by Francis Curta
CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN, Colorado, March 26 (AFP)
Buried inside the ancient granite of Colorado�s Rocky Mountains, a US military command provides the eyes and ears for NATO�s mission in Serbia.
Batteries of computer screens blink in the semi-darkness of US Space Command�s bunker 550 metres (1,800 feet) under Cheyenne Mountain, where satellite technology is harnessed to provide allied forces in the field with weather information, details on targets, and secure lines of communications.
The surveillance centre, originally conceived as part of a Cold War joint defense effort between Canada and the United States, is a key link in NATO�s operation to force Yugoslavia to halt its drive against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
�The US Space Command is dedicated to providing the accurate and timely information that is crucial to US and NATO efforts ... to bring the warring parties in Kosovo to a negotiated peace,� the command said in a statement shortly after the start of NATO air strikes.
With a network of 24 satellites, the centre �is providing precise navigation and timing support to coordinate the manoeuvre and engagement of allied aircraft and naval forces operating in the region,� the statement said.
Security is tight. Only two heavily guarded tunnels lead into the mountain, one wide enough for a truck to pass. Armour-plated doors reinforced to withstand a nuclear blast, block access to the cavernous command posts, which are linked to the outside world by a network of fibre-optic cables.
�I live in a world of virtual reality,� said Colonel Tom MacHamer, who runs a team of surveillance experts.
�It would be very easy to be detached from it, but we�re not. We�ve all been in the field and all of us understand what the level of responsibility is.�
A main task of the 24-hour a day operation assured by more than 800 personnel from the US and Canadian military is to scour the globe for ballistic and theatre missile launches.
His highly trained personnel have no margin for error in their work.
�It�s really a no-fault environment,� he said, when a decision is to be made about whether a missile launched by a foreign power constitutes a threat to the United States or US forces.
One officer is responsible for missile surveillance, another for air navigation, a third for space monitoring. A missile launch is detected on average once every 36 hours.
The centre monitors more than 600 man-made satellites orbiting earth and thousands of lumps of space debris which could pose a threat to the satellites.
�Our valley is the world,� said MacHamer, who was on duty last year when a Swissair jet crashed off Canada�s coast killings all 229 people aboard.
�You almost feel like you saw that tragedy taking place.�
By Wallace Kaufman
Pittsboro, NC, March 27
(The GLOBE)
The NATO bombing of Serbian military targets aimed to avoid a �humanitarian catastrophe,� US State Department Spokesman James Rubin on Thursday said The catastrophe is the continued Serbian destruction of ethnic Albanian villages in Kosovo and the uprooting of tens of thousands of people into homeless refugees who might pour across the borders into Albania and Macedonia.
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic calls any military action against his policies a crime and a breach of international law. Serbian television is playing repeated coverage of damage to civilian facilities and children in bandages. Russia and Belarus have also called the military attacks on Yugoslav targets violations of international law, outside interference in a civil war.
NATO officials are quick to counter that Milosevic himself has been guilty of crimes against humanity and is therefore a legitimate and even necessary target for the use of force. Since Milosevic took control of the Communist structures in 1987 he has overseen what his present opponents have called genocide in Croatia, and Bosnia. Leaders of NATO countries say they are morally obliged to intervene.
Vice President Al Gore described Milosevic as one of the last communist dictators and said his �hands were dripping with blood.� On Friday US Secretary of State Madeline Albright said this century has seen extremes of ethnic hatred and violence and that Milosevic�s actions were �unacceptable at the end of the 20th century.� A European NATO official said that international law allowed military action in �extreme circumstances to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.�
To these justifications NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark added Yugoslav aggression against its neighbors. Clark said the Yugoslav president had undertaken �a systemantic and serious campaign to destabilize neighboring countries.� He noted that Milosevic had signed the Dayton accords recognizing Bosnia as a separate country, but that he has also instigated a �constitutional crisis� in the Serbian part of that country. Clark said the violent crowds attacking NATO country embassies in Macedonia were �organized from Serb ethnic groups in northern Macedonia� and financed by Yugoslavia.
The Kosovo Liberation Army gave Milosevic a convenient rationale for launching his attacks against ethnic Albanians. For more than a year President Clinton called on his best negotiators and repeatedly threatened military force. Milosevic responded by mocking the diplomats with stepped up military action. With Americans steadily growing more critical of the Clinton administration�s poorly defined and ineffective foreign policy in critical areas like Bosnia, China, Russia, Iraq and North Korea Milosevic�s tactics, like Saddam Hussein�s in Iraq finally brought both NATO and President Clinton to a crisis of credibility.
Zbigniew Brzezinsky, security advisor to former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat like President Clinton, called the Clinton policy �threatening loudly but waving a wet noodle.� (This is an ironic play on President Theodore Roosevelt�s turn of the century policy, �Speak softly but carry a big stick.�)
The effectiveness of the bombing strategy itself immediately became the center of debate in NATO countries. Brzezinski wrote last week in The Wall Street Journal that NATO will soon have to choose between continued massive bombing or send in ground forces. Administration officials have steadfastly maintained that the air war itself would achieve their goals. They carefully limited their goals to halting the Serbian offensives against Kosovars and restarting negotiations. State Department spokesman Robert Rubin said, �The only true solution is a political solution.�
President Clinton said the United States �does not intend to put our troops in Kosovo to fight a war.� Clinton is well known for letting opinion polls guide his policies and actions, and he understands that American public opinion does not support the use of US ground troops.
State Department spokesman Robert Rubin, speaking on behalf of Madeline Albright, said the aim of the air strikes were not to destroy Milosevic but to force him to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Kosovars and to �treat his people better.� Republican Senator John McCain, himself a former Air Force officer, called bombing without additional military action �pathetic.� Senator Jesse Helms, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said NATO should go after Milosevic himself.
Senior Pentagon officials say as soon as Yugoslavia�s air defenses are destroyed, the next stage is attacking specific military units and their tanks and other mobile equipment that continues to attack Kosovar villages. Administraton critics are also against putting US troops on the ground, but some have offered to use the Kosovo Albanians as a substitute for NATO troops. Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman and Republican Senator Bob Mitchell have proposed sending arms and military supplies to Kosovar fighters. Mitchell said the President had no response when told of the proposal.
In fact, when the Italian Prime Minister asked President Clinton what should happen if the bombing led Milosevic to intensify his attacks on Kosovars and even neighboring countries, a Washington Post story says the President was surprised and had to turn to his national security advisor, Sandy Berger, for an answer. �We will continue the bombing,� Berger is reported to have said.
Even if the US does not fund Kosovar fighters, it is already spending over $15 million a year on democracy building programs aimed at strengthening Milosevic�s domestic opponents. Senator Jesse Helms, head of the powerful Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, has proposed spending $100 million. Helms also said Milosevic, �should be removed by any means possible, and now!�
For the moment the Clinton administration seems to be taking a huge political gamble. Milosevic�s continued humiliations of US and European diplomats and television coverage Kosovars being massacred forced Clinton into military action. With friends and foes already questioning NATO strategy, and public opinion ruling out a ground war, President Clinton seems to have no plan beyond bombing.
In a statement that could describe President Clinton�s political, legal, or military options, State Deparment spokesman James Rubin said, �There are no great choices here.�
By Alessandro RAIMONDI
CHIASSO, March 28 (THE GLOBE)
Completed registrations and checks in all refugees registering centres of the Confederation, the Swiss Federal Bureau for Refugees has just released the figures regarding the increasing phenomenon as for 1998.
A solid 40,000 asylum requests have been dropped last year in Switzerland which proves, beyond any doubt, how much this Alpine country is still considered sort of heaven for the forsaken of the world.
Of these 40,000 requests about one fourth, 9,100 to be precise, have been casted at Chiasso, the Italian-speaking city of Canton Ticino, at the southern border of the country. In fact a good 6,400 persons have reached Switzerland from Italy and some 4,070 of them accompanied by that country�s police since not having been accepted by the Italian authorities.
The sad phenomenon has marked a peak as for Chiasso, which used to hold a record of 6,000 arrivals since 1991, that is explained by the director of the Federal Registration Centre, Antonio Simona, with the worsening conditions in Serbia�s Kosovo, the former autonomous region of Albanian heritage, where Serbs are hammering hard on the Albanian ethnos. Virtually an undeclared war is going on there that not even the recent Rambouillet conference of all concerned parties has been able to quiet down.
At Chiasso, in fact, 90% of the 9,100 requests have been filled by Albanian-speaking persons of which only 15% coming from Albania, while the remaining ones all arriving from Kosovo�s inferno.
Another too much represented ethnos in this rather regrettable ranking is the Kurdish one, at Chiasso have transited, dropping asylum requests, some 450 of them only in the first half of last year!
The Chiasso centre is near to saturation point since it is able to handle with its 70 staff no more than 1,500 cases a month. The trend, much to everybody�s regret, seems to be continuing and widening in 1999 too�...
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
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