Airstrip One

The European Foundation Intelligence Digest has a couple of interesting articles:


Racak massacre in question

A team of Finnish forensic scientists has said that it has not found any proof that the alleged massacre in the Kosovo village of Racak on 15th January 1999 actually occurred. This alleged massacre was the reason why Nato increased its pressure on Yugoslavia until bombing began on 24th March 1999, because the OSCE, which was the first on the scene, alleged that it had proof that innocent civilians had been murdered. However, from the very beginning, sceptics argued that the evidence was not convincing that innocent civilians had been executed in the way which was claimed at the time. Those doubts now seem to have been confirmed. The team could not conclude that the murdered people had come from Racak nor could they find evidence for execution at close range. One of the doubts raised by sceptics had precisely always been that there was no control over the bodies. The revelation that the massacre Racak may never have happened has certainly comforted opponents of the Nato war. However, it is also interesting to speculate why the forensic report has come out only now, two years after the event, especially since Western authorities (including the German government) seem to have done so much to hush it up. The original doubts were expressed informally by the Finns in March 1999: why has the report only now been released? [Berliner Zeitung, 17th January 2001]

If Racak wasn't true, what was?

CSU favours EU Eastern enlargement

The European policy committee of the Bavarian Christian Democrat CSU has approved a ten-point policy paper explaining why the party supports the Eastward enlargement of the EU. Not only does the CSU want to show that it is more favourable to enlargement than any other party, but also the party stresses that enlargement will have particular benefits for Germany. First, the Eastern border of the EU will be pushed 750 km further East and this, it is argued, will improve security in Germany because bodies like Europol will operate in the new member countries. Poland, in other words, is a buffer zone for Germany. Second, the CSU argues that German exporters will profit from Eastern enlargement of the EU because it is closer than any other EU industrialised nation to these "growing markets". The Czechs and the Hungarians, in other words, will be flooded with German imports. On immigration, the CSU says that enlargement will lead to a mere 60,000 – 100,000 immigrants from Eastern Europe. [Die Welt, 23rd January 2001] Considering that enlargement will bring into the EU some 60 million people, this is a minuscule number and is credible only if, as Berlin has said, the transition period before which Poles and others are allowed to come and work in the EU is very long, say eight or ten years.

Of course, enlargement will weaken German influence in the EU. Isn't it obvious?