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Date: 10 Sep 1996 09:40:22
Reply-To: Conference "zamir.chat" 
From: Ivo Skoric 
Subject: Boycott National Westminster Bank
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From: "Ivo Skoric" 

_________________________________________________________________________ 
CONSUMER'S GUIDE ON ETHICS AND BUSINESS 
 
Banker Hurd to fund 'Butcher of Belgrade'-Electronic Telegraph 
followed by National Westminster Bank,Hurd,and Genocide by Michael Sells 
 
 
Electronic Telegraph 
International News 
Sunday 1 September 1996 
 
 
 
Banker Hurd to fund 'Butcher of Belgrade' 
Tim Judah in Belgrade 
 
SLOBODAN Milosevic, Serbia's president who was once dubbed the 
Butcher of the Balkans, believes he has found just the man he 
needs to help prop up his cash-strapped regime - Douglas Hurd, 
Britain's former Foreign Secretary. 
 
Mr Hurd has recently been in Belgrade where he is known to have 
had at least one secret breakfast meeting with Mr Milosevic in 
which they discussed deals worth millions of pounds. As Foreign 
Secretary, Mr Hurd issued threats to the recalcitrant Serbs 
during the war in Bosnia. All that is in the past. 
 
[note--while Hurd routinely issued threats against Milosevic if the 
genocide proceeded, he systematically prevented NATO from carrying out 
those threats] 
 
Since he left the Cabinet in July 1995, Mr Hurd has become a 
director of the National Westminster Bank and deputy chairman of 
its subsidiary NatWest Markets. The latter has recently secured 
lucrative contracts both to advise on Serbia's debt and to help 
prepare the PTT, Serbia's telephone system, for privatisation. 
 
Mr Hurd met Mr Milosevic for a discreet breakfast on July 24. 
According to one well-placed source: "Hurd came to thank 
Milosevic personally for the business and he did this because 
NatWest wants to scoop up forthcoming privatisations in the 
electricity and oil sectors which will be worth millions." 
 
 
 
 
NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK, HURD, AND GENOCIDE 
 
by Michael Sells 
 
 
There was an earlier exchange on the Telegraph report that former British 
Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, was now involved in lucrative business 
deals with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, the archictect of the 
destruction of Yugoslavia and of the genocide in Bosnia.  Hurd is reported 
to be acting in his role as a director of the National Westminster Bank 
and deputy chairman of its subsidiary NatWest Markets. 
 
Hurd is widely considered the major figure in the Western complicity with 
Milosevic in the annihilation of the Bosnian community.  It was Hurd who, 
in a sly gesture, suggested to Milosevic's men at the UN to ask the 
Security Council for an arms-embargo that would give Milosevic an 
unbridgable arms advantage and allow him to carry out his "ethnic 
cleansing" program with impunity.  It was Hurd (and Hurd's colleague 
Malcolm Rifkind) who for three years vetoed any effective action to stop 
the genocide. 
 
Now, only a year after the Srebrenica massacres, Hurd is cashing in, in a 
very public way. 
 
In response to my posting, "Rapido" blamed the British Oligarchy for 
genocide throughout the world.  That may be true, but it is not helpful in 
finding specific actions to take about Hurd's complicity in genocide. 
Oligarchies by nature are probably genocidal.  I know the U.S. oligarchy 
encouraged genocide in Central America for over 100 years. 
 
But usually, the architects of complicity in genocide have enough 
"discretion" to avoid an immediate run to get publicly paid off. 
 
Hurd, who is supposed to be respected for his "diplomatic" skills, is 
being very undiplomatic in running to make money with Milosevic even as 
the graves of Milosevic's victims are being unearthed by investigators for 
the International Tribunal on War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia. 
 
I just returned from a lovely, 10 day visit to Britain.  The British 
people I met were as far as you can get from the despicable behavior of a 
Douglas Hurd. 
So the question remains:  what can decent people do about the direct 
complicity of their political and economic leaders in genocide. 
 
National Westminster Bank and NatWest Markets are now, if the reports are 
true, fully cooperating with the man whose victims are being excavated 
throughout Eastern Bosnia, and their major link is a former British 
Foreign Secretary who spent three years providing diplomatic cover for 
Milosevic's crimes, including concentration camps, massacres, organized 
rape, systematic annihilation of cultural heritage, and a network of 
killing-centers. 
 
Milosevic's role in all of this is most clearly documented in the BBC 
video series, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation. 
 
So yes, the oligarchy is evil, sure.  But what can we do about companies 
and individuals who this blatantly and openly connive with a practitioner 
of genocide? 
 
_________________________________________________________________________ 
 
 
Ivo Skoric ***** iskoric@igc.apc.org

212.369.9197  

PO Box 46, NYC NY 10029, USA

http://www.peacenet.org/balkans/

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