1999, Yugoslavia: KLA, CIA, OSCE and NATO Join Hands

By Peter Stavropoulos

The BBC and Newsweek report that President Clinton has approved CIA training of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to do sabotage in Yugoslavia.  According to Newsweek, the CIA will train the KLA in "age-old tricks like cutting telephone lines, blowing up buildings, fouling gasoline reserves and pilfering food supplies - in an effort to undermine public support for the Serbian leader and damage Yugoslav targets that can't be reached from the air."

      U.S. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger secretly briefed the House and Senate Intelligence committees on these plans the week that former-General in the Croatian military, Agim Ceku, was appointed to head the KLA.

      Newsweek says, "Intelligence officials worry it would be difficult to control the US-trained rebels once boot camp is over and they are set loose on Milosevic."  A former chief of intelligence planner for the US Air Force said, "I'm afraid they could use their training to carry out atrocities.  If they think they can rein them in, it's tremendous naivete."

      KLA ranks in Albania swelled.  An estimated 10,000 arrived in Albania, mainly from Germany, Switzerland, France and Austria.  Reuters has reported that the KLA is also forcing male Kosovar refugees to join its ranks.

      Jane's reported that U.S. military Special Forces and British SAS were fighting alongside the KLA inside Kosovo.  The French news agency Agence France Presse has reported on the deaths of three French army paratroop officers killed while commanding a KLA unit trying to cross into Kosovo from Albania.

      The U.S.-NATO backing to the KLA and Ceku, its new military leader is the most telling refutation of the claims made to justify the war. 

Agim Ceku

Who is the KLA Commander?

• Ceku, an ethnic Kosovo Albanian, graduated from the Belgrade Military Academy; served as an  artillery captain in the Yugoslav army.

• During Yugoslavia's dissolution in 1991, he defected to the newly formed Croatian Army to assist its drive to secession.  He was decorated nine times in battles against Serb forces in both Bosnia and Croatia.

•  Brigadier-General, Croatian Army.

• Mastermind of the "Medak Massacre" (September 1993), a savage bloodbath against Serb civilians in which Canadian peacekeeping troops were compelled to intervene, killing 30 Croatian militiamen.

•  He played a central role in the Croatian Army's "cleansing" of Serbs from eastern Croatia's Krajina region, where Serbs had comprised the majority for hundreds of years.

•  Ceku was "one of the key planners of 'Operation Storm'" led by the Croatian Armed Forces against Krajina Serbs in 1995" (Jane's Defence Weekly, June 10, 1999).  This was supported by the U.S. and assisted by NATO bombing of Serb positions.  Ceku developed close ties with U.S. military officials.  (More than 300,000 Croa-tian Serbs were expelled from Croatia between 1991 and 1998.  Hundreds were murdered, including many too old or disabled to escape.  Methods included: systematic and deliberate bombing of civilians, well-publicized acts of terror to spread panic, rape, and arson against homes, farms and other property.  It was the greatest act of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans prior to the NATO bombing in Kosovo.

•  The Croatian Army was trained by a U.S. company called Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI), composed of retired U.S. military officers. An MPRI spokesmen described Ceku in Jane's Defense Weekly (JDW) as a highly competent and disciplined officer.

•  Ceku retired from his Croatian Army post in February, 1999.

•  Ceku was appointed KLA chief-of-staff in a reorganization to more closely align it with U.S. strategy.

•  Ceku is under investigation by the International Criminal Tribunal for war crimes against Serbs in Croatia (Sunday Times of London, October 10, 1999.)

 Source: "Former Croatian general has US backing: New KLA leader was responsible for ethnic cleansing," World Socialist Web Service, May 29, 1999. www.wsws.org/articles/1999/may1999/kla-m29.shtml

CIA Training and Advice

By Tom Walker and Aidan Laverty

 U.S. intelligence agents have admitted they helped train the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) before NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia.  This angered some European diplomats, who said it had undermined a political solution.  CIA officers were ceasefire monitors in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999.  They gave the KLA U.S. military training manuals and field advice. 

      When the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which coordinated the monitoring, left Kosovo a week before airstrikes began, many of its satellite phones and global positioning systems were secretly handed to the KLA, ensuring that they could stay in touch with NATO and Washington.  Several KLA leaders had the phone number of General Clark, the NATO commander. 

      Several Americans with CIA links, spoke to makers of "Moral Combat," a BBC2 documentary  [Mar.12, 2000], and The Sunday Times about their clandestine roles.  U.S. diplomatic observers were "a CIA front, gathering intelligence on the KLA's arms and leadership," said one.  Another agent, said he had been "suckered in" by an organization that ran amok in post-war Kosovo.  Shaban Shala, a KLA commander involved in destabilizing majority Albanian villages in Serbia proper, said he met British, U.S. and Swiss agents in northern Albania in 1996.

Source: Siol nan Gaidheal, March 2000. www.siol-nan-gaidheal.com/ciaaid.htm