As of this writing, kosovo.net, the official website of the Decani Monastery* of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo has been down for nearly two days & we are still trying to discover what's going on, how this happened and why this happened. Whether it is an accident, whether it has been shut down by either NATO or the Albanians, is anyone's guess.
Decani Monastery is in the Diocese of Raska & Prizren, which is the Diocese of Bishop Artemije, representative of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo, and an outspoken critic of Kosovo Independence. Bishop Artemije was in Washington DC several weeks ago, testifying before Congress and meeting with the press regarding Kosovo's status, prior to the Albanians' Kosovo's Independence declaration.
Kosovo.net has chronicled the trials and suffering of the Serbian Orthodox Church and its people in Kosovo for the last eight years in photos and in stories, and has been a prime independent source of information on the condition of Serbs in Kosovo.
Kosovo.net was the brainchild of Father Sava Janjic, dubbed during the 1999 NATO Bombing as "the Cybermonk", who reported directly from Kosovo on the events on the ground during the bombing. Father Sava's reports during the NATO Bombing, which at the time contradicted both the NATO propaganda and the mainstream media's bias, later proved to be the most accurate of any news source.
All I can say is that this problem with Kosovo.net better be a verifiable " technical problem" and "accident". Because if either NATO or the Albanians have deliberately shut down Kosovo.net in order to muzzle all opposition to Kosovo Independence and to hide the real conditions of Serbs in Kosovo, then we in the West will also know without a shadow of a doubt that they are cowards and liars, and are taking this outrageous action to prevent the world from knowing the truth!
*This is a correction to my previously report that kosovo.net was the official website of the entire Raska & Prizren Diocese in Kosovo, which is actually still online.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Getting a Grip: Hillary W. Bush's War
by Michael I. Niman
(Excerpt) Try this one out on your friends and family. Ask them to name all the wars that we’ve fought or funded since they were born. Few Americans can do this. Think about it. So many wars and so few concerns. Why do these wars start? How do they end? Do they end? Who gives a damn? Britney’s trying to have a baby.
The 1990s were a particularly bloody period—and a downright rough time to be a cartographer. Americans learned new words, like “Kyrgyzstan” and compound appellations like “Kohistan-Badakhshan.” Suddenly the Risk board sort of made sense, but maps had the shelf lives of tomatoes. We also lost terms like “Serbo-Croatian,” while dusting off old ones like “Balkanization.”
And then there was Kosovo. This was Bill and Hillary’s war. But let’s back up here—quite a bit. In the 1350s Kosovo was the heartland of Serbia, and the population was close to 90 percent ethnic Serbs. Now remember, this is a real slow-spinning part of the globe where people have long memories and somewhat short lives, and Kosovo still has a mythic lure for the Serbs. By the 1990s, however, no matter how the Serbs remembered it, Kosovo was close to 90 percent Albanian. Albania had undergone a rough few centuries, resulting in a country that really sucked by the end of the Cold War, hence the 500-year exodus.
When I was a kid, very few Americans were aware of the existence of Albania. It was, and still is for that matter, the poorest nation in Europe. During the Cold War it was run by a tragically comical and rather peculiar dictator, Enver Hoxha, whose legacy was cemented with his government’s construction of 750,000 odd little bunkers scattered around his gray-on-gray nation. Hoxha was a Stalinist to the end, even denouncing the Soviet Union when it finally denounced Stalin in the late 1950s. By the 1970s Hoxha had broken ties with both the Soviets and the Chinese, declaring his Hoxharian regime to be the only true communist nation. He had a mélange of silly followers among upper middle class college kids in the US, but little support in his own hunger-ravaged country. During his reign, Albania’s biggest export was people. Hoxha’s bunker-laden country was a twisted parody of itself.
Next door to Albania was Tito’s Yugoslavia. They held their own pretty well resisting the Nazis in World War II, eventually developing one of the Soviet Bloc’s strongest economies and all that wonderful infrastructure we’ve subsequently seen blown to hell in a nasty series of “my accent is purer than yours” wars. The idea that Hoxha’s Albania would one day rise and seize Yugoslavia’s historic heartland wasn’t on my radar any more than the possibility that my gerbil would escape and force my neighbor’s German Shepherd to learn ballet. ... Art Voice
(Excerpt) Try this one out on your friends and family. Ask them to name all the wars that we’ve fought or funded since they were born. Few Americans can do this. Think about it. So many wars and so few concerns. Why do these wars start? How do they end? Do they end? Who gives a damn? Britney’s trying to have a baby.
The 1990s were a particularly bloody period—and a downright rough time to be a cartographer. Americans learned new words, like “Kyrgyzstan” and compound appellations like “Kohistan-Badakhshan.” Suddenly the Risk board sort of made sense, but maps had the shelf lives of tomatoes. We also lost terms like “Serbo-Croatian,” while dusting off old ones like “Balkanization.”
And then there was Kosovo. This was Bill and Hillary’s war. But let’s back up here—quite a bit. In the 1350s Kosovo was the heartland of Serbia, and the population was close to 90 percent ethnic Serbs. Now remember, this is a real slow-spinning part of the globe where people have long memories and somewhat short lives, and Kosovo still has a mythic lure for the Serbs. By the 1990s, however, no matter how the Serbs remembered it, Kosovo was close to 90 percent Albanian. Albania had undergone a rough few centuries, resulting in a country that really sucked by the end of the Cold War, hence the 500-year exodus.
When I was a kid, very few Americans were aware of the existence of Albania. It was, and still is for that matter, the poorest nation in Europe. During the Cold War it was run by a tragically comical and rather peculiar dictator, Enver Hoxha, whose legacy was cemented with his government’s construction of 750,000 odd little bunkers scattered around his gray-on-gray nation. Hoxha was a Stalinist to the end, even denouncing the Soviet Union when it finally denounced Stalin in the late 1950s. By the 1970s Hoxha had broken ties with both the Soviets and the Chinese, declaring his Hoxharian regime to be the only true communist nation. He had a mélange of silly followers among upper middle class college kids in the US, but little support in his own hunger-ravaged country. During his reign, Albania’s biggest export was people. Hoxha’s bunker-laden country was a twisted parody of itself.
Next door to Albania was Tito’s Yugoslavia. They held their own pretty well resisting the Nazis in World War II, eventually developing one of the Soviet Bloc’s strongest economies and all that wonderful infrastructure we’ve subsequently seen blown to hell in a nasty series of “my accent is purer than yours” wars. The idea that Hoxha’s Albania would one day rise and seize Yugoslavia’s historic heartland wasn’t on my radar any more than the possibility that my gerbil would escape and force my neighbor’s German Shepherd to learn ballet. ... Art Voice
The US is playing Checkers with Russia & Russia is Playing Chess
Russia is beginning to convert its petro dollars into petro rubles.
Russia, the world's second-largest oil-exporting nation after Saudi Arabia, has been quietly preparing to switch trading in Russian Ural Blend oil, the country's primary export, from the dollar to the ruble.
"The role of the key reserve currencies is under review," said Dmitry Medvedev, the likely successor to President Vladimir Putin, "And we must take advantage of it." "We are in Russia, and the currency is rubles, not euros, not dollars," he said. "We don't want to depend on the rise or fall of the dollar."
A move away from the dollar, meanwhile, is more glum news for the United States.
More at IHT
Russia, the world's second-largest oil-exporting nation after Saudi Arabia, has been quietly preparing to switch trading in Russian Ural Blend oil, the country's primary export, from the dollar to the ruble.
"The role of the key reserve currencies is under review," said Dmitry Medvedev, the likely successor to President Vladimir Putin, "And we must take advantage of it." "We are in Russia, and the currency is rubles, not euros, not dollars," he said. "We don't want to depend on the rise or fall of the dollar."
A move away from the dollar, meanwhile, is more glum news for the United States.
During a speech on economic policy this month, Dmitry Medvedev, a deputy prime minister and the likely successor to President Vladimir Putin in elections on March 2, said Russia should seize opportunities created by the weak dollar.
More at IHT
Jewish Defense League: Kosovo - A Crying Shame
Tuesday, February 26 2008 @ 01:05 CST
Contributed by: Shelley Rubin
Once again the United States has sold out the good people and rewarded the bad. I am speaking of the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state by our government.
As a bit of background information, the Jewish Defense League was the only activist Jewish organization to support the Serbian people and their right to their ancestral homeland during the war that dissolved Yugoslavia during the 1990s. While we did not approve of alleged war crimes by some Serbs, we understood they felt they were entitled to settle the score with their Nazi-loving Croatian and Bosnian neighbors. . . .
During World War II, Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and the other Axis Powers, an act that resulted in a coup d’etat. A new government was installed and promptly withdrew the country’s support for the Axis. This enraged Hitler so much that he sent his soldiers into Yugoslavia and took over the country in a matter of days. The Nazis dissolved the government and replaced it with a puppet state led by Milan Nedic. Under his leadership, several Nazi concentration camps were established, such as Banjica and Sajmiste.
Next door in Croatia, the Nazi-lovers there were massacring Serbs, Jews and Roma (formerly called Gypsies). In the 1970s, the Jewish Defense League discovered a Croatian Nazi war criminal, Andrija Artukovic, living the good life in the Surfside Colony near Long Beach, California, and was in large part responsible for the revocation of his American naturalization status. JDL Chairman Irv Rubin personally escorted the father of L.A. radio personality Bill Handel to the federal courthouse so that he could testify against Artukovic. Before intervention by my late husband, witnesses were being harassed by Artukovic supporters and family members. The case took several years to complete because of pressure by Croatians living in the United States and members of the Catholic Church. In his role as minister of the interior in the Nazi puppet state of Croatia, Artukovic supervised the genocide hundreds of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Roma. After he was stripped of his American citizenship, Artukovic was returned to Yugoslavia where he was sentenced to death for his war crimes. Because Artukovic was in ill-health, the court there said he was too infirm to be executed, and the Nazi murderer died in a prison hospital. Croatians were infamous for their worship of the Nazis and their brutality to their fellow man, like hang their neighbors on meathooks in kosher butcher shops.
And as far as Bosnians are concerned, they are mostly Muslims. During World War II, a proud fighting unit was the 20,000 member Bosnian Muslim 13th Waffen-SS Division Hanzar. Hanzar means “to slit the throat” in Arabic, and that’s what these animals did to 300,000 Serbs and 60,000 Bosnian Jews. They also killed thousands of Americans in Italy, where they fought against the 5th U.S. Army division for six months. None of those animals faced war crimes tribunals for their actions. By the way, their spiritual leader was Hitler’s bootlicker, Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, better known as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
Back to Kosovo. Kosovo is made up of 92% ethnic Albanians, whose religion is predominantly Islam. There are over two million people living in Kosovo, but no Jews live there. They used to. Sixty or so years ago, their neighbors made sure they wouldn’t return. And what happened to all the Serbians who used to live there? According to history professor Carl Savich, ethnic cleansing has been perpetrated on the Serbian people throughout the history of the region, first by the Ottoman Turks, then the Albanians, the Nazis, the Communists, and now by the Western nations that have accepted the Kosovans claim that the land is theirs. In reality, taking Kosovo away from the Serbs is the Albanian dream of linking Albania with Kosovo (are Bosnia and Herzegovina next?) in order to create a Greater Albania.
And what about the Serbs? The Serbs share a tragic past with the Jewish people. They have lived in peace and friendship with the Jews. They have died alongside us. What is wrong with the world? Despite historical proof, the world puts the screws to the Serbs just as it does to us. It’s a crying shame.
Contributed by: Shelley Rubin
Once again the United States has sold out the good people and rewarded the bad. I am speaking of the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state by our government.
As a bit of background information, the Jewish Defense League was the only activist Jewish organization to support the Serbian people and their right to their ancestral homeland during the war that dissolved Yugoslavia during the 1990s. While we did not approve of alleged war crimes by some Serbs, we understood they felt they were entitled to settle the score with their Nazi-loving Croatian and Bosnian neighbors. . . .
During World War II, Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and the other Axis Powers, an act that resulted in a coup d’etat. A new government was installed and promptly withdrew the country’s support for the Axis. This enraged Hitler so much that he sent his soldiers into Yugoslavia and took over the country in a matter of days. The Nazis dissolved the government and replaced it with a puppet state led by Milan Nedic. Under his leadership, several Nazi concentration camps were established, such as Banjica and Sajmiste.
Next door in Croatia, the Nazi-lovers there were massacring Serbs, Jews and Roma (formerly called Gypsies). In the 1970s, the Jewish Defense League discovered a Croatian Nazi war criminal, Andrija Artukovic, living the good life in the Surfside Colony near Long Beach, California, and was in large part responsible for the revocation of his American naturalization status. JDL Chairman Irv Rubin personally escorted the father of L.A. radio personality Bill Handel to the federal courthouse so that he could testify against Artukovic. Before intervention by my late husband, witnesses were being harassed by Artukovic supporters and family members. The case took several years to complete because of pressure by Croatians living in the United States and members of the Catholic Church. In his role as minister of the interior in the Nazi puppet state of Croatia, Artukovic supervised the genocide hundreds of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Roma. After he was stripped of his American citizenship, Artukovic was returned to Yugoslavia where he was sentenced to death for his war crimes. Because Artukovic was in ill-health, the court there said he was too infirm to be executed, and the Nazi murderer died in a prison hospital. Croatians were infamous for their worship of the Nazis and their brutality to their fellow man, like hang their neighbors on meathooks in kosher butcher shops.
And as far as Bosnians are concerned, they are mostly Muslims. During World War II, a proud fighting unit was the 20,000 member Bosnian Muslim 13th Waffen-SS Division Hanzar. Hanzar means “to slit the throat” in Arabic, and that’s what these animals did to 300,000 Serbs and 60,000 Bosnian Jews. They also killed thousands of Americans in Italy, where they fought against the 5th U.S. Army division for six months. None of those animals faced war crimes tribunals for their actions. By the way, their spiritual leader was Hitler’s bootlicker, Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, better known as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
Back to Kosovo. Kosovo is made up of 92% ethnic Albanians, whose religion is predominantly Islam. There are over two million people living in Kosovo, but no Jews live there. They used to. Sixty or so years ago, their neighbors made sure they wouldn’t return. And what happened to all the Serbians who used to live there? According to history professor Carl Savich, ethnic cleansing has been perpetrated on the Serbian people throughout the history of the region, first by the Ottoman Turks, then the Albanians, the Nazis, the Communists, and now by the Western nations that have accepted the Kosovans claim that the land is theirs. In reality, taking Kosovo away from the Serbs is the Albanian dream of linking Albania with Kosovo (are Bosnia and Herzegovina next?) in order to create a Greater Albania.
And what about the Serbs? The Serbs share a tragic past with the Jewish people. They have lived in peace and friendship with the Jews. They have died alongside us. What is wrong with the world? Despite historical proof, the world puts the screws to the Serbs just as it does to us. It’s a crying shame.
UNDERSECRETARY BURNS SHOULD BE PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE
In the aftermath of the U.S. recognition of unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo Albanians and subsequent violence targeting the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, Undersecretary for Political Affairs in the State Department Nicholas Burns said had Serbia had a “fundamental responsibility” to protect U.S. diplomats and citizens, adding that Washington would hold Serbian Prime Minister (PM) Vojislav Kostunica and his government “personally responsible” for assaults on U.S. interests. He went on “What happened yesterday in Belgrade was absolutely reprehensible. This kind of thing should not happen in a civilized country.” He had even the audacity to call Russia 's policy cynical. At a special press briefing Burns happily claimed that a “vastly majority Muslim state” has been carved out of Serbia , a European Christian country. Then he said: “We think it is very positive step that this Muslim state, Muslim majority state, has been created today.”
Fortunately, there were no American injuries in the Belgrade incident which most certainly was regrettable. Serbia has expressed official regret. President Tadic said: “There is no excuse for the violence. Nobody can justify what happened yesterday.” It doesn't contribute to the image Serbia wants to present to the world and is damaging in the long run. However, there was a very sad Serbian fatality, a student burned in the fire set by demonstrators, Zoran Vujovic, 21 years old Kosovo Serb. His own 82-year great-grandmother, Ljubica, was strangled on August 2, 1999 in her bathtub by Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) thugs. Needless to say, nobody was prosecuted. Two year's later, Zoran's grandfather, who had found Ljubica's body, committed suicide by throwing himself under a train. Zoran's father was a successful businessman. Yet, with the family, he was forced to flee their home to save their lives. Zoran was 12 years old at the time. The family was ethnically cleansed and made a new life in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad where Zoran became an exemplary student and a soccer enthusiast.
The White House spokesman called the attackers “hooligans and thugs.” Does Zoran fit into this description or was he simply overwhelmed with emotions and outrage that his native Kosovo was being amputated from Serbia by the U.S. ? Other attackers were also young people, male and female, in their twenties or even younger. When interviewed they did not see themselves as vandals but as victims of U.S./NATO bombings of Serbia in 1999. Are they thugs? First of all this term should be applied to the Kosovo's PM Thaci and his KLA narco-terrorists who have not only murdered the Serbs and Roma but have stained their hands with Albanian blood as well. In any “civilized country” they would belong in jail as war criminals but not in Kosovo. “Civilized” America has installed them as statesmen and now has given them even a statelet to run!
The question needs to be asked whether real hooligans might have been hired by somebody, perhaps with connections abroad or even a foreign secret service, to overshadow massive and highly successful peaceful demonstrations with participation of 200,000 people. The Belgrade police have thus far discovered that some of those arrested had hand-drawn maps pointing to streets and buildings of the U.S. and other embassies and did not attend the peaceful demonstrations. A prudent thing to do is to await the police report. There were some 130 Serbs injured including more than 50 policemen. The police detained some 200. Hence, the police have done at least part of their job. Whether they were slow to react, as alleged, can only be established through an inquiry.
There is no question that the Vienna Convention places the “fundamental responsibility” on the government of Serbia to protect the American diplomats. However, it is utterly hypocritical and cynical of Undersecretary Burns even to mention adherence to the international law and conventions when his country has chosen to violate the UN Charter, the Helsinki Accords, the UN Resolution 1244 and prior resolutions 1160, 1199, 1203 and 1239 as well as the Badinter Commission ruling. It amounts to a massive law breaking power game. Russian president Putin stated in televised address: “The Kosovo precedent is a terrifying precedent. It in essence is breaking open the entire system of international relations that have prevailed not just for decades but for centuries. And it without a doubt will bring on itself an entire chain of unforeseen consequences.” Way back in 1648 the Treaty of Westphalia established the doctrine of sovereignty, which declared a state's domestic conduct and institutions to be beyond the reach of other states.
The PM Kostunica's criticism of Washington , which he has regularly described as a law-breaking bully intending to amputate Kosovo from Serbia , irritates the State Department more so than anything else. The argument that Kosovo is a sui generis case because of Milosevic's government actions suffers from historical illiteracy. A rebuttal of this argument is contained in other writings by this author, e.g. Kosovo Solution: International Law Not Independence . It should be pointed out that PM Kostunica together with other Serbian leaders as well as the Russian leaders, including president Putin, have repeatedly warned the U.S. not to recognize Kosovo fearing violence which has now taken place. However, these warnings fell on deaf ears in the State Department. The same is true with regard to the warnings from distinguished Americans with high level credentials in the foreign affairs, e.g. former UN Ambassador John Bolton, former secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman and others.
The Kosovo recognition policy has been reckless, irresponsible and anti-American. The recognition announcement has divided Europe and the world and was met with a delirium from every separatist movement in the world from the U.S. to Kashmir and Sri Lanka . Republica del Norte (Aztlan), consisting of Arizona , New Mexico , and parts of California , Nevada , Colorado and Texas , has recognized Kosovo. Juan Fernadno, a spokesman for the Aztlan movement, said: “The situations of the Former Yugoslavia and the United States are very similar. Both are breaking up along the ethnic lines. Fifty years from now, we may use the phrase “Americanization' to refer to what is now meant by ‘Balkanization.' Viva Aztlan! Viva Kosovo!” So one of these days, those of us living currently in the region of Aztlan, will wake up one morning to find out that without our consent we have become citizens of the Aztlan nation to be recognized by most Latin American countries and most certainly by Mexico . We will then all have to speak Spanish to survive and get passports to travel to our native country, the U.S. This is exactly what is expected from the Kosovo Serbs. An elderly Serbian lady lives in a village which now is part of “independent” Kosovo. Her husband is buried in a cemetery which is in Serbia . In order to visit his grave she needs a passport. She is also asking who is now responsible for paying her pension.
Secretary Rice stated that it was time for Serbs to accept that Kosovo was no longer theirs. “I mean, after all, we're talking about something from 1389-1389! It's time to move forward.” This undiplomatic and insulting statement shows that she is yet another State Department Balkan history illiterate. This isn't about 1389. Serb-Albanian conflict is 130 years old. In its complexity it is comparable to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. German Chancellor Bismarck said “When the Great War comes it will come out of some damn fool thing in the Balkans.” In 1908 Austria annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina in clear violation of the 1878 Treaty of Berlin. Protests of Russia and Serbia were in vain. In 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot the archduke setting in motion the train of events that led to WWI. The U.S. pressure to grant Kosovo independence was similar to capitulation in the Munich 1938 manner. Great Britain and France allowed the Sudetenland to be ceded to Hitler's Germany . A year later WWII erupted. This continues to be one of the great traumas in Czech and Slovak contemporary history.
Undersecretary Burns is a holdover from the Clinton administration, which launched a 78 day aerial war against Serbia again in violation of a host of international laws, including the UN and NATO charters, in order to wrest Kosovo from Serbia . Walter Rockler, a Nuremberg prosecutor, stated:” Most brazen aggression since Nazi attack on Poland to prevent Polish atrocities.” He and his State Department bureaucrats should be held accountable for the U.S. dismantling of the international legal order. The policy of U.S. recognition of second Albania in Europe (Kosovo Albanians have no identity—they are Albanians) has been Burns' baby for years. It is a product of the State Department's “auto pilot” (the term borrowed from ambassador Bolton) policy vis-a-vis Serbia designed over 15 years ago. This policy didn't recognize that Milosevic was dead and out of power since 2000 and that Serbia is now a democracy. It is not obviously an anti-Milosevic policy as parroted by the compliant media but an anti-Serb policy with the U.S. siding with every single ethnic and religious group in the Former Yugoslavia against Serbia . It is a policy of Radical Muslim appeasement which has led to the U.S. siding with jihadists: Iran and Qaeda first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo.
Burns and his State Department ilk have ill served the nation. It is not in the interest of America to be generally viewed throughout the world as a bully and an international law pariah. In a poll conducted in Germany several months ago majority of Germans, a U.S. ally, viewed the U.S. as the biggest threat to the world peace. Burns and his ilk have abandoned the art of diplomacy long time ago and thus made a significant contribution to this deplorable image that America enjoys in the world. He has announced resignation from the State Department, which is good news for the Americans but he should be held accountable by the Congress for the damage done.
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Vojin Joksimovich has authored two books on Kosovo and lives in Escondido , California
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Separatist Movements Eyes are on Kosovo – Independence May Fuel Wars Worldwide
(Excerpt)
by Tony Dolz
Years later, America was attacked by Muslim terrorists funded by Bin Laden and it used this incident to wage war against Afghanistan and Iraq. Ironic?
At the same time U.S. federal elected representatives (The United States Congress) under the seductive and corrupting influence of corporate interests that employ cheap legal and illegal labor, has allowed 20 million aliens from Mexico to invade the United States (cheap labor).
Mexico has taught its school children for 160 years that the United States stole it southwestern states from Mexico and that Mexico will take them back one day. This is a dangerous situation similar to the demographic takeover of Kosovo by Albania. If Mexican insurgents attempt to take territory, will the United States use its political and military power to retain its states, like California? In light of its 78 day merciless bombing of Serbia for protecting its territory - that would be ironic also......NWS
by Tony Dolz
Every nation has the right to defend its borders and the obligation to protect the people that it serves. ....
Muslim Albanian insurgents funded by Bin Laden, the same Bin Laden that funded the 911 act of terrorism against America, defied the sovereignty and authority of Serbia over its Kosovo Province. When the Serbian government used its political and military power to defend its territory, it was attacked viciously by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in violation of its own charter.Years later, America was attacked by Muslim terrorists funded by Bin Laden and it used this incident to wage war against Afghanistan and Iraq. Ironic?
At the same time U.S. federal elected representatives (The United States Congress) under the seductive and corrupting influence of corporate interests that employ cheap legal and illegal labor, has allowed 20 million aliens from Mexico to invade the United States (cheap labor).
Mexico has taught its school children for 160 years that the United States stole it southwestern states from Mexico and that Mexico will take them back one day. This is a dangerous situation similar to the demographic takeover of Kosovo by Albania. If Mexican insurgents attempt to take territory, will the United States use its political and military power to retain its states, like California? In light of its 78 day merciless bombing of Serbia for protecting its territory - that would be ironic also......NWS
FP: "How to Start Your Own Country in Four Easy Steps"
By Joshua Keating
Foreign Policy.com
February, 2008
With Kosovo unilaterally declaring independence and a host of wannabe states looking to follow its lead, you might be thinking it’s about time to set up your own country. You’ve picked out a flag, written a national anthem, even printed up money with your face on it. But what’s the next step? Creating a new country isn’t as easy as you think......Foreign Policy Magazine
SerbBlog: Yes, it is that easy, when the US wants a Camp Bondsteel on your land!
Camp Bondsteel: The biggest “from scratch” foreign US military base since the Vietnam War.
There are 25 kilometers of roads and over 300 buildings at Camp Bondsteel, surrounded by 14 kilometers of earth and concrete barriers, 84 kilometers of concertina wire and 11 watch towers. It is so big that it has downtown, midtown and uptown districts, retail outlets, 24-hour sports halls, a chapel, library and the best-equipped hospital anywhere in Europe. At present there are 55 Black Hawk and Apache helicopters based at Bondsteel and although it has no aircraft landing strip the location was chosen for its capacity to expand. There are suggestions that it could replace the US Airforce base at Aviano in Italy.
The contract to service Camp Bondsteel is one of the military contracts awarded to Brown & Root Services. Its fortunes have grown as US militarism has escalated. The company is part of the Halliburton (can you say, Dick Cheney?) Corporation, the largest supplier of products and services to the oil industry.
Foreign Policy.com
February, 2008
With Kosovo unilaterally declaring independence and a host of wannabe states looking to follow its lead, you might be thinking it’s about time to set up your own country. You’ve picked out a flag, written a national anthem, even printed up money with your face on it. But what’s the next step? Creating a new country isn’t as easy as you think......Foreign Policy Magazine
SerbBlog: Yes, it is that easy, when the US wants a Camp Bondsteel on your land!
Camp Bondsteel: The biggest “from scratch” foreign US military base since the Vietnam War.There are 25 kilometers of roads and over 300 buildings at Camp Bondsteel, surrounded by 14 kilometers of earth and concrete barriers, 84 kilometers of concertina wire and 11 watch towers. It is so big that it has downtown, midtown and uptown districts, retail outlets, 24-hour sports halls, a chapel, library and the best-equipped hospital anywhere in Europe. At present there are 55 Black Hawk and Apache helicopters based at Bondsteel and although it has no aircraft landing strip the location was chosen for its capacity to expand. There are suggestions that it could replace the US Airforce base at Aviano in Italy.
The contract to service Camp Bondsteel is one of the military contracts awarded to Brown & Root Services. Its fortunes have grown as US militarism has escalated. The company is part of the Halliburton (can you say, Dick Cheney?) Corporation, the largest supplier of products and services to the oil industry.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
VDARE: "Will American Empire End Before It Ends the World?"
The hypocrisy of US government officials is boundless. On February 18, the US government inflamed Serbians by recognizing Muslim separatists in Kosovo, a historic province of Serbia, as an independent country. Two hundred thousand Serbs marched in protest and the US embassy in Belgrade was damaged. Is this surprising? No, not unless you are an official in the American Empire. The notorious Empire Neocon Counsel, Azlmay Khalilzad, Bush’s representative to the UN, declared: "I’m outraged by the mob attack."
What’s an embassy building compared to a province of Serbia, a province that stirs nationalist sentiments associated with the Serbs' long military struggles with the Turks? Had it not been for the Serbs, Europeans would probably be Turks.
To neocon Khalilzad a province of Serbia is nothing. It is merely real estate to be given away by US recognition bestowed on a break-away movement led by what some consider to be a gang of Muslim drug runners.
Secretary of State Condi Rice also found the Serbian response to the US giving away part of their country to be "intolerable."
Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke also sees no reason for the Serbs to be upset that America gave away part of their country. He explained away the Serbian protests by declaring: "The Russians are behind this."
We can understand why US diplomacy is a failure when we see our diplomats explaining that, had it not been for the Russians stirring them up, Serbians wouldn’t have noticed the loss of a historic part of their country.
Perhaps Kosovo should have its independence. However, the US government could not have handled the issue in a more provocative way.
Washington has been interfering in Serbian internal affairs since the Clinton administration. Told that Americans had to prevent genocide, few paid enough attention to Washington’s facilitation of the breakup of the Yugoslav state during the 1990s and to the Clinton administration’s bombing and murder of Serbian civilians in order to support Muslim separatists in Kosovo in 1999. Clinton used NATO as cover, but the bombing campaign was not backed by the UN Security Council. Bombs fell on Serbia for 78 days, taking out public infrastructure, bridges, factories, power stations, petrochemical plants, telecommunications facilities, markets, refugees, the Chinese Embassy and a passenger train. "Sorry honey, tell the kids I won’t be home tonight. President Clinton decided to bomb my train." Cluster bombs and depleted uranium were used. Clearly, the US government and its NATO puppets were guilty of war crimes under the Nuremberg standard.
Americans were told by an obedient media that the bombings were necessary in order to prevent Yugoslav leader, Slobodan Milosevic, from committing war crimes against the separatists who were stealing part of his country. After Clinton’s bombings intimidated the Serbian political establishment, Milosevic was turned out of office and handed over to the Americans for a payment of several hundred million dollars and delivered to the Hague for trial as a war criminal.
Milosevic represented himself at his trial and was more than a match for the trumped up charges. Unfortunately, he died in prison. Many believe he was helped on his way by an embarrassed American Empire unable to convict him.
What is the US government’s secret agenda in the Balkans? Why is the US government on the side of Muslims intent on severing Kosovo from Serbia? What is being served by creating a new Muslim state closer to Europe?
Whose interests are being served by Washington? Clearly, not our own. Or Europe’s.
And, please, none of that BS about "building freedom and democracy." As one of England’s most famous conservatives, Peregrine Worsthorne, wrote on February 20, America’s reputation as "the West’s conscience is fatally weakened."
Supposedly our time is the era of globalism and one worldism. Ancient European nationalities are dissolving into the European Union, a new super state. US corporations now have transnational interests devoid of any national loyalties. Yet, the US is hard at work dissolving a small Balkan state into even smaller constituent parts. Why is this happening? Why did Bush order US puppets in Britain, France and Germany to instantly recognize the historic Serbian province as a new Muslim state?
Is the new state of Kosovo, as rumors would have it, Richard Perle’s payoff to the Turks, or is the explanation that Serbia, like Palestine, Iraq, and Iran, lacking any international media reach, was easy for Empire Neocons to demonize in order to establish the precedent that Washington decides what territory belongs to who and who rules it. Clinton’s bombing of Serbia was a precedent for Bush’s bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq and now Africa and tomorrow Iran and Syria.
The day the Empire Crazies bomb Russia or China, we are all fried.
Be a macho super patriot, believe your government, help to fry the world. It’s the American way.
Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.Monday, February 25, 2008
Who Will Be Judged the Worst President of the 21st Century?
SerbBlog Note: Great article from 1389 Blog, as usual!Who Will Be Judged the Worst President of the 21st Century?
From the Perspective of a Lifelong Republican
By CzechRebel
Well, if you want to consider the 21st century to have begun January 1, 2000, it would be a tough choice between Clinton and Bush, as Clinton’s last thirteen months in office were pretty hideous. More traditionally, though, we have considered the year ‘01 to be the actual beginning of each century. From that perspective, while Clinton’s last three weeks in office were no improvement over the rest of those eight years, the damage he managed to do in that time period was trivial by comparison.
But if any president in the next 92 years really wants to look worse than George W. Bush, he or she is going to have to work pretty hard at destroying the Republican Party; promoting the socialist agenda in the United States; aiding and abetting Islamic terrorism; planting “time bombs” in the economy that are set to go off after he or she leaves office; promoting tyranny against the American people; destroying our relationship with the one nation on the planet that has most in common with us and that has the strongest reasons to be our ally; and last, but certainly not least, supporting a criminal gang of Islamic terrorists in establishing a stronghold in the Balkans.
Destroying the Republican Party
In January of 2001, an historic event took place. Or so we thought. A supposedly conservative Republican became President with the backing of a conservative Republican Congress. What could have been better? Cut taxes, raise revenue, promote business growth, provide jobs, cut federal regulation, recognize States’ rights. But George W turned out to be no Ronald Reagan.
We got some temporary tax cuts, slow to take effect and all too quick to expire. Most notably, the draconian death tax, enacted right out of the Communist Manifesto, will spring back to life soon after Bush leaves office. And every Republican in Congress was told to be a “good Republican” and back the President’s plan rather than hold their ground and insist on something better - so such legislation passed.
George W let Ted Kennedy, one of the leading Senate Communists in all but name, write an education bill that firmly entrenched left-wing propaganda into our youth “re-education camps” - otherwise known as “public schools.” And every Republican in Congress was told to be a “good Republican” and back the President’s plan; so such legislation passed.
The list goes on and on. The end result is that Republicans looked more and more like socialists, and less and less like Conservatives, and - surprise! The party lost the Congressional majority that countless Conservatives had worked decades to achieve.
If George W does not get invited to speak at Democratic convention this summer, it will be a sign of the Democrats’ ungratefulness. After all, no one has done so much to bolster the Democratic Party since FDR!
Promoting a Socialist Agenda
You would think that allowing legislation that cuts taxes for a few years, only to bring them back with a vengeance, not to mention the “No Child Left to Grow Up Without Socialist Indoctrination” legislation, would be enough. But not for George W, he stood by passively and allowed a major frontal assault on freedom of political speech in the form of the McCain-Feingold Act. Yes, THAT McCain – he is an enemy of the freedoms that this blog seeks to protect. Under the new law, the leftist news media can say what they will, but all other will be under the gun of government-controlled censors. It’s ironic – and obviously no accident - that John McCain seems to be one of the three finalists to replace George W as America’s next dictator.
George W let pork-barrel spending run wild, and in doing so, he has betrayed the legacy of his party, and he has betrayed the principles of limited government embodied in the Constitution he swore to uphold. Thirty years ago, everyone knew that the Republicans were fiscally conservative and many leftists feared their rise to power would finally doom socialism in America. Would that it were so!
Twenty years ago, we had already seen some hypocrisy from a Republican-controlled Senate. Even so, Ronald Reagan’s veto pen had pretty much kept the GOP’s image intact, no matter who was in control of Congress. However, in this decade, little boy Bush did not even have the guts to veto his own Republican party’s pork-barrel spending. Now, there is no longer any major party in America that Eugene Debs would have hesitated to embrace. Thanks, George W!
Of course, if George W had ever bothered to read the Constitution, and the Articles of Confederation that preceded it, he would have known that the primary task of the federal government is, and has always been, to secure the homeland. No, like a true socialist, this Georgie Porgie el presidente created a new bureaucracy to do the job that he had already taken an oath to do. Now we have a Department of Homeland Security, multiplying layers of bureaucracy, providing another arena for turf battles, and putting even more roadblocks in the channels of communications. Just try getting rid of that outsized and pointless boondoggle. No matter how well, or indeed how poorly, the DHS does its job – that department will remain in power. So we have more bureaucrats, more spending, more taxes to support it and more socialism, thanks to the present US dictator.
Aiding and Abetting Islamic Terrorism
On September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorists flew four kamikaze missions against US targets. George W was either too stupid to notice that fact that the terrorists were Mohammedans, or he simply wanted to aid and abet their cause. But then, his family is in the oil business. If he forgets for an instant which side his bread is buttered on, they’ll remind him.
So George W sidestepped the issue. He declared war on “terrorism” rather than on the terrorists themselves and their hate organization, which we allow to masquerade as a religion. Make no mistake about it, Islam and religion, as the rest of the world defines religion, have nothing in common. You don’t see Baptists hijacking planes and flying them into buildings. You don’t see Jains strapping on suicide belts and walking into places were they can kill innocent civilians. You don’t see Hindus killing people for having left their faith. You don’t see Buddhists blowing up trains in Spain. You don’t see Jews getting all bent out of whack because someone makes a political cartoon that includes Moses.
But you do see followers of Mohammad doing all these things, and other heinous things besides. And it happens often. George W. had a golden opportunity to expose Islam for the hate organization that it is now, and has been for 1400 years.
Yet, he praised Islam after 9-11. Instead of interning the enemy, as FDR had the courage to do during World War II, he invited one of them to pray with us right after the horrible event. It should surprise no one that the imam he invited, Hamza Yusuf, turned out to be no moderate at all, but a radical Wahhabist convert who played George W for all he’s worth. And then there’s George W’s other friend, Imam Hassan Qazwini, closely linked to various Islamist organizations in the US.
He even aided and abetted the relatives of Osama bin Laden in their efforts to leave the US, post 9-11. We must agree with our liberal friends on one thing they often say – though not for the reasons they claim. George W. is, in fact, a terrorist, because he aids and abets terrorists. Economic Time Bombs
1389, the primary admin of this blog, has a degree in economics, and she would not allow the following data to be posted on this blog if she were not 100% certain that it is true. High taxes discourage economic activity. It’s the working poor, those of modest income, those who are in debt, and most of the middle class, who really suffer when taxes are high. When taxes are low, economic activity is stimulated and those at the bottom benefit the most from those opportunities. (Politicians like to talk about “soaking the rich” – but when was the last time a poor person hired anybody? And anyway, rich people will never pay that much in taxes, no matter what you do. They are comparatively few in number. Moreover, they are mostly smart people and that is why they are rich!)
Bush could have insisted that his tax cuts, especially the estate tax cuts, must remain permanent. He did not. After all, “we can always do that later.” Well, later came and no one has been in a tax cutting mood. Income taxes will increase. Estate taxes will revert to what they had been, back in the day when you could still get something for a dollar or so. Tax shelters and estate planning will prevent the rich from losing anything. Middle class families, especially small businesses and family farms, will suffer, as they always do when taxes go up.
Historians don’t always understand economics, so they may even make George W look as though he was a “good president” for the economy. But unless someone steps to the plate, which seems mighty unlikely, economic woes are soon to follow.
Anti-Semitism
We’re tired of hearing the widespread myth that “the Jews” control the media and American thought, and that, because of their influence, US policy is highly pro-Israel. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The US is no ally of Israel, not by any stretch of the imagination. Israel had no problem caring for itself before America supposedly became its “ally”. Witness the way Israel defended itself in 1948, 1967 and 1973. American became its “ally” and convinced it to give back territory. (Note that Israel never asks the US to give Texas or California back to Mexico.) Anybody with normal powers of observation can figure out that, ever since the Carter Administration, it’s petrodollars that have been doing the talking.
Israel is a tiny strip of land surround by Islamic states. Only 7/24 vigilance and sheer determination to survive secures this Jewish homeland. The Arabs have many countries in which to live. Yet, a number of these Arabs have been camping out in Israel – mostly in the hopes of a better economic future than what was available in Muslim-controlled lands – and calling themselves “Palestinians.” Well, the Romans did start calling Judaea “Palestine” and anyone living there when it was called that – including Christians and Jews, had they thought in those terms – would have had every right to call themselves “Palestinians.” But that cannot make “Palestinian” an ethnic identity any more than living in New York City could create an ethnic identity of New Yorkers.
Yet, George W still insists on squandering tax dollars on financial aid to the Palestinian terrorists, who are our enemies. He even supports providing them a terrorist base so they have a safe haven from which to kill more Jews. Calling it a “homeland for the Palestinians” is like calling the area around Auschwitz a homeland for the caretakers of a concentration camp.
Make no mistake about it, support for a Palestinian “homeland” is vile anti-Semitism, and serves as proof that George W is every bit as anti-Semitic as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
Anti-Patriot Acts
It is clear to anyone who has at least half a brain, or who has any reading comprehension ability at all, that radical Islam has declared war on the US. Osama bin Laden’s fatwa against the US was in the news well before 9-11. And there was no question about what he meant – none at all. He meant to destroy us, and his followers still mean to do exactly that. And the only way to change their minds is to defeat them.
In World War II, after the Empire of Japan perpetrated an act of war on the US, Japanese-Americans who remained loyal to the Emperor of Japan, and other Japanese-Americans who wished to remain on the West Coast, were watched very carefully. Many were interned. Those who were decidedly in support of the Japanese war efforts were even held as foreign enemies. We won the war and very few of them bothered to complain. They knew what was at stake and they were willing to help the US war effort in that fashion.
FDR never even thought of stripping all Americans of their basic rights and their financial privacy. But George W has done exactly that. Much as I detest FDR, I have to say he was a better man than George W in this regard.
The Holy Land of Kosovo
George W promised to remove US troops from the Balkans, and to honor the treaty with the Serbian people that ended the 1999 Kosovo War (a/k/a the Kumanovo treaty or UN Security Council Resolution 1244). Did he keep his promise? No way! Camp Bondsteel is still alive and well. The Serbs should have known better than to trust the US to honor a treaty. Ask any American Indian. Once you disarm, withdraw, or abandon your struggle in any way, the tendency is for the US to keep whatever the other side gave, and to keep on doing whatever it had been doing. We had expected George W to be a man of character and to keep the agreement with the Serbs. But clearly, little boy Bush has no character.
According to the Kumanovo treaty that ended the 1999 Kosovo War, the Serbs had the right to move their forces back into Kosovo to protect their church property and to protect their people who had been abandoned when the KFOR peacekeeping troops took over that war-torn Serbian province. The Serbs were willing to fight to the finish, perhaps to the last living person, to keep Kosovo as part of their homeland.
When the Clinton Administration had so depleted the American conventional arsenal that the security of US interests elsewhere had been severely compromised, Clinton and company finally agreed to Slobodan Milosevic’s original terms of peace. For some reason, the same wonder weapons that allowed the US to devastate Saddam Hussein’s forces in the 1991 Gulf War were making little, if any, dent in Serbia’s commitment to keep Kosovo as part of Serbia. Yet, the dumb-dumb son of the earlier President Bush, who claimed to be a Christian himself, never could understand that Christian people of Serbia were very committed to keeping the most important part of Serbia as part of Serbia.
Well, yes, it may be hard for anyone who is not a Serb to understand the importance of Kosovo to the Serbian people. Kosovo is the place where the Serbian people pledged themselves and one another to serve the Lord. That is not a familiar concept these days! It may even be impossible for anyone who is not an Orthodox Christian to understand it fully. However, it would be liking telling any Christian—be he Roman Catholic, Protestant or anyone else who adheres to the traditional definition of the faith, as agreed upon in the Seven Councils—to preach the Gospel, but to leave out the part about God walking on Earth as a mortal man and the part about Jesus Christ rising from the dead. There simply would be nothing left.
Kosovo is Serbia. Those words are embedded in the heart of every Serb I have ever met, and trust me, I have met many of them. To a Serb, Serbia is Kosovo – just as, to a Serb or any other Christian, the Gospel message is our Lord coming to Earth as a mortal man and Jesus Christ having risen from the dead.
Yet, because of George W’s love for the pseudo-religion, or rather, the expansionist totalitarian ideology, of Islam, George W recognized the claim of radical Mohammedans that Kosovo should be torn away from Serbia and placed under the rule of a criminal gang of thugs who were nothing less than the local branch of al Qaeda.
The Friend of Terrorists
Clearly, George W. Bush prefers Islam over Christianity. He prefers helping al Qaeda to honoring his oath of office and his pledge to uphold the Constitution. He is obviously working on behalf of al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists, both in the Israel and in the Balkans. In siding with terrorists, he has become one himself.
So, we must agree with our liberal friends on this one point – though our reasons are, of course, very different. We at 1389 Blog consider George W. Bush to be every bit as much a terrorist as those nineteen quasi-human wastes of protoplasm who flew hijacked airliners into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
What Now, My Heart?
Source: Politika
By David Binder
February 24, 2008
By David Binder
February 24, 2008
A question to ponder: If you now can transplant a human heart, implying amputation of the original heart, can you transplant the heart of a nation?
The question, outside the category of geography, is posed by what is happening these days with Kosovo-Metohija, the heart - heartland - of the Serbian nation.
My answer is: No.
Despite assertions of a few Albanian historians with academic pretensions echoed by some non-Albanian pseudo-scholars, the Serbian heartland remains forever Kosovo.
Deranged efforts by pathological xenophobes to obliterate any signs of a Serbian presence - burning, bombing and looting monasteries, churches, houses; desecrating cemeteries, the saints in frescoes and icons - make the virtual absence of any Albanian cultural monuments in the province all the more stark. The contrast in terms of history could scarcely be greater.Kosovo rests enshrined in Serbia's prayers, poetry, legend, architecture, painting, music - in graveyards and in the very soil. Just as it is impossible to think of the Serbian past without Kosovo, so it will be impossible to think about the Serbian future without Kosovo.
Those who may have thought the younger generation of Serbs was disenchanted with the subject and preferred to focus instead on "Europe" or some other popular contemporary theme, need only note the February 18 demonstration of thousands of Belgrade students carrying banners proclaiming "Kosovo is the heart of Serbia!"
(I have heard that Sumadija sometimes referred to as "the heartland of Serbia," but the late Sasa Nenadovic (1927-2006) from the town of Trbusani, disputed this with a grin, saying, that Sumadjia was "the stomach of Serbia, where we are getting sick all the time.")
Apropos "nation," some journalists and some politicians confused this term with "state" hailing the Pristina declaration of independence as the birth of the world's "193rd nation" - as counted in terms of members of the United Nations. This might work if there were two kinds of Albanians. Then each could be represented by one of the black eagles on their flag.
In my dictionary states can be sovereign. Nations cannot.
The stuttering, messy, and contradictory responses to Pristina's independence declaration - splitting the European Union and even the United Nations Security Council - show that the road ahead is rocky, and may be mined with explosive devices.
Then there are the costs. Before 1999 Kosovo swallowed the largest of all subsidies from Federal funds for decades without much visible effect. Since then the province has taken in 1.8 billion Euros from the EU alone (not to mention US or UN aid) with little to show for it except massive unemployment, little economic activity and considerable debt. Now it is promised a half billion Euros for the next three years.
The world might also keep in mind that Kosovo is not the last of Albanian demands. "Greater Albania," with chunks of `western Macedonia, southern Montenegro and northern Greece remains inscribed on the irredentists' banner. As Sasa Nenadovic warned twenty years ago: "To give them a republic might quiet some of them. But it would encourage others. It would be giving a finger to people who want your whole arm."
In 1999 he remarked: "Almost all of our history from the Battle of Kosovo Field onward we were fighting this or that enemy. That was the main preoccupation of us Serbs. True we lost some wars but we always thought of ourselves as winners." Then he added in a sardonic tone: "It can't be different now, can it?"
Obviously it can. But on another occasion, again with a touch of sarcasm, Nenadovic said of Serbs: "There is always a way out. That is the essence of our irresistible progress as well our permanent predicament - since we always manage to prolong, to postpone, to survive, we are also inclined to endure, if not to accept, almost anything. Where there is a will, there is hope, too."
Today Serbs could find solace in the fact their ancestors guarded the precious symbols of Kosovo for more than 500 years from the days of the bloody victory of the Ottomans, through their people's migrations in the 17th-18th centuries, to the ethnic purges of both world wars. Far be it from me to suppose that it might take another 500 years for Serbs to recover Kosovo physically. Rather, the history of the Serbs is a reminder that some historical events are clad in the cloak of immortality.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Organized Protests Against Kosovo Independence & For Serbia, Sprouting Up All Over the Globe!
Greeks display a banner ''Kosovo is Serbia'' during a Champions League round of 16 soccer match between Olympiakos and Chelsea at the Karaiskakis Stadium in the port of Piraeus, near Athens
Kosovo Albanians immoral & illegal declaration of "independence" and secession from Serbia have begun to inspire protests, worldwide. Over the course of today, I have been informed of a variety of planned protests against Kosovo Independence and below is a list of protests I know of so far.
Free citizens of free countries have a right to peacefully protest their government's policies and they have their grievances heard. If the borders of
Please show your support for the rights of sovereignty, international law and against the unelected bureaucrats who think that they own all of us!
Let me stress that these are to be peaceful protests. No violence will be tolerated.
===============================================================
SUNDAY, FEB. 24 AT
IN FRONT OF THE WHITE HOUSE.
There WILL be a DEMONSTRATION on Sunday, February 24,
starting from
interested people are asked to come to
the White House at
This is the first notice about what will be a series of responses to
the illegal declaration by the Kosovo Albanians. These first events are
jointly organized by:
- The Kosovo Relief Committee, and
- The STOP Coalition (The Stop Terrorizing Orthodox Peoples Coalition).
Further information by email at thestopcoalition@gmail.com
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SUNDAY, FEB. 24 AT
Meet at Powell and Market
Further information: bunjevic@aol.com
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SATURDAY, FEB. 23, 2008 at 5:30PM
WESLEY BOLIN PLAZA (DOWNTOWN
COME JOIN US IN A CANDLE-LIGHT VIGIL PROTEST AGAINST THE ILLEGAL SECESSION OF KOSOVO FROM ITS MOTHER SERBIA
Sponsored by the Serbian Orthodox Community of Arizona
Further Information at PhoenixSerbs.com
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CHICAGO, IL (2 Dates)
SUNDAY, FEB. 24 AT
230 South
Sponsored by Serbs in
SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 2008, 12:00 NOON
Daily Plaza
Serbian National Defense Council of America with the blessing of the Serbian Orthodox Church
and in cooperation with all Serbian-American organizations in Chicago Invites all Serbs, Americans of Serbian descent, and all people of good will to A PROTEST MEETING Against recognition of the self-proclaimed Albanian quasi-state in the Serbian province Kosovo and Metohija by the U.S. administration
More Info: www.snd-us.com
(773) 775-7772
(708) 474-9855
Sponsored by:Serbian National Defense Council of America
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CLEVELAND, OH
SUNDAY, FEB. 24 AT 12:00 PM
From St. Sava's to the
More Info Here (In Serbian)
=====================================================================
SATURDAY, FEB. 23, 2008 at 5:00PM
US Consulate , 360 University Ave
Sponsored by the University of Toronto Serbian Students Association. March and candlelight vigil. More info at KosovoisSerbia.org
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SUNDAY, FEB. 24 AT 1:30
More info at KosovoisSerbia.org
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Kitchener, Ontario
| Date: | Saturday, February 23, 2008 |
| Time: | 5:00pm - 7:00pm |
| Location: | Kitchener City Hall |
| Street: | 200 King Street West |
More Info: http://facebook.com/event.php?eid=8235047551
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Montreal, Quebec
Sunday, February 24, 2008 | |
| Time: | 2:00pm - 5:00pm |
| Location: | In front of McGill University |
| Street: | 845 Sherbrooke Ouest |
| City/Town: | Montreal, QC |
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Ottowa, Ontario
Saturday, March 1, 2008 | |
| Time: | 12:00pm - 4:00pm |
| Location: | Parliament Hill |
| City/Town: | Ottawa, ON |
More Info: http://facebook.com/event.php?eid=8770679684
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Edmonton, Alberta
Sunday, March 2, 2008 | |
| Time: | 1:00pm - 4:00pm |
| Location: | In front of the Legislature Building |
More info: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=8025514099
========================================================================
SATURDAY, FEB. 23, 2008, 12.00 - 16.00
in Whitehall, opposite Downing Street
Sponsored by the Serbian Council of Great Britain & Serbian Society
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BRUSSELS
Sunday, 24 February 2008, 3 PM
Schuman Square
Sponsored by the Serbian Institute for Public Policy
More information at Serbianinstitute.org
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HAGUE
SUNDAY, FEB. 24, 2008, 1300
More info Here
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VIENNA
Sunday Feb 24,2008, 1PM
Heldenplatz 1010
www.istina.at , Contact: petar_milatovic@yahoo.de
===================================================================
Australia
MELBOURNE
Friday, February 22, 2008 at 7PM
Meeting at Federation Square, walking up to Parliament House. Wear black clothing if can (to show we are in mourning) and bring a candle for a candlelight vigil.
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Canberra
Sunday, February 24, 2008 | |
| Time: | 12:00pm - 5:00pm |
| Location: | Forrest Serbian Church Centre, US Embassy, British High Commission, Civic |
| Street: | National Circuit |
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10068780652
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Adelaide
Sunday, February 24, 2008 | |
| Time: | 2:00pm - 5:00pm |
| Location: | North Terrace - ADELAIDE |
| Street: | North Terr |
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Aukland, New Zealand
Sunday, February 24, 2008 | |
| Time: | 2:00pm - 10:00pm |
| Location: | AUCKLAND DOMAIN WAR MEMORIAL MUSEUM |
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10605934275
===============================================================
More Info and Photos on the Protests available on Serbianna's Front Page
The West’s Fatal Mistake: We Are All Serbs Now
SerbBlog: Brilliant article in the Brussels Journal!
From the desk of Thomas Landen on Mon, 2008-02-18 23:25
Today, one day after Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, the United States and the major European countries rushed to recognize Kosovo’s independence. George Bush hailed Kosovo’s “bold and historic bid for statehood.” Five years ago, Mr Bush invaded Iraq and began “operation Iraqi freedom.” He toppled Saddam Hussein in order to get rid of a rogue regime, one of the members of the “axis of evil.” Five years later, Mr Bush is saddling Europe with a new rogue state. Surely, Mr Bush knows that al-Qa’eda fighters were involved in driving the Serbs from Kosovo in the late 1990s. The Jerusalem Post reported in 1998 that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was “provided with financial and military support from Islamic countries,” and had been “bolstered by hundreds of Iranian fighters or mujahedin [some of whom] were trained in Osama bin Laden’s terrorist camps in Afghanistan.”.......Brussels Journal
From the desk of Thomas Landen on Mon, 2008-02-18 23:25
Today, one day after Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, the United States and the major European countries rushed to recognize Kosovo’s independence. George Bush hailed Kosovo’s “bold and historic bid for statehood.” Five years ago, Mr Bush invaded Iraq and began “operation Iraqi freedom.” He toppled Saddam Hussein in order to get rid of a rogue regime, one of the members of the “axis of evil.” Five years later, Mr Bush is saddling Europe with a new rogue state. Surely, Mr Bush knows that al-Qa’eda fighters were involved in driving the Serbs from Kosovo in the late 1990s. The Jerusalem Post reported in 1998 that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was “provided with financial and military support from Islamic countries,” and had been “bolstered by hundreds of Iranian fighters or mujahedin [some of whom] were trained in Osama bin Laden’s terrorist camps in Afghanistan.”.......Brussels Journal
Kosovo and Islam's Balkanization of the World
IsraelENewsWednesday, February 20, 2008 - By: Greenfield, Daniel
Even as the world rushes to embrace the newly manufactured Kosovo as a country, the rise of a splinter Muslim country in Europe can't help but give hope to Islamic terrorists fighting to create breakaway states in Thailand, the Philippines, Israel, India and Kenya among many others.
Balkanization, or divide and conquer, has always been a key element in bringing down countries and with a global Islamic war, each country with a Muslim minority, natively converted or imported, is on the same track as Yugoslavia.
What Hitler did with the Volksdeutsche, ethnic Germans, across Eastern Europe, his former Muslim allies are doing across the world with Muslim populations. With the Volksdeutsche, before a single soldier of the Reich even set foot in a country, the Volksdeutsche would radicalize and foment unrest that would either carve up the target country or justify military intervention to "liberate" them. When the country was conquered, the Volksdeutsche would quickly become occupation forces.
With Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood to the Ayatollahs either being direct allies of Hitler or influenced by Nazism, it's no surprise that Muslims have adopted Nazi tactics and Kosovo and its Muslim population that had formerly collaborated with the Nazis, is their greatest victory, a Muslim state carved out of the heart of Europe through ethnic cleansing, with the world's approval.
Whether in Gaza or the Paris riots, Kosovo or Kashmir, Balkanization is Islam's greatest weapon. Lacking a Nazi Germany to invade on their half behalf, Muslims practice violence and terrorism combined with manipulative publicity aimed at the world to convince them to take their side. And time and time again it has worked.
Kosovo and the Palestinian Authority are both triumphs of terrorism, victories by racist nationalists whose aim has always been religious and ethnic cleansing who have nevertheless managed to portray the countries they have torn to shreds as racist nationalists practicing ethnic cleansing.
Time and time again, Muslims continue to transform nation after nation into Czechoslovakia, convincing the world that there will be peace if a country is carved up and they are given a peace. Yet even as Western Europe itself is being balkanized, its leaders give little thought that tomorrow's Kosovo is Paris or London or Oslo. That the sacrifices for tomorrow's peace will come from their own territory
The Balkanization track follows the same pattern.
Stage 1: Political Grievance - In the first stage of Balkanization, the Muslim population is increased if it's not native and radicalized if it is. Political organizations are set up and claims of oppression and discrimination become constant to set the grounds for future action.
Stage 2: Violence - Terrorist groups begin operating in conjunction with political groups offering the authorities a choice, either comply with their political demands or face violence.
Governments commonly fall for this trap believing that they can resolve the problem by empowering the moderate political groups and in doing so weaken the terrorists, little realizing that it's like giving competing in a wrestling match and giving in to your opponent's right hand to weaken his left hand. The political groups serve to shield the terrorists while cooperating with liberal organizations and turning them into a fifth column. The terrorist groups serve as the stick forcing a surrender to the political groups.
Stage 3: Secession - With political and terrorist groups operating now, governments belatedly attempt some sort of half-hearted crackdown. This only serves to justify greater violence and extremism on behalf of the terrorist and political groups. Claiming discrimination, they begin to demand either secession through autonomy or outright rule. Falling into the same trap all over again, governments begin seriously pondering autonomy refusing to realize that both choices lead to the same place.
Stage 4: War - With or without an autonomous state, the violence drastically escalates into the next phase of Mao's phases of guerrilla warfare, with armed militias in the field. While these militias pose no serious threat, they tie up large numbers of government troops and carry out atrocities against the civilian population. Meanwhile any response by the government troops quickly becomes a propaganda moment and is broadcast around the world along with cries for intervention.
The government's attempts at moderation accomplish nothing except to cause the guerrillas to believe in their own immunity and give them time to regroup after every defeat. Government action typically contains enough force to make for good propaganda but not enough to actually make a difference. The civilian population grows weary of the fighting, international organizations call for intervention and peace talks and the government begins to defer to their wishes.
Stage 5: Surrender - Peace talks begin slowly carving up the country on the enemy's terms which are promptly accepted on behalf of the country by various superpowers. If the country resists, it's bombed. If it gives in, it's constantly accused of dragging its feet. The autonomous territory becomes an independent state. The native population becomes dispirited and loses hope. The country's academic and media circles accept defeat as inevitable and welcome the coming peace.
Stage 6: Conquest - The war continues this time from the independent state. Ethnic cleansing is used to purge non-Muslims from Muslim territory while any territory within the country with a Muslim minority is added to the list of demands. Atrocities and terrorism become habitual. Any government response is condemned worldwide as brutal and warmongering. Backed into a corner the country may try to fight for its survival, but it has spent too long being undermined and its bravest and brightest have learned apathy and its new generation only wants to leave. The result is a complete surrender followed by a butchery.
Stage 7: Misery - The country is carved up and renamed by its former minority and its identity ceases to exist. The former terrorists are typically corrupt and incompetent, vital services decay, crime soars, ethnic cleansing destroy the most productive elements of society and the place becomes a miserable sinkhole under a tyranny whose prime purpose is to support the terrorists who are doing Stage 1 or Stage 2 in the country across the border.
This is what we are now facing today. Yugoslavia and Israel are both teetering between Stage 5 and Stage 6. Europe is well into Stage 2 and well on the way to Stage 3. Thailand and the Philippines are in Stage 3 and moving toward Stage 4. America is between Stage 1 and Stage 2, though if Obama becomes President I imagine we'll be skipping a couple of steps. In the end though the trajectory is all the same and unless something is done, country by country will fall.
Muslims command two great weapons, a potent birthrate and the ability to lie and believe their own lies. The former is less significant but the latter is quite powerful indeed, as a short glance at the evening news will quickly show you.
And they're carving up the world country by country, land by land and territory by territory. Hitler's opening gambit has become Islam's opening gambit. Kosovo is the sordid triumph of imagined human rights by carving up a country and turning it over to Muslims who have made it their own by ethnically cleansing Christians, Jews and Roma (gypsies) from its borders.
Around the world the moral authority has fallen into the bloody hands of the terrorists of Paris, London, Ramallah Ridyah, Tehran, Damascus, Kashmir, Oslo, Kosovo and Beslan -- because the moral and culture decay of civilization has left it unable to reason or resist.
Balkanization is the tool of the rats in the walls of our countries gnawing through the mortar by by bit, knowing that undefended, even the mightiest structures must fall. Knowing that the only thing that might stop them would be if the mortar was renewed and the walls stood strong again.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Belgrade, 19 Feb. (AKI) – Several hundred Kosovo Serbs set on fire customs and police stations at border crossings with Serbia on Tuesday in an erupti
Belgrade, 19 Feb. (AKI) – Several hundred Kosovo Serbs set on fire customs and police stations at border crossings with Serbia on Tuesday in an eruption of violence after Kosovo's declaration of independence.
Local media reported that border crossings at Jarinje and Brnjak in northern Kosovo were set on fire in protest over ethnic Albanian policemen and customs officers taking charge of the crossing points.
Members of the international police and military force (KFOR) looked on but didn’t intervene, the Serbian news agency Tanjug said.
Ten cars belonging to Kosovo and the United Nations police were also set on fire, but there were no injuries, the reports said.
Kosovo police spokesman Veton Elsani said KFOR and police were rushed to the scene to quell the unrest.
Kosovo's border crossings with Serbia have been manned by the UN administration (UNMIK) since the province was put under UN control in 1999.
Slavisa Ristic, mayor of the nearby town of Zubin Potok said local Serbs had no objections to the presence of UNMIK and international police, but won’t accept the customs and police force of the newly proclaimed state.
“We can’t accept the institutions and levies from a non-existent state of Kosovo, Ristic said. “If they try once again to impose on us the institutions of a false state, people will surely react,” Ristic added.
About a half of some 100,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo live in the north of the state bordering Serbia. There were some 40,000 Serbs in Pristina until 1999.
For the past nine years, Kosovo Serbs have functioned more or less independently from Kosovo's institutions. International officials in Kosovo have warned that Kosovan authorities could have difficulty incorporating northern Kosovo in the new state.
Tanjug said KFOR soldiers had surrounded and completely blocked the northern town of Leposavic, a Serb stronghold, and UN helicopters were flying over the area.
Several explosions were reported overnight in northern Kosovo and 110 people have been hospitalised in Kosovo's capital Pristina in the past 24 hours, the agency said.
Some were injured by firearms, but it was not clear how, the agency said. A bomb exploded late on Sunday in the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, populated mostly by Serbs, after the Kosovan parliament proclaimed independence.
The Serbian parliament late on Monday reaffirmed the government's decision to annul Kosovo's declaration of independence.
Prime minister Vojislav Kostunica has ordered the withdrawal of Serbia's ambassadors to countries that recognised the new Kosovo state. Ambassadors to Paris, Washington and London have already been withdrawn "for consulatations".
The United States, Great Britain and France, which spearheaded the independence drive, quickly recognised Kosovo on Monday, followed by Turkey, Albania, Afghanistan, Australia and several other states.
The European Union is in disarray over Kosovo and has been so far unable to reach a common position.
A ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday "took note" of Kosovo's declaration of independence, leaving it individual EU countries to recognise it unilaterally.
The United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon also said it was up to individual members of the UN to recognise Kosovo, "not the UN Secretariat".
Veto-wielding UN Security Council permanent member and Serbian ally Russia, says it will continue to regard Kosovo as part of Serbia under the council resolution 1244.
Local media reported that border crossings at Jarinje and Brnjak in northern Kosovo were set on fire in protest over ethnic Albanian policemen and customs officers taking charge of the crossing points.
Members of the international police and military force (KFOR) looked on but didn’t intervene, the Serbian news agency Tanjug said.
Ten cars belonging to Kosovo and the United Nations police were also set on fire, but there were no injuries, the reports said.
Kosovo police spokesman Veton Elsani said KFOR and police were rushed to the scene to quell the unrest.
Kosovo's border crossings with Serbia have been manned by the UN administration (UNMIK) since the province was put under UN control in 1999.
Slavisa Ristic, mayor of the nearby town of Zubin Potok said local Serbs had no objections to the presence of UNMIK and international police, but won’t accept the customs and police force of the newly proclaimed state.
“We can’t accept the institutions and levies from a non-existent state of Kosovo, Ristic said. “If they try once again to impose on us the institutions of a false state, people will surely react,” Ristic added.
About a half of some 100,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo live in the north of the state bordering Serbia. There were some 40,000 Serbs in Pristina until 1999.
For the past nine years, Kosovo Serbs have functioned more or less independently from Kosovo's institutions. International officials in Kosovo have warned that Kosovan authorities could have difficulty incorporating northern Kosovo in the new state.
Tanjug said KFOR soldiers had surrounded and completely blocked the northern town of Leposavic, a Serb stronghold, and UN helicopters were flying over the area.
Several explosions were reported overnight in northern Kosovo and 110 people have been hospitalised in Kosovo's capital Pristina in the past 24 hours, the agency said.
Some were injured by firearms, but it was not clear how, the agency said. A bomb exploded late on Sunday in the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, populated mostly by Serbs, after the Kosovan parliament proclaimed independence.
The Serbian parliament late on Monday reaffirmed the government's decision to annul Kosovo's declaration of independence.
Prime minister Vojislav Kostunica has ordered the withdrawal of Serbia's ambassadors to countries that recognised the new Kosovo state. Ambassadors to Paris, Washington and London have already been withdrawn "for consulatations".
The United States, Great Britain and France, which spearheaded the independence drive, quickly recognised Kosovo on Monday, followed by Turkey, Albania, Afghanistan, Australia and several other states.
The European Union is in disarray over Kosovo and has been so far unable to reach a common position.
A ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday "took note" of Kosovo's declaration of independence, leaving it individual EU countries to recognise it unilaterally.
The United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon also said it was up to individual members of the UN to recognise Kosovo, "not the UN Secretariat".
Veto-wielding UN Security Council permanent member and Serbian ally Russia, says it will continue to regard Kosovo as part of Serbia under the council resolution 1244.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Independence in the Brave New World Order -- NATO's Kosovo Colony
By DIANA JOHNSTONE
From CounterPunch
Across this last weekend, the Western propaganda machine was working overtime, celebrating the latest NATO miracle: the transformation of Serbian Kosovo into Albanian Kosova. A shameless land grab by the United States, which used the Kosovo problem to install an enormous military base (Camp Bondsteel) on other people's strategically located land, is transformed by the power of the media into an edifying legend of "national liberation".
For the unhappy few who know the complicated truth about Kosovo, the words of Aldous Huxley seem most appropriate: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall drive you mad."
Concerning Kosovo, truth is like letters written in the sand as the tsunami of propaganda comes thundering in. The truth is available--for instance in George Szamuely's thoroughly informative piece last Friday here on CounterPunch. Fragments of the truth sometimes even show up in the mainstream media, mostly in letters from readers. But hopeless as it is to try to turn back the tide of officially endorsed legend, let me examine just one drop in this unstoppable sea of propaganda: a column by Roger Cohen entitled "Europe's new state", published in the Valentine's Day edition of the International Herald Tribune.
Cohen's op ed piece is fairly typical in the dismissive way it deals with Milosevic, Russia and the Serbs. Cohen writes: "Slobodan Milosevic, the late dictator, set Serbia's murderous nationalist tide in motion on April 24, 1987, when he went to Kosovo to declare that Serbian 'ancestors would be defiled' if ethnic Albanians had their way."
I don't know where Roger Cohen got that quotation, but it is not to be found in the speech Milosevic made that day in Kosovo. And certainly, Milosevic did not go to Kosovo to declare any such thing, but to consult with local Communist League officials in the town of Kosovo Polje about the province's serious economic and social problems. Aside from the province's chronic poverty, unemployment, and mismanagement of development funds contributed from the rest of Yugoslavia, the main social problem was the constant exodus of Serb and Montenegrin inhabitants under pressure from ethnic Albanians. At the time, this problem was reported in leading Western media.
For instance, as early as July 12, 1982, Marvine Howe reported to the New York Times that Serbs were leaving Kosovo by the tens of thousands because of discrimination and intimidation on the part of the ethnic Albanian majority:
"The [Albanian] nationalists have a two-point platform," according to Beci Hoti, an executive secretary of the Communist Party of Kosovo, "first to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger with Albania to form a greater Albania.
Mr Hoti, an Albanian, expressed concern voer political pressures that were forcing Serbs to leave Kosovo. "What is important now," he said, "is to establish a climate of security and create confidence."
And seven months after Milosevic's visit to Kosovo, David Binder reported in the New York Times (November 1, 1987):
Ethnic Albanians in the Government [of Kosovo] have manipulated public funds and regulations to take over land belonging to Serbs. Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls.
The goal of the radical nationals among them, one said in an interview, is an "ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself."
As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially strongly since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981--an "ethnically pure" Albanian region
This was in fact the first instance of "ethnic cleansing" in post-World War II Yugoslavia, as reported in The New York Times and other Western media, and the victims were the Serbs. The cult of "memory" has become a contemporary religion, but some memories are more equal than others. In the 1990s, the New York Times evidently forgot completely what it had said about Kosovo in the 1980s. Why? Perhaps because meanwhile, the Soviet bloc had collapsed and the unity of independent, non-aligned Yugoslavia was no longer in the strategic interest of the United States.
Back to Milosevic in Kosovo Polje on April 24, 1987. An incident occurred when local police (under an Albanian-dominated Communist League government) attacked Serbs who had gathered to protest lack of legal protection. Milosevic famously told them, spontaneously: "No one should beat you any more!" If this is "extreme nationalism", perhaps there should be more of it.
But nowhere do I find a trace of the statement attributed to Milosevic by Cohen. In his speech to local party delegates that followed, which is on the public record, Milosevic referred to the "regrettable incident" and promised an investigation. He went on to stress that "we should not allow the misfortunes of people to be exploited by nationalists, whom every honest person must combat. We must not divide people between Serbs and Albanians, but rather we should separate, on the one hand, decent people who struggle for brotherhood, unity and ethnic equality, and, on the other hand, counter-revolutionaries and nationalists."
I turn again to Aldous Huxley for comfort: "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
But Huxley also said: "Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations."
Last Tuesday in Geneva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tried to convey to journalists his grave concern about the way the United States was handling the Kosovo problem.
"We are speaking here about the subversion of all the foundations and principles of international law, which have been won and established as a basis of Europe's existence at huge effort, and at the cost of pain, sacrifice and bloodletting," he said.
"Nobody can offer a clear plan of action in the case of a chain reaction [of further declarations of unilateral independence]. It turns out that they [the United States and its NATO allies] are planning to act in a hit or miss fashion on an issue of paramount importance. This is simply inadmissible and irresponsible," the Russian diplomat said. "I sincerely fail to comprehend the principles guiding our American colleagues, and those Europeans who have taken up this position," he added.
Roger Cohen dismisses such considerations in five words: "the Russian bear will growl". Russia, he adds, "will scream. But it's backed the wrong horse." There are no issues here, no principles. Just growling and gambling. "Milosevic rolled the dice of genocidal nationalism and lost", says Cohen.
This is not only a false statement, it is a grotesquely meaningless metaphor. Milosevic tried to suppress an armed secessionist movement, secretly but effectively supported by neighboring Albania, the United States and Germany, which deliberately provoked repression by murdering both Serbs and Albanians loyal to the government. Like the Americans in similar circumstances, Milosevic relied too heavily on military superiority rather than on political skill. But even the NATO-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in The Hague had to abandon any charges of "genocide" against Milosevic in Kosovo. For the simple reason that there was never a shred of evidence for such a charge.
Milosevic is no longer alive, and Russia is far away. But what about the Serbs who still live in the historic part of Serbia called Kosovo? Cohen takes care of that problem in a few words: "Some of the 120,000 Serbs in Kosovo may hit the road."
As Aldous Huxley pointed out, "The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human."
Then you can tell them to "hit the road".
The "Unique" Case
Russia has warned that Kosovo independence will set a dangerous precedent, encouraging other ethnic minorities to follow the example of the Albanians and demand secession and an independent State. The United States has dismissed such concerns by flatly asserting that Kosovo is "unique". Well yes, Kosovo is a unique case, and is the only one recognized by the United States until the next "unique case" comes along. When legal criteria have been thrown out, we just have one "unique case" after another.
The "uniqueness" claimed by the United States is a propaganda construction. It is based on the supposed "uniqueness" of Milosevic's repression of the armed secessionist movement, which was not unique at all. It was standard operating procedure throughout history and the world over, in such circumstances. Deplorable, no doubt, but not unique. It was minor indeed compared to the similar but endless and far bloodier anti-insurgency operations in Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Chechnya, not to mention Northern Ireland, Thailand, the Philippines And unlike the counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which kill incomparably more civilians, it was carried out by the legal, democratically elected government of the country, rather than by a foreign power.
The propaganda "uniqueness" is an abstraction. Like every place on earth, Kosovo is indeed unique. But in ways that have nothing to do with the U.S. pretext for taking it over and turning it into a military outpost of empire.
To know how a place is unique, you have to be interested in it.
I have not visited Kosovo since before the 1999 NATO war. On one occasion, in August 1997, I drove around the province in a failing Skoda, at my own expense, just looking. Driving in Kosovo was a bit risky, partly because of the number of dead dogs in the road, and mostly because of local drivers' habit of passing slower vehicles on hills and curves. In northern Kosovo, just outside the town of Zubin Potok, this habit produced one of its inevitable consequences: a head-on collision with serious casualties, which shut down the two-lane highway for hours while ambulances and police sorted things out.
Unable to proceed toward Pristina, I drove back to Zubin Potok to pass the time on the shaded terrace of a roadside restaurant. I was the only customer, and the lone waiter, a tall, handsome young man named Milomir, gladly accepted my invitation to sit down at my table and chat as I sipped glass after glass of delicious strawberry juice.
Milomir was happy to talk to someone familiar with the French city of Metz, which he had visited as a student and remembered fondly. He loved to read and travel, but in 1991 he got married and now had two small daughters to support. Job prospects were poor, even though he had been to university, so he had no choice but to stay in Zubin Potok. As for Europe, even if he could get a visa (impossible for Serbs anyway), he spoke no language more Western than his mother tongue, Serbo-Croatian. He had studied Russian (he loved the literature) and Albanian as his foreign languages. He learned Albanian in order to be able to communicate with the majority in Kosovo.
But such communication was difficult. Milomir was very much in favor of a bilingual society, and thought everyone in Kosovo should learn both Serbian and Albanian, but unfortunately this was not the case. The younger generation of Albanians refused to speak Serbian and learned English instead.
The town of Zubin Potok was located near the dam on the Ibar River built in the late 1970s to create hydraulic power. Coming from Novi Pazar, I had driven along the 35-kilometer-long artificial lake created by the dam, looking in vain for a nice place to stop. It seemed that there must have been villages along the Ibar River before the dam was built, and I asked Milomir about this. Yes, he said, the artificial lake had flooded a score of old villages, of ethnically mixed, but mostly Serb population. The Albanian Communist authorities in Pristina had resettled the Serbs outside of Kosovo, around the town of Kraljevo. There were about 10,000 of them.
This was a minor example of the administrative measures taken to decrease the Serb population during the period, before Milosevic, when Albanians were running the province through the local Communist League.
Milomir was not complaining, but simply answering my questions. He did not go too often (by bus--he had no car) to the nearest large city, Mitrovica, because he was afraid of being beaten by Albanians. This was just a fact of life, at a time when (according to Western media) Albanians in Kosovo were being terrorized by Serbian repression.
While we were chatting, a friend of his came along and the conversation turned to politics. There was a presidential campaign underway. The two young men wanted to know which candidate I thought would be best for Serbia in the eyes of the world. Milomir was tending toward Vuk Draskovic, and his friend was for Vojislav Kostunica. Neither would dream of voting for either Milosevic or Seselj, the nationalist leader of the Radical Party.
Zubin Potok Today
I have no idea what has become of Milomir, his wife, his two daughters, or his friend. Zubin Potok is the western-most municipality in the heavily Serb-populated north of Kosovo. From the internet I learn that the population of Zubin Potok municipality (including surrounding villages) has nearly doubled since I passed through. It now comes to approximately 14,900, including about 3,000 internally displaced Serbs (from other areas of Kosovo where the Albanian majority has driven them out), 220 Serbian refugees from Croatia and 800 Albanians. The local assembly is overwhelmingly dominated by Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia, but includes two Kosovo Albanian representatives.
Up until now, schools, hospitals, and other public services, as well as the local economy, have continued to function thanks mainly to subsidies from Belgrade. The Albanian declaration of Kosovo independence will create a crisis by demanding an end to such vital subsidies--which, however, an "independent Kosovo" is unable to replace. Moreover, bands of Albanian nationalists are declaring that Zubin Potok "is Albanian" and must be "liberated from the Serbs". They can be seen on You Tube, using the Statue of Liberty as their symbol, and threatening Serbs in Albanian rap.
The European Union is moving in to provide law and order. But the "order" they claim to be protecting is the one defined by the Albanian nationalists. What does that mean to people like Milomir and his little family?
For Roger Cohen, the answer is easy: "hit the road!"
Serbia, by the way, already has the largest number of refugees in Europe, victims of "ethnic cleansing" in Croatia and Kosovo. And Serbs cannot get visas or refugee status in Western Europe. They have been labeled the "bad guys". Only their enemies can be "victims".
Before and After
Kosovo before the NATO war and occupation was, nevertheless, a multiethnic society. The accusation of "apartheid" was simply Albanian propaganda, as the Albanian nationalist leaders chose to use that heavily-charged term to describe their own boycott of Serbs and Serb institutions. Every police action against an Albanian, for whatever reason, whether for suspicion of armed rebellion or for ordinary crime, was described as a "human rights violation" by the Albanian human rights network financed by the United States government.
It was an extraordinary situation that the Serbian and Yugoslav governments allowed an illegal separatist "government of Kosovo", headed by Ibrahim Rugova, to hold shop in the center of Pristina, regularly receiving foreign journalists and regaling them with tales of how oppressed they were by the horrid Serbs.
But the laws were the same for all citizens, there were Albanians in local government and in the police, and if there were cases of police brutality (in what country are there no cases of police brutality?), the Albanians at least had nothing to fear from their Serb neighbors.
Even then, it was the Serbs who were afraid of the Albanians. Only outside Kosovo could anyone seriously believe that it was the Albanians who were under threat of "ethnic cleansing" (much less "genocide"). Such a project was simply, obviously, out of the question. It was the Serbs who were afraid, who spoke of sending their children to safety if they had the means, or who spoke bravely of remaining "no matter what".
Later, in March 1999, when NATO began to bomb Kosovo, Albanians fled by the hundreds of thousands, and their temporary flight from the war theater was presented as the justification for the bombing that caused it. The press did not bother to report on the Serbs and others who also fled the bombing at that time.
In Kosovo, in 1987, in Pristina and Pec, I observed a peculiar sort of group behavior that reminds me only of school playgrounds in Maryland in my childhood. A gang of kids get together and by various signs, body language, and a minimum of words, convey to some outsiders that they are excluded and despised. I have seen Albanians act in this way toward stray Serbs, especially old women. This variety of "mobbing" was not violent in 1987, but turned so after NATO occupied the territory. It was encouraged by the official NATO stamp of approval of Albanian hatred for Serbs, delivered by bombs in the spring of 1999.
Of course, there must have been Serbs who hated Albanians. But in my limited, chance experience, what struck me was the absence of hatred for Albanians among Serbs I met. Fear, yes, but not hatred. A great deal of perplexity. Sister Fotina at the Gracanica monastery had a very Christian explanation. We tried to help the Albanians care for their many children, she said, and yet they turn against us. This must be God's way of punishing us for turning away from Christianity during the time of Communism, she concluded. She blamed her fellow Serbs more than the Albanians.
The divine punishment has not been confined to Christians, however. In the southernmost corner of Kosovo live an ancient population called Gorani (meaning mountain people), who converted to Islam under the Ottoman Empire, like most of the Albanians. But their language is Serbian, and this is unacceptable to the Albanians. Estimates vary, but it is agreed that at least two thirds of the Gorani have left since NATO "liberation". Pressure and intimidation have taken various forms. Albanians have moved into the temporarily vacant homes of Gorani who went to Austria and Germany to earn money for their retirement. The NATO-protected Albanian authorities have found ways to deprive Gorani children of schooling in the Serbian language. In the main Gorani town of Dragash, an Albanian mob attacked the health center and caused health workers to flee. Then, last January 5, a powerful explosion destroyed the bank in Dragash. It was the only Serbian bank still allowed to operate in the south of Kosovo, and served mainly to transfer the pensions that allowed local Gorani to survive.
As usual, the crime went unpunished.
David Binder, who used to report on Yugoslavia for the New York Times, before he was excluded for knowing too much, reported last November * on a long investigation of conditions in Kosovo commissioned by the German Bundeswehr. The existence of this report is proof that the Western governments, while publicly claiming that Kosovo is "ready for independence", know quite well that this is not true. Among other things, Binder reports:
The institute authors, Mathias Jopp and Sammi Sandawi, spent six months interviewing 70 experts and mining current literature on Kosovo in preparing the study. In their analysis the political unrest and guerrilla fighting of the 1990s led to basic changes which they call a "turnabout in Kosovo-Albanian social structures." The result is a "civil war society in which those inclined to violence, ill-educated and easily influenced people could make huge social leaps in a rapidly constructed soldateska."
"It is a Mafia society" based on "capture of the state" by criminal elements.
In the authors' definition, Kosovan organized crime "consists of multimillion-Euro organizations with guerrilla experience and espionage expertise." They quote a German intelligence service report of "closest ties between leading political decision makers and the dominant criminal class" and name Ramush Haradinaj, Hashim Thaci and Xhavit Haliti as compromised leaders who are "internally protected by parliamentary immunity and abroad by international law."
They scornfully quote the UNMIK chief from 2004-2006, Soeren Jessen Petersen, calling Haradinaj "a close and personal friend." The study sharply criticizes the United States for "abetting the escape of criminals" in Kosovo as well as "preventing European investigators from working."
It notes "secret CIA detention centers" at Camp Bondsteel and assails American military training for Kosovo (Albanian) police by Dyncorp, authorized by the Pentagon.
In an aside, it quotes one unidentified official as saying of the American who is deputy chief of UNMIK, "The main task of Steve Schook is to get drunk once a week with Ramush Haradinaj."
Who Goes and Who Stays
Schook has been fired by UNMIK, but UNMIK, the nominally United Nations mission, is being taken over arbitrarily by the European Union. The EU "mission" is a sort of colonial government which, alongside NATO, plans to govern the ungovernable Albanian territory. However, already movements of armed Albanian patriots are planning their next "war of liberation" against the Europeans.
So, after the Serbs, the Roma, the Gorani, will the Europeans have to "hit the road"? Only the Americans seem sure of staying. Ensconced in their gigantic "Camp Bondsteel", they control the strategic routes from Serbia to Greece, and incidentally offer the mass of unemployed Kosovo Albanians their best-paying employment opportunities, notably by taking menial and dangerous jobs serving U.S. forces in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The reality of this shameless land-grab is available to all. I have written about it, Binder has written about it, Szamuely has written about it, many Germans have written about it. The Russians, the Greeks, the Rumanians, the Slovaks and many others know about it. But in the Brave New World Order, it does not exist. People don't know.
I leave the last word to Aldous Huxley:
"Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know."
(* The Binder story can be found at http://www.balkanalysis.com/)
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusion (Monthly Review Press.) She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr
From CounterPunch
Across this last weekend, the Western propaganda machine was working overtime, celebrating the latest NATO miracle: the transformation of Serbian Kosovo into Albanian Kosova. A shameless land grab by the United States, which used the Kosovo problem to install an enormous military base (Camp Bondsteel) on other people's strategically located land, is transformed by the power of the media into an edifying legend of "national liberation".
For the unhappy few who know the complicated truth about Kosovo, the words of Aldous Huxley seem most appropriate: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall drive you mad."
Concerning Kosovo, truth is like letters written in the sand as the tsunami of propaganda comes thundering in. The truth is available--for instance in George Szamuely's thoroughly informative piece last Friday here on CounterPunch. Fragments of the truth sometimes even show up in the mainstream media, mostly in letters from readers. But hopeless as it is to try to turn back the tide of officially endorsed legend, let me examine just one drop in this unstoppable sea of propaganda: a column by Roger Cohen entitled "Europe's new state", published in the Valentine's Day edition of the International Herald Tribune.
Cohen's op ed piece is fairly typical in the dismissive way it deals with Milosevic, Russia and the Serbs. Cohen writes: "Slobodan Milosevic, the late dictator, set Serbia's murderous nationalist tide in motion on April 24, 1987, when he went to Kosovo to declare that Serbian 'ancestors would be defiled' if ethnic Albanians had their way."
I don't know where Roger Cohen got that quotation, but it is not to be found in the speech Milosevic made that day in Kosovo. And certainly, Milosevic did not go to Kosovo to declare any such thing, but to consult with local Communist League officials in the town of Kosovo Polje about the province's serious economic and social problems. Aside from the province's chronic poverty, unemployment, and mismanagement of development funds contributed from the rest of Yugoslavia, the main social problem was the constant exodus of Serb and Montenegrin inhabitants under pressure from ethnic Albanians. At the time, this problem was reported in leading Western media.
For instance, as early as July 12, 1982, Marvine Howe reported to the New York Times that Serbs were leaving Kosovo by the tens of thousands because of discrimination and intimidation on the part of the ethnic Albanian majority:
"The [Albanian] nationalists have a two-point platform," according to Beci Hoti, an executive secretary of the Communist Party of Kosovo, "first to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger with Albania to form a greater Albania.
Mr Hoti, an Albanian, expressed concern voer political pressures that were forcing Serbs to leave Kosovo. "What is important now," he said, "is to establish a climate of security and create confidence."
And seven months after Milosevic's visit to Kosovo, David Binder reported in the New York Times (November 1, 1987):
Ethnic Albanians in the Government [of Kosovo] have manipulated public funds and regulations to take over land belonging to Serbs. Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls.
The goal of the radical nationals among them, one said in an interview, is an "ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself."
As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially strongly since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981--an "ethnically pure" Albanian region
This was in fact the first instance of "ethnic cleansing" in post-World War II Yugoslavia, as reported in The New York Times and other Western media, and the victims were the Serbs. The cult of "memory" has become a contemporary religion, but some memories are more equal than others. In the 1990s, the New York Times evidently forgot completely what it had said about Kosovo in the 1980s. Why? Perhaps because meanwhile, the Soviet bloc had collapsed and the unity of independent, non-aligned Yugoslavia was no longer in the strategic interest of the United States.
Back to Milosevic in Kosovo Polje on April 24, 1987. An incident occurred when local police (under an Albanian-dominated Communist League government) attacked Serbs who had gathered to protest lack of legal protection. Milosevic famously told them, spontaneously: "No one should beat you any more!" If this is "extreme nationalism", perhaps there should be more of it.
But nowhere do I find a trace of the statement attributed to Milosevic by Cohen. In his speech to local party delegates that followed, which is on the public record, Milosevic referred to the "regrettable incident" and promised an investigation. He went on to stress that "we should not allow the misfortunes of people to be exploited by nationalists, whom every honest person must combat. We must not divide people between Serbs and Albanians, but rather we should separate, on the one hand, decent people who struggle for brotherhood, unity and ethnic equality, and, on the other hand, counter-revolutionaries and nationalists."
I turn again to Aldous Huxley for comfort: "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
But Huxley also said: "Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations."
Last Tuesday in Geneva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tried to convey to journalists his grave concern about the way the United States was handling the Kosovo problem.
"We are speaking here about the subversion of all the foundations and principles of international law, which have been won and established as a basis of Europe's existence at huge effort, and at the cost of pain, sacrifice and bloodletting," he said.
"Nobody can offer a clear plan of action in the case of a chain reaction [of further declarations of unilateral independence]. It turns out that they [the United States and its NATO allies] are planning to act in a hit or miss fashion on an issue of paramount importance. This is simply inadmissible and irresponsible," the Russian diplomat said. "I sincerely fail to comprehend the principles guiding our American colleagues, and those Europeans who have taken up this position," he added.
Roger Cohen dismisses such considerations in five words: "the Russian bear will growl". Russia, he adds, "will scream. But it's backed the wrong horse." There are no issues here, no principles. Just growling and gambling. "Milosevic rolled the dice of genocidal nationalism and lost", says Cohen.
This is not only a false statement, it is a grotesquely meaningless metaphor. Milosevic tried to suppress an armed secessionist movement, secretly but effectively supported by neighboring Albania, the United States and Germany, which deliberately provoked repression by murdering both Serbs and Albanians loyal to the government. Like the Americans in similar circumstances, Milosevic relied too heavily on military superiority rather than on political skill. But even the NATO-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in The Hague had to abandon any charges of "genocide" against Milosevic in Kosovo. For the simple reason that there was never a shred of evidence for such a charge.
Milosevic is no longer alive, and Russia is far away. But what about the Serbs who still live in the historic part of Serbia called Kosovo? Cohen takes care of that problem in a few words: "Some of the 120,000 Serbs in Kosovo may hit the road."
As Aldous Huxley pointed out, "The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human."
Then you can tell them to "hit the road".
The "Unique" Case
Russia has warned that Kosovo independence will set a dangerous precedent, encouraging other ethnic minorities to follow the example of the Albanians and demand secession and an independent State. The United States has dismissed such concerns by flatly asserting that Kosovo is "unique". Well yes, Kosovo is a unique case, and is the only one recognized by the United States until the next "unique case" comes along. When legal criteria have been thrown out, we just have one "unique case" after another.
The "uniqueness" claimed by the United States is a propaganda construction. It is based on the supposed "uniqueness" of Milosevic's repression of the armed secessionist movement, which was not unique at all. It was standard operating procedure throughout history and the world over, in such circumstances. Deplorable, no doubt, but not unique. It was minor indeed compared to the similar but endless and far bloodier anti-insurgency operations in Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Chechnya, not to mention Northern Ireland, Thailand, the Philippines And unlike the counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which kill incomparably more civilians, it was carried out by the legal, democratically elected government of the country, rather than by a foreign power.
The propaganda "uniqueness" is an abstraction. Like every place on earth, Kosovo is indeed unique. But in ways that have nothing to do with the U.S. pretext for taking it over and turning it into a military outpost of empire.
To know how a place is unique, you have to be interested in it.
I have not visited Kosovo since before the 1999 NATO war. On one occasion, in August 1997, I drove around the province in a failing Skoda, at my own expense, just looking. Driving in Kosovo was a bit risky, partly because of the number of dead dogs in the road, and mostly because of local drivers' habit of passing slower vehicles on hills and curves. In northern Kosovo, just outside the town of Zubin Potok, this habit produced one of its inevitable consequences: a head-on collision with serious casualties, which shut down the two-lane highway for hours while ambulances and police sorted things out.
Unable to proceed toward Pristina, I drove back to Zubin Potok to pass the time on the shaded terrace of a roadside restaurant. I was the only customer, and the lone waiter, a tall, handsome young man named Milomir, gladly accepted my invitation to sit down at my table and chat as I sipped glass after glass of delicious strawberry juice.
Milomir was happy to talk to someone familiar with the French city of Metz, which he had visited as a student and remembered fondly. He loved to read and travel, but in 1991 he got married and now had two small daughters to support. Job prospects were poor, even though he had been to university, so he had no choice but to stay in Zubin Potok. As for Europe, even if he could get a visa (impossible for Serbs anyway), he spoke no language more Western than his mother tongue, Serbo-Croatian. He had studied Russian (he loved the literature) and Albanian as his foreign languages. He learned Albanian in order to be able to communicate with the majority in Kosovo.
But such communication was difficult. Milomir was very much in favor of a bilingual society, and thought everyone in Kosovo should learn both Serbian and Albanian, but unfortunately this was not the case. The younger generation of Albanians refused to speak Serbian and learned English instead.
The town of Zubin Potok was located near the dam on the Ibar River built in the late 1970s to create hydraulic power. Coming from Novi Pazar, I had driven along the 35-kilometer-long artificial lake created by the dam, looking in vain for a nice place to stop. It seemed that there must have been villages along the Ibar River before the dam was built, and I asked Milomir about this. Yes, he said, the artificial lake had flooded a score of old villages, of ethnically mixed, but mostly Serb population. The Albanian Communist authorities in Pristina had resettled the Serbs outside of Kosovo, around the town of Kraljevo. There were about 10,000 of them.
This was a minor example of the administrative measures taken to decrease the Serb population during the period, before Milosevic, when Albanians were running the province through the local Communist League.
Milomir was not complaining, but simply answering my questions. He did not go too often (by bus--he had no car) to the nearest large city, Mitrovica, because he was afraid of being beaten by Albanians. This was just a fact of life, at a time when (according to Western media) Albanians in Kosovo were being terrorized by Serbian repression.
While we were chatting, a friend of his came along and the conversation turned to politics. There was a presidential campaign underway. The two young men wanted to know which candidate I thought would be best for Serbia in the eyes of the world. Milomir was tending toward Vuk Draskovic, and his friend was for Vojislav Kostunica. Neither would dream of voting for either Milosevic or Seselj, the nationalist leader of the Radical Party.
Zubin Potok Today
I have no idea what has become of Milomir, his wife, his two daughters, or his friend. Zubin Potok is the western-most municipality in the heavily Serb-populated north of Kosovo. From the internet I learn that the population of Zubin Potok municipality (including surrounding villages) has nearly doubled since I passed through. It now comes to approximately 14,900, including about 3,000 internally displaced Serbs (from other areas of Kosovo where the Albanian majority has driven them out), 220 Serbian refugees from Croatia and 800 Albanians. The local assembly is overwhelmingly dominated by Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia, but includes two Kosovo Albanian representatives.
Up until now, schools, hospitals, and other public services, as well as the local economy, have continued to function thanks mainly to subsidies from Belgrade. The Albanian declaration of Kosovo independence will create a crisis by demanding an end to such vital subsidies--which, however, an "independent Kosovo" is unable to replace. Moreover, bands of Albanian nationalists are declaring that Zubin Potok "is Albanian" and must be "liberated from the Serbs". They can be seen on You Tube, using the Statue of Liberty as their symbol, and threatening Serbs in Albanian rap.
The European Union is moving in to provide law and order. But the "order" they claim to be protecting is the one defined by the Albanian nationalists. What does that mean to people like Milomir and his little family?
For Roger Cohen, the answer is easy: "hit the road!"
Serbia, by the way, already has the largest number of refugees in Europe, victims of "ethnic cleansing" in Croatia and Kosovo. And Serbs cannot get visas or refugee status in Western Europe. They have been labeled the "bad guys". Only their enemies can be "victims".
Before and After
Kosovo before the NATO war and occupation was, nevertheless, a multiethnic society. The accusation of "apartheid" was simply Albanian propaganda, as the Albanian nationalist leaders chose to use that heavily-charged term to describe their own boycott of Serbs and Serb institutions. Every police action against an Albanian, for whatever reason, whether for suspicion of armed rebellion or for ordinary crime, was described as a "human rights violation" by the Albanian human rights network financed by the United States government.
It was an extraordinary situation that the Serbian and Yugoslav governments allowed an illegal separatist "government of Kosovo", headed by Ibrahim Rugova, to hold shop in the center of Pristina, regularly receiving foreign journalists and regaling them with tales of how oppressed they were by the horrid Serbs.
But the laws were the same for all citizens, there were Albanians in local government and in the police, and if there were cases of police brutality (in what country are there no cases of police brutality?), the Albanians at least had nothing to fear from their Serb neighbors.
Even then, it was the Serbs who were afraid of the Albanians. Only outside Kosovo could anyone seriously believe that it was the Albanians who were under threat of "ethnic cleansing" (much less "genocide"). Such a project was simply, obviously, out of the question. It was the Serbs who were afraid, who spoke of sending their children to safety if they had the means, or who spoke bravely of remaining "no matter what".
Later, in March 1999, when NATO began to bomb Kosovo, Albanians fled by the hundreds of thousands, and their temporary flight from the war theater was presented as the justification for the bombing that caused it. The press did not bother to report on the Serbs and others who also fled the bombing at that time.
In Kosovo, in 1987, in Pristina and Pec, I observed a peculiar sort of group behavior that reminds me only of school playgrounds in Maryland in my childhood. A gang of kids get together and by various signs, body language, and a minimum of words, convey to some outsiders that they are excluded and despised. I have seen Albanians act in this way toward stray Serbs, especially old women. This variety of "mobbing" was not violent in 1987, but turned so after NATO occupied the territory. It was encouraged by the official NATO stamp of approval of Albanian hatred for Serbs, delivered by bombs in the spring of 1999.
Of course, there must have been Serbs who hated Albanians. But in my limited, chance experience, what struck me was the absence of hatred for Albanians among Serbs I met. Fear, yes, but not hatred. A great deal of perplexity. Sister Fotina at the Gracanica monastery had a very Christian explanation. We tried to help the Albanians care for their many children, she said, and yet they turn against us. This must be God's way of punishing us for turning away from Christianity during the time of Communism, she concluded. She blamed her fellow Serbs more than the Albanians.
The divine punishment has not been confined to Christians, however. In the southernmost corner of Kosovo live an ancient population called Gorani (meaning mountain people), who converted to Islam under the Ottoman Empire, like most of the Albanians. But their language is Serbian, and this is unacceptable to the Albanians. Estimates vary, but it is agreed that at least two thirds of the Gorani have left since NATO "liberation". Pressure and intimidation have taken various forms. Albanians have moved into the temporarily vacant homes of Gorani who went to Austria and Germany to earn money for their retirement. The NATO-protected Albanian authorities have found ways to deprive Gorani children of schooling in the Serbian language. In the main Gorani town of Dragash, an Albanian mob attacked the health center and caused health workers to flee. Then, last January 5, a powerful explosion destroyed the bank in Dragash. It was the only Serbian bank still allowed to operate in the south of Kosovo, and served mainly to transfer the pensions that allowed local Gorani to survive.
As usual, the crime went unpunished.
David Binder, who used to report on Yugoslavia for the New York Times, before he was excluded for knowing too much, reported last November * on a long investigation of conditions in Kosovo commissioned by the German Bundeswehr. The existence of this report is proof that the Western governments, while publicly claiming that Kosovo is "ready for independence", know quite well that this is not true. Among other things, Binder reports:
The institute authors, Mathias Jopp and Sammi Sandawi, spent six months interviewing 70 experts and mining current literature on Kosovo in preparing the study. In their analysis the political unrest and guerrilla fighting of the 1990s led to basic changes which they call a "turnabout in Kosovo-Albanian social structures." The result is a "civil war society in which those inclined to violence, ill-educated and easily influenced people could make huge social leaps in a rapidly constructed soldateska."
"It is a Mafia society" based on "capture of the state" by criminal elements.
In the authors' definition, Kosovan organized crime "consists of multimillion-Euro organizations with guerrilla experience and espionage expertise." They quote a German intelligence service report of "closest ties between leading political decision makers and the dominant criminal class" and name Ramush Haradinaj, Hashim Thaci and Xhavit Haliti as compromised leaders who are "internally protected by parliamentary immunity and abroad by international law."
They scornfully quote the UNMIK chief from 2004-2006, Soeren Jessen Petersen, calling Haradinaj "a close and personal friend." The study sharply criticizes the United States for "abetting the escape of criminals" in Kosovo as well as "preventing European investigators from working."
It notes "secret CIA detention centers" at Camp Bondsteel and assails American military training for Kosovo (Albanian) police by Dyncorp, authorized by the Pentagon.
In an aside, it quotes one unidentified official as saying of the American who is deputy chief of UNMIK, "The main task of Steve Schook is to get drunk once a week with Ramush Haradinaj."
Who Goes and Who Stays
Schook has been fired by UNMIK, but UNMIK, the nominally United Nations mission, is being taken over arbitrarily by the European Union. The EU "mission" is a sort of colonial government which, alongside NATO, plans to govern the ungovernable Albanian territory. However, already movements of armed Albanian patriots are planning their next "war of liberation" against the Europeans.
So, after the Serbs, the Roma, the Gorani, will the Europeans have to "hit the road"? Only the Americans seem sure of staying. Ensconced in their gigantic "Camp Bondsteel", they control the strategic routes from Serbia to Greece, and incidentally offer the mass of unemployed Kosovo Albanians their best-paying employment opportunities, notably by taking menial and dangerous jobs serving U.S. forces in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The reality of this shameless land-grab is available to all. I have written about it, Binder has written about it, Szamuely has written about it, many Germans have written about it. The Russians, the Greeks, the Rumanians, the Slovaks and many others know about it. But in the Brave New World Order, it does not exist. People don't know.
I leave the last word to Aldous Huxley:
"Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know."
(* The Binder story can be found at http://www.balkanalysis.com/)
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusion (Monthly Review Press.) She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr
Video of Protests on the Belgrade Streets
Thousands of Serbs took to the streets of the capital Belgrade to voice their protest against Kosovo's newly proclaimed "independence". The core of the demonstration was students from Belgrade University's law school. These students are planning, after a nationwide protest on Thursday, to travel to the Serbian town of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo - to stage a massive rally there on Friday.
Massive Demonstrations in Belgrade
Belgrade in Flames Around 4 p.m. on Sunday, after the Kosovo Albanian war criminal Hashim Thaci declared unilateral independence of the southern Serbian province of Kosovo-Metohija, the violent riots broke out throughout Serbia proper, including the capital Belgrade, and lasted until midnight.
American and Slovenian embassy were the main targets of the enraged citizens. Carrying Serbian flags and chanting "Kosovo is Serbia", "We won't give up Kosovo", the protesters broke the windows on both buildings and threw the torches inside. Police cordon in front of Slovenian embassy was broken and the demonstrators ransacked the building, tearing and burning the furniture and Slovenian and EU flags displayed on the balcony. In front of the U.S. embassy, the cars with diplomatic licenses were demolished and stones and lit flares were flying toward the embassy building..... BSA
B92: Over 60 injured, Slovenian embassy ransacked
| 7 February 2008 | 18:37 -> 23:20 | Source: B92, Tanjug |
| BELGRADE -- At least 30 policemen and 30 civilians were injured as protesters demonstrated against U.S. and EU Kosovo policy.... B92 |
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Albania, Saudi Arabia first to recognize Kosovo?
BRUSSELS, KOSOVSKA MITROVICA -- Beta says an analysis shows Kosovo's unilateral declaration will first be recognized by some Islamic countries.
The news agency has had insight into the document, put together "by some EU countries", that says the province's independence declaration, rejected by Serbia, will be recognized in "three waves".
Albania, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and some other Muslim countries will lead the way, the report says.
This will be followed by Austria, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and, the document speculates, France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy.
The United States is also likely to recognize Kosovo very soon.
The "second wave" is said to include Croatia and Macedonia.
Others will be careful and wait to see how the situation develops, bearing in mind the precedent such recognition sets.
Russia, China, Cyprus, and a number of EU countries that were earlier reported as opposed to the recognition, that include Romania, Bulgaria, Spain, Slovakia and Greece, will not recognize Kosovo.
The presence of the first two countries on that list also means that the province cannot count on a UN seat, or membership in a number of other international organizations where Russia has the veto power.
Bosnia-Herzegovina's recognition will be made impossible by the Republic of Srpska's objection, the study concluded, and added that countries such as India, Brazil and Argentina are also "very critical" toward the possibility of recognizing Kosovo as a separate country.
Meanwhile, Dušan Janjić, who heads the Forum for Ethnic Relations, said that "independence of Kosovo and Metohija, which the United Nations will not recognize, will have only political and psychological weight at first," while "only later will it become evident that it is not what the Kosovo Albanians had expected."
In a live broadcast by the Kosovska Mitrovica radio Kontakt Plus, Janjić said late Saturday that the self-proclaimed independence "will not bring full freedom, better life, while new passports will not enable them to travel everywhere."
"Around 40 countries will recognize them, which is fewer than the number of countries that recognize passports issued by UNMIK today. That will be the beginning of a dangerous phase, which is when the Albanians will realize that it is not what they had been promised for the past 20 years. That will open room for extremists," cautioned Janjić.
The news agency has had insight into the document, put together "by some EU countries", that says the province's independence declaration, rejected by Serbia, will be recognized in "three waves".
Albania, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and some other Muslim countries will lead the way, the report says.
This will be followed by Austria, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and, the document speculates, France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy.
The United States is also likely to recognize Kosovo very soon.
The "second wave" is said to include Croatia and Macedonia.
Others will be careful and wait to see how the situation develops, bearing in mind the precedent such recognition sets.
Russia, China, Cyprus, and a number of EU countries that were earlier reported as opposed to the recognition, that include Romania, Bulgaria, Spain, Slovakia and Greece, will not recognize Kosovo.
The presence of the first two countries on that list also means that the province cannot count on a UN seat, or membership in a number of other international organizations where Russia has the veto power.
Bosnia-Herzegovina's recognition will be made impossible by the Republic of Srpska's objection, the study concluded, and added that countries such as India, Brazil and Argentina are also "very critical" toward the possibility of recognizing Kosovo as a separate country.
Meanwhile, Dušan Janjić, who heads the Forum for Ethnic Relations, said that "independence of Kosovo and Metohija, which the United Nations will not recognize, will have only political and psychological weight at first," while "only later will it become evident that it is not what the Kosovo Albanians had expected."
In a live broadcast by the Kosovska Mitrovica radio Kontakt Plus, Janjić said late Saturday that the self-proclaimed independence "will not bring full freedom, better life, while new passports will not enable them to travel everywhere."
"Around 40 countries will recognize them, which is fewer than the number of countries that recognize passports issued by UNMIK today. That will be the beginning of a dangerous phase, which is when the Albanians will realize that it is not what they had been promised for the past 20 years. That will open room for extremists," cautioned Janjić.
Russia denounces Kosovo declaration
Russia denounced Kosovo's independence declaration Sunday and called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, warning that move threatened to ignite a new conflict in the Balkans.
The Foreign Ministry, lashing out within minutes of the declaration, said Russia supports Serbia's "just demands to restore the country's territorial integrity." It said nations backing Kosovo's claim were supporting separatism and would shake "the foundations of a world order that has developed over decades."
Kosovo's parliament approved the declaration of independence from Serbia, backed by the U.S. and European allies. Kosovo had formally remained a part of Serbia even though it has been administered by the U.N. and NATO since 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.
Russia claimed the declaration violates the U.N. Charter ensuring the territorial integrity of member nations and threatens "the escalation of tension and ethnic violence in the region, a new conflict in the Balkans."
The ministry called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, where Russia holds veto power as a permanent member. The Council planned to meet later on Sunday.
Russia wants the council to renew efforts — long-since pronounced dead by the U.S. and other Western nations — to reach a negotiated settlement of Kosovo's status.
Russia has stressed its opposition to any decision on Kosovo's status that is not accepted by Serbia. It has warned that recognition of Kosovo by the United States and other nations would encourage separatists in the former Soviet Union, across Europe and around the world.
Underscoring Russia's claim that Kosovo's declaration violates an existing Security Council resolution on Kosovo, the ministry urged the U.N. mission and NATO forces there to carry out their mandate by "annulling the decisions of the Pristina government organs and taking severe administrative measures against them."
Russia is widely expected to block recognition of Kosovo in the United Nations and continue backing traditional ally Serbia.
President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia would not "ape" the West, indicating it would not immediately recognize long-standing independence claims of pro-Russian separatist regions in ex-Soviet Georgia.
The Interfax news agency quoted the leaders of those regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as saying they would soon appeal to Russia and the United Nations for recognition.
"We believe that we have a greater right to recognition of our independence by the international community than Kosovo does," Irina Gagloyeva, spokeswoman for South Ossetia's separatist government, told The Associated Press. "It will now be harder for the West to ignore our demands."
Abkhazia's Vice-President Raul Khadzhimba, also reached by the AP, said his province would step up efforts to win recognition — "first of all from Russia." Neither Gagloyeva nor Khadzhimba would confirm plans for any formal appeals, however.
Putin has built his popularity on restoring Russia's pride after a period of post-Soviet humiliation, and Moscow's firm stance on Kosovo comes amid growing Kremlin assertiveness toward the West.
Putin has held out backing for Kosovo as a glaring example of double-standards and dangerous disregard for international law.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
B92: Cabinet ministers travel to Kosovo tomorrow
BELGRADE, KOSOVSKA MITROVICA -- Deputy Prime Minister Božidar Đelić, cabinet ministers and their assistants will be in Kosovo Sunday.
The Serbian state officials will be in the province as its ethnic Albanian leadership announces its secession, and unilaterally declares Kosovo's independence, reports say.
Serbia is set to reject this decision as illegal and intends to counter it with its Action Plan.
Beta news agency today says that the ministers will be joined by a number of Serbian lawmakers, and representatives from the Serb parties in Montenegro.
Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardžić confirmed that he and his ministry's state secretary, Dušan Proroković, will hold a news conference in Kosovska Mitrovica at 13:00 CET Sunday.
And while Samardžić and a number of others will be in the Serb-inhabited north of the province, Đelić and Education Minister Zoran Lončar will travel to the most isolated Serb enclave of Štrpce.
Minister for Energy and Mining Aleksandar Popović will be in Ranilug, while Infrastructure Minister Velimir Ilić travels to Gračanica.
At the same time, the state secretary with his ministry, Brako Jocić, will visit Velika Hoča and Orahovac.
Minister for Trade and Services Predrag Bubalo travels to Osojane, near Istok, Minister of Religion Radomir Naumov will be in Goraždevac, while MUP's state secretary, Mirjana Orašanin, will visit Novo Brdo.
Their visit, apart from affirming Belgrade's rejection of Kosovo's independence, is a show of support to the province's Serbs, who, outside the northern areas where they are a majority, live in isolated enclaves under NATO protection, where they in the past often came under attack from Kosovo's Albanians.
Serbia's Kosovo Action Plan, still off bounds for the general public, is said to contain measures that will strengthen Belgrade's institutional presence in the Serb-majority areas.
The Serbs' political leaders today called for calm and asked them not to fall victim of provocations, Beta reported.
The Democratic Party (DS) provincial board chairman and Serbian MP Goran Bogdanović said that "Serbs will remain in Kosovo, to guard their homes, their property and their holy places".
Belgrade will do all it can to cooperate with the international community and ensure safety for the Serb community in the province, Bogdanović added.
Serb National Council of Northern Kosovo and Metohija (SNV) President Milan Ivanović told his compatriots to "gather around our institutions, through which we will achieve our interests, and completely ignore the EU mission to Kosovo, which will be utterly illegal."
"We must stay together, there will be no destabilization of the security situation. I can say this in just one sentence: 'Stay here, this is our sky, this is our state of Serbia," Ivanović was quoted.
Meanwhile, Beta's journalists were in Kosovska Mitrovica and Gračanica, where the day today seems a typical Saturday, they said.
However, the residents of the two towns say they are worried about the announced unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence, scheduled for tomorrow, but add that they already experienced the same atmosphere once, in 1990.
What hurts Kosovo Serbs the most are announcements that some countries may move to recognize such independence proclamation, and their bitterness is directed toward the representatives of those countries in KFOR, UNMIK and OSCE, the agency says.
The Serbs also say they do not trust the ethnic Albanian leadership's messages that their safety will be ensured and that the violence against the province's Serbs that took place after 1999, particularly in 2004, forcing nearly 200,000 to flee their homes, will not happen again.
Instead, the Kosovo Serbs look to Belgrade, soaking up messages that their country will not leave them, and that this part of its territory will not be forsaken, at the same time rejecting any decisions taken by the assembly in Priština.
Official local assembly meetings in the last few days, which had massive attendance of citizens, held in Zvečan, Zubin Potok, Leposavić and Kosovska Mitrovica, sent out messages that Serbs will not move out, but will instead work together to defend their homes and their province.
Protests have also been scheduled in Kosovska Mitrovica, Gračanica, Štrpce and Ranilug.
But those Serbs that spoke to Beta saved the harshest words for those few of their own which are taking part in the province's temporary institutions, branding them "traitors".
There are also fears that the Albanians, using the euphoria after their leaders declare Kosovo's independence, might try to attack the so-called parallel institutions in the Serb areas, established in 1999, and financed from the state budget, that include healthcare and education institutions, and post offices.
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| The Serbian Orthodox heritage in Kosovo is protected by NATO (Beta, archive) |
Serbia is set to reject this decision as illegal and intends to counter it with its Action Plan.
Beta news agency today says that the ministers will be joined by a number of Serbian lawmakers, and representatives from the Serb parties in Montenegro.
Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardžić confirmed that he and his ministry's state secretary, Dušan Proroković, will hold a news conference in Kosovska Mitrovica at 13:00 CET Sunday.
And while Samardžić and a number of others will be in the Serb-inhabited north of the province, Đelić and Education Minister Zoran Lončar will travel to the most isolated Serb enclave of Štrpce.
Minister for Energy and Mining Aleksandar Popović will be in Ranilug, while Infrastructure Minister Velimir Ilić travels to Gračanica.
At the same time, the state secretary with his ministry, Brako Jocić, will visit Velika Hoča and Orahovac.
Minister for Trade and Services Predrag Bubalo travels to Osojane, near Istok, Minister of Religion Radomir Naumov will be in Goraždevac, while MUP's state secretary, Mirjana Orašanin, will visit Novo Brdo.
Their visit, apart from affirming Belgrade's rejection of Kosovo's independence, is a show of support to the province's Serbs, who, outside the northern areas where they are a majority, live in isolated enclaves under NATO protection, where they in the past often came under attack from Kosovo's Albanians.
Serbia's Kosovo Action Plan, still off bounds for the general public, is said to contain measures that will strengthen Belgrade's institutional presence in the Serb-majority areas.
The Serbs' political leaders today called for calm and asked them not to fall victim of provocations, Beta reported.
The Democratic Party (DS) provincial board chairman and Serbian MP Goran Bogdanović said that "Serbs will remain in Kosovo, to guard their homes, their property and their holy places".
Belgrade will do all it can to cooperate with the international community and ensure safety for the Serb community in the province, Bogdanović added.
Serb National Council of Northern Kosovo and Metohija (SNV) President Milan Ivanović told his compatriots to "gather around our institutions, through which we will achieve our interests, and completely ignore the EU mission to Kosovo, which will be utterly illegal."
"We must stay together, there will be no destabilization of the security situation. I can say this in just one sentence: 'Stay here, this is our sky, this is our state of Serbia," Ivanović was quoted.
Meanwhile, Beta's journalists were in Kosovska Mitrovica and Gračanica, where the day today seems a typical Saturday, they said.
However, the residents of the two towns say they are worried about the announced unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence, scheduled for tomorrow, but add that they already experienced the same atmosphere once, in 1990.
What hurts Kosovo Serbs the most are announcements that some countries may move to recognize such independence proclamation, and their bitterness is directed toward the representatives of those countries in KFOR, UNMIK and OSCE, the agency says.
The Serbs also say they do not trust the ethnic Albanian leadership's messages that their safety will be ensured and that the violence against the province's Serbs that took place after 1999, particularly in 2004, forcing nearly 200,000 to flee their homes, will not happen again.
Instead, the Kosovo Serbs look to Belgrade, soaking up messages that their country will not leave them, and that this part of its territory will not be forsaken, at the same time rejecting any decisions taken by the assembly in Priština.
Official local assembly meetings in the last few days, which had massive attendance of citizens, held in Zvečan, Zubin Potok, Leposavić and Kosovska Mitrovica, sent out messages that Serbs will not move out, but will instead work together to defend their homes and their province.
Protests have also been scheduled in Kosovska Mitrovica, Gračanica, Štrpce and Ranilug.
But those Serbs that spoke to Beta saved the harshest words for those few of their own which are taking part in the province's temporary institutions, branding them "traitors".
There are also fears that the Albanians, using the euphoria after their leaders declare Kosovo's independence, might try to attack the so-called parallel institutions in the Serb areas, established in 1999, and financed from the state budget, that include healthcare and education institutions, and post offices.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Top political analysts on Lavrov’s ‘end of Europe’ Kosovo warning
15/02/2008 15:58
MOSCOW, February 15 (RIA Novosti) - RIA Novosti asked a number of top political analysts / experts to comment on the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has said that Kosovo's independence could be the beginning of the end for Europe, and that official recognition of its sovereignty will threaten global security.
What, we asked, will be the geopolitical consequences of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence?
Alexander Rahr, a political analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Valdai International Discussion Club, said:
Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence, and especially its recognition by European countries, would open up Pandora's Box. It may create a precedent for other separatist republics and autonomous regions, which would demand similar action and the same rights that may be granted to Kosovars.
Lavrov has a legal point. Basques may demand secession from Spain, Tiroleans could secede from Italy and Hungarians from Romania. North Caucasians may demand secession from Russia, and Bavaria may insist on independence from the Federal Republic of Germany.
But the West thinks that Lavrov is dramatizing the situation, because separatism mostly stems from economic problems, while Europe hopes that its economy is strong and stable enough not to give rise to separatism.
But the threat does exist, and Lavrov's words, which are not considered important today, could become significant a few years from now.
John Laughland, co-author of the book ‘Russia: The New Cold War?' and a member of the Valdai International Discussion Club, said:
As you know, I support the Russian position on Kosovo because it has the merit of coherence, whereas the West's position is inconsistent and self-contradictory. The West (EU + US) supports the independence of Kosovo but opposes the independence of Flanders, Northern Cyprus, of Republika Srpska in Bosnia, of Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia etc. The West also opposes the division of Kosovo, whereas only Serbs live North of Mitrovica. Independence for Kosovo will stimulate similar calls for independence in Western Macedonia and the Presevo valley. It may indirectly cause unrest in the Caucasus too.
Moreover, Kosovo will not actually be independent. The EU will take over from the UN its protectorate functions. Elaborate plans have been made for sending thousands of EU officials and police to "post-status" Kosovo, while the 16,000 NATO troops will remain. Kosovo would have had more real independence within Serbia than it has had under the UN or will have in Europe.
Lavrov is right to say that the independence of Kosovo will be the beginning of the end of today's Europe because the current status of Kosovo is fixed by a UN Security Council Resolution (1244). If the EU and the US override that resolution, which says Kosovo is part of Serbia, they will have once again demonstrated their contempt for international law and shown themselves to be unreliable international partners.
Kosovo resembles Bosnia in the period 1878 - 1914. In 1878, the Treaty of Berlin put Bosnia under provisional Austrian administration while stipulating that it remained part of the Ottoman empire. In 1908, Austria violated the terms of the Treaty and annexed the territory directly. Serbia protested, but in vain. Ten years later the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serb patriot in Sarajevo. The rest, as they say, is history.
Jan Carnogursky, prime minister of Slovakia in 1991 and 1992, an expert on Kosovo and a member of the Valdai International Discussion Club, said:
The recognition of Kosovo's independence would be a tragedy for Serbs, for whom Kosovo is a foundation and an inalienable part of their national history.
The Serbian state was born in Kosovo and adjacent territories in the 9th and 10th centuries. Serbian orthodoxy is also rooted there, since St. Savva, the most revered saint in Serbia, founded many monasteries in Kosovo in the early 13th century. The province was also the core of the Serbian state during its prime in the mid-14th century.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Kosovo's independence could be the beginning of the end for Europe. This is a dramatic, although essentially correct, view of the problem.
Moscow has never approved of the Western policy toward Kosovo and former Yugoslavia as a whole. Although it played a key role in stopping the war in 1999, Russia was the only member of the Contact Group that was not assigned its own sector of responsibility in the province. When the Russian paratroopers made their march to Pristina in June 1999, Serbs were jubilant, because they have always viewed Russia's presence as the best guarantee of their rights.
Unfortunately, developments in Kosovo show that geopolitics can easily defeat moral and legal principles in the 21st century. The secession of Kosovo from Serbia without the agreement of Belgrade would create a precedent for Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdnestr and give Moscow a moral right to recognize the independence of post-Soviet breakaway republics.
Daniel Vernet, director of the international relations desk at Le Monde and a member of the Valdai International Discussion Club in 2004, said:
I think [Lavrov's] words are too dramatic. The decision on Kosovo's independence is far from ideal; but given the current situation, it is the lesser of many evils. If I remember correctly, it is the policy that [Slobodan] Milosevic pursued since 1989 that is to blame for the current situation.
As for geopolitical consequences, I don't think anyone would benefit from using Kosovo's independence as a pretext for destabilization in the Balkans or adjacent European regions. I think that common sense will dominate and the international consequences of Kosovo's independence will be minimal.
James George Jatras, director of the American Council for Kosovo, said:
It appears that within days the UN-supervised Albanian Muslim administration in Kosovo will issue a unilateral declaration of independence followed by recognition by the United States and other countries. Serbia of course will reject such a development, as will Russia, and almost certainly China, whose vetoes in the Security Council the US would have circumvented.
It still seems underappreciated the extent to which the US action would shred any semblance of legality in the international system. It may be the first time a group of countries has purported to separate part of a state's territory without its concession of that fact. (To be sure, many countries have been defeated and occupied and forced to sign treaties ceding land. Even Edvard Benes signed away the Sudetenland in 1938. No Serbian hand will ever sign away Kosovo). International guarantees of territorial integrity such as the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act would be a dead letter.
The US action is also a heavy blow to perhaps the only part of the UN system with any real value: the Security Council, which has helped prevent any major war since 1945, much like the 19th century "Concert of Powers" helped ensure that no general war occurred in Europe from 1815 to 1914. Indeed, devaluing Russia's standing in the Security Council by thwarting its veto is a big "plus" for Washington, whose message to Moscow is intended to be: "Whatever you might think, this is still 1999. We can do as we please and you can't stop us."
The US action -- supported by our utterly slavish "allies" in Europe - will not settle Kosovo's status. Kosovo's current status is clear: it is part of Serbia with an international presence to which Serbia has reluctantly agreed. After a unilateral declaration of independence and some countries' recognition, a competition would be kicked off between recognizing and non-recognizing states. Despite Washington's absurd claim that Kosovo would not set a precedent, a government of any multiethnic state would recognize Kosovo at its peril. Kosovo would never become a member of the UN.
Serbia would recover control of the northern area of Kosovo and perhaps some of the enclaves. This would not be a prelude to partition, however, but the liberation of part of what then would be the illegal occupation of part of Serbia by an illegitimate, criminal, separatist regime in Pristina supported by aggressive foreign powers. It would be up to the Albanians and their supporters to decide whether to kick off a new cycle of violence by attacking the Serbs, who would live in fear that the remaining third of their pre-war population would be eradicated and the rest of their churches destroyed.
The Albanian-controlled areas of Kosovo would sink even deeper into the black hole of organized crime (drugs, slaves, arms) and jihad terror under a "government" composed of war criminals and kingpins in the Albanian Mafia. Far from stabilizing the western Balkans, instability would be perpetuated by alienation of Serbia, the only country of any consequence in the region.
Altogether, we are looking at the perfect "train wreck," as even proponents of independence are calling it: shattering the international legal system, US-Russia confrontation, violence on the ground, criminality, human rights violations, and a new frozen conflict. Who could ask for more?
Julia Gorin: Pre-9/11 Kosovo Redux This Weekend, Final Warning to Conservative Media and Blogosphere
The next war is begun, as this February 2nd report shows:
Subject: NO Kosovo Independence!
Kosovo police block two Serb villages
KPS [Kosovo Police Service/former KLA] and KFOR withdrew around midnight Friday from the vicinity of Serb villages of Ranilug and Korminjane, near Gnjilane. The Kosovo villages were cordoned off….Some 5,000 residents were not told why their villages and the Gnjilane - Bujanovac road were isolated for several hours. Kosovo police, KPS, spokesman in Gnjilane Ismet Hisseni did not disclose any details on the operation, describing it as “routine control for security reasons.”
Just to spell this out: We are post-9/11, and our government is about to engage the United States military against European Christians who don’t want to live under Muslim rule. We are once again on the brink of using military force against a Christian nation in order to create a Muslim state in Europe, as February 17th looms. That is the date Albanians have chosen to unilaterally declare independence, outside of international law and with full U.S. backing.
It is worth reminding the conservative blogosphere, which has chosen to ignore the region entirely or, alternately, bolster the jihadist pro-independence p0sition, that they are helping implement a Clinton-era policy, supported and co-financed by George Soros, and pursued from a pre-9/11 mindset. My fellow conservatives, you do not defend America or American policy when you support our pro-independence policy in Kosovo; you support Hillary and Bill Clinton, George Soros, and Osama bin Laden, who co-financed and co-trained the KLA troops that we and Germany co-financed and co-trained.
Then again, conservatives easily forgot that the Soros-funded John McCain has acted as a traitor to the pro-American Republican Party from the moment he didn’t get the nomination in 2000, and have now allowed him to become the favored presidential nominee. Incidentally, this candidate was paid with Albanian money to be an early and chief architect of the Soros-financed, Clinton-era and now State Department-led policy in Kosovo. Good going, Republicans.
It is a rare thing to meet someone among the remaining 100,000 Christians of Kosovo who hasn’t had a close relative or friend slaughtered by the Albanian “non-Islamic” Muslims since our intervention, the selfsame Muslims we’re gifting Serbian territory to. While Serbia and Russia fight to ensure these remaining Christians don’t have to live under Albanian-Muslim rule — either by partitioning the province, or by fighting the Albanians to keep the province within Serbia — the U.S. and its NATO allies will fight Serbia and Russia to make sure that Europe’s newest, U.S.-created Muslim state gets all the territory it demands.
Know this: There is zero difference between the 1999 redux we’re about to witness and U.S./NATO engaging Israel by force in order to hand all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem to the Palestinians under Hamas.
If a blog storm isn’t begun before this Sunday, February 17th, we’ll have sealed not only the fate of Europe, but of Israel and the U.S. itself.
If this doesn’t worry you, and you’d rather make an exception in your jihad views for an area because it fits in with a more comfortable, manufactured Cold War context, then be prepared for some pretty nasty consequences.
These are no longer the 1980s and 90s. It is not OK to view this, or Russia’s correct stance against our incorrect one, in a Cold War context. It is not OK to ally with Iran and deliver territory to al Qaeda. It wasn’t OK in the 90s either, but we let it happen then. Let’s not let it happen again.
I once laughed at the notion that there needs to be “balance” in the world against the lone remaining superpower, America. “America is the balance,” I would quip, “against the evil of the world.” And I wondered when Europe would realize it’s God’s laughing stock, and when a country named Russia would burn to hell and its earth be salted.
Thinking that America engaged only in necessary evil — or at least made an effort to — I didn’t think I’d live to see the day when it would be the chief purveyor of evil in a given region, when America would move from superpower to hegemon, and Russia would become a necessary check on that. Such is the perverse situation that Democrats and Republicans have created together, in a rare show of solidarity.
Given that we’re creating a mafia-run jihadist haven in Kosovo, whose U.S.-spawned statehood exposes our government’s disregard ultimately for its own citizens’ safety, not to speak of the safety of non-Muslims in Europe, how can we ever expect any other world power — never mind the jihadists — to care about American lives, and think twice before striking?
EU states Romania, Slovakia, Cyprus, Spain, Bulgaria and Greece oppose Kosovo independence on the grounds that the move will destabilize Europe (and it will — separatist movements across the globe are watching Kosovo carefully), and on the principle of international law, which the U.S. and Kosovo are aggressively breaking.
As Romanian President Traian Basescu asked recently at a Brussels conference, “What message are we sending to multi-ethnic societies or to other states that are facing ethnic issues or frozen conflicts?”
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SerbBlog Note: PLEASE HELP US! It doesn't matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat, a Conservative or a Liberal -- If you do NOT want President Bush to start a new war in the Balkans by backing Albanian narco-terrrorists against Christians and potentially spark conflicts worldwide, then write, call, protest against US backed "Kosovo Independence" NOW! Click on the icon below and email President Bush and your representatives in Congress!
Subject: NO Kosovo Independence!
Dear President Bush:
I am writing to ask your personal intervention to stop political support for and illegal recognition of Kosovo Independence by the United States. We have no right to dismiss the sovereignty of a country, break international laws and treaties which we have signed, and potentially start wars around the globe just to grant the wish-list of a minority to take what is not their land. Such a move would further destabilize the Balkan region and result in the horrific ethnic cleansing of Kosovo's remaining Serbian Christians and other minorities.
Please stop support for Kosovo Independence before we make a terrible mistake we will ALL come to regret!
I am writing to ask your personal intervention to stop political support for and illegal recognition of Kosovo Independence by the United States. We have no right to dismiss the sovereignty of a country, break international laws and treaties which we have signed, and potentially start wars around the globe just to grant the wish-list of a minority to take what is not their land. Such a move would further destabilize the Balkan region and result in the horrific ethnic cleansing of Kosovo's remaining Serbian Christians and other minorities.
Please stop support for Kosovo Independence before we make a terrible mistake we will ALL come to regret!
(Your name)
(City, State)
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Kosovo bishop urges national salvation gov't
13 February 2008 | 12:38 | Source: Beta BELGRADE -- Raško-Prizrenska Eparchy Bishop Artemije has called on Serbia to act without hesitation.
Serbia needs to form a government of national salvation and clearly refuse to sign any kind of pact with the EU or countries that are ready to threaten its integrity, said Artemije.
“We must stop this cross-party feuding and form a government of national salvation that could unite the forces ready to defend the country and people using all legitimate means,” said the bishop on his return from the U.S., conveying the conclusions drawn from talks in Washington.
He said that the West believed that “a crippled Serbia would soon face up to a new reality,” and on the basis of the fact “that certain Serbian politicians are claiming that they will never accept the loss of Kosovo at the same time as they’re saying that Serbia must bolster relations with aggressor countries that wish to steal a part of her territory.”
Recounting the conclusions of the meeting in the U.S., Artemije said that Serbia had to send the army and police to Kosovo to prevent attacks on her institutions, her holy sites and people, as they are obliged to do under the Constitution, the UN Charter and Resolution 1244.
To remove the danger of Kosovo independence, Serbia had to deploy observers from all friendly and well-intentioned countries around the province, said the bishop.
“Serbia has to announce that it will purchase state-of-the-art weapons systems from Russia and other allies,” he said, adding that she could also “send an invitation to Russia to send volunteers who would help the Serbian people in the just battle.”
At the same time, Artemije said that he had no doubt that even if the worst came to the worst—“if the KLA hooligans and terrorists” declare independence and are recognized by hostile governments—Serbia would never lose Kosovo.
“We’ve survived many occupations and won. An unjustly imposed solution can never last, only compromise and respect for law and morals can create lasting peace and security… We will win because Kosovo is Serbia,” stressed the bishop.
Father Simon of the Banjska Monastery, who accompanied Artemije to the U.S., said at the same conference that he was certain that Serbia had the capacity and ability to oppose the Kosovo independence project, but that it depended on the readiness of the country’s politicians.
Kusturica: Europe cannot condition Serbia’s integration by taking away Kosovo
Emir Kusturica, the Serbian director of "Underground" and "Time of the Gypsies" said in an interview to French "Liberation" on January 30, 2008:
"Kosovo is in the heart of Serbian identity and Serbia is in the heart of Europe, on the frontier between the East and the West".
"Europe cannot impose us conditions for integration by taking us away from our tradition."
"Kosovo is in the heart of Serbian identity and Serbia is in the heart of Europe, on the frontier between the East and the West".
"Europe cannot impose us conditions for integration by taking us away from our tradition."
UN urged to oppose Kosovo independence
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
Serbia's foreign minister urged the U.N. Security Council on Thursday to oppose Kosovo's expected declaration of independence and called on the secretary-general to order that any proclamation be declared null and void.
In his address to a closed council meeting, Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic warned that independence for Kosovo would set a precedent that will echo around the globe, leading to "an uncontrolled cascade of secession."
Jeremic said Serbia does not believe that negotiations over the future status of the Serb province are exhausted, as the U.S. and many European nations maintain.
"We shall never recognize Kosovo's independence," he said in the address released by Serbia's U.N. Mission. "Not now. Not in a year. Not in a decade. Never. For Kosovo and Metohija shall remain a part of Serbia forever."
The Security Council remains deeply divided on the future of Kosovo with Russia backing its close ally Serbia and calling for more negotiations while Britain, France and other European Union members are supporting the Kosovo Albanians.
"There were no real surprises in the meeting," Panama's U.N. Ambassador Ricardo Arias, the current council president, told reporters afterwards.
"Many people have accepted that the situation in Kosovo is predominantly a European issue," he said.
Britain's U.N. Ambassador John Sawers said the 15-member council "was evenly divided between those who recognize that the process had come to a conclusion, and those who would have preferred continued efforts." Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin disagreed, saying not a single council member except the U.S. and EU countries "voiced clear-cut support" for an end to negotiations.
"The simple fact is the parties are irreconcilable on fundamental points," U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff told reporters. "That's why these negotiations have failed."
Kosovo has been under U.N. and NATO administration since a NATO-led air war halted former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999. International talks lasting 14 months failed to produce an agreement between the Serbs, who offered autonomy, and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership, which is expected to declare independence unilaterally in the coming days.
Jeremic said Serbia's government and National Assembly "will declare the actions of the authorities in Pristina null and void. And we shall undertake all diplomatic, political, and economic measures designed to impede and reverse this direct and unprovoked attack on our sovereignty."
He stressed that "Serbia will not resort to the use of force, for violence cannot bring a peaceful settlement to the Kosovo crisis."
But Russia's Churkin warned the council of "a real danger of renewed inter-ethnic violence and increase in extremist activities in Kosovo and in the Balkans as (a) whole," in the event of a unilateral declaration of independence.
Later, he told reporters, "we have heard all sorts of reports about plans being made to coerce the Kosovo Serbs should they not comply or accept the unilateral declaration of independence."
Jeremic reiterated that an independence declaration would violate Serbia's territorial integrity and a 1999 U.N. resolution that put Kosovo under U.N. and NATO administration.
He called on the Security Council to act urgently to reaffirm Serbia's sovereignty.
Jeremic said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon must exercise his authority — and his special representative in Kosovo, Joachim Ruecker, must receive instructions to use his power if Kosovo's Assembly declares independence and "proclaim this act to be null and void."
Wolff, the U.S. envoy, said he stressed to the council "that the Kosovo situation is unique. It has its history and we can't forget or ignore that history. And it's the consequences of the ethnic cleansing policies of Slobodan Milosevic and his government which ensured that Kosovo would never again be ruled from Belgrade."
Churkin retorted that "we have a completely different Serbia now" which is democratic, doesn't threaten anybody, and has no intention of running Kosovo from Belgrade.
He warned that that a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo would be "a blatant breach of international law" and said Ruecker, the U.N. envoy, "is duty-bound to declare such decision by the Kosovo Albanian leadership null and void."
U.S. forces getting set for events in Kosovo
By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Thursday, February 14, 2008
With ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan claiming thousands of lives, U.S. and NATO efforts in the Balkans haven’t received a lot of attention lately.
That could change, though, if reports of Kosovo’s impending independence are accurate. Kosovar Albanian leaders are expected to declare a permanent separation from Serbia in the coming days, despite opposition in Belgrade and from its staunch ally, Russia.
The 1,400 U.S. soldiers in the Balkan nation are watching the situation carefully.
“We are expecting independence day will be quite interesting,” said Col. Richard Hayes, deputy commander of Task Force Falcon, the U.S. contingent in the 15,000-strong Kosovo Force. “We don’t expect it to get crazy, though.”
The vast majority of U.S. troops are stationed outside of Urosevac at Camp Bondsteel. A company-size element is based at Camp Nothing Hill, a military compound near the border with Serbia.
Most of those serving in the current rotation are in the National Guard. The 35th Infantry Division from Kansas is the lead element, accompanied by two battalions from the 34th Infantry Division from Minnesota and the 1st Battalion, 185th Aviation Regiment from Mississippi. Hayes said there are also active-duty and Reserve forces as well as some Air Force personnel.
The task force arrived in November, and soldiers spend time with local leaders and interact with the Kosovo Protection Corps and Kosovo Police Service, Hayes said.
He said crime in the province is relatively high — with a lackluster economy contributing to wide-spread black marketing and smuggling — but the task force has seen only a few incidents that it would view as potential ethnic violence.
He recalled one incident of youths throwing Molotov cocktails at a Serbian church.
“But was that ethnic violence or kids just being stupid?” Hayes asked. “We’ve had a couple of instances like that.”
Following the NATO bombing campaign that forced out Serbian forces in 1999, the vast majority of the population is ethnic Albanian. Only small, isolated pockets of ethnic Serbs remain.
Hayes said local leaders have been holding a series of meetings in towns around the U.S. sector, airing views on ways to peacefully celebrate if the province breaks away.
Although he said military officials don’t expect trouble, they’re prepared to deal with anything that comes up.
As for forces outside Kosovo that might be called in to help, the U.S. military isn’t talking. The 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team would normally fill such a role in Europe, but it is deployed to Afghanistan through August.
“It wouldn’t be appropriate for us to get into any details about what units would respond,” said Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a public affairs officer for EUCOM. He referred inquiries on troop strength to NATO. Multiple attempts to reach a NATO spokeswoman were not successful Wednesday.
SerbBlog Note: Yeah right, all kids throw Molotov cocktails at churches, don't they? Unbelievable! Shame on you President Bush for putting our soldiers there to protect Islamofascists from Christians!!!
European edition, Thursday, February 14, 2008
With ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan claiming thousands of lives, U.S. and NATO efforts in the Balkans haven’t received a lot of attention lately.
That could change, though, if reports of Kosovo’s impending independence are accurate. Kosovar Albanian leaders are expected to declare a permanent separation from Serbia in the coming days, despite opposition in Belgrade and from its staunch ally, Russia.
The 1,400 U.S. soldiers in the Balkan nation are watching the situation carefully.
“We are expecting independence day will be quite interesting,” said Col. Richard Hayes, deputy commander of Task Force Falcon, the U.S. contingent in the 15,000-strong Kosovo Force. “We don’t expect it to get crazy, though.”
The vast majority of U.S. troops are stationed outside of Urosevac at Camp Bondsteel. A company-size element is based at Camp Nothing Hill, a military compound near the border with Serbia.
Most of those serving in the current rotation are in the National Guard. The 35th Infantry Division from Kansas is the lead element, accompanied by two battalions from the 34th Infantry Division from Minnesota and the 1st Battalion, 185th Aviation Regiment from Mississippi. Hayes said there are also active-duty and Reserve forces as well as some Air Force personnel.
The task force arrived in November, and soldiers spend time with local leaders and interact with the Kosovo Protection Corps and Kosovo Police Service, Hayes said.
He said crime in the province is relatively high — with a lackluster economy contributing to wide-spread black marketing and smuggling — but the task force has seen only a few incidents that it would view as potential ethnic violence.
He recalled one incident of youths throwing Molotov cocktails at a Serbian church.
“But was that ethnic violence or kids just being stupid?” Hayes asked. “We’ve had a couple of instances like that.”
Following the NATO bombing campaign that forced out Serbian forces in 1999, the vast majority of the population is ethnic Albanian. Only small, isolated pockets of ethnic Serbs remain.
Hayes said local leaders have been holding a series of meetings in towns around the U.S. sector, airing views on ways to peacefully celebrate if the province breaks away.
Although he said military officials don’t expect trouble, they’re prepared to deal with anything that comes up.
As for forces outside Kosovo that might be called in to help, the U.S. military isn’t talking. The 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team would normally fill such a role in Europe, but it is deployed to Afghanistan through August.
“It wouldn’t be appropriate for us to get into any details about what units would respond,” said Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a public affairs officer for EUCOM. He referred inquiries on troop strength to NATO. Multiple attempts to reach a NATO spokeswoman were not successful Wednesday.
SerbBlog Note: Yeah right, all kids throw Molotov cocktails at churches, don't they? Unbelievable! Shame on you President Bush for putting our soldiers there to protect Islamofascists from Christians!!!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
UN Security Council Calls Urgent Meeting on Kosovo
'The council agreed that the meeting shall be held as a private debate and the Serbian foreign minister will be invited to participate,'' said Panama's UN Ambassador Ricardo Alberto Arias.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council has agreed to hold an urgent meeting on Thursday over expected Kosovo's unilateral proclamation of independence as requested by Serbia and Russia, its president said Wednesday.
"The council agreed that the meeting shall be held as a private debate and the Serbian foreign minister will be invited to participate," said Panama's UN Ambassador Ricardo Alberto Arias.
The closed-door meeting will be held on Thursday afternoon, he added.
In a letter sent to the council president on Tuesday, Serbia urged it to consider the grave situation in the Serbian province of Kosovo where a unilateral declaration of independence was expected soon. Russia supported the Serbian request.
Kosovo, a breakaway Serbian province inhabited by a majority of ethnic Albanians, was expected to unilaterally declare independence on Sunday after multiple rounds of direct talks, which were mediated by the troika of the EU, Russia and the United States, failed to resolve its future status before the Dec. 10 deadline set by Europe and the United States.
The breakaway region is ready to declare independence in the coming days, its leader Hashim Thaci said after talks with EU top diplomat Javier Solana late January.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow categorically disagrees with a unilateral proclamation of the independence of Kosovo.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council has agreed to hold an urgent meeting on Thursday over expected Kosovo's unilateral proclamation of independence as requested by Serbia and Russia, its president said Wednesday.
"The council agreed that the meeting shall be held as a private debate and the Serbian foreign minister will be invited to participate," said Panama's UN Ambassador Ricardo Alberto Arias.
The closed-door meeting will be held on Thursday afternoon, he added.
In a letter sent to the council president on Tuesday, Serbia urged it to consider the grave situation in the Serbian province of Kosovo where a unilateral declaration of independence was expected soon. Russia supported the Serbian request.
Kosovo, a breakaway Serbian province inhabited by a majority of ethnic Albanians, was expected to unilaterally declare independence on Sunday after multiple rounds of direct talks, which were mediated by the troika of the EU, Russia and the United States, failed to resolve its future status before the Dec. 10 deadline set by Europe and the United States.
The breakaway region is ready to declare independence in the coming days, its leader Hashim Thaci said after talks with EU top diplomat Javier Solana late January.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow categorically disagrees with a unilateral proclamation of the independence of Kosovo.
John McCain armed Kosovo Islamic terrorists
February 13, 2008Source: Svet
"He did everything that we asked of him, including arming the KLA", said Albanian lobbyist Joe DioGuardi. The Albanians collected one million dollars for the presidential campaign of this senator.
Americans of Albanian heritage collected a million dollars in one evening for the presidential campaign of Republican Senator John McCain, said the Albanian American Civic League yesterday, the lobby group headed by former Congressman Joe DioGuardi. A reception for McCain was held January 22 at the Saint Regis Hotel in Manhattan, and the senator, who is now leading in the runoff for the Republican party candidacy in the November elections, cut his campaign in Florida by one day to attend this gathering.
"Even in 1998 when we had problems with Milosevic, McCain did everything that we asked of him to the benefit of the Albanian people, including arming the KLA", announced DioGuardi. "We are American Albanians and we need a leader who will strengthen this country... We must support John McCain because he did everything we asked of him for Kosovo, from supporting the Kosovo Liberation Army to supporting the independence of Kosovo. Two years ago he spoke in Brussels and said that independence is the only solution", concluded this former congressman who has been fighting for the independence of Kosovo and Metohija for more than twenty years.
He explained that the first thing McCain said to him when he entered the hotel in Manhattan on January 22: "Joe, I saw your people in Michigan, and in South Carolina and in New Hampshire", from which this lobbyist deduced that all Americans of Albanian background will be voting for the senator from Arizona.
DioGuardi and his wife Shirley Cloys-DioGuardi have been friends with McCain for years, and he intervened several times in the Senate on behalf of the Albanians. Because of that, the Albanian American Civic League awarded him the "Balkan Award for Peace" a year and a half ago, and the initiative was the proposed Senate resolution - which McCain wrote - in which thanks is extended to the Albanians for "saving all the Jews who lived in Albania or who sought shelter there during the Nazi Holocaust".
However, even though he is leading in the presidential nomination, John McCain has not yet succeeded in convincing the primary wing of the Republican Party - the conservatives - that he is the right candidate. One of the reasons is that he often spoke and voted against the majority Republicans, as in 1999 when he asked for more intensive air bombing of Serbia.
In April of that year, three weeks after the bombing commenced, he announced that the US is in danger of losing the war to the Serbian Army which has "antiquated machinery" and "absolutely no military air power", if massive strategic air attacks are not initiated. "Attacks on any infrastructure target must not be prevented. We all regret civilian losses, as well as our own, but they cannot be avoided," he said.
During the pre-election campaign in February 2000 at a meeting in Manhattan, John McCain asked for the release of all Albanian prisoners in the prisons of Serbia proper, and a year later he used his inlfuence to ask the administration for an urgent investigation into the killing of the brothers Bitici who were taken from prison and killed in the police training center in Petrovo Selo in eastern Serbia. This February 5 the senator held another meeting in Manhattan and in the public there was a visible Albanian flag.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
EU “EULEKS” Poised for Nazi Style Blitzkrieg on Kosovo
Unwanted, unwelcome, illegal, illegitimate, the EU mission is poised to make a Nazi style blitzkrieg into Kosovo to broker the Sudetenland Germans, I mean Albanian mafia criminal terrorists, for an unprecedented, unparalleled post World War 2 land grab, tearing away for the first time the land of a sovereign European state in violation of all norms, all agreements, the UN Charter and UN Resolution 1244...the first time for such an occurrence since the UN was founded to prevent such a thing from happening again after the horror and devastation of bloody warfare throughout Europe.The Treaty of Rome establishing a European Economic Community was signed 1957. In the 1950s, the leaders of six European countries (France, Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) agreed to integrate their economic policies and raw material production through several treaties. The Preamble of the Treaty of Rome outlines the objectives to improve the living conditions of individuals, to promote education and to strengthen peace and liberty.
The Maastricht Treaty on European Union led to the creation of the European Union. The Maastricht Treaty created new levels of inter-governmental cooperation with the European Union by establishing the “Three Pillars” of the EU. Pillar One incorporates the founding treaty mentioned above, addressing the single European market and a variety of social policies. Pillar Two addresses the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. Pillar Three addresses cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs. The Maastricht Treaty affirmatively states that Member States confirm "their attachment to the principles of liberty, democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and of the rule of law" as well as their "attachment to fundamental social rights."
Article 6 (2) as amended by the Amsterdam Treaty reads “The Union shall respect fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms…
Although the EU was ostensibly established with the expressed aim to protect peace, stability and respect for established frontiers…it is doing the exact opposite. It is promoting war, utter and total lawlessness, violence, inequality, injustice and the tearing asunder of a European state in order to promote mafia criminal narco terrorists and people traffickers who have and will continue to use the province as a base from which to launch violence, terror, prostitution and more and more bloody conflicts. Largely due to its part in the Balkans, the living conditions of all ethnic groupings have deteriorated and peace and liberty have been denied to hundreds of thousands of people, especially Serbians and other Kosovo minorities such as Jews, Roma, Turks and other groups.
The EU is actually anti-democratic: it raises interest groups and lobbyists while EU commissioners function without accountability to nearly a half a billion people. The EU consults with itself as it thinks it is the only one talking sense. The European Convention, the body which met to draw up the European Constitution, made a great show of inviting submissions from “the people.” Nearly 200 organizations were asked for their opinion. Every one of these organizations was reliant on the EU for its funding.
Key documents for the Kosovo invasion are being adopted in Brussels for the mission's arrival there. In the space of just a few days, two important documents came before the Union, which, if adopted, will give the mission the “green light” to go to Kosovo. They do not specify when the mission to Kosovo will start. Rather, that it should last 28 months, with the possibility of an extension. The mission will be financed by the European budget, and the first 16 months alone will cost EUR 205mn.
It is stated that the aim of the mission, to be called EULEKS, more properly they should call it Wehrmacht or Stormtroopers or SS or Einsatzgruppen…is to promote democracy, economic development and stability in Kosovo.
For different reasons, Belgrade and Pristina view the mission as being the architect of the province’s independence. The 30-page document that represents the basis for establishing the mission does not contain a single word referring to status. And that is no wonder because the EU has absolutely NO authority to occupy historic, sacred Serbian land.
Serbia is not a member of the EU, but Serbia is by many standards the most genuine democracy and example of European values on the entire Continent. Additionally, an illegal and unrecognizable Albanian Kosovo will NEVER be able to meet any EU standards for freedom, democracy or economic development in the foreseeable future.
Director of the Swiss Institute of Federalism Thomas Fleiner says that the UN resolution on the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija gives no legal basis to the EU's mission plans. "The EU has made it clear that it is sending a mission as part of preparations for the independence of Kosovo, which would constitute a violation of Resolution 1244 article 10," said Fleiner, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Freiburg.
"That means that all matters relating to the implementation of the resolution have to be done in cooperation with the chief partner—Serbia. Once Kosovo province becomes an illegal independent state, states that are supposed to cooperate in the implementation of the resolution will no longer have a partner with whom they can cooperate."
Meanwhile, the Russian ambassador to Belgrade Aleksandr Alekseyev has said that the EU mission can come to Kosovo only via a Security Council resolution. Asked if Russia was prepared to give the “green light” to the arrival of such a mission in the Security Council, Alekseyev replied that “I think it would be a big mistake if the secretary-general gave some sort of sign that could be interpreted as a “green light” for sending a mission to Kosovo.” Asked what Moscow could do should Brussels go ahead with sending the mission, he replied, “Our two countries have already moved from ‘coordinated’ to common policies. You can rest assured that we will, in common contact, find a way of responding to this challenge,” said Alekseyev.
As far as a unilateral declaration of independence was concerned, should it happen, the ambassador said that a Security Council session should be called immediately, and that it “was obliged to take decisions to render that declaration null and void.” His response to a journalist’s statement that Russia would never recognize Kosovo was unequivocal: “You can rest assured of that.”
The EU’s determination to meddle in what is strictly an internal Serbian matter further demonstrates that the EU in its stated purposes has been an utter failure except for the army of super rich Eurocrats whose only intention in allowing this gross injustice is enrichment of the empire and certain corporations, entities and individuals.
Who among the Eurocrats would like to step forward and proclaim himself the new Hitler of the Fourth Reich also known as the European Union? The EU is seeking to fulfill the dreams and aspirations of Herr Hitler, the first powerful European to propose a Greater Albania among aliens in the heart of Europe. Albanian thugs, war criminals and drug lords (not even the ordinary common Albanian citizen who was frequently seen running towards Serbian troops for protection from these criminal elements) now will profit as direct descendants of Hitler’s great friends and allies during that miserable, bloody war. All this while they already have a state of their own called Albania. The EU, acting exactly like Hitler and his Stormtroopers, does so at its own peril and sadly at the peril of the entire European continent it purports to secure.
Lisa KARPOVA
PRAVDA.Ru
USA/CANADA
NSPM IN ENGLISH - Serbia, Democracy and the issue of Kosovo and Metohija
Jan Benkroft
The EU's greatest dilemma
In supporting Kosovo's independence claim, the EU is leaving the development of its own common foreign and security policy in tatters
As ever-more EU countries express their deepening concern over recognising Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence and deploying an EU mission to replace that of the UN mission in Kosovo (Unmik), both without UN security council authorisation, Europe must urgently re-evaluate how these decisions will impact the development of a common foreign and security policy (CFSP) to meet the challenges of the 21st century and an enlarged EU of 27.
Supporting Kosovo's independence, contrary to both UN security council resolution 1244 and Europe's own stated foreign policy objectives, will only serve to weaken the CFSP's foundations.
It is essential, therefore, that a common EU foreign policy evolves not from its own internal political dynamics, but from a coherent vision founded in its defining principles and practices. As such, Europe must look inward and project outward the core of its political identity.
By supporting independence for Kosovo, the EU is abandoning one of the fundamental objectives of its CFSP, as outlined in the Amsterdam treaty; namely, that of preserving peace and strengthening international security, "in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter, as well as the principle of the Helsinki Final Act and the objectives of the Paris Charter, including those on external borders".
Disregarding the fundamental principles and norms of international law subverts the very underpinnings of the EU's CFSP. By putting the interests of individual member states, or coalitions of member states, before its collective principles, the EU is harming the carefully constructed cohesiveness of its own CFSP, thereby diluting its capacity to make future foreign policy decisions.
With respect to the second of the five fundamental CFSP objectives - "to strengthen the security of the Union in all ways" - the argument that delaying a status decision will breed further instability overlooks the repercussions of independence for Kosovo. Violating the twin notions of sovereignty and territorial integrity will only serve to erode Europe's ability to contend with issues of self-determination and re-integration elsewhere.
Supporting a unilateral declaration of independence will freeze or exacerbate other conflicts within and beyond the EU's own expanding borders. The European perspective of the western Balkans will be complicated by the refusal of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and several EU member states to recognise Kosovo; Cyprus will struggle to contend with the implications of independence for its unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, while immediate ramifications will be felt in Europe's new neighbouring aspirants, Georgia and Moldova. Kosovo is not a unique case and its precedent will not be deterred by reiterations of this sort.
Those EU member states who tentatively support independence for Kosovo do so on the basis of the Ahtisaari plan and its implementation. By prescribing independence as a solution, albeit "supervised", the plan failed to conform to UN security council resolution 1244 and was withdrawn in the face of Russian opposition. In spite of this, the EU has continued to prepare the deployment of a mission to implement the Ahtisaari plan.
In the absence of UN security council authorisation, however, any EU mission will be at the behest of the Kosovo government and therefore deprived of formal executive powers. Consequently, international supervision will be unable to provide adequate protection for minority rights. Despite Ahtisaari's proposal requiring increases in the budgets of Serb-majority municipalities, the Kosovo government continues to plan further cuts. Similar reductions have also been made in the annual budget for returnees, further weakening the position of non-Albanians in the province. The failure of Unmik's "standards before status" policy demonstrates that unauthorised supervision of Kosovo's independence will do little to "develop and consolidate democracy and the rule of law", nor to safeguard "respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms" - a third fundamental CFSP objective.
The EU's voice and effectiveness in international affairs derives from its pooled sovereignty, consensual decision-making and instruments of soft power. In relation to Kosovo, the unique position of the EU vis-a-vis both the US and Russia provides it with the leverage to achieve a negotiated resolution; the foundation for which lies in those integrative innovations in sovereignty and autonomy that have contributed to the EU's very own evolution. It is Europe's capacity for transforming and softening conflict dynamics through a combination of negotiation and partnership - including development cooperation, external assistance, trade relations and social policy instruments - that provides the basis for lasting peace and stability throughout the western Balkans.
For Europe to "make its voice heard in world affairs", it must remain committed to the UN system and the principles of international law. The EU will define itself as a global player not by acting decisively through "constructive abstentions" to support an act that violates international legal standards, but by articulating and projecting European principles and practices, including a commitment to complex, multiple layers of shared and limited sovereignty, so as to overcome fragmentation and division. The EU's stance over Kosovo fails in this regard.
A common foreign and security policy for the EU should be just that; one founded upon shared objectives, pursued in accordance with the UN system and international law. As such, Europe must immediately re-affirm that solutions to Kosovo's status lie in constructive dialogue based upon the EU's own stated foreign policy objectives and UN security council resolution 1244. The time has come for Europe to provide real leadership over Kosovo.
Lavrov makes emotional plea for sanity over Kosovo independence
GENEVA, February 12 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called the upcoming declaration of unilateral independence by Kosovo an irresponsible step that undermines the principles of international law.
Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu said last Friday that the Albanian-dominated province was close to declaring independence from Serbia, and its government was closely cooperating with international organizations to alleviate any problems that may arise.
European Union officials have said they expect Kosovo's independence to be declared on February 17.
"We are speaking here about the subversion of all the foundations of international law, about the subversion of those principles which, at huge effort, and at the cost of Europe's pain, sacrifice and bloodletting have been earned and laid down as a basis of its existence, we are speaking about a subversion of those principles on which the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe rests, those [principles] laid down in the fundamental documents of the UN," the Russian minister said.
"I sincerely fail to comprehend the principles guiding our American colleagues, and those European [countries] who have taken up this position," he added.
Of the 27 EU states, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania have joined Serbia and Russia in opposing independence for Kosovo, saying the move could set a dangerous precedent for other breakaway territories.
Lavrov also accused those insisting on the uniqueness of the Kosovo problem of applying double standards.
"They are saying that Kosovo is unique, and it turns out that international law can be defied there with the approval of others. This will not happen," he said.
He said the Kosovo issue would only be able to be settled within the European Union after Serbia joins the EU.
"We will only be able to agree that the Kosovo problem is an affair of the European Union only after the entire Balkans, including Serbia, is integrated into the EU. Meanwhile, Kosovo should remain an international issue within purview of the UN Security Council," Lavrov said.
The diplomat added that Russia, which categorically opposes the unilateral independence of Serbia's province, had done all it could on Kosovo.
First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov reiterated on Sunday that Russia had no intention to recognize the sovereignty of separatist South Ossetia and Abkhazia if Kosovo is declared independent. South Ossetia and Abkhazia declared independence from Georgia following bloody conflicts following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
According to Serbian media, among UN Security Council members, Russia, China, Vietnam, Indonesia and South Africa oppose independence for Kosovo. The U.S., Britain, France, Italy, Belgium and Panama have been calling for the province's independence. Of the remaining Security Council members, Libya, Croatia, Costa Rica and Burkina Faso have not yet formulated their respective positions.
Kosovo has been a UN protectorate since the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia ended a conflict between Albanian and Serb forces in 1999.
Serbia: Leaders unite to counter Kosovo independence
Belgrade, 12 Feb.(AKI) - Serbian president Boris Tadic and premier Vojislav Kostunica have united to counter a declaration of independence by the breakaway Kosovo province, expected to be proclaimed by majority ethnic Albanians on Sunday.
After a meeting Monday night, the two leaders released a statement in which they have agreed to "conduct unified national policy to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia in the face of a real threat of declaration of independence".
Though both leaders oppose Kosovo independence, Kostunica and Tadic are split on the issue of whether Serbia should proceed towards joining the European Union, if Brussels recognises Kosovo as an independent state.
Serbia’s ally Russia has blocked Kosovo's independence move in the UN Security Council, but Washington and most EU countries support the move. The EU is preparing to send a mission to Kosovo to implement an independence plan forged by former UN negotiator Martti Ahtisaari.
Tadic has insisted Belgrade should proceed with EU membership regardless of Kosovo's fate, but Kostunica has refused to sign a “political agreement” with Brussels unless it guarantees Serbia’s sovereignty over Kosovo.
In what appeared to be a backdown by Tadic, Monday's agreement made no reference to an EU document, and instead focused on measures to be taken against a possible independence move by Kosovo.
Tadic called a meeting of the national security council for Monday and Kostunica planned a government session for Thursday to consider measures to be taken.
It was agreed that the government should adopt a decision to "annul the illegal act" of proclamation of independence and pass it on to the parliament for approval.
The government has approved an action plan in case of a proclamation of independence, but the details have remained secret.
The Kosovar parliament is expected to declare independence on Sunday, while the Serbian parliament would annul it immediately at its own session, government officials said.
Tomislav Nikolic, the leader of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), who narrowly lost the presidential election to Tadic on 3 February, welcomed the agreement between Kostunica and Tadic.
But he said it came too late and the disunity had encouraged the supporters of Kosovar independence.
“I think we have encouraged Albanians, Americans and the EU too much, and have practically opened the door to Kosovo independence,” Nikolic said.
"Now we will have to take hot chestnuts from the fire," he added.
Belgrade has threatened “diplomatic action” against countries which recognise Kosovo, but vowed to refrain from using force.
Another measure being considered was a possible embargo against Kosovo, but analysts said none of these acts could change the current course of events.
After a meeting Monday night, the two leaders released a statement in which they have agreed to "conduct unified national policy to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia in the face of a real threat of declaration of independence".
Though both leaders oppose Kosovo independence, Kostunica and Tadic are split on the issue of whether Serbia should proceed towards joining the European Union, if Brussels recognises Kosovo as an independent state.
Serbia’s ally Russia has blocked Kosovo's independence move in the UN Security Council, but Washington and most EU countries support the move. The EU is preparing to send a mission to Kosovo to implement an independence plan forged by former UN negotiator Martti Ahtisaari.
Tadic has insisted Belgrade should proceed with EU membership regardless of Kosovo's fate, but Kostunica has refused to sign a “political agreement” with Brussels unless it guarantees Serbia’s sovereignty over Kosovo.
In what appeared to be a backdown by Tadic, Monday's agreement made no reference to an EU document, and instead focused on measures to be taken against a possible independence move by Kosovo.
Tadic called a meeting of the national security council for Monday and Kostunica planned a government session for Thursday to consider measures to be taken.
It was agreed that the government should adopt a decision to "annul the illegal act" of proclamation of independence and pass it on to the parliament for approval.
The government has approved an action plan in case of a proclamation of independence, but the details have remained secret.
The Kosovar parliament is expected to declare independence on Sunday, while the Serbian parliament would annul it immediately at its own session, government officials said.
Tomislav Nikolic, the leader of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), who narrowly lost the presidential election to Tadic on 3 February, welcomed the agreement between Kostunica and Tadic.
But he said it came too late and the disunity had encouraged the supporters of Kosovar independence.
“I think we have encouraged Albanians, Americans and the EU too much, and have practically opened the door to Kosovo independence,” Nikolic said.
"Now we will have to take hot chestnuts from the fire," he added.
Belgrade has threatened “diplomatic action” against countries which recognise Kosovo, but vowed to refrain from using force.
Another measure being considered was a possible embargo against Kosovo, but analysts said none of these acts could change the current course of events.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Fleiner: A suit to the International Court of Justice in The Hague would have great chances of success
11. februar 2008. 15:42 (Izvor: Tanjug)
The legal advisor of the Serbian state team in talks on the future status of Kosmet, Thomas Fleiner, said that if Serbia filed a suit with the International Court of Justice in The Hague against countries that unilaterally recognize independence of Kosmet, it would have 80% of chance for success. There are three possibilities ahead of Serbia – that suit, an arbitration or talks, he told GLAS JAVNOSTI, specifying the first solution is the best, as it is certain that a unilateral proclamation and recognition of an independent Kosmet would constitute a legal violence against UN Resolution 1244. In the case of an arbitration process, Serbia and, say, Germany, if it recognizes Kosmet, ought to agree on a third party - a court or an arbitration commitee – in which both parties will place trust, he said, but dismissed that idea as not so probable. The daily writes that President Boris Tadic warned that Serbia will sue the governmenets of countries recognizing Kosmet and that is only an item of the action plan prepared by the Serbian government in the case of self-proclamation of independence of the Province.
Islamization of Europe and The European Union
Islamization of Europe and The European Union
Fjordman - 2/10/2008
Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch recently suggested a number of things Europeans can do to halt Islamization. The proposals were good, but I think we should focus on the most important obstacle: the European Union. I've suggested in the past that the EU is the principal motor behind the Islamization of Europe, and that the entire organization needs to be dismantled as soon as possible, otherwise nothing substantial can ever be done about the Muslim invasion. At the Gates of Vienna blog, I am writing a text called "Ten Reasons to Get Rid of the European Union," which can be translated into other languages and be republished when it is completed.
As Bat Ye'or demonstrates in her book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, senior EU leaders have actively been working for years to merge Europe with the Arab world. They are now feeling confident enough to say this openly. The British Foreign Minister David Miliband in November 2007 stated that the European Union should work towards including Middle Eastern and North African countries, as this would "extend stability." He also said that the EU must "keep our promises to Turkey" regarding EU membership.
The EU involves the free movement of people across borders. If it expands to the Middle East, hundreds of millions of Muslims will have free access to Germany, Italy, France, Britain, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Austria. If Turkey becomes a member, it means that Greeks, Bulgarians and others who have fought against oppression by Ottoman Turks for centuries will now be flooded with Muslims from a rapidly re-Islamizing Turkey. The same goes for Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and others who fought against Muslims for centuries.
The EU's Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini states that Europe must relax its immigration controls and open the door to an extra 20 million "Africans and Asians" during the next two decades. Most of these "Africans and Asians" come from the predominantly Muslim countries of North Africa and the Greater Middle East. The EU thus decided to flood Europe with tens of millions of Muslims at the same time as peaceful Europeans demonstrating against the Islamization of Europe were brutally harassed by the police in the EU capital of Brussels. Frattini has also banned the use of the phrase Islamic terrorism: "People who commit suicide attacks or criminal activities on behalf of religion, Islamic religion or other religion, they abuse the name of this religion." He thinks we shouldn't use the word "immigration," either, we should talk about "mobility."
While Dutch politicians, in what was until recently a peaceful country, have been killed for being too critical of Islam, while Islamic terror attacks have murdered people in London and Madrid, while more terror attacks are planned every single day from Italy via Paris to Denmark, and while people from Sweden to Germany are subject to Muslim street violence and harassment, EU leaders want to increase Europe's Muslim population by tens of millions in a few years. This is criminal and evil, pure and simple.
In Cologne, Germany, a Muslim teenager who wanted to mug a 20-year-old German man was killed in an act of self-defense, according to witnesses. This led to angry protests from Muslims. Apparently, non-Muslims are not supposed to defend themselves from attacks. This violence is usually labelled "crime," but I believe it should more accurately be called Jihad.
Those who know Islamic history, as described in books such as The Truth About Muhammad by Robert Spencer or The Legacy of Jihad by Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, know that looting and stealing the property of non-Muslims has been part and parcel of Jihad from the very beginning. In fact, so much of the behavior of Muhammad and early Muslims could be deemed criminal that it is difficult to know where crime ends and Jihad begins. In the city of Oslo, it is documented that some of the criminal gangs also have close ties to Jihadist groups at home and abroad. As Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen points out, the Koran is seen by some Muslims as a God-given "hunting licence," granting them the right to assault and even murder non-Muslims. It is hardly accidental that while Muslims make up a minority of the population in France, they make up an estimated seventy percent of French prison inmates.
Why would anybody in their right mind want to import Islam, the most destructive force on the planet? Are EU leaders naïve? I don't think so, at least not all of them. You cannot maintain political power in the long run if you are totally naive.We are told to treat cultural and historical identities as fashion accessories, shirts we can wear and change at will. The Multicultural society is "colorful," an adjective normally attached to furniture or curtains. Cultures are window decorations of little or no consequence, and one might as well have one as the other. In fact, it is good to change it every now and then. Don't you get tired of that old sofa sometimes? What about exchanging it for the new sharia model? Sure, it's slightly less comfortable than the old one, but it's very much in vogue these days and sets you apart from the neighbors, at least until they get one, too. Do you want a sample of the latest Calvin Klein perfume to go with that sharia?
I have heard individuals state point blank that even if Muslims become the majority in our countries in the future, this doesn't matter because all people are equal and all cultures are just a mix of everything else, anyway. And since religions are just fairy-tales, replacing one fairy-tale with another one won't make a big difference. All religions basically say that the same things in different ways. However, not one of them would ever dream of saying that all political ideologies "basically mean the same thing." They simply don't view religious or cultural ideas as significant, and thus won't spend time on studying the largely unimportant details of each specific creed.
In The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West, Lee Harris writes that: "What strikes us as irrationalities in the economic systems of Third World nations, such as the red tape documented by [Peruvian economist Hernando] de Soto, is not irrational at all from the point of view of the dominant elite: It is part of what keeps them dominant. With enough red tape, they can stay king of the mountain forever."
This reminds me a great deal of what the EU is doing, attempting to create a permanent oligarchy by keeping the native population in line though a combination of confusion, bureaucracy and intimidation from imported Muslims.
Far from being an irrelevant detail, religion is the heart and blood of any civilization. The greatest change (until now) in my country's history was when we adopted Christianity instead of the Norse religion. This changed the entire fabric of our culture. We became integrated into the mainstream of Western civilization at about the same time as we went from being a tribal society to a genuine state. Maybe Christianity helped in creating the foundations of nation states with an individualistic culture. If so, perhaps changing the religion is beneficial for those who want to replace nation states with authoritarian transnational entities, for instance the European Union. Islamic societies are always authoritarian. Those who want to abolish the democratic system and rule as an unaccountable oligarchy thus naturally prefer Islam.
The EU is an awful organization even if you don't take Muslim immigration into account. Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovksy, who is not particularly preoccupied with Islam, fears that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union: "The sooner we finish with the EU the better. The sooner it collapses the less damage it will have done to us and to other countries."
The brilliant French political thinker Montesquieu advocated that the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government should be assigned to different bodies, each of them not powerful enough alone to impose its will on society. This is because "constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go." This separation of powers is almost totally absent in the EU, where there is weak to non-existent separation between the legislative, the executive and the judicial branches, and where all of them function more or less without the consent of the public.
As Montesquieu warned, "When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner." He also stated that "Useless laws weaken the necessary laws." The problem with the EU is not just the content of laws, but their volume. Law-abiding citizens are turned into criminals by laws regulating speech and behavior, while real criminals rule the streets. This will either lead to a police state, to a total breakdown in law and order, or both.
At least two conditions must be fulfilled in order to prevent the arbitrary use of power. The first one is a system of formal checks and balances, giving the possibility of peacefully removing officials who are not doing their job. The second is transparency, so people know what their representatives are doing. The EU deliberately ignores both these conditions, but especially the latter. Vast quantities of power have been transferred to shady backrooms and structures the average citizen hardly knows exist. Eurabia was created through such channels.
The pompous former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing declared that the creation of the proposed EU Constitution was Europe's "Philadelphia moment," alluding to the Philadelphia Convention or Constitutional Convention in the newly formed the United States of America in 1787. The USA has its flaws, but if Mr. Giscard d'Estaing had actually understood the American Constitution, he would have discovered that James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and others took great care to implement a number of checks and balances in the new state, precisely what is lacking in the EU. The American constitution is relatively short and understandable, whereas the EU Constitution is hundreds of pages long, largely incomprehensible and displays an almost sharia-like desire to regulate all aspects of human life. After it was rejected by Dutch and French voters, the Constitution has been renamed and is now being smuggled through the back door.
Madison, Jefferson, George Washington and the American Founding Fathers acted in the open and were generally elected by their peers and applauded for their actions. Contrast this with Jean Monnet, who is credited with having laid the foundations of the EU, despite the fact that most EU citizens haven't heard of him. He was never elected to any public office, but worked behind the scenes to implement a secret agenda. I read an interview with a senior Brussels lobbyist who dubbed Monnet "the most successful lobbyist in history." To this day, the EU capital of Brussels is dominated by lobbyists. The Americans in Washington D.C. have their fair share of lobbyists, too, and this can be problematic at times. The difference is that the EU capital is dominated ONLY by lobbyists and unelected bureaucrats, with little real popular influence. Those who read the excellent British blog EU Referendum regularly will know that this secretive modus operandi is still very much alive in the European Union.
Frankly, I don't think the EU has the right to use the term "European." Those inhabiting the European continent are first and foremost Germans, Dutchmen, Poles, Italians, Hungarians, Portuguese etc. "Europe" has existed mainly to protect the continent against Islamic expansionism. Charles Martel created Europe when he defeated the Arab invasion in the seventh century, aided by people such as Pelayo, who started the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula, John Hunyadi and Lazar of Serbia who fought against the Turks in the Balkans and John III Sobieski, King of Poland, who beat the Ottomans during the 1683 Battle of Vienna. The EU is actively trying to undo everything Charles Martel and these men achieved. This makes it the anti-European Union, an evil organization with no moral legitimacy whatsoever.
The EU is gradually reducing the indigenous people of an entire continent to the likely future status of second-rate citizen in their own countries. It is quite possibly the greatest betrayal in the history of European civilization since the fall of the Roman Empire, yet it is hailed as a "peace project" in the media. It is shameful to witness the bullying displayed by EU leaders vis-à-vis the Serbs, who are being forced to give up their land to Muslim thugs. This template will eventually be used against all Europeans. As Srdja Trifkovic warns, even if the Serbs are robbed of Kosovo, Muslims will not thank the West:
"In Europe most nations want to defend themselves—even the ultra-tolerant Dutch have seen the light after Theo van Gogh's murder—but cannot do so because they are hamstrung by a ruling class composed of guilt-ridden self-haters and appeasers. Their hold on the political power, the media, and the academe is undemocratic, unnatural, obscene. If Europe is to survive they need to be unmasked for what they are: traitors to their nations and their culture. If Europe is to survive, they must be replaced by people ready and willing to subject the issues of immigration and identity to the test of democracy, unhindered by administrative or judicial fiat. For those reasons too, Serbia must not give up Kosovo. By giving it up it would encourage the spirit that seeks the death of Europe and its surrender to the global totalitarianism of Muhammad's successors. Not for the first time, in Kosovo the Serbs are fighting a fight that is not theirs alone."
Some hope we can keep the "positive" aspects of the EU and not "throw out the baby with the bath water." I beg to differ. The EU is all bath water, no baby. The EU got off on the wrong path from its very inception, and is now so flawed that it simply cannot be reformed. Appeasement of Islam is so deeply immersed in the structural DNA of the EU that the only way to stop the Islamization of Europe is to dismantle the European Union. All of it.
Italy-Croatia: World War II killings were ethnic cleansing, Napolitano says
Rome, 11 Feb. (AKI) - The notorious 'foibe' massacres of several thousand Italians by Yugoslav partisans in and around the northeastern city of Trieste towards the end of World War II were "ethnic cleansing," Italy's president Giorgio Napolitano reaffirmed on Sunday.
"Those from outside Italy who reacted rashly to my speech of one year ago should calm down. This is my advice, " Napolitano, a former communist said in his annual remembrance day address to commemorate the victims of the 'foibe'.
Some 70 relations collected medals on behalf of the 'foibe' victims. Remembrance ceremonies were held in more than 200 ceremonies around Italy.
"If unity does not prevail over dissent, if dialogue does not prevail over prejudice, nothing that we have laboriously built may be considered a permanent gain," Napolitano stated.
Napolitano's message was clearly aimed at Croatia's president Stjepan Mesic who criticised remarks he made during his 2007 remembrance day speech in which Napolitano described the 'foibe' killings as a "tragedy" and "one of the barbaric acts of the last century."
In the 2007 remembrance day speech, Napolitano said of the 'foibe': "We should not remain silent, assuming the responsibility for having denied or ignored the truth owing to ideological prejudices."
Mesic said at the time that he was "unpleasantly surprised by the contents and the tone," used lately by the Italian leaders in describing the events of the past, which "also affect present relations."
"These statements, in which one cannot overlook the hints of open racism, historical revisionism and political revenge, are hardly in line with the declared wish for enhancing bilateral relations between our two countries,” said Mesic.
He claimed Italy was trying to revise the peace accord it signed in 1947 and the Osimo agreement of 1975 in which it renounced territories on the eastern Adriatic coast, such as Istria and Dalmatia, a move that would be "absolutely unacceptable" to Croatia.
Mesic's remarks sparked a diplomatic row between Italy and Croatia. Foreign minister Massimo D'Alema last February cancelled an official visit to the Balkan country by his undersecretary Vittorio Craxi and summoned Croatia's ambassador for an explanation. Mesic's remarks were slammed by Italian politicians from across the political spectrum.
'Foibe' is the Italian word for deep chasms into which several thousand Italians were thrown in 1943 after Italy's capitulation - sometimes alive - by Croatian and Slovenian partisans loyal to General Josip Broz Tito.
The 'foibe' killings occurred in Trieste, modern-day Slovenia and along the Istrian peninsula, which Italy lost to Croatia at the end of World War II.
The estimated number of people killed varies between 1,500 and 5,000. In addition, up to 400,000 Italians were expelled or emigrated from Dalmatia, Istria and the area bordering Slovenia. The ''foibe' have remained a painful historical burden in Italy.
"Those from outside Italy who reacted rashly to my speech of one year ago should calm down. This is my advice, " Napolitano, a former communist said in his annual remembrance day address to commemorate the victims of the 'foibe'.
Some 70 relations collected medals on behalf of the 'foibe' victims. Remembrance ceremonies were held in more than 200 ceremonies around Italy.
"If unity does not prevail over dissent, if dialogue does not prevail over prejudice, nothing that we have laboriously built may be considered a permanent gain," Napolitano stated.
Napolitano's message was clearly aimed at Croatia's president Stjepan Mesic who criticised remarks he made during his 2007 remembrance day speech in which Napolitano described the 'foibe' killings as a "tragedy" and "one of the barbaric acts of the last century."
In the 2007 remembrance day speech, Napolitano said of the 'foibe': "We should not remain silent, assuming the responsibility for having denied or ignored the truth owing to ideological prejudices."
Mesic said at the time that he was "unpleasantly surprised by the contents and the tone," used lately by the Italian leaders in describing the events of the past, which "also affect present relations."
"These statements, in which one cannot overlook the hints of open racism, historical revisionism and political revenge, are hardly in line with the declared wish for enhancing bilateral relations between our two countries,” said Mesic.
He claimed Italy was trying to revise the peace accord it signed in 1947 and the Osimo agreement of 1975 in which it renounced territories on the eastern Adriatic coast, such as Istria and Dalmatia, a move that would be "absolutely unacceptable" to Croatia.
Mesic's remarks sparked a diplomatic row between Italy and Croatia. Foreign minister Massimo D'Alema last February cancelled an official visit to the Balkan country by his undersecretary Vittorio Craxi and summoned Croatia's ambassador for an explanation. Mesic's remarks were slammed by Italian politicians from across the political spectrum.
'Foibe' is the Italian word for deep chasms into which several thousand Italians were thrown in 1943 after Italy's capitulation - sometimes alive - by Croatian and Slovenian partisans loyal to General Josip Broz Tito.
The 'foibe' killings occurred in Trieste, modern-day Slovenia and along the Istrian peninsula, which Italy lost to Croatia at the end of World War II.
The estimated number of people killed varies between 1,500 and 5,000. In addition, up to 400,000 Italians were expelled or emigrated from Dalmatia, Istria and the area bordering Slovenia. The ''foibe' have remained a painful historical burden in Italy.
Canada should steer clear of Kosovo
AS DEFENCE Minister Peter MacKay attempts to browbeat, badger or coerce a NATO partner into reinforcing the mission in southern Afghanistan, most European countries are keeping their eyes on a possible security crisis much closer to home.
It is widely expected that Kosovo will unilaterally declare its independence from Serbia within the next six weeks, and if history repeats itself, this will trigger yet another round of Balkan bloodletting. In anticipation of an escalation in ethnic violence in the disputed province, reinforcements have been sent into Kosovo to bolster the international security force that has been in place there for the past eight years.
In the spring of 1999, Canada committed 10 per cent of the NATO bombers that pounded Serbia for 78 days. It was NATO’s intention to counter a large-scale Serbian military offensive against Albanian separatist guerrillas in order to prevent further suffering among the civilian population. Despite the aerial bombardment’s widespread destruction of utilities and infrastructure across the country, the NATO air campaign failed to either dislodge or diminish the Serbian military forces in Kosovo. Although an allied ground offensive was threatened and a massive troop buildup had taken place in neighbouring Macedonia, NATO was forced to enter a negotiated settlement with the Serbs.
Under the terms of UN Resolution 1244, Kosovo was to remain the sovereign territory of Serbia. As an interim security measure, NATO troops were to enter Kosovo to supervise the withdrawal of Serbian security forces, oversee the disarmament of the Kosovo Liberation Army and protect the Serbian minority from revenge attacks at the hands of the returning 800,000 ethnic Albanians who had fled the fighting.
Once the Albanian fighters had been disarmed and a secure environment was restored, Serbian border police were to return to Kosovo along with some Serb security forces to protect Orthodox Christian religious sites from Albanian vandals.
The problem was that NATO never intended to implement UN Resolution 1244. While the Serbs kept their promise to withdraw peacefully, it soon became apparent that the allied commanders had only signed the agreement to avoid a costly ground war.
The Kosovo Liberation Army was never disbanded — it was renamed the Kosovo Protection Corps and within a matter of weeks, had organized bloody separatist insurgencies among the ethnic Albanian minorities in both southern Serbia and northern Macedonia.
Despite the presence of almost 50,000 NATO troops — including 800 Canadians — in the aftermath of the ceasefire, Albanian extremists forced nearly 200,000 Serbs to flee Kosovo. The 40,000 brave Serbs who chose to stay in their homes have spent the past nine years living in protected enclaves, subjected to perpetual fear and the occasional full-scale attack by Albanian nationalists.
Admittedly, the damage caused during the 18-month civil war was extensive. However, the European Union has poured in billions of Euros towards reconstruction since 1999. Despite the huge infusion of foreign aid, Kosovo still has an unemployment rate of close to 50 per cent; its illegal black market of drugs and prostitution outweighs legal commerce; regular garbage collection remains a pipe dream; and voluntary civilian payment for public utilities remains unachievable.
For Albanian Kosovars, such facts are not seen as impediments to their independence; rather, they are considered excuses used by the international community to deny them full autonomy.
For those who had carried on the pretence of a peacefully negotiated reconciliation of Serbia and Kosovo under a form of sovereignty association, the sands of time ran out last December. After negotiations broke down between the two parties, and the attempt to steer Kosovo’s independence through the UN bogged down with the threat of a Russian veto at the Security Council, the only recourse left to the Albanians is a unilateral declaration.
This is expected to occur on a Sunday sometime in February or March. Immediate and official recognition of Kosovo’s independence from countries such as the U.S., Britain, and Germany is expected to make this a fait accompli before the UN Security Council could be reconvened on the following Monday morning. To play out this charade to the full, the UN mission in Kosovo has just been renamed a European Union mission. As they are no longer technically working for the UN, the personnel overseeing the illegal creation of an independent state — in violation of the UN Charter — can now do so with a supposedly clear conscience.
Canada has played a shameful role in this fiasco to date — participating in an unsanctioned illegal bombing campaign in 1999, failing to hold our NATO partners accountable to the terms of UN Resolution 1244 and withdrawing our peacekeepers long before a stable environment could be achieved.
Rather than bowing to American pressure to recognize Kosovo’s impending independence, Canada should opt out and instead uphold the UN Charter and abide by international rules of law. After all, such a unilateral declaration of independence based on the ethnic majority of a province could set a precedent that we might soon regret.
Besides, the launching of an independent SS Kosovo is one boat so clearly destined for disaster we would be wise to steer well clear.
Scott Taylor reported from inside Serbia and Kosovo during the 1999 bombing campaign and has made more than 20 subsequent visits to the region. Scott Taylor is editor-in-chief of Espirit de Corps magazine. ( staylor@herald.ca)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In Response, Bill Dorich wrote the following letter:
February 11, 2008
Letter to the Editor
Halifax Chronical Herald
Dear Editor:
Scott Taylor is one of few journalists willing to put his reputation on the line by writing, Canada Should Steer Clear of Kosovo (2/11/08).
Blood-thirsty killers with torture and ethnic cleansing as their goals are still blood-thirsty war criminals regardless of the new uniforms they wear or what they wish to call themselves. Madeleine Albright was photographed kissing Hashim Tachi in 1999, just after he murdered six of his lieutenants. He is now the Prime Minister of Kosovo who has the bloodiest hands in Kosovo. He was preceded in this post by Agim Ceku, another blood-thirsty killer of dozens of Serbs and a convicted war criminal who was sentenced to "time served while standing trial" at The Hague—revealing the disgusting contempt The Hague has for any real justice.
Politicians like the late Tom Lantos, John McCain, and Eliot Engle lined their pockets with the dirty money from Albanian drug runners, weapons dealers and pimps who have turned Kosovo into the cesspool of Europe. Kosovo is the most corrupt culture on the continent and no amount of independence will change a mindset that is steeped in honor killings, and tribal power grabs that are not compatible with democratic principles. Thirty million Kurds deserve independence, not 1.7 million Albanians who already have their own country next door, or are we pretending that a "Greater Albania" is not a work here?
The West took the lead of a liar in the White House to foment an illegal war against Serbia based on "Human Rights" and in the process we betrayed the UN Charter, the Nato Treaty, the Helsinki Final Act, and the Geneva Conventions. Political hypocrites today are not interested in the Human Rights of the Serbs in Kosovo who have been reduced from 21% of the population in 1999 to 4% today. The fact that 40% of the Albanians in Kosovo are illegal aliens who cross the border into Kosovo as easily as Mexicans cross our border each night in San Diego are simply ignored.
Genocide by any other name is still Genocide, or has the West decided to betray equal justice along with morality?
William Dorich
Los Angeles, CA 90024
The writer is the author of 5 books on Balkan history including his 1992 book, Kosovo.
Representative Tom Lantos is Dead
Regarding Kosovo: "Just a reminder to the predominantly Muslim-led governments in this world that here is yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe," he said April 17. "This should be noted by both responsible leaders of Islamic governments, such as Indonesia, and also for jihadists of all color and hue. The United States' principles are universal, and, in this instance, the United States stands foursquare for the creation of an overwhelmingly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe." US Rep. Tom Lantos, April, 2007
Because I refuse to speak ill of the dead, look elsewhere for his obituary -- if you care to.
Because I refuse to speak ill of the dead, look elsewhere for his obituary -- if you care to.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
"Kosovo's Clock is Ticking"
By Tejinder Singh
Editor-in-Chief of New Europe, the European Weekly.
Rumblings in Europe and beyond, not violence, the threat.The European Union, the bastion of peace and prosperity rose from the ashes of two sanguinary World Wars and today it still portrays that tranquil image, notwithstanding the wars and bloodshed of the Balkans in the 1990s.
The impending Kosovo independence, a direct fallout from those Balkan wars, may not trigger an all-out war in the region, but it will definitely result in some major indelible changes not only in the region but also world afar......ES Blog
Editor-in-Chief of New Europe, the European Weekly.
Rumblings in Europe and beyond, not violence, the threat.The European Union, the bastion of peace and prosperity rose from the ashes of two sanguinary World Wars and today it still portrays that tranquil image, notwithstanding the wars and bloodshed of the Balkans in the 1990s.
The impending Kosovo independence, a direct fallout from those Balkan wars, may not trigger an all-out war in the region, but it will definitely result in some major indelible changes not only in the region but also world afar......ES Blog
Koštunica: "Kosovo has no price"
9 February 2008 | 17:59 | Source: Tanjug (via B92)BELGRADE -- Vojislav Koštunica says "Kosovo has no price" and that Serbia won’t approve its independence by signing an agreement with the EU.
"With its decision to send a mission to implement Kosovo’s unilateral independence, the EU has twisted United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 which explicitly guarantees respect for Serbia’s territorial integrity," the prime minister said in a statement for the Tanjug news agency.
Koštunica said that, in so doing, the EU was grossly violating the UN Charter and was re-tailoring Serbia’s internationally recognized borders by sending a mission.
"Certainly it would suit the EU most if Serbia, in the form of some sort of signed agreement, gave its approval for the biggest legal violation of a country’s borders since the UN was founded, the body that guarantees all states the inviolability of their borders," he warned .
"Serbia will not give such a signature for Kosovo’s independence," Koštunica underlined.
"Under strong outside pressure from the U.S., Europe is, in the case of Serbia, trampling the fundamental principles on which it rests. Therefore, Serbia is not against Europe, but Europe has, unfortunately, against its own principles, yielded before a policy of force," the prime minister said.
“At the same time, representatives of ethnic Albanian separatists in the interim institutions, who have in fact been condemned to long-term prison sentences by the state of Serbia for terrorism, are announcing the declaration of Kosovo’s unilateral independence under EU and U.S. auspices,” he continued.
"However, everyone must know that this fabricated state will never exist as far as Serbia is concerned, and that Kosovo will always be Serbia. Kosovo has no price and Serbia will not accept any offers of compensation," Koštunica said.
This is not the first time that Serbia has been robbed by force, he pointed out. "This is a time of force, but Serbia’s historical experience says that the time of law and justice always has its day," the prime minister concluded
BBC: Serb president in stark Kosovo warning
Jonathan Marcus
BBC Diplomatic correspondent, Munich
Serbian President Boris Tadic has warned of an escalation in conflicts if Kosovo declares independence as expected later this month.
BBC Diplomatic correspondent, Munich
Serbian President Boris Tadic has warned of an escalation in conflicts if Kosovo declares independence as expected later this month.
Mr Tadic said he could not accept the dismemberment of his country and called for renewed talks on the issue.
The pro-Western leader was speaking at the opening of an annual security conference in Munich.
The US and most members of the EU say they will support independence for Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.
"Should Serbia be partitioned against its will... it could in turn result in the escalation of many existing conflicts, the reactivation of a number of frozen conflicts, and the instigation of who knows how many new conflicts," said Mr Tadic.
While he described Kosovan independence as unacceptable, Mr Tadic added that he did not want to see Serbia isolated from the EU.
"There is still time to prevent the situation from spiralling needlessly out of control," he told the gathering of the world's top security officials, urging international talks.
No good time
President Tadic is a leader who stands between a rock and a hard place.
He is already being buffeted by an internal political crisis in Serbia, which he has admitted could well lead to new parliamentary elections in May.
And now the Kosovan independence issue presents him with a major national dilemma.
Many diplomats in Munich expect the declaration of independence to be made around 17 February.
Mr Tadic's efforts to steer his country on the path towards the EU and the West were appreciated by the Munich audience, made up of prominent US and European policy makers. The president received warm applause, but is unlikely to have swayed many minds.
Western diplomats here say that months of talks have produced little.
Mindful of Russia's opposition, there is no good time for Kosovo to declare independence, one insider told me - it might as well happen sooner rather than later.
WSJ Commentary: "Let's Avoid Another Kosovo Crisis"
By RUTH WEDGWOOD
February 9, 2008; A9 page
Small events in the Balkans have a way of getting out of hand, as Emperor Franz Joseph might once have remarked.
February 9, 2008; A9 page
Small events in the Balkans have a way of getting out of hand, as Emperor Franz Joseph might once have remarked.
Thus, it is good news that Serbian voters defeated ultra-nationalist presidential candidate Tomislav Nikolic in last weekend's election, instead approving incumbent Boris Tadic for a second term. Mr. Tadic wants to link Serbia's future to the European Union.
But now it is the turn of the West to act with prudence and responsibility -- in particular on the incendiary issue of Kosovo, the southern province of Serbia that is home to Serb Orthodox Christians and ethnic Albanian Muslims.
In a strongly worded essay recently published in the Washington Times, former U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, former Assistant Defense Secretary Peter Rodman and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton expressed grave concern about the haste of the current Bush foreign policy team in encouraging Kosovo to declare unilateral independence. Their storm warning -- that such a declaration could cause violence in the province and lead to a crisis with Russia -- is worth heeding.
Kosovo has been part of the territory of Serbia since before the First World War, and its ancient monasteries are iconic to the Serbs. Belgrade's government coalition is already in crisis on the issue.
It is a dangerous precedent to tear apart the territory of a member state of the United Nations. And the timing could not be worse. No one needs a Kosovo crisis, while NATO remains short of troops in Afghanistan and maintains 16,000 troops in this autonomous province of Serbia. A Kosovo blowup would provide an easy excuse for gun-shy European allies to reduce their Afghanistan contingents.
Kosovo secessionists ignore economic realities. Kosovo has coal, lead and people, but it is stuck in a corner of Europe few tourists wander through. Some might visit its surviving Serbian Orthodox monasteries, but not while the place is in turmoil. Since Europe has proclaimed without grace that the European economic union is limited to Christian countries, Kosovo's best (and perhaps only) chance to join Europe's economy is to ride in as a part of Serbia.
Instead, Kosovo's secessionist leadership may well join the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, as Albania already has done. This may bring financial assistance from the OIC, but the West should worry -- with aid comes political influence.
Kosovo's proclamation of independence would destabilize America's other friends in the Balkans. Bosnia will face a new attempt by the self-styled "Serbian republic" to leave the Dayton structure. Macedonia's restive ethnic Albanian minority may again ask why it is stuck in a state with Orthodox Slavs.
The effect in Central Europe would also not be benign. Hungary, Romania, Ukraine and Greece are home to irredentist minorities whose radical elements dream of redrawing maps. Nicosia faces a self-proclaimed "independent" Turkish republic of northern Cyprus. The Black Sea republic of Georgia, which we seek to bolster against Russian ambition, faces the claims of Abkhazia, a breakaway Muslim region in the north.
To be sure, one can appreciate why Kosovo Albanians are leery of Belgrade. From 1997 to 1999, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic met the militant tactics of the Kosovo Liberation Army with a brutal police and military campaign, and after NATO intervened, he embarked on a bizarre and criminal exercise in ethnic cleansing, forcing tens of thousands of Muslim citizens out of their homes. The former Serbian president was tried for this crime and other outrages in the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
But Milosevic is now dead, and Western policy should recognize the difference. Human rights activists in Serbia -- who stood up to Milosevic when it was dangerous to do so -- act with consistent principle in reporting the difficulties and dangers that will be imposed on Kosovo's substantial Serb minority.
There should be no false optimism or halcyon view of the province following the events of March 2004. Three ethnic Albanian children were killed in the northern town of Mitrovica, and afterwards anti-Serb rioting spread across the entire province, leading to the death of 19 civilians, another thousand civilians injured, and widespread burning of Serb houses, churches and monasteries. Independence will not cure this antipathy. It is hard to see how the NATO humanitarian intervention in 1999, designed to combat ethnic cleansing, is morally consistent with a new indifference to predictable counter-cleansing.
Smaller ethnic communities in Kosovo are also at risk, in the face of a recrudescent Albanian nationalism. The minority Muslim communities of Bosniaks, Gorani, Turks and Egyptians, along with the Ashkali and Roma, have faced violence and discrimination from the Albanian majority.
In negotiations on Kosovo's future, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari -- a respected international statesman -- has proposed an internationally-supervised government for Kosovo that would be akin to the Dayton Framework Agreement for Bosnia.
Kosovo's national political institutions would include representatives from each ethnic community. International officials would cast a deciding vote on the constitutional court and supervisory educational boards. Kosovo's Serbian communities could maintain relationships with the government of Serbia. There would be a continuing international military presence. And most tellingly, as in Bosnia, an "international civilian representative" could nullify local legislative and administrative decisions and remove non-compliant public officials. Only if conditions of stability were obtained would these guarantees be lifted.
But such a plan, as in Bosnia, requires a Chapter 7 resolution from the U.N. Security Council. It is unlikely, in the heat of independence, that a new state will willingly yield decisionmaking authority to an international auditor. And any Council resolution requires Russian acquiescence.
That leaves few options. Democratic states could demand that Kosovo adopt constitutional guarantees, in order to obtain international recognition. But there is no simple way of enforcing the promise. U.N. Security Council resolution 1244, dating from the NATO military campaign, does not address itself to a post-independence situation.
Sometimes a crisis focuses the mind. The president and the Secretary of State should consider a more practical option. America and its allies, acting through the Security Council, can provide a permanent international guarantee of Kosovo's political autonomy within the formal territory of Serbia. Combined with the Ahtisaari conditions, even Belgrade and Moscow are likely to accept such a guarantee.
This will give Kosovo as much, or more, than it would achieve through nominal independence. Autonomy can include the right to enter into certain types of international agreements. It can include the right to have international observer missions. Autonomy can entail more real power than is available to a neutered state, unable even to join the U.N. in the face of a Russian veto.
Even if Kosovo independence is ultimately unavoidable, there is much to be gained in securing the result in a way that Serbia and Russia can live with.
Ms. Wedgwood is a professor of international law and diplomacy at Johns Hopkins University."Kosovo art show in Belgrade Cancelled" or "Serbs Refuse to Honor Serb-Killer Art"?
Two days ago, the story at the top of the "Serbia" headlines in the Western World, was an article about how "Serbia's hard-line nationalists broke up an art show by Kosovo Albanian artists in Belgrade". Reading the article uncritically, it sounded like a bunch of Serbian "nationalist thugs" just broke into this "innocent art show" to destroy something (or anything) "Kosovo Albanian" in their midst, forcing the "innocent art show" to close. But Svetlana Novko over at Byzantine Sacred Art dug a little deeper to get the real story, not the propaganda which ignored the facts:"On the very same day the Yellows were scheduled to betray the country they are supposed to serve by signing a pact with the EU which would signify tacit consent to the loss of 15% of Serbian historic territory—province of Kosovo and Metohija—another steaming pile of humiliation was on the Serbia's menu in the evening: an art gallery in Belgrade was to ceremoniously open an exhibition featuring works by 11 Kosovo Albanian "artists", with the most prominent spot reserved for a photo titled "Face to Face" of a notorious Albanian UCK butcher Adem Jashari in KLA uniform and armed to his teeth.
Organized by the foreign-funded Youth Initiative for Human Rights established in 2003, which freely meddles in Serbia's elections and engages in fervent political lobbying on behalf of anti-Serbian institutions and organizations, the "exhibition" titled "Retreat" had been held in the town of Novi Sad in northern Serbia, where it was met with stormy reactions and disapproval, but was, nevertheless, sent on to be opened in the Serbian capital as well.
Even more insulting than the visual glorification of a monstrous Albanian Muslim terrorist who took scores of innocent lives before being killed by the Serbian police forces during the KLA/UCK armed insurgency in southern Serbian province of Kosovo-Metohija, was the accompanying description of this particular "artwork" in the exhibition catalog:
"In his work 'Face to Face' [Malici] simulates the eclectic scale of the postmodern mausoleum, by placing in front of everyone the cult images of Elvis Presley stylized by Andy Warhol along with the images of Adem Jashari, the greatest hero and the victim of the Kosovo war of liberation" ... "Regarding the hero-liberator Adem Jashari the irony stems from the transformation of a prominent and tragic hero into a serialized, common icon for mass-consumption, just like some show business stars" [emphasis added].
As Zoran Grbic appropriately noted, this is an issue for a state prosecutor, rather than for art enthusiasts and the media"....As the protesters pointed out, had the situation been reversed and it would have been a show of "Serb Art in Pristina honoring a Serb General of Kosovo", no one would have survived!
Friday, February 08, 2008
AKI: Serbia: President calls crisis talks with prime minister
Belgrade, 8 Feb. (AKI) - Serbian president Boris Tadic said on Friday he would call a meeting with prime minister Vojislav Kostunica and parliament speaker Oliver Dulic on the government crisis triggered by divisions within the ruling coalition.
Fault lines have emerged in the coalition over cooperation with the European Union and the fate of breakaway Kosovo province, whose ethnic Albanian majority is expected to declare independence in the near future. The move is strongly opposed by Belgrade and Kosovo's tiny Serb minority.
“No institutions should be paralysed, neither the government nor parliament,” Tadic said before leaving for an international conference on security in Munich taking place through Sunday.
Tadic was re-elected president last Sunday. A day later the EU decided to send a mission to Kosovo ahead of its secession from Belgrade - a decision slammed by Kostunica as tantamount to the recognition of Kosovo's independence.
Tadic and Kostunica both oppose Kosovo independence, but Kostunica insists Belgrade should shelve its plans to join the EU if Brussels recognized Kosovo, while Tadic says Serbia shouldn’t forsake its European future regardless of Kosovo fate.
The EU on Monday offered Serbia to sign a “political agreement”, easing trade and visa restrictions as a goodwill sign towards Belgrade, but Kostunica blocked the signing, saying it was a "deception".
EU commissioner Ollie Rehn said on Wednesday that Brussels was postponing the signing, because of Kostunica’s “obstruction”.
As a result, the two leaders and coalition partners split beyond the point of reconciliation and Kostunica refused to call a government meeting for the fear of being outvoted by Tadic’s 17 ministers in the 25-member cabinet.
He insisted the parliament should first take a stand on the EU proposal, but Dulic, Tadic’s right hand man, refused to convene a session of the parliament.
Tadic said he would call a meeting of the National security council next week, upon returning from Munich, and organise a meeting with Kostunica and Dulic to resolve the crisis.
But political analysts said the differences between Tadic and Kostunica were irreconcilable and an early parliamentary election might be the only way forward. Slobodan Samardzic, minister for Kosovo and Kostunica’s closest aid, said the government would fall if Tadic “insisted on signing the political agreement between the EU and Serbia.”
On the other hand, Mladjan Dinkic, Tadic’s staunchest supporter in the governing coalition, said “the process of European integration has no alternative."
"The majority in the government is for the EU, and I expect that the minority will change its mind,” Dinkic concluded.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana's aide Stefan Lene meanwhile arrived in Belgrade on Friday to “exchange views” on the current situation and future relations between the EU and Serbia, local media reported.
Fault lines have emerged in the coalition over cooperation with the European Union and the fate of breakaway Kosovo province, whose ethnic Albanian majority is expected to declare independence in the near future. The move is strongly opposed by Belgrade and Kosovo's tiny Serb minority.
“No institutions should be paralysed, neither the government nor parliament,” Tadic said before leaving for an international conference on security in Munich taking place through Sunday.
Tadic was re-elected president last Sunday. A day later the EU decided to send a mission to Kosovo ahead of its secession from Belgrade - a decision slammed by Kostunica as tantamount to the recognition of Kosovo's independence.
Tadic and Kostunica both oppose Kosovo independence, but Kostunica insists Belgrade should shelve its plans to join the EU if Brussels recognized Kosovo, while Tadic says Serbia shouldn’t forsake its European future regardless of Kosovo fate.
The EU on Monday offered Serbia to sign a “political agreement”, easing trade and visa restrictions as a goodwill sign towards Belgrade, but Kostunica blocked the signing, saying it was a "deception".
EU commissioner Ollie Rehn said on Wednesday that Brussels was postponing the signing, because of Kostunica’s “obstruction”.
As a result, the two leaders and coalition partners split beyond the point of reconciliation and Kostunica refused to call a government meeting for the fear of being outvoted by Tadic’s 17 ministers in the 25-member cabinet.
He insisted the parliament should first take a stand on the EU proposal, but Dulic, Tadic’s right hand man, refused to convene a session of the parliament.
Tadic said he would call a meeting of the National security council next week, upon returning from Munich, and organise a meeting with Kostunica and Dulic to resolve the crisis.
But political analysts said the differences between Tadic and Kostunica were irreconcilable and an early parliamentary election might be the only way forward. Slobodan Samardzic, minister for Kosovo and Kostunica’s closest aid, said the government would fall if Tadic “insisted on signing the political agreement between the EU and Serbia.”
On the other hand, Mladjan Dinkic, Tadic’s staunchest supporter in the governing coalition, said “the process of European integration has no alternative."
"The majority in the government is for the EU, and I expect that the minority will change its mind,” Dinkic concluded.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana's aide Stefan Lene meanwhile arrived in Belgrade on Friday to “exchange views” on the current situation and future relations between the EU and Serbia, local media reported.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Politika: Violence may erupt in Kosovo, say U.S. intelligence officers
7 February 2008 | 13:01 | FOCUS News Agency
Pristina. When Kosovo declares independence interethnic violence may erupt, which would trigger the intervention of NATO forces, while the clashes may reach the neighboring states, say U.S. intelligence officers in an annual report introduced with the Committee on Intelligence at the Senate, the Serbian Politika writes.
Pristina. When Kosovo declares independence interethnic violence may erupt, which would trigger the intervention of NATO forces, while the clashes may reach the neighboring states, say U.S. intelligence officers in an annual report introduced with the Committee on Intelligence at the Senate, the Serbian Politika writes.
“We think the Balkans will be unstable in 2008 because Kosovo’s striving for independence of Serbia will strengthen, and that’s why the interethnic relations in Bosnia will deteriorate,” said Director of National Intelligence John Michael McConnell, who presented the report in the Committee on Tuesday.
“The Kosovo leaders say that in the beginning of 2008 they will declare independence, which might trigger clashes with the Serbs in northern Kosovo who would not accept the independence. Belgrade might undertake some revenge measures, but any deterrent of the independence might lead to a response accompanied by violence on the part of the angry Albanian extremists,” reads the report.
“Whenever the Kosovo status issue is resolved the ethnic Albanian minority in Macedonia and southern Serbia might go on asking for larger autonomy, and the Albanian extremists would try to use the public discontent. By resorting to violence in smaller scale they would give a support for joining Kosovo. The Serbian officials say there will be no military intervention in Kosovo, but warned they will use political and economic measures, which would most probably harden the position of the Kosovo Serbs who would reject the independence and put hurdles to Kosovo’s economic development,” the report adds.
Djukanovic in Montenegro gets fifth term
Milo Djukanovic will become Montenegro's prime minister for a fifth time, replacing Zeljko Sturanovic who resigned last week in ill health, his party said.
The coalition led by the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), which he heads, nominated Djukanovic and since it has a majority in parliament, his appointment is assured.
Djukanovic said his priorities would be to improve living standards and pursue European Union and NATO membership.
"The government must improve economic structures so we can fully eliminate unemployment in the near future," he said told reporters. He was expected to reshuffle Sturanovic's cabinet.
Djukanovic's retirement from active politics in October 2006 was a surprise in a year of triumphs. When a majority of Montenegro's 650,000 people voted in a referendum that May to end their union with Serbia, their choice was seen as his personal achievement as architect of the independence drive.
His coalition won a majority in an election three months later. He turned down the post of prime minister in favour of Sturanovic, his solid but rather colourless justice minister, and only retained his post as DPS leader.
At the time, he said he was "tired from the responsibility" of 15 years in politics, and intended to catch his breath "with a more relaxed lifestyle", branching out into business.
Analyst Srdjan Vukadinovic said Djukanovic initially meant be the power behind the throne from his post as party head, but found it was not the same as when he held the reins himself.
"I believe this is Djukanovic's main motive for returning," Vukadinovic said.
Nebojsa Medojevic, one of the main opposition leaders, said his return would harm the country because of his huge personal influence on Montenegrin institutions.
Since leaving its lopsided union with Serbia, Montenegro has posted strong growth, mostly due to a boom in tourism and steady foreign direct investment, especially in real estate.
It signed the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union last year and hopes to join the bloc by 2015.
Bolton: Kosovo debate resurfacing in White House
7 February 2008 | 10:28 | Source: FoNet WASHINGTON -- The Kosovo debate has been resurrected within the White House, says a former U.S. ambassador to the UN.
“You still have a number of people in the administration that do not support the policy of automatic recognition of Kosovo independence. I think that that debate has now resurfaced within the administration itself, and, I hope, in the Foreign Ministries of European countries,” John Bolton told Voice of America.
Bolton said that it was to difficult to predict the outcome of that debate, as conflicting views were being expressed, but it was no longer just the domain of the State Department that for the last 15 years or so has been following the issue on auto-pilot, more or less. “I can’t predict the outcome of the debate, but I do know that it has resurfaced.”
The former ambassador pointed out that under the UN Charter, the Security Council was not authorized to break a country up without its agreement.
He said that the international community should isolate the negotiating teams in a room and tell them that they cannot leave until the problem is solved, which would require concessions on both sides, and would help them reach a mutually acceptable solution.
Bolton said that the U.S., at this point in time, in the event of a declaration, would recognize independence, as would the majority of European countries, even though this would “reflect very negatively on the young democracy in Serbia,” and would have “a negative impact on U.S.-Russian relations.”
“From a U.S. point of view, I think that there are a lot more important issues in bilateral relations with the U.S. than Kosovo, and Kosovo independence would lead to unnecessary instability in the Balkan region,” said the former ambassador.
“You still have a number of people in the administration that do not support the policy of automatic recognition of Kosovo independence. I think that that debate has now resurfaced within the administration itself, and, I hope, in the Foreign Ministries of European countries,” John Bolton told Voice of America.
Bolton said that it was to difficult to predict the outcome of that debate, as conflicting views were being expressed, but it was no longer just the domain of the State Department that for the last 15 years or so has been following the issue on auto-pilot, more or less. “I can’t predict the outcome of the debate, but I do know that it has resurfaced.”
The former ambassador pointed out that under the UN Charter, the Security Council was not authorized to break a country up without its agreement.
He said that the international community should isolate the negotiating teams in a room and tell them that they cannot leave until the problem is solved, which would require concessions on both sides, and would help them reach a mutually acceptable solution.
Bolton said that the U.S., at this point in time, in the event of a declaration, would recognize independence, as would the majority of European countries, even though this would “reflect very negatively on the young democracy in Serbia,” and would have “a negative impact on U.S.-Russian relations.”
“From a U.S. point of view, I think that there are a lot more important issues in bilateral relations with the U.S. than Kosovo, and Kosovo independence would lead to unnecessary instability in the Balkan region,” said the former ambassador.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije says Serbia will not acquiesce
CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER (USA)
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
By Elizabeth Sullivan,
Plain Dealer Columnist
Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije's deep cynicism is unsurprising. The seatof his Kosovo diocese is about to be spun off as part of a new country, without his or his flock of 130,000 resident Serbs having much to say about it.
What is surprising is how little of his previously expressed moderation and ecumenism remains.
At one time, the diminutive 73-year-old prelate with the flowing white beard used to talk readily about his contacts with ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. He spent years pressing for a local, negotiated solution to the future of the Serb province.
But in an interview ahead of a lobbying visit to Washington this week to plead the case of Kosovo's Serbs, Bishop Artemije said he definitively cut ties to all Kosovo Albanian officials five years ago after an anti-Serb pogrom. He said that was because none of them moved to stop the March 2004 attacks throughout Kosovo that left more than a dozen Serbs dead and at least 36 churches in ruins, or to catch and punish the chief perpetrators.
Now he expects the Albanian response to Kosovo independence to be a final expulsion of all Serbs, he said Saturday at St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral in Parma. "That is why the people are so scared."
In 1999, Artemije took a different approach.
Opposed to Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and trying to head off war with the West, he tried to offer a plan for devolution of power to Albanians in Kosovo. Yet his delegation was barred at the door of the Rambouillet conference in France convened by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Instead, a Kosovo Albanian delegation "negotiated" an outcome guaranteed to inflame Serb opinion and bring on war. And since that 78-day NATO air war - ending with a U.N. Security Council resolution that recognized Belgrade's continued sovereignty - NATO peacekeepers have had to act as part border patrol, part anti-organized crime squad and part security guards for remaining Serbs.
NATO troops understandably want out. Yet, ironically, the solution being offered smacks of the same one-sided approach that set the stage for the 1999 war.
Sometime over the next few weeks, Kosovo will declare itself to be independent of Serbia. The United States and most European countries will then clap it on the back and congratulate it with recognition.
Yet this will all happen without the benefit of Serbia's agreement or indeed without any definitive negotiations or written guarantees between majority Albanians who effectively run the province, and the minority Serbs holding on in isolated enclaves such as the one where Artemije resides near the Gracanica monastery in Kosovo.
Artemije charged that since NATO took over Kosovo security in June 1999, more than 1,000 Serbs had been killed and another 1,000 kidnapped and never heard from again, while a quarter million Serbs were expelled from the province. Hundreds of abandoned Serbian villages were razed, he said, along with 150 Serbian medieval religious monuments, yet little was ever heard of
these atrocities.
Instead, the international community, he said, was proposing to reward violence with an embrace of the same government under whose auspices the violence happened.
"It's like life . . . in a concentration camp," said Artemije. "We are just living day by day, trying to survive."
These days, far from being seen as a moderate, Artemije is considered one of the more radical voices within Kosovo, urging Serbs to boycott Kosovo elections and rejecting independence out of hand.
He also now looks to Belgrade for a solution, saying that despite hard-fought Serbian elections - narrowly won Sunday by pro-reform incumbent Boris Tadic - politicians were united on Kosovo.
For Serbs, Artemije said, "Kosovo is not simply an issue of real estate. Kosovo is a spiritual concept, a place that shelters in its very essence all the spirit of a nation, the Serbian nation.
"In that, you can be assured that everybody is very much unified, and that they are, by the same token, ready to defend this right - this right of history and this right of sovereignty.
"Those who think that Serbia is going to nag a little bit, and then accept the facts [of unilateral independence] , they're wrong. They're very, very wrong."
Sullivan is The Plain Dealer's foreign-affairs columnist and an associate editor of the editorial pages.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
By Elizabeth Sullivan,
Plain Dealer Columnist
Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije's deep cynicism is unsurprising. The seatof his Kosovo diocese is about to be spun off as part of a new country, without his or his flock of 130,000 resident Serbs having much to say about it.
What is surprising is how little of his previously expressed moderation and ecumenism remains.
At one time, the diminutive 73-year-old prelate with the flowing white beard used to talk readily about his contacts with ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. He spent years pressing for a local, negotiated solution to the future of the Serb province.
But in an interview ahead of a lobbying visit to Washington this week to plead the case of Kosovo's Serbs, Bishop Artemije said he definitively cut ties to all Kosovo Albanian officials five years ago after an anti-Serb pogrom. He said that was because none of them moved to stop the March 2004 attacks throughout Kosovo that left more than a dozen Serbs dead and at least 36 churches in ruins, or to catch and punish the chief perpetrators.
Now he expects the Albanian response to Kosovo independence to be a final expulsion of all Serbs, he said Saturday at St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral in Parma. "That is why the people are so scared."
In 1999, Artemije took a different approach.
Opposed to Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and trying to head off war with the West, he tried to offer a plan for devolution of power to Albanians in Kosovo. Yet his delegation was barred at the door of the Rambouillet conference in France convened by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Instead, a Kosovo Albanian delegation "negotiated" an outcome guaranteed to inflame Serb opinion and bring on war. And since that 78-day NATO air war - ending with a U.N. Security Council resolution that recognized Belgrade's continued sovereignty - NATO peacekeepers have had to act as part border patrol, part anti-organized crime squad and part security guards for remaining Serbs.
NATO troops understandably want out. Yet, ironically, the solution being offered smacks of the same one-sided approach that set the stage for the 1999 war.
Sometime over the next few weeks, Kosovo will declare itself to be independent of Serbia. The United States and most European countries will then clap it on the back and congratulate it with recognition.
Yet this will all happen without the benefit of Serbia's agreement or indeed without any definitive negotiations or written guarantees between majority Albanians who effectively run the province, and the minority Serbs holding on in isolated enclaves such as the one where Artemije resides near the Gracanica monastery in Kosovo.
Artemije charged that since NATO took over Kosovo security in June 1999, more than 1,000 Serbs had been killed and another 1,000 kidnapped and never heard from again, while a quarter million Serbs were expelled from the province. Hundreds of abandoned Serbian villages were razed, he said, along with 150 Serbian medieval religious monuments, yet little was ever heard of
these atrocities.
Instead, the international community, he said, was proposing to reward violence with an embrace of the same government under whose auspices the violence happened.
"It's like life . . . in a concentration camp," said Artemije. "We are just living day by day, trying to survive."
These days, far from being seen as a moderate, Artemije is considered one of the more radical voices within Kosovo, urging Serbs to boycott Kosovo elections and rejecting independence out of hand.
He also now looks to Belgrade for a solution, saying that despite hard-fought Serbian elections - narrowly won Sunday by pro-reform incumbent Boris Tadic - politicians were united on Kosovo.
For Serbs, Artemije said, "Kosovo is not simply an issue of real estate. Kosovo is a spiritual concept, a place that shelters in its very essence all the spirit of a nation, the Serbian nation.
"In that, you can be assured that everybody is very much unified, and that they are, by the same token, ready to defend this right - this right of history and this right of sovereignty.
"Those who think that Serbia is going to nag a little bit, and then accept the facts [of unilateral independence] , they're wrong. They're very, very wrong."
Sullivan is The Plain Dealer's foreign-affairs columnist and an associate editor of the editorial pages.
John Bolton: Kosovo's independence, a danger to Balkan stability
RT: Tough talks on the future of Kosovo over its looming declaration of independence are far from over, with the split on the issue now becoming an internal issue in Serbia.
The country's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has denounced plans to sign a trade deal with the EU which he sees as an indirect recognition of Kosovo's independence.
Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo has long been a headache for the international community and it does not seem diplomacy has had the desired effect.
Meanwhile, John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the UN, said the region could face severe instability if Kosovo becomes self sufficient.
“The Kosovo Albanians and the Serbs will to have to understand they are not necessarily going get to their highest aspirations. I think the U.S. and European position on Kosovo has compromised the negotiations. I think Russia on its part could participate more actively. Russia is going to be a partner in western security structures and I think it should be.” he said.
The region's leadership are determined to declare unilateral independence in a matter of weeks, something Serbia and Russia have repeatedly tried to avoid.
“Any unilateral declaration of independence by Pristina would not be legal and could trigger separatist movements in the world and could undermine international order and the structure of international relations,” pointed out Russia’s special Balkans representative Aleksandr Botsan-Kharchenko.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders say they would declare independence days after the Serbian election last Sunday, no matter who won.
Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has encouraged Serbs to remain in the breakaway region.
“My message to Serbs of Kosovo is to stay in Kosovo. Kosovo is the country of everybody. We will respect them though affirmative action. I will stay with them, near them, for the best life to have in Kosovo for everybody,” Thaci promised.
The US and European allies are expected to recognise Kosovo's independence following the failure of UN-led efforts to negotiate an agreement between the two sides.
However, not everyone thinks unilateral independence will be the right answer.
“I do not think it is economically viable. I think its instability risks attracting Islamic extremists from around the world. I think the mix in the Balkans actually tends to destabilise other countries, like Montenegro and Macedonia, that also have Albanian populations. So this is the end result of a lot of dealing over the former Yugoslavia and I think that we've got to get to the point where attempting the carve out about new countries really threatens to exacerbate the risk of instability,” added John Bolton.
But external divisions are not the only problem. Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has denounced plans to sign a trade deal with the EU which he sees as Serbia's indirect recognition of the province's independence.
His statement has once again exposed underlying disagreements with President Boris Tadic.
Tadic and his allies have made it clear they will not back down on the EU after months of being pushed by Kostunica into making Kosovo the main issue for Serbia.
====================================================================
More Bolton from Glassrbija:
Bolton: Status of Kosmet determined by negotiations
06. February 2008. 14:57
The future status of Kosovo and Metohija should be determined through negotiations, said former US Ambassador in the UN John Bolton. He said that he does not think that the negotiations would be easy, but that it would be much better for the UN SC to reach a decision, rather than just the EU. Bolton underlined that Serbs and Albanians should understand cannot get the maximum of what they want. According to him, the most problematic thing in the positions of the US and EU is that they allow Kosmet Serbs to state that if they do not get what they, they would unilaterally proclaim independence of Kosmet. Bolton believes that a division of Serbia would increase the risk of instability, and that unilateral proclamation of independence of Kosmet would be risky and in this case the destabilization of many other countries in the region such as Montenegro or Macedonia was possible.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Kostunica accuses EU of "Deception"
February 5, 2008 on 9:03 am | In News in English, Kosovo & Metohija |
Belgrade - Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica on Tuesday accused the European Union of “deceiving” Serbia with a cooperation offer and moved to block it, saying it was a part of the Western plan to dismember Serbia of Kosovo. “The political agreement that the EU has proposed while it deploys a mission to dismember our country is a deception … by signing, Serbia would indirectly recognize the independence of Kosovo,” Kostunica said in a statement, paving the way to a government crisis.
The EU last week offered the broad political and economic cooperation deal, saying it was a signal affirming Serbia’s European perspective.
However, EU countries continued preparing a law-enforcing mission for deployment in Kosovo once it declares independence, presumably within days, despite strong opposition from Belgrade to both plans.
Kostunica has called the Serbian parliament to urgently meet and discuss the deal offered by the EU and its plan to deploy the law-enforcing mission. The deal was on offer for signing on Thursday.
The majority in Serbian parliament opposes closer ties with the EU in protest at the plan to send the mission, to be finalized on February 18. Kosovo Albanian leaders said they would declare a split from Serbia in February.
The majority in the Serbian assembly does is not the same which formed Kostunica’s government coalition.
Kostunica’s cabinet includes the Democratic Party of the strongly pro-European President Boris Tadic, who won another term in a close run-off vote against the ultra-nationalist Tomislav Nikolic.
It was expected that the agreement offered by Brussels may shatter the coalition of Tadic and Kostunica, as the conservative premier shares the view with the nationalist opposition that Serbia should turn away from the EU in protest at its support of Kosovo.
Kostunica, whose popularity has dwindled into single digits, could still avoid early elections by entering into a pact with nationalists.
Serbia: Government in doubt after premier rejects proposed EU deal
Belgrade, 5 Feb. (AKI) – Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica on Tuesday rejected a European Union proposal to sign a political agreement with Belgrade easing trade and visa restriction as a "deception".
"The political agreement that the EU has proposed while it deploys a mission to dismember our country is a deception ... by signing, Serbia would indirectly recognise the independence of Kosovo," Kostunica said.
Belgrade opposes Kosovo independence and its ally Russia has blocked the move in the UN Security Council.
The EU's 27 member states agreed on Monday to send a mission to the breakaway Kosovo province to replace the current UN administration (UNMIK). EU foreign ministers are expected to decide a mission launch date on 18 February.
“The EU decision to illegally send a mission to Kosovo to implement the rejected Ahtisaari plan for independence represents a sure sign that Albanian separatists will soon unilaterally declare independence of the province,” Kostunica said.
He was referring to a plan for EU-supervised independence unveiled last year by top UN envoy to Kosovo, Maarti Ahtisaari.
“By this decision, the EU has directly threatened sovereignty, territorial integrity and the constitutional order of Serbia,” Kostunica added.
He called for an urgent session of parliament to “make necessary decisions on EU mission and the proposal offered by the EU”.
The EU last week offered Serbia a “political agreement” instead of the crucial agreement on pre-entry talks, to boost pro-western president Boris Tadic’s re-election campaign.
The EU states that the Netherlands and Belgium blocked the signing of the agreement's on pre-entry talks, insisting that Serbia should first apprehend and hand over four fugitive suspects for trial at the UN's Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The fugitives include wartime Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, and his general, Ratko Mladic.
But the battered Serbian government coalition showed new fracture lines on Tuesday over the EU's proposed political deal ahead of Kosovo independence.
Vice-premier Bozidar Djelic, a member of Tadic’s centre-left Democratic Party (DS), who like the president, has insisted that Serbia should proceed towards the EU, regardless of Kosovo fate's. He said he would go to Brussels on Thursday to sign the political deal with the EU.
Tadic’s political block has 17 ministers in the 25-minister government, compared with Kostunica’s eight, and the prime minister runs the risk of being outvoted by his own cabinet.
If that were to happen, Kostunica would have no choice but to resign and call an early parliamentary election, prominent Belgrade analyst Djordje Vukadinovic said.
Kostunica has said that any agreement should be ratified in parliament, where he could defeat it with the support of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party, whose candidate Tomislav Nikolic was narrowly defeated by Tadic in Sunday's election.
But Tadic insists there is no need for parliamentary approval, because the deal with the EU only benefits Serbia as it brings no obligations for the Balkan country.
Kostunica’s close ally and coalition partner, Velimir Ilic, said no deal should be signed without prior parliamentary approval. He said signing a deal with the EU “would be a signature for Kosovo's independence. Should Serbia be the first to sign it,” he asked.
Ilic said Thursday would be a decisive day for the government's future. “If the DS insists on signing the agreement, then everything is possible,” Ilic concluded.
"The political agreement that the EU has proposed while it deploys a mission to dismember our country is a deception ... by signing, Serbia would indirectly recognise the independence of Kosovo," Kostunica said.
Belgrade opposes Kosovo independence and its ally Russia has blocked the move in the UN Security Council.
The EU's 27 member states agreed on Monday to send a mission to the breakaway Kosovo province to replace the current UN administration (UNMIK). EU foreign ministers are expected to decide a mission launch date on 18 February.
“The EU decision to illegally send a mission to Kosovo to implement the rejected Ahtisaari plan for independence represents a sure sign that Albanian separatists will soon unilaterally declare independence of the province,” Kostunica said.
He was referring to a plan for EU-supervised independence unveiled last year by top UN envoy to Kosovo, Maarti Ahtisaari.
“By this decision, the EU has directly threatened sovereignty, territorial integrity and the constitutional order of Serbia,” Kostunica added.
He called for an urgent session of parliament to “make necessary decisions on EU mission and the proposal offered by the EU”.
The EU last week offered Serbia a “political agreement” instead of the crucial agreement on pre-entry talks, to boost pro-western president Boris Tadic’s re-election campaign.
The EU states that the Netherlands and Belgium blocked the signing of the agreement's on pre-entry talks, insisting that Serbia should first apprehend and hand over four fugitive suspects for trial at the UN's Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The fugitives include wartime Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, and his general, Ratko Mladic.
But the battered Serbian government coalition showed new fracture lines on Tuesday over the EU's proposed political deal ahead of Kosovo independence.
Vice-premier Bozidar Djelic, a member of Tadic’s centre-left Democratic Party (DS), who like the president, has insisted that Serbia should proceed towards the EU, regardless of Kosovo fate's. He said he would go to Brussels on Thursday to sign the political deal with the EU.
Tadic’s political block has 17 ministers in the 25-minister government, compared with Kostunica’s eight, and the prime minister runs the risk of being outvoted by his own cabinet.
If that were to happen, Kostunica would have no choice but to resign and call an early parliamentary election, prominent Belgrade analyst Djordje Vukadinovic said.
Kostunica has said that any agreement should be ratified in parliament, where he could defeat it with the support of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party, whose candidate Tomislav Nikolic was narrowly defeated by Tadic in Sunday's election.
But Tadic insists there is no need for parliamentary approval, because the deal with the EU only benefits Serbia as it brings no obligations for the Balkan country.
Kostunica’s close ally and coalition partner, Velimir Ilic, said no deal should be signed without prior parliamentary approval. He said signing a deal with the EU “would be a signature for Kosovo's independence. Should Serbia be the first to sign it,” he asked.
Ilic said Thursday would be a decisive day for the government's future. “If the DS insists on signing the agreement, then everything is possible,” Ilic concluded.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Balkans for Dummies, Part I, Divorce Yugo Style
Brilliant article on explaining the Balkans & its players over at 1389 Blog, by a character named "Czech Rebel". If you have no clue as to "whose on first" in the theater of the Balkans, or know but have had a hard time explaining it to your friends, this is a great little primer on the Balkan neighborhood, to check out. Cheers to the author!
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Voters entrusted Tadic with another term in the office
Program Director of the election monitoring agency Center for Free Elections and Democracy (CESID) Marko Blagojevic stated tonight that, based on 100 percent of the processed sample, it can be assessed that voters in Serbia entrusted Boris Tadic with another term in the office. Blagojevic stated that Tadic won some 2.6 % votes more than his rival Tomislav Nikolic and that difference is between 120.000 and 130.000 votes. Blagojevic announced that the turn-out was about 67% in the second round of presidential elections, which means some 4.5 million voters. Earlier, Executive Director of the CESID Zoran Lucic told the press conference that it can be stated that Tadic is the President of Serbia considering the big difference in the number of votes.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Clinton, McCain & the Albanians
The international crisis that both Clinton & McCain are supporting, but for which neither has an exit plan.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
CounterPunch: The USA, New Europe and Kosovo
Excerpt:
"We ask: Is it possible to achieve the democratization of the region by supporting the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), a political organization of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)? Is it possible to achieve democratization of Kosovo by supporting the former KLA leader, and now Prime Minister, Hashim Thachi? Are we not then supporting, instead of democratization, the continuation of the nationalist logic and a process of further ethnic cleansing of Kosovo? These are not academic questions. In March 2000, former UN Special Investigator for the former Yugoslavia Jiri Dienstbier reported to the UN Commission on Human Rights that "330,000 Serbs, Roma, Montenegrins, Slavic Muslims, pro-Serb Albanians and Turks had been displaced in Kosovo--double the earlier estimates. What that means is most of Kosovo's minorities no longer are in their original homes." In this respect, things have only deteriorated since Dienstbier's report was submitted. You will forgive our skepticism as to the fact that Thaci, a principal protagonist of Kosovo's flourishing industry of arms, drug and sex trafficking, will prevent the inevitable ethnic violence, or that he will strive for the restoration of democracy, multiculturalism, and the rule of law in the independent Kosovo.
"We ask: Is it possible to achieve the democratization of the region by supporting the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), a political organization of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)? Is it possible to achieve democratization of Kosovo by supporting the former KLA leader, and now Prime Minister, Hashim Thachi? Are we not then supporting, instead of democratization, the continuation of the nationalist logic and a process of further ethnic cleansing of Kosovo? These are not academic questions. In March 2000, former UN Special Investigator for the former Yugoslavia Jiri Dienstbier reported to the UN Commission on Human Rights that "330,000 Serbs, Roma, Montenegrins, Slavic Muslims, pro-Serb Albanians and Turks had been displaced in Kosovo--double the earlier estimates. What that means is most of Kosovo's minorities no longer are in their original homes." In this respect, things have only deteriorated since Dienstbier's report was submitted. You will forgive our skepticism as to the fact that Thaci, a principal protagonist of Kosovo's flourishing industry of arms, drug and sex trafficking, will prevent the inevitable ethnic violence, or that he will strive for the restoration of democracy, multiculturalism, and the rule of law in the independent Kosovo.
And whose independent Kosovo is it going to be? Let us try to explain the western fascination with "thacism". Former Special Representative to the Secretary General of the UN in Kosovo, Sergio Vieira de Mell, was often quoted to complain: "Madeleine Albright is in love with Thaci. Jamie Rubin is his best friend. It's not helpful. Thaci arrived here with the impression that he has the full weight of the American government behind him. He believes he has earned the right to rule." In the past few years "thacism" was somewhat modified, so as to answer to a different reality, but only on the superficial level of rhetoric--with more or less successful distancing from ideas of a great Kosovo and/or Albania--meanwhile in practice it stayed more or less the same, with the usual mix of murders, kidnappings, and violent attempts to crackdown political opponents. But we should not overestimate Thaci, who, as his nickname suggests, is a reptile of minor importance. Thaci is important only as a metaphor of thacism, a form of colonial rule by way of support of local warlords whose job it is to destroy any inkling of anti-colonial protest."
The King of Kool is so over New York
KARIM RASHID: PLANTS ROOTS IN SERBIA
DEIRDRE KELLY
February 2, 2008
DEIRDRE KELLY
February 2, 2008
Karim Rashid, the industrial designer who grew up in Toronto, is universally recognized as a barometer of chic. The "poet of plastic," as Time magazine dubbed him, has created designs for clients as diverse as Alessi, Prada, Umbra and Kenzo. When the Carleton University grad says something's in, it's in.
And so, with word trickling in that the Canadian king of cool is buying up real estate in Belgrade, all eyes are on the Serbian capital.
"I love Serbia and I have a fascination with Eastern Europe in general," Mr. Rashid, 47, explained in an interview conducted by e-mail this week.
"For me, Paris, London, Milan, Stockholm, Madrid, Barcelona and even New York are very tired and banal. They do not inspire me as cities. I see Eastern Europe as the next upcoming place - everyone is psyched and enthusiastic about the rebuilding of these poetic, romantic, artistic and very intellectual places that were suppressed for years via socialist/communist regimes."
In 2006, he was ambassador of the first Belgrade Design Week, to which he invited some of his international designer pals, among them Ross Lovegrove, Gaetano Pesce and Konstantin Grcic.
"I keep my fees very low for Eastern Europe," Mr. Rashid added. "I've been approached by so many companies."
Language is not an issue. Mr. Rashid has a Serbian girlfriend, Ivana Puric, a chemical engineer, whom he met at a party he threw in Belgrade four years ago: "I was all in pink," he said, "in a big crowd of fabulous people with everyone dressed up very fancy, and I saw her walk in with about seven men."
While Manhattan no longer inspires Mr. Rashid, it remains the centre of the design universe, so he frequently returns to keep tabs on his design studio, Karim Rashid Inc..
On his most recent trip, he brought a bit of Belgrade back with him. "Ivana," he e-mails, "has moved to New York with me this week, and [is] finishing her PhD [at] NYU."
Once she's done, it will be back to Serbia, where, he writes, "we [have] designed a very kool little apartment full of my designs."
Djokovic gets hero's welcome for Australian Open win
Thousands in Belgrade Welcome Home Tennis Hero Novak Djokovic,BELGRADE, Feb 2 (Reuters) Serbia's Australian Open winner Novak Djokovic was given a raucous welcome by around 15,000 fans in central Belgrade today following his win in the Australian Open last Sunday.
Djokovic, who had gone to his Monte Carlo residence after capturing his first Grand Slam title last Sunday, hurled his racket into the crowd from the city hall balcony and described the reception as ''unreal''. ''I am at a loss for words to describe how I feel and I am so grateful you all came to celebrate my victory with me,'' he said.
''As a child, I stood where you are standing now to admire our great athletes who had won silverware for our country in the past and now here I am. It's a very special feeling.''
Djokovic beat Frenchman Joe-Wilfried Tsonga 4-6 6-4 6-3 7-6 to become the first Serb to win a Grand Slam and his success sparked massive celebrations in Serbia.
The country had come to a standstill during the final while bars and resturants crammed with fans staged parties after Djokovic's triumph. ''The pancake shop my family owns at the Mount Kopaonik skiing resort in south Serbia was so packed they couldn't fit in everybody,'' said Djokovic.
He added: ''I took up skiing before I started playing tennis and if I had chosen another sport, it would have alpine skiing because I have so much passion for it.''
Fans in Belgrade today sported Serbian flags and held banners, one of which said ''See you here after Roland Garros,'' offering a sign that many of them expect Djokovic to keep producing results.
The 20-year-old world number three, who played in the semi-final in last year's French Open, said he was looking forward to fresh challenges.
''The Australian Open success has motivated me to work even harder, improve further as a player and I hope to win many more trophies in the future. ''
"I have had a good break and I am now looking forward to the rest of the season in which I hope to move up the rankings if possible. '
'But the first major challenge I am looking forward to is our Davis Cup world group tie at holders Russia next week. ''They are the favorites but we have a very strong group of players who are young, have a great team spirit and an appetite for success.''
Recognition of Kosovo: US Threatens Serbia's Sovereignty
by Bishop Artemije of Ras Global Research, February 1, 2008
Following today's publication of a Washington Times commentary written by former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, former UN Ambassador John Bolton and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman urging the Bush Administration to withhold recognition of a unilateral declaration of Kosovo independence, His Grace, Bishop Artemije of Ras and Prizren issued the following statement prior to his visit to Washington to meet with Administration and Congressional officials and policymakers:
As I begin my latest mission to Washington, my country is being subjected to heightened threats from the government of the United States with respect to the future of the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija. Having just returned from Berlin and consultations with Members of the Bundestag, the Administration, and think tanks, NGOs, and media, it is clear that America's European allies are increasingly concerned about the
consequences of the course Washington is trying to impose on them. The U.S. response has been to step up the pressure.
For example, the press in Slovenia, currently chairing the European Union, recently revealed American officials' diktat to supposedly independent countries. In an account confirmed by Slovenian official sources, we hear American diplomats commanding the timing of a planned unilateral declaration of independence by the Albanian Muslim administration in Pristina and its recognition by the U.S. and some other governments. Even exposed is the shameful intention to trigger the crisis on the Lord's Day to thwart Russia in convening an emergency session of the Security Council.
Threats have already been issued that after an independence declaration and recognition, force would be used to shut down so-called "parallel structures" in Serbian enclaves -- in reality the legitimate institutions of our state -- including the Mitrovica office of the Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija. Such actions, with expected attacks on Serbian citizens, would constitute a direct assault on the Serbian state and the Serbian nation. While it would be inappropriate to disclose Serbia's specific response, we will defend our territory and our people as would any other democratic country. Russia and other friendly countries are prepared to assist us.
Should Washington and its followers make good on their current threats to recognize Kosovo, Serbia would never accept it. Not only Russia but many other countries, especially those outside of Europe, would reject recognition. Kosovo would never become a member of the United Nations. We would regard the international presence in Kosovo, including the mission now being considered by the EU, as an occupation force. We Serbs have suffered many occupations in the past and triumphed over them. If necessary we would survive this one as well. Despite any intensification of the terror to which we Christians have been subjected since 1999, my flock in Kosovo has no intention of leaving their homes.
I do not welcome having to direct these critical words at the United States. Serbs have always regarded America as a friend and continue to do so. Americans and Serbs were allies in both World Wars. We are not the ones who are pursuing a confrontation today. But it is impossible for America to profess friendship with Serbia while demanding the amputation of the most precious part of our homeland.
Despite the mistakes made so far, I am convinced that there is still a chance reason will prevail and the disastrous path laid before us will be averted. Today three highly respected former U.S. officials published a thoughtful and constructive analysis of the looming injury to American national interests:
"We believe that an imposed settlement of the Kosovo question and seeking to partition Serbia's sovereign territory without its consent is not in the interest of the United States. The blithe assumption of American policy -- that the mere passage of nine years of relative quiet would be enough to lull Serbia and Russia into reversing their positions on a conflict that goes back centuries -- has proven to be naive in the extreme. We believe that American policy on Kosovo must be reexamined without delay, and we urge the Bush Administration to make it clear that pending the results of such reexamination it would withhold recognition of a Kosovo independence declaration and discourage Kosovo's Albanians from taking that step."
Secretary Lawrence Eagleburger, Ambassador John Bolton, and Assistant Secretary Peter Rodman conclude: "As with thorny questions elsewhere, viable and enduring settlements should result from negotiation and compromise. Such an outcome has been undermined by an American promise to the Kosovo Albanians that their demands will be satisfied if they remain adamant and no agreement is reached with Belgrade."
I believe that negotiations must continue until a mutually acceptable solution can be found to allow us and our Albanian neighbors to live together in peace. Honest talks, without ultimatums or guaranteed results for either side, with no outcome barred from discussion, can still bear fruit. I ask all Americans of good will to ask their leaders in Washington to choose this path.
http://www.savekosovo.org
UPI: Opposition growing to Kosovo independence
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- There is growing opposition, on both sides of the Atlantic, to any recognition of a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo.......UPI
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