KK-Forum,
viktig stoff fra Observer, i går.
Knut Rognes
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'CIA's bastard army ran riot in Balkans' backed extremists'
Special report: Kosovo
Peter Beaumont, Ed Vulliamy and Paul Beaver
Sunday March 11, 2001
The Observer
The United States secretly supported the ethnic Albanian extremists now
behind insurgencies in Macedonia and southern Serbia.
The CIA encouraged former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters to launch a
rebellion in southern Serbia in an effort to undermine the then Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic, according to senior European officers who
served with the international peace-keeping force in Kosovo (K-For), as
well as leading Macedonian and US sources.
They accuse American forces with K-For of deliberately ignoring the massive
smuggling of men and arms across Kosovo's borders.
The accusations were made in a series of interviews by The Observer . They
emerge as America has been forced into a rapid U-turn over its support for
Albanian extremists in Kosovo seeking a 'Greater Kosovo' that would include
Albanian communities in Serbia and Macedonia.
In the past week ethnic Albanian guerrillas have intensified their campaign
of attacks in the two areas, threatening a new war in the region which last
week put US troops in the firing line in the Balkans for the first time.
The accusations have led to tension in K-For between the European and US
military missions. European officers are furious that the Americans have
allowed guerrilla armies in its sector to train, smuggle arms and launch
attacks across two international borders.
One European K-For battalion commander told The Observer yesterday: 'The
CIA has been allowed to run riot in Kosovo with a private army designed to
overthrow Slobodan Milosevic. Now he's gone the US State Department seems
incapable of reining in its bastard army.'
He added: 'Most of last year, there was a growing frustration with US
support for the radical Albanians. US policy was and still is out of step
with the other Nato allies.'
The claim was backed by senior Macedonian officials in the capital, Skopje.
'What has been happening with the National Liberation Army [which has been
responsible for a series of attacks on Macedonia's borders in recent weeks]
and the UCPMB [its sister organisation in southern Serbia] is very similar
to what happened when the KLA was launched in 1995-96,' said one.
'I will say only this: the US intelligence agencies have not been honest
here.'
The claims were given extra credence from an unexpected source - Arben
Xhafari, leader of Macedonia's main Albanian party who tried to prevent the
crisis on the border igniting an ethnic civil war inside Macedonia itself.
A US State Department official blamed the last administration. There had
now been 'a shift of emphasis'.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
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