Russia, Serbia and the Kosovo Problem

Russia, Serbia and the Kosovo Problem
17:27     |     28/ 10/ 2008
   

(John Laughland for RIA Novosti) - Every evening at 5pm a group of demonstrators meets on Republic Square in central Belgrade to protest "against the occupation of Kosovo" by the European Union.

 For these people, the apparently harmless transfer of power from one international administration (the United Nations, which has governed Kosovo since 1999) to another (the EU) - a transfer which is supposed to take place formally in December, but which is already being implemented as EU personnel are even now being deployed to the province - is in fact a matter of principle. The EU treats Kosovo as an independent state, whereas the UN administration is based on a Security Council Resolution which proclaims it to be part of Serbia.

The nightly demonstrations are notable for two things. First, the turnout is very low - perhaps twenty or thirty people in a city of nearly two million. The Western-backed destruction of Yugoslavia has been going on for sixteen long years now (since 1992) and most Serbs are now so exhausted and demoralised by it that they are incapable of offering any further resistance. Second, the demonstrators carry Russian flags and sing the Russian national anthem. Vladimir Putin is said to be the most popular politician in Serbia, and Russia generally is regarded now (by anti-EU Serbs at least) as their only remaining hope.

However understandable, this hope is shortly to be dashed. Ever since the violent overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic on 5 October 2000, Serbia has had an uninterrupted line of pro-Western governments and presidents. This pro-Western orientation has brought Serbia only further sales of the country's economic assets to foreigners, and the further stripping of territory from Belgrade's control. In 2006, Montenegro proclaimed its independence from democratic Serbia, only to be followed by Kosovo this February. Both acts were encouraged by the West. Serbia is therefore damned if she opposes the West (as she did from 1990 to 2000 under Milosevic) and damned if she supports it (as she has done did since 2000 under Prime Ministers Vojislav Kostunica and Zoran Djindjic and the current president, Boris Tadic). No wonder some Serbs look to Russia.

Moreover, in order for the Western (EU and US) policy on Kosovo to take effect, the existing United Nations Administration in Kosovo must be dissolved. This can happen only with a vote in the Security Council and therefore only with Moscow's consent. Moscow has said that it will not agree to anything which Belgrade opposes, and Belgrade does indeed currently oppose both the independence of Kosovo and the transfer of authority to the EU.

However, people who are in the know in Belgrade - including those who have exercised the highest offices of state - are certain that the present government's public opposition to the transfer of power from the United Nations Mission in Kosovo to EULEX (the acronym given to the EU administration), and indeed to the independence of Kosovo itself, is merely cosmetic. The present Foreign Minister of Serbia, Vuk Jeremić, said recently in a private meeting with the US State Department officials responsible for Kosovo that his government's only problem was how to find a way of sugaring the bitter bill of Kosovo independence in such a way that Serbian public opinion could be convinced to swallow it.

The Belgrade government has indeed inched towards an acceptance of EULEX and therefore of the independence of Kosovo. It has said that it will accept EULEX on three conditions - if it is approved by the United Nations Security Council; if it is neutral towards the status of Kosovo; and if it does not implement the Ahtisaari plan for (internationally supervised) Kosovo independence. Although it is difficult to see how these last two conditions can ever be met (the EU mission is inseparable from the change in status, otherwise there would be no need to install it in place of the current UN administration), it is obvious from his acts that President Boris Tadic is prepared to pay any price for Serbia's entry ticket to the EU. Serbia's appeal to the International Court of Justice for an advisory ruling on Kosovo (whose independence has been recognised by less than one third of the member states of the UN), an appeal which was successfully accepted at the beginning of this month, is likely to lead to an ambiguous judgement which is any case will be non-binding and which will probably be overtaken by events in the meantime.

Some sort of fudge - of the sort which the European Union is already a world expert at concocting-will therefore be produced between now and December to square the circle between Belgrade's declared opposition to Kosovo independence and its de facto acceptance of it. Such a fudge is certainly very dangerous for the province itself, since government and policing cannot function without very clear lines of authority - as an UNMIK policeman said to me last week, "How can you arrest someone if you do not have the clear right to do so?"  Crime and corruption, already rampant in Kosovo, will only prosper even more so. But if Moscow currently does hold the key to Kosovo in virtue of its veto in the Security Council, and if Russia therefore represents a beacon of hope for patriotic Serbs, there is little she can do with this power if Belgrade itself is determined to throw it away.

John Laughland is a British historian and political scientist, Director of Studies at the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation in Paris.

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

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20081028/117995277.html

Kosovo: Lost to Serbia and to the West

Kosovo: Lost to Serbia and to the West

From the desk of John Laughland on Mon, 2008-10-27 21:12
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A few days spent in Belgrade feels like an age. Although I have been here more times than I can remember (albeit not for five years or so) the country remains almost insuperably foreign. There is something radically different about the Balkans, with respect to the rest of Europe, and there are few more quintessentially Balkan states than Serbia.
 
Where else, for instance, would you meet a man with the wonderful name of Slobodan Despot who smiles and hands you a copy of “The Road to Revolution” by Thomas Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber? Mr. Despot is a publisher previously worked for a conservative pro-Serb publishing house in Paris and the other titles in his own list now include a consolidated calendar of Orthodox and Western saints, and the memoirs of a woman who opened a sex shop in Paris in the early 1970s.
 
And where else would you find yourself on a sofa sipping wine and talking to a civilised young professor of medicine who was himself ethnically cleansed from his home town of Urosevac in Kosovo in June 1999, as NATO guards transported Albanian guerrillas in their Hummers across the province to commit their vicious and systematic arson, murder and rape? Where else – especially in Europe – would you meet a monk whose 25 parishioners (in one of the main towns of Kosovo) have to run the gauntlet every Sunday in order to avoid getting killed on the way to Mass?
 
All these things happened to me – and much more – in the space of a very short stay last week. Ever since the United Nations took over Kosovo in 1999, indeed, the province’s endemic corruption has exploded, as I was able to confirm by talking to two American policemen who work for the international administration there. “Every level of society is corrupt,” one of them said. “Every single aspect of the society is criminal.” This is largely because the Kosovo Liberation Army, the US-backed Contra-style guerrilla force which runs the province and which controls the government, the army and the police, is also notorious for its role as a powerful organisation running drugs, guns and sex slaves to Western Europe.
 
If organised crime is a way of life in Kosovo, so is the systematic destruction of churches: more than 150 churches and monasteries have been blown up on the UN’s watch in the last nine years, as Albanians seek not only to expel all Serbs from the province but also to eradicate any physical record of their ever having been their in the first place. Kosovo, one should never forget, is the original heartland of medieval Serbia, the Serbs having migrated North to Belgrade and the Pannonian plane beyond as a result of the Turkish invasions. Images of an angry mob pulling down crosses and stamping on them, such as were filmed on 17 March 2004, have not been seen since the early years of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia; just under a century later they are now, once again, part of Europe’s present.
 
In spite of these atrocities, which include the pogrom conducted against Serbs in March 2004 – a killing spree which went largely unreported in the West and which is now completely forgotten about – the European Union and the United States have pushed Kosovo to proclaim its own independence unilaterally, even though international law clearly forbids such a step. In 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected Quebec’s right unilaterally to secede from Canada, on the grounds that the inhabitants of Quebec had full civil and political rights within Canada. Since Kosovo has been governed by the UN since 1999, their proclamation of independence now can only mean that they did not have full political and civil rights under that administration – the very body thrust onto Serbia by the “international community” in the name of human rights and democracy.
 
In the remaining months of this year, the Western powers (the EU and the US) will try to finesse a way of transferring power from the UN administration to one run by the European Union. The main obstacle comes from Russia which has a veto in the UN Security Council, the only body which can relinquish authority over the province. For the time being, the Belgrade government says that it opposes EULEX because EULEX was created as a vehicle for the independence of Kosovo, and Russia has said it will support Serbia. In private, however, Serb ministers admit that they will do anything to get into the EU, including accepting the amputation of 15% of their state territory.
 
However the circle is squared, the likely fudge of authority between the EU and the UN will cause what little government there is in Kosovo to break down completely. As one of the American policemen said to me, “How can you arrest someone if the lines of authority are unclear?” This unclarity will of course again further benefit the gangsters, pimps and drug-runners who currently constitute the government of Kosovo, and who have been the West’s allies since 1998.
 
Kosovo is therefore now decisively lost to the Serbs, and therefore to Christian civilisation. A war waged in the name of human rights in 1999 has led to nothing less than genocide – the wholesale eradication both of the Serb population of Kosovo since then (the few remaining Serbs live in ghettos) and of the historical memory of that population.  In 1999, to justify the attack on Yugoslavia, the US State Department published a document called “Erasing History” which documented the alleged genocide against the Albanians. Now we know that the bulk of that document was war propaganda, its claims unproven despite years spent trying to prove them at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Yet “erasing history” is precisely what the Albanians have done in Kosovo since NATO occupied the province, and on its watch. They have also erased democracy, human rights, and all the basic tenets of common human decency. The history of the last ten years in Kosovo is nothing but tragedy and hypocrisy blended into one – a true death of the West and all it stands for.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3614

Kosovo blunder goes to court

GLOBE EDITORIAL

Kosovo blunder goes to court

October 12, 2008

MUCH OF THE resentment President Bush brought upon America can be traced to his contempt for international institutions and the legitimacy they may confer. International institutions have reason to feel the same way about Bush's decisions.
On Wednesday, the United Nations General Assembly agreed to Serbia's request to have the International Court of Justice in the Hague determine whether Kosovo's secession from Serbia is legal. Seventy-seven countries voted in favor of the request. The United States was among only six countries that voted against it.
But then, Bush decided to invade and occupy Iraq without authorization from the United Nations Security Council. He also dismissed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and rejected the International Criminal Court.
When the administration asked for and received UN authorization for its prolonged occupation of Iraq, it seemed Bush had belatedly learned his lesson about the benefits of international legitimacy. But then came Bush's rash decision last February to recognize the independence of Kosovo from Serbia despite a failure to obtain UN Security Council authorization. The Kremlin pointed to that dubious precedent when it recognized independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia after the August war with Georgia.
There is a case to be made for Kosovo's independence. But there is no less of a case for the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - as well as Tibet, and Taiwan, and Kurdistan, and the Tamil regions of Sri Lanka. The alternative to deciding all these cases by violence is international legitimacy. We hope this is a lesson the next US president will not have to learn all over again. 
 
© Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
 
 http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/10/12/kosovo_blunder_goes_to_court/

Kosovo and the Crisis of Ignoring International Law and Global Opinions

Letters from Tokyo

Kosovo and the Crisis of Ignoring International Law and Global Opinions
By Lee Jay Walker

Tokyo Correspondent

Kosovars celebrate their independence in Pristina and show off their new flag. Photo Courtesy of Getty Images

Kosovo obtained part independence when America and many European nations gave the go ahead for the creation of this new nation. However, it is clear that things are not plain sailing because many other nations did not support this elitist adventure, therefore, the wider international community was ignored. So today we have a situation where some nations support this new state (47 nations currently support this nation), however, the majority of nations in Africa, Asia, and South America, have not given their consent. Also, the Russian Federation, Spain, and some other European nations, refuse to accept this American led adventure. So what does the future hold for Kosovo and international law?

Firstly, the current status of limbo is a shock to America and many European nations because they believed that the majority of other nations would follow suit, however, at the moment this isn`t happening. Therefore, the influence of the Russian Federation, China, India, and other nations who are against the independence of Kosovo, is much deeper than America imagined. Also, many nations are aghast by the elitism of this new venture and of course many nations worry that the same may happen to them.

Another negative side effect is the fact that Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia have clear justifications to claim the same rights, with regards to the American model of bypassing international law and the United Nations. So if America can violate international law so easily, then America should expect other nations to follow suit. Therefore, many other would be nations in other parts of the world also claim to have the same natural rights. Of course the United States, the United Kingdom, and others, are claiming that Kosovo is unique, but this is not based on reality because you have too many conflicts all over the world. So a "can of worms" is the real cause and effect of this naive policy.

Nations which are against this American led venture have stated clearly that they are very unhappy with the blatant attitude of elitist Western nations. The Foreign Minister of Argentina, Jorge Taiana, stated "if we were to recognise Kosovo, which has declared its independence unilaterally, without an agreement with Serbia, we would set a dangerous precedent that would seriously threaten our chances of a political settlement in the case of the Falkland Islands."

The newly elected President of Cyprus, Dimitris Christofias, was even more outspoken because he stated "The one thing that Kosovo and Cyprus have in common, as far as the situation in these regions is concerned, is that in both cases, the basic principles of international law and legality, as well as UN decisions, are constantly being violated." A similar comment was made by Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Spanish Foreign Minister, because he made it clear that "the Government of Spain will not recognise the unilateral act proclaimed by the assembly of Kosovo [...] We will not recognise because we consider [...] this does not respect international law."

Therefore, this issue is very important and complex and it is not about denying either the majority Kosovo Albanians independence or supporting minorities like the Serbians, Roma, and other minorities in Kosovo. It is about a deeper issue and this applies to international law. So if America and her supporters can justify Kosovo then what about creating new independent nations for the Abkhazians and South Ossetians in Georgia, Palestinians, Karen in Myanmar, Tamils in Sri Lanka, West Papuans in Indonesia, Basques in Spain, Balochis in Pakistan, and the list can go on and on; so do these ethnic groups deserve independence?

This is the problem because you can not seriously claim that Kosovo is special or unique. After all, you have countless conflicts in the world and many ethnic groups face terrible persecution. Therefore, many other ethnic groups are aghast by events and Yasser Abed Rabbo, a Palestinian politician, stated "Kosovo is not better than us. We deserve independence even before Kosovo, and we ask for the backing of the United States and the European Union for our independence. If things are not going in the direction of continuous and serious negotiations, then we should take the step and announce our independence unilaterally."

Also, the international community, on a whole, is saying that this colonial attitude is really not warrented and of course major institutions, like the United Nations, have been violated and the same applies to international law. So we have a genuine dilemma over this issue and again if the United Nations and international law can be violated, then why have either? Sadly, nations like the United States believe that they are above the international community because they also bypassed international law when they attacked Iraq and bombed the former Yugoslavia.

You also have problems within Kosovo itself and major divisions still exist. This especially applies to northern Kosovo because the Serbian community is relatively sizeable throughout this region. Therefore, you still have major flashpoints and Serbians, the Roma, and other minorities, feel isolated or abandoned. Also, the international community must still guard and protect Serbians, the Roma, and other minorities, throughout the whole of Kosovo. This in itself is evidence that the institutions of Kosovo are weak.

Therefore, the longer this situation remains in limbo the worse it will get because we have already seen convulsions in Georgia based on the Kosovo model. Whereby nations can now clearly state that America, the United Kingdom, France, and others, violated international law, therefore, other nations can follow suit and support their own self interests. So what does the future hold for Kosovo, countless other conflicts throughout the world, the United Nations, and international law?

Lee Jay Walker Dip BA MA
http://journals.aol.com/leejaywalker/uk/

http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=7364&PHPSESSID=427d3e996468f1e01b149e5641fa17e3

Arbitrariness in Power

Arbitrariness in Power

2008/10/03

BELGRADE/PRISTINA/BERLIN

(Own report) - Because of a Serbian UN initiative, Berlin's Kosovo policy is threatened with serious defeat. Belgrade is requesting that the UN General Assembly petition the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ) for an advisory opinion on Kosovo's secession from Serbia. The Assembly is expected to vote on Wednesday. Germany was unsuccessful in mobilizing a majority against Serbia's initiative. For the first time, UN member states have announced the intention of reversing their recognition of Kosovo, if the ICJ should confirm its secession was illegal. While EU functionaries declare that the International Court's decision would be of no consequence to them, Berlin is continuing its aid in consolidating Kosovo's illegal sovereignty. State officials, who, with Western help, had been brought to power in Pristina, are confronted with new accusations. According to reports, new evidence has surfaced pertaining to criminal trade in human organs in Kosovo. Kosovo's "prime Minister" is suspected to be implicated in this crime. One of Pristina's designated "ambassadors" to a European country is also accused of serious crimes.
Serbia has placed a demand that the UN General Assembly petition the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ) for an advisory opinion concerning the secession of its southern province. For the time being, Belgrade is therefore renouncing legal action against Pristina and those states that have recognized its secession. The UN General Assembly is expected to vote on Serbia's request on Wednesday. A simple majority will suffice. Already back in July, the Serbian Foreign Minister, Vuk Jeremić, pointed out that "never before" [1] has "the General Assembly prevented a member state from seeking an ICJ advisory opinion." But governments of several Western states are attempting just that.
Refusal of Loyalty
German and US American attempts to prevent the ICJ advisory opinion are doomed to failure. Western pressure, which already last summer were the topics of interviews in the media,[2] could not prevent the Serbian government from introducing its resolution in New York. And all attempts to tone down the formulation of the resolution have failed. Washington and Berlin plan to either vote "No" or abstain. But in a test vote, approximately two thirds of the 192 UN member states are refusing loyalty, endorsing an ICJ advisory opinion on Kosovo's secession.[3] The Serbian President reported a few days ago that Western states continue their efforts to obstruct the vote by trying to induce more states to recognize Kosovo's independence. In spite of massive pressure from large EU member countries and the United States, only 47 countries - not even a fourth of the UN member states - have recognized Kosovo as a sovereign state.
Latest Tricks
Berlin is therefore faced with a serious defeat. Since the legal questions are clear - Kosovo's secession was obviously in violation of the UN Charter - the West is uncertain about how to prevent an ICJ ruling in Serbia's favor. According to Christian Tomuschat, professor of law in Berlin, there would be possibilities when the concrete formulation of the demand is decided in the UN General Assembly's sub-commission, where controversial questions are often excluded. Then "the ICJ would not even have the possibility of formulating an opinion on the primary issue."[4] The sub-commission will be convened on Monday. If Serbia's formulations still pass, the only thing left would be massive pressure on the ICJ.
Creating Facts on the Ground
If this option is also unsuccessful, German experts are pleading for disregarding international jurisprudence. Neither the ICJ nor the UN can create facts on the ground, alleges the political advisor, Franz-Lothar Altmann. "A nation's independence can only be established through recognition by individual states."[5] The EU's special emissary to Kosovo subscribes to the demand that the arbitrariness of the mighty be lifted to the global principle of design in central questions of sovereignty. "Kosovo's independence is a fact and cannot be changed, even if Serbia's ICJ initiative should prove successful."[6] Until now the larger EU nations and the USA have been relatively isolated in this standpoint. Now nations that had already recognized Kosovo, are beginning to serve notice that in the case of a negative ICJ verdict, they would consider rescinding their recognition.[7]
Abetting
All of the dispute notwithstanding, the German government is creating facts on the ground and is pushing the establishment of an independent "Kosovo" nation. Alongside the political accompaniment, in mid-September Berlin had promised further support for the development of the infrastructure of Kosovo and earmarked a total of 40 mil. Euros from its development budget for the rest of the current year. For 2009, 60 mil. Euros more have been reserved. These measures are not limited to construction aid, but extend to the consolidation of Pristina's quasi-state structures. For example, 600,000 passports and 400,000 driver's licenses that the Interior Ministry in Pristina has begun to issue have been produced by the Giesecke and Devrient Corp. in Munich. "By issuing passports, we are establishing the legal basis for a sovereign Kosovo," declared Kosovo's "Interior Minister" - providing an indication that the criminal accusation of abetting an illegal act of secession can be raised not only against the government, but even against employees of private firms.[8]
Trade in Human Organs
Serious accusations are recurringly being raised against Kosovo's new ruler, placed and maintained in power by Berlin. Extensive press research has reinforced the suspicion that the former Kosovo terror militia, UCK, killed Serbian prisoners and sold their organs.[9] Months ago this was reported by Carla del Ponte, former head prosecutor of the International War Crimes Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, citing numerous witnesses. Pristina's "Prime Minister" and former head of the UCK, Hashim Thaci, is said to be implicated in this affair.[10] There is also controversy over the "ambassadors" Pristina wants to dispatch to several European nations and to the USA. Kosovo's designated "ambassador" to Switzerland is being accused of having collected money in Switzerland to finance the UCK's war on Serbia and thereby run into conflict with the Swiss authorities. It is alleged that even blackmail was involved.[11] The Swiss Foreign Ministry denies however that these accusations have any meaningful bearings on existent reservations concerning this "ambassador." The accreditation nevertheless is still pending.
Not Isolated Cases
The accusations against members of Pristina's elite are not isolated cases. As just recently reported in an appraisal of Kosovo's human rights situation by the OSCE, it is not only a question of grave shortcomings of application in conditions of rule of law.[12] Particularly the struggle against organized criminality and the slave trade [13] are making limited progress. On the other hand, the new political elite is interfering to a growing degree in the workings of the justice, the police and even the media. The new power in Pristina is creating its realm of the arbitrary.
Please read also Imperial Consummation, A Sort of Resurrection for Yugoslavia, Self Determination, Out of Control, Political Friendships, "Thank you Germany!" and Pure Chaos.
[1], [2] "Wir sind fest entschlossen, Mitglied der EU zu werden"; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 25.07.2008
[3] Westliche Kosovo-Politik kommt auf Prüfstand; Handelsblatt 28.09.2008
[4], [5] Serbien wirbt vor der UNO für Gerichtsvotum zu Kosovo; Deutsche Welle Fokus Ost-Südost 25.09.2008
[6] "Kosovo-Teilung eine Möglichkeit"; Wiener Zeitung 30.09.2008
[7] Belgrad: Einige Staaten könnten Anerkennung des Kosovo revidieren; Der Standard 02.10.2008
[8] Giesecke und Devrient liefert Reisepässe und Führerscheine für Kosovo; www.behoerden-spiegel.de
[9] Family Denies Organ Harvesting Allegations; Spiegel Online 22.09.2008
[10] see also Organhandel
[11] Umstrittener Kosovo-Diplomat; Basler Zeitung 25.09.2008
[12] OSCE Mission in Kosovo: Background Report. Human Rights, Ethnic Relations and Democracy in Kosovo, September 2008
[13] see also Unter deutscher Aufsicht and Enorme Gewalt

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