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of the Belgrade Coup
Editor & Webmaster
Leon Chame - 2008
Yugoslav Associates:
- Zoran Radojicic
- Dejan Vukelic
- George Orwell
Contributing Websites:
- Original Sorces
- Transnational (TFF)
- Fair sources
- WSWS
avgust 20, 2008
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NATO Learns for Whom It Won a War
It is becoming harder by the day to justify NATO’s continued collaboration with
the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). A front page article in the June 25 New York Times cites
KLA commanders, former Albanian government officials, and Western diplomats who claim KLA
leader Hashim Thaci and two of his lieutenants led purges of the KLA ranks, to root out
and kill potential challengers to Thaci’s leadership. No one has come forward to say they witnessed Thaci or his associates, Azem Syla
and Xhavit Haliti, personally carrying out the killings, though reports to this effect
have circulated for years. Moreover,
there have been numerous documented accounts of people killed shortly after criticizing or
being threatened by Thaci and his associates, whose reputations for ruthlessness and
intimidation are legendary.
Among Thaci’s victims listed in the New York
Times was rebel commander Ilir Konushevci – killed in KLA held territory after
accusing Haliti of siphoning a profit off arms sales to the KLA. His death was blamed on the Serbs.
Another was Ahmet Krasniqi, a former Yugoslav Army colonel who, sponsored by the
administration of moderate Kosovar Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, brought 600 troops and
$4.5 million to assist the KLA against the Serbs. Krasniqi, who Rugova hoped would bring
legitimacy to the moderates on the battlefield, was assassinated in Tirana in September
1998, at the orders of Thaci and with the cooperation of the Albanian government.
Two more KLA officers, Agim Ramadani and Sali Ceku, were killed in April of this year
after opposing Thaci, and their deaths were blamed on the Serbs. Thaci did publicly threaten Rugova’s life, after the
moderate leader left for Italy and refused to back Thaci’s self-declared for
government.
What Thaci and Rubin have not been able to deny is
the wave of reprisals against Serbs carried out by Kosovar Albanians, including members of
the KLA. Serbs have been
kidnapped, beaten, and killed, their houses and businesses looted and burned, and NATO has
been unable to stop the campaign. KLA soldiers were
arrested by KFOR after they were discovered with bound, beaten, and dead prisoners in a
police station in Kosovo. A
Serb professor and two Serb workers were found bound and shot to death at the University
of Pristina. KLA troops reportedly overran the Devic monastery, looted and vandalized it,
terrorized the priest and nuns with gunfire, and raped at least one nun. KLA officials deny their troops’ involvement in the attacks on Serbs,
charging that civilian youth and criminals are posing as KLA members and donning the
uniforms and insignia of the group. They do not
explain why Albanian civilians would want to frame the KLA for such crimes.
The Serb press raises more questions about the
advisability of cooperating with the KLA in reports that the KLA, unhappy with Italian
troops’ defense of Serbs in Pec, fired at visiting Italian foreign Minister Lamberto
Dini. This report has not been confirmed by other sources. Also, according to a reporter for Jane’s Intelligence
Review, evidence recovered last December from Osama bin Laden- linked terrorists in Yemen
includes video footage of the terrorists training with the KLA in either Kosovo or
Albania. While adding these new reports, allegations, and evidence
to previous reports of KLA links to Middle East terrorists and drug and gun trafficking,
one can only question the willingness and speed with which NATO has come to accept the
KLA’s de facto leadership role in Kosovo.
The problem is, NATO simply has no options. It has
so elevated the KLA throughout Operation Allied Force, so marginalized Rugova and the
moderates, and so demonized the Serbs, that it can not now tear down Thaci’s organization. NATO was successfully manipulated into waging a war on behalf of
the KLA and its backers in the Albanian government. NATO is now
learning that it is impossible not to take sides in a conflict.
Unless it is now willing to combat the KLA and take complete and sole military and
political control of the province, it has just handed control of Kosovo to an unethical
and unhumane group of bandits and criminals. NATO attempted to wage an even-handed
humanitarian war to impose a peaceful tie between hostile camps engaged in a very messy,
centuries-old blood feud. Now, too late, it learns what it stepped into.
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