Jasenovac

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TRANSCRIPT OF BANJA LUKA TELEVISION INTERVIEW
OF BARRY LITUCHY BY JANKO VELIMIROVIC
BANJA LUKA, REPUBLIC OF SERBIA
10 MAY 2000

Velimirovic: The Second International Conference on Jasenovac is being held here in Banja Luka with the participation of many respected social scientists from around the world including the United States. With us tonight is Barry Lituchy, a historian and writer from the United States. At the beginning of the interview he will introduce himself and after that we will ask him why he came here and how ordinary Americans as well as social scientists and politicians in America view our situation here in Bosnia. Mr. Lituchy, good evening and welcome to our program.

Lituchy: Thank you and Good Evening. First, a few words about myself. I am a Lecturer in Modern European History at the City University of New York. I have been working on research relating to Jasenovac for the last six years. I was the initiator and one of the organizers of the First International Conference and Exhibition on Jasenovac in 1997 in New York. So, I am here now for the Second Conference which has just ended. And it was without question a great success - as was the first conference - and I think now we have built up a great deal of excitement and momentum as far as promoting more research and making more headway in the effort to seek justice for the victims of the Holocaust in Yugoslavia, which is, after all, our highest goal. But I have done work on other areas relating to Yugoslavia. For example, I've written articles on American foreign policy toward Yugoslavia, also the role of the media and other issues regarding the destruction of Yugoslavia. In fact, I see that you have a book here in which I have an article, NATO in the Balkans, which also has been translated into Serbian. And there's another book that's coming out soon with one of my articles. So those are some of my interests, but right now I'm here in Banja Luka for the Second International Jasenovac Conference.

Velimirovic: Mr. Lituchy, what is your understanding of the situation here in this part of the world during the Second World War and after?

Lituchy: You know, Jasenovac is connected to a lot of important issues in modern European history. By the way, I'm using the word "Jasenovac" as a kind of shorthand to refer to the entire Holocaust in Yugoslavia in World War II. But the issue of Jasenovac is closely connected to the history of the Cold War and the suppression of the truth about Jasenovac is connected to the emergence of Yugoslavia as a neutral country in the post-World War II period - though we should put quotation marks around the term "neutral country" because there was no such thing. But let's go back to 1943. In 1943 the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union signed the document known as "the Moscow Agreement". The Moscow Agreement said that the big three allies agreed to arrest all war criminals at the end of the war and that they would send them to the countries in which they had committed their crimes for trial by those countries. This was an important part of the overall agreement between the three allied powers on how to prosecute the war and how they would work together to conclude the war and deal with the fascist powers after the war as an alliance, because they had to have some basis to do this. And this was a part of how the Big Three would define the terms of surrender: it would be an unconditional surrender and the fascist leaders would be tried for war crimes after the war. Well, at the end of the war a victorious Yugoslavia led by the Partisans, attempted to carry out this agreement. They sought extradition of the Ustashe and other fascist war criminals in Yugoslavia many of whom fled to the West and were in places controlled by either the US or Britain for trial in Yugoslavia. However, the US and Britain violated the Moscow agreement. If you look at the documents of the American government on this question - which were also suppressed for many decades - you see how US and British policy evolved on the question of extraditing war criminals and toward Yugoslavia. And what you see is first that in the Fall of 1945 already there is a shift from the words of the Moscow Agreement to a very conditional turning over of war criminals to Yugoslavia where they do not necessarily have to turn over war criminals to Yugoslavia unless a certain threshhold of evidence is presented. Then in early 1946 you have yet another shift in policy whereby the US and Britain agreed not to turn over ANY war criminals to Yugoslavia whatsover. And finally a document that declares there were no war criminals in Yugoslavia. The US Ambassador in Belgrade at the time was so outraged by this protection of fascist war criminals that he wrote a stong letter of protest to the State Department and threatened to resign. This document was also suppressed for many years.

So why were the United States and Britain doing this? Well, they had already embarked on a policy of trying to undermine and overturn the Communist leadership in Yugoslavia. At the end of the war, US and British policy toward Yugoslavia was not much different than their policy toward the Soviet Union. There are several interesting quotes from State Department officials in 1945 which I brought to the Conference where they said clearly that we EXPECT to have a war with the Soviet Union. Similarly, the US and Britain was preparing to go to war against Yugoslavia, because there were several contested issues with Yugoslavia, for example the border with Italy, Trieste, and Yugoslavia's aid to the Greek Communists. And already the US and Britain were providing protection and soon thereafter employing many of these fascist war criminals from Yugoslavia. The US and British military closely followed and then allowed the escape of basically the entire Ustashe fascist leadership from the displaced person camps in Austria - with the help of the International Red Cross and the Vatican. There is one document, one of the now famous "Bigelow documents" named after the US Army Intelligence officer who wrote them, and that was only de-classified a couple of years ago, that states clearly that the US and British forces even confiscated some of the Ustashe gold plundered from the Serbian, Jewish and Roma victims of genocide in the Independent State of Croatia, let them keep the rest, and then allowed the Ustashe leadership to travel on to Italy where they were protected by the Vatican and then later smuggled to Argentina and other destinations. From 1946 to 1948 you also had the US and British sending in paratroopers and special forces trying to overthrow the Yugoslav and Albanian Communist governments and growing tensions with Yugoslavia as a result of Tito's support for the Communists in the Greek Civil War. You also had two American warplanes shot down over Yugoslavia in 1947 and the entire American media calling for war against Yugoslavia.

So this is the context in which the US and Britian decided that they would not return any war criminals to Yugoslavia, violating their wartime agreement. By 1948 almost the entire Ustashe leadership, not to mention 10,000 Ukrainian fascists, as well as Bosnian Muslim fascists, Albanian fascists, were living safely under the protection of the Vatican in Italy, and beginning to travel in the infamous ratlines to Argentina and other countries, and many were also being recruited directly by American and British intelligence forces soldiers in the Cold War against Communism.

In 1948 you have the Tito-Stalin split. I don't need to tell you that that was one of the most important events in the history of Yugoslavia and Balkans and in fact in modern European history because it led to the isolation of Yugoslavia from the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact countries. At the same time Yugoslavia began a raproachment with the US and Britain. Why did the US and Britain want this? Because they wanted to use Yugoslavia as a wedge with which they could divide the Warsaw Pact countries and weaken Soviet control in Eastern Europe. You know, American foreign policy may sometimes seem to Europeans to be naive - but it's not naive. The vast bureaucracy in Washington that designs US foreign policy are full time policy makers with lifelong careers in foreign policy. They are not elected after all. In any case, part of the overall agreement after 1948 between Yugoslavia and the US was that Yugoslavia would stop pressing for war crimes prosecutions, and Yugoslavia would back off on the punishment of those fascist war criminals then being tried, particularly those connected to the Catholic Church, the most famous being Archbishop Stepinac. You have no idea what an uproar was created by the media in the US regarding the Stepinac case. He was viewed in the US as a martyr of religious persecution by Communsits. This being a condition for better relations and aid from the US, Tito's government did back away from pressing for extradition of war criminals and adopted a much more lenient policy toward the Catholic Church. The suppression of Jasenovac, the suppression of historical truth, begins there. And the United Nations Commission of War Crimes closes its doors and the entire content of the archives on war crimes are sealed in 1948. The UN's records regarding war crimes in Yugoslavia were apparently destroyed or disappeared, and if you go there today they will tell you that there were no war crimes in Yugoslavia, that there are no records of a Jasenovac.

So you see, the suppression of the truth of Jasenovac was necessary for American and British foreign policy in the Cold War. It was necessary on the one hand to defend the Vatican, to prop up the Vatican in world affairs as an important voice of anti-Communism and to use the Catholic Church as a vehicle for undermining the socialist countries from within. It wasn't just Yugoslavia. Just look at the role it played in Poland for example. On the other hand, it was necessary to use these war criminals as organizers of espionage, anti- Communism and counter-revolution in Eastern Europe.

Thus, you then have an entire period of history in which the Ustashe and other war criminals from Yugoslavia are actively employed by the US and the whole history of the Holocaust in Yugoslavia is suppressed, and as a result of this the fate, the future of Yugoslavia is placed into a very dangerous position because it leads to the preservation of the fascist movements from Yugoslavia, kept alive outside of the borders of Yugoslavia by the West. And they never do die nor do their activities cease because they are kept alive and financed by the CIA. There were several programs sponsored by the US government to help these fascists under the pretext of "national oppression" that funneled millions of dollars every year to their operations beginning in the 1950's. And thus a permanent threat to Yugoslavia was left intact.

But at the same time the United States and Britain also preserved Yugoslavia. Why? Again because the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact was the greatest danger and Yugoslavia could be used as a wedge for dividing the Communist countries, and as a model of independence from Moscow to which the other Warsaw Pact countries might look to and imitate. And surely the events of 1956, Prague Spring, the distancing of Rumania from Moscow under Ceaucescu were all deemed positive results of this policy toward Yugoslavia. However, the usefulness of Yugoslavia as an independent and "neutral" socialist country was never viewed by the United States as a permanent policy. Once the Soviet Union began to unravel and the Berlin Wall came down there was no longer any reason for the United States to support a socialist Yugoslavia. It was time to destroy Yugoslavia. And when this time came in 1989 the process for doing so was already in place: the Ustahe and other Balkan fascists had been kept alive and organized, the role of the Vatican and the Catholic clergy in the Holocaust had been suppressed, American, British and after 1960 German intelligence ran operations with Ustashe and other fascists. They had been preparing for the day when these organizations could be used and their larger strategic plan for Eastern Europe could be realized. And they were used elsewhere in Europe. Remember that the involvement of the CIA with Father Dragonovich and the Ratlines was exposed in the mid 1980's not because of Yugoslavia, but because of France and the case of the French Nazi Klaus Barbie. That was why most American scholars found out about Dragonovic in the first place, along with the Ratlines and the role played by the Ustashe and Vatican in their operations.

So when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union was being destroyed, all of the pieces were in place and the whole situation was perfect to destroy Yugoslavia as well. And in doing so, many of the same crimes carried out in Holocaust would be carried out all over again by the same parties and their descendents -- because there was no historical memory and there was no historical record. And some of the criminals themselves who committed the crimes in World War II are still alive fifty years later to commit them all over again, and to prepare a new generation to commit the same crimes.

So the role of Jasenovac is so important in understanding the Cold War, in understanding the history of the Catholic Church and the Vatican, in understanding the evolution of US and British intelligence, and of course in understanding the destruction of Yugoslavia. It's at the very center of the history of the twentieth century. That's why I focus so much attention to it, and that's why I've always said that Jasenovac is at the very core of recent events in the breakup and civil wars in Yugoslavia, and you cannot understand the war against the Serbs and Yugoslavia unless you understand Jasenovac.

Velimirovic: In your reply you described the post war Yugoslav emigration composed of Ustashe who escaped to Canada, Argentina, and other western countries. Interestingly enough, at the beginning of the nineties the same Ustashe reappeared on the political scene here in Yugoslavia when the Croatian Democratic Alliance (HDZ) invited them to come back to the new Croatian state. What do you think about that? They cam back, they were rehabilitated and the world did not react to it. This made Serbs in Croatia and elsewhere afraid and restless. What if Jasenovac is to be repeated, they thought? Did you think about that? Did you consider this? Did you do any research on this matter?

Lituchy: Of course, that's a good question and the reaction was perfectly natural. I think it was somewhat known even among the American public that Croatian fascist groups in particular were active in North America and Australia and South America. In the 1970's after the Croatian Spring you had fascists acts carried out abroad, the bombing of planes even in the US, but you also had a lot of things that public didn't know about at the time, assassinations on Yugoslav officials and counter-assaults by the Udba on Croatian fascists abroad as a way of putting pressure on the US to keep these forces under control. And the Croatian fascist groups were very active in the US all through the 1980's, in fact their strength in the 1980's grew. This was happening in Australia and Canada too - Pavelic's relatives were living in Toronto. But in the US an entire new generation of Ustashe leaders were being trained - people like Paraga in fact played an important role in American politics in the late 1980's. Paraga was involved in the early Congressional hearings that started the process of destroying Yugoslavia, by mobilizing support first in the US government and then in the media and general public for destroying Yugoslavia. Paraga was called before the US Human Rights Commission, a special commission created by US Congress in 1980 as a weapon in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. This Commission was extremely important in the destruction of Yugoslavia because Congressmen and lobbyists brought forward some of these fascists, some of whom had been active for decades, to testify about the human rights abuses against national minorities by the government of Yugoslavia. Paraga is one that comes to mind. There's also a lot of new information coming out too. I just received some new documents just before I came here were recently de-classified and released by the FBI that are reports of the activities of the Ustashe in the United States over the past fifty years. This is completely new information that no one has seen before. These are documents that are being used in the lawsuit against the Vatican Bank on behalf of families of victims of Ustashe genocide. Because of these documents the suit is being expanded to include the Ustashe emigre movements for their role in receiving stolen gold and assets of victims of Jasenovac to subsidize their activities.

But for the most part the American public has been kept in the dark. In fact Croatian and Albanian extremists like Paraga were portrayed in the American media as human rights activists. So you have members of the Ustashe movement portrayed by American politicians and lobbyists and then by the media as fighters for human rights. That's a big deception, but it was only a start.

Velimirovic: The crisis started in the nineties. The wars in the former Yugoslavia started first in Slovenia, then there was a short war in the Republic of Croatia, then Srpska Krajina was formed and at the end came the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The war in Croatia went as it did – the Serbs were expelled from Croatia with the help of International forces. There are documents which prove this. The Americans then became tougher and more determined in Bosnia and Herzegovia. How do you see the role of America, the role which we have seen in public. Is there something which we don’t know now but which we may learn later, after some time passes by?

Lituchy: Well, there is always more that is learned later. But we know that the war against Yugoslavia goes back to before 1990. At least to the fall of the Berlin wall, or actually the meeting at Rejkavek between Reagan and Gorbachev and the agreements on the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Eastern Europe and reunification of Germnay. The United States already was implementing a plan for the destruction of Yugoslavia at that point. Already in 1988 and 1989 you had in the US Congress a campaign to mobilize Congressional and public support for this. You can read about this is The Congressional Record for those years. This is the journal of the proceedings of the US government that you can find in any major library. In the proceedings from 1988 and 1989 you will find hearings on Yugoslavia, and you will find Croat and Albanian fascists and right wingers testifying about the abuses of the Yugoslav government. This was the initial stage of the war to destroy Yugoslavia.

Now you asked me what was the initial perception of the American public at that time. Well at that time the American public had no perception at all, because there was no news about this in the media. Even as late as 1991, very little information was available in the media, except for an occasional article about human rights abuses. Before the actual fighting began, the US government was mobilizing the necessary forces in Washington, in human rights organizations, in the media, and in fundraising to prepare for the media war that was about to begin. I should add that through the entire post-war period most Americans had never even heard of Yugoslavia or had any idea where it was. The problem for the American education system regarding Yugoslavia was that Yugoslavia was a Communist country which you could not easily malign. There were no concentration camps or people being shot in the streets, or people starving, or say the worst aspects of Ceaucescu's Rumania. So the US educational system disappeared it because it didn't fit into its larger picture of the world where the forces of light (the US) were fighting the foirces of darkness (the USSR).

You also have to understand that, as one of our President's Warren Harding once said: "The business of America is business." America's economic situation in the 1970's and 1980's was not that great. Many US corporations were losing global markets. There was a great concern about the declining role of US corporations in the world economy vis a vis the Communist countries, Japan, and Europe. The increasing marginalization of the US economy in many parts of the world. From the viewpoint of these corporations this situation had to be altered and the destruction of the state controlled economies in the Soviet Union and elsewhere was necessary.

So in 1989 with the congressional hearings on human rights abuses in Yugoslavia, and the bilateral agreements with Gorbachev and the fall of the Berlin Wall being implemented, you then have President George Bush calling Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Markovic to Washington and Bush making an ultimatum to Markovic saying to him that you have to hold elections in each of the Yugoslav republics and you must also begin a program of privatization otherwise we will impose economic and politcal sanctions on your country immediately. The sanctions of 1992 were already being threatened in 1989. So as you know Markovic went back and the Yugoslav government decided it would go along with the American policy. There was a lot of naivete in Yugoslavia, people here didn't understand America's plan for destroying Yugoslavia. The friendship with America was not a permanent friendship, but a short term tactic for undermining Yugoslavia. And while Bush is telling Markovic that he must hold elections the US government is helping to mobilize large amounts of money to help establish political parties in the republics with pro-secessionists programs - and not just among Croats, Muslims and Albanians, but with Serbs as well. But the former Ustashe were of course organizing abroad to take power in Croatia and the US government was complicit in this because the Croatian, Albanian and Bosnian Muslim secessionists were all introduced at this time - 1989 - to the big public relations firms in the US. In the early 1990's we acquired the documents on this from the Justice Department. When US public relation firms are hired by a foreign country they must file special papers. What we found was that you had the Croats, Bosnian Muslims, and something called the Republic of Kosova employing these public relations firms as far back as 1989. These are firms that charge tens of millions of dollars for their services per year. They are very expensive businesses. Who paid for this? Who allowed this? This could only have been done with the full knowledge and support of figures high up in the US government. In regard to Kosovo, you had an American Congressman by the name of DioGuardi who is of Albanian descent who played a big role in mobilizing the money and support for US policy on Yugoslavia and who still plays a big role today in Washington in promoting a greater Albania. In fact, DioGuardi just announced last week that he was running for the office of US Senator from New York. If he becomes a US Senator (I laugh) that will be very, very bad for Yugoslavia indeed.

But you have to understand the US created these elections essentially as a method of putting into power the government it wanted in Yugoslavia, who would then organize the breakup of Yugoslavia LEGALLY. The US likes to achieve its foreign policy objectives in a legal way. We saw this with Rambouillet. They present you with a document, you sign this document, it's all legal, ok you may be signing away your country, but it's all legal. Of course, if you don't cooperate the US will go to war with you. Well, that's the American way -- we want to have that legal contract signed. It's that business mentality again.

So in 1990 after those elections were held the only places where US supported secessionists did not come to power were Serbia and Montenegro. And the US government, Congressmen, lobbyists, and the public relations firms began to step up their campaign in the media claiming massive human rights abuses. In late Summer of 1990 Senator Bob Dole led a Congressional delegation to Kosovo organized by Dioguardi and containing Human Rigths officials like Jeri Laber, the head of Helsinki Watch. And when they came back they flooded the media with the help of the public relations firms with stories about these alleged abuses and the need for Yugoslavia to be dismembered. Laber wrote a big piece in the NY Times in the fall of 1990 entitled "Why Should Yugoslavia Remain One Country?" using her authority as head of the respected Helsinki Watch. This push rang the bell for the wars in Yugoslavia. Bob Dole as well was writing articles and making speeches along these lines.

So in 1990, before a single shot was fired, before any fighting inside Yugoslavia began, there was already a war against Yugoslavia. You had the force of hundreds of billions of dollars, and the entire political establishment and US media mobilized to destroy Yugoslavia. The plan for sanctions was ready, the public relations firms and lobbyists were hired, the war propaganda had already started, and the secessionist movements were all well financed and supported by the US government. The pieces were all in place for the wars in Yugoslavia. Everything was set. All that was needed was a little push, and not much either, because the momentum had already started for seccession and civil war.

Velimirovic: Are Americans satisfied with the Dayton Peace Accords?

Lituchy: That's a complicated question. Dayton is an important model for Kosovo and for the long term colonization of the entire Balkans. But the US was not satisfied with Dayton at the time. They would have preferred not to bomb, and they would have preferred to include Kosovo in the agreement at Dayton. But the US was not strong enough relative to the Serbs to do that at the time. Also the US always likes to achieve its aims through its proxies. The Clinton administration was deeply disappointed that even with their secret arming of the Muslim and Croat governments and the many Islamic and fascist mercenaries shipped in that the Serbian forces could not be defeated by the US proxies. The US each time pretended to favor negotiations when Serbian forces were strong, but used the opportunity to build up the Muslim and Croat forces. It was a very precarious situation. Some American leaders in Washington wanted to push Serbs out of Bosnia altogether as we see today in Kosovo. So, no, they didn't get everything they wanted. But they did get their new Muslim puppet state in Sarajevo. And Dayton served as an important stepping stone for the further colonization and destruction of Yugoslavia.

Velimirovic: Now we have a situation that NATO is present not only in Bosnia But in Kosovo as well. We don’t have time to explain what happened last year, but tell us briefly what is NATO’s objective in Kosovo? Also, will you tell us more specifically about the position of Montenegro today?

Lituchy: This goes back again to the question of economic interests: "The business of America is buisiness." The American public was never told that there were economic motives for the war against Yugoslavia. But there are very great economic interests and geo-political interests here. There is a very interesting document that tells you a lot that was issued last year by the US Treasury Department which lists all of the business assets of Yugoslavia that the US government wants to privatize and turn over to US and Western corporations. The fact that Yugoslavia did not go along with the privatization campaign imposed on Eastern Europe in the 1990's by the US is one of the main motives for the destruction of Yugoslavia, to destroy the state run enterprises and dismantle the last state run economy in Europe, and to reorganize the resources of the Balkans for the use of Western corpoations. Of course, there are other economic motives such as Yugoslavia's location at the crossroads of oil and gas pipelines, the use of the port of Bar for the transport of goods in and out of East Europe, and also the mineral resources of Kosovo and the entire region. The US and Europe also view Yugoslavia as an obstacle to European integration, as its called. That is a single European market dominated by a few industrial and banking giants. But let's turn also to the geo-political motivations. The role this war plays in expanding US and Western power eastward. The Balkans are the first use of NATO since it was created. It's the first out of area operation. What this is about is America's desire to expand NATO's role and to use NATO as a weapon for carrying out US policies in Russia, in the Middle East, in Africa, and of course in the all important Caspian Sea region whose oil riches the US covets. NATO's ow website gives you some idea of their evolving role in US policy and the Rand Corporation a military think tank in California published important policy papers explaining that the war against Yugoslavia was essential for projecting US power Eastward toward Russia and Caspian Sea area. And so these are the economic and geopolitical motives for dismembering Yugoslavia, creating these small mini-states that have no viability and no independence from the West.

It's tragedy for all of the Balkan peoples but especially for the Serbs because now Serbs are divided into several states, living under different governments. Serbian national self-determination is being violated by NATO and the question of the sovereignty and survival of the Serbian people is at stake. The top priority for Serbs right now has to be keep alive the demands of Serbian national unity, self-determination and sovereignty, and that they are inviolable and should be the first point on the political program. The legitimacy of Serbian national sovereignty needs to be fought for and cannot de-legitimized by NATO forces whether they be SFOR or KFOR. And actually one good thing that came out of the war was that by standing up and fighting NATO - though some people think Milosevic should not have signed any deal and fought longer - but to tell you truth he accomplished a great deal by not signing Rambouillet and forcing the Americans to compromise and sign the UN agreement which at least does maintain the legitimacy of Serbian and Yugoslav rule over Kosovo. It will take another war to rip that away. Right now that's not something Clinton wants to do in an election year. But the long term picture suggests the US will need to go to war again in Kosovo, in Bosnia, and even in Montenegro, though it seems to be the least likely place. But the US wants to detach Montenegro.

And it's all tied up with economic motives. To destroy the economic structures and independence of a people you first have to destroy their political institutions. If you destroy a people's political independence you then can destroy their economic self-determination as well and create the kind of conditions the US likes to create everywhere else in the world: a state of permanent dependency and underdevelopment. This is one of the main lessons of world history, that peoples without strong, independent states and political institutions lose control over their own economic destinies. So that's certainly the main goal of NATO colonization: to rip away the political and economic self-determination of the peoples of the Balkans, especially the Serbs.

Velimirovic: At the end I must say I am sorry that the time is so short for all the questions and answers. But please tell us are there in America any other opinions and positions besides the official ones and how are they expressed? Are there different views and could we know what they are about?

Lituchy: You know, the war against Yugoslavia over the last ten years produced one of the most vicious propaganda wars against a people of all times. The hate that was created in the US media against Yugoslavia and the Serbian people was tremendous, I mean really it was unique. There was nothing like it previously - Iraq, Vietnam, none of those wars come close in producing the kind of vile race hatred against Serbs, portraying Serbs in cartoons as pigs in the Chicago Tribune, and as vultures and apes in the New York Times, and doing the same in every newspaper and media in the United States. And a very small group of writers, political groups and individuals fought hard for many years against this. And probably the first good book on this subject that came out was this one you have here, NATO IN The Balkans, which is now going to be published in Belgrade in Serbian. My article in here "Media Deception and the Yugoslav Civil War" was written in December 1994, but it has all you need to know because everything you needed to know was out there already. There are a couple of books coming out that are pretty good. One is by my friend Michael Parenti who came with me to Yugoslavia last August as part of our team to investigate war crimes by NATO has written a book called To Kill A Nation which will be published soon by Verso. I was one of the two readers or editors of the book so I can tell you it's a great book. There is also the upcoming war crimes tribunal of Ramsey Clark on June 10th in New York which is very important and will produce at least one book and much important information. Thousands of people are coming to this event from all over the world to wrap up the hearings of this tribunal which is based on the tribunal created during the Vietnam War by Bertrand Russell, Jean Paul Sartre and Vladimir Dedijer among others. This is a very important foundation for establishing the truth about the last ten years.

Also you should have been in New York during the war, there were many demonstrations in New York some of them with ten or fifteen thousand people. There was one which was directed just against the New York Times for their lies which we called the March For Truth. That was the only time that the New York Times ever wrote about a demonstration against this war. Their policy is not to report demonstrations against US policy that take place in America -- only demonstrations that take place in Belgrade against governments the United States opposes. And I would say that by the time the war ended in June, American public opinion had begun to change more and more against the war. Of course, it took an awful long time for that to happen -- ten years of war war against Serbs and against Yugoslavia. But at least perceptions have begun to change in the US about America's Intervention in Yugoslavia. But we are still a long way away from creating the kind of awareness and opposition that we would like. There's obviously a lot more to do.

Velimirovic: Dear viewers of Independent Television, our guest tonight was Professor Barry Lituchy. He was a participant in the Second Conference on Jasenovac and he was one of the initiators and organizers of the First Conference on Jasenovac which was held in New York in 1997. Mr. Lituchy, thank you once again. You will be welcome as our guest again, maybe in two or three years from now. I am sure it will be as interesting as this one.

Lituchy: Thank you. It was a pleasure.

(c.) copyright, Barry Lituchy 2000.