Informazione
La Croatie, bientôt dans l’Union européenne. Un exemple pour la Turquie et la Serbie ?
Cédric Rutter – Investig’Action, Théo Karoumenos
4 janvier 2011
4 janvier 2011
Le débat sur l'élargissement de l'Union européenne se concentre toujours sur l'entrée ou non de la Turquie, candidate depuis 1987. Mais le prochain pays à intégrer l'Union sera la Croatie, candidate depuis 2004. Autant la Turquie suscite le débat, l'entrée de la Croatie se déroule à huis clos comme s'il était naturel que ce pays devienne le 28ème membre de l'U.E. Mais que se passe-t-il dans ce pays de 4.5 millions d’habitants ? Quelle est la situation sociale et politique ? Comment se porte l'économie après les années de socialisme et la guerre ? Quelles ont été les conditions de son intégration ?
1) Situation socio-économique : coupes réglées et rachats occidentaux
La guerre explique la Croatie d’aujourd’hui : un pays fragmenté, une capitale improvisée, des institutions et une législation encore incomplète dans beaucoup de domaines.
Sa particularité s'arrête là, car sur le plan économique, elle se situe comme tous les derniers pays entrés dans l’Union, récemment « ouverts » au monde occidental depuis la chute de l'empire soviétique : le rachat de tout le tissu économique rentable par les pays de l'Ouest.
Les premières privatisations au profit des étrangers ont été conduites sous le régime semi-autoritaire et ultra-nationaliste corrompu d’après-guerre, celui de Franjo Tudjman, qui était selon Jacques Chirac en 1997, « l’homme sage de la région » !
La raison de ces investissements étrangers est également toujours la même en Europe centrale et orientale : un « paradis » pour les trusts occidentaux. Les conditions sont en effet des plus favorables pour les investisseurs :
- des infrastructures routières et ferroviaires de qualité raisonnables déjà mises en place par l'ancien régime ;
- des salaires bloqués par la bureaucratie d’avant-guerre, et par conséquent, un décalage phénoménal entre la qualification de cette main-d’œuvre et le coût de celle-ci. Le salaire croate moyen est de 585 euros par mois, mais 60% des salariés Croates gagnent moins. (1)
Pour donner un exemple précis : outre les 40 000 salariés dont le salaire est inférieur à 1 600 kn (215 euros), 46 000 salariés de l’industrie touchent entre 215 et 260€, tandis qu’environ 70 000 touchent entre 260 et 300€. Les bas salaires concernent avant tout l’industrie textile, l’industrie du bois et la pêche.
Rentabilisation et démantèlement financés par … les travailleurs
Tous les pays de l’Est pratiquaient une politique d’Etat très forte. Mais c’est particulièrement vrai pour la Croatie qui a dû après-guerre remettre les différents secteurs de l’économie à flot. Donc une fois les sites réhabilités, les étrangers ont pu s'approprier pour une bouchée de pain tous les secteurs les plus rentables.
Le reste est démantelé. Beaucoup de sites, officiellement obsolètes et/ou détruits par la guerre appartenant à l’Etat ont été littéralement dépecés. La sidérurgie, basée sur les chantiers navals du pays employait 200 000 personnes avant-guerre, pour 65 000 aujourd’hui, dont près de la moitié accusant des retards chroniques sur leur salaires. (2)
Concernant la France, deux des présences les plus spectaculaires sont Bouygues qui possède 51% de Bina Istra (BTP croate) et Alsthom qui a racheté ABB à Karlovac (moteurs et générateurs électriques). Mais la plupart des entreprises du CAC 40 sont présentes.
Cela ne concerne d ailleurs pas que les sites industriels : l’Etat croate a continué cette politique de privatisation dans tous les secteurs de l’économie.
- 91% des actifs bancaires en Croatie sont détenus par des banques étrangères ! Le dernier gros événement en la matière est le rachat de la Splitska Banka par la Société Générale pour 1 milliards d’euros en 2006 ;
- au niveau des télécoms, l’Allemand Deutsche Telekom possède déjà la majorité de THT (télécom croate) et l’Etat prévoit encore de céder les 20% restants, créant ainsi un monopole privé fixant les prix et la qualité du service sans se soucier de la concurrence, pourtant un des principes du libéralisme ;
- la Croatie a aussi un fort potentiel touristique. Le tourisme représente 25% de la richesse nationale avec 10 millions de visiteurs par an. L'année 2005 a été celle de privatisations de sites comme les îles de Hvar et de Korcula. L'Etat possède encore 153 entreprises hôtelières, dont 18 majoritairement, pour un équivalent de 520 millions d’euros. Mais selon la mission économique française, il serait prévu assez rapidement de privatiser « les entreprises les plus attrayantes ». Toujours selon cette mission, ces sites doivent attendre avant d’être privatisés en raison « des dettes et pertes accumulées pendant la guerre » et ils ont encore « besoin de grands travaux de rénovation ». Autrement dit, l'Etat croate devra les rendre rentables avant de les revendre (3) !
2) Situation politique : antisyndicalisme et ultranationalisme
Cette oligarchie (entrepreneurs et politiciens) au pouvoir refuse toute opposition populaire de gauche. Les syndicats sont discriminés et attaqués. Encore une fois, c’est un problème qui pourrait certainement illustrer l’ensemble de la situation syndicale dans les anciens pays communistes d’Europe centrale et orientale. Le portrait de la Croatie et de ces nouveaux pays capitalistes d’Europe, eldorado des investisseurs, n’est pas idyllique pour les travailleurs. Au regard du rapport 2008 du CSI (confédération syndicale internationale) sur la Croatie, les exemples sont nombreux :
L’anti-syndicalisme existe de façon passive :
- avec le travail intérimaire et les CDD de très courte durée et renouvelée à l'infini servant de soupape quand la production doit être freinée : l’archi-précarisation du travail empêche de s’engager dans un syndicat, surtout qu’être syndiqué n'est pas en la faveur du candidat au contrat indéterminé ;
- avec le contournement de la loi sur le travail par les entreprises : le même rapport affirme que la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme a critiqué la Croatie pour « retards de jugement excessifs », certains pouvant aller jusqu’à trois ans !
Certaines entreprises n’hésitent pas à ignorer le jugement rendu. C’est la cas de M. Utovic (délégué syndical au syndicat autonome des travailleurs de l’industrie de l’énergie et de l’industrie non-métallurgique) congédié de l’entreprise Lipa de Novi Marof en mai 2006 et qui devait être réintégré en décembre de la même année. Mais l’entreprise a préféré payer l'amende plutôt que de le réintégrer.
- par la corruption à grande échelle avec l’exemple des autoroutes croates exclusivement publiques qui après avoir tenté en vain de dissoudre le syndicat indépendant majoritaire (90%), propose à ses membres des « conditions spéciales » en échange d’un transfert de leur affiliation syndicale vers … un « organisme plus coopératif ».
Mais surtout de manière active et agressive avec son lot de répression. Par exemple :
- Le 10 janvier 2007, trois mois après la mise en place d’un syndicat à l’usine Saint Jeans de Slavonski Brod, la totalité des membres du bureau syndical ont été mis à pied sans préavis.
- Dans une filiale de l’entreprise autrichienne Semmelrock Stein à Ogulin, le délégué syndical, suite à son élection, a été muté et empêché de participer aux assemblées avant d’être forcé d’abandonner ses fonctions le 10 octobre 2007.
- En juillet, dans la ville de Petrina, les ouvriers de l’entreprise Slavijatrans, membres du syndicat autonome de l’énergie, de la chimie et de l’industrie non-métallurgique ont fait grève contre le non-paiement des salaires. Légale, la grève a entraîné la mise à pied de tous les membres du comité de grève et la résiliation de leur contrat quelques semaines après.
- Situation sociale : discriminations ethniques et sexuelles
Inégalités hommes-femmes
Parmi les 500 entreprises les plus puissantes de Croatie, on ne trouve que 8% de femmes à des postes hauts placés….avec des différences de salaires allant de 10 à 25 % pour le même poste. D’après le CEDEF (Comité pour l’élimination de la discrimination à l’égard des femmes) les progrès en matière d’égalité restent insuffisants.
En effet, « la Croatie s’inquiète de la forte prévalence de la violence familiale, du nombre limité d’abris pour les femmes victimes de violence et l’absence de procédures et de protocoles explicites à l’intention des personnels policiers et médicaux qui interviennent en cas de violence familiale. » Autrement dit, si une femme se fait battre, ce n’est pas condamnable (5), car il n’y a pas de procédure établie.
Selon AIDH, en 2005, 55% des femmes étaient au chômage alors qu’elles réussissent mieux leurs études. Et 95% des femmes ayant eu un emploi en 2007 étaient embauchées sur la base de CDD.
Discrimination ethnique et religieuse : un aspect brûlant et complexe
La Croatie est constituée à 90% de Croates catholiques. Mais sont notamment présents des Serbes, des Bosniaques musulmans, des Roms, des Italiens… Certes, les minorités, même tsigane (rom) ont des représentants au parlement. Mais les discriminations restent très fortes :
Les Serbes de Croatie est la plus grande communauté ethnique après les Croates. Ils représentent 6% de la population.
D’après le rapport de 2008 du Haut commissariat au réfugiés des Nations unies (6), sur 300 000 Serbes de Croatie étant partis à cause de la guerre, 130 000 sont revenus. Mais il faudrait diviser ce chiffre encore par deux pour être plus près de la réalité car beaucoup sont restés travailler illégalement en Allemagne, en France ou en Italie. Pourtant, le retour des réfugiés était une condition à l'entrée dans l'Union.
De plus, « beaucoup de ceux rentrés ont perdu les droits (accès au logement) sur les appartements que l’Etat leur louait. » Les propriétaires serbes qui ont repris leur maison ou appartement peuvent rarement y habiter en raison des pillages et destructions subis.
L’autre type de discrimination que les Serbes peuvent subir est l’impunité totale de certains bourreaux croates impliqués dans des massacres de civils serbes et au sujet desquels les enquêtes pataugent. Par exemple, les forces de sécurité croates ont été accusées du massacre d’une centaine de civils serbes à Sisak entre 1991 et 1992. L’enquête est au point mort. Ces lacunes de la justice empêchent une réconciliation nationale et les tensions demeurent.
La « question tsigane »
La vie des populations roms connaît la même problématique dans toute l’Europe, même en France « terre d’accueil » (!) : rejet, marginalisation, rôle de bouc émissaire… Et la Croatie ne donne pas non plus l’exemple.
Victimes de préjugés concernant leurs capacités professionnelles et intellectuelles, ils sont souvent mis au ban du système scolaire. Beaucoup d’entre eux maîtrisant peu la langue Croate, les difficultés scolaires s’accumulent, puisque contrairement aux autres minorités, leur langue n’est reconnue dans aucune institution.
Entrer dans l’Union européenne et ensuite ?
Pour entrer dans le club fermé de l'Union, il faut remplir des conditions macroéconomiques : un déficit inférieur à 3%, une inflation faible, une croissance stable…
Mais en réalité, la Croatie est déjà intégrée à l'Europe depuis que les entreprises les plus rentables ont été revendues aux entreprises des membres historiques ; les acquis sociaux sont déjà cassés (le FMI n’aura pas à intervenir comme en Hongrie ou en Grèce) et les possibilités de lutte ou de voter pour un parti alternatif sont également bouchées.
Voilà donc les clés pour entrer dans l'Union européenne : adhérer au libéralisme, casser les acquis sociaux, diviser les populations par des questions nationalistes et brader les entreprises les plus rentables. Tous les pays de l'ex-Yougoslavie et l'Albanie devraient suivre, mais avec une Serbie plus réticente à revendre son industrie.
La Turquie étant plus puissante que les petits pays d'Europe, ce pays entre Asie et Europe se révèle être davantage un concurrent qu'un vassal comme le souhaiterait la France et les autres pays riches. Voici donc une des raisons pour laquelle la Turquie suscite des craintes, plus que les questions de religion, ou de droits de l'homme. Ce dernier critère ne tient d'ailleurs plus quand il s'agit de signer des accords de libre échange avec la Colombie qui assassine les syndicalistes, Israël qui nie la citoyenneté sur des questions religieuses ou l'Arabie saoudite qui interdit aux femmes de parler aux hommes avec qui elles n'ont pas de liens familiaux.
Il semblerait que cette Europe avec des droits pour tous, des salaires et des conditions de vie décentes, des services publics fédéraux, ne se fera pas sans luttes sociales et politiques à l'échelle continentale et sans le soutien des citoyens des pays plus riches puisque la bureaucratie de Bruxelles ne s’y intéresse pas.
Notes
- Boston Globe 2003
- Données de la mission économique de l’ambassade de France
- Courrier des Balkans
- Extrait de « égalité des hommes et des femmes en francophonie »
Source : michelcollon.info
Con la Conferenza internazionale "Mondo senza nazismo: Obiettivo globale di tutta l'umanità", il 17 dicembre 2010 si è chiusa a Mosca la serie di iniziative promosse dalla Federazione Russa nel 65.mo anniversario della vittoria sul nazifascismo. Per le repubbliche jugoslave hanno partecipato rappresentanti di Serbia e Montenegro. Di seguito riportiamo la traduzione in lingua italiana dell'intervento di Živadin Jovanović, che abbiamo già fatto circolare in lingua inglese:
No to rewriting the history - by Živadin Jovanović
http://www.en.beoforum.rs/index.php/press-releases-belgrade-forum-for-the-world-of-equals/145-the-world-without-nazism-by-zivadin-jovanovic-press-releases-belgrade-forum-for-the-world-of-equals.html
Un report è disponibile anche in lingua serbocroata:
Свет без нацизма, основни задатак човечанства
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da Forum di Belgrado per un Mondo di Eguali - www.en.beoforum.rs
Traduzione dall'inglese a cura del Forum Belgrado per un Mondo di Eguali - Italia
Un mondo senza nazismo
Discorso alla Conferenza internazionale [1]
Mosca, 17 Dicembre 2010
di Zivadin Jovanovic, Presidente del Forum di Belgrado per un Mondo di Eguali
Il Forum di Belgrado per un Mondo di Eguali, una organizzazione indipendente, apartitica e senza scopo di lucro, così come l'opinione pubblica in Serbia, sono profondamente preoccupati per gli incessanti tentativi di riscrittura della storia del XX secolo, per lo stravolgimento degli esiti della Seconda guerra mondiale e per la minimizzazione dell'importanza storica delle sentenze del processo di Norimberga. Manifestandosi sotto varie forme, campi e gradi d'intensità, a seconda delle concrete circostanze, questo fenomeno sembra coinvolgere l'intera Europa e oltre, diventando così un problema globale. E' necessario notare che esso avanza in parallelo con alcuni altri processi come la transizione dei paesi ex socialisti e la crisi economica mondiale, paragonata da molti studiosi con la crisi degli anni '30 del secolo scorso. Un altro processo contemporaneo degno di nota è il degrado del ruolo delle Nazioni Unite e dell'ordinamento del Diritto internazionale istituito dopo la Seconda guerra mondiale.
L'attuale crisi economica mondiale ha già portato all'ulteriore ampliamento del divario tra ricchi e poveri, a livello internazionale come all'interno dei singoli paesi, compresi quelli più ricchi. L'elevata disoccupazione, la miseria e il malcontento sono diventate realtà globali, causando profondi problemi sociali, politici e morali, incluse la xenofobia e il razzismo. Di volta in volta, viene affermato all'opinione pubblica che alcune nazioni possiedono il ruolo messianico di "aiutare" le altre nazioni a "democratizzarsi", per adottare il proprio sistema di valori anche con l'uso della forza se lo ritengono necessario. Allo stesso tempo, l'Europa e il mondo stanno subendo un processo di militarizzazione; l'espansione delle installazioni militari verso l'Europa orientale forma un reticolo comprendente più basi militari straniere oggi che durante la Guerra fredda nel momento di più alto dello scontro. Le spese mondiali per armamenti sono salite alla cifra senza precedenti di 1.500 miliardi di dollari l'anno, mentre il complesso militare-industriale è privilegiato nel processo decisionale e salvaguardato da ulteriori crolli economici.
I tentativi di revisionare gli esiti della Seconda guerra mondiale possono essere ricondotti, con misura e forme diverse, a vari ambiti ma, prima di tutto, nel campo dei mass-media, dell'istruzione e della scienza storica. Sono presenti anche nelle arti (cinema), serial televisivi, sport e musica popolare. Alcuni partiti politici nei vari paesi europei, così come alcune istituzioni nazionali e internazionali, in un modo o nell'altro, contribuiscono alla revisione della storia, alla riabilitazione dei collaborazionisti, dei governi fantoccio e dei loro leader. In alcuni casi, il sistema giudiziario nazionale ed internazionale è manipolato e abusato per gli stessi scopi.
Detto ciò, la rinascita delle ideologie nazista e fascista su così larga scala non può essere considerata spontanea. Pertanto, sarebbe utile analizzare e rispondere ad almeno due domande. In primo luogo, quali sono le fonti di finanziamento della rinascita delle ideologie nazista e fascista? E in secondo luogo, esiste una volontà politica di adottare una risposta globale al processo di rilancio di queste ideologie, o il modo di pervenire a tale risposta?
La riabilitazione del nazismo e dei diversi governi collaborazionisti è particolarmente preoccupante nei Balcani, dove i crimini degli occupanti fascisti e dei loro sodali furono estremamente crudeli, creando di campi di concentramento, incoraggiando la guerra civile, ridisegnando confini e formando stati satelliti ("Stato Indipendente di Croazia", "Grande Albania " nel 1941-1945). Particolarmente preoccupanti sono le false interpretazioni che i tentativi in corso per la riabilitazione dei governi collaborazionisti e la minimizzazione del ruolo dei movimenti antinazista e antifascista e della lotta di Liberazione sono presentati come parte integrante del processo di democratizzazione, riconciliazione e delle politiche moderne e orientate al futuro.
La crisi jugoslava degli anni '90 ha dato origine alla revisione della storia. Infatti, la distruzione della Jugoslavia è stata la revisione dei risultati, non solo della Seconda ma anche della Prima guerra mondiale e persino delle Guerre balcaniche.
In primo luogo, la Serbia, all'interno della Jugoslavia, fornì un grande contributo alla vittoria sul nazismo e il fascismo. Tuttavia, la lotta di liberazione popolare contro le forze di occupazione fasciste, in stretta collaborazione con le altre forze alleate, in particolare con l'Armata Rossa dell'Unione Sovietica, è spesso sottovalutata, trascurata o distorta dal sistema mediatico, educativo e politico.
In secondo luogo, la Serbia subì perdite umane enormi, la parte di gran lunga maggiore delle 1,7 milioni di vittime della Jugoslavia. In realtà, la Nazione serba è stata vittima di un genocidio. Nel solo campo di concentramento di Jasanovac, situato nell'hitleriano "Stato Indipendente di Croazia", furono uccisi circa 700.000 fra serbi, ebrei e zingari. C'è la tendenza a trascurare, minimizzare o falsare le reali proporzioni delle enormi perdite umane e di sminuire le responsabilità per i crimini senza precedenti contro l'umanità.
In terzo luogo, i tentativi di riscrivere la storia non si limitano solo ai risultati della Seconda guerra mondiale, ma anche a quelli della Prima guerra mondiale, in relazione agli accordi di Versailles (Trianon). Questi tentativi a volte vanno così in là che giungono al punto di accusare la Serbia anche per lo scoppio della Prima guerra mondiale!
E così, nel corso degli ultimi venti anni la Serbia sta vivendo "in vivo" la revisione della storia del XX secolo, gli esiti delle due Guerre mondiali e attualmente i risultati delle Guerre balcaniche: la seconda e la terza Jugoslavia sono state distrutte in modo coordinato dalle forze separatiste interne e dai loro protettori stranieri, attraverso le sanguinose guerre civili. In questo senso, il ruolo delle ideologie neonaziste e dei loro seguaci nei movimenti separatisti non deve essere trascurato ("Ustascia" e altri).
Il Kosovo e Metohija, simbolo della sovranità, della religione e della cultura serba, è stato occupato attraverso la brutale aggressione militare della NATO nel 1999. Mentre era sotto mandato delle Nazioni Unite e in contrasto con la risoluzione 1244 del Consiglio di sicurezza dell'ONU, questo territorio serbo è stato rubato alla Serbia e consegnato ai capi della criminalità organizzata internazionale, che sono responsabili, tra l'altro, del rapimento di massa di esseri umani e della vendita di organi umani [2].
La nazione serba, che aveva vissuto in Jugoslavia per oltre 70 anni è stata frammentata: una parte trasformata in rifugiati, una parte tramutata in nuove e palesemente discriminate minoranze nazionali e una parte in Kosovo e Metohija ancora privata dei diritti umani fondamentali. Alcuni serbi vivono nei ghetti di filo spinato del XXI secolo. I monumenti della cultura serba, 150 monasteri e chiese medievali, finanche i cimiteri secolari, sono stati distrutti mentre la provincia era sotto mandato delle Nazioni Unite. Circa 500.000 profughi e sfollati serbi sono ancora in Serbia senza il diritto al ritorno sicuro nelle loro case ancestrali in Croazia e in Kosovo e Metohija.
A dispetto di tutto ciò, nel corso degli ultimi 20 anni le grandi potenze occidentali e l'enorme macchina propagandistica hanno raffigurato la Serbia come la colpevole per lo scoppio delle guerre civili in Croazia e Bosnia, per l'aggressione del 1999 della NATO, per l'unilaterale e illegale secessione del Kosovo e Metohija del 2008; anche per la pulizia etnica dei serbi dalle loro case e per i crimini di genocidio commessi contro di loro. I mass-media dominati dal capitale societario hanno attribuito la responsabilità collettiva ai serbi e raffigurato il defunto presidente Slobodan Milosevic come un dittatore peggiore dello stesso Adolf Hitler. Il Tribunale dell'Aia, istituito senza un fondamento giuridico della Carta delle Nazioni Unite, si è in pratica trasformato in strumento politico di condanna della dirigenza civile e militare della Serbia, riscrivendo la storia dei Balcani, giustificano l'aggressione militare della NATO che ha portato alla secessione unilaterale del 15% del territorio dello Stato della Serbia.
Il sostegno alle forze secessioniste nelle ex repubbliche jugoslave, in Kosovo e Metohija, e la demonizzazione della Serbia e dei serbi, è percepita da gran parte dell'opinione pubblica serba, da molte altre nazioni amiche, da studiosi indipendenti in Europa, Stati Uniti e nel mondo come ingiusta, come una pratica imperiale in linea con il motto "divide et impera", come vendetta sia per resistere all'egemonia globalista, sia per il contributo storicamente accertato della Serbia alla vittoria degli alleati nelle due Guerre mondiali.
Oggi, la Serbia sta subendo il ricatto di accettare la perdita del Kosovo e Metohija, in cambio dell'adesione all'UE! Apparentemente, nell'interesse della pace e della stabilità! Va notato tuttavia che questo non è solo immorale e illegale, ma pericolosamente controproducente per la pace e la stabilità. Sembra che la lezione dei Sudeti del 1938 sia stata dimenticata.
Le nostre priorità devono essere:
- Una posizione attiva e creativa nella difesa dei risultati delle due Guerre mondiali, incoraggiando storici, scrittori, giornalisti e scuole a preservare la verità e resistere a tutti i tipi di distorsioni e falsificazioni della storia;
- Le agenzie governative dovrebbero fornire tutte le condizioni necessarie alle istituzioni scientifiche e alle organizzazioni civiche che vogliano impegnarsi nella realizzazione di progetti concreti per evidenziare le radici e gli obiettivi di falsificazione della storia;
- Il ruolo attivo in tutte le sedi governative e non governative, in particolare nel sistema delle Nazioni Unite (ECOSOC, UNESCO), attraverso l'Unione interparlamentare (IPU) e altre assemblee parlamentari;
- Il rafforzamento della consapevolezza nei giovani e negli studenti dell'importanza fondamentale di salvaguardare la verità del passato e le conseguenze tragiche del fascismo e del nazismo;
- Esaminare il ruolo dell'istruzione e la possibilità di canalizzare alcune iniziative attraverso l'UNESCO;
- Rafforzare i principi di base del Diritto internazionale istituito dopo la Seconda guerra mondiale, in particolare, rafforzando il ruolo primario del Consiglio di sicurezza dell'ONU, nonostante le necessità di un ulteriore sviluppo e adeguamento delle istituzioni internazionali.
Note
[1] Discorso alla Conferenza internazionale "Mondo senza nazismo: Obiettivo globale di tutta l'umanità", tenutasi a Mosca il 17 dicembre 2010, sotto gli auspici del Consiglio della Federazione dell'Assemblea Federale della Federazione Russa
[2] Relazione dell'On. Dick Marty, relatore della Commissione per le questioni giuridiche dell'Assemblea parlamentare del Consiglio d'Europa, presentato all'Assemblea nel dicembre 2010 per l'esame e approvazione nella seduta convocata per il 25 gennaio 2011.
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*** Program 4.1.2011. Programma ***
- Situacija radnika "Zastava vozila" Kragujevac.
- O situaciji sa talijanskim radnicima razgovaramo sa clanom sindikata.
Datumi da se ne zaboravi:
3.1.1993. u Zenevi pocinje konferencija o B i H sa predstavncima sva 3 entiteta, za istim stolom.
8.1.1991. Zagrebacka "Astra" je u Hrvatsku uvezla 36.000 kalasnjikova koje je podjeljeno uglavno na podrucju koje se granici sa Srbijom ...
- La situazione dei lavoratori della "Zastava vozila" di Kragujevac.
- Della situazione dei lavoratori Fiat parliamo con un sindacalista italiano.
Date da ricordare:
Il 3 gennaio 1993, a Ginevra continua la conferenza sulla Bosnia-Erzegovina, con la partecipazione delle tre parti in causa allo stesso tavolo.
8 gennaio 1991, La Ditta zagabrese "Astra" importa in Croazia 36.000 kalashnikov, e queste armi vengono distribuite prevalentemente nei territori della frontiera amministrativa con la Serbia...
---
L'anno 2011 comincia con brutte notizie da Kragujevac
(sintesi degli appunti fatti pervenire da G.V. della onlus "Non bombe ma solo caramelle", 31-12-2010, e di altre informazioni raccolte da A.M.)
La situazione dei lavoratori della Zastava Vozila - quelli cioè del settore auto che NON sono entrati in Fiat Auto Serbia e sono rimasti a carico del Governo serbo (*) - si aggrava. A fine dicembre 2010 il Governo serbo ha infatti deciso di chiudere Zastava Vozila a partire dal 5 gennaio 2011.
Ecco come si presenta il destino di questi lavoratori (la somma dei numeri successivi porta ad un totale di 1537 lavoratori; confrontando con il totale di 1592, significa che per 55 non è ancora definito il gruppo di appartenenza):
53 lavoratori passano a Fiat Auto Serbia;
60 lavoratori (direttori vari e impiegati di alto livello) passano a ZASTAVA AD, che è la Direzione generale che controlla le attività industriali ancora esistenti del gruppo Zastava, non ancora privatizzate, che gestisce il patrimonio immobiliare eccetera;
10 lavoratori vanno subito in pensione;
65 lavoratori sono a due anni dalla pensione: entreranno nelle liste dell’Agenzia Nazionale per l’Impiego e riceveranno il seguente trattamento economico:
- 9 mensilità del loro salario netto attuale come indennità di licenziamento,
- 60% del salario medio netto serbo (circa 20.000 dinari/mese) fino alla pensione,
- i loro contributi sanitari e pensionistici fino alla pensione saranno a carico del Governo;
249 lavoratori sono tra 3 e 5 anni dalla pensione:
- trattamento economico previsto: 6 salari lordi come indennità di licenziamento (pagheranno loro le tasse), ovvero circa 2500 euro a lavoratore;
- entreranno nelle liste dell’Agenzia Nazionale per l’Impiego;
- riceveranno un sussidio di circa 250 euro/mese netti ma dovranno pagarsi da soli i contributi (circa 60 euro/mese);
97 lavoratori con al massimo sei anni dalla pensione: per questi il sindacato ha ottenuto che venga pagato il salario lordo (su cui pagheranno i contributi) fino al raggiungimento del quinto anno dalla pensione, dopo di che rientreranno nel trattamento economico relativo ai lavoratori del gruppo precedente;
65 lavoratori invalidi del lavoro: passano all’azienda Zastava INPRO, che produce piccoli rimorchi per auto;
938 lavoratori non rientrano in nessuna delle categorie sopra elencate:
riceveranno 300 euro di liquidazione per anno lavorato come indennità di licenziamento; entreranno nelle liste dell’Agenzia Nazionale per l’Impiego,
riceveranno un sussidio di 22000 dinari/mese per un anno e 19.000 dinari/mese per un successivo secondo anno indipendentemente da anzianità e qualifica. In questi due anni i contributi sanitari e pensionistici saranno pagati dal Governo.
Fiat Auto Serbia dovrebbe arrivare ad avere circa 2500 dipendenti alla fine del 2011; non ha però nessun obbligo contattuale rispetto alla riassunzione di lavoratori Zastava in mobilità.
C’è stato un grande inganno sui test di ingresso che la Fiat aveva svolto su tutti i lavoratori del gruppo Auto; sembrava che il passaggio a Fiat Auto Serbia fosse condizionato al superamento questo test di ingresso; si sa invece di lavoratori che non hanno passato il test e che sono già stati assunti così come di lavoratori espulsi che avevano passato il test. Per moltissimi lavoratori non sono mai stati comunicati i risultati dei test e non c’è mai stato su questi argomenti un confronto con il Sindacato. Ed è su questo grande equivoco che il Ministro dell’economia Mladjan Dinkic sta giocando le sue carte per giustificare l’espulsione di questi lavoratori, come è riportato nelle sue dichiarazioni del 24 dicembre a B92. (**)
Nel frattempo lo scorso 29 dicembre la manifestazione del migliaio di lavoratori minacciati di licenziamento è sfociata nel tentativo di occupazione del Municipio di Kragujevac. A seguito di questi fatti il dirigente sindacale del sindacato Samostalni dei metalmeccanici, Zoran Mihajlovic, è stato ricoverato (come già era successo in passato) nel reparto di cardiologia dell'Ospedale di Kragujevac per nuovi problemi al cuore, chiaramente causati dallo stress di questa vicenda drammatica, che in pochi anni ha visto circa30mila lavoratori sbattuti fuori dalla "Zastava", e solo un migliaio re-impiegati dalla FIAT a condizioni infami.
Segnaliamo che un interessantissimo articolo sul calvario della Zastava Auto di Kragujevac, oggi requisita dalla FIAT con un colpo di mano imperialista di quelli da manuale, appare sull'ultimo numero (3-4/2010) della rivista L'ERNESTO: "FIAT SERBIA: UN CLASSICO CASO DI IMPERIALISMO", di Andrea Catone.
(*) Fiat Auto Serbia al 31-12-2010: 1120 lavoratori; Zastava Vozila al 31-12-2010: 1592 lavoratori. Sulla situazione pregressa negli stabilimenti Zastava di Kragujevac si veda la documentazione raccolta alla pagina: https://www.cnj.it/AMICIZIA/sindacale.htm .
(**) Si veda: http://www.b92.net/eng/news/business-article.php?yyyy=2010&mm=12&dd=24&nav_id=71719 . Nello stesso articolo c’è una dura presa di posizione di Zoran Mihajlovic che smaschera queste dichiarazioni.
Kosovo: Hub of the EU-NATO Drug Trail
1) Kosovo: Europe's Mafia State (Tom Burghardt, Global Research)
2) WSWS on KLA’s crimes:
- Washington’s “humanitarian” war and the KLA’s crimes (Paul Mitchell and Chris Marsden)
- US, Europe concealed organ trafficking by Kosovo Liberation Army (Tony Robson)
Link: Kosovo "Freedom Fighters" Financed by Organised Crime.
by Michel Chossudovsky (Covert Action Quarterly - 1999-04-10)http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22619
=== 1 ===
(en castillano:
El Estado mafioso de Europa, centro del camino de la droga UE-OTAN - Tom Burghardt
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22570 )
http://www.nspm.rs/nspm-in-english/kosovo-europes-mafia-state.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22486
Kosovo: Europe's Mafia State. Hub of the EU-NATO Drug Trail
In another grim milestone for the United States and NATO, the Council of Europe (COE) released an explosive report last week, "Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo."
The report charged that former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) boss and current Prime Minister, Hashim Thaçi, "is the head of a 'mafia-like' Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe," The Guardian disclosed.
According to a draft resolution unanimously approved December 16 in Paris, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights found compelling evidence of forced disappearances, organ trafficking, corruption and collusion between criminal gangs and "political circles" in Kosovo who just happen to be close regional allies of the United States.
The investigation was launched by Dick Marty, the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe (PACE) special rapporteur for human rights who had conducted an exhaustive 2007 probe into CIA "black fights" in Europe.
The PACE investigation gathered steam after allegations were published by former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte in her 2008 memoir.
After it's publication, Ms. Del Ponte was bundled off to Argentina by the Swiss government as her nation's ambassador. Once there, the former darling of the United States who specialized in doling out victor's "justice" to the losers of the Balkan wars, was conveniently silenced.
A series of damning reports by the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIR), the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the BBC, confirmed Del Ponte's allegations and spurred the Council to act.
Reporting for the BBC, investigative journalist Michael Montgomery learned that political opponents of the KLA and Serb prisoners of war "simply vanished without a trace" into a secret prison "in the Albanian border town of Kukes."
According to sources who feared for their lives, including former KLA guerrillas, the BBC revealed that disappeared civilians "were Serbs and Roma seized by KLA soldiers and were being hidden away from Nato troops. The source believes the captives were sent across the border to Albania and killed."
In an uncanny echo of Nazi practices during the period of the Third Reich, The New York Timesreported that "captives" were "'filtered' for their suitability as donors, based on sex, age, health conditions and ethnic origin. "We heard numerous references to captives' not merely having been handed over, but also having been 'bought' and 'sold,'" the special rapporteur told the Times.
"Some of the guards told investigators," the Times reports, "that a few captives understood what was about to happen and 'pleaded with their captors to be spared the fate of being chopped into pieces'."
Mercy was in short supply however, behind KLA lines.
The report states: "As and when the transplant surgeons were confirmed to be in position and ready to operate, the captives were brought out of the 'safe house' individually, summarily executed by a KLA gunman, and their corpses transported swiftly to the operating clinic."
Once organs were removed from the victims they were auctioned off to the highest bidder and sold by a global trafficking ring still operating today.
The former prosecutor further alleged, The Guardian reported, that "she had been prevented from investigating senior KLA officials" who she claimed had "smuggled captive Serbs across the border into Albania, where their organs were harvested."
In a classic case of covering-up the crimes of low-level thugs to protect more powerful criminals, Del Ponte has charged that forensic evidence gathered by ICTY investigators at one of the northern Albania death houses was destroyed at The Hague.
International Network
This brisk underground trade didn't end in 1999 however, when the break-away Serb province was occupied by NATO troops; on the contrary, operations expanded and grew even more profitable as Kosovo devolved into a protectorate of the United States.
In fact, a trial underway in Pristina has revealed that "desperate Russians, Moldovans, Kazakhs and Turks were lured into the capital 'with the false promise of payments' for their kidneys," The Guardian reported.
It was a "growth industry" that fed on human misery. According to The Guardian, recipients "paid up to €90,000 (£76,400) for the black-market kidneys [and] included patients from Canada, Germany, Poland and Israel," EU prosecutor Jonathan Ratel told the British paper.
"Donors" however, were left holding the bag, lucky to escape with their lives.
At the center of the scandal is the Medicus clinic. Located some six miles from downtown Pristina, Medicus was allegedly founded by university hospital urologist Dr Lutfi Dervishi, and a former permanent secretary of health, prosecutors claim, provided the clinic with a false license to operate.
Two of the accused, The Guardian revealed, "are fugitives wanted by Interpol: Moshe Harel, an Israeli said to have matched donors with recipients, and Yusuf Sonmez, perhaps the world's most renowned organ trafficker."
Prosecutors believe that Harel and Sonmez are the brains behind Medicus and that Shaip Muja, a former KLA "medical commander" who was based in Albania, may have overseen operations at the "clinic."
Muja remains a close confidante of Thaçi's and, in an macabre twist, he is currently "a political adviser in the office of the prime minister, with responsibility for health," The Guardian reports.
Investigators averred they had "uncovered numerous convergent indications of Muja's central role [in] international networks, comprising human traffickers, brokers of illicit surgical procedures, and other perpetrators of organised crime."
Besides lining the pockets of Albanian, Israeli and Turkish criminals who ran the grisly trafficking ring, whose interests might also be served in covering-up these horrific crimes?
A Gangster State, but which One?
The veil of secrecy surrounding KLA atrocities could not have been as complete as it was without the intervention of powerful actors, particularly amongst political and military elites in Germany and the United States who had conspired with local gangsters, rebranded as "freedom fighters," during the break-up of Yugoslavia.
As in Albania years before NATO's Kosovo adventure, organized criminal activities and "the trade in narcotics and weapons [were] allowed to prosper," Michel Chossudovsky wrote, because "the West had turned a blind eye."
These extensive deliveries of weapons were tacitly permitted by the Western powers on geopolitical grounds: both Washington and Bonn had favoured (although not officially) the idea of a 'Greater Albania' encompassing Albania, Kosovo and parts of Macedonia. Not surprisingly, there was a 'deafening silence' on the part of the international media regarding the Kosovo arms-drugs trade. ("The Criminalization of Albania," in Masters of the Universe? NATO's Balkan Crusade, ed. Tariq Ali, London: Verso, 2000, pp. 299-300)
The consequences of this "deafening silence" remain today. Both in terms of the misery and impoverishment imposed on Kosovo's citizens by the looting of their social property, particularly the wholesale privatization of its mineral wealth which IMF economic "reforms" had spawned, and in the political cover bestowed upon Pristina's gangster regime by the United States.
In the intervening years NATO's "blind eye" has morphed into something more sinister: outright complicity with their Balkan protégés.
Virtually charging the ICTY with knuckling under to political pressure from the Americans, the PACE report states that "the ICTY, which had started to conduct an initial examination on the spot to establish the existence of traces of possible organ trafficking, dropped the investigation."
"The elements of proof taken in Rripe, in Albania" during that initial inquiry investigators wrote, "have been destroyed and cannot therefore be used for more detailed analyses. No subsequent investigation has been carried out into a case nevertheless considered sufficiently serious by the former ICTY Prosecutor for her to see the need to bring it to public attention through her book."
This is hardly surprising, considering that the ICTY was created at the insistence of the Clinton administration precisely as a retributive hammer to punish official enemies of the U.S.
Hailed as an objective body by media enablers of America's imperial project, with few exceptions, while it relentlessly hunted down alleged Serbian war criminals--the losers in the decade-long conflagration--it studiously ignored proxy forces, including the KLA, under the operational control of German and American intelligence agencies.
The report averred that human organ trafficking was only a part of a larger web of crime and corruption, and that murder, trafficking in women, control over global narcotics distribution and money laundering networks were standard operating procedure for Thaçi and other members of the "Drenica group," the black widows at the center of the KLA spiders' web.
For his part, Thaçi has called the PACE report "libelous" and the Kosovo government has repudiated the Council's findings claiming that the charges "were not based on facts and were construed to damage the image of Kosovo and the war of the Kosovo Liberation Army."
While one can easily dismiss prevarications from Kosovo's government, the White House role in covering-up the crimes of their client regime should have provoked a major scandal. That it didn't only reveals the depths of Washington's own venal self-interest in preventing this sordid affair from gaining traction.
In all likelihood fully-apprised of the Council of Europe's investigation through any number of American-friendly moles implanted in European institutions as WikiLeaks Cablegate files have revealed, last summer Thaçi met with U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden at the White House.
Shamelessly, Biden "reaffirmed the United States' full support for an independent, democratic, whole, and multi-ethnic Kosovo," and "reiterated the United States' firm support for Kosovo's sovereignty and territorial integrity," according to a White House press release.
Indeed, the vice president "welcomed the progress that Kosovo's government has made in carrying out essential reforms, including steps to strengthen the rule of law."
An all too predictable pattern when one considers the lawless nature of the regime in Washington.
The Heroin Trail
As I reported more than two years ago in "Welcome to Kosovo! The World's Newest Narco State," the KLA served as the militarized vanguard for the Albanian mafia whose "15 Families" control virtually every facet of the Balkan heroin trade.
Albanian traffickers ship heroin originating exclusively from Central Asia's Golden Crescent. At one end lies America's drug outpost in Afghanistan where poppy is harvested for processing and transshipment through Iran and Turkey; as morphine base it is then refined into "product" for worldwide consumption. From there it passes into the hands of the Albanian syndicates who control the Balkan Route.
As the San Francisco Chronicle reported back in 1999, "Kosovars were the acknowledged masters of the trade, credited with shoving aside the Turkish gangs that had long dominated narcotics trafficking along the Balkan Route, and effectively directing the ethnic Albanian network."
As the murdered investigative journalist Peter Klebnikov reported in 2000 for Mother Jones, as the U.S.-sponsored war in Kosovo heated up, "the drug traffickers began supplying the KLA with weapons procured from Eastern European and Italian crime groups in exchange for heroin. The 15 Families also lent their private armies to fight alongside the KLA. Clad in new Swiss uniforms and equipped with modern weaponry, these troops stood out among the ragtag irregulars of the KLA. In all, this was a formidable aid package."
Despite billions of dollars spent on failed interdiction efforts, these patterns persist today as more than 106 metric tons of heroin flow into Europe. So alarmed has the Russian government become over the flood of heroin penetrating their borders from Central Asian and the Balkan outposts that some officials have likened it to American "narco-aggression" and a new "opium war, researcher Peter Dale Scott reported.
Scott avers: "These provinces" in Afghanistan, "support the past and present CIA assets in the Karzai regime (headed by Hamid Karzai, a former CIA asset), including the president’s brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, an active CIA asset, and Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former CIA asset. In effect America has allied itself with one drug faction in Afghanistan against another." Much the same can be said for CIA assets in Pristina.
As the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published in their 2010 World Drug Report:
Once heroin leaves Turkish territory, interception efficiency drops significantly. In the Balkans, relatively little heroin is seized, suggesting that the route is exceedingly well organized and lubricated with corruption. ... Another notable feature of the Balkan route is that some important networks have clan-based and hierarchically organized structures. Albanian groups in particular have such structures, making them particularly hard to infiltrate. This partially explains their continued involvement in several European heroin markets. Albanian networks continue to be particularly visible in Greece, Italy and Switzerland. Italy is one of the most important heroin markets in Europe, and frequently identified as a base of operation for Balkan groups who exploit the local diaspora. According to WCO seizure statistics, Albanians made up the single largest group (32%) of all arrestees for heroin trafficking in Italy between 2000 and 2008. The next identified group was Turks followed by Italians and citizens of Balkan countries (Bulgaria, Kosovo/Serbia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and to some extent Greece). A number of Pakistani and Nigerian traffickers were arrested in Italy as well.
As has been documented for decades, U.S. destabilization programs and covert operations rely on far-right provocateurs and drug lords (often interchangeable players) to facilitate the dirty work. Throughout its Balkan campaign the CIA made liberal use of these preexisting narcotics networks to arm the KLA and then provide them with targets.
When NATO partners Germany and the U.S. decided to drive a stake through Yugoslavia's heart during the heady days of post-Cold War triumphalism, their geopolitical strategy could not have achieved "success" without the connivance, indeed active partnership forged amongst Yugoslavia's nationalist rivals. As investigative journalist Misha Glenny has shown,
Most shocking of all, however, is how the gangsters and politicians fueling war between their peoples were in private cooperating as friends and close business partners. The Croat, Bosnian, Albanian, Macedonian, and Serb moneymen and mobsters were truly thick as thieves. They bought, sold, and exchanged all manner of commodities, knowing that the high levels of personal trust between them were much stronger than the transitory bonds of hysterical nationalism. They fomented this ideology among ordinary folk in essence to mask their own venality. As one commentator described it, the new republics were ruled by "a parastate Cartel which had emerged from political institutions, the ruling Communist Party and its satellites, the military, a variety of police forces, the Mafia, court intellectuals and with the president of the Republic at the center of the spider web... Tribal nationalism was indispensable for the cartel as a means to pacify its subordinates and as a cover for the uninterrupted privatization of the state apparatus. (McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008, p. 27)
Thaçi and other members of his inner circle, Marty avers, were "commonly identified, and cited in secret intelligence reports," published by the German secret state agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst or BND "as the most dangerous of the KLA's 'criminal bosses'."
Trading on American protection to consolidate political power, thus maintaining control over key narcotics smuggling corridors, the special rapporteur writes that "having succeeded in eliminating, or intimidating into silence, the majority of the potential and actual witnesses against them (both enemies and erstwhile allies), using violence, threats, blackmail, and protection rackets," Thaçi's Drenica Group have "exploit[ed] their position in order to accrue personal wealth totally out of proportion with their declared activities."
Indeed, multiple reports prepared by the U.S. DEA, FBI, the BND, Italy's SISMI, Britain's MI6 and the Greek EYP intelligence service have stated that Drenica Group members "are consistently named as 'key players' in intelligence reports on Kosovo's mafia-like structures of organised crime."
As the Council of Europe and investigative journalists have documented, northern Albania was the site not only of KLA training camps but of secret detention centers where prisoners of war and civilian KLA opponents were executed and their organs surgically removed and sold on the international black market.
"The reality is that the most significant operational activities undertaken by members of the KLA--prior to, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the conflict--took place on the territory of Albania, where the Serb security forces were never deployed."
The report avers, "It is well established that weapons and ammunition were smuggled into parts of Kosovo, often on horseback, through clandestine, mountainous routes from northern Albania," the site of secret NATO bases, "yet only in the second half of 1998," Marty writes, "through explicit endorsements from Western powers, founded on strong lobbying from the United States, did the KLA secure its pre-eminence in international perception as the vanguard of the Kosovar Albanian liberation struggle."
"What is particularly confounding" Marty writes, "is that all of the international community in Kosovo--from the Governments of the United States and other allied Western powers, to the EU-backed justice authorities--undoubtedly possess the same, overwhelming documentation of the full extent of the Drenica Group's crimes, but none seems prepared to react in the face of such a situation and to hold the perpetrators to account."
While the special rapporteur's outrage is palpable, the ascension of a political crime family with deep roots in the international drugs trade and other rackets, including the grisly traffic in human organs, far from being an anomalous event conforms precisely to the structural pattern of capitalist rule in the contemporary period.
"What we have uncovered" Marty informs us, "is of course not completely unheard-of. The same or similar findings have long been detailed and condemned in reports by key intelligence and police agencies, albeit without having been followed up properly, because the authors' respective political masters have preferred to keep a low profile and say nothing, purportedly for reasons of 'political expediency'. But we must ask what interests could possibly justify such an attitude of disdain for all the values that are invariably invoked in public?"
Marty need look no further for an answer to his question than to the "political masters" in Washington, who continue to cover-up not only their own crimes but those of the global mafias who do their bidding.
As we have seen throughout the latter half of the 20th century down to the present moment, powerful corporate and financial elites, the military and intelligence agencies and, for lack of a better term, "normal" governmental institutions are suborned by the same crooked players who profit from war and the ensuing chaos it spawns to organize crime, thereby "rationalizing" criminal structures on more favorable terms for those "in the loop."
In this regard, the impunity enjoyed up till now by Thaçi and his minions merely reflect the far-greater impunity enjoyed by the American secret state and the powerful actors amongst U.S. elites who have profited from the dirty work allegedly performed by Kosovo's Prime Minister, and others like him, who are counted amongst the most loyal servants of imperial power.
Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global Research, his articles can be read on Dissident Voice, The Intelligence Daily, Pacific Free Press, Uncommon Thought Journal, and the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. He is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press and has contributed to the new book from Global Research, The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century.
=== 2 ===
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/pers-d31.shtml
Washington’s “humanitarian” war and the KLA’s crimes
31 December 2010
Revelations of fascistic crimes carried out by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) prior to, during and after NATO’s war against the former Yugoslavia should provide a salutary lesson whenever Washington again cites humanitarian concerns to justify its predatory war aims.
A report by the Council of Europe describes Kosovo today as a country subject to “mafia-like structures of organised crime”. It accuses KLA commander and current prime minister, Hachim Thaci, of heading a criminal network involved in murder, prostitution and drug trafficking.
This may come as no surprise to those who have witnessed his rise from terrorist thug to head of the newly “independent” state. But what will be a shock to many is the grotesque way in the KLA helped finance its operations—by removing and selling body organs from kidnapped Serb and Kosovan Albanian civilian prisoners. The practice recalls the barbaric human experiments carried out by the Nazi “Angel of Death” Josef Mengele in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The KLA’s crimes only came to light at all because of the unravelling of an ongoing cover-up by the US, the United Nations and other major powers. Information about KLA detention facilities in Kosovo and across the border in Albania first reached the International Centre for the Red Cross in 2000, after KLA fighters reported that Serb civilians were taken there in 1999 and their organs removed and sold abroad for transplant operations. The allegations surfaced once again in a BBC investigation in April last year and in the publication of the memoirs of International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, revealing that a 2008 investigation into the “organ harvesting” had been dropped because it was supposedly “impossible to conduct.”
Any prosecution of the KLA was made “impossible” by Washington, which has been its main sponsor since at least 1998. Following the Bosnian war of 1995, the KLA, seeking to capitalise on popular resentment among Kosovan Albanians against the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, pursued a strategy of destabilising Kosovo by acts of terrorism in the hope of provoking Western intervention.
NATO was forced to admit that the KLA was “the main initiator of the violence” and its actions a “deliberate campaign of provocation”. But Washington was shifting its policy from proscribing the KLA as a terrorist organisation to one of covert support. During the 1999 Rambouillet negotiations, then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright promoted Thaci as the legitimate representative of the Kosovar people and seated him at the head of the Kosovo delegation. State Department spokesman James Rubin brushed aside concerns about the criminal nature of Washington’s new partner, claiming, “We simply don’t have information to substantiate allegations that there was a KLA leadership-directed program of assassinations or executions”, and that the State Department had no “credible evidence” the KLA was involved in drug trafficking.
The adoption of the KLA as an ally was vital to Washington's strategy of breaking up the Yugoslav republic into its constituent parts, ensuring its own hegemony within the Balkan region and threatening the broader geo-strategic interests of Russia. Germany, Britain and other NATO allies all colluded in glorifying the KLA as a liberation movement fighting to free Kosovo from Serbian oppression. To this end, US Senator Joseph Lieberman declared that “Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values,” while British Prime Minister Tony Blair famously proclaimed, “This is a just war, based not on any territorial ambitions but on values.”
The US has continued to protect Thaci and his criminal gang as it pursued its goals of ethnic separatism. In 2007, the UN’s special envoy in Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari, started to promote Kosovo’s independence from Serbia. Just 11 months later, on February 17, 2008, Kosovo’s Assembly declared independence. It exists now as a US fiefdom, heavily dependent on international aid and with all major decisions pertaining to the economy, public spending, social programmes, security and trade controlled by the US, which has established its largest base in the Balkans at Camp Bondsteel.
Only two trials of KLA personnel have ever been held at the ICTY, compared to the scores involving Serbs. In the second trial the then prime minister Ramush Haradinaj was acquitted of war crimes charges with the trial judge complaining about the “significant difficulties” securing witness testimony. This prompted Del Ponte to complain about the protection Haradinaj was receiving from Western governments and officials. It was as a result of the Haradinaj trial, when the first reports of the body organ trade first emerged, that the Council of Europe was asked by Del Ponte to carry out an investigation.
Equally culpable in concealing the KLA’s criminal activities are the various ex-liberal and “left” individuals and groups that threw their support behind the NATO bombing campaign--with claims that this was a humanitarian intervention in support of the KLA’s struggle for “self-determination”.
At that time, the arch-Conservative opponent of the war and former Defence Minister, Alan Clark MP, was moved to ask in the Observer, “What amazes me about the Yugoslav crisis is the credulity of the Left, and of progressive thinkers, who seem to get a vicarious thrill from seeing B52s taking off from Fairford. I address them: How have you swallowed whole the CIA-funded propaganda that demonises the Serbs? Are you not familiar with the duplicity and intimidation of United States foreign policy? That Ambassador Walker, in charge of monitoring forces in Bosnia, was financing the Contras? Have you no recall of that 'Free World' crap that embraced Batista, Noriega, Syngman Rhee, Bao Dai, Lee Van Thieu and Sukarno?”
In an accompanying editorial, “There is no alternative to this war”, theObserverresponded to critics of its “allegedly inconsistent standards” with the rejoinder, “We say so what? ... We have to live in the world as it is, not some Utopia.”
The indifference to the realities of imperialist policy aims, and the embrace of the KLA and ethnic separatism, was of a piece with the evolution of this social layer ever since the first Balkan war in 1991—during which the selective citation of “humanitarian” considerations was first employed to justify making peace with imperialism. And nothing will change as a result of the latest revelations. The liberal media has been largely silent on the charges against Thaci and wholly silent as regards any editorial mea culpa—denoting their own agreement with the propaganda mouthpiece of US imperialism, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which insisted, “Regardless of the truth behind the charges against Thaci and members of the KLA, one should not abandon the broader perspective, as some otherwise reliable commentators have done.”
Paul Mitchell and Ch
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