Australian Affairs - Kosovo Refugees... etc. (Apr 13, 2000)

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TiM GW Bulletin 2000/4-4

Apr. 13, 2000

Australian Government Pussyfoots around Kosovo Albanian

Over 180 Kosovo Albanians Refuse to Go Home

By Contrast, Germany Deports 160; Britain Critical; Australia Breaks Ranks with West over Belgrade Envoy; New "New Dawn" Column

CANBERRA, Apr. 12 – At this time a year ago, the Washington Crisis factory was operating at full capacity, spewing out lies and denials during NATO’s bombing of Serbia, along with the real or fictitious Kosovo Albanian refugees in the “Wag the Dog” movie-style. That’s when the Australian government wagged its tail dutifully to its American New World Order masters, taking in about 3,900 Kosovo Albanian “refugees.”

Well, 182 of the Kosovo Albanians who refused to go home, despite an Australian Supreme Court decision against their appeal, have now become what they have been all along – illegal immigrants to Australia, sponging off the Aussie taxpayers. Over 30 of Kosovo Albanians are now fugitives, according to a Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio report – 22 in the state of Victoria, 9 in New South Wales (Sydney), and one in Tasmania.

And what is the Australian government doing about it? Deporting them, as any illegal immigrants are treated anywhere in the world? No Sirree. Canberra politicians are pussyfooting and sidestepping around this issue as if they were square dancers. The choices that the Kosovo Albanians are given by Canberra is to remain at a detention camp in Australia or be voluntarily repatriated.

Furthermore, “no search is being conducted” for the fugitives, the ABC Radio quoted Australia’s immigration minister on Apr. 11.

What the Canberra immigration minister seems to be basically telling these Kosovo Albanian illegal immigrants, “if your run away, we won’t look for you.” In other words, he is giving a green light signal to all others to bolt out of the camps while the going is still good. And yes, that’s the same minister who has already used his discretion to allow over half of the 450 Kosovo Albanians still in Australia to remain in the country as political refugees, or on medical grounds.

How much more perverse and subservient can a government get? Is Australia being run by Australians or by the Kosovo Albanians? Or by their Washington sponsors?

And how grateful were the Kosovo Albanians to Australia to that country’s taxpayers who had footed the bill for their 12 month-vacation Down Under? Some of them sexually assaulted an Australian female officer, while others trashed the facilities in which they were being housed.

2. By Contrast, Germany Deports 160 Kosovo Albanians, Including 50 Criminals

PRISTINA, Apr. 1 - But Australian taxpayers can take heart from a tough stand that the German government has adopted vis-à-vis the Kosovo Albanian “refugees,” the United Nations’ “bleeding heart liberals,” Washington’s and London’s protests notwithstanding.

Germany was sharply criticized by the United Nations refugee agency on Mar. 30 for "dumping" murderers and other criminals on Kosovo as part of a drive to repatriate 170,000 refugees to their devastated homeland.

Captain Wolfgang Wagner, of the German border police, based in Pristina, said two Albanian Airlines flights arrived from Germany on Wednesday with 160 deportees aboard. "Of this number, 50 had criminal backgrounds," he said. "They were all fingerprinted on arrival and then released. The whole criminal code was well represented on these flights."

Officials are particularly worried about the prospect of thousands of hardened criminals being added to Kosovo's explosive mix. Some Albanians who fled the province in the past decade have been linked to organized crime syndicates operating across Europe. Kosovo Albanian mafias are believed to be active in the heroin trade, weapons smuggling and prostitution rackets.

German public opinion has been outraged by crimes committed by refugees and others from Kosovo and other Balkan provinces, but the country has long been the most generous in Western Europe in giving a safe haven to those fleeing civil war and economic privation. Germany has repeatedly demanded that its EU partners agree to a formal system of "burden-sharing", with quotas of asylum-seekers allocated to each country. But these entreaties have fallen largely on deaf ears, with the principal opposition to the Germans' plan coming from Britain.

The policy to repatriate Albanian refugees to Kosovo was agreed by European governments at a conference in the Finnish town of Taampere last October. Expelling large numbers of Kosovo Albanians from Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany, and an estimated 100,000 from Switzerland, was deemed a necessary measure as part of a crackdown on organized crime and a means of returning life in Kosovo to normal.

TiM Ed.: By siding with the criminal New World Order leaders rather that with its EU partners, Britain has once again “drawn a line in the sand” across the (British) Channel. If Tony Blair and other New World Order British vassals continue this trend (as they had also indicated by trying to block the EU inquiry into the illegal Echelon spying by the five Anglo-Saxon nations on the rest of their “allies”), chances are, they will accelerate the rift between the continental Europe and themselves. Which, in turn, could pave the way for a WW III, in which Central Europe will align itself with Russia, against the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia/New Zealand (also see “A Bear in Sheep’s Clothing”, a Chronicles magazine Dec/98 column).

And so, "there’s nothing new under the sun," as King Solomon declared 30 centuries ago. Indeed. Only new fools trying to rule new patsies under new pretexts – such as the New World Order “liberal” leaders. May they all R.I.P. eventually, as other ambitious, albeit not wise, emperors had come to rest - in the dustbin of history.

CANBERRA, Apr. 8 – Australia has broken ranks with the West over Serbia by sending a new ambassador to Belgrade, and by instructing him to hand his credentials to the head of state - President Slobodan Milosevic, who is charged with war crimes (by the kangaroo court at the Hague), the London Guardian reported on Apr. 8.

Charles Stewart, Canberra's new man, arrived in Belgrade on Tuesday (Apr. 4). He replaces the outgoing ambassador, Chris Lamb, who left on February 15. Canberra's decision has provoked anger in some western capitals, where a policy of sanctions and diplomatic isolation are viewed as crucial in the attempt to make Serbia a pariah state and hasten the downfall of the Milosevic regime.

Madeleine Albright, the US secretary of state, is understood to have phoned Canberra to urge the administration to drop the idea. The Foreign Office in London was reluctant to voice any concerns. A spokesman said: "Australian diplomatic representation is a matter for them. We are aware of it. It is not causing us any worry."

There was a speculation in the Serb capital that the improvement in relations with Canberra had its origins in missions that visited Belgrade to seek the release of three Australian workers from the aid organization Care, who were arrested at the beginning of the Kosovo conflict and jailed on espionage charges, the Guardian said.

Long meetings were held between leading figures in Australia's large Serbian expatriate community, government representatives and officials from Care, to win the men's release. Malcolm Fraser, a former Australian prime minister who is chairman of Care Australia, went to Belgrade several times to meet with Milosevic to lobby for the men's release. They were eventually freed late last year.

Defending its present move, Canberra's department of foreign affairs and trade said the ambassador was needed to serve the large number of Australian citizens and dual nationals living in and visiting Yugoslavia; it did not signify support for the regime.

Mr. Fraser insisted that no deal had been struck to secure the aid workers' surprise release: "There were no bargains." Asked about other nations' refusal to renew diplomatic relations with Belgrade, he replied: "I could think of nothing worse for Australia than to be bound by European Union or NATO policy. We're an independent country, we need to make our own decisions."

Other governments have avoided this by not rotating ambassadors or by bringing in a lower level of representative. The US has no diplomatic post in Belgrade. The British, French and Germans have so-called interest sections hosted by other countries and confined to cultural, consular and commercial activities.

Under the Vienna convention, a new ambassador is only an ambassador-designate until his "letter of credence" is accepted by the head of state. So Stewart will become Australia's new ambassador only when Milosevic receives him.

Back in 1989, even though Milosevic was then “only” the president of Serbia rather than the head of the former Yugoslavia, he had snubbed the former U.S. ambassador to Belgrade, Warren Zimmermann, by refusing to receive him for almost 10 months.

MELBOURNE, Apr. 10, 2000 - To read the new Djurdjevic's column for the New Dawn magazine, "Blood for Oil, Drugs for Arms," which is due to be published in the July 2000 print edition of this Melbourne-based magazine, click here or on the above headline.

LONDON, Apr. 11 - The front-runner to become London mayor, Ken Livingstone, said that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were responsible for millions of deaths annually by failing to ease the Third World debt burden. Livingstone said global capitalism kills more people each year than were killed by World War II, according to an Apr. 11 London Times report.

"Each year the international financial system kills more people than World War Two. But at least Hitler was mad, you know?”

Livingstone was responding to a question from a reader who asked: "Do you still believe that the bosses of the International Monetary Fund should 'die painfully in their beds?'"

He replied: "The IMF and the World Bank are still appalling and now the World Trade Organization, too. All over the world, people die unnecessarily because of the international financial system. Susan George, an economist, estimates that in any year since 1981 between 15 and 20 million people have died unnecessarily from the debt burden because Third World governments have to cut back on clean water and health programs."

Livingstone's provocative comments strike a very different note from the manifesto commitment that he plans to make this week to "work with the City corporations and major City institutions to ensure London remains the financial center of Europe," the Times said. He planned to buttress his manifesto pledge with an appearance at an awards ceremony on May 2 for bankers and lawyers involved in European acquisitions and mergers.