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Matthias Küntzel
Germany and Kosovo
How Germany's independent line paved the way to the Kosovo War
Contribution to the 2nd International Hearing of the European Tribunal
concerning Nato's war against Yugoslavia. Hamburg, April 16, 2000 (1)
In 1991, a delegation of the German Bundestag visited Kosovo for the
first
time in order to talk with Kosovo Albanian nationalist leaders. This
prompted - as early as 1991! - the warning by a senior member of the
Yugoslavian parliament that "the British and the Germans would create a
common intervention force with 70,000 soldiers in order to intervene in
Kosovo." (2) Indeed an early and accurate prophecy! So what about
Germany's role in preparing for the Kosovo war?
There were and there are strategic differences between German and the US
policies about how to retain or enhance hegemony. "As a wealthy status
quo
power, the United States has an interest in maintaining international
order", wrote Joseph S. Nye, Jr, a former US deputy secretary of
defense.
"In a world where there are some two hundred states but many thousands
of
often overlapping entities that might eventually make a claim to
nationhood, blind promotion of self-determination would have highly
problematic consequences." (3) Berlin, however, in seeking to create
conditions for an ongoing expansion of German influnce (that means:
changing the international order) does not share this priority. As
Rupert
Scholz, the former German secretary of defense, explained: "The aim of
maintaining "stability" in Europe seems to be a most dangerous one.
There
will not be any real stablity, which is able to maintain peace, if
individual nations are held prisoner in unwanted and unnatural
("unnatürliche") state organizations, which have been imposed upon
them."
Since 1990, German foreign policy has "constantly persisted in activly
advocating a universal right of self-determination." (4)
This policy has a particular bearing on Kosovo. The hidden war about
Kosovo's future started in 1995 at the latest. In February 1995 in the
presence of Roman Herzog, Germany's President at that time, Germany and
Albania signed a common declaration of principle at Tirana. This
declaration is rarely mentioned in the literature but nevertheless
decisive because it promised to find a "solution to the Kosovo question"
by advocating the right of self-determination for Kosovo's Albanians.
(5)
Advocating self-determination for Kosovo's Albanians, however, meant
advocating their right to secede from Yugoslavia. This declaration was
in
so far a kind of advance notice to continue Germany's 1991 course
(recognition of Croatia) in order to further split up Yugoslavia
following
a racist (völkisch) concept of self-determination.
In the period following, the German goverment did everything it could to
spur on the separation of Albanians within Kosovo. Germany supported and
financed those nationalists who sought to pursue the goal of full
independence by creating alternative governing institutions as well as
independent Albanian educational and medical systems in Kosovo which
systematically separated the majority of the people in Kosovo from the
other peoples of Yugoslavia. In addition, German secret diplomacy was
instrumental in helping the "Kosovo Liberation Army" (KLA), as they call
themselves, since its creation in February 1996. The daily newspaper
"The
European" stated that "German civil and military intelligence services
have been involved in training and equipping the rebels with the aim of
cementing German influence in the Balkan area." (6)
During those years, Germany unilaterally supported the secessionist
movements. In 1997 editor Johann Georg Reißmüller of the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung (a German daily newspaper) wrote: "The US government
is
not at all happy with Germany's policy in Kosovo".
It was, however, exactly that year - 1997 - that the crisis in Kosovo
began to escalate. After the destruction of the Albanian army arsenals
the
KLA armed itself in order to start a large-scale nationalist rebellion.
This development and the following counter-attack by the Serbian police
moved Kosovo into the headlines and into the focal point of NATO's
considerations. How did Germany and the United States react?
"The Clinton administration is still uncertain about how to deal with
this
crisis", later wrote the weekly newspaper Die Zeit. A senior official
from
the German foreign office was sent to Washington to put pressure on the
deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott. "We urgently need U.S.
leadership now" claimed Germany's emissary. (7) This pattern: Germany
calls for the U.S. government - actually for a special wing of the U.S
government - to act against Yugoslavia were repeated between March 1998
and March 1999 over and over again. Let us now take a closer look at
that
pre-war diplomacy which paved the way to war.
The US government is responsible for most of the war crimes NATO
committed
against Yugoslavia. But even in 1998, the Clinton administration - split
in several fractions on how to deal with Milosevic and the Kosovo
Albanians' nationalism - hesitated, reacting uncertainly on a
case-by-case
basis, oscillating between supporting the KLA and letting Milosevic have
a
free hand in smashing them. Germany on the other hand knew what to do
and
how to act. The grand design of Germany's Kosovo policy had been in
effect
by March 1998. It was revealed by Germany's informal ambassador to the
Balkans, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, who on March 16, 1998 said: "We
should try to tell Milosevic the plain truth through pressure and even
military interventions that he can retain control over Kosovo as a part
of
Yugoslavia only if certain fundamentals are met. And if this is not the
case, the territory there will have to be transformed into a kind of
protectorate until those fundamentals are provided for." (8)
This idea of pushing the Kosovo's Albanians towards a military
confrontation with Milosevic in order to create a Kosovo protectorate
from
now on became the central point of Germany's Kosovo policy - either by
the
Kohl/Kinkel CDU government or the Schröder/Fischer SPD-Green coalition.
One condition was that international troops be stationed on Kosovo soil.
As early as March 1998 Germany accordingly put this matter on the agenda
at the London meeting of the international Contact Group on Yugoslavia.
(9)
The other condition was that Nato would have to enter Kosovo against the
will of the Yugoslav government. Accordingly, Germany sharpened its tone
towards Belgrad. Milosevic became the main target and remained so
whatever
his policy looked like.
But France, the UK, Italy and the dominating voices within the US
government still prefered to follow a less confrontational policy. In
1998, The European for example stated that "Washington realised that
pushing the Kosovars towards a military confrontation with Milosevic, as
the Germans wanted to do, would have a boomerang effect on the Balkans.
The United States put maximum pressure on Germany to stop supporting the
KLA behind the scenes, as did the other European countries such as
Britain
and France." (10) They termed the KLA activities "terrorist" and
supported
indirectly a Serbian counteroffensive against the KLA during the summer
of
1998 and appealed to Milosevic and the moderate Albanian leader Rugova
to
begin talks. The KLA, however, succeeded in provoking the Serbian police
force and in escalating armed clashes time and again. The policy of
de-escalation turned out to be a permanent failure as long as there was
a
continuity in the supply of KLA weapons and KLA mercenaries across the
Albanian border.
It was therefore not at all surprising that in the summer of 1998 all
the
efforts of the United Nations and the majority of Nato countries
(including the US) concentrated in the goal of cutting off the arms and
soldiers supplies in favor of the KLA. The Albanian government headed by
Fatos Nano who had disassociated himself from the KLA supported this
plan.
Inside NATO the idea of sending 7000 soldiers to cut off the traffic in
weapons began to take shape.
During this crucial situation, however, Germany's covering up for the
KLA
became both public and evident: The German government vetoed the
cutting-off of the supply of weapons for the KLA! Klaus Kinkel, then
head
of the German foreign office said: "Of course you have to consider
whether
you are permitted from a moral and ethnical point of view to prevent the
Kosovo-Albanians from buying weapons for their self-defense." (11)
Volker
Rühe, then head of the ministry of defense answered to this
consideration
with an unequivocal No: "You cannot resolve the Kosovo conflict by
sending
troops to Albania to seal the border and thus be acting in favor of
Milosevic." (12) Rühe's message was quiete clear: everyone who tries to
seal the border in order to find a peaceful solution is taking sides
with
Milosevic. In order to disassociate yourself from Milosevic you have to
escalate the war between the Kosovo Albanians and the Serbs by
delivering
more and more weapons to the KLA!
This open German solidarity with the KLA has been as much an isolated
provocation as has the recognition of Tudjman's Croatia in 1991, 50
years
after the formation of the first Croatian state under the rule of the
fascist Ustashi regime.
Just like 1991 Germany again stood nearly alone against a huge majority
of
countries in Europe and the world. Just like 1991 Germany again
supported
a movement with a background rooted in the Nazi past, because the KLA is
partly led by the sons and grandsons of extreme right-wing Albanian
fighters, the heirs of those who fought during World War II in the
fascist
militias and the "Skanderbeg Volunteer SS Division" raised by the Nazis.
(13) The "National Front of Albania" (Balli Kombetar) which collaborated
with Nazi leaders in 1943/44 today boasts about its influence within the
KLA which has a program that seems to be a modified version of the 1943
Nazi utopia.
Thus the program of "ethnic cleansing" which Germany exported into the
Balkans in 1941 remained alive within the movement of the Kosovo
Albanian
nationalists during the 80s. "The nationalists have a two-point
platform"
wrote the New York Times in 1982: "First to establish what they call an
ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger with Albania to
form a greater Albania." (14) Whenever the KLA talks about "liberation"
or
"freeing" this has been up to now understood in the Nazi-sense of "free
of
something" i.e. "free of Jews" ("judenfrei"), "free of Gypsies" or "free
of Serbs". Noone could be really surprised when, beginning with June
1999,
the de facto rule of the KLA turned out to be a daily and a deadly trap
for thousands of non-Albanians, especially defenceless Serbs.
In the summer of 1998 Germany and the USA took not only opposite but
conflicting sides: While the USA - in the words of General Shelton, then
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - has had "concerns about the
techniques that are being used to put down, to squelch the uprising"
(15)
Germany on the other hand acted as the protective power for the KLA.
This
confrontation includes a strategic conflict within NATO: Is the Atlantic
Alliance supposed to help or to hinder the KLA? Should NATO as the KLA's
airforce contribute to the revision of state borders and the further
diminishing of Yugoslavia? Or is the alliance bound to clap down on such
a
type of militant secessionism?
It was Germany's insistence and the ignorance or thirst for adventure
within the leadership of the other NATO powers that brought the world's
biggest military alliance eventually in favor of the Albanian
nationalists. Germany has "given evidence of its prepareness to lead"
praised the influential Frankfurter Allgemeine. (16) Now Germany once
again took the lead in pressing for military intervention in Kosovo. The
New York Times reported: "German officials seem increasingly inchined
towards charting a military course to stop the violence in Kosovo." (17)
Indeed. "Mr. Kinkel threatens with a Nato intervention in Kosovo"
proclaimed the headlines of German papers on June 5, 1998. "The United
States, unlike Germany, rejects a snap decision about a military
intervention", wrote Frankfurter Allgemeine the following day. Volker
Rühe
was the first government official in Europe who as early as June 15,
1998
spoke in favor of a strike against Yugoslavia even without a UN Security
Council green light. This suggestion played havoc with not only the UN
Charter but also with the German constitution and the Treaty of Moscow
concerning German unification. This proposal was later taken up
positively
by the USA. We have to conclude, therefore, that Germany is not only
guilty of committing the crimes which are connected with the US-led
bombing of Yugoslavia, but is responsible for ardently working towards
triggering this war. The German concept for Kosovo includes the
following:
- to make a stand against the Yugoslav government
- unlimited support for the Kosovo Albanian nationalists who demand
independence and a lasting unification with Albania
- to demand for air-strikes against Yugoslavia in order to achieve a
NATO
protectorate for Kosovo which is supposed to be only an interim step
towards the independence of Kosovo.
Strategic differences between German and the US policies diminished
considerably in 1999 when the Clinton administration decided to go to
war
in favor of the ultra-secessionist KLA. They seem to gain, however, new
weight in the post-war debate about the final status of Kosovo. US
Secretary of State Madelaine Albright recently rejected the idea of
creating a greater Albania, whereas German policy seems to be pushing in
the opposite direction.
Karl Lamers, the influential CDU foreign affairs spokesman for the
opposition in the Bundestag said about the transformation of Kosovo into
a
NATO protectorate that this is "only the first step towards the
separation
of Kosovo from Yugoslavia" and that an independent Kosovo will be "only
an
interim step to merging ("Anschluss") with Albania." (18) Recently,
Lamers
mentioned with great satisfaction "that everything we are actually doing
in Kosovo, e. g. the creation of a new currency zone, is aimed at
creating
an independent Kosovo...". (19) Even Germany's red/green coalition
government does not want to recognize Kosovo as being a province of
Yugoslavia. That is the reason why in his last major statement Joschka
Fischer - Germany's vice-chancellor and secretary of state - let the
question of "the future status of the Kosovo" open claiming that it
would
be impossible to resolve this now. In an interview with a French
newspaper, however, he made clear that he had no doubts about the
Kosovo's
future status: "The international community is present in Kosovo and the
Balkans in order to show that - according to the example of resolving
the
'German question' in 1990 - the 'Albanian question' could be resolved
only
with the agreement of the neighbouring states." (20)
US government circles are quite aware of those ambitions of their rival,
Germany. Zbigniew Brzezinski called the Berlin republic a "geostrategic
main actor" and a "subversive big power inspired by an ambitious
vision".
Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretary of state, characterized Germany as
the seismic focal point of the current geopolitical earthquakes which
are
disrupting the Atlantic Alliance as well as the Balkans. He emphasized
that Germany is "the epicentre of thoses processes - enlargement and
expansion, extension and deepening." (21)
Within the context of the war against Yugoslavia the other great powers,
however, not only reacted to aggressive German moves but pursued their
own
special interests as well. The United States wanted to retain its
influence in Europe, to strengthen a worldwide role for NATO and to
weaken
Russias influence within the new world order. Great Britain und France
were eager to demonstrate their military superiority over Germany and
wanted to give a starting signal for the establishing of an independent
European intervention force (together with Germany) vis-a-vis the USA.
Each of these nations is a rival to the others and is trying to retain
or
achieve as much influence and power as possible. The war against
Yugoslavia has been the first, however, to be spurred on by Germany as
an
attempt to redesign current world order after the fall of the Berlin
Wall.
It has put the irrational elements and the destructive roots of
capitalistic societies into a new light.
(1) This contribution is a short description of a broader study:
Matthias
Küntzel, Der Weg in den Krieg. Deutschland, die Nato und das Kosovo,
Elefanten Press, Berlin 2000. The author´s e-mail address:
MatKuentzel@....
(2) This warning was published in the Yugoslavian journal Polityka; see
the minutes of the Bundestag meeting June 16, 1991, pp. 2560-1.
(3) Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Redefining the National Interest, Foreign
Affairs
Vol.78 No.4, July/August 1999 pp. 22-35.
(4) See Rupert Scholz, Das Festhalten an ungewollten Staaten schafft
keine
Stabilität, in: Die Welt, December 12, 1991; Rupert Scholz, Das
Selbstbestimmungsrecht und die deutsche Politik, in: Internationale
Politik 4/1995, S.51.
(5) "Deutschland und Albanien ... bekräftigen das Recht aller Völker,
frei
und ohne Einmischung von außen ihr Schicksal zu bestimmen und ihre
politische, wirtschaftliche, soziale und kulturelle Entwicklung nach
eigenem Wunsch zu gestalten." This declaration is published in the
Archiv
der Gegenwart, March 13, 1995, pp. 39819-20.
(6) Roger Fallgot, How Germany Backed KLA, in: The European, 21-27
September 1998. See for more details M. Küntzel, Der Weg in den Krieg
pp.
59-64.
(6) Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Redefining the National Interest, Foreign
Affairs
Vol.78 No.4, July/August 1999 pp. 22-35.
(7) See Die Zeit, May 12, 1999.
(8) Christian Schwarz-Schilling, March 16, 1999, Deutschlandradio,
quoted
in: Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, Stichworte zur
Sicherheitspolitik, April 1998, p. 47.
(9) Russia, the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany are
members of this informal but influential group.
(10) Roger Fallgot, ibid.
(11) Interview with Klaus Kinkel, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 30,
1998.
(12) Mr. Rühe is quoted in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, June 9, 1998.
(13) See Chris Hedges, Kosovo's Next Masters? in: Foreign Affairs,
Vol.78,
No.3, May/June 1999, pp.24-42. "Although never much of a fighting force,
the Skanderbeg Division took part in the shameful roundup and
deportation
of the province's few hundred Jews during the Holocaust. ... The
decision
by KLA commanders to dress their police in black fatigues and order
their
fighters to salute with a cleched fist to the forehead has led many to
worry about these fascist antecedents." (ibid.)
(14) See Marvine Howe, Exodus of Serbians Stirs Province in Yugoslavia,
New York Times July 12, 1982.
(15) See New York Times, June 16, 1998.
(16) See Frankfurter Allgemeine, September 26, 1998.
(17) See New York Times, June 10, 1998.
(18) See the minutes of the Bundestag parliamentary session of April 15,
1999.
(19) See the minutes of the Bundestag parliamentary session of April 5,
2000.
(20) See Le Monde March 25, 2000, emphasis by the author.
(21) See Frankfurter Allgemeine, February 5, 1999.
Matthias Küntzel
Germany and Kosovo
How Germany's independent line paved the way to the Kosovo War
Contribution to the 2nd International Hearing of the European Tribunal
concerning Nato's war against Yugoslavia. Hamburg, April 16, 2000 (1)
In 1991, a delegation of the German Bundestag visited Kosovo for the
first
time in order to talk with Kosovo Albanian nationalist leaders. This
prompted - as early as 1991! - the warning by a senior member of the
Yugoslavian parliament that "the British and the Germans would create a
common intervention force with 70,000 soldiers in order to intervene in
Kosovo." (2) Indeed an early and accurate prophecy! So what about
Germany's role in preparing for the Kosovo war?
There were and there are strategic differences between German and the US
policies about how to retain or enhance hegemony. "As a wealthy status
quo
power, the United States has an interest in maintaining international
order", wrote Joseph S. Nye, Jr, a former US deputy secretary of
defense.
"In a world where there are some two hundred states but many thousands
of
often overlapping entities that might eventually make a claim to
nationhood, blind promotion of self-determination would have highly
problematic consequences." (3) Berlin, however, in seeking to create
conditions for an ongoing expansion of German influnce (that means:
changing the international order) does not share this priority. As
Rupert
Scholz, the former German secretary of defense, explained: "The aim of
maintaining "stability" in Europe seems to be a most dangerous one.
There
will not be any real stablity, which is able to maintain peace, if
individual nations are held prisoner in unwanted and unnatural
("unnatürliche") state organizations, which have been imposed upon
them."
Since 1990, German foreign policy has "constantly persisted in activly
advocating a universal right of self-determination." (4)
This policy has a particular bearing on Kosovo. The hidden war about
Kosovo's future started in 1995 at the latest. In February 1995 in the
presence of Roman Herzog, Germany's President at that time, Germany and
Albania signed a common declaration of principle at Tirana. This
declaration is rarely mentioned in the literature but nevertheless
decisive because it promised to find a "solution to the Kosovo question"
by advocating the right of self-determination for Kosovo's Albanians.
(5)
Advocating self-determination for Kosovo's Albanians, however, meant
advocating their right to secede from Yugoslavia. This declaration was
in
so far a kind of advance notice to continue Germany's 1991 course
(recognition of Croatia) in order to further split up Yugoslavia
following
a racist (völkisch) concept of self-determination.
In the period following, the German goverment did everything it could to
spur on the separation of Albanians within Kosovo. Germany supported and
financed those nationalists who sought to pursue the goal of full
independence by creating alternative governing institutions as well as
independent Albanian educational and medical systems in Kosovo which
systematically separated the majority of the people in Kosovo from the
other peoples of Yugoslavia. In addition, German secret diplomacy was
instrumental in helping the "Kosovo Liberation Army" (KLA), as they call
themselves, since its creation in February 1996. The daily newspaper
"The
European" stated that "German civil and military intelligence services
have been involved in training and equipping the rebels with the aim of
cementing German influence in the Balkan area." (6)
During those years, Germany unilaterally supported the secessionist
movements. In 1997 editor Johann Georg Reißmüller of the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung (a German daily newspaper) wrote: "The US government
is
not at all happy with Germany's policy in Kosovo".
It was, however, exactly that year - 1997 - that the crisis in Kosovo
began to escalate. After the destruction of the Albanian army arsenals
the
KLA armed itself in order to start a large-scale nationalist rebellion.
This development and the following counter-attack by the Serbian police
moved Kosovo into the headlines and into the focal point of NATO's
considerations. How did Germany and the United States react?
"The Clinton administration is still uncertain about how to deal with
this
crisis", later wrote the weekly newspaper Die Zeit. A senior official
from
the German foreign office was sent to Washington to put pressure on the
deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott. "We urgently need U.S.
leadership now" claimed Germany's emissary. (7) This pattern: Germany
calls for the U.S. government - actually for a special wing of the U.S
government - to act against Yugoslavia were repeated between March 1998
and March 1999 over and over again. Let us now take a closer look at
that
pre-war diplomacy which paved the way to war.
The US government is responsible for most of the war crimes NATO
committed
against Yugoslavia. But even in 1998, the Clinton administration - split
in several fractions on how to deal with Milosevic and the Kosovo
Albanians' nationalism - hesitated, reacting uncertainly on a
case-by-case
basis, oscillating between supporting the KLA and letting Milosevic have
a
free hand in smashing them. Germany on the other hand knew what to do
and
how to act. The grand design of Germany's Kosovo policy had been in
effect
by March 1998. It was revealed by Germany's informal ambassador to the
Balkans, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, who on March 16, 1998 said: "We
should try to tell Milosevic the plain truth through pressure and even
military interventions that he can retain control over Kosovo as a part
of
Yugoslavia only if certain fundamentals are met. And if this is not the
case, the territory there will have to be transformed into a kind of
protectorate until those fundamentals are provided for." (8)
This idea of pushing the Kosovo's Albanians towards a military
confrontation with Milosevic in order to create a Kosovo protectorate
from
now on became the central point of Germany's Kosovo policy - either by
the
Kohl/Kinkel CDU government or the Schröder/Fischer SPD-Green coalition.
One condition was that international troops be stationed on Kosovo soil.
As early as March 1998 Germany accordingly put this matter on the agenda
at the London meeting of the international Contact Group on Yugoslavia.
(9)
The other condition was that Nato would have to enter Kosovo against the
will of the Yugoslav government. Accordingly, Germany sharpened its tone
towards Belgrad. Milosevic became the main target and remained so
whatever
his policy looked like.
But France, the UK, Italy and the dominating voices within the US
government still prefered to follow a less confrontational policy. In
1998, The European for example stated that "Washington realised that
pushing the Kosovars towards a military confrontation with Milosevic, as
the Germans wanted to do, would have a boomerang effect on the Balkans.
The United States put maximum pressure on Germany to stop supporting the
KLA behind the scenes, as did the other European countries such as
Britain
and France." (10) They termed the KLA activities "terrorist" and
supported
indirectly a Serbian counteroffensive against the KLA during the summer
of
1998 and appealed to Milosevic and the moderate Albanian leader Rugova
to
begin talks. The KLA, however, succeeded in provoking the Serbian police
force and in escalating armed clashes time and again. The policy of
de-escalation turned out to be a permanent failure as long as there was
a
continuity in the supply of KLA weapons and KLA mercenaries across the
Albanian border.
It was therefore not at all surprising that in the summer of 1998 all
the
efforts of the United Nations and the majority of Nato countries
(including the US) concentrated in the goal of cutting off the arms and
soldiers supplies in favor of the KLA. The Albanian government headed by
Fatos Nano who had disassociated himself from the KLA supported this
plan.
Inside NATO the idea of sending 7000 soldiers to cut off the traffic in
weapons began to take shape.
During this crucial situation, however, Germany's covering up for the
KLA
became both public and evident: The German government vetoed the
cutting-off of the supply of weapons for the KLA! Klaus Kinkel, then
head
of the German foreign office said: "Of course you have to consider
whether
you are permitted from a moral and ethnical point of view to prevent the
Kosovo-Albanians from buying weapons for their self-defense." (11)
Volker
Rühe, then head of the ministry of defense answered to this
consideration
with an unequivocal No: "You cannot resolve the Kosovo conflict by
sending
troops to Albania to seal the border and thus be acting in favor of
Milosevic." (12) Rühe's message was quiete clear: everyone who tries to
seal the border in order to find a peaceful solution is taking sides
with
Milosevic. In order to disassociate yourself from Milosevic you have to
escalate the war between the Kosovo Albanians and the Serbs by
delivering
more and more weapons to the KLA!
This open German solidarity with the KLA has been as much an isolated
provocation as has the recognition of Tudjman's Croatia in 1991, 50
years
after the formation of the first Croatian state under the rule of the
fascist Ustashi regime.
Just like 1991 Germany again stood nearly alone against a huge majority
of
countries in Europe and the world. Just like 1991 Germany again
supported
a movement with a background rooted in the Nazi past, because the KLA is
partly led by the sons and grandsons of extreme right-wing Albanian
fighters, the heirs of those who fought during World War II in the
fascist
militias and the "Skanderbeg Volunteer SS Division" raised by the Nazis.
(13) The "National Front of Albania" (Balli Kombetar) which collaborated
with Nazi leaders in 1943/44 today boasts about its influence within the
KLA which has a program that seems to be a modified version of the 1943
Nazi utopia.
Thus the program of "ethnic cleansing" which Germany exported into the
Balkans in 1941 remained alive within the movement of the Kosovo
Albanian
nationalists during the 80s. "The nationalists have a two-point
platform"
wrote the New York Times in 1982: "First to establish what they call an
ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger with Albania to
form a greater Albania." (14) Whenever the KLA talks about "liberation"
or
"freeing" this has been up to now understood in the Nazi-sense of "free
of
something" i.e. "free of Jews" ("judenfrei"), "free of Gypsies" or "free
of Serbs". Noone could be really surprised when, beginning with June
1999,
the de facto rule of the KLA turned out to be a daily and a deadly trap
for thousands of non-Albanians, especially defenceless Serbs.
In the summer of 1998 Germany and the USA took not only opposite but
conflicting sides: While the USA - in the words of General Shelton, then
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - has had "concerns about the
techniques that are being used to put down, to squelch the uprising"
(15)
Germany on the other hand acted as the protective power for the KLA.
This
confrontation includes a strategic conflict within NATO: Is the Atlantic
Alliance supposed to help or to hinder the KLA? Should NATO as the KLA's
airforce contribute to the revision of state borders and the further
diminishing of Yugoslavia? Or is the alliance bound to clap down on such
a
type of militant secessionism?
It was Germany's insistence and the ignorance or thirst for adventure
within the leadership of the other NATO powers that brought the world's
biggest military alliance eventually in favor of the Albanian
nationalists. Germany has "given evidence of its prepareness to lead"
praised the influential Frankfurter Allgemeine. (16) Now Germany once
again took the lead in pressing for military intervention in Kosovo. The
New York Times reported: "German officials seem increasingly inchined
towards charting a military course to stop the violence in Kosovo." (17)
Indeed. "Mr. Kinkel threatens with a Nato intervention in Kosovo"
proclaimed the headlines of German papers on June 5, 1998. "The United
States, unlike Germany, rejects a snap decision about a military
intervention", wrote Frankfurter Allgemeine the following day. Volker
Rühe
was the first government official in Europe who as early as June 15,
1998
spoke in favor of a strike against Yugoslavia even without a UN Security
Council green light. This suggestion played havoc with not only the UN
Charter but also with the German constitution and the Treaty of Moscow
concerning German unification. This proposal was later taken up
positively
by the USA. We have to conclude, therefore, that Germany is not only
guilty of committing the crimes which are connected with the US-led
bombing of Yugoslavia, but is responsible for ardently working towards
triggering this war. The German concept for Kosovo includes the
following:
- to make a stand against the Yugoslav government
- unlimited support for the Kosovo Albanian nationalists who demand
independence and a lasting unification with Albania
- to demand for air-strikes against Yugoslavia in order to achieve a
NATO
protectorate for Kosovo which is supposed to be only an interim step
towards the independence of Kosovo.
Strategic differences between German and the US policies diminished
considerably in 1999 when the Clinton administration decided to go to
war
in favor of the ultra-secessionist KLA. They seem to gain, however, new
weight in the post-war debate about the final status of Kosovo. US
Secretary of State Madelaine Albright recently rejected the idea of
creating a greater Albania, whereas German policy seems to be pushing in
the opposite direction.
Karl Lamers, the influential CDU foreign affairs spokesman for the
opposition in the Bundestag said about the transformation of Kosovo into
a
NATO protectorate that this is "only the first step towards the
separation
of Kosovo from Yugoslavia" and that an independent Kosovo will be "only
an
interim step to merging ("Anschluss") with Albania." (18) Recently,
Lamers
mentioned with great satisfaction "that everything we are actually doing
in Kosovo, e. g. the creation of a new currency zone, is aimed at
creating
an independent Kosovo...". (19) Even Germany's red/green coalition
government does not want to recognize Kosovo as being a province of
Yugoslavia. That is the reason why in his last major statement Joschka
Fischer - Germany's vice-chancellor and secretary of state - let the
question of "the future status of the Kosovo" open claiming that it
would
be impossible to resolve this now. In an interview with a French
newspaper, however, he made clear that he had no doubts about the
Kosovo's
future status: "The international community is present in Kosovo and the
Balkans in order to show that - according to the example of resolving
the
'German question' in 1990 - the 'Albanian question' could be resolved
only
with the agreement of the neighbouring states." (20)
US government circles are quite aware of those ambitions of their rival,
Germany. Zbigniew Brzezinski called the Berlin republic a "geostrategic
main actor" and a "subversive big power inspired by an ambitious
vision".
Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretary of state, characterized Germany as
the seismic focal point of the current geopolitical earthquakes which
are
disrupting the Atlantic Alliance as well as the Balkans. He emphasized
that Germany is "the epicentre of thoses processes - enlargement and
expansion, extension and deepening." (21)
Within the context of the war against Yugoslavia the other great powers,
however, not only reacted to aggressive German moves but pursued their
own
special interests as well. The United States wanted to retain its
influence in Europe, to strengthen a worldwide role for NATO and to
weaken
Russias influence within the new world order. Great Britain und France
were eager to demonstrate their military superiority over Germany and
wanted to give a starting signal for the establishing of an independent
European intervention force (together with Germany) vis-a-vis the USA.
Each of these nations is a rival to the others and is trying to retain
or
achieve as much influence and power as possible. The war against
Yugoslavia has been the first, however, to be spurred on by Germany as
an
attempt to redesign current world order after the fall of the Berlin
Wall.
It has put the irrational elements and the destructive roots of
capitalistic societies into a new light.
(1) This contribution is a short description of a broader study:
Matthias
Küntzel, Der Weg in den Krieg. Deutschland, die Nato und das Kosovo,
Elefanten Press, Berlin 2000. The author´s e-mail address:
MatKuentzel@....
(2) This warning was published in the Yugoslavian journal Polityka; see
the minutes of the Bundestag meeting June 16, 1991, pp. 2560-1.
(3) Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Redefining the National Interest, Foreign
Affairs
Vol.78 No.4, July/August 1999 pp. 22-35.
(4) See Rupert Scholz, Das Festhalten an ungewollten Staaten schafft
keine
Stabilität, in: Die Welt, December 12, 1991; Rupert Scholz, Das
Selbstbestimmungsrecht und die deutsche Politik, in: Internationale
Politik 4/1995, S.51.
(5) "Deutschland und Albanien ... bekräftigen das Recht aller Völker,
frei
und ohne Einmischung von außen ihr Schicksal zu bestimmen und ihre
politische, wirtschaftliche, soziale und kulturelle Entwicklung nach
eigenem Wunsch zu gestalten." This declaration is published in the
Archiv
der Gegenwart, March 13, 1995, pp. 39819-20.
(6) Roger Fallgot, How Germany Backed KLA, in: The European, 21-27
September 1998. See for more details M. Küntzel, Der Weg in den Krieg
pp.
59-64.
(6) Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Redefining the National Interest, Foreign
Affairs
Vol.78 No.4, July/August 1999 pp. 22-35.
(7) See Die Zeit, May 12, 1999.
(8) Christian Schwarz-Schilling, March 16, 1999, Deutschlandradio,
quoted
in: Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, Stichworte zur
Sicherheitspolitik, April 1998, p. 47.
(9) Russia, the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany are
members of this informal but influential group.
(10) Roger Fallgot, ibid.
(11) Interview with Klaus Kinkel, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 30,
1998.
(12) Mr. Rühe is quoted in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, June 9, 1998.
(13) See Chris Hedges, Kosovo's Next Masters? in: Foreign Affairs,
Vol.78,
No.3, May/June 1999, pp.24-42. "Although never much of a fighting force,
the Skanderbeg Division took part in the shameful roundup and
deportation
of the province's few hundred Jews during the Holocaust. ... The
decision
by KLA commanders to dress their police in black fatigues and order
their
fighters to salute with a cleched fist to the forehead has led many to
worry about these fascist antecedents." (ibid.)
(14) See Marvine Howe, Exodus of Serbians Stirs Province in Yugoslavia,
New York Times July 12, 1982.
(15) See New York Times, June 16, 1998.
(16) See Frankfurter Allgemeine, September 26, 1998.
(17) See New York Times, June 10, 1998.
(18) See the minutes of the Bundestag parliamentary session of April 15,
1999.
(19) See the minutes of the Bundestag parliamentary session of April 5,
2000.
(20) See Le Monde March 25, 2000, emphasis by the author.
(21) See Frankfurter Allgemeine, February 5, 1999.