Inside Track: Kosovo at the Crossroads

Inside Track: Kosovo at the Crossroads

by Steven E. Meyer



09.05.2007

Arguably, the future of Kosovo is now at its most important juncture since
the crisis in 1999. For the past eight years almost nothing has been
accomplished to resolve the Kosovo issue. By and large, the fault for this can
be laid at the doors of the major Western powers. Their lack of imagination,
innovation and creativity in attempting to resolve the problem has been the
major impediment. Western efforts have been arbitrary and capricious, blind to
the realities on the ground and offering solutions that serve their own interests
rather than those of the people in Serbia and Kosovo.

At the same time, Belgrade and Pristina have mostly talked past each other
in anger, when they talked at all. But, for the most part they waited for the
major powers to provide answers and assumed no concrete, meaningful initiative
of their own. As a result, Kosovo has joined the long list of dangerous “frozen
conflicts” and if positive action—action that can be “owned” by Belgrade and
Pristina—is not taken soon the Kosovo issue will become “unfrozen” through
violence.

But, all of that is about to change. Since the Kosovo issue has been moved
out of the United Nations and to the Contact Group, there is a genuine
opportunity for Belgrade and Pristina to agree on a compromise settlement. But
the window of opportunity will not be open long before violence flares again
and the conflict “re-freezes”—as it certainly will if Pristina declares
independence unilaterally. To take advantage of the opportunity, however, it is
necessary for both Belgrade and Pristina to recognize six hard realities—some
of which are unpalatable to one side or the other.

Six Realities

First, the Ahtisaari Plan is dead and, despite calls by some UN members and
political commentators to resurrect parts of it, this is very unlikely to
happen. Events have moved well beyond Ahtisaari’s proposal to create a series
of ethnically stove-piped communities in Kosovo. At its heart, the Ahtissari
plan was an attempt primarily by the United States, the UK, France and Germany
to force a settlement on both Serbs and Albanians that avoided ground reality
and served the interests of those countries much more than the interests of
those who live in the region. The collapse of the Ahtisaari Plan means that, if
there is to be any hope of a permanent settlement, the United States and its
West European allies will have to include the Serbs and Albanians as true
partners in meaningful negotiations.

Second, U.S. influence has diminished. Although Washington may try to
restore some of its clout in the full Contact Group, the comments of the EU and
Russian representatives on the troika that visited Kosovo recently have
effectively undercut the American position. Several times during the Troika’s
“fact finding trip”, EU representative Ischinger and Russian representative
Botsan-Kharchenko said that “nothing is impossible” and that everything is “on
the table.” This is a positive development. The evolving position of the EU and
Russia easily could lead to a “negotiating period” longer than the additional
120 days allotted by the UN Security Council. If so, Washington might be
tempted to unilaterally “recognize” an independent Kosovo. But, this would be a
very risky move because it could cause serious strains with European “allies”
and put the United States at odds with the widely accepted view (especially in
the EU) that the construction and recognition of new states requires the
approval of the United Nations. In the wake of the debacle in Iraq, Washington
cannot be seen to be so dismissive of international law and procedures.

Third, officially Belgrade and Pristina remained locked in a nasty,
dangerous zero-sum game that, if it is not broken, almost certainly will hasten
violence. All levels of power in the Albanian community insist that independence
of Kosovo—within its current boundaries—is the only course acceptable and that
Pristina will not back away from this position. By the same token, Belgrade
says that the only acceptable solution is for Kosovo to remain within Serbia,
albeit with considerable autonomy. Indeed, the new Serbian Constitution
stipulates that Kosovo is a Serbian province. At the same time, there is a
glimmer of hope in Belgrade because some officials have begun to suggest that
perhaps they might be willing to back away from this hard line.

Fourth, multi-ethnicity is dead in Kosovo. By and large, survey research as
well as anecdotal information indicates that most Serbs and Albanians do not
want to live together in the same society or to be governed by a government
controlled by the other ethnic group. At times multi-ethnic states have
“worked” in Europe and at times they have not. But the general trend—despite
some notable exceptions—over the past century has been for states in Europe to
be controlled by a single ethnic or cultural group. The point was well
demonstrated after World War I with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian,
German and Ottoman Empires, and since the end of the Cold War by the
disintegration of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. It would be
ideal perhaps if ethnicity were not a determining factor in the construction of
political communities in the Balkans today. But, it is a reality despite the
wishful thinking of well-meaning but naive Western policy makers.

Fifth, a surge of new violence in and around Kosovo likely will lead to
renewed outside military intervention. The major powers of Western Europe and
the U.S. almost certainly will not allow the Western Balkans to spin out of
control again. Although this will not lead to a “permanent NATO” base in Kosovo
as some in Serbia have argued, it almost certainly will lead to a stronger
Western military presence in the province that could last for several years.
Although the Europeans likely would shoulder the bulk of any new military
undertaking, it is also possible that there would be some limited number of
additional U.S. forces deployed to Camp Bondsteel. The introduction of more
troops to Kosovo would be designed primarily to separate warring Serbs and
Albanians, but it also likely would set back efforts to find a permanent
political and security solution.

Sixth, in the final analysis, the Kosovo issue is primarily about ethnic,
territorial sovereignty. It has been erroneously argued—mostly by officials and
scholars from outside the region—that territorial sovereignty is passé. As
their argument goes: The entire region someday will (hopefully) be part of the
European Union and, when it is, traditional state or territorial sovereignty
will be far less important. Moreover, they argue, focusing on such a
traditional conception of sovereignty will only delay the accession of the
countries in the Western Balkans to the EU. Sadly, this reasoning misses the
fundamental point. With the establishment of the EU and the end of a thousand
years of violent nationalism based on state sovereignty, traditional state
sovereignty has become much less of an issue in Northern and Western Europe.
But the Western Balkans is in a different place. There, issues of state
sovereignty have not been worked out and they need to be resolved before the
countries of that area can hope to move to a different understanding of
sovereignty. Moreover, most people in the Western Balkans understand that EU
membership and, especially, the full benefits of that membership still are a long
way off—if it happens at all—and they are going to have to rely on national
prerogatives and regional associations for many years to come.

A Way Forward

If these six realities are deemed accurate and accepted by the political
leadership in Serbia and Kosovo, and it is possible for them to bargain in good
faith and come to agreement on four basic points they could—in time—construct a
permanent settlement on the future of Kosovo.

First, both sides need to accept the fact that a negotiated partition, with
attendant border adjustments, can provide the basis for an equitable—not
perfect—division of territory. Although partition has been discussed throughout
Serbia by officials and scholars, it has not been sanctioned officially in
Belgrade. The Albanian side adamantly has rejected any consideration of
partition, but Pristina needs to reconsider this position or risk violence and
the unilateral declaration of independence by Serbs north of the Ibar River.

Logically, partition—and a new border—would be established along the Ibar
River, with the northern part remaining with Serbia and the southern part
becoming an independent Albanian state. This is no one’s first choice, but it
can work if Belgrade and Pristina accept the rationale of ethnic territoriality
and the right of the other side to territorial sovereignty. There is not now
and there never has been anything sacred about borders—especially in Europe (as
well as the United States). Borders have changed in Europe for 2000 years for a
variety of reasons and the spate of border changes throughout Central Europe
and the former Soviet Union since the end of the Cold War demonstrates that the
configuration of states can change peacefully—if there is the political will to
do so.

Second, partition and border changes alone will not be enough. Certainly, it
will be necessary to get past a period of painful adjustment, including some
violence by “rejectionists” on both sides. Moreover, there are many Serb holy
and historic sites and Serbs south of the Ibar and some Albanians north of the
river. As part of any negotiated settlement that accepts partition, the United
States, Russia and the EU, perhaps through the UN, need to guarantee the safety
of the sites, Serb access to them and the minority populations in both ethnic communities
that chose to remain on the “wrong side” of the border—to include sanctions
against the governments that do not protect their minorities from harm or
discrimination. For those Serbs and Albanians who cannot remain where they are
now and chose to leave, the UN needs to establish a substantial fund to
relocate them to other political communities.

Third, an innovative settlement needs to go even further to consider a
broader realignment in the Western Balkans. Specifically, the most likely
candidate is the Republika Srpska. There is little doubt that most the leaders
and citizens of the RS do not want to be part of Bosnia and, if they had their
way, they would have left Bosnia many years ago, either to become independent
or part of Serbia. There also is little doubt that Bosnia is a “forced”
state—one that was arbitrarily willed into existence by the United States and
the major powers of Western Europe and has “failed” to live up to its patrons’
hopes and expectations.

Consequently, Banja Luka and Belgrade should have the right to discuss
whether the RS and Serbia should be linked and under what circumstances, so
long as those circumstances are validated in a democratic vote by the people of
the RS. Although this same logic could be applied to the relationship of the
Presevo Valley with an independent Kosovo, it cannot be stretched to apply to
western Macedonia, where the Ohrid Agreement, has—at least for now—“settled”
the ethnic issue, or to Sandjak or Vojvodina, where there is no major
agitation for independence from Serbia.

Finally, once the political and security underpinnings of an agreement have
been reached, negotiations should begin immediately between Belgrade and
Pristina on economic cooperation. Despite some encouraging economic news in
Serbia, most important indicators in Kosovo and Serbia proper are not good,
especially with respect to unemployment, per capita income, foreign debt and
trade. Consequently, irrespective of whether a political and security
settlement can be reached, a poor regional economy almost certainly would sow
the seeds of new instability in Kosovo, Serbia and beyond.

The key to economic growth and prosperity is multilayered. First, it would
be necessary for Belgrade and Pristina to identify specific areas that need
serious attention and genuine potential and agree on a bipartisan plan of
development (for example, hydroelectric power in Kosovo, the Trepca mines along
the border between Serbia and Kosovo, and agricultural programs in southern
Serbia and Kosovo). Once Belgrade and Pristina have identified likely areas of
economic cooperation, then—and only then—it would be possible to approach the
EU for technical and financial support. Although the Stability Pact for
Southeastern Europe (established in 1999) has been a relatively weak instrument
thus far, it is possible that Working Table 2 on economic development could
provide a useful vehicle to establish productive programs between Serbia and
Kosovo.

Steven E. Meyer is professor of National Security Studies in the Industrial
College of the Armed Forces at the National Defense University in Washington,
DC. The views expressed here are those of the author alone.

http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=15444

Other Articles by Steven E. Meyer:

03.30.07

The Risks of an
Imposed Settlement

The Kosovo issue is far from resolved, and acceptance and
imposition of the Settlement Plan by the Security Council could lead to renewed
violence and instability, and have repercussions far beyond the Western
Balkans.

Copyright © 2006 The National Interest All rights reserved. | Legal Terms

P: (800) 893-8944, Outside the U.S.: (914) 962-6297 |
backissues@nationalinterest.org

P.O. Box 622 Shrub Oak NY 10588



The National Interest is published by The Nixon Center



The Nixon Center

1615 L Street, Suite 1250

Washington, DC 20036

www.nixoncenter.org

Powered by ScribeFire.

ANALYSIS: Kosovo, NATO and Montenegro strain Serbian coalition

Belgrade - The Serbian government coalition, forged three months ago under huge pressure from the West, already seems worn out over key issues and has been sending contradictory, confusing signals ahead of crucial decisions on the country's future status. The uneasy alliance of President Boris Tadic's Democratic Party (DS) and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) was produced to avert the rise of ultra-nationalists to power or repeat elections and reset the country's course towards NATO and the European Union. But Kostunica, a nationalist himself, has become an increasingly loud Russophile, while the pro-Western Tadic appears helplessly carried away in a bid to remain moderate amid resurging nationalist rhetoric, reminiscent of the 1990s. Despite winning far more votes in January's polls than the DSS, Tadic and the DS have been weakened by the Kosovo rhetoric, a nationalist trademark, to the point of being blackmailed into conceding the post of prime minister to Kostunica in May. It has become worse for the DS since. Most recently, in a dangerous populist turn, the DSS has started pushing for Serbia's turn away from the West and even hinted at a possible violent response from Belgrade in case Kosovo declares independence. Kosovo, where Serbia has had no say in government since NATO ousted it in 1999 to stop bloodshed, has been the sacred source of rhetoric for Serbian nationalists. But the breakaway province is vastly dominated by majority Albanians who impatiently expect independence this year - which would force Serbian politicians to do something, one way or another. After eight years of life in a diplomatic and economic limbo, the Albanians expect the West, particularly the United States, to promote what is still nominally Serbia's province into a sovereign state. That outcome would degrade any pro-Western leader into a traitor, again in a manoeuvre commonly practised during the Slobodan Milosevic era. Kosovo independence appeared to be on the verge of happening already in mid-2007, but Serbia's awakened ally Russia blocked the process in the United Nations and delayed the decision on Kosovo at least until mid-December by forcing three more months of talks. Serbs and Albanians will certainly not find a mutually acceptable solution - which everybody hopes for, but nobody expects - as the Serbs are adamantly insisting on sovereignty over Kosovo and the Albanians want nothing less than independence. Meanwhile, Kostunica has been gushing love for Moscow, offering the national economy to Russian investors, while launching an anti- NATO campaign, accusing the alliance of aiming to build a "NATO state" in Kosovo. In another populist move, his DSS launched an initiative to block Serbia's approach to NATO. The hostility peaked when the state secretary for Kosovo and DSS cadre, Dusan Prorokovic, hinted that Serbia could deploy its armed forces to the UN-run and NATO-protected territory to prevent independence. That time Washington reacted, saying Thursday that it would "seek clarification" of the "inflammatory and unfortunate" remark. While Kostunica remained silent, Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac, the most hawkish advocate of Belgrade's western course among the DS leaders, verbally slapped Prorokovic for "waving an empty gun" and warned him to "keep his nose in his own ministry." While a reaction to the possible declaration of Kosovo's independence has not been defined, "there will be no unilateral military response to it," Sutanovac told Friday's edition of the daily Blic. He also assured that Serbia's course toward NATO was not in question, but the damage may have already been inflicted and the tear in the ruling coalition widened. It was the same disjointed message with Serbia's former sister republic Montenegro, which formally sought an apology Thursday after one of Kostunica's advisors, Aleksandar Simic, denigrated it. Criticizing Montenegro's refusal to allow entry to a Serbian Orthodox priest suspected of aiding war crime suspects, Simic said Montenegro was a "quasi-state." Rubbing salt into the wound, a Serbian cabinet minister failed to show up for a scheduled meeting with a Montenegrin host, offering no explanation other than he was backing the priest. Montenegro became independent last year, enraging Serbian nationalists, including Kostunica. Reflecting his bitterness, Belgrade has still not sent an ambassador to Podgorica, though Tadic and the DS tried very hard to remain friendly with it. Podgorica reacted to the insults with a protest note, handed by its own ambassador to Belgrade, but the only apology, informal so far, came from a DS official. "Serbia recognizes and respects Montenegro as a state and is building good neighbourly relations,' Vice Premier Bozidar Djelic said in an interview. "I apologize to Montenegrins." Time will show whether the DS will manage to save the potatoes of Kosovo, NATO, Montenegro and other issues thrown into the fire by DSS populists. Presidential and local elections, due this year, will show if Serbs will reward or punish the effort to appease. Copyright, respective author or news agency

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/103810.html

Powered by ScribeFire.

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

Powered by ScribeFire.

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

Powered by ScribeFire.

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

Powered by ScribeFire.

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

Powered by ScribeFire.

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

Powered by ScribeFire.

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

Powered by ScribeFire.

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

Powered by ScribeFire.