by Eric Margolis
PARIS - According to a reliable intelligence source, the abduction in
Kenya of Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was carried out by former
members of one of the west's elite special forces outfits - not, as
previously rumored, CIA or Israel's Mossad.
In fact, I've twice met the man who led the small mercenary unit, an
expert in covert operations. The Turkish government reportedly offered him
an open-ended contract to snatch Ocalan: $12 million down; $ 60 million (5
million pounds/25 million pounds) on capture. After following Ocalan for
the past four months, the mercenaries grabbed him in Nairobi, delivered
him to Turkish intelligence, collected their money, disbanded, and
scattered.
While Turkey basked in self-congratulation, last Tuesday the US and
European powers suffered a dramatic humiliation last week as negotiations
over the future of Kosovo collapsed. For 17 days outside Paris, the
Contact Group -- the US, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, and Russia -- had
been unsuccessfully trying to browbeat a delegation of Albanian Kosovars
to disarm their resistance forces, the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA), and
accept bogus 'autonomy' under continued Serb rule. To save face for NATO,
the Albanians were forced to agree to a new meeting on 15 March,
ostensibly to give them time to reconsider.
NATO threats to launch air strikes against Serb forces, who have been
massacring and terrorizing Kosovo's Albanians -- least 93% of its
population -- were a cynical charade designed to calm western public
outrage over ongoing Serb atrocities. Behind all the bluster and
double-talk, the contact group's real objective was to maintain the status
quo by denying Kosovars independence, and keeping them under Serb rule -
while giving the impression decisive action was being taken to halt the
slaughter.
As in Bosnia, the west is again treating victims and aggressors as moral
equals. The KLA, which sprung up in recent years to resist Serb massacres
and ethnic cleansing of Albanian civilians, was ordered to disarm and
accept continued Serb rule. Under the NATO plan, Serbia was to keep
control of Kosovo, even though there are less than 140,000 Serb civilians
there, and maintain a sizeable military garrison. NATO troops would
'guarantee' the accord.
What this means, in simple English, is that NATO troops, including
Canadians, would join the Serb army and police in suppressing Albanian
independence-seekers. NATO troops in Macedonia are already patrolling the
border with Kosovo to interdict arms shipments to the KLA. In effect, NATO
would become an ally of Serbia in keeping Kosovo under Serb rule
Threatened air strikes were merely designed to pressure Serbs into halting
their mass killing in Kosovo. NATO even proposed the astonishingly idiotic
plan of using Russian troops to replace Serb troops in policing the
Kosovar Albanians. After struggling for 50 years to oust the Russians from
East Europe, NATO is now inviting them back in.
Serbia's strongman, Slobodan Milosevic, branded a 'war criminal' by the
US, and Canada, would ironically be rescued by the west from the impending
loss of Kosovo. Milosevic rose to power, and keeps it, by vowing to crush
Albanians. If Kosovo were to gain independence, Milosevic, the man who
destroyed Yugoslavia, presided over the murder of 250,000 mainly Muslim
civilians in Bosnia, the rape of 25,000 Muslim women, and created 2
million refugee, will be rescued by NATO's 'peacekeepers.' Even more
outrageous, as part of the proposed deal over Kosovo, NATO was to pressure
the UN War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague to drop all charges against Serb
war criminals.
Why have the US and NATO adopted such a cynical, deceitful policy? First,
because Europe unduly fears if Kosovars win independence, a right
guaranteed by the UN Charter, other ethnic groups may clamor for the same
right. Britain has its Scot and Welsh nationalists. France, Corsican
separatists. Spain, Basque and Catalan separatists. Russia violently
opposes Kosovar independence because it is trying to crush independence
movements in the Caucasus, notably Chechnya, and other Muslim regions.
Turkey, which is battling Kurdish separatists, has shamefully spurned
pleas for help from its Muslim cousins in Bosnia and Kosovo. But Kosovo
cannot be compared to other regions of ethnic unrest, not even war-torn
eastern Anatolia. In Kosovo, Albanians are being hunted down like animals
in a shooting preserve by a powerful army and paramilitary police whose
strategic objective is to evict an entire population from its ancestral
home.
Second, because France and Britain strongly oppose creation of a
Muslim state in the Balkans. Both powers have sizeable Muslim minorities
who suffer sharp discrimination and economic deprivation. London and Paris
fear -- quite unreasonably -- their Muslim citizens will somehow be
dangerously aroused by Kosovo's independence. British and French claims
that Kosovo's independence will trigger a wider Balkan conflict are a
lurid exaggeration designed to further undermine the Kosovar independence
movement.
Albanian Kosovars had decades of 'autonomy' previous to 1989, when
Milosevic revoked it, and placed the restive region under martial law.
During autonomy, 700,000 Albanians passed through the hands of Serb
security forces. Tens of thousands were jailed and tortured, according to
Amnesty International. Serbia exploited Kosovo for its rich mines and
cheap labor. No Albanians want to return to autonomy; none believe claims
by NATO that it will protect them from Serb oppression. They have only to
look at Bosnia, where UN forces drawn from NATO did nothing while Serbs
massacred thousands of Muslims. They recall bitterly how Canada's own
'peacekeeping hero,' Maj Gen. Lewis Mackenzie, sought to whitewash the
frightful massacre of 9,000 Muslim civilians at Srebrenica, which he
described in 'Macleans' magazine as 'a Serb over-reaction.' The only hope
for Kosovars is to fight on until they achieve independence..
NATO simply refuses to face the obvious fact that Kosovo -- or Kosova, in
Albanian -- is destined to achieve independence. The remaining handful of
Serb civilians left there are fleeing. After Serb massacres and
atrocities, they can no longer co-exist with Albanians. Soon, the only
Serbs left will be police and soldiers. Even if a sham peace accord is
forced on the sharply divided Kosovar delegation by the great powers, the
KLA will likely keep resisting. This means Serb forces will continue
terrorizing Albanian civilians. The militant KLA will seize every
opportunity to goad Serb occupation forces and ensure the province remains
in conflict.
Serb racial purists have been trying to 'cleanse' Kosovo of Albanians for
the past century; there is no reason why they should stop - particularly
so when the regime in Belgrade continues to be run by war criminals,
gangsters, and neo-fascists. NATO's disgraceful policy in Kosovo only
strengthens their hand, and undermines moderate Serbs who want to be rid
of dictator Milosevic.
NATO should not be in the business of repressing legitimate demands for
independence and self-determination. No western government wants to alter
the cozy status quo, but the force of history and national aspirations
cannot be denied. NATO must cease paying court to Milosevic, helping keep
his outlaw regime in power, and allowing the Serb tyrant to make the
western alliance look weak, divided, and cowardly. If NATO troops do take
over acting as prison guards for the Kosovars, they could soon end up
fighting Albanian guerrillas.
Here is what should be done: send NATO troops into Kosovo, order the Serb
garrison out under threat of massive bombing of Serbia. Let NATO run
Kosovo for three years as a protectorate, then hold a referendum to
determine its future. Allow the savagely persecuted Albanians a genuine
peace and right to decide their own future. NATO was created to prevent
aggression and protect democratic rights. So far, it has been doing
exactly the opposite in Kosovo. A sad and shameful state of affairs on NAT0's
50th birthday.
[Eric Margolis is a syndicated foreign affairs columnist and
broadcaster based in Toronto, Canada.]
Copyright © 1999 Eric Margolis - All Rights
Reserved
