JAKE MARLEY:CHOOSING SIDES BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG



In a Washington Post article dated July 26th, a Pentagon official was quoted as saying, “You get involved in this one, you’re choosing sides in a war,” in reference to the on-going conflict in Macedonia.

He’s absolutely right.

In 1999, the United States chose sides and involved itself in a very real, very public and very aggressive campaign to oust Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic. The US sided with the majority ethnic Albanian population who had been under siege, along with the rest of the citizens of Yugoslavia, by Milosevic and his policies. The US took sides to the point of having NATO engage in its first and only war in open cooperation with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). NATO, of course, is a military alliance designed for members only and for purely defensive purposes.

The upshot is that the US helped the people of Yugoslavia to unseat Milosevic and today there is a democratic government in the driver’s seat which is desperately trying to bring its people back into the family of nations. The down shot is that in the KLA and its successor organization, the Kosovo Protection Corps (and related subsidiaries), the US helped to create a monster it is afraid to defeat.

Let’s go back to that Pentagon official and his insightful comment. He’s wrong in his implicit assumption that both sides in the Macedonia conflict are morally equal. They are not. One side is right and one side is wrong.

This sounds a bit simplistic, but in reality, it’s easy to see the truth, with eyes wide open. Their actions, their words, and the observations of others speak volumes. To wit:

The NLA leader, Ali Ahmeti, has been described as a “melancholically withdrawn fugitive” and as “very dangerous,” by one diplomat who has spoken with him. “He wants power,” the same envoy said.

"We strongly condemn a pattern of deliberate cease-fire violations by ethnic Albanian armed groups in Macedonia," State Department spokesman Charles Hunter told a daily briefing on July 30th. "We've had reports of violence and intimidation ... by the extremists against ethnic Macedonian civilians, including the burning of their homes," he said. ``…the extremists have also planted land mines in civilian areas and on public roads'' and killed two Macedonian civilians Sunday, be said.

Or, straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, “Our aim is solely to remove Slav forces from territory which is historically Albanian.” – Ali Ahmeti (Newsweek, March 22nd, 2001)

Or, consider this one about the on-going peace talks in an interview with AFP on July 31st, 2001: The talks "are going too slowly and we are not at all optimistic." Contrast this, of course, with his earlier statement that “We stand for dialogue, to ease the tensions and open discussion on all the disputes,” (VOA, April 16th, 2001). Apparently Mr. Ahmeti has a timetable he is not willing to share with the others.

Finally, from one of Mr. Ahmeti’s foot soldiers, Fazli Veliu, we read, “If they negotiate with the NLA it will be good for everybody. If they don’t, it could destroy Macedonia first and then the others,” (The Guardian, May 21st, 2001)

The fact that the NLA are the bad guys seems to have been lost somewhere in the debate. It could be that the West has simply decided that it doesn’t have a dog in this fight. It could be that the West is simply afraid of its own creation and really has no idea of what to do about it. Or, in a more cynical way, the West might actually back the NLA and their aims for whatever nefarious reasons.

In the end, the United States is going to have to take sides in this one if it wants its credibility and by extension, NATO’s credibility, nay, raison d’être, to last. And this means taking a principled stand against those who started and are continuing this conflict, whether they are in Macedonia, Kosovo, or elsewhere.

Let’s take one last look at what that Pentagon official said and the rest of his quote, which is a bit more chilling: So, he said, “these guys may just have to kill each other for a while to sort this out.”

Sadly, he’s absolutely wrong on this point.

Jake Marley is a pseudonym for a Western observer who has lived and worked in Macedonia for several years.


source: Washington Post
Web posted at: 8/6/2001 3:11:00 AM (GMT-8)