KOSOVO: The REAL Reason For This War (fwd)

FYI.
//CJR

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 16:06:27 -0700 (MST)
From: MICHAEL SPITZER <mrufomn@aztec.asu.edu>

From: Workers World News Service 
Reprinted from The Workers World Newspaper 
July 30, 1998

Kosovo: 'The war is about the mines'
By Sara Flounders

Wars are at root about economics, and the rapidly expanding war
in Kosovo is no different.  So why have millions of dollars in
high-tech weapons suddenly become available to the so-called
Kosovo Liberation Army by way of the U.S. and Germany?

A July 11 report by New York Times Balkans bureau chief Chris
Hedges describes the KLA's new arsenal—the latest anti-tank
rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft weapons.  These
weapons are shifting the balance of power toward the KLA, which
is funded fully by outside sources, mostly from the U.S.  and
Germany.

The KLA is "fed by recruits, money and arms from outside Serbia,"
Hedges confirms. It has an "inexhaustible supply line," he
reports.

"Rebel soldiers, in full uniform with the red and black patch of
the Kosovo Liberation Army, pull thick wads of German marks from
their pockets. There are also signs that the arrival of dozens of
former professional soldiers as well as some mercenaries are
turning the ragtag band into a viable military force of several
thousand fighters."  In fact, the KLA is primarily a mercenary
army funded by the kind of shadowy sources that have long been
associated with U.S.  and German intelligence services.  It is a
contra army.

Kosovo is often portrayed in the media as an isolated mountainous
region that's poor and without resources.  It might seem, from
these accounts, to be an area of interest only to those who live
there.

The New York Times, for example, has carried dozens of such
articles by Chris Hedges in the last six months.  Only once, on
July 8, did Hedges write about the real wealth of Kosovo—the
Stari Trg mining complex.  It was a tip-off that something more
was at stake in this war.

Hedges' visit to the Stari Trg mining complex is an eye opener.  
He describes the glittering veins of lead, zinc, cadmium, gold
and silver in Stari Trg. According to Hedges, "The sprawling
state-owned Trepca mining complex, the most valuable piece of
real estate in the Balkans, is worth at least $5 billion."
According to the mine's director, Novak Bjelic, "The war in
Kosovo is about the mines, nothing else.  This is Serbia's
Kuwait—the heart of Kosovo.

In addition to all this, Kosovo has 17 billion tons of coal
reserves." The whole world knows and observed firsthand in the
war against Iraq to what horrendous extent the Pentagon was
willing to go in order to guarantee control of the oil wealth of
Kuwait. But the enormous mineral wealth of Kosovo is never
publicly discussed by U.S.  United Nations Ambassador Richard
Holbrooke, President Bill Clinton or the Pentagon generals.  
They speak only of "self-determination" of the Albanian
population of Kosovo. Of course, they never mention what
U.S.-imposed "self-determination" means. It means colonization
under the guise of "liberation," like what the U.S. did to Puerto
Rico, Cuba and the Philippines a hundred years ago.

An Internet search for reports on the mines of Kosovo, the Trepca
mining complex or Stari Trg, turned up only the one article by
Hedges and a small piece in the June 22 Wall Street Journal.  
All other mentions are in metallurgical journals. How could this
vital fact be omitted from all discussion of what is at stake in
Kosovo?  It is comparable to describing Kuwait and the oil-rich
Gulf states as barren deserts. The wealth of Kosovo is greater
than the rich veins of ore in the mines. Hedges describes the
mining complex: "The Stari Trg mine, with its warehouses, is
ringed with smelting plants, 17 metal treatment sites, freight
yards, railroad lines, a power plant and the country's largest
battery plant."

The labor power of millions of workers throughout socialist
Yugoslavia built this mining complex into the powerhouse it is
today.  It was their wealth that was invested in developing the
complex.  It belongs not just to those who live in Kosovo, but to
the workers of all Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav web site www.yugo
slavia.com describes Trepca as the "richest lead and zinc mines
in Europe." Lignite deposits in the Kosovo mines are, according
to experts, sufficient for the next 13 centuries.  The capacity
of the lead and zinc refineries ranks third in the world.

Miners work round the clock, day and night, in six-hour shifts.
According to the mine director, "In the last three years we have
mined 2,538,124 tons of lead and zinc crude ore and produced
286,502 tons of lead and zinc and 139,789 tons of pure lead,
zinc, cadmium, silver and gold." Although the average person
watching the news in the evening has never heard of Stari Trg, it
has been a prize changing hands for two thousand years. The
wealth of Stari Trg is legendary.  Precious metals were mined
there more than 2,000 years ago, first by the Greeks, then by the
Romans.

These mines were the grand prize in the Nazi occupation of the
Balkans after Germany grabbed control from the British.  The
mines have great industrial and military importance.  The Nazis
used batteries produced there to power their U-boats.  Today
submarine batteries are still made there. Profits from these
mines are helping to keep the Yugoslav Federation afloat.

U.S.  and UN sanctions imposed on Serbia and Montenegro, the two
remaining republics of Yugoslavia, have taken an enormous toll.
Without investment credits, loans for financing industry, imports
and exports, the economy has been stifled.  Inflation has
weakened the currency. The mines, which once were the largest
employer in the province, have also been affected. The most
important words in Hedges' article are the description of the
complex as "state owned." Throughout this decade, as the
capitalist market has swept over the former socialist countries
of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, socialist Yugoslavia has
attempted to resist privatization of its industry and natural
resources. To break this resistance, the Western imperialist
countries played a major role in the breakup of socialist
Yugoslavia.

This huge complex of mines, refining, power and transportation in
Kosovo may well be the largest uncontested piece of wealth not
yet in the hands of the big capitalists of the U.S. or Europe.
The industry, natural resources and transportation of all the
former Soviet republics, the socialist countries of Eastern
Europe, and the secessionist republics of Yugoslavia are now
being rapidly privatized.  No one within the region has the
wealth or connections to finance capital to buy controlling
shares of these vast state-owned industries.  The major Western
corporations are gobbling these industries up.

While the fate of some industries is still in negotiation, the
lending and credit conditions of the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank require the breakup of all state-owned
industries.  This is true for the oil and natural gas wealth in
the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea as well as the diamond mines of
Siberia.

The decision on who will own or have controlling interest in the
22 mines and the many processing plants of the Trepca complex
will be made by whoever wins the armed struggle raging in Kosovo.  
NATO domination on the ground would put U.S.  corporations in the
best ownership position. Nationalist strife advances their
position.

Although being forced to privatize in order to survive in today's
global market, Yugoslavia has tried to control the process and to
propose Balkan regional development.

According to the June 22 Wall Street Journal, the Yugoslav
Federation is in negotiations to sell shares in the Trepca mining
complex.  Forced by the economic crisis, they have been
negotiating with a Greek investor, Mytilineos Holdings SA, for
partial ownership. The former manager of the mines, Byrhan
Kavaja, who is now allied with the opposition to the Yugoslav
government, has written to all corporations dealing in soft
metals to tell them not to make agreements with the Yugoslav
government.  Kavaja says that once a new government is in power,
all past decisions on ownership will be invalidated.  The
opposition will make "new agreements." Who is likely to be the
beneficiary of these agreements?

The progressive movement in the U.S.  and throughout Western
Europe must be at the forefront in explaining that the billions
of dollars spent on the U.S./NATO occupation of the region is not
in the interests of any of the people of the Balkans.  Nor is it
in the interests of poor and working people in the U.S.  or
Europe.  The war is destroying all that was built through
collective ownership and collaboration in the Balkans. This war
will mean higher taxes and even more cuts in social programs in
the U.S and Europe.  But the billions of dollars in profit will
go to a few wealthy stockholders in the U.S.  or in Western
Europe.

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