The Big Secret

The Only Serb Raid Into Albania

The Prelude

Inside Serbia

But in the next few days something changed. A few days earlier the Yugoslav authorities arrested two "aid workers", the 49-year-old Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace, 30. Later on Antony Robbins, a spokesman for aid organization CARE International will insist that the two men are completely innocent, but the Yugoslav counterintelligence knows otherwise, mainly because Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace presumably tell everything. The Yugoslav high command shifts gears and planned its action.

Inside the NATO

Commandos?

Shifting Gears

The Lightning Raid

The Day

After the initial shelling the Serbian artillery shifted fire and shelled the place around the village in order to prevent any outside help coming in. The Serb commando entered Kamenica and after a hard, but fast attack they pinned down the panicked KLA, and captured the village. In the relatively short time - the battle lasted about half an hour - the Serbian's managed to kill more than 800 KLA members (we still don't know the exact number), than conducted a very fast paced house-to-house search. They know what to look for and it is sure, they found it: a group of KLA members hiding in the basement of one of the houses. All of them were high-ranking leaders of the group and all of them were shot on the spot. Unsurprised, the Yugoslav troops found the "guests" as well , a group of 19 high-ranking US officers, including a general. All of them were arrested and in pairs were taken to the other side of the border.

The Aftermath

In Belgrade, Yugoslav officials denied any incursions into Albania. The chief of its army information service, Col. Milivoje Novkovic, said on state television that Yugoslavia's defense of its own borders was "being fabricated as an alleged invasion.''

Why US is bombing Kosovo?

Introduction

It seems that 50 days of persistent bombing of Yugoslavia, with repeated "collateral damage" and increasing numbers of innocent citizens killed due to "unintentional errors," has produced a unique effect on people of Yugoslav extraction in this country.

This phenomenon is particularly interesting from a psychological standpoint, because the emotional impact of the inhuman destruction affects individuals directly, regardless of their political persuasion or social background.

As a result, more and more Americans of Yugoslav origin, who left the Communist regime and involved themselves wholeheartedly in the social, economic, and cultural life of the United States, are beginning to reconsider their faith in the "New World Order."

Also among the disillusioned are those who were born in this country, but have become gradually aware of the injustice and double standards their government exercises towards the land of their fathers.

Vlada Petric, renowned film theorist and professor at the Visual Arts Department, Harvard University, has spent three decades teaching at various American universities, and was the first Curator of the Harvard Film Archive. Throughout this period he did not participate in any political action in this country, dedicating all his intellectual capacity to education, but he vigorously supported the massive demonstrations against Milosevic's authoritarian regime in Yugoslavia.

Triggered by the article in The New York Times Magazine, in which Susan Sontag justifies the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia, Professor Petric felt compelled to get involved and wrote a response to Sontag, which appears here.

Editor

Why Are We Bombing Kosovo?
- How Susan Sontag Promotes War -
by prof. Vlada Petric

     Realizing that the NATO attack on Yugoslavia "has been bungled," the initiators and supporters of this military intervention in Europe are now trying to present the action as a "moral" issue. In her article entitled "Why Are We in Kosovo?" (The New York Times Magazine, May 2, 1999), Susan Sontag provides for the war a rationalization that sounds like a call to revenge. Instead of asking her ill-conceived question, it is more appropriate to ask, "Why Are We Bombing Kosovo?" Because by bombing Kosovo--and Yugoslavia, for that matter--we will never "be" in Kosovo. To achieve this and to resolve the Kosovo conflict--which Sontag irresponsibly proclaims "not that complicated"--there exist only two options:

a) Instant invasion that would involve bitter fighting on the ground, resulting in great casualties among the soldiers (which one can argue to be justifiable), with enormous losses of innocent people on all sides.
b) Persistent negotiations that may last long, yet are worth every innocent human being destroyed by the brutal military machine and by single-minded political thinkers like Sontag.

    Untouched by the tragic aspect of the situation in the Kosovo province of Yugoslavia, Sontag recommends war as the best solution, posing yet another question: "How can you stop those bent on genocide without war?" It seems inconceivable that an artist, who is supposed to put humanistic ideals above politics, can conceive such a question, and conclude that "not all wars are unjust." In her mind, the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia is a "just war" (read: "just aggression") although it "has been bungled," but she fails to explain why this war is doing badly. To do so, she would have to admit that, after NATO intervention, the number of Albanian Kosovar refugees who had to leave their homes has increased from a trickle to a flood, while many hundreds of innocent people have been killed throughout Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo, due to "technical and logistic errors." In a "just" war, of course, errors must be justified, and Sontag assumes the role of an arbitrator who declares that it is "only a small portion of the suffering that the Milosevic government has inflicted on neighboring peoples." What a grotesque rationalization: a "small portion" of the prescribed punishment of a people for the misdeeds committed by both their own and other leaders! This implies blind retribution that can only ignite more hatred and continue the killing. As an educator, I fortunately learned that such a vindictive method of "teaching" people how to behave does not work, since it expands violence and encourages retaliation.

    Dividing wars between "just" and "unjust," Sontag estimates how much retaliation is "necessary" to punish the nation she proclaims as the sole culprit for the war in what once was Yugoslavia. She readily equates the Serbian people with the Milosevic regime, which is like declaring the Russian people responsible for the Stalinist atrocities, or claiming that all Germans are guilty for what Hitler did to the Jews, Gypsies, Serbs, and other ethnic minorities in Europe. Only a mind infected by hatred can produce and popularize such a monstrous concept.

    To support her thesis, Sontag recalls her experience in Sarajevo during the Summer of 1993, comparing the ethnic civil war in Yugoslavia with the Nazi slaughter of the German Jews. Again, her comparison is tendentious and severely flawed, motivated by one-sidedness. Certainly, the shelling of Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, Vukovar--as well as ethnic cleansing--is wrong, just as the bombing of Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis, Podgorica, Pristina, and many other cities in Yugoslavia is wrong and counter-productive. Moreover, bombing as an ultimatum cannot bring the warring parties to a negotiating table, particularly if the "supreme judge" unequivocally supports only one side in the conflict.

    Promotion of war, whether labeled as "just" or "unjust," is a crime against humane consciousness, because it excludes concern for the innocent citizens trapped in the power struggle for political, military, and economic supremacy. Deaf to the cries of the innocent Yugoslav citizens threatened by NATO bombs, Sontag proposes bloody retribution as a "just reaction" to the Kosovo conflict, and poses her final question "Can we really say that there is no response to this?" Of course, there is and should be a response, but not by warmongering and encouraging more bloodshed, as Sontag does, with the pretense of extinguishing the "radical evil in the world." By killing innocent people, Susan, you would create more evil in the world.

    There have always been those who glorified war as a means of resolving discord between states and nations and some even label wars as "holy," blessed by God. Today, when nothing is sacred any more, we have to oppose ideas that place ideology above human life, instead of contributing to the supercilious militaristic logic that is "a dangerous aberration of human consciousness," as Mirko Kovac, the great Serbian writer and both Susan's and my friend, would say. Unconcerned with peoples' suffering and the multiplication of innocent victims, Susan Sontag promotes her "just" war” from an Italian coffee bar on the sunny Adriatic coast.

Professor Vlada Petric taught film history at the Visual Department, Harvard University from 1973-1997. He is the founder and first Curator of the Harvard Film Archive. Retired, he lives in Cambridge, completing his two books on film theory and aesthetics.

Rugova:

Kosovo rebel army an extremist organization LONDON, May 14 (AFP)

Visiting moderate ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova on Friday said the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was an "extremist" organization. "I am the leader of the Albanians of Kosovo in exile; as such I enjoy the support of people in the camps currently in Macedonia and Albania," said Rugova in an interview with Channel 4 television. But he added:

"There is at the moment an extremist group who keeps criticizing me and that is regrettable," in a reference to the KLA. Rugova earlier Friday held talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook on the second leg of a European tour aimed at reclaiming the mantle of Kosovar leadership.

"My aim is to coordinate and to organise the political life of Kosovo because all the leaders are now outside Kosovo," he said after meeting Cook over breakfast. Rugova, speaking through an interpreter, told reporters he had met some senior figures and was trying to trace others who had been dispersed in several countries, notably Albania and Germany. He said the objective of his current tour of European capitals was to secure the return of the refugees to Kosovo as soon as possible, and he supported plans by the NATO allies for an international force in Kosovo.

"It is important that there is an international and NATO presence," he said. Rugova was permitted to leave for Italy last week after reportedly being kept under house arrest in the Kosovo provincial capital Pristina by Belgrade since NATO launched its air campaign on March 24. But the head of the Kosovo Democratic League, who has stuck doggedly to a lifelong commitment to nonviolence, has seen his influence in the Kosovo crisis eclipsed by the armed separatist Kosovo Liberation Army. A spokesman for the KLA last week accused Rugova of acting as "an emissary" for Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and denied that the moderate leader represented the ethnic Albanian people. A spokesman for the British premier who met Rugova for 30 minutes of talks said that the ethnic Albanian leadership was "somewhat disparate". "We have maintained strong links with Rugova but not to the exclusion of other elements," he added. Cook said he had assured the moderate ethnic Albanian leader of London's "resolve" to complete NATO's task "so that the people in the refugee camps can return and so Dr Rugova himself can return from exile."

Rugova has already launched a counteroffensive to restore his standing among the displaced ethnic Albanians, saying in Germany Wednesday that independence for the Serbian province will continue to be his principal goal. He has also sought to repair damage done to his image, denying he had ever called on NATO to halt its air strikes against Yugoslavia, and defended the bombing as a vital means to pressure Belgrade. His reported remarks in late March caused dismay among Kosovar expatriates and allegations that he had sold out or was being manipulated by Belgrade. Rugova said in London, from where he was due to fly to Paris Friday, he hoped to visit some of the Kosovan refugee camps in the region soon. According to the UNHCR, more than 740,000 Kosovars have fled to neighbouring countries since March 24, the start of NATO bombing campaign on Yugoslavia. Rugova, who is to set up temporary home in Germany, has already been received by leading European politicians, including Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. He was also granted an audience by Pope John Paul II and held talks with Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin in Bonn.

Subject: NATO's Humanitarian Trigger
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 11:03:25 -0400
From: Murray Kahl <kahl1@gate.net>
To: (Recipient list suppressed)

Special (extra) ZNet Commentary
March 24, 1999

NATO's Humanitarian Trigger
By Diana Johnstone


From James Rubin to Christiane Amanpour, the broad range of government and media opinion is totally united in demanding that NATO bomb Serbia. This is necessary, we are told, in order to "avert a humanitarian catastrophe", and because, "the only language Milosevic understands is force"... which
happens to be the language the U.S. wants to speak.

Kosovo is presented as the problem, and NATO as the solution.

In reality, NATO is the problem, and Kosovo is the solution.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO needed a new excuse for pumping resources into the military-industrial complex. Thanks to Kosovo, NATO can celebrate its 50th anniversary next month by consecration of its new global mission: to intervene anywhere in the world on humanitarian
grounds. The recipe is easy: arm a group of radical secessionists to shoot policemen, describe the inevitable police retaliation as "ethnic cleansing", promise the rebels that NATO will bomb their enemy if the fighting goes on, and then interpret the resulting mayhem as a challenge to NATO's "resolve" which must be met by military action. 

Thanks to Kosovo, national sovereignty will be a thing of the past -- not of course for Great Powers like the U.S. and China, but for weaker States that really need it. National boundaries will be no obstacle to NATO intervention.

Thanks to Kosovo, the U.S. can control eventual Caspian oil pipeline routes between the Black Sea and the Adriatic, and extend the European influence of favored ally Turkey.

Last February 23, James Hooper, executive director of the Balkan Action Council, one of the many think tanks that have sprung up to justify the ongoing transformation of former Yugoslavia into NATO protectorates, gave a speech at the Holocaust Museum in Washington at the invitation of its
"Committee of Conscience". The first item on his list of "things to do next" was this: "Accept that the Balkans are a region of strategic interest for the United States, the new Berlin if you will, the testing ground for NATO's resolve and US leadership. [...] The administration should level with the American people and tell them that we are likely to be in the Balkans militarily indefinitely, at least until there is a democratic government in Belgrade."

In the Middle Ages, the Crusaders launched their conquests from the Church pulpits. Today, NATO does so in the Holocaust Museum. War must be sacred.

This sacralization has been largely facilitated by a post-communist left which has taken refuge in moralism and identity politics to the exclusion of any analysis of the economic and geopolitical factors that continue to determine the macropolicies shaping the world.

Jean-Christophe Rufin, former vice president of "Doctors Without Borders" recently pointed to the responsibility of humanitarian non-governmental organizations in justifying military intervention. "They were the first to deplore the passivity of the political response to dramatic events in the Balkans or Africa. Now they have got what they wanted, or so it seems. For in practice, rubbing elbows with NATO could turn out to be extremely dangerous."

Already the call for United Nations soldiers to intervene on humanitarian missions raised suspicions in the Third World that "the humanitarians could be the Trojan horse of a new armed imperialism", Rufin wrote in "Le Monde". But NATO is something else.

"With NATO, everything has changed. Here we are dealing with a purely military, operational alliance, designed to respond to a threat, that is to an enemy", wrote Rufin. "NATO defines an enemy, threatens it, then eventually strikes and destroys it.

"Setting such a machine in motion requires a detonator. Today it is no longer military. Nor is it political. The evidence is before us: NATO's trigger, today, is... humanitarian. It takes blood, a masssacre, something that will outrage public opinion so that it will welcome a violent reaction."

The consequence, he concluded, is that "the civilian populations have never been so potentially threatened as in Kosovo today. Why? Because those potential victims are the key to international reaction. Let's be clear:
the West wants dead bodies. [...] We are waiting for them in Kosovo. We'll get them." Who will kill them is a mystery but previous incidents suggest that "the threat comes from all sides."

In the middle of conflict as in Kosovo, massacres can easily be perpetrated... or "arranged". There are always television crews looking precisely for that "top story".

Recently, Croatian officers have admitted that in 1993 they themselves staged a "Serbian bombing" of the Croatian coastal city of Sibenik for the benefit of Croatian television crews. The former Commander of the 113th Croatian brigade headquarters, Davo Skugor, reacted indignantly. "Why so
much fuss?" he complained. "There is no city in Croatia in which such tactical tricks were not used. After all, they are an integral part of strategic planning. That's only one in a series of stratagems we've
resorted to during the war."

The fact remains that there really is a very serious Kosovo problem. It has existed for well over a century, habitually exacerbated by outside powers (the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg Empire, the Axis powers during World War II). The Serbs are essentially a modernized peasant people, who having liberated themselves from arbitrary Turkish Ottoman oppression in the 19th century, are attached to modern state institutions. In contrast, the Albanians in the northern mountains of Albania and Kosovo have never really accepted any law, political or religious, over their own unwritten "Kanun" based on patriarchal obedience to vows, family honor, elaborate obligations, all of which are enforced not by any government but by male family and clan chiefs protecting their honor, eventually in the practice of blood feuds and revenge.

The basic problem of Kosovo is the difficult coexistence on one territory of ethnic communities radically separated by customs, language and historical self-identification. From a humanistic viewpoint, this problem is more fundamental than the problem of State boundaries.

Mutual hatred and fear is the fundamental human catastrophe in Kosovo. It has been going on for a long time. It has got much worse in recent years. Why? 

Two factors stand out as paradoxically responsible for this worsening --paradoxically, because presented to the world as factors which should have improved the situation.

1 - The first is the establishment in the autonomous Kosovo of the 1970s and 1980s of separate Albanian cultural institutions, notably the Albanian language faculties in Pristina University. This cultural autonomy, demanded by ethnic Albanian leaders, turned out to be a step not to reconciliation
between communities but to their total separation. Drawing on a relatively modest store of past scholarship, largely originating in Austria, Germany or Enver Hoxha's Albania, studies in Albanian history and literature amounted above all to glorifications of Albanian identity. Rather than developing the critical spririt, they developed narrow ethnocentricy.
Graduates in these fields were prepared above all for the career of nationalist political leader, and it is striking the number of literati among Kosovo Albanian secessionist leaders. Extreme cultural autonomy has created two populations with no common language.

In retrospect, what should have been done was to combine Serbian and Albanian studies, requiring both languages, and developing original comparative studies of history and literature. This would have subjected both Serbian and Albanian national myths to the scrutiny of the other, and worked to correct the nationalist bias in both. Bilingual comparative studies could and should have been a way toward mutual understanding as well as an enrichment of universal culture. Instead, culture in the service
of identity politics leads to mutual ignorance and contempt.

The lesson of this grave error should be a warning elsewhere, starting in Macedonia, where Albanian nationalists are clamoring to repeat the Pristina experience in Tetova. Other countries with mixed ethnic populations should take note.

2. The second factor has been the support from foreign powers, especially the United States, to the Albanian nationalist cause in Kosovo. By uncritically accepting the version of the tangled Kosovo situation presented by the Albanian lobby, American politicians have greatly exacerbated the conflict by encouraging the armed Albanian rebels and pushing the Serbian authorities into extreme efforts to wipe them out.

The "Kosovo Liberation Army" (UCK) has nothing to lose by provoking deadly clashes, once it is clear that the number of dead and the number of refugees will add to the balance of the "humanitarian catastrophe" that can bring NATO and U.S. air power into the conflict on the Albanian side.

The Serbs have nothing to gain by restraint, once it is clear that they will be blamed anyway for whatever happens.

By identifying the Albanians as "victims" per se, and the Serbs as the villains, the United States and its allies have made any fair and reasonable political situation virtually impossible. The Clinton  administration in particular builds its policy on the assumption that what the Kosovar Albanians -- including the UCK -- really want is "democracy," American style. In fact, what they want is power over a particular territory, and among the Albanian nationalists, there is a bitter power struggle going on over who will exercise that power.

Thus an American myth of "U.S.-style democracy and free market economy will solve everything" is added to the Serbian and Albanian myths to form a fictional screen making reality almost impossible to discern, much less improve. Underlying the American myth are Brzezinski-style geostrategic designs on potential pipeline routes to Caspian oil and methodology for expanding NATO as an instrument to ensure U.S. hegemony over the Eurasian land mass.

Supposing by some miracle the world suddenly turned upside down, and there were outside powers who really cared about the fate of Kosovo and its inhabitants, one could suggest the following:

1 - stop one-sided demonization of the Serbs, recognize the genuine qualities, faults, and fears on all sides, and work to promote understanding rather than hatred;

2 - stop arming and encouraging rebel groups;

3 - allow genuine mediation by parties with no geostrategic or political
interests at stake in the region.

Subject: As a human being and as a Jew
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 10:35:28 -0400
From: Murray Kahl <kahl1@gate.net>
To: (Recipient list suppressed)

AS A HUMAN BEING AND AS A JEW

As a human being and as a Jew who fought the Nazis, I will never forget the glorious and uncompromising war of no equal, fought by the people of Yugoslavia against Hitler and his Wehrmacht.
As a human being and as a Jew who fought the Nazis, I will never forget that the people of Yugoslavia, as opposed to many other peoples, were in no way blemished by anti-Semitism and I ardently hope and firmly believe that they will remain so.
As a human being and as a Jew who fought the Nazis, I am deeply ashamed of and insulted by the irresponsible, biased and irrational attitude of a considerable part of the media in my country towards the people of Yugoslavia who were unequaled, courageous and faithful allies to the Jewish people in dire and fateful hours of distress.
As a human being and as a Jew who fought the Nazis, I bless the Norwegian pilots who refused to spread needless destruction and unjustifiable devastation on Yugoslavia for being strong and of good courage. I would like to believe that other NATO pilots of similar conscience and stature will learn from the Norwegian pilots and follow their example.
As a human being and as a Jew who fought the Nazis and was tortured by them, I demand the president of the United States who is endangering world peace, to immediately cease the gratuitous aggression against the people of Yugoslavia, and in accordance with his mission and his commitment to the American people and to the world, to foster dialogue and bring about peace. If needed, the President should replace by his authority, ministers and advisors, until the appropriate staff is found, to promote peace and restore peace to divided and war torn Yugoslavia.

Never Has Aggression Been Brought To End By Aggression.

As a human being and as a Jew who fought the Nazis and witnessed their defeat, I ardently hope and firmly believe, that the people of Yugoslavia will emerge from this severe test as a united and strengthened people who talk peace and bring peace, and, by God's Grace thrive and prosper in their country and homeland, to the joy of all seekers of justice and peace in the world.

(-) Written by Shlomo Kalo, a well known Israeli author and thinker

Natti Ronel, PhD

Chief Researcher
The Forum for Children & Youth Affairs
Bob Shapell School of Social Work
Phone: 972-3-6414508 or 6418792
Tel Aviv University
Fax: 972-3-6421503
Tel-Aviv, P.O.B. 39040, 69978
I S R A E L
e-mail: nattir@post.tau.ac.il

US CONGRESSMAN SAXTON ON KOSOVO:

Congressman Jim Saxton (NJ-3rd District) said the United States should seize the opportunity of reported discussions on a peace settlement, and be prepared to suspend the bombing campaign in Kosovo as an alternative to sending in ground troops into Kosovo. Reports that moderate Albanians are meeting with Serb officials have fueled hopes of a negotiated settlement. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Kosovo Albanian moderate leader Ibrahim Rugova met Wednesday for the first time in months, and reportedly came to an understanding on a political road to peace. "The United States should encourage and enter into talks with these two leaders," Saxton said. "In an effort to lead the way to a negotiated peace, the bombing could be suspended for as long as these leaders remain at the negotiation table. The capture of three U.S. soldiers seems to propelling us to a full blown war, including the use of ground troops. We must make every effort to find a peaceful solution." Saxton decried the Serbian threat to put the captured soldiers on trial. "Our young soldiers who have been captured are foremost in the minds and hearts of the people here at home. I am hopeful that they will be well treated. If they are not, their captors should be held fully accountable by the United States, NATO and the United Nations." The congressman questions a U.S. policy that has put U.S. soldiers in the middle of a civil war and made homeless refugees of thousands civilians. "The bombings have displaced the people we are supposed to be trying to help. It appears we are now poised for a large-scale war that could end up with heavy casualties. I am concerned we seem to be heading toward a prolonged or escalated fight in the Balkans with no clearly defined objectives or goals. There are hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians who have been turned into refugees since the air campaign began. There is also a great deal of destruction to the region and a lot of U.S. military resources are being spent without a clear foreign policy spelled out to the American people or the Congress," Saxton said

Subject: THE WLO POSITION ON NATO "DOCTRINE" IN KOSOVO"
Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 18:21:44 -0500
From: Lebanon Bulletin <lebbul@cmep.com>
To: (Recipient list suppressed)

THE WLO POSITION ON NATO "DOCTRINE" IN KOSOVO "SELF-DETERMINATION TO THE ALBANIAN MUSLIMS MUST BE ALSO GRANTED TO THE LEBANESE CHRISTIANS"

New York, Lebanon Bulletin, staff, April 1, 1999

The Executive Committee of the World Lebanese Organization (WLO) issued its position with regards the conflict in Kosovo:
After having analyzed the background and the current motives of the parties involved in the conflict the WLO declares the following:
1) The WLO calls the international community, and the Lebanese Diaspora in particular, to give top priority to the humanitarian assistance to the civilian victims of the confrontation, namely the Ethnic Albanian refugees and the Ethnic Serbian civilians. The most urgent call at this moment of the crisis must be to suspend all military activities from all sides and organize a credible rescue campaign in order to save lives, restore civil peace, and put an end to the suffering of innocents.
2) The WLO deplores the fact that the governments of NATO and Yugoslavia were not able to find a peaceful solution to the constitutional-ethnic conflict of Kosovo, in the framework of both international law and the general principles of law which regulates similar cases. For the WLO believes that both parties have a just case to defend. On the one hand, we believe that the Albanian Muslim community of Kosovo has an ethnic right to call for self determination and for the establishment of its own self government. And on the other hand we also believe that Kosovo is part of the a Serbian national territory, from a historic point of view. Therefore, solving the conflict between the Serbian nation and the Albanian minority must be the result of negotiations between the two ethnic groups within Serbia. There are several constitutional formulas which can and could serve
the objectives of both communities, ranging from autonomy to political decentralization.
3) The WLO's first conclusion of NATO's position towards supporting self-determination to the Ethnic Albanians of Serbia relates to Lebanon. If the United States and its European allies have endorsed the principle of self-determination and independence for the Muslim Albanian community in Kosovo, then by extrapolation, we conclude that the US and NATO have
legitimized the struggle of the Christian Lebanese community in Lebanon.
The WLO and the national resistance movement of the Christian People of Lebanon considers the Western position on the Kosovo issue as a legitimate and political basis for the liberation of Lebanon from the Syrian military occupation and the establishment of a self government for the Lebanese Christians. We therefore call on the Lebanese Christian Resistance to adopt a public program aiming at demanding self-determination for our people in Lebanon and for the securing of NATO and international forces to protect our people in jeopardy. The WLO will form a special committee to suggest the proper argumentation for Lebanese Christian claims.
4) The WLO deplore the facts that neither the governments of NATO nor the governments supporting the Muslim Albanian community of Serbia have expressed their concerns vis a vis the ethnic cleansing of the Christian community in Lebanon and the open political oppression of the Lebanese Christians by the Syrian occupation and by the oppressive regime in Beirut.
The WLO believes that the current NATO doctrine of salvation of endangered peoples would also be implemented in Lebanon, Southern Sudan, Northern Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, East Timor, and in all countries where the regimes are waging ethnic cleansing. For the moral and political legitimacy of intervening in Kosovo cannot be achieved unless NATO would intervene to save other peoples in similar, and sometimes worse human conditions.
Therefore the WLO hopes that the Western governments are conducting their policies in the Balkans in conformity with a new doctrine which will be implemented simultaneously in the above mentioned cases, rather than an intervention based on the convergence of ideological and diplomatic interests between these governments and the same powerful economic interests which denied similar interventions in Lebanon, southern Sudan and elsewhere.

Subject: CONGRESSMAN ROD BLAGOJEVICH (D-ILL) OPPOSES NATO ATTACKS
Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 18:03:22 -0500
From: Mideast Newswire <Newswire@cmep.com>
To: (Recipient list suppressed)

Subject: THE NEWLY FORMED "INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN FRONT" CRITICIZES NATO
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 11:07:29 -0400
From: Mideast Newswire <Newswire@cmep.com>
To: (Recipient list suppressed)

THE NEWLY FORMED "INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN FRONT"
CRITICIZES NATO FOR BECOMING THE TOOL OF ISLAMIC IMPERIALISM

Paris, April 2, 1999, Mideast Newswire, staff.

In a statement released in Paris, the newly formed "International Christian Front" (ICF) said NATO has become the "tool of Islamic imperialism worldwide, and is acting on behalf of the oil forces instead of defending the security and values of the Christian-rooted Western civilization." The new coalition of political forces which "believes in an international political agenda for the Christian world," said "NATO, and the foreign policy establishment of the United States are clearly guided by financial
blocs which serves the interests of Islamic regimes around the world." In his statement the ICF said: "the current attacks against Serbia are certainly not driven by human rights considerations, although human tragedies are taken place indeed in Kosovo. The decision by the foreign policy establishment in Washington to bomb Serbia and to demonize its people has been carefully planned by politicla lobbies which aim is the establishment of a new islamic state in the Balkans after the Muslim-led regime was consolidated in Bosnia. While the ICF doesn't oppose seld determination to Muslim nations, and would encourage such policy in general, it resents the fact that NATO governments, particularly those of the US and the UK have been part of political moves which led to the genocide of Christian peoples in the past few years, and still refuse to aid those Christian nations in jeopardy. The ICF is particularly concerned by the extremely bias policy of NATO governments towards Muslim issues
while totally neglecting the legitimate causes of so many Christian communities around the world."
The ICF added that "while the Muslim world has been able to construct a strategy worldwide and is successfully using the resources of historically Christian nations such as America, England, Russia, Germany and France, the Christian peoples around the world are left to the appetite of Islamic imperialism with no intrenational Christian concerns. The ICF was lainched
to fill the gap of international Christian solidarity in front of the abandonment of weaker Christian nations around the world."
With regards Kosovo, the ICF said "we are extremely sad to see those images of thousand of civilians fleeing their homes across the borders and we are calling for an immediate halt to the fighting as a way to render humanitarian assistant available to the needy. And in this regard we call on the secretary general of the United Nations to call for an immediate meeting of the Security Council to discuss a global solution to Kosovo and the Balkan crisis. We are concerned to see the United Nations paralysed while it should and must be the major instrument for solving ethnic and international crisis. "
The ICF said: "We urge the United States government which was elected by a majority of Christian citizens in America to stop its air and ground campaigns against the Christian nation of Serbia, and we do call on the Serbian regime to avoid any   consequence on the civilians of Kosovo while battling the terrorist group called KLA. The ICF resent also the domination by Islamist-financed agents of many mainstream media posted in the Balkan's region. Those so-called journalists are participating in the massacre of truth, and denying the true journalists from informing world opinion, and particularly the Christian  international opinion about real developments both historically and ongoing."

CONGRESSMAN ROD BLAGOJEVICH (D-ILL) OPPOSES NATO ATTACKS SINCE 1389 ISLAM, WESTERN AND EASTERN CHRISTIANITY, CLASHED VIOLENTLY IN KOSOVO"

Washignton, D.C., March 22, 1999, Mideast Newswire, staff.

Observers noted that US Congressional opposition to the NATO attacks against Serbia seems to be bi-partisan. Although very minimal in votes, legislative representatives who are concerned about the historic and strategic dimensions of the conflict, are found in both parties. While in the Republican Party, Congressman Jim Saxton (R-NJ) has expressed concerns about the objectives of the US involvement, Democratic Congressman Rod Blagojevich from Chicago voiced his concerns about the campaign. The Serbian-American leader expressed the views of many in America who believe that the clash is of cultural and religious dimentions, and that the role of the United States should be one of moderator instead of party at the ethnic conflict. At the House of Representatives on March 11, the Chicago leader said:
"Mr. Chairman, of the hundreds of votes we cast in this Chamber each year I believe none is more important than the issue of deploying our troops abroad and placing them in harm's way. While I believe it is fully appropriate for Congress to have a voice in this crucial decision, I also know that there are some in this debate who are motivated by questions of domestic politics rather than foreign policy. They want to score political points at the President's expense and I think that is regrettable. This
important debate over the nature and extent of our military involvement in the Balkans should be driven by long-term national interests, not short-term political considerations. It is on the basis of our long-term national interests that I oppose the resolution to authorize the President to deploy American troops to Kosovo. I am not pleased to find myself at odds with a major foreign policy initiative of my President. But I come to this position based on a close evaluation of U.S. foreign policy in the Balkans. Mr. Chairman, the Balkans are a complicated, dangerous area. For six centuries Kosovo has marked the confluence of three vastly different cultures. Since the first battle of Kosovo in 1389, these cultures, Western, Slavic and Islamic, have clashed violently at this very spot. These battles are not over something so simple as land or even as valuable as mineral rights. Instead they are battles in which each party believes they are guided by heaven in a fight for the future of their people. The current war in Kosovo is no different from those that have preceded it. The fall of the Soviet empire did not write a new chapter in the history of the Balkans. As much as it repeated one that came before with the fall of the Hapsburgs and before that with the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Kosovo belongs less to the end of our century than to the beginning, and the motivations of the combatants are the same as those in previous battles. Though technically begun by one man, Slobodan Milosevic, who reflects on little more than his own greed, it is being fought by two peoples convinced of their own imminent destruction. These people believe the sword is the only option to preserve their own life and, barring that, their only honorable path to death. Putting U.S. troops on the ground in Kosovo is not a recipe for peace. It is a recipe for disaster. The history of the Balkans has only marginally been kinder to its inhabitants than it has been to outsiders. Placing U.S. troops in the middle of this conflict will not bring an end to the killing but instead draw Americans into it. We have put our troops in this position before in places such as Lebanon and Somalia, and while peacekeeping is a noble task, it works only when there is a peace to keep. A signed piece of paper between two peoples who see no options but war is not peace. Our troops are going into Kosovo with no clearly defined mission and no exit strategy. We have already seen this pattern in Bosnia. We were originally told our troops would be in Bosnia for 6 months. Almost 4 years later they are still there with no end in sight, and, unlike Bosnia, this conflict in Kosovo would inevitably be far more difficult and dangerous to American forces. What happens if we begin to incur casualties? Will we fall victim to mission creep? Will we deploy troops to defend Macedonia? Albania? And Bulgaria? The unique and tragic
history of the Balkans teaches us that these battles grow into wider conflict, and when outsiders are drawn into it, they are drawn into it and cannot get out. I do not shy away from the use of military force to protect our Nation's vital interests, and I do not deny that the war in Kosovo is a tragedy that grips our Nation's conscience. In this sad world of ours there are many tragedies around the globe: Turkey's war with the Kurds, Russia's battle with the Chechens, China's war on Tibet. Yet no one
suggests that we intervene in these conflicts and for a simple reason: many American soldiers would die in vain. Instead of elevating Milosevic as a savior for his people, we should be working to undermine him and make Serbia a democracy. In Serbia today, pro-democracy groups such as the Alliance for Change, the Council for Democratic Change and the Democratic
Party of Serbia struggle to build an open society without us taking notice.
This must change. Tomorrow in Independence, Missouri, the success of our policies elsewhere in Europe will be ratified when Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic officially join NATO. Let us use this occasion to acknowledge the serious flaws in our Balkan policy. More troops are not the answer. Let me say again this is a difficult vote for me and I regret it is taking place at a crucial time in ongoing negotiations. But the fact remains I cannot in good conscience support sending our young men and women in uniform into harm's way without clear, achievable goals. [Taken from the Congressional Record. March 11, 1999]

SERBIAN-AMERICANS OPPOSES MUSLIM-INSPIRED ATTACK AGAINST SERBIA

New York, March 23, 1999, Mideast Newswire, staff

As the US Government is getting ready to attck Serbia, Serbian-American voices raises to the support of their "Christian-Orthodox" mother-country against what they perceive as a "Muslim-inspired agression by American forces." Published in the "The Truth in Media Global Watch Bulletin," (by the Serbian American intellectual Bob Jurdjevic) a letter by Professor J.P. Maher addressed to US Senators said: " As the Russian prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov, abruptly canceled his today's visit to Washington, and ordered his plane to return to Moscow, the dogs of war in the American capital are getting ready to commit a crime without a  precedence in modern history. NATO's planned attack on Yugoslavia will be a gang rape of a sovereign country, a U.S. ally in two world wars, and a founding member of the United Nations. If NATO's bombing of the Bosnian Serbs in August 1995 is any indication (first strikes in the dead of night, after midnight), by the time you receive this message, its missiles may be already in the air, ready to deliver their deadly payloads to the Serbian people." The newsletter said: "At this moment of quiet before the storm, Orthodox Christian church leaders, both here in America and in Serbia, made a last-minute appeal for reason and compassion to the Washington dogs of war. The first is a letter to President Clinton from Metropolitan Archbishop Pavlos, of the Greek Orthodox Old Calendar Church Of North and South America, Member of the Holy Synod of the Old Calendar Church of Greece, Under the Presidency of Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Athens and All Greece. The second is a translation of a statement issued today in Serbian by the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade.

To: William Jefferson Clinton President of the United States of America  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, D.C. March 23, 1999

Dear Mr. President, Again I write to you as a Christian and as an American. Sir, we are poised on the brink of disaster, a disaster that is manifold in its dimensions and character.

As I expressed to you in my previous letter this imminent and unprovoked attack against Yugoslavia is immoral. Even the trepidation alone that we have instilled in the people of Yugoslavia is a horror. The fact that this is exactly one of our intentions is offensive.    Legally speaking our country is heading toward the perpetration of a crime of international proportions. We are acting without a UN mandate. We are violating the very charter of the NATO Pact. NATO is acting without a UN mandate. We are violating every international law governing respect for the sovereignty of nations. We are acting without the mandate of the American people. Do the American people truly believe our national interests are at stake? A recent CBS Radio broadcast quoted a poll that said 50% of Americans cannot find Kosovo on a map! Is this the well-informed constituency that gives us a mandate to attack Yugoslavia? I ask again by what authority do we act? Is it the authority of the law of God, the law of our country, or international law? We are about to send our sons into an open-ended quagmire that will bring only death and destruction for all involved. We claim we want to end the killing in Kosovo. Let's remember that it has been the terrorist gangs known as the KLA that have been the first to violate every cease-fire since the Serbs agreed to a cease-fire. Almost every time violence has erupted since the beginning of this conflict it was the KLA that was the first to commit such violence. American boys are being asked to prepare to kill and die because Serbia is defending her Christian heartland against Muslim fundamentalists, secessionists, and terrorists. Has this been taken into consideration? I presume your advisors have decided to bring peace by bombing one of Europe's oldest Christian civilizations into oblivion. Throughout history it is this very civilization that has always been a bulwark against the hordes that came from the east to threaten Europe. It is the Serbians that are known to history as "the People of the Gate" because they guarded the door to Europe in the Krajina. The Krajina Serbs are now no more thanks to a previous NATO strike in 1995. Do we want to eliminate one more Orthodox Christian Civilization before the end of our century? Not so long ago the southern states of our country attempted to secede from this great Union. President Lincoln acted to crush this rebellion and many Americans died willingly to keep our country whole. How do you suppose your great predecessor would have reacted if a NATO type force had threatened him? Are you sure the people of Yugoslavia are not as willing to keep their country whole as were our brave America ancestors? As I write this letter I am listening to your speech on CNN. You are claiming Turkey is a "moderate Muslim state". Is that because they are attempting to eliminate the Kurdish culture and identity from the face of our planet? Is it because they are consistently claiming the Aegean islands of Greece as their own and keep up a posture of threat against Greece? The modern and "moderate" Turkish State was founded by Mustapha Kemal, the man who in 1922 burnt the cosmopolitan city of Smyrna to the ground and roasted alive her two-hundred thousand Christian occupants. Smyrna was once the jewel of the Mediterranean. The American Consul Mr. George Horton, who witnessed the carnage, said at the time that not since the Romans razed Carthage had the world seen such destruction. Smyrna had had a Christian presence since the time the Book of the Revelation was given to Saint John where the great city is mentioned. In 1922, the moderate State of Turkey put an end to that. The modern and "moderate" State of Turkey also killed millions of Greek Orthodox Christians in Anatolia and Pontus earlier this century. In 1955, a year in which you and I both lived, the "moderate" State of Turkey aided and abetted a pogrom against the Greek Orthodox population of Constantinople. In that year the Greek Orthodox of Constantinople numbered over 500,000. Today there a less than 2,000 there. Is this the type of moderate Muslim future state that the KLA envisions for Kosovo? History shows that centuries ago Turkey's Sultan was killed in Kosovo in his attempt to defeat the Serbs. During World War One the Serbs lost a third of their young men defending freedom. Not so many years ago Hitler's Wermacht broke its teeth in Yugoslavia. Mr. President, do not be so naive as to believe that the young men of America's armed forces will not pay a heavy price in blood if we continue on this road. In 1941, when the Serbs broke their pact with the Axis they paid a heavy price for their decision to join the side of Freedom. Belgrade was reduced to rubble and thousands were slaughtered; yet the Serbs stood fast. Winston Churchill commented at the time that "the Serbs had found their soul." I am praying, Mr. President, that you find your soul and the vision to see the death that will be wrought in committing this folly. I pray you find the courage to face the American people and tell them we made a mistake and that we must call off a NATO strike.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." [St. Matthew 4:9]  

In Christ, I am, Metropolitan Archbishop PAVLOS Holy Metropolis of the Greek Orthodox Old Calendar Church of America Astoria, New York

ISLAMIST FORCES DECLARE JIHAD AGAINST SERBIA AND ISRAEL

London, Mideast Newswire, staff, March 25, 1999.

THE HOLY SYNOD OF THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH A STATEMENT March 23, 1999

After its meeting at the Patriarchate on March 23, 1999, the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church wishes to make the following statement concerning the situation in Kosovo, and the threat of bombing of Serbia and FR Yugoslavia. Human experience, both old and new, on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, teaches us that war and aggression, especially intra-ethnic type, leave behind only devastation and general unhappinness, with long-term spiritual, moral and social consequences and open wounds. Aware of that, we demand and plead, in the name of God, for cessation of all hostilities in Kosovo and Metohija, and that the problems be addressed exclusively by peaceful and political means. The way of non-violence and cooperation is the only God-blessed way which corresponds to human and heavenly moral laws and experiences. Deeply concered over the danger to the cradle of Serbia - Kosovo and Metohija, and all those who live in Kosovo, especially over the terrible threats of the world military powers to bomb our Fatherland, we remind the responsible leaders of the international community that the evils in Kosovo, or in any other place in the world, cannot be righted by an even greater and more immoral evil: bombing of a small, but honorable European nation. We cannot believe that the international community has become so impotent in finding the ways to a peaceful and humane settlement, that it is now resorting to dark and humiliating means of great violence, both for its individual and national honors, so as to prevent a lesser evil and violence. We pray to the Master of peace, God living and almighty, in whose hands are the judgment and justice, to give all people in Kosovo and Metohija, as well as in our entire Fatherland, and elsewhere and everywhere in the world - justice, safety and freedom; and to the great earthly power reason and wisdom.

From the office of the Holy Synod. March 23, 1999

The Honorable Peter Fitzgerald United States Senate

Billions for war in Kosovo and Bosnia, a pittance for the hurricane victims in Central America. Shame. For love of the Constitution, stop the Clinton plan to wage war on Serbia. By Article I, Section 8 it is only Congress that can declare war. Only then has the President the power to raise an army and wage war. An undeclared war is unconstitutional. All officers of the United States who engage in undeclared war are in violation of their oath to uphold the Constitution. The KLA is not a liberation army, but a heroin cartel, like the Colombian drug cartels. It is not Serbia's actions that are destabilizing the region, but America's.

Respectfully, John Peter Maher, Ph. D. Professor Emeritus, Northeastern Illinois University Chicago"  

MIDEAST CHRISTIANS CRITICIZE "THE ISLAMIC-INSPIRED ATTACK AGAINST CHRISTIAN SERBIA" COPTS, ASSYRIANS, MARONITES, AFRICANS, CATHOLICS AND ORHTODOX RESENT "THE SAUDI FACE OF THE AGGRESSION"  

Washington, New York, Chicago, Beirut, Nicosia, Cairo, Mideast Newswire, staff, march 24, 1999

In an unexpected massive reaction to the US plans to attack Serbia, a wave of protest was initiated by multiple Middle East Christian organizations, both in the region and in America. Reacting to what most of these groups are calling "an Islamist-inspired attack against Christian Serbia," leaders, activists and spokespersons from several ethnic organizations declared their opposition to the military strikes against Yugoslavia, called for a diplomatic and historic solution to the problem of Islamist expansion in the Balkans and in the Mediterranean, and warned the pro-Islamist circles in Washington DC of a major "political uprising by the Christian American people." In New York, the Coptic American Union CAU blasted the US official position in the Balkans, "which seems to favor Muslims againt Christian Orhtodox, and Christians in general." CAU said "we are sick and tired of watching our foreign policy being dictated by the Islamist lobby in Washington DC. Why wouldn't the State Department be interested in the fate of the Coptic people in Egypt. Our women are raped, our children are kidnapped, our community is being ethnic cleansed by a government which is receiving US foreign aid. Why doesn't the President of the United States send his Secretary of State to pressure the Muslim president of Egypt as he sends her to pressure the president of Christian Serbia. Did Mrs Clinton raise the issue of the suffering of the Christians in Egypt, while she was touring a country of major persecution of Christians." CAU called for the immediate halt of military operations and to turn the issue to the United Nations, rather than to the Islamic-infiltrated cirlcles of Washington DC." Mr George Abdelmassih, a member of the leadership of the American-Coptic Association said "the Christian Serbian people should know that the 12 million Copts of Egypt are siding morally and politically with them against the Saudi-requested war against Christians in the Mediterranean." In Chicago, Mr Pierre Chamoun, from the Assyrian Network, said "it is a shame to see our American planes carrying out raids against Serbia, a real disaster not to the Christian Serbian people only, but to the leadership of the United States, which foreign policy has become the servant of the Kings of the Arabian peninsula. We know, said Chamoun, that the Saudi money and PR companies is behind the blind policy in the Balkans. What they want is the establishment of three Islamist states in the Balkans at the expense of its original native peoples and identities. How come we send the F16 in defense of the Muslims in Kosovo, and we watch the Assyrian people being massacred at the hands of Saddam Hussein and the Turks. Is our foreign policy American or is Saudi and Islamist?" In Beirut, a statement by the World Maronite Union (WMU) said "why is the American government mobilizing to solve the issue of Kosovo by bombing Orthodox Serbia, while we the Christians of Lebanon were invaded by the Syrian army in 1990 with total US endorsement. Why wouldn't Washington send its planes to bombard the Syrian troops in Lebanon, the same troops who protects terrorist Hizbollah, killers of US Marines in 1983. The WMU said: "we Maronite Catholic feels that the Islamist-inspired attack against Orthodox Serbia is an aggression against all Middle East Christianity, a total abuse by the Islamist lobby of Washington's political system." In Washington, number of Maronite activists decided to protest the attack "which demonstrate a pro-Islamist bias in US Foreign policy against the Christians of the Middle East and the Balkans." In New York, Dr Dominic Mohammed, spokesperson for the South Sudan Movement in America said "we reject this unbalance in American policy in the region. Our people in south Sudan has lost 2.5 million people, mostly Christians because of naked Islamist attacks from the north. Yet we never saw the US fighter bombers in the skies over Khartoum or southern Sudan. Is Kosovo more human than Juba. Are white Muslims more valuable than Black Christians."? In Beirut, a press-release jointly issued by the "Orthodox and Catholic youth of the Middle East" rejected the "Saudi face" of the aggression and called for "Christian unity against a growing Arab-Islamist imperialism in the region, using the historically uneducated system of foreign policy in Washington, D.C." In New York, a statement by the Middle East Christian Committee (MECHRIC) said "Americans from Middle East descent are very concerned about the development in the Balkans. The 4 million strong community in America does not comprehend the biased policy of our government in the Mediterranean. We certainly criticize the authoritarian regime in Belgrade, and hope to see the conflict in Kosovo solved by diplomatic means, and within the context of a historical approach. However, we do not understand our decision makers who seems to be only in favor of Muslim rights and always opposed to Christian's rights in that region." MECHRIC said "we warn from additional steps in that directions. This would lead to a major political uprising by millions of American Christians."  

ORTHODOX YOUTH IN THE ME TO CLINTON: "HOW ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST IN SUDAN!" Washington, Beirut, Mideast Newswire, staff, March 24, 1999

In a statement issued in Beirut and distributed to the press in Arabic, the Greek-Orthodox Youth Union of the Middle East said "the US President may try to mobilize his poorly educated public about world politics and history but he cannot fool the Christian nations of the Mediterranean with remarks prepared by his Islamist-influenced advisors." The Union, which claims adherents in Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan, said "playing the parallel of the Holocaust is at the same time ridiculous and erroneous. For Jews in Europe didn't have a militia neither were supported by 51 Jewish nations with Oil resources behind them. Kosovo's Muslims are armed, and are backed by another nation in addition to 51 Muslim states, as well as the vast resources of oil. Jews lost six million souls, the largest genocide in the history of mankind. Comparing it with the events in Kosovo is historically wrong and immoral. Where was America in 1941 when Serbia was invaded by the Nazis and its people butchered by the same forces which were responsible for the Holocaust? The Serbian Orthodox people doesn't take lessons from a regime which only concern is economic status quo and Oil influence. Besides what prompted the US Government to suddenly remember the mass murder of Jews while its policy towards Israel is one which encourages the massacre of the Jewish state." The Union added that such an attack against Orthodox Serbia is nothing less than a plot by the multinational corporations, mobilized by the Islamist lobby against a nation which fought Nazi Germany for years on its own land." The Orthodox Union added that "if Washington's circles are so concerned about human rights and Holocaust, why aren't they sending the bombers to shell Sudan, where the Islamist regime has already killed 2.5 million Africans. The answer is simple, Saudi Arabia doesn't want the United States to stop Holocaust against Black Christians, but to intervene in the Balkans against a Christian nation to impose the establishment of a Muslim state." In Washington, few minutes before the President's address on Kosovo, two human rights activists declared on C-Span, that "what is behind this attack on Serbia, is not human rights considerations, but a clear lobbying by the Islamist lobby in Washington. The activists said "why wouldn't the Administration help the souther Sudanese. We did not see the planes in the skies of Khartoum or southern Sudan, neither over the areas where other minorities are suffering from Islamist oppression."

Subject: ISLAMIST FORCES DECLARE JIHAD AGAINST SERBIA AND ISRAEL

A pan-Islamist magazine, the "al-Muhajirun: The Voice, The Eyes & The Ears of The Muslims," published in London said: "Muslims in Britain open their arms to Muslims in Kosova as hundreds of thousands are made refugees." Publishing an article under the title "KOSOVA THE ISRAEL OF EUROPE." the Muhajirun wrote: "The Last few days in Kosova has seen hundreds of thousands of Muslims displaced as scenes reminiscent of Nazi Germany and present day Israel find their way yet again into the heart of so-called 'civilized' Europe. Having seen that the Serbs, avowed enemies of Muslims and Islam, have almost succeeded in wiping out or evicting whole provinces and cities from their local Muslim population the UN (or US stooges) have decided that it is time they saved some of their dignity and further humiliation for Muslim leaders world-wide (because of their inaction), by launching an attack against some peripheral targets amidst the huge Serb army before the job of ethnic cleansing has been completed. The policy of the Western States has been crystal clear from the first day that the Serbs started killing innocent Muslims. "Get it over and done with quickly and we will aid you by pushing motions and counter motions in the UN assembly and if you need help then we will ensure the Muslims hand us the few weapons they have to make your job easier." It has always been the firm belief of Western governments that Muslim life is not worth protecting and that Islam is the new threat to western hegemony hence it will be a cold day in hell before they allow an Islamic Country to exist in the heart of Europe. Hitherto the only regret that Clinton, Blair and their associates have had is that it has taken so long for the Serbs to finish the job because of the courage of the Mujahideen. Well the message from the Mujahideen, the Muslims in Britain and world wide is that you cannot fool us by this last minute diversion! We declare that we will not rest until Kosova is returned to the Muslims and they achieve their independence as a Muslim nation. We declare that we will not stop the Jihad against the Serbian or Israeli occupiers no matter what the UN say or do. Surely Allah(swt) knows best when he says: "The disbeleivers utter hatred from their mouths but what is in their hearts is far worse" and "Allah does not allow the disbeleivers to have any authority over the believers" Surely the ugly face of hatred towards Islam by the indiscriminate and continuous bombing of innocent Muslims in Iraq and those last year in Sudan and Afghanistan is evidence if it were needed of the true stand and the crusader mentality of western regimes. Oh Muslims of Kosova, Muslims in Britain open their arms and their doors for you as refuge against the enemies of Allah and his Messenger. We are one brotherhood unique from all others and we pledge to continue to fight to protect your life, wealth and honour with our tongues, finances and bodies. Oh Muslims of Kosova, remember that we will either gain victory against the disbeleivers or martyrdom. Your pain and suffering is our pain and suffering. Your honour is our honour. Your land is our land. The jihad will continue despite the rhetoric and propaganda of the UN. The fight to liberate all Muslim land whether in Kosova, Palestine or Kashmir will not be halted due to the lies and false actions of the Kuffar. And when the Islamic State is established not only will we end the domination of man-made law but we will ensure that the armies of the Khilafah will remove all man-made law wherever it is to be replaced by the domination of Islam and the justice of divine law. We endorse the words of Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, Judge of the Shari'ah Court of the UK "In my view the NATO intervention is a means to bury the "Kosovo Question" i.e. the Independence of Kosovo. I call upon Muslims in Europe to open their homes to all refugees driven out of their homeland by the Serbs, we will not rest until all Muslim land is returned to them and their Islamic rights are fulfilled". We applaud Mr Anjem Choudary, Secretary General of the Society of Muslim Lawyers who said: " Muslims everywhere are obliged to fight against the Serbs who are fighting against Muslims in the Balkans physically, financially and verbally until all Muslim land is liberated". And we intend to carry the message of Muhammad Omar, President of the Society of Converts to Islam who said: "We will not be made submissive by a barrage of lies from the mouths of hypocrites like Clinton and Blair! Rather we will increase our efforts in supporting the Mujahideen."

************************************************

3. Asian Countries Respond Negatively to NATO's Serbian Air Strikes ..... 50

Speaking at a disarmament conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Jiang said "I hereby solemnly reiterate that the military actions against Kosovo and other parts of Yugoslavia violate the norms governing international relations and are detrimental to the peace of the Balkan region. The international community, therefore, should make joint efforts to defuse the crisis as soon as possible."

Subject: THE WLO POSITION ON NATO "DOCTRINE" IN KOSOVO"
Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 18:21:44 -0500
From: Lebanon Bulletin <lebbul@cmep.com>
To: (Recipient list suppressed)

THE WLO POSITION ON NATO "DOCTRINE" IN KOSOVO
" SELF-DETERMINATION TO THE ALBANIAN MUSLIMS MUST BE ALSO GRANTED TO THE
LEBANESE CHRISTIANS"

New York, Lebanon Bulletin, staff, April 1, 1999

The Executive Committee of the World Lebanese Organization (WLO) issued its position with regards the conflict in Kosovo:
After having analyzed the background and the current motives of the parties involved in the conflict the WLO declares the  following:
1) The WLO calls the international community, and the Lebanese Diaspora in particular, to give top priority to the humanitarian assistance to the civilian victims of the confrontation, namely the Ethnic Albanian refugees and the Ethnic Serbian civilians. The most urgent call at this moment of the crisis must be to suspend all military activities from all sides and organize a credible rescue campaign in order to save lives, restore civil peace, and put an end to the suffering of innocents.
2) The WLO deplores the fact that the governments of NATO and Yugoslavia were not able to find a peaceful solution to the constitutional-ethnic conflict of Kosovo, in the framework of both international law and the general principles of law which regulates similar cases. For the WLO believes that both parties have a just case to defend. On the one hand, we believe that the Albanian Muslim community of Kosovo has an ethnic right to call for self determination and for the establishment of its own self government. And on the other hand we also believe that Kosovo is part of the a Serbian national territory, from a historic point of view. Therefore, solving the conflict between the Serbian nation and the Albanian minority must be the result of negotiations between the two ethnic groups within Serbia. There are several constitutional formulas which can and could serve the objectives of both communities, ranging from autonomy to political decentralization.
3) The WLO's first conclusion of NATO's position towards supporting self-determination to the Ethnic Albanians of Serbia relates to Lebanon. If the United States and its European allies have endorsed the principle of self-determination and independence for the Muslim Albanian community in Kosovo, then by extrapolation, we conclude that the US and NATO have legitimized the struggle of the Christian Lebanese community in Lebanon. The WLO and the national resistance movement of the Christian People of Lebanon considers the Western position on the Kosovo issue as a legitimate and political basis for the liberation of Lebanon from the Syrian military occupation and the establishment of a self government for the Lebanese Christians. We therefore call on the Lebanese Christian Resistance to adopt a public program aiming at demanding self-determination for our people in Lebanon and for the securing of NATO and international forces to protect our people in jeopardy. The WLO will form a special committee to suggest the proper argumentation for Lebanese Christian claims.
4) The WLO deplore the facts that neither the governments of NATO nor the governments supporting the Muslim Albanian community of Serbia have expressed their concerns vis a vis the ethnic cleansing of the Christian community in Lebanon and the open political oppression of the Lebanese Christians by the Syrian occupation and by the oppressive regime in Beirut. The WLO believes that the current NATO doctrine of salvation of endangered peoples would also be implemented in Lebanon, Southern Sudan, Northern Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, East Timor, and in all countries where the regimes are waging ethnic   cleansing. For the moral and political legitimacy of intervening in Kosovo cannot be achieved unless NATO would intervene to save other peoples in similar, and sometimes worse human conditions. Therefore the WLO hopes that the Western  governments are conducting their policies in the Balkans in conformity with a new doctrine which will be implemented simultaneously in the above mentioned cases, rather than an intervention based on the convergence of ideological and diplomatic interests between these governments and the same powerful economic interests which denied similar interventions in Lebanon, southern Sudan and elsewhere.