NATO issues Kosovo shoot to kill warning

NATO issues Kosovo shoot to kill warning

permalink email story to a friend print version

Published: 30 September, 2011, 14:50

Kosovo Force KFOR soldiers guard the border crossing Jarinje between Serbia and northern Kosovo (AFP Photo / Dimitar Dilkoff)

(17.0Mb) embed video

 

NATO's force in Kosovo has said it will shoot to kill anyone who crosses a barricaded area near the disputed checkpoint on Serbia's border with Kosovo, reports RT's Aleksey Yaroshevsky.

On releasing this message, the allied pro-Kosovo forces brought in bulldozers and demolished the barricade built by ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo at the border with Serbia. 

But Serbs at the remaining barricades will not leave their positions.

"We have lost a battle, but not the whole war," they told RT.

The Serbs added that many of them felt compelled to erect barricades in Kosovo by fears that Belgrade might abandon them in pursuit for EU membership.

Earlier in the morning over 100 KFOR troops arrived at the scene and forced the Serbs to leave the intact at the time barricade, threatening the use of lethal force. KFOR said they would shoot anyone who fails to comply with the demand. They also ordered journalists to leave the immediate area. 

The situation is tense but not violent with Serbs pulling back and grouping at a nearby bridge. The barricade secured by NATO troops is just one of about half a dozen constructed by Serbs, so the stand-off is continuing and an escalation of tension remains a possibility. Alexey Yaroshevsky reports that he saw a group of Serbs tearing down a road sign posted by KFOR, indicating that their fighting spirit is far from lost.

The conflict zone in Kosovska Mitrovica is split between the Albanians and the Serbs, and as RT's crew witnessed last night, the latter are currently reinforcing their barricades with fresh piles of sandbags being placed across roads to block access to KFOR forces and the Kosovo police.

NATO helicopters are also bringing additional troops to the conflict zone, and are reported to be flying over the border crossings approximately every 30 minutes.

This is the closest barricaded area to the border posed between Kosovo and Serbia. The crossing, formerly controlled by Serbia, was seized by Kosovo police backed by the alliance two weeks ago.

Friday's developments come two days after clashes took place between the Serbs in northern Kosovo and the NATO-led troops, when the latter reportedly fired on Serb protesters in the Kosovska Mitrovica region, allegedly responding to an attack by the crowd.

Some 11 men injured on Tuesday in those clashes are still being treated for their wounds in hospital. Despite KFOR and NATO's claims that they used only rubber bullets and tear gas grenades to pacify the crowds, most of the injured have gunshot wounds. Doctors tending to the injured have confirmed to RT that they have undergone surgery to remove bullets from their bodies.

Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, has criticized NATO for a crude breach of the UN resolution on Kosovo, saying the alliance has failed to remain neutral.

"In this situation, NATO has definitely taken Pristina's side," Rogozin told Russia's TV channel Rossiya 24.

Russia's Foreign Ministry has also expressed deep concern over news suggesting an emergency carriage taking the injured to hospital was fired on by Kosovo forces during Tuesday clashes at the disputed checkpoint.

On Wednesday, members of the United Nations Security Council gathered for emergency consultations in New York to discuss the situation in southern Serbia, but failed to reach a common stance on the conflict in the turbulent region.

On Thursday, Kosovo's Interior Minister Bajram Rexhepi said that roadblocks put up by local Serbs will be removed, pledging, though, that ethnic Albanian-dominated authorities will make no unilateral moves, AP reports. The removal of barriers is "inevitable" as they prevent "freedom of movement for people and goods,'' the minister said, adding that any action would be coordinated with the NATO-led KFOR forces and the European Union mission.

http://rt.com/news/kosovo-kfor-clash-serbs-771/

Trifkovic on Kosovo: RT TV Sept 28

 

'KFOR troops exceeded their mandate in Kosovo'

http://rt.com/news/resolution-1254-kosovo-border-kfor-627/

permalink email story to a friend print version

Published: 28 September, 2011, 23:32

 

(34.9Mb) embed video

The impartiality of KFOR troops in Kosovo is highly questionable, but the current clashes there won't escalate into a full-scale conflict as Belgrade fails to follow Serbian national interests, believes foreign affairs author Srdja Trifkovic.

­The recent developments near Kosovo border, with extra NATO peacekeepers moving in to help bring calm, but provoking armed clashes instead bring Trifkovic – a foreign affairs editor in US 'Chronicles' magazine – to question their neutrality.

"It is rather ironic that we use the term 'peacekeepers', because is implies someone who is impartial, who is there to lower the tension, perhaps to prevent violence. Let us imagine – for argument's sake – that Bashar Assad has sent his security forces against a group of Syrian demonstrators, and those troops were met with stones; they fired live ammunition back, and then claimed they did it in self-defense. I think that already we can hear the laughter of Western politicians and media. And yet they would have us believe that they were acting in self-defence, when firing rubber bullets and live ammunition at rock-throwing Serbs," Trifkovic told RT.

"But what were they doing there in the first place? The notion that they were helping [Kosovo Prime-minister Hasim] Thaçi to impose his control on the border between Kosovo and Serbia, which should be properly called administrative dividing line, means they have exceeded their mandate and were no longer acting according to the resolution 1244, which is just about the only legal basis of their presence."

He went on to recall the events of 2004, when Albanians rampaged through some regions of Kosovo destroying whole Serb districts and Christian monuments.

"The same KFOR contingent remained remarkably restrained, not even thinking of firing at the Albanian mob, which went on a rampage torching thousands of Serbian homes and destroying dozens of Serbian churches including the 14th century cathedral in Prizren, which the Germans were supposed to be guarding. Instead they were diligently videotaping the proceedings, but didn't move a finger to stop them".

Trifkovic didn't rule out NATO's digging deeper in the region: "It will be argued from the NATO side that they have to preserve their credibility of actually finishing their job that remains unfinished," he predicted.

But the most unfortunate in Trifkovic 's eyes is that the Kosovo Serbs' barricades have turned themselves in; he believes that without supplies from central Serbia they cannot withstand the pressure for much longer.

Thus, he doesn't expect this local conflict to expand farther:

"The Belgrade government will cave in, as they have done time and over again. Because the Tadic regime is running with the hares and hunting with the hounds at the same time. On one hand they claim they want to preserve Serbia's claim to Kosovo, on the other whenever pressured by the West they cave in and capitulate. They are effectively unable and unwilling to protect Serbian national interests".

Serbia Betrayed - Transcript of Srdja Trifkovic’s interview to CKCU 93.1FM (Ottawa)

 

 

Serbia Betrayed

Transcript of Srdja Trifkovic's interview to CKCU 93.1FM (Ottawa)

 

Talking to CKCU's Monday's Encounteron September 26, Dr. Srdja Trifkovic considers the extraordinary readiness of the government in Belgrade to compromise Serbia's national and state interests in order to demonstrate its subservience to the "international community."

 

A recent batch of Wikileaks cables from the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade drastically illustrates the extent of institutionalized political corruption in Belgrade. Except for two opposition groups – the Democratic Party of Serbia of Vojislav Kostunica and the Serbian Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj – every Serbian political party and almost every politician of note are revealed as seeking favors from the American Embassy. In return they provide privileged information, offered surreptitiously, in the form of confidential, off-the-record briefings. At times such behavior amounted to high treason, notably when classified contingency plans concerning Belgrade's intended reaction to Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence were disclosed in advance of the event itself. Some of these high-ranking officials – including advisors to the President of Serbia, Boris Tadic – have acted, literally, as unpaid agents of the U.S. intelligence.

 

Trifkovic says that the response of the government of Boris Tadic to the latest crisis in Kosovo defies rational analysis, but is not surprising in the light of Wikileaks revelations:

 

Three weeks ago the government of Serbia signed the so-called Customs Stamp Agreement and thus accepted in principle that the self-proclaimed authorities in Pristina have the authority to collect taxes and duties on goods entering Kosovo from Serbia-proper. This was a major act of surrender: for the first time Belgrade confirmed in a binding legal form that the Albanian authorities have the attributes of sovereign statehood and are accordingly authorized to take over the customs posts between Serbia and its separated southern province. In practice Belgrade has recognized Kosovo's independence, the government's feeble claims to the contrary notwithstanding. The tangible result on the ground came swiftly and predictably: the international authorities in Kosovo brought Albanian customs officers to the border crossings and thus separated the majority-Serb northern Kosovo from the rest of Serbia.

 

The Serbs in this northern triangle, in Northern Mitrovica, Leposavic, Zubin Potok, Zvecan, are resisting this fait accompli because they see it as a key step in the process that would lead to their eventual expulsion, just as most Serbs south of the Ibar River have been expelled. They have put up barricades to prevent traffic from the border crossings reaching the rest of the Province. By doing so, however, they have hemmed themselves in. The supplies from Serbia are essential to their survival, but those supplies are not getting through. They are running short of fuel, food and other essential ingredients of everyday life. There have been clashes with KFOR at one of the crossings, but on the whole the international powers-that-be are letting the Serbs go on with the blockade knowing that in the fullness of time they will have to come to terms, especially since they have no support from Belgrade. If they did have support from Belgrade it would be possible to improvise alternative crossings on local roads that are not under the control of either KFOR or the Albanian authorities. Without Belgrade's wholehearted support this is not a viable option.

 

Asked about the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) and the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR), Trifkovic says that both bodieshave been actively aiding and abetting the Albanian authorities' bid for full control over the Province:

 

EULEX is a mission with an entirely self-generated mandate. Incongruously, it is a "rule of law" mission which has no legal basis whatsoever. Its existence is not provided for by the UNSC Resolution 1244. The only reason it exists is that the EU wanted to invent a role for itself, to marginalize the UN, and bypass the Security Council in applying the Ahtisaari Plan. This role – as could have been predicted with mathematical certainty – proved detrimental to the interests of the Serbs. Nevertheless, the "pro-Western" Serbian coalition government formed after the election of 11 May 2008 accepted EULEX in December of that same year. Moscow was not happy to see this new body entrenched in Kosovo, but Belgrade asked it not to interfere.

 

As for the nominal UN force, KFOR, it is exclusively a NATO operation. It is unfortunate that it no longer includes a Russian contingent. All of the key KFOR components are provided by NATO powers, which act under the political guidelines from Brussels and from their national governments. They actively support the Albanian authorities and invariably act in a manner detrimental to Serb interests. The remaining Serbs in Kosovo are subsequently squeezed between the Internationals' hammer and the Albanian anvil, with the government in Belgrade slinking to the sidelines and selling them down the river.

 

Asked about the notable lack of public support for the Kosovo Serbs by the institutions in Serbia, Trifkovic gave a gloomy assessment:

 

What institutions? The Royal House has faded from public view and many Serbs no longer see it as a relevant factor. Once enormously influential, the Academy of Sciences and Arts is in a state of suspended hibernation – it is clinically dead, even though the doctor has not made the pronouncement as yet. The Army of Serbia exists by now merely as an operatic guard of honor, to provide the airport decorum for President Tadic's toing and froing. It is no longer capable of even contemplating its primary mission, armed defense of the homeland against aggression, let alone executing it.

 

As for the Serbian Orthodox Church, it cannot do much under the circumstances. Unless the Church acts in accord with the secular authority – and the government of Serbia is evidently in the hands of people who are compromising its state and national interests – the Church is unable to exert great influence by virtue of its moral authority alone. The Orthodox concept of the role of the Church in a society is that it should act in symphony, the Byzantine term for harmony, with the secular authorities. When there is the State on one hand and the Church on the other pursuing the same set of objectives – the material and spiritual welfare, security and prosperity of a nation – then the role of the Church can be articulated in the right manner. When the two centers of gravity diverge, the Church either has to adjust to the course of events dictated by the secular authorities – as it is somewhat reluctantly doing now – or else it can try to deviate from that course, defy the authorities, and risk being marginalized the way the former Bishop of Kosovo, Artemije, has been pushed to the margins over the past year.

 

At the moment there is no future for the Serbs in Kosovo. What can bring different dynamics into the equation is an overall change in the global distribution of power, above all the ongoing gradual decline of the influence of the United States. We are looking at a race between the decline of Serbia locally and the decline of the U.S. globally. I suspect that Serbia may collapse well before the decline of the American global influence makes it possible for the Serbs to contemplate different outcomes and develop new strategic designs for the recovery of what has been lost over the past two decades.

 

From the American Council for Kosovo: "Our Tax Dollars at Work - NATO Troops in Kosovo Open Fire on Serb Protesters!"

From the American Council for Kosovo

 

http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=9&leader=0&sp=578

 

Our Tax Dollars at Work – NATO Troops in Kosovo Open Fire on Serb Protesters!

NATO Tries to Force Christian Serbs to Submit to Albanian Muslim "Authority"

 

 

U.S. and German soldiers in Kosovo

 

September 27, 2011:  Today, NATO forces in Kosovo opened fire on Serbian demonstrators protesting efforts by KFOR (NATO's "Kosovo Force") and the ironically designated European Union "rule of law" mission ("EULEX") to force Serbs to submit to the illegal Albanian Muslim "authority" posing as an independent government in Priština.  As summarized by retired U.S. diplomat Gerard Gallucci, who formerly served in Kosovo:

 

On September 27, the NATO force in Kosovo (KFOR) lost completely its guise as UN peacekeepers and became a repressive, lawless military occupation force. After seeking to use force to remove peacefully maintained barricades and to close a alternate road used by northern Kosovo Serbs, some locals apparently threw stones at the KFOR soldiers who then responded - in "self defense" - by firing at the otherwise defenseless Serbs, wounding at least six. The NATO action ought to be thoroughly investigated by an independent body to verify whether or not war crimes were committed. KFOR and EULEX ought to stand down and stop trying to change the political reality on the ground through such bullying and repressive measures before they provoke real violence.

 

At this time, writes Gallucci, "Details about the day's events remain somewhat unclear. Various reports have suggested that the NATO shots fired were either rubber bullets or live ammo. It is also unclear whether the soldiers involved were German or perhaps American or Polish."  But make no mistake: if not for a political green light from Washington, NATO would not have taken the initiative of authorizing violence to remove Serbian barricades. 

  

This latest escalation follows weeks of rising tensions since late July, when Hashim "Snake" Thaci – so-called "prime minister" of Kosovo, mafia kingpin, war criminal, and organ-trafficker – placed illegal checkpoints on the administrative line between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia, in a bid to force Serbs in northern Kosovo to submit his illegal administration.  Incredibly, KFOR and EULEX, in violation of their "status neutral" mandate under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, which is the only legal authority for their presence in the province, have backed up Thaci and his criminal cronies.   The question now is, does this latest resort to violence mean NATO has decided on use of force – in the pattern of the genocidal 1995 "Operation Storm" in the Serbian Krajinas with the help of U.S. mercenaries – to impose a final solution on Serb resistors to the Albanian Muslim administration?  Or will public attention force them to back off?

 

No less dismal than the spectacle of American and other NATO soldiers acting as enforcers for Thaci & Co. is that of Serbia's supine "pro-western" government, under President Boris Tadić.   Aptly dubbed "Vichy Serbs" by writer and analyst Vojin Joksimovic, Tadić and his government, seeing their own citizens under fire on their own national territory, can think only of stepping up "technical negotiations" with the Priština-based terrorists.  For that reason, in a Joint Statement of the All-Serbian National Council "Serbs Rally Together," on September 17, 2011, Kosovo Serbs declared (in part, read the full statement here):

 

WHEREAS we are committed to the ideal of freedom and inspired by our sacred spiritual heritage of Kosovo but mindful of our future generations, while never forgetting our obligation to respect the will and the sacrifice of our glorious ancestors who created Serbia and left it for us to preserve,

 

WHEREAS, determined to stop and prevent further dismemberment and occupation of Serbia and united under the blessing and leadership of His Grace Bishop Artemije, we have resolved and hereby announce to Serbia and the international community our resolution as follows:

 

KOSOVO AND METOHIJA ARE UNDER OCCUPATION

 

The Belgrade regime of Boris Tadić considers the occupying powers his partners; it negotiates with them, draws up agreements, pacts and treaties,  but always to the detriment of the Serbian nation as a whole and, particularly so, to the detriment of the Serbs who live in Kosovo and Metohija.

 

If the Serbs could call their enemy by its rightful name—OCCUPIER—and the conditions under which they have been living in Kosovo and Metohija for the past 12 years—OCCUPATION—then they would do as one does under occupation: they would endure and fight until the end, until the liberation.

 

We give notice to NATO and to Albanian terrorist occupying powers in Priština that we do not recognize any agreement or treaty they have signed or will sign with Tadić and his coalition. Treaties concluded during occupation through blackmail and trickery have always been considered invalid.

 

We particularly want to point out that we shall not tolerate further threats, attacks on our security and efforts at assimilation of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija. Those who have done this or are planning to do so will soon be confronted with legitimate forms of self-defense.

 

We remind our people that no shame is attached to being under enemy occupation, but it is certainly shameful to praise the occupier or collaborate with him. Not only is it shameful, it is a sin against our ancestors who had fought for hundreds of years to liberate Kosovo and Metohija from centuries long Turkish occupation.

 

It now remains to be seen who will prevail: the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija, who have declared themselves against occupation of their country, or their occupiers: the Albanian Muslim separatists and their NATO and EU enablers in Washington, Brussels, Berlin, London – and worst of all, in Belgrade.    

 

The blackest deeds occur when the perpetrators believe no one is watching.  Most Americans have long since forgotten about Kosovo, and about the Balkans in general.  Today, how many Americans remember the 78 days of "humanitarian" bombing in 1999 by the Bill Clinton administration on behalf of the Thaci's "Kosovo Liberation Army" – a gaggle of jihadists and Albanian Mafia kingpins?  How many recall George W. "the Decider" Bush's announcement in 2007 in Tirana, Albania, that to please our Islamic "allies" in the "War on Terror," he would simply proclaim, on no authority whatsoever, "enough's enough, Kosovo's independent."  (And then the grateful Albanians stole his watch!)

 

Almost no one.

 

But the fact that few Americans remember doesn't change the fact that at this very moment, under the authority of President Barack Hussein Obama, NATO – acting in our name, and supported by our tax dollars – is bringing force to bear against Christian people living in their own country, to force them to submit to hostile Muslim occupation and to accept their eventual extinction. 

 

James George Jatras

Director, American Council for Kosovo

Washington, September 27, 2011

 

savekosovoorg@gmail.com

 

+++++++++++++++++++

 

Again available from the American Council for Kosovo!

Kosovo: The Score
1999-2009

The American Council for Kosovo recently has located additional quantities of this classic book, published on the tenth anniversary of the NATO aggression against Serbia. Kosovo: The Score provides the definitive explanation of the little-understood Whys and Hows of the Kosovo war, as well as of the aftermath that still plagues the region – and the world – today.

Among the experts contributing incisive analyses to Kosovo: The Score: James Bissett, Doug Bandow, James George Jatras, Julia Gorin, Srdja Trifkovic, Diana Johnstone, Gregory R. Copley and many others!

Kosovo: The Score is available on request from The American Council for Kosovo , which gratefully welcomes contributions of any size. Requests can be made on the contribution page, by email, or by writing to:

The American Council for Kosovo
P.O. Box 14522
Washington, DC 20044

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
This message is confidential and may be legally privileged or otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, please telephone or email the sender and delete this message and any attachment from your system; you must not copy or disclose the contents of this message or any attachment to any other person.

Squire, Sanders & Dempsey (US) LLP is part of the international legal practice Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, which operates worldwide through a number of separate legal entities. Please visit www.ssd.com for more information.

#SSDUS
---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Why Kosovo but not Palestine?

---

By Zoltan Grossman

 

Sunday, September 25, 2011

 

 

In his September 21 speech to the United Nations, President Obama announced that he would veto U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state, because its independence was not a result of a negotiated settlement with Israel. He said that "peace depends upon compromise among people who must live together long after our…votes have been tallied….That's the lesson of Sudan, where a negotiated settlement led to an independent state. And that is and will be the path to a Palestinian state -- negotiations between the parties."

But President Obama neglected to mention a recent prominent example of unilateral independence, the State of Kosovo, which was recognized by the United States three years ago--even though its statehood did not come about through a negotiated settlement with Serbia. If an independent state of Palestine should only be recognized with Israel's approval, then why did the U.S. recognize the independence of Kosovo in 2008, over the objections of Serbia? Why recognize Kosovo but not Palestine?

Serbs view Kosovo as the cradle of their national identity, where the Ottoman Empire defeated them in 1389. Kosovo maintained a Serb majority for centuries, but in the late 1800s it became a seat of Albanians' national awakening, and eventually gained an ethnic Albanian majority. It became part of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia after World War I, and (after the Axis occupation in World War II), the Yugoslav Communist government made Kosovo into a province within the republic of Serbia, recognizing the rights of its Kosovar Albanian majority. In 1989, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic vastly reduced Kosovo's autonomy, citing threats to the Serb minority, as the opening move in his nationalist crusade for a Greater Serbia.

Like Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat first declared Palestinian sovereignty in 1988, Kosovar Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova first declared Kosovo independent in 1990. No foreign powers recognized Kosovo at that time, but 127 UN member states have since recognized the State of Palestine.

Civil war erupted between Serbian forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1998, and more than 2,000 people died in the fighting. KLA fighters targeted ethnic Serb civilians in the province, as well as moderate Kosovar Albanians, and Serbian forces targeted Albanian civilians. In February 1999, President Clinton led NATO in a bombing campaign against Serbia, triggering Milosevic's plan for the "ethnic cleansing" (or forced removal) of Kosovo's Albanian majority, which began after the bombs started falling.

When the KLA came to power with backing from NATO troops in June 1999, it in turn ethnically cleansed thousands of Serbs, Roma (Gypsies), Turks and Jews from its territory, based on the accusation that these groups had sided with Serbian forces. These minority groups had been living in Kosovo for centuries, unlike the Israeli settlers who are mostly recent transplants imported to Palestinian soil. When Serbia had settled some Serb war refugees in Kosovo from other ex-Yugoslav republics during the 1990s, Washington condemned the program as an attempt to shift the demographics of the province. The few Serbs living in Kosovo since 1999 have been subject to periodic pogroms, and a Serb enclave in the north has periodically threatened to rejoin Serbia, generating instability in the new state.

Whereas the prevailing mythology in the United States is that Clinton bombed former Yugoslavia to stop ethnic cleansing, people in the Balkans understand that U.S. forces intervened against Serb ethnic cleansers, but intervened on the side of Croat and Albanian ethnic cleansers. After the fighting was over, NATO rubberstamped the results on the ground of these forced removals, and deemed the silence of the graveyard a "lasting peace."

Kosovo's parliament redeclared independence in 2008, in a move that was boycotted by Kosovo Serb delegates. So far, 83 UN member states (including the U.S.) have recognized Kosovo—44 fewer than the total members states that have recognized Palestine. Serbia asked the International Court of Justice to rule on the secession, and last year the Court issued an advisory opinion that unilateral declarations of independence are not prohibited under international law.

Serbia has a stronger legal case than Israel to object to unilateral independence, and not only because of the Kosovo's expulsion of most Serbs. Kosovo was not only recognized as a part of Yugoslavia before the 1990s, not as a Yugoslav republic of its own, but as a province within the republic of Serbia. On the other hand, the West Bank and Gaza (not to mention Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem) have never been recognized as a part of Israel. In addition, after coming to power, KLA fighters blatantly endangered the security of neighboring states, by seeking to militarily "liberate" ethnic Albanians in western Macedonia and Serbia's Presevo Valley.

The difference is that Kosovo is under occupation by a foreign military alliance that backs the self-determination of its ethnic Albanian majority. The West Bank and East Jerusalem are under the occupation of a foreign military force that seeks to prevent the self-determination of its majority Palestinian population, and seeks to settle its own population in their place.

Serbia and Israel have remarkably similar messages toward the West. They contend that their military occupations have been justified to prevent a repeat of the genocide directed against them in World War II. (The Palestinians had nothing to do with this genocide, though Croatia and Albania were allied with the Axis Powers.) Serbia and Israel present themselves as bulwarks defending Western civilization against Islamist extremism, even though both the Palestinian and Kosovar national movements began with secular ethnic-based identities, and include members of Christian minorities. Serbia and Israel have also used ancient religious justifications (such as shrines and archeological sites) for their military presence in lands where they do not have a demographic majority.

The difference is that the Israeli lobby in Washington is far stronger than the Serbian lobby. Milosevic's massive ethnic cleansings of Kosovar Albanians (as well as Croats and Bosnians) were more recent and televised than Israel's forced removal of Palestinians from their ancestral lands, in what they term the Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948.

The KLA has long been implicated in heroin trafficking to raise funds for the cause and cash for personal enrichment. Former KLA commanders, including Prime Minister Hashim Thaci (who led the Croatian Army's 1995 ethnic cleansing of Serbs) have even been accused of trafficking in human organs. Kosovo is also a notorious center of sex trafficking in the Balkans, especially as Western troops have been stationed there. Whatever the veracity of any of these particular charges, none of them have prevented U.S. support for Kosovo's independence.

The difference is that the Palestinian national movement has not been implicated in such international crime syndicates.  We can be sure that if any Palestinian leaders were accused of just one of these crimes, the Israeli lobby would trumpet the charge loudly as an argument against a Palestinian state, and the White House would echo the claim.

Palestine and Israel have come down on different sides on Kosovo independence. Senior adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Abed Rabbo, cited Kosovo's example for unilateral independence when he said, "Kosovo is not better than us. We are worthy of independence before them and we ask for backing from the United States and European Union." Meanwhile, Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman categorically refused to recognize Kosovo, claiming that its independence is a "sensitive issue" that should be part of  "a really comprehensive and peaceful solution" established through negotiations.  So both the Palestinians and Israelis are consistent in their consideration of Kosovo's example. The party that is not consistent is the United States, which with one hand recognizes a new state, and with the other hand blocks another new state.

The difference may be that, since the days of Woodrow Wilson, Washington tends to support the unilateral self-determination of peoples only if they are white Europeans. More to the point, Israel serves U.S. foreign policy interests in the Middle East, but Orthodox Christian Serbia has historically been more aligned with Russia.

The United Nations has not recognized Kosovo because it would set a negative precedent for unilateral secession around the world. Many states in the Arab League and European Union, on the other hand, view Kosovo as a positive precedent for Palestine. Some governments may oppose sovereignty for both Kosovo and Palestine. But the U.S. is virtually alone in its backing for the State of Kosovo, while at the same time hypocritically blocking a State of Palestine.

Americans should start asking President Obama: if Kosovo has a right to exist, why doesn't Palestine also have a right to exist?


Dr. Zoltán Grossman is a professor of geography and world indigenous peoples studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. His website is at http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz and can be reached at grossmaz@evergreen.edu  He is a civilian Member of the Board of G.I. Voice, an antiwar veterans group that runs the Coffee Strong resource center for soldiers outside Fort Lewis:http://www.coffeestrong.org  His list of U.S. military interventions since 1890 is at http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html

http://www.zcommunications.org/why-kosovo-but-not-palestine-by-zoltan-grossman

Showdown at Goat Gate - by Nebojsa Malic

 

Subject: Antiwar: Showdown at Goat Gate - by Nebojsa Malic  Date: Thursday, September 22, 2011, 8:36 AM    ...  Over the past two weeks, the Serbian public has been shaken by the revelations from U.S. diplomatic dispatches published by Wikileaks — that almost the entire political establishment of the country has been taking its marching orders from the Empire. Washington's envoys even interfered in the selection of the present head of the Church, following the passing of the previous Patriarch. With his empty promises of EU membership quashed in late August by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Tadic has absolutely nothing to offer the Serbian public.  ...   http://original.antiwar.com/malic/2011/09/16/showdown-at-goat-gate/  Showdown at Goat Gate Empire's Kosovo Gamble by Nebojsa Malic, September 17, 2011 Antiwar Forum "Are there no Serbs in this room?" thundered Alexander Vasilevich Konuzin, Russia's Ambassador to Belgrade, before the shocked audience at the Serbian capital's Army House. It was Thursday, September 15, and the first reports began coming in of NATO's movements to seize "customs posts" in the north of occupied Kosovo and turn them over to the self-proclaimed ethnic Albanian government. Yet nobody at the "international security" conference, organized by NGOs lavishly funded by EU and U.S. taxpayers, had said so much as a word. Not even the president of Serbia, Boris Tadic, who had given the opening speech. After listening to hours of pointless prattle, Konuzin had had enough. He paced as he addressed the hostile crowd, blasting their slavish devotion to powers that sought to dismember Serbia. "We have common interests, and we will defend the country even though it seems that some Serbs wish to see their country under foreign control," Konuzin concluded. Interrupted by the moderator and not allowed to continue, Russia's Ambassador left the hall. Illegal and Criminal Meanwhile, NATO's Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen flew into the occupied province to personally support the much-heralded plan by the "government" of Hashim Thaci to "restore law and order" to the sliver of province still inhabited by Serbs. There would be "no turning back," Rasmussen announced, and echoing the words of "Prime Minister" Thaci, declared that NATO would not "back away from illegal and criminal structures." By this he meant the remaining Serb institutions in the province Thaci and his backers claim is a sovereign state — yet it is Thaci's regime that matches the description. Kosovo was seized from Serbia in a manifestly illegal and illegitimate war, occupied under a flimsy pretext of a UN resolution (that the Empire and its allies have shamelessly violated over the years) and eventually declared independent in a way that simply defied logic as well as law. And that's without even considering that Thaci and his entire establishment — descended from the terrorist KLA - stand accused of being an organized crime syndicate involved in drug-running, sex slavery and trafficking of human organs harvested from tortured and murdered prisoners. Outlaws International All of this has happened before. At the end of July, Thaci sent his Special Forces to seize two checkpoints — Jarinje ("Goat gate") and Brnjak — at the administrative line between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia, located in the Serb-inhabited north. Officially it was a bid to establish proper customs controls at what Pristina claims it is an international border. In practice, however, it was a ploy to cut off the Serb-inhabited north from its lifeline, and end its 12-year resistance to KLA rule. Either way, it failed miserably. Heralded as a "law and order" operation, there was nothing legal or orderly about it. Worse yet, Thaci's thugs were aided by EU's "legal assistance" mission (EULEX) and NATO's "peacekeepers" (KFOR), supposedly "status neutral" institutions that had to be in compliance with UNSCR 1244. In the words of former UN official Gerard Galucci back in July, "When the international peacekeepers act outside international law, they become outlaws." According to Galucci, the "chief threat to security" is actually NATO, whose behavior in support of Thaci constitutes "anti-peacekeeping." As for the self-appointed guardians of Kosovo, they are sowing the wind: "The Quint [U.S., UK, Germany, France, and Italy] is either bluffing, prevaricating with the Kosovo Albanians, or totally abandoning the UN peacekeeping mandate under which their agents — KFOR & EULEX — are in Kosovo. Whichever turns out to be true, they are acting shamefully." Galucci is not naïve; he knows KFOR and UNMIK have violated 1244 in the past — but never to this extent, and never so openly. It ought to be noted that KFOR's principal role in the province was never to protect the Serbs from the rampaging Albanians, but to protect the Albanians from Yugoslav and Serbian authorities. Even though KFOR has saved many Serb lives over the years, its mission has always been to serve the interests of Hashim Thaci, insofar as they coincided with those of the Empire. UNSCR 1244 was just the fig leaf allowing NATO a measure of modesty; now that UNSCR 1973 has essentially been used as a condom during the Rape of Libya, even that is being dispensed with. A Threat to Tadic Having installed Boris Tadic as the President of Serbia in 2004, and engineered his complete control of Serbian politics in 2008, the Empire has come to rely on near-absolute obedience of its quislings in Belgrade. Yet even Tadic and his cronies are now pleading with the Empire to stop Thaci, as the events in Kosovo are seriously threatening their survival. In July, Tadic had sworn that Serbia's army and the police would not fight. So the Serb civilians in Kosovo fought back by themselves. All this week, social networks have been abuzz with preparations for renewed resistance. A major opposition movement issued a call Wednesday to back the Kosovo Serbs with volunteers from all over Serbia. On Thursday, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church came to the province himself, and issued a call to the nation to pray and endure. A major opposition movement issued a call Wednesday to back the Kosovo Serbs with volunteers from all over Serbia. On Thursday, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church came to the province himself, and issued a call to the nation to pray and endure. Over the past two weeks, the Serbian public has been shaken by the revelations from U.S. diplomatic dispatches published by Wikileaks — that almost the entire political establishment of the country has been taking its marching orders from the Empire. Washington's envoys even interfered in the selection of the present head of the Church, following the passing of the previous Patriarch. With his empty promises of EU membership quashed in late August by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Tadic has absolutely nothing to offer the Serbian public. Their palpable panic may help explain why the pro-government daily Blic (owned by the Swiss-German conglomerate Ringier) claimed on Thursday that the U.S. envoy to Kosovo, Christopher Dell, had a financial interest in backing the Thaci regime. According to the paper, Thaci's regime is broke, and desperately needs hundreds of millions of Euros to pay a Turkish-American consortium (Bechtel-Enka) for a major highway contract. The paper's source claims Dell has been helping Thaci plan the customs takeover, as well as negotiate the sale of "Kosovo Telecom" (illegally carved out of its Serbian parent) to Croatia, in exchange for a substantial kickback from the consortium. Yet even if there was truth to these claims, it still remains a mystery why EULEX, KFOR and the Quint governments are all on board with Thaci's insistence on "sovereign Kosovo." Foundations of Empire The Serbs often wonder what has earned them, Washington's ally in both world wars, such unrelenting hatred. What they don't realize is that the Empire doesn't think in terms of history — but rather seeks to end it. In answering why the Empire is so set on breaking Serbia, everyone has a favorite point of departure: Yugoslavia was destroyed because it practiced a working form of socialism, which posed a threat. It was all Germany, driven by a desire for revenge from defeats in both world wars. It's all about the oil, ore, control of pipeline or trade routes. It isn't about the Balkans at all, but about preserving dominance in Europe and fighting Russia. It's all about making the jihadists love the Empire… Some of these are fanciful conspiracy theories, others a matter of public record. There is at least some truth in all of them. NATO's Rasmussen hints at consistency, arguing that NATO spent "12 years ensuring stability and security and we will not allow that achievement to be put at risk." (Reuters) Since when is consistency a concern for the Empire, though? Wasn't Saddam Hussein an ally for 12 years, before the U.S. turned on him over Kuwait? What makes "Thacistan" so different? The answer might lie in the carefully constructed perception of the great crusade against "Serb aggression" in the Balkans as Empire's founding myth, and the fear that abandoning that narrative could be detrimental to Empire's continued survival. But that might be a moot point soon enough. Castles in the Sand Taking upon himself to articulate the Grand Idea of the Atlantic Empire, Tony Blair once argued that the Balkans heralded a brave new age of "liberal interventions". He could not have been more wrong. All the Empire managed to do is dismantle the Westphalian order, destroying the very foundations of its own power in the process. All it built was a perception-managed, virtual reality — a sandcastle. And now the tide is coming in. If there is one cardinal rule of authority, it is to never give an order that cannot be obeyed. By demanding of Serbia to give up Kosovo, that is precisely what the Empire did. No matter how sycophantic or spineless the government in Belgrade might be, that was one thing it could not do and survive. The sight of Serbs manning the barricades to defend Kosovo, and reports of people coming from the rest of Serbia to reinforce them, are Boris Tadic's worst nightmare. It means that the people have decided that their government won't do its job. How long before they decide that Tadic and his cronies need to face a reckoning for their long and hard abuse of Serbia? That prospect promises to be most unpleasant. KFOR's helicopters bringing Thaci's "police" to the north of Kosovo may well spell the beginning of the end for Tadic — and with him, Empire's entire Balkans sandcastle. Reality can only be bullied so much, before it strikes back. Read more by Nebojsa Malic Winter is Coming – August 26th, 2011 Hostage to Hubris – August 18th, 2011 Law and Disorder – July 29th, 2011 An End to Surrender – July 21st, 2011 A Tale of Two Secessions – July 1st, 2011