Trepca mines takeover

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

This was one of the pieces that did not get through earlier.



An important economic development has occurred in Kosovo with the takeover
by NATO of the Trepca mines complex. This is the most valuable asset in Kosovo.

The conflict is in part a national one, since it appears from other sources
that the workers in the mines were mainly Albanian before and now they are
mainly Serb.

But it is also a battle between Yugoslav state capital and international
finance capital.


The two reports make such a contrast in presenting the same facts, that it
seems useful to quote them in full.

Chris Burford

London

_______________________________________

EU Backs KFOR Closure of Polluting Lead Plant in Kosovo

PARIS, Aug 20, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) The European Union approved
on Saturday the closure of a highly pollutant lead plant in the Serbian
area of Kosovo by KFOR peacekeeping troops.

In a statement released by France, the current president of the European
Union, the EU said: "This measure was imposed by the extremely high level
of pollution generated by the factory, which represented a danger for
public health."

International peacekeepers shut down the Zvecan plant in northern Kosovo on
Monday and handed it over to the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)
after tests showed that there was 200 times the recommended safe level of
lead particles in the surrounding air.

The move provoked outrage from Belgrade, who accused KFOR of "breaking-in"
to the lead smelter near the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica.

The EU affirmed that UNMIK and KFOR had acted entirely within their UN
mandate in shutting the plant and it regretted that the factory's managers
had done nothing to reduce the highly dangerous lead emissions.

It also said it would fully support reconstruction efforts by UNMIK and the
French, U.S. and Swedish consortium, ITT Kosovo, to bring the factory up to
acceptable environmental standards.

About 600 Serbs worked at the Zvecan smelter, which is part of the huge
Trepca mining conglomerate comprising 41 factories and mines in Kosovo and
neighboring Serbia and Montenegro.

The Trepca firm's mines in Kosovo are thought to account for three-quarters
of Yugoslavia's potential mineral wealth. Prior to 1990, managers and
workers were mainly ethnic Albanian, but they were pushed aside by Serbs
loyal to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's Belgrade regime after he
stripped the province of its autonomy.

Since the end of Kosovo's 1998-1999 civil war, the future ownership and
workforce of the Trepca complex has become a highly controversial issue.

_____________________________

From Workers World, publication of Workers World Party
http://www.workers.org/



NATO troops seize mining complex

By Sara Flounders

Claiming they were concerned about controlling air pollution, some 3,000
NATO soldiers stormed a lead smelting plant in Zvecan at 4:30 in the
morning of Aug. 14. The plant was the only functioning industry in the vast
Trepca mining complex in northern Kosovo, a few miles from the city of
Mitrovica.

At 6:30 a.m., in a further attack that had nothing to do with air
pollution, NATO soldiers closed down and confiscated the equipment of
Zvecan's Radio S--the only station that dared to report information
critical of NATO.

The northern part of Mitrovica is the only remaining multi-ethnic part of
Kosovo. Thousands of Serbs, Romani people, Slavic Muslims, other
nationalities and peoples of mixed backgrounds have been driven out of
other areas by Kosovo Liberation Army thugs and vigilante groups. Many have
fled to the north side of the Iber river.

There, with the local Serbian population, they have resisted more than a
year of KLA attacks in an economically devastated region.

The surprise attack by NATO shut down the only radio station and the main
source of employment for the local population.

The mines, with their smelting, refining and power centers, once
constituted one of Yugoslavia's leading export industries and a main source
of hard currency. It was the major source of jobs in the region.

Defending the pre-dawn attack, Bernard Kouchner, the head of the United
Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), said, "As a doctor and chief
administrator of Kosovo I would be derelict if I allowed a threat to the
health of children and pregnant women to continue for one more day." UNMIK
is the police force set up by NATO to administer Kosovo.

Kouchner has never had a word of criticism for the environmental havoc NATO
created throughout the entire region with the use of depleted uranium
weapons, the bombing of chemical plants and the use of cluster bombs.

If you find it hard to accept that NATO is suddenly concerned with
pollution, it's worth looking for what is really at stake.

'Most valuable piece of real estate'

On July 8, 1998, New York Times reporter Chrisopher Hedges wrote, "The
sprawling state-owned Trepca mining complex is the most valuable piece of
real estate in the Balkans." Hedges described glittering veins of lead,
cadmium, zinc, gold and silver.

The Stari Trg mine is ringed with smelting plants, 17 metal treatment
sites, warehouses, freight yards, railroad lines, a power plant and the
country's largest battery plant. It is the richest lead and zinc mine in
Europe. There are also 17 billion tons of coal.

It was George Soros, the multi-billionaire financier, who wrote Kouchner's
script.

Paris-based journalist Diana Johnstone, in a Feb. 28 report, described a
policy paper by the International Crisis Group. This is a think tank set up
by Soros to provide guidance in the NATO-led reshaping of the Balkans.

The think tank publicly called on Kouch ner to take over the management of
Trepca and to use the pretext of environmental hazards to shut the Zvecan
smelter down.

The Soros group stressed that the takeover should happen before new
elections in Yugoslavia so that the opposition could blame Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic for the loss of Trepca. The elections are now
six weeks away.

At the time this proposal was made there was no pollution--the lead smelter
was not even in operation. It was closed for several months after the NATO
bombing.

Production in this state-owned industry started again only two months ago,
at great sacrifice and expense. The hard currency it could have earned was
desperately needed to rebuild Yugoslavia's ravaged economy.

Skimming the profits

With the seizure of the smelting plant in Zvenca, NATO will control the
entire Trepca complex.

Proving once again that NATO is the military arm to insure primarily U.S.
corporate control, the first move after seizing the complex was to turn it
over to a consortium of private mining companies. This consortium--ITT
Kosovo Ltd.--is a joint venture of U.S., French and Swedish companies.

The most interesting partner in this deal to control Trepca is the U.S.
company Morrison Knudsen International. On July 7 Morrison Knudsen merged
with Raytheon Engineers and Constructors, a major military contractor that
makes Patriot missiles and radar equipment for the Pentagon.

This is an enormously lucrative deal. ITT Kosovo Ltd. will administer
Trepca, appoint executives and a board of directors, develop the investment
strategy and skim the greatest profits from every possible deal.

Those in the Albanian population who hold illusions that control by these
corporations will mean the return of the thousands of well-paid, secure
jobs with benefits that existed before the war should read the plans
multi-billionaire Soros has in store.

Once NATO has control of the whole industrial complex, according to the
International Crisis Group, foreign investors will develop a very modern,
highly profitable facility with a small workforce.

In this outright theft of an industry that was built by the efforts of all
the peoples of Yugoslavia, Soros's think tank recommends that the
management and administration be made up of foreign executives "in order to
prevent corruption"!

         - END -

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