Who Is the So-called KLA? And Which Role Does It Play For NATO?

By Walter Grobe, editorial staff of Neue Einheit, 2 April 1999

First published on April 2,1999 as Internet Statement #10/99

The public is being deliberately deceived by the media if they talk about a “KLA” which, as they put it, represents just interests of the Albanian population of Kosovo.

First, there is no real KLA-organization, as some newspapers and politicians are complaining themselves, but only several armed groups which needed pressure from the part of their guardians to demonstrate something like unity at the Rambouillet conference. A Kosovo under the reign of these different gangs would not at all be a political whole.

What they have in common is the ideology of “Greater Albania”. By this they understand the separation not only of Kosovo from Serbia but also the dismemberment of Montenegro and Macedonian, and the union of their Albanian-dominated regions with the present state Albania.

It is said, for example, in a “Declaration #42, Feb. 27, 1998”:

“Welcoming the increased interest, in particular by the American and the French-German diplomacy, we declare that the solution of the Albanian question cannot be defined solely within Kosova's present borders, but it has to be solved as a whole, by integration of the Albanians and their regions occupied by ‘Macedonian’ and Montenegro.” (from an internetrecourse of the KLA, transl. from German is mine, W.Gr.)

Which social concept does the KLA have for the separated Kosovo, resp. for “Greater Albania”? A struggle for such a far-reaching alteration of several state borders which probably will lead to decades of utterly bitter struggles with the neighbouring nations and beyond, is not even worth serious discussion if there is no social concept put forth by the KLA.

It reads, for example, in a “Political Declaration #22” of Dec. 31, 1998 (same source):

“…again, the acceptable and respected ideology of the Liberation Army of Kosova is ALBANIANNESS, solely to it we bow, solely to it we sacrifice ourselves. Everything for freedom, fatherland and ALBANIANNESS, also life. This is the motto and the oath of the KLA's soldiers.” (my translation, W. Gr.)

A movement which in earnest explains as its political content solely “Albanianness” disqualifies itself not less than another which, for example, would indicate “Germanness”. Almost everybody would immediately sense the mustiest primitive national self-interest and the hostility against other nations. Therefore we have to ask if and how the “KLA” distances itself from such a comprehension of Albanianness.

“Albanianness” in Kosovo, if we look at it from a historical viewpoint, unfortunately means to a high degree also a movement by an Muslim-Albanian population of ousting the Serbs from their old core region, the Kosovo, a movement which has gone on since several centuries. This process had for a long time been furthered by the Turkish supreme rule which the islamized Albanians served as the most important suppressor troops, whereas the Serbs put up resistance against the slave-driver Ottoman regime which forced complete stagnation. In our century, this aspect of the Albanian movement achieved further deplorable peaks of aggression against the Kosovo's Serbs, between 1941 and 1944 under the fascist supreme rule of Italy and Germany. Where is a reckoning-up from the part of the “KLA” with such traditions, where does it distance itself from such demands and practices? Even in the “autonomous province Kosovo” of Tito's Yugoslavia during the seventies they are said to have been continued. Is it untrue if a big US newspaper writes that the KLA's “goals include not only independence but the expulsion of Serbs from the province”? (San Jose Mercury, March 28, 1999, a newspaper which incidentally supports NATO and the KLA)

Which mentality reigns in this struggle one can quite well see also from a passage from a “Political Declaration #8” of Sept. 10, 1998:

“The Liberation Army of Kosova did not enter this war half heartedly; it entered with the motto: Kosova will be ours, or it will be ashes and dust, with the conviction that; more honourable is it to die in the quest for freedom than to live under subjugation (occupation).” (English text from the homepage mentioned above)

As little good this declaration of war by the KLA can forebode to the neighbour nations on the Balkans, it can to the own nationality. The sort of “Albanianness” as, according to several reports, is represented also by the “KLA” itself, which however is presently dominant also in the state Albania and contributes to its being drowned in chaos, is characterized, among others, by completely archaic clan structures, but also by an unusually strong integration with mafia activities. Where does the KLA critically give its opinion about these matters? Where at all are elements of an internationalistic modern attitude, at first with regard to the neighbour nations, but also globally?

Also from this side NATO's propaganda that it wants to give room to a “national liberation movement” proves to be a mere lie to cover itself. To support something like a “KLA” is a complete absurdity and can be viewed only as a detraction from quite different goals from the part of NATO. If the goal had really been the improvement of the situation of the population in Kosovo, there would have been various opportunities for the NATO countries, and probably also the support by different political forces in Kosovo. NATO wants to push through a war agenda, the creation of a public climate favourable for completely high-handed actions which are based only on superior military terror and finally on nuclear weapons, actions which it envisages in all regions of the world you can think of. It perhaps also wants, as the increasing propaganda for ground troops shows, a permanent stationing amidst the southern Balkans, and certainly also Kosovo's enormous mineral resources.

All the more contemptible is the behavior of those Albanians which lend themselves as provocers and bawlers who justify NATO, completely short-sighted on top of all. When some day their Albanian-chauvinistic dreams will no longer suit NATO and they will be dropped, then they will feel a tremendous lack of sympathies among the other nations.

It was only two years ago that the so-called KLA all of a sudden came into existence. When Serbia, in 1991-1995, tried to punish Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia for their secession from Yugoslavia, to separate parts of their territories, and in doing so burdened itself with horrible crimes, there was no support at all for these nations from a KLA, but only a keeping quiet in Kosovo. On the contrary, there are even reports about a massive smuggling of arms to Serbia which found an undisturbed way through Albania and Kosovo. And only when in 1997 the KLA started terroristic actions which are said to have been directed not only against the forces of the Serbian government but also against other national minorities—only too probable, for the foreign observer looking at the KLA's ideology—military counter- measures by the Serbian government occurred. If since March 24 NATO is massively bombing Yugoslavia and the KLA is shouting a storm of applause, is even demanding a much larger action by NATO for the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and without any regard for the international importance of this NATO policy, it should not wonder about reprisals by the Yugoslavian government nor about the international condemnation of its activities. Already today the population of Kosovo is massively suffering from the “KLA's” and NATO's policy, and the media tears are sheer hypocrisy.

It is impossible for NATO to assert that it could not foresee the tough counter-measures in Kosovo taken by the Yugoslavian government against the separation by KLA and NATO. The flight movements of today are caused by NATO itself, and the Western media campaign which is constructing, out of these refugees, an ex post justification for its aggression and its escalation, had long ago been prepared as a part of this whole aggression. Already the war against Iraq had shown what deliberate lies the Western media are able to fabricate. For example, the infamous “incubator lie”, accusing the Iraqi army of having dragged babies out of their incubators in Kuwait hospitals when occupying Kuwait. Later it was admitted that this and other horror tales which had zealously been taken by ARD, ZDF (the official German TV programs) as well as by other media, had been fabricated by a media agency on behalf of the US president and the Kuwaiti emir's family.