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Pure fiction in Macedonia
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Gary Dempsey
The first wave of 3,500 NATO troops has poured into Macedonia to
begin a 30-day mission to "disarm" ethnic Albanian guerrillas as part of
Operation Essential Harvest. But Essential Harvest is just the latest
move NATO has made that gets it wrong in the Balkans.
First, look at the numbers. The Macedonian government estimates
that ethnic Albanian rebels have 70,000 weapons, roughly 23 times more
than the 3,000 that rebel leaders say they'll turn over to NATO weapons
collectors. NATO officials, meanwhile, barely disagree with the rebels,
and say 3,300 weapons is a "credible, accurate, and non-negotiable"
estimate of what should be turned in before the alliance declares the
disarmament a success.
Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, however, says, "We
used to seize that quantity in a single raid.... I think it is laughable
to speak about 3,300 pieces six months after the outbreak of crisis."
If NATO's involvement in neighboring Kosovo is any guide, Mr.
Georgievski has a right to be incredulous. After the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA) turned in roughly 10,000 guns -- many of them broken or
antiquated -- NATO officials declared that the rebel group was disarmed.
What NATO officials failed to mention was that a few days earlier,
German soldiers stumbled on a secret cache of 10 tons of ammunition. And
that was only the beginning.
British troops later found two concrete bunkers dug into a hillside
in a forested area of central Kosovo containing 67 tons of weapons and
explosives, including 20,000 grenades, thousands of mines, and half a
million bullets. A NATO spokesperson said the weapons were enough to
eliminate the entire population of Kosovo's capital, Pristina, or to
destroy 900 to 1,000 tanks.
NATO units have since discovered dozens of hidden weapons
stockpiles scattered throughout Kosovo. One included sniper rifles,
machine guns, more than 80 mines, 100 pounds of TNT and paraphernalia to
detonate bombs remotely -- "clear indications of a terrorist
capability," explained a prepared NATO statement on the find.
In another incident, NATO soldiers in Kosovo discovered a complex
of bunkers and fighting positions only 12 miles from the
Kosovo-Macedonia border.
What's more, even if Macedonia's rebels turn in 3,300 weapons as
NATO wants, it really won't make much difference militarily. According
to a top NATO commander, the rebels can easily and quickly replace the
weapons they turn in. Indeed, over the past six months, NATO's Kosovo
force has intercepted as many weapons destined for Macedonia as the
rebels now claim to have in their possession, and what NATO intercepted
is probably a drop in the bucket compared to the total number of weapons
that made it across Kosovo's mountainous border.
Macedonia's rebels could also replenish the few weapons they turn
in by smuggling others in from neighboring Albania. In 1997, the central
government in Albania collapsed. In the ensuing chaos, the government's
arms depots were thrown open. Between 650,000 and 1 million light
weapons and 1.5 billion rounds of ammunition were stolen. An estimated
3.5 million hand grenades, 1 million anti-personnel mines, 840,000
mortar shells, and 3,600 tons of explosives also went missing. Many of
the plundered weapons headed straight into the hands of the region's gun
traffickers and ethnic Albanian militants.
Lastly, Macedonia's rebels could turn to drug trafficking to
resupply whatever arms they turn over to NATO.
Indeed, as early as June 1994, the Paris-based Geopolitical Drug
Watch (GDW) issued a bulletin that concluded narcotics smuggling had
become a prime source of financing for civil wars already under way --
or rapidly brewing -- in southeastern Europe.
The GDW bulletin went on to identify Albanian nationalists in
Kosovo and Macedonia as key players in the region's accelerating
drugs-for-arms traffic and noted they were transporting up to $2 billion
worth of heroin annually into Central and Western Europe "in order to
finance large purchases of weapons" from black-market arms dealers in
Switzerland.
At the time the report was written, more than 500 Albanians from
Kosovo and Macedonia were in prison in Switzerland for drug- or
arms-trafficking offenses, and more than 1,000 others were under
indictment.
Ultimately, Operation Essential Harvest is based on two fictions:
that Macedonia's ethnic Albanian rebels have only 3,300 weapons, and
that their objective isn't to keep NATO in Macedonia indefinitely.
Neither belief is true. The rebels have far more weapons and easy access
to resupplies. They are also served by NATO's presence because it keeps
Macedonia's government forces out of their occupied territory.
What remains to be seen is how the rebels keep NATO in Macedonia or
how they will make the alliance return when Operation Essential Harvest
comes to an end.
Gary Dempsey, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, is the
lead author of the newly published book, "Fool's Errands: America's
Recent Encounters with Nation-Building."
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20010909-30515384.htm
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