This is from the Kosova Task Force web site (www.justiceforall.org). I know nothing about the task force or about Margolis, but the analysis that follows is starkly different from most everything I've heard to date, yet eerily connected to assorted threads in arguments from both sides of the debate.
One sidelight to the piece is the implications for how pro-Kosova people feel about their NATO liberators, such as they are.
Everything below the dotted line is from the web site. Finally, note the date of the article.
MBS
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Canadian columinst Eric Margolis, has been writing about Kosova and the Balkans for years. We have reprinted many of his articles with permission in our publications. The article below, offers a constructive analysis of the volitile crisis in Kosova today. Please take a few minutes to read it. Kosova Task Force, USA
FREEDOM, NOT FAKE AUTONOMY, FOR KOSOVO By Eric Margolis March 2, 1999
PARIS - ...
NATO threats to launch air strikes against Serb forces, who have been massacring and terrorizing Kosovo's Albanians - ~ least 93% of its population - were a cynical charade designed to calm western public outrage over ongoing Serb atrocities. Behind all the bluster and double-talk, the contact group's real objective was to maintain the status quo by denying Kosovars independence and keeping them under Serb rule - while giving the impression decisive action was being taken to halt the slaughter.
As in Bosnia, the west is again treating victims and aggressors as moral equals. The KLA, which sprung up in recent years to resist Serb massacres and ethnic cleansing of Albanian civilians, was ordered to disarm and accept continued Serb rule. Under the NATO plan, Serbia was to keep control of Kosovo, even though there are less than 140,000 Serb civilians there, and maintain a sizeable military garrison. NATO troops would 'guarantee' the accord.
What this means, in simple English, is that NATO troops, including Canadians, would join the Serb army and police in suppressing Albanian independence-seekers. NATO troops in Macedonia are already patrolling the border with Kosovo to interdict arms shipments to the KLA. In effect, NATO would become an ally of Serbia in keeping Kosovo under Serb rule Threatened air strikes were merely designed to pressure Serbs into halting their mass killing in Kosovo. NATO even proposed the astonishingly idiotic plan of using Russian troops to replace Serb troops in policing the Kosovar Albanians. After struggling for 50 years to oust the Russians from East Europe, NATO is now inviting them back in.
Serbia's strongman, Slobodan Milosevic, branded a 'war criminal' by the US, and Canada, would ironically be rescued by the west from the impending loss of Kosovo. Milosevic rose to power, and keeps it, by vowing to crush Albanians. If Kosovo were to gain independence, Milosevic, the man who destroyed Yugoslavia, presided over the murder of 250,000 mainly Muslim civilians in Bosnia, the rape of 25,000 Muslim women, and created 2 million refugee, will be rescued by NATO's 'peacekeepers..' Even more outrageous, as part of the proposed deal over Kosovo, NATO was to pressure the UN War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague to drop all charges against Serb war criminals.
Why have the US and NATO adopted such a cynical, deceitful policy? First, because Europe unduly fears if Kosovars win independence, a right guaranteed by the UN Charter, other ethnic groups may clamor for the same right. Britain has its Scot and Welsh nationalists. France, Corsican separatists. Spain, Basque and Catalan separatists. Russia violently opposes Kosovar independence because it is trying to crush independence movements in the Caucasus, notably Chechnya, and other Muslim regions. Turkey, which is battling Kurdish separatists, has shamefully spurned pleas for help from its Muslim cousins in Bosnia and Kosovo. But Kosovo cannot be compared to other regions of ethnic unrest, not even war-torn eastern Anatolia. In Kosovo, Albanians are being hunted down like animals in a shooting preserve by a powerful army and paramilitary police whose strategic objective is to evict an entire population from its ancestral home.
Second, because France and Britain are strongly opposed to creation of a Muslim state in the Balkans. Both powers have sizeable Muslim minorities who suffer sharp discrimination and economic deprivation. London and Paris fear - quite unreasonably - their Muslim citizens will somehow be dangerously aroused by Kosovo's independence. British and French claims that Kosovo's independence will trigger a wider Balkan conflict are a lurid exaggeration designed to further undermine the Kosovar independence movement..
Albanian Kosovars had decades of 'autonomy' previous to 1989, when Milosevic revoked it, and placed the restive region under martial law. During autonomy, 700,000 Albanians passed through the hands of Serb security forces. Tens of thousands were jailed and tortured, according to Amnesty International. Serbia exploited Kosovo for its rich mines and cheap labor. No Albanians want to return to autonomy; none believe claims by NATO that it will protect them from Serb oppression. They have only to look at Bosnia, where UN forces drawn from NATO did nothing while Serbs massacred thousands of Muslims. They recall bitterly how Canada's own 'peacekeeping hero,' Maj Gen. Lewis Mackenzie, sought to whitewash the frightful massacre of 9,000 Muslim civilians at Srebrenica, which he described in 'Macleans' magazine as 'a Serb over- reaction.' The only hope for Kosovars is to fight on until they achieve independence..
NATO simply refuses to face the obvious fact that Kosovo - or Kosova, in Albanian - is destined to achieve independence. The remaining handful of Serb civilians left there are fleeing. After Serb massacres and atrocities, they can no longer co-exist with Albanians. Soon, the only Serbs left will be police and soldiers. Even if a sham peace accord is forced on the sharply divided Kosovar delegation by the great powers, the KLA will likely keep resisting. This means Serb forces will continue terrorizing Albanian civilians. The militant KLA will seize every opportunity to goad Serb occupation forces and ensure the province remains in conflict.
Serb racial purists have been trying to 'cleanse' Kosovo of Albanians for the past century; there is no reason why they should stop - particularly so when the regime in Belgrade continues to be run by war criminals, gangsters, and neo- fascists. NATO's disgraceful policy in Kosovo only strengthens their hand, and undermines moderate Serbs who want to be rid of dictator Milosevic.
NATO should not be in the business of repressing legitimate demands for independence and self-determination. No western government wants to alter the cozy status quo, but the force of history and national aspirations cannot be denied. NATO must cease paying court to Milosevic, helping keep his outlaw regime in power, and allowing the Serb tyrant to make the western alliance look weak, divided, and cowardly. If NATO troops do take over acting as prison guards for the Kosovars, they could soon end up fighting Albanian guerrillas.
Here is what should be done: send NATO troops into Kosovo, order the Serb garrison out under threat of massive bombing of Serbia. Let NATO run Kosovo for three years as a protectorate, then hold a referendum to determine its future. Allow the savagely persecuted Albanians a genuine peace and right to decide their own future. NATO was created to prevent aggression and protect democratic rights. So far, it has been doing exactly the opposite in Kosovo. A sad and shameful state of affairs on NAT0's 50th birthday.
Copyright eric margolis 1999 Printed with permission. Compliments of E.Margolis _______________________________________________________________
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The following organizations constitute the Kosova Task Force, USA: Albanian Islamic Cultural Center, American Muslim Council, Balkan Muslim Association, Council of Islamic Organizations of Chicago, Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan, Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America ( ), Islamic Council of New England, Islamic Medical Association, Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, Islamic Society of Greater Houston, Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Majlis Shura New York, The Ministry of Imam W.D. Muhammad, Muslim Students Association of US and Canada, The National Community. ===================================
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