BY BOBBIS MISAILIDES
ATHENS, Greece - Under the guise of protecting the rights of
the Albanian majority in Kosova and implementing the accord
reached last October between U.S. government special envoy to
the Balkans Richard Holbrooke and Yugoslav president Slobodan
Milosevic, the U.S.-led NATO alliance is deepening its
intervention in Yugoslavia. The agreement was signed under the
threat of NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia. The stepped-up
imperialist intervention aims to lay more firmly the ground for
eventually restoring capitalism throughout the region of the
Yugoslav workers state. Washington has used its control of the
intervention through NATO to bolster its dominance in Europe at
the expense of its rivals, particularly Paris.
NATO has begun to send an "extraction" force into the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. On December 7, six aircraft carrying military and telecommunications materiel along with 40 French soldiers flew from France to the NATO post in the region of Macedonia bordering Kosova. Seven hundred more French troops are to be sent in the next two weeks. The NATO force is expected to reach 1,800 troops, but, if it is considered necessary, it will be increased by several thousand more, stated the Athens daily Eleftherotypia. The newly elected Macedonian prime minister Ljubco Georgievski upon taking office explained that his support to the NATO troops is part of his government's drive to put Macedonia "on the road leading to integration with the European Union and NATO."
The stated purpose of the NATO force in Macedonia is to be prepared to go into Kosova to save 2,000 "observers" sent there under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The stationing of the OSCE "observers" was agreed to by Milosevic in the accord with Holbrooke. Under the Milosevic- Holbrooke accord, the OSCE force is supposed to monitor withdrawal of troops and police from Kosova that Belgrade deployed there in an effort to crush the struggle of the oppressed Albanians for national self-determination.
Belgrade's deputy prime minister Tomislav Nikolic denounced the development of NATO troops in Macedonia, saying that "any entry by NATO forces into the Yugoslav or Serbian territory would be a violation of international law and occupation of a state by a military organization."
Despite the threat of air strikes by NATO, a new so-called "peace-plan" pushed by U.S. government envoy Christopher Hill has been rejected by the Milosevic regime as well as by Kosovar leader Fehmi Angani in the continuing negotiations. Angani said that Hill's proposal is "unacceptable because it comes closer to the positions and demands of Serbia that it retain its domination of Kosova."
The Kosova Liberation Army (UCK), which has been carrying out a guerrilla war for independence of Kosova, declared in a statement last week that it "will not accept any political settlement that would endanger the aspirations of our people for independence or require us to live in an anti-Albanian, undemocratic state without a future, such as Yugoslavia."
Since the Milosevic-Holbrooke accord a cease-fire has been observed by the Milosevic regime and the UCK.