FTR#‘s 1431, 1432, 1433: “Back To The Future”: The Balkans War

Intro­duc­tion: These broad­casts are tak­en from a lec­ture Dave gave in July of 1999.

This talk sets forth back­ground to the wars in the for­mer Yugoslavia. Par­tic­u­lar empha­sis is on the rela­tion­ship between the Mus­lim and Serb minori­ties in that unfor­tu­nate nation, and the devel­op­ment of the 1999 NATO cam­paign in Koso­vo. Begin­ning with dis­cus­sion of the oppres­sion of Serbs in the Ottoman empire, the lec­ture dis­cuss­es the priv­i­leged sta­tus of Slove­nia and Croa­t­ia dur­ing the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an empire’s occu­pa­tion of what is now Yugoslavia. The divi­sions that stemmed from the two empires’ occu­pa­tion of the Balka­ns had much to do with set­ting the stage for the cur­rent con­flicts.

The talk then out­lines the his­to­ry of Yugoslavia dur­ing World War II, with par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on the Axis nations’ use of eth­nic Alba­ni­ans and Bosn­ian Mus­lims. Koso­vo was grant­ed nom­i­nal auton­o­my dur­ing the Axis occu­pa­tion of the Balka­ns, and the Trep­ca min­ing com­plex (in Koso­vo) pro­vid­ed the Ger­mans with min­er­al resources that were essen­tial to the Ger­man war effort. (The Trep­ca min­ing com­plex is the most valu­able piece of eco­nom­ic real estate in the for­mer Yugoslavia.)

Though large­ly ignored in most his­to­ries of World War II, Nazi Ger­many’s use of eth­nic Mus­lim pop­u­la­tions sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect­ed the course of events dur­ing World War II in a num­ber of areas, the Balka­ns in par­tic­u­lar. The Nazis formed and oper­at­ed Mus­lim Waf­fen SS divi­sions in the for­mer Yugoslavia. Uti­liz­ing the ver­sa­tile Haj Amin Al-Hus­sei­ni (self-styled “Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,” Nazi espi­onage agent, SS Major Gen­er­al, Pales­tin­ian nation­al­ist leader), the Waf­fen SS suc­cess­ful­ly recruit­ed from among Mus­lim pop­u­la­tions in the Balka­ns, Mid­dle East and Sovi­et Union. In the for­mer Yugoslavia, the Nazis formed a Bosn­ian Mus­lim divi­sion, the 13th Waf­fen SS Divi­sion (named Han­jar or Handzar.) Recruit­ing for the divi­sion from among the ranks of the Young Mus­lims, was none oth­er than Ali­ja Izetbe­gov­ic, the first Pres­i­dent of Bosnia.

Next, the lec­ture focus­es on his res­ur­rec­tion of the Han­jar divi­sion after becom­ing Pres­i­dent of Bosnia! Trained by vet­er­ans of the Afghan con­flict and com­posed large­ly of eth­nic Alba­ni­ans, the new Han­jar divi­sion was explic­it­ly named after, and specif­i­cal­ly and overt­ly pat­terned on, the 13th Waf­fen SS divi­sion of Izetbe­gov­ic’s youth. In addi­tion to serv­ing as a Prae­to­ri­an guard, admin­is­ter­ing to the per­son­al secu­ri­ty of Izetbe­gov­ic and oth­er mem­bers of the lead­er­ship in Sara­je­vo, Han­jar func­tions as a “spe­cial forces” divi­sion, back­ing up oth­er units and work­ing close­ly with Muja­hadeen for­ma­tions.

The dis­cus­sion high­lights obser­va­tions by UN per­son­nel serv­ing with peace­keep­ing forces in areas where the Han­jar oper­at­ed. Not­ing the large eth­nic Alban­ian rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Han­jar, one observ­er expressed the fear in 1993 that the fight­ing might very well spread to Koso­vo. (Sub­se­quent events have borne out his fears.) By 1995, ele­ments of Han­jar were infil­trat­ing into Koso­vo, Alba­nia and Mace­do­nia.

The lec­ture high­lights the Skan­der­beg Divi­sion, a Waf­fen SS divi­sion com­posed of eth­nic Alba­ni­ans, large­ly from Koso­vo. Many mem­bers of the KLA are the sons and grand­sons of men who fought with the 21st Waf­fen SS or Skan­der­beg Divi­sion, and the KLA has sus­tained much of its fas­cist her­itage. Nev­er much of a fight­ing unit, Skan­der­beg helped round up Kosovo’s Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion, fought against the Yugosla­vian Par­ti­sans, and helped safe­guard the suc­cess­ful Ger­man retreat from Greece and Alba­nia. In light of the fact that Ger­man intel­li­gence active­ly sup­port­ed the KLA in the mid-to late 90’s, it is not irrel­e­vant to ask whether some of the Waf­fen SS con­nec­tions to the area may have fig­ured in the shap­ing of events there.

In this con­text, one should bear in mind that the Waf­fen SS has its own branch of the ODESSA net­work, abbre­vi­at­ed HIAG. (The ODESSA is the post-World II SS under­ground, inex­tri­ca­bly linked with U.S. and Ger­man intel­li­gence, as well as the dead­ly Bor­mann Orga­ni­za­tion.) In addi­tion to the 13th (Han­jar) and 21st (Skan­der­beg) Divi­sions, the Ger­mans also formed the 23rd (Kama) Divi­sion from Balkan Mus­lim pop­u­la­tions.

Lec­ture High­lights Include: The KLA’s involve­ment in orga­nized crime activ­i­ties (drug smug­gling in par­tic­u­lar); col­lab­o­ra­tion between Ger­many and Croa­t­ian fas­cists, dat­ing from the time of World War II; West­ern de-sta­bi­liza­tion efforts against Yugoslavia dur­ing the 1980s; the func­tion­al auton­o­my grant­ed to eth­nic Alba­ni­ans in Koso­vo under the Tito gov­ern­ment; the eth­nic Alba­ni­ans’ use of this auton­o­my to oppress the Ser­bian minor­i­ty in the province; Milo­se­vic’s rise in the Yugosla­vian Com­mu­nist par­ty; Milo­se­vic’s retrac­tion of Alban­ian auton­o­my in Koso­vo; a secret trip to Ger­many in the 1980s by Fran­jo Tudj­man (pres­i­dent of Croa­t­ia), in order to lay the ground­work for Croa­t­ian seces­sion from Yugoslavia; a syn­op­tic his­to­ry of the Croa­t­ian fas­cist move­ment, its alliance with Ger­many, and its mur­der­ous per­se­cu­tion of Serbs dur­ing World War II; a 2 bil­lion-dol­lar, inter­est-free loan to finance Croa­t­ian inde­pen­dence (arranged by the Amer­i­can branch of the Knights of Mal­ta); the Vat­i­can’s role in estab­lish­ing the myth of the Serbs as the last bas­tion of hard-line, Sovi­et-style com­mu­nism in Europe; Ger­man par­rot­ing and dis­sem­i­na­tion of the Vat­i­can pro­pa­gan­da line about Yugoslavia; Vat­i­can endorse­ment of Croa­t­ian and Sloven­ian inde­pen­dence from Yugoslavia; Croa­t­i­a’s human rights abus­es against Serbs liv­ing in Croa­t­ia (they were fired from gov­ern­ment jobs, denied employ­ment in the media, sub­ject­ed to heavy tax­a­tion, forced to car­ry iden­ti­ty cards iden­ti­fy­ing them as Serbs and, final­ly, eth­ni­cal­ly cleansed); the Croa­t­ian cler­gy’s bless­ing of the eth­nic cleans­ing of 250,000 Serbs in 1991 and 92; the Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ism and anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic ori­en­ta­tion of Bosn­ian pres­i­dent Ali­ja Izetbe­gov­ic; the over­rid­ing and extreme bias against the Serbs in West­ern diplo­mat­ic and mil­i­tary pol­i­cy; the exag­ger­a­tion and/or fab­ri­ca­tion of war crimes evi­dence against the Serbs dur­ing the var­i­ous Balka­ns wars; Ger­many’s arm­ing of the Croa­t­ian armed forces in the ear­ly 90s; how Ger­many blud­geoned the rest of the Euro­pean Union into endors­ing the breakup of Yugoslavia (the EU ini­tial­ly vot­ed 11 to 1 in favor of main­tain­ing the uni­ty of the Yugoslav Fed­er­a­tion.) (Record­ed at Foothill Col­lege in July of 1999.)

New Patreon Talk: RFK, Jr.‘s Strange Networking, “Nordic” Space Aliens Breeding with Humans and Anna Paulina Luna’s Belief in “Ancient Astronauts” and “Interdimensional Beings”

Do RFK, Jr.‘s strange asso­ci­a­tions and actions include an Ustachi sym­pa­thiz­er? Ele­ments asso­ci­at­ed with MAGA are push­ing the “ancient astro­nauts,” “Nordic aliens,” “inter­di­men­sion­al beings” memes. This fresh fer­til­iz­er is being linked to the assas­si­na­tions of JFK, RFK, MLK. As peo­ple with an oblig­a­tion to our descen­dants, we have the respon­si­bil­i­ty to pre­serve a record of the events lead­ing to the col­lapse of our social and polit­i­cal milieu. There is no bet­ter way of ful­fill­ing that oblig­a­tion than by obtain­ing the lat­est flash dri­ve, con­tain­ing all of Dav­e’s 45+ years on the air and a library of old anti-fas­cist books. WFMU-FM is pod­cast­ing For The Record–You can sub­scribe to the pod­cast HERE.

Patreon Tutorial: The Fundamental Relationship Between The Vatican and Fascism

This online Patre­on Tuto­r­i­al high­lights the Vat­i­can’s fun­da­men­tal role in the spread of fas­cism, dat­ing from Arch­bish­op Euge­nio Pacel­li’s financ­ing of Adolf Hitler in 1919. (Pacel­li lat­er became Pope Pius XII). As peo­ple with an oblig­a­tion to our descen­dants, we have the respon­si­bil­i­ty to pre­serve a record of the events lead­ing to the col­lapse of our social and polit­i­cal milieu. There is no bet­ter way of ful­fill­ing that oblig­a­tion than by obtain­ing the lat­est flash dri­ve, con­tain­ing all of Dav­e’s 45+ years on the air and a library of old anti-fas­cist books. WFMU-FM is pod­cast­ing For The Record–You can sub­scribe to the pod­cast HERE.

The Impeachment Psy-Op: Vichy France (the Democrats) Versus Nazi Germany (The GOP)

The pic­ture at right embod­ies every­thing that is going in Ukraine, and has gone on since the Maid­an coup. THIS is what the impeach­ment pro­ceed­ings are all about–restoring mil­i­tary aid to this ulti­mate, obscene man­i­fes­ta­tion of the Inter­mar­i­um Con­ti­nu­ity (detailed in a four pro­gram For The Record series)– while con­vinc­ing Amer­i­cans that Rus­sia is a mil­i­tary threat that must be dealt with.

FTR #1104 Fascism, 2019 World Tour, Part 14: Lithium Coup in Bolivia, Part 1 and FTR #1105 Fascism, 2019 World Tour, Part 15: Lithium Coup in Bolivia, Part 2

These pro­grams high­light fea­tures of an appar­ent coup d’e­tat in Bolivia, empha­siz­ing the indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions fig­ur­ing in the coup itself, as well as the under­ly­ing dynam­ic of the devel­op­ment of Bolivi­a’s enor­mous lithi­um reserves. Cen­tral to the dis­cus­sion is the fact that lithi­um is essen­tial for the devel­op­ment of elec­tric car bat­ter­ies and that tech­nol­o­gy is impor­tant to any suc­cess­ful “Green­ing” of the glob­al econ­o­my.

Fas­cists from Latin Amer­i­ca and Europe net­worked with transna­tion­al cor­po­rate ele­ments and some U.S. intel­li­gence cut-outs to oust Evo Morales and his gov­ern­ment.

Although Morales had vio­lat­ed con­sti­tu­tion­al norms on term lim­its in order to extend his gov­er­nance, his polit­i­cal agen­da had great­ly ben­e­fit­ed Bolivi­a’s poor and its his­tor­i­cal­ly oppressed indige­nous pop­u­la­tion, in par­tic­u­lar. The coun­try’s min­er­al wealth has been exploit­ed by for­eign com­pa­nies and select mem­bers of the Boli­vian elite to the detri­ment of much of the pop­u­la­tion. Even the con­ser­v­a­tive “Finan­cial Times” has not­ed that Morales restruc­tur­ing of the Boli­vian economy–mineral extrac­tion, in particular–has sig­nif­i­cant­ly improved the coun­try’s econ­o­my and reduced pover­ty.

This ele­ment of dis­cus­sion involves many sub­jects cov­ered at length over the decades and fea­tured in the archives:

1.–Material about Klaus Bar­bie and the Euro­pean fas­cists in his “Fiances of Death” (or “Bride­grooms of Death”) mer­ce­nar­ies can be found in, among oth­er pro­grams, AFA #‘s 19 and 27.
2.–The Vat­i­can’s rela­tion­ship to fas­cism, includ­ing Opus Dei and the Ustachi in Croa­t­ia, is high­light­ed in, among oth­er pro­grams AFA #17.
3.–Information about the re-emer­gence of the Ustachi can be found in, among oth­er pro­grams, FTR #‘s 49, 154, 766, 901.

Key indi­vid­ual and insti­tu­tion­al play­ers in the devel­op­ment of, pre­lude to, and exe­cu­tion of the Boli­vian coup include:

1.–Luis Fer­nan­do Cama­cho, a wealthy Boli­vian described in the Pana­ma Papers, Cama­cho is: ” . . . . an ultra-con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ist groomed by a fas­cist para­mil­i­tary noto­ri­ous for its racist vio­lence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy sep­a­ratist region of San­ta Cruz. . . .”
2.–He is heir to a tra­di­tion of wealth, the nation’s nat­ur­al gas busi­ness, in par­tic­u­lar: : ” . . . . Cama­cho also hails from a fam­i­ly of cor­po­rate elites who have long prof­it­ed from Bolivia’s plen­ti­ful nat­ur­al gas reserves. And his fam­i­ly lost part of its wealth when Morales nation­al­ized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social pro­grams — which cut pover­ty by 42 per­cent and extreme pover­ty by 60 per­cent. . . .”
3.–Prior to the coup, Cama­cho: ” . . . . met with lead­ers from right-wing gov­ern­ments in the region to dis­cuss their plans to desta­bi­lize Morales. Two months before the putsch, he tweet­ed grat­i­tude: ‘Thank you Colom­bia! Thank you Venezuela!’ he exclaimed, tip­ping his hat to Juan Guaido’s coup oper­a­tion. He also rec­og­nized the far-right gov­ern­ment of Jair Bol­sonaro, declar­ing, “Thank you Brazil!’ . . .”
4.–A mar­gin­al fig­ure with lit­tle pub­lic grav­i­tas, includ­ing on social media, Cama­cho was mov­ing to neu­tral­ize the Morales gov­ern­ment before the coup itself. His polit­i­cal pres­ence and base of sup­port is a Chris­t­ian fas­cist orga­ni­za­tion: ” . . . . Luis Fer­nan­do Cama­cho was groomed by the Unión Juve­nil Cruceñista, or San­ta Cruz Youth Union (UJC), a fas­cist para­mil­i­tary orga­ni­za­tion that has been linked to assas­si­na­tion plots against Morales. The group is noto­ri­ous for assault­ing left­ists, Indige­nous peas­ants, and jour­nal­ists, all while espous­ing a deeply racist, homo­pho­bic ide­ol­o­gy. . . .”
5.–The UJC: ” . . . . The UJC is the Boli­vian equiv­a­lent of Spain’s Falange, India’s Hin­du suprema­cist RSS, and Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov bat­tal­ion. Its sym­bol is a green cross that bears strong sim­i­lar­i­ties to logos of fas­cist move­ments across the West. And its mem­bers are known to launch into Nazi-style sieg heil salutes. . . . Even the US embassy in Bolivia has described UJC mem­bers as ‘racist’ and ‘mil­i­tant,’ not­ing that they ‘have fre­quent­ly attacked pro-MAS/­gov­ern­ment peo­ple and instal­la­tions.’ . . .”
6.–Camacho was allied with a wealthy Croa­t­ian named Branko Marinkovic: ” . . . . Cama­cho was elect­ed as vice pres­i­dent of the UJC in 2002, when he was just 23 years old. He left the orga­ni­za­tion two years lat­er to build his family’s busi­ness empire and rise through the ranks of the Pro-San­ta Cruz Com­mit­tee. It was in that orga­ni­za­tion that he was tak­en under the wing of one of the sep­a­ratist movement’s most pow­er­ful fig­ures, a Boli­vian-Croa­t­ian oli­garch named Branko Marinkovic. . . .”
7.–Marinkovic is one of the prime movers of a seces­sion­ist move­ment for the San­ta Cruz area: ” . . . . Camacho’s Croa­t­ian god­fa­ther and sep­a­ratist pow­er bro­ker Branko Marinkovic is a major landown­er who ramped up his sup­port for the right-wing oppo­si­tion after some of his land was nation­al­ized by the Evo Morales gov­ern­ment. As chair­man of the Pro-San­ta Cruz Com­mit­tee, he over­saw the oper­a­tions of the main engine of sep­a­ratism in Bolivia. In a 2008 let­ter to Marinkovic, the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion for Human Rights denounced the com­mit­tee as an ‘actor and pro­mot­er of racism and vio­lence in Bolivia.’ The human rights group added that it ‘condemn[ed] the atti­tude and seces­sion­ist, union­ist and racist dis­cours­es as well as the calls for mil­i­tary dis­obe­di­ence of which the Pro-San­ta Cruz Civic Com­mit­tee for is one of the main pro­mot­ers.’ In 2013, jour­nal­ist Matt Ken­nard report­ed that the US gov­ern­ment was work­ing close­ly with the Pro-San­ta Cruz Com­mit­tee to encour­age the balka­niza­tion of Bolivia and to under­mine Morales. . . .”
8.–There has been spec­u­la­tion that Marinkovich may be descend­ed from Croa­t­ian Ustachis fas­cists: ” . . . . But even some of his sym­pa­thiz­ers are skep­ti­cal. A Balkan ana­lyst from the pri­vate intel­li­gence firm Strat­for, which works close­ly with the US gov­ern­ment and is pop­u­lar­ly known as the ‘shad­ow CIA,’ pro­duced a rough back­ground pro­file on Marinkovic, spec­u­lat­ing, ‘Still don’t know his full sto­ry, but I would bet a lot of $$$ that this dude’s par­ents are 1st gen (his name is too Slav­ic) and that they were Ustashe (read: Nazi) sym­pa­thiz­ers flee­ing Tito’s Com­mu­nists after WWII.’ . . . .”
9.–Marinkovich’s activism in the San­ta Cruz area is part of a fas­cist polit­i­cal land­scape in that area that dove­tails with Klaus Bar­bie (of whom we spoke in–among oth­er programs–AFA #19): ” . . . . In a 2008 pro­file on Marinkovic, “The New York Times” acknowl­edged the extrem­ist under­cur­rents of the San­ta Cruz sep­a­ratist move­ment the oli­garch presided over. It described the area as ‘a bas­tion of open­ly xeno­pho­bic groups like the Boli­vian Social­ist Falange, whose hand-in-air salute draws inspi­ra­tion from the fas­cist Falange of the for­mer Span­ish dic­ta­tor Fran­co.” The Boli­vian Social­ist Falange was a fas­cist group that pro­vid­ed safe haven to Nazi war crim­i­nal Klaus Bar­bie dur­ing the Cold War. A for­mer Gestapo tor­ture expert, Bar­bie was repur­posed by the CIA through its Oper­a­tion Con­dor pro­gram to help exter­mi­nate com­mu­nism across the con­ti­nent. . . .”
10.–The coup fol­lows by some years an attempt by a group of inter­na­tion­al fas­cists to mur­der Morales: ” . . . . In April 2009, a spe­cial unit of the Boli­vian secu­ri­ty ser­vices barged into a lux­u­ry hotel room and cut down three men who were said to be involved in a plot to kill Evo Morales. Two oth­ers remained on the loose. Four of the alleged con­spir­a­tors had Hun­gar­i­an or Croa­t­ian roots and ties to right­ist pol­i­tics in east­ern Europe, while anoth­er was a right-wing Irish­man, Michael Dwyer, who had only arrived in San­ta Cruz six months before. The ring­leader of the group was said to be a for­mer left­ist jour­nal­ist named Eduar­do Rosza-Flo­res who had turned to fas­cism and belonged to Opus Dei, the tra­di­tion­al­ist Catholic cult that emerged under the dic­ta­tor­ship of Spain’s Fran­cis­co Fran­co. . . .”
11.–Eduardo Rosza-Flo­res had fought in the for­mer Yugoslavia on behalf of the neo-Ustachi regime that ulti­mate­ly came to pow­er: ” . . . . Dur­ing the 1990s, Rosza fought on behalf of the Croa­t­ian First Inter­na­tion­al Pla­toon, or the PIV, in the war to sep­a­rate from Yugoslavia. A Croa­t­ian jour­nal­ist told Time that the ‘PIV was a noto­ri­ous group: 95% of them had crim­i­nal his­to­ries, many were part of Nazi and fas­cist groups, from Ger­many to Ire­land.’ By 2009, Rosza returned home to Bolivia to cru­sade on behalf of anoth­er sep­a­ratist move­ment in San­ta Cruz. . . .”
12.–Rosza-Flores had no mon­ey, yet his group of would-be fas­cist assas­sins were well fund­ed. Marinkovic appears to have been among the fund­ing sources: ” . . . . Marinkovic was sub­se­quent­ly charged with pro­vid­ing $200,000 to the plot­ters. The Boli­vian-Croa­t­ian oli­garch ini­tial­ly fled to the Unit­ed States, where he was giv­en asy­lum, then relo­cat­ed to Brazil, where he lives today. He denied any involve­ment in the plan to kill Morales. As jour­nal­ist Matt Ken­nard report­ed, there was anoth­er thread that tied the plot to the US: the alleged par­tic­i­pa­tion of an NGO leader named Hugo Achá Mel­gar. . . .”
13.–Hugo Acha Mel­gar was net­worked with the Human Rights Foun­da­tion, a right-wing orga­ni­za­tion with strong links to U.S. intel­li­gence and financed in part by Peter Thiel. The Human Rights Foun­da­tion is involved in the Hong Kong tur­moil. ” . . . . Achá was not just the head of any run-of-the-mill NGO. He had found­ed the Boli­vian sub­sidiary of the Human Rights Foun­da­tion (HRF), an inter­na­tion­al right-wing out­fit that is known for host­ing a “school for rev­o­lu­tion” for activists seek­ing regime change in states tar­get­ed by the US gov­ern­ment. HRF is run by Thor Halvorssen Jr., the son of the late Venezue­lan oli­garch and CIA asset Thor Halvorssen Hel­lum.  . . . . He launched the HRF with grants from right-wing bil­lion­aires like Peter Thiel, con­ser­v­a­tive foun­da­tions, and NGOs includ­ing Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al. The group has since been at the fore­front of train­ing activists for insur­rec­tionary activ­i­ty from Hong Kong to the Mid­dle East to Latin Amer­i­ca. . . .”
14.–Proxy pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Car­los Mesa is heav­i­ly net­worked with the Inter-Amer­i­can Dia­logue, financed in con­sid­er­able mea­sure by the AID: ” . . . . Today, Mesa serves as an in-house “expert” at the Inter-Amer­i­can Dia­logue, a neolib­er­al Wash­ing­ton-based think tank focused on Latin Amer­i­ca. One of the Dialogue’s top donors is the US Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment (USAID) . . . .”

Cen­tral to the mul­ti-nation­al dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Evo Morales is his nation­al­iza­tion of some of Bolivi­a’s min­er­al resource indus­try. And cen­tral to the Boli­vian min­er­al resource inven­to­ry is lithi­um, essen­tial for the man­u­fac­ture of elec­tric car bat­ter­ies: ” . . . . The main tar­get is its mas­sive deposits of lithi­um, cru­cial for the elec­tric car. . . .”

Bolivia has been report­ed to hold up to 70 per­cent of the world’s lithi­um, and the Morales gov­ern­men­t’s piv­ot toward devel­op­ing those reserves in tan­dem with Chi­nese firms, rather than West­ern transna­tion­als, may well have been the cen­tral dynam­ic in his ouster. ” . . . . Over the course of the past few years, Bolivia has strug­gled to raise invest­ment to devel­op the lithi­um reserves in a way that brings the wealth back into the coun­try for its peo­ple. Morales’ Vice Pres­i­dent Álvaro Gar­cía Lin­era had said that lithi­um is the ‘fuel that will feed the world.’ Bolivia was unable to make deals with West­ern transna­tion­al firms; it decid­ed to part­ner with Chi­nese firms. This made the Morales gov­ern­ment vul­ner­a­ble. It had walked into the new Cold War between the West and Chi­na. The coup against Morales can­not be under­stood with­out a glance at this clash. . . .”

The com­plex­i­ties of the Salar de Uyu­ni salt flats–location of much of Bolivi­a’s lithi­um reserves–mandate the tech­no­log­i­cal involve­ment of for­eign firms. A deal reached with Ger­man ACI Sys­tems (heav­i­ly sub­si­dized by the Ger­man gov­ern­ment) was negat­ed by protests on the part of local res­i­dents in the Salar de Uyu­ni area. Chi­nese firms were poised to fill that vac­u­um, offer­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a more equi­table devel­op­ment of the min­er­al. ” . . . . Last year, Germany’s ACI Sys­tems agreed to a deal with Bolivia. After protests from res­i­dents in the Salar de Uyu­ni region, Morales can­celed that deal on Novem­ber 4, 2019. Chi­nese firms—such as TBEA Group and Chi­na Machin­ery Engineering—made a deal with YLB. It was being said that China’s Tian­qi Lithi­um Group, which oper­ates in Argenti­na, was going to make a deal with YLB. Both Chi­nese invest­ment and the Boli­vian lithi­um com­pa­ny were exper­i­ment­ing with new ways to both mine the lithi­um and to share the prof­its of the lithi­um. The idea that there might be a new social com­pact for the lithi­um was unac­cept­able to the main transna­tion­al min­ing com­pa­nies. . . .”

After the ouster of Morales, the val­ue of Tes­la’s stock increased dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

The ACI/Bolivia deal had heavy back­ing by the Ger­man gov­ern­ment and fea­tured the planned export of lithi­um to Ger­many and else­where in Europe. ” . . . . With the joint ven­ture, Boli­vian state com­pa­ny YLB is team­ing up with Germany’s pri­vate­ly-owned ACI Sys­tems to devel­op its mas­sive Uyu­ni salt flat and build a lithi­um hydrox­ide plant as well as a fac­to­ry for elec­tric vehi­cle bat­ter­ies in Bolivia. ACI Sys­tems is also in talks to sup­ply com­pa­nies based in Ger­many and else­where in Europe with lithi­um from Bolivia. . . . Wolf­gang Schmutz, CEO of ACI Group, the par­ent com­pa­ny of ACI Sys­tems, said more than 80 per­cent of the lithi­um would be export­ed to Ger­many. . . .”

Of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance for the dis­cus­sion to fol­low is ” . . . . Chi­na’s dom­i­nance in the glob­al lithi­um sup­ply chain and its strong ties with La Paz. . . .”

Short­ly after the ouster of Morales, Tes­la announced that Tes­la would locate a new car and elec­tric bat­tery fac­to­ry near Berlin. If the ACI lithi­um devel­op­ment project in Bolivia is resus­ci­tat­ed, the Tes­la move will give the firm access to the Boli­vian lithi­um.

Might that have been the rea­son for the rise in Tes­la’s stock? Might there have been some insid­er trad­ing?

The pro­grams con­clude with review of the rebirth of Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca as a syn­the­sis with British “psy-op” devel­op­ment firm SCL. A key direc­tor of Emerdata–the new firm–is a Hong Kong financier and busi­ness part­ner of Black­wa­ter chief Erik Prince, the broth­er of Trump Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion Bet­sy de Vos. Not­ing the firm for­mer­ly known as Black­wa­ter’s deep involve­ment in the world of covert oper­a­tions and for­mer Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca lynch­pin Steve Ban­non’s piv­otal role in the anti-Chi­na move­ment, it is not unrea­son­able to ask if Emer­da­ta may be involved in the Hong Kong tur­moil.

We also review Chi­na’s lead­er­ship in the devel­op­ment of Green tech­nolo­gies.

FTR #1098, FTR #1099, FTR #1100 and FTR #1101– Fascism: 2019 World Tour, Part 8 (The Intermarium Concept), Fascism: 2019 World Tour, Part 9 (Intermarium Redux: “Will the National Socialist Revolution Begin in Ukraine?”), Fascism: 2019 World Tour, Part 10–The Intermarium Continuity, Fascism: 2019 World Tour, Part 11–The Intermarium Continuity, Part 2 (Reflections on The Pivot Point)

In these pro­grams, we con­tin­ue dis­cus­sion of the Azov milieu and its “Inter­mar­i­um” out­reach, in the con­text of Ukraine as a “piv­ot point” cen­tral to con­trol of the World Island or Earth Island. The evo­lu­tion of the Inter­mar­i­um con­cept is fun­da­men­tal to analy­sis of this phe­nom­e­non.

 Ukraine’s sig­nif­i­cance as a glob­al epi­cen­ter of bur­geon­ing fas­cism extends to the region’s online, ide­o­log­i­cal and icon­ic man­i­fes­ta­tion. Two recent Cana­di­an teens–Kam McLeod and Bry­er Schmegelsky–who appar­ent­ly killed three peo­ple in cold blood were influ­enced by Nazi cul­ture and Azov Bat­tal­ion man­i­fes­ta­tion in par­tic­u­lar. ” . . . . A Steam user con­firmed to The Globe and Mail that he talked to Mr. Schmegel­sky reg­u­lar­ly online. He recalled Mr. McLeod join­ing their chats as well. The user, whom The Globe is not iden­ti­fy­ing, pro­vid­ed pho­tos sent by an account believed to be owned by Mr. Schmegel­sky, show­ing him in mil­i­tary fatigues, bran­dish­ing what appears to be an air­soft rifle – which fires plas­tic pel­lets. Anoth­er pho­to shows a swasti­ka arm­band, and yet anoth­er fea­tures Mr. Schmegel­sky in a gas mask. The pho­tos were report­ed­ly sent in the fall of 2018, but the user said he stopped play­ing online games with Mr. Schmegel­sky ear­li­er this year after he con­tin­ued to praise Hitler’s Ger­many. One account con­nect­ed to the teens uses the logo of the Azov Bat­tal­ion, a far-right Ukrain­ian mili­tia that has been accused of har­bour­ing sym­pa­thies to neo-Nazis. . . .”

Dis­cussing Zbig­niew Brzezin­ski’s doc­trine of con­trol­ling Eura­sia by con­trol­ling the “piv­ot point” of Ukraine. Fun­da­men­tal to this analy­sis is the con­cept of the Earth Island or World Island as it is some­times known.

Brzezin­s­ki, in turn, draws on the geopo­lit­i­cal the­o­ries of Sir Hal­ford Mackinder, and, lat­er con­tem­po­rary Inter­mar­i­um adov­cates such as Alexan­dros Petersen.

Stretch­ing from the Straits of Gibral­tar, all across Europe, most of the Mid­dle East, Eura­sia, Rus­sia, Chi­na and India, that stretch of land: com­pris­es most of the world’s land mass; con­tains most of the world’s pop­u­la­tion and most of the world’s nat­ur­al resources (includ­ing oil and nat­ur­al gas.) Geopoliti­cians have long seen con­trol­ling that land mass as the key to world dom­i­na­tion.

Most of the three pro­grams high­light­ing the evo­lu­tion and appli­ca­tion of the Inter­mar­i­um con­cept con­sist of read­ing and analy­sis of a long aca­d­e­m­ic paper by Mar­lene Laru­elle and Ellen Rivera. Of para­mount sig­nif­i­cance in this dis­cus­sion is the piv­otal role of Ukrain­ian fas­cist orga­ni­za­tions in the Inter­mar­i­um and close­ly con­nect­ed Promethean net­works, from the post World War I peri­od, through the time between the World Wars, through the Cold War and up to and includ­ing the Maid­an coup.

Mil­i­tary, eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal net­work­ing has employed the Inter­mar­i­um idea, with what the paper terms the “ide­o­log­i­cal under­pin­nings” stem­ming from the evo­lu­tion of the Ukrain­ian fas­cist milieu in the twen­ti­eth and twen­ty-first cen­turies. Some of the most impor­tant U.S. think tanks and asso­ci­at­ed mil­i­tary indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions embody this con­ti­nu­ity: ” . . . . The con­ti­nu­ity of insti­tu­tion­al and indi­vid­ual tra­jec­to­ries from Sec­ond World War col­lab­o­ra­tionists to Cold War-era anti-com­mu­nist orga­ni­za­tions to con­tem­po­rary con­ser­v­a­tive U.S. think tanks is sig­nif­i­cant for the ide­o­log­i­cal under­pin­nings of today’s Inter­mar­i­um revival. . . .”

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Review of the incor­po­ra­tion of the Gehlen “Org” into the U.S. and West­ern intel­li­gence appa­ra­tus; the key pres­ence of the OUN/B and oth­er East­ern Euro­pean fas­cist groups into the Gehlen out­fit; approval giv­en to Gehlen for his deal with the Amer­i­cans by Admi­ral Doenitz (who suc­ceed­ed Hitler) and Gen­er­al Franz Halder (Gehlen’s “for­mer” chief of staff); the incor­po­ra­tion of the OUN/B/Gehlen/ABN milieu into the Repub­li­can Par­ty via the Cru­sade For Free­dom; the key roles in the CFF played by Richard Nixon, Ronald Rea­gan, William Casey and George H.W. Bush; Allen Dulles and William Dono­van’s wartime col­lu­sion with Nazi Ger­many to craft the Chris­t­ian West enti­ty; the for­ma­tion of the Black Eagle Trust by John J. McCloy, Robert Lovett and Robert B. Ander­son (this assured the con­ti­nu­ity of both Japan­ese fas­cism and Ger­man Nazism in the post­war peri­od).

FTR #1097 Fascism: 2019 World Tour, Part 7 (Azov on Our Mind, Part 3)

This pro­gram con­tin­ues analy­sis of the Azov milieu’s net­work­ing with fas­cist indid­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions at an indi­vid­ual lev­el, at an orga­ni­za­tion­al lev­el and online.

Embrac­ing “lone wolf” fas­cists around the world, as well as net­work­ing with fas­cist orga­ni­za­tions and com­bat­ants who have joined the war in Ukraine’s East­ern provinces, Azov is reca­pit­u­lat­ing the “Inter­mar­i­um” con­cept, mint­ed by Pol­ish head of state Josef Pil­sud­s­ki in the peri­od between the World Wars. Work­ing with Croa­t­ians aligned with the “Neo-Ustachi’ milieu we have cov­ered in many past pro­grams, Azov is seek­ing to devel­op a nascent East­ern and Cen­tral Euro­pean alliance of fas­cist and reac­tionary ele­ments.

Of par­tic­u­lar inter­est is the sig­nif­i­cance of the Ukrain­ian and Croa­t­ian fas­cist alliance, which will be explored at greater length in future pro­grams.

Oth­er pro­grams high­light­ing the return of the Ustachi to pow­er in the “new” Croa­t­ia include: FTR #‘s 49, 154, 766, 901.

Next, we note that The FBI arrest­ed a US Army sol­dier for plan­ning domes­tic ter­ror attacks. Jar­rett William Smith–charged with one count of dis­trib­ut­ing infor­ma­tion relat­ed to explo­sives and weapons of mass destruc­tion.

Smith has been in con­tact with the Azov Bat­tal­ion. As ear­ly as 2016, he talked about trav­el­ing to Ukraine to join Azov. He joined the US mil­i­tary instead in June of 2017. After join­ing the mil­i­tary, Smith used Face­book to con­nect with anoth­er Amer­i­can who had trav­eled to Ukraine in 2017 to 2019 to fight with a group sim­i­lar to Azov, which appears to be Pravy Sek­tor. This Amer­i­can report­ed­ly act­ed as Smith’s men­tor.

Using the encrypt­ed mes­sag­ing app Telegram, Smith dis­cussed with an under­cov­er FBI agent his plans for a car bomb attack against an unnamed major cable news network’s head­quar­ters and dis­trib­uted bomb-mak­ing mate­ri­als. He also talked about attacks against mem­bers of antifa and inter­est­ed in find­ing like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als to help him.

Look­ing ahead to oth­er arti­cles below, we note that: “. . . . Ear­li­er this month, for­mer FBI agent Ali Soufan, who runs the glob­al secu­ri­ty firm the Soufan Cen­ter, tes­ti­fied that 17,000 for­eign­ers, includ­ing from the U.S. have trav­eled to Ukraine in recent years to gain para­mil­i­tary skills there. They fought along­side far-right groups like Azov and were return­ing home with those new skills. . . .”

Updat­ing the sto­ry of Jar­rett William Smith, we note:

1.–Smith’s appar­ent men­tor is Craig Lang, anoth­er US Army vet.
2.–Craig Lang joined Right Sec­tor, and then the Geor­gian Nation­al Legion in the Ukrain­ian civ­il war.
3.–Lang, along with fel­low Army vet Alex Zwiefel­hofer, is accused of rob­bing and killing the cou­ple in an effort to get mon­ey to trav­el to Venezuela to “par­tic­i­pate in an armed con­flict against the Boli­var­i­an Repub­lic of Venezuela.”
4.–After leav­ing Right Sec­tor he joined the Geor­gian Nation­al Legion, which is also fight­ing in Ukraine.
5.–In pre­vi­ous pro­grams, we have high­light­ed the appar­ent role of Geor­gian snipers in the Maid­an provo­ca­tion, the tem­po­rary role of for­mer Geor­gian pres­i­dent Saakashvili as gov­er­nor of Odessa, as well as UNA-UNSO com­bat activ­i­ty in Geor­gia’s war with Rus­sia. (UNA-UNSO is a branch of the UNA.)
6.–Zwiefelhofer also fought with Right Sec­tor.
7.–The arti­cle below states that Lang and Smith were in con­tact in 2016, which is a year before Smith joined the US Army.
8.–The pre­vi­ous Vice arti­cle stat­ed that the FBI said Smith got into con­tact with Lang after he joined the US Army in June of 2017.
9.–According to a June 23, 2016, con­ver­sa­tion between Smith and Lang, Smith wrote, “No for­mer mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence, but if I can­not find a slot in Ukraine by Octo­ber I’ll be going into the Army … To fight is what I want to do. I’m will­ing to lis­ten, learn, and train. But to work on firearms is fine by me too.”
10.–Lang respond­ed, “Alright, I’ll for­ward you over to the guy that screens peo­ple he’ll most like­ly add you soon[ … ] Also as a pre-warn­ing if you come to this unit and the gov­ern­ment comes to shut down the unit you will be asked to fight. You may also be asked to kill cer­tain peo­ple who become on the bad graces of cer­tain groups.”
11.–It appears that Lang was prep­ping Smith both to fight against the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment, if nec­es­sary and to be pre­pared to com­mit assas­si­na­tions.
12.–Given every­thing we know about this case at this point, it appears that Right Sec­tor was send­ing a poten­tial recruit into the US Army to learn the kinds of skills that would be use­ful for neo-Nazi ter­ror cam­paigns and that recruit was arrest­ed for dis­sem­i­nat­ing those skills and plan­ning exact­ly that kind of ter­ror cam­paign.

Against the back­ground of 17,000 for­eign fight­ers gain­ing para­mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence in Ukraine, a Vice piece from July notes that Ukraine real­ly is becom­ing a nexus for the inter­na­tion­al far right. That is pre­cise­ly what the Azov Bat­tal­ion has been work­ing on doing.

In that con­text we note that:

1.–Foreign fight­ers have tak­en the com­bat skills honed in Ukraine’s war to oth­er Euro­pean nations. ” . . . . Researchers warn that Ukraine is rad­i­cal­iz­ing far-right for­eign fight­ers in the same way Syr­ia has with jihadis — albeit on a small­er scale — cre­at­ing a glob­al net­work of com­bat-test­ed extrem­ists who pose a secu­ri­ty threat that is now begin­ning to man­i­fest itself. . . .”
2.– ” . . . . [Kacper] Rekawek said Ukraine ful­filled the need, expressed by many ide­o­logues on the extreme right, for a ‘safe space’ for Nazis out­side the West, where they could net­work and orga­nize beyond the pry­ing eyes of domes­tic secu­ri­ty ser­vices. . . .”
3.–Russian fas­cists have fought on both sides of the conflict–a har­bin­ger of pos­si­ble fas­cist sub­ver­sion of Putin should they gain the upper hand in Rus­sia after their return.
4.–” . . . . Swedish neo-Nazis who joined on the Ukrain­ian side saw it as essen­tial­ly ‘the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Sec­ond World War on the east­ern front. You are white Europe and you’re fight­ing Asia, in the form of Rus­sia.’ . . . .”
5.–” . . . . Joachim Furholm, a Nor­we­gian neo-Nazi and recruiter for Azov said their efforts would also help white nation­al­ist forces in the one coun­try where he believed they had the best shot of com­ing to pow­er. . . .‘It’s like a Petri dish for fas­cism… and they do have seri­ous inten­tions of help­ing the rest of Europe in retak­ing our right­ful lands,’ he said. . . .”

We con­clude by not­ing that House Democ­rats are lob­by­ing that the Azov Bat­tal­ion be labeled a For­eign Ter­rotr Orga­ni­za­a­tion. This would facil­i­tate attempts to neu­tral­ize com­bat­ants who had served with Azov upon their return to this coun­try.

Good luck with that!

FTR #1096 Fascism: 2019 World Tour, Part 6 (Azov on Our Mind, Part 2)

We have cov­ered the ori­gin, activ­i­ties and expan­sion of the Ukrain­ian Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion in numer­ous pro­grams. Part of the Ukrainain armed forces, this Nazi unit:

1.–Has spawned a civ­il mili­tia which achieved police pow­ers in many Ukrain­ian cities. “. . . . But Ukraine observers and rights groups are sound­ing the alarm, because this was not a typ­i­cal com­mence­ment, and the men are not police offi­cers. They are far-right ultra­na­tion­al­ists from the Azov move­ment, a con­tro­ver­sial group with a mil­i­tary wing that has open­ly accept­ed self-avowed neo-Nazis, and a civ­il and polit­i­cal fac­tion that has demon­strat­ed intol­er­ance toward minor­i­ty groups. . . .”
2.–Has as its spokesman Roman Zvarych. In the 1980’s, Zvarych was the per­son­al sec­re­tary to Jaroslav Stet­zko, the wartime head of the Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tionist gov­ern­ment in Ukraine. Stet­zko imple­ment­ed Nazi eth­nic cleans­ing in Ukraine dur­ing World War II.
3.–Wields influ­ence with in the Min­istry of the Inte­ri­or through Vadim Troy­an, the for­mer deputy com­man­der of Azov who is now deputy min­is­ter of the inte­ri­or. ” . . . . The deputy min­is­ter of the Interior—which con­trols the Nation­al Police—is Vadim Troy­an, a vet­er­an of Azov and Patri­ot of Ukraine. . . .  Today, he’s deputy of the depart­ment run­ning US-trained law enforce­ment in the entire nation. Ear­li­er this month, RFE report­ed on Nation­al Police lead­er­ship admir­ing Stepan Bandera—a Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tor and Fas­cist whose troops par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Holocaust—on social media. The fact that Ukraine’s police is pep­pered with far-right sup­port­ers explains why neo-Nazis oper­ate with impuni­ty on the streets. . . .”
4.–Gets arms and train­ing from the U.S., despite offi­cial restric­tions on such activ­i­ty. ” . . . . The research group Belling­cat proved that Azov had already received access to Amer­i­can grenade launch­ers, while a Dai­ly Beast inves­ti­ga­tion showed that US train­ers are unable to pre­vent aid from reach­ing white suprema­cists. And Azov itself had proud­ly post­ed a video of the unit wel­com­ing NATO rep­re­sen­ta­tives. . . .”
5.–Is ful­fill­ing their strat­e­gy of net­work­ing with Nazi and fas­cist ele­ments abroad, includ­ing the U.S. ” . . . . FBI Spe­cial Agent Scott Bier­wirth, in the crim­i­nal com­plaint unsealed Wednes­day, not­ed that Right Brand Clothing’s Insta­gram page con­tained a pho­to of RAM mem­bers meet­ing with Ole­na Semenya­ka, a lead­ing fig­ure with­in the fas­cist, neo-Nazi scene in East­ern Europe. In Ukraine, Semenya­ka is an impor­tant voice with­in the Mil­i­tant Zone and Nation­al Corps orga­ni­za­tions and the Pan-Euro­pean Recon­quista move­ment, all of which have ties to the noto­ri­ous Azov Bat­tal­ion. Bier­wirth said Azov Bat­tal­ion, now a piece of the Ukrain­ian Nation­al Guard, is known for neo-Nazi sym­bol­ism and ide­ol­o­gy and has par­tic­i­pat­ed in train­ing and rad­i­cal­iz­ing U.S.-based white suprema­cist orga­ni­za­tions. . . . .”
6.–Is net­work­ing with mem­bers of a group called RAM, some of whom were arrest­ed by the FBI upon their return from Europe. vio­lence.
7.–Is uti­liz­ing Ukraine’s visa-free sta­tus with the EU to net­work with oth­er Euro­pean fas­cist groups. ” . . . . ‘Their Eng­lish has got­ten bet­ter,’ Hryt­senko said, refer­ring to Azov mem­bers behind the group’s West­ern out­reach. . . . . Anoth­er thing that has helped, Hryt­senko not­ed, is that Ukraine’s break from Rus­sia and move toward the Euro­pean Union has allowed Ukraini­ans visa-free trav­el, mak­ing Azov’s out­reach eas­i­er logis­ti­cal­ly. . . . .”
8.–Is look­ing to con­nect with more “respectable” Euro­pean right-wing groups than they have in the past, this as a pos­si­ble vehi­cle for Ukraine’s entry into the EU. ” . . . . Skillt, the Swedish nation­al who fought as a sniper in the Azov Bat­tal­ion, is one of them [crit­ics]. ‘I don’t mind [Azov] reach­ing out, but the ones they reach out to… Jesus,’ he told RFE/RL, in an allu­sion to RAM. He added that he had recent­ly dis­tanced him­self from Azov because of that asso­ci­a­tion and oth­ers with far-right groups in Europe. Skillt, who runs a pri­vate intel­li­gence agency in Kyiv and said his clients ‘real­ly don’t enjoy bad com­pa­ny,’ argued that the group has made a mis­take by not reach­ing out more to right-wing con­ser­v­a­tives who could help with ‘influ­en­tial con­tacts in Europe [so] you don’t get brand­ed a neo-Nazi.’ But Semenya­ka described praise of Azov from for­eign ultra­na­tion­al­ist groups who are increas­ing­ly wel­com­ing it as evi­dence that the orga­ni­za­tion is tak­ing the right path. And she said it isn’t about to let up. Next, she said, Azov hopes to win over larg­er, more main­stream far-right and pop­ulist West­ern polit­i­cal forces who ‘can be our poten­tial sym­pa­thiz­ers.’ ‘If crises like Brex­it and the refugee prob­lem con­tin­ue, in this case, part­ner­ships with nation­al­ist groups in Europe can be a kind of plat­form for our entry into the Euro­pean Union.’ . . . ”
9.–Was award­ed the job of elec­tion mon­i­tor­ing by the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment in their recent elec­tions. ” . . . . They are the ultra­na­tion­al­ist Nation­al Mili­tia, street vig­i­lantes with roots in the bat­tle-test­ed Azov Bat­tal­ion that emerged to defend Ukraine against Rus­sia-backed sep­a­ratists but was also accused of pos­si­ble war crimes and neo-Nazi sym­pa­thies. Yet despite the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing it, the Nation­al Mili­tia was grant­ed per­mis­sion by the Cen­tral Elec­tion Com­mis­sion to offi­cial­ly mon­i­tor Ukraine’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion on March 31. . . .”

 In this pro­gram, we note the oper­a­tions and posi­tion­ing of the Azov milieu both in Ukraine and glob­al­ly.

Azov is among the fas­cist ele­ments oppos­ing Ukrain­ian pres­i­dent Volodomyr Zelen­sky’s efforts at bro­ker­ing a piece with sep­a­ratists in the eth­ni­cal­ly Russ­ian East­ern provinces of Ukraine. Amidst angry street demon­stra­tions against the peace plan with the sep­a­ratists, Zelen­sky met with some of the fas­cist groups, who have threat­ened to over­throw his gov­ern­ment if he goes for­ward with the peace plan. The fas­cists enjoy the sup­port of for­mer pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko.

Ukrain­ian Prime Min­is­ter Hon­charuk and Min­is­ter of Vet­er­ans Affairs Oksana Kolia­ga attend­ed an event orga­nized by ele­ments asso­ci­at­ed with C14 (the street mili­tia of Svo­bo­da) and Azov. Fea­tur­ing Sokyra Pekurna–a Nazi met­al band–the ral­ly rep­re­sent­ed a fur­ther main­stream­ing of the OUN/B suc­ces­sor orga­ni­za­tions in Ukraine.

Fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the issue is the fact that the Azov Bat­tal­ion has tak­en up posi­tions in the town of Zolo­toe, at the front of the ongo­ing war. They have said that they will not with­draw, a threat which, if borne out, will tor­pe­do the peace process.

Con­clud­ing the broad­cast, we “dol­ly [the cam­era] out” and begin an in-depth exam­i­na­tion of the Azov inter­na­tion­al milieu. Embrac­ing “lone wolf” fas­cists around the world, as well as net­work­ing with fas­cist orga­ni­za­tions and com­bat­ants who have joined the war in Ukraine’s East­ern provinces, Azov is reca­pit­u­lat­ing the “Inter­mar­i­um” con­cept, mint­ed by Pol­ish head of state Josef Pil­sud­s­ki in the peri­od between the World Wars. Work­ing with Croa­t­ians aligned with the “Neo-Ustachi’ milieu we have cov­ered in many past pro­grams, Azov is seek­ing to devel­op a nascent East­ern and Cen­tral Euro­pean alliance of fas­cist and reac­tionary ele­ments.

Of par­tic­u­lar inter­est is the sig­nif­i­cance of the Ukrain­ian and Croa­t­ian fas­cist alliance, which will be explored at greater length in future pro­grams.

Oth­er pro­grams high­light­ing the return of the Ustachi to pow­er in the “new” Croa­t­ia include: FTR #‘s 49, 154, 766, 901.

August, 1944: The Cold War Begins in Earnest

Colonel L. Fletch­er Prouty has writ­ten about an August, 1944 mis­sion in which he par­tic­i­pat­ed that indi­cat­ed that the begin­ning of the Cold War was under­way well before VE Day: ” . . . .On August 23, 1944, the Roma­ni­ans accept­ed Sovi­et sur­ren­der terms and in Bucharest the OSS round­ed up Nazi intel­li­gence experts and their volu­mi­nous East­ern Euro­pean intel­li­gence files and con­cealed among a train­load of Amer­i­can POW’s who were being quick­ly evac­u­at­ed from the Balka­ns via Turkey. Once in ‘neu­tral” Turkey, the train con­tin­ued to a planned des­ti­na­tion at a site on the Syr­i­an bor­der, where it was stopped to per­mit the trans­fer of Nazis and POW’s to a fleet of U.S. [Army] Air Force planes for a flight to Cairo. I was the chief pilot of that flight of some thir­ty air­craft . . . .” We note that it was in August of 1944 that the famous “Red House” meet­ing at which the Bor­mann flight cap­i­tal net­work real­ized under the aus­pices of Aktion Adler­flug was launched.

Ustachi and the ABN at the World Cup

The Croa­t­ian foot­ball [soc­cer] team gave voice to Ustachi and OUN/B fas­cist ide­ol­o­gy in the World Cup match­es being held in Rus­sia. ” . . . . The Pres­i­dent of the Croa­t­ian Foot­ball Asso­ci­a­tion, Davor Šuk­er. . . . had even been pho­tographed in 1996 at the grave site of Ustaša Fuehrer Ante Pavelić.[5] . . . . Even before the Croa­t­ian play­er Domagoj Vida’s remarks became known, one of his team­mates staged a provo­ca­tion, by refer­ring pos­i­tive­ly to his coun­try’s fas­cist past dur­ing the World Cup in Rus­sia. Fol­low­ing the Croa­t­ian team’s vic­to­ry over the Argen­tine team, Dejan Lovren enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly chimed in a song of the Croa­t­ian singer ‘Thomp­son’ that starts with the words ‘Za dom — sprem­ni!’ (‘For the Home­land — Ready!’).[1] This had been the slo­gan of Nazi Ger­many’s col­lab­o­ra­tor Ustaša fas­cist move­ment, which had ruled the Croa­t­ian state between 1941 and 1945 and par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Holo­caust. . . . Fol­low­ing Croa­t­i­a’s vic­to­ry over the Russ­ian team, a video clip emerged show­ing the Croa­t­ian play­er ded­i­cat­ing his team’s vic­to­ry to the Ukraine, while chant­i­ng ‘Glo­ry to the Ukraine!’[2] This is a slo­gan of anoth­er of the Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors — the Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ist (OUN). . . . the OUN par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Holo­caust and mur­dered over 90,000 Poles, and thou­sands of Jews. ‘Glo­ry to Ukraine! Glo­ry to the Heroes’ (‘Slawa Ukrai­ni! Hero­jam slawa!’) was their pop­u­lar greet­ing. On the same video clip, the Croa­t­ian assis­tant coach Ogn­jen Vuko­je­vić added: ‘This vic­to­ry is for Dynamo [Kiev] and Ukraine.’ Both the OUN/B and the Ustachi main­tained pro­found links to the Gehlen “Org” and, through that, the CIA and BND in the post-World II peri­od. The Ustachi have been part of the GOP since the imme­di­ate post-war peri­od. The Vat­i­can has also been instru­men­tal in main­tain­ing the Ustacha pres­ence on the world stage.