Hurricane Katrina (August 29, 2005) Remembered

Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast starting on August 29, 2005. It claimed at least 1,245 lives and caused $108 billion in damage. I had traveled to New Orleans in February 2002 for Mardi Gras and had a great time with college friends, Bay Ridge Bob and Howard. We had committed to going to New Orleans about a month before September 11th. After September 11th, we weren't sure if we should go but I am glad we went. It was a much needed trip.

Hurricane Katrina was a day after my aunt (Strina Radojka) died suddenly on August 28. Radojka was a real nice lady and my favorite aunt on my Dad's side. Since she died in Europe, my cousins argued whether to bury her Upstate next to my uncle Dragan or in Europe. I reached out to a Chicago funeral home to bring her back to the States but they decided to bury her in Europe.

The photos and video from New Orleans and the Gulf Region were devastating. People were housed in the New Orleans SuperDome where the Saints play in the NFL.

 


I had three friends from the 2005 Antarctica Marathon and wanted to do something to help them and others in the region. I emailed friends and colleagues at work to raise money and clothes. Since the law firm I worked for was raising money for the Red Cross, I got called down to Human Resources. I was told that I could do fundraising and clothes collection on my own but nothing through the daily intra-firm email newsletter. I didn't have much choice and went back to work.

My friends and colleagues at work were great. We collected boxes of clothes. The Mail Room sent the boxes to Sadat's (a summer intern's) fraternity house north of New Orleans in Lafayette. Using GoogleEarth, we mapped out a way to use back roads to get the clothes to New Orleans. Marilyn bought three separate knapsacks and packed them full of toiletries and other supplies. Gil, Medford Bob, and others chipped in. It was really uplifting especially after my HR meeting.  

I divided the money collected into in 3 US Postal Service (USPS) Money Orders. I know the Post Office gets criticized often but Money Orders is the best way to really send money especially when physical addresses are flooded out. They are inexpensive to insure (less than $1 each) and you can cash them at any Post Office in the country. No need to worry about out of state checks which take days or longer to clear. I sent the Money Orders to Lisa in Houston. She met up with Rudy outside of New Orleans and he distributed the clothes, knapsacks, and USPS Money Orders to Bill and John. John barely escaped the flooding in St. Bernard Parish. John was able to relocate through his job to North Carolina. Bill stayed with family in Indiana. Rudy stayed with family near New Orleans.

Lessons Learned : Each catastrophe requires action but adaptability to the circumstances at hand. USPS Money Orders worked best in New Orleans. When Aunt Radojka traveled from NYC to the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s civil wars and NATO Bombing, we used to give her cash money with x amount this cousin, y amount for that uncle, and so. When earthquakes hit Nepal, I went to the nearby bank branch and spoke with a banker there. He said the fees would be high (16 percent) for Ngima plus bank wire fees of $45. He recommended Western Union. I checked Western Union's website to send money to Nepal.  If there are issues with that link, this is Western Union's homepage. Since that time, our mutual friend Steve has organized a separate GoFundMe fundraiser to rebuild Ngima's home as he has been living in tents for the last few months.

 

When Hurricanes Irena and Sandy hit NYC in 2011 and 2012, I had my own gear ready extended periods of loss of electricity. Batteries, water, first aid kits, and flashlights come to mind. Communication is also key. I have had different ShortWave radios ever since I was a kid. I fondly remember a boom box with 2 tape decks, AM/FM, and ShortWave in the mid 1980s. I now have a C.Crane SkyWave AM, FM, Shortwave, Weather and AirBand Portable Travel Radio. I can put it in my pocket and carry it onto the Subway when I go to work. It is better for listening than two way transmission. 

 

After the Haiti Earthquakes in 2010, I received this important shortwave radio information from my friend Liz in Canada.

"... We are still keeping watch on 7045 kHz hoping that someone in Haiti may have access to a transceiver and at least a car battery to run it. ...

"Radio amateurs are requested to keep 7.045MHz and 3.720MHz clear for any emergency traffic resulting from the Earthquake which struck Haiti on 12th January 2010 in case any Haitian hams manage to get on the air, and in case of other related events in surrounding areas, including aftershocks. ...

"... Following the advice of the geophysicists, we are keeping the 7045 and 3720 kiloHertz frequencies active until further notice. ..."

I am grateful to my friend Lila for passing along the shortwave information to International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) and others on the ground in Haiti. After being trapped for 50 hours, two aid workers were rescued by shortwave radio operators.   

Regarding Haiti, I am appalled by the Red Cross collected USD $500 million (Half a Billion Dollars) but only built 6 houses in the last 5+ years. That's an average of about $83 million per home. Did they build "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier style mansions? 
  
Bottom Line : That's why I prefer to donate direct whenever disaster strikes, e.g. relatives in the former Yugoslavia, Ngima in Nepal, and elsewhere. My friend Fiona is a nurse and has gone on medical missions to Haiti which were sponsored by a Florida Church. If you don't know anyone directly affected by a disaster but want to help, go to the closest Rotary and see if they directly know a family or village in need.  

ShortWave Radio Information

My friend Sam is a long time member of ham radio community and this is his advice. 

"For portable gear in that same form-factor I would be tempted to use the same radio or if you want something a little better the Sony ICF-SW7600GR is a very good, well known, well respected radio.  I bought my parents an earlier version of this radio (ICF-SW7600) back in the late 80’s. They still have it, it works as good as new and when I’m visiting with my folks I use it for general shortwave listening and listening to European long wave broadcasts.  There is a page here that describes the different variations of the 7600.

"The 7600 is also useful for 'sideband' reception.  There are few broadcast stations that use sideband but the majority of amateur radio voice transmissions are on sideband. Also on sideband are military and aircraft transmissions and when you listen to sideband on a receiver without sideband capabilities you just hear a 'Donald Duck' sort of voice.  If you tune your C.Crane radio to some amateur voice frequencies. E.g. 3600-4000 kHz, 7100-7200 kHz, 14150 – 14350 kHz you will hear this activity but without a receiver that receives sideband you can’t tell what is being said.   The 7600GR also has a 'synchronous detector' which helps eliminate some of the audio distortion that invariably occurs when a shortwave broadcast signal fades.

"The ICF-SW7600GR would also be good for use at home but if you listen on a regular basis some people find the smaller radios a little frustrating to operate since there is little weight to them and the controls aren’t as nice as a desktop model.  You typically get much better sound out of a desktop unit. A desktop unit that’s been around for a while is the ICOMIC-R75. Icom also makes amateur radio and business radio gear.

"There are also wideband 'black box' receivers that are very interesting and that plug into your computer and you operate the receiver from the computer – the black box doesn’t have much more than an on-off switch.  Here’s an example  : http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/widerxvr/1501.html

"Another very important thing is your antenna … You may be able to hear many of the stronger stations on a built-in whip antenna but you really need to get a proper antenna up for reliable reception especially of weaker stations."

2003 Blackout Revisited - Are we ready for the next blackout?

The Blackout of NYC, much of the United States, and parts of Canada took place on August 14, 2003. I was working at a downtown Manhattan law firm at the time and thankfully lived near the office. Given that I worked in IT, I stayed late to try to see what contingencies we could undertake. I went home to try to take a brief shower and then back in early the next day.



Unfortunately, the power grid still needs to be upgraded and more secure, particularly if an EMP - Electormagnetic Pulse attack from a rogue state or non-state actors. A US government commission was convened.

There is also the risk of a natural solar flare. "On July 23, 2012, a massive, and potentially damaging, solar superstorm (solar flare, coronal mass ejection, solar EMP) barely missed Earth, according to NASA.[4][5] There is an estimated 12% chance of a similar event occurring between 2012 and 2022.[4]" (I'll post that link in the comments.)



Dr. Gary Null discusses solar flares with expert Matthew Stein. 

To get prepared for a future blackout, please visit Mr. Stein's website. The government still lags far behind Mr. Stein's efforts.

Sources

http://nypost.com/2003/08/?post_type=cover


http://www.empcommission.org/

 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_flare

http://thegarynullshow.podbean.com/e/the-gary-null-show-preparedness-for-solar-storm-with-matthew-stein-071514/

http://whentechfails.com/
 

Remembering the Storm Victims in the Largest Ethnic Cleansing in the 1990s Yugoslav Civil Wars

Remembering the 14,000 Serb civilians killed by the Croatian Army, NATO, and MPRI in Operation Storm (Oluja) on August 4-7, 1995.

"Upwards of 180,000 Serbs would flee the province under duress, the worst single incident of ethnic cleansing in the entire sequence of Yugoslav wars," R. Craig Nation, a historian at the U.S. Army War College, wrote about Operation Storm in his study "War in the Balkans, 1991-2002." Dr. Nation was quoted in the Chicago Tribune regarding a lawsuit brought against Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI) in US Federal Court. MPRI executed Storm in coordination with the Croatian Army and NATO. MPRI was a mercenary company that preceded Blackwater (formerly Xe and currently Academi).

By the end of Operation Storm (Oluja), Croatian President Franjo Tudjman completed the Final Solution of an ethnically pure Croatia free from Serbs, Jews, Romas (Gypsies) and others. The Final Solution was started by the Nazis and their WWII Croatian Ustasha allies. 80 to 90 percent of Jews, 90 percent of Roma, and about half of Serbs were killed during WWII. At the beginning of the Yugoslav civil wars in 1991, there were 10 percent or about 400,000 Serbs left in Croatia. In the 2001 Croatian census, there were 380,000 fewer people than there were in 1991. 

Tudjman never hid his hatred of Jews nor Serbs.

Tudjman was also a Holocaust denier. He denied that 6 million Jews were killed in WWII.

The Zagreb Helsinki Committee reported, "Virtually all Serb villages had been destroyed.... In a village near Knin, eleven bodies were found, some of them were massacred in such a way that it was not easy to see whether the body was male or female." (9) "Krajina Operation: Helsinki Committee Member Describes Atrocities in Krajina," BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 25 August 1995. 



Richard Holbrooke “...junkyard dogs...” quote and Croatian Census data courtesy of RT.

British journalist Robert Fisk reported the murder of elderly Serbs, many of whom were burned alive in their homes. He adds, "At Golubic, UN officers have found the decomposing remains of five people... the head of one of the victims was found 150 feet from his body. Another UN team, meanwhile is investigating the killing of a man and a woman in the same area after villagers described how the man's ears and nose had been mutilated." (11) "Croats Slaughter Elderly by the Dozen," Robert Fisk, op. cit.

Photo courtesy of RT.

Petr Vales and Ludek Zeman were 2 Czech UN peacekeepers who were also killed during Operation Storm in addition to the aforementioned Serb civilians. Condolences to their families. 

Since links sometimes disappear for various reasons (hacking, legacy, etc.), I am including the entire texts of Neboja Malic's "Remembering the Storm" and "The Invasion of Serbian Krajina" by Greg Elich. 

 

Sources

The Invasion of Serbian Krajina by Greg Elich. Emperors Clothes. 

http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/elich/krajina.html

War in the Balkans, 1991-2002 by Dr. R. Craig Nation, a historian at the U.S. Army War College.

https://books.google.com/books/about/War_in_the_Balkans_1991_2002.html?id=ia-0oQEACAAJ

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB123.pdf

Serbian immigrants seek answers about the horror Class-action suit: U.S. mercenaries were behind Croatian offensive in Balkan War By Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune reporter, on September 05, 2010.

 

The Invasion of Serbian Krajina by Greg Elich. Emperors Clothes. I quoted two of his sources, BBC in # (9) and Robert Fisk in # (11) .

"Virtually all Serb villages had been destroyed.... In a village near Knin,eleven bodies were found, some of them were massacred in such away that it was not easy to see whether the body was male or female." (9) "Krajina Operation: Helsinki Committee Member Describes Atrocities in Krajina," BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 25 August 1995.

(11) "Croats Slaughter Elderly by the Dozen," Robert Fisk, op. cit.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/311687-junkyard-dogs-storm-croatia/

"Remembering the Storm Anniversary of a Victorious Crime", by Nebojsa Malic, August 05, 2005

===================

Nebojša Malić wrote this in 2005 but it is as true then as it is today. Vechnaja Pamyat! (Memory eternal to the victims!)

http://original.antiwar.com/malic/2005/08/04/remembering-the-storm/

Remembering the Storm

by Nebojsa Malic, August 05, 2005

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Anniversary of a Victorious Crime
In the early morning hours of Aug. 4, 1995, on the heels of an incessant artillery and air bombardment, some 200,000 Croatian troops moved in to “liberate” Krajina, a stretch of mountains inhabited by Serbs who had rejected Croatia’s secession from Yugoslavia four years prior. Overrunning the token UN observation posts, the U.S.-trained Croatian army quickly overwhelmed localized Serb resistance. President Franjo Tudjman declared Aug. 5, the day Croat troops entered the Serb capital of Knin, a national holiday: “Homeland Thanksgiving Day.” By Aug. 7, the “Republic of Serb Krajina” was no longer in existence.

A grand celebration is scheduled for tomorrow in Knin. Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, the late Tudjman’s political heir, will no doubt give a rousing patriotic speech, glorifying Croatia’s “defenders from Serbian aggression.” Some mainstream media will report that the offensive resulted in civilian casualties, and that one high-ranking Croatian general, Ante Gotovina, is a fugitive from war crimes charges at the Hague Inquisition. And that will be the end of it. Dwelling on “Operation Storm” (Oluja) serves no purpose in the official narrative of the Balkans wars. Its victims are that narrative’s principal villains, so their suffering must be suppressed. The victors, on the other hand, are no longer useful to the Empire. “Storm” is something Washington would like to forget. Serbs and Croats don’t have that luxury.

Frustrated Dreams
The area of Krajina was for several centuries the borderland between the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires, a buffer zone that protected the inner Hapsburg lands from Turkish raids. It was populated largely by Orthodox Serbs, who had fled Ottoman persecution, and who became frontiersmen for the Hapsburgs in exchange for land and liberty. By the 19^th century, the Ottoman Turks were in retreat; the new danger to the Hapsburg Empire was Slavic nationalism. Vienna turned on its frontiersmen, encouraging conflict between the Orthodox Serbs and the Catholic Croats, who became its staunchest supporters. Vienna’s Serbophobia eventually led Austria-Hungary into a fatal conflict that destroyed much of European civilization.

 It also nurtured the hatred that would explode in 1941 as the vicious Ustasha genocide. These homegrown Croatian Nazis, led by Ante Pavelic, set out to destroy the “race of slaves” (A. Starcevic) with ruthless abandon, but ran out of time. Still, by 1945 they had killed anywhere between half a million and 750,000 Serbs.

With the end of communism in 1990, Franjo Tudjman and his Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) brought a revival of Pavelic’s symbols and vocabulary. Some of the top supporters of the HDZ were Ustasha émigrés. Tudjman himself expressed relief that his wife was “neither Serb nor Jewish.” Tudjman’s constitutional reform redefined the republic as a nation-state of Croats, with Serbs as an ethnic minority. When Tudjman’s government declared independence from the Yugoslav federation in 1991, most Serbs saw 1941 all over again. This – and not some imaginary “aggression” from Serbia – was the root of their “rebellion,” and the genesis of the Krajina Republic. After several months of bitter fighting, marked by massacres, ambushes, and the most vitriolic propaganda, the UN brokered an armistice. The so-called Vance Plan envisioned four “protected areas,” with a Serb majority, whose eventual status would be resolved through negotiations.

Over the next three years, Tudjman’s government feverishly prepared for war, training its troops on the battlefields of Bosnia and staging quick, limited offensives at the strategic edges of UN-protected areas (most infamous being the Medak Pocket attack in 1993). Although enjoying political, diplomatic, and even military support from Vienna and Berlin since 1991, it was only when it got Washington’s support that Zagreb was ready – and able – to strike. “Retired” American officers, working for government contractor MPRI, claimed to teach Croat officers “democracy” and “human rights.” The events of May and August 1995 would demonstrate MPRI’s definitions of both.

Junkyard Dogs
"Dick: We ‘hired’ these guys to be our junkyard dogs because we were desperate. We need to try to ‘control’ them. But it is no time to get squeamish about things."
– To End a War, Chapter 6

US envoy to the Balkans Richard Holbrooke thus described the note slipped to him by Ambassador Robert Frasure, during a meeting with Croatian officials in 1995. Holbrooke’s own account of how the U.S. officially condemned Croatian attacks even as he was meeting with Tudjman and telling him which cities to take, suggests he was hardly “squeamish” about using Croats to fight what he – and hundreds of advocacy journalists, lobbyists, and policymakers – had termed “Serb aggression.”

On May 1, 1995, Croatian troops tested both their readiness and the UN’s will by staging a lightning strike at an exposed Serb enclave of Western Slavonia. The operation was code-named Bljesak – “flash,” or perhaps more appropriately, “Blitz.” The clear violation of the armistice went unpunished. The stage was set for Oluja.

According to Serb documentation, the three-day offensive in August 1995 resulted in the expulsion of 220,000 people. Some 1,943 people have been listed as missing/presumed dead, including 1199 civilians, 523 women, and 12 children. The death toll would have been greater had the Serbs not fled en masse before the advancing Croat tanks; all who stayed behind were killed. The Croats, and their American sponsors, were definitely not squeamish.

Ten years later, Krajina is still a wasteland, with “scattered ghost villages strewn with shell-scarred houses overgrown with ivy and tall grass” (Reuters). Only a tenth of some 400,000 Serbs who lived in Croatia before it seceded have returned, only to face bureaucratic abuse and frequent physical violence. Tudjman made Pavelic’s dream to rid Croatia of Serbs a reality. It seems everything is in the choice of allies.

Unpleasant Comparisons

After obliterating Krajina, the conquering Croatian army moved into western Bosnia, aiding the Izetbegovic government to crush a dissident faction led by Fikret Abdic and assisting in the major Muslim offensive that “coincided” with NATO’s massive bombing of Bosnian Serbs. But after the Dayton Agreement was signed and peace imposed on Bosnia, Empire’s junkyard dogs discovered the supply of Milk Bones had run out. They had served their purpose.

Today’s Croatia is frustrated that its ambitions to enter the EU and NATO hinge upon the capture of Ante Gotovina, a general involved in Oluja who is universally considered a war hero, but whom the Hague Inquisition accuses of war crimes. Some of the truth about atrocities against the Serbs is slowly coming to light, but interestingly enough, only after the prominent personalities accused have fallen out of political grace. The Zagreb leadership snaps back at any hint that Oluja might have been anything but just, right, and noble. When Serbian president Boris Tadic called it an “organized crime” in a statement Monday, President Mesic replied it could hardly compare to Serb crimes such as Srebrenica.

But by all means, let’s compare. In both cases, a UN “safe area” was targeted by the attack. In Srebrenica, the UN at least tried to protect Muslim civilians; in Krajina, it did no such thing. Serbs evacuated Muslim noncombatants from Srebrenica; Serbs who did not flee Krajina were killed. Yet Srebrenica is somehow “genocide,” while Oluja is a victory worth a national holiday?!

Another reason the Empire prefers to keep Oluja out of sight and out of mind is the push to establish an independent, Albanian-dominated Kosovo. If Croatia’s conquest of Krajina was legitimate, because Krajina’s existence violated its sacrosanct administrative borders, then why did Serbia not have the right to uphold its borders when it came to Kosovo? If obliterating the Serb population did not disqualify Croatia from keeping Krajina and Slavonia, how can the exodus of less than half of Kosovo’s Albanians disqualify Serbia from keeping Kosovo? If the Serbs, a constituent Yugoslav nation, did not have the right to ethnic self-determination in Krajina and Bosnia, how can the Kosovo Albanians (an ethnic minority) have one?

The “Abramowitz Doctrine”

This apparent paradox was “explained” by Morton Abramowitz, the eminence grise of U.S. foreign policy, in an interview last summer: “there is no entirely rational answer … you seek perfect reasoning, which does not correspond to reality on the ground.” Logic does not apply to the Empire, because it creates its own reality; where have we heard that before?

 The “reality” Abramowitz and his like-minded policymakers have sought to establish, by force, has been one in which, whatever the circumstances, Serbs are in the wrong. Apologists for the Empire dismiss this observable, verifiable fact as a “conspiracy theory” and claim the Serbs have a “victim complex,” even as their entire Balkans “reality” rests on the claim that everyone else has been victimized by Serbs.

What “perfect reasoning” is involved in recognizing the simple fact that the centuries-old Serb community in Krajina is practically extinct, and that the Serb community in Kosovo – from which most of their ancestors came – is facing the same prospect? Where the Nazis failed, the American Empire has succeeded. Is that really something to be thankful for?

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The Invasion of Serbian Krajina
by Greg Elich
[Mr. Elich is a freelance scholar who has written extensively about Yugoslavia.]

In early August 1995, the Croatian invasion of Serbian Krajina precipitated the worst refugee crisis of the Yugoslav civil war. Within days, more than two hundred thousand Serbs, virtually the entire population of Krajina, fled their homes, and 14,000 Serbian civilians lost them lives. According to a UN official "Almost the only people remaining were the dead and the dying." The Clinton administration's support for the invasion was an important factor in creating this nightmare.

The previous month, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel met with Croatian diplomat Miomir Zuzul in London. During this meeting, Christopher gave his approval for Croatian military action against Serbs in Bosnia and Krajina. Two days later, the U.S. ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, also approved Croatia's invasion plan. Stipe Mesic, a prominent Croatian politician, stated that Croatian President Franjo Tudjman "received the go-ahead from the United States. Tudjman can do only what the Americans allow him to do. Krajina is the reward for having accepted, under Washington's pressure, the federation between Croats and Muslims in Bosnia." Croatian assembly deputy Mate Mestrovic also claimed that the "United States gave us the green light to do whatever had to be done." (1)

As Croatian troops launched their assault on August 4, U.S. NATO aircraft destroyed Serbian radar and anti-aircraft defenses. American EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft patrolled the air in support of the invasion. Krajina foreign affairs advisor Slobodan Jarcevic stated that NATO "completely led and coordinated the entire Croat offensive by first destroying radar and anti-aircraft batteries. What NATO did most for the Croatian Army was to jam communications between [Serb] military commands...." (2)

Following the elimination of Serbian anti-aircraft defenses, Croatian planes carried out extensive attacks on Serbian towns and positions. The roads were clogged with refugees, and Croatian aircraft bombed and strafed refugee columns. Serbian refugees passing through the town of Sisak were met by a mob of Croatian extremists, who hurled rocks and concrete at them. A UN spokesman said, "The windows of almost every vehicle were smashed and almost every person was bleeding from being hit by some object." Serbian refugees were pulled from their vehicles and beaten. As fleeing Serbian civilians poured into Bosnia, a Red Cross representative in Banja Luka said, "I've never seen anything like it. People are arriving at a terrifying rate." Bosnian Muslim troops crossed the border and cut off Serbian escape routes. Trapped refugees were massacred as they were pounded by Croatian and Muslim artillery. Nearly 1,700 refugees simply vanished. While Croatian and Muslim troops burned Serbian villages, President Clinton expressed his understanding for the invasion, and Christopher said events "could work to our advantage." (3)

The Croatian rampage through the region left a trail of devastation. Croatian special police units, operating under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, systematically looted abandoned Serbian villages. Everything of value - cars, stereos, televisions, furniture, farm animals - was plundered, and homes set afire. (4) A confidential European Union report stated that 73 percent of Serbian homes were destroyed. (5) Troops of the Croatian army also took part, and pro-Nazi graffiti could be seen on the walls of several burnt-out Serb buildings.(6)

Massacres continued for several weeks after the fall of Krajina, and UN patrols discovered numerous fresh unmarked graves and bodies of murdered civilians. (7) The European Union report states, "Evidence of atrocities, an average of six corpses per day, continues to emerge. The corpses, some fresh, some decomposed, are mainly of old men. Many have been shot in the back of the head or had throats slit, others have been mutilated... Serb lands continue to be torched and looted." (8)
Following a visit in the region a member of the Zagreb Helsinki Committee reported, "Virtually all Serb villages had been destroyed.... In a village near Knin, eleven bodies were found, some of them were massacred in such a way that it was not easy to see whether the body was male or female." (9)
UN spokesman Chris Gunness noted that UN personnel continued to discover bodies, many of whom had been decapitated. (10) British journalist Robert Fisk reported the murder of elderly Serbs, many of whom were burned alive in their homes. He adds, "At Golubic, UN officers have found the decomposing remains of five people... the head of one of the victims was found 150 feet from his body. Another UN team, meanwhile is investigating the killing of a man and a woman in the same area after villagers described how the man's ears and nose had been mutilated." (11)

After the fall of Krajina, Croatian chief of staff General Zvonimir Cervenko characterized Serbs as "medieval shepherds, troglodytes, destroyers of anything the culture of man has created." During a triumphalist train journey through Croatia and Krajina, Tudjman spoke at each railway station. To great applause, he announced, "There can be no return to the past, to the times when [Serbs] were spreading cancer in the heart of Croatia, a cancer that was destroying the Croatian national being." He then went on to speak of the "ignominious disappearance" of the Serbs from Krajina "so it is as if they have never lived here... They didn't even have time to take with them their filthy money or their filthy underwear!" American ambassador Peter Galbraith dismissed claims that Croatia had engaged in "ethnic cleansing," since he defined this term as something Serbs do. (12)
U.S. representatives blocked Russian attempts to pass a UN Security Council resolution condemning the invasion. According to Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic, American officials gave advice on the conduct of the operation, and European and military experts and humanitarian aid workers reported shipments of U.S weapons to Croatia over the two months preceding the invasion. A French mercenary also witnessed the arrival of American and German weapons at a Croatian port, adding, "The best of the Croats' armaments were German- and American-made." The U.S. "directly or indirectly," says French intelligence analyst Pierre Hassner, "rearmed the Croats." Analysts at Jane's Information Group say that Croatian troops were seen wearing American uniforms and carrying U S. communications equipment. (13)
The invasion of Krajina was preceded by a thorough CIA and DIA analysis of the region. (14) According to Balkan specialist Ivo Banac, this "tactical and intelligence support" was furnished to the Croatian Army at the beginning of its offensive. (15)
In November 1994, the United States and Croatia signed a military agreement. Immediately afterward, U.S. intelligence agents set up an operations center on the Adriatic island of Brac, from which reconnaissance aircraft were launched. Two months earlier, the Pentagon contracted Military Professional Resources, Inc (MPRI) to train the Croatian military.(16) According to a Croatian officer, MPRI advisors "lecture us on tactics and big war operations on the level of brigades, which is why we needed them for Operation Storm when we took the Krajina." Croatian sources claim that U.S. satellite intelligence was furnished to the Croatian military. (17) Following the invasion of Krajina, the U.S. rewarded Croatia with an agreement "broadening existing cooperation" between MPRI and the Croatian military. (18) U.S. advisors assisted in the reorganization of the Croatian Army. Referring to this reorganization in an interview with the newspaper Vecernji List, Croatian General Tihomir Blaskic said, "We are building the foundations of our organization on the traditions of the Croatian home guard" - pro-Nazi troops in World War II. (19)
It is worth examining the nature of what one UN official terms "America's newest ally." During World War II, Croatia was a Nazi puppet state in which the Croatian fascist Ustashe murdered as many as one million Serbs, Jews, and Roman (Gypsies). Disturbing signs emerged with the election of Franjo Tudjman to the Croatian presidency in 1990 Tudjman said, "I am glad my wife is neither Serb nor Jew," and wrote that accounts of the Holocaust were "exaggerated" and "one-sided." (20)
Much of Tudjman's financial backing was provided by Ustashe émigrés and several Ustashe war criminals were invited to attend the first convention of Tudjman's political party, the Croatian Democratic Union. (21)
Tudjman presented a medal to a former Ustashe commander living in Argentina, Ivo Rojnica. After Rojnica was quoted as saying, "Everything I did in 1941 I would do again," international pressure prevented Tudjman from appointing him to the post of ambassador to Argentina. When former Ustashe official Vinko Nikolic returned to Croatia, Tudjman appointed him to a seat in parliament. Upon former Ustashe officer Mate Sarlija's return to Croatia, he was personally welcomed at the airport by Defense Minister Gojko Susak, and subsequently given the post of general in the Croatian Army. (22) On November 4, 1996, thirteen former Ustashe officers were presented with medals and ranks in the Croatian Army. (23)
Croatia adopted a new currency in 1994, the kuna, the same name as that used by the Ustashe state, and the new Croatian flag is a near-duplicate of the Ustashe flag. Streets and buildings have been renamed for Ustashe official Mile Budak, who signed the regime's anti-Semitic laws, and more than three thousand anti-fascist monuments have been demolished. In an open letter, the Croatian Jewish community protested the rehabilitation of the Ustashe state. In April 1994, the Croatian government demanded the removal of all "non-white" UN troops from its territory, claiming that "only first-world troops" understood Croatia's "problems." (24)
On Croatian television in April 1996, Tudjman called for the return of the remains of Ante Pavelic, the leader of the Croatian pro-Nazi puppet state "After all, both reconciliation and recognition should be granted to those who deserve it," Tudjman said, adding, "We should recognize that Pavelic's ideas about the Croatian state were positive," but that Pavelic's only mistake was the murder of a few of his colleagues and nationalist allies. (25) Three months later, Tudjman said of the Serbs driven from Croatia "The fact that 90 percent of them left is their own problem... Naturally we are not going to allow them all to return." During the same speech, Tudjman referred to the pro-Nazi state as "a positive thing." (26)
During its violent secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, Croatia expelled more than three hundred thousand Serbs, and Serbs were eliminated from ten towns and 183 villages. (27) In 1993, Helsinki Watch reported: "Since 1991 the Croatian authorities have blown up or razed ten thousand houses mostly of Serbs, but also houses of Croats. In some cases, they dynamited homes with the families inside." Thousands of Serbs have been evicted from their homes. Croatian human-rights activist Ivan Zvonimir Cicak says beatings, plundering, and arrests were the usual eviction methods. (28)
Tomislav Mercep, until recently the advisor to the Interior minister and a member of Parliament, is a death-squad leader. Mercep's death squad murdered 2,500 Serbs in western Slavonia in 1991 and 1992, actions Mercep defends as "heroic deeds." (29) Death squad officer Miro Bajramovic's spectacular confession revealed details: "Nights were worst for [our prisoners]... burning prisoners with a flame, pouring vinegar over their wounds mostly on genitalia and on the eyes. Then there is that little induction field phone, you plug a Serb onto that... The most painful is to stick little pins under the nails and to connect to the three phase current; nothing remains of a man but ashes... After all, we knew they would all be killed, so it did not matter if we hurt him more today or tomorrow."
"Mercep knew everything," Bajramovic claimed. "He told us several times: 'Tonight you have to clean all these shits.' By this he meant all the prisoners should be executed." (30)
Sadly, the Clinton administration's embrace of Croatia follows a history of support for fascists when it suits American geopolitical interests: Chile's Augusto Pinochet, Indonesia's Suharto, Paraguay's Aifredo Stroessner, and a host of others. The consequences of this policy for the people affected have been devastating.
***
Footnotes for this article are lower down...

Further reading...

* Were the U.S. and German governments behind the breakup of Yugoslavia in general and the secession of Croatia in particular? See E. H. Carr's "German and U.S. Involvement in the Balkans,' at http://emperor.vwh.net/articles/carr/carr.html
(Note that even Mr. Carr, who has done a great service by researching and writing this study, pays homage to the US/German alliance he is attacking by affirming, without his otherwise strong evidence, their line that Mr. Milosevic is similar to Mr. Izetbegovic, the Islamic fundamentalist leader in Bosnia, and the late Mr. Tudjman, the fascist leader of Croatia. But, ignoring the section on Milosevic, the text has much merit. - J.I.)
* How did Western institutions come to target Serbia as the anti-humanitarian bad boy of the 90's? See 'Yugoslavia: Through a Dark Glass,' by Diana Johnstone at http://emperor.vwh.net/articles/Johnstone/1Yugo.htm
(This may be the best general introduction to what happened to Yugoslavia in the 1990s.)
* Indications of the resurgence of Nazi thinking in Croatia under the rule of Pres. Tudjman are discussed in 'Nazi Nostalgia in Croatia,' by Diana Johnstone. Go to http://emperor.vwh.net/articles/Johnstone/nostalgi.html
* Alice Mahon, British MP, reports on harsh discrimination today in Croatia in 'Report on Serbs who have Returned to Croatia,' at http://emperor.vwh.net/articles/mahon/croatia.htm
* Sean Gervasi discusses the strategy behind what he argues has been a NATO campaign to shatter Yugoslavia in 'Why Is NATO in Yugoslavia?' at http://emperor.vwh.net/articles/gervasi/why.htm
* Jared Israel deals with NATO strategy in "NATO Buildup in the Balkans: Part of a Deadly Game," http://emperor.vwh.net/news/farish.htm

[This article was written in September 2001, much later than the others mentioned above.]
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Footnotes
1) "Weekly: U.S. Gave Zagreb 'Green Light,' " Tanjug (Belgrade), 26 July 1995. "In Croatia, U.S. Took Calculated Risk," Stephen Engelberg, New York Times News Service, 12 August 1995. "Cleansing the West's Dirty War," Joan Phillips, Living Marxism (London), September 1995. "Who Has Given the Go-Ahead?," interview with Stipe Mesic, Panorama (Milan), 8 August 1995. "The United States Gave Us the Green Light," interview with Mate Mestrovic, by Chantal de Rudder, Le Nouvel Observateur (Paris), 10 August 1995.

(2) "International Inaction in Croatia Will Complicate Bosnian War," George Jahn, Associated Press, 7 August 1995. "NATO Destroyed Krajina Missile Systems," Bosnian Serb News Agency (SRNA) (Belgrade), 6 August 1995. "Abandoned People Must Flee," interview with Slobodan Jarcevic by Cvijeta Arsenic, Oslobodjenje (Sarajevo—Bosnian Serb), 23 August 1995."Cleansing the West's Dirty War," Joan Phillips, op. cit.

(3) "Huge Refugee Exodus Runs Into Shelling, Shooting, Air Attacks," George Jahn, Associated Press, 8 August 1995. "Croat Planes Shell Refugees," Tanjug, 8 August 1995. "SRNA Review of Daily News," SRNA, 8 August 1995. "Cleansing the West's Dirty War," Joan Phillips, op. cit. "Refugees Trapped by Croat Shelling," Robert Fox and Tim Judah, Electronic Telegraph (London) (Online), 8 August 1995. "Croat Mob Attacks Nuns in Fleeing Convoy," Patrick Bishop, Electronic Telegraph, 11 August 1995. "Over 1,000 Serbs Missing in Krajina," Tanjug, 28 January 1997. "Croat Grip Is Tightened as 100,000 Flee," Tim Butcher, Electronic Telegraph, 7 August 1995.

(4) "UN Says Croatians Loot, Use Peacekeepers as Shields," Associated Press, 6 August 1995. "Helsinki Committee Reports on Krajina Operations," Hartmut Fiedler, Oesterreich Eins Radio Network, 21 August 1995. "EU Observers Accuse Croatia of Breaches of Law," Tanjug, 27 October 1995. "UN: Croatians Systematically Burned Serb Homes," Tanjug, 14 August 1995. "Croats Slaughter Elderly by the Dozen," Robert Fisk, The Independent (London), 10 September 1995. "Croats Plunder Their Way through Krajina," Mon Vanderostyne, De Standard (Groot Bijgaarden, The Netherlands), 9 August 1995. "UN Says Croats Loot Serb Villages in Krajina," Agence France-Presse, 17 August 1995. "EU Report Accuses Croatia of Atrocities Against Rebel Serbs," Julian Borger, The Guardian (Manchester), 30 September 1995. "Krajina 'Torched State,' " SRNA, 21 August 1995. "What Was Once Home to 300 Families Is Now a Graveyard," Sarah Helm, The Independent, 24 August 1995. "Helsinki Committee Chronicles Human Rights Abuses," Tanjug, 28 August 1995. "Memorandum on the Ethnic Cleansing of and Genocide Against the Serb People of Croatia and Krajina," Yugoslav Survey, third quarter, 1995.

(5) "Krajina Bears Signs of Croat Ethnic Cleansing," Randolph Ryan, Boston Globe, 8 October 1995. "UN Official Confirms Croatian Crimes in Krajina," Tanjug, 13 October 1995.

(6)"Krajina Bears Signs of Croat Ethnic Cleansing," Randolph Ryan, op.cit


(7) "Croats Burn and Kill with a Vengeance," Robert Fisk, The
Independent, 4 September 1995. "Croats Leave Bloody Trail of Serbian Dead," Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times, 9n October 1995. "Reports Say Croatia Uses Killing, Arson," John Pomfret,
Washington Post, 30 September 1995. "UN Asks for Inquiry into Krajina Killings," Reuters, 18 August 1995. "EU Observers Accuse Croatia of Breaches of Law," op. cit. "UN Finds Evidence of Mass Killings in Croatia," Reuters, 2 October 1995. "Croats Slaughter Elderly by the Dozen," Robert Fisk, op. cit. "EU Report Accuses Croatia of Atrocities Against Rebel Serbs," Julian Borger, op.cit. "UN: Executions, Possible Mass Graves in Krajina," Agence
France-Presse, 18 August 1995. "Helsinki Committee Chronicles Human Rights Abuses," op cit. "Evidence Emerging of Crimes Against Krajina Serbs," Tanjug, 30 August 1995. "Croats Accused of Atrocities," Associated Press, 29 September 1995.

(8) "Croats Burn and Kill With a Vengeance," Robert Fisk, op.cit."EU Report Accuses Croatia of Atrocities Against Rebel Serbs, " Julian Borger, op. cit. report broadcast, RTBF-1 Television Network (Brussels), 20 August 1995. "Memorandum on the Ethnic Cleansing of and Genocide Against the Serb People of Croatia and Krajina," Yugoslav Survey, third quarter, 1995.

(9) "Krajina Operation: Helsinki Committee Member Describes Atrocities in Krajina," BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 25 August 1995.

(10) "UN Asks for Inquiry into Krajina Killings," op.cit. "UN Finds Evidence of Mass Killings in Croatia," op. cit. "UN: Executions, Possible Mass Graves in Krajina," op. cit.

(11) "Croats Slaughter Elderly by the Dozen," Robert Fisk, op. cit.

(12) "Croats Ready for a Fresh Offense Against Serbs," Patrick Bishop, Electronic Telegraph, 16 August 1995. addresses by Franjo Tudjman, Radio Croatia Network, 26 August 1995. "U.S. Says Croatia is Not Guilty of Ethnic Cleansing," Patrick Moore, Open Media Research Institute, 10 August 1995.

(13) "Croatian Minister Says U.S. Gave Advice on Offensive," Jasmina Kuzmanovic, Associated Press, 5 August 1995. "Croatia Takes Effective Control of What's Left of Bosnia," San Francisco Chronicle, 11 August 1995.

(14) "NATO in Dubrovnik," Vladimir Jovanovic, Monitor (Podgorica, Yugoslavia), 23 June 1995.

(15) "AP Report on U.S. Peace Strategy," Associated Press, 13 November 1995.

(16) "AP Report on U.S. Peace Strategy," Associated Press, op cit." U.S. Troops Operate in Croatia," Associated Press, 3 February 1995.

(17) "Invisible U.S. Army Defeats Serbs," Charlotte Eagar, The Observer (London), 5 November 1995.

(18) "Military Cooperation Agreement Signed with U.S." HTV Television (Zagreb) 13 October 1995.

(19) "We Can Prevent Any Serbian Maneuver," interview with Tihomir Blaskic, by Jozo Pavkovic, Vecernji List (Zagreb), 11 March 1995.

(20) "Croatian Leader's Invitation to Holocaust Museum Sparks Anger and Shock," Diana Jean Schemo, New York Times News Service, 21 April 1993.

(21) "Croatia, at a Key Strategic Crossroad, Builds Militarily and Geographically," Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy (London), 31 January 1993. "Who is Franjo Tudjman?" Narodna Armija (Belgrade), 1 March 1990.

(22) "Criticism of Tudjman Award to Ustashe," Foreign Broadcast Information Service Media Note (Media Summary), 27 January 1995. "Nationalism Turns Sour in Croatia," New York Times News Service, 13 November 1993. "Plan to Honour Ustashe Killers Outrages Minorities in Croatia," Ian Traynor, The Guardian, 18 October 1993. "Trpimir for an Executioner and a Victim," Mirko Mirkovic, Feral Tribune (Split, Croatia), 20 February 1995. "Croatian General Former Ustashe," Tanjug, 26 February 1995.

(23) "Croatia Grants Awards to Nazi-Era War Veterans," Reuters, 7 November 1996.

(24) "New Croatian Money Anathema to Serbs," John Pomfret, Washington Post, 31 May 1994. "Plan to Honour Ustashe Killers Outrages Minorities in Croatia," Ian Traynor, op.cit. "Pro-Nazi Legacy Lingers for Croatia," Stephen Kinzer, New York Times News Service, 30 October 1993. "Monument to Anti-Fascism Desecrated in Croatia," Tanjug, February 1995. "Another Anti-Fascist Monument Blown Up in Croatia," Tanjug, 11 April 1995. "Croatia, Symbols of Crimes," Miodrag Dundjerovic, Tanjug, 1 June 1994. "Croatia Adopts New Currency Recalling Fascist Era," Reuters, 9 May 1994. "Hiding Genocide," Gregory Copley, Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, 31 December 1992. "Croatia is Rehabilitating Ustashism and the Independent State of Croatia," Politika (Belgrade), 12 February 1993. "Tudjman Calls for All-White Peace Force in Croatia," Eve Ann Prentice, The Times (London), 11 April 1995. "Croatia to Seek Expulsion of Non-White U.N. Troops," Tanjug, 10 April 1995.

(25) Interview with Franjo Tudjman, HTV Television (Zagreb), 22 April 1996.

(26) Address by Franjo Tudjman to the Croatian World Congress in Brioni, Radio Croatia Network (Zagreb), 6 July 1996.

(27) "Croatian Towns, Villages Cleansed of Serbs," Tanjug, 26 January 1993. "Savovic: Croatia Expelled 300,000 Serb," Tanjug, 5 November1993 "Serb Party Official: 350,000 Serbs Driven Out." Tanjug, 26 August 1994.

(28) "Croatian Police Tactics Cited," Associated Press, 3 October 1994. "Helsinki Committee Chair: Collective Vendetta Against Croatia's Serbs," Tanjug, 7 may 1994. "Protests Prevent Latest Wave of Croatian Apartment Evictions," Radio Free Europe, 12 July 1994. "Croatian Human Rights Activist: Zagreb Backs Human Rights Violations," Tanjug, 28 September 1994. "Rights Groups Report Abuses by Croatia," David Binder, New York Times News Service, 7 December 1993.

(29) "Interior Minister Aide Accused of War Crimes," ZDF Television Network (Mainz), 17 May 1994. "Slovene Daily Says Croatian Leaders Keep Quiet About Massacre of Serbs," Tanjug, 14 January 1994. "Croatian Paper Calls Mass Killings of Serbs a National Disgrace," Tanjug, 12 July 1994. "Zagreb Knows About Mass Killings of Serbs," Tanjug, 23 July 1994. "Dossier: Pakracka Poljana," Feral Tribune (Split, Croatia), 1 September 1997. "Death Camps and Mass Graves in Western Slavonia: Marino Selo and Pakracka Poljana," dossier prepared by Serbian Council, Belgrade, 1993.

(30) "Miro Bajramovic's Confession," Feral Tribune (Split, Croatia), 1 September 1997. "Croatian's Confession Describes Torture and Killing on Vast Scale," Chris Hedges, New York Times, 5 September 1997.

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