Sergey Lavrov "Containing Russia: Back to the Future?"

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

INFORMATION AND PRESS DEPARTMENT
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The Article by Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov "Containing Russia:
Back to the Future?"


19-07-2007

Influential political forces on both sides of the Atlantic appear intent on starting a debate about whether or not to "contain" Russia. The mere posing of the question suggests that for some almost nothing has changed since the Cold War.
What is a return to containment meant to achieve at a time when Russia has abandoned ideology and imperial aspirations in favor of pragmatism and common sense? What is the purpose of containing a country that is successfully developing and thereby naturally strengthening its international position? What is the point of containing a country that aspires to things as basic as international trade?
It should be no surprise that Russia today is making use of its natural competitive advantages. It is also investing in its human resources, encouraging innovation, integrating into the global economy, and modernizing its legislation. Russia wants international stability to underpin its own development. Accordingly, it is working toward the establishment of a freer and more democratic international order.
The new advocacy of containment may stem from a substantial gap between Russian and U.S. aspirations. U.S. diplomacy seeks to transform what Washington considers "nondemocratic" govern-ments around the world, reordering entire regions in the process. Russia, with its experience with revolution and extremism, cannot subscribe to any such ideologically driven project, especially one that comes from abroad. The Cold War represented a step away from the Westphalian standard of state sovereignty, which placed values beyond the scope of intergovernmental relations. A return to Cold War theories such as containment will only lead to confrontation.
In contrast to the Soviet Union, Russia is an open country that does not erect walls, either physical or political. On the contrary, Russia calls for the removal of visa barriers and other artificial hurdles in international relations. It espouses democracy and market economics as the right bases for social and political order and economic life.
Although Russia has a long way to go, it has chosen a path of development that entails unprecedented, and at times painful, changes. Russian society has reached a broad consensus that these changes should be evolutionary and free of upheavals. Ultimately, a mature democracy, with a vibrant civil society and a well-structured party system, will emerge from a higher level of social and economic development. This requires a substantial middle class, which cannot come into being overnight. It was only Russian tycoons who emerged overnight in the early 1990s – and those times are definitely over.

Frictional Energy

Countries dependent on external sources of energy criticize Russia for assuming its naturally large role in the global energy sector. However, those countries should recognize that energy dependence is reciprocal, since hoarding is not a wise choice for an energy exporting country. That is why Russia has never failed to fulfill any of its hydrocarbon-supply contracts with importing countries. Russia does, however, consider energy to be a strategic sector that helps safeguard independence in its foreign relations. This is understandable given the negative external reactions to Russia's strengthened economy and enlarged role in international affairs, in which Russia lawfully employs its newly gained freedom of action and speech. It should not be criticized by those who frown on a stronger Russia.
The Russian government's energy policy reflects a global trend toward state control over natural resources. Ninety percent of the world's proven hydrocarbon reserves are under some form of state control. Such state control of energy resources is offset, however, by the concentration of cutting-edge technology in the hands of private transnational corporations. Thus, there are incentives for cooperation between the parties, with each sharing the same objective of meeting the energy requirements of the world economy.
Russia is pursuing a foreign policy in striking contrast to the ideologically motivated internationalism of the Soviet Union. Today, Russia believes that multilateral diplomacy based on international law should manage regional and global relations. As globalization has extended beyond the West, competition has become truly global – nothing less than a paradigm shift. Competing states must now take into account differing values and development patterns. The challenge is to establish fairness in this complex competitive environment.
The logical approach is for countries to focus on their competitive advantages without imposing their values on others. U.S. attempts to do the latter have weakened the West's competitive position. As Eberhard Sandschneider, director of the Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign Policy, has put it, U.S. policies in recent years have "damaged tremendously the image of the West" in Asia and Africa. He concludes that nothing, or almost nothing, has been done to make Western values attractive to Asian and African populations. Russia can hardly be held responsible for that.
In his speech in Munich earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated the obvious when he said that a "unipolar world" had failed to materialize. Recent experience shows as clearly as ever that no state or group of states possesses sufficient resources to impose its will on the world. Hierarchy might seem attractive to some in global affairs, but it is utterly unrealistic. It is one thing to respect American culture and civilization; it is another to embrace Americo-centrism.
The new international system has not one but several leading actors, and their collective leadership is needed to manage global relations. This multipolarity encourages network diplomacy as the best way for states to achieve shared objectives. In this system, the United Nations becomes pivotal, providing through its charter the means for collective discussion and action.

The Limits Of Force

In the twenty-first century, delay in solving accumulated problems carries devastating consequences for all nations. One sure lesson is that unilateral responses, consisting primarily of using force, result in stalemates and broken china everywhere. The current catalog of unresolved crises – Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Darfur, North Korea – is a testament to that. Genuine security will only be achieved through establishing normal relations and engaging in dialogue. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier hit the right note when he counseled that today's world should be based on cooperation rather than military deterrence.
Complex problems require comprehensive approaches. In the case of Iran, resolving differences should lie in the normalization by all countries of their relations with Tehran. Normalization would also help preserve the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Regarding Kosovo, independence from Serbia would create a precedent that goes beyond the existing norms of international law. Our partners' inclination to give way to the blackmail of violence and anarchy within Kosovo contrasts with the indifference shown to similar violence and anarchy in the Palestinian territories, where it has been tolerated for decades while a Palestinian state has yet to be established.
Eliminating the Cold War legacy in Europe, where the containment policy was dominant for too long, is especially pressing. Creating division in Europe encourages nationalist sentiments that threaten the unity of the continent. The current problems faced by the European Union, in particular, and European politics, in general, cannot be solved without Europe's maintaining constructive and future-oriented relations with Russia – relations based on mutual trust and confidence. This ought to be seen as serving U.S. interests as well.
Instead, various attempts are being made to contain Russia, including through the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in violation of previous assurances given to Moscow. Today, supporters of NATO enlargement harp on the organization's supposed role in the promotion of democracy. How is democracy furthered by a military-political alliance that is producing scenarios for the use of force?
Meanwhile, some are promoting the extension of NATO membership to the countries that comprise the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as some sort of pass providing admittance to the club of democratic states whether these countries meet the democratic test or not. One cannot help wondering whether this initiative is being pursued for the sake of moral satisfaction or again to contain Russia.
As far as the CIS is concerned, Russia has the capacity to maintain social, economic, and other forms of stability in the region. Moscow’s rejection of politicized trade and economic relations and its adoption of market-based principles testifies to its determination to have normalcy in interstate relations. Russia and the West can cooperate in this region but only by forsaking zero-sum power games.
The drive to place missile defenses in eastern Europe is evidence of the U.S. effort to contain Russia. It is hardly coincidental that this installation would fit into the U.S. global missile defense system that is deployed along Russia's perimeter. Many Europeans are rightfully concerned that stationing elements of the U.S. missile defense system in Europe would undermine disarmament processes. For its part, Russia considers the initiative a strategic challenge that requires a strategic response.
President Putin’s offer to allow joint usage of the Gabala radar base in Azerbaijan, instead of those eastern European installations – as well as his proposal, made when meeting with President George W.Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, in July, to create a regional monitoring and early warning system – provides a brilliant opportunity to find a way out of the present situation with the dignity of all parties intact. As a starting point for a truly collective effort in this area, Russia is willing to take part, together with the United States and others, in a joint analysis of potential missile threats up to the year 2020.
The desire to contain Russia clearly manifests itself as well in the situation surrounding the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (or CFE Treaty). Russia complies with the treaty in good faith and insists only on the one thing that the treaty promises: equal security. However, the equal security principle was compromised with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact; meanwhile, NATO was left intact and then enlarged. In the meantime, attempts to correct the situation have come up against the refusal of NATO member countries to ratify the modernization of the treaty under various unrelated pretexts that have no legal justification and are entirely political. The lesson to be drawn from the CFE Treaty stalemate is that any element of global or European security architecture that is not based on the principles of equality and mutual benefit will not prove to be sustainable. After all, if we cannot adapt this old instrument to the new realities, is it not time to review the situation and start developing a new system of arms control and confidence-building measures, if we find that Europe needs one? Here again, frank discussion at Kennebunkport gave hope that there is way to move toward putting into force the adapted treaty.

Beyond The Cold War

It is time to bury the Cold War legacy and establish structures that meet the imperatives of this era – particularly since Russia and the West are no longer adversaries and do not wish to create the impression that war is still a possibility in Europe. The path to trust lies through candid dialogue and reasoned debate, as well as interactions based on the joint analysis of threats. At the moment, however, without reasonable grounds, Russia is excluded from such joint analysis. Instead, it is urged to believe in the analytic abilities and good intentions of its partners.
Russians do not suffer from a sense of exceptionalism, but neither do they consider their analytic abilities and ideas inferior to those of others. Russia will respond to safeguard its national security, and in doing so will be guided by the principle of "reasonable sufficiency." Meanwhile, it will always keep the door open for positive joint action to safeguard common interests on the basis of equality. This is the only serious approach to national security concerns.
In his speech in Munich, President Putin invited all of Russia’s partners to start a serious and substantive discussion of the current status of international affairs, which is far from satisfactory. Russia is convinced that a friend/enemy attitude toward it should be a thing of the past. If efforts are being undertaken to "counter Russia’s negative behavior," how can Russia be expected to cooperate in areas of interest to its partners? One has to choose between containment and cooperation. This is relevant to Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization and the Asian Development Bank and to the unwarranted continuance of the 1970s Jackson-Vanik amendment, which denies Russia permanent normal trading relations with the United States.
U.S.-Russian relations still enjoy the stabilizing benefits of a close and honest working relationship between President Putin and President Bush. Both countries and both peoples share the memory of their joint victory over fascism and their joint exit from the Cold War, which unites them in its own right. Should equal partnership prevail in U.S.-Russian relations, very little will be impossible for the two nations to achieve. The challenges are many – the struggle against international terrorism; organized crime and drug trafficking; the search for realistic climate protection; the development of nuclear energy while strengthening nonproliferation efforts; the pursuit of global energy security; and the exploration of outer space. Practical cooperation on these and other challenges should not be sacrificed on the altar of renewed containment.
At present, anti-Americanism is not as widespread in Russia as it is elsewhere. But a return to containment, and the bloc-based thinking that accompanies it, could trigger mutual alienation between Americans and Russians. The strains evident in the U.S.-Russian relationship call for a high-level working group charged with finding ways to further cooperation. The presidents of Russia and the United States support the idea of such a group, headed by the former statesmen Henry Kissinger and Yevgeny Primakov.
Both sides should demonstrate a broad-minded and unbiased vision, one that represents Russia and the United States as two branches of European civilization. Russia, the United States, and the European Union should work together to preserve the integrity of the Euro-Atlantic space in global politics. For as Jacques Delors has said, whenever this troika "is divided by differences, whenever each party plays its own game, the risk of global instability greatly increases."
So why not stand together and act in the spirit of cooperation and fair competition on the basis of shared standards and a respect for international law? At the Kennebunkport meeting in July, President Putin and President Bush demonstrated what teamwork can achieve. They agreed to look for common approaches to missile defense and strategic arms reductions, and they launched new initiatives on nuclear energy and nonproliferation. Russia and the United States have nothing to divide them; along with other partners, they share responsibility for the future of the world. It is not Russia that needs to be contained; it is those who would deprive the world of the benefits that will come from a strong U.S.-Russian partnership.



http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/8F8005F0C5CA3710C325731D0022E227

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Outside View: Russia warns West on Kosovo

Outside View: Russia warns West on Kosovo

By MARIANNA BELENKAYA
UPI Outside View Contributor

MOSCOW, July 19 (UPI) -- Russia will not support the new draft resolution on Kosovo submitted to the U.N. Security Council by Britain, France and the United States on July 16.

Moscow objects to the draft because it is still based on the plan of U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari. Since Russia holds a veto at the Security Council, this means either the resolution will have to be drafted a fourth time or a solution be found outside the framework of the United Nations.

Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin explained Moscow's position in clear and simple terms: "The draft and related documents are based on Kosovo's independence after a certain period. We cannot accept this approach. The status quo should be defined at the bilateral talks, and their results should be solemnized by the Security Council."

This position is nothing new. Russia has said more than once that it will not support any decision on Kosovo unless it suits both parties to the conflict -- not only Kosovo's Albanians but also Serbs. Belgrade is still against the draft, so Moscow's response is not surprising.

Churkin emphasized that Russia is not boycotting the Security Council's work on the draft resolution on Kosovo's future status. Rather, Moscow believes that the major points should be agreed upon first, while the details could be discussed later.

The draft co-authors are not impressed. They say they have made all possible concessions to Moscow. "This is our last attempt to consider all concerns. We can still change the draft's text but not its gist," said French Ambassador to the United Nations Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, speaking on behalf of the draft's authors.

But Moscow insists on changing the gist. What's the point of juggling with words?

This is the third draft. In working on it, the Western countries proceeded from the Ahtisaari plan, which gives Kosovo independence without considering the Serbian position. Not without pressure from Russia, one of the drafts embraced the idea of new talks between Belgrade and Pristina. But it was assumed from the start that if the talks failed to produce results in 120 days, Kosovo would automatically become independent. This assumption ran against Russia's insistence on a negotiated solution and was omitted in the latest version. But the problem is still there. To quote Ambassador Churkin, "The co-authors of the new draft have not given up a scenario which, after a certain period, would lead to Kosovo's independence without negotiated agreement between Belgrade and Pristina."

At the same time, Russia is not the only Security Council member to urge talks between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians. This fact alone shows that the Ahtisaari plan, involving Kosovar independence, is not the only answer. Moscow is convinced that this plan has failed and suggests that a new go-between should be appointed for the Kosovo talks. There is simply no other option.

Nor is Russia the only nation to reject the draft. A similar position is taken by China, which also has a veto in the Security Council. However, Western policymakers are mostly reproaching Russia for its adamant stance. Appeals, often quoted in the press, are being made to proceed with or without Russian participation.

Russia is also part of Europe, and its security depends directly on European security in general and on the Balkans in particular. Moreover, Moscow has economic interests in the Balkans and the rest of Europe. The European Union's internal policy is another matter, and Russia cannot interfere in it. But Serbia is not yet part of the EU and is obviously counting on Russia's support.

The alternative route -- trying to resolve the Kosovo problem outside the Security Council in order to avoid Moscow's veto -- would create a dangerous precedent and finally discredit this international agency. Already badly damaged by the unilateral action in Iraq, France, Britain and the United States are not likely to sacrifice the Security Council's remaining integrity to Kosovo. They are not rushing to share their privileged status as permanent, veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council with others and are still clinging to this agency despite its many shortcomings. They know that if today they do without Moscow and Beijing, tomorrow they may be left out themselves, and not just by Russia or China: There are other claimants to leadership that are rapidly growing stronger and more confident.

The authors of the new draft should think twice before making a final decision. Haste makes waste and leads to armed rather than diplomatic conflicts.

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(Marianna Belenkaya is a political commentator with RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)

--

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interest of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

http://www.upi.com/International_Intelligence/Analysis/2007/07/19/outside_view_russia_warns_west_on_kosovo/9854/

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Kosovo conundrum requires new thinking

Kosovo conundrum requires new thinking
By Jonathan Power

At last the Western powers are beginning to pull back a little on the vexed question of independence for Kosovo. They haven’t gone as far as conceding that Moscow’s arguments against independence makes a good deal of sense, but they do realise they can’t afford to ride rough shod over Russian sensibilities.

Russia is wary of giving way on the issue of a minority’s push for independence when the majority do not want it. Not only could it re-ignite the Chechnya conflict, it would set a bad precedent for the future when other of Russia’s many minorities might get the same idea in their heads.

Indeed, one should be a little surprised at the attitude of the British and the Spanish who have been on the American pro-independence side on Kosovo. One would think that with the Northern Ireland and Basque problems they would have been rather more sensitive to the Russian point of view.

Nor should we forget that when the Nato bombing of Serbia ended eight years ago after forcing the Yugoslav army to pull out of Kosovo it was with an agreement with the Serbian strongman, Slobodan Milosevic, that Nato would disarm the Kosovo liberation army and shelve its promise to the Kosovars to hold a referendum on Kosovo’s political status. (How convoluted can you get? The negotiations at Rambouillet that preceded the war were more demanding of Milosevic than the peace deal that followed it.)

But there is also another side to the story. 1999 was the sixth war during the twentieth century affecting the destiny of Kosovo. The first was in 1912. Serbia, along with Montenegro, Greece and Bulgaria, divided up the remains of the Balkan part of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. Then the Serbian army, living out the national quest, stormed into Serbia.

The second was in 1915 when the Serbs were chased out of Kosovo by the Austro-Hungarians and the Germans, with the Albanians of Kosovo taking their sweet revenge. The third was 1918 at the end of World War 1 when the Serbs swept back and, after taking their own revenge, they implanted Israeli-like Serbian settlements inside Kosovo. The fourth was 1941 when the Italians fighting on Hitler’s side captured Kosovo and incorporated it into Italian-ruled Greater Albania.

The fifth was the victory of Tito against the Nazis and the Italians in 1945, which led to the reincorporating of Kosovo into Serbia, despite a promise to allow a communist Kosovo to become part of Albania. Tito later reneged on the deal.

We clearly see that the Kosovars have been fighting Serbian hegemony for a very long time. It would make a good deal of sense today to allow the Albanian Kosovars to partition Kosovo and take their majority part into a new Greater Albania.

In return the Serbs could be pacified by allowing them to incorpororate the anomalous Srpska Republic, the autonomous Serbian part of Bosnia, into Serbia. Moreover, the UN Charter recognises “the self-determination of peoples”. But, because it implies a significant erosion of the long held principle of sovereignty, applying it and accepting it has been a divisive issue among international law scholars.

By and large, in most cases, the community of nations has worked from the opinion of the League of Nations when in 1920 it investigated the request of the Swedish-speaking inhabitants of the Aaland Islands in the Baltic to be allowed “self-determination” from Finland.

“To concede to minorities”, the League’s advisors concluded, “whether of language or religion, or to any fractions of the population, the right to withdrawal from the community to which they belong, because it is their wish or their grand pleasure, would be to destroy order and stability within states and to inaugurate anarchy in international life.”

This is why the British government supported, in the face of an outcry at home, the right of Nigeria to put down the revolt in the dissident state of Biafra in the 1960s. It is why the Big Five of the Security Council are united in accepting the territorial integrity of Iraq. And historians like to remind us that Hitler claimed with his invasion of Sudetenland that he was merely applying Wilsonian principles of self-determination for German minorities outside the Reich.

Where do we go from here? There is no easy answer. A pause to rethink is about the best solution on offer. It may however mean that the Kosovars, feeling thwarted, will return to violence. The Balkan map never made sense and it never made peace.

Russia, whilst legally in the right with its anti independence stance, has to come up with an alternative that can diffuse the violence that is bound to brew. Perhaps a deal that involves the trade off of allowing the Srpska republic to join up with Serbia would be it.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=64725

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Russia sticks to its opposition on Kosovo

Russia sticks to its opposition on Kosovo
13.07.2007 - 09:27 CET | By Lucia Kubosova
Russia has rejected the latest attempt by EU and US diplomats to outline a compromise UN resolution on the future status of Kosovo. Its move follows similar sentiments expressed in Serbia.

"The problem of a decision on the independence of Kosovo has not been taken off the agenda," Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister told journalists on Thursday (12 July), according to Reuters.


He was referring to the latest draft UN resolution unveiled this week by European and American diplomats which suggests 120 days of extra talks between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians, without an explicit call for the independence of Kosovo in case they fail to agree.

"Behind diplomatic rhetoric, there is the conclusion that after the talks... the Ahtisaari plan comes into effect," Mr Lavrov commented.

He added that he considers the time limit for further negotiations as "too little".

Moscow is concerned that the proposed shift from the UN mission to the EU-led structures would weaken its control over the dossier and could result in the de facto independence of the south Serbian province through the back door.

But EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn on Wednesday (11 July) called on Russia to accept that the EU has a key role to play in the region.

"Kosovo is a deeply European issue and Serbia must become an EU part. Neither Russia nor the USA is so directly touched with events in the Balkans like Europeans. Only Europe will have to pay for failure of the process," Mr Rehn told MEPs in Strasbourg.

"Dragging out the process of determining the status of Kosovo leads us to nowhere. It only increases the risk of instability in Kosovo, continues Serbia's agony and slows down region's movement towards the European Union, he added.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner echoed his message while visiting Belgrade on Thursday, warning Serbia that its EU ambitions depend on the peaceful resolution of the contentious Kosovo issue.

"It is not possible to enter the EU with an ethnic conflict," said Mr Kouchner.
http://euobserver.com/9/24476



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Unfinished Business in Kosovo

Unfinished Business
The status quo in Kosovo won't work. Nor will the plan being pushed by the U.N. and Washington.

By Michael Levitin

Newsweek International

July 16, 2007 issue - Just when politicians in Europe and America thought they'd finally cleaned up the mess in the Balkans, the whole package is on the verge of unraveling. Serbia's leaders, backed by Moscow, have categorically rejected a U.N. plan to grant independence to Kosovo, insisting that to forcibly redraw Serbia's borders would violate its sovereignty. The West claims Serbia forfeited that sovereignty when it crushed the Kosovar insurgency in 1998-99. This argument may appeal to human-rights advocates, but it overlooks a dangerous truth. Pushing too hard on Kosovo would nourish Serbia's legitimate sense of grievance, undermine moderates there and possibly spark a return to political extremism, even war.

Outsiders should remember just how important Kosovo—first settled by Slavs some 1,400 years ago and the home to the Serbian Orthodox Church—remains to Serbs today. As Ivan Stanojevic, a 22-year-old student at Belgrade University, puts it, to lose Kosovo now would be "like losing Serbia itself." Stripping away the province would also strike many as collective punishment. Most Serbs feel they've paid a high price for the crimes of Slobodan Milosevic, including a NATO bombardment and debilitating sanctions. The country has recently made progress arresting and extraditing major war criminals. To chastise Serbia again would strike most Serbs as profoundly unjust. "We're aware of what happened," says Stanojevic. "[But] we changed that regime. We had a revolution [in 2000] and gave a new direction to our government."

If the EU and the United States nonetheless press for "supervised" independence for Kosovo, as U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari recommended in April, it could lead to three unintended consequences. First would be political instability. Serbian politics have been fragile ever since the pro-Western Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was assassinated in 2003. The current coalition government, which includes conservatives and moderates, has pledged never to part with Kosovo and could crumble if it loses the province, says Radmila Nakarada, a researcher at the Institute for European Studies in Belgrade. Factor in the sorry state of Serbia's economy (it has 20 percent unemployment) and you get an explosive situation. The most likely outcome would be a surge in power for the ultranationalist Radical Party, undermining seven years of democratic progress.

A second unintended consequence of independence would be that Serbs, feeling humiliated and betrayed by Brussels, could turn away from the process of European integration—the region's best guarantee for future peace and prosperity. And the third consequence could be war—never a remote possibility in this part of the world. "The sense of injustice tied with social and economic problems could plant the seed for an emergence of paramilitary forces" in Serbia proper, warns Nakarada.

Then there's Russia, which is understandably nervous about separatist conflicts on its own borders and thus would never allow the division of Serbia. All this makes the United Nations' plan a nonstarter. That said, the status quo is also unsustainable. Kosovo's 1.8 million Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the province, suffered 10,000 deaths during the war; a million more were forced to flee. Kosovo's economy is in worse shape than the rest of Serbia's, with powerful mafias and nonexistent institutions. "[The Serbs] say they want to keep Kosovo part of Serbia," says Agron Murati, 31, a Kosovar civil engineer. "But in the last 10 years what did they help build here? Roads? Schools? Hospitals? Nothing."

What does all this mean for Brussels and Washington? That they must figure out some other solution, a third way between U.N. trusteeship and outright independence. Western leaders should consider models that would satisfy both sides, by giving Kosovars full autonomy but allowing Serbia to formally maintain its territorial integrity. Puerto Rico, with its unique status as a semi-independent protectorate of the United States, could prove a good example.

Any solution will take time, however. In the short term, the West must encourage Serb and Kosovar Albanian leaders to return to the table—and it must act as an objective arbiter when they do. "It is an illusion to think you can enforce independence and control the consequences," says Nakarada. The last time the West humiliated a postwar loser through draconian punishment, it ended up with Adolf Hitler and WWII. Given the Balkans' proximity to the EU and the blood already shed there, the West can't afford to let history repeat once more.

Levitin is a freelance journalist based in Berlin.

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19650858/site/newsweek/page/0/


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Kosovo and Its Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy

Kosovo and Its Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy

by Joseph E. Fallon

The struggle for Kosovo between Christian Serbs and Muslim Albanians dates
back to 1389, when the Serbs were defeated by, and their lands annexed to, the
Ottoman Empire. Muslim rule lasted over four centuries and resulted in several
waves of forced migrations of Serbs from Kosovo. The current Albanian majority
there was achieved more recently—the result of the policies of the Axis
occupation (1941-45), which included the killing of an estimated 10,000 Serbs,
the expulsion of another 100,000, and the introduction of Albanian settlers.
The de-Serbianization of Kosovo continued under Tito’s rule (1945-80), during
which the country acquired many attributes of a separate Albanian
state—borders, a flag, a capital, a supreme court, an education system that
promoted the Albanian language, a university with teachers and textbooks from
Albania, as well as cultural and sporting exchanges with Albania. In 1981,
after Tito’s death, Albanians in Kosovo demanded that the province be elevated
to a republic with the right of secession. This provoked a Serbian reaction
that facilitated the rise of Slobodan Milosevic, which, in turn, was cited by
Albanians as a justification for the activities of the Albanian Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA). A downward spiral of ethnic suspicion and strife ensued,
culminating in the Yugoslav wars.

From 1996 to 1999, the war in Kosovo was an internal conflict between the
secessionist KLA—which, at one time, was designated a terrorist organization by
the U.S. State Department—and the armed forces of the rump Yugoslavia of Serbia
and Montenegro.

Citing an alleged massacre of Albanian civilians by Serbian forces in the
village of Racak in January 1999, the U.S. government and NATO allies officially
intervened. Meeting in Rambouillet, France, that February and March, they
drafted a “peace accord,” which offered the KLA de facto independence for
Kosovo immediately, and de jure independence in three years. During that
interval, Kosovo would be administered as a NATO protectorate. The U.S.
government introduced a military annex to the accord under which NATO personnel
would be immune from all legal actions—civil, criminal, or administrative—and
NATO forces would have unfettered access to any and all parts of Yugoslavia.
And all the costs would be borne by Belgrade. Yugoslavia would have been a
virtual colony of NATO.

When Belgrade refused to sign the accord, NATO attacked. The war lasted from
March 24 to June 10, 1999. Kosovo became a U.N. protectorate (UNMIK), whose
final status—some form of independence from Serbia—would be determined in the
future. That future is now, and it is posing political and strategic problems
for the Bush administration.

U.S. foreign policy toward Kosovo, which culminated in military intervention
in 1999, was a continuation of the policy Washington had pursued in Bosnia and
Croatia in 1995. Each of the three wars contributed to a profound
transformation in U.S. foreign policy. In Washington’s eyes, the end of the
Cold War meant a transition from a bipolar world, which functioned within a set
of political, military, and legal restraints, to a unipolar one. The U.S.
government was now the world’s hyperpower, without rival or limitation. For
Washington, the Yugoslav wars provided an opportunity to demonstrate this to
the rest of the world, thereby accomplishing several key objectives.

First, Washington set out to demonize the Serbs in order to discredit and
suppress not just Serbian ethnicity but any manifestation of ethnic nationalism,
since such nationalism undermines the legitimacy of the dominant ideology of
the virtues of multiethnic states and transnational corporations.

Second, U.S. policymakers sought to dismember an inconvenient state—in this
case, one supported by Russia, thereby establishing a precedent. Later, that
precedent would be applied to the union of Serbia and Montenegro, then Serbia,
and, perhaps, even to Iran. In so doing, Washington hoped to weaken and isolate
Russia, both internationally and in Europe.

It also established another precedent, in promoting ethnic cleansing by
proxy. The Clinton administration covertly armed, trained, supported, and
advised the government of Croatia for the August 1995 military offensive known
as Operation Storm. Though it was aimed at the secessionist Republic of Serbian
Krajina, it resulted in the expulsion of an estimated 300,000 Serbs from
Croatia. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), after
ten years, the Serbs still have not been permitted to return to Croatia. The
precedent was repeated in 1999 when the Red Cross reported that the KLA had
expelled between 200,000 and 250,000 Serbs from Kosovo. It was repeated yet
again in 2001 in Afghanistan, in the wake of the U.S. invasion, when our
“ally,” the Northern Alliance, consisting mostly of ethnic Tajiks, sought to
expel a million ethnic Pash-tuns from northern Afghanistan. According to the
UNHCR, nearly 100,000 Pashtuns fled, becoming refugees either elsewhere in
Afghanistan or in Pakistan. In Iraq, both Kurdish and Shiite militias, whose
political parties are members of the national government—another ally of the
Bush administration—currently engage in ethnic cleansing. In Kirkuk, Kurds are
reversing the process of “Arabization,” while in Baghdad, Shiites are cleansing
Sunni neighborhoods.

By supporting Muslim demands for a united Bosnia and an independent Kosovo,
Washington hoped to persuade Muslims, especially in Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi
Arabia, and Turkey—all key U.S. allies—that they are wrong to regard U.S.
foreign policy toward Palestinians, Kashmiris, Moros, and Uighurs as evidence
of any hostility toward Islam on our part.

Washington also sought to encourage Muslims in Albania, Bosnia, and Kosovo
to promote a secularized, individualistic Islam, in which mosque and state are
separate, which would undermine the appeal of traditional Islam, especially in
the West.

With the Cold War ended, Washington sought to justify NATO’s continued
existence by waging war on Bosnia and Kosovo. These wars required a radical
redefinition of NATO’s mission and area of responsibility. These ad hoc
military interventions became official policy after September 11. NATO’s 2002
Prague Summit Declaration stated,

We, the Heads of State and Government of the member countries of the North
Atlantic Alliance, met today to enlarge our Alliance and further strengthen
NATO to meet the grave new threats and profound security challenges of the 21st
century . . . so that NATO can better carry out the full range of its missions
and respond collectively to those challenges, including the threat posed by
terrorism and by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their
means of delivery . . . NATO must be able to field forces that can move quickly
to wherever they are needed . . . to sustain operations over distance and time
. . . to achieve their objectives.

Thus, NATO is no longer a defensive alliance, and its sphere is no longer
restricted to Europe. This enables the U.S. government to maintain, even
increase, its Cold War level of influence in Europe and provides Washington
with a reservoir of bases and troops from NATO countries to help implement its
policy objectives as far away as Afghanistan and Iraq.

In attacking Yugoslavia, Washington also sought to test the ability of the
U.S. government to impose political settlements that advance its interests. The
more contradictory and arbitrary those settlements are—rejecting national
self-determination in Bosnia but championing it in Kosovo—the more our power is
projected.

The final status of Kosovo is to be decided by the U.N. Security Council.
Its special envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, a former president of Finland, is
reportedly recommending independence in all but name. (See www.unosek.org/unosek/index.html.)
The Serbs have rejected this plan, and, while Moscow has stated that it will
veto this recommendation unless both the Serbs and the Albanians agree to it,
Washington favors it. Such a plan, if implemented, would fail to bring peace or
justice to that region of the Balkans.

Any U.N. Security Council decision is expected to reflect “The Guiding
Principles for a Settlement of Kosovo’s Status” set out in 2005 by the United
States, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia—collectively known as the
Contact Group. Principle Six declares that “There will be no changes in the
current territory of Kosovo, i.e. no partition of Kosovo and no union of Kosovo
with any country or part of any country.”

The current proposal for Kosovo independence violates international law
while claiming to uphold it; it institutionalizes ethnic and religious
discrimination and seeks to sanction both in law, denying the Christian Serbs
of Kosovo the legal right to national self-determination, while granting and denying
that right to the Muslim Albanians of Kosovo.

If national self-determination under international law forbids the partition
of a territory, then U.N. member-states Bangladesh, Ireland, Israel, Moldova,
Pakistan, and all the successor states of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia are
illegitimate. So, too, are the western borders of U.N. member-states Lithuania,
Poland, and Russia, which were shaped by the post-World War II partition of
Germany.

The plan both allows Albanians in Kosovo the right to secede from Serbia and
denies them the right to unite with Albania. If the U.N. Security Council
insists this restriction is in accordance with international law on the right
to national self-determination, then it should also insist that the
unifications of Germany, Vietnam, and Yemen were illegal, and future
unifications of Ireland or Korea would have to be prohibited as well.
Conversely, it would have to consider the Republic of Somaliland, which seceded
from Somalia, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which seceded from
Cyprus—states the United Nations refuses to recognize—to be, in fact,
legitimate.

The plan advocates multiethnic statehood while dismembering a multiethnic
state. The push for Kosovo independence is predicated upon it being a
multiethnic state. As part of Serbia, however, it is already in one. By
championing the concept of multiethnicity, the proposal undermines not only its
own justification for Kosovo’s independence but the legitimacy of all the
successor states to the former Yugoslavia: Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia,
Montenegro, and Slovenia—none of which are as multiethnic or as multireligious
as was the former Yugoslavia.

Both Bosnia and Serbia constitute federal republics. Bosnia consists of two
entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Republika Srpska.
Serbia has two autonomous provinces: Kosovo-Metohija and Vojvodina. Both Bosnia
and Kosovo are U.N. protectorates. Yet, Muslim Kosovo is to gain independence,
while Christian Republika Srpska faces abolition and consolidation in a unitary
Bosnian state. Such a policy is nothing short of institutionalized ethnic and
religious discrimination.

The Security Council claims that Kosovo is an exception in international
law. The legal principles announced for it are deemed to have no applicability
to other disputes. This maneuver is an attempt to deny the protection of
international law to parties in three specific conflicts—Transnistria in
Moldova, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia. Such an arbitrary claim of
exceptionality undermines the moral authority of international law, making it
nothing more than a law of the jungle defined and enforced for the benefit of
the more powerful states.

A just and enduring political settlement for Kosovo requires that Bosnia be
treated in an identical manner. If Kosovo has the right to secede from Serbia,
then the Republika Srpska must have the right to secede from Bosnia.

An independent Kosovo must have the right to unite with Albania. Similarly,
an independent Republika Srpska must have the right to unite with Serbia.

To resolve the Serbian refugee crisis, there should be a population exchange
between Serbia and Montenegro, on the one hand, and Kosovo and Albania, on the
other. Serbian refugees would agree not to return to Kosovo, while the Serbs
still there would agree to relocate to Serbia. In exchange, Albanians in Serbia
and Montenegro would relocate to Kosovo and Albania. There is a legal precedent
for this in the “Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish
Populations” (1923). With the approval of the international community, it
successfully transferred over a million Greeks from Turkey to Greece and
400,000 Turks from Greece to Turkey. Other examples of successful population
transfers include those between Bulgaria and Turkey in 1913 and 1950-89;
Bulgaria and Greece in 1919; Poland and the Soviet Union in 1945; and
Czechoslovakia and Hungary in 1946.

The Bush administration favors the current proposal for Kosovo’s independence
without appreciating the problems, political and strategic, it presents to U.S.
foreign policy. Indeed, the White House is behaving as if the United States, as
the world’s hyperpower, can overcome any problems that may arise—a notion that
Afghanistan and Iraq should have dispelled.

The immediate problem is that Kosovo, perhaps more than Bosnia, has become a
haven for Islamic militants and for organized crime. Both pose direct threats
to Europe, and independence will only make it worse—for Europe and for the “War
on Terror.”

If the Security Council proposal is implemented, the secessionist regimes of
Transnistria in Moldova, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, will demand
international recognition of their independence. Such official recognition
would likely begin with Russia and then snowball. Since the Bush administration
opposed independence for these regions, this would be viewed by many, including
many Americans, as a political victory for Moscow and a political defeat for
Washington.

Next would be Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenians there will also insist on
international recognition of their independence from Azerbaijan—something that
both Turkey and Azerbaijan oppose. Armenian-Americans, however, support it, and
they constitute an influential ethnic lobbying group. The Bush administration
would be caught in the middle, and any decision would displease an important
ally.

The strategic prize, however, is the Crimea, which has been part of Russia
since 1783. With the Bolshevik Revolution, it became an autonomous republic,
then an oblast of the Russian SFSR. In 1954, jurisdiction was transferred to
the Ukrainian SSR as a symbolic gesture honoring the historic unity of the two
Slavic peoples. When the Soviet Union fell, the Crimea reluctantly agreed to
remain part of the Ukraine, but as an autonomous republic. Ethnically,
linguistically, and culturally, the Crimea is Russian. It is home to the
Russian Black Sea Fleet. If the U.N. Security Council votes on independence for
Kosovo, the government of the Crimea would likely call for a vote on Crimean
independence, which would easily pass, then demand international recognition.
This would be followed by a vote on union with Russia. And Moscow would
certainly accept the return of the Crimea to Russia.

This would be a major defeat for U.S. foreign policy. Since the Yugoslav
wars of the 90’s, Washington has assumed that Russia, because of her size,
natural resources, and nuclear weapons, has the potential to reemerge as a
rival. To prevent this, the U.S. government has pursued a policy of
containment. It supported the expansion of NATO eastward to include former
Soviet republics, in violation of promises made to Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev. The anticipated impact of NATO enlargement, however, was trumped by
Russia’s emergence as a principal supplier of oil and natural gas to Europe.
Washington used the war in Afghanistan to displace Russia from the former
Soviet Central Asian republics. After its initial success, which culminated in
Kyrgyzstan’s “Tulip Revolution,” the U.S. government has seen its influence
decline, while Russia’s has grown. In the Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution,”
Washington supported the overthrow of a pro-Russian government and its
replacement with a pro-American one. The new government soon announced its
intention to join NATO and to expel Russia’s Black Sea Fleet from the Crimea—to
humiliate Moscow and disrupt its naval operations. Then, a general election
replaced that government with another pro-Russian one. If independence for
Kosovo results in the return of the Crimea to Russia, U.S. foreign policy will
have come full circle since the Yugoslav wars. The world would no longer be
unipolar, and the U.S. government would no longer be the world’s hyperpower.

Joseph
E. Fallon writes from Rye, New York.

This article first appeared in the July 2007 issue of
Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=168

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Resurrecting Yugoslavia

Resurrecting Yugoslavia

By Julia Gorin

FrontPageMagazine.com | June 6, 2007

Western
powers led by the United States went to great lengths to abolish a
pluralistic society called Yugoslavia, encouraging its component
ethnicities to assert their identities and vie for their own little
slice of land based on those separate identities.



Yet as soon as one of those separate identities that we’ve buttressed misbehaves, suddenly we bring Yugoslavia
back from the dead. Witness the strategic and ubiquitous use of the
word “Yugoslav” in virtually every media report describing the four
Albanian suspects in the recently foiled Fort Dix plot.



When that aggressively dismantled country is needed again, say for blame-laying, then we suddenly want to keep Yugoslavia together rather than splintered into small parts. Albanians are trying to kill Americans? Dig up Yugoslavia. A Bosnian shoots 11 people in Utah? No no — we don’t want separate Balkan identities anymore; now we want the amorphous whole back.



After
diligently slicing multinational Yugoslavia up into separate ethnic
identities, now we’re embarrassed of those identities and don’t want to
identify them; now we’re suddenly interested in Serbian unity, and
envision a Greater Serbia in which we can call all the culprits Serbs,
or at least trace any and all misdeeds back to some sinister Serbian
entity.



We quite deliberately sponsored the creation of a
country for Croats; then we tried to make one for Bosnian Muslims (so
far it’s an entity composed of a Bosnian-Croat Federation, and a
Serbian Republic — but the dissolution of the non-Muslim parts is
underway); next we decided to give Kosovo Muslims their own country,
with their own flags, symbols, army and so on. But should our protégés
do something unbecoming, we want to spread the guilt around. So that
you think for at least a minute that maybe it’s the Serbs whodunit, and
by the time you figure out it wasn’t, you’ve been put through the
exercise of tracing the precipitation of the crime back to something
the Serbs may or may not have done during the perpetrators’
pre-embryonic lives.



The association with Serbia is actually more direct and intentional if you consider that, as Serbianna.com’s Mickey Bozinovich points out, Serbia is the successor state to Yugoslavia. More shameless, however, was this display from a Juan Cole,
who is president of something called the Global Americana Institute,
and who threw even the media’s sleight-of-pen subtlety to the wind,
blatantly titling his piece on the foiled plot “Dix Plot is Milosevic’s
Fault.”



That’s right: A dead guy is trying to kill Americans!



The Washington Times picked up on what was happening in an editorial titled “‘Albanian’ vs. ‘Yugoslav’”:

“Yugoslav”
is a sanitizer…Early in this story, the Albanian connection emerged in
some outlets, but “Yugoslav,” a term we associate with Slobodan
Milosevic or Josip Tito more than Islamist violence, persisted. The
connotations of “Albanian” begin with the fact that 70 percent of
Albanians are Muslim. Now, combine “Albanian” with the allegation of a
thwarted assault-rifle attack on Fort Dix…The
hypothesis: An attack by Islamist terrorists may just have been
thwarted. It has nothing to do with anti-fascist partisans or Communist
apparatchiks. Our news organizations seem now to be acting upon the
desire to avoid fueling that speculation as long as possible. We’re not
clear why, except for their biases, or perhaps their worry of offending
people…They should not engage in “perception management.”

Here
the paper takes for granted the fact that “biases” govern reporting on
Islamic terrorism, in this case Islamic terrorism from the Balkans. The
paper effectively admits to there being slanted Balkans coverage, based
on pro-Muslim biases — which actually calls into question two decades
of Balkans reporting. And yet the editors don’t intimate anything of
the sort, much less call for the begged-for reexamination of the
Balkans narrative.

 

Isn’t
it possible that the pro-Muslim bias they bemoan from today’s media was
also at work in Balkans reporting throughout the 1990s, when the story
being shoved down our collective throat was that the Serbs were
randomly pummeling Muslims?



The “perception management” that is
now so apparent is meant to keep the public confused and still
shrugging at words like “Balkans”, “Bosnia” and “Kosovo” — and thinking
that despite the terrorism which Muslims, acting alone or in concert,
are inflicting upon every corner of the world, somehow a place called
“the former Yugoslavia” exists in a vacuum and isn’t affected by global
trends. Jihad didn’t find Yugoslavia, we’re supposed to think; Yugoslavia summoned jihad-like symptoms — so it’s not exactly jihad.



Even
now, editors, reporters and politicians struggle to keep the Balkans
suspended in its own context, as if it’s some “unique” case (as our
leaders call Kosovo), immune to the trend of nationalism followed by
separatism — which we buy and then Americans die as that separatism
morphs into Islamism.



When the Fort Dix
news hit, the names Mladic and Karadzic speedily found their way into
news reports, and there was almost simultaneous coverage of, and an
unusual amount of attention paid to, the gains made by a nationalist
party in Serbia. As one Belgrade reader saw it:

You see how the media are portraying the recent election of the Parliament speaker in Serbia?
First, mention the politician, Tomislav Nikolic; then suggest that his
talk is like that of Milosevic; then remind the reader of Srebrenica
and Kosovo and the wars. By now the reader is thinking this politician
is the devil. I find it amusing that the idea of America fighting in Iraq
is nobler than the Serbs wanting to fight against secessionists for
land that’s been in their history for a thousand years. Incredible as
it would be, I have a fear that the sequel to all the Balkan wars has
started.

The
media seem to be reminding the world of the past and linking it to the
present. I fear that when the situation in Kosovo gets out of hand and
war comes, the Serbs will be painted as the bad guys again. It worked
before, and it made for great [pro-Muslim] drama. So why change the
role of the bad guy when that would only confuse audiences?

There is also the trick of using the words “terror” and “Serbia” in the same headline. Some played this game when Serbian police raided a Wahhabi terror camp in southern Serbia in March. (“Discovery of Serbia Training Camp Draws Attention to Radical Islamists” — NY Times.) Before that, initial reports about investigations into the London bombings linked the Tube terror to “eastern Europe” and “Serbia.”
The UK’s Sky News reported that the explosives used in the attacks came
from inside Bosnia, supplied by mujahedeen there (subsequently it was
discovered they came from Kosovo, and that Bosnia served as a
coordinating point). But one British police officer interviewed in that
broadcast — which was shown on Fox News and others — said the
explosives came from “Serbia.” He was talking about Kosovo which, when convenient, is remembered to be part of Serbia.



These
tactics have been effective in stunting the initial wave of public
outrage, giving it no clear direction, then allowing the facts to come
out as the outrage subsides. How long will “isolated,” “pattern-free”
cases of Balkan Muslim terror continue to be swept under the rug?



An AP headline quietly appeared this week, reading “Michigan men detained in Montenegro since September.” According to the article,

Three Michigan men have been
sitting in a prison in Montenegro for months, awaiting trial on charges
of inciting rebellion against the government there…[specifically]
planning terrorist attacks and an armed insurgency in the former
Yugoslav republic…Montenegro declared independence from Serbia, after
its citizens voted for the split by a slim margin, marking the final
breakup of what once was Yugoslavia.

The final breakup? If the media’s co-architects of
Yugoslavia’s demise believe that Montenegro is the final chapter in the
balkanization of the Balkans, which the Kosovo and Bosnia precedents
inspired, they’re in for a surprise — and we’re in for more perception
management. After Montenegro and Kosovo, we’ll be looking at Vojvodina separatism (a Hungarian-majority area of Serbia whose nationalism U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, a Hungarian-American, is stirring up). Then there’s southern Serbia,
which is a Wahhabi/terror nest that seeks to join with Kosovo. Next,
there are the Albanians who are looking, with unofficial material
support from the U.S., to get a piece of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Then it’s back to Montenegro, which has separatists within its borders.



No,
the final breakup of Yugoslavia will take place in Greece, Romania,
Azerbaijan, Quebec, Southern California, Texas, Arizona, Galilee,
Basque, the Thai south, Michigan, and every other place on the globe that has a significant ethnic minority concentrated in a province or state.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=28630

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The Real Solution For Kosovo

The Real Solution For
Kosovo

by Aleksandar Jokic

Current Discourse on Kosovo

(Swans - June 4, 2007)  
Suddenly, the urgency to settle Kosovo's political status in the form of
"supervised independence" is on the US imperial agenda. If one is to
believe US officials who have been closely associated for a long time with US
policy regarding Kosovo (the real name of this Serbian province is Kosovo and
Metohija), such as Nicholas Burns, the US is taking a "regional
approach" to this problem. Says Burns: "The
Balkans region will not be stable, however, as long as Kosovo remains in a
state of political suspended animation." Alas, words are cheap, and
actions by the sole superpower clearly demonstrate that it is its interest and
not "regional stability" that is the sole guiding principle. In fact,
all principles, including the letter and spirit of international law, will be
sacrificed in the name of those interests. Kosovo is still the best example of
this, which by now should be an uncontroversial statement.

After years of neglect following the US-led NATO aggression
against Yugoslavia in 1999 (the operation was called "Merciful
Angel") and merely a year of "negotiations" between
representatives of the Serbian government and an Albanian delegation from
Kosovo, it was announced that the time had come for an imposed
"solution" and that "no
more negotiations" on the status of Kosovo could take place between
those directly involved. One may wonder why such a sudden rush to grant
independence to Kosovo, despite Serbia's opposition to giving up 15% of its
territory and Russia's consistent position that any solution must be acceptable
to both sides, thus virtually guaranteeing a Russian veto of any UN resolution
granting Kosovo independence? And why continue to insist, in this context, as
US officials do that "supervised independence" (whatever that might
be) "is now the only
way forward"? It is hard to see how this stubborn insistence on Kosovo
independence could be reconciled with any concern for "regional
stability."

No wonder then that we have witnessed an intense campaign to
"explain" why independence for Kosovo is good, indeed the "only
way forward," or attempts to induce Serbia to agree to this "solution"
preferred in the West. These efforts range from tedious to grotesque.

Thus, disturbed by the prospect of Russia exercising its veto
right at the UN against any imposed "resolution" between Serbia and
its province of Kosovo and Metohia, Olli Rehn, EU Enlargement Commissioner,
asks "While
Russia generally condemns unilateralism, why does it yet threaten to use the
veto in the UN Security Council -- the ultimate unilateral act?" Contrary
to this gratuitous definition, the exercise of veto power is not the
ultimate unilateral act, but it might more accurately be defined as the
unilateral threat or use of force (also known as aggression) in international
relations. It is hardly a contradiction (worth mentioning, much less a valid
"argument") that Russia would condemn unilateralism whilst exercising
its veto rights. Just as an individual can condemn unilateralism while
exercising voting rights without fear of specious and misguided suggestions
that one is ipso facto hypocritical.

Others, in the best tradition of car salesmen, are intent to
opening the eyes of Serbian officials to a good deal they are being offered.
For example, Carl Bilt, Swedish Foreign Minister, while on state visit to
Japan, stated that "the EU would take a more positive attitude to
accepting Serbia as a prospective [EU] member state if the country warmed
toward an independent Kosovo." But who would buy this? No other state had
to give up territory for dubious membership in EU that is, unlike Serbia,
incapable of even agreeing on its own constitution. Furthermore, a Euro-skeptic
could try to clarify things for Bilt in this way:

As the smart French General Charles de Gaulle clearly
recognized, EU remains an incoherent idea as long as the UK is part of it, as a
Trojan horse for US imperialism, hence Sweden should abolish all its European
ties and join the energy rich regional Eurasian alliance of Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO). However, Sweden can do this -- "and simply
as a prospect" -- if the country warmed toward an independent
Vasternorrlands to be administered by SCO right away as of now. Do you get the
picture?

Similarly, in his op-ed on the status of Kosovo Joschka Fischer
tries to sell the Serbs the idea that essentially Serbia should swap
Kosovo for potential membership in EU because "Serbia
has a bright future with the EU, but getting there requires that it break with
its own past -- on [...] Kosovo [...]." Certainly, the invitation to
"break with a past" (coming from Germany) could appear to have merit,
but again the Bilt point could be made in its German variation: "Germany
should abolish all its European ties and join the energy rich regional Eurasian
alliance of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). However, Germany can do
this -- in prospect only -- if the country warmed toward an independent Bavaria
which is to be administered by SCO right away as of now. Additionally, this
might help Deutschland break further with its own past and obtain a bright
SCO-future, full of affordable energy."

To show that pronouncements by academics can be more dismal than
those by politicians we can look at an example of a Fulbright Scholar's wisdom
on Kosovo acquired by merely spending a few months there. Timothy Kenny offers
the ultimate argument in favor of Kosovo independence by crying: "If
anyone deserves independence, it's long-suffering Kosovo." The merit
of a call such as this one can easily be demonstrated by juxtaposing it to for
example this one: "If anyone deserves reparations, it's long suffering
African Americans." Yet, Kenny continues his appeal: "after being
victimized in the past of four Balkan wars...action on the issue appears at
hand." And again, one may wonder isn't the following a more noble concern
for him: After being victimized for centuries and actual genocide
being committed against them the surviving Native Americans require action to
secure independent and sovereign states for the First Nations in North America?
Then comes the knockout argument that "Serbia has started one regional war
too many to be rewarded with keeping Kosovo." How sound this thinking is
can be realized by considering whether it isn't the case that the US had
started one major war too many in Iraq so that it cannot be rewarded by keeping
the federation intact? Should not the 50 states go their merry way away from
this shameful, aggressive federation?

Armed with dismal reasoning of this sort in support of the
independence "solution" it is small wonder that its proponents resort
to statements of inevitability, repeating them ad nauseam. Kenny is no
exception: "An independent Kosovo working with the European Union and NATO
is inevitable." But, we are back to mere words, and perhaps something much
more serious: If it were true that independence of Kosovo is inevitable --
"the only way forward" -- why the need to say this so often? Is it in
the hope that saying it makes it so? If so, that is a sign of serious
personality disorder or worse: the DSM V contains several references to
disorders and diseases which have as a characteristic the patient's delusional
belief that mere words create reality à la biblical: "in the beginning
there was logos."

The Solution

Instead of dwelling on the "inevitable" let us consider
what would be the result of an approach honestly concerned with regional
stability. The obvious and inexpensive solution is to partition Kosovo between
Serbs and Albanians by the process in which Serbia would exercise expulsive
secession. The Serbian part of Kosovo would then become a part of Serbia proper
while the Albanian part would become independent. Albanians have made it
abundantly clear that they want nothing short of full independence. If
possible, this genuine desire ought to be satisfied at least to a degree. Some
give and take would be necessary, however, but partition is the only natural
way to go. What would it take to accomplish this?

First, the myth that Serbs would not find this option palatable
must be rejected. In fact many Serbs, including members of the Serbian Academy
of Sciences and Arts (SANU), and in particular the former President of
Yugoslavia, the novelist Dobrica Cosic, have long advocated this sort of
solution. Back in 1996 SANU President Despic in a newspaper interview
recommended partition. What exactly it should amount to is another matter, but
it is a feasible step for both Serbs and Albanians.

In fact, convincing Serbs that a specific partition is good will
seem less of a problem than divorcing the Kosovo issue from the Republika
Srpska issue. And this is where the key policy may lead to a happy return of
foreign servicemen and women (including Americans) from both Kosovo and Bosnia.
A carefully crafted package of financial incentives and policy of compensating
the Serbs' loss of territory in Kosovo with empowering Republika Srpska to join
Serbia would provide a long term security and stability solution for the puzzle
that the Balkans have presented until recently. If it were objected that the
borders of a new country would be meandering unreasonably given the size of
Republika Srpska the obvious answer is: Croatia is already that way! (In order
to get to Molunat from Ilok a full circle must be traveled.) This proposal
would have to be further fine tuned, such as offering a provision that the UN
guarantees that the Orthodox sites that remain in Albanian dominated Kosovo
would enjoy protection from destruction and access secured to all Serbian
pilgrims, etc.

The policy of partitioning Kosovo along with the unification of
Republika Srpska with Serbia offers long term security and stability for the
region. Also, it is no less natural an outcome than the unification of Germany,
for example. Once NATO and EU troops pull out of Bosnia, Serbs in Republika
Srpska will be safe from possible attack coming from the Muslim and Croatian
Federation as the strength of the Serbian Army will function as a decisive
deterrent. On the other hand the Muslim and Croatian side would have nothing to
fear from a democratic government in Belgrade. Similarly, after partition of
Kosovo, KFOR can pull out without worry of a renewed full-scale war between
Serbs and Albanians there. A small contingent of NATO troops (preferably
Americans, because of their credibility) would have to maintain a long-term
presence in Macedonia to prevent a conflict erupting in the western part of the
country where Albanians have a majority similar to the Kosovo situation.
Albanians there might be tempted to repeat a Kosovo style uprising. American
troops in Macedonia would guard against this, further contributing to the
long-term security of the Balkans. The cost would, however, be an insignificant
fraction of the current costs of maintaining both the Bosnia and Kosovo
missions (currently surpassing $3.5 billion annually).

This entire enterprise is likely to provoke fierce resistance only
from one side: the ethnic Muslims in Bosnia. However, American diplomats should
have no serious problem convincing them to go along, as Muslims have enjoyed
American protection and favors from the beginning of the Yugoslav crisis. While
Croats were supported by Germany and Serbs supposedly by Russia, Muslims in
Bosnia were the side the US chose to favor. Perhaps the honor of carrying out
the implementation of this comprehensive and long-term security solution could
fall on the son of the president who got the US involved in the Yugoslav mess
in the first place.

http://www.swans.com/library/art13/ajokic03.html

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Mark Mackinnon's New Cold War

Published in The Dominion (http://www.dominionpaper.ca)

May 31 2007 - 1:48pm

Mark Mackinnon's New Cold War

Canada, the US and democracy promotion in the former Soviet republics

by Dru Oja Jay

Mark
Mackinnon's new book opens with a tale of two large buildings blown up
by terrorists. The president, until then an unremarkable leader with
deep ties to the country's secretive intelligence agency, seizes on the
tragedy by launching a war against the terrorists. Suddenly popular for
his decisive strikes, the president sends troops to a small Muslim
country that had been occupied, then abandoned by previous
administrations. He uses the urgency of war as a pretext for
consolidating power, naming his lackeys to key positions. The
"oligarchs" of the country, Mackinnon writes, proceeded to set up a
system of "managed democracy," where the illusion of choice and a
popular longing for stability cover up the fact that fundamental
decisions are made in an undemocratic fashion and power remains
concentrated in the hands of the few.

Mackinnon, who is currently the Middle East bureau chief for the Globe and Mail,
is of course talking about Russia, and its president, ex-KGB agent
Vladimir Putin--though if Mackinnon notices parallels with another
country, he doesn't say so. The Muslim country is Chechnya and the
terrorist attacks were against two apartment buildings in the town of
Ryazan, 200km southeast of Moscow. Questions were raised about KGB
involvement.

Mackinnon's book is The New Cold War: Revolutions, Rigged Elections and Pipeline Politics in the Former Soviet Union.

Almost without exception, Canadian reporters find it a lot easier to
cut through PR spin and official lies when they're covering foreign
governments--especially when those governments are seen as rivals of
Canada or its close partner, the US. But when the subject is closer to
home, their critical acumen suddenly wilts.

Mackinnon suffers from this common affliction less than most
reporters. One gets the sense that it's a conscious choice, but still a
tentative one.

Over the last seven years, the US State Department, the Soros
Foundation and several partner organizations have orchestrated a series
of "democratic revolutions" in eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union. And, during those years, each "revolution," whether attempted or
successful, has been portrayed by journalists as a spontaneous uprising
of freedom-loving citizens receiving inspiration and moral support from
their brothers and sisters in the West.

Evidence that this support also involved hundreds of millions of
dollars, meddling with choices of candidates and changes to foreign and
domestic policies has been widely available. And yet, for the last
seven years, this information has been almost entirely suppressed.

Perhaps the most glaring evidence of suppression came when the
Associated Press (AP) ran a story on December 11, 2004--at the height
of the "Orange Revolution"--noting that the Bush Administration had
given $65 million to political groups in Ukraine, though none of it
went "directly" to political parties. It was "funneled," the report
said, through other groups. Many media outlets in Canada--notably the Globe and Mail
and the CBC--rely on the AP, but none ran the story. On the same day,
CBC.ca published four other stories from the AP about Ukraine's
political upheaval, but did not see fit to include the one that tepidly
investigated US funding.

Similarly, books by William Robinson, Eva Golinger and others have
exposed US funding of political parties abroad, but have not been
discussed by the corporate press.

Canada's role went unreported until two and a half years later, when--coinciding with the release of The New Cold War--the Globe and Mail
finally saw fit to publish an account, written by Mackinnon. The
Canadian embassy, Mackinnon reported, "spent a half-million dollars
promoting 'fair elections' in a country that shares no border with
Canada and is a negligible trading partner." Canadian funding of
election observers had been reported before, but the fact that the
money had been only a part of an orchestrated attempt to influence
elections had not.

For reasons that remain obscure, the editors of the Globe
decided, after seven years of silence, to allow Mackinnon to tell the
public about what Western money has been up to in the former Soviet
Union. Perhaps they were influenced by Mackinnon's choice to write a
book about the topic; perhaps it was decided that it was time to let
the cat out of the bag.

Western-funded groups led the "Orange Revolution" in the Ukraine. cc 2.0 Photo: Sarita Ladios

It's
a fascinating account. Mackinnon starts in Serbia in 2000, where the
West, after funding opposition groups and "independent media" that
provided a constant stream of coverage critical of the government--as
well as dropping 20,000 tonnes of bombs on the country--finally
succeeded in toppling the last stubborn holdout against neoliberalism
in Europe.

Mackinnon describes in detail how Western funding--an effort
spearheaded by billionaire George Soros--flowed to four principle
areas: Otpor (Serbian for 'resistance'), a student-heavy youth movement
that used grafitti, street theatre and non-violent demonstrations to
channel negative political sentiments against the Milosevic government;
CeSID, a group of election monitors that existed to "catch Milosevic in
the act if he ever again tried to manipulate the results of an
election"; B92, a radio station that provided a steady supply of
anti-regime news and the edgy rock stylings of Nirvana and the Clash;
and assorted NGOs were given funding to raise "issues"--which Mackinnon
calls "the problems with the power-that-is, as defined by the groups'
Western sponsors." The Canadian embassy in Belgrade, he notes, was a
venue for many donor meetings.

Finally, disparate opposition parties had to be united. This was
facilitated by then-US Secretary of State Madeline Albright and German
Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who told opposition leaders not to
run, but to join a "democratic coalition" with the relatively unknown
lawyer Vojislav Kostunica as the sole opposition candidate for the
presidency. The Western-funded opposition leaders, who didn't have a
lot of say in the matter, agreed.

It worked. Kostunica won the vote, the election monitors quickly
announced their version of the results, which were broadcast via B92
and other Western-sponsored media outlets, and tens of thousands poured
into the streets to protest Milosevic's attempted vote-rigging in a
demonstration led by the pseudo-anarchist group Otpor. Milosevic,
having lost his "pillars of support" in the courts, police and
bureaucracy, resigned soon after. "Seven months later," Mackinnon
writes, "Slobodan Milosevic would be in The Hague."

The Serbian "revolution" became the model: fund "independent media,"
NGOs and election observers; force the opposition to unite around one
selected candidate; and fund and train a spray-paint-wielding,
freedom-loving group of angry students united by no program other than
opposition to the regime. The model was used successfully in Georgia
("the Rose Revolution"), Ukraine ("the Orange Revolution") and
unsuccessfully in Belarus, where denim was the preferred symbol. The New Cold War
has chapters for each of these, and Mackinnon delves deep into the
details of the funding arrangements and political coalitions built with
Western support.

Mackinnon seems to harbour few illusions about the US exercise of
power. His overall thesis is that, in the former Soviet Union, the US
has used "democratic revolutions" to further its geopolitical
interests; control of oil supply and pipelines, and the isolation of
Russia, its main competitor in the region. He notes that in many
cases--Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, for example--repressive regimes
receive the hearty support of the US, while only Russian-allied
governments are singled out for the democracy promotion treatment.

And while Mackinnon may be too polite to mention it, his account
significantly contradicts the reporting regularly vetted by his editors
and written by his colleagues. Milosevic, for example, is not the
"Butcher of the Balkans" of Western media lore. Serbia was "not the
outright dictatorship it was often portrayed in the Western media to
be," Mackinnon writes. "In fact, it was more like an early version of
the 'managed democracy' [of Putin's Russia]." He is frank about the
effects of the bombing and sanctions on Serbia, which were devastating.

But in other ways, Mackinnon swallows the propaganda whole. He
repeats the official NATO line on Kosovo, for example, neglecting to
note that the US and others were funding drug-dealing autocratic
militias like the Kosovo Liberation Army, the subject of many
misleading, laudatory reports by Mackinnon's colleagues circa 2000.

More fundamentally, Mackinnon ignores the West's central role in the
destabilization of Yugoslavia after its government balked at further
implementation of IMF reforms that were already causing misery.
Mackinnon experiences and discusses the phenomenon of
destabilization-by-privatization in most of the countries he covers,
but seems unable to trace it back to its common source, or see it as
principle of US and European foreign policy.

Former Russian Politburo operative Alexander Yakovlev tells
Mackinnon that Russia's politicians had "pushed the economic reforms
too far, too fast" creating "a criminalized economy and state where
residents came to equate terms like 'liberal' and 'democracy' with
corruption, poverty and helplessness."

In one of the more dramatic moments in the book, the 82-year-old
Yakovlev takes responsibility, saying: "We must confess that what is
now going on is not the fault of those who are doing it... It's us who
are guilty. We made some very serious errors."

In Mackinnon's world, the rapid dismantling and privatization of the
state-run economy--which left millions in poverty and despair--is an
explanation for the Russian and Belarussian peoples' love affair with
strongman presidents who curb liberties, marginalize opposition,
control the media and maintain stabilnost, stability. But
somehow, the ideology behind the IMF-driven devastation doesn't make it
into Mackinnon's analysis of the motivations behind "New Cold War."

Mackinnon notices the most literal US interests: oil and the
Americans' fight for regional influence with Russia. But what escapes
his account is the broader intolerance for governments that assert
their independence and maintain the ability to direct their own
economic development.

Energy and pipeline politics are a plausible explanation for the
US's interest in the southern former Soviet republics. He might have
added that the US used Georgia as a staging ground during the Iraq war.
When it comes to Serbia, Mackinnon is forced to rely on an implausible
account of NATO carrying out a moral mission to prevent genocide. The
claim no longer makes any sense, given available evidence, but remains
prevalent in the Western press.

Mackinnon mentions Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela in passing. In all of
these places, attempts have been made to overthrow the governments. In
Venezuela, a US-backed military coup was quickly overturned. In Haiti,
a Canadian- and US-led coup resulted in a human rights catastrophe that
is ongoing and recent elections confirmed that the party that was
deposed remained more popular than the alternative presented by the
economic elite. In Cuba, attempts to overthrow the government have been
thwarted for half a century.

To explain these additional, more violent attempts at "regime
change," it is not enough to cite the literal interests. Venezuela has
considerable oil, but Cuba's natural resources do not make it a major
strategic asset, and, by this standard, Haiti even less so. To explain
why the US government provided millions of dollars to political
parties, NGOs and opposition groups in these countries requires an
understanding of neoliberal ideology and its origins in the Cold War
and beyond.

This much would be evident if Mackinnon added some much-needed
historical context to his account of modern-day methods of regime
change. In his book Killing Hope, William Blum documents
over 50 US interventions in foreign governments since 1945. History has
shown these to be overwhelmingly anti-democratic, if not outright
catastrophic. Even mild social-democratic reforms of government in tiny
countries were overwhelmed by military attacks.

If true democracy involves self-determination--and at least the
theoretical ability to refuse the dictates of the "Washington
Consensus" or the IMF--then any evaluation of democracy promotion as
the tool of US foreign policy has to reckon with this history.
Mackinnon's account does not and remains almost resolutely ahistorical.

The last chapter of The New Cold War, entitled
"Afterglow," is dedicated to evaluating the ultimate effects of
democracy promotion in the former Soviet republics. It is Mackinnon's
weakest chapter. Mackinnon limits himself to asking whether things are
better now than before. The frame of the question lowers expectations
and severely stunts the democratic imagination.

If one sets aside these considerations, then it is still possible
for curiosity to get the better of the reader. Is it possible that good
things can come even from cynical motivations? Liberal writers like
Michael Ignatieff and Christopher Hitchens made similar arguments in
support of the Iraq war and Mackinnon flirts with the idea when he
wonders whether young activists in Serbia and Ukraine were using the
US, or whether the US was using them.

So, did things get better? The information Mackinnon presents in his answer is extremely vague.

In Serbia, he says, life is much better. The revolution hasn't
brought too many benefits to the daily lives of Serbs, a cab driver
tells Mackinnon. However, he writes, "The era of gasoline shortages and
of young men being sent off to fight for a 'Greater Serbia' was long
past and the late-night laughter and music that spilled out of
Belgrade's packed restaurants spoke to an optimism unheard of under the
old regime."

In this and many other cases, Mackinnon buys a well-diffused
propaganda line without looking at the facts. Straying from the
meticulous detail he brings to his reporting of the ins and outs of
democracy promotion, Mackinnon seems to believe that it was a
diabolical scheme by Milosevic--and not economic sanctions or bombing
and subsequent destruction of the bulk of Serbia's state-owned
industrial infrastructure--that led to gasoline shortages. Mackinnon
admonishes Serbs to face up to their role in the war, while letting
NATO's bombing campaign, which left tonnes of depleted uranium, flooded
the Danube with hundreds of tonnes of toxic chemicals, and incinerated
80,000 tonnes of crude oil (thus the gasoline shortages), off the hook.

In Georgia, Mackinnon again relies on nightlife in the capital city
as an indicator of the country's democratic well-being. "The city
bubbled with a sense that things were starting to move in the right
direction...swish Japanese restaurants, Irish pubs and French wine bars
were popping up on seemingly every corner." The leisure activities of
the economic elite are just that; there are many ways to judge the
well-being of a country, but to rely on the sights and sounds of
well-heeled city dwellers enjoying themselves to the exclusion of other
criteria is peculiar.

Mackinnon remarks in passing that the Western-backed regime of
Saakashvili has resulted in "declining freedom of the press," but has
"boosted the economy."

In Ukraine, "newspapers and television stations could and did
criticize or caricature whomever they wanted," but the Western-backed
free market ideologue Yuschenko made a series of blunders and unpopular
moves, resulting in major electoral setbacks for his party a few years
after the "revolution" that brought them to power.

Strangely, Mackinnon's sources--other than the odd cab driver--seem
to consist entirely of the people receiving funding from the West.
Independent critics, apart from aging and deposed former politicians,
are virtually nonexistent in his reporting.

Still, the question: did the West do good? In the final pages, Mackinnon is equivocal and even indecisive.

Some countries are "freer and thus better," but the Western funding
has made it more likely for repressive regimes to crack down on
would-be democratizing forces. In Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and
Azerbaijan, he is critical of the lack of funds for democratic
promotion, leaving local NGOs and opposition groups hanging. He
attributes this inconsistency to arrangements where American needs are
better served by repressive regimes. In other parts of the chapter, he
finds democracy promotion as a whole to be problematic.

At one point, he comments that "the help that [US agencies] gave to
political parties in countries like Ukraine would have been illegal had
a Ukrainian NGO been giving such aid to the Democrats or Republicans."
One also imagines that Canadians would not be impressed if Venezuela,
for example, gave millions of dollars to the NDP. Indeed, the prospect
seems as ridiculous as it is unlikely...and illegal.

Mackinnon's information suggests, though he does not say it
outright, that associating the idea of "democracy" and its attendant
freedoms with Western funding and US-led meddling in the governance of
countries is likely to undermine legitimate grassroots efforts at
democratization. For example, dissidents in Russia tell Mackinnon that
when they gather to demonstrate, people often look at them spitefully
and ask who is paying them to stand in the street. In one case,
Mackinnon points out that a report from an authoritarian government
claiming that dissidents are pawns of the West is dead-on.

Mackinnon's assessment does not follow this evidence to its
conclusion; he doesn't stray from the view that alignment with either
the US or Russia are the only options for countries in the region.

While alignment with one empire or another may seem to be
inevitable, Mackinnon's implicit Russia-or-US manicheanism obviates
other ways of promoting democracy. Mackinnon ignores, for example, a
decades-long tradition of grassroots solidarity with democratic forces
in countries--predominantly in Latin America--where dictators were
often financially backed and armed by the US government. Such movements
were usually limited to curbing excessive repression rather than
sponsoring democratic revolutions, but this lack of power can be
attributed, at least in part, to the lack of media coverage from
mainstream journalists like Mackinnon.

If one is concerned with democratic decision-making, then surely one
is also concerned with the ability of countries to make decisions
independently of the meddling of foreign powers. Mackinnon also does
not address how such independence might be brought about. One can
speculate that it would involve preventing the aforementioned meddling.

The New Cold War is notable for its thorough account of
the internal workings of democracy promotion and the point of view of
those receiving the funding. Those looking for an analysis that bring
such a thorough accounting to its actual aims and effects, however,
will have to look elsewhere.

---

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