June 2001

De forslag, der præsenteres her, er alene fremsat udfra en dyb bekymring over situationen i Makedonien, som stadig forværres. Det er en goodwill handling fra TFF. Vi vil hjælpe alle i Makedonien med at styrke deres tro på fred og med at arbejde for den med håb og med ihærdighed. Denne PressInfo skal stimulere bekymrede borgere og politikere i Makedonien, på Balkan og andre steder i verden til at fremkomme med ideer, der kan hjælpe med at vende Makedoniens kurs væk fra afgrunden. De synes måske at nogen af ideerne og forslagene er “urealistiske”. Men ser man nøjere på problemet; vil man opdage at ideen om krig og drab for at løse sociale og psykologiske problemer og frembringe fred er endnu mere urealistisk. De, der insisterer på at løse konflikter fortrinsvis eller udelukkende ved fredelige midler er i overensstemmelse med FN pagten. Konflikter er noget der bare sker, noget der...

By The British Helsinki Human Rights Group, BHHG For more information, call 01865-439483; or contact Mark Almond (07885-625415) or John Laughland (02087419749). SUMMARY Anti -Western Feeling –  no surprise This Group’s observers detected unprecedented hostility towards Westerners on the part of ordinary ethnic Macedonians during their mission to Macedonia before 20th June and so they were not surprised when the angry crowds which stormed theMacedonian parliament in Skopje on the night of June 25th after agroup of Albanian rebels had been escorted to freedom by Nato troops earlier in the day also vented their frustrationon Western journalists. The four month crisis in Macedonia provoked by an Albanian guerrilla insurgency has led to repeated calls in the West  for the EU and Nato to act as “honest brokers,” yet the widespread perception among Macedonians that the insurrection has been facilitatedat best by the failure of Western troops to interdict weapons smuggling...

LONDON – In any body politic there will be a group of powerful people who, if not in the inner circle of the president or prime minister, can win access to it at regular intervals. Security is their profession and they can be met at discrete academic conferences where they tend to stand out as rather earnest, if sombre, figures. It is they who bend the ear of those in authority, consistent in their solicitations even as governments change, arguing that their country will only have true security if they possess a nuclear deterrent and that if their advice is not heeded one day there will be an enemy who will take advantage of their country’s naiveté. One of these I knew reasonable well, the erudite and charming nuclear physicist, the late Dr Munir Khan, one the fathers of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, who, it was said – although no proof...

EU:s “utrikesminister” Dr. Javier Solana talar den 20 juni på fredsforskningsinstitutet SIPRI till minnet av Olof Palme. Det är tur att hans tema är Europas säkerhet i det 21:a seklet. 1999 var han NATO:s generalsekreterare och därmed den högsta politiskt ansvarige för de skamliga terrorbombningar av Jugoslavien som dödade hundratals, stärkte Milosevic och ledde till ockupationen av Kosovo/a, etnisk rensning där och krigshandlingar i Sydserbien och nu i Makedonien. Kanske ska han tala om hur man för en principfast gemensam politik för minoriteter i Europa: Nordirland, Skotland, Korsika, Kroatien, Bosnien, Kosovo och nu Makedonien? Kanske ska han tala om hur hans hemland, Spanien, har löst – nästan – alla problem i Baskerlandet med – nästan – fredliga medel? Vilken skymf mot Olof Palme och mot det som Sverige en gång i tiden stod för: ett starkt FN, nedrustning, fred med fredliga medel, solidaritet med små stater, vakthållning om suveräniteten och...

LONDON – One can only marvel at the tenacity of those who make a living in Europe and North America commentating, advising, and, if they are members of an official government delegation, negotiating the Israeli-Palestine issue. A year after the failure of Camp David and the beginning of the second Intifada they continue to beaver away, convinced a dam to tide the onslaught of violence can still be constructed, that an interim agreement or two can replace the high hopes of a final settlement, that the most brutal general in Israel’s blood-filled history, Ariel Sharon, now prime minister, can be dissuaded from the use of his iron fists, and that Yasser Arafat, the ruthless, egomaniacal Palestinian president can forever ride the tiger of the Arab street and somehow placate it while signing on for half of what he rejected for understandable reasons a year ago. The deal almost negotiated at...

A NATO led military intervention in Macedonia involving American and British special forces “against the NLA rebels” would be a phony operation from the outset.  Amply documented, the NLA terrorists –who are directly linked to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) —  are armed and trained by Washington. So why would the US intervene under NATO auspices to fight against its own proxy army? This article follows an earlier text focussing in greater length on the military-intelligence aspects entitled: “Washington Finances Ethnic Warfare in the Balkans” (3 April 2001) at:http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/choss/fin.htm. See also “America at War in Macedonia” at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/choss/pipe.htm, also at http://www.antiwar.com/rep/chuss5.html. The latter article examines the issue of control over strategic pipeline routes and transport corridors and the strategic role of Macedonia, which lies at the cross-roads of the Trans-Balkan oil pipeline. The US is once more waging a proxy war using the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to fight the Macedonian Armed Forces. While...

I disse dage mindes jeg min samtale i begyndelsen af 1990erne med den første USA repræsentant i det uafhængige Makedonien. To ting stod helt klart: a) ligegyldigt hvilket spørgsmål jeg stillede, var svaret, at USAs politik sigtede mod stabilitet; b) hvis han vidste noget om Balkan i almindelighed og Makedonien i særdeleshed, holdt han det for sig selv. I dag skal vi ikke blive forbavsede, hvis efter-kold-krigs plus-ordet “stabilitet” i virkeligheden skal læses “ustabilitet” eller “destabilisering.” Variation i amerikansk politik: Vi både støtter og fordømmer albanerne ! Den 4. juni fordømte den forhenværende ambassadør William G Walker i Washington Post den makedonske regering for at behandle albanerne som andenrangs mennesker og han sammenligner regeringens militære fremgangsmåde mod den albanske befrielseshær (UCK,NLA) med Milosevic’s. Han taler for et stærkere USA-engagement på højt niveau, der bør tage initiativ til en Dayton-lignende konference (der er ikke et ord om EU) og insisterer på,...

The following proposals are presented exclusively out of a deep concern over the deteriorating situation in Macedonia/FYROM. It’s an act of goodwill from TFF. We want to help everyone in Macedonia strengthen their belief in peace and work for it with hope and persistence. The aim of this PressInfo is to stimulate concerned citizen and political leaders in Macedonia, in the region and elsewhere around the world to produce ideas that can help turn Macedonia away from the abyss. You may find some of the ideas and proposals “unrealistic.” But please look deeply into the problem; then you will also recognise that the idea of war and killing to solve social and psychological problems and bring about peace is even more unrealistic. Those who insist on solving conflict predominantly, or exclusively, by peaceful means are at one with the Charter of the United Nations. Conflicts simply happen and are legitimate...

A prelude to military intervention? These days I am reminded of my conversation in the early 1990s with the first representative of the United States to independent Macedonia. Two things came out clearly: no matter the question I asked him he said that the policies of the United States aimed at stability; second, if he had any knowledge about the Balkans in general and Macedonia in particular he kept it to himself. Today, we should not be surprised if stability, the post-Cold War buzz-word, in reality means instability or de-stabilisation. Various U.S. policies: we both support and condemn the Albanians! On June 4, in Washington Post, retired Ambassador William G. Walker, condemned the Macedonian government for treating the Albanians as second-class citizens and, when it comes to its military response to fighting the Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA), compares it with Milosevic. He advocates a stronger high-level U.S. involvement by...

LONDON – This visit to Europe of this apparently most ignorant of contemporary American presidents will decide whether George Bush has inherited sufficient common sense to dig himself out of the hole he dug for himself in his first 100 days or whether he will ignore the first law of holes: when you are in one stop digging. Bush is discovering that, in William Pfaff’s telling phrase Europe, “is not a used-up civilization”. “For four hundred years European civilization has dominated the world-for better or worse. It is convenient and flattering for Americans to assume that this is all over; but it is very rash to do so”. There have been all number of good reasons for the U.S. to regard Europe as washed up, not just the two world-shattering wars of the last century, not just, going back, the political corruption that led to the founding of the U.S.A...

Lund – Der skal et mirakel til for at Makedonien ikke skal havne i krig. EU og andre internationale faktorer fører en zigzag-kurs, og USA støtter de mest militante kræfter. Volden trappes op og statsminister Geogievski overvejer at indføre krigstilstand. Det hele kan lede til endnu en frygtelig krig på Balkan og involvere en række stater på uoverskuelig måde, ikke mindst fordi Makedoniens identitet som stat er svagere end andre landes. Det politisk-militære-mediekompleks prøver endnu  en gang at forklare at en lokal konflikt kun skyldes de lokale: Det internationale “samfund” har, siges det, intet andet motiv end det at presse parterne til at sætte sig til forhandlingsbordet i stedet for at kriges. I denne artikel viser vi de skjulte politiske dagsordener og hvordan de mindsker mulighederne for fred. 1. Det internationale samfund: hovedårsagen til krig Da den politiske hukommelse er kort kan det være på sin plads at opridse hvorfor Makedonien...

By Robert C. Johansen TFF Associate The Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame announces the publication of its Policy Brief# 7, June 2001: Also available on the web at <http://www.nd.edu/~krocinst/polbriefs/pbrief7.html> In brief U.S. opposition to creating a permanent international criminal court arises from unwarranted fears that U.S. officials might be wrongly prosecuted. Opposition also rests on a mistaken belief that the United States can protect legitimate national sovereignty only by rejecting international legal constraints on criminal abuses of sovereignty. However, the proposed court would serve U.S. interests by investigating the world’s worst international crimes and assigning individual responsibility for them, reducing collective blame for the criminal acts of individuals, discouraging atrocities, and upholding international law while protecting against politically motivated prosecutions. The creation of a permanent international criminal court, designed to hold individuals (rather than states) accountable for failing to obey international humanitarian...