To høyinteressante artikler, ikke minst sett i sammenheng. Artikkel nr. to
(håper jeg kan bringe denne fra den tyske storavisa Hamburger Abendblatt
uten å bli anklaget for å gå i Hitlers fotspor!) beretter om utvidelsen av
den angivelig største amerikanske troppebasen utenfor USA (stemmer det?) i
det sørlige Kosovo til det dobbelte - med åpenlys tysk misbilligelse.
Artikkel
nr. 1 om oljerørledningsplanene til USA gjennom Makedonia og Albania gir
kanhende en nøkkel til både hvorfor basen skal utvides og hvorfor visse
tyskere misliker det? Mer sannsynlig enn at verdens mektigste plutselig
har latt seg røre til tårer av etniske gruppers lidelser?
Karsten Johansen
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4136440,00.html
Comment
In this newspaper, George Monbiot reminds us that the AMBO oil corporation
wants to build a trans-Balkan pipeline from the Black sea to the Adriatic -
and is supported by the US in this aim. In the light of this, Nato's new
disapproval of the ethnic Albanian rebels makes sense. The proposed pipeline
passes through both Kumanovo and Skopje.
A discreet deal in the pipeline
Nato mocked those who claimed there was a plan for Caspian oil
George Monbiot Guardian
Thursday February 15, 2001
Gordon Brown knows precisely what he should do about BP. The company's £10bn
profits are crying out for a windfall tax. Royalties and petroleum revenue
tax, both lifted when the oil price was low, are in urgent need of
reinstatement. These measures would be popular and fair. But, as all
political leaders are aware, you don't mess with Big Oil.
During the 1999 Balkans war, some of the critics of Nato's intervention
alleged that the western powers were seeking to secure a passage for oil
from the Caspian sea. This claim was widely mocked. The foreign secretary
Robin Cook observed that "there is no oil in Kosovo". This was, of course,
true but irrelevant. An eminent commentator for this paper clinched his
argument by recording that the Caspian sea is "half a continent away, lodged
between Iran and Turkmenistan".
For the past few weeks, a freelance researcher called Keith Fisher has been
doggedly documenting a project which has, as far as I can discover, has been
little-reported in any British, European or American newspaper. It is called
the Trans-Balkan pipeline, and it's due for approval at the end of next
month. Its purpose is to secure a passage for oil from the Caspian sea.
The line will run from the Black sea port of Burgas to the Adriatic at
Vlore, passing through Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. It is likely to
become the main route to the west for the oil and gas now being extracted in
central Asia. It will carry 750,000 barrels a day: a throughput, at current
prices, of some $600m a month.
The project is necessary, according to a paper published by the US Trade and
Development Agency last May, because the oil coming from the Caspian sea
"will quickly surpass the safe capacity of the Bosphorus as a shipping
lane". The scheme, the agency notes, will "provide a consistent source of
crude oil to American refineries", "provide American companies with a key
role in developing the vital east-west corridor", "advance the privatisation
aspirations of the US government in the region" and "facilitate rapid
integration" of the Balkans "with western Europe".
In November 1998, Bill Richardson, then US energy secretary, spelt out his
policy on the extraction and transport of Caspian oil. "This is about
America's energy security," he explained. "It's also about preventing
strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're trying to move
these newly independent countries toward the west.
"We would like to see them reliant on western commercial and political
interests rather than going another way. We've made a substantial political
investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us that both the
pipeline map and the politics come out right."
The project has been discussed for years. The US trade agency notes that the
Trans-Balkan pipeline "will become a part of the region's critical east-west
Corridor 8 infrastructure ... This transportation corridor was approved by
the transport ministers of the European Union in April 1994". The pipeline
itself, the agency says, has also been formally supported "since 1994". The
first feasibility study, backed by the US, was conducted in 1996.
The pipeline does not pass through the former Yugoslavia, but there's no
question that it featured prominently in Balkan war politics. On December 9
1998, the Albanian president attended a meeting about the scheme in Sofia,
and linked it inextricably to Kosovo. "It is my personal opinion," he noted,
"that no solution confined within Serbian borders will bring lasting peace."
The message could scarcely have been blunter: if you want Albanian consent
for the Trans-Balkan pipeline, you had better wrest Kosovo out of the hands
of the Serbs.
In July 1993, a few months before the corridor project was first formally
approved, the US sent peacekeeping troops to the Balkans. They were
stationed not in the conflict zones in which civilians were being rounded up
and killed, but on the northern borders of Macedonia. There were several
good reasons for seeking to contain Serb expansionism, but we would be
foolish to imagine that a putative $600m-a-month commercial operation did
not number among them. The pipeline would have been impossible to finance
while the Balkans were in turmoil.
I can't tell you that the war in the former Yugoslavia was fought solely in
order to secure access to oil from new and biddable states in central Asia.
But in the light of these findings, can anyone now claim that it was not?
(se også: http://www.guardian.co.uk/petrol/)
NATO: Amerikaner kochen im Kosovo ihr eigenes Süppchen
Skopje - George W. Bush reagierte heftig. Der amerikanische Präsident
ordnete an, diesen "Extremisten die finanzielle und materielle
Unterstützung" zu entziehen. Der Unmut des Präsidenten über die albanischen
Rebellen in Mazedonien ist gut zu verstehen. Erst wird bekannt, dass
mindestens 17 frühere US-Offiziere die Guerillas im Dorf Aracinovo vor den
Toren der Hauptstadt Skopje trainiert haben. Dann tauchen weitere
Ungereimtheiten im Zusammenhang mit dem Rückzug der UCK-Rebellen unter
Schutz der US-Armee am vergangenen Montag auf. Für die Operation wurden in
einer Blitzaktion eigens 81 Fallschirmjäger des Luftlanderegiments 502 aus
dem benachbarten Kosovo in das Bürgerkriegsland gekarrt. Sie gehören zu den
wenigen Spezialisten der US-Armee, die für Evakuierungsoperationen hinter
den feindlichen Linien ausgebildet sind. Während solcher Operationen
unterstehen die GI dem Kommando für spezielle Operationen. An dessen
Planungen beteiligen sich maßgeblich die amerikanischen Geheimdienste. Deren
Mitarbeiter waren in den vergangenen Wochen auch im Kosovo ausgesprochen
aktiv. Sie besuchten vor allem Bauern, die Land in der Nähe des US-Camps
Bondsteel im Süden des Kosovo besitzen. Mit denen schlossen sie
Pachtverträge ab. Wird das so erworbene Land jetzt genutzt, vergrößert sich
das bereits jetzt größte Militärlager der Amerikaner außerhalb der USA um
das Doppelte. "Das alles wirft die Frage nach den strategischen Absichten
auf", sorgt sich ein NATO-Diplomat. Längst steht für die Partner in der
westlichen Allianz fest: Im Kosovo kochen die USA ihr eigenes Süppchen.
Daran wird auch die gemeinsame Operation mit dem Decknamen "Essential
Harvest" (deutsch: "lebenswichtige Ernte") nichts ändern, die die NATO am
Freitag beschloss. In der soll eine Steitmacht des Bündnisses nach einem
Friedensabkommen zwischen albanischen Rebellen und der mazedonischen
Regierung die Waffen der Untergrundarmee UCK einsammeln. Planer der Allianz
halten einen Einsatzbeginn Ende Juli für realistisch. Dabei werden aller
Voraussicht nach auch Soldaten der Bundeswehr eingesetzt werden. Kanzler
Gerhard Schröder sagte zu, den "Einsatz auch materiell abzusichern". Damit
wird er auch die Union überzeugen, die ihre Zustimmung zu einem neuen
Balkaneinsatz von zusätzlichem Geld für die Streitkräfte abhängig gemacht
hat. (fjh)
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