On March 8 U.S. forces led NATO troops into the border region of Kosova and Macedonia in pursuit of Albanian guerrillas. This was the most aggressive action to date by the imperialist occupation force against the armed groups operating on Kosova's south and southeast borders.

Several days later NATO officials announced a one-week cease-fire in the region, and gave the go-ahead for the Yugoslav army to operate within a narrow piece of a buffer zone that the occupation powers had previously declared off-limits to Belgrade's forces.

The developments spotlighted Washing-ton's efforts to maintain its dominance in the region by getting the new Belgrade regime to police the border region and clamp down on Albanian insurgents, while continuing to foster conflicts between Serbs and Albanians.

NATO's "KFOR" forces moved into Kosova in June 1999 after an 11-week bombing campaign by the U.S. air force, with backup from other NATO powers. While Washington and London claimed to be targeting the Serb armed forces operating inside Serbia and Kosova, Yugoslavia's industrial and transport infrastructure suffered heavy damage, along with working-class neighborhoods.

The occupying forces number more than 42,000 soldiers in Kosova, with another 7,500 backup troops in Albania and Macedonia.

Some 20,000 additional imperialist troops are stationed in Bosnia, down from the 32,000 soldiers placed there after a U.S.-imposed settlement in 1995.

When the imperialist troops moved in, they posed as liberators of the Kosova Albanians against the Yugoslav army, which had carried out atrocities and mass deportations as part of the efforts by the Serb chauvinist regime of Slobodan Milosevic to suppress the Albanian struggle against discrimination and for national self-determination.

The recent clashes occurred in the U.S.-commanded southeast zone of Kosova. Other regions remain under the control of the governments of France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. The U.S.-controlled areas in dispute include the Kosova-Macedonian border and the Presevo Valley, which forms part of a "Ground Safety Zone" established by KFOR, which surrounds Kosova and goes three miles deep into Serbia.

Unlike Kosova, Macedonia is a formally independent country, having seceded from the Yugoslav federation in 1991. Its population is about 2 million. Kosova remains officially part of Yugoslavia, along with Serbia and Montenegro. The population of the three regions is around 1.6 million, 10 million, and 700,000 respectively.

U.S. forces move into action

With its March 8 operation, NATO acted to help the Macedonian regime suppress the incipient ethnic Albanian insurgency. NATO forces, consisting of a majority of U.S. troops and commanded by U.S. officers, moved into action in the border region of Kosova and Macedonia after rebel forces appeared in the village of Tanusevci. NATO troops reportedly injured several rebels in a gun battle near the town of Mijak. Coordinating their efforts with the Macedonian army, U.S. troops moved from village to village in the name of "eliminating safe havens."

Several days later, NATO representatives concluded an agreement with the Yugoslav regime to allow its troops to patrol a 9.6-square mile section of Serbia that lies between Kosova and Macedonia.

The commander of the KFOR forces, Lt. Gen. Carlo Cabigiosu, said NATO had imposed "military and ethical limits" on the Serbian forces, stipulating that "they do not occupy houses, do not enter villages, do not receive backing from armored cars or use rocket launchers and antitank weapons." The troops are also barred from using helicopters or planting mines.

"On the other hand," said Cabigiosu, "we have allowed them to use mortars, and they will also be allowed to intervene, in coordination with our command, with artillery from behind their lines."

NATO secretary general Lord Robertson said this was "the first step in a phased and conditioned reduction" of the Ground Safety Zone. The step "could pave the way for Serbia to retake control of the entire buffer zone, including the Presevo valley," wrote the Financial Times, citing an unnamed NATO diplomat.

Representatives of some of the Albanian rebel forces agreed to a one-week cease-fire, but insisted they could not guarantee the safety of the Yugoslav army forces. "My commanders and I cannot accept responsibility for spontaneous actions of local Albanian elements in Sector C of the Ground Safety Zone," said Shefket Musliu, one rebel commander who signed the document.

"KFOR is abandoning the border and is inviting our army into the crossfire," stated the recently elected Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica. "The army will of course do this," he continued, "but it now undoubtedly has to make up for the mistakes of others."

Presevo Valley agreement

An agreement has also been drawn up for the Presevo Valley area a little further north, another focal point of rebel activity. Around 60 members of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medveda and Bujanovac have been imprisoned at U.S. Camp Bondsteel, the largest U.S. military facility in Yugoslavia.

Under the Presevo Valley deal the insurgent forces are to remain in control of nearly 60 miles of the border. One clause calls for the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from a point near Bujanovac, just outside the buffer zone. At that and other points in the area, Serbian police and guerrillas are positioned only about 100 yards apart.

The agreements represent one more step by the U.S. rulers to gain the collaboration of Belgrade in the area, without relaxing their military and political domination. For its part Belgrade has agreed to U.S. demands to voice support for "democratic reforms" and greater Albanian participation in local government.

The actions of Washington and other NATO forces underscore the fact that their intervention in the Balkans has nothing to do with protecting the Albanian population, much less supporting their aspirations for improved conditions and national self-determination.

Albanians are the majority in Kosova, about one-third of the population in Macedonia, and a substantial majority in some of the border regions with Serbia. Kosova has historically been the most underdeveloped area in Yugoslavia. The Milosevic regime, ousted by a general strike and popular revolt in October, had brutally enforced the second-class status of the Albanian population.

Protest in Skopje

Albanians in neighboring Macedonia have also been rebelling against discrimination and oppressive conditions. They face an unemployment rate of more than 60 percent, compared with the national average of about half that.

Some 10,000 Albanians demonstrated March 13 in Skopje, Macedonia's capital. The action was led by Arben Xhaferi, leader of the Democratic Party for Albanians, part of the coalition government headed by President Boris Trajkovski. Xhaferi made a point of condemning the insurgents' actions, while declaring afterward in a news conference that Albanians want "representation in government bodies proportional to their population, and their language to be designated an official language in the country," the New York Times reported.

Leaders of the armed Albanian groups in both Macedonia and the Presevo Valley, who reportedly number between 800 and several thousand fighters, appeal to this widespread desire for national rights. "We are waging war for the liberation of the Albanian population in Macedonia. We are not trying to change frontiers," said Commander Mjekrra of the National Liberation Army on March 13.

One "Western diplomat" interviewed by the New York Times made clear the position of the imperialist powers occupying Kosova. "The West has never made it clear enough to the Albanians that we are not there to ensure Albanian independence and promote Albanian interests, but we're there to promote our interests, which are a stable Balkans," he said.

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