SIT-REP 8-31; Tuesday, August 31, 1999

In this Issue: Drug Wars; Kosovo, Timor, China; Iraq

The good news is, a US intervention in East Timor has not taken place and is not inevitable; the elections have generated some violence, but did take place. Results will be released in a week which may precipitate more violence, and we shall see how bad it gets.

The bad news --for the US-- is that it is increasingly likely that air forces will have to mount another blitz against Iraq, to find a means of ending the 8-plus months of air-ground skirmishes in the no-fly zones.

Drug Wars: There also appears to be preparatory moves underway to formulate a multi-lateral intervention in Colombia. Agence France Press reports quote Peruvian sources which claim that American Drug Czar, General Barry McCaffrey has been informally shopping a joint-intervention between the Colombian government-Army, the communist rebels and the right-wing paramilitaries. What makes this interesting to me is that the rebel FARC movement gets cash from coca-leaf growing peasants while protecting them, and the paramilitaries are associated with the Colombian Drug Lords. Drug money is on both sides of this. Hmmm· (This AFP dispatch is appended to the website edition of this report.)

Also in the bad news column is a report that in the US, treatment for Heroin addiction has risen 29% between 1992 and 1997, with more people getting treated for smack than for cocaine. Heroin comes to the US from Albanian Mafia routes through Europe --origin in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkey. Heroin also comes in from Russia and China and from Colombia. In the US, much of the wholesale distribution of both heroin and cocaine runs through the now-Albanian dominated "Pizza Connection" of the Gambino-family empire (see the SIRIUS website archive "KLA-Heroin). The Kosovo Mafia also distributes through after-hours joints and coffee bars here in New York City, and in other major cities. The same Congressmen (Ben Gillman in particular) and media reporters beating the drum for NATO's intervention in Kosovo are wondering why the sudden surge in heroin abuse.

Also of interest to SIRIUS is that the US looses its Panamanian bases on Dec. 31^st; making General McCaffrey's proposed intervention that much tougher.

Kosovo:

They're killing grannies, for God's sake! Albanian gangsters are killing grandmothers in their apartments! And shooting at Gypsy women in the streets. The Kosovo catalog of horrors continues to swell, far eclipsing the sum of crimes committed by Serb vigilantes and criminals.

KLA ethnic-cleansing of all other minorities is so completely out of hand that last Tueseday, even Radio Free Europe has found it advisable to issue a report on persecution of the Gorani Slavic Muslim community, right under the noses of the Turkish K-For Battalion (The text of that report is attached to the website edition of this report).

But yesterday, Aug. 30, the UN and K-For commander, Lt. General Mike Jackson, in a "false cause" (post hoc) argument, announced that crime in Kosovo is in steep decline, to levels below those in Washington DC and Capetown, South Africa; K-For and the UN are gaining control he implied. Of course the levels have declined, almost all non-Albanians have been forced to flee; so, too, have at least 100,000 Albanian loyalists and Rugova supporters.

Bad as the local violence got during the recent air war, the KLA's propensity for violence is worse and we may get to a perverse point where a majority of Kosovo Albanians turn against the KLA, and would prefer a Serb return to an unending KLA Mafiaocracy. It is also clear from continuing reports of violence against Serbs, Gypsies, Gorani, Jews and others, that most of the violence is perpetrated by gunmen with metropolitan Albanian accents, rather than ones with local accents. I suspect, too, from news reports, that those crowds blockading the Russian troops from the town of Orahovac are more Albanian than Kosovan. But I can't prove that without a local translator sensitive to the regional accents.

Richard Holbrooke, just back from nine months in limbo, had to warn the KLA about racism in remarks reported by the AP on Aug. 30. Clearly, it is the KLA which has demonstrated a most vicious racism throughout its terror campaign. Western Liberals lament nationalism as the root of all evils, but it was the KLA's toxic blend of xenophobia, anarchism, chauvinism and its primitive 15^th century tribal code, the "Kanun of Lek Dukagjini," that was the problem all along in Kosovo.

"New World Order" ("NOW") Liberals hate "nationalism" but empowered the Kosovo Albanians under a nationalist "right of self-determination," which I have now seen referred to as a "natural right" (there's a nightmare assertion for us all). But this same ethnic identification is what politicians exploit under the "divide and conquer" rule. In fact, we know that "nationalism" can be defined many different ways, but is normally a patriotic and positive expression --the "Fallacy of Ambiguity," is what this is called in Logic, and Clintonians play the same game with "Democracy" as panacea. Nationalism is, in fact, the antithesis of imperialsm (the UN-NWO's hiddden agenda) as Napoleon learned, as well as the antithesis of tribalism, sectionalism and other petty orders that breed unending violence. But nationalism is a no-no at the Clinton White House.

Ambassador Holbrooke, whose historical reputation is in serious jeopardy, went on to warn the KLA that if it does not genuinely disarm --as opposed to turning in old, rusty guns-- Congressional support for funding Kosovo will decline. In fact, many on Capitol Hill are coming to recognize we have gotten ourselves into a situation that could be much worse than Mogadishu.

Journals in Germany (Frankfurter Rundschau and Der Spiegel), where the KLA had strong support, are now publishing reports about the chaos created by the KLA and the universal presence in Europe of the Albanian Mafia. All this gets inconvenient to political leaders. How do you deploy smoke and mirrors to cover this fiasco over?

Jared Israel of "The Emperor's Clothes" (http://www.emperors-clothes.com) has recently interviewed Mr. Cedda Prlincevic, Chief Archivist of Kosovo and a leader of Pristina's tiny Jewish Community, and posted that at his website. The interview, to say the least, is highly inconvenient to the propaganda line hyped by Mme Albright, Jamies Rubin and Shea, Joseph DioGuardi, Bob Dole and others. Mr. Prlincevic (and other objective journalists and sources) makes clear there was no concerted effort at genocide and that such murders as occurred were either from battles, NATO's bombing, or from local acts of vengeance and vigilantism. Herewith an excerpt (reprinted by permission):

It should be clear to everybody that the KLA criminal enterprise is the Albanian-Kosovo Mafia masquerading as freedom fighters, while creating utter chaos around the K-For troops and UN functionaries. A locust-like plague of Albanian mountain-bandit manhood has descended upon the fertile valleys and plucked its populace clean, with as many as 8000 cars returning over the border, laden with looted TVs, kitchen appliances, etc., on a given day.

The KLA-mafia purpose is to render K-For impotent, while playing the gamble that NATO will prevent Yugoslav forces from returning and chasing the gangsters back into Albania. Diplomatic reputations are so at stake that the Mme Albright's reputation and Mr. Clinton's legacy could not survive if NATO withdrew and let nature take its course. So coverup and illusion will be sustained.

But US and NATO ally troops know what's going on and have this annoying habit of writing home. Now, they write home and write circulars by e-mail and the story is all around in every country.

As to the standoff between Albanians and Russian troops at Orahovac, a reliable journalist source in Amsterdam advises me that his military sources have confirmed the Albanians are looking for a shootout.

Dagestan:

Though guerrilla wars are never ended, it appears that the incursion into Dagestan by Shamil Basayev's Chechen Muslim fundamentalists has failed. The force, which lacked its government's support, has given up control of the six villages it occupied for about two weeks and remnants have dissolved into the mountains. Russia claims having killed as many as 40-50% of the estimated 1200 invaders. Basayev, in admitting the withdrawal on Monday vowed to transit to a military-political struggle from the purely military campaign he attempted to wage.

Since the Chechen government did not support this invasion, I doubt that Moscow will attempt to take stern measures against it at this time. But I also expect that Moscow will try to use the victory to rebuild its influence and control over Chechnya, which has attempted to assert its independence after the 1994-96 war with Moscow's army. Chechnya has not been recognized by the international community.

There is still action in other villages and a bomb went off in Moscow, today, possibly from the Chechens.

East Timor Elections:

Scattered violence continues in East Timor as the UN-sponsored elections on the question of autonomy or independence progress --the vote is over but the counting will take a week. -- Late word has it that anti-independence rebels have seized the port and airport, plus some 150 or more journalists.--

East Timor was captured by the Indonesian Army in 1975, as Portugal's post-revolution socialist government was releasing it as a colony. There are about 500,000 eligible voters for the poll, held August 30^th. Some 200,000 have died in the last 24 years, many by violence spawned by rival guerrilla armies or by official suppressions. But, the current tempo of violence has not reached a level sufficient to require a multinational military intervention, though Senators Harkin (Iowa) and Reed (Rhode Island) called for US troops in a visit there last week. It appears Mr. Clinton's team is counting on Indonesia's military to take the course of enlightened self-interest and is letting them demonstrate whether they can secure the poll themselves. Only in a severe emergency, with slaughter, would outsiders be brought in.

Interestingly, last week I found several dispatches about the pro-Indonesian and pro-independence guerrilla forces. Most are armed with home-made "muskets" fired by touching a cigarette to a touch-hole. In some places violence continues and there is a question as to whether all balloting will be completed by August 30^th. By and large, this appears to be a minor threat, not a cataclysmic or long-term one. But I also got word that Australia's Navy and Army were put on alert for possible intervention.

The leader of the pro-Indonesia militia, which staged a disarming parade last week, seems to have a Portuguese surname --Eurico Guterres, the chief of Dili's Aitarak militia, indicating there is a division of native Timorese opinion. With the way the vote has gone --coercion and all we presume the majority do favor independence and Catholicism to local government in a gigantic Muslim nation-state.

The vote results are expected to be released in a week. If independence is chosen, the UN may stay on for four years to build the new government.

China v. Taiwan: Taipei's Wag the Dog game?

About two weeks ago, I came to the realization that the tensions between China and Taiwan are all initiated by Taipei's President Lee Teng-hui. It became more important when I did some research and found that Taiwan will hold another presidential election next March. I also dipped into my musty archives to reconfirm that the 1995-1996 tensions, which featured Beijing's test firing of improved and very accurate missiles into the Formosa Strait shipping channel and the guest appearance of two US Navy aircraft carriers, was also staged in front of the presidential election which Mr. Lee won. That too, was precipitated by Lee's little provocations.

It seems the key factor effecting this diplomatic crisis is that Taiwan will have a presidential election next March and President Lee Teng-hui will not run for another term. The Nationalist (Kuomintang) party has nominated Vice President Lien Chan as its official candidate, while party member and Governor of Taiwan James Soong, has also indicated he will run for the office as an independent. The Kuomintang needs its new leader to have a chance to face up to an external threat --Beijing's saber rattling.

A few days ago, Taipei announced a plan to test fire a missile from one of the three Patriot batteries it bought to protect the capital city -conditional on US approval. Yesterday, Beijing actually test-fired its own surface-to-air missile on a "plateau," indicating it was well off towards Tibet and India. The point here is the symmetry of the two announcements.

President Jiang was quoted in Tuesday's "The Australian" (a Sydney paper) as reserving the right to reunite Taiwan with the mainland by force, if necessary, but stated his preference for peaceful means. There has been one reported incident of China's Navy seizing a small merchant vessel, but we think violence on a large scale is not likely unless Taiwan rattles out of control --not likely, as this is, first and foremost, a political game.

Both have much at stake; Beijing has trade and Taiwanese investors have started some 46,000 enterprises on the mainland, investing some $46 Bil, according to the Far East Economic Review. Beijing has earned a trade surplus of $65 Bil with the US since 1990 and aspires to membership in the World Trade Organization. Tom Friedman, in Tuesday's New York Times observed that in this crisis, while the Taiwan market sank 20% (less than its 1996 drop), the Shanghai Exchange plunged 40%, much worse than last time.

The Taiwan election gives Beijing a chance to wait and see, while playing its own games of active diplomacy and populist jingoism to shore up its domestic support, while concentrating on admission to the World Trade Organization and digesting Macao. It remains probable that Beijing will stage some military shows of force between now and the March election, but I doubt it will go so far as expending large amounts of ordinance on live targets; perhaps a shell or two will be fired if Taipei decides to escalate tensions.

Iraq: No-Fly Zones -- Desert Fox II?

It appears that the US and British air patrols are seeking higher-value targets in an attempt to counter increasing harassment by missiles and anti-air artillery firing at them from the ground. This week, they went beyond the no-fly zones to find targets, and it looks increasingly clear that we may be on the edge of another bombing campaign similar to last December's Operation Desert Fox. Iraq has moved these anti-air defenses into densely populated urban areas in order to force the allies into causing civilian casualties if they drop bombs or shoot missiles. So last Wednesday, in the northern zone, planes dropped precision-guided munitions on a desert fuel and munitions-storage depot about 12 miles southwest of the city of Mosul. Then they went hunting below the zone's southern border, to raise the pain threshhold. This is about all the flyers can do, seek out high-value targets, and we have seen that this did not work out well in Yugoslavia this Spring. Saddam will not be impressed.

Meanwhile, France has put a new plan for restoring a UN monitoring --but no inspections-- regime in Iraq's known WMD production and storage sites; about all the UN can hope for at this late stage. Score another loss for the Albright-Berger strategy team.

© Copyright 1999 by Benjamin C. Works --SIRIUS

Readers may re-post these newsletters "for fair use only." Contact Benworks@aol.com if in doubt.

US proposes Latin military intervention in Colombia

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LIMA, Aug 29 (AFP) - US anti-drug czar Barry McCaffrey has informally urged Latin leaders to organize a military intervention force to pacify Colombia, a Peruvian TV newscast reported Sunday. McCaffrey reportedly made the statements in off-the-record personal talks with the presidents of Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina, according to Frecuencia Latina -Channel 2. Frecuencia Latina -- a station that has close ties with the Peruvian military intelligence service, SIN -- reports that the multinational force would intervene in early 2000 acting on a request by Colombian President Andres Pastrana. At every stop of his recent Latin tour McCaffrey publicly denied plansfor any direct US intervention in Colombia. Top US State Department

officials have also forcefully denied plans for a US military intervention in Colombia. According to Frecuencia Latina the scenario would develop in the following manner:

-- Pastrana would try to reach an agreement with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's leading rebel group.

-- If peace is not reached by January, Pastrana would declare a state of internal war in Colombia and call on regional aid to help pacify his country.

-- An intervention force of Peruvian, Ecuadoran and Brazilian soldiers would join forces with five Colombian army batallions currently being trained by US advisers to fight the rebels.

-- US warships off Colombia's Caribbean and Pacific coasts would support the allied intervention with missile attacks and air strikes.

-- The station reported that Peru has already deployed 5,000 soldiers

-- all veterans of the war with Peruvian leftist rebels

-- on the border with Colombia, as well as four warships with Peruvian Special Forces and Marine units.

A Lima newspaper report earlier in the week that 2,000 Peruvian soldiers had been depoloyed to the remote Colombian border.

-- The station said that McCaffrey held an off-the-record interview with presidential adviser Vladimiro Montesinos, the controversial head of the SIN widely seen as the second most powerful person in Peru. It did not report Fujimori's stance on the plan.

In 1997 Frecuencia Latina aired several controversial reports of torture carried out by SIN members. By mid-year Fujimori stripped Israeli-born station owner Baruch Ivcher of his nationality, and Fujimori supporters took over the station.