Westerwelle’s Big Adventure

Westerwelle's Big Adventure

German FM Does the Balkans

by Nebojsa Malic, August 28, 2010

Germany's Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is touring the Balkans this week, visiting Zagreb, Belgrade, Pristina and Sarajevo. It is the newest mission in pursuit of an old agenda: the surrender of Serbia, an independent state of Kosovo, and a centralized Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The only surprise so far has been Westerwelle's message to Croatia — Germany's principal Balkans client since 1991 — that its admission to the EU may not be as quick as Zagreb had hoped. While reassuring his hosts that "nothing has changed," the German FM also said there was "a lot of work ahead" before Croatia would qualify to be annexed by Brussels, and that "thoroughness is more important than speed."

On Thursday, Westerwelle traveled on to Belgrade, where he tried to persuade the ruling regime to give up Serbia's sovereignty for the mere promise of EU membership. Yet even the sycophant, quisling government set up in Belgrade by EU and Imperial ambassadors in July 2008, seemed strangely reluctant to fawn over Westerwelle's words.

Disobedient Quislings

The tone of Westerwelle's visit to Belgrade was not so much imperious as petulant. Germany and the EU have hardly tried to disguise annoyance with their clients in Serbia, who have so far refused to do as told and officially concede that the Serbian province occupied by NATO in 1999 is now the "Independent state of Kosovo." (ISK)

Earlier this year, the governments of U.S., UK, Germany, France and Italy even sent a most un-diplomatic note to Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, expressing their frustration and disappointment that the "aggressive rhetoric" from Serbia wasn't merely a ploy for domestic consumption to "remove Kosovo from the political agenda," as their "partners in Belgrade" assured them.

While the Tadic regime hasn't gone beyond words in defending Kosovo — and has done much to surrender the province in practice — even that had become unacceptable to the Empire and the EU. Only unconditional submission would do.

Though Belgrade's appeal to international law failed in late July, the tortured verdict by the International Court of Justice has created far more trouble for the Empire than for Serbia. Furthermore, new recognitions for the ISK have failed to materialize. Instead of just surrendering as expected, Tadic and his people proposed a new UN resolution, calling for new negotiations. Even though the proposal has little chance of passing in the General Assembly, the very fact that it was made has "has rankled many Western UN members, who see Belgrade's fixation on Kosovo as a tiresome impediment to progress in the Balkans," reports Radio Free Europe, adding that Westerwelle is expected to demand the resolution's gutting, if not outright withdrawal.

RFE also quotes what Westerwelle's spokesman Stephan Bredohl told Deutsche Welle: "Germany has accepted [Kosovo's] independence, and it's very important for us that if Serbia wants to join the European Union, it needs to be constructive and toe the EU's line."

Facts and Fantasy

No doubt that Berlin — and Washington — consider it of great importance for Belgrade to "toe the line" and do what it's told. But the notion that Serbia would be rewarded for surrendering Kosovo with a promise of EU membership was already outlandish back in 2008. Now that Germany has explicitly ruled out any further EU expansion anytime soon (after the annexation of Croatia, that is), the notion of Serbia joining the EU in this decade is at best an exercise in wishful thinking. Nor is it easy any more to promote the myth of "pre-accession funds" rolling in, what with the financial crisis undermining the Euro.

In return for the promise of a fantasy, Westerwelle expects Serbia to accept the "reality" imposed by the EU. As he put it in a speech at the University of Belgrade, "The independence of Kosovo is a reality… Reconciliation is only possible when one grasps the reality." (Deutsche Welle) In another statement, quoted by Reuters, he asserted, "The map of southeastern Europe has been laid down and completed."

So, "reality" is whatever ends up being established at gunpoint, as a result of pure willpower. Where have we heard this before?

Westerwelle also tried to persuade Belgrade to drop the UN resolution proposal. "When someone in Europe wants to solve something including conflicts […] the road should first lead to Brussels, not to New York," he said. (DW)

Brussels is the capital of the EU, and while that may entitle it to assert authority over EU member countries (itself a dubious claim), what sort of authority can it claim, and on what basis, over countries and territories in no way, shape, or form associated with the EU Leviathan? If Serbia were an EU member, and Brussels decided to bully it into giving independence to Kosovo, Westerwelle might have a point. But this sort of arrogance of power argues precisely against EU membership. What is to stop Brussels from deciding tomorrow that "reality" involved an independent Catalunya or Basque, or a revision of the Treaty of Trianon?

No wonder, then, that the Serbian president is playing stupid, and the official statement about the meeting with Westerwelle says only that the two "agreed in Belgrade that Serbia's future lies with the EU and that for Serbia, Germany is one of the major political and economic partners." Tadic even "told the German minister that Serbia counts on the EU support for the solution of the Kosovo issue…"

Support? What support?!

Dumb and Dumber

Something does not add up. The obsession of Germany, the EU and the Empire with the "independent state of Kosovo" and bringing Serbia to heel can actually be explained with conspiracy facts (as opposed to theories). What is truly puzzling here is the behavior of the Belgrade government.

Boris Tadic has established his credentials as a spineless sycophant years ago. The only thing doubtful about his loyalty is if he whether it lies more with himself, or the Empire; to Serbia, there isn't any. Tadic personally scuttled the government's plan to resist the seizure of Kosovo by breaking up the coalition and calling for new elections. The Albanians in Kosovo went ahead with their February 2008 "declaration of independence" only after Tadic was re-elected president of Serbia.

Similarly, for all his patriotic rhetoric, Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic is loyal to Tadic, who was his schoolteacher before becoming his political patron. In April 2007, Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer told Reuters that he was "working with Boris Tadic and his people to find a way to implement the essence of the Ahtisaari plan" — a proposal by an Imperial envoy to give Kosovo "supervised independence" that was ultimately rejected by the UN. Jeremic was one of the people implicated in these secret talks.

The Empire has spelled out the promises its "partners in Belgrade" have made. So why have they not delivered yet? Tadic currently has complete dominance over the politics, media and civil society in Serbia, not seen since the late Communist leader Tito. It doesn't matter that Tadic is nowhere near as popular; the people have no way to express their dissent save by taking to the streets en masse. All other avenues are controlled by people loyal to either Tadic, or directly to the Empire. By all rights, Tadic should not care what the people want. Yet he still refuses to surrender. Why?

Could it be that he is afraid? Afraid of a theoretical popular revolt that would sweep away the house of cards laboriously constructed ever since the Empire-sponsored coup in October 2000, and possibly even cost Tadic and his associates their heads? Serbia and Georgia are the only two Empire-engineered "revolutions" that haven't been rolled back yet.

There is the theoretical possibility that Tadic is just playing dumb and feigning patriotism, while the Empire is playing dumber and feigning annoyance, so as to preclude any resistance from arising until it is too late. But this would require a far greater degree of subtlety that either can be credited with.

Read more by Nebojsa Malic

• The Sorrow of Empire – August 6th, 2010
• Cry Havoc – July 22nd, 2010
• Srebrenica: The Sacred Lie – July 9th, 2010
• The Endless Summer of 1914 – July 1st, 2010
• Empire's Deal – June 13th, 2010

http://original.antiwar.com/malic/2010/08/27/westerwelles-big-adventure/

ICG: Kosovo, Serbia Need Accord to Enter EU

ICG: Kosovo, Serbia Need Accord to Enter EU

Pristina | 26 August 2010 | Petrit Collaku

  Serbia and Kosovo both have an opportunity to resolve disputes and unblock the path towards European Union integration, the International Crisis Group has said in its latest report.

The report released on Thursday comes a month after the International Court of Justice, ICJ, advised Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence was not illegal.

The ICG said on its website: "There is ultimately no alternative to a comprehensive bilateral accord if either country is to realise its European institutional future."

The ICG warned that if there were no negotiations in the coming months, the conflict over the future status of Kosovo would freeze further for several years because the parties are 'entering the election cycles' which would encourage nationalist opinion and deflect from domestic corruption and government failures.

Marko Prelec, the Crisis Group's Balkans Project Director, said: "If Serbia really seeks meaningful progress, it will have to put its cards on the table and treat Kosovo as an equal; and Pristina should carefully consider what Belgrade has to offer."

The report says the main problem remains the Serb-dominated northern part of Kosovo and that three solutions for the North are conceivable: the Ahtisaari plan, expanded autonomy and a land swap.

The Crisis Group stressed that the Ahtisaari plan has been insufficient to secure the North's integration or Kosovo's international recognition.

Pristina might offer additional rights to the North, but there are no signs that Belgrade or the Northern Serbs would accept even this expanded autonomy.

Instead, the group says partition could pave the way for Serbia to recognise the remainder of Kosovo as independent.

The report says that the most controversial outcome that might emerge from negotiations would be a land swap of ethnic Serb Northern Kosovo for the ethnic Albanian portion of the Presevo Valley in Serbia.

"Pristina will not accept partition but gives some hints it might consider trading the heavily Serb North for the largely Albanian-populated parts of the Presevo Valley in southern Serbia," it states.

Neither Pristina nor Belgrade proposes this openly, but officials speak about it quietly in contact with the Crisis Group, the report reads.

"Many in the international community would be unhappy with this option, but a consensual land swap by equals in the context of mutual recognition and settlement of all other major issues should not be opposed," it said.

The ICG claims that if Serbia is to obtain positive consideration from Brussels for its EU candidacy application, it should pledge to work with Pristina to secure rule-of-law in the North, establish good neighbourly relations by co-operating on a host of technical issues to improve people's daily lives and stop blocking Kosovo's participation in regional institutions.

"A divided international community has few levers with which to exert pressure", says Sabine Freizer, the Crisis Group's Europe Programme Director.
 
"At the present time, the best policy for Kosovo's friends is to facilitate an opportunity for the sides to engage in a frank and open dialogue that can lead toward the fullest settlement achievable, without coercion and without agendas imposed or limited from outside," he said.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/30187/

http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/World+News/Europe/Western/Balkans

An Unfinished Story: The Krajina Chronicle review, by James Bissett

http://www.balkanstudies.org/articles/unfinished-story

 

AN UNFINISHED STORY

 

by James Bissett

 

A review of The Krajina Chronicle by Srdja Trifkovic, published  in the September 2010 issue of Chronicles

 

Srdja Trifkovic is no stranger to Chronicles readers, many of whom have found his articles commenting on foreign affairs, with particular attention to the Balkans, to be insightful, penetrating, and written with authority. His latest book, The Krajina Chronicle, provides further confirmation of his extraordinary talent.

 

The book is a history of the Serbian warrior-farmers who formed the first line of defense against Islamic invasions into the Habsburg Empire. It is a story of heroism and tragedy that reaches far beyond the old military frontier of the western Balkans. It is also a story that touches on some of the most eventful periods of European history. It ends tragically with the mass expulsion of the Krajina Serbs from their ancestral lands by Croatian military forces in August 1995, during Operation Storm. These forces, trained and equipped by the United States, drove out almost all of the Serbs from Croatia in a matter of days. The operation was made easier because the Krajina Serbs were ordered not to resist by their supposed ally, Serbian President Slobodan Milošević.

 

The Krajina Chronicle begins by tracing the early Slav settlements in the western Balkans in the sixth century and describes how, over time, the antipathies that developed between Croats and Serbs were intensified by religious and cultural differences, the Croats becoming Roman Catholic and the Serbs adopting the Orthodox Faith of the Byzantine Empire. By the Middle Ages, Trifkovic documents, Serbian settlements were well established in a number of regions in territory that was later to become Croatia—a fact that is denied by some Croat revisionists. These settlements were strengthened over the years by influxes of Serbian refugees fleeing the march of the Ottoman Turks. These hardy settlers eventually were transformed by their Austrian hosts into the warrior-farmers of the Krajina. And warriors indeed they were! Quite apart from resisting Islam's encroachment into Central Europe, these Serbs fought in almost all of the wars entered into by the Habsburg monarchy from the 17th to the 20th century.

 

Used primarily as light cavalry and infantry, they played an important role in all of the many battles in which they were engaged. In the Seven Years' War, for example, the Serbs contributed 88,000 troops to the Habsburg armies, and during the Napoleonic Wars they sent 11 regiments against Napoleon's forces. (In World War I, when Austria invaded Serbia in 1914, the Krajina Serbs fought against their fellow Serbs.) In return for military service, the Serbs were given land and special privileges exempting them from local taxes and laws. They owed their loyalty to Vienna, not to the Croatian or Hungarian nobility. The special status afforded the Serbs was deeply resented by their Croatian neighbors.

 

As Croatian nationalism became increasingly prominent in the 19th century, the existence of a Serbian population with special privileges, a different religion, and different loyalties complicated and impeded the ability of Croatian leaders to deal with their Hungarian and Austrian rulers. As Trifkovic explains, this led to extreme antagonism, bordering on a "morbid obsession," toward the minority Serbian population. This hatred of the Serbs was exemplified by speeches and writings of the Croatian political activist Ante Starčević (1823-96), who was ahead of his time in advocating genocide against the Serbs. Starcevic wrote that the Serbs are "the race of slaves, beasts worse than any other," fit for extermination. Trifkovic points out that there is hardly a town in today's Croatia that does not have a street, square, or institution named for Starčević, who is often referred to as the Father of the Nation.

 

Notwithstanding Croatia's almost pathological hatred of the Serbs, it was Serbia that saved Croatia from being carved up at the end of World War I. Having been on the losing side of that conflict, Croatia, under the terms of the Treaty of London, risked losing much of her territory to Italy and Serbia. She would have been reduced to four counties around Zagreb and lost much of her coastline. Serbia rejected the Treaty of London, however, opting instead to incorporate Croatia into the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, thus uniting all of the South Slavs in one state that was to become Yugoslavia. While uniting all of the South Slavs may have been seen as a logical step in the spirit of Slavic self-determination, the new state soon ran into the same old difficulties. No sooner had it been proclaimed than Croatian politicians began agitating to break it apart.

 

In fact, Trifkovic argues, the bitter legacy of Serb-Croat relations seems to have been accentuated by the union:

 

From the moment of its creation at the end of the Great War until its disintegration just over seven decades later, Yugoslavia was constantly beset by national problems. . . . [P]roblems which proved impossible to solve, in the first royalist Yugoslavia [1918-41] were no less difficult in the second, communist one [1945-91].

 

The Krajina Chronicle provides a stirring narrative of the events that followed the formation of the first Yugoslavia until its abrupt and violent breakup after the Nazi invasion in April 1941. Hitler quickly gave control of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to Ante Pavelić, the leader of the Croatian fascist Ustasha movement. The Ustashe immediately embarked on a murderous campaign against the Serbs in Croatia. The policy was explicitly proclaimed: Kill one third, convert one third to Catholicism, and expel the remaining third from Croatia.

 

Trifkovic's story of this mass murder spares no ghastly detail of the insane slaughter that took place in that spring and summer of 1941. Most of the killing was done by cutting victims' throats or by smashing their heads with a mallet or an ax. Later, when camps were set up to deal with the large numbers of the dispossessed—mainly Serbs, but also Jews and gypsies—the killing methods remained the same. How many lost their lives is not known, but estimates by holocaust historians range from 500,000 to 530,000. (Almost all of the author's sources are senior German and Italian military or diplomatic personnel. When senior SS officers complain to Berlin about the killings, the reader is left with no doubt about the horrors inflicted upon the Serbs of the Krajina.)

 

The book also deals with the intricacies of wartime Yugoslavia and with the factional disputes and battles between Tito's Partisans and Draža Mihailović's royalist Chetniks. Although both were engaged in a ferocious resistance against German and Italian occupiers, their real struggle was against each other in a bloody civil war.

 

Here again, Trifkovic presents a perceptive analysis of the forces at play in wartime Yugoslavia and of the eventual decision by Churchill to back Tito and to stop further military support to the Mihailović forces. The Soviet army's entry into Yugoslavia in the fall of 1944 decided the fate of the anticommunist forces, including thousands of Krajina Serbs. Although many found their way into Austria, hoping to be welcomed by the Western allies, they were betrayed by the British and Americans at the Yalta conference in February 1945, when Churchill and Roosevelt acceded to Stalin's demand that all Soviet citizens be returned to the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, anticommunist Serbs were included in this category.

 

In May 1945 the British army returned to Yugoslavia several thousand anticommunist Serbs who, upon arrival, were summarily shot. Fortunately, 14,000 Serbs, most of them from the Krajina, managed to find their way to Italy, where U.S. authorities refused to hand them over to Tito. Many of them ended up in the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia.

 

In Tito's communist Yugoslavia, the Krajina Serbs were not granted any favors by the new regime. Their dreadful suffering at the hands of the Ustashe was not formally acknowledged, and the survivors were, in effect, denied the right to mourn and had to accept the new regime's slogan of "Brotherhood and Unity." Thousands of homeless and refugee Krajina Serbs were denied permission to return to Croatia and were resettled instead in the northern region of Vojvodina, on the Hungarian border. Throughout the Tito years the Serbian areas of Croatia remained economically underdeveloped and without a clearly defined political identity.

 

In the concluding chapters of the Krajina Chronicle, Trifkovic recounts the futile attempt by the Krajina Serbs to remain a part of what was left of the disintegrating Yugoslav Federation. When Franjo Tudj­man's right-wing nationalist party came to power in 1990 with the undisguised aim of separating Croatia from Yugoslavia, the Serbs, determined to remain with Yugoslavia, formed an autonomous region and took up arms.

 

Croatia's declaration of independence in May 1991 led to bitter fighting between the secessionist Croats and the Serbian minority. The conflict continued until a cease-fire was arranged in January 1992, which lasted with some exceptions until the devastating assault in August 1995 of Operation Storm, described by Carl Bildt, the U.N. special envoy to the former Yugoslavia, as "the most efficient ethnic cleansing we've seen in the Balkans." Abandoned and betrayed by Milošević and left to the mercy of a cowardly European Union and a vengeful Croatia supported by U.S. and NATO forces, the Krajina Serbs had come to the end of the line.

 

It is a credit to Srdja Trifkovic that his book will stand as a fitting, if perhaps the sole, testimony to a brave and extraordinary people—a compelling story, recounted in a stimulating and incisive narrative that covers a broad canvas without losing the attention to detail that brings life to historic events. The book also reveals the disturbing truth that the weak, however righteous their cause, remain at the mercy of the powerful.

 

Tensions over the European External Action Service

"International Affairs"

Tensions over the European External Action Service

The Palace of Peace in the Hague - the official residency of the International Court of Justice

14:56 04/08/2010

© RIA Novosti. Yuriy Somov

This story by Peter Iskenderov PhD, Senior Research Associate Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Science, Strategic Culture Foundation expert was published in International Affairs magazine

The situation is unfolding on the UN highest court`s verdict on Kosovo`s independence. Now that the legality of Kosovo`s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia has been recognized, the West seems to be pushing forward its 'offensive' on the Bosnian Republika Srpska to achieve success on this stage of anti-Serbian strategy as well. Trying to prevent Bosnian Serbs from following Serbia`s plan of self-determination, the European Union (EU), with active support from Catherine Ashton, the First Vice-President of the European Commission and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the EU, worked out a plan of how to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina, annul the 1995 Dayton Agreement and revise the UN mandate. The idea is that Baroness Ashton wants to have her envoy in Bosnia who would enjoy new powers going far beyond the already existing functions of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus, a new envoy will be empowered to impose travel bans and asset freezes on those who would oppose reforms initiated by the EU.

The article in The Daily Telegraph headlined Baroness Ashton Moves To Take Control of Bosnia, the EU`s 27 member states have been presented with 'a confidential paper urging the creation of a powerful European envoy this autumn, based in Sarajevo. Lord Paddy Ashdown is seen as Mrs. Ashton`s favourite for the job supervising the Bosnia envoy. Ahsdown got a 'European Raj' nickname while serving as the international community`s OHR overseer of Bosnia between 2002 and 2006.

The main task of the new envoy will be 'to push through a new constitutional order for Bosnia and Herzegovina'. According to the paper, 'key to the political reforms, demanded as a condition of EU entry for Bosnia, is a strengthening of a multi-ethnic federal state, mainly controlled by Muslims and Croats, at the expense of Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb government'. 1 ''In the case of non-compliance... for example challenges to fundamentals of the Bosnia and Herzegovina state, the envoy will be able to recommend to the EU High Representative [Lady Ashton] that Council impose travel bans and/or the freezing of assets in the EU," said the paper seen by The Daily Telegraph.

In private talks with a correspondent, European diplomats confirmed that the new measures will be used first of all against Milorad Dodik, the elected Bosnian Serbprime minister, who backs independence from Bosnia, and who, in opinion of a senior EU diplomat, will have the rôle of 'unhappy bunny'.
It is notable that Bosnian Serbs and Dodik in particular are main obstructors to 'fundamentals of the Bosnia and Herzegovina state', known as the Dayton Peace Accords which proclaimed Republika Srpska as one of the two state entities. However, the issue in no way seems to bother Mrs. Ashton as well as other European officials, who are more concerned about putting an end to Serbia`s statehood.

A few days before 'a confidential paper' was presented by Mrs. Ashton, the leading newspaper in Sarajevo, Dnevni Avaz, published an article disclosing a true reason for Brussels to 'push through a new constitutional order in Banja-Luka'. Actually, the task is not to boost integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the EU, but to oppose Russia`s geopolitical expansion in the Balkans. Citing 'well-informed diplomatic sources', the paper says that Milorad Dodik 'had been instructed from Moscow to launch active counteraction to NATO`s expansion towards Bosnia and Herzegovina'. 2 Known for its pro-Muslim stance, Dnevni Avaz insists that Dodik allegedly has to 'pay for overwhelming support he receives from Moscow'. Obviously, these announcements are meant to justify the EU`s atempts to oust Dodik from the political scene.

Immediately after the article was released by The Daily Telegraph, Brussels hastily denied the leaked plan. Press-secretary for Catherine Ashton, Maja Kovacevic, said that her boss had 'no secret plan'. However, she added that the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina really was on the agenda in a EU session in late July, and that 'the debates will be continued in autumn when the EU is scheduled to revise its foreign policies and  discuss the creation of a new foreign policy apparatus known as the European External Action Service (EEAS)'.

The new diplomatic corps is expected to become the EU`s center and expand its functions far beyond its geographical zone of responsibility. The EEAS is due to start its work on 1 December, while the names of Brussels`s 30 special representatives in all major regions of the world- from Brazil to Afghanistan- will be announced in September. There is also a chance that the EU will have its headquarters in Macedonia, Moldova, in the Middle East and in  Transcaucasia (where the EU envoy has to deal with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict). Sources in Brussels emphasize that the final decision on the number of future missions will be made by Mrs. Ashton in autumn.

The only thing is obvious. If the EEAS sticks to the approaches recently outlined for the head of mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which run counter to the existing international accords, states` sovereignty and the UN mandate, new tendencies will bring changes to the world map, and Russia will in no way benefit from them.  

(Views expressed in this article reflect the author's opinion and do not necessarily reflect those of RIA Novosti news agency. RIA Novosti does not  vouch for facts and quotes mentioned in the story)

http://en.beta.rian.ru/international_affairs/20100804/160066338.html

 

KOSOVO TODAY, QUEBEC TOMORROW

What the Kosovo ruling means for Canada: trouble

The true impact of the World Court's decision will be on separatist groups outside of Serbia that now have a model for how to declare independence Lyle Stafford for The Globe and Mail

The true impact of the World Court's decision will be on separatist groups outside of Serbia that now have a model for how to declare independence

• Comments

(87)

Milan Markovic

Belgrade — From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Saturday, Jul. 31, 2010 5:00AM EDT Last updated on Saturday, Jul. 31, 2010 11:02AM EDT

After the International Court of Justice ruled that Kosovo's declaration of independence was not prohibited by international law, I expected Serbs to react with anger. In truth, the reaction was one of indifference. There were no protests in Belgrade or histrionics by Serbian politicians.

The muted reaction was appropriate. International lawyers agree that last week's decision is mostly notable for what it doesn't do. The World Court purposely sidestepped difficult questions such as whether the declaration brought about Kosovo's secession from Serbia and whether nations such as Canada and the United States were legally justified in recognizing an independent Kosovo. The court ruled only that declarations of independence made by separatist groups are not contrary to international law.

The World Court's decision has been hailed by Kosovo's government, but the ruling does not require other countries to recognize Kosovo as an independent state. Russia, China and Spain have already said they will continue to treat Kosovo as a part of Serbia. The true impact of the court's decision will be on separatist groups outside of Serbia that now have a model for how to declare independence. Quebec separatists, in particular, can be expected to embrace the decision.

The Harper government has long sought to distinguish Kosovo and Quebec. Maxime Bernier, as minister of foreign affairs, initially justified Canada's recognition of Kosovo by claiming that human-rights violations in the territory made it a "unique case." This claim simply does not withstand scrutiny after the World Court's ruling.

The court gave no consideration to Serbia's treatment of Kosovo's Albanian population. It noted only that there were radically different views on whether international law allows for secession on the basis of a state's violation of human rights, as well as whether Kosovo was such a case.

What the court did find was that secessionist groups are not obligated to respect the territorial integrity of the country from which they are trying to secede. Nor are they prohibited from unilaterally declaring independence against the will of that country. What, then, is to stop Quebec's National Assembly from declaring the province's independence without holding a fair referendum as Quebec is supposed to do under the Clarity Act?

Few countries are likely to recognize an independent Quebec that tries to separate in such a manner. Indeed, there is arguably an obligation on the part of other nations to not recognize a unilateral secession by Quebec, although the World Court's decision provides no insight into this question. Nevertheless, Quebec separatists may calculate that their energies are better directed at lobbying for recognition from individual nations than trying to comply with the Clarity Act.

Moreover, if Canada were to criticize Quebec for failing to adhere to the Clarity Act, Quebec could point out that Kosovo never even held a referendum in advance of declaring its independence. Its leaders could ask: Why must we not only hold a referendum but also allow the House of Commons to approve the referendum question and certify that the referendum result constituted a clear vote for independence?

The Kosovo precedent also undermines the notion that Quebec must seriously negotiate its separation from Canada. Under the administrative scheme established by the United Nations Security Council, representatives from Serbia and Kosovo were required to negotiate Kosovo's final status. The negotiations were fruitless, leading Kosovo to declare its independence. But Kosovo's representatives indicated from the beginning of negotiations that they would not settle for anything short of full independence and would not tolerate any partition of Kosovo's territory. Quebec's leaders may be tempted to take a similar line and declare Quebec's independence if Canada refuses to acquiesce to these unfavourable terms.

The Harper government's unconditional recognition of Kosovo has left Canada in an extremely difficult position. Whereas other countries that face secessionist threats and have refused to recognize Kosovo can maintain – consistent with the World Court's decision – that a unilateral declaration of independence does not have the effect of creating an independent state, Canada must somehow reconcile its acceptance of Kosovo's secession based on such a declaration with its claim that a similar action by Quebec would be contrary to international law.

After the court's Kosovo decision, it is naive to believe that the Clarity Act will prevent Quebec from unilaterally declaring its independence from Canada. Quebec separatists will only be dissuaded from such a course of action if the international community expresses its support for the Clarity Act. Thus, the federal government must continue to work to solicit this support. Canada should also be more prudent in recognizing independence movements in the future. As noble as it may be to support the desire of other peoples for self-determination, Canada should not again needlessly weaken its position with respect to Quebec.

Milan Markovic, a New York-based lawyer, is a teaching fellow at Temple University's Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/what-the-kosovo-ruling-means-for-canada-trouble/article1656513/

Kosovo: The Albanian Dilemma

 

Kosovo: The Albanian Dilemma

 

02.08.2010

Source: Pravda.Ru

URL: http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/terror/114455-kosovo_the_albanian_dilemma-0

 

Kosovo: The Albanian Dilemma The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled on July 22 that the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo was not illegal. This resolution does not imply acceptance of that decision, but does have important implications for global geopolitics. Today only 69 of the 192 United Nations members and three of its five permanent members of the Security Council recognize Kosovo. If the former autonomous province of Serbia manages to incorporate into the UN, as required by the U.S., the floodgates will open to dozens of other provinces or ethnic groups that could seek further integration. There is an entity, the UNPO (Organization Unrepresented Nations and Peoples), which includes 54 towns that have aspirations of becoming states. For the United Nations to incorporate a new associate mandates a series of requirements, because, otherwise, it is believed it could give the green light to a series of fragmentations and conflicts between nations. One of the criteria it has had is that the country requesting to be part of the UN has been an entity with borders and previous administration clearly demarcated, either for having been a colony within an empire or a republic within a multinational federation. The United Nations has taken a hundred old dependencies in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Oceania, but has refused to recognize the sovereignty of Biafra, Katanga, Kurdistan or the Mapuche as these areas (although they are populated by ethnic characteristics very different from their environment) never acquired a status of separate administrations during times when they were part of the last empire that dominated. In the case of three former socialist federations of Eastern Europe, the UN has accepted the independence of the 15 republics that made up the former Soviet Union, 6 of Yugoslavia and 2 of Czechoslovakia. However, it still refuses to recognize the sovereignty of either autonomous entities before the disintegration of the federations containing each of the federated republics. Kosovo never acquired the status of a republic within the Yugoslav federation. There it had the rank of the two autonomous provinces of the Republic of Serbia. The Albanians, however, claim that they have as much or more right to secede as the six republics in the disintegrated federation. This is because, unlike them, they are the only non-Slavic-majority region and because, except for Slovenia, the only province where at least 90% of its inhabitants belong to the ethnic separatist group. The veto against recognition of Kosovo has been by states that have raised the fear that this would lead to fragmentation of their own countries: Spain by the Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia and Canary Islands, Greece and Cyprus by the Turkish Cypriots, Argentina by the British in Las Malvinas, Russia for Chechnya and other regions: China Tibet and Xinjiang, etc. The Albanian dilemma After the Second World War, a number of nations were divided into different states. We have three types of different cases. One is that of the historic towns split around conflicting social models. Another is of the ancient nations divided among various republics. Finally there is the case of important parts of a given nation who were outside the territory in which it formed the bulk of a State. In the first case we have five examples. These are Vietnam (reunited in 1975 under the aegis of the Communist Party), Germany, Yemen and Korea and China (who remain separated). In the second case we see many nations that continue to be distributed between different republics: the Tamils between India and Sri Lanka, the Kurds from Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria and the USSR, the Basques from Spain and France, Iran and Pakistan Baluch , etc. In the Americas there are also movements that claim sovereignty and unification of different indigenous nationalities (such as Aymara, Mapuche and Quechuan), but they have never gone so far as to have the weight that similar currents have them in the old world. In the third case, experiences are included such as Hungarians, Albanians or Romanians that, during World War II, as nations they were reunited under the control of Hitler's friends, but after the Allied victory were fragmented. After 1945, a large part of the Hungarian majority population was 'returned' to their neighboring Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Moldova was separated from Romania (with whom they share the same language and history) to be re-incorporated into the Soviet Union, and Kosovo and Western Macedonia were 'returned' to Yugoslavia. In relation to these three cases, the UN has responded in different ways. The UN has recognized the partition of nations among republics with conflicting socio-economic systems and their subsequent unification. In the Chinese case it was recognized only with the small capitalist republic (of Taiwan). The Taiwanese remain as a separate state, under the dilemma of having to rejoin 'red' China or declare as a separate nation (with the risk of provoking an invasion from Beijing). With regard to the various nations scattered among recognized states, the UN has avoided accepting any of them. At best, it has interceded to ask that their democratic rights are respected as well as a number of degrees of autonomy in the republics where they are maintained. Regarding the third category, the situation is more complex. The UN has accepted Moldova (because Romania does not object), but not the Turkish Republic of Cyprus (vetoed by Greece, Cyprus and the EU). What happens around Kosovo could tip the balance. The people of this province are mostly Albanians, who during World War II and before World War I were part of states where the rest of the people were Albanians. But Serbia is backed up by Russia and objects to it. If Washington wins, it gives rise to new countries asking to be States, if Moscow impedes this triumph many possible expansions will be halted in becoming members of the UN. 　 Translated from the Spanish version by: Lisa KARPOVA PRAVDA.Ru

 

© 1999-2009. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.

 

"Let Them Eat Cake"

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20389   "Let Them Eat Cake": A handful of oligarchs are becoming billionaires while the rest of the country goes down the drain   by Paul Craig Roberts   It is not unusual for members of the diminishing upper middle class to drop $20,000 or $30,000 on a big wedding.  But for celebrities this large sum wouldn't cover the wedding dress or the flowers.    When country music star Keith Urban married actress Nicole Kidman in 2006, their wedding cost $250,000.  This large sum hardly counts as a celebrity wedding. When mega-millionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump married model Melania Knauss, the wedding bill was $1,000,000.   The marriages of Madonna and film director Guy Ritchie, Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren, and Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones pushed up the cost of celebrity marriages to $1.5 million.   Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes upped the ante to $2,000,000.   Now comes the politicians's daughter as celebrity.  According to news reports, Chelsea Clinton's wedding to investment banker Mark Mezvinsky on July 31 is costing papa Bill $3,000,000.  According to the London Daily Mail, the total price tag will be about $5,000,000. The additional $2,000,000 apparently is being laid off on US Taxpayers as Secret Service costs for protecting former president Clinton and foreign heads of state, such as the presidents of France and Italy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who are among the 500 invited guests along with Barbara Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Ted Turner, and Clinton friend and donor Denise Rich, wife of the Clinton-pardoned felon.   Before we attend to the poor political judgment of such an extravagant affair during times of economic distress, let us wonder aloud where a poor boy who became governor of Arkansas and president of the United States got such a fortune that he can blow $3,000,000 on a wedding.   The American people did not take up a collection to reward him for his service to them. Where did the money come from? Who was he really serving during his eight years in office?  [ This good question was not answered, unfortunatelly. Although there are number of sources.... start with the Albanian mafia. boba ]   How did Tony Blair and his wife, Cherrie, end up with an annual income of ten million pounds (approximately $15 million dollars) as soon as he left office? Who was Blair really serving?   These are not polite questions, and they are infrequently asked.   While Chelsea's wedding guests eat a $11,000 wedding cake and admire $250,000 floral displays, Lisa Roberts in Ohio is struggling to raise contributions for her food pantry in order to feed 3,000 local people, whose financial independence was destroyed by investment bankers, job offshoring, and unaffordable wars. The Americans dependent on Lisa Roberts' food pantry are living out of vans and cars. Those with a house roof still over their heads are packed in as many as 14 per household according to the Chillicothe Gazette in Ohio.   The Chilicothe Gazette reports that Lisa Roberts' food pantry has "had to cut back to half rations per person in order to have something for everyone who needed it."    Theresa DePugh stepped up to the challenge and had the starving Ohioans write messages on their food pantry paper plates to President Obama, who has just obtained another $33 billion to squander on a pointless war in Afghanistan that serves no purpose whatsoever except the enrichment of the military/security complex and its shareholders.   The Guardian (UK) reports that according to US government reports, one million American children go to bed hungry, while the Obama regime squanders hundreds of billions of dollars killing women and children in Afghanistan and elsewhere.   The Guardian's reporting relies on a US government report from the US Department of Agriculture, which concludes that 50 million people in the US--one in six of the population--were unable to afford to buy sufficient food to stay healthy in 2008.   US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that he expected the number of hungry Americans to worsen when the survey for 2010 is released.   Today in the American Superpower, one of every six Americans is living on food stamps. The Great American Superpower, which is wasting trillions of dollars in pursuit of world hegemony, has 22% of its population unemployed and almost 17% of its population dependent on welfare in order to stay alive.   The world has not witnessed such total failure of government since the final days of the Roman Empire. A handful of American oligarchs are becoming mega-billionaires while the rest of the country goes down the drain.   And the American sheeple remain acquiescent.

Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Paul Craig Roberts

 

 

 

If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine?

If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine?

недеља, 01 август 2010 07:59 John V. Whitbeck/Counterpunch

On July 22, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion on the following

question posed to it by Serbia: "Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?" By a 10-4 majority, the court ruled that, because "general international law contains no applicable prohibition of declarations of independence", Kosovo's declaration of independence in February 2008, coordinated with and supported by the American and most EU governments and subsequently recognized by 69 countries, "did not violate general international law." The clear implication is that no declarations of independence violate international law and that all are therefore "legal".

Because the court's majority chose to rephrase the question before the court (addressing violation of, rather than accordance with, international law in circumstances in which international law is silent) and to respond with wording which has permitted the supporters of Kosovo independence to claim an unequivocal victory and the American government to call publicly on all countries to recognize Kosovo as a sovereign state, not only Kosovars and the American and most EU governments will be celebrating this advisory opinion as a vindication of their positions. So will the peoples and governments of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transniestria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Bosnia's Republika Srpska, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Iraqi Kurdistan. Discontented minorities and potential separatists elsewhere (including Alaska, Hawaii and Vermont) may also find cause for encouragement in this opinion.

Might the Palestinian people also find reason to celebrate, cause for encouragement or grounds for hope in this opinion?

The American and EU impatience to amputate a portion of a UN member state (universally recognized, even by them, to constitute a portion of that state's sovereign territory), ostensibly because 90% of those living in that portion of the state's territory supported separation, contrasts starkly with the unlimited patience of the U.S. and the EU when it comes to ending the 43-year-long belligerent occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (no portion of which any country recognizes as Israel's sovereign territory and as to which Israel has only even asserted sovereignty over a tiny portion, occupied East Jerusalem). Virtually every legal resident of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip seeks freedom -- and has for over 40 years. For doing so, they are punished, sanctioned, besieged, humiliated and, day after endless day, killed by those who claim to stand on the moral high ground.

In American and EU eyes, a Kosovar declaration of independence from Serbian sovereignty should be recognized even if Serbia does not agree. However, their attitude was radically different when Palestine declared independence from Israeli occupation on November 15, 1988. Then the U.S. and the EU countries (which, in their own eyes, constitute the "international community", to the exclusion of most of mankind) were conspicuously absent when over 100 countries recognized the new State of Palestine, and their non-recognition made this declaration of independence purely "symbolic" in their own eyes and, unfortunately, in most Palestinian and other eyes as well.

For the U.S. and the EU, any Palestinian independence, to be recognized and legally effective, must still be directly negotiated, on a wildly unequal bilateral basis, between the occupying power and the occupied people -- and must be agreed to by the occupying power. For the U.S. and the EU, the rights and desires of a long-suffering and brutalized occupied people, as well as international law, are irrelevant.

For the U.S. and the EU, Kosovar Albanians, having enjoyed almost nine years of UN administration and NATO protection, could not be expected to wait any longer for their freedom, while the Palestinians, having endured over 40 years of Israeli occupation, can wait forever.

With the "peace process" effectively brain-dead, the Kosovo precedent offers the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership, accepted as such by the "international community" because it is perceived as serving Israeli and American interests, a golden opportunity to seize the initiative, to reset the agenda and to restore its tarnished reputation in the eyes of its own people.

If this leadership truly believes, despite all evidence to the contrary, that a decent "two-state solution" is still possible, now is an ideal moment to reaffirm the legal existence (albeit under continuing belligerent occupation) of the State of Palestine, explicitly in the entire 22% of Mandatory Palestine which was not conquered and occupied by the State of Israel until 1967, and to call on all those countries which did not extend diplomatic recognition to the State of Palestine in 1988 -- and particularly the U.S. and the EU states -- to do so now.

Of course, to prevent the U.S. and the EU from ignoring such an initiative or treating it as a joke, there would have to be a significant and explicit consequence if they were to do so. The consequence would be the end of Palestinian adherence to the "two-state" illusion.

The Palestinian leadership would make clear that if the U.S. and most EU states, having recognized a second Albanian state on the sovereign territory of a UN member state and having called on all other states to do likewise, will not now recognize one Palestinian state on a tiny portion of the occupied Palestinian homeland, it will dissolve the "Palestinian Authority" (which, legally, should have ceased to exist in 1999, at the end of the five-year "interim period" under the Oslo Accords) and the Palestinian people will thereafter seek justice and freedom through democracy -- through the persistent, non-violent pursuit of full rights of citizenship in a single state in all of Israel/Palestine, free of any discrimination based on race and religion and with equal rights for all who live there, as in any true democracy.

Palestinian leaderships have tolerated Western hypocrisy and racism and played the role of gullible fools for far too long. It is time to kick over the table, constructively, and to shock the "international community" into taking notice that the Palestinian people simply will not tolerate unbearable injustice and abuse any longer.

If not now, when?

John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel, is author of "The World According to Whitbeck".

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitbeck07232010.html