Jugoinfo
* Kosovo: dopo la guerra, gli affari ("La Rinascita della Sinistra")
* Stupro etnico all'americana ("Il Manifesto", 18/01/2000)
* Triplo omicidio, escalation di violenza (AFP 17/01/2000)
* Trasferito a Mannheim il "peacekeeper" stupratore ed omicida (Reuters)
* Hanno fatto saltare in aria ancora un'altra chiesa ortodossa (AP)
* Sconfinamenti dell'UCKFOR nella Serbia centrale (New York Times)
* Anche i cattolici in Kosmet sono presi di mira (CWNews.com/Fides)
* Arsenale sequestrato a casa del fratello di Thaci "il serpente"
(Nandotimes.com)
===
Il seguente contributo appare sull'ultimo numero di "La Rinascita della
sinistra":
KOSOVO: DOPO LA GUERRA, GLI AFFARI
Finita la guerra, il Kosovo stato sostanzialmente scaricato dai mass
media italiani: ben poca eco suscitano le provocazioni, gli eccidi,
l'esodo forzato di Serbi, Rom ed Ebrei kosovari, cos“ come la nascita di
un "governo provvisorio" kosovaro-albanese patrocinato dal capo della
missione Kfor B. Kouchner, senza alcuna legittimazione democratica e in
totale disprezzo degli accordi internazionali.
Ancora meno si conosce sulla spartizione neo-coloniale delle ricchezze
della regione, benchŽ numerose multinazionali siano giˆ alacremente
all'opera. Ne scrive (su "Solidaire" del 1/12/1999) il belga Michel
Collon, autore nel '98 di "Poker Menteur", un fondamentale
libro-inchiesta riguardante la disinformazione sui conflitti
interjugoslavi.
A Pec, la filiale Zastava produce parti dei camion Iveco. Nessuna
sorpresa che la cittˆ sia divenuta il quartier generale del contingente
italiano, cui sono state affidate le chiavi della ditta.
Coincidenza? Le miniere di Trepca, uno dei principali volani
dell'economia jugoslava, erano state sottoposte negli ultimi anni a una
parziale privatizzazione che aveva visto fronteggiarsi la francese SCMM
e la holding del miliardario greco Mitilineos. Quest'ultimo, alla fine,
l'aveva spuntata, ma disgraziatamente Trepca stata occupata proprio
dal
contingente francese, che ha immediatamente sospeso i rappresentanti
greci dal Consiglio di impresa, in vista di una futura "corte arbitrale"
("Danas").
A dire il vero, il presidente dell'Assemblea degli azionisti, il serbo
B. Milanovic, ha fatto presente come la miniera, proprietˆ di gruppi di
azionisti e non dello Stato jugoslavo, non rientri nella giurisdizione
della Kfor, ma i suoi argomenti non sono parsi convincenti, tanto pi
che
il "governo provvisorio" albanese-kosovaro di H. Thaqi ha reclamato
Trepca come proprietˆ di un ancora formalmente inesistente "stato
albanese"... A chi darˆ ragione Kouchner?
Scenario simile per petrolio ed elettricitˆ: le istallazioni petrolifere
di Nis e quelle della societˆ elettrica EPS fanno parte del settore
inglese. Se ne occuperanno le societˆ britanniche British Power, Nat
West
e Bankers Trust. Agli amministratori e agli operai serbi, evidentemente
ormai superflui, stato dato il benservito.
A Suva Reka la ditta Balkan produce pneumatici per camion in
collaborazione con la Deutsche Kontinental. Per cementare tali
promettenti sinergie, l'area stata affidata al contingente germanico,
cos“ come la zona dei vigneti kosovari sfruttati da aziende vinicole
tedesche.
Gli americani si sono invece aggiudicati i minerali strategici di Novo
Brdo e la cittˆ di Gnjilane con la sua famosa fabbrica di pile, alcune
delle quali sono utilizzate dalla Nasa. Sempre a Gnjilane si trova la
fabbrica di tabacco TIG (recentemente insignita in Francia del Premio
mondiale qualitˆ), giˆ sotto contratto con la Lucky Strike. Non sarˆ
certo
dispiaciuto agli investitori che le squadracce UCK habbiano ripulito dai
Serbi una cittadina cos“ fiorente.
G. Carpi
===
"Il Manifesto", 18/01/2000:
Kosovo, stupro etnico all'americana
Violentata e uccisa da un soldato Usa una bambina albanese.
- R. ES. - PRISTINA
Quotidiani agguati contro le minoranze etniche, negli ultimi due giorni
sono stati assassinati quattro serbi e un "collaborazionista" albanese,
corrente elettrica ed attività economiche a singhiozzo, la giustizia che
non decolla. Per l'amministrazione Onu-Nato del Kosovo la prova di
questi
sei mesi non potrebbe essere più disastrosa. Ci mancava solo che un
militare Usa venisse accusato di violenza sessuale ed omicidio di una
ragazzina albanese di 11 anni; è accaduto anche questo nelle ultime
convulse
giornate.
Le forza americane "non risparmieranno gli sforzi per assicurare che
sulla
vicenda sia fatta giustizia", è l'impegno assunto dal comandante del
contingente Usa in Kosovo, generale Ricardo Sanchez, in una lettera ai
parenti dalla bambina uccisa. Il militare accusato si chiama Frank
Ronghi, 35
anni, ha il grado di sergente presso il 405mo reggimento paracadutisti.
Domenica è stato trasferito al penitenziario militare di Mannheim, in
Germania, dove sarà processato da una corte marziale statunitense. Sul
suo capo
pende l'accusa di "omicidio" preceduto da "atti osceni" sulla bimba, il
cui cadavere è stato trovato venerdì scorso nella campagna adiacente
alla città di Vitina, nel Kosovo orientale, una zona di "competenza"
degli
americani della Kfor.
Il padre della bimba, Hamdi Shabiu, ha riferito di aver visto per
l'ultima
volta la figlia giovedì mattina quando era uscita per andare a fare la
spesa al mercato; i vicini sostengono che la bimba è stata uccisa nello
scantinato di un condominio dall'altra parte della strada, ora
presidiato
da soldati americani. "Me l'hanno uccisa a 20 metri da casa, aveva solo
11
anni e mezzo", ha mormorato ai giornalisti il padre, mostrando una foto
del cadavere della figlia, con il viso coperto di graffi ed ecchimosi e
un
vistoso taglio sulla fronte. Nel tentativo di ricucire lo strappo con la
comunità albanese - che non nasce ieri, leggere al proposito il
reportage
qui accanto - il generale Sanchez si è precipitato domenica a Vitina per
dialogare con gli anziani e le autorità locali e portare le condoglianze
alla famiglia della piccola vittima. "Si tratta di un atto criminale, ma
isolato", ha cercato di giustificarsi il generale.
Si allunga intanto la scia degli omicidi etnici. Soltanto domenica
quattro
serbi sono rimasti vittima di attentati. Tre di loro, che tornavano a
casa
dalla vicina Serbia, sono stati fermati a un passo dal "confine" da un
commando di "sconosciuti" a un passo dal villaggio di Pasjane, nel
Kosovo
orientale, ed uccisi a sangue freddo. A Pertes, un altro paese vicino,
200
serbi, esasperati, sono scesi in piazza alla notizia del triplice
omicidio. Come sempre, la polizia dell'Unmik - la missione dell'Onu -
"brancola
nel buio". A Urosevac invece è stata una pattuglia della Kfor a portare
d'urgenza in ospedale un serbo ferito da arma da fuoco, mentre era alla
guida della sua auto. E' morto poco dopo il ricovero. E ieri dall'altra
parte
del "confine", a Vranje in Serbia, è stato freddato un
"collaborazionista"
albanese, Chemalj Mustafi, iscritto al Partito socialista di Milosevic e
preside della scuola locale.
===
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.HOME-PAGE.ORG
Tuesday, January 18 3:17 AM SGT
Triple Kosovo killing deals blow to returning Serbs
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Jan 17 (AFP) -
International attempts to encourage Kosovo Serbs to return to unruly
Kosovo suffered a blow with the killing of three Serbs near the border
with Serbia.
Ethnic violence also appeared to have spilled over the internal frontier
between Kosovo and Serbia proper Monday with the slaying of two Serbs on
the other side of the boundary. The attacks were blamed by Serb
authorities on ethnic Albanians crossing from Kosovo.
Sunday's triple murder of men trying to reach their village of Pasjane,
near the southern town of Gnjilane came as representatives of the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned against any large scale
Serbian return.
UNHCR spokesman Peter Kessler described the Kosovo as "extremely tense"
and said "there have been a series of disturbing incidents recently."
He cited the killing of four Muslim Slavs from the same family in the
southern town of Prizren last week, the torching of eight Serb houses in
the same area and the murder of a Croatian Serb refugee on January 6.
A bus service between Nis in southern Serbia and the Serb village of
Gracanica on the southern outskirts of Kosovo's capital Pristina was
stoned by ethnic Albanians last week, he said.
Philip Anido, spokesman for the international peacekeeping force KFOR,
said it was too early to say if Sunday's killings would affect attempts
to encourage Serbs to return to a multi-ethnic Kosovo.
The UNHCR was less equivalent. Kessler said: "The time is not yet right
for large-scale return of non-Albanian refugees. Any return has to be an
individual decision but security cannot be guaranteed."
Up to 200 Serbs demonstrated peacefully in the Serbian village of
Partes, near Pasjane, on hearing news of Sunday's killing, UN police
said.
One person was helping police with inquiries into the attack, said
Anido.
Up to 250,000 non-Albanians fled Kosovo after NATO drove Serbian forces
out of the Yugoslav province last June and KFOR took over security under
UN administration.
Since then Serbs have suffered almost daily attacks in revenge for
Belgrade's oppression of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.
Investigators have so far unearthed the bodies of some 2,000 Kosovar
Albanian victims, while at least 800,000 were expelled.
Kessler warned that returning Serbs may also end up as internally
displaced persons in Kosovo as they cannot always return to their homes,
many of which have been taken over by ethnic Albanians.
Many remaining Serbs moved into enclaves where they live under KFOR
protection.
Last month KFOR commander General Klaus Reinhardt unveiled new security
measures to tackle ethnic violence, including bringing educational and
health facilities closer to Serb communities to cut travel risks.
But Kessler said young Serbs returning still face educational problems,
given the lack of Serbian-language high schools and universities in
Kosovo.
Jobs would also be hard to come by in the ruined economy, he said, with
most large companies still shut, while those that do open are unlikely
to employ Serbo-Croat speakers.
"The situation could also become dangerous in the spring as people go
out into the fields again to sow their crops," he said.
The western internal boundary has been tense since three Serb police
were killed by a landmine in November. Belgrade blamed ethnic Albanian
"terrorists."
On Monday Chemalj Mustafi, 53, a school principal and official of the
Socialist party of Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic was shot
dead close to Bujanovac near the boundary, Yugoslav news agency Beta
said.
A 75-year-old woman was injured in a separate hand grenade attack, Beta
said.
===
Monday January 17 3:12 PM ET
U.S. Soldier in Kosovo Murder Case Moved to Germany By Andrew Gray
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier held on murder and
indecency charges over the killing of a 12-year-old girl in Kosovo has
been transferred to a military prison in Germany, U.S. forces said
Monday.
Staff Sergeant Frank Ronghi, 35, was charged Sunday with murder and
indecent acts with a child. Officers said then they planned to transfer
him to the prison in Germany.
They did not give any reason but it seems likely they thought it prudent
to get him out of Kosovo quickly to minimize the chance of any adverse
local reaction. Ronghi served with the Third Battalion of the 504th
Parachute Infantry Regiment, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., but currently
stationed in Vitina in eastern Kosovo. The name of his hometown has not
been made public.
Officers Monday released the text of a condolence letter sent to the
family of the ethnic Albanian girl by Brigadier General Ricardo Sanchez,
the commander of U.S. forces in Kosovo.
``We can only imagine the irreparable loss that you have suffered and
fully realize there is little we can say to help in this moment of
sorrow,´´ Sanchez wrote in his letter, expressing sympathy on behalf
of the U.S. military.
``I did not know your daughter, but as a father, I feel a deep sense of
loss and can imagine your pain,´´ the U.S. army general, who has
four children, said in the letter hand- delivered to the family Sunday.
``The Department of the Army will spare no effort in bringing this
matter to justice,´´ he assured the family. A spokesman at Camp
Bondsteel, the main base for U.S. forces in Kosovo who serve as part of
the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force, said he was not aware exactly when
Ronghi was transferred to Mannheim, southern Germany. But the move was
now complete.
``He´s already been transferred to Mannheim,´´ the spokesman
confirmed.
U.S. Mission Chief Expresses Deep Shock U.S. soldiers found the body of
the girl, Merite Shabiu, about two miles outside Vitina Thursday
evening, U.S. forces have said. Ronghi was immediately detained. The
girl's exact cause of death has not been released but officers have
confirmed she was attacked. The charges against Ronghi also allege an
indecent act for ``sexual gratification or stimulation´´ took place.
Whether the girl was also raped is part of the ongoing investigation, a
spokeswoman for U.S. forces said Sunday.
Larry Rossin, the head of the U.S. government office in the Kosovo
capital Pristina, expressed deep shock at the murder. ``I want to
strongly emphasize that this was an isolated, individual act of
violence,´´ Rossin added in a statement. The girl´s murder has
prompted shock and some complaints in Vitina, a town of around 15,000
people, about the general behavior of U.S. troops. But there have been
no reports so far of any large-scale demonstrations of anti-U.S.
sentiment.
Although no longer met with the euphoria which marked their arrival,
KFOR troops are generally given a warm reception by Kosovo's majority
ethnic Albanians who see them as a guarantee against the return of the
Serb forces which repressed them.
===
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.HOME-PAGE.ORG
Blast Destroys Serb Church in Kosovo
The Associated Press
Saturday, Jan. 15, 2000; 6:47 a.m. EST
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- An explosive destroyed half of a Serb Orthodox
church in southeastern Kosovo early Saturday, the independent Beta news
agency reported.
The explosion that ripped through the St. Elias church, built in 1912 in
the ethnically
mixed village of Cernica, 20 miles southeast of the province's capital
Pristina, also
damaged three houses owned by local Serbs and heightened tensions in the
part of Kosovo patrolled by U.S. members of the NATO-led peacekeeping
force.
Nobody was hurt in the village, shared by some 450 Serbs and about 3,000
ethnic Albanians.
Serbs and the Orthodox Church have repeatedly blamed Kosovo Albanians
for the destruction of more than 50 Serb churches since Serb forces
pulled out of the province last summer at the end of NATO bombing, and
the NATO-led peacekeepers moved in.
Ethnic Albanians have targeted Serbs in revenge for the Serb-led
Yugoslav government's bloody crackdown in the province.
===
The New York Times January 15, 2000
Serbs at Border Complain of Attacks From Kosovo
By CARLOTTA GALL
KURSUMLIJA, Serbia -- The Serbian chief of police here looks weary. For
him the war in Kosovo is not only not over, but has come closer. He says
Albanians from Kosovo are crossing the border into his district in the
adjacent part of Serbia and attacking villagers and the police.
Unlocking the door of his small Yugo car outside the police station, 10
miles from the Kosovo border, he spoke of a land mine explosion that
killed three policemen in November. He said the mine had been laid by
Kosovo Albanians, almost certainly former members of the separatist
Kosovo Liberation Army.
"The K.L.A. is here already," he said with a small shrug, as if it were
no surprise.
If true, that assertion represents a serious problem for the NATO-led
peacekeeping force in Kosovo. The force moved in and took control of
Kosovo, the southern province of Serbia, in June after an 11-week NATO
campaign of air strikes to end Serbian repression of Albanians and to
force Serbian troops to withdraw.
Already struggling to contain the postwar violence against Serbs and
other minorities inside Kosovo, the peacekeepers may face a growing
burden of policing a long and porous border to prevent Kosovo Albanians
from carrying out attacks in nearby parts of Serbia.
The Serbian police say there have been at least 16 attacks on Serbian
police officers and villagers in the area near Kosovo since June.
They began with occasional shootings and harassment of villagers by
Albanians straying over the border to steal wood or to settle scores.
But recently there have been more serious and organized attacks that the
Serbian police say indicate guerrilla activity.
The worst attack occurred on Nov. 21, when gunmen opened fire on a
police post near the Serbian village of Prepolac, just a few hundred
yards from a unit of peacekeeping troops on the Kosovo side of the
border.
Shooting continued through the early hours of the morning, and then a
loud explosion resounded through the remote wooded hills. Serbian police
officers traveling back down the mud road from the border to their
headquarters had hit a land mine. Three men were killed in the blast and
six were wounded.
The Serbian police chief, Rodoljub Dosovic, said he had no doubt that
well-trained Albanian guerrillas had placed the mine, in a coordinated
action with the shooting attack on the police post. "They started a
firefight to draw out the police, and another group laid the mine on the
road," he said.
Another attack occurred several weeks later on a road near the town of
Bujanovac, east of Kosovo, when a police car came under fire. Two senior
officers were wounded in the attack, which the police again blamed on
Albanians from Kosovo.
"It was a classic attack, an ambush from both sides of the road," said
Milivoje Mihajlovic, a Serbian journalist who used to be based in
Kosovo. "It reminded me of the K.L.A. attacks on the police in Kosovo in
1998."
When the Serbian military pulled out of Kosovo in June, it moved all
troops and heavy weaponry behind a three-mile buffer zone. The Serbian
police are posted on every road in the area and patrol the back roads
and villages. Many of them are from Kosovo and served there for years.
They take the attacks in stride. It has been part of the job for several
years, one said.
The villagers in this area appear more alarmed. Some are moving out of
the villages closest to the border, and all are calling for a stronger
police presence.
In the town hall in Kursumlija, Mayor Borivoje Urosevic pulled out a
detailed map of his district, which has a 60-mile boundary with Kosovo.
There is no Albanian population in this area, he said, but five Serbian
villages have been abandoned as residents have come under repeated
attack from Albanians from Kosovo. "There is no day without an attack,"
he said.
Six people have been killed since June, including the three policemen
near Prepolac, and seven people wounded, he said.
The level of violence remains low compared with that of neighboring
Kosovo, but the growing use of explosives shows a more organized intent,
Mayor Urosevic said. On Dec. 12 two young men narrowly missed injury
when their tractor drove over a mine outside the border village of
Merdare.
"This is the K.L.A.," the mayor said. "This is organized. Robbery is not
the motive as it was earlier. It is pressure to make the Serbs move from
their territory." The peacekeepers, he added, "must prevent these
attacks, because we have people being displaced from the area."
Ljubica Aleksic was the last to leave the now abandoned village of
Tacevac.
The police used to patrol daily, he said, but after the land mine
incident they were reluctant to drive up the roads. The Albanians are
bolder than before, he said, because they know that the Serbian police
cannot pursue them over the border into Kosovo.
"They want to take advantage of the woods to clear the area of the
border, so there are no more Serbs there anymore," Mr. Aleksic said.
On the other side of the border, in Kosovo, Albanian villagers have
returned to rebuild their houses under the protection of peacekeepers
but remain nervous with the Serbian police so close. When shooting broke
out near the Kosovo village of Donje Dubnica recently, several families
fled their homes for the day.
They said they did not dare venture to cut wood on the Serbian side.
When prompted, they acknowledged that young men who had fought in the
war were slipping across the border to attack the Serbian police.
Gen. Klaus Reinhardt, the German commander of the peacekeeping force,
played down the issue in an interview, as did the British officer in
charge of operations in the border area. Both appeared confident that
their border controls and covert operations were sufficient.
"I cannot prevent everyone who wants to go across, except by mining to a
maximum," General Reinhardt said. "And we are busy trying to demine the
place."
===========================
The Committee for National Solidarity
Tolstojeva 34, 11000 Belgrade, YU
12-Jan-00 -- EWTN News Brief
KOSOVO CHRISTIANS TARGETED BY EXTREMIST MUSLIMS
PRISTINA, Kosovo (CWNews.com/Fides) - Christians in
Kosovo are being increasingly targeted by
fundamentalist Muslims and Kosovar magistrates don't
know which law to apply, according to Father Mato
Jakovic, coordinator of the Jesuit Relief Service
(JRS) in Macedonia and Kosovo.
Father Jakovic says episodes of maltreatment of
Catholics are ever more frequent, and families of
priests are also targeted. He said -- without
revealing the name of the place -- that on December 6
the homes of relatives of two Franciscans were
torched. In his most recent report Father Jakovic said
that Catholic cemeteries in Prizren and Pec have been
destroyed and the vandals -- still unidentified --
profaned the graves of Bishop Nikola Prela and
Monsignor Nikola Mini.
In the meantime, attacks against Kosovar Serbs
continue. On January 9, a Serb was shot dead in front
of his home at Gnjilane in east Kosovo. A spokesman of
the UN Mission MINUK said the aggressors spoke
Albanian. On the same day, two Serb homes were set on
fire, one in Pristina and another at Kosovo Polje. At
least 250,000 Serbs and Rom gypsies have left the area
since last March and those who remain live in small
protected enclaves in Gnjilane and Kosovo Polje, but
constantly fear being attacked.
Secretary General
Mrs. Jela Jovanovic
Art historian
===========================
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Arms, money seized at house of Kosovo leader's brother
Associated Press
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (January 6, 2000 2:41 p.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - A brother of Kosovo Albanian leader Hashim
Thaci has been charged with illegal possession of weapons and released
from detention, sources said Thursday.
Gani Thaci, whose brother was the political head of the now disbanded
Kosovo Liberation Army, was released Wednesday after U.N. police
detained him for firing a gun from an apartment, the United Nations said
in a statement.
He was arrested Tuesday. The U.N. statement made no mention of any
charges, which were confirmed by U.N. and NATO sources on condition they
not be named.
The sources also said that $791,000 was confiscated from the apartment,
along with weapons.
In a separate incident, Hashim Thaci's personal bodyguard was also
briefly detained Wednesday during a search for illegal weapons in a
Pristina cafe, the United Nations said.
Hashim Thaci's office declined comment Thursday, saying he had no
connection to either incident.
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
------------------------------------------------------------
* Stupro etnico all'americana ("Il Manifesto", 18/01/2000)
* Triplo omicidio, escalation di violenza (AFP 17/01/2000)
* Trasferito a Mannheim il "peacekeeper" stupratore ed omicida (Reuters)
* Hanno fatto saltare in aria ancora un'altra chiesa ortodossa (AP)
* Sconfinamenti dell'UCKFOR nella Serbia centrale (New York Times)
* Anche i cattolici in Kosmet sono presi di mira (CWNews.com/Fides)
* Arsenale sequestrato a casa del fratello di Thaci "il serpente"
(Nandotimes.com)
===
Il seguente contributo appare sull'ultimo numero di "La Rinascita della
sinistra":
KOSOVO: DOPO LA GUERRA, GLI AFFARI
Finita la guerra, il Kosovo stato sostanzialmente scaricato dai mass
media italiani: ben poca eco suscitano le provocazioni, gli eccidi,
l'esodo forzato di Serbi, Rom ed Ebrei kosovari, cos“ come la nascita di
un "governo provvisorio" kosovaro-albanese patrocinato dal capo della
missione Kfor B. Kouchner, senza alcuna legittimazione democratica e in
totale disprezzo degli accordi internazionali.
Ancora meno si conosce sulla spartizione neo-coloniale delle ricchezze
della regione, benchŽ numerose multinazionali siano giˆ alacremente
all'opera. Ne scrive (su "Solidaire" del 1/12/1999) il belga Michel
Collon, autore nel '98 di "Poker Menteur", un fondamentale
libro-inchiesta riguardante la disinformazione sui conflitti
interjugoslavi.
A Pec, la filiale Zastava produce parti dei camion Iveco. Nessuna
sorpresa che la cittˆ sia divenuta il quartier generale del contingente
italiano, cui sono state affidate le chiavi della ditta.
Coincidenza? Le miniere di Trepca, uno dei principali volani
dell'economia jugoslava, erano state sottoposte negli ultimi anni a una
parziale privatizzazione che aveva visto fronteggiarsi la francese SCMM
e la holding del miliardario greco Mitilineos. Quest'ultimo, alla fine,
l'aveva spuntata, ma disgraziatamente Trepca stata occupata proprio
dal
contingente francese, che ha immediatamente sospeso i rappresentanti
greci dal Consiglio di impresa, in vista di una futura "corte arbitrale"
("Danas").
A dire il vero, il presidente dell'Assemblea degli azionisti, il serbo
B. Milanovic, ha fatto presente come la miniera, proprietˆ di gruppi di
azionisti e non dello Stato jugoslavo, non rientri nella giurisdizione
della Kfor, ma i suoi argomenti non sono parsi convincenti, tanto pi
che
il "governo provvisorio" albanese-kosovaro di H. Thaqi ha reclamato
Trepca come proprietˆ di un ancora formalmente inesistente "stato
albanese"... A chi darˆ ragione Kouchner?
Scenario simile per petrolio ed elettricitˆ: le istallazioni petrolifere
di Nis e quelle della societˆ elettrica EPS fanno parte del settore
inglese. Se ne occuperanno le societˆ britanniche British Power, Nat
West
e Bankers Trust. Agli amministratori e agli operai serbi, evidentemente
ormai superflui, stato dato il benservito.
A Suva Reka la ditta Balkan produce pneumatici per camion in
collaborazione con la Deutsche Kontinental. Per cementare tali
promettenti sinergie, l'area stata affidata al contingente germanico,
cos“ come la zona dei vigneti kosovari sfruttati da aziende vinicole
tedesche.
Gli americani si sono invece aggiudicati i minerali strategici di Novo
Brdo e la cittˆ di Gnjilane con la sua famosa fabbrica di pile, alcune
delle quali sono utilizzate dalla Nasa. Sempre a Gnjilane si trova la
fabbrica di tabacco TIG (recentemente insignita in Francia del Premio
mondiale qualitˆ), giˆ sotto contratto con la Lucky Strike. Non sarˆ
certo
dispiaciuto agli investitori che le squadracce UCK habbiano ripulito dai
Serbi una cittadina cos“ fiorente.
G. Carpi
===
"Il Manifesto", 18/01/2000:
Kosovo, stupro etnico all'americana
Violentata e uccisa da un soldato Usa una bambina albanese.
- R. ES. - PRISTINA
Quotidiani agguati contro le minoranze etniche, negli ultimi due giorni
sono stati assassinati quattro serbi e un "collaborazionista" albanese,
corrente elettrica ed attività economiche a singhiozzo, la giustizia che
non decolla. Per l'amministrazione Onu-Nato del Kosovo la prova di
questi
sei mesi non potrebbe essere più disastrosa. Ci mancava solo che un
militare Usa venisse accusato di violenza sessuale ed omicidio di una
ragazzina albanese di 11 anni; è accaduto anche questo nelle ultime
convulse
giornate.
Le forza americane "non risparmieranno gli sforzi per assicurare che
sulla
vicenda sia fatta giustizia", è l'impegno assunto dal comandante del
contingente Usa in Kosovo, generale Ricardo Sanchez, in una lettera ai
parenti dalla bambina uccisa. Il militare accusato si chiama Frank
Ronghi, 35
anni, ha il grado di sergente presso il 405mo reggimento paracadutisti.
Domenica è stato trasferito al penitenziario militare di Mannheim, in
Germania, dove sarà processato da una corte marziale statunitense. Sul
suo capo
pende l'accusa di "omicidio" preceduto da "atti osceni" sulla bimba, il
cui cadavere è stato trovato venerdì scorso nella campagna adiacente
alla città di Vitina, nel Kosovo orientale, una zona di "competenza"
degli
americani della Kfor.
Il padre della bimba, Hamdi Shabiu, ha riferito di aver visto per
l'ultima
volta la figlia giovedì mattina quando era uscita per andare a fare la
spesa al mercato; i vicini sostengono che la bimba è stata uccisa nello
scantinato di un condominio dall'altra parte della strada, ora
presidiato
da soldati americani. "Me l'hanno uccisa a 20 metri da casa, aveva solo
11
anni e mezzo", ha mormorato ai giornalisti il padre, mostrando una foto
del cadavere della figlia, con il viso coperto di graffi ed ecchimosi e
un
vistoso taglio sulla fronte. Nel tentativo di ricucire lo strappo con la
comunità albanese - che non nasce ieri, leggere al proposito il
reportage
qui accanto - il generale Sanchez si è precipitato domenica a Vitina per
dialogare con gli anziani e le autorità locali e portare le condoglianze
alla famiglia della piccola vittima. "Si tratta di un atto criminale, ma
isolato", ha cercato di giustificarsi il generale.
Si allunga intanto la scia degli omicidi etnici. Soltanto domenica
quattro
serbi sono rimasti vittima di attentati. Tre di loro, che tornavano a
casa
dalla vicina Serbia, sono stati fermati a un passo dal "confine" da un
commando di "sconosciuti" a un passo dal villaggio di Pasjane, nel
Kosovo
orientale, ed uccisi a sangue freddo. A Pertes, un altro paese vicino,
200
serbi, esasperati, sono scesi in piazza alla notizia del triplice
omicidio. Come sempre, la polizia dell'Unmik - la missione dell'Onu -
"brancola
nel buio". A Urosevac invece è stata una pattuglia della Kfor a portare
d'urgenza in ospedale un serbo ferito da arma da fuoco, mentre era alla
guida della sua auto. E' morto poco dopo il ricovero. E ieri dall'altra
parte
del "confine", a Vranje in Serbia, è stato freddato un
"collaborazionista"
albanese, Chemalj Mustafi, iscritto al Partito socialista di Milosevic e
preside della scuola locale.
===
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.HOME-PAGE.ORG
Tuesday, January 18 3:17 AM SGT
Triple Kosovo killing deals blow to returning Serbs
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Jan 17 (AFP) -
International attempts to encourage Kosovo Serbs to return to unruly
Kosovo suffered a blow with the killing of three Serbs near the border
with Serbia.
Ethnic violence also appeared to have spilled over the internal frontier
between Kosovo and Serbia proper Monday with the slaying of two Serbs on
the other side of the boundary. The attacks were blamed by Serb
authorities on ethnic Albanians crossing from Kosovo.
Sunday's triple murder of men trying to reach their village of Pasjane,
near the southern town of Gnjilane came as representatives of the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned against any large scale
Serbian return.
UNHCR spokesman Peter Kessler described the Kosovo as "extremely tense"
and said "there have been a series of disturbing incidents recently."
He cited the killing of four Muslim Slavs from the same family in the
southern town of Prizren last week, the torching of eight Serb houses in
the same area and the murder of a Croatian Serb refugee on January 6.
A bus service between Nis in southern Serbia and the Serb village of
Gracanica on the southern outskirts of Kosovo's capital Pristina was
stoned by ethnic Albanians last week, he said.
Philip Anido, spokesman for the international peacekeeping force KFOR,
said it was too early to say if Sunday's killings would affect attempts
to encourage Serbs to return to a multi-ethnic Kosovo.
The UNHCR was less equivalent. Kessler said: "The time is not yet right
for large-scale return of non-Albanian refugees. Any return has to be an
individual decision but security cannot be guaranteed."
Up to 200 Serbs demonstrated peacefully in the Serbian village of
Partes, near Pasjane, on hearing news of Sunday's killing, UN police
said.
One person was helping police with inquiries into the attack, said
Anido.
Up to 250,000 non-Albanians fled Kosovo after NATO drove Serbian forces
out of the Yugoslav province last June and KFOR took over security under
UN administration.
Since then Serbs have suffered almost daily attacks in revenge for
Belgrade's oppression of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.
Investigators have so far unearthed the bodies of some 2,000 Kosovar
Albanian victims, while at least 800,000 were expelled.
Kessler warned that returning Serbs may also end up as internally
displaced persons in Kosovo as they cannot always return to their homes,
many of which have been taken over by ethnic Albanians.
Many remaining Serbs moved into enclaves where they live under KFOR
protection.
Last month KFOR commander General Klaus Reinhardt unveiled new security
measures to tackle ethnic violence, including bringing educational and
health facilities closer to Serb communities to cut travel risks.
But Kessler said young Serbs returning still face educational problems,
given the lack of Serbian-language high schools and universities in
Kosovo.
Jobs would also be hard to come by in the ruined economy, he said, with
most large companies still shut, while those that do open are unlikely
to employ Serbo-Croat speakers.
"The situation could also become dangerous in the spring as people go
out into the fields again to sow their crops," he said.
The western internal boundary has been tense since three Serb police
were killed by a landmine in November. Belgrade blamed ethnic Albanian
"terrorists."
On Monday Chemalj Mustafi, 53, a school principal and official of the
Socialist party of Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic was shot
dead close to Bujanovac near the boundary, Yugoslav news agency Beta
said.
A 75-year-old woman was injured in a separate hand grenade attack, Beta
said.
===
Monday January 17 3:12 PM ET
U.S. Soldier in Kosovo Murder Case Moved to Germany By Andrew Gray
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier held on murder and
indecency charges over the killing of a 12-year-old girl in Kosovo has
been transferred to a military prison in Germany, U.S. forces said
Monday.
Staff Sergeant Frank Ronghi, 35, was charged Sunday with murder and
indecent acts with a child. Officers said then they planned to transfer
him to the prison in Germany.
They did not give any reason but it seems likely they thought it prudent
to get him out of Kosovo quickly to minimize the chance of any adverse
local reaction. Ronghi served with the Third Battalion of the 504th
Parachute Infantry Regiment, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., but currently
stationed in Vitina in eastern Kosovo. The name of his hometown has not
been made public.
Officers Monday released the text of a condolence letter sent to the
family of the ethnic Albanian girl by Brigadier General Ricardo Sanchez,
the commander of U.S. forces in Kosovo.
``We can only imagine the irreparable loss that you have suffered and
fully realize there is little we can say to help in this moment of
sorrow,´´ Sanchez wrote in his letter, expressing sympathy on behalf
of the U.S. military.
``I did not know your daughter, but as a father, I feel a deep sense of
loss and can imagine your pain,´´ the U.S. army general, who has
four children, said in the letter hand- delivered to the family Sunday.
``The Department of the Army will spare no effort in bringing this
matter to justice,´´ he assured the family. A spokesman at Camp
Bondsteel, the main base for U.S. forces in Kosovo who serve as part of
the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force, said he was not aware exactly when
Ronghi was transferred to Mannheim, southern Germany. But the move was
now complete.
``He´s already been transferred to Mannheim,´´ the spokesman
confirmed.
U.S. Mission Chief Expresses Deep Shock U.S. soldiers found the body of
the girl, Merite Shabiu, about two miles outside Vitina Thursday
evening, U.S. forces have said. Ronghi was immediately detained. The
girl's exact cause of death has not been released but officers have
confirmed she was attacked. The charges against Ronghi also allege an
indecent act for ``sexual gratification or stimulation´´ took place.
Whether the girl was also raped is part of the ongoing investigation, a
spokeswoman for U.S. forces said Sunday.
Larry Rossin, the head of the U.S. government office in the Kosovo
capital Pristina, expressed deep shock at the murder. ``I want to
strongly emphasize that this was an isolated, individual act of
violence,´´ Rossin added in a statement. The girl´s murder has
prompted shock and some complaints in Vitina, a town of around 15,000
people, about the general behavior of U.S. troops. But there have been
no reports so far of any large-scale demonstrations of anti-U.S.
sentiment.
Although no longer met with the euphoria which marked their arrival,
KFOR troops are generally given a warm reception by Kosovo's majority
ethnic Albanians who see them as a guarantee against the return of the
Serb forces which repressed them.
===
STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.HOME-PAGE.ORG
Blast Destroys Serb Church in Kosovo
The Associated Press
Saturday, Jan. 15, 2000; 6:47 a.m. EST
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- An explosive destroyed half of a Serb Orthodox
church in southeastern Kosovo early Saturday, the independent Beta news
agency reported.
The explosion that ripped through the St. Elias church, built in 1912 in
the ethnically
mixed village of Cernica, 20 miles southeast of the province's capital
Pristina, also
damaged three houses owned by local Serbs and heightened tensions in the
part of Kosovo patrolled by U.S. members of the NATO-led peacekeeping
force.
Nobody was hurt in the village, shared by some 450 Serbs and about 3,000
ethnic Albanians.
Serbs and the Orthodox Church have repeatedly blamed Kosovo Albanians
for the destruction of more than 50 Serb churches since Serb forces
pulled out of the province last summer at the end of NATO bombing, and
the NATO-led peacekeepers moved in.
Ethnic Albanians have targeted Serbs in revenge for the Serb-led
Yugoslav government's bloody crackdown in the province.
===
The New York Times January 15, 2000
Serbs at Border Complain of Attacks From Kosovo
By CARLOTTA GALL
KURSUMLIJA, Serbia -- The Serbian chief of police here looks weary. For
him the war in Kosovo is not only not over, but has come closer. He says
Albanians from Kosovo are crossing the border into his district in the
adjacent part of Serbia and attacking villagers and the police.
Unlocking the door of his small Yugo car outside the police station, 10
miles from the Kosovo border, he spoke of a land mine explosion that
killed three policemen in November. He said the mine had been laid by
Kosovo Albanians, almost certainly former members of the separatist
Kosovo Liberation Army.
"The K.L.A. is here already," he said with a small shrug, as if it were
no surprise.
If true, that assertion represents a serious problem for the NATO-led
peacekeeping force in Kosovo. The force moved in and took control of
Kosovo, the southern province of Serbia, in June after an 11-week NATO
campaign of air strikes to end Serbian repression of Albanians and to
force Serbian troops to withdraw.
Already struggling to contain the postwar violence against Serbs and
other minorities inside Kosovo, the peacekeepers may face a growing
burden of policing a long and porous border to prevent Kosovo Albanians
from carrying out attacks in nearby parts of Serbia.
The Serbian police say there have been at least 16 attacks on Serbian
police officers and villagers in the area near Kosovo since June.
They began with occasional shootings and harassment of villagers by
Albanians straying over the border to steal wood or to settle scores.
But recently there have been more serious and organized attacks that the
Serbian police say indicate guerrilla activity.
The worst attack occurred on Nov. 21, when gunmen opened fire on a
police post near the Serbian village of Prepolac, just a few hundred
yards from a unit of peacekeeping troops on the Kosovo side of the
border.
Shooting continued through the early hours of the morning, and then a
loud explosion resounded through the remote wooded hills. Serbian police
officers traveling back down the mud road from the border to their
headquarters had hit a land mine. Three men were killed in the blast and
six were wounded.
The Serbian police chief, Rodoljub Dosovic, said he had no doubt that
well-trained Albanian guerrillas had placed the mine, in a coordinated
action with the shooting attack on the police post. "They started a
firefight to draw out the police, and another group laid the mine on the
road," he said.
Another attack occurred several weeks later on a road near the town of
Bujanovac, east of Kosovo, when a police car came under fire. Two senior
officers were wounded in the attack, which the police again blamed on
Albanians from Kosovo.
"It was a classic attack, an ambush from both sides of the road," said
Milivoje Mihajlovic, a Serbian journalist who used to be based in
Kosovo. "It reminded me of the K.L.A. attacks on the police in Kosovo in
1998."
When the Serbian military pulled out of Kosovo in June, it moved all
troops and heavy weaponry behind a three-mile buffer zone. The Serbian
police are posted on every road in the area and patrol the back roads
and villages. Many of them are from Kosovo and served there for years.
They take the attacks in stride. It has been part of the job for several
years, one said.
The villagers in this area appear more alarmed. Some are moving out of
the villages closest to the border, and all are calling for a stronger
police presence.
In the town hall in Kursumlija, Mayor Borivoje Urosevic pulled out a
detailed map of his district, which has a 60-mile boundary with Kosovo.
There is no Albanian population in this area, he said, but five Serbian
villages have been abandoned as residents have come under repeated
attack from Albanians from Kosovo. "There is no day without an attack,"
he said.
Six people have been killed since June, including the three policemen
near Prepolac, and seven people wounded, he said.
The level of violence remains low compared with that of neighboring
Kosovo, but the growing use of explosives shows a more organized intent,
Mayor Urosevic said. On Dec. 12 two young men narrowly missed injury
when their tractor drove over a mine outside the border village of
Merdare.
"This is the K.L.A.," the mayor said. "This is organized. Robbery is not
the motive as it was earlier. It is pressure to make the Serbs move from
their territory." The peacekeepers, he added, "must prevent these
attacks, because we have people being displaced from the area."
Ljubica Aleksic was the last to leave the now abandoned village of
Tacevac.
The police used to patrol daily, he said, but after the land mine
incident they were reluctant to drive up the roads. The Albanians are
bolder than before, he said, because they know that the Serbian police
cannot pursue them over the border into Kosovo.
"They want to take advantage of the woods to clear the area of the
border, so there are no more Serbs there anymore," Mr. Aleksic said.
On the other side of the border, in Kosovo, Albanian villagers have
returned to rebuild their houses under the protection of peacekeepers
but remain nervous with the Serbian police so close. When shooting broke
out near the Kosovo village of Donje Dubnica recently, several families
fled their homes for the day.
They said they did not dare venture to cut wood on the Serbian side.
When prompted, they acknowledged that young men who had fought in the
war were slipping across the border to attack the Serbian police.
Gen. Klaus Reinhardt, the German commander of the peacekeeping force,
played down the issue in an interview, as did the British officer in
charge of operations in the border area. Both appeared confident that
their border controls and covert operations were sufficient.
"I cannot prevent everyone who wants to go across, except by mining to a
maximum," General Reinhardt said. "And we are busy trying to demine the
place."
===========================
The Committee for National Solidarity
Tolstojeva 34, 11000 Belgrade, YU
12-Jan-00 -- EWTN News Brief
KOSOVO CHRISTIANS TARGETED BY EXTREMIST MUSLIMS
PRISTINA, Kosovo (CWNews.com/Fides) - Christians in
Kosovo are being increasingly targeted by
fundamentalist Muslims and Kosovar magistrates don't
know which law to apply, according to Father Mato
Jakovic, coordinator of the Jesuit Relief Service
(JRS) in Macedonia and Kosovo.
Father Jakovic says episodes of maltreatment of
Catholics are ever more frequent, and families of
priests are also targeted. He said -- without
revealing the name of the place -- that on December 6
the homes of relatives of two Franciscans were
torched. In his most recent report Father Jakovic said
that Catholic cemeteries in Prizren and Pec have been
destroyed and the vandals -- still unidentified --
profaned the graves of Bishop Nikola Prela and
Monsignor Nikola Mini.
In the meantime, attacks against Kosovar Serbs
continue. On January 9, a Serb was shot dead in front
of his home at Gnjilane in east Kosovo. A spokesman of
the UN Mission MINUK said the aggressors spoke
Albanian. On the same day, two Serb homes were set on
fire, one in Pristina and another at Kosovo Polje. At
least 250,000 Serbs and Rom gypsies have left the area
since last March and those who remain live in small
protected enclaves in Gnjilane and Kosovo Polje, but
constantly fear being attacked.
Secretary General
Mrs. Jela Jovanovic
Art historian
===========================
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Arms, money seized at house of Kosovo leader's brother
Associated Press
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (January 6, 2000 2:41 p.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - A brother of Kosovo Albanian leader Hashim
Thaci has been charged with illegal possession of weapons and released
from detention, sources said Thursday.
Gani Thaci, whose brother was the political head of the now disbanded
Kosovo Liberation Army, was released Wednesday after U.N. police
detained him for firing a gun from an apartment, the United Nations said
in a statement.
He was arrested Tuesday. The U.N. statement made no mention of any
charges, which were confirmed by U.N. and NATO sources on condition they
not be named.
The sources also said that $791,000 was confiscated from the apartment,
along with weapons.
In a separate incident, Hashim Thaci's personal bodyguard was also
briefly detained Wednesday during a search for illegal weapons in a
Pristina cafe, the United Nations said.
Hashim Thaci's office declined comment Thursday, saying he had no
connection to either incident.
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
------------------------------------------------------------
>
> La ragione dei serbi
>
> Sabato 29 Gennaio 2000 - ore 15,00
> CASA DEL POPOLO (CANDILEJAS)
> Via Bentini, 29 - Bologna
> BUS 27/A
> 4 chiacchere e 1 videotape
> su una guerra dal vago sapore di crociata che forse si poteva evitare:
> "...sempre ci stupisce l'inaudita scoperta che qualcuno ha pensato
> non già più lontano di noi, ma diverso da noi..."
>
> Interverrano:
> - Prof. Aldo Bernardini, Docente di Diritto Internazionale
> Università di Teramo
> - Sig.ra Gordana Glisic, Pres. Assoc. d'Amicizia Italia - Jugoslavia
> - Dott Fulvio Grimaldi, Giornalista
> - Prof. Dragos Kalajic, Direttore Istituto Geopolitico di Belgrado
> - Prof. Claudio Moffa, Docente di Storia e Istituzioni Paesi Afro-Asiatici
> Università di Teramo
>
> lnfo: Cristina 0338.2576525 E-mail: zannaecris@...
>
> "LA RAGIONE DEI SERBI": PERCHE'?
> Tante cose sono state dette e scritte dai mass-media occidentali su quanto è
> accaduto e accade nei paesi balcanici in questi ultimi anni; eppure
> basterebbe un veloce passaggio, anche solo un week-end, nella capitale serba
> per avere la sensazione che molto è stato distorto e/o manipolato, non si sa
> quanto arbitrariamente, da tutte le fonti di informazione di influenza Nato.
> Già poche settimane dopo la fine della guerra sono comparsi diversi articoli
> (anche canadesi ed americani) che hanno messo in dubbio la veridicità delle
> informazioni relative ai presunti genocidi attuati dalle milizie jugoslave
> ai danni della popolazione kossovara, informazioni che da sole
> giustificavano il violento intervento delle forze Nato.
> L'entrata in guerra delle forze alleate era veramente necessaria oppure si è
> voluto rispondere ad una necessità di carattere economico imposta dal
> neo-liberismo imperante? Forse potrebbe essere utile sentire le ragioni di
> chi, in questi anni, è stato dall'altra parte della barricata: le ragioni
> dei serbi.
>
> ASSOCIAZIONE D'AMICIZIA ITALO-JUGOSLAVA
>
> Costituitasi nello scorso mese di settembre al fine di riallacciare i
> rapporti tra i due paesi interrotti bruscamente a causa della guerra,
> l'associazione si pone come obiettivo prioritario la realizzazione di
> progetti a scopo umanitario
> e socio-culturale quali, ad esempio, l'invio di medicinali e beni di prima
> necessità, la collaborazione con il centro culturale italiano di Belgrado,
> l'organizzazione di concerti, mostre, avvenimenti sportivi e quant'altro
> possa contribuire al ripristino dell'equilibrio sociale tra le due nazioni.
> Qui è rappresentata dalla Sig.ra GORDANA GLISIC Presidente dell'Associazione.
>
> PROF. ALDO BERNARDINI
> Docente di diritto internazionale presso l'Università di Teramo, è stato
> Direttore dello Istituto Giuridico della Facoltà di Scienze Politiche,
> quindi Preside della stessa dal 1972 al 1979, Rettore dell'Università di
> Chieti daI 1979 al 1985.
> Autore di libri, saggi, articoli di diritto e politica tra i quali
> "Questione Iraq-Kuwait" ha ultimamente pubblicato un saggio sul rapporto con
> la Costituzione italiana del
> Patto di stabilità dell'Unione Europea. Ha partecipato a diverse relazioni e
> convegni in tutto il mondo, Parigi, Berlino Est, Baghdad, Pyongyang, Mosca.
> Ha tenuto alcune lezioni all'Università di Baghdad. E stato collaboratore
> della Società Italiana per l'organizzazione Internazionale, e redattore di
> periodici quali "La Comunità Internazionale".
>
> DR. FULVIO GRIMALDI
> Giornalista dal 1962, redattore presso la BBC a Londra e corrispondente da
> Londra per Panorama e Paese Sera. Inviato di Paese Sera e poi di Giorni -
> Vie Nuove, settimanale del PCI.
> Direttore di Lotta Continua, giornalista di varie testate straniere e
> inviato RAI dal 1986 al 1989.
> Si è occupato eminentemente di questioni internazionali, delle lotte
> antimperialiste e di ambiente.
> Ha seguito tutte le guerre mediorientali e la lotta irlandese fin dall'inizio.
> Ha visitato molti paesi del terzo mondo per scrivere di neocolonialismo,
> neoliberismo e lotte di liberazione. Autore di diversi libri, ha realizzato
> video sul Chiapas, sul Vietnam, sull'Iraq, sui profughi palestinesi in
> Libano, su Cuba, sul sud-est asiatico e sulla Jugoslavia "Il popolo
> invisibile" e "Serbi da morire" che verrà presentato nel corso del l'incontro.
> Attualmente scrive una rubrica quotidiana su Liberazione e una settimanale
> su "Ultime Notizie".
> Negli ultimi mesi ha dedicato particolare attenzione alla
> contro-informazione sulla Jugoslavia.
>
> PROF. DRAGOS KALAJIC
> Nato a Belgrado nel 1943. Diplomato presso l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma
> in Storia dell'Arte, dagli anni sessanta è
> presente sulla scena culturale e politica jugoslava con una serie di saggi
> ed analisi regolarmente recensiti dalla stampa russa. Ha ottenuto diversi
> riconoscimenti tra cui, nel 1994, il premio annuale della rivista
> dell'associazione degli scrittori russi.
> Nel 1997 ha fondato a Belgrado, con alti ufficiali dell'esercito jugoslavo,
> l'istituto di Studi Geopolitici.
> Negli anni dal 1992 al 1995 è stato corrispondente di guerra della stampa
> jugoslava, in Republika Srpska Krajina e Republika Srpska, rispettivamente
> in Croazia e in Bosnia-Herzegovina
> E' senatore della Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
> E' membro onorario dell'Associazione degli Scrittori Russi.
>
> PROF. CLAUDIO MOFFA
> Docente di Storia ed Istituzioni dei Paesi Afro-Asiatici all'Università di
> Teramo. Politologo, esperto delle questioni "nazionali" nell'età
> contemporanea ed autore de "La questione nazionale dopo la decolonizzazione.
> Per una rilettura del principio di autodecisione nazionale" (Quaderni
> Internazionali, 1989).
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
** NO COPYRIGHT ! **
------------------------------------------------------------
> La ragione dei serbi
>
> Sabato 29 Gennaio 2000 - ore 15,00
> CASA DEL POPOLO (CANDILEJAS)
> Via Bentini, 29 - Bologna
> BUS 27/A
> 4 chiacchere e 1 videotape
> su una guerra dal vago sapore di crociata che forse si poteva evitare:
> "...sempre ci stupisce l'inaudita scoperta che qualcuno ha pensato
> non già più lontano di noi, ma diverso da noi..."
>
> Interverrano:
> - Prof. Aldo Bernardini, Docente di Diritto Internazionale
> Università di Teramo
> - Sig.ra Gordana Glisic, Pres. Assoc. d'Amicizia Italia - Jugoslavia
> - Dott Fulvio Grimaldi, Giornalista
> - Prof. Dragos Kalajic, Direttore Istituto Geopolitico di Belgrado
> - Prof. Claudio Moffa, Docente di Storia e Istituzioni Paesi Afro-Asiatici
> Università di Teramo
>
> lnfo: Cristina 0338.2576525 E-mail: zannaecris@...
>
> "LA RAGIONE DEI SERBI": PERCHE'?
> Tante cose sono state dette e scritte dai mass-media occidentali su quanto è
> accaduto e accade nei paesi balcanici in questi ultimi anni; eppure
> basterebbe un veloce passaggio, anche solo un week-end, nella capitale serba
> per avere la sensazione che molto è stato distorto e/o manipolato, non si sa
> quanto arbitrariamente, da tutte le fonti di informazione di influenza Nato.
> Già poche settimane dopo la fine della guerra sono comparsi diversi articoli
> (anche canadesi ed americani) che hanno messo in dubbio la veridicità delle
> informazioni relative ai presunti genocidi attuati dalle milizie jugoslave
> ai danni della popolazione kossovara, informazioni che da sole
> giustificavano il violento intervento delle forze Nato.
> L'entrata in guerra delle forze alleate era veramente necessaria oppure si è
> voluto rispondere ad una necessità di carattere economico imposta dal
> neo-liberismo imperante? Forse potrebbe essere utile sentire le ragioni di
> chi, in questi anni, è stato dall'altra parte della barricata: le ragioni
> dei serbi.
>
> ASSOCIAZIONE D'AMICIZIA ITALO-JUGOSLAVA
>
> Costituitasi nello scorso mese di settembre al fine di riallacciare i
> rapporti tra i due paesi interrotti bruscamente a causa della guerra,
> l'associazione si pone come obiettivo prioritario la realizzazione di
> progetti a scopo umanitario
> e socio-culturale quali, ad esempio, l'invio di medicinali e beni di prima
> necessità, la collaborazione con il centro culturale italiano di Belgrado,
> l'organizzazione di concerti, mostre, avvenimenti sportivi e quant'altro
> possa contribuire al ripristino dell'equilibrio sociale tra le due nazioni.
> Qui è rappresentata dalla Sig.ra GORDANA GLISIC Presidente dell'Associazione.
>
> PROF. ALDO BERNARDINI
> Docente di diritto internazionale presso l'Università di Teramo, è stato
> Direttore dello Istituto Giuridico della Facoltà di Scienze Politiche,
> quindi Preside della stessa dal 1972 al 1979, Rettore dell'Università di
> Chieti daI 1979 al 1985.
> Autore di libri, saggi, articoli di diritto e politica tra i quali
> "Questione Iraq-Kuwait" ha ultimamente pubblicato un saggio sul rapporto con
> la Costituzione italiana del
> Patto di stabilità dell'Unione Europea. Ha partecipato a diverse relazioni e
> convegni in tutto il mondo, Parigi, Berlino Est, Baghdad, Pyongyang, Mosca.
> Ha tenuto alcune lezioni all'Università di Baghdad. E stato collaboratore
> della Società Italiana per l'organizzazione Internazionale, e redattore di
> periodici quali "La Comunità Internazionale".
>
> DR. FULVIO GRIMALDI
> Giornalista dal 1962, redattore presso la BBC a Londra e corrispondente da
> Londra per Panorama e Paese Sera. Inviato di Paese Sera e poi di Giorni -
> Vie Nuove, settimanale del PCI.
> Direttore di Lotta Continua, giornalista di varie testate straniere e
> inviato RAI dal 1986 al 1989.
> Si è occupato eminentemente di questioni internazionali, delle lotte
> antimperialiste e di ambiente.
> Ha seguito tutte le guerre mediorientali e la lotta irlandese fin dall'inizio.
> Ha visitato molti paesi del terzo mondo per scrivere di neocolonialismo,
> neoliberismo e lotte di liberazione. Autore di diversi libri, ha realizzato
> video sul Chiapas, sul Vietnam, sull'Iraq, sui profughi palestinesi in
> Libano, su Cuba, sul sud-est asiatico e sulla Jugoslavia "Il popolo
> invisibile" e "Serbi da morire" che verrà presentato nel corso del l'incontro.
> Attualmente scrive una rubrica quotidiana su Liberazione e una settimanale
> su "Ultime Notizie".
> Negli ultimi mesi ha dedicato particolare attenzione alla
> contro-informazione sulla Jugoslavia.
>
> PROF. DRAGOS KALAJIC
> Nato a Belgrado nel 1943. Diplomato presso l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma
> in Storia dell'Arte, dagli anni sessanta è
> presente sulla scena culturale e politica jugoslava con una serie di saggi
> ed analisi regolarmente recensiti dalla stampa russa. Ha ottenuto diversi
> riconoscimenti tra cui, nel 1994, il premio annuale della rivista
> dell'associazione degli scrittori russi.
> Nel 1997 ha fondato a Belgrado, con alti ufficiali dell'esercito jugoslavo,
> l'istituto di Studi Geopolitici.
> Negli anni dal 1992 al 1995 è stato corrispondente di guerra della stampa
> jugoslava, in Republika Srpska Krajina e Republika Srpska, rispettivamente
> in Croazia e in Bosnia-Herzegovina
> E' senatore della Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
> E' membro onorario dell'Associazione degli Scrittori Russi.
>
> PROF. CLAUDIO MOFFA
> Docente di Storia ed Istituzioni dei Paesi Afro-Asiatici all'Università di
> Teramo. Politologo, esperto delle questioni "nazionali" nell'età
> contemporanea ed autore de "La questione nazionale dopo la decolonizzazione.
> Per una rilettura del principio di autodecisione nazionale" (Quaderni
> Internazionali, 1989).
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
** NO COPYRIGHT ! **
------------------------------------------------------------
"IL CONVERTITO E' PEGGIO DEL TURCO" (PROVERBIO SLAVO)
Jack Straw, un tempo tra i piu' attivi capelloni del movimento "hippy"
britannico, e' diventato uno dei ministri degli Interni piu' odiosi e
reazionari che la storia della Gran Bretagna ricordi. Straw si sta
costruendo una immagine da fautore della "tolleranza zero", ad esempio
in fatto di droghe leggere, e contemporaneamente impedisce che la
giustizia faccia il suo corso nel caso di criminali conclamati. Dopo i
tentennamenti relativi all'estradizione dell'anziano criminale nazista
lituano Konrad Kalejs, Straw sta dando il peggio di se per impedire la
consegna del ben noto dittatore cileno Pinochet. Eppure Straw - che a
difesa di Pinochet adduce "ragioni umanitarie" in perfetto spregio della
Convenzione Europea sulla Estradizione del 1957 ed in base ad un referto
medico tenuto segreto - 34 anni fa fece persino un viaggio di
solidarieta' internazionalista nel Cile di Allende.
(Fonti: Reuters 14/01/2000; Dichiarazione della Associazione Americana
dei Giuristi - http://www.presos.org/italia )
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
** NO COPYRIGHT ! **
------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Straw, un tempo tra i piu' attivi capelloni del movimento "hippy"
britannico, e' diventato uno dei ministri degli Interni piu' odiosi e
reazionari che la storia della Gran Bretagna ricordi. Straw si sta
costruendo una immagine da fautore della "tolleranza zero", ad esempio
in fatto di droghe leggere, e contemporaneamente impedisce che la
giustizia faccia il suo corso nel caso di criminali conclamati. Dopo i
tentennamenti relativi all'estradizione dell'anziano criminale nazista
lituano Konrad Kalejs, Straw sta dando il peggio di se per impedire la
consegna del ben noto dittatore cileno Pinochet. Eppure Straw - che a
difesa di Pinochet adduce "ragioni umanitarie" in perfetto spregio della
Convenzione Europea sulla Estradizione del 1957 ed in base ad un referto
medico tenuto segreto - 34 anni fa fece persino un viaggio di
solidarieta' internazionalista nel Cile di Allende.
(Fonti: Reuters 14/01/2000; Dichiarazione della Associazione Americana
dei Giuristi - http://www.presos.org/italia )
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
** NO COPYRIGHT ! **
------------------------------------------------------------
HUMANITARIAN WAR:
MAKING THE CRIME FIT THE PUNISHMENT
by Diana Johnstone
www.emperors-clothes.com
The order of events is strange. On March 24, 1999, the
NATO forces led by the United States began an
eleven-week-long punishment of Yugoslavia's President,
Slobodan Milosevic, which amounted to capital punishment
for an undetermined number of citizens of that
unfortunate country. Two months later, on May 27, the
U.S.-backed International Criminal Tribunal for former
Yugoslavia issued an indictment of Milosevic for "crimes
against humanity" having occurred after the punishment
began. Then, in late June, the Clinton administration
dispatched 56 forensic experts from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation to Kosovo to gather material evidence of
the crimes for which Milosevic and five of his colleagues
had already been indicted and for which his country had
already been severely and durably punished.
The FBI had no instructions to search for evidence of
crimes as such, including those that might have been
committed by, say, armed rebels fighting against the
established government of Yugoslavia. The only crimes of
interest were those for which Milosevic had previously
been accused, and all evidence was assumed in advance to
point to his guilt.
Thus the world entered the new age of humanitarian
vigilante power.
At the end of World War II, a world political system was
put in place to outlaw war. In its triumph as sole
superpower destined to govern the world, the United
States is currently striving to replace the system that
outlaws war by a system that uses war to punish outlaws.
Who the outlaws are is decided by the United States.
Alongside economic globalization, this vigilante system
corresponds to a dominant American world view of a
capitalist system inherently capable of meeting all human
needs, marred only by the wrongdoings of evil outcasts.
At home and abroad, the social effort to bring everybody
into a community of equal rights and obligations is
abandoned in favour of universal competition in which the
rich winners exclude the losers from society itself. On
the domestic scene, as the rich get richer, the
well-to-do escape from the very sight of the poor by
moving into gated communities, social programs are cut,
while prisons and execution chambers fill up. Punishment,
even vengeance, are popular values.
Twenty years ago, the United Nations and its agencies
provided a political forum for discussions of such
matters as a "new economic order" or a "new information
order" that might seek to narrow the enormous gap between
the rich Atlantic world and most of the rest of the
planet. All that is past, and today, the United Nations
is instrumentalized by the United States to pursue
dissident States which it has chosen to brand as rogues,
terrorists or criminals. Capitalist competition is being
forced onto the entire world as the supreme law by new
bodies such as the World Trade Organization. NATO-land is
a gated community whose armed forces are being prepared
to intervene worldwide, at the bidding of Washington, to
defend members' interests, in the name of the war against
crimes against humanity.
The Clinton Doctrine
The NATO war against Yugoslavia marks a great leap
forward toward the depoliticization and criminalization
of international relations. In the case of the similar
war against Iraq, the regime of Saddam Hussein was in
fact a military dictatorship, which did in fact violate
international law by invading Kuwait (leaving aside
eventual extenuating circumstances), and the United
States did obtain a mandate from the United Nations
Security Council for at least some (but not all) of its
military operations. In the case of Yugoslavia, the
military operations were carried out without U.N. mandate
against a state with an elected civilian government,
which had not violated international law.
NATO's war, directed from Washington, was intended as a
pure demonstration that the United States could make or
break the law. For it was Yugoslavia, which had not
violated international law, that was branded a criminal
State. Already on November 5, 1998, the American
presiding judge at the International Criminal Tribunal
for former Yugoslavia, Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, described
Yugoslavia as "a rogue state, one that holds the
international rule of law in contempt". During the
bombing, U.S. and British leaders regularly compared
Milosevic to Hitler. And afterwards, the U.S. Senate on
June 30 adopted a bill describing Yugoslavia as "a
terrorist State", in the total absence of any of the
usual criteria for such a designation. The United States
is free both to commit crimes, and to criminalize its
adversaries. Might is sure of being right.
"A Clinton Doctrine of humanitarian warfare is taking
place", rejoiced (1) columnist Jim Hoagland, a leading
voice in the chorus of syndicated columnists who have
nagged away at the President to get up the gumption to
lead NATO through the Balkans into a brave new
millennium. This "doctrine" is not quite as spontaneous
as it is made to seem by the media chorus which portrays
Uncle Sam as a reluctant Hamlet generously stumbling into
greatness.
Since the end of the Cold War, United States leaders have
been searching for a grand new design to replace the
containment doctrine developed after World War II. To
this end, the oligarchy that formulates American foreign
policy has been hard at work in its various exclusive
venues such as the Council on Foreign Relations, private
clubs, larger assemblages such as the Trilateral
Commission (which specializes in the great American
ruling class art of selective co-optation and conversion
of potential critics), and a myriad of institutes,
foundations and "think tanks", overlapping with a half
dozen of the most prestigious universities and, of
course, the boards of directors of major corporations and
financial institutions. All are united by an unshakable
conviction that what is good for the United States (and
the business of the United States is business) is good
for the world. American policy-makers may be more or less
generous or cynical, crafty or forthright, but all
necessarily share the conviction that the system which
has made America great and powerful should be bestowed on
the rest of an often undeserving and recalcitrant world.
There is no conflict between this conviction and ruthless
pursuit of economic self-interest; they are part of the
same mindset.
None better epitomizes the combined power and good
conscience of American capitalism than the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, founded in 1910 by the
Scottish-American steel king Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)
who recycled part of his vast rags-to-riches fortune into
philanthropic enterprises. It is fitting that in
formulating the Doctrine of Humanitarian Warfare now
attributed to Clinton, a major ideological role appears
to have been played by the Carnegie Endowment under the
presidency of Morton I. Abramowitz (2).
The Importance of War Crimes
In May 1997, three months after taking office as U.S.
Secretary of State, Madeleine Korbel Albright created a
new post, ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues. The
creation of the post indicated the crucial importance of
"war crimes" in Albright's foreign policy. Two days
later, crime was linked to punishment as she delivered
her first policy speech on Bosnia to senior military
officers aboard an aircraft carrier in the Hudson River.
These gestures showed that the first woman Secretary of
State was out to demonstrate the serious meaning of her
famous remark, "What's the use of having the world's
greatest military force if you don't use it?"
Albright and the man named to the new "war crimes" post,
David Scheffer, were putting into practice new policy
concepts they had helped develop before Clinton was
elected President, and before the war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, when they had been part of what a
privileged observer (3) recently described as "a small
foreign policy elite convened by the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace to change U.S. foreign policy
after the Cold War."
During the last years of the Bush administration, the
Carnegie Endowment for Peace was confronting the major
question raised by the collapse of the Soviet bloc: what
new mission could save NATO, the necessary instrument for
U.S. leadership in Europe? And it found an answer:
humanitarian intervention. Reports by group members
Albright, Richard Holbrooke and Leon Fuerth "recommended
a dramatic escalation of the use of military force to
settle other countries' domestic conflicts." (4)
The Carnegie Endowment's 1992 report entitled "Changing
Our Ways: America's Role in the New World" called for "a
new principle of international relations: the destruction
or displacement of groups of people within states can
justify international intervention". The U.S. was advised
to "realign" NATO and the OSCE to deal with these new
security problems in Europe.
Release of this report, accompanied by policy briefings
of key Democrats and media big shots, was timed to
influence the Democratic presidential campaign. Candidate
Bill Clinton quickly took up the rhetoric, calling for
Milosevic to be tried for "crimes against humanity" and
advocating military intervention against the Serbs.
However, it took several years to put this into practice.
At the Carnegie Endowment, as member of a study group
including Al Gore's foreign policy advisor Leon Fuerth,
David Scheffer had co-authored (with Morton Halperin) a
book-length report on "Self-Determination in the New
World Order" which proposed military intervention as one
of the ways of "responding to international hot spots". A
major question raised was when and to what end the United
States should become involved in a conflict between an
established state and a "self-determination" -- i.e. a
secessionist -- movement. Clearly, the question was not
to be submitted to the United Nations. "The United States
should seek to build a consensus within regional and
international organizations for its position, but should
not sacrifice its own judgment and principles if such a
consensus fails to materialize"(5).
In general, the authors concluded, "the world community
needs to act more quickly and with more determination to
employ military force when it proves necessary and
feasible"(6). But when is this?
When a self-determination claim triggers an armed
conflict that becomes a humanitarian crisis, getting
food, medicine, and shelter to thousands or millions of
civilians becomes an inescapable imperative. A new
intolerance for such human tragedies is becoming evident
in the post-Cold War world and is redefining the
principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of
states (7).
Now, in theory, this sounds almost indisputable. However,
in practice the question becomes one not of theory but of
facts. When does a crisis in fact correspond to this
description, and when, on the contrary, can it simply be
made to seem to correspond to this description?
In the official NATO version, vigorously endorsed by
mainstream media, the Kosovo war was precisely an
instance when "a self-determination claim triggers an
armed conflict that becomes a humanitarian crisis..."
However, there is considerable, indeed overwhelming
evidence that the "self-determination claim" quite
deliberately provoked both the "armed conflict" and the
"humanitarian crisis" precisely in order to bring in, not
humanitarian aid, but military intervention from NATO on
the pretext of humanitarian aid. For there was never any
need of NATO intervention in order to provide food,
medicine and shelter to civilians within Kosovo or before
the NATO bombing. The "humanitarian crisis" was a mirage
until NATO triggered it by the bombing.
But in the culture of images, temporal relationships are
easily obscured. What came before or after what is
forgotten. And with temporal relationship, cause and
effect are lost, along with responsibility.
Can Kosovo be detached from Serbia? "The use of military
force to create a new state would require conduct by the
parent government so egregious that it has forfeited any
right to govern the minority claiming
self-determination"(8). But who decides that conduct is
sufficiently "egregious"?
Clearly, Madeleine Albright was so eager to put these
bold new theories into practice that she worked mightily
to make the crime fit the punishment.
Morton Abramowitz himself, who as Carnegie Endowment
President nurtured Albright, Holbrooke, Fuerth, Scheffer
and the others as they jointly developed Clinton's future
doctrine of "humanitarian warfare", has also played an
active role. In 1997, he passed through the elite
revolving door from the Carnegie Endowment to the Council
on Foreign Relations. He has contributed his wisdom to a
new, high-level think tank, the International Crisis
Group, whose sponsors include governments and omnipresent
financier George Soros. The ICG has been a leading
designer of policy toward Kosovo.
Putting into practice the hypothesis of "a
self-determination claim triggering an armed conflict",
Abramowitz became an early advocate of arming the "Kosovo
Liberation Army"(U?K). At Rambouillet, Abramowitz
discreetly coached the ethnic Albanian delegation headed
by U?K leader Hashim Thaqi (9).
Back in February 1992, before civil war broke out in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, television producer John B. Roberts
II was asked to design a publicity campaign to gain
public support for the soon-to-be-published Carnegie
Endowment recommendations. When he saw that "Changing Our
Ways" proposed "the revolutionary idea that a U.S.-led
military first strike was justified, not to defend the
United States, but to impose highly subjective political
settlements on other countries", that it "discarded
national sovereignty in favour of international
intervention", Roberts "began to regret [his] efforts to
build publicity for the report" (10).
One way or another, the "revolutionary idea" has been
widely propagated during the 1990s. Humanitarian
intervention was an idea whose time had come because it
met a certain number of perceived needs. It provided a
solution to the problem formulated by Senator Richard
Lugar, that once the Cold War ended, NATO must be "either
out of area or out of business". A new missionary mission
not only kept NATO alive, thereby nourishing a vast array
of vested industrial and financial interests, primarily
but not solely in the United States, it also could be
seen as a potential instrument to defend less broadly
perceived geostrategic interests without submitting them
to public controversy.
Humanitarian Realpolitik
When Madeleine Albright took over the State Department
from Warren Christopher in early 1997, her promotion was
presented to the public more as a personal success for a
woman than as a corporate success for a policy design. At
its most informative, The New York Times (11), mentioned
influential policy-makers as if they were benevolent
uncles ready to give encouragement to a lady. Three
months after she took office, it was reported: "Ms.
Albright has reached out for advice. She has talked with
Zbigniew Brzezinski; the departing president of the
Carnegie Endowment, Morton Abramowitz; the philanthropist
George Soros; and Leslie Gelb, president of the Council
on Foreign Relations."
If Abramowitz may be considered the ?minence grise behind
the whole "humanitarian intervention" policy, Brzezinski
provided a geostrategic rationale. Brzezinski has no
inhibitions about using high principles in the power
game. In Paris in January 1998 to promote the French
edition of his book, The Grand Chessboard, he was asked
about an apparent "paradox" between the fact that his
book was steeped in Realpolitik, whereas, in his days as
National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter,
Brzezinski had been the "defender of human rights".
Brzezinski waved the paradox aside. There is none, he
replied. "I elaborated that doctrine in agreement with
President Carter, as it was the best way to destabilize
the Soviet Union. And it worked"(12).
Of course, it took more than nice words about human
rights to destabilize the Soviet Union. It took war. And
Brzezinski was very active on that front. As he told a
second French weekly (13) during his book promotion tour,
the CIA had begun bank-rolling counter- revolutionary
Afghan forces in mid-1979, half a year before the Soviet
Union moved into Afghanistan on a "stabilizing" mission
around New Year's Day 1980. "We did not push the Russians
into intervening, but we knowingly increased the
possibility that they would. That secret operation was an
excellent idea. The effect was to draw the Russians into
the Afghan trap."
Brzezinski rightly felt he could be forthright about such
matters as humanitarian entrapment in Paris, where the
policy elite admires nothing so much in American leaders
as unabashed cynical power politics. This admiration is
most acute when the French are offered a share in it, as
was the case with Brzezinski and his book. France, wrote
Brzezinski, "is an essential partner in the important
task of permanently locking a democratic Germany into
Europe", which means preventing Germany from building its
own separate sphere of influence to the East, possibly
including Russia -- a connection that Brzezinski's policy
recommendations are designed to forestall at all costs.
"This is the historic role of the Franco-German
relationship, and the expansion of both the EU and NATO
eastward should enhance the importance of that
relationship as Europe's inner core. Finally, France is
not strong enough either to obstruct America on the
geostrategic fundamentals of America's European policy or
to become by itself a leader of Europe as such. Hence,
its peculiarities and even its tantrums can be
tolerated"(14).
These assurances may contribute to explaining the mystery
-- as it was widely perceived in other countries -- of
France's strong support to NATO's Kosovo war, second only
to Britain and in disharmony with reactions in Germany
and Italy. That is, the French elite had been given to
understand this war as part of the Brzezinski design for
a transatlantic Europe giving France a politico-military
leadership role offsetting Germany's economic
predominance.
Brzezinski frankly sets the goal for U.S. policy: "to
perpetuate America's own dominant position for at least a
generation and preferably longer still". This involves
creating a "geopolitical framework" around NATO that will
initially include Ukraine and exclude Russia. This will
establish the geostrategic basis for controlling conflict
in what Brzezinski calls "the Eurasian Balkans", the huge
area between the Eastern shore of the Black Sea to China,
which includes the Caspian Sea and its petroleum
resources, a top priority for U.S. foreign policy. In the
policy elites of both Britain and France, perpetuation of
Trans-Atlantic domination could be understood as a way of
preventing a Russo-German rapprochement able to dominate
the continent.
Along with Jeane Kirkpatrick, Frank Carlucci, William
Odom and Stephan Solarz, Brzezinski has joined the
anti-Serb crusade in yet another new Washington policy
shop, the "Balkan Action Council", calling for all-out
war against Yugoslavia over Kosovo.
In the Brzezinski scheme of things, Yugoslavia is a
testing ground and a metaphor for the Soviet Union. In
this metaphor, "Serbia" is Russia, and Croatia, Bosnia,
Kosovo, etc., are Ukraine, the Baltic States, Georgia and
the former Soviet Republics of "the Eurasian Balkans".
This being the case, the successful secession of Croatia
and company from Yugoslavia sets a positive precedent for
maintaining the independence of Ukraine and its
progressive inclusion in the European Union and NATO,
which he sets for the decade 2005-2015 as a "reasonable
time frame".
The little Balkan "Balkans" appear on a map on page 22 of
The Grand Chessboard interestingly shaded in three
gradations representing U.S. geopolitical preponderance
(dark), U.S. political influence (medium) and the
apparent absence of either (white). Darkly shaded (like
the U.S., Canada and Western Europe) are Hungary,
Rumania, Bulgaria and Turkey. Medium shading covers
Slovakia, Moldavia and Ukraine as well as Georgia and
most of the "Eurasian Balkans". Glaringly white, like
Russia, are Yugoslavia and Greece. For Brzezinski,
Belgrade was a potential relay for Moscow. Serbs might be
unaware of this, but in the geostrategic view, they were
only so many surrogate Russians.
Cultural Divides and Caspian Oil
Samuel Huntington's notion of "conflict of
civilizations", by identifying Orthodox Christianity as a
civilization in conflict with the West and its famous
"values", has offered an ideological cover for the
"divide and conquer" strategy, which has less appeal, but
is not incompatible with, the "humanitarian"
justification. It has been taken up by influential (15)
writer Robert D. Kaplan, who sees a "real battle" that is
"drawn along historical-civilizational lines. On the one
side are the Turks, their fellow Azeri Turks in
Azerbaijan, the Israelis and the Jordanians [...]. On the
other side are those who suffered the most historically
from Turkish rule: the Syrian and Iraqi Arabs, the
Armenians, the Greeks and the Kurds"(16). It is not hard
to see whose side the United States must be on in this
battle, or which must be the winning side.
Kaplan places Kosovo "smack in the middle of a very
unstable and important region where Europe joins the
Middle East" while "Europe is redividing along historic
and cultural lines"(17).
"There is a Western, Catholic, Protestant Europe and an
Eastern Orthodox Europe, which is poorer, more
politically unsettled and more ridden with organized
crime. That Orthodox realm has been shut out of NATO and
is angrier by the day, and it is fiercely anti-Moslem",
Kaplan declares.
An oddity of these "cultural divide" projections is that
they find the abyss between Eastern and Western
Christianity far deeper and more unbridgeable than the
difference between Christianity and Islam. The obvious
short, three-letter explanation is "oil". But there is a
complementary explanation that is more truly cultural,
relating to the transnational nature of Islam and to the
importance of its charitable organizations. Steve Niva
(18) has noted a split within the US foreign policy
establishment between conservatives (clearly absent from
the Clinton administration) who see Islam as a threat,
and "neo-liberals" for whom the primary enemy is "any
barrier to free trade and unfettered markets". These
include European leaders, oil companies and Zbigniew
Brzezinski. "Incorporating Islamists into existing
political systems would disperse responsibility for the
state's difficulties while defusing popular opposition to
severe economic `reforms' mandated by the IMF. Islamist
organizations could also help fill the gap caused by the
rollback of welfare states and social services...", Niva
observed.
In any case, all roads lead to the Caspian, and through
Kosovo. Kaplan publicly advises the nation's leaders that
an "amoral reason of self-interest" is needed to persuade
the country to keep troops in the Balkans for years to
come. The reason is clear. "With the Middle East
increasingly fragile, we will need bases and fly-over
rights in the Balkans to protect Caspian Sea oil. But we
will not have those bases in the future if the Russians
reconquer southeast Europe by criminal stealth. Finally,
if we tell our European allies to go it alone in Kosovo,
we can kiss the Western Alliance goodbye"(19).
Looking at a map, one may wonder why it is necessary to
go through Kosovo to obtain Caspian oil. This is a good
question. However, U.S. strategists don't simply want to
obtain oil, which is a simple matter if one has money.
They want to control its flow to the big European market.
The simple way to get Caspian oil is via pipeline
southward through Iran. But that would evade U.S.
control. Or through Russia; just as bad. The preferred
U.S. route, a pipeline from Azerbaijan to the Turkish
Mediterranean port of Ceyhan has been rejected as too
costly. Turkey has vetoed massive oil tanker traffic
through the Bosporus on ecological grounds. That leaves
the Balkans. It seems the U.S. would like to build a
pipeline across the Balkans, no doubt with Bechtel
getting the building contract -- former Bechtel executive
and Reagan administration Defense Secretary Caspar
Weinberger is a leading Kosovo warhawk. Bechtel has
already obtained major contracts in Tudjman's Croatia. It
is interesting that the Danube, likely to fall under
German control, has been blocked for serious transport by
NATO's bombing of Serbia's bridges.
On the way to the Caspian, the next stop after Yugoslavia
could be the big prize: Ukraine, which like the other
former Soviet Republics is already under U.S. influence
through NATO's "Partnership For Peace". Early this year,
asked by a German magazine whether NATO should be the
world policeman, NATO commander Wesley Clark observed
that the "countries on the Caspian Sea are members of the
`Partnership for Peace'. They have the right to consult
NATO in case of threat." Clark "didn't want to speculate
on what NATO might then do..."(20).
Scenarios Reach the TV Screen
As television producer Roberts recalls, it was a
Ukrainian friend who, seeing the implications for his own
country of the Abramowitz humanitarian war plans, set him
to worrying. "If the U.S. endorsed this new foreign
policy principle the potential for international chaos
was immense. Real or trumped up incidents of destruction
or displacement would be grounds for Russian or American
military intervention in dozens of countries where
nothing like a melting pot has ever existed."
"Real or trumped up" -- that is the question. For once so
much is at stake -- nothing less than the future of the
greatest power the world has ever seen -- events are all
too likely to follow the imaginary scenario laid out by
the policy planners.
This can happen in at least three ways.
1 - Reality imitates fiction. It is a common human
psychological phenomenon that people see what they are
looking for, or have been led to expect to see, often
when it is not there. This happens in countless ways. It
may account for desert mirages, or apparitions of the
Virgin, or simple errors of recognition that occur all
the time.
When reporters unfamiliar with the country are sent into
Bosnia or Kosovo to look for evidence of "Serbian war
crimes", and only evidence of Serbian war crimes, that is
what they will find. And if Croats, Muslims and Albanians
who are fighting against the Serbs know that that is what
they are looking for, it will be even easier.
If they are expecting, say, Serbs to be criminals,
everything Serbs say or do will be interpreted in that
light, with greater or less sincerity. Every ambiguous
detail will find its meaning.
2 - Evidence will be trumped up. This is an age-old
practice in war.
3 - Circumstances can be arranged to incite the very
crimes that the power wants to be able to punish. In
police language, this is called entrapment, or a "sting"
operation, and is illegal in many countries, although not
in the United States.
The Kosovo scenario has been advanced in all three ways.
(1. continua)
MAKING THE CRIME FIT THE PUNISHMENT
by Diana Johnstone
www.emperors-clothes.com
The order of events is strange. On March 24, 1999, the
NATO forces led by the United States began an
eleven-week-long punishment of Yugoslavia's President,
Slobodan Milosevic, which amounted to capital punishment
for an undetermined number of citizens of that
unfortunate country. Two months later, on May 27, the
U.S.-backed International Criminal Tribunal for former
Yugoslavia issued an indictment of Milosevic for "crimes
against humanity" having occurred after the punishment
began. Then, in late June, the Clinton administration
dispatched 56 forensic experts from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation to Kosovo to gather material evidence of
the crimes for which Milosevic and five of his colleagues
had already been indicted and for which his country had
already been severely and durably punished.
The FBI had no instructions to search for evidence of
crimes as such, including those that might have been
committed by, say, armed rebels fighting against the
established government of Yugoslavia. The only crimes of
interest were those for which Milosevic had previously
been accused, and all evidence was assumed in advance to
point to his guilt.
Thus the world entered the new age of humanitarian
vigilante power.
At the end of World War II, a world political system was
put in place to outlaw war. In its triumph as sole
superpower destined to govern the world, the United
States is currently striving to replace the system that
outlaws war by a system that uses war to punish outlaws.
Who the outlaws are is decided by the United States.
Alongside economic globalization, this vigilante system
corresponds to a dominant American world view of a
capitalist system inherently capable of meeting all human
needs, marred only by the wrongdoings of evil outcasts.
At home and abroad, the social effort to bring everybody
into a community of equal rights and obligations is
abandoned in favour of universal competition in which the
rich winners exclude the losers from society itself. On
the domestic scene, as the rich get richer, the
well-to-do escape from the very sight of the poor by
moving into gated communities, social programs are cut,
while prisons and execution chambers fill up. Punishment,
even vengeance, are popular values.
Twenty years ago, the United Nations and its agencies
provided a political forum for discussions of such
matters as a "new economic order" or a "new information
order" that might seek to narrow the enormous gap between
the rich Atlantic world and most of the rest of the
planet. All that is past, and today, the United Nations
is instrumentalized by the United States to pursue
dissident States which it has chosen to brand as rogues,
terrorists or criminals. Capitalist competition is being
forced onto the entire world as the supreme law by new
bodies such as the World Trade Organization. NATO-land is
a gated community whose armed forces are being prepared
to intervene worldwide, at the bidding of Washington, to
defend members' interests, in the name of the war against
crimes against humanity.
The Clinton Doctrine
The NATO war against Yugoslavia marks a great leap
forward toward the depoliticization and criminalization
of international relations. In the case of the similar
war against Iraq, the regime of Saddam Hussein was in
fact a military dictatorship, which did in fact violate
international law by invading Kuwait (leaving aside
eventual extenuating circumstances), and the United
States did obtain a mandate from the United Nations
Security Council for at least some (but not all) of its
military operations. In the case of Yugoslavia, the
military operations were carried out without U.N. mandate
against a state with an elected civilian government,
which had not violated international law.
NATO's war, directed from Washington, was intended as a
pure demonstration that the United States could make or
break the law. For it was Yugoslavia, which had not
violated international law, that was branded a criminal
State. Already on November 5, 1998, the American
presiding judge at the International Criminal Tribunal
for former Yugoslavia, Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, described
Yugoslavia as "a rogue state, one that holds the
international rule of law in contempt". During the
bombing, U.S. and British leaders regularly compared
Milosevic to Hitler. And afterwards, the U.S. Senate on
June 30 adopted a bill describing Yugoslavia as "a
terrorist State", in the total absence of any of the
usual criteria for such a designation. The United States
is free both to commit crimes, and to criminalize its
adversaries. Might is sure of being right.
"A Clinton Doctrine of humanitarian warfare is taking
place", rejoiced (1) columnist Jim Hoagland, a leading
voice in the chorus of syndicated columnists who have
nagged away at the President to get up the gumption to
lead NATO through the Balkans into a brave new
millennium. This "doctrine" is not quite as spontaneous
as it is made to seem by the media chorus which portrays
Uncle Sam as a reluctant Hamlet generously stumbling into
greatness.
Since the end of the Cold War, United States leaders have
been searching for a grand new design to replace the
containment doctrine developed after World War II. To
this end, the oligarchy that formulates American foreign
policy has been hard at work in its various exclusive
venues such as the Council on Foreign Relations, private
clubs, larger assemblages such as the Trilateral
Commission (which specializes in the great American
ruling class art of selective co-optation and conversion
of potential critics), and a myriad of institutes,
foundations and "think tanks", overlapping with a half
dozen of the most prestigious universities and, of
course, the boards of directors of major corporations and
financial institutions. All are united by an unshakable
conviction that what is good for the United States (and
the business of the United States is business) is good
for the world. American policy-makers may be more or less
generous or cynical, crafty or forthright, but all
necessarily share the conviction that the system which
has made America great and powerful should be bestowed on
the rest of an often undeserving and recalcitrant world.
There is no conflict between this conviction and ruthless
pursuit of economic self-interest; they are part of the
same mindset.
None better epitomizes the combined power and good
conscience of American capitalism than the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, founded in 1910 by the
Scottish-American steel king Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)
who recycled part of his vast rags-to-riches fortune into
philanthropic enterprises. It is fitting that in
formulating the Doctrine of Humanitarian Warfare now
attributed to Clinton, a major ideological role appears
to have been played by the Carnegie Endowment under the
presidency of Morton I. Abramowitz (2).
The Importance of War Crimes
In May 1997, three months after taking office as U.S.
Secretary of State, Madeleine Korbel Albright created a
new post, ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues. The
creation of the post indicated the crucial importance of
"war crimes" in Albright's foreign policy. Two days
later, crime was linked to punishment as she delivered
her first policy speech on Bosnia to senior military
officers aboard an aircraft carrier in the Hudson River.
These gestures showed that the first woman Secretary of
State was out to demonstrate the serious meaning of her
famous remark, "What's the use of having the world's
greatest military force if you don't use it?"
Albright and the man named to the new "war crimes" post,
David Scheffer, were putting into practice new policy
concepts they had helped develop before Clinton was
elected President, and before the war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, when they had been part of what a
privileged observer (3) recently described as "a small
foreign policy elite convened by the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace to change U.S. foreign policy
after the Cold War."
During the last years of the Bush administration, the
Carnegie Endowment for Peace was confronting the major
question raised by the collapse of the Soviet bloc: what
new mission could save NATO, the necessary instrument for
U.S. leadership in Europe? And it found an answer:
humanitarian intervention. Reports by group members
Albright, Richard Holbrooke and Leon Fuerth "recommended
a dramatic escalation of the use of military force to
settle other countries' domestic conflicts." (4)
The Carnegie Endowment's 1992 report entitled "Changing
Our Ways: America's Role in the New World" called for "a
new principle of international relations: the destruction
or displacement of groups of people within states can
justify international intervention". The U.S. was advised
to "realign" NATO and the OSCE to deal with these new
security problems in Europe.
Release of this report, accompanied by policy briefings
of key Democrats and media big shots, was timed to
influence the Democratic presidential campaign. Candidate
Bill Clinton quickly took up the rhetoric, calling for
Milosevic to be tried for "crimes against humanity" and
advocating military intervention against the Serbs.
However, it took several years to put this into practice.
At the Carnegie Endowment, as member of a study group
including Al Gore's foreign policy advisor Leon Fuerth,
David Scheffer had co-authored (with Morton Halperin) a
book-length report on "Self-Determination in the New
World Order" which proposed military intervention as one
of the ways of "responding to international hot spots". A
major question raised was when and to what end the United
States should become involved in a conflict between an
established state and a "self-determination" -- i.e. a
secessionist -- movement. Clearly, the question was not
to be submitted to the United Nations. "The United States
should seek to build a consensus within regional and
international organizations for its position, but should
not sacrifice its own judgment and principles if such a
consensus fails to materialize"(5).
In general, the authors concluded, "the world community
needs to act more quickly and with more determination to
employ military force when it proves necessary and
feasible"(6). But when is this?
When a self-determination claim triggers an armed
conflict that becomes a humanitarian crisis, getting
food, medicine, and shelter to thousands or millions of
civilians becomes an inescapable imperative. A new
intolerance for such human tragedies is becoming evident
in the post-Cold War world and is redefining the
principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of
states (7).
Now, in theory, this sounds almost indisputable. However,
in practice the question becomes one not of theory but of
facts. When does a crisis in fact correspond to this
description, and when, on the contrary, can it simply be
made to seem to correspond to this description?
In the official NATO version, vigorously endorsed by
mainstream media, the Kosovo war was precisely an
instance when "a self-determination claim triggers an
armed conflict that becomes a humanitarian crisis..."
However, there is considerable, indeed overwhelming
evidence that the "self-determination claim" quite
deliberately provoked both the "armed conflict" and the
"humanitarian crisis" precisely in order to bring in, not
humanitarian aid, but military intervention from NATO on
the pretext of humanitarian aid. For there was never any
need of NATO intervention in order to provide food,
medicine and shelter to civilians within Kosovo or before
the NATO bombing. The "humanitarian crisis" was a mirage
until NATO triggered it by the bombing.
But in the culture of images, temporal relationships are
easily obscured. What came before or after what is
forgotten. And with temporal relationship, cause and
effect are lost, along with responsibility.
Can Kosovo be detached from Serbia? "The use of military
force to create a new state would require conduct by the
parent government so egregious that it has forfeited any
right to govern the minority claiming
self-determination"(8). But who decides that conduct is
sufficiently "egregious"?
Clearly, Madeleine Albright was so eager to put these
bold new theories into practice that she worked mightily
to make the crime fit the punishment.
Morton Abramowitz himself, who as Carnegie Endowment
President nurtured Albright, Holbrooke, Fuerth, Scheffer
and the others as they jointly developed Clinton's future
doctrine of "humanitarian warfare", has also played an
active role. In 1997, he passed through the elite
revolving door from the Carnegie Endowment to the Council
on Foreign Relations. He has contributed his wisdom to a
new, high-level think tank, the International Crisis
Group, whose sponsors include governments and omnipresent
financier George Soros. The ICG has been a leading
designer of policy toward Kosovo.
Putting into practice the hypothesis of "a
self-determination claim triggering an armed conflict",
Abramowitz became an early advocate of arming the "Kosovo
Liberation Army"(U?K). At Rambouillet, Abramowitz
discreetly coached the ethnic Albanian delegation headed
by U?K leader Hashim Thaqi (9).
Back in February 1992, before civil war broke out in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, television producer John B. Roberts
II was asked to design a publicity campaign to gain
public support for the soon-to-be-published Carnegie
Endowment recommendations. When he saw that "Changing Our
Ways" proposed "the revolutionary idea that a U.S.-led
military first strike was justified, not to defend the
United States, but to impose highly subjective political
settlements on other countries", that it "discarded
national sovereignty in favour of international
intervention", Roberts "began to regret [his] efforts to
build publicity for the report" (10).
One way or another, the "revolutionary idea" has been
widely propagated during the 1990s. Humanitarian
intervention was an idea whose time had come because it
met a certain number of perceived needs. It provided a
solution to the problem formulated by Senator Richard
Lugar, that once the Cold War ended, NATO must be "either
out of area or out of business". A new missionary mission
not only kept NATO alive, thereby nourishing a vast array
of vested industrial and financial interests, primarily
but not solely in the United States, it also could be
seen as a potential instrument to defend less broadly
perceived geostrategic interests without submitting them
to public controversy.
Humanitarian Realpolitik
When Madeleine Albright took over the State Department
from Warren Christopher in early 1997, her promotion was
presented to the public more as a personal success for a
woman than as a corporate success for a policy design. At
its most informative, The New York Times (11), mentioned
influential policy-makers as if they were benevolent
uncles ready to give encouragement to a lady. Three
months after she took office, it was reported: "Ms.
Albright has reached out for advice. She has talked with
Zbigniew Brzezinski; the departing president of the
Carnegie Endowment, Morton Abramowitz; the philanthropist
George Soros; and Leslie Gelb, president of the Council
on Foreign Relations."
If Abramowitz may be considered the ?minence grise behind
the whole "humanitarian intervention" policy, Brzezinski
provided a geostrategic rationale. Brzezinski has no
inhibitions about using high principles in the power
game. In Paris in January 1998 to promote the French
edition of his book, The Grand Chessboard, he was asked
about an apparent "paradox" between the fact that his
book was steeped in Realpolitik, whereas, in his days as
National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter,
Brzezinski had been the "defender of human rights".
Brzezinski waved the paradox aside. There is none, he
replied. "I elaborated that doctrine in agreement with
President Carter, as it was the best way to destabilize
the Soviet Union. And it worked"(12).
Of course, it took more than nice words about human
rights to destabilize the Soviet Union. It took war. And
Brzezinski was very active on that front. As he told a
second French weekly (13) during his book promotion tour,
the CIA had begun bank-rolling counter- revolutionary
Afghan forces in mid-1979, half a year before the Soviet
Union moved into Afghanistan on a "stabilizing" mission
around New Year's Day 1980. "We did not push the Russians
into intervening, but we knowingly increased the
possibility that they would. That secret operation was an
excellent idea. The effect was to draw the Russians into
the Afghan trap."
Brzezinski rightly felt he could be forthright about such
matters as humanitarian entrapment in Paris, where the
policy elite admires nothing so much in American leaders
as unabashed cynical power politics. This admiration is
most acute when the French are offered a share in it, as
was the case with Brzezinski and his book. France, wrote
Brzezinski, "is an essential partner in the important
task of permanently locking a democratic Germany into
Europe", which means preventing Germany from building its
own separate sphere of influence to the East, possibly
including Russia -- a connection that Brzezinski's policy
recommendations are designed to forestall at all costs.
"This is the historic role of the Franco-German
relationship, and the expansion of both the EU and NATO
eastward should enhance the importance of that
relationship as Europe's inner core. Finally, France is
not strong enough either to obstruct America on the
geostrategic fundamentals of America's European policy or
to become by itself a leader of Europe as such. Hence,
its peculiarities and even its tantrums can be
tolerated"(14).
These assurances may contribute to explaining the mystery
-- as it was widely perceived in other countries -- of
France's strong support to NATO's Kosovo war, second only
to Britain and in disharmony with reactions in Germany
and Italy. That is, the French elite had been given to
understand this war as part of the Brzezinski design for
a transatlantic Europe giving France a politico-military
leadership role offsetting Germany's economic
predominance.
Brzezinski frankly sets the goal for U.S. policy: "to
perpetuate America's own dominant position for at least a
generation and preferably longer still". This involves
creating a "geopolitical framework" around NATO that will
initially include Ukraine and exclude Russia. This will
establish the geostrategic basis for controlling conflict
in what Brzezinski calls "the Eurasian Balkans", the huge
area between the Eastern shore of the Black Sea to China,
which includes the Caspian Sea and its petroleum
resources, a top priority for U.S. foreign policy. In the
policy elites of both Britain and France, perpetuation of
Trans-Atlantic domination could be understood as a way of
preventing a Russo-German rapprochement able to dominate
the continent.
Along with Jeane Kirkpatrick, Frank Carlucci, William
Odom and Stephan Solarz, Brzezinski has joined the
anti-Serb crusade in yet another new Washington policy
shop, the "Balkan Action Council", calling for all-out
war against Yugoslavia over Kosovo.
In the Brzezinski scheme of things, Yugoslavia is a
testing ground and a metaphor for the Soviet Union. In
this metaphor, "Serbia" is Russia, and Croatia, Bosnia,
Kosovo, etc., are Ukraine, the Baltic States, Georgia and
the former Soviet Republics of "the Eurasian Balkans".
This being the case, the successful secession of Croatia
and company from Yugoslavia sets a positive precedent for
maintaining the independence of Ukraine and its
progressive inclusion in the European Union and NATO,
which he sets for the decade 2005-2015 as a "reasonable
time frame".
The little Balkan "Balkans" appear on a map on page 22 of
The Grand Chessboard interestingly shaded in three
gradations representing U.S. geopolitical preponderance
(dark), U.S. political influence (medium) and the
apparent absence of either (white). Darkly shaded (like
the U.S., Canada and Western Europe) are Hungary,
Rumania, Bulgaria and Turkey. Medium shading covers
Slovakia, Moldavia and Ukraine as well as Georgia and
most of the "Eurasian Balkans". Glaringly white, like
Russia, are Yugoslavia and Greece. For Brzezinski,
Belgrade was a potential relay for Moscow. Serbs might be
unaware of this, but in the geostrategic view, they were
only so many surrogate Russians.
Cultural Divides and Caspian Oil
Samuel Huntington's notion of "conflict of
civilizations", by identifying Orthodox Christianity as a
civilization in conflict with the West and its famous
"values", has offered an ideological cover for the
"divide and conquer" strategy, which has less appeal, but
is not incompatible with, the "humanitarian"
justification. It has been taken up by influential (15)
writer Robert D. Kaplan, who sees a "real battle" that is
"drawn along historical-civilizational lines. On the one
side are the Turks, their fellow Azeri Turks in
Azerbaijan, the Israelis and the Jordanians [...]. On the
other side are those who suffered the most historically
from Turkish rule: the Syrian and Iraqi Arabs, the
Armenians, the Greeks and the Kurds"(16). It is not hard
to see whose side the United States must be on in this
battle, or which must be the winning side.
Kaplan places Kosovo "smack in the middle of a very
unstable and important region where Europe joins the
Middle East" while "Europe is redividing along historic
and cultural lines"(17).
"There is a Western, Catholic, Protestant Europe and an
Eastern Orthodox Europe, which is poorer, more
politically unsettled and more ridden with organized
crime. That Orthodox realm has been shut out of NATO and
is angrier by the day, and it is fiercely anti-Moslem",
Kaplan declares.
An oddity of these "cultural divide" projections is that
they find the abyss between Eastern and Western
Christianity far deeper and more unbridgeable than the
difference between Christianity and Islam. The obvious
short, three-letter explanation is "oil". But there is a
complementary explanation that is more truly cultural,
relating to the transnational nature of Islam and to the
importance of its charitable organizations. Steve Niva
(18) has noted a split within the US foreign policy
establishment between conservatives (clearly absent from
the Clinton administration) who see Islam as a threat,
and "neo-liberals" for whom the primary enemy is "any
barrier to free trade and unfettered markets". These
include European leaders, oil companies and Zbigniew
Brzezinski. "Incorporating Islamists into existing
political systems would disperse responsibility for the
state's difficulties while defusing popular opposition to
severe economic `reforms' mandated by the IMF. Islamist
organizations could also help fill the gap caused by the
rollback of welfare states and social services...", Niva
observed.
In any case, all roads lead to the Caspian, and through
Kosovo. Kaplan publicly advises the nation's leaders that
an "amoral reason of self-interest" is needed to persuade
the country to keep troops in the Balkans for years to
come. The reason is clear. "With the Middle East
increasingly fragile, we will need bases and fly-over
rights in the Balkans to protect Caspian Sea oil. But we
will not have those bases in the future if the Russians
reconquer southeast Europe by criminal stealth. Finally,
if we tell our European allies to go it alone in Kosovo,
we can kiss the Western Alliance goodbye"(19).
Looking at a map, one may wonder why it is necessary to
go through Kosovo to obtain Caspian oil. This is a good
question. However, U.S. strategists don't simply want to
obtain oil, which is a simple matter if one has money.
They want to control its flow to the big European market.
The simple way to get Caspian oil is via pipeline
southward through Iran. But that would evade U.S.
control. Or through Russia; just as bad. The preferred
U.S. route, a pipeline from Azerbaijan to the Turkish
Mediterranean port of Ceyhan has been rejected as too
costly. Turkey has vetoed massive oil tanker traffic
through the Bosporus on ecological grounds. That leaves
the Balkans. It seems the U.S. would like to build a
pipeline across the Balkans, no doubt with Bechtel
getting the building contract -- former Bechtel executive
and Reagan administration Defense Secretary Caspar
Weinberger is a leading Kosovo warhawk. Bechtel has
already obtained major contracts in Tudjman's Croatia. It
is interesting that the Danube, likely to fall under
German control, has been blocked for serious transport by
NATO's bombing of Serbia's bridges.
On the way to the Caspian, the next stop after Yugoslavia
could be the big prize: Ukraine, which like the other
former Soviet Republics is already under U.S. influence
through NATO's "Partnership For Peace". Early this year,
asked by a German magazine whether NATO should be the
world policeman, NATO commander Wesley Clark observed
that the "countries on the Caspian Sea are members of the
`Partnership for Peace'. They have the right to consult
NATO in case of threat." Clark "didn't want to speculate
on what NATO might then do..."(20).
Scenarios Reach the TV Screen
As television producer Roberts recalls, it was a
Ukrainian friend who, seeing the implications for his own
country of the Abramowitz humanitarian war plans, set him
to worrying. "If the U.S. endorsed this new foreign
policy principle the potential for international chaos
was immense. Real or trumped up incidents of destruction
or displacement would be grounds for Russian or American
military intervention in dozens of countries where
nothing like a melting pot has ever existed."
"Real or trumped up" -- that is the question. For once so
much is at stake -- nothing less than the future of the
greatest power the world has ever seen -- events are all
too likely to follow the imaginary scenario laid out by
the policy planners.
This can happen in at least three ways.
1 - Reality imitates fiction. It is a common human
psychological phenomenon that people see what they are
looking for, or have been led to expect to see, often
when it is not there. This happens in countless ways. It
may account for desert mirages, or apparitions of the
Virgin, or simple errors of recognition that occur all
the time.
When reporters unfamiliar with the country are sent into
Bosnia or Kosovo to look for evidence of "Serbian war
crimes", and only evidence of Serbian war crimes, that is
what they will find. And if Croats, Muslims and Albanians
who are fighting against the Serbs know that that is what
they are looking for, it will be even easier.
If they are expecting, say, Serbs to be criminals,
everything Serbs say or do will be interpreted in that
light, with greater or less sincerity. Every ambiguous
detail will find its meaning.
2 - Evidence will be trumped up. This is an age-old
practice in war.
3 - Circumstances can be arranged to incite the very
crimes that the power wants to be able to punish. In
police language, this is called entrapment, or a "sting"
operation, and is illegal in many countries, although not
in the United States.
The Kosovo scenario has been advanced in all three ways.
(1. continua)
