U.S. tries to turn off heat in Yugoslavia
By Sarah
Sloan
Solidarity from People's China made it possible to set back
U.S. plans to freeze the people of Yugoslavia this winter.
China signed a deal with the Yugoslav government to extend $300
million in cash and credits to aid in reconstruction. This will
double Yugoslavia's foreign currency reserves.
In October 1999 the same people who brought you a
"humanitarian" 79-day bombing campaign announced their
opposition to allowing emergency heating oil to be supplied to
Yugoslavia. President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright said they hoped to increase "discomfort"
among Yugoslavs in an effort to incite the overthrow of
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and his
administration.
It is now mid-December--a time in Yugoslavia when
temperatures frequently fall below zero degrees Fahrenheit.
Much of Yugoslavia's oil reserves were destroyed by those 79
days of U.S./NATO bombing. This means U.S. government policy
was to freeze Yugoslav people.
Taking a slightly different approach to achieve the same
objectives, the European Union developed an "energy for
democracy" project. The EU planned to ship heating oil to
cities controlled by opponents of the current Yugoslav
government. EU officials openly explain this plan as an attempt
to strengthen opposition to President Milosevic in hope of his
overthrow.
To protest this EU maneuver, the Yugoslav government blocked
the first convoy of oil trucks. Yugoslavia's state oil company
head, Zivko Sokolovacki, stated the government's intentions:
"We provide heating to all cities. We do not discriminate
between the cities."
In response to the size of the oil shipment, he said that
"Serbia would have a very short heating period if it depended
on that."
Fortunately, Chinese aide opened up another option.
Yugoslavia has opened up 128 construction sites and has
finished the first phase of reconstruction that focused on
flats and infrastructure, according to a Dec. 10 Radio
Yugoslavia report. According to Director of the Directorate for
the Reconstruction of the Country Milutin Mrkonjic, 20 percent
of the funds for construction were from donors inside the
country and abroad.
Mrkonjic reported that many foreign donors had encountered
problems in their countries. The "democratic world has
condemned the people who assisted other people in need," Radio
Yugoslavia reported.
First, the UN report
As reported in the Nov. 25 Workers World, the United Nations
released a preliminary report Nov. 10 after a five-month
investigation. Forensic teams had explored 195 alleged burial
sites in Kosovo, including all those that Washington alleged
contained mass graves. The report stated that they had found
2,108 dead.
A Spanish forensics team that was part of the investigation
expects to find no more than 2,500 dead when all sites have
been investigated.
This report includes the description of a site alleged to
contain 350 bodies. The forensic teams only found five. The
Dec. 11 New York Times noted that it is impossible to kill
large numbers of people and dispose of them quickly.
Then, the OSCE report
About three weeks later, the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe released a report showing that in the
past six months since NATO "peacekeepers" have divided up
Kosovo, violence in Kosovo against Serbs, Roma people, anti-KLA
Albanians, and others has increased.
The report highlights the municipality of Gnjilane as one of
the worst areas. This is a U.S.-controlled sector in
southeastern Kosovo. On June 1, one home in Gnjilane had been
destroyed. By October, 280 homes had been attacked.
The Associated Press has reported on a number of incidents
in Gnjilane. AP reported that right-wing Albanians damaged more
than 50 Serb-owned houses and shops in the last few days of
November, during the time of celebrations of Albania's
independence.
While the NATO and UN forces were supposedly allowing people
to hold celebrations, several bloody episodes occurred. These
include the murder of Dragan Basic and injury of his wife and
mother. They were pulled from their car by a group of
ultra-nationalist Albanians. The car was flipped over and set
on fire, Basic was shot, and the others were beaten and had
firecrackers jammed into their mouths.
Radio Yugoslavia reported that during these celebrations,
KFOR (NATO) and UNMIK (UN) forces watched the murder of a Serb
professor from Pristina University.
And finally, the State Department report
In response to the proliferation of this overwhelming
evidence refuting the lies used to justify the 79-day bombing
campaign and the current occupation of Kosovo, a week later the
State Department released a report entitled "Ethnic Cleansing
in Kosovo: An Accounting." This report completely contradicts
and ignores the UN report based on the forensics
investigation.
The State Department report claims that between March and
June (the time of the U.S./NATO bombing), 10,000 Albanians were
killed, 1.5 million were expelled, tens of thousands of homes
in 1,200 cities were damaged or destroyed, and summary
executions were held at 500 sites across Kosovo.
But the forensic teams--who were operating in
NATO-controlled territory--found only 2,108 bodies and expect
to find fewer than 400 more.
Those killed whose bodies were burned or destroyed "may
never be known," according to the State Department report. "But
enough evidence has emerged to conclude that probably around
10,000 Kosovar Albanians were killed by Serbian forces."
But even the New York Times admitted just weeks ago that it
is very difficult to kill large numbers of people and dispose
of them quickly.
As violence against those opposed to the pro-imperialist KLA
continued under the watch of KFOR and UN occupiers,
pro-Yugoslav demonstrators protested outside a UN police
station, winning the release of a man detained by a U.S. police
officer for wearing a Yugoslav Army uniform. Wearing that
uniform is forbidden in the UN-controlled area.
Leaders from the United States and other imperialist
countries have spent the past eight years feigning concern for
the plight of various nationalities living in the multi-ethnic
state of Yugoslavia. Meanwhile they worked to break apart the
federation that once included six socialist republics.
The imperialists have rained NATO bombs, incited civil war,
sponsored the current KLA campaign to push non-Albanians out of
Kosovo, and--most important to them--brought capitalism to
Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Macedonia. This is their current
plan for Kosovo. And they want to extend that privatization to
the rest of Yugoslavia.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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