councilor.org
| Source | Yoshie Furuhashi |
| Date | 99/06/09/00:02 |
| The incident is consistent with what has been sporadically reported of the KLA-nationalist Albanians' treatment of non-Albanians and the Albanians who are (or perceived to be) pro-Yugoslav. So there is a good reason to see the report as true. BTW, I don't think that the incident could be properly characterized as 'revenge,' in that such incidents of separatist Albanians' attacks upon non-Albanians had already existed before 1998. During the 80s, many non-Albanians fled the province of Kosovo, in part due to the harassment they received from anti-Yugoslav Albanians, probably compounded by economic difficulties. But what is more interesting is the very fact that the NYT gave _a big space_ to this article (1455 words!). I don't think that they would have so prominently covered such an incident of violence against non-Albanians by Albanians _before_ the Yugo capitulation to NATO. Now the mass media don't have a need to portray Kosovo Albanians as "innocent victims" of "evil + genocidal Serbs." I think that the media are preparing the public opinion in a different way. Now they are likely to paint most Albanians as so filled with "ethnic hatred and lust for revenge" as to require a firm and "impartial" hand of NATO "peacekeepers." (Before the Yugo capitulation, the story was different, for the "innocent victims" _had to_ exist if the bombings were to be justified.) In this way, if and when NATO gets into armed conflicts with the KLA or other Albanians (who decline to settle for what NATO offers, such as jobs of native policemen of a Western protectorate) in the process of "peacekeeping," they will be able to justify even a very violent suppression of Albanians when necessary. Hey, after all, Albanians are savage! Another newspaper article also points to a change in the portrayal of "refugees." Before the Yugo capitulation, all "refugees" were presumed to be "innocent victims" of Serb "ethnic cleansing" (and, in a few articles, of NATO bombings). However, now the following article admits that the "refugees" are a mixed bunch, some of whom are KLA _fighters_. ***** Once Yugoslavia withdraws its forces from Kosovo, NATO envisions disbanding the Kosovo Liberation Army and transforming its fighters into civilians, many as police officers. Western officials are already scouring refugees camps in Albania and Macedonia in search of recruits. ***** (Steven Lee Myers and Ian Fisher [of NYT], "NATO Hopes to Turn KLA into Police," The Plain Dealer, 5 June 1999: 8A) The Myers & Fisher article also emphasizes the ideologically inchoate, volatile, factious, and undemocratic nature of the KLA, while before this aspect was given a very short shrift in American newspapers. The mass media's task is eventually to portray _all_ parties as tribal warriors _unfit for self-government_, for they want to depict NATO as the only institution capable of keeping unruly Serbs, Albanians, and other ethnic groups in line, without whose "peacekeeping" the Balkans will decend into the darkness of perpetual ethnic strife. Yoshie |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho