EU divided over future status of Kosovo

29.11.2005 - 18:02 CET | By Mark Beunderman

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU member states are signalling disagreement on the final status of Kosovo, just as UN-led talks on the future of the territory get under way.

Diplomats indicate that several states - including the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Greece and Italy - are publicly or privately promoting their own ideas, which in some cases go beyond the EU's common position.

EU member states in June agreed that the exact future status of Kosovo should be decided in UN-led negotiations between Serbs and Kosovan Albanians, while setting out some clear EU principles that any outcome must meet.

The EU conditions include the protection of the Serb minority, no return to the pre-March 1999 status (when Kosovo was directly governed from Belgrade), and, notably, no partitioning of the territory.

However, just after UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari started his initial talks with Belgrade and Pristina last week, Czech prime minister Jiri Paroubek suggested that partitioning Kosovo could be the best solution.

"A solution could be dividing the territory on ethnic lines. The northern part of the region would belong to Serbia, and the majority of the southern part could be given the status of an independent nation", the Czech politician said, according to press reports.

Cacophony of opinions
The Czech move - clearly in breach of EU principles - ran contrary to a previous initiative by Slovene president Janez Drnovsek, who presented earlier this month a plan promoting full independence for an unpartitioned Kosovo.

Mr Drnovsek's plan caused a row in Slovenia itself, with the country's foreign ministry publicly declaring that the president's action did "not reflect" the Slovenian government's position.

An EU diplomat said the Czech and Slovene moves were "worrying", as the EU seemed "incapable of sticking to a common position" over the issue.

Another diplomat described the Czech plea for a partition as "very dangerous".

On top of this, the president of EU candidate state Romania, Traian Basescu, last week while visiting Paris presented a proposal pleading for a type of Kosovan autonomy that falls short of independence from Serbia, which was well received in Belgrade but not in Pristina.

An EU source described the different statements coming out of European capitals as a "cacaphony of opinions."

Wariness about independence
Although most other member states have so far cautiously stuck to the EU´s guiding principles, in public at least, they have privately voiced their own views over the issue.

Italy, Spain and Greece in particular are said to be worried about what will happen if the territory is given fully-fledged independence, having been under the administration of the United Nations since the 1999 war.

Sources said Spain is "nervous" about an independent Kosovo setting a precedent for its own autonomous Basque region, something a Spanish spokesman did not want to comment on.

Both Italy and Greece are reportedly wary about endangering their close political and economic ties with Serbia, with Rome particularly fearful of a future "failed" state in Kosovo which could produce large numbers of refugees.

A Greek spokesman did not confirm Athens' particular worry about Kosovo's independence, but did highlight that Athens as a "powerful" player in the region would play an active "mediating role" between Belgrade and Pristina.

The EU has to pay the bill
The direct influence of the EU on the final status talks is likely to be limited, though not irrelevant.

UN envoy Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, will lead the talks, probably assisted by diplomats of the Kosovo Contact Group, which is viewed by diplomats as being very influential.

A representative from the EU has a seat in this group, but its six-nation core consists of the US and Russia as well as the UK, France, Germany and Italy.

"EU members who do not have a seat in the contact group are envious about those who do", one insider said.

But an EU diplomat argued that in the end, the view of the EU as a whole can hardly be ignored, as "we will have to pay the bill", referring to a probable Brussels role in administration and military stabilisation of the territory.

Mr Ahtisaari's efforts to broker a deal will initially be limited to shuttle diplomacy between Belgrade and Pristina, with direct talks between Serbs and Kosovan Albanians not expected to start before February.

Diplomats estimate that the negotiations will last at least six months, possibly more than a year.

Politicians representing the Kosovan Albanian majority have pleaded for full independence for Kosovo, but Serbia is opposed to granting Kosovo sovereign nation status. 

 

  http://euobserver.com/9/20437

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Kosovo: New War in the Balkans?

 

STRATFOR (USA)

Kosovo: New War in the Balkans?

November 22, 2005 17 40 GMT

Summary

The current stalemate over Kosovo's status is a perfect example of the palsied international system. One would think that a province that has been a de facto international protectorate for more than six years, by now, would have its status decided; yet the concerned parties in Kosovo ostensibly cannot perform the necessary tasks. The responsibility for this impasse rests first on the shoulders of the Kosovar Serbs and Albanians, who cannot agree, and second on the shoulders of the Contact Group members -- including the United States -- who dare not impose a solution.

Analysis

U.N. status envoy Martti Ahtisaari and his deputy Albert Rohan on Nov. 21 began their Balkan trip in the Kosovar capital of Pristina, with the clear intent of ensuring that status negotiations scheduled for December in Vienna, Austria, do not fail. However, their visit probably will have the opposite effect. At this stage it appears Ahtisaari merely wants to take notice of the contradictory positions at play in the negotiations rather than come up with a clear plan. A further sign of the chaos reigning in and around Kosovo is that disagreement exists both between and among the Albanians and the Serbs.

Two major views have emerged in the Serbian ranks. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic maintain that "Kosovo-Metohija" must remain part of Serbia. It can receive more than autonomy but less than independence, and the inhabitants' minority and property rights must be respected to the utmost. Hence, the Serbian government prepared a resolution Nov. 15 that was adopted by the Serbian Parliament on Nov. 21.

Also on Nov. 15, Serbian head of state Boris Tadic expounded his own views during talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tadic said Kosovo should be decentralized to create separate Serbian and Albanian entities within the region and allow Serbs to have a relationship with Serbia that would be close but regulated by Kosovar institutions. Earlier, Serbian Vice President Miroslav Labus came forth with a similar proposal, maintaining that a Serbian enclave should be created in northern Kosovo and along the Kosovar part of the River Morava.

What the Serb positions have in common is a simple fact: Kosovo must not, under any circumstances, be allowed to achieve independence.

Here, it must be noted that the international community -- the majority of U.S. and European politicians involved in this process -- are striving to extinguish the independent Serbian enclave in Bosnia-Herzegovina and create a unified state. Hence, it is possible that Tadic and Labus' proposals are designed to safeguard the existence of Serbian entities not only in Kosovo but also in Bosnia.

Events during the last few months testify to the uncertainties among Albanians, too. Though all the Albanians agree that Kosovo must be independent, in October some radical groups attempted to pressure the Kosovar Parliament to declare independence immediately. However, as a result of international pressure -- primarily from Jesen Petersen, leader of the U.N. Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo -- on Nov. 17 a public proclamation was issued stating that Kosovar Albanians want an independent and sovereign Kosovo, and that this position will be represented during negotiations with Belgrade.

The international community could resolve this predicament -- especially if the major powers represented in the Contact Group (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Russia) legally sanctioned the de facto protectorate. That would translate into at least five years of conditional independence for Kosovo, supervised by the Contact Group and protected by international forces, which would give the Serbs in Northern Kosovo not only minority rights (a term they consider an affront in itself) but also the ability to organize themselves -- inside Kosovo -- as a separate entity.

If the Contact Group members are not ready to impose the solution of conditional independence as soon as possible, a new war in the Balkans is almost a certainty. Historical patterns simply are not working: Neither the Ottoman Empire nor Tito's Yugoslavia can be resurrected. But a sort of Bismarckian realpolitik -- a protectorate imposed and supervised by a concert of major powers -- might be worth trying.

Regardless of what path is approached, any removal of international forces will lead to Albanian-Serb bloodshed. Consequently, the international community only has two options. First, the Contact Group could adopt a position of de facto support of Albanian independence. Such a stance would anger Belgrade, but Belgrade currently lacks the tools to retaliate effectively (although the Bosnian Serbs would certainly feel forced to act to protect their own interests). Second, the Contact Group could simply attempt to extend the existing legal limbo.

Unfortunately, another bit of Serbia and Montenegro -- namely, Montenegro -- is champing at the bit to vote on independence itself. And should Montenegro go, the Kosovar Albanians are certain to not wait around for the international community to make up its mind. This leaves just one question in Stratfor's mind: Do the Kosovar Albanians possess the military fortitude to seize their independence should they not receive a blank check from the Contact Group?

Guardian newspaper forced to retract Noam Chomsky interview

Using Emotion to Silence Analysis

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/nov2005/chom-n29_prn.shtml

World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org



WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : Britain

Guardian newspaper forced to retract Noam Chomsky interview

By Robert Stevens
29 November 2005

On November 17, Britain's Guardian newspaper ran a statement in its
Corrections and Clarifications column announcing the removal from its
website of an interview with Noam Chomsky.

The interview, conducted by Emma Brockes, was published in the
Guardian's October 31 edition after Chomsky, a professor of
linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was voted
the world's top intellectual in a poll conducted by Britain's Prospect
magazine. Of 20,000 participants in the Prospect poll, 4,800 voted for
Chomsky.

In the published interview, Brockes attacked Chomsky, claiming he had
implied that a massacre of Muslims had not been carried out by Serbian
forces at Srebrenica in July 1995, during the Bosnian war. Her
diatribe marked a new low in the ever more pronounced rightward shift
of a newspaper that still advertises itself as the mouthpiece of
Britain's liberal intelligentsia.

The Guardian dropped the interview only following an open letter to
the newspaper from Chomsky, a complaint from the media organisation
Media Lens, and numerous letters of protest from readers.

The Guardian had initially defended its interview. On November 1, it
published two letters supporting criticisms of Chomsky, supposedly to
balance the "debate". As Chomsky later pointed out in an email copied
to the Media Lens organisation, "Both writers assume that there is a
'debate', as the editors falsely claimed, in which I question the
massacre (or as they pretend, 'massacre') in Srebrenica. That is all
fabrication, as the editors know well. They labored mightily to create
the impression of a debate in which I take the position they assigned
to me, and have succeeded. Now I'm stuck with that, even though it is
a deceitful invention of theirs."

The newspaper also failed to publish Chomsky's entire open letter of
complaint, dated November 13. Instead, they ran a truncated version in
which they insisted, before agreeing to publish, that Chomsky remove
the word "fabrication" from his condemnation of the Brockes article.

Chomsky agreed to do this and later stated that he was mistaken in
doing so. Even then, Chomsky's letter was published alongside one from
a victim of the war in the Balkans under the spurious heading "Fallout
Over Srebrenica". In reality, this "fallout" had been entirely
concocted by the Guardian, which had attributed to Chomsky a statement
he never made.

The newspaper's November 14 retraction admitted as much. It was issued
in the form of an acknowledgement by the "readers' editor" that found
in favour of Chomsky on three significant complaints.

"Principal among these was a statement by Ms. Brockes that in
referring to atrocities committed at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war
he had placed the word 'massacre' in quotation marks. This suggested,
particularly when taken with other comments by Ms. Brockes, that Prof.
Chomsky considered the word inappropriate or that he had denied that
there had been a massacre. Prof. Chomsky has been obliged to point out
that he has never said or believed any such thing. The Guardian has no
evidence whatsoever to the contrary and retracts the statement with an
unreserved apology to Prof. Chomsky."

Brockes' piece was clearly a hatchet job in which she demonstrated a
complete disdain for basic journalistic standards. But why was she
given the task and what was the brief given to her by the Guardian's
editorial staff?

There is no doubt that Chomsky's nomination by the readers of Prospect
will have angered and appalled the Guardian. Both publications
function as liberal apologists for the Labour government of Prime
Minister Tony Blair and both he and his leading adviser, Peter
Mandelson, have written for Prospect. Last year the Guardian published
an article by the editor of Prospect, David Goodhart, in which he
questioned whether an ethnically diverse society and a welfare state
are any longer compatible.

The vote for Chomsky by Prospect's readers on the basis of his left
politics and generally anti-imperialist stance was clearly seen as a
slap in the face. There remains a section of readers who have not got
the message being doled out by both organs.

Why were Brockes and, presumably, the Guardian's editors so determined
to raise the issue of Srebrenica? Because the civil war in Bosnia
represented a political watershed. It was the occasion for a slew of
liberals and radicals to ditch their oppositional stance and make
their peace with imperialismâ€â€a phenomenon that was analysed by the
International Committee of the Fourth International in its December
14, 1995 statement, " Imperialist War in the Balkans and the Decay of
the Petty-Bourgeois Left"

The ICFI noted how representatives of this tendency, in which the
Guardian and many of its leading columnists were to be found, cited
revulsion over Serbian atrocities as the justification for their swing
into the imperialist campâ€â€ignoring similar atrocities by Croat and
Muslim forces. The moral hand-wringing over Bosnia served a definite
political purposeâ€â€to legitimise support for Western military
intervention aimed at the break-up of Yugoslavia and the installation
of various pro-Western regimes that would ensure imperialist control
of this strategic region. The Bosnian war provided an opportunity for
these layers of ex-radicals to realign their politics with those of
imperialism.

This analysis has been amply borne out in the past decade. The
Guardian's role in justifying Britain's military intervention in
Bosnia by citing atrocities such as Srebrenica was only a practice run
for its subsequent abandonment of opposition to the Iraq war and shift
to support for regime-change in Iraq, once again citing the crimes
committed by Saddam Hussein.

An essential function of the pro-war propaganda of the Guardian has
been to intimidate and silence all those who refuse to accept the lie
that the imperialist powers are undertaking a great civilising mission
by organising regime change in the Balkans, the Caucasus and the
Middle East: Hence Brockes' choice of ideological weapon against
Chomsky.

The interview was published under the headline "The Greatest
Intellectual?" Its subhead was designed to be read as an excerpt from
the interview. It stated, "Q: Do you regret supporting those who say
the Srebrenica massacre was exaggerated? A: My only regret is that I
didn't do it strongly enough."

Below, Brockes writes of Chomsky's career as an intellectual: "This
is, of course, what Chomsky has been doing for the last 35 years, and
his conclusions remain controversial: that practically every US
president since the Second World War has been guilty of war crimes;
that in the overall context of Cambodian history, the Khmer Rouge
weren't as bad as everyone makes out; that during the Bosnian war the
'massacre' at Srebrenica was probably overstated."

Chomsky has never put quotation marks around "massacre" in relation to
Srebrenica as Brockes implies. Indeed, he has referred to the massacre
at Srebrenica several times in his writing. More important still, the
question and answer that was used by the Guardian as a subhead was
made up either by Brockes or whoever edited her article for
publication.

The Guardian acknowledged in its retraction:

"No question in that form was put to Prof. Chomsky. This part of the
interview related to his support for Diana Johnstone (not Diane as it
appeared in the published interview) over the withdrawal of a book in
which she discussed the reporting of casualty figures in the war in
former Yugoslavia. Both Prof. Chomsky and Ms. Johnstone, who has also
written to the Guardian, have made it clear that Prof. Chomsky's
support for Ms. Johnstone, made in the form of an open letter with
other signatories, related entirely to her right to freedom of speech.
The Guardian also accepts that and acknowledges that the headline was
wrong and unjustified by the text."

The book by Diana Johnstone is entitled Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia,
NATO and Western Delusions, and was published in 2002. It is a
critique of the Western coverage of the war and seeks to shed light on
what lay behind the propaganda campaign of the imperialist
governments, which sought to demonize Serbia and lay sole
responsibility for the war at its door.

In 2003, Chomsky was one of a number of prominent signatories to an
open letter opposing the withdrawal of the book by its Swedish
publisher. That decision followed a press campaign in which both
Johnstone and her book were vilified, led by the daily newspaper,
Dagens Nyeter.

Chomsky was simply defending the author's right to free speech and,
while describing Johnstone's book as a "serious" work, has never said
that he fully agrees or disagrees with her analysis.

In his open letter to the Guardian, Chomsky states, "The reporter
obviously had a definite agenda: to focus the defamation exercise on
my denial of the Srebrenica massacre. From the character of what
appeared, it is not easy to doubt that she was assigned this task.
When I wouldn't go along, she simply invented the denial, repeatedly,
along with others."

An indication of just how importantâ€â€personally as well as
politicallyâ€â€it was for the Guardian to discredit Chomsky is Brockes'
description of "my colleague, Ed Vulliamy" as a "serious, trustworthy"
person. This is written in the context of an attack on Chomsky for
daring to question Vulliamy's reporting of the war.

Vulliamy wrote regularly on the war in the Balkans. His essential
theme was that the Serbian regime was responsible for the war, that
the Bosnian people were being systematically wiped out, and that
failure to support Western intervention was tantamount to supporting
Serbian atrocities.

As Diana Johnstone points out in her November 14 article on the
Brockes-Chomsky episode, entitled "Kulturkrieg in Journalism: Using
Emotion to Silence Analysis," it is entirely conceivable that Brockes
based her conversation with Chomsky on a few culled paragraphs from
Vulliamy, even down to his spelling mistakes. Vulliamy had previously
spelled Johnstone's first name incorrectly in printâ€â€a mistake repeated
by Brockes in her article.

Guardian Apologizes to Chomsky

November 17, 2005

Guardian Apologizes to Chomsky

Total Retraction of Emma Brockes's "No Massacre at
Srebrenica" Slurs

By CounterPunch News Service


The following unusually detailed and categorical apology to
Noam Chomsky appears in The Guardian for November 17. The
Guardian's "readers' editor", Ian Mayes, issues this
virtually unprecedented climb-down--in effect a savage
rebuke to its reporter Emma Brockes--after complaints by
Chomsky himself and others, and by detailed exposes, first
by Alexander Cockburn and then by Diana Johnstone on this site.


The headline and text of The Guardian's retractions follow.


Corrections and clarifications
The Guardian and Noam Chomsky
Thursday November 17, 2005
The Guardian


The readers' editor has considered a number of complaints
from Noam Chomsky concerning an interview with him by Emma
Brockes published in G2, the second section of the Guardian,
on October 31. He has found in favour of Professor Chomsky
on three significant complaints.


Principal among these was a statement by Ms Brockes that in
referring to atrocities committed at Srebrenica during the
Bosnian war he had placed the word "massacre" in quotation
marks. This suggested, particularly when taken with other
comments by Ms Brockes, that Prof Chomsky considered the
word inappropriate or that he had denied that there had been
a massacre. Prof Chomsky has been obliged to point out that
he has never said or believed any such thing. The Guardian
has no evidence whatsoever to the contrary and retracts the
statement with an unreserved apology to Prof Chomsky.


The headline used on the interview, about which Prof Chomsky
also complained, added to the misleading impression given by
the treatment of the word massacre. It read: Q: Do you
regret supporting those who say the Srebrenica massacre was
exaggerated? A: My only regret is that I didn't do it
strongly enough.


No question in that form was put to Prof Chomsky. This part
of the interview related to his support for Diana Johnstone
(not Diane as it appeared in the published interview) over
the withdrawal of a book in which she discussed the
reporting of casualty figures in the war in former
Yugoslavia. Both Prof Chomsky and Ms Johnstone, who has also
written to the Guardian, have made it clear that Prof
Chomsky's support for Ms Johnstone, made in the form of an
open letter with other signatories, related entirely to her
right to freedom of speech. The Guardian also accepts that
and acknowledges that the headline was wrong and unjustified
by the text.


Ms Brockes's misrepresentation of Prof Chomsky's views on
Srebrenica stemmed from her misunderstanding of his support
for Ms Johnstone. Neither Prof Chomsky nor Ms Johnstone have
ever denied the fact of the massacre.


Prof Chomsky has also objected to the juxtaposition of a
letter from him, published two days after the interview
appeared, with a letter from a survivor of Omarska. While he
has every sympathy with the writer, Prof Chomsky believes
that publication was designed to undermine his position, and
addressed a part of the interview which was false. Both
letters were published under the heading Falling out over
Srebrenica. At the time these letters were published,
following two in support of Prof Chomsky published the
previous day, no formal complaint had been received from
him. The letters were published by the letters editor in
good faith to reflect readers' views. With hindsight it is
acknowledged that the juxtaposition has exacerbated Prof
Chomsky's complaint and that is regretted. The Guardian has
now withdrawn the interview from the website.


[No need to worry--the article will live forever on the
innumerable right-wing sites that copied it, and no doubt
its admittedly false allegations will forever remain part of
the Chomsky lore endlessly repeated by his detractors.--DC]


--
Dan Clore

RE: Hague court bids to rein in former Kosovo PM

 

RE: Hague court bids to rein in former Kosovo PM
31/10/2005

Your articles notes that the former Kosovo prime minister and Kosovo Liberation Army leader Ramush Haradinaj, although indicted for war crimes against Serbs, Roma and fellow Albanians, has been allowed by a preliminary judgment of The Hague Tribunal's judiciary to return to the province and resume political life while awaiting his trial.

This extraordinarily lenient treatment should come as no surprise. After all, the international community's recent decision to discuss the status of Kosovo handsomely rewards KLA ethnic cleansing. Apparently, it is asking too much of Kosovo's Albanians, having won outright, to welcome back the many Serbs, Roma and other non-Albanians whom they expelled during the early days of the NATO occupation and to stop harassing those Serbs who stayed behind. To ditch "standards before status" is to appease the province's Albanians in their non-negotiable demand for an independent and ethnically pure Kosovo.

So much for Gen Wesley Clark's comment during the bombing of Serbia that "There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states." To add to the irony, there now appears to be a place in Europe for Croatia, a more or less ethnically pure state as a result of its expunging of the Krajina Serb nation.

Yugo Kovach
European Co-ordinator
The Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies (www.balkanstudies.org)
22 The Barons
Twickenham, Middx TW1 2AP
United Kingdom
020 8892 1979
01258 880 283


United Kingdom
------------------------------------------------------------

Hague court bids to rein in former Kosovo PM

ISN SECURITY WATCH (20/10/05) - Prosecutors at the Hague-based International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) late on Wednesday lodged an excoriating appeal to prevent Kosovo's former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj from returning to political life.

The appeal was couched in unusually strong language and noted angrily that despite being indicted for extremely serious crimes, Haradinaj was gradually “being reinstated as a key player in the political scene in Kosovoâ€Â.

Hague prosecutors said they would submit more evidence to the Appeals Chamber on Thursday or at the very latest on Friday. However, the contents of these submissions are to remain confidential as potential witnesses could be identified if they were made public.

Haradinaj, 37, is a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK/KLA). His indictment, along with that of two subordinates, was made public last March. It accused the three men of 37 counts of abduction, murder, torture, and "ethnic cleansing", committed against Serbs, Roma, and fellow Albanians in 1998.

When his indictment was made public, Haradinaj was prime minister of Kosovo and was widely acclaimed as having achieved much during the 100 days he was in office. On his departure for The Hague, Soren Jessen-Petersen, the head of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), publicly lamented the fate of his “close partner and friendâ€Â.

On 6 June, Haradinaj was released from custody pending trial. The terms of his conditional release allowed him to pursue limited work within his own party, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo. Haradinaj’s defense team then asked for these terms to be relaxed, a proposal supported by UNMIK.

On 14 October, the UN Tribunal agreed, saying: “The accused may appear in public and engage in public political activities to the extent which UNMIK finds would be important for a positive development of the political and security situation in Kosovo.â€Â

On 17 October, the prosecution succeeded in stopping this, pending further submissions, the major one having come late on Wednesday.

In its appeal, the prosecution says that the lifting of restrictions - which would not, however, permit Haradinaj to become prime minister again while he awaits trial - creates “a terrible perception†for victims and witnesses and an impression of unfairness, since similar privileges have not been granted to other indictees.

The prosecution says that if upheld, the decision to allow Haradinaj to return to politics would strike fear among his victims and witnesses, who would gain the impression that “power still resides in the hands of the accusedâ€Â.

They also reminded the judges of the so-called Dukagjini Case, in which at least five witnesses in a case of murder involving Haradinaj’s brother Daut and his co-accused, Idriz Balaj, were killed.

No date has been set for the Appeals Chamber to make a final adjudication on the case, but it is expected within the next few weeks.

The fact that UNMIK has lobbied hard for the relaxation of Haradinaj’s terms of release confirms stories circulating in Pristina that the UN and Western diplomats are keen to have Haradinaj play a key political role in the coming months.

Kosovo is now entering a particularly tense period, as talks on its future status are likely to begin by December.

Haradinaj’s successor as prime minister is Bajram Kosumi. However, not having been a guerrilla commander, his authority is limited and his administration has been weakened by media reports of alleged corruption.

One diplomat who deals with Kosovo told ISN Security Watch that he believed that Haradinaj could “play a useful role in terms of telling hardliners he knows to stay calmâ€Â.

Agron Bajram, the editor of the daily newspaper Koha Ditore, told ISN Security Watch that he, like most Kosovo Albanians, would be “delighted†if Haradinaj could return to politics, because he had been a “much-needed†figure while in power and could play a major role in unifying the Albanian side during the upcoming talks on Kosovo’s future.

By contrast, Dusan Batakovic, a senior advisor on Kosovo to Serbian President Boris Tadic, told ISN Security Watch: “We see this as appalling. This unbalanced approach to indictees of different sides is a sending a very wrong message to both Serbs and Albanians.â€Â

What is clear is that since Haradinaj's release, the UN and diplomats in Kosovo have courted him in ways that would have been deemed outrageous and inappropriate if the indictee had been a Serb or Croat.

For example, on 26 September, a huge party was held at the Hotel Grand in Pristina to celebrate the wedding of Haradinaj’s brother. Among the guests were deputy UNMIK chief Larry Rossin and other senior officials and diplomats.

Haradinaj is frequently seen dining in fashionable restaurants in Pristina with foreign guests, who also visit him at his home in the village of Gllogjan.

Oddly, considering the alleged power and influence of Haradinaj, armed men in masks and uniforms have recently begun setting up checkpoints and searching cars not far from Gllogjan.

The Kosovar Albanian press has reported that a group calling itself “The Army for Kosovo’s Independence†has threatened UN officials with death and kidnapping if they act in any way to prevent Kosovo’s independence.

Officials from the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) have said they were only aware of criminal activities.

(By Tim Judah in London)
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=13210

Serbia fights to hold on to Kosovo, Montenegro

Serbia fights to hold on to Kosovo, Montenegro

As Kosovo status talks begin and Montenegro prepares for an independence referendum, Serbian analysts say the government in Belgrade could survive losing Montenegro, but losing Kosovo would have far-reaching consequences.

 ISN By Igor Jovanovic in Belgrade for ISN Security Watch (27/11/05)


Serbian lawmakers last week passed a resolution enabling the government to participate in negotiations on the future status of its UN-administered southern province of Kosovo, but at the same time making it clear that an independent Kosovo would be unacceptable.

The 21 November resolution essentially calls for Kosovo, which has a majority ethnic Albanian population, to be given autonomy, just short of independence.

Last Thursday, three days after the resolution was adopted by Serbian parliament, a team was formed to participate in the Kosovo status negotiations. That team will include Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, Serbian President Boris Tadic, Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic of Serbia and Montenegro, and Thomas Fleiner, the director of Switzerland’s Federalism Institute, who will serve as an advisor to the team.

The Serbian resolution is in direct opposition to a resolution adopted by the Kosovo Assembly a few days earlier, which states that independence is the only option for the province.

The status talks started on 21 November with the arrival of UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.

The Serbia resolution advocates a compromise solution for Kosovo, but says it “will proclaim any imposed solution illegitimate, illegal, and invalid†- a warning to the international community not to attempt to force the independence issue unilaterally. The representatives also advocated direct negotiations with the Albanian side, another veiled rejection of international interference.

Prime Minister Kostunica told lawmakers that a solution for Kosovo’s status must guarantee the preservation of Serbia and Montenegro’s sovereignty as well as essential autonomy for Kosovar Albanians.

Kostunica said Serbia was “not only defending its national interest, but also the principles on which today’s international law is basedâ€Â.

All caucuses except the Democratic Party, led by Serbian President Tadic, voted for the resolution. However, although the Democrats disagreed with some aspects of the resolution, they concurred that independence for Kosovo was unacceptable.

Tadic proposed that Kosovo remain part of Serbia, but be divided into two entities, one Serb and one Albanian. The proposal, which was first unveiled by Tadic during his recent visit to Russia, has been rejected by ethnic Albanian leaders.

The two entities would have both joint and separate institutions similar to the way Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided up by the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the 1992-1995 war there. That model, which the international community in Bosnia is now hoping to revise, has proven to be politically complicated, bureaucratically inefficient, and extremely expensive.

The planned Serb entity of Kosovo would have institutional links to Belgrade in areas such as education, health, and some forms of security. Tadic’s associates said the Serbian president’s proposal focused more on concrete details, while the existing resolution was centered around a vague notion of “more than autonomy, less than independence†for Kosovo.

But Tadic’s idea of dividing up Kosovo has been rejected out of hand by the US and the EU, though Russia and China oppose full independence for Kosovo and are more likely to accept such a plan.

The head of the Coordinating Center for Kosovo, Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, who is also the vice-president of Kostunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia, said the 21 November parliamentary resolution on Kosovo should not be taken lightly.

Raskovic-Ivic told the Belgrade daily Politika that the Serbian side would insist on “the point that Serbia’s borders cannot be changedâ€Â. But she also stressed that “more than autonomy, less than independence†was a compromise between two extremes - the Kosovar Albanian “independence or nothing†and the Serbian “centralism or nothingâ€Â.

According to the resolution, the ethnic Albanians (who have the overall majority in the province) will be offered judicial, executive, and legislative power in areas where they are the majority, while the same principle would apply to Kosovo Serbs in those municipalities where they are in the majority.

“There is no politician in Serbia who would accept […] independence for Kosovo, even if it were conditional,†Raskovic-Ivic said.

Cedomir Antic, political advisor to Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus, who is also the leader of the G17 Plus party - the second-largest party in Serbia’s ruling coalition - said any kind of independence for Kosovo would rule out any Serbian financial aid for the province.

“This would lead to a new displacement of Serbs from Kosovo,†Antic told ISN Security Watch. Some 100,000 Serbs remain in Kosovo, while around 200,000 fled the province after 1999 when international security forces took control.

In the meantime, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has urged Belgrade to play “a constructive role†in the resolution of the Kosovo’s status.

In an attempt to assuage Belgrade’s fears that Serbia’s conduct during the Kosovo status talks could determine the outcome of the country’s EU membership bid, EU officials said the two issues were not directly related.

EU Foreign and Security Policy High Representative Javier Solana told Belgrade media in October he did not believe that the Kosovo status talks would have any effect on Serbia’s Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) talks with Brussels - the first steps towards EU membership for Western Balkan nations.

“I do not think the negotiations on Kosovo’s future status should be a problem. Those are two separate processes. One refers to relations between Serbia and Montenegro and the EU, and the other is linked to processes whose direction is set not by the EU, but by the UN, even though it is important for us,†Solana said.

According to opinion polls conducted by Media Gallup in late September, 35 per cent of Serbian citizens believe that the best solution for Kosovo is autonomy within the existing borders.

Seven per cent of those polled said the best solution would be to create a Kosovo Republic modeled along the lines of the union of Serbia and Montenegro, while 12 per cent favored full Serbian control over Kosovo - the pre-1999 set up. Only 2 per cent advocated the preservation of the current state as a UN-administered province.

Kosovo, Montenegro slipping away
As the debate over Kosovo’s status intensifies, Montenegro is also threatening to leave the state union with Serbia and declare independence.

Serbia’s ruling parties are largely united over the need to preserve the union with Montenegro. Only G17 Plus advocates an independent Serbia without Montenegro, but it has reached a consensus with its coalition partners to create a strategy for maintaining the common state.

But Montenegro is slipping away. Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic said in early October that a referendum on the independence of Montenegro, the smaller of the union’s two republics, would not be postponed and would be held between February and April 2006.

Serbian Democratic Party spokesman Andreja Mladenovic told ISN Security Watch that his party advocated the preservation of the state union, primarily because the EU had clearly said “this is the quickest way to obtain EU membershipâ€Â.

“But if the people of Montenegro choose independence and if the referendum is held according to international standards, the Serbian government will respect the referendum’s results,†Mladenovic said.

Branko Radujko, advisor to the Serbian president, told ISN Security Watch that Tadic also advocated the preservation of the common state as the fastest track to EU membership.

Serbia and Montenegro Foreign Minister Draskovic, who is also the leader of one of the ruling Serbian parties, the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), said he would do everything in his power to save the state union.

However, G17 Plus’ Cedomir Antic says Serbia is “a hostage†in the union with the much smaller Montenegro, which - even though it contributes only 5 per cent of the joint budget - has the right to veto all decisions in the common state.

Earlier this month, the European Commission cautioned Montenegro against making any unilateral moves as it prepares for its independence referendum.

The EU has warned Montenegro against embarking on any moves towards an independence referendum until a broad consensus was reached on how it should be conducted. Otherwise, it said, the international community would not accept the outcome.

“The issue should be dealt with in a way that preserves internal and regional stability and is compatible with the continuing progress of Serbia and Montenegro towards membership,†the EU said in a statement.

Brussels in 2003 acknowledged that Montenegro had the right to organize a referendum on independence. However, the EU wants the strongly pro-independence government of Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic to hash out an agreement with Montenegrin parties that oppose the move, with Serbia, and with the international community.

According to a September survey conducted by the Podgorica-based nongovernmental Center for Democracy, independence is still the favored solution in Montenegro, with 41.6 per cent of respondents in favor of independence and 34.5 per cent opposed.

However, despite the disagreements, Antic believes that the possible separation of Montenegro “will go down absolutely peacefully†as far as the Serbian side is concerned.

Belgrade political analyst Slobodan Antonic said the Serbian government would easily survive a possible split with Montenegro, but added that no Serbian government could survive Kosovo’s independence.

“That would probably lead to early elections. If the elections are held soon after the declaration of Kosovo’s independence, the parties with nationalist rhetoric, such as the Serbian Radical Party, are very likely to come to power,†Antonic told ISN Security Watch.

The Radicals - whose leader, Vojislav Seselj, is on trial at the UN’s Hague-based war crimes tribunal for atrocities committed in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina - is the single strongest party in the Serbian parliament, holding 81 out of the total 250 legislative seats.

According to the latest public opinion polls, the Radicals now enjoy the support of around 32 per cent of voters in Serbia, while the second-ranked pro-European Democratic Party, led by President Tadic, has 11 per cent less.

Antonic said that if the Radicals won power it would most likely complicate the country’s EU membership bid, even though the party does not officially oppose association with the EU, but does oppose the extradition of Serbian war criminals to the UN court, which is a major precondition for EU membership talks to begin.


Igor Jovanovic is ISN Security Watch’s senior correspondent in Serbia. He has worked with Serbia’s Beta News Agency since 1998 and is the former News Editor for Belgrade’s Radio Index. He also contributes to Transitions Online magazine and the Southeast European Times.
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=13641

Kosovo sellout

The New York Times

November 26, 2005


In Meeting With Rival Factions, U.N. Envoy Paves Way for Kosovo Talks

By NICHOLAS WOOD

BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro, Nov. 23 - The United Nations took a step closer to starting talks on the future of Kosovo, perhaps the most intractable issue remaining from the Balkan wars of the 1990's, with a visit by its chief negotiator to the region this week.

The envoy, Martti Ahtissari, a former president of Finland and recently appointed as the United Nations' negotiator, met Tuesday and Wednesday with the leaders of Kosovo's two factions, ethnic Albanians and Serbs, in Pristina, Kosovo's capital, to prepare for possible face-to-face negotiations between the sides early next year.

His tour paves the way for negotiations that are expected to end six years of legal limbo for Kosovo, during which uncertainty over that Serbian province's future has frustrated both its populations and the threatened the chances for long-term stability in the region.

Kosovo has been under the control of a United Nations interim administration since it was wrested from Serbia's control in June 1999 after a 78-day NATO-led bombing campaign. The air campaign came after Serbia sent troops into the province against an ethnic Albanian rebel movement, and evidence emerged of widespread atrocities by the troops against the Albanian majority.

Since then the United Nations has established a regional government with substantial local control. But the mission's role in the province is seen by international officials as increasingly untenable because of the failure to resolve its future status.

Officially Kosovo remains a part of Serbia, contrary to the wishes of the Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the estimated two million people and who want independence. Last year 50,000 ethnic Albanians rioted in the region, forcing 4,000 Serbs and others to flee their homes and killing 19 people.

The difficulty of Mr. Ahtissari's task was underlined just before his visit as Serbian and Albanian political leaders reiterated their diametrically opposing views. On Monday, Serbia's Parliament passed a resolution agreeing to the negotiation process, but rejecting any solution that would remove Kosovo from Serbia. On Tuesday, Kosovo's Albanian leaders told Mr. Ahtissari that they would not accept anything less than independence.

"I insist on the direct recognition of Kosovo's independence that will calm down the region," Kosovo's president, Ibrahim Rugova, said after meeting in his home in Pristina with Mr. Ahtissari. "The time has come to wrap up this business."

Much of the negotiations are expected to focus on how Kosovo's Serbian population, which numbers up to 130,000, can best be protected and have a degree of autonomy from Albanian-dominated institutions.

While the United Nations officials say the final agreement will be the result of negotiation, senior Western diplomats across the region concede it will be difficult to defy Kosovo Albanian demands for independence, despite their failure to prevent attacks on minorities. Forcing Kosovo to remain within Serbia would run the risk of provoking an Albanian insurgency and destabilizing the region, they said.

But some politicians warn that insufficient consideration is being given to what impact Kosovo's independence would have on Serbia.

"Everyone seems to be concerned about the future status of Kosovo; that it will be more or less independent, conditional independence or independence with international supervision," Dimitrij Rupel, Slovenia's foreign minister and current chairman in the office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said in a recent interview. "But they haven't thought thoroughly about what might happen in Serbia."

The negotiations come at difficult time for Serbia. Next year Montenegro is expected to hold a referendum that could also lead to it breaking away from Serbia and becoming an independent state.

Serbia's democratic parties also remain weak, despite five years of democratic government since the fall of the former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, Mr. Rupel said.

Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's coalition government has introduced difficult economic and political changes that have yet to bear fruit. Public enterprises are being restructured with job losses, social security payments have been scaled back, and public expenditures have been cut to ensure economic stability.

This environment, especially if Kosovo and Montenegro were to become independent, could be exploited by the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, which holds the largest number of seats in Parliament, said Vuk Jeremic, the foreign affairs adviser to the reformist president, Boris Tadic.

"We may experience a nationalist wave," Mr. Jeremic said in a telephone interview. "The Radicals will say, what have five years of democracy brought us? The improvements may not be very obvious at this stage." If Kosovo were lost, he said, "I think there will be little we can use to contain them."

Mr. Rupel said he had urged other European foreign ministers at a recent meeting in Brussels to consider how Serbia might be compensated for any possible losses in Kosovo. "I think part of the solution will be finding something attractive for the Serbs," he said. Asked what the response of his counterparts had been to his proposal he said, "They didn't have an answer."

Membership in the European Union some time in the future "isn't really a carrot," he said. Aid or compensation, financial or political would have to be sufficient to strengthen democratic forces enough to make people overlook the loss of Kosovo.

Mr. Jeremic said the whole region needed an additional aid package, to ensure stability after a decision on Kosovo. "There has to be a new initiative for the Balkans within the European Union," he said.

But he emphasized that Serbia could not be bought off on Kosovo. "No matter how high a price you pay for Kosovo, it would still be a sellout," he said.
"The compensation has to be found within Kosovo. The compensation will have to be at the expense of Albanians' maximalist platform."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/26/international/europe/26kosovo.html

CANADA: Broken Promises

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051119/w5_broken_promises_051119/20051121?hub=WFive

CTV.ca


Broken Promises

By Marleen Trotter, W-FIVE
 
Updated: Mon. Nov. 21 2005 5:37 PM ET

Canada, like many other wealthy countries, wants to attract the best and brightest from developing nations.
The promise? Bring your education and skills and the jobs are waiting. In particular, the Canadian government has been encouraging highly skilled and highly educated immigrants.
In a major speech in September, Prime Minister Paul Martin put heavy emphasis on the need to increase immigration levels to combat an aging population, low birth rate and a shortage of skills.
"We need immigrants," said Martin. "Quite frankly we need more and we need them to succeed."
But can we really accommodate more? What about the tens of thousands already here?
Many who came with dreams of a better life find it impossible to work in their chosen profession and complain of a system that offers little help to allow them to practice their skills.
Federal government documents obtained by W-FIVE show that skilled immigrants are shunning Canada. In 2000, Canadian embassies and consulates abroad received more than 300,000 immigrant skilled worker visa applications. But in 2004 that number declined to only 177,000.
Even more dramatic is the fall in skilled worker applications from China (including Hong Kong), which dropped from 60,000 in 2000 to only 8,000 in 2004

The Maple Leaf

For Eva Zhai, who grew up in China, the Canadian maple leaf represented a symbol of opportunity and independence in a far-off land.
Zhai immigrated to Canada because she dreamed of a better life for herself and her daughter Nicole.
She didn't leave China because she was poor or desperate. At home in Shanghai, she was a successful marketing executive for a large multinational company. Hers was just the kind of expertise she was told would land her a good job in Canada.
But Zhai hasn't been able to find any job that matches her qualifications. Her dream is starting to die.
"Like now I feel a bit lost. Like a failure for the career improvement," says Zhai. "I thought I have a very solid multinational background you know. It should be I can fit in."

Prescription for dissatisfaction

Hamid Zarrinkalam was also led to believe he would have no trouble fitting in once he immigrated to Canada.
An experienced pharmacist back in Iran, Zarrinkalam was told he would have to be re-certified in Canada. But he was never told it would take almost three years, that he would literally have to start over, go back to school, write five exams and do another internship to re-qualify.
Zarrinkalam feels fortunate to have a job as a pharmacy technician to support himself while he studies for his licensing examinations. But his work as an assistant is a long way from managing a pharmacy, which is what he did back in Iran.
"I passed my university (in Iran). I got my degrees over there," he says. "So I'm ready to (work as a pharmacist). But here -- no."

Giving up

By the time W-FIVE met Raj Kumar, he was already packing up his dreams for a better life in Canada, along with his wife Shivani and their two children. After five years in this country, the engineer with a PhD from New Delhi has been unable to find any work in his profession.
"I never thought that I would not find a job here," Kumar told W-FIVE.
Disappointed and desperate, he's giving up on Canada and moving to the United States. There, he found a job with a high-tech company based in Princeton, New Jersey.
"Within ten days I got two offers (in the U.S.)," he said.
Before emigrating, Kumar was educated and taught at one of the most prestigious technical schools in the world -- The Indian Institute of Technology.
But once in Canada, he couldn't even land an entry-level position and ended up doing tutoring and courier jobs. He never thought he would be unable to find work once here.

Point system

Immigrants come from different countries, with different backgrounds. But they all have one thing in common. They qualified to immigrate to Canada under its point system for skilled workers. It is a point system that rewards higher education and experience. Everyone must pass an international language test.
A government presentation shown to prospective immigrants, obtained by W-FIVE, shows what's needed: 10 points for being in the right age bracket; 25 points for education; 10 points for arranged employment; 16 points for speaking one of Canada's official languages (French or English); 8 additional points for the second official language. A prospective immigrant needs 67 out of 100 points to qualify.
The huge number of points given for education means that it's very easy for prospective immigrants with university degrees and good jobs.
Skilled immigrants are invited into Canada based on their impressive education, experience and language abilities only to find out that once they get here those credentials aren't recognized, their foreign experience doesn't count and their English isn't good enough.
They find themselves locked out by employers who want Canadian degrees and Canadian experience, by regulated professions that make it almost impossible to re-qualify.
Skilled surgeon can't work while Canada needs doctors
Joshua Raj, an experienced orthopedic surgeon has performed more than 1,000 joint replacements in Malaysia and the United Kingdom.
Canada needs orthopedic surgeons, but once he arrived in Canada, Dr. Raj he was told he would have to go back to medical school for a year, then wait in line and do another four-year residency, if he could even find one. Dr. Raj has come to the conclusion that he will never be able to practice medicine in Canada.
"When I make an incision in patient in England, Ireland or Wales under the skin they look exactly the same as a Canadian," says Dr. Raj. "The bones are the same, the arteries are the same, the nerves are the same. I don't see why I cannot work here."

Suing Ottawa

One couple in Alberta is determined to take on Canada's failing immigration system. Prem and Nessa Premakumaran are suing the federal government, accusing Canada of wooing professionals like themselves under false pretences.
Now living in Edmonton, Prem and Nessa were educated in the United Kingdom and worked for 20 years in London, England, in accounting and office administration before emigrating to Canada.
They claim that during their interview at the Canadian High Commission they were told they would have no trouble finding work in their fields given their experience and qualifications. Today, they complain, that they were sold a bill of goods.
"If they are looking for slaves to do the jobs, menial jobs, they should advertise they are looking, Canada is looking for slaves to do the menial jobs," complains Prem.
Since coming to Canada, it's been a constant struggle for Prem and Nessa to support their young family. In spite of their global experience and a booming Alberta economy, no one would hire them.
Instead of working in finance and office administration, the Premakumarans have been forced to take whatever jobs they could get to survive, cleaning hotel rooms and offices.
At one point Prem was even forced to shovel snow in front of Canada Place to make ends meet.

Ontario condemns federal immigration

So what's wrong? Ontario's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Michael Colle blames a federal visa system that is out of touch with the reality of the job market. Colle says the federal point system gives priority to people with academic credentials regardless of whether there is work for them.
"The immigration system in Canada is broken," Colle told W-FIVE in an interview. "It's like inviting someone for dinner to your home and you basically feed them crumbs.
"The problem is that we in Ontario may need welders, we need construction workers, we need truck drivers. So the point system doesn't do you any good if you're a truck driver who wants to come to Canada from Romania. Yet if you're a PhD from Bucharest you'll probably get in but you may not get work but if you're a truck driver you get to work immediately. Well, then the point system isn't working? That's an understatement."

Bad news spreading fast

Our reputation as a nation that welcomes the world is at stake. And the bad news about how tough things can be for skilled newcomers in Canada is spreading fast -- via the Internet, messages posted by disappointed, highly technical immigrants who are plugged into the global marketplace.
A recent online article out of New Delhi warns "Far from being the El Dorado of repute, for many immigrants Canada has emerged as a land of unmitigated disaster. From rampant discrimination to hidden booby traps, Indians have been forced into an economic quagmire, having to settle for a dead end job."
And then there's a website, NOTCANADA.COM, that blasts Canada as a "land of shattered dreams" where "careers, finances and lives are destroyed". The website lists the top eight reasons not to immigrate to Canada. Number one is "No Jobs."
The negative warnings from disillusioned immigrants posted on the website's forum are shockingly blunt:
"My Canadian dream turned into a nightmare."
"Canadians must be proud of having highly skilled immigrants sweeping floors and washing dishes"
"All of you wanting to migrate: DO NOT DO IT."

Federal minister responds

W-FIVE went to Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Joe Volpe, to talk about the disconnect between immigrants and the labour market.
In particular we asked him about the many immigrants the program interviewed, who told us they passed the point system and were led to believe they would get jobs in our field, but once in Canada, just hit a brick wall and ended up in dead end jobs.
"I'm one of those that doesn't believe that any job leads to a dead end," responded Volpe. "I think that work actually ennobles the human spirit."
Volpe appeared taken aback when shown the NOTCANADA.com website.
"Does something like this trouble anybody? It troubles me," he told reporter Victor Malarek. "I want the most positive remarks regarding Canada and my job is to be able to fix the system so that people we invite into our country can hit the ground running."
"The system needs to change. How long is that going to take? Years? I'd do it tomorrow if I could because every day thousands of immigrants are coming only to find jobs aren't available."
However the immigration minister believes immigrants will eventually find success in Canada.
"The characteristics of immigrant is when one door opens another closes. I don't mean to be cavalier but I would say to those immigrants they shouldn't be discouraged while we're building a system to realize everyone's talent."

End of the road

But the immigrants W-FIVE met during its investigation are discouraged. If things don't turn around for Eva Zhai soon, she and her family will go back to China where the economy is booming, even if it means losing face.
Pharmacist Hamid Zarrinkalam is determined to finish what he started and get his licence in Canada. Zarrinkalam insists he will not go back to Iran a failure. But he admits that if he had known the barriers he would face and the time it would take, he would never have chosen to immigrate to Canada. And his decision to come here has cost him his future wife. Zarrinkalam's fiancée, a doctor back in Tehran, has decided not to pack up her career and move to Canada after watching him struggle for so long.
As for Prem and Nessa Premakumaran, of Edmonton, their fight to hold Ottawa accountable suffered a setback, when a Federal Court judge recently dismissed their claim ruling: "It is not the role of the courts to order that agencies be set up to assist immigrant workers. These issues . have to be settled at the ballot box."
The couple is not giving up. They've taken their case to the Federal Court of Appeal.
But Raj Kumar has given up; leaving the country he chose to move to in favour of a guaranteed job in the United States.
"It's really tough," he said, while packing boxes for his move.
But it's a move he has to make. The job in the U.S. offers a chance to get back into the engineering profession, to regain his confidence and reclaim his future. Kumar says he owes it to his family, who sacrificed so much for him back in India.
And maybe with American job experience under his belt, Raj might one day return to Canada and get a job that fits his skills here.



© Copyright 2002-2006 Bell Globemedia Inc.

 

A Desert Called Peace

http://www.antiwar.com/malic/?articleid=8155

 

AntiWar.com

 

 

November 26, 2005

A Desert Called Peace

by Nebojsa Malic

Re-igniting Bosnia In November 1995, after months of cajoling, threatening, scheming, plotting, bombing, and blackmailing, the American-organized peace conference in Dayton, Ohio, resulted in a peace agreement that ended the hostilities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The agreement, commonly referred to in Bosnia as "Dayton," was a compromise between the idea of unitary, centralized state championed by the Muslims (who, as a plurality, would dominate such an arrangement) and the concept of ethnic autonomy, fought for by the country's Croats and Serbs. What emerged from it was an internationally recognized state of Bosnia-Herzegovina, comprising two "entities" (deliberately not called "states"), the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation. The Federation, created in 1994 by an arrangement concocted in Washington, was subdivided into 10 provinces, or "cantons." The weak common government was supposed to be in charge of foreign policy, international treaties, and little else. A decade later, Dayton has been all but abolished through a series of "reforms" conducted by international viceroys, supposedly in charge of implementing the agreement. Bosnia has been centralized time and again, in incremental steps designed not so much to abolish Dayton but to erode it beyond recovery. This spring, the treaty's main sponsor – Washington – decided it was time to get rid of Dayton altogether, and replace the current arrangement with a "unitary national government." For that purpose, Bosnia's imperial overlords staged two gatherings over the past two weeks, one in Brussels and one in Washington, in an effort to get the "Bosnians" themselves to rubber-stamp this plan. Unfortunately, it appears they have succeeded. Matters of Need and Urgency Connoisseurs of Imperial American policy aren't in the least surprised with the "endgame" Washington is pursuing in the Balkans. The Clinton-era policies, untouched by the Bush regime, had continued by default for years after the 2000 election; this May, they were officially co-opted by the Bushites. Former Clinton official, Nicholas Burns, was put in charge of the Balkans, and even Richard Holbrooke, the chief architect of Dayton, once again represented Washington officially. In last year's race for the Emperor's crown, Clinton's wannabe successor John Kerry embraced the Balkans interventions as a paragon of imperial virtue and sought to contrast their "success" with the fiasco Bush II has created in Iraq. Holbrooke was one of Kerry's advisers pushing for just such a strategy. Ultimately, it proved insufficient to win Kerry a victory; however, the policy cabal that saw Kerry as their tool simply shifted their focus on the increasingly vulnerable Bush. After four months of propaganda, and the steadily worsening news from Iraq, the White House was ready to adopt a Clintonite Balkans agenda in order to claim a victory somewhere. Obliging Comparisons The mainstream press, ever in the service of power, obligingly made comparisons between Iraq and Bosnia, pointing out the latter as a place where American "leadership" and "perseverance" made a difference. Roger Cohen of the International Herald Tribune made one such attempt on Nov. 20, celebrating the intervention that stopped "plum-brandy swigging Serbian gunners" and showed that "American leadership is indispensable" (Holbrooke). Jackson Diehl, another prominent imperialist, opined in the Washington Post the same day that the intervention in Bosnia has worked much better than the one in Iraq, because of the American commitment of time, troops, and effort. Further demonstrating the refusal to allow facts to interfere with a good story, Diehl wrote: "Like Iraq's Sunnis, the Bosnian Serbs were forced to abandon a regime of genocide and domination by a punishing U.S. military campaign." Similar insanity was exhibited by "Stephen Schwartz," a self-proclaimed expert on Wahhabi Islam and terrorism, in the Weekly Standard Not that every comparison of Iraq with Bosnia would be misguided. Both represent attempts to maintain artificial states opposed by a substantial number of their residents. Both are part of a pattern of aggression emanating from Washington since the end of the Cold War. Yet even among the rightful critics of "nation-building" in Bosnia and Iraq, the unfortunate meme of "Serbs as Sunnis" had found traction despite its near-absolute fallacy. Smokescreen By mid-November, everything was lined up: the motive – need for an interventionist victory; the opportunity – the 10th anniversary of Dayton; the perpetrators – Clinton-era veterans with vested interest in perpetuating the myths about Bosnia; even the media-spun contrast with Iraq that focused on the false and the irrelevant. The only thing missing was an actual pretext. Once again, the media, obliged. Even though Undersecretary Burns revealed last month, during his Bosnia visit, that it was Washington's desire to see a strong, centralized Bosnian government and change the Dayton Constitution accordingly, the news wires and papers fell over themselves to show it was "Bosnians" who wanted and needed the "reforms." Reuters put it as a matter of expediting bureaucratic procedures (never mentioning the obvious solution of eliminating them altogether), trying to sound utilitarian. Associated Press went a step further, claiming that the desire for reform among the "Bosnians" was so great that a group of high-school sophomores had put together a proposal for a new constitution and sent it to Washington. That the teenagers' proposal was the same as Nicholas Burns' had been pure coincidence, of course. Also worth noting is that "Bosnians" in these stories are only and exclusively Muslim, just as the term was used during the war. And it is not a coincidence that the Muslim nationalist party's agenda is that of a centralized Bosnia, in which they would be dominant. Lighting the Fuse The original Dayton Agreement was a paradox: even though the Empire had publicly described the Bosnian War as one of Serb "aggression," the final treaty was more reflective of the war's true nature: a struggle between most Muslims on one side, and most Serbs and Croats on the other, over the nature of Bosnia itself. It tried to reconcile the Muslims' vision of an independent, centralized Bosnia with the Serbs' and Croats' desire for territorial autonomy. Because of this intractable issue of ethnic politics, in order to survive as a country Bosnia could not be a state. Even though the authors of Dayton explicitly rejected this obvious truth, they somehow crafted a political arrangement that made it possible. Then they proceeded to systematically demolish it, almost from day one. Convinced that their own model of a welfare state with near-unlimited powers in practice (constrained as they may be on paper and in theory, to placate the masses) represents the pinnacle of political achievement, the Empire and its allies tried to impose it on Bosnia. Their violations of their own treaty were justified by conventional wisdom, carefully constructed by years of PR and "journalism," about the war's nature. The constant talk about "war crimes" and the persistent peddling of atrocity porn all had the function of reinforcing this view. What no one has pointed out is that the "post-Dayton" Bosnia the Empire seeks to create would look distressingly like the one before Dayton: a centralized, unitary state dominated by its relative Muslim plurality, with Serbs and Croats fighting against it. Democracy is divisive. In heterogeneous environments, it inevitably leads to group conflict. In Bosnia, those groups are ethnic in character; elsewhere, they are racial, religious, or linguistic, but the principle remains. If these groups mistrust each other, who gets to control a near-omnipotent central government with enormous impact on every aspect of its citizens' lives becomes a question of life and death. And death is usually what ensues. Only if the Bosnian state were minimal and limited would the Bosnians (all Bosnians) be able to coexist peacefully. Yet that state is emphatically not anywhere on the horizon. Instead, what slouches towards Washington to be born is the same rough beast that erupted in the flames of war in the spring of 1992. The inevitable fiasco of "nation-building" in Bosnia will hurt the Empire. But the people of Bosnia, all of them, will suffer much worse. It will be a desert called peace.

Kosovo Report:

November 26, 2005

 

 

• In Meeting With Rival Factions, U.N. Envoy Paves Way for Kosovo Talks
• Surroi: We see borders as symbols not as walls (Koha Ditore)
• UNMIK chief assures Kosovo citizens there will be no division on ethnic lines
• Serbia hands over remains of 41 Kosovo Albanians found in mass graves
• 1st Kosovo Albanian-Serbian leaders dialogue set for early 2006

Kosovo: New War in the Balkans?

 

http://www.serbianna.com/columns/mitic/004.shtml

 

Serbianna

 

Many options but independence for Kosovo

By Jan Oberg & Aleksandar Mitic

The Serbian province of Kosovo, largely populated by the Albanian majority, has failed to meet basic human rights and political standards set as prerequisites by the international community, but it should nevertheless enter - in the months to come - talks on its future status.

This basic conclusion of the long-awaited report by UN special envoy Kai Eide was approved by the UN secretary general Kofi Annan and fully supported by the EU and the US. But it fails to demystify the paradox.

From a legal point of view, Kosovo is an integral part of the sovereign state of Serbia and Montenegro. However, after Milosevic' clampdown on the province - including taking away its autonomy - and NATO's partwise destruction of Kosovo and Serbia in 1999, Security Council Resolution 1244 declared it a territory administered by the United Nations.

Thus UNMIK (the UN Mission in Kosovo), together with NATO, the OSCE and the EU make up the authority ever since. However, talks and negotiations about the future status and "standards" of the territory shall begin this autumn; UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has recently appointed former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari to lead this process.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana recently disseminated ideas of the European Union taking over law enforcement in Kosovo from the United Nations as part of a more active engagement in the Balkans.

Bluff from the start?

Only two and a half years ago, the international community had charged that talks on Kosovo's status could not start before a set of basic human rights standards was achieved.

Since then, however, as it became clearer that the Kosovo Albanian majority was unwilling to meet the criteria and the UN unable to enforce them. There has been a permanent watering down of prerequisites, until the proclaimed policy of "standards before status" was finally buried with Mr Eide's report.

Why has it failed? Is it because of fear of Kosovo Albanian threats of inciting violence if talks on status did not start soon, or was this policy a bluff from the start?

What kind of signal does it offer for the fairness of the upcoming talks? Will threats of ethnic violence in case "the only option for Kosovo Albanians - independence" - is not achieved again play a role? Or will the international community overcome its fear and offer both Pristina and Belgrade reasons to believe that the solution would be negotiated and long-lasting rather than imposed, one-sided and conflict-prone?

Recipe for future troubles

Advocates of Kosovo's independence such as the International Crisis Group, Wesley Clark, Richard Holbrooke and various US members of Congress argue "independence is the only solution."

The US has more urgent problems elsewhere. But full independence cannot be negotiated, it can only be imposed. "Independent Kosovo" implies that the Kosovo-Albanians achieve their maximalist goal while Belgrade and the Kosovo Serbs and Roma would not even get their minimum - a recipe for future troubles.

It would be also counter-productive for Europe and the US: to side with the Kosovo-Albanians and isolate Serbia - a highly multi-ethnic, strategically important, constitutional state with a market of 10 million people - would be foolish. Keeping on punishing Serbia and Serbs collectively for former President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic's brutality would be immoral.

An "independent Kosovo" would set a dangerous precedent for the region, not least in Bosnia and Macedonia, for international law and for European integration.

And if Kosovo becomes independent, why not Taiwan, Tibet, Chechnya, Tamil Eelam, Kashmir? The world has about 200 states and 5,000 ethnic groups. Who would like 4,800 new and ethnically pure states? The future is about human globalization and integration.

Independence would also violate UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of 1999 on Kosovo. Not even liberally interpreted does it endorse independence.

The results of Milosevic's authoritarian policies clearly prevented Kosovo from returning to its pre-1999 status. Belgrade recognises that today.

Europe's largest - but ignored - refugee problem

The international community on its side refuses to see that the UN, NATO, EU and OSCE in Kosovo have failed miserably in creating the multi-ethnic, tolerant and safe Kosovo that it thought the military intervention would facilitate.

There has been virtually no return of the 200,000 Serbs and tens of thousands of other non-Albanians who felt threatened by Albanian nationalists and terrorists in 1999-2000.

Proportionately this is the largest ethnic cleansing in ex-Yugoslavia. Half a million Serbs in today's Serbia, driven out of Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, make up Europe's largest - but ignored - refugee problem. The economy of Kosovo remains in shambles 70% unemployment - and is mafia-integrated.

There is never only one solution to a complex problem. Between the old autonomy for Kosovo and full independence is a myriad of thinkable options combining internal and regional features.

They should all be on the negotiation table - for instance, a citizens' Kosovo where ethnic background is irrelevant, cantonisation, consociation, confederation, condominium, double autonomy for minorities there and in Southern Serbia, partition, trusteeship, independence with special features such as soft borders, no army and guarantees for never joining Albania.

Least creative of all is the "only-one-solution" that all main actors today propose - completely incompatible with every other "only-one solution."

Finally, no formal status will work if the people continue to hate and see no development opportunities.

If we ignore human needs for fear-reduction, deep reconciliation and economic recovery, independent Kosovo will become another failed state, perhaps consumed by civil war.

Kosovo is about the future of that province and of Serbia, but also about the region and the EU.

Indeed, Kosovo is about global politics. In this 11th hour, the UN, EU and the US should re-evaluate their post-1990 policies and recognise the need for much more intellectually open and politically pluralist approaches than those that have been promoted so far.

Otherwise, political rigidity, lack of principle and wishful thinking could once again prove to be the enemies of sustainable peace in this region.

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Aleksandar Mitic was Belgrade correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) from 1999-2005. Jan Oberg is Director and co-founder of the Swedish Transnational Foundation, TFF, a think tank in peace research and conflict mitigation.

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http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?id=258843

 

Strategic Forecasting Inc (STRATFOR)

Kosovo: New War in the Balkans?
November 22, 2005 17 40  GMT

Summary

The current stalemate over Kosovo's status is a perfect example of the palsied international system. One would think that a province that has been a de facto international protectorate for more than six years, by now, would have its status decided; yet the concerned parties in Kosovo ostensibly cannot perform the necessary tasks. The responsibility for this impasse rests first on the shoulders of the Kosovar Serbs and Albanians, who cannot agree, and second on the shoulders of the Contact Group members -- including the United States -- who dare not impose a solution.

Analysis

U.N. status envoy Martti Ahtisaari and his deputy Albert Rohan on Nov. 21 began their Balkan trip in the Kosovar capital of Pristina, with the clear intent of ensuring that status negotiations scheduled for December in Vienna, Austria, do not fail. However, their visit probably will have the opposite effect. At this stage it appears Ahtisaari merely wants to take notice of the contradictory positions at play in the negotiations rather than come up with a clear plan. A further sign of the chaos reigning in and around Kosovo is that disagreement exists both between and among the Albanians and the Serbs.

Two major views have emerged in the Serbian ranks. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic maintain that "Kosovo-Metohija" must remain part of Serbia. It can receive more than autonomy but less than independence, and the inhabitants' minority and property rights must be respected to the utmost. Hence, the Serbian government prepared a resolution Nov. 15 that was adopted by the Serbian Parliament on Nov. 21.

Also on Nov. 15, Serbian head of state Boris Tadic expounded his own views during talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tadic said Kosovo should be decentralized to create separate Serbian and Albanian entities within the region and allow Serbs to have a relationship with Serbia that would be close but regulated by Kosovar institutions. Earlier, Serbian Vice President Miroslav Labus came forth with a similar proposal, maintaining that a Serbian enclave should be created in northern Kosovo and along the Kosovar part of the River Morava.

What the Serb positions have in common is a simple fact: Kosovo must not, under any circumstances, be allowed to achieve independence.

Here, it must be noted that the international community -- the majority of U.S. and European politicians involved in this process -- are striving to extinguish the independent Serbian enclave in Bosnia-Herzegovina and create a unified state. Hence, it is possible that Tadic and Labus' proposals are designed to safeguard the existence of Serbian entities not only in Kosovo but also in Bosnia.

Events during the last few months testify to the uncertainties among Albanians, too. Though all the Albanians agree that Kosovo must be independent, in October some radical groups attempted to pressure the Kosovar Parliament to declare independence immediately. However, as a result of international pressure -- primarily from Jesen Petersen, leader of the U.N. Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo -- on Nov. 17 a public proclamation was issued stating that Kosovar Albanians want an independent and sovereign Kosovo, and that this position will be represented during negotiations with Belgrade.

The international community could resolve this predicament -- especially if the major powers represented in the Contact Group (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Russia) legally sanctioned the de facto protectorate. That would translate into at least five years of conditional independence for Kosovo, supervised by the Contact Group and protected by international forces, which would give the Serbs in Northern Kosovo not only minority rights (a term they consider an affront in itself) but also the ability to organize themselves -- inside Kosovo -- as a separate entity.

If the Contact Group members are not ready to impose the solution of conditional independence as soon as possible, a new war in the Balkans is almost a certainty. Historical patterns simply are not working: Neither the Ottoman Empire nor Tito's Yugoslavia can be resurrected. But a sort of Bismarckian realpolitik -- a protectorate imposed and supervised by a concert of major powers -- might be worth trying.

Regardless of what path is approached, any removal of international forces will lead to Albanian-Serb bloodshed. Consequently, the international community only has two options. First, the Contact Group could adopt a position of de facto support of Albanian independence. Such a stance would anger Belgrade, but Belgrade currently lacks the tools to retaliate effectively (although the Bosnian Serbs would certainly feel forced to act to protect their own interests). Second, the Contact Group could simply attempt to extend the existing legal limbo.

Unfortunately, another bit of Serbia and Montenegro -- namely, Montenegro -- is champing at the bit to vote on independence itself. And should Montenegro go, the Kosovar Albanians are certain to not wait around for the international community to make up its mind. This leaves just one question in Stratfor's mind: Do the Kosovar Albanians possess the military fortitude to seize their independence should they not receive a blank check from the Contact Group?

 

 

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Extremist Kosovo Albanian protestor spills paint beside a map of the province outside the residence of President Ibrahim Rugova, who met with United Nations envoy Martti Ahtisaari in Pristina, November 22, 2005. Ahtisaari arrived in Serbia's breakaway province on Monday to begin a shuttle mission that should end in direct negotiations in 2006 on whether Kosovo's Albanian majority get the independence they demand or Kosovo remains part of Serbia. The protestors are against the negotiations, saying Albanians should have the right to self-determination. REUTERS/Hazir Reka