Bush Arms Albanians to Do NATO's Dirty Work in Kosovo

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[The Telegraph, U.K.]

Novosti, Russia

Bush Arms Albanians to Do NATO's Dirty Work in Kosovo

-- Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, President of Russia's Academy of Geopolitical Affairs

By Global Affairs Commentator Tamara Zamyatina

Translated By Igor Medvedev

March 25, 2008

Russia - Novosti - Original Article (Russian)

Serbian student's hat reads 'Kosovo is Serbia', at a demonstration in the Serb-majority town of Gracanica, south of Kosovo's capital Pristina, Mar. 19.

MOSCOW: Things the experts warned about even before Kosovo's illegal declaration of independence are coming true - the territory seized from Serbia is gradually accruing all the attributes of a giant military base of NATO and the United States.

As far as the "basic accessories" required for the task, George W. Bush has ordered the flow of arms shipments to Kosovo to begin - something that Moscow is sure to focus on at an emergency session of the NATO-Russia Council - to be held in Brussels on March 28.

Incidentally, Bush issued this order two days after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Moscow to urge the Kremlin to strengthen cooperation, expand consultation and generally display more openness.

The haste with which the Pentagon is seeking to take the fledgling Kosovo under its wing says only one thing - that there is uncertainty in the West that peace will come to the Balkans after Kosovo's cessation. But it was precisely this rhetoric - that there is an urgent need to end the Yugoslav crisis - that the West used to justify its support for the Kosovo separatists. As far as peace is concerned, there can be none when one side is being armed against the other. This is like taking a raging fire and pouring more fuel on top ...

The Serbs have already gotten the message. In the town of Kosovska Mitrovica (in northern Kosovo), they began a doomed rush to defend their last refuge - the courthouse - where Serbian justice once ruled but which now is occupied by international lawyers planning to turn it over to their Albanian colleagues [Kosovo is largely Albanian]. Blood was spilled there during clashes with [NATO] peacekeepers - and Belgrade [capital of Serbia] continues to seethe with rallies in support of Kosovo's Serbian minority.

The city [Kosovska Mitrovica], divided by the Ibar River into Albanian and Serbian halves, will long be a bone of contention between the two sides. Belgrade has already officially appealed to the U.N. demanding that Kosovo's northern region adjacent to Kosovska Mitrovica, which contains a Serbian population of 100,000, be returned to Serbia. These people require basic physical protection, but this is unlikely to move advocates of Kosovo's independence at the United Nations.

In the first half of the 1990s, Western countries closed their eyes to the expulsion of 300,000 Serbs from Croatia, so they're unlikely to bother over a mere hundred thousand today. "If 300,000 birds suddenly leave a place, the world would be alarmed, but the tragedy of the Serbs, mankind hardly notices" - so they say in Belgrade.

Kosavar Serbs rally in the ethncally-divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, Mar. 25.

America's intention to begin arms shipments to Kosovo is not only due to a desire to hold on to Kosovska Mitrovica - this strategically important but recalcitrant Serbian city. There is a more important reason - to give the Kosovars carte-blanche to suppress protests in Serb enclaves throughout the province [actually - it's now a nation]. So says Yelena Guskova, director of the Balkans Crisis Center at the Russian Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.

Arming the Kosovars is a kind of legalization of future action by the Albanian side to oust the Serb minority from the province. In other words, to give the Kosovars a chance to complete what NATO started: To clear the non-Albanian population out of the province, but to have the job done by Albanians, so as not to cast a shadow on the NATO peacekeepers of KFOR - not to mention the United States.

Posted by WORLDMEETS.US

It seems that Kosovo will suffer the fate of being the first nation in history to be a NATO protectorate. For nine years already, the peacekeepers from the alliance have ensured order in the province. And given that Albania, Macedonia, and Croatia intend to join NATO at its summit in Bucharest on April 2-4, Kosovo may become NATO's strongest pillar in the Balkans. The Pentagon has already built the world's largest military base on its territory - Camp Bondsteel. Now the Pentagon has begun construction of Kosovo's second military base, Yelena Guskova says.

The President of the Russian Academy of Geopolitical Affairs, Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, is convinced that Washington - at least under the current administration - doesn't want stability in the Balkans or even Europe.

[Editor's Note: Colonel-General Ivashov is also former Chief of Staff of the Russian armed forces. He was serving on that post on September 11, 2001 ].

"If the situation is stable, the United States cannot influence events. If Europe is calm, the United States has nothing to do there. Control through chaos - this is the political strategy of the United States," says General Ivashov, one of Russia's leading experts on the U.S. According to him, Washington is now supplying Kosovo with small arms and armored personnel vehicles without heavy equipment. But the next step will be to train Albanian personnel to operate air force and tank units.

Posted by WORLDMEETS.US

Under the circumstances, what can Russia do? Yelena Guskova and General Ivashov believe that in addition to the already announced humanitarian aid to Kosovo Serb enclaves, the Kremlin could suggest introducing Russian peacekeepers into the district of Kosovska Mitrovica. Russian experts are actively discussing the introduction of Russian peacekeepers into Serbia's southern regions bordering Kosovo. But pro-Western Serbian President Boris Tadic is unlikely to turn to Russia with such a request. So Russia will have to use strictly diplomatic leverage since Russia either cannot or doesn't want to use the economic leverage of threating Kosovo with being excluded from the South Stream Gas Project .