Socialists, the Unexpected Kingmakers

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=591

Serbian Election: Socialists, the Unexpected Kingmakers
by Srdja Trifkovic

Last Sunday night, as the results of Serbia’s parliamentary elections became known, the country’s President Boris Tadiæ made a remarkable statement. “I warn the parties that have lost this election,” he declared, “not to play games with the will of the citizens and try to form a government that would take Serbia back to the 1990s. I will not allow any such government and I will prevent it by democratic means.” This was not just an ill-considered gaffe in the heat of the election night: on Wednesday he was at it again, criticizing attempts by his political opponents to form the government and pledging to “defend the will of the people with all democratic and legitimate means.”
The implications of Mr. Tadic’s statement are clear, and alarming:
1. There exists a “will of the citizens” (or “people”) that is distinct to, and in this case different from that expressed in the distribution of mandates in the National Assembly;
2. The “losers”—by which he means the outgoing Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and the Radicals (SRS)—would plunge Serbia into wars and isolation (“back to the 1990s”).
3. It is within Tadic’s power as head of state to prevent the emergence of a coalition government not to his liking, even if such a coalition were to be supported by the majority of parliamentary deputies.
Tadiæ’s first claim harks back to Rousseau’s volonté générale that properly guides the decisions of a civil society, rather than the sum of their individual self-interests, the volonté de tous. His assertion is in line with the postmodern USA-EU understanding of “democracy,” which judges a process democratic entirely on the basis of the “rightness” of its outcome. His European and American mentors have long used the term “democracy” as an ideological concept. It does not signify broad participation of informed citizens in the business of governance, but it denotes the desirable social and political content of ostensibly popular decisions. The process likely to produce undesirable outcomes—a sovereignist coalition government in Belgrade, say, or a “no” vote in the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty—is a priori “undemocratic.” Contrary to his frankly outrageous claim, the common good is an aggregate of private interests which needs balancing and fine-tuning through the institutions of representative democracy. After such outbursts it is ridiculous to misrepresent Tadiæ as a “pro-Western democrat,” although he is certain to be thus described in a thousand MSM reports that are yet to be written.
Tadiæ’s Democratic Party (DS) did well at the election, considerably better than expected, but it did not “win.” With 102 deputies in the 250-seat assembly, the Democrats will be 24 seats short of the working majority. Even with the like-minded Liberal Democratic Party of Èedomir Jovanoviæ (14 deputies) and a couple of small ethnic minority parties (Hungarians, Sanjak Muslims), the DS cannot reach the magic number.
The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), with 20 deputies, is now the decisive factor in the equation, certain to decide the shape of the next ruling coalition. It will likely join forces with Koštunica’s DSS (30 deputies) and the Radicals (78) to create a government with a slim but workable majority. Its leader Ivica Daèiæ may yet be tempted by the DS, which is certain to make him a generous offer, but his party leadership has warned him that any such deal would split the party. It still includes numerous Miloševiæ loyalists who have not forgiven the Democrats—then led by the late prime minister Zoran Djindjiæ—the delivery of their leader to The Hague in 2001.
An agreement is already said to be in place between Daèiæ, Koštunica and the SRS to share power in the city of Belgrade, with the Radicals’ No. 3, Aleksandar Vuèiæ, becoming the new Mayor. The speed and ease with which the deal was struck on the country’s second most important government structure—with its many rich pickings—bodes ill for Tadiæ’s hopes that the SPS may yet be swayed his way.
The pro-Western camp is nevertheless trying hard. After almost a decade of relentless political and media campaign by the DS and its allies against the SPS, after years of public demonization of its late leader, the “Euro-reformist forces” have suddenly discovered that the Socialists are eminently salonfaehig. Tadiæ is now declaring that there are practically no ideological differences between the heirs to Miloševiæ and his own followers, as they are both true to the principles of the Socialist International. Yet less than two years ago, when this same Socialist Party—under the same leader and with the same program—supported Koštunica’s minority goverrnment, it was pilloried by the Euro-reformers as a dark and temporary remnant of Serbia’s unpleasant past.
Even if he manages to cobble together yet another coalition with himself at the helm, the biggest loser of the election is my old friend Vojislav Koštunica. He is a well-meaning man of principle, as we all know, and his decision on March 8 to “return the mandate to the people” may have been the honorable thing to do—but in the midst of the Kosovo crisis it was neither prudent nor conducive to the country’s best interests. Within the previous parliament, elected on January 21 2007, a “sovereignist” majority could have been created with far greater ease than today. Dr. Koštunica is now paying the price of his reluctance to part ways with the Eurofanatics and strike a solid deal with the Radicals a year ago, as many of his friends and supporters had urged him to do at the time and as it was certainly in his power to do.
Serbia is now more polarized and more evenly divided, but it is nevertheless far from having an “Euro-reformist” majority, as Mr. Tadiæ and his allies would have us believe. His DS-led coalition and the LDP, let us repeat, have 116 deputies. That is well below the score for the SRS-DSS-led emerging alliance, which is likely to stand firm on the defense of Serbia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and international legality.
After almost 8 years in the wilderness the Socialists are Belgrade’s unexpected kingmakers. It is to be hoped that by doing the right thing now they will atone for at least some of the many mistakes and misdemeanors of which they were guilty while running Serbia under Miloševiæ. It is also to be hoped that Mr. Tadiæ will respect his constitutional prerogatives and accordingly refrain from any attempt to resist the will of the people, as expressed by their democratically elected deputies.
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Balkan exceptionalism

May 15th 2008
From The Economist print edition

What Serbia's election says about the European Union's enlargement

Illustration by Peter Schrank

A BRITISH tabloid set a high standard for bombast when it once took
credit for the re-election of a Tory government with the headline:
“It's The Sun Wot Won It”. This week European Union leaders
were taking credit for another election upset: the unexpected success
of the pro-European coalition led by the Serbian president, Boris
Tadic, in the general election on May 11th. The Serbs had “clearly
chosen Europe,” said the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner. Jan
Marinus Wiersma, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, declared
that the election was “a form of referendum in which citizens gave
their support for the country's future membership of the EU.”

That may be a little premature. It is true that Mr Tadic's block is
called the “Coalition for a European Serbia”. His supporters waved the EU
flag of gold stars on blue. But Mr Tadic did not win outright, and it
matters enormously which parties end up in a new coalition government.
If the wrong parties cobble together a deal, they could yet lead Serbia
into deeper isolation.

Yet it would be absurd to deny that the EU
played a role in the election. European governments agreed to offer
Serbia a couple of timely (if symbolic) concessions just days before
the vote. Serbs may feel “humiliated” that 19 EU countries have recognised the independence of Kosovo after the province broke away in February, says a diplomat. But the EU also reminded them that Europe is about good things, such as freedom to travel. If it was not exactly the EU “wot
won it”, European governments did at least send a signal that they
would rather have Serbia in the club than brooding dangerously outside.

That holds true also for Serbia's neighbours in the western
Balkans, who are being jollied along with visa concessions and the
like, and assured that they enjoy a “European perspective” (to use the
Brussels jargon for eventual membership). It all feels rather
pragmatic, even generous. And that is odd, because when it comes to
enlargement in general, older members of the club are in a foul temper.

It is not only the future that causes alarm. The mood is sulphurous
over Romania and Bulgaria, which joined in 2007. Bulgaria has already
seen tens of millions of EU funds frozen
amid fears of fraud. The figure of suspended aid could rise to billions
when a European Commission monitoring report comes out this summer. The
new Italian government is talking menacingly about restricting Romanian
migrants. The latest Eurobarometer poll on enlargement found majority
support for the admission of only one new country: Croatia, a
relatively advanced place whose beaches heave with sizzling Italians
and Germans each summer. Croatia is on course to join in 2010 or 2011.

Even more paradoxically, some of the countries keenest on admitting
Serbia and others have voters who are the most alarmed by enlargement.
Migrant-phobic Italy led the way (together with Greece) in arguing for
the EU to be flexible over demands that
Serbia co-operate with prosecutors hunting war criminals. Austria has
lobbied tirelessly for Balkan bits of the former Austro-Hungarian
empire, starting with Croatia. Yet Austrian voters now oppose admitting
any Balkan country other than Croatia by large margins (and a whopping
81% are against Turkish membership). Similarly, French ministers may
rejoice that Serbia's voters choose Europe, but in 2006 France was
pushing the idea that future enlargement should be assessed according
to the EU's “absorption capacity”, a
dangerously vague term that includes voters' “perceptions”. The French
president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is publicly against Turkey's membership.

If enlargement is so unpopular, why do so many EU
leaders want the credit for Serbia's vote for Europe? There are two,
linked explanations. The first is that holding the door open to Balkan
countries such as Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia and the rest does not
imply support for enlargement in general—it is a specific strategy for
preventing further instability in Europe's backyard. And the second is
that enlargement mostly works like that.

Consolidation, not enlargement

Arguably, enlargement as a general project does not exist. Moves to expand the EU
are more often responses to particular crises, and they trigger big
squabbles until it becomes clear that no better alternative exists (the
1995 expansion to take in Finland, Sweden and Austria being the
exception). Greece was admitted in 1981 to bind it to the West, even
though everybody feared it was not ready. It took nine years of
argument to get Spain and Portugal in, amid cries of alarm (loudest in
France) over cheap Iberian workers and farm produce. In December 1989,
as Communist regimes fell across eastern Europe, the French president,
François Mitterrand, proposed that ex-Warsaw Pact nations should be
invited to join a loose “European confederation” (the idea died, not
least because Mr Mitterrand invited Russia too). The EU hopes of Bulgaria and Romania only became plausible during the Kosovo crisis of 1999, when their airspace was needed to allow NATO jets to bomb Serbia.

Today's Serbia and the other Balkan applicants for entry may not be
easy cases. But their admission does not pose “existential” questions
for the EU, notes one diplomat, just a lot
of hard work on building up clean, capable governments, in which scary
nationalists are marginalised. Croatian negotiators even talk smoothly
of “consolidation” rather than “enlargement” nowadays. Larger
candidates for the EU, notably Turkey and
Ukraine, cannot do that. They pose big questions, such as how to relate
to the Muslim world or how to live with Russia.

The Serbian election could have been a lot worse. A thumping win for nasty nationalists would have seriously delayed EU
expansion into the western Balkans. But supporters of admitting Turkey,
say, should avoid premature congratulation. The western Balkans remains
an exceptional case. Enlargement as a broader cause was not the winner
this week.

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=11375822

Serbia misses the boat

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/borut_grgic/2008/05/serbia_misses_the_boat.html

GUARDIAN (UK)

COMMENT IS FREE

Serbia misses the boat
Borut Grgic

May 10, 2008 10:00 AM

Serbia is again facing an election. These are now so frequent the joke is
that Serbia has a new national sport. Commentators claim this one is
crucial, but they said so of the last one, and the one before it. The
country is stuck in the past, and confused by its irrationalism.

The same faces keep appearing on the election posters - Tadic, Nikolic and
Kostunica. The three collectively in five years have done less than Djindjic
managed to do in two on his own. It is shocking that they are still around.

Europe is partly to blame for the state in which Serbia finds itself today.
The unconditional love the EU has shown for a class of political losers in
Serbia will end up costing Serbia a decade of progress and a generation. It
sounds impossible, but it is true.

For example, Serbia has regressed economically in the last decade more than
all its neighbours. Serbia attracted less foreign direct investment (FDI) in
comparative terms in the last year than all its neighbors. FDI has also been
less diverse in Serbia than in neighbouring countries. Notwithstanding
Kosovo, which is not yet recognised as a country by all the EU member
states, Belgrade was the last to negotiate a Stabilisation and Association
Agreement (SAA) with the EU. And the visa restrictions are keeping young
Serbs stuck in a country that is sinking.

For Serbia to change, Brussels needs to change. First, we in Europe need to
end this obsession, which some have that Serbia should be pulled on to the
cart - Belgrade willing or unwilling - before the EU train leaves the
station. In reverse psychology we're suggesting that Europe can't do without
Serbia and is therefore willing to wait and bend the rules. It is
counterproductive. We are not succeeding in changing the political behaviour
of Serbia, but we are making the rest in the region wonder why the double
standards, and whether it pays at all to reform.

The region has new economic stars which boast competitive investment
environments and EU-interoperable political platforms. In terms of balance
of power, Serbia is not the centre of gravity it once was; and it will never
again be. The Nato umbrella and the EU component have fundamentally changed
the nature of power distribution in this region.

Obsessed with Belgrade, Europe is guilty of overlooking, or discounting, the
progress that others have been making steadily and in some cases, very
rapidly. A case in point is Montenegro. The country is barely independent,
yet its economy is growing at close to 6% for the second consecutive year.
Its FDI is above $1bn, which for a country with a population of 700,000
people is an excellent progress report. There is a buzz about Montenegro in
the business world. Some top investors - and not just the Russians - are
looking to invest. The most recent example is the Canadian-Hungarian owner
of Barrick Gold, the world's biggest gold-mining firm. He's building a
marina in Montenegro.

Albania and Macedonia are beginning to attract similar business interests.
Progress is being made in the region on all levels, and this is happening
with and without Serbia. Why is it than that Europe can't have a Balkan
enlargement policy that is not reliant on Serbia, but in which Serbia is a
partner in its own design.

On the political level, Montenegro is the only former ex-Yugoslavian
republic which has achieved its independence by peaceful means, thanks in
some part also to Europe. It's a Balkan country where Albanians and Serbs
live in peace. There is no good reason why Eurocrats shouldn't be more
excited about Montenegro. The notion that the country is not doing enough to
clean up its corruption and crime is an excuse, not a policy. Podgorica
adopted the necessary institutional reforms and Montenegro is making no less
progress in fighting crime than its regional partners. Second, rooting out
corruption is not an overnight process.

At stake is the political will and patience, which Europe has little of for
the Balkan countries, notwithstanding Serbia. And because this is so, Serbia
feels that Europe needs it more than it wants the others, and that European
politicians, if pushed, would still rather explain to their public why they
are supporting Serbia's irrational populism than why Albania, Kosovo and the
rest of the Balkan countries have a rightful place in the European family.

Until Europe is willing to walk away from Serbia, Cedomir Jovanovic, the
young leader of the Serbian Liberal Democratic Party will never win an
election, and Serbia won't change. Thus, this Sunday's election doesn't
matter. The same faces will be back in power with the same political spins,
but new pretences about who are and aren't their friends. Thanks to Europe's
unconditional love and the SAA, which the EU signed with Serbia just last
week, we can all go on holiday this weekend.

letters@guardian.co.uk

Kosovo, the European Union's New Colony

http://www.bannerofliberty.com/BOL-2008MQC/3-6-2008.1.html

Mary's Weekly News Analysis

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Kosovo, the European Union's New Colony

By Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)

March 6, 2008

My first reaction to media reports on February 16 of jubilant Albanians in Kosovo gleefully celebrating their "independence" from Serbia was simple bewilderment. In the first place, I noted from pictures of their jubilation that they are not waving a Kosovo flag. What they wave is the flag of Albania.
Secondly, according to the Kosovo Plan developed by Marti Athtisaari,former president of Finland and the United Nations special envoy to Kosovo,their independence requires that "Kosovo must uphold, promote and protect internationally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms. All persons in Kosovo are entitled to these rights and freedoms without discrimination of any kind."
History proves that Albanians simply don't recognize the rights and freedoms of others. In fact, when Albania declared itself an "atheist state" in 1967, all churches and other buildings owned by religious groups were closed down. In an article published April 1, 1999 I reported that over 166,000 Greeks were driven out of Albania between 1993 and 1997 From 1991 to 2000 the percentage of Greeks in Albania dropped from 8% of the population to 3% of the population. In Kosovo the Serb population dropped from almost 15% of the population in 1981 to 5% of the population in 2007.
The Kosovo Albanians waving an Albania flag is exactly comparable to illegal alien high school students in California ripping down the US flag and raising the flag of Mexico at their school. They justify their behavior by claiming that California is really a part of Mexico. In Kosovo, Albanians that have flooded across the open borders between Kosovo and Albania are now claiming that Kosovo is really part of Albania. Actually, Kosovo has never been part of Albania, except during World War II when it was overrun by then fascist Italy that had also occupied Albania. California was part of Mexico until the treaty of Guadalupe of 1847 when it ceded California, Texas and New Mexico (including all the present-day states of the Southwest) to the United States in exchange for the US withdrawing its troops from Mexico City.
Kosovo, on the other hand, has been the home of Serbs for more than a thousand years and part of the nation of Serbia for for 700 years although it has been occupied by other nations a number of times. The latest occupation has been the 9 year occupation by NATO troops.
And, like every other state or province within nations, Kosovo had its own budget and its own debt. During these nine years of occupation by a foreign power, Serbia has continued to service that debt, although it has received no taxes from Kosovo during the NATO occupation. Belgrade has been paying $150 million a YEAR to service Kosovo's debt. That compares with less than $20 million a year the World Bank has given to Kosovo from 1999-2006. (A week ago Serbia's Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic wisely urged his government to stop paying Kosovo's debts as long as it is occupied by NATO and the European Union.) The World Bank reports that since June of 1999 over $2.57 BILLION dollars has been spent trying to rebuild Kosovo and make a modern, viable state out of it.
In spite of all that money, the World Bank reports that growth in Kosovo "has weakened from 21.2% in 2000 to 4.2% in 2006 in line with declining donor resources." As the Serbs and other minorities have been ethnically cleansed from Kosovo due to crime and violence that KFOR seemed to be unable or unwilling to control, unemployment has skyrocketed to a reported 50-70% of the workforce.
The English word independent, in my dictionary is defined as: (1) Not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc; (2) Not subject to another's authority or jurisdiction (3) Not relying on another or others for aid or support (4) declining others' aid or support; refusing to be under obligation to others.
That does not define Kosovo. It is clearly dependent on outside money and even outside policing to keep it reasonably in line. How is it that the Albanians in Kosovo with such non-productive background even SURVIVE - much less be granted such favor by the international community that it is being recognized as an "independent nation?"
Actually, the answer to that is in Albanian past and present history. Piracy and illegal trading has been part of Albania's economy for hundreds of years. According to an article by Peter Klebnikov in the February 2000 edition of Mother Jones Magazine, which strongly favors legalizing currently illegal drugs, most of the illegal drugs consumed in Europe are supplied by Albanian crime "families."Klebnikov wrote: "in the six months since Washington enthroned the Kosovo Liberation Army in that Yugoslav province, KLA-associated drug traffickers have cemented their influence and used their new status to increase heroin trafficking and forge links with other nationalist rebel groups and drug cartels.
"The ascent of the Kosovar families to the top of the trafficking hierarchy coincided with the sudden appearance of the KLA as a fighting force in 1997. As Serbia unleashed its campaign of persecution against ethnic Albanians, the diaspora mobilized. Hundreds of thousands of expatriate Kosovars around the world funneled money to the insurrection. Nobody sent more than the Kosovar drug traffickers -- some of the wealthiest people of Kosovar extraction in Europe. According to news reports, Kosovar Albanian traffickers launder $1.5 billion in profits from drug and arms smuggling each year through a shadowy network of some 200 private banks and currency exchange offices."
That was more than eight years ago. The "Serbia persecution" mentioned by Klebnikov was a effort by Belgrade to stop the killing of Serb policemen. Time marches on. Today the man who headed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 2000, Hashim Thaci, is the prime minister of Kosovo. Until President Bill Clinton removed it in 1999, the KLA was on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations.
In February 1999 I also wrote about what I could see was a puzzling situation then developing in Kosovo. Frankly, at the time I knew nothing about the area but did know that the Albanians were the poorest, most backward and most devotedly communist nation in all of Europe. They thought the Russians were not proper "communists." I wondered how they could afford to create an army and finance expensive modern weapons to challenge the Yugoslavian army.
This was more than 2 years before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but even then in that article I had tracked down connections between the KLA and Osama bin Laden. I observed: "The KLA actually is the successor to the Ustashi regime of World War II which slaughtered over 700,000 Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies living in Croat-controlled territory in the forgotten part of the Holocaust. They have hated the Serbs for several hundred years - the Serbs supported the Allies in World War II and the Ustashi supported Mussolini and Adolph Hitler."
According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime the global drug trade generated an estimated $321.6 billion in 2003. That compares with the $358.2 billion that was spent in the 2003 US Defense Department budget. The size of the world's illicit drug trade, which fuels much of world terrorism and crime, is equivalent to .9% of the world's entire GDP and higher than the GDP of 88 percent of the countries in the world.
When the Albanians declared Kosovo "independent" the Serbs also gathered. In fact, their leaders - traditional, elected and spiritual, gathered to pray for the survival and the well being of the Serbs in Kosovo, most of whom have already been either driven out of Kosovo or killed in recent years. Crown Prince Alexander II addressed the gathered Serbs at Saint Dmitri Church in Mitrovica, Kosovo as follows: "Peace, determination, decisiveness, faith, and goodwill - these are our only 'weapons'. And, of course, law and justice, which are on our side. I appeal for the respect of human rights.
"Once again, I repeat my appeal for unity, for wisdom, for the unity of all politicians leading Serbia at this grave hour, so that we can live up to our ancestors who created this country with great effort, and our successors, to whom we must leave this country in legacy."
On one hand we are told that all the problems in the Balkans will simply go away when a "new" nation created by and for terrorists, drug dealers and criminals is recognized by other nations as legitimate and can join the United Nations. On the other hand we have the old nation of Serbia that is praying for the survival of the small group of Serbs still remaining in Kosovo.
I can hardly wait to see what happens next.
________________________________________

NATO's Kosovo Colony

NATO's Kosovo Colony

By DIANA JOHNSTONE

Across this last weekend, the Western propaganda machine was working overtime, celebrating the latest NATO miracle: the transformation of Serbian Kosovo into Albanian Kosova. A shameless land grab by the United States, which used the Kosovo problem to install an enormous military base (Camp Bondsteel) on other people's strategically located land, is transformed by the power of the media into an edifying legend of "national liberation".

For the unhappy few who know the complicated truth about Kosovo, the words of Aldous Huxley seem most appropriate: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall drive you mad."

Concerning Kosovo, truth is like letters written in the sand as the tsunami of propaganda comes thundering in. The truth is available--for instance in George Szamuely's thoroughly informative piece last Friday here on CounterPunch. Fragments of the truth sometimes even show up in the mainstream media, mostly in letters from readers. But hopeless as it is to try to turn back the tide of officially endorsed legend, let me examine just one drop in this unstoppable sea of propaganda: a column by Roger Cohen entitled "Europe's new state", published in the Valentine's Day edition of the International Herald Tribune.
Cohen's op ed piece is fairly typical in the dismissive way it deals with Milosevic, Russia and the Serbs. Cohen writes: "Slobodan Milosevic, the late dictator, set Serbia's murderous nationalist tide in motion on April 24, 1987, when he went to Kosovo to declare that Serbian 'ancestors would be defiled' if ethnic Albanians had their way."
I don't know where Roger Cohen got that quotation, but it is not to be found in the speech Milosevic made that day in Kosovo. And certainly, Milosevic did not go to Kosovo to declare any such thing, but to consult with local Communist League officials in the town of Kosovo Polje about the province's serious economic and social problems. Aside from the province's chronic poverty, unemployment, and mismanagement of development funds contributed from the rest of Yugoslavia, the main social problem was the constant exodus of Serb and Montenegrin inhabitants under pressure from ethnic Albanians. At the time, this problem was reported in leading Western media.
For instance, as early as July 12, 1982, Marvine Howe reported to the New York Times that Serbs were leaving Kosovo by the tens of thousands because of discrimination and intimidation on the part of the ethnic Albanian majority:
"The [Albanian] nationalists have a two-point platform," according to Beci Hoti, an executive secretary of the Communist Party of Kosovo, "first to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger with Albania to form a greater Albania.
Mr Hoti, an Albanian, expressed concern voer political pressures that were forcing Serbs to leave Kosovo. "What is important now," he said, "is to establish a climate of security and create confidence."
And seven months after Milosevic's visit to Kosovo, David Binder reported in the New York Times (November 1, 1987):
Ethnic Albanians in the Government [of Kosovo] have manipulated public funds and regulations to take over land belonging to Serbs. Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls.
The goal of the radical nationals among them, one said in an interview, is an "ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself."
As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially strongly since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981--an "ethnically pure" Albanian region
This was in fact the first instance of "ethnic cleansing" in post-World War II Yugoslavia, as reported in The New York Times and other Western media, and the victims were the Serbs. The cult of "memory" has become a contemporary religion, but some memories are more equal than others. In the 1990s, the New York Times evidently forgot completely what it had said about Kosovo in the 1980s. Why? Perhaps because meanwhile, the Soviet bloc had collapsed and the unity of independent, non-aligned Yugoslavia was no longer in the strategic interest of the United States.
Back to Milosevic in Kosovo Polje on April 24, 1987. An incident occurred when local police (under an Albanian-dominated Communist League government) attacked Serbs who had gathered to protest lack of legal protection. Milosevic famously told them, spontaneously: "No one should beat you any more!" If this is "extreme nationalism", perhaps there should be more of it.
But nowhere do I find a trace of the statement attributed to Milosevic by Cohen. In his speech to local party delegates that followed, which is on the public record, Milosevic referred to the "regrettable incident" and promised an investigation. He went on to stress that "we should not allow the misfortunes of people to be exploited by nationalists, whom every honest person must combat. We must not divide people between Serbs and Albanians, but rather we should separate, on the one hand, decent people who struggle for brotherhood, unity and ethnic equality, and, on the other hand, counter-revolutionaries and nationalists."
I turn again to Aldous Huxley for comfort: "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
But Huxley also said: "Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations."
Last Tuesday in Geneva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tried to convey to journalists his grave concern about the way the United States was handling the Kosovo problem.

"We are speaking here about the subversion of all the foundations and principles of international law, which have been won and established as a basis of Europe's existence at huge effort, and at the cost of pain, sacrifice and bloodletting," he said.

"Nobody can offer a clear plan of action in the case of a chain reaction [of further declarations of unilateral independence]. It turns out that they [the United States and its NATO allies] are planning to act in a hit or miss fashion on an issue of paramount importance. This is simply inadmissible and irresponsible," the Russian diplomat said. "I sincerely fail to comprehend the principles guiding our American colleagues, and those Europeans who have taken up this position," he added.
Roger Cohen dismisses such considerations in five words: "the Russian bear will growl". Russia, he adds, "will scream. But it's backed the wrong horse." There are no issues here, no principles. Just growling and gambling. "Milosevic rolled the dice of genocidal nationalism and lost", says Cohen.

This is not only a false statement, it is a grotesquely meaningless metaphor. Milosevic tried to suppress an armed secessionist movement, secretly but effectively supported by neighboring Albania, the United States and Germany, which deliberately provoked repression by murdering both Serbs and Albanians loyal to the government. Like the Americans in similar circumstances, Milosevic relied too heavily on military superiority rather than on political skill. But even the NATO-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in The Hague had to abandon any charges of "genocide" against Milosevic in Kosovo. For the simple reason that there was never a shred of evidence for such a charge.
Milosevic is no longer alive, and Russia is far away. But what about the Serbs who still live in the historic part of Serbia called Kosovo? Cohen takes care of that problem in a few words: "Some of the 120,000 Serbs in Kosovo may hit the road."

As Aldous Huxley pointed out, "The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human."

Then you can tell them to "hit the road".
The "Unique" Case
Russia has warned that Kosovo independence will set a dangerous precedent, encouraging other ethnic minorities to follow the example of the Albanians and demand secession and an independent State. The United States has dismissed such concerns by flatly asserting that Kosovo is "unique". Well yes, Kosovo is a unique case, and is the only one recognized by the United States until the next "unique case" comes along. When legal criteria have been thrown out, we just have one "unique case" after another.
The "uniqueness" claimed by the United States is a propaganda construction. It is based on the supposed "uniqueness" of Milosevic's repression of the armed secessionist movement, which was not unique at all. It was standard operating procedure throughout history and the world over, in such circumstances. Deplorable, no doubt, but not unique. It was minor indeed compared to the similar but endless and far bloodier anti-insurgency operations in Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Chechnya, not to mention Northern Ireland, Thailand, the Philippines And unlike the counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which kill incomparably more civilians, it was carried out by the legal, democratically elected government of the country, rather than by a foreign power.
The propaganda "uniqueness" is an abstraction. Like every place on earth, Kosovo is indeed unique. But in ways that have nothing to do with the U.S. pretext for taking it over and turning it into a military outpost of empire.
To know how a place is unique, you have to be interested in it.
I have not visited Kosovo since before the 1999 NATO war. On one occasion, in August 1997, I drove around the province in a failing Skoda, at my own expense, just looking. Driving in Kosovo was a bit risky, partly because of the number of dead dogs in the road, and mostly because of local drivers' habit of passing slower vehicles on hills and curves. In northern Kosovo, just outside the town of Zubin Potok, this habit produced one of its inevitable consequences: a head-on collision with serious casualties, which shut down the two-lane highway for hours while ambulances and police sorted things out.
Unable to proceed toward Pristina, I drove back to Zubin Potok to pass the time on the shaded terrace of a roadside restaurant. I was the only customer, and the lone waiter, a tall, handsome young man named Milomir, gladly accepted my invitation to sit down at my table and chat as I sipped glass after glass of delicious strawberry juice.
Milomir was happy to talk to someone familiar with the French city of Metz, which he had visited as a student and remembered fondly. He loved to read and travel, but in 1991 he got married and now had two small daughters to support. Job prospects were poor, even though he had been to university, so he had no choice but to stay in Zubin Potok. As for Europe, even if he could get a visa (impossible for Serbs anyway), he spoke no language more Western than his mother tongue, Serbo-Croatian. He had studied Russian (he loved the literature) and Albanian as his foreign languages. He learned Albanian in order to be able to communicate with the majority in Kosovo.

But such communication was difficult. Milomir was very much in favor of a bilingual society, and thought everyone in Kosovo should learn both Serbian and Albanian, but unfortunately this was not the case. The younger generation of Albanians refused to speak Serbian and learned English instead.

The town of Zubin Potok was located near the dam on the Ibar River built in the late 1970s to create hydraulic power. Coming from Novi Pazar, I had driven along the 35-kilometer-long artificial lake created by the dam, looking in vain for a nice place to stop. It seemed that there must have been villages along the Ibar River before the dam was built, and I asked Milomir about this. Yes, he said, the artificial lake had flooded a score of old villages, of ethnically mixed, but mostly Serb population. The Albanian Communist authorities in Pristina had resettled the Serbs outside of Kosovo, around the town of Kraljevo. There were about 10,000 of them.
This was a minor example of the administrative measures taken to decrease the Serb population during the period, before Milosevic, when Albanians were running the province through the local Communist League.
Milomir was not complaining, but simply answering my questions. He did not go too often (by bus--he had no car) to the nearest large city, Mitrovica, because he was afraid of being beaten by Albanians. This was just a fact of life, at a time when (according to Western media) Albanians in Kosovo were being terrorized by Serbian repression.
While we were chatting, a friend of his came along and the conversation turned to politics. There was a presidential campaign underway. The two young men wanted to know which candidate I thought would be best for Serbia in the eyes of the world. Milomir was tending toward Vuk Draskovic, and his friend was for Vojislav Kostunica. Neither would dream of voting for either Milosevic or Seselj, the nationalist leader of the Radical Party.

Zubin Potok Today
I have no idea what has become of Milomir, his wife, his two daughters, or his friend. Zubin Potok is the western-most municipality in the heavily Serb-populated north of Kosovo. From the internet I learn that the population of Zubin Potok municipality (including surrounding villages) has nearly doubled since I passed through. It now comes to approximately 14,900, including about 3,000 internally displaced Serbs (from other areas of Kosovo where the Albanian majority has driven them out), 220 Serbian refugees from Croatia and 800 Albanians. The local assembly is overwhelmingly dominated by Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia, but includes two Kosovo Albanian representatives.
Up until now, schools, hospitals, and other public services, as well as the local economy, have continued to function thanks mainly to subsidies from Belgrade. The Albanian declaration of Kosovo independence will create a crisis by demanding an end to such vital subsidies--which, however, an "independent Kosovo" is unable to replace. Moreover, bands of Albanian nationalists are declaring that Zubin Potok "is Albanian" and must be "liberated from the Serbs". They can be seen on You Tube, using the Statue of Liberty as their symbol, and threatening Serbs in Albanian rap.

The European Union is moving in to provide law and order. But the "order" they claim to be protecting is the one defined by the Albanian nationalists. What does that mean to people like Milomir and his little family?
For Roger Cohen, the answer is easy: "hit the road!"
Serbia, by the way, already has the largest number of refugees in Europe, victims of "ethnic cleansing" in Croatia and Kosovo. And Serbs cannot get visas or refugee status in Western Europe. They have been labeled the "bad guys". Only their enemies can be "victims".

Before and After
Kosovo before the NATO war and occupation was, nevertheless, a multiethnic society. The accusation of "apartheid" was simply Albanian propaganda, as the Albanian nationalist leaders chose to use that heavily-charged term to describe their own boycott of Serbs and Serb institutions. Every police action against an Albanian, for whatever reason, whether for suspicion of armed rebellion or for ordinary crime, was described as a "human rights violation" by the Albanian human rights network financed by the United States government.

It was an extraordinary situation that the Serbian and Yugoslav governments allowed an illegal separatist "government of Kosovo", headed by Ibrahim Rugova, to hold shop in the center of Pristina, regularly receiving foreign journalists and regaling them with tales of how oppressed they were by the horrid Serbs.
But the laws were the same for all citizens, there were Albanians in local government and in the police, and if there were cases of police brutality (in what country are there no cases of police brutality?), the Albanians at least had nothing to fear from their Serb neighbors.

Even then, it was the Serbs who were afraid of the Albanians. Only outside Kosovo could anyone seriously believe that it was the Albanians who were under threat of "ethnic cleansing" (much less "genocide"). Such a project was simply, obviously, out of the question. It was the Serbs who were afraid, who spoke of sending their children to safety if they had the means, or who spoke bravely of remaining "no matter what".

Later, in March 1999, when NATO began to bomb Kosovo, Albanians fled by the hundreds of thousands, and their temporary flight from the war theater was presented as the justification for the bombing that caused it. The press did not bother to report on the Serbs and others who also fled the bombing at that time.
In Kosovo, in 1987, in Pristina and Pec, I observed a peculiar sort of group behavior that reminds me only of school playgrounds in Maryland in my childhood. A gang of kids get together and by various signs, body language, and a minimum of words, convey to some outsiders that they are excluded and despised. I have seen Albanians act in this way toward stray Serbs, especially old women. This variety of "mobbing" was not violent in 1987, but turned so after NATO occupied the territory. It was encouraged by the official NATO stamp of approval of Albanian hatred for Serbs, delivered by bombs in the spring of 1999.
Of course, there must have been Serbs who hated Albanians. But in my limited, chance experience, what struck me was the absence of hatred for Albanians among Serbs I met. Fear, yes, but not hatred. A great deal of perplexity. Sister Fotina at the Gracanica monastery had a very Christian explanation. We tried to help the Albanians care for their many children, she said, and yet they turn against us. This must be God's way of punishing us for turning away from Christianity during the time of Communism, she concluded. She blamed her fellow Serbs more than the Albanians.
The divine punishment has not been confined to Christians, however. In the southernmost corner of Kosovo live an ancient population called Gorani (meaning mountain people), who converted to Islam under the Ottoman Empire, like most of the Albanians. But their language is Serbian, and this is unacceptable to the Albanians. Estimates vary, but it is agreed that at least two thirds of the Gorani have left since NATO "liberation". Pressure and intimidation have taken various forms. Albanians have moved into the temporarily vacant homes of Gorani who went to Austria and Germany to earn money for their retirement. The NATO-protected Albanian authorities have found ways to deprive Gorani children of schooling in the Serbian language. In the main Gorani town of Dragash, an Albanian mob attacked the health center and caused health workers to flee. Then, last January 5, a powerful explosion destroyed the bank in Dragash. It was the only Serbian bank still allowed to operate in the south of Kosovo, and served mainly to transfer the pensions that allowed local Gorani to survive.

As usual, the crime went unpunished.
David Binder, who used to report on Yugoslavia for the New York Times, before he was excluded for knowing too much, reported last November * on a long investigation of conditions in Kosovo commissioned by the German Bundeswehr. The existence of this report is proof that the Western governments, while publicly claiming that Kosovo is "ready for independence", know quite well that this is not true. Among other things, Binder reports:
The institute authors, Mathias Jopp and Sammi Sandawi, spent six months interviewing 70 experts and mining current literature on Kosovo in preparing the study. In their analysis the political unrest and guerrilla fighting of the 1990s led to basic changes which they call a "turnabout in Kosovo-Albanian social structures." The result is a "civil war society in which those inclined to violence, ill-educated and easily influenced people could make huge social leaps in a rapidly constructed soldateska."
"It is a Mafia society" based on "capture of the state" by criminal elements.
In the authors' definition, Kosovan organized crime "consists of multimillion-Euro organizations with guerrilla experience and espionage expertise." They quote a German intelligence service report of "closest ties between leading political decision makers and the dominant criminal class" and name Ramush Haradinaj, Hashim Thaci and Xhavit Haliti as compromised leaders who are "internally protected by parliamentary immunity and abroad by international law."
They scornfully quote the UNMIK chief from 2004-2006, Soeren Jessen Petersen, calling Haradinaj "a close and personal friend." The study sharply criticizes the United States for "abetting the escape of criminals" in Kosovo as well as "preventing European investigators from working."
It notes "secret CIA detention centers" at Camp Bondsteel and assails American military training for Kosovo (Albanian) police by Dyncorp, authorized by the Pentagon.

In an aside, it quotes one unidentified official as saying of the American who is deputy chief of UNMIK, "The main task of Steve Schook is to get drunk once a week with Ramush Haradinaj."
Who Goes and Who Stays
Schook has been fired by UNMIK, but UNMIK, the nominally United Nations mission, is being taken over arbitrarily by the European Union. The EU "mission" is a sort of colonial government which, alongside NATO, plans to govern the ungovernable Albanian territory. However, already movements of armed Albanian patriots are planning their next "war of liberation" against the Europeans.
So, after the Serbs, the Roma, the Gorani, will the Europeans have to "hit the road"? Only the Americans seem sure of staying. Ensconced in their gigantic "Camp Bondsteel", they control the strategic routes from Serbia to Greece, and incidentally offer the mass of unemployed Kosovo Albanians their best-paying employment opportunities, notably by taking menial and dangerous jobs serving U.S. forces in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The reality of this shameless land-grab is available to all. I have written about it, Binder has written about it, Szamuely has written about it, many Germans have written about it. The Russians, the Greeks, the Rumanians, the Slovaks and many others know about it. But in the Brave New World Order, it does not exist. People don't know.

I leave the last word to Aldous Huxley:
"Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know."
(* The Binder story can be found at http://www.balkanalysis.com/)
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusion (Monthly Review Press.) She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr

Western pressures on Serbia and the Alternatives

http://www.serbianna.com/columns/borojevic/070.shtml

Thursday, May 1, 2008




INTERVIEW WITH DR. SRDJA TRIFKOVIC
Western pressures on Serbia and the Alternatives
By Boba Borojevic
April 30, 2008

The government of Serbia underwent a period of severe crisis following the unilateral declaration of independence by the Albanian leaders in its southern province of Kosovo and Metohija on February 17. Three weeks later Prime Minister Kostunica called early parliamentary elections, thus acknowledging the collapse of the coalition government over disagreements about how the country should respond to Kosovo's UDI
Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, director of the Center for International affaires at The Rockford Institute, Illinois, in his interview for the “Voice of Canadian Serbs” says that on May 11th the citizens of Serbia will vote in the most important parliamentary election since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. “It may be said that this is also the most important parliamentary election in Serbia since before World War One,” says Trifkovic, “because ever since that time we’d had ‘Yugoslavia’ in one form or another, and after the collapse of Yugoslavia we’d had a period of Milosevic’s authoritarian rule. This is the first elestion for the National Assembly of Serbia in almost a century that offers the people two clearly articulated yet fundamentally different strategic options.”
The differences between the “pro-European bloc” led by the Democratic Party (DS) of President Boris Tadic, and the “popular bloc” of that coalition, led by the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, had become insurmountable. The DS believes that it is possible to continue with what they call “the process of European integrations” regardless of the status of Kosovo. They claim that it may be possible to have a dual-track diplomacy and dual track policy, whereby the refusal of Serbia to accept Kosovo’s independence would not influence – and therefore would not hinder – the process of getting closer to EU. The DS is keenly advocating the signing of the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU. That document has not been offered to Serbia yet, but may well be in the next few days.
The argument of the DSS of PM Vojislav Kostunica is that following the recognition of Kosovo by some of the leading countries of the EU, such as France, Germany, Great Britain and Italy, and following the decision of the EU to send the EULEX mission to Kosovo composed of 2000 policemen, judges and administrators – even though this mission has not been authorized by a UN SC resolution – is proof positive that it is no longer possible to pretend that this dual track policy can continue.
Specifically, the DSS (as well as the Radical Party, which is the biggest parliamentary party in Serbia) argue that the EU has adopted a sustained and elaborate policy of actively supporting the secession of Kosovo, while merely pretending that it seeks Serbia’s cooperation on a non-commital basis or that it is ready to seriously consider the process that would lead to Serbia’s eventual integration into the Union.
The debate in Serbia on the EU has been highly ideological. The DS simply does not allow the possibility of any serious critical examination of the policies pursued from Brussels. It keeps repeating that “European integrations have no alternative” and that the continuation of those integrations is the highest priority for Serbia – that those integrations per se constitute the country’s national interest as important as the preservation of territorial integrity itself.
The Democratic Party of Serbia and the Radical Party respond that any eventual integration into the EU can only be a means to an end, and not the end in itself. Indeed, it is incongruous to equate a technical and legal issue, such as a country’s entry into a regional association, with a core national interest, such as the preservation of that country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Any future government in Belgrade will need to make a frank and open statement to the EU that Serbia is prepared to continue its process of integration, but that any such process has to be based on the clear acknowledgement from the EU that it accepts Serbia in its entirety, i.e. with Kosovo included as its integral part. That, of course, will not happen. It is no longer possible for the EU to make any such declaration, in view of the fact that its leading countries have already recognized the self-proclaimed regime in Pristina.
Western influence
Before Kosov’s UDI on February 17 and subsequent recognition by the leading Western powers, those powers had exercised some considerable influence on successive governments in Belgrade. For seven years following the fall of Milosevic, Serbia’s policies had been guided by the perceived need to develop cooperation and trust with Brussels, Washington, and other Western capitals. The authorities in Belgrade had hoped that Serbia’s proven cooperativeness – vis-à-vis the Hague Tribunal, and with its market-oriented reforms, sale of state assets, legislation that would bring the country into line with EU standards in various areas, etc. – would yield some benevolence towards Serbia from those Western powers, and specifically their readiness to adopt a more even-handed approach to Kosovo problem.
That has not happened. In spite of seven years of sustained cooperativeness the Western powers have treated Serbia with unprecedented brutality. The recognition was hastily effected in clear violation of international law and of the EU’s self-proclaimed standards of legality. Therefore, the ability of the Western powers to influence political events in Belgrade has diminished. Their clout is very rapidly declining, as Serbia is beginning to realize that cooperativeness has not yielded any positive results. Quite the contrary: cooperativeness has only created the impression in some quarters that no matter what the west does to Serbia, Serbia will come back wagging its tail and begging for more. We have reason to believe, on the basis of the most recent opinion polls conducted in Serbia, that this will no longer be accepted by the electorate.
In substance it is clear that there are countries within the EU that do not want Serbia in the Union, now or at any future date, and they will keep imposing ever higher goal posts which will be impossible for Serbia to cross for many years, or even decades. Former German Ambassador in Belgrade, Zobel, openly said that even if they give up Kosovo now, the Serbs could only hope for the EU membership in some 20-25 years.
Russia’s impact
On the other hand the Russians have been playing a cautious game in the aftermath of Kosovo’s independence. While continuing to oppose the recognition of the self-proclaimed entity in Pristina, and while continuing to appear diplomatically determined to put obstacles to Kosovo’s recognition, the Russians have been reluctant to enter into closer arrangements with the Serbian government for the simple reason that they did not trust the coalition such as had existed before March 11. It was clear that within that coalition the majority partner, the DS of Boris Tadic, was committed not only to “European integrations” but also to Serbia’s eventual membership in NATO.
It would have been incongruous for the Russians to seek closer partnership with a government that was deeply split from within, the one whose minister for foreign affairs and minister of defense were unreservedly pro-Western come what may. The same ambivalence of the Serbian government – including even outright hostility to Russia – was evident in the economic sphere. A key minister in the former coalition, Mladjan Dinkic, tried to sabotage the agreement with Moscow on the South Stream gas pipeline that will run across the Black Sea via Bulgaria and Serbia into Central and Southern Europe. The Russians are waiting, in my opinion, for the outcome of the forthcoming general elections to decide what they’ll do next.
Serbia’s options
It is highly desirable for Serbia to diversify its foreign policy and external economic options. It is obvious that Serbia is not made welcome by the European club and that the EU would like to have Serbia not as partner but as a subservient client. It is therefore both rationally advisable and in the long term more profitable to seek alternative options. This is not a matter of “choosing between the East and the West” but seeking good comprehensive relations with both while avoiding subservience to either.