Kosovo Death Toll: Grossly Inflated

Kosovo
Death Toll: Grossly Inflated

Many times over the past eight years have I been asked about the actual number
of people killed in Kosovo during the NATO campaign of helping the terrorist
KLA's separatist agenda. Back in 1999, U.S. officials bandied about numbers
exceeding 100,000 and when pressed to provide evidence gleefully repeated
rumors of Serb crematoria and corpse-choked mines.



After NATO occupation forces entered the province in June, however, the alleged
genocide proved ephemeral. Just over 2,000 bodies were found, belonging to
Albanians as well as Serbs, Roma, and others who lived in Kosovo, killed by
NATO bombs, KLA terrorism, and yes, Yugoslav police and military. The total
number of bodies found was 2,788, including both Serbs and Albanians (several
mass graves were in fact those of Serbs massacred by the KLA). The
International Red Cross is listing another 2,047 persons as still missing,
"including approximately 500 Serbs, 1,300 Albanians and 200 members of
other ethnic groups."



This is a far cry from "an estimated 10,000 people, mostly ethnic
Albanians," which is used in every report about the occupied
province, including and especially those dealing with the constant KLA terror
against the remaining Serbs and other non-Albanians. The repetition is meant to
provide a justification for NATO intervention, but it also tends to bolster the
bogus case for independence claimed by the Albanian separatists. Little wonder,
then, that all the mainstream media keep repeating the 10,000 mantra.



Last week, however, a U.S.-based intelligence publication Defense &
Foreign Affairs,analyzed
the Kosovo death toll fraud, and showed conclusively that the figure of
10,000 Albanians has been a fabrication all along.



Every man, woman and child the U.S. forces kill in Iraq is transformed into an
"insurgent" by the magic of propaganda. That same propaganda turned
every KLA terrorist the Yugoslav forces killed - in battles raging for a year
before NATO bombers took the KLA side - into an innocent civilian, then
multiplied that number by three, five, ten, a hundred. The same thing was done
in Bosnia.



In both cases, numbers are meant to override reality. Iraqi body counts are
supposed to provide a metric of
"progress", covering up the reality of failure. In Bosnia, and
later in Kosovo, numbers were meant to provoke outrage, anger and shock,
blocking out rational thought and providing cover for aggression, occupation,
and support of unsavory client regimes. The greater the deception, the bigger
lie it required. Under the umbrella of those lies, the "democratic"
authorities in Croatia accomplished what their Nazi predecessors could not,
ethnically cleansing most Serbs; Alija Izetbegovic achieved his dream of
forcing the Muslims of Bosnia back into Islam, this time of the Saudi variety;
and the Albanians of Kosovo have at least temporarily restored the
"Greater Albania"of WW2, and set upon eradicating every trace of Serb
presence in the land.



Trouble is, what would have been possible a century or half a century ago -
because who could find out the truth, safely locked away in classified
archives? - is not so possible now. The lies are getting exposed after a few
short years. Sure, a lot of the damage has already been done, and not all of it
can be reversed. But the time between the lie and its exposure has shortened
exponentially. And once exposed, it is just a matter of time and willpower before
the edifice built on the lies is torn down. And maybe next time - for, given
the human worship of violence, there will be a next time - lies won't be
so easily believed in the first place.

http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2007/09/kosovo-death-toll-grossly-inflated.html

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How It Works In Kosovo

How It Works In Kosovo

by Julia
Gorin [pundit/comedian] 9/6/07

Chris Deliso’s book The Coming Balkan Caliphate describes the ordeal of former OSCE official and Kosovo whistle-blower Tom Gambill
as he tried to sound the warning about terror groups operating in the
Balkans. In the process, Deliso sheds light on the difference between
the type of soldier my erstwhile KFOR source is and the types of military hacks who muzzled him are:

[Gambill]
knew from police reports and photos that the group [Revival of Islamic
Heritage Society] was active in the central Kosovo village of Malisevo
and was presumed to be dangerous. The security officer made a point of
bringing it up at security meetings and in written correspondence with
the U.S. Department of State throughout 2003. However, he ran up
against a brick wall. “I had this info [about the charities] all the
way back in 2001,” says Gambill. “But the State Department didn’t want
to hear about it.” He recalls:

“I brought it up at every meeting I went to that included [the U.S.] military, but nada.
Many of the American KFOR guys were there for their six months — you
know, get the ribbon, do a few good deeds, and go home. And those who
confided in me didn’t want to rock the boat with their superiors…the
thinking was, ‘hey, we’re here for only six months — let’s get the job
done as assigned and get home.’

Contributor Julia Gorin Pundit, comedian and opinionist Julia Gorin is proprietor of www.JuliaGorin.com and is a contributing editor to www.JewishWorldReview.com..[go to Gorin index] See Julia on the web at:

Cases
such as that of the RIHS attracted attention, says Gambill, from a
handful of “motivated” American security officials….However, he says,
“they were held back in some cases by orders from those higher up in
the pecking order. This was much to the disappointment of the lower
echelons — lieutenants, captains, some majors…the same thing with the
CivPol [UN Police].” When Gambill presented photographic evidence of
the RIHS presence in Kosovo, and waved the UN decree outlawing the
group, the FBI representative at the time was “somewhat peeved.” Later,
he claims, “I was verbally attacked via e-mail by an American major…He
said that I was not qualified to make comments, and that neither my
information nor comments were accurate…After forwarding his comments to
my point of contact on the American base, he (another major) was taken
back at this kind of behavior.”

…
Yet most
who dismissed Gambill’s concerns, he contends, only claimed to be
experts — though they visited Kosovo once or twice a year:

“The
ones who did not believe my reports were many internationals who argued
that these things [Wahhabi penetration, etc.] didn’t occur in Bosnia,
and that therefore the Islamic fundamentalists were not a threat. They
claimed that there were no organized efforts on the part of the Islamic
fundamentalists and that the [Albanian] rebel groups causing trouble
were not a significant concern. That line came from many of the U.S.
military commanders who came through the region once every six months.
There was no continuity in the passing of intelligence from one unit to
another — ever.”

These
realities have been only too evident throughout the Bosnian and Kosovo
peacekeeping missions, where arrogant, careerist diplomats and military
men claim to know the situation on the ground better than do those
working there. Yet these were the people shaping policy — by listening
to the underlings who said what they wanted to hear and ignoring those
who, like Gambill, had a less flattering story to tell about the
aftereffects of the Western intervention.

Quietly,
however, some of the whistle-blower’s colleagues were thanking him for
his contributions: “In several meetings of the combined group (U.S.
military, UN, and CivPol), just as many commended me for the
information that I brought to the table,” he recalls. “I was told that
my sources and reports were 90 percent accurate and were appreciated.
In one case, a commander came to me after a meeting and commended me on
my participation in all his meetings and gave me a unit coin for my
contributions. It was done quietly, of course.”

…

The chronic changeover of civil and military staff meant that whereas
the locals had learned early on how to understand and manipulate the
internationals, the latter were always starting from square one… “The
UN didn’t really understand what was going on — and they didn’t want to
know,” he charges, citing cases such as higher-ups’ apparent
disinterest in investigating six Albanian-American radicals with stated
foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. “There was no continuity of mission,
or pass-on intel.” The endless stream of fresh-faced, ignorant
personnel posed no threat to Kosovo’s powerful criminals and
extremists. Peacekeeping in Kosovo became a thankless and truly
Sisyphysian labor.

But it actually gets more sinister than a Sisyphysian labor, as Deliso continues:

One American special police investigator recalls how, in early 2006,
several wanted men — North African Islamists — with passports from a
Western European country were sheltered in a Kosovo apartment belonging
to local Islamic fundamentalists. “A police buddy and I staked out this
building, and interviewed some people,” he said. “We had photos and
good information that showed these guys should be dealt with. You think
anyone [in UNMIK] cared? No chance. Why do you think I’m leaving?”

Further, the officer charged that the Kosovo Albanian government leaders — the same ones that, according to Jane’s
[Intelligence Review], are supplying the United States with
“intelligence” on Islamic extremists in the province — have blocked
investigations and staffed the civil administration with the often
underqualified friends and relatives of known Islamists. “The Kosovo
Department of Justice won’t act on [counterterrorist information],
because the people inside the institution are from the ‘other side.’
It’s very frustrating — and a very dangerous thing for the future.”
Michael Harrison [UNMIK Field Coordinator for Protection of Minorities]
refers to another case later in 2006, in which an undercover
investigator from a Central European country posed as a mafia figure
interested in buying rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) from an Albanian
Islamist. “No one cared. No one [in UNMIK] gives a shit. We have
terrorists here, and the Wahhabis coming in from everywhere. Instead of
doing something about it, you have the Germans donating 30 tons of
weapons for Kosovo’s future army, the TMK, now in storage.” Tom Gambill
added in the fall of 2006 that a NATO internal map from 2003 listing
some 17 illegal paramilitary and terrorist training camps was “still
currently valid, to the best of my knowledge.”

There
are jihadists even among the multinational peacekeeping force in
Kosovo, who are there to keep an eye on the internationals more than on
the locals, as witnessable from the April 2004 incident (just a month
after the orchestrated riots and attacks on churches in Kosovo) in
which a Jordanian CivPol officer opened fire on American ones, killing
two female American peacekeepers and leaving 10 others injured — a
story that disappeared from the news almost sooner than it appeared.
I recently heard from a KFOR criminal intel analyst who helped load the
women’s bodies onto helicopters. Apparently, the State Department
suppressed information that the Jordanian peacekeeper had Hamas and
Hezbollah literature in his dorm; as well, the source reports that
“after this incident, there were other weird things that happened —
mostly threats/waving of guns at American CIVPOL by foreign CIVPOL.” He
too paints a grim picture of our “progress” in the region:

March
‘04 riots, Wahhabis and Salafis, Nationalists, Islamist[s], training
grounds for paramilitary stuff, it goes on…KLA begat Kosovo Police
Service and PDK [Democratic Party of Kosovo]…These two REMF’s (OK,
intrepid journalists!) are completely unaware. [He is referring to the Fellenzer-Staggs duo; REMFs stands for “Rear Echelon Mother F–kers” — those who do not venture outside the wire — known in Iraq as FOBBITs.]…The
place is a snake pit…Anyway, glad to see that someone is on it. The
whole existential threat thing just isn’t catching on here in the US.

The
first one, Xhabir Zharku, is a former “soldier” and current politician
in the smuggling town of Kacanik near Macedonia, where his radio
station is influential. Deliso describes the implications of the
non-border between Kosovo and Macedonia (and Albania):

The
danger of Kosovo becoming a terrorist transfer zone has been increased
since the internationals handed over border control duties to the local
Albanian authorities. What this means, in essence, is that there is no
longer a border with Albania itself. While border policing was hardly
stellar during the period of UNMIK’s direct control, it has now
effectively vanished. For the United Nations, relinquishing control of
Kosovo’s borders is just another of the scheduled “transfer of
competencies” from international to local rule. In Macedonia, too,
where an experiment in ethnic coexistence has left the western third of
the country largely in the hands of former NLA [National Liberation
Army, Macedonia] leader Ali Ahmeti’s men, there is no appreciable
border with Albania either. According to one Macedonian military
intelligence officer, even though small militant groups are “smuggling
heavy weapons in every day from Albania,” there is no will to stop the
trade, “because all the local police are Albanian, they are in it
together, and they don’t talk [to outsiders].” The officer feared that
the well armed groups could act to destabilize the country in the case
of any failure to make Kosovo independent — indicating the complex trap
the West has made of the region through its interventions.

Which brings us to last week’s news reflecting precisely this reality:

Macedonia: Ethnic Albanian Leader Calls for Village to Join Kosovo

Macedonian TV Views Security Situation in Ethnic Albanian Village

Tanusevci wants annexation to Kosovo

Two More Albanian Villages to Organize Referendums for Separating from Macedonia

Albanian Commentary: Give us Kosovo or We will Create a Greater Albania

Secretary of Macedonia’s Organization of the Veterans of the Army for
the Liberation of Kosovo ( “AOK”) Faton Klinaku: “Albanians in
Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Greece Live Under Occupation”

Separation of Kosovo will mean separation of Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Greece: AOK veteran

ANA [Albanian National Army] Sends Threats to all Albanian Politicians in Macedonia

But the Albanian Threat of the Week award goes to Klinaku:

If
the international community fails to recognize the right of the
Albanian people for self-definition, and the status is defined on the
basis of compromises, we would naturally resume the fight…Every other
decision different from [independence] would lead to violence for which
both the politicians and the international community would be guilty.

Serblog’s Melana Pejakovich paraphrases:
“If we have to make any compromises, there will be a war and it will be
the international community’s fault…Give us exactly what we want or we
will start killing people, and YOU will have made us do it!”

Pejakovich further breaks down the Klinaku interview thus:

1.
Albanians consider wherever they live (or have ever lived) to
automatically be “Albania” and the non-Albanian governments of wherever
they live — including the governments of the sovereign countries of
Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Greece — to simply be “Occupiers”. If
Albanians live in a place in significant numbers, they consider it to
be “theirs”, independent of any international borders — and they
consider the non-Albanian governments of those countries to be “the
enemy”…

2.
If Kosovo is granted independence, then that automatically justifies
“the right of self-determination” (and secession) for Albanians in
Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Greece.

In
other words, “Kosovo Independence” is just the beginning of a series of
conquests in the “Greater Albania Project” and to grant Kosovo
independence, is to encourage the conquest of the rest…So much for the
delusion that granting Kosovo independence will “bring peace and
stability to the Balkans”…

3.
According to Klinaku, Albanians believe that they fought “a war of
liberation” for Kosovo and part of Macedonia, and they won, so there is
no need for them to compromise with Serbs or anyone else. Albanians
were “the victors” so there is no need to consult anyone else re their
“self-determination” or to “discuss anything in Vienna”. The 1999 NATO
Bombing of Yugoslavia appears to be perceived as irrelevant to
Albanians, because Albanians did it all.

Here
we are faced with the consequences of letting Albanians believe they
can have it all — and for the most part delivering it to them — sans
legality or any kind of established norms of statecraft, while holding
them to none of the agreements governing the region. In fact, just
yesterday we saw what happens when you do something uncharacteristic
and crazy, such as say the words “UN Resolution” to Albanians:

Kosovo Albanian daily slams UNMIK head for saying UN resolution 1244 still valid

[Commentary by Express Chief Editor Berat Buzhala: “This Is Provocation, Mr. Ruecker“]

At
a time when an entire nation is desperately waiting to hear what will
happen to the final status of Kosova [sic], the Kosova [sic] chief
administrator [Joachim Ruecker] returned from holidays and provoked us
openly by saying that no one should be hasty by setting dates for
declaration of independence because the UN Security Council Resolution
1244 is still valid.

…
We have waited beyond
every limit. Besides, I can say that we are about to burst into tears
and it is regrettable that we are being provoked, because we might now
easily fall prey to this provocation. I recall a press statement made
by the Israeli defence minister on the very first day when this country
began the war against Hezbollah troops operating in Lebanese territory.
He has said, “If someone meant to provoke us by kidnapping two of our
soldiers, then they have managed to do so.”

That’s right. To Albanians, rule of law is provocation. On par with kidnapping.

…Leaving
all these things aside, tell me, Mr. Ruecker: What happened inside you
that made you issue such a surprising threat? Will this mean that in
the days to come you will say that, based on that resolution, Kosova
territory is part of Serbia’s sovereignty? Or perhaps, reading
carefully the text of the resolution, will you mention the possibility
of the return of a limited number of Serb forces based on a request
made by Belgrade?

Do
you believe that that resolution, which you mention so improperly, will
be implemented one day? Perhaps it may be, but only through a new war
that would be bloodier and less controllable and have more consequences
for the region. Mr. Ruecker, we have become used to living in freedom
[impunity] — something for which you, your country, and all Western
countries deserve credit — therefore, it will be a very big problem to
convince us to go [back].

Where
have we seen this before? Oh yes — in Bosnia, as Balkans analyst
Neboojsa Malic aptly illustrated when writing about the departure of UN
High Representative Paddy Ashdown in 2005 (emphasis added):

So
used were they to Ashdown’s support, Izetbegovic’s heirs found it
shocking when last month the viceroy quashed their plan to rename the
Sarajevo international airport after the departed First Bosniak
[wartime Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic]. Leaders of Izetbegovic’s
SDA party howled in protest
and denounced Ashdown, forgetting instantly his support for their
agenda, or that his decision didn’t say “no,” so much as “not yet.”
Ashdown thus found himself sharing the fate of every foreign
official who came to Bosnia sympathetic to the Muslim cause, only to
end up an object of invective as soon as he deviated even slightly from
the SDA dogma of Muslim innocence and victimhood.

And now for the Kosovo punch line of the week.
Because it comes from the kings of secession and border-redrawing, the
Albanians: “We can never approve of partition [of Kosovo]. It is
unacceptable. If we start redrawing borders, who knows when and where it will stop.” — Kosovo “Prime Minister” Agim Ceku

Summing up the Kosovo Effect is Deliso:

Indeed,
longtime UNMIK employees in Kosovo who have watched the process
disintegrate over the years express disbelief at how the Western Media
and politicians can get away with calling the intervention a success.
As has been recounted, the direct link between Kosovo Albanians and
terrorist plots, up to and including the London July 2005 attacks, has
materialized in the form of arrests…

For
the American special police investigator in Kosovo, a formidable
ex-military man with long experience in the Balkans, the sluggish
response of Western security services in the Balkans to the terrorist
threat is vexing. “I saw some of the same shit in Bosnia, not going
after the terrorists, letting ‘em hang out and stay comfortable,” he
says. “But seeing this stuff here in Kosovo — it really ripped me out
of the old red-white-and-blue, you know what I mean?

The picture gets more disturbing still, especially when one realizes that Kosovo’s future is a window into our own. Deliso:

The
small semblance of order remaining in Kosovo owes to the fact that the
UN has allowed former KLA leaders and the mafia to control
society…Today, this chaotic situation has moved from the unfortunate to
the scandalous, with the CIA, MI6, BND, and others eager to build
“special relationships” with Islamic extremists bent on killing
Christians, attacking Western targets, and creating a fundamentalist
caliphate.

Western
officials currying favor with extremists, perhaps in subconscious
preparation for a future with Muslims as our masters, is by now a
familiar phenomenon even on our shores. When it interferes with terror
investigations, I call it the Kosovizing of police work in America, and it’s something that first hit home for me when Debbie Schlussel wrote about lasers being pointed
from Dearborn, Michigan at commercial airline pilots in flight, and the
reluctance of our authorities to do much about it. She specifically
cites the terrorist-friendly Brian Moskowitz, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Agent in Charge for Michigan and Ohio:

[W]e’ve
heard from several of Abu Moskowitz’s agents, who tell us they’ve
brought to his and his top lieutenants’ attention Arab Muslim smuggling
rings and restaurants in the same Dearborn and Dearborn Heights areas
(from which the laser pointers emanated), which routinely employ
illegal alien Muslims and launder funds from their all-cash businesses,
sending the money “back home.” Mr. Moskowitz and his top underlings
have repeatedly said they are “not interested” in pursuing those cases.

…

[B]oth Moskowitz and Murphy were in fawning attendance at the Hezbollah mosque,
where they gushed over an Islamic cleric who openly praised terrorists,
and they joked with him about why Hezbollah is on the State Department
terrorist list…

We
also note that Murphy, the chief U.S. Justice Department official in
the heart of Islamic America, sought a very light sentence for Nemr Ali Rahal,
a member of the mosque who is a member of Hezbollah and committed fraud
and money laundering to send the money “back home”. Explosive material
was found on the man’s and his young son’s passports. Where was Abu
Moskowitz’s investigation into where the money was going (which is
under his purview at ICE)? Where was Murphy’s press conference on that?
(No charges on the explosives or even money laundering were ever filed
— and won’t be.)…[Y]ou have a giant, radicalized, concentrated Muslim
population located in one single armpit of America, and yet authorities
not only kowtow to it, but put investigations into that community off
limits to law enforcement…

Welcome to Kosovo, USA. ExileStreet

copyright
2007 Julia Gorin

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William Dorich: It is more than clear that there is a "Greater Albania" at work

William Dorich: It is more than
clear that there is a "Greater Albania" at work

5 September 2007 | 17:56 | FOCUS News Agency

The interview with the leader of the Kosovo Self-determination Movement
Albin Kurti, which was published by FOCUS News Agency on September 2nd, has
obviously stirred the interest not only of Bulgarians, but also of foreign
readers interested in the situation in Bulgaria and the Balkans from our
English section: http://www.focus-fen.net/. FOCUS News Agency received a letter
signed by the US historian William Dorich, who reacted harsh to the positions
expressed by Kurti in the interview with FOCUS.



With regards to the pluralism in the different points of view that FOCUS News
Agency has always tries to present and follow, we decided to publish the letter
of Mr. Dorich.



The writer is the author of 5 books on Balkan history including his 1992 book,
Kosovo. He is the recipient of The Order of St. Sava, the highest recognition
given to a lay person by the Holy Synod of Serbian Orthodox Bishops, and An
Award of Merit from the Serbian Bar Association of America.



The points of view published in this column are independent and reflect only
the positions of their authors and do not necessarily coincide with those of
the agency.





Albin Kurti's comments on Kosovo are immoral. More than 40% of the Albanians in
Kosovo are illegal aliens who cross the border from Albania into Kosovo as
easily as Mexicans cross our border each night in San Diego California.
Granting Albanians superior rights over the 350,000 Serbian citizens whom they
have successfully cleansed shows the contempt Kurti has for international law
and equal human rights.



I remind this political opportunist that during the 1999 NATO bombing over
90,000 Albanians fled to Belgrade... into the arms of their Serbian enemies?
The only time Albanians "will no longer treat the Serbs as a threat"
is when there is not a single Serb or a single Serbian church left standing and
a total Genocide has been accomplished in Kosovo.



Serbs were the majority (80 percent) in Kosovo for a thousand years and built
more than 1,500 churches and monasteries. Serbia was internationally recognized
as a nation at The Congress of Berlin in 1878 and it was ONLY Serbia who gave
up her statehood to form Yugoslavia with her former Slovene and Croat enemies
in WWI. A good reason why the new nation was called The Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes in 1918. When that country was formed the Albanians
represented less than 5% of the population according to numerous historical
documents. It was also a time when the nation of Albania was formed, do we
really need two Albanian nations in the heart of Europe or all we all
pretending, like Kurti, that a "Greater Albania" is not the end game
here?



In my lifetime, Serbs have become a minority in Kosovo, starting with the
Holocaust under Benito Mussolini when the liquidation of Serbs reduced their
numbers to 45 percent. After the war, Broz Tito forbade the 155,000 ethnically
cleansed Serbs from returning to Kosovo, giving their land to Albanian Nazis
thereby reducing Serbs to 39 percent.



When the dictator Tito granted Albanian "autonomy" in 1974, the
Serbian language was banned and 100,000 Serbs lost their jobs—in the process
over 2 million books on Serbian religion, history and music were burned—more
than 120,000 Serbs were cleansed as Serbian farms were burned and Serbian girls
and nuns were raped, reducing the Serbs to 29 percent. Just seven years ago the
Serbs represented 21% of Kosovo, how shocking that Albin Kurti acknowledges
that Serbs are now "6%" but looks the other way as to why they
suddenly dropped to this appalling level. It is apparent that Kurti does not
believe Serbs are entitled to equal human rights or justice.



If the 350,000 recently cleansed Serbs and the 90,000 non-Albanian minorities
were allowed to return to Kosovo and the 40 percent undocumented Albanians were
forced to go back to where they came from, there would not be this fictitious
"90 percent Albanian" population to seek independence. It is more
than clear that there is a "Greater Albania" at work here as the
Albanians have already exposed their hand in wanting other parts of Serbia,
Montenegro, Macedonia and northern Greece where large minorities of Albanians
live.



But Kosovo is not just about population count, it is about the
"jihad" taking place in the Balkans. Kurti fails to mention the
dozens of new Islamic mosques that have been built in Kosovo including the
Osama bin Laden Mosque. I wonder what the attitude will be once Serbia is totally
destroyed and the Muslims start coveting Bulgarian territory?



William Dorich

Los Angeles

http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=f1432

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Negotiating for peace in Kosovo

Article published Aug 20, 2007



Negotiating for peace in Kosovo

August 20, 2007

Dan Burton - In coming weeks, an international confrontation is likely
to occur among the United States, the European Union, and Russia over
an issue most Americans have long since forgotten: Kosovo, where a few
hundred Americans remain deployed as part of a NATO force protecting a
shaky interim peace that ended the 1999 U.S.-led intervention.


For most Americans this obscure Serbian province, with its
mainly Albanian Muslim population and its hundreds of Serbian Christian
churches and monasteries, may be a little-remembered footnote to the
breakup of Yugoslavia. However, now is the time for clear thinking
about next steps if Kosovo is to avoid revisiting its history as a
hotbed of regional instability and violence.


The international mission in Kosovo for the last eight years
has not met its original goals regarding establishment of an open,
multiethnic and multireligious society. True, there has been no return
to large-scale fighting. But remaining Christian Serbs are confined to
NATO-protected enclaves for fear of endemic Muslim Albanian violence. A
quarter of a million expellees — some two-thirds of the Serbs, Roma,
Croats, and all the Jews — still cannot return safely to their homes.
More than 150 Christian holy sites have been burned, blown up or
desecrated. Organized crime is rampant, with allegations of corruption
reaching into the upper levels of the U.N.-supervised local
administration and unemployment outside these criminal elements remains
more than 50 percent.


Even Albanian officials have expressed concern at the growth
of radical Wahhabist influence, and the reality of a dangerously
segregated society, as hundreds of Saudi-financed mosques have sprung
up to replace the destroyed churches.


Although the situation on the ground in Kosovo has been a case
study in U.N. mismanagement, there is no question of Kosovo's legal
status as part of Serbia. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, which
ended the 1999 war, reaffirmed Serbia's territorial integrity and
sovereignty while calling for substantial autonomy and self-government
for Kosovo within Serbia.


But against this clear standard for Kosovo's future, the U.S.
State Department has insisted the only possible solution for Kosovo is
not autonomy, but independence — even though Serbia refuses to give up
15 percent of its territory. Even worse, during his recent trip to
Albania, President Bush suggested that if a Russian veto blocks any new
Security Council Resolution to separate Kosovo from Serbia, the U.S.
might take the lead in recognizing a unilateral declaration of Kosovo
independence with no legitimate claim of authority at all. Within
Europe itself there are growing misgivings and decisions about this
course.


This is a terrible idea. To start with, our policy is in
contravention of international laws and will create a dangerous
precedent. Also, there is no reason to suppose an independent Kosovo
would be a viable state, either economically or politically. Terrorist
and organized crime influences, already rampant in Kosovo, would be
granted a consolidated haven for their operations. Independence would
likely be followed by renewed anti-Serb attacks, at least against the
smaller enclaves, if not against Northern Mitrovica, where most of the
remaining Serbs enjoy relative security. Unrest in neighboring
Albanian-dominated areas of southern Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia,
even Greece, could be reignited.


Perhaps most damaging, an imposed separation of Kosovo from
Serbia would send a message to other trouble-spots, not just in the
Balkans, that state borders are up for grabs.


The American relationship with Serbia would suffer badly if we
insist on inflicting on a democratic country of 10 million people an
offense they cannot accept and never will forget. An imposed separation
of Kosovo, the cradle of Serbia's national and spiritual life, would
alienate Serbs of all political stripes and could very well result in
the implosion of Serbian democracy, with incalculable negative
consequences. In short, an imposed independence of Kosovo could set the
region back another decade.


As an original cosponsor of a House resolution calling for the
U.S. to support a mutually agreed solution for the future status of
Kosovo and reject an imposed solution, I believe we can no longer
proceed on a policy that is trapped in assumptions formed years ago.
Instead of an imposed preconceived outcome, any viable solution for
Kosovo must result from give-and-take negotiations between Serbia and
the Kosovo Albanians, balancing Serbia's legitimate concern for its
sovereignty and the Albanians' legitimate right of self-governance.


It must be consistent with accepted international principles,
including guarantees of both the territorial integrity of states as
well as of human rights and self-determination. The U.S., the U.N., the
European Union, Russia, or any other interested actor must not impose a
solution on either of the parties, or bow to threats of violence if one
of the parties' demands is not met.


As with any genuine negotiation, the eventual outcome cannot
be foreseen with certainty. However, it is certain that unless we hit
the reset button and reevaluate the situation, Kosovo may once again
become a trouble-spot requiring American and NATO attention at a time
we can least afford it. As Kosovo re-emerges from years of obscurity,
we neednow to take another serious look at America's options and
long-term interests. As I stated before, the solution must come from
negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo Albanians.


Dan Burton, Indiana Republican, is ranking member of the U.S.
House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western
Hemisphere and serves on the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia
and the Pacific.


http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070820/COMMENTARY/108200019/1012&template=printart

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Russia’s Response to Kosovo Independence

Pyotr ISKENDEROV

Russia’s Response to Kosovo
Independence

The first Balkan visit of the “Three”, a group of
international middlemen ended quite like it could have been predicted.
Aleksandr Botzan-Kharchenko, a special envoy of the Russian foreign minister
for the Balkans, Frank Vizner, a special envoy of the White House for the
problems of the Kosovo settlement, and Wolfgang Ischinger, a German diplomat
representing the EU, were accorded the highest-level reception in Belgrade and
Prisitina. They had talks with the leaders pf Serbia and Kosovo, presidents
Boris Tadic and Fatmirko Seidiu, prime ministers Voislav Kostunica and Agim
Ceku. Much was said about the difficulty and responsibility of the diplomatic
mission. But again no concrete results were reported

The gap between the positions of Belgrade and the Albanian
separatists in Kosovo did not become narrower. The other way about, the
unwillingness of the Albanians to agree to any concessions or compromise became
even clearer. As Mssrs. Seidu and Ceku quite arrogantly stated, neither the
issue of independence of the province nor its – even hypothetical - breakdown
into the Serbian and Albanian parts that Herr Ischinger made a slip of as a
version, could be on the agenda on negotiations with authorities in Belgrade.
And Veton Surroi, the leader of the “Ora” faction of the Kosovo Assembly and,
incidentally, a member of the Kosovo delegation at the planned negotiations,
went as far as say that the 120 days the world community has given Pristina to
continue negotiations could be put to better use to attend to more important
things, like preparing the province for getting its independence, working out its
Constitution and adopting other laws, approving Kosovo’s state symbols, its
flag and anthem. Given that their supporters in the West have for more than
eight years been hammering into the heads of the Albanian separatists the idea
that Kosovo should no longer be a part of Serbia, it would have been hard to
imagine that the results of the visits would be different. In the end, to
intention to unilaterally proclaim the province independent has changed nothing
in the situation. Are there not enough other self-proclaimed entities? What
really counts is the response of the international community to the hint Herr
Ischinger dropped and the nature of the conclusion to be made on it basis in
the world’s capitals, including Moscow.

The course of the development of the situation is such that
by the year-end Kosovo can be acknowledged independent by not just a single
country (as was the case with Turkey acknowledging the Turkish Republic of
North Cyprus) or a little more than twenty nations (the case of Taiwan), but by
rather several dozens of the world’s biggest states, including the United
States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. This would
radically change the very essence of the problem of the non-acknowledged
states, opening new vistas for different versions and scenarios. And the
current supporters of the idea of Kosovo’s independence could find themselves
in a situation whereby simultaneously with the clearly pro-Western state,
Eurasia can witness emergence of other full-fledged subjects that would never
feel sympathetic about either the United States, NATO or the European Union.

It is not accidental that the western diplomats who refer to
Kosovo as “the unique case” that has nothing to do with either the
Transdniester Republic, Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Nagorno Karabakh, are trying
to avoid detailed subject-matter discussions of the “uniqueness” of the Kosovo
situation. The author of this article has had enough reasons to conclude this,
talking both officially and in private with officials at the EU and NATO
headquarters, as well as with people at the UN Mission for Kosovo’s temporary
administration. As a rule, Western officials tend to reduce the problem to
declarations of the complexity of the historical roots of the Kosovo problem
and the impossibility for Serbs and Albanians to live side by side in a state
they share.

The conventionality of such formulations is seen with the
naked eye. The deep historical roots are typical of all the ethnic problems of
the Balkan states including Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania Should
they be solved by way of separation of certain territories, the Balkans would
turn into an image of Germany of the days of the feudal suzerainty. After all
is said and done, relations between Greeks and Albanians on the eve of World
War I were much worse than those of Serbs and Kosovars, however the official
Tirana that suggests that Serbia discard Kosovo does not look prepared to give
out its territory to the adjacent Greece. And in terms of fierceness, the ethnic
civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was never like any conflict in the former
Yugoslavia. Nevertheless the West did not acknowledge the right of independence
of any of the self-proclaimed formations in that land, be it the Croatian
Republic of Herzeg-Bosna, or West Bosnia (Tzazin Kraina) or the Republic of
Serbia.

But whenever a western vis-a-vis hears anything about the
doubts of the “unique character” of the Kosovo conflict we express in this
article as well as information about the anti-Abkhazian and anti-Ossetian
ethnic mopping-up operations the regular Georgian army was involved in in the
1990s, they immediately get bored and do their best to quit the conversation.
Only a few recall the role of the UN civil administration in Kosovo. According
to some officials at the NATO headquarters in Brussels (who insisted on hiding
behind the screen of anonymity as people unauthorized to comment on the future
status of the province), “the uniqueness” of the Kosovo case boils down to the
fact that unlike the situation with the post-Soviet space, the UN mission is
there. But then similar missions were in their time enacted in Namibia and East
Timor, and both territories later turned from the UN mandate territories into
sovereign states.

The transformation of the status of Namibia and East Timor
as the UN wards was very real. But not all the truth was told. The
international representation there was introduced in the conditions of the
factual occupation by the neighbouring countries, correspondingly South Africa
and Indonesia. The Kosovo case is totally different. The UN mission was
installed in a sovereign state, the Union Republic of Yugoslavia (URY).
Yugoslavia exists no longer, but it its place at the United Nations
automatically became Serbia’s. In other words the goal of the international
presence was not putting an end to occupation but rendering assistance to the
normalisation of the situation in the province, which according to Resolution
1244 dated June 10, 1999 of the UN Security Council was recognized as a part of
the URY. Therefore, the UN mandate does not give anyone the right to change
Kosovo’s international legal status.

As soon as the West acknowledges Kosovo’s independence
proclaimed by the Albanian separatists, the problem would automatically move
onto a principally new plane. The destiny of all the self-proclaimed states in
the contemporary world will be an issue on the international agenda. Should the United States and the EU decide to unilaterally
acknowledge Pristina, they would deprive themselves of the right to have a say
in the settlement of the conflicts in the Transdniester Republic, Abkhazia and
South Ossetia as unbiased middlemen. That would give Russia the aces
unbeatable by either Xavier Solana, or Condoleezza Rice, or Gordon Brown who
are so fond of delivering lectures on objectivity and legality to Russia

It is clear that the Albanian leaders in Kosovo think
nothing of such complicated geopolitical scenarios. They are in a rush to
legalise the black criminal “hole” in the middle of the Balkans, laundering
their profits from drug trafficking, prostitution and trade in “live
commodity”, gaining as well a direct access to the IMF and World Bank funds.
But it appears that the West has so far failed to calculate the strategic
aftermath of its present-day alliance with persons like Seidiu and Ceku. The
United States, NATO and EU are gradually stepping into a trap, the keys to
which will be Russia’s. It was not Moscow that launched the mechanism of
reviewing the principles of the present-day world order. But it can and should
speak its mind in the new situation. Not only Serbs are awaiting it. Other
nations that are tired of the impunity and hypocrisy of the Western Pharisees
are also in that number.

If for the sake of its Albanian wards the West is ready to
endanger all the world order, why should Moscow not summon courage to protect
the nations that do not think they can do without Russia? While Veton Surroi
and his same-minded Albanian associates instead of negotiating are openly
sneering at the international middlemen, composing the anthem and sewing the
flag of the independent Kosovo, it is time for the Russian diplomacy to come up
with its response, the acknowledgement of independence of key Russia’s allies
in the post-Soviet space.

http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=910

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In US, Serbian foreign minister proposes outline for new, unlimited talks on Kosovo

In US, Serbian foreign minister proposes outline for new, unlimited talks on Kosovo

2007-07-28 02:21:33 -

WASHINGTON
(AP) - Serbia's foreign minister is proposing an eight-point outline
for new negotiations on Kosovo that would be unlimited in time and
without independence for the Serbian province as the predetermined
outcome.

That would shield them from the flaws that spoiled U.N.-sponsored
consultations, which offered eventual independence to Kosovo, Foreign
Minister Vuc Jeremic said. Serbia and its ally Russia have rejected the outcome, and the United States and Europe have agreed to another 120 days of discussion.

New deliberations under the Jeremic's eight points could guarantee peace for the entire Balkan region, he said.

One of the eight points is «the broadest possible self-governance for
the province's Albanians,» with administration of its domestic affairs
«totally unimpeded by Belgrade.» Ethnic Albanians vastly outnumber the
province's ethnic Serbs.

Jeremic proposed the formula in a talk at the National Press Club on Friday before meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

He spoke of the dedication to democracy of Serbia, «burdened by the
legacy of being both a post-communist and a post-conflict society,» and
its advances toward acceptance by Europe and the trans-Atlantic
alliance, NATO.

«Yet there is one thing that can make it all go away; one thing that
can reverse the tremendous progress that has been made,» he said. «The
gains we as a country have made will likely be reversed if the
imposition of the independence of Kosovo takes place.

Rice has told Albanian Kosovar emissaries she plans to recognize the
province's independence shortly after completion of the 120 days'
negotiations.

Replying to questions after his speech, Jeremic said his main reason
for coming to Washington was to «re-establish high-level dialogue
between our governments. We have not been talking with each other very
much lately.

Briefly, these are the «precepts» that Jeremic said are necessary to
ensure stability in the Balkans, historically one of the world's most
unstable and violent regions

_Consolidation of democracy in Serbia, «the pivot country in the
region.» That would require avoiding «a potentially fatal setback» of
imposed independence in Kosovo.

_Speeded-up integration of the Western Balkans into Europe and the Euro-Atlantic integration of the Western Balkans.

_Enforcement of internationally recognized borders and the respect of the sovereign equality of states.

_The broadest possible self-governance for Kosovo's Albanians, with
internationally guaranteed administration of domestic affairs «totally
unimpeded by Belgrade.

_The international guarantee of human and minority rights for all
residents of Kosovo, with conditions created to allow the return to the
province of more than 200,000 people displaced by violence, mainly
ethnic Serbs.

_Comprehensive efforts at reconciliation between Serbs and Albanians.

_An international guarantee to safeguard
Kosovo's cultural and religious heritage, some of which is on the
UNESCO World Heritage list. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority is
Muslim, but the province has many sites important to Serbia's Orthodox
Christian majority.

_An unconditional commitment to a lasting and secure peace.

The last item, Jeremic said, «underpins the previous seven. ... We need to commit to peace before we can make peace.

Otherwise, he said, the danger exists that Serbia could lead the rest
of the Western Balkans back into «the Balkan nightmare of the 1990s.

http://www.pr-inside.com/print187292.htm

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Miscalculating Kosovo

Miscalculating Kosovo

Simon Tisdall

July 23, 2007 4:30 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_tisdall/2007/07/miscalculating_kosovo.html

Exactly how far Russia will go in defence of Serbia's rights in Kosovo
is a question of pressing importance, now UN security council
negotiations to grant consensual, conditional independence to the
breakaway province have ground to an ignominious halt.

Western countries including Britain and France - prime movers in the
1999 Nato intervention - have consistently underestimated Russian
resolve on this issue. By tabling a UN resolution, they tried to call
Moscow's bluff. But President Vladimir Putin icily stared them down. On
Friday, they blinked first.

Previous miscalculations over Kosovo nearly caused a physical
collision in June 1999, when Russian paratroopers made an overland dash
to occupy Pristina airport,
thereby pre-empting Nato's peacekeepers. General Wesley Clark, Nato
supreme commander, ordered 500 British and French troops to bar their
way.

A clash was narrowly avoided, in part because the British General Sir Mike Jackson, Kosovo force commander, reportedly told Gen Clark: "I'm not going to start the third world war for you."

The Russians were not wholly in the wrong. They had played a decisive role in cajoling the then Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic,
to withdraw his troops. In return they expected to police their own
sector, most likely the ethnic Serb minority-dominated areas of
northern Kosovo. When that was denied them, they felt cheated - and
reacted accordingly.

A Russian commander, General Leonid Ivashov, later told the BBC
that thousands of crack troops, including several battalions of
paratroopers, were on two-hour standby at Russian airbases, poised to
fly in if the confrontation with Nato escalated.

Looking at the latest chapter of the Kosovo saga, it seems obvious
that Mr Putin, emboldened by Russia's economic and political
resurgence, was always unlikely to take a softer line than his weak,
discredited predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. If anything, he could raise the
stakes yet further.

If really pushed, Moscow has a range of options. It could strengthen
traditional political and military cooperation with Serbia's new
government and support for Kosovo's Serb minority. It may finalise
its withdrawal from the 1990 conventional forces in Europe treaty,
potentially raising tensions across eastern Europe and the Balkans.

The Kosovo stand-off is already being conflated with the row over proposed US missile defence
installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Retaliatory Russian
missile deployments and retargeting along its western flank and in the
Kaliningrad enclave are another possible part of a more broadly
disquieting flux.

Sharpening disagreement may also encourage Serb nationalist and
irredentist forces, barely beaten back at the last general election,
and deepen Belgrade's EU ambivalence. In theory, Serbia hopes to sign a
stabilisation and association agreement with Brussels in October - a
first step to full membership.

But Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia's prime minister, warned that the EU
was not everything. "The offer is like this: if you want Europe, you
can forget Kosovo. If you want Kosovo, you can forget Europe. Things
cannot be like that. It's indecent," he said last week.

"The grabbing of 15% of Serbia's territory and the formation of
another Albanian state in the Balkans would represent legal violence
and would have serious consequences," a joint Russia-Serbian statement said. The 1999 UN resolution recognising Kosovo as part of Serbia should be upheld.

Nor would Belgrade countenance attempts to cut a deal via the
six-country Kosovo Contact Group, said Serbia's president, Boris Tadic.
Only the security council could decide status issues. In an echo of
Iraq, Russia's foreign ministry said: "Attempts to bypass the UN will
contradict all international agreements on Kosovo, destabilise the
Balkans and encourage separatists the world over."

Serbia says it simply wants talks without preconditions or
assumptions. Yet far from seeking to calm matters in the wake of their
UN debacle, it is as though the US and its partners have grown deaf as
well as dumb. Echoing President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, the US
secretary of state, insists: "We are committed to an independent Kosovo
and we will get there one way or another".

Suggestions that Washington may ultimately override objections and
unilaterally recognise Kosovan statehood have encouraged the province's
ethnic Albanian majority leaders to toy with a declaration of
independence in November - and fuelled grassroots tensions on both
sides.

Amid rising concern that the Bush administration, with west European
connivance, is acting irresponsibly, even recklessly, Ms Rice will
follow a meeting with Kosovan leaders today with talks with Serbia's
foreign minister in Washington later this week. The Contact Group,
which includes Russia, is also due to meet in Berlin tomorrow (weds).

But all this is so much whistling in the dark. The fundamental
disagreement on Kosovo's future, dating back to the summer of 1999,
remains entrenched. And history suggests there may be more grave
miscalculations to come

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

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

INFORMATION AND PRESS DEPARTMENT
_______________________________

32/34 Smolenskaya-Sennaya pl., 119200, Moscow G-200; tel.: (495) 244 4119, fax: 244 4112
e-mail: dip@mid.ru, web-address: www.mid.ru


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.)

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(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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