PEACEMAKERS, WARMONGERS…

By Irina Malenko

On the ocassion of the visit to Ireland by the great Peacemaker and Future Knight Mr. Bill Clinton.

POWER CORRUPTS.
by Y.V. Andropov
(translated)

Some trouble-maker has yelped
That power corrupts people
And every smart-Alec confirms it
Already for many years in a row
Not noting - and here's the misfortune
That more often people corrupt power...

3-years old Milica killed by NATO bomb in Yugoslavia

“… The bombs are coming now… I am scared, I really am, but not for myself… After all, in Montenegro it’s easier: they don’t bomb us too much. I am thinking about my family in Cacak, in Serbia.. I can’t phone them because the phones are not working… I know they are in the basement – my little nephew Djordje is trying to sleep with his hat on. He puts is on very deep, to cover even his eyes. When his mum, my sister is asking him why he is doing that, he says: “Like that the bomb will not see me and it will not kill me…” He is only 5.”

“….Every night I am thinking about them, not knowing if they will make it to tomorrow morning.

I have Albanian friends here, and they are cursing NATO as well…”

“… My sister told me there was no raid today! They are afraid of that as
air raid is (may be more, because they suspect something worse, then).
We all will be crazy one day, if we are not yet.
I couldn't sleep last night. (May be you saw the late messages). I was
o.k. about that few days, and again now, I'm dying on my legs, and cant
sleep at all. I'll take some sedative tonight.
I can’t read my messages from the group. My Goddaughter, Mara, too. We
are sick of everything. I hope I 'll not wait for your response a long time. I want you very
much this days, like we didn't talk at all.
Love, M.”

“… I'm mad, you can't imagine how much! It is easier then to be unhappy.
Despite all this shame, we are still not safe . Please, write me, and
make me all this stuff lighter to stand.
love, M.”

“…I can't talk to anybody, except you. I quarrelled to
my sister like she is guilty for all this things. I couldn't go to Mara,
my best friend to talk. We always have the same feelings, she didn't
even call me by the phone, it means she feels like me. I 'm capable to
listen anything you are in the mood to tell me: private, or general,
jokes or tragedies, just talk to me, it is the only thing can make me a
little calm.
Don't leave me.
M.”

… These are just some extracts from the letters of Marijana, 37-years old doctor who lives in Montenegro, - during the oh-so-quickly-forgotten by the “civilised world” NATO aggression against Yugoslavia.

Marijana and myself got to know each other through Internet during this madness. It was not a funny chat or an empty-headed exchange of what we’ve seen in shops today and how much do we want to lose weight. (We both lost enough during that time – we both just couldn’t eat!). It’s strange how quickly people can become friends during hard times, when they need each other’s support! After a couple of weeks we both felt that we knew each other for ages. We had no secrets from each other and were both passionately against this war. That time, I was living like in 2 different lives: in the morning, I was waking up and going to work in Dublin, but in my head, I was in Yugoslavia… When I was going to Belfast on the bus during the weekend, all I could think about, was the bus with refugees bombed by NAO, and the pictures of what was left of the people…

I was following news on the hour. Every evening, first thing at home, I was running to my computer, going on Internet and was staying with Marijana until the attacks will be over. The cowards mainly bombed at night…She needed me to stay with her – she was not going to the refuge, she was staying with computer all the time, and I was getting her sometimes panicking, sometimes angry, sometimes relieved messages. I had a feeling that I am holding her hand during the operation and that she won’t make it if I’d leave… I was staying with her sometimes till the morning – and then we both had to go to work again…

The Internet was a great help: people could feel that the whole world was with them, and they even got warning about planes coming up from the neighbouring countries – before they actually appeared in the sky!

My friendship with Marijana became a lifetime, front life, war time friendship. We’ve been together though things that made us part of each other’s life forever. Even though it was virtual.

It was then, -ironically, thanks to Mr. Clinton! - That I decided to go to politics. Because I just couldn’t continue to see this happening and not at least to try to do something about it.

I couldn’t understand how people here can laugh, drink, go out and enjoy life – while not so far away from them, on the same continent even, small kids are going to sleep with their hats on, hoping that the bomb will miss them… It didn’t miss 3-years old Milica Rakic who was in the bathroom of her own house when the bomb struck….

From 2000 killed and 5000 wounded by NATO people nearly half were children. Before the NATO aggression, according to many observers (For example, Irish Times in June 1999), the number of people killed in the conflict (in nearly 10 years!) was not higher than 3000…

For 79 days 17 most powerful countries of the world, - under the leadership and after initiative of the USA, - were relentlessly bombing mainly civilian targets in a small Balkan country, justifying their actions with the argument that its government was busy with “ethnic cleansing” of Albanian minority…

“Why didn’t we bomb Belfast and London in the 70s?” – were asking each other and the scared Western correspondents angry people in Moscow those days. Because what the British government was doing in the North of Ireland, wasn’t by any chance any better than the actions of Milosevic.

And where are the same Western “democracy and justice lovers”, including Blair and Clinton, now – when Israeli government every day “ethnically cleansing” Palestinians from the homeland?

The hypocrisy of the so-called “democratic” world speaks for itself. Only a blind person can not see it and would deny that the war in Yugoslavia had nothing to do with any fight for any justice: that was simply the war of the New World Order (under American leadership and with Britain playing role of Jackal Tabaki from the Jungle Book behind its back) for the world’s dominance. Yugoslavia was just the first try: Milosevic -a dictator who has chosen the wrong master. If he would have made the right choice – like, for example, Mr. Pinochet nearly 30 years ago, he wouldn’t even need to be democratically elected!

But we are not speaking about Mr. Pinochet now. What we are speaking about, is about Peacemakers and about how short human memory apparently is.

That was shown very clear in Ireland during the last visit of Mr. Clinton here. It will be shown here again in the coming week – during his next visit.

Yes, Clinton did a lot for Peace Process in Ireland. But does it mean that everything else should be forgotten and that he should be greeted here as a sort of mixture between Stalin and Kim Il Sung?

Westerners who are making such fun of the Soviet dictatorship and personality cult: when you are meeting Mr. Clinton here, have you got a chance to look at yourself in the mirror?

There is something else Clinton’s visit here remind me of. More disturbing. My home country back in XIII century, when Russians were colonised by Mongolians, and Russian aristocrats every year went to the great Mongolian Khan:- to get a
"yarlyk" - a symbol that they can rule their own country! - from his hands... They were all rushing to arrive there and to speak to the Khan first - before their competitors will...

Sad to see the similarity between the XIII century and the year 2001! Sad to see that people who are seeking freedom, have their mentality so changed because of the many centuries of the oppression that they may not even notice what their behaviour looks like to the outside world.

Don't people here realise that, in fact, this behaviour is a sign that they are, more or less, exchanging one colonial "boss" for another, post-colonial? Don't people here realise that no foreign power, no matter how good its intentions might be in one particular moment in time, can solve other nation's problems and can liberate it? Or is it the same mentality that makes my own people back at home always to look for one-single hero who would come and take all our problems away - while in reality, nobody ever will do that?

Only the people themselves can liberate their home.

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery,
None but ourselves can free our minds".

How very true.

… In the Soviet Union where I grew up, every spring we were remembering our dead – our over 20 million people who lost their lives during the last war. We have a beautiful saying back at home: “Nobody is forgotten and nothing is forgotten…”

That seems to be the case in Ireland as well, looking at every year Easter Rising, Bodenstown and Hunger Strikes Commemorations – but is it really so that people only remember their own, Irish dead? Are other human lives any less valuable? So less that you can simply call the man who killed Milica and many other kids a “Peacemaker” – without even thinking for a second about it? …

… “Ah, it was the war!” – you might say. But the same RUC and the British Army are saying to you – about Julie Livingston…

In Yugoslavia, Clinton and Blair killed the civilians (Yugoslav Army was virtually untouched when it left Kosovo!) not in a war for liberation of their own countries, but in a war for world dominance. This war started out of Western, in the first place – American - strategic and economic needs (mixed with Clinton’s own sexual frustrations at that time!).

Yes, leaders of other countries do the same thing – but at least, they are not being known as “peacemakers” after that.

…The Western papers, obviously, wouldn’t print the photos of the Great Peacemaker’s victims.

But here they are – take a look at them for yourself (see photos in attachment). We are not even including photos of the Iraqis and other civilians murdered by his government during his years at power…

Do you still want to shake a hand with this man – just because “he was good” to YOUR country?

Just read for yourself what like was like – not for Milosevic, but for the ordinary people! – under his “peacemaking” operation, where children were not more than “collateral damage”…

“…My very best friend, my brother, is killed on Kosovo this morning. He
was since first days of war, to the end. A car he was in, was
blown up by antitank mine. Mother told me in the afternoon. I couldn't
speak about it until now. I'll probably go to Cacak on Monday, even I
cant present on funeral.
I'm sure now, more than before, our fight must go on. I received many
support messages.
But in this moment, my pain is too hard to do anything useful. I ask
you, in the name of our friendship, to do it this days, for me.
Voli te Marijana.”

“…After that I went to Mara, nobody couldn't talk about politics now. I
felt hurt for a little bit because of that. But I know it's unreal. I
have a feeling nobody wants to talk because we are a losers. It is like
betray of all this dead people. I thought about my dead friend too. I
want somebody ask me about him, his life, his death. Only my sister and
my mother suffer as much as me. Because we knew him well, and he was
like a part of the family…”

“… I can travel with a small risk to be bombed, like people in
the bus, but it doesn't happen all the time, does it?”

“draga irina puno te pozdravlja Milica i pozdravi tvoju cerku Alisu.
Hvala sto si htela da mi kupis igracku za vreme rata. I PUNO TE
POZDRAVLJA MOJ BRAT DJORDJE”
“My dearest,
I hope you received a message named Milica, it is from my sister's
daughter, she wanted to say thanks to you. I talked about you vary
much, and she knows about your wish to send her a present during the
war…”

“I read in my group's messages an important one. It is a translation from
Spanish newspapers article, a testimony of one of the Spanish pilots who was
in Aviano base. It is terrible. He told to the journalist some very
important things: the Americans were the only planers of flights and
targets. They decided which kind of bombs will be used. All civilians
destruction were planed to the details. They treated foreign pilots like
shit. None could say "no" to them, even if they demand things like bombing
an obvious civilian targets. It means there were no "collateral damage", it
is all planed. Which we knew all the time, of course, but now, this is
proved.”

“…By the way: this is a first night my family will sleep in house, in
bedrooms, not in the cellar! My sister told me: it was a little
celebration, they wear on a bed- clothes the first time for a 70 days! She
went to a cellar to take some stuff, and was looking at it with sorrow! She
told me too, she feel an emptiness, no way to organize life, especially they
are still afraid….”

“…My dearest,
It was just you've said- sad, and nice, at the same time. I was happy to
see them alive, it is much in this time! I was sad meeting my friends
parents, I cried much, and my sister is chronically sad because of his
death.
In the city, all are in some hopeless mood. Refugees from Kosovo, lost
territory, dead young men for nothing, no help from anywhere. It is
summer time, "and living is easy", but what in the winter? No jobs, no
factories, money is going slowly, what to say about it? “

“…My female colleague from job, Dragana, told me her uncle was killed

three days ago. He was a general mennager of Termoelektrana "Obilic",

in Pristina. He moved his wife and children in Serbia, but he stayed because

of job. He was in his apartment, when Albanians came. His Albanian good

friend from work called him through the door. He opened him, and few

Kosovars came in,tied him on the chair, and tortured him with knifes, and killed him at
least. His neighbour was looking through the door, and saw
everything, but he was afraid to go out. He called a K-FOR, but, when
they came, he was dead, and massacred. They couldn't find a coffin to
bury him. He stayed 3 days unburied, until a coffin came by train, from
Serbia. His family was not at funeral, they were unable to came. He was
42 years old. It is just one, of plenty stories about people's destiny
there…”

...During that time, foreign media, newspapers specially, announcing articles about

Serbs, like we are animals. May be, you've heard that: That we teach our children, since
they are twelve, to put a mines, to kill other nations which lives in
YU, to hate.... We all are helpless, absolutely, about this. I know how we teach our

children-to respect, and to love, to be nice with everybody. But, machine of lies is
too strong. And, it works it's dirty job.”

“…This is a time of beast. And, I really started to believe that God wants
it, for his reasons which we cannot understand. May be, it would make
things more bearable if we can, but, what we can do, except to believe
in truth, and the mercy for children of our children, after all.
I was watching Croatia"s TV, and realized they are not happy with
Americans too. It was a reportage about many car accidents with S-FOR's
tanks, and many dead domestic people in them. They are in the position
like we were faced with, in Rambuje's agreement, for the first. S-fors
can go wherever they want, with no responsible for accidents and people
lives. Domestic government can't protect their own people. They can't
accuse them, or to judge them. They may only complain to s-for's
command, and wait their decision. They interviewed a young family which
lost a little daughter, 3 years old, and grandfather of the girl, a
husband's father. They are killed in car crush with s-for's tank, on the
street. They complained, and asked for the compensation. Nobody
responded them, and they still wait. More then 60% of demands are
refused in the start.
That's a life under the NATO... And, not only for us.”

…Welcome to Ireland, Mr. Clinton!…