http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703977004575392901873224526.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

• OPINION EUROPE
• JULY 28, 2010

Kosovo's Disastrous Precedent

Serbia will never recognize this unilateral declaration of independence; we seek peaceful compromise.

 

By VUK JEREMIC

On Feb. 17, 2008, the ethnic-Albanian authorities of Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence against the will of the U.N Security Council and in contravention of my country's constitution. We made it immediately clear that we would never recognize the unilateral declaration of independence, implicitly or explicitly. This position will not change. Serbia will continue to use all diplomatic resources at the disposal of a sovereign state to oppose Pristina's attempt at partitioning our country. No democratic and proud nation—whose territorial integrity is under threat—would act differently.

From the onset of this grave crisis, we responded to the unilateral declaration of independence peacefully. In October 2008, the General Assembly of the United Nations overwhelmingly approved a resolution seeking the legal opinion of the International Court of Justice on the lawfulness of the unilateral declaration of independence.

After many months of deliberation, the court delivered its findings. It neither endorsed the view that this unilateral declaration of independence was a unique case, nor Pristina's claim that Kosovo is a state. Moreover, the court failed to approve the province's avowed right of secession from Serbia, or any purported right to self-determination for Kosovo's Albanians.

Instead, the court chose to narrowly examine the language of the unilateral declaration of independence. This strictly technical approach made it possible to say that the text of the declaration itself did not violate international law. The Kosovo Albanian authorities are deliberately misinterpreting the court's views as a legalization of their attempt at secession.

This may produce extensive and deeply problematic consequences for the international community. Ethnic minorities across the globe could take advantage of the opportunity to write their own declarations of independence according to the Kosovo textual template. This would put them in a position to plausibly claim that such texts sufficiently legitimize their respective acts of secession, and for their proclaimed independence to be in conformity with international law.

The inherent dangers of such a scenario must be prevented. Otherwise, the borders of every multi-ethnic state would be permanently threatened by secessionism, producing lasting instability throughout the world.

The court has left it up to the U.N. General Assembly to manage the political repercussions of the advisory opinion. This has been confirmed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who stated that the General Assembly "will determine how to proceed on this matter." The forthcoming debate will therefore focus on the consequences and implications of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence in light of the court's findings.

We must ensure that the outcome of this debate makes a positive contribution to global governance. We must find a realistic approach to close the Pandora's box opened up by Pristina. The only way forward is to commence peaceful dialogue between the parties that produces a compromise, a mutually acceptable solution to all outstanding issues.

The consequence of a failure to agree on Kosovo would be the establishment of a universally applicable precedent that provides a ready-made model for unilateral secession.

Serbia is committed to working with the international community to prevent such a disastrous scenario. What we seek is an equitable outcome that both sides can embrace. This is the only way to reinforce shared priorities, to normalize relations, and to complete the democratic transformation of the Balkans into a stable, prosperous region fully integrated into the European Union.

Mr. Jeremic is the foreign minister of the Republic of Serbia.

 

Serbia abusing international law: judge

The Daily Telegraph · Wednesday, Jul. 28, 2010

An attempt to extradite Ejup Ganic, the former Bosnian president, from Britain was thrown out of court yesterday after a judge accused Serbia of a politically motivated abuse of international law. Judge Timothy Workman said the Belgrade authorities were mounting war crimes charges to help its application to join the European Union. Mr. Ganic, was president of Bosnia during fighting that left more than 40 members of the Yugoslav armed forces dead in 1992. Judge Workman was damning in his verdict on the case, saying it attempted to rewrite history to equalize guilt between the Serbs and Bosnians.

http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Serbia+abusing+international+judge/3330105/story.html#ixzz0v1XScBsn

 

Knot of Independence

July 28, 2010
Knot of Independence
Comment by Sergey Markedonov
Special to Russia Profile

The Partial Recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia Means Academic Analysis of the "Kosovo Precedent" Is No Longer Abstracted

The UN International Court last week effectively recognized the legality of the Kosovo authorities' 2008 decision to declare independence from Serbia. But the significance of this problem goes far beyond the limits of formal jurisprudence. The "Casus Kosovo" has a bearing on the formation of the basic principles of world order. And if ethnic nationalism is allowed in the Balkans, why shouldn't it be allowed in the mountains of the Caucasus or in the deserts and tropics of Africa?

After the Kosovo Parliament approved the declaration of independence of the former autonomous province of Serbia (which was examined at the UN International Court), both Russian and Western experts began to talk about the opening of a new chapter in history – of "the world after Kosovo." At the same time, to speak of the event as some kind of sensation would be misleading. It had been long expected.

For two decades the Kosovo question has been one of the most difficult and entangled ethno-political problems on the Balkan peninsular. In 1991 Kosovar Albanian leaders declared their independence, but the problem did not go beyond the scope of the Balkans. And that is why Albania was the only country supporting Kosovo 19 years ago, although later the idea of uniting the two Albanian states was withdrawn from the agenda.

The new generation of Kosovar-Albanians, involved in the political conflict against Belgrade, began to view independence not as an intermediate stage, but as the ultimate goal. If anything, as an end in itself. After NATO's operation "Allied Force," (the 78-day bombing campaign from March 24 to June 10, 1999) ended in the de-facto secession of the former Serbian autonomous province, much became absolutely clear. Belgrade did not (and does not) have either the power or the practical, political-ideological, or moral-psychological resources to "Serbianize" the province.

However, to limit its impact to only the Balkans would be false. The Kosovo Casus is a subject of intense study in the countries of the "parallel Commonwealth of Independent States" (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transdnestr). In August 2008 two of the four republics of "CIS-2" compared their status with Kosovo's. They had become semi-recognized. The difference was only in the number of states which recognized that independence. The former Serb province was recognized by 69 countries, while Abkhazia and South Ossetia received only 4 nuanced recognitions. But the UN has recognized neither Kosovo, nor the two former Georgian autonomies. And the chances of Kosovo receiving such recognition in that famous building in New York is precisely nil, taking into account not so much the widely publicized position of Russia, but also the role played by China. Moscow can theoretically recognize the independence of the former Serb autonomous province if it betrays Belgrade. Beijing can afford itself the luxury of ignoring the Serb position since its celestial interests (Taiwan, Tibet) are in fact much more important than the political-psychological problems of distant Serbia.

In this way, the 2008 political decision and the 2010 legal decision have led to (and will to lead to) a situation where the principle of ethnic self-determination comes to the foreground. This is how it was at the beginning of the twentieth century. Then, the right of a nation to "self-determination" between the two variants (Woodrow Wilson's liberalism and Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevism) became the cornerstone of the global system. There was one problem. All of the various national elites had their own images of what constituted "their land" and "their country," and these did not correspond with those of the other elites. That's why the Czechs looked fearfully at the Germans and Poles, the Poles at the Germans and the Czechs, and the Romanians at the Hungarians. The years 1938 to 1939 led to territorial integrity becoming the new political principal (which would later be formalized in the Helsinki agreement in 1975). The land surveying of postcolonial Africa was carried out according to this model.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, ethnic nationalism acquired new youth and vigor. In February 2008 the United States and its allies took responsibility for legitimizing a new state, and half a year later it was Russia that did so. In the first instance the politicians who made the decision believed that a multinational Kosovo within Serbia was impossible, and those in the second case believed the same thing about "reintegration of Georgia." Since in the cases of Nagorno-Karabakh and Transdnestr the positions of the Russian Federation and the West do not differ dramatically, no one is shouldering the onus of responsibility for determining these "shards of empires." In Nagorno-Karabakh there are "strong" parties interested in maintaining the status-quo, and in the other case Moscow does not have a common border with the unrecognized republic, which is why it is not unnecessarily charging the situation.

The problem is not about who is right and who is wrong. The Serbs and the Albanians, the Abkhaz and the Georgians, the Armenians and the Azeris could all draw up a long list of claims against each other (including on their historical right to territory). The ethnic groups are not to blame (even more so as they don't have legal personalities), but rather the principles and the approaches. Ethnic nationalism in its extreme forms leads to the appearance of the "Kosovo casus," in which in there appears in Europe a fairly lame state, the government of which is run by an old fighter called Hashim Tachi and nicknamed "the Snake."  To what extent the Snake is able to solve the social and daily problems of his compatriots is debatable. Before, everything could be blamed on the evil will of Belgrade. Today it necessary to take responsibility, regulate the judicial system, bring into line corrupt officials, and the old comrades-in-arms of the Kosovo liberation army. There remains the question of the Kosovo precedent. And whoever wants to, of course, will see a precedent without any formal jurisprudence.

Now, the question surrounding the recognition of Kosovo has become a matter of interpretation. To the benefit of such interpretations there has appeared a starting point in the form of the partly recognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And that is why all the discussions and arguments about the precedent of Kosovo are not abstracted academic analyses, as was the case before 2008.

The event can be considered an evil, or a "triumph for democracy," but the independence of Kosovo did not unite the great powers. The event didn't even unite Europe (as had been planned in many strategies concocted in Brussels). Five EU countries (Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia) do not recognize the result of the self-determination of the former Serb autonomy. But then the whole of Europe united in a stance toward the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Here Greece, Romania, France and Britain spoke with one voice. But, be that as it may, Kosovo will never be a part of Serbia, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia will hardly return to the care of "mother Georgia."

In addition we shouldn't exclude the conflicts (or at the very least serious confrontations) between partly recognized republics and their military-political patrons. Just as yesterday's Kosovar field commanders are not ready to embrace the standards of Western democracy, the leaders of Abkhazia are not pleased about the arrival there of "colossal Russian business" (which is prepared to buy up their energy at source, take total control of tourist facilities, and take over the administrative business of the local authorities). However, these conflicts will not entail a growth in sympathy toward Belgrade or to Tbilisi. The political agenda will simply change slowly. Besides, this is all ahead. And in any case, it will be a different history for these post-Serbian and post-Georgian countries. 

Sergei Markedonov is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Russia and Eurasia Program Washington, DC  

http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=International&articleid=a1280342832

Ed West

Ed West is a journalist and social commentator who specialises in politics, religion and low culture. He is @edwestonline on Twitter.

If Kosovo can legally secede from Serbia, what's to stop Mexifornia leaving the United States?

 

By Ed West World Last updated: July 25th, 2010

Comment on this Comment on this article

If Kosovo can unilaterally secede from a sovereign state quite legally, as the World Court has now ruled, where does it leave the rest of the world's unstable multi-ethnic states?

What about Iraq, for instance, where the Kurdish region in the north has been self-ruling for 20 years? The Kurds are the largest nation without a state, and certainly deserve one.

And if the Kurds broke away, then what about the minorities within the minority region? The meta-minorities. A small portion of south-west Kurdistan is populated with a slight majority of Assyrian Christians, who would rather some form of autonomy to protect their ancient culture from certain extinction. Can they form their own micro-state?

What about South Africa and its 20 or so ethnic groups? What about the rest of that continent, a hodgepodge of artificially created states, which agreed some time ago not to question these false European-made boundaries to prevent continuing all-out war. It would be a cartographer's nightmare, and we'd have to build a new UN assembly the size of Wembley stadium, while qualifying rounds for the World Cup would take decades.

And, as someone I follow on Twitter pointed out, what if a Hispanic-majority California voted to secede from the United States? What justification could the US government then use to stop them? Because the black, white and Asian minorities won't like it? Tell that to the Serbs, buddy.

The Mexicans have a greater historic claim to California than the Albanians do to Kosovo, which until the last quarter of the 19th century had a Serbian majority. Even into the 1980s it had a substantial Serbian minority, and its decline was not entirely down to the higher Albanian birth rate. There was some intimidation and ethnic cleansing involved, and even in 1999, when Bill Clinton and Tony Blair embarked on their war, both sides were at it. That the Serbs were doing it worse was for the same reason, as P J O'Rourke once said, that a dog licks his balls – because they could.

Having said that, and in light of the way that Europe had shamefully stood aside during Bosnia, Blair was morally justified in intervening. It is all the more admirable because, as in the case of Iraq (which Blair had been lobbying Clinton to invade long before Bush and 9/11), it was largely unpopular.

Many British people were not just isolationist in 1999 but actively hostile to the idea of taking the side of the Albanians against the Serbs, and not just because of religious solidarity. Most Brits rather admire the Serbs, and even their fondness for drunken violence, football hooliganism and obscene swear swords about the sexual peccadilloes of other peoples' mothers only endears them more. They're less keen on the Albanians, it has to be said, a feeling not improved by the subsequent appearance of many Kosovan refugees in Britain after the war ("Kosovan" is still a generic ethnic slur to any eastern European, and always meant as an insult).

But you can't portion up the world according to national popularity contests, otherwise the English would be lucky to hang on to the Isle of Wight, the rest of the country being handed over to the Irish Republic. It seems obviously fair that the Albanians should get most of Kosovo, based on current and recent demographic realties, but not all of it.

The Serbs will rightly feel bitter about all this – but perhaps a few years they'll get their revenge by being the first country to recognise La República de Mexifornia.

http://tinyurl.com/2cdcjh7

Gerard Gallucci: Kosovo – the ICJ speaks

Kosovo – the ICJ speaks

The International Court of Justice's ruling has found Kosovo's declaration of independence to be neither legal nor illegal, but that international law contains no applicable prohibition of such declarations.

By Gerard Gallucci

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) today delivered its decision on whether "the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo [is] in accordance with international law?"

The Court reportedly began by asserting its jurisdiction: "The court … considers that it has jurisdiction to give an advisory opinion in response to the request made by the (UN) General Assembly….There are no compelling reasons to decline to exercise its jurisdiction in the present request." The Court also found that international law "contains no applicable prohibition" of declarations of independence and thus concluded "that the declaration of independence on 17 February 2008 did not violate general international law." The Court also reportedly noted that nothing in UN Security Council Resolution 1244 prevented the unilateral declaration of independence. The Court declared, however, that it did not consider the legality of any right to self determination or succession. Although the Court decision was less ambiguous than many foresaw, it nevertheless seemed to limit itself to a finding of fact. i.e., that international law does not address the issue of declarations of independence. Thus it found the declaration neither legal nor illegal.

This will all require a detailed reading – the ICJ website was not prepared for the attention from Kosovo watchers and failed to offer timely access to the decision or a transcript. But the spin cycle has already started. Both sides have readied their diplomatic response. Belgrade had signalled that it plans to follow the decision back to the UN General Assembly, where it will ask for a resolution supporting further negotiations, while taking its case directly to national capitals. Belgrade is reportedly resisting pressure from the EU and US to accept an EU draft resolution that would not call for new negotiations (but perhaps allow for talks on technical matters). In Washington, Vice President Biden repeated US support for Kosovo independence and the US ambassador to Pristina will be meeting with foreign press to make the case for no new negotiations and to preview an expected wave of new recognitions. Pristina and its allies will be energized by the headlines suggesting that the ICJ ruled the declaration "legal" despite the fact that it did no such thing.

As everyone understood from the beginning – though the Pristina camp will suggest otherwise – the ICJ decision resolved nothing and the Kosovo status issue remains unsettled. Belgrade has no choice – as long as the Quint remains opposed to new negotiations and a compromise solution – but to continue to reject independence and to support the Serbs in Kosovo. The northern Serbs will continue to reject rule from Pristina and remain unlikely to accept any efforts to force it upon them. What the decision may do is embolden the Albanians (with US support) to renew provocations in the north and the EU to increase pressure on Belgrade by threatening delay on EU membership.

The situation on the ground remains dangerous. Another thing the ICJ decision does not do is decrease the potential for violence.

Gerard M. Gallucci is a retired US diplomat and UN peacekeeper. He worked as part of US efforts to resolve the conflicts in Angola, South Africa and Sudan and as Director for Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council. He served as UN Regional Representative in Mitrovica, Kosovo from July 2005 until October 2008. The views expressed in this piece are his own and do not represent the position of any organization. You can read more of Mr. Gallucci's analysis of current developments in Kosovo and elsewhere by clicking here.

If you are interested in supporting the work of TransConflict, please click here.

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Related posts:

1. Kosovo – "a struggle over who gets the north"
2. Walking the Kosovo tightrope
3. Kosovo – what is to be done?
4. Kosovo and the Ahtisaari Plan
5. Montenegro – in between Serbia and Kosovo

http://www.transconflict.com/2010/07/kosovo-the-icj-speaks-227/

Kosovo case in the International Court of Justice: time to shed illusions

 

Kosovo

17:32 21/07/2010

© RIA Novosti. Ruslan Krivobok

This story by Petr Iskenderov, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Science, Strategic Culture Foundation expert, was published in International Affairs magazine.

On July 22, the UN International Court of Justice in the Hague will issue its opinion on the status of  Kosovo, the breakaway province which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008. For the first time in its history, the Court is to judge on the legality of the proclamation of independence by a territory of a UN-member country without the consent of the latter. The ruling is sure to set a precedent for scores of likewise cases, including those in the post-Soviet space.

The International Court of Justice has been looking into the legality of the unilaterally proclaimed Kosovo independence from the standpoint of international law since the fall of 2008.  The request was submitted to the Court by the UN General Assembly following Serbia's demand. After heated debates, the delegations voted in Belgrade's favor: 77 voted for having the case examined by the International Court of Justice, 6 voted against, and 74 abstained. The countries which chose to abstain were mostly the EU members which at the time regarded Kosovo's independence as a decided matter but did agree that Serbia had the right to present its position in the Court. The countries which voted against were the US and Albania as the key architects of the Kosovo independence and a number of Asia-Pacific countries.

The International Court of Justice was supposed to unveil its ruling in April, 2010 but, as the media found out, serious disagreements surfaced among the Court judges and the process took longer than initially expected. Moreover, there were indications that the West deliberately postponed the ruling to exert additional pressure on Belgrade over the extradition of former commander of the army of Bosnian Serbs R. Mladic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

At the moment it is clear that the architects of the new world order are not going to wait any longer, especially considering that the ruling will yet have to be examined by the UN General Assembly which is entitled to make the final decision. Serbia's foreign minister V. Jeremic said the Court verdict would not put the final dot in the dispute over Kosov. He projected that the struggle over votes in the UN General Assembly would be much more serious. Jeremic said Belgrade realized that it would have to face aggressive and heavily funded Albanian propaganda and demands to drop its position, but stressed that Serbia should do its best to preserve domestic political unity and that the peaceful diplomatic struggle for Serbia's territorial integrity and a compromise over Kosovo and Metohija should continue. Jeremic expressed the hope that the verdict of the International Court of Justice would become a  moment of truth and ring a warning to those in Pristina who thought they would be able to  tailor the international law to their wishes. Are there real grounds for Jeremic's optimism and what verdict can we expect from the International Court of Justice?

One of Serbia's officially stated objectives behind getting the case examined by the International Court of Justice was to impede the recognition of Kosovo's independence across the world. To an extent, the plan has worked. Whereas 48 countries  recognized the independence of Kosovo within the term of six months prior to the October 8, 2008 UN General Assembly's decision to send the Kosovo case to the International Court of Justice, only 21 country did the same over nearly two years since the date. As of today, the independence of Kosovo is recognized by 69 of the 192 UN countries. On the other hand, only one country – Costa-Rica – stated officially that it may reverse its decision depending on the Court verdict. As for the EU, the countries still denying recognition to Kosovo are Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Romania, and Slovakia.

Serbia's problem is that the disposition in the International Court of Justice happens to be the opposite of that in the UN General Assembly.  In the Court, 9 of 15 judges including the presiding one represent Japan, Sierra Leone, Jordan, the US, Germany, France, New Zealand, Somali, and Great  Britain, namely the countries which have recognized the independence of Kosovo. The opposite position is espoused by Slovakia, Mexico, Morocco, Russia, Brazil, and China. Therefore, Serbia's other officially stated goal – to achieve international acknowledgement of the illegitimacy of the unilateral proclamation of independence by Kosovo – appears unrealistic.

There is information that in the past several months the International Court of Justice judges considered three potential rulings. The first one can be indefinitely worded, contain condemnations of both the Kosovo unilateralism and Serbia's politics under S. Milosevic, and say neither Yes nor No to the independence of Kosovo. This gentle option will materialize if Serbia capitulates in what concerns the extradition of Mladic.

The second potential ruling, which was mainly advocated by France, was supposed to carry the statement by International Court of Justice that the issue is purely political and can only be addressed at the level of the UN Security Council. The scenario does appear improbable at least because to make such a statement the Court would not have had to get bogged on the case since October, 2008 or hold closed hearings in December, 2009.

There is also the third potential ruling, and the current impression is that the majority of the judges are going to opt for it. The verdict can be premised in the assumption that, allegedly, the Kosovo case is unique, the coexistence of Kosovo Albanians and Serbia within a single statehood is impossible, the talks on the status of the province collapsed, and therefore the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo – and its subsequent recognition by a number of countries - were a forced step and a smaller evil. The verdict will be accompanied by the dissenting opinions of some of the judges who do not recognize the independence of Kosovo due to fundamental regards, but this will not change the fact that the verdict will be favorable to Albanians.

By the way, Kosovo administration is absolutely convinced that the coming verdict of the International Court of Justice will be  news to it. Kosovo foreign minister Skender Hyseni has already broadcast the Kosovo administration's determination to gain control over the whole territory of the province, which practically means subduing its northern, Serb-populated part. The verdict of the International Court of Justice can provide a legal backing for the hard-line policy.

While the judicial contest over Kosovo is likely lost for Serbia and the countries supporting it, the long-term repercussions of the coming verdict and the role it can play in other conflict cases should be assessed from a broader perspective. The conclusions and even more so the arguments of the International Court of Justice will be studied carefully with an eye to similar conflicts, including those in the Caucasus and other parts of the post-Soviet space. The options open to Russia in this context certainly deserve attention.

From the outset, the Russian leadership stated quite reasonably that its decision to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was based on an understanding of the situation in the Caucasus and not in any way on the Kosovo precedent. Nevertheless, the fact that the International Court of Justice would express no opposition to the independence of Kosovo would automatically weaken the West's case against the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by Russia. Moreover, opportunities would arise to subject to an overhaul the general principles of conflict resolution in the Balkan and the Caspian regions, for example, in Bosnia, Macedonia, or Karabakh. In fact, Russia is confronted with the following dilemma. As far as the international law and the territorial integrity principles are concerned, Moscow would certainly prefer to see the International Court of Justice issue a pro-Serbian verdict, but a Realpolitik approach can help discern alternative horizons in the situation, and then the Serbian cause is not completely lost regardless of what the Court eventually says. Perhaps, it is time for Moscow to shed counterproductive illusions in domestic politics and geopolitics. Unlike Belgrade's efforts aimed at securing the Serbian interests in the Balkan region and supporting Serbs in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and elsewhere, the plan centered around the International Court of Justice has never looked really promising.

(Views expressed in this article reflect the author's opinion and do not necessarily reflect those of RIA Novosti news agency. RIA Novosti does not  vouch for facts and quotes mentioned in the story)

http://www.en.rian.ru/international_affairs/20100721/159895649.html

Russia: ruling won't make Kosovo independence legal

President of the International Court of Justice, Judge Hisashi Owada (C), Vice President, Judge Peter Tomka (L) and Judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh, start the court's ruling on Kosovo's unilateral secession from Serbia at the Peace Palace in The Hague July 22, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Jerry Lampen

Thu Jul 22, 2010 11:54pm IST

By Conor Humphries

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday that a World Court ruling did not provide legal underpinning for Kosovo's independence from Serbia and said it would continue to lead opposition to Kosovo's quest for international recognition.

The World Court in The Hague made a non-binding ruling that Kosovo's unilateral secession from Serbia in 2008 did not violate international law, prompting Kosovo to say that its independence had been confirmed by international law.

Russia's Foreign Ministry rejected that interpretation, saying that the World Court ruling merely said that the document declaring independence did not violate international law and made no ruling on Kosovo's right to secede.

"Our position on the non-recognition of Kosovo's independence remains unchanged," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"It is essential to note that the court gave an assessment of only the actual declaration, and specifically said it was not addressing the broader question of the right of Kosovo to secede from Serbia unilaterally," the statement said.

"In its conclusions the court did not express an opinion on the consequences of this declaration, in particular, on whether Kosovo is a state or on the legality of the recognition of the this region by a number of countries."

Russia, a historical ally of Serbia, has said it will keep Kosovo out of the United Nations and other world bodies where it has a veto.

"The legal debates about Kosovo's independence will continue," Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said in an interview broadcast on the Rossiya-24 news channel.

"We will not accept the splitting of a country that is a member of the United Nations. On principle we consider Serbia a unified whole," he said.

Russia has largely subdued a separatist Islamist insurgency in its province of Chechnya, but recognised Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states in 2008 after a five-day war with Tbilisi.

Only three other countries -- Nicaragua, Venezuela and the Pacific island of Nauru - have followed Russia in recognising the regions, which are overwhelmingly dependent on Russia for security and economic support.

Abkhazian President Sergei Bagapsh welcomed Thursday's ruling. "The decision of the International Court once more confirms the right of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to self-rule," Interfax news agency quoted Bagapsh as saying.

"From a historic and legal point of view, Abkhazia and South Ossetia have much more right to independence than Kosovo."

Russia called for talks on Kosovo's future, but suggested that the United Nations rather than the World Court was the appropriate arbiter.

"We believe that the solution to the Kosovo problem is only possible through negotiations between the parties concerned on the basis of resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council, which, as the World Court pointed out, is the universally recognized international benchmark for legal settlement," the Foreign Ministry statement said.

(Writing by Conor Humphries; editing by Tim Pearce)

http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-50330920100722

ICJ Ruling: Blow to Serbia, Boon to Tadic & Jeremic

 

==============

http://www.balkanstudies.org/blog/icj-ruling-blow-serbia-boon-tadi%C4%87-jeremi%C4%87

 

ICJ Ruling: Blow to Serbia, Boon to Tadic & Jeremic

By Srdja Trifkovic
Thursday, 22 Jul 2010

 

 

Ever since the U.S. intervened in Serbia's domestic politics two years ago and helped the current coalition take power in Belgrade, Boris Tadic and his cohorts have been looking for a way to capitulate on Kosovo while pretending not to. The formula was simple: place all diplomatic eggs in one basket – that of the International Court of Justice – and refrain from using any other political or economic (let alone military) tools at Serbia's disposal. On July 22 the ICJ performed on cue, declaring that Kosovo's UDI was not illegal.

It should be noted that the ICJ has only assessed Kosovo's declaration of independence; it has not considered more widely Kosovo's right to unilateral secession from Serbia. Furthermore, the ICJ has not assessed either the consequences of the adoption of the UDI, namely whether Kosovo is a state, or the legitimacy of its recognition by a number of countries.

The ICJ advisory opinion is deeply flawed and non-binding, but the government in Belgrade now has a perfect alibi for doing what it had intended to do all along.

Following the appointment of Vuk Jeremic as Serbia's foreign minister in 2007, this outcome could be predicted with near-certainty. As President Boris Tadic's chief foreign policy advisor, Jeremic came to Washington on 18 May 2005 to testify in Congress on why Kosovo should stay within Serbia. In his subsequent off-the-record conversations, however, he assured his hosts that the task was really to sugar-coat the bitter Kosovo pill that Serbia would have to swallow anyway.

Two years later another advisor to Tadic, Dr. Leon Kojen, resigned in a blaze of publicity after Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer declared, on April 13, 2007, "We are working with Boris Tadic and his people to find a way to implement the essence of the Ahtisaari plan." Tout Belgrade knew that "Tadic's people" meant—Vuk Jeremic. Gusenbauer's indiscretion amounted to the revelation that Serbia's head of state and his closest advisor were engaged in secret negotiations aimed at facilitating the detachment of Kosovo from Serbia—which, of course, was "the essence of the Ahtisaari plan." Jeremic's quest for sugar-coating the bitter pill was evidently in full swing even before he came to the helm of Serbia's diplomacy.

In the intervening three years Tadic and Jeremic have continued to pursue a dual-track policy on Kosovo. The decisive fruit of that policy was their disastrous decision to accept the European Union's Eulex Mission in Kosovo in December 2008. Acting under an entirely self-created mandate, the EU thus managed to insert its mission, based explicitly on the provisions of the Ahtissari Plan, into Kosovo with Belgrade's agreement. 

That was the moment of Belgrade's true capitulation. Everything else -- the ICJ ruling included -- is just a choreographed farce…
The ICJ opinion crowns two decades of U.S. policy in the former Yugoslavia that has been mendacious and iniquitous in equal measure. By retroactively condoning the Albanian UDI, the Court has made a massive leap into the unknown. That leap is potentially on par with Austria's July 1914 ultimatum to Serbia. The fruits will be equally bitter.

Aiding and abetting Muslim designs in the Balkans, in the hope that this will earn some credit for the United States in the Islamic world, has been a major motive of American policy in the region since at least 1992. It has never yielded any dividends, of course, but repeated failure only prompts the architects of the policy to redouble their efforts.

It is virtually certain that Washington will be equally supportive of an independent Sanjak that would connect Kosovo with Bosnia, or of any putative Islamistan, from western Macedonia to southern Bulgaria to northern Caucasus. The late Tom Lantos must be smiling approvingly wherever he is now, having called, three years ago, on "Jihadists of all color and hue" to take note of "yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe."

In the region, the ICJ verdict will encourage two distinct but interconnected trends: greater-Albanian aspirations against Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece, and rump-Serbia (Preševo), and pan-Islamic agitation for the completion of the Green Corridor – an Islamic belt anchored in Asia Minor and extending north-westward across the Balkans into the heart of Central Europe.

Beyond the Balkans, it will breed instability in each and every potential or actual separatist hotspot, from Galilee to Kashmir, from the Caucasus to Sinkiang.

Kosovo is now an expensive albatross costing American and European taxpayers a few billion a year. It will continue developing, not as a functional economy but as a black hole of criminality and terrorism. The ever-rising and constantly unfulfilled expectations of its unemployable multitudes will eventually turn – Frankenstein's monster-like – against the entity's creator. There will be many Ft. Dixes to come, over there and here at home.

God acts in mysterious ways. Kosovo had remained Serbian during those five long centuries of Ottoman darkness, to be liberated in 1912. It is no less Serbian now, the ugly farce in Priština and at The Hague notwithstanding. It will be tangibly Serbian again when the current experiment in global hegemonism collapses, and when the very names of its potentates and servants – Boris Tadic and Vuk Jeremic included – are consigned to the Recycle Bin of history.

 

 

 

 

Kosovo judgment is chance to take fresh look at S-Ossetia, Abkhazia - deputies

Kosovo judgment is chance to take fresh look at S-Ossetia, Abkhazia - deputies

23.07.2010, 21.35

 

MOSCOW, July 23 (Itar-Tass) -- The UN Court judgment, which proclaimed legal the unilateral declaration of independent Kosovo, will enable the world to take a fresh look at sovereignty of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Federation Council members said.

"There must be no comments on court judgments. However, this judgment is another weighty argument in favor of sovereignty of South Ossetia and Abkhazia," Chairman of the Federation Council Defense and Security Committee Viktor Ozerov told Itar-Tass. "These republics had no less reasons for separating from Georgia than Kosovo had for separating from Serbia. The court judgment sets a precedent, which will enable politicians and the world public to take a fresh look at sovereignty of two Caucasian republics," he said.

"A different judgment was hardly possible, as the position of the majority of EU member countries was well known. However, we still think that the separation of Kosovo was an artificial affair," member of the Federation Council International Affairs Committee Vladimir Zhidkikh said.

In his opinion, the judgment "will not bring peace to Serbia or Kosovo, and the spot of tensions will remain in Europe."

"The court did not put an end to the Kosovo problem. Most probably, the judgment aimed to lull EU member countries that supported the proclamation of independent Kosovo," he noted.

  http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15343946&PageNum=0

After UN court ruling, fears of global separatism

 

After UN court ruling, fears of global separatism

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC
The Associated Press
Friday, July 23, 2010; 12:55 PM

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Serbia and Kosovo are dispatching competing armies of lobbyists to governments that so far have wavered on recognizing the breakaway province.

Serbia, which considers Kosovo the cradle of its statehood and religion, fears Thursday's ruling by the top U.N. court backing the legality of the 2008 declaration of independence could lead to a wave of new recognitions.

Its best hope for preventing Kosovo admission to the United Nations may be vetoes by China and Russia which both have their own restive regions - a reflection of concerns in some countries that separatists will be emboldened by the development.

The U.S. and many in the West insist Kosovo's statehood is a special case because it is the result of a brutal Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign against Albanian separatists that led to an international administration in 1999, when NATO ejected Serb forces after a brief aerial war.

"We call on those states, who have not yet done so, to recognize Kosovo," U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley on said on Thursday. "Now is the time for them, for Kosovo and Serbia, to put aside their differences and move forward."

Some experts say there's no practical way to prevent other independence-minded regions from drawing inspiration from the Kosovo ruling.

"The West wants to say that this case has no precedential importance, but that's kind of a contortionist logic," said Dana Allin at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank. "You can say that, but whether you can enforce it is hard to say."

In its nonbinding decision announced Thursday, the top U.N. court said it did not rule on the legality of Kosovo's statehood, but only on its declaration of independence.

Regions around the world where separatists may be energized by Kosovo's secession include Spain's Basque country and Catalonia, Scotland, Italy's ethnic German-populated Alto Adige, and parts of Romania and Slovakia populated by restive Hungarian minorities.

South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which have declared independence from Georgia, will also be encouraged by the ruling that states that such unilateral declarations of independence are not illegal under international law. Nearby, Armenian separatists in Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabah region may seek to legitimize their secession dating back to the early 1990s.

In the Middle East, Kurdish politicians in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region have also said they will carefully study the ICJ decision. Although the U.S. has insisted on keeping Iraq's territorial integrity since the 2003 invasion, the Kurds have repeatedly pointed out that they have been victims of Iraqi aggression under a variety of regimes since the 1930s.

The ruling could also have far-reaching effects on Indonesia, where at least two provinces, Aceh and West Papua, are seeking independence.

So far, only 69 countries of the 192 in the United Nations General Assembly, including the U.S. and most of EU states, have recognized Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia in February 2008. But a number of important countries, aside from China and Russia, have refused to do so, including India, Brazil, Israel, Egypt, Indonesia, and South Africa.

For Kosovo to obtain U.N. membership, it needs a two-third majority in the General Assembly, plus the approval by all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France.

"Already this weekend, special envoys will be dispatched to 55 countries throughout the world with my letter for the presidents of states or governments," Serbian President Boris Tadic said Friday.

"Many countries will be under pressure to recognize Kosovo before the U.N. General Assembly in September," he said. "Serbia will do its utmost so that there are the least possible such recognitions."

Kosovo Foreign Minister Skender Hyseni said he will send requests to 121 countries around the world asking for formal recognition of Kosovo's independence.

"The opinion of the court has created an entirely new context, and in line with this I have already started a new campaign today to animate the countries that have not recognized Kosovo yet," Hyseni told the Associated Press.

He said he will travel to the U.S. over the weekend for some 60 meetings with representatives of different nations in an attempt to get more recognitions ahead of the General Assembly.

But Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic claimed Friday that many countries around the world "are worried about the possible misinterpretation" of the World Court ruling.

"It's a very dangerous precedent," Jeremic said. "Pandora's Box has been opened, and it must be closed before something flies out of it."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, however, urged more countries to recognize Kosovo.

"Kosovo has been functioning as an independent State for two and a half years," he said in a statement. "I encourage other states that have not so far recognized Kosovo now to do so. Kosovo is a unique case and does not set a precedent."

The EU countries that have not recognized Kosovo are Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus and Romania - most grappling with separatism issues.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said his country "respected" the U.N. court's ruling. But, he did not say whether Spain - which is faced with Catalan and Basque separatist movements - will now recognize Kosovo's independence.

Greece and Slovakia said the court's ruling won't make them change their minds.

Cyprus' foreign ministry said it remained firm in backing Serbia, reaffirming its "unwavering position to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia, which includes Kosovo."

Romania has not yet officially reacted on the ruling, but the leader of its restive ethnic Hungarians, Laszlo Tokes, said they should now follow the Catalan model and hit the streets to demand more autonomy.

"Kosovo gained independence, couldn't we achieve autonomy?" he said.

Sergei Bagpash, the president of Georgia's separatist Abkhazia region, also applauded the Kosovo ruling.

"I think the decision itself will have a great influence on the efforts we are making," Bagpash told The Associated Press. "There can be no double standards."

Russia recognized the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states after the 2008 Russian-Georgian war and has kept troops there.

In Bosnia, which was divided after the bloody ethnic war in the 1990s into two entities - a Bosniak-Croat and a Serb one - the Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik said the ruling "represents a good road sign for our future," referring to the region's longtime desire to split from Bosnia.

"It's inescapable that this ruling could have implications for other territories and other peoples, but how this will play out remains to be seen," said Tim Judah, a London-based Balkan analyst and author.

"It's too early to say because the court ruled on a very narrow question, which was simply whether Kosovo's declaration was legal or not," Judah said.

---

Associated Press writers Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Nebi Qena in Pristina, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Sylvia Hui in London, Alison Mutler in Bucharest and Christopher Toothaker in Caracas contributed to this report.

© 2010 The Associated Press

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/23/AR2010072303046.html

"Kosovo is as independent as Vichy France"

"Kosovo is as independent as Vichy France"

22 July, 2010, 18:27

The UN's highest court has ruled Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia did not violate international law. The decision rejects a claim by Serbia but is non-binding.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority declared independence from Belgrade in February 2008, after UN-brokered negotiations failed. The US and most European nations recognized the move, but Serbia – backed by Russia and China – called it a violation of its territorial integrity.

Kosovo had previously been administered by the UN, following the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999.

Washington-based journalist and historian Nebojsa Malic calls the decision a "death sentence for international law."

"It is a clear violation of UN Resolution 1244 and all the accepted norms of international law. I honestly was expecting a more nuanced decision. I did not expect the court to take such a directly pro-American position," he said.

As for Kosovo itself, Malic is convinced that "independent" is not the word to describe it.

"Kosovo is as independent as Vichy France was in WWII. It's a puppet state. It suffers from endemic corruption, abuse of power. Its governmental structure can be better described as organized crime," the journalist added.

Russia says that the ruling of the International Court of Justice will not change its stance on the status of Kosovo, which Moscow does not recognize as an independent state. A statement on the issue has been published on Russia's Foreign Ministry web site.

"The court has only assessed Kosovo's declaration of independence, noting that it has not considered more widely Kosovo's right to unilateral secession from Serbia," the statement reads. "Also, in its ruling the court has not assessed either the consequences of the adoption of this document, namely whether Kosovo is a state, or the legitimacy of its recognition by a number of countries."

Bojan Brkic, a foreign policy editor at Serbian public TV, says all attempts by Belgrade to negotiate the status of Kosovo have been declined.

"Serbia does not want to rule over Albanians and decide about their lives," he said. "It only wants a minimum of sovereignty over the territory recognized. Serbia had in the past several different proposals on how to resolve this, all of which were quickly rejected by big powers, except for Russia and China."

 

http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-07-22/kosovo-court-ruling-malic.html

WESTERN DECREPITUDE: The Meaning of the Srebrenica Myth, by S. Trifkovic

 

http://www.balkanstudies.org/articles/meaning-myth

 

Srebrenica, Islam & Western Decadence (AltRight) 

Like Communism, Islam relies on a domestic fifth column -- the carpet-kissing Rosenbergs, Philbys, Blunts, and Hisses -- to subvert the civilized world. It also relies on an army of fellow-travelers, the latter-day Sartres and Shaws in the ivory towers, on "liberal academics and opinion-makers" (as per Sam Francis) who "sympathize with Islam partly because it is a leading historical rival of the Western civilization they hate" and partly because they long for a romanticized and sanitized Muslim past that substitutes for the authentic Western and Christian roots they have rejected. Those roots must be defended, in the full knowledge that those who subscribe to Islam and its civilization are aliens, regardless of their clothes, their professions or their places of residence. They sense Western weakness and expect that if Islam supplies the only old religious tradition left standing 50 years hence, it may attract mass conversion. That would indeed be the end of the West, its final surrender to the spirit masterfully depicted by Jean Raspail in the preface to the 1985 French edition of his Camp of Saints:

The West is empty, even if it has not yet become really aware of it. An extraordinarily inventive civilization, surely the only one capable of meeting the challenges of the third millennium, the West has no soul left. At every level -- nations, race, cultures as well as individuals -- it is always the soul that wins the decisive battles.

The story that Raspail tells is rooted in a "onstrous cancer implanted in the Western conscience." One word, "Srebrenica," embodies it perfectly. Its roots are in the loss of Faith, and in the arrogant doctrine -- rampant in "the West" for three past centuries now -- that man can solve the dilemma of his existence by his unaided intellect alone. If that loss is not reversed, the game is over anyway -- proving yet again that where God retreats, Allah advances.

Before 1914, both the West and the Muslim world could define themselves against each other in a cultural sense. What secularism has done, since replacing Christianity as the guiding light of "the West," is to cast aside any idea of a Christian social, geographic, and cultural space that should be protected. Islam, "extreme" or "moderate," has not softened, however. The consequences will be very serious unless Muslims are either "westernized" -- that is to say, made as willing as Christians to see their religion first relativized, then mocked, and its commandments misrepresented or ignored -- or else Christianized, which of course cannot happen unless there is a belated, massive, and unexpected recovery of Western spiritual and moral strength.

As things stand now, the West faces two clear alternatives: defense, or submission and acceptance of sacred Arab places as its own. The latter is the visceral preference of the Western elite class, and "Srebrenica" is its totem.

Islam should not be blamed for being what it is, nor should its adherents be condemned for maintaining their traditions. We should not "hate" it, nor ban it, if it reforms itself to the standards of a civilized, that is, non-Muslim society. If it does not happen -- and miracles are always possible -- it should be banned, of course. The Kuran's exhortations to the believers to annihilate the non-believers, to confiscate their land and property, to take their women and enslave their children are clear and unambiguous, and the fruits have been ghastly. In the present state of Western weakness, such Muslim firmness may appear attractive to the legions of cynical nihilists and lead further millions to the conclusion that we should all become Muslims, since our goose is cooked anyway, spiritually and demographically.

Those of us who do not cherish that prospect should at least demand that our rulers present that option fairly and squarely. To pretend, as the ruling elite does, that Islam is "a religion of peace," rather like Episcopalianism, is stupid or deeply dishonest.

Islam might have been made much less threatening if the West had not conciliated or sponsored its most threatening exponents. Islam was exposed to a devastating collapse in credibility within the Arab world itself in the middle of the twentieth century. The forces of secularity were very strong indeed. But America opposed them at every turn because they were socialist or communist or simply not "in the national interest." America gave whole-hearted support to the worst nation on earth: Saudi Arabia, a veritable hotbed of raw barbarity that makes Kim Jong Il look eminently clubable. As the economies of real states falter and haltr, the Saudi petrodollars are poured into establishing violent fanaticism as the big alternative.

"As a man thinketh, so is he." The real problem of the Muslim world is not that of natural resources or political systems. Ernest Renan, who started his study of Islam by praising its ability to manifest "what was divine in human nature," ended it -- a quarter of a century and three long tours of the Muslim world later -- by concluding that "Muslims are the first victims of Islam" and that, therefore, "to liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service that one can render him."

Islam is a collective psychosis seeking to become global, and any attempt to abet such madness is to become part of the madness oneself. The purveyors of "Srebrenica" are worse than criminal: they are mistaken.

Walk Away from the Balkans

Walk Away from the Balkans

by E. Wayne Merry

07.09.2010

Messrs. Abramowitz and Hooper have very well reviewed the state of play on Kosovo for readers who might be forgiven for not having thought about the place in years. The upcoming advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice will insert the "Kosovo question" into Western newspapers for a day or two, but few Americans are likely to consider it of even tertiary importance. As Washington turns its back on the Balkans, we might consider some lessons for our pursuits in southern Asia and for understanding developments in the Caucasus.

In all these conflict areas, fragmentation is the essential threat to any type of effective governance (whether pluralist and representative or not). U.S. policy has tended to shatter what political and social cohesion existed and then bemoan the ensuing fragmentation. The United States waged war against Serbia and sponsored an independent Kosovo largely to punish Belgrade for its real and perceived sins, not because Kosovo warranted statehood. The Clinton administration demonized Slobodan Milosevic (as we later did his Iraqi counterpart) and sought to weaken him by fragmenting the state he ruled. Kosovo was bad enough (certainly Serb rule of the Kosovar Albanians had lost any legitimacy), but what about our short-sighted sponsorship of an independent Montenegro? How is the European state system better for partitioning Serbia, not once but twice?

Now, we are told, any partition of Kosovo to benefit the largely Serb population of the north must meet the maximum demands of the government in Pristina, acknowledged to be a sinkhole of corruption. In the past decade it is the Serbs who have shown a capacity to reform, despite the views of Washington Serbophobes, and are now the regional state best qualified to bring something of value to Europe's common table.

The United States is walking away from the Balkans, and rightly so. Sadly, the manifest love for this country among Kosovar Albanians is misplaced, because Washington will find very little attention and fewer resources for Kosovo or Bosnia or Macedonia with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on its plate. Give priority to Kosovo? Don't make me laugh.

So, the headache is Europe's, as it always should have been. Are EU institutions up to the job? Perhaps not, but nobody else will step up. The tasks are many, but all come down to reversing the fragmentation of the 1990s. So far, Brussels has not even been able to allow Macedonia its proper nomenclature. This issue brought down one Greek government, so don't expect Athens to bend much.

Might partition of Kosovo incite similar ethnic divisions within Macedonia? No doubt, but the question remains why Europe is better off with two Albanian states on its map rather than one. Redrawing the political borders of the former Yugoslavia is probably not finished, but the policy objective should be to make those borders of less and less importance.

Finally, the U.S. official pretense that our sponsorship of an independent Kosovo was not a precedent for separatism elsewhere is just bunk. Russian recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia after the August 2008 conflict was a blunder, but Abkhaz and Ossets are no more likely to return to Georgian rule than Kosovar Albanians are to Belgrade's. The Abkhaz, at least, have as much justification for an independent state as does Montenegro or Kosovo. In the Caucasus and in the Balkans, wars have consequences, and peace is usually provisional. These games never end.

 

E. Wayne Merry is a former State Department and Pentagon official and now a Senior Associate at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC.

http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=23680

Schoolbook used today in Serbia --The new way of interpreting medieval history!

Date: Monday, July 5, 2010, 3:36 PM from Dr. J. P. Maher Professor Emeritus of Linguistics Northeastern Illinois University; formerly University of Hamburg (Germany) 3 January 2009 to Radio Free Europe (Nenad Pejic) Mr Pejic repeats propaganda on a subject of which he personally knows nothing. The claim of Albanian chauvinists and their sponsors (e.g. Frank Wisner, the ENRON man) to be the first settlers of the Balkans is nonsense. . Scholars of Napoleon's time used the term "Illyrian" to refer to Serbo-Croatian. In a lecture at the University of Ljubljana in 1990, an ethnic Albanian professor from the University of Pristina demonstrated that Albanian is of northern origin since it shares with Rumanian, and only with Rumanian, a set of some 60 vocabulary items that are not found in other languages of the region.  He spoke in Serbian to the Slovenes. Competent scholars reject as a political fiction, like Nazidom's "Aryan" concept, the claim that Albanians are descendants of the aboriginal Balkan people, who were pushed into the Dinaric Alps by waves of Slavic Serb invaders in the 6th Century AD. After the Huns migrated into the Balkans the region was sparsely populated. Greeks and some Hellenized peoples were the immediate predecessors of Slavs in the Balkans, and they themselves had migrated from the north into a land already settled for millennia by pre-Indo-European peoples. If the ancestors of Albanians weree present in the Balkans classical times, there would be loanword evidence in Greek and Latin. There are no Albanian nor Slavic loan words in Ancient Greek, which however does evidence old contacts with Celts, Scyths, Persians, Semites (Phoenicians) and Egyptians. The Albanian lexicon is full of Greek, Slavic and Latin vocabulary. Previous to Old European civilizations the Balkans were inhabited by hunting bands, e.g. at Lepenski Vir on the Danube in Serbia. Marija Gimbutas [1921-1994] demonstrated that agricultural "Old European" civilizations go back to 7000 BC in the Balkans. No Indo-European, hence Greeks, Latins or Slavs, above all no Illyrians, no Albanians. The Albanians occupy part of the former territory of the Illyrians... Albanian is first attested only in the fifteenth century, already having undergone very substantial phonological changes." -J. P. Mallory and D. Q. Adams, Editors. 1997. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London & Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn.]. It is most probable that the modern language only recently called "Albanian" and "Sqip" is NOT descended from ancient "Illyrian". Indo-European languages are divided into two groups, termed centum-and satem-languages, respectively from the Latin (centum) and Avestan (satem) words for 'hundred ' Ancient Illyrians inscriptions are in a centum-language. Modern Albanian is a satem-language. –Wikipedia has good discursions of these terms. See also Louis.H. Gray. 1939. Foundations of Language. New York: Macmillan. Professor of Comparative Linguistics in Columbia University NY. (Gray was an expert in the subject.) J. P. Mallory. 1989. In Search of the Indo-Europeans. London & New York: Thames & Hudson. Marija Gimbutas's biography and bibliography see Wikipedia ?body=http://www.rferl.org/contentspapers_Tell_The_Story/1365796.html?page=2&x=1#relatedInfoContainer --- On Sun, 7/4/10, A Jekich Pullinger <ajpullinger@gmail.com> wrote: From: A Jekich Pullinger Subject: The new way of interpreting medieval history! Date: Sunday, July 4, 2010, 1:15 PM ---------- Forwarded message ---------   In this text the author shows parts from schoolbook used today in Serbia, where it's author Rade Mihaljcic (a historian) writes about Albanians being the first to come to Balkan, while Serbs came later! This is what Serbian children learn nowadays about Kosovo, otherwise called 'the sacred land'... The author of the schoolbook forgot something quite important, to prove history one must have at least one proof of cultural heritage! T Српска историја у уџбенику за шести разред основне школе   Милан Дамјанац    петак, 02. јул 2010. Национални интерес сваке озбиљне државе јесте, пре свега, успешна и одговорна културна политика и квалитетно образовање деце. Нема ничег важнијег за будућност српског народа од демографске обнове, заштите културног наслеђа, очување националне свести и историјског памћења. У скорашњем тексту Слободана Антонића „Самомрзитељи"[1], имали смо прилике да прочитамо приказ лика и дела директора Народне библиотеке Сретена Угричића. Не само што је у нашој лепој држави могуће да неко попут Сретена Угричића постане директор једне од најважнијих установа, тиме доказујући да ова земља нема никакву културну нити образовну политику, већ су и уџбеници у служби дневнополитичких дешавања. Као што ћемо имати прилике да видимо, идеолошка злоупотреба младих пошиње од основне школе. Албанци – староседеоци Балкана и дошљаци Срби Претходних дана, помно сам ишчитавао и бележио занимљивости из уџбеника историја за шести разред основне школе у издању Завода за уџбенике Београд. Аутор овог уџбеника Раде Михаљчић износи неке фрапантне тврдње. Након читања овог уџбеника, нисам више сигуран да познајем српску средњовековну историју. Може бити да само нисам довољно проучавао дела албанских и хрватских историчара. Наиме, у овом уџбенику који се бави историјом средњега века, могао сам да научим да „...подела друштва увек води и стварању државе која штити богати, владајући слој"[2]. Занимљива опаска. Након што сам ову значајну лекцију савладао, упознао сам се са староседеоцима Балкана – Албанцима. Након описа доласка Словена на Балкан и сукоба са староседеоцима аутор каже „...међутим, староседеоци који су живели заједно и чија су насеља груписана у веће скупине нису словенизирани. Обичаје, језик, и друга народна обележја сачували су Албанци. Део досељених Словена примио је језик и обичаје Албанаца и стопио се с њима".[3] Запањен овом констатацијом, сасвим случајно сам пронашао објашњење у првој проширеној верзији истог уџбеника, у реченици које нема у садашњој: „Албанци воде порекло од староседелаца на Балканском полуострву, највероватније Илира, романизованих у мањој мери. Са њима су се мешали стари Грци, Словени и други народи...". [4] После оваквог сазнања, нема смисла приговарати Албанцима на својатању Косова и Метохије, српских манастира и културне баштине. Они су ионако балкански староседеоци, а Срби су узурпатори. Читајте децо, учите српски ђаци, своју историју! Ви сте припадници дошљака и узурпатори албанске земље и све што доживљавате – доживљавате са разлогом. Албанци не узимају српску земљу, већ враћају своју натраг. Ето, и то доживесмо од српског историчара који нашу децу учи средњовековној историји. Тврди човек да су Албанци потомци Илира, и тиме директно помаже њихове освајачке походе и отимачину српске земље. Одавно је утврђено да Албанци немају поморску и рибарску терминологију, чиме нам је немачки лингвиста, академик, проф. др Густав Вајганд (G. Weigand, 1860–1930) доказао да Албанци нису Илири. Ово је један од његових дванаест чувених аргумената који су преведени, објављени и продискутовани (па и усвојени) од стране свих светских признатих истраживача. Штавише, и од самих албанских трезвених научника, лингвиста, историчара и академика, као што су академик, проф. др. Eqrem Çabej (1908-1980), др Ardian Klosi, Ardian Vehbiu, Fatos Ljubonja и пуно других. Без обзира на то што је научни свет прихватио истину о пореклу Албанаца, албанске власти, подржане од стране квазинаучних теорија, настављају да тврде да су пореклом Илири. Тиме су преплавили своју литературу, почев од буквара, који стављају у руке својој деци од првог дана школе, па све до "научних" студија и дисертација. Све то очигледно није довољно појединим српским академицима као што је случај са Радетом Михаљчићем. Кога брига за карту Европе из 814. године на којој се јасно види српска држава на Балкану и албанска која се граничи са Јерменијом и Азербејџаном. Моја непросвећена маленкост, недовољно заражена еврофанатизмом и регионалним духом сарадње и братства, не може да схвати овакву тврдњу у уџбенику за шести разред. Уколико сте помислили да је то све, варате се. Након тога сам проширио своја сазнања научивши да је „ Стефан Немања освојио Косово и крајеве северне Албаније" [5]. Наравно, писац уџбеника је могао рећи – крајеве данашње Албаније. Ништа од тога. Понадах се, у тренутку, да је у питању случајан превид. Постоји још један случајан превид, који додуше, вероватно није ауторова грешка, али показује стање духа људи који су учествовали у припреми овог уџбеника за штампу. У одељку „Историја и легенда", српски јунаци Топлица Милан и Косанчић Иван су, сасвим случајно, заменили имена, те се наводи „ ...њима је предање придодало измишљене, неисторијске ликове као што су Југовићи и побратими Милоша Обилића, Иван Топлица и Милан Косанчић". Као неко ко је одрастао на косовском завету и српским епским песмама, не могу да разумем овакав превид (да не говоримо о сигурности са којом аутор тврди да су ликови измишљени). Након свега овога, био сам убеђен да читам дело из албанске историографије. Нажалост преварио сам се. Понадам се да ће се аутор исправити у одељку о османлијским освајањима, међутим: „После Маричке и Косовске битке, Турци су све више угрожавали албанске области"[6]. Након тога говори о јунаштву Ђорђа Кастриота Скендербега и ниједном речју не напомиње да је Скендербег пореклом био Србин, нити долазак Албанаца на Балкан након слома арапске Сицилије. „Македонски Словени" и њихова национална самобитност Уколико нисте знали – ваша деца знају.  Македонци су стари европски народ. Некада су се звали „Македонски Словени" и међу првима су прихватили ћирилицу: „ ...на Балканском полуострву ћирилицу су прихватили Срби, Македонски Словени и Бугари".[7] Међутим, каже аутор, ћирилицу су, сем Срба, Македонаца и Бугара прихватили и људи који живе у „ Босни и приморским крајевима југоисточно од Сплита". [8] Ко ли би ти, непознати људи, могли бити? Да ли је разумно претпоставити да су у питању били Срби? Не, не, то нипошто, бошњачки историчари у својим уџбеницима уче децу да у средњем веку у Босни није било Срба. Нећемо ваљда пропагирати великосрпску политику у уџбенику за историју, није европски од нас да исказујемо претензије на суседне и пријатељске нам државе. Зато ћемо, како бисмо изгледали европеизовано и сорошевски, рећи да постоје неки неидентификовани људи, ван границе данашње Србије, који су користили ћирилицу. Та формулација звучи модерно. Аутор је овај маневар искусно извео, и самим тим заслужује награду „Најевропљанин". Заслужни носилац овог престижног признања је и Ивица Дачић. Аутор даље говори и о патњама и страдању „Македонских Словена". Наиме, „после слома Бугарске, над Македонским Словенима успостављена је византијска власт. Нова управа изазвала је незадовољство које је прерасло у отпор... "[9] О патњама „Македонских Словена" говори и у одељку о српским средњовековним освајањима: „ ... Од Византије краљ Милутин је освојио Македонију, у којој су живели Македонски Словени..."[10] Такође, Душан Силни је освојио „већи део албанских крајева"[11]. Одмах се види да смо лидери у региону. Председник Тадић решава хрватско – словеначке спорове, а историчар Михаљчић разрешава велику енигму историје и дневнополитичких збивања. Срби и Бугари су вршили претензије на македонску територију тероришући македонски народ (шта би са свим оним Србима у Македонији који су се тако изјашњавали до 1945, они су изгледа, статистичка грешка) а Грци без разлога нападају Македонце за узурпацију грчког имена и злоупотребу историје. Дневнополитичка енигма. Управо је то и суштина овог уџбеника – пропаганда у служби дневнополитичких збивања и потреба, корак напред ка „помирењу у региону". Научио сам, такође, да је Маричка битка била катастрофа македонске, а не српске државе и народа.[12] Македонија је, каже аутор, „ изгубила самосталност".  Значи, наши преци су ослобађањем јужних српских крајева 1912 године у ствари извршили агресију на македонски народ. Боже, нисам имао представу да смо ми Срби народ освајача. Што би рекао Брана Црнчевић, „ колико Србија треба да буде мала да не би била велика". На овом месту не могу а да не споменем неколико речи Данка Поповића из уста његовог јунака Милутина: „ Заузесмо ми Кајмакчалан, синовче. Прекрисмо га лешевима. Само коња шта је остало да се распада на оним падинама... Добро, благо ујаку, а што ми онда љубисмо земљу?...  Имадосмо ли ми нека друга посла него да по Македонији гинемо? Јесу ли, благо ујаку, велим, јесу ли ти чија је земља знали раније да је њина? Ако јесу, што је не освајаше и ослобађаше, како се тек сад сетише чија је?... – смеје ми се у брк... Сви они пишу сад и говоре да смо ми отели Македонију кад смо прешли преко Кајмакчалана. А ја, синовче, видим нас како љубимо земљу кад смо прешли на ову страну Кајмакчалана, па ми криво. Што је нама било потребно да љубимо земљу Кајмакчалана па да се Македонци љуте на нас... Што да Македонија буде за нас три пута гробница, па да нас чак и наши школовани људи кајмакчаланским аветима називају и да нас подругљиво зову Солунцима, ко да је лако бити Солунац. Зашто се заборавља да је и од оне шаке јада што је са Халкидикија пошла као десеткована српска војска до краја изгинуло више од половине... Зашто да испаднемо смешни на крају? "[13] Закључак Сваки народ покушава да у својим уџбеницима „улепша" историјске догађаје и представи себе у бољем светлу, те често претера. Једино је код нас немогуће очекивати бар минимум објективности, бар минимум самопоштовања и поштовања историјске истине. Како изгледа концепција будуће регионалне сарадње у погледу заједничке историје и чињеница у уџбеницима, најбоље можемо видети по публикацији Сорошевог Фонда за отворено друштво Босне и Херцеговине „ Образовање у Босни и Херцеговини – чему учимо дјецу?" [14] Ту можемо пронаћи позитивне и негативне уџбеничке примере. Наравно, на основу процене Фонда. На пример, у критици уџбеника из Српског језика и културе изражавања у Источном Сарајеву каже се: „ Већи део наведених примера односи се на имена везана за српску културу и историју, нису присутни примери из културе и традиције других конститутивних народа и не доминирају примери везани за Босну и Херцеговину: „На пример: Улица српских владара, Улица бана Лазаревића, Улица Бранка Чопића, Улица Немањина, Трг слободе, Трг жртава фашизма; Првомајска улица, Његошева улица ...На пример: Основна школа "Петар Кочић", Филозофски факултет у Бањалуци, Народна библиотека Србије, Грађевинско предузеће "Рад", Општина Требиње ..." " [15] Занимљив је коментар на песму Алексе Шантића: „ Избор ове Шантићеве песме из целокупног песниковог стваралаштва говори о свесној намери аутора уџбеника да кроз наставу књижевности пласира идеолошку поруку, чији је примарни задатак - формирање националног бића. Песма је, с обзиром на контекст, политичка, а будући да је национално јасно одређена, и патриотска: „МОЈА ОТАЏБИНА ....И свуда гдје је српска душа која, тамо је мени отаџбина моја, мој дом и моје рођено огњиште. ""[16] Тако изгледа наша срећна будућност на Балкану. Да се вратимо на крају уџбенику историје. Сем поменутих тврдњи, на неколико места аутор даје и непотребне и паушалне опаске, које су непримерене за један уџбеник историје (независно од тога да ли су исправни или не). Тако, на пример, каже да је папа Гргур сматрао да су „владари дужни да му љубе ноге". Шта бих у закључку могао рећи о овом уџбенику? Лично, плашим се да узмем у руке уџбеник за седми и осми разред основне школе, у којима се говори о модерној српској историји. Из свега приложеног, јасно је закључити у ком се правцу креће тумачење историјских догађаја. Тужно је користити уџбенике за децу у циљу промовисања идеолошких порука и дневне политике. Несрећа је што је овај и овакав уџбеник издао Завод за уџбенике, установа која по правилу служи управо за одбрану ђака од пласирања лажи и полуистина и њиховом исправном образовању. Просто ме обузме туга када се сетим да сам се залагао за детаљну проверу садржаја уџбеника које објављују приватне издавачке куће, када овако изгледа ремек-дело Завода за уџбенике. Имамо ли права да било шта очекујемо од других када смо сами себи највећи непријатељи? На крају, наградно питање – шта мислите, какве ће ставове о српској држави и народу имати ова деца када порасту? [1]  http://www.nspm.rs/polemike/samomrzitelji.html [2] Историја, Раде Михаљчић, Завод за уџбенике, Београд, 2009, стр. 27 [3] Историја, Раде Михаљчић, Завод за уџбенике, Београд, 2009, стр. 42 [4] http://www.ihtus.us/ihtus/viewtopic.php?t=490 [5] Историја, Раде Михаљчић, Завод за уџбенике, Београд, 2009, стр. 86 [6] Историја, Раде Михаљчић, Завод за уџбенике, Београд, 2009, стр. 125 [7] Историја, Раде Михаљчић, Завод за уџбенике, Београд, 2009, стр. 53 [8] Историја, Раде Михаљчић, Завод за уџбенике, Београд, 2009, стр. 53 [9] Историја, Раде Михаљчић, Завод за уџбенике, Београд, 2009, стр. 47 [10] Историја, Раде Михаљчић, Завод за уџбенике, Београд, 2009, стр. 90 [11] Историја, Раде Михаљчић, Завод за уџбенике, Београд, 2009, стр. 92 [12] Историја, Раде Михаљчић, Завод за уџбенике, Београд, 2009, стр. 117 [13] Књига о Милутину, Данко Поповић, Књижевне новине, Београд, 1986, стр. 40,41 [14] http://www.soros.org. ba/docs_obrazovanje/2009/ analiza_sadrzaja_uzbenika_nacionalne_grupe_predmeta.pdf [15] http://www.soros.org.ba /docs_obrazovanje /2009 /analiza_sadrzaja_uzbenika_ nacionalne_grupe_predmeta.pdf [16] http://www.soros.org.ba /docs_obrazovanje/2009/ analiza_sadrzaja_uzbenika_nacionalne_grupe_predmeta.pdf   Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. 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