***** In a savage violation of the UN Charter and international law, NATO bombs and missiles are raining death and destruction on a sovereign nation, Yugoslavia. Over 1,000 civilians were killed in the first five days alone. Thirty schools, several hospitals, factories, and residential areas have been bombed. Every region and every city in Yugoslavia has been targeted.
It was not so long ago that Iraq's invasion of Kuwait prompted loud Western condemnation, sanctions and bombs. Now, recent reports indicate that NATO has "detailed plans" in place for an invasion of Yugoslavia. The West is preparing to do precisely what it condemned Iraq for doing.
The first pretext for NATO's criminal violence was the breakdown of Kosovo peace negotiations. But the so-called peace negotiations, first in Rambouillet, then Paris, France, were programmed for failure. After 17 days of negotiations at Rambouillet, the Yugoslav delegation announced substantial acceptance of the political proposals put forth by Western mediators, but that they would not agree to military occupation by NATO troops. Just hours prior to the conclusion of the conference, Western mediators submitted a new plan to the Yugoslav delegation. Well over half of this new plan, 56 pages, was new.
When the Yugoslav delegation arrived in Paris in March for the resumption of negotiations, Western officials told them that no discussion of the new proposal would be permitted. Western mediators would allow discussion only of "implementation" of this new plan, which had never been discussed, and contained several provisions which no sovereign state could accept.
Serbian President Milan Milutinovic denounced the Paris talks as "a fraud, some sort of deceit, a very big deceit." Milutinovic pointed out that "no one consulted us during these four days in Paris. Now we got an imposed document. We saw that we have been betrayed."
Providing the emotional trigger for NATO bombs is the alleged massacre in the village of Racak on January 15. Prior to the Yugoslav police action in Racak, Yugoslav officials invited Western European monitors to observe the operation, and an Associated Press (AP) television crew. The AP film shows that when the police entered Racak the village was empty. Yugoslav police exchanged fire with KLA forces in the woods before departing from Racak at 3:30 PM. One hour later, a French journalist entered Racak and encountered Western European observers calmly talking with Albanian villagers who had returned to the village. He again returned at 6:00 PM to a similar scene. By the next day, the village was swarming with KLA soldiers, who led Western European observers to the scene of a "massacre" that had appeared overnight, leading to the suspicion that these were casualties from the gun battle, moved overnight by the KLA to give the appearance of a massacre. A forensic examination by Yugoslav and Bylorussian pathologists concluded that the victims had died from gunshots fired from a distance, and that six bodies had additional wounds caused by animal bites. The team of Finnish pathologists waited two months to release their report, just in time to coincide with NATO's threats. Finnish pathologist Helena Ranta claimed that all victims were civilians and had been executed. The conclusion was difficult to reconcile with the circumstances of the event. Why would Yugoslav police invite an AP television crew and Western observers and then commit a massacre? How could the observers and film crew miss the massacre in this very small village? How could a massacre take place when the village was empty during the operation? Why did the bodies not appear in the gully bordering the village until the next morning, several hours after the departure of Yugoslav police? Yugoslav pathologist Dusan Dunjic disputed Ranta's conclusions, stating that wounds were inflicted from various directions, contrary to Ranta's assertion. A statement by the Yugoslav forensic team pointed out that 37 out of the 40 bodies showed traces of gunpowder on their hands, indicating that they had been engaged in combat. The fact that the victims were wearing civilian clothes is not conclusive, because the KLA consists not only of uniformed regular soldiers, but also thousands of additional non-uniformed irregular soldiers.
The secessionist KLA has assassinated several hundred pro-Yugoslav civilians of all ethnic groups, including Albanians. In an interview with 'Der Spiegel', KLA spokesman Jakup Krasniqi said, "Collaborators are warned that we will kill them if they continue to follow the wrong path." Much of the KLA's financing originates from the drug trade. According to a Swedish police report, up to ninety percent of heroin seized in Sweden "can be linked to Kosovo Albanian rings."
Western support for the violent secessionist movement in Kosovo poured gasoline on the war. Last summer, Albanian Secret Service director Fatos Klosi said that relations with the CIA were "intensified in recent months," and that "CIA specialists" were active in Albania, including northern Albania, which remains under the control of the KLA. According to Yugoslav special units expert Stojan Jovic, the entire Kosovo-northern Albania operation "is being carried out by American Green Berets," and the KLA has "intelligence support" from NATO's South Wing Headquarters in Naples. KLA fighters, he says, "maintain satellite contacts with U.S. intelligence agents who conduct aerial surveillance..." The German 'Monitor' television program on ARD Television Network reported that the German Military Counter Intelligence Service was involved in "several illegal arms supplies" to Albania, and that "via these channels" German military equipment reached the KLA. In the program, a former counter intelligence official claimed that the arms supplies were "ordered by the very top."
Last autumn, reports in 'The Observer' and in the Croatian press revealed an American plan to overthrow the government of Yugoslavia. A high-ranking Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) official disclosed that the plan "was very much on the table." The plan calls for support to encourage Montenegro's secession from Yugoslavia and CIA and DIA contacts with Yugoslavia's right-wing opposition. "Clinton is doing this right now," said a White House source.
The two sides in the Kosovo conflict revealed a stark contrast leading up to the Rambouillet conference. The Kosovar Albanian delegation consisted solely of Albanians, and KLA spokesman Bardhyl Mahmuti stated, "We can't live together [with Serbs]. That is excluded."
The Yugoslav delegation consisted of members of all of Kosovo's ethnic groups, not only Serbs, but also two Albanians, a Slavic Muslim, a Turk, a Goran, a Romany and an Egyptian. President of the Yugoslav Chamber of Citizens Ljubisa Ristic declared that the multi-ethnic composition of the Yugoslav delegation demonstrated that Yugoslavia is "in favor of a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional Kosovo and Metohija."
Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic states the Yugoslav position: "We want a solution that guarantees equality for every national community and enables everyone to be master of his own fate," but that "we are not going to allow foreign rule over a single inch of Serbia." NATO's bombs do not support a multi-ethnic solution, but rather the opposite. The true intent is the further dismemberment of Yugoslavia, and the establishment of another weak client state in the Balkans. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has bluntly declared, "NATO will be in charge of the real estate in Kosovo, just as they are in Bosnia," and US ambassador to Macedonia Christopher Hill declared that the West will be "heavily involved" in Kosovo for decades. This is nothing but crude colonialism. *****