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http://www.artel.co.yu/en/glas_dijaspore/2005-04-23.html
ANTIWAR
Thursday,April
21
BALKAN EXPRESS
by
Nebojsa Malic
Empire Stirs to Action in
Kosovo
Violence pays. How else should one interpret that the
ultimate result of the horrific pogrom in Kosovo last March would be an
aggressive campaign by power-mongers in the Empire to reward Albanian
separatism and finish the job begun six years ago by severing that
occupied province from Serbia?
Forces behind the 1999 intervention have been somewhat
sidelined by the Bush regime in recent years, to the point where they
supported his rival in the 2004 election. Yet they have also managed to
prevent any sort of reevaluation of Washington's Balkans policy, creating
an artificial dearth of alternatives that positioned their policy as the
only viable one. If Richard Holbrooke � one of their champions � is to be
believed, they have finally won over Bush II's second-term cabinet.
"[A]fter ignoring the issue for four years, the
administration is doing something in the Balkans, where nothing happens
without U.S. leadership," says Holbrooke in Wednesday's Washington Post
(angling, perhaps for a reappointment as US envoy to the region, as the
Post had suggested in March). Given that the "something" the Bush regime
is doing appears to be in line with what Holbrooke, the ICG, and many
others involved in the 1999 war have been advocating, doing nothing would
have been better.
Another Commission
After the ICG-inspired
"guidelines" for Kosovo's future were laid out by the self-appointed
"Contact Group" last week, the cause of independence got another boost by
something called the "International Commission on the Balkans" (ICB).
Presenting their report in � where else? � Washington on April 12, they
urged a four-stage process of independence for the occupied Serbian
province, ending up with EU membership.
Unlike a previous ad hoc commission that urged
"conditional independence" for Kosovo back in 2000, this outfit looked at
the Balkans in general, contending it has a future only as part of the EU.
According to the commission's Web site, about half its members are
actually from the Balkans � but they appear mostly quislings the like of
Goran Svilanovic, a despicable Dossie foreign minister now hiding behind
Serbian President Boris Tadic's party. Another luminary of the ICB is
Bruce Jackson, a known neocon operative, whose presence indicates
Washington's complicity in the Commission's effort.
Speeches, Funerals, and Bombs
Emboldened,
perhaps, by the Contact Group and the Commission, Kosovo's "President"
Ibrahim Rugova wrote a moving op-ed in the International Herald Tribune
last Friday, praising the virtues of Ramush Haradinaj and his successor
Bajram Kosumi, pointing out that his "government" even has a token Serb,
and claiming that "this country [sic!] is big enough to embrace all
people, irrespective of ethnicity."
This was after he snubbed Belgrade's peace
offer.
Meanwhile, the younger brother of KLA leader Ramush
Haradinaj was killed in an apparent clan vengeance hit. The Hague
Inquisition allowed Haradinaj � accused of war crimes in Kosovo � to
attend the funeral, where he violated the terms of his provisional release
by giving a speech. If Reuters' figure of 20,000 people in attendance is
correct, the gathering was less a funeral than a KLA rally. That Rugova
declared a day of mourning for "slain UCK fighter Enver Haradinaj"
reinforces the impression.
On Sunday, Albanians demonstrated the depth of their
tolerance through a bomb attack on the headquarters of an opposition party
� Veton Surroi's ORA � in Pristina. Far from being an enemy of the KLA,
Surroi is a valuable voice for Albanian separatists because he's seen as a
"moderate" in the West. Perhaps his official opposition to ethnic
cleansing � though he's done much to rationalize and justify it � was far
too nuanced for today's masters of Kosovo.
Glimpses of Horror
One of the foundations of
Albanian claims to independence is that they were victims of� well, they
said "genocide" at first, but finally settled for "ethnic cleansing" � by
Serbs. NATO has used this claim to justify its 1999 invasion. There is not
a wire report on Kosovo that does not include the line about "10,000
killed, mostly ethnic Albanians," a figure that has never been
substantiated as anything more than malicious speculation. Between the
repetition of these mantras and the deliberate downplaying of KLA
atrocities (before, during, and after the 1999 war), the horrors of
occupied Kosovo remain untold. Attempts to reveal them draw violent
condemnation from the very propagandists who seek to keep them under
wraps.
A recent discovery of human remains in a cave near Klina
is one case in the point. A report by the generally pro-Albanian Scotsman
merely repeats a UN statement that the site was "used to secretly dispose
of human remains, and could be related to the disappearances" of
non-Albanians. There have been "disappearances" of non-Albanians? When?
How? Of course there have; many Serbs, Roma, Turks, and others have been
"disappeared" by the KLA. Only, few in the West have said so much as a
word about it, as it would interfere with the carefully crafted Manichaean
image of "Kosovars."
Still, the KLA's dark past is slowly emerging into the
light of day. A Bulgarian mercenary sniper for the KLA recently spilled
his guts to a Sofia journalist; if he is to be believed, the KLA was no
scrappy gang of "freedom fighters," but a well-funded murderous machine in
cahoots with drug lords.
Rugova and Ramush can preach all they want; their deeds
speak louder than words.
More Meddling Ahead
The one and only thing that
Richard Holbrooke gets right in his Post editorial is that a new round of
interventionism in the Balkans is coming. Whether driven by
near-governmental organizations or, more likely, using them as outlets,
the Empire is turning its Eye to the Balkans again.
An imperialist like Holbrooke would reject out of hand
the argument that it has been precisely that kind of meddling over the
past 200 years or so that has produced the current intractable conflicts
out of hand. He would also reject the contention that more meddling would
make things worse � even though so far, it always has. He is one of those
people who have made a bloody mess of onetime Yugoslavia while claiming to
want "peace" and "stability," twisting history and drawing borders with
nothing but contempt for the natives, their rights or interests.
It is long past time to reject Holbrooke and the Empire
he represents. | 
