Lessons from the break-up of Yugoslavia and ‘independence’ of Kosovo for Sri Lanka

– by Shenali D Waduge –

When countries are eyed to serve the self-interests of a handful of ‘civilized’ nations they know the perfect medicine to ensure these targeted nations are brought to their knees. The break-up of Yugoslavia serves as a catalyst for why Sri Lanka needs to be alert at all times.

Background:

Yugoslav Federation comprised Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia and Kosovo – today they are all break-away ‘independent’ states falling after the death of President Tito died in 1980.

Financial Sharks and Money carrots bring slow death to nations

When international laws, financial institutions are all under a handful of the same people it is not difficult to assume who ‘dictates’ and who ends up in ‘debt’.

When Yugoslavia was faced with a $20billion debt by 1982 in came the ‘Friends of Yugoslavia’ with loans from IMF and World Bank and the infamous structural adjustment programs (SAPs). Slobodan Milosevic became President of Serbia, the largest and most powerful of the Yugoslav republics in 1989 but because of SAP the country had to devalue its currency, wages had to be frozen and prices soared leaving no choice but to dismantle social programs. The Dayton Agreement was signed in 1995 and more structural adjustment programs were subtly meant to bring down the government by creating angry citizens questioning its government.

Sri Lanka may well recall that the 2002 Cease Fire Agreement came with the carrot of millions of dollars, the ISGA/PTOMS were similar carrots dangled to bring local leaders to sign on the dotted line. Sri Lanka too is of late visited by many IMF and World Bank officials and one wonders what carrots have been dangled consequences of which we will come to know much later. This is one reason why the public is always appealing to the Sri Lankan politicians not to indulge in pillage, corruption and wastage of state resources for they foresee what happens when SAP owners ask for their money back. One of the easiest paths to derail issues has been to start conflicts which governments themselves have been guilty of doing. Therefore ‘divisions’ end up paths for salvation for all stakeholders involved. Let this route not be taken.

Predictions are Pre-planned

When US intelligence agencies released a National Intelligence Estimate in 1990 predicting Yugoslavia would break up and civil war would result it was no coincidence that the predictions came from the same nation that engineered the break-up.

In 2000, the US State Dept and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) held a conference in Slovakia outcome of which was a speedy declaration of independence for Kosovo from Serbia to justify US military presence in the region to contain Russia.

If the break-up of Yugoslavia was orchestrated and had nothing to do with self-determination for Kosovo – we need to also look at the current calls of self-determination ‘within a unitary Sri Lanka’ being made by the TNA and India, Russia and China need to ponder as to how close to them the West has now come. Mesmerized and suffering from the brown sahib complex, we need to question if India’s bureaucracy continues to be hallucinated under colonial-servant mentality not to realize that a Yugoslavia has been planned for India too.

When nations train, arm and financially support Terrorists

Croatia : CIA supported the Croatian armed forces. Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman is reported to have met German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in secret in 1988 to plan a ‘joint policy to break up Yugoslavia’ so Germany could secure the ‘economic zone’ in Croatia and Slovenia. Slovenia declared independence in 1991, Germany was first to recognize it followed by EU and UN. Slovenia joined the EU in 2004.

The arms and training given to ‘democratic movements’ in Croatia and Slovenia by US, Germany and Austria resulted in Croatia calling for the overthrow of the socialist government and expulsion of Serbs from Croatia and by June Croatia and Slovenia had declared independence – its flag and emblems were pro-Nazi. None of the countries that supported Croatia and Slovenia uttered a word when citizenship, property rights, employment, retirement benefits, passports were granted ONLY TO CROATIANS.

TNA is calling for the expulsion of Sinhalese from the North and the armed forces. We need to connect TNA’s call to arms with the future possibilities of the eventual outcome in Yugoslavia. The pressure to withdraw the army from Sri Lanka’s North is tremendous. Yet, Sri Lanka’s Government advisors had Yugoslav example and all the time to strategize – question is why didn’t they?

Bosnia-Herzegovina: Al Qaeda-CIA links to Muslims in Bosnia facilitated its break-up further. German intelligence BND also funnelled arms to Bosnian Muslims with financial backing from Saudi Arabia.

The West is tied to Saudi Arabia to start boiling another issue in Sri Lanka and visible influences in the Muslim community need to ensure that money does not ignore these new incursions likely to lead to another bigger issue in a land mass that is also earmarked as ‘rich resource’ to be tapped by neocolonials.

Serbs (31% of population) and Croats were expelled from Bosnia to create a theocratic Muslim rule. NATO started bombing Bosnia from 1993 to 1995 forcing Bosnian Serbs to accept the Dayton, Ohio agreement to establish a 60,000 NATO troop presence in Bosnia and to write the ‘Bosnian Constitution’. The new Constitution was under the authority of the Swedish official appointed by the UN Security Council who had the right to reject decisions of the 3 local governments of Muslims, Croat and Serbians in Bosnia. Economic policies of Bosnia were to be under officers of Bretton Woods and the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development with its 1st Director General appointed by the IMF. Sri Lanka must take note of how Yugoslavia’s entire economy was taken over.

If Sri Lanka continues to boast about saving 300,000 Tamil civilians from LTTE one just needs to look back to 1995 when Croat forces supported by US launched an attack in Krajina expelling 300,000 Serbs and killing 14,000 people, burning thousands of Serbian homes and destroying Orthodox churches.

Kosovo : In 1996 the Kosovo Liberation Army with the Albanian mafia took over the Balkan heroin trafficking routes. KLA was linked to former Afghan Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan. KLA began fighting with Serbian forces. In 1998 US State Dept removed KLA from its list of terrorist organizations yet KLA was receiving arms from US and NATO even before and after 1998. KLA had experts and intelligence training by the Defence Intelligence Agency, British Secret Service (MI6), British Special Forces (SAS) and British and American private security companies. US Secretary of State Madeline Albright had close associations with KLA leader Hashim Thaci and he was her choice on ‘Washington’s behalf’. CIA and German intelligence BND supported KLA before and after NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.

In 2000, Madeline Albright had ‘ordered’ the Hague Chief Prosecutor, Carla del Ponte to remove Thaci from the list of war crime suspects. Carla denounced the crimes of the KLA and leaders but these were not made public since it would have been an impediment for Kosovo to be declared independent.

Yet, it was only after the invasion of Yugoslavia we have come to know that CIA helped train the Kosovo Liberation Army

Sri Lanka : We are well aware of India’s role in arming, training and financially supporting Sri Lankan Tamil militants clandestinely without any provocation by Sri Lanka. We are also well aware of the technical assistance given to the LTTE over the years by foreign governments and the manner foreign governments continue to allow LTTE and its fronts to prevail despite banning. We are also well aware of the numerous peace talks over the years, exactly what these discussions extracted for a future disintegration scenario needs to now be explored.

Plotting Kosovo’s independence – False allegations – Role of Propaganda.

In was in 1991/92 that the EU and US began to support secession of 3 Yugoslav republics – Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia with no consideration for the will of the Yugoslav people. This is something Sri Lankan leaders and the public need to be mindful of. Suddenly, within no time these republics began to be ruled by hostile regimes – Tudjman, Izetbegovic and the KLA all supported by the US – but it was only Milosevic who was demonized. Therefore, it is imperative to observe the TNA and the Tamil people and any build up of foreign ‘investment’ whatever type taking place in Sri Lanka’s Northern province post-election. If Yugoslavia was taken by surprise, Sri Lanka needs to up the ante and be well prepared.

In 2008 Kosovo declared independence from Serbia – EU and US were quick to recognize the new state. Former KLA terrorist Hashim Thaci became its Prime Minister.

Milosovic was compared to Hitler and the Serbian public were deemed no different to Nazis.

Allegations of massacres were said to exceed 100,000 ethnic Albanians. This figure was revised to under 3000 after exhumations. US FBI investigators arriving in Kosovo called their investigation ‘the largest crime scene in the FBI’s forensic history’ – but they could not find even a single mass grave and returned to US. In 2000 the International War Crimes Tribunal announced the final body count of the supposed ‘mass graves’ was 2788. None of the invented ‘mass murder’ figures stated by US officials, international media were never retracted or apologized. Given that there are no bodies to produce the newest trend is to claim ‘eyewitnesses’ will suffice. How good is that when the sites claimed as ‘mass graves’ ended up with nothing but rubble when dug!

Where were the dead bodies – we ask the same question from those pointing at Sri Lanka.

Having violated the Geneva Convention, UN Charter, Nuremberg Principles, Helsinki Accords and even the US Constitution – Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, William Cohen (Secretary Defense), James Rubin, Jamie Shea (NATO spokesman during Kosovo war), HR organizations, NGOs, UN, NATO all were liars – If everything was a lie then so too was the US-NATO appointed ‘war crimes tribunal’.

Why was NATO bombing of 5000 civilians in 78 non-stop airstrikes from morning dill night not investigated? Only 2% of NATO’s missiles struck military targets – hospitals, schools, factories, churches and broadcasting studios were all hit. Moreover, NATO destroyed and bombed using toxic nerve gasses, surface mines, bombs containing uranium, black napalm, sterilization chemicals, sprays to poison crops and weapons never before seen.

Navi Pillay and her office have done nothing against NATO – except a passing statement. Why did she not question the lack of due process, demand for rules of evidence and the need to produce corpus delicti?

Why has the ethnic cleansing and racial murder of Kosovo Serbs and gypsies by the KLA not been investigated and this argument is no different to why the ethnic cleansing of Sinhalese and Muslims from the North was never a subject at any of the international discussions against LTTE.

Why is Navi Pillay also silent on NATO deployment disguised as observer missions? Is this not the reason why after having nothing to say negatively of Sri Lanka’s post-conflict development that she claimed Sri Lanka was heading towards ‘authoritarian’ rule – at the back of her agenda is the plot and plan to place a UN Observer Mission.

Media’s role as co-conspirators in foreign invasions/internal conflicts

Every conflict that the West has engineered the media provides the sensationalism that steers public opinion in favour of the perpetrators – if there is no story, create one has been the norm. This same media projected the murderous KLA as ‘freedom fighters’ no different to what media projected the LTTE as.

When the Serbian public realized they were being slandered they ‘literally chased American, British and German reporters….western journalists who have placed themselves and their profession in the service of Allied Forces should not be too surprised to find that the people they have demonized are less than hospitable’.

West’s Kangaroo Courts – Downfall of Slobadan Milosevic

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was targeted because he had NO BIG POWER protection. He had his people who backed him but that was not enough. It is something Sri Lanka’s President needs to be mindful of. India is NOT a Big Power – it is simply aspiring to be one. Moreover when India suffers from an inferiority complex amongst its own South Asian neighbors its downfall is imminent. If Sri Lanka’s leaders continue to align with the minorities disregarding the majority that holds the key to placing governments in power and keeping them there is to commit hara kiri as Sri Lanka’s Opposition has found out.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia which indicted Milosevic was nothing but a ‘phony, kangaroo court’ indicting enemies of the West. Moreover the ICTY has no provision in the UN Charter. The Security Council does not have the right to establish an ad hoc court. Its expenses are covered not by the United Nations but by “benefactors” from the U.S., from multi-national corporations and entrepreneurs like George Soros!

Milosevic was refused right to defend himself. The Tribunal claimed he was medically unfit. That this was a lie is confirmed when former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia James Bisset stated that the trials transcripts showed Milosevic ‘destroying’ claims of the prosecution.

At the Tribunal, a Russian General told the court he heard US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, “encouraging [KLA leader] Hashim Thaci to incite a rebellion in Kosovo.”

Milosevic died in 2006 in his jail cell. He had told his lawyer that he was being poisoned in his cell. He had written a letter to the Russian government of this allegation – a drug rifampicin was found in is blood stream 2 months before his death but the results were kept secret by the Tribunal. Official stand was he died of a heart attack.

In Libya the excuse was to get rid of Gaddafi the ‘dictator’ the excuse to descend on Syria is again the ‘dictatorial regime change of Assad’ and now ‘chemical weapons’ – Sri Lanka’s excuse is currently being drafted and will be pushed along ethnic lines.

Evidence and proof was irrelevant for the neo-interventionists and their self-claimed ‘righteous wars’. There is little point in trying to please the ‘civilized’ who resort to ‘uncivilized’ immoral methodologies to remove leaders and create anarchy in nations after claiming them as ‘friends’. Let us not be naïve to fall for these traps.

The accountability for the debacle of Kosovo falls on the national leaders of US, UK and Germany, the nations that provided the bases for the attack – Italy and Turkey and the NATO governments that voted to participate. All these nations and leaders stand guilty of the death and destruction that ensued.

Exactly who gave the US the right to decide who was a good leader and who was an evil one and who was to be killed or removed from office simply because these leaders did not fit into their agenda? When did international law take sides? Who gave the right to the US to think that it can say ‘jump’ and people had to jump? What right does the West have to bring Western values to the rest of the world and accompany that with military power? Do Governments not realize that all the concepts and terminology being drafted by Christian Western states are to enable them to weaken the nationalism in people, weaken the national defence apparatus and there are many among the Sri Lankan leadership pushing these western concepts with new ideas to downsize the army and denationalize the people. The Government should be alert to what some of its own Ministers are up to.

The difference in Kosovo and Sri Lanka lies in the fact that the Yugoslav parliament had agreed to NATO’s demand for autonomy and presence of armed UN peace keepers in Kosovo but inspite of that NATO bombed Kosovo. Sri Lanka has yet to come to that stage though we see various options being experimented.

If US insisted that Serbia allow NATO troops with extraterritorial legal rights inside its sovereign nation this is something Sri Lanka too needs to be well prepared for – whether similar requests come from US or any other country.

If any nation thinks that the West offers the dream of ‘freedom’ Kosovo soon found out after the UN/NATO intervention in 1999 which turned it into a crime capital in Europe with a flourishing sex trade, a transit point for drugs. Note the links to terrorist movements and narcotics and its international sale. LTTE belongs to this network too.

Watch the ‘civilized’ motives

The truth is both Germany and the US sought to break up Yugoslavia in 2 stages (1992-1995 and 1998-1999).

Germany wanted the break up because of its ‘vital interest’ Slovenia and Croatia, the 2 most economically developed states of Yugoslavia giving Germany access to the Adriatic Sea.

The US interest was on recently established states (Bosnia, Serbia, the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia) giving US access to route east to west and north to south through the Balkan mountains (Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Arab nations – form a European-Middle East bloc including former Soviet Union states of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan) – yes, to exploit the great oil resource of the Caspian Sea.

It is extremely important to keep track of Bills presented to the US Congress for it was in 1990 that a Bill was passed concerning ‘appropriation of funds for operations abroad’ with a paragraph specifically devoted to Yugoslavia to initiate the country’s dissolution. US then without forewarning cut off all forms of credit and loans to Yugoslavia if elections did not take place within 6 months in each of the federated states. Did this same scenario occur that forced Sri Lanka to hold the Northern elections? The Bill also had a provision to channel economic aid to the states without going through the Yugoslav government. This is extremely important in the context of the clauses on foreign aid in the TNA manifesto. The Bill also enabled CIA and other secret services to support ‘democratic’ movements by way of ‘emergency humanitarian aid and promotion of human rights’. We do not need any imagination to decipher what this means and there are enough of local stooges who distribute peace awards to each other and think we are fools listening to their speeches. The Congress Bill also gave approval for the IMF and World Bank to use their influence – we know where that would lead as well. So what happens to a country forced into bankruptcy …. They are forced to agree and to kneel to the wishes of the manipulators.

Sri Lanka’s leaders need to very intently look at the scenario that unfolded in Yugoslavia when US and Allies began to

• Fund the states that were to be dissolved from the Yugoslav federation
• Supported parties and movements that would hasten the process
• Arms and ammunition were shipped from Germany to Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
• ‘democratic movements’ were trained in special German camps (Sri Lanka has the experience with Berghof Foundation and the concepts being promoted to weaken the nationalism in the public and the armed forces – sadly Sri Lanka’s Government keeps as advisors people pushing for these very same agendas)

It is no time to be riding on luck and thinking Sri Lanka would be treated any different to what all the targeted nations had been. Local stooges ever ready to while living in Sri Lanka help destabilize the nation must realize they own betrayal and the Government must now sift those destabilizing members from its own camp and somehow strategize to come out of the abysmal situation some of these very people have subtly put the country to face over the years.