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

To: robnhood who wrote (9151)	5/19/1999 10:19:00 PM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

<<No, rational would be to help the Russians ,, we choose not to and to all appearances it is intentional...We want their country at lower then fire sale prices, and we are working on it... The guys who make the decisions see this way as much more rational...>> Your problem RR is that you swing from extreme opinion to extreme opinion. You assume that those in power are omniscient and that all decisions are made in full awareness of their consequences and done in all intentionality. In your attempt to understand the world, you forget that those in power are just as human, and just as fallible, as yourself. I can't see how you can say that we intentionally let Russia degrade to the point at which it is today. No Bush didnt do everything that could have been done to help Russia prevent the problems which are apparent today. Hindsight is 20/20. You forget that at the time of Yeltsin's rise to power, Russia was not the chaotic free-for-all it is today, and the situation did not appear as bleak as it does now. I don't remember anyone who thought that the collapse of the USSR meant any more than the reorganization of the USSR into smaller states and the reformation of a command economy into a market economy. The United States did not offer massive aid because it was not asked for, and it did not seem apparent that it was critically necessary. What we did do was to offer our expertise in market economics, increased Russian grain aid, and opened the door to increased Russo-American military cooperation. To say that we deliberately allowed Russia to melt down after the breakup of the USSR fails to acknowledge that no one can predict the future, and also fails to acknowledge everything we have done, IMF money and debt forgiveness and restructuring (no matter how badly the good intentions may have ended up) included. We have no interest in a chaotic Russia, and I dont see what we would have to gain from intentionally destabilizing a major nuclear power.

To: robnhood who wrote (9151)	5/19/1999 10:23:00 PM
From: Enigma	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

From The Times: May 20 1999 BALKANS WAR Anti-war mob lynches Serbian mayor BY EVE-ANN PRENTICE IN BELGRADE AND MICHAEL BINYON, DIPLOMATIC EDITOR MUTINIES, desertions and the lynching of a pro-Milosevic official by a furious mob were interpreted yesterday as the first signs of collapse in the Serb regime. The mayor of a Serbian town was hanged by anti-war protesters desperate to stop the return of troops to Kosovo, while in Kosovo up to 1,000 Serbian soldiers deserted their unit on hearing that riot police had broken up an anti-war demonstration in their home town. The reports - put out by Nato and Whitehall yesterday although they had already been circulating in independent media in Yugoslavia - were seen as an example of falling morale. Many were gleaned from broadcasts by Montenegrin television, risking confrontation with Belgrade in reporting news heavily censored in Serbia. The reported lynching occurred in Aleksandrovac where about 1,000 people turned on Zivota Cvetkovic, the pro-Milosevic chairman of the municipal council, who had refused to stop troops being bused back to Kosovo after a short spell of leave. The angry crowd, mostly women and children, also demanded that all troops from the region who had been mobilised should be allowed to return home. Montenegrin television reported further demonstrations in Cacak and Krusevac in central Serbia, where protesters shouted "The dead do not need Kosovo". Milan Kandic, chairman of the Cacak executive council, told an assembly that the town wanted an end to the war and demanded that President Milosevic address the nation to present the facts on which he based his decisions. In Krusevac windows were broken in the municipal assembly and in the local television station, which the crowd accused of spreading lies. Demonstrators said the station was suppressing the message of furious mothers and fathers. Police used water cannon to break up the protest, but further demonstrations were said to be planned there yesterday and in Valjevo and Cacak. As the protests continued for a third day, the Yugoslav Army tried to quell the unrest. Several people were said to have been arrested in Krusevac and Alexandrovac and the army has accused the demonstrators of "treason and direct collaboration with the enemy". They would be tried in military courts and dealt with according to the laws in wartime, it said ominously. In a statement carried by local television stations the army also tried to placate families in the area which is believed to have been hard-hit by war losses. Demonstrators were chanting "We want sons, not coffins". The army said it could not meet the protesters' demands for the return of their loved ones because "ceaseless bombing means we have had to modify our plans for a partial withdrawal in order to protect the lives of our soldiers". Promising to keep soldiers' relatives informed about the situation in Kosovo, the army nonetheless gave a warning that it would not tolerate further unrest. Even those "spreading rumours" would be prosecuted. State-controlled media in Belgrade have made no mention of the demonstrations, but the army statement was reported in the capital's independent daily newspaper, Glac, and by the independent VIP news agency. Independent Serbian journalists who have eyewitness reports of the protests say they believe the unrest was caused by the return of increasing numbers of dead and injured from the front line. Nato claimed yesterday that there was a mutiny among the Serb forces when about three battalions based at Istok, in western Kosovo, commandeered vehicles and left with their weapons, crashing through checkpoints and firing in the air. The soldiers, from a brigade made up largely of conscripts, headed for Krusevac. One group headed from Pristina to Nis, shooting through a special police checkpoint, Nato said.

To: robnhood who wrote (9151)	5/20/1999 11:18:00 AM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

<<We want their country and it's sattelites at lower then fire sale prices, and we are working on it... >> This reminds me of a talking head -- a so-called thinking tank in DC area -- was interviewed on a PBS program 5-6 years ago. This guy was actually working on making a deal for the US to buy Eastern Siberia from Russia. I do not recall for how many billion of dollars, but it was a huge number. This guy was really serious about it and already made quite a few trips even up to then. I am really amazed by the ego of these Americans.