Half a century ago it was the fascist powers of Italy and Germany that marched into Kosovo with plans for the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs. Now the European Union is following in their footsteps...
European Union plans to annex Kosovo
WORKERS, FEB 2008 ISSUE
THE EUROPEAN Union is preparing for the annexation of part of a sovereign country, egged on by the USA. Having encouraged the break-up of Yugoslavia by offering first German and then EU recognition to a breakaway Croatia, the EU then offered Slovenia membership, sent troops to Macedonia and along with the US encouraged Muslim separatists in Bosnia Herzegovina with the US actually arming them. The US then armed and encouraged the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), itself a front for gangsters and drug smugglers.
The EU and the US, behind the mask of NATO, bombed what remained of Yugoslavia and occupied the Serbian province of Kosovo. They then encouraged Montenegro to break with Serbia. With the Serbian economy on its knees, US and EU companies bought up Serbian state-owned assets at a knock down price. Now they jointly plan for the EU to annex Kosovo and send a 1,800 strong "police and justice" mission to carry out this task without the consent of and in defiance of the sovereign nation of which Kosovo is an integral part.
This may sound like something out of 19th or 20th century imperialism, but it is the reality that is the EU and the state of capitalism today, looking for any means to breathe life into a capitalism in decline. It is like the way the fascist powers dealt with Yugoslavia and Albania when those countries were invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany and Italy, respectively, during World War II.
In 1939, Mussolini's Italy invaded Albania and installed a collaborationist government. In 1941, Hitler's Germany occupied Yugoslavia, and the bulk of what is today's Kosovo and Metohija were placed under Italian and Albanian collaborationist rule and annexed to Albania. In 1942 the Albanian fascist leader, Mustafa Kroja, said, "The Serbian population in Kosovo should be removed as soon as possible. Serbian settlers should be killed." After the collapse of Italy, Germany took control of Albania and Kosovo and encouraged armed units of Kosovo Albanians to exterminate Serbs (who were associated with the partisan resistance) and Jews.
German troops
In June 1999 as German troops entered Prizren in Kosovo for the first time since World War II, an NBC correspondent reported:
"I was at dinner with a kind Kosovo Muslim family the other night when talk turned to the German NATO troops that rolled into town to make the city the headquarters of its peacekeeping district. The patriarch of the family, a man old enough to remember the last time German troops rolled into Prizren, said they all felt safe now. ‘The German soldiers are excellent,' he said. Then he added, ‘I should know, I used to be one!' Then he raised his arm in a Nazi salute and said ‘Heil' and laughed merrily."
Serbian industry: the EU is outraged that privatisation has not sold it into EU hands. Today's KLA leaders, who continue with that fascist tradition, are quoted as describing the situation in 1941 as a "liberation" by the Germans and one KLA death squad leader known as "the Teacher" has said he dreams of a Kosovo without Serbs. The only difference between the two scenarios is the context. Then the fascist powers of Germany and Italy were trying to create an empire from the Atlantic to the Urals on behalf of capitalism, not only German capitalism that had brought the Nazis to power, but the many other sections of world capitalism that were assisting them.
Fascism is the dictatorship of capitalism, and it is quite interesting that the European Union wants to incorporate a fascist element in the form of anti-Serb Kosovo. The EU has institutionalised unfettered capitalism and tried to outlaw socialism. It would like to gobble up countries in the Balkans and eastern Europe including all of former Yugoslavia and Albania, Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey and Georgia. In this they are enthusiastically supported by the USA. Of course, all would be expected to join NATO first, so it is an anti-Russian project of the USA.
"Hang on!" you might say. "That sounds remarkably like an empire from the Atlantic to the Urals!" And so it is. The annexation of Kosovo must be seen in this context as well. The continuing expansion eastwards of this empire using whatever means is designed to achieve Hitler's desired outcome, this time in alliance with the USA.
Serbian President Vojislav Kostunica has said that the EU will have to decide between moves towards Serbian integration to the EU as an internationally recognised sovereign state, or the creation of a quasi state on Serbian territory without Serbian integration into the EU. Moving to secure that position, Serbia is developing its links with Russia.
Hungary and Austria thwarted
The privatisation of its main state-owned energy company NIS, which was expected to be handed on a plate to either Hungarian or Austrian energy companies, is now likely to result in its sale to Gazprom, the giant Russian state-owned energy company. Serbia wants Russian oil and gas pipelines from the Black Sea to pass through its country before they continue to EU countries. This has resulted in EU screams of "unfair competition" and "foul", as if Russia would take any notice.
Why should we be worried about these developments? Because this continual move eastwards by the EU is what is making Russia take steps to defend itself. Once the EU has its own army plus US Star Wars missiles, how do you think Russia would feel and how long would it be before the outbreak of hostilities?
The EU/NATO has shown that it is prepared to bomb countries before absorbing them and the real prize may be Russia itself. After all, the US and the EU thought they had Russia in their hands when Yeltsin was its President. It seems to have somehow slipped through their fingers.
Tony Blair has been touting himself around EU capitals as a future unelected President of the EU if the constitutional treaty is implemented. If this should happen, and given his recent conversion, perhaps he will rename the EU as the Holy Roman Empire.