The official NATO view of history, as given us for example by The Washington Post in its internet educational effort called "Time Lines", is that the giving of "some measures of self-government... to Kosovo, which is 90 percent ethnic Albanian... stirred resentment among the Serbs. Feeding off the resentment... Milosevic sparked nationalism by promising Serbs they would reclaim Kosovo." Certainly it is deceptive to describe the total Albanian control of the government in Pristina, including parliament, courts, police, and schools from primary to university level as "some measures of self-government." Certainly it is deceptive to state that after 1989, "Milosevic... suppressed the Albanian language," when in March 1999 you could still buy in Pristina news stands Koha Ditore, the major Pristina daily paper. It published an Albanian and an English edition, printed for the benefit of western reporters and OSCE personnel. Koha Ditore printed page after page of articles critical of Serbia. On March 17 it published a piece advocating "concerted action against Serbian military targets and infrastructure." The Washington Post editors may have been studying the minorities situation in Turkey and may have confused that NATO country with Yugoslavia. Of course,any ethnic cleansing and suppression of language in a NATO country must come under the heading of "struggle against terrorism": that ominous phrase effectively throws into confusion the sharpest minds amongst our opinion makers. "Terrorism" is a key word in mind control, as good as "Zionist plutocracy" or "Jew Bolshevism" ever were.
Clearly dishonest is to describe the viewing of casualties from a day-long battle involving artillery on the Yugoslav side and mortars on the KLA side as the "discovery of 45 slaughtered ...Albanians... in Racak": that event had all the earmarks of a frame-up, not a massacre. Deceptive is also the line about Milosevic refusing to allow peacekeeping troops in Yugoslavia. At issue was not whether there would be peacekeeping troops in Kosovo. Yugoslavia was willing to accept UN troops, which would have included NATO troops, but was not willing to accept independent NATO troops. In the end Yugoslavia accepted the deployment of NATO--and Russian--troops under UN sponsorship.
Yet, the most effective disinformation does not involve complete fabrication , it involves misrepresentation, half-truths, and most importantly the omission of anything that does not fit with the chosen version of history. In such a light we must see the official line that "Albanian autonomy stirred resentment among the Serbs." What the Serbs resented was the reign of terror imposed upon them, since the 60's, to force them to flee. To start, they found themselves to be targets of job and language discrimination. Serbs were fired from state jobs in order to give the best jobs to Albanians. Serbs would not be sold a bus ticket unless they asked for it in Albanian. Court language was Albanian, but interpreters for non-Albanians were not provided. With the introduction of Albanian into education as high as university level, the new Albanian rulers of Kosovo forced their traditionally bilingual nation into separation from the rest of the country, as spoken communication between young Albanians and people of the other nations of Yugoslavia were made impossible. They also imposed on Albanians a condition of permanent poverty: all successful minorities are bilingual. Violence soon followed. It might start in a jocular manner, as is often the case in the dealings between master race and the lesser people. Like in Poland "the boys" might grab an old Jew and cut off his beard, so in Kosovo "the boys" might grab an old Serb and cut off his moustache. From that to shoving and stoning is a small step . On the way to and from school Serb children would be beaten and stoned and in school they would be beaten by Albanian teachers. Harassment would start in the morning, with curses when you meet your Albanian neighbor in the street, then came threats, robbery, cutting of trees, theft and destruction of crops, killing of animals, stonings, and beatings. If that was not enough to convince the Serbs to sell or abandon their houses and leave, there was always the knife.
From Migration of Serbs and Montenegrins from Kosovo by R. Petrovic and M. Blagojevic, Belgrade, 1989, I quote the words of an old Serbian farmer:
In the... sixties, Serbs suddenly began to migrate... For days on end, horse-drawn carts packed with belongings... passed through my village, by my home... I stood before them and said: "People, where are you going, why are you leaving your land, your homes, Kosovo"... The answer invariably was, "We can no longer bear the terror, my friend, the daily assaults on our women, children, old folk, our property, the beatings we have to take and the swear words flung at us, we are leaving so that our children can live in freedom."
It is normal for a dominant community to behave like this. Jews, Gypsies, and Chinese have experienced it in many countries. Blacks in the United States have experienced it. It does not reflect upon the character of the "master race", any nation will become a master race if given the opportunity. The Albanians, after they converted to Islam, had become the master race in Kosovo. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, they lost that status. When a master race loses its status, its main objective is to regain it. Crushing and humiliating the former servants becomes acceptable, necessary, and patriotic. Equality is not sufficient. Equality is not acceptable. Ask any white supremacist. Such feelings are normal in a people which has lost supremacy. It is the task of the government to prevent violence and persecution of former serfs or slaves. If the government tolerates occasional violence, it will become commonplace. If the police allow school kids to beat up Jews, Blacks, or Serbs, it will be done. Albanian authorities allowed it for 25 years, and in 1989 the Belgrade government finally decided to take things back in hand in Kosovo, just as Washington had done in Mississippi in the late 50's and early 60's.
All this history has now been consigned to Orwell "memory hole". Thirty years of anti-Serb terror never happened, for 99% of newspaper readers and for 99.9% of television public affairs viewers of the Free World. Orwell was not far from the mark when he created, in Nineteen Eighty-four the following Party slogan :"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."
Disinformation about Kosovo will even extend to population statistics, giving us the official party line that Kosovo is 90% Albanian. I have often challenged that statement and accused the NATO media of statistical fabrication. Now, however, in July 1999, I must issue an apology to the Free Press of the Free World: I was wrong. Kosovo is 90% Albanian, it is more than 90% Albanian, it is rapidly getting closer to 99% Albanian. Too bad that to achieve such result, the NATO-sponsored ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Montenegrins, Roma, Gorani, and Jews had to be organized.
I do not blame the Albanians for it. Every nation has violent people, people willing to avenge themselves for distant real or perceived wrongs, and willing to pillage their neighbor's house if the government allows it. In France and in other European countries conquered by Hitler, many were delighted to have the opportunity to pillage the homes of their Jewish neighbors. In every nation the majority is willing to excuse any atrocity in the name of patriotism. We have seen racial rape, murder, arson, and pillage in numerous American cities. We have seen it glorified as "insurrection" or "revolutionary action". Yet, such murderous behavior should not be used to condemn any race or nation. In the case of Kosovo, the Albanian nation is not at fault. At fault are the Western political leaders who sabotaged the economy of Yugoslavia, turned its nationalities against each other, forced the dissolution of a successful state, and finally encouraged and financed a guerrilla war in Kosovo instead of helping the contendents to achieve a reasonable compromise, which would have involved a land-for-peace deal. When the guerrilla war failed to weaken the target country, they decided to physically destroy it, even if that meant destroying the lives, homes, workplaces, and schools of those they pretended to protect.
When the Yugoslav army withdrew in June 1999, NATO marched in with military men who had been prepared by their own propaganda machine to see ethnic cleansing as the regrettable but unavoidable result of Serb genocide. Instead of protecting the living, both Albanians and Serbs, KFOR concentrated on the search for human remains, and hard to find evidence of a genocide that had not taken place. The Serbs had for so long been described as perverted Nazis who were going to get what they richly deserved. As Kenneth Bacon, Pentagon spokesman, so well put it, "I don't think that Kosovo is going to be a very happy place for Serbs." Massive ethnic cleansing came to Kosovo with the arrival of KFOR, and only very idealistic and courageous NATO officers dared to mark a line in the sand and put a stop to ethnic cleansing. Most chose to shrug and look the other way.
The tragedy of Kosovo is continuing, thanks to the total lack of historical awareness and to the unrestrained arrogance of Western leaders. Under similar conditions , NATO countries supported another insurgency in another country. That country was Afghanistan. In 1979 it was attacked, destroyed , handed over to the Taleban, and taken off the front page. The best that NATO can hope for in Kosovo is that the current ethnic cleansing program succeed slowly , thus solving the problem of having Kosovo in the news. Individual killings, daily small doses of terror, pillage, and reconstruction cash ought to satisfy the local crazies. Then the plan is to build up some pliable but popular leader, dependent on the West and satisfied with NATO protectorate status. If such a leader were to come into conflict with Kosovo and Macedonian Albanians intent on claiming their right to self-determination, guerrilla war would start again. In such a case, I would not be surprised if the NATO masters of the world were to betray their KLA allies and attempt to crush them as well.
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