from the French press...

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Apr 20 18:34:33 PDT 1999


--From LE MONDE, 20 April 1999: "According to an itemized accounting, Sunday [18 April], from the UN High Commission on Refugees (HCR), 735,000 Kosovars have been forced to leave their homes since 1998, 564,000 of them [more than three-fourths] since 24 March [when the US-NATO bombings began]."

As for the "humanitarian operation" supposed to be helping them, NATO appears to be responding very slowly and is "putting its military framework in place as if nothing else were happening, imperturbably, with no hurry." This is especially true of US forces in Albania, who "reign supreme in their command centers, guard the gates of their base, pile up sandbags, and never leave their bullet-proof vests and heavy combat helmets." ("L'OTAN tarde à faire face à l'urgence de la situation des réfugiés en Albanie," by Nathaniel Herzberg)

--from LIBERATION, 19 April 1999: For much of the food and other aid meant for refugees, "there is no doubt about the misappropriation of humanitarian cargoes by the Albanian Mafia. In Kukës, one can find in the marketplace entire cartons of pasta or milk for babies marked with the WFP (World Food Program) emblem." "I don't have much information about the actions of the Mafia," says Mayor Safet Sula, "but you have to admit that part of the aid is being stolen, as much in Tirana as in Kukës." ("En Albanie, la mafia fait main basse sur l'aide étrangère," by Fabrice Rousselot).



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list