NATO INVADES MACEDONIA! Jude Wanniski September 11, 2001

Memo To: Condaleezza Rice, National Security Advisor
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: An Important Analysis

Yes, you have lots to read, but I will only bother you when I find something of high quality that I will bet would never come to your attention otherwise. This is a piece sent to me by a man I admire for his perceptiveness on a host of global issues, Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa. It was written a few weeks ago, August 21, but is even more impressive as the situation in the Balkans deteriorates further. Dr. Chossudovsky was among the most astute and perceptive analysts of the NATO-Serbia conflict, warning of the turmoil that NATO was unleashing by intervention on behalf of the Kosovo Albanians insurgents in the Yugoslav civil war He brings his insight again to the NATO-Macedonia mess, another strategic Balkan blunder. This is an edited version of his report. of which the full text is available at (http://globalresearch.ca/cho/natoinvades.html)

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Some 3500 heavily armed NATO troops have entered Macedonia with a mandate to "disarm the Albanian rebels". Whereas a token collection and destruction of obsolete weapons is envisaged, the evidence amply confirms that the "National Liberation Army" has been armed, equipped and financed by Washington. NATO's ultimate goal is to protect rather than disarm the terrorists, weaken and disable the Macedonian Security Forces and install a protectorate under direct military rule. The US-EU brokered "peace" agreement constitutes an act of surrender and submission to the NATO aggressor.

In the hours preceding the "initialing" of the Ohrid "peace" agreement on August 8th, the terrorists renewed their assaults leading to the death of ten Macedonian soldiers in an ambush in Prilep. On the next day, a major KLA-NLA military offensive directed against the Macedonian Security forces was launched. And two days later, several hundred troops belonging to the United Nations Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) stationed in Kosovo crossed the border and attacked the Macedonian Security Forces (ARM) in the Radusha area. These carefully planned military actions were also accompanied by violent assaults directed against civilians. In an atmosphere of public protests and renewed terrorist assaults, the "framework peace agreement" was signed on the 13th of August, allowing NATO to deploy troops throughout Macedonia with a mandate to "disarm the Albanian rebels."

The so-called "Albanian rebels" do not make key military decisions on their own. Amply documented, the KLA-NLA and its various affiliated factions constitute America's proxy army integrated by US military advisers, trained by British Special Forces, financed and equipped by Washington. War is always waged in terms of carefully designed political objectives; military operations -- including covert activities in support of "freedom fighters" -- are never haphazard. The terrorist assaults are part of Washington's military-intelligence agenda in Macedonia.....

Senior US military advisers detached from private mercenary companies are working with KLA-NLA commanders. NLA Commander Gezim Ostremi, was trained by British Special Forces to head the UN-sponsored Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC). Confirmed by British military sources, the task of arming and training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain's Secret Intelligence Services MI6, together with "former and serving members of 22 SAS [Britain's 22nd Special Air Services Regiment], as well as three British and American private security companies"....

The First and Third Parachute battalions ("1 PARA" and "3 PARA") detached to Macedonia under Operation "Essential Harvest" have a history of active collaboration with the KLA. The British Paras led the invasion into Kosovo in June 1999 in liaison with KLA forces. The evidence amply confirms that the US and British military-intelligence establishment has continued to support the KLA in its terrorist operations in Macedonia: "two of the Kosovo-based commanders leading the Albanian push [into the Tetovo region] were trained by former British SAS and Parachute Regiment officers….[A] commander with the nom de guerre of Bilal was organising the flow of arms and men into Macedonia, and...veteran KLA commander Adem Bajrami was helping to co-ordinate the assault on Tetovo. Both were taught by British soldiers in the secretive training camps that operated above Bajram Curri in northern Albania during 1998 and 1999."

....NATO has stated that they will only intervene and "disarm the rebels" if there is a cease-fire. But what NATO really wants is that the Macedonian ARM remain in the barracks under a unilateral cease-fire, while their proxy forces continue to make further territorial gains.....

The command structures of the KLA, the NLA and the United Nations-sponsored Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) overlap and coincide. The so-called Albanian National Army (AKSh) (a paramilitary group linked to the KLA-NLA), which claimed responsibility for the Prelic killings, was formed by members of the United Nations KPC. These killings coincided (almost like clockwork) with the final stages of the "peace" negotiations at Ohrid. Everything suggests that this action had been carefully planned in advance and was known to Western intelligence agencies...Moreover, the decision to dispatch several hundred KPC troops across the border from Kosovo in the days following the conclusion of the Ohrid negotations, could not have been taken without the acquiescence of NATO and UN military personnel stationed in Kosovo.

What this means is that a UN-sponsored military force (using UN equipment and resources) has invaded a member country of the United Nations, with the knowledge and approval of NATO forces in Kosovo....In the words of Macedonia's Prime Minister Ljubo Georgevski in a letter to addressed to the Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan: "I, personally, consider this an official declaration of war by the international protectorate of Kosovo and by the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), which is unfortunately part of the UN civil administration in Kosovo."

....The whole disarmament process is an obvious hoax. In fact, the terms of the "disarmament" are being negotiated with the terrorists rather than with the Macedonian authorities....While NATO "weapons collection teams" have been deployed, NATO has clarified that the handing in of weapons will be entirely "voluntary": "what we prefer from a NATO force point of view is that the insurgents collect the weapons on our behalf…"

....While the Western media are spreading rumours that the rebels are "armed with assault rifles and knives" (Associated Press, 20 August 2001), the evidence confirms that the US is continuing to equip the terrorists with advanced weaponry: "In the well-built guerrilla bunkers overlooking the besieged city of Tetovo, there is ample evidence of U.S. military hardware.…An abundant stock of sophisticated night-vision goggles provide the guerrillas with a tremendous tactical advantage over the Macedonian security forces…Snake Arifaj, a 22-year-old guerrilla platoon commander, proudly displayed his unit's impressive arsenal and said, 'Thanks to Uncle Sam, the Macedonians are no match for us.'.... Commander "Mouse," a 47-year-old UCK officer in the Tetovo sector…confirmed that two US Chinook Heavy Transport Helicopters had in fact delivered "heavy mortars and ammunition"....

....While paying lip service to the social rights of ethnic Albanians, Washington has no interest in the process of constitutional reform as contained in the "framework document". Washington's objective is not to "disarm the rebels" but to disable the Macedonian Security Forces (ARM) and dismantle State institutions. In this regard, NATO forces are working hand in glove with the KLA-NLA...

....While the media uphold the NLA as a liberation army fighting for the social rights of an oppressed minority, the process of "demonisation" of the Macedonians has commenced with one-sided news stories relating to presumed war crimes and alleged atrocities committed by the Macedonian police and security forces. Meanwhile, everything indicates that ethnic tensions have been further heightened with the entry of NATO troops. Terrorist gangs linked to the KLA-NLA are assaulting Macedonian civilians as occurred in Kosovo in 1999.

Under Operation "Essential Harvest", the arrangement imposed by NATO on the Macedonian government, is that the terrorists will remain in the territories they occupy and NATO will ensure that Macedonian troops will not enter rebel-controlled territory. This also means that Macedonians who were expulsed by the terrorists will not be able to return to their homes. And NATO has confirmed, in this regard, that it will not assist in the return of "internally displaced persons"....

....In other words, by firmly protecting the KLA-NLA in their territorial enclaves and allowing the process of ethnic cleansing to proceed, NATO has deliberately created conditions which favour the partition of Macedonia, opening the door to "the detachment" of the so-called "Albanian regions" occupied by KLA-NLA forces and their (possible) annexation to a so-called "free Kosovo".....

Meanwhile, the Atlantic Military Alliance -- while paying lip service to the territorial integrity of the Yugoslav federation -- is also promoting the secession of a "free Kosovo" from Yugoslavia, which would lead to a fracture of Yugoslavia as well as much broader conflagration in the Balkans.

C Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, August, 2001. All rights reserved.