Francisco wrote:
>This
>sounds like the same argument used by 19th Europeans to
>justify colonialsim in Africa & elsewhere: "the natives
>are degenerated, too stupid to know what's good for
>them, and that is why we, the enlightened Whites, must
>come to their rescue"!
While the majority of Albanians in Kosovo suffered from the severe
economic disparity between Kosovo & richer republics like Slovenia,
they are further away from self-determination today than in the past,
now that they are governed by NATO & international bureaucrats who
are _completely_ unaccountable to the local population whom they
treat like colonized "natives."
***** The New York Times
January 12, 2001, Friday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 3; Column 1; Foreign Desk
HEADLINE: Uranium Furor Puts Kosovars in the Dark Again
BYLINE: By STEVEN ERLANGER
DATELINE: LLOZICE, Kosovo, Jan. 11
Scientists in white overalls, accompanied by NATO soldiers, were
collecting soil samples this week near a bombed-out bridge on a
well-traveled road, but they told Etrem Javori, who lives and works
here, nothing about what they were doing or why.
Mr. Javori and his family are not surprised, being used to a policy
of silence on the part of their former leaders in the former
Yugoslavia. But they have heard of the fuss over depleted uranium
from television, even if they do not understand it.
Like the Kosovo war itself, the sudden, furious and deeply political
debate in NATO over the possible ill effects of munitions reinforced
by depleted uranium is a kind of Western morality play with Kosovo as
its stage.
The people of Kosovo and this village -- who presumably live with the
effects all year round, and not for six-month tours of duty -- are
barely consulted or counted. And NATO -- having fired the ammunition
from great height at Serbian tanks and other targets, including
decoys -- is only now beginning to disclose the sites it bombed with
weapons reinforced by depleted uranium and to consider cleaning up
whatever debris might be left.
NATO says it fired some 31,000 rounds containing depleted uranium in
Kosovo, as much as 12 tons of toxic and mildly radioactive uranium
metal (a figure that pales next to the 300,000 tons used in the
Persian Gulf war in 1991). Uranium is one of the heaviest metals,
which makes it effective in piercing targets like tanks.
NATO has also been slow to identify and clear away the antipersonnel
cluster bombs it dropped in Kosovo; even a large park in Pristina has
not been fully cleared. NATO also bombed sensitive environmental
sites in Serbia, including large petrochemical plants in the town of
Pancevo, which the United Nations Environment Program has been
regularly urging must be cleaned up with Western aid.
Just today, the United Nations administration in Kosovo announced
that, in cooperation with NATO, it would fence off sites where
depleted uranium was known to have been dropped and would put up
multilingual signs reading: "Caution. Area may contain residual heavy
metal toxicity. Entry not advised."
What most Kosovars will understand of such a sign can only be
imagined. The people here, in interviews today, say they are simply
trusting NATO, which went to war on their behalf against the Serbs,
"to do whatever it is right and necessary to do," as Mr. Javori put
it.
Mr. Javori, 22, is rebuilding his family house here, about 35 miles
from Pristina, between the bombed-out bridge and the metal military
bridge that Italian engineers finally put up to replace it, making it
possible to drive to Pec without crossing muddy fields.
He spent the NATO war in 1999 hiding in the Turjak mountains that
break the horizon to the distant south; his house had been destroyed
by the Serbian Army in its offensive of August 1998. Only now does
he have the peace and resources to begin rebuilding, though his funds
do not stretch to the purchase of roof tiles, which he makes himself.
He is more worried about money than about uranium, though he says:
"My family is more worried than me. The son of my brother had some
chest problems."
He watched the soldiers and the scientists collect samples from
around the bombed bridge, one of those twisted memorials to the war
that will probably never be removed or repaired, now that a
replacement exists.
"A lot of people get sick this time of the year, with the flu and
other problems," Mr. Javori said hopefully. "Maybe these soldiers
don't know what is wrong and just put it down to uranium."
The World Health Organization has said it has found no increase in
leukemia among the population of Kosovo, and the chief United Nations
administrator here, Bernard Kouchner, a doctor and former French
health minister, has dismissed the furor as "a wave of irrationality."
Uke Javori, 29, Etrem's cousin who lives nearby, has a 1-year-old
son, born after the war, and insists that he is not worried about the
boy's health. "If there is a problem, NATO and KFOR will take care
of it," he said, using the acronym for the NATO-led Kosovo force that
patrols the province. "If we didn't trust them, we wouldn't have
asked them to come here."
Asked how he spent the war, Uke Javori paused and pointed to the
distant mountains. "I went there," he said. "I've never left Kosovo,
and I never will."
His brother, Muhammad Javori, 26, has left, to go to Italy, where he
works in a paint factory. But he is back, on vacation, but working
in the family grocery store, a roadside stop near the bridge, where
traffic normally backs up some distance. There are competing stores,
all with faded Albanian flags flying from their metal roofs, but the
Javori family has a bit of parking, on the old road leading to the
bombed bridge.
It has become a great commercial advantage, with many motorists
stopping to buy some fruit, or cans of soda, or some cookies and
cakes. Many of those products are made in Serbia, but Muhammad
Javori says no one cares. "No one has died from poisoned cookies,"
he said, laughing.
He says he worries about spending so much time near a possible site
for depleted uranium, but knows no one in the area who has become
sick, with leukemia or anything else. "Who can really know?" he
said. "It's a NATO secret."
Fehmi Gashi, a workman digging holes for a fence, said he had heard
about depleted uranium on television, "but I don't know what it is."
After an explanation, he sighed and said: "Well, we've had no
problems, not yet, anyway. If there's a danger, NATO should have
cleared it. They know everything that there is in Kosovo. I trust
100 percent in NATO."
Anyway, he said, rubbing his bristle, "what danger compares to what
we went through already?"
To Vladimir and Volodya, two Russian soldiers controlling the new
bridge, life in Kosovo seems fine. They have been here four months,
with another eight or so to go. The pay is good, and they have been
told not to worry about depleted uranium.
"They say they've checked with a Geiger counter, and it's normal
here," Vladimir said. Does he believe them? "Sure," he said,
laughing. "Why not?" *****
For this article, the New York Times picked the "native informants"
who profess complete trust in NATO, but I don't know if the
sentiments expressed by them are the prevailing opinions among
Albanians in Kosovo. I doubt they are. I hope they aren't.
Albanians who are genuinely interested in self-determination must
resist NATO & international bureaucrats who run Kosovo as their
colony. Otherwise, only a few Albanian lackeys handpicked by
imperialists will prosper, with the Albanian majority suffering an
even worse politico-economic fate than they did when they were part
of Yugoslavia.
The colonization of Bosnia, Kosovo, & East Timor is a harbinger of
things to come: _multinational colonialism_ in keeping with worldwide
triumph of neoliberal capitalism, managing the fallouts of austerity
policies everywhere.
Yoshie
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