Articolo di Scognamiglio su
"NATO Review" Web edition Vol. 49 - No. 2 Summer 2001 p. 26-27
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:08:22 +0200
From: Marco Cervino
To: scienzaepace <scienzaepace@...>
Questo articolo e' stato commentato sul numero odierno de Il Manifesto.
In evidenza:
a) il meeting "ristretto" (i G5 !!) NATO del 27 maggio 99 sul cosiddetto
intervento di terra e la disponibilita' di D'Alema-Scognamiglio di
fornire
10000 soldati italiano "incondizionatamente".
b) la pianificazione dei campi di "contenimento" profughi ai confini e
all'interno dell'Albania, pianificata dall'EI (si suppone di concerto
con la
NATO) fin dal gennaio 99 ( molto prima quindi di Rambuillet - ndr) e
finalizzata al rientro di massa (vi ricordate l'insistenza dei media
sulla
"volonta'" dei profughi di non "andar via" ?). Aggiungo io: si dovrebbe
diffondere questo messaggio alle migliaia (io ne conosco decine) di
volontari
che in buona fede hanno tentato di provvedere al disastro kossovaro,
anche
dentro l'Arcobaleno.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Increasing Italy's input
Carlo Scognamiglio-Pasini (1) explains how and
why Italy has expanded its role in the NATO-led
Balkan peacekeeping operations.
In the five-and-a-half years
since NATO troops first
deployed in the Balkans, the
number of Italians on the
ground, both in absolute and
proportional terms, has been
steadily rising. Indeed, Italy is
now contributing as many
troops to the NATO-led
peacekeeping operations in
Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Bosnia) and Kosovo as France
and the United Kingdom. This is
the result of a conscious policy
to take on a greater role in a
region in which Rome considers
its national interest to be at
stake.
Sharing the Adriatic Sea with
Albania, Croatia, Montenegro
and Slovenia, Italy is an
obvious magnet for refugees,
many of whom have grown up
watching Italian television,
dreaming of Italy and speaking
Italian. These links are deep and
enduring, and help explain why
many ordinary Italian citizens
have, in recent years, come
forward as aid workers, helping
provide humanitarian assistance
during war and later helping rebuild shattered
societies.
Italian peacekeepers first deployed on the
ground in the Balkans with the NATO-led
Implementation Force (IFOR) to Bosnia in
December 1995. They were not involved in
UNPROFOR during the Bosnian war, since, at the
time the mission was being set up in 1992, the
United Nations was reluctant to employ
peacekeepers from neighbouring countries with
a history of military involvement in the former
Yugoslavia. Between 1992 and 1995, therefore,
Italy focused its efforts on relief work. When, in
1994, the European Union took over
administration of the divided and war-ravaged
town of Mostar in southern Bosnia, Italy
dispatched 40 carabinieri to an international
police force set up under the auspices of the
Western European Union. And when NATO
planes took off to attack Bosnian Serb targets,
first for limited strikes to lift the siege of
Sarajevo in 1994 and then in a sustained wave
of attacks in August and September of 1995,
they did so from Italian air bases.
Initially, some 3,200 Italian troops were
deployed in IFOR in the French sector. At the
time, IFOR numbered 60,000 soldiers. Today,
some 1,800 Italian troops remain in a
much-reduced Stabilisation Force (SFOR) of
20,000 and another 6,000 are currently
deployed in the Kosovo Force (KFOR). These
figures include carabinieri, police with military
status, who have, since August 1998, been
deployed in so-called Multinational Specialised
Units (MSUs) to help maintain public order.
Carabinieri have skills which are ideally suited to
peacekeeping. As a result, they have been
deployed throughout Bosnia and Kosovo to
patrol sensitive areas, assist the return of
refugees and displaced persons to their homes,
and intervene in the event of public disorder.
Carabinieri were also key to the success of
Operation Alba in 1997, when Italy put together
an eight-country, 7,000-strong intervention
force to restore law and order to Albania in the
wake of the collapse of a series of pyramid
investment schemes. This "coalition of the
willing" was authorised by the UN Security
Council and coordinated by an ad hoc political
steering committee. Lasting from April to
August, it was also the first crisis-management
mission conducted in Europe by a multinational
military force composed exclusively of
Europeans.
The turning-point in Italian attitudes occurred in
the wake of NATO's decision to station an
extraction force in the former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia.(2) This French-led force was
deployed to support and, if necessary, assist the
withdrawal of the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe's verification mission in
Kosovo. In November 1998, the new
government of Massimo D'Alema made a
conscious decision to play a major role by
deploying 2,850 soldiers, the equivalent of a
brigade, equipped with the much sought-after
anti-tank A-129 helicopters.
The reason for this change in attitude is that
Massimo D'Alema and I, then the defence
minister, were concerned about the impact of
events in Kosovo on the stability of Albania.
That country had already descended into
anarchy on three occasions in the preceeding
decade, leading directly to increases in
smuggling and crime across the Adriatic Sea
and forcing Rome to react in almost impossible
conditions. We wanted to prevent a repetition
by stabilising Albania, and I thought that the
best way to achieve this would be to help
Albanians feel secure at home. Moreover, I felt
this might have been achieved, if NATO included
Albania in its strategic security policy.
At the time, however, the other NATO members
opposed this proposal. At the time, we were
concerned about the way in which the
Italian-Albanian relationship was beginning to
resemble a protectorate, but our attempts to
internationalise the issue had failed. However, I
realised that something was wrong on our side,
if the other Alliance members were not listening
to us. The first step to drawing the attention of
our Allies to our concerns required matching the
troop contribution to NATO-led operations in the
Balkans of France and the United Kingdom. The
decisions that followed stemmed from that
turning point.
When, on 24 March 1999, NATO launched air
strikes against Yugoslav forces, Italy contributed
50 combat aircraft out of an overall force of 900
to the campaign. At the conclusion of the
78-day air campaign, the Yugoslav Army agreed
to withdraw from Kosovo and the following day,
Italian forces entered the province from the
former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia(2) to
take charge of a sector in north-western
Kosovo, around the city of Pec.
My records of the Kosovo campaign include two
aspects that are little known about: the issue of
the so-called "ground option" and the Albanian
context. At the beginning of the conflict,
Slobodan Milosevic's strategy appeared to be
one of seeking to endure air strikes until the
coalition against him disintegrated, while
destabilising the neighbouring countries of
Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia(2), whose territory would have been
a necessary staging post for NATO ground
forces. One month into Operation Allied Force,
the efficiency of a campaign based entirely on
the use of air power came into question and
NATO was under pressure to come up with
another option to win the conflict. Although
plans for a ground invasion of Kosovo were
never drawn up, this matter was discussed at an
informal meeting of defence ministers of the
five largest NATO members on 27 May.
Moreover, despite being considered the weakest
link in the coalition, Italy pledged to supply
unconditionally up to 10,000 men at that
meeting, an event described in former SACEUR
General Wesley Clark's recent book.
The outcome of that meeting was a decision to
reassemble on 15 June in order to muster the
necessary forces to launch a ground offensive
by no later than 15 September. In the event,
however, the second meeting never took place
because Milosevic decided to surrender and
withdraw the Yugoslav Army from Kosovo on 9
June. However, I am persuaded that he was
aware that his last chance to see the coalition
break-up had disappeared and, consequently,
any further resistance made no sense.
In Albania, we feared that Milosevic might
attempt to destabilise the country by
precipitating a mass exodus of refugees. Two
approaches were required to counter this tactic:
supplying Albanians with sufficient shelter and
food to keep refugees close to the border for a
possible return home; and giving them
confidence that NATO would take care of them
and, above all, that the Alliance would prevail.
In January 1999, the Italian Army identified
possible sites for refugee camps and began
storing food and preparing shelters. When, soon
after the beginning of the air campaign, Albania
found itself deluged by close to a million
refugees, it was possible rapidly to construct
camps in the region of Kukes and elsewhere,
thus maintaining hope among the population
and alleviating the humanitarian catastrophe.
Moreover, the deployment of more than 7,000
NATO soldiers, including a large Italian
contingent, to Albania in Operation Allied
Harbour on 15 April reinforced the message that
the refugees would be going home.
Since, at the time, Italy only possessed a rapid
reaction force of 20,000, we seriously risked
overstretching our armed forces during the
Kosovo campaign. In the wake of these
operations, our government proposed a law,
which has subsequently been passed by the
parliament, ending the draft and transforming
the army into a fully professional one. This
should substantially increase the size of Italy's
rapid reaction forces to meet the needs of any
future NATO peacekeeping operation.
1.Senator Carlo Scognamiglio-Pasini is head of Italy's
Aspen Institute and a former Italian defence
minister.
2.Turkey recognises the Republic of Macedonia with
its constitutional name.
---
Questa lista e' curata da componenti del
Coordinamento Nazionale per la Jugoslavia (CNJ).
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente
le posizioni ufficiali o condivise da tutto il CNJ, ma
vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al
solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only").
Archivio:
> http://www.domeus.it/circles/jugoinfo oppure:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/messages
Per iscriversi al bollettino: <jugoinfo-subscribe@...>
Per cancellarsi: <jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...>
Per inviare materiali e commenti: <jugocoord@...>
---- Spot ------------------------------------------------------------
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"NATO Review" Web edition Vol. 49 - No. 2 Summer 2001 p. 26-27
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:08:22 +0200
From: Marco Cervino
To: scienzaepace <scienzaepace@...>
Questo articolo e' stato commentato sul numero odierno de Il Manifesto.
In evidenza:
a) il meeting "ristretto" (i G5 !!) NATO del 27 maggio 99 sul cosiddetto
intervento di terra e la disponibilita' di D'Alema-Scognamiglio di
fornire
10000 soldati italiano "incondizionatamente".
b) la pianificazione dei campi di "contenimento" profughi ai confini e
all'interno dell'Albania, pianificata dall'EI (si suppone di concerto
con la
NATO) fin dal gennaio 99 ( molto prima quindi di Rambuillet - ndr) e
finalizzata al rientro di massa (vi ricordate l'insistenza dei media
sulla
"volonta'" dei profughi di non "andar via" ?). Aggiungo io: si dovrebbe
diffondere questo messaggio alle migliaia (io ne conosco decine) di
volontari
che in buona fede hanno tentato di provvedere al disastro kossovaro,
anche
dentro l'Arcobaleno.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Increasing Italy's input
Carlo Scognamiglio-Pasini (1) explains how and
why Italy has expanded its role in the NATO-led
Balkan peacekeeping operations.
In the five-and-a-half years
since NATO troops first
deployed in the Balkans, the
number of Italians on the
ground, both in absolute and
proportional terms, has been
steadily rising. Indeed, Italy is
now contributing as many
troops to the NATO-led
peacekeeping operations in
Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Bosnia) and Kosovo as France
and the United Kingdom. This is
the result of a conscious policy
to take on a greater role in a
region in which Rome considers
its national interest to be at
stake.
Sharing the Adriatic Sea with
Albania, Croatia, Montenegro
and Slovenia, Italy is an
obvious magnet for refugees,
many of whom have grown up
watching Italian television,
dreaming of Italy and speaking
Italian. These links are deep and
enduring, and help explain why
many ordinary Italian citizens
have, in recent years, come
forward as aid workers, helping
provide humanitarian assistance
during war and later helping rebuild shattered
societies.
Italian peacekeepers first deployed on the
ground in the Balkans with the NATO-led
Implementation Force (IFOR) to Bosnia in
December 1995. They were not involved in
UNPROFOR during the Bosnian war, since, at the
time the mission was being set up in 1992, the
United Nations was reluctant to employ
peacekeepers from neighbouring countries with
a history of military involvement in the former
Yugoslavia. Between 1992 and 1995, therefore,
Italy focused its efforts on relief work. When, in
1994, the European Union took over
administration of the divided and war-ravaged
town of Mostar in southern Bosnia, Italy
dispatched 40 carabinieri to an international
police force set up under the auspices of the
Western European Union. And when NATO
planes took off to attack Bosnian Serb targets,
first for limited strikes to lift the siege of
Sarajevo in 1994 and then in a sustained wave
of attacks in August and September of 1995,
they did so from Italian air bases.
Initially, some 3,200 Italian troops were
deployed in IFOR in the French sector. At the
time, IFOR numbered 60,000 soldiers. Today,
some 1,800 Italian troops remain in a
much-reduced Stabilisation Force (SFOR) of
20,000 and another 6,000 are currently
deployed in the Kosovo Force (KFOR). These
figures include carabinieri, police with military
status, who have, since August 1998, been
deployed in so-called Multinational Specialised
Units (MSUs) to help maintain public order.
Carabinieri have skills which are ideally suited to
peacekeeping. As a result, they have been
deployed throughout Bosnia and Kosovo to
patrol sensitive areas, assist the return of
refugees and displaced persons to their homes,
and intervene in the event of public disorder.
Carabinieri were also key to the success of
Operation Alba in 1997, when Italy put together
an eight-country, 7,000-strong intervention
force to restore law and order to Albania in the
wake of the collapse of a series of pyramid
investment schemes. This "coalition of the
willing" was authorised by the UN Security
Council and coordinated by an ad hoc political
steering committee. Lasting from April to
August, it was also the first crisis-management
mission conducted in Europe by a multinational
military force composed exclusively of
Europeans.
The turning-point in Italian attitudes occurred in
the wake of NATO's decision to station an
extraction force in the former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia.(2) This French-led force was
deployed to support and, if necessary, assist the
withdrawal of the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe's verification mission in
Kosovo. In November 1998, the new
government of Massimo D'Alema made a
conscious decision to play a major role by
deploying 2,850 soldiers, the equivalent of a
brigade, equipped with the much sought-after
anti-tank A-129 helicopters.
The reason for this change in attitude is that
Massimo D'Alema and I, then the defence
minister, were concerned about the impact of
events in Kosovo on the stability of Albania.
That country had already descended into
anarchy on three occasions in the preceeding
decade, leading directly to increases in
smuggling and crime across the Adriatic Sea
and forcing Rome to react in almost impossible
conditions. We wanted to prevent a repetition
by stabilising Albania, and I thought that the
best way to achieve this would be to help
Albanians feel secure at home. Moreover, I felt
this might have been achieved, if NATO included
Albania in its strategic security policy.
At the time, however, the other NATO members
opposed this proposal. At the time, we were
concerned about the way in which the
Italian-Albanian relationship was beginning to
resemble a protectorate, but our attempts to
internationalise the issue had failed. However, I
realised that something was wrong on our side,
if the other Alliance members were not listening
to us. The first step to drawing the attention of
our Allies to our concerns required matching the
troop contribution to NATO-led operations in the
Balkans of France and the United Kingdom. The
decisions that followed stemmed from that
turning point.
When, on 24 March 1999, NATO launched air
strikes against Yugoslav forces, Italy contributed
50 combat aircraft out of an overall force of 900
to the campaign. At the conclusion of the
78-day air campaign, the Yugoslav Army agreed
to withdraw from Kosovo and the following day,
Italian forces entered the province from the
former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia(2) to
take charge of a sector in north-western
Kosovo, around the city of Pec.
My records of the Kosovo campaign include two
aspects that are little known about: the issue of
the so-called "ground option" and the Albanian
context. At the beginning of the conflict,
Slobodan Milosevic's strategy appeared to be
one of seeking to endure air strikes until the
coalition against him disintegrated, while
destabilising the neighbouring countries of
Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia(2), whose territory would have been
a necessary staging post for NATO ground
forces. One month into Operation Allied Force,
the efficiency of a campaign based entirely on
the use of air power came into question and
NATO was under pressure to come up with
another option to win the conflict. Although
plans for a ground invasion of Kosovo were
never drawn up, this matter was discussed at an
informal meeting of defence ministers of the
five largest NATO members on 27 May.
Moreover, despite being considered the weakest
link in the coalition, Italy pledged to supply
unconditionally up to 10,000 men at that
meeting, an event described in former SACEUR
General Wesley Clark's recent book.
The outcome of that meeting was a decision to
reassemble on 15 June in order to muster the
necessary forces to launch a ground offensive
by no later than 15 September. In the event,
however, the second meeting never took place
because Milosevic decided to surrender and
withdraw the Yugoslav Army from Kosovo on 9
June. However, I am persuaded that he was
aware that his last chance to see the coalition
break-up had disappeared and, consequently,
any further resistance made no sense.
In Albania, we feared that Milosevic might
attempt to destabilise the country by
precipitating a mass exodus of refugees. Two
approaches were required to counter this tactic:
supplying Albanians with sufficient shelter and
food to keep refugees close to the border for a
possible return home; and giving them
confidence that NATO would take care of them
and, above all, that the Alliance would prevail.
In January 1999, the Italian Army identified
possible sites for refugee camps and began
storing food and preparing shelters. When, soon
after the beginning of the air campaign, Albania
found itself deluged by close to a million
refugees, it was possible rapidly to construct
camps in the region of Kukes and elsewhere,
thus maintaining hope among the population
and alleviating the humanitarian catastrophe.
Moreover, the deployment of more than 7,000
NATO soldiers, including a large Italian
contingent, to Albania in Operation Allied
Harbour on 15 April reinforced the message that
the refugees would be going home.
Since, at the time, Italy only possessed a rapid
reaction force of 20,000, we seriously risked
overstretching our armed forces during the
Kosovo campaign. In the wake of these
operations, our government proposed a law,
which has subsequently been passed by the
parliament, ending the draft and transforming
the army into a fully professional one. This
should substantially increase the size of Italy's
rapid reaction forces to meet the needs of any
future NATO peacekeeping operation.
1.Senator Carlo Scognamiglio-Pasini is head of Italy's
Aspen Institute and a former Italian defence
minister.
2.Turkey recognises the Republic of Macedonia with
its constitutional name.
---
Questa lista e' curata da componenti del
Coordinamento Nazionale per la Jugoslavia (CNJ).
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente
le posizioni ufficiali o condivise da tutto il CNJ, ma
vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al
solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only").
Archivio:
> http://www.domeus.it/circles/jugoinfo oppure:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/messages
Per iscriversi al bollettino: <jugoinfo-subscribe@...>
Per cancellarsi: <jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...>
Per inviare materiali e commenti: <jugocoord@...>
---- Spot ------------------------------------------------------------
Vuoi gestire da solo la pubblicita' della tua Newsletter?
Vuoi sapere quanti utenti hanno letto le tue News?
Vuoi pagare solo quello che consumi come traffico mail?
eC-Messenger e' il sistema white label ideato da Domeus
che ti permette di sfruttare al meglio le potenzialita' del
knowledge management e del CRM
http://www.domeus.it/ad3293680/interestmarketing
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Per cancellarti da questo gruppo, invia un messaggio vuoto a: jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...