AMBASSADOR BISSETT AND DR. TRIFKOVIC ON CANADIAN TELEVISION

Islamic Threat and NATO Policy in the Balkans

Canadian troops probably will replace the Americans, and that can be very dangerous. NATO not only taught these people how to gain their independence, but unfortunately they taught them to do it by violence. So there's still a very explosive situation in the Balkans. Now that the events of September 11 have occurred many Serbs and Macedonians are going to ask why has NATO appeased these terrorists if there is a "war against terrorism" on?

What was the role of the United States and NATO in helping Islamic extremism thrive in the Balkans? Is it possible to wage war against terrorism and yet leave its European strongholds untouched? Dr. Srdja Trifkovic and Ambassador James Bissett, retired Canadian diplomat who represented his country in Belgrade on the eve of Yugoslavia's dissolution, offered their answers in a well-attended forum at Ottawa's Carleton University on Friday, October 20. Following this event Dr. Trifkovic and Ambassador Bissett were interviewed by Ken Rockburn for C-PAC TV, Canada's nationwide equivalent of CSPAN. Their 13-minute interview was broadcast at 9:30 p.m. on Monday, October 22, and twice (1am and 7pm) on Tuesday, October 23.

In his introductory statement Ambassador Bissett explained that it is wrong to look upon the denizens of the Balkans as violent primitives who simply enjoy killing each other. The wars of Yugoslav succession were not unlike previous conflicts in the Balkans, in that they were fanned by foreign interference and machinations of the outside powers. The arcane games conducted by Germany and the United States were exemplified by the torpedoing of the Bosnian leaders' agreement reached in Lisbon in early 1992 that could have avoided the war. Left to their own devices - Mr. Bissett concluded - the people of the Balkans could have reached a settlement sooner, and with far less blood, than through the good offices of "the international community."

Srdja Trifkovic asserted that Yugoslavia was not a tenable entity and the dynamics of its disintegration had been at work for a long time, but he agreed with Mr. Bissett that the specific shape of that disintegration was crucially influenced by the outside powers:

TRIFKOVIC: In the fall of '91 the Badinter Commission, put together by the European Union for the purpose of mediating the Yugoslav disputes, decided that the boundaries of the six constituent republics of Yugoslavia would be regarded as sacrosanct and recognized as international frontiers. That, in my opinion, is the political root cause of the wars of Yugoslav succession. Those boundaries were draw up arbitrarily by Tito's communists. They did not bear much relation to the ethnic realities on the ground. One of the units thus designed, Bosnia-Herzegovina, was the microcosm of Yugoslavia. Anyone claiming that Yugoslavia was not a tenable entity, that each ethnic group had to separate in order to assert its statehood, has a problem in explaining how come that "Bosnia" nevertheless had to be kept together. As we progress to 1998 and the rise of the "KLA" there is a lot of documentary evidence that Western intelligence agencies were closely involved with its rise, and in particular the Federal Security Service of Germany, as well as the CIA. What was their objective at that time? The objective was to make life difficult for Slobodan Milosevic: Since the KLA were the enemies of our enemy, we would treat them as the good guys and "freedom fighters." Even though in early '98 the U.S. mediator Robert Gelbard specifically singled out the KLA as a terrorist organization, by the middle of that year the tune in Washington had changed without the KLA changing its spots at all. By the end of the Kosovo war it was pretty obvious that they were out of control. They were indulging in the kind of ethnic cleansing that, proportionate to the numbers of people involved, was far more thorough and far more radical than anything we've seen under Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo. Right now in Macedonia they've proven to be "Frankenstein's monster."

ROCKBURN: OK, so they move into Macedonia, where the situation isn't like the one that existed in Kosovo - but nobody has done anything to stop them, certainly Western powers and NATO haven't done anything to stop them. Why not, Mr. Bissett?

BISSETT: That is a good question. Some of the NATO powers, notably the United States, have provided them with their equipment, their arms and ammunition, no question of that… We also know that when the Macedonian army did surround a group of the KLA near Skopje, in Aracinovo, NATO stepped in and prevented the Macedonian army from taking them prisoner. Why? Because 17 U.S. military advisors were with the KLA. So buses were brought in from Kosovo, and the KLA and the 17 U.S. military advisors were packed on the buses and taken out to safety. Why are they doing that is a good question, since there is no doubt in the mind of any Macedonian that they are dealing with terrorists.

ROCKBURN: But if we just change the names, the KLA with the Northern Alliance, it seems almost like a parallel situation developing in Afghanistan to this one - is that a fair assessment?

TRIFKOVIC: Not quite, for two reasons. First of all, the Northern Alliance is a heterogeneous group in which you have the Turkmens, the Uzbeks, some Pashtoons too. The KLA is obviously an ethnically monolithic irredentist group that seeks to detach territories inhabited by the Albanians from the surrounding states. The second problem is that whereas between Taliban and the Northern Alliance there is relatively little to choose, when you opt for the KLA in preference of some other political groupings in the area… the Western powers have released the genie from the bottle that cannot be put back. It may be poor form to say "I told you so," but before the first bomb was dropped on Serbia in the spring of '99 I wrote that as soon as the Albanians get Kosovo on a plate, compliments of NATO, the destiny of Macedonia will have been sealed because it is impossible to reward the rising expectations of the Albanians in Serbia on the one hand, and at the same time to tell their cousins in Macedonia today, or in northern Greece or Montenegro tomorrow, that they cannot aspire to similar status. Ultimately all the boundaries in the post-communist Eastern Europe will become tenuous, because once the principle of an ethnic group having the right to secession on the strength of its numbers in a given locality is asserted, that means that the Russians in the Crimean Peninsula or in northern Kazakhstan, in the Baltic republics or in Transdnistria, the Hungarians in southern Slovakia or in Transylvania, will all aspire to similar status. Then enter the old story of atrocity management, the refugees on TV screens, "something-must-be-done" and the clamoring for NATO intervention. A very dangerous path indeed.

ROCKBURN: It is being suggested that Canadian troops may have to go into the Balkans to replace those from other nations that are being pulled out to deal with what's been happening in Afghanistan. What are the implications for us?

BISSETT: Our troops probably will replace the Americans, and that can be very dangerous. NATO not only taught these people how to gain their independence, but unfortunately they taught them to do it by violence. So there's still a very explosive situation in the Balkans. Now that the events of September 11 have occurred many Serbs and Macedonians are going to ask why has NATO appeased these terrorists if there is a "war against terrorism" on? Does it only apply to terrorists who attack the United States, or does it also apply to Macedonia and to the Serbian province of Kosovo?

TRIFKOVIC: As a visitor to this country I don't know how to put this tactfully so I'll be tactless: was the experience of an Imperial Dominion so sweet to Canada that it is eager to become an obedient and unquestioning servant of the New World Order as dictated from Washington? Canada has absolutely no say in the political solutions imposed in the Balkans by the United States through NATO. Just providing troops the way the Gurkhas used to provide contingents to the far-flung outposts of the Empire seems self-defeating, especially for a country that had prided itself on its multilateralist approach.

ROCKBURN: So finally, is it only a matter of time in the Balkans before things explode?

BISSETT: Certainly I think that's true in Macedonia. I hope it doesn't reoccur in Bosnia but the potential for that happening is clearly there.

TRIFKOVIC: The Albanians have seen that violence pays off. So far every time they upped the ante and escalated the proceedings, they were rewarded by being treated as a legitimate party in the negotiating process that followed, so they have absolutely no incentive to give up.