British actress and political activist Vanessa Redgrave visited the provisional camp at the port of Piraeus on Wednesday. She was shocked to see 5,815 children, women and men living in appalling conditions. She sharply criticized European Union for failing to deliver an adequate response to the Refugee Crisis and stressed “it is a shame for Europe not to accept refugees and that some governments continue to keep the borders of their countries closed.” She praised Greeks for their help to refugees and migrants.
Video: Vanessa Redgrave: “I’m ashamed for this Europe”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6MpJznXjUE
She visited the clinic of Doctors without Borders and spoke with refugee women.
In January Redgrave had visited refugees and migrants on the island of Lesvos, but apparently the situation at the port is much worse.
Redgrave is a supporter of Doctors Without Borders.
PS The problem, dear Vanessa, is that “this Europe” is not ashamed.
As with Jolie another activist that is very selective in her cause. Why? Because it so easy to score with that. She felt sympathy for Albanian refugees from Kosovo in the 90s. Not so much -not at all actually- for the nearly 1 million Serb refugees of the conflicts of the 90s. Cause you know, they’re only Serbs after all. Perhaps she should also visit Kurdish refugees in Syria and Iraq, victims of Erdogan’s aggression.
They are not Serbian and they are not Albanian, they’re Yugoslavian, only militant minorities instigated f.i. by Vienna and Berlin are responsible, the Yugoslavian majorities were never that national coloured toilet paper way and how much power militias can have one can see in Syria, Iraq and Nigeria.
The outbreak of aggressive nationalism came from Milosevic, who systematically abused the Yugoslav federal system to promote the interests of Serbe. Much the same as Germany is abusing the eurozone to promote the interests of Germans… Presumably, we will see the same sort of collapse of the federal structure.
It worked all fine into each other but it would have never started without the capitalists seeing the working classes gaining too much power with their autonomous structures to self-organize the production in the factories, all achieved in their struggles in the 70ies and 80ies, similar to some developments in China and Poland one can summarize under “Classwar inside Socialism”, nothing that capitalists and neo-liberals wanted to see after “the end of history” and just ending the grass-roots movements to have two separate German states after 89, in both cases these movements ended Stalinism but had nothing to decide afterwards because they’re naive regarding the power of capitalism; not unlike the Palestinian movements with its climax in the First Intifada and long before Hamas destroyed any revolutionary tendencies even the riots and movements in Kosova in the eighties were totally different, without any bumfucking nationalism and religion.
That is just non-sense. Milosevic was a crook but he just wanted to keep Yugoslavia together. Foreign powers since the early 70s were busy to stir up Croatian nationalism. Serbs responded with their nationalism. Yugoslavia had lost its purpose to the West when the Berlin wall came down and it had to disappear. That only could have been done with nationalism.
I’m sorry, but you are deluded. I was a politics and economics student at the time, and studying the Balkans as well as the EC. As soon as Milosevic came to power, I said “that’s the end of Yugoslavia then”, and this was concurred by our professors. He was elected with a nationalist mandate, that was guaranteed to destroy the federal system — and did.
~
The only reason Milosevic wanted to keep Yu as a federal system was to control its assets for the benefit of Serbia. Federal systems cannot work like that; they require scrupulous observance of rules and a sense of fair play for all parties. Tito understood that, and played his role well. After his death, nationalists emerged in every Republic, but it was Serbia that did the real damage.
You obviously missed a few things when you were “studying the Balkans and the EC”. Tito had lost control in 1974 when the new constitution of Yugoslavia was made. After that his power corroded even more and the nationalists started to make their moves supported by Berlin and DC. Milosevic wanted to re-centralize things not for the benefit of Serbia but preventing the loss of assets for the whole of Yugoslavia. Just like in the case of the EU, the richer members (Slovenia and Croatia) where a lot of industry was located paid for the poorer members in the South of Yugoslavia, most notably Macedonia/FYROM and Kosovo. But these industries also profited from other members of YU buying their stuff.
Yugoslavia was market socialism and socialism with it 100% employment rate is not efficient (but neither is capitalism but it has access to ‘unlimited cheap debt’, a situation that is reaching its end which only can result in global war). But Yugoslavia was locked out of the moeny markets. That was a policy by the IMF. YU could not borrow money or against extortion interest rates so the only thing they could do was devalue the Dinar. That of course let to hyper inflation and that combined when concerted efforts of Berlin, London and the UK to break up YU let to the violent conflict there. While the EU (then the EC) tried to prevent a conflict in Bosnia with various plans, the Americans just barged in and gave the all clear to Izetbegovic to proclaim independence. Remember, YU was a federation and any unilateral secession was against YU constitution, international law and the principles of federal republics. The acquittal of Sesjel yesterday (now there is a real nationalist for you) confirmed that: that the state of war in YU was due to unlawful secession and that the war was legitimate.
As I said, Milosevic was a crook (but so were Tudjman and Izetbegovic) but the meme that he had a joint criminal enterprise to create a ‘Greater Serbia’ fell apart at his trial. He warned Karadzic and Mladic not to attack Srebrenica. (Clinton btw. had a secret agreement with France and the UK not to provide airsupport to Dutchbat. That has been uncovered in the Clinton Archives).
Milosevic and Tudjman btw. met each other a whopping 70 times during the conflicts of the 90s. So if there is a joint criminal enterprise then it was between these two….
YU just had to disappear cause there was no room for any alternative to (rogue) capitalism in Europe.
I am not going to write extended essays here. All that you have written above has no relevance to the clear fact — historical — that Milosevic acceded to power with a nationalist agenda, and a political structure that could not tolerate it. Quite what relevance his meetings with Tudjiman have to anything is far from clear: of course they met, what do you expect? This is not a refutation of the main point being the nationalist agenda of Milosevic and his abusive behaviour with the federal system.
Their countries were in a state of war and they met 70 times in the span of 3-4 years and you don’t think that is odd?
I tell why they met. Cause they were trading with each other. And I have that from people that were closely involved in that. Serbia *or what was still the remains of YU) was selling oil to Croatia so they could fuel their tanks. In return Croatia gave them ammunition that the Serbs could use to shoot at their tanks. Same thing with electricity. There were many businesses like that. War is a racket. Both these men were crooks and had relations with their respective Mafias.
How can a Serbian nationalistic uprising not be seen as a response to Croatian nationalistic uprising that was happening since the early 70s with the involvement of the BND? The Croatian nationalistic resurgence weakened the Yugoslav State. If Milosevic was playing the nationalistic card it was in response to that and more for window dressing and to fill the pockets of his corrupt clique than for true Serbian nationalism, unlike the likes of Sesjel that was/is a true nationalistic hate instigator. Milosevic tried to hold Yugoslavia together. He didn’t want Croatia and Slovenia to run off with industries that were also funded by the other Yugoslav Republics and on which Yugoslavia depended. When YU eventually fell apart he tried to come up for his own people. Like they all were. Tudjman and Milosevic wanted to carve up Bosnia between themselves, another reason they met. But Greater Serbia is a myth, as is Greater Croatia. Milosevic did not invade Bosnia nor Croatia when the JNA was abolished, although he supported Serbs there. Milosevic betrayed the Serbian minority in Croatia during Operation Storm. If he had been a true Serbian nationalist he would have come to their rescue but he knew very well that that would be his end. Everything about Milosevic was to serve the interest of Milosevic. If he used nationalism then it was because of that. But he was not the fascist genocidal maniac that the West portrayed him to be.
The seeds of the destruction of Yugoslavia were sown with the sponsored resurgence of Croatian nationalism. Considering WWII and the Ustashe regime of that period let to a counter movement in Serbia.
People in FRSJ thought differently but many indeed still feel Yugoslav. The whole thing was instigated by Bonn/Berlin and Washington DC I agree cause Yugoslavia had to disappear in their eyes.
I have seen no historical proof of these claims. As far as I am concerned, they are no more than allegations or gossip.
The BND admitted to that. EG negotiators that tried to avoid a war in Bosnia admitted that the plan was to break Yugoslavia apart and that the main instigators were Berlin and DC. While they tried to broker a division of power in Bosnia it were the Americans that supported Izetbegovic to declare independence. There is plenty of witness statements at the various trials in The Hague to that effect.
But some keep believing the narrative that the Serbs decided to go and ethnically cleanse the place. Serbs committed by far the most war crimes but they were the ones with most to lose. They had the biggest minorities living in other Yugoslav countries that were living there for centuries. In the end they lost it all. Cause eventually when the place fell apart the question was: “Why should I be minority in your country if you can be one in mine?”
Listen. The UK government of the time, the Foreign Office, was totally taken aback by the collapse of Yu and had no policy in place. A few years later, I asked their senior advisor why they had not developed a scenario of how to manage a nasty breakup of Yu. She told me that it was considered inconceivable at the time, and took them completely by surprise.
Now you are telling me that this was all a conspiracy by Germany and the USA — and the British were not told. Sorry. This is just BS. And you will recall that it was a British politician — Lord Owen — who brokered the final peace deal.
You are wrong there, again. Lord Owen’s plan was rejected by Sarajevo. Izetbegovic did not want to have a power sharing deal but wanted to govern the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The US supported him in that. Everybody knew that a unilateral declaration of independence without a power sharing deal and without settling the rights of minorities would lead to civil war. And that is exactly what happened when the Vince-Owen plan was rejected by Sarajevo and when they unilaterally declared independence. I will give you that the Dayton agreement looks like the Lord Owen plan except that the Bosniaks got even less territory in that because of the de-facto situation on the ground.
If the Brits were caught by surprise (which is hard to believe) then they are rather incompetent. The joke around the time of the winter olymics in Sarajevo in 1984 was that there were more spies than athletes running around. Things were playing then already.
The responsible war-monger dude died today – Genscher – there is even a bit in his wikipedia-entry to find that Butros Ghali warned him but not so much in the English version…
Another one from the same party died a few days ago, the inventor of the “lazy and decadent” ‘Greeks have to do their’ “homework” and “deliver”, Westerwelle, he was also the biggest clown regarding war debts…
I knew that Westerwelle had died a few days ago. And now Genscher as well. The later was responsible for Germany’s foreign policy regarding the Balkans. He as part of Helmut Kohl’s government initially did not want to recognize Germany’s new borders with Poland and wanted to renegotiate that issue. The Western partners of Germany made them very clear that that would not be on the table at all….
Kohl wanted to build ‘his Europe’ and we now know what that entailed. Germany claiming that they don’t want a ‘German Europe but a European Germany’ is just BS. Instead of tanks this time they used banks and a clever Euro-policy that filled their coffers with a favorable exchange rate and a reunification tax funded cheap Euro that they loaned to whomever wanted to borrow and which served as an export subsidy. Germany’s pushed austerity took out the competition in Europe. The Greek collectively messed up their economy but the bailouts (that need to be paid back with interest apart from some gift) bailed out German, Dutch and French banks that loaned irresponsibly. At the expense of the EU taxpayer of course and not even one ‘thank you’.
Therefore one public station in the East of Germoney is called “Middle German Broadcast” but regarding the EU, there were already pan-European plans in early 20th century that influenced Keynes to change some of his thoughts and even one faction of the Nazis was planning until 42 with an “Europa-Bank” in Vienna and a single currency called “Euro-Guilders”, Greece had the kind opportunity to meet these developments already with the forerunner “Reichskassenschein” and it were altogether 21 states with one German currency, some urban guerillas held hostage the SS-member Schleyer whose job it was to organize this Europe, unfortunately the interview they’ve made with him never got published.
There is this story that in 1944 German industrialists -realizing the war had been lost- came together to discuss a plan to lay low after the war and silently work on re-surging and create a ‘one Europe’ including a single currency. And then there is the Pan-European movement on which the EU is based. Its leader was van Coudenhove-Kalergi, a diplomat, who was proponent of the idea to mix races and let them look like the ancient Egyptians. Essentially, white Europeans had to disappear into some fairy tale hybrid race. What the hell is wrong with having different races? What is wrong with being black, white, Asian or brown?
Your accounts of history are fanciful and based on gossip and rumour.
I guess the “Ventotene Manifesto” was more important and I don’t think that races exist, wolves don’t bark, dogs do.
PS Genscher also was instrumental in letting the Yugoslav conflict explode with his hasty recognition of Croatia and Slovenia. He pushed other European countries to follow suit which some of them did. The British and the French were very reluctant cause they knew that could lead to a powder keg exploding in the region. Germany is very instrumental in the bloody breakup of YU.
Good old Vanessa. Complain about her batty choices all you want BUT she’s been out campaigning for 5-6 decades now in wind and rain, whether she was rich or poor (she has often been poor), so she’s earned the right to her choices. She’s a far cry from Angelina and worse Amal Clooney of the Parthenon marbles legal case which has mysteriously stalled since she took it over. Amal is throwing a Hillary fundraiser tonight lol