>While I agree with Yoshie about using the Albanian aspirations as a pretext
>for imperial military presence in Kosovo, I think from a German perspective
>the purpose of the bombing of Yugoslavia was to a lesser degree the wish to
>force the re-introduction of market relations in Yugoslavia, but to cretae a
>consensus for German miltary intervention outside the area of NATO member
>states.
I agree with you that, for Germany, the most earth-shattering change made possible by the Kosovo-Krieg is "a consensus for German military intervention outside the area of NATO member states" -- the consensus actively created by Green & Social Democratic voices -- though it's not for nothing that the German Mark became the currency in Kosovo. An outcome very pleasing to some factions of the American ruling class & governing elite: the factions who have urged the U.S. allies to shoulder a larger part of the financial & military burden of policing the world for capitalism. In East Timor, Australia volunteered to play the role played by Germany in Kosovo.
There has been a strong pressure on Japan to expand its "peace-keeping" roles, & some legal changes have already been made, with more to come.
***** ...In September 1991, the Japanese Government introduced new draft legislation that would permit the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces to peace-keeping operations under UN command. Given the controversial nature of the issue in Japan's domestic politics, however, a major compromise was necessary to pass the bill through the Diet. The final product was the Law Concerning Cooperation for United Nations Peace-keeping Operations and Other Operations ("the International Peace Cooperation Law"), which empowers the Government to dispatch the Self-Defense Forces to participate in the logistical aspects of peace-keeping operations only. The Law expressly states that those provisions on the dispatch of a contingent to peace-keeping activities going beyond logistical nature are to be "frozen" until a new legislation is enacted.
Thus the law as it now stands is quite restrictive in scope, and it stipulates five conditions that must be satisfied before a Japanese contingent may be dispatched.
The five conditions are:
(1) a cease-fire must be in place; (2) the parties to the conflict must have given their consent to the operation; (3) the activities must be conducted in a strictly impartial manner; (4) participation may be suspended or terminated if any of the"above conditions ceases to be satisfied; and (5) use of weapons shall be limited to the minimum necessary to protect life or person of the personnel.
Nonetheless, the International Peace Cooperation Law established for the first time in the postwar history of Japan a legal framework enabling it to participate in UN peace-keeping operations and international humanitarian relief activities. Since its enactment in 1992, Japan has sent its personnel to UN peace-keeping operations in Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, El Salvador and the Golan Heights....
<http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/un/pko/issues.html> *****
Japan has yet to send combat troops, though. There has been much grumbling in the Empire about "Japan lagging behind Germany in shouldering international responsibilities." The Japanese Left (such as it is) has yet to make an about-face that the German Greens did.
>What I noted when looking at the timeline of privatisation in Yugoslavia
>Yoshie posted was the following rough pattern: 89-94 privatisation, 94
>stopped, 97 new attempts for privatisation, 99 stopped again. This means the
>privatisation attempts were mostly influenced by the improvement or
>deteriation of Yugoslavia'a realtions to the imperialist powers: At any time
>when there was some sort of raproachment privatisation steps were taken up
>again. Seems to be a sort of chicken-egg problem.
Right. If the question was simply economy, the Empire could have, in all likelihood, lived with the Socialist Party of Serbia, I think, even with a much slower pace of privatization, but the geopolitical & ideological considerations outweigh the purely & immediately economic ones in imperialism.
>On the Albanian aspirations: An article similiar to the one quoted by Yoshie
>appeared in the January 23 edition of the Chicago Tribune, more or less
>painting the Albanians as evil troublemakers.
Thanks for sharing the article. One of the interesting things about the Kosovo War is that even in the midst of the war, the mass media were publishing occasional negative portrayals of Albanians in Kosovo. They didn't uniformly paint the picture of "innocent victims" & "brave freedom fighters" as they had in other wars involving similar casts of characters. That's because a large part of the Western Left had actively participated in the manufacturing of the consent for the Kosovo War, so the mass media didn't have to concentrate on fighting the domestic anti-war leftists, who were weak, disunited, etc.
In the similar vein as the articles that you & I have posted, here's another one, this time from Stratfor:
***** Date:Tue, 23 Jan 2001 11:18:16 -0800 Sender: Discussions on the Socialist Register and its articles <SOCIALIST-REGISTER at YorkU.CA> From: Sid Shniad <shniad at SFU.CA> Subject: Albanian Power Struggle Traps U.S. Troops - Stratfor
Stratfor 22 January 2001
Albanian Power Struggle Traps U.S. Troops
Summary
The effort of Kosovar Albanian militants in the Presevo region of Serbia to damage relations between Belgrade and KFOR is failing. In fact, it has been counterproductive, as Belgrade's restrained response to the rebel provocations has drawn praise from the U.S. and European governments, which already are eager to work with the new Yugoslav regime. The militants now will seek another strategy to bolster the dwindling prospects for an independent Kosovo. The power struggle in Albania may offer just such an opportunity. The situation now emerging, which could include the influence of Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, will make it increasingly hard, if not impossible, for the Bush administration to withdraw U.S. forces.
Analysis
Soldiers of the KFOR Multinational Brigade East reportedly intercepted and detained 11 suspected members of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB) as they attempted to cross into Kosovo from Serbia Jan. 12. These arrests follow the capture of nine heavily armed and camouflaged men attempting to cross into Kosovo Jan. 6, and still more infiltrators earlier in the month and last year.
Eager to build on good relations with the new government in Belgrade, KFOR is attempting to stifle an ethnic Albanian insurgency that erupted last November in the demilitarized buffer zone between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia. With their attempt to disrupt growing cooperation between KFOR and Yugoslavia thwarted, the Kosovar Albanian militants may soon be drawn into Albania's domestic power struggle in hopes of solidifying support from Tirana.
Kosovar Albanian militants have taken advantage of the 3-mile-wide demilitarized buffer zone between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia to seize control of ethnic Albanian enclaves outside Kosovo. The Ground Safety Zone, as it is officially known, was created under the June 1999 Military Technical Agreement ending NATO's bombardment of Yugoslavia. It was intended to be a means of avoiding accidental confrontations between KFOR and Yugoslav military forces. However, as KFOR does not patrol the buffer zone, and Yugoslav forces are allowed only limited access to the area, Kosovar Albanian militants have been able to act there with relative impunity.
The UCPMB's stated intention is to free ethnic Albanian enclaves in Serbia from Belgrade's control and to annex those regions to an independent Kosovo. This alone appears to confirm the longstanding fear in the region that militant Albanians would not stop at Kosovo, but would try to annex enclaves of ethnic Albanians in Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece and Serbia into a greater Albania. But the militants' campaign is more an attempt to secure their existing gains than to expand the areas under their control. The primary motive behind the militants' campaign in the Presevo Valley is the desire to provoke a harsh Serbian response and thus damage relations between the new Yugoslav government and KFOR. It is an attempt to preclude any chance of returning Kosovo to Yugoslav control.
This three-part series will explore the impact of the militant's efforts in the Balkans to free other ethnic Albanian population centers in Serbia from Belgrade's control and to annex those regions to an independent Kosovo. The second part will look at how the militants soon could be drawn into the Albanian power struggle, in hopes of installing a regime uncompromisingly committed to an independent Kosovo. Part three will examine how infamous Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, eager to re-establish his network in the Balkans, could use or even facilitate the violence in Albania to achieve his goal.
The future of Kosovo is a critical issue to the new administration of President George W. Bush. Bush has talked of removing U.S. forces from the region. If violence in the Balkans escalates, particularly in the wake of actions by bin Laden, Bush stands little chance of bringing American troops home without reigniting widespread conflict in the region.
The ouster of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and his replacement by opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica posed a grave threat to Kosovar Albanian aspirations for independence. As long as Milosevic remained in power there was no hope of negotiating the final status of Kosovo. That effectively meant de facto independence for Kosovo, with KFOR tied down indefinitely. But KFOR believes it can work with Kostunica. And not only has the new Yugoslav government been generally cooperative, the Albanian government has also been rather moderate in recent months, launching an anti-crime initiative with Europe and normalizing relations with Yugoslavia. Prospects for a peaceful resolution of the Kosovo problem also received a boost when moderate Kosovar Albanian moderates won an overwhelming victory in local elections in Kosovo last October.
Isolated, and with hopes for an independent Kosovo or Greater Albania fading, the Kosovar Albanian militants launched attacks in the buffer region to return the Kosovo debate to stalemate. But the gambit is failing. In fact, it has proven to be counterproductive. The Kostunica government has kept Serb forces in check in the disputed region, winning the public relations war if not the war on the ground. KFOR has stepped up its campaign to seal Kosovo's border with the rest of Serbia, deploying its operational reserve force to the area Jan. 5 and arresting some 130 suspected UCPMB members since the fighting began. Rather than painting the new Yugoslav regime as despotic, the militants have succeeded only in strengthening relations between KFOR and Yugoslavia.
KFOR has been clear and united in its condemnation of the militants' actions. On Dec. 19, the U.N. Security Council demanded Albanian militant organizations immediately disband and withdraw from the buffer zone. U.S. Ambassador to Belgrade William Montgomery Dec. 22 praised Yugoslav efforts to resolve the current crisis without resorting to major military operations. In a Dec. 28 interview with the Austrian newspaper Die Presse, Austrian Foreign Ministry Secretary General Albert Rohan came out in favor of a Yugoslav request to reduce or eliminate the buffer zone.
In a speech Jan. 12, France's Bernard Kouchner, outgoing U.N. administrator for Kosovo, warned Kosovo Albanians that "in the eyes of the international community, they had turned from victims to oppressors," according to the BBC. Kouchner issued a veiled warning to the militants, stating Serbia and Kosovo were in a "race to democracy," the outcome of which could help determine the ultimate relationship between the two. The BBC also cited NATO Secretary-General George Robertson as warning the Kosovar Albanians that, though the international community had invested a great deal of time, effort, and money in to make Kosovo safe and secure, "that firm support could easily be undermined."
Given their losing position in the political battle and potential setbacks on the ground, Kosovar Albanian militants now must look for another means by which to control Kosovo's destiny. To achieve their goals, the militants need the backing of at least one of the states involved in settling the Kosovo problem. In the guerrilla campaign that preceded NATO's intervention in Kosovo, the militants had the sponsorship of the Albanian government. During the war, they had the somewhat unwitting support of the United States. Both are now fixed on other priorities.
The United States and KFOR want to settle the Kosovo problem peacefully and, more importantly, to integrate Yugoslavia into a program for long-term regional stability. The current Albanian government, caught up in a domestic power struggle, is casting its fortunes with Europe and the United States. Since one approach necessary to win U.S. support - victimization by the Serbs - is not working and the other - peaceful cooperation - does not further their goal of independence, the Kosovar Albanian militants may now focus their attention on Albania, where a power struggle threatens both the Kosovar militants and their Albanian backers. *****
So, the new excuse for the imperial military presence in & colonization of Kosovo is the need to manage "Albanian militants." With one excuse after another, the Empire will remain in the Balkans for the foreseeable future. What do pro-NATO "leftists" say about that?
Yoshie