Another round of ethnic cleansing on the way, courtesy of NATO. posted by Richard Seymour

Every state that seceded from Yugoslavia ended up enforcing ethnic cleansing of some kind. Either the logic of one secession produced another smaller secession (with the hope of unification with the federal republic) or the new state simply proceeded to attack and eventually remove or kill legitimate residents, or both. Kosovo is expected to unilaterally declare independence in about a week's time. The current policy of NATO, which is to oversee Kosovan secession, is expected to produce a new wave of terror, and an attempt by the perpetually harrassed and abused Serbs to secede from the new 'free' Kosovo. The last wave of ethnic cleansing in mid-to-late 1999 drove 200,000 Serbs out of the province, and this one may get rid of the remaining 120,000. Now, the Kosovan leadership argues that the Serbian government will order Serbs to leave (I'm sure I've heard this line before?). It also argues that the result of the secession will be violent, crisis-ridden, punctuated by blockades and humanitarian disasters - but that Kosovo will win through the support of the "international community". To put it another way, you could be sure they wouldn't take a risk like this if the policy wasn't so clearly mandated, as it is, by Bush, Brown, Sarkozy, and the rest of that ilk. UNMIK, in case you have forgotten, still asserts sovereignty over the country. British troops are among those likely to be sent to back up those forces. So, what you may be about to see is a bloody conflagration with NATO troops effectively deployed to ensure the secession contain the violence a little, and effectively look on as ethnic cleansing takes place. It is the final step in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, and it promises to be as swell as every preceding step. And they're going to call this 'freedom', which - as we all know - is 'messy'.

Labels: kosovo, NATO, serbs, yugoslavia