USA Trying to Impose the Kosovo Model in Sri Lanka

USA Trying to Impose the Kosovo Model in Sri Lanka
Posted on June 29th, 2010

- Kumar Moses

USA has "strongly urged" the Sri Lankan government to make use of the "panel"(1). Now that came as a surprise to some; didn't it?  And how strange that it was appointed just a week after "fact finding missions" by four US top officials. (2) The cat is out the bag! It is no longer a secret who is behind Ban-Ki Moon's panel. It's the same old Uncle Sam trying out the same old Kosovo model. What the USA is cooking for Sri Lanka is the same concoction it cooked for Serbia-Kosovo five years ago. It was one successful concoction that worked for a change. Kosovo declared independence in 2008. Although not recognized by the UN and most countries, USA, UK, France and a few others recognize it. USA managed to create a permanent dependant satellite state in the strategically important central Europe.

Kosovo, Bosnia, etc. have given USA a reason or an excuse to deploy a large force in the all important central European region. Using US friendships in the region, American defence agencies are trying to put up a missile defence system targeting Russian ICBMs. After trying it in Poland and the Czech Republic, now the focus has moved to Romania. It is easy to guess the next move will be to the region Albania-Bosnia-Kosovo. And that will be the final resting place.

South Asia is even more strategically important and USA is trying every trick in the book to have a permanent presence in the region. Afghanistan in the long haul is too dangerous and winning hearts and minds of Afghans is not going to happen. Ethnic Albanians and Bosnians who are very closely related are elated when a visiting US official stops by. So will be the piglets of Tamil Elam when the mother swine comes around. After that it will be turned into a military post to maintain US strategic defence interests in the all important South Asian region with open doorways to the Middle East and Far East.  

What is the Strategic Importance of a South Asian Island?

Diego Garcia saw one of the most despicable acts of genocide perpetrated by two superpowers. However, they found out that it is too far "from the action". Action includes military action currently underway and proposed action. Currently Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan have been set alight for no reason. Iran may be the next.

Proposed military action includes interfering in the Taiwan and Tibet regions of China, India, Indonesia, etc. Why is the region so important for these superpowers?

Economic power in the world is shifting it to the Asian region. China and India will be the first and third economic powers in time to come. This is a challenge to the traditional economic powerhouses. Even in traditional economic powerhouses, people of Indian and Chinese origin are increasing their hold.

Apart from economic power, there is military power. Defence expenditure is rapidly increasing in this region which means the emergence of powerful nations capable of taking on traditional superpowers. Traditional superpowers want to nip it in the bud.

Over 50% of the world population live in this region. It makes it strategically important for superpowers. Bombarding them with propaganda, winning their support or at least not antagonising them to the global exploitation process and making use of them to counter themselves are some of the "uses" of this population.

Further, world's largest Islam population is in Indonesia while the second, third and fourth largest Islam populations are in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. In other words, the region has close to 50% of the world Islam population too. Most Islamic fundamentalists to cause calamities for western superpowers originated from this part of the world. Therefore, it pays to keep a close watch over them.

The large Tamil Diaspora in western countries makes matters even easier to create a puppet nation in the North-East of Sri Lanka. Tapping into the Tamil Diaspora to have inroads into the region is another advantage.

These are some of the very powerful reasons why traditional western superpowers are eyeing the region. To their misfortune, they cannot establish military bases in the region. Then the only option is to create a puppet nation that will have no option than to house a large military base even if it means the same fate as Diego Garcia. At the very least the puppet nation will agree to allow Americans the use of it's territory, continental waters and the exclusive economic zone for their military work.

The Kosovo Model at Work in Sri Lanka

Following the brutal war in former Yugoslavia, NATO troops occupied the area. The conflict ended and Bosnia-Herzegovina gained freedom. However, things didn't end here for the Americans. They wanted more. That was how Kosovo was separated a decade after the conflict ceased. At first a bogus reconciliation process was initiated by the USA. Strangely, it was more about keeping people separated based on ethnicity than integration. (3) Occupying US troops made it difficult for Serbia to carry out any integration with Kosovo (Kosovo was and still is a part of Serbia according to Serbia and most countries). It is this same twisted reconciliation model the US follows on Lanka.

Interestingly, Tamil groups in the USA highlighted the need for a two state "reconciliation" model. (4)

The puppet nation needs to do basic land and resource management in its territory. This aspect has been taken over by USAID projects. (5) Under the guise of sustainability, a series of workshops have been carried out in Kosovo and Sri Lanka to "empower" persons from the respective regions. Many concerned Sri Lankans highlighted the dubiousness of the project. (6)

However, unlike in Kosovo, USA cannot deploy troops. This deficiency is overcome by compelling Sri Lanka to devolve power to the regions, especially to the North-East region. In doing so, USA seeks the support of other regional nations like Bosnia and France in the case of Kosovo and India in the case of Lanka. For the time being, the US strategy perfectly aligns with the Indian strategy on the North-East. The next step is to establish the infrastructure for independent diplomatic missions. As in Kosovo (Pristina) before independence (7), USA plans to establish a separate "American Corner" in Jaffna.

Subjugating leaders, both political and military, to give up on the targeted territory is the next step. In the case of Kosovo, war crimes trials commenced as there were genuine war crimes. Yet, apart from an obvious connection to Bosnia, Kosovo was not connected. But by subjugating Serbia over it's war crimes committed mainly in Bosnia, US planners managed to keep Serbia silent. In the case of Sri Lanka, there are not even genuine allegations of war crimes but the US insists on investigations. It is for the same thing – to subjugate Sri Lanka so that there will be little resistance to the separation of the North-East.

Ban-Ki-Moon played a unique role in the Kosovo affair. (8) He used his position to quell any tensions that was arising from the incident. However, the Kosovo project was appropriately retaliated just eight months later in a spectacular display of military might by Russia, which made the Americans speechless. Pro-Russian South Ossetia and Abkhazia gained independence from pro-US Georgia following a short war. Given their resources, size and access to the strategic Black Sea means there is the clear winner and a loser from the whole episode. Although it was a unique case, Ban-Ki-Moon has once again become the cat's paw. When the UN Security Council rejected interference, Americans by-passed it using Ban-Ki-Moon who comes from pro-US South Korea to appoint a highly ambiguous panel. While Moon claims that it is to advise him, US contradicts his claims by saying that it is to investigate Sri Lanka. This bias shows the need to appoint the UN General Secretary from a nation that is not aligned to any of the superpowers.

In short, most groundwork in the second Kosovo project has been already commenced.

It all Adds Up

During the last stages of the war, USA offered its military assistance to Sri Lanka but was refused. In the immediate aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, US troops landed on the island fearing the repetition of what happened in Aceh, Indonesia. Following extensive tsunami destruction, Aceh rebels were quickly overpowered by the Indonesian troops, forcing them to give up. This is what the American troops wanted to avoid. After it was clear it would not happen, they left. There was no real aid they brought in as it was a sham operation! (9)

In 2009, USA issued a possible war crimes report and wanted Lanka to answer to the claims. Why did the US and not any other nation initiate this? However, following a series of other developments, the matter was shed.

Blake – the US ambassador to Colombo repeatedly acted in very hostile manner. This was something unseen from all previous US ambassadors. He tried every trick to halt the war to save the tiger administration. Although Chilcott – the British High Commissioner – too followed a similar approach, he didn't interfere as much as Blake did. Blake was very popular before his ugly manoeuvre. Why?

After more blames and absurd allegations, Hilary Clinton declared in April 2010 the recommencing of US-SL joint military exercises. (10) These were done weeks ahead of a planned Russian military drill in the region. (11)

Although seem unrelated, all these add up in the scheme of things.

How to Overcome this Threat?

This got to be overcome by friendly means. The problem got to be fixed not in the arena of SL-US relations but in frustrating the Tamil Elam separatism project. If a separate nation or any other autonomous entity cannot be created in North-East, the US, etc. plan collapses. Sure, they will try other means and other countries but this particular threat will disappear if Lanka acts with diligence. Rapid and increased militarisation of the North is key to addressing the issue. Large, permanent security forces bases should be erected in the North. Land and police powers should not be given to any regional administrative body. Paramilitaries must continue to carry weapons. In essence, nothing significant should be allowed to function in the north without the sanction of security forces.

However, this is not going to achieve anything permanent. Change of government certainly changes defence priorities. To ensure continued military presence, large agricultural and industrial colonization schemes must be carried out adjoining army camps. Since security will be an ongoing issue, camps will have to stay here despite politicians' whims and fancies. In addition to huge economic development, increase in food production, reduction in unemployment and ease of landlessness, these colonization schemes would bring, they can supply army camps with agricultural produce saving billions of rupees every year. These new settlements should be provided with schools, hospitals, electricity, access roads, entertainment facilities, libraries, sport facilities, etc. The Gam Udawa scheme must be revived to create new villages in the North reawakening the past glory in the region.  

Most defence forces' personnel don't own land despite winning 1,000,000 hectares of land for the country from terrorist occupation! Building large housing projects adjoining army camps in conjunction with colonization schemes will provide not only housing but also a better work-life balance to forces personnel and less travelling. These are essential requirements to keep troop morale high and manage defence expenditure at a sustainable level.

Colonization frustrates the Tamil Elam project. Trincomlaee and Ampara districts are good examples. Decades ago racist political parties won in these districts but thanks to large scale colonization schemes such as Gal Oya, Senanayake Samudra, etc. ethnic composition has changed for the better. Tamil racist political parties including ACTC, ITAK, TULF, TNA, etc. promote separatism and racism making it difficult for ethnic integration. Making them less powerful is the surest way to weaken the Tamil Elam project. Today national political parties win these two districts and communal parties lose. In short, the "ethnic problem" has been sorted in these districts. When communal parties are not powerful, it helps people to resolve their problems.

References

(1). http://www.colombopage.com/archive_10A/Jun25_1277450687CH.php

(2). http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2010/06/20/samantha-power-genocide-chick-sri-lanka-%E2%80%93-latest-attempt-us

(3). http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/sc9015.doc.htm

(4). http://www.tamilsforobama.com/Tamils.asp

(5). http://srilanka.usaid.gov/press_detail.php?press_id=42

(6). http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2010/02/28/is-anyone-watching-usaid/

(7). http://kosovo-americancorners.net/  

(8). http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25659&Cr=Kosovo&Cr1

(9). http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers13/paper1213.html

(10). http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=31554

(11). http://www.brahmand.com/news/Russia-sends-Moskva-missile-cruiser-to-Indian-Ocean/3607/1/14.html

http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2010/06/29/usa-trying-to-impose-the-kosovo-model-in-sri-lanka/

Bosnia: Suspected Islamist bombing 'the beginning' say experts

Bosnia: Suspected Islamist bombing 'the beginning' say experts

 

Sarajevo and Belgrade, 28 June (AKI) – Sunday's bloody bombing of a police station in Bosnia in a suspected radical Islamist attack is only the beginning of a wave of violence in Bosnia, terrorism experts said on Monday.

Police have arrested at least five people over the attack in the central town of Bugojno, in which one person was killed and six wounded.

Among those arrested was Haris Causevic, who admitted planting the explosive device near a police station in the town 75 kilometres northwest of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

Causevic is believed to be a member of the fundamentalist Islamic Wahabi Islamist movement. Benevolence towards Wahabism by Bosnian authorities have allowed it to radicalise supporters and plot violence, according to Galijasevic and other terrorism experts.

Local politicians have for too long treated Wahabi groups propagating violent Islam with excessive tolerance, Bosnian terrorism expert Dzevad Galijasevic, told Adnkronos International (AKI).

"This (attack) was to be expected and it is just the beginning," Galijasevic, who is a Muslim, told AKI.

"Bosnia has a very stormy period ahead," he warned.

Galijasevic said about five percent of Bosnia's 1.5 million Muslims had been indoctrinated by Wahabi ideology, but the number of their supporters may be about 12 per cent of the population.

Though Wahabism is considered a radical religious movement in Bosnia, Wahabis are playing a central role in terrorist activities in the Musim-majority country, according to Galijasevic.

"Their activities have nothing to do with religion," he said.

There had been scores of murders and terrorist activities in Bosnia, but local authorities have played these down as "isolated incidents and ordinary crime," Galijasevic said.

"Bosnia-Herzegovina simply isn't ready to explicitly call it terrorism, although western intelligence agencies are pefectly aware of what's going on," he stated.

Galijasevic claimed radical Islam had a strong supporter in wartime Bosnian Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic and current Muslim member of the joint state presidency Haris Silajdzic, who condemned Sunday's bombing as an attack on the state.

Galijasevic heads a non-governmental southeast European counter-terrorist organisation with Serbian expert on terrorism Darko Trifunovic and a Croatian Domagoj Margetic.

They have frequently warned that Bosnia has become a European hotbed of radical Islam and Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist activities.

Trifunovic agreed that most of Bosnian Muslim leaders have ignored the activities of radical Islamists and played down their terrorist activities.

"We have been highlighting this problem for years, but no one paid attention," he told AKI.

Attacks such as the one in Bugojno were the "logical consequence" of ignoring the security threat posed by Wahabism, he said.

"I'm afraid this is not the end," Trifunovic said.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=3.1.607685816

Police actions questioned following G20 weekend

Police actions questioned following G20 weekend

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Riot police push against a crowd during a street demonstration on the closing day of the G20 Summit in Toronto, Sunday, June 27, 2010. (AP / Carolyn Kaster)

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CTV.ca News Staff

Date: Mon. Jun. 28 2010 1:35 PM ET

As Toronto begins cleaning up after a weekend of G20-related violence, questions are being raised about the actions of police.

On Saturday, the Integrated Security Unit was criticized for allowing the "Black Bloc" anarchists to run amok on Queen West and Yonge St, destroying property and torching police cars.

But on Sunday, police cracked down hard on protesters, including what some have described as lawful protests.

One video on YouTube shows police, dressed in riot gear, charging a group of protesters who were singing 'O Canada' and were seemingly non-threatening.

Jason MacDonald submitted a video to MyNews.CTV.ca, in which he alleges he was hit by a riot shield in the face, cutting his forehead. The video shows blood streaming down the left side of his face from a cut above his eye.

Minutes later he is tackled to the ground and arrested.

The video was taken at the standoff at the Queen and Spadina intersection, which has drawn intense criticism for coordinating off both protesters and anyone else caught in the crossfire.

Mayor David Miller has defended the actions of police, saying they had an extraordinarily difficult task.

"I think compared to similar events around the world, our police did a remarkably good job and people should be starting from that perspective," he told Canada AM Monday morning.

Later, in a news conference the mayor said he regretted that some innocent people "got caught up" in the arrests and blamed the arrests on police having to deal with "Black Bloc" tactics.

Miller said that there is civilian oversight of the police, and there is a proper channel for complaints.

Toronto police spokesperson Tim Burrows told CTV News Channel that the police will review their actions and will be even harder on themselves than the public or media.

"The biggest lesson is still to come . . . we don't want blind criticism or deaf praise, we need to learn from and be constructive about what happened," he said. "In the end the greatest criticism we will have, is from ourselves."

Swift police action

Police appeared to lower their tolerance to protests Sunday after watching four of their squad cars burn Saturday.

At one point Sunday, police and protesters were engaged in a tense and bizarre four-hour standoff at a busy intersection in the city's core, when a large contingent of police boxed in a group of about 200 people in heavy rain.

Police moved in and picked out certain protesters and arrested them. Then, just before 9:45 p.m. local time, police let the remaining crowd go free.

Talking to reporters late Sunday night, Toronto Police Staff Superintendent Jeff McGuire was pressed to explain why police had barricaded people for so long in the rain. McGuire responded: "We're not perfect in everything we do, but our interest was in the safety of the citizens of Toronto."

He added that police were trying to prevent the kind of violence caused by Black Bloc tactics the day before, and found weapons in the area.

"I don't know the specific weapons. I've been advised that some weapons were found along the route as the officers were forming around this group," he said.

Earlier Sunday, there was a tense standoff at a temporary detention centre where hundreds of people arrested during the protests were held.

A riot squad used rubber bullets and blank rifle shots to drive back about 100 demonstrators at the seemingly peaceful sit-in outside the detention centre. Police then apprehended an alleged member of an anarchist protest group.

Eventually, police made a deal with the crowd, telling them they would release some of those arrested if the crowd moved off a busy street. The deal appeared to work and the crowd stepped back.

Police also raided a building on the University of Toronto campus Sunday and arrested at least 70 people -- not believed to be students. A spokesperson for the Integrated Security Unit said officers found a cache of "street-type weaponry" such as bricks and fuels.

Journalists among arrested

There are also questions being raised about the number of journalists who were arrested while covering the G20 protests. At least one journalist is reported to have been struck by police during his arrest.

Jesse Rosenfeld, a Canadian activist freelance journalist, was on assignment for The Guardian when he was arrested Saturday night.

Steve Paikin, host of the Agenda on TVO, witnessed the arrest and reported that Rosenfeld was punched in the stomach and then elbowed in the back when he was doubled over.

Two Reuters photographers were arrested Sunday night while covering a protest near Queen West and Spadina, despite wearing prominent media badges.

They were released without charges.

Two National Post photographers, Brett Gundlock and Colin O'Connor, were arrested Saturday while attempting to photograph police clashing with protesters.

They spent about 24 hours in custody and were both charged with obstruct peace officer and unlawful assembly.

A CTV producer was also arrested and released without charge on the weekend.

Toronto police chief Bill Blair told CTV News Channel that reporters would be arrested if they did not disperse with the protesters they were covering.

"We asked the innocent to leave three times and they chose not, and if a tourist, or even a reporter, chooses to remain in that crowd . . . then they had to deal with the consequences of being detained," he said.

No win situation

Security expert Alan Bell says there's no way police could have won the public relations battle of securing this summit, since they were condemned for not doing enough Saturday, then slammed for coming down too hard on Sunday.

"The big problem we have is that police are going to be damned if they do, damned if they don't," he told Canada AM.

He says it seems the protesters were methodical in their actions, trying to create distractions in certain pockets of the downtown so that other demonstrators could move in on the inner security perimeter around the summit site. The job of the 10,000 law enforcement officers brought in from around the country was to attempt to thwart that, he says.

"Trying to move so many police around different areas while maintaining the integrity of the security zone was very difficult. And I think they learned quite a lot from the Saturday interaction. Then on Sunday, they got it right. They went out there and prevented these things from happening," said Bell.

"They got criticized for that as well, but I don't know what people expected them to do."

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http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100628/journalists-arrested-100628/

Srdja Trifkovic: "Greater Romania" Redux

 

http://www.balkanstudies.org/articles/greater-romania-redux-problem-prospects-ukraines-response

http://www.aminuk.org/index.php?idmenu=12&idsubmenu=167&language=en - English
http://www.aminuk.org/index.php?idmenu=112&idsubmenu=168&language=ru - Russian

http://www.aminuk.org/index.php?idmenu=112&idsubmenu=168&language=ua - Ukrainian

 

ROMANIAN ASPIRATIONS EAST OF THE PRUT:

THE PROBLEM, THE PROSPECTS, KIEV'S RESPONSE

Srdja Trifkovic

 

As presented ат AIU Roundtable in Kyiv, June 17, 2010

 

Ukraine faces sustained security challenges from its southwestern neighbor Romania. Those challenges reflect a remarkable continuity of Romania's geopolitical objectives, regardless of the nature of its domestic regime. They require carefully calibrated policy responses from Kiev. This fact was blurred by the visceral Russophobia of Ukraine's previous government, to the detriment of both parties. It is now finally possible to look at the challenges Ukraine faces on its southwestern borders through the realist prism, and to consider specific counter-measures that are proportionate to the challenge, feasible, and useful.

 

THE PARADIGM – The notion of interests and the policies that they engender are defined by the ideological framework in which they are embedded.  Both the old Soviet notion of the "fraternal community" and the current notion of "European integration" are derived from neo-Marxist utopianism. Both hold that Man is improvable and that permanent peace within a stable, supra-nationally controlled system is the attainable order of things. Both believe in their ability to make the international system as they wanted it to be, rather than dealing with it as it is.

 

It is realism that, unlike either utopian school, places national interest, pragmatically defined and quantifiable, at the basis of international affairs. It accepts the reality of a world where might is often right, rivalry the norm, and the immutable constants of history, culture, and geopolitics outweigh propositional slogans emanating from Moscow (before 1989) or from Brussels (today).

 

From the realist vantage point, it is evident that Romania's cultural narratives, national objectives and state interests – as articulated by its political elite ever since the Congress of Berlin (with the exception of two decades following World War II) – make that country Ukraine's most adversarial and potentially most dangerous neighbor.

 

THE CHALLENGE – At this time, four key elements of the Romanian elite consensus directly affect Ukraine:

 

1.      Romanians are civilizationally an outpost of "the West" amidst the Slav-Magyar sea, and in the 21^st century they remain Europe's "last bastion before the immense, vague and unsettling space left behind in the wake of the disintegration of the Soviet Union."[1]

2.      Moldovans east of the Prut speak the Romanian language and are Romanians; therefore, they should be incorporated into Romania, on the basis of the right to self-determination.

3.      Not only the Republic of Moldova, but also Ukrainian territories to its south and north (Bukovina), annexed by the USSR in 1940, should be "returned" to Romania based on its legal rights ("undoing the fruits of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact"). Last January President Traian Basescu declared in Kishinev that he would not sign a Border Treaty with Moldova: "I will never sign what Hitler with Stalin have signed. I will never confirm that Romania's border passes on Prut River. There may be discussions about a contract, an agreement concerning the border regime, but there is no way I can discuss an agreement based on which I will confirm that the border passes from here to there."[2]

4.      In any event, Bucharest has a valid title to the territories of pre-1940 Romania mare on the basis of its historic rights. In May 2010 President Basescu thus stated: "If Kiev has pretensions concerning the return of Transdniestria to Ukraine, then officials there should not forget about the return to Chisinau of Southern Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, territories which the former Ukrainian SSR received after the Second World War."[3]

 

HISTORICAL LEGACY – Before 1878, the "Danubian principalities" of Wallachia and Moldavia (united in 1859) looked upon the Russian Empire as an essential source of external support in their emancipation from the Ottoman Empire. The United Principalities took part in the siege of Plevna, but their hopes of enlargement along the Black Sea were soon dashed. Russia took back Bessarabia (lost after the Crimean War) and awarded southern Dobruja to its then favorite, Bulgaria.

 

The effect on the political class of the newly established Romanian state ("undeserving of statehood" as it was, according to Bismarck) was both immediate and decisive:

·         The early-19^th-century national-romantic myth of the Romanians as linguistic and cultural heirs to Rome morphed into the nationalist ideology of Romania as an outpost of the Western civilization amidst the supposedly inferior ocean of Slavs and Magyars.

·         The irredentist aspiration to Bessarabia and resentment of Russia outweighed the bitterness over the Magyar treatment of the Romanian minority in Transylvania, drawing Romania to the Central Powers in the three decades preceding World War I.

 

Romanian nationalism, freshly minted, weak and insecure, thus came to rest on two pillars, and the equation has not changed in essence for almost a century and a half:

·         Audacious territorial aspirations, primarily directed eastwards, and

·         Antagonism to "the Other," divided equally between Budapest and St. Petersburg.

 

The collapse of Austria-Hungary and imperial Russia made possible the creation of the Greater Romania (1918-1940), by crook more than by hook. East of the Prut, however, Bucharest proved singularly unequal to the task of nation building. Bessarabia remained unintegrated socially, undeveloped economically, resentful politically; most of its Moldovan-speaking plurality remained reluctant to embrace a "Romanian" identity.

 

The disasters of 1940 – the loss of northern Transylvania to Horthy, southern Dobruja to Boris and Bessarabia to Stalin, without a shot being fired – were to be alleviated by Hitler's gift of Bukovina and an insanely expanded "Transnistria" all the way to the Bug, comprising a fifth of Ukraine, as a reward for Romania's participation in the Barbarossa. Ethnic cleansing started right away, justified by an openly racist attitude of Romania that treated Jews and Slavs as equally sub-human.[4] The hasty switch of allegiance came in August 1944, however, enabling Romania to avoid facing squarely the demons of its recent past. They are still with us today.

 

PLUS ÇA CHANGE… – A radical change in the composition of Romania's political class took place under communism. Its core consensus and nationalist agenda have not changed, however. In 1991 Romania rushed to be the first country to recognize the newly-independent Republic of Moldova. The government of Ion Iliescu, Nicolae Ceausescu's neo-communist successor, saw its independence as a step towards its reunification with Romania. It hailed the event with a rousing statement that could have been counter-signed by Marshal Antonescu:

 

"The proclamation of an independent Romanian state in the territories annexed by force following the secret agreements of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact represents a decisive step toward the peaceful elimination of that pact's unfortunate consequences directed against the rights and interests of the Romanian people."

 

During the Transdnistrian conflict, Romania sent a contingent of volunteers and military advisers to fight alongside Moldovan forces, and supplied them with weapons. When Moldova started having second thoughts about the union, however, the reaction in Bucharest was acerbic. On April 14, 1994, the Romanian Parliament adopted a declaration of protest against the decision of the Moldovan Parliament to join the CIS. The protest contained an audacious blend of nationalist claims based on ethno-linguistic, historic, and late-19^th-century "civilizational" arguments:

 

"The vote of the Parliament in Chişinău regrettably reconfirms the criminal [Ribbentrop-Molotov] pact and irresponsibly cancels the right of the Romanian nation to live within the integrity of its historical and spiritual space. [...] Through the geographical position, culture, history and traditions, the natural place of our brothers from across the Prut is, undoubtedly, together with us, in the great family of the European nations, and by no means in a Eurasian structure." [emphasis added]

 

Sixteen years later, in May 2010, President Traian Basescu used the same terms of reference in his aggressive reaction to the claim that Presidents Medvedev and Yanukovich had reached a secret understanding on the future of Moldova and Transdnistria:

 

"Moscow and now Kyiv are trying to create on the territory that, at the end of World War II should have been returned to Romania, a pseudo-federation of three political-legal pseudo-subjects. But we will do everything to oppose the Russian-Ukrainian plan for the amputation of Bessarabia."

 

Back in January 2006, Basescu declared that "the minimal policy of Romania is for the unification of the Romanian nation to take place within the EU." Note the phrase minimal policy, implying the existence of a maximal policy that goes way beyond unification with Moldova. Its reality is apparent in the decision to grant Romanian citizenship to all residents of the territories belonging to the pre-1940 Greater Romania and their descendants up to the third generation – including the denizens of Bukovina and southern Bessarabia.[5]

 

UKRAINIAN RESPONSE – The policies and stated positions of Bucharest represent an open challenge to Ukraine as a state and a threat to its core interests. The response to that challenge has been muted and indecisive thus far. Its articulation in realist terms should be a priority for the decision makers in Kiev.

 

To start with, Ukraine should overcome the previous government's propensity to embrace the Euro-integrative discourse, which inhibited asserting its interests in a reasonable, clear and unambiguous manner. Ukraine's reluctance to do so over the years has created the expectation in Bucharest that it can get away with a dual-track policy of pursuing its revisionist-nationalist agenda, and at the same time pretending to be Ukraine's special friend and advocate within the EU. With "friends" like Basescu, Ukraine needs no detractors.

 

ROMANIA'S WEAKNESSES: Kiev's response to the challenge should take account of the fundamental weakness of Romania's position, both internally and externally:

 

1.      Romania does not enjoy a carte blanche from Brussels, or from any major West European capital, for its irredentist-revisionist policy. In fact, its status within the EU – low to start with – has been further eroded, albeit indirectly, by the Greek financial crisis. Key European countries are more impatient than ever with their poor relations along the periphery of the Union. They have no time for their special pleading, and do not care one way or another for whose flag flies over Kishinev or Tiraspol. They will not hesitate to express their lack of support for Romania's designs if asked to state their preferences. The reason Romania has been able to pretend that it enjoys the support of "Europe" in its aspirations has been Ukraine's reluctance to force the issue and test that proposition.

2.      Romania does not enjoy the support of the Obama administration either for its irredentist-revisionist designs. Admittedly, Bucharest gets private encouragement for such ambitions from various neoconservative "analysts" who still pursue a Russophobic, NATO-for-ever agenda, yet those people represent nobody but themselves. They may pretend to have official connections and influence, and their Romanian hosts may be lured into believing it. Ukraine can and should call their bluff, in view of Yanukovich's high stock in Washington after his visit last spring.

3.      Romania is no longer able to count on the Orange animosity to Russia as the welcome focus of Ukraine's external priorities. To the contrary, Ukraine is now able to discuss and coordinate its policies with Moscow, since their interests in the region are "objectively" identical. This is particularly significant in view of the growing special relationship between Russia and Germany, manifested in the opening of the North Stream pipeline: Europe's overall indifference to the rekindling of regional tension is strengthened by Moscow's ability to exert influence in Berlin on any specific issues it deems worthy of attention.

4.      Romania cannot count on clear support for its agenda in Moldova – not even for what Basescu calls the "minimal policy" of unification. The Unionists may be ascendant right now, but the opposition to "the reunion with the Romanian motherland" remains strong.[6] The support is largely pragmatic (i.e. EU membership and associated presumed benefits) rather than emotional and cultural, which makes it soft and volatile.

5. Within Romania itself, there is no real consensus on the irredentist objectives of the political elite. Ordinary Romanians are too preoccupied with the daily struggle of making ends meet in what is officially the poorest EU member-country (per capita GDP). Polls indicate that barely one-half of the population supports a union with Moldova and a third rejects it.[7] Among those supporting the union, it is worthy of note that a half would be willing to give up Transdnistria. The cost of the project is broadly suspected of exceeding (in relative terms, of course) FRG's cost of integrating GDR. Anecdotal evidence also indicates a sense of cultural detachment from the trans-Prut Moldovans, who are perceived as less than diligent and generally "primitive."
6. Romania's aspiration to "regional leadership" – a theme that had inexplicably resonated in Kiev for years until last January – is entirely bogus, and it is the source of actual or potential friction with Warsaw and Budapest. "Leadership" presumes the qualities of legitimacy and cultural, political or economic power that underpin the leader's willingly accepted benevolent authority. On no account can Romania aspire to such a lofty position. In the words of a Bucharest-based Western diplomat, "it needs to be led, rather than lead."
7. Romania has ambiguous relations, at best, with all of her neighbors, and tense with two. (a) The new Fidesz government is Hungary takes an active interest in the status of Hungarian minorities in the neighboring countries, and it advocates autonomy for the Hungarians of Transylvania, which the authorities in Bucharest say they will not accept. (b) In eastern Serbia, the Romanian government is actively promoting the "awakening" of the Vlachs, traditionally well integrated, and the unprecedented establishment of parallel ecclesiastical structures of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
8. Romania has no military option a la Saakashvili, being within NATO and having no green light from any quarter for an act of reckless adventurism.[8] Far from giving it the muscle for assertiveness, EU and NATO membership create salutary constraints in the behavior of Bucharest and provide affected third parties (in this case Ukraine and Russia) with the means of exerting indirect influence, and – if needed – pressure.

 

Ukraine should assert its interests with five low-cost, low-risk policy moves:

1. Ukrainian law does not recognize dual citizenship, but it should be augmented by the prospect of the loss of Ukrainian citizenship by permanent residents of Ukraine who accept the citizenship of another country. This would not affect the Ukrainians e.g. in Toronto who take the citizenship of Canada, but it would quite properly affect those living in Chernivtsi or Izmail who take the citizenship of Romania and thus implicitly accept the validity of its continuing claim to the pre-1940 Romania mare.
2. Ukraine should intensify its relations with the new Hungarian government, with which it shares common interest in denying Romania any special or privileged position in the context of regional cooperation and Euro-integration. Budapest has already signaled its interest in a new chapter in its relations with both Ukraine and Moldova.[9]
3. Ukraine should increase the awareness of Romania's problematic positions and policies by indirectly supporting and promoting events, research and publications – primarily in Western Europe and North America – conducive to its views on regional stability.
4. Ukraine should indicate to its West European interlocutors that it needs no third parties as its pleaders in the process of drawing closer to the EU. There will be no eastward expansion of the Union anyway; Romania nevertheless should be disabused of its pretensions to be Ukraine's self-appointed chaperone in Brussels.
5. Ukraine should proceed with the Bystroye project, and indicate that it would treat any attempt to dig a counter-canal upstream as an overtly hostile act.

 

The challenge Ukraine faces from Romania is not going to fade away because it is based on the cultural, strategic and geopolitical realities that are relatively constant. That challenge can and should be met more forcefully than before, and recognizing its existence would be the necessary first step. The source of the challenge is relatively weak and vulnerable. With its size, resources, and comparative advantages, Ukraine has nothing to fear in tackling it responsibly but firmly.

---

[1] Lucian Boia. Romania: Borderland of Europe. London: Reaktion Books, 2001, p. 308.

[2] <http://omg.md/Content.aspx?id=6807&lang=2>

[3] "Do Medvedev and Yanukovych plan to sign a 'secret protocol' on Transdniester?" <http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/67633/print/ >

[4] "Sugary and incorporeal humanism is inappropriate in this situation," Marshal Antonescu told his soldiers on July 8, 1941. "The Jews should be forced to leave Bessarabia and Bukovina, and Ukrainian people must leave the country too [emphasis added]. I don't care if the world calls us barbarians. You can use machine-guns if necessary. Let me tell you, the law does not exist. So, let's give up all the formalities and use this complete freedom."

[5] It would be unthinkable for, say, Germany to start distributing its passports to the inhabitants of the lands that used to be known as Silesia, Pomerania, or East Prussia.

[6] A poll conducted by IRI in Moldova in November 2008 showed that 29% of the population would support a union with Romania, while 61% would reject it.

[7] In a survey conducted by the Social Studies Group (May 13-20, 2010), 80% of respondents said that Romania was heading in the wrong direction, while only 8.3 percent held the opposite view. Asked about the priority the Government should have, job creation came first (50.5 percent), followed by the fight against corruption (12.5%), pay and  pension rises (18%), etc. Only 6 percent included "constitutional revision" among the priorities.

[8] Romania has negligible support within either the EU or NATO for courting Saakashvili, and Basescu's advocacy of Georgia's doomed NATO bid is unlikely to give a boost to his stock in the West.

[9] "The main objective of the conservative Hungarian government is the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) in the East – which includes cooperation with Ukraine and Moldova – in order to separate Hungary's situation from the issues in Southern Europe." EurActiv.com, June 8, 2010.

Karadzic Questions Credibility of Witness

Karadzic Questions Credibility of Witness

| 23 June 2010 | Nidzara Ahmetasevic
 

On the last day of his cross-examination of General John Wilson, Radovan Karadzic questioned the credibility of the prosecution witness.

Karadzic, the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs who is on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, posed a number of questions that the witness could not answer.

General Wilson was not certain who the minister of defence in Bosnia and Herzegovina was in 1992, and he was unsure about some parts of Sarajevo and about the way the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina was organised in the city.

"Mr Karadzic, from my position I was not obliged to know everything, but to know how to find information that was needed, and that was my job. I did not know everything about every incident that happened, and it is true that many things were unclear, in gray areas in that conflict and it was impossible to attribute everything that was going on," the witness said.

General John Wilson was a liaison officer in the UN monitoring peace-keeping mission in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from for 10 months during 1991 and 1992. Later on, in 1993, he worked as a military adviser in the negotiating team headed by special envoys of the international community Cyrus Vance, Lord Owen and Thorvald Stoltenberg.  

After seven hours of questioning over a three day period the cross-examination of General Wilson is over.

During his cross-examination Karadzic was warned by the trial chamber several times about the way he asked questions and made statements. He has also been warned about his cross-examination method during previous cross-examinations.

The prosecution will call a protected witness for the next hearing on June 28.

After that, the next witness will be Momcilo Mandic, a former close associate of Karadzic and the minister of justice in his government in 1992 and chief of the Office of Republika Srpska in Belgrade. Before the war Mandic was assistant minister of the interior of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

While Karadzic was in hiding after the war, Mandic was suspected to be a part of the ring that was helping him and as a result in 2003 he was banned from travelling to the EU. Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade in 2008, while the ban on Mandic is still valid.

However, the Tribunal issued an order for safe conduct for Mandic during the period he will be in The Hague as a witness. The statute of the ICTY asks for cooperation from all the states "in the investigation and prosecution of the persons accused of committing serious violations of international humanitarian law" and to comply with orders issued by the Tribunal.

According to the order, safe conduct for Mandic is guaranteed from June 25 to July 3 on his travel from Serbia, where he now lives, to the Netherlands, meaning that "he cannot be arrested, detained, prosecuted or subject to any other restriction, whether physical or legal, of his personal liberty".

Karadzic demanded that the ICTY order the lifting of the ban for Mandic completely, but the request was denied with the explanation that the Tribunal does not have the power to interfere in questions of EU policy.

In 2010, Mandic was acquitted of war crimes charges by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Copyrights ©  Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.

 

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/28977/

EU confuses Serbian leaders who confuse Serbian people

 

http://waz.euobserver.com/887/30334
 
EU confuses Serbian leaders who confuse Serbian people

ZELJKO PANTELIC
Today @ 09:33 CET

Serbian politicians often get contradictory messages from EU member states as well as officials and ambassadors in Belgrade about Serbia's European integration and the possibility of reopening discussions on Kosovo's status. Consequently, Serbia's public is baffled.
Top Serbian officials and some government-friendly NGO representatives often release information in the Serbian media on these subjects, asking journalists to quote them as sources from the EU, Brussels or international diplomatic circles.
The average Serbian news consumer can easily become confused by the divergence of messages in a single week.
One day he is told that Serbia is winning the diplomatic battle for Kosovo and progressing very well towards EU accession. The next day's headlines read that Kosovo independence is irreversible and that Serbia cannot enter the EU without recognising Kosovo's statehood. A day later the news may be that Serbia is far from EU integration because the EU is tired of enlargement, and that Serbia is learning lessons from Cyprus on how to join the Union without recognising Kosovo.
On day four the story could be that the diplomatic fight for Kosovo is very difficult because Pristina is backed by the most powerful countries in the world, and that Serbia is well prepared for EU integration, but its bid is being blocked by Germany and the Netherlands, for no clear reasons.
A day later again headlines foresee an imminent reopening of Kosovo status negotiations after the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, and that Serbia's EU application will be passed to the European Commission at the next meeting of EU foreign ministers. On day six the news is that Belgrade-Pristina negotiations may only concern technical issues, not the status of Kosovo, and that the EU has adopted a gradual approach towards European integration, meaning no big steps on Serbia's European agenda in the near future.
After the last foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg, Italian minister Franco Frattini said the Serbian application for membership had not been passed to the Commission because his German colleague first needed an opinion from parliament.
A German diplomat, meanwhile, said it was not just Germany but that a big majority of EU members opposed the passing of Serbia's application "because most EU member states apply the step-by-step approach in their enlargement policy."
Ambassadors to Belgrade from some member states also release confusing statements. Unlike in EU countries, where few people know the names of ambassadors from other member states, or from Russia and the US, foreign diplomats in Serbia are like pop stars. They are interviewed by newspapers or appear on national television on a daily basis. Some of them insist there is no link between the Kosovo issue and Serbia's European integration. Others assert the opposite. Some EU ambassadors even contradict themselves, saying completely different things in the course of just a few days.
"If Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos says, as he did at the last Council of ministers, that Serbia is very constructive on the Kosovo issue and the participation of Kosovo in regional co-operation, we can just imagine what he said to his Serbian colleague," a participant in the last meeting of EU foreign ministers told WAZ.EUobserver on the condition of anonymity.
"It is quite understandable that Serbia's top officials are more eager to believe what Moratinos tells them, than to listen to the warnings of [French foreign minister] Kouchner, [German foreign minister] Westerwelle or [British foreign minister] Hague. We are not able to speak with one voice to Belgrade and that is why Kosovo is becoming a frozen issue and Serbia is going to be very slow on the European path," the contact continued.
An EU diplomat said there is a high risk the Union blocks both Serbia and Kosovo's European integration.
"I am afraid leaders in Belgrade and Pristina do not understand that if they want to move ahead on the European path, it is not important how many countries support you, but whether there is consensus in the EU or not. In other words, you need all EU countries on your side. To stop you or to slow you down, just one member state is sufficient," the diplomat noted.
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The new threat to America: NATO

By ARTHUR HERMAN

Last Updated: 4:33 AM, June 14, 2010

Posted: 1:12 AM, June 14, 2010

Comments: 10

It's not just the euro (and with it the European Union) that's in danger of sinking out of sight. So, too, is NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Unless the United States takes a long, hard look at its connections with this Cold War relic, we may find ourselves caught in the undertow.

Two recent news items ram the point home.

* The Gaza convoy incident underlined the growing support of Iran and the terrorist group Hamas by Turkey -- a NATO member since 1958. That one of the NATO allies now wants to ally with the jihadist cause -- and a country that is NATO's face in the Middle East -- should get everyone's attention.

* France, having rejoined NATO's military structure in 2009 (after leaving in a huff back in 1966), is about to sell up to four Mistral-class helicopter assault ships to Russia. The warships include sophisticated technology that integrates the ships with the military command and information systems used by NATO and the United States, including in Afghanistan.

Indeed, Russia's Vladimir Putin announced he won't do the deal unless he gets that highly restricted technology -- even though, as Agence France Press quotes one senior US lawmaker as saying, it would "shake NATO to the core."

In short, one NATO ally is lining up to help Iran dominate the Middle East. Another, after months of promises that it would not, intends to sell Russia the means not only to intimidate maritime neighbors like Lithuania and Georgia, but possibly to eavesdrop on every NATO operation around the world.

Add in NATO's refusal to carry its share of the burden of fighting in Afghanistan, which is hampering our strategy there and putting our soldiers in danger, and there's only one conclusion to draw: The Cold War alliance that was once an important pillar of Western and US security is becoming a danger to both.

NATO was created in 1949 with the idea that America would supply the alliance with the bulk of its muscle, while its other members would display the solidarity of political will to resist Communist domination of Europe (though each member also promised to devote at least 2 percent of GDP to military spending each year).

That made sense when Germany and France and Italy were still emerging from the rubble of world war, and a war-weary Britain was still rationing meat and sugar -- and the Soviet Union loomed as a nuclear-armed monolith. By the 1970s, the formula was becoming absurd: European countries were flourishing and incomes rising, yet their share of meeting NATO's defense needs did not. Instead, the vast US conventional and nuclear umbrella let them build hugely wasteful welfare states under its shade.

When the Cold War ended, NATO made even less sense. The first sign that it had outlived its usefulness came in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, when the alliance's European members were unwilling to prevent the first genocide on European soil since the Holocaust, unless the United States took the lead. So much for displaying political will.

Then came Afghanistan. The European members of the International Security Assistance Force there have been extremely careful to avoid any serious combat duties, for fear their pacifist-minded populations might demand the troops come home. In many cases, US forces have to spend almost as much time and effort protecting them as engaging the enemy. For the last five years, they've been a misery to us, and an aid and a comfort to the enemy.

Yet President Obama's strategy in Afghanistan relies on "help" from those same NATO allies (even as he himself has undercut NATO's most pro-American members like Poland, Latvia and the Czech Republic by giving in to Russia on missile defense). Likewise, his long-term plans for the Pentagon depend on Europe sharing more of the burden on its own defense, including the NATO budget.

It's a forlorn hope. Today, only five of NATO's 28 members live up to the 2 percent defense-spending requirement. Worse, Karl Heinz Kamp, director of the research division of NATO Defense College, has found that, of Europe's 2 million men and women in uniform, only 3 percent to 5 percent are actually deployable in combat. And the cash-strapped Europeans want to cut NATO's budget almost out of sight.

If an armed conflict ever does come back to Europe, it is easy to guess who will be doing the fighting. Meanwhile, it's increasingly hard to see what we're getting in return when Turkey and France are not only undermining NATO, but seemingly mounting direct challenges to US security interests.

When NATO was created, Churchill's friend Lord Ismay said its job was "to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down." Today, NATO is letting the Americans and Afghans down, allowing the Russians and Iranians in -- and letting everyone else off the hook. So why are we still part of it?

Arthur Herman's most recent book is "Gandhi and Churchill."

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_new_threat_to_america_nato_yEHmKUmEDa18HOEBQhD4aL#ixzz0r3S7W7bt

 

Serbian Court Upholds Prison Terms for Perpetrators of Kosovo Massacre

Serbian Court Upholds Prison Terms for Perpetrators of Kosovo Massacre

VOA News 15 June 2010

A Serbian appeals court has upheld prison terms of up to 20 years for three ex-Serb paramilitaries convicted of gunning down 14 ethnic Albanian women and children a decade ago in Kosovo.

The court in Belgrade rejected appeals from the three appellants, who served in the notorious Scorpions unit during the 1999-2000 Kosovo war.  A retrial was ordered for a fourth defendant.

The massacre in Kosovo's northern town of Podujevo took place at the start of a NATO bombing campaign launched against Serbia to stop a Belgrade crackdown on Albanian separatists.

During the original 2009 trial, survivors described how Scorpions lined up 19 people against a wall in March 1999 and sprayed them with machine-gun fire.  Five children survived the massacre, saved only when regular Serbian troops arrived on the scene.

The Scorpions unit operated under the command of the Serbian Interior Ministry during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Domestic war crimes trials in Serbia only became possible after the ouster of autocratic Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.  Milosevic died in 2006, while on trial in The Hague for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.  The declaration is recognized by more than 60 nations, including the United States and most countries of the European Union.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP.

http://tinyurl.com/369aso4

Balkan Tension and the Future of NATO by Ted Galen Carpenter

 

http://www.panmacedonian.info/balkan_tensions_and_the_future_2010.htm

Balkan Tensions and the Future of NATO

By Ted Galen Carpenter

           A key assumption long held by proponents of NATO enlargement is that the process would both strengthen the alliance and stabilize potentially volatile portions of Europe.  That assumption is dubious in general and wildly inaccurate when it comes to the Balkans.  Indeed, the addition of new members such as Croatia and Albania has produced the opposite outcome with respect to both goals.  Washington's ongoing effort to add such countries as Bosnia- Herzegovina and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) would likely make matters even worse.  Yet that is the course that U.S. and European leaders seem determined to pursue.

New Balkan Members Weaken, Not Strengthen, NATO

            It is mystery why NATO supporters cling to the notion that adding small, militarily insignificant allies makes the alliance stronger and more capable.  It is an even greater mystery why opinion leaders in the U.S. foreign policy community believe that such allies benefit the security and well being of America.  The opposite is true.  Such NATO members are strategic liabilities, not assets, and many of them bring with them political, diplomatic, and military  baggage that could prove very troublesome for the United States.

            The addition of Croatia and Albania confirms that NATO enlargement has now entered the realm of farce.  The military capabilities of those two countries are minuscule.  According to the most recent edition of The Military Balance, published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Croatia's annual military budget is a mere $875 million, and its military force consists of 18,600 active-duty personnel.  Albania's budget is an even more meager $254 million, and its active duty force is a paltry 14,295 soldiers.[1] 

            By not yet offering membership to FYROM, though, NATO will have to do without Skopje's $167 million and 8,000 troops.  The alliance is also missing the opportunity to add Bosnia's $281 million in military spending and 11,099 soldiers.  And, of course, there is always the prospect of gaining Montenegro's $61 million and 3,127 troops.  Serbia remains enough of a pariah to the statesmen of NATO's leading powers that its $1.06 billion in spending and 29,125 soldiers probably will be unavailable to the alliance for many years to come.[2]

            The combined annual defense outlays of all of  those countries are less than the United States spends in Afghanistan in one week.  Why American political leaders believe that such military pygmies augment the vast power of the United States is inexplicable.

Potential Trouble for NATO–and the United States–in the Balkans

            NATO's new and prospective Balkan members are not just militarily insignificant, they create the prospect of entangling the alliance–and its leader, the United States–in a variety of messy problems.  Albania is likely to prove to be an embarrassment, or worse, for its NATO partners.  The country is notorious for being under the influence of organized crime.  Indeed, the Albanian mafia is legendary throughout southeastern Europe, controlling the bulk of gambling, prostitution, and drug trafficking. 

            Moreover, Albania's political stability remains highly uncertain, as the country is barely a decade removed from the political chaos and near civil war that led to an armed multilateral peacekeeping intervention, Operation Alba,  led by Greece and Italy.  Longstanding animosity between the two principal ethno-linguistic factions, the Gegs, who dominate the northern part of the country, and the Tosks, who dominate the southern portion, shows no clear signs of abating.  It is important to remember that those ethnic tensions contributed to the disorder in the late 1990s, and they could easily do so again.

            Problems associated with some of the countries proposed for alliance membership are even more worrisome.  Bosnia in the nearly 15 years since the Dayton Accords has hardly been an unalloyed success story for ambitious Western nation builders.  Although the Dayton agreement did end the tripartite civil war, Bosnia is still a country that lacks a meaningful sense of nationhood or even the basic political cohesion to be an effective state.  The reality is that if secession were allowed, the overwhelming majority of Bosnian Serbs would vote to detach their self-governing region (the Republika Srpska) from Bosnia and either form an independent country or merge with Serbia.  And that sentiment has intensified since the United States and its allies gave their blessing to Kosovo's secession and unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia.  Most Bosnian Croats would also likely choose to secede and join with Croatia.  Bosnian Muslims constitute the only faction that wishes to maintain Bosnia-Herzegovina in its current incarnation.  Although the situation remains relatively stable at the moment, that could easily change.[3]  And if it did, NATO would be caught up in the new turmoil.

            There are even more troubling aspects if the alliance were foolish enough to add FYROM to its roster of members.[4]  FYROM has a huge problem with its Albanian minority in the north and west of the country.  The Albanian inhabitants there have sought a degree of political autonomy that amounts to independence in everything but name.  Indeed, serious questions remain about the proper location of the border between FYROM and predominantly Albanian Kosovo–now a nominally independent country thanks to its unilateral declaration in February 2008, which occurred thanks to the instigation of  the United States and the leading powers in the European Union.

            An independent Kosovo is already exacerbating problems with several neighboring countries, especially FYROM.  There is scant evidence that advocates of a "Greater Albania" have relinquished their territorial ambitions in the Balkans.  It was an ominous development that less than a month after Pristina's declaration of independence, the leading ethnic Albanian party in FYROM threatened to withdraw its support and bring down the government because of what party leaders described as a failure to support minority rights or to recognize Kosovo's independence.  Among that party's demands were greater use of the Albanian language and flag in the increasingly autonomous northwestern region of FYROM and increased benefits to veterans of the 2000-2001 Albanian guerrilla insurgency.[5]

            The situation has not noticeably improved over the past two years.  Indeed, there was an especially alarming incident in early May 2010.  Four individuals were killed in shootout with FYROM police near the northwest border hamlet of Radusa.  They were driving a van transporting illegal arms from Kosovo.[6]  Unless we assume that the FYROM police are exceptionally competent at their interdiction efforts, it is highly probable that there have been other shipments and that this is part of an ongoing campaign to foment a new insurgency.

            If FYROM ever becomes a member of NATO, that nasty ethnic separatist problem becomes a matter of direct concern to the alliance.  One would think that the United States has enough foreign policy headaches around the world without adding that one to the list.

            Fortunately, it is doubtful whether FYROM will gain membership soon.  Its ongoing quarrel with Greece remains a major impediment.  The primary reason that FYROM was not invited to join NATO when Albania and Croatia received invitations was because Athens continued to object to that country using the name "Macedonia," which Greeks rightly insist applies only to a region of their nation. 

            That controversy is not merely over a historical and linguistic point.  Greeks worry the Skopje government's insistence on calling its country Macedonia implies a territorial claim to Greek Macedonia.  Maps circulating in FYROM that include major chunks of Greek territory as part of a "Greater Macedonia" do nothing to allay such fears.  In early 2008, FYROM's prime minister was photographed laying a wreath at a monument that featured a map of Greater Macedonia, which even included Greece's second largest city, Thessaloniki.[7]

            Such provocative territorial claims are hardly consistent with the view of FYROM that the U.S. State Department has tried to promote.  The nature of Washington's continuing lobbying campaign for NATO membership for FYROM can be seen in a gushing article about the country in the April 2010 issue of State Magazine, the department monthly publication.  The cover described FYROM as the "pearl of the Balkans."  The title of the article itself was "Skopje: Ancient Macedonia Builds Modern Democracy."[8]  The American Hellenic Institute issued a scathing 5-page letter rebuking the State Department for publishing such a puff piece, and the letter effectively debunked several of the article's claims.[9]

Conclusion

            NATO expansion into the Balkans is a spectacularly bad idea, for it entangles the alliance in an assortment of murky disputes and potential dangers.  Most of those issues are of little relevance even to NATO's other European members, much less to the United States.  The alliance has not been strengthened by the process of enlargement; to the contrary it has acquired new strategic liabilities rather than assets. 

            The new Balkan members are militarily useless, and they all bring with them a variety of unpleasant problems.  Enlargement has been an especially bad deal for the United States.  As NATO's leader, America is responsible for implementing the alliance's goal of maintaining stability throughout its membership zone in Europe–and in even in security arenas beyond the continent.  Given the history and current condition of the Balkans, U.S. policymakers have now made all the quarrels and problems of that volatile region America's problems.  That is an extremely unwise strategy.

Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute,  is the author of eight books and more than 400 articles on international affairs.  His most recent book is Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).  He is a contributing editor to the National Interest and serves on the editorial boards of Mediterranean Quarterly and the Journal of Strategic Studies.

Notes
 

---

[1]. International Institute of Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 2010 (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 119, 123.

[2]. Ibid., pp. 179, 186, 189, 190.

[3]. See Patrice C. McMahon and Jon Western, "The Death of Dayton: How to Stop Bosnia From Falling Apart," Foreign Affairs 88, no.5 (September-October 2009): 69-83.

[4]. For a good overview of the costs and potential problems (substantial) and prospective benefits (meager) of admitting FYROM to NATO, see Scott N. Siegel, "Weighing Macedonia's Entry into NATO," Mediterranean Quarterly 21, no. 1 (Winter 2010): 45-60.

[5]. Kole Casule and Matt Robinson, "Albanian Party Threatens to Bring Down Macedonian Government," Reuters, March 12, 2008.

[6]. Jasmina Mironski, "Four Dead in Macedonia-Kosovo Border Shooting," Agence France Presse, May 12, 2010.

[7]. Dora Bakoyannis, "All In a Name," Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2008.

[8]. Stephanie Rowlands, "Skopje: Ancient Macedonia Builds Modern Democracy," State, April 2010, pp. 22-25.

[9]. Aleco Haralambides, President, and Nick Larigakis, Executive Director, American Hellenic Institute letter to Hillary Rodham Clinton, April 27, 2010.