Yugoslavia/NATO Info 26; 2/2 5/4/99 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Global Reflexion-NATO Info #2/2 5/4/99 Full Story: http://www.exile.ru/feature/feature63.html MEET MR MASSACRE by Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi Years from now, when the war in Serbia is over and the dust has settled, historians will point to January 15, 1999 as the day the American Death Star became fully operational. That was the date on which an American diplomat named William Walker brought his OSCE war crimes verification team to a tiny Kosovar village called Racak to investigate an alleged Serb massacre of ethnic Albanian peasants. After a brief review of the town's 40-odd bullet-ridden corpses, Walker searched out the nearest television camera and essentially fired the starting gun for the war. "From what I saw, I do not hesitate to describe the crime as a massacre, a crime against humanity," he said. "Nor do I hesitate to accuse the government security forces of responsibility." We all know how Washington responded to Walker's verdict; it quickly set its military machine in motion, and started sending out menacing invitations to its NATO friends to join the upcoming war party. How Russia responded is less well-known.[..] As connoisseurs in the art of propaganda and the use of provacateurs, they recognized a good job when they saw one. And, more importantly, they knew who William Walker was. [..] Walker's Background [..] Walker's record as Ambassador to El Salvador is startling upon review today, in light of his recent re-emergence into the world spotlight as an outraged documenter of racist hate-crimes. His current posture of moral disgust toward Serbian ethnic cleansing may seem convincing today, but it is hard to square with the almost comically callous indifference he consistently exhibited toward exactly the same kinds of hate crimes while serving in El Salvador. In late 1989, when Salvadoran soldiers executed six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her 15 year-old daughter, blowing their heads off with shotguns, Walker scarecely batted an eyelid. When asked at a press conference about evidence linking the killings to the Salvadoran High Command, he went out of his way to apologize for chief of staff Rene Emilio Ponce, dismissing the murders as a sort of forgiveable corporate glitch, like running out of Xerox toner. "Management control problems can exist in these kinds of these kinds of situations," he said. In discussing the wider problem of state violence and repression--which in El Salvador then was at least no less widespread than in the Serbia he monitored from October of last year until March of this year--Walker was remarkably circumspect. "I'm not condoning it, but in times like this of great emotion and great anger, things like this happen," he said, apparently having not yet decided to audition for the OSCE job. Finally, in what may be the most amazing statement of all, given his current occupation, Walker questioned the ability of any person or organization to assign blame in hate crime cases. Shrugging off news of eyewitness reports that the Jesuit murders had been committed by men in Salvadoran army uniforms, Walker told Massachusetts congressman Joe Moakley that "anyone can get uniforms. The fact that they were dressed in military uniforms was not proof that they were military." Later, Walker would recommend to Secretary of State James Baker that the United States "not jeopardize" its relationship with El Salvador by investigating "past deaths, however heinous." This is certainly an ironic comment, coming from a man who would later recommend that the United States go to war over...heinous deaths. One final intriguing biographical note: Walker in 1996 hosted a ceremony in Washington held in honor of 5,000 American soldiers who fought secretly in El Salvador. While Walker was Ambassador of El Salvador, the U.S. government's official story was that there were only 50 military advisors in the country (Washington Post, May 6, 1996).[..] Eventually, even the Los Angeles Times joined in, running a story entitled "Racak Massacre Questions: Were Atrocities Faked?" The theory behind all these exposes was that the KLA had gathered their own dead after the battle, removed their uniforms, put them in civilian clothes, and then called in the observers. Walker, significantly, did not see the bodies until 12 hours after Serb police had left the town. As Walker knows, not only can "anybody have uniforms", but anyone can have them taken off, too.[..] ************************************************************** Jewish World Review April 29, 1999 / 13 Iyar, 5759 Julia Gorin "Never again"? This isn't exactly what we had in mind IT'S NOT THAT I BELIEVE Jews have the monopoly on suffering. But some comparisons to the Holocaust are beyond offensive--especially when they're used to manipulate public support for a war that is as absurd as it is= unjust. Jews have been very generous with terms like Holocaust and genocide. We've tolerated loose tossing around of the words before. Why? Because we don't want to fulfill the stereotype of the Jew who thinks he has the exclusive= lease on such expressions, we usually just shrug and think, "Everyone's entitled."= In fact, it's precisely to avert the stereotype that my fellow tribesmen decline to object to the word's application in the current context of Kosovo. Nor do they object to the war which the misuse of the words has helped fan. The only Jewish exception here are Russian-Americans, who are more familiar with the history of the Balkan region than most Americans. These are Jews who lately find themselves dismayed and disoriented as they watch their adopted country, which has done right by them against an empire which oppressed them, take sides in a foreign skirmish where the oppressed are not as easily discerned from the oppressors. Their abandoned motherland, meanwhile, has already sent an opposing fleet into the Adriatic Sea and has equipped Serb forces with surface-to-air= missiles. How embarrassing it would be if a fallen empire which is financially= dependent on the U.S. sends its benefactor scurrying back and emerges the moral= victor. What long-lasting damage this would do to our place at the international= table. And all because of manipulative word-play which no one questioned. There's genocide, and there's ethnic rivalry. Europe is rife with the latter. It's been plagued by it throughout history. But never have the two words been used so interchangeably until the 1990s. What we've delved into is an age-old conflict between two groups, where one has been agitating for something for years and has led attacks on the other= for it, opening the floodgates to mutual injustices. In contrast, I don't recall reading that Jews in the 1930s wanted to detach Berlin and keep it for themselves. In German towns where Jews might have been the majority, I never heard of them killing minority German citizens. Nor do I recall any guerilla German-Jewish leaders listed on the State Department's international terrorist roster. Speaking of which, who even knew that our Secretary of State had met with a spokesman for the Kosovo Liberation Army, which U.S. diplomats had dismissed as a terrorist organization only one year ago. In fact, not only= did Madeleine Albright meet with such a figure, but, as she announced, she was rather charmed by him. What could have charmed her so? Did he give her a compliment of some kind? Could he have said, "Gee, you don't look Jewish." Whatever the exchange, was it at this point that our definition of terrorism= got murky? After all, it has been the KLA's open mission to break Kosovo away from Yugoslavia and make it part of Greater Albania, cleansing the area of its remaining Serbs in the process. With Islamic extremist organizations,= various Albanian crime syndicates, and Iran financing them toward this end, the= rebel group has been assassinating Serb officials and kidnapping and murdering Serb villagers. The Serbian government has responded by weeding out KLA members from among the Albanian civilians they've been using for camouflage. In clashes, many such civilians have gotten hurt or moved. A NATO-led humanitarian mission would have been one thing if, indeed, Albanians were being brutalized and were desperately trying to escape just with their lives--like the Jews we turned away in World War II. But in today's scenario, both sides are long-time enemies who have taken part in ethnic hatred and violent conflict against each other. The Albanians are not being systematically annihilated, without provocation, because of who they are. The adversaries are much more the moral equivalents of each other than the Jews and the Nazis were. While that shouldn't diminish our sympathy for the innocent sufferers among them, the contrast should at least give us more pause than it has so far. But as things stand, the Albanians have the American public's unconditional empathy. The refugees will be given safe harbor here and abroad, regardless= of any alliances they might have forged with generous anti-Western terror= groups who could one day call upon them to return the favor on our shores. At the same time, we will be adding to enemy ranks the Serbs--WWII allies whose villages the Nazis burned when they wouldn't give up the 500 downed U.S. airmen they were sheltering. Speaking of the Serbs, could we really have expected them to give up their= land just because someone else wanted it? And why are we helping that someone else get it? Because Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright envision a placid Europe where borders, national pride, independence and history are= irrelevant? Make no mistake: Words have power. Ones like genocide have enough power to galvanize a country's divergent political mindsets behind an all-out war in the Balkans. Enough power even to redeem a man who will try to secure a legacy--any legacy beyond perverting the country--no matter what the cost.= As NATO implodes on itslef and destabilizes Europe, Bill Clinton will have= his legacy, and it will be wreaking havoc long after he's gone. Meanwhile, farther east, Israel has been criticized for its ambivalence toward the NATO mission. As long as we're drawing parallels to Jewish history here,= that should come as no surprise. Many Israelis are probably wondering what will happen next month when Yassir Arafat declares Palestine an independent state and begins a Jihad against them for the land his people believe is rightly theirs. Should such a time come to pass, and the PLO and Hamas, like the KLA, shield themselves from Israeli retaliation with Palestinian women and children,= what then? full story :) http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0499/words1.asp= Jewish World Review April 29, 1999 / 13 Iyar, 5759 ************************************************************* full story: http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/apr1999/cnn-a22.shtml Pentagon pressure behind CNN firing of Peter Arnett By Barry Grey 22 April 1999 CNN's firing of Peter Arnett, the Pulitzer Price winning journalist who achieved international acclaim for his on-the-spot reporting from Baghdad during the Gulf War, sheds further light on the subordination of the US media to the military and intelligence establishment. [..] ********************************************* full story: http://www.iwpr.net/ Tribunal Update 122: Last Week in The Hague (19-24 April, 1999) The enthusiasm with which the Western governments started co-operating with the Tribunal's Kosovo investigation has given rise to suspicions of manipulation of the court for political ends. Discontented voices within the legal profession are becoming concerned that the Tribunal is being "used for war propaganda". Recently the Canadian daily, "The Globe and Mail," took up the thread and asked "is war crime prosecutor Louise Arbour becoming a pawn of NATO" [..]= ******************************************* Kosovo: 'THE WAR IS ABOUT THE MINES' By Sara Flounders Wars are at root about economics, and the rapidly expanding war in Kosovo is no different. So why have millions of dollars in high-tech weapons suddenly become available to the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army by way of the U.S. and Germany? A July 11 report by New York Times Balkans bureau chief Chris Hedges describes the KLA's new arsenal-the latest anti-tank rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft weapons. These weapons are shifting the balance of power toward the KLA, which is funded fully by outside sources, mostly from the U.S. and Germany. The KLA is "fed by recruits, money and arms from outside Serbia," Hedges confirms. It has an "inexhaustible supply line," he reports. "Rebel soldiers, in full uniform with the red and black patch of the Kosovo Liberation Army, pull thick wads of German marks from their pockets. There are also signs that the arrival of dozens of former professional soldiers as well as some mercenaries are turning the ragtag band into a viable military force of several thousand fighters." In fact, the KLA is primarily a mercenary army funded by the kind of shadowy sources that have long been associated with U.S. and German intelligence services. It is a contra army. Kosovo is often portrayed in the media as an isolated mountainous region that's poor and without resources. It might seem, from these accounts, to be an area of interest only to those who live there.The New York Times, for example, has carried dozens of such articles by Chris Hedges in the last six months. Only once, on July 8, did Hedges write about the real wealth of Kosovo-the Stari Trg mining complex. It was a tip-off that something more was at stake in this war. Hedges' visit to the Stari Trg mining complex is an eye opener. He describes the glittering veins of lead, zinc, cadmium, gold and silver in Stari Trg. According to Hedges, "The sprawling state-owned Trepca mining complex, the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans, is worth at least $5 billion." According to the mine's director, Novak Bjelic, "The war in Kosovo is about the mines, nothing else. This is Serbia's Kuwait-the heart of Kosovo. ... In addition to all this, Kosovo has 17 billion tons of coal reserves." The whole world knows and observed firsthand in the war against Iraq to what horrendous extent the Pentagon was willing to go in order to guarantee control of the oil wealth of Kuwait. But the enormous mineral wealth of Kosovo is never publicly discussed by U.S. United Nations Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, President Bill Clinton or the Pentagon generals. They speak only of "self-determination" of the Albanian population of Kosovo. Of course, they never mention what U.S.-imposed "self-determination" means. It means colonization under the guise of "liberation," like what the U.S. did to Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines a hundred years ago. An Internet search for reports on the mines of Kosovo-the Trepca mining complex or Stari Trg-turned up only the one article by Hedges and a small piece in the June 22 Wall Street Journal. All other mentions are in metallurgical journals. How could this vital fact be omitted from all discussion of what is at stake in Kosovo? It is comparable to describing Kuwait and the oil-rich Gulf states as barren deserts. The wealth of Kosovo is greater than the rich veins of ore in the mines. Hedges describes the mining complex: "The Stari Trg mine, with its warehouses, is ringed with smelting plants, 17 metal treatment sites, freight yards, railroad lines, a power plant and the country's largest battery plant." The labor power of millions of workers throughout socialist Yugoslavia built this mining complex into the powerhouse it is today. It was their wealth that was invested in developing the complex. It belongs not just to those who live in Kosovo, but to the workers of all Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav web site www.yugo slavia.com describes Trepca as the "richest lead and zinc mines in Europe." Lignite deposits in the Kosovo mines are, according to experts, sufficient for the next 13 centuries. The capacity of the lead and zinc refineries ranks third in the world. Miners work round the clock, day and night, in six-hour shifts. According to the mine director, "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." Although the average person watching the news in the evening has never heard of Stari Trg, it has been a prize changing hands for two thousand years. The wealth of Stari Trg is legendary. Precious metals were mined there more than 2,000 years ago, first by the Greeks, then by the Romans. These mines were the grand prize in the Nazi occupation of the Balkans after Germany grabbed control from the British. The mines have great industrial and military importance. The Nazis used batteries produced there to power their U-boats. Today submarine batteries are still made there. Profits from these mines are helping to keep the Yugoslav Federation afloat. U.S. and UN sanctions imposed on Serbia and Montenegro, the two remaining republics of Yugoslavia, have taken an enormous toll. Without investment credits, loans for financing industry, imports and exports, the economy has been stifled. Inflation has weakened the currency. The mines, which once were the largest employer in the province, have also been affected. The most important words in Hedges' article are the description of the complex as "state owned." Throughout this decade, as the capitalist market has swept over the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, socialist Yugoslavia has attempted to resist privatization of its industry and natural resources. To break this resistance, the Western imperialist countries played a major role in the breakup of socialist Yugoslavia. This huge complex of mines, refining, power and transportation in Kosovo may well be the largest uncontested piece of wealth not yet in the hands of the big capitalists of the U.S. or Europe. The industry, natural resources and transportation of all the former Soviet republics, the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, and the secessionist republics of Yugoslavia are now being rapidly privatized. No one within the region has the wealth or connections to finance capital to buy controlling shares of these vast state-owned industries. The major Western corporations are gobbling these industries up. While the fate of some industries is still in negotiation, the lending and credit conditions of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank require the breakup of all state-owned industries. This is true for the oil and natural gas wealth in the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea as well as the diamond mines of Siberia. The decision on who will own or have controlling interest in the 22 mines and the many processing plants of the Trepca complex will be made by whoever wins the armed struggle raging in Kosovo. NATO domination on the ground would put U.S. corporations in the best ownership position. Nationalist strife advances their position. Although being forced to privatize in order to survive in today's global market, Yugoslavia has tried to control the process and to propose Balkan regional development. According to the June 22 Wall Street Journal, the Yugoslav Federation is in negotiations to sell shares in the Trepca mining complex. Forced by the economic crisis, they have been negotiating with a Greek investor-Mytilineos Holdings SA-for partial ownership. The former manager of the mines, Byrhan Kavaja-who is now allied with the opposition to the Yugoslav government-has written to all corporations dealing in soft metals to tell them not to make agreements with the Yugoslav government. Kavaja says that once a new government is in power, all past decisions on ownership will be invalidated. The opposition will make "new agreements." Who is likely to be the beneficiary of these agreements? The progressive movement in the U.S. and throughout Western Europe must be at the forefront in explaining that the billions of dollars spent on the U.S./NATO occupation of the region is not in the interests of any of the people of the Balkans. Nor is it in the interests of poor and working people in the U.S. or Europe. The war is destroying all that was built through collective ownership and collaboration in the Balkans. This war will mean higher taxes and even more cuts in social programs in the U.S and Europe. But the billions of dollars in profit will go to a few wealthy stockholders in the U.S. or in Western Europe. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17= St., NY,NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://www.workers.org) Copyright =A9 1998 workers.org ***************************************** Rugova Sentenced to Death Sreda, 28. April 1999 PRISTINA -Albanian terrorists from Kosovo and Metohija sentenced Ibrahim Rugova to death, Albanian State - TV Tirana reported on Monday. According to this report that has been broadcast three times in past five days Albanian terrorists have threatened Albanians, liable to military service, that they have to join the UCK, otherwise they will be liquidated. Albanian terrorists have threatened to refugees in Albania and other countries, too. On the same way they threat to Albanian doctors and medical stuff, demanding them to join the terrorists. Terrorists ordered all ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija to show resistance to legal authorities in FRY. Glas Javnosti ***************************************************** Global Reflexion - Foundation for International Cooperation P.O. Box 59262 - 1040 KG Amsterdam - The Netherlands At: Center for International Cooperation Sloterkade 20 - 1058 HE Amsterdam - The Netherlands Ph. ++ 31 20 615 1122 / Fax: ++ 31 20 615 1120 e-mail: office@globalreflexion.org ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nyteeu-05.12.99-03:20:52-31021