Europe and US back Kosovo independence in pursuit of their own economic interests

APPARENTLY Ireland is going to recognise Kosovo’s independence.

Relations between the ethnic Albanian majority and the tiny Serbian minority that remains are still bitterly hostile.

The reason why there is now a tiny Serb and Roma minority is of course because the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has been allowed to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of many of them, and everyone else who isn’t ethnically Albanian.

All this while NATO stood by, so there was ethnic cleansing on both sides during the war between the Kosovo Albanians and Serbia.

We should also remember that Croatia was allowed — indeed supported by the US and Germany — to ethnically cleanse 200,000 Serbs from the Krajina region of Yugoslavia where they were in a majority.

Unlike the Kosovars, that ethnic majority weren’t given the right to decide their own future by the US and EU. Kosovo is legally part of Serbia. The government of Kosovo is in effect seizing Serbian territory. What must be worse from the Serb point of view is seeing leaders of the KLA, a group that financed its activities first by drug-smuggling, arms-dealing, and people-trafficking, and then with CIA money, gaining what is still legally part of Serbia.

The KLA was once regarded as a criminal and terrorist organisation by every police force in Europe. It was also designated a terrorist organisation by the CIA until 1997 when it suited the US to remove the KLA from the list of terrorist organisations in order to use it and Mujahideen fighters from Afghanistan to advance its geostrategic agenda in the Balkans. It is alleged that Russia stokes Serbian fears. I don’t think anyone’s fears would need stoking if they had the KLA on their borders.

In any case, if anyone is stoking up anything in the Balkans, it’s the Bush administration which supported Kosovo’s independence so that it can have permanent legitimacy given to Camp Bondsteel, their 704th and largest military base in the world on the Kosovo/Macedonian border.

Supporting independence for Kosovo is about Europe and the US wanting to bring oil and gas pipelines through Kosovo, especially the US trans-Balkan pipeline from the Bulgarian oil terminus at Burgas, through Macedonia to the Albanian Adriatic port of Vlore.

It’s about being able to dominate the region militarily. It’s also about putting Russia in its place.

It is probably the case that Kosovo should have been given the opportunity to seek independence from Serbia.

But surely this process should have been approved and overseen by the UN which should have first ensured that all Serbs and Roma who were driven out of Kosovo could return and live in safety there, and then a plebiscite held, supervised by the UN, to give the decision democratic legitimacy.

It would be useful, too, if the US dismantled its massive base and left the country, and allowed the UN to ensure Kosovo’s independence, security and defence of human rights for all nationalities there.

All Balkan countries should be given the chance to join the EU, and so should the Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Turkey and, in case I’ve missed someone, any other country in Europe or on its borders.

Brian Abbott

Glencairn

Bishopstown Road

Cork