Centre for Research on Globalisation
[ home ] [ print version ]

The Macedonian Press "Spills the Beans." The War in Macedonia provides "a missing link" in understanding the current crisis.

There have been several attempts to choke the publication of information pertaining to links between the National Liberation Army (NLA) and Osama bin Laden in the Macedonian press. The US Representative in the "peace negotiations" Ambassador James Pardew has in this regard directly pressured the Macedonian Prime Minister to curb the Macedonian newspapers which are "spilling the beans".

The reports published in the Macedonian press reveal that Washington and NATO are working hand in glove with the NLA terrorists, who in turn are supported by the Islamic Jihad.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration is using the campaign against terrorism as a pretext for waging a war in Central Asia and the Middle East.

M. C.

Macedonian dailies see links between Albanian Rebels and bin Ladin

Macedonia News Agency, Skopje, 26 September 2001
Posted at globalresearch.ca 5 Octobre 2001


Skopje, 26 September: Daily Vecer read on the relation between the members of the so-called ONA National Liberation Army, UCK in Albanian and the Number One world's terrorist - Usamah Bin-Ladin. The writings were supported with photos that clearly showed that the Mojahedin are fighting in the "ONA" [National Liberation Army] lines.

The foreign diplomats to Macedonia and statesmen that visit our country frequently denied these positions. In several occasions they even warned to end such "speculations".

Nova Makedonija in its Wednesday's 26 September edition states that James Pardew personally prompted to stop publishing such articles in order to "provide peace in Macedonia".

But after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and after the United States declared war against international terrorism, the subject became actual again. The articles revealing the connections of Bin-Ladin's terrorist net Al-Qa'idah are actual both in the Macedonian and the World press. Even the intelligence paid more attention, investigating everything that is suspicious.

Dnevnik and Nova Makedonija also focus on the financial relations among the terrorist organizations in the Balkans such as the "disbanded" KLA Kosovo Liberation Army, UCK in Albanian from Kosovo, amnestied OVPMB (Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac) from southern Serbia and the intelligence connections between the terrorist groups acting in Macedonia and Usamah Bin-Ladin's organization Al-Qa'idah.

Dnevnik reports the text published in the British daily Times claiming that Bin-Ladin and KLA have a "joint" cash box in the United States. There is information that Bin-Ladin's collaborators raise money through an organization allegedly for the Albanian refugees after the Kosovo crisis. The raised money is then allocated to Bin-Ladin's terrorists, but also to KLA fighters. Some of the men in KLA are trained in the camps led by Bin-Ladin.

The Times does not state the name of the organization, but it is obvious that it is a "humanitarian organization" acting in the mosques and Muslim cultural centres in the United States. Under the veil that money for "Kosovo's refugees" or "Afghanistan's children" is being raised, the organization accumulates large amounts of dollars. This is not additional expenditure for the Muslims that live in the United States, as according to the American laws the persons that support the humanitarian organizations have tax reliefs, so the Muslims working in the United States are stimulated to give money in the organization. Some of money is won back directly from the American budget through the tax reliefs. The raised money is used for buying weapons.

The Times stresses that some of these organizations were established under CIA's auspices in the time when the American intelligence agency supported the Afghanistan Islamists in the fight against the Soviet Union. But even when the Russian Army withdrew from Afghanistan they continued to raise money.

Money for the KLA was raised in a similar manner, under US auspices, as that helped to oust Slobodan Milosevic's regime in Yugoslavia.

However, larger amounts of dollars for the Islamic fundamentalist organizations were collected from drug trafficking. Although the US Department of State has evidence that the Albanian extremists are involved in drug trafficking in the Western market, according to the US services it is "hard to follow the money".

Under the headline "Bin-Ladin receives confidential information through ONA", Nova Makedonija reveals the connection of "ethnic Albanians" with Al-Qa'idah organization led by Usamah Bin-Ladin.

According to the paper, the foreign intelligence knew that "the strictly confidential information that was delivered to the embassies by the messengers, were redirected to the 'ONA'[National Liberation Army] " But the foreign diplomats and intelligence were disturbed by another fact - the confidential information was also submitted to the centres of terrorism in Europe and throughout the world.

"As we find out, the employed Albanians in the diplomatic offices of the western countries submitted the strictly confidential information to the special police forces of ONA' in charge with the intelligence, which sent it through special channels to the Albanian intelligence services still close to the first man of the Albanian intelligence Baskim Gazidede. The information was then redirected to Islamic fundamentalists i.e., to the men close to Al-Qa'idah. After the fall of Enver Hoxha, the Albanian president, at that time Sali Berisha, established contacts with Islamic fundamentalists, what brought Albanian into the Islamic confederation, right after the fall of socialism."

Due to the disclosure of the connection between the "ethnic Albanians" and the most wanted terrorist Usamah Bin-Ladin, the foreign intelligence started conducting informative talks with the "ethnic Albanians" employed in their offices and embassies, Nova Makedonija reads.

If we scratch a little under the surface, it would come out that the most responsible for the situation is the administration in the embassies and the foreign offices, as it requests in the employment applications knowledge of both Macedonian and Albanian. Nova Makedonija states an information that most of the employees in the USA, Swiss, Dutch and German embassies are from ethic Albanian belonging, while all employees within NATO "Essential Harvest" mission are Albanians. This information is compared with the fact that the embassies of the East European countries do not have such employment clause, and there are no employed Albanians. "There is no mutual interest for cooperation there," comments the author of the article.

Nova Makedonija emphasizes that the published article does not want to backbite all Albanians and to proclaim them as "ONA intelligence", but underlines that "western diplomats are familiar with the methods of ONA for convincing the ethnic Albanians to work for the Albanian cause".

"The Western diplomats are more afraid of how much of the information ended in the European posts of Al-Qa'idah through 'ONA'", concludes the paper.


The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MNA110A.html