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WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkans
Kosovo threatens to ignite fresh Balkan conflict
By Tony Robson
1 July 2002
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The Kosovo Provisional Assembly has passed a declaration challenging the Border
Delineation Agreement signed in February 2001 and establishing an internationally
recognised border between Yugoslavia and the Republic of Macedonia. This
agreement came after years of negotiations between the governments in Belgrade
and Skopje.
Ethnic Albanian paramilitaries, however, never recognised the February agreement
and instigated a violent campaign against the Macedonian army and border police.
The five-month conflict left hundreds of ethnic Albanians and Macedonians dead
and tens of thousands homeless.
The paramilitaries involved were members of the National Liberation Army (NLA),
an off-shot of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The NLA and another splinter
group, the ANA, have regularly flouted a cease fire signed last August. The
resolution passed by the government in Pristina could prompt the fighting to flare up
into full-scale war.
This development has gone largely unreported in the Western mass media because
it has been instigated by the KLA, which has functioned, even before NATO’s 1999
war against Serbia, as a puppet of the United States.
NATO and UN representatives in Kosovo have denied that the KLA has exported its
war to the neighbouring Republic of Macedonia to further its goal of establishing a
Greater Kosovo. The declaration of the Kosovo Provisional Assembly would
suggest otherwise.
The establishment of the Kosovo Provisional Assembly and the elections last
November were hailed as a cornerstone for future Balkan stability and a victory for
political moderation. The parameters of the new governing body were set down by
the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1244. This allowed for
greater autonomy within the boundaries of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(FRY). Kosovo remained a Western protectorate with the UN having the last word
on the final status of the province. But ethnic Albanian parties guaranteed a majority
in the governing body have instead contrived to use the assembly as a vehicle to
aggressively assert their claim for independent statehood.
The assembly passed a declaration on May 23, refusing to recognise the border
with Macedonia. Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi, a member of the Democratic
Party of Kosovo (PDK), presented the motion. The PDK is the main political
successor to the KLA, headed by former commander Hashim Thaci.
Rexhepi had indicated that he would present the resolution as far back as March. In
a statement read to Radio 21 on March 6, following his first meeting with KFOR
Commander General Valentine Marselleu, Prime Minister Rexhepi said, “Kosovo
institutions do not recognise the agreement for the border line between Skopje and
Belgrade, because with this deal Kosovo lost some 2,500 hectares (6,100 acres) of
its territory to Macedonia.”
The Kosovo PM stated that the resolution would be forwarded to the United Nations
Security Council. This brought an immediate response from Macedonian Minister of
Foreign Affairs Slobodan Cashule who warned, “One-sided revision of the border,
without using the agreement mechanism is a declaration of war, which destroys the
European foundation and the basic principle of the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for inviolability of borders.”
The vote was taken in an assembly dominated entirely by ethnic Albanian political
representatives. Serb legislators walked out of the proceedings in protest, leaving
the resolution to be passed with 85 votes for and none against. President Ibrahim
Rugova and his Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), considered a more moderate
figure in the West, lent their support. All three parties are unanimous in rejecting
the
integrity of the FRY and its jurisdiction over the border with the Republic of
Macedonia.
United Nations Special Representative (UNSR) Michael Steiner had attempted to
prevent the motion from being presented. He immediately exercised the power of
veto, declaring the resolution “null and void”. Criticising the assembly, he stated:
“If
you want us to act and if you recognise that for us to act we need the support of the
international community then you don’t antagonise the international community.
Today the assembly did exactly that.
“Kosovo is not an island. Kosovo needs this international support.... If we want to
progress we must follow the rules.” Steiner’s somewhat mild rebuke was echoed by
the UN Security Council and US State Department and by European Foreign Policy
chief, Javier Solana, who said the resolution “will only undermine the legitimacy of
the Kosovo Assembly.”
The issue in dispute goes far beyond some 2,500 hectares of land. On May 30, a
PDK Assembly member told the Albanian language TV station, TV ERA, in Skopje:
“Kodra Fura is ours and Kosovo will return this piece of its territory.”
Kodra Fura is a checkpoint of the Macedonian army. It is situated in a mountainous
area, the highest peak north of Skopje. It commands a clear view of smuggling
routes connecting Macedonia, Kosovo and parts of southern Serbia. Control of this
vantage point would be critical in establishing a Greater Kosovo—a goal that the
KLA and its offshoots in the Presevo valley and in northwest Macedonia have
worked towards ever since NATO entered Kosovo. It is located only two kilometres
from the Macedonian watchtower “Straza” at Tanustevci. It was here that the violent
campaign by the NLA was initiated when a police station was destroyed in early
2001.
The KLA launched incursions to aid its sister organisation from the village of
Debalde, only 100 metres over the Kosovo border. Following the assembly’s
declaration and attempts by the Macedonian army to close the border, there have
been several attacks from the Kosovo side. The Straza was recently attacked twice
with mortars and automatic weaponry.
Despite this, NATO forces within Macedonia have played down the security threat.
Speaking after one particular incident, the German general and commander of
NATO’s “Operation Amber Fox” stated: “There might have been an incident, but
clearly not in the dimension and not in the kind mentioned.”
This is a blasé attitude indeed, given that the pretext for NATO engagement in the
Republic of Macedonia is to disarm the ethnic Albanian paramilitaries, and one that
is not matched by the US State Department, which issued a travel warning to deter
US citizens from travelling to Macedonia. The warning issued on May 21 states,
“The situation remains unsettled and potentially dangerous.” It comments on the
bombings in Skopje and Tetovo during August 2001, which were directed against
civilians as well as government and military targets, whilst remaining silent on the
perpetrators of these acts—NATO’s ally in the war against Yugoslavia.
In the run-up to last November’s election, the PDK made it abundantly clear that it
would not accept the limitations imposed on the Provincial Assembly by the UN and
would make it unworkable. That the PDK is able to conduct its antics from such
elevated heights within the new government owes much to the favoritism shown to
it by the US. The US has worked to insure that the KLA remains a force in the land
long after it was officially disbanded. The PDK has trailed well behind the LDK in
elections held in the province since it became a Western protectorate. It has formed
a bloc with Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), led by another former KLA
commander, Ramush Haradinaj.
Even so, their combined vote in elections last November was around 33 percent,
compared to the LDK’s 46 percent.
While the LDK was the outright winner, it lacked a parliamentary majority and was
forced into a power sharing arrangement with the two KLA parties.
The number of ministerial posts allocated to the PDK and AAK was disproportionate
to their share of the vote. Together they occupy the same number of posts as the
LDK—four—and the PDK also took the post of prime minister. The agreement was
reached in February, following negotiations between the three ethnic Albanian
parties and the US official for Kosovo, John Menzies.
The Provisional Assembly was clearly emboldened to make its latest move after
provocative comments by US Brigadier General Keith Huber, KFOR Commander of
the Multinational Brigade East. At a press conference in February, the American
general described the border agreement between Skopje and Belgrade as “illegal”
and pledged to send in US troops on the pretext of securing land he claimed had
been taken from ethnic Albanian farmers in Kosovo. Obviously the displacement of
poor farmers was not an issue when the US seized some 1,000 acres in southern
Kosovo to build its sprawling military complex, Camp Bondsteel.
Other NATO representatives distanced themselves from Huber’s comments. NATO
Ambassador to Macedonia Klaus Vollers stated: “NATO fully respects the Border
Delineation Agreement signed between Macedonia and Yugoslavia on February 23,
2001.” Following an official complaint made by the Macedonian government to
NATO, however, it was made clear that no disciplinary action would be taken
against Huber.
Evidence is also emerging about covert support given by the US to the NLA in last
year’s fighting in the Republic of Macedonia. The Clingendael Institute, a Dutch
military analysis firm, has passed on pertinent information from a European
intelligence report to Dutch National Radio. The allegations of US support for ethnic
Albanian paramilitaries in Macedonia centre on last year’s three-day battle in
Aracinovo. Suspicions were aroused at the time when, as the Macedonian army was
on the verge of routing the NLA, the US intervened to evacuate the heavily armed
NLA forces, which were taken by army buses to the US military complex, Camp
Bondsteel. NATO claimed at the time that this measure was required, in order to
prevent a victory for the Albanian paramilitaries and to mediate a settlement.
But the German newspaper, Hamburger Abendblatt, reported that among the
evacuated NLA forces were 17 advisers from Military Professional Resources
Incorporated (MPRI), a private military company that operates under contract for the
Pentagon and is composed of former US army chiefs. The MPRI was used to train
and equip the Croatian army before the offensive in the Krajina region in 1995.
“Operation Storm” gave rise to the single largest act of ethnic cleansing since the
recent conflicts began.
The Dutch report confirms this US involvement, quoting the German reporter who
first exposed this. The Macedonians were able to identify one MPRI man as he
waved his US passport in a bid to obtain diplomatic immunity. The European
intelligence report states that this person had been involved in training Bosnian
fighters.
The Dutch report also casts doubts over the proficiency of Operation “Essential
Harvest”, in which NATO troops were initially deployed in the Republic of
Macedonia for 30 days to oversee the disarming of the NLA. It was stated at the
time that NATO troops would only be involved in a voluntary collection of arms and
would not conduct any searches for any weaponry suspected of being with held.
NATO Secretary-General George Robertson described the operation as a
“resounding success.” However, the Dutch report claims that such statements were
made for public consumption and were not believed internally. Mainly obsolete
weaponry was being handed in and less than four percent of it functioned. This
became so widely known that the director of the national history museum in
Macedonia published a request for NATO to donate some of the equipment to the
museum.
Jane’s Defence Weekly estimates that the NLA possessed some 6,000 to 8,000
assault rifles alone; not the figure of 3,300 agreed between the paramilitaries and
NATO.
The Dutch are due to take over the German command of NATO’s “Operation Amber
Fox” in the Republic of Macedonia. This is an extension of NATO’s original mandate
on the pretext of overseeing the return of displaced ethnic Albanians and ethnic
Macedonians. According to figures compiled last September by the United Nations
High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), a total of 74,500 persons were
displaced—60 percent of these ethnic Macedonians —with another 59,000 refugees
outside the country—43,000 of these in Kosovo. The UNHCR reported that while a
greater number of ethnic Albanians had returned, 22,000 ethnic Macedonians
remain homeless, fearful of returning to NLA held territory.
Copyright 1998-2002
World Socialist Web Site
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