The Election of Losers

europeanwesternbalkans.com

The Election of Losers - European Western Balkans

Florian Bieber

8-9 minutes

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One person appears to have won the election. His face was everywhere, his name was on the ballot, though not as a candidate, and the virtual rallies were dominated by him. Aleksandar Vučić is the apparent winner of Serbia's parliamentary election last Sunday.

While neither running for the election and president official standing above party politics, it was clear that the victory of Vučić was absolute. His party won around 62 percent of the vote, and gaining 191 of 250 seats in parliament, around 76% of the seats. The large majority opens the door to constitutional changes that would allow the regime, like in Hungary, to tailor the constitution to the needs of the ruling party.

His long-term coalition partner, the Socialists and their allies gained 10.4% and 32 seats, and the Serbian Patriotic Alliance, the vehicle of New Belgrade mayor Aleksandar Šapić gained 11 seats, just passed the 3% threshold with 3.64%. The threshold was lowered from 5% to 3% just weeks before the election in a transparent effort by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) to boost the representation of minor parties in parliament to weaken the effects of the opposition boycott.

The remaining 16 seats are held by minority parties, which have a lower threshold. The only opposition in the Serbian parliament are two Albanian MPs from the majority Albanian municipalities of Bujanovac and Preševo, as the minority parties cooperated with the previous governments of the Progressive Party and Šapić also did not run against the government.

It is this resounding victory that makes the outcome a defeat for Vučić. A parliament without an opposition cannot serve as a fig leaf to legitimize the supposedly democratic rule of the president. Had more of the 21 running parties and groups entered parliament, such as the different far right and fascist groups or a few scattered democratic and reformists, the Progressive Party could claim that Serbia had a pluralist parliament. Now, it does not and thus reveals the authoritarian nature of the regime.

The opposition lost as well. While turnout was probably lower than official numbers, it was according to the independent monitoring NGO CRTA around 48 percent, thus 8 to 9 percent lower than previous parliamentary elections in 2016. This is a minor drop, that could not be claimed solely by the opposition, but rather also by COVID-19 and voter apathy. Clearly the main effort the regime has been to push up voter participation, as most irregularities CRTA noted focused on pushing up voter numbers and SNS official appear to have called potential voter on election day to pressure them to vote.

The boycotting opposition has succeeded in delegitimizing the opposition that participated, such as the Movement of Free Citizens headed by Sergej Trifunović that only gained 1.5% or the United Democratic Serbia that gained less than 0.9%.

At the same time the opposition that boycotted is far from united. The once large Democratic Party has been marred by infighting, including a scuffle at the party headquarter on election day between different wings. Otherwise, the opposition is an uneasy alliance between the far right Dveri, unpopular split offs of the previously ruling Democratic Party and few other groups. Now out of parliament, cut off from funding, without a clear strategy and few international allies and contacts, the opposition has a rough time ahead.

The EU is the final loser in the elections. Serbia has long been hailed, uncritically, as the front runner in the EU enlargement. Now, it is confronted with a parliament that lacks a democratic mandate and a regime, whose authoritarian nature has become more visible.

A joint statement of the High Representive Josep Borrell and Neighborhood and Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi was strikingly critical, noting limited voter choice and media dominance of the ruling party.

The European Parties fell, unsurprisingly along partisan lines. The Socialists and Progressives correctly called the elections a mockery of democracy and demanded a slowdown of accession, whereas Donald Tusk of the European Peoples Party congratulated their party family associate SNS, only noting ominously "more power, the more responsibility."

The enlargement process is seriously compromised by the elections. Serbia has been negotiating accession for more than six years, the same period during which democracy and rule of law has been backsliding by every indicator and all organizations monitoring democracy globally, including Freedom House, Bertelsmann Transformation Index, VDem Institute, and Economist Democracy Index.

The EU institutions, with the notable exception of the parliament, have been strikingly silent on this. If the EU returns to business as usual after the election, it will not only encourage the further consolidation of authoritarianism in Serbia, but also among others in the region, including Montenegro and Albania. More importantly, it suggests that the EU is not just struggling with keeping autocrats within the EU but also during the accession process, when more tools are available. To confront the authoritarian drift, the EU needs to engage with Serbia.

Back in 2014, the EU at first ignoring the authoritarianism of the Gruevski government and the eviction of the opposition. Only the 2015 wiretapping scandal triggered more sustained EU engagement. The risk is that in Serbia the political alternatives will become more Eurosceptic, as they see the government backed by the EU and its member states and as many of the parties already today oppose European integration.

A renewed EU engagement requires several components, namely a meaningful mediation between government and opposition on how to bring the opposition back into the political process based on tackling some of the most serious democratic restrictions. Furthermore, a rule of law mission, such as the Priebe report drafted in 2015 by independent experts that would identify the shortcomings and priorities for reform, and a follow process.

The European Party families should work together on their assessment of democracy rather than making democracy a partisan issue in the Western Balkans. Bipartisan statements and mediation by MEPs from the largest European Parties would reduce the risk of authoritarianism being further facilitated by partisan rift.

Finally, the Commission, the European Parliament and the Member States need to consider the full range of options regarding the accession talks themselves. These options include not opening new chapters in negotiations, a low-level signal. More serious would be to evoke the imbalance clause, which has been part of the accession negotiations for eight years. It allows talks to the frozen on all chapters if not enough progress is made in regard to rule of law.

Finally, the new methodology, set up by the Commission in response to France's veto over accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania offers further tools to put pressure on accession candidates. It allows Member States to put negotiations in some areas on hold and re-open closed chapters, as well as reassessing funding and other benefits of cooperation. The most serious option would entail suspending accession talks altogether.

While the latter option might be counterproductive at the moment, it would be good to consider some of the intermediate measures. The suspension of accession talks, however, has to be a credible threat unless the Serbian government makes some clear and verifiable steps to restoring democratic institutions. Considering the tools the EU has available now to insist on the core values of the EU in the accession talks, not using them would cement the election result as a lost opportunity for Serbia and the EU.

 

 

forbes.com

Russia's Putin Gives The West A WWII History Lesson: Here's Why

James Rodgers

4-5 minutes

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Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting via video conference at the Novo-Ogaryovo ... [+] residence outside Moscow, Russia, Monday, June 15, 2020. (Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Vladimir Putin of Russia may have had to postpone the parade planned to mark the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in WWII. He has not missed the opportunity to make a point to the West.

Some 15,000 military personnel and hundreds of pieces of armour were originally due to take part in a parade scheduled for May 9: a tribute to the victorious Soviet troops who fought Hitler's forces, and a show of modern Russia's martial might.

The parade had to be postponed because of the coronavirus. It is now due to go ahead June 24, the anniversary of the first victory parade in 1945.

Then, the Soviet Union, the United States, and their allies celebrated together as victors united by a common cause.

This year, things are different—and history has become the latest battleground in the information war that is contemporary international politics.

Putin is not pleased by any prospect that his country's role in the defeat of Nazism might be diminished or disrespected.

Putin Warns Against 'Insulting The Memory' Of Moscow's Role

In a lengthy essay published on the website of The National Interest, and also on that of the Kremlin, Putin warned, "Historical revisionism, the manifestations of which we now observe in the West, primarily with regard to the subject of the Second World War and its outcome, is dangerous."

The Russian leader referred in particular to a European parliament resolution of September 2019 that, he wrote, "directly accused the USSR – along with the Nazi Germany – of unleashing the Second World War."

Putin's conclusion was clear, and defiant, "Desecrating and insulting the memory is mean."

Putin also wrote that it was not his intention to, "initiate a new round of international information confrontation in the historical field that could set countries and peoples at loggerheads."

He may end up doing that, intentionally or not—but he certainly wants to set the record straight as he sees it.

 

Russian soldiers march toward Red Square to attend a dress rehearsal for the Victory Day military ... [+] parade in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, June 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Scale Of Soviet Sacrifice In WWII

Why, 75 years after the end of the conflict, and in a very different world, does this matter so much?

The first answer is the scale of Russia's sacrifice. The number of Soviet military and civilian dead is generally estimated to be in excess of 20 million. In his article, Putin writes, "Almost 27 million," adding, for comparison, that in WWII, "The USSR lost one in seven of its citizens, the UK lost one in 127, and the USA lost one in 320."

Then there's Russia's own history. In a 20th century scarred—in addition to WWI and WWII—by revolution, civil war, and regime change from monarchy to communism before that system too collapsed in 1991, victory over Hitler's Germany stands out as a triumph that is used still today as a force to unite the country.

So it does not go down well when, as happened on May 8 in a tweet from the White House, Russia's role is overlooked.

Facing Coronavirus Challenge, Putin Remembers WWII Glory

True, on April 25, there had been a joint statement from Presidents Trump and Putin celebrating U.S. Soviet military cooperation in WWII—but the perceived slight on VE day itself was not well received. Calling the tweet "bizarre", the Kremlin-backed RT website asked, "Forgetting someone?"

In his article, Putin referred to a note sent by Britain's wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, to the then Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, in September 1944. Churchill acknowledged that it was, "the Russian army that tore the guts out of the German military machine."

As his country battles with the effects of the coronavirus on public health and the economy, and faces difficult relations with the West, Putin does not want either the people of Russia, or the world, to forget that.

 

NYT: Pushing for Serbia-Kosovo Peace Deal, U.S. Roils Allies

nytimes.com

Pushing for Serbia-Kosovo Peace Deal, U.S. Roils Allies

By Patrick Kingsley and Kenneth P. Vogel

9-12 minutes

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Upending American policy, the Trump Administration is sidelining the E.U., pressuring Kosovo and ignoring Serbia's erosion of democracy.

Credit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times

• June 20, 2020, 11:02 a.m. ET

BERLIN — Last October, with the Balkans unsettled and the old tethers of American diplomacy coming apart, the Trump administration dispatched a new envoy to try to solve one of Europe's longest-running territorial disputes: the two-decade standoff between Serbia and Kosovo.

The move was unconventional. The State Department already had a special envoy to the region, and President Trump's new emissary, Richard Grenell, was also ambassador to Germany, where his brash style and embrace of right-wing figures broke with diplomatic norms.

Before long, Mr. Grenell offended and alienated European diplomats who had worked hard on Kosovo for years. They accused him of ignoring their own, more evolved peace initiatives, of undermining democracy in Kosovo and of turning a blind eye to budding authoritarianism in Serbia, a Russian ally.

"I'm doubtful that in this way you can really resolve a situation like Kosovo, the way it's being tried by Grenell," said Wolfgang Petritsch, a former European Union envoy to Kosovo.

The appointment has been "very detrimental to the solution of the Kosovo issue," he added. "With Grenell, it's only been confusion."

Early this year, President Trump named Mr. Grenell acting director of national intelligence, though Mr. Grenell lacked expertise in intelligence and had a reputation as a partisan warrior, taking on what is supposed to be a nonpartisan job.

That stint, like the one in Berlin, has come and gone, but Mr. Grenell is still hoping to deliver a diplomatic victory in the Balkans before the November election for a president short on such achievements.

Last week, days before a much-disputed Serbian election on Sunday, Mr. Grenell announced on Twitter a surprise meeting between the Kosovar president, Hashim Thaci, and his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, at the White House on June 27.

Mr. Grenell said he intended the meeting as trust-building exercise, limited for now to trade issues, that could provide a platform for peace talks later in the year. His defenders, both Democrats and Republicans, say that before Mr. Grenell got involved, negotiations were going nowhere and they credit him with pushing the two sides closer to a deal.

Critics worry that a visit to the White House rewards two men whose opponents accuse them of undermining democratic institutions, and that the strategy simply won't work.

Formerly part of Serbia, Kosovo won autonomy following a NATO bombing campaign in 1999 that aimed to protect Kosovo's largely Muslim population from ethnic cleansing. But Serbia has never recognized Kosovo's sovereignty.

Until recently, Republican and Democratic administrations were similarly steadfast in guaranteeing Kosovo's security, and worked closely with European allies to do so.

But under Mr. Trump, collaboration with European partners has evaporated; next week's White House summit was arranged without consulting the European Union.

Mr. Grenell has tried to resolve the dispute by asking little of Mr. Vucic, a Russian ally, while heightening pressure on Kosovo and widening its domestic fissures.

"We've forgotten who our client is," said David L. Phillips, a Balkans expert and State Department adviser during the Kosovo war. "It's not Serbia, but Kosovo, a country we have helped birth, steward and protect."

Serbia's backsliding on democracy is evidenced by Sunday's parliamentary elections, which President Vucic's party is expected to win by a landslide because most opposition parties have boycotted the vote to protest Mr. Vucic's autocratic policies.

The Trump administration hopes a victory will give Mr. Vucic breathing space to address the tensions with Kosovo.

"The elections are not a contest, that much is clear," said Marko Savkovic, program director for the Belgrade Security Forum, an annual politics conference in Serbia.

But after the elections, "there is expectation that there will be momentum," he said. "But momentum to where? No one really knows."

Most of the American pressure has been put on Kosovo, not Serbia.

To force Kosovo into dropping tariffs on Serbian goods, which Serbia called an obstacle to dialogue, Mr. Grenell threatened to withdraw American support for Kosovo. Then in March, the U.S. froze $50 million in aid to Kosovo. The same week, prominent Republicans suggested withdrawing American troops from Kosovo.

These interventions exacerbated tensions between Mr. Thaci, the president, and Albin Kurti, the prime minister at the time, prompting a constitutional crisis and the replacement of Mr. Kurti's government with one closer to Mr. Thaci.

"Kosovo has never seen a diplomat such as Grenell," said Brikena Hoxha, the director of the Kosovar Stability Initiative, a research group. "Grenell's style comes across more like bullying than negotiating."

By contrast, the Trump administration said little about Serbia's campaign to block Kosovo's membership in international organizations, and ignored the strains Mr. Vucic has placed on Serbian democracy.

Mr. Vucic's invitation to the White House means he "implicitly gets support for his autocratic methods," said Dragan Djilas, a leading opposition politician.

Serbian officials, including Mr. Vucic, did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. Grenell also would not comment, nor did any other American official approached by The New York Times.

A vocal Trump supporter, Mr. Grenell was appointed envoy last October at his own request, stunning career diplomats. An experienced Balkans specialist, Matthew Palmer, had been appointed to a similar position barely a month earlier.

The overlap led to confusion among allies about whom to work with. It echoed the Trump administration's approach in Ukraine, where resident ambassadors worked alongside a trio of visiting envoys close to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Grenell had shown little previous interest in the region, other than two meetings in Berlin with Mr. Thaci. But he told associates that he had sought the post partly because he believed European mediation efforts had been inept, creating a vacuum for him to fill.

Even before Mr. Grenell entered the fray, the Trump administration had departed from past U.S. policy. In the summer of 2018, American officials expressed openness to fresh solutions to the Serbia-Kosovo logjam, including adjustments to their border.

For years, Americans had opposed redrawing it, in case a realignment along ethnic lines rekindled the conflicts of the 1990s.

But in 2018, the State Department changed course, after what a former U.S. official said was an internal decision to be more assertive in places like the Balkans, to avoid losing influence to rival powers like Russia and China.

The shift concerned some European governments, but it was made in partial coordination with officials from the European Union, which led mediation attempts at the time.

The rupture between American and European policy only fully occurred after Mr. Grenell's appointment. He wrested leadership of the negotiations from the European Union, and organized summits and news conferences without the bloc's involvement.

Earlier this year, Mr. Grenell brokered three mini-agreements that he hailed as a breakthrough in restoring transport links between Kosovo and Serbia. But in reality, the two countries signed separate texts with different wording, according to copies obtained by The Times.

The deals were not formal ones, but merely letters of intent signed by minor officials. And they duplicated pre-existing transport agreements brokered by the European Union.

During the recent political crisis in Kosovo, the American embassy posted a Tweet in support of the parliamentary process that led to the toppling of the government, while France and Germany argued against it.

Some of Mr. Grenell's supporters say that Mr. Thaci and his Serbian counterpart, Mr. Vucic, are secretly brokering a peace deal, validating the American approach. Though nominally figureheads, the two presidents carry influence that far exceeds their constitutional duties.

Behind the scenes, they have reached an understanding on some terms of a future treaty, including the idea of adjusting Kosovo's borders, according to four former American officials who cited people involved in the negotiations.

The talks stalled when Mr. Kurti, then the prime minister, asserted that he, not Mr. Thaci, had the constitutional right to set policy.

Mr. Grenell spoke out against Mr. Kurti, who he feared might derail whatever momentum Mr. Thaci and Mr. Vucic had created, said James R. Hooper, one of the four former American officials.

Mr. Hooper, a former Balkans expert at the State Department, said that Mr. Grenell "realizes that the window is closing and he wants to get it concluded, ratified and implemented."

Mr. Grenell, Mr. Thaci and Mr. Vucic all deny a grand deal is close, and Mr. Grenell says land swaps aren't now under discussion.

This week, Mr. Vucic also denied he was about to recognize Kosovo's independence.

"That won't be on the list," he said. "We won't allow that."

Patrick Kingsley reported from Berlin and Pristina, Kosovo, and Kenneth P. Vogel from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Eric Lipton, Michael Crowley and Julian Barnes from Washington, and Benjamin Novak from Budapest. Kitty Bennett contributed research.

 

Russia-Serbia partnership does not depend on Belgrade’s dialogue with Brussels

tass.com

Russia-Serbia partnership does not depend on Belgrade's dialogue with Brussels - article

9-11 minutes

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MOSCOW, June 18. /TASS/. Russian-Serbian partnership does not depend on Belgrade's dialogue with Brussels, Foreign Ministers of Russia and Serbia, Sergey Lavrov and Ivica Dacic, said in a joint article published by Russia's Rossiisakaya Gazeta and Serbia's Kurir dailies on Thursday.

"Moscow and Belgrade are strategic partners. We are geared towards closer mutually beneficial cooperation in a wide spectrum of areas. This approach does not depend on Serbia's plans to negotiate accession to the European Union: it will continue to develop ties with Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union," the ministers noted.

Touching on the Kosovo settlement, the two top diplomats said the two countries would continue close cooperation on that matter on the basis of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244. "At the same time, we note that some continue to use Serbia's plans to join the European Union as a tool to exert pressure on Belgrade to make it recognize Kosovo's 'independence.' So, it means that an applicant state is to cede part of its territory," they noted.

The ministers slammed such requirements as absurd. "Russia and Serbia continue to insist that United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 be observed. A compromise is to be reached in the course of negotiations and this is the exclusive prerogative of Belgrade and Pristina," the stressed.

Lavrov and Dacic emphasized that it is up to the parties to the conflict to word and adopt a final solution that would be approved by the United Nations Security Council. "Moscow will accept only such a variant of settlement that will be acceptable for Belgrade. As for external mediation, it should be an unbiased monitoring of the observance of international laws during the dialogue, without imposing ready-to-use designs," they added.

No support to Kosovo sovereignty concept anywhere in world

The concept of Kosovo's self-proclaimed independence has failed as it enjoys unanimous support neither in Europe nor anywhere in the world, Foreign Ministers of Russia and Serbia, Sergey Lavrov and Ivica Dacic, said in a joint article.

"The concept of Kosovo's self-proclaimed sovereignty has failed. It enjoys unanimous support neither in the Balkans nor in Europe nor elsewhere in the world," the ministers stressed. "About half of the United Nations member states do not recognize Kosovo's notorious 'statehood,' and the number of such countries is growing."

According to the two top diplomats, more and more countries begin to understand the perniciousness of Kosovo's precedent of coercive intervention into domestic affairs of an independent state under far-fetched pretexts. "In the recent months, the European Union and the United States have been calling, quite enthusiastically, for the resumption of dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina. Naturally, we support political methods of settlement but we think that talks are to rest on the principle of honest implementation of what has been agreed," Lavrov and Dacic emphasized. "The core agreement in this context is the establishment of the Community of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo, which will have due competences."

According to the two ministers, the European Union's responsibility as a mediator in the negotiating process is to push the Kosovo authorities towards implementing its commitments. "So far, no progress has been made towards the establishment of the Community of Serb Municipalities," they pointed out. "Let us hope that EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell and EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue Miroslav Lajcak will act as honest brokers.".

US, EU seeking to take settlement of Kosovo problem in their hands

The United States and the European Union are seeking to take the settlement of the Kosovo problems in their hands, not reckoning with the opinion of other parties concerned, Foreign Ministers of Russia and Serbia said.

"Public discussions about possible solutions to the Kosovo problem have heated up in the recent time," the article reads. "The United States and the European Union have been demonstrating increased activities, seeking to take the settlement of this issue in their hands and claiming to have the leading role in this process. But, as it was before, they tend not to reckon with the opinion of all parties concerned, thus calling to question the very possibility of a fair solution."

The ministers noted that in order to avoid new mistakes it is worth looking back and analyzing the sad experience of external interference in to the regional affairs. "We also think it important to share our common views on the current situation and principled approaches to the problems of the Kosovo settlement," they said. "For more than twenty years, the unsettled Kosovo problem has been hampering comprehensive stabilization in the Western Balkans and triggering new escalations of tensions."

According to the two top diplomats, the 'time bomb' was planted when the Western countries, which had bombed former Yugoslavia back in 1999, made it their crusade to ensure Kosovo's independence in bypassing of international law. "It was done under a cynical disguise of 'muiltivariance': either with Belgrade's consent or without it," they noted. "In other words, Serbia's opinion was not taken into account from the very beginning. Such detrimental approach, which flagrantly violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, is meant solely to satisfy Kosovars' separatist aspirations."

Later on, in 2008, when Pristina declared its independence, Moscow and Belgrade were told that the negotiating potential had allegedly been exhausted and their calls for further talks were ignored. "Since then, the international community has seen for itself more than once that only effort to find a solution based on UN Security Council Resolution 1244 and reckoning with the interests of all parties can give chances to elaborate a viable settlement option," Lavrov and Dacic emphasized.

Kosovo has turned into nest of criminals and terrorism accomplices

Kosovo has become a nest of criminals, including those linked with terrorist groups, Foreign Ministers of Russia and Serbia said in a joint article.

"Rampant crime in Kosovo, with criminal elements linked with terrorist groups in the Middle East, first of all in Syria, and with criminal communities in the Balkans and other parts of Europe, is an evidence that the province, with its rich historic and cultural heritage, has become a nest for terrorists of all sorts," the ministers noted.

This situation, characterized by political chaos, proves that Kosovo has failed as an independent state. "Local parties are bogged down in dirty power scramble, scheming and clan wars amid economic decline and orgy of crime. In such conditions, the so-called statecraft local politicians and their foreign sponsors are so fond of speaking about has turned to be a bogus thing," they pointed out.

No efforts are being taken in Kosovo to fight against international criminals, former chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army, with the Kosovo Special Court, tasked to investigate their crimes, including murders and kidnappings for the purpose of trading in human organs, taking no action. "We still expect this body of justice to begin to work and bring charges against the criminals," the ministers stressed.

Lavrov and Dacic also drew attention to the fact that the presence of international forces does not promote normalization of the situation in the province. Thus, in their words, the NATO-led international Kosovo Force, which is mandated to ensure Serbs' security "has been passive for years."

"On this background, the fact that the Bondsteel facility, which was initially meant as a peacekeeping one, has been turned into a closed zone and a training ground for Kosovo's 'armed forces' arouses serious concern," they said, adding that United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is demonstrating poor efficiency.

"The question about NATO's responsibility for the use of depleted uranium munitions in Serbia, especially in Kosovo, during the bombardments in 1999 is still open," the two foreign ministers noted, adding that not only local residents but also peacekeepers are still suffering from the consequences of radioactive contamination.

The ministers also warned that the Greater Albania rhetoric coming from Pristina and Tirana may "bury the system of regional security that has been built for decades."

Serbia's Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija unilaterally proclaimed independence in February 2008, which was recognized by the United Nations Court of Justice in 2010. However more than 60 countries, including Russia, China, India, Israel, Greece, India and Spain, are categorically against recognizing Kosovo's independence. Nevertheless, Kosovo has been seeking to join international organizations, including UNESCO and Interpol.

Serbia's diplomats have been urging developing countries to revise their decisions to recognize Kosovo's independence. Thus, over the past year, eighteen countries, including Ghana, Papua New Guinea, Burundi, Guinea Bissau, Surinam, Liberia, Lesotho, and Madagascar, sided with Belgrade.

 

America’s Own Color Revolution

globalresearch.ca

America's Own Color Revolution - Global Research

By F. William Engdahl

14-18 minutes

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Color Revolution is the term used to describe a series of remarkably effective CIA-led regime change operations using techniques developed by the RAND Corporation, "democracy" NGOs and other groups since the 1980's. They were used in crude form to bring down the Polish communist regime in the late 1980s. From there the techniques were refined and used, along with heavy bribes, to topple the Gorbachev regime in the Soviet Union. For anyone who has studied those models closely, it is clear that the protests against police violence led by amorphous organizations with names like Black Lives Matter or Antifa are more than purely spontaneous moral outrage. Hundreds of thousands of young Americans are being used as a battering ram to not only topple a US President, but in the process, the very structures of the US Constitutional order.

If we step back from the immediate issue of videos showing a white Minneapolis policeman pressing his knee on the neck of a black man, George Floyd, and look at what has taken place across the nation since then, it is clear that certain organizations or groups were well-prepared to instrumentalize the horrific event for their own agenda.

The protests since May 25 have often begun peacefully only to be taken over by well-trained violent actors. Two organizations have appeared regularly in connection with the violent protests—Black Lives Matter and Antifa (USA). Videos show well-equipped protesters dressed uniformly in black and masked (not for coronavirus to be sure), vandalizing police cars, burning police stations, smashing store windows with pipes or baseball bats. Use of Twitter and other social media to coordinate "hit-and-run" swarming strikes of protest mobs is evident.

What has unfolded since the Minneapolis trigger event has been compared to the wave of primarily black ghetto protest riots in 1968. I lived through those events in 1968 and what is unfolding today is far different. It is better likened to the Yugoslav color revolution that toppled Milosevic in 2000.

Gene Sharp: Template for Regime Overthrow

In the year 2000 the US State Department, aided by its National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and select CIA operatives, began secretly training a group of Belgrade university students led by a student group that was called Otpor! (Resistance!). The NED and its various offshoots was created in the 1980's by CIA head Bill Casey as a covert CIA tool to overthrow specific regimes around the world under the cover of a human rights NGO. In fact, they get their money from Congress and from USAID.

In the Serb Otpor! destabilization of 2000, the NED and US Ambassador Richard Miles in Belgrade selected and trained a group of several dozen students, led by Srđa Popović, using the handbook, From Dictatorship to Democracy, translated to Serbian, of the late Gene Sharp and his Albert Einstein Institution. In a post mortem on the Serb events, the Washington Post wrote, "US-funded consultants played a crucial role behind the scenes in virtually every facet of the anti-drive, running tracking polls, training thousands of opposition activists and helping to organize a vitally important parallel vote count. US taxpayers paid for 5,000 cans of spray paint used by student activists to scrawl anti-Milošević graffiti on walls across Serbia."

Trained squads of activists were deployed in protests to take over city blocks with the aid of 'intelligence helmet' video screens that give them an instantaneous overview of their environment. Bands of youth converging on targeted intersections in constant dialogue on cell phones, would then overwhelm police. The US government spent some $41 million on the operation. Student groups were secretly trained in the Sharp handbook techniques of staging protests that mocked the authority of the ruling police, showing them to be clumsy and impotent against the youthful protesters. Professionals from the CIA and US State Department guided them behind the scenes.

The Color Revolution Otpor! model was refined and deployed in 2004 as the Ukraine Orange Revolution with logo and color theme scarves, and in 2003 in Georgia as the Rose Revolution. Later Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used the template to launch the Arab Spring. In all cases the NED was involved with other NGOs including the Soros Foundations.

After defeating Milosevic, Popovic went on to establish a global color revolution training center, CANVAS, a kind of for-profit business consultancy for revolution, and was personally present in New York working reportedly with Antifa during the Occupy Wall Street where also Soros money was reported.

Antifa and BLM

The protests, riots, violent and non-violent actions sweeping across the United States since May 25, including an assault on the gates of the White House, begin to make sense when we understand the CIA's Color Revolution playbook.

The impact of the protests would not be possible were it not for a network of local and state political officials inside the Democratic Party lending support to the protesters, even to the point the Democrat Mayor of Seattle ordered police to abandon several blocks in the heart of downtown to occupation by protesters.

In recent years major portions of the Democratic Party across the US have been quietly taken over by what one could call radical left candidates. Often they win with active backing of organizations such as Democratic Socialists of America or Freedom Road Socialist Organizations. In the US House of Representatives the vocal quarter of new representatives around Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib and Minneapolis Representative Ilhan Omar are all members or close to Democratic Socialists of America. Clearly without sympathetic Democrat local officials in key cities, the street protests of organizations such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa would not have such a dramatic impact.

To get a better grasp how serious the present protest movement is we should look at who has been pouring millions into BLM. The Antifa is more difficult owing to its explicit anonymous organization form. However, their online Handbook openly recommends that local Antifa "cells" join up with BLM chapters.

FRSO: Follow the Money

BLM began in 2013 when three activist friends created the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag to protest the allegations of shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin by a white Hispanic block watchman, George Zimmermann. Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi were all were connected with and financed by front groups tied to something called Freedom Road Socialist Organization, one of the four largest radical left organizations in the United States formed out of something called New Communist Movement that dissolved in the 1980s.

On June 12, 2020 the Freedom Road Socialist Organization webpage states, "The time is now to join a revolutionary organization! Join Freedom Road Socialist Organization…If you have been out in the streets this past few weeks, the odds are good that you've been thinking about the difference between the kind of change this system has to offer, and the kind of change this country needs. Capitalism is a failed system that thrives on exploitation, inequality and oppression. The reactionary and racist Trump administration has made the pandemic worse. The unfolding economic crisis we are experiencing is the worst since the 1930s. Monopoly capitalism is a dying system and we need to help finish it off. And that is exactly what Freedom Road Socialist Organization is working for."

In short the protests over the alleged police killing of a black man in Minnesota are now being used to call for a revolution against capitalism. FRSO is an umbrella for dozens of amorphous groups including Black Lives Matter or BLM. What is interesting about the self-described Marxist-Leninist roots of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is not so much their left politics as much as their very establishment funding by a group of well-endowed tax-exempt foundations.

Alicia Garza of BLM is also a board member or executive of five different Freedom Road front groups including 2011 Board chair of Right to the City Alliance, Board member of School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL), of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), Forward Together and Special Projects director of National Domestic Workers Alliance.

The Right to the City Alliance got $6.5 million between 2011 and 2014 from a number of very established tax-exempt foundations including the Ford Foundation ($1.9 million), from both of George Soros's major tax-exempts–Open Society Foundations, and the Foundation to Promote Open Society for $1.3 million. Also the cornflake-tied Kellogg Foundation $250,000, and curiously, Ben & Jerry's Foundation (ice cream) for $30,000.

Garza also got major foundation money as Executive Director of the FRSO front, POWER, where Obama former "green jobs czar" Van Jones, a self-described "communist" and "rowdy black nationalist," now with CNN, was on the board. Alicia Garza also chaired the Right to the City Alliance, a network of activist groups opposing urban gentrification. That front since 2009 received $1.3 million from the Ford Foundation, as well as $600,000 from the Soros foundations and again, Ben & Jerry's ($50,000). And Garza's SOUL, which claimed to have trained 712 "organizers" in 2014, when she co-founded Black Lives Matter, got $210,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation and another $255,000 from the Heinz Foundation (ketchup and John Kerry family) among others. With the Forward Together of FRSO, Garza sat on the board of a "multi-racial organization that works with community leaders and organizations to transform culture and policy to catalyze social change." It officially got $4 million in 2014 revenues and from 2012 and 2014, the organization received a total of $2.9 million from Ford Foundation ($655,000) and other major foundations.

Nigeria-born BLM co-founder Opal Tometi likewise comes from the network of FRSO. Tometi headed the FRSO's Black Alliance for Just Immigration. Curiously with a "staff" of two it got money from major foundations including the Kellogg Foundation for $75,000 and Soros foundations for $100,000, and, again, Ben & Jerry's ($10,000). Tometi got $60,000 in 2014 to direct the group.

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization that is now openly calling for a revolution against capitalism in the wake of the Floyd George killing has another arm, The Advancement Project, which describes itself as "a next generation, multi-racial civil rights organization." Its board includes a former Obama US Department of Education Director of Community Outreach and a former Bill Clinton Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. The FRSO Advancement Project in 2013 got millions from major US tax-exempt foundations including Ford ($8.5 million), Kellogg ($3 million), Hewlett Foundation of HP defense industry founder ($2.5 million), Rockefeller Foundation ($2.5 million), and Soros foundations ($8.6 million).

Major Money and ActBlue

By 2016, the presidential election year where Hillary Clinton was challenging Donald Trump, Black Lives Matter had established itself as a well-organized network. That year the Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy announced the formation of the Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF), "a six-year pooled donor campaign aimed at raising $100 million for the Movement for Black Lives coalition" in which BLM was a central part. By then Soros foundations had already given some $33 million in grants to the Black Lives Matter movement. This was serious foundation money.

The BLMF identified itself as being created by top foundations including in addition to the Ford Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and the Soros Open Society Foundations. They described their role: "The BLMF provides grants, movement building resources, and technical assistance to organizations working advance the leadership and vision of young, Black, queer, feminists and immigrant leaders who are shaping and leading a national conversation about criminalization, policing and race in America."

The Movement for Black Lives Coalition (M4BL) which includes Black Lives Matter, already in 2016 called for "defunding police departments, race-based reparations, voting rights for illegal immigrants, fossil-fuel divestment, an end to private education and charter schools, a universal basic income, and free college for blacks."

Notably, when we click on the website of M4BL, under their donate button we learn that the donations will go to something called ActBlue Charities. ActBlue facilitates donations to "democrats and progressives." As of May 21, ActBlue had given $119 million to the campaign of Joe Biden.

That was before the May 25 BLM worldwide protests. Now major corporations such as Apple, Disney, Nike and hundreds others may be pouring untold and unaccounted millions into ActBlue under the name of Black Lives Matter, funds that in fact can go to fund the election of a Democrat President Biden. Perhaps this is the real reason the Biden campaign has been so confident of support from black voters. What is clear from only this account of the crucial role of big money foundations behind protest groups such as Black lives Matter is that there is a far more complex agenda driving the protests now destabilizing cities across America. The role of tax-exempt foundations tied to the fortunes of the greatest industrial and financial companies such as Rockefeller, Ford, Kellogg, Hewlett and Soros says that there is a far deeper and far more sinister agenda to current disturbances than spontaneous outrage would suggest.

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine "New Eastern Outlook" where this article was originally published. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from NEO

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ft.com

Investors want Serbia reforms that break through 'wall of resistance'

Zsuzsanna Hargitai 12 hours ago

6-7 minutes

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In recent years, Serbia has been among the most successful countries in Europe in terms of attracting investment. A combination of political stability, low costs, improving transport links with the EU and its neighbours, and strong human capital have put Serbia on the radar screens of many investors.

Before the coronavirus turned the world upside down, Serbia had enjoyed a period of successful economic expansion. Exceeding already high expectations, the economy grew by 5 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020. The pandemic put a drastic halt to this upswing, but even in the current turbulence Serbia looks well placed to emerge strongly.

Depending on the way you look at it — globally or regionally — Serbia is a small fish in a large pond or a large fish in a small pond. One of its sources of strength and energy is that, although it represents a relatively small market, it is located along a key logistics corridor between the ports of Greece, Turkey and EU markets to the north.

Today's Serbia has embraced the concept of regional co-operation. This was evident in pragmatic steps like the so called "green lanes" measures in the western Balkans to facilitate the movement of freight across borders during the Covid-19 crisis.

It was encouraging to see the countries of the region respond quickly, decisively and successfully to the health emergency. Timely, well-enforced lockdowns and proportionate measures on domestic and international traffic were effective. The number of Covid-19 cases in Serbia and the region was kept below the levels seen in far richer and better equipped societies.

Covid-19: the response to the health emergency was quick and decisive © Getty

The price of the crisis will still be high. Not only in terms of the loss of life, but also the economic damage that the pandemic has caused. For Serbia, we expect a decline in GDP of 3.5 per cent in 2020 and a rebound of 6 per cent in 2021. Serbia — like any comparable country not already deeply integrated into the EU markets in economic terms — will be unable to deal with the immediate burden alone. But the country has strong fundamentals to build on.

Fiat is producing cars in Kragujevac and Siemens recently started building trams in the country. Last year Barry Callebaut, a leading world manufacturer of chocolate and cocoa products, laid the foundation for a factory in Novi Sad. The energy companies Enlight, Masdar and Taaleri began operating wind farms in 2019.

Work on the assembly line at the Fiat factory, Kragujevac © Reuters

The country is also well placed for foreign companies considering "nearshoring" their suppliers and harnessing Serbia's potential for information and communication technologies.

Serbia has become sophisticated in its promotion of external trade. In London, Düsseldorf and Paris, representatives of the country successfully make the case for why people should invest in Serbia.

But do investors feel equally welcome once they have set foot in the country?

Legacies of the past remain and are holding the country back. These include, for example, the lack of clear policy objectives and strategic decision-making for state-owned enterprises, and the absence of a level playing field in the enforcement of competition rules for all market players. Improved governance, including corporate governance of state-owned enterprises, could add as much as 2 per cent to GDP, according to the IMF.

It is here that the reform process is often hardest to implement — where political loyalties, vested interests and old structures might coalesce to form a wall of resistance on issues from transparent public procurement to recruitment in public administration. As a result, Serbia performs below levels it could achieve and many investors who might help the country make the next leap forward go elsewhere. Meanwhile, many of Serbia's younger generations are drawn to opportunities in other countries, which benefit from their education and skills. After the recent decades of young people leaving their homeland, nobody in Serbia wants to see more such losses of vital talent.

Modernisation: work at Belgrade airport is being carried out under public-private partnership © Shutterstock / paul prescott

Before coronavirus shut borders, it was already clear that the emigration of skilled labour from Serbia had to be reversed. It can be done. Through, for example, improved vocational training by involving private companies in the design of curricula; through providing scholarships, internships and on-the-job training to increase opportunities. Such measures also attract investment and, as an investor and policy adviser, the EBRD is a leading advocate of them.

The EBRD stepped up its support and investment in Serbia in 2019 to more than €515m, from €396m in 2018. Now, to help mitigate the economic impact of Covid-19, it expects to deliver €750m-€850m of new financing in 2020.

We are doubling credit lines and trade financing for small and medium enterprises. Our funding is also helping to build key infrastructure, for example, the modernisation, under public-private partnership with the French construction group Vinci, of Belgrade's Nikola Tesla airport and its expansion into a regional hub.

Looking beyond the Covid-19 crisis, our foreign investors and local corporate clients remain committed to such investments. This signals that Serbia has not only become attractive to private investors but will remain so, when it is needed most.

The writer is regional director, western Balkans, and head of Serbia, at the EBRD

 

ft.com

Pandemic and EU neglect tighten Serbia bonds with China

Valerie Hopkins 12 hours ago

6-8 minutes

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In mid-May, as most European countries were just beginning to contemplate the slow process of reopening national borders in the wake of Covid-19, Serbia's tourism board launched a campaign to attract visitors from China.

President Aleksandar Vucic became the face of the campaign, which the board hoped would "save" the tourist season. Chinese citizens have been able to travel to Serbia visa-free since 2017, a sign of growing ties. In the first half of 2019, the country registered a 36 per cent rise in visitors from China compared to the same period in 2018.

The relationship is not limited to tourism. Serbia's top football league was last year named the "Linglong Superliga" after its sponsor, a Chinese tyremaker. In March 2019 Linglong started work on its first European factory in Serbia's northern city of Zrenjanin. The nearly $1bn project is emblematic of Chinese businesses' view of Serbia, a candidate for EU membership, as a hub for investment.

Since 2012, the western Balkan country of 7m people has received $9.5bn of publicly announced Chinese funding and investment, more than half of China's stated investment in the region. In 2019, Chinese companies announced 16 greenfield projects in Serbia, worth $625m, making China the country's biggest source of such investment, according to fDi Markets, an FT data service. In 2018, Chinese companies accounted for about 20 per cent of all FDI into Serbia.

Serbia is part of China's Belt and Road Initiative and the 17+1 format, a partnership with central and eastern European countries. The western Balkans' largest economy is at the centre of Beijing's "hub and spoke" strategy, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a US think-tank, which described Serbia as a "strategic anchor for China in the [EU's] semi-periphery, where it can invest heavily without EU regulatory burdens and showcase its technological and infrastructure projects to neighbouring states".

Chinese companies have bought some of Serbia's largest industrial facilities, including a steel factory in Smederevo, and a copper mine in Bor. Now, Chinese investors are focusing on a wave of digital infrastructure, including a "Safe Cities" project with 1,000 facial recognition cameras in 800 locations, mostly in Belgrade. Of 15 information and communications technology projects in the region, nine were started in 2018 and 2019, mostly in Serbia, according to the CSIS. However, there remains a big discrepancy between projects announced and completed: according to CSIS, only a quarter have come to fruition. "Chinese financing often occurs under opaque conditions and through non-competitive contracts, reinforcing low governance standards and exacerbating endemic corruption, underscoring . . . why western investment was not present at the outset," wrote CSIS.

The investment has come with foreign policy and political alignment. Beijing supports Belgrade's refusal to recognise Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, while Serbia backs China's stance on Taiwan and territories in the South China Sea. In December, Serbia's top official for Kosovo lauded China's "level of protection of minority rights" in Xinjiang, where an estimated 1m Uighurs are believed to be in detention. Last year, Chinese police came to three Serbian cities for joint patrols.

Stefan Vladisavljev, a foreign policy analyst for the annual Belgrade Security Forum, fears that as EU influence is questioned in the region, "the space for malign third actors coming from the outside could increase. I am not afraid of China coming to do damage, but I am afraid of how Serbian officials could misuse the tools they are given."

Serbia has been an EU candidate since 2012, but has completed only two of 35 chapters of its accession protocol, and many accuse it of backsliding on democratic indicators. Independent US-based watchdog Freedom House no longer describes Serbia as a democracy. After the EU updated enlargement methodology in February, many like Mr Vladisavljev, wonder if Serbia will ever join.

Elsewhere in the region, Chinese loans have sent public debt soaring. In neighbouring Montenegro, a Chinese-built and financed highway has raised the country's debt to 80 per cent of GDP.

Covid-19 has brought Serbia closer to China. The western Balkans were originally not exempt from an EU permit scheme for exports of critical medical equipment. President Vucic proclaimed that "European solidarity doesn't exist, that was just a fairytale on paper." The decision "was made by the people who lectured us here that we are not supposed to purchase goods from China". people from around Europe who wanted us to adjust the terms of tenders so that price should not be the primary condition as their [EU] goods were supposedly much better quality. When they needed money, it was like, make tenders and adopt conditions so the European companies can get Serbian money. When there is torment and pain, the Serbian money is no good."

He complained that Brussels was paying close Serbian tenders purely for its own economic hegemony and accused EU leaders of hypocrisy.

In the post-coronavirus battle of narratives, the "global Chinese propaganda was amplified by a Serbian offensive", says Mr Vladisavljev, who noted that in Serbia, it is still unknown how much of the Chinese medical equipment and personal protection was donated compared to how much was purchased.

A poll by the International Republican Institute, a US nonprofit focused on promoting democracy, found in March that 20 per cent of Serbs saw China as the largest donor, and 71 per cent as the most important economic partner. The EU is actually Serbia's largest donor.

After Serbian premier Ana Brnabic called for a monument of appreciation for China, a banner in front of parliament proclaimed: "Serbs and Chinese: Brothers Forever". Serbia now waits to see whether the Chinese tourists will return.

Miners in Bor, eastern Serbia © AFP via Getty Images Chinese and Serbian police officers attend a launching ceremony for their first joint patrol in Belgrade © Alamy

 

truthout.org

Noam Chomsky: Threat of Trump Galvanizing a Militia to Stay in Power Cannot be Ruled Out

George Yancy

20-26 minutes

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As protests against racist police violence rock the country, fascism ascends in the Trump White House and the COVID-19 pandemic persists, this country is at a pivotal moment. I spoke about this flash point in history with Noam Chomsky, known as the father of modern linguistics, who is one of the world's most prominent public intellectuals and the author of over 100 books, including Hegemony or Survival, Failed States, Optimism Over Despair, Hopes and Prospects, Masters of Mankind and Who Rules the World?

In the following interview, Chomsky provides insight on how we can best grapple with the current moment – and prepare for the sobering future.

George Yancy: Before I ask you about COVID-19, I'd like to start by asking your thoughts on the horrible murder of George Floyd and how you understand the protests that have occurred throughout the U.S. and the world. I am especially interested in your response to Trump's rhetoric to deploy the military to suppress a so-called insurrection.

Noam Chomsky: "Horrible murder" is right. But let us be clear about the murders of Black Americans going on right now. The brutality of a few racist policemen in Minneapolis constitutes a small part of the crime.

It has been widely noted that death rates from the pandemic are far higher among Black people. A current study found that "Americans living in counties with above-average black populations are three times as likely to die of the coronavirus as those in above-average white counties. This slaughter of Black people is partly a result of how resources were devoted to dealing with the crisis, mostly "in areas that happened to be whiter and more affluent." But it is rooted more deeply in a hideous record of 400 years of malevolent racism. The plague has been taking different forms since the establishment of the most vicious system of slavery in human history — a prime foundation of the country's industry, finance, commerce and general prosperity — but has at most been mitigated, never brought close to a cure.

American slavery was unique not only in terms of its viciousness, but also in that it was linked to skin color. Within this system, every Black face was marked with the emblem, "Your nature is to be a slave."

Other sectors have been harshly treated. Jews and Italians were so feared and despised a century ago that the 1924 racist immigration law was designed to bar them from the country, sending many Jews to crematoria. In support, racists of the day could plead that we had to protect ourselves from the Jews and Italians running the major criminal syndicates, from creatures like Meyer Lansky and Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel. But they were finally assimilated. The same happened with the Irish.

With Black people, however, it is different. They are deemed permanently unassimilable in a society cursed by racism and white supremacy. For the victims, the effects are compounded by the lasting socioeconomic gaps engendered by the curse, intensified by the neoliberal assault of the past 40 years, a great boon to extreme wealth, a disaster for the more vulnerable.

The slaughter of Black Americans proceeds under the radar. The president, whose malice knows no bound, has been exploiting the focus on the pandemic to pursue his service to his prime constituency, great wealth and corporate power. One method is eliminating regulations that protect the public but harm profits. In the midst of an unprecedented respiratory pandemic, Trump has moved to increase air pollution, which makes COVID-19 far more deadly, so much so that tens of thousands of Americans may die as a result, the business press reports. As usual, deaths are not randomly distributed: "Hardest hit are low-income communities and people of color," who are forced to live in the most dangerous areas.

It is all too easy to continue. The protesters know all of this very well. They need no studies. For many it is their lived experience. The protests are not just calling for an end to police brutality in Black communities, but for much more fundamental restructuring of social and economic institutions.

And they are receiving remarkable support, as we see not only from actions all over the country but also from polls. An early June poll "found 64 percent of American adults were 'sympathetic to people who are out protesting right now,' while 27 percent said they were not and 9 percent were unsure."

We may compare this reaction to another occasion when similar protests occurred: 1992, after the acquittal of the Los Angeles police officers who beat Rodney King almost to death. A week of riots followed, with over 60 deaths, finally quelled by the National Guard backed by federal troops sent by President Bush. The protests were mostly limited to Los Angeles, nothing like what we are seeing today.

Trump has one overriding concern, his own welfare: How can I use this tragedy to enhance my electoral prospects by firing up the most racist and violent components of my voting base? His natural instincts call for violence: "the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen." And send in the military to teach the "scum" a lesson they'll never forget.

Trump's plan to "dominate" the errant population by violence elicited widespread anger, including bitter condemnation by former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff along with expressions of sympathy for the protestors. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen wrote: "As a white man, I cannot claim perfect understanding of the fear and anger that African Americans feel today…. But as someone who has been around for a while, I know enough — and I've seen enough — to understand that those feelings are real and that they are all too painfully founded."

The changes in the past two decades are perhaps a sign that large parts of the population are coming to recognize long-concealed truths about our society, a ray of light in dark times.

We are often told that the United States is the most powerful country in the world. We are fed on a diet of "American exceptionalism." Yet, globally, we have the highest number of deaths due to COVID-19. We were systemically unprepared. How do you explain this incongruity, and what role does Trump play in all of this?

The lack of preparedness has three basic causes: capitalist logic, neoliberal doctrine, and the character of the political leadership. Let's run through them briefly in turn.

After the 2003 SARS epidemic was contained, scientists were well aware that a pandemic was likely and that it might be caused by another coronavirus. They also knew how to take measures to prepare. But knowledge is not enough. Someone must use it. The obvious candidate is the drug companies, which have all the resources needed and huge profits, thanks in no small measure to the exorbitant patents granted them in the mislabeled "free trade" agreements. But they were blocked by capitalist logic. There's no profit in preparing for a possible catastrophe down the road — and as economist Milton Friedman intoned at the dawn of the neoliberal age 40 years ago, the sole responsibility of the corporation is to maximize shareholder value (and management wealth). As recently as 2017, the major drug companies rejected a European Union proposal to fast-track research on pathogens, including coronavirus.

The other candidate is the government, which also has the necessary resources and has played a significant role in developing most vaccines and drugs. But that path is blocked by the neoliberal doctrine that has prevailed since Reagan, who informed us that government is the problem — meaning that decisions must be removed from the government, which is to some extent influenced by citizens, to the unaccountable private tyrannies that were the primary agents (and beneficiaries) of the neoliberal triumph. So, government is barred as well.

The third factor is individual governments. Keeping to the U.S., President George H.W. Bush had established a [President's] Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) to keep the president abreast of important scientific issues. One of President Obama's first acts on taking office in 2009 was to commission a PCAST study on how to deal with a pandemic. It was provided to the White House a few weeks later. The science-oriented Obama administration proceeded to put in place a pandemic infrastructure which planned early response to infectious disease threats. That was in place until Jan. 20, 2017, when President Trump took office, and within days began to dismantle the entire executive branch science infrastructure, including the preparations for pandemic, and indeed moved on to reject science generally from a role in informing policy, reversing the bipartisan initiatives since World War II that have been critical for developing the modern high-tech economy.

To drive further nails into the coffin, Trump disbanded programs in which scientists worked with Chinese colleagues to investigate coronaviruses. Each year, he defunded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That continued with his budget proposal of February 2020 while the pandemic was raging, calling for further CDC cuts (while raising subsidies to fossil fuel industries). Scientists were systematically replaced by industry officials who would ensure that private profit is maximized whatever the impact on the irrelevant public.

Trump's decisions accord with the judgment of his favorite pundit, Rush Limbaugh, to whom he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He instructs us that science is one of the "four corners of deceit," along with academia, media and government, all of which "exist by virtue of deceit." The guiding maxim of the administration was articulated more eloquently by Franco's leading general in 1936: "Down with intelligence! Viva death!"

As a result, the U.S. was "systematically unprepared" when the pandemic hit.

In February, Trump said that COVID-19 would just disappear, that "one day, it's like a miracle, it will disappear." He was profoundly mistaken and then blamed China, even "racializing" the disease. Some would claim that Trump has blood on his hands because of his gross mishandling of COVID-19. What are your thoughts about this?

Tens of thousands of Americans died as a result of Trump's dedicated service to his primary constituency: extreme wealth and corporate power. His malevolence persisted after the disease struck. A few weeks after discovery of the first symptoms last December, Chinese scientists identified the virus, sequenced the genome, and provided the information to the WHO and the world. Countries in Asia and Oceania reacted at once, and have the situation largely under control. Others varied. Trump brought up the rear. For two crucial months, U.S. intelligence and health officials tried to capture the attention of the White House, in vain. Finally, Trump noticed — possibly when the stock market crashed, it has been reported. Since then it has been chaos.

Not surprisingly, Trump and his minions have been thrashing around desperately to find some scapegoat to blame for his crimes against Americans, oblivious to how many more people he slaughters. Defunding and then pulling out of the WHO [World Health Organization] is a sadistic blow against Africans, Yemenis, and many other poor and desperate people who had been protected from rampant diseases by WHO medical aid even before the coronavirus struck, and are now facing new catastrophes in addition. They are dispensable if it will improve his electoral prospects.

Trump's charge against the WHO, which is too ludicrous to discuss, is that it was being controlled by China. By pulling out, he increases Chinese influence. But it is unfair to criticize him for foolishness. The outcome only underscores the fact that he never cared about this in the first place.

Speaking of responsibility and blood on one's hands, a certain interpretation of individual rights seems to override a collective social responsibility for many in the U.S. who are not observing the recommendations of the WHO and the CDC, including a blatant rejection of wearing masks. What would you say is fueling this anger and lack of responsibility toward the health and safety of others?

Republicans overwhelmingly have faith in the president, no matter how much his actions harm them. His god-like image is amplified by those who surround him, thanks to his successful campaign to get rid of everyone but fawning sycophants, like the second-in-command, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who muses that God may have sent Trump to earth to save Israel from Iran. Pompeo's fellow evangelicals, the largest base of Trump supporters, likely agree. And they hear much the same generally from the Republican Party, which has virtually abandoned any shred of integrity and abjectly worship him whatever he does. Much the same is true of his media echo chamber. Studies have shown that the primary source of information for Republicans is Fox News, Limbaugh and Breitbart. In fact, an interesting dyad has developed: Trump issues some random pronouncement, it is hailed by Sean Hannity as a path-breaking discovery, and the next morning Trump turns to Fox News to find out what to think.

Surveys of public opinion reveal the consequences. A Pew poll in April, when Trump's responsibility for the growing disaster was beyond serious debate, found that 83 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners rated Trump's response to the outbreak as either excellent or good (as compared with 18 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners). They are listening to a president who had been comparing the virus to "regular flu," and who in mid-April tweeted instructions to his supporters to "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!" The 2nd Amendment has not the slightest relevance, but Trump knows what buttons to push. He was, transparently, urging his troops to take up arms, part of his more general attempts to encourage armed protestors to violate orders in states with Democratic governors (like Virginia), at a time when there were almost 50,000 recorded deaths.

Let's kill more Americans, not just Yemenis and Africans, if it will improve my electoral prospects. "Down with intelligence! Viva death!"

When we exclude the Astroturf operations and the fervent loyalty of the voting base, it's not clear that much is left of an appeal to "individual rights" in any meaningful sense.

Nor is it clear that the protestors are overriding social responsibility. They evidently don't see it that way. They would be appalled at the idea that what they are doing is similar to people with assault rifles running around the streets shooting randomly, though the comparison is apt. They do not think they are endangering anyone. Rather, they are following their revered leader in protesting an effort by the radical left, maybe on instructions from China, to destroy their elementary rights and even to take away their guns.

All further signs that the country is in deep trouble — and in the light of U.S. power, the world with it.

Apart from Trump's incompetence, what needs to be done globally so that we might both prevent another pandemic and what must we do to be better prepared in the future?

I don't feel that "incompetence" is quite the right word. He's quite competent in pursuing his primary goals: enriching the very wealthy, enhancing corporate power and profit, keeping his base in line while he stabs them in the back, and concentrating power in his hands by dismantling the executive branch, and so intimidating congressional Republicans that they timidly accept almost anything. I didn't hear a peep from them when Trump fired the scientist in charge of vaccine development for daring to question one of the quack cures he is promoting. There is dead silence from these ranks as he carries out his purge of inspector generals, who impose some controls on the swamp he has created in Washington, also insulting one of the most respected Republican senators, 86-year-old Chuck Grassley, who devoted his long career to establishing this system.

It is an impressive achievement.

What has to be done globally is to follow the advice that scientists are providing. A new pandemic is likely, probably worse than this one because of global warming, which may become climate roasting with another four years of the Trump plague. Steps have to be taken to prepare for it, the kind that were recommended in 2003 and were in small part pursued until Trump wielded his wrecking ball. There should be international cooperation in seeking coronaviruses and other potential hazards, developing the scientific understanding needed for rapid development of vaccines and drugs to alleviate symptoms, and implementing contingency plans to be put in place if a pandemic strikes again.

For the U.S. in particular, that means extricating the society from neoliberal dogma, which has had bitter consequences in the domain of health (and many others). The business model for hospitals, with no waste or spare capacity, is an invitation to disaster. More generally, the highly inefficient privatized health care system is a terrible burden on the society, with double the costs of other developed countries and some of the poorest outcomes. A recent Lancet study estimates its annual cost at almost $500 billion and 68,000 extra deaths. It is outrageous that the U.S. cannot rise to the level of other societies and instead relies on the most cruel and costly system of universal health care: emergency rooms. If you can drag yourself to one you can get care — followed perhaps by a healthy bill.

The same neoliberal dogma prevents the National Institutes of Health from proceeding beyond essential research and development for drugs to testing and distribution, bypassing the private companies and implementing the provisions of U.S. law, constantly ignored, which require that drugs produced with government assistance (virtually all) be available to the public at reasonable cost. The most careful studies of these matters that I know of are by Dean Baker, who estimates enormous savings with no loss of innovation if such measures are introduced (see his book Rigged, available free).

This is only a bare beginning. There are deep social, cultural and institutional problems that should be addressed.

Assuming that the November election is close, do you see Trump deploying the ruse of voting fraud to remain in power? If that happens, what do you foresee in terms of this playing out politically?

Trump and associates are already pushing that scam energetically, not for the first time. They know that they head a minority party and must resort to deceit and fraud to maintain political power. And for them, a lot is at stake. Another four years would enable them to guarantee that their far-right policies will prevail for a generation no matter what the population wants. That's been the goal of the McConnell strategy of placing the judiciary, top to bottom, in the hands of young far-right jurists who can block programs that are in the public interest. Loss of the current opportunity might doom their project. For Trump personally, the prospects of loss may be severe, even if he is psychologically capable of accepting it like a normal human being. He may be vulnerable to serious legal charges if his immunity is lost. And with the Republican Party having surrendered to his authority, North Korean-style, he faces few impediments. We can leave the rest to the imagination.

I realize that this sounds dystopian, but who is to say that Trump, out of sheer lust for power, will not galvanize a militia to back his desire to stay in power? Any thoughts?

Can't be ruled out. As widely recognized, the country is facing a longer-term constitutional crisis. The Senate is a radically undemocratic institution, to a lesser extent the electoral college. For demographic and structural reasons, a small minority of white, Christian, rural, traditional, often white supremacist voters can maintain control to an extent even beyond what racist Southern Democrats exercised before Nixon's "southern strategy" brought them into the Republican fold. And this is virtually unchangeable by constitutional amendment. It's not out of the question that in Trump's hands, the impending crisis may come about very soon.

Noam, I know that you prefer not to talk much about yourself, but at 91 how are you personally dealing with our surreal historical moment living under COVID-19?

In narrow personal terms, it's not a severe difficulty for my wife and me. For many others, it's a radically different story. The moment is indeed surreal. The future will be shaped by how we emerge from the crisis. The forces that are responsible for it, and for the neoliberal assault on the population that has, demonstrably, intensified it sharply, are not sitting back quietly. They are working relentlessly to ensure that what emerges is a harsher and more authoritarian version of what they had created in their own interest. There are popular forces seeking to grasp the current opportunities to reverse the disasters of the recent past and to move forward to a far more humane and decent world. And, crucially, to confront the far more severe crises that are looming.

We will recover from the pandemic, at a terrible cost. We will not recover from the ongoing melting of the polar ice sheets and the other consequences of the roasting of the earth that will make many of the areas of human habitation unlivable before too long if we continue on our current course. Another four years of the Trump malignancy will sharply increase the difficulties of dealing with this impending catastrophe — even if we escape the threat of terminal nuclear war that Trump is escalating by dismantling the arms control regime that offered some protection and racing to develop new and more dangerous means of destruction that undermine our diminishing security.

https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-trump-has-adopted-a-viva-death-approach-to-the-presidency/

sputniknews.com

French Court: People Die of Depleted Uranium Irradiation in Kosovo

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4-5 minutes

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Europe

19:26 GMT 05.06.2020Get short URL

The public has again drawn attention to the issue of how depleted uranium, which NATO used during its aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999 to bomb Kosovo, affects the human body.

The Court of Appeal in the French city of Ren has sustained the claim by the widow of gendarme captain Henri Friconneau, who served in Kosovo in 2000; the woman claimed that her husband had died of depleted uranium irradiation. According to the Serbian expert, this precedent could mark the beginning of a campaign for truth, similar to the one that has been going on for years in Italy.

After four years of lawsuits, Friconneau's widow has managed to prove the true cause of her husband's death. There are many similar stories in Italy, where families of soldiers who died or received serious illnesses in Kosovo have been for years conducting and winning suits against the state, despite an active rebuff from the Italian authorities.

Dusan Gujanicic from Belgrade Institute for Political Studies pointed out that the Friconneau case is the first case of its kind in France that the press has at least showed interest in. According to him, the case could become a precedent that would provide the families of French soldiers who died of depleted uranium irradiation in Kosovo with legal and moral grounds to demand confirmation of the true causes of their death.

"As for the French citizens, we have to monitor the situation. I can't name the exact number of people who could file claims, but I expect something similar to happen in the foreseeable future," he said.

However, according to him, one shouldn't expect the number of lawsuits in France to exceed the number of similar cases in Italy, since French soldiers were much less exposed to depleted uranium: they served in Northern Mitrovica, while Italians were deployed in Metohija, on the border with Albania, where depleted uranium bombings were the most active.

"Considering this case, now it is our state and our diplomacy that lead the game. They should as much as possible commit to explaining to the whole world that what happened in Yugoslavia was a real humanitarian catastrophe. All Serbian organizations that can somehow influence the development of the situation should join this campaign," Gujanicic said.

According to him, it is Serbia's concern to push the truth through into French public opinion; and the media play a huge role here, they should monitor the consequences of the Friconneau case and report them.

Gujanicic believes that Serbia should encourage the families of the French military to seek the truth in court so that France talks as much as possible about the Yugoslav humanitarian disaster.

The Serbian political scientist stressed that one shouldn't have any illusions that the Friconneau case would soon become the number one news in the French and world media, but it could still have consequences if the case gets maximum media publicity.

"This is a long-term, exhausting struggle, and the results won't appear overnight. At the same time, one shouldn't forget about the resistance on the part of certain state and near-state structures, such as the one faced by the families of Italian military personnel, some of whom spoke about pressure and intimidation by the authorities," he recalled.

Despite the fact that the expert believes that it's too early to make concrete and far-reaching conclusions, he is convinced that Ren court's decision can serve as a legitimate basis for raising the question of the effects of depleted uranium.