-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Der Fuhrer Invades Yugoslavia NATO: "We Don't Care About the Soldiers--More Bombs Now!" Next time, Milosevic, keep 'em ZAGREB, Croatia - Three U.S. soldiers released by Yugoslav authorities walked joyously across the border to freedom Sunday, two of them holding hands with the Reverend Jesse Jackson and chanting: ''Free at last! Free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last!'' Hours later, after a bus ride to the Croatian capital, Zagreb, they flew on to Germany for medical examination at a U.S. military base. ''We express our deepest gratitude to the people who negotiated our release,'' Sergeant Christopher Stone said. ''We owe them our freedom.'' The sergeant was referring to Mr. Jackson and others in a group of American clergymen who achieved their release in talks with President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia. Mr. Jackson, who flew with the soldiers to Germany, urged President Bill Clinton to accept Mr. Milosevic's proposal for a face-to-face meeting, calling the offer ''indeed a diplomatic initiative.'' At the Zagreb airport, Mr. Jackson repeated a plea for a reciprocal goodwill gesture by the NATO allies, which have been bombing Yugoslavia since March 24 trying to break the Kosovo deadlock. Separately, Russia said Sunday that Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Kremlin's special envoy for Kosovo, would meet with President Bill Clinton in Washington on Monday. Arriving at Zagreb with the freed soldiers, Mr. Jackson said he hoped the U.S. administration would ''take some risk for peace and reconciliation and we can avoid the bloody, expensive, long, disastrous war.'' In Washington, Mr. Clinton expressed his gratitude to Mr. Jackson and said he was pleased by the soldiers' release. ''All of America is anticipating their safe return,'' he said. But the president stressed to Mr. Jackson by telephone that the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia would continue despite the release, a White House spokesman said. Defense Secretary William Cohen said it was ''highly unlikely'' that Mr. Clinton would agree to meet with Mr. Milosevic and he warned that NATO planned to increase, not curtail, its air campaign. ''We are not only not going to stop the bombing, we are going to intensify the bombing,'' Mr. Cohen said. Belgrade was plunged into darkness shortly before 10 P.M. as electricity was cut off after air-raid sirens warned of approaching NATO planes, witnesses said Sunday. Residents said there were heavy streams of anti-aircraft fire lighting up the sky over in the southeastern part of the city. There was no immediate explanation for the power failure. Jamie Shea, the NATO civilian spokesman, said in Brussels that the alliance would halt or suspend the air campaign only if Mr. Milosevic accepted NATO-dictated peace conditions, including the deployment of an international force of armed troops in Kosovo. Yugoslavia challenged the West to come up with a reciprocal gesture following Belgrade's release of the three U.S. soldiers. The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nebojsa Vujovic, also reiterated at a news conference that Belgrade would not allow any foreign troops on its soil to police a peace agreement for the province of Kosovo. ''The release of the American prisoners represents a goodwill gesture and demonstrates our firm commitment to reach long-lasting political solutions between the state and representatives of all ethnic groups in Kosovo,'' he said. ''We played our part in goodwill, as a goodwill gesture, and it's up to those who enjoyed the benefits of this gesture to decide what is the next step they are supposed to take.'' Mr. Jackson, on a satellite hookup with Fox-TV interviewers in Washington, said that in so intractable a standoff, only diplomacy at the highest levels could bring a solution. ''I am convinced that if the leaders are bold and seize this moment, something great could happen,'' he said. Mr. Clinton and Mr. Milosevic ''would understand each other and could hammer out an agreement in a way that has not happened,'' Mr. Jackson added. But he said later on NBC that Mr. Milosevic had appeared ''very confident,'' citing Yugoslavia's ability through history to resist pressure, including years of hostility from the Soviet Union during the Stalin-Tito feud that erupted in 1948. His sense, he said, was that Mr. Milosevic would ''absolutely not'' give in to pressure. Mr. Jackson, a civil rights leader who recently announced he would not run for the U.S. presidency next year, made the trip to Belgrade as head of a delegation of religious leader, including Serbian-American ministers, Muslim clerics and Jewish religious figures. Even before he left for Belgrade, Mr. Jackson revealed plans for the mission in an interview with International Herald Tribune Television that was broadcast last week on the RAI News 24 satellite channel in Italy. ''We all have a great sense of agony about the violence in the Kosovo, and we want to break the cycle of violence,'' Mr. Jackson said in the interview, disclosing that he would seek the release of the U.S. soldiers during a meeting with Mr. Milosevic. Defense Secretary Cohen would not speculate as to whether the release of the three soldiers was a signal that Mr. Milosevic was beginning to fold under alliance pressure. ''This gesture, if one can call it, of goodwill on his part cannot obliterate or overcome the stench of evil and death that has been inflicted on those killing fields in Kosovo,'' Mr. Cohen said. Reaction from members of Congress to the Jackson remarks was mixed. Representative Tom DeLay, the Republican from Texas who is the House majority whip, said reports that Mr. Clinton would refuse to meet with Mr. Milosevic were discouraging to him. ''For them to dismiss even thinking about it out of hand is really disappointing,'' he said on Fox-TV. ''I would hope that the president would seize on this moment,'' said Mr. DeLay, a persistent critic of Mr. Clinton. ''This is a great time to do it.'' Senator Dianne Feinstein said that Mr. Clinton's next step should depend on what Mr. Milosevic said in the letter Mr. Jackson was bringing. ''We all have to be alert to the opportunity to stop this,'' the California Democrat said. The soldiers, who spent 32 days in captivity, were exuberant and appeared generally healthy along their journey - starting from Belgrade, stopping at the Croatian border town of Bajakovo after a bus ride, and again in Zagreb. They still showed evidence of the cuts and bruises they suffered when captured March 31 on a patrol mission along the Macedonia-Yugoslavia border. The three said they had been treated humanely. Sergeant Stone said their injuries occurred during the capture but after that ''the maltreatment stopped.'' The release came early Sunday morning after an unusually quiet night in the allied bombing campaign against Belgrade, although there were strikes throughout the rest of Yugoslavia. The soldiers stood by solemnly with their hands behind their back at a brief ceremony. After signing two documents, Mr. Jackson invited Sergeant Stone, 25, of Smiths Creek, Michigan; Staff Sergeant Andrew Ramirez, 24, of Los Angeles and Specialist Steven Gonzales, 22, of Huntsville, Texas, to take their hands from behind their backs. They were now free. International Herald Tribune, May 3, 1999 Der Fuhrer Invades Yugoslavia KLA Funding Tied to Heroin Profits Heroin will take care of that school violence. Yeah. The Kosovo Liberation Army, which the Clinton administration has embraced and some members of Congress want to arm as part of the NATO bombing campaign, is a terrorist organization that has financed much of its war effort with profits from the sale of heroin. Recently obtained intelligence documents show that drug agents in five countries, including the United States, believe the KLA has aligned itself with an extensive organized crime network centered in Albania that smuggles heroin and some cocaine to buyers throughout Western Europe and, to a lesser extent, the United States. The documents tie members of the Albanian Mafia to a drug smuggling cartel based in Kosovo's provincial capital, Pristina. The cartel is manned by ethic Albanians who are members of the Kosovo National Front, whose armed wing is the KLA. The documents show it is one of the most powerful heroin smuggling organizations in the world, with much of its profits being diverted to the KLA to buy weapons. The clandestine movement of drugs over a collection of land and sea routes from Turkey through Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia to Western Europe and elsewhere is so frequent and massive that intelligence officials have dubbed the circuit the "Balkan Route." Mr. Clinton has committed air power and is considering the use of ground troops to support the Kosovo rebels against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Last week, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat, called on the United States to arm the KLA so ethnic Albanians in Kosovo could defend themselves against the Serbs. Mr. McConnell and Mr. Lieberman introduced a bill that would provide $25 million to equip 10,000 men or 10 battalions with small arms and anti-tank weapons for up to 18 months. In 1998, the U.S. State Department listed the KLA -- formally known as the Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves, or UCK -- as an international terrorist organization, saying it had bankrolled its operations with proceeds from the international heroin trade and from loans from known terrorists like Osama bin Laden. "They were terrorists in 1998 and now, because of politics, they're freedom fighters," said one top drug official who asked not to be identified. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, in a recent report, said the heroin is smuggled along the Balkan Route in cars, trucks and boats initially to Austria, Germany and Italy, where it is routed to eager buyers in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Great Britain. Some of the white powder, the DEA report said, finds its way to the United States. The DEA report, prepared for the National Narcotics Intelligence Consumer's Committee (NNICC), said a majority of the heroin seized in Europe is transported over the Balkan Route. It said drug smuggling organizations composed of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians were considered "second only to Turkish gangs as the predominant heroin smugglers along the Balkan Route." The NNICC is a coalition of federal agencies involved in the war on drugs. "Kosovo traffickers were noted for their use of violence and for their involvement in international weapons trafficking," the DEA report said. A separate DEA document, written last month by U.S. drug agents in Austria, said that while the war in the former Yugoslavia had reduced the drug flow to Western Europe along the Balkan Route, new land routes have opened across Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The report said, however, the diversion appeared to be only temporary. The DEA estimated that between four and six metric tons of heroin leaves each month from Turkey bound for Western Europe, the bulk of it traveling over the Balkan Route. A second high-ranking U.S. drug official, who also requested anonymity, said government and police corruption in Kosovo, along with widespread poverty throughout the region, had contributed to an increase in heroin trafficking by the KLA and other ethnic Albanians. The official said drug smuggling is "out of control" and little is being done by neighboring states to get a handle on it. "This is the definition of the wild, wild West," said the official. "The bombing has slowed it down, but has not brought it to a halt. And, eventually, it will pick up where it left off." The heroin trade along the Balkan Route has been of concern to several countries: * The Greek representative of Interpol reported in 1998 that Kosovo's ethnic Albanians were "the primary sources of supply for cocaine and heroin in that country." * Intelligence officials in France said in a recent report the KLA was among several organizations in southern Europe that had built a vast drug-smuggling network. France's Geopolitical Observatory of Drugs said in the report that the KLA was a key player in the rapidly expanding drugs-for-arms business and helped transport $2 billion worth of drugs annually into Western Europe. * German drug agents have estimated that $1.5 billion in drug profits is laundered annually by Kosovo smugglers, through as many as 200 private banks or currency-exchange offices. They noted in a recent report that ethnic Albanians had established one of the most prominent drug smuggling organizations in Europe. * Jane's Intelligence Review estimated in March that drug sales could have netted the KLA profits in the "high tens of millions of dollars." The highly regarded British-based journal noted at the time that the KLA had rearmed itself for a spring offensive with the aid of drug money, along with donations from Albanians in Western Europe and the United States. Several leading intelligence officials said the KLA has, in part, financed its purchase of AK-47s, semiautomatic rifles, shotguns, handguns, grenade launchers, ammunition, artillery shells, explosives, detonators and anti-personnel mines through drug profits -- cash laundered through banks in Italy, Germany and Switzerland. They also said KLA rebels have paid for weapons using the heroin itself as currency. The profits, according to the officials, also have been used to purchase anti-aircraft and anti-armor rockets, along with electronic surveillance equipment. The Washington Times, May 3, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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