Srdja Trifkovic, author of Sword of the Prophet, barred from Canada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhKkv0Ezd6w

Palestinian jihadists' fabrications of Israeli atrocities are amply documented now, although the mainstream media still retail them; less well known is that the jihad in the Balkans also has a busy propaganda arm. Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, author of the excellent book on Islam and jihad, The Sword of the Prophet, ran afoul of it yesterday, as he was barred from entering Canada. The Serbian Youth League (thanks to George) explains this latest Freedom of Speech Death Watch Alert:

February 24, 2011 (SYL) - Serbian-American professor Dr Srdja Trifkovic was denied access into Canada after being accused of holding a senior position in the Government of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian war by the Vancouver airport immigration authorities. Srdja, who was a foreign affairs expert with links in the Bosnian Serb Government, never held any position in that Government, let alone a senior one. The fabricated reason for deportation was likely the result of lobbying by the extremist organization "The Institute for Research of Genocide in Canada", which is notorious for inventing stories, such as the disproven lie that Canadian General MacKenzie raped a Bosnian woman at a time when he wasn't even in Bosnia, as well as denying the Holocaust in Yugoslavia during World War II. Also, there are strong indications that higher factors in the Canadian government are involved in this scandalous and dark chapter in Canadian history, the investigation is under way.

Jihad Watch reader Joe Serb sent this in:

Srdja Trifkovic was scheduled to speak at a Serb-sponsored gathering at the University of British Columbia. About 60 of us waited outside of Room 222, Swing Space Bldg last night, only to hear that Prof. Trifkovic had been stopped at the airport, and was under questioning for his ideas. He writes on the Muslim danger to Europe and the world. I witnessed a small group of Muslims celebrating the delay, which was likely a cancellation (I waited for 45 minutes after the start date, but most left when we learned that the Professor was still in custody. He was accused of "hate speech" in a student newspaper.

I strongly believe that we have to reply energetically to all such charges; the "hate speech" weapon is increasingly used by the thuggish Leftist/Islamic supremacist axis to silence its opponents, and if we ignore the false charges made, they will be assumed true by those who are naive and unaware of what game is being played.

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http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/02/srdja-trifkovic-author-of-sword-of-the-prophet-barred-from-canada.html

Canada: People for such a time as this in the Balkans

The attempt to ban Dr. Srdja Trifkovic from speaking this week on the Campus of the University of British Columbia is outrageous … Canadians have an unparalleled opportunity to foster freedom and democracy….

Canada: People for such a time as this in the Balkans

 By Dr. Samuel J. Mikolaski  Thursday, February 24, 2011

Canada and Canadians, especially new Canadians from the Balkans, have an unprecedented opportunity to foster the concept of an open society, democratic institutions, free market economies, the education of large reservoirs of brain power, and the separation of political power from religion in the Balkans.

Canadians may well be the people for such a time as this – albeit, in face of what appear to be insurmountable political obstacles and centuries-old deep-seated ethnic hatreds. Two outstanding Canadians, Ambassador James Bissett and General Lewis MacKenzie, are among the best informed anywhere on the Balkans and have spoken in balanced ways on how to understand and deal with the Balkan cauldron that has simmered for many generations, which the recent Balkan wars have again bought to a boil.

Multiculturalism has been declared a failure – multicult is dead

For over two centuries various of the European powers, Russians, and Ottomans stirred the pot in their own interests, often only to make matters worse.
Now that multiculturalism has been declared a failure – multicult is dead – by Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, buttressed by the outburst of the Austrian parliamentarian on the floor of that nation's Parliament last fall, we should consider, as the philosopher A. N. Whitehead said, that our current problems should be regarded as opportunities.

Western Christian national identities and their historic values do mean something historically and are worth conserving. That should be the message to groups refusing to assimilate. A great blessing of my life is that as an immigrant child I was well educated in Canada in English as a second language and assimilated to Canadian culture.

European and American foreign policy in the Balkans, especially as regards the Serbian people, has been badly skewed and continues to work against the best interests of enduring peace, democracy, comity among the several nationalities, and economic progress.

The artificial political framework in Bosnia has forced the several ethnic groups into closed enclaves. It is not working. The Serbs have created Republica Srpska. The Croats are appealing to Russia and the Security Council for protection of their status. The dominant radical al-Quaeda elements continue fostering Jihad and terrorism training compounds.

The Christian culture of Kosovo has been devastated

The Christian culture of Kosovo, illegally highjacked from Serbia contrary to the canons of international law, has been devastated, with hundreds of monasteries, churches, cemeteries, and other landmarks either destroyed, badly damaged or desecrated.

The recent report of Dick Marty to the Council of Europe makes horrific reading: Serbian youths kidnapped by radical Islamists then killed for body parts to be harvested and sold internationally.

Ironically, fear of their own has compelled many thousands of Albanians to flee to the environs of Belgrade in Serbia to escape the radical Islamists who have overwhelmed their society in Albania, Bosnia and Kosovo.

In Croatia Ustasha memorializing continues – the Nazi-backed Croats massacred tens of thousands of Serbs, Romanies and others during World War II, and little or nothing has been done to repatriate the tens of thousands of Serbs who were expelled from their ancestral lands in the Krajina during the 1990s war.

Serbia has become the odd-man-out in Europe, wondering how to re-establish itself among the nations of Europe, how to restore its traditional relationship with America as the loyal ally of the West it was through two world wars, and what to do with political fragmentation of the country and the mafia elements which bedevil society and the economy.

Why do I see this as opportunity for democracy and freedom? A few weeks ago James Bissett, Canada's former Ambassador to Yugoslavia, gave a lecture in Belgrade in which he suggested that Serbia might be better off outside the EU.
Why?

Bissett said that Germany and other European countries would still invest in Serbia even if Serbia remained outside the EU. Membership in the EU could easily inhibit trade and commerce because of the layering on of bureaucracy and inspections from Brussels and the imposition of multitudes of rules.  Freedom of information might be curtailed, especially if Serbs were forced to teach their children that the NATO bombing was justified. Serbs, he said, need no further humiliation—atrocities were committed by all sides during the recent wars. Croats have never acknowledged the true genocide they committed during World War II. Muslims refuse to acknowledge the crimes committed in their name —one can cite the staged terrorism against their own people during the recent hostilities, about which General MacKenzie has written.

What should Serbia do, Ambassador Bissett asked? Very simple, he said: put its own house in order by stamping out corruption, improving the economy, getting rid of the criminal mafia, and becoming self-sufficient—as it was when it became the harbinger of democracy in the latter part of the nineteenth century and can become again.

Here's what Canadians and Americans of Balkan heritage can do:

Foster education (such as the Studenica Foundation has done through scholarships for students in upper High School).

Encourage Canadian and American universities to underwrite university undergraduates and graduate students from Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Kosovo to study in North America. Anticipate leader-formation.

Establish professional and business links with aspiring professionals and entrepreneurs in the Balkans – there are many, many talented young men and women there, especially in engineering, business, technology, medicine, and the sciences.

Insist on the development of open societies that are committed to the democratic process and a market economy.

The West is ignoring the existential crisis that pervades the Balkans. Gerrymandering the political process has not worked.

It is time for Canadians and Americans of Balkan heritage to think outside the box. They can make a difference despite the present political and main street media climate on Balkan matters in North America. Modern communication techniques enable little people to break through the stereotypes.  This is an exceptional opportunity.

 

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Dr. Samuel J. Mikolaski Dr. Samuel J. Mikolaski Most recent columns Dr. Samuel Mikolaski, is a retired theological professor.  His curriculum vitae and published work are on his website: drsamstheology.com Dr.  Mikolaski can be reached at: sjmikolaski@gmail.com

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Economists are paid for what?

Economists are paid for what?

23.02.2011 | 18:03

Economists are paid for what?

Where are the world's economists? And what are they paid for? They are trained to produce viable ideas for the implementation of workable systems which cater for new realities. Now that the planned economic system has virtually disappeared, and the market economy is so obviously a failure, where are these gurus, masterminds of tomorrow's new economic system?

Rising from the ashes, implementing systems where there used to be nothing, was the Socialist/Communist model which provided universal, excellent and free education, healthcare services, free dental treatment, free public transportation, free or heavily subsidised public utilities, free or subsidised leisure/cultural activities, guaranteed free housing for all, guaranteed a job in a society of zero unemployment, social mobility and security on the streets.

Against this system worked the so-called Capitalist world, for decades, complete with its assassination attempts, murders, sabotage, terrorist attacks and endemic unemployment, total insecurity on the streets where marauding gangs of drug addicts and alcoholics trash city centers and kick old ladies to the ground for fun...the society and model which has already attacked and destroyed free universal education and healthcare, turning them into businesses, and in which life is a drama from the word go.

It is a drama to have and bring up a child, it is a drama to get the child into higher education, it is a drama to buy a house, it is a drama to get a job, it is another drama to retain the job - and home - and God forbid if someone needs dental care or if any other emergency arises.

While the former system found itself at a crossroads after all of its main objectives had been reached and achieved, and after it had freed countless millions of peoples from the yolk of imperialism and installed socially progressive governments for them, the latter has simply failed to provide for these countries what they hoped to achieve when they decided to try something different...This is hardly surprising since the Capitalist system never had its own house set in order to begin with.

Now, welcome to the wonderful world which belongs to the large corporations and the banks, the owners of Capital, as Marx always claimed, and as the followers of the Socialist model had said all along. Welcome to the wonderful world of high and increasing food prices, one in which, experts claim, there will soon not be enough food to go round and in which families are set to spend ever-increasing budgets on basic necessities.

Welcome to the wonderful world of endemic unemployment, in which a "good" scenario is "only" an unemployment rate of 4% (wow!), one in which a growing number of cliques have been formed to cater for the whims of a growing number of elitist good-for-nothings whose connections see them gain lucrative sinecures in some Commission or Committee or other, welcome to the world in which international law simply does not exist (as per Kosovo and the US veto against a text condemning Israel's illegal activities).

Welcome to the world in which all we had fought for - workers' rights, children's rights, women's rights, universal education and healthcare - has been chipped away at and whose very essence is threatened. Countries that had a decent school system now have none. Countries where women's rights were guaranteed (Afghanistan and Iraq, for instance) have repressive regimes where women can be beaten or decapitated for not wearing a veil.

Welcome to the world in which an old lady dare not set foot outside her house after dark. Welcome to the world in which it is increasingly not what you know (because you cannot afford to pay for an education) but who you know (to avoid becoming one of the Lost Generation working almost for free in a call center).

So, where are the economists? Are they or are they not supposed to produce ideas? And they are paid, for what? I will table an idea, for free: why don't we all go back to a controlled economy? The public sector will miraculously and suddenly have the P-word (a Plan); the private sector will be regulated, and the resources of the world will belong to the people of the world, not a handful of mega-rich corporations. And your pension plans will be safe from the hands of those who gamble them away on speculative and will likely leave you with nothing.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey Pravda.Ru

 

Kosovo is "mafia state", says Italian MEP

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2011&mm=02&dd=24&nav_id=72906

Kosovo is "mafia state", says Italian MEP

24 February 2011 | 15:59 | Source: BBC

STRASBOURG -- An Italian member of the European Parliament Foreign
Policy Committee has commented on the Kosovo organ trafficking case.

Pino Arlacchi spoke for the BBC Serbian service in Strasbourg this week
to say that he hoped he and like-minded MEPs would succeed in their
attempt to have an EP rapporteur appointed to look into "what EULEX (the
EU mission in Kosovo) has been doing all these years".

Arlacchi, a sociology professor, is known in Italy as a "mafia expert".
From 1997 until 2002 he was the Executive Director of the UN Office for
Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP).

Now he spoke in favor of probing the work of EULEX, in the wake of the
Marty report - which accused the ethnic Albanian KLA of kidnapping Serb
civilians and killing them for their organs, and which provided the
basis for a Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE)resolution adopted last month, calling for an investigation into
the allegations.

Unlike PACE which gathers 47 countries, the European Parliament members
come only from the 27 EU states.

The BBC learned from unofficial contacts with MEPs that there was still
"implied resistance" to opening up the issues of "organized crime and
alleged organ trafficking" in Kosovo.

Ahead of a closed meeting that CoE's Dick Marty will have with the EP
committee in March, Arlacchi voiced his optimism and said he believed
the EP would soon "exit its phase of keeping silent on the Marty report".

"I believe there will be a debate. We already have the regular report on
Kosovo, and it touches on various issues. If there is broad agreement,
perhaps we could have a special report on the same subject that was
investigated by Marty. Perhaps I, together with my colleagues, will win
over a majority in favor of investigating this question more seriously.
We could also have another topic for a report - and that is EULEX - the
EU police and judiciary mission in Kosovo, and the fact that even after
three years their work has not produced results," said the Italian MEP,
and continued:

"If nothing has been done during three years, that means something's
wrong, that we must change two things: first, our policy toward Kosovo,
and second, the way EULEX is organized. I read Marty's report, which is
excellent and contains much information and details. It ought to receive
strong support, and I am surprised it has not received it from EULEX."

Asked to comment on unofficial statements coming from some MEPs that
"Marty must provide evidence" - despite the fact the Swiss CoE
rapporteur is neither a judge nor a prosecutor - Arlachi responded:

"The thing is that there is no judicial evidence. I've mentioned EULEX,
which, as far as I know, has ten prosecutors, precisely for that reason.
What have they been up to these three years? They are responsible for
the work of the local judiciary, which should have the final word.
Whatever one says about Kosovo - there is no judicial evidence to back
it up. We can say there is organized crime, and strong ties of
politicians with all that, but we have no judicial evidence on that. The
principal goal of both those accused and democracy is to undertake a
judicial investigation. Marty's conclusions cannot be taken as
definitive. It's a paradox that without a judicial investigation we will
continue as before - and that's unacceptable".

Another CoE rapporteur, Jean-Charles Gardetto, recently submitted his
report on witness protection in the Balkans, which states that EULEX is
not capable of protecting witnesses, and that "the EULEX personnel, if
they do their job in big cases, expose themselves and the members of
their families to danger".

In reaction to this, Arlacchi mentoned Italy's fight against the mafia.

"I'm sorry to say it, but when you fight against organized crime - you
are in danger. They (EULEX) must be prepared for that - there can be no
serious investigation without any risks. That's a separate subject:
investigators must be protected, there must be a witness protection
program in place. It will be hard to achieve anything without that. In
Italy we overpowered the mafia when we established an efficient witness
protection program. It included 5,000 people, and naturally, it's
expensive. But none of the witnesses were murdered. I think that EULEX
should launch an investigation, because that is the job of EULEX. If
they are unable to protect witnesses - then that's a disaster."

Arlacchi also noted that "it is clear everyone knew about ties between
Kosovo's leaders and the KLA with organized crime", and repeated his
recent statement that Kosovo was a "mafia state".

"When I worked for the UN in 1999 as Executive Director of the Office
for Drug Control, I issued an order to have a report made on the
situation in Kosovo. I sent that internal report to the UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the end of that same year. The picture
that the report painted was exactly what you see today: the same
structures, the same people, the same disgraceful situation. It's
disgraceful how Europe and the United States faced the problem. They
wanted political results, and in a way, they wanted a war to break out
over there. It was done by turning their heads away from KLA's criminal
activities. Later on, I was in Kosovo for a few months in 2004, and I
had access to some NATO files. The picture was effectively the same,"
Arlacchi concluded his interview for the BBC.

Global NATO Seeks To Recruit 50 New Military Partners Sunday, 20 February 2011, 4:00 pm Article: Rick Rozoff

A recent article in Kenya's Africa Review cited sources in the African Union (AU) disclosing that the 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization is preparing to sign a military partnership treaty with the 53-nation AU.

The author of the article, relaying comments from AU officials in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where the organization has its headquarters, wrote that although "the stated aim is to counter global security threats and specifically threats against Africa, some observers read the pact as aiming to counter Chinese expansion in Africa."

The feature further claimed that NATO is negotiating the opening of a liaison office at AU headquarters and that the North Atlantic Alliance's legal department is working with its AU counterpart "to finalise the new pact, which will be signed soon." [1]

The news story additionally divulged that Ramtane Lamamra, African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security, "confirmed that Nato is to sign a military cooperation agreement with the AU" with particular emphasis on consolidating the African Standby Force (ASF). The latter is intended to consist of brigades attached to the five Regional Economic Communities on the continent. (North, East, West, Central and Southern.) The West African Standby Force has been tasked the role of intervening in - which is to say invading and occupying - Ivory Coast since the announcement of presidential runoff election results in the country in December [2], and contributors to the East Africa Standby Brigade (EASBRIG), Uganda and Burundi, are engaged as combatants in the civil war in Somalia.

The AU's Lamamra stated "Africa would like to learn from Nato on strategic airlift, advanced communications, rotation of important units among regions and to meet logistical challenges," adding that "Nato was a good model on which to build the ASF." [3]

NATO airlifted thousands of Ugandan troops into and out of the Somali capital of Mogadishu last March - 1,700 and 800, respectively - in support of the Ugandan-Burundian African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). [4]

The Kenyan report also revealed that "Experts say Africa is becoming a strategic battleground between world powers and in particular the US, the European Union, China and Russia," with the first two - collectively subsumed under NATO and its Partnership for Peace program (except, for the time being, Cyprus) - working in unison and the second two expanding oil and natural gas investments on the continent. In addition, Russia and China are competitors of the U.S. and its NATO allies in regards to arms sales to African nations. The piece added:

"According to knowledgeable sources, the new security arrangement could be a way to block the continent's other main arms suppliers - China and Russia.

"If the pact gets endorsed by AU member states, it would be a big blow for China and Russia."

"In its 2010 annual summit, Nato set itself a target to be a global 'security guarantor' by the year 2020." [5]

On February 18 and 19 a delegation of high-level officials from the African Union led by Sivuyile Thandikhaya Bam, head of the Peace Support Operations Division of the AU, visited NATO Headquarters and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Belgium. As NATO reports:

"NATO and the African Union have developed an increasingly fruitful practical cooperation since 2005....NATO supported the AU Mission in Sudan [airlifting over 30,000 troops to and from the Darfur region] and is currently assisting the AU mission in Somalia in terms of air- and sea-lift, but also planning support.

"NATO is also providing...training opportunities and capacity building support to the African Union's long term peacekeeping capabilities, in particular the African Standby Force." [6]

The African Standby Force has been systematically modeled after the NATO Response Force, which was launched with large-scale war games in the African island nation of Cape Verde in 2006. The ASF is a joint project of NATO and U.S. Africa Command, which before achieving full operational capability on October 1, 2008 was conceived, developed and run by U.S. European Command, whose commander is simultaneously NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

In 2007 the North Atlantic Council, NATO's top civilian decision-making body, commissioned a study "on the assessment of the operational readiness of the African Standby Force (ASF) brigades." [7]

The following year NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visited Ghana for three days and said "the military alliance could play an important role in training African soldiers," in particular that "the Alliance had agreed to support the African Standby Force." [8]

In 2009 the bloc began training African staff officers for the ASF at the NATO School in Oberammergau, Germany. Joint Command Lisbon, the Alliance headquarters tasked to supervise military cooperation with the African Union, has trained African officers to run military exercises, and "NATO has also participated and supported various ASF preparatory workshops designed to develop ASF-related concepts." [9]

The same year Norwegian Colonel Brynjar Nymo - Norway's embassy in Ethiopia is the informal liaison office for NATO's relations with the AU - said that "cooperation between NATO and AU is currently focusing on technical support for the African Standby Force (ASF)."

The Norwegian embassy's website at the time stated that "The Africa Monitoring & Support Team at the NATO Headquarters in Portugal is the operational headquarters for NATO's work in Africa," as indicated above. [10]

Then-NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General Maurits Jochems visited AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, where NATO has a senior military liaison officer and other officials assigned, later in 2009.

"In his capacity as NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary-General, Ambassador Jochems has frequently visited Addis Ababa for discussions with the African Union....NATO is providing technical advice, and making available subject matter experts, experiences from international operations, and access to relevant training facilities to the AUC [African Union Commission] in the context of the African Standby Force." [11]

This January 26 and 27 NATO's Military Committee held two days of meetings in Brussels with the chiefs of defense - the U.S.'s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and his equivalents - and other military representatives of 66 nations, a third of the members of the United Nations.

The proceedings discussed ongoing NATO operations in Afghanistan - currently the world's largest and longest war, with an estimated 140,000 troops from some 50 nations serving under the Alliance's International Security Assistance Force - the Balkans (Kosovo Force), the entire Mediterranean Sea (Operation Active Endeavor), and the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Aden and down the eastern coast of Africa (Operation Ocean Shield).

During the Military Committee and related meetings a session of the Mediterranean Dialogue was held with military leaders from the seven members of that NATO partnership: Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and Mauritania. The session occurred as the government of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had recently been toppled and the demonstrations in Egypt that would bring the same denouement to President Hosni Mubarak were getting underway.

On February 9 Serbia's Beta News Agency reported Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac announcing that a NATO strategic conference entitled After Lisbon: Implementation of Transformation will be held in his nation's capital of Belgrade in June with representatives from 69 countries attending: All 28 NATO member states, 22 Partnership for Peace nations [12] in Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and 19 other states. [13]

In addition to the Mediterranean Dialogue, NATO's Istanbul Cooperation Initiative program is developing military cooperation with the Persian Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with Oman and Saudi Arabia to be brought on board next. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was in Qatar from February 15-16 for the two-day Deepening the NATO-Istanbul Cooperation Initiative conference with the permanent representatives (ambassadors) of the bloc's 28 members and senior military and government officials from the six Gulf Cooperation Council states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The first and last of them have troops serving under NATO in Afghanistan.

NATO also has a partnership category called Contact Countries. Subject to expansion, the four such nations are all in the Asia-Pacific region: Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The U.S.-led military bloc also maintains the Afghanistan-Pakistan-International Security Assistance Force Tripartite Commission to coordinate war efforts on both sides of the Khyber Pass and has troops and other military personnel assigned to its command in Afghanistan from nations that are not currently among the 70 NATO member and official partnership states: Colombia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore and Tonga.

The NATO-Russia Council was revived at the bloc's Lisbon summit in November and NATO's Kosovo Force (KFOR) is training and equipping the fledgling armed forces of Kosovo, the Kosovo Security Force. [14] NATO, then, has no fewer than 75 members and partners with nations like previously neutral Cyprus slated to follow. [15]

The African Union has 53 members and will soon have another after the successful independence referendum in Southern Sudan. The AU includes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara), conquered by Morocco in 1975 and not recognized by any NATO state, but not Morocco, which withdrew from the AU because of the latter's recognition and incorporation of Western Sahara.

Four members of the AU, along with Morocco, are already part of a NATO partnership program, the Mediterranean Dialogue - Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania and Tunisia - so a NATO military cooperation treaty with the African Union could gain the Atlantic Alliance 50 new partners.

That is, the world's only military bloc can further expand from one that grew from 16 to 28 members in a decade - 1999-2009 - into one that will become truly international in scope with nearly 100 military partners. Partners and members on every inhabited continent. Two-thirds of the nations in the world.

Related articles:

Militarization Of Energy Policy: U.S. Africa Command And Gulf Of Guinea
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/militarization-of-energy-policy-u-s-africa-command-and-gulf-of-guinea

Pentagon And NATO Apply Afghanistan-Pakistan War Model To Africa
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/pentagon-and-nato-apply-afghanistan-pakistan-war-model-to-africa

New Colonialism: Pentagon Carves Africa Into Military Zones
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/new-colonialism-pentagon-carves-africa-into-military-zones

Japanese Military Joins U.S. And NATO In Horn Of Africa
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/japanese-military-joins-u-s-and-nato-in-horn-of-africa

NATO: AFRICOM's Partner In Military Penetration Of Africa
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/nato-africoms-partner-in-military-penetration-of-africa

AFRICOM's First War: U.S. Directs Large-Scale Offensive In Somalia
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/africoms-first-war-u-s-directs-large-scale-offensive-in-somalia

AFRICOM Year Two: Seizing The Helm Of The Entire World
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/africom-year-two-taking-the-helm-of-the-entire-world

1) Argaw Ashine, Nato to sign security cooperation pact with AU
Africa Review, February 18, 2011 http://www.africareview.com/News/Nato+to+sign+security+cooperation+pact+with+AU/-/979180/1110238/-/4igp64/-/

2) Ivory Coast: Testing Ground For U.S.-Backed African Standby Force
Stop NATO, January 23, 2011
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/ivory-coast-testing-ground-for-u-s-backed-african-standby-force

3) Africa Review, February 18, 2011
4) Uganda: U.S., NATO Allies Prepare New Invasion Of Somalia
Stop NATO, July 28, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/uganda-u-s-nato-allies-prepare-new-invasion-of-somalia

5) Africa Review, February 18, 2011
6) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_61534.htm

7) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_54617.htm

8) Ghana News Agency, November 21, 2008
9) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_54617.htm

10) Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ethiopia, April 20, 2009
11) Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ethiopia, November 4, 2009
12) Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia, Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Russia in sometimes included.
13) NATO conference in Belgrade announced
Beta News Agency, February 9, 2011
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2011&mm=02&dd=09&nav_id=72629

14) KFOR's Final Firefighting Exercise for Kosovo Security Force
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Operations
February 17, 2011
http://www.aco.nato.int/page424203219.aspx

15) Push for NATO programme deemed unconstitutional
Cyprus Mail, February 19, 2011
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/push-nato-programme-deemed-unconstitutional/20110219

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1102/S00668/global-nato-seeks-to-recruit-50-new-military-partners.htm

 

Serbia: the shame of the West

Postcard — By Royston Jones on February 15, 2011 7:00 am

A proud people of an unjustly vilified nation

TODAY, Serbs around the world are remembering the Serbian National Revolution; a somewhat protracted affair generally agreed to have started in 1804 and concluded by 1835. So radical was this arrangement – a constitutional monarchy, abolition of feudalism – that Serbia's autocratic neighbours insisted the constitution be watered down lest these dangerous ideas spread.

This fear and loathing was not to be an isolated incident. In fact, few nations in recent decades have been so universally vilified. Why that should be so can only be understood by glimpsing into Serbia's history and looking at the events that have shaped modern Serbian attitudes, about themselves, their neighbours, and the wider world.

In the mid 14^th Century the Serbs had an empire, ruled by Stefan Uroš IV Dušan, but the empire did not outlast the man, with the nation suffering two catastrophic defeats to the Ottoman Turks at Maritsa (1371)  and Kosovo Polje (1389). The latter battle is of course more poetically known as "The Field of Black Birds", a seminal event in their history that Serbs regard as both the birth of the modern nation and the door on an era of oppression and suffering.

During those dark centuries the fragmented territories of the Serbs knew, at varying times, partial independence, suzerain status or direct Turkish rule, but the people always remained focused on unification and independence. As unforgiving opponents of the Sublime Porte, Serbs often allied themselves with the Kingdom of Hungary and other Christian powers. Serbian tenacity and willingness to fight became legendary, resulting in Serbs being recruited by neighbouring countries as soldiers, even being settled with their families in troubled border regions.

Following the revolution the remainder of the nineteenth century was relatively stable, apart from a few minor conflicts. Finally, at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Serbia was recognised by the Great Powers as an independent state, and became a kingdom under Milan (Obrenovic) I in 1882. Although Serbia was now fully independent there remained outside the Kingdom many areas inhabited by Serbs. The inevitable irredentism that resulted led to strained relations with neighbouring states.

Then came Sarajevo. Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, and member of the Young Bosnia organisation, set out with a few comrades to assassinate the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand. The attempt failed and Princip was returning to his lodgings when to his surprise he saw the royal car again – it had taken a wrong turn. Now there would be no mistake. The event that sparked the First World War happened by pure chance.

In that European tragedy Serbia suffered 450,000 dead, or 16.11% of her total population, more than any other combatant nation. By comparison, France lost 4.29%, Germany 3.82% and the UK 2.19%. Such were the losses that the Serbs often had to withdraw – even to Greece and Corfu – to recruit and regroup. But they always came back fighting. It's easy to say, 'Well, they started it!'. But Princip's group included Bosnian Muslims and Croats. This unity didn't suit the agenda of the Austrians or their ally, Germany; for them it was simple: Princip was a Serb and so the plot, via the Black Hand organisation, was traced back to Belgrade.

As one of the victors, Serbia was rewarded with a new country, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, ruled by Alexander I, of the old Karadordevic dynasty. A superstitious man, Alexander. As a result of three members of his family dying on a Tuesday he was reluctant to undertake official duties on that day, but on October 9, 1934 he had no choice. While being driven through the streets of Marseilles on a state visit to France he was assassinated by a Bulgarian member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO). According to many who have researched this (the first filmed assassination) IMRO was in league with the Ustaše, the Croatian fascist organisation, and both were secretly sponsored by Mussolini.

The Second World War was a time of yet more blood-letting. While a small number of Serbs collaborated the vast majority reacted as Serbs always have when threatened or invaded. They fought. The courage and doggedness of Tito's (mainly Serbian) Partisans and the royalist (and totally Serbian) Chetniks led by Draža Mihailovic is well documented. The vast numbers of German troops they tied down for years undoubtedly helped the Soviets achieve victory on the Eastern Front. Yet, as ever, there was a price to be paid.

The Ustaše was well rewarded after the German invasion, ruling the Nazi puppet-state of Croatia (including Bosnia), with Croats providing recruits for a Croatian SS division. The Kosovo Albanians had their SS division and ethnically cleansed Serbs from Kosovo. Many Bosnian muslims also sided with the Nazis. Bizarrely, Himmler showed quite a liking for Islam, regarding it, with its promise of paradise and maidens, as a good religion for a warrior. Surrounded by enemies the life of a Serb became very difficult.

The names of Auschwitz, Belsen and other Second World War extermination camps are familiar to us all, but few know the name Jasenovac. This camp, run by the Ustaše, did the Nazi's bidding in exterminating Jews and Roma, but saved most places for Serbs. Overall, some 390,000 ethnic Serb residents of Croatia and Bosnia died at the hands of the Ustaše, though not all at Jasenovac, and in total well over half a million Serbs died.

The post-war history of Yugoslavia should be familiar to most readers. Under President Tito Yugoslavia achieved a certain amount of prosperity, and became a beacon for non-aligned countries during the Cold War. Yet in seeking to overcome the internal tensions of his country Tito came to be seen by many Serbs as favouring other nationalities above them, working for a "weak Serbia, for a strong Yugoslavia". When he died in 1980 the stage was set for the next act in the Balkans tragedy. The only surprise was that it took so long for the curtain to rise.

There isn't the space to deal with everything that happened between 1991 and 1999. The Western – in other words, the US – interpretation of this period runs as follows: Tired of Serbian oppression the other nations of Yugoslavia decided upon independence, but then found themselves subject to all manner of horrors inflicted, either by the regular Yugoslav army, police, or Serb irregulars. The Western media followed this line unquestioningly.

Here's a different interpretation, for which we need to examine the general (and all too often unsubstantiated) claims of Serbian "brutality" in response to the break-up of their "empire". The northernmost territory, Slovenia, and the southernmost, Macedonia, split with hardly any bloodshed. (In fact, the worst trouble in Macedonia came, post-independence, from secessionist Albanians.) The fighting was concentrated in Croatia, Bosnia and, finally, Kosovo – an Autonomous Province of Serbia. Why should Serbia, and Serbs generally, respond differently in different areas? Because Slovenia and Macedonia contained few ethnic Serbs. Whereas the other three areas contained large numbers of ethnic Serbs for whom anyone with a knowledge of recent Balkan history should have been very concerned.

Croatia was home well over half a million ethnic Serbs, mainly in the Krajina region. Had you been a Krajina Serb in the country that had once been ruled by the Ustaše, and was now led by nationalist demagogue, Franjo Tudman, would you have felt safe? Wouldn't you have sought help from fellow Serbs? When the 300,000 or more surviving Krajina Serbs were expelled in 1995, their homes burnt and the old people they had to leave behind killed, Western politicians and media referred to it as "an exodus" . . . for only Serbs can be guilty of ethnic cleansing.

As late as 1998 the US State Department had the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) listed as a terrorist organisation. The very same bunch of drug-traffickers and gun-runners whose leader Hashim Thaçi was then being lionised by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, with his gang promoted as freedom fighters, posing in front of the cameras and promising to go fight the Serbs. (Posing was what the KLA was best at, it did very little fighting.) And as we all know now, the KLA also ran a lucrative organ harvesting business from Serb civilians they kidnapped and butchered.

Why so many lies? Put quite simply, the West (again, mainly the US) had an agenda based on geopolitical considerations. The Soviet Union was breaking apart. The Cold War was over and Eastern Europe was in turmoil, with every Ivan and Istvan wanting to be a capitalist and to drive a Merc. The one remaining obstacle to the eastward advance of Western ideas (and goods) was perceived to be Yugoslavia led by Serbia, which despite the strained relationship under Tito, was now rediscovering older ties with its Orthodox cousins in Russia. Ergo Yugoslavia had to be dismembered and Serbia itself weakened.

This strategy became linked with the Gulf War. On February 23, 1991 a US-led force began the ground attack to "liberate" Kuwait. As we know, this was, militarily, successful, but there were unforeseen complications. Not least among those complications was the presence, post-conflict, of US military bases in Saudi Arabia. "Crusaders" so close to Mecca outraged many muslims, not least, Osama bin Laden. It was this US military presence in his homeland that turned Osama bin Laden against the West. In a desperate attempt to placate the Islamic world the USA wanted to be seen defending muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.

You may see this as an apologia for the Serbs. So be it. But it is not the work of a denier. In the various conflicts of the 1990s many crimes were committed by Serbs, none worse than the massacre at Srebrenica. But why did the politicians and the media take me, and you, for idiots in telling us that the other parties were all innocent victims? Doesn't it worry you that in a democratic society we were lied to over such a lengthy period? Those lies are slowly unravelling, but time is passing and the belated truth will never have the same impact as the nightly television reports we all saw, with their strident and insistent message: 'the Serbs are guilty'.

Yet if we are considering war crimes . . . It was significant that rather than put in ground troops to link up with the heroes of the KLA the USA chose to bomb Serb civilians in order to bring their government to the surrender table. In killing Serbian civilians and bombing Belgrade the USA committed war crimes. But of course the USA won, so no one will indict Uncle Sam, even though his war crimes were filmed and otherwise better documented than any of the 'atrocities' alleged to have been committed by the Serbs.

Given that on more than one occasion they have come close to total annihilation as a people, we should not be surprised that when threatened Serbs fight back with everything they've got. But their struggles have invariably been defensive. Whether fighting medieval Turks or 20th Century Germans the Serbs have fought in defence of their land and their people. It was the same in the 1990s when Yugoslavia was broken apart.

Why the West – yes, again the USA – chose to misrepresent the situation has been explained. The dismemberment of Yugoslavia, the support for Croat neo-fascists, Albanian gangsters, and possibly even foreign mujahideen who came to kill Serbs, is one of the most dishonourable chapters in recent Western history.

About the author

Royston Jones

Born in Swansea, Royston Jones oined Plaid Cymru in the mid '60s but was also familiar with those of a more militant bent. Active in the anti-Investiture campaign and convicted for attempted decapitation (of Aberystwyth statue),he spent two years in Coleg Harlech before returning to Swansea, getting married, and standing for Plaid in local elections. After moving to wife's home village in Meirionnydd in 1980 he became aware of the full horrors of cultural nationalism and gave up entirely on Plaid Cymru as it turned Green and moved irrevocably Left. A founder member of Y Cyfamodwr (the Covenanters), and later the Independent Wales Party he was also – with Basil Thomas – the co-editor of Ein Gwlad. Royston Has now reached the stage – grandfather, wine drinker and cardigan-wearer – where he believes that until Wales has a right-of-centre party committed to the nation, the free market system, and full independence, we shall drift along with self-serving and uninspiring mediocrities 'leading' a nation fast losing the will to live. Favoured word for current mood of despair: anomie.

 

http://waleshome.org/2011/02/serbia-the-shame-of-the-west/

Kosovo: Thug Life

Thug Life

Think Mubarak was bad? Kosovo's leaders are accused of being organ-smuggling, drug-dealing goons -- and the United States is looking the other way.

BY WHIT MASON AND BRONWYN HEALY-AARONS | FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Amid fireworks and celebratory gunfire, Kosovo -- Europe's newest country -- turned three years old on Thursday, Feb. 17. But behind the scenes of revelry in the capital, Pristina, it's clear that it will take a lot more than flag-waving for the fledgling country to grow out of its terrible twos. For all the hope that was once showered upon this young democracy, it still faces an enormous uphill battle: the country has no international postal or telephone code; it cannot establish its own IP address; its athletes cannot partake in many international sporting events; thousands of NATO troops still remain as peacekeepers; and Kosovars can only travel visa-free to five countries -- one of which is Haiti. With only 75 out of 192 nations having recognized the new state, it remains in a purgatory of semi-sovereignty.

Meanwhile, it's been a big start to the year for new states and new orders. The regimes in Tunisia and Egypt have fallen. Southern Sudan claimed its independence with a near unanimous result. A wave of reform protests continues across the Middle East. After a bit of diplomatic wavering, the United States reaffirmed its commitment to self-determination and human rights, promising to support "principles, processes and institutions -- not personalities" in its engagement with the new governments taking root in North Africa.

Trouble is, a sobering assessment of the successes and failures of state-building since the end of the Cold War demonstrates that governance and development work best when a population rallies behind an enlightened leader -- and suffer when one does not emerge. Principles of democracy and human rights have to abide in a leadership and must be bought into by a population.

And here's the rub: While the United States grappled with its inability (whether for lack of a fulcrum or fear of meddling) to use leverage to remove the regimes in Tunis and Cairo, it actually does have the power to affect change and promote transparent and accountable governance in Pristina -- where a coterie of thuggish leaders, holdovers from a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) unit accused of war crimes and weapons dealing, now run the country. But, thus far, Washington has been unwilling to exert the necessary pressure on Kosovo's leaders -- and in its impotence pours billions of dollars down the drain and risks condemning the state to thugocracy.

While much has been made of America's financial support of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's regime and other autocratic dictatorships in recent weeks, Kosovo's democracy has received far more direct American aid in recent years -- in 2010, Kosovo received more than twice the American bilateral foreign assistance per capita than Egypt. Yet, after more than a decade of immense international investment and the best-resourced humanitarian mission the world has ever seen, Kosovo enters its fourth year of independence amid its own internal turmoil.

Yesterday, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic requested that the United Nations Security Council investigate allegations of organ trafficking and other serious war crimes submitted to the Council of Europe by Swiss Euro MP and former prosecutor Dick Marty in December of last year. The human rights atrocities were allegedly carried out against ethnic Serbs and Albanians accused of collaborating with Serb forces during the 1998-1999 conflict in the former Serbian province. Those accused of carrying out the acts include senior members of Kosovo's central government.

As it turns out, U.S. support for the world's youngest democracy has been almost as bad for economic security, political stability and democratic principles as backing the globe's oldest autocracies. Kosovo remains the poorest country in Europe. Just under half the population is jobless and living in poverty, 14 percent in extreme poverty. The women of Kosovo produce Europe's highest birth rate while facing its worst maternal and infant mortality rates. Only one in five youth under the age of 25 are employed. Access to health care and education outside the major cities is limited. Electricity supply remains patchy across the country -- despite donor funding in excess of €1.1 billion.

Of course, human and economic development in war-torn societies can be a slow and arduous process. The world should not expect its investment to instantly bear fruit. But support for Kosovo has been premised on developing a politically stable, democratic country.

In actuality, it has entrenched deep political divisions in an already fragmented government and ensconced an elite that now operates above the law. Having failed to improve Kosovo's moribund economy and human development indicators, the former-KLA power brokers of the central government have somehow managed to accrue personal wealth vastly out of proportion with their declared activities. Their development and state-building policy has largely consisted of maintaining its own power over institutions of state, security, and law and order.

Until last year, keeping Kosovo stable -- or at least appearing so -- had been prioritized by the international community over pursuing clear evidence of increasing corruption among senior government officials. But, as the international money poured in throughout 2010, the veneer cracked. A wave of organized crime, war crime, and corruption allegations swept the senior membership of the Kosovo government and the leaderships of its major political parties.

On April 28, 2010, international police raided the offices and home of Transport and Telecommunications Minister Fatmir Limaj in connection with a corruption probe into a €700 million infrastructure project. Suspected of soliciting bribes and laundering up to €2 million from the public purse, the raid on Limaj was the result of a two-year investigation that started shortly after he took office in January 2008. At that point, he had only just returned in September 2007 from his second trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ICTY -- indicted but never convicted of illegal imprisonment, cruel treatment, and inhumane acts during the war with Serbian forces in 1998-1999.

At the time of Limaj's arrest, the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) announced he was only one of seven ministers being investigated for links to organized crime and corruption in office.

Two months after the raid on Limaj, on July 21, 2010 popular former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj was indicted for a second time by the ICTY to stand trial for war crimes including torture, rape, and crimes against humanity. His application for provisional release was denied and he currently awaits trial in remand at the United Nations Detention Unit in The Hague. On Jan. 31, it was announced that the opposition party he leads from his cell, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, placed fourth in the general election -- taking a substantial 11 percent of the vote.

Two days after Haradinaj's arrest, Kosovo police arrested central bank governor Hashim Rexhepi on charges of corruption, tax evasion, and money laundering.

But it was the leaking of a Council of Europe (CoE) report just days after Kosovo's first post-independence election on December 2010 that really put this criminality and corruption out in the open. On Dec. 12, human rights rapporteur Dick Marty submitted a report to the CoE containing serious accusations against the local leadership and international missions currently presiding over Kosovo.

The report alleged that the ICTY, United Nations, NATO, and individual Western governments had failed to thoroughly investigate serious war crimes committed by the members of a KLA unit known as the Drenica Group during the 1998-1999 conflict with Serbia. According to Marty's report, the unit had violently seized and operated the lucrative trading routes across the Prokletije mountain range on the Kosovo-Albania border. He alleges the group amassed considerable fortunes supplying weaponry to local forces -- and trafficked in human beings, heroin, and organs taken from Serb and Albanian prisoners of war.

Marty's report identified the leader of Drenica Group as a man called "The Snake" -- a.k.a. Hashim Thaqi, who two days earlier had been named prime minister re-elect of the Republic of Kosovo. He has officially taken office in time for Kosovo's third Independence Day celebrations.

All of the condemned leadership have been quick to accuse the international community of "political lynching," interfering with domestic affairs of state, and inappropriate investigations into an independent government. Hardly.

In fact, the most disturbing aspect of these events were the revelations that Kosovo's thugocrats owe their rise and continued impunity to the toleration or outright support of the international community -- particularly the United States.

From the outset of the NATO intervention into Kosovo in June 1999, it was an American-devised strategy that drove allied forces to combat Serb atrocities through a 78-day aerial bombardment. Explicitly eschewing a land assault meant control on the ground fell to KLA forces -- with dire consequences for the safety of their Albanian opponents and the ethnic minorities of Kosovo. The summer of 1999 saw violent retaliatory attacks claim the lives of some 50 Serb and Roma civilians a week before the international forces regained control.

This strategy also set the terms for a co-dependent relationship between the West and the former KLA leadership to maintain a stability that took far too long to establish in the aftermath of the 1999 intervention. During the time it took for NATO and the U.N. to deploy in the wake of the bombing, the presence and actions of the KLA generated a perception among the local community that they were supported by the American and international forces.

American officials later did little to change that perception: It was their lobbying and support that gave the KLA the legitimacy they needed to transition from armed gang to political powerbrokers.

In 1999, the U.S. endorsement of Thaqi as hero was sealed with a kiss planted on his cheek by then Secretary of State Madeline Albright on her post-intervention visit to Kosovo. In 2004, every American staffer at the U.S. Embassy was invited to attend Haradinaj's wedding -- and, despite his links to organized crime and impending indictment on war crimes, they went. Most recently, the night after the raid on Limaj's home and offices, U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo Christopher Dell was seen laughing and chatting with the minister at a well-attended party in Pristina.

It is difficult to see how democracy or respect the rule of law could develop and flourish amid such overt displays of American support for a corrupt and criminal leadership. As in Egypt and across the Middle East, this policy of impunity comes at significant cost to the objectives and perceptions of the United States and its Western allies. This backing for Kosovo government officials has undercut efforts to pursue indictments for war crimes and investigate high-level corruption. The war crimes taking place throughout the 1998-1999 conflict and in the immediate aftermath have never been fully investigated -- in fact, in some cases they have been covered up.

International judicial experts complain that the United Nations internal war crimes process "has always been very political," and that some "UNMIK cases were sent to [U.N. Headquarters in] New York rather than decided on the merits of the case." They allege international political interference stopped some cases from going before a court because "the political ramifications would have been too great." And only days before the independence celebrations, their accusations were given considerable weight with the leaking of classified U.N. documents that show UNMIK ran an incomplete investigation into the organ trafficking case brought to light by Marty in late 2010. The documents date from 2003 -- when UNMIK was in full control of the internal war crimes investigations and prosecutions.

So, that Kosovo holds elections should be small consolation to those in U.S. foreign policy who advocate championing principles over personalities. Democracy has not stopped the West from supporting and installing its preferred leaders in countries of geopolitical strategic importance -- local strongmen who hold the tumultuous societies of war-torn countries together with an iron fist rather than a rule of law.

As the United States and its allies contemplate how to support the latest wave of democratization, it must recognize that this reflex -- as evidenced by its policy in Kosovo up to today -- remains oriented toward backing power over virtue. As Condoleezza Rice noted in an abortively transformational speech in 2005, support for autocrats in the Middle East achieves neither democracy nor stability. It is an easy out for the United States to claim that it must not support personalities, and rather let people independently decide their own leaderships. However, it is also a convenient way to avoid accountability while preaching the principles of democracy from afar, laying the blame when things go south on societies still recovering from civil war.

The first principle in aiding the construction of new democracies must be to support conditions that prevent anyone from operating above the law. Even in a place like Kosovo, where Western influence might seem overwhelming, allowing space for impunity vitiates virtually everything else accomplished by even the most extravagant intervention.

Armend Nimani/AFP/Getty Images
Corrections: Spelling of Rice's first name and year of her speech.

 

Whit Mason worked for the United Nations in Kosovo and Afghanistan. He is the co-author of Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo and editor of The Rule of Law in Afghanistan: Missing in Inaction, to be published in February. Bronwyn Healy-Aarons recently spent six months in Kosovo and is completing a PhD in post-conflict peace-building at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/17/thug_life?page=0,0

Kosovo – still a mess

 

Kosovo – still a mess

10:27 am in Kosovo by TransConflict   |    Add a comment

With Kosovo still a mess, it remains to be seen whether the Quint will push Pristina to accept necessary compromises and whether EULEX will move to prevent a resumption of Pristina's provocations on the ground.

By Gerard Gallucci

More than a month into the new year – and in the aftermath of disputed elections and the Marty report – the situation remains grim in Kosovo. It appears that the election will produce a hodgepodge government in Pristina of questionable stability and with no apparent program, except to continue waiting for the international community to grant full recognition for the work-in-progress state created by the US and EU.

The Kosovo leadership remains under a dark cloud of allegations of involvement in organ trafficking and corruption. According to leaked US information, a Dutch state secretary in 2007 said Kosovo was run by people "who live off crime", whilst other leaked documents suggest that NATO sees prime minister Thaci as the "biggest fish" of organized crime there. The EU says that EULEX is ready to investigate the charges contained in the Marty report and EULEX claims to be able to protect any witnesses indicated in the evidence that it is waiting for Mr. Marty to supply. But doubts exist about the ability of EULEX to do an investigation of the Pristina leadership free from the influence of the local Kosovo Albanians. (EULEX already has a questionable record of carrying out its rule-of-law mandate in the status-neutral manner it pledged to the UNSC in November 2008.) Marty does not trust EULEX to be able to protect his witnesses and the Human Rights Watch apparently agrees, as it has called for an independent prosecutor and an effective witness protection scheme.

The Kosovo Albanians meanwhile continue to obsess over the north, with charges that the internationals have not done enough to impose Pristina's institutions there. They have also shamefully attacked, by name, UN staff working as peacekeepers north of the Ibar. The Pristina press has been repeating charges that the UN sides with the local Serbs and that EULEX has not done enough to bring to justice those behind isolated, mostly symbolic acts of violence against property and empty police cars. (It is worth remembering that the only serious injury associated with political violence in the last 12 months – the death of a local Bosniak doctor, beloved by neighbors, from a grenade explosion – was during the Kosovo government's provocative attempt last July to open an office in a mixed neighborhood in north Mitrovica. Police have not closed this investigation but locals believe the grenade was thrown from the Albanian side.) Pristina may still hope to stir the internationals to assume control in the north before any possible negotiations can get to the subject of possible special autonomy for the region. The United States is said to be pressuring EULEX to complete the job of subjecting the north to Pristina's control before November, perhaps for the same reason.

The EU may be finally coming to recognize the problem they have on their hands with Kosovo. Statements from the EU chief in Pristina – as well as the American ambassador – have called for the new Kosovo government to not include those tainted by charges of corruption or crime. The International Steering Group (ISG, the pro-independence countries supposedly supervising Pristina) called recently for the government to respond to all questions and requests from EULEX for its investigation of the Marty allegations. But unless there is an independent prosecutor – something the EU and US have not yet called for – or Marty brings himself to risk his witnesses by turning them over to EULEX, it seems unlikely that any credible investigation – or "official" charges – will ever happen.

It is not yet clear whether the EU will use discussions between Belgrade and Pristina – that may begin in March – to hammer out a real compromise on Kosovo, including an outcome for the north that goes beyond the Ahtisaari Plan. It seems that everyone agrees that the agenda for talks should start with non-political issues, such as missing persons. But as the chief of Belgrade's team for the talks has already noted, even so-called technical issues – such as telecommunications – are already political. And for their part, it appears from statements from the ISG and the US that the Quint countries – US, UK, Germany, France and Italy – see the talks as a way for Belgrade to come to accept the loss of Kosovo, including the north.

Kosovo not only remains a mess but it seems, for now, that the Quint is no closer to abandoning its effort to impose it on the Serbs through a one-sided outcome favoring Pristina. The first test may be whether they – meaning really the US – push Pristina to accept compromises such as allowing Serbian telecom and electricity providers to offer services in Kosovo, at least to local Serbs. The coming of spring will also provide another test, more directly related to peacekeeping: whether or not EULEX again allows and supports Pristina 's provocations on the ground.

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

http://www.transconflict.com/2011/02/kosovo-still-a-mess-162/

EU and US accused of cover-up on organ trafficking - euobserver...

 

It's amazing. When the Serbs were accused of committing atrocities, our congressmen couldn't jump up fast enough on the floor of the House to condemn them, yet something as horrific as this, they and the media remain silent.  It's news all over Europe, but we've heard nothing about this in the states.

 

Stella

 

http://euobserver.com/9/31798/?rk=1

 

 

HEADLINE NEWS

EU and US accused of cover-up on organ trafficking

ANDREW WILLIS

Today @ 09:25 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Western governments have known about the criminal activities of senior politicians in Kosovo for a long time, Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty has said, adding that Europe is now unwilling to properly investigate the situation for fear of being exposed.

"Western countries knew all the time what was happening in Kosovo but nobody did anything about it," Mr Marty said in an interview with the Slovenian daily Delo on Saturday (12 February).

Dick Marty said Brussels would do everything it could to make the case sink into oblivion (Photo: EUobserver.com)

A report published by Mr Marty in December sent shockwaves through the international community when it linked Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci to a gruesome crime ring which carried out organ harvesting and heroin smuggling in the region.

Serb prisoners held in special detention camps were killed and had their organs extracted for sale on the international black market in the 1990s, claimed the 27-page document.

A former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Mr Thaci's name was frequently cited in intelligence and diplomatic reports from Kosovo sent by western information agencies such as the FBI, MI6, "but the western politicians persistently remained quiet," Mr Marty said in the interview.

"Everybody kept quiet. That's the real scandal, not my report in which I only wrote what many have known for a long time," he added.

That claim appears to be supported by a recently leaked US diplomatic cable which suggests former Dutch state secretary for European Affairs Frans Timmermans warned the US in 2007 that senior Kosovo officials were heavily involved in criminal activities.

"Kosovo is run by people who live off crime ... [they have] no other means to support themselves," Mr Timmermans reportedly told US officials in The Hague, according to the cable published by WikiLeaks.

An EU mission in Kosovo, Eulex, is currently investigating the recent allegations, but the supervisory body is plagued by internal problems that will prevent witnesses giving real evidence, Mr Marty said.

"There is no secrecy. All translators are local, there are many local staff. That is why even the most confidential information has been systematically leaking," he said.

"If I gave [Eulex] the names of the witnesses I interviewed [as called for by the EU], their lives would immediately be under threat."

Instead, a special investigation unit from abroad with a credible witness protection programme is needed, suggested the Swiss politician - something he feels Europe will oppose as it will expose their previous unwillingness to act.

"Europe is never going to accept that. Because it knows that my witnesses would really talk and reveal that a large part of the European politicians knew all along what was going on in Kosovo. Do you really think that Brussels wants to hear something like this," he said.

US democracy grows on Nazi butchers

03.02.2011

 

The American authorities deliberately gave harbor to Nazi criminals, and used those criminals against the USSR. This subject was raised after the death of Nazi war criminal Peter Egner, a US citizen, who was involved in the extermination of 17,000 people in Serbia's Staro Sajmiste concentration camp. Egner died last week at age 88 of natural causes without carrying any punishment whatsoever for his crimes.

His extradition was sought by Israeli and Serbian authorities, but the Americans just let the Nazi die peacefully. This is not the first incident, when American and European authorities use various excuses not to deliver Nazi criminals. For example, Sandor Kepiro, one of the most sought-after individuals on Simon Wiesenthal Center's list. Kepiro is accused of organizing the murder of at least 1,250 civilians in Serbia's Novi Sad in 1942. The Hungarian authorities found Kepiro guilty of the crimes back in 1944, but he has never been punished for them. The list of the countries that take least efforts in searching for Nazi criminals include Norway, Sweden, Syria, Estonia, Lithuania and Ukraine.

Austria can also be included on the list. This country has not been cooperating with anyone regarding the extradition of war criminals. For instance, former chief of the Croatian police Milivoj Asner approved executions of thousands of people, but the Austrian authorities refused to extradite him.
The authorities of Latvia actively support Nazi criminals nowadays too. It particularly goes about the legal assistance to former policeman John Demjanjuk (born Ivan Demianiuk, also spelled Demyanyuk), who is accused of exterminating tens of thousands of civilians.

Latvia finds the support from the United States at this point. It becomes clear that the tone in defense of Nazi war criminals was set by the States. According to the 2005 report from the US Department of Justice, the CIA and British secret services had given harbor to dozens of Nazis, many of whom will never be put on trial already.

The US authorities provided shelter to Nazi war criminals deliberately. US officials were perfectly aware of their past, but decided that the criminals could serve the US democracy just as well as they served the Third Reich. The Nazis were used as scientists and as sources of intelligence data.

The documents, which shed light on the cooperation between US special services and Nazi criminals were declassified in 2006. According to those sources, the CIA deliberately decided not to arrest well-known war criminal Adolf Eichmann under the pretext that Eichmann could expose the truth about Hans Globke, who used to be a high ranking public servant in the Federal Republic of Germany during the 1950s. More importantly, Globke served as one of the closest aides to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.

According to The New York Times, the most evil war criminal, who served at the CIA, was Otto von Bolschwing, the closest associate of executioner Adolf Eichmann. He took direct part in developing the plan of the total extermination of Jews. Eichmann's four other followers were also working at the CIA, the FBI and the Pentagon.

Here is another interesting figure - Arthur Rudolph, a German/American rocket engineer, who was in charge of Mittlewerk defense plant. Rudolph is accused of using slave labor at his facilities. The Americans were not interested in his dark past. They were interested in his knowledge of rocket technologies. Rudolph became very successful in the United States. He received an award from NASA and earned the reputation of the father of Saturn 5 rocket.

Horst Kopkow, a Nazi Germany SS major, who worked for Gestapo, began serving for British special services to assist them in the struggle against Soviet espionage. It turns out that the Americans and their allies needed the direct carriers of the Holocaust experience in the struggle against the rise of communism in Europe. Therefore, the allies put obstacles for immigration authorities in the deportation of such personas.

Former Soviet citizens, who worked for the Third Reich make a completely different story. According to Yalta agreements of 1945, all Soviet citizens, who cooperated with Nazis, were supposed to be delivered to the USSR after Germany's defeat. Practically all of them were extradited to the Soviet Union. Those who were not delivered to the USSR, as well as thousands of former SS officers, found shelter at the French Foreign Legion and then settled in Australia or the USA.

Sergei Balmasov
Pravda.Ru

http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/03-02-2011/116766-nazi_war_criminals-0/

Judah on Kosovo: "Some problems don't get resolved"

01/02/2011

A veteran journalist assesses the latest elections and the prospects ahead.

By Muhamet Brajshori for Southeast European Times in Pristina -- 31/01/11

Economist reporter Tim Judah. [Muhamet Brajshori/SETimes]

Journalist Tim Judah covers the Balkans for The Economist and was in Kosovo immediately proceeding and following the December 12th snap elections, watching the process first hand.

Revotes had to be held in several municipalities due to various irregularities at the polls.

Judah sat down with SETimes to discuss the elections and more.

SETimes: You have been here; how do you see the situation now in Pristina?

Tim Judah: Well, what happened has been unfortunate. It's unfortunate for the country and for the reputation of the country. The results have been tainted. We must see what's going to happen now, I mean wait and see. We don't know which way things will go, but I think it's very unfortunate for Kosovo.

SETimes: It's clear that Kosovo and Serbia will start a dialogue, for Pristina it's about technical issues, for Belgrade, it's about everything, including status. Will there be an end point?

Judah: I don't know if there's ever going to be an end point. I mean I don't think in the foreseeable future that Serbia is about to recognise Kosovo; therefore, I think instead of an endpoint, there will just be a constant dialogue about resolving those problems which can be resolved and about managing the situation. You must know that some problems don't get resolved, like Cyprus or the Middle East. Those are just managed and keep going forever … I'm not 100% sure why Kosovo should be particularly different. So, I don't think there is necessarily an end point.

SETimes: You are outspoken about the idea of a "Yugosphere". What is it, and where does Kosovo fit in?

Judah: The idea of the Yugosphere was simply to explain to people what I saw, the reforming of a lot of links in all spheres -- political, social, economic and cultural -- within the former Yugoslavia. And I think there has been a lot of that in the last years, in fact much more than people have realised. A partial exception to that-- because of its people and history and because of a different language -- is Kosovo. So Kosovo is partially part of this Yugosphere.

I think it's there to a certain extent due to trade, business and connections with Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia, one of the biggest investors in Kosovo, [maybe] the biggest investor here. There are several links but it's a different order than in other parts of the former Yugoslavia.

SETimes: How you see the situation in post-election Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Judah: Well, I mean it's early to say but it's possible that Mr. Izetbegovic and Mr. Dodik could achieve some form of a political deal which would end the stagnation of the last four years there. It's not certain, but they could come up with a deal to end this stagnation.

You see Josipovic of Croatia was given the prize of Nezavisne Novine as the Man of the Year, and we saw a Yugosphere there. There were Josipovic, Dodik, Tadic, Izetbegovic, and the President of Montenegro Filipovic as well.

The atmosphere, in general terms, has been better in Bosnia, but as for whether that can be translated into an end to the deadlock -- it's too early to say. And otherwise Bosnia would just stagnate.

SETimes: Can relations between Croatia and Serbia be an example for the relations between Kosovo and Serbia?

Judah: I would not compare the relations between Croatia and Serbia in the context of Kosovo because, I think, the history of Serbian-Croatian relations has been different from that of Kosovo-Serbia relations. That's not to say Serbia and Kosovo can't live as neighbours and have good relations. But the historical relations between Serbs and Croats are of a completely different nature and order than the relations between Serbs and Albanians. I would not draw a direct comparison because it's a different history.

SETimes: Albania has not received a positive opinion from the EU. What's happens next? Judah: Albania knew and Albanian politicians were told what happened, and it's not a surprise. One side says this and another side says that no, Europe can wait as this is more important, and so European integration has to wait.

SETimes: We have seen, over the years, a change in Balkan-Turkish relations. Is what is really happening a kind of neo-Ottomanism?

Judah: Well, no. The Turkish foreign minister said he doesn't like the expression neo-Ottomanism and that's the way they are thinking. If it's useful for people in the Balkans to conduct more trade and business with Turkey -- I don't know if it will be useful -- but I also know that Brussels looks weak at the moment.

But still I would ask if it would be a better option to be part of a neo-Ottoman cycle and where this would lead. It might be good for Turkey, but I'm not sure if the same is true for everyone here. Good relations with Turkey are fine but in certain strategic political options, the EU is still better.

This content was commissioned for SETimes.com.

http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/articles/2011/02/01/reportage-01