Disarm and disband the KLA

The UN-approved Belgrade agreement to end NATO's war on Yugoslavia 
upholds Yugoslavian sovereignty over Kosovo and calls for the 
demilitarisation of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Despite 
this, and despite the fact that the peace-keeping operation in Kosovo is to 
be under UN auspices, not NATO's, the US-dominated military alliance has 
signed an agreement with the KLA in which NATO has pledged to "consider" 
allowing the KLA to set up a "provisional" army in Kosovo.

The agreement was put through at the insistence of US Secretary of State 
Madeleine Albright. Only a year ago, the US State Department listed the KLA 
as a "terrorist" organisation.

Most of the KLA's soldiers were recruited in the US and Germany. It 
trafficks in heroin, using the profits to buy weapons — similar to 
Reagan's CIA mercenary "contras" that brought deadly war to Central America 
during the 1980s.

Earlier this month, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign 
Operations unanimously approved a Republican Bill to provide US$20 million 
to arm the KLA. The Bill brands Serbia a "terrorist state" and imposes new 
sanctions as the relentless assault on the Yugoslav people continues.

An estimated 100,000 Serbs have fled Kosovo.

As long as the US gives overt and covert backing for the KLA, US talk of 
multicultural unity in the Serbian province will be empty rhetoric. The 
danger of a new outbreak of war will grow and a new cycle of ethnic 
cleansing will begin.

Progressives everywhere must demand full compliance with the Belgrade 
agreement! Disarm and disband the KLA! Rebuild war damaged Yugoslavia, 
including Serbia!

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People's Weekly World, paper of Communist Party, USA