-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 18, 1998
issue of Workers World newspaper
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WAG THE DOG:
IS THERE A CIA WAR IN KOSOVO?
By Gary Wilson
News reports here about the Yugoslav province of Kosovo
have presented greatly exaggerated tales. The stories have
been "enhanced" by those with an interest in either
promoting a civil war or weakening the Yugoslav government.
The Western big-business-controlled media all report the
same thing. They say Yugoslav government forces are engaged
in "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo, forcing a flood of refugees
from Kosovo to Albania.
The Yugoslav government says its military operations
against armed mercenaries entering over the Albanian border
ended June 1. It also says there has been no significant
exodus from Kosovo to Albania.
So what is the truth of the situation? First, it should
never be forgotten that the big media like the New York
Times and CNN have close ties to the U.S. State Department,
the CIA, the Pentagon and other U.S. government agencies.
These media giants usually serve as propaganda arms for
U.S. foreign policy. They can lie about events and
frequently do.
Sometimes they admit much later that their original
reports weren't exactly true.
KLA IS MERCENARY ARMY
For example, most reports don't make it clear that the so-
called Kosovo Liberation Army is a foreign mercenary army in
the pay of the Western imperialist powers.
The KLA did not exist until recently. It became active
only in the last few months.
The June 6 New York Times reported that KLA forces are
entering Kosovo through Albania. But they are not from
Albania. According to the report, most of them come from
Germany--where they were born--and most speak only German,
not Albanian. The report claims that many of them, but not
all, have parents or grandparents who emigrated from
Albania.
All the funds for the mercenary army come from abroad,
primarily from the United States, reported the May 26
Washington Post. The money is funneled through Albanian
immigrant groups. These are the sort of anti-communist
groups long promoted by the CIA.
Since March, the Post reported, the U.S. group has sent $4
million to the KLA. These are the openly reported funds.
There is more "cash carried in suitcases" that hasn't been
disclosed, the Post said.
The article said the U.S. State Department has encouraged
the transfer of funds to the KLA. It is all legal, State
Department spokesperson John Russell said, because the KLA
has not been classified by the U.S. government as
"terrorist."
This is in contrast to every genuine national liberation
movement in the world. The U.S. government routinely labels
them all as terrorists. For example, groups like the
Palestine Liberation Organization have been labeled as
terrorist. Anyone in the U.S. sending funds to the PLO would
risk arrest and prison.
The KLA has no known leaders, political platform,
publications or anything else to indicate that it is a
liberation force.
In fact, the tactics used by the KLA are more akin to
those used by fascist terror squads. In its long report of
May 26, the Washington Post buried a paragraph describing
how KLA mercenaries have targeted Serbs. One out of every 10
people in Kosovo is Serbian.
The paragraph described KLA mercenaries stopping a train.
They proceed to search the train, and then abduct a man
traveling with his family because he is a Serb.
"About a dozen Serbs have been kidnapped in the past week.
Two have been found dead," the Post reports.
The mercenaries don't just kill Serbs. They also kill
Albanians considered to be friendly to Serbs.
As for the press reports of a mass exodus from Kosovo,
none shows pictures of masses of people. A photo of a family
of eight walking through a field, for example, accompanied
the New York Times report. The caption said "thousands of
refugees are fleeing."
In the meantime, the United States is waging a two-pronged
war against Yugoslavia.
Since 1991, Washington has imposed sanctions on
Yugoslavia. Sanctions are like an army surrounding your
house. They may not be firing weapons at the house, but they
are stopping all kinds of supplies and food from entering.
It is a policy of starvation once favored during sieges by
medieval armies.
These sanctions continue to this day. Now the United
States is proposing to stiffen them.
WILL U.S. TROOPS BE NEXT?
U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke said in London June 7: "The
sanctions regime of the Contact Group led by the U.S. and
Great Britain has been very tight and is poised to tighten
further if the situation deteriorates, and NATO is already
making contingency plans if everything falls apart." (French
News Agency, June 7)
The contingency plan Holbrooke referred to is the threat
of military occupation by U.S./NATO forces. U.S. Senate
leader Trent Lott supported a U.S. military operation in
Kosovo on CNN's "Late Edition" June 7.
According to news reports, the U.S. State Department
recently confirmed that U.S. policy has not changed since
December 1992. That is when President George Bush declared
that the United States would intervene militarily in Kosovo
if it decided that it was "necessary."
The French News Agency reported on June 6 that the United
States and Britain have put into place everything needed to
assert authority for sending a military force into Kosovo.
- END -
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