Comparison of two documents, a November 1999 
 International Crisis Group (ICG) paper on the Trepca mining 
 complex, and a February 2000 article in the Toronto Star by 
 ICG consultant Susan Blaustein, provides an exceptionally 
 clear glimpse into the workings of the "international 
 community". 

 The International Crisis Group is a high-level think tank 
 supported by financier George Soros. It was set up in 1995, 
 primarily to provide policy guidance to governments involved 
 in the NATO-led reshaping of the Balkans. Its leading figures 
 include top U.S. policy maker Morton Abramowitz, the 
 eminence grise of NATO's new "humanitarian intervention" 
 policy and sponsor of Kosovo Albanian separatists. 

 Last November 26, the ICG issued a paper on "Trepca: 
 Making Sense of the Labyrinth" which advised the United 
 Nations Mission In Kosovo (UNMIK) to take over the Trepca 
 mining complex from the Serbs as quickly as possible and  
 explained how this should be done. The February article by 
 the ICG journalist represents a vulgarization of the anti-Serb 
 position designed to prepare public opinion for carrying out 
 the ICG policy. There will no doubt be more. 

 The ICG Paper: Manipulative Ambiguities 

 Trepca is a conglomerate of some 40 mines and factories, 
 mostly but not all in Kosovo, notably including Stari Trg, "one 
 of the richest mines in Europe" and the richest in the 
 Balkans, currently shut down, and the Zvecan smelter, 
 located northwest of Mitrovica and still being operated by 
 Serb management. The ICG calls on UNMIK, headed by 
 Bernard Kouchner, to cut through legal disputes over the 
 industry's ownership and take over management of Trepca 
 itself. 

 On July 25, Kouchner issued a decree that "UNMIK shall 
 administer movable or immovable property, including 
 monetary accounts, and other property of, or registered in 
 the name of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or the 
 Republic of Serbia or any of its organs, which is in the 
 territory of Kosovo". The ICG paper concluded that 
 "UNMIK and KFOR should implement a rapid and 
 categorical takeover of the Trepca complex, including the 
 immediate total shutdown of the environmentally hazardous 
 facilities at Zvecan". What is really wrong with Zvecan is 
 that it is run by Serbs and provides revenue to Yugoslavia. 

 But in the "game-plan of measures" recommended by the 
 ICG, UNMIK is advised to instruct a "Zvecan environmental 
 assessment team" to report on the status of the equipment 
 and thereupon "advise as to what measures must be taken"... 
 Environmental hazards are to be the pretext to shut down 
 Zvecan and deprive the last Serbs in Kosovo of their 
 livelihood. Meanwhile, "Stari Trg, one of the richest mines in 
 Europe, must be potentially profitable again and should be a 
 priority for donors interested in setting Kosovo on its feet". 

 The game-plan calls for a gradual start up of mining to 
 reassure the "Kosovars", meaning ethnic Albanians, of their 
 future. For although the ICG says that the "workforce and 
 management of all Trepca facilities should be selected on a 
 merit basis only", it adds that "no one with ties to the 
 Belgrade regime should be considered" -- and it is habitual to 
 identify all Serbs with "the Belgrade regime", even to ignore 
 their existence other than as "agents of Milosevic". 

 This blatant takeover of valuable property in what is still 
 nominally part of Serbia is of course justified as a necessary 
 measure to reassure the oppressed Albanians. "The return to 
 work of even a few hundred Kosovar miners would represent, 
 for all Kosovars, the reclaiming of their patrimony". 

 The media event is easy to imagine. But if the ICG hostility 
 toward the Serbs seems genuine, the love for the Albanians 
 may be less than perfect. In the ICG's brief account of past 
 ethnic clashes over Trepca management, underlying the 
 habitual anti-Serb bias is the basic hypocrisy of dominant 
 powers manipulating two peoples against each other. The 
 ICG report notes that Trepca "has long stood for Kosovar 
 Albanians as the symbol of Serbian oppression and of their 
 own resistance", and recounts that after 1974, finally able to 
 manage the Trepca facilities themselves, Kosovars "created 
 thousands of jobs", but that "in 1981-82, a sort of 
 `Trepca-gate' scandal -- in which Kosovar Albanian workers 
 were accused of having stolen vast quantities of gold and 
 silver -- was the pretext for firing many engineers and 
 technicians". Whether the theft was real or merely a 
 "pretext" is of no interest to the international community ... 
 so long as the Serbs were in charge. 

 But afterwards? The report concludes that: "Simply handing 
 Trepca over to the Kosovars is ruled out by the shortage of 
 modern skills available locally, the need for 
 internationally-verifiable standards to avoid corruption" as 
 well as damage to the installations. And as for those 
 "thousands of jobs" created by and for Kosovo Albanians, 
 they are not on the international community agenda. "The 
 social impact of the reduced work force would need to be 
 balanced against the need for competitively based private 
 investment", the ICG observes. Fortunately, the ICG finds 
 that the young leadership of the "Kosovo Liberation Army" 
 is "somewhat impatient" with the older Kosovo Albanian 
 leadership group's interest in "a huge workforce" and 
 prefers modernization that will require foreign investment 
 capital. No wonder Washington chose to back the violent 
 KLA. 

 The manipulative hypocrisy of the ICG policy designers is 
 even more blatant concerning the Serbs. The ICG urges 
 UNMIK to hurry up with the game plan for taking over the 
 valuable mining complex _before_ Serbian elections so that a 
 new government more to the West's liking cannot be accused 
 of "losing Trepca". All Serbian leaders, including opposition 
 leaders, the ICG observes, will have to protest when UNMIK 
 takes over Trepca and the Zvecan smelter. "However they 
 could exploit the argument that the `loss' was due to the 
 pariah status of Milosevic himself, so that once again Serbia 
 has lost assets due to his presence in office. So provided 
 action were taken before any elections in Serbia it need not 
 upset, and might contribute to, any strategy for unseating 
 Milosevic." In short, the international community is going to 
 take over Trepca whoever is in charge in Belgrade; better do 
 it while Milosevic is there, so that the Western-backed 
 "progressive, democratic" opposition can pretend it was the 
 fault of Milosevic! 

 Media Propaganda: Familiarity versus Truth 

 Such cynicism is hard to surpass, but there is always room to 
 add a few lies. This is the task of the media propaganda 
 aimed at getting the general public to swallow the policies 
 decided by elite think tanks and governments. The February 
 23, 2000 article in The Toronto Star by ICG senior consultant 
 Susan Blaustein, "Mitrovica flashpoint for the next Balkan 
 war", deserves a Jamie Shea award for the most shameless 
 war propaganda of the month. The clichés are all there, 
 "centuries-old hatreds" (not our fault, folks); then focus on 
 the single culprit: Milosevic; the unreliable French seeking 
 appeasement versus the need for the international community 
 to display "backbone" and stand up to "Milosevic's test of its 
 resolve". For Blaustein, it is Milosevic, of course, who is 
 causing trouble in the city of Mitrovica because of his "keen 
 financial interest" in the Trepca mining complex and the 
 Zvecan smelter. NATO has occupied Kosovo and watched for 
 eight months while Albanians murder, terrorize and drive out 
 most of the non-Albanian population, but Blaustein is able to 
 write (and the newspaper to publish) that: "The city is a 
 lynchpin in Belgrade's `Greater Serbia' strategy of expelling 
 non-Serbs from the region." The November 1999 ICG report 
 noted that: "International financial officials have long 
 recognized the minerals industry as being prime for money 
 laundering" throughout the world because of its structure and 
 suggested that "the interest of the Milosevic circle in 
 exploiting the Trepca facilities might go beyond the simple 
 operation of sharing out the profits." This speculation is 
 taken a step further by Blaustein, who writes that the smelter 
 in Zvecan "is widely believed to have served the regime as an 
 efficient money-laundering mechanism". But in any case, if 
 the Serbs are running Zvecan to their profit, why would they 
 want to make trouble? Ah, that Milosevic! It is because 
 "Mitrovica is Milosevic's only remaining foothold in Kosovo" 
 so "he has decided to call the bluff of the international 
 community". The world is one big "test of wills" where little 
 guys are forever "calling the bluff" of giants so the giants 
 will wipe them out. The little guys seem to enjoy doing that, 
 don't ask why. Blaustein goes on to excuse the Albanians for 
 recent violence and blame the French. It is not the Serbs who 
 are being driven out of Kosovo, but the Albanians who are 
 victims of "Milosevic's operatives" who "monitor, harass, 
 terrorize and expel ethnic Albanian civilians who dare to live 
 in or travel to the Serb side of town". The rocket attack on a 
 bus carrying Serb civilians, which killed two of them, was 
 "not unprovoked"; the Albanians were impatient with the 
 international community for turning a blind eye to "Serbs' 
 oppression of ethnic Albanians"... By not allowing mobs of 
 angry ethnic Albanians to take over the last part of Kosovo 
 where Serbs are still managing to live more or less normally, 
 "international officials are abandoning the U.N.'s stated 
 commitment to create and protect a multi-ethnic society in 
 Kosovo", according to Blaustein. This tract is meant to cast 
 the blame in advance for what Blaustein calls the "next 
 Balkan war". It is in total contradiction to the facts of what 
 has been happening in Kosovo during eight months of foreign 
 occupation. 

 How then can anyone dare to write or publish such an article? 
 The answer is that the propagandists are counting on the 
 tendency of uninformed readers to mistake what is familiar 
 for what is true. The cliches about "Milosevic" and "Greater 
 Serbia" are familiar. The truth is not. If and when the "next 
 Balkan war" breaks out and the "international community" 
 takes full control of the Trepca industrial complex, the 
 distracted public need not pay too much attention, since 
 everybody already knows what it's all about: that evil 
 dictator Milosevic is causing trouble again. 
 

    [from Emperor's  New Clothes]