BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
In the largest military offensive so far against Albanians fighting for independence in Kosova, Belgrade's army and special police forces have driven tens of thousands out of their homes and into the mountains and set ablaze scores of villages to prevent peasants and other Albanians from returning.

"The offensive has been going on for more than two weeks and has not stopped, despite claims to the contrary by the authorities," said Luleson Jagxhiu, a leader of the Independent Students Union, in a telephone interview from Pristina, Kosova's capital, on August 6. "We are faced with full-scale war. More than 300,000 Albanians have been forced to flee their homes from shelling. A very big number are hiding in the hills and mountains. They lack food and shelter. This could develop into a humanitarian disaster as the cold weather of the fall and winter approaches."

More than 500 Albanian civilians have been killed in the five-month-old Serbian government assault, according to the Kosova Information Center. The latest offensive began July 24, ostensibly to beat back the forces of the Kosova Liberation Army (UCK) that had taken control of one-third of this province. The UCK is a guerrilla group that has been leading an armed struggle for independence of Kosova, whose population of 2.1 million is 90 percent Albanian. Belgrade's army and police appeared to have taken the upper hand in many UCK strongholds by the start of August.

Washington and other imperialist powers are using the conflict to deepen imperialist intervention in the Balkans, with the goal of reimposing the domination of capitalism in Yugoslavia and tightening their encirclement of Russia.

NATO renews threats of intervention
"NATO has now approved a range of contingency plans for the use of military force in this regard," said James Rubin, spokesman for the U.S. State Department, August 3. He was referring to decisions the previous week by the North Atlantic Council, made up of representatives of NATO member countries. Plans include possible bombing raids against Yugoslav army bases and missile strikes. Land deployment of troops is less likely at this point, U.S. officials say.

Moscow stated it would veto United Nations Security Council authorization of military intervention into Kosova, if Washington seeks it. The Russian government has been on a collision course with the U.S. rulers over NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, U.S. policy on Iraq, and U.S. attempts to dominate the oil in the former Soviet republics of the Caspian Sea region.

The government of Hungary, due to become a NATO member within the year, has said it will not allow its soil to be used as a base for any NATO operation in Kosova.

On July 21 the United Nations Security Council voted, on Washington's initiative, to add 350 troops to its 1,000- strong "peacekeeping" force in the neighboring republic of Macedonia and extend its mandate to February. About half the force is made up of U.S. soldiers and has been there since 1992. UN secretary general Kofi Annan had earlier called for the withdrawal of the force. At least 23 percent of Macedonia's population are Albanians, who in their majority support the independence struggle in Kosova and have been leading their own struggle against national oppression inside that republic.

The fight for independence in Kosova -a region formally part of the Republic of Serbia - began to grow in 1989, when the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, now president of Yugoslavia, revoked Kosova's autonomous status. Since then Belgrade has ruled the province under a state of emergency and with brute force. The overwhelming majority of Albanians have been fired from state administration, health-care facilities, schools, and industry for refusing to sign "loyalty oaths" to Serbia.

The U.S. government has been posing as a defender of the national rights of Albanians. Over the last month, however, officials from Washington and other capitalist governments in the European Union (EU) have made increasingly clear their disgruntlement with sections of the leadership of the Kosova independence movement.

"There was a general recognition that the K.L.A. [Kosova Liberation Army] was getting too big for its boots and needed to be taken down a peg or two before there can be negotiations." This was a quote from an unnamed "Western official involved in Kosovo policy making" cited in a July 29 New York Times article a few days after Belgrade's all-out offensive began.

On June 15 NATO conducted extensive military exercises in Albania and Macedonia, including simulations of air raids on Serbia. In the month that followed, the UCK began making advances on the military front, including taking control briefly of Orahovac, a town of 20,000 in western Kosova, on July 19. NATO officials stated at the time they were stepping back from threats to intervene. Washington and other imperialist powers have consistently opposed independence and called for return of autonomy to Kosova instead, which most Kosovar Albanians reject. Since early July the big-business press has run articles with headlines like "Frustrated by Kosova stalemate, the West criticizes all sides" and "Rise of Kosova guerrillas puts NATO powers in a bind." And the so- called Contact Group issued statements condemning "armed Kosovo Albanian groups" for violence.

The Contact Group - made up of the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Russia - is charged with overseeing the implementation of the Dayton accord. That was the treaty Washington forced the warring regimes in Yugoslavia to sign in 1995, paving the way for Bosnia's occupation by NATO troops.

Some disillusionment with imperialism
This course has provoked angry reactions and some disillusionment among Albanians in Kosova, many of whom had previously accepted reliance on Washington and calls for NATO intervention put forward by pro-imperialist politicians there. Christopher Hill, U.S. ambassador to Macedonia, faced mostly hostile questions by Albanian reporters at an August 3 press conference in Pristina. "There is a general feeling in Kosova that the recent massacre is being helped by the U.S. and Europe," one reporter stated. The Democratic League of Kosova, headed by Ibrahim Rugova, who has been the foremost proponent of dependence on Washington, split earlier this spring. A section of its leadership, headed by Mehmet Hajrizi, who favors direct links with the UCK, formed the Albanian Democratic Movement.

"The KLA and leaders of the Kosovo Albanian majority accuse western governments of giving Mr. Milosevic the `green light' to attack the pro-independence rebels in order to weaken their position ahead of the possible resumption of peace talks," said an article in the August 3 Financial Times of London.

"I have never expected any help from the capitalist governments in Europe or the United States," Luleson Jagxhiu said in the August 6 interview. "But many Albanians who had different views have come to see that the policies of these governments are actually costing the lives of civilians."

Jagxhiu said many Albanians in Kosova look at the recent measures taken in Switzerland as a "stab in the back." He was referring to new steps by the government there to prosecute Albanian immigrants who send funds to relatives in Kosova on the grounds they are helping the UCK. The government of Germany is considering similar measures, Jagxhiu pointed out, and Washington has been pressuring Bonn to do so. Germany and Switzerland are the two countries in Europe with the largest concentrations of Albanians from Kosova. "Many Albanians depend on remittances from abroad to survive," Jagxhiu said. "And now these funds are being cut off. These kinds of sanctions show these governments are working against our cause. They are not on our side." Jagxhiu pointed out that with tens of thousands of people fleeing in the mountains material support from relatives abroad is critical.

The offensive by Belgrade has required approximately $2 million per day and tens of thousands of troops, many of them new conscripts in the Yugoslav army with little training and no desire to fight. Mothers of these soldiers have begun to stage protests in Belgrade demanding their sons be brought back. About 100 such women demonstrated outside the army's general headquarters in mid-July, throwing coffee on Gen. Gradimir Zivanovic, who announced the death of another Serbian soldier in Kosova. "Fascists, fascists. Give us our children back!" shouted Andjelka, one of the women.

Other such protests continue, though they remain small. "We are watching very carefully what's happening in Serbia," Jagxhiu said. "Many people in Serbia don't want to fight us. Many soldiers are sent to the front without being told where they are going or why. Though this resistance is still small, we hope it will increase. We have also been working with students in Belgrade who have waged antiwar protests."  
 
 
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