OUT OF CONTEXT AND OUT OF ORDER< DANIELA.
you can't really get away with that when the full posts are above your misquotation.

And I draw the line at posting my friends persoanl thoughts online, without their permission, but they basicly got over it, and got on with it.
For that I respect them a great deal.

It is not 'out of context' when you are mentioning it?

Kim Arx,

>> The thing that strikes me most [...] The step I don't seem to be able to follow you on is the If the US is wrong, then the rest of the world is right... <<

(BTW - the brackets with 3 dots indicates text was edited out of the quoted material. I use it a lot and often get asked what it is for. You may already know, so in the case ignore this explanation).

Wrong. That is your assumption. I've never said or implied that. I don't know what is right for the rest of the world, nor do I presume to tell them. It isn't my business or the business of my government. Someone once advised that the US should "engage in trade with all nations, but become neither friend nor foe with any". I lean in that direction, but really have no hope of seeing that USofA. The greed of wealth and drunkeness of power have taken root and the process of Empire is established. The storm will rage. And everyone loses.

While watching the Olympic games from Sydney, especially during the opening and closing ceremonies, I was overcome with emotion and actually shed a few tears for the people of Australia - they were so pleased with themselves and proud of their country and the success of their endeavors. And they were so happy to share all that with the whole world. My tears were partly tears of joy for Australia and and the "Auzzies", and partly a little envy and a feeling of loss. As I watched I thought, "Australia is the country America was suppose to be". I was happy, but a great sadness came over me as well.

My concern isn't primarily about the rest of the world. My concern is what is happening to my own country as a result of it's march towards imperialist domination of that world. In my own lifetime I've watched as a very sophisticated Orwellian police state has replaced what was originally envisioned as a Republic of the people in a loose federation of semi-autonomous states -- ironically, not unlike the structure of the FRY. It has now become an empire with all the signs of a growing totalitarian society. The most frightening aspect of all is the near complete apathy of the people, their willingness to believe the lies and propaganda, the manipulation, coercion, and intimidation. As Gore Vidal puts it, "the continuous, non-stop petty harrassments, requirements, and demands placed on the population". It serves a purpose, which is to keep the people constantly busy, involved, anxiety ridden, and fearful; thus more mangeable, more easily manipulated.

In the US today, there is little in the average persons life that isn't monitored, manipulated, directed, or controled through various means of regulation and enforcement. Yet, most people think they are free because there are few visible signs of uniformed enforcers.

Kim, it's way late in the dark A.M. here. I've got to cut this off now. I'll try to tackle the rest of your reply tomorrow.

Kim Arx,

I forgot to mention it, but I'm not bald or balding. Nor am I arrogant or a bigot, just very opinionated and not at all shy about expressing it. Just to clear up some assumptions.

"Pleased to meet you
hope you get my name
[...]
[...]"

I'll let you complete the verse. :O) :O)

T Gunns.,

Thanks. Apologies for the baldy reference.And other assumptions. I am also very opionated(you may have noticed), and hopefully learning to express it.

Daniela,
Apologies also, but having just revealed some very personal stuff, I was a bit sensitive about your answer. I don't know what your background is, but I do know that not all Serbs, Croats,etc. were sucked up into the whirlwind of hatred that blew through FRY.( and I am making no assumptions about yourself there, I promise) Maybe that is something to be thankful for,I don't know.

cheers Kim

>> Nevertheless, the Kremna Prophecy predicts eventual prosperity for Serbia. It also predicts another thing: namely, sometime after
peace finally comes to Serbia, "there shall be a big war in which great powers over the oceans will take part; fiery balls shall fly over
Serbia, but Serbia will be spared from this war." <<

http://www.sv-vaznesenje.org/forums/news/posts/136.html

Memorandum On Foreign Interference Regarding Elections In The Federal Republic Of Yugoslavia

Official Report by the Yugoslav Government to the UN Security Council. This Urgent Request To Investigate the Most Serious Charges Has Been Ignored

September-October 2000 1. Before as well as during the electoral process conducted so far, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its citizens have been incessantly exposed to systematic and brutal pressure by some influential international factors, primarily the United States Administration and NATO countries, with an undisguised aim of directly interfering in the electoral process in the FR of Yugoslavia and of bringing an inadmissible pressure to bear on the electoral will of its population.

Political and psychological pressures and subversive activities: In the period prior to elections in Yugoslavia, centres for assisting Yugoslav opposition and destabilization of Yugoslavia were established in neighbouring countries (Szeged, Hungary; Timisoara, Romania; Sofia, Bulgaria; Skopje, Macedonia; and Tirana, Albania).

A month before the elections, a US Regional Centre was set up to co-ordinate the work of centres in individual countries of South Eastern Europe in order to exert political, psychological, diplomatic and subversive pressure (on 15 August 2000). The Budapest-based US Centre has engaged more than 30 experts for intelligence, propaganda, military intelligence and subversive activities against the FR of Yugoslavia under the direction of former US Ambassador to Croatia William Montgomery. The Centre recruits experts from USIS, CIA, USAID, DIA and other similar US agencies. For this reason, the FR of Yugoslavia lodged an official written protest with the United Nations Security Council on 18 September 2000 by qualifying the establishment of this centre as a violation of the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations and international law and describing it as a gross interference in the internal affairs of the FR of Yugoslavia (S/2000/880). During the month of August this year, Director of CIA George Tennet visited the broader region of South Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Romania) to step up and co-ordinate pressure in the run-up to elections in Yugoslavia.

A ring of radio and TV centres was established around the FR of Yugoslavia to transmit anti-Yugoslav propaganda, the well-known system of NATO propaganda such as Radio Free Europe, Deutshe Welle, Voice of America and others. Hundreds of hours of anti-Yugoslav propaganda aimed at psychological and political pressure on the citizens of the FR of Yugoslavia, concocted in US and NATO centres of subversion and destabilization, are being aired via these systems and their transmitters from the territories of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania, on a daily basis. Many of these radio and television transmitters operate illegally on the same frequencies that, according to international conventions, belong to the FR of Yugoslavia and that are used by Yugoslav radio and television stations.

Also, statements of representatives from NATO countries have been noted to the effect that Security Council resolution 1244 (1999) concerning the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija will not be implemented as long as the opposition in Belgrade is not victorious, which directly represents continuation of support for separatism, terrorism and international crime in Kosovo and Metohija and in Montenegro.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, on the very date of the elections (24 September) said: If opposition comes to power, the United States will take steps to lift the sanctions, but if President Milosevic stays in power, it will continue with its policy of sanctions and further isolation of the Yugoslav Government. This being recognition of the fact that sanctions have been used to wear down and punish a nation and as a form of prolonged aggression.

The European Union too sent a "message to the Serbian people" on 18 September, on the eve of the elections, giving overtly support to the Serbian opposition and promising to lift sanctions against it if it votes for the opposition. This is evidence of the illegal nature and unjustifiableness of sanctions as an instrument to violate fundamental human rights, grossly intervene in internal affairs and bring about the accomplishment of illegitimate political goals. On this score, an EU representative was delivered the strongest protest in the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 21 September and at EU headquarters in Brussels on 22 September, respectively.

Similar malicious views were publicly expressed every day in the media by the President of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, by the Foreign Ministers of a number of EU countries, the EU High Representative and Commissioner for External Relations, as well as by the EU Stability Pact Co-ordinator and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, with a view to exercising an organized pressure on the public in the FRof Yugoslavia and on its electoral bodies and to prejudicing election results.

b) Opposition funding: The US Administration, the Governments of NATO countries and various foundations, such as the Soros foundation, openly finance Yugoslav opposition and various forms of subversive activity aimed at destabilizing the FRof Yugoslavia and at overthrowing its legitimate Government. This funding has been intensified in particular after the announcement of nation-wide parliamentary, presidential and local elections. Funds have openly been allocated to opposition political parties and their leaders, to the so-called independent media, associations and structures of the so-called civil society and to individuals. Prior to these elections, the US Administration paid US$ 77.2 million to Yugoslav opposition, a public fact also confirmed by a daily close to US Administration, The Washington Post, on 22 September 2000. The same was also confirmed by sources in US Congress, the Department of State and others.

Only a day after the elections and the first round of Presidential election in the FR of Yugoslavia, US Congress passed on 25 September the "Democratization of Serbia Act", making a series of gross and unsubstantiated allegations against the legitimate authorities in the FR of Yugoslavia and appropriating additional financial resources, to the tune of US$ 105 million, to bring them down, i.e. for the purposes of the Serbian opposition. This document, under the guise of an alleged concern for human rights, openly supported the separatism of ethnic Hungarians in the Serbian province of Vojvodina, where the majority Serbs live in harmony with 25 minorities.

A week before the elections, the Charge d'Affaires of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade handed out cash funds in Deutsche marks to students and young people in several towns in Serbia, thus directly promoting the cause of the opposition. The so-called independent media and the statements made by the Norwegian Charge bear witness to it. Such conduct by the Norwegian Charge, as an abuse of the hospitality of the Yugoslav Government , contradicts his diplomatic functions, whereas giving bribe is punishable by law in all countries of the world. The Charge was twice officially warned (on 30 August and on 22 September 2000) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that such activity is a flagrant interference in internal affairs and a gross violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. He was asked not to do so and to channel all assistance in accordance with the agreements and the normal practice existing in co-operation among sovereign States, via competent Government authorities, which the Charge completely ignored.

c) Military pressure:

Prior to the elections, NATO forces began a series of military exercises in the immediate neighbourhood of the FR of Yugoslavia. Thus, during the month of September the territory of Romania was used to stage the military exercises codenamed "Co-operative Key 2000", while during the course of October the exercises "Aquanaut 2000" are being conducted in the Romanian waters of the Black Sea, with the participation of British and Dutch commandos. These exercises have been followed by those carried out jointly by NATO forces in the Aegean and Black Seas and in Eastern Mediterranean, with the participation of about 70 warships. The American Sixth Fleet demonstrated force in the Adriatic close to the Yugoslav coast on the pretext of staging joint exercises with the Croatian armed forces.

All these have been coupled with threatening statements by senior military and political officials in US Administration and from other NATO countries and orchestrated by announcements in the media of another military campaign against the FR of Yugoslavia "should Milosevic wins".

2. The above facts testify to flagrant foreign interference in electoral processes by using propaganda, psychological , political and military pressure aimed at influencing the will of the electorate, which is contrary to what democracy is about and which constitutes a violation of all norms of international law, in particular the Charter of the United Nations*, of UN General Assembly resolution 54/168, on non-interference in electoral processes**, the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

3. The Government of the FR of Yugoslavia recalls that following the interference of foreign factors in its electoral process, it has already addressed the UN Security Council on 20 September 2000 (S/2000/885). The letter from the Ambassador of the FR of Yugoslavia to the United Nations, among other things, pointed out that:"The countries that, in wanton disregard for the Charter of the United Nations and circumventing the Security Council, carried out an armed aggression against my country last year, have now taken another step down the shameful road of disrespect for the basic norms of international law. In doing so, they have publicly and unscrupulously disparaged and encroached upon the inalienable right of Yugoslav voters to elect their own legitimate representatives. They have also violated General Assembly resolution 54/168... (which) was adopted exactly to prevent such inadmissible acts and practices."

The Yugoslav Government requested on that occasion the Security Council to address this important and urgent issue and to take measures to put an end to flagrant interference in our internal affairs and to ensure respect for international law and decisions of the United Nations. Considering that the UN Security Council has not yet reacted to this communication, the Yugoslav Government, presenting once again the above facts, calls again upon the Security Council to take specific steps to condemn in the strongest terms interference by the above-mentioned external factors in the internal affairs of the FR of Yugoslavia, especially interference in its electoral process and threats of force, so as to ensure the respect for the Charter of the United Nations, international law and UN General Assembly documents.

Belgrade, 4 October 2000

UN Documents:

(3) Also reaffirms that any activities that attempt, directly or indirectly, to interfere in the free development of national electoral processes,... violate the spirit and letter of the principles established in the Charter and in the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations... (5) Strongly appeals to all States to refrain from financing political parties or groups in other States and taking any other action that undermines their electoral processes." This principle has been defined in more detail and elaborated in this Declaration (UNGA resolution 2625(XXV) of 24 October 1970) , which, inter alia, states as follows: "No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatsoever, in the internal or external affairs of any State..." "No State may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights and to secure from it advantages of any kind. Also, no State shall organize, assist, foment, finance, incite or tolerate subversive, terrorist or armed activities directed towards the violent overthrow of the regime of another State, or interfere in civil strife in another State." "Every State has an inalienable right to choose its political, economic, social and cultural systems, without interference in any form by another State."

The Cacak Plot , IWPR, Oct 14

Veterans of the Belgrade demonstrations which toppled Milosevic claim the protests were planned with military precision.

By Milenko Vasovic in Belgrade (BCR No. 185, 13-Oct-00)

The opening blows of the Yugoslav Revolution were highly coordinated operations backed by a core of armed and committed soldiers, war veterans and police officers, claims one of the organisers of the uprising. The mayor of Cacak, Velimir Ilic, a key figure in the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic, told the Belgrade daily Glas Javnosti that the seizure of the federal parliament and state broadcaster, RTS, had been "carefully prepared" over a long period of time.

"For months we were laying down our plans," he said." Each demonstrator was allocated a specific task. We knew which group was in charge for each part of the city and what they had to do."

Ilic said utmost secrecy surrounded the preparations. He had recruited army personnel, retired and serving special police officers, as well as veterans from the Bosnian war. Leaders from the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, DOS, the coalition behind Yugoslavia's new president, Vojislav Kostunica, were left in the dark about the plans, the mayor said.

"Not even the policemen and special forces who took part in this action knew of each others existence until the very end," Ilic said.

"It's either victory or death!" Ilic told around 10,000 people who gathered in Cacak, before setting out in a 20-mile long convoy of buses and vehicles for the showdown in the capital on October 5.

People from Uzice, Nis, Gornji Milanovac, Smederevo joined the column as it approached Belgrade. As they converged on the city centre, their number was swollen by hundreds of thousands of local protesters.

The throngs of demonstrators waged a psychological war against the police trying to protect key buildings. One young man walked up to an officer outside the parliament building and opened his jacket to reveal an automatic rifle. "I have nothing to lose," he yelled. "You have to decide for yourself." The policeman was speechless.

Among the thousands of demonstrators who descended on the federal parliament and RTS building were groups armed with guns and petrol bombs and gangs of youths. Prominent among the latter were Red Star Belgrade football fans keen to take revenge for police beatings.

Ilic claims he had at his disposal ten officers from the elite 63rd Parachute Brigade, several former state security secret agents and about half a dozen members of elite police units. Team leaders were provided with walkie-talkies - some were unfortunately attacked by demonstrators who mistook them for plainclothes policemen.

The parliament building was finally breached when the protesters succeeded in tricking police outside into posing for souvenir photographs, allowing another group to slip by the cordon and storm the entrance.

Next to fall to the protesters was the RTS building. Petrol bombs set it ablaze forcing police inside to surrender. In the final push, a bulldozer was driven through the front door.

Vladan Dugonjic, a mechanical engineer from Sabac, was one of the first to get inside the RTS studios. Sabac, who took part in the March 1991 clashes with police, said he had waited ten years to realise his dream - the end of communism in Serbia. Despite the clouds of tear gas, he said, he managed to get into the building and snatch a microphone away from Spomenka Jovic, a pro-regime journalist.

"I fell down many times, I rushed through the flames," he said. "My sleeve caught fire, but I was determined to get into RTS, even if that meant losing my sight. That building generated so much evil."

Rumours around Belgrade say another veteran of the wars in former Yugoslavia, Dragan Vasiljevic, alias Captain Dragan, took part in the capture of the hated state broadcaster.

Vasiljevic led a unit of Serbian volunteers during the Krajina conflict. People under his command, it is said, captured vital RTS transmitters, enabling the opposition to begin broadcasting over the network.

Some claim many of the protesters were paid for a 'good day's work'. One of Ilic's security men, Ivan Stragarevic, vehemently denies this: "We joined with all our heart, we didn't do it for money."

Many of the Cacak protesters had left their hometown as if going to war, saying final farewells to their families. "We dared not return home without completing the job, because the police would have beaten us and put us into jail on the way back," said one protester.

misc. and only misc.
==
"pleased to meet you,
hope you [guess] my name..."

'salright, 'salright
==
" 2 croat sisters"?

were they _twins_?

i dont believe kim sees that phrase the way
veterans of DMS yugo might see that phrase.

which, um, might be completely irrelevant to this,
but tg, daniela, you may recall what twins i mean.
==
kim and tgsb have very strong opinions here; the
best i can do is seek cover.

"i'm just the waterboy,
the real game's not over here..."
--lou reed
===
daniela,
a link to the serbian cafe could be provided if
you really wanted it. eh, m'sieu polygraph?
but you certainly have come to appear pretty
darned classy by contrast w/ cafe histrionics.
==
moi? i'm just reading.

the real game's not over here.

L'menexe,

how did you come up with this nickname?

p.s.
I like the twins stuff... =))

Nihilist and Debile?? Or whatever their names were? I think you mentioned them on several occasions,L'san.
Weren't they infact one and the same person?
Anywho, I get the reference, a little unfair on my friends, who despite all are not politically fixated at all. By the By, though!!

Kim

x2x2x2x2!
'emina' and 'zoya' were the alleged twins...if in
fact that's whom the reference was for.
no, they're apparently long gone, and when i
erased my disk i lost their address[es].
'emina' had used more than one name, and i'm
choosing to use that one....but, there was in fact
a 'nalini' at the cafe last week, m'sieu g.
but that 'is-you-is-or-is-you-aint' story got too
confusing pour moi; the prudent thing for me to do
was bail out....but the 99 yugo page was jumpin'
in those days... i wish them, or she, well, on
whichever planet they next land upon.
===
for daniela:
"L'menexe" was derived from a vocal ad-lib by
george harrison, near the end of the beatles'
"it's all too much"; it probably isnt exactly what
he intended. 'luh-muh-NEX-uh'.
4 syllables, accent on 3rd syllable.
==
'nihilist' and 'debile', mum?
oy...

And I thought that I was one of the biggest
Beatles fan...
At least some years ago

and I thought that I was one of the biggest Beatles fan...