[PEN-L:6107] (Fwd) THE WAR THAT NATO WANTED - Diana Johnstone, In These Tim

["Paul Phillips" <phillp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Date:          Tue, 27 Apr 1999 12:48:24 -0700
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Subject:       THE WAR THAT NATO WANTED - Diana Johnstone, In These Times,
               May 1999

In These Times magazine 				May 1999

THE WAR THAT NATO WANTED

	By Diana Johnstone

Paris _ To justify their assault on Serbia, the United States and its
obedient NATO allies claimed they had no choice. As the official story
goes, Slobodan Milosevic (suddenly the reincarnation of Hitler who has
the power to make all other citizens of Yugoslavia invisible to the
Clinton administration) refused to negotiate and rejected the
Rambouillet peace agreement. Therefore, there was nothing else to do
but bomb Yugoslavia.
	This preposterous lie is only one among countless others. In reality,
Belgrade never refused to negotiate. Rambouillet was never about
negotiations. It was about presenting the Serbs with an ultimatum
precisely designed to provide the pretext for  NATO bombing.
Rambouillet was a tragic farce, a low point in the history of diplomacy,
in which the United  States had to coax and cajole a band of well-
armed criminals into signing the death warrant of their adversary, the
legitimate government of Yugoslavia.
	The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is scarcely the sort of outfit
one might expect to see invited to a famous French chateau to decide
on the future of war and peace in Europe. The connection between
KLA gunmen and the ethnic Albanians who dominate the heroin traffic
through the Balkans from Turkey to Switzerland and Germany has
been widely reported. As for ideology, violent ethnic Albanian
irredentism has switched opportunistically from fascism during World
War II, to "Marxism-Leninism" in the days of Albanian dictator Enver
Hoxha, to today's enthusiasm for NATO. The constant factor is hatred
of Serbs in particular and Slavs in general.
	The rise of the KLA was a challenge to the leadership of the ethnic
Albanian nationalists' nonviolent leadership, headed by Ibrahim
Rugova. The killing of Serbs in Kosovo began in April 1996, thanks to
the arms glut caused by the total collapse of law and order in Albania.
Not only Yugoslav police but also ethnic Albanians branded as
"traitors" were targeted. Last summer, by posing for news
photographers with a KLA officer, Richard Holbrooke publicly
signaled that the United States was dropping Rugova in favor of the
KLA. The process was completed at Rambouillet with the Feb. 6
arrival of the official ethnic Albanian delegation of 16 members, five of
them from the KLA. Rugova and the older generation of leaders were
suddenly shoved onto the sidelines, as an unknown, 29-year-old KLA
chieftain named Hashim "The Snake" Thaqi was introduced to the
world as the leader of the delegation.
	The KLA's irresistible rise was nurtured notably by Morton
Abramowitz, a prominent member of the U.S. foreign policy elite.
Abramowitz served as ambassador to Thailand when the CIA's
Bangkok bureau was perpetrating the "yellow rain" hoax that accused
Vietnamese victims of U.S. chemical warfare of using chemical agents
in Laos. In 1986, as assistant secretary of state in charge of intelligence
and research in the Reagan administration, Abramowitz and top CIA
officials accompanied Sen. Orrin Hatch to Beijing to work out a deal
with China and Pakistan for providing Stinger missiles to Islamic
Afghan rebels.
	He then passed, quite naturally, to the presidency of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. Under the Clinton administration,
he has participated in a blue-ribbon panel on CIA reform--selected by
the Council on Foreign Relations--which recommended easing
restrictions on covert actions. More recently, Abramowitz has been a
leading figure in the high-level International Crisis Group, a leading
designer of policy toward Kosovo. There, he became an advocate of
arming the KLA. At Rambouillet, Abramowitz and another U.S.
official, Paul Williams, led a team coaching the KLA delegation.
	Even so, at Rambouillet, 'The Snake" bit the hand that fed him and
refused to sign the document. To the fury and dismay of Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright, it was not the Serbs but the Albanian KLA
that balked, depriving the United States of its pretext to launch a
NATO war against the Serbs. Rambouillet was adjourned. Former
Sen. Bob Dole, recipient of generous campaign contributions from the
Albanian-American lobby during his political career, was dispatched to
the Balkans to urge the Albanians to sign the treaty--not to make peace,
but to "maintain pressure" on the Serbs. KLA leaders were bribed with
a promise of a "visit to Washington to discuss matters of interest,"
notably the future of the KLA--veiled language meaning that the
United States would not insist on disarming the KLA, but would find
some formula for transforming what U.S. envoy Robert Gelbard had
described as a "terrorist" group into "liberated" Kosovo's police force.
	So it was that the Serbs and the Kosovar Albanians were
summoned back to Paris to sign, as is, an agreement that in effect
would detach Kosovo from Serbia and put it under the joint control of
NATO and whichever ethnic Albanians NATO chose--apparently, the
KLA. There were no negotiations. Instead, Serbia's Milan Milutinovic
and his (multi-ethnic) delegation were presented with an ultimatum:
Either accept the "peace agreement" concocted by Christopher Hill
(Holbrooke's second at Dayton who is now posted as U.S. ambassador
to Macedonia) allowing NATO to take over Kosovo, or else be
bombed. This ultimatum in itself was a violation of international law,
which invalidates agreements obtained by the threat or use of force,
according to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
	And the terms were totally unacceptable. Kosovo's "self-
government" was to be run by a NATO official, with the title of Chief
of the Implementation Mission, or CIM. The CIM would have the final
say over virtually everything and everybody. Kosovo would be
occupied by a NATO force called KFOR. No ceiling was placed on the
size of KFOR forces, which would have full control of airspace over
Kosovo, be immune to prosecution or liability under local law, and
have free access to the rest of Yugoslavia--a license to invade the rest
of the country on one pretext or another. The agreement called for
withdrawal of Serbian police and armed forces, but the fate of "other
forces" (no mention of the KLA, which thus escaped any commitment
or obligations) would be decided later by the KFOR commander.
	Not only Milosevic, but any Serbian opposition party, was bound to
reject such terms. And yet compromise was not impossible. The
Yugoslavs were ready to make huge concessions, but not to welcome
NATO. NATO was the sticking point. A U.N. peacekeeping force
might well have been acceptable. However, the Clinton administration
insisted on NATO or nothing.
	The rise of the KLA, backed by the United States and Germany
(German intelligence reportedly played an important role in equipping
the rebels), made it extremely dangerous for any more moderate ethnic
Albanian leaders to negotiate with the Serbs. The KLA repeatedly
announced what would happen to such "traitors." By backing the KLA,
the United States weakened the more moderate forces on both sides.
	On December 21, 1998, the State Department released information
from the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission that "the KLA harass
or kidnap anyone who comes to the police," and that "representatives
threatened to kill villagers and burn their homes if they did not join the
KLA." It added that KLA harassment has reached such intensity that
residents of six villages in the Stimlje region are "ready to flee."
	Kosovo's ethnic Albanian civilians have been trapped between
devastating NATO bombing raids, KLA thugs and Serbian police. That
refugees would flee from Kosovo in all directions (including northward
into central Serbia, a fact ignored by Western media) is scarcely
surprising. Yet NATO exploited the resulting misery and confusion on
the borders to justify the very bombing that triggered the exodus. The
suffering of the refugees is genuine and poignant. The interpretations
by Western officials and media are not to be trusted. (After Japan
bombed Pearl Harbor, the United States "ethnically cleansed" the West
Coast of Japanese Americans, although Japan did not announce that it
was bombing the U.S. on behalf of armed Japanese-American
secessionists.)
	Various compromise proposals have been made from the Serb side
over the years. They have been totally ignored by Western governments
and media, which have claimed to be in favor of "restoring Kosovo's
autonomy" and opposed to secession. This double language has been
interpreted by both sides as veiled support for the Albanian
irredentism. Confident of Western backing, Albanian nationalist leaders
have held out for independence rather than any form of living together
with the Serbs in Serbia. Partition has been dogmatically ruled out by
the United States on the "domino-theory" grounds that it would
destabilize Macedonia. NATO bombing has done that already. U.S.
and NATO meddling so far have produced all of the disasters they
promised to prevent, and a few more. NATO is not waging peace. It is
waging war and must be stopped.
			___________

Diana Johnstone is a contributing editor of In These Times.
			___________

For more Kosovo coverage from Diana Johnstone, check out MoJo
wire's Kosovo forum at	

http://www.motherjones.com/total_coverage/kosovo/forum/