Greece faces shame of role in Serb massacre - Page 9

VetLegion · January 12, 2003, 09:50

It seems Uniformity of Thought has been complemented with Wow of Silence. Splendid.

*raises hands in the air for dramatic effect*

O Graecia, ancient land
of philosophers proud
and debaters sharp

how low new generations
have sunk
are they worthy of thy name?

Bereta_Eder · January 12, 2003, 09:52

*farts*

VetLegion · January 12, 2003, 10:06

Urban Ranger · January 27, 2003, 06:01

"Last year, in a 7,000-page report that the Dutch authorities commissioned into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Greece was revealed to have sent shipments of light arms and ammunition to the Bosnian Serb army between 1994 and 1995."

I dunno if this has been answered. If not, here's a very interesting article, also from the Guardian, available from Emperor's New Clothes

Quote:

In the 1980s Washington's secret services had assisted Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran. Then, in 1990, the US fought him in the Gulf. In both Afghanistan and the Gulf, the Pentagon had incurred debts to Islamist groups and their Middle Eastern sponsors. By 1993 these groups, many supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia, were anxious to help Bosnian Muslims fighting in the former Yugoslavia and called in their debts with the Americans. Bill Clinton and the Pentagon were keen to be seen as creditworthy and repaid in the form of an Iran-Contra style operation - in flagrant violation of the UN security council arms embargo against all combatants in the former Yugoslavia.

The result was a vast secret conduit of weapons smuggling though Croatia. This was arranged by the clandestine agencies of the US, Turkey and Iran, together with a range of radical Islamist groups, including Afghan mojahedin and the pro-Iranian Hizbullah. Wiebes reveals that the British intelligence services obtained documents early on in the Bosnian war proving that Iran was making direct deliveries.

Arms purchased by Iran and Turkey with the financial backing of Saudi Arabia made their way by night from the Middle East. Initially aircraft from Iran Air were used, but as the volume increased they were joined by a mysterious fleet of black C-130 Hercules aircraft. The report stresses that the US was "very closely involved" in the airlift. Mojahedin fighters were also flown in, but they were reserved as shock troops for especially hazardous operations.

Light weapons are the familiar currency of secret services seeking to influence such conflicts. The volume of weapons flown into Croatia was enormous, partly because of a steep Croatian "transit tax". Croatian forces creamed off between 20% and 50% of the arms. The report stresses that this entire trade was clearly illicit. The Croats themselves also obtained massive quantities of illegal weapons from Germany, Belgium and Argentina - again in contravention of the UN arms embargo. The German secret services were fully aware of the trade.

TCO · January 27, 2003, 07:52

I think I've finally decided that the Croat knows what he is talking about. Paiktis, what the hell?

OneFootInTheGrave · January 27, 2003, 08:06

Sure I agree witht this, there was a lot of illegeal arms trade ,and that is in a big part the way that the "ruling familes" got rich too, the Croats were getting its weaponery mainly from Germany and from South America to my knowledge, plus the abovementioned "transit tax" but that was all later in the war; at the beginning when Serbs made most of the advances, first 6 months or so we were defending with hunting guns and the weapons the police had... the Serbs on the other hand had at their disposal all the weaponary from former Yugoslavia which was at the beginning of the war the third biggest army in Europe after French and the British. Plus they were getting help from Greeks and Russians, but I believe the help from them came in at a later stage too.

The muslims were in the worst position of all with no help at the beginning they needed almost a year to get properly armed and by the time the Serbs controlled almost 3/4 of Bosnia.

Btw the arms embargo was setup at the beginning by the Brits and the French + Russians, as they all had the interest to have Yugoslavia preserved under all circumstances. Which meant basically Serbs running all over the country and keeping the "dissidents" in check. Lord Carrington who was the first mediator, said that this was the intial solution forseen by the British.

The arms embargo heavily favoured the Serbs as they have the army of the former country under control, so they had weapons and tanks to fight with while the other nations did not mainly Croats first and Muslims later as this was the main conflict (nor did the Slovenians have arms , they were attacked first of all, but the war there lasted only 7 days Slovenians were blocking roads and the army outposts, with a few deaths only, as Serbs realised they cannot conduct war in Slovenia with Croatia in the middle so the army abandoned the country and moved to Serbia trough Croatia . The war in Croatia was just about to start than too. )