This is, if you didn't guess, about Serbia (and Iraq, by extension).

If anyone has even the slightest misgivings, I suggest you exit now. It's pretty tough to discuss the most important military conflict since WWII without getting rather heated. Especially when you consider how entrenched the sides are (with one actually having facts - see how heated it is already?). I suggest to you: Flee! Flee for the mountains!

Now that they're gone, we can begin the debating. I'll open it up to everyone. Let me first start with my favourite question:

Who is Lt General Michael Jackson?

I'll be posting a history lesson shortly.

------------------
Peace on Earth
-
If anyone here feels so attached to me that they would like to name something in my honor please contact Asbury College and donate money for furniture in the new Kinlaw Library. :)

I've heard theories that El Presidente felt the need to divert attention from the Whitehouse goins-on, so the possibility that the brouhaha in Serbia was not a military necessity is not news to me.

--Baloo

------------------
"Politicians and diapers should be changed regularly, for the same reason."
--(Unknown)
Come Hither and Yawn...

No, there are reasons behind the war but they're a lot deeper than "Billy Bob needed a diversion."

Anyway, I believe a history lesson, as to the origin of the KLA and the war, is in order.

Under the 1974 Yugoslav constitution, Kosovo had been granted a large measure of autonomy with its own political, financial, legal and cultural institutions and widespread use of the Albanian language.

What were conditions like 13 years later? Well, after the fanning of the nationalist flames in 1981, the New York Times picks up the story in 1987.

quote:

---

"Portions of southern Yugoslavia have reached such a state of ethnic friction that Yugoslavs have begun to talk of the horrifying possibility of 'civil war' in a land that lost one-tenth of its population, or 1.7 million people, in World War II...

"A young Army conscript of ethnic Albanian origin shot up his barracks, killing four sleeping Slavic bunkmates and wounding six others.

"The Army says it has uncovered hundreds of subversive ethnic Albanian cells in its ranks. Some arsenals have been raided.

"Ethnic Albanians in the Government have manipulated public funds and regulations to take over land belonging to the 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...

"Last summer, the authorities in Kosovo said they documented 40 ethnic Albanian attacks on Slavs in two months. In the last two years, 320 ethnic Albanians have been sentenced for political crimes, nearly half of them characterized as severe...

"While 200,000 Serbs and Montenegrins still live in the province, they are scattered and lack cohesion. In the last seven years, 20,000 of them have fled the province, often leaving behind farmsteads and houses, for the safety of the Slavic north."

---

In February 1989, despite widespread protests and a hunger strike by Kosovar miners, Milosevic revoked Kosovo's autonomy, instituting a series of discriminatory measures against ethnic Albanians. Over the next three years, tens of thousands were sacked, many for refusing to sign loyalty pledges. Albanian language television, radio and the daily press were shut down. Schools were closed because teachers refused to implement the "uniform teaching plan and program of Serbia".

In 1989, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) was formed and by the end of 1990 claimed around 700,000 ethnic Albanian members. Its leader, Dr Ibrahim Rugova, styled himself after the so-called "Velvet Revolution" that had brought playwright Vaclav Havel to power in
Czechoslovakia. With his trademark silk scarf and unkempt appearance, Rugova, a literary critic trained at the Sorbonne University, advocated passive resistance to the Yugoslav administration as the means for obtaining independence for Kosovo.

Germany's recognition of Slovenia and Croatia in late 1991 rapidly set in train the disintegration of Yugoslavia, opening up bitter ethnic fighting as groups suddenly found themselves divided by what had previously been internal state borders. Backed by the US and other major powers, Bosnia Herzegovina and then Macedonia followed suit. But neither the European Commission nor the UN supported independence for Kosovo, which had been recognised internationally as part of Serbia since 1912.

In April 1992, Kosovo, as a province of Serbia, became part of the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which also included the republic of Montenegro. Vojvodina, like Kosovo, remained a province of Serbia within the new Yugoslav state.

The LDK, along with other Kosovar parties, organised elections for a self-declared "Republic of Kosovo". The "parallel" government headed by Rugova organised a network of schools and health clinics staffed by Albanians who had previously been sacked from their posts. Albania was the only country to officially recognize Kosovo.

The turning point came at the end of 1995 with the signing of the US-brokered Dayton Accord by the warring parties in Bosnia. Despite the hopes of Rugova and others, the Dayton agreement omitted any mention of independence for Kosovo, nor did it appear likely that the US would change its position in the future.

The US relied heavily on the Milosevic regime to police the Accord, under which the Bosnian Serbs had been compelled to abandon their demand to secede from Bosnia. Any move towards independence for Kosovo would have undermined the very foundation of the Accord, namely, the international recognition of the borders of the former Yugoslav republics, but not of any areas within those republics. In other words, the quid pro quo between Milosevic and the US was that the Bosnian Serbs would remain as an enclave within Bosnia, in return for the maintenance of the status quo in Kosovo.

The Dayton agreement gave rise to demands for a more aggressive approach to achieving independence. The KLA emerged as one expression of this turn to increasingly militant tactics.

The KLA was reportedly formed in Pristina in 1993. A leading role in its creation was played by the Popular Movement for Kosovo (LPK)--one of the separatist groupings to emerge from the 1981 Kosovo protests (which originally began as student protests against overcrowding at the University of Pristina). Based in the Decani area near Pristina, the KLA carried out a number of attacks on individual Serb police and soldiers. In 1995, it took its activities to a new level by attacking a Serb border patrol in April, and a
Serb police station in August using automatic weapons and a bomb.

As the influence of Rugova and the LDK began to wane, the KLA became more open and aggressive. In April 1996, in a letter to the BBC's Albanian language service, the KLA publicly acknowledged for the first time its responsibility for attacks on Serb police and civilians. Its racialist outlook was highlighted by the ongoing targeting of refugee camps set up to house thousands of Serbs driven out of the Krajina region of Bosnia in August 1995 as part of the "ethnic cleansing" carried out by the US-backed Croatian army and militia.

In 1997, the KLA's access to arms and more advanced weaponry was rapidly augmented by the eruption of civil war in neighbouring Albania, following the collapse of the government of Sali Berisha. Different factions raided the country's armouries, taking millions of automatic weapons, some of which found their way into the KLA training camps set up by Berisha in the north, near the Kosovo border.

In September 1997, the KLA carried out its most sophisticated military assault to date--10 co-ordinated attacks, with the use of anti-tank weapons, at locations up to 150 kilometres apart.

In February 1998, it attacked Serb houses in the villages of Klina, Decani and Djakovica, and a Serb refugee camp at Baboloc, and ambushed Serb policemen on the road between Glogovac and Srbica, finally provoking a major counteroffensive by Yugoslav security forces against KLA strongholds. Some 80 Albanians, including women and children, were killed in the central Drenica region of Kosovo.

The "Drenica massacre" saw a sharp shift in attitude by the US administration to Kosovo and the KLA. On the eve of the Serbian counterinsurgency, Robert Gelbard, the senior US envoy to the Balkans, visited Pristina where he denounced the KLA as a "terrorist organisation"--a remark widely interpreted as giving the green light for the Serb repression. But within days, Madeleine Albright attacked Milosevic saying: "We are not going to stand by and watch the Serbian authorities do in Kosovo what they can no longer get away with in Bosnia". The arms and economic embargo against Yugoslavia was toughened and the US warned that it reserved the right to take unilateral military action against Serbia.

This following report comes from the New York Times of June 24, 1998.

quote:

---

"In recent days the rebels have changed their strategy and begun to attack and kidnap Serbian civilians in an apparent effort to drive them out of their villages in the overwhelmingly Albanian province of Kosovo in southern Serbia... Armed ethnic Albanian groups have expelled Serbs from Jelovac and Kijevo, which were populated by Albanians and Serbs. There are now 900 Serbs, displaced from their homes in the last week, taking refuge in Klima, and several say male relatives detained by the rebels are still missing...

"Bodies have begun turning up near Serbian settlements. Zivojin Milic, shot six times in the head, was found last Wednesday on the outskirts of Pristina, apparently a victim of the ethnic Albanian militants."

---

In mid-June, 80 NATO warplanes conducted exercises over Albania and Macedonia, and in August and September, NATO troops participated in joint ground manoeuvres in both countries.

Predictions of the war came as early as October of 1998. Permit the following quote from Gary Dempsey of the conservative Cato Institute

quote:

---

The Clinton administration has diligently put everything in place for intervention. In fact, by mid-July US-NATO planners had completed contingency plans for intervention, including air strikes and the
deployment of ground troops. All that was missing was a sufficiently brutal or tragic event to trigger the process. As a senior Defence Department official told reporters on July 15, 'If some levels of atrocities
were reached that would be intolerable, that would probably be a trigger.'

---

According to one estimate by the US-based Military
Analysis Network, by mid-1998 the KLA controlled between 25-30 percent of the province, with its own administration, roadblocks and fortifications. Its forces operated in a far broader area, especially at night. The KLA's expansion and its continuing attacks on Serb forces and civilians finally provoked a further Yugoslav military offensive, which not only uprooted the KLA from many areas, but threatened to wipe it out altogether.

In late September, NATO seized upon reports of a massacre of 10 women and children in the village of Gornje Obrinje to threaten air strikes against Yugoslavia. The threats were only called off at the last minute after Milosevic signed the terms laid down by Holbrooke in an October 20 agreement for the reduction of Yugoslav troops in Kosovo to levels prior to the offensive. Also in the agreement, the Kosovo-Albanians were to get their own education system, their own administration and police, and elect their own political representatives. Also, the province was to be permitted to send its own representatives to the Yugoslavian federal assembly, a right up to now reserved for the republics of Serbia and Montenegro. Following the elections and three years of negotiations, the final status of Kosovo would then be decided. The Serbian side only signed the agreement following a massive military threat from NATO, involving hundreds of fighter aircraft and several heavy bombers. Per paragraph 52 of the Vienna Convention, this makes the agreement illegal.

The KLA also began its own "cleansing" operation, directed against the 12,000 strong Gorani community--Slavs who are Muslims and speak Albanian, but are not ethnic Albanians. The KLA accused the Goranis, a number of whom were supporters of Rugova's LDK, of being "Serb collaborators". Among those killed was a close aide of Rugova's, Enver Maloku, a half Gorani, who was shot dead in Pristina in mid-January by gunmen rumoured to be from the KLA.

The New York Times can shed some more light as to what the KLA was doing during this time period.

quote:

---

"The Kosovo Albanian rebels were pushing ahead with their own war aims. Sensing that the deal essentially placed the world's most powerful military alliance on their side--despite NATO's continued assurances that it did not want to become the 'KLA's airforce'--the rebels quickly reclaimed territory abandoned by the Serbian forces and mounted a continuous series of small-scale attacks. American intelligence officials warned Congress that the rebels were buying weapons, improving their training and were become (sic) a more formidable force."

---

Now, to the Washington Post.

quote:

---

"US intelligence reported almost immediately that the KLA intended to draw NATO into its fight for independence by provoking Serb forces into further atrocities. Warnings to the rebel leaders from Washington restrained them somewhat, but they assassinated a small-town Serb mayor near Pristina and were believed responsible for the slaying of six Serb youths at the Panda Cafe in Pec on Dec. 14."

---

On January 15, 1999, a so-called Serb massacre took place at the village of Racak, which was to supply the final "trigger" for the present NATO air assault. To this day it is not clear whether the fatalities at
Racak where the result of a massacre or a fiirefight between Serb forces and KLA guerrillas. Belgrade insists that the "massacre" was a set-up staged by the KLA with the assistance of the US-head of the OSCE observer teams, William Walker, a long-time US operator who had been heavily involved in US activities in Central America, including Nicaragua (he worked with Ollie North)

The French daily newspapers Le Monde and Le Figaro both produced articles strongly questioning the account provided by Walker, which was published widely in the international media. Two Associated Press TV journalists had been invited by Serb security forces to film an attack on the KLA stronghold in Racak. Their reports and those of other on-the-spot journalists indicated that the village, which was virtually deserted, was not the scene of a massacre but of fighting between Serb police and the KLA.

Yet the following morning a number of Albanian corpses in civilian clothes were found lined up in a ditch. Walker, without any investigation or corroborative evidence, pronounced "a Serb massacre" had taken place and set in motion the withdrawal of his observer teams from Kosovo. Many questions remain unanswered about the Racak massacre, but there is significant evidence--including the lack of blood and spent cartridges at the spot where the murders were alleged to have taken place--which suggests that after the Serb soldiers and reporters had left, the KLA dressed up their own dead in civilian clothes and placed them in the ditch.

Initial reports, cited by Clinton in his speeches defending the bombing campaign, describe the victims as having been sprayed with bullets from Serb machine guns. Later accounts, including those in the Washington Post and New York Times last Sunday, speak of civilians killed execution-style, each one dying from a bullet in the back of the head.

What is not in doubt is that the day before the bodies were uncovered, there had been violent clashes between Serbian units and KLA fighters in the vicinity of the village. After the fighting ended, OSCE observers and journalists visited the village without finding any signs of a massacre. The bodies were only discovered 12 hours later, leaving sufficient time for any possible deception to be arranged.

(Now, I know at this point some of you who support the war are dismissing this as simple revisionism, like those who denied the Holocaust. Yet, I find it necessary to point out to you that there was a reason those stories were not believed originall, because in WWI the Allies gained a reputation for falsifying reports of atrocities. Those reports weighed heavily on US opinion. Moreover, in January 1995 a mortal shell landed in a crowded market in the Muslim controlled portion of Sarajevo. The images of the dead and wounded women and children were used as a reversal of NATO policy in Bosnia. Yet, a UN investigation was unable to substantiate these claims. In fact, they now claim that due to the trajectory, the shell came not from the Serbian positions, but from the Muslim positions overlooking the city. Of course, tell that to all the Bosnian Serbs killed with NATO support.)

How important was Racak? Allow the Washington Post to speak for me.

"Racak transformed the West's Balkan policy as singular events seldom do. The atrocity...convinced the administration and then its NATO allies that a six-year effort to bottle up the ethnic conflict in Kosovo was doomed. In the next two weeks, they set aside the emphasis on containment that had grown over the years."

The Milosevic regime was presented with demands that it could not possibly accept--the stationing of a large,
long-term NATO force within Kosovo and free access by the NATO military to all parts of Yugoslavia, including Serbia and Montenegro.

At Rambouillet, the KLA for the first time eclipsed the LDK. Not only did the US insist that KLA representatives be present, but it was KLA leader Hashim Thaci, not Rugova, who led the Kosovar Albanian
negotiating team.

Serbia, with good cause, rejected Rambouillet. As soon as I find the full document, I'll post it (the Balkan Action Council used to have it on their site, but they took it down). The document sheds a LOT of light on the nature of the conflict. Here, an excerpt of Article 8 of the Appendix shows that.

quote:

---

"NATO personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters. This shall include, but not be limited to, the right of bivouac, maneuver, billet, and utilization of any areas or facilities as required for support, training, and operations."

---

And now, from Article 6:

quote:

---

NATO personnel, under all circumstances and at all times, shall be immune from the Parties' jurisdiction in respect of any civil, administrative, criminal, or disciplinary offenses which may be committed by them in the FRY.

---

(For those not well-versed in international politics, soveriegn states don't sign agreements like this unless they've been defeated in war)

On March 18 the KLA signed the Accords. On March 24, the first bombs fell.

Now, I believe we're all more or less up to date.

(given my edit to fix this UBB code, I'm new to it)
------------------
"I can't let you smother me. I'd like to but it wouldn't work." - Kurt Cobain
Lounge Act, Nirvana

quote:

---

From 6 PM on Sunday January 16, troops of the 45th Batallion, "Heroes of Majagual," with support of the river flotilla of the National Navy are bombing and machine-gunning the river side La Victoria, Coroncoro and Yanacue veredas in the Cimitarra River Valley, in the jurisdiction of the Cantagallo municipality.

This new military operation in the Cimitarra River Valley is being carried out using the pretext of counter-insurgency and anti-narcotic activity according to statements to the Press by the Commander of the 45th Batallion Heroes of Majagual Colonel Jesus Maria Clavijo stating that "Here we are, and here we are going to continue in order to counteract these subversives who have changed thus zone into a bastion of drugs."

Despite the Colonel's statements, the results for the civilian population of this military incursion are: a child of only three years wounded in one leg and more than 400 peasants diplaced from their plots of land. Of those 400 displaced, 35 arrived Monday, January 17, in the city of Barrancabermeja and denounced these acts that openly violate the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law to the regional human rights organization CREDHOS and the PEASANT ASSOCIATION OF THE
CIMITARRA RIVER VALLEY (ACNC).

The statements made by the peasants indicate that vessels of the National Navy obstructed the passing of the displaced persons canoes from the Yanacue Ravine to the Cimitarra River and prevented the normal flow of products and food. The peasants homes were machine-gunned directly by these vessels. Tuesday, January 18, another 50 displaced peasants arrived to the Barrancarbermeja port stating that the peasants LUIS MENDEZ, ANDRES MENDEZ, ALBERTO PINO AND EDILMA GRIMALDO were arrested by the military as alleged guerrilla fighters. They also indicated that the peasants Jaime Yepes and his wife were disappeared and that their food shop was plundered by the military. They stated that about another 250 displaced peasants will soon arrive to Barrancabermeja.

---

In other news, Congress is now considering $1.6 billion in military aid Clinton has proposed for Columbia.

I thought Kosovo Albanians, comprising as they did a majority of the residents, had an innate right to secede, just like the south did during the Civil War, right? Or have we reversed positions on this now?

Some folks I know see the NATO attack on "sovreign" Serbia (is Serbia a 'real' country, or is it simply one former Yugoslav province trying to bully the other ones, as it has seemed since the breakup and its actions in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia, and why aren't the other republics equally worthy of consideration?) as simply the beginning of the coming globalization, under which national sovreignty will become unimportant and everybody everywhere will be socialized. (since it appears that socialism won't really work unless EVERYONE is socialist, this would seem to be a necessary step) In which case you should be applauding it.

I may be off base on this. I haven't read Trotsky yet.

And I also must say that I currently hold the cynical opinion that had we refused to intervene in any of the former Yugoslavia's affairs, and they had spread as they threatened to... then eventually down the road 'someone' would be condemning us for NOT getting involved.

------------------
Calvin: "No efficiency, no accountability... I tell you, Hobbes, it's a lousy way to run a Universe." -- Bill Watterson

The Kosovo Alabanians have a right to secede. Or, so it may seem. However, this seems to be a sticky issue. I was more or less nailed to a cross and crucified for claiming that the Confederacy had a right to secede. Yet now, making the arguement that the Kosovars have no right to secede, I'm being nailed to the same cross. Neither, either I was right the first time or I was right the second time. I'm willing to say I was right the second time. (after I became a Marxist and was able to evaluate such things with an eye towards the class struggle)
If the United Nations decides that Kosovo is to hold a referendum on seccession, then since Serbia is a member of the UN, Kosovo has a right. Otherwise, they don't.
Personally, I think Kosovan independence is foolhardy. For many reasons. Firstly, take into account that human rights groups report that the amount of killings per day in Kosovo has not decreased. Why? Because if you're Serbian, Gypsie, Jew, etc you're going to be killed. We'll need to bomb Pristina again.
Moreover, nationalism is a proven dead-end. In 1981, when the outrage of the Kosovo workers and students was at its highest, the Kosovo ruling class (there was one, as it was autonomous) funnelled it into Kosovo independence. Then, when Milosevic revoked their autonomy, it was only after Serbia was racked by social upheaval (shortly after the IMF was allowed in) and his own base of support was being lessened. In fact, the same can be said for all the Yugoslavian peoples. Prior to the failed post-IMF economy, ethnic nationalism was going the way of the dodo bird. Then, as the ruling beauracracy was losing its power base, they funnelled it into nationalism. The Albanians will not attain freedom from joining with Greater Albania, but with their fellow workers, of all nationalities.

Now, onto the topic of borders. You're committing quite the logical folly. Allow me to borrow from a friend on the discussion of borders.

quote:

---

Borders exist. And the reason to be concerned about their violation even with good motivations much less by a unilateral and illegal force uninterested in the plight of the suffering, is because respect for borders is one of the few impediments to the mighty doing whatever they please with the weak. To establish the precedent that national sovereignty is inconsequential is to remove perhaps the major impediment to one nation sending troops, bombers, or missiles into another. Once that is done, there remains only debate over what is warranted, and in the world as we know it such debate is dominated by the most powerful states and their massive media machines, most particularly the U.S. (Military intervention, Richard Falk has reminded us, is like the Mississippi River: it only flows from North to South.) Thus, to deny the validity of national sovereignty is to effectively give the U.S. carte blanche to intervene when and where it decides -- which is, of course, from the U.S. perspective, a delightful by-product of the current events.

---

Can't say I disagree. Of course, I can disagree with the end. That's been in effect for quite a while. The US is a rogue state. It has rejected the authority of the World Court, the United Nations... everyone but itself. It is dangerous and needs to be stopped. As much as I dislike the notion of my friends dying (and I have many in the military) I sincerely hope that Columbia turns into another Vietnam.

We shall look at Columbia and Turkey.

In Colombia, according to State Department estimates, the annual level of political killing by the government and its paramilitary associates is about at the level of Kosovo, and refugee flight primarily from their atrocities is well over a million. Colombia has been the leading Western hemisphere recipient of US arms and training as violence increased through the '90s, and that assistance is now increasing, under a "drug war" pretext dismissed by almost all serious observers. The Clinton administration was particularly enthusiastic in its praise for President Gaviria, whose tenure in office was responsible for "appalling levels of violence," according to human rights organizations, even surpassing his predecessors. Details are readily available.

By very conservative estimate, Turkish repression of Kurds in the '90s falls in the category of Kosovo. It peaked in the early '90s; one index is the flight of over a million Kurds from the countryside to the unofficial Kurdish capital Diyarbakir from 1990 to 1994, as the Turkish army was devastating the countryside. 1994 marked two records: it was "the year of the worst repression in the Kurdish provinces" of Turkey, Jonathan Randal reported from the scene, and the year when Turkey became "the biggest single importer of American military hardware and thus the world's largest arms purchaser." When human rights groups exposed Turkey's use of US jets to bomb villages, the Clinton Administration found ways to evade laws requiring suspension of arms deliveries, much as it was doing in Indonesia and elsewhere.

Colombia and Turkey explain their (US-supported) atrocities on grounds that they are defending their countries from the threat of terrorist guerrillas. As does the government of Yugoslavia.

The above three paragraphs were written by Noam Chomsky, I must admit.

Anyway, I believe those are interesting.

If one wishes to go back about 25 years, we can consider the case of the Khmer Rouge. But I'll wait for someone to ask.

Anywho I personally hope that Colombia doesn't turn into another Vietnam, mainly because the majority of my family lives in Colombia, and have family and friends of my family who have been killed during the gang wars between all the factions (the drug dealers, guerrillas, the paramilatary forces opposing the guerrillas, and of course the Colombian police and armed forces).

Anyway it's the classic dictators who work for the US are good, but dictators who don't work with the US are bad.

------------------
"Think of all the delightful aspects of the reproductive process: menstruation, pregnancy, labor. And the part we're trying to eliminate is sex?" Cecil Adams the guy who does Straight Dope.

------------------
Sean Robertson
[email protected]

WEBolutionary Consulting Services
Mania-Online

"Great is the glory for the strife is hard"
- Wordsworth

"Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?"
- Dr Evil