wars. Whether it was the kind of (scale and format of) rape that ICTY described, is another issue; I am inclined to doubt precisely because of the hyperbolic accounts of organization and the Nazi imagery being invoked (I think of a sort of concentration camp-harem). The ICTY is an illegal court, acting on the political interest of the U.S. They have been able to prove very few of their indictments in principle, while certain key witnesses died in mysterious ways before the trial was even completed, so why should you be inclined to trust ICTY in this matter? Only because it’s WOMEN in question? I think you’re working for the Empire in your feminist indignation, my dear!
Parodycenter, I don’t particularly “trust” the ICTY, particularly given their failures to subpoena key documents from the Serbian government, and for other reasons as well. I cited to them because you did, as though you, yourself, have faith in them and as though their failure to convict proved something.
I believe Bosnian and Croatian women were raped in rape camps for the purpose of genocide because I have read extensive, extensive testimony from those women themselves and from their children, because I care first and foremost about women and am always looking to hear the voice of the women, in any situation, whether it’s in an abusive marriage or in the marketplace or in wartime when they are being raped and nobody cares enough even to listen to them.
As to your suggestion that the rape camps and rape for genocide on the part of the Serbs was similar to the raping which is always part of war, that is like saying that the Holocaust was not really much different from antisemitism, or like saying that the rape and prostitution camps for the Comfort Women were not that different from racism against Asian people. There is a global difference and the fact that this is recognized is a major achievement of feminism.
Heart
I did not quote ICTY, but ICC (that’s another body)…I don’t understand your analogy Semitism-Holocaust but what I meant to say is I don’t think ICTY has evidence of organized systematic coordinated rape… it already sounds like a snuff movie, and resembles the other propaganda they spun about ”genocide” and ”massacres”
I think the analogy means to suggest that the Holocaust is antisemitism taken to an organized extreme, and rape camps are more random rape taken to an organized extreme.
But does the existence of the rape camps justify U.S. policy and actions in the Balkans generally? My hunch is that if saving people from rape/genocide were our country’s main interest, it would act differently than it does, and more effectively. I am not trying to say that rape/genocide should not be taken seriously. My interest here is U.S. policy and its motivations.
But it’s precisely organized crime that they didn’t manage to prove, Profacero – all they did was use hyperbole and near-comic exaggeration to launch a massive propaganda campaign. The idea was to create the image of Serbs as monsters.
Anyway the motivation of the Empire is to close down Eastern European space and encircle Russia. Since Serbia is a traditional Russian ally, they had to use us both as a literal route, and a propagandistic device to show Russia how her own ex-satellite states will be treated once the chase for oil and energy commences.
Well, they did their very best to create the image of Serbs as monsters!
“Anyway the motivation of the Empire is to close down Eastern European space and encircle Russia. Since Serbia is a traditional Russian ally, they had to use us both as a literal route, and a propagandistic device to show Russia how her own ex-satellite states will be treated once the chase for oil and energy commences.”
That is interesting. I do not pay enough attention to the region; this is something to watch for/think about.
Unfortunately, it’s not so clear, in Professor’s original post, how much is a quote and whether any of it is his own commentary. Checking the link to the Times, I found that it was in fact all from the Times. And when I looked at that paper, I saw this correction:
March 16, 2002, Saturday A film review in Weekend yesterday about ”Yugoslavia, the Avoidable War” misidentified the faction that the documentary, directed by George Bogdanich, accuses of displaying bodies to inflame international opinion against the Serbs. It is the Kosovo Liberation Army, not the Bosnian Muslims.
This was one of my points. So, it wasn’t Professor who made this error. He merely repeated it unquestioningly from another source that had done the same, thus demonstrating what he has admitted – lack of expertise on the former Yugoslavia. The movie is full of characters who are defenders of the genocidal program of the Milosevic regime. If you read the review I recommended, you will understand why I say that. And if you read about the Racak massacre on the site I named, you will be able to draw your own conclusions.
Also – thanks to womensspace for your posting. I would like to read your article on the rape camps, and possibly link to it from Balkan Witness.
NYT correction, interesting, and yes, I read the OffOffOff review!
Unquestioningly? Sha, if I put something up and also endorse it, I say so. This site is in large part about interesting items and artifacts up for comment. Typeface conventions to which I am trying to adhere for clarity: Times New Roman = me; Arial = quotations of others; bold = me emphasizing or translating.
The movie is full of characters who are defenders of the genocidal program of the Milosevic regime.
Roger, I know it’s your job as a humanitarian profiteer to spread lies about Milosevic’s genocidal program, but isn’t it a bit ridiculous now that the ICC has cleared Serbia of genocide charges???
Zounds! I’ve been exposed as a Humanitarian! And when “parodycenter” proves my profiteering by publishing copies of my backdated stock options from the evil Humanitarian Inc., my reputation will be ruined.
Or, maybe “parodycenter” is just a parody of himself?
But seriously, …
“Parodycenter” reads a headline about the International Court of Justice ruling in Bosnia vs. Serbia and jumps to the conclusion that he was already predisposed to – that Serbia was not culpable for the genocide that took place in Bosnia (if he can bring himself to accept the idea that genocide was in fact committed there). That may be the legal resolution of the case, but it does not change the fact that the Serbian army had hundreds of fighters in the Bosnian war, and thousands in the Bosnian Serb army were paid by Belgrade, in addition to other “substantial support” for the war from Serbia.
Perhaps he missed the follow-up story in the April 9 New York Times that provides a deeper look into the ICJ ruling. Among the information about the decision contained in that article:
> In the spring of 2003, during the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, hundreds of documents arrived at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague marked “Defense. State Secret. Strictly Confidential.”
> The cache contained minutes of wartime meetings of Yugoslavia’s political and military leaders, and promised the best inside view of Serbia’s role in the Bosnian war of 1992-1995.
> But there was a catch. Serbia, the heir to Yugoslavia, obtained the tribunal’s permission to keep parts of the archives out of the public eye. Citing national security, its lawyers blacked out many sensitive — those who have seen them say incriminating — pages. Judges and lawyers at the war crimes tribunal could see the censored material, but it was barred from the tribunal’s public records.
> Lawyers interviewed in The Hague and Belgrade said that the outcome might well have been different had the International Court of Justice pressed for access to the full archives, and legal scholars and human rights groups said it was deeply troubling that the judges did not subpoena the documents directly from Serbia. At one point, the court rebuffed a Bosnian request that it demand the full documents, saying that ample evidence was available in tribunal records.
> The ruling raised some eyebrows because details of Serbian military involvement were already known from records of earlier tribunal cases. For instance, evidence showed that in late 1993, more than 1,800 officers and noncommissioned men from the Yugoslav Army were serving in the Bosnian Serb army, and were deployed, paid, promoted or retired by Belgrade.
> These and many other men, including top generals, were given dual identities, and to help handle that development, Belgrade created the so-called 30th personnel center of the general staff, a secret office for dealing with officers listed in both armies. The court took note of that, but said that Belgrade’s “substantial support” did not automatically make the Bosnian Serb army a Serbian agent.
> A recent book, “Unspoken Defense,” by Momir Bulatovic, a former president of Montenegro who attended many sessions of the Defense Council, said that in 1994, when more than 4,000 men on Serbia’s payroll were fighting in Bosnia, the council discussed abolishing the 30th personnel center because its discovery might cause political problems.
> Lawyers and human rights groups have searched with special interest for council records from the summer of 1995, when Srebrenica was overrun by soldiers and police officers, many of them, tribunal records show, in the pay of Serbia. After the massacre there, the council met three times, with General Mladic attending at least one session. Verbatim transcripts of those days are missing even from the secret archives, lawyers said.
> Phon van den Biesen, a lawyer on the Bosnian team, said the full documents would probably have demonstrated that the Bosnian Serb forces were agents of Serbia, controlled by Belgrade.
> “This would have made Serbia liable for the Srebrenica genocide,” Mr. van den Biesen said. “We believe all this can be found in the documents. The cuts are made whenever the agenda turns to financing and to personnel matters. That’s why Serbia went to such lengths to hide them from us.”
The complete story can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/world/europe/09archives.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all
It’s also instructive to take a look at the dissent of the vice president of the ICJ, at
Click to access dissenting_opinion_vice_president.pdf
There is a perspective not represented in the Serbian-genocide-denial community, namely the perspective of the survivors of the genocide. There are many survivors – families of the deceased; victims who escaped with injuries; those who fled Srebrenica through the woods and were hunted by Serbian forces for days. Poorly reasoned rulings such as that of the ICJ, and propagandistic pieces like the movie “Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War,” or uninformed and prejudicial comments from writers like “parodycenter,” are direct offenses against the survivors in addition to being falsifications of history.
People who claim to have at heart the interests of the oppressed should give this some thought. In their zeal to side with Serbian fascists because they are the enemy of the US, they sacrifice the interests of the victims. And this is not just about history. As victims have often said, every denial of the genocide feels to them like the genocide is being committed again, even as some of the major perpetrators are still on the lam, hiding with the cooperation of Serbian authorities.
For comments by survivors about recent court decisions, see Srebrenica Massacre Verdicts Spark Outrage Among Survivors, at http://www.advocacynet.org/pr_view/pr_116.html
That may be the legal resolution of the case, but it does not change the fact that the Serbian army had hundreds of fighters in the Bosnian war, and thousands in the Bosnian Serb army were paid by Belgrade, in addition to other “substantial support” for the war from Serbia.
Roger, why are you bringing this up? Of couyrse the Serbian army had fighters in Bosnia, just as the Croatian did, and just as the Bosnian Muslims did. It was a WAR. How can this be linked or equated with genocide? It is precisely the link between the presence of paramilitary troops (which were indeed supported by both Milosevic and Tudjman’s governments) and GENOCIDE that neither the ICTY nor the ICC were able to prove. ”Hiding documents from public view” is the lamest-ass argument I could imagine; what kind of a court is it, set up by several first-world countries, that cannot find its way into Serbian documents?
Don ‘t play dumb, Roger, you and your humanitarian circle of war profiteering bandits are no better than paramilitary troops. It is because of your activities in Serbia that the demonization campaign depicted in ”An Avoidable War” was so successful!
That’s like George Bush saying THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION EXIST, ONLY THE IRAQI GOVERNMENT HID THEM FROM OUR VIEW, Roger!
How’d I miss this one?
I don’t know – I missed it too, essentially, spent so much time fielding comments that I didn’t actually finish the video. Lippmann and ParodyCenter are both very partial … I am unfortunately unable to trust *any* U.S. military action.
well, I’ll try and check back once I watch the video. I agree with you about trust issues regarding US miltary action. I’ve also spent some time in Yugo and the former Yugo, as my sweetheart’s family hails from there.
Did you ever watch the feature film, Underground? – good film about all things Yugo.
I must look for this film! Summer is coming, I will have time at last to cultivate myself. I’ll be interested to see what you have to say about this video!