(italiano / english)
Clinton Kosovo Policy Haunts Balkans, Candidate Hillary
1) Clinton Kosovo Policy Will Haunt Candidate Clinton
2) October 2007: 'Kosovans' Run Out Of Money For Bill Clinton Statue
3) August 2007: Kosovo Albanians celebrate Clinton's birthday / Centinaia di kosovari hanno festeggiato il 61 compleanno dell'ex presidente Bill Clinton
4) May 2007: Kosovo to honor Bill Clinton with statue
5) April 2007, New York: International conference on Kosovo with former U.S. President Bill Clinton
6) April 2007, Pristina: Bill Clinton Forever
7) Peace Is Not Won by Helping Terrorists
=== 1 ===
Clinton Kosovo Policy Will Haunt Candidate Clinton
By Aleksandra Rebic
October 16, 2007
Whoever doesn’t take the current Clinton candidacy seriously is a fool. It’s quite probable that she’ll end up inheriting the Iraq War and all its collateral issues which I’m sure doesn’t sweeten the pot, but she’s determined to become President anyway. I admire her for that. I know I wouldn’t want to inherit someone else’s baggage. And certainly not that kind of baggage. Candidate Hillary Clinton sure has a lot to say about the Iraq War and how the current administration has conducted itself. Maybe I missed it, but she has not had nearly enough to say about another issue, this one also involving questionable foreign policy that is every bit a part of her legacy as the Iraq War will be part of George Bush’s. Someone needs to ask Hillary about Kosovo.
At the end 2007, the official status of Kosovo could well be finally determined and the implications will be far reaching. Unlike with Iraq, it will not be George Bush who will have to shoulder the blame for the outcome if it’s bad. It will be Candidate Clinton’s albatross, even though she has conveniently, and very thoroughly, been ignoring the elephant in the room.
If I were Diane Sawyer, this is what I’d like to talk to Candidate Clinton about.
THE ALBANIAN ISSUE IN KOSOVO
Who are these "Kosovars" that engendered such sympathy and such a call to action by the world community and its leaders on their behalf at the end of the 1990s and who continue to agitate for “action” today, as the fate of Kosovo once again lies in the balance? In my view, this is who they are:
What the modern day Albanians have been attempting to “finish” over the course of these last couple of decades in Kosovo, with the full support of NATO and prominent American politicians, is a fascist program that Benito Mussolini began in 1941 during World War II but that in essence was initiated years earlier.
On November 27, 1918 the United States State Department was informed by Thomas Page, U.S. Ambassador to Italy 1913-1919, that the British Foreign Office favored the creation of a "Greater Albania" in order to block Serbian advances to the Adriatic. Years later, Mussolini had the same idea. On June 25, 1941 Mussolini proclaimed the annexation of Kosovo, the cradle of the Serbian nation, “Serbia’s Jerusalem”, to Albania. The first concern of the Albanians, led by their notables, tribal chiefs, and the so-called "Kosovo Committee" was to get rid of the Serbs and Montenegrins in their midst. Serbs were promptly murdered or expelled, and their property was looted.
Before World War II, Serbs comprised 50 percent of the population of Kosovo. By war’s end they had been reduced to 25 percent of the population. Still later, as of 1989, they were reduced yet further, to only 10 percent of the population of Kosovo. Thus, the Albanian “Kosovars” were successful in their ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Serbian sacred land.
Although Mussolini and his fascist allies lost the war, communist Josip Broz Tito, who came to power in Yugoslavia at the end of World War Two, would not allow Serbs to return to their homes in Kosovo. However, he would maintain Kosovo within Yugoslavia, stifled further expulsions, and would, with his iron fist, keep secession a moot point.
Serbs made one big mistake in regards to Kosovo. In 1945 the Provisional National Assembly of Serbia passed a law establishing the autonomous Kosovo-Metohija region known as Kosmet. Kosovo became an "autonomous province" of Serbia. This act was, in fact, the constitutional instrument of Kosovo and Metohija, and from the very outset it guaranteed the equal rights of all citizens without distinction as to nationality, race, religion, or sex, and the equality of the language of all the national groups within the region before the authorities. Similarly, the right to education in their mother tongue was also granted to all national minorities. In 1974, with the revision of the Yugoslav Constitution, the autonomous regions in Yugoslavia, (Vojvodina and Kosovo and Metohija), were endowed with many of the sovereign prerogatives of statehood. It is then that the Albanian terrorists and drug traffickers, with the support of some local ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, began planning the establishment of a second Albania in the Balkans. They began paralyzing work and progress in the Republic of Serbia, of which Kosovo and Metohija were still a part. The constitution of the Republic of Serbia could not be changed without the express consent of the Assembly of the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija where Albanians had become a majority due to the cleansing of Serbs and Tito's policy of not allowing the expelled Serbs to return to their homes.
Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo enjoyed all the human and civil rights due them before the intrusion of the Albanian terrorists and drug dealers who would organize the Kosovo Liberation Army, the notorious KLA. Just prior to the recent war in Kosovo, the University of Pristina in Kosovo had 37,000 students enrolled in it, eighty percent of whom were ethnic Albanians. The Pristina Radio and Television Station was broadcasting their programs in the Albanian language all day. There was one Albanian Daily and eleven periodicals. Just prior to recent war the government of Yugoslavia was providing enormous subsidies to the province of Kosovo. The mistake made by the Serbs was setting up a party-run state instead of a constitutional government that would give effective sovereignty to the Republic of Serbia over its entire territory, including Kosovo and Metohija. The assumption was that all the people of Kosovo and Metohija, including the majority of Albanians who lived there, would remain loyal citizens of the Republic of Serbia, endowed with all the same rights and privileges accorded to the Serbian population and in some cases, above and beyond those rights that had been accorded to the Serbs.
If the educated group of politically powerful policy makers who were so instrumental in fashioning policy towards the Serbs in the 1990s had taken one serious, honest look at the real status of the Albanian and other minorities in the Republic of Serbia, they would have discovered that these individual ethnic groups enjoyed national, cultural, and civil rights on par with the most modern and best constitutional systems in the world. Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that persons belonging to ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities shall not be denied the right in a community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to communicate in their own language. The ethnic Albanians in Kosovo had all of this guaranteed them and more. But it wasn’t enough. They wanted and continue to demand TERRITORIAL autonomy. Imagine the implications this scenario would have in the United States of America if such demands by different national and ethnic groups were initiated and granted. There would be no more United States, and there would be no more America.
With all that would transpire between the years of 1980 following Tito's death and 1988, it was determined by the government in Belgrade that it was necessary to start a process of bringing the autonomy enjoyed by Kosovo and Metohija in line with autonomy as understood by the civilized world, in legal, political, and constitutional theory. The government of Belgrade did what any civilized, sovereign nation and leadership, including the United States, would do if one of her territorial areas was becoming too independent and terrorism was being used as a means of gaining that independence. Due to the nature of the trouble, in 1989, out of necessity, Slobodan Milosevic and the Belgrade government cracked down on Kosovo’s autonomy. If one examines the events of the decade prior to this, it was the only thing that could have been done to maintain civilized order in Kosovo and to protect its citizens.
It was in 1981, after several years of preparation and obtaining various arms and whatever else was necessary for conducting terrorism in Kosovo, that the Albanian separatists began their armed attacks on the local authorities loyal to the Serbian government in Belgrade with simultaneous attacks on the civilian population to drive the remaining non-Albanians out of Kosovo. Between 1981 and 1988 500 assaults on military personnel, 80 cases of harassment of military units, and 251 attacks on military facilities were recorded. What went unrecorded and the civilian casualties incurred can only be imagined. Atrocities against the Serbian population were committed in Kosovo as these events unfolded. The Serbian government was given no choice but to crack down. I don’t know of any government in the civilized world that would have done otherwise to protect its people. Yet, incredibly, the Serbian government was vilified and condemned and the criminals were elevated to victim and “liberator” status. The crackdown, however, did not stop the Albanian terrorists.
Every civilized country in the world is trying to limit the kinds and number of arms its citizens carry around. The owner of a weapon is generally legally obligated to register his weapon when such ownership is allowed. Yet, in Kosovo, still an integral part of Serbia, Albanians were in possession of all sorts of guns and arms, including machine guns, explosives, detonators, and even pieces of artillery, just prior to the Kosovo war of 1998. The Serbian police force, given these threatening and hostile circumstances, was more than justified in taking action to protect its citizens. However, the situation unfortunately only got worse, not better. What the Serbs were faced with in their own backyard would require a separate essay alone to describe so let me suffice by saying this:
The Albanian moslems destroyed more Serbian Orthodox Churches and historical monuments in Kosovo in the last five years of the 1990s than the Turks did in their 500 years of domination in the Balkans. The desecration and destruction of Serbian Orthodox and Christian monuments, symbols and places of worship in Kosovo continues today, but there is no outrage. Where is the outrage? Thus, not only should the West have considered the Albanian affiliations with the fascists and the Nazis in the 20th century as it was choosing sides in the recent conflict, but it should have considered the crimes being committed against the Christian heritage in the Balkans.
Another unconscionable Albanian crime was setting fire to the Pristina City Library. This library held tens of thousands of Serbian books collected over a long period of time. They have burned and thrown into the garbage books of Serbian origin throughout Kosovo. And they have terrorized civilians mercilessly, killing at will. For the Serbs in Kosovo, this has been an ongoing Kristalnacht.
The tragedy of western action in response to the Serbian crackdown is that the U.S. and NATO ended up aiding and abetting this Kristalnacht against the Serbs, finally bombing a people who have never been anything but a loyal, good friend of the West, particularly the United States. They ended up rewarding the terrorists. I’ll say it again: The Clinton administration, using NATO as its tool, ended up rewarding the terrorists.
Candidate Clinton, your husband ordered the bombing of the Serbs, with your blessing and encouragement, and regardless of whether you choose to address this or not, you will be haunted by it. The Kosovo issue has not been resolved. And I am afraid that you will inherit it just as you will inherit the Iraq problem. You speak often about Iraq and the mistakes made by the current administration. I have not heard you yet address Kosovo and the mistakes made by the previous administration. You will not be able to shift the blame for Kosovo onto George Bush’s shoulders.
The past is always relevant. It should never be dismissed, for the past is like a cat. It has nine lives. When the first SS troops were formed, only those that could prove they were pure Aryans could be members of this elite group. Then, later, 'second grade' SS troops were formed consisting of people who did not have to prove that they were pure Aryans. Finally, in 1943, Himmler decided to form 'third grade' SS troops. That is when three new divisions of SS formations were created: "KAMA", "HANDZAR", and "SKENDERBERG", the first two being composed of Bosnian moslems and the third of Albanian moslems, including Albanians from Kosovo. These Nazi divisions were not sent to any front to fight, but instead were sent to the Serbian villages in Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Kosovo, where they gleefully committed indescribable atrocities against the Serbian population. When the war was over and the Western Allies turned Yugoslavia over to communist control under Tito, all these moslem Nazis and criminals became Yugoslav communists and none of them were brought before an international court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. To my knowledge, there is no statute of limitations for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
To add to this travesty, over 50 years later, we had the pronouncements of Dr. Bernard Kouchner, appointed head of the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo in 1999. In regard to the situation in Kosovo where Albanians were continuing to wreak havoc against the innocent Serbian civilian population, Kouchner maintained that while previously it was “ethnic cleansing” being committed by the Serbs against the Albanians, what was happening to the Serbs being terrorized by the Albanians was a sort of
"justifiable revenge." The double standard so flagrantly practiced and institutionalized by the West with regards to Kosovo is incomprehensible.
Candidate Clinton,
Due to Albanian manipulations, sanctioned by the powerful, political elite in this country and heavily underwritten by those such as financier George Soros, who have a vested interest in this little area in the Balkans, there was war in Kosovo, and though the war is over the consequences continue. The NATO bombing was not the only big crime committed. Criminal accountability lays on those who actively and clandestinely supported Albanian criminals and terrorists such as the KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army, under the guise of humanitarian aid and support of so called “freedom fighters”.
THE KLA
Just who were these “freedom fighters” that enjoyed the support of certain American politicians who were influential in dictating U.S. foreign policy? The Kosovo Liberation Army was the armed wing of the Kosovo National Front, a primary agitating force behind independence for Kosovo. That was not their only agenda, however. The Kosovo National Front was one of the most powerful heroin smuggling organizations in the world and throughout their fight with the Serbs over Kosovo, they were diverting the dirty profits from their dirty trade to the KLA "liberators" to buy weapons for the express purpose of killing. Not freedom fighting, but killing and terrorizing. The U.S. State Department officially red-flagged the KLA in 1998. It was listed as an international terrorist organization. The primary charges against the organization were that it had bankrolled its operations with money made from the international heroin trade and from loans given by notorious terrorists like Osama bin Laden, who would become increasingly notorious and helpful to terrorist causes as time went by. A year later, in 1999, when Kosovo exploded on the world stage as a focus of international attention, nothing had changed insofar as the true nature of the KLA. Only then, due to "political expediency," instead of being called the terrorists that they were, they were being called "freedom fighters” and “liberators”.
Dirty money from dirty drug sales on a vast scale financed the weapons used against the Serbs and the Serbian civilians. And our own people, our politicians, most notably Senator Joseph Lieberman, wanted to further augment and subsidize this organization with U.S. money, this after the Serbs had already been bombed mercilessly by NATO at the behest of the Clinton administration.
That same month that the bombing of the Serbs began, in March of 1999, it was estimated by "Jane's Intelligence Review" that drug sales alone could have netted the KLA profits in the high tens of millions of dollars. At that same time, this highly regarded British based journal noted that the KLA had rearmed itself for a Spring offensive against the Serbs with drug money, along with donations from Albanians in Western Europe and the United States. Leading intelligence officials also confirmed that the KLA had financed its purchase of weapons in great part with profits earned from drug smuggling, the cash being laundered through banks in Italy, Germany, and the ever accommodating Swiss banks. The KLA, according to these same intelligence reports that our politicians and policy makers didn’t seem to be deterred by, paid for the weapons using the heroin itself as currency. These issues were all exposed at the same time that Senator Lieberman was pushing his “Kosovo Self-Defense Bill” that was intended to give the green light to further arming the KLA. To my knowledge, Senator Lieberman's involvement did not begin with the Kosovo Self-Defense Act of 1999. As far back as 1994, the Senator received at least $10,000 from an Albanian-American PAC and was one of the most vocal proponents of "bombing Serbia," before NATO bombs were ever launched. His determination to see the Serbs bombed would be echoed by the majority of the Clinton administration with fervor. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright seemed to make it her mission in life to see the Serbs “punished”. Was Senator Lieberman’s “Kosovo Self-Defense Bill” intended to complement NATO’s bombing of the Serbs by giving their enemies an additional gift? This bill was to provide $25 million dollars of the American tax- payer money to equip 10,000 KLA fighters with arms and anti-tank weapons. Our tax-payer money to fund terrorists. Even though you weren’t a Senator back then, what I’m wondering is would you, Candidate Clinton, have supported this bill?
The KLA was ruthless and brutal in its conduct throughout the Kosovo conflict. The KLA did not operate under rules of civility or ethical and humane conduct in war. It did not follow rules. The KLA used its terrorist tactics not only against the innocent Serbian civilian population of Kosovo but against its own Albanian people who did not comply with the KLA program and who were perfectly satisfied to continue living in harmony with their Serbian neighbors. This was the group of people that people like Senator Lieberman who postured daily as a "moral, ethical, and righteous" politician against the excessive violence on television and in children’s video games, wanted to arm. This was the organization whose agenda the Clinton administration served to fulfill.
Perhaps what Harry Summers, Jr., a fellow of the Army War College, said shortly after the bombing of the Serbs began in March of 1999, best reflects the irony of United States support for the KLA and for the Albanian cause in Kosovo, but reading it now, eight years later, it was more than reflective. It was one of those harbingers that don’t allow for a clear conscience. He called the NATO attacks on the Serbs
"the hubris of its leadership and the ineptitude of its foreign policy."
He wrote:
"The United States -- once the champion of internal stability and the sanctity of national sovereignty - has replaced the Soviet Comintern as the prime fomenter of international dissent and inciter of revolution... Not only by its actions in Bosnia did the U.S. encourage the KLA to revolt, but it also condemned Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic when he attempted to maintain order in his own country. In a bizarre twist to its foreign policy, the U.S. now tacitly supports the KLA guerrillas
who are aided and abetted by America's arch enemy Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the African Embassy bombings last August...
Not only is America working against its own best interests by fostering a Muslim terrorist base in Europe, it is defeating the very purpose of its Balkan intervention. Ostensibly designed to promote stability in the region, U.S. foreign policy is doing precisely the opposite by its support of the Muslim revolution..."
Funny thing. Change the geographical context and you’d swear that was being said by someone such as yourself about the Bush administration and Iraq today. But no. This was said in direct reference to the policy of the Clinton administration, a policy to which you gave your blessing. It’s not over yet. Kosovo just may well return to haunt you if you do make it all the way, Candidate Clinton. This is one legacy I would not want to inherit.
=== 2 ===
Posted by: "Rick Rozoff"
Wed Oct 3, 2007 6:37 pm (PST)
Agence France-Presse
October 4, 2007
Kosovans short of funds for Bill Clinton statue
PRISTINA, Serbia — A group of Kosovo Albanians
appealed Tuesday for donations after they ran out of
money to build a statue of former US president Bill
Clinton.
"With this act we will express sympathy, love and
respect to president Clinton," Agim Rexhepi, head of
the Friends of America association, told reporters.
The three-metre (10-foot) tall monument is still under
construction in a studio in the city of Podujevo, 40
kilometres (25 miles) north of the Kosovan capital
Pristina.
"The main work that remained unfinished is casting the
statue in bronze. It can only be done outside of
Kosovo," said sculptor Izeir Mustafa.
According to Mustafa's estimates, the work to sculpt
the statue and cast it in bronze would cost between
60,000 and 70,000 euros (85,000 and 100,00 dollars).
Pristina already has a Bill Clinton Boulevard, which
is graced by a 7.5-metre (25 feet) high mural of the
former US leader.
Clinton is admired among Kosovo's ethnic Albanians for
his support of their struggle to separate from Serbia.
The project to erect a statue in his honour on one of
the squares along the thoroughfare was approved by
local authorities earlier this year.
=== 3 ===
Centinaia di kosovari hanno festeggiato con un concerto di musica folk, il 61° compleanno dell'ex presidente Bill Clinton.
Ballando e cantando, canzoni e balli tradizionali albanesi, si sono
riuniti davanti al teatro di Pristina, con una torta gigante, per
esprimere la loro gratitudine all'approvazione che Clinton diede, a suo
tempo, ai bombardamenti della NATO contro la Serbia 1998-99.
"Auguro a Clinton 1001 anni. Spero che sua moglie sia il futuro
Presidente degli Stati Uniti, e che governi come suo marito”, dice
Lutfi Salihu, un pensionato 66enne.
Se non fosse stato per lui, in Kossovo non sarebbe rimasto nessun
kossovaro ", ha commentato un altro.
Questa è la quarta volta che gli albanesi festeggiano il compleanno
dell'ex Presidente americano.
Fonte : IPSIA Balcani
---
http://www.focus-fen.net/?id=n119834
Focus News Agency (Bulgaria)
August 20, 2007
Kosovo Albanians celebrate Clinton's birthday
Pristina - Hundreds of Kosovo Albanians attended a
folk concert to celebrate the 61th birthday of former
US president Bill Clinton on Sunday, remembering his
support for their separatist struggle.
Dancing to Albanian folk music before a huge birthday
cake outside the national theatre, they expressed
gratitude for Clinton's approval of a NATO bombing
campaign to end a Serbian crackdown during the 1998-99
Kosovo conflict.
"I hope president Clinton lives to be 101. I hope his
wife Hillary is elected president and rules America as
her husband did," said Lutfi Salihu, a 66-year-old
pensioner who attended the concert.
"If it wasn't for him you wouldn't have one single
Albanian in Kosovo nowadays."
It was the fourth time Kosovo Albanians have publicly
celebrated Clinton's birthday and follows the raptuous
welcome for US President George W. Bush in Albania
earlier this year.
"We confirmed the love that we Albanians feel towards
president Clinton and America as well as the American
people," Bekim Rexhepi, the head of the Association of
Friends of America, told the crowd.
=== 4 ===
By Fatos Bytyci
PODUJEVO, Serbia - Kosovo Albanians plan to honor
their "savior" Bill Clinton by erecting a statue of
the former United States president in the capital of
Serbia's breakaway province.
The three-meter (10-foot) tall monument is still under
construction in a studio in Podujevo north of
Pristina.
"He is our savior. He saved us from extermination,"
sculptor Izeir Mustafa told Reuters. "I was thrilled
by the work because I know what he did for us."
Kosovo has been under U.N. administration since 1999
after 78 days of NATO bombing ousted Serb troops....
Ninety percent of Kosovo's 2 million people are ethnic
Albanians. They expect to get their own state in the
coming months with U.S. and European Union support,
despite the opposition of Serbia and its main ally,
Russia.
Clinton, as leader of the NATO alliance, is seen as
the man who decided to bomb Serbia to force the late
[president] Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his forces
from Kosovo, effectively handing victory to the Kosovo
Liberation Army.
Pristina already has a road named after him, graced by
a 12-metre (25 foot) tall mural of the former
president. Pristina municipal authorities say they
expect to erect the statue somewhere along Clinton
Boulevard later this summer.
Mustafa has several more days to work before he
bronzes the sculpture of Clinton, after which he will
turn his attention to another soon-to-be former
Western leader. . "I definitely will do a statue of
(British Prime Minister) Tony Blair," he said. "He
saved us as well".
=== 5 ===
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2007&mm=04&dd=12&nav_category=92&nav_id=40634
B92 (Serbia)
April 12, 2007
International conference on Kosovo
NEW YORK - New York hosts an international conference
dedicated to Kosovo starting today.
Priština negotiating team members, chaired by Kosovo
president Fatmir Sejdiu, confirmed their presence at
the conference on Kosovo sponsored by the Rockefeller
Brothers Fund.
The conference entitled “Preparation of the Strategy
for the Initial 120 Days of Kosovo” will also feature
former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
The conference’s moderators include U.S. Kosovo envoy
Frank Wisner and former international community High
Representative for Bosnia Wolfgang Petritsch.
=== 6 ===
http://www.cafebabel.com/en/article.asp?T=T&Id=10549
Cafe Babel (France) - April 4, 2007
Bill Clinton Forever
Report
Coca-Kosova
Saskia Drude
Pristina: In the fight for independence from Serbia,
Kosovan Albanians turn their hand to America for
friendship
Bill Clinton welcomes everyone who has just come to
the city from the direction of the airport. The eight
metre high placard of the waving former
American president hangs on a twelve-storey building,
looming high above the Bill Clinton Boulevard in
Pristina, capital of a Kosovo seeking independence
from Serbia.
A policeman who is directing traffic along the
Boulevard is wearing a cap based on the style of
police uniforms from the 1920s. On the fence opposite
there's a placard from Thanksgiving last year, with
‘Thank you America’ emblazoned across it.
Boutique Hillary
The fact that there can be such an unabashed American
pride in a city with a large Muslim community, not
forgetting this central road commemorating an
ex-American president, is unheard of virtually
anywhere else in the world.
In May 1999 and during Bill Clinton’s presidency, the
first NATO bomb landed on its Yugoslavian target. 78
days later the Kosovo War ended....
After the end of the war, several streets were quickly
renamed after freedom fighters, politicians and
authors barely known to Albanians.
Even city taxi drivers had no idea where anywhere was!
Instead of street names, distunguished places via
landmarks such as mosques, banks or shops, for example
the ‘California’ restaurant, the ‘Boston’ bakery or
the ‘Hillary’ Boutique on Bill-Clinton Boulevard.
Weapons from the USA
‘The Albanians love us,’ says Robert Curtis, who has
worked in Kosovo since 2001. ‘I can do no wrong here.
If I drive too fast the police turn a blind eye - just
because I’m American.'
Curtis is the Dean at the American University in
Kosovo, which since 2003 has offered courses in
economics, management and other more questionable
subjects.
‘Americans are our friends,’ says Faik Fazliu. ‘They
were always on the side of the Albanians.’
At 22, Fazilu lost a leg in the last weeks of the war.
Now he is chairman of the Association of War Veterans
and War Invalids of the now disbanded Kosovan ‘Freedom
Army’ UÇK.
‘Already by 1998, the UÇK were getting the majority of
their weapons from the USA,’ remembers Fazliu.
US-Albanians supported the UÇK as they completely
legally bought weapons in large batches from the US.
They ranged from assault rifles to grenade launchers.
The weapons were [used] by Albanians in Kosovo. After
they entered the war, the Americans set up training
camps in Albania for UÇK fighters.
Money for democracy
Since 1999, the US militia has been involved in the
international KFOR-Mission in Kosovo.
Their camp ‘Bondsteel’ in Ferizaj (Serbian: Urosevaæ)
is the largest US military camp in Europe. It is
leased for 99 years, and is thus strategically
important in the long-term. It reaches across the
whole of Kosovo with its two million inhabitants.
The USA also plays an important role in civilian
matters.
The position of Deputy of the UN Civilian Department
UNMIK is created by a US statute.
The future US embassy and the offices of USAID, the
official US agency for democratisation and economic
development, is situated in the middle of a large
estate in Kosovo’s main city. The development and
democratisation process is co-ordinated from here and
is financed by the US.
Furthermore, Americans are involved in both small and
large NGOs.
Around a dozen large NGOs are operating. Among the
three Americans is Kristin Griffiths from the Mercy
Corps in Pristina.
When Griffith visits the villages around central
Kosovo she always hears the same phrase - ‘Bill
Clinton and God saved Kosovo’.
The initial enthusiasm for the Americans has only
waned slightly since the war: ‘Kosovo is one of the
few countries in which we Americans are welcomed
without fail.’
'F-ck Coca Cola'
Young war veteran Fazilu doesn’t know a great deal
about US commitment to Kosovo's democratisation, but
he’s learnt a lot from his lessons.
‘Kosovo will be an independent state with respect for
all minorities.’ Many Kosovans like Fazilu can’t think
further than that longed-for day when the UN Security
Council decides the status of Kosovo – probably in the
next few weeks.
Although EU member states haven’t so far been able to
agree on the question, the USA would prefer to see
Kosovo as more independent today than it has been
before.
In the predominantly Serbian populated north of
Kosovo, the US is considered to be an ally of the
Albanians.
This is in large part thanks to their expulsion of the
Serbians from Kosovo.
The approximately 100,000 Serbians still living there
have congregated in little enclaves in the north of
the province. ‘F-ck Coca Cola, f-ck the pizza, all we
need is Slivovitza,’ is scrawled across postcards and
placards in souvenir shops on the Serbian side of the
divided city Mitrovica (Serbian: Mitrovicë).
The Serbs build on the traditional support of Moscow.
As a member of the so-called Balkan-Contact Group,
Russia has often stepped up to offer to support the
situation only when all parties involved are agreed on
a composite solution to Kosovo's status.
This UN Security Council resolution could in turn be
rejected by Moscow's veto. The old dichotomy of the
world – in Kosovo, it continues to exist.
The author is a member of the German N-Ost network
Photos: Jutta Sommerbauer (Free Kosovo) and Saskia Drude
=== 7 ===
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: | Peace Is Not Won by Helping Terrorists |
Date: | Wed, 15 Nov 2006 09:45:02 -0700 |
From: | |
To: | |
Peace Is Not Won by Helping Terrorists
By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, www.bannerofliberty.com
November 14, 2006
Democrats who are euphoric about winning the majority in Congress, and Republicans who are depressed by losing their majority in Congress might do well to remember when President Clinton was faced with the exact same situation. In the election of 1994, the Democrat in the White House found himself with a Republican House and Senate. Although Clinton won re-election in 1996, the House and Senate remained Republican.
In spite of that handicap and Republican opposition, Clinton allowed Iranian weapons and Osama bin Laden trained mujuhideen through the UN Blockade in 1995. In 1999, without Congress’ approval, Clinton ordered the US Air Force to bomb the Serbs, our historic allies, for 79 days, and seize control of a portion of their land, Kosovo. Today Bosnia and Kosovo are the major training grounds for terrorists who blow up Americans in Iraq, Spaniards in Spain and English citizens in London. ”
We are now hearing demands from the newly elected Democrats that President Bush pull the troops out of Iraq because, in the words of Sen. Carl Levin, the election was a message from the voters to “change the course in Iraq.” President Bush’s course has been to fight Islamic terrorists whereas Clinton’s course was to help Islamic terrorists seize control of Bosnia and Kosovo. Levin apparently wants to reinstate Clinton policies of aiding and abetting terrorists gain greater power.
Clinton aligned the US and its military might throughout his administration with Islamic fundamentalists in Bosnia and Kosovo such as Alija Izetbegovic and Agim Ceku, who ethnically cleansed Krajina of 180,000 Serbs in 1995. As early as 1970 Izetbegovic wrote: “There can be no peace or coexistence between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic societies and political institutions.”
Few Western leaders appeared to be aware of Izetbegovic’s goals, and were and still are being deceived by a propaganda campaign that blamed the Serbs, who were the first victims of Izetbeovic’s plan to eliminate “non-Islamic” faith groups and societies. The Serbs were mostly Orthodox Christians. In Kosovo alone over 150 of their Churches have been totally destroyed and at least 350,000 Serbs in Bosnia and in Kosovo have been driven from their homes and thousands of others killed.
In December 1995, Clinton sent 20,000 American troops to Bosnia, promising “Congress and the American people that U.S. personnel would be out of Bosnia at the end of one year.” According to a 1997 Senate report regarding Clinton’s lifting of the Arms embargo to provide Bosnian Muslims Iranian arms and mujuhideen enforcement “helped turn Bosnia into a Militant Islamic Base.” About half of the 60,000 troops sent to Bosnia in 1995 were Americans and there are still American military advisors in Bosnia.
We only have to harken back to March of 1999 when most Republicans, then the majority in Congress, strenuously and fruitlessly objected to a military move by Democrat President Bill Clinton who wanted to attack Yugoslavia at the request of an organization that had been on the State Department list of terrorists until he removed them in 1998 – the crime and drug financed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA.)
California Republican Congressman Tom Campbell called it a "bloody civil war” in which neither side had “attacked us.” Furthermore, he correctly pointed out as scores of forensic experts later verified, “we do not have a systematic attempt by the government in Serbia to exterminate the Albanian population." This, of course, was contrary to the propaganda from Islamic fundamentalists who claimed the Serbs in Kosovo had somehow managed to kill “over 100,000” armed Albanians who outnumbered the Serbs 9-to-1.
In early 1999 President Clinton had been impeached for lying to a judge about his sexual exploits and he was searching for something, ANYTHING, to get the public’s mind off of Monica Lewinsky. By picking up the KLA accusation that Serbs were “committing genocide” in Kosovo against Albanians, Clinton moved the public’s attention from sex to war.
I pointed out in an article published March 11, 1999, that most of the Serb population had been driven out of Kosovo during World War II, and noted that “the Kosovo Liberation Army is either (1) a rebel army; (2) a guerrilla organization; (3) a terrorist organization or (4) a criminal gang pushing illegal drugs - depending on which group you want to believe. There is no doubt that the present conflict was created because of the number of Serbian police and citizens the Kosovars were killing.”
Until Clinton removed the KLA from the list, it was on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations. It not only was involved in the drug trade but was trained in terrorist tactics by Osama bin Laden.
The international community is now preparing to reward the Islamic terrorists and drug dealers by turning Kosovo over to them. Former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia, James Bissett, wrote: “In 1993, Mr. Ceku commanded Croatian forces that violated a U.N.-brokered cease-fire and overran three Serbian villages in the Medac pocket. When the Canadians counterattacked and re-entered the burned villages, they discovered all of the inhabitants and domestic animals had been slaughtered. Mr. Ceku later also ordered undefended Serbian villages shelled in violation of the rules of war, causing heavy casualties among the civilian population.” In 1997 a senior CIA official warned Congress that getting arms into Bosnia would be regretted in the future “when they blow up some Americans, as they no doubt will before this thing is over.”
The future is here, folks. Don’t be surprised if the highly mobile Al Qaeda terrorists after taking control in Kosovo, Bosnia and Iraq, show up in your home town to help you understand that “There can be no peace or coexistence between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic societies and political institutions,” as Izetbegovic put it.
