The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence

February 23 / 4, 2008

Lessons in the
Bi-Partisanship of Empire

The Real Story Behind Kosovo's
Independence

By JEREMY SCAHILL

News
Flash: The Bush administration acknowledges there is a such thing as
international law.

But, predictably, it is not being
invoked to address the US prison camps at Guantanamo, the wide use of torture,
the invasion and occupation of sovereign countries, the extraordinary rendition
program. No, it is being thrown out forcefully as a condemnation of the Serbian
government in the wake of Thursday's attack by protesters on the US embassy in
Belgrade following the Bush administration's swift recognition of the
declaration of independence by the southern Serbian province of Kosovo. Some
1,000 protesters broke away from a largely non-violent mass demonstration in
downtown Belgrade and targeted the embassy. Some protesters actually made it
into the compound, setting a fire and tearing down the American flag.

"I'm outraged by the mob attack
against the U.S. embassy in Belgrade," fumed Zalmay Khalilzad,the US
Ambassador to the United Nations. "The embassy is sovereign US territory.
The government of Serbia has a responsibility under international law to
protect diplomatic facilities, particularly embassies." His comments were
echoed by a virtual who's who of the Bill Clinton administration. People like
Jamie Rubin, then-Secretary of State Madeiline Albright's deputy, one of the
main architects of US policy toward Serbia. "It is sovereign territory of
the United States under international law," Rubin declared. "For
Serbia to allow these protesters to break windows, break into the American
Embassy, is a pretty dramatic sign." Hillary Clinton, whose husband
orchestrated and ran the 78-day NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, said, "I
would be moving very aggressively to hold the Serbian government responsible
with their security forces to protect our embassy. Under international law they
should be doing that."

There are two major issues here. One is
the situation in Kosovo itself (which we'll get to in a moment), but the other
is the attack on the US embassy. Yes, the Serbian government had an obligation
to prevent the embassy from being torched and ransacked. If there was
complicity by the Serbian police or authorities in allowing it to be attacked,
that is a serious issue. But the US has little moral authority not just in
invoking international law (which it only does when it benefits Washington's
agenda) but in invoking international law when speaking about attacks on
embassies in Belgrade.

Perhaps the greatest crime against any embassy in the history of
Yugoslavia was committed not by evil Serb protesters, but by the United States
military.

On May 7, 1999, at the height of the
78 day US-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the US bombed the Chinese embassy in
Belgrade, killing three Chinese citizens, two of them journalists, and wounding
20 others. The Clinton administration later said
that the bombing was the result of faulty maps provided by the CIA (Sound
familiar?). Beijing rejected that explanation and alleged it was deliberate.
Eventually, under strong pressure from China, the US apologized and paid $28
million in compensation to the victims' families. If the US was serious about
international law and the protection of embassies, those responsible for that
bombing would have been tried at the Hague along with other alleged war
criminals. But "war criminal" is a designation for the losers of
US-fueled wars, not bombers sent by Washington to drop humanitarian munitions
on "sovereign territory."

Beyond the obvious hypocrisy of the US
condemnations of Serbia and the sudden admission that international law exists,
the Kosovo story is an important one in the context of the current election
campaign in the United States. Perhaps more than any other international
conflict, Yugoslavia was the defining foreign policy of President Bill
Clinton's time in power. Under his rule, the nation of Yugoslavia was
destroyed, dismantled and chopped into ethnically pure para-states. President
Bush's immediate recognition of Kosovo as an independent nation was the icing
on the cake of destruction of Yugoslavia and one which was enthusiastically
embraced by Hillary Clinton. "I've supported the independence of Kosovo
because I think it is imperative that in the heart of Europe we continue to
promote independence and democracy," Clinton said at the recent Democratic
debate in Austin, Texas.

A few days before the attack on the US
embassy in Belgrade, Clinton released a Molotov cocktail statement praising the
declaration of independence. In it, she referred to Kosovo by the Albanian
"Kosova" and said independence "will allow the people of Kosova
to finally live in their own democratic state. It will allow
Kosova and Serbia to finally put a difficult chapter in their history behind
them and to move forward." She added, "I want to underscore the need
to avoid any violence or provocations in the days and weeks ahead." As
seasoned observers of Serbian politics know, there were few things the US could
have done to add fuel to the rage in Serbia over the declaration of
independence -- "provocations" if you will -- than to have a
political leader named Clinton issue a statement praising independence and
using the Albanian name for Kosovo.

On the campaign trail, the Clinton camp
has held up Kosovo as a successful model for how to conduct US foreign policy
and Clinton criticized Bush for taking "so long for us to reach this
historic juncture."

Perhaps a little of that history is in
order. If Kosovo is her idea of solid US foreign policy, it speaks volumes to
what kind of president she would be. The reality is that there are striking
similarities between the Clinton approach to Kosovo and the Bush approach to
Iraq.

On March 24, 1999, President Bill
Clinton began an 11-week bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. Like Bush with
Iraq, Clinton had no UN mandate (he used NATO) and his so-called
"diplomacy" to avert the possibility of bombing leading up to the
attacks was insincere and a set-up from the jump. Just like Bush with Iraq.

A month before the bombing began, the
Clinton administration issued an ultimatum to President Slobodan Milosevic,
which he had to either accept unconditionally or face bombing. Known as the
Rambouillet accord, it was a document that no sovereign country would have
accepted. It contained a provision that would have guaranteed US and NATO
forces "free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access
throughout" all of Yugoslavia, not just Kosovo. It also sought to immunize
those occupation forces "from any form of arrest, investigation, or
detention by the authorities in [Yugoslavia]," as well as grant the
occupiers "the use of airports, roads, rails and ports without
payment." Additionally, Milosevic was told he would have to "grant
all telecommunications services, including broadcast services, needed for the
Operation, as determined by NATO." Similar to Bush's Iraq plan years
later, Rambouillet mandated that the economy of Kosovo "shall function in
accordance with free market principles."

What Milosevic was actually asked to
sign is never discussed. That it would have effectively meant the end of the
sovereignty of the nation was a non-story. The dominant narrative for the past
nine years, repeated this week by William Cohen, Clinton's defense secretary at
the time of the bombing, is this: "We tried to achieve a peaceful
resolution of what was taking place in Kosovo. And Slobodan Milosevic
refused." Refused peace? More like he unwisely refused one of Don
Corleone's famous offers. Washington knew he would reject it, but had to give
the appearance of diplomacy for international "legitimacy."

So the humanitarian bombs rained down
on Serbia. Among the missions: the bombing of the studios of Radio Television
Serbia where an airstrike killed 16 media workers; the cluster bombing of a Nis
marketplace, shredding human beings into meat; the deliberate targeting of a
civilian passenger train; the use of depleted uranium munitions; and the
targeting of petrochemical plants, causing toxic chemical waste to pour into
the Danube River. Also, the bombing of Albanian refugees, ostensibly the people
being protected by the U.S.

Similar to Bush's allegations about
Iraqi WMDs in the lead up to the US invasion, in 1999 Clinton administration
officials also delivered stunning allegations about the level of brutality
present in Kosovo as part of the propaganda campaign. "We've now
seen about 100,000
military-aged men missing ....They may have been murdered," Cohen said five weeks into the
bombing. He said that up to 4,600 Kosovo men had been executed, adding, "I
suspect it's far higher than that." Those numbers were flat out false.
Eventually the estimates were scaled back dramatically, as Justin Raimondo
pointed out recently in his column on Antiwar.com, from 100,000 to 50,000 to
10,000 and "at that point the War Party stopped talking numbers altogether
and just celebrated the glorious victory of 'humanitarian intervention.'"
As it turned out "there was no 'genocide' -- the International Tribunal
itself reported that just over 2,000 bodies were recovered from postwar Kosovo,
including Serbs, Roma, and Kosovars, all victims of the vicious civil war in
which we intervened on the side of the latter. The whole fantastic story of
another 'holocaust' in the middle of Europe was a fraud," according to
Raimondo.

Following the NATO invasion of Kosovo
in June of 1999, the US and its allies stood by as the Albanian mafia and gangs
of criminals and paramilitaries spread out across the province and
systematically cleansed Kosovo of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Romas and
other ethnic minorities. They burned down houses, businesses and churches and
implemented a shocking campaign to forcibly expel non-Albanians from the
province. Meanwhile, the US worked closely with the Kosovo Liberation Army and
backed the rise of war criminals to the highest levels of power in Kosovo.
Today, Kosovo has become a hub for human trafficking, organized crime and
narcosmuggling. In short, it is a mafia state. Is this the
"democracy" Hillary Clinton speaks of "promoting" in
"the heart" of Europe?

It didn't take long for the US to begin
construction of a massive US military base, Camp Bondsteel, which conveniently
is located in an area of tremendous geopolitical interest to Washington. (Among
its most bizarre facilities, Bondsteel now offers classes at the Laura Bush
education center, as well as massages from Thai women and all the multinational
junk food you could (n)ever wish for). In November 2005, Alvaro Gil-Robles, the
human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, described Bondsteel as a
"smaller version of Guantanamo." Oh, and Bondsteel was constructed by
former Halliburton subsidiary KBR.

Herein lies an interesting point. The
Serbian government is largely oriented toward Europe, not the US. The country's
prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, is a conservative isolationist who is not
enthusiastic about a US military base on Serbian soil any more than Cuba is
about Gitmo. He charged that, in recognizing Kosovo, Washington was "ready
to unscrupulously and violently jeopardize international order for the sake of
its own military interests." To the would-be independent Kosovo
government, however, Bondsteel is no problem.

Russia and a few other nations are
fighting the recognition of Kosovo as an independent nation, but that is
unlikely to succeed. Still, this action will undoubtedly reverberate for years
to come. "We have in Serbia a situation in which the U.S. has forced an
action --the proclamation of independence by the Kosovo Albanians -- that is in
clear violation of the most fundamental principles of international law after
World War II," argues Robert Hayden, Director of the Center for Russian
and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. "Borders cannot
be changed by force and without consent -- that principle was actually the main
stated reason for the 1991 U.S. attack on Iraq."

And this brings us full circle.
International law matters only when it is convenient for the US. So too are the
cries for "humanitarian interventions." And despite the extremism of
the Bush administration, this is hardly a uniquely Republican phenomenon. In a
just world, there would be a humanitarian intervention against the US
occupation of Iraq -- with its indiscriminate killings of civilians, torture
chambers and widespread human rights violations. There certainly would have
been such an intervention during the bipartisan slaughter, through bombs and
sanctions, of Iraq's people over the past 18 years. But that's what you get
when the cops and judges and prosecutors are the criminals. US policy has
always operated on a worthy victim, unworthy victim system that is almost never
primarily about saving the victims. Humanitarianism is the publicly offered
justification for the action, seldom, if ever, the primary motivation. With
Iraq, Bush wheeled out the humanitarian justification for the
occupation--Saddam's brutality -- only after the WMD lies were thoroughly
debunked. In Yugoslavia, Clinton used it right out of the gates. In both cases,
it rang insincere.

If you are a victim who happens to
share a common geography with US interests, international law is on your side
as long as it is convenient. If not, well, tough. The UN is just a debate club
anyway. Just ask the tens of thousands of Kurds who were slaughtered by Turkey
with weapons sold to them by the Clinton administration during the 1990s. Or
the Palestinians who live under the brutality of Israel's occupation.

[They're really in danger if they go
to Sbarro's Pizzeria:jpm.]

In some cases, the "victims"
allegedly being protected by the US actually get bombed themselves, as was the
case with President Clinton's "humanitarian" bombings of the north
and south of Iraq once every three days in the late 1990s.

In the bigger picture, the Bush
administration's quick recognition of an independent Kosovo has given us a
powerful reminder of a fact that is too often overlooked these days: empire is
bipartisan, as are the tactics and rhetoric and bombs used to defend and expand
it.

Jeremy Scahill is author of The New York Times-bestseller "Blackwater:
The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.". He can be
reached at jeremy(AT)democracynow.org

This article was originally published
by Alternet.

Jeremy Scahill: The
Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence

Pressed by US, Serbs play on Moscow card

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/080223/8/45d0.html

Sunday February 24, 02:21 AM

Pressed by US, Serbs play on Moscow card

BELGRADE (AFP) - Serb officials welcomed the support of old ally Russia in
opposing Kosovo's independence Saturday, as Moscow warned the West was
jeopardising international relations in recognising the new state.

"Russia enters in war for Kosovo!," read the front-page headline of
Belgrade-based daily Press in response to a stream of Russian rhetoric.

Serbia is under pressure from Washington and Brussels to stop the violence
that erupted after Kosovo's February 17 declaration, but Moscow has weighed
in on Belgrade's behalf -- increasing already tense relations with the West.

An aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday described Western
recognition of Kosovo as a cocked gun ready for firing, telling Interfax
news agency that "no one knows when and where the shot will ring out."

Islamist "jihadists of terror" who had settled in Kosovo could now be
expected to come out into the open, said Anatoly Safonov, Putin's envoy for
international cooperation in combating terrorism and organised crime.

Putin himself on Friday described Kosovo's independence as a "terrible
precedent" that would come back to hit the West "in the face" and would have
"unforeseeable consequences."

And Russia's newly-appointed representative to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said
the same day that Moscow had the right to "use force" if NATO or the EU
challenged the UN over Kosovo.

The Press daily quoted a senior official of the ultra-nationalist Serbian
Radical Party, Aleksandar Vucic, saying that "only Russians could stop
NATO's fascist measures in Kosovo."

It also quoted a Kosovo Serb leader, Goran Bogdanovic, as welcoming the
attitude of Moscow.

"Obviously, the Kosovo problem exceeded the frame of the Balkans and one
could expect (further) dispute among great powers over the issue," he said.

"I understood Rogozin's statement primarily as a warning to the West that
their presence in Kosovo must remain within the (UN Security Council)
Resolution 1244. Otherwise it could lead to increasing tensions and even
conflict of worldwide proportions," he said.

The resolution, passed in June 1999, ended conflict between Serb forces and
ethnic Albanians separatists in Kosovo, putting the province under UN
administration but formally keeping it within Serbian borders.

The resolution was also one of Madrid's arguments against recognising the
independence of Kosovo, Spanish Secretary of State for foreign affairs
Bernardino Leon Gros wrote in an article published by independent Blic
daily.

"Unlike other countries that separated, like Slovakia and Czech Republic,
there has been neither agreement of the involved sides nor a UN resolution
in the case of Kosovo," he wrote.

"Beside legal reasons, this proclamation of independence is contrary to
everything that the international community has proclaimed in the Balkans
since the (conflicts) 1990s," Gros said.

Along with Spain, four other EU members -- Romania, Cyprus, Greece and
Slovakia -- have announced they will not recognise the new state.

Meanwhile, Serbian Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic again attacked the
US for their support to ethnic Albanian majority's declaration of the
independence of Kosovo.

"The government of Serbia will not stop to hold the US accountable for
having broken off the international law and seceded a part of Serbia's
territoriy in a violent way," the minister told state-run Tanjug news
agency.

Samardzic rejected Washington's accusations that Serbian authorities had not
properly protected the US embassy in Belgrade when rioting broke out on
Thursday and protesters set fire to the mission, leaving one person dead.

"The main culprit for all the troubles that occurred since February 17 is
the United States," Samardzic said, referring to the date when Kosovo's

U.S. Hands Off Serbia! U.S./Nato OUT of the Balkans!

No to a new U.S. colony in Kosovo!



A Giant U.S. Military Base and Total Domination Is the Reality – NOT
Independence



Serbian Demonstrators Show Resistance to U.S. Colonial-Style Land
Seizure



Download pdf flyer



The demonstration of over 500,000 people in Belgrade and the attack on the U.S.
Embassy show the depth of outrage and anger over the seizure of the Serbian
province of Kosovo. In the past three days two Kosovo border posts were
destroyed, one by fire the other in an explosion, along with ten McDonald's
outlets and several Western banks and other hated targets.



The Western media had overwhelming applauded the U.S. destruction in 1999 and
it now has a responsibility to explain the reason for the mass anger of
millions of people. The outrage is because the province of Kosovo is not
actually being granted “independence.” Millions of people see this week’s
recognition of Kosovo “independence” as an effort to legitimize a direct U.S.
colony and to permanently secure a giant U.S. military base in the region.



Regarding the hypocritical condemnation by Washington that angry demonstrators
had targeted the U.S. Embassy, it should be remembered that when the U.S.
bombed Serbia for 78 days in 1999, U.S. bombs destroyed the Chinese Embassy.
Nineteen other diplomatic and consular missions were damaged in the U.S.
bombing, along with 480 schools and 33 hospitals, heating plants, sewage
plants, bridges, communications, the electric grid and other civilian targets.



The “declaration of independence” by Kosovo, a province of Serbia, and its immediate
recognition as a state by the U.S., Germany, Britain and France, is a fraud.
Three things should be understood about the events this week.



First, Kosovo is not gaining independence or even minimal
self-government.



Kosovo will be run by an appointed High Representative and bodies appointed by
the U.S., European Union and NATO. An old-style colonial viceroy and
imperialist administrators will have control over all aspects of foreign and
domestic policy. Washington has merely consolidated its direct control of a
totally dependent colony in the heart of the Balkans.



Second, Washington’s immediate recognition of Kosovo confirms once
again that the U.S. government will break any and every treaty or international
agreement it has ever signed, including agreements it drafted and imposed by
force and violence on others.



The recognition of Kosovo is in direct violation of such law—specifically U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1244, which the leaders of Yugoslavia were forced
to sign to end the 78 days of NATO bombing of their country in 1999. Even this
imposed agreement affirmed the “commitment of all Member States to the
sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Serbia, a republic of Yugoslavia.



Thirdly, U.S. imperialist domination does not benefit the occupied
people.



Kosovo after nine years of direct NATO military occupation has a staggering
60 percent unemployment rate. It has become a center of the international drug
trade and of prostitution rings in Europe.



The once humming mines, mills, smelters, refining centers and railroads of this
small resource-rich industrial area all sit silent. The resources of Kosovo
under NATO occupation were forcibly privatized and sold to giant Western
multinational corporations. Now almost the only employment is working for the
U.S./NATO army of occupation or U.N. agencies.



The only major construction in Kosovo is of Camp Bondsteel, the largest U.S.
base built in Europe in a generation. Halliburton, of course,
got the contract. The U.S. base guards the strategic oil and transportation
lines of the entire region.



Over 250,000 Serbian, Romani and other nationalities have been driven out of
this Serbian province since it came under U.S./NATO control. Almost a quarter
of the Albanian population has been forced to leave in order to find work.



The plan under which Kosovo’s “independence” is recognized by the U.S, Germany,
France and Britain not only violates U.N. resolutions but it is consolidates a
total colonial structure. It is similar to the absolute power held by L. Paul Bremer
in the first two years of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The documents setting
out the new government for Kosovo are available at unosek.org/unosek/en/statusproposal.html.
A summary is available on the U.S. State Department’s Web site at state.gov/p/eur/rls/fs/100058.htm

An International Civilian
Representative (ICR) will be appointed by U.S. and E.U. officials to oversee
Kosovo. This appointed official can overrule any measures, annul any laws and
remove anyone from office in Kosovo. The ICR will have full and final control
over the departments of Customs, Taxation, Treasury and Banking.



The E.U. will establish a European Security and Defense Policy Mission (ESDP)
and NATO will establish an International Military Presence. Both these
appointed bodies will have control over foreign policy, security, police,
judiciary, all courts and prisons. They are guaranteed immediate and complete
access to any activity, proceeding or document in Kosovo.



These bodies and the ICR will have final say over what crimes can be prosecuted
and against whom; they can reverse or annul any decision made. The largest
prison in Kosovo is at the U.S. base, Camp Bondsteel, where prisoners are held
without charges, judicial overview or representation.



The recognition of Kosovo’s “independence” is just the latest step in a
U.S. war of re- conquest of this strategic region. But as yesterday’s massive
demonstration shows this reckless and illegal maneuver may unleash a whirlwind
of opposition and resistance.



U.S. Hands Off Serbia!

U.S./Nato OUT of the Balkans!

No to a new U.S. colony in Kosovo!

The International Action Center
sent a delegation to Serbia during the US/NATO bombing in 1999 and has
published several books on the crisis in the Balkans, including Hidden
Agenda: U.S./NATO Takeover of Yugoslavia, NATO in the Balkans: Voices
of Opposition, and The Defense Speaks for History and the Future -
all available from Leftbooks.com.



Sign up for updates

http://iacenter.org/action_list/




Donate to help with organizing
expense

http://iacenter.org/donate/



About the IAC

http://iacenter.org/about/

http://www.iacenter.org/balkans/serbia022208/

Serbia: U.S. to blame for violence

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/02/23/serbia.kosovo/

CNN (USA)

updated 23 minutes ago

Serbia: U.S. to blame for violence

* Serbia hunting rioters behind deadly violence in Belgrade
* Authorities say 200 people are under arrest
* Senior minister blames U.S. for violence against Kosovo independence

(CNN) -- Serbian prosecutors said Saturday they were hunting rioters who
targeted the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade leaving one person dead while a senior
Serbian minister blamed Washington for the violence triggered by Kosovo's
breakaway.

Authorities said they had arrested nearly 200 rioters who took part in the
violence on Thursday that prompted the United States to evacuate
non-essential embassy staff and warn Serbia it would be held responsible.

"We are collecting evidence and are identifying the culprits," Slobodan
Radovanovic said in a statement, according to The Associated Press.

Serbia's Kosovo minister Slobodan Samardzic said Saturday that the U.S. --
which backed Kosovo's breakaway and was among the first countries to
recognize its seccession -- was the "main culprit" for the violence, AP
reported.

Thursday's violence, some of the worst unrest in Serbia since the removal of
strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, was followed by further unrest Friday
in Kosovo as Serbs attacked U.N. police in an ethnically divided city.

Some 5,000 protesters hurled bottles and stones as they tried to cross a key
bridge in the northern town of Mitrovica, divided between Serbs and the
ethnic Albanians who have driven last Sunday's independence declaration.

Speaking to CNN on Friday, a top U.S. diplomat said Serbia had a
"fundamental responsibility" to protect U.S. diplomats and citizens, adding
that Washington would hold Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and his
government "personally responsible" for assaults on U.S. interests.

"What happened yesterday in Belgrade was absolutely reprehensible,"
Undersecretary for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns said. "This kind of
thing should not happen in a civilized country."

Thursday's violence was part of a much bigger, peaceful demonstration where
up to 150,000 people chanted "Kosovo is Serbia," and vowed to never accept
the province's independence.

The U.S. Embassy's consular section remained closed on Friday as officials
were advised to stay at home amid continuing fears over anti-Western
protests, according to a statement on the embassy Web site.

The Embassy warned American citizens to avoid areas of demonstration and to
exercise "extreme caution."

Also Friday, Russia -- which has not recognized Kosovo's sovereignty -- said
it has not ruled out using force to resolve the dispute over the territory
if NATO forces breach the terms of their U.N. mandate.

Rewarding separatists will haunt the West

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=e89f6b8d-6e99-4afa-bbac-7fe2826c1287

OTTAWA CITIZEN (CANADA)

OPINION

Rewarding separatists will haunt the West
David Warren
The Ottawa Citizen

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Readers with exceptionally tenacious memories will recall that this pundit
was opposed to the NATO intervention in Kosovo nine years ago. This may come
as a surprise to readers without tenacious memories, since it is widely
believed that I never saw a war I didn't like. Yet, believe it or not, I was
opposed not only to the wanton bombing of Serbia, but also to the whole
"inevitable" project of carving a new European Muslim state out of the flesh
of that Orthodox Christian country.

I was not without sympathy for the "plight of the Kosovars," however. Like
virtually all journalists at that time, not of Serbian ethnicity, I fell for
a great deal of typically Balkan propagandist rubbish that has since been
quietly withdrawn.

My rule of thumb, on wars, is to fight them with your enemies, when
absolutely necessary; but never with your friends, and in particular, never
in order to create new enemies. True, as we all know from personal
experience, sometimes your friends are more irritating than your enemies,
and the temptation to bomb them is always there. It is a temptation that
must be resisted, however.

This temptation was surely in play with the Serbians, under the late
Slobodan Milosevic, who seemed determined to inspire loathing and distrust,
and suspicion that he was doing in Kosovo precisely what his nationalist
allies had done in Bosnia: "ethnic cleansing," also known as the massacre of
innocents. Although not nearly as monstrous as, say, Saddam Hussein, nor
anything like Saddam's threat to the West, Milosevic missed as many
opportunities to come clean with his diplomatic interrogators. The Serbs,
who allowed this vicious old Communist, turned nationalist demagogue, to
remain in power, showed very poor judgment.

But the fact that Kosovo had a significant ethnic majority of Albanian
Muslims over Serbian Christians was not, in itself, sufficient argument to
detach it from Serbia by main force. For if that is the argument, the state
system which provides the only order the planet currently enjoys will tend
to disintegrate.

Strange to say, I am with Vladimir Putin on this one, and against George W.
Bush. Mr. Putin's remarks on the inspiration that Kosovo's independence has
given to violent separatists in Chechnya, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and
elsewhere, are entirely to the point.

Indeed, driving the Serbian government and Serbian people into the
protective embrace of ex-Soviet Russia, and ultimately her ex-KGB strongman,
was among several counter-productive dimensions in the war that Madeleine
Albright organized, along with other ruinous Clinton interventions in areas
of peripheral interest to the U.S. (Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia).

The NATO action in Kosovo brought Mr. Putin -- the hammer of the Chechens --
to power, by demonstrating that force and force alone will decide secession
struggles, East or West. It restored anti-Americanism to its place in the
Russian national security consensus, indirectly bringing an end to the
Yeltsin reform era.

It was an incredibly stupid war to wage, and the product was on display in
Brussels yesterday where the Russian ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogovin,
actually threatened the use of force to prevent Kosovo's declaration of
independence from going any farther.

President Bush, who was prompted to recognize the self-declared Kosovar
state (together with most European powers), feels obliged to accept the fait
accompli he inherited from the preceding administration. He, or his
successor, will then try to resist the next stage of demands, for a Greater
Albania in which Kosovo attempts to merge with Albania, and the Muslim
majorities in adjoining districts of Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and
Greece begin insurrections to join them. By recognizing Kosovo, Bush et al.
have validated exactly that: a deadly new round of Balkan troubles, ripe for
Islamicization.

We cannot afford to validate the principle of armed insurrection, whether in
Kosovo or Chechnya or Palestine or Kashmir or northern Sri Lanka or southern
Thailand or the southern Philippines or in any of the many other places
where terrorism demands to be rewarded with an independent state. And,
within Europe, a coupleof thousand EU policemen (about to be installed
without United Nations cover, and in defiance of agreements with Serbia)
cannot guarantee order in a territory that is already a European refuge for
radical Islamist cells, and threatens to become Europe's terrorist safe
house.

There is a deeper history here, for the understanding of which we would have
to review the rest of the legacy of Ottoman imperialism in the Balkans. But
that is, alas, something the Serbs understand a lot better than we do.

David Warren's column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday.

Kosovo`s Independence Shakes Fragile Bosnia

http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=126129

JAVNO (CROATIA)

Kosovo`s Independence Shakes Fragile Bosnia

The Bosnian Serb parliament said their entity had the right to break away if
a significant number of countries recognise Kosovo.

AFP illustrative photo A move by Bosnian Serb leaders to secede like Kosovo
reflects the fragility of a country whose unity depends on the international
community, observers said.

The Bosnian Serb parliament said Friday their entity had the right to break
away if a significant number of United Nations and European Union countries
recognise Kosovo's independence.

"In that case, the Republika Srpska assembly believes it has the right to
launch a referendum to reconsider its statehood status," a resolution
adopted by an overwhelming majority in the parliament said. Such a move
would put into question the Dayton peace agreement which ended Bosnia's
1992-1995 war and split the country into two semi-independent entities.

The two entities -- the Muslim-Croat Federation and Republika Srpska --
share weak central institutions while each has its own government,
parliament and police.

Many Bosnian Serbs feel their entity should follow Kosovo's lead and be
allowed to secede from Bosnia and eventually attach itself to Serbia, which
they see as their "motherland".

Analysts estimate an overwhelming majority of the entity's population which
accounts for 31 percent of Bosnia's 3.8 million would opt for independence
at a referendum.

Washington was the first to condemn such an initiative by Bosnian Serbs.

"Bosnia-Hercegovina is a sovereign and independent state and its territorial
integrity and sovereignty are an undeniable fact," US ambassador to Bosnia
Charles English told the Oslobodjenje daily. "The three-and-a-half-year long
war was expected to provide an answer to the question if someone had a right
to secede from Bosnia-Hercegovina. Dayton (peace deal) solved the issue.
"There is no right to secession."

Meanwhile, political analyst Tanja Topic warned that Bosnia is "unstable and
fragile." But she stressed the Balkan country's "borders will be inviolable"
due to the "clear position of the international community."

Other analysts share similar views, stressing the international community
should, despite opposite calls by some local politicians, maintain its
presence in the country.

"The international community will have to stay for a longer period of time
in Bosnia," political analyst Ivan Sijakovic told AFP.

However, he added its role should change so that it is not perceived as a
"threat, an institution imposing conditions and punishing," but rather as an
advisor.

The RS parliament resolution should be seen as a serious threat, Sijakovic
said. "It is not a matter for politicians any more, but on the contrary now
the citizens are putting pressure on politicians" to consider RS'
independence, he said.

In Sarajevo, political analyst Srecko Latal welcomed more moderate views of
Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik, but did not hide his concerns.
"If they really proceeded with organising a referendum, that would
destabilise Bosnia further because the international community would clearly
not allow it," Latal told AFP. "It would be a no-win situation for
everyone."

For Emil Habul, another Sarajevo-based analyst, the Bosnian Serb parliament
tried to "take up positions for the future."

"RS secession is an idea that has been smoldering since 1992, but Dodik and
his government understand that it is impossible to achieve," Habul said.

"Bosnia is an international protectorate ... and as long as there is a
strong presence of the international community ... a referendum in RS is a
big political illusion," Topic said.

"It could happen within a decade or two, or maybe never," she concluded.

Published: February 23, 2008 09:29h

Kosovo's declaration spells Balkan trouble

http://www.wellandtribune.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=914223

Kosovo's declaration spells Balkan trouble

Posted By scott taylor

Posted -43 sec ago

Last weekend the streets of Kosovo were flooded with citizens celebrating a
unilateral declaration of independence by ethnic Albanian Prime Minister
Hashim Thaci.

This much-anticipated announcement formally severed all official ties
between the disputed province and the rest of Serbia, thereby creating
Europe's newest state.

The United States was the first to recognize Kosovo's independence, with
George Bush sending his congratulations to Thaci from a stop in Tanzania.
The United Kingdom, Germany and France were quick to follow suit, and with
these big powers on board, the Albanian Kosovars popped the champagne corks
and throughout the capital city of Pristina throngs of people waved a sea of
red and black flags in celebration.

For people only paying casual attention to this long-simmering Balkan hot
spot, Thaci's declaration of independence may indeed be viewed as a joyous
occasion.

In fact, most Canadians may be forgiven if they thought this whole matter
was resolved back in the summer of 1999.

After a 78-day bombing campaign, NATO had negotiated a ceasefire agreement
with the Serbian government. Under the terms of UN Resolution 1244, Serbian
security forces would withdraw from Kosovo, and under NATO military
supervision, the 800,000 Albanian Kosovar refugees who had fled the fighting
would be repatriated.

The Albanian guerrillas - known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) - were
to be disarmed and demobilized by NATO troops, who would also ensure the
safety of Kosovo's 200,000 ethnic Serb civilians.

Resolution 1244 made it very clear that under the UN Charter, Kosovo would
remain the sovereign territory of Serbia.

Over the past nine years, NATO has failed to uphold its part of the bargain.

The KLA was never disarmed; they were simply formalized into the Kosovo
Protection Corps. Serb civilians suffered widespread violent reprisals from
Albanian extremists resulting in a mass exodus with fewer than 40,000 ethnic
Serbs still residing in protected enclaves. There was also no progress made
towards a negotiated settlement of Kosovo's status between Belgrade and
Pristina authorities.

With Serbia unwilling to relinquish the sovereignty of this province - the
religious heartland of the Serbian people - there was no legal way to push
independence through the UN Security Council. That impasse is what led to
last Sunday's unilateral declaration, and the deep divide within the
international community over this clear violation of the rule of law and the
UN Charter.

Advertisement

The Canadian Foreign Affairs Department understands that any rapid
recognition of a disputed province's declaration of independence from
another country could create a dangerous precedent, which might come back to
haunt us.

So while Canada looks at what diplomatic options are available, let's review
some of the background.

Up until 1998, the U.S. State Department regarded the KLA as a terrorist
organization. The KLA's assassinations and bomb attacks against government
officials led to a heavy-handed Serbian military crackdown.

At this point the Americans changed horses and decried the Serb reprisals
rather than the terror provocations of the KLA. Under U.S. pressure an
ultimatum was issued by NATO to Serbia in February 1999, and the KLA was
suddenly legitimized as freedom fighters.

By March 24 of that year, when the deadline expired without Serbia's
compliance, NATO began bombing Kosovo and Serbia.

Within days a trickle of refugees became a flood as some 800,000 Albanians
fled the renewed fighting and the NATO bombing.

Once this whole incident had ballooned into a humanitarian crisis of epic
proportion, NATO used the suffering of the Albanians to further justify
their intervention.

Putting recent history aside, the fact remains that Kosovo is simply not
viable as an independent country. It is a landlocked, mountainous province,
not quite twice the size of Prince Edward Island, with a population of two
million.

The unemployment rate stands at 50 per cent; for those working the average
annual income ranges around $2,400 CDN a year. Prostitution and illegal
drugs form the major pillar of Kosovo's economy, with the other main
infusion coming from the annual foreign donations of approximately $600
million.

The red and black flag they wave is the Albanian flag, not Kosovar. And as a
result of the ongoing violent attacks against non-Albanians in the province,
this is now one of the most ethnically-cleansed territories in all of
Europe.

Prime Minister Thaci is a former ruthless KLA warlord who called himself
"Snake" and the commander of the Kosovo Protection Corps is Agim Ceku, who
made a notorious name for himself as a war criminal in Croatia.

Given the rotten foundation upon which Kosovo intends to build its own
independent state, I think Canada would be well advised to uphold the UN
Charter in this instance, and to respect the rule of international law.

Scott Taylor reported from inside Serbia and Kosovo during the 1999 bombing
campaign and has made more than 20 subsequent visits to the region.

Serbia grapples with Kosovo move

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kosovo23feb23,1,6059490.story

LOS ANGELES TIMES (USA)

Serbia grapples with Kosovo move

Srdjan Ilic / Associated Press
FURY: A Serbian nationalist faces off with a U.S. soldier from the NATO
force at a checkpoint between Serbia and Kosovo. Some fear the Balkan
region's
delicate postwar balance will unravel.

Few observers expect war, but fear that years of pro-Western, democratic
shift in Serbia have come undone and that radicals allied with Moscow may be
ascendant.

By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

February 23, 2008

ROME -- Kosovo's declaration of independence has touched off an
all-too-predictable spasm of violence and hostility in a region that emerged
from devastating war scarcely a decade ago.

From setting fire to the U.S. Embassy in the Serbian capital of Belgrade to
stone-throwing at NATO troops along the new unsteady border between Serbia
and Kosovo, the anger of Serbs over the loss of a region they consider their
cultural heartland is intense and dangerous.

And the United States, which backed Kosovo's separation from Serbia and was
among the first countries to recognize it as a new nation, will receive the
brunt of Serbian fury.

Far from stabilizing the region, as the Bush administration had forecast,
the move by Kosovo has launched a period of volatile uncertainty.

Riots in Belgrade on Thursday night, which left one person dead, 150 injured
and more than 200 arrested, were the largest outburst of anti-Western rage
there since before the fall of dictator Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000.

Ljiljana Smajlovic, editor of Serbia's influential Politika daily newspaper,
said the unrest represents a "tectonic shift" in Serbian public opinion, one
that will carry far-reaching and unpredictable consequences.

Still, she and other Serbian analysts said in interviews Friday, an all-out
war is unlikely to be among those consequences, for several reasons.

First, Serbia's military capacity today is far diminished from the days when
a unified Yugoslavia fielded Europe's fourth-largest army. Many of its
generals and commanders ended up at the international tribunal at The Hague,
charged with war crimes related to the bloody campaigns they led to suppress
the breakaway states of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

And the ethnic Albanians who dominate Kosovo and who deployed a ferocious
guerrilla army to fight for independence are on their best behavior while
receiving favorable treatment from Western powers.

Second: There are 16,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops deployed
in Kosovo as well as a United Nations police force to give pause to any
military challenges. The presence of international forces stands in marked
contrast to Bosnia in 1992, for example, when civilians were left largely at
the mercy of Serb paramilitaries, resulting in three years of bloodletting
before NATO stepped in to help stop the killing.

Perhaps most important, Serbia today is a changed place. Milosevic, the
architect of most of the warfare of the 1990s, is dead and buried. The last
eight years have seen the rise of pro-Western, democratic leaders in Serbia
who have fostered political change.

Many of them now feel betrayed.

They spent the last few years extolling the virtues of Western international
law and justice, which included, they point out, the 1999 U.N. resolution
that established self-rule for Kosovo, but as part of Serbia. They see as
the epitome of hypocrisy that Washington went around the U.N., sidestepping
the Security Council because of Russian opposition, to approve Kosovo
independence.

"This is a total disaster for people who are pro-Western and pro-European,"
said editor Smajlovic. "This helps radicals who say it was never about
democracy and right or wrong, but all along about taking away from Serbia,
about humiliating the Serbs."

Many of the fiercest demonstrators torching buildings Thursday night and
shouting, "Stop U.S. terror!" were young protesters who may have little
memory of Milosevic but who came of age as NATO was bombing Belgrade in 1999
to force Serbia to end attacks in Kosovo.

Cedomir Antic, a historian with the Institute for Balkan Studies, noted that
in elections this month, the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, though
it lost narrowly, had managed to quadruple its vote over balloting in 2001,
in part because of Kosovo.

"People are very frustrated," Antic said. "The Serbian government is very
united on the issue of Kosovo, but very divided on where to go from here."

The division weakens the ruling democratic coalition and makes it possible
the government will fall and the pro-Moscow Radical Party, whose president
is also on trial for war crimes at The Hague, will take over.

What seems most likely, however, is that low-intensity skirmishes along the
Serbia-Kosovo border will continue. On Friday, for the fifth consecutive
day, Serbian protesters chanting, "Kosovo is ours!" hurled stones and
bottles at U.N. police who were blocking a bridge in the volatile Kosovo
town of Mitrovica that divides the Serbian north from the Albanian south.
This week, similar gangs torched customs and police posts at other crossings
between the two entities.

The debilitating divisions within the Serbian government were accentuated
Friday in exchanges over who was to blame for Thursday night's violence,
which came at the fringes of an otherwise peaceful demonstration. The
"Kosovo is Serbia" rally was sponsored by the government and drew about
200,000 people.

President Boris Tadic, the most pro-Western of Serbia's top officials, who
arranged to be away for the day, condemned the violence and said Friday the
riots "must never happen again." Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, a
nationalist, said the violence was wrong, but praised the demonstrators for
showing the U.S. government that it was wrong too.

Though the two men are leaders in the ruling coalition, they are often at
odds. Tadic wants Serbia to join the European Union regardless of the Kosovo
decision, whereas Kostunica maintains that Serbia cannot be part of an EU
that recognizes an independent Kosovo. Kostunica's championing of the
Thursday rally was his attempt to allow Serbs to vent their anger, even
though a small number took it to extremes.

Meanwhile, the EU, some of whose members have recognized Kosovo, warned
Serbia on Friday that it was in danger of losing its chance to join the
27-nation bloc if such rioting persisted.

"These acts of violence lead nowhere and they cannot help anybody," EU
foreign policy chief Javier Solana said. Initial talks aimed at prepping
Serbia for membership would be frozen until peace was restored in Belgrade,
he said.

Russia, Serbia's closest ally, threatened its own measures. If NATO exceeds
its mandate in Kosovo, Russia's ambassador to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, said,
"then I think we will also begin operating under the assumption that in
order to be respected, one needs to use force."

Another potential consequence of Kosovo's declaration is the unraveling of
the region's delicate postwar balance, analysts say. Republika Srpska, the
Serb portion of Bosnia-Herzegovina, threatened to follow Kosovo's lead and
secede. That could destroy the U.S.-negotiated country that emerged from the
1992-95 war, which is divided into a Serb portion and a Muslim-Croat half.

And a sizable ethnic Albanian minority in Macedonia, another former Yugoslav
republic, may find similar inspiration. There could be a tumultuous domino
of secessions.

"I can't imagine anyone having the stomach for war now," Smajlovic said.

"But independence for Kosovo will not stabilize the region. It will stir
things up. Nationalism is on the rise. It is not going to be a happier, more
stable Balkans."

wilkinson@latimes.com

Don't recognize Kosovo

http://winnipegsun.com/News/Columnists/Quesnel_Joseph/2008/02/23/4870162-sun.html

WINNIPEG SUN (CANADA)

OPINION

February 23, 2008

Don't recognize Kosovo

By JOSEPH QUESNEL

Canada should not recognize the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo as an
independent country.

Kosovo made a unilateral declaration of independence last week and the
United States and the European Union moved to recognize it.

Canada's role as a middle power should be in promoting regional autonomy for
Albanian Kosovars who make up the overwhelming majority of the territory,
but it would be wrong to interfere in a domestic Serbian issue in such a
blatant way. As Canadians, we cannot preach the virtues of federalism as a
solution to ethnic differences around the world while encouraging states to
separate over those same differences. Kosovo is about 90% Albanian and
Muslim, but it is also historically a part of Serbia. Why are people looking
to separation rather than cultural accommodation within the Serbian state as
a solution? International troops in Kosovo could ensure ethnic Albanians
have strong rights within a Kosovo under Serbian control.

Critics of independence have pointed to the precedent separation would set
in emboldening other secessionist movements, including Quebec, but this
misses the point. Separation for Kosovo is wrong because it is harmful to
Serbia's national identity and territory.

Kosovar independence is misguided because it ignores the central role Kosovo
plays in Serbia's religious and cultural heritage. Historically, it had a
large Serbian population, but this declined under the Yugoslavian dictator
Tito.

While the United States and the European Union have a right to be concerned
about the human rights of Albanian Kosovars, they do not have any right to
assist in dismembering a country because it serves their strategic interests
in the region.

This is fundamentally where NATO and the UN got it wrong. Back in 1999,
Western countries -- including Canada -- sent armed assistance to Albanian
Kosovars who were complaining of human rights abuses at the hands of the
Serbian central government. While assisting them was right, our job should
not have been to stay permanently and determine the course of its future,
particularly in encouraging separation. Protecting civilians is one thing,
but assisting a violent, drug-funded secessionist force like the Kosovo
Liberation Army is another.

The problem is part of the American and European approach towards Kosovo is
fueled by unfair perceptions of Serbia. They are always painted as the bad
guys in the Yugoslav Civil War. The late Slobodan Milosevic is depicted as
the Serbian equivalent of Adolf Hitler. Don't get me wrong, Serbian
paramilitaries were involved in ethnic cleansing after the collapse of
Yugoslavia and there should be accountability. Moreover, Milosevic is no
saint.

But all sides committed atrocities. After Croatia declared independence from
Yugoslavia in 1990, the Croatian government encouraged attacks against
Serbian civilians who lived in Croatia. Ethnic Serbs in Bosnia were also
attacked as Bosnia tried to secede from Yugoslavia.

Perpetrators from all sides should be tried for war crimes, not just from
Serbia. The show trial of Milosevic by an international criminal court goes
to show how titled the Western community was against Serbs.

It is time to correct this historic wrong by allowing Serbs to protect their
territorial integrity

Kosovo powder keg

http://savannahnow.com/node/452085

SAVANNAH MORNING NEWS (USA)

Kosovo powder keg

Saturday, February 23, 2008 at 12:30 am

Kosovo's bid for independence could be complicated by low productivity, high
unemployment, and half its population being under 16.

NINE YEARS ago, the United Nations made a deal with Serbia: Hand over
Slobodan Milosevic, stop the persecution of ethnic Albanian Kosovars and
institute certain reforms, and Serbia would be able to maintain its
territorial integrity, including the province of Kosovo.

But by granting immediate recognition of the breakaway Kosovo region after
it announced its independence Sunday, both the U.N. and the United States
have reneged on that deal - even after Serbia held up its end of the
bargain.

In this instance, religion seems to have colored U.S. policy, and most
likely to ill effect.

Kosovo is about half the size of metro Atlanta in both population and
geographic area. The majority of its 2 million people are Muslim. In the
Bush administration's zeal to show the world it supports Muslim democracies,
it too quickly turned its back on Serbia in favor of Kosovo.

Angry Serbs responded Thursday by breaking into the U.S. embassy, burning an
office and an American flag. The attack merits condemnation, and the fact
that Serbian authorities seemed to look the other way while the mob
assembled suggests that officials wanted to send Washington a message.

Although some tiny nations do make a go of it, backing Kosovo's independence
is a decision the United States may regret, considering the region's
internal instability and potential for disaster.

Industry in Kosovo is virtually nonexistent. The gross domestic product per
capita is only $250 a year. Unemployment is at a dreadful 50 percent, and
half the population is under 16. That's a million youths, half of whom are
not likely to find work, and so become discontent.

An angry, young, destitute Muslim populace has too often proved a fertile
recruiting ground for radical Islam. Kosovo's independence should therefore
be met with a healthy dose of unease.

News reports quote former U.S. envoy to the U.N. John Bolton warning, "Its
instability risks attracting Islamic extremists from around the world."

The move could also destabilize Macedonia and Montenegro. Both nations have
regions with significant ethnic Albanian populations that, like Kosovo,
border on Albania.

Besides granting approval of a possible magnet for terrorists within Europe,
recognizing Kosovo also puts the U.S. at odds with allies such as Poland,
Hungary, Romania, Greece, Spain and Israel. It could also mean a further
cooling of relations between the United States and Russia, which opposed the
break-up of Serbia.

Congressman Dan Burton, R-Ind., founding chairman of the Congressional
Serbian Caucus, has urged the Bush administration - as well as Serbia and
Kosovo - to remain at the negotiating table to work toward a mutual
agreement.

"I was deeply disappointed to learn today that Kosovo has decided to walk
away from peaceful efforts to resolve the status of the province by
unilaterally declaring its independence from Serbia," Rep. Burton said in a
statement Sunday.

"This separation has occurred despite concerted efforts on behalf of Serbia
to engage in negotiations to determine a mutually agreed upon solution that
would ensure a peaceful, prosperous future for Serbs and Kosovo Albanians
alike. It is my fear that this unilateral action could spark another round
of violence."

Unfortunately, it seems the powder keg that set off World War I is all too
likely to explode again.

In the Bush administration's zeal to show the world it supports Muslim
democracies, it too quickly turned its back on Serbia in favor of Kosovo.

EDMONTON JOURNAL More Letters

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=17d5e2cd-3718-49e5-bab0-96e6127e61e7&k=25630

EDMONTON JOURNAL (CANADA)

More Letters

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Kosovo will undoubtedly become a dependant independent state recognized by a
good number of the western worlds power brokers. The Albanian president is
already predicting his nation along with Kosovo will join the EU at the same
time. Bamir Topi's comments may be wishful thinking considering how many
nations have refused to recognize Kosovo as free from Serbia proper.

Listening to diplomats from the U.S., France, or Great Britain, or even the
world's media, one could come to the conclusion that Kosovo is more than
deserving of independence from Serbia. In reality, this is so far from the
truth. Of all the independence movements around the world, Kosovo is
probably the least qualified to join the group of free and democratic
nations. The media has done a poor job in presenting a balanced view of the
region, and a good job at further demonizing the Serbs of the area. Albeit,
the Serbian government has set the stage for the negative characterization
of their people.

This being said, one rarely reads or hears about the ethnic cleansing that
took place after the 1999 NATO bombing campaign. Since NATO peacekeepers
arrived in Kosovo, more than 200,000 citizens of the area have been forced
to flee. This total includes Serbs, Roma, Gorani, Bosnians, Turks, and other
minorities. The ethnic Albanian population, lead by the KLA, has made it
policy to remove all non-Albanians. Pristina is the only ethnically cleansed
capital in all of Europe.

How can the west have faith that the KLA-dominated Kosovo government will
secure its remaining minority population when the KLA is

known by European governments to have far reaching criminal activities? The
KLA, which was on the U.S. terrorist list before they decided to arm and
train them as proxy combatants in their battle against the milosevic regime,
is involved in heroin trafficking from Afghanistan, weapons smuggling, oil
and cigarette smuggling, as well as human trafficking of prostitutes from
Eastern Europe into western Europe. Kosovo's current leader (an ex-KLA
fighter himself), founded and organized the Drenica-Group. The Drenica-Group
is a criminal organization that has ties with other organized crime rings
throughout Europe and Albania. In fact, Thaci's sister is married to one of
the most infamous leaders of the Albanian mafia.

The U.S. push for Kosovo independence is perplexing when removing the idea
that this recognition will somehow appease the Muslim world. Considering the
ramifications of past American meddling and support of shady political
players(Bin Laden in Afghanistan), one would think the U.S. would have
learned by past failures when recognizing governments built on the avails of
criminal and terrorist activity.

Dawid Hurowitz, Edmonton

Police in standoff with Serb demonstrators over Kosovo

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/22/kosovo.serbia

GUARDIAN (UK)

5pm GMT update

Police in standoff with Serb demonstrators over Kosovo
Mark Tran and agencies

Friday February 22 2008

Serb protesters engage in a standoff with UN riot police on the main bridge
in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica in Kosovo. Photograph: Damir
Sagolj/Reuters

UN police faced off today with about 5,000 Serb demonstrators trying to
cross a bridge in the divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica, as protests at
Kosovo's declaration of independence continued.

In a brief skirmish, protesters lobbed stones, empty glass bottles and
firecrackers. No one appeared to be injured, and no tear gas was fired as
earlier reported, on the fifth day of public unrest since Kosovo's Albanian
leaders declared independence on Sunday.

"Kosovo is Serbia and we will never surrender, despite blackmail by the
European Union," a Serbian government official, Dragan Deletic, told the
crowd, which responded by chanting: "Kosovo is Serbia."

The Kosovska Mitrovica bridge over the Ibar river - dividing Kosovo Serbs
from ethnic Albanians - has long been a flash point of tensions in northern
Kosovo.

The show of Serbian disgruntlement came despite appeals by Kosovo's prime
minister, Hashim Thaçi, for Serbs to play a constructive role in Europe's
fledgling state.

"My message to Serbs of Kosovo is to continue to be part of the institutions
of Kosovo," Thaçi told the Associated Press. "I call them to join us in our
vision for a new Kosovo, and for Kosovo to be a part of the EU and Nato.
Kosovo is a country of everybody."

He expressed hope that the daily violence that has broken out at border
posts since Sunday's declaration will ease as peacekeepers step up patrols
and the EU deploys a 1,800-member police and justice mission.

In Belgrade, the nationalist prime minister appealed for calm after rioting
in the Serb capital left one person dead and damaged US and western
embassies.

"This directly damages our ... national interests," said Vojislav Kostunica.
"All those who support the fake state of Kosovo are rejoicing at the sight
of violence in Belgrade."

Kostunica's appeal for calm came as Serbia's pro-western politicians warned
the violence could be a prelude for a crackdown against moderates.

The defence minister, Dragan Sutanovac, of the EU-friendly Democratic party,
described the violence that followed Kosovo's declaration of independence at
the weekend as "one of Belgrade's saddest days".

He said rioters were encouraged by the support of some nationalist
politicians for smaller attacks against western embassies and commercial
interests in the city earlier in the week.

Several ministers and other top officials in nationalist prime minister
Vojislav Kostunica's government, and leaders of the ultra-nationalist
Radical party, had dismissed those attacks as "minor incidents".

Some 200,000 people attended yesterday's state-backed rally and officials
said police were overwhelmed by the biggest march since protesters stormed
the old Yugoslav parliament building in 2000 to oust nationalist leader
Slobodan Milosevic.

But police were nowhere to be seen when scores of rioters - many wearing
balaclavas - attacked the US embassy for the second time in a week. A
charred body, apparently that of a rioter, was later found in the embassy.

EU officials issued a veiled threat to Kostunica that Serb actions could
imperil closer ties with the 27-member bloc.

"The embassies have to be protected, and that is the obligation of the
country," the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, told reporters at an
EU event in Slovenia.

"Things will have to calm down before we can recuperate the climate that
would allow for any contact to move on the SAA [stabilisation and
association agreement]," he said of a preliminary deal on ties with the EU.

The pact was agreed last year but the EU has said it will not sign it until
Belgrade fully cooperates with the UN war crimes tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia. The EU was ready to sign an interim trade deal but Kostunica
blocked the move earlier this month in protest over Kosovo, which seceded
from Serbia on Sunday.

Kosovo had been under UN administration since 1999 when Nato bombing drove
out Milosevic's troops to halt a crackdown against Kosovo Albanians.

Thaçi said the violence raging across Belgrade yesterday was reminiscent of
the Milosevic era. "The pictures of yesterday in Belgrade were pictures of
Milosevic's time," said Thaçi, a former guerrilla leader of the
now-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army who is reviled by Kosovo Serbs.

More than a dozen countries have recognised Kosovo's declaration of
independence, including the US, Britain, France and Germany. But the
declaration by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership has been rejected by
Serbia's government and the Serbs who live in northern Kosovo.

In Bosnia, which is made up of the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat
federation, Bosnian Serb MPs threatened to hold a referendum on secession if
a majority of UN member states and the EU recognised Kosovo's independence.

The parliament of the Serb Republic yesterday adopted a resolution attacking
Kosovo's declaration of independence as an illegal act that violated
Serbia's territorial integrity.

But Bosnian Serb prime minister Milorad Dodik told parliament there was no
rush to break up the country. "We are not adventurers," he said, "and we do
not plan to broach a decision about independence now. The referendum can be
used only once, if we decide and when we decide it. It is no game."

Serbs protesting Kosovo's independence attacked UN police guarding a key
bridge in northern Kosovo with stones and empty glass bottles Friday.

Some 5,000 Serbs rallied in this tense town, waving Serbian flags and
chanting "Kosovo is ours!" in a fifth day of protests since Kosovo's ethnic
Albanian leaders declared independence last weekend.

letters@guardian.co.uk