FOCUS Information Agency: "No Concessions Over Kosovo � No Ratko Mladic
17 August 2006 15:30 FOCUS News Agency
Novi Sad. Serbia�s Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica will not hand in General Ratko Mladic to The Hague Tribunal if he doesn�t receive concessions over Kosovo in return, the chair of the Center for Peace and Democracy Development Vesna Pesic said cited by Serbian radio station B92.
�If Kostunica does not convince the Contact Group to adopt one of the variants that would correspond to Serbia�s wishes and Kosovo receives independence instead he will hand in neither Ratko Mladic nor the others wanted by The Hague Tribunal,� Vesna Pesic said. According to her this is the reason why General Mladic is still at large and not at The Hague prison."
August 17, 2006
Milosevic Son Again Accuses UN Court Over Father's Death
Company News Story:
"Milosevic Son Again Accuses UN Court Over Father's Death
BELGRADE (AP)--Slobodan Milosevic's son, in a letter published Thursday, reiterated accusations that the U.N. war crimes tribunal was responsible for the ex-Serb leader's death.
Marko Milosevic alleged in the letter published by Vecernje Novosti daily that the U.N. court 'had a monopoly over my father's health' while he was in its detention at The Hague, Netherlands.
'The tribunal sentenced my father to death ... when it rejected his demand for a temporary release, ignoring his health and rights,' Marko Milosevic said in the letter.
'And, in the end, premeditatedly, the tribunal took my father to a death by natural causes.'
Milosevic died of a heart attack in March, while he was being tried for genocide for his role in the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.
During the proceedings, Milosevic had refused to hire a lawyer and represented himself in the court, despite doctors' warnings that the stress could affect his already high blood pressure.
The tribunal in February refused to allow Milosevic to travel to Russia for treatment, saying he was in good hands at the Netherlands-based detention unit.
After Milosevic died, his family and allies in Serbia accused the tribunal of driving him to death by allegedly not granting proper medical care. Milosevic's Belgrade lawyer even suggested that the former Serbian and Yugoslav leader had feared he was being poisoned.
The Hague court has rejected the allegations.
Marko Milosevic said the tribunal's report about the cause of his fat"
"Milosevic Son Again Accuses UN Court Over Father's Death
BELGRADE (AP)--Slobodan Milosevic's son, in a letter published Thursday, reiterated accusations that the U.N. war crimes tribunal was responsible for the ex-Serb leader's death.
Marko Milosevic alleged in the letter published by Vecernje Novosti daily that the U.N. court 'had a monopoly over my father's health' while he was in its detention at The Hague, Netherlands.
'The tribunal sentenced my father to death ... when it rejected his demand for a temporary release, ignoring his health and rights,' Marko Milosevic said in the letter.
'And, in the end, premeditatedly, the tribunal took my father to a death by natural causes.'
Milosevic died of a heart attack in March, while he was being tried for genocide for his role in the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.
During the proceedings, Milosevic had refused to hire a lawyer and represented himself in the court, despite doctors' warnings that the stress could affect his already high blood pressure.
The tribunal in February refused to allow Milosevic to travel to Russia for treatment, saying he was in good hands at the Netherlands-based detention unit.
After Milosevic died, his family and allies in Serbia accused the tribunal of driving him to death by allegedly not granting proper medical care. Milosevic's Belgrade lawyer even suggested that the former Serbian and Yugoslav leader had feared he was being poisoned.
The Hague court has rejected the allegations.
Marko Milosevic said the tribunal's report about the cause of his fat"
Toward a Greater Albania�-�Editorials/Op-Ed�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper
Toward a Greater Albania - Editorials/Op-Ed - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper
Toward a Greater Albania
By Michael DjordjevicPublished August 16, 2006
Part two in a three-part series. With the fall of communism and emergence of America as the only world superpower, the hope for peace, freedom and progress was high. Nonetheless, in the twilight of the old order lurked a new global danger: fundamentalist Islam. This new challenge to world peace and stability is rooted in a cosmology older and stronger than ideologies of fascism or communism or ideas of the New World Order. The Balkans have historically been the key battlefield between Islam and European civilization since the battle at Kosovo, where the Ottoman Turks clashed with the Serbs in 1389, to the present. At its apex, the Islamic tide reached and was stopped at the gates of Vienna (1683). It was finally pushed out in the Balkan War of 1912, when the combined armies of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria were stopped at the Gates of Istanbul (Constantinople) by the intervention of the great European powers of that period. Although not admitted in the capitals of the West, the real and the first clash with this revived expansionist force took place in the Balkans in the 1990s. In reality we have fought on the side of our enemies. As in Bosnia before, now in Kosovo, the West has again failed to deal with the basic and overarching Balkan problem � the Serbian Question. Simply, this issue originated from the fact that with the fall of Yugoslavia, nearly overnight one-third of the Serbs found themselves in a new sovereign state hastily recognized by the EU and then the United States. Due to years of experience of genocide and ethnic cleansing during WW II by the Croats, Bosnian and Albanian Muslims, the large Serbian minorities in these two countries demanded self-determination. This was denied as the West took the stand that "borders are inviolable." Yet now the Albanians in Kosovo are encouraged to violate the Serbian borders via self-determination, while the Bosnian Serbs in the entity of Republika Srpska are still denied the same right. Kosovo, a province in Serbia, is about 15 percent of her territory. Within only two generations (1929-1980) from 15 percent of Kosovo population, Albanians reached 80 percent; the Serbs declined from 60 percent to 18 percent in the same period. This is a clear-cut example of what open borders, a high birthrate and wrong politics can produce. After Serbia was bombed to submission in a "humanitarian" war in 1999, Kosovo was given to the United Nations for administration � with catastrophic results. Quickly, the province was methodically and ethically cleansed. It is now monoethnic. More than 150 Christian churches and old monasteries have been destroyed, while some 200 new mosques and a number of schools for the young were feverishly built by Wahhabi funds. Violent and corrupt, Kosovo has become a den of thieves, arm smugglers and white slavers and the key narcotics transfer point to Europe. Threatening violence, the Islamists demand independence from Serbia. America and Europe are seriously considering forcing Serbia to cede her land in contravention to all international norms and laws and U.N. Resolution 1244. This would be the second Moslem sovereign state created in the Balkans in one decade by the international community. As correctly asserted, "even as Western societies worry about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the international community's ill-conceived policies for Kosovo...may prove to be directly responsible for production of Europe's own Taliban." Independence for Kosovo will likely pave the tormenting road to "Greater Albania," thus assuring a permanent instability and turmoil in the Balkans. The idea of a "Greater Albania" is essentially a mono-ethnic nationalistic construct originated in 1878 by the Albanian League. To many Albanians, an independent and monoethnic Kosovo is nothing but a phase of the process leading to fulfillment of these nationalistic aspirations. Of course, changing the now existing borders of four sovereign states in the volatile Balkans is nothing short of creating conditions for permanent instability and new cycles of wars. These conflicts would readily and easily be exploited by outside parties, particularly terrorists and international criminal networks. So long as we fail to recognize Serbia's legitimate interests and continue to violate the moral norms and international legal system, the Kosovo problem cannot be solved. As Ambassador Jack Matlock correctly concluded in the New York Times in 1999: "Neither partition nor independence nor indefinite foreign occupation will win in the long run without the acquiescence of the Serbian people." As the Serbs have already waited five centuries to regain the cradle of their civilization and identity, they will certainly try to do so again, and in much shorter time. Part I Michael Djordjevich, an American of Serbian origin, founded and served as the first president of the Serbian Unity Congress.
Toward a Greater Albania
By Michael DjordjevicPublished August 16, 2006
Part two in a three-part series. With the fall of communism and emergence of America as the only world superpower, the hope for peace, freedom and progress was high. Nonetheless, in the twilight of the old order lurked a new global danger: fundamentalist Islam. This new challenge to world peace and stability is rooted in a cosmology older and stronger than ideologies of fascism or communism or ideas of the New World Order. The Balkans have historically been the key battlefield between Islam and European civilization since the battle at Kosovo, where the Ottoman Turks clashed with the Serbs in 1389, to the present. At its apex, the Islamic tide reached and was stopped at the gates of Vienna (1683). It was finally pushed out in the Balkan War of 1912, when the combined armies of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria were stopped at the Gates of Istanbul (Constantinople) by the intervention of the great European powers of that period. Although not admitted in the capitals of the West, the real and the first clash with this revived expansionist force took place in the Balkans in the 1990s. In reality we have fought on the side of our enemies. As in Bosnia before, now in Kosovo, the West has again failed to deal with the basic and overarching Balkan problem � the Serbian Question. Simply, this issue originated from the fact that with the fall of Yugoslavia, nearly overnight one-third of the Serbs found themselves in a new sovereign state hastily recognized by the EU and then the United States. Due to years of experience of genocide and ethnic cleansing during WW II by the Croats, Bosnian and Albanian Muslims, the large Serbian minorities in these two countries demanded self-determination. This was denied as the West took the stand that "borders are inviolable." Yet now the Albanians in Kosovo are encouraged to violate the Serbian borders via self-determination, while the Bosnian Serbs in the entity of Republika Srpska are still denied the same right. Kosovo, a province in Serbia, is about 15 percent of her territory. Within only two generations (1929-1980) from 15 percent of Kosovo population, Albanians reached 80 percent; the Serbs declined from 60 percent to 18 percent in the same period. This is a clear-cut example of what open borders, a high birthrate and wrong politics can produce. After Serbia was bombed to submission in a "humanitarian" war in 1999, Kosovo was given to the United Nations for administration � with catastrophic results. Quickly, the province was methodically and ethically cleansed. It is now monoethnic. More than 150 Christian churches and old monasteries have been destroyed, while some 200 new mosques and a number of schools for the young were feverishly built by Wahhabi funds. Violent and corrupt, Kosovo has become a den of thieves, arm smugglers and white slavers and the key narcotics transfer point to Europe. Threatening violence, the Islamists demand independence from Serbia. America and Europe are seriously considering forcing Serbia to cede her land in contravention to all international norms and laws and U.N. Resolution 1244. This would be the second Moslem sovereign state created in the Balkans in one decade by the international community. As correctly asserted, "even as Western societies worry about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the international community's ill-conceived policies for Kosovo...may prove to be directly responsible for production of Europe's own Taliban." Independence for Kosovo will likely pave the tormenting road to "Greater Albania," thus assuring a permanent instability and turmoil in the Balkans. The idea of a "Greater Albania" is essentially a mono-ethnic nationalistic construct originated in 1878 by the Albanian League. To many Albanians, an independent and monoethnic Kosovo is nothing but a phase of the process leading to fulfillment of these nationalistic aspirations. Of course, changing the now existing borders of four sovereign states in the volatile Balkans is nothing short of creating conditions for permanent instability and new cycles of wars. These conflicts would readily and easily be exploited by outside parties, particularly terrorists and international criminal networks. So long as we fail to recognize Serbia's legitimate interests and continue to violate the moral norms and international legal system, the Kosovo problem cannot be solved. As Ambassador Jack Matlock correctly concluded in the New York Times in 1999: "Neither partition nor independence nor indefinite foreign occupation will win in the long run without the acquiescence of the Serbian people." As the Serbs have already waited five centuries to regain the cradle of their civilization and identity, they will certainly try to do so again, and in much shorter time. Part I Michael Djordjevich, an American of Serbian origin, founded and served as the first president of the Serbian Unity Congress.
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