From Hajduk to Hammers

 NK HAJDUK, 1944, with new red stars and friends on the island of Vis. 


IT was back in the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the years before the First World War.  A group of Croat students attending the University of Prague went to the city's old U Fleku pub after watching a football match between AC Sparta and SK Slavia. They got talking about how popular the game was in their home city, Split, and how good their friends were, and decided Split ought to have a professional side.
   
It wasn't just the beer talking, because soon after they met they had their club officially registered with the authorities, on February 13, 1911. Thinking what to call their team they went to see an old teacher, Josip Barač, and he suggested "Hajduk", a name for a brigand, which had come to be romanticised and associated with guerrillas fighting foreign rule, whether the Ottoman or Austro-Hungarian empires.

A famous hajduk called Andrija Simic had arrived in Split in 1902, after years in an Austrian prison, and been greeted by cheering crowds. Barač told the football club founders that the name "Hajduk"  symbolized "that which is best in our people: bravery, humanity, friendship, love of freedom, defiance to powers, and protection of the weak. Be worthy of that great name."

Hajduk described itself as "hrvatski nogometni klub" (Croatian football club) and adopted the Croatian chequerboard coat-of-arms in its crest, reflecting people's opposition to the Austro-Hungarian policy of keeping Dalmatia separate from the rest of Croatia. This issue would reappear in World War II, when in return for Mussolini's backing the Ustashe conceded Split and the rest of Dalmatia to Italian rule, while extending their own brutal regime over Bosnia and Hercogovina.

Hajduk's first opponent had been Calcio Spalato, the club of an autonomist party from in Split, and their matches ended with a 9-0 (6-0) victory for Hajduk. Under the wartime occupation they were offered the chance to compete in the Italian first division as "A C Spalato", but turned it down, and they adopted the same defiance when the Germans occupied Split and turned it over to the Ustashe's NDH state.

In the same year that Hajduk was founded, a young man from Kumrovec in northern Croatia went to work at a factory in Kamnik, in Bohemia, going on to jobs in Germany and Austria, where he ended up a test driver for Daimler. Of mixed Slovene and Croat parentage, his name was Joseph Broz, though he was to become better known in the Second World War by the nom de guerre, Tito.

It was also in 1911 that the Serb journal Almanack published an article on Young Bosnia, and that a teenager called Gavril Princip joined the nationalist group.  On June 28, 1914, Vidovdan (St.Vitus Day) to patriotic Serbs, in Sarajevo, he fired the shots which killed the visiting Archduke Franz-Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, and provided the pretext for the first Great imperialist war.

Called up to the Austro-Hungarian army, Joseph Broz made Sergeant-Major. But more important than this military experience, he was captured by the Russians, then freed from a prison camp by revolutionary workers during the February Revolution, and went on to join the Red Guards and become a communist.

Forward to September 1943, when news of the Italian surrender reached Tito's partisan headquarters in Bosnia, where they had already been joined by British officers, Churchill supporting them as the most effective if not sole force fighting the Germans in Yugoslavia. It was urgent for the partisans to reach Split, and take the Italian forces' surrender - and arms supplies -before anyone else, particularly Germans, got there. It would mean a forty mile journey across Hercogovina's rough terrain -"good only for raising sheep and Ustashe", as a Bosnian saying has it.

The 1st Proletarian Division's advance force made it in a 24 hour forced march, much of it overnight, clashing with an Ustashe unit on the way and capturing weapons from them. When they reached the hills overlooking Split they saw a little old Fiat car winding its way up the zig zag road to meet them.
"What kept you?" said the driver. He told them that Split was in the hands of its citizens, and that local partisans assisted by high school students had taken over and disarmed the Italians.

 General Emilio Becuzzi surrendered the Split garrison, consisting of "Bergamo" division, some 12-13,000 men, on September 12, 1943. Italian officers wanted to keep command of their own units, but this was not accepted. Instead, some 350 Italian soldiers who wanted to join the partisans were formed into the Garibaldi battalion - same name as an Italian unit in the International Brigade in Spain. (There's a memorial plaque honouring these Italians on the post office as you enter Split from the south).  On September 15, in Livno, Herzogovina, the Matteotti battalion was formed, taking its name from an Italian Socialist MP whom the fascists murdered.

More Italians joined the partisans in Montenegro, forming an entire Garibaldi Division which stayed in Yugoslavia until early 1945, when it's member were shipped back to Italy.
http://arhiv.slobodnadalmacija.hr/inc/print.asp?url=/20030912/feljton01.asp
http://147.91.230.48/ifdt/izdanja/casopisi/ifdt/IV/D1/document    

Meanwhile in Split, while partisans used captured Italian vehicles to cart away weapons and ammunition, the British Captain Deakin made a balcony speech to citizens, with Croatian poet and partisan officer Lola Ribar interpreting, promising that as British and Allied forces advanced up through Italy they would be able to give more support to the liberation struggle in Yugoslavia.
His speech was widely circulated by the resistance paper Slobodna Dalmacija (Liberated Dalmatia) - (which still exists as a title today, though President Tudjman and his business cronies put paid to its independence). A Nazi paper in Zagreb reported this as an "unfortunate speech made by a local Jew disguised as a British officer").

 As for Hajduk, at a ceremony on their home ground, the entire football team lined up and pledged their allegiance to the partisans.

The partisans could not stay in Split, where their presence made them and the civilian population prey to Luftwaffe bombing. The Germans took the city. But they could not have Hajduk.

The club's players made their way to the Adriatic island of Vis, where a new partisan headquarters was set up, from which joint operations were launched with British commandos and special boat units. On May 7, 1944 on the Feast of Saint Duje, the patron saint of Split, Hajduk began playing again as the official football team of the Yugoslav resistance. They played against teams from the Allied forces in Italy, and famously defeated the British in a friendly match.^[12] The team sewed the partisan red star on to their white-and-blue strip,

In 1945, Hajduk made a tour through Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, where they were honoured by de Gaulle, Syria and Malta. After the war, Tito, who frequently attended matches, invited his favourite team to move to Belgrade and become the official Yugoslav People's Army team. But they preferred to keep their "Dalmatian spirit" and stay in Split.

 And why am I recounting all this in my blog just now?

Well the other day I was talking to a comrade of mine who was over the moon because the football team which he supports, West Ham, acquired a new manager this month, Slaven Bilic, whom he describes as a "Socialist", and not like the owners.

PLAYER TO MANAGER

Not knowing much about football, I looked up Bilic, a Croat who began his professional career with Hajduk, and past player for both West Ham and Everton, and found that he is certainly on record when in Croatia as wanting to drive racialism out of the game,

When managing the Turkish side Besiktas he declared:
   "The team's philosophy is 'power to the people.' There are no rich or poor here. No classes. That's why I can say that I am endeavoring for a socialist team." (Post-match interview after Beşiktaş beat Gaziantepspor 2–0 in Spor Toto Super Lig).[28]
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/bilics-socialist-besiktas-maintains-100-percent-record-with-gaziantepspor-victory.aspx?pageID=238&nID=53653&NewsCatID=362



Wikipedia tells us:

Along with his native Croatian, Bilić is fluent in German, Italian, and English, while he also holds a degree in law. As a big fan of rock music, he plays rhythm guitar with his favored red Gibson Explorer and is a member of Rawbau, a Croatian rock group. In 2008, the band recorded a song for Croatia's performance at Euro 2008 called "Vatreno ludilo" ("Fiery Madness").Bilić has identified himself as a socialist, and has said "If you know to share what you own, you live happily and with honor. I am a true socialist. I know I can't save the world on my own; but if there is a struggle against unjustness, I always prefer to be on the frontline, and that is my attitude toward life."

My West Ham mate reckons Bilic is bound to be a big change from Sam Allardyce, whom he replaces.  Sounds like he is a change from most managers, though of course Fergie and Brian Clough have been outspoken Labour men.  Sir Alex indeed has credited his early days as a trade unionist and shop steward in the shipyards with teaching him leadership skills. (not a fashionable background for Labour politicians in recent years).  

Both Hajduk and Slaven Bilic have had checkered careers as well as badges, and no doubt my mate's fanzine will be able to appraise what contribution the new manager brings to the Hammers' game as well as his politics, and what if anything it owes to his first club's heritage. Meantime I thought his arrival a good excuse to dig up a bit of history.

 

What happened to "Senjko"

SENJ

 THIS is Senj, on Croatia's Adriatic coast, situated south of Rijeka and north of Split. An old town with a history going back to Roman times when this was the province of Dalmatia, and further, it looked peaceful enough in the early evening sun when we came over the hills from Zagreb.

It might seem strange that our Workers Aid convoy which was heading for Tuzla, in north central Bosnia, in the early Spring of 1994, should have to head first for the coast, then south along sometimes narrow unlit roads by the sea to Split, before sitting in a dusty car park for days, awaiting permission to head up into the mountains and north again, partly taking makeshift tracks, to reach our mining town destination.

It was odd, considering a much-shorter and more direct route by motorway crossed the Posavina valley between Zagreb and Tuzla.  But the UN 'protection force' (UNPROFOR), which had a mandate to protect humanitarian aid convoys in Bosnia and effectively controlled the roads, had other ideas, and so we were obliged to take the scenic route.   

And so to Senj, which though not unaffected by the war, seemed relatively peaceful, indeed perhaps over-quiet.

It had not always been so. Indeed to take one period:

The military captaincy of Senj was established in 1469 in order to defend against the invading Ottoman and Venetian armies. The town sheltered thousands of refugees from nearby occupied areas. The Nehaj Fortress was completed in 1558 on the hill Nehaj, which at the time was outside of town. Today it is wholly within the town's borders. The wars with the Ottomans lasted well into the 17th century. During this time the Uskoks lived in Senj and occupied the fortress. They served an important purpose during the wars since they had small units of men rowing swift boats that proved to be very effective guerrilla forces. However, after the Uskok War with Venice, which ended in 1617, they were forbidden to settle in the area

Indeed, these Uskoks, from a word meaning 'to leap', had come over the mountains as refugees from Ottoman rule, but became a byword for guerrilla war and piracy, against both Turks and Venetians. (I should also mention that in 1494, Senj had one of the first printing presses in south-east Europe, so it had its cultural side),

Since the uskoks were checked on land and were rarely paid their annual subsidy, they resorted to acts of piracy.^[14] Large galleys could not anchor in the bay of Senj, which is shallow and exposed to sudden gales. So, the uskoks fitted out a fleet of swift boats, which were light enough to navigate the smallest creeks and inlets of the shores of Illyria. Moreover, these boats were helpful in providing the uskoks a temporary landing on shore. With these they were able to attack numerous commercial areas on the Adriatic. The uskoks saw their ranks swell as outlaws from all nations joined them. Eventually, the whole city of Senj lived from piracy. The expeditions were blessed in the local church and the monasteries of the Dominicans and the Franciscans received tenths from the loot.^[15]

Thanks to Wikipedia.

The swashbuckling period eventually came to an end, but Senj was yet to play a heroic role in a much later conflict:

 In the fall of 1943, during World War II, when Fascist Italy capitulated, the Partisans took control of Senj and used it as a supply port. Subsequently, the Luftwaffe started bombarding the city. By the end of the year they had demolished over half of the buildings in town and inflicted heavy civilian casualties.

It just so happened that this weekend I thought I'd change my cover photo on Facebook, and decided the nice picture of Senj above would be a pleasant sight. Having done so, I thought I'd find out more about the place, and discovered that among the famous people born there was a man called Vladimir Copic.  By a coincidence, today is his birthday - it was March 8, 1891, to be exact. Copic, a leading member of the pre-war Yugoslav Communist Party, was known as "Senjko".  

 

 VLADIMIR COPIC known as Senjko

According to Wikipedia:

Vladimir "Senjko" Ćopić (Senj, 8 March 1891 –Moscow, 19 April 1939) was a Croatian politician, communist, one of the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. During the Spanish Civil War, in the period from 1937 to mid-1938, he was the commander of the XV International Brigade.
Like General "Gal", he had been conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I, and subsequently captured by the Russians.^[1]
His brother, Milan Ćopić, was in the International Brigades' prison at Camp Lucász.

An entry on the Spartacus education site says:

A member of the Communist Party he volunteered to fight for the Popular Front government during the Spanish Civil War.  Copic arrived in Spain in 1937 and joined the other International Brigades at Albacete. Copic was appointed commander of the 15th International Brigade and served at Brunete in July 1937. Copic was killed in 1938.

http://spartacus-educational.com/SPcopic.htm

Notice a small discrepancy. This latter site just says Copic was "killed in 1938", leaving us to think he might have fallen in battle in Spain. But the Wikipedia entry tells us he died on April 19, 1939, in Moscow. Of his wounds perhaps?

In actual fact, though several accounts by Spanish civil war veterans are critical of Copic's command, accusing him of sending poorly-equipped units into engagements they could not win, it seems the reason he was recalled to Moscow was to replace other leaders of the Yugoslav party in exile who had fallen victim to the Stalinist purges.  And on April 19, 1939, it was 'Senjko's turn, accused of being a "British agent", and executed.         

http://communismeetconflits.over-blog.com/2013/10/vladimir-copic-commandant-de-la-15e-brigade-internationale.html

Twenty Years Ago

 TWENTY years ago I was involved in Workers Aid for Bosnia, a left-wing initiative to support the Bosnian people against aggression and "ethnic cleansing" and to take material aid, particularly to the workers of Tuzla, a mining and industrial town in the north of the country, with a tradition of resistance to fascism.
 
Today, twenty years later, Tuzla has been at the centre of a storm of unrest against the privatisers and asset-strippers wrecking its economy. A new generation of young people are finding their voice as they fight for their future, and their movement has already burst the banks of the divisions brought by war and intervention. 

This article, written after I had been to Tuzla on a convoy, was commissioned by my late friend  Bernard Misrahi, and appeared in the November-December issue of 'Chartist'.  It was also included in the anthology 'Taking Sides' published later by Workers Aid for Bosnia.

Workers Aid, initiated by Trotskyists, and much inspired and informed by a Serb comrade, was a remarkable achievement, largely thanks to the support and involvment of "ordinary" people, from pensioners to youth, and trade unionists.  Of course it was only a fraction of what was needed, and what could have been done, had more people, and bigger organisations, put their mind to it.
 
But nevertheless, I like to think that in helping some of our brave Bosnian friends keep alive, we may also have helped keep alive the flame of resistance and hope that is alight again today.   

 

  Solidarity on wheels

"THEY want to divide up Bosnia. So what am I supposed to do?" demanded Adzic, "Divorce my
wife, split up my family? Where will my children go? My wife is a Serb. I am Muslim... ha! me a Muslim! I've not been in a mosque since I was a kid.

"But now, they put a label on you. And for people there it is different. You must go to the church, or go to the mosque, if you want to eat. I could never believe that this would happen in my country..."

We'd been collecting for Bosnia, on a cold winter afternoon, and were in a cafe in Leeds. Adzic had heard from his sister, after months of worrying whether she and her children were still alive. But her letter told of burned homes, friends taken away, 'ethnic cleansing'. I wondered what people on neighbouring tables were making of this.

What was I making of it? Could I continue with routine meetings, gossiping with old friends on demonstrations, going for a meal, contented I'd done my bit? Maybe somewhere at the back of my mind a picture of that Bosnian woman fleeing with her children resonated with something I'd heard as a kid, about a young girl fleeing a pogrom in Russia, carrying her baby brother, my grandfather.

Earlier this year, fed up with hearing why we could not, or should not, do anything, I told friends I was going to Bosnia. Workers Aid for Bosnia were sending a convoy to Tuzla, a mining town with a mixed population. Though I'm not a driver, they agreed I could go.

We assembled in Zagreb. Seventeen lorries with food from the miners' union of Slovenia. Six from Germany, driven by Bosnians who’d been working there, Jacques from Normandy,  with  a huge
long truck loaded with milling grain and seeds. Sue from New Zealand who had fetched a lorry load of medical supplies from Sweden; Paddy, from Glasgow, ex-soldier reading politics at Cambridge, putting his convov-driving experience to use. Lisa doing the same with her studies in nutrition. Young Andy from the Lake District, long-haired and scruffy, who proved ace at repairing lorries, and handling them on iced-up mountain roads.

 MAKING FRIENDS in central Bosnia, Sue from New Zealand

Paul, a young lorry driver from Leyland had heard about the convoy on local radio, and decided to take his annual holiday driving with us. "I'd seen Bosnia on the news, and it just seemed the right thing to do"'. Dot, a Marxist since her teens, had found the hardest bit telling her grandchildren she wouldn't be with them at Christmas, when she led the previous convoy.


The quickest way to Tuzla is straight down an all-weather highway via Zupanje. It's recommended in tour maps. But that was before the war. Now this northern route runs through a narrow neck of Serb- held territory, and UNPROFOR doesn't want to disturb them. So it's down the winding coast road to Split, where we're joined by the Spanish and Basque comrades with a coach stacked with food.

From here a zig-zag route leads over the mountains, via hairpin bends and makeshift tracks.

Fortunately, fighting between Bosnian and Croat forces had ceased. And with fine weather, we'll be facing dust clouds, instead of slithering on mud (the snow and ice came on our way back). But first there's a three-dav wait on a hot, dusty lorry-park outside Split, while papers are sorted out with UN and Croat officials, who poke about in our lorries, looking for anything that s not on the paperwork. The Bosnian drivers are impatient to leave, anxious to reach their homes, not knowing what they'll find.

At Kamenets, a cold wait at dawn, while armed border officials of the Croat: 'Hercog-Bosna' statelet look in the lorries, and half-seriously accuse Fazlovic, one of the Bosnians, of 'black-marketeering', after finding 200 cigarettes in his cab. They're just throwing their weight around. While we're waiting I scramble up the hillside to find a suitab1e bush, toilet roll in my pocket. Evidently I'm not the first, so I step gingerly. Though the border point has no toilets, a dutyfree shop is waiting to open - the enterprise culture has arrived.

We were lucky, moving off after a few hours. A smaller convoy the following month was kept waiting at the border for ten days. Friends who went out this Summer were thrown in a water-logged basement cell in Mostar by the Croat  HVO militia, and only freed after Labour MPs and trade unions, here and in Croatia protested about their disappearance.

Our trip had begun almost like a holiday ~ moonlit Adriatic coves, swimming near Split, wooded hills, blue lakes and snow- capped peaks under the sun. Then came the burnt-out houses, in increasing numbers A friend pointed out some marked with a white cross, left unscathed.

Bosnians had returned from working abroad to build these family homes. Now their life-work was in ruins. We pass hungry-eyed children, desperate for a few sweets thrown from the window. An old man gratefully accepts a cigarette. A young girl dashes across the road to slow down vehicles, so the little ones can get something.The Bosnians and Slovenes are better prepared, throwing out big bags of popcorn as they go by. At a turning, a young head-scarved mother holds a toddler to wave, and we find some chocolate and an orange to give her. 'Hwala', thanks, she smiles, brushing back a tear. My eyes need wiping too.

At Prozor, as dusk fell, drunken Croat militiamen stagger out of bars. One of them rammed a riflebutt through Jacques' windscreen. At Gorni Vakuf, a British officer told us we must wait till morning, but not step off the road as there were mines about. I'm told several people have been maimed or killed by small anti-personnel mines left at roadsides. We saw a lot of young people with legs missing. The British government exports such mines, but refused export licenses for mine detectors under the arms embargo on Bosnia.

Entering Bosnian-held territory, we pass through small towns with mixed Muslim and Croat population, and no burned out houses or other signs of ethnic cleansing. Workers cycling home from a power station wheel over to ask where we're going. "Tuzla? Very good. People hungry in Tuzla. Good luck!" Over the hills to Vares, with minaret and church spire intact amid neat suburbs. Past half-derelict rusting works that remind me of England.

On the steep hill out of Vares, a young lad in Bosnian army camouflage-fatigues comes over. "You are from England?" . Dirk, our driver, is from Germany, Genevieve's from Belgium, Edna's from Leeds,... 'So this is international workers' solidarity?'. 'That's right, chuck!' says Edna. 'Great!' he beams, and turns to explain to his mates .

We've a crooked rock-hewn tunnel to pass through, and more climbing. Jacques' lorry has to be diverted to Zenica, and its load decanted into smaller vehicles. We spend a night on windswept Mount Milenkovic, hearing Serb artillery. Next morning a man with a wheelbarrow and shovel is out mending holes in the road. We share tea and cigarettes with him. He s a Serb too, keeping the aid route open, unpaid.. "When this war is over, we must not forget people like him," says Farouk, our guide from Tuzla. Whenever I hear the BBC refer to Dr .Karadzic and his gangsters as "the Bosnian Serbs", I remember this decent man mending the road to Tuzla.

Tuzla reminded me almost of a northern town. Even the mosques are like little Nonconformist chapels with minarets. Our hosts, the Kreka miners' union, are proud of their tradition. Outside their centre stands a heroic statue of a miner with a rifle commemorating not just the partisans, as I thought, but a strike in 1921 when thev resisted the Serb royal regime's attempt to deport 'foreign' (eg Croat) miners. In 1984-5 Tuzla miners held regular collections for British miners.

Many of the buildings in Tuzla bear scars of shellfire. Food and fuel are in short supply and there were power cuts. Tihomir, with whom I was staying, told us by candlelight about running with his wife and child to reach a shelter, and seeing children blown to pieces. A mining engineer, he had spent some time in England, and showed me his souvenirs -NUM badges. Tihomir didn't think much of the government in Sarajevo, but was proud of the voung men in his army unit, who "always look after each other, whatever their background, and whatever the danger".

The big cream-painted Serb Orthodox church was restored after Serb shelling. At Easter, people collected food parcels there. Little notices pinned around the town, some with snapshots, announced latest deaths in action. Some had green crescents, others black crosses, and some
had red stars. Before the war, more than 20 per cent of Tuzla people were of mixed families, identified as 'Yugoslav'.

The town is full of Muslim refugees, country folk. I saw a man grazing goats outside the bank. There are crescents and stars scrawled with 'SDA' - Izetbegovic's Muslim-based party. But the mayor and council are proudly secular, non-nationalist, social democrat. Delivering aid to them and the miners helps them keep the town united.

A noisy Saturday night rock-concert must have been audible up in the hills. Another way of annoying the Serb nationalist chetniks by insisting everything stays 'normal'. Ninella, 19, taking part in a shooting competition next day, was asked whether she practised with pop-up Serbs as targets. "Not Serbs, chetniks!', she admonished. Her army friend said: 'All chetniks are Serbs, but not all Serbs are chetniks."

Back home in England, a Tower Hamlets Liberal tells the radio interviewer "It's not natural for different people to live together, look at Bosnia'; and an anti-racist friend can't understand why I "take sides". But 'ordinary' people whom he would deem 'non-political' understand.

The news is Tuzla has been shelled, and the road through Vares is threatened. Some idiot here accuses us of carrying guns to Bosnia. I think of Ninella and her friends, of Tihomir and his family, and of that lad whose eyes lit up at 'international workers solidarity"; and I wish we could.

TUZLA, Bosnia and Hercogovina

Class Revolt in Bosnia

BOSNIA and Hercogovina has shaken by an eruption of public anger aroused by privatisation, factory closures, profiteering and unemployment. This has been the country's crash course in free market capitalism, as people tried to rebuild their lives after the bloody war of two decades ago which left it saddled with a US and EU backed peace accord preserving its division in two.

Perhaps the brightest sign to come out of this seemingly spontaneous outburst of protest and riots is that it cut across the ethnic division and boundary, encouraging people to come out for unity. This may not be a homogenous political upheaval, but it is a movement of class.

The movement began, fittingly, in Tuzla, the mining and industrial town in north central Bosnia where people steadfastly resisted not only Serb nationalist forces in the war, but the influence of sectarian religious elements and Bosnia's governing SDA. Tuzla has a tradition of resistance going back to the 1920s struggles against the Yugoslav monarchy and rising again in partisan war against the Nazis in World War II. It was the partisans who proclaimed Bosnia a republic for all its people, and it was for this multi-ethnic character that the people fought when Yugoslavia came apart. At least a quarter of the population were of mixed origin anyway.

The end of the Bosnian war brought new problems, of US occupation, EU pressure, and those who had done well out of the war hoping to do better out of privatisation, and trusting a war-weary working class would not put much fight. What has really angered people however is that these new bosses have not even been after production and modernisation, but simply made a fast buck closing factories and selling assets.

 In Tuzla, the trigger this week was the sudden collapse of four formerly state-run companies that employ thousands in the city. The companies were privatised but the new owners sold the assets, sacked the staff and filed for bankruptcy.

On Thursday in Tuzla, workers from Vladom TK took it to the streets to demonstrate peacefully to put a stop to their factory being shut down and to save their jobs. Riot police attacked them to break their demonstration and beat the people who called the protests. They arrested their union leaders. One of them, Sakib Kopić, from “Polihema” union, spoke to local journalists by phone while he was under police arrest: “They keep us here for more than an hour, and nobody tells us anything.”

The government arrested Aldin Širanović, one of the leaders of the group called “Stroke,” which together with another group called “Revolt” helped people organize. He was released after a few hours, and said he was severely beaten under arrest. Union leader Sakib Kopić said he saw Širanović broken by the police: “Blood was pouring from his nose. They did not take him to hospital.”
“They were given the order to remove us from the streets, and that’s it. Then they started to attack us. Lots of people got injured. I saw a child of 15 years old who was all bloody, and who was crammed in one bus. They did not let him out. Doctors wanted to help him, but the cops locked the boy in the bus,” said Kopić.


People’s fury exploded. Some 5,000 local residents, including students from the technical college, joined the workers and set fire to government buildings, tires and police cars. “You have really hungry people who decided to do something,” said Dunja Tadic, a woman from Tuzla. ”People here are not living lives, they are simply surviving. Maybe 15% of the population lives well, mostly those who are stealing and their relatives. They destroyed the so-called middle class. All in all I don’t see how it can be any better here.”

Hana Obradovic, an unemployed philosophy and political science graduate who participated in the protests explained: “Our government sold state companies for peanuts, leaving people without their pensions or social security, Their families have nothing to eat, while our politicians sit in these institutions and steal from people.”

At one point some of the 5,000-strong crowd stormed into a local government building and hurled furniture from the upper stories. "The people entered the government building," said Mirna Kovacevic, a student who witnessed the protests. "They climbed to the fourth floor and started to throw files, computers, chairs from buildings. They burned parts of the building …
"Four storeys are blackened. People have burned the stuff that was thrown outside … Some people are trying to put the fire out. It's hectic."



On the walls of government buildings in Tuzla people wrote “Everybody to the streets. Death to nationalism!”. Throughout the Bosnian war, while the Muslim SDA party headed the government, Tuzla was run by mayor Suleiman Beslagic's Social Democrats, non-nationalists. 

But the fires lit in Tuzla this time spread through the country. On Friday night, the scene was enacted in Sarajevo, the capital, as fire raged through the presidency building and hundreds of people hurled stones, sticks and whatever else they could lay their hands on to feed the blaze. Police used rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon trying to disperse the crowd. Buildings and cars were also burning in downtown Sarajevo and riot police chased protesters.

"It is about time we did something," said a woman in her 20s who gave her name only as Selma. "This is the result of years and years of not paying attention to the dissatisfaction of the people."

"Everyone is here because everyone has a problem with this government," said a twentysomething male protester who did not want to be identified. "Young people don't have jobs. Older people don't have pensions. Everyone is fed up."

In Zenica, another central Bosnia city, protesters set fire to part of the local government building.

A fire at the National Archive of Bosnia, thought to have destroyed documents from the Late Ottoman and Austrian periods of rule, is less hard to justify, adding a sad sequel to the Serb incendiary attack on the National Library of Bosnia at the start of the war. But it is not certain this was the work of demonstrators or clear what its purpose would be. 

Although the protests were largely confined to the Croat-Muslim half of Bosnia, there was also a rally in Banja Luka, the main city in the Serb half of the country. About 300 activists and citizens staged a peaceful march to call for unity among all Bosnia's ethnicities. "We are all citizens of Bosnia and we all have the same difficult lives here," organiser Aleksandar Zolja, president of the non-governmental organisation Helsinki Citizens' Assembly, told the rally.

In Brcko, a demonstrating crowd held the mayor hostage, while in Bihac people took over government buildings.  Elsewhere, police intervened at the mansion home of an SDA politician who was brandishing a gun at the crowd. But in Mostar, demonstrators were even-handed, attacking the premises of both the SDA and the Croat nationalist HDZ party.

On 7 February, Bosnian Federation Prime Minister Nermin Nikšić held a press conference, with prosecutors, and accused hooligans of creating chaos.  Bakir Izetbegović, one of the country's three presidents and leader of the Party of Democratic Action said, "I believe that people want a change of power. I believe that within three months we should offer citizens a chance to choose who they trust, because it's obvious that this isn't working anymore".

In the Serb held part of Bosnia, Republika Srpska, president Milorad_Dodik said he was "proud of the citizens in Republika Srpska" for not falling for provocations that could make the unrests in the federation spread further. He has also expressed suspicions that there might be an underlying political project that intends to somehow make the recent unrests expand into Republika Srpska.


European Parliament member Davor Ivo Stier said that  "When people who set things on fire in Mostar are yelling 'This is Bosnia!', it incredibly reminds me of the Chetniks during the agression against Croatia yelling 'This is Serbia.'. When Zlatko Lagumdžija accuses the European parliament because of a resolution which condemns centralism, it is clear just how much the centralist elites are against the European peace project. Croatia and the EU cannot be passive towards this downward spiral of violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is time to show leadership. End to centralism! End to violence! It's time for an European path of Bosnia and Herzegovina!", he commented on his Facebook profile the riots in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

(Zlatko Lagumdzija is leader of the Social Democratic Party and currently Bosnian Foreign Minister)

Davor Ivo Stier,  a Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) politician, and Croatian member of the European Parliament, was born into a Croatian expatriate family in Argentina—his paternal grandfather was a colonel in the fascist Ustaše who left for South America after World War II.He  returned to Croatia in 1996 and worked as a diplomat in Washington and Brussels.

When he talks about fires and violence in Mostar, it might be unkind to visit the sins of the father upon the son by remembering the crimes of the Ustashe during World War II. But talking of Mostar and fires, we cannot forget the more recent war, when so much of that historic town was reduced to rubble under fire from both Croat nationalist and Serb Chetnik forces either side. Such criminal, barbaric conduct does not seem to have hindered Croatia or Ivo Stier's "European path".

As we approach the centenary of an incident in Sarajevo, and the events it helped ignite, I see the Austrian government too has expressed concern over these riots and said it might reinforce its troops  in Bosnia. But that's enough history for now.


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/07/bosnia-herzegovina-wave-violent-protests

http://revolution-news.com/class-war-bosnia-herzegovina-government-fire/

Rakovsky centre solidarity statement

Kemal's Village

KEVLJANI, in north-west Bosnia, looks a peaceful place, a pretty village whether in the sun or Winter snow. There was a time, as Kemal Pervanic recalls, when he and his friends at school thought only of their happy future, and what they wanted to be,

That's them in the lower picture, under the portrait of Tito, whose partisans first declared Bosnia and Hercogovina a republic, and who proclaimed the watchwords 'Brotherhood and Unity'. As Kemal says, some of the children in this picture were Serbs, and some were Muslims, but if you try to spot the difference you can't because "there wasn't any".

Then things changed. Some of the causes lay far from Kevljani, but their terrible consequences in 1992 affected everybody in the vicinity. As armed Serb nationalists erized control of the area, homes were destroyed, people forced to flee, or beaten, raped and killed.

Young Kemal had dreamed of what it might be like one day to study amid the dreaming spires of Oxford, never thinking that he would end up on that city's streets as a refugee, after surviving the nightmare of the concentration camp at Omarska. To add to the trauma of that Serb-run camp, some of the guards who beat and tortured prisoners were not a foreign force, or imported thugs, but locals,who had turned upon their neighbours. Two of them had been Kemal's teachers.   .

Some of Kemal's friends and relatives did not survive. Nearby Kevljani a mass grave has been uncovered with some 342 bodies, some identified as local people, others brought there from elsewhere. In this small corner of North West Bosnia over 1000 persons remain unaccounted for.
When I first met Kemal almost twenty years ago he was busying himself at an office near Victoria, helping other Bosnian refugees find work or education, and telling those who longed to return home that they'd do better to get some training if they were going to take part in reconstruction. He kept up a cheerful exterior and did not have much to say about his own experiences.

But he did write a book, The Killing Days, and for the past couple of years he has been working on a film, Pretty Village, about Kevljani and its people. The film has alreday had a preview showing at the Frontline Club.  but it will hopefully be completed by the end of Mrach, and ready for distribution and showing.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/254180

It is a film about what happens to ordinary people, about cruelty and death, but it is also about their will to overcome obstacles and rebuild. For nearly ten years Kevljani was a ghost village. Survivors, of the killings and camps, were not allowed to return till early 2000. A few have decided to come back, but on their return they face the daily trauma of how to live amongst people who watched as their loved ones were killed or actively participated in the violence.

Part of their struggle is for remembrance. Survivors wanted to create a memorial on the site of the biggest massacres conducted at The Omarska Iron Ore Mine, now owned by Arcelor Mittal, the sponsors of The London Orbit. The company, in collusion with Serb run local authorities continue to deny them the right to create a memorial to the victims of the war.

The film asks what draws these people back to this place of suffering and how do they deal with life in the midst of their tormentors. It aims to raise awareness of these issues and why reconciliation remains a distant dream. It also looks to the future and asks what can be done to heal the wounds of this terrible conflict.

The film makers - Kemal Pervanic, and director David Evans, - are not hoping for Oscars or big bucks backing or profit with this film, but say it will be used for educational purposes and copies of the film will be sent to schools, government agencies and international policy makers in an attempt to spark a public dialogue about these issues. 

They are also hoping that by kick starting a dialogue between two communities in one corner of Bosnia they can help in healing, and contribute towards both groups eventually coming together to build a better, shared future in the region. 

Last week it was Holocaust Memorial Day, and as one who believes that "Never Again!" must mean Never Again to Anyone, and we must remember all, I was pleased to see that Kemal Pervanic had been invited to speak at an event for this occasion. This week I have been belatedly pleased to learn that I could contribute, however modestly, to the making of this film, and I am happy to publicise it best I can and encourage others to do so. 


http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pretty-village 

http://vimeo.com/52739204 

http://theforgivenessproject.com/stories/kemal-pervanic-bosnia/ 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1594913223/pretty-village 


FOR A BETTER FUTURE TOGETHER

photo by Kevac

'Auntie''s Favourites (and Unmentionables)

YEARS ago I knew two brothers from Willesden Green. Both had been in the Labour Party youth section, but whereas one, Cyril, became a Marxist, lecturing for a time at the London School of Economics (LSE), his brother Tony, down from Oxford to the BBC, was a committed Fabian.

One Budget Day a BBC crew were out on the street interviewing people near LSE when Cyril came along. Before the interviewer could step up to him with a mike, an anxious figure came zooming out from somewhere exclaiming "Not him! Not him!" It was Tony from the Beeb, ensuring brother Cyril's incendiary views were not broadcast to the nation.

That story is quite old, and may only concern two individuals, but a few years ago after the government announced it was scrapping plans for a third runway at Heathrow I watched a TV interview with MPs who had opposed airport expansion. They spoke to a Tory or two, and a Lib Dem, I think from Kingston. In the background, you could see left-wing Labour MP John McDonnell chatting to someone, maybe a constituent. Some pleasant parts of John's constituency would disappear under the concrete if the runway had gone ahead. But the interviewer never reached him. Perhaps there just wasn't time, or maybe the interviewers thought John McDonnell was still banned from airtime, as he seemed to be while he was challenging for the Labour Party leadership.

The criteria for whom the BBC invites and whom it excludes may not always be obvious, but nor are they random, or decisions left to individuals.  The individual broadcasters must learn whom or what is acceptable, and what best avoided.

Perhaps the best known case of the Corporation taking a political decision - whether or not it did so on its own - was at the beginning of 2009 when it refused to allow a charity appeal for people in Gaza. It seemed the Season of Peace and Goodwill to All had been cancelled.

  There have been less well known examples. On May 25, 1995, Yugoslav Youth Day, a Serb mortar attack on a cafe area in Tuzla killed 71, mostly young people, and injured hundreds more.  The mayor of Tuzla radioed the UN saying "Tonight we are picking up the pieces of our children".

It so happened that a man from Tuzla, parent of two, was visiting London at the time, and offered to go into the BBC studio to be interviewed. His name is Faruk Ibrahimovic and he speaks perfect English. The Beeb told him he would not be needed.  On Radio Four next morning they had their regular guests from the Serb Information Centre, messrs. Gasic and Gavrilovic, to deny that Karadzic's forces could be responsible for the slaughter of the innocents.

Earlier at the outbreak of the Bosnian war I heard a TV news announcer say that "the Muslim authorities" in a particular town were investigating a murder. For a moment, as I entered the room I wondered naively why the religious authorities were entrusted with such matters, but what I saw on TV was an ordinary Bosnian police car. Perhaps the driver was a Muslim, perhaps not. You would not expect a report on crime in London to say it was being investigated by the Anglican church authorities ( nor even , as a friend adds, the Masons!) But throughout the Bosnia war the Beeb would only refer to Bosniacs as "the Muslims". I don't think they ever got around to interviewing visiting Bosnian General Jovan Divjak (who happened to be Serb), nor diplomat Sven Alkali (a Sefardi Jew), as this would only have confused the poor listeneners and viewers.  (Though General Divjak  appeared in the BBC documentary The Death of Yugoslavia).

I think the BBC's coverage of the Bosnian conflict had been slanted to serve the dominant faction at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, for which official recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state was reluctant, and blamed on German pressure: whereas Britain's arms embargo (cf it's 'non-intervention' policy re Spain), and belief in partition (these foreigners only want to kill one another) went with an inclination to support traditional allies, the nationalist Serbs. However it was only some time later that Dame (now Baroness) Pauline Neville-Jones, who had been Lord Hurd's chief of the Joint Intelligence Committee, became a BBC governor.      

On November 2, 2005, the BBC TV London news had a report on the Skies Are Weeping concert, dedicated to American campaigner Rachel Corrie, killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza. The concert, for which Rachel's mother had flown over, had taken place at the Hackney Empire the night before. It was the world premiere of a cantata dedicated to Rachel Corrie by American composer Philip Munger.

 Having given the event no previous publicity, the Beeb's coverage focused on its "controversial" nature, featuring a small Zionist demonstration outside, and giving the last word to the demonstration's organiser Jonathan Hoffman. I wondered why the reporters had not interviewed the concert's organiser and soprano Deborah Fink, who could have told them that there were far more Jewish people like herself enjoying and participating in the concert, and more Jewish people among the celebrity sponsors, than Mr.Hoffman's sorry bunch, which included Kahanists and Christian Zionists, outside. It turned they had interviewed Deborah, who explained to them what it was about and why Jewish people were involved along with Palestinians and others. But someone must have decided that this was all too much to take in, and so Deborah Fink was simply edited out, and became an unperson, while not for the last time, Jonathan Hoffman of the Zionist Federation became a star. On February 16, 2006 the BBC sent Deborah an apology, admitting they had given a misleading impression. It was not the last time they had to apologise for news items in which Mr.Hoffman has appeared.

Still I suppose the BBC's belated and inadequate coverage of the Skies Are Weeping concert compares favourably with its two year blackout on the Liverpool docks strike and lockout, only lifted by Robbie Fowler revealing a dockers' support tee shirt to the cameras on Match of the Day.   

University lecturer and East End councillor Rania Hafez recently found herself invited to discuss women's rights and Islam on BBC One with none other than Tommy Robinson, alias Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, of the English Defence League. Amenable though she might be to civilised discussion, Ms. Hafez decided that the ex-BNP founder of the EDL was not someone suitable with whom she wished to have a friendly chat, nor would she lend herself to BBC programme makers' pretence that he was.


To Yaxley Lennon and Nick Griffin, we must add another offensive personality for whom the BBC seems to have a soft spot lately, and that is the Israeli musician Gilead Atzmon. Now if the BBC wants to broadcast him on sax with his Orient House ensemble or whatever I've no objection. He is entitled to pursue his profession, and his music has given a lot of people pleasure. He only becomes  objectionable when he takes the saxophone out of his mouth.

But the BBC's Persian service, for instance, seems to have decided lately that its Iranian audience could not get enough of Atzmon on the Iranian government-sponsored Press TV, and they must have more of him assuring listeners he is not an antisemite before explaining his antipathy towards "Jewish identity" and other sins on the BBC.


If the BBC wanted to find an Israeli dissident to interview, there is no shortage to hand these days. There's Professor Ilan Pappe, author of 'The Ethic Cleansing of Palestine' , who is at Exeter, and Iraqi-born Avi Shlaim at Oxford. Miri Weingarten, of Physicians for Human Rights is here in London, as is journalist Rachel Shabi.  Moshe Machover, a founder of the left-wing group Matzpen is a professor emeritus of Queen Mary's College, and in touch with left-wing Iranians through his activity in Hands Off the People of Iran (HOPI), which supports workers resisting the Islamic regime and opposes war and sanctions. Such people and their views might be of interest to the Iranian audience, even if they are not good sax players.

But unlike Atzmon, they have not taken sides with Holocaust deniers, hinted that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion might contain some truth, or spent their time denouncing the motives of Jews who are on the Left and involved in pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist campaigns. All of which makes me wonder what are the motives of the BBC in providing a platform for Atzmon?

Still, I see his latest interview is on You Tube, and being touted around as "superb" by David Icke's supporters. So maybe Icke too will soon be on the Beeb,  expounding his view that the Royal Family are descended from reptiles. At least that should be more entertaining than Atzmon. 

        

Back to Jail for Con-Man "Lawyer" who acted for War Criminals and boasted he'd funded Cons

GIOVANNI di Stefano has been sentenced to fourteen years in jail for a series of frauds on “desperate and vulnerable victims”  whom  he tricked into thinking he was a bona fide lawyer.

 Di Stefano was convicted on 25 charges, including deception, fraud and money laundering
 He pleaded guilty to another two counts of fraud and further three counts ordered to lie on file

Di Stefano, 57,became known as the Devil’s Advocate for taking on “unwinnable” cases, though the Law Society said he was not qualified, nor entitled to act as a lawyer at all.

Judge Alistair McCreath, the Recorder of Westminster, noted there were many offences over significant periods of time. The fact that the victims – which included a disabled man seeking damages for the loss of an arm – were all “desperate and vulnerable” and faced losses which were not just financial but also included the “raising and dashing of false hope” were aggravating factors, the judge said.

The judge said the case was not just about money. "It is also about something different and great – it is about the real distress you caused to so many people. You had no regard for them nor for their anguish,” he said. “Your only concern was to line your own pockets.”

.
Among the offences to which Di Stefano pleaded guilty was stealing £150,000 compensation that should have gone to a man who had lost an arm in a car crash. The money was due as part of an insurance policy but di Stefano had it paid in to his business account and “duly stole it”. This was a “wicked” crime and is one which “stands in a league of its own”, according to the judge.

But then Di Stefano, a former associate of Serb war criminal 'Arkan' and director of Dundee football club, was always in a league of his own. And he had quite a long run.

He reportedly served a six-month sentence for fraud and false pretenses in 1975 in Ireland, and a three-year sentence for obtaining property by deception and other charges in 1976 in the UK. Di Stefano insisted that these convictions were those of a different person, called "John" instead of "Giovanni", although they shared the same surname, birthday and birthplace.

Then in June 1984 he was arrested again and charged with fraud before being released on bail. He was again arrested in August of that year and refused bail. In 1986, Di Stefano was tried for conspiracy to obtain property by deception and fraudulent trading, and was convicted after a 78-day trial, jailed for five years, and prohibited from being a company director for 10 years; In 1990 a Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal ruled that Di Stefano could not be employed by any British solicitor without permission from the Law Society,

Di Stefano claims to have been freed on appeal, though records indicate his appeal was unsuccessful. After three years in jail however he was back in business, attempting to clinch deals in America and New Zealand before turning up in Yugoslavia in 1991. He obtained Yugoslav citizenship thanks to his "friend" Slobodan Milosevic, and became an associate -political and business - of Zelijko Raznjatovic, better-known as Arkan, leader of the so-called Serb Volunteer Guard, or "Tigers", irregulars operating for the Serb Interior Ministry, who enjoyed rape and pillage as a perk for their job of 'ethnic cleansing'.

In 1997 Di Stefano wrote warning British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook that British soldiers would be killed if they made any attempt to bring in Arkan as a war criminal. The businessman-"lawyer" also boasted to the Sunday Times that he had met John Major several times, and that he had donated £10,000 to the Tory party before his conviction and another £20,000 after release. He insisted there was nothing irregular about this.

"I am a Conservative. I'm the epitome of conservative.
It is not an offence to give money to politicians for their services" (Sunday Times, July 27, 1997)

As Arkan expanded into various businesses in Serbia, from flowers to a football club, Di Stefano too began popping up as fairy godfather offering to invest money in cash-strapped British soccer clubs - Dundee, Norwich, Northampton Town, - and even a doomed Northumberland colliery. Somehow, while still abroad, he knew where to dangle his carrot.

Arkan boasted that he would go to the Hague if wanted, and bring down all sorts of people. He was gunned down himself in a Belgrade hotel, and obviously no longer required the services of his lawyer and partner Di Stefano. Then Di Stefano came under investigation in Italy in connection with business affairs. But somehow he survived to fight another day.

Tony Clarke, the Labour MP for Northampton South, who fought attempts by di Stefano to take over Northampton Town football club, said: "Everything about this man is shrouded in mystery. The authorities need to take a very close look at his legal qualifications, because if he is not legally qualified, heaven knows how that affects the cases he has been involved in."

Somehow, qualified, disqualified, or whatever, Di Stefano claimed some big name clients, big bad name that is - time-share racketeer John Palmer, road-rage killer and bullion robber Kenneth Noye, Dr.Harold Shipman, property tycoon and thug-employer Nicholas "tenants are scum" van Hoogstraten. Indeed he was remarkably successful for Van Hoogstraten, who was sentenced to 10 years for the killing of a business rival in 2002, but released on appeal, even though two of his associates remained serving life sentences.

Van Hoogstraten was ordered to pay the victim's family £6 million in a civil case.
He was estimated at being worth £500 million, though he said his assets in the UK had been placed in the names of his children. His assets in property and farming in Zimbabwe were estimated at £200 million. It may be through Van Hoogstraten that Di Stefano claimed Robert Mugabe as a friend. His ambition to represent Saddam Hussein on trial was less successful, but all in all the lawyer-who-wasn't has enjoyed a brilliant and long career, knowing all the top gangsters. Is this really the end for Giovanni?

Another gap in the BBC's map?

IMPLYING Palestine is not free was "contentious", says the Beeb.

AMONG my prized posessions is a map. It came into our family's possession when my Dad bought a big old picture frame for summat else, and cleaned it, revealing this map of the world that was printed in 1801. Beside old ill-defined regions with names lost in legend and the mists of time, such as Tartary and Cathay, it has countries yet unsettled, like "New Holland" - Australia as we call it today.

And blank spaces, with gaps in coastlines where the mapmakers of the day were honest enough to admit that the lands lay unexplored. Terra Incognita, as they say. I'm told the map is not rare or valuable, but it was a great aid to my education and I'm only sorry I've nowhere to hang it now.

Having empty spaces and missing names from a map is another matter when the places have been erased, and it determines your picture of current affairs, and that of those who depend on you for their awareness. When it signifies not just places you have not been, but where you have decided, or been told, not to go.

I've remarked before on the US customs officers who undermined their government's official "two states" position by refusing to clear imports of Taybeh beer on the grounds they were labelled "brewed in Palestine", and they said there was no such country as Palestine. It made light of Obama's talk of pre-1967 borders, but foreshadowed US opposition to UNESCO recognition of Palestine, and Newt Gingrich's arrogant assertion that Palestinians are an "invented people".

Gingrich once seemed to have different views, urging Arab Americans to invest in Palestine, but standing for the top office is an expensive business, and some of Gingrich's current sponsors are the kind who think Palestinians ought not to exist and have no right to a place on the map.
OK, so American politicians are the best money can buy, you may sneer, but what's the BBC's excuse?

Here's an item from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign's website:

BBC Trust rules in favour of censoring 'Palestine'

The BBC has denied it was wrong to edit the word 'Palestine' from an artist's peformance on Radio 1Xtra, but has said its producers may have been 'overcautious'. This final ruling issued at the end of January, marks the end of an eight month campaign by PSC to hold the BBC to account for its bias in censoring the lyrics 'I can scream Free Palestine for my pride/still pray for peace' from a rap performed by the artist, Mic Righteous, on 1Xtra. In an extraordinary exchange of correspondence, during which the BBC's excuses for cutting out 'Palestine' grew ever more bizarre, one producer wrote: 'Referencing Palestine is fine, but implying that it is not free is the contentious issue'. PSC would like to thank all our members who wrote to the BBC on this issue, and especially those who carried on the campaign for eight months. Read PSC's press release, New Statesman article, the Washington Post and Left Foot Forward blog on the BBC's decision. PSC's Amena Saleem has written in Electronic Intifada today about the BBC's ingrained bias against Palestine. Follow the Twitter debate @PSCupdates PSC campaigns actively against media bias, and the Mic Righteous campaign is just one of many we instigate and run. Our aim is to try and change media coverage of Palestine for the better.

http://www.palestinecampaign.org/

I'm not a great fan of rap music and its use in propaganda (nor of the endless circulation of posed photographs and suspect videos ) but I guess that's a generational thing. It's certainly no excuse for censoring them. Why should we accept that the name "Palestine" is unmentionable?

I used to find it irritating when some Palestinian organisations always referred to Israel if at all in inverted commas, and more often "the Zionist entity". As though pretending it was not there could make it go away. But they were refusing to recognise a state which was denying their rights and oppressing them. Whereas Palestine, whether you are referring to the clearly defined geographical area of the mandate, or those parts of it not taken up by the internationally recognised state of Israel, is not oppressing anybody.

But nor is it yet free, as anyone can ascertain by noticing the presence of barbed wire and Israeli soldiers, trying to travel without encountering a road block, or seeing those killed or injured by the occupiers. If the BBC reporters are unable to reach places like Bil'in (those inadequate maps again!) or have been advised against venturing into the Anata hills at night to see Palestinian homes being demolished, they could at least stick around Ben Gurion airport where they might have seen the Birmingham delegation that was not allowed to deliver childrens books collected for a Palestinian school. They might even have interviewed a friend of mine who was prevented from visiting his in-laws, or asked why Professor Norman Finkelstein was treated as a "security risk".

But according to the powers that be at the BBC, implying that Palestine is not free (oh gosh I'm rapping) is a "contentious issue", don't you see?

As it happens this is not the first or only time I've noticed the BBC's erasure of some countries or nationalities.

During the early part of the Bosnian war I was puzzled one day to hear a BBC news reader saying that "Muslim authorities" were investigating the suspicious death of an aid worker, near the town of Zenica. Thinking it was strange that such a matter was being entrusted to the religious authorities, I came into my room where the television showed not some cleric in a green turban but a policeman, in a police car, going up a hill.

Then it dawned on me. Although the British government, perhaps under pressure, had recognised Bosnia and Hercegovina, the Foreign Office under Douglas Hurd (and some British military commanders) were carrying on as if Bosnia was just -"the Muslims", one of three warring factions supposedly consumed by age-old hatreds, and neither entitled to defend itself nor get a fair hearing on the Beeb. The term "the Muslims" became de rigur, so that the only time you heard the word "Bosnian" was when Karadzic's forces were referred to as the "Bosnian Serbs". No wonder the poor listeners and viewers got confused. I think they were meant to be.

When Bosnian army General Divjak, who happened to be an ethnic Serb, came to London, I wondered how the BBC would describe him. Likewise Bosnia's ambassador in Washington, Sven Alkalaj, currently Foreign Minister, whom being of Sefardi background they might have to introduce as a "Muslim Jew"! But I need not have worried. So far as I know such visitors simply did not make it to the microphones, unlike the Serb information Centre in London, (staffed by Royalists!), who seemed to have a season ticket to the BBC.

If that was down to government pressure and/or old Establishment links, the reason for preventing the name Palestine disturbing listeners is less clear. But it goes with the BBC's refusal to broadcast a charities' appeal for Gaza, as if the amount of damage and suffering inflicted on people there was also "contentious", and with the failure to cover many issues and struggles in the occupied territories , even when internationals like Nobel prizewinner Mairead Corrigan have been injured.

This week some villagers in the Jordan valley went on humger strike hoping to attract world attention. The French-based company Veolia which is out to expand its contracts in Britain, is implicated in occupation activties in the Jordan valley, as well as in the ring of settlements around east Jerusalem. Let's see what publicity is given to the hunger strikers, trying to resist occupation by peaceful means. I wish PSC and others trying to oppose media bias and censorship the best of luck.

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/twilight-zone-this-is-no-life-1.410809

"Arrogant, unbending and vengeful" - Gaddafi? No, that's a description of the French Foreign Minister!

FRANCE's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has said his government would support arming the Libyan rebels against Colonel Gaddafi,lining up with the US perhaps not just on policy but for the race to influence Libya's future. With David Cameron saying Gaddafi has got to go, and unconfirmed reports that British SAS forces are already out there, the pretence about limited aims of a "no fly zone" protecting Libyan civilians seems almost forgotten.

But hearing Alain Juppe's name on the news brought to mind things that should not be forgotten. This is his second time round in the job of Foreign Minister for France. He held the same position from 1993-5. During that time Britain and France had forces under the UN flag in Bosnia, mandated to safeguard humanitarian aid routes to besieged towns and later guard so-called safe havens.

They did not favour relaxing the arms embargo to let arms through to the Bosnians. British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said it would "only create a level killing field". Even a supply of mine detectors was blocked. You could see a lot of Bosnians with legs missing.

It was Alain Juppe who accompanied Douglas Hurd to Belgrade to see Slobodan Milosevic. According to a report in Le Figaro they promised the Serb leader a free hand in eastern Bosnia. I have not seen this confirmed anywhere. But Foca and Gorazde came under siege, and then there was the massacre at Srebrenica, which had been a supposed safe haven.

After his career at the Foreign Office, Douglas -now Lord -Hurd moved into a new direction. He joined Pauline Neville-Jones, who had chaired the joint intelligence committee, at Nat West Markets. Together they went to breakfast in Belgrade and helped broker the deal for privatisation of Serbia's telecomms, for which they were well-rewarded. Dame Pauline has become Baroness Neville-Jones and is Minister for Security and counter-terrorism in David Cameron's government.

M.Juppe has had a more checqered career. From Foreign Minister he became Prime Minister, thanks perhaps to his support for Jacques Chirac in the presidential campaign. He also became leader of the Gaullist RPR. Chirac said Alain Juppé was "the best among us".

However, in November-December 1995, his plans to "reform" France's Welfare State caused the country's biggest wave of social unrest and strikes since May-June 1968, and he was billed the most unpopular Prime minister of the Fifth Republic. In spring 1997,the right-wing government lost the elections, and Juppe was succeeded by the Socialist Party's Lionel Jospin.

Worse was to come. The former RPR president campaigned to unite conservative parties, and became president of the Union for a Popular Movement (Union pour un mouvement populaire or UMP), and was its first president from 2002 to 2004.

But in 2004, Alain Juppé was tried for the felony of abuse of public funds, when he was head of the RPR and the party illegally used personnel provided by the City of Paris for running its operations. He was convicted and sentenced to an 18-month suspended jail sentence, the deprivation of civic rights for five years, and the deprivation of the right to run for political office for 10 years. He appealed the decision, whereby his disqualification from holding elected office was reduced to one year and the suspended sentence cut to 14 months.

Juppe considered taking an academic post in Canada while he was facing a bar from office. But in October 2006 he was re-elected Mayor of Bordeaux, a post he had held a decade earlier, and in May 2007 he was back in government, though he soon resigned again after running unsuccessfully in the 2007 legislative elections.

Though I've been surprised to hear Juppe's name again, I'm not half as surprised as the Rwandan government were when they heard he had once again become Foreign Minister. Rwanda's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo, has said that the appointment was a “bad surprise” for Rwanda.

The Mucyo Commission which investigated the French government's complicity in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi people found that he strongly supported the forces that committed the genocide.

According to the UN, about 800,000 people, mostly members of the Tutsi minority or moderate Hutus who opposed the massacre were killed in Rwanda between April and July 1994.

The Rwandan commission accused French military personnel of themselves killing Tutsis, and Hutus accused of sheltering Tutsis, and said they had left the Hutu extremist Interhamwe in charge of roadblocks where they could continue the killings. Its report named thirteen French leaders and officials as incriminated, including then president Mitterand, prime minister Edouard Balladur, and Foreign Minister Alain Juppe.
http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/monde/le-rwanda-menace-de-poursuivre-balladur-juppe-vedrine-et-villepin_546276.html

France's relations with Rwanda had been improving in the last year, and officials have tried to impress upon the Rwandans that Juppe is a "changed man", and anyway subordinate to Sarkozy. Rwanda's Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwab is not convinced. "On a personal level, his twisted Rwandan journey since 1994 has not deviated; we have been observing him, including his negative reaction to the normalization of relations between France and Rwanda.”
http://www.newtimes.co.rw/index.php?issue=14553&article=38834

From Reims in France, Alain Gauthier, the president of a Paris-based genocide survivors’ advocacy group (CPCR) said Juppe’s return to a position he held from 1993 to 1995, only evokes bad memories for the victims of the 1994 Genocide.

“The man is one of those who is accused of supporting a genocidal regime, has never felt the slightest remorse or raised questions for his actions and that of the government in which he participated,” reads part of Gauthier’s statement.

“The victims of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994 may legitimately fear the return of such a man in power”.

In Kigali,the Rwandan capital, Evode Kalima, a genocide survivor and MP said Juppe’s come back was a cause of concern. “His return to that position causes worry because Alain Juppe is a cunning man, who is arrogant, unbending and vengeful,”

http://allafrica.com/stories/201103030007.html

Sounds just the man to be trusted in the leadership of a supposedly humanitarian and liberating mission

Srebrenica still haunts Europe

GENERAL RATKO MLADIC, (left), still wanted, shakes hands with British GENERAL SIR MICHAEL ROSE, then with UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR).

FIFTEEN years after the biggest single atrocity committed in Europe since World War II, the criminals remain at large, the dead are not properly laid to rest, survivors remain refugees, and the issues continue to be raised.

In July 1995 Serb nationalist forces took the town of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia. Srebrenica had been declared a "safe area" under UN protection, but as yet unconfirmed reports said the British and French governments had assured the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic of a free hand in eastern Bosnia.

Whatever the truth of that, the British SAS removed observers, and the commanders refused air cover, and the 400-strong Dutch battalion of the UN Protection Force(UNPROFOR) left in Srebrenica decided it could not halt the Serb assault, nor did it prevent the massacre that followed. An estimated 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were rounded up and killed by the conquerors. Some young boys were pulled off the buses on which women and children were sent away.

Altogether 25-30,000 people classed as Muslims were ethnically cleansed from Srebrenica. One small fighting unit of Bosniacs who escaped the massacre town and made their way across the mountains and forests to Tuzla were arrested by UN troops.

Responsibility for the Srebrenica massacre has been attributed partly to Bosnian Serb forces commanded by General Ratko Mladic, and partly to a paramilitary unit from Serbia known as the Scorpions, officially part of the Serbian Interior Ministry until 1991. In 2004, in a ruling at the Hague, Jusge Theodor Meron ruled that :

By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general. They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity.

Ratko Mladić , accused of the crime, remains at large and is suspected of hiding in Serbia or in the so-called Republica Srpska within Bosnia and Herzegovina. From time to time when there were reports of Mladic being seen out in the open, NATO forces showed no hurry to pursue him. Bosnians driven from their homes by war and ethnic cleansing are concerned that Republica Srpska, born in war but sanctified by the Dayton Agreement, may be recognised by the European Union. A delegation delivered a letter to Downing Street about this on Saturday, as part of marking the massacre anniversary.

Lord Hurd, the Tory Foreign Secretary famous for saying that lifting the arms embargo on Bosnia would only create "a level killing field", resigned in 1995, only to re-emerge at NatWest Markets, together with Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, the former intelligence chair who had been Britain's woman at Dayton. The pair went to Belgrade for NatWest to help Slobodan Milosevic raise money by selling off Serb telecomms. Both of them did well on commission for this deal. Dame Pauline, who became richer still from the sale of Qinetiq defence shares, is now David Cameron's Security minister.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/13/pauline-neville-jones-conservatives

While British and French dealings with Milosevic may not have been open, Greek involvement in ex-Yugoslavia was more official, even popular thanks to traditional prejudices, and enabled Greek business interests to become a bigger player in the Balkans than might be sustainable at home. We might recall the Greek company Mytilaneous acquiring an option on the Trepka mining complex in Kosova, though this was not well-publicised here. Even less reported was the activity of Greek right-wing volunteers in the Bosnian war.

Stavros Vitalis, who took part in the war, is now bringing a libel action against journalist Takis Michas, the author Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milosevic's Serbia. The suit is reportedly being funded by the Greek ultra-nationalist organization known as the Panhellenic Macedonian Front, for which Vitalis serves as spokesman.

In the book, Michas points to a link between the policies of Andreas Papandreou's supposedly "Socialist" government and the activity of the right wing nationalists. He said that paramilitaries from the country had raised the Greek flag in Srebrenica following the fall of the city.

Vitalis has long admitted to being one of the many Greek volunteers taking part in the Bosnian war, but claims that he has been libeled because the journalist described the Greek volunteers as 'paramilitaries who took part in the slaughter of Srebrenica.'

Michas' book cites work by Professor Cees Wiebes of Amsterdam University, who had access to various intelligence and UN files in preparing a report on Srebrenica for the Dutch government, and was able to interview intelligence operatives from various countries.

The writer says that under Papandreou's PASOK government Greece was not content with simply providing humanitarian assistance or even encouraging its oil tycoons to break the UN-imposed fuel embargo on Serbia. It also provided military assistance to the Bosnian Serbs and to indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic. He writes:

‘There were lots of weapons transferred from Greece,’ Professor Wiebes told me in the course of a telephone interview, ‘to the port of Bar in Montenegro; from there they would find their way to the Bosnian Serb Army.’ The weapons consisted mostly of light arms and ammunition. Another aspect of Greek military assistance took the form of leaking NATO’s military secrets to the Bosnian Serbs. ‘NATO officials were very reluctant to share intelligence with either the Turks or the Greeks,’ said Professor Wiebes, ‘because they were afraid that intelligence would leak to either the Bosnians or the Bosnian Serbs. At some point NATO simply stopped sharing intelligence with the Greeks.’

"Equally interesting were the activities of a contingent of Greek paramilitaries who were fighting in Bosnia as part of the Drina Corps under indicted war criminal General Ratko Mladic. As it was reported at the time, this group of Greek paramilitaries were in close contact with the Greek intelligence agencies, providing the latter with info concerning military developments on the various fronts of the war. According to the Dutch report, the Greek paramilitaries took part in the Srebrenica massacre and the Greek flag was hoisted in the city after it had fallen to the Serbs. The report bases its findings on telephone intercepts of the Bosnian Serb Army provided by Bosnian intelligence. ‘One of the intercepted messages,’ Professor Wiebes told me, ‘was from General Mladic, who asked for the Greek flag to be hoisted in the city’ – presumably to honor the Greek lads."

The presence of Greek paramilitaries and the hoisting of the Greek flag in defeated Srebrenica were reported at the time by some Greek and foreign media. The Greek government, however, vehemently denied the allegations..

It was also reported that Milosevic had 250 (!) accounts in various Greek banks during the years 1992-6. The money was used to secretly finance Serbian military operations in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990′s. The revelations were contained in a document from the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal, asking the Greek authorities to assist in opening the accounts. Throughout the 1990′s the Greek banking authorities had repeatedly denied foreign press reports concerning the existence of Milosevic’s secret funds in Greece, while leading Greek judges had publicly refused to cooperate with Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the Tribunal.

Michas also says that Greece protected Serb intelligence operatives wanted by Belgian authoties in connection with the murder of Kosovan activists.

The libel trial is due to open on September 20.