As Christian churches burn in the heart of Europe, as Christians are
being martyred by their Muslim neighbors for the mere fact of being
what they are, it is time to re-visit the history of the Kosovo
conflict. Western media consumers may be forgiven for thinking that the
history of that conflict starts in 1989, when the Serbs supposedly
abolished the autonomy of that hitherto happy and harmonious
multicultural province. This is not true, and a truthful account of the
problem?s background is needed for an informed debate, lest the claims
of the Albanian lobbies succeed yet again in imposing a Balkan agenda
in Washington that is as offensive to decency as it is inimical to
American interests.
Since
March 17 over thirty Serbs were killed in Kosovo by rioting Albanians,
hundreds were wounded, and thousands expelled from their homes. In many
cases their homes were set on fire, their livestock killed, and their
property looted. Two-dozen Christian churches and monasteries were also
gutted or dynamited, thus nearly completing the work started in the
immediate aftermath of NATO's occupation in 1999 when over a hundred
shrines were destroyed.
"Kristallnacht is under way in
Kosovo," an official of the United Nations Interim Administration
Mission to Kosovo (UNMIK) says, "a pogrom against Serbs: churches are
on fire and people are being attacked for no other reason than their
ethnic background." Things must be out of control if even UN
administrators and NATO officers, who usually deny or minimize Albanian
crimes, now admit that we are witnessing a coordinated, premeditated
campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The campaign has a simple
objective: to expel the remaining Serbs from the province, in addition
to a quarter of a million already expelled since the end of the war
five years ago. It was no longer possible for the "international
community" to remain in denial because its own personnel have been
attacked by Albanian mobs forcing their way through UNMIK checkpoints
into enclaves inhabited by the few remaining Serbs.
As Christian
churches burn in the heart of Europe, as Christians are being martyred
by their Muslim neighbors for the mere fact of being what they are, it
is time to re-visit the history of the Kosovo conflict. Western media
consumers may be forgiven for thinking that the history of that
conflict starts in 1989, when the Serbs supposedly abolished the
autonomy of that hitherto happy and harmonious multicultural province.
This is not true, and a truthful account of the problem's background is
needed for an informed debate, lest the claims of the Albanian lobbies
succeed yet again in imposing a Balkan agenda in Washington that is as
offensive to decency as it is inimical to American interests.
Though
few English and even fewer American history books tell us much about
her, in the 300 years which lie between the Norman conquest of England
and the death of Edward III, Serbia was one of the strongest and most
culturally and economically advanced states in Europe. The Serbian
kingdom and its autocephalous church provided the framework for the
flowering of an authentically national culture and arts inspired by the
Byzantine legacy. It has given Europe some of the most notable examples
of medieval architecture and painting, as evidenced in the monasteries
of Gracanica, Decani, Studenica, Zica, Mileseva, Sopocani, and many
others.
(The church of
Bogorodica Ljeviska in Prizren was turned by Ottomans into a mosque and
a minaret was added on the top of the entrance tower)
Serbia's
physical and spiritual heart was in Kosovo, a bucolic valley of fertile
fields and vineyards surrounded by misty hills. A mere 4,200 square
miles in size (with an additional 2,000 square miles of adjacent
Metohija), this cradle of the Serbian nation was inhabited, since the
early medieval times, by a homogenous Serbian population. The old
toponims, names of mountains, rivers, and most towns and villages are
all of Slav origin. The very name of the region - Kosovo and Metohija - is
derived from the Serbian word
kos ("the field of the blackbird") and
metoh ("church estate").
Kosovo
has been a battlefield dozens of times. Various nations - Byzantines,
Bulgars, Serbs, Magyars, Austrians, Albanians, Turks - and various
faiths, Christian, Bogomil, Muslim, and more recently Marxist, have
fought there at different times; but of all Kosovo battles the one that
stands out happened on Vidovdan (St. Vitus' Day), June 28, 1389. The
Turks had already been on the European continent for some time,
seemingly unstoppable and intoxicated by easy victories over the rival
and disunited infidels. The Serbs, led by Prince Lazar, tried to stop
them and perished; that much is certain. The lore has it that before
going into battle Lazar made the famous statement that generations of
Serbs have treasured and which is the essence of the Gospel message:
"The Earthly Kingdom is short-lived, but the Heavenly One is forever."
His mutilated body, and Kosovo itself, became a symbol of steadfast
courage and Christian sacrifice, much as the Alamo was for the
Americans once.
UNDER OTTOMAN RULE
The battle of
Kosovo was one of the most decisive events in the whole history of
South Eastern Europe. It meant not merely the fall of the medieval
Serbian empire and the conquest of the whole Balkan Peninsula by a
barbarous Asiatic invader, but also an important stepping stone in the
struggle of Islam against Christianity. From 1459 to 1804 Serbia ceased
to exist as a state and a self-governing nation. In all those years the
Serbs have celebrated the great battle, not only as a day of mourning
but as an event to be remembered and avenged.
(Serbs pray over the head of a Serb killed by Muslim Albanians, near Pec, end of 19th c)
The
Balkan peninsula became a two-realm society, Muslim and Christian, one
privileged and the other discriminated against. It was up to each
individual to decide whether he wanted to live and die as an exploited
non-person, or make a compromise with his conscience, embrace Islam,
and lead a more favored existence. Islamization was swift among the
Albanians, who lived in the hills to the south of Kosovo and who did
not have an autocephalous Church. Islamization produced a new
stratification of the society under Ottoman rule, and a new power
balance among national groups. The balance was shifting, and as far as
the Albanians and Serbs were concerned; it was shifting drastically in
favor of the Albanians, to the detriment of good relations between
them. The emergence of a significant number of Islamized Albanians
holding high posts at the Porte was reflected in Kosovo and Metohija.
Albanians started appearing, at first as officials and tax collectors
in local administration, acting as the pillar of Ottoman authority.
Being divided at first by language and culture, and subsequently by
religion, Serbs and Albanians gradually became members of two
fundamentally opposed social and political groups.
As
warriors, fascinated by swords and guns, used to discipline and obeying
when ruled by a strong hand, many Albanians saw Islam as an opportunity
that they could not let pass. The latent Serbian-Albanian conflict came
into the open during the Holy League's war against the Ottoman Empire
(1683-1690). Many Serbs joined the Habsburg troops. The Albanians
reacted in accordance with their new Islamic identity. Following the
Habsburgs' defeat a considerable number of local Serbs, fearing Muslim
vengeance and reprisals, left Kosovo led by their Patriarch. On their
way they were joined by many people from other parts of southern Serbia
and moved to the neighboring Habsburg Empire, today's Vojvodina. Two
generations later yet another Austro-Ottoman war provoked further Serb
migrations (1739), led by another Patriarch.
Fertile farmlands
thus abandoned by the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija were gradually
settled by the neighboring Muslim Albanian nomads. This settlement
proceeded at a slow pace at first, as the number of Serbs who had
stayed put was still considerable. The pattern of Albanian settlement
developed in uneven waves, but typically, upon the seizure of a plot of
Serb-owned land, fellow tribesmen were brought in from the mountains to
protect the acquisition and to help expand the space needed for the
herds. Migrant herdsmen (Albanians) were in constant conflict with the
settled farmers (Serbs). This pattern of social conflict was enhanced
by the religious dimension. As a Muslim, an Albanian herdsman could
persecute and rob a Christian Serb with complete impunity. To the
former Islam was a means for social promotion, but his ethnic identity,
derived from the common tribal and patriarchal tradition, engendered
far stronger loyalties and collective identities. It was only by the
mid-1800s, however, that the Albanians achieved numerical parity with
the Serbs in the province. By that time the Serbs' work of national
liberation was in full swing. By the end of the century the Albanians
realized that the Ottoman Empire could no longer offer them protection
and advancement.
(photo:
murder of Fr. Damaskin Boskovic in Devic by an armed Kosovo Albanian,
with a traditional white cap. The attacker has a gun in his hands. The
monastery was later buned to the ground to be reconstructed in 1950s)
As
the Serbian state was growing in size and political importance in
Balkan affairs, Albanian fears and animosity grew apace. In the Kingdom
of Serbia (1912-1914), during the Great War (1914-1918), in the Kingdom
of Yugoslavia (1918-1941), under the Axis occupation (1941-1945), and
under Tito's communists, those conflicts were transferred into new
rivalries, this time involving a strong international component related
to the changed roles. Serbian historian Dusan Batakovic has noted that
uneven levels of national integration among Serbs and Albanians gave
fresh impetus to the old religious tensions:
The Albanians, similarly to other belated nations (verspaetete nation),
when confronted with rival nationalisms, sought foreign support and
advocated radical solutions. In Kosovo-Metohija and in western
Macedonia, where the Serbs and the Albanians were intermingled, with
the system falling apart and with the growing social stagnation, it was
anarchy that reigned: there the Christians were the principal victims
and the Muslims were their persecutors.
The process was
supposedly justified by the "Illyrian theory" about the Albanians'
origin. According to this theory, for which no reliable scientific
evidence has ever been found, the Albanians are the oldest nation in
Europe created through a mixture of pre-Roman Illyrian and Pelasgian
tribes. A questionable scientific thesis was turned into the
mythological basis for national integration, which - in the fullness of
time - became the main pillar of the Albanians' modern national identity
and the basis for their territorial aspirations. Those aspirations
needed an external source of support, however. With Turkey's decline it
was initially offered in Hapsburg Vienna, but Austria's defeat in 1918
and the establishment of the Yugoslav state meant that Mussolini
provided the only hope. The dream of a Great Albania became a reality
with the fall of Yugoslavia in 1941, albeit under Italian tutelage. An
immediate consequence of the Axis occupation was the expulsion of some
100,000 Serbs from Kosovo. It is estimated that by 1944 around ten
thousand Serbs had been murdered by various Albanian militias. Their
homes and lands were taken over by fresh settlers from Albania. In
1943-44 thousands of young Albanians enthusiastically enlisted in the
SS Skenderbey division and embarked on a new wave of violence against the remaining Serbian civilian population.
TITOIST EXPERIMENT
In
the aftermath of the war the communist regime attempted to sweep the
bloody legacy of World War II under the carpet. Expelled Serbs were
prevented from returning and for the first time the Albanians achieved
simple numerical majority. Tito's federalism granted the
Albanian-dominated Party nomenklatura in Kosovo the status of a de
facto republic. This "federalism" was but a misnomer for his game of divide et impera,
in which the salient objective was to carve up the Serbs - 40 percent of
the population - into as many different units as possible. This created a
cauldron that depended on Tito himself as the ultimate arbiter. The
communist experiment in Kosovo created a permanent mechanism of keeping
the old passions and animosities on the slow burner, and thus providing
the ruling clique with legitimacy. When the clique disintegrated, in
the absence of the dictator who died in 1980, the threat turned into a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
Those borders, allegedly
"administrative," increasingly resembled the frontiers of covertly
rival nation-states, linked only by the authority of the departed
leader. Kosovo's competencies were hardly any different from those of
the federal republics. Albanian apparatchiks in Pristina ensured that
the shift was reflected in demography: in 1946 the Albanians made up
about 50 percent of the population of Kosovo, but by 1981 it was 77.5
percent. The corresponding percentage for Serbs had dropped to 15
percent. Thus, as the Albanian goal of an ethnically pure Kosovo almost
turned into a reality, that reality became increasingly unbearable for
those who could not pack up and leave.
(ruins of Devic monastery burned by Albanian Nazis SS Skenderbey division in WW2)
By
1969 Kosovo had a supreme court and the Albanian flag. Pristina had an
independent university focused on Tirana, which sent to Kosovo 240
university teachers, together with Albanian textbooks. Then came the
aggressive folklore: Albanian movies, TV and radio, sports and cultural
exchanges. With 8 percent of the Yugoslav population, Kosovo got 30
percent of the country's Federal Development Fund. The Kosovo
authorities sometimes used these funds to buy up land from Serbs and
give it to Albanians. The Serbs resented being forced to learn Albanian
and to attend schools with instruction in Albanian. They feared the
escalation of Albanian expectations, primarily among the burgeoning
ranks of the younger generation.
The demand for the creation of
a "Republic of Kosovo" - with the right to secession - was advanced in
1981, only a year after Tito's death. The attempt to hush up the
Albanian question, together with visible attempts to minimize the
problem of the forced emigration of the Kosovo Serbs, resulted in the
deep frustration of the whole Serbian nation. That frustration was
skillfully used by Slobodan Milosevic. In 1987 he uttered the famous
phrase to the Kosovo Serbs - "No one will beat you again" - but his aim in
the late 1980s was to renew the Party by using patriotic slogans, not
to revive the nation. This was the opposite to the rest of Eastern
Europe, where communism's demise by means of genuine nationalism was
under way.
Many Albanians responded to Milosevic's rise with
strikes and demonstrations. Their actions strengthened Milosevic's
position. The results were the limitation of autonomy, unrest and
police repression in Kosovo (1989). Serbia, thanks to Milosevic,
acquired the image of "the last bastion of communism in Europe" while
the Albanian separatist movement obtained the halo of Western-approved
victimhood in its supposed search for "democracy and human rights."
Democracy in Serbia was blocked by the unresolved national question.
The
secessionist movement of the Albanians in Kosovo, derived from the
logic of the Titoist order and based on ethnic intolerance, led to the
homogenization of the Serbs in Yugoslavia. It created Milosevic, the
neo-communist quasi-nationalist, and resulted in the homogenization of
the other Yugoslav nations. Due to the inability of the communist and
post-communist leaderships to place democratic principles above narrow
national interests, ethnic mobilization directly led to the civil war.
THE MASSACRE THAT NEVER WAS
In
1989 Kosovo's autonomy was not revoked but was downgraded - at the
federal level - to what it had been before 1974. Most Albanians refused
to accept Belgrade's reassertion of authority, however, and many were
fired from their state jobs. The resulting standoff - of boycott and the
creation of alternative institutions on the Albanian side and of
increasingly severe police repression on the Serbian side - continued for
most of the 1990s.
While after 1989 there was a tense stand off
in Kosovo, there was no warfare. That changed in early 1998, as the
result of the KLA's deliberate strategy to turn a political
confrontation into a military confrontation. Attacks directed against
Serbian police and officials, Serb civilians and insufficiently
militant Albanians were calculated to trigger a response by Serbian
forces. The growing cycle of violence led to the possibility of NATO
military involvement. NATO intervention was the KLA's real goal rather
than any realistic expectation of victory on the battlefield. Some
atrocities were committed in Kosovo, by Milosevic's forces as well as
the KLA, in the months before the bombing. The extent and specifics of
the reports that the media often treated as fact were open to question,
however. Then the "massacre" at Racak happened.
Let it be
recalled that in February 1994 the Bosnian Muslim government staged the
infamous "marketplace massacre" in Sarajevo, killing scores of its own
people. Ballistic, forensic and circumstantial evidence
notwithstanding, the U.S. government promptly blamed the Serbs for the
carnage. The U.N. on the ground knew the score, so did everybody else
involved in this sordid matter, but Washington used Markale as a
pretext for the first bombing raids against the Serbs.
(desecrated Serb tombs in 1980s, Kosovo)
The
prelude to NATO's war against Serbia in 1999 was yet another
stage-managed "massacre," in January 1999. This time the venue was the
village of Racak, in Kosovo. The principals were all Albanians: the
victims, the stage-managers, and the ultimate political benefactors.
The media went into a fit of rage over the discovery of 45 dead
Albanians there, allegedly "civilians butchered in cold blood" by the
Serbs. The head of the OSCE observer mission in Kosovo, American
"diplomat" William Walker, immediately asserted that the Serbs were to
blame. Belgrade's claim that the bodies were in fact KLA guerillas
fallen during the fight in the surrounding areas was scornfully
rejected as "Serbian propaganda." But according to
Le Monde (January 21, 1999), Walker and the Albanians "gave the version which does not give answer to many questions":
"Isn't
the massacre of Racak too perfect? . . . How the Serb police could
gather a group of men and quietly take them to the place of execution,
while they were constantly under the KLA fire? How the ditch at the
edge of Racak could escape the glance of the inhabitants, familiar of
the places, present before the night? And how come that the observers
present for more than two hours in this very small village failed to
see the ditch too? Why are there only a few cartridge cases around the
corpses, and little blood in this sunken lane where 23 people were
supposedly shot several times in the head? Weren't the bodies of the
Albanians killed in the combat by the Serb police, and joined together
in the ditch to create a scene of horror, in order to initiate the
predictable wrath of the public opinion?"
Part of the answer was
provided in 2003 by retired Swedish Brigadier General Bo Pellnas, who
was head of U.N. Military Observers (UNMO's) in Croatia, and - later - in
charge of a monitoring mission to Yugoslavia sponsored by the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). He claims
that the U.S. "fabricated evidence" against the Serbs both in Bosnia
and Kosovo. Writing in the leading Swedish daily
Aftonbladet,
he warned that his experiences in the Balkans make him weary of
American claims: "if the US were to present evidence of Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction, the countries of the Western world would have no
way to substantiate these reports due to the technical superiority of
the US."
The conclusive answer was given by Finnish pathologist
Helena Ranta who headed the forensic team the European Union sent to
Racak in January 1999 to investigate the alleged massacre. In an
interview with the Berliner Zeitung she criticized The Hague
Tribunal for not following up the evidence that there was heavy
fighting between Serb soldiers and the Albanian fighters during the
night of January 15-16, 1999 in the Racak-region. She said she knew
that at that time a number of KLA fighters were killed in Racak as well
as several Serb soldiers; it would be appropriate "to ask the tribunal
why they are not interested in that number." Ranta demanded that the
tribunal looks at the pictures taken several hours prior to the arrival
of OCSE-observers. They show that at least one of the bodies was moved
afterwards. She concluded that several governments "were interested in
a version of Racak that blamed only the Serb side, but I could not
provide that version."
SET-UP AT RAMBOUILLET
(nun
Hilaria in the 70s, defended her monastery from Albanian looters by
her hunting rifle. She'd shoot in the air to frighten the attackers.
upper photo Albanians blinded her ox. Kosovo Albanian police at that
time would do nothing to protect Serbs from everyday violence)
The meaning of The Massacre That Never Was
of January 1999 became clear at Rambouillet a month later. It was a
necessary massacre, a prelude to a premeditated war. The primary
justification for NATO attack against Yugoslavia was not the "human
tragedy" but its refusal to sign the Kosovo peace agreement put forward
by the United States and some of its allies at Rambouillet. President
Clinton claimed at that time that the Albanians "chose peace" by
eventually signing the agreement, even though "they did not get
everything they wanted." The Serbs, he claimed, refused to negotiate,
even though the deal left Kosovo as part of Yugoslavia.
Clinton
was taking his customary liberties with the truth. Few journalists and
fewer commentators had taken the time to look at the actual agreement.
The "peace plan" actually gave the Albanians what they wanted: de facto
independence immediately, with guaranteed de jure independence in three
years. For the Serbs, signing the Rambouillet agreement would actually
be signing away all Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo immediately. It was
not even a "take it or leave it" proposition, as Secretary of State
Albright said back in February 1999, but "sign it or get bombed." There
were, in fact, no negotiations at all, save those between the U.S. and
the KLA. No sovereign, independent and self-respecting state could have
signed the Rambouillet agreement, which - inter alia - postulated that:
- "Kosovo
will have a president, prime minister and government, an assembly, its
own Supreme Court, constitutional court and other courts and
prosecutors."
- "Kosovo
will have the authority to make laws not subject to revision by Serbia
or Yugoslavia, including levying taxes, instituting programs of
economic, scientific, technological, regional and social development,
conducting foreign relations in the same manner as a Republic."
- "Yugoslav
army forces will withdraw completely from Kosovo, except for a limited
border guard force (active only within a 5 km border zone)"; the same
was to apply to all Serb police forces.
- "The
parties invite NATO to deploy a military force (KFOR), which will be
authorized to use necessary force to ensure compliance with the
accords."
- "The
international community will ensure that these provisions are carried
out through a Civilian Implementation Mission appointed by NATO."
- The
Chief of the CIM may issue "binding directives to the Parties on all
matters he sees fit, including appointing and removing officials and
curtailing institutions."
- "Three
years after the implementation of the Accords, an international meeting
will be convened to determine a final settlement for Kosovo on the
basis of the will of the people."
So
much for the political stipulations of the "peace" deal. But the
Rambouillet accord had a remarkable military annex, too. That
annex - besides turning Kosovo into a NATO colony in every respect - would
have subjected all of Yugoslavia to its military occupation. It revived
the hated colonial concept of "extraterritoriality," under which the
colonizers were immune from the courts of the colonized country, even
if they committed rape or murder. Remarkably,
- "NATO
personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft,
and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access
throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial
waters. This shall include, but not be limited to, the right of
bivouac, maneuver, billet and utilization of any areas or facilities as
required for support, training, and operations."
- "NATO is granted the use
of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties,
dues, tolls, or charges occasioned by mere use."
- Yugoslavia
shall "grant all telecommunications services, including broadcast
services, needed for the Operation, as determined by NATO. This shall
include the right to utilize such means and services as required to
assure full ability to communicate and the right to use all of the
electromagnetic spectrum for this purpose, free of cost."
- "NATO
may . . . make improvements or modifications to certain infrastructure
in the FRY, such as roads, bridges, tunnels, buildings, and utility
systems."
- "NATO shall be immune from all legal process, whether civil, administrative, or criminal."
- "NATO
personnel shall be immune from any form of arrest, investigation, or
detention by the authorities in the FRY. NATO personnel, under all
circumstances and at all times, shall be immune from the Parties,
jurisdiction in respect of any civil, administrative, criminal or
disciplinary offenses which may be committed by them in the FRY."
The
arrival of NATO troops in Kosovo would have been, by itself, a
violation of Serbia's sovereignty. But this proposal demanded
unfettered NATO access to any and all parts of the FRY, with all costs
to be borne by it! This violated Yugoslavia's sovereignty in so
provocative a manner that it could not have been accidental. It is not
difficult to imagine a working group in Washington charged with the
task of thinking up the most intrusive and insulting clauses possible
to insert. Clearly, U.S. policymakers never intended the Serbs to sign
this document. It was meant to be unacceptable. The "Rambouillet Peace
Accord" was, in truth, a declaration of war disguised as a peace
agreement. Belgrade was ready to grant Albanians a wide autonomy,
including religious, education and health care systems, and local
government operations. But their negotiating efforts were summarily
dismissed and they were told they had only two choices: sign the
agreement as written, or face NATO bombing.
The war could have been easily avoided. As Le Monde Diplomatique
pointed out ("Behind the Rambouillet talks," May 1999), the Serbs had
accepted its main provisions. The only outstanding issue was the nature
of the force to be deployed in Kosovo. It was only when the United
States unilaterally introduced the provision of a three-year transition
to Kosovo's independence, and added the amazing military protocol, that
the Serbs had no choice but to refuse.
THE KLA: FROM "TERRORISTS" TO "PARTNERS"
(Kosovo
Liberation Army and its terrorist groups destroyed in the NATO and UN
presence since June 1999 112 Serbian Orthodox Chruches, many of them
dated from the Middle Ages, photo. Sv. Uros Monastery near Urosevac)
On
19 March 1999 the "Kosovo Liberation Army," previously dismissed as
terrorists, signed the "accords." The Serbs had been nicely stitched
up. By that time, after the U.S. Administration's decision to bomb had
turned Kosovo from a crisis into a disaster, Washington no longer had a
"Kosovo policy" - it only had a KLA policy. That group's true colors have
become all too apparent when it unleashed an orgy of anti-Serbs
violence in the aftermath of the Yugoslav Army's withdrawal in June
1999. The U.S. has promoted, as the legitimate representative of the
Kosovo Albanians, a terrorist group steeped in criminal
activities - particularly the drug trade - and with strong links with
radical Islamic groups.
The KLA made its military debut in
February 1996 with the bombing of several camps housing Serbian
refugees from wars in Croatia and Bosnia. The group expanded its
operations through 1996 but was given a major boost with the collapse
of neighboring Albania into chaos in 1997. This facilitated a huge
influx of arms into Kosovo from the areas of northern Albania no longer
controlled from Tirana. From its inception, the KLA has targeted not
only Serbian security forces but Serbian and Albanian civilians as
well. In view of such tactics, the Clinton Administration's
then-special envoy for Kosovo, Robert Gelbard, had little difficulty in
condemning the KLA (also known by its Albanian initials, UCK) in terms
comparable to those he used for Serbian police repression: "The
violence we have seen growing is incredibly dangerous," Gelbard said.
He condemned the actions of [the] Kosovo Liberation Army . . . "We
condemn very strongly terrorist actions in Kosovo. The UCK is, without
any questions, a terrorist group," Gelbard said.
In the ensuing
year the KLA's strategy was to escalate the level of violence to the
point where outside intervention would become inevitable, and it
worked. Given the military imbalance it is clear that the KLA had
always expected to achieve its goals less because of its own prospects
for military success than because of a hoped-for outside intervention.
As one KLA activists openly put it, "We hope that NATO will intervene,
like it did in Bosnia, to save us" (New York Times, June 22,
1998). At the time of Rambouillet, cultivating the goodwill of the KLA
became an imperative for the U.S. Administration.
In the months
leading up to the beginning of the Kosovo war the KLA escalated its
guerilla campaign. It constantly urged NATO to bomb the Serbs - even if
this meant that hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians might perish
or be driven from their homes once the war began in earnest. When KLA
officials were warned that NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia would
trigger retaliatory violence by Serb forces in Kosovo, one KLA leader
replied: "We don't care. Four hundred thousand Kosovars can be
sacrificed for our independence."
By the time the NATO air
strikes began, the Clinton administration's partnership with the KLA
was unambiguous. Its effusive embrace of an organization that only a
year ago its own officials labeled as "terrorist" was startling. Among
the most troubling aspects of the Clinton Administration's effective
alliance with the KLA are numerous reports from reputable unofficial
sources that the KLA is closely involved with the extensive Albanian
crime network throughout Europe and into North America. A major portion
of the KLA finances were derived from that network, mainly proceeds
from drug trafficking. In addition, it was connected to terrorist
organizations motivated by the ideology of radical Islam, including
assets of Iran and of the Osama bin Laden.
THE "KOSOVO GENOCIDE": A MODEL FOR IRAQ'S "WMD"?
"The
Kosovo Genocide" is now known to be one of the most outrageous lies of
the 1990's, on par with the "Bosnian Genocide" and "I did not have sex
with that woman." It was debunked even before the year of the war,
1999, was out; the details remain unknown in the United States, however.
The
setup at Rambouillet notwithstanding, the U.S. media-transmitted
justification for Clinton's war against the Serbs was the alleged
genocide against the Albanians. The administration subsequently went
out of its way to conceal the fact that to proof of any "genocide" was
found in situ in the aftermath of NATO's intervention and
occupation. Some Europeans let the cat out of the bag and questioned
the rationale of Clinton's policy as early as the second half of 1999
(unlike the Gray Lady and your local Gannett subsidiary who'd never do
any such thing). In September, only three months after NATO occupied
Kosovo, El Pais of Madrid published a report on the findings of
the Spanish police and forensic experts who had just returned from the
southern Serbian province. The first line of Pablo Ordaz's article sent
a clear message: "Crimes of war - yes; genocide - no."
Even next door in Canada mainstream outlets were allowed to voice doubt about the Clintonian version of events. For instance the Toronto Star
(November 3, 1999) carried Richard Gwyn's commentary "No genocide, no
justification for war on Kosovo" in which the author comprehensively
debunked repeated U.S./NATO claims, made during the bombing, that the
genocidal Serb forces had dumped some of the countless thousands of
slaughtered Albanian civilians into the Trepca mine by trucks under the
cover of darkness.
That mine story was very big for a while:
"Trepca - the name will live alongside those of Belsen, Auschwitz and
Treblinka," verily chortled the Daily Mirror of London. Giving it an aura of authenticity the New York Times
claimed at the time that the residents on the edge of the mine reported
an "unusual, pungent bittersweet smell, which they assumed to be
burning bodies." The corpses were supposedly thrown down the shafts, or
were disposed of entirely in the mine's huge vats of hydrochloric acid.
On October 12 1999, however, Kelly Moore - a spokeswoman for The Hague
War Crimes Tribunal - was compelled to admit that the investigators had
found "absolutely nothing" at Trepca. There were not 1,000 bodies down
the mine shafts, there were none at all; and the vats had never been
used to dispose of human remains.
The "humanitarian"
justification for the Kosovo war - the contention that this is about
returning Albanian refugees to their homes - was rank hypocrisy. The
Clinton administration was not bothered by ethnic cleansing: It had not
only turned a blind eye to the cleansing of hundreds of thousands of
Serbs from the Krajina, it had actively abetted the Croatian Army.
THE CLINTON DOCTRINE
In
his article "A Just and Necessary War" (NYT, May 23, 1999) President
Clinton elaborated on his "vision," arguing that, had it not bombed
Serbia, NATO itself would have been discredited for failing to defend the very values that give it meaning. The
war was in fact unjust and unnecessary, but the significance of
Clinton's statement is that the international system in existence ever
since the Peace of Westphalia (1648) was openly declared null and void.
It was an imperfect and often violated system, but nevertheless it
provided the basis for international discourse from which only the
assorted red and black totalitarians have openly, brazenly deviated.
Since 24 March 1999, this was replaced by the Clinton Doctrine, a
carbon copy of the Brezhnev doctrine of limited sovereignty that
supposedly justified the Soviet-led occupation of Czechoslovakia in
1968.
Like his Soviet predecessor, Clinton used an abstract and
ideologically loaded notion - that of universal "human rights" - as the
pretext to violate the law and tradition. The Clinton Doctrine was
rooted in the bipartisan hubris in Washington. Legal formalities are
considered passe by the neocons and Clintonites alike, and moral
imperatives - never sacrosanct in international affairs - are replaced by a
cynical exercise in situational morality, dependent on an actor's
position within the superpower's value system.
Humanitarian
argument has been invoked. But what about Kashmir, Sudan, Uganda,
Angola, Congo, Sierra Leone, Chiapas, Sri Lanka, Algeria . . . ?
Properly videotaped and Amanpourized, each would be good for a dozen
"Kosovos." Compared to the killing fields of the Third World, Kosovo
before the bombing was a brutal but unremarkable low-intensity
campaign, uglier than Northern Ireland ten years ago, but much less so
than Kurdistan. A total of 2,108 fatalities on all sides in Kosovo
until June 1999, in a province of over two million, favorably compares
to the annual homicide tally of 450 in Washington, D.C., (population
600,000). Bearing in mind the many brutalities, aggressions and "ethnic
cleansing" ignored by the Western alliance - or even condoned, notably in
Croatia, or in eastern Turkey - it is clear that "Kosovo" is not about
universal principles.
What was it about, then? "Regional
stability", we were told next: if we didn't stop it, it would engulf
Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, the whole of the Balkans in fact, with much
of Europe to follow. But the "cure" - bombing Serbia into effectively
detaching Kosovo to the KLA under NATO's benevolent eye - has engendered
new hotbeds of instability. Its first victim was the former Yugoslav
republic of Macedonia.
The demand for Serbia's submission that
had preceded the war was an act of self-betrayal by the West,
incompatible with the logic of a system of sovereign states which for
the past 350 years has formed the basis of Western politics and the
rule of law. The problem is that the notion of "human rights" can never
provide a basis for either the rule of law or morality. "Universal
human rights," detached from any rootedness in time or place, will be
open to the latest whim of outrage or the latest fad for victimhood.
PRO-ALBANIAN LOBBYISTS PRESSURE BUSH
By
2003 it looked as if the independence of Kosovo was a done deal, that
the combined pressure of Albanian-paid advocates and their media
cohorts would yield the ultimate divident. In Washington a dozen or so
KLA apologists and lobbyists parading as think-tanks experts started
simultaneously clamoring for Kosovo's independence, making identical or
similar statements in a ten-day period.
The pursuit of Kosovo's
independence from Serbia provided "the only prospect for long-term
stability in the Balkans" and should not be postponed, claimed Paul
Williams and Janusz Bugajski in a report ("Achieving a Final Status
Settlement for Kosovo") published by the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. Bugajski, until not too long previously a
lavishly-paid consultant for Milo Djukanovic's kleptocratic little
fiefdom in Montenegro, applied the same "analysis" vis-a-vis
Kosovo: "the only way" to achieve peace and stability was to cut
another slice from the depleted Serbian salami. Until and unless this
is done, Bugajski and his somewhat obscure co-author claimed, the
ethnic tensions in the region and political and economic stagnation in
the Balkans would continue. The authors argued that a "freely elected"
government in Kosovo would reduce the potential for social unrest and
promote the rule of law and pluralism.
Only days earlier, on May
21, the House of Representatives Committee on International Relations
held an open hearing ("The Future of Kosovo") and heard Daniel Serwer
of the United States Institute of Peace declare that the "specific
problems" of Kosovo included "failure of the Serbs to participate
consistently in the Kosovo Assembly and continuing Serb control in the
north." Almost simultaneously James Dobbins, director of the
International Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand
Corporation and a key advocate of the war against Serbia in the Clinton
administration, joined the chorus by saying that the unresolved nature
of Kosovo's status as potential independent state continues to be an
obstacle to reconciliation between the ethnic groups in the region: "I
always believed that the only result that would satisfy a majority of
the people is some form of independence." Charles A. Kupchan, director
of European studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, bewailed that
"the Balkans as a whole have slipped off the radar screen" and insisted
that the formal separation of Kosovo from Serbia would be a welcome
opportunity to put the region back on the map.
What some of
these people have in common is that they are supported, directly or
indirectly, by the billionaire self-styled "philantropist" and
speculator-extraordinaire George Soros, who even went to Belgrade (May
27, 2003) to tell the Serbs that it was in their interest to support
the independence of Kosovo. He said that Serbia could be put into the
"fast-lane to European integration" in exchange for Kosovo's
independence. Only days before his trip Soros wrote an article in
London's Financial Times (May 22) saying that Kosovo's
independence would be the logical end of Yugoslavia's disintegration
and that Macedonia in particular should be given some assurance that
Kosovo's independence does not herald any further fracturing of Balkan
states.
In Washington the consensus among political analysts,
including those who oppose any change in Kosovo's status, was that
these pro-Albanian lobbyists intended to package Kosovo's independence
in "realpolitical" terms in their pitch to the Bush administration:
that doing a big favor to a Muslim community - the Albanians - could be
subsequently presented as a counterweight to the post-Iraq slump of
America's standing in the Muslim world.
The precedent already
existed in Donald Rumsfeld's pointed invocation, during the war in
Afghanistan, of America's intereventions in Bosnia and Kosovo as the
conclusive proof that the United States is not a priori anti-Muslim.
The KLA's Washingtonian friends claimed that strip-mining Serbia cost
nothing - the heirs of Zoran Djindjic in Belgrade would do exactly as
told, whatever was demanded of them - and may yield rich rewards in
giving America leverage in appeasing enraged Muslim opinion around the
world.
WHY NOT INDEPENDENCE FOR KOSOVO?
If Kosovo
is granted independence, will the same model not be demanded by the
Hungarians in Rumania (more numerous than Kosovo's Albanians) and in
southern Slovakia? What will stop the Russians in the Ukraine (Crimea),
in Moldova, in Estonia, and in northern Kazakhstan from following suit?
What about the Turks in Thrace, and the chronically unstable and
unviable Dayton-Bosnia, to mention but some of the European dominos
that may fall in the wake of Kosovo's evolution under NATO? And
finally, will the same apply when the Mexicans in southern California,
New Mexico, Arizona, or Texas eventually outnumber their Anglo
neighbors and start demanding bilingual statehood, leading to
reunification with Mexico? Are Russia and China to threaten the United
States with bombing if Washington does not comply?
The Bush administration must not allow the spirit of Clinton to prevail and Kosovo to become independent for seven main reasons:
1.
It will reward mass ethnic cleansing and murder, carried out on a
massive scale by the Albanians ever since the beginning of the NATO
occupation four years ago;
2. It will condone the principle that
an ethnic minority's plurality in a given locale or region provides
grounds for that region's secession - a precedent that may yet come to
haunt America in the increasingly mono-ethnic and mono-lingual
Southwest;
3. It will terminally alienate the Serbs, whose
cooperation is crucial to making the Balkans finally stable and
peaceful, at a time when American energy, money and manpower is more
pressingly needed further east;
4. It will create an inherently
unstable polity that will be an even safer haven for assorted criminals
and Islamic extremists than it is today;
5. It will reignite the
war in neighboring Macedonia, where the current semblance of peace is
absolutely predicated upon the continuing status quo in Kosovo;
6.
It will contribute to further deterioration of relations with the
Europeans and Russians with no tangible benefit to the United States;
7.
It will commit itself to continuing the Clinton-Gore "nation-building
project" in Kosovo that culminated with the bombing of Serbia in
1999 - an illogical, immoral, and utterly untenable rearrangement of the
Balkan architecture which it would be in America's interest to reverse,
not ratify and make semi-permanent.
This
time the "realists" have ample arguments against Cilnton's model of the
new Balkan order that seeks to satisfy the aspirations of all ethnic
groups in former Yugoslavia - except the Serbs. Whatever is
imposed on them in this moment of weakness, the Serbs shall have no
stake in the ensuing order of things. Sooner or later they will fight
to recover Kosovo, whatever its "status." The Carthaginian peace
imposed on them today will cause chronic regional imbalance and strife
for decades to come. That is not in America's interest, and therefore
should not be condoned.
