Og her var det andre innlegget.....
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Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 16:02:56 +0200
To: asgeirbj@student.sv.uio.no
From: asgeirbj@student.sv.uio.no
Subject: Re: Montenegro: NATO-truslar og mediesensur.
Hei Asgeir!
Det er meg igjen.
I dag hadde eg tenkt å by på nokon utdrag frå ein kommentarartikkel i
Washington Times. Forfattaren (Nikolaos A. Stavrou is a professor of
international affairs at Howard University.) samanliknar
Djukanovic-dynastiet sine paramilitære styrkar med UCK, og advarer mot ein
muleg "October surprise" til bruk i valkampen i USA. Han skriv at
Djukanovic-regimet på grunn av den sterke folkelege motstanden mot
lausriving(70%), følgjer den velutprøvde "offer-modellen" for å oppnå
vestleg intervensjon.:
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/commentary-200082918740.htm
Avsnitta kan avvike frå orginalen. Alt i alt blei det ei svært lite
innkorta utgåve som er limt inn nedanfor, så lite at eg i grunnen kunne
spart meg for klippinga...men,men det blei no sånn.
Asgeir Bjørkedal
Mounting anxiety in Montenegro
Nikolaos A. Stavrou
In a recent trip through Belgrade, Montenegro and Albania I saw firsthand
the result of NATO's and American policy's failures in the Balkans. The
scars of 78 days of "humanitarian" bombardment are visible all over the
land: young men and women drift aimlessly from coffee shop to coffee shop;
policemen in blue uniforms direct traffic in towns and cities of Montenegro
while camouflaged-draped paramilitary units roam the streets with no
particular purpose. The consensus among Montenegrins is that their land is
being groomed as Slobodan Milosevic's "next victim" that would need NATO's
"humanitarian" intervention.
Keen localobservers are puzzled by the presence of scores of foreign
"businessmen" huddling with paramilitary warlords and doing no visible
business. The "human rights industry," too, is well represented in
Podgorica. With minimal resources expanded, activists of this "industry"
are busy co-opting and corrupting elites for as little as a paid trip to
Washington and a platform to recite anti-Milosevic grievances.
Montenegro is rapidly becoming the next flash point that could silence
George W. Bush's criticism of the uses and misuses of American power and
could serve as the October surprise in an election year.
This tiny republic of 600,000 people is neither a democracy nor a state,
although is treated as one by our architects of the Balkan quagmire. Its
government behaves as an aspiring victim and seems eager to make the most
of Mr. Milosevic's villainous image in an election year. Madeleine
Albright's latest model of Balkan democrat, Montenegrin President Milo
Djukanovic, presides over a smuggling enterprise, not a government. The
Italian mafia, roving Russian gangsters, and Albanian drug and gun dealers,
all share the benefits of Montenegro's anarchic environment that Western
observers confuse for freedom.
The Albanians take the prize as poster boys for post-Cold war Balkan
capitalism. Besides drugs and guns, they also control a multi-ethnic
prostitution ring that literally buys and sells desperate women, lured to
their brutal underworld from as far away as Kiev. Profits from this
lucrative "business" are visible in the Albanian-inhabited town of Tuzaj, a
few kilometers from the Albanian borders. Walled villas and late models of
Mercedez Benzes compare favorably with estates in Potomac, Md.(....)
There is no success of American policy in Kosovo or anywhere else in the
Balkans, no matter how loosely one defines success. Yet, our government
continues its ostrich-like policies and refuses to come to grips with reality:
i.e. that NATO failed in the Balkans and that it would make little sense to
repeat last year's folly in Montenegro. Kosovo is not a safe place for its
inhabitants, or our troops for that matter. (....)
But judging from its escalating rhetoric, the Clinton administration seems
itching for another Balkan war in defense of self-proclaimed victims. The
Bosnia-Kosovo pattern is now being fine-tuned and Slobodan Milosevic, our
favorite villain, could be tricked to provide the pretext.
Part of the fine-tuning is a myth currently perpetrated by the "mainstream"
Western media: i.e. that Montenegro's population wishes to break free from
Belgrade's grip and go its own way. That is a myth. Internal polls
conducted by Montenegro's own government (confirmed by an informal poll by
this writer) show a solid 70 percent of the population favoring the
Federation, even though the same percentage also oppposes Mr. Milosevic's
authoritarian rule and Mr. Djukanovic's corruption.
Sensing the likely outcome of such a referendum for
independence, the family-centered government of Montenegro passed several
opportunities to hold one. Instead, under apparent Western tutoring, it has
opted for the well-tested "victimhood model." Verbal and other provocation
against Belgrade have intensified and a paramilitary force resembling KLA
in its formative years is used to "solve" the unemployment problem.
The scenario most often talked about by idle "coffee shop" analysts is a
staged hot incident and disproportionate reaction by the entrenched
Yugoslav Army.
Ironically, in a land of suffering and more than 40 percent unemployment,
Mr. Djukanovic builds a paramilitary force with unexplained resources and
highly paid foreign mercenaries as trainers. This force resembles in more
ways than one the KLA in its formative years; and in the heat of American
presidential elections, it could provide an October surprise.
Nikolaos A. Stavrou is a professor of international affairs
at Howard University.
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