From Dayton to Dysfunction

 

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From Dayton to Dysfunction

Five numbers that suggest Bosnia is becoming a failed state.

By Ginanne Brownell | Newsweek Web Exclusive 

Oct 15, 2009

Remember Bosnia? The country that fought a three-year civil war in the 1990s with 100,000 dead continues its downward slide. Since the Dayton peace accord, which ended the war in 1995, Bosnia has been divided into two entities—one called the Republika Srpska (RS) with a Serbian majority and the other a federation of Muslims and Croats. The leader of the RS, Milorad Diodik, has lately stepped up his calls for secession because he feels the Serbs have been marginalized by both the government and the international community. American and European officials are waging an intense diplomatic campaign to head off what could be serious political trouble.

But the real story is Bosnia's dysfunction as a state. While many Bosnians have long hoped to join the European Union, the national government has been unable to stand on its own feet since the end of the war. Analysts say the country is looking more and more like a failed state. Here are five numbers that suggest they're right.

 

·         $14 billion. That's the amount of money the international community spent on reconstruction of Bosnia between 1996 and 2007, according to the U.S. State Department—more per capita than the amount spent to rebuild Germany and Japan after World War II. Yet much of the country remains in ruins, including the beautiful Ottoman-era national library destroyed by Serb shelling.

·         Negative 3. That's Bosnia's GDP so far this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. Just three years ago, the figure stood at 6.9 percent.

·         41.6. That's the percentage of working-age Bosnians who are jobless—at least according to estimates. Many of them are probably "employed" in the country's sprawling gray and black markets.

·         500,000. The number of illegal weapons scattered among a populace of 4 million, according to the United Nations Development Program. In January the country's top official for the fight against organized crime and terrorism was arrested in Croatia, suspected of illegal-arms trafficking.

·         Nearly 100 percent. The number of Bosnians who believe corruption in their country is endemic, according to the World Bank.

Apparently, they know what they're talking about.

Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/217875

© 2009 

Guardian: Bell hits a strange note...

Instead of his usual drivel Martin Bell actually says some semi-sensible things here amongst the cliches. But check out some of the comments especially the one from a certain "nabla" which I excerpt below the article. His/her point on Zepa is one I make a lot in discussion but have rarely seen it anywhere else. Anyone know who NABLA is?

 

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/26/radovan-karadzic-trial-war-crimes?showallcomments=true

 

Karadzic isn't the only one on trial

The former Bosnia Serb leader Radovan Karadzic must face justice, but the war crimes tribunal is itself in the dock

The trial of Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, must go ahead with or without the participation of the accused. He has attempted to stall proceedings at The Hague's war crimes tribunal, boycotting its opening on the grounds that he needs more time to prepare his case, and the presiding judge has adjourned the court until tomorrow. But Karadzic has had more than a year in which to prepare his defence. Justice delayed is justice denied. It is time that he faced the evidence against him.

He can rightly claim that much of the pre-trial publicity has been prejudicial. The same was true in the Slobodan Milosevic case. That is why it is more important than ever that the processes of justice are seen to be fair and scrupulous, with maximum attention to the rights of the accused, even if the accused is trying to obstruct them.

The war crimes tribunal is a prosecutor's court. Sometimes in the past it has seemed to be more interested in securing convictions than in delivering justice. That must not happen in this case. Karadzic's appearance in court cannot escape having some of the elements of a show trial, because the eyes of the world will be on it. The TV coverage will be broadcast, and widely viewed, throughout the Balkans. That is an additional reason, in my view, why an acquittal for lack of sufficient evidence would be more to the tribunal's credit than a conviction unsafely arrived at.

As one of many who has been approached to give evidence, I shall do so, if required, but with some trepidation. Memories fade. All the witnesses will be drawing on their recollection of events that occurred between 14 and 17 years ago. Documentary evidence will be crucial – especially any paper trail leading from Karadzic's headquarters in Pale to the actions taken by the Bosnian Serb army after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995. Front lines were crumbling. It was a time of tension between Karadzic and his army commander, Ratko Mladic, who is still at large. "Maybe we went too far with General Mladic," Karadzic has observed, "we made a legend of him."

The centrepiece of the charge sheet against Karadzic is his alleged complicity in the Srebrenica massacre in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in cold blood after the fall of the UN "safe haven". But this is also a good time to reflect on the blame that was shared by the western democracies with troops in Unprofor, the UN protection force that did not protect. The British, French and Dutch were the main players at the time. The Dutch capitulated at Srebrenica. The French proposed its relief. The British demurred. The massacre occurred at a time when there were more than 30,000 UN troops in Bosnia. The ability to intervene was there. The political will was not.

To claims that no one could have known what the Serbs would do, I would argue that the massacre was predictable, if not inevitable. The Serbs held the Muslims of Srebrenica collectively responsible for a series of killings in the area, notably a massacre of 50 Serbs in a village near Bratunac on 7 January 1993. Revenge was always the most likely option.

The war crimes tribunal is not about revenge. It is, or should be, about justice. Courts try cases. Cases also try courts. I believe that the tribunal will be judged by the fairness of its proceedings in this case more than any other than has come before it.

NABLA comment:

nabla

26 Oct 09, 2:35pm

No justice will be done here. No justice will be seen to be done here.

How can anyone possibly defend himself against 1.2 million pages of documentation? If the prosecutorion's case is so strong, couldn't they collect a few thousand pages of documents, such as written orders or transcripts of conversations by Karadzic where a policy of atrocities or specific atrocities were sanctioned? Or bring forth insider witnesses?

Clearly, rather that using a clear and direct chain of command, they're going to fling every real and potential atrocity perpetrated by Bosnian Serbs and claim that he was responsible for it all.

This has all been rehashed in the past, the criminality of Western forces, the criminality of Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, and Croats. What is most disturbing is that this court is systematically attempting to whitewash the crimes of non-Serbs by either ignoring them or selecting a few non-political widely publicized events and keeping the profile of those trials low. For Serb victims of Muslim/Croat camps, there was the camp at Celebici in Konjic; this was tried at the Hague. However, there were dozens if not hundreds more camps where Serbs were held. For non-Serb victims, there were many, many trials regarding Omarska, Crkvina, Trnopolje, Keraterm, Susica, etc. So a false picture is generated: Serbs have "systematic" camps all over the place and Muslims/Croats have this one isolated little camp in Celebici. Another instance: Croatian generals have been tried for atrocities in Krajina, yet no politician has been tried for a policy of persecution, expulsion, and murder, that ended in the flight of over 400,000 Croatian Serbs (2/3 of the entire population) in several waves (1990, 1991, 1993, May 1995, and August 1995) and the killings of thousands. So Karadzic and Milosevic are criminal politicians , but Tudjman is a good guy who just happened to preside over a few rogue general that drove out/killed 2/3 of Croatia's Serbs.

What is most disturbing is the lack of clarity regarding Srebrenica. What never made sense was how different what is alleged to have taken place there is from what took place at Zepa. If there was a policy of genocide at Srebrenica, why none at the other safe haven to fall - Zepa? What was different about them? Seems a very strange and inconsistent policy of genocide where you are taking the trouble to exterminate all the men in one village (and deporting the women and children, and burying all the victims) and in the next you are just deporting them all. Or, more likely, the events around Srebrenica from 1992 until 1995 were markedly different from those at Zepa - something the media refuses to report because it puts Muslims in a bad light. Carl Bildt's book does suggest that at Srebrenica less than half of the victims were massacred POWs/civilians and the rest died in ambushes and battles as they fled to Tuzla. Putting this together with Oric's atrocities, it emerges that Srebrenica was quite different from what the media has presented it as being.

The Butmir Farce - Byronica, Oct. '09

"Byronica": the quarterly newsletter of The Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies

 

Vol. XII, No. 4, Fall 2009

 

YET ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO REVISE DAYTON

THE FARCE AT BUTMIR

James George Jatras

 

[ … ] The failure of the latest attempt to reduce the Republika Srpska to an empty shell devoid of self-rule was inevitable. The meetings at Butmir on October 8 and again October 20-21 were arranged hastily on the American initiative in an ad-hoc forum composed of politicians who have no constitutional power or popular mandate to commit themselves to any fundamental changes – even if they wanted to do so. The gathering at Butmir had no legality and no legitimacy. Any further talks under this formula hold no prospect of any positive result. 

 

In fact, it is hard to see why is can be called a "process" at all. A "process" implies a linear movement from some starting position to a qualitatively different outcome. Whatever "Butmir" is, a "process" it is not. It is simply another variant of the same Made-in-Washington program to weaken and then dissolve the RS in order to create a Muslim-dominated unitary state in BiH. With the return of the Clinton crowd to the State Department, that program, after years of relative inactivity (without being reversed) under Bush, is now intensifying. As far as legitimacy, Butmir can have no status at all without the participation of all the guarantors of Dayton, and that must include Russia. In fact, even the so-called "Peace Implementation Council" – a centralizing mechanism par excellence – is an ad-hoc body that has acquired a degree of legitimacy simply because the Serbs went along with it.  But they must not repeat the same mistake. 

 

Some outside observers may be tempted to find cause for scandal in a proposed set of constitutional changes from the U.S. and EU officials who, in principle, have no legitimate voice on the question. But the only "scandal" in the eyes of Butmir's foreign designers and stage-managers is that the program of getting rid of the RS so far has not worked. The danger for the RS is that by trying to placate its critics by playing along, by "cooperatively" accepting invitations to what can only be called illegal ruses conjured up by State Department bureaucrats, it runs the risk of participating in a charade that can only serve to weaken Republika Srpska's integrity under Dayton and further them in its future options.

 

If the "maximalist" positions (as Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg has defined them) between which a "compromise" must be found, are the status quo and a unitary state – then any "compromise" can only mean steps toward unitarism, which means gerrymandering Muslim dominance in a majority non-Muslim state. This is a conscious goal of the State Department's policy. "State Department," not "American" policy, since almost no one in America remembers or cares that Bosnia-Herzegovina exists, much less the Republika Srpska. There has never been any debate in the U.S. over re-evaluating our goals and interests in the Balkans. This program is the hobby horse of, literally, no more than an dozen people in Washington, notably Deputy Secretary Steinberg, who still have to prove how right they were in the 1990s. 

 

The Europeans are also culpable, but more in their usual role of cravenly deferring to their betters in the U.S. But the EU will go along only provided the American story of the Bosnian "powder keg" does not become reality. If it starts to look like Washington's program is making things worse, not better, the Europeans – who have a lot more to lose and are sick of diktats from Washington anyway – will step back. But that will not happen automatically. First, the RS has to jump off the merry-go-round and appeal for Russian support.

 

What we see here is the ever-present "latent intent" to destroy the Republika Srpska being channeled into a new format. The goals of U.S. policy are obvious to anyone who has been following it from here since 1992. My fear is that the RS leadership may be tempted to believe Washington has adopted a more "reasonable" approach and are "manageable." That is not the case. The sad part is that RS's story can and needs to be told forcefully in the U.S. and in Europe.

Especially at a time when the U.S. has its hands full of disasters elsewhere, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan (not surprisingly, under the care of the same person who bears major blame for messing the Balkans, Richard Holbrooke), we can't afford an optional crisis of our own making. There are centers of influence in the U.S. who would be receptive to that message on RS's behalf, but it's not being made.

 

Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina would do well to maintain a healthy distrust of American policy. Indeed, anti-Serbism is worse in the Obama Administration than it was under Bush for the simple reason of so many recycled Clinton cadres are returning to power, because it's a Democratic administration. As we say here in Washington, "people are policy."

 

A reasonable observer might hope that a "failure" of Butmir (as measured in the eyes of its foreign authors) might finally convince Washington that no arrangements can be good for BiH as a whole unless it is good for all of BiH's three constituent peoples.  But the only way to teach a lesson to people of this kind is indeed a visible and tangible failure that would be registered as such in Washington and in Brussels. They have to be resisted, and the RS has to refuse to be sucked into the dishonest assumptions behind farces like Butmir. This would not be reckless but prudent: refusal on principle to entertain illegitimate premises needs to be combined with an intelligent, principled, and above all truthful advocacy of RS's case from a position of strength.

 

The kind of people we are dealing with at the State Department and a few think tanks will never "understand" anything except that the agenda laid out for the Serbs in the 1990s is to be brought to its "logical" conclusion: a Bosnia to Siladzic's taste, an independent "KosovA" recognized by Belgrade, and July 11 commemorated all over the Balkans as Srebrenica "Genocide" Day. 

 

As for American officialdom in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the real problem does not originate with the people on the ground. Not that they are not likely part of the problem, but the roots are here in Washington. Local people just do what they're told. No U.S. Ambassador in the region has ever tried to counter the line dictated from Washington while on duty. Even if they say something discordant – like William Montgomery did regarding Bosnia four months ago, or Charles Crawford last July – it happens years after they leave their official posts.

 

Nor should we suppose U.S. policy is the product of some all-powerful "Bosnian lobby," a much overrated notion. Not that there isn't a Bosnian (Muslim) lobby, but U.S. policy is not what it is because of direct influence from Sarajevo. In fact, the "Bosniak" lobbyists are often doing and demanding what the powers-that-be in Washington… shall we say, "suggest" they should do or demand, so that the architects of centralizing policy can use the illusion of "pressure" on the U.S. to "do something" about the Bosnian "crisis." Rather, the larger problem is that for important elements in both the Democratic and Republican parties, the idea of the U.S. and the global dominant power is the central concept. Related to that is the notion that the U.S. must be seen in the Islamic world as the champion of Muslim interests in Europe. That is the main reason why U.S. officials open refer to BiH as a "Muslim country" even though it has a Christian majority (combined Orthodox Serb and Catholic Croat communities). The same is even more true regarding U.S. policy in Kosovo and Metohija. Of course this is an absurdity that is easily demolished, but there's little or no push-back from Belgrade or Banja Luka.

 

To conclude, we must ask: is there a hope for the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina? Probably not, but there is hope for Republika Srpska. It is a viable and democratically based polity – whereas the "Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina" is neither of those things. The RS can be saved and it must be saved, not for the sake of the Serbs alone but for the sake of any durable post-Yugoslav architecture in Southeast Europe. That's what all those who care about peace, stability, and justice in the former Yugoslavia need to focus on.  

 

EDITORIAL

TIME TO LEAVE BOSNIA ALONE

 

[ … ] Constitutional reform is a codeword for establishing what in effect what would be a Muslim-dominated unitary state – in a majority-Christian country! – and amounting to the end of the RS in fact if not in name. In addition to being certain to re-ignite old animosities, this scenario is incongruous with the trend towards devolution and decentralization in some of the world's most stable democracies, from Quebec to the Basque Country, or Scotland, or Catalonia.

 

Whatever the defects of Dayton, the essential fact is that for over 14 years Bosnians have not been killing each other. Nothing should be done that risks a new confrontation among Bosnia's communities and possibly reigniting the horrors of the 1990s. With all that America has on its plate today, it is ill advised to trigger an optional crisis. The Republic of Srpska is not only a legitimate selfgoverning entity under an internationally binding treaty. It is also an oasis of relative prosperity and financial stability, compared not only to the Muslim-Croat Federation, but also neighboring Croatia and Serbia.

 

What is really impeding Bosnia's progress is heavy-handed international bureaucracy and excessive foreign meddling in local affairs. Such meddling is detrimental to the spontaneous growth of democratic institutions. Going a step beyond and imposing centralization would be a gross violation of democracy, law and logic… Bosnia-Herzegovina has suffered a lot through history, almost invariably due to some distant powers' ambitions and policies. It deserves to be left well alone.

 

America’s Tangled Kosovo Web

October 21st 2009 01:45:42 PM

America's Tangled Kosovo Web

Posted by Julia Gorin

Re-reading a 2007 Der Spiegel article recently, I came across some information about the brother of indicted war criminal and U.S. buddy Ramush Haradinaj. Daut Haradinaj was speaking at an event honoring a dead Albanian poet-nationalist after serving a prison sentence for manslaughter.

According to the article, many saw his appearance at the ceremony "as a sign of his willingness to fill the breach if his brother Ramush is sentenced at his upcoming trial in The Hague."

As we know, some heavy U.S. and UN pressure (and evidence-tampering) later — and a few dead witnesses later — Ramush Haradinaj was acquitted because of "insufficient evidence."

Haradinaj picked up his political career where he left off, with the blessing of the U.S. and UNMIK (UN Mission in Kosovo), and so Daut didn't need to step in, but at least we know our pal Ramush has an equally competent and murderous brother who would have been encouraged to pursue politics had things turned out differently. Indeed, according to the article, the Haradinaj clan has more than just two such winners:

According to the indictment, Ramush Haradinaj, a.k.a. "Smajl", was accused of 37 counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, kidnapping and torture, during the Kosovo war in 1998.

The indictment also stated that his brothers, Daut, Frasher and Shkelzen, were among the members of the "criminal organization" headed by Haradinaj, and that the family home in Glodjane was periodically used as a command center to plan and commit the crimes. Thirty-two corpses of Serbs, gypsies and Albanians, some severely mutilated, were found near the farm. So far Haradinaj has denied all accusations.

Sören Jessen-Petersen, the former UN administrator, long viewed the presumed war criminal as a "close partner and friend" who "sacrificed and contributed so much to a better future for Kosovo."

By 2005, that Haradinaj homestead lined with mutilated bodies served as "a banquet hall where [high-ranking UN and NATO representatives] could meet with Haradinaj to discuss bringing peace to the region."

I'll get back to Daut Haradinaj in a moment, but just to complete the picture about this great friend of the U.S., Ramush Haradinaj:

A report by the UN police force in Kosovo has linked Haradinaj to the cocaine trade. And according to a 2005 analysis by Germany's foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Haradinaj and his associates play a key role in "a broad spectrum of criminal, political and military activities that significantly affect the security situation throughout Kosovo. The group, which counts about 100 members, is involved in drug and weapons smuggling, as well as illegal trading in dutiable items."

If the BND analysis is correct, Haradinaj has apparently made himself a major player in one of Kosovo's key industries. According to experts, the €700 million budget of this province, 90 percent of which is populated by ethnic Albanians, pales in comparison to the revenues earned in the drug trade in Kosovo.

As if this weren't messy enough as regards Ramush, who is welcomed to our shores by our leaders with open arms, let's go back to that ceremony at which Daut spoke:

When the event ends [Daut] Haradinaj jumps into a waiting car in front of the center and is taken to a secret restaurant. At the restaurant, Besiana-F, he meets Ali Ahmeti, the leader of the 2001 Albanian uprising in Macedonia. Ahmeti and his equally famous uncle, Fazli Veliu — both of whom are on a US terrorism watch list and have been banned from entering the United States since May 2003 — have crossed the border into Kosovo to join in the day's celebration. [There is no longer any effective border between Kosovo and Macedonia.]

Upon leaving the restaurant Ahmeti and Haradinaj embrace briefly. Then they climb into SUVs with darkened windows.

So what we have is our good friends the Haradinaj Family naturally being in close ties with folks who are on our terrorism watch list. While Ahmeti and Veliu aren't doing anything in Macedonia that the Haradinaj clan didn't do in Kosovo — indeed, Ahmeti is the leader of a governing political party in Macedonia — the former two randomly ended up as "terrorists" just as Haradinaj randomly ended up as a "peace partner."

The difference between them? Once the Albanians expanded their war into Macedonia, we figured out what their game was, and while the Albanians knew that Kosovo was just one leg of the war for Greater Albania, we had only signed on for Kosovo. Realizing our mistake but unable to undo it, we've been keeping up the charade and continuing to term the Kosovo-Albanian terrorists our "allies," while trying to figure out how to discourage their allies in Macedonia.

Over time, we've been given a better "understanding" of our agenda in the region, and therefore eventually started facilitating Albanian terror in Macedonia. After all, if we want to keep the Haradinajs as "friends" in Kosovo, eventually we're going to have to make friends with their friends in Macedonia. Otherwise, try navigating around this one: "Throughout the fighting," Chris Deliso writes in his book The Coming Balkan Caliphate, "jihadis were also penetrating Macedonia from the other, western front in Tetovo and reportedly had connections with Kosovo Albanian officials such as Daut Haradinaj, chief of general staff of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC)…according to other Macedonian military sources."

Turns out, our pal Ramush's own brother is on our blacklist as well. He reportedly met in August 2001 — just two months after we rescued 400 Albanian terrorists from Macedonian security forces — with Ayman al-Zawahiri's brother Muhammad. According to the Serbian daily Blic, a "number of intelligence services know about this. There is proof that Daut Haradinaj took part in the clashes with Macedonian security services, because of which he was put on the U.S. terrorist blacklist and thrown out of the Kosovo Protection Corps."

This reminds us that Albanians walk their own tightrope, in their equally contradictory dealings with us. They are constantly torn between — and always playing — their two key allies, which are each other's mortal enemies: Washington/London/Brussels vs. the Saudis and bin Laden himself (who helped train and arm the KLA while we did the same).

How to serve and shower love on both, without offending the other? That is the Albanian dilemma.

Of course, even if the Albanians paraded their al-Qaeda connections, would anyone in the mainstream establishment — the same one that repeated their lies and came up with their own to justify the "liberation" and "independence" — actually call them on it? Somehow I doubt it.

To further illustrate the randomness of which Albanians we term "allies" and which ones "terrorists," let's take the last name Thaci. If it's Thaci of Kosovo, it gets a warm welcome in the U.S., since it's probably our friend, "prime minister" Hashim Thaci. However, if it's Thaci from Macedonia, it's probably Mendux (or Menduh) Thaci, the leader of the main opposition Albanian party but for some reason on the U.S. blacklist.

Yet our friend Ramush Haradinaj just had a lovely meeting last month with our blacklisted Thaci, in Tetovo, Macedonia.

Thaci's name also came up recently because he went on TV in Albania, on a station appropriately titled "Klan," expecting to be coddled in the country that was the genesis of the Greater Albania plan. Instead, he found that Albania's Albanians had wised up about…Albanians.

DPA Leader shocked in Tirana (Oct. 9):

Albanian intellectuals attacked the leader of Macedonia's DPA party in last night's political debate on Tirana's popular TV channel Klan.

While speaking about the Encyclopedia, Thaci unexpectedly received a major slap for the behavior of Albanians and ethnic Albanian parties in Macedonia.

This is referring to the first Macedonian encyclopedia, which just came out but is already being revised, with the entire board of editors already fired, because it accurately depicts the 2001 Albanian insurgency against the state. It also says that Albanians came to Macedonia in the 16th century, when everyone knows that Albanians were always everywhere before anyone else was. (Uncannily similar to Muslim claims all over the world.)

"Hatred towards their own country, extreme Islamism, extremely low culture". These were the quali[ties] which several Albanian intellectuals used in attacking Thaci, who had come to expect certain political benefits by the Albanian media during his visit.

Thaci's assessment that the Encyclopedia was a political provocation by the Macedonian Government was met with dismay by the participants in the debate, who sharply attacked Thaci and the Albanians in Macedonia as "ungrateful towards the state in which they live".

This is a strikingly rare and honest statement coming from an Albanian, whose intellectuals don't often distinguish themselves from the mob mentality of pan-Albanianism that governs the Albanian outlook. It is also the first recognition I've heard by an Albanian of Albanian ingratitude, to put mildly the quality of a people who demand pensions for the insurgencies they wage against their host states. What we also have here is an Albanian pointing to what our own leaders, along with most Albanians, continue to deny and dismiss: rising Islamism among Albanians.

"Macedonia is the only state in the Balkans where there is internal denial. Albanians always deny the state, even [fight] against it. You made war in the middle of Europe and took up arms against your own country. To this day you ambush Macedonian policemen," said Maks Velo, Albanian writer-critic.

Actually, Macedonia is not the only state in which Albanians deny its legitimacy. Serbia was such a state, and the Albanians in Kosovo — with the help of Albanians in Albania — also "made war in the middle of Europe and took up arms against your own country. To this day, you ambush [Serbian] policemen."

According to Mr Velo, there is a frightening, extreme Islamism among the Albanian parties in Macedonia and it is not a coincidence that DPA's leader Mendux Thaci is on the U.S. blacklist for years.

"The mosques in the villages in Macedonia seem like Iranian missiles. If the Albanians there can not climb to a higher cultural level of social life, not to discriminate against women, to build civil society, you will never be able to go up against the Macedonians in any way, especially not intellectually. With minarets you are not going in Europe. We must achieve greater cultural and economic level," said Velo to Thaci who clearly wished he wasn't there.

Fatos Lubonja, [another] critic…[said,] "When will we learn our lesson that divisions do not lead anywhere, but only to war and discontent?…So I think it is good for you to identify yoursellf as Macedonian. To live in Yugoslavia and then in Macedonia and to speak and work against the state in which you live, it is a cultural disadvantage, it is wrong.
…
DPA's leader Thaci appeared flabbergasted wearing a sour smile on his face. He had hoped to gain political points by visiting Tirana. On his last visit to the Albanian capital, Mr. Thaci had lobbied Albanian politicians to be against Macedonia's admission to NATO.

What we have, finally, are Albanians weighing what is right and what is wrong, as opposed to just what is Albanian. Imagine how wrong things had to go in order for the wrongness to become manifest even to Albanians. It is a wrongness that's gotten as far as it has thanks to the indulgence of Albanian wrongness by U.S.-led Western powers. Recall this from Chris Deliso:

Macedonia took in over 400,000 Kosovo Albanian refugees. However, when the country was no longer needed for Clinton's military adventures, it was forgotten, and the long-term consequences of Kosovo — an emboldened pan-Albanian Balkan insurgency — were ignored…[America] began secretly supporting the NLA [(Albanian) National Liberation Army] from its Kosovo base, Camp Bondsteel, through logistical and communications support as well as secret arms airdrops to Albanian-held mountain villages in northwestern Macedonia.
…
For Macedonians, the nadir was reached in June [2001, post-Clinton], during a three-day battle at the Skopje-area village of Aracinovo, where NATO ordered the Macedonian Army to stop its operations and then spirited the heavily armed Albanian fighters off to freedom…[T]he public was shocked when it was reported that Islamic fighters and 17 American military contractors from the Virginia-based Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) had been found amongst the NLA's ranks…From that moment, the humiliated and disappointed Macedonian public's worst suspicions seemed to have been confirmed: America and NATO were in full favor of the Albanian guerrillas.

In other words, the U.S. and NATO have managed to out-Albanize the Albanians.

Indeed, rather than teaching Albanians the ways of the civilized world and multi-ethnicity — as is our "mission" in Kosovo — we've been coming around to their way of looking at things. Just check out this job advisory at Camp Bondsteel:

camp bondsteel jobs

JOBS JOBS JOBS.INFO

Just visit Camp Bondsteel and ask someone. But you should know that for most jobs available to locals you will need to be fluent in English. You should also be aware that they don't offer as many jobs to people of Serbian nationality because of the risk of infiltration, so basically this means that if you are Albanian you have a better chance of getting a job.

The most Swiftian part of this is the "risk of infiltration" by Serbs. No worries about infiltration by Islamists or KLA elements, since that is precisely whom Bondsteel serves.

Notice that while rational Albanians like Velo and Lubonja found the Albanian reaction to, and pressure on, the Macedonian encyclopedia shameful, America speaks in one voice with the irrational Albanians:

US and ethnic Albanian officials condemned Macedonia's first encyclopedia yesterday over its description of an inter-ethnic conflict in 2001 and the history of the country's Albanian presence.

[Keep in mind that this conflict which, believe it or not, blindsided us — had us threatening armed conflict that year against the over-reaching Albanians. But again, we eventually came around to their way of looking at things, lent some weapons and manpower, and now are offended at Macedonia's accurate description of that conflict.]

Macedonia was on the brink of a civil war in 2001 when the ethnic Albanian rebel movement, the National Liberation Army (NLA), fought Macedonian security forces for seven months.

The encyclopedia, published by the Macedonian Academy of Science and Arts, says the NLA was an "armed formation trained in camps in Albania and Kosovo by American and British officers and paratroopers." An official at the US Embassy in Skopje, who asked not to be named, dismissed the claims as ridiculous.

"Allegations that American officers trained the former NLA soldiers are baseless and outrageous," the official said. "We are disappointed that this institution would put its name on such a ridiculous claim," the official added. […]

Albanians in Kosovo, meanwhile, burned the Macedonian flag, and the prime minister in neighboring Albania, Sali Berisha, called the encyclopedia unacceptable and urged Macedonian officials to change it.

Indeed, developments such as the following should have rational Albanians like Velo and Lubonja very worried, since it's probable that rather than a Greater Albania, what Albania and Macedonia are becoming part of will have all the lawlessness and irrationality of a Greater Kosovo:

Albanians "one nation" across borders, Albanian PM Berisha says

Pristina - Albanians in Albania and Kosovo are a single nation, Prime Minister Sali Berisha asserted Tuesday at the start of a two-day visit aimed at forging closer ties with the former Serbian province.

'The nation is one and inseparable in spirit and identity,' Berisha told reporters after arriving in Kosovo….Berisha, who started his second term in the office last month, is due to sign a series of protocols in Pristina to further ease the flow of people and goods across the border…

Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said 'it is not a secret' that Albanians in Kosovo and Albania have 'brotherly relations,' adding that they were reflected in the effort to enable free movement across borders.
…
Also, most among the ethnic Albanians who make up the majority in parts of southern Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo aspire to join their compatriots in a single country, which is another source of tension.

Balkans: Kosovo and Albania intensify cooperation

Pristina, 6 October (AKI) - Visiting Albanian prime minister Sali Berisha and his Kosovo host Hasim Taci on Tuesday signed several bilateral agreements which will facilitate movement of people and goods between the two countries and promote customs and border police cooperation.
…
On his second visit to Kosovo since the country gained independence from Serbia last year, Berisha said "There are no two Albanian nations and a national ideal of Albanians must be a European ideal". [He has just put all of Europe on notice that it has no alternative but to accept the eventual reality of a single Albania, consisting of land stolen from Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, and parts of Greece. This was of course after denying, as Thaci and Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu have been doing for years, that anything like a unification plan is afoot.]

Berisha and Taci also signed agreements in regard to the legalisation of status of the people which have illegally settled in the two countries.

After the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo in 1999, the province was put under United Nations control and many Albanian citizens have since illegally settled in Kosovo. […]

As they were doing for a century prior to the war.

Meanwhile, Washington continues to deny that anything like a Greater Albania is in the works. Like I said, out-Albanizing the Albanians.

http://www.juliagorin.com/wordpress/?p=2211

Serbia slams Macedonia's establishment of diplomatic relations with Kosovo

Serbia slams Macedonia's establishment of diplomatic relations with Kosovo

Mon, Oct 19 2009 11:30 CET

The signing of the October 17 2009 agreement between Macedonia and Kosovo to establish diplomatic relations will exacerbate tensions between Skopje and Belgrade, Serbian ministers said.
 
Kosovo foreign minister Skender Hyseni and his Macedonian counterpart Antonio Milososki signed the agreement after the two countries resolved their border dispute.
 
Serbian foreign minister Vuk Jeremic said that the decision by Macedonia's government was a "pity" and said that the decision would "have consequences".
 
"For border demarcation issues with Serbia, neighboring countries can only talk with the government in Belgrade," Jeremic said.
 
Belgrade has refused to recognise Kosovo's February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia.
 
Serbian minister for Kosovo Oliver Ivanovic said that the decision by the Macedonian parliament to ratify the agreement with Kosovo "might solve the boundary problem, but this will bring additional tensions to the already fragile relations between Serbia and Macedonia".
 
Macedonian authorities should understand that it was in their own strategic interest to have good relations with Serbia, Ivanovic said.

 

 

 

NYT 1987: "In Yugoslavia, Rising Ethnic Strife Brings Fears of Worse Civil Conflict"

"In Yugoslavia, Rising Ethnic Strife Brings Fears of Worse Civil Conflict"

By David Binder (Special to the N.Y.Times)

---

The New York Times, November 1, 1987, Late City Final Edition (p.14)

---

Belgrade, Yugoslavia:

Portions of southern Yugoslavia have reached such a state of ethnic friction that Yugoslavs have begun to talk of the horrifying possibility of "civil war" in a land that lost one-tenth of its population, or 1.7 million people, in World War II.

The current hostilities pit separatist-minded ethnic Albanians against the various Slavic populations of Yugoslavia and occur at all levels of society, from the highest officials to the humblest peasants.

A young Army conscript of ethnic Albanian origin shot up his barracks, killing four sleeping Slavic bunkmates and wounding six others. The army says it has uncovered hundreds of subversive ethnic Albanian cells in its ranks. Some arsenals have been raided.

Vicious Insults

Ethnic Albanians in the Government have manipulated public funds and regulations to take over land belonging to Serbs. And politicians have exchanged vicious insults.

Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls.

Ethnic Albanians comprise the fastest growing nationality in Yugoslavia and are expected soon to become its third largest, after the Serbs and Croats.

Radicals' Goals

The goal of the radical nationalists among them, one said in an interview, is an "ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself." That includes large chunks of the republics that make up the southern half of Yugoslavia.

Other ethnic Albanian separatists admit to a vision of a greater Albania governed from Pristina in southern Yugoslavia rather than Tirana, the capital of neighboring Albania.

There is no evidence that the hard-line Communist Government in Tirana is giving them material assistance.

The principal battleground is the region called Kosovo,a high plateau ringed by mountains that is somewhat smaller than New Jersey. Ethnic Albanians there make up 85 percent of the population of 1.7 million. The rest are Serbians and Montenegrins.

Worst Strife in Years

As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially strongly since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981 - an "ethnically pure" Albanian region, a "Republic of Kosovo" in all but name.

The violence, a journalist in Kosovo said, is escalating to "the worst in the last seven years."

Many Yugoslavs blame the troubles on the ethnic Albanians, but the matter is more complex in a country with as many nationalities and religions as Yugoslavia's and involves economic development, law, politics, families and flags. As recently as 20 years ago, the Slavic majority treated ethnic Albanians as inferiors to be employed as hewers of wood and carriers of heating coal. The ethnic Albanians, who now number 2 million, were officially deemed a minority, not a constituent nationality, as they are today.

Were the ethnic tensions restricted to Kosovo, Yugoslavia's problems with its Albanian nationals might be more manageable. But some Yugoslavs and some ethnic Albanians believe the struggle has spread far beyond Kosovo. Macedonia, a republic to the south with a population of 1.8 million, has a restive ethnic Albanian minority of 350,000.

"We've already lost western Macedonia to the Albanians," said a member of the Yugoslav party presidium, explaining that the ethnic minority had driven the Slavic Macedonians out of the region.

Attacks on Slavs

Last summer, the authorities in Kosovo said they documented 40 ethnic Albanian attacks on Slavs in two months.In the last two years, 320 ethnic Albanians have been sentenced for political crimes, nearly half of them characterized as severe.

In one incident, Fadil Hoxha, once the leading politician of ethnic Albanian origin in Yugoslavia, joked at an official dinner in Prizren last year that Serbian women should be used to satisfy potential ethnic Albanian rapists. After his quip was reported this October, Serbian women in Kosovo protested, and Mr. Hoxha was dismissed from the Communist Party.

As a precaution, the central authorities dispatched 380 riot police officers to the Kosovo region for the first time in four years.

Officials in Belgrade view the ethnic Albanian challenge as imperiling the foundations of the multinational experiment called federal Yugoslavia, which consists of six republics and two provinces.

'Lebanonizing' of Yugoslavia

High-ranking officials have spoken of the "Lebanonizing" of their country and have compared its troubles to the strife in Northern Ireland.

Borislav Jovic, a member of the Serbian party's presidency, spoke in an interview of the prospect of "two Albanias, one north and one south, like divided Germany or Korea," and of "practically the breakup of Yugoslavia." He added: "Time is working against us."

The federal Secretary for National Defense, Fleet Adm. Branko Mamula, told the army's party organization in September of efforts by ethnic Albanians to subvert the armed forces. "Between 1981 and 1987 a total of 216 illegal organizations with 1,435 members of Albanian nationality were discovered in the Yugoslav People's Army," he said. Admiral Mamula said ethnic Albanian subversives had been preparing for "killing officers and soldiers, poisoning food and water, sabotage, breaking into weapons arsenals and stealing arms and ammunition, desertion and causing flagrant nationalist incidents in army units."

Concerns Over Military

Coming three weeks after the ethnic Albanian draftee, Aziz Kelmendi, had slaughtered his Slavic comrades in the barracks at Paracin, the speech struck fear in thousands of families whose sons were about to start their mandatory year of military service.

Because the Albanians have had a relatively high birthrate, one-quarter of the army's 200,000 conscripts this year are ethnic Albanians. Admiral Mamula suggested that 3,792 were potential human timebombs.

He said the army had "not been provided with details relevant for assessing their behavior." But a number of Belgrade politicians said they doubted the Yugoslav armed forces would be used to intervene in Kosovo as they were to quell violent rioting in 1981in Pristina. They reason that the army leadership is extremely reluctant to become involved in what is, in the first place, a political issue.

Ethnic Albanians already control almost every phase of life in the autonomous province of Kosovo, including the police, judiciary, civil service, schools and factories. Non-Albanian visitors almost immediately feel the independence- and suspicion - of the ethnic Albanian authorities.

Region's Slavs Lack Strength

While 200,000 Serbs and Montenegrins still live in the province, they are scattered and lack cohesion. In the last seven years, 20,000 of them have fled the province, often leaving behind farmsteads and houses,for the safety of the Slavic north.

Until September, the majority of the Serbian Communist Party leadership pursued a policy of seeking compromise with the Kosovo party hierarchy under its ethnic Albanian leader, Azem Vlasi.

But during a 30-hour session of the Serbian central committee in late September, the Serbian party secretary, Slobodan Milosevic, deposed Dragisa Pavlovic, as head of Belgrade's party organization, the country's largest. Mr. Milosevic accused Mr. Pavlovic of being an appeaser who was soft on Albanian radicals. Mr. Milosevic had courted the Serbian backlash vote with speeches in Kosovo itself calling for "the policy of the hard hand."

"We will go up against anti-Socialist forces, even if they call us Stalinists," Mr. Milosevic declared recently. That a Yugoslav politician would invite someone to call him a Stalinist even four decades after Tito's epochal break with Stalin, is a measure of the state into which Serbian politics have fallen. For the moment, Mr. Milosevic and his supporters appear to be staking their careers on a strategy of confrontation with the Kosovo ethnic Albanians.

Other Yugoslav politicians have expressed alarm. "There is no doubt Kosovo is a problem of the whole country, a powder keg on which we all sit," said Milan Kucan, head of the Slovenian Communist Party.

Remzi Koljgeci, of the Kosovo party leadership, said in an interview in Pristina that "relations are cold" between the ethnic Albanians and Serbs of the province, that there were too many "people without hope."

But many of those interviewed agreed it was also a rare opportunity for Yugoslavia to take radical political and economic steps, as Tito did when he broke with the Soviet bloc in 1948.

Efforts are under way to strengthen central authority through amendments to the constitution. The League of Communists is planning an extraordinary party congress before March to address the country's grave problems.

The hope is that something will be done then to exert the rule of law in Kosovo while drawing ethnic Albanians back into Yugoslavia's mainstream

 

http://www.kunstradio.at/WAR/binder-nytimes.html

Alexander Dorin: “Srebrenica Massacre” is a Western Myth

Alexander Dorin: "Srebrenica Massacre" is a Western Myth

May 23rd, 2009 | By De-Construct.net | In Bosnia, Bytes 'n Bits, Featured Articles

Srebrenica — The History of Salon Racism

"In the West, the popular mythology about 7,000-8,000 Muslim men being executed in Srebrenica in 1995 is still alive and well, but independent research shows some 2,000 Bosnian Muslim fighters were killed in battle for Srebrenica and that is the number of bodies Hague investigators were able to find", said Swiss researcher Alexander Dorin, who has been investigating Srebrenica events for the past 14 years.

In his latest book titled "Srebrenica — The History of Salon Racism" (Srebrenica — die Geschichte eines salonfahigen Rassismus) published this month in Berlin, Dorin focuses on manipulations with the number of Muslims who lost their lives in Srebrenica.

"Regarding the events in Srebrenica in 1995, the media manipulations still reign in the West, claiming that after the town fell to Serbian hands some 7,000 to 8,000 of Muslim fighters and male civilians were killed. However, the researchers around the world have shown this bears no relation to the truth," Dorin told Srna News Agency.

According to data he had gathered, Dorin discovered that at least 2,000 Muslim fighters were killed in battle for Srebrenica. He added the facts are showing that neither civilian nor military leadership of Republic of Srpska (Serb Republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina) ever ordered execution of the Muslim fighters and POWs.

"2,000 is approximately the number of bodies Hague investigators were able to find up to this day. To that number the Muslim side added several hundred Muslim fighters, most of whom came from abroad, who were killed in battle few years before the fall of Srebrenica, in Han Pijesak and Konjević Polje," Dorin said, adding that this is evidenced even by the Muslim documents captured by the Bosnian Serb Army.

Bosnian Serb Army Fought Against Orić's Cutthroats, Not Against Muslim Civilians

"Prior to the fall of Srebrenica, Naser Orić's troops withdrew from this small town, leaving 25,000 civilians behind, although a certain number of civilians, some of whom were armed, was withdrawing together with Orić's fighters," Dorin said.

He said that Bosnian Serb Army "did not kill a single Muslim civilian of those who remained in Srebrenica or Potocari, while it did engage Orić's column, which was breaking through to Tuzla in several groups, in fierce fighting."

"There is no way the Serb Army could have captured seven or eight thousand Muslim fighters and male civilians and execute them somewhere, partly because that was technically impossible," Dorin said. He explained that, among else, there was never enough Serb soldiers who could carry out a crime on such scale.

In his research, Dorin was using various sources, including statements by the Muslim fighters and commanders, as well as testimonies given by Dutch UNPROFOR troops who were stationed in Srebrenica at the time.

He pointed to a very interesting investigation carried out by the Bulgarian reporter and author Germinal Civikov, who wrote a book about the case of Croat Dražen Erdemović, former member of the Bosnian Serb Army, whose testimony represents the key Hague "evidence" of "Srebrenica massacre", who claimed that his commander Milorad Pelemiš "ordered him and few other soldiers to execute some 1,000-1,200 Muslim POWs".

But the analysis of that case, said Dorin, proves Erdemović invented most, if not all of that story.

Dorin explained that director of the Belgrade Center for Investigation of War Crimes Milivoje Ivanišević analyzed the lists of alleged Srebrenica victims. Ivanišević discovered that, a year after the fall of Srebrenica, some 3,000 Muslim men who were supposedly killed in 1995, were voting in the Bosnian Muslim elections.

In addition, at least 1,000 of the alleged 1995 "Srebrenica massacre victims" have been dead long before or after Bosnian Serb Army took the town over.

"It is perfectly clear that Muslim organizations listed as Srebrenica victims all the Muslim fighters who were killed in the fights after the fall of Srebrenica," the Swiss researcher said.

According to Dorin, some Western reporters wrote back in 1995 that part of Srebrenica Muslim population, after the town's takeover, migrated to other countries. This includes an American journalist who wrote that around 800 Srebrenica Muslims went abroad — from Serbia.

"It was not possible to conduct an in-depth investigation, since no one can search the entire world to pinpoint each and every name [from the lists of alleged Srebrenica victims]. Still, the available evidence already shows there were immense manipulations at play," Dorin said.

A number of photos of Muslim fighters taken during their breakthrough to Tuzla, which Dorin obtained from the Muslim sources, show Izetbegović's fighters in uniforms, with many of them wounded.

"On these photos one can see a number of wounded fighters who survived the battle against the Serb Army. Muslim side is now presenting its fighters who did not recover from their wounds as the victims of an execution", said Dorin.

He pointed out that some Muslims have admitted at least 2,000 of their Srebrenica-based fighters were killed in the battle.

Dorin also reminded of the statements by the Muslim politicians given to media about an "offer" American president Bill Clinton made to Bosnian Muslim war leader Alija Izetbegović back in April 1993, to have "the Chetnik [Serb] forces enter Srebrenica and massacre 5,000 Muslims, which would result in the [US-led NATO] military intervention" against Bosnian Serbs.

At the same time, Dutch UNPROFOR troops testified that Serb Army treated Muslim civilians in an entirely correct manner, while Srebrenica Muslim warlord Naser Orić with his fighters was massacring Serb civilians in the most monstrous fashion for years in Srebrenica municipality, and pillaging and destroying their property all the while.

… For Those who Want to Know the Truth About Srebrenica

Despite all the evidence about what really took place in Srebrenica and the fact there was no 'massacre', Dorin doubts the Hague verdicts in regards to Srebrenica events can be contested or overturned, being that this "so-called tribunal has convicted a number of people for the alleged Srebrenica massacre without any evidence whatsoever".

He cited a case of the Serb Vidoje Blagojević, convicted to a long prison term even though he had no connection to Srebrenica events, while "the mass murderer Naser Orić was acquitted of all responsibility for killing the Serbs".

"That court routinely discards everything that proves Serbs are not the monsters they have been made out to be. That tribunal has a purely political function. It has no relation to the justice and truth", Dorin told Srna.

The Swiss researcher does not expect his book about Srebrenica events will be able to break down the stereotypes. He said the book was written for those who wish to learn the truth about the events Western mainstream media sold as "Srebrenica massacre" and even "genocide", in order to justify their war against the Serbs.

Dorin added that mostly left-oriented Western newspapers and organizations have shown an interest in his latest book and have offered cooperation.

Alexander Dorin's book about Srebrenica events is expected to be translated both into Serbian and English language.

Related

• Sarajevo Islamic Regime's Srebrenica Manipulations
• Srebrenica: Genocide or Major Hoax?
• Srebrenica Serbs
• Jihad in Bosnia
• More Proof of Srebrenica Manipulations
• Srebrenica Christmas Massacre
• Pogrom of Srebrenica Christians
• New Evidence Against Srebrenica Warlord
• Srebrenica: The Real Picture
• No Justice in the West
• Hague has Failed
• Srebrenica Myth
• Srebrenica Serbs
• Serbophobia Obscures the Facts
• Dutch Soldiers to Testify in Karadzic's Defense
• Dutchbat III
• Indictment Against War Criminal Naser Orić
• Agony of the Serbs in Srebrenica Death Camps
• 91 Dutchbat Witness for Radovan Karadžić
• Srebrenica ID, by Milivoje Ivanišević
• Yugoslav Civil War Yet to Be Properly Examined
• "Srebrenica Massacre" Invented by Bill Clinton and Alija Izetbegović

http://de-construct.net/e-zine/?p=6082