A-Infos (en) The BALKAN WAR and leftist apologetics for the Milosovic regime

[Harald Beyer-Arnesen <haraldba@online.no>]

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The BALKAN WAR and leftist apologetics for the Milosovic regime
by Harald Beyer-Arnesen, Oslo, Norway May 11, 1999
>
Since the beginning of the latest Balkan war, there has been
forwarded several articles and “pieces of information” to
anarchist and leftist lists, which authors, though (rightly)
opposed to NATO's military intervention, to a greater or
lesser extent – intentionally or not – also function as
apologists for the Milosovic regime, Serb nationalism and
the massive ethnical cleansing carried out under the shield
of the NATO bombings.

As anarchists and social revolutionaries we should oppose
both the NATO military intervention and the Milsovic
regime, as well as all expressions of nationalism in the
former territory of Yugoslavia, in the region as a whole and
everywhere else. Though many of us will find it
understandable that many Kosovo-Albanians in the
desperate situation that has imposed upon them have joined
the UCK (KLA), we cannot support UCK for many reasons
(much for the same reasons that we cannot support the
Kurdish PKK). Briefly put: NATO needs the Milosovic
regime, just as the Milosovic regime needs the UCK.
Waged and unwaged workers, regardless of real or
imagined borders, need neither of them.

One of the first pieces I reacted to was issued as "The
Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 23 March 99", Vol. 3,
Number 24 (#240), and carried the following heading:

ANTI-FASCIST ACTION ALERT #67: PROTEST U.S.
BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA
      SATURDAY, MARCH 27,12 NOON,
GRAND CENTRAL STATION IN NEW YORK  CITY
COORDINATED PROTESTS WILL BE HELD IN
CITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY:

It could just as well have been written by some one within
the Milsovic propaganda apparatus, or by the likes of the Le
Pen's Front National, and came over as a racist collective
"demonisation" of Kosovar Albanians (and Croats, as
opposed the the Franjo Tudjman regime), while we learned
the “Serbians to be essentially anti-fascist”. Not one word
of the oppression carried out by the Milosovic regime of
course.

More recently, an article by Michel Chossudovsky,
professor at the Department of Economics at University of
Ottawa, "Dismantling Yugoslavia; Colonizing Bosnia"
(Covert Action No. 56. Spring 1996 and
http://www.lbbs.org/yugoslavia.htm) was forwarded to the
Organise list, (a list for class struggler anarchists). It has
also been widely distributed elsewhere on the
world-wide-web, along with another article of his from 7
April 1999, "Kosovo 'Freedom Fighters' Financed by
Organised Crimes"
(http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/kosovo23.htm).
Whatever other merits the writings of Chossudovsky may
have, the remarkable thing with these articles, though the
first mentioned at least is not without insights, is that they
are cleansed for any critique of the Milosovic regime.

Without going into specifics about the first article of
Chossudovsky, which focuses on the role of IMF in the
break-up of Yugoslavia, it paints a very limited picture. It is
hard to see it as mere coincidence that he in this forwarded
article fails to mention the so-called "Milosovic
Commission" report from May 1988, with its advocacy of
market-oriented reforms in which the "world market and
world competition represents the strongest generator of
economic operation." Or that Milosovic urged Yugoslavs to
overcome their "unfounded, irrational and ... primitive fear
of exploitation" by foreign capital: "Yugoslavia must be a
unified economic area where identical system-related
solutions exists and where products and services, money
and capital, people and knowledge move freely". (Source:
Lenard J. Cohen, "Broken Bonds: Yugoslavia's
Disintegration and Balkan Politics in Transition".)

The policies of the IMF – or rather, more precise,
Yugoslavia's place within global capitalist system – is no
doubt part of the background for the bloody collapse of
Yugoslavia. But the economic policies referred to by
Chossudovsky was far less of a break with the economic
policies followed under much of the Titoist period than his
article may lead one to believe. And the economic progam
of the federal Government under the leadership of
Markovic was almost identical to that which was carried
out in Polen in the same period, (or in Western Europe for
that). And though this certainly had grave social
consequences for the working class there, it never lead to
anything like the developments in Yugoslavia. What
happened in Yugoslavia cannot be understood without
taking into account the politico-economical structures
which were the legacy of the Titoist regime, and the
scramble for power among the different "nationalist"
factions. But even this does not fully explain the alienation
process and the "moral collapse" which made the
large-scale ethnical cleansing possible. As anarchists and
social revolutionaries I believe it to be crucial for us to at
least try to understand the social forces leading to such a
result.

What is most amazing however is the sources he uses in the
article "Kosovo 'Freedom Fighters' Financed by Organised
Crimes". In a critical footnote to the essay "Reflections on
NATO and Kosovo" (http://www.lbbs.org/shalomnp.htm)
Stephen R. Shalom (who both is strongly opposed to the
NATO military intervention, and against giving support to
the UCK/KLA) writes:

"4. Some on the left claim that the KLA was already being
armed by U.S. and German intelligence, but the evidence is
extremely dubious (apart from the fact that it would make
no sense given that Washington denounced the KLA as
"without any question a terrorist group" in February 1998).
For example, Michel Chossudovsky of the University of
Ottawa claims CIA backing for the KLA on the basis of an
unsupported claim by right-wing conspiracy nut John
Whitley (who says that the Bilderbergers planned, financed,
and started the Kosovo war) as quoted by another
right-wing source, "Truth in Media," which reprints "for
what it's worth" an alleged letter from a KLA soldier
claiming that the KLA has been dressing up as Serbs and
then ethnically cleansing Albanians. (See Chossudovsky at
http://www.globalpolicy.org; Truth in Media at
http://www.truthinmedia.org/Kosovo/day10up2.html.) For
a trenchant critique of leftists mucking about with
rightwing conspiracy theorists during the Gulf War, see
Chip Berlet, Right Woos Left: Populist Party, LaRouchian,
and Other Neo-Fascist  Overtures to Progressives, And
Why It Must Be Rejected, Cambridge, MA: Political
Research Associates, Oct. 7, 1992."

Michel Chossudovsky ends this article with saying
"Western governments which participated in the NATO
operation bear a heavy burden of responsibility in the
deaths of civilians, the impoverishment of both the ethnic
Albanian and Serbian populations and the plight of those
who were brutally uprooted from towns and villages in
Kosovo as a result of the bombings."  It is hard to disagree
on that. I would even have added that the leaders of the
UCK bear their part of the responsibility for this tradegy;
but to not in one word mention the Milosovic regime in this
connection, is just too incredible to be true.

The most amazing thing here however is Chossudovsky
sources. The point here is not whether Michel
Chossudovsky's claim that UCK already on an early was
backed up by the CIA is correct or not. Giving his use of
sources, it is tempting to suggest that the truth or not of his
claim is also entirely of secondary importance for him.

Chossudovsky writes: "According to intelligence analyst
John Whitley, covert support to the Kosovo rebel army was
established as a joint endeavour between the CIA and
Germany’s Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND) (which
previously played a key role in installing a right wing
nationalist government under Franjo Tudjman in Croatia).
(9) The task to create and finance the KLA was initially
given to Germany: “They used German uniforms, East
German weapons and were financed, in part, with drug
money.” (10) According to Whitley, the CIA was,
subsequently instrumental in training and equipping the
KLA in Albania. (11)"

So who is this  intelligence analyst? It is the same John
Whitley who is behind the New World Order Intelligence
Update , and passes on such meaningful information as:
"Deverell also quotes an lengthy Internet summary on the
Bilderbergers posted by Brian Redman, which included the
assertion that 'The role of the Bilderberg group is a
one-world totalitarian, socialist government and economic
system.' Brian is a frequent and highly-respected Internet
contributor." And "It may come as no surprise, therefore,
when we state that, through our own sources, the NEW
WORLD ORDER INTELLIGENCE UPDATE has learned
that Bilderberger-backed President Clinton has promised
President Yeltsin that, after he has won the upcoming U.S.
Presidential election, Russian warships will be given full
refuelling and other port privileges at all U.S. Navy bases."

But that is only the beginning to John Whitley wild and
self-contradictory so-called intelligence reports. Apart from
the Bilderbergers plan to break up Canada and integrate it
into United States in 2005, he claims to be in possession of
an U.S. State Department document called  "Freedom from
War": On his web page you can order a diversity of
cassettes, where among other things the following is
revealed: "In this amazing cassette set, the Editor of the
NEW WORLD ORDER INTELLIGENCE UPDATE
details the carefully-contrived plan to disarm U.S. citizens
as part of a U.N. program of global disarmament. The
relevant U.S. Public Law, with its accompanying State
Department "interpretive application" is outlined, the plan
to transfer control of the U.S. and other national armed
forces irrevocably to the United Nations is detailed, the
agreement that a Russian will always command the
resulting New World Army is proven, and the current steps
being taken to rapidly implement this program are
revealed."

In another cassette we learn. "... the background,
membership, goals and near-future objectives of the
secretive Bilderberg Group; the agenda, attendees and
substance of their most recent heavily-guarded, private
meeting near Toronto, Canada; and the worldview of this
elite cabal, which includes massive world-wide
de-population and de-industrialization under
tightly-controlled coming federal World Government - the
"New World Order" [or "Our Global Neighbourhood", as it
is now being re-named]. " Whitney can also inform us of
"the final planned Russian and Chinese imposition of a
Marxist New World Order on America," a conspiracy in
which Clinton, Kissinger and the King of Spain, among
others, are supposed to be involved in, if we are to believe
"the intelligence analyst John Whitley".

That a leftist professor of economics chooses to use the
same John Whitley as a source is almost too much.

Chossudovsky also writes that "German, Turkish and
Afghan instructors were reported to be training the KLA in
guerrilla and diversion tactics."  This may be, but what is
his source? An anonymous e-mail to "Truth in Media"
(TiM) (if they have not just made it up). Something
Chossudovsky conveniently fails to mention.  If we go to
his so-called source however, we can read: "Apr. 2 - This
morning we found an unusual e-mail letter in the TiM's
mailbox. It came from someone calling himself a KLA field
commander, and was signed only as "Ibrahim." Since it
came from a HOTMAIL.COM e-mail address, there was no
way that we could verify the authenticity of the message."
Not much to rely on.  The question is do we have any
reason to rely on Chossudovsky? This same source, Truth
in Media, which seem to believe that being called
"ultra-nationalist" is a compliment and to support the
Serbian Radical Party, also quotes the before mentioned
John Whitley as saying: "the Kosovo war was no accident...
It was carefully planned and set into motion at the
Bilderbergers' secret meeting near Toronto in late May
1996."

As to UCK's alleged connection to organised crime and
drug trafficking. It is quite possible that such a connection
exists. I would even find this both probable and logical, if
not on the scale that Chossudovsky implies. Most likely
almost every so-called "national liberation army" have
made such connections to procure arms, whether they
define themselves within the left or the right. But whatever
Chossudovsky claims, he can show no sources that proves
this, just a more or less well-founded suspicion of such a
connection.  However this is, that UCK should have been
backed up both by the CIA, the German Bundes
Nachtrichten Dienst, as well as the income from large-scale
drug-dealing, begs the question why they are not better
armed.

Chossudovsky on five different places uses Geopolitical
Drug Watch as a source. I have not been able (had time) to
trace the documents he refers to (Geopolitical Drug Watch,
no 32, 35, 1994, and  Geopolitical Drug Watch, No 66. No
year given.) But  I find the annual report for 1995-96,
published in 1997, on the www
(http://www.ogd.org/rapport/gb/RP00_TABLE.html). I
cannot judge the reliability of the  Geopolitical Drug
Watch's report, but  anyway they write:

"Heroin production, processing and marketing are mainly
the preserve of ethnic Albanians from Macedonia, where
they are estimated to represent about 25% of the
population, and those from the Serbian province of Kosovo.
While it cannot be denied that the Albanian population is
the most involved in heroin trafficking – but also the one
most affected by heroin use – it is also true that any
drug-related crime is amplified when the culprit is an
Albanian and minimized or even hidden when s/he is a
Macedonian. Albanian clans operate on mafia-like ethics
based on the Leko Dukajdzini, or the clan's Code of Honor.
The drug trade is often coordinated by Albanian political
circles in Macedonia and Kosovo which oblige all Albanian
criminal organizations to contribute a share of their profits.
The traffickers are also obliged to buy and deliver arms.
The Party for Democratic Prosperity based in Tetovo, the
Kosovo Democratic Union based in Pristina, and especially
armed militant groups like the Kosovo Liberation Army,
thus find a significant and above all steady source of
funding. For example, the Albanians' yearly narco-profits
on the Swiss market alone are estimated to amount to close
to US $3 million."

What is suggested above is primarily a kind of "national
tax" the drug dealers have to pay, rather than a direct
involvement of the KLA in the business. This seems to me
to be very likely.  I should add though that the document
laid out on the www does not give any sources for this
information /claim.

But again, how come Chossudovsky entirely managed to
overlook Geopolitical Drug Watch claims of the Serbian
governments involvement in the drug dealing and organised
crime?  They write: "Thus in Serbia the Belgrade secret
services, whose job includes raising a war chest for the
Bosnian conflict, use their own international networks and
some Yugoslav firms to channel drugs to the European and
Balkan markets and to launder the proceeds. [...] But the
bulk of the drug trade is handled by three state
organizations: the SID (the foreign ministry information
and documentation service); the SDB (the interior ministry
secret police); and the KOS (the defense ministry
counter-espionage service). The traffic, along with currency
counterfeiting, is organized through two prominent figures:
Zeljko Raznatovic, alias Arkan, and Asanin Darko, a heavy
cocaine user who is now in an Athens jail. Both were
wanted by Interpol, Arkan for escaping from a Belgian
prison where he was serving a sentence for bank robbery,
and Darko for the Brussels slaying of an Albanian rival,
Enver Hajin, formerly an agent for the Albanian communist
secret police, the Sigurimi. [...] Paradoxically enough,
Arkan himself is the co-owner, along with Croatian
officials, of a Nicosia-based offshore company. This former
hit man for the SIS (Croatian military counter-espionage)
still holds a false passport issued by the Zagreb authorities.
The great Serb "cleanser" owns a pork-butchering company
in Croat-held Slavonia and shuttles in and out of the
country with no problems, maintaining close contact with
his former bosses. Part of the drug profits also finds its way
into the secret bank accounts of political parties and the
state. It is used to buy arms, mainly in Russia, and to
finance Serb lobbies in the United States, Britain and
Austria. The Belgrade police protect these highly-placed
traffickers, whether they deal in drugs, cigarettes, alcohol or
currencies. Making the best of things, the policemen take
their rake-off. In Belgrade then, as elsewhere, the drugs
business and politics are closely intertwined, so much so
that some military officers, politicians, war profiteers,
embargo-busters and businessmen have been killed for
trying to break free and cut their links to the Serb secret
services.   Miograd Niksic, alias Miska, who bartered
heroin for diamonds in Bangkok, was gunned down in
Belgrade. The same punishment was meted out to Dragan
Tepcevic, who handled drugs and arms shipments for the
Serb Republic of Bosnia, and to Goran Vukovic, who was
murdered in Germany by Ljubo Zemunac, a Yugoslav
mafia boss. These links between politics and drug
trafficking are also in evidence on the other side, among the
Albanians in Kosovo. Several of Arkan's "political" victims
in the province were in fact rival dealers who got in the way
of his commercial activities." [...]

"The end of hostilities in Bosnia, the lifting of the embargo
against Serbia and the reopening of the Belgrade-Zagreb
highway handed fresh opportunities to this new generation
of traffickers. They have the advantage of being
battle-hardened, headed by politicians and backed up by
well-run legal business operations. What is more, they are
continuing to collaborate with each other, even when they
belong to enemy camps, as they did throughout the war. In
short, they can rely on all the resources normally available
to a state's secret services."

"Independently from these "new networks", the now
classical Istanbul-Sofia-Belgrade route in the hands of the
Turkish "babas", has started functioning again. But it
appears that this older route is always shadowed by a new
one, which was created during the three-year embargo and
dealt in merchandise as varied as basic goods, oil and
heroin. The new route links Bulgaria to Montenegro via
Macedonia, the Serbian province of Kosovo, and/or
Albania. Both these routes can lead into Slovenia which,
with its "lax" drug laws, has become a must for land routes
targeting Italy and Austria, as well as a significant
consumer market for illicit drugs. Thus, several TIR trucks
were caught transporting hundreds of kilograms of heroin
destined for the Slovenian market at the Gradina border
post between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria in 1996. Seizures by
the Bulgarian and Serbian customs services at Gradina
totalled close to 700 kg of heroin in 1996. While large
amounts of heroin are seized by Yugoslav customs on their
country's southern border – on average 180 kg –, seizures
by them or their foreign counterparts on the northern
Yugoslav border involve smaller amounts – an average of
20 kg – but are more numerous. Therefore, it seems that the
New Yugoslavia has become a significant transhipment
point, with traffickers using a strategy of transferring drugs
from TIR trucks to private car or tourist buses. Smaller
heroin shipments are distributed among a larger number of
vehicles which first have to cross Slovenia and Hungary
before reaching their final destination, the countries of the
Schengen area." (End of quote.)

"Demonising" has become a popular word among leftist.
Chossudovsky writes: "While Slobodan Milosevic is
demonised, portrayed as a remorseless dictator, the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) is upheld as a self-respecting
nationalist movement struggling for the rights of ethnic
Albanians. The truth of the matter is that the KLA is
sustained by organised crime with the tacit approval of the
United States and its allies." And then continues:
"Following a pattern set during the War in Bosnia, public
opinion has been carefully misled."

I do no doubt for a moment that the public opinion has been
misled. But it seems not only from the likes of Blair and
Clinton (or the leaders of the UCK for that) but also from
the likes of leftists like Michel Chossudovsky, who seem to
think that the only way they can oppose the war is to
"demonise" Albanians and serve as apologists for the
Milosovic regime. Or is it just a coincident that he never
once mentions the ethnical cleansing of Kosovo Albanians
carried out under the shield of NATO bombing, and that he
uses the Beograd (Belgrade) government sources without
reservations, to not  speak of nut-cases like "intelligence
analyst John Whitley".

As anarchist and social revolutionaries we should
consequently oppose the NATO military intervention, the
Milosovic regime, as well as the UCK and every other
nationalist faction. But we should also consider well the
arguments we take in use and be critical to many of the
"alternative" sources of information. Some of the
descriptions we are hearing these days of the
Kosovo-Albanians, to a lesser or greater extent supported
by at least parts of the so-called left, are at times almost
indistinguishable from the racist diatribes and stereotypes
more commonly associated with the populist right, or the
nationalist demagogics Milosovic employed to bring
himself to power. (But neither should we overlook the less
pleasant traits which presently also can be found within
"Albanian culture", as in others, nor forget the concerns of
the Serbian population and those of other minority groups
within Kosovo with the voices calling for a Greater
Albania.) And then we should of course do our best to
sabotage the war efforts of NATO.

At last, I might have treated Michel Chossudovsky unfair.
After all I cannot read his mind. But he should know as
well as anyone that what one writes in times of war can
have a function beyond ones intentions. Neither is it Michel
Chossudovsky my critique is foremost directed against, but
an existing tendency of trivialising or downplaying the
present sufferings of those uprooted and driven from their
homes on a massive scale, and the role of the Milosovic
regime in bringing this above, even if with the invaluable
help of NATO.

For a libertarian class struggle against all nationalisms!









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