Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: S.C. Barnard who wrote (4375)	4/18/1999 4:09:00 PM
From: George Papadopoulos	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

Greeks side with their Serbian brothers ============================== By Fergal Keane Sunday 18 April 1999 Sunday Telegraph telegraph.co.uk AS British troops prepare to move through Greece on their way to Kosovo, anti-Nato feeling in the country is mounting with political chiefs ruling out the use of Greek territory as a launching pad for any ground attack against the Serbs. Demonstrations against the air war attract huge crowds and the mainstream press here routinely describes the allied campaign as the bullying of a small nation. As for the political elite, there are few who are willing to be seen to defend Nato's air strikes. Politicians of all hues are queuing up to criticise the alliance of which Greece is a long-standing member. The mayor of Athens, Dimitrios Avramopoulos, is critical of the Nato campaign. When I met him in his Athens office he said that he had met Slobodan Milosevic on numerous occasions. "You know if you met him you would realise he is not like the way he is portrayed in the media. He is fighting a patriotic war now," he said. The mayor believed Nato was blundering around in a region that it did not understand and told me that it was "very dangerous". Did he believe there was a chance that the war would spread to Greece? "War is like a disease. It is contagious." It might be tempting to believe that in criticising Nato, Mr Avramopoulos was simply trying to make mischief for the government. But his comments reflect a mounting unease across the country. In one incident a sailor in the Greek navy has refused to take part in a joint operation with ships from other Nato countries. Although presented by the military as the action of one individual it is the kind of mutiny that sends shivers through the government. It helps to explain why the minister for European affairs, Yannos Kranidiotis, was so precise on the question of Greek involvement in the Balkan crisis. Would Greece under any circumstances allow Nato troops to use the territory as the launching pad for a ground attack on Serbia, I wondered? The minister gave a quick "No" before launching into a long explanation of the need for dialogue, conferences on the future of the region and the need to respect justice and human rights. They were the answers of a politician deeply uncomfortable with the question. The government knows that allied forces would like to be able to use the port of Thessalonika as a disembarkation point for troops and material if a ground invasion is decided on. Already allied forces helping in the refugee camps of Macedonia are using the port. However, internal opposition to the presence of any allied forces in Greece could be expected to rise dramatically should a ground operation be decided on. The Greeks face many difficulties. As members of Nato and the European Union they are being called on to meet their obligations to other member states involved in the campaign against Milosevic. But there is the troubling matter of Greek religion, history and geography. The country has strong historical and religious ties with the Orthodox Serbs. The Greeks will also be worried by the attention paid to the Albanian Muslims by the government of Turkey, noting the high profile visits to the camps by senior Turkish politicians. There is apprehension that any escalation of the war which drags in Greece's northern neighbour, Macedonia, could result in massive destabilisation. The fear is that an independence for Kosovo would prompt the Albanian minority living in Macedonia to rebel and seek union with their brothers across the border. The domestic opposition to the Nato campaign is being encouraged by groups such as the Greek Serbian Friendship Society which is organising aid for the people of Yugoslavia. The Greek members of the society see the Serbs as victims of a Western plot to destabilise the Balkans. "I feel ashamed when I see Nato forces being used from my country," said Hatzakos Lycurgos, the general secretary. "We as people believed that European countries should stay together and react in a different way. "As Greeks with our ancient civilisation we have to react in a different way. Our government must push for a solution through diplomacy - our government has to fight for this right." I went with him to a warehouse near Piraeus where a group of Serbs and Greeks were packing supplies to be sent to Belgrade. The organisation says Greeks have been flocking in with offers of support for their Orthodox brothers in Serbia. While I was there several cars arrived stuffed with food supplies. Ceranic Mladin was greatly pleased. The tall Serb told me his people wanted only freedom. "We want to be as free as the birds," he said. He was also convinced that the people of Greece would not abandon Serbia. "Of course the people of Greece support us. They are Orthodox like us, they are our neighbours. Of course they must be on our side," said Mr Mladin. I think he is probably right. © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 1999.

To: S.C. Barnard who wrote (4375)	4/18/1999 4:11:00 PM
From: George Papadopoulos	Respond to of 17770

SAS teams move in to help KLA 'rise from the ashes' ========================================= By Philip Sherwell Sunday 18 April 1999 Sunday Telegraph telegraph.co.uk BRITISH and American special forces teams are working undercover in Kosovo with the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army to identify Serbian targets for Nato bombing raids. SAS soldiers fluent in Albanian and Serbian have dodged minefields and Serbian patrols around the torched villages along Kosovo's border with Albania and Macedonia to enter the war-battered province on surveillance missions. One of their priorities is to pinpoint the location of Serbian tanks and weapons which - as The Telegraph revealed last week - have been hidden in garages, buildings and even mosques in villages "ethnically cleansed" of their Albanian populations. Nato later admitted that it was frustrated by the success of the Serbian tactics. The SAS is also advising the rebels at their strongholds in northern Albania, where the KLA has launched a major recruitment and training operation. According to high-ranking KLA officials, the SAS is using two camps near Tirana, the Albanian capital, and another on the Kosovan border to teach KLA officers how to conduct intelligence-gathering operations on Serbian positions. In a major coup for the KLA, the rebels captured a Yugoslav army officer during skirmishes inside Kosovo near the Albanian border and handed him over to Nato. The alliance is holding the man in Albania as a prisoner of war. It is the latest evidence of the growing co-operation between Nato and the KLA, a movement once denounced by the West's leaders as "terrorists" and dismissed by its military strategists as a ragtag force. In the clearest indication that Nato has reassessed the role and value of the once-derided force, the alliance spokesman James Shea enthusiastically predicted that the KLA would "rise from the ashes" and play an increasingly important role in the current campaign. The alliance is now quietly drafting the KLA into its war against Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader. It is even considering plans to train them and ease the arms embargo on Yugoslavia to supply them with weapons such as mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. KLA commanders who gained their military experience as officers in the old and once-respected Yugoslav People's Army know that training is a priority if they are to convert their enthusiastic but raw recruits - many of them young Kosovars who have returned from western Europe - into a strong fighting force. The rebels have been contacted by several private military consultants but fear they may have links with the Serbian secret services, a senior KLA figure told The Sunday Telegraph. They are negotiating for a long-term training deal with Military and Professional Resources International, a mercenary company run by former American officers who operate with semi-official approval from the Pentagon and played a key role in building up Croatia's armed forces. From their remaining enclaves within Kosovo and reconnaissance missions staged from Albania, the rebels already use satellite and cellular telephones to provide Nato with details on Serbian targets. Their information supplements the surveillance picture constructed from satellite photography and Awacs aircraft. The KLA has no shortage of Kalashnikovs after the Albanian army's arsenal was looted in the 1997 uprising. But Western assistance would be limited and there seems little prospect of the KLA receiving the sort of heavy weapons, such as artillery and tanks, for which it has been lobbying. Nato remains wary of the KLA's politics - which has its roots in the hard Left - its discipline and its military potential. At the headquarters in the northern Albanian town of Krume, Gani Syla, a KLA spokesman, said: "We think it would be a very good idea if Nato provided us with arms. If they had done it earlier, our people would not have had to flee our land as we could have protected them inside Kosovo." Just as important as weapons, however, would be the training that Nato could provide. Although the KLA has been doing its best to look professional as it prepares for war at its bases dotted around northern Albania, the reality is very different. "The KLA is a mixture of good officers and ill-trained volunteers," said a Western defence analyst. "But a big plus is that they have the popular sentiment of the population on their side. That is an important start. The Croats and Bosnian Muslims did not start off in much better shape and look at them now." In Krume, Kukes and Bajram Curri, which resemble KLA garrison towns, there is no resentment from local people as rebel soldiers and military policemen wander openly through the streets. Outside the KLA office in Krume, nine-year-old Ardi wears a rebel cap and carries a bullet. It is, he says unprompted, "for Slobodan Milosevic". © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 1999.