For U.S. politicians, if all wars are good, some are better than
others. Democrats prefer Clinton wars and Republicans prefer Bush
wars. But in the end, they almost unanimously come together to
support all wars. The differences concern the choice of official
rationale.
To suggest subtle criticism of the Republican war against Iraq, while
making it clear that they are by no means opposed to war as such, the
2004 Democratic election campaigners can be expected to glorify the
Kosovo war. The prominence of General Wesley Clark in the Democratic
camp makes that quite clear.
John Kerry’s foreign policy adviser Will Marshall of the Progressive
Policy Institute, author of “Democratic Realism: the Third Way”,
points to the exemplary nature of the 1999 “U.S.-led intervention in
Kosovo”. It was “a policy consciously based on a mix of moral values
and security interests with the parallel goals of halting a
humanitarian tragedy and ensuring NATO’s credibility as an effective
force for regional stability”.
The “humanitarian” rationale sounds better than the “weapons of mass
destruction” or the “links to Al Qaeda” which never existed. But
then, the “genocide” from which the NATO war allegedly saved the
Albanians of Kosovo never existed either.
But while the WMD deception has been exposed, the founding lie behind
the Kosovo war is still widely believed. It effectively distracts
from the very existence of the what Marshall calls the “parallel
goal”of strengthening NATO. Aside from the crippling material damage
inflicted on the targeted country, the Kosovo lie has caused even
more irreparable damage to relations between the Serb and Albanian
inhabitants of Kosovo.
The situation in that small province of multiethnic Serbia was the
result of a long and complex history of conflict, frequently
encouraged and exploited by outside powers, notably by the support to
Albanian nationalism by the Axis powers in World War II. Each
community accused the other of plotting “ethnic cleansing” and
even “genocide”. But there were reasonable people on both sides
willing to work out a compromise solution. The constructive role of
outsiders would have been to calm the paranoid tendencies in both
communities and support constructive initiatives. Indeed, the Kosovo
problem could have been easily managed, and eventually solved, had
the Great Powers so desired. But as in the past, the Great Powers
exploited and aggravated the ethnic conflicts for their own purposes.
In total ignorance of the complex history of the region, sheeplike
politicians and media echoed and amplified the most extreme
nationalist Albanian propaganda. This provided NATO with its pretext
to demonstrate “credibility”. The Great Powers have in effect told
the Albanians that all their worst accusations against the Serbs were
true. Even Albanians know who know better (such as Veton Surroi) are
intimidated and silenced by the racist nationalists backed by the
United States.
The result is disastrous. Empowered by their official status as
unique victims of Serb iniquity, the Albanians of Kosovo — and
especially the youth, raised on a decade of nationalist myth — can
give free rein to their cultivated hatred of the Serbs. Armed
Albanian nationalists proceeded to drive the Serbian and gypsy
populations out of the province. Those remaining do not dare venture
out of their ghettos. Albanians willing to live with the Serbs risk
being murdered. Ever since the NATO-led force (KFOR) marched into
Kosovo in June 1999, violent persecution of Serbs and Roma has been
regularly described as “revenge” — which in the Albanian tradition
is considered the summit of virtuous conduct. Describing the murder
of elderly women in their homes or children at play as acts
of “revenge” is a way of excusing or even approving the violence.
Last March 17, following the false accusation that Serbs were
responsible for the accidental drowning of three Albanian children,
organized mobs of Albanians, including many teenagers, rampaged
through Kosovo destroying 35 Serbian Orthodox Christian churches and
monasteries, some of them artistic gems dating from the fourteenth
century. Well over a hundred churches had already been attacked with
fire and explosives in the past five years. The objective is quite
clearly to erase all historic trace of centuries of Serb presence,
the better to assert their claim to an ethnically pure Albanian
Kosovo.
The self-satisfaction of the “international community” was severely
shaken by the March violence. The occasional KFOR units that tried to
protect Serb sites found themselves in armed clashes with Albanian
mobs. In the wake of the rampages, Finnish politician Harri Holkeri
resigned two months before expiration of his one-year renewable
mandate as head of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) supposed to
administer the province. He was the fourth to get out of the job as
fast as he could. Apparently on the verge of a nervous breakdown,
Holkeri lamented to a press conference that UNMIK has no intelligence
service of its own, and had received no prior hint of the March
pogroms. In short, the mass of international administrators, military
occupation forces and non-governmental agencies have no idea what is
going on in the province they are theoretically running. Indicating
his awareness that the only role left for UNMIK was that of
scapegoat, Holkeri warned of “difficult days ahead”. That is a safe
prediction.
Trouble ahead
On June 11, the former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army leader
Hashim Thaci, the protege of Madeleine Albright and her press officer
James Rubin, denounced UNMIK as a “complete failure” and announced
that, if he wins Kosovo’s forthcoming elections in October, he will
implement his “vision of Kosovo as an independent and sovereign
state”.
The circumstances suggest that not only Thaci, but any newly elected
Kosovo may do the same. Proclamation of Kosovo’s independence on the
eve of U.S. presidential elections could be shrewd timing. With Iraq
exploding, American leaders need to maintain the myth of
the “success” in Kosovo. Getting into open conflict with the
Albanians could be politically disastrous.
At the same time, many Europeans saw the anti-Serb pogroms in March
as evidence that Kosovo has a long way to go to reach the “standards”
of democratic human rights and ethnic harmony which UNMIK is mandated
to achieve before any final decision on the province’s status.
There are serious reasons not to give in to the Albanian demand for
an “independent and sovereign Kosovo”.
1. Legality.
First of all, there is the minor question of legality: minor,
inasmuch as the NATO powers have ignored it from the start. The war
itself was totally devoid of any legitimate basis in international
law. It was officially concluded in June 1999 by a peace accord
incorporated into U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, which, among
other things, obliged the occupying powers to :
— “ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all
inhabitants of Kosovo” – which logically should mean “all”, and
not
solely the Albanians;
— “ensure the safe and free return of all refugees and displaced
persons” – by which the U.S. negotiators probably meant the
Albanians
who had fled during the bombing, but since they promptly returned on
their own, without difficulty, this stipulation in reality refers to
Serbs, Rom and other non-Albanians forced to flee;
— establish an interim political framework “taking full account of
[…]the principles of sovereignty and integrity of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia” – which amounts to recognition that
Kosovo
remains part of a larger political entity made up of Serbia and
Montenegro;
— permit the return of an agreed number of Yugoslav and Serbian
personnel, including border control police and customs agents;
— effect the maintenance of civil law and order and the protection
of human rights.
In reality, once the United States got its big military foot in the
door, Resolution 1244 was scarcely worth the paper it was written on.
The United States had other priorities:
— First, in record time, the Pentagon built an enormous military
base, “Camp Bondsteel”, on a thousand areas of illegally expropriated
farmland strategically located near trans-Balkan transit routes, on
the approaches to the Middle East and Caspian Sea oil transport.
— The other obvious U.S. priority was to preserve the clandestine
wartime alliance with the “Kosovo Liberation Army”, not only against
the Serbs, but also, implicitly, against any European allies which
might seek influence in post-conquest Kosovo. After a
sham “disarmament” disposing of a few obsolete light arms, the KLA
was renamed the “Kosovo Protection Force” and put on the U.N.
payroll. Certain of its officers proceeded to mount armed actions to
extend “greater Albania” to neighboring Macedonia and parts of
Southern Serbia next to Kosovo. These operations were launched from
the American sector, next to Camp Bondsteel.
— As for the internal organization of Kosovo itself, the U.S.
priority is, as usual, privatization of the economy. Privatization in
practice starts with dismantling whatever government services
existed, on the theory that without government interference, private
initiative will flourish.
In a very special sense, this has indeed proved to be the case.
Kosovo, already a transit area for the largest amount of heroin
smuggled from Turkey to Western Europe, has rapidly become the center
of a new trade in women sex slaves. The Albanian mafia is by far the
biggest operator in these trades. The “internationals” who have come
to “civilize” the province provide a thriving local market for
prostitutes. If they ever go home, the Albanian mafia can count on
the networks it has developed throughout Western Europe to keep
business going.
2. The economy.
In socialist Yugoslavia, Kosovo was by far the poorest area in
Yugoslavia, with the highest rate of chronic unemployment. It still
is. But then, it benefited from injection of the largest amount of
development funds from the rest of the country. Although the
sentiment that their poverty was a result of exploitation contributed
to the rise of Kosovo Albanian nationalism, the fact is that Kosovo
was always heavily subsidized by the rest of Yugoslavia, and as a
result was considerably more developed than neighboring Albania.
Since the NATO occupation, Kosovo lives off other sources of income,
mainly the flourishing drugs and sex trades. The “international
community” has contributed a patchwork of social services (from UNMIK
police to NGO counselos) that provide a temporary substitute for the
expulsion of the local branches of the Serbian government. Camp
Bondsteel provides the largest number of legitimate jobs to
Albanians, and may continue to do so even after the demand for
chauffeurs and interpreters dries up as the NGOs go home. Saudi
Arabia can be counted on to finance mosque construction. But with a
per capita income of about $30 per month, it is hard to see where
an “independent Kosovo” could scrape up the tax base to pay for a
government, especially since so much of the real income is illicit,
outside the reach of tax collectors.
Kosovo is only an extreme case of the “transition” from socialism to
the free market, as imposed on Eastern Europe by the “international
community”. The State and its services were removed by NATO military
force, whereas elsewhere the demolition process has been more gradual
and less dramatic, the result of pressures from the IMF, the World
Bank and the European Union. The mass of unemployed young men have
little prospect of earning a living other than by getting in on the
crime business. It is hard to see what can prevent “independent
Kosovo” from being an uncontrollable crime center.
At the end of World War II, in order to defeat the Fascists and
combat the Communists, U.S. intelligence services cynically brought
the Mafia back to Sicily. The parallel with Kosovo does not go beyond
that. For unlike Kosovo, Sicily is an essentially rich island, with a
diversified economy and numerous centuries-old sophisticated urban
centers where large sectors of a highly educated population have
courageously resisted the corruption and violence of the mafia. This
aspect of Sicilian society is insufficiently appreciated abroad,
where it is more “romantic” to glorify the gangsters. In comparison,
Kosovo Albanian society simply does not possess such material or
cultural resources for resisting the power of the new mafias that,
while feeding on certain clan traditions, are above all a product of
neoliberal globalism.
3. Human rights.
The protection of “human rights” was the pretext for the 1999 war. In
terms of everyday human relations, the situation is far worse than
before. This is not widely recognized for two reasons. One, since
the “international community” rather than Milosevic is in charge,
media interest in Kosovo has virtually evaporated. Second, the
victims of persecution and harassment, the children whose school
buses are stoned, the old people who are beaten and whose houses are
set on fire, the farmers who do not dare go out to cultivate their
fields, the hundreds of thousands of refugees from “ethnic
cleansing” … are Serbs. Or sometimes gypsies. Western media early
on identified “the Serbs” as the enemies of “multi-ethnic society”
and the perpetrators of “ethnic cleansing”. The curious result seems
to be that the absence of Serbs is understood as the best guarantee
of a multi-ethnic society. This, at any rate, is the logic of the
attitude taken by the international community in regard to the Ibar
valley region of Kosovo north of Mitrovica.
That area, which forms a sort of point reaching into central Serbia,
is the largest remaining part of Kosovo where Serbs retain a
traditional majority sufficient to defend themselves from Albanian
intimidation. When, as happens from time to time, Albanian militants
from the ethnically purified region south of the Ibar attempt to
cross the river, they are stopped by Serb guards. In this
situation, “international community” spokesmen almost invariably take
the line that Serb extremists are standing in the way of “multi-
ethnic” Kosovo. The fact is deliberately overlooked that, while a
certain number of Albanians are still living in Serb-controlled
northern Mitrovica, all Serbs and Rom have been driven out of
southern Mitrovica, and that if the Albanian activists were granted
free access to the north, the probable result would be further ethnic
cleansing of what remains of the Serb population.
For some in the “international community”, that would be an ideal
solution. Once all non-Albanians have been driven out, the
professional humanitarians can declare that Kosovo is “multi-ethnic”,
and there will be nobody left there to dispute this triumphant
assertion.
The overriding concern of the West now is to get out of the Kosovo
mess in a way that will allow it to continue to celebrate the Kosovo
war as a great humanitarian success. Having left the Balkans in a
shambles, the human rights warriors can go on to other victories. The
only thing to stop them might be a belated recognition of the truth.
