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June
14, 2001
Meditations
On The Edge Of The Abyss
What
does it take for a country to realize its very existence is
in jeopardy?
For
the second time in three months, the government of Macedonia
has considered declaring
a state of war. And for the second time, it abandoned
the idea under intense pressure by Albanian political parties
and the unholy trinity of EU, NATO and the U.S.
Yet
how have Brussels, Mons and Washington – not to mention Arben
Xhaferi and other Albanian political leaders – deserved
to have their “advice” honored at the expense of Macedonia’s
existence? Xhaferi and other Albanian leaders fully support
the objectives of the terrorist “National Liberation Army,”
(UCK) declaratively condemning only their methods while
finding ways to rationalize them. Without NATO’s invasion
and occupation of Kosovo, there would not have been a UCK
– neither the original nor the present spin-off. Lest we forget,
that invasion was masterminded and commanded from Washington,
with EU’s enthusiastic support.
People
like EU’s Javier Solana and George Robertson, who led and
cheered NATO’s 78-day, blatantly illegal terror-bombing of
Serbia, now come
to Skopje every week and tell Prime Minister Georgievski
and President Trajkovski that “violence is not the solution.”
The only reason Solana and Robertson have any credibility
as peacemakers is that both Trajkovski and Georgievski seem
to listen to them.
FRUITS
OF APPEASEMENT
Predictably,
listening to such sages of peace has brought Macedonia well
past the brink of abyss. In March, when it faced a relatively
small pack of bandits in the hills above Tetovo, Skopje heard
Solana and Robertson say, Do not declare war! So they
didn’t. Instead, they formed a coalition government with Macedonia’s
opposition Social Democrats as well as two Albanian parties
– ethnically exclusive outfits firmly supporting the Albanian
concept of parallel-society apartheid.
Since
then, the aforementioned pack of bandits has grown into a
well-armed and organized hostile force, repeatedly legitimized
by Western diplomacy and relentless propaganda. “Lord” Robertson
may call them “murderous thugs,” but the UCK now controls
the flow of water to Kumanovo,
has guns right above Skopje, and is back in the hills above
Tetovo.
While
the UCK has thus grown, the morale
of Macedonia’s citizens and soldiers has steadily eroded
with every “ceasefire,” every visit by Solana or Robertson.
Even the betrayal of Albanian politicians, signed with the
UCK in Prizren under the auspices of an American ambassador
to OSCE – the same organization which helped set the stage
for the bombing of Serbia when its American head of mission
invented a massacre in Kosovo – was glossed over, again at
Solana’s initiative. The man who thought nothing of reducing
Serbia to ruins somehow found himself “unable to convince”
Xhaferi and Imeri to renounce their act of treason, but thought
nothing of it – and told Trajkovski he should, too.
Macedonia
has suffered greatly for its service to the West; first came
eight years of economic stagnation because of UN sanctions
against Yugoslavia. Then it lent itself out as a logistical
base for NATO’s attack in 1999, then for its occupation of
Kosovo – not to mention serving as a refugee camp for hundreds
of thousands of Kosovo Albanians, many of whom are now in
the UCK. Having thus helped Albanian separatists and their
patrons to occupy and ethnically cleanse Kosovo of Serbs,
Skopje was rewarded with a dinner invitation – with Macedonia
as the main course.
ANATOMY
OF A COLLAPSE
As
the pathetically servile regime
in Skopje accepted the “urging” of Brussels and Washington
not to declare war – despite the fact that three of its largest
cities have become targets of a well armed terrorist “army”
– the Macedonian people finally began to grasp the intention
of Western well-wishers. General Jovan Andrevski, commander
of Macedonia’s armed forces, tendered
his resignation Tuesday morning. He refused to command
young men who could do nothing but die, because their government
refused to let them fight. He probably did not need Wednesday’s
International Herald Tribune to spell out the Western
policy towards Macedonia:
“The
Western position includes pressure on Mr. Trajkovski, who
leads a Slav-dominated government, to make significant political
concessions to ethnic Albanian demands and thus undercut the
rebels’ appeal to Macedonia’s Albanian minority.”
NATO’s
advisors were already on the way to Skopje, probably to help
the government practice the form of “restraint” that has landed
Macedonia into this predicament to begin with. They are also
supposed to help disarm the UCK, if it ever accepts a NATO-drafted
“peace” proposal officially attributed to President Trajkovski.
The proposal, incidentally, does exactly what NATO’s policy
prescribes. It opposes the means of UCK’s struggle,
while fully supporting its ends – a state-within-a-state
for Macedonia’s Albanians, paid for by the Macedonian public
treasury.
On
Monday, the government called for a cease-fire,
ostensibly to allow a convoy with food and supplies to reach
some 10,000 Albanian villagers in UCK-occupied territory.
These are the very same villagers who support the UCK and
tell the enthusiastic Human Rights Watch reporters tall tales of abuse
at the hands of Macedonian police. Meanwhile, repairs to Kumanovo’s
water supply system – shut off by the UCK – are depending
on the bandits’ invitation, which has not been forthcoming.
It just so happened, of course, that the ceasefire came right
after an UCK commander threatened to
bombard Skopje.
FED
TO THE MEDIA DOGS
Most
ominous, though, is the fact that Macedonia seems to be rapidly
losing not only territory and spirit, but also the media war.
Throughout the English-speaking press, the term “Macedonian”
has lost all ethnic and national character; ethnic Macedonians
have been transformed into faceless “Slavs,” while the conflict
is increasingly characterized as an issue of “ethnic Albanian
rights.” The “ethnic” is crucial here, as simply calling them
“Albanians” would imply the politically incorrect (though
accurate) notion that Albania is their mother country, where
they have all the rights they could possibly want. Specifying
that Macedonian Albanians are an immigrant minority with astronomical
birthrates would make Western audiences draw parallels to
immigrants in their own countries – which cannot, must not
ever be allowed to happen.
So
from the desks of Associated Press and Reuters, to the U.S.-funded
Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the media wallow in cesspools
of “editorial guidance,” aimed at framing the conflict in
UCK’s terms while pretending to condemn its terrorist actions.
Why else would every article about Macedonia, whether
it dealt with political restructuring, fresh fighting, or
the UCK-induced
water shortage in Kumanovo, inevitably contain a photo
of despondent Albanian refugees?
“CRY
'HAVOC,' AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR” (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar,
3.1)
Those
dogs, Fear and Panic, slowly
devour Macedonia’s will to fight and leave most people resigned
to the prospect of capitulating to Albanian demands. Three
months ago, even considering the appeasement of Albanian apartheid
would have been dismissed out of hand. Now, however, everyone
seems resigned to appeasing the Albanian politicians to somehow
sideline Albanian terrorists – even though, again, their aims
are the same. Since the UCK would be getting exactly what
it wanted, I am a little unclear as to how this would “sideline”
or “undercut” their position. If the “good Albanians” and
the “bad Albanians” work together, they can hardly be played
against each other through concessions, can they?
AGENTS
OF PEACE AND STABILITY
The
forces of Empire have already moved beyond simple appeasement,
though. Thus the hyper-hawks Richard Holbrooke and Jeane Kirkpatrick
shriek
in Tuesday’s Washington Post that NATO must intervene
in Macedonia to save itself and everything it has done
in the Balkans. Because, as they say, in both Bosnia and Kosovo
“NATO’s involvement produced benefits for the cause of peace
and stability.”
Swiss
daily Neue
Zuercher Zeitung is more blunt:
“The
West must establish itself as a constant presence there, telling
the politicians what they must do. For one thing
must be clear to Macedonians and Albanians alike: without
Western assistance, the country will not survive.” (my
emphasis)
Financial
Times also called
for a military occupation of Macedonia, joined by a proposal for political occupation
by – surprise, surprise – the International
Crisis Group and OSCE in the International Herald Tribune
last weekend.
NATO
diplomats dismissed a military occupation – on the grounds
that it would “let
(Slav) Macedonian leaders off the hook about the reforms
they need to implement to improve the rights of their Albanian
minority.” Who again, is it that NATO claims to be supporting?
Perhaps
that is why an UCK spokesman (incidentally named Xhaferi)
can hold a press conference
– in Brussels, of all places – and say, deadpan, that
“…the international community, NATO, the EU and the United
States will stand by the Albanians and not allow a new ethnic
cleansing.”
Sure
enough, these creators of “peace and stability” enabled the
original UCK (KLA) to make Kosovo into the world’s largest
brothel, heroin refinery and ethnic ghetto. Now they employ
misdirection to convince the Macedonians of their support,
all the while helping the UCK and its sinister racist agenda.
Under NATO’s very nose, in the middle of Kosovo, a UN-paid
former KLA general can call
up “reservists” and dispatch them to still functioning
KLA training camps in Albania, and from there on to Macedonia.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if these men’s wages were paid from
the UN budget for the so-called “Kosovo Protection Corps,”
an outfit created by NATO to legitimize the KLA – as
is most likely the case?
Helping
Albanian bandits with both hands while speaking
to Macedonians in a forked tongue – that is the perfect
image of today’s West, determined to finish its conquest of
the Balkans at the expense of whoever happens to be in the
way.
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