A whole range of motives can be suggested for the bombing of Yugoslavia by the United States. At its most basic it was about who was going to be king rat in the Balkan farmyard. It was about frightening Russia, and asserting dominance in the region. It was about providing a big boost to work and profits for the United States and European arms industries, and part of this was the creation of the fear which would trigger a new Cold War and a new arms race. Already the United States and the UK have made big increases in arms spending since the war. The reactions of Russia, India and China are noted elsewhere.

“For globalisation to work, America cannot be afraid to act like the almighty super power that it is. The hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonald-Douglas, the designer of the F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technology is called the United States’ Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.” - Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 28 March 1999.

“America’s emergence as the sole global superpower now makes an integrated and comprehensive strategy for Eurasia imperative. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world’s most economically productive regions, Western Europe and East Asia. A glance at the map also suggests that the country dominant in Eurasia would almost automatically control the Middle East and Africa. In Eurasia the immediate task is to ensure that no state or combination of states gains the ability to expel the United States or even diminish its decisive role. An enlarged NATO will serve the short term and long term interests of US policy." Zbignieu Brezinski, 1997, former national security chief under President Carter.

Whilst Mr Milosevic was attempting to hold down the Albanian majority in Kosovo rather than come to an agreement acceptable to both sides there was a simmering risk of a significant war in the Kosovo/Macedonia/Albania/Montenegro region. For the west to exploit the region’s potential for both oil (in Albania, along with other minerals) and oil pipe lines from the Caspian region this unrest needed settling.

The Swedish oil firm, Lundinoil (whose supervisory board includes Carl Bildt, UN Special Envoy to the Balkans) was able to reactivate two oil fields in Albania after the conflict.

Richard Norton-Taylor, in The Guardian, 5 March 2001, quoted a Bulgarian source who told him that Texaco, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, BP Amoco, Agip, and TotalElfina were supporting a feasibility study for a project to bring oil by pipe through Albania to the Adriatic port of Vlore. It would carry 750,000 barrels a day worth approximately $600,000,000 a month.

He also quoted Chris Patten, the European External Relations Commissioner. “The European Union cannot afford to neglect the Southern Caucasus. Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan form a strategic corridor linking Southern Europe with central Asia.”

George Monbiot, in The Guardian of 15 February 2001, quoted the US Trade And Development Agency. “Oil coming from the Caspian Sea. . . will quickly surpass the safe capacity of the Bosphorus as a shipping lane. [a new pipeline] will provide a consistent source of crude oil to American refineries . . . provide American companies with a key role in developing the vital East-West Corridor . . . advance the privatisation aspirations of the US government in the region . . . and facilitate rapid integration of the Balkans with Western Europe.”

US Energy Secretary, Bill Richardson, commenting on the bombing, said, "This is about America’s energy security. It’s also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don’t share our values. We are trying to move these newly independent countries toward the West. We would like to see them reliant on Western commercial and political interests. We’ve made a substantial political investment in the Caspian and it’s important that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right."

Mortimer Zuckerman, Editor of US News and World Report, May 1999. “Central Asian resources may revert back to the control of Russia or to a Russian led alliance. This would be a nightmare situation. We had better wake up to the dangers or one day the certainties on which we base our prosperity will be certainties no more. The potential prize in oil and gas riches in the Caspian sea, valued up to 4 trillion dollars, would give Russia both wealth and strategic dominance. The potential economic rewards of Caspian energy will draw in their train Western military forces to protect our investment if necessary."

“Stated US policy goals regarding energy resources in this region include fostering the independence of the new states and their ties to the West, breaking Russia’s monopoly over oil and gas transport routes, encouraging the construction of East/West pipelines that do not transit Iran and denying Iran dangerous leverage over the central Asian economies." - Doug Bereutter, Chairman, US House Committee on International Relations at a hearing on the strategic importance of the Caspian region.

The real causes of the war against Yugoslavia were “considerations of oil brokerage, the ‘Seven Sisters’ and projected pipeline routes.” - The late Alan Clarke, Conservative MP, former Minister of Defence, 27 March 1999, House of Commons.

At dawn on Monday 14 August 2000, 900 NATO soldiers, from the United Nations Kfor force, seized the Serbian state owned Trepca mining complex near Mitrovica. Troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets and baton charged a group of 400 workers who hurled rocks that them in protest.

Bernard Kouchner, the UN High Representative (governor) of Kosovo had claimed that a lead smelting plant in the mining complex was causing serious pollution.

UN sources revealed that the director of the plant who had been visiting Belgrade would be prevented from returning to Kosovo and that managers who were members of Mr Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia would be dismissed.

In July Bernard Kouchner had issued a decree in direct contravention of the agreement which ended the bombing of Yugoslavia and which guaranteed respect for the territorial integrity of Serbia. 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. Under this decree he was free to dispose of all Serb/Yugoslav state industry and property.

Trepca is one of the most valuable mining complexes in Europe consisting of some 40 mines and seventeen metal treatment plants. It is worth at least US$5 billion. It also has a power plant and Yugoslavia’s largest battery production facility. The mines produce lead, copper, cadmium, zinc, gold, and silver. The mines produce three quarters of Yugoslavia’s minerals and all of Yugoslavia’s nickel. They produced a substantial part of Yugoslavia’s exports in the 1990s. The capacity of the lead and zinc processing plants is the third largest in the world. Nearby mines are reckoned to contain some 17 billion tons of coal and lignite.

All of this is now under the control of a Western consortium of companies. They are The Washington Group, (a US Defence contractor, created by the merger of Morisson Knudsen International and Raytheon Engineering and Construction Corp), Boliden-Contech (a Swedish subsidiary of the Canadian firm, Boliden Ltd), and TEC-Ingenierie, (a French mining firm).

The same day as the dawn raid, NATO soldiers shut down the Serb radio station Radio S in northern Mitrovica. The station's director is also a member of the Socialist Party of Serbia.

In Kosovo the Yugoslav currency has been replaced by the Deutschmark and the entire banking system is now in the hands of a Western consortium called Micro Enterprise Bank. Germany’s Commerzbank A G is the key element with other roles played by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Dutch Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden, and Germany’s Internationale Micro Investitionen. To private savers it offers a generous one and a half percent interest.

There are substantial business opportunities in the building and reconstruction trades throughout Kosovo resulting from the war damage. The European Union has made 700 million Euros (over £400 million) available annually.

Kosovo’s mobile phone network, which was formerly state owned, has been sold off. A whole range of businesses is now on offer by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo to bidders from anywhere in the world, not for outright purchase because that would be going too far, but for ten and fifteen year leases.

For example, tenders are currently invited for the Perparimi Clay Blocks and Roof Tiles Plant in Skenderaj. There would be a ready sale for their products now. This abandoned brick plant is located in Srbica, and used to have a workforce of 180. Very close by you might consider taking over a plastics factory that used to make garden furniture. The annual capacity was 3000 tons. It is a 9 hectare site which we are told is in a very attractive setting.

Another interesting offer is “an attractive production facility, built into the scenic mountainous environment east of Mitrovica, the abandoned Derma Commerce Production Unit located in Bare. Its core business was the production of about 200,000 pairs of workers’ leather gloves. Other articles made there included artisans’ utility bags, equipment bags, and school bags.”

Creating unemployment is seen as developing the efficiency of the region. As a further step to achieving the recovery of the Kosovo economy employment in public services is being cut from 120,000 to 52,000 - according to the Financial Times 28 September 1999.

Companies in the rest of Serbia are also being sold off/privatised to raise money Serbia so desperately needs as a result of the ruin of its economy by NATO bombing, years of sanctions and the negative effects of “help” from the International Monetary Fund. NATO bombing destroyed 372 industrial facilities. The cost of damage is estimated at, at least, $50,000,000,000. It put out of work half a million people.

The biggest business on offer is the Zastava car and armaments factory which was one of Yugoslavia’s main sources of exports and which was totally destroyed by 16 missiles on 10 and 12 April 1999. It had housed the generating station which supplied the whole of the town of Kragujevac. It employed 38,000 workers directly, plus a further 60,000 in supporting industries. German companies, including Thyssen-Krupp, have announced a possibility of long-term investments in Serbia's ZTP railways, to the amount of about 30 million Deutschmarks. The Yugoslav state airline, JAT, is also to be sold. Currently on offer are 4,500 companies throughout Serbia to be sold through tenders or auctions.

The sales are expected to bring substantial sums will help to pay back a little of the national debt of $12.2bn. But there are negative aspects of the deals. Control and profits will go substantially to foreign investors. Under Mr Milosevic’s previous privatisation law 60% of shares went to workers. Under the privatisation law that came into effect on 1 June 2001 70% of shares will go to outside investors and a total of 30% to workers and Serbian citizens. In a country with more than 27% of the workforce unemployed privatisation will result in large-scale redundancies. The sales will decrease democracy in Serbia.

Having reduced Yugoslavia to abject poverty the main beneficiaries of the bargain sale of Yugoslav state assets will be shareholders in the aggressor countries. (37)

The bombing came to an end. Then, with remarkable speed, as if the site had already been chosen and the plans prepared, the Americans set to work constructing the largest military base to be built by the United States since the Vietnam War. It was the 900 acre site near Urosevac where 500 permanent buildings have been erected. It appears that the Americans have a serious and long-term military interest in this area.

The base was not welcomed by the Yugoslav government and is an infringement of Yugoslav territorial integrity.

Albanians, arms industries and doubtless many other business interests had influential contact with US politicians who promoted this war. You can’t call it democracy. It’s a tragic scandal.