-Caveat Lector-
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Date sent: Mon, 17 May 1999 19:15:08 -0400
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From: FAIR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [FAIR-L] Action Alert: Time Magazine Ignores KLA Drug Charges
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FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports
May 17, 1999
FAIR Action Alert:
Time Magazine Ignores KLA Drug Charges
Are editors following Contra tradition?
Time magazine's May 17 issue ran a feature on the funding of the
Kosovo Liberation Army, titled "A Fighting Chance," suggesting that
the KLA is sustained by donations from ethnic Albanians outside of
Kosovo. The article reports that the Republic of Kosova Fund holds
"more than $33 million" in a bank in Albania, yet in a graphic titled
"How the KLA Gets Its Money," Time cheerfully reports that the KLA
gets its money from "fund raisers, mailings and other sources." What
"other sources"? Bake sales? Time doesn't say.
Fortunately, there has been some investigation into the question. The
London Times on March 24 cited an intelligence report that indicated
as much as half of the funding for the KLA's guerrilla war comes from
drug proceeds. And the San Francisco Chronicle on May 5 reported that
European and U.S. law enforcement groups see officers of the KLA as "a
major force in international organized crime, moving staggering
amounts of narcotics through an underworld network that reaches into
the heart of Europe."
According to the March 24 London Times piece, the police forces of
three European countries and Europol are all independently
investigating "growing evidence that drug money is funding the KLA's
leap from obscurity to power." The Times went on to say that
"Albania--which plays a key role in channeling money to the
Kosovans--is at the hub of Europe's drug trade," and that Europol is
"preparing a report for European interior and justice ministers on a
connection between the KLA and Albanian drug gangs." The San Francisco
Chronicle reported that, according to Interpol, "the Balkan Route is a
principal thoroughfare for an illicit drug traffic worth $400 billion
annually."
Even the U.S. government has been concerned over KLA-drug ties for at
least four years--the Chronicle cites a 1995 advisory by the federal
Drug Enforcement Administration that "warned of the possibility 'that
certain members of the ethnic Albanian community in the Serbian region
of Kosovo have turned to drug trafficking in order to finance their
separatist activities.'"
Ties between the U.S. government and the KLA are so close that, as
Time reports (5/17/99), although "Washington is still shying away from
directly arming the KLA, a senior administration official admitted a
fortnight ago for the first time that 'we're in some respects now the
KLA's airforce.'"
In light of that, one would think that investigating allegations of
the KLA's drug smuggling activities--which, if true, imply a possible
U.S. connection to the European heroin trade--would be a top
journalistic priority. Instead, Time sentimentalized its KLA story,
ending with an anecdote about an ethnic Albanian farmer in Macedonia
giving his entire life-savings of $8 to a fund for refugees. In
return, the farmer received a receipt--with "no inscription of the
collector's name or the purpose of the donation"--that "now holds
pride of place in Bejadini's empty wallet, next to the picture of his
wife."
Why didn't Time mention the ongoing international investigations of
the KLA's suspected role in the heroin trade? A look back at Time's
Iran-Contra coverage sheds some light.
In a 1987 investigation into allegations of drug-smuggling by the
Nicaraguan Contras, Time staff writer Laurence Zuckerman found
serious evidence of Contra-cocaine links, but his story was never run.
Why not? A senior editor acknowledged to Zuckerman: "Time is
institutionally behind the contras. If this story were about the
Sandinistas and drugs, you'd have no trouble getting it in the
magazine." Too bad Serbia isn't the hub of the European heroin
trade--it would have made a great story.
ACTION ALERT:
Ask Time why its coverage has ignored charges that the KLA gets much
of its funding from drug-smuggling. Urge Time to conduct a more
skeptical investigation of where the KLA's money actually comes from.
Contact Time magazine:
mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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