Why Albanians Fled Kosovo During the 1999 NATO Bombing


"Do this, do that and the US will intervene and we will get Kosovo." They had been promising this for years. "Sacrifice your children by boycotting the schools; sacrifice your health by boycotting the hospitals; use your suffering to show foreign public opinion how we suffer under the Serbs, and the U.S. will come to our rescue."
-- Interview with Čedomir Prlinčević, he is quoting KLA Ibrahim Rugova
.

====================================


"In the bigger picture, the Bush administration's quick recognition of an independent Kosovo has given us a powerful reminder of a fact that is too often overlooked these days: empire is bipartisan, as are the tactics and rhetoric and bombs used to defend and expand it..." -- Michael Rivero


Snips from Jared Israel's interview:

Israel: Getting back to the Albanian exodus during the bombing, here's the question: if the Yugoslav Army didn't throw the Albanians out, why did so many leave? It's true we don't know the exact number. The Western media has given all sorts of figures, from 150,000 to over a million, which is slightly ridiculous - but certainly many thousands did leave. Why? To escape the bombs?

Prlinčević: Not exactly.

Israel: Not exactly?

Prlinčević: No. The reason they left and went out of Serbia, to Albania or Macedonia, is rooted in the cultural history of Albanian people living in Kosovo. Because of their mindset, which I think people in the West thoroughly misunderstand, the KLA had a big impact when it attacked and executed Albanians who cooperated with the government.

Israel: I would have thought such attacks would turn them against the KLA.

Prlinčević: No, no. They led the ethnic Albanian population to stop cooperating with the Yugoslav government and start cooperating with the KLA.

Israel: Doesn't a guerilla movement need to treat ordinary people decently to get support?

Prlinčević: Yes, but the KLA was never what you mean by a guerilla movement. It was a foreign-organized group of terrorists delivering a message. The so-called 'International Community,' that is, NATO, had trumpeted that they had plans for the Albanians, that they would give them independence and a Greater Albania, make them a major power in southern Europe. So there was this intense propaganda from the West for ten years and at the same time the crisis in the Albanian community was quite pronounced. Even before the bombing, some Albanian representatives asked the Yugoslav government to allow their people to form convoys and go toward Macedonia, basically to save themselves from this crisis.

Israel: What crisis? The fighting between the Yugoslav Army and the KLA?

Prlinčević: Not exactly, although this fighting did have a big effect. So did the bombing, which started a bit later; it had a critical psychological effect. But this was related to the KLA. You see the KLA was trying to fulfill their own overall goals. To achieve these goals, which involved proving to the West they could deliver, they told the ethnic Albanians to leave. And this was not a polite request. It was an order. Do you see? At the same time the KLA, their special units, and then a bit later NATO bombers, were attacking traffic on important roads that led to inner Serbia.
...

Israel: Was the bombing used to drive Albanians out of Kosovo?

Prlinčević: Not mainly on its own, but yes, insofar as it reinforced the KLA's attempt to destabilize the area. Mr. Walker was the one who was organizing the KLA. Mr. Walker of the Verification Mission that came into Kosovo, under the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] umbrella, in the fall of 1998.

You see, this is a complex thing and I wanted to give a long answer. Even this international corps of monitors, this Verification Mission, they were also involved in organizing the KLA. Before the bombing started we had this forced diplomacy. The European Community and the U.S. insisted that their forces come into Kosovo as peace monitors. At the head of these peace Verifiers was Mr. Walker.

The Verifiers organized the KLA. That's why terrorist attacks by the KLA increased after they arrived. During that period there was no major shift of population, whether Albanian or Serbian, though this international monitor group was laying the basis for migration. They needed migration to create the impression of a crisis for international public opinion.

Israel: How did they lay the basis for migration?

Prlinčević: They did it by having the KLA kill some Albanians who were cooperating with the government.

Israel: The Verifiers, the OSCE Monitors, did all this?

Prlinčević: Yes, they organized the KLA into a more cohesive force so it could influence events. And they prepared for the bombing. The Yugoslav government caught some Albanians and some Serbs who were positioning bombing markers. Those are radio devices that emit signals to identify targets. We were confused when the OSCE monitors left Kosovo. It should have been obvious why they left. Their job was done.

Israel: OK, I'm confused right now. I'm not sure about our focus. Are we talking about the Verifiers being responsible for positioning bombing markers?

Prlinčević: Yes! That is one thing they organized. I say this in full responsibility. Yes, OSCE monitors prepared the NATO attack. The KLA is only a proxy for what NATO wanted to achieve in this geographical area. All the current political turmoil points to NATO, whether in Kosovo or Montenegro or the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia


Why Albanians Fled Kosovo During the 1999 NATO Bombing


Posted: Mon - February 25, 2008 at 11:51 AM            

©