EIR Magazine Aug 23 2001

 

Only Moral Resistance can save Macedonia from Oligarchic extremists!

 

Killing History

 

 Macedonians reject NATO-KLA’s Clash of Civilization

 

 Macedonia: “We will not allow a religious war”

 

By Umberto Pascali

 

One of the most cherished religious and artistic treasuries of Macedonia and the whole Balkan region, the 13th century monastery of St. Atanasius (Sveti Atanasi) was bombed and demolished at 3 AM of August 21. The Monastery, located in Lesok, few miles from the martyr city of Tetovo, had fallen in the hands of the KLA narco-terrorist gangs like a vast area immediately north of the capital Skopje. Immediately after the criminal blast, the ethnic cleansing of the ethnic Macedonians escalated. In a relatively small area of a 2 million people country, it is calculated to 100,000 at the moment of this writing. Later on, it was discovered that an other Macedonian Orthodox treasure, the 9th Church of St George, just at the outskirts of Tetovo had been destroyed.

 

The “Essential Harvest” Fraud

 

            The shock for the Macedonians, and in fact for any rational citizen was unprecedented. Even more than the many massacres committed by the KLA, the destruction of the monastery gave Macedonians a sense they were facing forces determined to commit genocide. Macedonian officials again compared the KLA to the Taliban, not only for the heroin connection between the two, but also for their propensity to destroy the religious monument of the “enemy.” What’s more the crime was conducted under the eyes of NATO, just at the end of the day in which NATO deployed the vanguard of his British-led 3,500 strong “Operation Essential Harvest” mission. On Aug 20 NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (Saceur), and Gen Joseph Ralston visited Macedonia, among the uncontrollable enthusiasm of the KLA gangs. He had stated the, in his opinion the situation was under control, and the KLA was behaving, so the deployment was to take place.

            Captain Gareth Hicks, the British army liaison officer from the 16 Air Assault Brigade, the special force military body that lead the operation, visited on that day the top KLA leaders assembled in the village of Nikustak. Reportedly they assured him that they NATO had nothing to fear, they would “protect” it. As the Guardian of London reported the attitude of the narco-terrorists was triumphalist. “For the [KLA] it was a day to savour. The Macedonians were routed; NATO was on its way. They had pulled it off. They had won.”

            It was at the end of the KLA day of “victory” that the monastery was destroyed. KLA brushed the bombing off saying that was committed by people “outside” their jurisdiction. And NATO diplomatic officials did not wait a minute before going to the reporters telling them that indeed it was an act committed by those who “do not want the NATO deployment, do not want peace.” One NATO official even stressed that he was surprised because, “never before” had the KLA hit any religious symbol. It was a lie. The KLA had attacked defaced, bombed several churches. Macedonian Christian Orthodox monasteries had been taken over before by the KLA, that used these positions as headquarters and arsenal. This magazine has already reported about KLA habit to scribble their organization initials (UCK) on ancient precious frescoes.

 

“We will draw virtue from our suffering”

 

            “If some psychological warfare center would have studied a way to hit our religious and national identity, to undermine our spirit of moral resistance, I don t think they could have done better than this,” an informed Macedonian source told {EIR}. In fact the Macedonian population felt a growing sense of abandonment after the government in Skopje was not able to react in any way to the terrible act. On the contrary the Defense Ministry announced publicly that all armed forces and police were being withdrawn from the area de facto occupied by the KLA. The official reason?  “In order to create the necessary conditions to launch Operation Essential Harvest.” As a further step to increase “confidence-building,” the Macedonian government unilaterally decided to avoid any flight of its fighter planes and gunship helicopters over the “frontline areas.” This was, incredibly an Iraq-style self-imposed limitation of sovereignty. The Northern part of the country was left to NATO and KLA. But in reality it was not a self-imposed move. It seems that it was part of certain unspoken conditions imposed on the government.

            Prof. Nestor Oginar considered the charismatic leaders of the Macedonian Diaspora stated that, as many Macedonians his wife and his first reaction was to cry. “They want to destroy history, they want to strike at our Macedonian Christian Orthodox soul. They want the Macedonians to react in some uncontrolled way to justify an increased presence of NATO, the partition of our country, the end of our national sovereignty. But despite our pain, we are not going to do it. {They want to push us into a religious war}, into a Clash of Civilization. It will not happen! We will not fall prey of irrational rage or hysteria as the puppet masters of the KLA want. We will draw from our suffering a greater strength and a greater virtue...”

            He continued "We are pained by the many Macedonian killed in a barbarous way, but somehow when a work of art is savagely destroyed it is not just a loss for us, it is a loss for the many generations before us who contributed to leave us this testimony of greatness and beauty; and it is a loss for the future generations. The crime is all the more acute because it has happened right before the eyes of NATO whom we hold accomplice. This is most certainly the Nadir of NATO and I urge the world to wake up and ask NATO to stop their obnoxious posturing, as the guardian of peace in the Balkans. The Balkans are much better off without NATO and will be even better so when it leaves Macedonia.”

            Appealing to Macedonians and to all men of good will, Oginar stressed: “We have to double our efforts. We have to keep a spirit of resistance. We shall not be degraded, we shall not be humiliated, we will keep and strength our humanity, and we shall conquer these horrors. We will mobilize all the resources of our people. There is a Greater Law, there is a Devine Law, that Law will give the strength to resist and overcome these horrors.“

 

            Fight inside NATO

 

Despite the appearance, the biggest weakness appears to be in the otherwise powerful NATO apparatus. As Lyndon LaRouche has repeatedly indicated, today’s NATO had little to nothing to do with the NATO of the Cold War. It is an apparatus dominated by an Anglo-American group that is determined to realize the Armageddon-style strategy of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Clash of Civilization. Many countries that are NATO members are showing increased signs of resistance to this insanity. According to observers the many discussion, hold behind closed door at NATO headquarters in Brussels, have been the visible symptom of this growing uneasiness with the Brzezinski’s doctrine. “Of course it is not enough,” says one observer. “The lever of cowardice is still amazingly high. Leaders of many countries know how suicidal this Macedonian mission potentially can be, they know who suicidal the support for the KLA can be, but still they lack the courage to take a clear stand. What we are going to see, is probably more and more passive resistance… But the whole NATO apparatus with its mystique is much more fragile than people think.”

            Essential harvest is supposed to collect weapons from the KLA in 15 collection centers. NATO’s Lord Robertson has already imposed that the Macedonian government disappears from the areas of “NATO competence.” However there is no guarantee (actually the opposite is true) that the KLA will deliver all its weapons. In fact the KLA spokesmen have declared the narco-terrorist have an arsenal of 2000 weapons, while the estimate of intelligence agencies tends to push that number toward the 100,000! Furthermore KLA is part of the broader apparatus of the Albanian Mafia that deal with a weapons traffic estimated in many billion of dollars. In the purely theoretical case the KLA will give up its weapons, they could rearm, through their base in Kosovo in matter of days if not hours.

            A Macedonian official told {EIR} about the pressure the government is now receiving from NATO and from US and British organizations to request a lengthening of the NATO permanence in Macedonia, in order to “protect” Macedonia from the KLA. The mandate fixed that limit to 30 days, but of course if Skopje requests to prolong the time of the deployment. Apparently the International Crisis Group is particularly engaged in this mission. “I read in the Washington Post that $250,000 are being pumped up from the US to Macedonia to finance a campaign and ‘convince’ political representatives and the public to support the Constitutional changes which were part of the Framework agreement as condition for NATO to come,” says Emilija Geleva, a Government Advisor. “I consider this an obvious interference in our domestic affairs. Imagine if the Russian government would finance a similar campaign in the US… We had our problems, normal problems, but they escalated into the present disaster only because of the Kosovo disaster.”