[PEN-L:5589] (Fwd) NATO GETTING COSY WITH RAGTAG GUERRILLA FORCE

[ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]]

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Date sent:              Mon, 19 Apr 1999 12:33:21 -0700
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From:                   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:                NATO GETTING COSY WITH RAGTAG GUERRILLA FORCE

The National Post                                       Monday, April 19, 1999

NATO GETTING COSY WITH RAGTAG GUERRILLA FORCE

        Canadian government no longer considers KLA a 
        terrorist organization; U.S. State Department, CIA 
        still classify them as terrorists. 

        By Isabel Vincent

        Last week, at one of the daily NATO press briefings in 
Brussels, the alliance's spokesman Jamie Shea noted that the 
Kosovo Liberation Army, the rebel force that is fighting for the 
independence of the troubled southern province of Serbia, was 
getting stronger. 
        "Like a phoenix that rises from the ashes, it [the KLA] will be 
able to conduct a number of attacks," he said, adding that the 
combination of NATO air strikes and attacks by members of the 
rebel group would have a vice effect on the Serb armed forces and 
Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president. The longer Mr. 
Milosevic resists complying with NATO demands, the more the 
vice will tighten, he noted. 
        On the same day, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services 
Committee, William Cohen, the U.S. secretary of defence, 
described the KLA as resurgent. As if to illustrate NATO's and Mr. 
Cohen's statements, Kosovapress, the official news organization of 
Kosovo's provisional government run by the KLA, reported that 
over the weekend the KLA had made some "decisive" strikes 
against the Serb security forces in Kosovo. 
        According to Kosovapress, the KLA overtook one unit of the 
124th Brigade of the Serbian army at Rahovec and killed five 
Serbian soldiers on Saturday. In another attack on Friday in 
Vushtrri, Kosovapress reported another KLA victory, claiming the 
rebels "liquidated" a Serb police patrol in the region, killing five 
Serb police officers. 
        Of course, the press reports and the statements by U.S. and 
NATO officials about the strength of the KLA are impossible to 
confirm in the absence of independent journalists in Kosovo. 
        In fact, just about the only credible information we have about 
the KLA is that they are lightly armed and poorly trained. But as 
NATO air strikes fail to have their desired effect in bringing 
President Milosevic to his knees, the KLA is gaining greater 
legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. 
        In their desire to appear on the side of morality and justice, the 
NATO allies are transforming what in reality is a ragtag guerrilla 
force, dependent on the drug trade and outside donations for its 
financing, into a "phoenix" and a well-organized fighting machine, 
capable of taking on the Yugoslav army. In the process, they are 
legitimizing their own intervention in what started out as an internal 
civil conflict, and now threatens to escalate into a geopolitical 
disaster. 
        Even though NATO officials have said that they are still 
reluctant to become the "air force for the KLA," their increasingly 
cosy relationship with the guerrilla force seems to suggest 
otherwise. 
        Perhaps NATO is gradually preparing the public for the day 
when its members decide to send ground troops to Kosovo. Those 
troops will inevitably find themselves fighting alongside the KLA, 
and therefore it is in NATO's interests to portray these guerrillas as 
noble warriors. 
        Already, the hundreds of diaspora Kosovar Albanians who have 
volunteered to fight alongside the rebels in Kosovo seem to recall 
the Spanish Civil War, when idealistic young people, known as 
internacionalistas, from around the world, volunteered to fight in 
Spain against General Francisco Franco's fascist forces. 
        Moved by the commitment of Kosovar Albanians to fight for an 
independent homeland, at least one U.S. senator has suggested that 
Washington commit funds to the rebel group to strengthen their 
position against the Serbs. 
        The Canadian government says it no longer considers the KLA 
a terrorist organization, even though the U.S. State Department and 
the CIA still classify them as terrorists. 
        Unconfirmed reports on the weekend suggested that multi-
billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Foundation, which 
supports nascent democratic movements in the former Eastern bloc, 
were giving financial assistance to the KLA. 
        In the past, the KLA has directly benefited from diplomatic 
negotiations conducted hundreds of kilometres outside Kosovo. 
Since October, 1998, when NATO came close to launching air 
strikes against Yugoslavia, the KLA rebels believed that they had 
the world's most powerful military alliance on their side. 
Emboldened by NATO's threat of air strikes against President 
Milosevic, the KLA reclaimed territory abandoned by Serb security 
forces in Kosovo and mounted a series of small attacks in the 
region late last year. At that time, American intelligence reported 
that the rebels were building up arms and improving their training. 
        During the Rambouillet negotiations earlier this year, the rebels 
appeared at least conciliatory while Mr. Milosevic refused even to 
show up at the royal hunting lodge outside Paris where the talks 
were held. In his final meeting with U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke, 
two days before NATO air strikes began against Yugoslavia, 
President Milosevic accused the Americans of "sitting at the 
Albanian side of the table at Rambouillet," according to a recent 
report in The New York Times. 
        On that count, at least, Mr. Milosevic appears to be right. For in 
trying to justify their actions against Yugoslavia, both the U.S. and 
NATO appear to be getting closer and closer to the KLA. 
        While U.S. President Bill Clinton noted in an address to 
American newspaper editors last week that the U.S. administration 
does not support full independence for Kosovo (the chief demand 
of the KLA rebels), his words told a different story. 
        In his speech, President Clinton made what many on both sides 
of the conflict would have viewed as politically charged references 
to Kosova, the ethnic Albanian name for the Serbian province, 
which is known as Kosovo in Serb. 
        If any NATO or U.S. officials had any hopes of still forcing Mr. 
Milosevic to the bargaining table, they might have been instantly 
dashed the moment Mr. Clinton began referring publicly to Kosovo 
as an independent state, and when the international community 
began to refer to the KLA as its ally.