Home Thoughts Opinions Crossfire War – Kosovo Veterans 1998-99 Demand Independence

Crossfire War – Kosovo Veterans 1998-99 Demand Independence

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Crossfire War – Pristina – Tirana – Tehran Watch – Southeast Europe Theatre: Pristina – Tehran – Ankara – Sarajevo – Riyadh – Skopje – Tirana/(Brussels – Vienna – Warsaw)/Kosovska Mitrovica – Belgrade – Athens – Banja Luka – Moscow; Kosovo Liberation Army Veterans of 1998-99 War Demand Kosovo Parliament Declare Independence – “should Not Accept Any Delay”

Night Watch: PRISTINA – “…we the veterans of the KLA will be forced to act as KLA soldiers to fulfill the oath of our national heroes.” Reuters reports this is a statement, released to several Kosovo newspapers, by the Kosovo Liberation Army Veterans Association, the rank and file, on their demand for independence. The statement also said Kosovo leaders “Should not accept any delay to a status decision, nor new talks, which would bring new hostility.”

This belligerent warning was designed to target the international organizations that have controlled Kosovo since 1999, principally the United Nations, since it was their Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari whose report recommended Kosovo independence. Ahtisaari has since been recently removed when the German intelligence service BND discovered his report was based on bribes from an Albanian gangster. [SWISSINFO]

This statement will obviously receive a mixed reaction from the 27 capitals of the European Union sequestered in Brussels. This is not according to the unreal, deluded, crisis-agenda, grand design timetable Brussels devised when they, prompted by Germany, led the recognition of the divided Yugoslavia into eventually six independent countries in 1992 in the name of the New World Order.

1992 was actually supposed to be the Year of European Unity but it was instead the year of the enlarging new European war having begun in 1991 between Croatia/Serbia. Though the six republics achieved their recognition, Kosovo was left behind with autonomy and still controlled by Belgrade and that was the reason the Kosovo Liberation Army was formed.

Fighting actually began in 1997 and it was initially not welcomed by NATO. Though NATO did not mind another war against Serbia, it did not want to recognize the KLA, but unofficially acknowledged them in 1998. By establishing close relations with Albanian fighters on the ground, the following year, it increased the chances of NATO successes against Serbian units during the 78-day air campaign.

The NATO-UN occupation of the province then begins in 1999 with the somewhat behind the scenes understanding Brussels and the UN would eventually recognize Kosovo’s independence. In the meantime, Serbia has heavily re-armed, with massive assistance from Moscow, and even signed a security agreement with Tehran in January 2006 as they did with Athens last November. Iran assumed it would be Serbia that would start the war again because it appeared Brussels would recognize Kosovo and Tehran wants to use this conflict to keep the West busy and silence Vienna and the UN agency there investigating Iran’s nuclear weapons program. However, Albanians in Kosovo are still waiting and now it seems the UN – NATO are seriously worried about another war with Serbia, so further talks are being scheduled. If it were left up to Brussels and the UN, the negotiations would go on ad infinitum.

Yet everyone knew this situation was what has been termed a “frozen conflict” one of the many disputes from the Adriatic to Caspian, theatres of war that erupted with the end of the Cold War in 1990 and the Soviet Union’s demise, but with the understanding Moscow was preparing to end any new conflicts that emerged in the Caucasus and if need be in Central Asia. That left the former Yugoslavia wide open for outside theatre of the absurd decision-making in the name of the New World Order, led by the European Union and intervention led by Tehran, which established a new embassy in downtown Sarajevo in 1995 as the first wave of fighting was ending. Iran has been waiting in the wings for the conflicts and chaos to erupt again.

Most of the KLA senior leadership are in politics, but I suspect there could be thousands of veterans from the rank and file which are a military counter-weight to the Serbian veterans of the same wars and who just had their militia ceremony in Krusevac, Serbia two months ago.

Most analysts expect the war to resume when the Kosovo Albanian leaders declare independence and the Serbian community in northern Kosovo announce their secession from the province in their attempt to unite with Serbia and Belgrade supports them, as will the Serbian veteran militias.

But what makes the war worse this time and prone to enlargement, is not only is the level of hatred worse, but the warring governments and groups are more heavily armed than in the early 1990s, plus the extra dimension of Athens/Tirana/Skopje/Ankara entering the conflict on opposite sides and of course Tehran.

Alliances and cooperation could shift with the wind. In 1991-92, some of the fighting then caught the region by surprise, as were international organizations and military alliances like the UN, NATO and Warsaw Pact who were caught off guard. Though they recognized the division, they underestimated the impact of weapon dealers.

But that is not the case now. Nor was Tehran prepared to enter as they are now. In the early 1990s, Iran was just establishing relations with every government in the former Yugoslavia and supporting the Mujahideen fighters in Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, in response to Brussels’ wind shift away from the Albanian community, Iran has increased its relations and military support of Tirana, knowing the equipment will be sent to the KLA.

Tehran is aware the unifying factor in Southeast Europe is hatred of Vienna-Brussels, which is why the KLA veterans are directing their warnings mostly at the UN and their offices in Pristina, which I assume are the first target for demolition.

7/8/2007

Willard Payne is an international affairs analyst who specializes in International Relations. A graduate of Western Illinois University with a concentration in East-West Trade and East-West Industrial Cooperation, he has been providing incisive analysis to NewsBlaze. He is the author of Imagery: The Day Before.

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