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"There is also no question that the Albanian majority
in Kosovo, a Serbian province, was oppressed by
Slobodan Milosevic's regime in Belgrade"
I guess he keeps that lyric in there to avoid any implication that he and
his bomb-throwing colleagues in the Fourth Estate should, say, ante up with
some apologies, retractions, and donations for reparations to the country
they helped ruin. jy
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Rozoff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 5:25 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Journalist Changes His Tune On The Balkans [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
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[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.
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