INAT: Images of Serbia and the Kosovo Conflict
Scott Taylor, Esprit de Corps Books, Ottawa, Canada. ISBN 1895896 10 X. Cdn$16.99.
INAT is a Serbian word that means ‘regardless of the
consequences’. To the author - a former Canadian soldier, journalist and
military analyst - this word best describes the character of the Serbian people.
Inat is what has compelled the Serbian people to resist the Ottoman
Empire, challenge the Austro-Hungarian Empire and refuse to capitulate to Nazi
Germany’s invasion and occupation. "In every one of these David vs.
Goliath struggles, the Serbian people have endured horrible suffering without
losing their will to resist." They will need it all the more as they stand
in the way of Clinton and Blair’s New World Order.
The author was one of the few western journalists to report on the situation within Belgrade during last year’s NATO bombardment of that city. Taylor’s interest in the Balkans began in 1992 when Canadian troops first took part in ‘peacekeeping’ forces in the region.
Canadian soldiers soon learned that no side in the bitter conflict had a monopoly of righteousness or guilt. All sides from time-to time were guilty of terrorist acts and atrocities against one another’s civilian population. Clinton and Blair had laid down the line that the Yugoslavian civil war was a simple High Noon struggle between good guys (Croats and Muslims) and bad guys (Serbs).
The Canadians on the ground knew that things there were not so simple. In September 1993, troops from the Second Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry protecting a Serbian enclave known as the Medak Pocket came under heavy fire from Croat forces. Thirty-five Croatian troops were killed and four Canadians wounded in the firefight. The Serb inhabitants of four villages were massacred by Croatian troops before they withdrew from the area. The Croatian general in charge of this offensive was Agim Ceku. This same man was to take command of the KLA in February 1999. The Canadians could do little but gather evidence for war crimes tribunals. Interestingly, the general public in Canada did not know the story of this military action for another three years until the Ottawa Citizen newspaper broke it.
Canadian soldiers were taken prisoner by Croatian forces in 1995 when General Ceku drove out 250,000 Serb civilians from the Krajina area amidst widespread slaughter and destruction. This terror campaign – helped by covert US ‘advisors’ - received little coverage in the North American media, although the fate of the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica, besieged by Serbian troops just three weeks’ earlier had received saturation coverage. As Howard Michitsch, a former Canadian infantry major put it, "it’s no a case of believing in a justifiable revenge philosophy such as ‘two wrongs make a right or ‘an eye for an eye’. But if the press only tells one side of the story, it distorts the equation, and precludes any rational comprehension. We step onto a slippery slope when people start drafting far-reaching policies and solutions based on such incomplete information." This book attempts to redress the balance. As Taylor drolly observes, "Apparently, what distinguishes NATO’s killing and maiming of innocents from Serbian war crimes is that NATO acts in the name of humanity."
Taylor gives a useful history of the conflict up to the outbreak of NATO’s airborne attacks in March 1999. In a series of appendices he includes a map of the KLA’s vision of a greater Albania, a list of the main players and events in Kosovo 1986 and a comprehensive index. The main part of the book is a compilation of the author’s contemporary diary of events and first-hand findings. He covers events as they unfolded. Inat is a great counterbalance to the hysterical lies and distortions of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Madeleine Albright, Robin Cook and the obnoxious NATO spin-doctor, Jamie Shea. We’re well used to media distortions here in Ulster, so this book is a must for Ulster-nationalists who are rightly concerned about the power of the media monopolies. Inat can be ordered through www.amazon.com books.
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