Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- Ali Ahmeti: "We will do our duty to the international community." [If there's still the least doubt that the West - NATO, the major poltical and media institutions - hasn't been supporing the greater KLA rebels in every way imaginable, that doubt should be allayed by reading the following. Newsweek's two key Balkans hands, Juliette Terzieff and Rod Nordland, 'somehow' contrived to meet terrorist commander Ali Ahmeti at his command center in Macedonia (though his main headquarters remains in Kosovo where he spends most of his time), although Ahmeti is officially on the Black List of both the Macedonian and the U.S. governments; in fact he's wanted on criminal charges in Macedonia. Terzieff and Nordland contrive to ask him all the right questions, for which he has all the proper, coached responses. In order to maintain the myth that the twenty-year-old pan-Albanian war in the Southern Balkans, exploited when it hasn't been instigated by the West, has only now reached Macedonia because of alleged discrimination only discovered six months ago, all meaningful questions about Ahmeti's background are not asked. Nothing is posed to him about his separatist activities in Pristina in 1981, which earned him a prison sentence; Pristina, the capital city of the Serbian province of Kosovo, seems an odd place to struggle for alleged civil rights in Macedonia. No discrepancy in claims was noted by Terzieff and Nordland in this regard. Nor was Ahmeti's immigration to Switzerland in 1983, where he established and coordinated the trans-Atlantic fundraising, recruitment and weapons gathering operations to create what would later become the KLA, NLA and several other branches of the same terrorist network addressed. That Ahmeti and his uncle, arrested in Germany recently on terrorism charges but released shortly thereafter, are the linchpins for the narcotics trafficking/prostitution ring and the weapons/recruitment nexus seems indisputable. The Newsweek journalists also neglect to inquire of Ahmeti why, if his interests are solely those of ethnic Albanians in Macedonia, he served as a commander in the Kosovo war under Ramush Haradinaj, the latter accused of some of the worst war crimes in that conflict, including the massacre of an entire Serb village in 1998. The reporters also make no mention of Ahmeti's radio interview a few months ago in which he boasted of having a Liberation Army of Chameria in place in Northwestern Greece, ready to be activated on his orders. He even provided an extremely detailed account of how many fighters and weapons he had at his disposal there. But the above wouldn't fit into the carefully crafted profile of Ahmeti as a human rights activist and pacifist obligingly provided by the Western media.] Interview: The Unlikely Pacifist Leader of the Macedonian National Liberation Army discusses war and the quest for peace By Barbie Nadeau NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL Sept. 10 � Only two months ago, NATO called him a terrorist. Now Ali Ahmeti, the political leader of the Macedonian National Liberation Army (NLA), garners praise from Western diplomats as a reliable partner for peace. As one observer put it, he "has the potential to be the Albanian Gerry Adams." Last Wednesday, the soft-spoken 42-year-old met with NEWSWEEK's Juliette Terzieff and Rod Nordland at his mountaintop command center in the village of Sipkovica, outside Tetovo, Macedonia. Excerpts: � � �� � � � � NEWSWEEK: Now that you've turned more than 1,100 weapons over to NATO, do you expect the Macedonian Parliament to live up to its end of the peace agreement and pass new reforms? AHMETI: On our side, we're satisfied everything is going the way we planned. The cooperation between NATO and the NLA is really at a high level. [The government's action] doesn't depend on us. We will do our duty to the international community. Will the NLA really give up all of its weapons? �We will definitely give up every weapon we have. We have faith in the obedience of our soldiers. I really don't believe any Albanian should have weapons because we will have democracy. Haven't you kept some reserves in case the peace process falls apart? Yes, we have "reserves": they're the guarantees from NATO, the European Union and the United States that this process will stabilize the situation. I really don't think the peace process will fail. How does it feel to be labeled terrorists? �The international community didn't know enough about the climate of discrimination in Macedonia and our people had to work hard to make them see. They no longer have the same reservations about us as before... We never targeted civilians, only policemen and soldiers. We are not terrorists. � � � � Have you released all the Macedonian hostages you were holding, and what about those civilians who were tortured by the NLA? Yes, we've released all of them. We're still questioning a lot of our soldiers, but when we find out who [tortured civilians], they will be punished. NATO insists its troops will leave after their 30-day mandate expires. What guarantees are there that the peace process will continue once they're gone? We have received guarantees from the European Union, the United States and NATO that they will remain engaged, that they have mechanisms in mind�such as international monitors�to observe the situation. We trust the international community. There are also forces on the Macedonian side who are forward-looking, trying to direct things along the road to peace. Some Albanians aren't happy with the peace deal, and there are groups like the Albanian National Army who have renounced it. Do they pose a danger? We will respect the deal. And the Albanian people have to understand we signed an agreement that is favorable for our [rights] inside Macedonia. This was not a war for territory because the territory already belongs to us, and by "us" I mean Macedonians and Albanians, both communities. It simply wasn't in anyone's interests to create a situation of civil war. [As for the ANA], they are very few and we don't think they're a big threat. They could create some incidents maybe, but it won't have a big effect. You sound surprisingly optimistic. If I wasn't an optimist I wouldn't have joined this war�and I have to be more so now. It took a war to get this far, and it will be an even bigger battle to achieve peace. And in the end, it will be the biggest battle of all to maintain that peace. Do you believe in a Greater Albania? �This is just a term. I don't think people of the 21st century should be encouraged to have a Greater Albania, or a Greater Kosovo, or a Greater Serbia, or a Greater Macedonia. Instead the idea should be to have open borders among functioning democracies, as in the European Union. Do you consider yourself a Macedonian or an Albanian? I am a Macedonian citizen first, and only after that a Macedonian-Albanian. I'll be proud to fly the Macedonian flag when Albanians in Macedonia have equal rights. � � � � � � __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! 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