-Caveat Lector- ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the March 19, 1998 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- Washington�s covert role in Kosovo crisis By Gary Wilson When U.S. Balkan envoy Robert Gelbard declared March 5 that the United States could intervene militarily in the Kosovo province of Yugoslavia, it should have provoked cries of outrage worldwide. Instead, it was barely noted anywhere outside the region. But the peoples of the Balkans heard the threat loud and clear. The French Press Agency reported March 5 that Gelbard was asked if the Clinton administration stands by President George Bush�s December 1992 declaration that the United States will intervene militarily in Kosovo if it decides that it is "necessary." Gelbard replied, "U.S. policy has not changed." The arrogance of imperialist Washington is not diminished. Washington has convened a meeting of the so-called Contact Group�a self-appointed group dominated by the imperialist powers of Western Europe and the United States to oversee the Balkans. The United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia are in the Contact Group. The March 9 meeting excludes all representatives of the peoples of the Balkans. The agenda is to discuss Kosovo and whether to expand the NATO military occupation in the region. The question progressives and anti-war activists should be asking is: What right do the U.S. and European ruling classes have to make any kind of decision, including military decisions, about an internal problem of Yugoslavia? Doesn�t this violate international law? Separating fact and fiction The truth about the civil war in the Balkans has been constantly obscured by the deceptions of U.S. and Western European political leaders. A willing media has also helped in this process. Since 1991, according to reports in the big-business-controlled media, the socialist federation of Yugoslavia has been completely overturned. They say the main evil that has emerged is an unreconstructed, vicious Serbian nationalism personified by Slobodan Milosevic and, in Bosnia, Radovan Karadzic. What is left out of this sort of reporting? The role of the United States and the European imperialist powers. They worked for decades, mostly covertly, to foment nationalist strife inside Yugoslavia. At the same time, they tried to tear down the anti-imperialist, progressive national identity won through the struggle of the Yugoslav Partisan movement during World War II. The CIA�s secret operations to promote reactionary nationalist forces in the Balkans are practically unknown outside the region. The media simply don�t report about them. Yet there are many clues to the role of the imperialists, primarily Washington, in the events now unfolding in Kosovo. For example, take the Kosovo Liberation Army (LAK) that has been randomly assassinating Kosovo Serbs and Albanians deemed to be "pro-Serb." The group has no known leaders or political program. The police repression in Kosovo followed a LAK killing spree that left dozens of Albanians and Serbs dead or injured. New York Times Balkans Bureau Chief Chris Hedges has "gone on patrol" with the LAK. The New York Times does not have and has never had a policy of assigning its bureau chiefs to travel with anti-imperialist liberation fighters anywhere. Only U.S.-backed�often CIA-created�armies get this kind of propaganda boost. In fact, a nonexistent "government of Kosovo" has an office in Washington that employs the public-relations firm of Ruder Finn. This is confirmed by Justice Department documents that list Ruder Finn as an agent for the "Republic of Kosovo," with the registration number 4315. The recently published book "NATO in the Balkans," from the International Action Center, has information on Ruder Finn�s role in propaganda efforts aimed at dismembering Socialist Yugoslavia. No government in the world has recognized a "government of Kosovo." Kosovo is still a province in Serbia, which is part of the remaining Yugoslav republic. Public-relations firms like Ruder Finn have been used in recent years to manufacture news. They give reporters "fact sheets." These often turn into the "facts" reported without question. The reports are all slanted to fit Washington�s foreign-policy objectives. Another clue to the role of the outside imperialist powers in Kosovo could be found at a March 2 rally in Geneva, Switzerland. At that rally Xhafer Shatri, identified as the "information minister of the government of Kosovo in exile," called for U.S. or European military occupation of Kosovo. What sort of liberation would this be? Imperialist military occupation has never liberated any country. No matter what the conditions inside a country and no matter the legitimacy of the national aspirations of the people of that country, no liberation leader would be considered credible if he or she called for a foreign imperialist power to occupy the country. Yet the U.S. media present such calls for imperialist occupation of Kosovo as legitimate. The events unfolding in Kosovo could escalate- not primarily because of internal conflicts, but because of outside interference. For those who are opponents of oppression, it is necessary to look at the crisis in Yugoslavia from a class viewpoint. Only then is it possible to see and understand the relationship of forces. In the world today, imperialism is the primary oppressive force. Without a struggle against imperialist oppression, there can be no liberation. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. 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