Albanian protesters sprayed the building of the United Nations interim Kosovo mission with sewage water [AFP]
The protesters said the United Nations' interim Kosovo mission (Unmik) and the Kosovo government were responsible for failing to use their powers to prevent the elections from going ahead.
During Friday's protest, the demonstrators dumped rubbish in front of the UN mission and government buildings.
Albin Kurti, leader of the Self-determination Youth Movement, said the rubbish symbolised what the protesters thought of the Unmik and government decision to ignore the polls.
The Serbian government, which staunchly opposes Kosovo's move, is organising its May 11 parliamentary and local elections in Kosovo, where more than 115,000 Serbs have registered to vote.
Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians make up 90 per cent of the 1.8 million population, declared independence from Serbia on February 17.
Kosovo has been recognised by around 40 countries, including the US and most European Union nations, since its declaration.
Protest's rationale
"If there were no demonstrations against Serbia's elections ... then the world would have understood this as consent or weakness from Albanians and the path for the cantonisation of Kosovo would have opened," Kurti said.
"We are not against the Serbs here, we are against the structures of Serbia here."
The protesters also sprayed the Unmik buildings with sewage water.
The "self-determination" movement, which opposes the presence of the international community in Kosovo, also protested against Eulex, the European Union's incoming police and justice mission
'Elections illegal'
UN and ethnic Albanian leaders are concerned that Belgrade may use the polls to strengthen a parallel Serbian administration at the local level.
Such a structure has remained since the 1999 war in the area, thanks to Serbia's political and financial assistance.
Leaders of the Kosovo Albanian government and Unmik have said that the local elections are illegal and that they will simply ignore the vote.
Speaking last week, Hajredin Kuci, Kosovo's deputy prime minister, said: "The Serbian elections are not legal and legitimate. But the government won't use any violence to stop them."
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Kosovo Albanians Spray UNMIK Buildings with Sewage
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Why is Solana-Tadic Pact Unavailable to the Public?
"Certain technical corrections in translation of the signed text may occur", the EU bureaucrats told Tanjug "without clarifying what this actually means", the Tanjug reporter said.
The responsibility for the translation of the Temporary Agreement into Serbian lies on the Serbian side, but this version is being double-checked by the legal and linguistic experts of the European Commission and returned for corrections. The final version of the document in English will be published by the EU "in the next few months", the EU officials said.
Temporary Agreement was the second document Tadic's DS members signed in addition to the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA). Temporary Agreement is shorter than the SAA and, according to the EU officials, "it serves to enable the implementation of the trade part of the Agreement prior to its ratification which, within the EU, could take up to two years".
The EU officials have also confirmed to Tanjug that, contrary to Tadic's claims, not a single line of the SAA and the Temporary Agreement signed by DS is active now, nor will it be implemented before the EU Council of Ministers reaches a decision that Serbia has fulfilled the condition of finalizing the cooperation with the Hague.
Government Does Not Adopt Documents of Unknown Contents
Reacting to Tadic's announcement that the ministers belonging to his coalition will request government adoption of the Solana-Tadic pact, alongside the adoption of the Russian energy deal, scheduled for Friday, May 9, Premier Kostunica said he will not take part in the deception, since the DSS-NS [Kostunica's coalition] ministers are entirely unaware of the full contents, including the possible amendments to the two documents Tadic's party signed with Solana in Luxembourg.
Prime Minister Kostunica said that the original contracts signed by Bozidar Djelic on April 28 in Luxembourg have not been submitted to the Government of Serbia and that the ministers cannot consider adopting the contracts they are not fully familiar with, and certainly not based on someone's word.
Kostunica said it is unclear why the signed contracts have not been made available to the ministers and the public and how was it possible for these contracts to be kept hidden from the government and public.
"A case like this is unprecedented in the course of Serbian Government activities, as well as in the work of any other European state. However, sooner or later the real reasons for hiding the originals of the signed contracts will become clear," Kostunica said.
Kostunica also said that the government had never adopted a document contents of which were unknown to a number of ministers.
“Not only does Solana Agreement represent a deceit and signing away on Kosovo independence, but Tadic-Djelic signature was also put on an accompanying document that we have yet to see,” the prime minister cautioned.
He said that none of the ministers from the Democratic Party of Serbia-New Serbia (DSS-NS) coalition had seen the Temporary Agreement which had accompanied the SAA Tadic and Djelic have signed.
“And now we hear that the [Tadic's] DS will try to present that agreement, which no one has yet seen, at the next cabinet meeting,” Kostunica said.
He said that Serbian citizens had to know that this was a case of “trying to pull off*grand hoax, and this is an agreement which goes directly against the state and Serbia’s national interests.”
“All this goes to show that, when one is dealing with deceit, one falls ever deeper into big mistakes,” surmised Kostunica.
Slippery Slope: Tadic's DS Plunging Headlong Into Disaster
DSS spokesman Andreja Mladenovic has also called on Tadic and Djelic to make the originals of the documents they signed public.
“The public has to know why are they hiding the Temporary Agreement and if there are any new amendments and annexes to the SAA,” Mladenovic said, adding that Tadic and Djelic were for some reason hiding both the Temporary Agreement and Solana’s SAA, which they signed in Luxembourg.
Mladenovic said that Tadic's party had claimed that it could not show that document to the public "because it was in a special electronic format."
“Then, how was that Temporary Agreement signed in the first place, if it is in a 'special electronic format', unknown to the public,” the DSS spokesman wondered.
“We call on Tadic and Djelic to say what are they trying to hide and where have they hidden the temporary agreement. Not only is it against the Constitution, but it’s downright bullying to request adoption of an illegal document that ministers and the public still haven’t seen,” Mladenovic said, adding that the DS “was plunging headlong into complete ruin and would bear full responsibility for this unconstitutional act.”
Malic: "Franklin's Choice"
By Nebojsa Malic (Excerpt)
History in the Making
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
It's a well-known dictum, attributed to Benjamin Franklin. He was only the publisher of the book in which it appeared; what he actually wrote, some time earlier, was "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power." Either way, Franklin was talking about the core issue in the affairs of men: the constant struggle between freedom and "security," the latter being the chief promise of the state.
Franklin's descendants seem to have made their choice long ago; even as every politician pays lip service to liberty, and the current Emperor actually wages wars of conquest across the globe in the name of "freedom" (what a perversion of the very idea!), American politics these days is all about "security."
On the other hand, "Franklin's choice" is still available to the people of Serbia – a country whose history in the past two decades has been affected by the American Empire as much as that of Iraq or Afghanistan. For the past seven years, Serbia has been ruled by parties and personalities set in power by the U.S.-sponsored "democratic revolution" of October 2000. It was neither a revolution nor particularly democratic – indeed, one of the first things the "revolutionaries" did was burn the parliament and the ballots from the recent presidential election. Nor did the victorious "democratic reformers" pay any heed to such insignificant details as the law, the constitution, or parliamentary procedure, bulldozing over anything that found itself in the way of their ambition: to make Serbia into a "normal" country by joining the EU and NATO, and taking its rightful place at the Empire's feet.
Selling a Pipe Dream
For seven years, Empire's willing executioners have run Serbia, promising progress and prosperity. They delivered on none of those promises, instead bringing debt, plunder, and humiliation.
To fully chronicle the abuses heaped upon Serbia by the sycophants and bootlickers of those who sought the End of History and sneered at the "reality-based community" would take more time and space than is available here. This column has noted but a few things over the years, from the blatant and unrepentant trampling of any legal order, to the wholesale plunder of the country, ending with what in any "normal" state would be considered high treason: acquiescence in the illegal seizure of Serbia's territory that was the "declaration of independence" by rebel Albanians in the occupied province of Kosovo.
In exchange for giving up their land, identity, culture, faith, history, and property – such trifles! – the Serbs are being offered a golden future in the European Union. Set aside for now the question whether a modern-day USSR is really the paradise they make it out to be; there is one tiny problem standing in the way of this utopian dream. Namely, the Empire has explicitly ruled out Serbia's "integration." Even when the EU pretends to make deals with Serbia, they are dead on arrival at best.........Continued
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Republican Riot: "US Veteran Removes His Kosovo Medal"
By Julia Gorin
Republican Riot (Excerpt)
Below is an early email I received from a reader named Theodore, who served almost three decades in the U.S. Navy. It is from September 2006, and is followed by his more recent email to me last week
Thank you for your continual education of what “The Kosovo War” was/is really about. The Serbs were/are still wronged - and worst of all the world refuses to look into the situation or that the true travesty is that the islamic-fascists have benefited from it. Thanks to Bill and Monica! At that time I was a member of the US Armed Forces so did my duty and participated in that “war”. Having learned the truth - partly through your writings - I am ashamed of the medals awarded for that (and almost wish to throw them away - preferably at Bill Clinton). One of the medals was nicknamed the “Girl Scout Medal” as it is green and yellow and named ambiguously (like all the wishy-washy Clinton-era things were ): the “Armed Forces Service Medal”, which to those of “old-school” means nothing as we serve(d) with pleasure and pride and need(ed) no medal for this. Another of the Clintonistas’ lame attempts to placate our military…Email from last Thursday:
I was debating on removing the medals awarded for actions in the “K.C.” [Kosovo Campaign] from my (now retired) uniform. When Kosovo was stolen - a few weeks ago - that did it. I took a step - meaningless to 99.999% of people - as these have no idea of the significance of such medals/military traditions.
It was/is very difficult to do this.....
Continued
Monday, May 05, 2008
Censorship And The Yugoslav Civil Wars
By Michael Pravica
(Swans - May 5, 2008) The Kosovo debacle continues to haunt Western governments, especially the U.S., and has already exacerbated a number of conflicts in Turkey, China, Spain, and the Caucasus regions. The illegal recognition of Kosovo's "independence" by mostly Western nations (less than 40 out of 192) has encouraged terrorists that they can successfully alter the borders of sovereign nations via force. Though the Kosovo case is called "special" by many Western foreign policy "experts," in reality, it is the tremendous misreporting and censorship of the Serbian side of the tragic Yugoslav civil wars which condoned and justified mistreatment of Serbians that is unique and has encouraged Western imperialism elsewhere via the "humanitarian" intervention "concept."
Recently, Hague prosecutor Carla Del Ponte wrote a book wherein she detailed a macabre international trafficking ring involving the harvesting of organs from live Serbian prisoners during 1999 organized at the highest levels of Kosovo Albanian leadership and her extreme difficulty in prosecuting these criminals due to Western lack of interest in prosecuting crimes committed against Serbian civilians. The government of Switzerland banned her book. This pattern of censorship of Serbian suffering has been consistent since the Western-catalyzed breakup of Yugoslavia in 1989. Rarely do Western media outlets allow a Serbian voice to be heard except maybe fifth-column "Serbian" voices from extremists who wanted NATO to bomb their own people (e.g., Srdja Popovich). Too frequently, we hear anti-Serbian perspectives from Albanians, Croatians, Bosnian Muslims, Slovenians (many of whom have no connection with or expertise on Serbia), or other ignorant, racist, and biased columnists who know nothing of the Balkans or are virulent Serb- and Russian- haters (e.g., Georgie Ann Geyer, Morton Abramowitz, and Zbigniew Brzezinski). Indeed, many Western columnists such as David Rhode and Samantha Power made their careers, even winning Pulitzer prizes, at the expense of Serbian suffering and the truth alleging "genocide" committed by Serbians but never investigating atrocities committed against Serbians that (e.g., in the case of Srebrenica) formed a strong motive for revenge. When anti-Serbian points of view were published or aired, rarely did the Western media allow a response. If we were lucky, a published letter to the editor of 250 words or less would have to suffice as a response to 800-plus-word articles full of distortions, misrepresentations, and outright lies. And of course, there were numerous times (e.g., The Boston Globe and The New York Times) where dozens if not hundreds of us responded to falsities in numerous articles to see nothing published challenging the "conventional wisdom." In an interview with Voice of America in 1999 (which even misspelled my name), my words were so distorted, clipped, and misrepresented that I will never grant an interview with this organization again. It appears that many of our political and social "elite" need to revisit the concept of debate, which is essential to democracy.
Universities were not immune to censorship of the Serbian point of view as activists and scholars with potentially "pro-Serbian" or alternative points of view were rarely invited to symposia and conferences "debating" the Yugoslav civil wars. When challenging biased anti-Serbian presentations, we were frequently not allowed to ask questions or given a few minutes (for one question) to counter the ignorance of an hour-long presentation. After our challenging Croatian Prof. Ivo Banac at a conference at Wellesley College many years ago, a professor there actually apologized to our group of activists for the fact that no Serbians were invited to present their views except Srdja Popovich, who advocated the bombing of his own people.
As a Serbian-American activist, I could write (and probably will) a book on the countless futile attempts I and my fellow activists had trying to express points of view contrary to the US State Department whether in writing letters, op-eds, calling radio stations and television stations, in Western nations. The goal of preventing the Serbian side of the tragic civil wars was aimed at misrepresenting what were really civil wars in the former Yugoslavia, where no side was completely innocent, as wars of "aggression" where all Serbs were "evil" and their enemies (Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Slovenians, Kosovo Albanians, etc.) were all "angels." By encouraging racism against Serbians and Serbian-Americans, NATO illegal and vicious aggression against the Serbian people was made palatable to many in the West. Just as some US soldiers referred to dead Iraqis as "crispy critters" in the first Gulf War in 1991, and the subsequent atrocities and torture committed by some US soldiers in places such as Abu Ghraib prison and Haditha, mercilessly slaughtering your enemies whether innocent civilians or fighting opponents is made much easier when they are viewed as subhuman. Given that, e.g., Richard Holbrooke referred to all Serbs as "murderous assholes" and Madeleine Albright told a friend of mine (in Serbian) that Serbs are animals, it is evident that racism exists at the highest levels in the US government.
As a deeply patriotic American, I am very concerned that many of my misguided, ignorant, and corporate-controlled leaders are leading my country toward total war and economic ruin. The "humanitarian" intervention in Yugoslavia was a ruse to support NATO's continued senseless existence (in the wake of the Cold War) and illegal occupation of Kosovo to act against Russia and to serve as the strong arm of US foreign policy. It has set a precedent for how to achieve Western foreign policy objectives using the pretence of bringing "democracy" to "enemy" nations such as the formerly peaceful and truly multiethnic former Yugoslavia by encouraging secessionists, ethnically cleansing and slaughtering the "enemy" population (Serbs) from their centuries-old territories, and rewarding "client" separatists/terrorists by aiding in the creation of fascist ethnically and religiously "pure" banana republics such as Croatia and Kosovo that still revere the Nazis to this day. The Western "might versus right" and "preemptive" approach violates international law and is destroying the current world order that was established over the sacrifices made by millions during WWII. The mainstream corporate-controlled Western media has served as a cloak to mask machinations of Western leaders and is the single greatest threat to democracy and world peace today. All citizens of the world must learn the truth of what really transpired in Yugoslavia and stop their leaders from continuing on their disastrous course toward WWIII.
About the Author
Michael Pravica is an assistant professor of physics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (tenured effective July 1, 2008). Of Serbian ancestry, Professor Pravica has been active in seeking to present an alternative point of view on the civil wars in the Balkans since 1992. He was formerly the Vice President of the Serbian American Alliance of New England, the Vice President of the Serbian American Alliance of New York, and the Treasurer of the St. Simeon's Serbian Orthodox Church in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Friday, May 02, 2008
Rice to Discuss How to Retain All of Stolen Property (Kosovo) & Spin It, with Co-Conspirators
Fri May 2, 9:12 AM ET
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she intended to discuss the risk of Kosovo's fragmentation with her European counterparts at a meeting where Russia has not been invited.
"We want to make certain that there are no efforts to partition Kosovo," the top US diplomat told reporters while en route to London, where she will also attend talks on Iran's nuclear programme and the Middle East peace process.
"Kosovo is now an independent country recognised by all the countries that will be coming to this meeting."
Kosovo unilaterally announced its independence from Serbia on February 17 and since then, around 40 countries have recognised its declaration, but Belgrade and Moscow have rejected it.
The meeting which Rice will attend will also feature foreign ministers from Britain, France, Germany and Italy, along with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana.
The five countries are members of the so-called Kosovo Contact Group, which also includes Russia, whose diplomatic chief Sergei Lavrov was set to be in London Friday for talks on the Middle East peace process.
Lavrov was not, however, invited to discussions between Rice and her European colleagues, according to a senior official in the US State Department, who declined to be identified.
"There are good arguments for maintaining the contact group," the official said.
"It still exists. But given the differences between the five countries and Russia, it is useful to coordinate strategy."
Rice said that the United States continues "to have discussions with the Russians."
"We will continue to try to make sure that despite the differences we have on Kosovo, that those differences do not fuel in any way further conflict there."
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Kosovo: Prosecutors demand retrial of former PM
The Hague, 2 May (AKI) - Prosecutors in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on Friday have appealed against the sentence of Kosovo's former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj and demanded a retrial.
Haradinaj was accused of crimes against Serb, Roma (gypsies) and non-loyal ethnic Albanian civilians during an ethnic Albanian rebellion against Belgrade rule in 1998. But he was acquitted in early April due to a lack of evidence.
In the appeal signed by chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz, the prosecutors complained they were unable to present complete evidence against Haradinaj and his two accomplices Idriz Balaj and Lah Brahimaj because of alleged intimidation of witnesses.
“The appeals panel should order a retrial in which the responsibility of Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lah Brahimaj would be determined,” Brammertz said in the appeal.
Reportedly many witnesses refused to appear before the court and nine died allegedly under mysterious circumstances before the trial began.
Haradinaj (photo) was a commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army in western Kosovo during the rebellion and later became prime minister.
He resigned and submitted himself to the tribunal after he was indicted in 2005. He and Balaj were acquitted, while Brahimaj was sentenced to six years in jail. The prosecutors demanded a 25-year sentence for all three indictees.
The prosecutors said that procedural errors committed by the tribunal made the verdict invalid because key evidence relevant to the case wasn’t presented.
Julia Gorin Interview on Telling the Truth About the Balkans
Julia Gorin has done two recent interviews for the Serbian media, Press & Vesti. Here's an excerpted English translation from Džejn’s Two Cents Blog:
When did you become interested in Balkan crisis?
In March of 1999, when there was suddenly talk of America bombing a European country, I became very suspicious. Particularly because the president was a clown named Bill Clinton who had gotten into trouble too many times. It was obvious to me that this was being done against national interest and in Bill Clinton’s interest.
I couldn’t believe that this was actually going to happen, that it was unstoppable. Everything started to feel surreal; my husband and I were going through life day to day as if just existing, just going through the motions: shower, work, eat, sleep—but our souls were somewhere else. We were completely disoriented; it felt like the bottom fell out from under the earth and America was slipping away. I knew that this would come back to haunt America. I also knew that America had turned a very dark corner. The fact that our usually anti-war, mainstream Left supported this war was even more proof that this was probably very bad for America. Given that the person in the Oval Office spent his life working against American interests, I sensed there was something anti-American about this “war”.
I wrote my first article on the subject about one month into the unimaginable bombing, but because I still knew so little about the conflict, the article worked from the premise that it was just an ancient ethnic rivalry with moral equivalence between the two sides—certainly nothing like the “holocaust” it was being portrayed as. Soon it became apparent that we were bombing Christians on behalf of Muslims who were as usual claiming that they were being “oppressed”. That’s when my suspicions began to be confirmed.
I expected the farce of this war to be exposed at any second, and all the lies revealed—especially after the bombing, as the news reports coming from the region showed what the Albanians did next, such as moving on to Macedonia—like clockwork. But months passed by, and then years, and there was nothing. Not from the liberal media, and not from the right that usually distrusts the liberal media. Only from the radical Left was any reporting being done, and I realized that a great lie had been built around the Serbs. So as the silence about this recent “war” continued, I kept digging, and researching, and writing, and the truth got uglier and uglier with every stone I looked under. It became my mission to spread the truth. I thought that the trial of Milosevic would help; I expected it to be front-page news every day that it was happening, because it was called “the Second Nuremberg”. But there was silence even on that, so my interest in the subject intensified. It was a phenomenon unlike anything I’d ever seen. It was sometime in 2002 that this went from being about America and American security for me to being about the Serbs and the great injustice that they were the victims of—by America’s hand. At this point, it was still all about Kosovo for me; midway through the Milosevic trial it became evident that Kosovo was simply a repetition of what was done to the Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia........Continued
Celebrating This Easter Week: "Christ Is Risen, Truly He Is Risen!
Easter song performed by musical orchestra ''Stupovi'' and various Serbian singers and celebrities, dedicated to the resurrection of Christ, made as a part of an action of raising funds for reconstruction of medieval Serbian Orthodox monastery ''Pillars of Saint George''
Translation:
People rejoice, nations hear:
Christ is Risen, and brings us joy!
Stars dance, the mountains sing:
Christ is Risen, and brings us joy!
Forests murmur, winds hum,
Christ is Risen, and brings us joy!
Seas bow, animals roar:
Christ is Risen, and brings us joy!
Bees swarm, and the birds sing,
Christ is risen, and brings us joy!
Angels stand, tripling the song:
Christ is Risen, and brings us joy!
Sky humble yourself, and elevate the earth,
Christ is Risen, and brings us joy!
Bells chime, to tell to all
Christ is Risen, and brings us joy!
Glory to You God, everything is possible to You,
Christ is Risen, and brings us joy!
Fiat Investing $700 Million Euros in Serbia
EarthTimes
4/30/08
Belgrade - Italian car maker FIAT and Serbia's Zastava automobiles Wednesday signed an agreement on forming a joint company in which the Italian firm will own majority of stakes. FIAT's vice president Alfredo Altavilla and Serbian Economy minister Mladjan Dinkic signed in Belgrade a memorandum under which FIAT will invest 700 million euros in the factory and own 70 per cent of the shares, while Serbia will invest 100 million euros and own 30 per cent.
FIAT plans to start manufacturing new class A model by 2009 with a production of 200,000. By 2010, FIAT should also start production of a class B model which would boost entire production in Zastava to 300,000 vehicles a year.
FIAT and Zastava began their cooperation in 1950s with the production of Fiat 500 car model. Around million of these automobiles were manufactured in Zastava between 1955 and 1985.
Albanian Destruction of Kosovo's Christian Legacy
A video showing the living conditions that Serbian Orthodox nuns in Kosovo face, after the destruction of churches, monasteries and even cemeteries by Kosovo Albanians since 1999. Many of these churches and much of the church art date to the middle ages. The beautiful church music is sung by Divna Ljubojevic.
Kosovo Rebuffed at Regional Summit
30 April 2008 Skopje _ Kosovo was not invited to an upcoming regional summit in Macedonia due to the lack of consensus over its independence, Macedonia’s President says.
He explained that in order for Kosovo to join the summit there had to be a consensus from all 19 attending states.
“As you know, some of the countries attending the forum have recognised Kosovo while others have clearly stated against that. This means that reaching a consensus on this issue is impossible. At the same time, Macedonia too has not built its position towards Kosovo so we can not invite it," Crvenkovski said.
On Tuesday, Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Thaci slammed Macedonia’s decision not to invite Kosovo’s President Fatmir Sejdiu to the summit.
“Nobody can ignore the independence of Kosovo,” Thaci told media in Pristina.
The Presidential summit which is to be held from May 2-3, in Macedonia’s lake town of Ohrid is to gather 19 leaders from Central and Southeast Europe. Of them, 17 will be represented with their heads of states.
The EU enlargement process as well as the influence it has over the countries’ economies and energy sectors will be discussed during the assembly.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in mid-February.
Macedonia has not yet recognised its independence while new parliamentary elections are due to be held by June. However, both countries have previously expressed their will to build friendly relations.
