The Brooklyn Connection

<i>The Brooklyn Connection: How to Build a Guerrilla Army</i><br> Klaartje Quirijns. A Quirijns/Amago/VPRO/ Sullivan/’t Hart Production. 57 minutes.<br> <i>Airs on PBS’s</i> P.O.V. <i>July 19.</i>

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The subtitle suggests a cinematic Revolution for Dummies, but this documentary portrait of a Brooklyn-based, Kosovo-born Albanian gunrunner reveals that an enterprising freedom fighter—or terrorist, as you prefer—doesn’t need a primer to strengthen his cause, just a clean record and a credit card.

Which isn’t to say that intelligence, dedication, and abundant charm haven’t helped Florin Krasniqi maintain his role as a key supplier of weapons to the Kosovo Liberation Army. Krasniqi, who also runs a New York roofing company, raised $30 million from Albanian Americans during the war against the Serbian government and used it to purchase arms, ship them to Albania, and smuggle them into Kosovo on horseback. Among Krasniqi’s casual boasts to the camera is his claim to have brought some 25 tons of weapons and ammo to his homeland on a single cargo plane. (The film shows him checking one of the world’s most powerful sniper rifles through U.S. airport security.)

Krasniqi, whose participation in Stacy Sullivan’s book about him, Be Not Afraid, For You Have Sons in America, led to this film, can add ample self-promotion experience to his highly impressive résumé. The ultimate effect of that worldwide publicity—which inspired NATO troops to conduct an unsuccessful search of Krasniqi’s warehouse—is but one of this provocative film’s many fascinating ambiguities. Another is the question of whether the Bush administration’s neglect of Kosovo in favor of other democratic pursuits will soon give rise to another war—fought with weapons purchased in the name of freedom.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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