Remember the Kosovo War? The Clinton Administration and many conservatives were saying that the Serbs were killing large numbers of Albanians in Kosovo and so it was necessary to do high-altitude, inaccurate bombing of civilian targets in Serbia to inflict enough pain on that country to withdraw from the ancient homeland of the Serbs (now housing mainly Albanian coming in from the west). Also, the War was a useful distraction from what Clinton was doing in Washington at the time (see my Madeline Albright post ). When the war ended, it turned out that the massacres were lies, and the sources were so unreliable anybody ought to have known that (you don't ask Albanian terrorists what is happening in Kosovo and whether it would really be a good thing if Americans chased out the Serbs) but somehow nobody seemed very embarassed. Anyway, the ethnic cleaning did happen---but after the war, and by the people on our side. Moreover, they are dealing heroin on a large scale, with smaller operations in prostitution, smuggling, and so forth. The U.N. is in charge, supposedly, but are cowering behind their bunkers, as usual, and relying mainly on their control of aid money (e.g., bribery). From Canada's National Post,

Though nominally still under UN control, the southern province of Serbia is today dominated by a triumvirate of Albanian paramilitaries, mafiosi and terrorists. They control a host of smuggling operations and are implementing what many observers call their own brutal ethnic cleansing of minority groups, such as Serbs, Roma and Jews.

...

Attacks on Serbs in Kosovo, a province of two million people, have risen sharply.

According to statistics collected by the UN criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, 1,192 Serbs have been killed, 1,303 kidnapped and 1,305 wounded in Kosovo this year.

In June, 1999, just after the NATO bombing, 547 Serbs were killed and 932 were kidnapped.

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The violence continues despite an 18,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force and an international police force of more than 4,000.

Serbs, who now make up 5% of the population of Kosovo, down from 10% before the NATO campaign, are the main targets of the paramilitary groups.

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Last week, Harri Holkeri, the province's UN leader, suspended two generals and 10 other officers, all members of an ethnic Albanian offshoot of the Kosovo Liberation Army, an insurgent group that emerged in the late 1980s to fight Serb security forces.

Mr. Holkeri made his decision -- the strongest UN response to violence in the province so far -- after a UN inquiry into the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC). Although the civilian defence organization is supposed to help local residents, over the past four years, its mostly ethnic Albanian military officials have been involved in violent confrontations with Serbs.

The inquiry found last April's bomb attack on a Kosovo railway was the work of the KPC.

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Moreover, Kosovo has turned into one of Europe's biggest hubs for drug trafficking and terrorism.

Al-Qaeda has set up bases in the province, which has become an important centre for heroin, cigarette, gasoline and people smuggling.

The Albanian mafia and paramilitary groups, which security officials say are closely tied to al-Qaeda militants in the region, also oversee smuggling. More than 80% of Western Europe's heroin comes through Kosovo, where several drug laboratories have been set up, Interpol officials say.

During the wars (1991-99) that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia, drugs and other commodities were smuggled through Bulgaria and Turkey to Western Europe.

Now, more than 5,000 tonnes of heroin pass directly through Kosovo every month. In a recent article in Serbia's Vreme magazine, Kosovo was referred to as the "republic of heroin."

"The Albanians have become the alpha and omega of the drugs trade in southeast Europe," said Marko Nicovic, chairman of the International Police Association for the Fight Against Drugs.

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The Albanian mafia also control trafficking in cigarettes, weapons, gasoline and women. Dozens of young women from impoverished towns and villages in the region are forced into prostitution rings centred in Kosovo, security officials say. Many of the women are taken by mobsters to work in Western European countries.

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