BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
Washington was forced February 23 to postpone plans for
launching a military assault on Yugoslavia after Kosovar
Albanians balked at a "peace" deal pushed by U.S.
imperialists. After 17 days of "negotiations," the conference
held in Rambouillet, France, was suspended until March 15,
while Albanian representatives consult on the accord with
other leaders in Kosova.
"Without a final answer from the Albanians, it will be hard to carry out the threat of NATO bombing," the New York Times reported February 24.
At a news conference in Pristina, the capital of Kosova, a spokesman for the Kosova Liberation Army (UCK) said the U.S. plan "would not bring peace in the Balkans" and would not "provide the Albanians with the freedom and rights they deserve."
During 17 days of talks in Rambouillet, Washington had tried to browbeat the Albanian and Serb delegations into accepting its entire proposal, including NATO troop deployments in Kosova. The negotiations stalled when the Kosovar representatives insisted that the "peace" plan include a referendum on independence.
After becoming furious over the Albanian intransigence to Washington's demands, U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who opposes independence for Kosova, called Ademi Demaci, the UCK political representative, to demand he swallow the U.S. deal. The Albanian rebels, however, "did not get enough assurance that NATO would not be directed against them as well" as the Yugoslav army, an unnamed European diplomat told the Washington Post.
The UCK is fighting a guerrilla war for independence. Albanians, who comprise the overwhelming majority in Kosova, have faced severe repression from the regime of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. The Clinton administration has used Belgrade's efforts to crush that struggle as a pretext to prepare NATO intervention. The White House is letting Belgrade do its dirty work of conducting military assaults to demolish the Albanian fighters before preparing intervention in the Balkan nation.
The U.S. government began its latest war moves in the region after 24 Albanians were killed by Yugoslav government forces January 29 in the Kosova village of Rogova. That same day the so-called Contact Group on the Balkans made up of government officials from the United States, France, Britain, Italy, Germany, and Russia adopted the U.S. "peace" deal.
The White House plan calls for limited "self-government," less than the autonomy scrapped by Milosevic in 1989. The plan also mandates the Albanian rebels to surrender their weapons over a six-month period.
If the Albanians approve the U.S.-crafted plan, "we'll have the NATO air trigger" back to impose the occupation army in Kosova, said U.S. state department spokesman James Rubin, referring to threats to bomb Yugoslavia.
Some 430 NATO warplanes, including 260 U.S. jets, are poised for military action in the region. Under Washington's occupation scheme, Kosova would be carved up into zones that would be controlled by 4,000 U.S. troops, 8,000 from Britain, 5,000 from France, and 4,000 from Germany.
The NATO occupation force planned for Kosova is a link in the U.S. military encirclement of the Russian workers state. It marks another step in Washington's preparations for a future military confrontation with Moscow in order to reimpose the system of wage slavery there and in other countries in Eastern Europe and other regions where capitalist property relations have been eliminated.
In response to U.S. war moves, Russian president Boris Yeltsin sent U.S. president Clinton a letter in mid-February opposing military action against Yugoslavia. Beijing, which is also hostile to bombing raids on Yugoslavia, will take over as chair of the UN Security Council March 1 - a move which could create diplomatic hurdles for U.S. military intervention.