Not satisfied with putting on trial one infirm ethnic Ukrainian octogenarian for alleged Nazi-era war crimes, Germany wants to put another one in the dock. Germany, which razed much of the country and killed wantonly there during World War II, has opened a formal criminal investigation against an 88-year-old Ukrainian-born man living in the United States on suspicion that he committed murder while serving the Nazis, a prosecutor in Munich confirmed on March 27. The man, whose name has not been divulged, would join another Ukrainian-born man, John Demjanjuk, 89, accused of being an accessory to 27,900 Nazi death camp murders while working as a guard for the Nazi SS.
Blame it on the gays. That's the way at least one retired U.S. general sees it. Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander John Sheehan says the fall of Srebrenica in 1995 was partly due to gays in the ranks of the Dutch military, which was tasked with guarding the so-called 'safe haven.' Sheehan wasn't gabbing to close friends in some dank drinking hole after whiskey unlocked his lips. Sheehan was speaking under oath before a dour Congressional committee. The Dutch, gay and other sundry groups were left mouths agape, reacting with outrage. Beyond that, however, the scandal opens a tiny window to again ask what really happened at Srebrenica some fifteen years ago. The author, Diana Johnstone, tells the Informant the Dutch were in a no-win situation.
On February 14, 1945,the bomb raid sirens pierced the air of Prague, then the capital of the Nazi protectorate of Bohemia. Few paid any attention on that afternoon. After all, allied warplanes had flown over the city numerous times in the past on their way to drop their bombs in Germany. This time, however, things would be different. The first warning was the humming of the warplanes close over the city. Then the bombs began to drop, some 700 in total. Destruction was slashed across a good swathe of the city. Under the rumble of homes, churches and businesses, lay the corpses of 700. Oddly, 65 years after that tragic day, no one has explained why American bombers unloaded their payload on one of Europe's most beautiful cities.
With his days as Ukrainian president quickly coming to a close, Viktor Yushchenko has made one of his most controversial decisions yet. Yushchenko has awarded posthumously the "Hero of Ukraine" title to Stepan Bandera, a Ukranian nationalist leader. Bandera is a hot-button issue for sure. For many Ukrainians, he was a brave fighter who struggled for their country's independence during World War Two and years after until he was assassinated by the KGB in Munich in 1959. For others, Bandera was a Nazi collaborator and murderer, and needs to be pilloried not praised. Beyond that debate is another issue rarely examined in the West. Many of those within the Soviet Union who fought Soviet troops also had embarrassing ties to the Nazis.
Serbia has filed genocide charges against neighboring Croatia, in a move likely to plunge bilateral ties between the two former Yugoslav republics to new lows and upset the already shaky stability of the Balkans. Serbia said it was left with no choice but to file the papers at the International Court of Justice at The Hague after Croatia refused to drop a similar case against the Serbs.
