February 28, 2011

Denying genocide should not be called freedom of speech

By Dr. Srdja Pavlovic, Edmonton Journal February 28, 2011

Does denying genocide count as free speech? Dr. Srdja Trifkovic is an associate of the Rockford Institute and the visiting professor of international relations at the University of Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dr. Trifkovic was recently invited to speak about the state of affairs in the Balkans at the University of British Columbia. The local Serbian community had also invited him to visit Edmonton, following his UBC lecture.

He was scheduled to address his supporters this Saturday (Feb. 26) at the University of Alberta and speak about the causes and consequences of Serbia's decline, and the alleged return of the neo-Ottomans to the political stage in the region, among other things.

All these plans were put on hold because Dr. Trifkovic was denied entry into Canada due to his alleged links with the wartime leaders of the Bosnian Serbs. The organizers of his lecture tour complained bitterly and argued that the decision taken by Immigration Canada had infringed upon the right of the freedom of speech.

I believe the decision of Immigration Canada to deny Dr. Trifkovic entry into this country has merits. I do not think such decisions could be disputed on the basis of the freedom of speech and the necessity to have a dialogue on a given topic.

Both freedom of speech and the need to have a dialogue could not be taken as absolute categories. Denying genocide committed in Srebrenica in 1995 in a manner Dr. Trifkovic does should not be presented and rationalized as practising freedom of speech.

The judgment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague had clearly categorized Srebrenica as the crime of genocide. Such a decision was supported by the overwhelming evidence. One should, of course, have the right to one's own opinion but not the right to one's own facts.

I have always been in favour of a dialogue and a critical evaluation of evidence. The problem, however, is that Dr. Trifkovic and his supporters do not want to have a dialogue. As any nationalist would do, they see their version of the past as true and valid, and demand that others believe it, too.

While calling for a dialogue they shout at their critics, rather than talk to them and then have the audacity to call such shouting the expression of the freedom of speech.

Dr. Srdja Pavlovic, University of Alberta

Letter in Defense of Professor Sdrja Trifkovic by Stella L. Jatras

The Globe and Mail

Letter to the editor(s)

28 February 2011

It is said that truth is the first victim of war - and there could be no better example than the 1990's war in the Balkans.

As an American, I have always admired Canada's value of freedom of speech, especially in its universities. That appears not to be the case today at the University of British Columbia where, apparently based on one protest to the president of the university from the Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada, renown Balkan expert Professor Srdja Trifkovic was denied entry into Canada.
.

For a university to allow only one side of an issue to be heard is a gross disservice to its students. Surely, Canada does not want to be compared to Hitler's Germany, or to Stalin's Sovietn Union, for that is how they controlled the minds of their students. Let the students hear the evidence and then let them judge for themselves, or perhaps President Toope does not believe that his students are mature enough to hear the other side of the story.

In 1999, Serbian forces were accused of killing 700 Kosovo Albanians, grinding up their bodies and throwing them down the Trepca mine shaft after they had been incinerated. Not so. The outrageous story was proven to be a hoax by New York Times journalist Daniel Pearl. Hatred against the Serbs by the pro-Bosnian media was further fanned by reports of Serbs having killed 250,000 Bosnians. However, a 2002 BBC report puts the number killed in Bosnia, on all sides, at 40,000

If we are to talk about Srebrenica, we should then talk about the fact that not only Srebrenica, but the Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bihac and Gorazde "safe areas," that were supposed to be demilitarized, were used for training, recuperating and refurbishing troops not only for Bosnian government forces but also for mujahidin fighters from the entire Islamic world to fight the Christian Serbs. Although 7,000 is a large number alleged to have been killed by Serbian forces, a number challenged by Defense & Foreign Affairs analyst, Gregory Copley, along with a former UN official, intelligence experts and journalists, who released a statement that the alleged casualty number of 7,000 victims as "vastly inflated and unsupported by evidence." While the alleged Srebrenica massacre in July 1995 received massive media coverage, the fact that 14,000 Serbian men, women and children were killed in August 1995 by Croatian forces during Operation Storm, as well as 250,000 who were ethnically cleansed from their ancestral lands in the Krajina region of Croatia, received little coverage in the Western media. Commanding Operation Storm, with massive US support, was Brig Gen. Agim Ceku, an ethnic Kosovo Albanian. Operation Storm became the largest land offensive in Europe since World War II and resulted in the murder and inhumane treatment of thousands of ethnic Serbs.

The decision to ban Professor Srdja Trifkovic from Canada can only go down as a black mark in Canadian history. Let those who disagree with Professor Trifkovic engage him in a battle of facts and intellect, not hide behind boycotts and name calling. Let the University of British Columbia be an institute of learning, not a

close-minded propaganda mill.

Stella L. Jatras

USA

Trifkovic fights for free speech in Canada

http://serbianna.com/analysis/archives/847

Interview: Trifkovic fights for free speech in Canada

Feb 28, 2011

Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, a scholar, author, and foreign affairs editor at Chronicles Magazine, was invited to speak at the University of British Columbia on February 24. His visit was vocally opposed by various Bosnian-Muslim lobbying groups, including one that calls itself the Institute for Research of Genocide of Canada.
Dr. Trifkovic was detained on arrival at Vancouver and some hours later sent back to the U.S. on the basis of apparently bogus accusations. The only people who have reason to "ban" him are those who seek, through lies, deceit and intimidation, to make our Canadian society less free and less open. CKCU 93.1 FM Monday's Encounter has contacted Dr. Trifkovic upon his return to Chicago in order to find out the reason behind his deportation from Canada.

What were their stated reasons for not allowing you to enter Canada?

The border agency personnel decided that I was, as they put it, a "proscribed senior official" of a government guilty of terrorism, genocide, or some major human rights violations. From the silly pro-forma interview to which I was subjected, I gather that they have reason to believe that I had occupied a senior government position in the Bosnian Serb Republic (i.e. the Republika Srpska) at the time of the civil war there. In view of what had preceded my trip, the controversy that various Bosnian Muslim front organizations had tried to create in connection with my UBS lecture, I have every reason to believe that this false information came from those quarters.

Were you ever a member of the Bosnian Serb government?

No. It would be really curious to find out what in their estimate my position was and what was the time span of my responsibility and who were the people under my command. The meaning of the term senior official is fairly loose, and to make such as specific allegation they would at least have to come up with some specific evidence, which they are unable to do. I have had a long-standing relationship with the authorities of the Republika Srpska . During the war, when I gave my many interviews on the subject of the trouble in the Balkans, I was invariably presented as a "foreign affairs analyst with close links to the Bosnian Serbs." The gap between having "close links" and occupying a position of institutionalized responsibility is indeed very wide.

Do you know who has signed the ban?

The decision itself is signed by the immediate immigration officer, which is neither here nor there. I have no doubt in my mind that the red flag attached to my name had been send by the field officers' political superiors some days in advance, as a consequence of the controversy surrounding my UBC lecture. When I arrived at the immigration desk, it was immediately obvious that the woman handling my passport – without even thinking about it – wrote on the customs slip the note that required me to report to their "secondary control."

Were you surprised, as an American citizen, to be barred from entering Canada?

Frankly I am, American citizen or not. I demand no special treatment for being an American, but this is ridiculous. I have been to Canada about two-dozens times since the Bosnian war, including trips to deliver lectures at different universities, such as the University of Toronto, Carleton University in Ottawa, and the universities of Waterloo and Alberta. I also had the honor of appearing as an expert witness before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons in Ottawa in February 2000. Later that summer I drove a thousand miles with my children for a vacation to a lake in Northern Ontario, which says something about my feelings for that country.
I have never violated any Canadian laws, to the best of my knowledge, and I have never been told that I may have done so. Of course I have never had any problems with border control. For them to discover now, almost two decades and over twenty visits later, that I am a threat to Canada's multicultural harmony is laughable. They allowed a threat called Srdja Trifkovic to roam around Canada unchecked, coast to coast, for all these years! The horror! But now they presumably hope it's over.
We pretty much know the true cause, of course. That the organs of the Canadian state would be reduced to the level of acting as water carriers and unthinking enforcers for an ethnic lobby seeking to curtail free speech and open debate in Canada is indeed tragic. I readily admit that this possibility had not crossed my mind.

You were held and interrogated for six hours at the Vancouver International Airport. How were you treated by the Canadian immigration officers?

I spent a total of six hours at the secondary control premises but I was not actually interrogated for all that time. The woman handling my case spent, maybe, less than one third of that time talking to me — and my distinct impression is that she was only going through the motions of conducting this interview. She was utterly out of her depth and obviously had not the quaintest idea of who was doing what to whom in the Balkans and what my case was all about. She even asked me at one point if the former President of Yugoslavia, Dr. Vojislav Kostunica, had been indicted for war crimes, and looked mildly incredulous at my assuring her that he remained free of any such taint. That gives you some indication of the depth of her ignorance. I think that it was only a pro forma interview because the decision to have me banned had been made at some higher political level prior to my coming. The interrogation was simply a choreographed farce to satisfy the form.

So, on whose request the Canadian authorities barred you from entering Canada?

I have every reason to believe that it was due to a massive campaign by the Islamist lobby in general and the Bosnian-Muslim lobby in particular. Let me single out the efforts of one of their front organizations that calls itself the Institute for Research of Genocide of Canada, which has accused me of being a "genocide denier" because I resolutely reject the Hague Tribunal's version of the events in Srebrenica in general and its designation as a "genocide" in particular. It is a different topic, of course, and not the one connected with the title of my scheduled lecture, which was The Balkans: uncertain prospects for an unstable region. Of course such single-issue ethnic lobbying organizations should not be allowed to impact the government policy. In this particular case they were. They were able to force a decision that concerns not just me personally, but also the principles of free speech and civilized discourse in Canada – the principles to which they themselves do not subscribe.
The same model of villification, inuendo and outright lies, once instituted, can be applied against anyone at any time. The fictitious nature of the reasons given for my exclusion indicates that the same technique is a blunt yet lethal weapon. It is ready for arbitrary use, Stasi-like, at any moment, at any point of entry. If an ethnically based lobby makes a fuss and the Canadian authorities obediently act upon their demands, it really bolds ill for the future of remains of free speech in Canada.
This is not the first time that something like this has happened. Remember the cases involving Ann Cutler, George Galloway MP from the UK, and others. This is turning in to a pattern. That pattern has to be unmasked for what it is. It is a form of creeping totalitarianism, which does no credit to Canada as a democratic society supposedly based upon the values that we all honour and subscribe to.

What opportunities legal or otherwise are you perusing in order for the ban to be lifted?

At this stage I will be focusing on having them schedule a speedy hearing at which I will try to have this decision overturned. After that I will considered my options. I have been slandered and the Canadian government has been a fellow conspirator and lead executor in this rather sordid operation. I would prefer not to comment on any further steps that I might take, however. We'll talk about that after the hearing to determine my status.

__._,_.___

February 27, 2011

Libya: Where international law died

27.02.2011 | 11:43

International law has taken three body blows in the last decade: Serbia, Iraq and now Libya, where foreign interference is patently obvious, where the entire anti-Gathafi campaign is orchestrated from abroad, manipulated by the media and controlled by elements who have been trying to assassinate the Libyan leader for decades.

For a start, not all Libyans are against Colonel Gadhafi, which is patently obvious in Tripoli and probably in other areas, where they dare not show their heads among marauding crowds of thugs, terrorists and vandals who have taken the streets, the darlings of an anti-Gadhafi international media which appears to support acts of terrorism and public disorder.

What is at stake here is not the alleged reaction by the authorities against what is to all intents and purposes an armed uprising, yet given the track record of the anti-Gadhafi forces, any reaction is hardly surprising, right or wrong. What is at stake here is respect for international law, which upholds the right of all countries to apply their Constitution in their own territory. This includes, as in the USA, the right to impose the death penalty.

Under normal circumstances, this would be applied after due legal process consisting of a charge, the right to defence, a trial, a judgement and the right to appeal. But how is this possible in a war scenario? When gangs of heavily armed protesters are ransacking Government property, committing arson, acts of terrorism and murdering people, what are the authorities supposed to do, stand back with their hands over their hearts and sing God Bless America?

And exactly who are these "rebels"? Are they not led by those forces trained by the US military in the United States of America, representatives of the armed faction of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, flown in to Egypt and Tunisia to then infiltrate across the Libyan borders? Is this kind of subversion legal, or is it an act of state-sponsored terrorism?

This anti-Gathafi group, sponsored and trained in terrorist activities by the CIA and Israelis and financed in part by Saudi Arabia for decades, has tried it before, several times. For instance back in May 1984 when fifteen terrorists from this group attempted to murder the Colonel in his residence after slipping across the Sudanese border. This National Liberation Army has been gravitating around Libya's borders since the 1980s.

They have tried to foster rebellion in Libya time and time again. These covert operations are difficult to classify for purposes of accountability and jurisdiction, however this does not mean they are legal. An act of terrorism is an act of terrorism, yet in our world today the label changes according to who is propagating the message.

And right now the international mainstream (bought) media is orchestrating a campaign to remove Muammar Al-Gathafi from power. The demonology is clear to see: references to "Gaddafy", "dictator", "murderer", reference to "protesters". Does a "protester" sport a machine gun?

Whether or not Muammar Al-Gathafi remains as the leader of the Libyan people is a decision that belongs to the people of Libya, not a few thousand mercenaries recruited from abroad to serve the Great Plan which has existed in Washington/Tel Aviv for over a decade, namely the control of "Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." These are not my words. They are the words of General Wesley Clark in an interview with DemocracyNow!, March 2, 2007*.

Does this put the Libyan "uprising" in context? No? Then how about the news that the US State Department is at this moment speaking to separatist opposition groups in Eastern Libya?

*http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5166

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru

http://www.moscowtopnews.com/

February 25, 2011

Trifkovic banned from Canada

About the Author

Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, an expert on foreign affairs, is the author of The Sword of the Prophet and Defeating Jihad. His latest book is The Krajina Chronicle: A History of the Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia.

See All Posts by This Author

Banned From Canadistan

by Srdja Trifkovic

February 25th, 2011 • Related • Filed Under

[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].

On Thursday, March 24, I was denied entry to Canada. After six hours' detention and sporadic interrogation at Vancouver airport I was escorted to the next flight to Seattle. It turns out I am "inadmissible on grounds of violating human or international rights for being a proscribed senior official in the service of a government that, in the opinion of the minister, engages or has engaged in terrorism, systematic or gross human rights violations, or genocide, a war crime or a crime against humanity within the meaning of subsections 6 (3) to (5) of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act."

It appears that my contacts with the Bosnian Serb leaders in the early nineties make me "inadmissible" today. As it happens I was never one of their officials, "senior" or otherwise, but the story has been told often enough (most recently in one of my witness testimonies at The Hague War Crimes Tribunal). The immigration officer at Vancouver decided that what was good for The Hague was not good enough for Canada; but her decision evidently had been written somewhere else by someone else well before my arrival. (She was so out of her depth that she asked me if President Vojislav Koštunica had been indicted for war crimes.)

I've visited Canada some two dozen times since the Bosnian war ended; ironically, one of those visits, in February 2000, was to provide expert testimony before the Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa. Why should the Canadian authorities suddenly decide to keep me out of the country now, and for transparently spurious reasons? Well, because the Muslims told them so. The campaign started when a Bosnian-Muslim propaganda front, calling itself The Institute for Research of Genocide of Canada, demanded to have me "banned" from speaking at the University of British Columbia on February 24. The ensuing campaign soon escalated into demands to keep me out of Canada altogether. The authorities have now obliged.

As Ambassador James Bissett noted last week, what is outrageous is that, over the years, this "Institute" has indulged in the denial of a real genocide in the former Yugoslavia. It has also attempted to blacken the reputation of one of Canada's most highly respected soldiers by posting (last December 26) "The Shocking Account by Raped Bosniak Women and Criminal Undertakings of Lt. General (Ret.) Lewis Mackenzie":

During the war in Bosnia, the Muslim leadership in Sarajevo became furious when General Mackenzie—who was representing the UN—was not deceived (as many journalists were) by the blatant propaganda generated by the Muslim side and by his insistence at remaining impartial. In an attempt to have him replaced, the Muslims concocted false charges of rape and misconduct against him. These charges were so obviously fabricated they were summarily dismissed by responsible authorities. As the general was able to prove, he was not even in Bosnia when many of the alleged offences took place. Despite the facts, the "Genocide Institute" continues to slander the good name of General Mackenzie. Its web site contains a long list of so-called rape victims who relate in lurid detail how they were raped … by the Canadian officer. They even claim that during some of these rapes the general was "protected '– not by UN troops but by heavily armed "Chetniks." The stories are so obviously fabricated that to those who know the General personally—as I do—can only wonder at the seriously psychotic nature of individuals who would repeat these lunatic charges.

General Mackenzie is a Canadian so he cannot be deemed "inadmissible," but who knows what unpleasantness could await him upon arriving in another country with a powerful Muslim lobby. Extradition for trial in Sarajevo? A long and arduous legal battle to prevent such outcome?

Let it be noted that the "Institute for Research of Genocide of Canada" uses for itself the acronym "IRGC." That acronym is more commonly associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. While conceivably accidental, the coincidence is not altogether inapt. The Canadians will learn, in the fulness of time, the price of kowtowing to these people's demands. They will become less free with each act of surrender, and the demands will have no end.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2011/02/25/banned-from-canadistan/

Srdja Trifkovic, author of Sword of the Prophet, barred from Canada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhKkv0Ezd6w

Palestinian jihadists' fabrications of Israeli atrocities are amply documented now, although the mainstream media still retail them; less well known is that the jihad in the Balkans also has a busy propaganda arm. Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, author of the excellent book on Islam and jihad, The Sword of the Prophet, ran afoul of it yesterday, as he was barred from entering Canada. The Serbian Youth League (thanks to George) explains this latest Freedom of Speech Death Watch Alert:

February 24, 2011 (SYL) - Serbian-American professor Dr Srdja Trifkovic was denied access into Canada after being accused of holding a senior position in the Government of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian war by the Vancouver airport immigration authorities. Srdja, who was a foreign affairs expert with links in the Bosnian Serb Government, never held any position in that Government, let alone a senior one. The fabricated reason for deportation was likely the result of lobbying by the extremist organization "The Institute for Research of Genocide in Canada", which is notorious for inventing stories, such as the disproven lie that Canadian General MacKenzie raped a Bosnian woman at a time when he wasn't even in Bosnia, as well as denying the Holocaust in Yugoslavia during World War II. Also, there are strong indications that higher factors in the Canadian government are involved in this scandalous and dark chapter in Canadian history, the investigation is under way.

Jihad Watch reader Joe Serb sent this in:

Srdja Trifkovic was scheduled to speak at a Serb-sponsored gathering at the University of British Columbia. About 60 of us waited outside of Room 222, Swing Space Bldg last night, only to hear that Prof. Trifkovic had been stopped at the airport, and was under questioning for his ideas. He writes on the Muslim danger to Europe and the world. I witnessed a small group of Muslims celebrating the delay, which was likely a cancellation (I waited for 45 minutes after the start date, but most left when we learned that the Professor was still in custody. He was accused of "hate speech" in a student newspaper.

I strongly believe that we have to reply energetically to all such charges; the "hate speech" weapon is increasingly used by the thuggish Leftist/Islamic supremacist axis to silence its opponents, and if we ignore the false charges made, they will be assumed true by those who are naive and unaware of what game is being played.

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http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/02/srdja-trifkovic-author-of-sword-of-the-prophet-barred-from-canada.html

February 24, 2011

Canada: People for such a time as this in the Balkans

The attempt to ban Dr. Srdja Trifkovic from speaking this week on the Campus of the University of British Columbia is outrageous … Canadians have an unparalleled opportunity to foster freedom and democracy….

Canada: People for such a time as this in the Balkans

By Dr. Samuel J. Mikolaski Thursday, February 24, 2011

Canada and Canadians, especially new Canadians from the Balkans, have an unprecedented opportunity to foster the concept of an open society, democratic institutions, free market economies, the education of large reservoirs of brain power, and the separation of political power from religion in the Balkans.

Canadians may well be the people for such a time as this – albeit, in face of what appear to be insurmountable political obstacles and centuries-old deep-seated ethnic hatreds. Two outstanding Canadians, Ambassador James Bissett and General Lewis MacKenzie, are among the best informed anywhere on the Balkans and have spoken in balanced ways on how to understand and deal with the Balkan cauldron that has simmered for many generations, which the recent Balkan wars have again bought to a boil.

Multiculturalism has been declared a failure – multicult is dead

For over two centuries various of the European powers, Russians, and Ottomans stirred the pot in their own interests, often only to make matters worse.
Now that multiculturalism has been declared a failure – multicult is dead – by Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, buttressed by the outburst of the Austrian parliamentarian on the floor of that nation's Parliament last fall, we should consider, as the philosopher A. N. Whitehead said, that our current problems should be regarded as opportunities.

Western Christian national identities and their historic values do mean something historically and are worth conserving. That should be the message to groups refusing to assimilate. A great blessing of my life is that as an immigrant child I was well educated in Canada in English as a second language and assimilated to Canadian culture.

European and American foreign policy in the Balkans, especially as regards the Serbian people, has been badly skewed and continues to work against the best interests of enduring peace, democracy, comity among the several nationalities, and economic progress.

The artificial political framework in Bosnia has forced the several ethnic groups into closed enclaves. It is not working. The Serbs have created Republica Srpska. The Croats are appealing to Russia and the Security Council for protection of their status. The dominant radical al-Quaeda elements continue fostering Jihad and terrorism training compounds.

The Christian culture of Kosovo has been devastated

The Christian culture of Kosovo, illegally highjacked from Serbia contrary to the canons of international law, has been devastated, with hundreds of monasteries, churches, cemeteries, and other landmarks either destroyed, badly damaged or desecrated.

The recent report of Dick Marty to the Council of Europe makes horrific reading: Serbian youths kidnapped by radical Islamists then killed for body parts to be harvested and sold internationally.

Ironically, fear of their own has compelled many thousands of Albanians to flee to the environs of Belgrade in Serbia to escape the radical Islamists who have overwhelmed their society in Albania, Bosnia and Kosovo.

In Croatia Ustasha memorializing continues – the Nazi-backed Croats massacred tens of thousands of Serbs, Romanies and others during World War II, and little or nothing has been done to repatriate the tens of thousands of Serbs who were expelled from their ancestral lands in the Krajina during the 1990s war.

Serbia has become the odd-man-out in Europe, wondering how to re-establish itself among the nations of Europe, how to restore its traditional relationship with America as the loyal ally of the West it was through two world wars, and what to do with political fragmentation of the country and the mafia elements which bedevil society and the economy.

Why do I see this as opportunity for democracy and freedom? A few weeks ago James Bissett, Canada's former Ambassador to Yugoslavia, gave a lecture in Belgrade in which he suggested that Serbia might be better off outside the EU.
Why?

Bissett said that Germany and other European countries would still invest in Serbia even if Serbia remained outside the EU. Membership in the EU could easily inhibit trade and commerce because of the layering on of bureaucracy and inspections from Brussels and the imposition of multitudes of rules. Freedom of information might be curtailed, especially if Serbs were forced to teach their children that the NATO bombing was justified. Serbs, he said, need no further humiliation—atrocities were committed by all sides during the recent wars. Croats have never acknowledged the true genocide they committed during World War II. Muslims refuse to acknowledge the crimes committed in their name —one can cite the staged terrorism against their own people during the recent hostilities, about which General MacKenzie has written.

What should Serbia do, Ambassador Bissett asked? Very simple, he said: put its own house in order by stamping out corruption, improving the economy, getting rid of the criminal mafia, and becoming self-sufficient—as it was when it became the harbinger of democracy in the latter part of the nineteenth century and can become again.

Here's what Canadians and Americans of Balkan heritage can do:

Foster education (such as the Studenica Foundation has done through scholarships for students in upper High School).

Encourage Canadian and American universities to underwrite university undergraduates and graduate students from Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Kosovo to study in North America. Anticipate leader-formation.

Establish professional and business links with aspiring professionals and entrepreneurs in the Balkans – there are many, many talented young men and women there, especially in engineering, business, technology, medicine, and the sciences.

Insist on the development of open societies that are committed to the democratic process and a market economy.

The West is ignoring the existential crisis that pervades the Balkans. Gerrymandering the political process has not worked.

It is time for Canadians and Americans of Balkan heritage to think outside the box. They can make a difference despite the present political and main street media climate on Balkan matters in North America. Modern communication techniques enable little people to break through the stereotypes. This is an exceptional opportunity.

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Dr. Samuel J. Mikolaski

Dr. Samuel J. Mikolaski Most recent columns

Dr. Samuel Mikolaski, is a retired theological professor. His curriculum vitae and published work are on his website: drsamstheology.com

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Economists are paid for what?

23.02.2011 | 18:03

Economists are paid for what?

Where are the world's economists? And what are they paid for? They are trained to produce viable ideas for the implementation of workable systems which cater for new realities. Now that the planned economic system has virtually disappeared, and the market economy is so obviously a failure, where are these gurus, masterminds of tomorrow's new economic system?

Rising from the ashes, implementing systems where there used to be nothing, was the Socialist/Communist model which provided universal, excellent and free education, healthcare services, free dental treatment, free public transportation, free or heavily subsidised public utilities, free or subsidised leisure/cultural activities, guaranteed free housing for all, guaranteed a job in a society of zero unemployment, social mobility and security on the streets.

Against this system worked the so-called Capitalist world, for decades, complete with its assassination attempts, murders, sabotage, terrorist attacks and endemic unemployment, total insecurity on the streets where marauding gangs of drug addicts and alcoholics trash city centers and kick old ladies to the ground for fun...the society and model which has already attacked and destroyed free universal education and healthcare, turning them into businesses, and in which life is a drama from the word go.

It is a drama to have and bring up a child, it is a drama to get the child into higher education, it is a drama to buy a house, it is a drama to get a job, it is another drama to retain the job - and home - and God forbid if someone needs dental care or if any other emergency arises.

While the former system found itself at a crossroads after all of its main objectives had been reached and achieved, and after it had freed countless millions of peoples from the yolk of imperialism and installed socially progressive governments for them, the latter has simply failed to provide for these countries what they hoped to achieve when they decided to try something different...This is hardly surprising since the Capitalist system never had its own house set in order to begin with.

Now, welcome to the wonderful world which belongs to the large corporations and the banks, the owners of Capital, as Marx always claimed, and as the followers of the Socialist model had said all along. Welcome to the wonderful world of high and increasing food prices, one in which, experts claim, there will soon not be enough food to go round and in which families are set to spend ever-increasing budgets on basic necessities.

Welcome to the wonderful world of endemic unemployment, in which a "good" scenario is "only" an unemployment rate of 4% (wow!), one in which a growing number of cliques have been formed to cater for the whims of a growing number of elitist good-for-nothings whose connections see them gain lucrative sinecures in some Commission or Committee or other, welcome to the world in which international law simply does not exist (as per Kosovo and the US veto against a text condemning Israel's illegal activities).

Welcome to the world in which all we had fought for - workers' rights, children's rights, women's rights, universal education and healthcare - has been chipped away at and whose very essence is threatened. Countries that had a decent school system now have none. Countries where women's rights were guaranteed (Afghanistan and Iraq, for instance) have repressive regimes where women can be beaten or decapitated for not wearing a veil.

Welcome to the world in which an old lady dare not set foot outside her house after dark. Welcome to the world in which it is increasingly not what you know (because you cannot afford to pay for an education) but who you know (to avoid becoming one of the Lost Generation working almost for free in a call center).

So, where are the economists? Are they or are they not supposed to produce ideas? And they are paid, for what? I will table an idea, for free: why don't we all go back to a controlled economy? The public sector will miraculously and suddenly have the P-word (a Plan); the private sector will be regulated, and the resources of the world will belong to the people of the world, not a handful of mega-rich corporations. And your pension plans will be safe from the hands of those who gamble them away on speculative and will likely leave you with nothing.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey Pravda.Ru

Kosovo is "mafia state", says Italian MEP

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2011&mm=02&dd=24&nav_id=72906

Kosovo is "mafia state", says Italian MEP

24 February 2011 | 15:59 | Source: BBC

STRASBOURG -- An Italian member of the European Parliament Foreign
Policy Committee has commented on the Kosovo organ trafficking case.

Pino Arlacchi spoke for the BBC Serbian service in Strasbourg this week
to say that he hoped he and like-minded MEPs would succeed in their
attempt to have an EP rapporteur appointed to look into "what EULEX (the
EU mission in Kosovo) has been doing all these years".

Arlacchi, a sociology professor, is known in Italy as a "mafia expert".
From 1997 until 2002 he was the Executive Director of the UN Office for
Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP).

Now he spoke in favor of probing the work of EULEX, in the wake of the
Marty report - which accused the ethnic Albanian KLA of kidnapping Serb
civilians and killing them for their organs, and which provided the
basis for a Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE)resolution adopted last month, calling for an investigation into
the allegations.

Unlike PACE which gathers 47 countries, the European Parliament members
come only from the 27 EU states.

The BBC learned from unofficial contacts with MEPs that there was still
"implied resistance" to opening up the issues of "organized crime and
alleged organ trafficking" in Kosovo.

Ahead of a closed meeting that CoE's Dick Marty will have with the EP
committee in March, Arlacchi voiced his optimism and said he believed
the EP would soon "exit its phase of keeping silent on the Marty report".

"I believe there will be a debate. We already have the regular report on
Kosovo, and it touches on various issues. If there is broad agreement,
perhaps we could have a special report on the same subject that was
investigated by Marty. Perhaps I, together with my colleagues, will win
over a majority in favor of investigating this question more seriously.
We could also have another topic for a report - and that is EULEX - the
EU police and judiciary mission in Kosovo, and the fact that even after
three years their work has not produced results," said the Italian MEP,
and continued:

"If nothing has been done during three years, that means something's
wrong, that we must change two things: first, our policy toward Kosovo,
and second, the way EULEX is organized. I read Marty's report, which is
excellent and contains much information and details. It ought to receive
strong support, and I am surprised it has not received it from EULEX."

Asked to comment on unofficial statements coming from some MEPs that
"Marty must provide evidence" - despite the fact the Swiss CoE
rapporteur is neither a judge nor a prosecutor - Arlachi responded:

"The thing is that there is no judicial evidence. I've mentioned EULEX,
which, as far as I know, has ten prosecutors, precisely for that reason.
What have they been up to these three years? They are responsible for
the work of the local judiciary, which should have the final word.
Whatever one says about Kosovo - there is no judicial evidence to back
it up. We can say there is organized crime, and strong ties of
politicians with all that, but we have no judicial evidence on that. The
principal goal of both those accused and democracy is to undertake a
judicial investigation. Marty's conclusions cannot be taken as
definitive. It's a paradox that without a judicial investigation we will
continue as before - and that's unacceptable".

Another CoE rapporteur, Jean-Charles Gardetto, recently submitted his
report on witness protection in the Balkans, which states that EULEX is
not capable of protecting witnesses, and that "the EULEX personnel, if
they do their job in big cases, expose themselves and the members of
their families to danger".

In reaction to this, Arlacchi mentoned Italy's fight against the mafia.

"I'm sorry to say it, but when you fight against organized crime - you
are in danger. They (EULEX) must be prepared for that - there can be no
serious investigation without any risks. That's a separate subject:
investigators must be protected, there must be a witness protection
program in place. It will be hard to achieve anything without that. In
Italy we overpowered the mafia when we established an efficient witness
protection program. It included 5,000 people, and naturally, it's
expensive. But none of the witnesses were murdered. I think that EULEX
should launch an investigation, because that is the job of EULEX. If
they are unable to protect witnesses - then that's a disaster."

Arlacchi also noted that "it is clear everyone knew about ties between
Kosovo's leaders and the KLA with organized crime", and repeated his
recent statement that Kosovo was a "mafia state".

"When I worked for the UN in 1999 as Executive Director of the Office
for Drug Control, I issued an order to have a report made on the
situation in Kosovo. I sent that internal report to the UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the end of that same year. The picture
that the report painted was exactly what you see today: the same
structures, the same people, the same disgraceful situation. It's
disgraceful how Europe and the United States faced the problem. They
wanted political results, and in a way, they wanted a war to break out
over there. It was done by turning their heads away from KLA's criminal
activities. Later on, I was in Kosovo for a few months in 2004, and I
had access to some NATO files. The picture was effectively the same,"
Arlacchi concluded his interview for the BBC.

February 20, 2011

Global NATO Seeks To Recruit 50 New Military Partners

Sunday, 20 February 2011, 4:00 pm

Article: Rick Rozoff

A recent article in Kenya's Africa Review cited sources in the African Union (AU) disclosing that the 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization is preparing to sign a military partnership treaty with the 53-nation AU.

The author of the article, relaying comments from AU officials in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where the organization has its headquarters, wrote that although "the stated aim is to counter global security threats and specifically threats against Africa, some observers read the pact as aiming to counter Chinese expansion in Africa."

The feature further claimed that NATO is negotiating the opening of a liaison office at AU headquarters and that the North Atlantic Alliance's legal department is working with its AU counterpart "to finalise the new pact, which will be signed soon." [1]

The news story additionally divulged that Ramtane Lamamra, African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security, "confirmed that Nato is to sign a military cooperation agreement with the AU" with particular emphasis on consolidating the African Standby Force (ASF). The latter is intended to consist of brigades attached to the five Regional Economic Communities on the continent. (North, East, West, Central and Southern.) The West African Standby Force has been tasked the role of intervening in - which is to say invading and occupying - Ivory Coast since the announcement of presidential runoff election results in the country in December [2], and contributors to the East Africa Standby Brigade (EASBRIG), Uganda and Burundi, are engaged as combatants in the civil war in Somalia.

The AU's Lamamra stated "Africa would like to learn from Nato on strategic airlift, advanced communications, rotation of important units among regions and to meet logistical challenges," adding that "Nato was a good model on which to build the ASF." [3]

NATO airlifted thousands of Ugandan troops into and out of the Somali capital of Mogadishu last March - 1,700 and 800, respectively - in support of the Ugandan-Burundian African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). [4]

The Kenyan report also revealed that "Experts say Africa is becoming a strategic battleground between world powers and in particular the US, the European Union, China and Russia," with the first two - collectively subsumed under NATO and its Partnership for Peace program (except, for the time being, Cyprus) - working in unison and the second two expanding oil and natural gas investments on the continent. In addition, Russia and China are competitors of the U.S. and its NATO allies in regards to arms sales to African nations. The piece added:

"According to knowledgeable sources, the new security arrangement could be a way to block the continent's other main arms suppliers - China and Russia.

"If the pact gets endorsed by AU member states, it would be a big blow for China and Russia."

"In its 2010 annual summit, Nato set itself a target to be a global 'security guarantor' by the year 2020." [5]

On February 18 and 19 a delegation of high-level officials from the African Union led by Sivuyile Thandikhaya Bam, head of the Peace Support Operations Division of the AU, visited NATO Headquarters and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Belgium. As NATO reports:

"NATO and the African Union have developed an increasingly fruitful practical cooperation since 2005....NATO supported the AU Mission in Sudan [airlifting over 30,000 troops to and from the Darfur region] and is currently assisting the AU mission in Somalia in terms of air- and sea-lift, but also planning support.

"NATO is also providing...training opportunities and capacity building support to the African Union's long term peacekeeping capabilities, in particular the African Standby Force." [6]

The African Standby Force has been systematically modeled after the NATO Response Force, which was launched with large-scale war games in the African island nation of Cape Verde in 2006. The ASF is a joint project of NATO and U.S. Africa Command, which before achieving full operational capability on October 1, 2008 was conceived, developed and run by U.S. European Command, whose commander is simultaneously NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

In 2007 the North Atlantic Council, NATO's top civilian decision-making body, commissioned a study "on the assessment of the operational readiness of the African Standby Force (ASF) brigades." [7]

The following year NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visited Ghana for three days and said "the military alliance could play an important role in training African soldiers," in particular that "the Alliance had agreed to support the African Standby Force." [8]

In 2009 the bloc began training African staff officers for the ASF at the NATO School in Oberammergau, Germany. Joint Command Lisbon, the Alliance headquarters tasked to supervise military cooperation with the African Union, has trained African officers to run military exercises, and "NATO has also participated and supported various ASF preparatory workshops designed to develop ASF-related concepts." [9]

The same year Norwegian Colonel Brynjar Nymo - Norway's embassy in Ethiopia is the informal liaison office for NATO's relations with the AU - said that "cooperation between NATO and AU is currently focusing on technical support for the African Standby Force (ASF)."

The Norwegian embassy's website at the time stated that "The Africa Monitoring & Support Team at the NATO Headquarters in Portugal is the operational headquarters for NATO's work in Africa," as indicated above. [10]

Then-NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General Maurits Jochems visited AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, where NATO has a senior military liaison officer and other officials assigned, later in 2009.

"In his capacity as NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary-General, Ambassador Jochems has frequently visited Addis Ababa for discussions with the African Union....NATO is providing technical advice, and making available subject matter experts, experiences from international operations, and access to relevant training facilities to the AUC [African Union Commission] in the context of the African Standby Force." [11]

This January 26 and 27 NATO's Military Committee held two days of meetings in Brussels with the chiefs of defense - the U.S.'s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and his equivalents - and other military representatives of 66 nations, a third of the members of the United Nations.

The proceedings discussed ongoing NATO operations in Afghanistan - currently the world's largest and longest war, with an estimated 140,000 troops from some 50 nations serving under the Alliance's International Security Assistance Force - the Balkans (Kosovo Force), the entire Mediterranean Sea (Operation Active Endeavor), and the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Aden and down the eastern coast of Africa (Operation Ocean Shield).

During the Military Committee and related meetings a session of the Mediterranean Dialogue was held with military leaders from the seven members of that NATO partnership: Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and Mauritania. The session occurred as the government of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had recently been toppled and the demonstrations in Egypt that would bring the same denouement to President Hosni Mubarak were getting underway.

On February 9 Serbia's Beta News Agency reported Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac announcing that a NATO strategic conference entitled After Lisbon: Implementation of Transformation will be held in his nation's capital of Belgrade in June with representatives from 69 countries attending: All 28 NATO member states, 22 Partnership for Peace nations [12] in Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and 19 other states. [13]

In addition to the Mediterranean Dialogue, NATO's Istanbul Cooperation Initiative program is developing military cooperation with the Persian Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with Oman and Saudi Arabia to be brought on board next. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was in Qatar from February 15-16 for the two-day Deepening the NATO-Istanbul Cooperation Initiative conference with the permanent representatives (ambassadors) of the bloc's 28 members and senior military and government officials from the six Gulf Cooperation Council states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The first and last of them have troops serving under NATO in Afghanistan.

NATO also has a partnership category called Contact Countries. Subject to expansion, the four such nations are all in the Asia-Pacific region: Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The U.S.-led military bloc also maintains the Afghanistan-Pakistan-International Security Assistance Force Tripartite Commission to coordinate war efforts on both sides of the Khyber Pass and has troops and other military personnel assigned to its command in Afghanistan from nations that are not currently among the 70 NATO member and official partnership states: Colombia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore and Tonga.

The NATO-Russia Council was revived at the bloc's Lisbon summit in November and NATO's Kosovo Force (KFOR) is training and equipping the fledgling armed forces of Kosovo, the Kosovo Security Force. [14] NATO, then, has no fewer than 75 members and partners with nations like previously neutral Cyprus slated to follow. [15]

The African Union has 53 members and will soon have another after the successful independence referendum in Southern Sudan. The AU includes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara), conquered by Morocco in 1975 and not recognized by any NATO state, but not Morocco, which withdrew from the AU because of the latter's recognition and incorporation of Western Sahara.

Four members of the AU, along with Morocco, are already part of a NATO partnership program, the Mediterranean Dialogue - Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania and Tunisia - so a NATO military cooperation treaty with the African Union could gain the Atlantic Alliance 50 new partners.

That is, the world's only military bloc can further expand from one that grew from 16 to 28 members in a decade - 1999-2009 - into one that will become truly international in scope with nearly 100 military partners. Partners and members on every inhabited continent. Two-thirds of the nations in the world.

Militarization Of Energy Policy: U.S. Africa Command And Gulf Of Guinea
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/militarization-of-energy-policy-u-s-africa-command-and-gulf-of-guinea

Pentagon And NATO Apply Afghanistan-Pakistan War Model To Africa
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/pentagon-and-nato-apply-afghanistan-pakistan-war-model-to-africa

New Colonialism: Pentagon Carves Africa Into Military Zones
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/new-colonialism-pentagon-carves-africa-into-military-zones

Japanese Military Joins U.S. And NATO In Horn Of Africa
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/japanese-military-joins-u-s-and-nato-in-horn-of-africa

NATO: AFRICOM's Partner In Military Penetration Of Africa
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/nato-africoms-partner-in-military-penetration-of-africa

AFRICOM's First War: U.S. Directs Large-Scale Offensive In Somalia
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/africoms-first-war-u-s-directs-large-scale-offensive-in-somalia

AFRICOM Year Two: Seizing The Helm Of The Entire World
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/africom-year-two-taking-the-helm-of-the-entire-world

1) Argaw Ashine, Nato to sign security cooperation pact with AU
Africa Review, February 18, 2011 http://www.africareview.com/News/Nato+to+sign+security+cooperation+pact+with+AU/-/979180/1110238/-/4igp64/-/

2) Ivory Coast: Testing Ground For U.S.-Backed African Standby Force
Stop NATO, January 23, 2011
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/ivory-coast-testing-ground-for-u-s-backed-african-standby-force

3) Africa Review, February 18, 2011
4) Uganda: U.S., NATO Allies Prepare New Invasion Of Somalia
Stop NATO, July 28, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/uganda-u-s-nato-allies-prepare-new-invasion-of-somalia

5) Africa Review, February 18, 2011
6) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_61534.htm

7) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_54617.htm

8) Ghana News Agency, November 21, 2008
9) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_54617.htm

10) Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ethiopia, April 20, 2009
11) Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ethiopia, November 4, 2009
12) Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia, Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Russia in sometimes included.
13) NATO conference in Belgrade announced
Beta News Agency, February 9, 2011
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2011&mm=02&dd=09&nav_id=72629

14) KFOR's Final Firefighting Exercise for Kosovo Security Force
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Operations
February 17, 2011
http://www.aco.nato.int/page424203219.aspx

15) Push for NATO programme deemed unconstitutional
Cyprus Mail, February 19, 2011
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/push-nato-programme-deemed-unconstitutional/20110219

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1102/S00668/global-nato-seeks-to-recruit-50-new-military-partners.htm

February 18, 2011

Serbia: the shame of the West

Postcard — By Royston Jones on February 15, 2011 7:00 am

A proud people of an unjustly vilified nation

TODAY, Serbs around the world are remembering the Serbian National Revolution; a somewhat protracted affair generally agreed to have started in 1804 and concluded by 1835. So radical was this arrangement – a constitutional monarchy, abolition of feudalism – that Serbia's autocratic neighbours insisted the constitution be watered down lest these dangerous ideas spread.

This fear and loathing was not to be an isolated incident. In fact, few nations in recent decades have been so universally vilified. Why that should be so can only be understood by glimpsing into Serbia's history and looking at the events that have shaped modern Serbian attitudes, about themselves, their neighbours, and the wider world.

In the mid 14^th Century the Serbs had an empire, ruled by Stefan Uroš IV Dušan, but the empire did not outlast the man, with the nation suffering two catastrophic defeats to the Ottoman Turks at Maritsa (1371) and Kosovo Polje (1389). The latter battle is of course more poetically known as "The Field of Black Birds", a seminal event in their history that Serbs regard as both the birth of the modern nation and the door on an era of oppression and suffering.

During those dark centuries the fragmented territories of the Serbs knew, at varying times, partial independence, suzerain status or direct Turkish rule, but the people always remained focused on unification and independence. As unforgiving opponents of the Sublime Porte, Serbs often allied themselves with the Kingdom of Hungary and other Christian powers. Serbian tenacity and willingness to fight became legendary, resulting in Serbs being recruited by neighbouring countries as soldiers, even being settled with their families in troubled border regions.

Following the revolution the remainder of the nineteenth century was relatively stable, apart from a few minor conflicts. Finally, at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Serbia was recognised by the Great Powers as an independent state, and became a kingdom under Milan (Obrenovic) I in 1882. Although Serbia was now fully independent there remained outside the Kingdom many areas inhabited by Serbs. The inevitable irredentism that resulted led to strained relations with neighbouring states.

Then came Sarajevo. Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, and member of the Young Bosnia organisation, set out with a few comrades to assassinate the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand. The attempt failed and Princip was returning to his lodgings when to his surprise he saw the royal car again – it had taken a wrong turn. Now there would be no mistake. The event that sparked the First World War happened by pure chance.

In that European tragedy Serbia suffered 450,000 dead, or 16.11% of her total population, more than any other combatant nation. By comparison, France lost 4.29%, Germany 3.82% and the UK 2.19%. Such were the losses that the Serbs often had to withdraw – even to Greece and Corfu – to recruit and regroup. But they always came back fighting. It's easy to say, 'Well, they started it!'. But Princip's group included Bosnian Muslims and Croats. This unity didn't suit the agenda of the Austrians or their ally, Germany; for them it was simple: Princip was a Serb and so the plot, via the Black Hand organisation, was traced back to Belgrade.

As one of the victors, Serbia was rewarded with a new country, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, ruled by Alexander I, of the old Karadordevic dynasty. A superstitious man, Alexander. As a result of three members of his family dying on a Tuesday he was reluctant to undertake official duties on that day, but on October 9, 1934 he had no choice. While being driven through the streets of Marseilles on a state visit to France he was assassinated by a Bulgarian member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO). According to many who have researched this (the first filmed assassination) IMRO was in league with the Ustaše, the Croatian fascist organisation, and both were secretly sponsored by Mussolini.

The Second World War was a time of yet more blood-letting. While a small number of Serbs collaborated the vast majority reacted as Serbs always have when threatened or invaded. They fought. The courage and doggedness of Tito's (mainly Serbian) Partisans and the royalist (and totally Serbian) Chetniks led by Draža Mihailovic is well documented. The vast numbers of German troops they tied down for years undoubtedly helped the Soviets achieve victory on the Eastern Front. Yet, as ever, there was a price to be paid.

The Ustaše was well rewarded after the German invasion, ruling the Nazi puppet-state of Croatia (including Bosnia), with Croats providing recruits for a Croatian SS division. The Kosovo Albanians had their SS division and ethnically cleansed Serbs from Kosovo. Many Bosnian muslims also sided with the Nazis. Bizarrely, Himmler showed quite a liking for Islam, regarding it, with its promise of paradise and maidens, as a good religion for a warrior. Surrounded by enemies the life of a Serb became very difficult.

The names of Auschwitz, Belsen and other Second World War extermination camps are familiar to us all, but few know the name Jasenovac. This camp, run by the Ustaše, did the Nazi's bidding in exterminating Jews and Roma, but saved most places for Serbs. Overall, some 390,000 ethnic Serb residents of Croatia and Bosnia died at the hands of the Ustaše, though not all at Jasenovac, and in total well over half a million Serbs died.

The post-war history of Yugoslavia should be familiar to most readers. Under President Tito Yugoslavia achieved a certain amount of prosperity, and became a beacon for non-aligned countries during the Cold War. Yet in seeking to overcome the internal tensions of his country Tito came to be seen by many Serbs as favouring other nationalities above them, working for a "weak Serbia, for a strong Yugoslavia". When he died in 1980 the stage was set for the next act in the Balkans tragedy. The only surprise was that it took so long for the curtain to rise.

There isn't the space to deal with everything that happened between 1991 and 1999. The Western – in other words, the US – interpretation of this period runs as follows: Tired of Serbian oppression the other nations of Yugoslavia decided upon independence, but then found themselves subject to all manner of horrors inflicted, either by the regular Yugoslav army, police, or Serb irregulars. The Western media followed this line unquestioningly.

Here's a different interpretation, for which we need to examine the general (and all too often unsubstantiated) claims of Serbian "brutality" in response to the break-up of their "empire". The northernmost territory, Slovenia, and the southernmost, Macedonia, split with hardly any bloodshed. (In fact, the worst trouble in Macedonia came, post-independence, from secessionist Albanians.) The fighting was concentrated in Croatia, Bosnia and, finally, Kosovo – an Autonomous Province of Serbia. Why should Serbia, and Serbs generally, respond differently in different areas? Because Slovenia and Macedonia contained few ethnic Serbs. Whereas the other three areas contained large numbers of ethnic Serbs for whom anyone with a knowledge of recent Balkan history should have been very concerned.

Croatia was home well over half a million ethnic Serbs, mainly in the Krajina region. Had you been a Krajina Serb in the country that had once been ruled by the Ustaše, and was now led by nationalist demagogue, Franjo Tudman, would you have felt safe? Wouldn't you have sought help from fellow Serbs? When the 300,000 or more surviving Krajina Serbs were expelled in 1995, their homes burnt and the old people they had to leave behind killed, Western politicians and media referred to it as "an exodus" . . . for only Serbs can be guilty of ethnic cleansing.

As late as 1998 the US State Department had the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) listed as a terrorist organisation. The very same bunch of drug-traffickers and gun-runners whose leader Hashim Thaçi was then being lionised by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, with his gang promoted as freedom fighters, posing in front of the cameras and promising to go fight the Serbs. (Posing was what the KLA was best at, it did very little fighting.) And as we all know now, the KLA also ran a lucrative organ harvesting business from Serb civilians they kidnapped and butchered.

Why so many lies? Put quite simply, the West (again, mainly the US) had an agenda based on geopolitical considerations. The Soviet Union was breaking apart. The Cold War was over and Eastern Europe was in turmoil, with every Ivan and Istvan wanting to be a capitalist and to drive a Merc. The one remaining obstacle to the eastward advance of Western ideas (and goods) was perceived to be Yugoslavia led by Serbia, which despite the strained relationship under Tito, was now rediscovering older ties with its Orthodox cousins in Russia. Ergo Yugoslavia had to be dismembered and Serbia itself weakened.

This strategy became linked with the Gulf War. On February 23, 1991 a US-led force began the ground attack to "liberate" Kuwait. As we know, this was, militarily, successful, but there were unforeseen complications. Not least among those complications was the presence, post-conflict, of US military bases in Saudi Arabia. "Crusaders" so close to Mecca outraged many muslims, not least, Osama bin Laden. It was this US military presence in his homeland that turned Osama bin Laden against the West. In a desperate attempt to placate the Islamic world the USA wanted to be seen defending muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.

You may see this as an apologia for the Serbs. So be it. But it is not the work of a denier. In the various conflicts of the 1990s many crimes were committed by Serbs, none worse than the massacre at Srebrenica. But why did the politicians and the media take me, and you, for idiots in telling us that the other parties were all innocent victims? Doesn't it worry you that in a democratic society we were lied to over such a lengthy period? Those lies are slowly unravelling, but time is passing and the belated truth will never have the same impact as the nightly television reports we all saw, with their strident and insistent message: 'the Serbs are guilty'.

Yet if we are considering war crimes . . . It was significant that rather than put in ground troops to link up with the heroes of the KLA the USA chose to bomb Serb civilians in order to bring their government to the surrender table. In killing Serbian civilians and bombing Belgrade the USA committed war crimes. But of course the USA won, so no one will indict Uncle Sam, even though his war crimes were filmed and otherwise better documented than any of the 'atrocities' alleged to have been committed by the Serbs.

Given that on more than one occasion they have come close to total annihilation as a people, we should not be surprised that when threatened Serbs fight back with everything they've got. But their struggles have invariably been defensive. Whether fighting medieval Turks or 20th Century Germans the Serbs have fought in defence of their land and their people. It was the same in the 1990s when Yugoslavia was broken apart.

Why the West – yes, again the USA – chose to misrepresent the situation has been explained. The dismemberment of Yugoslavia, the support for Croat neo-fascists, Albanian gangsters, and possibly even foreign mujahideen who came to kill Serbs, is one of the most dishonourable chapters in recent Western history.

About the author

Royston Jones

Born in Swansea, Royston Jones oined Plaid Cymru in the mid '60s but was also familiar with those of a more militant bent. Active in the anti-Investiture campaign and convicted for attempted decapitation (of Aberystwyth statue),he spent two years in Coleg Harlech before returning to Swansea, getting married, and standing for Plaid in local elections. After moving to wife's home village in Meirionnydd in 1980 he became aware of the full horrors of cultural nationalism and gave up entirely on Plaid Cymru as it turned Green and moved irrevocably Left. A founder member of Y Cyfamodwr (the Covenanters), and later the Independent Wales Party he was also – with Basil Thomas – the co-editor of Ein Gwlad. Royston Has now reached the stage – grandfather, wine drinker and cardigan-wearer – where he believes that until Wales has a right-of-centre party committed to the nation, the free market system, and full independence, we shall drift along with self-serving and uninspiring mediocrities 'leading' a nation fast losing the will to live. Favoured word for current mood of despair: anomie.

http://waleshome.org/2011/02/serbia-the-shame-of-the-west/

Kosovo: Thug Life

Thug Life

Think Mubarak was bad? Kosovo's leaders are accused of being organ-smuggling, drug-dealing goons -- and the United States is looking the other way.

BY WHIT MASON AND BRONWYN HEALY-AARONS | FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Amid fireworks and celebratory gunfire, Kosovo -- Europe's newest country -- turned three years old on Thursday, Feb. 17. But behind the scenes of revelry in the capital, Pristina, it's clear that it will take a lot more than flag-waving for the fledgling country to grow out of its terrible twos. For all the hope that was once showered upon this young democracy, it still faces an enormous uphill battle: the country has no international postal or telephone code; it cannot establish its own IP address; its athletes cannot partake in many international sporting events; thousands of NATO troops still remain as peacekeepers; and Kosovars can only travel visa-free to five countries -- one of which is Haiti. With only 75 out of 192 nations having recognized the new state, it remains in a purgatory of semi-sovereignty.

Meanwhile, it's been a big start to the year for new states and new orders. The regimes in Tunisia and Egypt have fallen. Southern Sudan claimed its independence with a near unanimous result. A wave of reform protests continues across the Middle East. After a bit of diplomatic wavering, the United States reaffirmed its commitment to self-determination and human rights, promising to support "principles, processes and institutions -- not personalities" in its engagement with the new governments taking root in North Africa.

Trouble is, a sobering assessment of the successes and failures of state-building since the end of the Cold War demonstrates that governance and development work best when a population rallies behind an enlightened leader -- and suffer when one does not emerge. Principles of democracy and human rights have to abide in a leadership and must be bought into by a population.

And here's the rub: While the United States grappled with its inability (whether for lack of a fulcrum or fear of meddling) to use leverage to remove the regimes in Tunis and Cairo, it actually does have the power to affect change and promote transparent and accountable governance in Pristina -- where a coterie of thuggish leaders, holdovers from a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) unit accused of war crimes and weapons dealing, now run the country. But, thus far, Washington has been unwilling to exert the necessary pressure on Kosovo's leaders -- and in its impotence pours billions of dollars down the drain and risks condemning the state to thugocracy.

While much has been made of America's financial support of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's regime and other autocratic dictatorships in recent weeks, Kosovo's democracy has received far more direct American aid in recent years -- in 2010, Kosovo received more than twice the American bilateral foreign assistance per capita than Egypt. Yet, after more than a decade of immense international investment and the best-resourced humanitarian mission the world has ever seen, Kosovo enters its fourth year of independence amid its own internal turmoil.

Yesterday, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic requested that the United Nations Security Council investigate allegations of organ trafficking and other serious war crimes submitted to the Council of Europe by Swiss Euro MP and former prosecutor Dick Marty in December of last year. The human rights atrocities were allegedly carried out against ethnic Serbs and Albanians accused of collaborating with Serb forces during the 1998-1999 conflict in the former Serbian province. Those accused of carrying out the acts include senior members of Kosovo's central government.

As it turns out, U.S. support for the world's youngest democracy has been almost as bad for economic security, political stability and democratic principles as backing the globe's oldest autocracies. Kosovo remains the poorest country in Europe. Just under half the population is jobless and living in poverty, 14 percent in extreme poverty. The women of Kosovo produce Europe's highest birth rate while facing its worst maternal and infant mortality rates. Only one in five youth under the age of 25 are employed. Access to health care and education outside the major cities is limited. Electricity supply remains patchy across the country -- despite donor funding in excess of €1.1 billion.

Of course, human and economic development in war-torn societies can be a slow and arduous process. The world should not expect its investment to instantly bear fruit. But support for Kosovo has been premised on developing a politically stable, democratic country.

In actuality, it has entrenched deep political divisions in an already fragmented government and ensconced an elite that now operates above the law. Having failed to improve Kosovo's moribund economy and human development indicators, the former-KLA power brokers of the central government have somehow managed to accrue personal wealth vastly out of proportion with their declared activities. Their development and state-building policy has largely consisted of maintaining its own power over institutions of state, security, and law and order.

Until last year, keeping Kosovo stable -- or at least appearing so -- had been prioritized by the international community over pursuing clear evidence of increasing corruption among senior government officials. But, as the international money poured in throughout 2010, the veneer cracked. A wave of organized crime, war crime, and corruption allegations swept the senior membership of the Kosovo government and the leaderships of its major political parties.

On April 28, 2010, international police raided the offices and home of Transport and Telecommunications Minister Fatmir Limaj in connection with a corruption probe into a €700 million infrastructure project. Suspected of soliciting bribes and laundering up to €2 million from the public purse, the raid on Limaj was the result of a two-year investigation that started shortly after he took office in January 2008. At that point, he had only just returned in September 2007 from his second trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ICTY -- indicted but never convicted of illegal imprisonment, cruel treatment, and inhumane acts during the war with Serbian forces in 1998-1999.

At the time of Limaj's arrest, the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) announced he was only one of seven ministers being investigated for links to organized crime and corruption in office.

Two months after the raid on Limaj, on July 21, 2010 popular former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj was indicted for a second time by the ICTY to stand trial for war crimes including torture, rape, and crimes against humanity. His application for provisional release was denied and he currently awaits trial in remand at the United Nations Detention Unit in The Hague. On Jan. 31, it was announced that the opposition party he leads from his cell, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, placed fourth in the general election -- taking a substantial 11 percent of the vote.

Two days after Haradinaj's arrest, Kosovo police arrested central bank governor Hashim Rexhepi on charges of corruption, tax evasion, and money laundering.

But it was the leaking of a Council of Europe (CoE) report just days after Kosovo's first post-independence election on December 2010 that really put this criminality and corruption out in the open. On Dec. 12, human rights rapporteur Dick Marty submitted a report to the CoE containing serious accusations against the local leadership and international missions currently presiding over Kosovo.

The report alleged that the ICTY, United Nations, NATO, and individual Western governments had failed to thoroughly investigate serious war crimes committed by the members of a KLA unit known as the Drenica Group during the 1998-1999 conflict with Serbia. According to Marty's report, the unit had violently seized and operated the lucrative trading routes across the Prokletije mountain range on the Kosovo-Albania border. He alleges the group amassed considerable fortunes supplying weaponry to local forces -- and trafficked in human beings, heroin, and organs taken from Serb and Albanian prisoners of war.

Marty's report identified the leader of Drenica Group as a man called "The Snake" -- a.k.a. Hashim Thaqi, who two days earlier had been named prime minister re-elect of the Republic of Kosovo. He has officially taken office in time for Kosovo's third Independence Day celebrations.

All of the condemned leadership have been quick to accuse the international community of "political lynching," interfering with domestic affairs of state, and inappropriate investigations into an independent government. Hardly.

In fact, the most disturbing aspect of these events were the revelations that Kosovo's thugocrats owe their rise and continued impunity to the toleration or outright support of the international community -- particularly the United States.

From the outset of the NATO intervention into Kosovo in June 1999, it was an American-devised strategy that drove allied forces to combat Serb atrocities through a 78-day aerial bombardment. Explicitly eschewing a land assault meant control on the ground fell to KLA forces -- with dire consequences for the safety of their Albanian opponents and the ethnic minorities of Kosovo. The summer of 1999 saw violent retaliatory attacks claim the lives of some 50 Serb and Roma civilians a week before the international forces regained control.

This strategy also set the terms for a co-dependent relationship between the West and the former KLA leadership to maintain a stability that took far too long to establish in the aftermath of the 1999 intervention. During the time it took for NATO and the U.N. to deploy in the wake of the bombing, the presence and actions of the KLA generated a perception among the local community that they were supported by the American and international forces.

American officials later did little to change that perception: It was their lobbying and support that gave the KLA the legitimacy they needed to transition from armed gang to political powerbrokers.

In 1999, the U.S. endorsement of Thaqi as hero was sealed with a kiss planted on his cheek by then Secretary of State Madeline Albright on her post-intervention visit to Kosovo. In 2004, every American staffer at the U.S. Embassy was invited to attend Haradinaj's wedding -- and, despite his links to organized crime and impending indictment on war crimes, they went. Most recently, the night after the raid on Limaj's home and offices, U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo Christopher Dell was seen laughing and chatting with the minister at a well-attended party in Pristina.

It is difficult to see how democracy or respect the rule of law could develop and flourish amid such overt displays of American support for a corrupt and criminal leadership. As in Egypt and across the Middle East, this policy of impunity comes at significant cost to the objectives and perceptions of the United States and its Western allies. This backing for Kosovo government officials has undercut efforts to pursue indictments for war crimes and investigate high-level corruption. The war crimes taking place throughout the 1998-1999 conflict and in the immediate aftermath have never been fully investigated -- in fact, in some cases they have been covered up.

International judicial experts complain that the United Nations internal war crimes process "has always been very political," and that some "UNMIK cases were sent to [U.N. Headquarters in] New York rather than decided on the merits of the case." They allege international political interference stopped some cases from going before a court because "the political ramifications would have been too great." And only days before the independence celebrations, their accusations were given considerable weight with the leaking of classified U.N. documents that show UNMIK ran an incomplete investigation into the organ trafficking case brought to light by Marty in late 2010. The documents date from 2003 -- when UNMIK was in full control of the internal war crimes investigations and prosecutions.

So, that Kosovo holds elections should be small consolation to those in U.S. foreign policy who advocate championing principles over personalities. Democracy has not stopped the West from supporting and installing its preferred leaders in countries of geopolitical strategic importance -- local strongmen who hold the tumultuous societies of war-torn countries together with an iron fist rather than a rule of law.

As the United States and its allies contemplate how to support the latest wave of democratization, it must recognize that this reflex -- as evidenced by its policy in Kosovo up to today -- remains oriented toward backing power over virtue. As Condoleezza Rice noted in an abortively transformational speech in 2005, support for autocrats in the Middle East achieves neither democracy nor stability. It is an easy out for the United States to claim that it must not support personalities, and rather let people independently decide their own leaderships. However, it is also a convenient way to avoid accountability while preaching the principles of democracy from afar, laying the blame when things go south on societies still recovering from civil war.

The first principle in aiding the construction of new democracies must be to support conditions that prevent anyone from operating above the law. Even in a place like Kosovo, where Western influence might seem overwhelming, allowing space for impunity vitiates virtually everything else accomplished by even the most extravagant intervention.

Armend Nimani/AFP/Getty Images
Corrections: Spelling of Rice's first name and year of her speech.

Whit Mason worked for the United Nations in Kosovo and Afghanistan. He is the co-author of Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo and editor of The Rule of Law in Afghanistan: Missing in Inaction, to be published in February. Bronwyn Healy-Aarons recently spent six months in Kosovo and is completing a PhD in post-conflict peace-building at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/17/thug_life?page=0,0

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