Kosovo and Jerusalem

The Role of the “International Community” in Dismantling Yugoslavia and Its Parallels in Ongoing Efforts to Destroy Israel

by Mr. Chaim Pekovic (immigrated to Eretz Yisrael from Belgrade in 1990)

The former nation of Yugoslavia (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) was seem by the world as a successful model of socialism. Its status as a regional power in the Balkans, strategically located between Europe and the Middle East, has always attracted Great Power attention. This attention, as seen in World Wars One and Two, continued after the Second World War.

Yugoslavia rose from its World War Two Nazi German occupation to defeat post-occupation ustashe (Croatian Nazis), balists (Albanian fascists) and chetniks (Serbian royalists).

Defeated Croatian Nazis, Albanian fascists and Serbian royalist forces fled Yugoslavia and found refugee in various Western countries. Host governments welcomed these Nazis, fascists and royalists as “political refugees” who had struggled for “freedom” and “democracy” against Communism.

Behind these slogans were other Western interests, primarily the global economical interests of a growing European Union which viewed Yugoslavia, 284,000 square kilometers in size, as rich in natural and human resources and as a potential rival.

Weakened Yugoslavia, with its developed infrastructure, would be a perfect source of cheap labor for Western economies. Also, the Western world has great interest in the Muslim and Arab worlds. Former Yugoslavia, with large Muslim populations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo, presented an opportunity for improving Western-Islamic and Arab relations by favoring Muslims in local Yugoslavian conflicts.

Israel, a regional military and economical power in conflict with Arab Muslim neighbors, finds itself in a position very similar to that of now defunct Yugoslavia.

Historical background

Most media consumers today are taught that Albanians in Kosovo and Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina are indigenous peoples who were always there, while Serbs were colonizers and aliens.

The historical facts are the exact opposite.

[See article for history.]

Dismantling of Yugoslavia

During 1991 and 1992 Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina unilaterally seceded from the Yugoslav Federation, triggering war in Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In both Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the decision to secede was made by first removing references to Serbs from the constitutions, so that the decision to separate was carried out against the will of one of the constitutionally recognized peoples in the respective states. Such decisions recall bad memories from the Second World War which helped trigger the outbreak of that conflict.

Serbian national spirit always resisted foreign diktats (this spirit cost Serbs countless dead in both World Wars). Serbs fought for justice, even if it did not concern Serbs, and rejected the use of force to settle disputes. Those two national characteristics led to confrontations with Western powers. Serbs were not favored by Western media, which expects persecuted peoples to act and cry in front of their cameras.

On the other side, Croats, and especially Muslims taught by Arabs, were experts in media manipulation. Western mass media demonized the Serbs, declaring them responsible for the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.

Reality was different. All three sides, Croats, Muslims and Serbs, engaged in atrocities against civilian populations. Only those committed by Serbs were reported world wide. Outside the Balkans no one learned of ethnic cleansing in Eastern Bosnia (Bratunac district) where 22 Serbian villages were razed by Bosnian government troops. In Western Herzegovina Croats exterminated the Muslim and Serbian populations and even blew up the old bridge in Mostar.

Despite the fact that most of those convicted for war crimes by the International Court at the Hague were Muslims, only Serbs were only blamed for war crimes. Media bias against Serbs reached such extremes that Muslims succeeded to manipulate world media coverage to change the military situation through two staged incidents.

In the summer of 1992, a few months after the outbreak of war, a bomb blew up on Vasa Mickin Street in Sarajevo, killing people waiting in a bread line. Media cameras had been pre-positioned on the spot to record the incident. Serbs were immediately blamed for the crime despite the fact that no one could prove the shell was launched from Serbian positions around Sarajevo. This incident was used as an excuse to impose harsh economic sanctions on Yugoslavia in order to stop the Yugoslav government from helping the Bosnian Serbs.

In the summer of 1995, a similar incident took place in Sarajevo’s main market, called the Markale. A bomb exploded and killed people in a crowded market in front of numerous cameras that, again, were pre-positioned to record the incident. The Serbs were again immediately blamed for the crime despite the fact that, again, no one could prove the shell was launched from Serbian positions around Sarajevo. This incident was used as a pretext by N.A.T.O. forces to attack Serbs, paralize their communications and force them to create, against their will, a state shared with Muslims and Croats (who also preferred not be part of a united Bosnian state).

Anyone familiar with Middle East affairs immediately senses the same pattern of media manipulation that we witnessed in the Balkans reappearing in Gaza, and Kefar Kana in southern Lebanon, for example.

International community adopts double standard policy in former Yugoslavia

With the outbreak of war, Serbs in Croatia established independent regions in parts of Croatia where they were the overwhelming majority. Serbian national opinion was clear. Serbs did not want to live in an independent Croatian state. They claimed they were afraid of possible new genocides that could be carried out by Croatian ultra-nationalists.

During 1995, the Croatian government began negotiations with Serbs about their integration into Croatia. During negotiations in the summer of 1995, the Croatian army backed by N.A.T.O. warplanes invaded Serbian territory, destroying Serbian missile units. The Croatian army advanced quickly, using Serbian prisoners of war as human shields.

This Croatian Army operation, called “Storm”, succeeded in expelling almost the entire Serbian population. Long lines of refugees fled their homes while the “international community” remained silent. There were no sanctions against Croatia, no threats to Croatia to bring those refuges back. The “international community” silently supported Croatia’s ethnic cleansing of Serbs.

After Bosnia and Herzegovina left the Yugoslav Federation in 1992, Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina wanted to express their right to self-determination and to form an independent entity. They formed the Serbian Republic primarily on territories where they were the overwhelming majority (Eastern Bosnia, Western Bosnia called Bosanska, Krajina and Eastern Herzegovina).

Western powers wanted a united Bosnian state. In 1995 they forced Bosnian Serbs to sign a “peace agreement” in Dayton, Ohio, in which three entities were created, Muslims and Croats established a Federation and a Serbian Rebublic was established in confederation with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

After the signing of this agreement, of which the United States was a guarantor, the “international community” began to change the structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina step by step, removing it from the jurisdiction of the Serbian Republic.

These changes have now reached a critical point where Serbs cannot accept anymore a Federal Government, backed by the “international community”, which urges “reform” of the police by placing them under the authority of a Federal Government, diminishing further the power of the Serbian Republic.

In both Croatia and Serbia Serbs continued to be denied rights of self-determination granted other people in the former Yugoslavia: Slovenes, Croats (except to Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina), Muslims, Albanians and Macedonians.

Over the past three centuries due to unrelenting pressure on the Serbian population, Albanians succeeded in becoming the majority in Kosovo.

In Kosovo itself there was never Albanian sovereignty, so creating an independent Albanian state in Kosovo has no legal or moral justification.

In the late 1990s, Albanians formed a military terrorist group called the K.L.A. (Kosovo Liberation Army). Its aim was separation from Yugoslavia. The K.L.A. began an uprising against Yugoslav authority on sovereign Yugoslav territory. No government in the world would tolerate the formation of independent military units on its territory, nor would it tolerate a separatist revolt. The Yugoslav army was sent to suppress this uprising, a perfectly legitimate move for a sovereign state.

N.A.T.O. used this as an excuse to attack Yugoslavia, even against the will of the United Nations. The N.A.T.O. attack was presented as a humanitarian intervention to protect the Albanian population against so-called Serbian genocide despite the fact that no Albanian was expelled and no Albanian village was destroyed before the N.A.T.O. attack.

Never before had N.A.T.O. attacked another state to protect an allegedly endangered minority, despite numerous opportunities to do so, for example to prevent Arab Muslim genocide against Christian and native religion Africans in southern Sudan; or to stop terrible atrocities in Ruanda.

The real reason for the N.A.T.O. attack was not “humanitarian”. U.S. President Clinton was having political problems arising from his relations with Monica Levinski and he needed something to divert public attention from that.

For the Western World here was another opportunity to appease the Islamic world.

For N.A.T.O. this was an opportunity to test equipment and tactics (as Nazi Germany did in the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War) in a big military exercise in preparation for future conflicts (such as an attack on Israel).

The N.A.T.O. attack ended with the withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from Kosovo and deployment of the U.N. K.F.O.R. which failed to protect the Serbian minority from Albanians.

N.A.T.O.’s so called “humanitarian mission”” resulted in the further expulsion of Serbs from Kosovo and in the destruction of monasteries built in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, monasteries that were supposedly under U.N.E.S.C.O. protection.

Last year Montenegro conducted a vote on independence in a referendum in which a third of Montenegrin citizens were denied the right to vote. If those citizens, who live mostly in Serbia (which was still part of the same confederation when the “referendum” was held), were permitted to vote the results would be totally different.

The Montenegrin ruling party brought Albanians from abroad who had left Montenegro years ago. Their votes were crucial in wining the 55% majority needed to declare independence. The majority of Montenegrins were for a state union on a federal-confederate basis with Serbia. Such a crucial decision, on independence, was made without getting 50% of the votes of registered voters. The “international community” welcomed this referendum, the same one which would be overruled in any Western democracy as unconstitutional.

Those double standards were justified firstly by the claim that the aim is to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic and his tyranny. It is impossible to accept such a claim after N.A.T.O. bombing of Belgrade [Belgrade was bombed by Nazi Germany in the spring of 1941], the city which lead the anti-Milosevic struggle, the city in which demonstrations against Milosevic were daily.

The bombing of Belgrade could only help Milosevic consolidate his power. After Milosevic’s fall, double standards were justified on the grounds of poor cooperation by Serbian authorities with the International Tribunal at the Hague, despite the fact that Serbian authorities allowed the extradition of Milosevic and gave up the opportunity to try Milosevic for crimes he had committed inside Serbia against Serbs during his oppressive rule. By this policy the entire Serbian people was collectively punished for what individuals did.

Double standards are not exclusive to former Yugoslavia. They are the rule of the game in the Israeli-Arab conflict. The “Palestinian Authority” was never condemned for its terrorist activities, its refusal to recognize Israel and to reach a peace agreement.

On the other hand, Israel is condemned when it defends itself, is threatened with war crime charges while the “Palestinian” side is never charged for war crimes with its use of human populations as human shields or for numerous terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.

Epiloque

In these very days Kosovo is going to get independence while the “international community” simultaneously continues its efforts to destroy the Serbian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbs there may again attempt to proclaim independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina, which may trigger another war.

Again, the Western mass media will demonize the Serbs and prepare the ground for another international intervention on behalf of oppressed Muslims, again resulting in another ethnic cleansing of Serbs, this time from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Creating economically dependant states in the Balkans will destabilize the region. It will encourage other separatist movements throughout the world (for example in Quebec, the Basque region, Catalonia, Flanders, the lands of the former Soviet Union, etc.) and lead to potential crises which could be unleashed by a coming global economic crisis.
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About the Root and Branch Association, Ltd.

The Root and Branch Association, Ltd. (incorporated 1981) [www.rb.org.il], an all-volunteer, non-member organization, promotes cooperation between the State of Israel and other nations, and between B’nai Israel (Children of Israel) and B’nai Noach (Children of Noah) in the Land of Israel and abroad, to build a better world based on the universal Noahide Covenant and Seven Noahide Laws as revealed by the G-d of Israel to Noah and his family following the Flood and by G-d to Moses and the Children of Israel at Mount Sinai as recorded in the Bible and Jewish tradition

February 9, 2007 | 7 Comments »

7 Comments / 7 Comments

  1. yoram u speciously claim here….

    As was pointed out by Joseph Alexander Norland as a posting to another article, Serbia continues to support the Arabs in the UN after the end of the communist rule
    http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/ga10559.doc.htm

    yoram, here you are again on this thread too spreading ure lies, disinformation, twisting of the facts,sophistry,casuistry, obfuscation, ultra-religious fanaticism and anti-christian hysterical hatred, bigotry and propaganda….. [since serbs are orthodox christians u zealously target them the most]…….. [for readers unfamiliar with this yoram’s anti-christian hatred and bigotry, please see a collection of his comments at comment 26 here https://www.israpundit.org/2006/?p=3905 and comment 17 here https://www.israpundit.org/2006/?p=3821

    yoram, as usual, you speciously and erroneously claim in your best tradition of twisting of the facts and sophistry to suit your own twisted extremeist religious views of anti-christian hatred and bigotry that…

    But now, nobody forces the “philo-Semite” Serbs to make anti-Israeli policy.

    what rubbish! yet again u are lying thru ure teeth! the current serbian government in belgrade is a puppet government of washington who were placed into power in a constitutionally illegal coup by clinton and albright in october 2000 in which over $130 million us taxpayer dollars were spent by clinton/albright/holbrooke overthrowing milosevic’s government………..so get ure facys straight and stop spreading ure idiotic clownish lies here like u always do…u also mention joseph a. norland’s comment…..while i greatly respect and admire joseph and his writings here on israpundit,in this instance he is definitely proven 100% very wrong….it is indicative and instructive of ure anti-christian /anti-serbian bias here on israpundit that u totally failed to mention the comments 2, 3, 4 , 5, and 6, after joseph’s comment which categorically refute and debunk the idea that the serbs collectively as a people are to blame for the anti-israel voting of the washington puppet govt in belgrade or that they even in any way support it……..

    u also failed to mention that most western governments including canada,australia and great britian (uk) and most of those in european union and nato’s alliance also supported the majority of the pro-palestinian arab resolutions joseph cited at the un link he posted……why do u say nothing about that, yoram?????????? …….does that mean that ALL those nation’s peoples are “anti-semitic” and hate israel????????……… as usual yoram u are exposed yet again as a bigot who twists the facts in order to serve ure own vastly inflated ego and ure extremist, bigoted anti-christian religious agenda here on israpundit…..GET A LIFE and STOP lying and twisting the facts!!

    2.To Joseph Alexander Norland,

    Do you say bad things about the Jews whenever the Israeli government does something you dislike? Is the Israeli government not cooperating with the PLO? It is. Have you therefore abandoned the Jews, and do you post comments attacking them?

    The government of Serbia is NATO-installed. It does what NATO wants it to do. This does not change the fact that the Serbs were unjustly demonized and slandered. It does not change the fact that the Serbs were murdered and chased out by the hundreds of thousands by the same Muslim forces that will soon destroy the state of Israel. And it does not change the fact that the brave Serbs were the only people to die fighting by the thousands in WWII because they chose to defend the Jews.

    So what is the point of your comment?

    It is hard to fathom.

    Francisco Gil-White

    Comment by gilwhite — January 27, 2007 @ 5:34 pm

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    3.Per adventure, even if the Serbs are as a population in general against Israel, (I don’t know if or if not that is the case), it would not change what was done to them.

    Furthermore, even if they did do some things that would be considered war crimes, in context to what was happening to them it was more than likely out of fear and desperation in an attempt to survive.

    I say “if” because I do not know every detail, but, I do know enough to know that what the Serbs were facing was pure evil and the KLA needed to be destroyed, not supported by the international community.

    People do not have to be pure to be murdered, if the Serbs were less than angels it does not change the murderous Islamic militants from being devils.

    Comment by RandyTexas — January 27, 2007 @ 10:28 pm

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    4.This is a very quick and unprepared response to the above because unfortunately I am in an internet shop for a short time.

    The issue of the destruction of Yugoslavia and the issue of the creation of a 22nd Arab state and the second palestinian state are all closely connected.

    The problem is to find the keys which link them together.

    Jared Israel and Francisco Gil White have gone part of the way, but in my view despite very precise research methods, they have done so superficially.

    Essentially the method has been to rip the issue out from the overall historical conflict.

    The issue involves the Russian Revoloution of October 1917, clearly, which is something that Gil White never did address.

    One of the reasons there was a market for painting Milosevic out to be a very bad man, a lie, was because he was seen as a Communist.

    And so we are back to other issues, communism, Bolshevism, Stalinism and then the struggles of Leon Trotsky and his followers.

    jared and Francisco have went so far and I support them.

    But not far enough in my opinion.

    Comment by Felix Quigley — January 28, 2007 @ 7:20 am

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    5.Joseph,

    Gil-White is 100% correct. The government of Serbia is a Washington/NATO/EU puppet government installed in an illegal coup in October 2000.

    The overwhelming majority of Serbians utterly detest the Washington/Brussels puppet government for is sellout to the EU-NATO Eurabians but cannot do anything much about removing it since the opposition in Serbia is hopelessly divided, and in any case, the population knows that if the opposition were to win in an election, they most definitely run the risk of being subjected to economic sanctions, renewed demonization and possibly even bombing by the West.

    This memory of UN economic sanctions, demonization and bombings for over a decade by the Western governments, is still fresh in the minds of the overwhelming majority of Serbians and while they detest the pro-EU, pro-Washington puppet government, they have been subjected to unbelievable pressures to join the EU-NATO Eurabians or face being a strangulated,demonized pariah state all over again.

    Please don’t confuse the people of Serbia with their government, Joseph. Don’t judge the people of Serbia for the actions of their government at the UN.

    Gil-White is absolutely right. Do we abandon the people of Israel because of the betrayal of the Israeli people by Olmert & co.? Do we abandon the people of the United States because of the actions of Bush & Rice following the policy “recommendations” of the globalist elitist Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in relation to North Korea,Iran,Hezbollah, the PLO/Fatah & Hamas?

    Are we to criticize the people of Israel, Canada and the United States and abandon support for them?

    Absolutely not!!! That would be totally unjust and insane!

    As I wrote in a previous thread, Israel was the only country in the world to consistently send humanitarian and military aid to the Bosnian Serbs when the entire world abandoned them – including their Orthodox Christian Slavic brothers- the Russians. Israel knew what the West was doing was immoral, unjust and unfair.

    The only reason why Israel was eventually forced to stop aiding the Serbs was because of immense pressure brought to bear on her by the US administration of Clinton & co.Israel was not fooled by the Western government and mainstream media propaganda against the Serbs. Israel knew she was supporting the side of justice and right by helping the Serbs against the Croatian Ustasha Nazis and Izetbegovic Islamofascists.

    Incidentally, the Serbian people are the most pro-Jewish, pro-Israeli people that exist outside of the United States (they still remember the aid they received from Israel), but are hostages to the policies of sellout and betrayal of their own government: in much the same way as the people of Israel,Canada,and the United States – who we all love and cherish and will never abandon – merely because of the idiotic policies of appeasement & betrayal by their respective governments.

    Comment by Nathan Pearlstein — January 28, 2007 @ 7:21 am

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    6.Joseph, one thing I did notice when I read the UN link that you didn’t mention: most of the UN resolutions you refer to were supported by the government of Canada. What does that say about the people of Canada?

    Does that now mean we here at Israpundit should condemn the people of Canada and abandon support for the wonderful Canadian people? I think you already know the obvious answer, Joseph.

    Governments are corrupt institutions and implement policies of betrayal detrimental to the Jewish people all the time – no matter which government in the world you care to scrutinize: including the government of Israel, which is one of the worst offenders.

    Comment by Nathan Pearlstein — January 28, 2007 @ 8:26 am

    https://www.israpundit.org/2006/?p=3854

  2. I agree 100% with the article.

    By the way, as far as I’ve been told, the author is an orthodox Jewish scholar and is against any collaboration with other religions including x-tians, but he supports the respect of the 7 noahide commendments by non-Jews. Also, the article just analyses the parallels between the Yugoslave conflict and the war against Israel. No support for the Serbs is suggested by the author. Nor are the Serbs presented as completely innocent.

    As was pointed out by Joseph Alexander Norland as a posting to another article, Serbia continues to support the Arabs in the UN after the end of the communist rule

    http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/ga10559.doc.htm

    But now, nobody forces the “philo-Semite” Serbs to make anti-Israeli policy.

    Also I wish to repeat that the head of the Serbian Radical Party, Vojislav Seselj, has an Arab advisor who was a Jordan citizen and used to be an active member in several Arab world students organisations, he was also correspondent for Al-Jazeera, and he helped the Serbian Radical Party to edit several editions of their party’s gazette in Arabic in order to get closer contacts to Arab countries.

    Shavu’a Tov.

  3. #4

    Laura, you’re completely right. I would like to understand how you explaine that these manipulation was possible. What is your theory about ?

  4. The real reason for the N.A.T.O. attack was not “humanitarian”. U.S. President Clinton was having political problems arising from his relations with Monica Levinski and he needed something to divert public attention from that.

    Although I believe president Clinton wrong to have launched this attack on the Serbs, nevertheless I have to take issue with this being the motivation. The timeline here is off. The bombing campaign against the Serbs ocurred in the spring of ’99, well after the whole Lewinsky affair was past. If you recall it was throughout ’98 that the scandal ocurred and by Febuary of ’99 it was all but over with the decision to acquit Clinton. He has been consistently accused of launching this attack for the purpose of distracting attention from that scandal, while ignoring that the timing doesn’t add up.

  5. Some Call It Peace
    Waiting For War In the Balkans

    Yossef BODANSKY
    Director of the U.S. Congress’ Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional warfare

    Because of the presence of US civilians and US forces, the destabilization of Albania by the Islamists emerges as an ideal way of dragging the US into active participation in the Balkan wars even if the Bosnia-Herzegovina crisis is resolved or is no longer considered valid international-political justification for such an intervention.

    Since early 1996, there has been a spate of terrorist strikes in Kosovo Most attacks were carried out by Albanian separatists.

    In mid-February 1996, a few bombs exploded in several Krajina Serb refugee dwellings in Kosovo. The explosions did not cause casualties or extensive damage. In Prishtina, “The Liberation Army of Kosovo” claimed responsibility for these attacks.

    “On 11 February 1996, the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army conducted an armed operation in Operation Zone 1. Hand grenades were used in guerrilla attacks on the refugee camps in Prishtina, Mitrovica, Pec, Podujevo, Suva Reka, and Vucitrn ” The communiqué defined the objectives of the organization. “In the interest of peace in the Balkans, and the Serbian and the Albanian nations, we demand the end to the colonization, terror, and occupation of Kosovo, as well as the emigration of the Kosovar Albanians.”

    Meanwhile, in Albania, a representative of the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo also claimed responsibility: “We planted the bombs in Kosovo, and this is only the beginning.” “The Liberation Army of Kosovo” reacted immediately, releasing yet another communiqué reaffirming their responsibility. This communiqué stressed that the recent bombings were only the beginning of a terrorist campaign. The statement said that “for the sake of peace in the Balkans, we are letting it be known to Belgrade that the actions so far were only an indication of fresh bombings and at the same time an invitation to an urgent dialogue on the withdrawal of the army and police forces from the Republic of Kosovo.”

    “The Liberation Army of Kosovo” also urged the United States and other world powers to recognize the independence of Kosovo, “because otherwise war in this region is inevitable”

    In late April 1996, Albanian terrorists again demonstrated their reach and ability to operate. On April 22, a spate of shootings in the province’s towns of Stimlje, Pec and Decani and at Kosovska Mitrovica on the Rozaj-Pristina road targeted both civilians and police.

    In one attack, terrorists opened automatic fire and threw grenades into a Serb cafe in Decani killing five patrons and wounding a few. Shortly afterwards two policemen on patrol were attacked with automatic fire and both were wounded.

    Then a police car was ambushed near Brus with one fatality. Another police car was ambushed on a nearby road, with another fatality and another wounded. A week later, there was an attempt to blow up the house of the police station commander in Dusanovo. The bomb caused part of the building to collapse, but there were no injuries. This time, there were only unofficial claims by “The Liberation Army of Kosovo”, primarily explanations by third parties in Albania, Turkey and the Middle East that the Army was again responsible for the attacks.

    More important was the effort by the “establishment” front — The Democratic League of Kosovo [LDK] — to ensure the political impact of the terrorism. The LDK denied any connection to the terrorism.

    However, in late April, its leaders warned that unless Kosovo gained independence, there would be a marked escalation in Albanian terrorism.

    In a communiqué, the LDK warned of “further radicalization” in the region because “Albanian patience” was running out.Since then, the low key harassment of the Yugoslav authorities by low-level sporadic terrorism continued.

    In early May, “The Liberation Army of Kosovo” issued an announcement that “the armed conflict in Kosovo and Metohija would resume and that it would spread throughout the Balkans” Indeed, in mid-June, there were several shooting incidents in Podujevo and Mitrovica, in which one policeman was killed and two others wounded. These attacks were immediately claimed in Prishtina and Tirana by Albanian separatists. Soon afterwards, “The Liberation Army of Kosovo” claimed responsibility for these attacks.

    Moreover, in Tirana, the Information Center of Kosovo [QIK] pointed out that “the new wave of state violence and terror in Kosovo proves of possibilities for efforts to cause great troubles at a time when the question of Kosovo has become prominent for the international community.”

    [Editor’s Note: some opposition groups use the spelling “Kosova” or “Kosovar”. We have standardized here on the formally-accepted spelling: Kosovo.]

    The surge of terrorism did not come as a surprise. Since the early 1990s, Sarajevo and its Islamist sponsors had been actively preparing for the next round of assault on the Serbs: this time through Kosovo.

    By mid-1993, Sarajevo and its allies were already preparing to launch operations into the Yugoslav strategic rear. The key was the plan to subvert Kosovo and rapidly escalate an armed struggle against Belgrade from bases in Albania.

    In June, the government of Saudi Arabia donated $ 1-million to build “a refugee camp” for Bosnian Muslims in Albania. However, in mid-July, a senior Bosnian official in Sarajevo confided to the BBC’s Misha Glenny that “the Bosnian government intended to use the base for guerillas to be sent into Kosovo. The Serbs would not be able to differentiate the [Bosnian] guerillas, linguistically or ethnically, from the local Serbs.” These Bosnian operatives would be able to carry out a series of terrorist operations which could be attributed to a Kosovo Albanian organization, thus instigating a fierce reaction by the Serb security forces, and, consequently, a cycle of violence. The ensuing widespread violence in Kosovo, Sarajevo believed, would then be used to induce Western military intervention against Yugoslavia itself.

    Meanwhile, Sarajevo and the Islamists began preparing and training Albanian cadres for the future escalation of the Islamist struggle for Kosovo.

    In mid-1993, Sarajevo revived the Handzar Division with all its fascist culture and preoccupation with the division’s role as worthy successors to its SS predecessors. The primary role of the Handzar Division is the Praetorian Guard for President Alija Izetbegovic and other senior leaders in Sarajevo. The Handzar Division is comprised of a 2,500 to 3,000 elite force deployed in Sarajevo and a 6,000 to 7,500 strong back-up force in Fojnica.

    Significantly, the majority of the troops of the Handzar Division are not Bosnian Muslims. Instead, they come from the region’s other Muslim minorities, primarily Albanians, and are led by veteran Pakistani and Afghan experts. “Surprisingly few of those in charge of the Handzars in Fojnica seem to speak good Serbo-Croatian. Many of them are Albanian, whether from Kosovo or from Albania itself,” explained UN officers in Fojnica.

    “The Handzars are trained and led by veterans from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The strong presence of native Albanians is an ominous sign. It could be that the seeds of war are spreading south via Kosovo and into Albania, thence to the Albanians of Macedonia.”

    These observations, made in late 1993, proved correct.

    By 1995, the Handzar Division had been transformed into a zealot and combat proven special forces. In many cases, particularly in the surge into western Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Summer-Fall of 1995, they operated in close cooperation with the mujahedin units. The deployment of Albanian veterans and support mujahedin cadres to Albania began in the Fall of 1995.

    Meanwhile, the international Islamist leadership was completing preparations for the escalation of the terrorist campaign into Kosovo. Toward this end, the establishment of new Islamist headquarters in Tehran and Karachi were decided upon during the PAIC [Pan-Arab Islamic Conference] convened in Khartoum in the first days of April 1995.

    The new regional center in Karachi is responsible for Islamist activities in Albania, including Kosovo. Consequently, by late 1995, both the command echelons and operational cadres were ready for the escalation of the Islamist surge into Kosovo. Indeed, as discussed above, violence erupted in early 1996.

    The renewed terrorism in Kosovo was seized upon by the Clinton Administration as an excuse for a marked increase in US intervention in Kosovo on behalf of “oppressed Albanians”. This commitment was symbolized by the opening of US a Information Center and a diplomatic office in Prishtina on June 5,1996.

    Not by accident, it was John Kornblum, the Chief US mediator for former Yugoslavia, who opened the Information Center in Prishtina, thus signifying the political significance of the event.In his remarks, Kornblum stated that the opening of the center was another “proof of permanent US interest and concern for the people of the region”.

    Albanian leaders quickly stressed the political aspects of the event and their expectations from the Clinton Administration. In his remarks at the opening ceremony, Ibrahim Rugova stated that this was “a historic day for Kosovo and the peoples living there.” He thanked President Bill Clinton and all other US politicians who contributed to the founding of the Center in Kosovo. Xhemal Mustafa, Rugova’s information counselor, added that the opening of the USIA Center served as “a strong confirmation of the recognition and internationalization of the Kosovo issue.

    “The fact that the United States opened its first office in Prishtina testifies that the US preoccupation, assistance, and interests in Kosovo have already become identified and are assuming the character of a serious and promising institutionalization.” Edita Tahiri, LDK Chairman for Foreign Affairs, also stated that “Kosova and the Albanian issue have been acknowledged by the US Administration”.

    As it is, the Kosovo Albanians are reading too much into a bold maneuver of the Clinton Administration’s Balkan aspects of the American election policies. The Administration does not care about the Albanians in Kosovo. The Clinton Administration is troubled by President Milosevic who is essentially living up to virtually all his commitments in the Dayton-Paris Accords [for Bosnia] and other contracts with the US.

    With the demonization of the Serbs presented as the justification for the US presence in Bosnia-Herzegovina, there emerged an urgent need in the White House to find yet another reason to continue to demonize the Serbs and confront the new Yugoslavia: enter the plight of the Kosovo Albanians.

    However, these events are read differently in the Balkans. Indeed, the Clinton Administration has already created expectations among the Albanian leadership for massive intervention to ensure Kosovo’s independence. Officials in Macedonia already warn that the Kosovo Albanians are “waiting for a new Dayton”. Once they realize that this is not going to happen, there will be yet another victory for the Islamists and the surge of terrorism.

    Meanwhile, the US regional policy is centered on the demonization of the Serbs because it is a morally-loaded subject which, because it is negative [being against the Serbs], does not require the Administration to face and explain facts.

    Furthermore, the continued demonization of the Serbs provides populist explanation for the Clinton Administration’s not living up to commitments made in the context of the Dayton-Paris Accords.

    For the Europeans, who are pursuing their own vital and long-term interests, the Clinton Administration’s Bosnian policy is already emerging as a profoundly abject lesson. The Europeans are now increasingly convinced that rhetoric about allies and partners notwithstanding, the US will not hesitate to disregard or hurt European vital interests if they conflict in any way with the conveniences of the Clinton election campaign.

    Despite the Clinton Administration’s infliction of long-term damage to the US-West European alliance in order to pursue the pro-Sarajevo policy, the Muslim world continues to insist that whatever the US is doing is not enough.

    It is virtually impossible for the US to pacify and placate the Muslim World because Islamic revivalism is inherently anti-US, and calls for the establishment of a Muslim political order which is in irreconcilable contradiction with the Western world order, including the principles of the Dayton-Paris Accords.

    This prospect does not deter the Clinton Administration from intensifying its efforts to impose pro-Sarajevo[Izetbegovic SDA party] solutions on Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its policies are dominated by election-year domestic political considerations. The impracticality and deceitfulness of the Bosnian policies are thus of no concern to the Clinton White House.

    Other world powers also follow closely the twists and turns of the Clinton Administration’s Bosnia policy as an indication of the innermost character and traits of US policy.

    The readily-observed discrepancy between the declared US policy and the Clinton Administration’s real actions in Bosnia plays a major role in how governments around the world base their policies and diplomacy vis-a-vis the US.

    See also Jared Israel’s Emperor’s Clothes article

    “Slaughter at a Children’s Cafe”

    “On December 14, 1998, six children were murdered when a masked gunman sprayed the Panda Cafe in Pec [Kosovo] with bullets.”

    The crime was so horrendous that even US Balkans envoy Richard Holbrooke denounced it.

    ‘”Because of its cruelty and its cowardice, this crime stands above all crimes,’ said Mirko Simonovic, principal of the slain teenagers’ school’. (Agence France Presse)

    Crimes of the KLA: Command responsibility of Ramush Haradinaj: Massacre in the village of his birth

  6. NATO/EU governments first need to stop supporting al Qaeda and their KLA operatives in the Balkans theater of Kosovo and Bosnia and Macedonia.

    Otherwise, the terrorist attacks of Madrid 03/11/04 and London 07/07/05 will be repeated.

    al Qaeda linked Albanian KLA operatives working out of Bosnia and Kosovo supplied the explosives for the Madrid and London attacks and if it wasn’t for NATO’s de facto protection of these Islamist terrorist bases right in the heart of Europe by turning a blind eye and deaf ear, the innocents in Madrid and London would not have been killed in the first place.

    Ignore at Peril: the Growing Cauldron of Kosovo and Bosnia

    Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy. Alexandria: Nov/Dec 2005.Vol.33, Iss. 11/12; pg. 7, 3 pgs

    New Evidence Highlights Albanian Link to Explosives Used in London, Madrid

    Deeply-placed sources within the Islamist community in Kosovo have identified the source and type of the explosives used in the jihadist terrorist bombings in London on July 7, 2005, and the Madrid commuter railway bombings of March 11, 2004.

    The man at the center of the provision of the explosives in both instances was an Albanian, operating mostly out of Kosovo (with links into Bosnia), who is a second-ranking leader in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA/UCK: Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosove), Niam Behzloulzi (phonetic spelling), also known as “Houlzi”. He carries ID under the name of Niam Behzloulzi.

    The principal explosive used in the London and Madrid bombs was CK123 plastic explosive which is similar to, but slightly more powerful than, Semtex.

    “Houlzi” provided the Madrid explosives in December 2003. It is known that the CK123 provided for the London attacks, and probably the Madrid attacks, was supplied in Kosovo and then carried to Western Sahara, before being routed to the target cities. The London explosives were routed via Madrid.

    Significantly, CK123 cannot be detected by most – perhaps all – airport explosives detection equipment operating at that time. It is not at this time known whether the Saharan link was via Algeria or Morocco, but both Moroccan and Algerian Islamists have been extremely active in Bosnia and Kosovo.

    ” The mid-October[2001] revelations that an Osama bin Laden terrorist training camp is operating in the U.S.-controlled zone of Kosovo, are only the tip of the iceberg.

    Now, in a sort of “Operation Truth,” Macedonian and other sources have begun to reveal publicly what until now had been known to only a relatively small group of people, about the narco-terrorist connections between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and the Taliban, and between these two groups and high-level U.S. and British intelligence agencies.

    “Operation Truth” is now affecting the strategic domain, provoking a reevaluation of the conventional way of viewing “international terrorism.”

    The path leads to those [US government] strategists who have used terrorism as a weapon of irregular warfare.

    ····The story of bin Laden’s right-hand man, Ayman “The Doctor” Zawahiri, and the Balkan activities of the latter’s brother, have shocked a large number of people.

    How is it possible that such a high-level official of the bin Laden gang is able to run a training camp for the KLA near the Kosovo village of Ropotovo, in the middle of an area controlled by the United States?

    How is it possible that Zawahiri’s brother, as reliable sources report, was (and still reportedly is) in charge of KLA operations in the KLA-occupied area of neighboring Macedonia?

    How is it possible that the Zawahiri-led gang of international mercenaries could move, without any hindrance, from NATO-controlled Kosovo into Macedonia? “

    http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_international&Number=257846&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1&t=1

    International Strategic Studies Association, Washington DC: GIS Special Topical Reports – Balkan Strategic Studies: The New Rome & The New Religious Wars, March 1999

    Little wonder that numerous US policy analysts, even those who are hostile to Yugoslavia as a basic stance, are extremely uncomfortable with the Clinton Administration’s close ties with the KLA.

    “There is no doubt that the involvement of the two brothers al-Zawahiri in the two movements is not coincidental.

    Ben Works, director of the Strategic Research Institute of the US, noted:

    “There’s no doubt that bin Laden’s people have been in Kosovo helping to arm, equip and train the KLA. . . . The [US] Administration’s policy in Kosovo is to help bin Laden. It almost seems as if the Clinton Administration’s policy is to guarantee more terrorism.”

    Noted strategic analyst and columnist, former US Army Colonel Harry Summers, said on August 12, 1998, that in Kosovo, the US found itself “championing the very Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups who are our mortal enemies elsewhere”.

    US Policy in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean: Time to Stop Choosing Sides, and to Start Choosing Strategic Interests

    By Gregory R. Copley,

    President, the International Strategic Studies Association.[1]

    Presented at the Capitol Hill Conference on

    FYROM: The Need for Reassessment of US Policy in the Balkans.

    Longworth House of Representatives Office Building,

    Washington, DC: April 14, 2005

    “…But putting that aside for the moment, the real rationale for the US policy change regarding the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia was the fact that US military and intelligence facilities in Albania were being sabotaged and attacked, and this was threatening the continuity of logistical and other support to US forces in the Serbian province of Kosovo. As a result, the US needed to quickly move its assets out of Albania — a fact which has yet to be acknowledged or explained — and to relocate them in Macedonia.

    Cooperation by Skopje was fast and effective, and the trade-off regarding the recognition of the name “Republic of Macedonia” was made, by the US Government, on the basis of simple expedience. No real thought was given to the consequences, or to the real questions which this decision raised.

    Certainly, the State Department would have advised the White House that the change in name recognition would create a backlash from Greece, and from Greek-American voters in the US. The decision to proceed with the trade-off with Skopje would have been taken because the backlash would have been considered to have been manageable. After all, where is Greece going to go, strategically? Greece needs its alliance with the US to help counterbalance Turkey, among other things.

    But what the underlying cause of the decision — that is, the attacks on, and insecurity of the US facilities in Albania — means is that the Albanian security situation reflects the volatility of the clan-based rivalries and the related narco-trafficking and criminal activities which are linked with global terrorism. But by admitting this as the basis for the need to move facilities out of Albania, the US would then have to admit that this terrorism-related criminal activity, and particularly narco-trafficking, is intrinsically linked into the al-Qaida and Iranian-backed terrorist infrastructure of the region, and into the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which now, under new names, controls the Serbian province of Kosovo.

    Significantly, part of the trade-off which Washington made with Skopje [Macedonia] was that Skopje backed-off from its vociferous claims about the ethnic-Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) which has been attempting to break up the former Yugoslav area of Macedonia. The NLA is a re-emerged part of the KLA; it is linked with al-Qaida, and with the Iranian terrorist infrastructure in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Raška in Southern Serbia, and in Serbia’s Kosovo area.

    The irony of this begins to emerge. The US rewards Skopje [Macedonia] for stopping expressions of concern about Albanian terrorism which is also the cause of the US having to move its assets out of Albania itself. Why is this?


    Because no-one in the State Department or Defense Department is willing to admit that US support for this terrorist and narco-trafficking base of Albanians in 1999 — when the US led NATO into attacks on Serbia in order to assist the KLA — was wrong.

    This is part of the distortion of US foreign and strategic policy: no-one will admit that they made a mistake.

    There are many Congressmen on Capitol Hill who understand that this distortion exists with regard to Balkan policy. But equally, there are politicians in both major parties who supported the KLA during the 1990s, so that today [April,2005] it is impossible for a Republican-controlled Bush White House and Congress to attack the logic and merit of the 1999 war, waged against Serbia by the then-Democratic Party-controlled Clinton White House. It is difficult for the White House, for example, to criticize the 1990s support by the Clinton Administration for the al-Qaida-linked KLA without also opening up to criticism some senior members of the Republican Party.

    There is ample evidence to support this analysis, but I raise it only as a reflection of the symptoms of the failure to objectively re-evaluate US policy toward the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean region.

    Again, it may be possible to say that, despite its disingenuous nature and its potential to upset regional allies, such US policy distortion does not seriously threaten vital US interests. In other words, to say: yes, this is a problem, but not a major problem.

    I would argue that this is a grave avoidance of reality. US policy failures in the Balkans and the failure to realistically re-evaluate US-Turkish relations threaten several things:

    Firstly, long-term planning by the Defense Department to move its primary European basing and power projection capabilities from Western Europe to South-Eastern Europe is thrown into jeopardy by the potential for renewed war over Kosovo, in Macedonia, and in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    Secondly, it renders meaningless the war on terrorism if its real core and linkages cannot be acknowledged and attacked. The State and Defense departments, and the CIA, have been constantly warned about the narco-trafficking and terrorism links in the Balkans, but have swept this aside. The State Department, despite having been presented with concrete intelligence about the activities of narco-traffickers and terrorists in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and in southern Serbia, Macedonia, and the like, has, nonetheless decided to say that there is no terrorism activity related to these areas.

    Thirdly, by failing to acknowledge the changed strategic contextual realities and the changes and cracks within the Turkish system, the US reliance on Turkey, and its support for Turkey, become meaningless, and have damaging regional effects, including sustaining the logistical framework of the Islamist terrorist movements, even those which are against Turkey’s own long-term interests. There has been strong Turkish involvement in supporting Balkan narco-traffickers and terrorist groups, perhaps unofficially, but certainly with considerable effect.

    There has been no re-evaluation despite all of this, and despite the proven links between Bosnian terrorism cells and the 9/11 attackers and even to the Madrid bombers.

    It would be a mistake to think that this problem will go away, or that the war on terrorism has successfully moved the tide against the terrorism and narco-trafficking infrastructure in the Balkans. The fact that the US has been forced to remove its assets from Albania, despite the quiet manner in which this has been undertaken, is just one indication of the ongoing degradation of the situation there. And yet the US still refuses to acknowledge that this is integrally linked with the Albanian-based terrorism underway in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, or that it is at the very heart of the creation of what is already a criminal sub-state in Kosovo, which is directly under the control of the KLA.

    The fact that the KLA leader and, until March 8, 2005, Prime Minister of Kosovo, Ramush (Hilmi) Haradinaj, was indicted for war crimes and taken to The Hague for trial still has not penetrated the consciousness of what is transpiring.


    Moreover, in order to somewhat ease the embarrassment of having backed the wrong side — the side of al-Qaida, the narco-traffickers, the true genocidal xenophobists, and the criminal gangs — in Kosovo, the US is in some ways actively working to let Mr Haradinaj out of prison, so that he can “fight his legal battle from a position of freedom”.

    This is a man charged with having directly and personally killed many innocent people, not a politician who allegedly allowed things to happen by default. The scandal of this particular case has yet to break, but suffice it to say that Albanian mafia linked to the KLA have worked through former US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke — a close associate of the KLA and a beneficiary of its support — to approach the US President of the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Theodore Meron, to see Haradinaj released.[4]

    There are reports from within the ICTY that the State Department would approve the release of Haradinaj, and had, in fact, agreed with Haradinaj in advance of his surrender to the ICTY, that a deal would be struck to ensure that he did not serve prison time for the charges he faced.

    These are not the only issues where the US has, because of the distorted development of its Eastern Mediterranean and Balkan policies, been drawn into patterns which have been damaging to US long-term interests. The coddling of Turkey over the question of Cyprus, for example, produced disastrous results, which US policymakers in 2004 attempted to lay unfairly at the feet of the Cypriot voters. The result was a disaster for the US, for all Cypriots, and for the long-term interests of Turkey and Europe. It was only saved from a worse disaster by the first fully-sovereign exercise of their powers by Cypriot voters, who overwhelmingly rejected the plan so roundly endorsed by the US.

    As well, the US State Department’s unilateral policy, just introduced, of refusing visas to the elected officials of the ruling party of Republica Srpska, the Bosnian Serb republic within Bosnia-Herzegovina, also is a result of distorted policy thinking, and smacks of an attempt to stop these officials from communicating with Congress. Already, officials of this Bosnian Serb Government have been critical in helping the US and the West in the war on terrorism, but there are, as I noted earlier, officials within the US who wish to disguise the fact that, during the Clinton Administration, they backed the side of the terrorists, not the side of the victims.

    So in order to refuse to correct mistakes, or even acknowledge them, there are many officials within the US bureaucracy who have allowed themselves to be drawn into what has become almost a circus of foreign policy juggling which — even by the kindest interpretation — fails to help the US, the region in question, or the cause of US ethical leadership and credibility. This will result in more war, more instability, more narcotics on European and US streets, more instability in South-Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. And ultimately it will cost the US the respect and loyalty of those allies it has in the region and elsewhere.

    But clearly that’s more important than admitting that mistakes were made, and need correction.

    See also:

    Stranger than Fiction: NATO and the US Sponsor Terror in Kosovo and Macedonia

    Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base

    How the U.S. & Iran have Cooperated to Sponsor Muslim Terror

    US Senate Republican Policy Committee: The Kosovo Liberation Army: Does Clinton Policy Support Group with Terror, Drug Ties?

    International Strategic Studies Association – Defense & Foreign Affairs Global Intelligence System: Balkan Strategic Studies – Bosnian Izetbegovic SDA & Albanian KLA links to 9/11, Madrid, London bombings

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