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Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 08:51:43 -0400
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Bill Thomson <•••@••.•••>
Subject: From the mouths of ????
Quote of the Millennium (at least thus far)....
"I think that the targeting of innocent civilians is the worst thing about
modern conflicts today. And the extent to which more and more people seem
to believe it is legitimate to target innocent civilians to reach their
larger political goals, I think thatís something that has to be resisted at
every turn."
Bill Clinton, at a recent speech given in India
Peace,
Bill
William J. (Bill) Thomson, Ph.D.
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Delivered-To: •••@••.•••
From: "T.V. Weber & Alida Weber" <•••@••.•••>
To: "** Media Release" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Marching in Hitler's Footsteps, KFOR Confiscates Kosovo's Mines
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 13:22:35 -0500
Marching in Hitler's footsteps, KFOR confiscates Kosovo's mines
Over half a century ago, when Adolf Hitler overran the
Balkans, one of the biggest prizes he captured was the rich
mineral deposits of Kosovo. The forces of the Third Reich
rounded up Serbs, confined them in a slave-labor concentration
camp near the Trepca mines, and sent them to work in the
depths of the earth. The rich booty extracted from these mines
went to aid the Nazi war effort. Later, the defeated Axis
powers made no reparations to the Serbian people who were the
owners of this property, or to the concentration camp
survivors and their heirs. For that reason alone, the Trepca
mines should be considered Serb property for all time to come.
After the war, the mines returned to Yugoslav government
ownership and Serbs and Albanians both went back to work in
the mines as employees. However, Albanian separatists, wishing
to take over the mine for themselves, began a campaign of
strikes and sabotage to make it impossible for the mine to
continue operating. Their motivation was not to improve
working conditions or pay for the miners, but to make the mine
so unprofitable that the Serbs would abandon it and let the
Albanians take it over. Finally, the Yugoslav government,
under heavy pressure from the IMF, was forced to return the
mines to profitability by replacing the offenders with loyal
workers. The Albanian separatists were out of a job, for which
they should have had only themselves to blame.
Now, NATO/KFOR has confiscated the mines and reopened them,
much as Hitler had done. And having absolutely no shame, they
boast about it on their own website. The supposedly disbanded
KLA, which is a narcoterrorist gang with neo-Nazi overtones,
now runs Kosovo with NATO's tacit approval. NATO has
effectively turned over the whole mining complex to the KLA.
The KLA separatists will get the jobs in the mines. There is
not a word about the fact that KFOR does not have title to
those mines, nor any right to extract the minerals. Exactly
how the profits will be divided up is anybody's guess, but the
profits surely won't go to the Serbs. The KFOR article claims
that the profit "stay in Kosovo to be a valuable asset to the
reconstruction of the region," but in the cesspool of
corruption that Kosovo has become, we can expect that the
corporate elites of various NATO nations, along with various
organized crime families and crooked politicians, will enrich
themselves.
Nobody has told the American public why Bill Clinton started
this particular war in the first place. Much has been made of
the "wag-the-dog" scenario, in which bombing the Serbs keeps
the president's sexual and other misconduct off the front
page, but why Kosovo rather than somewhere else? Simple. As
bank robber Murph the Surf reportedly said when asked why he
robbed banks, "That's where the money is!"
T.V. Weber
&
Alida Weber
Featured on the Serbianna website at http://www.serbianna.com/weber/
Also see the following articles that discuss the Trepca/Stari Trg mines.
All three articles are well worth reading.
Mary Mostert's commentary on this incident, at the website
http://www.originalsources.com/OS3-00MQC/3-28-2000.1.html
Kosovo Before 1989 - A nightmare with the best intentions
Interview with Petar Makara and Tika Jankovic
Interviewer: Jared Israel (3-6-00), available at the website
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/interviews/tika.htm
The Myth of Albanian Repression in 1990s Kosovo,
available at the website
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38da8bc025fa.htm
================================================
The full NATO article shown below is available with photographs
at the website http://kforonline.com/news/stories/ns_26mar00.htm
Mining & Industry - A Great Asset For Kosovo
Text: Maj. Kristian Kahrs - Photo: Sgt. Torgrim Halvari
Stari Trg Mine, 25 March 2000:
[Excerpts only]
The mines in the area around Mitrovica have a great potential
for the future of Kosovo, and Saturday, KFOR was allowed to
play a part in the reconstruction of the Stari Trg Mine just
east of Mitrovica.
* * *
The Stari Trg mine is much bigger than it looks on the
surface, and below the surface there are over 200 kilometers
of tunnels. Over one million cubic meters of water still have
to be pumped out of the mine.
"Once the water is out, we can exploit 16 million metric tons
of zinc, lead and silver, and there are enough metals to have
work for 20 years," Kavaja said. [Burhan Kavaja is director
of the Stari Trg Mine].
He added that he hopes to increase the staff as soon as the
technical problems have been resolved. But it will not reach
the numbers it used to have 10-11 years ago with 3,050 miners.
Because of a new technology, a smaller number of employees are
needed.
At the moment, UNMIK has the administrative responsibility of
all the mining resources in Kosovo, and when there is profit
from the mines, the profit will stay in Kosovo to be a
valuable asset to the reconstruction of the region.
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Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 16:03:47 -0300
To: •••@••.•••
From: •••@••.••• (Jan Slakov)
Subject: rn: Chossudovsky: NATO, IMF, Wld Bank- destroying nations
--------------------------------------------
From "Viviane Lerner" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: FW: [STOPNATO] IMF & WORLD BANK - JUST TWO OF SEVERAL INSTRUMENTS
OF NATIONALDESTRUCTION
Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 20:50:15 +0100
-----Original Message-----
From: •••@••.••• [mailto:•••@••.•••]
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2000 6:27 AM
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: [STOPNATO] IMF & WORLD BANK - JUST TWO OF SEVERAL INSTRUMENTS
OF NATIONALDESTRUCTION
STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.HOME-PAGE.ORG
IMF & WORLD BANK -
JUST TWO OF SEVERAL INSTRUMENTS OF NATIONAL DESTRUCTION
Part I of an interview with Michel Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
Interview and editing by Jared Israel (4-16-00)
www.tenc.net [emperors-clothes]
Chossudovsky: When an IMF mission goes into a country and
requires the destruction of social and economic institutions
as a condition for lending money - this is very similar to the
physical destruction caused by NATO bombing. The IMF will
order the closing down of hospitals, schools and factories.
That's of course more cost effective than bombing those
hospitals, schools and factories, as they did in Yugoslavia,
but the ultimate result is very similar: the destruction of
the country.
The IMF has what is called the MAI - the Multilateral
Agreement on Investment. It's the ultimate investment treaty.
Signing leads to the economic destruction of the targeted
country. Well, really, war is simply the MAI of last resort.
Israel: What are your thoughts on the demands of the folks
protesting now in Washington?
Chossudovsky: Well, lots of people have converged on
Washington to protest the Bretton Woods system, the IMF and
the World Bank. The question is: what are we fighting for? I
suspect the dominant position among the NGOs [Non-Governmental
Organizations] is still that we need to reform these
institutions, give them a human face, make them work for the
poor and so forth. I think this approach, which developed from
the "50 Years Is Enough" campaign against the Bretton Woods
institutions is a mistake. And increasingly people are
challenging it, questioning the legitimacy of these Washington
institutions.
But still there's a lot of confusion. Some think the IMF and
World Bank are playing contradictory roles, which is not so.
And also there's a tendency to see these institutions in
isolation. In fact they are simply two tools used by the
Western elite to destroy nations, to turn them into
territories.
Israel: You think some people are fooled by the World Bank?
Chossudovsky: They believe the World Bank has adopted a humane
approach, that it's involved in poverty alleviation whereas
the IMF creates poverty. Or they even think there's a conflict
between the two. That's nonsense. The World Bank is doing
essentially the same job as the IMF; it merely has different
responsibilities in the Third World. In a way, it is far more
dangerous precisely because [of the fact that] its supposed
mandate to alleviate poverty disarms critics. The simple fact
is: Wall Street is behind both these institutions. They are
run by bankers not sociologists.
Free Trade, brother of War
Chossudovsky: More important: a lot of people don't see the
link to NATO. Very few of the organizations criticizing the
Bretton Woods institutions opposed the attack on Yugoslavia.
They didn't talk about it in Seattle and they aren't doing it
in Washington now. They campaign against free trade, against
the IMF, in favor of the Jubilee campaign to cancel third
world debt, but not against war. But free trade and war go
hand in hand. It was true with the British in the 19th century
when they forced the Chinese to "freely" purchase opium and it
is true today.
And there's a good deal of coordination between the IMF and
NATO. You saw it in Kosovo. The IMF and the World Bank had set
up a postwar economic plan including free market reforms well
before the onset of bombing. [See note #1 at the end] They
work together. If a country refuses IMF intervention, NATO
steps in, or NATO and various covert agencies, and they create
the proper conditions for IMF programs to be imposed.
Israel: Very sharp point.
Chossudovsky: The countries that accept the IMF, like Bulgaria
and Romania, they may not get bombed but they are destroyed
with the pen. In Bulgaria the IMF implemented the most drastic
reforms, IMF medicine, which decimated social conditions -
pensions slashed, factories closed, dumping of cheap finished
goods, elimination of free medical care and transportation
services and so on.
And it's not just NATO. We see that in Central Asia and the
Caucuses. Hand in hand with the imposition of IMF and World
Bank reforms and privatization program we have not only NATO
but also CIA covert intelligence operations - the institutions
of war and economic management interface with one another at a
global level.
So right now various countries are being softened up with
regional conflicts that are financed overtly and covertly by
the Western elite. The KLA is just one example of an
externally financed insurgency. You see these manipulated
conflicts especially wherever there are strategic pipelines,
and they are linked to the drug trade and the CIA, covertly,
then openly linked to NATO and official US foreign policy, and
finally to the IMF, the World Bank and regional banks and
private investors. Links in a chain.
Let's categorize these global institutions: you've got the
United Nations system and peace keeping; they play a role and
they are interfacing with NATO as well. Then you've got the
IMF and the World Bank, and the regional development banks
like the ADB, the Asian Development Bank, and so on. In Europe
it's the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
These are the main arms.
Sometimes war creates the conditions, and then the economic
institutions come in and pick up the pieces. Or conversely the
IMF itself does the destabilizing, as they did in Indonesia.
They insisted on cutting off transfer payments to the various
states in the federation. Now that fractures a country like
Indonesia which has 2,000 islands with a system of local
governments. It is the geography of the bloody place. So they
leave these islands to their own devices.
Do you see what that accomplishes?
Israel: In other words, they insisted on cutting money that
was suppose to subsidize the local governments?
Chossudovsky: Yes, for example for education and so on. By
doing this - and incidentally they did it in Brazil as well -
they destabilize the country because in order to have a
country there must be fiscal coherence, a system of fiscal
transfers. So in a place like Indonesia, each of these islands
becomes a small state. And of course now the idea of going it
alone becomes far more attractive to the many different ethnic
groups. Of course they [that is, the planners] are fully aware
of this - they have made it happen time and again. It took
place in Yugoslavia; it took place in Brazil; it took place in
the former Soviet Union where the regions are left to their
own devices because Moscow doesn't transfer any money.
Potentially it could happen in the United States as well. It
is guaranteed to produce a situation of conflict, internal
strife.
Israel: Mutually unproductive conflict…
Chossudovsky: Yes because people are impoverished to such an
extent that they start fighting.
Israel: On every basis, especially ethnic.
Chossudovsky: Incidentally in Somalia there weren't any ethnic
groups, but it worked there too. You don't need a multi-ethnic
society to have divisions, to have Balkanization.
Israel: And you're saying this is part and parcel of a plan
for Empire?
Chossudovsky: I am saying this is recolonization. Countries
are transformed into territories, colonies essentially.
Israel: What distinguishes the two?
Countries vs. territories
Chossudovsky: A country has a government. It has institutions.
It has a budget. It has economic borders. It has customs. A
territory has only a nominal government, controlled by the
IMF. No schools and hospitals, as those have been closed down
on orders of the World Bank. No borders because the WTO has
ordered free trade. No industry or agriculture because these
have been destabilized as the result of interest rates of 60%
per anum and that is also the IMF program.
Israel: 60% per year?
Chossudovsky: In Brazil it's much higher. I'm looking at
Botswana now. The interest rate is horrendously high.
Israel: And this is imposed by the IMF?
Chossudovsky: They put a ceiling on credit. Do you see? So
people can't get bank loans; it drives interest sky high and
that kills the economy. Then they open it up to free trade. So
the local capitalist enterprises have to borrow at 60% from
the local banks and then they have to compete with commodities
from the United States or Europe where interest rates are 6 or
7%. These reforms are essentially aimed at destroying local
capitalism.
Israel: So how do we fight this?
Chossudovsky: Not with a single-issue movement. We can't focus
solely on the Bretton Woods institutions, or the WTO, or
environmental issues or genetic engineering; we have to look
at the totality of relations. When we look at the totality we
see the link to the use of force.
Beneath this economic system lie the undercover features of
the capitalist order: the military-industrial complex, the
intelligence apparatus and the links to organized crime
including the use of narcotics to finance conflicts aimed at
opening nations to Western control.
We have gone from gunboat diplomacy to missile diplomacy. In
fact it is not missile diplomacy. It is sheer bombing.
Israel: You said that part of the military intelligence
apparatus is gangsters. I know that you have been writing
material about how drugs is actually an economically powerful
force.
Chossudovsky: Well it is more complicated than that. Because
in fact the gangsters are the instruments of big capital. They
are not - they don't overshadow the system in any way. The
gangsters are people who can be easily used precisely because
they are not responsible to anybody. So it is much more
convenient.
Let's say you install Hacim Thaci [leader of the Kosovo
Liberation Army] in the seat of government in Kosovo. It's
much more convenient to have a gangster like this running a
country than to have an elected prime minister that is
responsible to citizens.
The best thing is to have an elected gangster, somebody like
Boris Yeltsin, that's the best - get an elected gangster. We
have elected gangsters in the US as well.
Why? Because elected gangsters are much easier to control than
elected non-gangsters. But we must understand these gangsters
are pretty obviously subordinate - when we say it is the
criminalization of the colony, it is not true. It's the other
way around. You are never going to have a situation where
these gangsters will be given any power. The big ones
perhaps... So there is a certain interpenetration of legal and
illicit trade. But in effect illicit trade is always
subordinate to large scale financial and business
undertakings.
An important aspect of this is that the IMF creates the
conditions for the growth of illicit trade and for the
laundering of dirty money, all over the world. That is very
clear because when legal economies collapse under the brunt of
IMF reforms what are you left with? It's the grey economy;
it's the criminal economy.
Israel: And that encourages the development of forces that can
be used to replace potentially responsible legal forces.
Chossudovsky: Yes and that type of collapse in legal economic
systems creates also the conditions for developing
insurgencies, destabilizing elected governments, closing down
of institutions and transforming countries into territories
which are then run as colonies. ***
Dear reader - this interview is continued. Part II will be
posted as soon as the text is edited and laid out. - JI
***
Note # 1 "In Opening Kosovo to foreign capital" which you can
read in full at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/opening.htm, Michel
Chossudovsky writes:
"In occupied Kosovo under the mandate of UN peace-keeping,
state terror and the 'free market' go hand in hand. The
concurrent criminalisation of State institutions is not
incompatible with the West’s economic and strategic objectives
in the Balkans. Notwithstanding the massacres of civilians,
the self-proclaimed KLA administration has committed itself to
establishing a 'secure and stable environment' for foreign
investors and international financial institutions. ..
"In close liaison with NATO, the Washington based financial
institutions had already analyzed the consequences of an
eventual military intervention leading to the occupation of
Kosovo: almost a year prior to the beginning of the War, the
World Bank conducted 'simulations' which 'anticipated the
possibility of an emergency scenario arising out of the
tensions in Kosovo'. 1
"While the bombing was still ongoing, the World Bank and the
European Commission were given a special mandate for
'coordinating donors' economic assistance in the Balkans'2.
The underlying terms of reference did not exclude Yugoslavia
from receiving donor support. It was, however, clearly
stipulated that Belgrade would be eligible for reconstruction
loans 'once political conditions there change'.3
"With regard to Kosovo, the World Bank rather than providing
loans to rebuild the province’s infrastructure has focussed
its intervention on providing 'assistance in designing the
reconstruction and recovery program' as well as so-called
'policy advice in economic management' and 'institution
building' namely 'governance' 4. In other words, an army of
lawyers and consultants have been sent in to ensure Kosovo’s
transition to a 'thriving, open and transparent market
economy.' 5
Support granted to the KLA provisional government would be
geared towards 'the establish[ment] [of] transparent,
effective and sustainable institutions' 6. An 'enabling
environment' for foreign capital is to be established
alongside suitably devised 'social safety nets' and 'poverty
alleviation programs'.
"Meanwhile, Yugoslav State banks operating in Pristina have
been closed down. The Deutschmark has been adopted as legal
tender and the banking system has been handed over to
Germany’s Commerzbank A.G which is the sole private
shareholder in [Kosovo's] Micro Enterprise Bank (MEB) formed
in early 2000 at the initiative of the World Bank’s
International Finance Corporation (IFC), the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) together with the
Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij voor
Ontwikkelingslanden (FMO), Germany’s Internationale Micro
Investitionen (IMI) and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW).
[Thus the German] Commerzbank AG will gain control over
commercial banking functions for the province [of Kosovo]
including money transfers and foreign exchange transactions."7
[To check out the refernces in the above text please see the
original at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/opening.htm ]
Order 'JUDGMENT'!
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veterans groups, student groups, everywhere possible.
Let every citizen of every NATO country see this film. It
needs no introduction. Its conclusions are irrefutable.
Therefore it jogs the mind that has been fogged with lies. It
jogs the mind to life, to doubt, to think.
The film is being distributed for $20.00 plus shipping.
However, if you cannot afford $20, please send what you can
afford. We want everyone to see this film. Some people are
donating extra money, so it all works out.
Click here to order "JUDGMENT!" or go to
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www.tenc.net [emperors-clothes]
============================================================================
Richard K Moore
Wexford, Ireland
Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance
email: •••@••.•••
CDR website: http://cyberjournal.org
cyberjournal archive: http://members.xoom.com/centrexnews/
book in progress: http://cyberjournal.org/cdr/gri.html
A community will evolve only when
the people control their means of communication.
-- Frantz Fanon
Capitalism is not the same as free
enterprise - it is a very specialized
ideology which holds the accumulation
of wealth as the only economic value,
and which demands that such economics
dominate all other societal values.
-- rkm
Permission for non-commercial republishing hereby granted - BUT
include and observe all restrictions, copyrights, credits,
and notices - including this one.
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