BALKAN
GANGSTERS
Belgrade
has been hit by a veritable wave of political violence: first
the attempted assassination of Vuk Draskovic, the novelist
who is also the leader of the biggest opposition party, the
Serbian Renewal Movement; once a member of Milosevic's government,
he is the most popular and charismatic of the opposition leaders.
Then there was the killing of Arkan, the notorious leader
of Serbian paramilitary outfits blamed for most of the prewar
killing on the ground in Kosovo, gunned down after dinner
at one of Belgrade's finer hotels. And now this. It is like
something out of a grade "B" movie, Balkan Gangsters,
in which hit men and gun molls frolic through the Weimaresque
backdrop of Milosevic's Belgrade, strafing the streets with
gunfire to the strains of "Cabaret." But who are these Balkan
gangsters?
THE
USUAL SUSPECTS
While
the Serbian police have captured Bulatovic's assassin, the
New York Times reports that "they say that the organizers
of the deed remain at large." Who be they? There are several
schools of thought on that question, best summarized by Radio
B-52's very interesting account, which quotes a Serbian
government official as saying that
"the
murder could easily be the work of the Kosovo Liberation.
Other speculation went further afield, with the Serbian Radical
Party accusing US, British and French intelligence services
of masterminding the murder. The US State Department said
today that the murder of Bulatovic was new proof that the
Belgrade regime was maintaining power by spreading fear, crime
and violence. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker told
media that only a democratic Serbia could relieve its citizens
of the evil which controlled their destiny."
TO
FAR AFIELD?
But
why is it too far afield to suggest that Western intelligence
agencies may have been behind the cold-blooded murder of their
declared enemies? It was Bill Clinton, after all, who
declared in May of last year that the US would launch covert
operations to overthrow Milosevic; since the end of phase
one of the Kosovo war, the US has been openly supporting the
Alliance for Change, a quarrelsome coalition of tiny parties
with more officials than actual members, and continuously
declaring that Milosevic and his allies must go – voluntarily
if possible, violently if need be. While the Administration
denied reports that the President's Top Secret executive order
would authorize KLA operations inside Yugoslavia, no one expected
them to admit it. Certainly this theory, favored by the Yugoslav
government, is more credible than the Orwellian explanation
put out by the US State Department, which expects the world
to believe that Milosevic killed a loyal henchman – one
who was, moreover, a key figure at the focal point of the
developing crisis in Montenegro.
THE
MURDER OF ARKAN
The
US line on the Bulatovic assassination was meant to echo an
undercurrent in the reporting of the Arkan murder, in which
it was widely remarked that perhaps Milosevic was trying to
get rid of someone who knew too much. But that, too, was not
believable. For how did Milosevic benefit from Arkan's death?
The idea that he was trying to silence a witness complicit
in war crimes is laughable: in order to really achieve this,
Milosevic would have to execute each and every surviving Serbian
paramilitary, in what would amount to a highly improbable
act of self-immolation.
COLLABORATION
OR ANARCHY
On
the other hand, Arkan's death fed into the atmosphere of uncertainty
and disintegration inside Yugoslavia, and we all know who
benefits from that development. It was all too predictable
that some elements of the opposition would use these killings
to carry out their role as NATO's fifth column, and presenting
themselves as the only alternative to anarchy. The headline
on the Reuters story said it all: "Serbia
in Chaos, Milosevic Opponents Say." The most immediate
beneficiaries of the assassination, the government of President
Djukanovic of Montenegro, solemnly echoed this assessment:
"Serbia has become a country of chaos, dictatorship and despair,''
said Miodrag Vukovic, a senior official of Djukanovic's Democratic
Party of Socialists. In this atmosphere, the decision to hold
a referendum on Montenegro's membership in the Yugoslav federation
could be implemented as promised by Djukanovic – without
the threat of Bulatovic leading a rump loyalist Montenegro
in the north.
MORE
EVIDENCE
It
is always good to ask "who benefits?" But we must also have
another kind evidence, if not straight from the crime scene
then from the history of the suspects. There is plenty in
the known history of Western intelligence agencies to verify
their ruthlessness, their willingness to commit murder, mayhem,
and worse. The CIA's assassination attempts aimed at Fidel
Castro are common knowledge, perhaps because of the comic
inability of our Covert Keystone Kops to pull off the job
– in spite of trying virtually everything, from slow
poison to an exploding cigar.
THE
TOMLINSON REVELATIONS
In
the case of the former Yugoslavia, however, the evidence we
have is a bit more solid: the testimony of a former employee
of M16, the British intelligence service, who says that the
Brits were involved early on, in 1992, in a scheme to assassinate
Slobodan Milosevic. Richard
Tomlinson caused a sensation last year when he posted
the names of M16 agents on his website, blowing their
cover and bringing the wrath of the British and US governments
down on his head. Tomlinson's book on his experiences in M16
was suppressed by the British government, and censorship was
imposed on British newspapers and other media in order to
prevent them from publishing the information, or giving out
the address of Tomlinson's site. Naturally this edict had
the exact opposite of the intended effect: in the age of the
Internet, the list was soon posted practically everywhere
you looked in cyberspace, in spite of fruitless attempts by
the US and British authorities to close Tomlinson down. Among
his more interesting revelations was of M16's plan to assassinate
Slobodan Milosevic, a project described by Tomlinson in a
letter to his lawyer made publicly available. Addressed
"to whom it may concern," it demonstrates how the Brits –
always the most gung-ho in Kosovo war – would stop at
nothing in their effort to overthrow the duly elected government
of a sovereign nation. Tomlinson writes:
"From
March 1992 until September 1993 I worked in the East European
controllerate of MI6 under the staff designation of UKA/7.
My role was to carry out natural cover operations (undercover
as a businessman or journalist etc) in eastern Europe. The
Balkan war was in its early stages at this time, and so my
responsibilities were increasingly directed to this arena.
"My
work thus involved frequent contact with the officer responsible
for developing and targeting operations in the Balkans. At
the time, this was Nicholas Fishwick, who worked under the
staff designation of P4/OPS. We would frequently meet in his
office on the 11th floor of Century House to discuss proposed
and ongoing operations that I was involved in and, indeed,
many other operations which I was not myself involved in.
"During
one such meeting in the summer of 1992 Nick Fishwick casually
mentioned that he was working on a proposal to assassinate
President Milosevic of Serbia. I laughed, and dismissed his
claim as an idle boast as I (naively) thought that MI6 would
never contemplate such an operation. Fishwick insisted that
it was true, and appeared somewhat offended that I did not
believe him. However, I still presumed that he was just pulling
my leg, and thought nothing more of the incident
"A
few days later, I called in again to Fishwick's office. After
a few moments of conversation, he triumphantly pulled out
a document from a file on his desk, tossed it over to me,
and suggested I read it. To my astonishment, it was indeed
a proposal to assassinate President Milosevic of Serbia. The
minute was approximately 2 pages long, and had a yellow minute
card attached to it which signified that it was an accountable
document rather than a draft proposal. It was entitled "The
need to assassinate President Milosevic of Serbia". . . .
"The
first page of the document was a political "justification"
to assassinate President Milosevic. Fishwick's justification
was basically that there was evidence that Milosevic was providing
arms and support to President Radovan Karadzic in the breakaway
republic of Bosnian Serbia. The remainder of the document
proposed three methods to assassinate Milosevic. The first
method was to train and equip a Serbian paramilitary opposition
group to assassinate Milosevic in Serbia. Fishwick argued
that this method would have the advantage of deniability,
but the disadvantage that control of the operation would be
low and the chances of success unpredictable. The second method
was to use the Increment (a small cell of the SAS and SBS
which is especially selected and trained to carry out operations
exclusively for MI5/MI6) to infiltrate Serbia and attack Milosevic
either with a bomb or sniper ambush. Fishwick argued that
this would plan would be the most reliable, but would be undeniable
if it went wrong. Fishwick's third proposal was to kill Milosevic
in a staged car crash, possibly during one of his visits to
the ICFY (International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia)
in Geneva, Switzerland. Fishwick even provided a suggestion
about how this could be done, such as by disorientating Milosevic's
chauffeur using a blinding strobe light as the cavalcade passed
through one of Geneva's motorway tunnels."
THE
FUGITIVE
Tomlinson
goes on to say that "there was no doubt in my mind when I
read Fishwick's proposal that he was entirely serious about
pursuing his plan. Fishwick was an ambitious and serious officer,
who would not frivolise his career by making such a proposal
in jest or merely to impress me. However, I heard no more
about the progress of this proposal, and did not expect to,
as I was not on its distribution list." He published the names
on the distribution list, however, and presumably further
inquiries should be directed at them. As to Tomlinson's veracity,
one can only surmise that his motives have nothing to do either
with financial gain or personal ambition: since 1995, when
he broke with M16 and started making his extraordinary revelations,
he has been banned from coming to Britain, the US, Australia,
and France, and, last we heard, was on
the run from spooks, having just been driven out of Switzerland.
AN
EVIL CONTROLLING AUTHORITY
Tomlinson's
testimony is powerful evidence that the "evil" controlling
Serbia's destiny is not centered in Belgrade, as State Department
spokesman Philip Reeker would have it, or even in Kosovo,
as the Yugoslav authorities suspect, but in London, Washington,
and Berlin. The idea is to create chaos, to destabilize the
country to the point where even the cowardly collaborators
of the US-controlled "Alliance for Change" will start to look
good – and seize the opportunity to break off yet another
slice of Yugoslavia.
WHAT
A COINCIDENCE!
In
this context, even the attempted assassination of Vuk Draskovich
begs to be seen from a new perspective: for he is the only
opposition leader who has failed to cooperate in any significant
way with the NATO-crats, insisting on retaining his independence
and unequivocally calling for an end to the Allied assault
on his country. If the attempt on his life had succeeded,
Milosevic would surely have been blamed – and a prominent
obstacle to the US goal of consolidating the opposition under
its control would also have been achieved. Of course, that's
just a coincidence – right?
REMEMBER
MUSSOLINI
The
terrorist campaign now being waged against Yugoslav government
officials is aimed, first and foremost, at Milosevic. Remember
that hours
after NATO bombed his mansion, the Serbian leader was
at the negotiating table and the war began to wind down. If
assassins can off Arkan and Bulatovic in the heart of Belgrade,
then isn't Milosevic next? The Bulatovic assassination is
clearly a warning to Milosevic: back down or face the consequences.
Once again, the NATO-crats seem to be underestimating both
the Serbians and their leader. Whatever else he may be, Milosevic
is a survivor: the death of Communism, the dissolution
of Yugoslavia, the loss of Kosovo, the humiliation and decimation
of defeat – after all that, old Slobo is still standing.
If the NATO-crats think he will turn himself in to the International
Tribunal at the Hague, and deliver not only himself but his
country up to the Allied conquerors without a fight, perhaps
they are engaging in wishful thinking. Whatever course the
Serbian leader may take, it would be an error to mistake Milosevic
for the Serbian people. In the unlikely event that Slobo runs
up the white flag of surrender, his own people will doubtless
string him up in its place.
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