http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/03/21/story/0000128619

TAIPEI TIMES, Thursday, March 21, 2002

Fight Balkan terrorism now

Within the global terrorism chain Balkan terrorism remains a small but vital
link, one which has continued to flourish right under the eyes of NATO and
the UN

By Jiri Dienstbier

Slobodan Milosevic's trial in the Hague is a timely reminder of just how
devastating terroristic violence can be. President Bush may or may not have
been careless in portraying Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil,"
but he was correct in pointing out the many hidden links in the global
terrorism chain. Within that chain Balkan terrorism remains a small but
vital link, one which has continued to flourish right under the eyes of NATO
and the UN.

Osama bin Laden established his presence in the region through a series of
so-called "humanitarian" organizations in Bosnia and Albania sometime around
1994. Some of the fighters in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia during the Balkan
wars included mujahidin from many countries who had trained in Afghanistan.
Local terrorist centers were also important. Indeed, in Albania terrorists
were trained on the property of former Albanian President Sali Berisha near
the town of Tropoje.

Beyond this powerful hint of local support for terrorists, there was an
economic infrastructure. Two tons of heroin per month passed from Asia to
Europe through Kosovo during the rule of Slobodan Milosevic. Instead of
diminishing since Milosevic's fall, drug smuggling has increased. Last year,
five tons of heroin was smuggled through the lands now overseen by the
United Nations and NATO. Interpol says that Albanian gangs now control 70%
of heroin trafficking in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Scandinavia.

Cooperation over the last few years between the UN Interim Administration
Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), the NATO-led multinational Kosova Force (KFOR),
and local governments -- boosted by the arrival of a democratic government
in Serbia -- has cut down the number of terrorist attacks in Southern Serbia
and Macedonia. Yet this cooperation has failed to stymie the fusion of
terrorist and criminal activity. Indeed, due to the wealth of terrorist
groups engaged in drug dealing, Erhard Busek, the Coordinator of the EU's
Stability Pact for the former Yugoslavia, thinks that the chance of peace in
Macedonia will be a mere 50 percent once this winter's snows thaw.

Calm will not return to the Balkans so long as the UN and NATO fail to
destroy extremism's base in Kosovo. For the criminal/terrorist heart of the
supposedly disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army continues to fortify its power
and to expand into Macedonia, Southern Serbia and Montenegro. Some less
careful commanders of the KLA even talk about the 100,000 Albanians in
Greece as an ultimate target for their irredentist goals. The goal of a
"Greater Albania," has not been forgotten.

Instead of suppressing the terrorists, they have been treated as part of the
solution to instability in the Balkans. NATO Secretary General Lord
Robertson did call Albanian terrorists in Macedonia "a bunch of murderous
thugs," yet those same thugs were holding public press conferences in
Pristina under the noses of UNMIK or KFOR. So solicitous of the terrorists'
desires are some countries that America's representative to the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) conducted negotiations with
Macedonian politicians and terrorist commanders not in Skopje or Tetovo but
in Prizren, a Kosovar city where they are influential.

Over the last few years Kosovo has been ethnically cleansed of a quarter of
a million people. One hundred churches and monasteries have been razed.
Ethnically motivated murders are less common of late, but this cannot be
deemed a success so long as Kosovo's non-Albanians remain isolated in
enclaves protected by KFOR.

Recent elections have confirmed the general aversion to violence of the
local population. But elections are a democratic instrument only if all
parties accept their results. Real power in Kosovo, however, remains in the
hands of those with kalashnikovs.

The international forces in Kosovo are strong enough to cut the Balkan link
in the global terrorist chain. If the will is sufficient, that is. The
Balkan traffickers in drugs, arms, women, and refugees -- the underground
criminal trades that fund the terrorists -- can be closed down. But to do
this, the international bodies that control Kosovo must dissolve any
organization that relies on violence.

Known criminals should not sit in Kosovo's Parliament, but in prison. The
worst of them don't belong in Kosovo's government but on trial with
Milosevic in the Hague. Fearful of challenging the armed terrorists, the
international bodies that govern Kosovo prefer to appease them.

Frustrated international administrators, indeed, have forced Albania's
political parties to form a coalition. This, however, may result in
eviscerating the power of Ibrahim Rugova, finally confirmed as President
earlier this month, while the extremist's parties transformed from the
Kosovo Liberation Army are admitted into government.

The goal behind the bombing of Yugoslavia, of Security Council resolution
1244 and today's provisional constitutional framework for Kosovo, was the
creation of the pre-conditions for the democratic development of a
multiethnic society. As this remains the only worthwhile and workable goal,
the only viable solution to Kosovo's future is a coalition of moderate
Albanians and the parties of Kosovo's ethnic minorities. But pragmatic
cynics have been arguing for three years that such a solution is impossible.
By appeasing the terrorists in this way, the most powerful states in the
world give a green light to terrorists not only in the Balkans but all over
the world.

Kosovo is a territory far smaller than Afghanistan. If the world fails to
eliminate terrorists from politics in Kosovo, what hope does it have of
defeating terrorism elsewhere? So, before the anti-terror campaign seeks
other terrorist bases to destroy, it should eliminate terror in a place
where the UN itself is ruling. If not, the UN, NATO and the European Union
will discredit themselves as well as the humanitarian values they use to
justify their 'humanitarian' interventions.


Jiri Dienstbier was until recently UN Special Human Rights envoy for former
the Yugoslavia and is a former Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia.




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