An incident reported in the June 17 New York Times shows the real policy of the U.S.-dominated NATO forces toward the Kosovo Albanian national movement.

On June 16, U.S. Marines surrounded a group of more than 100 Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas, arrested six of their leaders, and forced the group to disarm.

The Times also reported: “NATO officials met leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army in Albania today to try to arrange the details of disbanding, or ‘demilitarizing,’ the group and turning its fighters into a civilian police force for Kosovo.”

Under a plan drawn up by U.S. General Wesley Clark, the NATO commander, the KLA must give up “fortified positions [it had] held during the conflict with...Milosevic’s forces, turn over their heavy weapons and disband in two phases over 30 days.”

Many in the Albanian majority of the Kosovo population believed in the U.S./NATO propaganda that the world’s superpower and its allied “great powers” in NATO cared about them and were bombing for “humanitarian” purposes, to protect them and give them “autonomy.”

What they will find is they have to follow the orders of the NATO command and the UN civilian administration — which are ultimately controlled by Washington — or face the same overwhelming military power directed against Serbia during the U.S./NATO air war.

The Times reported that the KLA “has become the dominant political and military force among the Kosovo Albanians” and that they “have not shown much inclination to break up their insurgency.”

“In town after town,” the Times reported, “including the capital [of Kosovo], Pristina, the guerrillas’ presence has grown each day, with their red-and-black flags adorning ‘official’ buildings and their armed soldiers openly patrolling villages.”

The action by the U.S. Marines was obviously intended to cut short this self-assertion of the Kosovo national movement. It took place not far from Gnjilane, the town designated as the headquarters for the U.S. occupation sector; the occupation of Kosovo by the NATO powers assigns five sectors, one each to France, Italy, Britain, Germany, and the U.S.

According to the New York Times, “The company of insurgents had just paraded through the village of Zegra, on their way to Gnjilane, when troops from the 16th Marine Expeditionary Unit confronted them” early in the morning on June 16. The Marine commander, Capt. David W. Eiland, asked the KLA guerrillas to “turn over their weapons voluntarily, beginning two hours of tense negotiations.”

When the guerrillas continued to refuse, Eiland “ordered them surrounded and, with Apache and Cobra helicopter gunships hovering overhead, arrested six [of the guerrillas’] officers.”

“It was not until eight hours after the confrontation began that the insurgents complied,” reported the Times. “‘We pretty much insisted they turn them over,’ Captain Eiland said of the weapons.’”

The Times went on to comment: “Until today, NATO’s interaction with the Kosovo Liberation Army had been largely cordial and tolerant. The rebels view [or have viewed] NATO as an ally in their struggle to win freedom for the predominantly Albanian population of Kosovo, and they have generally cooperated with the security forces.”

NATO General Speaks to Serbs at Kosovo Polje

Also on June 16, British General Michael Jackson, the nominal commander of the U.S.-dominated NATO occupation forces (no relation to the singer with one gloved hand), met with a “large group of Serbs in Kosovo Polje.” That was a highly symbolic action. The village is at the site of the 1389 battle where the Turks defeated the Serbs, making the region part of the Ottoman empire for nearly 500 years. Serbia’s historic claim to Kosovo, where the Serb population is a minority of less than 10 percent, is partly based on the fact that a feudal principality headed by Serbian “tsars” existed there in the 14th century. But the ancestors of the Albanians, who had lived in the region centuries before the Slavs came there, also had state formations in the area.

General Jackson’s appearance at Kosovo Polje was the U.S./NATO force’s way of indicating it would honor Serbia’s claim to the region.

General Jackson told the Serbs, according to the New York Times, “that the terms for ending the NATO campaign against the Serbs required that the Kosovo Liberation Army be disbanded as an organized force.”

The British general assured the Serbs that NATO would deal strictly with the Kosovo guerrillas. He was quoted as saying: “This will require a strict program of certain actions which must be taken.”

An agreement signed in Paris in March by leaders of the Kosovo Albanians requires them to disband within a month of Serb military and police withdrawal from Kosovo and to start training (under U.S.-dominated UN and NATO supervision of course) to become a police force for the province.

The Kosovar guerrillas are required to respect a cease-fire with the retreating Serbs and stay more than a mile away from them. They are also required to stay more than a mile away from main roads and NATO security forces.

To state the point once again, it is being made very clear to the Kosovo Albanians that there is only one boss in their homeland. They do not make the decisions in their homeland. The imperial U.S. military, and the UN and NATO flunkeys who act for it, will make the decisions.

The National Question Has Not Been Resolved

Kosovar guerrilla militants are not inclined to accept this foreign dominance. The June 17 New York Times quoted the views of Salih Mustafa, a 28-year-old history student who was the commander of guerrilla operations inside Pristina during the war. He said the KLA is “grateful to NATO but remains entirely committed to independence” [emphasis added]. “This war is a step forward,” he was quoted, “but we still have work to do before independence. This NATO plan doesn’t solve the Albanian question, and it just restores the status quo in this fake peace.”

Mustafa said that NATO and the West had different interests from those of the Kosovo Albanian people. “That’s why I call it a fake peace,” he said. “Real peace will be when Kosovo gets its independence.”

He added that NATO’s effort to demilitarize the insurgents was an insult to the soldiers “who fought to defend their homes, honor and country, while the criminals of the paramilitary Serb forces burned and looted houses, killed and raped, and they are put in an equal position.”

Mustafa repeated: “Until we get the liberation of all Albanian lands, there will be fighting in the Balkans.”