[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Kosovo

>Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 16:20:40 -0500 (EST)
>X-Sender: pvoice@pop.web.net
>X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.2 (16)
>To: <pvoice@web.net>
>From: Communist Party of Canada <pvoice@web.net>
>
>Dear Comrades,
>
>Reprinted below is a very useful and informative letter/article written by
>Karen Talbot a long-time anti-imperialist peace activist in the U.S. She is
>a leading member of the International Center for Peace and Justice (ICPJ).
>Please make use of this material in your local work, wherever possible.
>
>Comradely,
>
>Miguel Figueroa,
>Central Executive Committee, CPC
>
>********************
>
>
>OPEN LETTER
>March 27, 1999
>By Karen Talbot
>
>	Stop the U.S./NATO Attack on Yugoslavia
>
>United States and NATO forces are waging an all-out war, through relentless
>brutal bombing, against the sovereign nation of Yugoslavia in flagrant
>violation of the UN Charter and international law, as well as of the U.S.
>Constitution.   We demand that the U.S. government and NATO stop this
>aggression now!
>
>Schools, hospitals, monasteries, churches, factories,  water supplies and
>utilities are being bombed. No city or town in Yugoslavia is being spared.
>There are untold civilian casualties. The beautiful capital city of
>Belgrade is in flames and fumes from a destroyed chemical plant are making
>it necessary to use gas masks. These are war crimes!
>
>Incredibly, President Clinton, seeks to justify this ferocious attack as
>"standing up to brutality and the killing of innocent people," in  Kosovo-
>Metohija, a province of the Republic of Serbia in Yugoslavia. 
>
>DANGERS OF A MUCH WIDER WAR
>
>This US/NATO attack could ignite a world war.
>World War I exploded from this region and it was critical to Hitler's
>eastward conquest in WWII.  For centuries the Serbs and other peoples of the
>Balkans have had the great misfortune of living on such coveted real estate
>where the tactics of divide and conquer-- balkanization–have been employed
>time and again by one empire after another.
>
>Hitler also delivered an ultimatum  to Yugoslavia, on  March 24th in 1941.
>He demanded the Yugsolavs sign his imposed pact or he  would bomb them.
>Yugoslavia resisted Hitler's dictat.  Belgrade was bombed.  But the stand by
>Yugoslavia diverted and delayed the German eastward march which helped
>decisively  in the final defeat of the Nazis. Today Belgrade is being bombed
>by NATO and for  the first time since WWII,  the German Luftwaffe is in
>action joining in this attack.
>
>The Russians regard the current  NATO onslaught as a threat to them.
>Responding to public outrage, the Russian Government severed relations with
>NATO and called for an emergency session of the UN Security Council. Prime
>Minister Primakov, who had been on his way to Washington, D.C., turned his
>plane around and returned to Moscow when the bombing started.  The Russians
>always opposed NATO military action over Kosovo. Boris Yeltsin called the
>attack "open aggression" and added that escalation of the conflict would,
>"give Russia the right to take adequate measures, including of a military
>character, to insure its own and general European security."  Subsequently,
>Russia and China voted for a Security Council  resolution  which demanded an
>immediate end to the NATO attacks and denounced them as a threat to
>international peace. The resolution was defeated.
>
>The NATO action, coupled with the U.S.  go-head for an anti-missile defense
>system –"Star Wars"–in violation of the ABM Treaty–puts in even greater
>jeopardy the ratification of the START agreement by Russia.  This can only
>make the nuclear powder keg more volatile.
>
>MAJORTIY OF U.S. PUBLIC OPPOSES BOMBING
>
>Public opinion polls in the U.S, last week,  showed
> a large majority–68 percent–did not favor bombing and
>half of the people opposed military occupation of Kosovo.  A CNN/Gallup/USA
>Today poll released March 25, indicated  divided public opinion with 46
>percent favoring and 43 percent opposing the nation's participation in the
>bombing. Initially, support for the troops tends to go up when combat
>begins.  That will likely erode if U.S. ground troops are sent, which is
>probable.
>
>This  dangerous  NATO bombing helps  spur demands by the Pentagon for more
>military spending draining more billions away from  feeding and educating
>children, building  schools, creating jobs and other social programs in the
>richest nation on earth.  One B-2 bomber alone costs a billion dollars.
>Taxpayers currently spend $261,000 for each of the 6,900 U.S. personnel
>stationed in Bosnia for a total of $1.8 billion annually. Military spending
>by the U.S.  during the Cold War alone–1948-1991– was well over 14 trillion
>dollars.  These are matters of great concern to the American people.
>
>THE PEACE TALKS
>
>Many question what kind of peace agreement was possible
>when Yugoslavia was given an  ultimatum to sign an accord  allowing 28, 000
>U.S./NATO occupation troops into Kosovo or be bombed.
>
>The negotiators and government leaders of the Republic of Serbia, in which
>Kosovo is located, and of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), keep
>reiterating their commitment to a negotiated  peace agreement that would 
>include autonomy for Kosovo, but they adamantly refuse military  occupation,
>which they maintain would not be necessary if a fair political settlement is
>reached.  
>
>In the Rambouillet peace talks,  the FRY delegation, made up of
>representatives of all ethnic groups including Albanians,  said from the
>beginning that they accepted the political  points originally presented by
>the U.S. and the "Contact Group" which included autonomy for Kosovo within
>Yugoslavia and respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of
>Yugoslavia. (The U.S. had insisted  it favors autonomy not independence or a
>"greater Albania.")  These political  points did not include NATO occupation
>of Kosovo to "enforce" the agreement, which the FRY strongly rejects.  (The
>demand for NATO military occupation had been presented  separately from
>these points). The failure of the separatists to sign on to the original
>political points  created a public relations problem for  U.S. officials
>who openly stated NATO could not bomb the FRY without that signature which
>would enable them to blame Milosevic for the failure of the talks.
>
>The "agreement" finally signed by the ethnic Albanian separatists had been
>greatly altered. It included new wording that would permit a referendum for
>independence of Kosovo in three years.  Unlike the original political
>points, it contained the provision for NATO occupation of Kosovo.  In
>approximately 50 added pages, the nature of that occupation is spelled out.
>It would give NATO  total control over the province with no regard to
>Yugoslav laws or sovereignty.   It never mentions by name the ethnic
>Albanian separatists nor any of their factions, but merely refers to them as
>"Other Forces."  The FRY delegation said this means they would be expected
>to sign an agreement basically yielding their  jurisdiction in Kosovo to
>NATO, and to do so with undefined "Other Forces."
>
>The altered pages contained no details for the disarming of the separatists
>which would be worked out by NATO after its troops were in place in Kosovo.
>However, the withdrawal and disarming of Yugoslav forces were spelled out in
>great detail and specificity.
>
>The FRY delegation and government rejected this "agreement." They said it
>had never even been discussed and that during all the days of the talks they
>had never been  allowed to sit down at the table with the representatives of
>the ethnic Albanian separatists.  They insisted, in reality, there were no
>negotiations.
>
>The fact that  President  Milosevic refused to sign  this "agreement" became
>the justification for the massive U.S./NATO.  attack. The loud and clear
>message  the Pentagon is delivering in Yugoslavia is that no nation dares to
>stand up for itself against the U.S.!
>
>"HUMANITARIAN CONCERNS"
>
>We should recall the history of German fascism.
>Hitler stirred up and used the cause of "persecuted Germans" seeking
>independence  in the Sudetenland,  greatly assisted by the Munich betrayal,
>to launch his blitzkrieg against Czechoslovakia opening WWII.
>
>President Clinton's stated as justification for the bombing of Yugoslavia:
>"Our objective is clear: to stop the killing and achieve a durable peace
>that restores Kosovars to self government."
>
>WHAT ABOUT THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF THE KRAJINA SERBS?
>
>The Clinton administration's "humanitarian concerns" for the ethnic
Albanians 
>of Kosovo starkly conflicts  with reports in the New York Times and San
>Francisco
>Chronicle, March 21, about U.S. support for Croatian military forces which
>attacked ethnic Serb minorities in Croatia during the Bosnian War. The
>reports characterized the forced expulsion of over 100,000 Serbs from
>Krajina, (Croatia),   from where they had lived for centuries, and the
>killing of many in the process, as "the largest ethnic cleansing" (actually
>it was at least 250,000 thousand Krajina Serbs).  It was reported that the
>Croatian forces had been trained by Military Resources, a private U.S.
>consulting firm known as the world's largest employer of retired U.S.
>military officers.  The article also described the shelling of civilian
>population centers like Knin. 
>
>Most Krajina Serbs had lost many family members  slaughtered by the Croatian
>Ustashis during WWII in one of the worst death camps where nearly one
>millions Serbs, Jews and others were killed.  Now again they were attacked
>and ethnically cleansed by Croatian forces under the leadership of U.S.
>ally,  Franco Tudjman, who openly adopts the mantle of the Ustashis. The
>Tudjman regime also freed a commander of that Camp Jasenovac, Nada Sakic,
>who killed thousands of children.  Her husband Dinko Sakic now faces trial
>and likely will be released, too.
>
>These horrific facts, finally seeing the light of day, reveal an  incredible
>hypocrisy: "The U.S.  supported  Croatian ethnic cleansing in Croatia and
>yet is unleashing  a major military assault against a sovereign nation
>because of alleged ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo?  
>
>
>It would be difficult to cite one instance where the U.S. government has
>come down on the side of a genuine  liberation movement anywhere in the
>world.  Remember  the Palestinians, the Kurds in Turkey, the East Timorese,
>or  Native Americans?  Remember Nicaragua, El Salvador, Vietnam,  Chiapas,
>the Philippines, Guatemala, Haiti, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola,
>and so forth?  Is the U.S.  threatening to bomb on behalf of the millions
>who  continue to die in terrible conflicts in Afghanistan, Angola, the
>Congo, Rwanda, Columbia, Sierre Leone or elsewhere?  More tens of thousands
>have been killed in  Algeria,  in the Ethiopian-Eritrean war, and in Sri
>Lanka. Is it not true that the U.S. administration and the School-of- the
>-Americas- trained assassins actually have been  responsible for backing the
>contras and using proxy forces against liberation struggles and nations
>striving to throw off the yoke of neo-colonialism?
>
>What about taking drastic action to save the millions of children who die
>from preventable diseases around the world, the 800 million who go to bed
>hungry, and the 1.3 billion people living on less than $1 dollar a day due
>in great part to the policies of the World Bank,  IMF and transnational
>corporations?
>
>If there is such "humanitarian concern" for the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo,
>what about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis including close to a million
>children who have died from U.S.- initiated sanctions?  What about the
>suffering of Cubans who have endured decades of sanctions?  Where was the
>humanitarian compassion of Secretary of State Madeline Albright when she
>said of the deaths of half a million children in Iraq,  "the price is worth
>it."  (60 Minutes"(May 12, 1996).
>
>REAL REASON FOR BOMBING
>
>NATO expansion/U.S. military dominance key to
>corporate globalization- The goal is to balkanize the Balkans–to create
>small, bite-sized banana republic type-countries.  As the Washington Post
>said,  (2/15/99) the intent is "...turning the former Yugoslavia into a
>series of protectorates, one province at a time." That way these fragments
>can be added to the array of neocolonies around the world. Already four
>republics–Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Macedonia have been peeled away from
>Yugoslavia leaving only Serbia and Montenegro.  The aim is to fragment the
>remaining area as well, starting with Kosovo, probably followed by Sanjak,
>Montenegro, and the area of Voivoidina in Northern Serbia.
>
>The strategy behind all of this  is to clear the way for ensconcing NATO
>firmly in the Balkans under the leadership of the U.S.
>military-industrial-corporate elite.  This is key to its eastward and
>ultimate global expansion and its goals of maintaining full  military
>dominance in the world.
>
>Washington speaks of a "new strategic concept", an expensive and perilous
>program to have NATO under U.S. leadership , become the key player globally.
>This new blueprint not only sees NATO extending throughout Eastern and
>Baltic Europe, possibly taking in Russia itself, it goes considerably beyond
>this.  Zbigniew  Brzezinski in his book ("The Grand Chessboard") defines the
>alliance as part of an integrated, comprehensive and long-term geostrategy
>for all of Eurasia, in which NATO would eventually reach Asia, where another
>U.S. led military alliance would connect Pacific and Southeast Asian states.
>
>IT'S ALSO ABOUT OIL
>
>The Balkans are strategic for the transhipment to Europe
>of the riches of the Caspian Sea, and beyond–especially oil.  The Danube
>River, running through Belgrade is a waterway crossing Europe from the Black
>Sea. Kosovo is in a corridor used even  by the Crusaders to reach the Middle
>East.  The Balkans link the Black and Adriatic Seas. 
>
>The attack on Yugoslavia is related to the drive for super profits and to
>extend and protect the investments of the transnational corporations in the
>Caspian sea region, and around the world. 
>
>This region of Eastern Europe is abundant with highly skilled and educated
>labor potentially available for cheap sweatshop wages. Then too, there are
>many public enterprises to be privatized and grabbed up at garage store
>prices.  As we have seen in Bosnia, one of the three main purposes in the
>implementation by the NATO forces of the Dayton Accord is to oversee the
>privatization of public companies.
>
>A glittering prize in Kosovo is one of the world's largest mining complexes,
>Stari Trg. It was coveted and exploited by  Hitler who made use of these
>mines to help fuel his war machine.  Also up for grabs in Kosovo alone are
>textile and metallurgy industries and a coal-fired power plant.
>
>The Yugoslav economy had been virtually decimated by the imposition of  IMF
>and World Bank austerity policies   followed by the cut off of credits by
>the U.S. and later,  economic sanctions which continue to the present,
>making it soft for the pickings.  It provided fertile ground for unrest, and
>for  the strife and conflict that have led up to NATO bombings and
>occupation of Bosnia.
>
>So the campaign for expanding NATO and U.S. military power globally is
>directly connected with, and essential to,  economic globalization.  Bosnia,
>and now Kosovo,  are the test cases for this new military strategy.
>
>NATO is observing its 50th birthday early in April and it wants to celebrate
>its new global mission: to intervene anywhere in the world, including
>against sovereign nations, on "humanitarian" grounds.  All that is needed is
>a successful template developed in Kosovo and Bosnia.  In other words,  arm
>a group of secessionists to shoot policemen and others. Then  when the
>government retaliates, raise the specter of "ethnic cleansing," promise the
>insurrectionists that NATO will bomb on their behalf if the fighting goes
>on-- and then do so if there is not sufficient capitulation by the
government. 
>
>According to Jean-Christophe Rufin, former vice president of "Doctors
>Without Borders," writing in Le Monde, said  the call for intervention on
>humanitarian missions has raised suspicions in the Third World that "the
>humanitarians could be the Trojan horse of the new armed imperialism."
>
>Hovering  like giant shadows in the background of the strife in Kosovo  are
>Germany and the U.S. Though they cooperate on the surface, there is fierce
>competition over division of the spoils in the Balkans.  The recent trade
>war between the U.S. and Europe, sparked over the banana trade, is a vivid
>reminder of the rivalry among big industrial and imperialist powers which
>led to World War I and was a major factor in WWII.
>
>Directly related to this is the determination by the Pentagon that it will
>not tolerate any military competition by a European military force–which is
>being contemplated by the European Union.
>
>This rivalry was a significant factor during the recent Rambouillet
>negotiations.  Did Clinton move to bomb Yugoslavia  with such haste even
>before winning sufficient approval in the U.S., to out-maneuver this
>competition?
>
>WHAT ABOUT THE KLA?
>
>In order to justify military intervention, there have
>often been Gulf of Tonkin-type incidents and atrocities such as the alleged
>unplugging of Kuwaiti baby incubators by the Iraqis, the bread-line massacre
>of civilians and the Markale Market massacre in Sarajevo, all subsequently
>proven to be deliberate provocations or totally untrue.  The descriptions of
>the  more recent Racak massacre in Kosovo appearing in various  European
>newspapers, including Le Monde and Le Figaro, lead one to the conclusion
>that it too was staged to help win NATO action. Even the Washington Post
>(9/30/98) stated that several such alleged massacres in Kosovo were tied to
>the KLA.
>
>Yet, genocidal massacres of whole villages such as in Guatemala or Chiapas,
>never evoked calls for military action by the U.S.  Government.  In fact,
>the policy was to establish, support and to train the paramilitary forces
>who carried out the atrocities. Or what about the slaughter of people in the
>lake region of central Africa, Angola and elsewhere? Where was the
>"humanitarian concern"?   Did the U.S. ever threaten to bomb the apartheid
>regime of South Africa?
>
>Media accounts keep up a steady drumbeat of demonization of the Serbs. Grist
>for the mill were things like  the newspaper photo of Muslims in a
>"concentration camp"used to justify the NATO bombing of the Serbs in Bosnia
>, later proven to be a fake; phony photos appearing almost daily in the
>press including of scenes depicting grieving "Kosovar" Muslims in black
>(though Muslims don't mourn in black); Albanian mourners in a graveyard
>where the background is full of Serbian Orthodox crosses, and so it goes in
>the ignominious manner of Goebbel's "big lie.".
>
>Croatian officers admitted that in 1993 they themselves staged a "Serbian
>bombing" of the Croatian city of Sibenik for the benefit of TV crews.  The
>former Commander of the 113th Croatian brigade, Dave Skugor, said:"Why so
>much fuss? There is no city in Croatia in which such tactical tricks were
>not used..they are...part of strategic planning..."
>
>The New York Times, (6/ 6, 1998) reported that most of the KLA forces
>entering Kosovo were born in Germany.  All the funds for this army come from
>abroad, primarily from the U.S., encouraged by the U.S.  State Department.
>(Washington Post, 5/26/98) From every indication,  the KLA  is yet another
>proxy army like the Contras, the MPLA in Angola, and so forth. The ethnic
>Albanian separatists, as with the Contras in Nicaragua, Guatemala or El
>Salvador,  are neo-fascist in their politics and terrorist in their tactics.
>They not only kill Serbs but also  Albanians or anyone  who does not agree
>with them. Albanians have been murdered by these terrorists for daring to
>send their children to the Public Schools, which are run entirely in the
>Albanian language.
>
>The KLA raises much of its money from drug running and other criminal
>activities–a fact that has been documented in several newspaper articles
>including a story by Jeffrey Fleishman in the Philadelphia Inquirer, (March
>15, 1999) entitled "Italy battling a new wave of criminals— Albanians
>Refugees are cutting into the Mafia turf."  The article points out that
>"ethnic Albanian crime families (in Kosovo) were ...looking to widen their
>drug, prostitution and weapons–smuggling rings....their criminal endeavors,"
>according to Italian police, "intersect  with the KLA."
>
>The story said that "Turkish [drug] trafficking groups are using Albanians
>..and elements of criminal groups from Kosovo to sell and distribute their
>heroin...  These Kosovars are financing their war through drug trafficking
>activities, weapons trafficking and the trafficking of other illegal
>goods...as well as contributions of their countrymen working abroad."
>
>Sweden is investigating suspicions of a KLA drug connection , according to
>the Swedish police intelligence service.   An intelligence report which was
>prepared by German's Federal Criminal Agency concluded: "Ethnic Albanians
>are now the most prominent group in the distribution of heroin in Western
>consumer countries. 
>
>The New York Times, back in July 12, 1982, described how the ethnic
>Albanians were harassing, killing and pushing out Serbs in Kosovo. The
>article said the Albanians "have a two-point platform–first to establish
>what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic [in Kosovo] and then
>merger with Albania..." Recently a KLA supporter in New York was quoted in
>the NY Times as saying that they are trying to "get rid of the Serbs."
>
>In the history of Albanian collaboration with the Nazis, one sees the same
>goals and tactics as the present day imitators in the KLA.   From 1941 until
>1943, during the fascist Italian occupation of Albania and Kosovo, the Balli
>Kometar or "Ballistas" were operating in Kosovo and were terrorizing the
>Serbs with massacres, torture, deportations and rapes.  Later the German
>Nazis took over Albania.  The main focus of the Ballistas and SS men was the
>Drenica region–the heaviest recruitment location of today's KLA which share
>the same goals (a Serb-free Kosovo) and the same tactics as their Nazi
>predecessors.  They have been using the racist movement they established in
>Kosovo, creating chaos so that NATO planes and troops could move into the
area.
>
>All during the period and since WWII, Kosovo had autonomy.  Albanian was,
>and still is, spoken in the schools, for example.  The central government of
>Yugoslavia poured in extra funds to Kosovo for social programs and
>infrastructure because it was the poorest region of the country and the aim
>was to create the best conditions, for people who had been fighting each
>other, to live together in harmony.  Yet efforts continued  by these same
>rightwing forces  mentioned above, to push out the Serbs. It was quite
>effective.
>
>THE RESPONSE OF THE PEACE MOVEMENT
>
>Demonstrations against the U.S/NATO bombing , involving tens of thousands,
>have erupted in many cities across the U.S.-- in New York, Washington, D.C.,
>San Francisco, Sacramento, Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston and elsewhere.  They
>are growing in size with
>each passing day. 
>
>Public outrage in country after country has led to huge mass demonstrations
>in Paris, Vienna, Athens, Macedonia, Cyprus, Russia, London, Toronto,
>Vancouver and Zurich, and Australia, among others.  Protestors are demanding
>NATO stop the bombing and get  out of the Balkans. Many members of the
>British Parliament, are speaking out against the NATO attack. Alex Falconer,
>a member of the European Parliament from the British Labor Party,  said on
>March 17, that NATO's air strikes would be "an international war crime."
>
>Peace organizations in the U.S. and internationally have taken a strong
>stand against the expansion of NATO, against NATO's possession of nuclear
>weapons and  its refusal to renounce a nuclear first strike.  This
>aggression by a nuclear-armed NATO can only be viewed  as disquieting and
>ominous. 
>
>THIRD WORLD FEARS SIMILAR ATTACKS
>
>In Third World countries  there is a
>perception that this massive U.S. military power might be used against their
>nations by creating ethnic strife and then moving in militarily on the
>excuse of "humanitarian concerns." Leaders of these nations are criticizing
>the bombing as a violation o f the UN Charter.
>
>The U.S./NATO attack on Yugoslavia marks a qualitatively new and dangerous
>turning point for humankind and for world peace.  As never before,  resolute
>action  in unity and coalition, is essential  to stop the bombing, to get
>NATO out of the Balkan and to bring real peace with justice.
>
>	*   *   *   *   *
>For more information and documentation contact:
>International Center for Peace and Justice (ICPJ)–415-759-5497, icpj@igc.org
>
>****************************
>
>	Communist Party of Canada
>	290A Danforth Ave.,
>	Toronto, Ont. CANADA  M4K 1N6
>	tel: 416-469-2446
>	fax: 416-469-4063
>	e-mail: <pvoice@web.net>
>	website: http://www.communist-party.ca
>
>

-
This is the OPIRG-events@ox.org list. Announcement only please.
To unsubscribe, send email to opirg-events-request@ox.org, and put
"unsubscribe" in the body.
Follow-Ups: