From: "Macdonald Stainsby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 22:41:43 -0700 To: "Leninist International" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [L-I] NATO To Occupy Serbia FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES Nato asks Serbs for use of bases http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/ Tom Walker Widow of warlord Arkan seeks British buyer for his footballers JUST two years after bombing Yugoslavia, Nato is asking the new government in Belgrade for permission to use its military bases, as fears of a civil war in Macedonia grow. In return, the Yugoslav army is looking for a deal with the western alliance that would allow a limited return of its soldiers to the few remaining Serbian-majority areas of Kosovo - a provision which was written into the agreement that ended the war, but which Nato generals have so far resisted. All-out fighting between ethnic Albanians and Slavs in Macedonia would cut off Nato's main supply route into Kosovo, which runs from the Greek port of Thessalonika up through Macedonia. Nato would need to send up to 80 trucks a day through Yugoslavia, with stop-offs at army bases in Novi Sad in the north and Nis in the south. "There are 40,000 guys in Kosovo - and they need feeding, water, tents, whatever. We've got to look at the alternatives," said a Nato planner who admitted that the options of going through the Montenegrin mountains or the bandit-infested north of Albania had been ruled out. Planners have calculated it would take a year to build a suitable road through Kukes in northern Albania. A source close to recent talks in Belgrade between the five leading Nato countries and Yugoslavia, said America,which is heading the negotiations, wants relations between the Pentagon and Belgrade to get back to where they were before Slobodan Milosevic came to power in 1987. In the new era of detente between the former enemies, Yugoslav officers will be sent to Westpoint and Fort Lauderdale in America for training. Details of a Nato supply line through Serbia were discussed at a meeting in Germany last week between American officers, the Yugoslav foreign minister, Goran Sviljanovic, and the Serbian deputy prime minister, Nebojsa Covic. The Yugoslav army is thought to be reluctant to give Nato access to some of its more secret bases. For its part, Nato is still wary of allowing any Yugoslav soldiers back into Kosovo, even in almost wholly Serbian areas such as Kosovo Mitrovica in the north. "We believe it is still too dangerous," said one officer. ------------------------------------------- Macdonald Stainsby Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green ---- Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international ---- In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
