Notes From Belgrade by Boba Borojevic

http://www.serbianna.com/columns/borojevic/029.shtml

Notes From Belgrade
By Boba Borojevic
 
April 8, 2006 - My last three visits to Belgrade happened to be at the time
of major events there. Massive demonstrations of some half a million people
took to the streets of Belgrade on October 5th 2000. It marked the downfall
of Milosevic’s regime and take over by Democratic Opposition of Serbia. I
believed as much as the rest of protestors who spent days and nights in the
streets of Belgrade protesting at that time, that the "October Revolution"
was going to radically transform the country for the better. The results
have been disappointing and the rest is history.
My next visit to Belgrade happened to be on September 11, 2001. The moment
I landed to Belgrade airport, I heard the news about the first terrorist
attack on the World Trade Center in New York. The Serbs' reactions to
9-11-01? Almost everyone said it was a terrible tragedy, and they meant it.
But then a lot of people would move on to a more delicate issue: What had
Americans expected, after all? Yugoslavia was one of many countries bombed
by the United States contrary to international law, with no sanction from
the United Nations. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon will subsequently lead to ‘War on terror” and Islamic extremism in
the World, Europe, Bosnia and Kosovo.

On my third visit, I arrived in Belgrade on March 15 2006 only a couple of
minutes after the plane carrying the body of the former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic from the Netherlands touched down at the city's airport.
No government representative stood on the tarmac to meet it, only dozens of
Milosevic’s supporters and party members. The coffin, wrapped in plastic,
slid down a conveyor belt from the belly of the jet and sat untouched for a
few minutes under light snow. Milosevic’s associates approached the casket.
They placed a Serbian flag and roses over the casket of the man who once
was a popularly elected president, and quietly carried it to a commercial
hearse. Several hundred mourners lined part of the road and tossed
carnations at the hearse. Slobodan Milosevic was buried in a quiet ceremony
at his family estate in his hometown of Pozarevac on a cold winter day, on
Saturday, March 18. The funeral followed an emotional farewell in Belgrade
that drew about 150,000 followers who packed a square in front of the
federal parliament to pay their respects. They gave the former leader, a
hero's farewell and pronounced him a victim of the U.N. war crimes
tribunal, in whose custody he died on March 11.



  


Scott Taylor, Boba Borojevic and H.E. James Bissett at SANU
 
  


The funeral of the former president Slobodan Milosevic completely
overshadowed news of a major three day conference, which carried the title
Kosovo and Metohija: past, present and future, organized by the Serbian
Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) from 16 – 18th March. Excellent
speakers from eleven countries gave their speeches at the conference. We
heard many respected professors, diplomats, historians and journalists
speak on the theme of Kosovo, such as James Bissett, Scott Taylor, Diana
Johnston, Peter Maher, Sir Alfred Sherman, Srdja Trifkovic, academician
Kosta Mihajlovic and Stevan Karamata, Slavenko Terzic, Raju Thomas, Caslav
Ocic, Smilja Avramov, Kosta Cavoski, and many more. Their arguments as to
why Kosovo should remain part of Serbia can be categorized into four
groups:
Historical and cultural: Kosovo and Metohia historically and culturally
belong to the Serbs. Kosovo was part of Serbia as early as the Nemanjic
dynasty (12th-14th c.). Kosovo and Metohia are considered the key to the
identity of the Serbs. Kosovo is a place where the first Serbian kings were
crowned and where there are Orthodox Christian monasteries with precious
icons, listed by UNESCO as world cultural monuments.  The seat of the
independent Serbian Orthodox Church was in Pec, in Kosovo. Serbs call
Kosovo and Metohia the heart of Serbia and the cradle of the Serbian state
and nation.

Economical:  Serbia has poured a good deal of money into Kosovo and
Metohia. “For decades, significant federal resources have been set aside
for the development of Kosovo and Metohia, the reason being that all the
previous Yugoslav constitutions stipulated "more rapid development for
under-developed regions, and the most rapid for Kosovo and Metohia" as the
federation's obligation. Data for the period 1981-1988 on total
contributions and funds received by republics and autonomous provinces
according to federal regulations shows that Central Serbia (meaning
Republic of Serbia without its autonomous provinces - Vojvodina and Kosovo
and Metohja) had the largest outflow (212 billion dinars), and Kosovo and
Metohia the largest inflow (113 billion dinars). Kosovo and Metohia was
also the largest relative "winner" - receiving 12 times more of these funds
than it gave,” said Caslav Ocic in his speech. For instance, Kosovo
received 30-50% of the total investments made by the Federation's Fund for
Under-Developed Regions and the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development. The rate of investments was always noticeably higher in Kosovo
than in Serbia or Yugoslavia, from 30 to 200%. Despite Albanian demands for
independence, Belgrade is still paying the Kosovo's international debt to
the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The bill amounts to a
total of $1.4 billion and Serbia puts aside 250 million dollars every year
in order to pay these debts back. A number of speakers at the conference
concluded that an independent Kosovo would be economically unsustainable.

Legal and Political: The aerial attacks launched by NATO against Yugoslavia
in 1999 establish the truth of the axiom: “Power tends to corrupt, and
absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely”. There is no legal sanction
whatsoever for this unilateral action by NATO, carried out at the behest of
the US. The NATO action can only be described as an arbitrary and blatant
violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a member state of
the UN, which has no legal sanction under international law.

The independence of Kosovo, which was expected by many western observers as
the most logical solution after the war in 1999 is in fact an option, which
would seriously destabilize the entire Balkans. An independent Kosovo would
not only be economically unsustainable but would generate serious security
problems for the neighboring countries. Hardly any Serb would be able to
live in an independent Kosovo. In fact, a new ethnically clean Albanian
state of Kosovo, based on Islamic law will continue to provide the breeding
ground for international terrorist groups in the Balkans. A “failed state”
of Kosovo showed to be incapable of protecting minorities and preventing
horrible atrocities to take place against the Serbian civilian population
and other minorities. ”Failed states are”, according to James Bissett
“defined as those countries whose governments have weakened to the point
where they can no longer provide adequate public services, physical
security or economic livelihood to their inhabitants. They become
attractive to terrorist organizations as safe havens and as staging grounds
for attacks on other targets.”  It remains to be seen if the Kosovo
precedent of a selective use of unilateralism and even pre-emptive military
action will be applied in the other conflict areas of the world in the
event Kosovo becomes independent.

Ideological and Civilizational: Defending Kosovo means defending Christian
civilization. An independent Albanian Kosovo will succumb to the cause of
global jihad. Kosovo’s current leaders (members of KLA) have obtained
significant aid from Islamic countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, and
Pakistan. Kosovo has become a predominantly Muslim society with the obvious
intention to wipe out any trace of Christianity there. In his speech Sir
Alfred Sherman noted that: “Governments seem helpless or unwilling to stem
the tide. Spokesmen for the EU laud this Muslim colonization as Europe and
the Muslim world as coming together, ignoring its utter one-sidedness.
Criticism of these trends is stifled as “racism”, ignoring consideration of
patriotism, national consciousness and social order. The undermining of
national homogeneity based on common values is leading to a visible social
breakdown.”

 “After almost two decades of Yugoslavia’s crisis and disintegration,”
explained Srdja Trifkovic in his speech, “too many Serbs still cherish too
many illusions about the nature of the Western beast, its hostility to
Christianity and to any form of ethnic coherence of European nations. To
the promoters of such Western pathology, those who argue that they should
be entitled to keep a territory because they feel a strong, centuries-long
historical bond to it, or because they had built lovely Christian churches
in it, or because it underpins their moral code and spirituality based on
Christian martyrdom, or because they are defending themselves against an
aggressive and resurgent Islam… are only proving the necessity of having
that territory taken away from them! The arguments advanced by Belgrade’s
distinguished professors only confirm to the luminaries of the
International Community that Kosovo should be detached from Serbia in order
to cure her from such retrograde atavisms. An ideological commitment to
neoliberal globalization has turned multiculturalism and open-ended,
predominantly Muslim immigration into two inviolable dogmas of the elite
class. Its members reject the suggestion that the shared legacy of the
European family and its common historical experiences are worthy of
preserving as such. That is why they will do their utmost to detach Kosovo
from Serbia… This important lesson is yet to be absorbed in Belgrade.”

My congratulations go to SANU for putting together a conference such as
this one. Advertisement of the conference was the only thing that was
poorly executed. We were told, however, that SANU intends to publish a book
with the materials presented at the conference, which will in a sense
represent a testimony of the time for some future generations.

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