Burning Chrome
Let's crack Kosovo war
student
Not Assigned
06 June 1999
by bajunny
Courtesy of Fravia's page of reverse engineering
slightly edited
by fravia+
fra_00xx
980606
bajunny
0000
NA
PC
Chromium? Bajunny's little hypothesis seems for sure far more convincent than 99% of the fake propaganda that has been put out until now on the awful lying medias in Europe and in the States.

P.S.: What the hell is Zepter?
There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in
Rating
( )Beginner ( )Intermediate ( )Advanced ( )Expert

It's neither about cyberpunk not about W. Gibson himself. It is about nowdays burning of Yugoslavia sole.
Burning Chrome
Cracking the war in Kosovo
Written by bajunny


Introduction
War, Economics and Politics are one big chicken-egg problem.
You'll almost never be able to understand well who makes exactly what, and especially who really benefits from the three.
Here I present you my very special "chromium goggles" to look at the problem in a slightly difefrent way.

Tools required
History books. Russian magazine "2000" (May issue). Childhood memoires.

Target's URL/FTP
//Europe/Balkans/Yugoslavia/Kosovo

Program History
Very long, interesting, at times quite bloody history.

Essay
War is a complex enterprise. In a sense it has many revealings: political, economical, psychological, demographical. I will present one possible vision of the true origin of the Kosovo war, because it is completely silenced in all mass media reports, though I strongly believe its importance is dominant.

I just multiply the "qui bono" ("who benefits") principle to the simple observation that most of modern (and past) wars were wars for resources. Whenever you peek at a certain "hot spot" at the modern world map be sure there's something economically profitable to wake someone's interest.
Oil, advanced geopolitical position, opium, diamonds, even Internet auditorium :)) when seen as valuable resources are sufficient causes to wage a war.
Next time I'll probably write an essay on war propaganda patterns in everyday advertising and marketing tricks :)) but now let's get back to those Balkans.

It would be tantamount to too much pride if really only one man (Milosevic) would be the cause of all this, c'moff, that's just the typical hollywoodian "Boo-boo black hut" bad character, there are certainly more solid causes. And one day I found some interesting information.

There are many ways to map a world. In my school days I remember I saw many types of world maps. Geographical, economical, even political.
If we'll see a resource map of the world we may note that Kosovo region has 20% of the world chromite ore. From that ore chromium is produced. Chromium is a rather interesting metal. It is classified as a "strategic resource" - for it is the main component for stainless steel.
In fact it is used everywhere, alloy metallurgy, military, electronics, automobile, chemical industry are obvious consumers.
Sure it is used in your Zepter frying pan as well - if you were unwise and surrended to Zepter propaganda...
What is more interesting, there's a lot of chromium ore (chromite) on Balkans and that chromite is cheap!

Here are some approximate numbers (dollars per ton) for chromite from largest world exporters: 

South Africa                      $70

Kurdistan (Turkey)                $85

Kazakhstan (former USSR rep.)    $120

Central African                  $100

Albanian (and Kosovar!!!)         $65
(BTW, isn't turkish Kurdistan another hot-spot? anti-Muslim repressions in Philippines? apartheid in RSA - there you'll find rich chromite fields)

Well, strategic resource is strategic resource. It worths some bombing. After all, somebody should cleanse somebody else from resource territory. Especially interesting in view of all that bloody Serbs that during the post-WWII period Albanian population on FORMER SERBIAN territory (Pristina is known to be historical old Serbian capital) exhibits steady increase - from 12% after WWII to 51% in 1993! Who cleanse whom is a very very slippery matter. +Fravia was surely right to name both sides as war criminals.

Applying old cherished "qui bono" principle we get very interesting picture. America doesn't need chromite from Balkans - it has its own supplies. But West Europe does. Especially in view of future NATO rearming. After Albania (25% of world chromite reserve, 20% of world trade) take a hold of Kosovo (20% reserve and 16% export) it will produce about a half of world chromium! Sure its a serious game. (Historical excursus: during WWII Balkanic chromite was controlled by Italy, who jealously keep the monopoly even from Germany)

Let's crack even deeper. I believe the true cause of the war was the crash of Soviet Empire. China and Russia invested a lot into Albanian and Yugoslavian chromium industries. Balkanian chromium was exported both to socialism block and to the NATO. After collapse in Russia West decided that chromium is to "reshared". Back in 1995 there appeared a World Bank report "Democratic Developement Of Kosovo Region" (I'm lacking correct naming here :(( ).
It admits the existence of reserves not only chromium but also lead, zinc, copper and other "sweeties" - and begs to make all these resources "more open" to Western investors. More important, Kosovo was never associated with Yugoslavia in the report.

I am Russian so I can't go without some ramblings of Russia involvement into the conflict. Especially as a response to +fravia request for some propaganda "from the other side" :)) It is not interesting. All that "slavonic brotherhood" and bla-bla-blas.
Of course "NATO aggression", "war criminal Clinton" and "civil casualties" are common words. Lousy war.

Now it's time to get the true picture - after its collapse Russia is no autarchy (self-supplied country) anymore. It is short on tin, lead, zirconium ..and chromium of course! Kazakhstan chromite are now extracted by ..Japan! Yugoslavian chromite was the last source relatively under russian control .

Final Notes

Final remarks. The information presented of course is incomplete, incompetent, the author surely is not indifferent to chromium. I must even confess half of my life I lived in Ural region in a town where large chemical complex resides. Its main product was ..sodium bichromate - the base for chromium chemistry. And I still remember big unemployment of 1992-1993, and that main question: "Where to get chromite?" - was suspended in the air (as third of the population worked in complex). That is a past, though. Readers are welcome to build their own "Burning Chrome" vision. Read more, check sources, THINK. But the sad truth is the world will certainly participate in more and more resource wars of any kind. We reversers should be able to uncover true motifs, to read between the lines (it's an old euphemism to describe reading on metalevel, not exact words, but author's mind - "read between the lines - there's no mistakes").

Life is too short to be victimized by propaganda. Resist!

Ob Duh
A bit of black humor: rumors say Clinton has that Y2K problem with Tomahawks so he is trying to get rid of them ASAP.
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