Albanian Terrorists' Ethnic Cleansing Haunts Macedonia [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK - The Daily Telgraph August 28, 2001 The targeting of civilians has been less overt and systematic than in neighbouring Kosovo, where tens of thousands of Serbs and gypsies have been forced out. But local Macedonians say that the fear created by the guerrillas' terror tactics is tantamount to ethnic cleansing. It is a repeat of the Kosovo script. Their aim is ethnic cleansing and genocide. Villagers flee racial purge by Albanian guerrillas Ethnic cleansing haunts Macedonia, reports Julius Strauss in Tearce THE Matex clothing factory in the rebel-held village of Tearce was the main employer of local Macedonians. A little more than a week ago it was razed to the ground. Only the blackened, metal frames of sewing machines and chairs show where the seamstresses worked. Glass skylights were shattered by the heat of the flames. In the guardhouse, drawers were ripped out, and official papers and clothes scattered on the floor. Macedonian houses in the village fared little better. Several had been torched, others peppered with automatic fire. Two cafes and a general store had been looted and wrecked. Outside one an ice cream freezer stood, the cones and ice lollies giving off a sickly-sweet odour in the summer heat. Of the 1,200 Macedonians who lived in this village until a month ago, only a few dozen are left. Their houses burned down because the electrical wires became too hot and they caught fire, smirked Samir Hyseni, the 29-year-old proprietor of the Sport cafe, who was wearing a Manchester United football shirt. His friends sniggered. As Nato began the task of collecting weapons from ethnic Albanian guerrillas, evidence was emerging of a widespread terror campaign by the rebels. They have kidnapped dozens of Macedonian men, put to the torch scores of Macedonian houses and looted many more. In the past five days alone they have also blown up an Orthodox church in the village of Lesok and they are the prime suspects behind a dawn explosion at the weekend which almost levelled a motel, killing two men who worked there. The targeting of civilians has been less overt and systematic than in neighbouring Kosovo, where tens of thousands of Serbs and gipsies have been forced out. But local Macedonians say the fear created by the guerrillas' terror tactics is tantamount to ethnic cleansing. It's an unseen terror, said Jovan Milovanovski, whose 19-year-old son Robert was kidnapped near the village of Lesok on July 23. Today Jovan, who has not heard from his son since, lives in a sparsely furnished room at a refugee centre in Skopje which he shares with his wife Ljubica, two remaining children and a stranger. He said: Two hours after the kidnapping we packed up and left. We had only the clothes we were standing in. The five share three beds, have an hour of hot water a day and wash their clothes in an old, red bucket. Each day Jovan travels to a road blockade set up by angry Macedonian refugees on the main road to Kosovo while Ljubica visits various relief organisations seeking news of her son. She said: Robert was such a quiet boy. He didn't drink or socialise. Even the Albanians loved him. They said he was a child like no other. Budimir Apostolski, an official who lives in the front-line town of Tetovo, says he has another 52 such cases on his books. On Sunday evening the guerrillas released about 12 hostages, including an American Macedonian, but many more missing people remain unaccounted for. Yesterday, the Red Cross said another seven Macedonian civilians had been released. Mr Apostolski said: And all we ask is to get them back. If they dead we want their bodies returned. One local man was kidnapped only days after his wedding. His distraught bride walks the streets of Tetovo each day visiting the local branches of the Red Cross, the United Nations refugee agency and any other organisations that might help. What the relatives fear most is that their men have been tortured. Three road workers kidnapped by the rebels a month ago were cut with knives. They said they were also forced to perform sexual acts on each other. Another man was reported to have been severely beaten and then hung from a tree with wire tied around his wrists. Mr Apostolski said: It is a repeat of the Kosovo script. Their aim is ethnic cleansing and genocide. In Block 77, one of two huge, shabby Communist-era housing estates in Tetovo now controlled by the rebels, 70 percent of the Macedonians living there have already left. In the purely Macedonian village of Lesok, where Robert was kidnapped, the guerrilla's tactics have paid off. Of 380 villagers, only about 40 remain. A month ago armed rebels went door-to-door ordering people out. Then they made off with television sets, video players and other valuables before setting fire to several houses. They took everything, said Ratko Gligorovski, who sat in his garden
Turkish-Backed Azerbaijan Threatens War Against Armenia [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK - ...Azerbaijan has been rebuilding its armed forces, helped by its traditional ally and NATO member Turkey, with which it has a bilateral military cooperation pact. Prepare for War With Armenia, Azeri President Tells Army BAKU, Aug 27, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Azerbaijan's President Heydar Aliyev on Saturday told the country's armed forces to be ready at any moment to go to war with neighboring Armenia to win back the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Aliyev said Azerbaijan had not abandoned hope of getting back the enclave, occupied by ethnic Armenians during a bitter war at the start of the 1990s, through peace talks. But he told new army officers at a graduation ceremony near the Azeri capital, Baku: The Azeri army should know that territorial integrity should be restored by any means and that is the job of the Azeri army. You with every breath should know that you should be ready for that. Azerbaijan is a peaceful state and does not intend to have a war with anyone. But at the same time to ensure peace it must have a strong army, since the only way to crack down on a violation of peace is through war. Negotiations to find a permanent settlement over Nagorno-Karabakh have been stalled since April this year, and Azeri officials have been making increasingly war-like statements. Defense Minister Safar Abbiyev also warned that fighting could break out again, complaining that Armenia was keeping huge quantities of Russian-made weapons in Karabakh in violation of international arms control treaties. Now Armenia has become an arms dump. That increases tension in the region and increases the danger of conflict starting up again, said Abbiyev. Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic at the southern end of the Caucasus mountains, was routed in the war with Armenia over Karabakh, which lasted from 1989 until a ceasefire was agreed in 1994. But since then Azerbaijan has been rebuilding its armed forces, helped by its traditional ally and NATO-member Turkey, with which it has a bilateral military cooperation pact. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse) __ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ - This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Azerbaijan: NATO-Trained Officers Graduate Amid Turkish Show Of Force [WWW.STOPN
Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK - A squadron of Turkish f-5 fighters staged a flypast to mark the occasion, a move which earlier prompted Iran...to express concern that the show was a veiled threat to Iran. Azerbaijan's growing cooperation with NATO is a snub to Moscow, which believes the alliance is encroaching on Russia's sphere of influence. Azerbaijan's First NATO-trained Officers Graduate BAKU, Aug 27, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The first group of NATO-trained army officers graduated on Saturday from Azerbaijan's military training college in what Azeri President Heydar Aliyev called an historic event. A squadron of Turkish F-5 fighters staged a flypast to mark the occasion, a move which earlier prompted Iran, locked in a boundary dispute with Azerbaijan, to express concern that the show was a veiled threat to Iran. The graduation of the 650 officers took Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic which has long been in the shadow of its northern neighbor Russia, a step closer to its long-term aim of full NATO membership. Azerbaijan is a member of the military alliance's Partnership for Peace scheme, a halfway house on the way to becoming a fully-fledged member. The officers had been trained to NATO-standards by instructors seconded from alliance-member Turkey. Azeri officers have previously trained in Turkish military schools, but never before at home. Today is an historic event in building Azerbaijan's military and a new chapter has been opened, Aliyev said at a graduation ceremony for the officers near the Azeri capital, Baku. He added: Today's events are important in strengthening the defense capability of our country. Cooperation with Turkey is the basis of our military successes. The graduation ceremony was attended by Hussein Kivrikoglu, chief of general staff of the Turkish army, who also had talks with the Azeri defense minister, Safar Abbiyev. On Friday evening, a display of formation flying by the Turkish F-5 fighters over Baku's Caspian waterfront drew massive crowds which some estimates put at half a million people. A senior Azeri official told AFP that the visit by the squadron was designed to show Tehran that Azerbaijan had Turkey's backing in the row over the division of the Caspian Sea, though officially any such intention has been denied. Azerbaijan's growing cooperation with NATO is a snub to Moscow, which believes the alliance is encroaching on Russia's sphere of influence. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse) __ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ - This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
NATO To Harvest Peace - Or Reap Whirlwind? [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK - Athens News August 24, 2001 [The majority] believe that Slav parties have caved in to sweeping constitutional reforms in favour of the Albanians, while under severe pressure from both the West and the Albanian rebels who have besieged government forces for six months. As the Slav majority views it, NATO will now harvest the fruits of Albanian nationalism that it planted during its 1999 campaign that transformed a Yugoslav province into a crime-ridden international protectorate and the main weapons and supply post for attacks within FYROM. Can Nato harvest peace? As the alliance prepares to collect Albanian guerrillas' weapons, aproposed referendum could scuttle the fragile agreement between FYROM's Slav and Albanian parties BY GEORGE GILSON A British jeep passes an ethnic Albanian on its way into the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on August 22 THE FORMER Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) on August 22 joined Bosnia and Kosovo to become the third Balkan country that was once part of the former Yugoslavia to host a large Nato-led international force on its territory. Following a mission to FYROM two days earlier by Nato's top European commander General Joseph Ralston to inspect the durability of a ceasefire there, the North Atlantic Council of Nato member-state ambassadors approved a limited, one-month mission for the 3,500-strong force. Troops are to collect and destroy weapons voluntarily handed over by Albanian guerrillas who continue to occupy the northwestern part of the country following a six-month insurgency. Today is an important day for Nato and an even more important one for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Today we are taking a historic step forward for wider stability and security in the Balkans. At noon, the North Atlantic Council decided to authorise Saceur [Ralston] to issue the activation order for Operation Essential Harvest, said Nato Secretary-General Lord George Robertson. He added that the preconditions for the mission set one month before had been met. These were a political agreement signed by ethnic Slav and Albanian parliamentary parties, an agreement with FYROM on the terms under which the Nato force will operate, an agreement by Albanian guerrillas to disarm, a weapons collection plan and an enduring ceasefire. There are risks involved - we recognise that - but members of the alliance have nevertheless agreed to send their troops because they know that the risks of not sending them are far greater, Robertson stressed, adding a stern message to those who would imperil an evolving peace: To those who believe in a violent and military solution, I say this: there is no solution in violence, only death, destruction, misery and poverty. A civil war would be a bloodbath and solve nothing. Nato expected the full deployment of its force to be completed by September 1, after which its renewable 30-day mandate will begin. Nato's latest Balkan intervention - approved just a day after the demolition of a 14th-century Orthodox church in Albanian rebel-held territory - comes at the invitation of the FYROM government and follows a delicate political agreement to enhance the ethnic Albanian minority's rights. But while FYROM's Albanian minority appears relatively satisfied by the August 13 framework agreement drafted by European legal experts and agreed to by FYROM's ethnic Slav and Albanian parties, the same cannot be said of the country's Slav majority. They believe that Slav parties have caved in to sweeping constitutional reforms in favour of the Albanians, while under severe pressure from both the West and the Albanian rebels who have besieged government forces for six months. As the Slav majority views it, Nato will now harvest the fruit of Albanian nationalism that it planted during its 1999 Kosovo campaign that transformed a Yugoslav province into a crime-ridden international protectorate and the main staging and weapons supply post for attacks within FYROM. Anti-Western sentiment among the Slav population is, if anything, worse after the signing of the agreement. The Albanians are clearly more satisfied with the agreement than the Slavo-Macedonians, a Western diplomat based in Skopje told the Athens News. Now, Nato will stand guard as ethnic Albanian rebels and FYROM's parliamentarians engage in an unprecedented synchronised dance of weapon handovers and constitutional reforms in which even slight mis-steps or provocations are liable to throw the entire process off track. With a 45-day deadline from the signing of the agreement to pass constitutional amendments, the FYROM assembly speaker is due to open parliamentary discussion on August 31. The last reforms will be put to a vote within 30 days of that date. The influential Macedonian World Congress, comprised of FYROM's diaspora Slavs, has proposed that a referendum be held regarding the framework
Kosovo II: FYROM Pilgrims Behind Rebel Lines [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK - The world that NATO has made Tuesday August 28 8:25 AM ET Macedonian Pilgrims Behind Rebel Lines; NATO Wary By Mark Heinrich SKOPJE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonians driven out of guerrilla-held territory returned in convoy Tuesday for a religious holiday despite warnings of land mines, raising tensions as NATO tried to collect weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels. But a Reuters reporter who arrived in the village of Lesok with the convoy said no mines or Albanian guerrillas were in sight and the Macedonians were having emotional reunions with the few compatriots still clinging to their homes. British paratroopers stood guard anyway, pointing heavy machine guns up at nearby hills to deter any threat from the rebels. Just days ago, the Lesok area was swarming with guerrillas. But by Tuesday they appeared to be lying low as part of a disengagement-of-forces pact NATO struck with both sides to improve security along front lines for its weapons collectors. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe mission in Macedonia had appealed to the refugees not to make the journey, saying the Lesok area could be mined and confrontations with Albanians, armed or not, could occur. Western officials were also concerned by the presence of ultra-nationalists from the World Macedonian Congress in the Assumption Day pilgrimage to Lesok. The 10-bus convoy entered the village as NATO troops on a mountain above prepared to gather up more weapons surrendered by the guerrillas in exchange for improved minority rights, under a precarious Western-mediated bargain. Many of the Macedonians in the convoy said they not only wanted to pray at the monastery but also to inspect the homes they fled, saying they feared for their lives. ``There´s been a lot of looting so this time I´m planning to load anything that´s left at my house onto a tractor and bring it back to Skopje where I´m living temporarily with my heavily pregnant daughter-in-law,´´ said Blagoja Bogdanovski, 50. ``But we can´t live like this indefinitely. We have to go home,´´ he told Reuters. NATO MISSION UNPOPULAR IN MACEDONIA Most Macedonians regard NATO's mission with skepticism or resignation, but others with deep animosity. A British soldier died Monday after a chunk of concrete was thrown through his vehicle windshield, an attack that hinted at the angry conviction of some Macedonians that NATO's plan to collect only guns volunteered by the rebels is a sham. The soldier's death was a sobering reminder of the risks to NATO's ``Operation Essential Harvest.´´ But its commanders launched the first day of arms collections unperturbed and pronounced it a success with more than 400 weapons registered. NATO hopes to have reaped a third of its total target of 3,300 weapons by Wednesday to give political impetus for Macedonia's parliament to start passing reform legislation when it reconvenes Friday. The NATO mission aims to snuff out Macedonia's six-month-old ethnic conflict, so far confined to the far north, before it spreads into the sort of war that wrecked many parts of the former Yugoslavia over the past decade. Nationalist hawks led by Macedonia's prime minister and interior minister believe the disarmament operation is a farce and that NATO's target figure only skims the surface of the rebel arsenal easily replenished by smuggling from Kosovo. PRESIDENT OFFERS VOTE OF CONFIDENCE But President Boris Trajkovski, a moderate in a divided coalition government, said after being briefed by NATO on the first day of arms collecting that it was a crucial aspect of the peace process and Macedonians should cooperate with it. ``NATO´s assistance expresses the commitment of many countries to help Macedonia resolve its problems. It is expected to successfully complete its mission to provide basic conditions for bringing long-term peace to the citizens of Macedonia,´´ he was quoted by state news agency MIA as saying. But another potential flashpoint looms Thursday with displaced Macedonians reported to be planning a protest rally in the capital Skopje on the eve of parliament's session. The August 13 peace accord will stand or fall on whether the nationalist-dominated chamber is ready to change the constitution and pass the new legislation it stipulates. The deal aims to decentralize power, put ethnic Albanians into the police force in proportion to their share of the population and grant limited official status to the Albanian language, among other measures. NATO insists most Macedonians are not hostile to its mission and points out that its task force is there at the invitation of the government. NATO Secretary-General George Robertson will visit Macedonia Wednesday to inspect the operation, and besides talking with mission commanders will also seek to reassure political leaders. ``Lord Robertson has come down here many times at many phases of this process and has a personal
Recommended: Israel takes aim at politicians [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK - - [EMAIL PROTECTED] has recommended this article from The Christian Science Monitor's electronic edition. - Click here to email this story to a friend: http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/send-story?2001/08/28/text/p6s1.txt Click here to read this story online: http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0828/p6s1-wome.html Headline: Israel takes aim at politicians Byline: Cameron W. Barr Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Date: 08/28/2001 (JERUSALEM)The Israeli army yesterday assassinated the most senior Palestinian political leader it has killed so far. Mustafa Zibri, the secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, died in his third-floor office in a residential suburb of the West Bank city of Ramallah. Israeli helicopter gunships fired at least two missiles through Zibri's arched office window, killing him as he sat at his desk. The Ramallah suburb of al-Bireh is home to many Palestinians who have returned in recent years from the US. Ghada Daas, whose two daughters were playing in the room underneath Mr. Zibri's office at the time of the attack, says 22 US citizens live in the building. This was an unbelievably close call. I'm amazed my girls came out of this OK, Ms. Daas said after the Israelis attacked. How dare they not even consider the people in this building? Israel - which insists that a seven-day period without any attacks precede the implementation of a US-brokered cease-fire - has carried out dozens of similar assassinations in the past few months. The tactic, it argues, is one of self-defense. In recent days, says an Israel Defense Forces statement released after the killing, Zibri and members of the group's military wing prepared for a number of ... bombing attacks, which were supposed to be carried out in the immediate future. Many governments have condemned the assassination policy. In the US, officials have sent mixed signals that Palestinians say amount to a green light for the Israelis. The State Department has condemned the targeting as provocative, but Vice President Dick Cheney has said there's some justification in their trying to protect themselves by preempting terrorist attacks. Zibri's killing is the clearest evidence yet that Israel is blurring the distinction between Palestinian militants and their political overseers. Israeli officials argue that the only way to stop a suicide bomber en route to an Israeli target is to kill the bomber first, but recent assassinations have reached deep into the political echelon of Palestinian organizations. On July 31, for instance, Israeli forces killed Jamal Mansur, the leading political activist for the Islamist party Hamas in the northern West Bank city of Nablus. Two young boys were killed in that attack. Zibri is considered the most senior victim so far, in part because the PFLP is one of three groups that make up the Palestine Liberation Organization, the umbrella grouping of Palestinian movements. While the killing of Mansur may have had more impact because Hamas is a larger party than the PFLP and is more militarily active, Hamas is not a PLO member. PFLP's role in the PLO makes Zibri's killing more symbolic. Known by his nom de guerre Abu Ali, Zibri founded the party's military wing and became the top deputy to George Habash, the PFLP's patriarch and one of the grand old men of the Palestinian movement. Zibri took over as secretary-general of the PFLP last year. The leftist PFLP has long pursued armed struggle to achieve Palestinian goals. In the 1970s it gained notoriety for hijacking civilian airliners, but the party renounced this tactic, and in the late 1990s, many of its leaders decided to return to the Palestinian territories and work with - but not join - the Palestinian Authority, led by Yasser Arafat. Zibri's arrival in Ramallah in 1999, following years of exile in Syria and Jordan, was a move that the peace process made possible. But Israel says that promises made at the time of Zibri's return - that he would not engage in militancy - were not kept. His resume is soaked in the blood of his Jewish and Israeli victims, Israeli spokesman Ra'anan Gissin yesterday told CNN. Even the IDF's own statement says that the PFLP's recent car-bombings have not claimed lives. Zibri was no pacifist, but the Israelis have not demonstrated that he was involved in the day-to-day work of mounting attacks on Israelis at the time of his death. Usually, this level of leadership is not directly or personally involved in detailed [militant] activities, says Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian analyst. Shmuel Sandler, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University outside Tel Aviv, acknowledges that there is a tacit
Fresh From Corsica... [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK - [Having sorted out all perplexing administrative, racial, cultural and linguistic issues in Corsica, Guadalupe, French Guiana, Martinique, the Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville and other members - voluntarily or otherwise, but rarely the first - of the so-called French Community of Nations; or, as some sceptics call it, the residue of the French colonial empire. After all, how could a leading light of the NATO Quint be guilty of forcibly occupying and exploiting peoples thousands of miles away from mainland France?] Tuesday August 28, 10:30 PM French minister visits troops; will seek Macedonian figure on arms PIPER CAMP, Macedonia, Aug 28 (AFP) - French Defence Minister Alain Richard paid a brief visit to his country's troops in Macedonia Tuesday, and said he would seek clarification from the Macedonian government on its figures for the number of arms in rebel hands. Expressing the hope that Macedonia's different factions would work together to make a peace deal stick, Richard said he would ask Macedonian Defence Minister Vlado Buckovski for details on the arms data. The Macedonian government has given high estimates of the number of arms held by the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA), putting it variously at between 60,000 and 100,000. However NATO has said its plans call for it to collect just 3,300 weapons from the NLA during the 30-day Essential Harvest operation, which is due to usher in a peace agreement. Richard, who was due to meet Buckovski later on Tuesday, said he would ask him to give me the intelligence data on which (the Macedonian figures) are based. The French minister also said that any move to extend the NATO mission beyond the prescribed 30 days -- which began on Monday -- would be a political decision that was not on the cards for the moment. We believe this mission will go well and that it will be fulfilled within the given timetable of a month, he said. Expressing hope that the peace agreement would stick, he told journalists: Anyone considered breaking from the accord would bear a very heavy responsibility. If anyone has another strategy, let him explain it and back it up. France is providing more than 500 of the 3,500 troops involved in the operation, the second largest contingent after Britain. __ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ - This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
Relation with China Enters Best Period: Putin [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday accepted the credential by Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Deguang and appreciated the Sino-Russian relation as in its best stage. Meeting with the new Chinese ambassador in the Kremlin, Putin highly valued his friendship with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Putin said the Russian-Chinese relationship has entered the best and the most effective period in history, which is enjoying sound development in all fields. He mentioned a good-neighborly treaty of friendship and cooperation signed recently by the two countries, stressing the treaty has laid reliable legal foundation for the development of bilateral relations in the 21st century. The treaty, signed here in July during Jiang's latest Moscow trip, summed up the preferential interests of the two nations and has become the guidelines for long-term cooperation, he added. Talking about the upcoming Moscow visit by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, Putin said he attaches great importance to the visit and that he is looking forward to meeting with Zhu. Zhang said that President Jiang cherished very much his personal friendship and good working relations with Putin and were looking forward to meeting him again at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation informal summit in Shanghai, China in October. . . [Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] - This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
PUTIN CRITICISES NATO CHARADE IN MACEDONIA [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Title: Message Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK - PUTIN CRITICISES NATO CHARADE IN MACEDONIA The most blatant and flagrant eyesore in this ludicrous operation, ostensibly to collect weapons from the Albanian terrorists, is precisely the calculation of the numbers of weapons which the Albanians are supposed to hand over. For a start, not all the Albanians are going to collaborate, for while the UCK have stated that they are willing to hand over their weapons, an obscure splinter faction has stated that it will not cooperate. Secondly, the NATO officials have stated that figures supplied by the Albanian terrorists, namely that there are 3,000 weapons to be handed over, are credible, according to a senior NATO spokesperson. The same spokesperson, who asked to remain anonymous, claimed that NATO knew it could not hope to collect most of the weapons, and that the disarmament was symbolic. The terrorists claim that they have 3,000 weapons but negotiations in the past with these born liars have proven fruitless. The Macedonian Interior Ministry claims that they have 85,000 weapons. Since NATO is evidently prepared to take the Albanians side blindly and unconditionally (since it armed them in the first place), it would be good to look at an estimate from an independent expert, Janes Defence Weekly. This internationally respected Defence publication states that the Albanian terrorists in Macedonia are extremely well armed but that accurate estimates are impossible because of the large numbers of guns circulating in the Balkans (the Balkans gun culture) and the loose organisational structure in the Albanians chain of command, which reflects the chaos which tends to follow these people in whatever walk of life they choose to inflict themselves upon. Janes Defence Weekly also claims that there are 2,000 2,500 full-time guerrillas and the same number in supportive operational activity, such as reconnaissance, telecommunications and logistics. Given that all of these are armed, and well armed, there are at least 5,000 weapons, almost double the estimates which NATO so readily agrees to before we even start to consider the arms caches of the disbanded KLA from Kosovo. On top of that, the guerrillas and their support staff have more than one weapon each. Janes Defence Weekly calculates that the Albanian terrorists have 5,000 to 8,000 modern rifles, 15,000 to 30,000 old issue rifles and between 45,000 and 55,000 handguns, 100 200 mortars, 200 to 350 anti-tank rocket launchers, 100 to 200 sniping rifles, over 5,000 landlines and thousands of grenades. Far more than the paltry 3,000 weapons claimed by NATO. Janes Defence Weekly claims that The process of voluntary hand-over will almost exclusively depend on the goodwill of local commanders. Quite how much goodwill NATO expects to encounter from that cut-throat band of murderers, rapists, traffickers and thieves is open to question. Only yesterday, 52 Albanian terrorists were arrested by Kfor troops as they crossed the frontier, armed, from Kosovo into Macedonia, all of them having UCK papers. Maybe they were going to Macedonia to hand over their weapons to NATO. Janes estimates range between 65,400 and 93,750 weapons, the Macedonian Interior Ministrys estimates somewhere in the middle of these figures, and NATOs estimates way down the road at 3.000 weapons to be handed over, a figure which earned the epitaph of risible from Ljubco Georgievski, the Prime Minister of Macedonia. NATOs Danish General Gunnar Lange, however, disagrees : These numbers (3,000) are credible now and are nearer to our own assessment. NATOs assessment seems to change by the day, since the original force of 3,500 troops has been bolstered to 5,000. To collect 3,000 weapons? As the Albanian terrorists continue to launch attacks on Macedonian interests daily, provocations to which the Macedonian armed forces do not respond, the 67,000 refugees caused by the seven months of conflict remain homeless. It is obvious, meanwhile, that NATOs Essential Harvest will do nothing whatsoever to bring peace to the region and it becomes clearer by the day that NATO does not, and never did, know what it is doing in the Balkans. President Clinton stated that US forces would remain in Kosovo for a few weeks. That was two years ago and they are there for a generation. British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd stated that British troops would enter Bosnia for three months, eight years ago. They are still there. President Vladimir Putin called Essential Harvest a pseudo-operation and declared that This conflict cannot be solved by simple declarations or pseudo-operations and NATOs involvement in this already unstable region could spark off more violence, he warned. If we want to really solve the problem, we need to think in terms of blocking the supply of weapons in that region...Collecting the
MACEDONIAN AMBASSADOR: BALKAN EVENTS A RESULT OF NATO'S INTERNAL CRISIS [WWW.STO
Title: Message Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK - MACEDONIAN AMBASSADOR: BALKAN EVENTS A RESULT OF NATO'S INTERNAL CRISIS The current developments in the Balkans have largely been brought about by NATO's internal strategic crisis, Macedonian Ambassador to Russia, Dimitar Dimitrov, told a news conference in Moscow Tuesday. Dimitrov maintains that once the Warsaw Pact collapsed, NATO had to grapple with an identity crisis since the enemy was the Alliance's raison d'etre. The ambassador claimed there were forces within NATO that collaborated with Albanian terrorists. He corroborated the charge with various facts that were reported during NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia and the recent Albanian guerrilla warfare in Macedonia. There have been reports that 17 former officers from Western countries were among the casualties of one of government forces' operations in one village in Macedonia, the diplomat contended. As far as the Alliance's ongoing operation to collerebels is concerned, the ambassador alleged it is "rather a pretext for NATO's invasion in Macedonia's territory". He believes that Macedonia may emerge as "another Kosovo" after the operation. ct guerrilla guns from the Albanian http://english.pravda.ru/yougoslavia/2001/08/28/13616.html www.antic.org - This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^
