Welcome to Kosovo! The World's Newest Narco State

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8182

CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON GLOBALIZATION (CANADA)

Welcome to Kosovo! The World's Newest Narco State
by Tom Burghardt

Global Research, February 29, 2008
Antifascist-calling.blogspot.com - 2008-02-23

The unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim
Thaci, former warlord/commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), heralds
the birth of a new European narco state.

The illegal dismemberment of Serbia, completing the U.S./EU/NATO destruction
of Yugoslavia, is proclaimed by ruling elites and their sycophants as an
exemplary means to bring "peace and stability" to the region. This
provocative move, outside the framework of international law, threatens any
sovereign state with similar treatment should they deviate from the
"Washington consensus."

Far from bringing "peace" let alone "stability," an "independent" Kosovo
will serve as a militarized outpost for Western capitalist powers intent on
spreading their tentacles East, further encircling Russia by penetrating the
former spheres of influence of the Soviet Union.

Led by dodgy characters and war criminals such as Hashim Thaci and Agim
Ceku, "independent" Kosovo is a gangster state governed by thugs with ties
to Albanian drug trafficking syndicates and al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda, the KLA and Western Intelligence

Al-Qaeda's service to the CIA and other Western intelligence services is
well-documented. Beginning in 1998 and perhaps earlier, the London-based
cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, the "emir" of the al-Qaeda-linked
Islamist group al-Muhajiroun began a recruitment drive for aspiring
mujahideen for the "holy war" in Kosovo at London's notorious Finsbury Park
Mosque.

On Friday, March 13, 1998 a London rally for the jihad was backed by some 50
local Islamist organizations. According to Christopher Deliso,

...the Albanian Islamic Society of London, headed by Kosovar Sheik
Muhammed Stubla, was lobbying and raising money for the KLA's campaign. ...
In contradiction to the KLA leadership's claims about secularism, the
Kosovar sheik specifically defined the militant group as "an Albanian
Islamic organisation which is determined to defend itself, its people, its
homeland, and its religion with all its capabilities and by all means." ...
The chief bank account for fundraising was in the London branch of
terrorist-linked Habibsons Bank of Pakistan. (The Coming Balkan Caliphate,
Westport: Praeger Security International, 2007, p. 43)

In 2005, in the wake of the July 7, 2005 terrorist attacks in London, it was
revealed that Bakri, a probable asset of Britain's MI6, was the "spiritual"
force behind the deadly attacks.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed reports that,

The reluctance to take decisive action against the leadership of the
extremist network in the UK has a long history. According to John Loftus, a
former Justice Department prosecutor, Omar Bakri and Abu Hamza, as well as
the suspected mastermind of the London bombings Haroon Aswat, were all
recruited by MI6 in the mid-1990s to draft up British Muslims to fight in
Kosovo. American and French security sources corroborate the revelation. The
MI6 connection raises questions about Bakri's relationship with British
authorities today. Exiled to Lebanon and outside British jurisdiction, he is
effectively immune to prosecution. ("Sources: August terror plot is a
'fiction' underscoring police failures," The Raw Story, Monday, September
18, 2006)

Before fleeing, Bakri defended the actions of his young dupes by
proclaiming, "We don't make a distinction between civilians and
non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and
unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no
sanctity."

The current "secular" Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, when he served as KLA
warlord was identified in media reports as having operational links to the
al-Qaeda network. Such reports are not surprising when one considers that
for earlier U.S./NATO "service" in Bosnia, bin Laden himself was rewarded a
Bosnian passport by the "democratic" government of former Nazi and Islamist
ideologue, Alija Izetbegovic.

As the Afghan-Arab database of disposable intelligence assets streamed into
Kosovo, often from Albania with the active assistance of narcotrafficking
gangsters under NATO supervision, they replenished the ranks of Thaci's
terrorist army.

Michel Chossudovsky writes,

Mercenaries financed by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had been fighting in
Bosnia. And the Bosnian pattern was replicated in Kosovo: Mujahadeen
mercenaries from various Islamic countries are reported to be fighting
alongside the KLA in Kosovo. German, Turkish and Afghan instructors were
reported to be training the KLA in guerrilla and diversion tactics. ...
According to a Deutsche Press-Agentur report, financial support from Islamic
countries to the KLA had been channelled through the former Albanian chief
of the National Information Service (NIS), Bashkim Gazidede. "Gazidede,
reportedly a devout Moslem who fled Albania in March of last year [1997], is
presently [1998] being investigated for his contacts with Islamic terrorist
organizations." ("Kosovo 'freedom fighters' financed by organised crime,"
World Socialist Web Site, 10 April 1999)

These links are hardly casual. On the contrary, as Peter Dale Scott avers,

The closeness of the KLA to al-Qaeda was acknowledged again in the Western
press, after Afghan-connected KLA guerrillas proceeded in 2001 to conduct
guerrilla warfare in Macedonia. Press accounts included an Interpol report
containing the allegation that one of bin Laden's senior lieutenants was the
commander of an elite KLA unit operating in Kosovo in 1999. This was
probably Mohammed al-Zawahiri. (The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the
Future of America, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, p. 169)

Agim Ceku another "Prime Minister," committed massive war crimes in the
Croatian region of Krajina when employed by the Croatian army as a brigadier
general. As a key planner of Operation Storm, Ceku's forces massacred Serbs
and presided over the largest ethnic cleansing during NATO's Yugoslavian
destabilization campaign. Some 250,000 Serbs fled for their lives as Ceku's
black-uniformed shock troops, many adorned with symbols of the Nazi Ustasha
puppet regime during World War II were driven from Croatia.

According to Gregory Elich,

The invasion of Krajina was preceded by a thorough CIA and DIA analysis of
the region. According to Balkan specialist Ivo Banac, this "tactical and
intelligence support" was furnished to the Croatian Army at the beginning of
its offensive. ... Two months earlier, the Pentagon contracted Military
Professional Resources, Inc (MPRI) to train the Croatian military. According
to a Croatian officer, MPRI advisors "lecture us on tactics and big war
operations on the level of brigades, which is why we needed them for
Operation Storm when we took the Krajina." Croatian sources claim that U.S.
satellite intelligence was furnished to the Croatian military. Following the
invasion of Krajina, the U.S. rewarded Croatia with an agreement "broadening
existing cooperation" between MPRI and the Croatian military. U.S. advisors
assisted in the reorganization of the Croatian Army. Referring to this
reorganization in an interview with the newspaper Vecernji List, Croatian
General Tihomir Blaskic said, "We are building the foundations of our
organization on the traditions of the Croatian home guard" -- pro-Nazi
troops in World War II. ("The Invasion of Serbian Krajina," Emperors
Clothes, no date)

Following on the heels of this sterling "victory," Ceku became KLA commander
in 1999 and "Prime Minister" in 2006. There is an outstanding Interpol
warrant for his arrest according to Michel Chossudovsky.

The KLA: "Trained-up fierce" by Germany's KSK

As in Bosnia Herzegovina and Croatia, the Kosovo Liberation Army was
secretly armed by America and Germany and remains what it has always been, a
creature of Western intelligence services.

Christopher Deliso observes,

In 1996, Germany's BND established a major station in Tirana...and another
in Rome to select and train future KLA fighters. According to Le Monde
Diplomatique, "special forces in Berlin provided the operational training
and supplied arms and transmission equipment from ex-East German Stasi
stocks as well as Black uniforms." The Italian headquarters recruited
Albanian immigrants passing through ports such as Brindisi and Trieste,
while German military intelligence, the Militaramschirmdienst, and the
Kommando Spezialkräfte Special Forces (KSK), offered military training and
provisions to the KLA in the remote Mirdita Mountains of northern Albania
controlled by the deposed president, Sali Berisha.

In 1996, BND Chief Geiger's deputy, Rainer Kesselring, the son of the Nazi
Luftwaffe general responsible for the bombing of Belgrade in 1941 that left
17,000 dead, oversaw KSK training of Albanian recruits at a Turkish military
base near Izmir. (The Coming Balkan Caliphate, Westport: Praeger Security
International, 2007, pp. 37-38)

Hypocritically, while Washington had officially designated the KLA a
"terrorist organization" funded by the heroin trade, the Clinton
administration was complicit with their German allies in the division of the
Serb province along ethnic and religious lines.

By 1998, the KLA took control of between 25 to 40 percent of the province
before Serb forces wrested the KLA-held areas back. Facing imminent defeat,
the Kosovo Liberation Army and allied mujahideen fighters appealed to
Washington, citing the imminent danger of "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs.
Laughable on the face of it, Albanians constitute fully 90 percent of
Kosovo's population, and in fact, it was the Serbs, Roma and Jews who were
being brutalized by KLA hit squads, their homes torched, their churches and
synagogues sacked. It was the dismantling of the KLA's terrorist
infrastructure by the Yugoslav People's Army that was the trigger that
prompted direct military intervention by NATO in 1999.

As in Iraq, the 78 day U.S. bombing campaign targeted critical civilian
infrastructure in Serbia: bridges, factories, power plants, electrical
transmission hubs, communications centers. Throughout Serbia and Kosovo
itself, the U.S. scattered tons of radioactive depleted uranium munitions
and tens of thousands of cluster bombs. The U.S. attack, ostensibly to
"protect" Kosovo's population from Serb depredations caused some 800,000
civilians to flee NATO's devastating raids.

For Washington, drunk on the illusion that its policies had hastened the
collapse of a bureaucratized and rotten Soviet system, the dismemberment of
Yugoslavia would again represent the triumph of the so-called "free market"
and "democracy" under the umbrella of a new international order administered
by World Bank/IMF "reforms": Francis Fukuyama's short-lived "end of
history." While on the opposite pole of the same ideological dead end,
political Islam's tactical alliance with the West was a means to establish a
bridgehead for penetration into Europe via dodgy Saudi, Kuwaiti and Gulf
"charities" in pursuit of their quixotic quest of establishing a "divine"
(Islamicized) capitalist order rising from the ashes of a decadent West.

Two heads, same poisonous snake.

The KLA's Links to the International Heroin Trade

In Kosovo, Hashim Thaci's KLA served as the militarized vanguard for the
Albanian mafia whose "15 Families" control virtually every facet of the
Balkan heroin trade. Kosovar traffickers ship heroin originating exclusively
from Asia's Golden Crescent. At one end lies Afghanistan where poppy is
harvested for transshipment through Iran and Turkey; as morphine base it is
then refined into "product" for worldwide consumption. From there it passes
into the hands of the Albanian syndicates who control the Balkan Route.

As the San Francisco Chronicle reported,

Until the war intervened, Kosovars were the acknowledged masters of the
trade, credited with shoving aside the Turkish gangs that had long dominated
narcotics trafficking along the Balkan Route, and effectively directing the
ethnic Albanian network.

Kosovar bosses "orchestrated the traffic, regulated the rate and set the
prices," according to journalist Leonardo Coen, who covers racketeering and
organized crime in the Balkans for the Italian daily La Repubblica.

"The Kosovars had a 10-year head start on their cousins across the border,
simply because their Yugoslav passports allowed them to travel earlier and
much more widely than someone from communist Albania," said Michel
Koutouzis, a senior researcher at Geopolitical Drug Watch who is regarded as
Europe's leading expert on the Balkan Route.

"That allowed them to establish very efficient overseas networks through
the worldwide Albanian diaspora -- and in the process, to forge ties with
other underworld groups involved in the heroin trade, such as Chinese triads
in Vancouver and Vietnamese in Australia," Koutouzis told The Chronicle.
(Frank Viviano, "KLA Linked to Enormous Heroin Trade," Wednesday, May 5,
1999, Page A-1)

It is hardly an accident that the meteoric rise of the Kosovar families to
the top of the narcotrafficking hierarchy coincided with the KLA's sudden
appearance in the area in 1997.

As Peter Klebnikov observed,

As the war in Kosovo heated up, the drug traffickers began supplying the
KLA with weapons procured from Eastern European and Italian crime groups in
exchange for heroin. The 15 Families also lent their private armies to fight
alongside the KLA. Clad in new Swiss uniforms and equipped with modern
weaponry, these troops stood out among the ragtag irregulars of the KLA. In
all, this was a formidable aid package. It's therefore not surprising, say
European law enforcement officials, that the faction that ultimately seized
power in Kosovo -- the KLA under Hashim Thaci -- was the group that
maintained the closest links to traffickers. "As the biggest contributors,
the drug traffickers may have gotten the most influence in running the
country," says Koutouzis. ("Heroin Heroes," Mother Jones, January/February
2000)

As is well-known, U.S. destabilization programs and covert operations rely
on far-right provocateurs and drug lords (often interchangeable players) to
facilitate the dirty work. Throughout its Balkan operations the CIA made
liberal use of these preexisting narcotics networks to arm the KLA and
provide them with targets.

The rest is history, as they say.

Kosovo Today

Has anything changed in the intervening years? Hardly. In fact, the
vise-like grip of the Albanian mafia over narcotics, human trafficking and
arms smuggling has cemented the "15 Families" place atop Europe's hierarchy
of crime, an essential arm of the capitalist deep state.

Considering NATO and the UN's lofty mandate to bring "peace and stability"
to the region through "democracy promotion" and "institution building," what
does the balance sheet reveal?

According to regional experts the outlook for Kosovo is grim. The economy is
in shambles, unemployment hovers near 50 percent, a population of young
people with "criminality as the sole career choice" populate a society
tottering on the brink of collapse where the state is dominated by organized
crime.

According to former New York Times reporter David Binder, citing a 124-page
investigation by the Institute for European Policy commissioned by the
German Bundeswehr,

"It is a Mafia society" based on "capture of the state" by criminal
elements. ("State capture" is a term coined in 2000 by a group of World Bank
analysts to describe countries where government structures have been seized
by corrupt financial oligarchies. This study applied the term to
Montenegro's Milo Djukanovic, by way of his cigarette smuggling and to
Slovenia, with the arms smuggling conducted by Janez Jansa). In Kosovo, it
says, "There is a need for thorough change of the elite."

Fat chance that happening anytime soon! Binder reports:

In the authors' definition, Kosovan organized crime "consists of
multimillion-Euro organizations with guerrilla experience and espionage
expertise." They quote a German intelligence service report of "closest ties
between leading political decision makers and the dominant criminal class"
and name Ramush Haradinaj, Hashim Thaci and Xhavit Haliti as compromised
leaders who are "internally protected by parliamentary immunity and abroad
by international law." They scornfully quote the UNMIK chief from 2004-2006,
Soeren Jessen Petersen, calling Haradinaj "a close and personal friend."
UNMIK, they add "is in many respects an element of the local problem scene."

The study sharply criticizes the United States for "abetting the escape of
criminals" in Kosovo as well as "preventing European investigators from
working." This has made Americans "vulnerable to blackmail." It notes
"secret CIA detention centers" at Camp Bondsteel and assails American
military training for Kosovo (Albanian) police by Dyncorp, authorized by the
Pentagon. ("Kosovo Auf Deutsch," Balkan Analysis, November 18, 2007)
As we can readily observe in other climes, the interpenetration of the state
by criminal elites serve as the preferred mechanism to cement a
"public-private partnership" founded on corruption, maintained by brute
force solely for purposes of resource extraction, pipeline politics,
military bases and the geopolitical advantage gained over "market" rivals.

As the U.S. Embassy burns in Belgrade, all in all, its another "Mission
Accomplished" moment for the United States.

Tom Burghardt is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Mass resistance to U.S. NATO role

http://www.workers.org/2008/world/serbia_0306/

WORKERS WORLD (USA)

In Serbia
Mass resistance to U.S. NATO role

By Sara Flounders

Published Feb 28, 2008 10:25 PM

In the final analysis, history is never decided by resolutions, laws or
proclamations.

It is decided by explosive mass movements that churn up from below in
response to intolerable conditions and outrageous events.

On Feb. 24 hundreds gathered in front of the White house to
oppose the latest U.S. attack on Serbia, organized by the STOP (Stop
Terrorizing Orthodox Peoples) Coalition. Major protest demonstrations were
held in Geneva and Zurich, Switzerland; Vienna, Austria; Athens, Greece;
Vicenza, Italy; Montreal and Toronto; Cleveland and Chicago. This week
demonstrations will continue, including a major demonstration in front of
the U.N. on March 2 from 2 to 4 p.m.
WW photo: Sara Flounders

An angry and enormous demonstration-estimates range from a half million to
well over a million people-in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, on Feb. 21
has changed the terms of the debate about Kosovo.

Following this colossal outpouring in opposition to Washington's theft of
the Serbian province of Kosovo, thousands of people in Belgrade stormed the
U.S. Embassy and set fires in it. The British, German, Croatian, Belgian and
Turkish embassies were also attacked. Western franchises, including 10
McDonalds plus Nike stores and 50 other outlets, along with bank windows,
were targeted by angry youths. There were nights of running street battles
with riot police.

Thousands demonstrated at border crossings between Serbia proper and Kosovo.
Two border crossings were destroyed, one by fire, the other in an explosion.
All these actions sent a sharp message-that the U.S. decision to establish a
direct colony in Kosovo by recognizing its "independence" would be
challenged by an explosive movement that has gone much further than just the
official Serbian government statement of opposition.

An article in the New York Times of Feb. 25 worried that Washington may have
underestimated the Serbian response. It said that policy makers in
Washington and Brussels fear that the angry opposition may be "destabilizing
for the entire region." Entitled "Serbian Rage in Kosovo: Last Gasp or First
Breath?" the article reflected many other news commentaries: "The world is
waiting to see whether the riots on Thursday were the final spasm of anger
in Serbia or the first tremor in a new Balkan earthquake."

Of course, it is the danger of a new Balkan earthquake that U.S. corporate
power fears.

It certainly appears that the U.S. government has once again underestimated
opposition to its criminal policies. Washington had considered that its
long-announced decision to recognize a new mini-state in the Balkans could
not be opposed. It was considered a fait accompli.

Although Kosovo might for a time lack official U.N. endorsement, it was
thought that quick recognition by the U.S. and European Union, along with
funding and continued stationing of international forces, would overwhelm
Serbian opposition.

Washington is so used to having its arrogant way and violating international
agreements-even the terms that the U.S. itself dictated on NATO expansion,
borders and national sovereignty-that it is shocked to find serious
opposition.

Certainly many politicians in Serbia, anxious for Serbia to join the EU,
were not disposed to make more than a symbolic opposition. But the angry
response of the entire Serbian population has changed the very ground under
this latest imperialist land grab.

Struggle heating up

EU staff and other forces are now withdrawing from the northern part of
Kosovo, around the town of Mitrovica, which has been divided between areas
that are either majority ethnic Serbs or majority ethnic Albanians. Other
national groupings also live in Kosovo. All have been historically
oppressed, recently by Western European and U.S. imperialists, earlier by
feudal empires.

At the bridge over the Ibar River in Mitrovica, there has been a weeklong
standoff between the Kosovo Police Service, a multi-ethnic force, and U.N.
police. The KPS police have refused to serve under the new Kosovo-declared
state. Dozens of busloads of protesters have come to the border of the
province to support rallies against Kosovo's separation.

Meanwhile U.S./NATO forces, called KFOR, have moved to seal the border with
armored vehicles and tanks to halt an influx of potential protesters.

Once again the challenge in Europe to the crushing backward drag of U.S.
imperialism, whose threats and pressures have undone numerous socialist
states, including Yugoslavia, has come from the Serbian mass movement.

Solidarity demonstrations all across Europe, Canada and the U.S. were held
on Feb. 24, and were to continue through the week.

For many the very hypocrisy of the U.S. position alerted them to its having
a more sinister motive than wanting to grant independence to Kosovo. After
all, the U.S. has refused to allow the independence of Puerto Rico despite
more than 100 years of struggle, yet it was the first country to recognize
Kosovo's independence from Serbia-on the very day that the unilateral
declaration was made.

International opposition

Both Russia and China, which hold veto power on the U.N. Security Council,
made it clear that they would not allow the U.N. to endorse the forcible
theft of Kosovo from Serbia. They expressed grave concern about the
dangerous precedent it set in further fracturing nation states around the
world that are targeted by imperialist intervention.

The unilateral declaration was a direct violation of the U.N. Charter, other
international law and even the terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution
1244, drafted by the U.S. after 78 days of bombing Serbia in 1999. Despite
the lack of U.N. approval, the U.S., Germany, France and Britain recklessly
went ahead with the recognition of Kosovo.

Opposed to the recognition are Serbia, Russia, China, Spain, Greece,
Venezuela, Bolivia, Portugal, Slovakia, Malta, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus,
Sri Lanka and Armenia. A number of other countries have not yet made a
decision, despite intense U.S. pressure.

President Hugo Chávez said Venezuela would join other countries in
condemning the declaration. "This cannot be accepted. It's a very dangerous
precedent for the entire world," he said.

Bolivia also refused to recognize Kosovo's independence. President Evo
Morales compared Kosovo separatists to the leaders of four eastern
resource-rich Bolivian states who have U.S. encouragement in demanding
greater autonomy, in an effort to fracture and halt progressive changes
coming from the federal government.

On Feb. 22, Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said on state-run Vesti-24
television that Kosovo's split from Serbia was the result of an
"imperialistic American effort to divide and rule."

Rogozin made an ominous warning that could hardly be ignored. He said that
the Russian military might get involved if all the EU nations recognize
Kosovo as independent with U.N. agreement. If that happens, Russia "will
proceed from the assumption that to be respected, we have to use brute
military force."

On Feb. 24 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was in Belgrade with
current Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, who is Vladimir Putin's
likely successor as president. They came to make Russia's position clear.

Medvedev said, "It is unacceptable that for the first time in the post-war
history, a country which is a member of the United Nations has been divided
in violation of all principles used in resolving territorial conflicts.

"We proceed from the understanding that Serbia is a single state with its
jurisdiction spanning its entire territory and we will stick to this
principled stance in the future.

"It is absolutely obvious that the crisis that has happened and is the
responsibility of those who have made the illegal decision will
unfortunately have long-term consequences for peace on the European
continent."

Medvedev signed an agreement to build a section of South Stream gas pipeline
through Serbia. The line will carry Russian gas through the Balkans to the
Mediterranean Sea. A business agreement between Serbia's national oil
company, NIS, and OAO Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, was also
consolidated.

Kosovo is not independent

It is essential to explain again and again when discussing this issue of
U.S. recognition of Kosovo's "independence" that Kosovo has not gained a
shred of self-determination or even minimal self-rule, even on paper.

Unless this is continually explained and repeated, many political activists
who defend self-determination for oppressed nations might naively support
"independence" for Kosovo.

The plan under which Kosovo becomes "independent" establishes an old-style
colonial structure in its rawest form. Kosovo will actually be run by an
appointed High Representative and by administrative bodies appointed by the
U.S., the EU and NATO-the U.S.-commanded military alliance.

Imperialist administrators will have direct control over all aspects of
foreign and domestic policy. They have control over the departments of
Customs, Taxation, Treasury and Banking. They control foreign policy,
security, police, judiciary, all courts and prisons. These appointed Western
officials can overrule any measure, annul any law, and remove anyone from
office in Kosovo.

Several possible schemes are at the root of this latest flagrant U.S.
violation of international law. Separating Kosovo from Serbia further
fractures the entire region. This has been U.S. policy toward the Balkans,
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics since the 1991 collapse of
the Soviet Union. As weak, divided, warring mini-states, their opposition to
U.S. corporate domination becomes more difficult.

The recognition of Kosovo also divides and frays relations in the EU
Washington is certainly not opposed to sowing dissension among forces that
are both allies and imperialist competitors. The U.S. has fractured the EU
over this, because one-third of its 27 members are against this move.

Setting up a government in Kosovo where the U.S. has full authority to write
the laws and treaties also consolidates the Pentagon's continued hold on a
major new military base in Kosovo-Camp Bondsteel. It also provides unlimited
access and, most important, a transfer of ownership of the rich resources of
the region, including oil and gas which has just been discovered.

Camp Bondsteel

A massive new U.S. military base-Halliburton-built Camp Bondsteel-is the
Pentagon anchor in the region. Near the Macedonian border, it covers more
than 1,000 acres and comprises more than 300 buildings. It overwhelms tiny
Kosovo, a province smaller than the state of Connecticut.

The location was chosen for its capacity to expand. There are suggestions
that it could replace the U.S. Air Force base at Aviano in Italy.

Thousands of U.S./NATO troops can be comfortably stationed there. The base
can easily house its 7,000 U.S. military forces, along with thousands of
private contractors. U.S. military personnel leave Bondsteel in helicopters
or large heavily armed convoys.

The camp is located close to vital oil pipelines and energy corridors that
are now under construction, such as the U.S.-sponsored Trans-Balkan oil
pipeline and what is known as energy Corridor 8.

The U.S. began planning the building of Camp Bondsteel long before its
bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, according to Col. Robert L. McClure, writing
in Engineer: The Professional Bulletin for Army Engineers. Another document,
"U.S. Army Engineers in the Balkans 1995-2002," is available online and
contains photos and descriptions of the base plans. (web.mst.edu)

At Camp Bondsteel there is the most advanced hospital in Europe, theaters,
restaurants, a water purification plant, laundries and shops along with a
mass of communication satellites, antennae and menacing attack helicopters.

The people who live in the area surrounding the camp suffer from 80 percent
unemployment. Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root pays Kosovo
workers, when it hires them, a meager $1 to $3 per hour. More than 25
percent of the Albanian Kosovo population has been forced to emigrate abroad
in order to send home remittances to their families.

Under the U.S. occupation, more than 250,000 Serbs, Roma, Turks, Goranies
and other peoples of this rich, multi-ethnic province have been forced out
of Kosovo and are not permitted to return.

Rich resources in Kosovo

U.S. corporations are well aware of the rich resources of Kosovo. There are
extensive mines for lead, zinc, cadmium, lignite, gold and silver at Stari
Trg, along with 17 billion tons of coal reserves. The once state-owned
Trepca mining complex was described by the New York Times of July 8, 1998,
as "the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans." It included
warehouses, smelting plants, refineries, metal treatment sites, freight
yards, railroad lines and power plants. Before the 1999 U.S./NATO bombing,
followed by the occupation of Kosovo, it was the largest uncontested piece
of wealth in Eastern Europe not yet in the hands of U.S. or European
capitalists.

And they are still fighting over who will get to exploit it. Since NATO
forces occupied Kosovo, almost this entire mining and refining center has
been closed down. It sits idle while the many nationalities who once worked
there have been dispersed.

Now an even greater source of newly discovered wealth is making Western
corporations anxious to have an uncontested grip on the province.

On Jan. 10 Reuters reported that Swiss-based Manas Petroleum Corp. had
announced that Gustavson Associates LLC's Resource Evaluation had identified
large prospects of oil and gas reserves in Albania, close to Kosovo. The
assigned estimates of the find are up to 2.987 billion barrels of oil and
3.014 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Clearly U.S. corporations feel they have a big stake in the region. They
have made many backroom deals and secret promises to Germany, France and
Britain to gain their acquiescence.

But this is a good time to remember how ripe for the picking Iraq looked to
Halliburton and Exxon in 2003. It seemed easy to get the compliance of many
countries, even if Washington couldn't secure a U.N. Security Council vote
despite its lies to that body.

The U.S. is hardly the first empire to underestimate the power of an aroused
mass movement to overturn its plans. Imperialist arrogance and overreach can
lead to serious miscalculations.

People in every struggle for full rights and national sovereignty have an
interest in defending and standing in solidarity with the heroic resistance
that the people of Serbia have shown in the past week. This struggle could
open a new day of resistance to U.S. corporate rule across Eastern Europe
and the Balkans.

Sara Flounders was in Yugoslavia during the 1999 U.S./NATO bombing to expose
these devastating attacks on the civilian population. She is a co-author and
editor of "NATO in the Balkans" and "Hidden Agenda: U.S./NATO Takeover of
Yugoslavia," available at Leftbooks.com.

Ghosts
of Kosovo

Friday,
Feb. 29, 2008 By SAMANTHA POWER

Kosovars hold flags as they
celebrate the independence of Kosovo in the capital Pristina on February 17,
2008

Dimitar Dilko / AFP / Getty

On Feb. 17,
after almost a decade of legal limbo and two years of unsuccessful
international mediation, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia. The U.S.
moved swiftly to recognize the new country, and nearly 2 million ethnic
Albanians celebrated their long-awaited freedom, dancing in city streets,
releasing fireworks and waving flags. Having bristled under Serbian rule and
then U.N. administration, Kosovars were elated by the prospect of at last
controlling their own affairs.

The Serbs
weren't quite so thrilled. On Feb. 21, some 200,000 protested in Belgrade,
chanting "Kosovo is Serbia" and holding placards that read, RUSSIA,
HELP. Rioters set the U.S. embassy on fire; Russian President Vladimir Putin
vowed never to recognize Kosovo and threatened to support secessionist
movements in Georgia and Moldova.

Not so long
ago, the scenes of unrest would have inspired fears of the kind of ethnic
violence that devastated the Balkans in the '90s. But these are different
times. Kosovo's ethnic-Albanian leaders have belatedly tried to extend an olive
branch to the province's aggrieved 120,000 Serbs. In addition to allowing Serbs
in northern Kosovo to have their own police, schools and hospitals, Kosovo's
new Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, did the unthinkable: he delivered part of his
inauguration speech in the hated Serbian language. Even in Serbia, whose
citizens feel genuine humiliation over losing Kosovo (which Serb nationalists
call their "Jerusalem"), the protests should abate. Prime Minister
Vojislav Kostunica has threatened to retaliate against Kosovo's becoming
independent by suspending talks with the European Union, but Kostunica can't
afford to cut ties with the West. The E.U. supplies 49% of Serbia's imports and
buys 56% of its exports--a far more valuable trade relationship than Serbia's
with Russia.

But Kosovo
matters to our future because it underscores three alarming features of the
current international system. First, it exposes the chill in relations between
the U.S. and Russia, which is making it difficult for the U.N. Security Council
to meet 21st century collective-security challenges. Putin has used the Kosovo
standoff as yet another excuse to flaunt his petro-powered invincibility,
sending his likely successor, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, to
Belgrade to sign a gas agreement. If a firm international response is to be
mobilized toward Iran, Sudan or other trouble spots in the coming years, the
U.S. will have to find a way to persuade Russia to become a partner rather than
a rival in improving collective security.

Second, the
27-country E.U., which is bitterly divided over Kosovo, lacks an overarching
defense or security vision. After Kosovo declared independence, Britain, France
and other countries offered recognition, while Spain, Romania, Greece, Cyprus,
Bulgaria and Slovakia refused to do so. Keeping peace in Kosovo will require
European nations to put their citizens at risk. Unfortunately, the stated
desire of many European countries to reduce their commitments to the nato
effort in Afghanistan does little to bolster confidence in Europe's eagerness
to maintain international security.

Finally, the
disagreements over Kosovo expose the world's fickleness in determining which
secessionist movements deserve international recognition. If Kosovo's
supporters were more transparent about the factors that made Kosovo worthy of
recognition, they could help shape new guidelines. A claimant has a far
stronger claim if, like Kosovo, it is relatively homogeneous and not yet
self-governing, if it has been abused by the sovereign government and if its
quest for independence does not incite its kin in a neighboring country to make
comparable demands. Not all secessionists can clear that bar. Iraq's Kurds, for
instance, are clamoring for independence. But the Kurds are already exercising
self-government, and their independence could have the destabilizing effect of
causing the Kurdish population in Turkey to try to secede.

Western
countries will have to work hard in the coming months to ensure that Kosovo and
Serbia do not descend into violence. The larger problems highlighted by the
impasse aren't going away anytime soon. Unless they're resolved, a U.S. embassy
may not be all that goes up in flames during the next crisis.

TIME
columnist and Harvard professor Power also advises Senator Barack Obama on
foreign-policy issues

The Oil factor in Kosovo independence

http://uruknet.info/?p=m41436&s1=h1



URUKNET (ITALY)



The Oil factor in Kosovo independence

Abdus Sattar Ghazali



February 24, 2008



On February 17, Kosovo broke away from Serbia and declared its

independence. Not surprisingly it was instantly recognized as a state by the

U.S., Germany, Britain and France. With 4203 square miles area, Kosovo may

be a tiny territory but in the great game of oil politics it holds great

importance which is in inverse proportion to its size.



Kosovo does not have oil but its location is strategic as the

trans-Balkan pipeline - known as AMBO pipeline after its builder and

operator the US-registered Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corporation -

will pass through it.



The pipeline will pump Caspian oil from the Bulgarian port of

Burgas via Macedonia to the Albanian port of Vlora, for transport to

European countries and the United States. Specifically, the 1.1 billion

dollar AMBO pipeline will permit oil companies operating in the Caspian Sea

to ship their oil to Rotterdam and the East Coast of the USA at

substantially less cost than they are experiencing today.



When operational by 2011, the pipeline will become a part of the

region's critical East-West corridor infrastructure which includes highway,

railway, gas and fiber optic telecommunications lines. This pipeline will

bring oil directly to the European market by eliminating tanker traffic

through the ecologically sensitive waters of the Aegean and Mediterranean

Seas.



In 2000, the United States Government's Trade and Development

Agency financed a feasibility study of pipeline which updated and enlarged

the project's original feasibility study dating from early 1996. Brown &

Root Energy Services, a wholly-owned British subsidiary of Halliburton

completed the original feasibility study for this project.



The US Trade and Development Agency's paper published May 2000,

which assesses that the pipeline is a US strategic interest. According to

the paper, the pipeline will provide oil and gas to the US market worth

$600m a month, adding that the pipeline is necessary because the oil coming

from the Caspian sea will quickly surpass the safe capacity of the

Bosphorus.



The project is necessary, according to a paper, because the oil

coming from the Caspian sea "will quickly surpass the safe capacity of the

Bosphorus as a shipping lane". The scheme, the agency notes, will
"provide a

consistent source of crude oil to American refineries", "provide
American

companies with a key role in developing the vital east-west corridor",

"advance the privatisation aspirations of the US government in the
region"

and "facilitate rapid integration" of the Balkans "with western
Europe".



The pipeline itself, the agency says, has also been formally

supported "since 1994". The first feasibility study, backed by the
US, was

conducted in 1996.



In November 1998, Bill Richardson, the then US energy secretary,

spelt out his policy on the extraction and transport of Caspian oil. "This

is about America's energy security," he explained. "It's also about

preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're

trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west.



"We would like to see them reliant on western commercial and

political interests rather than going another way. We've made a substantial

political investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us that both

the pipeline map and the politics come out right."



Professor Michel Chossudovsky, author of America at War in

Macedonia, provides a deep insight into the

Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian-Oil Pipeline project:



"The US based AMBO pipeline consortium is directly linked to the

seat of political and military power in the United States and Vice President

Dick Cheney's firm Halliburton Energy. The feasibility study for AMBO's

Trans-Balkan Oil Pipeline, conducted by the international engineering

company of Brown & Root Ltd. [Halliburton's British subsidiary] has

determined that this pipeline will become a part of the region's critical

East-West corridor infrastructure which includes highway, railway, gas and

fibre optic telecommunications lines.



"Coincidentally, White and Case LLT, the New York law firm that

President William J. Clinton joined when he left the White House also has a

stake in the AMBO pipeline deal.



"And upon completion of the feasibility study by Halliburton, a

senior executive of Halliburton was appointed CEO of AMBO. Halliburton was

also granted a contract to service US troops in the Balkans and build

"Bondsteel" in Kosovo, which now constitutes "the largest
American foreign

military base constructed since Vietnam".



"The AMBO Trans-Balkans pipeline project would link up with the

pipeline corridors between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea basin, which

lies at the hub of the World's largest unexplored oil reserves. The

militarization of these various corridors is an integral part of

Washington's design.



"The US policy of "protecting the pipeline routes" out of the

Caspian Sea basin (and across the Balkans) was spelled out by Clinton's

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson barely a few months prior to the 1999

bombing of Yugoslavia: This is about America's energy security. It's also

about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values.

We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west. We

would like to see them reliant on western commercial and political interests

rather than going another way. We've made a substantial political investment

in the Caspian, and it's very important to us that both the pipeline map and

the politics come out right.



"In favour of the AMBO pipeline negotiations, the U.S.

Government has been directly supportive through its Trade and Development

Agency (TDA) and the South Balkan Development Initiative (SBDI). The TDI

suggested the need for Albania, Macedonia, and Bulgaria to "use regional

synergies to leverage new public and private capital [from U.S.
companies]"

while also asserting responsibility of the U.S. Government "for
implementing

the initiative."



And the U.S. Government has fulfilled its role in promoting the

AMBO project, granting several contracts to Halliburton for servicing U.S.

troops in the Balkans, including a five year contract authorized in June of

2005 by the U.S. Army at a value of $1.25 billion, despite criminal

allegations made against Halliburton that are currently being probed by the

F.B.I., according to Craig A. Brannagan author of On the Political

Executive: Public or Private?



This leaves little doubt that the war in the former Yugoslavia

was fought solely in order to secure access to oil from new and biddable

states in central Asia. It is obvious that the former Yugoslavia, especially

Serbia, was a serious problem for the realization of the plan. The

intervention in Kosovo and Metohija was carried out in order to please

Albania, whose port of Vlore is the ultimate destination of the pipeline.



In 1998, fighting breaks out between Serbian forces and ethnic

Albanians in Kosovo. President Milosevic sends in troops, and atrocities

were committed. This opens the door for NATO's Operation Allied Force,

occupying Kosovo in 1999 and then handing it over to the UN, with a huge

American presence in the area. UN resolution 1244 is drafted stipulating

that Kosovo is Serbian land, and at the same time gives Kosovars governance

autonomy.



June 1999, in the immediate aftermath of the bombing of

Yugoslavia, US forces seized 1,000 acres of farmland in southeast Kosovo at

Uresevic, near the Macedonian border, and began the construction of Camp

Bondsteel which is the biggest construction project of a US military base

since the war in Vietnam. Now, why would the United States build such a

massive camp in Kosovo?



In evaluating Kosovo's independence, it is also important to

know that Kosovo is not gaining independence or even minimal

self-government.



It will be run by an appointed High Representative and bodies

appointed by the U.S., European Union and NATO. An old-style colonial

viceroy and imperialist administrators will have control over foreign and

domestic policy. It is similar to the absolute power held by L. Paul Bremer

in the first two years of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. U.S. has merely

consolidated its direct control of a totally dependent colony in the heart

of the Balkans.



An International Civilian Representative (ICR) will be appointed

by U.S. and E.U. officials to oversee Kosovo. This appointed official can

overrule any measures, annul any laws and remove anyone from office in

Kosovo. The ICR will have full and final control over the departments of

Customs, Taxation, Treasury and Banking.



The E.U. will establish a European Security and Defense Policy

Mission (ESDP) and NATO will establish an International Military Presence.

Both these appointed bodies will have control over foreign policy, security,

police, judiciary, all courts and prisons.



These bodies and the ICR will have final say over what crimes

can be prosecuted and against whom; they can reverse or annul any decision

made. The largest prison in Kosovo is at the U.S. base, Camp Bondsteel,

where prisoners are held without charges, judicial overview or

representation.



US has argued the case of Kosovo is unique and that separatists

in other states in Europe and the Balkans will not receive aid and welcome

from major powers. "It is incorrect to view this as a precedent and it

doesn't serve any purpose to view it as a precedent," said Alejandro
Wolff,

US deputy permanent representative to the UN. He may be right because other

separatists may not have any attraction for the oil giants.



However, the Kosovo independence bolsters hopes of militants in

the Indian-controlled Kashmir to achieve the same status for the disputed

territory. "The world community, the European Union in particular, should

play a Kosovo-like role in getting the dispute resolved in Kashmir," says

Yasin Malik, chairman of pro-independence group Jammu Kashmir Liberation

Front.



Although several countries have recognized Kosovo as a new state

but India said it was studying the legal ramifications. India is wary of

recognizing Kosovo as an independent state because of its potential

implications for Kashmir, racked by a nearly two-decade freedom struggle

against New Delhi's occupation that has left more than 43,000 people dead.



Article nr. 41436 sent on 25-feb-2008 12:21 ECT

Kosovo's independence could haunt us

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=916336



ST. CATHARINES STANDARD (CANADA)



EDITORIAL



Kosovo's independence could haunt us

Posted By Scott Taylor



Posted 44 mins ago



On the weekend of Feb. 16-17, the streets of Kosovo were flooded with

citizens celebrating a unilateral declaration of independence by ethnic

Albanian Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. This much-anticipated announcement

formally severed all official ties between the disputed province and the

rest of Serbia, thereby creating Europe's newest state.



The United States was the first to recognize Kosovo's independence, with

President George W. Bush sending his congratulations to Thaci from a stop in

Tanzania. The United Kingdom, Germany and France were quick to follow suit,

and with these big powers on board, the Albanian Kosovars popped the

champagne corks and throughout the capital city of Pristina throngs of

people waved a sea of red and black flags in celebration.



For people only paying casual attention to this long-simmering Balkan hot

spot, Thaci's declaration of independence may indeed be viewed as a joyous

occasion. In fact, most Canadians may be forgiven if they thought this whole

matter was resolved back in the summer of 1999.



After a 78-day bombing campaign, NATO had negotiated a ceasefire agreement

with the Serbian government. Under the terms of UN Resolution 1244, Serbian

security forces would withdraw from Kosovo, and under NATO military

supervision, the 800,000 Albanian Kosovar refugees who had fled the fighting

would be repatriated. The Albanian guerrillas - known as the Kosovo

Liberation Army (KLA) - were to be disarmed and demobilized by NATO troops,

who would also ensure the safety of Kosovo's 200,000 ethnic Serb civilians.



Resolution 1244 made it very clear that under the UN Charter, Kosovo would

remain the sovereign territory of Serbia. Over the past nine years, NATO has

failed to uphold its part of the bargain. The KLA was never disarmed; they

were simply formalized into the Kosovo Protection Corps. Serb civilians

suffered widespread violent reprisals from Albanian extremists resulting in

a mass exodus with fewer than 40,000 ethnic Serbs still residing in

protected enclaves. There was also no progress made towards a negotiated

settlement of Kosovo's status between Belgrade and Pristina authorities.



With Serbia unwilling to relinquish the sovereignty of this province - the

religious heartland of the Serbian people - there was no legal way to push

independence through the UN Security Council. That impasse is what led to

the Feb. 17 unilateral declaration, and the deep divide within the

international community over this clear violation of the rule of law and the

UN Charter. The Canadian Foreign Affairs Department understands that any

rapid recognition of a disputed province's declaration of independence from

another country could create a dangerous precedent, which might come back to

haunt us.



So while Canada looks at what diplomatic options are available, let's review

some of the background. Up until 1998, the U.S. State Department regarded

the KLA as a terrorist organization. The KLA's assassinations and bomb

attacks against government officials led to a heavy-handed Serbian military

crackdown. At this point the Americans changed horses and decried the Serb

reprisals rather than the terror provocations of the KLA. Under U.S.

pressure an ultimatum was issued by NATO to Serbia in February 1999, and the

KLA was suddenly legitimized as freedom fighters.



By March 24 of that year, when the deadline expired without Serbia's

compliance, NATO began bombing Kosovo and Serbia. Within days a trickle of

refugees became a flood as some 800,000 Albanians fled the renewed fighting

and the NATO bombing. Once this whole incident had ballooned into a

humanitarian crisis of epic proportion, NATO used the suffering of the

Albanians to further justify their intervention.



Putting recent history aside, the fact remains that Kosovo is simply not

viable as an independent country. It is a landlocked, mountainous province,

not quite twice the size of Prince Edward Island, with a population of two

million. The unemployment rate stands at 50 per cent; for those working the

average annual income ranges around $2,400 Cdn. a year. Prostitution and

illegal drugs form the major pillar of Kosovo's economy, with the other main

infusion coming from the annual foreign donations of approximately $600

million.



The red and black flag they wave is the Albanian flag, not Kosovar. And as a

result of the ongoing violent attacks against non-Albanians in the province,

this is now one of the most ethnically-cleansed territories in all of

Europe.



Prime Minister Thaci is a former ruthless KLA warlord who called himself

"Snake" and the commander of the Kosovo Protection Corps is Agim
Ceku, who

made a notorious name for himself as a war criminal in Croatia.



Given the rotten foundation upon which Kosovo intends to build its own

independent state, I think Canada would be well advised to uphold the UN

Charter in this instance, and to respect the rule of international law.



Scott Taylor reported from inside Serbia and Kosovo during the 1999 bombing

campaign and has made more than 20 subsequent visits to the region. He is a

member of the Osprey Writers Group.

The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence

February 23 / 4, 2008

Lessons in the
Bi-Partisanship of Empire

The Real Story Behind Kosovo's
Independence

By JEREMY SCAHILL

News
Flash: The Bush administration acknowledges there is a such thing as
international law.

But, predictably, it is not being
invoked to address the US prison camps at Guantanamo, the wide use of torture,
the invasion and occupation of sovereign countries, the extraordinary rendition
program. No, it is being thrown out forcefully as a condemnation of the Serbian
government in the wake of Thursday's attack by protesters on the US embassy in
Belgrade following the Bush administration's swift recognition of the
declaration of independence by the southern Serbian province of Kosovo. Some
1,000 protesters broke away from a largely non-violent mass demonstration in
downtown Belgrade and targeted the embassy. Some protesters actually made it
into the compound, setting a fire and tearing down the American flag.

"I'm outraged by the mob attack
against the U.S. embassy in Belgrade," fumed Zalmay Khalilzad,the US
Ambassador to the United Nations. "The embassy is sovereign US territory.
The government of Serbia has a responsibility under international law to
protect diplomatic facilities, particularly embassies." His comments were
echoed by a virtual who's who of the Bill Clinton administration. People like
Jamie Rubin, then-Secretary of State Madeiline Albright's deputy, one of the
main architects of US policy toward Serbia. "It is sovereign territory of
the United States under international law," Rubin declared. "For
Serbia to allow these protesters to break windows, break into the American
Embassy, is a pretty dramatic sign." Hillary Clinton, whose husband
orchestrated and ran the 78-day NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, said, "I
would be moving very aggressively to hold the Serbian government responsible
with their security forces to protect our embassy. Under international law they
should be doing that."

There are two major issues here. One is
the situation in Kosovo itself (which we'll get to in a moment), but the other
is the attack on the US embassy. Yes, the Serbian government had an obligation
to prevent the embassy from being torched and ransacked. If there was
complicity by the Serbian police or authorities in allowing it to be attacked,
that is a serious issue. But the US has little moral authority not just in
invoking international law (which it only does when it benefits Washington's
agenda) but in invoking international law when speaking about attacks on
embassies in Belgrade.

Perhaps the greatest crime against any embassy in the history of
Yugoslavia was committed not by evil Serb protesters, but by the United States
military.

On May 7, 1999, at the height of the
78 day US-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the US bombed the Chinese embassy in
Belgrade, killing three Chinese citizens, two of them journalists, and wounding
20 others. The Clinton administration later said
that the bombing was the result of faulty maps provided by the CIA (Sound
familiar?). Beijing rejected that explanation and alleged it was deliberate.
Eventually, under strong pressure from China, the US apologized and paid $28
million in compensation to the victims' families. If the US was serious about
international law and the protection of embassies, those responsible for that
bombing would have been tried at the Hague along with other alleged war
criminals. But "war criminal" is a designation for the losers of
US-fueled wars, not bombers sent by Washington to drop humanitarian munitions
on "sovereign territory."

Beyond the obvious hypocrisy of the US
condemnations of Serbia and the sudden admission that international law exists,
the Kosovo story is an important one in the context of the current election
campaign in the United States. Perhaps more than any other international
conflict, Yugoslavia was the defining foreign policy of President Bill
Clinton's time in power. Under his rule, the nation of Yugoslavia was
destroyed, dismantled and chopped into ethnically pure para-states. President
Bush's immediate recognition of Kosovo as an independent nation was the icing
on the cake of destruction of Yugoslavia and one which was enthusiastically
embraced by Hillary Clinton. "I've supported the independence of Kosovo
because I think it is imperative that in the heart of Europe we continue to
promote independence and democracy," Clinton said at the recent Democratic
debate in Austin, Texas.

A few days before the attack on the US
embassy in Belgrade, Clinton released a Molotov cocktail statement praising the
declaration of independence. In it, she referred to Kosovo by the Albanian
"Kosova" and said independence "will allow the people of Kosova
to finally live in their own democratic state. It will allow
Kosova and Serbia to finally put a difficult chapter in their history behind
them and to move forward." She added, "I want to underscore the need
to avoid any violence or provocations in the days and weeks ahead." As
seasoned observers of Serbian politics know, there were few things the US could
have done to add fuel to the rage in Serbia over the declaration of
independence -- "provocations" if you will -- than to have a
political leader named Clinton issue a statement praising independence and
using the Albanian name for Kosovo.

On the campaign trail, the Clinton camp
has held up Kosovo as a successful model for how to conduct US foreign policy
and Clinton criticized Bush for taking "so long for us to reach this
historic juncture."

Perhaps a little of that history is in
order. If Kosovo is her idea of solid US foreign policy, it speaks volumes to
what kind of president she would be. The reality is that there are striking
similarities between the Clinton approach to Kosovo and the Bush approach to
Iraq.

On March 24, 1999, President Bill
Clinton began an 11-week bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. Like Bush with
Iraq, Clinton had no UN mandate (he used NATO) and his so-called
"diplomacy" to avert the possibility of bombing leading up to the
attacks was insincere and a set-up from the jump. Just like Bush with Iraq.

A month before the bombing began, the
Clinton administration issued an ultimatum to President Slobodan Milosevic,
which he had to either accept unconditionally or face bombing. Known as the
Rambouillet accord, it was a document that no sovereign country would have
accepted. It contained a provision that would have guaranteed US and NATO
forces "free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access
throughout" all of Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo. It also sought to immunize
those occupation forces "from any form of arrest, investigation, or
detention by the authorities in [Yugoslavia]," as well as grant the
occupiers "the use of airports, roads, rails and ports without
payment." Additionally, Milosevic was told he would have to "grant
all telecommunications services, including broadcast services, needed for the
Operation, as determined by NATO." Similar to Bush's Iraq plan years
later, Rambouillet mandated that the economy of Kosovo "shall function in
accordance with free market principles."

What Milosevic was actually asked to
sign is never discussed. That it would have effectively meant the end of the
sovereignty of the nation was a non-story. The dominant narrative for the past
nine years, repeated this week by William Cohen, Clinton's defense secretary at
the time of the bombing, is this: "We tried to achieve a peaceful
resolution of what was taking place in Kosovo. And Slobodan Milosevic
refused." Refused peace? More like he unwisely refused one of Don
Corleone's famous offers. Washington knew he would reject it, but had to give
the appearance of diplomacy for international "legitimacy."

So the humanitarian bombs rained down
on Serbia. Among the missions: the bombing of the studios of Radio Television
Serbia where an airstrike killed 16 media workers; the cluster bombing of a Nis
marketplace, shredding human beings into meat; the deliberate targeting of a
civilian passenger train; the use of depleted uranium munitions; and the
targeting of petrochemical plants, causing toxic chemical waste to pour into
the Danube River. Also, the bombing of Albanian refugees, ostensibly the people
being protected by the U.S.

Similar to Bush's allegations about
Iraqi WMDs in the lead up to the US invasion, in 1999 Clinton administration
officials also delivered stunning allegations about the level of brutality
present in Kosovo as part of the propaganda campaign. "We've now
seen about 100,000
military-aged men missing ....They may have been murdered," Cohen said five weeks into the
bombing. He said that up to 4,600 Kosovo men had been executed, adding, "I
suspect it's far higher than that." Those numbers were flat out false.
Eventually the estimates were scaled back dramatically, as Justin Raimondo
pointed out recently in his column on Antiwar.com, from 100,000 to 50,000 to
10,000 and "at that point the War Party stopped talking numbers altogether
and just celebrated the glorious victory of 'humanitarian intervention.'"
As it turned out "there was no 'genocide' -- the International Tribunal
itself reported that just over 2,000 bodies were recovered from postwar Kosovo,
including Serbs, Roma, and Kosovars, all victims of the vicious civil war in
which we intervened on the side of the latter. The whole fantastic story of
another 'holocaust' in the middle of Europe was a fraud," according to
Raimondo.

Following the NATO invasion of Kosovo
in June of 1999, the US and its allies stood by as the Albanian mafia and gangs
of criminals and paramilitaries spread out across the province and
systematically cleansed Kosovo of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Romas and
other ethnic minorities. They burned down houses, businesses and churches and
implemented a shocking campaign to forcibly expel non-Albanians from the
province. Meanwhile, the US worked closely with the Kosovo Liberation Army and
backed the rise of war criminals to the highest levels of power in Kosovo.
Today, Kosovo has become a hub for human trafficking, organized crime and
narcosmuggling. In short, it is a mafia state. Is this the
"democracy" Hillary Clinton speaks of "promoting" in
"the heart" of Europe?

It didn't take long for the US to begin
construction of a massive US military base, Camp Bondsteel, which conveniently
is located in an area of tremendous geopolitical interest to Washington. (Among
its most bizarre facilities, Bondsteel now offers classes at the Laura Bush
education center, as well as massages from Thai women and all the multinational
junk food you could (n)ever wish for). In November 2005, Alvaro Gil-Robles, the
human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, described Bondsteel as a
"smaller version of Guantanamo." Oh, and Bondsteel was constructed by
former Halliburton subsidiary KBR.

Herein lies an interesting point. The
Serbian government is largely oriented toward Europe, not the US. The country's
prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, is a conservative isolationist who is not
enthusiastic about a US military base on Serbian soil any more than Cuba is
about Gitmo. He charged that, in recognizing Kosovo, Washington was "ready
to unscrupulously and violently jeopardize international order for the sake of
its own military interests." To the would-be independent Kosovo
government, however, Bondsteel is no problem.

Russia and a few other nations are
fighting the recognition of Kosovo as an independent nation, but that is
unlikely to succeed. Still, this action will undoubtedly reverberate for years
to come. "We have in Serbia a situation in which the U.S. has forced an
action --the proclamation of independence by the Kosovo Albanians -- that is in
clear violation of the most fundamental principles of international law after
World War II," argues Robert Hayden, Director of the Center for Russian
and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. "Borders cannot
be changed by force and without consent -- that principle was actually the main
stated reason for the 1991 U.S. attack on Iraq."

And this brings us full circle.
International law matters only when it is convenient for the US. So too are the
cries for "humanitarian interventions." And despite the extremism of
the Bush administration, this is hardly a uniquely Republican phenomenon. In a
just world, there would be a humanitarian intervention against the US
occupation of Iraq -- with its indiscriminate killings of civilians, torture
chambers and widespread human rights violations. There certainly would have
been such an intervention during the bipartisan slaughter, through bombs and
sanctions, of Iraq's people over the past 18 years. But that's what you get
when the cops and judges and prosecutors are the criminals. US policy has
always operated on a worthy victim, unworthy victim system that is almost never
primarily about saving the victims. Humanitarianism is the publicly offered
justification for the action, seldom, if ever, the primary motivation. With
Iraq, Bush wheeled out the humanitarian justification for the
occupation--Saddam's brutality -- only after the WMD lies were thoroughly
debunked. In Yugoslavia, Clinton used it right out of the gates. In both cases,
it rang insincere.

If you are a victim who happens to
share a common geography with US interests, international law is on your side
as long as it is convenient. If not, well, tough. The UN is just a debate club
anyway. Just ask the tens of thousands of Kurds who were slaughtered by Turkey
with weapons sold to them by the Clinton administration during the 1990s. Or
the Palestinians who live under the brutality of Israel's occupation.

[They're really in danger if they go
to Sbarro's Pizzeria:jpm.]

In some cases, the "victims"
allegedly being protected by the US actually get bombed themselves, as was the
case with President Clinton's "humanitarian" bombings of the north
and south of Iraq once every three days in the late 1990s.

In the bigger picture, the Bush
administration's quick recognition of an independent Kosovo has given us a
powerful reminder of a fact that is too often overlooked these days: empire is
bipartisan, as are the tactics and rhetoric and bombs used to defend and expand
it.

Jeremy Scahill is author of The New York Times-bestseller "Blackwater:
The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.". He can be
reached at jeremy(AT)democracynow.org

This article was originally published
by Alternet.

Jeremy Scahill: The
Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence

Pressed by US, Serbs play on Moscow card

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/080223/8/45d0.html

Sunday February 24, 02:21 AM

Pressed by US, Serbs play on Moscow card

BELGRADE (AFP) - Serb officials welcomed the support of old ally Russia in
opposing Kosovo's independence Saturday, as Moscow warned the West was
jeopardising international relations in recognising the new state.

"Russia enters in war for Kosovo!," read the front-page headline of
Belgrade-based daily Press in response to a stream of Russian rhetoric.

Serbia is under pressure from Washington and Brussels to stop the violence
that erupted after Kosovo's February 17 declaration, but Moscow has weighed
in on Belgrade's behalf -- increasing already tense relations with the West.

An aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday described Western
recognition of Kosovo as a cocked gun ready for firing, telling Interfax
news agency that "no one knows when and where the shot will ring out."

Islamist "jihadists of terror" who had settled in Kosovo could now be
expected to come out into the open, said Anatoly Safonov, Putin's envoy for
international cooperation in combating terrorism and organised crime.

Putin himself on Friday described Kosovo's independence as a "terrible
precedent" that would come back to hit the West "in the face" and would have
"unforeseeable consequences."

And Russia's newly-appointed representative to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said
the same day that Moscow had the right to "use force" if NATO or the EU
challenged the UN over Kosovo.

The Press daily quoted a senior official of the ultra-nationalist Serbian
Radical Party, Aleksandar Vucic, saying that "only Russians could stop
NATO's fascist measures in Kosovo."

It also quoted a Kosovo Serb leader, Goran Bogdanovic, as welcoming the
attitude of Moscow.

"Obviously, the Kosovo problem exceeded the frame of the Balkans and one
could expect (further) dispute among great powers over the issue," he said.

"I understood Rogozin's statement primarily as a warning to the West that
their presence in Kosovo must remain within the (UN Security Council)
Resolution 1244. Otherwise it could lead to increasing tensions and even
conflict of worldwide proportions," he said.

The resolution, passed in June 1999, ended conflict between Serb forces and
ethnic Albanians separatists in Kosovo, putting the province under UN
administration but formally keeping it within Serbian borders.

The resolution was also one of Madrid's arguments against recognising the
independence of Kosovo, Spanish Secretary of State for foreign affairs
Bernardino Leon Gros wrote in an article published by independent Blic
daily.

"Unlike other countries that separated, like Slovakia and Czech Republic,
there has been neither agreement of the involved sides nor a UN resolution
in the case of Kosovo," he wrote.

"Beside legal reasons, this proclamation of independence is contrary to
everything that the international community has proclaimed in the Balkans
since the (conflicts) 1990s," Gros said.

Along with Spain, four other EU members -- Romania, Cyprus, Greece and
Slovakia -- have announced they will not recognise the new state.

Meanwhile, Serbian Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic again attacked the
US for their support to ethnic Albanian majority's declaration of the
independence of Kosovo.

"The government of Serbia will not stop to hold the US accountable for
having broken off the international law and seceded a part of Serbia's
territoriy in a violent way," the minister told state-run Tanjug news
agency.

Samardzic rejected Washington's accusations that Serbian authorities had not
properly protected the US embassy in Belgrade when rioting broke out on
Thursday and protesters set fire to the mission, leaving one person dead.

"The main culprit for all the troubles that occurred since February 17 is
the United States," Samardzic said, referring to the date when Kosovo's

U.S. Hands Off Serbia! U.S./Nato OUT of the Balkans!

No to a new U.S. colony in Kosovo!



A Giant U.S. Military Base and Total Domination Is the Reality – NOT
Independence



Serbian Demonstrators Show Resistance to U.S. Colonial-Style Land
Seizure



Download pdf flyer



The demonstration of over 500,000 people in Belgrade and the attack on the U.S.
Embassy show the depth of outrage and anger over the seizure of the Serbian
province of Kosovo. In the past three days two Kosovo border posts were
destroyed, one by fire the other in an explosion, along with ten McDonald's
outlets and several Western banks and other hated targets.



The Western media had overwhelming applauded the U.S. destruction in 1999 and
it now has a responsibility to explain the reason for the mass anger of
millions of people. The outrage is because the province of Kosovo is not
actually being granted “independence.” Millions of people see this week’s
recognition of Kosovo “independence” as an effort to legitimize a direct U.S.
colony and to permanently secure a giant U.S. military base in the region.



Regarding the hypocritical condemnation by Washington that angry demonstrators
had targeted the U.S. Embassy, it should be remembered that when the U.S.
bombed Serbia for 78 days in 1999, U.S. bombs destroyed the Chinese Embassy.
Nineteen other diplomatic and consular missions were damaged in the U.S.
bombing, along with 480 schools and 33 hospitals, heating plants, sewage
plants, bridges, communications, the electric grid and other civilian targets.



The “declaration of independence” by Kosovo, a province of Serbia, and its immediate
recognition as a state by the U.S., Germany, Britain and France, is a fraud.
Three things should be understood about the events this week.



First, Kosovo is not gaining independence or even minimal
self-government.



Kosovo will be run by an appointed High Representative and bodies appointed by
the U.S., European Union and NATO. An old-style colonial viceroy and
imperialist administrators will have control over all aspects of foreign and
domestic policy. Washington has merely consolidated its direct control of a
totally dependent colony in the heart of the Balkans.



Second, Washington’s immediate recognition of Kosovo confirms once
again that the U.S. government will break any and every treaty or international
agreement it has ever signed, including agreements it drafted and imposed by
force and violence on others.



The recognition of Kosovo is in direct violation of such law—specifically U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1244, which the leaders of Yugoslavia were forced
to sign to end the 78 days of NATO bombing of their country in 1999. Even this
imposed agreement affirmed the “commitment of all Member States to the
sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Serbia, a republic of Yugoslavia.



Thirdly, U.S. imperialist domination does not benefit the occupied
people.



Kosovo after nine years of direct NATO military occupation has a staggering
60 percent unemployment rate. It has become a center of the international drug
trade and of prostitution rings in Europe.



The once humming mines, mills, smelters, refining centers and railroads of this
small resource-rich industrial area all sit silent. The resources of Kosovo
under NATO occupation were forcibly privatized and sold to giant Western
multinational corporations. Now almost the only employment is working for the
U.S./NATO army of occupation or U.N. agencies.



The only major construction in Kosovo is of Camp Bondsteel, the largest U.S.
base built in Europe in a generation. Halliburton, of course,
got the contract. The U.S. base guards the strategic oil and transportation
lines of the entire region.



Over 250,000 Serbian, Romani and other nationalities have been driven out of
this Serbian province since it came under U.S./NATO control. Almost a quarter
of the Albanian population has been forced to leave in order to find work.



The plan under which Kosovo’s “independence” is recognized by the U.S, Germany,
France and Britain not only violates U.N. resolutions but it is consolidates a
total colonial structure. It is similar to the absolute power held by L. Paul Bremer
in the first two years of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The documents setting
out the new government for Kosovo are available at unosek.org/unosek/en/statusproposal.html.
A summary is available on the U.S. State Department’s Web site at state.gov/p/eur/rls/fs/100058.htm

An International Civilian
Representative (ICR) will be appointed by U.S. and E.U. officials to oversee
Kosovo. This appointed official can overrule any measures, annul any laws and
remove anyone from office in Kosovo. The ICR will have full and final control
over the departments of Customs, Taxation, Treasury and Banking.



The E.U. will establish a European Security and Defense Policy Mission (ESDP)
and NATO will establish an International Military Presence. Both these
appointed bodies will have control over foreign policy, security, police,
judiciary, all courts and prisons. They are guaranteed immediate and complete
access to any activity, proceeding or document in Kosovo.



These bodies and the ICR will have final say over what crimes can be prosecuted
and against whom; they can reverse or annul any decision made. The largest
prison in Kosovo is at the U.S. base, Camp Bondsteel, where prisoners are held
without charges, judicial overview or representation.



The recognition of Kosovo’s “independence” is just the latest step in a
U.S. war of re- conquest of this strategic region. But as yesterday’s massive
demonstration shows this reckless and illegal maneuver may unleash a whirlwind
of opposition and resistance.



U.S. Hands Off Serbia!

U.S./Nato OUT of the Balkans!

No to a new U.S. colony in Kosovo!

The International Action Center
sent a delegation to Serbia during the US/NATO bombing in 1999 and has
published several books on the crisis in the Balkans, including Hidden
Agenda: U.S./NATO Takeover of Yugoslavia, NATO in the Balkans: Voices
of Opposition, and The Defense Speaks for History and the Future -
all available from Leftbooks.com.



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http://www.iacenter.org/balkans/serbia022208/