SIT-REP 8-20; Friday, August 20, 1999

In This Report: Kosovo; World Crisis Roundup- Part II

Belgrade and Kosovo:

This fundamental observation about societies has been nagging at me for some time: I am not certain just when it was said, and it is only in the 1990s that Ireland itself has built a burgeoning info-age economy and seems to be perking up nicely. Up in Ulster, of course, both sides are still bogged down with ancient grievances and modern crimes.

This observation applies to the Serbs and to other peoples afflicted by two or three generations of communist misrule, the Muscovites in particular. To the extent that present governance comes from the same crowd of corrupted nomenklatura who created the messes, emerging from the nightmare is an endless process. Further, the West has demonstrated an incapacity to coach these governments into good governance, because governments are at best, conservators of a tax-consuming status quo, not developers or innovators. Governments, always established by the people to protect and encourage their societies, inevitably corrupt and diminish standards as bureaucracies seek power and revenues to sustain their natural growth and to placate a docile, governed mass.

In Belgrade:

If someone is to create a present, upon which a future can be built for the Serbs and Yugoslavs, the activity must center in Belgrade. As the shock, of what is now viewed as Mr. Milosevic's pusillanimous cave-in to NATO, wears off, political stirring has expanded from the out-of-favor liberals into the great center. On Thursday a major demonstration, though riddled with jockeying by would-be leaders, turned out to be more successful than expected; its backers claim nearly 100,000 showed up while the Milosevic regime claims only about 30,000 attended. What is impressive is that the rally was organized by a non-political group of economists and academics who propose a non-elected government of national unity to clear away the mess that elective politics has created.

There are other indicators of fundamental support for change. Wednesday, a football (soccer) match between Serbia and Croatia turned into something of an anti-Milosevic rally among the 52,000 sports fans --all Yugoslavs-- during a 40-minute period when the electricity went off for unexplained reasons --a generator was blamed but surrounding buildings still had power. Interestingly, the political parties had doled out large blocks of tickets, but still the fans booed.

Croatians watching on TV observed Serbs whistling during its anthem I am told, but a young Serbian lady tells me the crowd was whistling-jeering the present Yugoslav anthem, a Tito-holdover, in favor of restoration of the old royalist anthem, or some alternative. At any rate, the agenda goes beyond the Croat-Serb war and it is a good sign when a polity is more angry with its manipulative governors --"the enemy within"-- than its foreign rivals --"the enemy without." Enemies Within are the real threats to all societies from ancient times and still, today (Damn, I'll have to demonstrate my research into this important subject with a special report-essay). It is the tyrant, the enemy within, who squanders his country's blood and treasure, and turns factions and classes against each other in order to control the masses. It is he who spreads corruption throughout societies; he and his minions, the bureaucracies; always expanding and ravenous for revenues to feed their expansion. America's foundrs created our Constitutional checks and balances to restrain tyrants and bureaucrats, but as Mr. Clinton has demonstrated these last years, no system is fool-proof. In Yugoslavia the corruption stemmed from Tito's post-war regime and continues even as the economy withers away in its post-war gloom, still burdened by the international sanctions regime.

Back to Belgrade -- Mr. Milosevic, an able tactician lacking "the vision thing," has launched an initiative to preempt his opposition by offering early elections; perhaps as early as this November. The catch is there would be elections at the municipal, parliamentary and presidential levels and Milosevic appears to think that the new coalitions forming will not have time to coalesce around a credible leader. Others think that Mr. Vuk Draskovic, though far from perfect, does have a credible chance at victory in an anti-Milosevic backlash, a better chance than ultra-nationalist Vojslav Seselj who is currently in the Milosevic coalition government. Naturally, this process is evolving. NATO and the EU will try to take credit for their efforts to support democratic alternatives but would be well advised to butt out and let the citizenry come to terms with the problem itself; outside intervention will only rally support to reactionaries and ultra-nationalists. To build a "future" Yugoslavia (or erbia), the process must build on a new definition of the "present."

In Kosovo:

Belgrade has complained to LT Gen Mike Jackson and UN commissioner Bernard Kouchner that despite Kfor's presence, ``the Serb and non-Albanian population of Kosovo is constantly exposed to the terror of the Kosovo Liberation Army.'' (An article containing this is attached to the website edition of this report.) This cannot be, so today, the UN denied that concerted terror was being aimed at non-Albanians, despite the exodus of more than 80% of the province's Serbs, plus as many Gypsies who could get away, plus Jews, Gorani, Turks and other non-Albanians. This also despite the fact that Albanians with mortars killed Serb residents of the village of Klokot this week.

I would like to present excerpts from two recent articles to show just how determined NATO and the UN are in misrepresenting the truth of things in Kosovo. The first is about a minority you never even heard was living there --Catholic Croats-- the second is a preposterous statement that there is no concerted ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians despite all we know that has been happening to Serbs, Roma, Gorani, the Croats and others:

This following excerpt (last 3 paragraphs) is from The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 13, 1999

"U.S. Troops Wear Many Hats in Kosovo" by Matthew Kaminski

Then there is this astonishing example of a false cause-type (post hoc) argument: it proposes two "false facts:" nobody is leaving (though they've already mostly left) and nobody is concertedly killing or driving non-Albanians and Albanian loyalists (though bodies turn up daily, and again, though the vast majority have left, or as with the thousands of burned-out Gypsies, are stuck in displaced persons camps). What makes this even more preposterous is that there is also a proposal to collect the remaining Serbs in a few places so they can be guarded --very like the population removals into "safe hamlets" that US forces conducted in the Vietnam war, or the British concentration camps of the Boer War. The Serbs could find themselves "ghettoized" at best.

Kosovo exodus slows to a trickle, UNHCR says

By Kurt Schork

Again, since everybody got chased out right away, there can only be a "trickle" from the small remnants. Again, in August, people are still being murdered or "kidnapped" as a list compiled by the Humanitarian Law Center-Belgrade and Father Sava of the Decani Monastery has attempted to catalog. Between March 23^rd (when NATO bombing began) and August 10, the center has cataloged the disappearance of 318 non-Albanians; Serbs, Gypsies and Gorani, mostly. Since NATO's arrival, 10 other kidnap listees have been released and the bodies of 19 others found. The center stresses that all but a few of these disappearances have occurred since the end of the bombing and the return of the KLA into Kosovo's cities, towns and villages.

This goes to show that the UN and NATO have endless circumlocutions for getting around the fact that they have made the ultimate mess out of Kosovo and will say and do anything to shirk responsibility for, or cover up, the nightmare they have perpetrated on all the populations of Kosovo.

But then, in neighboring Bosnia, the US is seeking to gloss over reports through the New York Times that the Izetbegovic regime has embezzled over a billion dollars, by observing that most of that stolen money was not from international aid programs, and rather, was from domestic fraudulence. It seems that the Clinton-Albright team have a tough time choosing friends and causes worth supporting.

As to Reuters' Kurt Schork, just the day before filing this report he filed a rosy tale of how civic order was being re-established in Djakovica (The post-war message from city hall in this ethnic Albanian stronghold of Kosovo is clear: ``Colonial administrators need not apply'). Meanwhile the AP's Tom Cohen, in "Two Italian Kosovo Soldiers Wounded," gave a somewhat less rosy account of goings-on in that KLA stronghold town. The Italians were slightly wounded while guarding a Serbian church there and were attacked by locals. Both articles will be appended to the website edition of this newsletter.

Crisis Roundup II:

Kosovo-Chechnya-Kashmir: I did not completely thread my needle through these odd fights the other day, bud Osama bin Laden (preferred spelling) has been connected to all three. All three are fights up in the mountains against non-Muslim powers. Hmmm· There are differences, but the timing is uncanny.

Let us add to that the fact that Taliban has taken the offensive again in northern Afghanistan, which will cause further flutters in Moscow, which still looks over its former Asian states as within its sphere of influence.

As to the Chechen-Dagestani war, Stratfor (http://www.stratfor.com), which has greater resources and the time to study the details of "order of battle" published an interesting analysis of this fight. It is a "must win" situation for Moscow. I reprint their summary without a blush:

STRATFOR.COM

Global Intelligence Update

August 20, 1999

Putin Building a Big Hammer

Summary:

In essence, Stratfor writes, the local security forces barely held on, but Moscow's best military and security forces are getting into position for a major offensive. Since the Chechen force is small and does not have official support inside Chechnya, Prime Minister Putin may gain himself an important victory that will also serve to improve the morale and "self-esteem" of the Russian armed forces.

China: I read an interesting report this morning but managed to lose it. It defined an interesting twist between Beijing's official party newspaper and its populist tabloid in how it plays to jingoistic patriotism over the Taiwan confrontation of President Lee Teng-hui's July 9^th "two-states" theory for future negotiations based on de facto parity.

Beijing has been attempting to build patriotic nationalism as part of its efforts to get beyond the Tiananmen Square massacre and its perpetual fear of the empire dissolving into ethnic chaos. In this case the hard threats of nationalistic saber-rattling are coming in the tabloid press, to enthuse the masses, while the official party paper presents a more restrained view. "Tough and tougher" is a variant on the "good cop-bad cop" or "Mutt and Jeff" technique for wearing down a person under interrogation.

On the other hand, Lee has been busy, with a proposal to join the US, Japan and South Korea in the theater missile defense system under development (and badly behind schedule). Lee also has another initiative Beijing does not like; a new proposal at the UN by some of Taiwan's friends, to give Taiwan UN recognition just as the two Germanys and two Koreas have been both given seats. Beijing is fuming.

Lee pushes forward and Jiang, in Beijing, pushes back. This is interesting. 

I noted that Panama is one of the thirty nations which recognize Taiwan instead of Beijing, and remind my readers that Taiwan "bought" Macedonia's recognition just before the NATO air war against Yugoslavia. The UN resolution favoring Taiwan was sponsored by Nicaragua, Burkina Faso, El Salvador, Gambia, Grenada, Honduras, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, the Solomon Islands, and Swaziland. I note that Panama, being "charmed" by Beijing, is not on the list of sponsors; but neither is Macedonia. Hmm·.

I maintain my view that China is playing a longer-term game, but has used nationalist fervor to build support in the streets even as its economy has slowed down. This is a classic distraction technique --propose a foreign crisis, an ancient tactic of tyrants. China's immediate concern is the reunification of the Portuguese colony of Macau at the end of this year. An outright military attack on Taiwan should be years away, if circumstances continue to deteriorate, but if the domestic economy continues to sink to the point where it stimulates widespread unemployment and unrest, Beijing might act out of desperation. But signs of that are still far away, and as we also see, China has its own initiatives underway in Central America, Central Asia, even Africa and everywhere Washington's (or Moscow and London's) diplomatic carelessness has created a vacuum to fill.

© Copyright 1999 by Benjamin C. Works -- SIRIUS

Readers may re-post this letter "for fair use only."

* * * *

NB: Two conflicting stories out of Djakovica

Note: Mr. Cohen asserts a Serb church "was devastated by Serb forces" during the NATO air war; which makes no sense at all.

Two Italian Kosovo Soldiers Wounded

By TOM COHEN

.c The Associated Press

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Two Italian soldiers guarding a Serbian Orthodox Church were wounded, NATO said today, as peacekeepers struggle to stop ethnic violence two months after the alliance marched into Kosovo to restore order.

NATO said the troops, who were only slightly hurt, were among 10 Italian peacekeepers guarding the church in the southwestern city of Djakovica. The church was devastated by Serb forces before the alliance entered Kosovo on June 12 after Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accepted a Western-dictated peace deal to end his crackdown on ethnic Albanians.

It was unclear whether the shooting occurred Wednesday night or this morning.

The persistent attacks have deeply embarrassed NATO and the United Nations, which Yugoslavia has accused of failing to live up to their commitments to protect the dwindling Serb minority.

Reprisal attacks have prompted most of the 200,000-member Kosovo Serb community to flee the province.

On Wednesday, the United Nations and NATO appealed to Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority to cooperate with international peacekeepers trying to restore order.

In a joint statement, U.N. mission chief Bernard Kouchner and peacekeeper commander Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson condemned ``the illegal and threatening activities which have been taking place.''

``We will, however, only succeed in generating a secure environment with the full cooperation of the local population,'' they said. More than 90 percent of Kosovo's estimated 2.1 million people are ethnic Albanians.

The state-run Yugoslav news agency Tanjug today accused NATO and the United Nations of promoting a ``mafia state'' in Kosovo by allowing organized crime figures from neighboring Albania to take over.

The agency accused NATO of failing to control the border between Kosovo and lawless areas of northern Albania and also said 200 Serbs and other non-Albanians have been killed since June and more than 200,000 had fled their homes.

In Belgrade, the Yugoslav government demanded ``urgent measures'' to guarantee security for Serbs in the province, the official Tanjug news agency reported Wednesday.

The Belgrade government, in a note to Jackson and Kouchner, complained that despite the presence of 40,000 international peacekeepers ``the Serb and non-Albanian population of Kosovo is constantly exposed to the terror of the Kosovo Liberation Army.''

KLA leaders have condemned the attacks and blame them on criminal elements.

AP-NY-08-19-99 0803EDT

Copyright 1999 The Associated Press..

Civic order rules in rebel Kosovo stronghold

By Kurt Schork

DJAKOVICA, Serbia, Aug 19 (Reuters) - The post-war message from city hall in this ethnic Albanian stronghold of Kosovo is clear: ``Colonial administrators need not apply.''

Municipal officials, appointed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), admit that Djakovica needs financial help to rebuild.

What residents don't want, those officials insist, is to be ruled by the U.N bureaucrats who are supposed to provide civil administration in Kosovo until elections next year.

``We fought for freedom. It would be a mistake to become dependent on anyone,'' explained Mazllom Kumnova, the 54-year-old Mayor of Djakovica, who spent the last month of the war at a KLA command centre in the hills planning for peace.

``There's no reason for an outsider to do what we can do for ourselves. Our people are hard working and self-reliant. We can run our own affairs. We've proved that in the two months since the war ended.''

Large swathes of this city of about 70,000 people -- the fifth largest in Kosovo -- lie in ruins as a result of punitive attacks by Serbian security forces that began after NATO bombed them earlier this summer.

Worst hit was Djakovica's historic old town district, an architectural gem in the Balkans that burned to the ground.

At least 5,000 houses in the city and its surrounding villages were destroyed over the past 18 months. A total of 1,041 former residents are still listed by ethnic Albanian authorities as missing.

Yet the city bustles not just with life, as is the case in most parts of Kosovo, but with a palpable sense of civic order and pride.

Basic utilities have been restored in many areas. Neat piles of rubble excavated from damaged buildings await roadside pick-up and disposal.

The entire old town district is being cleaned up in the first-phase of a U.S.-funded reconstruction effort.

City hall has begun issuing registration plates for vehicles within the municipality, an important step to restoring order in an area where possession was 10 tenths of the law when the war finally ended.

A locally-generated plan to repair all traffic signals and signs awaits only outside funding for implementation.

Relatively few serious security incidents are being reported in Djakovica at a time when other cities in Kosovo, including the capital, Pristina, regularly report crimes of violence.

The presence of large numbers of Italian troops in the area as part of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission known as KFOR in Kosovo, has been a constructive, calming influence. KLA police are generally feared and respected.

But with KFOR and the KLA everywhere in Kosovo, why does Djakovica seem such a special case?

Observers say it is because the post-war population of the municipality is virtually 100 per cent ethnic Albanian.

Where cities like Pristina and Mitrovica have struggled, with scant success, to accommodate, peacefully, significant Serb minorities, Djakovica was 98 per cent ethnic Albanian even before the war.

Mayor Kumnova, a former education administrator, reckons fewer than a dozen Serbs now remain in his domain.

The international community abhors that result but would be hard-pressed to deny that ethnic homogeneity has simplified the administration of Djakovica, at least for the moment.

Ironically, despite its size, the city is not a regional headquarters for the U.N. Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

Instead, the municipality falls under U.N. officials based in the city of Pec, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) north.

Many international aid agencies operate in Djakovica, but government per se remains in the hands of the locals here while the U.N. struggles to organise and staff up across Kosovo.

``The KLA has filled the void in the Djakovica area, for better or worse,'' said a Western government official in Kosovo, who asked not to be named.

``The KLA is supposed to disband as an army by next month and I suppose it will. But it has established firm political control well before next year's elections. The KLA is running Kosovo from the bottom up. The U.N. is still organising itself.''

04:31 08-19-99 Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.