Masks!
By T.V. and Aida Weber (posted 12-5-99)
Introduction
by Jared Israel
The connection between Kosovo and Seattle may seem obscure; I think not.
In "Collateral Damage in Seattle" [see note # 1 at end] our reporter argued that the police repeatedly attacked peaceful anti-WTO demonstrators in Seattle to provoke a violent response. The purpose? To provide "newsworthy" images to prove the demonstrators had started the trouble. Our reporter saw the police literally herding demonstrators from place to place, provoking them time and again like a movie director re-shooting the same scene to make sure he got good footage.
Over the past year and a half, many people have observed the same phenomenon regarding Yugoslavia. For example, during the bombing, we were subjected to a constant barrage of stories clearly aimed at proving, via the media, that the Serbs were bad and therefore US bombing was good.
One particular story was repeated often. Albanian refugees would be interviewed and they would say masked Serbian policemen had forced them to leave their homes.
The Serbian forces denied the charge. Now, the Serbs could have been telling the truth, and they could have been lying - but one thing is for sure: they did not want the world to believe Serbian policemen were doing these things - hence the denial.
That being the case - why wear uniforms and also masks? What good would masks do? Masks hide the personal identity of the wearer - but in this situation, what difference would personal identity make? The Albanians were being driven out, supposedly; were they likely to hunt down individual Serbian policemen? If these really were Serbian policemen, and the Serbian government wanted to deny their involvement, wouldn't the important thing be to disguise their identity as Serbian policemen? So why in heaven's name would they wear Serbian police uniforms? The Western media has said a lot of bad things about the Serbian police, but nobody has said they were stupid.
The whole thing made no sense to me and I learned from Sherlock Holmes that you should always look for the explanation that does make sense. The sensible explanation for the mix of uniforms (to reveal Serbian identity) and masks (to hide personal identity) was that the "cops" were not Serbs at all. They were in fact members of the Kosovo Liberation Army trying to stage a refugee disaster for NATO cameras to show the world how terrible the Serbs were, thereby producing support for the bombing of Yugoslavia. In that case there would be every reason to wear the Serbian uniforms and every reason to hide their faces from fellow Albanians who might recognize them as members of the KLA and spill the beans when they were interviewed.
[You may wonder WHY the West was so intent on bombing Yugoslavia. For articles that address this issue, see note #3 at the end.]
Anyway, that the "masked Serbian police" were actually members of the pro-NATO KLA, operating throughout Kosovo, was our hypothesis during the bombing. Do you see how that fits with Seattle? Same MO. [Modus Operandi, a term used by police; refers to a criminal's signature method of operation.] The government wants us to believe a particular thing and so events are manipulated like a theatrical performance to produce the desired effect which is then recorded on video and sent around the world. The only difference between Seattle and Kosovo and a television ad is: in Kosovo and Seattle the extras are real people, and when you hit them in the face with a tear gas canister (or shoot them) they bleed.
With my apologies for the lengthy introduction, here is a slightly edited version of the email received from T.V. and Alida Weber:
Masks!
by T.V. and Alida Weber
On December 3, 1999, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that UN police and KFOR [that is, NATO] troops found illegal weapons, KLA uniforms, and Serb police uniforms in a house "inhabited by members of the future Kosovo Protection Corps" [the successor to the supposedly-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army or KLA].
Would someone please tell us: what are KLA operatives doing with Serbian police uniforms?
Remember all of those news stories about various war crimes and atrocities that were supposedly committed by Serbian police, often wearing masks, during the NATO bombing and before?
The stories completely contradicted other reports, such as official documents from the German Courts, which ruled that there was no persecution of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. [See note #2 at the end]
Of course, the stories did not offer any hard evidence that the culprits were actually Serbian police.
But these stories certainly were convenient for the NATO sales team, and the mass media, in terms of selling the war against the Serbs. What an effective way to turn public opinion against the Yugoslav nation and the entire Serbian people!
One thought we had at the time: ANYBODY can put on a stolen police uniform. And the KLA wouldn't have to steal the uniforms either; they could simply manufacture identical uniforms in any clothing factory.
This is all especially eerie because we read a Reuters story dated December 4, 1999 about the fighting going on in Chechnya, in Russia. According to the story the "US-sponsored Radio Liberty" reported that "masked Russian troops had opened fire at close range on the column of refugees."
"Masked Russian troops"? Again, why the masks? IF they were trying to disguise who they were, why wear Russian uniforms? Unless of course they really anti-Russian troops trying to provide negative media coverage to be played in the West, where the governments (especially the Clinton administration) are supporting the Chechnya rebels behind the scenes because they want to see Russia broken up into edible pieces.
Here is the first half of the AFP story about the uniforms:
Illegal arms cache found in homes of Kosovo Corps membersPRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Dec 3 (AFP) - A stash of weapons was found in a house in southern Kosovo inhabited by members of the future Kosovo Protection Corps, UN police said Friday. UN police officers and members of the NATO-led forces in Kosovo (KFOR) searched two houses in Stimje, where they said they found "anti-tank rockets, anti-personnel land mines, sub-machine guns, thousands of bullets, as well as Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and Serb police uniforms." They arrested two members of the Kosovo Protection Corps, who police said would be charged with "illegal possession of military armaments." Police did not specify the number of weapons found, only indicating that the number was "substantial."
***
Note # 1 - For the Emperors-clothes.com analysis of media manipulation in Seattle, click on Collateral Damage in Seattle or go to www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/collater.htm
Note # 2 - For documents from the German Courts and Foreign Ministry, which found no persecution of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, despite a war between the KLA secessionists and Yugoslav government troops, click on Official German Documents Cast Doubt on Persecution of Kosovo Albanians or go to www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/german/Germany.html
Note # 3 - Here are two very good introductions to what's been happening and why in Yugoslavia:
Diana Johnstone, former press officer of the Euro Greens and Foreign Editor of In these Times has written perhaps the best and most readable introduction to what the US has done in and to Yugoslavia. Click on Seeing Yugoslavia Through a Dark Glass or go to www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/Yugo1.html
For an excellent discussion of the economic forces behind what he sees as a US & German effort at domination of the Balkans (including Yugoslavia) click on Sean Gervasi's What Does NATO Want in Yugoslavia? or go to www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/gervasi/why.htm
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