SOROS, L'INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP E LE MINIERE DI TREPCA
Sull'argomento si veda anche la illuminante analisi di Diana Johnstone:
'Globalist Thinktank Conceived Excuse for Today's NATO Assault on
Mitrovica'
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/howitis.htm
---
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/pf/p-j081600.html
Behind the Headlines
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
August 16, 2000
WHY KOSOVO? FOLLOW THE MONEY!
When the Kosovo war broke out, and the "Allies" took up the cause of
that Albanian
terrorist gang known as the Kosovo Liberation Army, Antiwar.com received
a lot of
email from baffled readers who wondered: "Why Kosovo?" Here was an
impoverished
and isolated country in a notoriously unstable region of the world,
without any strategic
or military value to the US, the conquest of which could only add to our
burdens.
Virtually none of my correspondents believed the official explanation –
that the
Milosevic regime was slaughtering tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians
in the
province, and was determined to "cleanse" Kosovo so that it would be
ethnically Serb.
Since the inhabitants of Kosovo were then more than 90 percent
Albanians, this would
have meant the complete depopulation of the province – a policy that
made absolutely
no economic or political sense. The supposedly "humanitarian" motives of
the
NATO-crats were a fraud from the very beginning, it was clear, and in
any case their
fraudulence was proved after the war when UN forensic experts went in
and
recovered and identified a little over 2,000 bodies (including Serbs).
But this only
deepened the mystery, and the question went unanswered: why Kosovo, of
all places,
the closest thing to a Third World country in all of Europe? Over a year
after the
"humanitarians" bombed Belgrade and reduced much of Yugoslavia to
rubble, the
answer is beginning to take shape. . . .
THE $5 BILLION DOOR PRIZE
Yesterday 900 British, Danish, and French troops moved in to take over
the Trepca
complex of mines in the northern city of Mitrovice – and were met with
determined
resistance by hundreds of mine workers. Hurling rocks, sticks, and
stones, and wielding
the tools of their trade as weapons, Serbs downed four Brits, shouting
their defiance at
this escalation of NATO's war on the last Serbs left in Kosovo. For the
Trepca mining
complex is an ancient treasure, mined by the Greeks, the Romans, the
Turks, and is the
richest source of lead and zinc in Europe. There is enough lignite
deposits in those
mines to last for the next 13 centuries. The capacity of Trepca's
refineries ranks third
worldwide. The now-deposed mine director reported that "in the last
three years we
have mined 2,538,124 tons of lead and zinc crude ore and produced
286,502 tons of
lead and zinc and 139,789 tons of pure lead, zinc, cadmium, silver and
gold." We don't
need to ask why this action was taken: we have only to note Trepca's
estimated value –
over $5 billion. What else do we need to know?
ENVIRONMENTALLY CORRECT LIES
Naturally, they couldn't just go in there, and grab Kosovo's crown
jewels, without
coming up with a politically correct rationale. Leave it to "Unmik," the
acronymic
tyranny set up by the NATO-crats to administer their conquered province,
to come up
with the most transparent lie imaginable – albeit one that, in its sheer
ludicrousness, will
appeal to such enthusiasts of the Kosovo war as the German Greens and
their even
flakier American counterparts. According to a report from MSNBC, French
spokesman Colonel Henry Aussavy solemnly declared: "We've noted a
significant
increase in the level of lead in the air, which was dangerous for the
people of Mitrovica
and for KFOR (NATO-led) troops. We had to react."
THE ARROGANCE OF POWER
Let's see if I get this straight: after a year and some months of
organized ethnic
cleansing by the Kosovar Albanians against the defeated Serbs – as NATO
not only
stood by but actively aided the KLA's campaign for a Serb-free Kosovo –
Unmik
finally decides to react: not, mind you, to the murder, rape, and
pillaging of Kosovo's
embattled Serb communities, but to the alleged threat of air pollution.
Do these people
even care if anyone believes their lies? I don't think so. Real power
means that your lies
don't even have to be convincing. It means further humiliating your
victims – in the
process of beating them to the ground and robbing them blind – by
constructing the
flimsiest of pretexts, the more absurd the better.
DUBIOUS DIAGNOSIS
While the UN bureaucrats insisted that air samples indicated levels of
pollution 200
times above World Health Organization standards, the Serbs counter that
their
measurements indicate ".12 milligrams of lead per cubic metre (permitted
level .15
mg), .019 mg of zinc (permitted level .4 mg), copper .004 mg (permitted
level .01 mg),
iron .002 mg (permitted level .2 mg), etc." As to the medical rationale
for this brazen act
of thievery, doctors from the local hospital were more than skeptical
about the veracity
of the NATO-crats' diagnosis. Dr. Radoslav Jankovic wryly observed that
"we
haven't had a patient with a toxicology problem for years. Today only
soldiers and
Unmik police officers suffer problems of lead in the blood."
THE MONEY TRAIL
Are you beginning to see the answer to "why Kosovo?" A $5 billion prize
– but who
gets to claim it? Trepca was state-owned under Yugoslav suzerainty, but
now it will be
"privatized" and sold off to Western investors. In this context, it is
important to realize
just whom we are talking about. . . .
THE SOROS CONNECTION
When George Soros invested $150 million in the region – most of it
backed up by
fail-safe US government guarantees – he declared that this was not
strictly a
humanitarian effort. While known for his philanthropy, Soros said that
in the case of his
Balkan investments he would be guided by the concept of "tough love" and
insisted that
the new enterprise must be "driven purely by profit." With $100 million
of the US
taxpayers' money in his pocket, Soros and his gang are swooping down on
the
prostrate body of the Serbian nation like vultures feeding on the liver
of Prometheus –
the Titan of Greek mythology who stole fire from the depths of the earth
and gave it to
mankind. The Titans, a subterranean race, were the first miners, who
taught their
metal-smelting techniques to mortal men and were punished for the sin of
such
extravagant gift-giving, were obliterated by the gods of Olympus. Our
own Olympians
seem determined to visit a similar fate on the Serbs – who, for their
part, seem to be
guilty only of getting between George Soros and $5 billion.
JOHNSTONE'S PREDICTION
That the NATO-crats dare to invoke such a pathetic pretext for their
plundering is
not exactly astonishing. These people are moral monsters, after all, who
would have
reduced Belgrade to a smoking ruin if they hadn't been too afraid of the
political
consequences – and they may do so yet. What is truly astonishing is that
all this was
predicted, down to the details, back in February by Diana Johnstone, in
a remarkably
prescient article on Emperors-Clothes.com, in which she foretold not
only the
expropriation of the Trepca complex, but also exposed Soros as the
source of the
scheme. Analyzing two key documents – a November 1999 International
Crisis Group
(ICG) paper on the Trepca mining complex, and a February 2000 article in
the Toronto
Star by ICG consultant Susan Blaustein – Johnstone saw it all coming,
and with such
stunning accuracy that one can hardly believe that her piece wasn't
written yesterday.
What is especially revealing is the role of the International Crisis
Group in fomenting
the takeover of Trepca – and the role of Soros as the ICG's main
sugar-daddy. In its
report, the ICG drools at the prospect of having such a rich prize fall
into its
benefactor's hands. As Johnstone relates:
"In the 'game-plan of measures' recommended by the ICG, UNMIK is advised
to
instruct a 'Zvecan environmental assessment team' to report on the
status of the
equipment and thereupon 'advise as to what measures must be taken'...
Environmental hazards are to be the pretext to shut down Zvecan and
deprive the last
Serbs in Kosovo of their livelihood. Meanwhile, 'Stari Trg, one of the
richest mines in
Europe, must be potentially profitable again and should be a priority
for donors
interested in setting Kosovo on its feet.'"
PHILANTHROPY FOR FUN – AND PROFIT
Chief among these "donors" is none other than Soros, who now expects to
be paid
back for his "philanthropy" – with interest. Trepca can be profitable
again, but the
question is: for whom. Trepca seems to have fallen into Soros's lap – or
was it pushed
there? Another interesting aspect of this whole affair is that the
seizure of the Trepca
complex by NATO forces is part of the Sorosian "business strategy"
designed to
forestall and ultimately nullify the claims of two European companies
derived from
contracts signed with the Serbs. As the ICG report puts it:
"In July 1999, shortly after the conquest of Kosovo, one Jean-Pierre
Rozan showed
up claiming that 2.8% ownership of Trepca belonged to the Paris-based
SCMM, of
which he was a director. Rozan's claim was based on an agreement with
Belgrade, in
which SCMM took over Jugobanka's subsidiary in Kosovo as a result of
Belgrade's
default.
SOROSIAN ETHNIC CLEANSING
The ICG derides the Société Commerciale de Métaux et de Minéraux (SCMM)
claim as being without foundation on the somewhat questionable grounds
that the
French government is giving it no backing. But just in case this is not
enough, they
throw another factor into their argument that Rozan's claim must be
summarily
dismissed. This being Kosovo, there is an ethnic angle in all this,
underscored by the
ICG report,
"Some Kosovar Albanians, always ready to believe in a conspiracy however
unlikely,
are prepared to perceive SCMM as part of a wider Franco-Serbian
understanding,
which incorporates French KFOR acquiescence in the partition of
Mitrovicë, French
economic interests in Trepca, and even the appointment of Dr Bernard
Kouchner
himself as head of UNMIK and Special Representative of the UN
Secretary-General.
The recent award of a GSM telecommunications concession, regardless of
the
transparency of the process, to French company Alcatel, has fueled the
suspicions of
such conspiracy-theorists."
OUR CONSPIRACY THEORIES, AND THEIRS
Soros and his hired hands have an inherent hostility to "conspiracy
theorists," quite
naturally, but that doesn't stop them from placing the blame for
everything that goes
wrong in the Balkans on Slobodan Milosevic
"To other veteran observers of the Balkans, however, the involvement of
SCMM looks
like a Miloševic-style attempt to create a diversion (including by
encouraging exactly
that Balkan and Kosovar propensity for conspiracy-identification
outlined above),
and confuse the thinking of international officials charged with working
out the
problem. By putting this and other claims to due process of arbitration,
and meanwhile
getting on with what needs to be done, the problem can be neatly
sidestepped. "
ARREST THAT MAN!
How's that for a conspiracy theory? SCMM's claims are all part of a plot
by
Milosevic to "create a diversion." How convenient for Soros & Company
that their
chief competitors turn out to be enemy agents. Now that the NATO-crats
have
definitively settled the question of the ownership of the Trepca mines
by force of arms,
the next logical step is to lock up Monsieur Rozan and be done with it.
In any case, it is
clear that the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo will be carried out in the
mines, if the ICG has
anything to say about it. The author of the ICG report notes with some
irritation that:
"The UNMIK regional office in Mitrovica meanwhile occupies the Jugobanka
building
and continues to display Jugobanka insignia in the very meeting room to
which
Kosovars are invited to discuss Trepca – some report that they feel
uneasy in such
surroundings. Rozan, as 'owner' of Jugobanka and the building, is
demanding rent,
which UNMIK has refused to pay."
OUR ORWELLIAN AGE
Who cares about property rights when those poor sensitive souls, the
Kosovars,
reportedly feel "uncomfortable" in close proximity to anything Serbian,
even a
company logo. The ICG is basically making the argument that the ethnic
cleansing of
Kosovo must be completed: not only churches and other historical
monuments must be
destroyed – and there is hardly a Serbian church left standing in Kosovo
– but everything
Serbian must go. The ICG describes itself as a "private, multinational"
organization
devoted to strengthening the capacity of the international community to
anticipate,
understand and act to contain and prevent conflict." In our Orwellian
age this means a
government-connected tool of corporate plunderers devoted to
anticipating the profits
to be made from military conflict, and acting to furthering the
interests of war profiteers.
THE GREEK CLAIM
Another company, the Greek firm of Mytineleos, has a claim through
contracts with
Yugoslav companies to market Trepca's lead and zinc, and this claim is
going to be "a
harder problem than SCMM for UNMIK" as the ICG report admits. With close
ties to
the Greek government, and a sterling international track record for
solidity and
performance, Mytineleos can make a strong case. The report also somewhat
reluctantly notes that
"UNMIK cannot simply ignore claims which may be genuine, and the UN
legal
advisers in New York have concluded that the rights of claimants like
Mytilineos must
go to adjudication. The question arises as to which court. So far that
is left in
abeyance, as is the nature of the legal proceedings themselves. If all
other decisions
are left to depend upon the resolution of this issue, it could be many
years before
Trepca starts working again."
A PROBLEM NEATLY SOLVED
The military occupation of Trepca solves Soros's two major problems by
arrogating
de facto ownership of the mines to "the international community"
embodied by Unmik –
and deftly sidelines the French and the Greeks. Never mind the legal
technicalities, and
the risks of adjudication: just go in there and grab it! This is how the
much-vaunted
"Third Way" between socialism and capitalism, touted by the Clintonians
and their
British Laborite first cousins, works in practice. First, you invade a
country; then you
strip it of its assets, and sell them off to your politically connected
friends, such as Soros
– this is called "privatization," but there is nothing "private" about
it. The source of
Soros's Balkan coup is government power: the armed fist of the State,
and not the
invisible hand of the market. As the declared enemy of laissez-faire
capitalism, which
he rails against in several unbearably pretentious books, Soros
practices what he
preaches: using NATO and the UN as his instruments, he profits from the
plundering of
a proud nation – while his bought-and-paid-for shills rationalize the
schemes of this
modern Visigoth in the name of "humanitarianism" and "multiculturalism."
It kind of makes you want to puke, doesn't it?
A QUESTION NEATLY ANSWERED
For years, Soros funded the American Committee to Save Bosnia, the
Balkan Action
Council, and a plethora of other groups devoted to persuading US policy
makers that
nothing less than American military intervention in the region could
save the Kosovar
Albanians from "genocide." Soros himself spoke out on the issue, and
chided the West
for "appeasing" the Serbs. Now comes the payoff. Trepca is his, or will
be shortly. So
we have finally come up with the answer to the question that has been
haunting us for
over a year: why Kosovo? The answer consists of two words: George Soros.
All you
would-be tycoons out there, take heed: If you want to know what
investment strategy
to follow in era of the Third Way, then Soros has certainly set the
example.
---
Letters
The Guardian (London)
UNITED KINGDOM
Wednesday August 16, 2000
The
first casualty of war.
•It's interesting that Nato seems so concerned about stopping a
Serb-run mine (one of the few enterprises in Kosovo that employs its
dwindling Serb population) from polluting the atmosphere in Kosovo
(Serbs turn on British troops, August 15), but had no problems with
poisoning the entire Balkans by bombing chemical plants and oil
refineries (releasing tons of chemical toxins such as ethylene
dichloride, cynanide, and heavy metals into the atmosphere, ground, and
the Danube river); and using depleted but still radioactive uranium
ammunition and cluster bombs. The issue for Nato isn't about air
pollution - it's about stealing the massive Trepca mining complex for
western capitalists like George Soros.
Dr Michael Pravica
Las Vegas, USA
--------- COORDINAMENTO ROMANO PER LA JUGOSLAVIA -----------
RIMSKI SAVEZ ZA JUGOSLAVIJU
e-mail: crj@... - URL: http://marx2001.org/crj
http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
------------------------------------------------------------
Sull'argomento si veda anche la illuminante analisi di Diana Johnstone:
'Globalist Thinktank Conceived Excuse for Today's NATO Assault on
Mitrovica'
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/howitis.htm
---
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/pf/p-j081600.html
Behind the Headlines
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
August 16, 2000
WHY KOSOVO? FOLLOW THE MONEY!
When the Kosovo war broke out, and the "Allies" took up the cause of
that Albanian
terrorist gang known as the Kosovo Liberation Army, Antiwar.com received
a lot of
email from baffled readers who wondered: "Why Kosovo?" Here was an
impoverished
and isolated country in a notoriously unstable region of the world,
without any strategic
or military value to the US, the conquest of which could only add to our
burdens.
Virtually none of my correspondents believed the official explanation –
that the
Milosevic regime was slaughtering tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians
in the
province, and was determined to "cleanse" Kosovo so that it would be
ethnically Serb.
Since the inhabitants of Kosovo were then more than 90 percent
Albanians, this would
have meant the complete depopulation of the province – a policy that
made absolutely
no economic or political sense. The supposedly "humanitarian" motives of
the
NATO-crats were a fraud from the very beginning, it was clear, and in
any case their
fraudulence was proved after the war when UN forensic experts went in
and
recovered and identified a little over 2,000 bodies (including Serbs).
But this only
deepened the mystery, and the question went unanswered: why Kosovo, of
all places,
the closest thing to a Third World country in all of Europe? Over a year
after the
"humanitarians" bombed Belgrade and reduced much of Yugoslavia to
rubble, the
answer is beginning to take shape. . . .
THE $5 BILLION DOOR PRIZE
Yesterday 900 British, Danish, and French troops moved in to take over
the Trepca
complex of mines in the northern city of Mitrovice – and were met with
determined
resistance by hundreds of mine workers. Hurling rocks, sticks, and
stones, and wielding
the tools of their trade as weapons, Serbs downed four Brits, shouting
their defiance at
this escalation of NATO's war on the last Serbs left in Kosovo. For the
Trepca mining
complex is an ancient treasure, mined by the Greeks, the Romans, the
Turks, and is the
richest source of lead and zinc in Europe. There is enough lignite
deposits in those
mines to last for the next 13 centuries. The capacity of Trepca's
refineries ranks third
worldwide. The now-deposed mine director reported that "in the last
three years we
have mined 2,538,124 tons of lead and zinc crude ore and produced
286,502 tons of
lead and zinc and 139,789 tons of pure lead, zinc, cadmium, silver and
gold." We don't
need to ask why this action was taken: we have only to note Trepca's
estimated value –
over $5 billion. What else do we need to know?
ENVIRONMENTALLY CORRECT LIES
Naturally, they couldn't just go in there, and grab Kosovo's crown
jewels, without
coming up with a politically correct rationale. Leave it to "Unmik," the
acronymic
tyranny set up by the NATO-crats to administer their conquered province,
to come up
with the most transparent lie imaginable – albeit one that, in its sheer
ludicrousness, will
appeal to such enthusiasts of the Kosovo war as the German Greens and
their even
flakier American counterparts. According to a report from MSNBC, French
spokesman Colonel Henry Aussavy solemnly declared: "We've noted a
significant
increase in the level of lead in the air, which was dangerous for the
people of Mitrovica
and for KFOR (NATO-led) troops. We had to react."
THE ARROGANCE OF POWER
Let's see if I get this straight: after a year and some months of
organized ethnic
cleansing by the Kosovar Albanians against the defeated Serbs – as NATO
not only
stood by but actively aided the KLA's campaign for a Serb-free Kosovo –
Unmik
finally decides to react: not, mind you, to the murder, rape, and
pillaging of Kosovo's
embattled Serb communities, but to the alleged threat of air pollution.
Do these people
even care if anyone believes their lies? I don't think so. Real power
means that your lies
don't even have to be convincing. It means further humiliating your
victims – in the
process of beating them to the ground and robbing them blind – by
constructing the
flimsiest of pretexts, the more absurd the better.
DUBIOUS DIAGNOSIS
While the UN bureaucrats insisted that air samples indicated levels of
pollution 200
times above World Health Organization standards, the Serbs counter that
their
measurements indicate ".12 milligrams of lead per cubic metre (permitted
level .15
mg), .019 mg of zinc (permitted level .4 mg), copper .004 mg (permitted
level .01 mg),
iron .002 mg (permitted level .2 mg), etc." As to the medical rationale
for this brazen act
of thievery, doctors from the local hospital were more than skeptical
about the veracity
of the NATO-crats' diagnosis. Dr. Radoslav Jankovic wryly observed that
"we
haven't had a patient with a toxicology problem for years. Today only
soldiers and
Unmik police officers suffer problems of lead in the blood."
THE MONEY TRAIL
Are you beginning to see the answer to "why Kosovo?" A $5 billion prize
– but who
gets to claim it? Trepca was state-owned under Yugoslav suzerainty, but
now it will be
"privatized" and sold off to Western investors. In this context, it is
important to realize
just whom we are talking about. . . .
THE SOROS CONNECTION
When George Soros invested $150 million in the region – most of it
backed up by
fail-safe US government guarantees – he declared that this was not
strictly a
humanitarian effort. While known for his philanthropy, Soros said that
in the case of his
Balkan investments he would be guided by the concept of "tough love" and
insisted that
the new enterprise must be "driven purely by profit." With $100 million
of the US
taxpayers' money in his pocket, Soros and his gang are swooping down on
the
prostrate body of the Serbian nation like vultures feeding on the liver
of Prometheus –
the Titan of Greek mythology who stole fire from the depths of the earth
and gave it to
mankind. The Titans, a subterranean race, were the first miners, who
taught their
metal-smelting techniques to mortal men and were punished for the sin of
such
extravagant gift-giving, were obliterated by the gods of Olympus. Our
own Olympians
seem determined to visit a similar fate on the Serbs – who, for their
part, seem to be
guilty only of getting between George Soros and $5 billion.
JOHNSTONE'S PREDICTION
That the NATO-crats dare to invoke such a pathetic pretext for their
plundering is
not exactly astonishing. These people are moral monsters, after all, who
would have
reduced Belgrade to a smoking ruin if they hadn't been too afraid of the
political
consequences – and they may do so yet. What is truly astonishing is that
all this was
predicted, down to the details, back in February by Diana Johnstone, in
a remarkably
prescient article on Emperors-Clothes.com, in which she foretold not
only the
expropriation of the Trepca complex, but also exposed Soros as the
source of the
scheme. Analyzing two key documents – a November 1999 International
Crisis Group
(ICG) paper on the Trepca mining complex, and a February 2000 article in
the Toronto
Star by ICG consultant Susan Blaustein – Johnstone saw it all coming,
and with such
stunning accuracy that one can hardly believe that her piece wasn't
written yesterday.
What is especially revealing is the role of the International Crisis
Group in fomenting
the takeover of Trepca – and the role of Soros as the ICG's main
sugar-daddy. In its
report, the ICG drools at the prospect of having such a rich prize fall
into its
benefactor's hands. As Johnstone relates:
"In the 'game-plan of measures' recommended by the ICG, UNMIK is advised
to
instruct a 'Zvecan environmental assessment team' to report on the
status of the
equipment and thereupon 'advise as to what measures must be taken'...
Environmental hazards are to be the pretext to shut down Zvecan and
deprive the last
Serbs in Kosovo of their livelihood. Meanwhile, 'Stari Trg, one of the
richest mines in
Europe, must be potentially profitable again and should be a priority
for donors
interested in setting Kosovo on its feet.'"
PHILANTHROPY FOR FUN – AND PROFIT
Chief among these "donors" is none other than Soros, who now expects to
be paid
back for his "philanthropy" – with interest. Trepca can be profitable
again, but the
question is: for whom. Trepca seems to have fallen into Soros's lap – or
was it pushed
there? Another interesting aspect of this whole affair is that the
seizure of the Trepca
complex by NATO forces is part of the Sorosian "business strategy"
designed to
forestall and ultimately nullify the claims of two European companies
derived from
contracts signed with the Serbs. As the ICG report puts it:
"In July 1999, shortly after the conquest of Kosovo, one Jean-Pierre
Rozan showed
up claiming that 2.8% ownership of Trepca belonged to the Paris-based
SCMM, of
which he was a director. Rozan's claim was based on an agreement with
Belgrade, in
which SCMM took over Jugobanka's subsidiary in Kosovo as a result of
Belgrade's
default.
SOROSIAN ETHNIC CLEANSING
The ICG derides the Société Commerciale de Métaux et de Minéraux (SCMM)
claim as being without foundation on the somewhat questionable grounds
that the
French government is giving it no backing. But just in case this is not
enough, they
throw another factor into their argument that Rozan's claim must be
summarily
dismissed. This being Kosovo, there is an ethnic angle in all this,
underscored by the
ICG report,
"Some Kosovar Albanians, always ready to believe in a conspiracy however
unlikely,
are prepared to perceive SCMM as part of a wider Franco-Serbian
understanding,
which incorporates French KFOR acquiescence in the partition of
Mitrovicë, French
economic interests in Trepca, and even the appointment of Dr Bernard
Kouchner
himself as head of UNMIK and Special Representative of the UN
Secretary-General.
The recent award of a GSM telecommunications concession, regardless of
the
transparency of the process, to French company Alcatel, has fueled the
suspicions of
such conspiracy-theorists."
OUR CONSPIRACY THEORIES, AND THEIRS
Soros and his hired hands have an inherent hostility to "conspiracy
theorists," quite
naturally, but that doesn't stop them from placing the blame for
everything that goes
wrong in the Balkans on Slobodan Milosevic
"To other veteran observers of the Balkans, however, the involvement of
SCMM looks
like a Miloševic-style attempt to create a diversion (including by
encouraging exactly
that Balkan and Kosovar propensity for conspiracy-identification
outlined above),
and confuse the thinking of international officials charged with working
out the
problem. By putting this and other claims to due process of arbitration,
and meanwhile
getting on with what needs to be done, the problem can be neatly
sidestepped. "
ARREST THAT MAN!
How's that for a conspiracy theory? SCMM's claims are all part of a plot
by
Milosevic to "create a diversion." How convenient for Soros & Company
that their
chief competitors turn out to be enemy agents. Now that the NATO-crats
have
definitively settled the question of the ownership of the Trepca mines
by force of arms,
the next logical step is to lock up Monsieur Rozan and be done with it.
In any case, it is
clear that the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo will be carried out in the
mines, if the ICG has
anything to say about it. The author of the ICG report notes with some
irritation that:
"The UNMIK regional office in Mitrovica meanwhile occupies the Jugobanka
building
and continues to display Jugobanka insignia in the very meeting room to
which
Kosovars are invited to discuss Trepca – some report that they feel
uneasy in such
surroundings. Rozan, as 'owner' of Jugobanka and the building, is
demanding rent,
which UNMIK has refused to pay."
OUR ORWELLIAN AGE
Who cares about property rights when those poor sensitive souls, the
Kosovars,
reportedly feel "uncomfortable" in close proximity to anything Serbian,
even a
company logo. The ICG is basically making the argument that the ethnic
cleansing of
Kosovo must be completed: not only churches and other historical
monuments must be
destroyed – and there is hardly a Serbian church left standing in Kosovo
– but everything
Serbian must go. The ICG describes itself as a "private, multinational"
organization
devoted to strengthening the capacity of the international community to
anticipate,
understand and act to contain and prevent conflict." In our Orwellian
age this means a
government-connected tool of corporate plunderers devoted to
anticipating the profits
to be made from military conflict, and acting to furthering the
interests of war profiteers.
THE GREEK CLAIM
Another company, the Greek firm of Mytineleos, has a claim through
contracts with
Yugoslav companies to market Trepca's lead and zinc, and this claim is
going to be "a
harder problem than SCMM for UNMIK" as the ICG report admits. With close
ties to
the Greek government, and a sterling international track record for
solidity and
performance, Mytineleos can make a strong case. The report also somewhat
reluctantly notes that
"UNMIK cannot simply ignore claims which may be genuine, and the UN
legal
advisers in New York have concluded that the rights of claimants like
Mytilineos must
go to adjudication. The question arises as to which court. So far that
is left in
abeyance, as is the nature of the legal proceedings themselves. If all
other decisions
are left to depend upon the resolution of this issue, it could be many
years before
Trepca starts working again."
A PROBLEM NEATLY SOLVED
The military occupation of Trepca solves Soros's two major problems by
arrogating
de facto ownership of the mines to "the international community"
embodied by Unmik –
and deftly sidelines the French and the Greeks. Never mind the legal
technicalities, and
the risks of adjudication: just go in there and grab it! This is how the
much-vaunted
"Third Way" between socialism and capitalism, touted by the Clintonians
and their
British Laborite first cousins, works in practice. First, you invade a
country; then you
strip it of its assets, and sell them off to your politically connected
friends, such as Soros
– this is called "privatization," but there is nothing "private" about
it. The source of
Soros's Balkan coup is government power: the armed fist of the State,
and not the
invisible hand of the market. As the declared enemy of laissez-faire
capitalism, which
he rails against in several unbearably pretentious books, Soros
practices what he
preaches: using NATO and the UN as his instruments, he profits from the
plundering of
a proud nation – while his bought-and-paid-for shills rationalize the
schemes of this
modern Visigoth in the name of "humanitarianism" and "multiculturalism."
It kind of makes you want to puke, doesn't it?
A QUESTION NEATLY ANSWERED
For years, Soros funded the American Committee to Save Bosnia, the
Balkan Action
Council, and a plethora of other groups devoted to persuading US policy
makers that
nothing less than American military intervention in the region could
save the Kosovar
Albanians from "genocide." Soros himself spoke out on the issue, and
chided the West
for "appeasing" the Serbs. Now comes the payoff. Trepca is his, or will
be shortly. So
we have finally come up with the answer to the question that has been
haunting us for
over a year: why Kosovo? The answer consists of two words: George Soros.
All you
would-be tycoons out there, take heed: If you want to know what
investment strategy
to follow in era of the Third Way, then Soros has certainly set the
example.
---
Letters
The Guardian (London)
UNITED KINGDOM
Wednesday August 16, 2000
The
first casualty of war.
•It's interesting that Nato seems so concerned about stopping a
Serb-run mine (one of the few enterprises in Kosovo that employs its
dwindling Serb population) from polluting the atmosphere in Kosovo
(Serbs turn on British troops, August 15), but had no problems with
poisoning the entire Balkans by bombing chemical plants and oil
refineries (releasing tons of chemical toxins such as ethylene
dichloride, cynanide, and heavy metals into the atmosphere, ground, and
the Danube river); and using depleted but still radioactive uranium
ammunition and cluster bombs. The issue for Nato isn't about air
pollution - it's about stealing the massive Trepca mining complex for
western capitalists like George Soros.
Dr Michael Pravica
Las Vegas, USA
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