Gregory Elich for Global Research
Much attention has been given to the Bush Administration’s preparations for possible war against Iran as well as its drive to impose sanctions. Meanwhile, a less noticed policy has been unfolding, one that may in time prove to have grave consequences for the region. There is a covert war underway in Iran, still in its infancy, but with disturbing signs of impending escalation. In the shadowy world of guerrilla operations, the full extent of involvement by the Bush Administration has yet to be revealed, but enough is known to paint a disturbing picture.
The provision of aid to anti-government forces offers certain advantages to the Bush Administration. No effort needs to be expended in winning support for the policy. Operations can be conducted away from the public eye during a time of growing domestic opposition to the war in Iraq, and international opinion is simply irrelevant where the facts are not well known. In terms of expenditures, covert operations are a cost-effective means for destabilizing a nation, relative to waging war.
There is nothing new in the technique, and it has proven an effective means for toppling foreign governments in the past, as was the case with socialist Afghanistan and Nicaragua. In Yugoslavia, U.S. and British military training and arms shipments helped to build up the secessionist Kosovo Liberation Army from a small force of 300 soldiers into a sizable guerrilla army that made the province of Kosovo ungovernable. The very chaos that the West did so much to create was then used as the pretext for bombing Yugoslavia.
According to a former CIA official, funding for armed separatist groups operating in Iran is paid from the CIA’s classified budget. The aim, claims Fred Burton, an ex-State Department counter-terrorism agent, is “to supply and train” these groups “to destabilize the Iranian regime.” (1)
The largest and most well known of the anti-government organizations is Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), operating out of Iraq. For years MEQ had launched cross-border attacks and terrorist acts against Iran with the support of Saddam Hussein. Officially designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in 1997, and disarmed of heavy weaponry by the U.S. military six years later, Washington has since come to view MEK in a different light. Three years ago, U.S. intelligence officials suggested looking the other way as the MEK rearmed and to use the organization to destabilize Iran, a recommendation that clearly has been accepted. (2)
Accusing MEK of past involvement in repressive measures by former president Saddam Hussein, the current Iraqi government wants to close down Camp Ashraf, located well outside of Baghdad, where many of the MEK fighters are stationed. But the camp operates under the protection of the U.S. military, and American soldiers chauffeur MEK leaders. The Iraqi government is unlikely to get its way, as the MEK claims to be the primary U.S. source for intelligence on Iran. (3)
U.S. officials “made MEK members swear an oath to democracy and resign from the MEK,” reveals an intelligence source, “and then our guys incorporated them into their unit and trained them.” Reliance on the MEK began under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the direction of Vice President Dick Cheney, and soon MEK soldiers were being used in special operations missions in Iran. “They are doing whatever they want, no oversight at all,” said one intelligence official of the MEK’s American handlers. (4)
The Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), is another organization that conducts cross-border raids into Iran. Israel provides the group with “equipment and training,” claims a consultant to the U.S. Defense Department, while the U.S. gave it “a list of targets inside Iran of interest to the U.S.” Aid to guerrilla groups, the consultant reports, is “part of an effort to explore alternative means of applying pressure on Iran.” (5) It has been noted that PJAK has recently shown an impressive gain in capability during its operations, both in terms of size and armament, a fact that can surely be attributed to Western support. (6)
Jundallah (God’s Brigade) is an extremist Sunni organization operating in Sistan-Balochistan province that has been launching armed attacks, planting explosives, setting off car bombs, and kidnapping. Based in Pakistan, it is unclear if this group is connected with the Pakistani organization of the same name, which has ties with Al-Qaeda. (7) Jundallah denies that it has any links to either Al-Qaeda or to the U.S. But Iranian officials claim that a recently arrested Jundallah guerrilla has confessed that he was trained by U.S. and British intelligence officers. There is no way to verify that such a confession has actually taken place, nor its reliability as it may have come as a result of coercion, but the claim would not be inconsistent with U.S. policy elsewhere in Iran. (8)
It is probable that in the coming months the Bush Administration will expand support for anti-government forces in order to more effectively destabilize Iran and gather intelligence. Already U.S. Special Forces are operating in Iran collecting data, planting nuclear sensors, and electronically marking targets. Separatist forces have cooperated in those efforts. “This looks to be turning into a pretty large-scale covert operation,” comments a former CIA official. U.S. and Israeli officials are establishing front companies to help finance that covert war. (9) To fully capitalize on ethnic discontent along Iran’s periphery, the U.S. Marine Corps has commissioned a study from defense contractor Hicks and Associates on Iran and Iraq’s ethnic groups and their grievances. (10)
That these separatist organizations clearly engage in terrorism hasn’t deterred the Bush Administration from backing them. The potential for baneful consequences is considerable. CIA support for the anti-Soviet and anti-socialist Mujahedin in Afghanistan spawned a worldwide movement of Islamic extremism. Western support for ethnic secessionists shattered Yugoslavia and the invasion of Iraq fired the flames of ethnic discord and made a shared life impossible. It remains to be seen if the Bush Administration can succeed in achieving its goal of effecting regime change in Iran. That process could have devastating consequences for the people of Iran. Those officials in the Bush Administration who advocated and implemented covert operations “think in Iran you can just go in and hit the facilities and destabilize the government,” explains a former CIA official. “They believe they can get rid of a few crazy mullahs and bring in the young guys who like Gap jeans, [and] all the world’s problems are solved. I think it’s delusional.” (11)
Gregory Elich is the author of Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit. Gregory Elich is a frequent Global Research contributor.
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Liberators-Militarism-Mayhem-Pursuit/dp/1595265708
NOTES
1. William Lowther and Colin Freeman, “US Funds Terror Groups to Sow Chaos in Iran,” Sunday Telegraph (London), February 25, 2007.
2. “Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO), Global Security.org Syed Saleem Shahzad, “Sleeping Forces Stir in Iran,” Asia Times, June 26, 2003.Gian Marco Chiocci and Alessia Marani, “Iranian Mujaheddin Gather Funds in Italy,” Il Giornale (Milan), October 2, 2006.
3. Ernesto Londono and Saad al-Izzi, “Iraq Intensifies Efforts to Expel Iranian Group,” Washington Post, March 14, 2007.
4. Larisa Alexandrovna, “On Cheney, Rumsfeld Order, US Outsourcing Special Ops, Intelligence to Iraq Terror Group, Intelligence Officials Say,” The Raw Story, April 13, 2006.
5. Seymour Hersh, “The Next Act,” New Yorker, November 27, 2006.
6. James Brandon, “PJAK Claims Fresh Attacks in Iran,” Global Terrorism Analysis, March 6, 2007.
7. Ali Akbar Dareini, “Explosion Kills 11 Members of Iran’s Elite Revolutionary Guards,” Associated Press, February 14, 2007.
8. Broadcast, Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (Teheran), February 17, 2007.
9. Richard Sale, “Cat and Mouse Game Over Iran,” UPI, January 26, 2005.
10. Guy Dinmore, “US Marines Probe Tensions Among Iran’s Minorities,” Financial Times (London), February 23, 2006.
11. Julian Borger and Ian Traynor, “Now US Ponders Attack on Iran,” The Guardian (London), January 18, 2005.
http://listserv.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0103&L=justwatch-l&D=1&O=D&P=34463
Ratomir Tanic: Yes, there was a Plan for the Ethnic Cleansing of Kosovo
Omer Karabeg of RFE/RL’s South Slavic Service interviewed Ratomir Tanic, on 7 March 2001
Below is an English translation of the bulk of the interview. The orginal text was posted at http://www.danas.org/programi/interview/2001/archive.asp, now it is here: http://pasta.cantbedone.org/pages/_dgw8_.htm. A complete French translation of the interview may also be found here: http://pasta.cantbedone.org/pages/6t7rqr.htm
Originally posted by Andras Riedlmayer, a librarian at Harvard who documented the destruction of sacred monuments in Kosovo, who presents it thus: Mr. Tanic was a leading official of the New Democracy party which was part of Milosevic’s ruling coalition in the 1990s and a member of the Serbian delegation in secret talks with representatives of the Kosovar Albanians. In the interview Ratomir Tanic states that, before NATO launched its air war in March 1999, the Belgrade government had a plan for the systematic ‘ethnic cleansing’ of at least a million Albanians from Kosovo. Quote:
“RFE: Mr. Tanic, was there a plan of ethnic cleansing of Kosovo before the NATO bombing, or was it as many in Serbia claim, that the expulsion of the Albanians was a consequence of the NATO bombing?
“Tanic: There was a plan for ethnic cleansing. There was above all a plan to reduce the number of Albanians under a million, and after that it could be claimed that there are less than 50 percent of them and because of that they do not have the right for autonomy. It was a very clear plan, as there was a plan for ethnic cleansing itself. Our security organizations were not at all engaged in settling scores with the terrorists, but were settling scores with the population. That is how, among other things, the Serb-Albanian conflicts started in early March 1998. Instead of arresting the Jashari brothers and some others, as the rules of combat state, you attack the houses where they live, kill their wives, children, relatives, and neighbors, and of course that provoked the revolt of the Albanian people, it would provoke revolt in any people. Milosevic knew that with such measures he would provoke the Albanians into an uprising, and then he could say, we have a rebellion. And, as for the incidents, I can tell you some statistics from our MUP. Let’s say, in 1991 there were 11 terrorist acts, in 1992 there were 12, in 1993 were 8, 1994 had 6, 1995 had 11, but in 1998, when Milosevic started the provocation of the ethnic conflict, there were 1,885 terrorist acts. Then it’s clear that the rise of terrorism is a consequence of ethnic cleansing, not its cause.”
JUSTWATCHer Edin Hajdarpasic, who kindly helped with the translation, commented:
I thought the most interesting parts were the descriptions of the “discreet contacts” that collapsed before Milosevic’s criminal designs, which are also described toward the end of the interview — very interesting notes on how he implemented his plans and who was involved in this (at least according to Tanic).
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http://pasta.cantbedone.org/pages/_dgw8_.htm
INTERVIEW – Exclusive – R. TANIC: “YES, THERE WAS A PLAN FOR THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF OF KOSOVO” Ratomir Tanic, member of the Serbian delegation in talks with the Kosovo Albanians Interviewer: Omer Karabeg, RFE/RL Radio Slobodna Evropa (Radio Free Europe), 7 March 2001
Could the Kosovo tragedy and the bombing of Serbia have been averted? is the theme of the exclusive interview given to our radio by Ratomir Tanic, who as a member of the Serbian government, from late 1994 to mid-1997 participated in secret negotiations with representatives of the Kosovo Albanians. Ratomir Tanic was at the time the advisor to the president of Nova Demokratija (New Democracy), a coalition partner of the ruling Socialists. This is the first testimony by a member of the negotiation team about the secret Serb-Albanian negotiations and their outcome.
RFE: Mr Tanic, it is little known whether there were negotiations between the official government in Serbia and representatives of the Kosovar Albanians during Milosevic’s rule. The only negotiations that the public was informed about were those about the return of Albanian pupils and students to schools, which were mediated by the Catholic organization San Egidio. However, some claim that secret contacts and negotiations existed during the entire time since the outbreak of the crisis in Kosovo.
Tanic: That is entirely correct. With the exception that I would describe those contacts as discreet, because that word secret contacts was a little too strong. That is, there were discreet negotiating processes between the official Belgrade, that is Milosevic’s tripartite coalition, and the political representatives of Kosovo Albanians, from the end of 1994 to summer 1997. There were some fifty discreet meetings in various cities, from Pristina and Belgrade, even to Rome, the Vatican, and New York.
RFE: Who was in the negotiation teams from the Albanian and Serb sides?
Tanic: In the negotiation process from the Serbian side the participants were representatives of the then ruling coalition — SPS, JUL, and New Democracy, and from the Albanian side there were Rugova’s representatives, since Milosevic was quite clear that he regarded Rugova as the official political representative of the Kosovo Albanians. The chief Albanian representative was Fehmi Agani. A solid group of experts advised Rugova’s negotiation team.
RFE: Can you tell me the names of people from the Serb side that participated in the negotiations?
Tanic: The most engaged were Ratko Markovic, Dojcilo Maslovaric, Ratomir Vico, myself, occasionally Dusan Mihajlovic and Vuk Draskovic, without regard that he did not belong to the ruling coalition, and also a group of experts with Predrag Simic at the head.
RFE: In what capacity were you as a member of that group, or should I say negotiation team?
Tanic: It was simply agreed that SPS, JUL, and New Democracy, as the members of the ruling coalition, were to work on the preparation of a political solution for Kosovo. To be entirely accurate, those negotiations were above all carried on in order to prepare a political solution to the Kosovo question. Each party in the team had one or two representatives. In that team there was no chief or assistant negotiators. The preparations for the negotiations began at the end of 1994, and in 1995 the negotiations pressed on full speed ahead. By then the Dayton Accords were already being readied. It was evident that in Dayton the problem of Kosovo was not going to be on the agenda, and that was left to the Serb and Albanian side to solve by themselves. But the agreement about the schools that you already mentioned, was just one of the results of those negotiations. Since the negotiations were conducted step by step, the first step was a whole series of measures for the establishment and the strengthening of trust. One of those measures was the agreement about education.
[…]
RFE: What was achieved in the negotiations, or as you say, in the discreet contacts?
Tanic: An entire package of measures for the establishment and the strengthening of trust was defined. That package of measures included measures in the areas of education, public health, media, culture, and finally security measures. In principle, I emphasize in principle, a comprehensive political solution for Kosovo that avoided armed conflict was agreed upon. That solution later reappeared on several occasions and in different shapes in public. This is namely about the so-called broad autonomy of Kosovo, or if you will, about local self-governance of Kosovo Albanians, and that is pretty much one and the same. Aside from that, these negotiations held tensions at a low level, so that at the time there were very few incidents in comparison with the period after Milosevic annulled the negotiations. What was achieved in the negotiations was more than enough to avoid the war and for Belgrade and Kosovo Albanians to find a peaceful solution for the Kosovo problem. That solution was even practically defined. In the negotiations even representatives of the international community participated. Of course, once again discreetly. That is, those were not just two-sided negotiations between Serbs and Albanians sides, but three-sided negotiations in which participants included representatives of the Contact Group and strong NGOs, who were actually representing the diplomacies of their own countries, but in an unofficial way. During these negotiations the representatives of the international community were against any idea of secession of Kosovo and independence of the Kosovo Albanians. When the Albanian representatives saw that the international community does not support the secession of Kosovo, then they tacitly gave up that aim and found the fortunate formulation that independence of Kosovo would remain a long-term goal that cannot be achieved until all sides agree, meaning both Belgrade and the IC, which practically meant — never, since nobody agreed with secession of Kosovo and so they tacitly gave up that demand.
RFE: And what did the broad autonomy mean?
Tanic: Broad autonomy of Kosovo practically included what Milosevic and Holbrooke signed on 13 October 1998, and I will quote that for you:
“that Albanians have self-governance and that they can form institutions of local government, that they can form local police, that they have free and fair elections where they will elect their representatives in Kosovo, and that both sides refrain from violence and that as one of the measures for establishment of trust they form common security forces […]
In the political part of the agreement, Milosevic was obliged to implement a temporary solution by 2 November 1998. However, he never implemented that, nor did he intend to implement that, since he earlier annulled the results of two year negotiations. That was only his tactical maneuver to buy time.
RFE: You say that he annulled the results of the secret, or as you say, discreet negotiations. Were these negotiations conducted with Milosevic’s knowledge and was he consulted about everything?
Tanic: Absolutely. There is no question about that.
RFE: So why did he annul the results of the negotiations?
Tanic: Milosevic always applied the strategy of inciting conflict. First, he constructs an ethnic conflict, then sets pseudo-patriotic aims that serve him to stay in power. You know how after the Dayton Accords […] Serbia entered a period of relative peace. In the meantime, there arose a question of the legitimacy of his power and overall the aim of that power, since in peace it’s obvious how historically wasted was Milosevic’s rule […] He annulled the results of the negotiations because he needed a new war, and in the new war he would still set pseudo-patriotic goals, and still play the role of protector of the Serbs.
RFE: Why didn’t Milosevic sign the Rambouillet agreement? What was his motive? Officially it was said that he rejected foreign troops going to Kosovo.
Tanic: Milosevic did not sign that agreement since he needed a war with the NATO pact. That is the logic that I just described — make up a conflict and then with the help of pseudo-patriotic aims stay in power. And the greater the conflict, the more the pseudo-patriotism looks like real patriotism. Milosevic really needed a conflict with the international community. That would be the ideal situation, he wanted the bombing to confirm the invented theses. That is like someone setting fire to your house in order to then play the role of the firefighter. What [Pres.] Milutinovic later said in the Assembly of Serbia was completely inaccurate. Together with Milosevic he misled the public that the main problem is in that the foreign troops want to invade Kosovo under the flag of NATO, and not under the UN flag. That is wrong, since the option of a UN mandate existed. Before bombing started, there was even the option that the entire Pristina corps stay in Kosovo and cooperate with the UN in keeping peace in Kosovo.
[…]
RFE: Mr. Tanic, was there a plan of ethnic cleansing of Kosovo before the NATO bombing, or was it as many in Serbia claim, that the expulsion of the Albanians was a consequence of the NATO bombing?
Tanic: There was a plan for ethnic cleansing. There was above all a plan to reduce the number of Albanians under a million, and after that it could be claimed that there are less than 50 percent of them and because of that they do not have the right for autonomy. It was a very clear plan, as there was a plan for ethnic cleansing itself. Our security organizations were not at all engaged in settling scores with the terrorists, but were settling scores with the population. That is how, among other things, the Serb-Albanian conflicts started in early March 1998. Instead of arresting the Jashari brothers and some others, as the rules of combat state, you attack the houses where they live, kill their wives, children, relatives, and neighbors, and of course that provoked the revolt of the Albanian people, it would provoke revolt in any people. Milosevic knew that with such measures he would provoke the Albanians into an uprising, and then he could say, “here, we have a rebellion”. And, as for the incidents, I can tell you some statistics from our MUP. Let’s say, in 1991 there were 11 terrorist acts, in 1992 there were 12, in 1993 were 8, 1994 had 6, 1995 had 11, but in 1998, when Milosevic started the provocation of the ethnic conflict, there were 1,885 terrorist acts. Then it’s clear that the rise of terrorism is a consequence of ethnic cleansing, not its cause.
[…]
RFE: Was there a consistent, worked-out plan, or was there simply an aim [of driving out Albanians]?
Tanic: That was a plan of Milosevic and his colleagues. Milosevic did not do any of the plans of provocation of ethnic conflicts institutionally, since he would be faced with the resistance from the military, the police, the security service. Those are institutions that in large measure, as much as they could, limited his engineering of conflicts. All those plans, I would say, he prepared in private circles and then implemented them through private channels.
RFE: Who were the people in the private circles, his private advisers? On whose opinions did he rely on the most when it came to policy toward Kosovo?
Tanic: The main word on Kosovo, I would say, came from the shadow state commission for Kosovo. That was a para-political body that included Sainovic, Matkovic, Andjelkovic, and generals Pavkovic and Velickovic. […] They implemented his main ideas on Kosovo, by-passing the Assembly of both Serbia and Yugoslavia, by-passing the military, the security services, the police. You know that regarding Kosovo Milosevic faced off with general Perisic, the chief of the general staff, and with the head of the state security Stanisic. He fired both in 1998, not to use worse words […]. I am certain that [disagreement on Kosovo] was the reason, since both revolted against Milosevic’s engineering of conflicts that did the most harm to, above all, the Albanians, but in the long-term to Serbs too, Because, provoking war with the international community around the Kosovo question was in fact provocation of war within his own state. This is called, according to the criminal code of our country, treason. It is one thing to isolate terrorism, and it is another to kill women and children and to persecute the people. Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing of Albanians led to the strengthening of the UCK, to a massive Albanian uprising, and finally to the conflict with the international community.
First off, MEK and PJAK are leftists fighting for a secular democratic and federal Iran.
Second, the MEK hates the Iranian Regime because it cooperated with them in the ’79 revolution in the name of democracy only to it watch it overtaken by Khomeiniism. Not to mention the mullahs are responsible for killing over 100,000 of its members, many being political killings that took place in the massive wave of executions in 1984 and then in 1988. The MEK ended up in Iraq in 1986 after being kicked out of France as terms for the release of French hostages taken by Iran backed Hizbullah in Lebanon.
http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2007/september-2007/massacre_88_11007.shtml
And you’re whole view of Iran as the victim in this whole situation is absurd. Like 60’s radicals praising the Soviet Union while it operated massive detention camps in Siberia for political prisoners.
Throughout July and August, Iran has stepped up public executions of political opponents claiming them as criminals along with young people under the charge of “hooliganism”.
When’s the last time a responsible nation executed teens for being “hooligans”?
Furthermore, in the province of Khuzestan 11 thousands have been arrested for wearing un-Islamic clothing?
This is a country that still practices the stoning of women, covertly expands it’s own imperialism in Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, South America, and elsewhere, and yet you see them as allies in your misguided war against the US????!!!!