Guardian: Kosovo and Serbia – what sort of talks?

 

Kosovo and Serbia – what sort of talks?

Kosovo will have to curtail its rhetoric on the issue of status and recognition in order for talks with Serbia to succeed

• Ian Bancroft
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 26 September 2010 12.00 BST

Kosovans celebrate independence in 2008. As of 3 September 2010, 70 out of 192 UN member states have formally recognised the Republic of Kosovo as an independent state. Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images

Serbia's president and Kosovo's prime minister have met separately with Baroness Ashton, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs, to discuss possible future talks between the two.

While Kosovo – having unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008 – has rejected any discussions over its status, Serbia insists that all issues remain open and subject to negotiation. If dialogue on technical issues is to help create the conditions for securing a sustainable solution to the Kosovo question, as is widely hoped, then the political and diplomatic framework for such talks must emphasise the need for compromise.

The proposed agenda for talks, as presented by the EU's enlargement commissioner, includes a range of practical issues such as "co-operation in border protection, customs, trade and economy, transport, telecommunications, care for historical and cultural heritage and the fight against organised crime".

Kosovo claims that the resolution approved by the UN general assembly on 9 September – after Serbia harmonised its position with the EU – constitutes indirect recognition of its independence. Indeed, the prime minister, Hashim Thaçi, has gone so far as to declare that the resolution "determines that any consultations with Serbia will take place only as two equal, independent, and sovereign states ... [and that] such co-operation will be part of efforts to build new interstate relations" – an interpretation that Serbia vehemently rejects and one that threatens to complicate the prospects for successful dialogue.

The role of mediator is likely to provide another sticking point. Though Serbia has conceded that the EU should lead a process of dialogue, it is also keen for the UN to play a decisive role.

Kosovo, however, favours an EU-US led process. It fears that UN involvement would imply its continued acceptance of UN security council resolution 1244, revitalise Unmik as an influential political actor, and increase the relevance of the UN general assembly (where only 70 member states recognise its independence) and the UN security council (where Russia and China both hold veto powers). It is, however, the six-point plan of the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, that provides the strongest basis for securing agreement on matters pertaining to customs, the judiciary and policing, particularly in the north of Kosovo.

For both Serbia and Kosovo, the status question will continue to have an important impact on domestic politics. With general elections in Kosovo scheduled for late next year, the question of Kosovo's sovereignty will continue to be a pivotal issue. While most Kosovan parties support purely technical talks with Serbia, Albin Kurti, the leader of the Vetëvendosje (Self-Determination) movement, has publicly opposed any talks on the grounds that they would "contribute to chances of division along ethnic lines", and has instead proposed a union with Albania.

Kurti – who plans to stand in the 2011 elections – was recently voted Kosovo's best leader in a poll conducted by Kosovo's Foreign Policy Club; partly because he remains unblemished by elected office. The growing popularity of his political platforms, however, will only serve to further constrain Kosovo's scope for negotiation and compromise.

Serbia, meanwhile, will hold elections in 2012, if not before. The main opposition party, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), led by Tomislav Nikolic, and the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), led by former prime minister Vojislav Kostunica, recently reached an agreement that the policy according to which Serbia would be compelled to seek membership of the European Union should be abandoned.

The inherent contradictions of the current governing coalition's insistence on simultaneously pursuing EU membership and opposing Kosovo's independence have become increasingly apparent in recent weeks, with influential EU member states insisting that these goals are incompatible.

Though a majority of Serbia's citizens currently support membership of the EU, the SNS-DSS conclusions are designed to draw attention to the new dilemma facing all political parties – namely, what price are they willing to pay in terms of Kosovo in order to advance Serbia's European integration?

In order to create the necessary political space for talks to both proceed and achieve tangible outcomes, the international community – especially advocates of Kosovo's independence – need to exert greater diplomatic pressure on Kosovo to curtail its rhetoric concerning the issues of recognition, de facto or otherwise.

For the sake of all Kosovo's citizens, it is important that progress be made on key technical matters – particularly the fight against organised crime and the opening-up of economic ties. A sustainable, mutually-acceptable solution, however, will require further concessions from both sides, including a possible special status for the north of Kosovo and additional safeguards that go beyond those originally outlined in the Ahtisaari plan.

• guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/26/kosovo-serbia-talks

Diana Johnstone // Serbia Surrenders Kosovo to the EU

 

http://www.electricpolitics.com/2010/09/serbia_surrenders_to_the_eu.html
 
also on: http://www.counterpunch.com/johnstone09172010.html
 
Weekend Edition
September 17 - 19, 2010

 

Nothing to Gain, More to Lose

Serbia Surrenders Kosovo to the EU
By DIANA JOHNSTONE

 

On September 10, at the UN General Assembly, Serbia abruptly surrendered its claim to the breakaway province of Kosovo to the European Union.  Serbian leaders described this surrender as a "compromise". But for Serbia, it was all give and no take.

In its dealings with the Western powers, recent Serbian diplomacy has displayed all the perspicacity of a rabbit cornered by a rattlesnake.  After some helpless spasms of movement, the poor creature lets itself be eaten.

The surrender has been implicit all along in President Boris Tadic's two proclaimed foreign policy goals: deny Kosovo's independence and join the European Union.  These two were always mutually incompatible. Recognition of Kosovo's independence is clearly one of the many conditions – and the most crucial – set by the Euroclub for Serbia to be considered for membership.  Sacrificing Kosovo for "Europe" has always been the obvious outcome of this contradictory policy.

However, his government, and notably his foreign minister Vuk Jeremic, have tried to conceal this reality from the Serbian public by gestures meant to make it seem that they were doing everything possible to retain Kosovo.

Thus in October 2008, six months after U.S.-backed Kosovo leaders unilaterally declared that the province was an independent State, Serbia persuaded the UN General Assembly to submit the following question to the International Court of Justice for an (unbinding) advisory opinion: "Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?'"

This was risky at best, because Serbia had more to lose by an unfavorable opinion than it had to gain by a favorable one.  After all, most of the UN member states were already refusing to recognize Kosovo's independence, for perfectly solid reasons of legality and self-interest.  At best, a favorable ICJ opinion would merely confirm this, but would not in itself lead to any positive action.  Serbia could only hope to use such a favorable opinion to ask to open genuine negotiations on the status of the province, but the Kosovo Albanian separatists and their United States backers could not be forced to do so.

One must stop here to point out that there are two major issues involved in all this: one is the status and future of Kosovo, and the other is the larger issue of national sovereignty and self-determination within the context of international law.  If so many UN member states supported Serbia, it was certainly not because of Kosovo itself but because of the larger implications. Nobody objected to the splitting of Czechoslovakia, because the Czechs and the Slovaks negotiated the terms of separation. The issue is the method.  There are literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of potential ethnic secessionist movements within existing countries around the world.  Kosovo sets an ominous precedent.  An armed separatist movement, with heavy support from the United States, where an ethnic Albanian lobby had secured important political backing, notably from former Senator and Republican Presidential candidate Bob Dole, carried out a campaign of assassinations in 1998 in order to trigger a repression which it could then describe as "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide" as a pretext for NATO intervention.

This worked, because US leaders saw "saving the Kosovars" as the easy way to save NATO from obsolescence by transforming it into a "humanitarian" global intervention force.  Bombing Serbia for two and a half months to "stop genocide" was a spectacle for public opinion.  The only people killed were Yugoslav citizens out of sight on the ground.  It was the lovely little war designed to rehabilitate military aggression as the proper way to settle conflicts.

The reality of this cynical manipulation has been assiduously hidden from Americans and most Europeans, but elsewhere, and in certain European countries such as Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Slovakia, the point has not been missed.  Separatist movements are dangerous, and whenever the United States wants to subvert an unfriendly government, it has only to incite mass media to portray the internal problems of the targeted government as potential "genocide" and all hell may break loose.

So Serbia did not really have to work very hard to convince other countries to support its position on Kosovo. They had their own motivations – which were perhaps stronger than those of the Serbian government  itself.

 

What did Serb leaders want?

 

The question put to the ICJ did not spell out what Serb leaders wanted.  But it had implications.  If the Kosovo declaration of independence was illegal, what was challenged was not so much independence itself as the procedure, the unilateral declaration.  And indeed, there is no reason to suppose that Serb leaders thought they could reintegrate the whole of Kosovo into Serbia.  It is even unlikely that they wanted to do so.

There are very mixed feelings about Kosovo within the Serb population.  It is hard to know how widespread is the sense of concern, or guilt, regarding the beleaguered Serb population still living there, vulnerable to attacks from racist Albanians eager to drive them out.  The sentimental attachment to "the cradle of the Serb nation" is very strong, but few Serbs would choose to go live there, even if the province were returned to them.  In former Yugoslavia, the province was a black hole that absorbed huge sums of development aid, and would certainly be a heavy economic burden to impoverished Serbia today.  Economically, Serbia is probably better off without Kosovo.  Nearly twenty years ago, the leading Serb author and patriot Dobrica Cosic was arguing in favor of dividing Kosovo along ethnic and historic lines with Albania.  Otherwise, he foresaw that the attempt to live with a hostile Albanian population would destroy Serbia itself.

Few would admit this, but the proposals of Cosic, echoed by some others, at least suggest that in a world with benevolent mediators, a compromise might have been worked out acceptable to most of the people directly involved.  But what made such a compromise impossible was precisely the US and NATO intervention on behalf of armed Albanian rebels.  Once the Albanian nationalists knew they had such support, they had no reason to agree to any compromise. And for the Serbs, the brutal method by which Kosovo was stolen by NATO was adding insult to injury – a humiliation that could not be accepted.

By taking the question to the UN General Assembly and the ICJ, Serbia sought endorsement of a reopening of negotiations that could lead to the sort of compromise that might have settled the issue had it been taken up in a world with benevolent mediators.

International Court of No Justice
On July 22, the ICJ issued its advisory opinion, concluding that Kosovo's "declaration of independence was not illegal". In some 21,600 words it evaded the main issues, refusing to state that the declaration meant that Kosovo was in fact properly independent.  The gist was simply that, well, anybody can declare anything, can't they?

Of course, this was widely interpreted by Western governments and media, and most of all by the Kosovo Albanians, as endorsement of Kosovo's independence, which it was not.

Nevertheless, it was a shameful cop-out on the part of the ICJ, whichmarked further deterioration of the post-World War II efforts to establish some sort of international legal order.  Perhaps the most flagrant bit of sophistry in the lengthy opinion was the argument (in paragraphs 80 and 81) that the declaration was not a violation of the "territorial integrity" of Serbia, because "the illegality attached to [certain past] declarations of independence … stemmed not from the unilateral character of these declarations as such, but from the fact that they were, or would have been, connected with the unlawful use of force or other egregious violations of norms of general international law…"

In short, the ICJ pretended to believe that there has been no illegal international military force used to detach Kosovo from Serbia, although this is precisely what happened as a result of the totally illegal NATO bombing campaign against Serbia.  Since then, the province has been occupied by foreign military forces, under NATO command, which both violated the international agreement under which they entered Kosovo and looked the other way as Albanian fanatics terrorized and drove out Serbs and Roma, occasionally murdering rival Albanians.

The ICJ judges who endorsed this scandalous opinion came from Japan, Jordan, the United States, Germany, France, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, Somalia and the United Kingdom.  The dissenters came from Slovakia, Sierra Leone, Morocco and Russia.  The lineup shows that the cards were stacked against Serbia from the start, unless one actually believes that the judges leave behind their national mind-set when they join the international court.

 

Digging Itself Deeper Into a Hole

Probably, the Tadic government had expected something better, and had planned to follow up a favorable ICJ opinion with an appeal to the General Assembly to endorse renewed negotiations over the status of Kosovo, perhaps enabling Serbia to recover at least the northern part of Kosovo whose population is solidly Serb.

Oddly, despite the bad omen of the ICJ opinion, the Tadic government went right ahead with plans to introduce a resolution before the UN General Assembly.   The draft resolution asked the General Assembly to state the following:

Aware that an agreement has not been reached between the sides on the consequences of the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo from Serbia,

Taking into account the fact that one-sided secession cannot be an accepted way for resolving territorial issues,

1. Acknowledges the Advisory opinion of the ICJ passed on 22 July 2010 on whether the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo is in line with international law,

2. Calls on the sides to find a mutually acceptable solution for all disputed issues through peaceful dialogue, with the aim of achieving peace, security and cooperation in the region.

3. Decides to include in the interim agenda of the 66th session an item namely: "Further activities following the passing of the advisory opinion of the ICJ on whether the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo is in line with international law."

The key statement here was "the fact that one-sided secession cannot be an accepted way for resolving territorial issues". This was the point on which the greatest agreement could be attained. The United States made it known that it was totally unacceptable for the General Assembly to hold a debate on such a resolution.  The main Belgrade daily Politika published an interview with Ted Carpenter of the Cato Institute in Washington saying that the Serbian draft resolution on Kosovo was "irritating America and the EU's leading countries".  American diplomats were "working overtime" to thwart the resolution, he said.  Carpenter said that the Serbian resolution was seen in Washington as an unfriendly act that would lead to a further deterioration in relations, and that as a result of its Kosovo policy, Serbia's EU ambition could suffer setbacks that would have negative consequences for the Serbian government "and the Serb people".

Carpenter conceded that this time around, the country would not be threatened militarily, but noted that the United States was influential enough to "make life very difficult" for any country that stood up against its policies. He concluded that Serbia would "have to accept the reality of an independent Kosovo", and that Washington would thereupon leave it to Brussels to deal with the remaining problems.

The American stick was accompanied by a dangling EU carrot. Carpenter expressed his hope that the EU would consider various measures, "including adjustment of borders, regarding Kosovo, and the rest of Serbia", but also, he noted, Bosnia-Herzegovina, suggesting that Serbs could be satisfied if a loss of Kosovo were compensated by a unification with Bosnia's Serb entity, the Republika Srpska. Giving his own opinion, Carpenter said such a solution would at least be much better than the current U.S. and EU policy, "which seems to be that everyone in the region of the former Yugoslavia, except Serbs, has a right to secede".

Carpenter, who was a sharp critic of the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia, and who warned that secessionist movements around the world could use the Kosovo precedent for their own purposes, said that such a solution was possible "in the coming decades"… a fairly distant prospect.

The decisive arm twisting was perhaps administered by German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle on a visit to Belgrade.  Whatever threats or promises he made were not disclosed, but on the eve of the scheduled UN General Assembly debate, the Tadic government caved in entirely and allowed the EU to rewrite the resolution.

The resolution dictated by the EU made no mention of Kosovo other than to "take note" of the ICJ advisory opinion, and concluded by welcoming "the readiness of the EU to facilitate the process of dialogue between the parties."

According to this text of the resolution, which UN General Assembly adopted by consensus; "The process of dialogue by itself would be a factor of peace, security and stability in the region. This dialogue would be aimed to promote cooperation, make progress on the path towards the EU and improve people's lives."

By accepting this text, the Serbian government abandoned all effort to gain international support from the many nations hostile to unilateral secession, and threw itself on the mercy of the European Union.

 

Still More to Lose

 

In a TV interview, I was asked by Russia Today, "What does Serbia stand to gain?"  My immediate answer was, "nothing".  Serbia implicitly abandoned its claim to Kosovo in return for nothing but vague suggestions of "dialogue".

A usual aim of all policy is to keep options open, but Serbia has now put all its eggs in the EU basket, in effect rebuffing all the member states of the UN General Assembly which were ready to support Belgrade as a matter of principle on the issue of unnegotiated unilateral secession.

Rather than gain anything, the Tadic government has apparently chosen to try to avoid losing still more than it has lost already.  After the violent breakup of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines, Serbia remains the most multiethnic state in the region, which means that it includes minorities which can be incited to demand further secessions.  There is a secession movement in the ethnically very mixed northern province of Voivodina, which could be more or less covertly encouraged by neighboring Hungary, an increasingly nationalist EU member attentive to the Hungarian minority in Voivodina.  There is another, more rabid separatist movement in the southwestern region of Raska/Sanjak led by Muslims with links to Bosnian Islamists.  Surrounded by NATO members and wide open to NATO agents, Serbia risks being destabilized by the rise of such secession movements, which Western media, firmly attached to the stereotypes established in the 1990s, could easily present as persecuted victims of potential Serb genocide.

Moreover, no matter how the Serbs vote, the US and UK embassies dictate the policies.  This has been demonstrated several times.  Little Serbia is actually in a position very like the Pétain government in 1940 to 1942, when it governed a part of France not yet occupied but totally surrounded by the conquering Nazis.

It would take political genius to steer little Serbia through this geopolitical swamp, infested with snakes and crocodiles, and political genius is rare these days, in Serbia as elsewhere.

 

EU to the rescue?

 

Under these grim circumstances, the Tadic government has in effect abandoned all attempt at independence and entrusted the future of Serbia to the European Union.  Serb patriots quite naturally decry this as a sell-out.  Indeed it is, but Russia and China are far away, and could not be counted on to do anything for Serbia that would seriously annoy Washington.  The fact is that much of the younger generation of Serbs is alienated from the past and dreams only of being in the EU, which means being treated as "normal".

 

How will the EU reward these expectations?

 

Up to now, the EU has responded to each new Serb concession by asking for more and giving very little in return.  At a time when many in the core EU countries feel that accepting Rumania and Bulgaria has brought more trouble than it was worth, enlargement to include Serbia, with its unfairly bad reputation, looks remote indeed.

In reality, the most Belgrade can hope for from the EU is that it will muster the courage to take its own policy line on the Balkans, separate from that of the United States.

Given the subservience of current EU leaders to Washington, this is a long shot.  But it has a certain basis in reality.

United States policy toward the region has been heavily influenced by ethnic lobbies that have pledged allegiance to Washington in return for unconditional support of their nationalist aims.  This is particularly the case of the rag-tag Albanian lobby in the United States, an odd mixture of dull-witted politicians and gun-running pizza parlor owners who flattered the Clinton administration into promising them their own statelet carved out of historic Serbia.  The result has been "independent" Kosovo, in reality occupied by a major US military base, Camp Bondsteel, NATO-commanded pacifiers and an EU mission theoretically trying to introduce a modicum of legal order into what amounts to a failing state run by clans and living off various criminal activities.  Since Camp Bondsteel is untouchable, and the grateful hoodlums have erected a giant statue to their hero, Bill Clinton, in their capital, Pristina, Washington is content with this situation.

But many in Europe are not.  It is Europe, not the United States, that has to deal with violent Kosovo gangsters peddling dope and women in its cities.  It is Europe, not the United States, that has this mess on its doorstep.

The media continue to peddle the 1999 fairy tale in which heroic NATO rescued the defenseless "Kosovars" from a hypothetical "genocide" (which never took place and never would have taken place), but European governments are in a position to know better.

As evidence of this is a letter written to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on October 26, 2007 by Dietmar Hartwig, who had been head of the EU (then EC) mission in Kosovo just prior to the NATO bombing in March 1999, when the mission was withdrawn. In describing the situation in Kosovo at a time when the NATO aggression was being prepared on the pretext of "saving the Kosovars", Hartwig wrote:

"Not a single report submitted in the period from late November 1998 up to the evacuation on the eve of the war mentioned that Serbs had committed any major or systematic crimes against Albanians, nor there was a single case referring to genocide or genocide-like incidents or crimes. Quite the opposite, in my reports I have repeatedly informed that, considering the increasingly more frequent KLA attacks against the Serbian executive, their law enforcement demonstrated remarkable restraint and discipline. The clear and often cited goal of the Serbian administration was to observe the Milosevic-Holbrooke Agreement to the letter so not to provide any excuse to the international community to intervene. … There were huge 'discrepancies in perception' between what the missions in Kosovo have been reporting to their respective governments and capitals, and what the latter thereafter released to the media and the public. This discrepancy can only be viewed as input to long-term preparation for war against Yugoslavia. Until the time I left Kosovo, there never happened what the media and, with no less intensity the politicians, were relentlessly claiming. Accordingly, until 20 March 1999 there was no reason for military intervention, which renders illegitimate measures undertaken thereafter by the international community. The collective behavior of EU Member States prior to, and after the war broke out, gives rise to serious concerns, because the truth was killed, and the EU lost reliability."

Other official European observers said the same at the time, and in 2000, retired German general Heinz Loquai wrote a whole book, based especially on OSCE documents, showing that accusations against Serbia were false propaganda.  While the public was fooled, government leaders have access to the truth.

In short, EU governments lied then, for the sake of NATO solidarity, and have been lying ever since.

Now as then, there are insiders who complain that the situation in reality is very different from the official version. Voices are raised pointing out that Republika Srpska is the only part of Bosnia that is succeeding, while the Muslim leadership in Sarajevo continues to count on largesse due to its proclaimed victim status.  There seems to be a growing feeling in some leadership circles that in demonizing the Serbs, the EU has bet on the wrong horse.  But that does not mean they will have the courage to confront the United States.  In Kosovo itself, the most radical Albanian nationalists are ready to oppose the EU presence, by arms if necessary, while feeling confident of eternal support from their U.S. sponsors.

 

The Betrayal of Serbia

If the latest self-defeat at the UN General Assembly can be denounced as a betrayal, the betrayal began nearly ten years ago.  On October 5, 2000, the regular presidential election process in Yugoslavia was boisterously interrupted by what the West described as a "democratic revolution" against the "dictator", president Slobodan Milosevic.  In reality, the "dictator" was about to enter the run-off round of the Yugoslav presidential election in which he seemed likely to lose to the main opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica.  But the United States trained and incited the athletically inclined youth organization, Otpor ("resistance"), to take to the streets and set fire to the parliament in front of international television, to give the impression of a popular uprising.  Probably, the scenarists modeled this show on the equally stage-managed overthrow of the Ceaucescu couple in Rumania at Christmas 1989, which ended in their murder following one of the shortest kangaroo court trials in history. For the generally ignorant world at large, being overthrown would be proof that Milosevic was really a "dictator" like Ceaucescu, whereas being defeated in an election would have tended to prove the opposite.

Proclaimed president, Kostunica intervened to save Milosevic, but not having been allowed to actually win the election, his position was undermined from the start, and all power was given to the Serbian prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, a favorite of the West who was too unpopular to have won an election in Serbia.  Shortly thereafter, Djindjic violated the Serbian constitution by turning Milosevic over to the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague – for one of the longest kangaroo court trials in history.

Pro-Western politicians in Belgrade labored under the illusion that throwing Milosevic to the ICTY wolves would be enough to ensure the good graces of the "International Community". But in reality, the prosecution of Milosevic was used to publicize the trumped up "joint criminal enterprise" theory which blamed every aspect of the breakup of Yugoslavia on an imaginary Serbian conspiracy.  The scapegoat turned out to be not just Milosevic, but Serbia itself.  Serbia's guilt for everything that went wrong in the Balkans was the essential propaganda line used to justify the 1999 NATO aggression, and by going along with it, the "democratic" Serbian leaders undermined their own moral claim to Kosovo.

In June 1999, Milosevic gave in and allowed NATO to occupy Kosovo under threat of carpet bombing that would destroy Serbia entirely.  His successors fled from a less perilous battle – the battle to inform world public opinion of the complex truth of the Balkans.  Having abandoned all attempt to assert its moral advantage, Serbia is counting solely on the kindness of strangers.

 

Diana Johnstone is author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (Monthly Review Press). She can be reached at :  diana.josto@yahoo.fr

 

 

Bombshell from London

Bombshell from London

By Eric S. Margolis

 September 14, 2010 "Toronto Sun" -- THE London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), is the world's leading think tank for military affairs. It represents the top echelon of defence experts, retired officers and senior military men, spanning the globe from the United States and Britain to China, Russia and India.

I've been an IISS member for over 20 years. IISS's reports are always authoritative but usually cautious and diplomatic, sometimes dull. However, two weeks ago the IISS issued an explosive report on Afghanistan that is shaking Washington and its Nato allies.

The report, presided over by the former deputy director of Britain's foreign intelligence agency, MI-6, says the threat from al-Qaeda and Taliban has been "exaggerated" by the western powers. The US-led mission in Afghanistan has "ballooned" out of all proportion from its original aim of disrupting and defeating al-Qaeda. The US-led war in Afghanistan, says IISS, using uncharacteristically blunt language, is "a long-drawn-out disaster".

Just recently, CIA chief Leon Panetta admitted there were no more than 50 members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Yet US President Barack Obama has tripled the number of US soldiers there to 120,000 to fight Al Qaeda.

The IISS report goes on to acknowledge the presence of western troops in Afghanistan is actually fuelling national resistance. I saw the same phenomena during the 1980's Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Interestingly, the portion of the report overseen by the former MI-6 Secret Intelligence Service deputy chief, Nigel Inskster, finds little Al Qaeda threat elsewhere, notably in Somalia and Yemen. Yet Washington is beefing up its attacks on both turbulent nations.

Abandoning its usual discretion, IISS said it was issuing these warnings because the deepening war in Afghanistan was threatening the west's security interests by distracting its leaders from the world financial crisis and Iran, and burning through scarce funds needed elsewhere.

The IISS's findings are a direct challenge to Obama, Britain's new prime minister, David Cameron, and other US allies with troops in Afghanistan. This report undermines their rational used to sustain the increasingly unpopular conflict. It will certainly convince sceptics that the real reason for occupation of Afghanistan has to do with oil, excluding China from the region, and keeping watch on nuclear-armed Pakistan.

The report also goes on to propose an exit strategy from the Afghan War. Western occupation troops, IISS proposes, should be sharply reduced and confined to Kabul and northern Afghanistan, which is mostly ethnic Tajik and Uzbek.

Southern Afghanistan – Taliban country – should be vacated by Western forces and left alone. Taliban would be allowed to govern its own half of the nation until some sort of loose, decentralised federal system can be implemented. This was, in fact, pretty much the way Afghanistan operated before the 1979 Soviet invasion.

Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan is turning against the increasingly wobbly western occupation forces. The US-installed Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, openly prepares for direct peace talks with Taliban and its allies – in spite of intense opposition from the US, Britain and Canada.

Pro-government Afghan forces are increasingly demoralised. Only the Tajik and Uzbek militias, and Afghan Communist Party, both supported by India, Russia and Iran, want to keep fighting the Pashtun Taliban.

Taliban leader Mullah Omar last week proclaimed the western occupiers were rapidly losing the war. He may well be correct. Nothing is going right for the US-backed Kabul regime or its western defenders. Even the much-ballyhooed US offensive at Marjah, designed to smash Taliban resistance, was an embarrassing fiasco. Civilian casualties from US bombing continue to mount.

Europeans are fed up with the Afghan war. Polls report 60% of Americans think the war not worth fighting.

The IISS bombshell comes on the heels of the most dramatic part of the British Chilcot Inquiry into the origins of the invasion of Iraq. Baroness Manningham-Buller the former head of Britain's domestic security service, MI-5, testified that the Iraq War was generated by a farrago of lies and faked evidence from the Blair government. What we call "terrorism" is largely caused by the western invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, she testified.

The truth about Iraq and Afghanistan is finally emerging.

Afghanistan may again prove to be "the graveyard of empires".

Eric S. Margolis is a contributing editor to the Toronto Sun chain of newspapers, writing mainly about the Middle East and South Asia.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

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What did Baroness Ashton promise Tadic?

ZELJKO PANTELIC

14.09.2010 @ 09:07 CET

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton made a set of promises to Serbian President Boris Tadic in return for his concessions on Kosovo, different sources have told WAZ.EUobserver.

The discussions took place during the night of the agreement on the UN resolution on the opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concerning Kosovo's declaration of independence.

Mrs Ashton did not promise that the EU would start the process to ensure candidate status for Serbia quickly, said one source, noting that this promise could not be made as it is up to all member states to agree unanimously on issues concerning enlargement.

"However, it is true that Lady Ashton gave guarantees to President Tadic that she will be committed to dealing with the Serbian application for EU membership that has been in the box from December last year," said the same source.

EU foreign ministers also gave positive signals during their meeting on Monday (13 September). They agreed to put the Serbian EU application on the agenda during their October meeting, the earliest date that they can forward Serbia's application to the European Commission.

Despite the good intentions of the British Baroness - as well as the signs of improved relations between Belgrade and the most important EU countries, strained in recent months because of the Serbian policy on Kosovo - it is not guaranteed that member states will quickly forward the Serbian application for candidate status to the European Commission to prepare its opinion on the matter. The opinion or avis is the first step in the procedure for granting candidate status for EU membership.

"It is useless to make anything without Holland on board because the key to faster Serbian European integration is in the hands of The Hague," a diplomat from one of the main EU countries told WAZ.EUobserver.

"Of course, if Serbia arrests [war crimes suspect] Ratko Mladic then everything will be easier. Kosovo is not 'a launch ramp' for accelerating the pace of Serbia towards the EU. On the contrary, Serbia can only get herself in trouble if she is not constructive on Kosovo. The real, and so far the only, means for Serbia to go more rapidly towards the EU is the arrest of Ratko Mladic," the source continued.

On Monday things were looking promising, the Netherlands apparently signaled its good intentions, but with no new government in place it is difficult to predict its next move.

The Dutch have indicated on several occasions (such as in the case of the agreement between the EU and Serbia on Eulex, the EU rule of law mission in Kosovo) that for them only the arrest of Mladic means that Serbia has done its duty.

However, there are positive elements in the agreement on Kosovo for Serbian European integration. In the past few months, the friends of Serbia in the EU - such as Spain, Italy and Greece - tried to open the door to Serbian application without success. Now Baroness Ashton as well as German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle are working on an EU consensus on Serbia.

"Besides that, the United Kingdom indicated its willingness to pass the Serbian application to the Commission if Belgrade opens dialogue with Pristina in the near future. With London, Berlin, Mrs Ashton and the positive report about Serbian cooperation with ICTY by the [UN] chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz, there is big chance to see the Serbian application passed to the Commission before the end of the year, " said an European diplomat.

For Serbian President Tadic and his ruling coalition in Belgrade it is crucial that the procedure for candidate status be opened this year, with parliamentary elections to be held in the spring of 2012.

President Tadic and his advisers have explained to European partners that time is running out and there is a serious risk the the pro-European government in Belgrade will stand before elections in 2012 without any tangible results in European integration. It normally takes at one year to go through the procedure of granting candidate status.

"The message of President Tadic's team to the EU was very simple: If you want to have a pro-European government in Belgrade in the future - constructive on the Kosovo issue - you should help us to achieve candidate status before elections," said a source in the EU institutions.

http://waz.euobserver.com/887/30792

 

Thought you might be interested in the 9/11/2010 tandem between Julia Gorin and myself.

 

Vojin

Serbia capitulates: Address was UN, not EU

Date: Saturday, September 11, 2010, 10:15 AM  STUNNING REVELATIONS BY KORAN-BURNING PASTOR, Invoking Yugoslavia; Obama Laments First Amendment Posted by Julia Gorin   In a press conference today, Dove World Outreach pastor Terry Jones revealed that he got a phone call from a Green Beret who had served in " Yugoslavia ." Here is what the soldier told him, as related by Jones in this MSNBC video: Just yesterday we got a phone call from a retired Special Force Green Beret, Delta Force. It was his opinion that the people that are on the field, the special forces, he told us, are 100% behind us. He said he has seen — he was there in Yugoslavia when the radical Moslems, and that is the element we are aiming at, that is the element that we want for them to back down — said he was there in Yugoslavia when they burnt down 150 churches. He said he was there as a three-story building that was a hospital, a three-story building full with Christians was burnt to the ground. And they were allowed to do nothing, because of international pressure. Because of policies, they were allowed to do nothing. Our military, our military men who are trained to rescue lives, to save lives, to protect our country, stood in front of a three-story hospital filled with Christians and watched it burn to the ground, watched those people scream for their life. And because of our policies, whatever they may be called, because of our polices we were not allowed to do anything. Our burning of the Koran is to call the attention that something is wrong. Something is wrong. It is possibly time for us in a new way to actually stand up [and] confront terrorism. There is something very much wrong with our policies when we stand there and we watch a building full of people die because our so-called policies do not allow us to do anything. So as of right now we are not convinced that backing down is the right thing. So on September the 11th we shall continue with our planned event. So for the pastor's explanation of the importance of the Koran-burning event, he employed the example of…Kosovo. Specifically, the 'non-Muslimy' Muslims of Kosovo, known as Albanians. Our great friends and allies — as long as we don't interfere with their killing of Christians and burning of churches. What his speech also reveals is that, as some of us suspected, there is a whole load of military folks who have been keeping mum and/or biting their tongues about what they were witness to, and party to, in Kosovo (as in Bosnia) — and just what kinds of orders they had to follow from the Command. It also shows that our military people seem to understand something that our leaderships are in aggressive denial about, and have been lying to us about: Albanians are Muslims. More accurately, Muslim behavior and Albanian-Muslim behavior are often indistinguishable. It is very apropos that Jones used Kosovo to make his point. Because, as I've been screaming from the rooftops, the malaise has gone from there to here. We thought we were only subjugating those Christians, those peasant types, to Islam. But by doing so we've helped subjugate ourselves. Because, as I've also been saying, Kosovo was the nexus. It was the official beginning of the end. The beginning of the demise of Western civilization, by our own hand. Separately, the pastor makes another important point when he says, "It is possibly time for us in a new way to actually stand up [and] confront terrorism." What he's saying is that it is not just the responsibility of men and women in uniform to preserve our liberties. WE ALL HAVE TO STICK OUR NECKS OUT. We will all have to risk our lives at one point or another, in order for our lives to still mean anything. This is not just our soldiers' war. It is OUR war. It will be fought differently from anything ever before, and every one of us will be called upon to fight. Is Pastor Jones an extremist, as he's being called in circles that range from the mainstream to, more surprisingly, anti-jihad quarters? Perhaps he is. But have we forgotten? Have we forgotten that "extremism in the name of liberty is no vice?" Why is there so much more tolerance of extremism in the name of tyranny than in the name of liberty? Why is tyranny more politically correct than liberty? Relatedly, a pathetic Yahoo! News write-up mentioned the following: Quran burning flap a distraction from Obama agenda Obama was asked in the interview if he felt angry or helpless at having to deal with the fallout from the potential actions of the pastor of one tiny church. "Well, it is frustrating," he allowed, adding that the law didn't offer much recourse. Did anyone else notice that it sounds like the president yearns for a "recourse" against the First Amendment? When Communism was the big threat, Americans knew they had the support of their presidents against it. In particular, Ronald Reagan unequivocally called the Soviet Union "Evil Empire." So when a far bigger threat comes along and Americans are left without leaders to call a spade a spade — leaders who instead do all they can to not define the enemy — people feel forced into taking matters into their own hands as best they know how, and turn to things like Koran-burning exercises to show the free world what it's up against. Please note that this is not the first test of our rights and freedoms that Pastor Jones has engaged in. Last year it was his church that erected a sign reading "Islam is of the Devil."   Serbia capitulates: Address was UN, not EU By Vojin Joksimovich Germany says that Serbia must come to terms with its amputation. But the dismemberment of Serbia doesn't appear to be over until Serbia is reduced to a region envisioned by Hitler. Westerwelle's Belgrade Visit German foreign minister and vice chancellor, Guido Westerwelle, came to Belgrade on August the 26th, to lecture the Serbian government and the Serbian parliamentary parties with a pompous and an arrogant slogan that the address is EU ( Brussels ) not the UN ( New York ). In addition he delivered the ultimatum that the Southeast Europe map is cast in concrete and that Serbia must come to terms with its amputation if she wants to pursue what I perceive to be unreal EU membership. While in Pristina Westerwelle called on five EU nations, which have not yet recognized the independence of Kosovo to follow the "clear majority" of the EU. The former Serbian PM Vojislav Kostunica reacted with this statement: "The manner in which the EU is treating Serbia , and the statement made in Belgrade that Serbia 's border has been violently changed and that this is a reality that must be accepted, represents an essential endangering of our state interests and crude disdain for the state of Serbia ." In addition he said: "By forcing Serbia to establish good neighborly relations with the fake state of Kosovo, the EU shows that its real goal is not to have Serbia as its member for many years to come. A state that renounces a part of its territory cannot deserve anyone's respect, not even that of the EU, but can only be permanently underestimated and humiliated." Herr Westerwelle is the leader of German Free Democrats, who in coalition with the Frau Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats rule Germany since the September 2009 elections. The Free Documents got 15% of the vote. However, their popularity has plummeted since to 6%. Nadja Irena Fisic, a Croatian journalist, informed us that Herr Westerweller declared himself homosexual six years ago and that he travels with his partner even on the state business presenting the hosts with protocol problems as exemplified with his visits to Japan and China . In Japan his partner, Michael Mrontz, was treated like the wives of foreign dignitaries'. However, he didn't bring Mr. Mrontz on this Balkans tour because of perception that gays wouldn't be welcome there. Westerweller made the history as the first homosexual to serve as the foreign minister. Historical Inheritance Most of my American friends believe that history belongs to the past and being over. On the other hand they talk a great deal about the war of independence, the Civil War, racial discrimination, Alamo, etc. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used to say that Serbia has to move beyond 1389. Some of them pointed out to me that Serbia had lost Kosovo in 1389 and regained it in 1912 but populated with the Albanian majority. To counter that argument, I would point out that the Jews lost Jerusalem , the cradle of their civilization, in 638 but regained it in 1948. With my background, born, raised and educated in Serbia , I represent the view that the past is highly relevant to the present. This is in particular true for Serbia . Aleksandra Rebic wrote: " Serbia and her people seem to live in a constant state of Deja Vu." Hence, I was unable to ignore the fact that Serbia was a major victim of the German Balkan imperialism in the previous century and that Great Britain didn't do much to help Serbia despite being an ally in both WWI and WWII. A brief history lesson precedes an analysis of the impact of Westerwelle visit leading to in all likelihood to loss of Kosovo for Serbia . Germany as Balkans Predator Germany went to war with Serbia three times in the previous century: WWI (1914-1918), WWII (1941-1945) and the 1999 NATO 78-day incessant bombing of Serbia with German participation. Vienna 's Serbophobia, supported by Germany , led to WWI, a fatal conflict that destroyed much of Europe . Serbophobia led Hitler to order pulverization of Serbia with "merciless brutality." Even before these wars Germany initiated expansionism into the Balkans in order to establish its hegemony. The 1878 Berlin Congress was the meeting of European plus Ottoman Empire 's leading statesmen chaired by the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The principal mission was to deal a mortal blow to the movement of pan-Slavism led by Russian expansion to the south. The objective was to reorganize the countries of the Balkans in the wake of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Bowing to Russia 's pressure the Congress formally recognized the independence of the de facto sovereign states of Rumania , Serbia and Montenegro , as the 27th-29th free states of the world. The 1878 map of small Serbia without Kosovo is of interest even today.  The German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, a grandson of Queen Victoria , as a part of German expansionism wanted to build a railway from Berlin to Constantinople, eventually terminating in Baghdad , with an extension to the Persian Gulf . This great engineering feat began in 1903 but obstacles in the way of intervening mountain ranges in eastern Turkey led to slow progress with no completion before WWI erupted in 1914. Serbia , victorious in both Balkan wars 1912-1913, almost doubled its territory. Kosovo was internationally recognized as a part of Serbia at the Treaty of London in 1913. Both Vienna and Berlin were alarmed and decided that Serbia had to be crushed leading to WWI. Serbia was victorious again after losing about 1.1 million people or 27% of the total population, 52% of its adult male population. In 1918 Serbia became a part of the Kingdom of Serbs , Croats and Slovenes, in 1929 named Yugoslavia . For multiple of reasons this was a catastrophic decision on part of the Serbian leadership. On March 25, 1941, Yugoslavia signed the protocol of adherence with the Hitler-Mussolini Axis thus avoiding the war with Germany and Italy . Two days later, British inspired military coup in Belgrade overthrew the government. This was the second biggest mistake made by the Serbian leaders after entering Yugoslavia in 1918 costing the Serbs another approximately million lives. Hitler issued orders to pulverize Yugoslavia "with merciless brutality." Yugoslavia was dismembered among the Third Reich, Italy , and neighboring Nazi allies. All territorial demands by the neighboring countries were honored at the expense of the parts of Yugoslavia inhabited by Serbs. Hitler's formula for imposing hegemony in Yugoslavia was to side with the Croats against the Serbs, Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs, and the Albanians against the Serbs. This formula was essentially replicated by the U.S. led NATO in the 1990s. What remained of Serbia in WWII was placed under Germany rule (see attached map). This small Serbia , known as Nedic's Serbia , resembles the 1878 map of Serbia and again is relevant today. As soon as Germany was reunified it had started flexing muscles with a decision to assist secessions of Croatia and Slovenia and thus dismembering Yugoslavia in 1991. Tito's administrative borders of Yugoslavia 's six republics became international borders cutting the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia from the Serbs in Serbia resulting in the civil/religious wars in Croatia and Bosnia . Every ethnicity in Yugoslavia had a right of self-determination other than the Serbs. The Versailles Treaty at the conclusion of WWI was a thorn in the eye not only to Adolf Hitler but also to the re-unified Germany . Former German foreign minister, Hans Dietrich-Genscher, wrote in his memoirs that by the end of the wars in Former Yugoslavia, we Germans have repaired the deeds or consequences of WWI: the foundation of Yugoslavia , Czechoslovakia , and the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Hence, the U.S. Balkan policies, including siding with the Bosnian Muslims, have helped Germany win WWI and partly WWII. Having successfully dismembered Yugoslavia , NATO (primarily the U.S. and Germany ) decided to start dismembering Serbia by backing the Albanian narco-terrorists in Kosovo, the cradle of the Serbian civilization, the bombing of Serbia and the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state. Dismemberment of Serbia doesn't appear to be over yet. Vojvodina and Sandzak are likely to be next until Serbia is reduced to its 1878 or 1941 size. Pathetic Serbian Response to Westervelle The Serbian president Tadic had an opportunity to thank Mr.Westervelle for his efforts, lectures included, and tell him that as far as Serbia is concerned the relevant institution is the UN, its Security Council and its Resolution #1244, which explicitly defines the Kosovo status as that within Serbia with substantial autonomy for Kosovo. In addition, if the EU continues to bully Serbia regarding recognition the faked state of Kosovo, in order to satisfy the western quintet of the U.S., Germany, UK, France and Italy, Serbia would lose interest to join the EU and will look for alternatives like an association with the BRIC countries as I have advocated for some time. The last time in my blog Is President Tadic Serious about the Future of Serbia. Needless to say Tadic said none of that and instead reiterated that Serbia 's future is in the EU and that Serbia seeks the EU's help to arrange a dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina. Tadic was elected with the support from Washington and Brussels and continues to play a role of a vassal. `He has no guts to standup for the rights of the Serbian people, and the Kosovo Serbs in particular, like Milorad Dodik does in Republika Srpska. Dodik has successfully opposed creation of centralized Bosnia , attempted to be imposed by so called international community and their viceroys such as Paddy Ashdown. Subsequently, it has been reported that Tadic expressed willingness to recognize Kosovo if three conditions are met: a) Extraterritoriality of Serbian churches and monasteries; b) Special status of the Serbs living south of the Ibar river; and c) Status-quo for the Serbs living in the north. A rumor in Belgrade suggests that the Kosovo handover would take place after the Serbian 2012 elections. While this may be only a trial balloon it is unsettling that it came during the Westervelle visit. Capitulation by Serbia Moreover, Tadic yielded to the EU/U.S. pressure to enter into talks with the EU and the U.S. on ways to redefine the Serbian UN Kosovo resolution scheduled for a September 9 debate at the UN General Assembly. The Serbian resolution requested from the UN not to support the secession and to encourage a dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina instead. The EU was obviously concerned that the original Serbian resolution might be voted in and demanded that a joint resolution be submitted. Tadic explained that Serbia is ready to discuss changes in the resolution but will never recognize Kosovo. "This is a red line that we will never cross." Subsequently he said that he told Westervelle, Hillary Clinton, Nikolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, and others the same thing. William Hague in Belgrade The next visitor to Belgrade was the British foreign secretary William Hague. His primary message was that Serbia should withdraw the UN resolution. In view of the fact that that UK almost invariably follows the U.S. policies it could be concluded that he carried the message from Washington as well. The British ambassador to Belgrade , Stephen Wordsworth, threatened with isolation if Serbia continues to ignore the EU and does "what it wants." Furthermore, he stated "The key to fast negotiations for EU association today is in 100% dedication, cooperation and investment, and everyone who is not prepared should not apply for membership." Historically, the UK was no more than a nominal ally of Serbia in WWI and WWII. Serbia didn't get much help from Britain in WWI. Britain opposed formation of the Salonika front in which six Serbian and two French divisions terminated the war on the Eastern front by defeating the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany and Bulgaria . In WWII, Britain pushed the Serbs to confront the Nazis, provided essentially no military support to General Mihailovic's royalists and in 1943 betrayed them in favor of the communist dictator Tito. According to Tony Blair's memoirs he was the key to the 1999 NATO 78-day bombing of Serbia . He even advocated the use of ground troops. He goes as far as saying that Kosovo defined his vision of foreign affairs and military interventions in general. He regrets that NATO bombed an Albanian convoy but expressed no regrets for suffering of the Serbian victims. He doesn't even have regrets for contributing to existence of a million Iraqi widows. In Ireland the Republican Sinn Fein representative declared that the "British war criminal is not welcome." "His legacy of invasion, occupation and subjugation reaches from Ireland to Iraq and Afghanistan ." However, Blair and his wife are more than welcome in Tirana and Pristina.  Hague might have something in common with Westerwelle. He was accused of having "inappropriate" relations with his 25-year old aide Christopher Myers, who had to step down from his post. ICG Re-Emerges Again The International Crisis Group (ICG) is back in the business offering recipes for resolving the standoff between Pristina and Belgrade . In its August 26 report it calls on both sides to enter negotiations on normalizing ties and suggested that a swap of North Kosovo for parts of Presevo Valley was a conceivable solution. The Albanians have rejected the suggestion, saying Kosovo's integrity was guaranteed and that "there will be no territory swap." The Serbs responded that the northern Kosovo is already under "de facto and de jure control of the Serbian community, and there is no reason to contemplate any exchanges." Nonetheless, the ICG believes that Belgrade and Pristina are ready to make some kind of a deal. The ICJ is a globalist New World Order think tank founded by Morton Abramowitz, an influential figure in the Council of Foreign Relations and adviser to leading Serb haters in the Clinton administration —such as Albright and Holbrooke. The ICG has been funded by Soros, among others, and has been championing Albanian separatism for years. Marti Ahtisaari, appointed by the UN Secretary General as his special envoy for Kosovo, was the chairman of the ICG Board. Finnish News Agency published two articles alleging that Ahtisaari was "bought" by the Albanian mafia. Nonetheless this was hushed up and Ahtisaari was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008 for his tireless efforts as a Kosovo mediator. Redefinition of UN Resolution Belgrade's Politika suggested that Spain drafted a compromise resolution between those EU members supporting and opposing the Kosovo independence. Tadic went to Brussels for a two-hour session with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, British Baroness Catherine Ashton. The next day the Serbian resolution was redefined and became a joint resolution with the 27 EU countries. As such it was accepted by the UN General Assembly without a vote. Serbia redefined the text calling Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence unacceptable. Instead it acknowledged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling (see my blog ICJ Ruling: Rape of Serbia and International Law). According to Jeremic, the Serbian foreign minister, the redefinition closes the ICJ process before and calls for dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina with the EU offering mediation services. The dialogue process represents the factor of peace, security and stability in the region and is aimed at achieving progress on the road to EU membership. Tadic emphasizes that in no way it recognizes the Kosovo secession as it refers to the UN Charter. This certainly is not the Albanian interpretation. The Albanian foreign minister stated that the resolution closes the issue of the Kosovo independence within the existing borders, Albanians welcome negotiations on practical issues but excluding the key status issue. The process of transferring the Kosovo issue from the UN to the EU is yet another bad development for Serbia in addition to accepting the EULEX mission two years ago despite the Russian advice to the contrary given the position of the western quintet on the independence issue. For Serbia the best outcome of the UN debate would have been that the ICJ ruling didn't address the secession issue and that the case should be returned to the UN Security Council. The Serbian opposition leaders accused the Tadic's administration for selling out the Serbian interests and demand early reactions. Kostunica said that the resolution "has inflicted great evil and shame for Serbia ." Furthermore he stated that the Tadic administration will make history by being the first and the only one doing its best to lose Kosovo. "The government is a silent accomplice in the creation of the independent state of Kosovo." Conclusion Germany, in addition to being the EU economic powerhouse, illustrated with expansion of 9% in the 2010 second quarter compared to 1.6% for the U.S, has used its economic muscles to selectively run the EU foreign affairs without the consensus, which used to be the EU's modus operandi. Maybe, the EU has already evolved into the Fourth Reich! Germany co-orchestrated Kosovo's independence. Hence, we are witnessing yet another German triumph with its hegemony imposed in the Balkans again. A strategically important part of the world is about to become a German colony. At the same time we are witnessing the third of the worst Serbian calamities apart from the 1918 entry into Yugoslavia and the 1941 challenge to Nazi Germany. In earlier communications with Jurgen Elsasser, a German author of several books on the Former Yugoslavia, he told me that the German policy is to let the U.S. win wars and for Germany to win peace. He seemed to be right on the mark. Act of bowing to the German/UK threats amounted to act of capitulation of handing over the state and national interests as Vojislav Kostunica has pointed out. Tadic's doctrine of no alternative to joining the EU led to this act of capitulation in violation of the Serbian constitution. Kosovo is all but lost for Serbia unless there is a change of government in Belgrade .

 

Kosovo Serbs crave Russian citizenship

Vremya Novostei

Kosovo Serbs crave Russian citizenship

A new turn is imminent in the situation around Kosovo after Thursday's meeting at the UN General Assembly in New York, which clearly showed that Serbia's government is not going to risk a conflict with the West over the territory that unilaterally declared independence in February 2008.

Serbia hopes this policy will help promote its EU bid. However, Kosovo Serbs have accused officials in Belgrade including President Boris Tadic of trying to sacrifice their interests for relations with the West, and threatened to seek out Russia for support.

The Kosovo resolution put up for a vote of the UN General Assembly on Thursday is the result of long and difficult negotiations. Serbia's initial draft included a clause ruling out Kosovo's independence and calling for new negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo. Brussels demanded that Serbia withdraw its draft under threat of freezing the country's EU accession process. Serbia refused to withdraw the resolution, although agreed to soften the requirements.

As a result, the resolution became more relaxed and more open to compromise but at the same time, more vague. A reassessment of Kosovo's independence was entirely removed from the document.

"The Serbian government is aware that the West, that is, the United States and the European Union, is unlikely to make significant concessions on Kosovo or review its decision on the region's independence," Konstantin Nikiforov, director of the Institute of Slavic Studies in Russia, said. In his words, it was clear ten years go that the Western powers were determined to follow through on independence for Kosovo Albanians. Therefore, Serbia and the EU are limited to technicalities at their negotiations, such as international guarantees of certain autonomy for the areas in Kosovo where ethnic Serbs live.

The region's Albanian authorities are not interested in building relations with Serbia either, Nikiforov adds. The 100,000 Serbs living in densely packed communities in the northern areas of Kosovo populated by 2,000,000 are the least fortunate in this situation. They refuse to recognize the new government's jurisdiction and accuse Serbia of lack of support.

President of the Serb National Council of Northern Kosovo Milan Ivanovic said on Wednesday that the recent moves by Boris Tadic are forcing the Kosovo Serbs to turn to Russia. He warned that they will apply for Russian citizenship for all Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija if the EU-Serbian agreements violate the Kosovo Serbs' rights and are implemented without Russia's approval.

According to Ivanovic, Russia knows how to protect its citizens wherever they live, referring to the August 2008 conflict in the Caucasus that led to the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by Moscow.

http://en.rian.ru/papers/20100910/160544886.html

Opinion & analysis

Serbia accepts watered-down U.N. Kosovo resolution

Topic: Kosovo declares independence

 

Kosovo celebrates the Independence Day on 17 February 2010

17:43 10/09/2010

© RIA Novosti. Natalia Grebenyuk

Serbia has finally been persuaded to compromise over Kosovo. On the eve of a vote on the UN General Assembly resolution on Kosovo, Serbia (which had been calling for Kosovo's status to be reconsidered) threw its weight behind the EU initiative. The resolution now goes forward as a joint EU-Serbian initiative.

The resolution passed by an overwhelming majority of the 192-nation assembly on September 9 contains no mention of the illegality of Kosovo's independence, or the fact that Belgrade will never accept it, nor does it call for fresh talks on Kosovo's status.

EU diplomats did a good job editing the document, which in legal terms is considered a letter of intent. Despite Serbia's fierce rebuttal of any such suggestion, the resolution highlights Belgrade's changing position.

The document mentions unresolved problems, takes into consideration the July 2010 ruling of the International Court of Justice that Kosovo's declaration of independence did not contravene international law and also initiates economic dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina under EU auspices.

Now that clauses referring to the illegality of Kosovo's independence have been omitted, several EU countries refusing to recognize Kosovo (Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Slovakia) can now take part in this dialogue. Seventy states have recognized Kosovo to date, while another 60, including Russia and China, refuse to do so. Kosovo is unable to join the UN because, as permanent UN Security Council members, Moscow and Beijing have the right to veto all decisions. All other countries have either delayed recognition of Pristina's independence or have assumed a wait-and-see attitude.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said Belgrade would never accept the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence and delayed the General Assembly session by almost three hours.

After spotting the Kosovo delegation in the General Assembly hall, Jeremic demanded that it leave the premises since it is not a member. It took two-and-a-half hours to clarify the delegation's status, and finally its members were listed as "guests" of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and the United States.

We can continue to debate whether the Serbian government is doing the right thing, whether it is pro-Western, pro-Slavic, pro-Serbian or a traitor. Setting all emotions aside, the incumbent Serbian president and government simply had no alternative. Both had proclaimed a pro-European policy during their election campaigns, but their stubborn stance on the Kosovo issue prevented them from joining the EU.

Considering Serbia's beleaguered economy, seriously affected by the 1999 NATO air strikes, Belgrade does not have much hope without EU assistance. Serbia's future would be bleak, indeed, unless it opts for the "European alternative." In fact, the country would become a political and economic rogue state among the other former Yugoslav republics which have either joined the EU and NATO or are on the verge of doing so. Serbia has no one to rely on.

The "Kosovo syndrome" is likely to cause a splitting headache on almost every continent but will hardly have any major impact on Old Europe, namely, the United Kingdom, France or Belgium. Although Scottish, Irish, Corsican or Flemish nationalists are quite restless, they remain rational. But the situation in other countries is far more serious. China faces problems in Tibet. India's Punjab region wants to become an independent state of Khalistan. Turkey, Iraq and Iran have to deal with Kurdish separatists. Indonesia also had to quell separatism in East Timor, while Sri Lanka fought a protracted war against the Tamil Tigers (LTTE).

There are more countries suffering from long-neglected problems of separatism than is desirable. Cambridge University estimates their number at over 100.

Russia has done everything possible to resolve the Kosovo conflict in line with international law. Whether this objective could have been accomplished against concerted opposition is another matter. Most likely, it would have been impossible. At the same time, Moscow has received a hard-earned trump card, namely the "Kosovo precedent," which it can use in any game, whatever the circumstances and against any partner. Although Russia has lost Serbia to Europe, there is nothing else one can do when principles must be upheld.

RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20100910/160549247.html

Pastor Terry Jones......and Yugoslavia (VIDEO)

Perhaps it is not my place, but I must give you my opinion on the video made by Pastor Terry Jones, at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39062971#39062971

 

Or  D/L… http://www.4shared.com/video/b2NMtCE_/msnbc_video-_Pastor_wont_back_.html

 

 

As you all know by now, the Pastor has cancelled the burning of the Koran: 

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/florida-pastor-calls-off-koran-burning/?partner=rss&emc=rss

 

If what Pastor Terry Jones said about Yugoslavia (he definitely knew about the churches being blown up) and what was passed on to him by phone by a former Green Beret Special Force member, all Serbian organizations, and I do mean all, should contact Pastor Jones (and if necessary, subpoena him) and demand that he reveal the name of the former Green Beret so that there is an investigation into what is undoubtedly one of the worst atrocities committed against the Serbian people by Muslim forces ever perpetrated.  

 

And again, this is just my opinion, but this should not be laid to rest.

 

Stella