I have followed with interest the posting relating to the NATO campaign in Kossovo, regarding the use of DU munitions. However, I am also interested in the issue of the fate of the people of Kosovo, and their future in Europe. All around my native Puerto Rico there are dozens of former US military training sites littered with the debris of decades of use for target practice. These excercises continue on the tiny off-shore island of Vieques, where DU munitions were also tested. The high incident of cancer and other diseases among the inhabitants of Vieques is well documented by the local public health authorities. Other sites are polluted by the defoliant Agent Orange, tested in our rain forests before it was deployed to Vietnam during the 1960's; there is also oil & heavy metal pollution resulting from the careless operation of warships and military aircraft. The people of the Balkans have been exposed to these toxins for a few years: in Puerto Rico, the US miliary has been polluting the island since the 1940's. Activists interested in the Balkan syndrome would be well advise to contact their counterparts on the island, who have a wealth of data & first-hand experience with these issues. It is also as a Puerto Rican that I have to raise the issue of the plight of the Kosovar Albanians, debated to death here and in other sites during the Kosovo campaign, but that I fear is being overlooked by those who justly critizcise NATO for their military operations in the Balkans. Those who critizice NATO's actions often fail to also critizice the oppression of the Albanians carried out by the Milosevic regime. Perhaps is the lack of awareness as to what it feels to be powerless to run your own affairs, to have your culture, language, history & religion derided and suppressed; and to be told that you are inferior to the minority of foreigners that control all aspects of your life. Puerto Ricans had struggled for over 100 years to have our culture, language & right to self-government recognized by the US colonialists. Credit is due to the fact that the US has accomodated its poilicies to these demands, thus the fact that in Puerto Rico there is no mass pro-independence movement. The Serbs still fail to aknowledge the right of the Albanian majority to shape their own destiny. It was Milosevic that took took away the autonomy that Kosovo enjoyed under the old Yugoslav federation; and the Serb nationalists that applauded & supported him must also bear responsibility for driving the Albanians into the arms of the radical KLA organization. There is much to object in NATO's actions in the Balkans, but there is even much more to object regarding the behavior of Serb nationalists regarding the treatment of the Albanians. It was a dirty war, but Milosevic and company have nobody but themselves to blame for bringing it on. Freedom & Independence for Kosovo NOW!
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