How Kostunica Was Chosen (excepts)

Der Spiegel, 9 October 2000

Below are excerpts from an article that appeared in the German publication, Der Spiegel, on 9 October 2000. The article can be read in German at http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,97117,00.html . The excerpts were kindly translated for Emperor's Clothes by George Pumphrey, an American writer living in Germany. The question of how Mr. Kostunica was chosen to run for President of Yugoslavia is of heightened interest given his leading role in the campaign to extradite Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague (1), a campaign which culminated in the kidnapping of Mr. Milosevic on 28 June, a very special day for Serbian people. (2)

Helping the Revolution

Der Spiegel 41/2000 (9.10.2000)

December 17 last year, [German Minister of Foreign Affairs] Fischer and [US Secretary of State] Albright met the most well known Yugoslav opposition figures in a windowless room of the Interconti Hotel on Budapest St. in Berlin on the fringes of the G-8 meeting. Among the participants was Zoran Djindjic and Vuk Draskovic, both Milosevic opponents who had never been able to unite for any length of time. A participant of the meeting says now, ‘the opposition was given a thorough balling out.’

The Milosevic opponents who were really willing to cooperate agreed on Kostunica, until then largely unknown, as the presidential candidate. The discussion group withdrew any support for the unpredictable populist Draskovic. (From the text below)

For months the federal government of Germany has discretely and purposefully supported the Serbian opposition against Milosevic.

(...) Massive political and material support from Berlin—as well as other western capitals—contributed to the fact that opposition groups and parties could develop the strength to force Milosevic to give up and take the government themselves.

(...) December 17 last year, [German Minister of Foreign Affairs]Fischer and [US Secretary of State] Albright met the most well known Yugoslav opposition figures in a windowless room of the Interconti Hotel on Budapest St. in Berlin on the fringes of the G-8 meeting. Among the participants was Zoran Djindjic and Vuk Draskovic, both Milosevic opponents who had never been able to unite for any length of time. A participant of the meeting says now, ‘the opposition was given a thorough balling out.’

The Milosevic opponents who were really willing to cooperate agreed on Kostunica, until then largely unknown, as the presidential candidate.The discussion group withdrew any support for the unpredictable populist Draskovic.

(...) On election day the opposition was so well equipped and organized that it was in a better position to supervise the results than Milosevic. Election helpers monitored the counting of the votes in 180 of approximately 9,200 polling stations and sent the results over their own radio network to the head office of the opposition. (2)

Approximately $30 million, predominantly from America, were channeled into the country via an office in Budapest, in order to equip the opposition for the election campaign with computers, telephones and office materials. Hundreds of election helpers were trained abroad for these tasks. (3) (4)

On a large scale and ‘very very clandestinely’ according to [BalkanStability Pact director] Bodo Hombach, the oppositional media was also supported. Journals were given paper so that they could even be published. Smaller publications were even furnished a new printing press in the publishing houses. Radio and TV stations were furnished modern broadcasting equipment. (...)

Officially the aid to the media was carried by the Deutsche Welle, the Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen (Channel 2) and the Bayrische Rundfunk(Bavarian Broadcasting). The financial aid was furnished mostly from the Federal Press Office in Berlin. Approx. 4 million DM has been given by Germany since the end of last year for outfitting the oppositional and independent [sic!] media in Yugoslavia. The Deutsche Welle invested another 10 million DM alone in 1999 in order to further enhance their program in the local Yugoslav languages. (...) (5)

Further reading

1) The mass media has been virtually unanimous in telling us that Mr. Kostunica was uninvolved in kidnapping President Milosevic, indeed, that he was opposed. Not so, says the public record, inconveniently recalled in The treason of Vojislav Kostunica, at http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/treas.htm

2) Petar Makara says it was quite significant that the international community set its so-called Donors Conference for 28 June and that they and the DOS leaders kidnapped Slobodan Milosevic on that day, which has great significance for Serbian people. See, The Theft of the Serbs' Only Treasure at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/makara/disgust.htm

3) The monitoring of the Sept. 23 Yugoslav Presidential elections was a large-scale operation administered by US agencies operating out of Bulgaria. The goal was to create the impression that a grass-roots citizens' campaign was standing up to fraud by the Milosevic government and thus portray Kostunica as the champion of clean government. Three articles deal with this U.S. operation:

• Bulgaria Meddles in Yugoslav Vote. From the Bulgarian newspaper, Monitor. Translated by Blagovesta Doncheva, at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/doncheva/bulgmed.htm
• Election Day. In which Ms. Doncheva discussed the significance of the Monitor article, at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/doncheva/electionday.htm
• The Election Story They Pulled by Max Sinclair at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/sinclair/andnow.htm

4) Otpor was one of the groups most active in backing Kostunica's candidacy. In Otpor is an American Tragedy, Jared Israel argued that Otpor was a group financed and manipulated by Washington. This view was attacked in some quarters. (Mr. Israel's article can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/otpor.htm )

But recently the National Endowment for Democracy, a U.S. government organization set up to finance and control pro-U.S. groups in other countries, boasted that it had funded Otpor since the summer of 1999.

See George Szamuely's report, Eviscerating Democracy at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/szamuely/neda2.htm

5) Mr. Kostunica has a remarkable facility for recovering from outrageous admissions. During the September Presidential elections in Yugoslavia he admitted that some people involved in his campaign took who took lots of U.S. cash might be furthering U.S. Imperial goals; yet everyone continued to salute Kostunica's unblemished record.

See Kostunica: some backers ‘work for American Imperial goals’ at http://emperors-clothes.com/news/erlang.htm