irish complicity in war crimes YUgoslavia
Movement
„KOSOVSKI ZAVETNICI“
M ROSS'S letter ('Poisonous feuds led to bloodshed', Letters, July 29)
was a whiff of fresh air amid the bland xerox chorus that journalism
has become. An equally generous dose of fresh air, from John
Laughland, can be found at www.brusselsjournal.com.
Surprisingly to many people, Ireland has connections with the late
Yugoslavia. I refer readers to Church of Ireland gentleman scholar and
writer Hubert Butler (and his book 'Escape from the Anthill'), who
taught in Croatia in 1938 and returned there to document the massacre
of a million humans, mostly Orthodox Serbs, then Jews and Gypsies, by
fascist Catholic Croatia. The biggest death camp in Europe, after
Auschwitz, was in the Nazi puppet "Independent State of Croatia",
close to Zagreb.
All this was known to the Vatican. The forced conversion of a quarter
of a million Orthodox Christians by the Catholic statelet of Croatia
was never rescinded by the Holy See, although all communists were
excommunicated.
In the garb of a Catholic priest, the Himmler of Croatia, Andrija
Artukovic ("Father Anic"), arrived in Ireland after WWII. His escape
via Austria and Switzerland and concealment in Ireland was arranged by
the Order of Friars Minor, with the collusion of the Irish hierarchy.
It's doubtful if the government knew who or what "Father Anic" was. He
subsequently found refuge in California and was returned to communist
Yugoslavia in 1986, where he was tried for crimes he did not commit
and not tried for crimes he did commit.
The troubles there are not the fruit of Serb nationalism. "Greater
Serbia" was the WMD war cry of Austro-Hungary up to 1914 and from 1991
of the West and the so-called international community.
Ireland has not only permitted CIA "rendition flights", but in 1999
lent her airports to the Pentagon in violation of Ireland's
constitutionally mandated neutrality for logistic support against the
Christian Serbs and in support of creating new German puppet states
(Croatia and Slovenia), as well as Islamic states in Bosnia and
Kosovo.
Targets in the 78-day Blitzkrieg of 1999 included empty government
buildings across the street from the US Embassy in Belgrade, Danube
bridges, markets, civilian trains, Serb TV, the Chinese embassy,
schools and hospitals.
Serb mothers delivered babies under NATO/US bombing, with doctors
working by the light of torches.
Over a quarter of a million Serbs were expelled from lands which had
been theirs since the time of the Battle of the Boyne. Not "Connacht
or hell", but Serbia or hell.
Milosevic, by the way, barred the refugees from entering Serbia while
he held a May Day parade in Belgrade in 1995. Some nationalist. The
refugees were for the most part put up in Serb Bosnia.
Last, but not least, the goal of the US/NATO humanitarian bombing --
RAF and Luftwaffe flying wingtip to wingtip --was the creation, at the
sacrifice of Christians, of Islamic states in the heart of Europe.
That's why we got cheap oil.
JP Maher PH D
Professor Emeritus,
Citizen of Ireland and USA,
Veteran US Army Counter-Intelligence Corps,
Yugoslav Desk 430th MI BN,
Serb-Croat Linguist,
Northern Italy 1959-61
Chicago IL 60630
USA

european company Heineken arrange removal of Barkan Wines from West Bank Settlements

Press Release 31.8.2008

Gush Shalom congratulates the Barkan Wineries for moving away from the West Bank Barkan settlement

The Gush Shalom Movement congratulates the Barkan Wineries for moving away from the industrial zone of Barkan settlement  in the northern West Bank, to Kibbutz Hulda within the internationally-recognized territory of Israel. This is an important act, removing one of the major economic mainstays of the settlements.  We hope and expect that additional companies will follow the Barkan Wineries out of the Occupied Territories".

The Barkan Wineries had figured prominently on the Gush Shalom Settlement Boycott List since this list was first published some ten years ago. Gush Shalom activists had distributed leaflets, calling upon the public not to purchase the Barkan wines, at the entrances to supermarkets as well as at public gatherings such as the annual memorials to Yitchak Rabin held in Tel Aviv every November.

About four years ago the Barkan Wineries started a process of moving their operations over to Kibbutz Hulda, a process monitored by Gush Shalom. The soft  drinks company "Tempo" which holds ownership of the Barkan Wineries entered into a close partnership with the large Dutch beer company "Heineken" , became part of the worldwide Heineken Group and created a new company called "Tempo Drinks" of which the Dutch Heineken holds 40%  ownership.

As is well-known, the Dutch government is firmly opposed to Israeli settlement in the Occupied Territories and therefore was far from happy about a close partnership between a Dutch company and one based at a settlement. Moreover, continued links with a settlement company might have exposed the Heineken Company to considerable criticism in the Dutch public opinion and to a boycott campaign, in the Netherlands themselves as well as in other countries.

The Gush Shalom monitoring indicated that the Barkan Wineries were systematically reducing their activity at the Barkan settlement – moving the wine production to Kibbutz Hulda, within The Green Line (Israel's pre-'67 border)  and leaving only warehouses at Barkan. By the end of 2007, the warehouses were moved away, too, and the winery's lease on the Barkan premises terminated.

The company directors' report to their stockholders stated: "In the past, the location of the company's winery  at the Barkan area caused a negative image and made difficult the exporting of the Barkan brands. The company is acting to change this image, especially in light of moving production activity to Kibutz Hulda. (…) Due to severe limitation caused by the size of the Barkan location, as well as due to problems connected with operating a winery beyond the Green Line, the company decided to remove the winery from the Barkan Industrial Zone and relocate it to the Hulda site".

Nevertheless, while the Barkan Wineries have completely cut off any association with West Bank settlement ativity, the company - which owns many vineyards in various locations -  still owns a vineyard at  Avney Ethan on the occupied Golan Heights. Therefore, the Gush Shalom Boycott Committee decided, for the time being, to retain the company on its boycott list. "Since this is one vineyard out of many owned by this company, and since its general trend of dissociation from  settlement activity is very clear, we hope that this last connection would be presently severed. We could then wholeheartedly remove the company from our boycott list.

We have no problem with their retaining 'Barkan' as a brand name, as long as they have completely disconnected themselves from the Occupied Territories themselves – which has not yet taken place completely" says the Gush Shalom Movement.  

Contact: Adam Keller 03-5565804 or 0506-709603

Gush Shalom settlement products boycott list

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/campaigns/boycott_settlements_products/boycott_eng.rtf

Mary Dejevsky: The destructive prejudices of Europe's new members

Tuesday, 2 September 2008 The Independent

Whatever you think about the conflict in Georgia – and opinions about the rights and wrongs of it could hardly be more polarised – there is one aspect on which there could surely be wide agreement. This fast and furious little war, with far wider implications, was an ideal opportunity for the European Union to show its diplomatic mettle. Countries the world over have been crying out for the EU to take a more activist role as mediator, where better to start than with South Ossetia – potentially highly dangerous, but potentially soluble, too?

In fact, the EU's first moves were positive, as international responses go. The French presidency of the EU placed the onus on Nicolas Sarkozy and his foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, to react in the name of Europe. Exhibitionist and interventionist politicians both, they made an admirably prompt start, exchanging their sacrosanct August holidays for a few rounds of shuttle diplomacy. Within days there was a six-point agreement, validated by the signatures of both sides. It was a promising start: a single message, activist diplomacy, and a realistic awareness of what was possible on the ground.

At which point everything fell apart, and a head of steam built up once again behind the rhetoric – except that this time it was not just Russia and Georgia doing the shouting, but their respective cheerleaders, which meant pretty much everyone against the Russians. And the EU voice of reason, as exemplified by the mediators, M. Sarkozy and M. Kouchner, was progressively drowned out by a different and more diffuse argument: not the small question of how to solve the problem of South Ossetia, but the big question of what to do about Russia.

The reason the focus shifted was that the east and central Europeans – who became full members of the EU in 2004 – could see the war in Georgia only through the prism of their bitter experience. For them, it was just another example of Soviet-style Russian bullying and a red flag they could wave at "old" Europe to illustrate the justice of their fears.

Now I yield to no one in my delight at the fall of the Berlin Wall, the liberation of east and central Europe and the death of Soviet communism. These "new" European countries are fully-fledged nation states with a reclaimed sense of their own identity. Visit any one of them, and I defy you not to sense, and share, their sheer joy at being able to be themselves. Given history and geography, their preoccupation with the perceived threat from the east can also be understood. In seeking not only EU but also Nato membership, they were defending their vital interests as they saw them. Their single-mindedness paid off.

The trouble is that while the "old" Europeans left past enmities at the door when they joined the EU – that was the whole point of joining – too many of the "new" Europeans saw the EU, like Nato, as a means of pursuing old quarrels from a new position of strength. Recent recriminations in "new" Europe about who did what under communism demonstrate how much is still not resolved. For these countries, the prospect of a new Cold War is ever-present quite simply because, for them, the old Cold War is not yet at an end.

In 2000, Jacques Chirac's fears about EU enlargement drew reproaches of condescension and worse. The official US and British view was preferred; that these countries would form a "bridge" to Russia. Over time, though, M. Chirac looks more right than wrong. Popular European opposition to the Iraq war was less effective than it could have been because of divisions between "old" and "new" Europe that were well exploited by the US. As Iraq faded as an issue, EU efforts to reach a realistic and mutually beneficial relationship with Russia were repeatedly thwarted by a chorus of "new" Europeans warning of the worst.

US bank crisis smashes hole in European markets

Canary Wharf in London, where humbled Lehman Brothers staff packed up on Monday (Photo: wikipedia)

PHILIPPA RUNNER

Today @ 09:28 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The US banking crisis wiped billions off the value of European stock markets on Monday (15 September), with the European Central Bank and EU institutions trying to calm nerves as traders fear more bad news.

Among Europe's largest trading floors, the FTSE exchange in London and Euronext 100 in Paris lost around €81 billion each in value while the DAX trading floor in Frankfurt lost €27 billion.

Shares in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Greece, Poland, Romania, the Czech republic, Slovenia and Lithuania also fell by 3.5 percent or more, with only Sweden, Finland and Estonia emerging relatively unscathed.

Individual European companies took severe hits with the British HBOS banking group losing half its value, Barclays bank losing 10 percent and Sweden's SEB bank losing over 8 percent.

The reaction came in response to news that two of the biggest US investment banks, Lehman Brothers and Merril Lynch, are to vanish following huge losses in the current financial downturn.Lehman Brothers confirmed it was filing for bankruptcy at 06.31 Brussels time on Monday morning. The Bank of America said it would buy the ailing Merril Lynch just six minutes later. Within a few hours of the announcements, the 4,000 or so Lehman Brothers staff at the company's building in London's Canary Wharf began carrying out their personal possessions in cardboard boxes.

The European Central Bank (ECB) tried to reassure investors by lending €30 billion at a fixed rate, while the Bank of England lent £5 billion (€6 billion).European banks had asked for €90 billion in loans, however, with the ECB indicating more funds may be mobilised soon. "[The ECB] is ready to contribute to orderly conditions in the euro money market" its statement said. A European Commission spokesman said Brussels remains "confident of good co-ordination, as well as a solution, among central banks, regulators and the private sector."The situation saw finance ministers in France and Denmark reach out to ordinary bank customers, with Copenhagen saying it would guarantee personal savings of up to €50,000 in the event of a bank's collapse.

"All the monetary, banking and treasury authorities have been consulting for several days [as the US crisis unfolded]," French finance minister Christine Lagarde said on Europe 1 radio. "We worked again last night and the mechanisms are in place, the central banks are on alert, there is no panic."

Over the weekend, EU finance ministers meeting in France worked out a modest plan to help stave off a US-type scenario in Europe by agreeing to harmonise the way banks report their financial results by 2012.

But EU states were divided on how to tackle international banking supervision, with Finland, Spain and the Benelux countries keen for banks' host countries to play a greater role but with the UK, Germany and France opposed, Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat reports."Things are going to get worse before they get better," Marc Ostwald, a strategist at UK-based broker Monument Securities told The Daily Telegraph, echoing widespread sentiment in the private sector.