Editorial:
The ethnic Albanian pawns

In what must rank as one of the most cynical exercises of all time, the 
NATO powers are using the plight of ethnic Albanians to whip up hatred of 
the Yugoslav Government and the Serb people and to justify their illegal 
aggression against a sovereign country.

It is not surprising that the people of a number of countries are 
influenced by the incessant daily dose of horror stories flashed around the 
world on TV screens. The intention is to demonise Yugoslavian President 
Milosevic personally and to try and shift the blame for the horrors of the 
bombing to the shoulders of others and to justify war against Yugoslavia.

The truth is that the flood of refugees is mainly linked to the savage 
bombing of both Kosovo and the Serb parts of Yugoslavia. There are many 
Serb refugees as well.

The population of Kosovo is predominantly of ethnic Albanian origin yet it 
is the main city of Kosovo, Pristina, which has suffered some of the 
heaviest bombing. Why should this criminal act be perpetrated except to 
induce the Albanian population to take to the roads to reach what they hope 
will be a safe haven in Macedonia, Albania or Montenegro?

Pristina is only a short distance from the Macedonian border and it is 
understandable that many would head in that direction.

Although some refugees were leaving to escape the military conflict between 
the Yugoslavian army and the cutthroats of the KLA it is nothing to that 
now created by the NATO bombing. There was no mass exodus before the 
bombing commenced.

For some years the KLA has been deliberately armed and supplied by the US 
and Germany to destabilise the situation within Yugoslavia. Numerous 
reports detail the involvement of the KLA in the European drug trade, money 
laundering and in the arms trade. (See page 6) 

The conflict is with the KLA, not the people of Kosovo. If it were a case 
of ethnic discrimination why aren't the 100,000 ethnic Albanians living in 
Belgrade being chased out?

The fact that the refugees are mere pawns in the criminal game being played 
out by NATO is demonstrated by the refusal of a number of European 
countries to take in the refugees that their bombing has created? The aim 
of this seemingly callous response has an even more sinister intention 
behind it. 

The Albanians are being actively recruited in Albania and trained 
militarily. They are to be the stormtroopers (under NATO command) who are 
being prepared to invade Kosovo, do the fighting and dying while NATO 
provides air cover. It is once again a diabolical exercise in using others 
as cannon-fodder to achieve the objectives of the US and European pay-
masters.

The use of the Contras in Nicaragua and the death-squads in several other 
Latin American countries all paid for and armed by the US are previous 
examples. The KLA is the European equivalent of the Nicaraguan Contras.

This NATO intention is confirmed by the fact that none of the countries 
taking refugees are giving the refugees the opportunity to apply for 
permanent residency. The Australia Government is adopting special 
legislation which denies the Albanian refugees normal refugee rights.

The intention is to return them to Albania or to Kosovo if the NATO plan to 
occupy Kosovo should succeed.

They are being promised a return to Kosovo in some three to six months. 
Throughout this period they will remain in limbo. It is a cruel game being 
played with hundreds of thousands of people. They are to be moved around on 
the chess-board of political expediency.

The current exodus has been described as the greatest refugee flow since 
the end of WW II.

This assertion ignores the huge refugee crises which have been experienced 
by the people of Rwanda, the Congo, the Palestinians (most Palestinians 
have been forced into exile from their homeland by Israeli aggression and 
seizure of their land), the Kurds who have been systematically terrorised 
by Turkey and Iraq, by the huge number of refugees caused by the nearly 20 
years' long war in Angola, by the long civil war still going on in the 
Sudan.

But the western powers show next to no concern for these refugees. They do 
not count in the plans of NATO at present.

The only hope for Kosovo Albanians is an end to the NATO imposed war.