-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>The looting and burning of Serbs' homes, as well as dozens
>of assassinations and kidnappings of Serbs and a few Albanians,
>including the massacre of 14 Serbian farmers on Friday, speak of a
>province slipping into the kind of gunslinging lawlessness that has
>characterized Albania in the last few years.
(Gulping in air as he returns to the Kosovo fray)- "DOZENS of assassinations" I can remember when 1000 dead Kosovars in the year before NATO intervention was a minor issue and hardly worthy of the notice of human rights organizations. Now, in a depopulated zone where most returning refugees have had their home looted and burned (often with dead family members among the ashes) and no stable authority, we are supposed to be alarmed that a few dozen people have been killed in revenge murders.
Not to say NATO should not be doing all it can to prevent such revenge killings, but this seems like more continuations of denigrating the deaths and oppression of Kosovar Albanians while hyping every outrage suffered by their oppressors.
Write the same story about the assumption of power by any group after the withdrawal of its former authority - from the colonial rebels in the not-yet-US tarring and feathering Tories to Lenin assuming power from Kerensy's government to Mandela taking power from Apartheid rulers - and you get the same pattern of opportunistic murders and assaults.
And if the complaint is that the KLA is daring to act independently of NATO's wishes in assuming power, then three cheers for them not being pure NATO pawns. Their assumption of "taxing" powers may not be as smooth and gentle as the IRS operations, but the burden of expectations on them seems quite ridiculous coming from quarters that thought their cultural liquidation was none of our business.
That said, the KFOR and UN presence will hopefully assure open elections that will prevent any particular set of groups assuming permanent dictatorial powers.
But that would seem to be a concern only of those of us who cared when they were under the previous Serbian dictatorship over their affairs.
--Nathan Newman