4/20/99
Excerpt from the article:
Our peacekeeping role betrayed
by Michael Harris, Ottawa Bureau . . .
KLA terrorists…U.S. ALLY??
Slobodan Milosevic is not the devil. He is a thug in a region
with no shortage of thugs. You would not know that by reading
the U.S. papers or by watching CNN. At least, not today.
Twelve years ago, on Nov. 1, 1987, it was a different story.
On that day, Americans got their first warning that the Balkan
powder keg, in particular Kosovo, was about to go up in a special
to The New York Times written by David Binder.
The article began with a description of an ethnic Albanian
army conscript into the Yugoslav army murdering four of his Slavic
bunkmates in their sleep and wounding six others. The reason for
Aziz Kalmendi's murderous rampage? The creation of a sovereign
Kosovo by separatist-minded Albanians who had infiltrated the
army and wanted to advance the dream of a Greater Albania which,
by the way, included then, and still includes, parts of Macedonia.
Running virtually every facet of Kosovo's life apparently wasn't
enough.
The Albanian majority war against the Slavic minority in Kosovo
would have made heart-breaking' stories back then, if we had been
inclined to tell them. Slavic Orthodox churches were defiled,
the Yugoslav flag was burned, Slavic boys were knifed and young
Albanians were encouraged to rape Serb girls, or so The Times
reported. It was a message that went out in all of southern Yugoslavia
but the "principal battleground" was Kosovo.[...]
In 1986, authorities in Kosovo documented 40 ethnic Albanian
attacks on Slavs. In the preceding two years, 320 ethnic Albanians
were sent to jail for such political crimes, "half of then
characterized as severe." Fadil Hoxha, an ethnic Albanian
leader, even joked that Serb women should be used "to satisfy"
ethnic Albanian rapists, an observation that cost him his membership
in the Communist Party.
The Times went so far as to report that this violent push to
independence by ethnic Albanians was destroying the foundations
of the "multinational experiment "called federal Yugoslavia.
The Albanians made life so difficult for the 200,000 Serbs and
Montenegrans in Kosovo that 20,000 of them left their homes and
farms for the safety of the Slav north.
Kosovo
"Freedom Fighters" Financed By Organized Crime
by Michael Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics at the University
of Ottawa
Excerpts from above article. . .
Heralded by the global media as a humanitarian peace-keeping
mission, NATO's ruthless bombing of Belgrade and Pristina goes
far beyond the breach of international law. While Slobodan Milosevic
is demonized, portrayed as a remorseless dictator, the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) is upheld as a self-respecting nationalist
movement struggling for the rights of ethnic Albanians. The truth
of the matter is that the KLA is sustained by organized crime
with the tacit approval of the United States and its allies. […]
While KLA leaders were shaking hands with US Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright at Rambouillet, Europol (the European
Police Organization based in the Hague) was "preparing report
for European interior and justice ministers on a connection between
the KLA and Albanian drug gangs.(Roger Boyes and Fiske Wright,
Drug Money Linked to the Kosovo Rebels The Times, London, 3-24-99)
[...]
Ironically Robert Gelbard, America's special envoy to Bosnia,
had described the KLA last year as "terrorists". […]
Christopher Hill, America's chief negotiator and architect
of the Rambouillet agreement "has also been a strong critic
of the KLA for its alleged dealings in drugs (Philip Smucker and
Tim Butcher, Shifting stance over KLA has betrayed' Albanians",
Daily Telegraph, London, 4-6-99){...}
Two months before Rambouillet, the US State Department
had acknowledged (based on report from the US Observer Mission)
the role of the KLA in terrorizing and uprooting ethnic Albanians:
"...the KLA harass or kidnap anyone who comes to the police,
... KLA representative had threatened to kill villagers and burn
their homes if they did not join the KLA [a process which has
continued since the NATO bombings] ... the KLA harassment has
reached such intensity that residents of six villages in the Stimlje
region are "ready to flee." (KDOM Daily Report, released
by the Bureau of European and Candian Affairs, Office of South
Central European Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Washington,
DC, 12-21-98; Compiled by EUR/SCE (202-647-4850) from daily reports
of the U.S. element of the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission,
12-21-98 […]
While backing a "freedom movement" with links to
the drug trade, the West seems also intent in bypassing the civilian
Kosovo Democratic League and its leader Ibrahim Rugova who has
called for an end to the bombings and expressed his desire to
negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Yugoslav authorities..
("Rugova, sous protection serbe appelle a l'arret des raides",
Le Devoir, Montreal, 4-1-99) [...]
Mercenaries financed by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had been fighting
in Bosnia. (For further details see Michael Collon, Poker Menteur,
editions EPO, Brussels,1997, p.288) And the Bosnian pattern was
replicated in Kosovo: Mujahadeen mercenaries from various Islamic
countries are reported to be fighting alongside the KLA in Kosovo.
German, Turkish and Afghan instructors were reported to be training
the KLA in guerrilla and diversion tactics. (Truth in Media, Kosovo
in Crisis, Phoenix, 4-2-99) [ ...]
Financial support from Islamic countries to the KLA had
been channeled through the former Albanian chief of the National
Information Service (NIS), Bashkim Gazidede. "Gazidede, reportedly
a devout Moslem who fled Albania in March of last year {1997},
is presently {1998} being investigated for his contacts with Islamic
terrorist organizations." (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 3-13-98)
Following a pattern set during the War in Bosnia, public
opinion has been carefully misled. The multibillion dollar Balkans
narcotics trade has played a crucial role in "financing the
conflict" in Kosovo in accordance with Western economic,
strategic and military objectives. Amply documented by European
police files, acknowledged by numerous studies, the links of the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to criminal syndicates in Albania,
Turkey and the European Union have been known to Western governments
and intelligence agencies since the mid-1990s.
"...The financing of the Kosovo guerrilla war poses
critical questions and it sorely test claims of an "ethical"
foreign policy. Should the West back a guerrilla army that appears
to be partly financed by organized crime?" (Roger Boyes and
Eske Wright, Drug Money Linked to the Kosovo Rebels The Times,
London, 3-24-99)
The stories being propagated by
the White House, the Pentagon and NATO
are intended to justify their military aggression.
This is a war against Yugoslavia,
and in a war the first thing to question is the
daily barrage of propaganda from the officials of the attacking
countries.
Source of flyer M.P. Kentera
kentera@macconnect.com