EU “EULEKS” Poised for Nazi Style Blitzkrieg on Kosovo

EU “EULEKS” Poised for Nazi Style Blitzkrieg on Kosovo

11.02.2008

Source:

URL: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/103989-eueulekskosovo-0

Unwanted, unwelcome, illegal, illegitimate, the EU mission is poised to make a Nazi style blitzkrieg into Kosovo to broker the Sudetenland Germans, I mean Albanian mafia criminal terrorists, for an unprecedented, unparalleled post World War 2 land grab, tearing away for the first time the land of a sovereign European state in violation of all norms, all agreements, the UN Charter and UN Resolution 1244...the first time for such an occurrence since the UN was founded to prevent such a thing from happening again after the horror and devastation of bloody warfare throughout Europe. The Treaty of Rome establishing a European Economic Community was signed 1957. In the 1950s, the leaders of six European countries (France, Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) agreed to integrate their economic policies and raw material production through several treaties. The Preamble of the Treaty of Rome outlines the objectives to improve the living conditions of individuals, to promote education and to strengthen peace and liberty. The Maastricht Treaty on European Union led to the creation of the European Union. The Maastricht Treaty created new levels of inter-governmental cooperation with the European Union by establishing the “Three Pillars” of the EU. Pillar One incorporates the founding treaty mentioned above, addressing the single European market and a variety of social policies. Pillar Two addresses the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. Pillar Three addresses cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs. The Maastricht Treaty affirmatively states that Member States confirm "their attachment to the principles of liberty, democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and of the rule of law" as well as their "attachment to fundamental social rights." Article 6 (2) as amended by the Amsterdam Treaty reads “The Union shall respect fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms… Although the EU was ostensibly established with the expressed aim to protect peace, stability and respect for established frontiers…it is doing the exact opposite. It is promoting war, utter and total lawlessness, violence, inequality, injustice and the tearing asunder of a European state in order to promote mafia criminal narco terrorists and people traffickers who have and will continue to use the province as a base from which to launch violence, terror, prostitution and more and more bloody conflicts. Largely due to its part in the Balkans, the living conditions of all ethnic groupings have deteriorated and peace and liberty have been denied to hundreds of thousands of people, especially Serbians and other Kosovo minorities such as Jews, Roma, Turks and other groups. In Kosovo, unemployment is rampant and massive. Without cash flows coming from the empire, the criminal regime established by NATO, the US and EU would not be able to survive despite its main means of extraordinary economic opportunity: drug and people trafficking, wanton theft, murder for hire and revenge killings. The EU is actually anti-democratic: it raises interest groups and lobbyists while EU commissioners function without accountability to nearly a half a billion people. The EU consults with itself as it thinks it is the only one talking sense. The European Convention, the body which met to draw up the European Constitution, made a great show of inviting submissions from “the people.” Nearly 200 organizations were asked for their opinion. Every one of these organizations was reliant on the EU for its funding. Key documents for the Kosovo invasion are being adopted in Brussels for the mission's arrival there. In the space of just a few days, two important documents came before the Union, which, if adopted, will give the mission the “green light” to go to Kosovo. They do not specify when the mission to Kosovo will start. Rather, that it should last 28 months, with the possibility of an extension. The mission will be financed by the European budget, and the first 16 months alone will cost EUR 205mn. It is stated that the aim of the mission, to be called EULEKS, more properly they should call it Wehrmacht or Stormtroopers or SS or Einsatzgruppen…is to promote democracy, economic development and stability in Kosovo. For different reasons, Belgrade and Pristina view the mission as being the architect of the province’s independence. The 30-page document that represents the basis for establishing the mission does not contain a single word referring to status. And that is no wonder because the EU has absolutely NO authority to occupy historic, sacred Serbian land. Serbia is not a member of the EU, but Serbia is by many standards the most genuine democracy and example of European values on the entire Continent. Additionally, an illegal and unrecognizable Albanian Kosovo will NEVER be able to meet any EU standards for freedom, democracy or economic development in the foreseeable future. Director of the Swiss Institute of Federalism Thomas Fleiner says that the UN resolution on the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija gives no legal basis to the EU's mission plans. "The EU has made it clear that it is sending a mission as part of preparations for the independence of Kosovo, which would constitute a violation of Resolution 1244 article 10," said Fleiner, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Freiburg. The Swiss expert pointed out that Resolution 1244 also requires "the full cooperation of FRY (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) in its implementation," or that "one of the partner parties responsible for implementing the solution prescribed by the resolution is FRY, or its legal successor Serbia." "That means that all matters relating to the implementation of the resolution have to be done in cooperation with the chief partner—Serbia. Once Kosovo province becomes an illegal independent state, states that are supposed to cooperate in the implementation of the resolution will no longer have a partner with whom they can cooperate." Meanwhile, the Russian ambassador to Belgrade Aleksandr Alekseyev has said that the EU mission can come to Kosovo only via a Security Council resolution. Asked if Russia was prepared to give the “green light” to the arrival of such a mission in the Security Council, Alekseyev replied that “I think it would be a big mistake if the secretary-general gave some sort of sign that could be interpreted as a “green light” for sending a mission to Kosovo.” Asked what Moscow could do should Brussels go ahead with sending the mission, he replied, “Our two countries have already moved from ‘coordinated’ to common policies. You can rest assured that we will, in common contact, find a way of responding to this challenge,” said Alekseyev. As far as a unilateral declaration of independence was concerned, should it happen, the ambassador said that a Security Council session should be called immediately, and that it “was obliged to take decisions to render that declaration null and void.” His response to a journalist’s statement that Russia would never recognize Kosovo was unequivocal: “You can rest assured of that.” The EU’s determination to meddle in what is strictly an internal Serbian matter further demonstrates that the EU in its stated purposes has been an utter failure except for the army of super rich Eurocrats whose only intention in allowing this gross injustice is enrichment of the empire and certain corporations, entities and individuals. Who among the Eurocrats would like to step forward and proclaim himself the new Hitler of the Fourth Reich also known as the European Union? The EU is seeking to fulfill the dreams and aspirations of Herr Hitler, the first powerful European to propose a Greater Albania among aliens in the heart of Europe. Albanian thugs, war criminals and drug lords (not even the ordinary common Albanian citizen who was frequently seen running towards Serbian troops for protection from these criminal elements) now will profit as direct descendents of Hitler’s great friends and allies during that miserable, bloody war. All this while they already have a state of their own called Albania. The EU, acting exactly like Hitler and his Stormtroopers, does so at its own peril and sadly at the peril of the entire European continent it purports to secure. Lisa KARPOVA PRAVDA.Ru USA/CANADA

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http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/11-02-2008/103989-eueulekskosovo-0

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Kosovar Endgame

Kosovar Endgame

From the desk of Joshua Trevino on Mon, 2008-02-11 14:47

Nearly unreported in the American media is the imminent culmination of one of America’s modern wars: in this case, the 1999 Kosovo War, in which NATO attacked Serbia on behalf of a Kosovar Albanian guerrilla movement, and forced a de facto – though not de jure
– cession of the province to an international force under a United
Nations mandate. According to all available reports, in exactly one
week – February 17th – Kosovo will declare its independence as an Albanian-dominated statelet
under the aegis of the Western powers. Contrary to the benign apathy
with which our media and policy communities will greet it, this is a
malign development on several levels.

The 1999 war itself was a strange replay of the “cabinet wars” of
earlier centuries, commanding little popular support in any of the
participating nations, and motivated almost entirely by an elite
consensus in the West that the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic had
to go. Indeed, that regime did more than its share to solidify that
consensus with its rhetorical ineptitude and its sponsorship of the
bloody-minded Serb war in Bosnia. The Western elites, including the
Clinton Administration, were for their part embarrassed by their years
of inaction in Bosnia, and as such were hypersensitive to replays of
that situation elsewhere – and concurrently eager to show, if only to
themselves, that they had learned its lessons. Kosovo’s simmering
conflict between Serbs and Albanians struck all the right chords, down
to the main villain.

The flaw in Western thinking lay in the assumption that the Bosnian
horrors were provoked by basic Serb intolerance of ethnic minorities.
This was inaccurate. The Serbian forces in Bosnia (and, to a lesser
extent, in Croatia) did not perpetrate their barbarous cruelties simply
to erase other ethnicities per se: rather, it was done when
those other ethnicities were perceived to be equal or superior threats
to Serb communities. This is not to excuse what was done, but to
contextualize it. Serbs felt threatened by superior Croat numbers in
the Krajina and Slavonia,
and by superior Bosniak and Croat numbers in Bosnia proper. This was
not an issue within Serbia itself, where, if ethnic minorities were not
necessarily tolerated in the Western, liberal sense of the world,
neither were they dispossessed or systematically slaughtered. Even at
the nadir of the Bosnian atrocities, Muslims within Serbia were living in the Sandzak, Hungarians
were living in the Vojvodina, Montenegrans were living in, well,
Montenegro – and Muslim Albanians were living in Kosovo. (A 2002 map of
ethnicities in Serbia is available here.)

Things went awry in the latter province after the end of the Bosnian war, when the Kosovo Liberation Army
began its guerrilla campaign against Serbian authorities. The
provocation for this campaign lay in the decade-long campaign, under
Milosevic, to curb local autonomy and reassert Serbian cultural
dominance in the heartland of Serb national identity. (The province of
Kosovo contains within it the site of Kosovo Polje,
the “Field of Blackbirds” upon which Serbia lost its independence for
nearly five hundred years to the advancing Turks.) This provocation,
though, was not inherently subject to solely violent resolution, as
evidenced by the existence of “mainstream” Kosovar Albanian political
figures who pursued change through peaceful means. The KLA therefore
pursued a strategy drawing from lessons in Ireland and Palestine,
assassinating Serbs who tolerated Albanians, and Albanians who
tolerated Serbs, and innocents from both groups. The clumsy and
ham-handed Serbian authorities responded as the KLA wished, deploying
regular army units against guerrilla forces, neglecting political
amends, and progressively alienating an already suspicious and
ill-disposed West. By the time of the Račak massacre, the truth no longer mattered: all the West saw was Serbs killing non-Serbs, again, and war was inevitable.

In the two-and-a-half months of war in 1999, Serbian authorities did terrible things
to Kosovar Albanians. The war precipitated the very crisis that the
West imagined, but had not actually come to pass: the “ethnic
cleansing,” via mass expulsions,
of Kosovo of its Muslims. But in the nine years since, Kosovar
Albanians have done terrible things to their Serb neighbors — and it is
no exaggeration to state that a Serb in post-1999 Kosovo is worse off
than an Albanian in pre-1999 Kosovo. To our shame, this situation is a
direct result of our intervention — and has evolved under our watch.

The KLA and its associates in Kosovar politics, in radicalizing the
situation to provoke the 1999 war, thereby made it impossible to return
to a situation of peaceful coexistence. Whereas the intervening West
envisioned — if they envisioned anything at all — a tolerant,
multiethnic Kosovo along the lines of what was sought on Bosnia,
Kosovar Albanians envisioned their own ethnic cleansing, of Serbs from
Kosovo. What the NATO allies waded into was not a rescue of a wronged
party as such, but a party determined to wreak precisely the evils upon
its foe that its foe perpetrated upon it. Under NATO occupation and UN administration,
this goal is met with appalling thoroughness. A brief and far from
comprehensive list of crimes should suffice to illustrate the process
underway:

* In the aftermath of the Serb surrender in June 1999,
the victorious KLA seized the opportunity to drive approximately
200,000 non-Albanians — overwhelmingly Serbs, but also Roma — out of
the province. Human Rights Watch reported
that this flight was motivated largely by concrete threats and the
occasional local massacre, with a reported total of one thousand Serb
men, women and children murdered.
* In February 2001, an IED planted by Albanians destroyed a bus carrying Serbs to family gravesites at the Gračanica monastery.
* In August 2003, Serb boys swimming were machine-gunned from a riverbank.
* In March 2004, a deliberate anti-Serb pogrom claimed dozens of lives, and further ghettoized the remaining Serbs in their northern enclaves.
* Perhaps most distressing from a cultural standpoint
is the deliberate and systemic destruction of Serbian Orthodox Church
parishes, properties, monasteries, and art throughout Kosovo since
1999. Students of the 20th century will recall the Nazi efforts to
comprehensively erase Jewish culture from the Continent, which included
the demolition of synagogues and the use of Jewish headstones as
paving: since then, only the Kosovo Albanian program to exterminate
Serbian culture in Kosovo compares in European history. In the summer
following the Serbian defeat, the KLA demolished the Church of the Holy Virgin at Musutiste and St Mark’s of Korisa Monastery.
Sadly, they did not stop there. In lieu of the long list of churches
and cultural sites destroyed by the Kosovar Albanians since 1999, is it
enough to note the documentation here, here, here, here, and here.

Your tax dollars at work.

What
is astonishing about these atrocities, aside from their plain
brutality, is that they are perpetrated by a segment of Kosovo’s
population that enjoys every advantage. Albanians constitute 90% of the
population; they control the politics of the province; they have
foreign sponsorship and foreign armies for protection; they are
definitive victors in the late civil conflict; and they enjoy the
overwhelming bulk of patronage from official sources. The persistence
of organized violence against the Serbs now is not the guerrilla
campaign of 1995-1999, but an actual state persecution of a minority.
Self-pity is a recurring and malevolent feature of Serbian nationalism,
and it is important to not lend credence to it — but we must
nonetheless acknowledge these facts for what they are.

With all this in mind, we return to the baleful reality of the imminent declaration of Kosovar independence under Albanian rule.
The declaration is happening for several reasons, but the major one is
that the Kosovo Albanians feel they can get away with it with minimal
repercussions. Having tested the limits of their Western sponsors’
tolerance, they found those limits were extensive: the 2004 anti-Serb
pogroms conclusively demonstrated that little if anything could sour
their relationship with the West, and with the United States in
particular. They know that Putin’s resurgent Russia is still unable to
bring meaningful pressure to bear; and they know that a NATO embroiled
in Afghanistan, and a United States mired in Iraq, will take the path
of least resistance. Lurking behind all this is the unstated
possibility that the KLA would be willing to launch a guerrilla
campaign against a NATO unwilling to validate its aspirations. In this
light, when Kosovar Albanian leaders boast of “100 nations” willing to
recognize their new state, they are probably not exaggerating. A world
weary of conflict, and with bigger strategic headaches than the Balkans
— so 1990s, that — is almost certainly willing to sacrifice the Serb
remnant in Kosovo to the predations of their Albanian neighbors.

For all this, the United States should not accede to Kosovo’s independence. The reasons present themselves:

* Kosovo is not politically ready. A
would-be state with a pervasive internal culture of violence and
persecution is a disaster-in-waiting. Imagine, for example, granting
statehood to the Gaza Strip: its political culture would make a mockery
of the very term, and the fiction demanding co-equal status between it
and, say, France would ill-serve all concerned. Until Kosovo can
function as a reasonably inclusive democracy with reasonable guarantees
for its minorities, and have regular, peaceful transfers of
power, it does not merit statehood. The province, for many reasons, is
simply not there yet.
* Kosovo is not culturally ready.
The campaign of brutalization against non-Albanian and non-Muslim
minorities has been addressed at length here. Suffice it to say that
this is not a polity ready for just self-governance; and suffice it to
say that we ought not be a party to cultural erasure.
* Kosovar independence would generate instability elsewhere.
The old Wilsonian idea that a geographically-bounded majority
population deserves its own sovereignty dies hard. In this decade, with
American foreign policy predicated more than ever on quasi-Wilsonian
principles, it is especially formidable. It is also a recipe for
disaster: with the United States engaged in two wars in multiethnic
states, to explicitly affirm this precedent in Kosovo invites more
serious problems and bloodshed elsewhere. With Kosovo independent, what
grounds do we have for dissuading the independence aspirations of the
Kurds, the Pashtuns, the Baluchis, the Assyrians, the Arab Shi’a, et
al.? Furthermore, what prevents Russia from seizing upon this precedent
to cause trouble in the Caucasus and Moldova? (They say they won’t — for now — but why give them the leverage?) Contra
the rhetoric of some neoconservatives, we ought not be in the business
of redrawing borders, nor sponsoring particular ethnic groups for their
own sake.
* Kosovar independence would reverse progress in the Balkans. Memories are short, but in the 1990s, the Balkans were a cauldron of bloodshed and horror. If they are peaceful now, and if Sarajevo has a tourist industry,
there is nothing inherent or irreversible about this. Since the last
Balkan war in 1999, Serbia has modernized, liberalized, and moved
toward the European Union; Bosnia has been, if divided, at least
quiescent; and we’ve not seen Albanian irredentism cause an
international crisis apart from an abortive 2001 insurgency in Macedonia. Kosovo independence threatens all this: the imminent declaration of independence has already damaged Serb-EU relations; the rationale for the existence of the Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina fades dramatically if the three parts believe they may simply separate; and Albanian irredentism
receives a massive boost. The history of the Balkans in the past
century has been the history of nations either pursuing irredentist
aims, or reconciling themselves to abandoning those claims. Albania,
with claims against each of its neighbors — Serbia, Montenegro, Greece,
and Macedonia — is also the only Balkan nation with a shot at making
good on significant portions of them. Kosovar independence is thus the
worst of all possible worlds for the Balkans, in reviving one source of
Balkan instability in a resentful Serbia, and with the Albanians
rewarding precisely the sort of irredentist sentiment that has
repeatedly plunged the peninsula into savage war.
* Kosovar independence would further strain the US-Russian relationship. This
relationship is already under sufficient pressure thanks to Vladimir
Putin’s decision to reclaim much of the old Soviet-era paranoia and
tension as Russia’s own. This is, to be sure, mostly Russia’s own doing
— but it defies reason to assume that the United States ought to
therefore aggravate it further. The American relationship with Russia
is self-evidently more important and enduring than the American
relationship with Albania, to say nothing of Kosovar Albanians. The
Russians have warned us repeatedly
of their profound reservations over Kosovar independence: in being
sensitive to their sensitivities, we lose nothing, and stand to gain in
the long run.

So much for what ought to happen: what will happen? This
is regrettably easy to predict: on Sunday, February 17th, 2008, Kosovo
will declare its independence. Many if not most of the remaining Serbs
will migrate to Serbia proper. Some Serbs will stay and try to force a
partition of the province; this will swiftly degenerate into violence
as the Kosovar Albanian government seeks to extend its writ to the full
territory it now claims. The NATO forces in place will be forced to act
as the gendarmerie of a sovereign state, or to oppose that
state in its quelling of Serb resistance. Neither are good options.
Within Serbia, the citizenry will ask themselves what exactly
rapprochement with the West has brought them and theirs. Within the
coming few years, the issue of Kosovo’s political union with Albania
will come to the fore, and this will draw in Greece at minimum, and
Turkey and Russia at worst. From benign if cruel stasis, the Balkans
will again remind us why the word is also an adjective.

And we Americans will feel quite blameless about it, no doubt.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2956

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Losing Serbia

Losing Serbia

By Nikos Konstandaras

The ethnic Albanians of Kosovo are expected to make a unilateral
declaration of independence within days. Kosovar Prime Minister Hashim
Thaci claimed on Friday that about 100 countries were ready to
recognize Kosovo when it breaks away from Serbia. Every nation seeks
its independence and no one can blame the Kosovo Albanians for the
persistence with which they have pursued theirs. Through the mistakes
and brutality of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic and by very cleverly
playing on the West’s guilt over its negligent handling of the war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Kosovar Albanians have managed to draw Western
public opinion in the direction that benefited them.

What is less
understandable is how Europe has acted in such a frivolous and
thoughtless way as to stoke division in Serbia and send this important
country into isolation. For the sake of Kosovo, Europe is in danger of
losing Serbia.

We may blame the Serbs for many things – among
them an inability to come to grips with the past and to send to the
international tribunal in The Hague those among them who are accused of
war crimes. But that is no reason to push them into desperation. The
reaction of many Serbs to the threats and deadlines they have faced is
what we would expect of a proud and talented people (who were among the
first to fight for and gain their liberation from the Ottoman yoke,
starting their revolt in 1804). Over the past few years, the Serbs have
suffered a series of humiliations in the breakup of Yugoslavia (a
disintegration in which they were instrumental). In 1999, there was the
secret annex to the Rambouillet talks aimed at averting war over
Kosovo, in which Serbia was ordered to accept the presence of NATO
forces on its territory. In 2001, after the war, the Serb authorities
arrested Milosevic on the day that a US ultimatum to do so expired.

Naturally,
the government of Prime Minister Zoran Djindic was criticized for
bowing to the Americans. Two years later, the man who assassinated
Djindjic claimed that the prime minister was a “traitor.”

No Serb
politician can acquiesce to the loss of Kosovo, the traditional
heartland of the Serb nation – neither pro-Western President Boris
Tadic nor nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. In last
Sunday’s runoff presidential elections, Tadic won 50.5 percent of the
vote to 47.9 percent for Tomislav Nikolic, who ran on a strongly
nationalist platform. The nation is divided equally and no one has the
luxury of being able to provoke public anger by signing on to the
further loss of Serb territory. Policymakers in Washington, Brussels
and all other European capitals ought to be weighing the dynamics that
will arise with Kosovo’s independence. Among the many ills is the fact
that the progressive Serb president and his political friends will be
seen to have sat by quietly, betraying their national cause, while at
the same time being the victims of betrayal by their Western allies
abroad.

Unfortunately, in their demand that the Serbs accept the
loss of Kosovo, with the promise of EU accession sometime in the
distant future, European leaders do not appear to care much about what
will happen if the Serbs, out of national pride and their leaders’
political survival, turn their backs on Europe. The damage will not be
to Serbia alone. For example, what kind of independence can Kosovo
enjoy when it will forever face the enmity of a far more powerful
neighbor? What economic and social development will Kosovo achieve if
it must forever rely on foreign powers for its existence, and when
organized crime is rife? Where will the political scene in Serbia – and
Belgrade’s increasing dependence on Russia – lead? How long will Europe
be able to provide Kosovo with police officers and judges, in
accordance with a recent EU decision? It was this last decision that
raised the anger of Prime Minister Kostunica, who saw it as an active
move toward tearing Kosovo away from Serb sovereignty and therefore
refused to agree to the last-minute carrot the EU threw to Serbia a few
days ago: In the wake of the presidential elections, Brussels offered
Belgrade an agreement on trade, and easier visa requirements and
student exchanges.

If the Europeans truly wanted to solve the
Balkans’ most complicated problem (and win the steadfast cooperation of
Serbia) they would put Serbia on a fast track to EU accession and make
it crystal clear to the Albanians of Kosovo that they would get their
independence on the day that they and the Serbs both become members of
the European Union. The EU has not made that offer. Now we will all
have to live with the result, and watch as one problem succeeds another.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_columns_100024_11/02/2008_93222

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Warning light on Kosovo by John Bolton - Washington Times

John Bolton is former permanent U.S. representative to the United
Nations. [Contributors] Lawrence Eagleburger is former U.S. secretary of state.
Peter Rodman is former assistant secretary of defense for international
security affairs.

letters@washingtontimes.com

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080131/COMMENTARY/288472699/home.html&template=nextpage

The Washington Times

COMMENTARY

Warning light on
Kosovo

By John Bolton

January 31, 2008

The Bush administration has indicated its readiness to recognize a
unilateral declaration of independence by ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a
province of the Republic of Serbia that since 1999 has been under United
Nations administration and NATO military control.

Such a declaration may take place as early as February. American recognition
would be over Serbia's objections, without a negotiated solution between Serbia
and Kosovo's Albanians, and without modification by the United Nations Security
Council of Resolution 1244, which reaffirms Serbian sovereignty in Kosovo while
providing for the province's "substantial autonomy." U.S. recognition
may be joined by that of some members of the European Union, which has been
under heavy diplomatic pressure from Washington, though several EU states and a
number of countries outside Europe have said they would reject such action.

Attempting to impose a settlement on Serbia would be a direct challenge to
the Russian Federation, which opposes any Kosovo settlement not accepted by
Belgrade.

We believe an imposed settlement of the Kosovo question and seeking to
partition Serbia's sovereign territory without its consent is not in the
interest of the United States. The blithe assumption of American policy — that
the mere passage of nine years of relative quiet would be enough to lull Serbia
and Russia into reversing their positions on a conflict that goes back
centuries — has proven to be naive in the extreme.

We believe U.S. policy on Kosovo must be re-examined without delay, and we
urge the Bush administration to make it clear that pending the results of such
re-examination it would withhold recognition of a Kosovo independence
declaration and discourage Kosovo's Albanians from taking that step.

Current U.S. policy relies on the unconvincing claim that Kosovo is
"unique" and would set no precedent for other troublespots. Of course
every conflict has unique characteristics. However, ethnic and religious
minorities in other countries already are signaling their intention to follow a
Kosovo example. This includes sizeable Albanian communities in adjoining areas
of southern Serbia, Montenegro, and especially the Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia, as well as the Serbian portion of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Recognition of Kosovo's independence without Serbia's consent would set a
precedent with far-reaching and unpredictable consequences for many other
regions of the world. The Kosovo model already has been cited by supporters of
the Basque separatist movement in Spain and the Turkish-controlled area of
northern Cyprus. Neither the Security Council nor any other international body has
the power or authority to impose a change of any country's borders.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the current policy is the dismissive
attitude displayed toward Russia's objections. Whatever disagreements the
United States may have with Moscow on other issues, and there are many, the
United States should not prompt an unnecessary crisis in U.S.-Russia relations.
There are urgent matters regarding which the United States must work with
Russia, including Iran's nuclear intentions and North Korea's nuclear
capability. Such cooperation would be undercut by American action to neutralize
Moscow's legitimate concerns regarding Kosovo.

If the U.S. moves forward with recognizing Kosovo,
Moscow's passivity cannot be taken for granted. It may have been one thing in
1999 for the United States and NATO to take action against Yugoslavia over the
objections of a weak Russia.

Today, it would be unwise to dismiss Russia's willingness and ability to
assist Serbia. On an issue of minor importance to the United States, is this a
useful expenditure of significant political capital with Russia?

Our Kosovo policy is hardly less problematic for our friends and allies in
Europe. While some European countries, notably members of the EU, may feel
themselves obligated to join us in recognizing Kosovo's independence, a number
of those countries would do so reluctantly because of Washington's
inflexibility and insistence. No more than the United States, Europe would not
benefit from an avoidable confrontation with Russia.

Even if Kosovo declared itself an independent state, it would be a
dysfunctional one and a ward of the international community for the indefinite
future. Corruption and organized crime are rampant. The economy, aside from
international largesse and criminal activities, is nonviable. Law enforcement,
integrity of the courts, protection of persons and property, and other
prerequisites for statehood are practically nonexistent. While these failures
are often blamed on Kosovo's uncertain status, a unilateral declaration of
independence recognized by some countries and rejected by many others would
hardly remedy that fact.

The result would be a new "frozen conflict," with Kosovo's status
still unresolved. The risk of renewed violence would further impede Kosovo's
development. Moreover, heightened tensions might require reinforcing the U.S.
presence in Kosovo when we can least afford it due to other commitments.

Serbia has made great strides in democratic development and economic
revitalization since the fall of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Current
policy with respect to Kosovo risks complete reversal of these gains. Faced
with a choice between Western partnership and defense of their sovereign
territory and constitution, there is little doubt what Serbia would decide.

The current positive trend could falter in the face of political
radicalization and possible internal destabilization. Serbia's relations with
countries that had recognized Kosovo would be impaired. Serbia would inevitably
move closer to Russia as its only protector.

We do not underestimate the difficulty and complexity of the Kosovo question
nor do we suggest the status quo can endure indefinitely. As with thorny
questions elsewhere, viable and enduring settlements should result from
negotiation and compromise. Such an outcome has been undermined by a U.S.
promise to the Kosovo Albanians that their demands will be satisfied if they
remain adamant and no agreement is reached with Belgrade. Such a promise cannot
be justified by the claim, often heard from proponents of independence, that
the Albanians' "patience" is running out, so independence must be
granted without delay. This is nothing less than appeasing a threat of
violence.

A reassessment of America's Kosovo policy is long overdue. We hope a policy
that would set a very dangerous international precedent can still be averted if
that reassessment begins now. In the meantime, it is imperative that no
unwarranted or hasty action be taken that would turn what is now a relatively
small problem into a large one.

John Bolton is former permanent U.S. representative to the United
Nations. Lawrence Eagleburger is former U.S. secretary of state. Peter Rodman
is former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.

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There Goes Kosovo

There Goes Kosovo

By Doug Bandow

Published 1/31/2008 12:07:49 AM

Kosovo is preparing to declare independence
with American support. Although the Bush administration apparently expects
nothing much to happen, the process is likely to be both divisive and destabilizing.



Relations among Europe, Russia, and America could sour. Serbian politics may
lurch further to the nationalist right; the Radical Party's Tomislav Nikolic
led the first voting round for president Sunday before last. Another Balkans
war is possible, though thankfully unlikely.



Friends of Kosovo's independence argue that stability isn't everything. The
U.S. has no intrinsic interest in Kosovo's status and would be best served to
stay out of it, but that ship sailed long ago.



Washington spent most of the 1990s working overtime to break up Serb-dominated
Yugoslavia while forcing ethnic Serbs to remain in the newly independent
states. The new countries Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Slovenia
were allowed to form, but Serbs locked in Bosnia and Croatia, in particular,
were expected to cheerfully accept their fate.



The U.S. applied the same policy to Kosovo, a constituent part of Serbia. In
1999 Washington led NATO in a military campaign to aid the ethnic Albanian
forces, eliminating Serb authority over the territory.



The Bush administration has built on the Clinton administration's policy. After
presiding over unproductive faux "negotiations" predicated on
Kosovo's ultimate independence, the administration now plans to recognize the
new nation even if it fails to win United Nations approval.



Of course, Washington insists that all ethnic Serbs
living in Kosovo must remain in the new state. As before, secession from Serbs
is okay, but secession by Serbs is prohibited. Sound fair?





GRANTED, SORTING THROUGH the conflicting claims involving Kosovo ain't easy.
Once Serbian heartland, it hosts the site of the Battle of the Blackbirds,
where the Serbs lost to the Ottomans in 1389 (the loss probably shaped Serbian
consciousness more than would have a victory -- such is the way of the
Balkans).



Over time the population shifted to an ethnic Albanian majority, in part due to
Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito's efforts to dampen Serbian nationalism in
the multi-ethnic communist state.



In the 1980s it was Serbians who complained of misconduct by the
ethnic-Albanian majority in Kosovo. In 1982, the New York Times reported on "almost weekly incidents of rape, arson,
pillage and industrial sabotage, most seemingly designed to drive Kosovo's
remaining indigenous Slavs--Serbs and Montenegrins -- out of the
province."



That all changed after Slobodan Milosevic used an appearance in Kosovo in 1987
to ignite Serb nationalism and leapfrog into national leadership. With his
rise, Belgrade reasserted Serb control over Kosovo.



When Yugoslavia broke up, the secession of Bosnia and Croatia produced
particularly gruesome conflicts, since both of those provinces contained many
ethnic Serbs who wished to remain independent if not in Serbia.



Although ethnic Serbs may have been responsible for the bulk of atrocities,
Bosniacs and Croats also freely murdered Serbs and each other. The largest
single episode of ethnic cleansing prior to the Kosovo war was conducted
against ethnic Serbs in Croatia's Krajina region, where the battle damage
remained evident for years. Most of Krajina's ethnic Serb residents have yet to
return.



Serb-Albanian relations in Kosovo also deteriorated as the 1990s proceeded.
Serb rule was heavy-handed; Albanians, who made up the vast majority of the
population, created alternative government and social institutions; the Kosovo
Liberation Army (labeled a "terrorist" group by the U.S.) began
attacking Serb officials and Albanian "collaborators"; the Serbian
government responded brutally; fighting expanded and casualties increased.





EVEN AS 1999 dawned, the war, though tragic, was minor as ethnic and sectarian
conflicts go, costing perhaps two thousand lives over a couple of years. About
the same time a quarter of a million people were slaughtered in Sierra Leone.
But the Clinton administration, led by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,
decided to go to war against Serbia, and American bombers forced a quick
surrender.



Since 1999 the territory has been run by the UN and NATO, more or less. After
the allied victory ethnic Albanians kicked out 200,000 or more Serbs and other
minorities, such as Roma. Kosovo's guerrillas took over as leaders -- of both
the political system and abundant criminal enterprises. Three years ago ethnic
Albanian mobs arose to murder and displace ethnic Serbs, and to burn and wreck
Serb homes, churches, and monasteries.



Perhaps it's no surprise, then, the U.S. and Europeans want to be done with the
mess that they helped to created. Desultory negotiations over Kosovo's status
occurred over the last two years, but the outcome was never in doubt. The
allies made clear to the ethnic Albanians that independence would result if no
accord was reached, so no accord was reached.



The Serbs refused to be bought off with the promise of European Union
membership and the Russians said no to another Western fait accompli. So now
Kosovo plans to declare independence, perhaps in days, and the U.S. and most
Europeans say they will recognize the new state.



The most sensible policy for Washington would be to step back and indicate that
there will be no recognition without genuine negotiations, that is, talks
without a predetermined outcome, between Kosovo and Serbia.



On the table should be all options, including overlapping citizenships (Kosovo,
Serb, EU), and secession within secession, that is, allowing the ethnic Serbs
concentrated to Kosovo's north, principally around Mitrovica, to remain in
Serbia.





THE U.S. SHOULD halt the independence bandwagon, though not because Washington
has an intrinsic reason for objecting to Kosovo becoming a separate nation. In
principle the status of this particular piece of real estate should not matter
much to America. Whether the ethnic Albanians or Serbs rule in Pristina is
intrinsically irrelevant to U.S. interests.



However, Washington has spent more than a decade unbalancing the Balkans. By
accelerating the break-up of Yugoslavia with the early recognition of Slovenian
and Croatian independence, the allies short-circuited negotiations, most
importantly over the status of minorities within the breakaway states. U.S.
diplomats also discouraged early settlement of the Bosnian conflict,

further bloodying allied hands.



Washington and Brussels have done the same in Kosovo. Starting in 1998 the
allies took the side of the ethnic Albanians, encouraging their intransigence
in ensuing negotiations. Maybe a peaceful outcome was never possible. We will
never know because of U.S. and European intervention.



After the 1999 Kosovo war, the allies essentially promised the ethnic Albanians
independence and dismissed any compromise, such as allowing ethnic Serbs to
secede from Kosovo. All the while the West blamed Belgrade for refusing to
accept the ethnic Albanian position. Now those same allies are greenlighting a
declaration of independence by Pristina.



The outcome of this strategy is not likely to be pretty. There will be a new,
violent, and unstable state, permeated by crime and possibly open to
terrorists, in the Balkans.



This will push Serbia away from Europe, conceivably leaving a large economic
and political hole in the Balkans. The allied approval of Albanian
self-determination will encourage other secessionist movements in the Balkans
and elsewhere as ethnic and political minorities demand the same
"right" of independence. Western dismissal of Russia's interests will
make Moscow more antagonistic and assertive. Failure to resolve the status of
Serbs within Kosovo risks triggering conflict between ethnic Albanians and
Serbs, and possibly Kosovo and Serbia.



Nice work
all around.



Washington still has time to say no and mitigate some of the consequences of
its past meddling in the Balkans. But, at this point, the odds aren’t good.





Doug Bandow is the Robert A. Taft Fellow at the American Conservative
Defense Alliance. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is
the author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America's New
Global Empire (Xulon Press).

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12663

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Palestine: Kosovo of the Middle East

Palestine: Kosovo of the Middle East

19:50 | 27/ 12/ 2007

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political analyst Dmitry Kosyrev) -
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. It was not one, but
hundreds of observers who hastened to declare the November international
conference in Annapolis America's success that allegedly gave a fresh start to
the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

Now that the process has hiccupped, no one seems eager to
take the blame.

But, I repeat, it is only a hiccup: Israeli and Palestinian
diplomats have quarreled during a working group meeting. One may expect it to
be defused by another meeting between the two prime ministers, Mahmoud Abbas
and Ehud Olmert; they meet for negotiations roughly once every two weeks. But,
as always, the nuts and bolts of these talks are discussed in meetings at the
working level. And these meetings make it clear that Annapolis has not solved
any substantial issues.

The main issue is land. The Palestinian delegation demanded
a stop to building settlements in the occupied territories. The Israelis
countered by reminding the Palestinians of their commitment to neutralize the
radical groups on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. But that is not a very
credible response because building houses in the occupied territories is just
as real a problem as radicals and terrorists.

It was after Annapolis, early this month, that Israel
announced it was building houses in East Jerusalem. Such plans have also been
unveiled for the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim and so on. All this is being
done within the existing settlements since Israel has promised not to take any
new Palestinian territories. But in general one of the issues in the Middle
East peace process is the Jewish development of the territories which, based on
the results of the talks, theoretically may not belong to them. In other words,
ahead of the negotiations, Israel is stepping up the activities that Palestine
wants it to stop.

Or take the question of Jerusalem where new developments are
planned. It is Israel's capital, but the negotiating process implies a joint
negotiated solution of the city's status. For the time being, in terms of
international law, the eastern quarters of Jerusalem are occupied territories.
The Israelis say they are ready to discuss the city's status with the
Palestinians, but what is the point of talking if new Jewish homes are already
being built there?

The settlements are only one item in the overall peace
process.

For "the father of the Annapolis victory," George
Bush, the problem now is that he is scheduled to go to the Middle East in
January. Even if he manages to wriggle out of that trip, he will still have to
come to grips with concrete issues, for example, to say what he thinks about
the building of Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands in parallel with the
talks. America's support for Israel is the Achilles heel of all its policy in
the greater Middle East and further afield, for example, right up to Muslim
Indonesia. These problems will have to be grappled with.

A land that has for centuries been inhabited by people of
one creed (or, to put it in other words, of one ethnic identity) and which as a
result of the use of force is now inhabited by a different people is not only a
problem of Palestine and Israel. The same is true of Kosovo. Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov and other Russian diplomats have repeatedly pointed out:
if the world has been wrestling with the Palestinian problem for half a century
and will continue to do so, why such a hurry in the case of Kosovo?

And indeed, the "settlement activities" of the Albanians
who infiltrated into Kosovo are very similar to what the Israelis have been up
to all this time: to create settlements taking advantage of the weakness of
their opponents and then to present the other side with an accomplished fact
during the course of negotiations, hoping to wrest at least partial
concessions.

What will happen to Europe if it tries to settle a similar
problem between the Serbs and the Kosovars after both are admitted to the
European Union as "independent states"? It may or may not pan out
because Kosovo's independence would not be legally complete without a formal
recognition by the UN. That would give the Serbs reason to seek redress for
half a century or for as long as they feel like it. It is unclear who will play
the role of the U.S., which, let us face it, is disliked in the Muslim world
because of Israel. America's other missteps (i.e. wars) look in many ways as a
derivative of the starting point of its Middle East policy.

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

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071227/94407036.html

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Kosovo Cannot Be the End of International Law

Kosovo Cannot Be the End of International Law

13.12.2007

Source:

URL: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/102783-kosovointlaw-0

Kosovo-Metohija is the very heart and soul of the Serbian nation. Kosovo province is to Serbs what Westminster Abbey is to Britons, Paris is to the French or Jerusalem is to the three world religions. It is not something the Serbian nation is willing to surrender to NATO, Albanian Muslims or the US State Department, however mighty they might think they are, and however persistently they demand to steal it. The Serbian province of Kosovo, administered by NATO since June 1999, is the fourth region with the highest corruption rate in the world, right after Albania, according to a report from the organization Transparency International, an anti-corruption watchdog based in Berlin. Transparency International’s 2007 Global Corruption Barometer showed that the Kosovo province under the NATO-imposed Albanian KLA criminal gang, well known for illegal drug trade and human trafficking, is among the most corrupt regions in the world today. Unemployment is high and the farcical “election” recently held generated an extremely poor turnout showing that there is little effort or basis for such a pseudo political process. Sixty-seven percent of Kosovo province residents have stated they have to pay bribes to get services. The criminal governance of Kosovo does not meet any criteria whatsoever for a legal secession from Serbia. They are not self-sustaining, they have no viable political process, they have no historical connection to the land, they were offered wide autonomy by Serbia and they have no claims whatsoever regarding mistreatment by Serbian authorities, so no legal condition exits by which such unilateral action can be considered by the international community. Those who would encourage such illegal action should also consider that Kosovo is completely dependent on SERBIA for all its electricity and, like the rest of Europe, Kosovo also needs Russian GAS for heating. Unilateral declaration of independence would constitute a violation ofUN Security Council Resolution 1244 as well as the UN Charter, and it will subsequently be null and void in the UN. Russia, which holds a veto in the U.N. Security Council, will demand that any such decision be cancelled or be annulled. Washington and most EU member states support Kosovo independence. Albanians say they will declare independence within months. Without approval from the UN, any recognition given would completely lack legitimacy or a legal basis. Since the NATO war of aggression was a crime against international peace and, therefore, gives rise to international responsibility, the international community is duty-bound to mount an appropriate response, and that does not include allowing declarations of independence which would slice away fifteen percent of Serbian territory. When all peaceful options are exhausted, Serbia has a right under all provisions of international law to force the aggressor out of its territory in accordance with article 51 of the UN Charter. Yugoslavia was and Serbia is a UN member state. The UN Charter's prohibition of member states of the UN attacking other UN member states is central to the purpose for which the UN was founded in the wake of the massive death and destruction of World War II: to prevent war. This prevailing concern is also reflected in the Nuremberg Trials' concept of crimes against peace, "starting or waging a war against the territorial integrity, political independence or sovereignty of a state, or in violation of international treaties or agreements..." (crime against peace), was held to be the crime that makes all war crimes possible. The provision on the inviolability of state sovereignty was elaborated in the Declaration on the Principles of International Law adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1970, which in particular defines aggression as follows: "The first use of armed forces by a state in contravention of the Charter shall constitute prima facie evidence of an act of aggression..." This is the Helsinki Final Act from 1 August 1975, upon which resolution 1244 calls: I Defining sovereignty: "The participating States will respect each other's sovereign equality and individuality as well as all the rights inherent in and encompassed by its sovereignty, including in particular the right of every State to juridical equality, to territorial integrity and to freedom and political independence. They will also respect each other's right freely to choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems as well as its right to determine its laws and regulations." In III Inviolability of frontiers: "The participating States regard as inviolable all one another's frontiers as well as the frontiers of all States in Europe and therefore they will refrain now and in the future from assaulting these frontiers. Accordingly, they will also refrain from any demand for, or act of, seizure and usurpation of part or all of the territory of any participating State." In IV Territorial Integrity of States: "The participating States will respect the territorial integrity of each of the participating States. Accordingly, they will refrain from any action inconsistent with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations against the territorial integrity, political independence or the unity of any participating State, and in particular from any such action constituting a threat or use of force. The participating States will likewise refrain from making each other's territory the object of military occupation or other direct or indirect measures of force in contravention of international law, or the object of acquisition by means of such measures or the threat of them. No such occupation or acquisition will be recognized as legal." Russia has warned the West that recognizing a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo Albanians would set off a chain reaction of problems in the Balkans and beyond. "I want to stress that a unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo and recognition of such independence will not remain without consequences," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a visit to Nicosia. "It will create a chain reaction throughout the Balkans and other areas of the world," he said, speaking through an interpreter after talks with Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos. What are the real reasons behind the West strongly pushing this issue at this time? Are they nostalgic for war in Europe again? Are they attempting to force Russia to reciprocate in kind on Abkhazia and South Ossetia? Why not just leave Kosovo's status as is and continue negotiations? How do they explain to the people at home that they are fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, yet they have been protecting them in Kosovo and Bosnia? Analysts warn that the Kosovo precedent may set into motion separatists in Spain, Belgium and Britain. Western media has been claiming that there were two million Albanians in Kosovo. They have also been underestimating the number of Serbs living there, who constitute approximately twenty-five percent of the population. The constant claim in the Albanian and Western press that there are “close to two million ethnic Albanians” in Serbian province is false, and the latest “elections“, where only around 43 percent of Albanian voters have taken part (minus the Serbs of course), have confirmed the earlier census data according to which there is no more than 1.1 - 1.2 million ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. If there is only around one million ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province, that also means that there is at least 25 percent Serbs remaining in Kosovo which is significantly more than the commonly repeated number that 10 or even only 5 percent of Serbs remain in Kosovo-Metohija. The Danish People’s Party broke for the first time with the VK [ruling coalition] government over an essential foreign policy question. The party refused to support the recognition of Kosovo. The Danish People’s Party wrote in a letter to the foreign minister that the international community is setting out to do an injustice to Serbia, and the decision to recognize Kosovo will violate the UN charter, which emphasizes the member countries’ territorial integrity. After horrendous and incredible sacrifices during two world wars, Serbs have been egregiously betrayed by former allies in favor of Albanians who sided with and served Hitler and the Axis. Serbs have had to endure the dissolution of the state of Yugoslavia in which they were not only ethnically cleansed and purged from every one of the former Yugoslav republics, but also falsely and wrongly singled out as both the instigators of each of the civil wars and perpetrators of the worst crimes conceivable. Is this what the west, the empire, stands for? Rewarding criminals, terrorists and alliances with and services to Hitler? Does international law get set aside and eliminated for the interests of corporate elitists seeking power, control and enrichment? It would seem that the lessons of history have been lost on them and that they have forgotten why these laws were enacted and why the UN was created. Lisa KARPOVA PRAVDA.Ru USA/CANADA

© 1999-2006. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in
part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of
the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of
PRAVDA.Ru's editors.

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Misreporting Kosovo

Misreporting Kosovo

December 13, 2007 | From theTrumpet.com

How the mainstream press has missed the single most important angle to what’s happening in Kosovo.

Brad Macdonald

On back-to-back days in December 1991, the New York Times
published two separate articles highlighting Germany’s alarming and
audacious decision to recognize and legitimize the efforts of Slovenia
and Croatia to break away from Yugoslavia. Both articles (you can read
them here and here)
are refreshingly honest and hold little back in their analysis of
Germany’s seminal role in the violent fragmentation of Yugoslavia.

In this
article, Paul Lewis cites European diplomats who warned that Germany’s
decision to support Croatia and Slovenia, despite opposition from
virtually the rest of the world, “underscored Germany’s growing
political power in the 12-nation European Community.” Germany’s
incursion into the Balkans, wrote Lewis, “has worried many in Europe
who see it as an attempt to re-exert traditional Germanic influences over this area of the Balkans” (emphasis mine throughout).

Lewis exhibited little reticence in exposing the German
undercurrent gushing beneath what was unfolding in Yugoslavia, even
when it meant connecting Germany’s decision to recognize Croatia and
Slovenia in 1991, to its sordid history with these entities during
World War ii.

Moreover, in its unusual assertiveness in
moving ahead with a plan to extend diplomatic recognition to the
breakaway Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia, Germany has stirred troubling historical associations …. Nazi Germany dominated the two Yugoslav regions during World War ii, absorbing Slovenia into the Third Reich and creating a puppet regime in Croatia.

Then there’s this piece from the Times a month later: “Germany’s decision to press for quick recognition of the two republics, disregarding
appeals from the United States and the United Nations, marked a new
assertiveness that some Europeans find disconcerting” (Jan. 16, 1992).

The point?

In 1991-92, a mainstream news organ like the New York Times
was not afraid to confront the reality that Germany was manipulating
the Balkans in an effort to “re-exert traditional Germanic influences”
over the region. A willingness to analyze the Balkans through the
German prism was plainly evident.

How times have changed.

On Monday, the deadline for a mutual solution to the Kosovo dilemma
expired, and Kosovar Albanians, led by former terrorist leader Hashim
Thaci, said they would immediately start finalizing their declaration
of independence from Serbia, which they will likely announce within the
first two months of 2008.

The subject of Kosovo’s independence does not lack coverage. What
it lacks is the kind of fresh, up-front, in-depth reporting practiced
by the likes of the New York Times
when it covered Yugoslavia’s dissolution in 1991-92. When Croatia,
Slovenia and Bosnia broke away from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, the Times
didn’t hesitate to declare Germany’s pivotal and alarming role in the
crises (though later, when the U.S. and British governments switched
sides, so too did the Times).

Now Kosovo is about to erupt, and few people, certainly not the
mainstream press, are talking about Germany’s fundamental role in this
crisis!

Why not? It’s a blockbuster angle!

What’s happening in Kosovo is covered with German fingerprints. It
was Germany (and the Vatican) that first legitimized the dissolution of
the state formerly called Yugoslavia. The day Bonn threw its weight
behind Croatia’s and Slovenia’s decision to break away in 1991, every
republic in Yugoslavia that was thinking about breaking away, including
Kosovo, learned that it could do so and have the support of Germany and
the Vatican.

But Germany’s intimate relationship with Kosovo runs deeper than
mere ideological support. The involvement in the province by Germany,
one of Kosovo’s most important and long-standing supporters, has
manifested itself in very practical—and dangerous—ways. The German
government has been closely linked to the Kosovo Liberation Army (kla),
a terrorist organization that during the early to mid-1990s was linked
to the mafia in Kosovo and other Islamic terrorists in the region.

In 1996, the German foreign intelligence service (bnd), established a major outpost in the Albanian city of Tirana, where kla terrorists were trained to fight against Serbian authorities. According to Le Monde Diplomatique,
“special forces in Berlin provided the operational training and
supplied arms and transmission equipment from ex-East German Stasi
stocks as well as black uniforms” (May 1999).

Here’s what Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in July 2002:

Kosovo’s “internationally unrecognized government-in-exile” had a prime minister who was based in Germany and operated freely with the blessing (perhaps even the direction) of the German government!
So Germany recognized Kosovo’s government-in-exile when nobody else
did. But the international community submissively followed Germany’s
lead. The kla guerrillas didn’t just happen. They were essentially raised up and directly supported by Germany—the powerhouse of Europe.

How many analysts, when they consider Kosovo’s independence today,
are factoring in Germany’s central role in the growth and expansion of
the kla? How many wonder why
Germany would be so interested in, and go to such great lengths to
secure, Kosovo’s independence from Serbia? What’s in it for Germany?

These questions lie at the heart of analysis on Kosovo—but few are asking them!

The Trumpet has explained how, under the umbrella of the United States and nato,
Germany and Europe have, since 1991, dramatically increased their
influence in the Balkans. By employing a subtle diplomatic
divide-and-conquer policy, Germany has precipitated the systematic and
violent fracturing of Yugoslavia. It was Germany, through cunning use
of exaggerated and inaccurate claims and emotive language, that in 1999
stirred nato, predominantly comprised of U.S. troops, to bomb Serbia.

In March 1999, German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping said in a television interview on zdf that “genocide is starting” in Serbia. His alarmist vocabulary turned the collective Western mindset against Serbia. The Australian
reported on April 1, 1999, “With thousands of refugees continuing to
stream out of the war-torn province, German Defense Minister Rudolf
Scharping claimed in Bonn last night that evidence had emerged of
concentration camps being set up by Serb forces.”

“People watched television and saw the streams of Albanian
refugees,” wrote Gerald Flurry at the time. “Then they totally blamed
the Serbs. Most knew very little about Kosovo, yet spoke of ‘genocide’—the deliberate and systematic destruction of a race. Then came talk about ‘concentration camps.’ Genocide and concentration camps—words introduced by the German defense minister” (The Rising Beast).

Are Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic’s supposed atrocities against Albanians the real reason America and nato bombed Belgrade into submission? During the 1990s, actual genocides were occurring in Rwanda and Sierra Leone—not to mention the slaughter of Serbs
by Croatians and the Kosovo Albanians themselves—and the Clinton
government did little to intervene. Why was America prepared to bomb
Serbia into submission, but not the evil forces killing hundreds of
thousands of innocent victims in Rwanda or Sierra Leone? Because
America was pressured into bombing Serbia! Germany and Europe convinced all of nato to fight for their Balkan cause!

From the very beginning, Germany and Europe have been determined to
conquer the Balkans, be it by force or in a web of diplomatic
maneuvers.

In 2003, EU Commission President Romano Prodi promised that all
Balkan countries—if they danced to the EU’s tune of course—could
“become members of the EU one day.” While they might not necessarily
become members on the same day, and each would have to follow its own
course, he said, nonetheless, “in the long run, [the] Balkans belong strictly to the EU” (EUobserver, Jan. 10, 2003).

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks!

This is why Germany wanted Serbia, its historical enemy and counterweight in the region, destroyed by nato.
Germany and Europe believe the Balkans belong “strictly to the EU.”
Without the pesky Slobodan Milosevic around to interrupt their plans,
Germany and Europe could more easily conquer the Balkans!

Any in-depth analysis of the events unfolding in Kosovo must account for this history.

The International Herald Tribune
reported yesterday on a plan concocted by Slovenia (which will likely
be holding the EU presidency when Kosovo declares its independence) by
which the European Union will embrace Kosovo when it declares
statehood. Europe is prepping itself for action in Kosovo.

The Tribune quoted one diplomat who said that if violence breaks out in Kosovo, Europe’s response must be “fast and decisive because the EU is showing it’s boss in its own courtyard. We want to show we don’t need Washington or Moscow to tell us what to do.”

Considering the history we just covered, against whom do you think Germany and Europe will take action?

On Monday, the Itar-Tass news agency reported
that Wolfgang Ischinger, the German diplomat representing the EU in the
group of three international mediators (Russia, the United States and
the EU) at the talks that were held between Serbia and Kosovar
Albanians, told Radio Berlin Brandenburg that the EU would soon be in
agreement on the Kosovo issue.

Ischinger’s interpretation of what Kosovo’s independence will look
like was intriguing. “It will be a state entity,” he said, “which will
continue to be under broad international observation. The nato troops will continue to be deployed there. A further international presence of the UN and, consequently, of EU, will be ensured.”

Germany and Europe are making plans to cement their control of Kosovo via the UN and nato!

In 1991, both Germany and Europe as a whole were significantly
weaker, less unified and less defined than they are today. Germany was
a newly united, largely inward-focused state in the early stages of
resurrecting itself as the leader of Europe and on the global scene.
Europe was even more amorphous than it appears today.

But this seemingly innocuous appearance didn’t stop a major
newspaper from ringing alarm bells when Germany boldly announced it
would support Croatia and Slovenia in their quest for independence, a
decision that many knew would set a dangerous precedent and likely
cause Yugoslavia’s dissolution. At that time, even a mainstream news
source analyzed the breakdown of Yugoslavia in the context of German
ambition in the Balkans!

Today, we don’t see any such analysis in the news media. Germany
and the EU are widely embraced as legitimate and influential global
powers with a formidable economic, military and geopolitical imprint.
Europe, with Germany at its vanguard, has become a respected and
increasingly powerful geopolitical force motivated by lofty ambitions
of becoming a united superpower.

Still, the mainstream media today refuse to analyze the Balkans in
the context of what’s happening in Germany and Europe, and of Germany’s
history with the region. This is the most dangerous and ominous angle
of the story, and the most underreported one!

In time, this shameful ignorance will prove to be an expensive mistake.
•

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=4556.2818.0.0

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