The following piece appeared in Today's edition of the International Herald Tribune. Today's situation in the Balkans looks as if the division of the Balkans as envisaged by the German Nazis is finally taking hold. The Germans created a Croat state in the 1940's and we now have a fascist state in Croatia. Now we are witnessing the rebirth of greater Albania as designed by the Nazis, 55 year after the end of WWII. I guess it takes Neo-Nazis to continue and complete the work of the original Nazis.
The Winner in the Balkans Is the KLA
By Richard Cohen The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - The real winner in the Balkans is the
Kosovo Liberation Army. The KLA has won the war and,
in the bargain, Kosovo itself. It has known from the start
precisely what it wanted.
In May 1998, I spoke in Istanbul to a KLA leader. His
business card said he was the prime minister of the
Republic of Kosovo and he was a physician named Bujar
Bukoshi.
At the time, Kosovo was under the Serbian boot and
hardly anyone's idea of a republic. But all that would
change, Dr. Bukoshi said. He has been true to his word.
The KLA had a simple but effective plan. It would kill
Serbian policemen. The Serbs would retaliate, Balkan
style, with widespread reprisals and the occasional
massacre. The West would get more and more appalled,
until finally it would, as it did in Bosnia, take action. In
effect, the United States and much of Europe would go to
war on the side of the KLA.
It worked.
Now that same KLA is supposed to be demilitarized -
stripped of its weapons - as the province it fought for is
administered by NATO and its juvenile sidekick, the
Russians.
NATO lost not a single soldier fighting the Serbs. It
fought a war against a single man, Slobodan Milosevic,
apologizing all the while to the Serbian people for the
bridges, power plants and other quasi-military targets it
was urban-renewing. For NATO, the average Serb was
not the enemy.
The KLA thinks differently. In the first place, it lost men,
plenty of them. It effectively comprised NATO's ground
troops. Its fighters were volunteers,
Kosovars and
expatriates from all over the world who were animated
enough by the specter of independence to risk their
lives. They hate Serbs. They have always hated Serbs. If
possible, they now hate them even more.
Consider for a moment Palestine before 1948 and the
creation of the state of Israel. That part of the world and
that era are often mentioned nowadays because, once
again, a war has produced a large Muslim refugee
population. But rather than focus on the creation of the
Palestinian diaspora, it might be more instructive to talk
about the Irgun and the Stern Gang, terrorist Jewish
organizations which fought not only the Arabs but also
the British who then ruled what became Israel.
Jewish terrorists wanted to make it impossible for the
British to stay. Once they left, the Arabs would be taken
care of.
Now it is NATO that might be in the same position as the
British were in Palestine. It will never fully disarm the
KLA. The Albanian border, rough and porous, is not all
that far away. Handguns and rifles are easy to smuggle,
easier still to hide.
Even if some KLA leaders agree to be reasonable and
patient, there is bound to be a core of dissidents who,
through terror, will articulate their dissent. In short
order, Kosovo may be for NATO what Palestine once was
for Britain, which could not wait to get out.
The nightmare for Europe - especially for Russia - is that
of breakaway provinces. That is why everyone insists that
Kosovo remain within Yugoslavia. To say otherwise
produces a diplomatic dilemma, even a crisis.
But who's kidding whom? The KLA did not come this far
to settle for anything other than independence.
Maybe NATO thinks all will be well if and when Mr.
Milosevic becomes a pensioner or - such a sweet
thought - an inmate in a prison for war criminals. But the
KLA has a different agenda. It wants independence.
If the past is indeed prologue, Kosovo will become
independent, maybe united with Albania, maybe not. The
KLA is the one element in the entire Balkan mix that has
had a clear fix on its goal and absolutely no reluctance to
spill blood to achieve what it wants.
If NATO were half as realistic, it would plan for how to
achieve an independent Kosovo while avoiding yet
another Balkan war. Otherwise, it will be (with apologies
to James Baldwin) the fire next time.