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February 18, 2004
ERP KiM Newsletter
18-02-04
Serbian Patriarch
calls on Solana, Holkeri to protect the Church interests in Kosovo
"We sincerely hope that you will
protect the interests of our Church by your official reaction in timely
fashion and undertake concrete measures to make it known that the
establishment of a society based on law in Kosovo and Metohija cannot be
implemented by the provisional authorities of the Province to anyone's
detriment," emphasized Patriarch Pavle in his letter.
Patriarch Pavle requests from
Solana and Holkeri to prevent destruction of the Serbian Orthodox
Catherdral in Pristina (archive photo: His Holiness Patriarch Pavle with
the UNMIK chief Harri Holkeri on Christmas, Jan 7, 2004)
CONTENTS:
 Serbian Patriarch, calls on Solana, Holkeri to
protect Church interests
The Patriarch sent a letter
to Solana and Holkeri following attempts by the Kosovo ministry for
education, science and technology to obtain a decision from the Pristina
municipal assembly confiscating the right of the Serbian Orthodox Church
to use a parcel of land on which the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of
Christ the Savior, still under construction, is located, as well as the
lot foreseen for the construction of the St. Sava Cultural Center.
Bishop Artemije meets with U.S. General
Beck
"Please do not ever withdraw
your security checkpoints without first talking to the Serbs," asked
Bishop Artemije, explaining that such decisions cannot be considered
justified if the Serbs feel fearful and insecurity upon KFOR's
withdrawal. The U.S. general explained that
during the course of his mandate he regularly paid attention to the
interests of the local population in Kosovo, and that he will recommend
that his replacement do the same.
Holkeri claims that reports on Holy
Archangels' case are "unfounded"
The Diocese of Raska and Prizren
is deeply disappointed by the lack of understanding on the part of Mr.
Holkeri, who has already demonstrated at a recent session of the UN
Security Council in New York by his presentation of a highly biased
report on the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, that he yet another in a
series of international bureaucrats presenting inaccurate picture of the
real situation in the Province to protect his career and possibly his
very life.
Red Cross brings food to monks in Holy Archangels
Monastery
The Orthodox
monastery near Prizren, whose remains have weathered the passage of time
for more than 650 years, and its monks have been in the focus of public
attention in the last several weeks due to the decision of German KFOR
to cease providing them with assistance as a result of a protest by the
monks after they were attacked by a group of Albanians in Djakovica.
OSCE official says U.S. falsified grounds for 1999
bombing of Serbia
Pellnas said he was certain
the US had assisted secessionist guerrillas in the province since 1998,
and saw them as a future ally in a ground assault on Belgrade. He said
that former US president Bill Clinton had imposed his policy on the
international community for dealing with Belgrade and Kosovo.
CHRONICLES: George Soros postmodern villain -
NGO's behold your God
Mr. Soros'
peculiar moral values, political views, and ideological preferences
would be immaterial without the money that he can spend promoting and
imposing them. The bulk of that money-currently estimated at not less
than seven billion dollars-was earned in the minus-sum game of currency
and stock speculation, contributing nothing to the creation of wealth
and making millions of ordinary people poorer in the process.
More News Available on our:
Kosovo Daily News
list (KDN)
KDN
Archive
This newsletter is available on our ERP
KIM Web-site:
http://www.kosovo.net/erpkiminfo.html
Serbian
Patriarch calls on Solana, Holkeri to protect Church interests
The Patriarch sent a letter to Solana
and Holkeri following attempts by the Kosovo ministry for education,
science and technology to obtain a decision from the Pristina municipal
assembly confiscating the right of the Serbian Orthodox Church to use a
parcel of land on which the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the
Savior, still under construction, is located, as well as the lot
foreseen for the construction of the St. Sava Cultural Center.
TOP
Beta News Agency, Belgrade
February 17, 2004
 BELGRADE
- Serbian Patriarch Pavle called on the European Union's high
commissioner for foreign policy and security Javier Solana and UNMIK
chief Harri Holkeri to protect the rights of the Serbian Orthodox
Church (SOC) in Kosovo and Metohija.
The Patriarch sent a letter to Solana
and Holkeri following attempts by the Kosovo ministry for education,
science and technology to obtain a decision from the Pristina
municipal assembly confiscating the right of the Serbian Orthodox
Church to use a parcel of land on which the Serbian Orthodox
Cathedral of Christ the Savior, still under construction, is
located, as well as the lot foreseen for the construction of the St.
Sava Cultural Center.
In his letter the Serbian Patriarch
states that "it is not the intent of the SOC to provoke the Albanian
community nor the University of Pristina but to serve, through the
presence of an active Orthodox church and the center, as a source
and as evidence of multinational relations toward the creation of a
present-day multiethnic and multiconfessional Kosovo and Metohija".
"We sincerely hope that you will
protect the interests of our Church by your official reaction in
timely fashion and undertake concrete measures to make it known that
the establishment of a society based on law in Kosovo and Metohija
cannot be implemented by the provisional authorities of the Province
to anyone's detriment," emphasized Patriarch Pavle in his letter.
The ministry of education in the
Kosovo government has submitted several proposals to Pristina
municipal authorities that the existing but incomplete Church of
Christ the Savior be removed.
The Kosovo ministry of education
earlier claimed that the church was built on property belonging to
the University of Pristina and that it was built illegally without a
construction permit.
The justification for the ministry's
proposal is that the Church supposedly does not have valid ownership
titles for the land.
Bishop Artemije of Raska and Prizren,
however, said that the SOC has all necessary documentation
confirming that the church was built legally.
UNMIK spokesperson Sunil Narula told
Beta last year that UNMIK will not allow the destruction of the
Orthodox Church of Christ the Savior in Pristina.
The medieval Church of Christ the
Savior in Pristina, reminded Bishop Artemije, was destroyed by the
Turks in 14th century along with 11 Orthodox churches, who built the
present Pirinez mosque on its foundations.
TOP
Bishop Artemije meets with U.S. general Beck
"Please do not ever withdraw
your security checkpoints without first talking to the Serbs," asked
Bishop Artemije, explaining that such decisions cannot be considered
justified if the Serbs feel fearful and insecurity upon KFOR's
withdrawal. The U.S. general explained that
during the course of his mandate he regularly paid attention to the
interests of the local population in Kosovo, and that he will recommend
that his replacement do the same.
TOP
ERP KIM
Info Service
Gracanica, February 17, 2004
(photo: Bishop Artemije with the U.S. General in
Gracanica Monastery - photo from one of the earlier meetings)
 Bishop Artemije received the commander of KFOR
Multinational Brigade East, U.S. general Jerry G. Beck, Jr., in the
Bishop's residence in Gracanica on Tuesday in order to exchange views on
the current situation in Kosovo. The general also wanted to say farewell
to the Bishop as he will be leaving within a week.
When asked by his guest for his
impressions from his recent visit to the United States, Bishop Artemije
spoke of meetings with a number of congressmen, senators and other U.S.
officials to whom he presented a realistic picture of the situation in
Kosovo and Metohija. The Bishop said that most of them responded with a
high degree of understanding and desire to hear him out. A few U.S.
citizens themselves testified regarding the difficult position of the
Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija.
"We have the responsibility of
providing our observations in written form to a few people who were orally
informed regarding details of the actual situation. The news that has been
arriving in the U.S. thus far," emphasized Bishop Artemije, "has been
lacking in reports of the true situation of the Serb people and as a
result I had to go there and provide testimony. After five years, there
are still attacks and murders of Serbs, and destruction and torching of
churches. The Serb people are denied the possibility of employment,
education and adequate health care in the cities, such as Pristina,
Gnjilane, Urosevac and Prizren, where there is not a single Serb
physician, nor do the Serbs have anyone to turn to or on whom they can
count on for help. During the past five years more than 1,300 murders of
Serbs have taken place and not one criminal has been found or brought to
justice, like the destroyers of over 110 Serbian churches and monasteries.
All of these perpetrators are still free and feel emboldened to continue
their crimes against the Serbian people. The Serbs, on the other hand, are
discouraged from continuing their stay in Kosovo and are leaving. More
recent incidents include the massacre of children in Gorazdevac, the
murder of the Stolic family in Obilic, and attacks on the churches in
Gornja Brnjica and near Stimlje, among others," Bishop Artemije told the
U.S. general.
General Beck explained that at
least in his sector he was well-received by both the Kosovo Serbs and the
Kosovo Albanians, and that no major crimes occurred. The general pointed
out the reduced crime rate in Kosovo and that clashes are occurring with
increasing frequency among the Albanians themselves. General Beck also saw
the growth and strengthening of the Kosovo Police Service as another
encouraging sign.
Bishop Artemije pointed out that he could not
limit his observations to only the U.S. sector where the situation is
somewhat better but had to look at Kosovo as a whole. Nevertheless, the
Bishop also pointed out incidents that occurred in the last six months in
the U.S. sector, too: attacks near Vitina and Klokot and other areas in
the U.S. KFOR zone of responsibility. The Bishop also expressed skepticism
regarding the murders occurring among the Albanians themselves, claiming
they were clashes between mafia leaders, such as also occur in other parts
of the world. These attacks had no connection with ethnically based
attacks on Serbs with the goal of frightening them and chasing them out of
Kosovo and Metohija. "The Serb people have no confidence in the KPS after
all of the crimes that have occurred and remain unresolved," concluded
Bishop Artemije.
The U.S. general agreed with
Bishop Artemije that although time heals many things, there is no time
left for the Serbs in Kosovo since their numbers are dwindling with each
passing day. At the end of the meeting, general Beck asked the Bishop to
advise him of what he should tell his replacement, general Allenson (sp?),
who will soon be assuming the duties of commander of MNB
East.
"Please
do not ever withdraw your security checkpoints without first talking to
the Serbs," asked Bishop Artemije, explaining that such decisions cannot
be considered justified if the Serbs feel fearful and insecurity upon
KFOR's withdrawal. "Unfortunately, this was not done in the village of
Miroc near Vucitrn, and as a result all the Serbs in the village left. The
officials of the countries which made this decision were certainly led
solely by the official reports they got from UNMIK and KFOR
representatives and other international institutions present in Kosovo but
this is not the real situation of the Kosovo Serbs," said the Bishop. "We
are especially shocked by the behavior of members of German KFOR, which
unilaterally decided to discontinue providing escorts for the monks of
Holy Archangels Monastery near Prizren. They have gone so far in punishing
the monks that they issued orders for soldiers to throw away leftover food
rather than share it with the monk guarding the Bishop's residence in
Prizren, although they know that he cannot go and buy food in Prizren
himself without an escort," explained the Bishop.
The U.S. general explained that
during the course of his mandate he regularly paid attention to the
interests of the local population in Kosovo, and that he will recommend
that his replacement do the same.
TOP
Holkeri
claims that reports regarding the problem of the Holy Archangels
Monastery are "exaggerated and unfounded"
The Diocese of Raska and Prizren
is deeply disappointed by the lack of understanding on the part of Mr.
Holkeri, who has already demonstrated at a recent session of the UN
Security Council in New York by his presentation of a highly biased
report on the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, that he yet another in a
series of international bureaucrats presenting inaccurate picture of the
real situation in the Province to protect his career and possibly his
very life.
TOP
ERP KIM Info Service
Gracanica, February 16, 2004
(Holkeri:
yet another in a series of
international bureaucrats presenting inaccurate picture of the real
situation in the Province to protect his career and possibly his very
life)
 The
UNMIK communiqué following the meeting of Harri Holkeri and Dr. Nebojsa
Covic in Pristina says, among other things, that the UNMIK chief told
Mr. Covic that "UNMIK and KFOR are determined to ensure freedom of
movement and maintain safety and security, and that the concerns of the
monks being brought up by the media are exaggerated and unfounded".
Sadly, from this statement of
the UNMIK chief, like from the recent response of the KFOR commander
German general Holger Kammerhof to Dr. Nebojsa Covic, it is apparent
that the leaders of the international presence in Kosovo and Metohija
not only fail to understand the problems with which the Serbian Orthodox
Church is confronted but are attempting to consciously deceive the
public by making inaccurate claims, concealing the truth and
side-stepping responsibility.
The Diocese notes that German
KFOR first attempted to cover up the truth regarding the attack by a
group of extremist Albanians on monks from Holy Archangels Monastery and
German KFOR vehicles in Djakovica on January 21; after the details of
the incident were published anyway they immediately launched a series of
repressive measures against the monks and substituted an escort regime
which in reality does not permit normal visits to the faithful nor
carrying out the most basic religious and humanitarian services in the
Prizren area.
Not one official representative
of UNMIK or the KFOR command has found it expedient to visit the monks
in Holy Archangels Monastery or establish contact with the Diocese of
Raska and Prizren regarding this problem; apparently they have accepted
the version of events of German lieutenant colonel Kai Brinkmann who is
guided by personal principles of vanity and intolerance toward Serbs
instead of acting in accordance with a military code of ethics. Instead
of assuming an objective position and hearing out the other side, the
KFOR commander apparently lent his support to his local commander and
compatriot in Prizren, who will be remembered by the Serbs for his
infamous order to throw leftover food from the German troops into the
garbage to be eaten by stray dogs rather than sharing it with a Serbian
priest in the Bishop's residence, who is prevented from purchasing his
own food in the city by the lack of freedom of movement.
Claims that KFOR will allegedly work with UNMIK
police in providing escorts for the monks of Holy Archangels are just
another in a series of deceptions because during the last several days
the monks have been told in no uncertain terms that KFOR will not
provide escorts and that the ultimate goal of that decision is, in fact,
to turn over escorts to the Kosovo Police Service. The monks have
repeatedly explained that they have no confidence in a police service
that has not managed to resolve a single crime against Serbs. While
arrest campaigns of Albanians suspected of murdering and torturing their
compatriots continue, Albanian crimes against Serbs remain a taboo topic
out of fear of reactions by the Albanian public and possible repressive
measures against international personnel.
The Diocese of Raska and
Prizren is deeply disappointed by the lack of understanding on the part
of Mr. Holkeri, who has already demonstrated at a recent session of the
UN Security Council in New York by his presentation of a highly biased
report on the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, that he yet another in a
series of international bureaucrats presenting inaccurate picture of the
real situation in the Province to protect his career and possibly his
very life.
The Diocese expresses its
sincere hope that the global community will learn from the example of
the inhumane treatment of these six monks who live in an isolated
monastery surrounded by barbed wire the true intentions and methods of
the leadership of the peacekeeping mission whose primary and apparently
only goal has become to justify its own failures and find a successful
exit strategy by turning over all authority to purely Albanian
institutions to the detriment of the Serb and other non-Albanian
population.
TOP
Red Cross
brings food to monks in Holy Archangels Monastery
The Orthodox monastery near Prizren,
whose remains have weathered the passage of time for more than 650
years, and its monks have been in the focus of public attention in the
last several weeks due to the decision of German KFOR to cease providing
them with assistance as a result of a protest by the monks after they
were attacked by a group of Albanians in Djakovica.
TOP
Beta News Agency, Belgrade
February 17, 2004
PRIZREN - In the last several days the
Serbian Red Cross has brought a larger quantity of food and other
basic essentials to the monks of Holy Archangels Monastery,
hieromonk Benedict informed Beta today.
The most recent delivery to the monks in the isolated monastery is
one of a series provided by the Serbian Red Cross to the monks of
the monastery, said the on duty hieromonk of the Bishop's residence
in Prizren.
The Orthodox monastery near Prizren,
whose remains have weathered the passage of time for more than 650
years, and its monks have been in the focus of public attention in
the last several weeks due to the decision of German KFOR to cease
providing them with assistance as a result of a protest by the monks
after they were attacked by a group of Albanians in Djakovica.
At the beginning of this month the
Diocese of Raska and Prizren informed the public that monks in
Prizren and the nearby Holy Archangels Monastery were being denied
food, electricity and escorts by German KFOR, who told them that in
the future they should refer to representatives of the Kosovo Police
Service for security escorts.
Bishop Artemije of Raska and Prizren
strongly condemned the behavior of the German KFOR contingent and
emphasized that it is leading to the direct expulsion of the
Orthodox Church from Kosovo and Metohija, leaving the remaining
Serbs without religious services, the possibility of confession and
last rites, noted the Diocese.
Just in German KFOR's area of
responsibility since the end of the armed conflict and the arrival
of KFOR in June 1999 30 Orthodox churches and monasteries have been
destroyed. Father Chariton Lukic, a monk of Holy Archangels
Monastery, was kidnapped in the center of Prizren and later found
headless, reminded the monks.
TOP
OSCE
official says U.S. falsified grounds for 1999 bombing of Serbia
Pellnas said he was certain the US had assisted secessionist guerrillas in
the province since 1998, and saw them as a future ally in a ground
assault on Belgrade. He said that former US president Bill Clinton had
imposed his policy on the international community for dealing with
Belgrade and Kosovo.
TOP
SRNA News Agency, Bijeljina
February 17, 2004
SOFIA -- Tuesday - The United States justified the 1999 bombing of
Yugoslavia with false claims of genocide being committed in Kosovo, an
OSCE official and participant in peace talks during the war in the
province said in comments published today.
Bo Pellnas, a member of the OSCE mission in Belgrade, said there were
some 1,200 OSCE observers in Kosovo who could confirm genocide did not
take place, reports Sofia daily Monitor.
Pellnas said he was certain the US had assisted secessionist guerrillas
in the province since 1998, and saw them as a future ally in a ground
assault on Belgrade. He said that former US president Bill Clinton had
imposed his policy on the international community for dealing with
Belgrade and Kosovo.
TOP
CHRONICLES: George Soros, Postmodern Villain - NGO's, Behold your God
Mr. Soros' peculiar moral values,
political views, and ideological preferences would be immaterial without
the money that he can spend promoting and imposing them. The bulk of
that money-currently estimated at not less than seven billion
dollars-was earned in the minus-sum game of currency and stock
speculation, contributing nothing to the creation of wealth and making
millions of ordinary people poorer in the process.
TOP
CHRONICLES, Monday, February 16, 2004
by Serge Trifkovic
NGO's, Behold Your God.
George Soros was born in Budapest
in 1930 but, today, spends most of his time in New York City. Not much
is known about his early years. He is the only eminent "holocaust
survivor" who has been accused of collaboration with the Nazis. In 1947,
he managed to sneak through the Iron Curtain, and, the official story
goes, "he landed penniless in London, but by hard work and sheer genius,
he rose to become one of the planet's most successful investors and
richest men."
Mr. Soros' peculiar moral values, political views, and ideological
preferences would be immaterial without the money that he can spend
promoting and imposing them. The bulk of that money-currently estimated
at not less than seven billion dollars-was earned in the minus-sum game
of currency and stock speculation, contributing nothing to the creation
of wealth and making millions of ordinary people poorer in the process.
His offshore Quantum Fund-legally headquartered in Curacao, beyond
U.S.-government supervision-specializes in speculative investments to
take advantage of deliberately induced political and economic weaknesses
of different countries and regions. In an interview with the Swiss
weekly L'hebdo (May 1993), Soros outlined his strategy: "I speculate on
discrepancy between the reality and the public image of this reality,
until a correctional mechanism occurs, which approaches these two."
His profits are staggering. On September 16, 1992, he famously made a
billion dollars in one day by betting against the Bank of England and
the pound sterling. In July 1997, he contributed to the Southeast Asian
financial crisis by shorting the Thai bath. In early 2000, he supposedly
suffered losses on tech stocks, but some analysts now suggest that the
burn of the NASDAQ was controlled and that Soros helped to start the
fire. By last November, he was betting the U.S. dollar would plummet. As
the London Independent reported (November 28, 2003), his activities were
contributing to a growing belief on Wall Street that the dollar would
slide even further.
There is nothing new in Soros' approach to making money or in the
ability of such a person to make an impact, invariably detrimental, on
his host society's morals and culture. What is new with Mr. Soros-in
addition to the implausible claim that a private speculator could get as
far as he has unaided by any established financial interests-is his
systematic, concerted effort to use a large part of his fortune to
promote his peculiar social and political views. He does so through a
global network of "nongovernmental organizations" named after himself
and active primarily in Eastern Europe but also in Africa, Latin
America, and the United States. At age 75, money is not his object but
his tool. He has used it to develop a well-coordinated global operation
centered on the Open Society Institute (OSI) in New York, which funds a
network of subsidiaries in over 50 countries.
Even before the Open Society network came into being, Soros' blueprint
for postcommunist "shock therapy" reform had been put to the test. First
came Poland, where the first postcommunist prime minister, Tadeusz
Mazowiecki, was close to Soros and subsequently remained associated with
his local subsidiary, the Stefan Batory Foundation. In his book
Underwriting Democracy, Soros says that he personally prepared the broad
outlines of Poland's comprehensive economic reform:
I joined forces with Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard University, who
was advocating a similar program, and sponsored his work in Poland
through the Stefan Batory Foundation . . . The IMF approved and the
program went into effect on Jan. 1, 1990. It was very tough on the
population, but people were willing to take a lot of pain in order to
see real change.
Poland was only a start, however; far more important to his goals was
his association in 1991-92 with Russia's "reformist" leaders Anatoly
Chubais and Yegor Gaidar and their Harvard guru Sachs. Within a year of
their "shock therapy," hyperinflation had wiped out Russians' savings
and the long-suffering middle class with it. Pensioners were literally
starving. The parallel "privatization" of Russia's huge
resources-timber, oil, gas, chemicals, media-created the robber
oligarchs and contributed to Russia's effective deindustrialization. The
country was lowered into neocolonial dependence: a supplier of energy
and raw materials and an importer of high technology and manufactured
goods. Nevertheless, in early 1993, Soros felt that Russia had not gone
far enough: "The social safety net would also provide a powerful
incentive to shut down loss-making enterprises. Factories could be idled
and the raw materials and energy that go into production could be sold
for more than the output."
George Soros is out to deconstruct nations and states as Europe has
known them for centuries, with Russia always the main prize. In an
interview with the Moscow daily Komersant (August 8, 1997), he declared
that "a strong central government in Russia cannot be democratic." "The
rescue of a free Russian economy depends on the attraction of Western
investments," he added, and, to that end, "Russia's general public must
accept the ideology of an open society."
By that time, a total of 29 "Soros Foundations" were active in every
postcommunist country. In 1994, his foundations spent a total of $300
million; by 1998, that figure had risen to $574 million. These are
enormous sums in an impoverished and vulnerable Eastern Europe.
Those foundations say that they are "dedicated to building and
maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an open society."
What this means in practice is clear from their many fruits. Regarding
"women's health" programs in Central and Southeastern Europe, for
instance, one will look in vain for breast-cancer detection or prenatal
or postnatal care. Soros' main goal is clear and frankly stated: "to
improve the quality of abortion services." Accordingly, his Public
Health Program has supported the introduction of medical abortion in
Albania, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia and the introduction of manual
vacuum aspiration (MVA) abortion in Macedonia, Moldova, and Russia. In
addition,
OSI has also worked with international and local NGOs to respond to the
growing strength of the antiabortion movement. Through its influence on
ministries of health and hospital administrators, that movement has made
strides in reducing access to abortion . . . OSI will continue to
support training in quality of care and efforts to keep abortion legal,
safe, and accessible for all women in the region.
Why is Soros so interested in promoting more abortions in Eastern
Europe? Overpopulation cannot be the reason: The region is experiencing
a colossal demographic collapse and has some of the lowest fertility
rates in the world. Unavailability of abortion cannot be the answer
either: According to a recent U.N. report, five European countries had
more abortions than live births in 2000-the Russian Federation,
Bulgaria, Belarus, Rumania, and Ukraine. Overall, the report said,
abortion rates are "substantially higher in central and eastern Europe
and the CIS countries than in western Europe and North America." The
only logical answer is that Soros wants as few Russians and others born
into this world as possible.
Soros' public-health programs also "support initiatives focusing on the
specific health needs of several marginalized communities" and promote
"harm reduction": "Its primary goal is to empower drug users to protect
their health. Needle/syringe exchange and substitution therapies (e.g.,
methadone) are at the center of harm reduction health interventions."
His "harm reducers" have expanded their work with special initiatives on
"sex workers" and prisoners and launched a policy initiative that
attempts to ensure that "repressive drug policies do not impede the
expansion of harm reduction efforts."
Over the past five years, the Soros network has given a successful start
to previously nonexistent "gay" activism in almost all of its areas of
operation. The campaign for "LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender]
Rights" is directed from Budapest, where Miriam Molnar's 1999 policy
paper published by OSI defined the "problem" as discrimination and the
low level of acceptance, visibility, and political representation of
LGBT's. It was necessary either "to convince the society to accept LGBT
people as equal and let the society make pressure [sic] to the
politicians (through media) to change laws" or "to convince the
politicians that LGBT people are equal and that they need help in
convincing the rest of the society." The overall goals were to generate
discussion about LGBT identity within the community, to make them
visible and "create a positive image," and to establish regular forums
of discussion with other groups in the region. Specific tasks included
the development of websites in English with subsites in local languages,
the establishment of task forces that would react to all "homophobic"
media outbursts in one "Pink Book," and the organization of two-week
summer schools for teachers that would "provide training about
discrimination of [sic] LGBT people, disabled people, overweight people
etc."
In November 1999, a pilot project began at the Center for Publishing
Development (OSI Budapest) on homosexual books in Bulgaria, the Czech
Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and Slovakia. That same year, Nash Mir (Our
World) Gay and Lesbian Center announced that it had been registered as
an NGO in the Ukraine. From that moment, the group was free to pursue
its stated goals, including "fight against sexual-orientation
discrimination" and "homophobic sentiments in societal consciousness"
and "assistance to upbringing of gays' and lesbians' self-consciousness
as equal and valuable members of society." The group expressed gratitude
for its legalization to the "Ukrainian branch of Soros Foundation
Network (Renaissance Foundation) which lobbied our question in the
Ministry of Justice and render [sic] legal assistance to us."
Gay.ru is a Soros-funded Moscow NGO that has developed "into an
established and recognized Russian gay and lesbian center" and "the
clearing house for lesbian and gay groups scattered across the country":
We keep contacts with all existing gay, lesbian, and AIDS organizations
in Russia and maintain on-going correspondence and reporting to
international gay and lesbian organizations . . . We have collected the
biggest off-line library that features over a hundred Russian titles and
some fifty English classic books on gay studies. It was greatly enhanced
by the Core Collection on Gay and Lesbian Issues awarded to us by the
Soros Foundation in 2000.
In Bucharest, Monika Barcsy of the local Soros branch bewailed the fact
that, in Rumania, "the homosexual identity is stigmatized" and is one of
the main bases for treating individuals as "the others" in an attitude
of intolerance. Their families became the victims of prejudice "just
because the society is unable to accept the legitimacy of same-sex
relations as a 'normal' manifestation." The author singles out the
Rumanian Orthodox Church as a prime culprit: "The problem is that many
Christian Orthodox students' organizations and other student groups
support the church." In 1994, she points out, more than 100 theology
students began a series of demonstrations in front of Rumania's
parliament against homosexual propaganda in the media and collected
signatures demanding legislation to criminalize same-sex relations.
Barcsy concludes by reiterating the standard Soros line:
Gay men and lesbians need rights that guarantee them the expression of
their identity in the public sphere . . . [T]he legal status of gays and
lesbians, their ability to move and appear in public, to speak out and
act together should be considered a very good test of the civic
openness. [It] can't be resolved with the new laws made under the
pressure of different human rights organizations. Romania needs . . . to
ameliorate the negative responses towards the homosexuals from the
majority population . . . There are "problems" with the society as a
whole, and the society's mentality can't be changed overnight.
A key pillar of Soros' activities is his dictum that "no-one has a
monopoly on the truth" and that "civic education" should replace the old
"authoritarian" model. Civic education does not have to be "just a
dialogue" between a teacher and students, he says; in addition, "we have
projects like health education, where people use new ways to discuss
issues like hygiene, diet, and sex." While "this does not sound like
traditional civic education," he continues, it is "a new way for
teachers to relate to their pupils," just as citizens must relate in new
ways to governments and elected officials in societies trying to become
more open and democratic.
Accordingly, throughout postcommunist Eastern Europe, the Soros
Foundation's primary stated goal is to "democratize the education
system" by "instituting curriculum reforms." What this means in practice
has been demonstrated over the past three years by Serbia's education
minister Gaso Knezevic, a friend and confidante of Soros. Since the
first day of his tenure, Mr. Knezevic has insisted that schools must be
transformed from "authoritarian" institutions into "exercise grounds"
for the "unhindered expression of students' personalities in the process
of equal-footed interaction with the teaching staff, thus overcoming the
obsolete concept of authority and discipline rooted in the oppressive
legacy of patriarchal past." Mr. Knezevic started his reform with
primary schools, with a pilot program of "educational workshops" for
children ages 7 to 12. The accompanying manual, financed by the Open
Society, rejects the quaint notion that the purpose of education is the
"acquisition of knowledge" and insists that the teacher has to become
the class "designer" and that his relationship with students should be
based on "partnership."
In Russia, Soros' associates exercise great control over the selection
of textbooks for Russian schools. According to a press release by the
Gaidar Youth Library, financial support from the Open Society Institute
provided it with computers, videocassettes, and CD's, all of which made
"special training" for the children of "underprivileged people" possible
in the library:
We organized a special seminar "Children's rights nowadays" for all
specialists who took part in our project . . . The working group of the
program "The Circle of Friends" is grateful to the "Open Society"
Institute (Soros Fund, Budapest) for the opportunity to realize this
project in a full volume.
In 1999, the Moscow Open Society office started a major five-year
project, "The Development of Education in Russia." Its goal is to
"reeducate rural teachers at a cost of US $100-150 million"
(Nezavisimaya Gazeta, September 19, 1998). It is also applying a program
called "Tolerance" in Russian secondary schools, but its masterminds may
have made a linguistic blunder. According to a Russian critic of the
program,
The Russian translation of this Latin word-tyerpimost-has the dual
meaning of prostitution and could be confused with doma tyerpimosti,
houses of ill fame . . . How come this financial manipulator tries to
teach us about tolerance, us who grew up with Leo Tolstoy, one of the
first philosophers of non-violence? . . . But Mr. Soros is also a
horribly distorted mirror, which should make us see our own, present
image, without blinking or turning away. There are times when evil can
become an eye-opener, when its derisive laughter can waken us up and
help regaining our strength. We should not miss this opportunity.
A first step in that direction may have been taken last November 7, when
the OSI Moscow office was raided by a private security company hired by
the owner of the building with whom the foundation was engaged in a
protracted legal battle. Only weeks before, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the
billionaire oligarch and OSI Moscow executive director who has his own
NGO called the Open Russia Foundation, was arrested and charged with tax
evasion, theft, forgery, and fraud. Soros denounced the arrest as an act
of "persecution" that should disqualify Russia from belonging to the G-8
group of industrialized countries. "I believe that he acted within the
constraints of the law. I am doing the same in the United States," said
Soros, alluding to his multimillion-dollar donations toward "regime
change" in Washington next November. The American press indignantly
reported that the raid was directed against a philanthropic organization
that had spent "more than $US 1 billion on charitable projects in Russia
in the past 15 years."
"Racism" is Soros' regular obsession, but he faced the potential problem
of finding it in racially nondiverse Eastern European countries. This
has been resolved by identifying a designated victim group-Gypsies! "Few
minority groups in Europe face as much social, economic, and political
discrimination as do Romani people," says OSI. Being a "Roma activist"
has become a lucrative designation within the community. Seventy of the
most promising ones came to the conference "Roma in Expanding Europe:
Challenges for the Future," held in Budapest last summer, at which Soros
inaugurated a "Decade of Roma Inclusion." The conference offered policy
recommendations, some of which could have been written by Jesse Jackson:
first, obligatory and free preschool education in desegregated
classrooms; second, Romani assistants in the classroom, especially in
preschool; third, antibias training for teachers and school
administrators; and fourth, integration of Romani history and culture in
textbooks at all levels.
Legally mandated affirmative-action programs for Roma in high schools
and universities were recommended by the delegations of Rumania and
Serbia-Montenegro. On employment, the conference recommended tax
incentives for those who employ Roma and access to low-interest credit
for small Roma-owned family businesses. The Czech and Slovak delegations
also proposed setting aside a percentage of government contracts for
Roma construction firms. In the area of housing, specific demands were
made to combat "racism and discrimination," including the "legalization"
of shantytowns and "equal access" to municipal housing. The conference
concluded that combating racial discrimination against Roma must be
pursued through the adoption of comprehensive anti-discrimination
legislation complying with the requirements of the E.U. Race Equality
Directive.
The Rumanian delegation demanded that the Bucharest government recognize
the Roma holocaust by issuing a public apology along with urgent
adoption of a reparations package. The European Union was asked to make
sure that Roma are broadly involved in the design, implementation, and
evaluation of all E.U. spending on Roma projects.
Soros' "programs" would have been deemed laughable or outrageous in
their target countries only a decade ago. No one is laughing today,
however. For thousands of young Eastern Europeans, to become a "Soroshite"
represents today what joining the Party represented to their parents: an
alluring opportunity to have a reasonably paid job, to belong to a
privileged elite, and, for many, to travel abroad. The chosen few go to
Soros's own Central European University in Budapest, where they are
taught that affirming a scientifically grounded truth is "totalitarian"
and that the sovereign nation-state is evil.
There is not one patriot (Russian, Croat, Latvian, Serb, Rumanian,
Hungarian) or one practicing Christian on Soros' payroll. In all
postcommunist countries, Soros relies on the sons and daughters of the
old communist establishment, who are less likely to be tainted by any
atavistic attachments to their native soil, culture, and traditions. The
more successful among them-and the most loyal-may spend years drifting
from one "project" to another, and some have been living that way for
more than a decade. Soros has revealed (in Underwriting Democracy) that
his Open Society foundations will help create an international web, at
the heart of which will be the computerized base of personal data that
will enable Western multinationals to find the local candidates they
need.
These new janissaries, just like those of the Ottoman army of old, have
to prove their credentials by being more zealous than the master
himself; as the Balkan proverb has it, "a convert is worse than a Turk."
Nobody is more insanely vehement in his insults against the Serbian
people and their history, religion, art, and suffering than a dozen
Serb-born columnists who are on the payroll of Sonja Licht, Soros'
Gauleiter in Belgrade.
Hoi polloi are force-fed the daily fare of OSI agitprop by "the Soros
media"-the term now exists in over a dozen languages-from the Gazeta
Wyborcza in Warsaw to Danas (Today) in Serbia, the Monitor in
Montenegro, the Markiza TV channel in Bratislava, and Vreme weekly and
the B-92 electronic media conglomerate in Belgrade. They invariably
parrot Soros' views and ambitions, reflected by the agenda of the local
Soros foundation at home and, in world affairs, by the International
Crisis Group (ICG), largely financed by Soros and run by his appointees.
Soros' agenda in world affairs is clear from the fact that his
appointees include Gen. Wesley Clark, who commanded NATO forces in the
war against Serbia in 1999; Louise Arbour, the former chief prosecutor
of the Yugoslav war-crimes tribunal at The Hague; former assistant
secretary of state Morton Abramowitz, an enthusiastic supporter of
Bosnian Muslims and Albanians in the wars of Yugoslav succession; and
former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose visceral
Russophobia aided and abetted the rise of Osama bin Laden and his
jihadist cohorts.
As Gilles d'Aymery noted two years ago, Soros is not just the power
behind the Open Society Institute, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the
National Endowment for Democracy, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty
International, and the International Crisis Group:
[L]ike an immense Jules Verne octopus, [he] extends his tentacles all
over Eastern Europe, South-Eastern Europe, the Caucasus as well as the
republics of the former Soviet Union. With the help of these various
groups [it is possible] not only to shape but to create the news, the
agenda and public opinion to further aims which are, in short, the
control of the world, its natural resources and the furtherance of the
uniform ideal of a perfect world polity made in America.
That polity will not be "American" in any recognizable sense if Soros
has his way, however. Here, he supports increased government spending
and tax increases, drug legalization, euthanasia, open borders and
immigration, immigrant entitlements, feminism, free abortion on demand,
affirmative action, and "gay" rights. He opposes the death penalty in
any circumstance. One of the trustees of OSI is Lani Guinier, the law
professor whom Bill Clinton tried to nominate as head of the
civil-rights division of the Department of Justice but changed his mind
when she was found to favor minority veto power over legislation. Its
president is Aryeh Neier, who had for 12 years been executive director
of the Soros-funded Human Rights Watch and, before that, national
director of the American Civil Liberties Union for eight years.
That he is anti-Bush is unremarkable, but Soros' statement last December
that the defeat of the President is "a matter of life and death" was
silly. His largesse to Bush's foes-although substantial-does not reflect
the stated urgency of the moment: $15 million for America Coming
Together; $3 million for John Podesta's new think tank; and $2.5 million
for MoveOn.org falls far short of a month's cost of running his many
foundations around the world.
Soros remains primarily committed to destroying the remaining bastions
of the family, sovereign nationhood, and Christian Faith east of the
Trieste-Stettin line. He senses that his full-throttle intervention in
America is not necessary, because things are gradually going his way
anyway. No matter who is his party's anointed candidate come next
November, the real choice will be between George and Gyorgy, and that is
not much of a choice.
Chronicles' foreign-affairs editor Srdja Trifkovic is the author of
The Sword of the Prophet: Islam-History, Theology, Impact on the World.
TOP
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