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West steps up threats against Yugoslavia
 
 
                    By Tony Robson
 
                    23 September 2000
 
 
                    Use this version to print
 
 
                    The NATO powers have tightened their military encirclement of the
 
                    Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in the run-up to the presidential
 
                    and federal elections on Sunday.
 
 
                    According to a Croatian news source, two US navy ships carrying 3,500
 
                    troops are presently stationed at the ports of Split and Dubrovnik. An
 
                    aircraft carrier, the George Washington, is to be deployed to the
 
                    Adriatic from the Persian Gulf by September 30. The British Royal Navy
 
                    aircraft carrier, HMS Invincible, is also stationed off the Montenegrin
 
                    coast. In the words of the British Ministry of Defence, this is to “send the
 
                    right message to Belgrade.”
 
 
                    The threat of renewed military action has been coupled with increased
 
                    Western interference in the country's electoral process. Western powers
 
                    are backing the candidacy of Vojislav Kostunica, from the Democratic
 
                    Opposition of Serbia (DOS). This umbrella group of 18 parties has been
 
                    described as "democratic” and “independent” solely because it is seeking
 
                    to unseat President Slobodan Milosevic.
 
 
                    The atmosphere is now extremely tense. At the end of August, Ivan
 
                    Stambolic, a former President of Serbia who had been considering
 
                    standing against Milosevic, was abducted and has not been seen since.
 
                    Milosevic has clamped down on the media and earlier this month three
 
                    members of the student-based opposition movement Otpor were jailed
 
                    for 10 days, for spraying graffiti on walls in the capital.
 
 
                    The Yugoslav government has also staged a war crimes trial of Western
 
                    leaders responsible for organising last years bombing, accusing them of
 
                    crimes against humanity and violating the country's territorial sovereignty.
 
                    The trial, which is due to end immediately before Sunday's elections, is
 
                    expected to hand down «sentences» of 15-20 years on US President
 
                    Clinton, British Prime Minister Blair, former NATO Secretary General
 
                    Javier Solana and NATO's European commander General Wesley
 
                    Clarke, among others.
 
 
                    At an election rally last week, Milosevic denounced his opponents as
 
                    "rabbits, rats and even hyenas" and accused them of being funded by the
 
                    Western powers. Whilst Milosevic uses such charges to justify his
 
                    clampdown on democratic rights in a bid to retain power, there is no
 
                    doubt that the official opposition is on the payroll of the US and
 
                    European Union.
 
 
                    The New York Times of September 20 stated openly that, “The United
 
                    States and its European allies have made it clear that they want Mr
 
                    Milosevic ousted, and they have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to
 
                    get it done...
 
 
                    “The money from the West is going to most of the institutions that the
 
                    government attacks for receiving it—sometimes in direct aid, and
 
                    sometimes in suitcases of cash carried across the border between
 
                    Yugoslavia and Hungary or Serbia and Montenegro. Most of those
 
                    organisations and news media could not exist without foreign aid in this
 
                    society, which is poor and repressive and whose market is distorted by
 
                    foreign economic sanctions.”
 
 
                    The fact that these organisations, publications and media groups are so
 
                    dependent upon US and EU patronage does not prevent the article's
 
                    author, Steven Erlanger, from describing them as independent.
 
 
                    Finance has been channelled to the opposition forces through the
 
                    National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Though routinely referred
 
                    to as a non-governmental organization, the US Congress funds it. The
 
                    NED, which was founded in 1983, serves in practice as an adjunct to the
 
                    CIA—procuring agents and groups in foreign countries to function as
 
                    appendages of US foreign policy.
 
 
                    According a report published by the NED two years ago, the Serbian
 
                    opposition forces have been provided with monies going back as far as
 
                    1988. Many of the recipients included media outlets described in the
 
                    West as the tribunes of «free speech», such as Radio-92.
 
 
                    Information on recent contributions has not been so forthcoming. Figures
 
                    on grant recipients in Serbia are a matter of public record. Officially,
 
                    however, the NED has refused to release data without a formal request
 
                    under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. The protracted
 
                    nature of such proceedings means that such figures would not be
 
                    available until after polling day.
 
 
                    The reluctance to publish this data probably reflects criticisms made by
 
                    opposition forces within FRY that the US has acted too clumsily in its
 
                    support. The way in which opposition leaders have been summoned to
 
                    meetings by US representatives, and the open declarations of future
 
                    financial support in return for political obedience, have compromised
 
                    them in the eyes of the general population.
 
 
                    According to US Congressional hearings into the crisis in Kosovo, in the
 
                    two years preceding the NATO intervention Serbian opposition forces
 
                    received $16.5 million and the President of FRY's smaller republic,
 
                    Montenegro, $20 million.
 
 
                    The DOS has signed up to the platform of the G17, a think-tank of
 
                    market economists again funded by NED. This economic blueprint calls
 
                    for the adoption of the German mark as the main currency for all of FRY,
 
                    following in the footsteps of the Montenegrin republic last year. Other
 
                    proposals include reduction of public spending, ending subsidies on food
 
                    and other forms of social protection.
 
 
                    The continuation of US and European economic sanctions on the FRY is
 
                    being cynically exploited to bludgeon the population into accepting these
 
                    terms as the condition for ending their economic isolation. On September
 
                    18, EU Foreign Ministers in Brussels stated openly that if the voters
 
                    ditched Milosevic at the polls economic sanctions would be lifted
 
                    forthwith. Javier Solana, who is now the EU's foreign and security policy
 
                    representative, commented, “A change from Milosevic to Kostunica
 
                    would be welcome for all democrats and all citizens of Europe.”
 
 
                    The Western media has already made clear that a victory for Milosevic
 
                    will be interpreted as proof of ballot rigging. This would be utilized to
 
                    encourage civil unrest amongst the population and any ensuing
 
                    confrontation could provide the pretext for NATO military intervention.
 
 
                    As recently as August 17, the International Crisis Group (ICG), a
 
                    Western policy think tank funded by the billionaire George Soros, stated
 
                    in a press release entitled “Montenegro ‘Right' to Boycott Milosevic's
 
                    Phoney Elections”: “Serious doubts remain about the capacity of the
 
                    opposition to mount a credible campaign. United or not, opposition
 
                    leaders are not held in great respect by the majority of Serbian people,
 
                    nor is there any consensus behind one figure as an agent of change and
 
                    an alternative to Milosevic. In the present circumstances, the participation
 
                    of the opposition and of the Montenegrins in federal elections runs the
 
                    risk of handing Milosevic a sham victory.
 
 
                    “The international community should not lend further support to these
 
                    flawed and illegal elections. The West's willingness to endorse phoney
 
                    elections is an act of desperation, which rests on the hope that if
 
                    Milosevic blatantly steals the elections the Serbian people will rise up
 
                    against him.”
 
 
                    Now the ICG is calling for Serbs to vote in elections they previously
 
                    denounced as phoney, stating that, “Despite all the reservations
 
                    legitimately felt about the intensely nationalist opposition candidate,
 
                    Vojislav Kostunica, ICG recommends international support for him, and
 
                    full participation in the election by the Serbian people.”
 
 
                    The plans of the ruling coalition government of Montenegro, led by Milo
 
                    Djukanovic, to secede from the FRY are also supported by the ICG. It
 
                    has lobbied for the NATO Security Council to pass a resolution
 
                    committing itself to military engagement on the side of the breakaway
 
                    province in the event of hostilities with Belgrade. Joining them, the former
 
                    leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats Paddy Ashdown wrote in the
 
                    Independent newspaper: “On the military side, it means [the West]
 
                    drawing up proper contingency plans for the various eventualities,
 
                    including the most overtly dangerous one of attempted coup; considering
 
                    in what circumstances we could impose a no-fly zone: immediate
 
                    judicious employment of Western warship units in the Adriatic, etc.
 
 
                    “On the economic front, it means continuing to expand Western
 
                    economic assistance to Montenegro. And doing some very clear but
 
                    rather small symbolic things to show our presence and active engagement
 
                    in Montenegro—the establishment of an EU office in Podgorica, for
 
                    instance.”
 
 
                    Already, thanks to Western financial support, the paramilitary police
 
                    forces loyal to President Djukanovic outnumber Federal troops stationed
 
                    in Montenegro by approximately 20,000 to 15,000. Evidence continues
 
                    to grow that this force is receiving training by Western military experts.
 
                    According to the July 30 Independent, Montenegro's Special Police, the
 
                    Spezijani, has received training from Britain's SAS. The newspaper's
 
                    correspondent interviewed an experienced officer named Velibor, who
 
                    explained, “It was great. We learnt a lot. Some of the techniques they use
 
                    are different to ours.”
 
 
                    These developments reveal that the Western powers are not interested in
 
                    the democratic process or preventing a new outbreak of war in the
 
                    Balkans. Their support for the oppositionist forces in Serbia and
 
                    secession in Montenegro are merely a means towards an
 
                    end—destabilizing the FRY in order to extend their economic, political
 
                    and military domination of the Balkans.