Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- [Holger Jensen, international affairs columnist, has until very recently been an apologist for NATO policy in the Balkans, and was an avid supporter of 1999's war against Yugoslavia. He's singing another song now, as evidenced by this column, no doubt partially because of the no longer deniable facts but also, one hopes, because he's been on certain people's mailing lists. To encourage him in his newfound enlightenment and to supply additional information, write him at [EMAIL PROTECTED]] � http://www.bakersfield.com/24hour/opinions/story/675458p-717636c.html HOLGER JENSEN: A mess of its own making Rocky Mountain News of Colorado Friday August 31, 2001, 09:58:00 AM (SH) - The Danish commander of NATO troops in Macedonia says they have collected more than a third of the arms declared by Albanian guerrillas and should be able to complete their mission within a 30-day deadline set by the alliance. But Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski says NATO's target of 3,300 weapons is laughably low - his government puts their number at up to 85,000 - and predicts a resumption of the guerrilla war that began last February. "To talk about only 3,000 weapons after six months of crisis is ridiculous," he said. "Without serious disarmament, further fighting is guaranteed." Hard-line Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski adds that he is forming a special counter-terrorism force, called the Lions, to complete NATO's unfinished business after its 4,500 soldiers depart. "NATO's mission will not rid us of the bandits," he said. "We must conduct a cleanup, a search, to clear the terrain of terrorist bandit groups." Privately, some NATO officers and many Western military analysts agree that the National Liberation Army, as the Albanian rebels call themselves, only volunteered to surrender a fraction of its arsenal and can easily replace what it gives up with arms smuggled in from neighboring Kosovo. Which makes "Operation Essential Harvest" a thinly disguised charade to extricate the Western alliance from another Balkan mess of its own making. Macedonia, a small country with previously passive Albanians - a 30 percent minority - traces its problems to NATO's coddling of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which cloaks its criminal enterprises in Albanian nationalism. There is no question that the KLA started out as an Albanian mafia, running drugs, prostitution, cigarettes, guns and other black market dealings that now finance its "liberation wars." There is also no question that the Albanian majority in Kosovo, a Serbian province, was oppressed by Slobodan Milosevic's regime in Belgrade and seeking a savior. The KLA became that savior after receiving a huge infusion of arms stolen from the Albanian army in March, 1997. A British think tank, Arms Forces Intelligence, says that arsenal alone contained nearly 600,000 assault rifles, 25,000 machine guns, 38,000 automatic pistols, 2,450 rocket launchers, 770 mortars, thousands of grenades, a million mines and 20,000 tons of explosives. Only a quarter of those arms were recovered by the Albanian government, meaning the rest are still out there somewhere. The KLA also received weapons from Turkey, Iran and the CIA after the Western powers decided that the Albanian guerrrillas would be a useful tool to destabilize Milosevic's regime. Even so, the KLA was no match for the Serbian army. NATO saved the guerrillas from almost certain annihilation when it bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 and made Kosovo an international protectorate. But, instead of disbanding the KLA, NATO allowed it to keep its guns and become a Kosovo Protection Corps, which infiltrated Macedonia and metamorphosed into the NLA. After six months of fighting in which the guerrillas seized large chunks of territory, Macedonia reluctantly accepted a Western peace plan that forces the government to make language and political concessions to the Albanian minority in return for unverifiable disarmament and an NLA promise to disband. Already, the NLA has spawned a militant splinter group called the Albanian National Army, which refuses to honor any cease-fire. It has been blamed for blowing up a Macedonian Orthodox monastery and a motel during the disarmament process. A British soldier also was killed by a piece of concrete thrown at his car by Macedonian youths. Polls indicate that only 25 percent of Macedonia's Slav majority and half the Albanians support the plan. The Macedonians are furious with NATO for making them cave in to "Albanian terrorists," and most believe, as their government does, that the war will resume as soon as the arms collectors leave. If it does, will NATO finally rein in what London newspapers call "the CIA's bastard army?" Don't bet on it. Holger Jensen is international editor of the Rocky Mountain News. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! 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