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“The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”

— Aldous Huxley
1937

At a Serb Funeral:
Tears for Victims of a “Regrettable Mistake”

From a TiM Global Watch Bulletin
www.truthinmedia.org

BELGRADE, June 3, 1999

Last Thursday a funeral was taking place, in Belgrade, of two children whose family will never find peace.

As we’ve reported earlier, Dejana [a 4 year-old girl] and Stefan [a 7 year-old boy] Pavlovic were murdered in their beds by NATO bombs in the Belgrade suburb of Ralja on May 27. Their parents were badly injured (see S99-92, Day 66, Item 1, May 28) . Here is a moving report filed by Scott Taylor, editor of Esprit de Corps magazine and author of Tested Mettle, who reports for Toronto Sun from the war-torn Yugoslavia:

“It was a mournful procession that wound its way through the Bezanija cemetery in suburban New Belgrade on Monday. Hundreds of grieving relatives stopped at the ceremonial fountain to wash their hands prior to leaving the burial ground.

“In the Serbian Orthodox Christian religion, this custom is meant to cleanse away the sorrow, so that it may remain part of the funeral and be left behind at the cemetery.

“However, with the air raid sirens wailing once again in the distance, the tear-stained faces of those exiting the ceremony showed little sign of having put their recent loss to rest.

“Two young children, Stefan, aged seven, and his four-year-old sister Dejana, had been murdered by a NATO bomb just three days earlier. Such a tragic loss of young life is not easily overcome, even in wartime.

“Given the circumstances surrounding the deaths, this was emotionally one of the toughest assignments I’ve ever had. The Finnish journalist wept quietly throughout the proceedings and, as the father of a four-year-old myself, I admit that I lost it a little when, as they lowered Dejana’s tiny coffin, the grandmother screamed out her name with a soulful cry.

“The parents of these children were not on hand for the funeral due to being hospitalized with their own injuries suffered in the same “errant” bomb attack.

“The explosion occurred around 11 pm last Thursday, with Stefan and Dejana already in bed. Neighbors say that although badly injured herself, the children’s mother, Branislava, screamed hysterically for the rescue crews to dig out her ‘babies.’

“They say Branislava had mercifully sunk into unconsciousness before they managed to dig Dejana’s badly mutilated corpse out of the smoldering rubble. It took a further three hours to retrieve Stefan’s equally battered little body.

“The father, Vladimir Pavlovic, received burns to 60% of his body and remains in intensive care at a Belgrade hospital. Although unfit physically to attend the funeral, Vladimir is conscious and aware that his children are dead, that his wife remains in coma (she is currently on life support system), and that his home has been destroyed.

“Through an interpreter, a family member said it was only two weeks earlier that Vladimir had moved his family out of Belgrade to the rural village of Ralja so they would be safe from NATO bombing.

“The small town of Ralja contains no industrial, let alone military targets. As has become the norm, NATO labeled the attack ‘a regrettable mistake.’

“While the mood at the burial was never tense, with emotions running high I was a little concerned about the crowd’s reaction should they discover I was from a NATO country participating in the air strikes. When one individual did approach me, my fears proved unfounded.

“Instead of confronting or berating me, he politely thanked me for making the effort to attend the funeral. He explained that ‘the people of Canada must see this. They must know what the bombing is doing’.”

“The fact that some elements [of the U.S. government] may appear to be potentially ‘out of control’ can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts within the minds of an adversary’s decision makers...

“That the U.S. may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be a part of the national persona we project to all adversaries... It hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed...”

— U.S. Strategic Command
Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence
1995

(The U.S. Strategic Command, or STRATCOM, is the military entity responsible for formulating U.S. nuclear policy.)

Related pages

Book review:
Hidden Agenda: U.S./NATO Takeover of Yugoslavia
by Ramsey Clark, Nadja Tesich, Michel Chossudovsky, Slobodan Milosevic, numerous authors

American/NATO State Terrorism of the Yugoslavian Peoples

Book review:
To Kill A Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia
by Michael Parenti

The U.S./NATO Terror Campaign: Nine Myths and Realities

The Geopolitical Strategy of Imperial America

Book review:
NATO in the Balkans: Voices of Opposition

Video review:
NATO TARGETS: The Civilian People of Yugoslavia

Related sites

Death on a Very Small Planet
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/1/rem.htm

Photos comparing Belgrade in 1999 with New York City in September 2001

Yugoslavia in Crisis — reports and analyses
http://www.iacenter.org/yugo_crisis.htm

The Media and their Atrocities
by Michael Parenti, Ph.D; May 2000
http://www.michaelparenti.org/MediaAtrocities.html

Yugoslav Sojourn: Notes from the Other Side
by Michael Parenti, Ph.D; January 2000
http://www.michaelparenti.org/YugoslavSojourn.html

The Rational Destruction of Yugoslavia
by Michael Parenti, Ph.D; November 1999
http://www.michaelparenti.org/yugoslavia.html

Yugoslavian Military Medical Academy Reports,
Civilian Casualties:
http://www.vma.sv.gov.yu/Civil/index_engleski.html

WARNING — this site has gruesome photos that show what American cluster bombs have done to human bodies.

Every victim was somebody’s daughter, somebody’s son, somebody’s brother, sister, wife, husband, mother, father, grandfather, grandmother. Each one was somebody’s friend.

They could just as well be your loved ones.

If you’re not a media-numbed moron, these photos will be deeply disturbing to see.

But these photographs constitute a public record of gruesome American war crimes — a record which our truly EVIL American leaders and military will NEVER be able to deny or live down.

These victims are the future of America’s government and military.

Why was NATO at war with Yugoslavia?
World power, oil and gold
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/may1999/stat-m24.shtml

After the slaughter:
Political Lessons of the Balkan War
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jun1999/balk-j14.shtml

WSWS : News & Analysis — The Balkans
http://www.wsws.org/sections/category/news/eu-balk.shtml

This is the index page for an extensive collection of news articles and high-quality political analysis about events in the Balkans, Yugoslavia in particular.

International Action Center
http://www.iacenter.org/

The Activist site:
Photo Gallery of NATO’s Bombings in Yugoslavia
http://users.westnet.gr./~cgian/nato.htm

KFOR MY ASS!
http://crash.to/KFORMYASS

NATO WAR CRIMES
http://www.nato-warcrimes.gr/

Bibliography

To Kill A Nation:
The Attack on Yugoslavia
by Michael Parenti

Hidden Agenda:
U.S./NATO Takeover of Yugoslavia
by Ramsey Clark, Nadja Tesich, Michel Chossudovsky, Slobodan Milosevic, numerous authors

NATO in the Balkans:
Voices of Opposition
by Ramsey Clark, Nadja Tesich, Sean Gervasi, Sara Flounders, Thomas Deichmann, Gary Wilson and Richard Becker

NATO TARGETS (video)
produced by Gloria La Riva

Rogue State:
A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
by William Blum

The Fire This Time:
U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf
by Ramsey Clark

Desert Slaughter:
The Imperialist War Against Iraq
by the Workers League

The Beast Reawakens
by Martin A. Lee

Blackshirts and Reds:
Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
by Michael Parenti

Against Empire
by Michael Parenti

The Sword and the Dollar:
Imperialism, Revolution and the Arms Race
by Michael Parenti

What Uncle Sam Really Wants
by Noam Chomsky

The Culture of Terrorism
by Noam Chomsky

The Real Terror Network:
Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda
by Edward S. Herman

Western State Terrorism
Alexander George, editor; essays by Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, Gerry O’Sullivan and others

Terrorizing the Neighborhood:
American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era
by Noam Chomsky
Pressure Drop Press, 1991

Pirates and Emperors, Old and New:
International Terrorism in the Real World
by Noam Chomsky

Apocalypse 1945:
The Destruction of Dresden
by David Irving

The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media:
Decoding Spin and Lies in Mainstream News
by Norman Solomon

Inventing Reality:
The Politics of News Media
by Michael Parenti

Manufacturing Consent:
The Political Economy of the Mass Media
by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

War, Lies & Videotape:
How media monopoly stifles truth
edited by Lenora Foerstel; multiple authors

Derailing Democracy:
The America the Media Don’t Want You to See
by David McGowan

Killing Hope:
U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since WWII
by William Blum

Bloody Hell:
The Price Soldiers Pay
by Daniel Hallock

A great number of the world’s landmines are unexploded cluster bombs, dropped by the United States Air Force all over Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.