IL DANNO E LA BEFFA


E' stato il bel tempo ad ostacolare la KFOR nel completamento delle sue
operazioni di "peacekeeping" per la valle di Presevo, nella Serbia
Meridionale: questa l'opinione del comandante italiano delle truppe di
occupazione, generale Carlo Cabigiosu, secondo il quotidiano "La
Repubblica". La KFOR avrebbe dovuto impedire gli attacchi degli
irredentisti pan-albanesi, che viceversa si sono addentrati in migliaia
al di fuori del Kosmet, nella valle di Presevo: "Speravo cadesse almeno
un metro di neve, ma e' venuta in ritardo", ha detto Cabigiosu.

Questa scorretta previsione metereologica ha creato un tale stato di
tensione nella KFOR che il 16 dicembre e' stato ordinato di sparare ad
altezza d'uomo a Leposavic contro una manifestazione di protesta dei
serbi, uccidendone due.

KFOR COMMANDER: KFOR'S HANDS TIED BECAUSE OF GOOD WEATHER
CONDITIONS
ROME, December 18 (Tanjug) The warm weather has prevented KFOR

from completing its overall peace operations in the Presevo valley in
southern Serbia, Rome daily La Republica quoted KFOR commander, Italian
general Carlo Cabigiosu as saying.
"I had hoped for at least one metre of snow, but the snowfall
has
been late," Gen. Cabigiosu set out adding that the snow would have made
it
more difficult for the terrorists to infiltrate the buffer zone in
southern
Serbia.

---

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Kosovo - Another Victim of Predatory Imperialism

Introduction

As our television screens are filled with pictures of horrible
atrocities
that have been committed against innocent Kosovan Albanians, just as not
so long ago they were filled with even worse atrocities committed
against
Bosnian Muslims, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the
imperialist media expect people to draw: that the Serbian leader,
Milosevic, is an inhuman monster cast in the mould of Adolf Hitler,
which
the `international community' (i.e., US imperialism, backed up by
British
imperialism) has a right – a duty even – to overthrow by any means
necessary. The means being advocated is bombing of Serbian
infrastructure
– though most of the quality newspapers are not at all sure what that
would achieve, other than to unify the Serbian people more firmly than
ever behind Milosevic.

While imperialism is appealing to our humanitarian instincts, our hatred
of human suffering, we must never lose sight of the fact that
humanitarianism is entirely alien to imperialism. As we look around and
see the suffering and thousands of deaths of the innocent occurring in
Iraq, for example, as a result of the blockade imposed by US
imperialism,
and its attempts to strangle North Korea and Cuba, to say nothing of
bombing raids on Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan, as we remember imperialism's
genocidal wars of aggression in Korea and Vietnam, we can find no basis
for US imperialism to condemn anybody as war criminals unless it first
starts with itself. Its `humanitarianism' is obviously just a propaganda
ploy to mobilise people and nations in its support.

Knowing all this, should we nevertheless support US imperialism in its
determination to interfere in Yugoslavia's affairs, regardless of what
might be its real motives, in order to bring an end to the horrible
suffering of Kosovan Albanians? Subjected to the Pax Americana, would
they
not at least be relieved of the horrors of Serbian misrule?

This article will argue quite categorically that imposition of the Pax
Americana should be fought at any cost since for the masses of people,
life under imperialist domination would be far harder than ever it was
under Serbia. The bloodshed would not stop, since US imperialism is far
more ruthless in wiping out its opponents than the Serbians could ever
be.
All that would change is that we would not see these massacres on the
television, which rarely, if ever, shows us pictures of the atrocities
committed by US allies: for instance, the atrocities committed against
the
Serbs by the Croatians and Bosnian Muslims or the Kosovo Liberation
Army.

Even to the extent that extreme Serbian nationalism has been guilty of
provoking bloodshed, the scale of the bloodletting has been made
possible
only by the intervention of outside forces, principally western
imperialism, in supplying armaments and finance to rival nationalists
from
Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia. Had it not been for this outside
interference, Yugoslavia's domestic feuds would never have escalated and
spiralled out of the control of the local protagonists in the way that
they have done. The Serb leadership is certainly to blame for fanning
the
flames of nationalism, but it is western imperialism that has poured
petrol on these flames and set the whole region alight.

Background to the Balkan crisis

Let us endeavour, then, to try to understand how the present parlous
situation has arisen in Yugoslavia, blowing up seemingly out of nowhere
when only 15 short years ago "Yugoslavia could, and did, walk tall in
the
world boasting of the cultural diversity which made their country
unique"
(Bennett, C., Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse, Hurst & Company, London,
1995,
p. 7). Moreover, far from nationalism being on the increase, and
despite
the best endeavours of nationalist politicians, "Yugoslavia's last
census,
which was carried out months before fighting broke out, registered a
jump
in the numbers of people who considered themselves Yugoslav, rather than
Croat, Serb or any other nationality" (ibid. p. 9).

There was a great deal within Yugoslavia which favoured the emergence of
a
Yugoslav national identity to take the place of `national' identities
based partly on religious difference and partly on which feudal empire
happened to have ruled the different regions inhabited by South Slavs.
The
Serb and Croat spoken languages are very close: in fact they are in
effect
the same language adulterated in different regions by a heavy input of
different neighbouring languages. Both Serbs and Croats have a history
of
struggle against foreign rule, and of mutual co-operation during those
struggles, although the oppressor in the case of the Serbs was the
Ottoman
empire while in the case of the Croats it was the Habsburg
(Austro-Hungarian) empire. In Yugoslavia Croats and Serbs had a common
territory incorporating all those areas, such as Bosnia Hercegovina,
where
neither Serb nor Croat nor anybody else constituted a majority of the
population. Muslims, incidentally, were originally Serbs who converted
to
Islam during the Ottoman empire. Their conversion took them out of the
Orthodox Christian community to which most Serbs belonged and which was
under Ottoman rule a self-governing entity. Muslim converts came under
different laws and a different system of governance, leading Muslims to
cease to identify with the Serbs. But there was no reason why in a
strictly secular society Muslims should not identify with Yugoslavia,
for
they had so much common history with Serbs that only religion really
stood
between them once the peculiar forms of Ottoman self-governance were
removed.

>From the point of view of nascent capitalism, it made much more sense to
create a home market over a geographical area of the size (and
containing
the natural resources) of an average European country at least, rather
than try to make one's mark in some Serb, Croat or Bosnian
mini-statelet.
The ousting of the Ottoman empire by the Serbs, and the break-up of the
Habsburg empire as a consequence of its defeat in the First World War,
made the realisation of Yugoslavia possible, although tensions between
Serb and Croat within the new state (which came into being in 1918) were
inevitable, if only to the extent that they had been pitted against each
other in the war by the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The marriage of Serb and Croat, however, foundered on major
incompatibilities. Serbs considered themselves superior as having fought
for, and won, their own independence from imperial rule, and having
fought
for, and won, the liberation of their territory from Austro-Hungary,
which
had invaded it in the First World War. Croats, on the other hand,
considered themselves superior because their territories were
economically
more developed, and because their proximity to the imperialist powers
enabled them to participate in the culture and sophistication that
accompanies wealth. In fact, Croatia's relative wealth was a major
sticking point as far as the unity of Yugoslavia was concerned, for the
Croatian bourgeoisie naturally thought that wealth should remain in
Croatia, while the dominant Serbian bourgeoisie thought it should be
more
evenly distributed – in their favour! As a result, the Serbs used their
dominance in the state organs to achieve this. Finding a formula in
which
Serb ambitions and Croat ambitions could be harmoniously accommodated
for
their mutual benefit proved impossible at the time, and relations
between
the two communities soured throughout the marriage. Yet nevertheless
there
was sufficient common interest for the parties to keep the marriage
going
and continue to look for ways to patch up their differences.

The Second World War

"The first Yugoslavia was not an unmitigated disaster doomed to end in
the
slaughter of the Second World War. That it did so has more to do with
foreign intervention and the exceptional circumstances of 1941 than any
innate desire of Serbs and Croats to wipe each other out." (Bennett,
p.33).

When the Second World War broke out, Yugoslavia initially came to an
accommodation with Hitler's Germany to allow German supplies (though not
troops) to pass through Yugoslavia to supply the German war effort in
Greece. This agreement, apparently designed to save Yugoslavia from
German
invasion, was unpopular amongst both Serbs and Croats and led to an
immediate coup d'etat, which overthrew the government. Axis forces
promptly invaded. Yugoslavia was carved up among Axis partners – Italy,
Bulgaria, Albania and Hungary all acquired sizeable portions, while
Germany took control of what was left through quisling governments –
that
of Ante Pavelic's Ustasi in Croatia and of Nedic in Serbia. The Ustasi
were a right-wing extreme Croat separatist organisation with little
popular support among Croats (their membership being estimated at 40,000
at most). Historically the organisation had opposed Croatia ever
becoming
part of Yugoslavia, and, by the outbreak of the Second World War, most
of
its membership was based in Bosnia Hercegovina rather than in Croatia
proper. It was the Ustasi who first introduced ethnic cleansing to
modern
Yugoslavia as they set about razing Serb villages in Croatian territory
with the express aim of `killing a third, forcing a third into exile and
converting the remaining third to Catholicism.' In the event, one in 6
Serbs living in the part of Yugoslavia handed over by Hitler to the
Ustasi
(the major part of Croatia and Bosnia Hercegovina) were slaughtered.

This murderous activity, however, did not lead to undying enmity between
Serbs and Croats, because Tito's partisans, who fought the German
occupation of Yugoslavia as well as Serb and Croat quislings alike, was
made up of both Serbs and Croats, even if, as might be expected, Serbs
predominated – for it was after all the Serbs who were suffering most
under the German occupation. Tito himself was half Croat (the other half
Slovene).

Tito's Yugoslavia

Once the war was over, Tito's partisans seized control of the whole of
Yugoslavia from the defeated Axis powers. To reconcile the communities
that had been set against each other in the war, the new government
copied
from the Soviet Union's constitution all those elements which guaranteed
the fullest national rights to each and every one of Yugoslavia's
communities. The new constitution of Yugoslavia was adopted on 31
January
1946, setting up a federation of 6 Republics (Bosnia Hercegovina,
Croatia,
Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia), with full rights of
secession, plus the autonomous province of Vojvodina and the autonomous
region of Kosovo within Serbia.

Although the constitution was copied from the Soviet Union, Tito's
`communism' was but a thin veneer for bourgeois Yugoslav nationalism.
What
was set up in Yugoslavia was not a communist system, but a system of
`workers' control' – i.e., production for profit, but profit to be
shared
among the workers at the production plants. Such a system was designed
to
enable a new Yugoslav bourgeoisie to emerge from among a meritocratic
elite - the production managers, who would of course take a
disproportionate share of the profits in question. Practice, however,
proved that (as indeed it had proved several times previously in world
history) that production for profit (i.e., capitalism) is incompatible
with the well-being of the majority of the workers. To the extent that
Yugoslavia of necessity had to provide civilised living standards for
the
workers who `controlled' production, it ceased to be sufficiently
profitable and would have collapsed but for one thing – the support of
foreign imperialism – above all, US imperialism. The latter was quick to
seize the opportunity, presented by the widespread belief that
Yugoslavia
was `communist', to use it as a propaganda weapon against communism
proper. Business Week of 12 November 1950 openly bragged that for the US
in particular and the West in general, supporting Tito had turned out to
be one of the least expensive ways of containing Russian communism. The
cost of western aid to Tito had amounted, at the time, to $51.7 million
–
far less than the billion dollars that the US had spent in Greece to
achieve the same result. And, in an interview in the Daily Telegraph of
12
December 1949, Anthony Eden foresaw that Tito's example and influence
would be able decisively to alter the course of events in central and
eastern Europe. The Truman administration decided to ensure that Tito's
experiment with `market socialism' was to appear to be successful, as a
means of supporting `market socialists' attempting to seize control in
the
USSR and eastern Europe. This was all part of the propaganda drive to
try
to prove to the proletariat of the whole world that scientific socialism
was wrong to claim that only a centralised planned economy can replace
and
do away with the dangerously outmoded capitalist system of production,
with its inevitable crises arising from the anarchy of production
inherent
in the capitalist system, and that only a centralised planned economy
can
guarantee to the working masses an ever-increasing standard of living.
Imperialism's ploy was to `disprove' this not only by economic blockade
and maintaining a state of constant threat of war which would hold back
the living standards of those living in communist societies, but also by
providing an apparent `living proof' that market socialism can be
successful.

Thus Bennett notes (p. 59): "Without western economic support Yugoslavia
would probably have crumbled in the face of a concerted economic
blockade
by the Soviet bloc [despite the fact that there was no economic blockade
by the western bloc!]. In September 1949, the Truman administration
granted Yugoslavia a $20 million aid package and by 1960 Yugoslavia had
consumed more than $2 billion worth of non-repayable western aid. Aid
became fundamental to Yugoslavia's development and allowed Yugoslavs to
live way beyond their means "

During these years of relative prosperity for all, underpinned by a
Constitution providing for strict equality and fairness between
Yugoslavia's communities, the Yugoslav `national question' became
quiescent. Everybody profited from being a Yugoslav. According to
Bennett
(p. 65):

"Great winners in Tito's Yugoslavia were the country's smaller and more
backward peoples, the Macedonians, Muslim Slavs, and to a lesser extent
Hungarians and Albanians. The security provided by the Titoist system
allowed Macedonian and Muslim Slavs to thrive culturally as never before
and to evolve a modern and confident national identity."

Imperialism withdraws support

Once market socialist revisionism had been planted in the Soviet Union
and
had irreversibly taken root under the aegis of Khrushchev and those who
followed him, US imperialism's enthusiasm for spending billions of
dollars
to prop up the Yugoslav economy rapidly vanished. As Bennett notes, "The
crunch came about the time of Tito's death [1980], when the loans dried
up
and Yugoslavia had to begin repaying the national debt [this had risen
from $3.5 billion in 1973 to $20.5 billion in 1981]. It coincided with
the
recession in western Europe stemmming from the Second Oil Shock of 1979,
while the debt burden was aggravated by high interest rates and an
exceptionally strong dollar. Between 1982 and 1989 the standard of
living
fell nearly 40% and in December 1989 inflation peaked at more than
2,000%."
As imperialist contributions to the Yugoslav coffers declined, so did
Yugoslav living standards. In these circumstances the bourgeois
leadership
of the Yugoslav `communist' party did what all bourgeois leaders do,
namely, find a diversion for the anger of the masses – a scapegoat to
take
the blame for the failures of the capitalist system. Hence the revival
of
Serb and Croat nationalism within Yugoslavia. In Croatia workers were
told
that their plunging living conditions were caused by unfair favouritism
within the Yugoslav state towards the Serbs. This led to a surge in the
Croatian nationalist movement, which was allowed to flourish and
propagate
its views openly. In Serbia workers were encouraged to blame the
parasitism of all other Yugoslav communities for the fall in Serbian
living standards. Yet all this propaganda, though it undoubtedly gave
rise
to virulent nationalist movements, did not prevent most ordinary people
from wanting to identify with Yugoslavia rather than their `nation', as
we
have seen from their responses to the census carried out shortly before
the fighting broke out. Ordinary people, having savoured the advantages
of
co-existence, have no interest in communal violence, but have to be
dragged into it by force.

Imperialism finally pulled the plug on Yugoslavia as eastern Europe
defected from the communist camp. Thus Bennett (p.11): "As communism
collapsed in the rest of Europe and the threat of Warsaw Pact invasion
disappeared [`Warsaw Pact invasion' is an imperialist euphemism for the
revolutionary effect that communist example has on the working masses in
capitalist countries], Yugoslavia lost the unique geopolitical position
it
had occupied in world politics for more than four decades. Diplomatic
activity and foreign investment shifted away from Yugoslavia towards
Eastern Europe's emerging democracies, and, without the Eastern bogey to
bind the country together and Western money to bail out the economy,
Yugoslavs found themselves for the first time entirely on their own."

It was at this point that Yugoslavia's ruling elites gave up their
attempts at co-operation. The relatively advanced Slovenes and Croat
bourgeoisies decided that their futures were better secured under the
aegis of German imperialism than within Yugoslavia's economic shambles
and
they bailed out. Only the Serbian bourgeoisie resisted the pressure to
become an imperialist stooge and sought to contine to battle for
economic
independence. This goal, however, was being sabotaged by the secession
of
republics, deserting to the enemy bearing with them much of Yugoslavia's
most precious assets. This is why Serbia went to war to try to prevent
the
secessions, while Europe and the US laboured to encourage them. The more
Serbia tried to halt the process of Yugoslav fragmentation by reversing
constitutional freedoms and increasing police and army control, the
louder
the howls of protest against Great Serbian chauvinism, suppression of
national rights, etc., etc., the more the masses were drawn into
communal
politics. Imperialism had Serbia caught in a bind, a trap that tightened
its hold with every attempt on Serbia's part to escape.

As is now known, Serbia was defeated in the civil war unleashed to
retain
Croatia within Yugoslavia, and again in the war to retain Bosnia
Hercegovina – largely as a result of massive assistance provided by
imperialism in the form of armaments and credits, and, in the case of
Bosnia, actual military intervention. The West's intervention ensured
that
what should have been a local difficulty requiring brisk suppression of
a
small band of frustrated compradors with little popular support actually
became a full scale war in which thousands perished and massive
destruction of homes and economic infrastructure took place – all grist
to
the mill of imperialist multinationals which looked forward to lucrative
reconstruction contracts when the war was over.

Kosovo

Kosovo is just the latest example of imperialist-inspired disintegration
of Yugoslavia. The majority Albanian population settled in the area
after
it became under-populated following the Serbian defeat by Turkish
warlords
at the battle of Kosovo Polje (the field of blackbirds) on 28 June 1389!
This battle, heavily mythologised, is the basis of Serbia's claim that
Kosovo is, despite its 90% Albanian majority, an integral part of
Serbia!
That claim, in turn, is bound to antagonise the overwhelming majority of
Kosovo's population, since there has been no Serb majority in the region
for over two centuries.

After Tito took power in Yugoslavia, there was originally no attempt
made
to win the hearts and minds of Kosovo's Albanians, who were far from
happy
to be part of Yugoslavia. They had been treated as a subject people in
pre-second world war Yugoslavia – Kosovo having been annexed by
Yugoslavia
from Albania, as a result of the latter being on the losing side in the
First World War and being too weak to prevent the loss of that
territory.
The inevitable result of this discrimination and oppression was that at
the time of the Second World War, Kossovars by and large sided with
Germany in that War. As a result of this they were poorly regarded by
Yugoslavs, who saw no reason to devote much in the way of resources to
this backward region. By the late 1960s, however, Kossovars began taking
to the streets to protest at their oppression. Tito accepted that their
grievances were justified and set about providing them with the same
rights as were enjoyed by other minority communities in Yugoslavia,
stopping short only at recognising that they had any right of secession.
Thus Albanian was recognised as the principal official language of the
region, a university was set up in Pristina as well as an institute for
promoting Albanian culture. With imperialist funds flowing freely into
Yugoslavia at the time, it was possible to direct some of this money
towards Kossovo, perhaps to dampen down any interest Kossovans might
otherwise have had in transferring their allegiance to socialist
Albania.

Hence "funds began to flow into Kosovo to finance a crash programme of
economic expansion. Albanians were encouraged to join the League of
Communists, the state administration and even the police force. Between
1971 and 1975, 70% of Kosovo's budget and investments were paid for out
of
federal sources." (Bennett, p. 72).

But the investment that flowed into Kosovo built large modern plants
that
yielded relatively few jobs. To the extent that living conditions
improved, this was largely aid-dependent.

It follows then that from 1980 onwards, as imperialism cut back its
funding of Yugoslavia, which then had to start repaying its massive
debts
from its own resources, Kosovo suffered badly. By March 1981 Kosovo
students were already demonstrating against poor living conditions and
job
prospects. Because living conditions were deteriorating all over
Yugoslavia and its government had no solution to this problem
whatsoever,
it had absolutely no way of coming to terms with the students' demands,
without encouraging like demands from other parts of the country. Its
only
possible response in the circumstances was to suppress the protests by
force. Troops and police moved into Pristina University campus to quell
the unrest. At least 12 people died and 150 were wounded. Heavy jail
sentences were imposed on demonstrators. The net effect of this was that
most of the goodwill created by the years of financial investment in
Kosovo was wiped out practically overnight.

The nationalist card

It was against Kosovo that the Yugoslav government first started playing
the nationalist card in earnest, in order to divert the anger of the
Yugoslav masses, particularly the Serbians, away from the bourgeoisified
`communist' elite (who were really responsible for the country's parlous
state):

"Articles written by [Serb] nationalists which would never have been
published during Tito's lifetime began to appear in the aftermath of the
unrest in Kosovo in 1981." Kosovan Albanians were accused of
perpetrating
genocide against Serbs, with a view to terrorising them into leaving the
region. Bennett considers that there was no truth in this allegation,
but
whether it be true or false, what cannot be denied is the fact that the
basis of Serb/Albanian co-existence began irretrievably to break down.
In
fact, Milosevic's rise to power was, in its final stages, effected
through
his willingness to encourage the most rabid Serb nationalism. His
popularity was based on telling the Serbs the lies that his party rivals
did not care tell them – i.e., that the explanation for their falling
living standards was their merciless exploitation by ungrateful
minorities
such as the Albanians. Once this nationalist analysis was unleashed,
however, it came to be directed at all Yugoslavia's non-Serb people,
turning the non-antagonistic contradictions between them into
antagonistic
ones and opening up a weakness in the fabric of the body politic which
laid Yugoslavia to decimation at the hands of imperialism as soon as the
moment for this was ripe.

The growth of nationalism was further encouraged by the conditions of
market socialism that of necessity pitted one region against the rest.
Each region sought to benefit at the expense of the rest, with the
result
that:

"All republics and provinces were guilty of pursuing their own
`national',
rather than Yugoslav, economic goals, often at the expense of the rest
of
the federation. Double capacity and even protectionism between republics
were features of Yugoslavia's economic landscape " and "instead of a
single economy, Yugoslavia was fragmenting into eight mini-states."
(Bennett, p. 75).

This was hardly the type of capitalism that was likely to thrive in a
world where to an ever larger extent it is monopolies which rule the
roost. This fragmentation went in the opposite direction of what
Yugoslavia needed to thrive, if it was ever going to thrive at all, as a
capitalist economy.

It is in this context that Milosevic resorted to the concept of Greater
Serbia to build an economic base of viable size. If minority communities
could not be maintained within Yugoslavia willingly, then they must be
retained forcibly, using as the instruments for their retention the Serb
communities scattered throughout most of the country. The English,
French
and Spanish nations were created this way, and, had there been no
outside
interference, no doubt the Yugoslav nation might have been created this
way as well. Nowadays, however, as the example of Yugoslavia shows, it
is
not possible to open up such antagonisms without powerful imperialist
predators taking advantage of the situation in order to enslave
oppressor
and oppressed alike.

Imperialism's interest in Yugoslavia

Imperialism's interests in Yugoslavia are manifold. Both European and US
imperialism want to exploit it, and disputes have arisen between them as
to the sharing of the booty. As we have seen, it was European
intervention
in recognising seceding states in the first place that lit the flames of
war. This fact is recognised even by the imperialist media. In fact the
International Herald Tribune of 20 September 1995 commented that the
whole
situation had been inflamed by imperialism, stating that western Europe,
led by Germany, had recognised Bosnia's Muslim government, knowing full
well that the Serbs would fight to overthrow it, and that from the start
the West had thrown its weight against the Bosnian Serbs. The wars were
then very greatly prolonged by US imperialism intervening just as peace
terms had been accepted on European terms to enable it to snatch victory
from European jaws and secure a good part of the booty for itself. Colin
Powell, the former US general, considered that the war in Yugoslavia was
perfectly avoidable and had taken place largely because of the
involvement
of the United States on the side of the Bosnian Muslims, whose
preponderance in Bosnian government the Bosnian Serbs could hardly be
expected to tolerate (see the New York Times of 19 September 1995).
Europe
is nevertheless forced to put up with US imperialism foraging in its
`back
yard', for, as Martin Walker of the Guardian reminded us on 9 October,
1998, (`The Kosovo Crisis: This is not the time to back down'), the US
Congress bears a great deal of the cost of rich Europe's security. Were
European imperialism to confront the US, there would be a real danger
that
"an increasingly isolationist US Congress" might no longer be prepared
to
do so. In other words, Europe is largely dependent on the United States
to
use its war machine to protect European imperialist interests all over
the
world. So long as US imperialism only demands a `fair share' and does
not
snaffle the whole of the loot, it is probable that Europeans will
continue
to put up with the situation, albeit not with any great enthusiasm.

Imperialist interests in Yugoslavia are based on a number of
considerations. First, it is another useful base from which to launch
military strikes against the oil-producing countries to the south,
should
they take it into their heads to challenge imperialism's right to drain
their oil wells at prices largely dictated by imperialism. It serves
equally well as a useful military base to launch military strikes
against
Russia to the north, should either its bourgeoisie stop co-operating
with
Western imperialism or should the proletariat rise up to make revolution
once again.

Second, Yugoslavia – and in particular Serbia – stands on the most
favoured route for an oil pipeline to convey Caucasian oil to the west.
It
is therefore crucial that Serbia be governed by a government responsive
to
Western imperialist demands.

Third, imperialism is interested in exploiting local resources and
markets. Control of the government means control of government
contracts.
For this reason also, every imperialist wants its own men installed in
each of the ex-Yugoslav states.

As far as Kosovo itself is concerned, Christopher Hedges in the New York
Times positively drooled over the wealth of the Stari Trg mining
complex,
containing glittering veins of lead, zinc, cadmium, gold and silver.
"The
Stari Trg mine, with its warehouses, is ringed with smelting plants, 17
metal treatment sights, freight yards, railroad lines, a power plant and
the country's largest battery plant", says Hedges. Lignite deposits in
the
Kosovo mines are sufficient for the next 13 centuries and the capacity
of
the lead and zinc refineries rank third in the world. The Trepce mining
complex, also in Kosovo, is "the most valuable piece of real estate in
the
Balkans worth at least $5 billion." Kosovo also has 17 billion tons of
coal reserves. These mines alone are sufficient to explain the interest
of
imperialism in prising Kosovo out of the Serbian grasp and the equal
determination of the Serbians never to let go of the `cradle of the
Serbian nation'.

In order to get their hands on Kosovo, European and US imperialism have
both been playing games in the region and, as with Bosnia, it seems that
once again US imperialism may be stepping in to secure a larger share of
the spoils than European imperialism considers is justified by US
imperialism's previous commitment to the cause. Nevertheless, joint US
and
Europeah efforts had been directed through the so-called Kosovo
Liberation
Army (KLA), trained and financed by US imperialism: the US Public
Broadcasting Service of 15 July reported that US Vietnam war veterans
were
training the KLA at bases in Albania and Kosovo. And at the scene of a
KLA
atrocity (the abduction, murder and incineration of 10 Serb civilians),
reported by the Guardian of 5 September 1998, a freshly-abandoned KLA
camp, there were left behind "several hundred yellow humanitarian aid
packages with an American flag on the label." along with a massive
arsenal
of expensive weaponry. There seems little doubt that the KLA massacres
were designed to inflame Serb nationalism and invite reprisals. In fact,
even Mark Almond in the Independent on Sunday of 4 October 1998 – as
great
an opponent of Serbia as can be found anywhere - writes: "There can be
little doubt that the KLA has pursued a policy designed to provoke
reprisals from the Serbs ..." (`Never again' again).

Much to the disgust of imperialism, the KLA collapsed in just seven
weeks
when faced with Serbian troops, thus giving lie to its alleged popular
support. Despite the millions of $US poured into it, the KLA proved
unequal to the task of capturing Kosovo for US imperialism.

As a result US imperialism determined on the course of forcing Milosevic
to open up Kosovo to imperialist exploitation by threatening to bomb
Serbian infrastructure to smithereens should he fail to surrender, in
the
same way as Iraqi infrastructure was smashed at a huge cost in human
suffering to the Iraqi people simply because Iraq would not bow to US
imperialist demands.

America's European allies, apart from Tony Blair who does not have a
scruple to his name, have been highly critical of the US intention to
use
NATO to effect the bombing raids, in blatant disregard of international
law to which the Europeans are in the habit of at least paying lip
service. Even the Daily Mail's Stephen Glover, in an article entitled
`British bombers must NOT go in' felt constrained to point out that
"legally speaking Kosovo is as much part of Serbia as Northern Ireland
is
part of the United Kingdom.

"I can't think of another example of British troops attacking a regime
for
mistreating its own citizens within its own borders.

"Do we think there is a sufficiently good justification for throwing
away
the rule book that has governed relations between states? My own test
would be one of proportion. I can imagine supporting action against a
regime that was committing mass genocide against its own people. But the
example scarcely holds good here. Most estimates suggest that the Serbs
have been responsible for some 1,000 deaths in Kosovo ...

"Moreover, Milosevic's main enemy, the Maoist-inclined KLA, is hardly a
bunch of angels. Its followers have used terrorist methods against
Serbian
targets"

This article draws attention to some very important factors: the sheer
illegality of NATO's proposed interference in the internal affairs of
sovereign states; the relatively small scale of atrocities committed by
Serbia in the course of putting down an armed rebellion. The allegation
that the KLA is `Maoist-inclined', however, should be taken with a pinch
of salt, for US imperialism, which certainly supported the KLA, does not
support `Maoists'. Such `Maoism' as the KLA may profess could at best be
purely cosmetic.

In face of the collapse of the KLA, imperialism would appear to have
abandoned for the time being the aim of setting up an independent
Kosovan
entity, or of joining Kosovo to Albania, in favour of simply
pressurising
Milosevic to do their bidding in return for letting Kosovo remain within
Yugoslavia. Ian Bruce in the Herald of 8 October (`When the talking
stops') claims that this is because "No Western country wanted a rogue,
uncontrollable Islamic state gaining independence on its southern flank,
a
potential haven for militants and terrorists. There still exists the
risk
of a wider ethnic war uniting people of Albanian descent against Greeks,
Macedonians and Bulgarians. The shock waves from that might easily push
Turkey and Russia into a conflagration that could shatter NATO itself."

David Buchan of the Financial Times (5 October 1998) advances a
different
reason for not favouring the secession of Kosovo: "The West," he says,
"does not want to see any re-drawing of international boundaries in the
Balkans. It does not want to endorse independence for Kosovo for fear
that, once it happened, the ethnic Albanian minority in Macedonia might
want to join up with the Kosovar Albanians and both might want to merge
with Albania proper".

If Kosovo were allowed independence, then there would be absolutely no
basis, he argues, for refusing the Bosnian Serbs the right to secede and
join Greater Serbia, an outcome he considers unthinkable.

It is probable, however, that the one and only reason why imperialism is
no longer pressing for Kosovo's independence is that the KLA has
collapsed, no `credible' and reliable potential puppet government can
therefore be identified, and imperialism has decided it can in any event
achieve its aims by putting pressure on Milosevic, at least for the time
being. No doubt it will take advantage of the next few months to regroup
a
force of loyal quislings in the province, and if successful, worries
about
upsetting the regional balance of forces should Kosovo secede will
disappear.

Our view is that of the two enemies facing the people of Kosovo,
imperialism is infinitely more dangerous and brutal than Serb
nationalism.
All imperialist intervention in Kosovo and elsewhere in Yugoslavia must
be
vigorously opposed, and the people of Yugoslavia and former Yugoslavia
must be left to settle their differences by themselves. Now, as in 1913,
the people of Yugoslavia can expect nothing from the bourgeoisie for, as
Lenin explained in The Balkan War and Bourgeois Chauvinism written in
March of that year:

"What was the real historical reason for settling urgent Balkan problems
by means of a war, a war guided by bougeois and dynastic interests? The
chief cause was the weakness of the proletariat in the Balkans, and also
the reactionary influence and pressure of the powerful European
bourgeoisie. They are afraid of real freedom both in their own countries
and in the Balkans; their only aim is profit at other people's expense;
they stir up chauvinism and national enmity to faciliate their policy of
plunder and to impede the free development of the oppressed classes of
the
Balkans..."

Bernard Kouchner's Legacy of Failure

T.V. Weber
&
Alida Weber



We have long been complaining about the U.S. news media and its failure
to inform the public about the Clinton Administration's "legacy" of
anarchy and mayhem in Kosovo. The news media in the U.S. has been almost
completely silent about the ongoing genocide against Serbs, who are
being victimized by terrorists associated with the "disbanded" KLA and
its sympathizers in the U.N./KFOR occupation.

Over the past few months, though, the level of bloodshed has increased
enough that news of it is beginning to trickle through the blockade in
the mainstream U.S. news media.

In a Newsweek interview on May 15, 2000, Bernard Kouchner, the U.N.
official in charge of the occupation of Kosovo, even admitted,
"Apparently a Serb has a 20 times greater chance of being a victim of a
crime than an Albanian does." (See
http://www.listbot.com/cgi-bin/subscriber?Act=view_message&list_id=STOPNATO&

msg_num=9003&start_num=9008.) But the tone of the Newsweek interview
made it clear that neither Kouchner nor the magazine's interviewer were
unduly concerned about this fact.

An article by Associated Press writer Danica Kirka, "Three Killed in
Shooting in Kosovo," appeared in the Washington Post on May 29, 2000.
(See
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/specials/europe/balkans/A26941-2000May29.html.)
The article describes an act of senseless slaughter, in which an
unidentified attacker, "thought to be an Albanian terrorist" and "armed
with an automatic weapon, opened fire on a group of Serbs gathered in a
store in Cernica." Killed in the attack were three Serbs, 4-year-old
Milos Petrovic, Petrovic's grandfather, Vojin Vasic, 60, and Tihomir
Simjanovic, 45.

Bernard Kouchner was ready with his crocodile tears, saying "What can
possibly be gained by killing a child?" But according to the article,
Kouchner insisted that "only the regime of Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic stands to gain by unrest in this southern Serb province."

By making such a statement, Kouchner is attempting to shift the blame
for this innocent child's death to Mr. Milosevic. But that's ridiculous.
Milosevic, for nearly a year, has had no control, nor even any
influence, over events in Kosovo. Kouchner himself is the man in charge.
This incident is particularly revealing of Kouchner's true nature, but
the murder of yet another Serb in Kosovo is, sadly, no isolated event.
Too many other such crimes have been committed in recent months to
repeat all of them here, but an abundance of reports are available in
news archives on the Internet, for those who can stand to read such a
catalogue of tragedy and horror. Most revealing of all is the recent
action by Doctors Without Borders (a/k/a Médecins Sans Frontières or
MSF), an organization that Kouchner himself helped to found. It should
tell us something when even MSF can't keep up the charade any longer. On
August 7, 2000, MSF announced in a news release that their organization
is withdrawing from Kosovo. In their words, "Médecins Sans Frontières
has decided to reduce its teams and to stop its present operations in
the Kosovar enclaves. The humanitarian organisation refuses to continue
its operations on behalf of the ethnic minorities in a context where
basic protection for these populations is not being guaranteed by the
military and civilian administration of Kosovo." (See
http://www.msf.org/projects/europe/kosovo/reports/2000/08/pr-enclaves/
and http://www.egroups.com/message/decani/33582.). MSF's news release
was picked up by Associated Press and appeared in Nando Times, but did
not receive wide coverage in the U.S. (See
http://www.nandotimes.com/no_frames/global/story/0,4382,500236922-500346724-502000175-0,00.html). Like
so many other self-styled "do-gooders" who have made their careers in
corrupt government bureaucracies and equally corrupt NGOs, Kouchner is a
trafficker in human misery. He won't willingly do anything to put
himself and his fellow vultures out of business. After all, the longer
he can keep the misery going, the longer he, and others like him, keep
their jobs. But this works only so long as he can continue blaming the
misery on someone other than himself. And it's getting harder and harder
for him to get away with that. As Kouchner's term as administrator of
occupied Kosovo draws to a close, it is clear that the reign of
corruption, lawlessness, and terror in Kosovo represents Kouchner's
personal failure. The rest of the world knows it, even if Kouchner does
not.

7/11/2000 Mailing address:P.O. Box 388164Chicago, Illinois 60638 Phone
773-767-5690

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Dr. Peter Strutynski <strutype@...-kassel.de>
Datum: Donnerstag, 23. November 2000 11:42
Betreff: Friedensratschlag: Interview mit Heinz Loquai


>Kassel, den 24. November 2000
>
>Pressemitteilung
>Brigadegeneral a.D. Heinz Loquai bei Kongress der Friedensbewegung
>Sperrfrist: 24. November
>
>Dr. Heinz Loquai wird auf dem bundesweiten und internationalen
>"Friedenspolitischen Ratschlag", der am 2./3. Dezember 2000 in Kassel
>stattfindet, über das Thema "Kriege vermeiden - Friedenschancen
>nutzen -
>Friedensbedingungen Verbessern" sprechen.
>Heinz Loquai war bis Juni 2000 Mitglied der Deutschen OSZE-Delegation
>in
>Wien. In dieser Eigenschaft hatte er an den Verhandlungen über
>Rüstungskontrolle im Rahmen des Dayton-Abkommens teilgenommen und war
>unmittelbar mit dem Kosovo-Konflikt befasst. In seiner Studie ("Der
>Kosovo-Konflikt - Wege in einen vermeidbaren Krieg", erschienen im
>NOMOS-Verlag) hat er die Zeit von Ende November 1997 bis März 1999
>genau
>untersucht und dabei die Vorgeschichte des NATO-Angriffs auf
>Jugoslawien
>analysiert. Der Bundesregierung wirft er vor, den Krieg gegen
>Jugoslawien mit groben Manipulationen vorbereitet und gegenüber der
>Öffentlichkeit gerechtfertigt zu haben.
>Mit Dr. Heinz Loquai sprachen wir im Vorfeld des Friedensratschlags.
>Das
>dabei entstandene Interview stellen wir Ihnen gern zur
>Veröffentlichung
>zur Verfügung.
>
>Frage: In Ihrer Studie zeigen Sie auf, dass der Jugoslawien-Krieg die
>Folge einer Eskalation war, bei der die NATO und insbesondere die USA
>bewusst auf eine militärische Konfliktlösung zugesteuert sind. Eine
>alternative, zivile Konfliktlösung wäre durchaus möglich gewesen.
>
>Heinz Loquai: Der Kosovo-Konflikt hat sich lange Zeit im Schatten der
>anderen Konflikte im ehemaligen Jugoslawien entwickelt. Trotz
>unterschiedlicher Appelle hat er nur gelegentlich die internationale
>Aufmerksamkeit auf sich gezogen. Geäußert hat sich der Konflikt durch
>eine seit 1989 ausgeübte Repressionspolitik der Bundesrepublik
>Jugoslawien und Serbiens gegen die Kosovo-Albaner und deren Versuch,
>diese Unterdrückung durch eine zunächst gewaltlose Strategie zu
>unterlaufen und faktisch immer mehr staatliche Selbständigkeit zu
>etablieren. Der politische Konflikt bestand darin, dass das Ziel der
>Albaner, die staatliche Unabhängigkeit durchzusetzen, mit dem Ziel
>der
>Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien, das Kosovo als serbische Provinz im
>jugoslawischen Staatsgebiet zu halten, unvereinbar war. Die
>gewaltsame
>Austragung des Konflikts, der von ethnischen, sozialen, religiösen
>und
>wirtschaftlichen Konflikten umlagert wurde, war ein Bürgerkrieg.
>Allerdings wurde er nicht von allen als Bürgerkrieg begriffen und
>beurteilt. So sah z. B. die Belgrader Führung das Problem im Kosovo
>nur
>in der Bekämpfung einer kleinen Gruppe von Terroristen und reagierte
>dementsprechend. Dabei versäumte es die serbische Staatsautorität,
>eine
>Perspektive und praktische, konkrete Ziele für eine friedliche Lösung
>des Konflikts zu entwickeln.
>
>Frage: Auf der anderen Seite die UCK, die die Unabhängigkeit durch
>einen
>bewaffneten Kampf erreichen wollte.
>
>Heinz Loquai: Bei der UCK lassen Strategie und Taktik deutlich
>erkennen,
>dass sich deren Führung konsequent an die Prinzipien eines
>Bürgerkriegs
>gehalten hat. Nachdem sich die NATO in den Konflikt eingeschaltet,
>deutlich Partei gegen die Serben ergriffen und ein militärisches
>Drohpotential, das nur gegen die Serben gerichtet war, aufgebaut
>hatte,
>eröffnete sich für die UCK zum ersten Mal eine ganz konkrete
>Perspektive
>für einen raschen Sieg im Bürgerkrieg. Die UCK hatte damit die
>stärkste
>Militärallianz der Welt als Verbündeten; als Luftwaffe der UCK gewann
>schließlich die NATO den Bürgerkrieg für die UCK.
>
>Frage: Welche weitergehenden Optionen hat die NATO dabei verfolgt?
>
>Heinz Loquai: Für die NATO selbst wurde das Kosovo immer mehr zu
>einer
>Arena, in der die Politik der NATO exemplarisch angewandt und auch
>getestet wurde. ... Die NATO war ja dabei, eine neue Strategie
>einzuführen, Einsätze außerhalb des Artikel 5 des NATO-Vertrages
>sollten
>in Zukunft ohne UN-Mandat möglich sein. Im Krieg gegen Jugoslawien
>setzte die NATO vorab ihre Strategie um. Bezeichnend hierzu ist, dass
>der amerikanische Präsident am 24. März 1999 in seiner Rede an das
>amerikanische Volk nicht die humanitäre Katastrophe, sondern die
>Glaubwürdigkeit des NATO-Bündnisses an die erste Stelle gestellt hat.
>Um
>jeden Preis sollte verhindert werden, dass die NATO - wie vorher die
>UN
>- als Papiertiger erschien.
>
>Frage: Die NATO hat Stellung zugunsten einer Partei bezogen. Hat sie
>sich damit nicht als Vermittler bei Konflikten eindeutig
>disqualifiziert
>?
>
>Heinz Loquai: Die NATO hat in diesem Konflikt einseitig Partei
>ergriffen
>und damit eine politische Lösung verhindert. Wer jedoch in einem
>Konflikt vermitteln will, muss das Vertrauen der Konfliktparteien
>haben
>und hier ist Voraussetzung, dass der Vermittler das Verhalten der
>Parteien mit gleichen Maßstäben bewertet und eventuelle Drohungen und
>Sanktionen gegen alle Vertragsbrüche und Gewalttäter auferlegt. Dies
>war
>im Kosovo nicht der Fall, hierzu ein Beispiel: In der Resolution 1203
>des UN-Sicherheitsrats vom 24.10.1998 wird von beiden Parteien das
>Ende
>der Gewalttaten und die Befolgung früherer Resolutionen verlangt. Die
>Jugoslawen kamen dieser Aufforderung nach, dennoch erhielt die NATO
>ihre
>Kriegsdrohung gegen sie aufrecht. Die UCK hielt sich nicht daran. Die
>internationale Gemeinschaft tat kaum etwas, um sie dazu zu zwingen
>...
>
>Frage: Zur Begründung für ein militärisches Eingreifen verweist die
>Bundesregierung immer wieder auf die Ereignisse von Racak.
>
>Heinz Loquai: Das sogenannte Massaker von Racak hat den Fortgang des
>Kosovo-Konflikts erheblich beeinflusst und den Weg zum Krieg gegen
>die
>Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien geebnet. Unstrittig ist wohl - dies gibt
>auch
>die serbische Führung zu -, dass die Toten in Racak auf das Konto der
>serbischen Sicherheitskräfte gingen. Unklar ist nach wie vor der
>Ablauf
>des Geschehens. Eine entscheidende Rolle spielte dabei der
>amerikanische
>Leiter der Kosovo-Verifikationsmission, Botschafter William Walker.
>Bei
>einer objektiven Betrachtung kommt man nicht umhin sein Verhalten als
>unangemessen und außerhalb aller normalen Regeln für eine Person mit
>diplomatischem Status zu bewerten. In Racak, am Ort des Geschehens,
>schien es ihm vor allem darum zu gehen, den von ihm mitgebrachten
>Journalisten freies Schalten und Walten zu ermöglichen. Walker machte
>keine Anstalten notwendigen Maßnahmen für eine kriminaltechnische
>Untersuchung einzuleiten, so z. B. das Gebiet abzusperren und den
>unerlaubten Zugang zu verhindern. Er beschuldigte aufgrund des
>Augenscheins und der Aussagen der Dorfbewohner die jugoslawischen
>Sicherheitskräfte und machte darüber hinaus falsche Angaben zu den
>Toten. Mit seinen vorschnellen Aussagen und Urteilen prägte er das
>Urteil anderer Organisationen und Regierungen, die ihrerseits seine
>"Feststellungen" mit fahrlässiger Leichtgläubigkeit ungeprüft
>übernahmen
>und zu einer Grundlage ihrer Politik machten. Mit seiner unbewiesenen
>Version von Racak zündete Walker die Lunte zum Krieg gegen
>Jugoslawien.
>
>Frage: Eine andere Inszenierung war wohl der sogenannte Hufeisenplan,
>den der Bundesverteidigungsminister Rudolf Scharping präsentierte.
>
>Heinz Loquai: Scharping behauptete zweierlei. Er sagte, er habe
>Beweise
>für einen militärischen Operationsplan der serbisch-jugoslawischen
>Führung, der die Vertreibung aller Albaner aus dem Kosovo zum Ziel
>habe.
>Hierzu ist zu sagen: Das, was der Minister als Beweise bisher
>vorgelegt
>hat, ist in sich äußerst widersprüchlich und fragwürdig und daher
>auch
>nicht beweiskräftig. Die Offenlegung der Dokumente verweigert der
>Minister mit fadenscheinigen Argumenten. Außerdem behauptet
>Scharping,
>dass dieser Plan bereits seit Ende 1998 ausgeführt wurde. Hierzu ist
>festzustellen: Sogar die Analysen der Nachrichtenexperten des
>Verteidigungsministeriums widersprechen praktisch dieser Behauptung
>des
>Ministers. Nach allem, was bisher in der Öffentlichkeit bekannt
>geworden
>ist, kann man schließen, dass der Hufeisenplan ein geschickt
>inszenierter Propagandacoup war, mit dem die aufkommende Kritik am
>Krieg
>gegen Jugoslawien erstickt wurde.
>
>Frage: Nach der Sprachregelung der Regierung wurde mit den
>Verhandlungen
>von Rambouillet ein letzter Versuch unternommen zu einer friedlichen
>Lösung zu gelangen.
>
>Heinz Loquai: Mit dem Beginn der Verhandlungen über ein
>Interimsabkommen
>im Februar 1999 auf Schloss Rambouillet waren die Kosovo-Albaner
>endlich
>dort, wohin sie politisch schon immer strebten, der Kosovo-Konflikt
>war
>nun wirklich internationalisiert. Damit war für sie ein wichtiger
>Zwischenschritt auf dem Weg zur Unabhängigkeit erreicht. Die
>Belgrader
>Führung hingegen musste eine wichtige Position aufgeben, der
>Kosovo-Konflikt war spätestens ab diesem Zeitpunkt keine innere
>Angelegenheit Serbiens mehr. Bei einer genaueren Analyse der
>Verhandlungen und vor allem bei der Betrachtung der
>Verhandlungsoptionen
>der einzelnen Parteien wird deutlich, dass die Verhandlungen im
>Prinzip
>als eine Fortsetzung des Bürgerkrieges mit anderen Mitteln und auf
>einem
>anderen Terrain verstanden werden können. Durch die Kontaktgruppe
>wurden
>bereits vor den Verhandlungen Prinzipien aufgestellt, die als nicht
>verhandelbar galten. ... Das Implementierungspapier sollte so wie es
>war, von den Parteien akzeptiert werden. Dies entsprach genau dem
>Verhandlungskonzept der Kontaktgruppe, wonach es eigentlich nur wenig
>zu
>verhandeln gab, verhandelbar war lediglich die technische
>Ausgestaltung
>der Prinzipien.
>
>Frage: Wer waren die Gewinner und wer die Verlierer dieser
>Verhandlungen?
>
>Heinz Loquai: Die großen Gewinner waren die Kosovo-Albaner,
>insbesondere
>die UCK. Sie wurde zur bestimmenden Kraft im Kosovo und auch am
>Verhandlungstisch. Durch eine ungemein geschickte
>Verhandlungsstrategie,
>durch flexible Taktiken und den Beistand und die Unterstützung vor
>allem
>der USA, war die UCK erfolgreich. Die UCK hat durch die Verhandlungen
>einen mächtigen Bündnispartner gewonnen, der durch seine
>Kriegsbeteiligung die militärischen Kräfteverhältnisse radikal zu
>ihren
>Gunsten verändert hat. Die Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien war objektiv
>gesehen der eigentliche Verlierer von Rambouillet. Letztendlich
>musste
>die serbische Führung zwischen Krieg und freiwilliger Kapitulation
>entscheiden.
>
>Frage: Sie haben unter anderem die Debatten des Deutschen Bundestages
>zum Thema Kosovo analysiert. Dabei fällt auf, dass in fast allen
>Reden
>das Wort "Krieg" vermieden wurde.
>
>Heinz Loquai: Vom Verteidigungsministerium wurde die argumentative
>Marschroute ausgegeben, dass es sich bei den Luftschlägen der NATO
>nicht
>um Kriegshandlungen handeln würde, schließlich habe es ja keine
>Kriegserklärung gegeben. Wenn man dieses Argument gelten lässt, dann
>waren Hitlers Überfälle auf Polen und auf die Sowjetunion auch keine
>Kriege. Daran zeigt sich die ganze Fragwürdigkeit dieses Arguments.
>Wenn
>jedoch allgemeine und militärwissenschaftliche Literatur herangezogen
>wird und die dortigen Definitionen betrachtet werden, so kann
>überhaupt
>nicht bestritten werden, dass die NATO als internationale
>Organisation
>und einzelne NATO-Staaten gegen die Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien einen
>Krieg geplant, begonnen und geführt haben.
>
>Frage: In ihren Äußerungen weisen Sie immer wieder auf Defizite in
>der
>Informationspolitik hin und wie im Bundestag damit umgegangen wurde.
>
>Heinz Loquai: ... Die Information der Parlamentarier war unpräzise,
>lückenhaft, ja sogar objektiv falsch. Insbesondere Scharping hat das
>Parlament über die tatsächliche Lage im Kosovo falsch informiert. Im
>Grunde genommen konnte das Parlament gar nicht wirklich beurteilen,
>ob
>sich eine humanitäre Katastrophe anbahnte, die es abzuwenden galt.
>Für
>eine sachgerechte Entscheidung über Krieg und Frieden fehlten ebenso
>zutreffende Informationen wie für die Ausübung einer
>Kontrollfunktion.
>Genauso wie der Großteil der Medien hat das Parlament
>regierungsamtliche
>Positionen völlig unkritisch übernommen. Wenn man sich darüber hinaus
>den Umgang mit Kritikern anschaut, dann muss der Regierung
>undemokratisches Verhalten attestiert werden. Demokratie zeigt sich
>im
>Umgang mit Andersdenkenden, mit den Kritikern, mit der Opposition.
>Und
>hier haben Regierungsvertreter versagt.
>
>Frage: Sie selbst sind schließlich durch Ihre Kritik zu einem "Opfer"
>geworden. Ihre Karriere bei der OSZE wurde durch das
>Bundesverteidigungsministerium beendet.
>
>Heinz Loquai: Als "Opfer" möchte ich mich nicht bezeichnen lassen.
>Man
>hat gegen mich einen kleinkarierten Racheakt verübt. Doch zu den
>Fakten.
>Scharping hatte ja diejenigen, die seine Version des Hufeisenplans
>anzweifelten, als naiv, ahnungslos, dumm und böswillig bezeichnet.
>Auch
>ich fühlte mich von diesen Anwürfen betroffen. Deshalb legte ich in
>einem Fernseh-Interview dar, was mir in einem offiziellen Gespräch
>die
>Experten des Ministers über den angeblichen Hufeisenplan gesagt
>hatten.
>Dies stand in krassem Gegensatz zu dem, was Scharping vor der
>Öffentlichkeit und im Parlament behauptet hatte. Die Reaktion hierauf
>war bezeichnend. In Berlin, Bonn und Wien wurde eine üble Posse gegen
>mich inszeniert, und ich musste meine Tätigkeit bei der OSZE auf
>Betreiben des Verteidigungsministeriums aufgeben, obwohl das
>Auswärtige
>Amt und die OSZE mich dort behalten wollten. Es war schon ein
>absurdes
>Theater: Weil ich die Wahrheit gesagt hatte, wurde ich abgestraft.
>__________________________________________________________
>Das vollständige Interview erscheint in der Ausgabe 3/2000
>(November/Dezember) der "Friedenspolitischen Korrespondenz", die vom
>Bundesausschuss Friedensratschlag herausgegeben wird. Es ist auch im
>Internet zu haben: www.friedensratschlag.de (unter der Rubrik "Themen" -
>"NATO-Krieg").
>
>Bei Rückfragen zum "Friedensratschlag" am 2./3. Dezember 2000:
>Peter Strutynski Tel. 0561/804-2314, FAX 0561/804-3738;
>e-mail: strutype@...-kassel.de

KOSOVO: Deja vue!


>Is history going to repeat itself?  This is how it started in Kosovo,
>with KLA attacks against Serbian Security police forces.  When Serbs responded
>to the provocations, they were condemned by the West, yet the US government
>wouldn't tolerate police being attacked in this country. 
>
>Why should the Serbs? 
>
>As the KLA see "independence" slipping through their fingers, it's not
>just the Serbs who are going to be the targets.  Where once they thought of
>KFOR as their liberators, they will look upon them as their oppressors.
>
>Stella
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>AP International
>
>                 New Yugoslav Leadership Tested
>
>                 by ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC
>                 Associated Press Writer
>
>                 LUCANE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Lying on
>                 his belly in the brush, the Serbian police
>                 officer gazed through his binoculars and
>                 pointed at the ethnic Albanian militant on
>                 the opposite hill. He knew the position
>                 well -- it used to be his.
>
>                 Just days after ethnic Albanians seized
>                 Serb police positions in the border region
>                 on the edge of Kosovo, the combatants
>                 have dug in to wait for the situation to be
>                 resolved. Yugoslavia's new leadership
>                 gave NATO peacekeepers a 72-hour
>                 deadline Friday to end an ethnic Albanian
>                 offensive in the buffer zone between the
>                 province and the rest of Serbia.
>
>                 If NATO doesn't act, the Serbs say they
>                 will move in on their own.
>
>                 ''Look at them! Look at them!'' said the
>                 officer who would only give his first
>                 name, Milan, as he watched the insurgents
>                 facing him. ''Now they are around the
>                 outpost. They are walking freely.''
>
>                 So close that they can watch each other's
>                 every move, this fragile front line offers a
>                 test to new President Vojislav Kostunica
>                 and to NATO peacekeepers on the other
>                 side of the boundary line.
>
>                 Under pressure at home to act against the
>                 insurgents, Kostunica is unlikely to
>                 simply stand by while they seize any
>                 ground in Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant
>                 republic.
>
>                 If he acts too aggressively, however, he'll
>                 risk being compared to ousted President
>                 Slobodan Milosevic, whose belligerent
>                 policies forced Yugoslavia into wars and
>                 a pariah status it has only in recent weeks
>                 begun to shed.
>
>                 A Serb interior minister, Bozo Prelevic,
>                 said that in case NATO fails to prevent
>                 the ethnic Albanian incursions and force
>                 the militants back into Kosovo, Serb
>                 police ''will return to the territory of the
>                 republic of Serbia (in the buffer zone)
>                 with the means that are available.''
>
>                 Prelevic said the countdown starts Friday
>                 at 7.00 p.m. local time, meaning the
>                 deadline would expire Monday.
>
>                 ''We will not fool around,'' Prelevic said.
>                 ''They (NATO) are either incapable or
>                 they will show us the contrary.''
>
>                 The ethnic Albanians, however, have
>                 apparently decided that the moment to act
>                 is now in their goal to win independence
>                 from Serbia. They want to unite the
>                 predominantly ethnic Albanian Presevo
>                 Valley with Kosovo.
>
>                 Still, many Kosovo Albanians have mixed
>                 feelings about the events occurring just
>                 outside their administrative boundaries.
>
>                 Though their political parties sympathize
>                 with the demands by ethnic Albanians
>                 there for greater freedoms, they have been
>                 very careful of the issue of unification.
>                 The political leaders are fearful they
>                 might jeopardize their own dreams of
>                 independence.
>
>                 Even so, the Albanian community has
>                 long discussed the idea of uniting all the
>                 lands where Albanians live, and the
>                 spilling of blood may re-ignite the
>                 nationalistic sentiments.
>
>                 In the middle of all the tensions are tiny
>                 villages like Lucane, 220 miles from
>                 Belgrade.
>
>                 An ethnic Albanian village of about 1,000
>                 people tucked into a little valley,
>                 everyone in Lucane but the elderly have
>                 fled to neighboring villages. Fearing
>                 sniper fire, the elderly are holed up in
>                 their houses, which already bear the
>                 marks of gunfire.
>
>                 ''I remained here to guard the house,'' said
>                 Xavit Bislimi, 77, a local resident. ''The
>                 police didn't harm me or my livestock, but
>                 I am afraid of those armed people on the
>                 hills because they are shooting on the
>                 village every night, during last few days.''
>
>                 Evidence of gunfire is apparent near the
>                 police checkpoints. In the cellar of a
>                 house near the road being used by the
>                 officers, spent casings littered the ground.
>                 The police said that was from that the last
>                 day alone, stemming from attacks
>                 Thursday night and before dawn Friday.
>
>                 No one was injured Friday, but four
>                 police officers have died in the last week
>                 in attacks that gave the rebels control of a
>                 police checkpoint and the main road
>                 leading to Kosovo.
>
>                 Sporadic sniper fire continues, but for the
>                 moment the police have orders not to
>                 respond unless directly attacked.
>
>                 ''We are waiting for political approval
>                 from our state leadership and the
>                 international community,'' said Milan, the
>                 police officer, ''to take care of insurgents
>                 within Serbian territory.''
>

26/11/2000

Balkan Express
by Nebojsa Malic
Antiwar.com

December 14, 2000

Déja Vu

Two leaders face off in a hotly contested election race, one which will
determine the fate of their nation. One is a leftist
liberal, entrenched in power, relying on a police apparatus and
propaganda; the other a conservative, enjoying an advantage
in funding and promising to restore dignity to office of the president.
There is a vote. But the results are contested, ballots
are miscounted, and the Supreme Court intervenes to resolve the
election. United States, December 2000? Try Yugoslavia,
this September.

Slobodan Milosevic’s government claimed the election was too close to
call. The opposition protested, claiming outright
victory. While Vojislav Kostunica was offering a recount ("Goodwill
gesture" from Yugoslav opposition could end
impasse, AFP, 29. September 2000), Milosevic was insisting on holding a
runoff election. When Zoran Djindjic and his
cohorts running Kostunica’s campaign refused to consider such an option,
the Yugoslav constitutional court (US Supreme
Court’s counterpart) annulled the election results (see NY Times,
"Belgrade Court Annuls Vote That Was Milosevic
Setback" by Steven Erlanger, 10/5/2000). This provoked a demonstration
in front of the parliament that led to the
overthrow of Milosevic and the inauguration of Kostunica as Yugoslav
president.

On the face of it, the similarities are eerie. Knowing that the United
States was deeply involved in this chain of events, they
become downright sinister.

MANIPULATORS

A week before the elections in Yugoslavia, a NATO naval expeditionary
force was moored off the Yugoslav coast; the
US-funded Montenegrin regime boycotted the election; and Madeleine
Albright asserted that the vote would be "stolen"
weeks before any ballots were actually cast. Then the Washington Post
ran a front-page story detailing the "$77 million
U.S. effort to do with ballots what NATO bombs could not – get rid of
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic" [US
Funds Help Milosevic’s Foes in Election Fight, John Lancaster,
9/19/2000, A01] .

Kostunica promptly denounced the US for meddling, but his convincing
lead quickly melted away. As Milosevic thundered
against "traitors and foreign mercenaries," the Post just about admitted
his allegations were true!

Four days later, Jane Perlez wrote in the New York Times: "Even if, as
almost everyone expects, Mr. Milosevic simply
declares himself the victor, Washington is hoping that angry voters will
take to the streets in a way that eventually drives him
from office, much as Ferdinand E. Marcos was ousted in the Philippines
in 1986." (US Anti-Milosevic Plan Faces Major
Test at Polls, September 23). When the masses did exactly that on
October 5, everyone seemed surprised. Soon
thereafter, Kostunica’s coalition partners began boasting how they had
planned a violent overthrow of Milosevic. Was it
just them?

No, according to the Washington Post. This Monday, amidst the US
electoral controversy, the Post published another
report, detailing how the United States planned, funded and ran the
campaign against Milosevic this past fall.

CONSPIRACY REVEALED

Michael Dobbs, author of the article, claims that Americans and US-paid
consultants crafted the strategy to vote Milosevic
out of office; that retired military officers taught Otpor activists how
to organize demonstrations; that US taxpayers funded
5,000 cans of spray paint used to scrawl opposition graffiti across
Serbia; that President Clinton’s own pollsters – Penn,
Schoen & Berland Associates, Inc. – were involved in crafting
pro-opposition polls before the election.

It is startling and sickening to read how the US operatives exploited
Milosevic’s greatest weakness – his soft spot for the
democratic process. Says the Post,

    "Had Yugoslavia been a totalitarian state like Iraq or North Korea,
the strategy would have stood little
    chance. But while Milosevic ran a repressive police state, he was
never a dictator in the style of Iraqi President
    Saddam Hussein. His authority depended on a veil of popular
legitimacy. It was this constitutional facade that
    gave Serbian opposition leaders, and their Western backers, an
all-important opening."

Milosevic’s greatest weakness was that he was not ruthless enough? Such
a supreme irony, indeed, especially when coming
from the same media house that has denounced Milosevic as another Hitler
and gleefully published editorials advocating the
complete destruction of Serbia during the 1999 war.

A NEW KIND OF COVERT OP

The September 19 article described US meddling in Yugoslav elections as
"similar to previous campaigns in pre-democratic
Chile, South Africa and Eastern Europe." But Dobbs dwells on
"extraordinary US effort to unseat a foreign head of state,
not through covert action of the kind the CIA once employed in such
places as Iran and Guatemala, but by modern election
campaign techniques."

None of the countries and regions described above have profited from US
involvement. Quite to the contrary, it had
profoundly negative consequences. Guatemala plunged into a 20-year,
bloody civil war. In Iran, oppression of the people
by the American-dominated regime spawned the Islamic revolution. South
Africa and Eastern Europe have seen their state
institutions disintegrate, and have plunged into abject poverty. In
Chile, US-backed dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet was
responsible for numerous crimes against its citizens.

Based on this record, extensive American involvement in Yugoslav and
Serbian elections ought to cause every
freedom-loving human being to cringe with disgust. By definition, it
flies in the face of everything that has ever been said
about democracy, responsibility, freedom of choice and international law
– to mention just a few major points.

The US government may argue that its meddling helped the Serbs. The jury
is still out on whether Kostunica’s presidency
has made things better, though. International recognition is hardly a
compensation for famine, economic collapse and fuel
shortages that have descended on Serbia after Milosevic’s fall.
Kostunica’s election may yet prove to be a beneficial
development for the Serbs, plagued as they have been by ill fortune
throughout the 20th century. But that would come in
spite of Washington’s plots, not because of them.

TIMED FALLOUT

Those who consider Kostunica a US puppet have a hard time proving their
case. Though not exactly hostile, he is certainly
no big friend of Washington. His government has hardly been a pushover,
though it has been very flexible on many issues
Milosevic refused to yield ground over the years – such as the UN
membership, Yugoslav succession and, to an extent, war
crimes.

If he really were a US puppet, how would one explain the persistent
secessionism of Djukanovic’s regime in Podgorica, or
the ambivalence of NATO in face of the Albanian invasion of southern
Serbia? Kostunica’s party has supported the
Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) in Bosnia, which the US is endeavoring to
ban even though it won the elections there fair
and square. Kostunica has also insisted on territorial integrity of
Serbia and Yugoslavia, while the US has supported
separatist demands of its clients in Kosovo and Montenegro, even while
publicly claiming otherwise.

There are, however, leaders in Kostunica’s motley coalition that are
more inclined to serve foreign interests. Every nation
has its share of traitors and sellouts, and it is their direction one
needs to look when following the US money trail and the
conspicuous interference in Yugoslav and Serbian affairs.

Conspicuous is the key word here. The timing of this article’s
publication cannot be an accident. Even in its imperious
arrogance, the mainstream American press would never dare publicly
announce its government’s machinations in
Yugoslavia if doing so would hurt the efforts of Washington oligarchs.
It certainly marched in lockstep with the government
during American-led terror bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.

The Washington Post’s September 19 article gave credence to Milosevic’s
claims of foreign interference and hurt
Kostunica’s coalition just a week before the federal elections. Soon
after Kostunica took over on October 5, as he was
trying to establish legitimacy and convince the people he was not a
stooge of NATO, US papers and politicians started
claiming credit for his success, praising the policies of bombing,
sanctions and separatism – along with propaganda and
"democratization" projects such as those detailed in the Post – as being
the real reason for Milosevic’s fall.

The newest article detailing the intricacies of the American conspiracy
– for how else would one call such a degree of
tampering in another country’s elections? – again comes at the worst
possible time for Kostunica. Albanian bandits have
invaded southern Serbia, Yugoslavia’s economy is tanking fast, and Zoran
Djindjic seems poised to sweep the December
elections and pull the rug out from under Kostunica’s feet.

TAKING SIDES

Indeed, though the December elections are described as the clash of
Kostunica’s DOS and the remnants of Milosevic’s
Socialists, the real power struggle will be between factions within DOS
– Kostunica and Djindjic.

The Post then dumps a cauldron of investigative pitch on the heads of
all involved, eroding Kostunica’s legitimacy and
deriding the efforts of the opposition (now government) in changing the
politics of Serbia. One is tempted to wonder if
Washington wants Kostunica to fail, or at least to be sufficiently
weakened to submit to US demands.

A WRENCH IN THE WORKS

Kostunica may be too American for the Empire’s comfort. He actually
believes in the constitution, rights and liberties,
limited government, patriotism and sovereignty – all issues the current
regime in Washington has undermined or sidelined
over the past eight years.

If the December 11 article was truthful – which seems likely – then it
represents an irrefutable proof that there really was a
US plan to overthrow Milosevic and install a friendlier regime,
dominated by pro-American politicians. Kostunica might
have fit into the plan as a figurehead, intended to be replaced by
Djindjic or someone else when the time was ripe.

Apparently no one told him that, since Kostunica went on to become a
true statesman and garner tremendous support
among the people. His strength now surpasses that of Djindjic’s party,
so much that Djindjic needs Kostunica’s support to
become Serbia’s Prime Minister after the elections in late December.
Hence comes the need to take Kostunica down a peg
an attack his honesty, integrity and independence, effectively propping
up Djindjic’s power grab. So the Post says:

    "To many opposition activists, Kostunica’s denials ring a little
hollow. While it is true that his own party, the
    Democratic Party of Serbia, rejected anything that smacked of US
aid, his presidential campaign benefited
    enormously from the advice and financial support the opposition
coalition received from abroad, and
    particularly from the United States."

SECRETS, BARGAINS AND LIES

Though the full fallout from the Post’s article will only be known in
the coming days, one of its unintended consequences
was to expose the extent of America’s illegal imperial adventures. Now
that it is known the US was so deeply involved in
Milosevic’s overthrow, maybe other secrets will also emerge – such as
its exact role in the events of October 5, and the
extent to which Kostunica’s peaceful takeover and Milosevic’s concession
were or were not a part of that plan. Perhaps
some day soon, the American public – and the Serbian public as well –
will find out what the puppet masters had in mind,
and which actors were (or were not) their puppets.

BOOMERANG

The penultimate irony, of course, is that the US found itself mired in a
similar situation just two months later. Could the ballot
manipulation in Florida be the consequence of similar practices abroad?
The temptation to use the ways and means of
empire-building at home are great, especially when the prize is the
Empire itself.

But let us be realistic. It is hard to envision masses of angry
Americans charging Capitol Hill of the White House and
inaugurating the candidate they consider the victor, or the US Supreme
Court annulling the election. Alas, neither of the US
candidates has the integrity of Vojislav Kostunica or the ruthless
political savvy and charm of Slobodan Milosevic. There
won’t be any bulldozers on the streets of Washington any time soon, and
more’s the pity.
 

---

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The URL for this article is
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/tika/dogs2.htm

                           www.tenc.net
                         [Emperor's Clothes]

                     Pentagon Dogs
                      by Tika Jankovic (11-29-2000)

Part 1 - Preshevo Valley: A Strategic Prize

I landed in the San Francisco Airport a few hours ago, back from my trip
to Serbia and its turbulent
southern Preshevo Valley, bordering on Macedonia to the south, the
Serbian Province of Kosovo and
Metohija to the west, and reaching the border with Bulgaria, on the
east.

This is a stretch of land of the utmost geostrategic importance for
NATO's expansion to the east. It's a
bridge from Serbia to Macedonia, on the Belgrade-Skopje-Thesalonici
highway, the land
communication artery between Central Europe and the Aegean Sea. And it
is a piece of territory which
the NATO countries' oil pipeline is planned to transverse, connecting
oil terminals on the Black Sea, in
Bulgaria, and on the Adriatic Sea, in Albania. In addition, this region
has several mineral-rich mines and
is a center for textile, tobacco, furniture and other industrial
complexes, in addition to having world
acclaimed hot and cold water spas and several facilities which bottle
the sizzling mineral waters.

The rich soil in the Morava River Valley lends itself to corn, wheat,
vegtable and cattle farming,
providing a living for about half a million people. By seizing control
of this pocket, the US/NATO
would:

1. Cut Serbia off from Macedonia and Greece and deprive Serbia of a
considerable income and a
strategic territory;

2. Gain control of the North-South passageway, stretching from Central
Europe to the Aegean Sea;

3. Gain control of the route planned for the future oil pipeline to the
Adriatic;

4. Connect occupied Serbian Kosovo and Metohija with occupied Bulgaria
on the East and with
quisling-controlled Montenegro on the West, thus securing full control
of the Balkans' southern flank,
between the Adriatic and the Black Sea.

5. Get hold of this rich valley, the better to plunder its natural and
industrial resources, another colonial
acquisition of Yugoslav land. Another anguish for the people.

KLA Attack Dogs Assault PreshevoValley

On Nov. 22 I arrived in Bujanovac, a small city in the Preshevo Valley,
about 10 miles south from the
city of Vranje in Southern Serbia. That day, the KLA bands intensified
their attacks on Serbian police
forces. [The KLA is the terrorist secessionist group, the Kosovo
Liberation Army]

This latest attack had begun the day before I arrived, but one should
remember that KLA raids on this
valley actually started exactly on the day US troops arrived and took
control of the Eastern Sector of
Kosovo and Metohija, bordering the Preshevo Valley.

The battle raged about two miles from Bujanovac, in the hills, where
Serb police forces, armed only
with rifles, repulsed attacks by KLA battalions, heavily armed and
supported by mortar and artillery
fire.

In the afternoon of the previous day, the KLA raiders were also backed
by heavy artillery, apparently
coming from US troop positions to the west. Residents could see a canopy
of US helicopter gunships
hovering in the sky, protecting the KLA raiders from the use of
appropriate weapons by the Serbian
defenders. NATO Secretary Robertson had warned the Serbs that if they
used heavy guns in their
defense against these secessionist storm troopers NATO troops would
retaliate!. These gunships also
provided intelligence to the KLA attackers, guiding them in action.

One American military officer was recently reported killed, "in East
Kosovo, in the line of daily duty",
or so said the NATO official dispatch. East Kosovo is a euphemism, of
course, since the only area in
which there is combat is the Preshevo Valley.

The 13 wounded Serb police officers suffered mortar and artillery shell
injuries, as did the four who
were killed. Three missing Serbian officers were returned in body bags
by the US military. Their bodies
had been tortured and badly disfigured - the handiwork of the US junior
war buddies, the KLA.

The torture of these men was not mentioned in the Yugoslav press, which
is now entirely controlled by
the DOS government; hints of truth leak out because of feuds between the
various DOS factions. I
learned of the Serbian officers' tragic fate from medical personnel who
had viewed the bodies. The
DOS papers also forgot to mention the obvious fact that the U.S. is
spearheading the attacks in
Preshevo Valley. The KLA, is, as usual, providing window dressing,
sadism and cannon fodder for
their Pentagon groomers.

These KLA raids on Serbian territory, five miles beyond the militarized
zone of three miles along the
Kosovo and Metohija border with Serbia proper, and the evident US
military involvement in these
actions, speak volumes concerning the US/NATO true agenda in the region,
as I mentioned above. The
current Serb authorities gave the fascist-terrorists 72 hours to
retreat; the U.S. objected, and the
authorities immediately extended the time period. Why? Why do these
terrorists need extra time?
Clearly in order for the U.S.-led gangs to fortify the positions they
have seized and to bring in
reinforcements.

I interviewed several people from the region. The following account
comes from a Serbian man, a
person of the highest integrity, who witnessed the events described. I
spoke with him in Belgrade.

Part 2: Women and Shepherds Rout Marines

A few days before the raid by the US/KLA on the Preshevo Valley, the US
Marines raided three Serb
villages in the Brezovica area. This region is known for its ski resort
in the Sara-Mountain, in southern
Kosovo, bordering on Macedonia. The marines were allegedly searching for
weapons. You see, while
the KLA employs heavy weapons in its attacks on Serbs in Kosovo and in
the Preshevo Valley, and is
supported by U.S. helicopters and heavy guns, the Serbs must practice
strict nonviolence. It is their
moral duty.

They Marines broke down doors on the houses and went on a wild rampage,
smashing the furniture,
yelling at and kicking the peasants. But used to rough treatment by
various oppressors and attackers
through history, the villagers soon recovered. The women took to the
streets. Armed with heavy
wooden sticks, similar to the famous American 2 by 4's, they stormed the
Marines, who, surprised by
this resolute defense retreated towards their personnel carriers and
called "Bondsteel", the most heavily
fortified military installation in human history, for reinforcements.

This time, Real Attack Dogs

The rescue team came in the form of a pack of blood thirsty military
dogs, quickly airlifted to the
mountain villages, and unleashed on the women.

The women fought these vicious dogs with their sticks until their own
shepherd dogs, the world famous
"Sar-Planinac" 150-pounders came to rescue. With unexpected ferocity
these Serbian dogs, who easily
tackle packs of wolves and can handle any bear, stormed the American
counterparts, and in a brief
encounter the entire Pentagon barking brigade was finished off. No
survivors.

The Marines, stunned, did not have the chance to pull the triggers on
their weapons but fled the
battlefield, now strewn with the remains of the Pentagon elite. The Serb
village dogs sprinted back to
their sheep, returning to the duty of their ancestors. The Marines took
off and have not been seen since.

The moral of this real story is simple: let us handle these wolves in a
businesslike fashion and get them
off our backs - for good.

-- Tika Jankovic

***

Further Reading on the attack on Preshevo Valley

1) ''Boggling the Mind Department - Report from a UN Website'' by
Konstantin Kilibardi at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/kilibarda/boggling.htm

2) "Terrorism in Southern 'Serbia Proper'" by Jared Israel at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/fighting.htm

***

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The Centre for Peace in the Balkans
BALKAN - ALBANIA - KOSOVO - HEROIN - JIHAD

The Centre for Peace in the Balkans
www.balkanpeace.org
scontact@...

Research Analysis
May 2000

The biggest paradox in the international war on drugs is connected to
the Balkans and the explosion of terrorist activities in that troubled
area.
However, it relates less to drugs and arms and more to the major
participants in this deadly game.

Terrorist organizations at the top of America’s most wanted list are
receiving tacit support in the Balkans from the Clinton administration.
The "most wanted" terrorist in the world today, Osama bin Laden, who
declared a "fatwa" against the US, is being abetted by the Clinton
doctrine. In the Balkans, we are witnessing a true paradox where
several mortal enemies - Iranian revolutionary guards, Osama bin Laden
and the CIA - are standing shoulder to shoulder while pursuing
diametrically opposite goals.

Drugs Finance Terrorism

Earlier reporting has confirmed that terrorism in the Balkans has been
primarily financed through narcotics trafficking. Heroin - worth 12
times
its weight in gold - is by far the most profitable commodity on the
markets. A kilogram of heroin, worth $1,000 in Thailand, wholesales for
$110,000 in Canada with a street value of $800,000.

In fact, heroin trafficking has become so beneficial to the cause of
Albanian separatism that the predominantly Albanian-inhabited towns of
Veliki Trnovac and Blastica in Serbia, Vratnica and Gostivar in FYR
Macedonia, and Shkoder and Durres in Albania have become known as
the "new Medellins" of the Balkans. Via the Balkan Route, heroin travels
through Turkey, FYR Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania en route to
western European markets. The value of the heroin shipped is
$400-billion (US) a year. As early as 1996, the US Drug Enforcement
Agency (DEA) detailed the Balkan Route in its annual report. In 1998,
the DEA stated that Kosovo Albanians had become the second most
important traffickers on the Balkan Route.

These predominantly Albanian drug barons from Kosovo ship heroin
exclusively from Asia's Golden Crescent, an apparently inexhaustible
source. At one end of the crescent lies Afghanistan, which in 1999
surpassed Burma as the world's largest producer of opium poppies.
>From there, the heroin base passes through Iran to Turkey, where it is
refined, and then placed into the hands of the Albanians who operate
out of the lawless towns bordering FYR Macedonia, Albania, and
Serbia. According to the US State Department, four to six tons of heroin
move through Turkey every month.

"Not very much is stopped", says one official. "We get just a fraction
of
the total". Not surprisingly, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has
flourished along the route. Its dependence on the drug lords is
difficult to
prove, but the evidence is impossible to overlook.

In 1998, German Federal Police froze two bank accounts belonging to
the "United Kosova" organization at a Dusseldorf bank after it was
discovered that several hundred thousand dollars had been deposited
into those accounts by a convicted Kosovo Albanian drug trafficker.
According to at least one published report, Bujar Bukoshi, Prime
Minister of the "Kosova" Government in Exile, also allegedly controlled
the accounts.

In early 1999 an Italian court in Brindisi convicted an Albanian heroin
trafficker named Amarildo Vrioni, who admitted obtaining weapons for
the KLA from the Mafia in exchange for drugs.

Last February 23, Czech police arrested Princ Dobroshi, the head of an
Albanian Kosovo drug gang. While searching his apartment, they
discovered evidence that he had placed orders for light infantry weapons
and rocket systems. No one had questioned what a small-time dealer
would be doing with rockets. Only later did Czech police reveal he was
shipping them to the KLA. The Czechs extradited Dobroshi to Norway
where he had escaped from prison in 1997 while serving a 14-year
sentence for heroin trafficking.

It's therefore not surprising, say European law enforcement officials,
that
the faction that ultimately seized power in Kosovo -- the KLA under
Hashim Thaci -- was the group that maintained the closest links to
traffickers.

In its report about the KLA and heroin smuggling, the Montreal Gazette
wrote: "...Michael Levine, a 25-year veteran of the DEA (US Drug
Enforcement Agency) who left in 1990, said he believes there is no
question that US intelligence knew about the KLA's drug ties. "They
(the CIA) protected them (the KLA) in every way they could. As long as
the CIA is protecting the KLA, you've got major drug pipelines protected
from any police investigation", said Levine, who teaches undercover
tactics and informer handling to US and Canadian police forces,
including the RCMP. "The evidence is irrefutable," he said, explaining
that his information comes from "sources inside the DEA".

The Albanian Medellin connection is particularly strong in Italy where
it
is operating in conjunction with the "Sacra Corona Unita," or the fourth
mafia. The group controls the drug trade in the regions of Brindisi,
Lecce
and Taranto.

The tentacles of the Albanian mafia stretch across Europe. According to
Interpol, Albanian-speaking drug dealers accounted for 14% of those
arrested for heroin smuggling in 1997. While the average trafficker was
apprehended with two grams of heroin, the Albanians had an average of
120 grams in their possession. Scandinavian countries claim that
Albanians control 80% of the heroin market there. Switzerland says
90% of the drug trafficking in that country is connected to Albanians.
German law enforcement agencies claim that Albanians form the largest
group involved in heroin trafficking.

German Federal Police now say that Kosovo Albanians import 80
percent of Europe's heroin. So dominant is the Kosovo Albanian
presence in trafficking that many European users refer to illicit drugs
in
general as "Albanka", or Albanian lady.

Terrorism, Spies and Albanians

Osama bin Laden’s activities in Albania are well known and
documented. The presence of his network in that country is so powerful
that US Defence Secretary William Cohen cancelled a scheduled visit
last July out of fear of being assassinated.

The Albanian national security organization SHIK confirmed that plans
exist to target US objects in Albania. SHIK is the offspring of the
notorious communist security apparatus the "Sigurimi." The former head
of the Sigurimi, Irakli Kocollari, is advisor to the current head of
SHIK,
Fatos Klosi. In 1997 the CIA sent a team of experts to modernize and
reorganize SHIK. The other major patron of SHIK is the German
intelligence agency Bundensnachrichtendienst (BND) which opened one
of its largest stations in Tirana. A review of BND personnel is
revealing.
While the terrorist Albanian organization Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosove -
UCK (KLA) was being formed, the BND was headed by Hansjorg Geiger
whose deputy was Rainer Kesselring, the son of the Luftwaffe general
who bombed Belgrade during the Second World War.

Mr. Kesselring was given the job of training KLA terrorists at a Turkish
base near Izmir where he was head of the BND station in 1978. French
sources confirmed that members of the German commando unit,
Kommando Spezialkrafte (KSK), participated in the KLA training
program. Gen. Klaus Neumann, the outgoing head of NATO’s
occupational forces in Kosovo and Metohija, formed the German
commando unit.

The relationship between the CIA and SHIK is one of master and
servant. At the CIA’s "request" last year, Albania expelled three
"humanitarian" workers, two Syrians and an Iranian. Acting on another
request, SHIK arrested an Albanian national, Maksim Ciciku, for spying
on the US embassy. Ciciku was educated in Saudi Arabia. In Albania
he worked for a private security company which provided bodyguards for
visiting Arabs. He was accused of following embassy employees on
behalf of Osama bin Laden. Albania also expelled four Egyptians who
were suspected of ties to bin Laden. Two others were arrested and
handed over to US agents, along with a van full of documents and
computer equipment, all of which belonged to Osama bin Laden’s
organization.

At about the same time, Iran, through its embassy in Rome and it’s
operative Mahmut Nuranija, began to organize an intelligence-gathering
sector in Albania. Their involvement in Albania was based on two levels:
economic-financial through the Albanian Arab Islamic Bank, and
humanitarian through organizations which have become standard covers
for subversive activities. At the beginning of 1998 Iran began the
serious
consolidation of its most important European strongholds, Sarajevo and
Tirana. According to Yossef Bodansky, terrorism and unconventional
warfare analyst, Iran aided the KLA by providing military plans drawn up
by Zaim Bersa, a former colonel in the Yugoslav National Army (JNA),
and another Kosovo Albanian, Ejup Dragaj.

One of the leaders of an elite KLA unit was Muhammed al-Zawahiri, the
brother of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leader in an Egyptian Jihad
organization and a military commander of Osama bin Laden. Once
again Kosovo becomes a paradox where several mortal enemies -
Iranian revolutionary guards, Osama bin Laden and the CIA - are
standing shoulder to shoulder training the KLA.

It is believed that bin Laden solidified his organization in Albania in
1994
with the help of then premier Sali Berisha. Albania’s ties to Islamic
terrorist blossomed during Berisha's rule when the main KLA training
base was on Berisha's property in northern Albania. During the
"honeymoon" period between the CIA and Jihad holy warriors, Fatos
Klosi, the head of SHIK, said he had reliable information that four
groups
of Jihad warriors from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algiers, Tunisia and Sudan
were in northern Albania and fighting with the KLA. Klosi recently
stated
that there is an attempt to destabilize the country, alluding primarily
to
former premier Sali Berisha.

Jihad and Serbia

In 1994 in Lebanon, a radical Sunni Muslim group, Takfir wal Hijra,
attempted to blow up a convoy of Serbian priests who were on their way
Koura. The priests avoided death when the suicide bomber detonated
the explosive device prematurely.

This attempt on the lives of Serbian priests preceded a more ambitious
plan. At the 18th Islamic conference, Al-Jama’ah al-Islaiyyah, held in
Pakistan (October 23-25, 1998), Albanian separatism in Kosovo and
Metohija was characterized as a Jihad. The same definition was given to
Muslim battles in India (Kashmir), Israel (Palestine) and Eritrea. By
defining armed battles as a "holy war" or Jihad, an obligation is placed
on the Muslim world to do everything in its power - economically,
politically and diplomatically - to aid the fight for freedom in
occupied
Muslim territories". This gave legitimacy to terrorist acts carried out
by
Allah’s holy warriors. Referring to a Jihad, the terrorist organization
of
Osama bin Laden announced terrorist attacks against "infidel nations",
namely Great Britain, United States, France, Israel, Russia, India and
Serbia.

The Bosnian Jihad Connection

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the influence of the ruling Islamic party, Party
of
Democratic Action (SDA), has brought out the recently born again "true
believers". Recognized by their long beards and short-legged pants,
large numbers of them participated in KLA terrorist activities in Kosovo
and Metohija. The transport of these Jihad warriors was conducted
under the patronage of the SDA which provided them with passports.
Visas were issued for a "haj," or pilgrimage, to Mecca. Dr. Nauman
Balic, head of the Kosovo SDA and now a minister in Hashim Thaci’s
government", was responsible for their transit to Albania. The Bosnian
Muslims were provided with journalists' credentials and 2,000 DM for
travel costs. It is not known how many returned from Kosovo, but a
number of these Jihad warriors lost their lives in Chechnya.

The Sarajevo authorities were active in the training of terrorists. In
1993
Saudi Arabia provided $1 million to build a refugee camp for Bosnian
Muslims in Albania. One of the main political leaders of the Muslim
authorities in Sarajevo admitted to Misha Glenny that the base was
used to train saboteurs sent to Kosovo because their Serbian was
flawless.

Kosovo under NATO - A Virtual Narco-State (1)

The benefits of the drug trade are evident around Pristina -- more so
than the benefits of Western aid. "The new buildings, the better roads,
and the sophisticated weapons -- many of these have been bought with
drugs," says Michel Koutouzis, the Balkans region expert for the Global
Drugs Monitor (OGD), a Paris-based think tank. The repercussions of
this drug connection are only now emerging, and many Kosovo
observers fear that the province could be evolving into a virtual
narco-state under the noses of 49,000 peacekeeping troops.

It was the disparate structure of the KLA, Koutouzis says, that
Facilitated the drug-smuggling explosion. "It permitted a
democratization of drug trafficking where ordinary people get involved,
and everyone contributes a part of his profit to his clan leader in the
KLA," he explains. "The more illegal the activity, the more money the
clan gets from the traffickers. So it's in the interest of the clan to
promote drug trafficking".

According to Marko Nicovic, the former chief of police in Belgrade, now
an investigator who works closely with Interpol, the international
police
agency, 400 to 500 Kosovo Albanians move shipments in the 20-kilo
range, while about 5,000 Kosovo Albanians are small-timers, handling
shipments of less than two kilos. At one point in 1996, he says, more
than 800 ethnic Albanians were in jail in Germany on narcotics charges.


In many places, Kosovo Albanians traffickers gained a foothold in the
Illicit drug trade through raw violence. According to a 1999 German
Federal Police report, "The ethnic Albanian gangs have been involved in
drugs, weapons trafficking blackmail, and murder. They are increasingly
prone to violence".

Tony White of the United Nations Drug Control Program agrees with this
assessment. "They are more willing to use violence than any other
group," he says. "They have confronted the established order throughout
Europe and pushed out the Lebanese, Pakistani, and Italian cartels".

Few gangs are willing to tangle with the Kosovo Albanians. Those that
do often pay the ultimate price. In January 1999, Kosovo Albanians
killed Nine people in Milan, Italy during a two-week bloodbath between
rival heroin groups.

Now free of the war and the Yugoslav police, drug traffickers have
Reopened the old Balkan Road. With the KLA in power -- and in the
spotlight - the top trafficking families have begun to seek relative
respectability without decreasing their heroin shipments. "The Kosovo
Albanians are trying to position themselves in the higher levels of
trafficking", says the U.N.'s Tony White. "They want to get away from
the violence of the streets and attract less attention. Criminals like
to
move up like any other business, and the Kosovo Albanians are
becoming business leaders. They have become equal partners with the
Turks".

Italian national police discovered this new Kosovo Albanian outreach
last year when they undertook "Operation Pristina". The carabinieri
(Italian Police) uncovered a chain of connections that originated in
Kosovo and stretched through nine European countries, extending into
Central Asia, South America and the United States.

White House officials deny a whitewashing of KLA activities. "We do
care about (KLA drug trafficking)", says Agresti. "It's just that we've
got
our hands full trying to bring peace there".

The DEA is equally reticent to address the issue. According to Michel
Koutouzis, the DEA's website once contained a section detailing
Kosovo Albanians trafficking, but a week before the US-led bombings
began, the section disappeared. "The DEA doesn't want to talk publicly
(about the KLA)", says OGD director Alain Labrousse. "It's
embarrassing to them".

High-ranking US officials are dismayed that the KLA was installed in
power without public discussion or a thorough check of its background.
"I don't think we're doing anything there to stem the drugs", says a
senior State Department official. "It's out of control. It should be a
high
priority. We've warned about it".

Even if it tried to stop the Kosovo Albanian heroin trade, the US would
be hard-pressed to do so. "Nobody's in control in Kosovo", adds the
State Department official. "They don't even have a police force".
Regardless of what it says, there's little indication that the
administration wants to do anything with the intelligence available
about
its newest ally. "There is no doubt that the KLA is a major trafficking
organization", said a congressional expert who monitors the drug trade
and requested anonymity. "But we have a relationship with the KLA,
and the administration doesn't want to damage (its) reputation. We are
partners.

The attitude is: The drugs are not coming here, so let others deal with
it".

Conclusion

Indeed the biggest paradox in the world war on drugs is connected to
the Balkans and the outburst of terrorist activities in that troubled
area.
What is the reason for this unusual co-relation between US policy in
Balkans, the most wanted terrorist in the world today, Osama bin y en,
and this enormous KLA drug trafficking.

As Michael Levine, a 25-year veteran of the DEA (US Drug Enforcement
Agency) stated: "They (the CIA) protected them the KLA) in every way
they could". McCoy, author of The Politics of Heroin, said the Afghan
Mujahideen rebels were one of the first US-backed rebel groups to get
into the heroin trade in a big way. The anti-Communist Mujahideen were
backed by the US in their opposition to the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979. They started exporting massive amounts of opium
to raise money, with the knowledge and protection of the CIA and
Pakistani intelligence, according to McCoy. "That produced a massive
traffic in the '80s to Europe and the U.S.," he said.

Other recipients of US support were Nicaraguan Contras, Panama’s
General Noriega, Afghan Taliban, Indonesia (remember massacres by
their special units in Timor), and Burma’s Khun Sa. Another US-backed
rebel army, the Nicaraguan contras, raised money for their war against
the leftist Sandinista government in the 1980s by flooding U.S. cities
with crack - all with the knowledge and assistance of the CIA and the
DEA, according to the book Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and
the Crack Cocaine Explosion, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary
Webb.

Webb's allegations were initially denied by the CIA, but a CIA
inspector-general's report in October 1998 revealed that 58 contras were
linked to drug allegations.

Early in 1999, as the war against Serbia raged, Congress voted to fund
the KLA's drive for independence. One tear later the US embrace of the
KLA may come as an embarrassment, but not a precedent.

Quo Vadis America?

1 - Material from "Mother Jones" Heroin Heroes, January/February 2000
used without permission, for academic and research purposes only.

The Centre for Peace in the Balkans
www.balkanpeace.org

The Ottawa Serbian Heritage Society
3662 Albion Rd. South, Gloucester, Ontario, K1T 1A3
serbian.heritage@...  (613) 225-3378

PUBLIC STATEMENT BY SERBIAN-CANADIAN ORGANIZATIONS
IN RESPONSE TO THE REPORT PRESENTED BY THE "INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT
COMMISSION ON KOSOVO"
Ottawa, December 6, 2000

While we unreservedly share the Commission’s stated objective of
achieving a lasting, stable and just solution for Kosovo, we differ from
its diagnosis, methodology, and conclusions. We believe that the
Commission has erred in fact and judgment, and that its recommendations
- even if well intentioned - will have the opposite effect of the
hoped-for consequences.
Almost two years after the event, it is our considered opinion that the
war waged by NATO against the Serbs in the spring of 1999 was illegal,
unnecessary, and an abject failure. We are encouraged by the fact that
this is not an eccentric view from the margins. Many eminent analysts
and institutions – even those initially tricked or cajoled into
supporting the intervention - have come to see it as an exercise in
criminal folly. The war is being condemned ever more frequently and
deservedly by liberals and conservatives alike, by the upholders of
multilateralism no less than by the adherents of the traditional
Realpolitik based on national interest.
It is a matter of regret that such arguments have not been properly
considered by the Commission. Bereft of either legitimacy or legality,
it seems to find its raison d’etre in an unending quest for retroactive
justification of the war. Its historic amnesia is reflected in dating
the crisis only to 1989. Its muddled thinking is apparent in the
advocacy of "qualified independence" for the Serbian province Kosovo.
This goal, however qualified and rationalized, would place many borders
all over the world in doubt and make a mockery of the rule of law in
international affairs.
The moral absolutism that is at the core of the Commission’s apologia,
the one that has been routinely invoked by the proponents of NATO
bombing as a substitute for rational argument, is unsustainable. Genuine
dilemmas about our human responsibility for one another must not be used
as an excuse for the doctrine of benevolent global hegemony.
The Commission’s recommendations, so disdainful of the principle of
sovereignty of nation-states, may be motivated by a single-minded belief
that the war against the Westphalian order is a "just" war - but its
"justice" needs to be revealed in its pragmatic simplicity. The
Commission inadvertently confirms that the more arrogant the new
doctrine, the greater the willingness to lie for the truth. To be
capable of "doing something" sustains moral self-respect, if we can
suppress the thought that we are not so much moral actors as consumers
of predigested choices.
Unlike the Commission, we do not seek to lobby for any particular set of
policy options. Historical, political, legal, and moral arguments need
to be cleansed of propagandistic spin if there is to be a proper debate.
Because the treatment of the Kosovo episode by the media and politicians
has been largely one-sided and propagandistic – and, at times,
mendacious – that debate is sorely needed to restore balance in public
perceptions and in policy making. It is in sorrow, rather than anger,
that we aver that this particular Commission has not contributed to that
goal.
Specifically, we reassert the verifiable fact that the "Rambouillet
Peace Accord" was, in truth, a declaration of war disguised as a peace
agreement. The Serbs were told they had only two choices: sign the
agreement as written - or face NATO bombing. By that time the Clinton
Administration’s partnership with the KLA was unambiguous. Its effusive
embrace of an organization that only a year ago its own officials
labeled as "terrorist" was startling.
A key contention of the Commission, the "humanitarian" contention, is
rank hypocrisy. "Illegal but legitimate" is a piece of casuistry
unworthy of serious policy debate. What about Kashmir, Sudan, Uganda,
Angola, Congo, Sierra Leone, Chiapas, Sri Lanka, Algeria…? Properly
videotaped and Amanpourized, each would be as "legal" and "legitimate"
as a dozen "Kosovos". Compared to the killing fields of the Third World,
Kosovo before the bombing was a brutal but unremarkable low-intensity
campaign, uglier than Northern Ireland ten years ago, but much less so
than Kurdistan. Bearing in mind the many brutalities, aggressions and
"ethnic cleansing" ignored by the Western alliance - or even condoned,
notably in Croatia, or in eastern Turkey - it is clear that "Kosovo" is
not about universal principles. Abdullah Ocalan is a terrorist, but Agim
Ceku and Nasir Oric are freedom fighters.
The Commission has failed to acknowledge that the "Kosovo genocide" was
the most outrageous lie of the past decade. It did not happen. We were
force-fed a grotesque myth concocted to justify the war. It was waged in
the spring of 1999 on an independent nation because it refused foreign
troops on its soil. A truly independent Commission - unlike this one -
would have grasped that all other justifications are post facto
rationalizations. The powers that waged that war have aided and abetted
secession by an ethnic minority, secession that – once formally effected
- will render many European borders tentative.
The recommendations presented to us today for the future of Kosovo will
engender countless new hotbeds of instability. They will unleash an
uncontrollable chain reaction throughout the ex-Communist half of
Europe. Its first victim will be the former Yugoslav republic of
Macedonia, where the restive Albanian minority comprises a third of the
total population. With the murderous narco-mafia known as the "KLA" in
charge in Pristina, and the Serbs (and others) gone, the rising
expectations among Macedonia’s Albanians will be hard to contain. Will
the Pristina model not be demanded by the Hungarians in Rumania (more
numerous than Kosovo’s Albanians) and in southern Slovakia? What will
stop the Russians in the Ukraine (Crimea), in Moldova, in Estonia, and
in northern Kazakhstan from following suit? What about the Turks in
Thrace, and the chronically unstable and utterly unviable Dayton-Bosnia,
to mention but some of the European dominos that may fall in the wake of
Kosovo’s evolution as recommended to us today?
And finally, when the Albanians get their "qualified" secession, will
the same apply when the Latinos in southern California, New Mexico,
Arizona, or Texas eventually outnumber their Anglo neighbors and start
demanding bilingual statehood, leading to reunification with Mexico? Are
Russia and China to threaten the United States with bombing if
Washington does not comply?
The fundamental problem with the Commission is that the notion of "human
rights" can never provide a basis for either the rule of law or
morality. Universal "rights," detached from any rootedness in time or
place, will be open to the latest whim of outrage or the latest fad for
victimhood. A future, truly independent international commission should
ponder the implications of this course, and gather the courage to say
"no" to interventionism – for the sake of the rule of law, of peace and
stability in the world.

Slobodanka Borojevic, President                      Bora Dragasevich,
President
The Ottawa Serbian Heritage Society              Serbian National Shield
Society of Canada

Snezana Vitorovic, President                            The Centre for
Peace in the Balkans
Association of Serbian Women                        Toronto
(www.balkanpeace.org)

Mirko Andjic, President
Serbian Canadian Society of Vancouver
 

Junge Welt - http://www.jungewelt.de

---

30.10.2000
Kosovo wird für NATO gefährlich

Eine amerikanische Sicht auf das Protektorat nach der Wahl

»Der Fall Slobodan Milosevics ist ein Desaster - zumindest für die
Hoffnungen Kosovos auf Unabhängigkeit.« Mit diesen Worten begann ein
bemerkenswerter Artikel in der Sonntagausgabe der New York Times (NYT),
die der demokratischen Clinton-Regierung nahesteht. Die Wahl Vojislav
Kostunicas, eines »anscheinend vernünftigen, gesetzestreuen Serben«, zum
Präsidenten in Belgrad habe den Traum der Unabhängigkeit der
Kosovo-Albaner zerstört und »folglich die Lage im Kosovo viel
explosiver« gemacht, was einen »weiteren Test für die Soldaten und die
Diplomatie des Westens« bedeute.

Nach dem NATO-Krieg sei das Kosovo zu einem »Protektorat des Westens«
geworden, in dem von der NATO geführte Truppen »ohne sich groß Gedanken
zu machen zugeschaut haben, wie die Hälfte der serbischen Bevölkerung
der Provinz und fast alle Zigeuner vertrieben wurden oder geflüchtet
sind«. Unter Anspielung auf die Hunderte von ethnisch motivierten Morden
an unschuldigen Serben heißt es in der NYT, daß in den Augen des Westens
die albanische »Rache im Rahmen des Strebens nach Freiheit kein Unrecht«
gewesen sei.

Zwar habe es auf seiten des Westens viele Ermahnungen an die Adresse
jene Albaner gegeben, »die organisiert die Vertreibung der
nichtalbanischen Minorität« betrieben. Die NATO-Soldaten »wollten sich
nicht gegen die albanische Mehrheit stellen« und hätten »nur wenige
Verhaftungen« vorgenommen. Grund? Sie wollten »keine eigenen Opfer
riskieren«, also nicht zur Zielscheibe der UCK werden.

UNMIK-Chef Bernard Kouchner habe in der Vergangenheit gerne erklärt, er
sehe »seine Aufgabe darin, Kosovo für die Unabhängigkeit vorzubereiten«.
In der Resolution des UNO-Sicherheitsrates 1244 hätten sich aber alle
Nationen zur »Wahrung der Souveränität und der territorialen Integrität
Jugoslawiens verpflichtet ... wozu auch Kosovo gehört«. Und deshalb, so
kann man nun in der New York Times lesen, habe »Herr Kouchner seine
Kompetenzen weit überschritten«. Dem Kosovo sei lediglich »substantielle
Autonomie und Selbstverwaltung« versprochen worden, nach einer Periode
internationaler Überwachung.

Trotz Boykotts der Kosovo-Serben sieht die NYT in den Kommunalwahlen am
vergangenen Samstag im Kosovo einen »wichtigen ersten Schritt« zum
Aufbau der Institutionen der Selbstverwaltung. Aber 1244 besage auch,
daß diese Institutionen, ebenso wie der Status der serbischen Provinz,
erst in »einer endgültigen Regelung festgelegt« würden, und die Regelung
müsse unter internationalen Auspizien zwischen den »provisorischen,
demokratischen Institutionen der Selbstverwaltung« im Kosovo und Belgrad
ausgehandelt werden. Um diese Verhandlungen kämen die Albaner nicht
herum, und Kostunica dürfte sich dabei als »wahrer Alptraum« für die
nach Unabhängigkeit strebenden Kosovo-Albaner erweisen.

»Zehn Jahre lang erlaubten wir (auf dem Balkan) allen, sich schlecht zu
benehmen, denn sie konnten immer auf Milosevic verweisen, der sich noch
schlechter benahm. Aber die Wahl Kostunicas stellt einen Schlag gegen
Extremisten aller Art in der Region dar, sowohl für Albaner als auch
Serben«, zitiert die NYT einen hohen US-Diplomaten und folgert: »Das
bedeutet, daß jetzt Schluß ist mit dem heimlichen Abgleiten des Kosovo
in die Unabhängigkeit, was ebenso für Montenegro, die Schwesterrepublik
Serbiens, gilt, dessen Präsident Milo Djukanovic zur Erringung der
Unabhängigkeit darauf gebaut hatte, daß Milosevic an der Macht bleiben
würde.«

Die nächste Krise im Kosovo erwartet die Zeitung, wenn die ersten
serbischen Flüchtlinge zurückkehren. Präsident Kostunica hat bereits
wiederholt auf eine sichere Rückkehr gedrängt. Der amerikanische
Gesandte James C. O'Brien hat laut NYT Kostunica »die Unterstützung
Washingtons zur Erreichung dieses Ziels zugesichert«.

Dann wird es jedoch nicht lange dauern, bis die albanischen Extremisten
sich von den USA und der NATO bei ihrem Streben nach Unabhängigkeit
verraten fühlen. Das sieht auch die NYT so. »Deshalb dürfte die Lage im
Kosovo eher explosiver als entspannter werden. Der Grund? Die
Unabhängigkeit wird nicht zum Traum, der erst später verwirklicht wird,
sondern sie wird schlichtweg verweigert. In dem Maße, wie der
Widerspruch zwischen den westlichen verbalen Ermutigungen für eine
kosovo-albanische Selbstverwaltung und Verweigerung der Unabhängigkeit
deutlich wird, wird das Potential der Gewalt gegen NATO- Truppen
zunehmen«, meint die New Yorker Zeitung.

Rainer Rupp

---

Neues amerikanische Doppelspiel im Kosovo.

Um-Interpretation der UNO-Resolution soll Unabhängigkeit des Kosovo
ermöglichen.
(von Rainer Rupp)

Getrieben von dem Bedürfnis, die Gefahren für die eigenen Truppen im
zunehmend gefährlichen Kosovo möglichst gering zu halten, produzieren
die Strategen der US-Außenpolitik derzeit allerlei Pläne. Von den
Überlegungen aus dem Kosovo eine dritte Teilrepublik Jugoslawiens zu
machen, die sich dann völkerrechtlich korrekt von Serbien trennen und
seine Unabhängigkeit erreichen könnte, hat j.W. bereits berichtet. Der
Plan hat allerdings den Makel, dass Jugoslawien dabei mitspielen müsste,
wozu jedoch auch die neuen Kräfte in Belgrad nicht bereit zu sein
scheinen.



Wenn jedoch Washington die Resolution 1244 des UNO-Sicherheitsrates
durchsetzen will, dann riskiert es, dass US-Truppen im Kosovo zur
Zielscheibe albanischer Terroristen werden, wodurch die gesamte
Balkanpolitik der Clinton- Regierung in Amerika diskreditiert würde.
Denn die Resolution 1244 betont die ungebrochene Souveränität
Jugoslawiens über das Kosovo, die die albanischen Separatisten
überwinden wollen.



Um aus dieser Zwickmühle herauszukommen, hat sich nun Washington an
einen alten Trick erinnert. Wenn Dir etwas nicht gefällt, interpretiere
es einfach um. Wenn Dein Anwalt sagt, das geht nicht, dann suche Dir
einen anderen Anwalt. Bis es geht. Mit Hilfe einer einseitigen
Um-Interpretation der UNO-Resolution 1244 würden in der Tat viele
Probleme Washingtons gelöst werden, denn trotz aller Proteste könnte
dann das Kosovo "völkerrechtlich korrekt" seine staatliche
Unabhängigkeit erhalten, die UCK-Verbündeten befriedigt und die Gefahr
von US-Truppen abgewendet werden.



Mit einseitigen Interpretationen von UNO-Beschlüssen haben die
Vereinigten Staaten schließlich große Erfahrung. Die Rechtfertigung des
anhaltende Bombenkriegs gegen den Irak begründet Washington mit Hilfe
einer sehr eigenwilligen und einseitigen Auslegung einer UNO-Klausel in
Hinsicht auf den Irak. Die Tatsache, dass das alle anderen Länder - mit
Ausnahme von Großbritannien, das mitbombt - anders sehen, hindert die
USA nicht daran, den Kleinkrieg gegen Bagdad fortzusetzen.



Und tatsächlich scheint das US-Außenministerium seit einiger Zeit recht
intensiv an einer solchen Um-Interpretation der UNO-Resolution 1244
gearbeitet zu haben. Das berichtete am Montag (30.10.00) die liberalen
britischen Tageszeitung "The Independent", wobei sie sich auf die jüngst
getroffenen Aussagen eines hohen Beamten des US-Außenministeriums in
Pristina berief. Diese Richtung sei eingeschlagen worden, nachdem der
amerikanische Botschafter zur UNO, Richard Holbrooke, letzte Woche das
Kosovo besucht hatte, wo er mit seinen alten Freunden aus der UCK zu
Geheimgesprächen zusammen getroffen war.



Die neue Position des US-Außenministeriums scheint jetzt zu sein, dass
die UNO-Resolution 1244 zwar ausdrücklich die territoriale Integrität
Jugoslawiens garantiert, dass aber das nicht bedeutet, dass das Kosovo
nicht unabhängig werden kann. "De facto ist die Unabhängigkeit bereits
Realität", zitierte <The Independent> den hohen US-Diplomaten.
("Albanians rejoice in their march to freedom", By Kim Sengupta in
Pristina, The Independent, 30 October 2000) Ein anwesender UNO-Beamter
habe sich dagegen voller Unverständnis über diese neue Interpretation
von Resolution 1244 geäußert: "Ein hohes Maß an Autonomie? Ja.
Verhandlungen für eine begrenzte Form der Selbstverwaltung? Ja. Aber
ich sehe nirgendwo, dass 1244 dem Kosovo die Unabhängigkeit ermöglicht."
(Quelle, The Independent, ebenda)



Sollte Washington trotzdem die Um-Interpretation von 1244 weiter
verfolgen, dann bricht es nicht nur mit Jugoslawien, bevor sich die
Beziehungen zu den neuen Kräften in Belgrad wieder richtig entwickeln
konnten, sondern auch mit der Europäischen Union. Der EU-Kommissar für
auswärtige Angelegenheiten, der Brite Chris Patten hatte kürzlich in
Belgrad kategorisch die Unabhängigkeit des Kosovo ausgeschlossen.
("L'UE rejette la possibilité d'une indépendance du Kosovo", BELGRADE,
24 Oct 00, AFP). Wörtlich sagte er: "Die Position der EU zum Kosovo
basiert auf der Resolution 1244 des Sicherheitsrates der UNO, die eine
<substantielle Autonomie> dieser Provinz innerhalb der Bundesrepublik
Jugoslawien vorsieht. Wir werden uns keinen Zentimeter von dieser
Resolution weg bewegen. Das ist unsere Politik heute und das wird
unsere Politik in der Zukunft sein." (Quelle, AFP, ebenda)



"The Guardian", eine andere große britische Tageszeitung schrieb
ebenfalls am Montag, daß die USA bereit seien, sich in der Frage der
Unabhängigkeit des Kosovo "mit ihren NATO-Partnern zu überwerfen
Allerdings - so <The Guardian> dürften sich die USA in nächster Zukunft
zurückhalten, ihre politische Kehrtwende offiziell bekannt zu machen,
allein schon deshalb, weil den neuen Kräften um Vojislav Kostunica bei
den bevorstehenden Parlamentswahlen nicht geschadet werden soll.



Die Widersprüche in der amerikanischen Politik dürfte jedoch auch
Belgrad nicht übersehen, hatte doch der amerikanische Gesandte James C.
O'Brien bei seinem ersten Treffen mit Kostunica dem neuen jugoslawischen
Präsidenten die volle Unterstützung der USA zugesichert, ihn bei dessen
erklärtem Ziel zu helfen, die serbischen Flüchtlinge sobald wie möglich
zurück ins Kosovo zu bringen. Dies lässt sich jedoch mit Holbrooks
Um-Interpretation von 1244 nicht vereinbaren. Denn in einem
unabhängigen Kosovo, in dem der albanische Rassismus vollkommen zügellos
wüten könnte, hätten die Serben überhaupt keine Zukunftschancen. Aber
wie schon so oft in der Vergangenheit, so scheint Washington auch
diesmal ein Doppelspiel zu betreiben und auf verschiedenen Schultern zu
tragen.

Saarburg den 31.10. 00

---

Nach Wahlniederlage bangt UCK um ihre Pfründe.

Albanische Terroristen wenden sich gegen Rugova.
(von Rainer Rupp)


Trotz ihrer demokratischen Fragwürdigkeit machten die Wahlen im Kosovo
deutlich, dass die verschiedenen Gruppierungen und Parteien der zu
Politikern mutierten UCK-Terroristen und Drogengangster kaum Rückhalt in
der albanischen Bevölkerung des Kosovo haben. Trotz vielfacher
Einschüchterungsversuche der Bevölkerung durch die ehem.
UCK-Kommandeure, ist dem glühenden albanischen Nationalisten und
überzeugten Separatisten Ibrahim Rugova ein überzeugendes Comeback
gelungen. Er hat stets versucht sein Ziel auf friedlichem Weg zu
verwirklichen und ist deshalb von der UCK zum "Verräter" abgestempelt
worden.



Nach Angaben der OSZE-Mission für das ganze Kosovo hatte nach Auszählung
von 90 Prozent der Stimmen die LDK Rugovas 58% und die Nachfolgeparteien
der UCK etwa 27% der Stimmen bekommen. ("OSZE bestätigt absolute
Mehrheit für Rugova-Partei", Pristina (dpa) Meldung vom 30.10.2000
21:47). Nur in den Kommunen im Mittelkosovo, die seit eh als Hochburgen
der Terroristenbewegung gelten, hat es scheinbar die Partei des
politischen Chefs der UCK und des in Serbien wegen achtfachen Mordes
gesuchten Hashim Thaci geschafft, die Führung zu übernehmen.



Damit hat Ibrahim Rugova den ins politische Geschäft gewechselten
Kommandeuren der UCK eine schmerzhafte Niederlage beigebracht. Weil zu
erwarten ist, dass die im terroristischen Kampf erprobten
UCK-"Politiker" ihre Pfründe und Machtpositionen, die sie sich
unmittelbar nach dem Krieg in den meisten Kommunen des Kosovo erobert
hatten¸ nach der verlorenen Wahl nicht ohne Widerstand abgeben werden,
um das Feld dem "Verräter" Rugova und seinen Anhängern zu überlassen,
hat sich die die NATO-geführte KFOR nach einem Bericht der britischen
Tageszeitung "The Independent" bereits auf den Ausbruch von
Gewalttätigkeiten vorbereitet.



Vor diesem Hintergrund musste die Tatsache, dass die PDK des Hashim
Thaci bereits unmittelbar nach der Wahl wegen des angeblich von Rugova
«gestohlenen Sieges» protestierte, besonders bedenklich stimmen.
("UCK-Nachfolgepartei protestiert nach Kosovo-Wahl", Pristina, dpa,
Meldung vom 30.10.2000 16:48) In vielen Gemeinden der Provinz sei die
Kommunalwahl manipuliert worden, sagte der PDK-Wahlkampfleiter Bilal
Sherifi am Montag in Pristina. "In Prizren und sechs anderen Kommunen
wurde der PDK der Sieg gestohlen".



Vor der Pressekonferenz der PDK in Pristina hatte jedoch der umstrittene
UNMIK-Chef Bernard Kouchner unterstützt von US-Diplomaten Gespräche mit
Thaci in dessen Hauptquartier geführt. Wohl um diesen zu beschwichtigen
und vor übereilten Reaktionen abzuhalten. Nach außen ist Thaci
scheinbar darauf eingegangen, denn trotz aller Klagen über den
"gestohlenen Wahlsieg", erklärte Thaci in einer totalen Wende, dass die
PDK das "endgültige Ergebnis" der Wahl akzeptieren aber dazu nochmals
eine Erklärung abgeben würde.



Offiziell hat Thaci schon oft den Anschein der Kooperation mit UNMIK und
KFOR erweckt, während er insgeheim die Tagesordnung der UCK verfolgte.
So hatten er sich z.B. gegen die organisierten Mord- und
Vertreibungsaktionen gegen Serben und nicht-albanische Minderheiten
ausgesprochen und so getan, als ob die UCK und ihre
Nachfolgeorganisation, das von Deutschland und den USA bezahlte
"Kosovo-Schutz-Korps" nichts, aber auch gar nichts mit diesen
Terroraktionen zu tun hätten. Offiziell wurden diese stets als
unkontrollierbare Einzelaktionen dargestellt, auf die die UCK und Hashim
Thaci keinen Einfluss hatten, obwohl sie praktisch das ganze Kosovo mit
Hilfe ihres brutalen Geheimdienstes so gut wie uneingeschränkt
kontrollierten. Und die NATO akzeptierte diese offizielle Version und
verbreitete sie.



Hashim Thaci hatte angekündigt, dass seine Partei, die PDK, nach Vorlage
der endgültigen Wahlergebnisse nochmals eine Erklärung abgeben würde.
Am Dienstag nach der Wahl der siegreichen Partei des Ibrahim Rugova ist
der 45-Jährige Hazir Raci in der Stadt Klina im Westen des Kosovo von
Unbekannten erschossen worden. ("Politiker von Rugovas LDK
erschossen",AP, Pristina, Meldung vom 31.10.2000 20:31)

Saarburg den 1. 11. 00

---

Serben spielen der NATO den Schwarzen Peter zu.

(von Rainer Rupp)


In seiner Rede beim OSZE-Treffen in Wien kritisierte Präsident Kostunica
scharf die Rolle der NATO und der Vereinten Nationen im Kosovo. Es sei
offensichtlich, dass die NATO-geführte KFOR ihrer Aufgabe, militanten
Kosovo-Albanern Einhalt zu gebieten, nicht ordnungsgemäß nachgekommen
sei. Albanische Terroristen versuchten, Serben und Albaner gleichermaßen
einzuschüchtern. Kostunica warnte vor einer Ausweitung der Krise auf die
gesamte Region.



Nach Angaben des UN-Hochkommissars für Flüchtlinge (UNHCR) sind in den
vergangenen Tagen 2.000 Menschen aus dem Presevo-Tal geflohen. Die
albanische Minderheit in Südserbien, die im Presevo-Tal jedoch die
Mehrheit stellt, fürchtet nach Aussage von UNHCR-Sprecher Peter Deck
angeblich eine serbische Offensive. Bis zu 20.000 Menschen könnten in
diesem Fall das Gebiet verlassen. Die Vereinten Nationen bereiten laut
Deck Notunterkünfte in Sporthallen und anderen öffentlichen Gebäuden
vor, um die Flüchtlinge aufzunehmen. Déja vue? Die Strategie kommt
einem bekannt vor. Ob die UCK diesmal wieder Erfolg damit haben wird,
darf allerdings bezweifelt werden.



Sogar der britische Verteidigungsminister Geoff Hoon drückte am Montag
sein Verständnis für die Reaktion von Präsident Kostunica aus: "Ich
erkenne seine legitimen Sorgen wegen der Sicherheit der serbischen
Bevölkerung auf beiden Seiten der Grenze an. Es ist deshalb wichtig,
dass wir niemandem erlauben, weder die Grenze noch das Gefühl der
Sicherheit der Menschen auf beiden Seiten der Grenze zu verletzen."
("UK sees cause for Kostunica's concern over Kosovo ", Reuters, by Paul
Majendie, ZAGREB, Nov 27)



Als Reaktion auf die Offensive der UCK im Presevo-Tal, der Krisenregion
in Südserbien hatte die Regierung in Belgrad Panzer und
Infanterieeinheiten entlang der 5 Kilometer breiten Pufferzone zwischen
Südserbien und dem Kosovo verlegt. Diese demilitarisierte Zone benutzen
die die Terroristen - von der KFOR weitgehend unbehelligt - als
Ausgangspunkt für ihre Überfälle auf serbische Polizisten und
Zivilisten. Deshalb hatte Belgrad der KFOR am Freitag ein Ultimatum
gestellt, das ursprünglich am Montag um 19.00 Uhr ablaufen sollte. Wenn
die NATO unfähig sei, für Sicherheit zu sorgen, dann müssten
jugoslawische Soldaten das selbst tun, hieß es aus Belgrad.



Nun hat die serbische Regierung das Ultimatum jedoch auf unbestimmte
Zeit verlängert. Der Diplomatie solle eine Chance gegeben werden, sagte
der stellvertretende Ministerpräsident Nebosja Covic während eines
Besuchs in der Krisenregion. Die NATO-Truppen im Kosovo seien einzig und
allein dafür verantwortlich, den Rückzug der militanten Albaner aus dem
Gebiet sicher zu stellen, betonte Covic. Ein taktisch kluger Zug. Denn
wenn die NATO nichts tut, dann wird ihr Ruf als sogenannte
Friedenstruppe nur noch mehr diskreditiert. Kommt sie dagegen ihrer
Verpflichtung nach und geht gegen die UCK-Terroristen vor, dann läuft
die NATO Gefahr in den Augen der albanischen Terroristen vom "Befreier"
zum "Besatzern" zu mutieren, und ebenso wie die Serben zu Zielscheiben
der verschiedenen UCK-Gruppen zu werden.



Geschickt hatte Präsident Kostunica am Montag die neue Krise in
Südserbien ausgenutzt, um in Wien eine gefährliche diplomatische Klippe
zu umschiffen. Seit Wochen hat nämlich die amerikanische
Außenministerin Madeleine Albright über verschiedene Kanäle dem neuen
jugoslawischen Präsidenten ihr Interesse an einem Zusammentreffen mit
ihm signalisiert. Der eher EU-orientierte Kostunica hatte bisher aber
kein Interesse an Frau Albright gezeigt, die als Hauptverantwortliche
für den Angriff gegen Jugoslawien gilt. In Washington wurde der Krieg
nach ihr benannt und heißt "Madeine´s War". Mit Spannung wurde daher
das OSZE-Treffen in Wien erwartet, wo auch Frau Albright zugegen sein
würde. Allerdings kamen es in Wien lediglich zu einem formellen
Händeschütteln und einem kurzen Austausch von Höflichkeiten zwischen
Präsident Kostunica und Frau Albright als man zur Aufnahme des bei
solchen Konferenzen üblichen "Familienbildes" der teilnehmenden
MinisterInnen schritt. Auf dem Foto steht Frau Albright ganz rechts
außen, während Präsident Kostunica mit der gastgebenden österreichischen
Ministerin im Zentrum zu sehen ist.



Auf eine amerikanische Einladung hin erklärte Kostunica, daß er keine
Zeit hätte, weil er vorzeitig ins Krisengebiet nach Südserbien
zurückeilen müßte. Allerdings beschwerten sich amerikanische Beobachter
sofort über Kostunicas "Affront" gegenüber der einzigen Supermacht, weil
er trotzdem Zeit gefunden habe, an einem Essen mit dem österreichischen
Präsidenten Thomas Klestil und Jörg Haider teilzunehmen. Die Botschaft
war deutlich: Eine Wiederaufnahme der Beziehungen kann warten, bis in
Washington die neue Bush-Regierung an der Macht ist, von der sich
Kostunica sich aus guten Gründen eine erhebliche Verbesserung der
bilateralen Beziehungen verspricht.



Mitte November hatte in den USA eine Konferenz der führenden Mitglieder
der republikanischen Denkfabriken unter Beteiligung ranghoher
Mitarbeiter von repubikanischen Senatoren und Abgeordneten
stattgefunden, bei der über die zukünftige Balkanpolitik der
Bush-Regierung debattiert wurde. Dabei kam es zu im Konsens
getroffenen, geradezu sensationellen Empfehlungen an die neue Regierung
Kostunica in Belgrad. So forderten die Republikaner z.B. Belgrad auf,
unter keinen Umständen von dem Prinzip abzugehen, dass "das Kosovo
sowohl Teil des souveränen Serbiens als auch Teil des jugoslawischen
Territoriums ist". Eine weitere Empfehlung an Kostunica lautete:
"absolut keine Person an das Internationale Tribunal für
Kriegsverbrechen in Jugoslawien (nach Den Haag) ausliefern".



Bei der Konferenz wurde auch per Video eine Grußbotschaft des
jugoslawischen Präsidenten Kostunica an die Konferenzteilnehmer gezeigt,
die auf lebhaften Zuspruch stieß. Auf weiten Bereichen waren die
Positionen der führenden außenpolitischen Berater der Republikaner
deckungsgleich mit denen Kostunicas. Das deutet auf eine gute
zukünftige amerikanisch-serbische Zusammenarbeit hin. Auch gaben die
Republikaner Kostunica einen guten Rat zum weiteren Umgang mit der
Clinton-Regierung, die den völkerrechtswidrigen Krieg gegen Jugoslawien
entfacht hatte: auf gar keinen Fall die Beziehungen verbessern - und
wenn diplomatisch nicht anders möglich, dann auf höflicher aber kühler
Distanz bleiben! In Wien scheint sich Präsident Kostunica beim Umgang
mit Frau Albright diesen Rat zu Herzen genommen zu haben.



Saarburg den 28.11.00

---

NATO nennt albanische Terroristen wieder "Terroristen"

(von Rainer Rupp)


"Die NATO schlägt sich auf die Seite der Serben gegen die albanische
Bedrohung", hieß gestern der Titel einer Depesche der britischen
Nachrichtenagentur Reuters aus Brüssel. Berichtet wird, dass "die NATO
in einer bemerkenswerten Kehrtwende vom gewohnten Rollenspiel auf dem
Balkan die serbische Zurückhaltung gelobt und sich zugleich verpflichtet
hat, mit Belgrad bei der Bekämpfung der albanischen terroristischen
Aktivitäten zusammenzuarbeiten. In der Tat geht dies aus einer zwei
Seiten langen offiziellen Erklärung des NATO-Generalsekretärs Lord
George Robertson vom Mittwoch hervor. Darin versprach er Maßnahmen, um
die Lage in der entmilitarisierten Pufferzone entlang der
Verwaltungsgrenze zwischen Kosovo und Südserbien zu entspannen. Die
Pufferzone wird von Mitgliedern des UCK-Ablegers UCBMP als Ausgangsbasis
für Überfälle und Anschläge in Südserbien benutzt, die das Ziel haben,
das von 70.000 Albanern bewohnte Presevo-Tal vom "serbischen Joch zu
befreien" um es dann mit dem "unabhängigen, rein albanischen Kosovo zu
vereinen".



Die Tatsache, dass der NATO-Generalsekretär in seiner Erklärung die
Aktivitäten der UCBMP als "terroristisch" bezeichnete, stellt eine
kleine Sensation dar, und zeigt, wie weit bereits die politische
Kertwende im NATO-Denken zum Kosovo gediehen ist. Zuletzt hatte im
Frühling 1998 der US-Balkangesandte, Botschafter Gelbart, die UCK als
"Terroristen" bezeichnet. Als nützliche Handlanger und Waffenbrüder der
USA und NATO beim Angriffskrieg gegen Jugoslawien mutierten die
Kosovo-albanischen Terroristen jedoch plötzlich zu gefeierten
Freiheitskämpfern.



Beim neuen Schmusekurs der NATO-Länder mit Serbien, dem für die
kapitalistische Neuordnung des Balkans eine Schlüsselbedeutung zukommt,
verlieren sowohl das Kosovo als auch die UCK-Terroristen als Druckmittel
gegen Serbien an Bedeutung. Mit wachsendem Ärger mussten die
albanischen Extremisten im Kosovo feststellen, dass sie nun als
Hindernis bei der Annäherung zwischen Belgrad und der NATO angesehen
werden. So ist es nicht verwunderlich, wenn die NATO urplötzlich
UCK-Terroristen wieder als "Terroristen" bezeichnet und bei deren
Bekämpfung mit den Serben zusammenarbeiten will.



Ergänzend konnte Reuters Atmosphärisches aus Brüssel berichten, dass
nämlich die NATO wegen des albanischen Nationalismus "extrem
frustriert" und "wegen der fortdauernden Angriffe gegen Serben, wegen
der internen politischen Gewalt im Kosovo und wegen unerfüllbarer
Forderungen nach Unabhängigkeit mit ihrer Geduld am Ende" sei. Deshalb
hat die NATO es auch mit den allgemeinen Wahlen nicht mehr besonders
eilig, von denen sich die Kosovo-Albaner einen weiteren entscheidenden
Schritt in die Unabhängigkeit von Serbien erhofften. Auch der
umstrittene UNO-Chef im Kosovo, der serbo-phobe Bernard Kouchner, hat
den Wink seiner NATO-Meister bereits verstanden. Letzte Woche erklärte
er in Zagreb, dass die Pläne für eine baldige Wahl immer
unwahrscheinlicher würden. ("West must act to contain Kosovo violence",
ZAGREB, Nov 28 Reuters) Obwohl Kouchners Position als Chef der
UNO-Mission im Kosovo strikte Neutralität verlangt, hat er aus seiner
Sympathie für die UCK und ein unabhängiges Kosovo nie ein Hehl gemacht.
Jetzt, da seine Pläne nicht länger durchzusetzen sind, hat er
angekündigt, dass er seinen Posten zum 15. Dezember verlassen will.
Wohin die Kosovo-albanischen Separatisten blicken, überall sehen sie nun
ihre Felle davonschwimmen. Am meisten dürfte ihnen aber die neue
Zusammenarbeit zwischen der NATO und den Serben zu schaffen machen.



Diese Zusammenarbeit soll sich (vorerst) lediglich gegen die UCBMP
entlang der Pufferzone zwischen Südserbien und den Kosovo richten. Ob
jedoch die im Kosovo vielfach unter sich vernetzten unterschiedlichen
UCK-Terror- und Gangstergruppierungen sich politische so fein säuberlich
trennen lassen, wie das der NATO vorschwebt, darf bezweifelt werden.
Für Fall, dass die NATO "robust gegen die albanischen Separatisten
vorgeht, könnte das zu einer gefährlichen Konfrontation zwischen der
NATO und der UCK überall im Kosovo führen", warnte deshalb das
amerikanische Time Magazin in seiner jüngsten Ausgabe. ("Serb Threat
Raises NATO Dilemma", By Tony Karon, Time.com , Nov 27)



Um dies zu verhindern, wollte am Donnerstag der NATO Lord Robertson
gemeinsam mit dem Oberbefehlshaber der NATO-Europa, dem U.S. General
Joseph W. Ralston ins Kosovo reisen, um dort mit den zu "Politikern"
mutierten UCK-Kommandanten zu sprechen, damit diese einen "mäßigenden
Einfluß" auf ihre Terrorgefährten von der UCBMP ausüben. Als Teil der
anderen vom NATO-Generalsekretär angekündigten Maßnahmen hat die KFOR
entlang der entmilitarisierten Grenze ihre Überwachung und Kontrolle
verstärkt. So gelang es der KFOR jetzt innerhalb weniger Tage den
zweiten Versuch der UCBMP zu verhindern, größere Mengen schwerer Waffen
in die demilitarisierte Zone zu schmuggeln. Dies scheint den Vorwurf
Belgrads zu bestätigen, dass die NATO-Truppen entlang der Grenzzone zu
Südserbien (es ist übrigens die amerikanische Zone) in der Vergangenheit
bei UCBMP-Aktivitäten stets weggeschaut haben.



Saarburg den 30.11.00

*** NOTIZIE DA KOSOVO E METOHIJA (fonte varia) ***

Selezione e titolazione italiana a cura del
Coordinamento Romano per la Jugoslavia

---

ATTACCATO CONVOGLIO NATO

http://www.thestar.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=977067580514&call_page=TS_World&call_pageid=968332188854&call_pagepath=News/World

THE TORONTO STAR, Monday, December 18, 2000
NATO patrol is attacked in Kosovo
Peacekeepers suffer no injuries in border attack

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Gunmen fired on a joint American-Russian
patrol yesterday as it tried to seal the boundary between Kosovo and
part of southern Serbia where ethnic Albanian rebels have been
challenging Yugoslav forces, the U.S. army said.
Peacekeepers suffered no casualties in the attack, the first reported
against NATO-led troops since ethnic Albanian rebels escalated
cross-border raids in November.
The joint patrol returned fire but it was unclear whether the attackers,
whose identity was unknown, suffered casualties, U.S. army spokesperson
Capt. Alayne Cramer said in a statement.
The attack occurred one day after a violent incident in northwestern
Kosovo, in which Serbs angry over the arrest of a motorist set fire to a
police station, stoned vehicles and briefly took seven Belgian soldiers
hostage.
Two Serbs died in the melee in the town of Leposavic and one was
wounded, raising tensions in this troubled province.
The U.S. statement said the shooting attack occurred about 1:30 p.m.
local time as the patrol was trying to seal the boundary near the
village of Gornje Karacevo about 50 kilometres southeast of Pristina.
Peacekeepers had just detonated a series of explosive charges to destroy
a section of road believed used by the militants when they received
small arms fire, the statement said.
``The Multinational Brigade East was continuing the boundary closure
efforts to prevent the flow of supplies and movement of armed ethnic
groups across the border,'' the statement added. ``No suspects have been
detained.''
The new government of Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica has been
urging the NATO-led force in Kosovo to crack down on the ethnic Albanian
extremists of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac,
known by its Albanian-language acronym UCPMB.
Last month, the rebels killed four Yugoslav police officers and seized
several positions in the five-kilometre-wide buffer zone along the
Yugoslav side of the boundary.
The zone was established in June, 1999 to prevent Belgrade's forces from
threatening the peacekeepers who took over Kosovo after the 78-day NATO
bombing of Yugoslavia, launched to force then-president Slobodan
Milosevic to halt his crackdown against Kosovo Albanians.
Yugoslav forces cannot use heavy weapons in the zone, so the ethnic
Albanians have been operating in the area with impunity.
They are trying to drive Yugoslav forces from the area, which has an
ethnic Albanian majority but is not part of Kosovo.

Letters to Editor: lettertoed@...

KOSTUNICA PER EMENDAMENTI AGLI ACCORDI DI KUMANOVO

YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT FOR AMENDMENTS TO KUMANOVO MILITARYTECHNICAL
AGREEMENT
BELGRADE, December 18 (Tanjug) Yugoslav President Vojislav
Kostunica urged on Monday, during a joint press conference with Norwegian
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, a dialogue with the representatives of the
international community and the moderate leaders of the Kosovo Albanians
and for amendments to the MilitaryTechnical Agreement between Yugoslavia
and NATO.
Kostunica said that "there is too much extremism in Kosovo"
despite the victory of the moderate ethnic Albanians at the October 28
local elections in the province.
Describing the current situation in southern Serbia as a very
serious problem, Kostunica said that there are certain unclear
interpretations of the MilitaryTechnical Agreement, signed last June in
Kumanovo, Macedonia, between the Yugoslav Army and NATO and under which the
local Serbian police in the land security zone can be armed only with light
weapons.
Kostunica said that the Agreement must be amended, adding that
this does not depend on Yugoslavia but on KFOR and the international
community.
"We urge our more extensive presence in order that people feel as
safe as possible," the Yugoslav president set out pointing out that the
security zone is populated both by Serbs and Serb police, but also moderate
ethnic Albanians who are being threatened by the ethnic Albanian terrorists.
Kostunica expressed great satisfaction over the visit by the
Norwegian president who is touring the Balkan countries. He said that
Norway was one of the first countries to recognize the democratic changes
in Yugoslavia.
Stoltenberg noted that Yugoslavia is no longer isolated and that
now it is fully participating in the activities of the international
community, in which Norwegian help and support played a role.
Stoltenberg said that today's talks also focused on the
implementation of the joint declaration on bilateral relations and
cooperation signed at the time of Kostunica's visit to Oslo in October.

KOSTUNICA SUGLI INCIDENTI DI LEPOSAVIC

PRESIDENT KOSTUNICA BLASTS INCIDENTS IN LEPOSAVIC
BELGRADE, December 17 (Tanjug) Yugoslav President Vojislav
Kostunica on Sunday deplored Saturday's clashes and tragic events with loss
of life in Leposavic, KosovoMetohija, and appealed to Serbs, ethnic
Albanians, KFor and UNMIK to take their share of responsibility and avoid
the trap laid by those "who care nothing about peace".
U.N. mission (UNMIK) police in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's
U.N.administered KosovoMetohija province opened fire at a crowd of some
1,000 Serbs protesting in Leposavic against the arrest of their compatriot,
and killed two Serbs and wounded one.
A statement from the presidential cabinet quotes Kostunica as
saying that force solves nothing, whoever might use it.
He added that "it is not by accident that this should be happening
now, before Serbian elections which should endorse September's victory of
the democratic forces, and after the strengthening of moderate forces among
Kosovo Albanians".
Kostunica said that "UNMIK and KFor have the duty to discharge all
their obligations under the Kumanovo MilitaryTechnical Accord and U.N.
Resolution 1244, while the people must obey the law.
"This is the only way for peace and law and order to be restored
in Kosovo and its environs once and for all", he said.

ZIZIC SULLA SITUAZIONE A PRESEVO E DINTORNI

PREMIER ZIZIC: YUGOSLAVIA IS CAPABLE OF EXPELLING ETHNIC ALBANIAN
TERRORISTS
BELGRADE, December 18 (Tanjug) Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran
Zizic told Monday issue of Blic daily that Yugoslavia is capable of
expelling ethnic Albanian terrorists from the buffer zone in southeastern
Serbia.
He said that the Yugoslav government will do only what is
necessary to push terrorists back from the buffer zone, to protect the
residents of the Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja municipalities, and to
enable Yugoslavia to pursue the process of joining the international
community.
The international community understands the need of expelling
terrorists from the buffer zone. Yugoslavia is capable to do that, if
necessary, Zizic said.
He pointed out that separatism, including that prevailing in
KosovoMetohija, which seems insurmountable at present, will lose its
strength as Yugoslavia continues developing economically.

SVILANOVIC A NEW YORK

YUGOSLAV FOREIGN MINISTER LEFT FOR NEW YORK
BELGRADE, December 18 (Tanjug) Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran
Svilanovic on Monday left for New York to attend Tuesday's U.N. Security
Council session on the KosovoMetohija crisis and its effects outside this
Serbian province, especially in the land security zone.
In New York, Svilanovic is expected to meet with U.S. ambassador
to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, current Security Council Chariman
Sergei Lavrov, and maybe Secretary General Kofi Annan and the new head of
the U.N. civilian mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Hans Haekkerup.
Yugoslav political and diplomatic circles attach great importance
to this Security Council session because, as Yugoslav President Vojislav
Kostunica said, it is expected to take a step further and clearly define
the situation in the land security zone with KosovoMetohija so that it
becomes really safe for all.
According to Kostunica, the Security Council should also adopt a
decision that the ethnic Albanian terrorists leave the security zone.
Svilanovic said that he will demand from the Security Council to
influence the Kosovo Albanian leaders that all armed persons withdraw from
the land security zone.

L'AMBASCIATORE USA NELLA ZONA DEGLI SCONTRI

SERBIAN VICE PREMIER AND U.S. AMBASSADOR TO YUGOSLAVIA MET IN
BUJANOVAC
BUJANOVAC, December 18 (Tanjug) Serbian Vice Premier Nebojsa
Covic and U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia, William Montgomery, met in
Bujanovac on Monday afternoon.
The talks are also attended by Yugoslav Minister for National and
Minority Communities Rasim Ljajic, who is also a member of the Yugoslav and
Serbian governments' coordinating body for Bujanovac, Medvedja and Presevo,
and with Presevo municipality head Riza Halimi.
Before meeting with Montgomery, Covic and Ljajic conferred for
three hours with Halimi and Bujanovac municipality chief Stojan Arsic, as
well as with the ethnic Albanian deputies from this region.

LA KFOR ASPETTAVA LA NEVE

KFOR COMMANDER: KFOR'S HANDS TIED BECAUSE OF GOOD WEATHER CONDITIONS
ROME, December 18 (Tanjug) The warm weather has prevented KFOR
from completing its overall peace operations in the Presevo valley in
southern Serbia, Rome daily La Republica quoted KFOR commander, Italian
general Carlo Cabigiosu as saying.
"I had hoped for at least one metre of snow, but the snowfall has
been late," Gen. Cabigiosu set out adding that the snow would have made it
more difficult for the terrorists to infiltrate the buffer zone in southern
Serbia.

PROTESTA PER L'UCCISIONE DEI DUE SERBI

SERBS PROTEST KILLING OF TWO SERBS IN LEPOSAVIC
BELGRADE, December 17 (Tanjug) Hundreds of Serbs in Leposavic and
the surrounding area in U.N.administered KosovoMetohija protested in
downtown Leposavic on Sunday, indignant at Saturday's killing of two Serbs
and wounding of another by U.N. mission (UNMIK) police.
A delegation of the protesters delivered the protesters' demands
to the UNMIK and international force KFor commands in Kosovska Mitrovica.
UNMIK Kosovo Corps police, probably from the Belgian battalion,
fired bullets and teargas at a crowd of more than 1,000 protesters in
Leposavic shortly before midnight on Saturday, killing two Serbs and
wounding one.
The indignant protesters, demanding the release of their
compatriot, had started throwing stones at the police building and had set
three KFor vehicles and a private car alight.
Representatives of the Serb Crisis Command in Kosovska Mitrovica
met on Sunday with the local KFor commander, General Christian Falzone, and
UNMIK administrator Anthony Welch.
The officials promised to investigate the incident, publish the
names of the soldiers and police who had fired the shots into the crowd and
take the necessary action, and asked that the people of Leposavic refrain
from provoking and attacking KFor and the police.

ATTACCATO CONVOGLIO USA-NATO

USRUSSIAN PATROL UNDER FIRE IN KOSOVO
PRISTINA, December 18 (Tanjug) Unidentified attackers opened fire
on Sunday at a U.S.Russian patrol which was trying to close the border
between Kosovo and southern Serbia near Gornje Karacevo village, about 50
km southeast of Pristina, the U.S. contingent of KFOR said.
The patrol returned fire. There were no KFOR casualties, but there
may have been casualties among the attackers, U.S. contingent
representative Alayne Cramer said.
She said in a statement that the international brigade East
endeavoured to close the border in order to prevent armed ethnic groups
from crossing the boundary and carrying supplies.
No suspects have been identified yet, the statement added.

I BRITANNICI PREMONO AL CONFINE DELLA PROVINCIA

BRITISH TROOPS TO REINFORCE KOSOVOMETOHIJA BORDER AREA
PRISTINA, December 18 (Tanjug) Some 150 British soldiers of the
Kfor international peacekeeping force in Serbia's southern KosovoMetohija
province were deployed on Monday to reinforce the area near the
administrative border separating the province from Serbia proper, a Kfor
Spokesman said in Pristina.
Tim Pearce said that the Royal Regiment of the Princess of Wales
was deployed south of the zone where unidentified assailants fired shots at
soldiers of the Russian and U.S. Kfor contingents on Sunday.
He went on to say that the deployment of this regiment is not a
response to violence that happened during the weekend, but a result of
developments in the Presevo valley.
The British soldiers will be under the command of a U.S. Kfor
brigade whose task is to prevent ethnic Albanian separatist infiltration
and arms smuggling into the Presevo valley, part of the southSerbian land
security zone.

LA POSIZIONE DELL'SPS SULLA UCCISIONE DI DUE
SERBI DA PARTE DELLA KFOR A LEPOSAVIC

> http://www.sps.org.yu/aktuelno/2000/dec/17-1.html

IZVRŠNI ODBOR POKRAJINSKOG
ODBORA SPS KOSOVA I METOHIJE
POVODOM UBISTVA DVOJICE SRBA U
LEPOSAVIÆU OD STRANE POLICIJE
UNMIK-a

Izvršni odbor Pokrajinskog odbora
Socijalistièke partije Srbije Kosova i
Metohije oštro je osudio ubistvo dvojice
Srba u Leposaviæu od strane policije
Civilne misije Ujedinjenih nacija koja je
pucala u masu graðana Leposaviæa koji
su protestvovali zbog nepravednog
zatvaranja njihovog sugraðanina Vladimira
Tomoviæa.
Ubistvo Bojana Jokoviæa i Trifuna
Obradoviæa iz Leposaviæa i teško
ranjavanje devetnaestogodišnjeg Mladena
Obradoviæa iz Kruševca studenta
Prištinskog univerziteta, èija je krivica bila
samo u tome što su protestvovali zbog
nepravde, Izvršni odbor Pokrajinskog
odbora SPS Kosova i Metohije ocenio je
kao još jedan u nizu gnusnih zloèina koje
su pripadnici meðunarodnih bezbednosnih
snaga i Civilne misije UN, direktno ili
indirektno, u saradnji sa albanskim
separatistima i teroristima izvršili u
poslednjih godinu i po dana nad srpskim i
crnogorskim narodom i drugim graðanima
Kosova i Metohije.
Najnovija ubistva u Leposaviæu, upad više
hiljada naoružanih albanskih separatista i
terorista u zonu bezbednosti izmeðu
Kosova i Metohije i unutrašnjosti Srbije u
opštinama Bujanovac i Preševo, potom
danonoæni napadi na Srbe i Crnogorce
širom Kosova i Metohije, istièe IO PO SPS
Kosova i Metohije, deo su jedinstvenog
scenarija i jedinstvene antisrpske i
antijugoslovenske ofanzive preduzete od
pripadnika meðunarodnih bezbednosnih
snaga i policije Civilne misije UN i
albanskih separatista i terorista sa
zajednièkim i jedinstvenim ciljem
iseljavanja i poslednjeg Srbina sa Kosova i
Metohije.
Najuže rukovodstvo kosovsko-metohijskih
socijalista zahteva od aktuelnih
jugoslovenskih vlasti da se stane na put
takvim zloèinima i da se od meðunarodnih
bezbednosnih snaga i Civilne misije UN
zatraži da okonèaju svoju sramnu misiju i
da napuste Kosovo i Metohiju.
Podseæajuæi na hiljade ubijenih, ranjenih i
kidnapovanih Srba i Crnogoraca i drugih
graðana Kosova i Metohije i brojne druge
zloèine poèinjene u proteklih osamnaest
meseci u prisustvu i pred oèima više
desetina hiljada do zuba naoružanih i
najmodernije opremljenih pripadnika
meðunarodnih bezbednosnih snaga i
policije Civilne misije UN, Izvršni odbor
Pokrajinskog odbora SPS Kosova i
Metohije zakljuèuje da bi svako dalje
ostajanje tih snaga na Kosovu i Metohiji
znaèilo samo nove zloèine, nove žrtve i
novo stradanje naroda i destabilizaciju ne
samo Balkana veæ i šire - jugoistoène
Evrope.

UN COMMENTO DALL'ARIZONA

----- Original Message -----
From: TiM Publisher <publisher@...>
To: TiM GW Bulletins <tim@...>
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2000 9:30 PM
Subject: NATO Tells Serbs to Stay Put, Adds Insult to Injury (TiM GW Bulletin 2000/12-4, Dec. 16, 2000)

>
> FROM PHOENIX, ARIZONA
> 2. NATO Tells Serbs to Stay Put, Adds Insult to Injury
>
> Western Diplomat Slights Yugoslav Army's Capability
>
> PRISTINA, Dec. 15 - In our Dec. 4 update about the situation in Kosovo,
> "Serb Wimps Kiss Up to NATO Pimps," we quoted Zoran Djindjic as saying
> that, "Yugoslav government was seeking NATO acceptance of the plan to drive
> the Kosovo Albanian rebels from the 80-square mile contested Presevo Valley
> buffer zone between Kosovo province and the rest of Serbia."
>
> Asking permission from a foreign occupying force if you can be allowed to
> defend your own land from terrorists who have killed and massacred your
> troops makes the label "wimps" fairly benign. Yet to the new Yugoslav
> president, Vojislav Kostunica, the remark by the man who is widely expected
> to become Serbia's prime minister after the Dec. 23 vote was not wimpy
> enough. Speaking last week after Djindjic's comments, Kostunica said that,
> "this is not the time for war drums."
>
> Belgrade's appeasing attitude toward the aggressors drew protests and
> demonstrations by the Serbs from Presevo Valley on Dec. 13. Thousands of
> angry Serbs blocked key roads near Kosovo today, demanding that the
> authorities drive out the ethnic Albanian militants entrenched in the area,
> the New York Times reported on Dec. 14. Some 3,000 people used cars,
> trucks and tractors to close roads into and out of Bujanovac and the rail
> line, and all roads that link Serbia to Macedonia and Greece.
>
> So now Kostunica and Djindjic have their own people rising up against them
> with no Slobodan Milosevic around any more to take the blame.
>
> Furthermore, Kostunica's willingness to prostrate himself and his country
> before NATO lower than even Djindjic was prepared to do was not lost on the
> KFOR leaders. Yesterday, they told Belgrade what its leaders' meekness
> asked for - butt out! Brig. Gen. Dennis E. Hardy, the American who
> commands peacekeepers, including 6,000 American troops, in the eastern part
> of Kosovo, said in an interview published Dec. 15 by the New York Times
> that, NATO "would not tolerate Serbian police or army use of force to
> reassert control of a three-mile-wide buffer zone along Kosovo's eastern
> border that ethnic Albanian rebels control."
>
> No surprise there. As eyewitnesses in the area have already reported to
> TiM, the U.S. troops are virtual accomplices of the Albanian terrorists,
> having been seen to provide logistical support for the rebel operations
> (see "Kosovo Eyewitness: American Troops Aided Albanian Rebels Who Killed
> Four Serb Policemen," Nov. 29, 2000).
>
> But don't take our word for it. Here's what the Kosovo Albanian
> recently-elected leader, Ibrahim Rugova, said in a Dec. 11 interview with
> the German Der Spiegel (The Mirror) magazine:
>
> "Thanks to the presence of KFOR peacekeeping troops, NATO's support and the
> UN's reconstruction assistance Kosovo today is de facto
> independent." Later in the interview, Rugova also added, "NATO is already
> our (Albanian) private army. But in the future we will share responsibility
> and also develop an army of our own as a protective power."
>
> So the new Serb leaders are appealing for help from the foreign troops that
> the Kosovo Albanian leader calls their "private army!" Is there any wonder
> the Serbs of the Presevo Valley are rising up against such Belgrade "leaders?"
>
> As if that was not demeaning enough, asked by the Times whether the Serb
> forces could flush out the Albanian in a quick clean operation, a Western
> diplomat added insult to injury by replying, "I don't think the Serbian
> forces are capable of that." Or was it realism? Because the Albanian
> rebels are certainly treating the Serb posturing as empty threats.
>
> Violence flared anew on Friday (Dec. 15). NATO spokesman said two cars in
> the southern (Bujanovac) part of the zone carrying Serbs were raked with
> gunfire Friday (Dec. 15), leaving one of the occupants wounded in the
> arm. The two targeted cars then drove to a crossing into Kosovo and the
> wounded man was treated by U.S. soldiers, a spokesman for the American
> peacekeepers, Maj. Jim Marshall, said in a statement.
>
> And in a report suggesting tensions might be spreading, locals in the
> northern part of the zone, near Kursumlija, said Albanian militants shot at
> a Serb-populated village late Friday (Dec. 15). It was the first such
> incident reported in the north. The villagers told police they had seen
> Albanian rebels digging trenches in the region. The shootings occurred
> even as Serbs lifted their barricades on roads along the tense border with
> Kosovo after a personal appeal by Kostunica.
>
> Meanwhile, the governments of Yugoslavia and of Serbia, its main republic,
> met today (Dec 16) in Bujanovac - on the edge
> of the tense region - and threatened tough action unless NATO peacekeepers
> and U.N. officials running Kosovo clamp down on the insurgents, according
> to a Dec. 16 Associated Press report.
>
> The commander of the Serb Third Army reported that ethnic Albanian
> militants are seeking to export their independence war from Kosovo into a
> neighboring Serbian area are assembling military hardware for a major
> offensive later this month, according to a Dec. 16 Associated Press
> report. Speaking before the meeting, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Lazarevic said his
> military intelligence was reporting a rebel offensive planned for Dec. 27
> by "several thousand terrorists."
>
> "They are fixing up bridges, improving their communications, and bringing
> in ... mortars and howitzers," said Lazarevic.
>
> The U.N. Security Council is to meet Tuesday to discuss the latest Balkan
> flashpoint. If it fails to produce an efficient plan and action, Yugoslavia
> will "invoke its legitimate right to solve the problem itself, with the use
> of all internationally permitted measures to fight terrorism," the
> Bujanovac declaration said.

(...)
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> Phoenix, Arizona
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>
> Visit the Truth in Media Web site http://www.truthinmedia.org/ for articles
> on geopolitical affairs.
>
>

INIZIATIVE CONGIUNTE SUI FATTI DI PRESEVO

YUGOSLAV AND SERBIAN GOVERNMENTS ADOPT DECLARATION ON SOUTHERN SERBIA
BUJANOVAC, Dec 16 (Tanjug) The Yugoslav and Serbian governments
held a joint session in southern Serbia (Yugoslavia) on Saturday and
adopted a declaration on the crisis created by ethnic Albanian terrorist
raids from UNrun KosovoMetohija.
The closeddoor session was attended by Yugoslav President Vojislav
Kostunica.
It was decided that a joint coordinating body be set up to deal
with developments in southern Serbia's troubled Bujanovac, Presevo, and
Medvedja municipalities, and the buffer zone that separates KosovoMetohija
from the rest of Serbia, TANJUG learns.
YUGOSLAV AND SERBIAN GOVERNMENTS SET UP BODY FOR SOUTHERN SERBIA
CRISIS
BUJANOVAC, Dec 16 (Tanjug) The Serbian and Yugoslav governments
on Saturday appointed Serbian VicePremier Nebojsa Covic to head a joint
coordinating body to deal with the crisis created by ethnic Albanian
terrorist raids from U.N.run KosovoMetohija on southern Serbia (Yugoslavia).
The two governments held a joint session in Bujanovac, southern
Serbia, just outside the buffer zone that separates KosovoMetohija from the
rest of this Yugoslav republic.
According to TANJUG's sources, Yugoslav Minister for Minorities
and Ethnic Communities Rasim Ljajic has been appointed deputy chairman of
the 15member body which will coordinate government and political measures
for dealing with the crisis.
The other members are secretary in the Yugoslav Defence Ministry
Milovan Coguric, Serbian CoMinisters of the Interior Bozo Prelevic,
Slobodan Tomovic, Stevan Nikcevic, CoMinisters of Justice Dragan Subasic,
Zoran Nikolic, and Sead Spahovic, and CoMinisters of Information Biserka
Matic, Ivica Dacic, and Bogoljub Pejcic.
Also on the coordinating body are Serbian Minister for Local
SelfRule Veljko Odalovic, Assistant Yugoslav Interior Minister Milisav
Markovic, and a representative of the Yugoslav information secretariat, to
be appointed at a later date.

PROTESTA DEI SERBI A GORAZDEVAC

SERBS PROTEST IN KOSOVOMETOHIJA TOWN
GORAZDEVAC, Dec 15 (Tanjug) Serbs in Gorazdevac, near Pec,
KosovoMetohija, held a rally Friday in protest against the arrest and trial
of town resident Veselin Besovic before an ethnic Albanian court presided
by a Spanish judge.
Besovic was condemned to 3 years and 4 months for alleged armed
robbery. He was arrested a few weeks ago in Gorazdevac, after he reported
to UNMIK police the theft of wood on his land by a group of ethnic Albanians.
However, the group brought false charges against Besovic for armed
robbery and he was tried in a court where everyone but the presiding judge
were ethnic Albanians judges, prosecutors, lawyers and clerks, the
protesters said.
Gorazdevac residents are signing a petition to be presented to the
court and all international institutions in KosovoMetohija, as well as to
relevant Serbian and Yugoslav institutions.

SERBO FERITO NELLA ZONA-CUSCINETTO

SERB WOUNDED IN BUFFER ZONE ACROSS FROM U.N.RUN KOSOVOMETOHIJA
GNJILANE, Dec 16 (Tanjug) A Serb was wounded in an armed attack
late on Friday in the buffer zone that separates U.N.administered
KosovoMetohija from the rest of Serbia (Yugoslavia).
Zoran Mitrovic of Partes, near Gnjilane, southern Serbia, was
wounded when the car he was driving was peppered with bullets at Mucibaba
on the PresevoGnjilane road. His two passengers escaped unscathed,
according to amateur radio operators' reports.

LA TURCHIA "CONTROLLA" IL CONFINE TRA FYROM ED ALBANIA

TURKISH TROOPS TO CONTROL MACEDONIANALBANIAN BORDER
SKOPLJE, Dec 15 (Tanjug) Macedonian and Turkish Foreign Ministers
Srdjan Kerim and Ismail Cem will meet in Brussels to discuss a possible
deployment of Turkish troops to control the MacedonianAlbanian border, the
Skoplje daily Dnevnik writes Friday.
Turkey and Macedonia will attach a great importance to military
cooperation as part of the overall development of bilateral relations, the
daily writes quoting Turkish sources in NATO.
Ankara and Skoplje already have close cooperation in defense.
Turkish military experts have been training Macedonian army and police
officers.
Turkey's aid in border security is very important for Macedonia at
present, as there have been reports on the smuggling of arms by Albanian
extremists who have infiltrated southern Serbia.
Arms, military equipment and terrorists from Albania and
KosovoMetohija are being transported illegally through Macedonia's
territory to southern Serbia, sources in Skoplje said.

MESSAGGIO DI KOSTUNICA AGLI ABITANTI DI BUJANOVAC

YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE TO INHABITANTS OF BUJANOVAC
BUJANOVAC, Dec. 15 (Tanjug) The inhabitants of Bujanovac,
southern Serbia, on Friday received a message from Yugoslav President
Vojislav Kostunica who informed them that he had received assurances from
KFOR commander, General Carlo Cabigiosu, that KFOR would exert pressure so
that the terrorist gangs in the land security zone are finally disbanded.
In the message, read out to the citizens by Serbian transitional
Vice Premier Nebojsa Covic, Kostunica said that the KFOR commander had told
him that "NATO is seriously considering ways how to support the Yugoslav
government and help it fully realize its rights over a territory over which
it has undisputed sovereignty."
Covic told the gathered people that the state, police and army
have done everything to ensure their maximum protection and safety. He
informed them about the proposals for the resolution of the problems in
this part of Serbia and called on them to lift the barricades, which was
loudly accepted.
The federal and Serbia governments will meet in Bujanovac on
Saturday and set up a information centre in this town, Covic set out also
promising help for the local radio.
Covic stated that the police received new tasks to stop the
smuggling and acquisition of wealth "from the blood of the people."

RIMOSSE TUTTE LE BARRICATE

ALL BARRICADES IN BUJANOVAC REGION LIFTED
BUJANOVAC, Dec. 15 (Tanjug) All barricades in the region of
Bujanovac, southern Serbia, were removed at 1:15 p.m. local time on Friday
and all routes, including the highway and railway towards Skopje, are now
open, police sources told Tanjug.
The action released, after two days and two nights, some 800
trucks, including six cisterns carrying heating oil for the city of Cacak
and two trucks with Yugoslav Red Cross aid for the people of Presevo.
The local population of Bujanovac and the Kosovo Morava River
region, which erected the blockades on Wednesday, made three main demands
for their lifting: the immediate withdrawal of the ethnic Albanian
terrorists from the occupied ares, the opening of the GnjilaneBujanovac
road and that Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica comes to Bujanovac once
more to talk with them.
Serbian CoPremier Nebojsa Covic and Information CoMinister Biserka
Matic arrived in the region on Thursday evening. They held meetings with
the local authorities and representatives of the citizens throughout the
night and on Friday morning.
After agreement was reached at midday, all roads and railways were
deblocked in only one hour.

LA ALBRIGHT CONDANNA I SUOI ALLEATI

ALBRIGHT CONDEMNS ETHNIC ALBANIAN EXTREMISTS
BRUSSELS, Dec 15 (Tanjug) U.S. State Secretary Madeleine Albright
said on Thursday at the session of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels that
all NATO members condemn ethnic Albanian extremist activities in the
Presevo valley.
Albright stressed that the NATO states join Yugoslav President
Vojislav Kostunica in condemning activities by armed ethnic Albanian
extremists in the Presevo valley.
She pointed out that the chief task of KFOR is to help the U.N.
mission secure respect for Security Council Resolution 1244.

ROBERTSON CONDANNA I SUOI ALLEATI

ROBERTSON: NATO WILL ACT RESOLUTELY AGAINST EXTREMISTS
BRUSSELS, Dec 15 (Tanjug) NATO SecretaryGeneral George Roberston
said on Thursday at the close of the first day of work of the Ministerial
Council in Brussels that KFOR and NATO would act resolutely and severely to
stop the violence of ethnic Albanian armed extremists.
At the same time, ties with the Yugoslav Army within the joint
commission for the implementation of the Military Technical Agreement of
Kumanovo will be expanded, he said.
Robertson warned that a small group of hotheads in the security
zone in the Presevo valley in southern Serbia would not be allowed to
provoke an aggravation of conflicts.
Chances for peace have been increased with the arrival of new
Yugoslav President Vojislav kostunica and the elections called for late
next week, he said, much more than it was the case in the past decade, as
well as prospects for strengthening stability and prosperity in the entire
region and a new beginning for Serbia and its people.
For its part, NATO wants to expand cooperation with the democratic
government in Yugoslavia and build friendly relations, Robertson said. The
first signs of such relations were observed in our recent contacts woth the
new Yugoslav government, he said.

TRAFFICI DI ARMI

ARMS DELIVERED TO SERBIA FROM ALBANIA AND KOSOVO KFOR GENERAL
SKOPJE, Dec 15 (Tanjug) KFOR Headquarters Rear Major General
Volker Loew said on Thursday that there are indications that arms for the
socalled Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja arrive in
southern Serbia from Albania, but also from Kosovo via Macedonia.
Maj. Gen. Loew told a press conference in Skopje that Macedonian
security forces are undertaking measures to prevent illegal arms
deliveries, but they cannot seal the border. He could not state the exact
number of the Serbian forces in the Presevo valley, but stressed that they
absolutely respect the Kumanovo Agreement.
Commenting the statement of the KFOR commander, Macedonian Defense
Ministry spokesman Djordji Trendafilov said that the Macedonian army is
undertaking all measures in keeping with regulations to secure the border.
He added that an additional number of troops were guarding the northern
border, with Kosovo, especially the directions from which attacks could be
expected.
The Macedonian army defends the border line, but controls a border
belt which is 100 metres wide, the spokesman said.
Television Telma of Skopje said in a news broadcast on Thursday
that it had learned from reliable sources that not only arms are being
smuggled into the Presevo valley in southern Serbia from Albania and Kosovo
via Macedonia, but also persons who are then recruited for the socalled
Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja.
Large quantities of arms were smuggled over Macedonian territory
into southern Serbia already at the time when the disarming of the socalled
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had been announced, the Telma sources said.

L'UNMIK NON RICONOSCE LE ELEZIONI SERBE IN KOSMET

UNMIK WILL NOT ORGANIZE VOTING OF SERBS IN KOSOVO AND METOHIJA
PRISTINA, Dec 15 (Tanjug) United Nations Interim Administration
Mission in Kosovo and Metohija chief Bernard Kouchner said on Thursday that
UNMIK would not organize elections for Serbian parliament in this southern
Serbian province.
However, he said the U.N. mission would ensure safety if Kosovo
Serbs went to the polls on Dec 23, as they did during the Yugoslav
parliamentary and presidential elections in September.
Kouchner said UNMIK would provide security for everyone, Serbs and
ethnic Albanians, but stressed that UNMIK would not have any observers at
the elections.
The UNMIK observers will not monitor anything, he said. "We'll
just ensure the maximum of security," Kouchner told reporters.
At the federal elections, UNMIK had an observer team of 300
members who only tried to check the turnout.
NO INCIDENTS AT BUFFER ZONE DEMARCATION LINE NEAR BUJANOVAC
BUJANOVAC, Dec 15 (Tanjug) There were no armed provocations by
ethnic Albanian terrorists in the demilitarized buffer zone near Bujanovac
on Thursday, overnight, or Friday morning, wellinformed circles told Tanjug.
The terrorists infiltrated the zone in southern Serbia proper from
Kosovo and Metohija province and temporarily seized a part of the Bujanovac
municipality, several villages from which many ethnic Albanians, mostly
young people, had fled to escape mobilization by the terrorists.
The situation in Bujanovac and the wider area is extremely
complex, and the people are apprehensive because of the uncertainty as to
its outcome.

12 ALBANESI ARRESTATI

KFOR ARREST 12 ALBANIANS
PRISTINA, Dec 15 (Tanjug) International force KFOR
representatives said on Thursday that their troops arrested 12 Albanians
and that five of them are suspected of belonging to the socalled Liberation
Army of Presevo, Medvedja, and Bujanovac which infiltrated Serbian
territory last month.
KFOR military police intercepted a vehicle with these men near
Gnjilane, close to the administrative border of Kosovo and Metohija
province and Serbia proper.
The statement said it was not certain yet whether the KFOR police
would open an investigation against them.
Within an action of monitoring and controlling the zone along the
provincial boundary, KFOR in the past week seized arms and arrested several
Albanians suspected of terrorist incursions into Serbia proper last month.

ANCORA BLOCCATE PER PROTESTA
LE VIE DI COMUNICAZIONE PRESSO BUJANOVAC

RAIL AND ROAD TRAFFIC IN SOUTHERN SERBIA STILL BLOCKED
BUJANOVAC, Dec 15 (Tanjug) Serbs from the Pcinj district and
their compatriots expelled from KosovoMetohija continued the blockade,
started near Bujanovac on Wednesday, of the railway and highway leading to
Macedonia and Greece.
The Serbs blocked the road in protest against the incursion by
ethnic Albanian terrorists into the Bujanovac municipality, southern
Serbia, a month ago. The terrorist remain in the area.
Apart from the railroad and highway linking Belgrade with Salonica
via Nis and Skopje, the Serbs have blocked several regional and local roads
near Bujanovac.
They claim they are determined to maintain the barricades until
the ethnic Albanians are pushed back from southern Serbia.
The protesters are also demanding the opening to traffic of the
regional road linking Bujanovac and Gnjilane, seized by the ethnic
Albanians, and to meet with Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica.
Serbian transitional government VicePremier Nebojsa Covic is in
Vranje and Bujanovac where he is trying to reach an agreement with the
local residents on removing the barricades.

SALTA IN ARIA UNA CASA SERBA

SERB HOUSE IN KLOKOT BLOWN UP
KOSOVSKA VITINA, Dec 15 (Tanjug) The house of Serb Dusan
Vlatkovic in Klokot village, municipality of Kosovska Vitina, was razed in
an explosion late Thursday, amateur radio operators reported from crisis
areas of Serbia's southern Kosovo and Metohija province early on Friday.
Representatives of Vitina Serbs had repeatedly warned
international force KFOR representatives that they had knowledge that
Vlatkovic's house would be targeted by ethnic Albanian extremists. Many
other Serb houses in the territory of this municipality have already been
blown up.
The responsible KFOR authorities, however, ignored these warnings
and ethnic Albanian extremists succeeded in destroying yet another Serb
house with planted explosives, the report said.

E' HEAKKERUP IL SUCCESSORE DI KOUCHNER

RUSSIAN EXPECTATIONS FROM NEW UNMIK CHIEF HEAKKERUP
MOSCOW, Dec. 13 (Tanjug) Russia expects from the new head of the
U.N. civilian mission in KosovoMetohija (UNMIK), Hans Heakkerup, to
strictly respect all provisions of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244
primarily the principle of the territorial entirety of the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia, Moscow said on Wednesday.
The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed hope that Heakkerup will
make maximum efforts to avoid all the mistakes of his predecessor Bernard
Kouchner whose replacement Moscow demanded on several occasions.
In the realization of his mission Heakkerup should establish
"constructive relations with the new democratic authorities in Yugoslavia
regarding all political, humanitarian and military issues," the Russian
Foreign Ministry said.
Kouchner totally lost credibility by ignoring Resolution 1244 and
by supporting the actions of the Kosovo Albanians which basically aim to
undermine the sovereignty and territorial entirety of Yugoslavia, the
Russian Foreign Ministry said.

SERBO DESAPARECIDO

SERB DISAPPEARS, BELIEVED KIDNAPPED BY KOSOVO ALBANIAN TERRORISTS
BUJANOVAC, Dec 14 (Tanjug) Zoran Stankovic of Rakovac village has
gone missing in Bujanovac, local police and Bujanovac Mayor Stojanca Arsic
confirmed to Tanjug on Thursday.
Stankovic was last seen when he set off from Bujanovac for Veliki
Trnovac village on a motorcycle on Saturday, Dec 9. Since he disappeared on
this road, it is believed that he has been kidnapped by ethnic Albanian
terrorists, the sources said. An investigation is under way.

BLOCCHI STRADALI PRESSO BUJANOVAC

ROADS IN SOUTHERN SERBIA STILL UNDER BLOCKADE
BUJANOVAC, Dec 14 (Tanjug) Serbs of Bujanovac and Vranje and
those expelled from Kosovo and Metohija province who have found temporary
haven in these two southern Serbian municipalities maintained their
blockade of roads in southern Serbia on Wednesday night as well, Bujanovac
Mayor Stojanca Arsic said in a statement for Tanjug.
The Serbs, who have set up six road blocks, demand the expulsion
of the Kosovo Albanian terrorists, who have seized several villages in
southern Serbia, and the opening of the trunk road from Bujanovac to
Gnjilane for free and safe traffic.
Arsic specified that the blockades are on the highway section
linking Vranje and Presevo leading to the YugoslavMacedonian border, the
trunk roads toward Gnjilane and the St. Prohor Pcinjski monastery, and the
old road to Vranje and Nis.
He said long lines of stranded vehicles were stretching along the
highway. The protesting Serbs allow only ambulances and other emergency
cases to pass.
The Serbs claim they will not remove the road blocks until the
ethnic terrorists are pushed out of southern Serbia and normal traffic is
secured between Bujanovac and the Kosovo and Metohija town of Gnjilane.

PROVOCAZIONI A LUCANI

KOSOVO ALBANIAN TERRORISTS OPEN FIRE AT SERBIAN POLICE IN LUCANI
BELGRADE, Dec 14 (Tanjug) Ethnic Albanian terrorists opened
automatic fire at positions held by Serbian police in Lucani from the very
line of the security zone just after 0615 hrs Wednesday, sources close to
the Serbian Interior Ministry confirmed to Tanjug late Wednesday.
There have been no reports of casualties among the Serbian police.
The police acted in keeping with the ceasefire and did not

PROTESTA DEI SERBI DI BUJANOVAC

TRAFFIC IN SOUTHERN SERBIA STILL BLOCKED OVER SERB PROTESTS
BUJANOVAC, Dec 14 (Tanjug) International road and railway traffic
in southern Serbia toward Macedonia and Greece is still paralysed due to a
blockade of the highway and railway line at Bujanovac.
Bujanovac Mayor Stojanca Arsic has told Tanjug that Serbs set up
also six barricades around Bujanovac, so that traffic on several trunk and
local roads is also blocked.
More than 2,000 Serbs of Bujanovac and Vranje and those expelled
from Kosovo and Metohija province blocked the highway at Bujanovac shortly
after noon on Wednesday with heavy vehicles, and then also the railway
tracks on the route BelgradeNisVranjeSkopjeSalonika.
Traffic on the highway section linking Macedonia and Vranje, and
the border crossing at the St. Prohor Pcinjski monastery is also blocked.
Lines of stranded vehicles stretch for several kilometres along
the highway. Serbs holding the barricades allow only ambulances and other
emergency cases to pass.
Groups of Serbs kept watch at the roadblocks all night. They
warmed themselves by lighting fires and making tea, and citizens of
Bujanovac brought them sandwiches and other food.
The Serbs claim they will not remove the road blocks until their
demands are met the withdrawal of ethnic Albanian terrorist bands from
southern Serbia, strict implementation of United Nations Security Council
Resolution 1244, the reopening of road traffic on the BujanovacGnjilane
route which has been blocked by ethnic Albanian extremists, and a meeting
with Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica to acquaint him directly with
the situation. respond to this attack, the sources said.

SERBO UCCISO A KOSOVSKA VITINA

SERB MURDERED IN UNADMINISTERED KOSOVOMETOHIJA
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Dec 14 (Tanjug) A Serb was gunned down
outside a shop owned by an ethnic Albanian in the Serbian (Yugoslav)
UNadministered KosovoMetohija province late on Wednesday, according to
reports in Kosovska Mitrovica on Thursday.
The Serb, Milorad Krstic, aged 55, was shot from a pistol in
Kosovska Vitina, eastern KosovoMetohija, where he had moved after being
driven by ethnic Albanian extremists from his native Urosevac.
Since a month ago, he was working as a watchman in the local UN
Mission (UNMIK) office.

COMMENTI SULLA VITTORIA DI BUSH

> http://sg.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/article.html?s=singapore/headlines/001214/world/afp/Bush_victory_worries_Kosovo_Albanians.html

Thursday, December 14 6:52 PM SGT
Bush victory worries Kosovo Albanians
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Dec 14 (AFP) -

Kosovo Albanian commentators expressed concern Thursday that the victory of
George W. Bush in the US presidential election may cost them a vital ally in
their struggle for independence.
"In Kosovo, there is a fear of a Bush administration," said an editorial in
the daily Zeri, "Albanians fear that Bush will name in his cabinet allies of
his father who have urged that the United States distance itself completely
from the Balkans and leave policy in the area to Europe."
Two officials from George Bush senior's administration tipped to hold top
posts in his son's new government, probable Secretary of State Colin Powell
and expected National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice are "extremist
conservatives who do not believe in America's interventionist
foreign policy and are opposed to its participation in peacekeeping," the
paper said.
In late October at the height of the US election campaign, Rice told the New
York Times that a Bush administration would pull out of peacekeeping
operations in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo.
With 8,600 troops in Kosovo and neighbouring Macedonia, the United States is
by far the largest single contributor to the 44,000 strong NATO-led KFOR
peacekeeping force.
KFOR has been responsible for the security of the breakaway province since the
end of the 1998-1999 conflict between ethnic Albanian sepaprtist rebels and
Yugoslav security forces.
Kosovo's Albanian majority regards the continuing US presence as their best
guarantee against the return of the forces of Belgrade, which continues to
insist on its sovereignty over the territory.
"With calls for the removal of US forces from Europe, the Albanian question
could be left in the hands of European states traditionally closer to the
Slavs," notably France, Zeri warned.
But the main Kosovo Albanian parties, who all back independence, were less
dismayed by the US result. Hajredin Kuqi, the vice-president of the Democratic
Party of Kosovo (PDK) which sprang from the guerrilla movement, dismissed
Rice's intervention as an "electoral tactic."
And Skender Hyseni, spokesman for Kosovo's largest party the Democratic League
of Kosovo (LDK), told AFP: "We are expecting US policy to show continuity as
long as the problems here are unresolved."
Bujar Dugolli, a member of the ruling council of the Alliance for the Future
of Kosovo (AAK) whose leader Ramush Haradinaj is in close and regular contact
with US officials, said "The Americans have spent too much money in Kosovo to
pull out now."
The main US military base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel, is the largest
constructed by the United States since the Vietnam war. Contractors employed
to build some of its facilities told AFP they had been told it had to last for
at least 15 years.

UN COMPITO INGRATO PER HEAKKERUP

NEW UNMIK ADMINISTRATOR WILL HAVE DIFFICULT JOB
BELGRADE, Dec 13 (Tanjug) Danish Defence Minister Hans Heakkerup,
who succeeds U.N. administrator in KosovoMetohija Bernard Kouchner, will
have a difficult job but "we are ready to help him in every way," Yugoslav
Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic said on Wednesday in Belgrade after
meeting with his Danish counterpart Niels Helveg Petersen.
Svilanovic told a joint press conference that the talks with
Petersen are an introduction into future cooperation between the Yugoslav
and Danish governments, as well as with UNMIK.
Stressing that he has cooperated with Haekkerup for a long time,
Petersen said that the U.N. secretarygeneral has made a wise choice in
selecting the new UNMIK chief. The Danish foreign minister said that
Haekkerup is well trained for this job, well acquainted with the Balkan
region and is preparing extensively for the job of administrator of
Serbia's southern province.
Talking about his first visit to Belgrade, Petersen said that he
is impressed how quickly Yugoslavia is reintegrating in the international
community, illustrating this with Yugoslavia's membership in the United
Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
its efforts to join the Council of Europe and talks on future relations
with the E.U.

PRESA DI POSIZIONE DEL GOVERNO

SERBIAN GOVERNMENT DEMANDS EXPULSION OF TERRORISTS FROM SECURITY ZONE
BELGRADE, Dec 12 (Tanjug) The Serbian government assessed at its
session Tuesday that the security situation in the Presevo, Bujanovac and
Medvedja municipalities in southern Serbia is very serious and demanded
that KFor and UNMIK honour their commitments and secure the expulsion of
ethnic Albanian terrorists from the buffer zone, the premier's cabinet said
in a statement.
The latest attacks by ethnic Albanian terrorists constitute a
fresh escalation of endangering the country's sovereignty and territorial
integrity, as a consequence of systematic nonimplementation and violations
of the Security Council Resolution 1244 and the Kumanovo MilitaryTechnical
Agreement, the statement says.
Ethnic Albanian terrorists, whose numbers in the buffer zone are
constantly growing, are a factor of a dangerous security crisis and
endanger people and territory, Serbia's transitional government stressed.
KFor and UNMIK are entirely responsible for the present situation,
as they have allowed terrorists to infiltrate the security zone unhindered,
the government said.
The Serbian government demands that the Yugoslav federal
government and other Yugoslav institutions insist with the UN Security
Council that KFor and UNMIK carry out their tasks and secure the expulsion
of ethnic Albanian terrorists from the security zone in the interest of
peace and safety of all residents of the area.
The Serbian government insists that the federal government demand
from the Security Council that KFor and UNMIK immediately cut off the
sources of terrorism, dismantle terrorist centres and training bases, and
disarm and completely dismantle the terrorist organization and its
infrastructure in KosovoMetohija in line with the Article 15 of the
Resolution 1244, the statement says.

NESSUN INCIDENTE

SOUTHERN SERBIA SPENDS INCIDENTFREE NIGHT
BUJANOVAC, Dec 13 (Tanjug) Ethnic Albanian terrorists provoked no
incidents on Tuesday, during the night or on Wednesday morning in the
buffer zone between U.N.run KosovoMetohija and the rest of Serbia
(Yugoslavia), wellinformed sources in Bujanovac say.
No terrorist operations have been reported since ethnic Albanian
extremists opened fire from the villages of Sveti Ilija and Ravno Bucje in
the evening of Dec. 11.
The terrorists had opened automatic fire and fired four mortar
shells on a Serbian police patrol at the village of Cestelin. The police
returned fire.
There were no police casualties in the incident.

MALUMORI DEI SERBI DI BUJANOVAC

SERBS FROM BUJANOVAC, KOSOVO DEMAND OUSTING OF
TERRORISTS BUJANOVAC,
Dec. 13 (Tanjug) Over 2,000 Serbs from Bujanovac, Presevo Valley,
and persons temporarily displaced from KosovoMetohija who found refuge in
this area, protested in the centre of the town on Wednesday demanding that
the ethnic Albanian terrorists who seized several villages in southern
Serbia are immediately ousted and that the BujanovacGnjilane regional road
linking Serbia proper and its southern province is opened to free and
unimpeded traffic.
The protesters demanded from the state organs to help liberate the
occupied territory near Bujanovac and that problems in KosovoMetohija are
resolved in keeping with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244.
They also demanded to meet with Yugoslav President Vojislav
Kostunica who visited Bujanovac, Medvedja and Presevo all located along
the administrative border with KosovoMetohija, some ten days ago.
The protesting Serbs blocked the BujanovacPresevo road in the
direction of the YugoslavMacedonian border to the south and the Serbian
cities of Vranje and Nis to the north.

RUGOVA PARLA CON TUTTI TRANNE CHE CON I SERBI

ETHNIC ALBANIAN LEADER SAYS WILLING TO TALK WITH WORLD, NOT SERBIA
BERLIN, Dec 13 (Tanjug) KosovoMetohija's ethnic Albanian leader
is quoted on Wednesday as saying ethnic Albanians would negotiate on the
Serbian province's independence with the international community, and
Serbia was allowed to attend.
Ibrahim Rugova, who heads the Democratic League of Kosovo, told
Germany's DPA news agency in Pristina, KosovoMetohija, it was to be seen
how far the Belgrade government would be democratic and cooperate with the
West.
Rugova urged the Serbian government to consider a peaceful
settlement for the conflict in southern Serbia, instead of "making matters
worse and raising tensions between (ethnic) Albanian rebels and the Serbian
police".
What Rugova calls "Albanian rebels" are terrorists who daily shoot
without provocation at lightly armed Serbian police in the buffer zone that
separates U.N.administered KosovoMetohija from the rest of Serbia
(Yugoslavia).

NOTTE QUIETA DOPO LA SPARATORIA

SOUTH SERBIA SPENDS QUIET NIGHT AFTER ETHNIC ALBANIAN ATTACK ON
POLICE
VRANJE, Dec 12 (Tanjug) Southern Serbia spent a quiet night after
Monday evening's ethnic Albanian terrorist attacks on Serbian police.
After several days of calm, ethnic Albanian terrorists late on
Monday resumed operations from the demilitarised zone between U.N.
administered KosovoMetohija and the rest of Serbia (Yugoslavia), opening
fire on a Serbian police patrol, but causing no casualties.
The terrorists, who had come from KosovoMetohija, first opened
automatic fire from the village of Sveti Ilija, and then fired four mortar
shells from the direction of the village of Ravno Bucje, on the police
patrol in the Cestelin hills northwest of Vranje.
The police returned fire, putting an end to the
incident. Expectations that the nationalist extremists of ethnic
Albanian terrorist hardline leader Hashim Thaci would discontinue armed
operations for the duration of the Ramadan holidays have not materialised.
Instead, they have spread their operations to the Vranje
municipality deeper in southern Serbia.
Cestelin is notorious for its World War II fierce and protracted
battles between partisans and Nazi Germany's ethnic Albanian allies.

PASTORE SERBO FERITO

ETHNIC ALBANIANS WOUND SERB SHEPHERD
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Dec. 11 (Tanjug) Borislav Orkovic, 70, a Serb
from the village of Gornji Strmac close to Kosovska Mitrovica, was wounded
on Sunday afternoon while tending his cattle some 150 metres from his
house, Tanjug learned on Monday from Serb sources.
Orlovic was shot from the nearby forest which belongs to a
neighbouring ethnic Albanian village.
Orlovic was then taken by cattle wagon to the Serb hospital in the
northern part of the ethnically divided Kosovska Mitrovica where he was
operated upon on Sunday evening. He is out of danger.
The attack on Orlovic is only one in a series carried out over the
past few weeks in the zone controlled by the Dutch peacekeepers.

ATTACCO CONTRO POLIZIOTTI

ETHNIC ALBANIAN TERRORISTS SHOOT AT SERBIAN POLICE
BELGRADE, Dec 12 (Tanjug) Ethnic Albanian terrorists on Monday
opened automatic fire on a Serbian police patrol from the village of Sveti
Ilija in the buffer zone that separates UNrun KosovoMetohija from the rest
of Serbia (Yugoslavia), a report said late on Monday.
According to Serbian state radio and television RTS, the police
returned fire, after which the terrorists fired four mortar shells from the
direction of the village of Ravno Gucje.
There were no casualties among the police.

UN MORTO ED UN FERITO

ONE SERB KILLED, ANOTHER ONE SERIOUSLY INJURED
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Dec 11 (Tanjug) One Serb, 19, was killed and
his cousin was seriously injured in a Monday explosion of a mine laid by
ethnic Albanian terrorists on a local road in northern KosovoMetohija.
Srdjan Tomasevic was killed on Monday near Suvo Grlo village in
Srbica municipality, and his cousin Stevan Tomasevic was taken to Spanish
hospital of KFor in Istok.
Executive Board of Srbice municipality President Slavica Jaredic,
who has toured the village together with KFor troops, told Tanjug that the
local residents of Suvo Grlo and Banja villages are desperate and urge the
state and the international peace forces to be more energetic in resolving
this problem, because Srdjan Tomasevic is the 6th victim from these two
villages since the deployment of KFor in KosovoMetohija.

BOMBA CONTRO ABITAZIONE SERBA

BOMB ON SERBIAN HOUSE
GNJILANE, Dec 12 (Tanjug) A bomb was thrown on the house of Djora
Milosevic, a Serb, in Gnjilane, eastern Kosovo, late on Monday, the
Gnjilane Church Council has said.
The strong blast damaged the house, but fortunately there were no
casualties.

DUE BAMBINI ARSI VIVI IN UN ROGO A MITROVICA

TWO CHILDREN BURN TO DEATH IN FIRE IN KOSOVO
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Dec. 12 (Tanjug) A fire, which broke out
early on Tuesday in the house of the Serb family of Dragos and Dragica
Radojevic in the northern part of the ethnically divided (Serb) part of the
city of Kosovska Mitrovica, killed fouryearold Pavle and threeyearold Ruzica.

VIOLENZA IN CRESCITA

VIOLENCE IN KOSOVOMETOHIJA ON THE RISE
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Dec. 12 (Tanjug) Following several months of
calm in the region of Kosovska Mitrovica, in the past week several
incidents took place and violence and crime are on the rise in both ethnic
communities (Serb and ethnic Albanian) in KosovoMetohija, the spokesman of
the U.N. mission in KosovoMetohija (UNMIK), Frank Benjmisen, said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a press conference, Benjmisen called on the ethnic
Albanians and Serbs to comprehend the reality and stop the violence because
this is not the road which will lead them into Europe.
U.N. police spokesman Dag Ebestad confirmed on Monday that Srdjan
Tomasevic, 19, a Serb, was killed on Monday when his tractor activated an
antitank mine in central Kosovo, while Stefan Tomasevic and Vladimir Dobric
were seriously injured.
In a shootout on Monday afternoon in a cafe in Srbica, an ethnic
Albanian was injured and another arrested, Ebestad stated.
He confirmed that an ethnic Albanian house in the northern (Serb)
part of Kosovska Mitrovica burned down three days ago, and its owner was
declared missing.

1500 IRREDENTISTI ALBANESI ARMATI A BUJANOVAC

FEDERAL DEFENCE MINISTER: CRISIS IN SOUTHERN SERBIA IS COMPLEX
BELGRADE, December 7 (Tanjug) Deputies of the Chamber of the
Republics (upper house) of the Yugoslav parliament said at their session
Thursday that the crisis caused in southern Serbia by raids by ethnic
Albanian terrorists in the security zone was still very serious.
Yugoslav Defense Minister Slobodan Krapovic said that although the
tension was reduced in southern Serbia, the situation remained very complex.
According to available reports, there are about 1,500 ethnic
Albanian terrorists in the security zone, deployed mainly west of
Bujanovac, he said.
The terrorists are consolidating the positions they have taken and
recruiting and arming young ethnic Albanians from the Presevo and Bujanovac
areas, Krapovic said. Krapovic said that Yugoslav security forces
deployed along the 450 km long security zone are in control and are aware
of what is going on, except in two places a section connected to
Montenegro and a section controlled by US forces.
In all other areas, there is good cooperation between the police
and KFor, Krapovic said.
Underlining that incidents had occurred precisely in the zone
under the control of US forces, Krapovic said it was obvious that there was
specific international support behind the incidents.
Ethnic Albanian terrorists are expected to pursue provocations,
Krapovic said and noted that Yugoslav leadership and army did not give in
to the terrorist provocations, paving the way for settling the crisis by
diplomatic means.
All opportunities must be used on order to fully coordinate
diplomatic, political and military activities, Krapovic said.

ANCORA LETTERE AL CONSIGLIO DI SICUREZZA

YUGOSLAV PREMIER WRITES TO SECURITY COUNCIL
NEW YORK, December 7 (Tanjug) The latest developments in
KosovoMetohija clearly demonstrate that the situation there is
characterized not only by classic terrorist acts, but also by political
violence, which must be halted, Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran Zizic said in
a letter to the UN Security Council President, Russian Ambassador Sergei
Lavrov.
The letter, presented to Lavrov by the Yugoslav Charge d'Affaires
at the UN Vladislav Mladenovic, points to the deteriorating situation in
the security zone in southern Serbia.
The following is the official text of the letter:
In their letters of 22 and 27 November 2000 addressed to your
predecessors, President of the FR of Yugoslavia Vojislav Kostunica and
Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Goran Svilanovic expressed deep
concern over the deterioration of the situation in the Ground Safety Zone
in the Presevo valley in southern Serbia. It is an uncontestable fact that,
despite their clear obligations under United Nations Security Council
resolution 1244 and the MilitaryTechnical Agreement, KFOR and UNMIK have
allowed large armed groups of Albanian terrorists from Kosovo and Metohija
to enter the Ground Safety Zone and carry out armed attacks, including by
heavy weapons, on lightly armed members of police. On that occasion 4
policemen and 1 civilian were killed, while 5 policemen were gravely or
lightly wounded. The local police were therefore compelled to abandon their
positions in the Ground Safety Zone which, under the provisions of the
MilitaryTechnical Agreement, they are obliged to control.
The Government of the FR of Yugoslavia, in anticipation of
adequate reaction by the Security Council and other influential
international factors, has taken urgent diplomatic steps aimed at calming
down the situation and requested the most responsible international
factors, primarily UNMIK and KFOR, to take appropriate measures in view of
their responsibilities under Security Council resolution 1244 and the
MilitaryTechnical Agreement. The Government leaned fully on the authority
of the Security Council and the condemnation of these terrorist acts by the
international community. However, it is its duty to note with regret that
the situation in the field has not changed and that there is no effective
prevention of the violation of Security Council resolution 1244 and the
MilitaryTechnical Agreement, i.e. that no measures are being taken to
compel the infiltrated armed groups to withdraw and disarm without delay.
The latest developments in Kosovo and Metohija indicate clearly
that not only cl<br/><br/>(Message over 64 KB, truncated)

*** DUE MESI DI NOTIZIE DAL KOSMET
in varie lingue e di fonte varia, raccolte alla URL:

> http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/664


*** DOCUMENTS IN ENGLISH:


> http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/tika/dogs2.htm
> http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/660
Pentagon Dogs
by Tika Jankovic (11-29-2000)

>
http://www.leninist-current.org/cgi-bin/ilc/news/viewnews.cgi?category=all&id=974906979

Report of the solidarity delegation to the last multi-national part of
Kosovo (ILC)

>
http://www.leninist-current.org/cgi-bin/ilc/news/viewnews.cgi?category=all&id=974906008

Down with UCK or the end of Trotskyism (ILC)

> http://www.bhhrg.org/kosovo/kosovo2000/kosovo.htm
KOSOVO ON THE EVE OF ELECTIONS

> http://www.espresso-verlag.de/kuentzelfr.htm
> http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/653
Matthias Küntzel: "Germany and Kosovo.
How Germany's independent line paved the way to the Kosovo War"

> http://www.wpb.be/lalkar/lalkar11/1102.htm
> http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/655
Kosovo - Another Victim of Predatory Imperialism

> http://www.truthinmedia.org/Activism/nyt11-3-00.html
A Hell Hole Called Kosovo: Get Us Outta Here!
Letters Editor, The New York Times, New York, NY
Subject: A letter to the editor re. "Progress in Kosovo" -
your Nov. 2, 2000 editorial

> http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/656
Bernard Kouchner's Legacy of Failure
T.V. Weber & Alida Weber, 7/11/2000

> http://www.infolinks.de/an/1999/20/006.htm
General Helmut Harff, ["in the Balkans ... you should shoot
first!"] addressed »Staats- und Wirtschaftspolitische Gesellschaft
e.V.«,
a German extreme Right militarist group.
General Harff is ex-commander of German troops in Kosovo; as such,
co-responsible for the infamous Orahovac ghetto for local Serbs and
Roma.

> http://www.mfa.gov.yu/Kosovo/Kosovo/dokumenti/memo180800_e.html
The Official Web Presentation of the Federal Ministry
of Foreign Affairs - KOSOVO AND METOHIA - DOCUMENTS
MEMORANDUM OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE FEDERAL
REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA ON THE IMPLEMENTATION
OF SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1244 (1999)
Including:
ANNEX II - CONTRASTING ANALYSIS OF THE MOST DRASTIC
TERRORIST ACTS AND VIOLATIONS OF UNITED NATIONS SECURITY
COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1244 (1999) IN KOSOVO AND METOHIJA
SINCE THE DEPLOYMENT OF KFOR AND UNMIK, IN THE
PERIOD FROM 10 JUNE 1999 THROUGH 16 AUGUST 2000

> http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/658
KOSOVO: Deja vue!
S. Jatras / A. Vasovic (AP) 26/11/2000

> http://www.google.com/search?q=Veliki+Trnovac+heroin
> http://www.egroups.com/message/sorabia/11030
> http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/intel/nnicc97.htmsearch: kosovo
> http://www.balkanpeace.org/our/our03.shtml
>
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/99/07/24/timkoskos01001.html?1996766

(enter link manually if broken)
> http://www.crisisweb.org/projects/kosovo/reports/kos33main.htm search
Trnovac
VELIKI TRNOVAC rings the bell?
VELIKI TRNOVAC IS A HEROIN GATEWAY TO THE WEST !

> http://www.balkanpeace.org
> http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/661
The Centre for Peace in the Balkans:
Research Analysis, May 2000
BALKAN - ALBANIA - KOSOVO - HEROIN - JIHAD

> http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/662
PUBLIC STATEMENT BY SERBIAN-CANADIAN ORGANIZATIONS
IN RESPONSE TO THE REPORT PRESENTED BY THE "INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT
COMMISSION ON KOSOVO"
Ottawa, December 6, 2000

> http://www.osce.org/news/generate.php3?news_id=1156
> http://www.osce.org/kosovo/publications/law/index.htm
Original OSCE documents on Kosmet


*** DOKUMENTE AUF DEUTSCH:


VERSCHIEDENES UEBER KOSOVO UND METOHIJA:

> http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/663

- Kosovo wird für NATO gefährlich (R. Rupp 30/10/00)
- Neues amerikanische Doppelspiel im Kosovo
(R. Rupp 31/10/00)
- Albanische Terroristen wenden sich gegen Rugova
(R. Rupp 1/11/00)
- Serben spielen der NATO den Schwarzen Peter zu
(R. Rupp 28/11/00)
- NATO nennt albanische Terroristen wieder "Terroristen"
(R. Rupp 30/11/00)

> http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/574

- Die zehn Todsünden in der Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik
Ein Flugblatt des Bundesausschusses Friedensratschlag zur Halbzeit der
Bundesregierung
- Kosovo Gewaltseparatisten besorgt wegen Milosevics Abgang
Von Rainer Rupp
- Neue US-Pläne fürs Kosovo
Von Rainer Rupp

> http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/657

Interview: Brigadegeneral a.D. Heinz Loquai
bei Kongress der Friedensbewegung


---


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