Djurdjevich

Georgia has been in the news lately after Georgia invaded the breakaway territory of South Ossetia in early August.  South Ossetia borders Russia and was a disputed territory after Georgia declared its independence in the early 1990s.

I spent the summer of 1992 studying in Indiana University’s six week Summer Study Abroad program in the former Soviet Union (Saint Petersburg, Georgia, and Moscow).  I had just finished finals early in early May just after the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles and was glad to be getting out of the USA.  Famous last words…

The group was mostly college kids from the Midwest, particularly a western Michigan college.
We met up at JFK Airport in NYC.  The stewardesses brought out the vodka to placate the crazy college kids and others waiting for many hours on the runaway in an old Aeroflot plane. (Are you paying attention Jet Blue?)  We finally took off from JFK to Prague for a day and a half. (I don’t drink beer that often but the best beer I ever drank was brewed in the basement of a restaurant in central Prague.)

We then transferred through Bratislava enroute to Saint Petersburg. It was interesting to be in “Czechoslovakia” as it was splitting up — thankfully peacefully unlike Yugoslavia tragically to its south.

The four weeks in Saint Petersburg were filled with tours, study, and some fun. I listened to Russian radio and it kept reporting of the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.  My Russian wasn’t perfect but the gunfire in the background wasn’t hard to translate. It didn’t sound safe either in nearby Baku and I let our American group leader, Larry, know it. Larry agreed.

However, Larry was convinced by our Georgian guides who “guaranteed our safety” in eight days. For the record, I would have preferred to spend the eight days in Kiev, Ukraine, (as originally scheduled) and/or add some days to the five days we were supposed to in Moscow.  There was more to do in Moscow and Kiev, the women were prettier, and less likely to get shot at.  I was unfortunately outvoted and off to Georgia we went.

This wasn’t your typical “Girls Gone Wild” college trip.  Nope, it was the “Gamsakhurdia Gone Into Exile and Run for Your Life Tour”.  You know it’s bad when the first democratically elected President of Georgia had to go into exile.  Long story.  This vignette is replete with “Georgian Male Bonding”, dead peace keepers, and a couple of dozen unarmed college kids wondering how they ended up in the middle of a civil war that supposedly ended six months before.

We left Saint Petersburg in early June just before beautiful White Nights.  The Aeroflot flight from Saint Petersburg to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, was a flight where both humans and livestock were welcome. There were a couple of caged chickens stowed in the overhead compartments.  The noise and distraction was okay compared to the condensation that was leaking on me from the ceiling from above my seat.  Before taking off, we all held hands and prayed for safe travel in our various faiths, even the atheist girl to Someone.

We thankfully landed safe and sound. The bus drove in the rain past some bombed out buildings from the civil war that supposedly ended six months before.  Our college group was the first civilians to visit Tbilisi.  Only military advisors and diplomats who had to go went.  That should have been another clue to Larry but our safety was “guaranteed” by our hosts.

There was no hot water for the showers as Georgia supported fellow Eastern Orthodox country Armenia in the dispute with Muslim Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.  In retaliation, the Azeris cut off the oil supply so Georgia had to conserve energy where possible.

If the cold water wasn’t enough of a wake-up call, here was only one working elevator as someone was murdered in the other one during the night.  You could still see the bullet holes and blood coming out of the elevator in the morning.  And we were at the best hotel in town. Our trip was starting to feel more like “Hostel” than “Eurotrip”.

We ate breakfast and bordered the bus for our first tour.  The bus had a bullet hole in the windshield. To lighten the situation, someone put a “Fruit of the Loom” sticker to cover up the bullet hole.

We had an armed guard with an AK-47 follow us in a car behind us wherever we went. We traveled north of Tbilisi into South Ossetia or very close nearby.  I forget the exact town names in relation to current events but I felt lonely in the morbid way.  There was a totally empty ski resort built by the Austrians in a joint venture with a local Georgian group.  We made the best of it with our Georgian drinking horns filled with wine and vodka plus lots of prayer.

We got back to the hotel and were “entertained” nightly featuring the “Georgian Male Bonding” troupe/militia.  This was where drunk men fired bullets into the air right outside our hotel.  Those bullets thankfully didn’t hit us but a sniper’s bullet a couple of days later went through the “0″ in Room 808.  I was down the hall in Room 811. Whew!

Even if we wanted to go “clubbing”, there was a 11 pm or midnight curfew.  We weren’t going anywhere as stayed in the hallway or under our beds away from the windows to avoid the gunfire.

Not to be outdone, my fellow travelers were diverse featuring the following non-violent main characters:

(1) My roommate Dave was studying at Yale under Professor Paul Kennedy of “Rise and Fall of the Great Powers” fame.  Dave was a good guy and REM fan.

(2) “Wayne’s World” impersonator Ian from Michigan.  Nothing like a 280+ pound former offensive lineman singing and dancing to Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” to break the tension.

(3) Krista the feminist.  She wanted to spread feminism to Georgia and the former Soviet Union.  I advised against it as there were enough bullets flying around.  No reason to get shot interfering in others’ political affairs, especially in a traditional country emerging from decades of communism.

(4) Catherine the ballerina.  Catherine became my quasi-girlfriend on the trip.  I got Giardia, or water bacteria, from drinking the water in Saint Petersburg.  Catherine was nice enough to lend me some penicillin to combat it.  I was so ill and out of it that I slept through the Kutasi gang warfare near our hotel.  Thanks wherever you are Catherine!

(5) Dado the Georgian Tour guide. Dado didn’t “guarantee our safety” like his idiot and greedy boss but was a gracious host.  Feeling bad about the oil embargo, he chopped fire wood to load the wood burning stove in a Kutasi.  The wood heated the pipes to give us our only hot shower in the eight days trip.

——

After a few days in Tbilisi, we made our way to Gori, Joseph Stalin’s hometown, and then onto Kutasi, west of Tbilisi for our first and only overnight trip to Kutasi.  While in Gori, we visited Joseph Stalin’s boyhood home. We then wanted to take pictures of his statue a few hundreds yards away. However, our guides asked us to get on the bus and we would drive there.  We were bewildered and became angry as the bus kept driving past his statue.  Not that any of us cared for the Monster but his statue was the last remaining one anywhere in the world. Quite a potential scoop for the history and political science students.  Alas, another dashed opportunity. However, it was good that we left Gori when we did, only hours before a few Russian peace keepers were killed in Gori.

The bus guzzled along to Kutasi where we spent the night.  I was so ill and on Catherine’s penicillin that I thankfully slept through the gang warfare outside my hotel room.  Dado loaded the wood stove to heat the water for my only hot shower of the entire eight days.

Tensions were high on the way back from Kutasi as we were stopped at a checkpoint returning to Tbisili.  We learned of the Russian peace keepers who were killed in Gori the day before, just hours after we left.  We were a pretty frazzled group and I couldn’t blame Ian for “losing it”.

Some of us toured a beautiful and old Georgian Orthodox Church in Tbisili.  Lucky we were at Church as someone blew up a jeep only blocks from our hotel.  This was apparently in retaliation for the deaths of the Russian peace keepers in Gori two days earlier.  I’m not sure who killed who but wanted out.

We thankfully left Tbisili after Larry or his Georgian counterpart bribed airport officials to let overweight luggage through. Ian and I were way over the limit.  I filled a large hockey bag with metroskaya dolls and Russian literary classics from Pushkin, Tolstoy, and others that I bought for a song in Saint Petersburg.

We spent four or few days in Moscow.  I met up with a brother of the friend of the family there. I never made it to the circus and have yet to do so. I guess I’ll have to go to Madison Square Garden one of these years.  We flew back through Prague and back to JFK. I learned enough Russian to help a Russian man get to “Kleveland” (Cleveland).  My Mom stopped by to say hi and I gave her the hockey bag of souvenirs.

I continued onto Indiana.  I spent the night at Dave’s parents’ house in Indianapolis and traveled to Bloomington to participate in the Summer Workshop in Slavic and Eastern European Languages.

I received a call from Catherine asking me if I heard the news.  No, I replied.  She told me that there was an assassination attempt on President Shervardnadze which happened in the main square in Tbisili in front of our hotel about a week after we left.  At least one or two of his bodyguards were killed. President Shevardnadze was injured but not killed.  Like the kites at the end of “The Kite Runner”, I was thankful to be safe at home in the USA where I could “fly like a bird in sky and no one can take my freedom away.” (From “Una Paloma Blanca“)

Posted by a grateful Tomislav Djurdjevich in Hong Kong.

1,000 to 2,000 Serbs, Russians, Greeks, Cypriots, Americans, and their friends gathered near the United Nations to protest the 20 or so countries, including the United States, who have recognized the independence of “Kosovo”.  In preparing for my speech, please note the following background information and notes that I used in preparing my speech. 

(1) The US is supposed to be fighting a “War on Drugs” and a “War on Terror” but it’s pro-independence policies belie this.

For instance, “Bin Laden provided seven hundred million dollars to establish the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The purpose of the KLA was to drive Christian Serbs from Kosovo, to topple the government of Milosevic, to undermine the peace initiatives of Ibrahim Rugova, and to unite the Muslims of Kosovo, Macedonia, and Albania into the Islamic Republic of Greater Albania.  …”

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1962

      
(2) After getting Osama Bin Laden’s assistance, the KLA used the chaos of the post 1999 bombing to engage in drug, sex, weapons, and other illegal trade.
                      
The Drug Enforcement Agency in 1999 cited that the KLA controlled two thirds of the Europe’s heroin trade and one third of America’s heroin trade.  Where was that heroin originally from?  Afghanistan.  Who also profits from the heroin trade?  The Taliban and Al Qaeda.

But wait a minute, isn’t America supposed to be fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  Yes, but Kosovo is the exception.  America’s finest men and women have to fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban twice because the drug trade profits from the KLA are used to buy weapons to kill American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In conclusion, America is on the wrong side.  America should be fighting radical Islam in the form of the KLA and the drug trade it engages in.
         
    Drugs also destroy our children and profits from those drugs are used by Al Qaeda and other radical Muslim elements to kill our brave men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Therefore, American support of the KLA and an independent Kosovo is NOT only against the rule of law but poisons America’s children and kills her soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Who is America real enemy?  Osama Bin Laden and his KLA allies OR a democratic Serbia?
   
    Connect the dots.  How many more soldiers will America have to lose before people realize this worst form of blowback?
                                  
————

For more background on Kosovo Liberation Army links to drug trafficking, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban, please note the following sources:

(1) The Strategic Issues Research Institute of the United States: 

http://www.siri-us.com/backgrounders/Archives_Kosovo/KLA-Osama.html

http://www.siri-us.com/backgrounders/Archives_Kosovo/KLA-Drugs.html

http://www.siri-us.com/backgrounders/Archives_Kosovo/

(2) “Kosovo Albanians sell Semtext used to bomb London“:

http://www.kosovohere.com/2008/03/kosovo-albanians-sell-semtext-used-to_5544.html

(3) “Welcome to Kosovo!  The World’s Newest Narco State“:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8182

————-
Posted by Tomislav Djurdjevich in New York City.

I traveled to Washington, DC, this past Sunday, February 24, 2008, to attend the Kosovo is Serbia rally and to demonstrate against President Bush’s support of an independent Kosovo.  About 750 people of different nationalities attended including many Cypriots, Greeks, Russians, Americans, and other non-Serbs.  There were many great speakers like Nebojsa Malich of AntiWar.com, Nikolaos Taneris who is the Press Officer of the Cyprus Action Network of America (CANA), and others.  Many thanks to John Bosnitch of the STOP (Stop Terrorizing Orthodox Peoples) Coalition for organizing the event and giving me and others the opportunity to speak. 

I was able to capture Niko’s speech on video.  I am grateful to my friend Nikola for filming my speech on video.

    Please note the following background information and notes that I used in preparing my speech. 

(1) The US is supposed to be fighting a “War on Drugs” and a “War on Terror” but it’s pro-independence policies belie this.

For instance, “Bin Laden provided seven hundred million dollars to establish the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The purpose of the KLA was to drive Christian Serbs from Kosovo, to topple the government of Milosevic, to
undermine the peace initiatives of Ibrahim Rugova, and to unite the Muslims of Kosovo, Macedonia, and Albania into the Islamic Republic of Greater Albania.  …”

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1962

      
(2) After getting Osama Bin Laden’s assistance, the KLA used the chaos of the post 1999 bombing to engage in drug, sex, weapons, and other illegal trade.
                      
The Drug Enforcement Agency in 1999 cited that the KLA controlled two thirds of the Europe’s heroin trade and one third of America’s heroin trade.  Where was that heroin originally from?  Afghanistan.  Who also profits from the heroin trade?  The Taliban and Al Qaeda.

But wait a minute, isn’t America supposed to be fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  Yes, but Kosovo is the exception.  America’s finest men and women have to fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban twice because the drug trade profits from the KLA are used to buy weapons to kill American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In conclusion, America is on the wrong side.  America should be fighting radical Islam in the form of the KLA and the drug trade it engages in.
         
    Drugs also destroy our children and profits from those drugs are used by Al Qaeda and other radical Muslim elements to kill our brave men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Therefore, American support of the KLA and an independent Kosovo is NOT only against the rule of law but poisons America’s children and kills her soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Who is America real enemy?  Osama Bin Laden and his KLA allies OR a democratic Serbia?
   
    Connect the dots.  How many more soldiers will America have to lose before people realize this worst form of blowback?
                                  
    Mr. Bush, please stop the independence of Kosovo, the Kosovo Liberation Army, and their Al Qaeda allies.

    Thank you and God Bless America and Serbia!

New York City hosted controversial Croatian folk rock star at the Croatian Catholic Church Center in Manhattan on Friday night, November 2.

Why all the fuss for small venue of about 600 people and for an artist most have never heard of? Marko Perkovic Thompson (hereafter Thompson) is a 42 year old Croatian singer. Thompson is his stage name taken after the American machine gun that he used to kill Serbs in former Yugoslavia Civil Wars in the 1990s. Translation, he’s not a touchy feely kind of guy in any language.

The controversy deepened over the songs he has performed in the past, “Jasenovac” and “Until the Dawn”. Jasenovac was the WWII concentration camp straddles the current Bosnia and Croatia borders where 700,000 Serbs, Jews, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, and others who were killed by gassing, blows to the head, or buried alive amongst other ways of killing innocent people. Jasenovac was run by the local Croatian Nazis, hereafter known as Ustasha. Jasenovac was not as well known as concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka, and others. Part of the reason was non-denazification by the former communist Yugoslav authorities after WWII. Jasenovac was also covered up or played down as part of the Holocaust as it would have been too embarrassing to former UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim who was stationed as a Nazi intelligence officer in WWII in Bosnia.

My Dad’s family is from “Slavonia” which is near Jasenovac and “The Krajina” (Military Frontier). Seven members of my Dad’s family died in WWII including my Grandmother. Grandma was burned to death during Holy Week 1943 as my Dad and the rest of the family had to watch. Grandma died tragically but her passing would had been worse had she had to go to “Stara Gradiska”, the Jasenovac women’s camp. My Dad escaped getting shot to death by firing squad when the 12th Partisan Brigade came over the hill as the Croatian Catholic priest was about to give the “Fire” order. Dad was 11 at the time, jumped past the priest, and ran to safety thank God. (For the uninitiated, the Croatian Catholic Church was very zealous in their policy of “extermination, deportation and forced conversion.” They almost succeeded in WWII and finished the job in the 1990s which I’ll discuss later.

Even Hitler himself was taken aback by the Ustasha’s brutality. Hitler also was angry at the Ustasha because the fierce rebellion that ensued from Partisan (Communist) and Chetnik (Monarchist) resistance forces. Hitler had to deploy 40 divisions in the former Yugoslavia. It also spread him thin for invasion into the former Soviet Union and led to his subsequent defeat.

Given this past history, Serbs like myself and others protested the fact that Thompson was recently given a Performers Visa by the State Department. We were interviewed in the NY Sun, NY Times, and elsewhere. I called Congressman Nadler’s office to protest. I also spoke with the Simon Weisenthal Center (SWC) . The SWC was successful in cancelling Thompson’s Canadian concerts by appealing to the venues’ owners. Furthermore, the threshold for hate is lower than in America.

NYC is a different matter as hate speech is protected speech in America. Moreover, appeals to NYC Cardinal Egan fell on deaf ears as the concert was held at a Croatian Catholic Church Center which brings in separation of church and state arguments. Cardinal Egan unfortunately did not stop the concert nor even condemned it.

Iranian President Ahmadnijiad has been rightfully criticized for denying the Holocaust took place. Thompson should be criticized even more for celebrating the Holocaust when he sings “Jasenovac” and “Until the Dawn”. A translation of “Jasenovac” appears below:

Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška
that’s the house of Maks butchers
There was a slaughterhouse in Capljina
Neretva carried away many Serbs
Hey, Neretva, flow downhill,
Carry Serbs into the blue Adriatic,
Through Imotski trucks rush
driving Black uniforms of Jure Francetic ?,
I am Ustasha and so was my father,
father left craft to his son,
Who could imagine last year
That Partisans would celebrate Christmas
Who said, his father f*** him
that Black Legion is not coming back,
Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška
that’s the house of Maks butchers
Shining star above Metkovic
send our greetings to Ante Pavelic ?

Thompson sung “Jasenovac” and “Here Comes Dawn” along with accompanying vocalist Tiho Orlic in Osijek, Croatia, concert in 2002. Mr. Jared Israel provides additional detail and meaning behind the songs lyrics. I visited Jasenovac in the summer of 1988 and it was one of the most moving and depressing experiences of my life including living in New York City on September 11.

Unfortunately, the show must go on. Thompson’s concert was supposed to start at 7:30 pm. I got there around 7 pm trying to scalp a ticket. It’s the toughest ticket in town even harder than the reunited Police at Madison Square Garden.

For a Serbian-American like myself going to a Croatian Center, this is a huge risk. My plan was to get into the Center, film what I could to post on YouTube and/or give the footage to a television station, and get out. If caught, the best case scenario was that I would be asked to leave. A not-so-good scenario would be dealing with potential bodily harm. The worst case scenario would be well, really painful or fatal.

Given my former US military background, I do a security assessment as I walk around the block as the Center’s entrance is on 40th Street and the Church’s entrance is on 41st Street and Tenth Avenue. I am unarmed. The potential opposing force is about 600 people; I am not sure if any of them are armed. There are five guards at the door and rotating one to two guards near the fire escape near the top of the Center. As for neutral forces, there are two uniformed NYPD outside the church. The two previous uniformed NYPD officers went inside or to another assignment, hopefully the former.

The odds are not in my favor as people try to figure me out as I try to scalp a ticket. Am I (a) clueless, (b) Serbian, (c) a reporter, or (d) all of the above? One Croatian guy who was around my age asked me if I heard of him. I said that Thompson is in all the papers. I played dumb and said that he is like the German heavy metal band Rammstein which he disagreed with.

Since no one would sell me a ticket, I queued up to try to buy a ticket at the door hoping for returns. I entered the hall, the security guard waved the metal wand, and I went in to buy a ticket at the door. Once I started to walk past him to buy a ticket inside the entrance, I was asked to leave because I didn’t have a ticket.

I went back outside and stayed until after 9 pm to scalp a ticket. No takers. The security guards instructed people in Serbo-Croatian NOT to sell to me. I kept waiting but heard no music, just the occassional shout. Finally, I figured out why. The keyboardist walked by me at 8:50 pm. There’s fashionably late and getting the crowd pumped up but this guy makes Gun N Roses lead singer Axl Rose look prompt.

After the dozen or so protesters went home and most of the crowd went inside, a local television reporter walked up to me to talk. She told me that a Croatian family had an extra ticket, gave it to her, and walked in with her. When they saw that she was a reporter, the security guard asked her to leave even though she had a ticket.

Why wouldn’t they let me in? I could understand them not letting me in without a ticket and my suspected background. Thompson sings about God, family, and homeland in his studio albums. In researching this article, I went to his website and watched his videos on YouTube. Thompson is charismatic and has good stage presence. His backing musicians are talented. If Thompson has really changed his ways since his Osijek 2002 concert, why not let the broadcast television networks in? Is Thompson and/or the Croatian Center afraid that his fans would give the Nazi salute? Were they afraid that he would sing “Jasenovac” or “Until the Dawn”?

Even if I wasn’t running the NYC Marathon on Sunday morning raising money for cancer research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, I don’t think I would have been sold a ticket for Thompson’s Saturday show but showed the cash I had to buy a ticket. The media blackout was almost complete except for one PRINT reporter who reported in the Washington Post that Thompson changed his tune on the Saturday night concert.

Thompson’s Toronto concerts were cancelled but reported held a “secret” concert outside of Toronto on private property on Sunday, November 4. Thompson’s North American tour continues through mid November.

Looking Back and Looking Ahead:
Since 1941, Croatia has succeeded creating one of the in ethnically pure countries in the world. Ustasha who served in WWII either were shuttled out via Vatican Ratlines to Australia, the Americas, and elsewhere. Jared Israel astutely analyzes that others became “chameleons” who joined the (Communist) Party and played the game waiting for the time to come again in post WWII Yugoslavia. For example, 1990s Croatian President Franjo Tudjman infamously remarked that he was grateful that “his wife was neither a Serb nor a Jew.” President Tudjman led of the cleansing of Slavonia and The Krajina in May and August 1995, respectively. The Krajina operation was known as Oluja, or “Storm” as it was the largest ethnic cleansing operation of all the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia of 250,000 people in a single weekend.

Question: How was the fledgling Croatian state able to get away with that?
Answer: Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI). MPRI was a group of retired American military generals and other soldiers who helped train the Croatian Army and conducted “Storm”. MPRI and their Croatian allies were brutally effective in their very graphic results. MPRI is the 1990s predecessor of Blackwater, the well known mercenary company stationed in Iraq and elsewhere. Speaking of Blackwater, Croatia happens to be a Blackwater client according to Jeremy Scahill who said “you look at the guest list of the kickoff ceremony for Greystone, this affiliate of Blackwater that Erik Prince owned. And it’s like all of these governments: Croatia, Uzbekistan. It’s governments.” Quote courtesy of Bill Moyers’ PBS program.

I don’t know what Blackwater will do in Croatia but it could be an insurance policy against the return of Serbs to Croatia. The future doesn’t look bright for Serbs ever returning to Croatia. Unlike Germany, no reparations have been paid to Jews, Serbs, Roma Gypsies, or others for WWII. The Vatican Ratlines continued into the 21st century with the hiding of Croatian General Gotovina.

Thompson could be the next big folk singer to come out of the former Yugoslavia like Croatian Kico Sabinac, Bosnian Muslim Halid Beslic, Serbian Miroslav Ilic, and others. His music could be a force for reconciling the past IF he and his fans change their ways. Will young Croatians learn that it is okay to celebrate and flaunt the Holocaust? Why were sugar packets with Hitler’s picture sell in Croatia until earlier this year? Will American mercenary companies like MPRI, Blackwater, and others continue to subvert the democratic checks and balances process to serve foreign governments and contrary to human rights and the American way? Why should Croatia be possibly rewarded with EU membership in 2010? Too many questions, not enough answers.

Posted by Tomislav Djurdjevich reporting live from the Croatian Center in Midtown Manhattan.