* * *
By Michel Chossudovsky
Department of Economics, University of Ottawa
Ottawa, K1N6N5
Voice box: 1-613-562-5800, ext. 1415
Fax: 1-514-425-6224
E-Mail: chossudovsky@sprint.ca
- Wednesday, 7 April 1999 -
-----
Heralded by the global media as a humanitarian peace-keeping
mission, NATO's ruthless bombing of Belgrade and Pristina goes far
beyond the breach of international law. While Slobodan Milosevic is
demonised, portrayed as a remorseless dictator, the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA) is upheld as a self-respecting nationalist movement
struggling for the rights of ethnic Albanians. The truth of the
matter is that the KLA is sustained by organised crime with the tacit
approval of the United States and its allies.
Following a pattern set during the War in Bosnia, public opinion
has been carefully misled. The multibillion dollar Balkans narcotics
trade has played a crucial role in "financing the conflict" in
Kosovo in accordance with Western economic, strategic and military
objectives. Amply documented by European police files, acknowledged
by numerous studies, the links of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
to criminal syndicates in Albania, Turkey and the European Union have
been known to Western governments and intelligence agencies since the
mid-1990s.
...The financing of the Kosovo guerilla war poses critical
questions and it sorely test claims of an "ethical" foreign
policy. Should the West back a guerrilla army that appears
to partly financed by organised crime.[1]
While KLA leaders were shaking hands with US Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright at Rambouillet, Europol (the European Police
Organization based in the Hague) was "preparing a report for European
interior and justice ministers on a connection between the KLA and
Albanian drug gangs."[2] In the meantime, the rebel army has been
skillfully heralded by the global media (in the months preceding the
NATO bombings) as broadly representative of the interests of ethnic
Albanians in Kosovo.
With KLA leader Hashim Thaci (a 29 year "freedom fighter")
appointed as chief negotiator at Rambouillet, the KLA has become
the de facto helmsman of the peace process on behalf of the ethnic
Albanian majority and this despite its links to the drug trade. The
West was relying on its KLA puppets to rubber-stamp an agreement which
would have transformed Kosovo into an occupied territory under Western
Administration.
Ironically Robert Gelbard, America's special envoy to Bosnia,
had described the KLA last year as "terrorists". Christopher Hill,
America's chief negotiator and architect of the Rambouillet agreement
"has also been a strong critic of the KLA for its alleged dealings
in drugs."[3] Moreover, barely a few two months before Rambouillet,
the US State Department had acknowledged (based on reports from the
US Observer Mission) the role of the KLA in terrorising and uprooting
ethnic Albanians:
...the KLA harass or kidnap anyone who comes to the police,
... KLA representatives had threatened to kill villagers and
burn their homes if they did not join the KLA [a process
which has continued since the NATO bombings]... [T]he KLA
harassment has reached such intensity that residents of six
villages in the Stimlje region are "ready to flee.[4]w
While backing a "freedom movement" with links to the drug trade,
the West seems also intent in bypassing the civilian Kosovo Democratic
League and its leader Ibrahim Rugova who has called for an end to the
bombings and expressed his desire to negotiate a peaceful settlement
with the Yugoslav authorities.[5] It is worth recalling that a few
days before his March 31st Press Conference, Rugova had been reported
by the KLA (alongside three other leaders including Fehmi Agani) to
have been killed by the Serbs.
COVERT FINANCING OF `FREEDOM FIGHTERS'
Remember Oliver North and the Contras? The pattern in Kosovo
is similar to other CIA covert operations in Central America, Haiti
and Afghanistan where "freedom fighters" were financed through
the laundering of drug money. Since the onslaught of the Cold War,
Western intelligence agencies have developed a complex relationship to
the illegal narcotics trade. In case after case, drug money laundered
in the international banking system has financed covert operations.
According to author Alfred McCoy, the pattern of covert financing
was established in the Indochina war. In the 1960s, the Meo army
in Laos was funded by the narcotics trade as part of Washington's
military strategy against the combined forces of the neutralist
government of Prince Souvanna Phouma and the Pathet Lao.[6]
The pattern of drug politics set in Indochina has since been
replicated in Central America and the Caribbean. "The rising curve
of cocaine imports to the US", wrote journalist John Dinges "followed
almost exactly the flow of US arms and military advisers to Central
America."[7]
The military in Guatemala and Haiti, to which the CIA provided
covert support, were known to be involved in the trade of narcotics
into Southern Florida. And as revealed in the Iran-Contra and Bank
of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) scandals, there was strong
evidence that covert operations were funded through the laundering
of drug money. "Dirty money" recycled through the banking system
-- often through an anonymous shell company -- became "covert money,"
used to finance various rebel groups and guerilla movements including
the Nicaraguan Contras and the Afghan Mujahadeen. According to a 1991
Time Magazine report:
Because the US wanted to supply the mujehadeen rebels in
Afghanistan with stinger missiles and other military
hardware it needed the full cooperation of Pakistan. By the
mid-1980s, the CIA operation in Islamabad was one of the
largest US intelligence stations in the World. `If BCCI is
such an embarrassment to the US that forthright
investigations are not being pursued it has a lot to do with
the blind eye the US turned to the heroin trafficking in
Pakistan', said a US intelligence officer.[8]
AMERICA AND GERMANY JOIN HANDS
Since the early 1990s, Bonn and Washington have joined hands
in establishing their respective spheres of influence in the Balkans.
Their intelligence agencies have also collaborated. According to
intelligence analyst John Whitley, covert support to the Kosovo
rebel army was established as a joint endeavour between the CIA and
Germany's Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND) (which previously played
a key role in installing a right wing nationalist government under
Franjo Tudjman in Croatia).[9] The task to create and finance the
KLA was initially given to Germany: "They used German uniforms, East
German weapons and were financed, in part, with drug money."[10]
According to Whitley, the CIA was, subsequently instrumental in
training and equipping the KLA in Albania.[11]
The covert activities of Germany's BND were consistent with
Bonn's intent to expand its "Lebensraum" into the Balkans. Prior
to the onset of the civil war in Bosnia, Germany and its Foreign
Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher had actively supported secession; it
had "forced the pace of international diplomacy" and pressured its
Western allies to recognize Slovenia and Croatia. According to the
Geopolitical Drug Watch, both Germany and the US favoured (although
not officially) the formation of a "Greater Albania" encompassing
Albania, Kosovo and parts of Macedonia.[12] According to Sean Gervasi,
Germany was seeking a free hand among its allies "to pursue economic
dominance in the whole of Mitteleuropa."[13]
ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM IN SUPPORT OF THE KLA
Bonn and Washington's "hidden agenda" consisted in triggering
nationalist liberation movements in Bosnia and Kosovo with the
ultimate purpose of destabilising Yugoslavia. The latter objective
was also carried out "by turning a blind eye" to the influx of
mercenaries and financial support from Islamic fundamentalist
organisations.[14]
Mercenaries financed by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had been fighting
in Bosnia.[15] And the Bosnian pattern was replicated in Kosovo:
Mujahadeen mercenaries from various Islamic countries are reported to
be fighting alongside the KLA in Kosovo. German, Turkish and Afghan
instructors were reported to be training the KLA in guerilla and
diversion tactics.[16]
According to a Deutsche Press-Agentur report, financial support
from Islamic countries to the KLA had been channeled through the
former Albanian chief of the National Information Service (NIS),
Bashkim Gazidede.[17] "Gazidede, reportedly a devout Moslem who
fled Albania in March of last year [1997], is presently [1998]
being investigated for his contacts with Islamic terrorist
organizations."[18]
The supply route for arming KLA "freedom fighters" are the rugged
mountainous borders of Albania with Kosovo and Macedonia. Albania is
also a key point of transit of the Balkans drug route which supplies
Western Europe with grade four heroin. 75% of the heroin entering
Western Europe is from Turkey. And a large part of drug shipments
originating in Turkey transits through the Balkans. According to
the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), "it is estimated that
4-6 metric tons of heroin leave each month from Turkey having [through
the Balkans] as destination Western Europe."[19] A recent intelligence
report by Germany's Federal Criminal Agency suggests that: "Ethnic
Albanians are now the most prominent group in the distribution of
heroin in Western consumer countries."[20]
THE LAUNDERING OF DIRTY MONEY
In order to thrive, the criminal syndicates involved in the
Balkans narcotics trade need friends in high places. Smuggling
rings with alleged links to the Turkish State are said to control
the trafficking of heroin through the Balkans "cooperating closely
with other groups with which they have political or religious ties"
including criminal groups in Albanian and Kosovo.[21] In this new
global financial environment, powerful undercover political lobbies
connected to organized crime cultivate links to prominent political
figures and officials of the military and intelligence establishment.
The narcotics trade nonetheless uses respectable banks to launder
large amounts of dirty money. While comfortably removed from the
smuggling operations per se, powerful banking interests in Turkey but
mainly those in financial centres in Western Europe discretely collect
fat commissions in a multibillion dollar money laundering operation.
These interests have high stakes in ensuring a safe passage of drug
shipments into Western European markets.
THE ALBANIAN CONNECTION
Arms smuggling from Albania into Kosovo and Macedonia started at
the beginning of 1992, when the Democratic Party came to power, headed
by President Sali Berisha. An expansive underground economy and
cross border trade had unfolded. A triangular trade in oil, arms and
narcotics had developed largely as a result of the embargo imposed by
the international community on Serbia and Montenegro and the blockade
enforced by Greece against Macedonia.
Industry and agriculture in Kosovo were spearheaded into
bankruptcy following the IMF's lethal "economic medicine" imposed
on Belgrade in 1990. The embargo was imposed on Yugoslavia. Ethnic
Albanians and Serbs were driven into abysmal poverty. Economic
collapse created an environment which fostered the progress of illicit
trade. In Kosovo, the rate of unemployment increased to a staggering
70 percent (according to Western sources).
Poverty and economic collapse served to exacerbate simmering
ethnic tensions. Thousands of unemployed youths "barely out of their
Teens" from an impoverished population, were drafted into the ranks of
the KLA.[22]
In neighbouring Albania, the free market reforms adopted since
1992 had created conditions which favoured the criminalisation of
State institutions. Drug money was also laundered in the Albanian
pyramids (ponzi schemes) which mushroomed during the government of
former President Sali Berisha (1992-1997).[23] These shady investment
funds were an integral part of the economic reforms inflicted by
Western creditors on Albania.
Drug barons in Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia (with links to the
Italian mafia) had become the new economic elites, often associated
with Western business interests. In turn the financial proceeds
of the trade in drugs and arms were recycled towards other illicit
activities (and vice versa) including a vast prostitution racket
between Albania and Italy. Albanian criminal groups operating in
Milan, "have become so powerful running prostitution rackets that they
have even taken over the Calabrians in strength and influence."[24]
The application of "strong economic medicine" under the guidance
of the Washington based Bretton Woods institutions had contributed
to wrecking Albania's banking system and precipitating the collapse
of the Albanian economy. The resulting chaos enabled American
and European transnationals to carefully position themselves.
Several Western oil companies including Occidental, Shell and British
Petroleum had their eyes riveted on Albania's abundant and unexplored
oil-deposits. Western investors were also gawking Albania's extensive
reserves of chrome, copper, gold, nickel and platinum... The Adenauer
Foundation had been lobbying in the background on behalf of German
mining interests.[25]
Berisha's Minister of Defence Safet Zoulali (alleged to have been
involved in the illegal oil and narcotics trade) was the architect
of the agreement with Germany's Preussag (handing over control over
Albania's chrome mines) against the competing bid of the US led
consortium of Macalloy Inc. in association with Rio Tinto Zimbabwe
(RTZ).[26]
Large amounts of narco-dollars had also been recycled into the
privatisation programmes leading to the acquisition of State assets by
the mafias. In Albania, the privatisation programme had led virtually
overnight to the development of a property owning class firmly
committed to the "free marke." In Northern Albania, this class was
associated with the Guegue "families" linked to the Democratic Party.
Controlled by the Democratic Party under the presidency of Sali
Berisha (1992-97), Albania's largest financial "pyramid" VEFA Holdings
had been set up by the Guegue "families" of Northern Albania with the
support of Western banking interests. VEFA was under investigation in
Italy in 1997 for its ties to the Mafia which allegedly used VEFA to
launder large amounts of dirty money.[27]
According to one press report (based on intelligence sources),
senior members of the Albanian government during the Presidency of
Sali Berisha including cabinet members and members of the secret
police SHIK were alleged to be involved in drugs trafficking and
illegal arms trading into Kosovo:
(...) The allegations are very serious. Drugs, arms,
contraband cigarettes all are believed to have been handled
by a company run openly by Albania's ruling Democratic
Party, Shqiponja (...). In the course of 1996 Defence
Minister, Safet Zhulali [was alleged] to had used his office
to facilitate the transport of arms, oil and contraband
cigarettes. (...) Drugs barons from Kosovo (...) operate in
Albania with impunity, and much of the transportation of
heroin and other drugs across Albania, from Macedonia and
Greece en route to Italy, is believed to be organised by
Shik, the state security police (...). Intelligence agents
are convinced the chain of command in the rackets goes all
the way to the top and have had no hesitation in naming
ministers in their reports.[28]
The trade in narcotics and weapons was allowed to prosper despite
the presence since 1993 of a large contingent of American troops at
the Albanian-Macedonian border with a mandate to enforce the embargo.
The West had turned a blind eye. The revenues from oil and narcotics
were used to finance the purchase of arms (often in terms of
direct barter): "Deliveries of oil to Macedonia (skirting the Greek
embargo [in 1993-4] can be used to cover heroin, as do deliveries of
kalachnikov rifles to Albanian `brothers' in Kosovo".[29]
The Northern tribal clans or "fares" had also developed links
with Italy's crime syndicates.[30] In turn, the latter played a key
role in smuggling arms across the Adriatic into the Albanian ports of
Dures and Valona. At the outset in 1992, the weapons channelled into
Kosovo were largely small arms including Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles, RPK
and PPK machine-guns, 12.7 calibre heavy machine-guns, etc.
The proceeds of the narcotics trade has enabled the KLA to
rapidly develop a force of some 30,000 men. More recently, the KLA
has acquired more sophisticated weaponry including anti- aircraft and
anti-armor rockets. According to Belgrade, some of the funds have
come directly from the CIA "funneled through a so-called "Government
of Kosovo" based in Geneva, Switzerland. Its Washington office
employs the public-relations firm of Ruder Finn -- notorious for its
slanders of the Belgrade government".[31]
The KLA has also acquired electronic surveillance equipment
which enables it to receive NATO satellite information concerning
the movement of the Yugoslav Army. The KLA training camp in Albania
is said to "concentrate on heavy weapons training - rocket propelled
grenades, medium caliber cannons, tanks and transporter use, as well
as on communications, and command and control." (According to Yugoslav
government sources).[32]
These extensive deliveries of weapons to the Kosovo rebel
army were consistent with Western geopolitical objectives.
Not surprisingly, there has been a "deafening silence" of the
international media regarding the Kosovo arms-drugs trade. In
the words of a 1994 Report of the Geopolitical Drug Watch: "the
trafficking [of drugs and arms] is basically being judged on
its geostrategic implications (...) In Kosovo, drugs and weapons
trafficking is fueling geopolitical hopes and fears"...[33]
The fate of Kosovo had already been carefully laid out prior
to the signing of the 1995 Dayton agreement. NATO had entered
an unwholesome "marriage of convenience" with the mafia. "Freedom
fighters" were put in place, the narcotics trade enabled Washington
and Bonn to "finance the Kosovo conflict" with the ultimate objective
of destabilising the Belgrade government and fully recolonising
the Balkans. The destruction of an entire country is the outcome.
Western governments which participated in the NATO operation bear
a heavy burden of responsibility in the deaths of civilians, the
impoverishment of both the ethnic Albanian and Serbian populations and
the plight of those who were brutally uprooted from towns and villages
in Kosovo as a result of the bombings.
NOTES
1. Roger Boyes and Eske Wright, Drugs Money Linked to the Kosovo
Rebels The Times, London, Monday, March 24, 1999.
2. Ibid.
3. Philip Smucker and Tim Butcher, "Shifting stance over KLA has
betrayed' Albanians", Daily Telegraph, London, 6 April 1999.
4. KDOM Daily Report, released by the Bureau of European and Canadian
Affairs, Office of South Central European Affairs, U.S. Department of
State, Washington, DC, December 21, 1998; Compiled by EUR/SCE
(202-647-4850) from daily reports of the U.S. element of the Kosovo
Diplomatic Observer Mission, December 21, 1998.
5. "Rugova, sous protection serbe appelle a l'arret des raides", Le
Devoir, Montreal, 1 April 1999.
6. See Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia
Harper and Row, New York, 1972.
7. See John Dinges, Our Man in Panama, The Shrewd Rise and Brutal
Fall of Manuel Noriega, Times Books, New York, 1991.
8. "The Dirtiest Bank of All," Time, July 29, 1991, p. 22.
9. Truth in Media, Phoenix, 2 April, 1999; see also Michel Collon,
Poker Menteur, editions EPO, Brussels, 1997.
10. Quoted in Truth in Media, Phoenix, 2 April, 1999).
11. Ibid.
12. Geopolitical Drug Watch, No 32, June 1994, p. 4.
13. Sean Gervasi, "Germany, US and the Yugoslav Crisis", Covert
Action Quarterly, No. 43, Winter 1992-93).
14. See Daily Telegraph, 29 December 1993.
15. For further details see Michel Collon, Poker Menteur, editions
EPO, Brussels, 1997, p. 288.
16. Truth in Media, Kosovo in Crisis, Phoenix, 2 April 1999.
17. Deutsche Presse-Agentur, March 13, 1998.
18. Ibid.
19. Daily News, Ankara, 5 March 1997.
20. Quoted in Boyes and Wright, op cit.
21. ANA, Athens, 28 January 1997, see also Turkish Daily News, 29
January 1997.
22. Brian Murphy, KLA Volunteers Lack Experience, The Associated
Press, 5 April 1999.
23. See Geopolitical Drug Watch, No. 35, 1994, p. 3, see also Barry
James, In Balkans, Arms for Drugs, The International Herald Tribune
Paris, June 6, 1994.
24. The Guardian, 25 March 1997.
25. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, La crisi albanese,
Edizioni Gruppo Abele, Torino, 1998.
26. Ibid.
27. Andrew Gumbel, The Gangster Regime We Fund, The Independent,
February 14, 1997, p. 15.
28. Ibid.
29. Geopolitical Drug Watch, No. 35, 1994, p. 3.
30. Geopolitical Drug Watch, No 66, p. 4.
31. Quoted in Workers' World, May 7, 1998.
32. See Government of Yugoslavia at
http://www.gov.yu/terrorism/terroristcamps.html
33. Geopolitical Drug Watch, No 32, June 1994, p. 4.
* * *
Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa, 1999.
Permission is granted to post this text on non-commercial
internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the
copyright note is displayed. To publish this text in printed
and/or other forms contact the author at
chossudovsky@sprint.ca
Copyright 1999 Marcy J. Gordon. (except for the essay by Michel Chossudovsky, belongs to him and for which copyright is validly attributed). All rights reserved. The author wants you to know you are free to copy and distribute this article for noncommercial purposes, provided you reproduce it in its entirety and credit the author. For quotation permission, please contact the author at mgordon@pipeline.com.
This article represents the author's personal views and in no way shape or form reflects upon the author's employer, although the author's employer is very cool. See http://www.ericmarder.com.
Psychicbabble is a service mark of Marcy J. Gordon
Copyright © 1999 Marcy J. Gordon
PsyPlan is a trademark of Psychic Planner, Inc.
Psychicbabble Archives