Serbia Betrayed - Transcript of Srdja Trifkovic’s interview to CKCU 93.1FM (Ottawa)

 

 

Serbia Betrayed

Transcript of Srdja Trifkovic's interview to CKCU 93.1FM (Ottawa)

 

Talking to CKCU's Monday's Encounteron September 26, Dr. Srdja Trifkovic considers the extraordinary readiness of the government in Belgrade to compromise Serbia's national and state interests in order to demonstrate its subservience to the "international community."

 

A recent batch of Wikileaks cables from the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade drastically illustrates the extent of institutionalized political corruption in Belgrade. Except for two opposition groups – the Democratic Party of Serbia of Vojislav Kostunica and the Serbian Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj – every Serbian political party and almost every politician of note are revealed as seeking favors from the American Embassy. In return they provide privileged information, offered surreptitiously, in the form of confidential, off-the-record briefings. At times such behavior amounted to high treason, notably when classified contingency plans concerning Belgrade's intended reaction to Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence were disclosed in advance of the event itself. Some of these high-ranking officials – including advisors to the President of Serbia, Boris Tadic – have acted, literally, as unpaid agents of the U.S. intelligence.

 

Trifkovic says that the response of the government of Boris Tadic to the latest crisis in Kosovo defies rational analysis, but is not surprising in the light of Wikileaks revelations:

 

Three weeks ago the government of Serbia signed the so-called Customs Stamp Agreement and thus accepted in principle that the self-proclaimed authorities in Pristina have the authority to collect taxes and duties on goods entering Kosovo from Serbia-proper. This was a major act of surrender: for the first time Belgrade confirmed in a binding legal form that the Albanian authorities have the attributes of sovereign statehood and are accordingly authorized to take over the customs posts between Serbia and its separated southern province. In practice Belgrade has recognized Kosovo's independence, the government's feeble claims to the contrary notwithstanding. The tangible result on the ground came swiftly and predictably: the international authorities in Kosovo brought Albanian customs officers to the border crossings and thus separated the majority-Serb northern Kosovo from the rest of Serbia.

 

The Serbs in this northern triangle, in Northern Mitrovica, Leposavic, Zubin Potok, Zvecan, are resisting this fait accompli because they see it as a key step in the process that would lead to their eventual expulsion, just as most Serbs south of the Ibar River have been expelled. They have put up barricades to prevent traffic from the border crossings reaching the rest of the Province. By doing so, however, they have hemmed themselves in. The supplies from Serbia are essential to their survival, but those supplies are not getting through. They are running short of fuel, food and other essential ingredients of everyday life. There have been clashes with KFOR at one of the crossings, but on the whole the international powers-that-be are letting the Serbs go on with the blockade knowing that in the fullness of time they will have to come to terms, especially since they have no support from Belgrade. If they did have support from Belgrade it would be possible to improvise alternative crossings on local roads that are not under the control of either KFOR or the Albanian authorities. Without Belgrade's wholehearted support this is not a viable option.

 

Asked about the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) and the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR), Trifkovic says that both bodieshave been actively aiding and abetting the Albanian authorities' bid for full control over the Province:

 

EULEX is a mission with an entirely self-generated mandate. Incongruously, it is a "rule of law" mission which has no legal basis whatsoever. Its existence is not provided for by the UNSC Resolution 1244. The only reason it exists is that the EU wanted to invent a role for itself, to marginalize the UN, and bypass the Security Council in applying the Ahtisaari Plan. This role – as could have been predicted with mathematical certainty – proved detrimental to the interests of the Serbs. Nevertheless, the "pro-Western" Serbian coalition government formed after the election of 11 May 2008 accepted EULEX in December of that same year. Moscow was not happy to see this new body entrenched in Kosovo, but Belgrade asked it not to interfere.

 

As for the nominal UN force, KFOR, it is exclusively a NATO operation. It is unfortunate that it no longer includes a Russian contingent. All of the key KFOR components are provided by NATO powers, which act under the political guidelines from Brussels and from their national governments. They actively support the Albanian authorities and invariably act in a manner detrimental to Serb interests. The remaining Serbs in Kosovo are subsequently squeezed between the Internationals' hammer and the Albanian anvil, with the government in Belgrade slinking to the sidelines and selling them down the river.

 

Asked about the notable lack of public support for the Kosovo Serbs by the institutions in Serbia, Trifkovic gave a gloomy assessment:

 

What institutions? The Royal House has faded from public view and many Serbs no longer see it as a relevant factor. Once enormously influential, the Academy of Sciences and Arts is in a state of suspended hibernation – it is clinically dead, even though the doctor has not made the pronouncement as yet. The Army of Serbia exists by now merely as an operatic guard of honor, to provide the airport decorum for President Tadic's toing and froing. It is no longer capable of even contemplating its primary mission, armed defense of the homeland against aggression, let alone executing it.

 

As for the Serbian Orthodox Church, it cannot do much under the circumstances. Unless the Church acts in accord with the secular authority – and the government of Serbia is evidently in the hands of people who are compromising its state and national interests – the Church is unable to exert great influence by virtue of its moral authority alone. The Orthodox concept of the role of the Church in a society is that it should act in symphony, the Byzantine term for harmony, with the secular authorities. When there is the State on one hand and the Church on the other pursuing the same set of objectives – the material and spiritual welfare, security and prosperity of a nation – then the role of the Church can be articulated in the right manner. When the two centers of gravity diverge, the Church either has to adjust to the course of events dictated by the secular authorities – as it is somewhat reluctantly doing now – or else it can try to deviate from that course, defy the authorities, and risk being marginalized the way the former Bishop of Kosovo, Artemije, has been pushed to the margins over the past year.

 

At the moment there is no future for the Serbs in Kosovo. What can bring different dynamics into the equation is an overall change in the global distribution of power, above all the ongoing gradual decline of the influence of the United States. We are looking at a race between the decline of Serbia locally and the decline of the U.S. globally. I suspect that Serbia may collapse well before the decline of the American global influence makes it possible for the Serbs to contemplate different outcomes and develop new strategic designs for the recovery of what has been lost over the past two decades.

 

From the American Council for Kosovo: "Our Tax Dollars at Work - NATO Troops in Kosovo Open Fire on Serb Protesters!"

From the American Council for Kosovo

 

http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=9&leader=0&sp=578

 

Our Tax Dollars at Work – NATO Troops in Kosovo Open Fire on Serb Protesters!

NATO Tries to Force Christian Serbs to Submit to Albanian Muslim "Authority"

 

 

U.S. and German soldiers in Kosovo

 

September 27, 2011:  Today, NATO forces in Kosovo opened fire on Serbian demonstrators protesting efforts by KFOR (NATO's "Kosovo Force") and the ironically designated European Union "rule of law" mission ("EULEX") to force Serbs to submit to the illegal Albanian Muslim "authority" posing as an independent government in Priština.  As summarized by retired U.S. diplomat Gerard Gallucci, who formerly served in Kosovo:

 

On September 27, the NATO force in Kosovo (KFOR) lost completely its guise as UN peacekeepers and became a repressive, lawless military occupation force. After seeking to use force to remove peacefully maintained barricades and to close a alternate road used by northern Kosovo Serbs, some locals apparently threw stones at the KFOR soldiers who then responded - in "self defense" - by firing at the otherwise defenseless Serbs, wounding at least six. The NATO action ought to be thoroughly investigated by an independent body to verify whether or not war crimes were committed. KFOR and EULEX ought to stand down and stop trying to change the political reality on the ground through such bullying and repressive measures before they provoke real violence.

 

At this time, writes Gallucci, "Details about the day's events remain somewhat unclear. Various reports have suggested that the NATO shots fired were either rubber bullets or live ammo. It is also unclear whether the soldiers involved were German or perhaps American or Polish."  But make no mistake: if not for a political green light from Washington, NATO would not have taken the initiative of authorizing violence to remove Serbian barricades. 

  

This latest escalation follows weeks of rising tensions since late July, when Hashim "Snake" Thaci – so-called "prime minister" of Kosovo, mafia kingpin, war criminal, and organ-trafficker – placed illegal checkpoints on the administrative line between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia, in a bid to force Serbs in northern Kosovo to submit his illegal administration.  Incredibly, KFOR and EULEX, in violation of their "status neutral" mandate under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, which is the only legal authority for their presence in the province, have backed up Thaci and his criminal cronies.   The question now is, does this latest resort to violence mean NATO has decided on use of force – in the pattern of the genocidal 1995 "Operation Storm" in the Serbian Krajinas with the help of U.S. mercenaries – to impose a final solution on Serb resistors to the Albanian Muslim administration?  Or will public attention force them to back off?

 

No less dismal than the spectacle of American and other NATO soldiers acting as enforcers for Thaci & Co. is that of Serbia's supine "pro-western" government, under President Boris Tadić.   Aptly dubbed "Vichy Serbs" by writer and analyst Vojin Joksimovic, Tadić and his government, seeing their own citizens under fire on their own national territory, can think only of stepping up "technical negotiations" with the Priština-based terrorists.  For that reason, in a Joint Statement of the All-Serbian National Council "Serbs Rally Together," on September 17, 2011, Kosovo Serbs declared (in part, read the full statement here):

 

WHEREAS we are committed to the ideal of freedom and inspired by our sacred spiritual heritage of Kosovo but mindful of our future generations, while never forgetting our obligation to respect the will and the sacrifice of our glorious ancestors who created Serbia and left it for us to preserve,

 

WHEREAS, determined to stop and prevent further dismemberment and occupation of Serbia and united under the blessing and leadership of His Grace Bishop Artemije, we have resolved and hereby announce to Serbia and the international community our resolution as follows:

 

KOSOVO AND METOHIJA ARE UNDER OCCUPATION

 

The Belgrade regime of Boris Tadić considers the occupying powers his partners; it negotiates with them, draws up agreements, pacts and treaties,  but always to the detriment of the Serbian nation as a whole and, particularly so, to the detriment of the Serbs who live in Kosovo and Metohija.

 

If the Serbs could call their enemy by its rightful name—OCCUPIER—and the conditions under which they have been living in Kosovo and Metohija for the past 12 years—OCCUPATION—then they would do as one does under occupation: they would endure and fight until the end, until the liberation.

 

We give notice to NATO and to Albanian terrorist occupying powers in Priština that we do not recognize any agreement or treaty they have signed or will sign with Tadić and his coalition. Treaties concluded during occupation through blackmail and trickery have always been considered invalid.

 

We particularly want to point out that we shall not tolerate further threats, attacks on our security and efforts at assimilation of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija. Those who have done this or are planning to do so will soon be confronted with legitimate forms of self-defense.

 

We remind our people that no shame is attached to being under enemy occupation, but it is certainly shameful to praise the occupier or collaborate with him. Not only is it shameful, it is a sin against our ancestors who had fought for hundreds of years to liberate Kosovo and Metohija from centuries long Turkish occupation.

 

It now remains to be seen who will prevail: the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija, who have declared themselves against occupation of their country, or their occupiers: the Albanian Muslim separatists and their NATO and EU enablers in Washington, Brussels, Berlin, London – and worst of all, in Belgrade.    

 

The blackest deeds occur when the perpetrators believe no one is watching.  Most Americans have long since forgotten about Kosovo, and about the Balkans in general.  Today, how many Americans remember the 78 days of "humanitarian" bombing in 1999 by the Bill Clinton administration on behalf of the Thaci's "Kosovo Liberation Army" – a gaggle of jihadists and Albanian Mafia kingpins?  How many recall George W. "the Decider" Bush's announcement in 2007 in Tirana, Albania, that to please our Islamic "allies" in the "War on Terror," he would simply proclaim, on no authority whatsoever, "enough's enough, Kosovo's independent."  (And then the grateful Albanians stole his watch!)

 

Almost no one.

 

But the fact that few Americans remember doesn't change the fact that at this very moment, under the authority of President Barack Hussein Obama, NATO – acting in our name, and supported by our tax dollars – is bringing force to bear against Christian people living in their own country, to force them to submit to hostile Muslim occupation and to accept their eventual extinction. 

 

James George Jatras

Director, American Council for Kosovo

Washington, September 27, 2011

 

savekosovoorg@gmail.com

 

+++++++++++++++++++

 

Again available from the American Council for Kosovo!

Kosovo: The Score
1999-2009

The American Council for Kosovo recently has located additional quantities of this classic book, published on the tenth anniversary of the NATO aggression against Serbia. Kosovo: The Score provides the definitive explanation of the little-understood Whys and Hows of the Kosovo war, as well as of the aftermath that still plagues the region – and the world – today.

Among the experts contributing incisive analyses to Kosovo: The Score: James Bissett, Doug Bandow, James George Jatras, Julia Gorin, Srdja Trifkovic, Diana Johnstone, Gregory R. Copley and many others!

Kosovo: The Score is available on request from The American Council for Kosovo , which gratefully welcomes contributions of any size. Requests can be made on the contribution page, by email, or by writing to:

The American Council for Kosovo
P.O. Box 14522
Washington, DC 20044

 

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Why Kosovo but not Palestine?

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By Zoltan Grossman

 

Sunday, September 25, 2011

 

 

In his September 21 speech to the United Nations, President Obama announced that he would veto U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state, because its independence was not a result of a negotiated settlement with Israel. He said that "peace depends upon compromise among people who must live together long after our…votes have been tallied….That's the lesson of Sudan, where a negotiated settlement led to an independent state. And that is and will be the path to a Palestinian state -- negotiations between the parties."

But President Obama neglected to mention a recent prominent example of unilateral independence, the State of Kosovo, which was recognized by the United States three years ago--even though its statehood did not come about through a negotiated settlement with Serbia. If an independent state of Palestine should only be recognized with Israel's approval, then why did the U.S. recognize the independence of Kosovo in 2008, over the objections of Serbia? Why recognize Kosovo but not Palestine?

Serbs view Kosovo as the cradle of their national identity, where the Ottoman Empire defeated them in 1389. Kosovo maintained a Serb majority for centuries, but in the late 1800s it became a seat of Albanians' national awakening, and eventually gained an ethnic Albanian majority. It became part of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia after World War I, and (after the Axis occupation in World War II), the Yugoslav Communist government made Kosovo into a province within the republic of Serbia, recognizing the rights of its Kosovar Albanian majority. In 1989, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic vastly reduced Kosovo's autonomy, citing threats to the Serb minority, as the opening move in his nationalist crusade for a Greater Serbia.

Like Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat first declared Palestinian sovereignty in 1988, Kosovar Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova first declared Kosovo independent in 1990. No foreign powers recognized Kosovo at that time, but 127 UN member states have since recognized the State of Palestine.

Civil war erupted between Serbian forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1998, and more than 2,000 people died in the fighting. KLA fighters targeted ethnic Serb civilians in the province, as well as moderate Kosovar Albanians, and Serbian forces targeted Albanian civilians. In February 1999, President Clinton led NATO in a bombing campaign against Serbia, triggering Milosevic's plan for the "ethnic cleansing" (or forced removal) of Kosovo's Albanian majority, which began after the bombs started falling.

When the KLA came to power with backing from NATO troops in June 1999, it in turn ethnically cleansed thousands of Serbs, Roma (Gypsies), Turks and Jews from its territory, based on the accusation that these groups had sided with Serbian forces. These minority groups had been living in Kosovo for centuries, unlike the Israeli settlers who are mostly recent transplants imported to Palestinian soil. When Serbia had settled some Serb war refugees in Kosovo from other ex-Yugoslav republics during the 1990s, Washington condemned the program as an attempt to shift the demographics of the province. The few Serbs living in Kosovo since 1999 have been subject to periodic pogroms, and a Serb enclave in the north has periodically threatened to rejoin Serbia, generating instability in the new state.

Whereas the prevailing mythology in the United States is that Clinton bombed former Yugoslavia to stop ethnic cleansing, people in the Balkans understand that U.S. forces intervened against Serb ethnic cleansers, but intervened on the side of Croat and Albanian ethnic cleansers. After the fighting was over, NATO rubberstamped the results on the ground of these forced removals, and deemed the silence of the graveyard a "lasting peace."

Kosovo's parliament redeclared independence in 2008, in a move that was boycotted by Kosovo Serb delegates. So far, 83 UN member states (including the U.S.) have recognized Kosovo—44 fewer than the total members states that have recognized Palestine. Serbia asked the International Court of Justice to rule on the secession, and last year the Court issued an advisory opinion that unilateral declarations of independence are not prohibited under international law.

Serbia has a stronger legal case than Israel to object to unilateral independence, and not only because of the Kosovo's expulsion of most Serbs. Kosovo was not only recognized as a part of Yugoslavia before the 1990s, not as a Yugoslav republic of its own, but as a province within the republic of Serbia. On the other hand, the West Bank and Gaza (not to mention Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem) have never been recognized as a part of Israel. In addition, after coming to power, KLA fighters blatantly endangered the security of neighboring states, by seeking to militarily "liberate" ethnic Albanians in western Macedonia and Serbia's Presevo Valley.

The difference is that Kosovo is under occupation by a foreign military alliance that backs the self-determination of its ethnic Albanian majority. The West Bank and East Jerusalem are under the occupation of a foreign military force that seeks to prevent the self-determination of its majority Palestinian population, and seeks to settle its own population in their place.

Serbia and Israel have remarkably similar messages toward the West. They contend that their military occupations have been justified to prevent a repeat of the genocide directed against them in World War II. (The Palestinians had nothing to do with this genocide, though Croatia and Albania were allied with the Axis Powers.) Serbia and Israel present themselves as bulwarks defending Western civilization against Islamist extremism, even though both the Palestinian and Kosovar national movements began with secular ethnic-based identities, and include members of Christian minorities. Serbia and Israel have also used ancient religious justifications (such as shrines and archeological sites) for their military presence in lands where they do not have a demographic majority.

The difference is that the Israeli lobby in Washington is far stronger than the Serbian lobby. Milosevic's massive ethnic cleansings of Kosovar Albanians (as well as Croats and Bosnians) were more recent and televised than Israel's forced removal of Palestinians from their ancestral lands, in what they term the Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948.

The KLA has long been implicated in heroin trafficking to raise funds for the cause and cash for personal enrichment. Former KLA commanders, including Prime Minister Hashim Thaci (who led the Croatian Army's 1995 ethnic cleansing of Serbs) have even been accused of trafficking in human organs. Kosovo is also a notorious center of sex trafficking in the Balkans, especially as Western troops have been stationed there. Whatever the veracity of any of these particular charges, none of them have prevented U.S. support for Kosovo's independence.

The difference is that the Palestinian national movement has not been implicated in such international crime syndicates.  We can be sure that if any Palestinian leaders were accused of just one of these crimes, the Israeli lobby would trumpet the charge loudly as an argument against a Palestinian state, and the White House would echo the claim.

Palestine and Israel have come down on different sides on Kosovo independence. Senior adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Abed Rabbo, cited Kosovo's example for unilateral independence when he said, "Kosovo is not better than us. We are worthy of independence before them and we ask for backing from the United States and European Union." Meanwhile, Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman categorically refused to recognize Kosovo, claiming that its independence is a "sensitive issue" that should be part of  "a really comprehensive and peaceful solution" established through negotiations.  So both the Palestinians and Israelis are consistent in their consideration of Kosovo's example. The party that is not consistent is the United States, which with one hand recognizes a new state, and with the other hand blocks another new state.

The difference may be that, since the days of Woodrow Wilson, Washington tends to support the unilateral self-determination of peoples only if they are white Europeans. More to the point, Israel serves U.S. foreign policy interests in the Middle East, but Orthodox Christian Serbia has historically been more aligned with Russia.

The United Nations has not recognized Kosovo because it would set a negative precedent for unilateral secession around the world. Many states in the Arab League and European Union, on the other hand, view Kosovo as a positive precedent for Palestine. Some governments may oppose sovereignty for both Kosovo and Palestine. But the U.S. is virtually alone in its backing for the State of Kosovo, while at the same time hypocritically blocking a State of Palestine.

Americans should start asking President Obama: if Kosovo has a right to exist, why doesn't Palestine also have a right to exist?


Dr. Zoltán Grossman is a professor of geography and world indigenous peoples studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. His website is at http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz and can be reached at grossmaz@evergreen.edu  He is a civilian Member of the Board of G.I. Voice, an antiwar veterans group that runs the Coffee Strong resource center for soldiers outside Fort Lewis:http://www.coffeestrong.org  His list of U.S. military interventions since 1890 is at http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html

http://www.zcommunications.org/why-kosovo-but-not-palestine-by-zoltan-grossman

Showdown at Goat Gate - by Nebojsa Malic

 

Subject: Antiwar: Showdown at Goat Gate - by Nebojsa Malic  Date: Thursday, September 22, 2011, 8:36 AM    ...  Over the past two weeks, the Serbian public has been shaken by the revelations from U.S. diplomatic dispatches published by Wikileaks — that almost the entire political establishment of the country has been taking its marching orders from the Empire. Washington's envoys even interfered in the selection of the present head of the Church, following the passing of the previous Patriarch. With his empty promises of EU membership quashed in late August by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Tadic has absolutely nothing to offer the Serbian public.  ...   http://original.antiwar.com/malic/2011/09/16/showdown-at-goat-gate/  Showdown at Goat Gate Empire's Kosovo Gamble by Nebojsa Malic, September 17, 2011 Antiwar Forum "Are there no Serbs in this room?" thundered Alexander Vasilevich Konuzin, Russia's Ambassador to Belgrade, before the shocked audience at the Serbian capital's Army House. It was Thursday, September 15, and the first reports began coming in of NATO's movements to seize "customs posts" in the north of occupied Kosovo and turn them over to the self-proclaimed ethnic Albanian government. Yet nobody at the "international security" conference, organized by NGOs lavishly funded by EU and U.S. taxpayers, had said so much as a word. Not even the president of Serbia, Boris Tadic, who had given the opening speech. After listening to hours of pointless prattle, Konuzin had had enough. He paced as he addressed the hostile crowd, blasting their slavish devotion to powers that sought to dismember Serbia. "We have common interests, and we will defend the country even though it seems that some Serbs wish to see their country under foreign control," Konuzin concluded. Interrupted by the moderator and not allowed to continue, Russia's Ambassador left the hall. Illegal and Criminal Meanwhile, NATO's Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen flew into the occupied province to personally support the much-heralded plan by the "government" of Hashim Thaci to "restore law and order" to the sliver of province still inhabited by Serbs. There would be "no turning back," Rasmussen announced, and echoing the words of "Prime Minister" Thaci, declared that NATO would not "back away from illegal and criminal structures." By this he meant the remaining Serb institutions in the province Thaci and his backers claim is a sovereign state — yet it is Thaci's regime that matches the description. Kosovo was seized from Serbia in a manifestly illegal and illegitimate war, occupied under a flimsy pretext of a UN resolution (that the Empire and its allies have shamelessly violated over the years) and eventually declared independent in a way that simply defied logic as well as law. And that's without even considering that Thaci and his entire establishment — descended from the terrorist KLA - stand accused of being an organized crime syndicate involved in drug-running, sex slavery and trafficking of human organs harvested from tortured and murdered prisoners. Outlaws International All of this has happened before. At the end of July, Thaci sent his Special Forces to seize two checkpoints — Jarinje ("Goat gate") and Brnjak — at the administrative line between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia, located in the Serb-inhabited north. Officially it was a bid to establish proper customs controls at what Pristina claims it is an international border. In practice, however, it was a ploy to cut off the Serb-inhabited north from its lifeline, and end its 12-year resistance to KLA rule. Either way, it failed miserably. Heralded as a "law and order" operation, there was nothing legal or orderly about it. Worse yet, Thaci's thugs were aided by EU's "legal assistance" mission (EULEX) and NATO's "peacekeepers" (KFOR), supposedly "status neutral" institutions that had to be in compliance with UNSCR 1244. In the words of former UN official Gerard Galucci back in July, "When the international peacekeepers act outside international law, they become outlaws." According to Galucci, the "chief threat to security" is actually NATO, whose behavior in support of Thaci constitutes "anti-peacekeeping." As for the self-appointed guardians of Kosovo, they are sowing the wind: "The Quint [U.S., UK, Germany, France, and Italy] is either bluffing, prevaricating with the Kosovo Albanians, or totally abandoning the UN peacekeeping mandate under which their agents — KFOR & EULEX — are in Kosovo. Whichever turns out to be true, they are acting shamefully." Galucci is not naïve; he knows KFOR and UNMIK have violated 1244 in the past — but never to this extent, and never so openly. It ought to be noted that KFOR's principal role in the province was never to protect the Serbs from the rampaging Albanians, but to protect the Albanians from Yugoslav and Serbian authorities. Even though KFOR has saved many Serb lives over the years, its mission has always been to serve the interests of Hashim Thaci, insofar as they coincided with those of the Empire. UNSCR 1244 was just the fig leaf allowing NATO a measure of modesty; now that UNSCR 1973 has essentially been used as a condom during the Rape of Libya, even that is being dispensed with. A Threat to Tadic Having installed Boris Tadic as the President of Serbia in 2004, and engineered his complete control of Serbian politics in 2008, the Empire has come to rely on near-absolute obedience of its quislings in Belgrade. Yet even Tadic and his cronies are now pleading with the Empire to stop Thaci, as the events in Kosovo are seriously threatening their survival. In July, Tadic had sworn that Serbia's army and the police would not fight. So the Serb civilians in Kosovo fought back by themselves. All this week, social networks have been abuzz with preparations for renewed resistance. A major opposition movement issued a call Wednesday to back the Kosovo Serbs with volunteers from all over Serbia. On Thursday, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church came to the province himself, and issued a call to the nation to pray and endure. A major opposition movement issued a call Wednesday to back the Kosovo Serbs with volunteers from all over Serbia. On Thursday, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church came to the province himself, and issued a call to the nation to pray and endure. Over the past two weeks, the Serbian public has been shaken by the revelations from U.S. diplomatic dispatches published by Wikileaks — that almost the entire political establishment of the country has been taking its marching orders from the Empire. Washington's envoys even interfered in the selection of the present head of the Church, following the passing of the previous Patriarch. With his empty promises of EU membership quashed in late August by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Tadic has absolutely nothing to offer the Serbian public. Their palpable panic may help explain why the pro-government daily Blic (owned by the Swiss-German conglomerate Ringier) claimed on Thursday that the U.S. envoy to Kosovo, Christopher Dell, had a financial interest in backing the Thaci regime. According to the paper, Thaci's regime is broke, and desperately needs hundreds of millions of Euros to pay a Turkish-American consortium (Bechtel-Enka) for a major highway contract. The paper's source claims Dell has been helping Thaci plan the customs takeover, as well as negotiate the sale of "Kosovo Telecom" (illegally carved out of its Serbian parent) to Croatia, in exchange for a substantial kickback from the consortium. Yet even if there was truth to these claims, it still remains a mystery why EULEX, KFOR and the Quint governments are all on board with Thaci's insistence on "sovereign Kosovo." Foundations of Empire The Serbs often wonder what has earned them, Washington's ally in both world wars, such unrelenting hatred. What they don't realize is that the Empire doesn't think in terms of history — but rather seeks to end it. In answering why the Empire is so set on breaking Serbia, everyone has a favorite point of departure: Yugoslavia was destroyed because it practiced a working form of socialism, which posed a threat. It was all Germany, driven by a desire for revenge from defeats in both world wars. It's all about the oil, ore, control of pipeline or trade routes. It isn't about the Balkans at all, but about preserving dominance in Europe and fighting Russia. It's all about making the jihadists love the Empire… Some of these are fanciful conspiracy theories, others a matter of public record. There is at least some truth in all of them. NATO's Rasmussen hints at consistency, arguing that NATO spent "12 years ensuring stability and security and we will not allow that achievement to be put at risk." (Reuters) Since when is consistency a concern for the Empire, though? Wasn't Saddam Hussein an ally for 12 years, before the U.S. turned on him over Kuwait? What makes "Thacistan" so different? The answer might lie in the carefully constructed perception of the great crusade against "Serb aggression" in the Balkans as Empire's founding myth, and the fear that abandoning that narrative could be detrimental to Empire's continued survival. But that might be a moot point soon enough. Castles in the Sand Taking upon himself to articulate the Grand Idea of the Atlantic Empire, Tony Blair once argued that the Balkans heralded a brave new age of "liberal interventions". He could not have been more wrong. All the Empire managed to do is dismantle the Westphalian order, destroying the very foundations of its own power in the process. All it built was a perception-managed, virtual reality — a sandcastle. And now the tide is coming in. If there is one cardinal rule of authority, it is to never give an order that cannot be obeyed. By demanding of Serbia to give up Kosovo, that is precisely what the Empire did. No matter how sycophantic or spineless the government in Belgrade might be, that was one thing it could not do and survive. The sight of Serbs manning the barricades to defend Kosovo, and reports of people coming from the rest of Serbia to reinforce them, are Boris Tadic's worst nightmare. It means that the people have decided that their government won't do its job. How long before they decide that Tadic and his cronies need to face a reckoning for their long and hard abuse of Serbia? That prospect promises to be most unpleasant. KFOR's helicopters bringing Thaci's "police" to the north of Kosovo may well spell the beginning of the end for Tadic — and with him, Empire's entire Balkans sandcastle. Reality can only be bullied so much, before it strikes back. Read more by Nebojsa Malic Winter is Coming – August 26th, 2011 Hostage to Hubris – August 18th, 2011 Law and Disorder – July 29th, 2011 An End to Surrender – July 21st, 2011 A Tale of Two Secessions – July 1st, 2011

 

Serbia's authorities side with whom?

Serbia's authorities side with whom?

22.09.2011 | 19:12

There are times when a wave of madness sweeps through the international community, times when things cease to make sense any more, when logic is defied and when we question whether everything and everyone has lost their sanity. In northern Kosovo, foreign forces are colluding against Serbs and what are the Serbian authorities doing?

 The answer to the question is crystal clear: they appear to be working with them. True, the European Union must have presented a long and humiliating list of demands to Belgrade, yet the capacity which the Serbian authorities demonstrate in their resilience and stamina as they stand bent over with their trousers down, is staggering.

The latest incident happened yesterday as the Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije carried food aid for the Serbs barricading their checkpoints in the Serbian privince of Kosovo, together with a group of Orthodox monks and nuns... and the vehicles in which they were travelling were intercepted by the Serbian police who stated they did not have the right to cross the checkpoints.

How can the Serbian police prevent Serbian Orthodox monks crossing into Kosovo and Metohija, which is under international law a province of the Republic of Serbia?

What is worse, the Bishop was the victim of police brutality. Not only was he physically prevented from entering Kosovo I Matohija, but he was forcefelly removed to Belgrade. Instead of enjoying the freedom of movement to visit his people in the diocese of Serbian Kosovo, his freedom of movement was denied to him, not by Croatian elements in KFOR, not by Albanian terrorists led by their organ and drug-trafficking masters who the EU and NATO love so much, but by the Serbian authorities themselves.

Apart from this incident, other groups of monks were prevented from travelling to Kosovo. They were surrounded by the police and forced to turn back.

This is the freedom and democracy exercised by President Boris Tadic's Serbia today. Yes, the world has gone stark raving mad.

To the Serbian authorities - bend over further, your masters will enjoy it more.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru

http://www.moscowtopnews.com/

20 Sep 2011 / 14:51

Serb Machiavelli Has Bosnia's Future in His Hands

Having fanned the flame of Croat-Bosniak discord, the canny Serb leader, Milorad Dodik, has Bosnia just where he wants it - on its knees.

Matthew Parish

Just before Bosnia's October 2010 election, I predicted that the Bosnian Serb leader, Milorad Dodik, would do everything he could after that election to frustrate the formation of a new state government for as long as possible. My pessimistic forecast has been proved all too right.

Dodik's masterstroke was to notice irreconcilable divisions between Bosniaks [Muslims] and Croats that emerged after the SDP's respectable victory amongst Bosniak voters.

The Social Democratic Party purports to be multi-ethnic but in reality is overwhelmingly Bosniak. The party stole an electoral march on the Croats by a quirk of Bosnia's lop-sided electoral system.

In theory, Bosnia's constitution treats Croats as one of the country's three constituent peoples, entitling them to representation equivalent to as much as a third of the positions in the country's public institutions.

In reality Croats may represent only 10 per cent or less of the country's current residents. Hence, quotas in theory reserved for Croat interests in practice may be expropriated by Bosniaks.

This happens when Bosniaks vote for Croat politicians sympathetic to the Bosniak position. Because there are far more Bosniaks than Croats, Bosniak votes carry the day over those of Croats and the officials occupying quotas reserved for Croats end up representing Bosniak, not Croat, points of view.

The country's tripartite Presidency is the most glaring example of this outcome. Bosnia's constitution provides for three presidents: a Bosniak, a Croat and a Serb. Since the country is ethnically partitioned into two entities, the Serb President is to be elected from Republika Srpska and the Bosniak and Croat presidents are to be elected from the Federation entity.

But 80 to 85 per cent of the population of the Federation is Bosniak. Thus, if a Bosniak political party fields a Croat candidate sympathetic to Bosniak goals, Bosniak votes may elect two members of the Presidency, Serb votes one and Croat votes none.

This happened with the Croat incumbent for the last two Presidential terms, Zeljko Komsic. Having fought for the Bosniak army in the war and been awarded the Golden Lily in recognition of his services, it is hard to imagine a Croat more sympathetic to the Bosniak cause.

Komsic's candidacy in both 2006 and 2010 elections was supported by the SDP, and he was elected by Bosniak, not Croat, votes. This infuriated the Croats who felt disenfranchised, with some justification.

In the meantime, the SDP used Komsic's election and its support in the polls amongst Bosniaks as evidence to the international community of its commitment to multi-ethnic ideals. It thereby insisted on the right to take the position of State Prime Minister in the coalition government, which needed to be formed after the October elections.

At this stage Dodik played his trump card. Appealing to the notion of inter-ethnic rotation of senior government positions, Dodik decreed that the Prime Minister must be a Croat.

This is because the former Prime Minister (who remains as caretaker) is a Serb; prior to that the officeholder was a Bosniak. Hence, Dodik reasoned, it was the turn of the Croats. Nevertheless this principle of rotation is without foundation.

No strict rules have been applied in determining the nationalities of Bosnian prime ministers, the question turning in each case on the vagaries of coalition negotiations rather than on a rigid ethnic formula.

Nevertheless Dodik's political positioning yielded immediate dividends. It was open to him to insist that, as the largest parliamentary party, his Serb-dominated Alliance of Social Democrats, SNSD, should again appoint the Prime Minister, as it had done after the 2006 elections.

But this would have caused Bosniaks and Croats to align against him. By conceding the Prime Minister's job to a Croat instead, he stoked Bosniak-Croat tensions already inflamed by the Komsic affair.

As the party with the second largest number of seats, the SDP then took the position that it had the right to appoint the State Prime Minister, and would nominate another Croat in the vein of Komsic to occupy the role. At that point the Croat Democratic Union, HDZ, and its sister party, HDZ-1990, for whom the vast majority of Bosnian Croats had voted, objected.

Seeing themselves as representatives of mainstream Bosnian Croat opinion, they interpreted Dodik's remarks as annointing their candidate for the post of Prime Minister. Thus Bosniaks and Croats were immediately split and they remain so.

For as long as Dodik can keep the two non-Serb peoples of Bosnia divided, he can rule the whole country. Dodik's man, Nikola Spiric, a member of the SNSD, remains State Prime Minister.

Under Spiric's watch the state institutions have a plentiful excuse for doing nothing: pending the formation of a new government, they represent the results of the 2006 elections and have no democratic legitimacy.

This is what Dodik wants, as his goal is to strengthen Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb federal entity of which he is President, at the expense of the multi-ethnic central government.

By keeping the state weak, he demonstrates to the world that multi-ethnic Bosnian democracy – which for Serbs means a democracy dominated by Bosniaks – cannot work. He thus gradually strengthens his case for dissolution of the central state and its replacement with a radically different constitutional model.

It is in this context that we must understand the failures of the interminable negotiations between Bosnia's principal political parties to form a new government. The most recent discussions were in Mostar and towards the end of the month another negotiation will take place in Brcko.

Dodik's agenda is to ensure that no government is formed for as long as possible, while pretending to maintain Olympian distance from the issue. Dodik's rhetoric is that it is a dispute between Bosniaks and Croats in which he plays no role. Dodik understands that the SDP is the most dangerous of the Bosniak parties for his agenda.

Under pretence that multi-ethnicity remains a realistic political goal in modern Bosnia, the SDP can perpetuate the international community's illusion that the country has a viable multi-ethnic future. The unrealistic vision embraced by foreign diplomats is the main, or maybe the sole, constraint on Dodik's political freedom of action.

He would far rather deal with the SDA, the Bosniak Party for Democratic Action. The SDA, while ideologically more uncompromising in practice, is more pragmatic in reality. It tacitly accepts the ethno-territorial division of territory that ended Bosnia's war.

The now mostly forgotten "Prud Agreement" in 2008 between Dodik and the SDA leader, Sulejman Tihic, anticipated a constitutional reorganisation, devolving power to regions in each of which one ethnic group would dominate.

This was anathema to the SDP's agenda of a Bosniak-led central government and to the international community's goals for the country. Hence Bosnia's colonial governor, the Office of the High Representative, scuttled it.

Now that the SDP has an ascendancy over the SDA within Bosniak politics, Dodik's strategy has changed.

Rather than negotiate his way towards an impossible agreement with an adversary whose ideology is diametrically opposed to his own, he aims to demonstrate that the SDP's goal is hopeless. This is achieved by supporting Bosnia's Croats in their efforts to preserve genuine representation of their political interests (like Serbs, for the most part centrifugal) in the central government.

He thereby simultaneously denies the SDP their crown of Prime Minister, and indefinitely holds Bosnia's state political institutions in stasis. An advantageous by-product of this policy is that it makes Bosnia's High Representative, Valentin Inzko, look effete.

Inzko had hoped to depart from Bosnia by the end of August, quietly abandoning his gubernatorial powers and leaving the remainder of his mission, assisting preparation for the non-existent EU accession process, to the new EU Ambassador, Peter Sorensen.

But with no prospects of a government being formed, Inzko's premature departure would give the impression of a hands-down political victory for Dodik over international resolve. So Inzko hangs on reluctantly in his diplomatic prison, frustrated by the ruthless logic of Bosnian politics in his endeavours to retire to Vienna.

How can Dodik be stopped? Should he be? Most opinion among independent scholars outside the Balkans now is that the experiment in Bosnian state building was misconceived from the start. The 1995 Dayton peace settlement, imposed by American diplomatic and military force, came too late to prevent ethnic partition.

The Constitution, drafted by American lawyers, was irremediably defective in balancing competing groups' interests. The temptation to resort to oppression, exemplified in endowing the High Representative with dictatorial powers, was foolish and unsustainable.

The desire on the part of outsiders to steer Bosnian politics through financial support for and targeted sanctions against selected political parties, has backfired.

Back in 1998 Dodik was a darling of the international community without whose support he would never have come to power. It is long forgotten that US diplomat Richard Holbrooke nurtured the monster who now threatens his Dayton creation.

Now we see the inevitable end game in a series of chapters of shocking mismanagement by the international community. Further intervention cannot hope to succeed where earlier attempts have proved so misguided.

While Dodik's politics may result in the country's eventual disintegration, it is not clear that any credible strategy remains open to the international community to prevent it. 

Dodik must feel grimly self-satisfied as he keeps his unloved country, of which he is the de facto premier, on its knees. In the midst of the global financial crisis, no European leader has more than the most tangential interest in Bosnia.

The country remains the Serb leader's plaything, and will continue to do so for as long as Bosniak politics remain so irreconcilably divided and the international community disinterested. The international community created the constitutional structure that allowed Dodik to manoeuvre into this position.

Rather than condemning him, they should perhaps condemn themselves for having immersed this tragic country in a political maelstrom and then carelessly turned their backs on the results.

Matthew Parish is an international lawyer based in Geneva, Switzerland. He was formerly the Chief Legal Adviser to the International Supervisor and is a frequent writer and commentator on Balkan affairs. He has written three books: A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia (I.B.Tauris 2009); Mirages of International Justice: The Elusive Pursuit of a Transnational Legal Order (Edward Elgar 2011); and Ethnic Civil War and the Promise of Law (Edward Elgar 2012, forthcoming). www.matthewparish.com  

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/serb-machiavelli-has-bosnia-s-future-in-his-hands

Bare-Handed Kosovo Serbs Battle NATO

 

Here's my latest piece Bare-Handed Kosovo Serbs Battle NATO published by the Modern Tokyo Times. Would be interested in your comments.

Dr. Vojin Joksimovich

http://moderntokyotimes.com/2011/09/20/bare-handed-kosovo-serbs-battle-nato/
 
http://global-security-news.com/2011/09/20/bare-handed-kosovo-serbs-battle-nato/
 
 
Hello everybody and sorry for sending a group email because I know some people don't like.
 
Please check the above links for the latest article by Dr. Vojin Joksimovich.
 
Now over 350,000 individuals have visited both Modern Tokyo Times and Global Security News but still
problems about investment and advertisement.  However, a MTT identity is growing more stronger and links
with several senior politicians is happening.
 
MTT is aimed at a wide audience (geopolitics, japanese culture, fashion, human rights, cosplay and other) and is meant to be
commercial.  Also, the idea of MTT is to reach a new audience with news that many people would avoid or not read in usual ejournals.
 
50% of all articles in the last 6 weeks on MTT have been in-house and around 40% of recent articles on GSN have been
in-house.  This is essential because it shows that MTT is independent and providing sufficient news.
 
The latest article by Dr. Vojin Joksimovich gives in depth news about latest events in Kosovo and very interesting information
about Russia.  I also highlight two books by Dr. Vojin Joksimovich and I myself bought both and fantastic information like always.
 
If MTT and GSN fail in the future it will be related to financial issues and not numbers visiting - because the growth rate is very high and links
with News On Japan http://www.newsonjapan.com/rss/society/moderntokyotimes.php and The Seoul Times and many others is strong and developing.
 
I wish everyone well.
 
Lee Jay