============================================================================ 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. ============================================================================ 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. ============================================================================ 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'! Emperors-Clothes has produced a film. Like one of the better emperors-clothes articles, Judgment! relies on evidence and thoughtful analysis. It proves that the British news station, ITN, fabricated images of a non-existent Serbian death camp in Bosnia in 1992. These images were enthusiastically spread by press and politicians. They created public opinion to justify NATO bombing of the Bosnian Serbs. Every Westerner should see this film. We urge you to buy one, show it to friends, get it on local TV stations, get it shown to unions, business groups, 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 http://www.emperors-clothes.com/Film/astunnin.htm#BM1 To find out more click here "JUDGMENT!" or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/Film/astunnin.htm If you find emperors-clothes.com useful, we can use your help... All our expenses are covered by individual donations. Right now we are behind on phone bills (we use the phone for interviews and editorial meetings) and for Lexis, the wonderful Internet research tool. Any donation will help with these expenses. To use our secure server, please click here or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/howyour.htm. Or you can mail a check to Emperor's Clothes, P.O. Box 610-321, Newton, MA 02461-0321. Thanks! To browse articles from Emperors-Clothes.com, click here or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com and scroll down the page. 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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