Jugoinfo
DUE O TRE ZERI DI TROPPO?
TANTO CHI VUOI CHE SI SCANDALIZZI, DOPO...
Con insano godimento, giornalisti, politici e militari dei paesi NATO
durante i bombardamenti della primavera 1999 hanno scatenato le loro
piu' turpi fantasie criminologiche per gonfiare l'entita' dei presunti
crimini di parte jugoslava.
Ma adesso che piu' di un anno e' passato, la NATO ammette ufficialmente
che il numero delle vittime della "repressione di Milosevic" in Kosmet
non e' 100mila, come raccontato all'epoca dai funzionari statunitensi,
ne' dell'ordine delle decine di migliaia, come fatto credere dai nostri
scribacchini, bensi' "tra due e tremila", delle quali peraltro non si sa
chi sarebbe stato ucciso da chi, chi e' slavo e chi albanese, ne' come
sarebbe stato ucciso (scontri tra esercito ed UCK? Liquidazioni
sommarie? Morte naturale?).
Anziche' mostrarsi imbarazzati per l'uso sfacciato della menzogna come
arma di guerra, i portavoce della NATO sono soddisfatti e con la solita
faccia tosta esclamano: "E' anche questa una nostra vittoria, perche'
vuol dire che siamo entrati in Kosovo presto, impedendo ai sub-umani
serbi di compiere altri massacri!"
> Figures put on Serb killings too high
> Special report: Kosovo
>
> Jonathan Steele
> Friday August 18, 2000
> The Guardian
>
> Nato officials conceded last night that their wartime
> estimates of the number of Kosovo Albanian civilians
> massacred by Serb forces might have been too high.
> They were reacting to findings by forensic experts for
> the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague who
> are preparing to complete their work in Kosovo after
> exhuming about 3,000 bodies.
>
> Not all of the dead can be proved to be victims of
> murder or execution.
>
> The war crimes teams have dug up 680 corpses this year
> at 150 sites. Added to the 2,108 found last year, the
> total is well below the murder estimates, ranging from
> 10,000 to 100,000, made during the war. Paul Risley,
> the Hague tribunal's press spokesman, said yesterday:
> "The final number of bodies uncovered will be less
> than 10,000 and probably more accurately determined as
> between two and three thousand."
>
> Nato's intervention against Yugoslavia was prompted by
> massive Serb offensives against Albanian villages in
> Kosovo, which caused hundreds of thousands of
> civilians to hide in forests or flee across the
> border. There were frequent killings of unarmed
> civilians.
>
> During the Nato airstrikes, when the Serbs restricted
> access to Kosovo, there was no way to verify atrocity
> reports. But Nato officials talked of 100,000 missing
> men and said at least 10,000 had been killed. Mark
> Laity, the acting Nato spokesman, said last night:
> "Nato never said the missing were all dead. The figure
> we stood by was 10,000. If it's wrong, I'm prepared to
> put up with a little bit of egg on our face if
> thousands are alive who were thought to be killed.
>
> He added: "Nato is always going to lose. If there were
> 100,000 dead we would be criticised for entering
> Kosovo late. If it's a few thousand, we're criticised
> because people say there wasn't a crisis."
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
TANTO CHI VUOI CHE SI SCANDALIZZI, DOPO...
Con insano godimento, giornalisti, politici e militari dei paesi NATO
durante i bombardamenti della primavera 1999 hanno scatenato le loro
piu' turpi fantasie criminologiche per gonfiare l'entita' dei presunti
crimini di parte jugoslava.
Ma adesso che piu' di un anno e' passato, la NATO ammette ufficialmente
che il numero delle vittime della "repressione di Milosevic" in Kosmet
non e' 100mila, come raccontato all'epoca dai funzionari statunitensi,
ne' dell'ordine delle decine di migliaia, come fatto credere dai nostri
scribacchini, bensi' "tra due e tremila", delle quali peraltro non si sa
chi sarebbe stato ucciso da chi, chi e' slavo e chi albanese, ne' come
sarebbe stato ucciso (scontri tra esercito ed UCK? Liquidazioni
sommarie? Morte naturale?).
Anziche' mostrarsi imbarazzati per l'uso sfacciato della menzogna come
arma di guerra, i portavoce della NATO sono soddisfatti e con la solita
faccia tosta esclamano: "E' anche questa una nostra vittoria, perche'
vuol dire che siamo entrati in Kosovo presto, impedendo ai sub-umani
serbi di compiere altri massacri!"
> Figures put on Serb killings too high
> Special report: Kosovo
>
> Jonathan Steele
> Friday August 18, 2000
> The Guardian
>
> Nato officials conceded last night that their wartime
> estimates of the number of Kosovo Albanian civilians
> massacred by Serb forces might have been too high.
> They were reacting to findings by forensic experts for
> the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague who
> are preparing to complete their work in Kosovo after
> exhuming about 3,000 bodies.
>
> Not all of the dead can be proved to be victims of
> murder or execution.
>
> The war crimes teams have dug up 680 corpses this year
> at 150 sites. Added to the 2,108 found last year, the
> total is well below the murder estimates, ranging from
> 10,000 to 100,000, made during the war. Paul Risley,
> the Hague tribunal's press spokesman, said yesterday:
> "The final number of bodies uncovered will be less
> than 10,000 and probably more accurately determined as
> between two and three thousand."
>
> Nato's intervention against Yugoslavia was prompted by
> massive Serb offensives against Albanian villages in
> Kosovo, which caused hundreds of thousands of
> civilians to hide in forests or flee across the
> border. There were frequent killings of unarmed
> civilians.
>
> During the Nato airstrikes, when the Serbs restricted
> access to Kosovo, there was no way to verify atrocity
> reports. But Nato officials talked of 100,000 missing
> men and said at least 10,000 had been killed. Mark
> Laity, the acting Nato spokesman, said last night:
> "Nato never said the missing were all dead. The figure
> we stood by was 10,000. If it's wrong, I'm prepared to
> put up with a little bit of egg on our face if
> thousands are alive who were thought to be killed.
>
> He added: "Nato is always going to lose. If there were
> 100,000 dead we would be criticised for entering
> Kosovo late. If it's a few thousand, we're criticised
> because people say there wasn't a crisis."
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.ptb.be/solidaire/article.phtml?lang=1&obid=2217
EXCLUSIF:
Interview de trois prisonniers serbes, victimes de la Kfor, à Mitrovica
(Kosovo)
«En prison depuis treize mois, je n’ai pas encore vu le juge
d’instruction!»
Kosovska Mitrovica (où
l’Otan vient
de fermer une usine),
nord du
Kosovo, 26 juillet.
Nous sommes à
l’hôpital situé dans la
partie serbe de
la ville, le seul resté
ouvert à tous:
Serbes, Albanais et
autres. Le
directeur nous propose
de visiter
aussi «le bâtiment des
prisonniers».
Intrigués, nous y
découvrons deux
Serbes d’une
soixantaine d’années et
un de quarante ans,
gardés par la
Kfor (forces Otan
occupant le
Kosovo). Notre visite
va nous
révéler des souffrances
poignantes,
un arbitraire
insoupçonné et une
parodie de justice de
la part des
forces occupantes.
Bouleversés, nous
le serons encore
davantage en
apprenant, quelques
jours plus tard,
que ces trois
prisonniers ont
mystérieusement
disparu. Se
sont-ils évadés?
Ont-ils, comme
beaucoup le craignent là-bas, été livrés à l’UCK albanaise? Un document
exceptionnel.
Michel Collon et Germain Mugemangango
Kosovoska Mitrovica est la seule ville du Kosovo d’où les Serbes n’ont
pas été chassés par l’actuel nettoyage ethnique.
Nous la visitons avec une délégation de jeunes Belges participant depuis
quelques jours au Camp International d’Amitié à
Sirogojno (Yougoslavie).
Dans le couloir de l’hôpital, plusieurs policiers pakistanais de l’Unmik
(police de l’Onu), armés comme des soldats.
Etonnamment, ils veulent contrôler le directeur de l’hôpital qui nous
sert de guide. Ne le connaissent-ils pas? Non, car
leurs supérieurs les font relever toutes les quatre heures pour éviter
tout contact avec les Serbes. Présents depuis trois
mois, ils n’ont donc jamais vu le directeur. Et ils fuient nos
questions. Ambiance très lourde quand nous entrons dans la
chambre où les trois prisonniers sont allongés sur leur lit après une
grève de la faim...
Quand et pourquoi avez-vous été arrêté?
Dragan Jovanovic. Le 2 juillet 1999, il y a donc
plus d’un an, des soldats
français m’ont arrêté sans aucune explication.
J’ai été enlevé et emmené à la prison
de Lipljane, bien que la prison du district soit
située à Mitrovica même. Plus
tard, j’ai appris que c’était la volonté du juge
albanais, pour empêcher les
protestations dans la ville. En effet, les Serbes
allaient manifester sur les ponts
pour que je sois enfin remis en liberté, car on
m’avait arrêté sans raison.
A Lipljane, j’ai été gardé quatre mois par les
soldats britanniques. Nous étions
une quarantaine de prisonniers serbes et la
majorité se trouve encore en prison. On
n’a pas eu de chance. Il n’y avait pas
d’interprète serbe pour communiquer entre
l’Unmik, la Kfor et les Serbes. Tout se passait
uniquement entre l’Unmik, les
soldats de la Kfor et les Albanais.
Selon vous, quelle est la véritable raison de
votre arrestation?
Dragan Jovanovic. J’ai été arrêté parce que je
défendais le pont. Les Albanais
veulent continuer ici ce qu’ils ont fait dans tout le Kosovo. Dès le
début, ils ont tenté de rentrer dans la partie nord de
Mitrovica, peuplée en majorité de Serbes et qui a toujours été serbe.
Mais, avec quelques Serbes, nous nous sommes
rassemblés sur le pont - une limite naturelle - pour les empêcher de
passer.
Nous n’avons pas dit cela aux Albanais qui vivaient depuis toujours avec
nous. Seulement à ceux qui sont arrivés
récemment d’Albanie, de Macédoine. Cela s’est passé spontanément, sans
aucune organisation, nous voulions simplement
défendre le pont.
Pourquoi ces Albanais veulent-ils venir dans la partie nord?
Dragan Jovanovic. Je ne sais pas exactement si c’est la communauté
internationale, un autre pays ou des groupes
nationalistes qui veulent une Grande Albanie dans les Balkans. La partie
sud de notre ville était en majorité peuplée
d’Albanais, mais il y avait aussi des Serbes. A présent, il n’en reste
plus du tout. Par contre, dans la partie nord, il reste
toujours beaucoup d’Albanais, et ce n’est pas un problème pour nous.
Mais l’UCK affirme que les Albanais étaient persécutés depuis longtemps…
Dragan Jovanovic. Jusqu’il y a dix ans, 75% des policiers étaient
albanais. Ils avaient leurs magasins, leurs écoles.
Toutes les grandes institutions étaient à majorité albanaise. Pour la
présidence de la province, il y avait toujours neuf
Albanais, deux Serbes et un Monténégrin.
Avez-vous beaucoup d’amis albanais?
Dragan Jovanovic. Oui, beaucoup.
Donc, vous pensez qu’on vous a arrêté pour écarter un défenseur du pont?
Dragan Jovanovic. Oui. Une femme qui était de l’autre côté du pont m’a
montré du doigt: «Il a tué 26 personnes!» Cela
a suffi pour me maintenir treize mois en prison!
L’Unmik a-t-elle
vérifié cette
accusation?
Dragan Jovanovic.
Malheureusement, depuis
le jour de
l’arrestation, je n’ai
eu aucune
conversation avec aucun
policier,
aucun juge. Seulement
avec mes
avocats et certains
représentants
d’associations
médicales
internationales. Parce
que nous
avons fait une grève de
la faim qui a
duré quarante jours.
Dragisa, ici à côté de
moi, peut
confirmer mon histoire.
Lui aussi est
en prison depuis treize
mois. Accusé
de ‘génocide’, il n’a
eu aucune
conversation ni avec
l’Unmik, ni avec
un juge. Il n’y a pas d’acte d’accusation. Il ne sait pas quand il sera
jugé. On le garde en prison sans aucune explication.
Dragisa Peca. J’ai été kidnappé par des soldats de la Kfor. Un major
britannique était venu dire que ceux qui le désiraient
pouvaient aller visiter leur maison. Je suis parti visiter ma propriété
où j’ai dû tout abandonner.
Pourquoi?
Dragisa Peca. Pas à cause de mes voisins albanais,
mais à cause des terroristes de
l’UCK. Pendant trois ou quatre jours durant
lesquels je m’étais absenté, le voisin
avait surveillé mon bétail. Il m’a dit: «Si
demain, tu ne prends pas ton bétail,
quelqu’un le volera, je ne peux plus le garder.»
J’ai donc demandé au major de
pouvoir l’accompagner et je suis allé prendre le
bétail. Les voisins albanais sont
venus m’aider à charger le blé et le bétail.
Alors, la police de la Kfor est arrivée avec une
famille albanaise, prétendant que
j’avais commis un génocide sur le peuple albanais.
J’ai interrogé mes voisins
albanais: «Vous savez très bien si j’ai commis un
génocide ou pas.» Et les voisins
ont dit que je n’étais pas coupable. Mais
l’officier britannique leur a dit: «Shut up!»
Je ne savais pas ce que cela voulait dire. C’est
seulement dans la prison que j’ai appris
que cela voulait dire: «Ferme ta gueule!» Ils
m’ont amené à la prison de Lipljane.
Depuis le 23 juin 1999, personne ne m’a dit
pourquoi j’étais en prison, qui j’avais tué.
Ni la Kfor, ni la police de l’Unmik, personne! Et
pourtant, je suis ici.
Au pire moment des bombardements, notre voisine albanaise devait
accoucher. Elle avait perdu ses eaux trois jours plus
tôt. Son frère m’a dit: «Seuls toi et Dieu pouvez la sauver. Veux-tu
bien l’amener à l’hôpital?» J’ai répondu: «Je veux
bien, mais à condition que tu viennes aussi.» Car elle aurait pu mourir,
tant elle était gonflée. Alors, nous l’avons
emmenée à Pristina. Les bombes de l’Otan tombaient de tous les côtés.
Nous avons attendu à l’hôpital, où elle a accouché d’un petit garçon.
Après cinq jours, j’ai ramené son frère. Puis, je suis
retourné à l’hôpital, seul, et je l’ai ramenée chez elle. Aujourd’hui,
ces mêmes personnes, ces mêmes voisins avec qui je
m’entendais très bien, à qui j’amenais de la nourriture et des
médicaments, n’ont pas le droit de dire la vérité. A cause de
l’UCK.
Vous voulez dire que les Albanais sont terrorisés par l’UCK?
Dragisa Peca. Oui, extrêmement terrorisés.
Selon vous, pourquoi la Kfor est-elle au Kosovo?
Dragisa Peca. S’ils voulaient vraiment nous aider, et Kouchner en
premier lieu, ils auraient respecté la résolution 1244
de l’Onu. (Confiant à la Kfor la protection de toutes les nationalités
et le maintien du Kosovo dans le cadre de la
Yougoslavie. En réalité, la Kfor a expulsé elle-même des milliers de
travailleurs serbes de leur lieu de travail, elle a
refusé de protéger les civils serbes contre les expulsions et les
violences, et de nombreuses décisions administratives de
Kouchner préparent une sécession de fait.)
Pensez-vous qu’il sera un jour possible pour les Serbes et les Albanais
de revivre ensemble, paisiblement?
Dragisa Peca. Peut-être, mais sans la Kfor et l’Unmik.
Vous êtes également prisonnier ici. Que vous est-il arrivé?
Vlastimir Aleksic. Avec mon fils Srdjan,
nous vivions dans la partie
sud de Mitrovica. La majorité de nos
voisins étaient albanais.
Jusqu’aux bombardements de l’Otan, nous
n’avions aucun problème
dans l’immeuble, nous allions les uns
chez les autres. Puis, les
sentiments et les opinions de mes voisins
ont changé…
Le 14 août 99, mon fils se trouvait dans
l’appartement de sa
belle-mère. La gendarmerie française y a
procédé à un contrôle. Juste
avant de partir, ils ont demandé les
papiers d’identité de mon fils.
Dès qu’ils ont vu qu’il habitait la
partie sud de la ville, ils l’ont
arrêté et emmené à Vucitrn, à douze
kilomètres d’ici. L’UCK était
présente, et les interprètes étaient
albanais. Ils l’ont obligé à avouer
des choses qu’il n’avait pas faites. Ils
ont menacé de le violer, de le
battre. Ils ont demandé : «Qu’as-tu
encore comme famille?» Puis,
ils ont fouillé son appartement à la
recherche d’une arme, mais n’ont
rien trouvé.
Ils l’ont gardé quelques jours et il a
dit où se trouvait son père. J’étais
à Zubin Potok. La gendarmerie française
est venue m’interroger avec
des interprètes albanais. Ils demandaient
où se trouvait mon fils
Srdjan. J’ai répondu qu’il se trouvait au
Monténégro, parce que sa
femme était enceinte. Mais le problème,
c’est qu’il était revenu au
Kosovo entre temps. Ce que j’ignorais complètement. Alors, ils ont
perquisitionné sans mandat toute ma maison. Ils
n’ont trouvé qu’un pistolet, pour lequel j’avais un permis, avec un peu
de munitions.
Ensuite, ils m’ont emmené à Mitrovica-sud. Les gendarmes français ont
promis qu’ils allaient juste me poser quelques
questions et me ramener ensuite. Mais ce fut tout le contraire.
L’interprète albanais s’est rendu dans la rue où j’habitais.
Les voisins avec qui nous vivions ont raconté les pires choses aux
soldats français…
Y a-t-il eu enquête?
Dragisa Peca. Je suis arrêté depuis le 14 août 1999 et sans nouvelles
depuis. Après trois jours, on m’a mis en prison où
j’ai retrouvé mon fils. J’aimerais ajouter une chose concernant mes
voisins. Quand les bombardements de l’Otan ont
commencé, les Albanais ont quitté la ville. Ils ont choisi leurs
meilleurs voisins pour garder leur appartement, leur
garage ou la voiture. Les Serbes, eux, n’avaient aucun endroit où
s’enfuir, parce que toute la Serbie était bombardée. Ils
étaient donc obligés de rester. Cependant, mes voisins, dont j’ai gardé
tous les biens, ont témoigné contre moi et mon fils
parce qu’ils sont effrayés par l’UCK.
En Occident, on dit que les Serbes sont contre tous les Albanais. Mais
je vois que vous avez des amis albanais...
Dragisa Peca. Oui, nous avions et nous avons toujours de grands amis
albanais. Tous les Albanais ne sont pas des
terroristes de l’UCK. 70% étaient loyaux à l’Etat de la Serbie, à la
Yougoslavie. Malheureusement, ce n’est plus le cas
aujourd’hui. On mène à présent une toute autre politique.
Que pensez-vous de la Kfor?
Dragisa Peca. Ils ont incendié ma maison et détruit tout ce que je
possédais. S’ils ne m’avaient pas arrêté, peut-être
serais-je encore dans mon village...
Mais ce n’est pas la Kfor elle-même qui a incendié votre maison...
Dragisa Peca. Au fond si. En m’arrêtant, ils ont permis aux Albanais de
faire ce qu’ils voulaient. Ils empêchaient les
Serbes de circuler, tandis que les Albanais pouvaient aller où ils
voulaient et faire ce qu’ils désiraient.
Quel métier exercez-vous?
Dragisa Peca. Je travaille comme forestier. J’étais constamment dans la
forêt, à Janjevo, un endroit où vivent des
Croates catholiques. Si j’étais un mauvais homme, si j’avais commis un
génocide, ils auraient pu me tuer à n’importe quel
moment, tous les jours. Ils m’avaient toujours entre leurs mains.
D’ailleurs, le mieux serait de demander aux habitants
de Janjevo et dans les villages serbes des environs quel homme j’étais.
Il faudrait aussi demander aux voisins albanais.
Malheureusement, je ne peux pas vous envoyer là-bas. Ils auraient de
graves problèmes avec l’UCK.
Vlastimir Aleksic. Je voudrais encore vous dire quelque chose. Dans la
partie sud de Mitrovica, j’avais deux
appartements, où je vivais avec les Albanais. Nous avons été expulsés et
nous n’avons pu emporter qu’un sac. Nous
n’avions pas d’endroit où dormir.
Personne ne se soucie de savoir dans quel état sont mes appartements
là-bas. Ils exercent sans arrêt des pressions pour
s’emparer de ces logements qui ne leur appartiennent pas. Personne ne se
préoccupe de ce que j’ai mis trente ans de ma vie à
créer.
Vidéos, voyages, site
info &
paix...
Une vidéo de cette
interview est
disponible auprès de
l’asbl Parole
aux jeunes, qui a
organisé ce voyage
en Yougoslavie. Elle
prépare la
publication de
plusieurs autres
reportages passionnants
réalisés par
les jeunes eux-mêmes.
Et de
nouveaux projets de
voyages
d’enquêtes et de
reportages.
Intéressé? Contactez
Sébastien
Vandeputte au 02 / 513
66 26 ou
jab@.... Vous pouvez
aussi aider
à promouvoir la paix et
l’amitié,
grâce à l’information
directe et aux
réfutations des médiamensonges. Avec le site Internet: Peace and
resistance (www.lai-aib.org)
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
EXCLUSIF:
Interview de trois prisonniers serbes, victimes de la Kfor, à Mitrovica
(Kosovo)
«En prison depuis treize mois, je n’ai pas encore vu le juge
d’instruction!»
Kosovska Mitrovica (où
l’Otan vient
de fermer une usine),
nord du
Kosovo, 26 juillet.
Nous sommes à
l’hôpital situé dans la
partie serbe de
la ville, le seul resté
ouvert à tous:
Serbes, Albanais et
autres. Le
directeur nous propose
de visiter
aussi «le bâtiment des
prisonniers».
Intrigués, nous y
découvrons deux
Serbes d’une
soixantaine d’années et
un de quarante ans,
gardés par la
Kfor (forces Otan
occupant le
Kosovo). Notre visite
va nous
révéler des souffrances
poignantes,
un arbitraire
insoupçonné et une
parodie de justice de
la part des
forces occupantes.
Bouleversés, nous
le serons encore
davantage en
apprenant, quelques
jours plus tard,
que ces trois
prisonniers ont
mystérieusement
disparu. Se
sont-ils évadés?
Ont-ils, comme
beaucoup le craignent là-bas, été livrés à l’UCK albanaise? Un document
exceptionnel.
Michel Collon et Germain Mugemangango
Kosovoska Mitrovica est la seule ville du Kosovo d’où les Serbes n’ont
pas été chassés par l’actuel nettoyage ethnique.
Nous la visitons avec une délégation de jeunes Belges participant depuis
quelques jours au Camp International d’Amitié à
Sirogojno (Yougoslavie).
Dans le couloir de l’hôpital, plusieurs policiers pakistanais de l’Unmik
(police de l’Onu), armés comme des soldats.
Etonnamment, ils veulent contrôler le directeur de l’hôpital qui nous
sert de guide. Ne le connaissent-ils pas? Non, car
leurs supérieurs les font relever toutes les quatre heures pour éviter
tout contact avec les Serbes. Présents depuis trois
mois, ils n’ont donc jamais vu le directeur. Et ils fuient nos
questions. Ambiance très lourde quand nous entrons dans la
chambre où les trois prisonniers sont allongés sur leur lit après une
grève de la faim...
Quand et pourquoi avez-vous été arrêté?
Dragan Jovanovic. Le 2 juillet 1999, il y a donc
plus d’un an, des soldats
français m’ont arrêté sans aucune explication.
J’ai été enlevé et emmené à la prison
de Lipljane, bien que la prison du district soit
située à Mitrovica même. Plus
tard, j’ai appris que c’était la volonté du juge
albanais, pour empêcher les
protestations dans la ville. En effet, les Serbes
allaient manifester sur les ponts
pour que je sois enfin remis en liberté, car on
m’avait arrêté sans raison.
A Lipljane, j’ai été gardé quatre mois par les
soldats britanniques. Nous étions
une quarantaine de prisonniers serbes et la
majorité se trouve encore en prison. On
n’a pas eu de chance. Il n’y avait pas
d’interprète serbe pour communiquer entre
l’Unmik, la Kfor et les Serbes. Tout se passait
uniquement entre l’Unmik, les
soldats de la Kfor et les Albanais.
Selon vous, quelle est la véritable raison de
votre arrestation?
Dragan Jovanovic. J’ai été arrêté parce que je
défendais le pont. Les Albanais
veulent continuer ici ce qu’ils ont fait dans tout le Kosovo. Dès le
début, ils ont tenté de rentrer dans la partie nord de
Mitrovica, peuplée en majorité de Serbes et qui a toujours été serbe.
Mais, avec quelques Serbes, nous nous sommes
rassemblés sur le pont - une limite naturelle - pour les empêcher de
passer.
Nous n’avons pas dit cela aux Albanais qui vivaient depuis toujours avec
nous. Seulement à ceux qui sont arrivés
récemment d’Albanie, de Macédoine. Cela s’est passé spontanément, sans
aucune organisation, nous voulions simplement
défendre le pont.
Pourquoi ces Albanais veulent-ils venir dans la partie nord?
Dragan Jovanovic. Je ne sais pas exactement si c’est la communauté
internationale, un autre pays ou des groupes
nationalistes qui veulent une Grande Albanie dans les Balkans. La partie
sud de notre ville était en majorité peuplée
d’Albanais, mais il y avait aussi des Serbes. A présent, il n’en reste
plus du tout. Par contre, dans la partie nord, il reste
toujours beaucoup d’Albanais, et ce n’est pas un problème pour nous.
Mais l’UCK affirme que les Albanais étaient persécutés depuis longtemps…
Dragan Jovanovic. Jusqu’il y a dix ans, 75% des policiers étaient
albanais. Ils avaient leurs magasins, leurs écoles.
Toutes les grandes institutions étaient à majorité albanaise. Pour la
présidence de la province, il y avait toujours neuf
Albanais, deux Serbes et un Monténégrin.
Avez-vous beaucoup d’amis albanais?
Dragan Jovanovic. Oui, beaucoup.
Donc, vous pensez qu’on vous a arrêté pour écarter un défenseur du pont?
Dragan Jovanovic. Oui. Une femme qui était de l’autre côté du pont m’a
montré du doigt: «Il a tué 26 personnes!» Cela
a suffi pour me maintenir treize mois en prison!
L’Unmik a-t-elle
vérifié cette
accusation?
Dragan Jovanovic.
Malheureusement, depuis
le jour de
l’arrestation, je n’ai
eu aucune
conversation avec aucun
policier,
aucun juge. Seulement
avec mes
avocats et certains
représentants
d’associations
médicales
internationales. Parce
que nous
avons fait une grève de
la faim qui a
duré quarante jours.
Dragisa, ici à côté de
moi, peut
confirmer mon histoire.
Lui aussi est
en prison depuis treize
mois. Accusé
de ‘génocide’, il n’a
eu aucune
conversation ni avec
l’Unmik, ni avec
un juge. Il n’y a pas d’acte d’accusation. Il ne sait pas quand il sera
jugé. On le garde en prison sans aucune explication.
Dragisa Peca. J’ai été kidnappé par des soldats de la Kfor. Un major
britannique était venu dire que ceux qui le désiraient
pouvaient aller visiter leur maison. Je suis parti visiter ma propriété
où j’ai dû tout abandonner.
Pourquoi?
Dragisa Peca. Pas à cause de mes voisins albanais,
mais à cause des terroristes de
l’UCK. Pendant trois ou quatre jours durant
lesquels je m’étais absenté, le voisin
avait surveillé mon bétail. Il m’a dit: «Si
demain, tu ne prends pas ton bétail,
quelqu’un le volera, je ne peux plus le garder.»
J’ai donc demandé au major de
pouvoir l’accompagner et je suis allé prendre le
bétail. Les voisins albanais sont
venus m’aider à charger le blé et le bétail.
Alors, la police de la Kfor est arrivée avec une
famille albanaise, prétendant que
j’avais commis un génocide sur le peuple albanais.
J’ai interrogé mes voisins
albanais: «Vous savez très bien si j’ai commis un
génocide ou pas.» Et les voisins
ont dit que je n’étais pas coupable. Mais
l’officier britannique leur a dit: «Shut up!»
Je ne savais pas ce que cela voulait dire. C’est
seulement dans la prison que j’ai appris
que cela voulait dire: «Ferme ta gueule!» Ils
m’ont amené à la prison de Lipljane.
Depuis le 23 juin 1999, personne ne m’a dit
pourquoi j’étais en prison, qui j’avais tué.
Ni la Kfor, ni la police de l’Unmik, personne! Et
pourtant, je suis ici.
Au pire moment des bombardements, notre voisine albanaise devait
accoucher. Elle avait perdu ses eaux trois jours plus
tôt. Son frère m’a dit: «Seuls toi et Dieu pouvez la sauver. Veux-tu
bien l’amener à l’hôpital?» J’ai répondu: «Je veux
bien, mais à condition que tu viennes aussi.» Car elle aurait pu mourir,
tant elle était gonflée. Alors, nous l’avons
emmenée à Pristina. Les bombes de l’Otan tombaient de tous les côtés.
Nous avons attendu à l’hôpital, où elle a accouché d’un petit garçon.
Après cinq jours, j’ai ramené son frère. Puis, je suis
retourné à l’hôpital, seul, et je l’ai ramenée chez elle. Aujourd’hui,
ces mêmes personnes, ces mêmes voisins avec qui je
m’entendais très bien, à qui j’amenais de la nourriture et des
médicaments, n’ont pas le droit de dire la vérité. A cause de
l’UCK.
Vous voulez dire que les Albanais sont terrorisés par l’UCK?
Dragisa Peca. Oui, extrêmement terrorisés.
Selon vous, pourquoi la Kfor est-elle au Kosovo?
Dragisa Peca. S’ils voulaient vraiment nous aider, et Kouchner en
premier lieu, ils auraient respecté la résolution 1244
de l’Onu. (Confiant à la Kfor la protection de toutes les nationalités
et le maintien du Kosovo dans le cadre de la
Yougoslavie. En réalité, la Kfor a expulsé elle-même des milliers de
travailleurs serbes de leur lieu de travail, elle a
refusé de protéger les civils serbes contre les expulsions et les
violences, et de nombreuses décisions administratives de
Kouchner préparent une sécession de fait.)
Pensez-vous qu’il sera un jour possible pour les Serbes et les Albanais
de revivre ensemble, paisiblement?
Dragisa Peca. Peut-être, mais sans la Kfor et l’Unmik.
Vous êtes également prisonnier ici. Que vous est-il arrivé?
Vlastimir Aleksic. Avec mon fils Srdjan,
nous vivions dans la partie
sud de Mitrovica. La majorité de nos
voisins étaient albanais.
Jusqu’aux bombardements de l’Otan, nous
n’avions aucun problème
dans l’immeuble, nous allions les uns
chez les autres. Puis, les
sentiments et les opinions de mes voisins
ont changé…
Le 14 août 99, mon fils se trouvait dans
l’appartement de sa
belle-mère. La gendarmerie française y a
procédé à un contrôle. Juste
avant de partir, ils ont demandé les
papiers d’identité de mon fils.
Dès qu’ils ont vu qu’il habitait la
partie sud de la ville, ils l’ont
arrêté et emmené à Vucitrn, à douze
kilomètres d’ici. L’UCK était
présente, et les interprètes étaient
albanais. Ils l’ont obligé à avouer
des choses qu’il n’avait pas faites. Ils
ont menacé de le violer, de le
battre. Ils ont demandé : «Qu’as-tu
encore comme famille?» Puis,
ils ont fouillé son appartement à la
recherche d’une arme, mais n’ont
rien trouvé.
Ils l’ont gardé quelques jours et il a
dit où se trouvait son père. J’étais
à Zubin Potok. La gendarmerie française
est venue m’interroger avec
des interprètes albanais. Ils demandaient
où se trouvait mon fils
Srdjan. J’ai répondu qu’il se trouvait au
Monténégro, parce que sa
femme était enceinte. Mais le problème,
c’est qu’il était revenu au
Kosovo entre temps. Ce que j’ignorais complètement. Alors, ils ont
perquisitionné sans mandat toute ma maison. Ils
n’ont trouvé qu’un pistolet, pour lequel j’avais un permis, avec un peu
de munitions.
Ensuite, ils m’ont emmené à Mitrovica-sud. Les gendarmes français ont
promis qu’ils allaient juste me poser quelques
questions et me ramener ensuite. Mais ce fut tout le contraire.
L’interprète albanais s’est rendu dans la rue où j’habitais.
Les voisins avec qui nous vivions ont raconté les pires choses aux
soldats français…
Y a-t-il eu enquête?
Dragisa Peca. Je suis arrêté depuis le 14 août 1999 et sans nouvelles
depuis. Après trois jours, on m’a mis en prison où
j’ai retrouvé mon fils. J’aimerais ajouter une chose concernant mes
voisins. Quand les bombardements de l’Otan ont
commencé, les Albanais ont quitté la ville. Ils ont choisi leurs
meilleurs voisins pour garder leur appartement, leur
garage ou la voiture. Les Serbes, eux, n’avaient aucun endroit où
s’enfuir, parce que toute la Serbie était bombardée. Ils
étaient donc obligés de rester. Cependant, mes voisins, dont j’ai gardé
tous les biens, ont témoigné contre moi et mon fils
parce qu’ils sont effrayés par l’UCK.
En Occident, on dit que les Serbes sont contre tous les Albanais. Mais
je vois que vous avez des amis albanais...
Dragisa Peca. Oui, nous avions et nous avons toujours de grands amis
albanais. Tous les Albanais ne sont pas des
terroristes de l’UCK. 70% étaient loyaux à l’Etat de la Serbie, à la
Yougoslavie. Malheureusement, ce n’est plus le cas
aujourd’hui. On mène à présent une toute autre politique.
Que pensez-vous de la Kfor?
Dragisa Peca. Ils ont incendié ma maison et détruit tout ce que je
possédais. S’ils ne m’avaient pas arrêté, peut-être
serais-je encore dans mon village...
Mais ce n’est pas la Kfor elle-même qui a incendié votre maison...
Dragisa Peca. Au fond si. En m’arrêtant, ils ont permis aux Albanais de
faire ce qu’ils voulaient. Ils empêchaient les
Serbes de circuler, tandis que les Albanais pouvaient aller où ils
voulaient et faire ce qu’ils désiraient.
Quel métier exercez-vous?
Dragisa Peca. Je travaille comme forestier. J’étais constamment dans la
forêt, à Janjevo, un endroit où vivent des
Croates catholiques. Si j’étais un mauvais homme, si j’avais commis un
génocide, ils auraient pu me tuer à n’importe quel
moment, tous les jours. Ils m’avaient toujours entre leurs mains.
D’ailleurs, le mieux serait de demander aux habitants
de Janjevo et dans les villages serbes des environs quel homme j’étais.
Il faudrait aussi demander aux voisins albanais.
Malheureusement, je ne peux pas vous envoyer là-bas. Ils auraient de
graves problèmes avec l’UCK.
Vlastimir Aleksic. Je voudrais encore vous dire quelque chose. Dans la
partie sud de Mitrovica, j’avais deux
appartements, où je vivais avec les Albanais. Nous avons été expulsés et
nous n’avons pu emporter qu’un sac. Nous
n’avions pas d’endroit où dormir.
Personne ne se soucie de savoir dans quel état sont mes appartements
là-bas. Ils exercent sans arrêt des pressions pour
s’emparer de ces logements qui ne leur appartiennent pas. Personne ne se
préoccupe de ce que j’ai mis trente ans de ma vie à
créer.
Vidéos, voyages, site
info &
paix...
Une vidéo de cette
interview est
disponible auprès de
l’asbl Parole
aux jeunes, qui a
organisé ce voyage
en Yougoslavie. Elle
prépare la
publication de
plusieurs autres
reportages passionnants
réalisés par
les jeunes eux-mêmes.
Et de
nouveaux projets de
voyages
d’enquêtes et de
reportages.
Intéressé? Contactez
Sébastien
Vandeputte au 02 / 513
66 26 ou
jab@.... Vous pouvez
aussi aider
à promouvoir la paix et
l’amitié,
grâce à l’information
directe et aux
réfutations des médiamensonges. Avec le site Internet: Peace and
resistance (www.lai-aib.org)
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
SOROS, L'INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP E LE MINIERE DI TREPCA
Sull'argomento si veda anche la illuminante analisi di Diana Johnstone:
'Globalist Thinktank Conceived Excuse for Today's NATO Assault on
Mitrovica'
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/howitis.htm
---
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/pf/p-j081600.html
Behind the Headlines
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
August 16, 2000
WHY KOSOVO? FOLLOW THE MONEY!
When the Kosovo war broke out, and the "Allies" took up the cause of
that Albanian
terrorist gang known as the Kosovo Liberation Army, Antiwar.com received
a lot of
email from baffled readers who wondered: "Why Kosovo?" Here was an
impoverished
and isolated country in a notoriously unstable region of the world,
without any strategic
or military value to the US, the conquest of which could only add to our
burdens.
Virtually none of my correspondents believed the official explanation –
that the
Milosevic regime was slaughtering tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians
in the
province, and was determined to "cleanse" Kosovo so that it would be
ethnically Serb.
Since the inhabitants of Kosovo were then more than 90 percent
Albanians, this would
have meant the complete depopulation of the province – a policy that
made absolutely
no economic or political sense. The supposedly "humanitarian" motives of
the
NATO-crats were a fraud from the very beginning, it was clear, and in
any case their
fraudulence was proved after the war when UN forensic experts went in
and
recovered and identified a little over 2,000 bodies (including Serbs).
But this only
deepened the mystery, and the question went unanswered: why Kosovo, of
all places,
the closest thing to a Third World country in all of Europe? Over a year
after the
"humanitarians" bombed Belgrade and reduced much of Yugoslavia to
rubble, the
answer is beginning to take shape. . . .
THE $5 BILLION DOOR PRIZE
Yesterday 900 British, Danish, and French troops moved in to take over
the Trepca
complex of mines in the northern city of Mitrovice – and were met with
determined
resistance by hundreds of mine workers. Hurling rocks, sticks, and
stones, and wielding
the tools of their trade as weapons, Serbs downed four Brits, shouting
their defiance at
this escalation of NATO's war on the last Serbs left in Kosovo. For the
Trepca mining
complex is an ancient treasure, mined by the Greeks, the Romans, the
Turks, and is the
richest source of lead and zinc in Europe. There is enough lignite
deposits in those
mines to last for the next 13 centuries. The capacity of Trepca's
refineries ranks third
worldwide. The now-deposed mine director reported that "in the last
three years we
have mined 2,538,124 tons of lead and zinc crude ore and produced
286,502 tons of
lead and zinc and 139,789 tons of pure lead, zinc, cadmium, silver and
gold." We don't
need to ask why this action was taken: we have only to note Trepca's
estimated value –
over $5 billion. What else do we need to know?
ENVIRONMENTALLY CORRECT LIES
Naturally, they couldn't just go in there, and grab Kosovo's crown
jewels, without
coming up with a politically correct rationale. Leave it to "Unmik," the
acronymic
tyranny set up by the NATO-crats to administer their conquered province,
to come up
with the most transparent lie imaginable – albeit one that, in its sheer
ludicrousness, will
appeal to such enthusiasts of the Kosovo war as the German Greens and
their even
flakier American counterparts. According to a report from MSNBC, French
spokesman Colonel Henry Aussavy solemnly declared: "We've noted a
significant
increase in the level of lead in the air, which was dangerous for the
people of Mitrovica
and for KFOR (NATO-led) troops. We had to react."
THE ARROGANCE OF POWER
Let's see if I get this straight: after a year and some months of
organized ethnic
cleansing by the Kosovar Albanians against the defeated Serbs – as NATO
not only
stood by but actively aided the KLA's campaign for a Serb-free Kosovo –
Unmik
finally decides to react: not, mind you, to the murder, rape, and
pillaging of Kosovo's
embattled Serb communities, but to the alleged threat of air pollution.
Do these people
even care if anyone believes their lies? I don't think so. Real power
means that your lies
don't even have to be convincing. It means further humiliating your
victims – in the
process of beating them to the ground and robbing them blind – by
constructing the
flimsiest of pretexts, the more absurd the better.
DUBIOUS DIAGNOSIS
While the UN bureaucrats insisted that air samples indicated levels of
pollution 200
times above World Health Organization standards, the Serbs counter that
their
measurements indicate ".12 milligrams of lead per cubic metre (permitted
level .15
mg), .019 mg of zinc (permitted level .4 mg), copper .004 mg (permitted
level .01 mg),
iron .002 mg (permitted level .2 mg), etc." As to the medical rationale
for this brazen act
of thievery, doctors from the local hospital were more than skeptical
about the veracity
of the NATO-crats' diagnosis. Dr. Radoslav Jankovic wryly observed that
"we
haven't had a patient with a toxicology problem for years. Today only
soldiers and
Unmik police officers suffer problems of lead in the blood."
THE MONEY TRAIL
Are you beginning to see the answer to "why Kosovo?" A $5 billion prize
– but who
gets to claim it? Trepca was state-owned under Yugoslav suzerainty, but
now it will be
"privatized" and sold off to Western investors. In this context, it is
important to realize
just whom we are talking about. . . .
THE SOROS CONNECTION
When George Soros invested $150 million in the region – most of it
backed up by
fail-safe US government guarantees – he declared that this was not
strictly a
humanitarian effort. While known for his philanthropy, Soros said that
in the case of his
Balkan investments he would be guided by the concept of "tough love" and
insisted that
the new enterprise must be "driven purely by profit." With $100 million
of the US
taxpayers' money in his pocket, Soros and his gang are swooping down on
the
prostrate body of the Serbian nation like vultures feeding on the liver
of Prometheus –
the Titan of Greek mythology who stole fire from the depths of the earth
and gave it to
mankind. The Titans, a subterranean race, were the first miners, who
taught their
metal-smelting techniques to mortal men and were punished for the sin of
such
extravagant gift-giving, were obliterated by the gods of Olympus. Our
own Olympians
seem determined to visit a similar fate on the Serbs – who, for their
part, seem to be
guilty only of getting between George Soros and $5 billion.
JOHNSTONE'S PREDICTION
That the NATO-crats dare to invoke such a pathetic pretext for their
plundering is
not exactly astonishing. These people are moral monsters, after all, who
would have
reduced Belgrade to a smoking ruin if they hadn't been too afraid of the
political
consequences – and they may do so yet. What is truly astonishing is that
all this was
predicted, down to the details, back in February by Diana Johnstone, in
a remarkably
prescient article on Emperors-Clothes.com, in which she foretold not
only the
expropriation of the Trepca complex, but also exposed Soros as the
source of the
scheme. Analyzing two key documents – a November 1999 International
Crisis Group
(ICG) paper on the Trepca mining complex, and a February 2000 article in
the Toronto
Star by ICG consultant Susan Blaustein – Johnstone saw it all coming,
and with such
stunning accuracy that one can hardly believe that her piece wasn't
written yesterday.
What is especially revealing is the role of the International Crisis
Group in fomenting
the takeover of Trepca – and the role of Soros as the ICG's main
sugar-daddy. In its
report, the ICG drools at the prospect of having such a rich prize fall
into its
benefactor's hands. As Johnstone relates:
"In the 'game-plan of measures' recommended by the ICG, UNMIK is advised
to
instruct a 'Zvecan environmental assessment team' to report on the
status of the
equipment and thereupon 'advise as to what measures must be taken'...
Environmental hazards are to be the pretext to shut down Zvecan and
deprive the last
Serbs in Kosovo of their livelihood. Meanwhile, 'Stari Trg, one of the
richest mines in
Europe, must be potentially profitable again and should be a priority
for donors
interested in setting Kosovo on its feet.'"
PHILANTHROPY FOR FUN – AND PROFIT
Chief among these "donors" is none other than Soros, who now expects to
be paid
back for his "philanthropy" – with interest. Trepca can be profitable
again, but the
question is: for whom. Trepca seems to have fallen into Soros's lap – or
was it pushed
there? Another interesting aspect of this whole affair is that the
seizure of the Trepca
complex by NATO forces is part of the Sorosian "business strategy"
designed to
forestall and ultimately nullify the claims of two European companies
derived from
contracts signed with the Serbs. As the ICG report puts it:
"In July 1999, shortly after the conquest of Kosovo, one Jean-Pierre
Rozan showed
up claiming that 2.8% ownership of Trepca belonged to the Paris-based
SCMM, of
which he was a director. Rozan's claim was based on an agreement with
Belgrade, in
which SCMM took over Jugobanka's subsidiary in Kosovo as a result of
Belgrade's
default.
SOROSIAN ETHNIC CLEANSING
The ICG derides the Société Commerciale de Métaux et de Minéraux (SCMM)
claim as being without foundation on the somewhat questionable grounds
that the
French government is giving it no backing. But just in case this is not
enough, they
throw another factor into their argument that Rozan's claim must be
summarily
dismissed. This being Kosovo, there is an ethnic angle in all this,
underscored by the
ICG report,
"Some Kosovar Albanians, always ready to believe in a conspiracy however
unlikely,
are prepared to perceive SCMM as part of a wider Franco-Serbian
understanding,
which incorporates French KFOR acquiescence in the partition of
Mitrovicë, French
economic interests in Trepca, and even the appointment of Dr Bernard
Kouchner
himself as head of UNMIK and Special Representative of the UN
Secretary-General.
The recent award of a GSM telecommunications concession, regardless of
the
transparency of the process, to French company Alcatel, has fueled the
suspicions of
such conspiracy-theorists."
OUR CONSPIRACY THEORIES, AND THEIRS
Soros and his hired hands have an inherent hostility to "conspiracy
theorists," quite
naturally, but that doesn't stop them from placing the blame for
everything that goes
wrong in the Balkans on Slobodan Milosevic
"To other veteran observers of the Balkans, however, the involvement of
SCMM looks
like a Miloševic-style attempt to create a diversion (including by
encouraging exactly
that Balkan and Kosovar propensity for conspiracy-identification
outlined above),
and confuse the thinking of international officials charged with working
out the
problem. By putting this and other claims to due process of arbitration,
and meanwhile
getting on with what needs to be done, the problem can be neatly
sidestepped. "
ARREST THAT MAN!
How's that for a conspiracy theory? SCMM's claims are all part of a plot
by
Milosevic to "create a diversion." How convenient for Soros & Company
that their
chief competitors turn out to be enemy agents. Now that the NATO-crats
have
definitively settled the question of the ownership of the Trepca mines
by force of arms,
the next logical step is to lock up Monsieur Rozan and be done with it.
In any case, it is
clear that the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo will be carried out in the
mines, if the ICG has
anything to say about it. The author of the ICG report notes with some
irritation that:
"The UNMIK regional office in Mitrovica meanwhile occupies the Jugobanka
building
and continues to display Jugobanka insignia in the very meeting room to
which
Kosovars are invited to discuss Trepca – some report that they feel
uneasy in such
surroundings. Rozan, as 'owner' of Jugobanka and the building, is
demanding rent,
which UNMIK has refused to pay."
OUR ORWELLIAN AGE
Who cares about property rights when those poor sensitive souls, the
Kosovars,
reportedly feel "uncomfortable" in close proximity to anything Serbian,
even a
company logo. The ICG is basically making the argument that the ethnic
cleansing of
Kosovo must be completed: not only churches and other historical
monuments must be
destroyed – and there is hardly a Serbian church left standing in Kosovo
– but everything
Serbian must go. The ICG describes itself as a "private, multinational"
organization
devoted to strengthening the capacity of the international community to
anticipate,
understand and act to contain and prevent conflict." In our Orwellian
age this means a
government-connected tool of corporate plunderers devoted to
anticipating the profits
to be made from military conflict, and acting to furthering the
interests of war profiteers.
THE GREEK CLAIM
Another company, the Greek firm of Mytineleos, has a claim through
contracts with
Yugoslav companies to market Trepca's lead and zinc, and this claim is
going to be "a
harder problem than SCMM for UNMIK" as the ICG report admits. With close
ties to
the Greek government, and a sterling international track record for
solidity and
performance, Mytineleos can make a strong case. The report also somewhat
reluctantly notes that
"UNMIK cannot simply ignore claims which may be genuine, and the UN
legal
advisers in New York have concluded that the rights of claimants like
Mytilineos must
go to adjudication. The question arises as to which court. So far that
is left in
abeyance, as is the nature of the legal proceedings themselves. If all
other decisions
are left to depend upon the resolution of this issue, it could be many
years before
Trepca starts working again."
A PROBLEM NEATLY SOLVED
The military occupation of Trepca solves Soros's two major problems by
arrogating
de facto ownership of the mines to "the international community"
embodied by Unmik –
and deftly sidelines the French and the Greeks. Never mind the legal
technicalities, and
the risks of adjudication: just go in there and grab it! This is how the
much-vaunted
"Third Way" between socialism and capitalism, touted by the Clintonians
and their
British Laborite first cousins, works in practice. First, you invade a
country; then you
strip it of its assets, and sell them off to your politically connected
friends, such as Soros
– this is called "privatization," but there is nothing "private" about
it. The source of
Soros's Balkan coup is government power: the armed fist of the State,
and not the
invisible hand of the market. As the declared enemy of laissez-faire
capitalism, which
he rails against in several unbearably pretentious books, Soros
practices what he
preaches: using NATO and the UN as his instruments, he profits from the
plundering of
a proud nation – while his bought-and-paid-for shills rationalize the
schemes of this
modern Visigoth in the name of "humanitarianism" and "multiculturalism."
It kind of makes you want to puke, doesn't it?
A QUESTION NEATLY ANSWERED
For years, Soros funded the American Committee to Save Bosnia, the
Balkan Action
Council, and a plethora of other groups devoted to persuading US policy
makers that
nothing less than American military intervention in the region could
save the Kosovar
Albanians from "genocide." Soros himself spoke out on the issue, and
chided the West
for "appeasing" the Serbs. Now comes the payoff. Trepca is his, or will
be shortly. So
we have finally come up with the answer to the question that has been
haunting us for
over a year: why Kosovo? The answer consists of two words: George Soros.
All you
would-be tycoons out there, take heed: If you want to know what
investment strategy
to follow in era of the Third Way, then Soros has certainly set the
example.
---
Letters
The Guardian (London)
UNITED KINGDOM
Wednesday August 16, 2000
The
first casualty of war.
•It's interesting that Nato seems so concerned about stopping a
Serb-run mine (one of the few enterprises in Kosovo that employs its
dwindling Serb population) from polluting the atmosphere in Kosovo
(Serbs turn on British troops, August 15), but had no problems with
poisoning the entire Balkans by bombing chemical plants and oil
refineries (releasing tons of chemical toxins such as ethylene
dichloride, cynanide, and heavy metals into the atmosphere, ground, and
the Danube river); and using depleted but still radioactive uranium
ammunition and cluster bombs. The issue for Nato isn't about air
pollution - it's about stealing the massive Trepca mining complex for
western capitalists like George Soros.
Dr Michael Pravica
Las Vegas, USA
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
Sull'argomento si veda anche la illuminante analisi di Diana Johnstone:
'Globalist Thinktank Conceived Excuse for Today's NATO Assault on
Mitrovica'
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/howitis.htm
---
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/pf/p-j081600.html
Behind the Headlines
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
August 16, 2000
WHY KOSOVO? FOLLOW THE MONEY!
When the Kosovo war broke out, and the "Allies" took up the cause of
that Albanian
terrorist gang known as the Kosovo Liberation Army, Antiwar.com received
a lot of
email from baffled readers who wondered: "Why Kosovo?" Here was an
impoverished
and isolated country in a notoriously unstable region of the world,
without any strategic
or military value to the US, the conquest of which could only add to our
burdens.
Virtually none of my correspondents believed the official explanation –
that the
Milosevic regime was slaughtering tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians
in the
province, and was determined to "cleanse" Kosovo so that it would be
ethnically Serb.
Since the inhabitants of Kosovo were then more than 90 percent
Albanians, this would
have meant the complete depopulation of the province – a policy that
made absolutely
no economic or political sense. The supposedly "humanitarian" motives of
the
NATO-crats were a fraud from the very beginning, it was clear, and in
any case their
fraudulence was proved after the war when UN forensic experts went in
and
recovered and identified a little over 2,000 bodies (including Serbs).
But this only
deepened the mystery, and the question went unanswered: why Kosovo, of
all places,
the closest thing to a Third World country in all of Europe? Over a year
after the
"humanitarians" bombed Belgrade and reduced much of Yugoslavia to
rubble, the
answer is beginning to take shape. . . .
THE $5 BILLION DOOR PRIZE
Yesterday 900 British, Danish, and French troops moved in to take over
the Trepca
complex of mines in the northern city of Mitrovice – and were met with
determined
resistance by hundreds of mine workers. Hurling rocks, sticks, and
stones, and wielding
the tools of their trade as weapons, Serbs downed four Brits, shouting
their defiance at
this escalation of NATO's war on the last Serbs left in Kosovo. For the
Trepca mining
complex is an ancient treasure, mined by the Greeks, the Romans, the
Turks, and is the
richest source of lead and zinc in Europe. There is enough lignite
deposits in those
mines to last for the next 13 centuries. The capacity of Trepca's
refineries ranks third
worldwide. The now-deposed mine director reported that "in the last
three years we
have mined 2,538,124 tons of lead and zinc crude ore and produced
286,502 tons of
lead and zinc and 139,789 tons of pure lead, zinc, cadmium, silver and
gold." We don't
need to ask why this action was taken: we have only to note Trepca's
estimated value –
over $5 billion. What else do we need to know?
ENVIRONMENTALLY CORRECT LIES
Naturally, they couldn't just go in there, and grab Kosovo's crown
jewels, without
coming up with a politically correct rationale. Leave it to "Unmik," the
acronymic
tyranny set up by the NATO-crats to administer their conquered province,
to come up
with the most transparent lie imaginable – albeit one that, in its sheer
ludicrousness, will
appeal to such enthusiasts of the Kosovo war as the German Greens and
their even
flakier American counterparts. According to a report from MSNBC, French
spokesman Colonel Henry Aussavy solemnly declared: "We've noted a
significant
increase in the level of lead in the air, which was dangerous for the
people of Mitrovica
and for KFOR (NATO-led) troops. We had to react."
THE ARROGANCE OF POWER
Let's see if I get this straight: after a year and some months of
organized ethnic
cleansing by the Kosovar Albanians against the defeated Serbs – as NATO
not only
stood by but actively aided the KLA's campaign for a Serb-free Kosovo –
Unmik
finally decides to react: not, mind you, to the murder, rape, and
pillaging of Kosovo's
embattled Serb communities, but to the alleged threat of air pollution.
Do these people
even care if anyone believes their lies? I don't think so. Real power
means that your lies
don't even have to be convincing. It means further humiliating your
victims – in the
process of beating them to the ground and robbing them blind – by
constructing the
flimsiest of pretexts, the more absurd the better.
DUBIOUS DIAGNOSIS
While the UN bureaucrats insisted that air samples indicated levels of
pollution 200
times above World Health Organization standards, the Serbs counter that
their
measurements indicate ".12 milligrams of lead per cubic metre (permitted
level .15
mg), .019 mg of zinc (permitted level .4 mg), copper .004 mg (permitted
level .01 mg),
iron .002 mg (permitted level .2 mg), etc." As to the medical rationale
for this brazen act
of thievery, doctors from the local hospital were more than skeptical
about the veracity
of the NATO-crats' diagnosis. Dr. Radoslav Jankovic wryly observed that
"we
haven't had a patient with a toxicology problem for years. Today only
soldiers and
Unmik police officers suffer problems of lead in the blood."
THE MONEY TRAIL
Are you beginning to see the answer to "why Kosovo?" A $5 billion prize
– but who
gets to claim it? Trepca was state-owned under Yugoslav suzerainty, but
now it will be
"privatized" and sold off to Western investors. In this context, it is
important to realize
just whom we are talking about. . . .
THE SOROS CONNECTION
When George Soros invested $150 million in the region – most of it
backed up by
fail-safe US government guarantees – he declared that this was not
strictly a
humanitarian effort. While known for his philanthropy, Soros said that
in the case of his
Balkan investments he would be guided by the concept of "tough love" and
insisted that
the new enterprise must be "driven purely by profit." With $100 million
of the US
taxpayers' money in his pocket, Soros and his gang are swooping down on
the
prostrate body of the Serbian nation like vultures feeding on the liver
of Prometheus –
the Titan of Greek mythology who stole fire from the depths of the earth
and gave it to
mankind. The Titans, a subterranean race, were the first miners, who
taught their
metal-smelting techniques to mortal men and were punished for the sin of
such
extravagant gift-giving, were obliterated by the gods of Olympus. Our
own Olympians
seem determined to visit a similar fate on the Serbs – who, for their
part, seem to be
guilty only of getting between George Soros and $5 billion.
JOHNSTONE'S PREDICTION
That the NATO-crats dare to invoke such a pathetic pretext for their
plundering is
not exactly astonishing. These people are moral monsters, after all, who
would have
reduced Belgrade to a smoking ruin if they hadn't been too afraid of the
political
consequences – and they may do so yet. What is truly astonishing is that
all this was
predicted, down to the details, back in February by Diana Johnstone, in
a remarkably
prescient article on Emperors-Clothes.com, in which she foretold not
only the
expropriation of the Trepca complex, but also exposed Soros as the
source of the
scheme. Analyzing two key documents – a November 1999 International
Crisis Group
(ICG) paper on the Trepca mining complex, and a February 2000 article in
the Toronto
Star by ICG consultant Susan Blaustein – Johnstone saw it all coming,
and with such
stunning accuracy that one can hardly believe that her piece wasn't
written yesterday.
What is especially revealing is the role of the International Crisis
Group in fomenting
the takeover of Trepca – and the role of Soros as the ICG's main
sugar-daddy. In its
report, the ICG drools at the prospect of having such a rich prize fall
into its
benefactor's hands. As Johnstone relates:
"In the 'game-plan of measures' recommended by the ICG, UNMIK is advised
to
instruct a 'Zvecan environmental assessment team' to report on the
status of the
equipment and thereupon 'advise as to what measures must be taken'...
Environmental hazards are to be the pretext to shut down Zvecan and
deprive the last
Serbs in Kosovo of their livelihood. Meanwhile, 'Stari Trg, one of the
richest mines in
Europe, must be potentially profitable again and should be a priority
for donors
interested in setting Kosovo on its feet.'"
PHILANTHROPY FOR FUN – AND PROFIT
Chief among these "donors" is none other than Soros, who now expects to
be paid
back for his "philanthropy" – with interest. Trepca can be profitable
again, but the
question is: for whom. Trepca seems to have fallen into Soros's lap – or
was it pushed
there? Another interesting aspect of this whole affair is that the
seizure of the Trepca
complex by NATO forces is part of the Sorosian "business strategy"
designed to
forestall and ultimately nullify the claims of two European companies
derived from
contracts signed with the Serbs. As the ICG report puts it:
"In July 1999, shortly after the conquest of Kosovo, one Jean-Pierre
Rozan showed
up claiming that 2.8% ownership of Trepca belonged to the Paris-based
SCMM, of
which he was a director. Rozan's claim was based on an agreement with
Belgrade, in
which SCMM took over Jugobanka's subsidiary in Kosovo as a result of
Belgrade's
default.
SOROSIAN ETHNIC CLEANSING
The ICG derides the Société Commerciale de Métaux et de Minéraux (SCMM)
claim as being without foundation on the somewhat questionable grounds
that the
French government is giving it no backing. But just in case this is not
enough, they
throw another factor into their argument that Rozan's claim must be
summarily
dismissed. This being Kosovo, there is an ethnic angle in all this,
underscored by the
ICG report,
"Some Kosovar Albanians, always ready to believe in a conspiracy however
unlikely,
are prepared to perceive SCMM as part of a wider Franco-Serbian
understanding,
which incorporates French KFOR acquiescence in the partition of
Mitrovicë, French
economic interests in Trepca, and even the appointment of Dr Bernard
Kouchner
himself as head of UNMIK and Special Representative of the UN
Secretary-General.
The recent award of a GSM telecommunications concession, regardless of
the
transparency of the process, to French company Alcatel, has fueled the
suspicions of
such conspiracy-theorists."
OUR CONSPIRACY THEORIES, AND THEIRS
Soros and his hired hands have an inherent hostility to "conspiracy
theorists," quite
naturally, but that doesn't stop them from placing the blame for
everything that goes
wrong in the Balkans on Slobodan Milosevic
"To other veteran observers of the Balkans, however, the involvement of
SCMM looks
like a Miloševic-style attempt to create a diversion (including by
encouraging exactly
that Balkan and Kosovar propensity for conspiracy-identification
outlined above),
and confuse the thinking of international officials charged with working
out the
problem. By putting this and other claims to due process of arbitration,
and meanwhile
getting on with what needs to be done, the problem can be neatly
sidestepped. "
ARREST THAT MAN!
How's that for a conspiracy theory? SCMM's claims are all part of a plot
by
Milosevic to "create a diversion." How convenient for Soros & Company
that their
chief competitors turn out to be enemy agents. Now that the NATO-crats
have
definitively settled the question of the ownership of the Trepca mines
by force of arms,
the next logical step is to lock up Monsieur Rozan and be done with it.
In any case, it is
clear that the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo will be carried out in the
mines, if the ICG has
anything to say about it. The author of the ICG report notes with some
irritation that:
"The UNMIK regional office in Mitrovica meanwhile occupies the Jugobanka
building
and continues to display Jugobanka insignia in the very meeting room to
which
Kosovars are invited to discuss Trepca – some report that they feel
uneasy in such
surroundings. Rozan, as 'owner' of Jugobanka and the building, is
demanding rent,
which UNMIK has refused to pay."
OUR ORWELLIAN AGE
Who cares about property rights when those poor sensitive souls, the
Kosovars,
reportedly feel "uncomfortable" in close proximity to anything Serbian,
even a
company logo. The ICG is basically making the argument that the ethnic
cleansing of
Kosovo must be completed: not only churches and other historical
monuments must be
destroyed – and there is hardly a Serbian church left standing in Kosovo
– but everything
Serbian must go. The ICG describes itself as a "private, multinational"
organization
devoted to strengthening the capacity of the international community to
anticipate,
understand and act to contain and prevent conflict." In our Orwellian
age this means a
government-connected tool of corporate plunderers devoted to
anticipating the profits
to be made from military conflict, and acting to furthering the
interests of war profiteers.
THE GREEK CLAIM
Another company, the Greek firm of Mytineleos, has a claim through
contracts with
Yugoslav companies to market Trepca's lead and zinc, and this claim is
going to be "a
harder problem than SCMM for UNMIK" as the ICG report admits. With close
ties to
the Greek government, and a sterling international track record for
solidity and
performance, Mytineleos can make a strong case. The report also somewhat
reluctantly notes that
"UNMIK cannot simply ignore claims which may be genuine, and the UN
legal
advisers in New York have concluded that the rights of claimants like
Mytilineos must
go to adjudication. The question arises as to which court. So far that
is left in
abeyance, as is the nature of the legal proceedings themselves. If all
other decisions
are left to depend upon the resolution of this issue, it could be many
years before
Trepca starts working again."
A PROBLEM NEATLY SOLVED
The military occupation of Trepca solves Soros's two major problems by
arrogating
de facto ownership of the mines to "the international community"
embodied by Unmik –
and deftly sidelines the French and the Greeks. Never mind the legal
technicalities, and
the risks of adjudication: just go in there and grab it! This is how the
much-vaunted
"Third Way" between socialism and capitalism, touted by the Clintonians
and their
British Laborite first cousins, works in practice. First, you invade a
country; then you
strip it of its assets, and sell them off to your politically connected
friends, such as Soros
– this is called "privatization," but there is nothing "private" about
it. The source of
Soros's Balkan coup is government power: the armed fist of the State,
and not the
invisible hand of the market. As the declared enemy of laissez-faire
capitalism, which
he rails against in several unbearably pretentious books, Soros
practices what he
preaches: using NATO and the UN as his instruments, he profits from the
plundering of
a proud nation – while his bought-and-paid-for shills rationalize the
schemes of this
modern Visigoth in the name of "humanitarianism" and "multiculturalism."
It kind of makes you want to puke, doesn't it?
A QUESTION NEATLY ANSWERED
For years, Soros funded the American Committee to Save Bosnia, the
Balkan Action
Council, and a plethora of other groups devoted to persuading US policy
makers that
nothing less than American military intervention in the region could
save the Kosovar
Albanians from "genocide." Soros himself spoke out on the issue, and
chided the West
for "appeasing" the Serbs. Now comes the payoff. Trepca is his, or will
be shortly. So
we have finally come up with the answer to the question that has been
haunting us for
over a year: why Kosovo? The answer consists of two words: George Soros.
All you
would-be tycoons out there, take heed: If you want to know what
investment strategy
to follow in era of the Third Way, then Soros has certainly set the
example.
---
Letters
The Guardian (London)
UNITED KINGDOM
Wednesday August 16, 2000
The
first casualty of war.
•It's interesting that Nato seems so concerned about stopping a
Serb-run mine (one of the few enterprises in Kosovo that employs its
dwindling Serb population) from polluting the atmosphere in Kosovo
(Serbs turn on British troops, August 15), but had no problems with
poisoning the entire Balkans by bombing chemical plants and oil
refineries (releasing tons of chemical toxins such as ethylene
dichloride, cynanide, and heavy metals into the atmosphere, ground, and
the Danube river); and using depleted but still radioactive uranium
ammunition and cluster bombs. The issue for Nato isn't about air
pollution - it's about stealing the massive Trepca mining complex for
western capitalists like George Soros.
Dr Michael Pravica
Las Vegas, USA
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
DAL DOCUMENTO UFFICIALE DEL SOROSIANO "INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP"
SULLA STRATEGIA DA SEGUIRE PER SOTTRARRE ALLA JUGOSLAVIA IL COMPLESSO
METALLURGICO DI TREPCA:
Excerpts from -
"International Crisis Group's" thnk-tank instructions on How the West
Should
Take the Trepca Mine Complex In Serbia/Kosovo
International Crisis Group
http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/
[See at end of excerpts identity of ICG]
"Trepca: Making Sense of the Labyrinth"
26 November 1999
------
p.2
After nearly three years of economic sanctions instituted as punishment
for
its role in the Bosnian war, Belgrade was looking for ways to acquire
large
injections of cash. Exploiting Trepca seemed a likely option. In
February
1995, new management was installed, and a 'program of revitalization'
was
undertaken. The new team claimed that by the end of 1996 all the
production
plants were back into operation, ore excavation had increased, modern
mining
equipment had been purchased from Sweden, and all the lead and zinc
mines in
Serbia and Montenegro had been brought under the management of the
Trepca
company. Again according to Serbian official sources, in 1996 Trepca had
exported $100 million of products, making it the largest exporting
company in
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.6 Belgrade even planned to bring
mineral concentrates from the Bosnian Serb controlled mine in
Srebrenica,
site of the notorious massacre by Serb forces in July 1995.
------
p.3
The problems of Trepca are many and complex. They include its alleged
liabilities, the question who really owns it and who has been profiting
from
it, the deteriorating condition of its antiquated machinery, its
anachronistically oversized workforce, the scant field of prospective
investors, the disastrous environmental impact of the Zvecan smelter,
and
internal Kosovo politics. Even so, it is critical that at least some
aspects
of the Trepca issue be addressed immediately and not await the
resolution of
the entire nexus of problems. Most urgently, because of its importance
to
Belgrade, Trepca figures centrally in the unresolved security situation
in
Mitrovicë/a and in its current status as a divided city. At least some
of the
talk of a partition of Kosovo arises from the knowledge that control of
Trepca makes a vast difference to the territory's economic prospects.
Reports
of Serbian police in and around Zvecan, of Serb looting, rumours even of
Albanian prisoners being held there - all point to a need for immediate
international action.
------
p.3
It is also urgent that the people of Kosovo begin to see signs of
progress
towards some sort of economic normality. The return to work of even a
few
hundred Kosovar miners would represent, for all Kosovars, the reclaiming
of
their patrimony.
------
p.4
The Structure of the Trepca Conglomerate From Mine to Factory
As already noted, Trepca is a conglomerate which includes not only its
three
key components - Stari Trg9 mine, Zvecan smelter and the Mitrovicë/a
industrial complex - but a total of 41 installations, including some
outside
Kosovo. Trepca encompasses four distinct processes: extraction,
flotation,
smelting, and downstream processing, as well as other production and
marketing units. The Stari Trg mine east of Mitrovicë/a was, in 1989,
responsible for 40-50% of the mining production. Other mines in Kosovo -
Hajvali/Ajvalija, Novo Bërdë/Novo Brdo, Kishnicë/Kisnica, and
Badoc/Badovac -
accounted for roughly another 30% of Trepca's production. Two more
mining
facilities, at Crnac and Belo Brdo, are in the Serb-held areas north of
Mitrovicë/a, while three other mines are outside of Kosovo - these five
mines
are estimated to account for an estimated 20% of Trepca's total mining
extraction.
The minerals taken from Stari Trg are fed into the flotation facility on
the
Stari Trg premises, whereas the minerals extracted from Kosovo's other
four
mines undergo flotation at the Badoc/Badovac plant and those taken from
Crnac
and Belo Brdo are processed in Leposaviq/c. The resulting lead
concentrates
from all these flotation facilities, in addition to that coming from the
mines outside of Kosovo, used to be smelted at Zvecan.
The lead, zinc, silver, gold, cadmium and bismuth then go to such
downstream
facilities as the battery factories in Mitrovicë/a and Pejë/Pec, the
FAMIPA
factory in Prizren, and a hunting munitions factory in
Skënderaj/Srbica.
Hydrogen sulphide from Zvecan is processed in Mitrovicë/a's industrial
chemical plant, and the zinc and cadmium, after being processed in
Mitrovicë/a, are then sent to Gjilan/Gnjiljane for further industrial
processing.
The Environmental Concerns at Zvecan
The Trepca conglomerate has had a long history of environmental
problems.
During the 1980s a Trepca plant that produced agricultural chemicals was
blamed for producing fertilizers with such high super phosphate strength
that
livestock died after grazing on treated land. The worst pollution comes
from
the smelter in Zvecan, just a few kilometres northwest of Mitrovicë/a.
The
river Ibar runs past the smelter, before flowing through the city of
Mitrovicë/a and then into the Gazivoda Lake and so into Serbia proper.
Sulphur dioxide as a by-product of the metallurgical process is released
into
the air. With little or no investment in the plant over the last ten
years
the equipment has not been updated to meet increasingly stringent modern
standards.11 Some Kosovar experts also fear that current smelting
practices
as run by the Serbs are environmentally worse than those of ten years
ago.
They suspect that ore concentrates coming from as far away as Colombia
contain far higher levels of mercury and arsenic than is allowed by
international standards.12 Both Kosovar and international officials
stress
the importance of an in-depth and technically competent environmental
assessment of this outdated and run-down plant.
------
p. 13
Serbia
More serious repercussions could occur in Serbia. None of the opposition
leaders in Serbia has ever tolerated the idea of an independent Kosovo.
On
the contrary Serbian politicians compete to be 'most Serb' over Kosovo.
A key
issue over the next few months will be not only the developments in the
relationship between Montenegro and Serbia but the possibility of
elections
in Serbia itself. The question arises as to what effect firm UNMIK
action on
Trepca would do to the chances of the opposition to weaken or topple the
Milosevic regime. Making no bold moves leaves the festering wound of
Mitrovicë/a to be exploited by Milosevic in claiming his ability to
maintain
a key economic foothold in Kosovo. Should UNMIK assume the
administration of
Trepca and take the Zvecan smelter out of Belgrade's hands all Serb
politicians would have to react. Milosevic would continue to foster the
notion of the great US-EU conspiracy against the Serbs. Vojislav Seselj
would
likely take a stronger line and issue violent threats as he has done on
many
occasions. Opposition leaders like Djindjic and Draskovic would also
likely
deplore the international community's action. However they could exploit
the
argument that the 'loss' was due to the pariah status of
Milosevic himself, so that once again Serbia has lost assets due to his
presence in office. So provided action were taken before any elections
in
Serbia it need not upset, and might contribute to, any strategy for
unseating
Milosevic.
------
p.14
An initial assessment of Stari Trg has already been made: the priority
now
must be to produce a game-plan of measures whether easy and quick or
depending on major investment of money and time, and vigorous attempts
made
to interest donors - Trepca featured as a separate issue neither in the
World
Bank's twin recent reports on Kosovo reconstruction 43 nor at the 17
November
donors' conference in Brussels. Yet Stari Trg, one of the richest mines
in
Europe, must be potentially profitable again and should be a priority
for
donors interested in setting Kosovo on its feet.
------
p.15
Simply handing Trepca over to the Kosovars is ruled out by the shortage
of
modern skills available locally, the need for internationally-verifiable
standards to avoid corruption, and the sheer scale of damage and
degradation
at the various installations. But the people of Kosovo must be included
in
the process. An energetic approach should be taken during the assessment
and
start-up period in attempting to define a consensus amongst the Kosovars
-
meaning the Albanian parties and the Serb professional workforce, since
the
Albanians will not treat with the Belgrade-appointed management of the
combine.
------
p.15
The social impact of the reduced workforce would need to be balanced
against
the need for competitively based private investment
------
p.15
The workforce and management of all Trepca facilities should be selected
on a
merit basis only. Kosovars - living in Kosovo, regardless of ethnicity -
should have preference to work at any Trepca facility.44 But no one with
ties
to the Belgrade regime should be considered.
Finally, looking beyond Kosovo's boundaries, it would be better to have
accomplished the first key steps of this approach before a Serbian
election
campaign in order that the perception of 'who lost Kosovo' falls on the
rightful culprit, Slobodan Milosevic, and to avoid the perception that
a
new, with luck more progressive government, can be accused of 'losing
Trepca'.
------
p.16
Recommendations
UNMIK should as a priority build up the staff capacity to assert total
control over Trepca in accordance with the terms of its stewardship of
Kosovo, take over the installations and announce a modest programme of
action
for a 'pre-donor phase' of rehabilitation.
------
p.16
A court of adjudication should be nominated for claims, in the knowledge
that
this court will probably act very slowly, so that the situation on the
ground
will either have to stagnate, or else develop independently of it. The
above
programme should begin before elections in Serbia.
http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/
The International Crisis Group (ICG) is a private, multinational
organisation
committed to strengthening the capacity of the international community
to
understand and respond to impending crises.
ICG's approach is grounded in field research. Teams of political
analysts
based on the ground in countries at risk of crisis, gather information
from a
wide range of sources, assess local conditions and produce regular
analytical reports containing practical recommendations targeted at key
international decision-takers.
The next step is advocacy.
ICG reports are distributed widely to officials in foreign ministries
and
international organisations and made available to the general public via
the
organisation's internet site, located at www.crisisweb.org. The
organisation
works closely with governments and the press to highlight key issues
identified in the field and to stimulate discussion of potential policy
responses. The ICG Board - which includes prominent figures from the
fields
of politics, diplomacy, business and the media - is also involved in
helping
to bring ICG reports and recommendations to the attention of senior
policy-makers around the world.
The ICG Board is chaired by former US Senate Majority Leader George
Mitchell,
who recently brokered the "Good Friday" Peace Agreement in Northern
Ireland.
ICG is headquartered in Brussels with a U.S. branch in Washington DC.
The organisation currently operates field projects in seven countries
world
wide: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Macedonia, the Federal Republic
of
Yugoslavia, Algeria, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
ICG raises funds from the European Union, governments, charitable
foundations, companies and individual donors. The following governments
currently have funding agreements with ICG: Austria, Belgium, Canada,
Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway,
the
Republic of China (Taiwan), Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.
Private sector donors include the Blaustein Foundation, the Fares
Foundation,
the Hewlett Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Open
Society
Institute, the Smith Richardson Foundation and the U.S. Institute of
Peace.
November 1999
Board of Trustees November 1999
George Soros Chairman, Open Society Institute
Senator George J. Mitchell, Chairman Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader
Morton Abramowitz Former US Assistant Secretary of State
Hon Gareth Evans QC, ICG President Former Foreign Minister of Australia
Gianfranco Dell'Alba Member of the European Parliament
Oscar Arias Sanchez Former President of Costa Rica; Nobel Peace Prize,
1987
Ersin Arioglu Chairman, Yapi Merkezi, Turkey
Christoph Bertram Director, Science and Policy Foundation
Alan Blinken Former US Ambassador to Belgium
Maria Livanos Cattaui Secretary-General, International Chamber of
Commerce
Mong Joon Chung Member of the Korean National Assembly
Alain Destexhe ICG President Emeritus, Member of the Belgian Senate.
Mou-Shih Ding Senior Advisor to the President, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Mark Eyskens Former Prime Minister of Belgium
Issam M Fares Chairman, Wedge International
Malcolm Fraser Former Prime Minister of Australia
HRH El-Hassan bin Talal Prince of Jordan Website:
http://www.princehassan.gov.jo
Marianne Heiberg Special Advisor to Director-General of UNESCO
Max Jakobson Former Ambassador of Finland to the UN
Elliott F. Kulick Chairman, Pegasus International
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman Novelist and journalist
Allan J MacEachen Former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada
Graça Machel Vice Chair, ICG Former Minister of Education, Mozambique
Nobuo Matsunaga President, Japan Institute for International Affairs
Barbara McDougall Former Secretary of State for External Affairs, Canada
Matthew McHugh Counsellor to the President, The World Bank
Miklós Németh Vice President, European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development; Former Prime Minister of Hungary
Olara Otunnu President, International Peace Academy; Former Foreign
Minister
of Uganda
Wayne Owens President, Center for Middle East Peace and Economic
Cooperation
Shimon Peres Former Prime Minister, Israel; Nobel Prize, 1994
David de Pury Chairman, de Pury Pictet Turettini & Co. Ltd.; Former
Swiss
Trade Ambassador
Cyril Ramaphosa Deputy Executive Chairman, New Africa Investments Ltd.,
South Africa
Michel Rocard Former Prime Minister of France
Christian Schwarz-Schilling Member of Bundestag; Former Minister of Post
and
Telecommunications, Germany
William Shawcross Journalist and author
Michael Sohlman Executive Director, Nobel Foundation, Sweden
Stephen Solarz Vice Chair, ICG Former US Congressman
Pär Stenbäck President, Finnish Red Cross; Former Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Finland
Thorvald Stoltenberg Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway
William O Taylor Chairman, Globe Newspapers Co.,USA
Leo Tindemans Former Prime Minister of Belgium
Ed Turner Former Executive Vice President, Turner Broadcasting Inc., USA
Eduard van Thijn Former Minister of the Interior, The Netherlands;
Former
Mayor of Amsterdam
Simone Veil Former President of the European Parliament; Former Minister
for
Health, France
Shirley Williams Member of the House of Lords; Former Secretary of State
for
Education and Science, United Kingdom
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
SULLA STRATEGIA DA SEGUIRE PER SOTTRARRE ALLA JUGOSLAVIA IL COMPLESSO
METALLURGICO DI TREPCA:
Excerpts from -
"International Crisis Group's" thnk-tank instructions on How the West
Should
Take the Trepca Mine Complex In Serbia/Kosovo
International Crisis Group
http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/
[See at end of excerpts identity of ICG]
"Trepca: Making Sense of the Labyrinth"
26 November 1999
------
p.2
After nearly three years of economic sanctions instituted as punishment
for
its role in the Bosnian war, Belgrade was looking for ways to acquire
large
injections of cash. Exploiting Trepca seemed a likely option. In
February
1995, new management was installed, and a 'program of revitalization'
was
undertaken. The new team claimed that by the end of 1996 all the
production
plants were back into operation, ore excavation had increased, modern
mining
equipment had been purchased from Sweden, and all the lead and zinc
mines in
Serbia and Montenegro had been brought under the management of the
Trepca
company. Again according to Serbian official sources, in 1996 Trepca had
exported $100 million of products, making it the largest exporting
company in
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.6 Belgrade even planned to bring
mineral concentrates from the Bosnian Serb controlled mine in
Srebrenica,
site of the notorious massacre by Serb forces in July 1995.
------
p.3
The problems of Trepca are many and complex. They include its alleged
liabilities, the question who really owns it and who has been profiting
from
it, the deteriorating condition of its antiquated machinery, its
anachronistically oversized workforce, the scant field of prospective
investors, the disastrous environmental impact of the Zvecan smelter,
and
internal Kosovo politics. Even so, it is critical that at least some
aspects
of the Trepca issue be addressed immediately and not await the
resolution of
the entire nexus of problems. Most urgently, because of its importance
to
Belgrade, Trepca figures centrally in the unresolved security situation
in
Mitrovicë/a and in its current status as a divided city. At least some
of the
talk of a partition of Kosovo arises from the knowledge that control of
Trepca makes a vast difference to the territory's economic prospects.
Reports
of Serbian police in and around Zvecan, of Serb looting, rumours even of
Albanian prisoners being held there - all point to a need for immediate
international action.
------
p.3
It is also urgent that the people of Kosovo begin to see signs of
progress
towards some sort of economic normality. The return to work of even a
few
hundred Kosovar miners would represent, for all Kosovars, the reclaiming
of
their patrimony.
------
p.4
The Structure of the Trepca Conglomerate From Mine to Factory
As already noted, Trepca is a conglomerate which includes not only its
three
key components - Stari Trg9 mine, Zvecan smelter and the Mitrovicë/a
industrial complex - but a total of 41 installations, including some
outside
Kosovo. Trepca encompasses four distinct processes: extraction,
flotation,
smelting, and downstream processing, as well as other production and
marketing units. The Stari Trg mine east of Mitrovicë/a was, in 1989,
responsible for 40-50% of the mining production. Other mines in Kosovo -
Hajvali/Ajvalija, Novo Bërdë/Novo Brdo, Kishnicë/Kisnica, and
Badoc/Badovac -
accounted for roughly another 30% of Trepca's production. Two more
mining
facilities, at Crnac and Belo Brdo, are in the Serb-held areas north of
Mitrovicë/a, while three other mines are outside of Kosovo - these five
mines
are estimated to account for an estimated 20% of Trepca's total mining
extraction.
The minerals taken from Stari Trg are fed into the flotation facility on
the
Stari Trg premises, whereas the minerals extracted from Kosovo's other
four
mines undergo flotation at the Badoc/Badovac plant and those taken from
Crnac
and Belo Brdo are processed in Leposaviq/c. The resulting lead
concentrates
from all these flotation facilities, in addition to that coming from the
mines outside of Kosovo, used to be smelted at Zvecan.
The lead, zinc, silver, gold, cadmium and bismuth then go to such
downstream
facilities as the battery factories in Mitrovicë/a and Pejë/Pec, the
FAMIPA
factory in Prizren, and a hunting munitions factory in
Skënderaj/Srbica.
Hydrogen sulphide from Zvecan is processed in Mitrovicë/a's industrial
chemical plant, and the zinc and cadmium, after being processed in
Mitrovicë/a, are then sent to Gjilan/Gnjiljane for further industrial
processing.
The Environmental Concerns at Zvecan
The Trepca conglomerate has had a long history of environmental
problems.
During the 1980s a Trepca plant that produced agricultural chemicals was
blamed for producing fertilizers with such high super phosphate strength
that
livestock died after grazing on treated land. The worst pollution comes
from
the smelter in Zvecan, just a few kilometres northwest of Mitrovicë/a.
The
river Ibar runs past the smelter, before flowing through the city of
Mitrovicë/a and then into the Gazivoda Lake and so into Serbia proper.
Sulphur dioxide as a by-product of the metallurgical process is released
into
the air. With little or no investment in the plant over the last ten
years
the equipment has not been updated to meet increasingly stringent modern
standards.11 Some Kosovar experts also fear that current smelting
practices
as run by the Serbs are environmentally worse than those of ten years
ago.
They suspect that ore concentrates coming from as far away as Colombia
contain far higher levels of mercury and arsenic than is allowed by
international standards.12 Both Kosovar and international officials
stress
the importance of an in-depth and technically competent environmental
assessment of this outdated and run-down plant.
------
p. 13
Serbia
More serious repercussions could occur in Serbia. None of the opposition
leaders in Serbia has ever tolerated the idea of an independent Kosovo.
On
the contrary Serbian politicians compete to be 'most Serb' over Kosovo.
A key
issue over the next few months will be not only the developments in the
relationship between Montenegro and Serbia but the possibility of
elections
in Serbia itself. The question arises as to what effect firm UNMIK
action on
Trepca would do to the chances of the opposition to weaken or topple the
Milosevic regime. Making no bold moves leaves the festering wound of
Mitrovicë/a to be exploited by Milosevic in claiming his ability to
maintain
a key economic foothold in Kosovo. Should UNMIK assume the
administration of
Trepca and take the Zvecan smelter out of Belgrade's hands all Serb
politicians would have to react. Milosevic would continue to foster the
notion of the great US-EU conspiracy against the Serbs. Vojislav Seselj
would
likely take a stronger line and issue violent threats as he has done on
many
occasions. Opposition leaders like Djindjic and Draskovic would also
likely
deplore the international community's action. However they could exploit
the
argument that the 'loss' was due to the pariah status of
Milosevic himself, so that once again Serbia has lost assets due to his
presence in office. So provided action were taken before any elections
in
Serbia it need not upset, and might contribute to, any strategy for
unseating
Milosevic.
------
p.14
An initial assessment of Stari Trg has already been made: the priority
now
must be to produce a game-plan of measures whether easy and quick or
depending on major investment of money and time, and vigorous attempts
made
to interest donors - Trepca featured as a separate issue neither in the
World
Bank's twin recent reports on Kosovo reconstruction 43 nor at the 17
November
donors' conference in Brussels. Yet Stari Trg, one of the richest mines
in
Europe, must be potentially profitable again and should be a priority
for
donors interested in setting Kosovo on its feet.
------
p.15
Simply handing Trepca over to the Kosovars is ruled out by the shortage
of
modern skills available locally, the need for internationally-verifiable
standards to avoid corruption, and the sheer scale of damage and
degradation
at the various installations. But the people of Kosovo must be included
in
the process. An energetic approach should be taken during the assessment
and
start-up period in attempting to define a consensus amongst the Kosovars
-
meaning the Albanian parties and the Serb professional workforce, since
the
Albanians will not treat with the Belgrade-appointed management of the
combine.
------
p.15
The social impact of the reduced workforce would need to be balanced
against
the need for competitively based private investment
------
p.15
The workforce and management of all Trepca facilities should be selected
on a
merit basis only. Kosovars - living in Kosovo, regardless of ethnicity -
should have preference to work at any Trepca facility.44 But no one with
ties
to the Belgrade regime should be considered.
Finally, looking beyond Kosovo's boundaries, it would be better to have
accomplished the first key steps of this approach before a Serbian
election
campaign in order that the perception of 'who lost Kosovo' falls on the
rightful culprit, Slobodan Milosevic, and to avoid the perception that
a
new, with luck more progressive government, can be accused of 'losing
Trepca'.
------
p.16
Recommendations
UNMIK should as a priority build up the staff capacity to assert total
control over Trepca in accordance with the terms of its stewardship of
Kosovo, take over the installations and announce a modest programme of
action
for a 'pre-donor phase' of rehabilitation.
------
p.16
A court of adjudication should be nominated for claims, in the knowledge
that
this court will probably act very slowly, so that the situation on the
ground
will either have to stagnate, or else develop independently of it. The
above
programme should begin before elections in Serbia.
http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/
The International Crisis Group (ICG) is a private, multinational
organisation
committed to strengthening the capacity of the international community
to
understand and respond to impending crises.
ICG's approach is grounded in field research. Teams of political
analysts
based on the ground in countries at risk of crisis, gather information
from a
wide range of sources, assess local conditions and produce regular
analytical reports containing practical recommendations targeted at key
international decision-takers.
The next step is advocacy.
ICG reports are distributed widely to officials in foreign ministries
and
international organisations and made available to the general public via
the
organisation's internet site, located at www.crisisweb.org. The
organisation
works closely with governments and the press to highlight key issues
identified in the field and to stimulate discussion of potential policy
responses. The ICG Board - which includes prominent figures from the
fields
of politics, diplomacy, business and the media - is also involved in
helping
to bring ICG reports and recommendations to the attention of senior
policy-makers around the world.
The ICG Board is chaired by former US Senate Majority Leader George
Mitchell,
who recently brokered the "Good Friday" Peace Agreement in Northern
Ireland.
ICG is headquartered in Brussels with a U.S. branch in Washington DC.
The organisation currently operates field projects in seven countries
world
wide: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Macedonia, the Federal Republic
of
Yugoslavia, Algeria, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
ICG raises funds from the European Union, governments, charitable
foundations, companies and individual donors. The following governments
currently have funding agreements with ICG: Austria, Belgium, Canada,
Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway,
the
Republic of China (Taiwan), Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.
Private sector donors include the Blaustein Foundation, the Fares
Foundation,
the Hewlett Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Open
Society
Institute, the Smith Richardson Foundation and the U.S. Institute of
Peace.
November 1999
Board of Trustees November 1999
George Soros Chairman, Open Society Institute
Senator George J. Mitchell, Chairman Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader
Morton Abramowitz Former US Assistant Secretary of State
Hon Gareth Evans QC, ICG President Former Foreign Minister of Australia
Gianfranco Dell'Alba Member of the European Parliament
Oscar Arias Sanchez Former President of Costa Rica; Nobel Peace Prize,
1987
Ersin Arioglu Chairman, Yapi Merkezi, Turkey
Christoph Bertram Director, Science and Policy Foundation
Alan Blinken Former US Ambassador to Belgium
Maria Livanos Cattaui Secretary-General, International Chamber of
Commerce
Mong Joon Chung Member of the Korean National Assembly
Alain Destexhe ICG President Emeritus, Member of the Belgian Senate.
Mou-Shih Ding Senior Advisor to the President, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Mark Eyskens Former Prime Minister of Belgium
Issam M Fares Chairman, Wedge International
Malcolm Fraser Former Prime Minister of Australia
HRH El-Hassan bin Talal Prince of Jordan Website:
http://www.princehassan.gov.jo
Marianne Heiberg Special Advisor to Director-General of UNESCO
Max Jakobson Former Ambassador of Finland to the UN
Elliott F. Kulick Chairman, Pegasus International
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman Novelist and journalist
Allan J MacEachen Former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada
Graça Machel Vice Chair, ICG Former Minister of Education, Mozambique
Nobuo Matsunaga President, Japan Institute for International Affairs
Barbara McDougall Former Secretary of State for External Affairs, Canada
Matthew McHugh Counsellor to the President, The World Bank
Miklós Németh Vice President, European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development; Former Prime Minister of Hungary
Olara Otunnu President, International Peace Academy; Former Foreign
Minister
of Uganda
Wayne Owens President, Center for Middle East Peace and Economic
Cooperation
Shimon Peres Former Prime Minister, Israel; Nobel Prize, 1994
David de Pury Chairman, de Pury Pictet Turettini & Co. Ltd.; Former
Swiss
Trade Ambassador
Cyril Ramaphosa Deputy Executive Chairman, New Africa Investments Ltd.,
South Africa
Michel Rocard Former Prime Minister of France
Christian Schwarz-Schilling Member of Bundestag; Former Minister of Post
and
Telecommunications, Germany
William Shawcross Journalist and author
Michael Sohlman Executive Director, Nobel Foundation, Sweden
Stephen Solarz Vice Chair, ICG Former US Congressman
Pär Stenbäck President, Finnish Red Cross; Former Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Finland
Thorvald Stoltenberg Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway
William O Taylor Chairman, Globe Newspapers Co.,USA
Leo Tindemans Former Prime Minister of Belgium
Ed Turner Former Executive Vice President, Turner Broadcasting Inc., USA
Eduard van Thijn Former Minister of the Interior, The Netherlands;
Former
Mayor of Amsterdam
Simone Veil Former President of the European Parliament; Former Minister
for
Health, France
Shirley Williams Member of the House of Lords; Former Secretary of State
for
Education and Science, United Kingdom
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
