http://www.russiatoday.ru/features/news/21556
RUSSIA TODAY March 1, 2008, 2:41 What's behind NATO intervention in Kosovo? Nine years after the end of NATO's bombardment of Serbia, there are questions being asked about the real motives for the deployment of the alliance's troops in Kosovo. There are those who believe the reasons were anything but humanitarian. NATO did everything it could to convince the world that it went to war against the former Yugoslavia to protect Kosovar Albanians from extermination. But nine years later and the numbers of bodies found still don't correlate with the claims. But maybe to find the answer to the question why NATO came to Kosovo you still have to dig deep underground? "Kosovo possesses huge reserves of coal 15 billion tonnes. We also have oil and fuel and mines with lead and gold. We are one of the richest parts of south-east Europe. But NATO didn't come here for this. They came only to save us from the Serbs. Today we are going to exploit our natural resources and not allow the Serbs to continue doing it," Professor Rifat Blaku, Deputy Minister of Public Services says. However, the leader of the Serbs in Kosovo sees it differently. "The first reason why NATO came to Kosovo is because we are wealthy with lead and zinc. The second reason, which is also very important, is because Serbia has always been a potential ally with Russia and NATO wants Serbia to be a small country. This is why they are taking fifteen percent of the Serbian territory by taking Kosovo," Dr Marko Jaksic, President of the Serbian Municipalities of Kosovo believes. In the nine years since NATO took over the region from Serbia they've deployed soldiers here from more than 25 countries, United Nations police, EU officials, clerks. But the one thing they didn't bring is helping people put bread on the table.
