This program provides information supplemental to that presented in previous broadcasts on the Balkans conflicts.
Beginning with a characteristically excellent article by Diana Johnstone, the discussion highlights aspects of the re-emergence of fascism in Croatia. Displaying an open nostalgia for Hitler and the murderous Ustashe collaborationist regime of Ante Pavelic, contemporary Croatians have embarrassed some visiting Germans by greeting them with “Sieg Heil,” accompanied by the fascist salute. Such sentiments have boosted Mein Kampf and other fascist and Nazi titles to the top of the best seller list in Croatia.
Reflecting the views of President Franjo Tudjman, fascism, anti-Serb sentiment, and anti-Semitism are resurgent among significant elements of the Croatian population. That country’s ethnic cleansing of hundred of thousands of Krajina Serbs in 1995 was greatly assisted by German and American support and weaponry, notably expert training provided by a “private” American company, MPRI (Military Professional Resources International). (For more on the Croatian offensive, see also FTR-48.)
Offering a wide variety of military support and advisory services, the organization is headed by retired, former high-ranking military officers. Working on behalf of American political and military objectives in the Balkans, MPRI has most recently been involved in training the KLA, despite that organization’s terrorist, criminal and fascist antecedents.
In that capacity, MPRI has been part of a concert of elements utilized on behalf of the KLA, including (apparently) elements of the CIA. The broadcast discusses allegations surfacing in the South African trial of an Apartheid regime assassination technician. These allegations entail Vatican support for the purchase of weapons by the Croatian military during the civil war that culminated in Croatian secession. (For more on Croatian secession, see FTR-154.) The discussion sets forth a series of break-ins and harassment directed at the U.S. diplomatic personnel and their dependents. These break-ins accompany an anti-American propaganda campaign by fascist elements in Croatia. The program documents the go installation of “ex”-KLA members as the Kosovo Corps, the civil guard of Kosovo. Next, the program examines growing signs of disenchantment with the KLA on the part of Albanian Kosovars.
In addition to occasionally violent suppression of political opposition, the KLA has used their political ascendance in the wake of the NATO air offensive to appropriate the best real estate, automobiles and consumer goods. The KLA’s activities received a boost when Scopeland Software, a German software company, donated state-of-the-art computer equipment to Hasim Thaci and his organization. The discussion highlights the adoption of the D‑Mark as the official currency of both Kosovo and Montenegro, both nominally parts of Yugoslavia!
The program concludes with a look at General Klaus Reinhardt. Appointed military commander of the NATO forces in Kosovo, Reinhardt is the son of Fritz Reinhardt, the deputy finance minister of the Third Reich and a “Class A” war criminal. The real power behind figurehead Count Von Krosigk at the finance ministry, Reinhardt lent his name to and participated in “Aktion Reinhardt” (the liquidation of Polish Jewry and the appropriation of their property). More importantly, since he occupied his position in the finance ministry until the end of the war in 1945, Reinhardt undoubtedly worked closely with Martin Bormann and his flight capital program, the genesis of the Bormann organization.
Excerpting FTR-155, the discussion highlights the late Paul Manning’s research on the contemporary make-up of the Bormann group. Composed of the sons, daughters and sons-in-law of SS officers and top Nazi officials, the group is allegedly headed by Adolf Martin Bormann and his sister Neumi. Under the circumstances, it is not unfair to ask whether Reinhardt might be affiliated with the Bormann group, despite his ostensible estrangement from his father. (Recorded on 11/14/99, 11/21/99.)
Discussion
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