COUNTERPUNCH (USA )
DIANA JOHNSTONE
NATO's Kosovo Colony
Independence in the Brave New World Order
February 18, 2008
Across this last weekend, the Western propaganda machine was working
overtime, celebrating the latest NATO miracle: the transformation of Serbian
Kosovo into Albanian Kosova. A shameless land grab by the United States,
which used the Kosovo problem to install an enormous military base (Camp
Bondsteel) on other people's strategically located land, is transformed by
the power of the media into an edifying legend of "national liberation".
For the unhappy few who know the complicated truth about Kosovo, the words
of Aldous Huxley seem most appropriate: "You shall know the truth, and the
truth shall drive you mad."
Concerning Kosovo, truth is like letters written in the sand as the tsunami
of propaganda comes thundering in. The truth is available--for instance in
George Szamuely's thoroughly informative piece last Friday here on
CounterPunch. Fragments of the truth sometimes even show up in the
mainstream media, mostly in letters from readers. But hopeless as it is to
try to turn back the tide of officially endorsed legend, let me examine just
one drop in this unstoppable sea of propaganda: a column by Roger Cohen
entitled "Europe's new state", published in the Valentine's Day edition of
the International Herald Tribune.
Cohen's op ed piece is fairly typical in the dismissive way it deals with
Milosevic, Russia and the Serbs. Cohen writes: "Slobodan Milosevic, the late
dictator, set Serbia's murderous nationalist tide in motion on April 24,
1987, when he went to Kosovo to declare that Serbian 'ancestors would be
defiled' if ethnic Albanians had their way."
I don't know where Roger Cohen got that quotation, but it is not to be found
in the speech Milosevic made that day in Kosovo. And certainly, Milosevic
did not go to Kosovo to declare any such thing, but to consult with local
Communist League officials in the town of Kosovo Polje about the province's
serious economic and social problems. Aside from the province's chronic
poverty, unemployment, and mismanagement of development funds contributed
from the rest of Yugoslavia, the main social problem was the constant exodus
of Serb and Montenegrin inhabitants under pressure from ethnic Albanians. At
the time, this problem was reported in leading Western media.
For instance, as early as July 12, 1982, Marvine Howe reported to the New
York Times that Serbs were leaving Kosovo by the tens of thousands because
of discrimination and intimidation on the part of the ethnic Albanian
majority:
"The [Albanian] nationalists have a two-point platform," according to Beci
Hoti, an executive secretary of the Communist Party of Kosovo, "first to
establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the
merger with Albania to form a greater Albania.
Mr Hoti, an Albanian, expressed concern voer political pressures that were
forcing Serbs to leave Kosovo. "What is important now," he said, "is to
establish a climate of security and create confidence."
And seven months after Milosevic's visit to Kosovo, David Binder reported in the New York Times (November 1, 1987):
Ethnic Albanians in the Government [of Kosovo] have manipulated public
funds and regulations to take over land belonging to Serbs. Slavic Orthodox
churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have been
poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young
ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls.
The goal of the radical nationals among them, one said in an interview, is
an "ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro,
part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself."
As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic
Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially strongly
since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981--an"ethnically pure" Albanian region.
This was in fact the first instance of "ethnic cleansing" in post-World War
II Yugoslavia, as reported in The New York Times and other Western media,
and the victims were the Serbs. The cult of "memory" has become a
contemporary religion, but some memories are more equal than others. In the
1990s, the New York Times evidently forgot completely what it had said about
Kosovo in the 1980s. Why? Perhaps because meanwhile, the Soviet bloc had
collapsed and the unity of independent, non-aligned Yugoslavia was no longer
in the strategic interest of the United States.
Back to Milosevic in Kosovo Polje on April 24, 1987. An incident occurred
when local police (under an Albanian-dominated Communist League government)
attacked Serbs who had gathered to protest lack of legal protection.
Milosevic famously told them, spontaneously: "No one should beat you any
more!" If this is "extreme nationalism" , perhaps there should be more of it.
But nowhere do I find a trace of the statement attributed to Milosevic by
Cohen. In his speech to local party delegates that followed, which is on the
public record, Milosevic referred to the "regrettable incident" and promised
an investigation. He went on to stress that "we should not allow the
misfortunes of people to be exploited by nationalists, whom every honest
person must combat. We must not divide people between Serbs and Albanians,
but rather we should separate, on the one hand, decent people who struggle
for brotherhood, unity and ethnic equality, and, on the other hand,
counter-revolutiona ries and nationalists. "
I turn again to Aldous Huxley for comfort: "Facts do not cease to exist
because they are ignored."
But Huxley also said: "Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical
point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain
subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more
effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations. "
Last Tuesday in Geneva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tried to
convey to journalists his grave concern about the way the United States was
handling the Kosovo problem.
"We are speaking here about the subversion of all the foundations and
principles of international law, which have been won and established as a
basis of Europe's existence at huge effort, and at the cost of pain,
sacrifice and bloodletting, " he said.
"Nobody can offer a clear plan of action in the case of a chain reaction [of
further declarations of unilateral independence] . It turns out that they
[the United States and its NATO allies] are planning to act in a hit or miss
fashion on an issue of paramount importance. This is simply inadmissible and
irresponsible, " the Russian diplomat said. "I sincerely fail to comprehend
the principles guiding our American colleagues, and those Europeans who have
taken up this position," he added.
Roger Cohen dismisses such considerations in five words: "the Russian bear
will growl". Russia, he adds, "will scream. But it's backed the wrong
horse." There are no issues here, no principles. Just growling and gambling."Milosevic rolled the dice of genocidal nationalism and lost", says Cohen.
This is not only a false statement, it is a grotesquely meaningless
metaphor. Milosevic tried to suppress an armed secessionist movement,
secretly but effectively supported by neighboring Albania, the United States
and Germany, which deliberately provoked repression by murdering both Serbs
and Albanians loyal to the government. Like the Americans in similar
circumstances, Milosevic relied too heavily on military superiority rather
than on political skill. But even the NATO-sponsored International Criminal
Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in The Hague had to abandon any charges of"genocide" against Milosevic in Kosovo. For the simple reason that there was
never a shred of evidence for such a charge.
Milosevic is no longer alive, and Russia is far away. But what about the
Serbs who still live in the historic part of Serbia called Kosovo? Cohen
takes care of that problem in a few words: "Some of the 120,000 Serbs in
Kosovo may hit the road."
As Aldous Huxley pointed out, "The propagandist' s purpose is to make one set
of people forget that certain other sets of people are human."
Then you can tell them to "hit the road".
The "Unique" Case
Russia has warned that Kosovo independence will set a dangerous precedent,
encouraging other ethnic minorities to follow the example of the Albanians
and demand secession and an independent State. The United States has
dismissed such concerns by flatly asserting that Kosovo is "unique". Well
yes, Kosovo is a unique case, and is the only one recognized by the United
States until the next "unique case" comes along. When legal criteria have
been thrown out, we just have one "unique case" after another.
The "uniqueness" claimed by the United States is a propaganda construction.
It is based on the supposed "uniqueness" of Milosevic's repression of the
armed secessionist movement, which was not unique at all. It was standard
operating procedure throughout history and the world over, in such
circumstances. Deplorable, no doubt, but not unique. It was minor indeed
compared to the similar but endless and far bloodier anti-insurgency
operations in Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Chechnya, not to mention Northern
Ireland, Thailand, the Philippines And unlike the counter-insurgency
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which kill incomparably more civilians,
it was carried out by the legal, democratically elected government of the
country, rather than by a foreign power.
The propaganda "uniqueness" is an abstraction. Like every place on earth,
Kosovo is indeed unique. But in ways that have nothing to do with the U.S.
pretext for taking it over and turning it into a military outpost of empire.
To know how a place is unique, you have to be interested in it.
I have not visited Kosovo since before the 1999 NATO war. On one occasion,
in August 1997, I drove around the province in a failing Skoda, at my own
expense, just looking. Driving in Kosovo was a bit risky, partly because of
the number of dead dogs in the road, and mostly because of local drivers'
habit of passing slower vehicles on hills and curves. In northern Kosovo,
just outside the town of Zubin Potok, this habit produced one of its
inevitable consequences: a head-on collision with serious casualties, which
shut down the two-lane highway for hours while ambulances and police sorted
things out.
Unable to proceed toward Pristina, I drove back to Zubin Potok to pass the
time on the shaded terrace of a roadside restaurant. I was the only
customer, and the lone waiter, a tall, handsome young man named Milomir,
gladly accepted my invitation to sit down at my table and chat as I sipped
glass after glass of delicious strawberry juice.
Milomir was happy to talk to someone familiar with the French city of Metz,
which he had visited as a student and remembered fondly. He loved to read
and travel, but in 1991 he got married and now had two small daughters to
support. Job prospects were poor, even though he had been to university, so
he had no choice but to stay in Zubin Potok. As for Europe, even if he could
get a visa (impossible for Serbs anyway), he spoke no language more Western
than his mother tongue, Serbo-Croatian. He had studied Russian (he loved the
literature) and Albanian as his foreign languages. He learned Albanian in
order to be able to communicate with the majority in Kosovo.
But such communication was difficult. Milomir was very much in favor of a
bilingual society, and thought everyone in Kosovo should learn both Serbian
and Albanian, but unfortunately this was not the case. The younger
generation of Albanians refused to speak Serbian and learned English
instead.
The town of Zubin Potok was located near the dam on the Ibar River built in
the late 1970s to create hydraulic power. Coming from Novi Pazar, I had
driven along the 35-kilometer- long artificial lake created by the dam,
looking in vain for a nice place to stop. It seemed that there must have
been villages along the Ibar River before the dam was built, and I asked
Milomir about this. Yes, he said, the artificial lake had flooded a score of
old villages, of ethnically mixed, but mostly Serb population. The Albanian
Communist authorities in Pristina had resettled the Serbs outside of Kosovo,
around the town of Kraljevo. There were about 10,000 of them.
This was a minor example of the administrative measures taken to decrease
the Serb population during the period, before Milosevic, when Albanians were
running the province through the local Communist League.
Milomir was not complaining, but simply answering my questions. He did not
go too often (by bus--he had no car) to the nearest large city, Mitrovica,
because he was afraid of being beaten by Albanians. This was just a fact of
life, at a time when (according to Western media) Albanians in Kosovo were
being terrorized by Serbian repression.
While we were chatting, a friend of his came along and the conversation
turned to politics. There was a presidential campaign underway. The two
young men wanted to know which candidate I thought would be best for Serbia
in the eyes of the world. Milomir was tending toward Vuk Draskovic, and his
friend was for Vojislav Kostunica. Neither would dream of voting for either
Milosevic or Seselj, the nationalist leader of the Radical Party.
Zubin Potok Today
I have no idea what has become of Milomir, his wife, his two daughters, or
his friend. Zubin Potok is the western-most municipality in the heavily
Serb-populated north of Kosovo. From the internet I learn that the
population of Zubin Potok municipality (including surrounding villages) has
nearly doubled since I passed through. It now comes to approximately 14,900,
including about 3,000 internally displaced Serbs (from other areas of Kosovo
where the Albanian majority has driven them out), 220 Serbian refugees from
Croatia and 800 Albanians. The local assembly is overwhelmingly dominated by
Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia, but includes two Kosovo Albanian
representatives.
Up until now, schools, hospitals, and other public services, as well as the
local economy, have continued to function thanks mainly to subsidies from
Belgrade. The Albanian declaration of Kosovo independence will create a
crisis by demanding an end to such vital subsidies--which, however, an"independent Kosovo" is unable to replace. Moreover, bands of Albanian
nationalists are declaring that Zubin Potok "is Albanian" and must be"liberated from the Serbs". They can be seen on You Tube, using the Statue
of Liberty as their symbol, and threatening Serbs in Albanian rap.
The European Union is moving in to provide law and order. But the "order"
they claim to be protecting is the one defined by the Albanian nationalists.
What does that mean to people like Milomir and his little family?
For Roger Cohen, the answer is easy: "hit the road!"
Serbia, by the way, already has the largest number of refugees in Europe,
victims of "ethnic cleansing" in Croatia and Kosovo. And Serbs cannot get
visas or refugee status in Western Europe. They have been labeled the "bad
guys". Only their enemies can be "victims".
Before and After
Kosovo before the NATO war and occupation was, nevertheless, a multiethnic
society. The accusation of "apartheid" was simply Albanian propaganda, as
the Albanian nationalist leaders chose to use that heavily-charged term to
describe their own boycott of Serbs and Serb institutions. Every police
action against an Albanian, for whatever reason, whether for suspicion of
armed rebellion or for ordinary crime, was described as a "human rights
violation" by the Albanian human rights network financed by the United
States government.
It was an extraordinary situation that the Serbian and Yugoslav governments
allowed an illegal separatist "government of Kosovo", headed by Ibrahim
Rugova, to hold shop in the center of Pristina, regularly receiving foreign
journalists and regaling them with tales of how oppressed they were by the horrid Serbs.
But the laws were the same for all citizens, there were Albanians in local
government and in the police, and if there were cases of police brutality
(in what country are there no cases of police brutality?), the Albanians at
least had nothing to fear from their Serb neighbors.
Even then, it was the Serbs who were afraid of the Albanians. Only outside
Kosovo could anyone seriously believe that it was the Albanians who were
under threat of "ethnic cleansing" (much less "genocide"). Such a project
was simply, obviously, out of the question. It was the Serbs who were
afraid, who spoke of sending their children to safety if they had the means,
or who spoke bravely of remaining "no matter what".
Later, in March 1999, when NATO began to bomb Kosovo, Albanians fled by the
hundreds of thousands, and their temporary flight from the war theater was
presented as the justification for the bombing that caused it. The press did
not bother to report on the Serbs and others who also fled the bombing at
that time.
In Kosovo, in 1987, in Pristina and Pec, I observed a peculiar sort of group
behavior that reminds me only of school playgrounds in Maryland in my
childhood. A gang of kids get together and by various signs, body language,
and a minimum of words, convey to some outsiders that they are excluded and
despised. I have seen Albanians act in this way toward stray Serbs,
especially old women. This variety of "mobbing" was not violent in 1987, but
turned so after NATO occupied the territory. It was encouraged by the
official NATO stamp of approval of Albanian hatred for Serbs, delivered by
bombs in the spring of 1999.
Of course, there must have been Serbs who hated Albanians. But in my
limited, chance experience, what struck me was the absence of hatred for
Albanians among Serbs I met. Fear, yes, but not hatred. A great deal of
perplexity. Sister Fotina at the Gracanica monastery had a very Christian
explanation. We tried to help the Albanians care for their many children,
she said, and yet they turn against us. This must be God's way of punishing
us for turning away from Christianity during the time of Communism, she
concluded. She blamed her fellow Serbs more than the Albanians.
The divine punishment has not been confined to Christians, however. In the
southernmost corner of Kosovo live an ancient population called Gorani
(meaning mountain people), who converted to Islam under the Ottoman Empire,
like most of the Albanians. But their language is Serbian, and this is
unacceptable to the Albanians. Estimates vary, but it is agreed that at
least two thirds of the Gorani have left since NATO "liberation" . Pressure
and intimidation have taken various forms. Albanians have moved into the
temporarily vacant homes of Gorani who went to Austria and Germany to earn
money for their retirement. The NATO-protected Albanian authorities have
found ways to deprive Gorani children of schooling in the Serbian language.
In the main Gorani town of Dragash, an Albanian mob attacked the health
center and caused health workers to flee. Then, last January 5, a powerful
explosion destroyed the bank in Dragash. It was the only Serbian bank still
allowed to operate in the south of Kosovo, and served mainly to transfer the
pensions that allowed local Gorani to survive.
As usual, the crime went unpunished.
David Binder, who used to report on Yugoslavia for the New York Times,
before he was excluded for knowing too much, reported last November * on a
long investigation of conditions in Kosovo commissioned by the German
Bundeswehr. The existence of this report is proof that the Western
governments, while publicly claiming that Kosovo is "ready for
independence" , know quite well that this is not true. Among other things,
Binder reports:
The institute authors, Mathias Jopp and Sammi Sandawi, spent six months
interviewing 70 experts and mining current literature on Kosovo in preparing
the study. In their analysis the political unrest and guerrilla fighting of
the 1990s led to basic changes which they call a "turnabout in
Kosovo-Albanian social structures." The result is a "civil war society in
which those inclined to violence, ill-educated and easily influenced people
could make huge social leaps in a rapidly constructed soldateska."
"It is a Mafia society" based on "capture of the state" by criminal
elements.
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." The study sharply
criticizes the United States for "abetting the escape of criminals" in
Kosovo as well as "preventing European investigators from working."
It notes "secret CIA detention centers" at Camp Bondsteel and assails
American military training for Kosovo (Albanian) police by Dyncorp,
authorized by the Pentagon.
In an aside, it quotes one unidentified official as saying of the American
who is deputy chief of UNMIK, "The main task of Steve Schook is to get drunk
once a week with Ramush Haradinaj."
Who Goes and Who Stays
Schook has been fired by UNMIK, but UNMIK, the nominally United Nations
mission, is being taken over arbitrarily by the European Union. The EU"mission" is a sort of colonial government which, alongside NATO, plans to
govern the ungovernable Albanian territory. However, already movements of
armed Albanian patriots are planning their next "war of liberation" against
the Europeans.
So, after the Serbs, the Roma, the Gorani, will the Europeans have to "hit
the road"? Only the Americans seem sure of staying. Ensconced in their
gigantic "Camp Bondsteel", they control the strategic routes from Serbia to
Greece, and incidentally offer the mass of unemployed Kosovo Albanians their
best-paying employment opportunities, notably by taking menial and dangerous
jobs serving U.S. forces in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The reality of this shameless land-grab is available to all. I have written
about it, Binder has written about it, Szamuely has written about it, many
Germans have written about it. The Russians, the Greeks, the Rumanians, the
Slovaks and many others know about it. But in the Brave New World Order, it
does not exist. People don't know.
I leave the last word to Aldous Huxley:"Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want
to know."
(* The Binder story can be found at http://www.balkanal ysis.com/ )
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and
Western Delusion (Monthly Review Press.) She can be reached at
diana.josto@ yahoo.fr
http://counterpunch .com/johnstone02 182008.html
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