right on brother
THE EMPIRE SHOWS ITS HAND
Macedonia: The cards are on the table
After a decade of moves and countermoves, wars and
rumors of wars, slaughter and destruction, it seems all the cards
are finally on the table this week. As Macedonia is in the
process of being sacrificed to the Empire’s crazed attack dogs,
and Serbia is being forced to sell out the elementary principles
of law for less than the customary thirty pieces of silver, the
forces behind both campaigns of destruction must feel a power
rush of epic proportions. They no longer seem to need the
smokescreen of rhetoric and platitudes to obscure their sinister
scheming. As temperatures rise, so does their arrogance,
approaching again the preposterous levels of Rambouillet and
the beginning of NATO’s aggression in the spring of 1999.
MACEDONIA AFLAME
Last Thursday, as the armed wing of the Albanian
movement for destroying Macedonia perched above Skopje
with big guns, the Macedonian government bent over
backwards to negotiate with their political wing in the lake
resort of Ohrid. It seemed that Macedonia would surrender
peacefully, welcoming a NATO occupation force.
But the Albanians played too hard. They rejected an offer to
make Macedonia a citizen-state, demanding equal right to
nationhood, veto power and vice-presidency in perpetuity.
Macedonia’s police minister walked out, and so did President
Trajkovski. In a rare display of character, he even called the
Albanian negotiators "dishonest."
Why would the Albanians want to be reasonable, though? To
begin with, the entire strategy of the EU, the U.S. and NATO
has been to force the Macedonians to appease every demand of
the Albanian political wing (PDP and DPS) in order to sideline
the militant wing (the UCK) – claiming all along that the two
are completely separate and mutually exclusive. If so, why had
one of the parties supported the bandits when they first
attacked Tetovo? Why had both parties signed a protocol with
the bandits and their KLA brethren, in the NATO-occupied
Kosovo city of Prizren last month? And why did both Albanian
political leaders subsequently refuse to renounce that protocol?
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
Further proof of the politicos’ connection to the bandits came
when the Macedonian army charged the bandit positions in
Aracinovo, which threatened the city of Skopje, the airport and
oil refineries. Albanian politicos immediately started
complaining, and this time NATO joined them. Then, after two
days of heavy shelling, the bandits decided to give up. They got
on US army trucks, with all of their weapons, and were
chauffeured by a company of American troops to a nearby
village.
ENOUGH!
On that evening, the Macedonian people had had enough.
Thousands rallied in Skopje, storming the Parliament, chasing
away government officials, demanding Trajkovski’s resignation,
shooting in the air and demanding weapons. But their rage was
also aimed at the foreigners who gleefully aided in Macedonia’s
dismemberment – journalists, who have recently been prone to
publishing distasteful and manipulative rubbish, aimed at
rationalizing Albanian demands and presenting Macedonians as
aggressors without even recognizing their right to exist, calling
them "Slavs" instead.
From the New York Times and the BBC to London’s Guardian
and the Daily Telegraph, the western media have faithfully
served the cause of the Albanian militants – inviting the
question, of course, who exactly might be behind the
Albanians?
TOXIC ALPHABET SOUP
There is the OSCE, a Euro-American organization ostensibly
charged with helping observe elections. Of course, that didn’t
stop the American spy William Walker from abusing the OSCE
mission in Kosovo to stage the Racak massacre for the KLA’s
benefit. Nor did it stop Robert Frowick, a veteran of electoral
manipulation in Bosnia, from arranging the above-mentioned
Prizren powwow of Albanian bandits and their political
counterparts. OSCE is, apparently, proud it has "played a key
role" in advocating "greater constitutional equality and linguistic
rights" for the Albanians.
It does not take a genius to realize that the EU always sends
Javier Solana to Skopje when they need to strong-arm the
Macedonians to appease the Albanians some more. Having
"supported" the Macedonian government for months by urging
it to compromise its basic principles – indeed, its very existence
– the EU has finally spelled it out: unless Macedonia surrenders
right ruddy now, we won’t give it a dime in aid.
BARKING OFF-KEY
Should one even bother to single out Human Rights Watch,
that annoying yelping dog of the United States government
tasked with barking as loudly as possible at the enemy du jour?
It was the HRW that gave enormous publicity to a badly
written and entirely phony-sounding pamphlet, allegedly printed
by an organization called "Macedonia paramilitary 2000."
Ought one even bother to note that in the Balkans, no militia
calls itself "paramilitary"? Even the word (paravojska in
Serbian) sounds effete and derogatory. No, it is always the
"Guards," the "Lions," the "Tigers," the "Volunteers," the
"Lads" – never, ever "paramilitary." No self-respecting US
street gang would ever call itself the "hardened delinquents."
Similarly, HRW and the media parade the fact that their IQ
level barely matches toast when they explain the term "Shiptar"
as "derogatory name for Albanians." Shiptar, you see, is merely
a transliteration of Shqiptar, an Albanian word
meaning…"Albanian." There is no "q" in Slavic languages –
Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian or any other.
FOR A FEW BARRELS MORE
Ambassador Frowick’s secret treaty-making should have
been a clear sign the United States is involved in Macedonia far
more than its media would like the people to know. Even that
might be just the tip of the iceberg. A recent BBC report
revealed an entire secret war the US waged in Bosnia, causing
the war to last two more years and claim 150,000 additional
casualties.
Yet one might still wonder why the Emperor of the Known
Universe, Lord Protector of Kosovo and Bosnia, God-Anointed
Champion of Democracy, Leader of the Free World, His
Imperial Presidential Majesty George II Bush would have any
interest in helping the pseudo-socialist EU dismember a country
that has proven a fairly faithful US client.
Part of the answer could be in the extremely vocal Albanian
lobby in the United States Congress. Another part could be the
current US government’s fascination with oil, combined with
the fact that Macedonia sits right on top of the proposed
Balkans pipeline. Bulgaria and Albania control the ends of the
pipeline, though, which makes them far more important US
clients. Perhaps that is why the GIs are acting as UCK’s van
pool.
TEACHING BY EXAMPLE
One of the reasons the Macedonians are so apprehensive
about fighting back is the horrific lesson Washington has given
their northern, and much stronger, neighbor. Not only has
Yugoslavia been bombed in order to save the Kosovo Albanian
separatists – many of whom are now among the bandits in
Macedonia – but its current government largely owes its
position to millions of dollars in "aid" from Washington. And
the United States is determined to get a pound of flesh for
every penny of it.
Last Saturday, the Yugoslav government chose to violate the
Constitution along with the fundamental principles of law,
federalism and democracy. Aware that a law allowing for
extradition of Yugoslav citizens would never pass in the
Parliament, it issued a government decree instead. Not only
was this unconstitutional, it also violated the rights of Yugoslav
citizens, wrecked the code of criminal law, and destroyed the
coalition with representatives of Montenegro, the other part of
the Yugoslav federation.
Blackmailed by Washington and the EU, brow-beaten with a
foreign debt that miraculously tripled over just a few years,
sapped by relentless propaganda and itself filled with
opportunistic, unprincipled scoundrels, it is a miracle the new
Yugoslav government has resisted for a full eight months.
Milosevic, hated as he is both by Washington and the current
regime in Belgrade, is peripheral to the entire issue. At stake
was the principle of obedience to US wishes, superseding
constitutions, sovereignty, borders and logic. If Milosevic is
indeed delivered to Madeline Albright’s pet court, it will be a
small victory for the politicians who fought him, a giant victory
– and ultimate justification – of NATO’s 1999 aggression, and
a colossal defeat for the people of Yugoslavia, especially the
Serbs.
Given all that, President Kostunica’s support of this blatantly
illegal action is at the very least baffling. If he thinks temporary
security can be bought by sacrificing liberty, he must have
skipped reading Ben Franklin while translating Jefferson.
It is both appropriate and ironic that this column will be published on June 28.
On that day in 1914, a young Bosnian revolutionary named Gavrilo Princip shot
and killed the Austro-Hungarian crown prince, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in
Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary reacted by demanding the surrender of Serbia, thus
sparking the Great War – later called World War One. Also on June 28, in 1989,
Slobodan Milosevic gave a speech to one million people, gathered in Kosovo,
warning of nationalism, separatism and the creeping foreign menace. The
Western media have used this speech – never quoting what was actually said – to
paint Milosevic as a nationalist, separatist and a menace to the Balkans.
What a million Serbs had been celebrating in Kosovo, by the way, was the 600th
anniversary of a battle that marked the end of medieval Serbia, but set the
foundations for preserving the Serbian culture, heritage and nationhood. On that
day in 1389, a Serb army of knights, men-at-arms and peasants fought the
invading Ottoman Turks. They lost, but in the process crippled the Turkish
Empire and bought themselves and the rest of Europe some 60 years of time to
prepare a defense. Though physically it was too late for Serbia to recover, the
idea of fighting against overwhelming odds for one’s liberty and faith took root in
the people and enabled the Serbs to survive 400 years of Turkish slavery.
Lazar, the Serb king who chose to fight at Kosovo when he could have just as
easily surrendered to the overwhelming Turkish force, became a martyr and a
saint in the Serbian Orthodox Church. Milos Obilic, the legendary knight who
killed the Turkish sultan during the battle, has been celebrated in epic poetry as
the epitome of heroism. On the other hand, the seemingly "reasonable" duke Vuk
Brankovic, who abandoned Lazar during the battle in order to become the ruler
of Serbia after the Turkish victory, became a synonym for treachery.
On the day of that battle was the festival of St. Vitus, or Vidovdan – a crossover
from an ancient Slavic deity Svetovid, a patron of harvest, war, healing and
prophecy. Folklore has it that all things can be seen for what they are on
Vidovdan. The future becomes easier to see, as does the past. Since Lazar’s
time, it has also been a day for hard, fateful choices.
LAZAR’S LOST LEGACY
How much harder can it get, than the present choices facing both the Serbs
and the Macedonians? The survival of their nations is at stake, threatened by an
overwhelming outside force manifested locally in Kosovo and northern
Macedonia. Should they fight, like Lazar – knowing that they might lose – or run,
like Brankovic, hoping to make the best out of slavery? To a pragmatist with no
moral values, that may depend solely on whether he or she considers the
Americans to be gentler masters than the Turks, a point which is actually very
hard to argue.
Will Belgrade and Skopje actually surrender their dignity and freedom for the
vacuous promises of "aid," knowing full well that Western generosity in loans is
only matched by its generosity with bombs – and that every penny will have to
be paid in blood, conveniently seized from the people rather than the self-abasing,
subservient government? Is there, among the Serbs and Macedonians, a leaders
left with the wisdom and determination to make Lazar’s choice? |
