h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Source: http://www.shout.net/~bigred/bosnia

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BOSNIA: HOW THE STATE DEPARTMENT AND MEDIA
HAVE FAILED AND MISLED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
==========================================

Special thanks to my "Chicago connection" for sending a videotape
of a public access program, "Broadsides", which was taped on June
6, 1995. Host is Mr. Sherman Skolnick of the Citizens' Committee
to Clean Up the Courts; co-host is Mr. Robert E. Cleveland, an
attorney and associate of Mr. Skolnick. Guests are James Nagle,
an attorney with the law firm of Querry & Harrow, Andrew B.
Spiegel, also an attorney, and Mike Pavlovic, a Serbian-American.

Pardon spelling errors. If you know the correct spellings, please
let me know.

Contact info: Andrew B. Spiegel, PO Box 396, Wheaton, IL 60187

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Hi. Thanks for watching "Broadsides". I'm Sherman Skolnick,
sitting in for our moderator, Cliff Kelley.

We have an interesting program this evening. It's about "Bosnia:
How the State Department and the Media Have Failed the American
People". And we have with us three gentlemen that have just come
back; they've been on a goodwill tour to promote peace in the
Bosnia area. We have James Nagle, a trial attorney with Querry &
Harrow in Wheaton; an International Law expert, Andrew B.
Spiegel; and Mr. Spiegel's client, Mike Pavlovic. And, as a guest
panelist, we have a Chicago lawyer, Robert E. Cleveland. And
we're gonna be discussing some things here that you probably will
not see on the media because, apparently, the media doesn't want
you to know this, and apparently the State Department doesn't
want you to know it. And *were* the American people to know more
about this (what we're gonna discuss in this program), probably
there would be peace in that area.

Why don't you start, Mr. Spiegel, and tell us about this letter
which you have, that you feel would've made peace, if Clinton
would have done something about it.


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well, Sherman, the letter you refer to is a letter dated April
22nd, 1995. It's a letter that President Radovan Karadzic [CN --
Please pardon the levity, but this may help you picture who
Karadzic is: my nickname for him is "hairdo".], the president of
the Republic of Srpska, wrote (with our assistance) after we met
with him in Pale [PALL-ay], which is the capital of the Republic
of Srpska. (The Republic of Srpska is the Serbian section of
Bosnia.)


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I think, Mr. Pavlovic, we can start with the history. I think
you're prepared to tell us about the history of this area from
about 1914 to 1980. And then Mr. Nagle will take it from there.


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
I can say that, 1914, we had start First World War, from
Sarajevo. At that time was assassination of Prince Ferdinand(?)
from Austria. And that time, before world war finished, we had
monarchs in Yugoslavia; they create country as Yugoslavia. We
create country from Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia that time. And
what... From that time, we had monarch until 1941.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Was the arrangement of the boundary lines to promote peace over
that period, or not?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
*That* time is not. They had only, they created one country as,
called Yugoslavia.


ROBERT CLEVELAND:
That was created by the Versailles Treaty, is that not correct?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
That's true.

And then, after King Peter the First took over the country, that
was, at that time, monarchy of the, of Yugoslavia.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
During the Second World War, I understand that one of the
factions that lives in that area, the Croats, very much co-
operated with the Nazis. In fact, in some ways, they were more
brutal than the Nazis (if that's possible): the Ustashe(sp?). Can
you tell us a little bit about that?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
I can tell you one thing: that is, that time they create, in
Croatia... they work together, with Germany. They create a
special army they call Ustashe. And that time, Second World War,
they kill maybe 750,000 Serbs -- massacred -- in Serbia and
Croatia.


ROBERT CLEVELAND:
The Nazis had come in and took over the country; they conquered
it from the monarchy.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
In other words, the monarchy during that period brought a certain
amount of peace and tranquility to that region?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
That time was peace, all the time. But when start Second World
War, they start separating.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
What about in the postwar period? I think some of us know there
was a "strong man" by the name of Tito [TEE-toe]. Can you tell us
a little bit about that?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
That time, it was 1941 that Tito came in power. And during that
time of war was several leaders in the Yugoslavia. That time was,
like General [Unclear] who save all those 750 American pilots. (I
hope this pilot we have right now... I hope is alive and safe.
[O'Grady, probably, during June 1995])


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So was there, in the postwar period, tranquility and peace,
because you had (more or less) a dictator by the name of Tito?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
Yes. There was, at that time, a communist system dictating all
the life until 1980.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well some claim that Tito wasn't *quite* within the Soviet bloc.
In other words, he was in some instances disagreeing with the
Moscow government. But it was similar, in other words.


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
Yugoslavia was independent communist system.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And that brought us up to the period of 1980.


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
1980, yes. Up to 1980.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And I think Mr. Nagle is prepared to tell us a little bit about
from 1980 until now.


JAMES NAGLE:
>From 1980 to 1991, Yugoslavia was a complex country, and there
was a saying used to describe this: it was, "One country, with
two alphabets, three religions, four main languages, five
nationalities, six republics, and it was bordered by seven
countries."


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Did they get along over the centuries? Or have they been killing
each other more or less repeatedly?


JAMES NAGLE:
What happened in 1980, Tito passed away. In 1990-91, Germany re-
unified. At that time, Croatia attempted to secede from
Yugoslavia. Germany was the first country to recognize Croatia.
At this time, Yugoslavia did not want one of its republics to
secede. So they called in the Yugoslav National Army in an
attempt to suppress the secession. But at that time, the
international community put pressure on Yugoslavia to back off.

The situation that gives rise to the current conflict is that
there are many Serbs who have lived in Croatia for thousands of
years who do *not* want to live under Croatian rule.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Why is that?


JAMES NAGLE:
In World War II there were between 750,000 and one-and-a-half
million Serbs that were killed in concentration camps...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
By the Ustashe?


JAMES NAGLE:
Well, in other words, Germany was occupying this portion of the
country, but the Croatians were Nazi sympathizers. In other
words, after World War II, when Tito came into power he wanted to
unify Yugoslavia. So he swept this genocide "under the carpet",
so to speak. You can imagine how the Jewish people would feel if
the Holocaust was swept "under the carpet". But now, at this time
[1990-91], Croatia's saying, "We're going to be our own country,
govern ourselves." And obviously, the Serbian people living in
Croatia do not want that to happen.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Fifty years after the war, would the Croatians that live in
Chicago disagree with this? If I, for one, raise the issue that
even fifty years after the war there still is -- oh, I don't know
-- a "pro-German" "pro-Nazi" twist to Croatia, is that fair? Or
is that unfair?


JAMES NAGLE:
I can only speak from what we saw happen. Obviously, Croatia
seceded at that time and Germany was the first country to
recognize Croatia. It's my personal opinion that, obviously, a
deal was made *before* Croatia seceded.

But it's the same conflict that we have in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
There are many Serbs that have lived in Bosnia for thousands of
years that don't want to live under Muslim rule. When Bosnia also
attempted to secede from Yugoslavia... the same situation. The
president of Bosnia wants to start, basically, a fundamentally
Islamic state, and have Serbs who are Eastern Orthodox that don't
want to live under Islamic rule.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
In Chicago there are descendants of all these factions, right?
There's Moslems, there's Serbs, there's Croats -- all these
different factions live in the Chicago area. Am I correct?


JAMES NAGLE:
Yes.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Do they get along with one another? Or do they (unknown to the
rest of us) fight around?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
There's lots of good Croatian people, lots of good Moslem people,
lots of good Serbian people. But that time, the Second World War,
Ustashe was organization that was able to work together with
German Nazis.

I have a Croatian guy at work in my office, together with me.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So that makes it a little sensitive?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
It's not sensitive. We are very reasonable about talking about
what's going on; we don't want war. We want to stop killing.
That's very important. And I *know* that we can stop killing! And
*then*, we start negotiating.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So for that purpose, the three of you formed a goodwill mission
earlier this year [1995]. Tell us a little bit about it. What was
the idea behind it?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well Mike has been very concerned about the situation in
Yugoslavia, which was his homeland. He came up with the idea at
the beginning of this year that if the Serbs could live under a
system of government like we have in the United States, that
would help solve the problem. So he asked me to put together a
document that they could use to form this type of government. So
we put together a "declaration of independence agreement" that
was modelled on the Declaration of Independence of the United
States; we put together a constitution that was modelled on our
own Constitution, but taking out some of the defects in our
Constitution that has let the U.S. government get way out of
control -- at least in my opinion. And [Unclear] hand-carried
these documents to President Karadzic in Pale, which is the
capital of the Republic of Srpska. In January, he had invited us
to put together a delegation to consult with them in Pale about
their use of this declaration.

It's important for your audience to understand the legal
situation here. Yugoslavia was made up of six republics. It was a
violation of the Yugoslav Constitution for any republic to secede
from Yugoslavia. At the time, in 1991, Yugoslavia was a member of
the United Nations. *Three* of the six republics -- Slovenia,
Croatia, and Bosnia -- decided that they were going to secede, in
violation of the Yugoslav Constitution. In order to stop that,
the leader of Yugoslavia, President Milosovich(sp?), not unlike
our own President Lincoln, sent in the national army to stop them
from seceding from Yugoslavia.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Is that a quick and simplistic way of trying to understand a
complicated thing? That when one of the provinces, like the
southern states, tried to secede from the national government, it
caused the American Civil War? (At least that's what some people
think caused it.) Is that an uncomplicated way of trying to
understand what appears to be a civil war in Yugoslavia?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
That's only part of it. The second part of it is that the Serbs
living in Croatia and the Serbs living in Bosnia -- like the
Virginians living in West Virginia -- did not want it to secede
from Yugoslavia. So *they* seceded from the Republic of Croatia
and the Republic of Bosnia and set up their own independent
republic which was independent from *those* republics, but not
independent from Yugoslavia. So today, in fact, the constitutions
of Croina(sp?) (which is the Serb republic in Croatia) and the
Republic of Srpska (which is the Serb republic in Bosnia) -- it's
a violation of those constitutions for them to secede from
Yugoslavia!


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Bob, you've studied this thing. What's your take on what appears
to be a civil war over there?


ROBERT CLEVELAND:
Well it appears to be a matter of these people looking out for
their own problems and not being subject to outside interference.
For whatever reason that may be, certain European countries wish
to get in and interfere in the guise of "peacekeeping", when
there *is* no peace!


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Who's interfering? The Germans?


ROBERT CLEVELAND:
The Germans and the French... proclivity. And they're encouraging
us, the United States, to send armed forces over in the area.
They use the planes for the "fly over". They've done other things
there that...

Really, they're trying to influence decisions that could be done
internally, within the country.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So all these provinces are claiming a separate sovereignty and a
separate government? Do they all have separate governments,
separate taxing, separate everything?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well they do now. Slovenia is an independent country now. Croatia
is an independent country now. Bosnia is an independent country
now. Macedonia is an independent country. And the *new*
Yugoslavia, also called the "rump Yugoslavia" -- which is
comprised now of Serbian Montenegro -- is an independent country.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Mike, I think our viewers would like to know what do the people
over there subsist on? They're so busy killing each other; do
they manufacture anything to make money in the meantime? How do
they get all this money to buy arms, food and whatever they need?
Where does it come from?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
That's a good question. It's very hard to answer.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Do they manufacture anything over there?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
They don't manufacture nothing right now.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So on what do they subsist?


JAMES NAGLE:
Well what they subsist on... You have to understand: 90 percent
of the Republic of Srpska is agriculture. So they're self-
sustaining.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Tell our viewers what or how you organized by way of a peace
mission, a goodwill mission, or what. How did you go about it?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well, because we were trying to get them to form a democratic
form of government, I asked Jim Nagle to accompany me, who in
addition to being a trial lawyer is a constitutional law expert.
And I asked Mike Ginsberg(sp?), who is a senior buyer with United
Air Lines and is a businessman and familiar with free market
principles, to join the delegation so we could try and convince
President Karadzic that this is the type of government he should
have.

And ironically enough, when we sat down with him on Saturday,
April 22nd to discuss these issues, the first words out of his
mouth was that he wants to set up the very type of government
that we were trying to convince him to set up: a limited
government, with the private ownership of property, where
everybody has equal rights.

[Document shown on the screen.]

What we're looking at now is the April 22nd letter that we
convinced President Karadzic to fax to President Clinton, on
April 22nd. The most important portion of this letter is the last
paragraph, where Karadzic states: "What we are proposing,
therefore, is a permanent peace treaty to end the war completely,
and negotiations to resume at the same time under the auspices of
the international community."

President Karadzic was so impressed with what we had to tell him
that he called a special meeting of his cabinet for Sunday, April
23rd. This was 8 o'clock in the morning, on *their* Easter
Sunday. They took the time out to meet with us to discuss these
documents.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
That is the Eastern Orthodox Easter.


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Eastern Orthodox Easter.

And right from that meeting, they went to Eastern Orthodox
services, and we went to the front lines in Sarajevo.


ANDREW SPIEGEL [continues]:
What's happening now [June 1995] is, the U.N. wants to divide up
Bosnia, to separate Bosnia. To give the Serbs a portion of the
country, the Bosnians a portion of the country...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
On what legal basis? You're an expert in International Law. On
what basis is the U.N... I mean, did they pass something in the
General Assembly or the Security Council?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
They've passed numerous resolutions in the Security Council.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
In other words, dividing up somebody else's sovereignty. It would
be like the United Nations saying, "You know something? Come to
think of it, Indiana should merge with Illinois." I mean, what
right would the United Nations have to tell these people what
they should merge and un-merge?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well, they're trying to broker a peace. And the fact of the
matter now is that the Republic of Srpska controls 70 percent of
the territory of Bosnia. They control 70 percent not because they
invaded or they occupied it, but because the Serbs were farmers
and owned most of the land. The Muslims worked in the cities. So
they didn't *own* big tracts of land.

The Zepa area: the news media has told us that that was
"ethnically cleansed" -- that it was a *city* that was
"ethnically cleansed" by the Serb army. 40,000 Muslims, the news
media tell us...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And that's a lie? That's a lie they're telling us?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
That's a lie: that 40,000 Muslims were forced out of the city of
Zepa. We went to the front lines. We saw Zepa. And it's not a
city, it's not even what they call a town. It's a tiny village.

The Zepa *area*: there are 4 or 5 Muslim villages. The total
Muslim population there, in those villages, today, is
approximately 6 thousand. And they're still living there!


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Mike, from your standpoint, what has the American media and the
American State Department done in failing the American people?
(Some of us go even one step further and say they have *lied* to
the American people.) But what is it that has happened?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
The biggest problem that we have with media in America and
American government: that they involve over there and they don't
want to solve the problem. *I* believe myself that we can solve
the problem without killing. Every day: killing and killing and
killing. We can stop this. And because of *that* reason, America
should negotiate. Sit around table with President Karadzic and we
come to some solution. I know one thing: when we want to make
some deal, we negotiate. And negotiate and negotiate.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Does *our* President Clinton want peace over there? Or let me put
it as a cynical question: do they need a war there to divert from
domestic problems? (Of which we can spend the whole hour talking
about *that*: Whitewater and the whole list, all the way to the
bottom.)


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
I don't think that they need that.


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
President Karadzic faxed this peace offer to President Clinton
April 22nd. There was no response. *I* faxed it to President
Clinton again on May 25th. There was no response. Jim talked to
the man at the Bosnia desk of the State Department -- when was
that? May 25th?


JAMES NAGLE:
This was the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. The news stories
were just coming back that the Serbs in Bosnia were holding U.N.
hostages. And I asked him if he was aware of the letter from
President Karadzic proposing a permanent peace. And I don't want
to say I was stonewalled, but the impression that *I* was left
with was that this individual was more in touch with getting home
for a picnic than he was with...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So in other words, the State Department and the White House did
not treat you like "semi-diplomats", like a "Jimmy Carter type"
that'd make peace over there. In other words, your peace mission
was not encouraged?


JAMES NAGLE:
Obviously Jimmy Carter is a former president of the United
States. We're just private citizens, going over there on our own
time, on our own dime, without being paid, to try to offer a
solution that hasn't been brought forth before to bring peace to
the area.


ROBERT CLEVELAND:
Let me ask a question that puzzles me: you helped President
Karadzic write this letter of April 22nd wherein he tells
President Clinton he wants peace. Is that right?


JAMES NAGLE:
Right.


ROBERT CLEVELAND:
And it was sent on that same day to President Clinton.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Which was a bad day. I'll tell you why. But go ahead.


ROBERT CLEVELAND:
Well, aside from that. Now you must know that, in my opinion,
there isn't anything that goes on in this country that the CIA or
some intelligence organization in this country knows about. And
if you were over there and you met with the president of this
country and he wrote such a letter -- did they ever ask you when
you came back about anything? Like a de-briefing or what happened
over there?


JAMES NAGLE:
No, we weren't ever de-briefed. And obviously, we met with the
president [of Srpska], we met with his cabinet, we met with the
leaders of the military. We sat down. We ate with these people.
We talked with them. And, if nothing else, I would at least
expect *someone* from the State Department to at least sit down
with us, to pick our brains to find out what these people were
like.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
What's your explanation why there was no de-briefing? Nobody,
when you came back, asked you "what" or "when"?


JAMES NAGLE:
Not only did they not ask us...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Did you make some effort to contact these people?


JAMES NAGLE:
We made a substantial amount of effort. In fact...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
What? You wrote or faxed the State Department and the White
House?


JAMES NAGLE:
Yeah. In fact, we faxed our complete story of our delegation to
Dave Merrick(sp?) of ABC News. (He's the Nightline reporter that
covers Bosnia.) We faxed it to his home and to his office.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And what happened?


JAMES NAGLE:
No response.

We faxed it to CNN Live. No response.

We faxed it to WBBM: News Radio 78, Chicago. No response.

We faxed it to the Chicago Tribune, the reporter that wrote one
of the stories that was just in the paper about the Bosnian
crisis. No response.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
The only one that wrote about it was the suburban paper, the
Daily Herald. Right?


JAMES NAGLE:
The Daily Herald has covered it. The Palatine Countryside has
covered it. The Glen Ellyn News has covered it. The Quincy
Herald-Whig...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
What explanation have you formed, from trying to deal with them:
faxing them, talking with them? What is your opinion as to why
they gave you the cold shoulder?


JAMES NAGLE:
My opinion is this: people at the State Department say Karadzic
has lied so many times before that we can't trust him. And my
response to that is, before we commit 25 thousand, 50 thousand
eighteen to nineteen-year-old boys over there, I think we owe it
to them and their families to at least go over there and address
the letter where he's discussing peace.

In terms of Karadzic "lying" to these people: I think that the
U.S. and other countries are under the mistaken impression that
Karadzic is a dictator. I think the U.S. government has dealt
with him and expected that he has the final say in everything.
But what they don't, maybe, not realize is that Karadzic has a
parliament, he has a vice-president, and that he does not have
the final say.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
What about this theory that, at a time of recession in America,
there may be armaments business and the Balkans is as good of a
place to get rid of armaments as any: they're busy killing each
other. From a cynical standpoint, they use up a lot of guns,
bullets, bombs. And so American big business does not really
*want* peace there. Is that too cynical?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well since there's an arms embargo currently [June 1995] in
effect, technically there's no arms supplied by the United
States.

But just to go back to other people we've had contact with: I
faxed to [U.N.] Secretary-General Boutros Ghali(sp?) the letter
we sent to President Clinton -- the letter from President
Karadzic -- and the memo we sent to Dave Merrick of ABC
Nightline. That was done May 30th. No phone call, no fax, no even
acknowledgement [in response].

On June 1st there was a news report that Clinton was going to
introduce U.S. ground troops into Bosnia. At that point in time,
at least the thought was to either re-deploy the U.S. positions
or to help them evacuate. [Senator] Jesse Helms... Some of you
may recall that Jesse Helms said, "No U.S. troops into Bosnia on
my watch!" So I called up Jesse Helms' office, I talked to an
assistant, a Steve Beacon(?), told *him* about the letter of
April 22nd. He gave us the same type of response, that "President
Karadzic is a liar," that "We've dealt with him before and we
can't believe a word he says." I said, "Look. You may say that,
but that's the person you're gonna have to deal with to resolve
the situation." So I sent him a letter, and I pointed out to him
that to *not* deal with President Karadzic and to start a war
over there means that you're going to have to kill 1.9 million
Serbs, living in the Republic of Srpska, who are going to *die*
rather than surrender their homeland. And I don't think that the
United States is prepared to do that.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Let me point this out: We're taping this show on June 6th, '95,
and it won't go on the air for several weeks. By *that* time,
Heaven knows what happens. I mean we may, like Viet Nam, have
100,000 of our troops there... In other words, somebody may
create an incident that's good for the weapons business. I know
that's a cynical viewpoint, but the weapons business must be
considered. Somebody is doing a lot of business over there in the
Balkans. I mean, somebody recognizes the Balkans is some kind of
a boiling cauldron where, some way or another, some people like
to kill other people and this is a good place to ship a lot of
weapons. Is Germany shipping weapons there? I mean, who all is
shipping weapons there?


ROBERT CLEVELAND:
One thing that really puzzles me in this: President Clinton
ordered *our* planes to go in there and bomb certain parts of the
country, killing Serbians. *Killing* them! Now what did they do
in retaliation? They took hostages and didn't harm a one of them,
followed (further along) by returning some of the hostages -- in
fact, I think they let *all* of the peacekeeping force leave the
country without being harmed. Why would they want to do that?


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Maybe some kind of bargaining chip.

Nagle's got an explanation. Tell us.


JAMES NAGLE:
What people don't realize... We were there right before this
happened. And on May 1st (that was 3 days, 4 days after we left),
the Croatian army invaded the Serbian section of Croatia, killing
three- to four-thousand civilians. And what may have been in
response to that was to bomb the Serbs for allegedly violating a
12-mile zone of not having weapons. And obviously, the Serbs are
seeing that, thinking to themselves, "The U.N. is taking sides,
NATO is taking sides, with the Bosnians against us. Here we just
had 3,000 civilians killed, why don't they do something to
prevent that?"

How does the news media cover that? The news media reports that
the Serbs in Croina fired a couple rockets into Zagreb; ten
people were killed. Ten civilians were killed. They tell us
*nothing* about the 4,000 Serb civilians that were killed on
*one* *day*! On May 1st! And the Croatian army took over and
occupied 50 percent of the Republic of Croina.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So the news is slanted. Can you give any explanation *why* it is?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
I can give you the explanation that the Serbs, that many people
over there give. They believe that Arab oil money is behind the
Bosnian Muslim government, and that the Vatican is behind the
Croatian government. Now whether that's true or not, we don't
know.


ROBERT CLEVELAND:
I get the impression that there's definitely been an agenda or
game plan with the media in this country to wrongfully villify
the Serbs. Is that correct?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
That's correct. In fact, the analogy that I made was, the news
media is treating this like it is a professional wrestling match:
the Serbs are the "bad guys"; the Bosnians -- and the Croatians,
of all people! -- are the "good guys". And their reporting of it
is [similar] with a professional wrestling match.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
By the way, I made a cryptic remark before. The Serbian leader
there sent a message on April 22nd. He didn't know it, but it was
the *worst* possible time to send Clinton a message. Because it
was on *that* *day* (which I believe was a Saturday) that Clinton
and his wife were being questioned, in the White House, under
oath, by the Whitewater independent prosecutor. So I don't think
Clinton or the first lady were interested in peace in Serbia.
They had this other problem.


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well they could have responded on May 26th. They could have
responded on May 30th. They could have responded on June 1st.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
What is the explanation that our president is changing his policy
like, ten times a minute? Why is this?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
I can say one thing. I'm not politician. My wife and I, we pray
every night: to stop killings. That President Clinton should
immediately stop killings, and negotiate around the table. He
should call President Karadzic to sit around the table and
negotiate and negotiate. What we pray every night.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
That's commendable. But you know, some Americans... I read the
papers every day and I thought I'm well-informed. But on this
Bosnia thing, it is so loaded with complications, I think most
Americans do not understand this.

The other thing is, some Americans raise the question: What *is*
the so-called "American interest" in the area? It appears to be a
long-smouldering, one-thousand year civil war. What is the
American interest to get involved? What are we doing there?


JAMES NAGLE:
I don't think there *is* any American interest. Obviously the
Europeans have an interest, if there's a war in their back yard.
*Maybe* there's an American interest from the standpoint that the
United States is fearful that this is a tinderbox and if it
spreads to Macedonia it might go down into Turkey and into
Greece; and at this point, we're looking at a much larger war.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
What is our jurisdiction, what is our legality, of sticking *our*
nose into their civil war?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
If you want to look at it from a purely legalistic level, it was
a violation of the United Nation's charter for Germany and the
other European countries, and the United States, to interfere in
the domestic affairs of Yugoslavia. It was a domestic affair in
which certain constituent republics were illegally seceding from
that country. It would be as if, when the South seceded from the
United States -- what happened?


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well some claim that the British fomented that. [CN -- See, for
example, *The Empire of "The City"* by E.C. Knuth]


SHERMAN SKOLNICK [continues]:
By the way, some conspiracy theorists have published stories in
smaller magazines that Scowcroft, Eagleburger, and Kissinger (all
connected with Kissinger Associates; they're believed by some to
be an evil cabal), that they suddenly toppled the economic system
in Yugoslavia and that led to all this fighting. Do any of you
believe that there's some sort of validity to that kind of
conspiracy theory, whatever it is? In other words, that something
touched off this situation? What about that, Mike?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
It's very hard to answer that question. The death of Tito, maybe.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
But what about this theory that some American meddler, like
Kissinger, that he meddled in some way with their banking system,
toppled their banking system? Is that possible, that the toppling
of their banking system and then their currency going to pot led
to this situation where everybody over there wants to kill each
other?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
That's only speculation. I think it's much simpler than that. I
think Germany, obviously when it reunified in 1991, wanted to
have more influence in southern Europe. The easiest way to do
this would be to have their own country down there -- which was
Croatia. What happened, though, is people just didn't think
(including the State Department in the United States; At that
time, James Baker was Secretary of State.) as to how the Serbs
would react -- the Serbs *living* in Croatia, the Serbs *living*
in Bosnia -- once these countries effected to go through...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
The way you describe it, 50 years after the Second World War
there's a sinister undertone. It means that the Nazis are still
there. It's as if, "Hey. Croatia was with us in the Second World
War, with the Ustashe. They're still with us."


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Sherman, when Croatia became a so-called "independent country" it
adopted the same names and the same national symbols that it used
when it was a fascist republic years ago.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Really!? So on the screen here we should have shown what? The
Nazi flag of 50 years ago?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well they definitely use the Iron Cross.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well the Iron Cross... The Iron Guard was, in some published
accounts, more brutal. There's one published account that -- it
was terrible. I don't know. I suppose it's true: where they
plucked out people's eyeballs and put 'em in big pails and
carried 'em through the streets. What about that?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Before I get to that, there's one point that should be made here.
There are credible accounts that President Ysabegovich(sp?), the
current leader of Bosnia, was a member of the Hanta(sp?) Brigade
in World War II (which was a fascist youth troop).


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So they haven't all died. They're still around.


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
He's the leader of Bosnia now!


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Really!?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Yeah.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So in other words...


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
One of the so-called "good guys".


JAMES NAGLE:
And I think the most ironic part of that story was that, this
year [1995], with the 50th celebration of victory in Europe...
And Ysabegovich was invited back to the ceremony.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Let me get this straight. So in their heart of hearts, in their
inner sanctum, they might buy onto some Hitler image, some Iron
Cross image, some Swastika? Is that credible?


JAMES NAGLE:
I don't know if that's credible. I think that this is the group
that he belonged in. It was the same situation with Kurt
Waldheim...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well if they were 20 years old at that time, they're not all
dead! They're still walking around. And in their heart of hearts
and their inner sanctum, they *might* conceive this Swastika and
the Iron Cross and the Ustashe. Some people believe that the
Ustashe idea exists today. Other people, in dark tones, say,
"Ustashe? There's a place in south Chicago where they still hang
out!" Is that all believable, Mike?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
They have an organization...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
They do!?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
I repeat: there's good people, there's bad people -- everywhere.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
But in the Chicago area there's, some people believe, Ustashe;
sort of remainders of the Hitler types?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
In Croatia, too. They have special troops that they call
"Ustashe".


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I tell you why I raise that question. Because in the '80s (some
people have forgotten), in the vicinity of 98th and Commercial
(which is south Chicago), there was bombings between Croatian and
certain factions. And there was quite a bit of commotion at the
time. And there was this undertone that this is the leftover from
Ustashe. Most people have forgotten about it.

So in other words, there's still sort of a Hitler theme, 50 years
after the war?


JAMES NAGLE:
I think that, for the most part, people all over the world are
the same: they want to raise their kids with a roof over their
head, and be able to walk to school without being killed. That
was the general tone of the people we met when we were over in
the Republic of Srpska. And I think that, for the most part,
they're no different from many Americans here. They want peace.
They've lived there for thousands of years. I still think we're
getting carried away when we start...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
But you came back here... You were on a peace mission, the three
of you. And at your own time and expense you went over there,
promoting "declaration of independence" and a constitution that
might have brought peace there. Why do all these talk shows, that
have got all this time -- why is it that none of them put you on
to discuss this at length!? We're apparently the first ones that
are putting you on to explain what has happened here! How do you
explain that?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
You're the number one talk show in Chicago, Sherman. [laughter]


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Oh, I don't know about that. They've got all these other
commercial windbags on.


ROBERT CLEVELAND:
Let's get back to something you were talking about. Because on
national television the last several days, there have been any
number of senators and congressmen asking, "Why? What is our
interest in this area?"


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Munitions! Armaments!


ROBERT CLEVELAND:
That hasn't been said. Is that unfair to say that?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well it's not in our interest so far, because the United States
(at least on the record) has not been supplying arms to anyone in
that conflict.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Would the three of you go back, on your own nickel, and try
again? You're not so discouraged at this point that you wouldn't
go a second time?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
I'd be more than happy to go back. And again, keeping in mind
that this is being taped on June 6th [1995], the word that we
have from Pale is that President Karadzic is right now willing to
release *all* the remaining U.N. soldiers, providing they sit
down with him and discuss the peace treaty that he wants to
negotiate and that they don't bomb him. Is that too much to ask?


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
What is the slant in the media about these hostages?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
The media seems more concerned about the taking of the U.N.
soldiers, who are not being harmed by the Serbs, than they are by
the four thousand Serb civilians who were massacred by the
Croatian army! Why weren't NATO air strikes called on the
Croatian positions?


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So what are you saying? You're saying there's a symbolism: they
want the world to pay attention to what's happening. They says,
"Hey! We're not gonna harm these people but we're grabbing these
people to make a point that *our* viewpoint is not being *heard*
for some reason!" So now everybody says, "Why did you grab these
people? They've got the 'U.N. thing?'" Is that it?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
And the news media cannot afford -- going back to my wrestling
analogy -- they can't afford to portray the "bad guys" as the
"good guys"; they have to *stay* the "bad guys" to keep this
story...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So your view, as would-be peacemakers, is that there are bad guys
and good guys in that area, right?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
There are bad guys. There are good guys. And there are great
guys.


JAMES NAGLE:
To answer the question that you keep asking: "*Why* won't the
United States sit down and talk with Karadzic?" Their position at
this point [June 1995] is, they don't recognize him. Before Nixon
went to China, we didn't recognize China. Did that mean that
there were not a billion Chinese living over there?


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
This is not clear to a lot of Americans. *Who* does our State
Department, our government, recognize?


JAMES NAGLE:
They have been dealing with, at this point, Milosovich, who is
the leader of Yugoslavia, the former head of the Yugoslav
Communist Party. And *he* is the one that the U.S. recognizes.
And that's where our "declaration of independence" comes in...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Which one of them is accused of being a war criminal?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well, ironically enough, Milosovich was accused as a war criminal
*until* *they* *started* *negotiating* *with* *him*! They started
negotiating with him and suddenly he's not a war criminal, it's
just Karadzic and Miladich(sp?).


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So in other words, the one *you* went to negotiate with to try to
make a peace understanding, constitution and all that, is not
recognized. And he's not recognized, why? Because the State
Department doesn't take him seriously?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well, because for one thing, as far as I'm concerned, from an
international law basis, they have not declared themselves as an
independent country. If they are of the constituent republic of
Yugoslavia, then the person to talk to is Milosovich.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Under the Logan Act, no American citizen, private citizen, is
supposed to negotiate foreign policy. So you went over there,
negotiating foreign policy.


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Not only were we *not* negotiating foreign policy, but I think
it's clear even to the casual observer of the situation that
there *is* very little foreign policy of the United States.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
[laughs] There's no foreign policy, therefore they couldn't
violate the Logan Act because there isn't any foreign policy one
way or the other! Right? Is that fair?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
*I* think so.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So where do you think the thing is going? I mean, what is the
hopeful sign? We've seen all the bloodshed, plenty of it, on the
television: bodies, buildings bombed. What is the hopeful sign?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well, the hopeful sign is that the Republic of Srpska and
Republic of Croina will adopt the "declaration of independence",
adopt the "constitution", and create a democratic form of
constitutional government where people can live freely regardless
of race, religion or creed. And if they do that then, hopefully,
it will bring peace to that troubled area of the world.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well the point of the matter is that that area (you mentioned
about democracy and all that): Have they ever *had* democracy
there?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
They have a democratic form of government in the Republic of
Srpska now.

And before we run out of time, let me tell you that we have tapes
of the Croatian genocide in Bukovar(sp?) and the Croatian
genocide perpetrated against the Serbs from 1941 to 1990. And the
post office box has been flashed from time to time on the screen.
If people are interested in obtaining those tapes, they should
write there for further information. [Andrew B. Spiegel, PO Box
396, Wheaton, IL 60187]


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
You're on an educational mission, all three of you.


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Right.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And all three of you would go back, to try again, even though
you've been rebuffed by the mainstream media...


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
I think that another point that should be made is that the
Bosnians have hired a public relations firm to handle their side
of the story. And they're just putting out all this information
that is pro-Bosnian -- which is *one* of the reasons why the news
media is so slanted.


ROBERT CLEVELAND:
Let me ask you this: When you went over there and were doing
these things *pro bono*, so to speak, for [their] government and
for [their] president, weren't you on their local TV and in their
local paper, their media? Didn't they play that up over there?


JAMES NAGLE:
We were on their local TV; we were on their local radio -- both
in the Republic of Srpska *and* in Yugoslavia.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So you were played up as heroes there. And you should have been
played up as peacemakers in the United States.


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Correct. When we left, I thought that we would get all kinds of
news media coverage.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
So if the three of you wanted to smuggle into the country and
sell them some exotic weapons, you might have been better off;
you would have been accepted by the United States if you were
really three arms merchants.


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
The exotic piece of equipment that we tried to bring into the
Republic of Srpska was a popcorn maker, which...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
That they wouldn't allow into the country!?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
...which the Hungarian border guards said was "a violation of
U.N. sanctions."


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
By what stretch of the imagination were they gonna turn it into a
weapon?


ANDREW SPIEGEL:
Well, when we tried to convince them that this was humanitarian
relief, and not something that was covered by U.N. sanctions, we
were talking about Bill Clinton. And it turns out, we learned
later, we should have been talking about "Ben Franklin" [$100
bills] and how many of them we'd have to give them to let us
bring it through.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Let's ask our Serbian-American representative here, what do you
think? Is there peace possible in the area? Or are they going to
go on killing each other for another thousand years?


MIKE PAVLOVIC:
If we want to solve the problem, we can solve the problem.
Twenty-four hours. I know. I am sure. But America should *see*
*all* *sides*. They recognize only two sides and show on
television two sides. On the Serbian side, they never show
anything good -- only bad. Now, they must sit around the table
and work together, and negotiate. And I *know* that we can solve
the problem. We *stop* killing and negotiate. If we must
negotiate for ten years, we should negotiate for ten years. And
then, make economical war to be able... see how can economically
go forward. And then we build again, together.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I want to thank our three illustrious peacemakers. I hope you go
back there and make peace. I appreciate you came on our program.
And I thank everybody for watching "Broadsides". And call up your
local newsfakers and ask them why these three have not been
played up as heroes in their own country, the United States.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

That is crap .. I will say it again. C R A P.. that is serbian propaganda.. why they don't tell it like it is? cause everyone will see that serbs were "bad guys" and noone will like them.. well they have proven that anyway.. at Kosovo.. anyway.. i just wanted to say that all that interwiev was unbiased cause there were no Croats or Bosnians to give other side of view..
Nothing more to say ...