Taking over the Trepca mines: Plans and Propaganda
Foreign Affairs Opinion (Published) Keywords: TREPCS MINES, GEORGE SOROS
Source: emperors-clothes
Published: 28 February 2000 Author: Diana Johnstone
Posted on 02/29/2000 14:19:04 PST by robbinsj
Comparison of two documents, a November 1999 International Crisis Group (ICG) paper on the Trepca mining complex, and a February 2000 article in the Toronto Star by ICG consultant Susan Blaustein, provides an exceptionally clear glimpse into the workings of the "international community".
The International Crisis Group is a high-level think tank supported by financier George Soros. It was set up in 1995, primarily to provide policy guidance to governments involved in the NATO-led reshaping of the Balkans. Its leading figures include top U.S. policy maker Morton Abramowitz, the eminence grise of NATO's new "humanitarian intervention" policy and sponsor of Kosovo Albanian separatists.
Last November 26, the ICG issued a paper on "Trepca: Making Sense of the Labyrinth" which advised the United Nations Mission In Kosovo (UNMIK) to take over the Trepca mining complex from the Serbs as quickly as possible and explained how this should be done. The February article by the ICG journalist represents a vulgarization of the anti-Serb position designed to prepare public opinion for carrying out the ICG policy. There will no doubt be more.
The ICG Paper: Manipulative Ambiguities
Trepca is a conglomerate of some 40 mines and factories, mostly but not all in Kosovo, notably including Stari Trg, "one of the richest mines in Europe" and the richest in the Balkans, currently shut down, and the Zvecan smelter, located northwest of Mitrovica and still being operated by Serb management. The ICG calls on UNMIK, headed by Bernard Kouchner, to cut through legal disputes over the industry's ownership and take over management of Trepca itself.
On July 25, Kouchner issued a decree that "UNMIK shall administer movable or immovable property, including monetary accounts, and other property of, or registered in the name of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or the Republic of Serbia or any of its organs, which is in the territory of Kosovo". The ICG paper concluded that "UNMIK and KFOR should implement a rapid and categorical takeover of the Trepca complex, including the immediate total shutdown of the environmentally hazardous facilities at Zvecan". What is really wrong with Zvecan is that it is run by Serbs and provides revenue to Yugoslavia.
But in the "game-plan of measures" recommended by the ICG, UNMIK is advised to instruct a "Zvecan environmental assessment team" to report on the status of the equipment and thereupon "advise as to what measures must be taken"... Environmental hazards are to be the pretext to shut down Zvecan and deprive the last Serbs in Kosovo of their livelihood. Meanwhile, "Stari Trg, one of the richest mines in Europe, must be potentially profitable again and should be a priority for donors interested in setting Kosovo on its feet".
The game-plan calls for a gradual start up of mining to reassure the "Kosovars", meaning ethnic Albanians, of their future. For although the ICG says that the "workforce and management of all Trepca facilities should be selected on a merit basis only", it adds that "no one with ties to the Belgrade regime should be considered" -- and it is habitual to identify all Serbs with "the Belgrade regime", even to ignore their existence other than as "agents of Milosevic".
This blatant takeover of valuable property in what is still nominally part of Serbia is of course justified as a necessary measure to reassure the oppressed Albanians. "The return to work of even a few hundred Kosovar miners would represent, for all Kosovars, the reclaiming of their patrimony".
The media event is easy to imagine. But if the ICG hostility toward the Serbs seems genuine, the love for the Albanians may be less than perfect. In the ICG's brief account of past ethnic clashes over Trepca management, underlying the habitual anti-Serb bias is the basic hypocrisy of dominant powers manipulating two peoples against each other. The ICG report notes that Trepca "has long stood for Kosovar Albanians as the symbol of Serbian oppression and of their own resistance", and recounts that after 1974, finally able to manage the Trepca facilities themselves, Kosovars "created thousands of jobs", but that "in 1981-82, a sort of `Trepca-gate' scandal -- in which Kosovar Albanian workers were accused of having stolen vast quantities of gold and silver -- was the pretext for firing many engineers and technicians". Whether the theft was real or merely a "pretext" is of no interest to the international community ... so long as the Serbs were in charge.
But afterwards? The report concludes that: "Simply handing Trepca over to the Kosovars is ruled out by the shortage of modern skills available locally, the need for internationally-verifiable standards to avoid corruption" as well as damage to the installations. And as for those "thousands of jobs" created by and for Kosovo Albanians, they are not on the international community agenda. "The social impact of the reduced work force would need to be balanced against the need for competitively based private investment", the ICG observes. Fortunately, the ICG finds that the young leadership of the "Kosovo Liberation Army" is "somewhat impatient" with the older Kosovo Albanian leadership group's interest in "a huge workforce" and prefers modernization that will require foreign investment capital. No wonder Washington chose to back the violent KLA.
The manipulative hypocrisy of the ICG policy designers is even more blatant concerning the Serbs. The ICG urges UNMIK to hurry up with the game plan for taking over the valuable mining complex _before_ Serbian elections so that a new government more to the West's liking cannot be accused of "losing Trepca". All Serbian leaders, including opposition leaders, the ICG observes, will have to protest when UNMIK takes over Trepca and the Zvecan smelter. "However they could exploit the argument that the `loss' was due to the pariah status of Milosevic himself, so that once again Serbia has lost assets due to his presence in office. So provided action were taken before any elections in Serbia it need not upset, and might contribute to, any strategy for unseating Milosevic." In short, the international community is going to take over Trepca whoever is in charge in Belgrade; better do it while Milosevic is there, so that the Western-backed "progressive, democratic" opposition can pretend it was the fault of Milosevic!
Media Propaganda: Familiarity versus Truth
Such cynicism is hard to surpass, but there is always room to add a few lies. This is the task of the media propaganda aimed at getting the general public to swallow the policies decided by elite think tanks and governments. The February 23, 2000 article in The Toronto Star by ICG senior consultant Susan Blaustein, "Mitrovica flashpoint for the next Balkan war", deserves a Jamie Shea award for the most shameless war propaganda of the month. The clichés are all there, "centuries-old hatreds" (not our fault, folks); then focus on the single culprit: Milosevic; the unreliable French seeking appeasement versus the need for the international community to display "backbone" and stand up to "Milosevic's test of its resolve". For Blaustein, it is Milosevic, of course, who is causing trouble in the city of Mitrovica because of his "keen financial interest" in the Trepca mining complex and the Zvecan smelter. NATO has occupied Kosovo and watched for eight months while Albanians murder, terrorize and drive out most of the non-Albanian population, but Blaustein is able to write (and the newspaper to publish) that: "The city is a lynchpin in Belgrade's `Greater Serbia' strategy of expelling non-Serbs from the region." The November 1999 ICG report noted that: "International financial officials have long recognized the minerals industry as being prime for money laundering" throughout the world because of its structure and suggested that "the interest of the Milosevic circle in exploiting the Trepca facilities might go beyond the simple operation of sharing out the profits." This speculation is taken a step further by Blaustein, who writes that the smelter in Zvecan "is widely believed to have served the regime as an efficient money-laundering mechanism". But in any case, if the Serbs are running Zvecan to their profit, why would they want to make trouble? Ah, that Milosevic! It is because "Mitrovica is Milosevic's only remaining foothold in Kosovo" so "he has decided to call the bluff of the international community". The world is one big "test of wills" where little guys are forever "calling the bluff" of giants so the giants will wipe them out. The little guys seem to enjoy doing that, don't ask why. Blaustein goes on to excuse the Albanians for recent violence and blame the French. It is not the Serbs who are being driven out of Kosovo, but the Albanians who are victims of "Milosevic's operatives" who "monitor, harass, terrorize and expel ethnic Albanian civilians who dare to live in or travel to the Serb side of town".
The rocket attack on a bus carrying Serb civilians, which killed two of them, was "not unprovoked"; the Albanians were impatient with the international community for turning a blind eye to "Serbs' oppression of ethnic Albanians"... By not allowing mobs of angry ethnic Albanians to take over the last part of Kosovo where Serbs are still managing to live more or less normally, "international officials are abandoning the U.N.'s stated commitment to create and protect a multi-ethnic society in Kosovo", according to Blaustein. This tract is meant to cast the blame in advance for what Blaustein calls the "next Balkan war". It is in total contradiction to the facts of what has been happening in Kosovo during eight months of foreign occupation.
How then can anyone dare to write or publish such an article? The answer is that the propagandists are counting on the tendency of uninformed readers to mistake what is familiar for what is true. The cliches about "Milosevic" and "Greater Serbia" are familiar. The truth is not. If and when the "next Balkan war" breaks out and the "international community" takes full control of the Trepca industrial complex, the distracted public need not pay too much attention, since everybody already knows what it's all about: that evil dictator Milosevic is causing trouble again.
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1 Posted on 02/29/2000 14:19:04 PST by robbinsj
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From Nedeljni Telegraf:
on Trepca:
HASTY TAKEOVER OF TREPCA
On Friday night the KLA attacked the factory of batteries in Zvecane and expelled the Serbs. Afterwards a KFOR unit came to establish order but without the Serbs. Now the factory is in the hands of foreigners.
Even in Trepca, whose mines are run by the Greek corporation Mitilineos, the KLA and its leader, Hasim Thaci, with the assistance of the French peace forces, attempted to evict the Greek company which, however, has no representatives in the administration of the mining complex appointed by KFOR.
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Underneath the lignite lies oil American intelligence officers, who were guests at unforgettable parties last summer arranged for them by the Shiptars in Pristina, used to say when they were relaxed in good company that "the Albanians don't know that they are living on oil!" Namely, several years ago American sources leaked the news that geological observations from space confirmed that beneath the lignite of Kosovo lie great reserves of oil. This oil is now a topic of special research of American experts who do not wish to accept a single Shiptar into their teams so that the KLA cannot discover this carefully guarded secret.
Space research has shown that seven lead/zinc mines within the Trepca complex have rich deposits of gold, silver, cadmium and other rare metals in which the US is especially interested. The Americans believe that the Trepca industrial complex excavated its mines incorrectly.
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This kind of behavior provoked a reaction by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose representatives brought the attempted takeover of Trepca to the attention of Bernard Kouchner, the governor of Kosovo. While the bombing was still going on, the Greek government had asked that the NATO command protect Greek investments in Kosmet. This request was granted at that time, so it is strange that now Greek ownership in Trepca should not be acknowledged. The metallurgical industrial complex Trepca in 1995 signed a contract with Evangelos Mitilineos worth 519 million dollars. The Kosovo giant was backed in terms of management and finance by General export and Jugobanka. According to the contract, during a five-year period Trepca was to deliver lead and zinc worth 350 million dollars, while Mitilineos SA Group was to bring to Mitrovica 150 million dollars worth of concentrated ore. 19 million dollars was to beinvested by the Greeks in mining equipment and spare parts.
Trepca is one of the three most important metallurgical industrial complexes in the world. It is especially famous for "the four Trepca nines" - indicating the top quality of processed zinc and lead which is 99.99% pure. The metallurgical industrial complex Trepca employed 11,000 people in all industrial capacities. It has plants and factories in 22 municipalities throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia, Trepca directly and indirectly supports 300,000 people. It is only a matter of time, however, when KFOR and the KLA will completely take over Trepca and expel all the Serbs; last Friday we found only the secretary to director Novak Bjelic in the head office in Zvecane.
The metallurgical industrial complex Trepca and the Kosovo thermoelectrical facilities are the primary industrial capacities in the southern province and the largest producers of hard currency revenue. Thhese two giants accounted for ten percent and 25 percent, respectively, of production in their respective industrial branches and represented one of the foundations of the economy. At one time Shiptar nationalists used to sing "Trepca is working - Belgrade is being built." Now the same verse goes "Trepca is working - Albania is being built!"
At a time when the production level of Serbia was 19.2 billion German Marks, Kosovo contributed with a production of 1.1 billion German Marks. That is, we can say, only the direct loss of Serbia today due to the fact that Kosmet industries are no longer within the domain of Serbian industry. It is extremely difficult to calculate how much Serbia is losing in total due to the takeover of her natural resources and industrial capacities in Kosmet. The final list must include, in addition to production losses of state-owned property, revenue from taxes... If the means of production of the industrial capacities of Serbia in Kosmet are worth two billion German Marks, then at this moment KFOR together with the KLA has inflicted damages on Serbia to the extent of at least three billion German Marks.
on Kosovo's wine:
"Nine million liters of Kosovo red wine, which the Japanese, the Americans and the Canadians purchased for 12 million deutschmarks, has been appropriated by members of the KLA with the assistance of German KFOR troops. Our company, Kosovovino, is now headed by a Shiptar, director Nuri Salcini, and a German, general Klaus Reihardt, the KFOR commander in Metohija. In addition to the wine cellar in Mala Krusa, KFOR and the KLA have confiscated our vineyards, a fertilizer farm, a distillation plant, trucks, the administrative offices and other facilities which are located in the Suva Reka-Prizren area. They have taken over our entire company, which is worth about 60 million deutschmarks, and forced all of us Serbs from our jobs.
This morning I sent a letter to general Reihardt in which I suggested that Serbian employees be returned to their jobs and one of the best Kosovo companies saved from theft and collapse," we are told dejectedly by Vlasta Lazic, the head of Kosovovino and the best wine maker in Serbia over the past several years, who today sits in the Belgrade branch office of this company.
Lazic does not regret that 39 years of his work have been irretrievably lost and that Shiptars and Germans are now drinking the renowned Kosovo wine but he regrets that they are preventing the export of 360 freight containers of red wine to Japan and one million liters of wine each to the United States and Canada. The price of this wine, among the best in its class in the world, is 1.2 deutschmarks per liter in barrels. He especially regrets the fact that this money, earned while under sanctions, will never arrive in Serbia.
"In addition to the wine, very valuable are 2,000 beds of California earthworms which produce two million kilograms of fertilizer for our vineyards. This fertilizer is my product. It has enabled us to create organically grown grapes and to market organically grown wine which has won an assortment of championship titles in the country and in the world. A kilogram of this fertilizer is worth one deutschmark, so we currently have two million deutschmarks held hostage in the earthworm beds," says Vlasta Lazic. Kosovovino was created as one of nine business units of the Progres export industrial complex, which was founded in Prizren in 1963. That is when Joca Prokic planted 4,000 hectares of grapes and established the foundation of viniculture in Metohija. Vlasta Lazic has been with the company since 1963 when he became the director of the Mala Krusa cellar which has a capacity of 850 freight containers. Two years later, they began exporting a red wine called "amser fender" to Germany.
"Delighted with this wine, which we said was made from grapes eaten by the blackbirds ["kos" in Serbian], the Germans themselves began calling it Kosovo wine. That is how our company was named and by 1989 we were exporting 28 million liters of this red wine. However, even before the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Shiptars began to wrest Kosovovino from the Serbs by maltreating us and forcing us to relocate. I myself considered leaving at one time but the director, Acif Beqiri, convinced me to stay. The company fell more and more under Albanian influence. This process came to a halt in 1992 when the Temporary Measures were introduced in Kosovo. That is when I became director of a company with two hundred employees who produced 20 million German Marks of product for export. Now the Shiptars have taken their revenge; they have stolen Kosovovino from us and given it to the Germans to manage," says Vlasta Lazic.
His employees admit that Lazic thought about transferring the wine to Serbia. He even had an offer from C-Market [a major food and beverage distributor] but it turned out to be too late. The KLA expelled the Serbs from Prizren before the transport of the wine could begin. And Lazic was forced to leave Mala Krusa with 350 employees three days before the end of the NATO aggression because the Shiptars had laid siege to Prizren. Their goal was to expel the Serbs, but also to take over all industrial collectives.
for more on the KFOR-KLA looting spree, see here |
