Hawks and Eagles: “Greater NATO” Flies to the Aid of “GreaterAlbania”
\nBy Diana Johnstone<\/p>\n
Spring-Summer 1999 # 67<\/p>\n
On March 24, NATO launched its first full-scale aggressive war against\u00a0a\u00a0sovereign state. It was certainly not meant to be the last. NATO, it\u00a0was
\nrepeatedly stated, had to prove its “resolve.” The action was meant to\u00a0be\u00a0exemplary, a model for future NATO actions elsewhere and a warning to\u00a0the
\nworld.<\/p>\n
Yugoslavia had neither attacked nor threatened any other country. NATO\u00a0acted illegally, without any mandate from the United Nations Security
\nCouncil. By flouting the basic principles that underlie the fragile\u00a0structure of international legality, the Clinton administration and\u00a0NATO\u00a0chose “might is right” as the law of the new millennium.<\/p>\n
This appalling adventure, presented by servile media and ignorant\u00a0politicians as a “humanitarian” necessity, set off precisely the\u00a0“humanitarian catastrophe” its apologists claimed it was meant to\u00a0prevent.<\/p>\n
Countless thousands of frightened ethnic Albanian civilians fled over\u00a0rough\u00a0terrain into neighboring countries. They were fleeing from the NATO
\nbombing\u00a0and Serb reprisals, in proportions it was not possible to measure. Both\u00a0NATO and its armed Albanian allies in the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK
\nor\u00a0KLA) needed to persuade the world that “Milosevic” (the semi-fictional\u00a0personification of evil on the one hand, and Serbia on the other) was
\ncarrying out “genocide” in Kosovo. The “genocide” story was necessary\u00a0to\u00a0justify both the bombing and the next phase of the NATO-KLA scenario,the
\ninvasion of Serbia to “liberate” Kosovo.<\/p>\n
After a week of bombing, this much could be said with certainty: NATO\u00a0leaders had lied so blatantly about things that could be checked, thatthere was no reason to believe anything they say about things that
\ncould\u00a0not.<\/p>\n
Among the many lies in the current torrent, one lie played a key role\u00a0in\u00a0the justifying of the NATO bombing, the “no alternative” lie: \u00a0Since\u00a0Milosevic refused peace negotiations, we had no choice but to bomb.(1)<\/p>\n
The “no alternative” lie incorporated several falsehoods in one.\u00a0Milosevic had not refused peace negotiations. For months, the Serbian\u00a0government had been offering to negotiate, while the ethnic Albanian\u00a0leaders refused. The Serb side had presented quite comprehensive and\u00a0reasonable proposals for extensive self-government in Kosovo.<\/p>\n
For years, but especially during recent months, both the Serbian\u00a0government and non-governmental groups have made compromise proposals
\nfor\u00a0Kosovo, all including autonomy, democracy and extensive cultural\u00a0rights,\u00a0while the nationalist leaders have insisted on only one demand:\u00a0secession.<\/p>\n
The “Rambouillet peace agreement” was in reality an ultimatum to\u00a0Yugoslavia to accept a NATO protectorate on its soil. It was designedby
\nState Department official Christopher Hill to satisfy KLA leaders, and\u00a0was\u00a0“agreed” upon only by those two parties and the European Union\u00a0representative, not by the entire Contact Group (including Russia)
\nwhich\u00a0was theoretically sponsoring it. No sovereign state in the world could\u00a0accept such an ultimatum.<\/p>\n
Top U.S. officials openly coaxed reluctant Albanians into signing the\u00a0agreement by telling them that their signatures were needed in order to\u00a0justify NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia. The “peace agreement” was\u00a0thus\u00a0in reality a war agreement.<\/p>\n
The War Agreement of Rambouillet<\/p>\n
The conflict between ethnic Albanians and Serbs is a very old one,\u00a0which\u00a0can be traced back over three centuries. It is older than the\u00a0Israeli-Palestinian or Northern Ireland conflicts, not to mention
\ncountless\u00a0other ethnic conflicts in the world. The “peace process” in such cases\u00a0is\u00a0expected to be long and delicate. Only in Kosovo, governments and media
\nsuddenly decided that the conflict had to be settled in two weeks, at\u00a0Rambouillet, on terms laid down by the United States.<\/p>\n
Why the hurry? Because the United States was keen to lock in NATO’s\u00a0new\u00a0mission as global intervention machine with a show of force prior to\u00a0the
\n50th anniversary of NATO summit in April.(2) NATO had carefully planned\u00a0the\u00a0operations six months in advance. Peace negotiations “broke down” just
\nwhen\u00a0NATO was all set to go.<\/p>\n
For many months, the Serbian government had offered to negotiate.\u00a0High-level government teams went repeatedly to the provincial capital,\u00a0Pristina, to hold talks with Ibrahim Rugova and other non-violent
\nethnic\u00a0Albanian leaders. On one pretext or another, the Albanians refused to\u00a0negotiate. It is probable that two factors weighed heavily in their\u00a0refusal: fear of going against the rising armed rebel movement, the
\n“Kosovo\u00a0Liberation Army,” (UCK\/KLA), hostile to any compromise and ready to\u00a0assassinate “traitors” who dealt with the Serbs; and expectations that\u00a0strong U.S. pressure on Yugoslavia would bring them more than\u00a0negotiations\u00a0with Belgrade.<\/p>\n
At Rambouillet, the older generation of nationalist leaders such as\u00a0Rugova\u00a0never had the slightest opportunity to enter negotiations with the
\nmulti-ethnic official Serbian delegation, which included members of the\u00a0various ethnic communities in Kosovo. They were flanked and\u00a0overshadowed in
\nthe ethnic Albanian delegation by KLA outlaws, who by then were assured\u00a0of\u00a0United States support.<\/p>\n
Rambouillet was a charade staged by the United
\nStates in order to provide a pretext for a NATO demonstration of force\u00a0on\u00a0the eve of the Alliance’s fiftieth anniversary.\u00a0A genuine negotiation would have at least paid attention to the\u00a0extensive\u00a010-page proposal of the Serbian government side, calling for, notably:<\/p>\n
* Equality of all citizens and guaranteed human rights.
\n* Facilitated return of all citizens to their homes.
\n* Safe unhindered access of all international and national or\u00a0non-governmental humanitarian organizations to the population for\u00a0purposes
\nof aid.
\n* General amnesty for all political crimes related to conflict in\u00a0Kosovo\u00a0except for persons properly convicted of crimes against humanity and\u00a0international law.
\n* Widest possible media freedoms.
\n* Preservation and promotion of the national, cultural, and linguistic\u00a0identity of each national community.
\n* The commune (county) as basic unit of local self-government.
\n* An Assembly of 130 members, 95 elected directly by citizens through\u00a0proportional representation and 35 elected by national communities of\u00a0Albanians, Serbs, Turks, Romani (Gypsies), Egyptians, and Gorani
\n(mountain\u00a0Serbs of southwestern Kosovo, converted to Islam), five members each.
\n* Election by the Assembly of a President and 6 vice presidents, at\u00a0least\u00a0one from each national community, for a four-year term.
\n* Responsibility of the Assembly for: budget and taxes; educational\u00a0arrangements, with respect for the authorities of national communities\u00a0and\u00a0communes; electing judges; establishing a framework for local
\nself-government; protecting the environment where intercommunal issues\u00a0are\u00a0involved; adopting regulations governing medical institutions, urban
\nplanning, agriculture, elections, property ownership, as well as\u00a0economic,\u00a0scientific, technological and social development, among other things.
\n* The right of citizens to choose whether to be tried in a Kosovo\u00a0court or\u00a0in a court of the Republic of Serbia, and the right to request that\u00a0members\u00a0of the panel hearing their case be chosen from their own national
\ncommunity.
\n* Voluntary establishment of courts of national communities to settle\u00a0disputes among members of a national community who accept separate\u00a0national
\ncommunity rules.<\/p>\n
This last point is clearly designed for the Albanian community which,\u00a0particularly in rural areas of Kosovo as in neighboring northern\u00a0Albania,
\nhas never fully accepted any governmental law and prefers to be guided\u00a0by\u00a0the archaic traditional “Qanun” based on family honor and clan loyalty.<\/p>\n
Other measures, such as the provision for election to the Assembly,\u00a0reflect\u00a0fear of oppression by the Albanian majority of non-Albanians in Kosovo.<\/p>\n
No doubt this proposal is inadequate. But in any normal negotiation,\u00a0itwould have at least been acknowledged as a basis for discussion. This
\ndid\u00a0not occur. As for the Albanian side, it was interested in only one\u00a0thing: \u00a0secession from Serbia and total independence, if not today, then
\ncertainly\u00a0in three years’ time.<\/p>\n
The stubbornness of the Albanian delegation surprised Madeleine\u00a0Albright.\u00a0Perhaps the U.S. sponsors of the KLA hadn’t realized that the purpose
\nof\u00a0the armed rebellion was to seize power in any future “independent\u00a0Kosovo,”\u00a0and did not fully trust the United States to give it to them under the
\nambiguous terms of Rambouillet. For that purpose, war is a better\u00a0method\u00a0than any peace agreement, even one specially designed to detach Kosovo
\nfrom\u00a0Serbia. The KLA finally agreed to sign the Christopher Hill document\u00a0once\u00a0it was clear that Belgrade could not possibly agree to it, and that the
\nKLA\u00a0would thus get the war it wanted, complete with air cover.<\/p>\n
It was evident that Belgrade could not accept the U.S.-drafted\u00a0two-part\u00a0Rambouillet ultimatum, not only because it was a thinly veiled plan to\u00a0detach Kosovo from Serbia, but also because it contained provisions
\neven\u00a0worse than loss of that historic province, provisions no country in the\u00a0world could possibly accept.<\/p>\n
This has been clearly analyzed by Jan
\nOberg,\u00a0director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research\u00a0in\u00a0Lund, Sweden.(3) The Rambouillet ultimatum came in two parts, civilian
\nand\u00a0military. In the civilian part, three aspects stand out as obviously\u00a0unacceptable.<\/p>\n
* Kosovo would in effect be independent of Serbia, but Serbia would\u00a0not be\u00a0independent of Kosovo. Kosovo would be able to influence Yugoslavia as
\na\u00a0whole by sending its representatives to both Yugoslav and Serbian\u00a0parliaments, governments, and courts, whereas Yugoslavia would be\u00a0barred
\nfrom influencing Kosovo’s internal affairs. This is precisely the\u00a0aspect of\u00a0the 1974 version of the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of
\nYugoslavia that made major economic reforms impossible in Serbia in the\u00a01980s and led to virtually unanimous Serbian demands for a return to
\npre-1974 terms of Kosovo’s autonomy.(4) The Albanian veto made Serbia\u00a0ungovernable.<\/p>\n
* “Self-governing” Kosovo would actually be run by a NATO imperial\u00a0proconsul, with the title of Chief of the OSCE\/EU Implementation\u00a0Mission,\u00a0or CIM. The CIM, who would effectively be chosen by the United States,\u00a0would have the authority to issue binding directives on all important\u00a0matters, hire and fire officials and security personnel, and overrule
\nelection results.<\/p>\n
During the three-week period between Rambouillet I
\nand\u00a0Rambouillet II, while the Clinton administration and ex-Senator Robert\u00a0Dole\u00a0were scrambling to cajole the Albanians into signing up for NATO
\nbombing,\u00a0the “High Representative” in Bosnia, model for the CIM, demonstrated\u00a0his\u00a0powers by dismissing the democratically elected President of the
\nSerbian\u00a0entity.(5)
\n* Economically, the Rambouillet ultimatum would continue to drain\u00a0economic\u00a0resources from Serbia to Kosovo. In Tito’s Yugoslavia, Kosovo was the
\nmain\u00a0recipient of development aid from the Federation. Nevertheless, due in\u00a0part
\nto population growth (by far the highest birthrate in Europe,(6) as\u00a0well as\u00a0clandestine immigration from Albania), per capita income in Kosovo
\nremained\u00a0the lowest in Yugoslavia. The Rambouillet ultimatum demanded that\u00a0Yugoslavia give Kosovo an “equitable” share of benefits from\u00a0international
\ntransactions, without indicating what might be Serbia’s share of state\u00a0or\u00a0social property there. Since Kosovo would have its own “constitution,”
\noverruling the Yugoslav and Serbian constitutions, making it a “free\u00a0market\u00a0economy,” it is to be expected that formerly Serbian resources would
\nflow\u00a0rapidly into the hands of the rich Albanian mafia as well as any\u00a0interested\u00a0buyers from the NATO countries.<\/p>\n
The agreement did not even mention
\nsuspending economic sanctions against Serbia, much less any economic\u00a0aid or\u00a0help to the 650,000 refugees in Serbia. But substantial economic aid
\nwas\u00a0promised to Kosovo.<\/p>\n
The only operational remnant of the formal Yugoslav “sovereignty”\u00a0supposedly retained by this proposal would be the obligation for Serbia\u00a0to\u00a0keep paying for Kosovo. \u00a0Dr. Oberg points out that the civilian side of the “agreement” lacked any\u00a0reference to confidence building, reconciliation, peace or human rights
\neducation-measures vitally needed to enable the ethnic communities to\u00a0live\u00a0together. In short, there was nothing to suggest any serious effort to
\nprevent “ethnic cleansing” of the Serb minority by the triumphant\u00a0Albanian\u00a0majority.<\/p>\n
Still, the Serbian negotiating team at Rambouillet was ready to\u00a0consider\u00a0seriously this extremely unjust arrangement. The real sticking point\u00a0was
\nthe military side of the ultimatum. This amounted to nothing less than\u00a0unconditional surrender of Kosovo to NATO.<\/p>\n
* Kosovo would be occupied by a NATO force called “KFOR” headed by a\u00a0Commander, COMKFOR, who would “have the authority, without interference
\nor\u00a0permission of any Party, to do all he judges necessary and proper,\u00a0including the use of military force, to protect KFOR” or to order\u00a0cessation
\nof any activity he judges to be a “potential threat.”<\/p>\n
Judging from\u00a0experience in Bosnia, that could include forcibly shutting down media\u00a0that\u00a0differ with NATO doctrine.
\n* No ceiling is set on COMKFOR forces.
\n* The government had to disarm, but disarmament of the armed rebels,\u00a0considered dangerous terrorists by the Serbs, was left up in the air.\u00a0Yugoslav defenses within Kosovo would be withdrawn except for 1,500
\nborder\u00a0guards supported by up to 1,000 logistics personnel placed in\u00a0predetermined\u00a0barracks. On the other hand, the “Other Forces,” apparently meaning the\u00a0KLA\u00a0(never mentioned by name), would be called on to “publicly commit\u00a0themselves to demilitarize on terms to be determined by COMKFOR.” This
\nmeant that the Yugoslavs had no way of knowing to what extent or how\u00a0the\u00a0KLA might ever be disarmed.
\n* COMKFOR would have full control of airspace over Kosovo as well as\u00a025\u00a0kilometers into Serbia and Montenegro along the borders with Kosovo.
\n* NATO would not be liable for any damages to local property, would be\u00a0immune from all local jurisdiction or legal process, and would be\u00a0ensured\u00a0free and unrestricted access through all of Yugoslavia. This amounts to\u00a0a\u00a0license to invade other parts of Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n
“The military provisions,” said Dr. Oberg, “have nothing to do with\u00a0peacekeeping.” The more appropriate term, he suggested on March 18, the
\nday\u00a0the Albanians signed, would be “peace-prevention.”<\/p>\n
Dr. Oberg observed that among all the leading media, commentators,\u00a0scholars, and diplomats condemning the Yugoslav side for refusing to\u00a0sign,\u00a0none was examining what the accords contained. Having studied earlier\u00a0versions of Christopher Hill’s text and the final February 23 version,\u00a0Dr.\u00a0Oberg came to the conclusion that “this document has been adapted to be\u00a0acceptable to the Albanian delegates to such an extent that the\u00a0Yugoslav\u00a0side- ready to accept the political parts at an earlier stage-now find\u00a0the\u00a0changed document unacceptable both in terms of political and militaryaspects.”<\/p>\n
Why this change? “Because the worst case for the international\u00a0community\u00a0would be Yugoslavia saying yes and the Albanians saying no,” concludedOberg.
\nSo the Serbs were given an offer they could not accept.<\/p>\n
Although KLA leaders were not enthusiastic about this agreement\u00a0either,\u00a0the United States apparently obtained their consent by promising a\u00a0privileged role for the rebel gunmen as military partners of the United\u00a0States.<\/p>\n
Eliminating the Alternative<\/p>\n
It is preposterous to suggest that there was no alternative to\u00a0unconditional surrender of Yugoslavia to CIM and COMKFOR. It would have\u00a0taken time to work them out, and bringing the intransigent KLA into the\u00a0negotiations made matters vastly more difficult. But that intransigence\u00a0was\u00a0largely the result of their certitude that they ultimately commanded\u00a0full
\nUnited States and NATO support.<\/p>\n
During the time needed for a peace process, the presence of trulyneutral\u00a0peacemakers could have played a constructive and indispensable role.
\nLast October 12, Richard Holbrooke got Belgrade to allow 2,000″verifiers”\u00a0to enter Kosovo to monitor compliance of the Yugoslav side only with a
\ncease-fire the KLA had never been obliged to keep. This was already an\u00a0extreme oddity: a one-sided cease-fire, in which the legal police of a\u00a0country agrees not to pursue armed groups which, whether called\u00a0“liberation\u00a0army” or “terrorists,” had been murdering citizens for well over a year\u00a0and\u00a0showed no inclination to stop.<\/p>\n
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was\u00a0chosen\u00a0to organize this Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM). In Western Europe,
\nsince the demise of the 1980s peace movement, objections to the\u00a0qualitative\u00a0and geographical expansion of NATO have tended to take refuge in
\nproposals\u00a0to strengthen the OSCE which, unlike NATO, involves Russia and indeed\u00a0all\u00a0European countries except, since 1992, Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n
Early suspicions in some pro-OSCE circles, confirmed by later events,\u00a0suggested that this assignment was used largely to discredit the OSCE\u00a0as a\u00a0viable “alternative” to NATO. Although the champions of OSCE had seen\u00a0it as\u00a0less U.S.-dominated, the U.S. put one of its own “dirty war”\u00a0specialists,\u00a0William Walker, in charge of the KVM. The “verifier” force never
\napproached\u00a02,000, and it was widely assumed that many of the verifiers were agents\u00a0of\u00a0various NATO intelligence services, in particular U.S. military or
\ncivilian\u00a0intelligence. Walker’s “diplomatic” experience in assisting the Contra\u00a0guerrillas to mount a spoiling war against Sandinista Nicaragua was\u00a0good
\nbackground for cooperation with the KLA, the only “liberation” movement\u00a0in\u00a0the world (so far) which enthusiastically calls for NATO bombing of the
\nterritory it is out to conquer.<\/p>\n
In mid-January, Walker himself brokethe
\nfragile peace his force had been sent to solidify by endorsing the KLA\u00a0version of the extremely controversial events in the village of Racak.
\nWalker’s hasty and unquestioning condemnation of a “Serbian massacre”which
\nmany believe (and on the basis of solid evidence) was a propaganda\u00a0set-up,\u00a0arranging battlefield dead to give the appearance of an execution,\u00a0discredited the KVM as a neutral observer.<\/p>\n
Some of the resulting dissension within the OSCE has come into public\u00a0view. In particular, the German vice-president of the OSCE, Christian\u00a0Democratic Bundestag member Willy Wimmer, called the KVM a “fairly\u00a0hopeless\u00a0mission” because some people “apparently did not at all want it tosucceed.” Who? “For instance the UCK. For instance those who are behind\u00a0the\u00a0UCK and pull the strings.” Wimmer said that the international OSCE\u00a0observers had unambiguously agreed that the Yugoslav side had kept to\u00a0the\u00a0October cease-fire agreement, while the UCK had “systematically evaded\u00a0it”and engaged in provocations.(7)<\/p>\n
Asked by Deutschlandradio Berlin whether he considered the NATO\u00a0military\u00a0assault a mistake, Wimmer answered: “I personally consider it a very
\nbig\u00a0mistake. And I am in agreement with the OSCE parliamentary assembly,\u00a0which\u00a0with a majority of nearly 90% has repeatedly stated that military
\nengagements can be undertaken only with a mandate from the United\u00a0Nations\u00a0Security Council.” However, the interests of the United States and
\nBritainwere “diametrically opposed to us.”<\/p>\n
From “Greater Albania” to Greater NATO<\/p>\n
The war against Yugoslavia has been sold to the public as a\u00a0humanitarian\u00a0necessity, when in reality it is a political project. For the Albanian\u00a0leaders, the purpose was always clear: Albanian rule over Kosovo, not\u00a0“human rights” and certainly not “peace.”<\/p>\n
Veton Surroi, publisher of the leading Kosovo Albanian newspaper Koha\u00a0Ditore, financially supported by the Soros Foundation and the National
\nEndowment for Democracy, is often mentioned as the West’s dark horse to\u00a0be\u00a0President of “independent” ethnic Albanian Kosovo. He was a member of\u00a0the\u00a0Albanian delegation that signed the Rambouillet war agreement with the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0and the EU. He told the New York Times a week later that when hesigned, he\u00a0“also accepted that there would be consequences for the people ofKosovo,
\nthat if the Serbian side did not agree to the pact, it would have to be\u00a0imposed by force-even at risk to the civilian population.” He\u00a0continued:
\n“…these kinds of political arrangements require war, both as the\u00a0driving\u00a0force and as the action that seals them.”<\/p>\n
Surroi also recognized the political interest of NATO: “The\u00a0inhabitants of\u00a0southeastern Europe will have to face the fact that NATO has created a\u00a0security umbrella over them….” \u00a0In reality, the whole thrust of U.S. policy has been toward a violent\u00a0conflict in Yugoslavia that would shatter Serbia, the last bastion of\u00a0old-fashioned independence in the Balkans, and bring NATO in as\u00a0occupier\u00a0and arbiter. The United States did not want to bring Yugoslavia into
\nNATO,\u00a0but NATO into Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n
To most people, it seems incredible that the apparently blundering\u00a0Clinton\u00a0administration could have hatched and carried out such a Machiavellian
\nplot. And no doubt it didn’t. The monstrous policy seems, from what one\u00a0candiscern, to have grown more or less by chance out of a strange
\nencounter\u00a0between two very different interest groups: Balkan revanchist lobbies,\u00a0both
\nCroatian and Albanian, on the one hand, and a circle of strategic\u00a0policy\u00a0planners looking for the means to transform NATO from a West European\u00a0defense alliance focused on containing the Soviet Union into the\u00a0military\u00a0arm of U.S. global hegemony, able to act anywhere in the world without\u00a0regard to national sovereignty, the United Nations or international
\nlaw.<\/p>\n
The Albanian Lobby<\/p>\n
First came the lobbies. Already in the 1980s, when Albanians were\u00a0actually\u00a0running Kosovo, and the mainstream press was reporting that Albanians
\nwere\u00a0harassing Serbs in order to establish “an ethnically clean Albanian\u00a0republic” before merging with Albania to form “a greater Albania,”(8)\u00a0the\u00a0Albanian lobby in the United States was working to reverse the image.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0center of this lobby was New York Republican Congressman Joseph\u00a0DioGuardi,\u00a0of Italian-Albanian background. \u00a0On June 18, 1986, Representative DioGuardi and Senator Bob Dole\u00a0introduced
\nConcurrent Resolution 150, “Expressing Concern over the Condition of\u00a0Ethnic\u00a0Albanians Living in Yugoslavia.” This was an early significant victory
\nfor\u00a0the Albanian lobby. Of course, neither Dole nor, probably, any other\u00a0congressman had the slightest idea of conditions in Kosovo, if they\u00a0could\u00a0tell where it was, but it’s a rare politician who isn’t ready to\u00a0“express\u00a0concern” over the condition of an ethnic minority that has an active\u00a0lobby\u00a0operating in Washington. This sort of resolution can then be used as\u00a0documentary proof of whatever it alleges.<\/p>\n
The reward was not long in coming. In May 1987, Dole and DioGuardi\u00a0attended an Albanian-American fund-raiser in New York City that raised\u00a0$1.2\u00a0million for Dole’s campaign and $50,000 for DioGuardi’s. (9) Even so,\u00a0DioGuardi lost his seat, whereupon he formed the Albanian-American\u00a0Civic\u00a0League to pursue lobbying for the Albanian cause.<\/p>\n
Cuba has long been the most striking illustration of how a relativelybsmall ethnic lobby-that of the counter-revolutionary Cuban exiles in\u00a0Florida-could have a long-term negative influence on U.S. foreign
\npolicy.<\/p>\n
The Balkans provide a second, even more surprising, example.\u00a0Ethnic lobbies offer mediocre politicians two precious assets. The\u00a0most\u00a0obvious is money in the form of campaign contributions. The other is
\nthe\u00a0semblance of an idealistic cause: Championing some obscure “oppressed\u00a0people” seeking American support for its “righteous cause” can provide
\na\u00a0glow of international vision to mediocre provincial politicians with\u00a0not a\u00a0glimmer of understanding of the outside world.<\/p>\n
The ethnic lobbies are not partisan. Republicans and Democrats are\u00a0eligible to support their causes. For the 1996 elections, the Democrats\u00a0“established nine steering committees to concentrate on Albanians,
\nArabs,\u00a0Croatians, Greeks, Irish, Hungarians, Italians, Lithuanians and\u00a0Poles….An energetic 31-year-old Albanian American, Ilir Zherka, was put in\u00a0charge\u00a0of the drive, which was called EthnicOutreach,” The European\u00a0reported.(10)<\/p>\n
Once upon a time ethnic lobbies were concerned with the social welfare\u00a0and\u00a0advancement of their constituents. To some extent, that may still be\u00a0the
\ncase, but since America became top superpower, the focus has shifted to\u00a0bringing that power in on the side of exile groups with an agenda. The\u00a0Clinton administration, Zherka told The European, “has concentrated on\u00a0trying to solve age-old problems in Ireland, Bosnia, and the Middle\u00a0East.<\/p>\n
In addition, Clinton has worked on expanding NATO, and the Poles,\u00a0Hungarian, and Baltic citizens appreciate his efforts. He has also\u00a0supported Ukrainian independence.”\u00a0Here is where the agendas of exile groups and the post-Cold War\u00a0problem of
\nfinding a new “mission” for NATO have dovetailed dangerously. With the\u00a0collapse of the communist “enemy,” a small number of very special\u00a0interests
\nhave rushed in to fill the foreign policy void.
\n“Minority groups have leverage because their support can mean the\u00a0difference between a candidate winning or losing an entire state,”\u00a0according to William Kimberling of the Federal Election Commission.(11)<\/p>\n
Smaller ethnic groups can be more effective than big ones because they are\u00a0more compact. “One of the problems of American politics is that the two
\nbiggest groups, Blacks and Hispanics, are the least organized and don’t\u00a0vote.” The lesson he drew is that “if you vote together, candidates\u00a0will\u00a0pay attention.”
\nThe leading role of the Albanian lobby in the Clinton campaign’s\u00a0“Ethnic\u00a0Outreach” program is striking, as is the absence of any Serbian lobby.\u00a0One
\ncan assume that this is not because there are no Americans of Serbian\u00a0origin in the United States, but because Serbian-Americans have not, in\u00a0recent decades, been united by an activist revanchist agenda. Serbs\u00a0identified totally with the victorious Allied side in both world wars;\u00a0many\u00a0considered themselves Yugoslavs first and foremost, and if they opposed\u00a0Tito, the changes they hoped to see in Yugoslavia were political and\u00a0democratic, not a reshaping of the Balkans with help from the U.S.
\nSuperpower.<\/p>\n
In contrast, right-wing Croatian exile groups in particular nursed\u00a0dreams\u00a0of restoring the fascist Ustashe “Independent Croatian State,” which
\nhad\u00a0existed only during World War II thanks to the occupation and\u00a0dismantling\u00a0of Yugoslavia by Germany and Italy. In 1993, it was reported that
\n“Croatia\u00a0has built up the most effective lobbying and public relations network\u00a0on\u00a0Capitol Hill since the days when the Israeli and Greek lobbies were attheir peak.” (12) Croatian lobbying efforts, congressional
\ninvestigators\u00a0were quoted as saying, “could well exceed $50 million.”<\/p>\n
Culturally, there is little in common between Croats and Albanians.\u00a0But\u00a0extreme Croatian and Albanian exiles nursing the hope of restoring the\u00a0Greater Croatia and the Greater Albania that had existed only thanks to\u00a0the\u00a0Axis Powers during World War II shared something very important: a\u00a0common\u00a0enemy. That common enemy was multi-national Yugoslavia, which deprived\u00a0them\u00a0of their ethnically defined independent states. Politically, it was\u00a0more\u00a0effective to define that enemy as the Serbs, the people who had played\u00a0the\u00a0leading historic role in creating multi-cultural Yugoslavia. Denouncing\u00a0the\u00a0Serbs as communist oppressors was the formula for winning support from\u00a0American politicians. Serbian-Americans were without a well-funded\u00a0revanchist agenda, and politically divided: no clout.<\/p>\n
A key role in the joining of the anti-Serb forces was reportedly\u00a0played by\u00a0a young aide of Senator Dole, Mira Radievolic Baratta. Within the\u00a0“small
\ncircle of those who monitor U.S. policy toward the Balkans,” The Weekly\u00a0Standard reported in 1995, “her influence and her expertise are widely\u00a0recognized.” Richard Perle, an informal Dole adviser who worked on\u00a0behalf\u00a0of the Bosnian Muslims at the Dayton peace talks, says that “other than\u00a0Richard Holbrooke, Baratta has been the most influential individual in
\nshaping U.S. policy.” (13) Baratta began working for Dole in June 1989\u00a0and\u00a0in May 1995 received the “Award for Excellence in Politics” from the
\nNational Federation of Croatian Americans. In a bastion of ignorance,\u00a0Baratta easily became the congressional expert on the Balkans. Baratta
\nhas”as good an understanding of the Balkans as anyone on Capitol Hill,”\u00a0The\u00a0Weekly Standard reported admiringly, adding that “she is probably the
\nonly\u00a0congressional staffer monitoring ex-Yugoslavia who speaks and reads\u00a0both\u00a0Croatian and Serbian”-a statement which itself indicates the prevailing
\nignorance, since Croatian and Serbian are the same language.<\/p>\n
Baratta clearly understood the importance of concentrating on the\u00a0villain-the Serbs-as a better way to influence policy than to try to\u00a0sell\u00a0Congress on the Croats. She also advocated the Albanian cause and waspublicly credited with getting the Senate to adopt a resolution calling\u00a0for\u00a0lifting the arms embargo against the Bosnian Muslims.<\/p>\n
Even after leaving politics, Dole continues his support of the\u00a0Albanian\u00a0cause. “In articles and TV appearances, Dole has glorified the KLA and\u00a0vilified the Serbs,” Investor’s Business Daily reported. (14)<\/p>\n
Matthew Rees predicted that Baratta would succeed in “climbing the\u00a0foreign-policy establishment’s greasy pole. Dole advisers such asPerle,\u00a0Wolfowitz, and Jeane Kirkpatrick are among Baratta’s biggest boosters.”(15)\u00a0By a not so strange coincidence, Baratta’s fans include the most\u00a0hawkish
\nveterans of the Reagan administration. “Many former Reagan\u00a0officials-U.N.\u00a0Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, Assistant Secretary of State Richard
\nPerle,\u00a0and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger-have publicly endorsed sending\u00a0NATO
\nground troops to Kosovo.” (16)<\/p>\n
Caspar Weinberger, whose name is\u00a0synonymous
\nwith the big California-based transnational infrastructure-construction\u00a0company, Bechtel, is described as “the most hawkish on the Balkans.”
\nBechtel, incidentally, has already been selected to build Croatia’s new\u00a0coastal highway. The ravaged Balkans should supply plenty of\u00a0infrastructure
\nconstruction opportunities- not least the future oil pipeline to bring\u00a0Caspian Sea oil from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, in line with\u00a0the
\nClinton administration’s great concern to divert the oil away from\u00a0Russia\u00a0or Iran.<\/p>\n
The Eagles and the Hawks<\/p>\n
Albania-in the Albanian language, Shqipria, the land of the eagles-is\u00a0by\u00a0far the poorest, least developed country in Europe. After the fall of\u00a0its\u00a0uniquely repressive communist regime, Albanians came into world view\u00a0trying\u00a0desperately to flee their poor country toward Italy. During Enver\u00a0Hoxha’s
\ndictatorship, that exit had been closed tight from within. The easiest\u00a0exit\u00a0route for Albanians in that period had been across the mountains of
\nnorthern Albania into Kosovo, where local authorities-often ethnic\u00a0Albanian\u00a0kinfolk-let them settle. Compared to Albania, Kosovo was the land of
\nmilk\u00a0and honey, even if it was the poorest part of Yugoslavia. With a\u00a0Yugoslav\u00a0passport, travel was easy. From Kosovo, enterprising Albanians went out
\nto\u00a0make their fortunes in Germany or Switzerland.<\/p>\n
Thanks in part to their\u00a0very\u00a0tight clan structure, Kosovo Albanians have notoriously taken control
\nof\u00a0the heroin smuggling routes through the Balkans from Turkey to\u00a0Switzerland\u00a0and Germany. After the fall of communism, rich Kosovo Albanians have
\ntended\u00a0to treat Albania itself as a colony for exploitation and a base for\u00a0various
\nillegal operations. Considering the potential dominance by Kosovo\u00a0Albanians\u00a0in a “Greater Albania,” the prospect does not delight all people in
\nAlbania\u00a0itself, in particular in the south, where the Tosk dialect is spoken,\u00a0in\u00a0contrast to northern Albania and Kosovo where the Gheg dialect\u00a0prevails.<\/p>\n
If, as has been widely reported, the KLA is the armed branch of the\u00a0ethnic\u00a0Albanian mafia, it would not be the first time that the CIA has ended\u00a0up\u00a0working hand in hand with drug dealers.<\/p>\n
The alliance of the Hawks and the Eagles solidified around the\u00a0dangerous\u00a0project of “Greater Albania,” sold by lobbies and public relations\u00a0campaigns to American politicians and public opinion as a “human
\nrights”\u00a0rather than a nationalist cause. This project filled a foreign policy\u00a0vacuum. Veterans of the Cold War policy elite were groping around for
\nnew\u00a0“threats” and a new mission for NATO and the U.S. military-industrial\u00a0complex. As for the American left, or what remained of it after the end
\nof\u00a0the Cold War, it largely stopped thinking seriously about international\u00a0problems of war and peace. The “single issue” approach made paradoxical\u00a0connections invisible. Reduced to sentimental humanitarianism, the\u00a0liberal\u00a0left has become easily manipulated by public relations campaigns framed
\nin\u00a0terms of human rights and victims. A contemporary version of the old\u00a0“white\u00a0man’s burden” or mission civilisatrice has emerged to be exploited by
\nthe\u00a0designers of NATO’s new global mission.
\nThus by championing a supposedly “oppressed people,” NATO could prove\u00a0in\u00a0the Balkans its ability to act as a “humanitarian” police force\u00a0anywhere in
\nthe world. Bombing Iraq and Serbia simultaneously, it could prove its\u00a0“two\u00a0wars at once” capacity (and use up its stock of cruise missiles before
\nY2K\u00a0renders them obsolete). If it worked, NATO would have a formula that\u00a0could\u00a0be put into operation in other trouble spots, notably what Zbigniew
\nBrzezinski calls the “Eurasian Balkans,” a vast area of mixed ethnic\u00a0composition interestingly located around the Caspian Sea and all those\u00a0oil
\nreserves.(17) The idea is to find an “oppressed minority,” promise\u00a0support\u00a0to its fiercest warriors, preferably drug dealers who can afford to buy
\ntheir own weapons, and when all hell breaks loose, one moves in to\u00a0“avoid\u00a0humanitarian catastrophe.”<\/p>\n
Yugoslavia is a test case.\u00a0Supposing U.S. mastery of airspace and television time, this mixed\u00a0propaganda-missile mechanism should meet the needs of those who\u00a0perceive\u00a0that eternal U.S. economic supremacy needs a military arm. “The hidden\u00a0hand\u00a0of the market will never work without a hidden fist-McDonald’s cannot\u00a0flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15,” is how\u00a0Thomas L. Friedman summed it up. (18) This is the imperative behind the
\nrush to assert NATO’s “right to intervene” all over the world.<\/p>\n
Thus, observed columnist Jim Hoagland, “the Kosovo war is about the\u00a0global\u00a0future, not the European past.” (19)\u00a0The American people not being considered mature enough for such\u00a0Realpolitik, it has been necessary to feed them children’s fairy tales
\nabout the Big Bad Milosevic eating babies for breakfast, with Slick\u00a0Willy\u00a0and Slick Tony reincarnating FDR and Churchill to stop “the new
\nHitler.”<\/p>\n
The future of the Albanians and the Serbs is only one of the stakes in\u00a0the\u00a0Kosovo war of 1999. Another is the capacity of the American people to\u00a0tell\u00a0reality from fiction.<\/p>\n
Footnotes<\/p>\n
1. Acceptance of this lie was prepared by previous lies relating to\u00a0Bosnia-Herzegovina and to Kosovo itself, lies too numerous to refute in\u00a0a\u00a0single article, all leading to the fallacious conclusion that Milosevic
\nwas\u00a0conducting “ethnic cleansing” of Albanians in Kosovo. In fact, the\u00a0Serbian\u00a0police and military were engaged in, at worst, a classic\u00a0counterinsurgency
\noperation.
\n2. See: Jim Hoagland, “Beyond the Rambouillet Effort Looms the NATO\u00a0Anniversary,” Washington Post\/International Herald Tribune, Feb. 15,
\n1999:
\n“The talks at Rambouillet are negotiations within a negotiation. The\u00a0diplomats work against a second deadline beyond the competing March\u00a0offensives in Kosovo: In late April the leaders of 19 members of NATO\u00a0will\u00a0gather in Washington to celebrate the alliance’s 50th anniversary and\u00a0unveil a new `strategic concept’ of its missions and\u00a0responsibilities….
\nThe road to a Washington summit that reflects glory on the good and\u00a0great\u00a0of the Atlantic community now passes through the police stations and\u00a0city\u00a0hall of the pitiable Kosovar capital of Pristina.” William Pfaff,
\n“Washington’s New Vision for NATO Could Be Divisive,” Los Angeles Times\u00a0Syndicate\/International Herald Tribune, Dec. 12, 1998: “The\u00a0Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement on Kosovo in October was accurately\u00a0described\u00a0by Richard Holbrooke as an unprecedented event. NATO had intervened in\u00a0an
\ninternal conflict inside a sovereign non-NATO state…. Washington sees\u00a0this as a precedent for a new NATO that would deal with a variety ofexisting and future problems inside and outside Europe.” Roger Cohen,
\n“Europeans Contest U.S. NATO Vision,” New York Times\u00a0Service\/InternationalHerald Tribune, Nov. 28, 1998: “At the root of the differences lies the
\nAmerican conviction that NATO should now be seen as an ‘alliance of\u00a0interests’ as much as one dedicated to the defense of a specific \u00a0territory,\u00a0and that those interests may in some instances push NATO into far-flungactivities….” Etc.
\n3. Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, Vegagatan25, S224 57 Lund, Sweden; tff@transnational.org; http:\/\/www.transnational.
\norg. \u00a0Oberg has been on over thirty missions to Kosovo as head of TFPFR’s\u00a0Conflict-Mitigation Team to the Balkans and Georgia.
\n4. The endlessly repeated statement that “the dictator Milosevic\u00a0stripped\u00a0Kosovo of its autonomy” is false. The Serbian Parliament voted to
\nchangethe constitution to reduce Kosovo’s autonomy to more normal federal\u00a0standards as had prevailed earlier, not to abolish it. While\u00a0technically
\nlegal, the change was not managed with the necessary political\u00a0consideration for Albanian sensibilities. It provoked a revolt that led\u00a0the
\nAlbanian population to reject the very considerable democratic rights\u00a0it\u00a0still possessed as part of a general boycott of Serbian institutions.
\n5. On the same day, he announced that the town of Brcko, which\u00a0provides\u00a0the only link between the two parts of the Serb entity, had been taken\u00a0from
\nits present Serb government and established as a third separate unit\u00a0within\u00a0Bosnia-Herzegovina. This decision was rendered by “arbitration”: in\u00a0reality
\na single U.S. official, Robert Owen. This decision reducing the Serbian\u00a0entity is in violation of the basis of the Dayton Accords, which\u00a0ensured
\nthe Bosnian Serbs 49% of the territory. These are only the latest in a\u00a0series of one-man lessons in democracy by NATO dictators inBosnia-Herzegovina.
\n6. In the 1970s, the average fertility rate for Yugoslavia was 2.3 as\u00a0a\u00a0whole, but 5.4 in Kosovo. About 2.1 renews a population. Catherine
\nSamary,Le March contre l’autogestion, La Brche, 1988, p. 181.
\n7. Junge Welt, Mar. 26, 1999, interview with Willy Wimmer by Kirsten\u00a0Lemke\u00a0of Deutschlandradio Berlin, “War der NATO-Angriff ein Fehler?”
\n8. “Serbs…have…been harassed by Albanians and have packed up and\u00a0left\u00a0the region. The [Albanian] nationalists have a two-point platform …first
\nto establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and\u00a0then\u00a0to merge with Albania to form a greater Albania.” David Binder, “Exodus
\nof\u00a0Serbians Stirs Province in Yugoslavia,” New York Times, July 12, 1982.
\n9. From a Jan. 1, 1988 interview, cited by SIRIUS, Benjamin C. Works,\u00a0Feb.\u00a028, 1999, archive.
\n10. Ian Mather, “Ethnic Europeans lend Clinton a hand,” The European,\u00a0Nov.\u00a07, 1996.
\n11. Ibid.
\n12. Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, Mar. 31, 1993.
\n13. Matthew Rees, “Bosnia’s Mira Image,” The Weekly Standard\u00a0(Washington,\u00a0D.C.), Dec. 25, 1995.
\n14. Brian Mitchell, “The GOP’s Tangled Foreign Policy,” Investor’s\u00a0Business Daily, Mar. 4, 1999.
\n15. Ibid.
\n16. Ibid.
\n17. See Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard (New York: Basic\u00a0Books,\u00a01997), especially the maps at pp. 124 and 146.
\n18. Thomas L. Friedman, “A Manifesto for the Fast World,” New York\u00a0TimesMagazine, Mar. 28, 1999.
\n19. Washington Post\/International Herald Tribune, Mar. 29, 1999.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hawks and Eagles: “Greater NATO” Flies to the Aid of “GreaterAlbania” By Diana Johnstone Spring-Summer 1999 # 67 On March 24, NATO launched its first full-scale aggressive war against\u00a0a\u00a0sovereign state. It was certainly not meant to be the last. NATO, it\u00a0was repeatedly stated, had to prove its “resolve.” The action was meant to\u00a0be\u00a0exemplary, a model … <\/p>\n