British Troops Abduct Another Alleged Bosnian Serb Suspect (Jun 25, 2000)

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TiM GW Bulletin 2000/6-10

June 25, 2000

CNN, New York Times, Reuters… Continue to Cite Fraudulent Camp Photo, Propagating Proven Lies as "Truth"

British Troops Abduct Another Bosnian Serb Suspect

Alleged War Crimes Suspect Snatched from His Home; Terrorism Blossoms during Kouchner’s “Peace Farce;” Angry Serbs Attack U.N. Office in Kosovo, Set U.N Flag on Fire

CNN, New York Times, Reuters… Continue to Cite Fraudulent Camp Photo, Propagating Proven Lies as "Truth"

AMSTERDAM, June 25 - British troops pounced on a Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect, breaking into his Balkan home at 2:30AM, knocking him to the ground, tying him up in the presence of his wife and two children, and flying him off to The Hague on Sunday (June 25) to face trial for alleged genocide, according to the Reuters news wire.

Dusko Sikirica, a 36-year-old Bosnian Serb, was indicted for his involvement in the alleged massacre of 140 Bosnian Muslims and Croats at the Keraterm prison camp, at Prijedor, a town in northwest Bosnia, during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

“He has arrived at the (U.N.) detention facility (in The Hague),” Jim Landale, spokesman for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, told Reuters.

Sikirica allegedly commanded Keraterm camp for three months in 1992 and, together with seven other Serbs, was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. The detainees were killed, sexually assaulted, tortured and beaten, the indictment said.

British SFOR troops (acronym for NATO occupying forces in Bosnia) carried out the arrest, British Defense Secretary Geoffrey Hoon and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said in a joint statement. Some troops forced their way through the front door while others climbed up to a terrace and broke in on the first floor, Sikirica’s mother told Reuters.

Sikirica is charged with three counts of genocide, two counts of crimes against humanity, two counts of violations of the laws or customs of war and three counts of grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, according to the indictment. He was the eighth suspected war criminal arrested by SFOR since George Robertson became NATO Secretary-General in October and the 21st suspect arrested since 1997. The prosecutor hoped deputy commanders Damir Dosen and Dragan Kulundzija could be tried with Sikirica, Landale added.

The alleged camp massacre was witnessed by one Fikret Alic, an emaciated Bosnian Muslim whose rib cage seen behind barbed wire at the Trnopolje camp became an emblem of “ethnic cleansing.” Alic was filmed by the British ITN television crew in August 1992.

The photo was a proven fraud. The ITN news crew,

not the Alic and other prisoners, were behind a barbed wire fence, as the German journalist, Thomas Deichmann, showed in his February 1997 article, “The Picture That Fooled the World” (a play on words, since the 1992 picture was billed by the New World Order lapdog media as “The Picture That Shocked the World”).

But “at a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act,” as George Orwell noted half a century ago. In the contemporary version of universal deceit, telling the truth had led to a libel lawsuit filed by the ITN against the British publishing house Informine that carried Deichmann’s story.

The big TV network knew full well the British libel law was on its side. The U.K. law puts the onus on the DEFENDANT to prove the INTENT of the reporters to DELIBERATELY (emphasis by added by the judge in the case) mislead the world with its images.

And now, here’s how Deichmann explains his “defamatory” article, with whose facts the judge had no quarrel, either:

“In my 1997 article, I showed in great detail, first, that there was no barbed wire fence surrounding Trnopolje and the Muslims filmed there in August 1992. Secondly, that the barbed wire on the (in)famous ITN pictures belonged to a small agricultural compound neighbouring the Trnopolje camp grounds. I further explained that the British reporters stood inside this compound surrounded by the barbed wire fence and that from inside there they filmed the (in)famous pictures. Thirdly, I explained that nowhere else in Trnopolje did any barbed wire fence exist; and fourthly, that the conclusions drawn by politicians and the media worldwide that Trnopolje was a concentration camp similar to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, were wrong and based on a very misleading image. The first three aspects of my story were proved during the court proceedings of the Case.”

“Proved during the court proceedings of the Case.” Yet CNN, New York Times, Reuters… etc., KNOWINGLY continue to propagate lies, and use the PROVEN fraudulent photo even today as if it were gospel truth! (click here or on the above photo to see it still being used at the CNN web site).

What does that tell us about the New World Order media? Are they really purveyors of “all the news that’s fit to print,” as the Times’ front page motto claims? Or are they the mere pawns serving the interests of the powers that be in the same manner as the fascist or communist media served its masters as a propaganda instrument?

By the way, the British publisher LOST the ITN libel case and was ordered in March by the court to pay enormous damages to the British television giant. So enormous, in fact, that it bankrupted the publisher. And that it led to filing for personal bankruptcies of the key principals. The upshot of which is that all the evidence that Deichman had accumulated and that had been posted at the publisher’s site has now disappeared, too.

As the editor Mick Hume commented afterward, “We had to prove the unprovable.”

In other words, the facts don’t matter. Not in Britain. You can tell the truth and still be found guilty of libel in the British courts. Which goes to show us how “anxious” the British parliamentarians who wrote and passed such gag laws must have been to see the truth in print or on TV. (According to American libel laws, the plaintiff must prove both the wrong facts and the intent to mislead).

Thank God for the Internet. It is the only “Media without Borders” left in these times of universal deceit.

BELGRADE, June 22 - Two nights ago (June 20) at 9PM, journalist of Radio Kontakt Valentina Cukic and a bank employee Ljubomir Topalovic were victims of a terrorist attack with submachine guns, the Belgrade Media Center has reported. Both ended up wounded in the chest, arms and legs and, after receiving emergency aid in the Russian KFOR contingent hospital were sent on to the British military Hospital in Lipljan for further treatment. Their health condition is stable.

The attack was carried out in front of the "Tri Sesira" cafe in the center of Pristina and the perpetrators managed to run away using the side alleys, say the UNMIK and KFOR. Radio Kontakt is the only station broadcasting in the Serbian language.

And now, with this Kosovo news story as a preamble, here’s an open letter to the UN Kosovo governor, Bernard Kouchner, written by Petar Jeknic, a Kosovo journalist. The letter was originally published in the weekend edition of Danas, a Belgrade daily. Here’s an English translation posted by the Sorabia e-group (http://www.egroups.com/list/sorabia):

My name is Petar Jeknic and I am journalist. I am the correspondent of French international radio in Pristina. I came here on September 3 of last year. For five months I was the trainer and deputy of the chief and executive director of "Kontakt Radio" in Pristina. After that I conceived of and founded the Independent Media Group. I was director of "Radio Galaksija" until June 16 of this year which I left because of the nationalism of a newly hired employee and his question 'Where do you think you are living?' I have written for IWPR from London. This is the third dangerous zone in which I have lived and worked. I went as a journalist to Bosnia, where I was in Sarajevo until 1997 and in Banja Luka until I came here. In the meanwhile, I spent about a year in Croatia. I came to Varazdin a month after Operation Storm (Oluja). I worked as an AFP correspondent, and my favorite topic was people accused of war crimes. I am writing all this so that you can see that I am first and foremost a journalist, and then everything else.

I heard you speak in the Government Building when you listed the successes of the one year anniversary of the mission. I also heard general Ortuno speak. When I look in my notebook, I see that I wanted to ask several questions. One of them was whether you could tell if you knew of any place in the world where you can be killed for speaking a given language. You told us how concerned you were when the electrical system went out at a temperature of minus 30 degrees Celsius. You were concerned and I was freezing. How is it that this never happened in earlier years?

I know, that is a political question. I wanted to ask you why you listed the transformation of the KLA into a civil institution among the successes? Should we continue to be naive? I wanted to ask you if you had ever competed for enrollment at some academy of theater arts but I didn't because for the job that you do, you do put on a good act.

Mr. Kouchner, you placed flowers in the place where they hurt my Tina [Valentina Cukic]. She was my pupil, so to speak. I taught her poorly because at the age of 23 life circumstances have left her without a spleen. She is lucky to be alive. When she was wounded, she called for God, not for justice and tolerance, not for the UN police. She is a reporter. The fact that you are followed around by Sonja Nikolic-Jusufi is no protection and no consolation to us. The fact that there are ten of us Serb journalists in Pristina is not important. The fact that no one can protect us and that those among our Albanian colleagues who condemn this kind of attack do not dare raise their voices will not improve or secure our position and working conditions.

The fact that you created registration for automobiles which cannot go anywhere with their new license plates, the fact that [voter] registration has failed, the fact that there is no freedom of movement, the fact that there are no jobs, the fact that there is no exchange of goods and capital in the Serb enclaves, the fact that primitivism rules in Kosovo, the fact that there are no hospitals, the fact that the chances of a Serb being killed in Kosovo by a member of another nation are 20 times greater, as you said yourself... are you counting these, too, among the accomplishments which will make you the replacement for Sadako Ogata, who is soon leaving the function which she is performing?

Please do not tell me about your experiences in Africa nor the years it will take for the situation to stabilize. General Ortuno is here so that a few years from now we can talk about "the historic mission of the Eurocorps during which it was practically created". The fact that you cannot get ordinary locomotive engineers for a train which would connect the Serb enclaves is evidence enough of your competency. Your colleague Ortuno talks more about tolerance, and less about the justice system, because he has nothing to say on the subject. The attacks on the Serbs are called "criminal acts" and not "terrorist acts". It is plain to see why; if they were "terrorist acts" they would have to be condemned by KFOR. As it is, the matter is delegated to the UN police. The most useless institution in Kosovo. Do you know that my car was stolen? Stolen and then destroyed.

Standing next to the "corpse" of a worthless automobile manufactured in 1985, it took me ten minutes to explain to a police expert from Nepal, with great assistance on the part of the British soldier who made the effort to find the car, that I wasn't the thief but the owner! Do you know how many statements I had to make?

And finally, there is Tina. A young woman who still doesn't know what it means to be a journalist, who is only in the process of becoming one. For her to be wounded and for her life to be destroyed thanks to terrorists and criminals?! Don't ask me "what can be done" because if I had your salary, I would probably be able to think of something. If you insist, call me and I will tell you what to do. My email is petarjeknic@hotmail.com.

P. S. I believe that you know that by signing this letter I may well have signed my own death warrant. Don't be concerned; I believe in God and the "meting out of justice", as Christ taught.

STRPCE (Kosovo), June 24 -- Hundreds of Serbs attacked a United Nations office in a town south of Pristina late Friday, breaking windows, burning computers and setting a United Nations flag on fire, according to a June 25 Associated Press report.

The town of Strpce, 25 miles south of Pristina, has been the scene of previous confrontations between villagers and NATO peacekeepers and the United Nations police. Since Serbian troops left Kosovo a year ago and peacekeepers moved in, the remaining Serbs have often accused peacekeepers of favoring the majority Kosovo Albanians.

Maj. Scott Slaten, a NATO spokesman, said the villagers were apparently unsatisfied Friday with the response to their request for a search for an elderly villager, who was missing but was later found unharmed. Although peacekeepers organized a search patrol, the villagers had demanded a helicopter search.

About 400 Serbs later attacked the United Nations office in the village. Employees vacated the building before the attack, and there were no apparent injuries, Major Slaten said.