Serbian News Network - SNN

Prof.Dr.Rajko Dolec(ek,DrSc.-TALKS WITH GENERAL MLADIĆ

2010-02-08T10:56:00.000-05:00

Prof. Dr.Rajko Doleček,DrSc. Ostrava, 16.12.09.

TALKS WITH GENERAL MLADIĆ

Dear Reader,

My wife Dobra and I had the privilege to meet general Ratko Mladić repeatedly and to discuss with him many problems of Yugoslavia, especially of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BaH) and the dirty anti-Serb involvement of the official West and its media during the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the civil-ethnic-religious war that they had fomented . The West increased the inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatred in the former Yugoslavia. After each encounter with Mladić, I made short notes of the topics discussed. At that time I was the president of the Czech Foundation of friends of Serbs and Montenegrins. In 1996 we met Dr.Radovan Karadžić, the president of Republika Srpska in BaH, a well-known poet and psychiatrist. He gave us two books of his poetry. When speaking about today´s shameful approach of the West to its trusted friends and allies, the Serbs, Dr.Karadžić said:

-„It is unbelievable how the western media described us in their absolutely one-sided, tendentious reports: out of ignorance and for money."

„Talks with General Mladić" is not a General´s Biography. It covers the topics discussed with him, with some explanatory and complementary notes added.

I was upset because the official West had made his friends and protégés out of those who had fought to the bitter end on the side of the nazis and fascists (1941-45): the Croats from the ustasha fascist Independent state of Croatia (NDH), a part of the Muslims from BaH, and the Kosovo Albanians. On the other side, the official West and its powerful propaganda machine, a big part of its media, made villains out of its staunch allies, the Serbs, who had fought gallantly on their side during two big wars (1914-18 and 1941-45) with a loss of almost a third of Serbia´s population. The US journalist Peter Brock called it in his book (2006) „the dirty reporting".The main culprit for that switch was Kohl´s Germany, whose foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, with the help of Vatican, compelled the venal European Community (later the European Union, EU) to recognize at Maastricht (Dec.17, 1991) Croatia and Slovenia as sovereign and independent states, thus paving the way for recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina and for bloody inter-ethnic and inter-religious wars. The final act of Helsinki (1975) about the non-interference in internal affairs of sovereign states was ruthlessly violated by the West. According to the French general P.M.Gallois, Germany took revenge on Serbia because it fought in two wars when Germany was defeated. In 1941 the Serbs compelled Hitler to postpone his attack on USSR for 5-6 weeks and it was one of the reasons why the Germans lost the war. The US foreign secretary W.Christopher accused (1993) Germany of responsibility for the war in the Balkans.

After the collapse of the bipolar world, when the USSR lost its supremacy in the eastern bloc, a majority of its people thought that they entered a free world, but it was just an illusion where the media played a big part in manipulations and disinformations of the public. The governments of the so called „free world" and its media showed a moral decadence in spreading their selfish interests and fabrications, shouting down critics.

I was very eager to hear the opinions of general Mladić whom the western officials and a part o media started unjustly to brand him as a war criminal, without enabling him to defend himself and shouting down any positive informations from the Serb side. It is necessary to explain why the phenomenon Mladić appeared, under which circumstances this talented, honest and brave officer became, not by his will, one of the leaders and protectors of his people in mortal danger. He became an epic hero for ordinary people, for his troops, when they had been abandonned by all. To understand this phenomenon, one must know at least some features of the Serbian history of the last 100 years, including the genocide of Serbs (700-800 000 assassinated) in the fascist ustasha state of Croatia (1941-1945) and the cruel German regime in the occupied Serbia at that time. General Radovan Radinović, a teaching professor in the Military Academy told about his „student„ Mladić:

-„In my opinion and experience, he is the most talented officer we had since 1918...His greatest handicap was the fact, that he was the best warrior who was not allowed to win the war…"

During our first meeting, general Ratko Mladić told us with a sad smile:

-„I am the third generation of Serbs who did not know their fathers, because they had been killed in wars when their sons were too young." General´s father Nedja, a peasant from Bosnian mountains, was killed in 1945 in the fight with the ustashas, when Ratko was only two years old.

Colonel Mladić was sent in june 1991 to the Serb Krajina in Croatia, to help reorganize the 9th corps of the Yugoslav army (JNA) weakened by desertions of Albanians, Croats, Muslims from BaH and Slovenes, while the Macedonians, Montenegrins and Serbs stayed. He renewed the discipline and stopped the advance of the Croatian paramilitary groups which had started to expel and even to assassinate the Serbs in Krajina, as they had done during 1941-45. But he was not able to stop the inter-ethnik clashes. Later, he was unanimously chosen (already as a general) on May 12, 1992, to be the commander in chief of the newly created Bosnian Serb Army (VRS).

When speaking about the ICTY Tribunal in The Hague, Mladić said with defiance:

-„I´ll come personally to The Hague, as soon as the American generals from Vietnam and the Britisch from the Falkland Islands will be there…"

He told it when we spoke about the illegally created Tribunal by the Security Council of UNO (1993), because it had no mandate for such an action. It was the German foreign minister Klaus Kinkel who had suggested its formation and it was Madeleine Albright who had strongly supported its creation. From its very beginning, it became a one-sided court, a sort of a „kangaroo court" with double standards, „a prolonged arm of the USA interests", very unfavorable to Serbs. Diana Johnstone described it in one of her papers „Selective justice in The Hague – The war crimes Tribunal on former Yugoslavia is a mockery of evidenciary rule" (The Nation, Sept.22, 1997). There are many examples corroborating it. Nasir Orić, the Muslim commander of Srebrenica, whose men looted and destroyed up to 100 Serb villages in eastern Bosnia, killing and injuring thousands of Serbian villagers, was given a prison sentence of only TWO years. General Rasim Delić of the Bosnian Muslim army got only THREE years, while the mujaheddins under his command decapitated many Serb (and initially even Croat) prisoners. Three Kosovo Albanians, well known killers of Serbs, Romanies and pro-Yugoslav Albanians, Ramush Haradinaj (for some time the Prime Minister of Kosovo) and his brother Daut, Fatmir Limaj (a member of Kosovo Parliament) were not even sentenced. The witnesses of their crimes were either assassinated, or just disappered, or refused to witness. Carla del Ponte, the ICTY prosecutor general, wrote about it in chapter 11 of her book (2008). Most generals of the VRS were sentenced to 20-30 years imprisonment. The well known British journalist J.Laughland called the ICTY „Rogue Court with Rigged Rules" (The Times, June 17,1999). The high UNO representative C. Thornberry described openly the immoral one-sidedness of ICTY in his article „Saving the War Crimes Tribunal" (Foreign Policy, Fall, 1996). Mladić was happy when I showed him those papers. –„Thank God, after all there are some honest journalists and media in the West!"

General Mladić was absolutely devoted to his Serbian nation and to his troops, his popularity was tremendous. My wife and I spent a very friendly afternoon chatting at the HQ of VRS at Han Pijesak in eastern Bosnia with his top commanding officers, drinking coffee and sipping „frontovača", a 50% plum brandy, with them.

We had a talk with the blue-eyed general about „the meaning of the Serb history"

-„As a whole, but there were some exceptions, the Serbs are honest, fair and gallant, knightly, you could say. Without those features they would not fight for 500 years against the Turkish invaders with unbelievable sufferings, when it was so easy to convert to Islam and to become „a sultan´s son", with all accompanying privileges…"

The first two big victories in the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary (1914-1918) were won by the Kingdom of Serbia in 1914, the battle of Cer (august) and the Kolubara-Suvobor battle (november-december). The latter was won by general Živojin Mišić, who was promoted to vojvoda (field marchall) after the battle.

-„Those victories have been studied even in western Military academies, as examples of a brilliant military strategy. My cap has the same form as the cap of vojvoda Mišić," said Mladić proudly. In a few minutes he explained how the battles were going on. Mladić hated the war, with its killings and destructions, with its disregard for human life and with its consequent revenge and hatred. When we spoke about the famous Chinese Master SUN and his book „About the Art of Warfare" (from the 4-5.centuries B.C.) I found in its first chapter a perfect description of the brilliant military leader Mladić:

-„The profession of a military leader means prudence, reliability, humanity, courage and hard resolutness."

General Mladić could not understand the hypocrisy of the West, its unhumane approaches in many events, its tendency to disinform or to overtly lie.

-„In summer 1992 the western part of Republika Srpska (RS) was cut from its eastern part, from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, FRY (Serbia+Montenegro). In the Banja Luka hospital suddenly no oxygen in cylinders was available. The local authorities asked the West to allow the oxygen cylinders from FRY or from the West to be sent to Banja Luka. It was not allowed and 12 newborn babies suffocated…The supplies arrived when my heroic Krajina and Drina corps after severe fighting opened a corridor at Brčko, in northern Bosnia…. A group of four British parlamentarians visited (1993) RS and found an appalling health service situation. Two boys, Siniša (9 yrs) and Dejan (10 yrs), had been severely wounded by a Muslim shell at the Serb held town of Doboj. The local doctors were not able to help them. They asked the West to transport them to a western well equipped hospital in Germany, France or Italy, as it was done when Croat or Muslim children were critically injured. This urgent appeal was rejected and both boys died soon…" The report of the four MPs was written in September 1993.

But one of the western crimes against humanity upset general a lot. It was the suspension of FRY from the World Health Organisation on May 3, 1993. It was initiated by Danmark and WHO thus became an instrument of punishment and not of help. As a consequence, thousands of babies, children, elderly people and chronically ill died in FRY, in Republika Srpska, in Republika Srpska Krajina. Infectious diseases spread.

As provocations, the Muslim government in Sarajevo organized three big explosions in Sarajevo (the bread queue massacre on May 27, 1992; the Markale I massacre on February 5, 1994; the Markale II massacre on August 28, 1995), with heavy loss of life, and accused the Serbs as perpetrators. The official West, its media (but not all of them) accepted „joyfully" that fabrication and severe sanctions were imposed thereafter on FRY and RS by the UNO. But the honest western journalists exposed that ploy: L.Doyle "Muslims slaughter heir own people – Bosnia bread queue massacre was propaganda ploy, UN told"(The Independent, Aug.22, 1992); B.Volker, a French TV TF1 journalist: „The mortar bomb which killed 68 people in a Sarajevo marketplace and evoked a NATO ultimatum against the Bosnian Serbs was fired from Muslim positions, according to a UN report" (Feb.5, 1994); HughMcManners: "Serbs ´not guilty of massacre´- Experts warned US that mortar was Bosnian" (The Sunday Times, Oct.1, 1995). At that time, the US lt.colonel John Sray (military inteligence) published his report „Selling the Bosnian Myth to America: Buyer Beware!"(Foreign Military Studies Office, Oct.1995), exposing many western lies and fabrications. Mladić was enthusiastic to hear it. He knew from the Serb intelligence, that explosions were organized by the Muslim authorities, the latest („Markale II") with the knowledge and approval by the official West because NATO needed a pretext to start the air raids on RS and to become practically an official ally of Croats and Muslims.

In spring and summer 1995 a powerful Croatian army was concentrated near the borders of RS. In may and in august 1995, the Croatian Army (about 140 000 troops), well equipped by Germany, Argentina and others, attacked the Republika Srpska Krajina (about 20-30 000 troops). The planners of that aggression were the US retired mercenary generals C.E.Saint, H.Soyster and C.E.Vuono (the Professional Military Resources,Inc). The Croatian attack was supported by the Bosnian Muslim army and by NATO planes (intelligence, supplies). About 250 000 Serbs were robbed and expelled from their ancient homes, over 1 000 of them were assassinated. Serb Krajina in Croatia was devastated, its towns heavily bombarded by artillery and planes. Krajina became ethically „clear" of Serbs. The Croatian attack happened during Croat-Serb negotiations, under UNO protection. There were no resolutions of UNO, no sanctions, there was only some sporadic official criticism. The Czech president Havel, obedient to his western mentors, did not use his phrases about truth and love against lies and hatred in the case of Serbs from Krajina.

-„We have been in an awkward situation. A huge Croatian army and tens of thousands of Muslim troops, with NATO support, were there. The 28th Muslim division at Srebrenica (it was not demilitarized !) was a knife in our back. We had to take Srebrenica…The West used Srebrenica to divert world´s attention from the horrible crimes of Croats against the 250 000 expelled and looted Serbs in Krajina. It was Mrs Albright´s cover-up that created the fantastic fabrication, the alleged Srebrenica massacre…During the 3 years of fighting around Srebrenica we lost about 1 200 men, while the Muslims about 2 000…Our VRS had strict orders to behave according to the international laws. There were absolutely no mass murders or mass executions. But I cannot exclude personal revenges of some of our troops from this area when they recognized among the Muslim troops the killers of their families, who had devastated their villages…

We used our buses to transport about 30 000 civilians who wanted to leave, and Muslim soldiers who surrendered, to the position of the Muslim army near Kladanj or Tuzla. Was this a genocide? Maybe 10 000 of Muslim troops fought on trying to break through to Tuzla. Oddly enough, their commanders withdrew well in advance. Was it planned? Muslims suffered heavy losses in fighting, but thousands of them reached Tuzla. The West and the Sarajevo authorities made out of this losses during fighting a genocide.

The Dutch troops (the Dutchbat of appr.450 men) stationed at Srebrenica, including their commander Lt.Colonel T.Karremans and the Dutch Chief of Staff general Hans Cousy negated the official western version about genocide of Muslims in Srebrenica (H.Hetzel, Die Welt, July 12, 1996). While the Dutch defence minister J.Voorhoeve talked about more thousands of Muslim victims, the Dutch troops talked about more hundreds, up to one thousand, of Muslim troops killed in fighting. A group of the western experts (Y. Bodansky, G.Copley, P.Corwin, Sept.18, 2003) declared that the independent forensic analyses found the 7 000 or even 8 000 alleged Muslim dead a very inflated figure, the real losses were in the range of hundreds. About 3 000 of those allegedly „killed" Muslims took even part in BaH elections in 1996 !!! Their names were on the voting lists.

When the Serb ex-president S.Milošević was tried (2004) in The Hague for the alleged war crimes, the French general P.Morillon (ex-commander of UNPROFOR) said that the Serbs wanted a revenge in Srebrenica for those Serbs murdered by the Muslims earlier. His statement made the Muslim regime furious. Before the war (1941-45), about 50% of inhabitants of Srebrenica were Serbs, in 1991 only about 29% of them, because thousands of them had been expelled or murdered by the Croatian ustashas and the local Muslims during the war. When the VRS entered Srebrenica in 1995, no Serbs lived there any more.

One day general Mladić told us with some sadness in his voice:

-„I know, that both the Muslims from BaH and the Croats hate me, especially their mothers because they see behind my name their dead sons, soldiers and, unluckily, civilians as well. And their destroyed houses, lost property. But they must realize, that THEY wanted and started to dismember this country in defiance to constitution, that they started all those destructions and killings. What could I do? Had I to allow them to kill the Serbs, as they did in the ustasha state of Croatia in 1941-45? We, the Serbs, as well as many Muslims and Croats with a pro-Yugoslav ideology did not want a war, did not start it. We did not want to secede from Yugoslavia. It was terrible that many of our pro-Yugoslav bothers, Croats and Muslims, found themselves unintentionally behind hostile barricades, driven there by their leaders and fanatic fellow believers. Many Muslims knew that they had been originally the Serbs, before they converted to Islam.There were many Muslim prominent men, poets, writers who declared that they were the Serbs of Muslim faith.

„Do you imagine what an orgy of brutal murder brought to Bosnia the mujaheddins from Irak, Chechnya, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, etc.? They taught our Muslims how to kill in a more brutal way. They even decapitated their prisoners, the Serbs and even the Croats when they waged a very bloody and cruel Croat-Muslim war (mainly in 1993).

Generally speaking, general Mladić felt that he was a Yugoslav, he declared it during a population census in 1991. He was very angry with the Slovenes, about their dirty role in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and their very anti-Serb attitudes.

-„The Slovenes have forgotten how they and Croats implored the Serb royal authorities in Belgrade at the end of 1918, to be accepted by the victorious Serbia to become a part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (SHS) and how the SHS saved the Slovenes from a final germanization and italianization. As a member of a victorious country, neither the Slovenes nor the Croats were obliged to pay reparations, otherwise they would be obliged to, because they were a part of Austria-Hungary during the war…Finally the Serb army expelled the Italians who started to occupy Slovenia, Dalmatia and parts of Croatia.Both in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and in Tito´s Yugoslavia, the Slovenes had the highest living standard in our country", said Mladić angrily.

But even Warren Zimmermann, the last US ambassador in Belgrade, who behaved in an anti-Serb, pro-Slovene way, made a few caustic remarks about the Slovenes in his article „Origins of a Catastrophe" (Foreign Affairs, March/April, 1995): -„Their virtue was democracy and their vice was selfishness. In their drive to separate from Yugoslavia, they simply ignored the 22 million of Yugoslavs who were not Slovenes…Contrary to the general view, it was the Slovenes who started the war…"

One event, among others, made general Mladić sad. His memory about it recurred again and again.

-„I am sorry about the fact that nobody in the West mentioned how the Serbs from VRS saved 40-50 000 fleeing Croats pursued (in 1993) by the"bloodthirsty" mujaheddins. We defended them, fed them, treated them in our hospitals, we shared our food with them as their brothers, although we ourselves suffered a lot od deprivations. Their troops, including officers, solemnly promised to me, even swore, not to use arms against their Serb brothers any more. But they did not keep their word. It made me really sad. Otherwise, my personal bodyguard was a young Croat, a sergeant of our VRS, whom I trusted completely. He was a good Yugoslav. Well, I must tell you, that we saved occasionally the Muslims as well. Usually it was from their fanatic fellow Muslims…"

There was another aspect of the mujaheddin activities that must be mentioned. They did not want only to defend their brothers in faith from the infidels, „giaours", but they wanted to keep the local Muslims „on the right side of the traditional Islam", to compel them, even by force, to conform to the ancient islamic laws and traditions. Mladić told us how some of his „normal" muslim acquaintances were shocked to hear about all those limitations the mujaheddins wanted to impose on the muslim women. They would not be allowed to meet alone any men not related to them, they would not be allowed to show their face and hair when out of doors. –„It seemed as an anti-propaganda for Islam," said Mladić

To stop the hostilities in BaH, a summit was held in Athens (May 1-2, 1993), chaired by the Greek Prime Minister K.Mitsotakis. The Presidents of Serbia S.Milošević, of FRY D.Ćosić and of RS Dr.R.Karadžić were present. They supported the Vance-Owen plan, even Dr.Karadžić accepted it with some reluctance, only when a corridor was promised connecting the Serb cantons through the northern Bosnia. The plan divided BaH into 9 cantons (for each nation three), the tenth would be Sarajevo under a joint administration. The Parliament of RS had to ratify it on May 15th at Pale. And it was there that general Mladić addressed the guests and the RS Parliament. His speech was fascinating, it would deserve to be in textbooks of history.

-„This war was forced upon the Serbs, it is a civil, ethnic and religious war, we were expelled to a place of windstorms and we were branded as „criminals" to the world… And the same world and the same international community did not condemn the inhuman and cruel acts by the Slovene and Croatian secessionists…We, the military, have serious worries that the international community made out of Srebrenica an international stage spectacle…All the humanitarian agencies appeal to supply Srebrenica with water without admitting that we were informing the world a whole year through that the Serbs were without water, without electricity, without the posibility to produce food…Our people breathes through a straw, we are under blockade, we cannot import drugs or oil for our agriculture.

Gentleman, on the heroic Ozren (mountain range between Tuzla and Doboj) live more than 100 000 Serb refugees from Tuzla, from the central Bosnia, Zenica, Vareš… There was no war between the Muslims and Croats as long as they did not sign the Vance-Owen plan. Do you know that our holy place, the abyss GOLUBINKA, is in Croat hands? In 1941 the ustashas threw into it, dead or half dead, 2 000 Serbs from surrounding Serbian villages and Mostar. Their bones were lifted on Aug.4, 1991, on the anniversary of the 1941 massacre. The orthodox graveyard, church and the war memorial here were destroyed by the Croatian troops and paramilitaries in 1992, when the JNA had withdrawn…Our RS, if devided according to the V-O plan, would become undefensible…"

After hearing general´s speech, the RS Parliament rejected almost unanimously the Vance-Owen plan. It was rejected overwhelmingly as well in a later referendum. This caused a hostile reaction by president Milošević (the support of FRY to RS almost stopped), by the western politicians and media. Karadžić-Mladić relations deteriorated for some time. But later, when the US ex-president Jimmy Carter visited at the end of december 1994 Pale in RS, they were already much improved.

-„We have not been aggressors. It was our own country, where we have lived for many centuries together with Croats and Muslims. I am not a war criminal. The Serbian people suffered a lot, unluckily nowadays from its former friends and allies (Britain, France, USA), on whose side we fought in two big wars. Almost nobody did understand the suffering of our people, its just struggle here in Bosnia. Only the US ex-president Jimmy Carter said, during his visit to Pale, when he was sitting between Karadžić and me, that the US public is quite insufficiently acquainted with our Serb problems in BaH. But, I am proud, that the army under my command prevented the repetition of the Serb genocide in the fascist ustasha state of Croatia during 1941-1945…"

There was one thing that neither general nor I could understand: the colossal and arrogant fabrications of the West and of their Yugoslav „clients" (Croats, Muslims from BaH, Slovenes) regarding the alleged systemic raping of Muslim women by the Serb military, as a part of their war strategy. It was actually started by the Bosnian (Muslim) foreign minister Haris Silajdžić in autumn 1992 in Geneva, when he announced in cold blood that the Serbs have raped 30 000 Muslim women. Since that time the figure has been rising steadily. A Czech journalist Jitka Obzinova was probably a „record holder" with her 100 000 raped women (Czech TV2, December 5, 1992, 22,00 „Don´t Divide Bosnia"). Another prominent record holder was a US professor of law Catharine MacKinnon with her over 50 000 raped. A crazy (one mut say so) American Judy Darnell in 1993 stated that the Serbs in BaH ran 47 „rape camps". Even the CIA and the International Red Cross looked for them and did not find them. The Europe, including the Czech republic, was prepared to accept the „epidemic" of thousands of poor children (they are called sometimes devil´s children) born by those raped women. But no children appeared. Prominent newpapers, periodicals (e.g.,Newsweek) published that arrogant propaganda stupidity that caused a lot of problems to the Serbs. Even the European union swallowed the bait. The numbers were poorly documented and absolutely unproven.It was finally found, by a OUN commission, that the numbers of officially accepted rapes of those ill-fated women of all three warring nations were very very much less. The Dutch professor of state law Fric Kalshoven said:

-„People tell horrible stories because someone has told them to tell it for propaganda objectives – or because everyone is telling horrible stories…" Professor Kalshoven wanted proof, not propaganda…

When we talked with general Mladić about the „rape propaganda", he laughed at the stupidity of those who believed it, but he admitted that the „rape campaign of the West" caused a lot of harm to the Serbs, that it was actually just a goofy, but unluckily a successful, but very dirty ploy organized by the West and its clients from BaH and Croatia.

-„Good heavens! If it were true, my 80 000 boys would not fight, but just chase the Muslim or Croat women. What a nonsence ! But, to be true, rapes were reported as mostly coward and hidious atrocities, that must be exemplary punished. But punished must be all those as well who fabricated and abused it for propaganda purposes, stimulating hatred…"

General Mladić liked the US four-star general Charles Boyd, after I read him his paper „ To make peace with the guilty" (Foreign Affairs, september/october 1995). We just discussed the bizarre disinformations spread by the West and its clients about the casualties, about the numbers of those killed during the war in Bosnia. General laughed when I told him, that the record holder in this respect was again our journalist Jitka Obzinova. She informed, as a reporter from BaH (Czech Radio, July 11, 1993) that the number of those killed in BaH (casualties ?) was just 500 000! But the official figure as quoted by the US and western politicians and the Sarajevo government, was 250 000, even 300 000. Nobody from the West did question the Sarajevo or Zagreb authorities, where did they got those figures from. General Boyd, the deputy commander of the US forces in Europe, put the death toll between 60-100 000. He informed that the Sarajevo authorities „decreased" in spring 1995 the death toll to „only" 145 000, while George Kenney, an ex-member of the State Department put the losses in BaH (1992-95) at 25-60 000 („The Bosnian Calculation", The NYT Magazíne, Apr.23,1995). The CIA analyses were about tens of thousands. The big disinformer Bill Clinton told Americans on Nov.27, 1995. about the 250 000 killed, while the US defence secretary W.Perry told the US Senate (July 7, 1995) that there were 130 000 dead in BaH in 1992, 12 000 in 1993, and 2 500 in 1994 (130 000 + 12 000 + 2 500 = 144 500). Who did actually lead by the nose the Americans and the world? Finally a later study from Norway put the number of dead in BaH at 80 000, the study of ICTY at 102 000. But I was not able any more to discuss it with Mladić, because he had to disappear, to hide. Two booklets were published (2005) in Belgrade: „The Book of the Dead Serbs from Sarajevo" with 5 515 names, and „The Book of the Dead Serbs from Srebrenica-Bratunac" with 3 262 names. It included 344 names from Hadžići, 110 from Olovo and 89 from Kladanj.

Mladić was satisfied that his American „colleague", the four-star general C.Boyd was a fair man, who did not hesitate to tell the truth and that he had made some caustic words about the western media anti-Serb reporting and about their window-dressing.

Some Serb paramilitary groups caused many sleepless nights to both Mladić and Karadžić. Not all of them were helpful and welcome. Some of them included even criminal elements, psychopaths. The others treated the Croat or Muslim civilians too heavy-handedly, but it could be understood to some extent, but not permitted, even if some of them had seen their families assassinated by the Muslims or the Croats. President Karadžić issued many orders to protect Muslims from those irregulars. I have seen many relevatnt documents about it. On the other side, some Serb paramilitaries helped a lot the unprepared and undefended Serb settlements that had been at the berginning an easy prey to the organized and trained Croat and Muslim bands, e.g.,in the northrern and eastern Bosnia.

During our last meeting Ratko was very mad at the European union, when we talked about the criminal NATO aggression on FRY in spring 1999, with all those daily bombing raids lasting for 78 days:

-„I cannot understand the hypocrisy of those EU countries. Their words about humanism are just a fake because they used their bombers without any UNO mandate and under fabricated pretext killed and destroyed in Serbia and collaborated with the UÇK criminals in Kosovo and Metohija. How is it possible that the Germans were killing in Serbia again? Why were the American, Belgian, Dutch, etc. goody-goodies killing our children? How is it possible that the EU democratic and liberal parliament did not stop it?

The Czech ex-president Václav Havel had shown his face not only in BaH, but later in Kosovo and Metohija as well, promoting the independente of it. In January 2010 he was awarded the Golden Medal of Ibrahim Rugova by the president of the quasi-state of Kosovo. He was rewarded for the support of the Kosovo Albanians and obviously for his term „the humanitarian bombing" in 1999, and for the treason of the Serbian people, if you like.

When writing the above I was very sorry that I was not able to talk to Ratko later, to tell him e.g., about those Germans who „waged a war" against the lies and fabrications of their own government and against NATO because of their involvement in the dirty, criminal military action against the FRY. I am sure that Mladić would hear with enthusiasm what the German publicist Jürgen Elsässer wrote in his two books about the incredible lies of his government: War Crimes – The Mortal Lies of the Federal Government and Their Victims in the Kosovo Conflict (2000); The War Lies – From Kosovo Conflict to Milošević Trial (2004). He knew how the German writer Handke liked and defended Serbs in his novels.

Very interesting was general´s attitude to various UNPROFOR commanding generals.

Some of them general even befriended, liked them (the Indian Satish Nambiar, the Swedish Lars-Eric Wahlgren, the Belgian Francis Briquemont, to some extent the Canadian Lewis MacKenzie). The French general Philippe Morillon was not close to Mladić, even though he showed repeatedly courageous firmness. As for the elite British Michael Rose, he was not close to general´s heart. He probably did not realize enough the Serb problems in BaH, the Serb tragedy in ustasha Croatia. He did not put himself in the Serb position, he was just an elite, aristocratic (may be too aristocratic?) British general, with a responsible task. He did not meet somehow the expectations of Mladić. The first meeting with the US general Wesley Clark in Banja Luka (Aug.27, 1994) was rather friendly, with some jokes and innocent teasing. Mladić reminded Clark that the Serbs never were at war with Americans, British, French and Russians. He told him that the Serb army of general Mihailović, itself in a critical position, saved over 500 American pilots shot down by Germans during the war 1941-45 and enabled their return home in the grandiose „Operation Halyard", at the end of 1944. Clark expressed his admiration to Mladić for his courage and patriotism. Mladić remembered that Clark had paid him a compliment:

-„You are the only commander who does not say to his men FORWARD, but FOLLOW ME!"

Clark, in a friendly talk, explained to Mladić, that he was on duty in many (17?) countries. Mladić answered that he was on duty and that he is still fighting in one country only, in his native country, which he was just now defending. They even exchanged their military caps. Clark said with enthusiasm: -„It is great that you allowed me to put your cap on my head!" Later, Clark had to explain it to the State Department. When parting, Mladić tapped in a friendly way Clark on his shoulders, as a sign of mutual trust, confidence. People allegedly heard that he called him „Wesley"… Regrettably, Wesley commanded NATO during its criminal aggression against FRY in 1999.

There was one general that Mladić did not like, even detested. It was the French general Bernard Janvier who knew or surely anticipated the planned Croat massacres of the Krajina Serbs and did not prevent them. In an angry letter Mladić made him responsible for all the crimes committed by the Croat forces in the UNPA zones, in Krajina, in may and august 1995. Mladić did not like the British general Rupert Smith either. He signed the results of a superficial investigation, that the Serbs had caused the Markale II massacre (Aug.28, 1995), although other experts denied it. He was thus responsible for the immediate (in less than two days) massive air raids of NATO planes against RS, with a lot of destructions and killing, without any detailed investigation. Two papers were published about that fraud by Hugh Mc Manners (see earlier) on Oct.1, and by David Binder (The Nation, Oct.2,1995).

General Ratko Mladić is a very prominent, positive personality of the Serbian history. He defended his Serb people in the most gloomy days with courage, unselfishly and successfully. He was not afraid even when he was confronted with the most powerful military organization of the world, with NATO, representing over half a billion richest people. He knew that he was right and that NATO behaved in Yugoslavia (1995, 1999) in a very criminal way. The North Atlantic Treaty, Article I, of Apr. 4, 1949. and how it was violated, will remind you of that:

„The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations,

to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by

peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security

and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international

relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent

with the purposes of the United Nations…"

Ratko Mladić, this very talented and gallant military leader, honest Serb and brave officer, was slandered by a dirty propaganda campaign both from the West and from its client states in the former Yugoslavia (the Muslim-Croat Federation of BaH, Croatia, Slovenia). Even some members of his own nation were slandering him, most of them in their endeavour to show how they obey and how they are loyal to their foreign lords in the West.

But one historical fact mustn´t be forgotten. The tandem Karadžić-Mladić, in spite of all those innumerable injustices and malices of the West, in spite of the Dayton dictate and its terrible consequences for hundreds of thousands of Serbs in BaH, managed to create against all odds a Serb State (Republika Srpska), in BaH.

I think that the time has come to give the name of Ratko Mladić to important streets, squares, parks in Serbia, and to decorate the walls or writing desks in apartments with his photos.

The book was not written because the autor´s mother was a Serb. It was written to hear the other side of the civil-ethnic-religious war in the former Yugoslavia, in BaH, that was shouted down by western mafia, politicians and media, who thought that they were right because of their money and powerful armies. And I lived for 20 years in the former Yugoslavia.

Nobody was absolutely innocent in the tragedy of Yugoslavia, but the Serbian people is not responsible for the dismemberment of Yugoslavia which they did not want, and the Serbs did not begin all those killings and destructions. NATO behaved in Yugoslavia like a criminal organization, killing and destroying without any UNO mandate, and increasing the inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatred.

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BRIC will rule the world, but not that soon – former WB boss

2010-02-07T23:20:00.001-05:00

BRIC will rule the world, but not that soon – former WB boss

08 February, 2010, 03:19

For 40 years the US was the dominant economic power, but today China and India are emerging and there is a complete change internationally, former World Bank president James Wolfensohn told RT at Davos.

"If you take a view in 10-20 years, there is no question that China and India will become dominant powers, China first and later India. By 2030-2040 the US will rank, perhaps, #3 to those two. But the US is still a hugely important power, not just because of the economics, but because of technology and income per capita, which is still far in excess to China and India, and because of its political leadership," stated Wolfensohn. "We are not going to see a change that is too dramatic. But you certainly will find the emerging powers will want a greater share of discussion in the global scene and in particular the BRIC countries, and of the BRIC countries in particular, China and India."

Answering a question about the role of the IMF and the World Bank in helping smaller countries overcome the great economic downturn, Wolfensohn stated that these organizations were "giving a great deal of money to come and help to solve the problem."

"I rather feel the IMF and the World Bank emerge stronger as a result of this, because people came to realize you cannot live without them," he said.

Wolfensohn believes the management of these organizations is already changing due to the fact that "it is no longer the US-dominated World Bank and the EU-dominated IMF. All this is now subject to examination, and in particular, the role of China and India, Brazil and Russia are becoming very important."

Wolfensohn thinks it would be hard for emerging economies to pick up the slack from the US and EU economies, but that this would change rather quickly.

"All BRIC countries, China, India, Russia and Brazil together, are less in terms of GDP than the United States, maybe less than half of the US," explained Wolfensohn. So "China and India alone cannot rescue the world economy at the moment."

As for the probability of Russia becoming Europe's biggest economy by 2020, Wolfensohn said it takes "the government and the Russian people to understand that to compete internationally, it is not enough just to have hydrocarbons, timber and natural resources. That gets back to the educational system, to the management system, to the system of incentives, to the move away from centralized government to a more diversified structure."

Though Russia [in comparison to China and India] has some intellectual advantages it should pursue, said Wolfensohn, "high tech does not create lot of employment."

Besides the issue of employment in the world's biggest country, Wolfensohn also named such problems as ageing population, educational system, the incentives system, the judicial system and corruption as issues that need to be addressed urgently.

http://rt.com/Politics/2010-02-08/bric-economy-wolfensohn-interview.html/print

Europeans broadly satisfied with their lives, but...........

2010-02-06T13:10:00.001-05:00

Brussels, 2 February 2010

Europeans broadly satisfied with their lives, but survey highlights concerns over the future of the economic and social situation

Europeans are on average broadly satisfied with their personal situation, but less satisfied when it comes to the economy, public services and social policies in their country, according to an opinion survey released today. The Eurobarometer on the social climate in the EU also found large differences between countries, with people in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands generally most satisfied with their personal situation. The survey forms part of the European Commission's Social Situation Report, also released today, which examines social trends in Europe, this year focusing on housing.

"It is comforting that despite the difficult economic situation, most Europeans remain satisfied with their lives, although there is some apprehension about the future," said Vladimír Špidla, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. "Today's report shows once again the importance of our efforts to promote jobs and growth in Europe so as to guarantee people's social well-being in the future. We must continue these efforts as part of our future 2020 strategy to make the EU a smarter and greener social market economy."

According to the Eurobarometer survey, a majority of Europeans are satisfied with life in general, giving an average score of +3.2 points (on a scale of -10 to +10). But there are big differences between Member States: the highest level of satisfaction was reported in Denmark, (+8.0), with Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland also having high levels. The lowest levels of satisfaction were reported in Bulgaria (-1.9), followed by Hungary, Greece and Romania.

When it comes to public services, Europeans are on average quite dissatisfied with the way their public administrations are run (-1.2 points). In every country, apart from Luxembourg and Estonia, Europeans feel that this has worsened over the last five years and expect it to continue to get worse (in all countries except Luxembourg).

When asked about specific public policies, Europeans are broadly satisfied with healthcare provision (+1.3 points), with people in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg most satisfied (over +5 points) and those in Bulgaria, Greece and Romania least satisfied (-3 points or less).

Europeans were most dissatisfied with the way inequalities and poverty are addressed in their country (-2 points). Only respondents in Luxembourg and the Netherlands awarded a positive score, while respondents in Latvia and Hungary were the most strongly dissatisfied (-5 points or worse).

Housing

The European Commission's latest annual Social Situation Report shows that Europeans now spend more of their income on housing costs than they did ten years ago (almost 4 percentage points more), while mortgage debt has increased sharply across the EU.

On average, Europeans spend one-fifth of their disposable income on accommodation. Rent and mortgage payments only make up 30% of total housing costs in the EU while the other 70% pays for repairs, maintenance and fuel. Following housing privatisation, most people living in countries from the central and eastern EU Member States own their own homes, and charges for repairs, maintenance and fuel make up around 90% of total housing costs.

The report also looks at quality of housing and finds that many Europeans report living in sub-standard accommodation and that more people on low incomes report housing problems.

Social impacts of the crisis

While it is still too early to assess the full social impact of the crisis, the report investigates what lessons may be learned from the experience of past recessions. It shows that social expenditure has played a role in protecting those affected during recessions but that the likelihood that an unemployed person will receive income support varies across the EU.

Background

The Special Eurobarometer survey on the social climate is the first in a series of annual surveys to monitor European citizens' subjective well-being and was conducted in May-June 2009 among citizens in the 27 EU Member States. It asks people their opinions about their personal situation, the national economic and social situation, and their feelings about policies of their governments in various areas, including health care and pensions.

The Social Situation Report is an annual report by the European Commission that takes a closer look at long-term social trends in the EU in order to provide up-to-date, reliable and comprehensive information on the social situation. This year, it focuses on two key issues in public policy: housing (including ownership status and costs), and the possible effects of the recession including results from the Eurobarometer survey on social climate.

MEMO/10/27

For more information:

Special Eurobarometer survey on the social situation

Full report

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_315_en.pdf

Summary

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_315_sum_en.pdf

European Commission Social Situation Report

http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=675&langId=en

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/114&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Norway Time Hole "Leak" Plunges Northern Hemisphere Into Chaos

2010-02-06T10:43:00.001-05:00

Norway Time Hole "Leak" Plunges Northern Hemisphere Into Chaos

Written by (Author ) World Jan 8, 2010

Russian scientists are reporting to Prime Minister Putin today that the high-energy beam fired into the upper heavens from the United States High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) radar facility in Ramfjordmoen, Norway this past month has resulted in a "catastrophic puncturing" of our Plant's thermosphere thus allowing into the troposphere an "unimpeded thermal inversion" of the exosphere, which is the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere.

To the West's firing of this 'quantum' high-energy beam we had previously reported on in our December 10, 2009 report titled "Attack On Gods 'Heaven' Lights Up Norwegian Sky".

To how catastrophic for our Planet this massive thermal inversion has been Anthony Nunan, an assistant general manager for risk management at Mitsubishi Corporation in Tokyo, is reporting today that the entire Northern Hemisphere is in winter chaos, with the greatest danger from this unprecedented Global event being the destruction of billions of dollars worth of crops in a World already nearing the end of its ability to feed its self.

So powerful has this thermal inversion become that reports from the United States are stating that their critical crops of strawberries, oranges, and other fruits and vegetables grown in their Southern States, are being destroyed by record cold temperatures. The US is further reporting record amounts of snowfall in what they are now warning may be their worst winter in 25 years.

Reports from the United Kingdom today are, likewise, showing a Nation in chaos as brutal cold temperatures continue to batter the British people suffering under the worst snow blizzards to hit them in almost 50 years. So dire has it become in the UK that their National Grid yesterday issued only its second warning in its entire history stating that their Nation's gas supply was running out due to this unprecedented event.

Not just to the UK, but also to the entire European Union has this thermal inversion been affecting as reports from that region show continued chaos is occurring due to plunging temperatures and snows. In the UK, also, reports are showing that the military has been called out to rescue over 1,000 stranded vehicles.

Though the Motherland, and its people, are some of the best equipped in the World to handle such severe winter conditions, the Russian island of Sakhalin was inundated this past week by a rare Snow Cyclone setting off no less than avalanches.

But to the worst affected region of the Northern Hemisphere no one has been hit harder than China, where in what is being described as a "soul-destroying snowstorm" this Asian Nation has been plunged into such havoc the entire country has been brought to a standstill. China further reports that the massive snowstorms hitting them are their worst in 60 years and necessitating their military forces to save over 1,400 people trapped when their train became covered in snow. So overwhelmed by this unprecedented event has China become that they have ordered all of their citizens to help with snow removal too.

South Korea has not been spared either as reports from that Nation are reporting their worst snow storms in their modern history of recording these events.

Reports from Japan are also reporting record snowfall in their Northern Regions, where according to one unnamed Kushiro resident, "Snow falls hard here in Kushiro, but this is the most I have ever seen. The snow's piling up and we're running out of places to dump it."

Canada, another Nation used to extreme winter events, reports that the storm that had hit their maritime provinces this past week was so powerful buildings were knocked off of their foundations in what one resident, Tom Jardine, described as being "worse than a hurricane".

To the long-term consequences of this thermal inversion caused by the West, these reports further warn that by the puncturing of our atmosphere by the HHARP radars our Planet has, also, been "needlessly exposed" to the growing threat posed to us by the giant mysterious object currently approaching us (named by NASA as G1.9) which we had previously reported on in our January 3rd report titled "Russia Prepares For Asteroid Strike As New Comet Nears Sun", and which has been blamed for the rapid shifting of our Earth's North Pole that was first documented in 2005.

But to the most critical aspect of these events it surely lies with the Western World's continued arrogance in regards to experimenting on both our Planets natural species and human beings, and though who may think that they are 'gods', are continuing to give evidence that they are acting more like devils.

http://www.daily.pk/norway-time-hole-%E2%80%9Cleak%E2%80%9D-plunges-northern-hemisphere-into-chaos-14311/

DISCLAIMER: Pakistan Daily News does not necessarily agree witht he views set forth by the Author of this article.

Large mineral reserves exist in Albania and Kosovo

2010-02-04T16:05:00.000-05:00

Large mineral reserves exist in Albania and Kosovo worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Created by Sahit Muja

The potential in minerals in Albania and Kosovo is more than anyone has ever imagined. This would create a powerful economic growth in Albania, Kosovo and the entire Balkans

The price of metals was up again , helped by the recent good news on US manufacturing and the US gross national product.

March copper was up a cent to $3.09 per pound in New York trade, while three-month contracts for the metal added $29 to $6,820 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange. price of ferro chrome is up 10% this month.

Among other base metals, zinc added about $15 to around $2,160 per tonne in London, while aluminium was up $35 to $2,120 per tonne, lead was $73 higher to $2,118 per tonne and tin and nickel each added $300 on the session, to $16,450 per tonne and $18,,300 per tonne respectively.

Precious metals were higher in New York trade as April gold added $13 to $1,118 per troy ounce, March silver was up $8 cents to $16.74 per troy ounce, and April platinum gained $39.50 to $1,578.80 per troy ounce.Large mineral reserves exist in Albania and Kosovo worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The most significant in Kosovo is coal deposits largest in Europe, gold, silver, arsenic, thallium, bismuth and iron. types of Pb and Zn and other metals .

In Albania there are large deposits of chrome ore, bauxite,copper,nickel, quartz,magnesium,cobalt. In the last two years huge explorations have taken place in Northern Albania, especially Tropoje and Kukes. According to Albanian Minerals & Bytyci Shpk engineer geologist , there have been 100 new locations of chrome ore in Tropoje.

Recently huge deposits of chrome ore have been found in . Vlad, Pac, Zogaj, Kam, and Lugu i Zi.The body of this large chrome ore extends a hundred kilometers long from Lugu i Zi, Tropoje to Vlahen, Kukes and 50 miles wide from Zogaj to Tpla,Tropoje. Albanian Minerals and Bytyci Shpk has intensified exploration and started mining in Zogaj, Pac, and Vlad.

According to Italian and American engineers, working for Albanian Minerals and Bytyci Shpk this huge area from Tropoje to Kukes my have more than 500 million tons of chrome ore. New geological surveys and chemical results done by Albanian Minerals have shown an amazing amount of minerals in Northern Albania and Kosovo. There are also large amounts of magnesium and nickel.

The Albanian government has done an amazing job building roads where minerals are found. The value of already discovered minerals in Albania and Kosovo exceeds 100 billion dollars as a raw material. Albanian Minerals in New York has increased the work done in building infrastructure and amount of money invested and is planning to triple the amount of investments in the region.

We have created a partnership and joint venture with the worlds largest business to business marketing companies. The potential in minerals in Albania and Kosovo is more than anyone has ever imagined. This would create a powerful economic growth in Albania, Kosovo and the entire Balkans.

Albania's economic growth over the last four years has been higher than at any time in the last 100 years - with projected growth for 2010 the highest in the Europe - due to a series of government initiatives in recent years that have helped Albania to cope with the impact of the world recession.

Albanian economy has been able to progress despite a number of significant shocks in the world's economy
Albanian GDP growth has averaged 10% percent annually. Projected GDP growth for 2010 is the highest in the Europe and follows its peak growth rate in 2007-2008.

The Albanian economy has done very well under Prime Minister Sali Berisha, and government policy has been key. These economic gains are a big part of the reason he win re-election in 2009. Billions of dollars are currently being invested in all sectors.

Mr Berisha has doubled the budget, raised salaries, lifted Albanians from the poverty line and done an amazing job on the education system. Albanian tourism and investments is flourishing.Albania recently witnessed an impressive growth in tourism this year.

The government of Albania announced that there was a 42 percent increase in the number of tourists visiting the country compared to last year. With new hotels, resorts, bars and restaurants, the Albanian private sector in tourism has been growing an average of 30 percent for five years.

The Albanian economy had the best growth in Europe last year, and this trend is expected to continue this year as well. Foreign investments in Albania have increased 59 percent in 2009.

The Albanian government under Prime Minister Berisha, has created an excellent environment to attract investors to Albania. Special emphasis was paid on constructions of roads and improving infrastructure. The efforts on improving the legal system to protect investors also proved significant. Also that many Western European companies have chosen to escape the high taxes in Europe by investing in Albania as the latter offers the best tax system in Europe with a 10 percent flat tax

Albania is one of the wealthiest lands in natural resources per square mile in the world. With amazing mountains, beaches, lakes, rivers, forests, and rich soil. Underneath this land lies billions of prooven barrels of oil, natural gas, gold, platinum, copper, the largest chrome reserves in Europe, bauxite, nickel, cobalt, magnesium, ores, marbel, granite,coal and much more. Albania is rapidly building its infrastructure.

Albania In the near future it will be the only country in the world to produce 100% of its energy from Hydropower, Windpower and Solar Power. Billions of dollars are being invested there presently. This almost free enviermently friendly energy will create opportunities to mine and process billions of tons of minerals. Albania was one of the countries in the Europe with economic growth and real estate appreciation in 2009

http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/economy-large-mineral-reserves-east-europe-795/topics/large-mineral-reserves-exist-albania

Blair’s Monstrous Consistency

2010-02-01T23:14:00.001-05:00

Blair's Monstrous Consistency

Posted on January 30th, 2010 by Daniel Larison

But the failure to achieve a second, explicit, U.N. resolution was a political problem, not a legal obstacle. Few of the anti-war movement care to recall that the Kosovan War was, if anything, predicated upon a flimsier legal case than the Iraqi intervention. ~Alex Massie

One of the reasons why I keep revisiting the illegality and immorality of the intervention in Kosovo long after most people have forgotten about it is precisely because so many opponents of the Iraq war don't want to acknowledge that Kosovo was every bit as unjustifiable and wrong as Iraq was. By endorsing the war in Kosovo even now, as Obama did again in Oslo, many opponents of the Iraq war have opened themselves up to the attack that Iraq hawks were using from the beginning. If someone pointed out that invading Iraq would violate international law and not have U.N. sanction, the hawks would throw the precedent of Kosovo in his face. Unless he was a principled progressive or antiwar conservative, the opponent of the invasion was always at a loss to respond. If invading Iraq was based on phony or exaggerated intelligence about WMDs, Kosovo was based on lies about preventing genocide and protecting human rights. Unless you are among the fairly small percentage that opposed both, the odds are that you are outraged over invading Iraq in inverse proportion to how outraged you were over bombing Serbia.

Inexplicably, Kosovo is remembered across much of the spectrum, especially the center-left, as a great success, despite having been disastrous for the very people it was supposed to help and despite being based on lies every bit as blatant and outrageous as the invasion of Iraq. As it hapened, Blair was Prime Minister during Britain's participation in both wars of aggression. As far back as 1999, he has been the chief proponent of liberal interventionism aimed at subverting the normal protections of international law afforded to sovereign states, and he continues to be an outspoken advocate for killing foreigners for their own benefit. What is disheartening about all this is not just that Blair will never be held to account for his responsibility for the war in Iraq, but that he has never had to answer for or defend his decision to support an unprovoked, unnecessary war of aggression against Serbia.

Even though the air war led to the expulsions of Albanians from Kosovo it was meant to prevent, and even though the "negotiations" at Rambouillet involved delivering an intolerable ultimatum designed to start a war, this criminal operation continues to enjoy support or indifference from most Westerners. There were no allied casualties, and the war was brief, so there was little time for the publics in NATO nations to grow weary and disgusted with their criminal leaders. The war was over relatively quickly, so the media lost interest in the false atrocity stories that the Clinton administration used in its war propaganda, and the previous decade of constant anti-Serb coverage made the public receptive to whatever lies the administration wanted to tell.

What I can say about Blair is that he has been quite consistent. State sovereignty and international did not matter to him in 1999, and they didn't matter to him later in 2002-03. Given his remarks at the Chilcot inquiry about Iran, I am quite sure that he would have no difficulty supporting and even joining in an illegal attack on Iran were he still a minister in the British government. This makes him one of the most unabashed, unapologetic advocates of aggressive war alive today, and I'm not sure that this requires much courage when there have been and continue to be absolutely no consequences, legal or otherwise, for his actions.

Filed under: foreign policy, politics

7 Responses to "Blair's Monstrous Consistency"

NauticalMongoose, on January 30th, 2010 at 10:52 pm Said:

I am finding it unusually difficult to find a good source discussing the Kosovo War (I am woefully ignorant about this event). Does anyone have any suggestions? I would prefer a 'just the facts' account from which I can draw my own conclusions.

David Tomlin, on January 31st, 2010 at 1:34 am Said:

[The Kosovo intervention was] disastrous for the very people it was supposed to help . . .

I was always opposed to the Balkan interventions, but I am at a loss as to what this is about. Do you mean the ethnic cleansing of the non-Albanians?

For the Kosovo Albanians, we might speculate on whether they would have fared better absent the intervention. I don't know of any facts that would remotely justify describing their present situation as 'disastrous'.

David Tomlin, on January 31st, 2010 at 1:51 am Said:

Sorry, I wrote the previous comment before finishing the post. My curiosity was piqued by the quoted sentence, and I was assuming it referred to the outcome of the intervention rather than events during the intervention itself.

Brett, on January 31st, 2010 at 2:36 am Said:

I always figured the intervention was basically the US and European way of trying to avoid letting "humanitarian intervention" completely die on the vine. It had already taken body blows from the 1994 Rwandan genocide that they'd ignored, as well as the Bosnian civil war that they ignored until multiple massacres later – hardly signs of people supposedly dedicated to intervening to stop such things. One more blow, or perceived blow (since that was what it was) might have irrevocably damaged it, and that was unacceptable to that crowd.

herb, on January 31st, 2010 at 1:44 pm Said:

Please expand on the "lies" NATO used to illegally fight an air war against Serbia.

I know a lot about this subject, and it's only in the last year or so that I've heard any of this "Kosovo was illegal" stuff, mostly from you.

You mentioned "false atrocity stories that the Clinton administration used in its war propaganda." Do you have any examples?

I know for a fact that "false atrocity stories" were used by all sides in the Yugoslav conflict, but I also know that there are many very true atrocity stories that came out of Vukovar, Srebrenica, Osijek, and Sarajevo.

Daniel Larison, on January 31st, 2010 at 2:08 pm Said:

The "massacre" at Racak was a key part of Clinton's justification for intervening. The massacre was staged by the KLA. It never happened. There is no evidence that there was a systematic or extensive policy of ethnic cleansing in the works. The Serbs had been fighting a low-level counterinsurgency against a rather nasty gang of criminals for a year, and that was it. The administration had even labeled the KLA a terrorist group the year before it took their side, because this is what it was.

Clinton portrayed intervention as something he did grudgingly to halt genocide, but there was no genocide to halt. He had given the Serbs an ultimatum to let NATO have the run of their country, and like any self-respecting state they refused. Then the bombing began shortly afterwards. If you have never heard arguments that bombing Serbia was illegal until the last year, I submit that you haven't followed the discussion about it very closely.

As for the remark about being a disaster for the people it was supposed to help, I was referring to massive refugee crisis that the war created as hundreds of thousands of Albanians were driven out of Kosovo by a combination of the air campaign and Serbian military units. The mass expulsions that the campaign was designed to prevent were the very things that the campaign hastened and facilitated. Soon thereafter, the Albanians returned to Kosovo, but I would call the effort a pretty dramatic failure if the goal was to prevent the mass expulsion of Albanians.

What bombing Serbia achieved was to detach part of its own territory by force and establish a de facto partition that Western powers then formalized with their recognition of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence in early 2008. That in turn contributed to the escalating conflict between Russia and Georgia, as Russia aimed to exact some revenge on one of our satellites for what we had done to one of theirs. All in all, Western policy on Kosovo has been appalling, and it has created a horrible precedent for the future. Of course, it was precisely that precedent that Russia exploited in the 2008 war with Georgia.

Serbia was penalized for attempting to suppress a separatist rebellion inside its own borders. It was a purely internal affair, and no state or alliance of states had any right, legal or otherwise, to launch military strikes against Serbia. It was never sanctioned by the Security Council in any way, and the war violated both the U.N. Charter and had no authorization under the North Atlantic Treaty. In addition, the President had no constitutional authority to wage war against Serbia, but why get hung up on technicalities like that?

David Tomlin, on January 31st, 2010 at 3:45 pm Said:

Forensic teams from various countries went in right after the NATO forces, counting bodies and exhuming mass graves (defined as any grave with more than one body). Within months it was clear that the death toll was a fraction of that claimed by the KLA, and repeated uncritically by the Clinton administration and the media.

In one case a disused mine allegedly used to dispose of bodies was examined, and no bodies nor any trace of decomposition fluids was found.

The Kosovo 'genocide' was as thoroughly debunked as the Iraqi WMD, but, as Larison noted, by then media interest had moved on.

If anyone wants sourcing, Google is your friend.

http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2010/01/30/blairs-monstrous-consistency/

Kosovo - okay, really, what next?

2010-02-01T21:28:00.001-05:00

Kosovo - okay, really, what next?

With 2009 having ended much as it began, the international community must continue to pursue a peacekeeping approach to the north in order to keep alive the possibility of a negotiated outcome.

By Gerrard Gallucci

Keywords: Serbia, Kosovo, EULEX, ICJ, Ahtisaari

Za tekst na srpskom jeziku, pogledajte ovde

Over the last few months, I have tried to present various facets of the difficult question of what to do about north Kosovo within the context of an overall status settlement. I have emphasized the continuing need to take a peacekeeping approach to the north – e.g., not seeking to settle political issues through force – to keep the door open for a negotiated outcome. Such an outcome might include a differential approach to implementing the Ahtisaari Plan, i.e., vigorous implementation of decentralization (plus allowed links to Belgrade) for Serb-majority municipalities south of the Ibar and an "Ahtisaari Plus" framework for the north (as an alternative to outright partition).

However, on the ground, 2009 ended much as it began. Having assumed the status-neutral mantle of the UN in November 2008, EULEX failed to act to implement the UN Secretary General's proposed six-point plan for addressing practical issues – such as courts, customs and transportation links – by implementing practical, non-political measures. EULEX decided it was better not to offend the Albanian majority by reaching accommodations with local Serb institutions and communities that appeared to accept the status quo of continued deep divisions over Kosovo independence. Indeed, EULEX stood back from, and in some cases assisted, Albanian efforts to bully the Serbs into accepting the Kosovo institutions that they dominate. EULEX allowed electricity blockages of southern Serbs and facilitated a forced, unilateral return of Albanians to a sensitive area (Brdjani) of north Mitrovica. Results were mixed. Under pressure, enough southern Serbs voted in the 2009 municipal elections to give them minimal credibility. But in the north, turning off the electricity simply led to "electricity partition" with Serbia stepping in to fill the gap and now even to start collecting fees.

Instead of seeking to work out status-neutral practical arrangements on customs and the courts, EULEX placed officers at the northern customs gates and in the Mitrovica court with the intention of introducing there Kosovo law, staff and links to Pristina. Urged on by the Albanians, EULEX and KFOR threatened use of force to implement such plans. However, EULEX in December formulated a strategy for winning space in the north for rule from Pristina (http://outsidewalls.blogspot.com/2010/01/kosovo-eu-strategy-for-north.html) that appears more political. It assumes that the northern Serbs have grown tired of resistance to Kosovo independence and will come to accept Pristina as they are freed from the baleful influence of "radical" local leaders. The EU also appears to be relying on President Tadić, eager for the political benefits of entering the EU, to help by removing the "radicals" and acquiescing to the gradual transition of the north to EULEX and then to Pristina. Both seem questionable assumptions. Serb resistance to Kosovo independence is deep and near universal and unlikely to disappear soon. The southern Serbs may be more accommodating as they have no alternative. But the northern Serbs have the alternative of remaining part of Serbia – as they functionally are – and Tadić is in no position to be seen giving them up. But at least the EU looks to be trying.

So, despite all the huffing and puffing from Pristina about "illegal" and "parallel" institutions and a commitment to "dissolve" them, in 2009 Kosovo remained divided at the Ibar. What about 2010? The watershed event may be the ICJ decision on the legality of independence. This could offer Pristina some benefit as anything less than an outright rejection of the declaration as illegal – unlikely – will help free up a second wave of recognitions; countries sympathetic but reluctant to recognize as long as a decision against independence remains possible will be able to move forward. However, a significant number will continue to refuse for their own reasons, probably including at least some of the EU holdouts. Thus the final status issue and the question of the north are unlikely to be settled by the ICJ decision alone. This will only get done by an eventual new round of negotiation. It could be that Pristina and friends seek a final solution in the north through the use of force. But as this would risk provoking a wider crisis, we can expect the EU to hold back as long as the northern Serbs themselves do not outright surrender. So, the status quo may continue in the north. This is not all bad as it also allow for the possibility of a negotiated outcome.

Negotiations will not come easy. Both sides will have to give up something. Carefully calibrated compromise could leave the north nominally in Kosovo but substantially in Serbia. But this may be beyond the parties and the mediators. Partition would be the less elegant solution. But it would have the virtue of requiring both sides to give up something they value: Serbia would of course lose Kosovo but the Albanians would have to accept loss of the north.

2010 may be the year that Kosovo status, and that of the north, really gets settled. Or maybe it will just be more of the same divided status quo. Either would be better than renewed conflict but negotiations would be best and everyone may come to see this after some further theatre.

Gerard M. Gallucci is a retired US diplomat. He served as UN Regional Representative in Mitrovica, Kosovo from July 2005 until October 2008. 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 by visiting http://outsidewalls.blogspot.com

http://www.transconflict.com/News/2010/January/Kosovo_Okay_Really_Whats_Next.php

Jasenovac – Holocaust promoted by Vatican

2010-02-01T16:36:00.000-05:00

Jasenovac – Holocaust promoted by Vatican

1/27/2010

Author : Ari Rusila

Jasenovac was third biggest extermination camp during WWII and probably the cruelest. The brutality may be explained with its more religious aspect that others. Vatican played important role during events involving afterwards money laundry and covering up war criminals.

The UN General Assembly chose January 27 as the official day for the commemoration, as it was on this day in 1945 that Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz extermination camp, the last such camp still functioning. Throughout Europe, tributes will be paid to the 53 million people who died during World War II, of whom 31 million were civilians. Commemoration has linked usually also to International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest extermination center created by the Nazis. It has become the symbol of the Holocaust and of willful radical evil in our time. Few people know that 3rd biggest extermination center was Jasenovac. Two reasons maybe explain this: 1st it is located in Croatia and 2nd the main part of victims were Serbs. The death tolls in extermination centres vary but rough estimations are following (source Wikipedia):

Auschwitz II 1,400,000

* Belzeg 600,000

* Chelmno 320,000

* Jasenovac 600,000

* Majdanek 360,000

* Maly Trostinets 65,000

* Sobibor 250,000

* Treblinka 870,000

Background

Upon the occupation of Yugoslavia, the German Nazis and the Italian Fascists formed an "independent" state in Croatia, which was basically a Nazi puppet state. Immediately upon the establishment of its puppet government, the Ustashe set up militias and gangs that slaughtered Serbs, Jews, Romas and their political foes. Catholic priests, some of them Franciscans, also participated in the acts of slaughter. The cruelty of the Ustashe was so great that even the commander of the German army in Yugoslavia complained. The partisans, led by the Croat Communist Josip Broz Tito, and the Chetniks - Nationalist Serb royalists - fought the Ustashe.

Under the leadership of the Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic's right-hand man Andrija Artukovic, who earned the nickname "the Himmler of the Balkans," the Ustashe set up concentration camps, most notably at Jasenovac. According to various estimates, about 100,000 people were murdered at the camp, among them tens of thousands of Jews (it is interesting to note that some of the heads of the Ustashe were married to Jewish women). Throughout Croatia about 700,000 people were murdered.

Jasenovac

Located in Croatia 62 miles south of Zagreb, Jasenovac was Croatia's largest concentration and extermination camp. Jasenovac, was a network of several sub-camps, established in August 1941 and dissolved in April 1945. Jasenovac was not the only place where Serbia's neighbour Croatia ran several concentration camps where Jews, Serbs and Roma have been murdered. Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians were allies of Hitler as well. (More about Jasenevac in my document library under headline Croatia )

In April 1945 the partisan army approached the camp. In an attempt to erase traces of the atrocities, the Ustaša blew up all the installations, killed most of the internees and tried to hide all evidence about brutalities in Jasenovac, all material evidence disappeared as if there had not been any camp in that place. Later – during Tito's time – the state and the authorities tried to implement "Brotherhood and Unity" motto, with the aim of creating tolerance between the nations and the crime had to be forgotten as soon as possible.

Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, edited by Yisrael Gutman, vol. 1, 1995, pp. 739-740 gives following description about problems to find exact numbers:

"It is difficult to establish the number of victims killed in the Jasenovac concentration camp, since many documents were destroyed. The prisoners' files were destroyed twice (at the beginning of 1943 and in April, 1945) and even if they had been preserved, they would have been of little help discerning the truth, because the Ustasha often killed the newly arrived prisoners immediately, without putting their names into the files. This is particularly true of those who arrived from Slavonia, Srem and Kozara, because it was only noted down that 9,830, or 155 wagons had arrived. For instance, a very small number of Gypsies was filed, only a few hundred, while it is known that all 25,000-35,000 of them from the NDH were killed in Jasenovac. The Jewish community in Yugoslavia has established the number of 20,000 Jews that were killed in Jasenovac. The numbers of killed Serbs are truly varied. The sources from abroad mention numbers from 300,000 to 700,000. Be that as it may, most of the people killed in Jasenovac were Serbs. Exact number being still unknown, but it surely amounts to several hundreds of thousands. The National Committee of Croatia for the investigation of the crimes of the occupation forces and their collaborators stated in its report of November 15, 1945 that 500,000-600,000 people were killed at Jasenovac. "

The Yad Vashem center claims that over 500,000 Serbs were killed in the NDH (now Croatia), including those who were killed at Jasenovac, where approximately 600,000 victims of all ethnicities were killed.

A documentary film "Jasenovac - the cruellest death camp of all times" can be found from here!

Religious aspect

While for Nazi-Germany Jasenovac was more a tool for ethnic cleansing for Ustashe religious aspect played crucial role. The aim and its implementation efficiency is described differently by people who actually were in Balkans during that period. Ustashe leaders declared they would slaughter a third of the Serb population in Croatia, deport a third and convert the remaining third from Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism. Anyone who refused to convert was murdered.

One may claim that the religious motivation and the brutality of butchers were leading principles in Jasenovac. The fact that 743 Roman Catholic priests were members of the Ustashi and personally murdered Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. Jasenovac was for a time, run by Fr. Filipovic-Majstorovic, a Catholic priest who admitted to killing "40,000 Serbs with his own hands." So at one point, a Franciscan monk was camp commandant of what the second largest concentration camp of the war.

The Jasenovac system of Croatian camps also included a camp for children run by Catholic nuns who used toxic soda to save bullets.

Roman Catholic priests who participated in the killing of tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies and the running of Jasenovac escaped Europe through the "Vatican Ratline" run by Fr. Draganovich, a Croatian Catholic priest who helped morons like Clause Barbe escape from Europe. Those Catholic priests escaped to Argentina where they also escaped justice.

Vatican connection

In 1999 a class action law suit was filed at a court in San Franciso against the Vatican Bank (Institute for Religious Works) and against the Franciscan order, the Croatian Liberation Movement (the Ustashe), the National Bank of Switzerland and others to recover $100 million in damages for the Vatican's participation in these war crimes and money laundering the proceeds from their Serb, Jewish and Roma victims. The suit was filed by Jewish, Ukrainian, Serb and Roma survivors, as well as relatives of victims and various organizations that together represent 300,000 World War II victims. The plaintiffs demanded accounting and restitution.

Franciscans in Rome helped smuggle the Ustasha Tresury and assisted Ustasha war criminals in escaping justice. The Vatican Bank is alleged to have laundered a portion of the Ustasha Treasury. The Vatican not only hoarded the gold the Croats looted, it also helped them escape - with a nod and wink from the OSS and MI6. In 1986 for example, the US government released documents that revealed the Vatican had organised the Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic's safe-flight from Europe to Argentina, along with 200 senior officials of his regime. Pavelic was given refuge by the Vatican, fascist Spain, and Peronist Argentine. The Ustasha Minister of the Interior, Artukovic, lived openly in California from 1949-1986 when he was finally deported to Yugoslavia and convicted of murder. Thousands of Ustasha escaped justice for their crimes due to their wealth and influence and the backing of the Roman Catholic Church and who along with certain rogue elements in the US and UK governments portrayed these war criminals as anticommunist freedom fighters.

As the war ended, it is now known that the Vatican Bank and other world banks helped to launder and transfer funds out of the Reich, and helped many war criminals to escape justice in what is now nicknamed the "Vatican Ratline"

The Vatican Bank has claimed ignorance of any participation in Ustasha crimes or the disappearance of the Croatian Treasury. The Vatican has refused to open its wartime records despite requests from the US government, Jewish and Roma organizations. My main source about Vatican connection has been "Vatican Bank Claims"

A class action law suit against the Vatican Bank to recover $100 million in damages for the Vatican's participation in these war crimes and money laundering the proceeds from their Serb, Jewish and Roma victims is still ongoing. Vatican lawyers have three times tried to get this case thrown out of court. The Supreme court has rejected their claims.

In US District Court the case against the Vatican Bank (but not the Franciscan Order) was dismissed on grounds the Vatican Bank is an organ of a sovereign entity, the Vatican, which is immune from lawsuits. The just filed appeal however argues that the Vatican Bank is not sovereign and engages in commercial activity in the United States and therefore should be held accountable in a United States Federal Court.

Memory today

On Summer 2008 Israel's ambassador to Croatia, Shmuel Meirom, harshly criticized the funeral given to a head of a WWII Jasenovac concentration camp in Zagreb, saying also that it insulted the memory of those killed in the camp run by Croatia's Nazi-allied Ustasha regime. "I'm convinced that the majority of the Croatian people are shocked by the way the funeral of the Jasenovac commander and murderer, dressed in an Ustasha uniform, was conducted," ambassador Meirom said in a written statement. "At the same time, I strongly condemn the inappropriate words of the priest who served at the funeral and said that Sakic was a model for all Croats" Meirom said. (More about this in my article "Nazi's funeral shadows Croatias past")

Yearly commemoration is important remainder for fair picture of history. At least one day per year is good to think what ultra nationalism can be at its worst level, what kind of interests, power game, attitudes and hidden motivations are creating possibilities for murdering civil populations or ethnic groups.

Ari Rusila is a development project management expert and freelancer from Finland with a special interest in the Balkan region.

Keyword search

Croatia, Jasenovac, Holocaust, Vatican, BalkanBlog-EUROPE

http://www.europesworld.org/NewEnglish/Home_old/PartnerPosts/tabid/671/PostID/1087/Default.aspx

Blair the dictator bulldozed us into war

2010-02-01T16:25:00.001-05:00

<> There was one revealing moment in Mr Blair's evidence. He said that
he had taken Britain to war on four occasions. As he said it, he seemed
to realise it was not a popular claim. He paused, and then gave his
list: Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. The question of
legality arises both in respect of Kosovo and Iraq. Like Lord Goldsmith,
Mr Blair regards the lawfulness of the Iraq action as turning on the
absence of a second UN resolution, and the reliance on Resolution 1441.<>

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/william_rees_mogg/article7010321.ece

From The Times
February 1, 2010

Blair the dictator bulldozed us into war

Not since Churchill was a leader so determined to get his own way. But
he was fatally misguided

William Rees-Mogg

We have been told by Sir John Chilcot himself that the Chilcot inquiry
is not a trial, and that nobody will be either acquitted or found
guilty; we all know that is not true. A public judgment is being made as
each section of evidence is given. In particular a quiet judgment has
been made of Tony Blair's conduct. It may never lead to his being tried
in any court, but there is nevertheless a public verdict of his
responsibility for the British action in Iraq.

It was Mr Blair who was responsible; his evidence shows it. He was the
Prime Minister who had won two landslide elections. He could cajole,
coax, threaten, anger and flatter to get his own way, a war leader who
was the nearest thing to a parliamentary dictator since the wartime
Winston Churchill.

Mr Blair's major speeches, among which his Chilcot evidence must be
judged, tend to follow the same pattern. As one listens for the first
time one is likely to find a speech convincing. Yet there are always
loose threads, and one is likely to start picking at them in one's mind.
In his Chilcot evidence, there were arguments that seemed convincing on
Friday, but became more doubtful as the weekend passed. He has certainly
raised more doubts than certainties in my mind.

I would accept Mr Blair's important assurance: "I believed beyond doubt
that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction." He supported this with the
argument that "no one disputed that Saddam had WMDs". Even that needs
scrutiny, since Saddam himself was claiming to have got rid of his WMD
capacity. On the historic record, it was natural for British
Intelligence to discount any claim made by Saddam.

At the time the Western governments, including those most opposed to the
use of force, assumed that Saddam still had his chemical weapons. It
would have been natural for Mr Blair to share that belief, though he
seems to have relied on low-grade intelligence sources, without being
frank with his Cabinet, Parliament or the public about the possible
weaknesses. He should have corrected the report of a 45-minute missile
threat more promptly.

However, this does not answer the question: "Why Iraq?" Mr Blair argues
that the previous policy of containing Iraq, enforced by sanctions and
overflying, had been overtaken by the attack on the twin towers. He
expressed his argument in a passage that itself calls for analysis. "Up
until 9/11, [those pursuing the policy of containment] were doing their
best"; after 9/11 "the calculus of risk had changed. Over 3,000 were
killed, an horrific event. If these people could have killed 30,000,
they would have done." Mr Blair went on to say that 9/11 "completely
changed our perception of where risks lay".

It is obvious at this stage of his evidence that he still does not
answer the central question: "Why Iraq?" It is true that al-Qaeda had
murdered 3,000 people in the United States; it was honestly but
mistakenly believed that Iraq possessed WMDs that might be a threat to
Western nations. There was no evidence that "these people" who would
have liked to kill 30,000 Americans had anything to do with Iraq or with
Saddam himself. Historically the secular Baath party had seen Islamic
fundamentalism as one of its chief enemies.

Later, Mr Blair made the reasonable point that one should look at the
character of the regime and not just at the nature of the weapons. The
Blair doctrine is that "the assessment of security intimately relates to
the nature of the regime". He believed, justifiably, that Saddam was a
"profoundly wicked, almost psychopathic, man". It is an unacceptable
risk to leave weapons of mass destruction in the hands of such a person.
That is true, but it was equally true before 9/11. It is not clear that
9/11 altered the calculus of risk. If anything it put greater pressure
on Iraq to make concessions.

Mr Blair also applied his doctrine to the current issues of Iran, where
he sees the same dangerous conjunction of WMDs and a "highly repressive
or failed" state. He does not specify the policy he would adopt towards
Iran. He did state that his judgment is "we don't take any risks with
this issue". He does not tell us which are the greater risks, taking
action against Iran, if feasible, or taking no action. Iran is more
powerful than Iraq.

There was one revealing moment in Mr Blair's evidence. He said that he
had taken Britain to war on four occasions. As he said it, he seemed to
realise it was not a popular claim. He paused, and then gave his list:
Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. The question of legality
arises both in respect of Kosovo and Iraq. Like Lord Goldsmith, Mr Blair
regards the lawfulness of the Iraq action as turning on the absence of a
second UN resolution, and the reliance on Resolution 1441.

Broad questions of international law are also involved.

They concern the monopoly of the use of force given to the United
Nations in the UN Charter. Since 1945, the conventions on torture and
genocide have opened a wider right to use force; there is a general
right to arrest those responsible for torture or to intervene to prevent
genocide. That was the justification for the Nato intervention in Kosovo.

There are still too many failures of the Iraq policy that have not been
justified. Saddam was deposed, but at high cost in allied and Iraqi
lives. We did remain loyal allies, but to an increasingly unpopular
American administration. International law has not been clarified. Brave
troops were not given the right equipment. As General Douglas MacArthur
told the US Senate in 1951: "In war, there is no substitute for
victory." In the end, Iraq was no victory for Britain.

What is NATO?

2010-01-23T18:32:00.001-05:00

What is NATO?

19.01.2010

Source: Pravda.Ru

URL: http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/conflicts/111727-what_is_nato-0

Why doesn't NATO take Russia's approaches on a new security pact seriously? Because the Freedom, Democracy, Stability and Prosperity labels attached to the Organization are no more than outer packaging which hides the reality within: NATO is no more and no less than an instrument which serves the interests of the arms lobby.

Russia's approaches for a bilateral security treaty, which would inevitably pass by a serious and long-standing binding bilateral agreement on friendship and non-aggression, will not be accepted by NATO for one reason alone: NATO is not about collective security any more and has not been since the Warsaw Pact was disbanded on July 1, 1991.

Last month, Andres Fogh Rasmussen, the non-elected Danish Secretary-General of the non-elected NATO (which nevertheless still dictates the foreign policy of its member states), declared "There can be no doubt whatsoever that NATO will remain our framework for Euro-Atlantic security". In a nutshell, there is no space for collective agreements with Russia because NATO continues to focus its attention on the Western Europe-Atlantic space common to the Cold War.

It is old hat. NATO has not moved on. It is an anachronism. NATO provides jobs for the boys. NATO serves the interests of the arms lobby which gravitates around the Pentagon and which has its tentacles deep within US foreign policy. NATO is a stone around the neck of the taxpayers not only of the United States of America but also of its member states. Who, after all, funds its operations? Just in Afghanistan and Iraq, the operations of NATO countries have cost almost one trillion dollars (one thousand billion, or 1,000,000,000,000). How many hospitals and schools could be bought with that?

Where NATO could move forward, reinventing itself and including Russia would be by respecting its pledges over the years not to expand (yet NATO's word means nothing), by fighting international terrorism, by fighting piracy and by fighting international crime, including trafficking of drugs, human beings and weapons, side by side with Russia or any other nation wishing to modernise its objectives and fight what exists, instead of inventing ghosts to justify the self-perpetuation of the anachronism.

Yet while NATO likes to mention these areas, it maintains its Euro-Atlantic stance, freezing Russia out, not paying attention to Russia's concerns and all the time aiming for an expansion into central and Eastern Europe, where there are plenty of customers for weaponry. And why should NATO reinvent itself when all it is today is the instrument to implement the policies of the arms lobby?

NATO's strategy is clear in its breach of a pledge given to Russia in 1998 not to station "substantial combat forces" on territory formerly belonging to the Warsaw Pact. Why then did it expand? Who can give one single military reason for the expansion onto territory the Organization promised not to enter?

And what is NATO doing in Afghanistan? Today, Afghanistan produces twice as much heroin as the entire world produced in the year 2000 before the military invasion, by NATO, against the Taliban. Given that the cultivation of the opium poppy funds the Taleban and Al-Qaeda, what exactly is NATO doing? In recent years, instead of diminishing, the heroin production on Afghanistan has grown not two-fold. Not three-fold, not ten-fold, not even by twenty times. Today, the heroin production from Afghanistan is 40 times higher than it was in 2000.

In 2009, heroin produced in Afghanistan killed over 90.000 people around the world. Everybody knows that NATO pays the Taliban not to attack, so is the priority to allow them to produce heroin so that they can afford to pay, to keep NATO's losses down?

In which case, what is NATO?

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru

© 1999-2009. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.


http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/conflicts/19-01-2010/111727-what_is_nato-0

Ethnic Lobbies in America: Outsourcing U.S. Foreign Policy?

2010-01-23T13:49:00.001-05:00

Eugene IVANOV (USA)

Ethnic Lobbies in America: Outsourcing U.S. Foreign Policy?

It's fashionable to say these days that the world is entering the era of post-Americanism. Few can explain what that means in reality, but the gist is that U.S. influence in world affairs is gradually declining, and sooner or later, another country – most likely, China – will become the only world superpower.

We shall see. However, today it's hard to think of any major global problem – be it climate change or aid to poor countries – can be solved without at least the financial involvement of the United States. Besides, should the U.S. screw up big time – a number of great examples are available over the past decade – no one would be immune.

This keeps making Washington DC a natural target of numerous ethnic lobbies trying to promote their agendas through U.S. foreign policy institutions. According to John Newhouse¹, "nearly one hundred countries rely on lobbyists to protect and promote their interests [in the U. S.]."

As Zbigniew Brzezinski explains², the influence exerted by ethnic lobbies originates from the very nature of the U.S. foreign policy decision-making process. It's generally believed that the president has the upper hand in designing and implementing foreign policy. However, the entire executive branch of the U.S. government lacks a central planning organ responsible for this task. Theoretically, this role should be played by the National Security Council, but in practice, the NSC is so busy with day-to-day coordination of policy (between the presidential administration, Department of State, Department of Defense, CIA, etc.) that it simply has no time for strategic planning, resulting in a decentralized and fragmented decision-making process that is open to external influence.

Besides, presidential prerogatives to direct foreign policy are often challenged by Congress. Due to its composition and structure, Congress is especially susceptible to the influence of special interests, including ethnic lobbies. This is reflected in countless congressional resolutions and legislative amendments introduced and lobbied by special ethnic interests (which, in the process, have become very skillful in using campaign funds to win congressional support for their causes). A common place is congressional caucuses identified with specific ethnic interests; so are congressmen and senators serving as spokesmen for specific ethnic lobbies. For example, the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, one of the largest of this kind, includes over 150 members, none of them being Indian. Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton, in her days as U.S. Senator, used to co-chair the Senate India Caucus.

In their daily activities, ethnic lobbies perform a number of functions. First, they serve as subject-matter experts and sources of information to members of Congress and other branches of government. Second, they participate in drafting legislation and providing policy oversight. Third, they organize media and public campaigns to advertise and promote their pet issues. Naturally, special attention is being paid to providing campaign contributions to elected officials through political action committees (PAC).

It's important to point out that not every ethnic group living in the U.S. forms a functional lobby. Addressing this issue, James Lindsay³ identified a number of factors that could predict a transformation of an immigrant group into a bona fide ethnic lobby. First, immigrants who came to the United States as political refugees (e.g. Cubans) are more likely to be politically active than those who came for "purely" economic reasons (e.g. Italians). Second, immigrants whose homelands are threatened by their neighbors (e.g. Armenia or Israel) are more likely to lobby for their homeland than those who came from "un-threatened" countries (e.g. Norway, Sweden, or Germany). Third, the most efficient ethnic lobbies are formed by economically successful ethnic groups (such as Jewish, Armenian, Cuban, and Greek Americans). Fourth, ethnic lobbies are the most successful in their activities when the issues that they promote are supported by U.S. political elites. Obviously, they are least successful if their issues go against of what is perceived as American national interest.

In their influence exerted on contemporary American political life, no ethnic lobby can rival the Jewish-American lobby (The Israel Lobby, as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt call it in their highly-publicized 2007 book⁴). Many consider its power comparable with that demonstrated by such titans of American lobbyism as National Rifle Association (NRA) and American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Jewish-American lobby (organized under the aegis of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)), Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. economic and military aid since WWII: over $140 billion in 2004 dollars. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-sixth of the total U.S. foreign aid budget and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli – not a bad deal for a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income in the top 30 countries in the world.

In addition, the U.S. provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support: between 1972 and 2006, the U.S. has vetoed 42 of the U.N. Security Council's resolutions critical of Israel. What makes the Jewish-American lobby so successful is its commitment, unity, resources, and political skills. (The last two factors, when combined, are especially powerful: it is said that presidential candidates from Democratic Party depend on Jewish support for as much as 60% of campaign contributions). The "ideological" unity obviously distinguishes the Jewish lobby from the Arab-American lobby, which has been hurt over the years by national and religious divisions. However, one cannot also discount the fact that the Jewish lobby faces almost no opposition to its actions because it advocates policies that are considered (rightfully or not) as fully aligned with American national interests.

Recent years have witnessed the impressive rise of the India lobby, whose influence may one day become comparable to that of the Jewish lobby. Perhaps, non-coincidentally, both ethnic groups share a number of similarities: Indian Americans are also well educated, financially successful, and strongly inclined toward political activism. (Add the real or perceived military threats to India from Pakistan and China). The India lobby also benefits from strong ties to the U.S.-India Business Council, an umbrella organization for 200 companies doing business with India or otherwise having Indian connections. (As pointed out by John Newhouse, 20% of all companies in Silicon Valley are owned by Indian Americans).

So far, the most visible demonstration of the strength projected by the India lobby has been last year's congressional approval of the U.S.-India "123 Agreement" on civil nuclear cooperation. Concerns were raised in the arms control community that the agreement will increase India's ability to produce fissionable material for its nuclear weapons program. To ensure the passage of the controversial deal, the lobby joined forces with the U.S.-India Business Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and two U.S. companies producing nuclear reactors, General Electric and Westinghouse.

Speaking of successful ethnic lobbies one must mention two more: Cuban and Armenian.

The power wielded by the Cuban exile lobby (associated with the Cuban American National Foundation, CANF) in Washington is even more impressive given that Cubans are concentrated primarily in only one location: Miami, FL. However, the special role played by Florida in the politics of presidential elections has allowed a bunch of noisy but politically savvy anti-Castro immigrants to completely hijack – and for decades dominate – the U.S. policy debates on Cuba.

The Armenian lobby (and its flagship group, Armenian Assembly of America) has made Armenia one of the highest per capita recipients of U.S. aid – thanks largely to Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader and a ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee responsible for the distribution of foreign aid. On the other hand, the lobby has so far failed to reach its most cherished goal: a congressional resolution condemning Turkey for the 1915 Armenian genocide. In 2007, the victory was close, as having secured support of the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the lobby almost succeeded in setting up the vote for a genocide resolution. However, prodded by the furious Turkish government, the White House intervened and persuaded Pelosi to shelve the resolution. Naturally, in its communication with the Bush administration, the Turks used some help too: former heavy-weight Congressmen Bob Livingston and Dick Gephardt lobbied on Turkey's behalf.

Among other ethnic groups, the Central and Eastern Europeans do possess a significant voting strength (for example, there are more than 10 million ethnic Poles in the United States), but their lobbies lack the financial resources available to their Jewish or Armenian counterparts. Nevertheless, the Polish lobby (through the Polish American Congress) or the Baltic lobby (represented in part by the Baltic American Freedom League (BALF) and the Joint Baltic American National Committee (JBANC)) have been instrumental in promoting the admission of their respective countries in NATO (Poland in 1999; Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 2004). It is a little secret to anyone in Washington that the noisy anti-Russian hysteria fueled by the Polish and Baltic lobbies is partly responsible for the negative image of Russia in the United States and worsening of U.S.-Russia relations.

Experts disagree on whether ethnic lobbies have positive or negative impact on U.S. foreign policy. Some⁵ consider ethnic lobbies as a welcomed sign of "globalization" of U.S. national politics and believe that ethnic lobbies will help spread "American values" around the globe. Others are not so sure expressing the concern that "privatization" (as John Newhouse puts it) of the U.S. foreign policy further corrupts American political system and diminishes its attraction to the rest of the world. An even more extreme point of view was expressed by Mearsheimer and Walt, who asserted that due to the actions of the Jewish lobby, U.S. policy in the Middle East serves the national interest of Israel rather than that of the United States.

In their turn, American politicians are mum on the subject. Used to campaign contributions from various special interests – the pharmaceutical lobby, the energy lobby, the agribusiness lobby, etc. – they don't seems to be concerned with taking money from their ethnic counterparts. And is there any difference, anyway?

______________________

¹ John Newhouse, "Diplomacy, Inc. The Influence of Lobbies on U.S. Foreign Policy", Foreign Affairs, May/June 2009.

² Zbigniew Brzezinski, "The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership" (2004) Basic Books, New York.

³ James Lindsay, "Getting Uncle Sam's Ear", Council on Foreign Relations (Winter 2002).

⁴ John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" (2007) Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.

⁵ Yossi Shain, "Marketing the American Creed Abroad (Diasporas in the U.S. and their Homelands" (1999) Cambridge University Press.

http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=2711

Recasting Serbia’s Image, Starting With a Fresh Face

2010-01-16T11:22:00.001-05:00

Recasting Serbia's Image, Starting With a Fresh Face

Christoph Bangert for The New York Times

"When you're young, and when you come and they see you for the first time, a lot of them are just kind of surprised. They say, 'Who's this kid?'"

By NICHOLAS KULISH

Published: January 15, 2010

BELGRADE, Serbia

THE public face of Serbia for years has been that of a wizened war criminal in the dock in The Hague. Now, as the once-outcast country presses for membership in the European Union, it is increasingly represented by the gap-toothed grin of its energetic young foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, all of 34 and a graduate of Cambridge and Harvard.

It is not just appearances. He is a minister in the most westward-leaning government Serbia has ever had, one that is aggressively pursuing membership in the European Union and good relations with the United States. Yet at the top of his agenda stands the issue that brought so much trouble to Serbia: the breakaway province and self-declared nation of Kosovo.

To the consternation of powerful supporters of Kosovo's independence, including the United States, the Serbian obsession runs much deeper than a handful of ultranationalists from the generation of Slobodan Milosevic. Even young liberals like Mr. Jeremic, whose fluent English sounds more Bronxville than Belgrade, cannot let go of Kosovo, though it could endanger Serbia's chance to move beyond its recent troubled past.

"The fact that this kind of fervent, pro-European politician in Serbia happens to have this position on Kosovo confuses a lot of people," Mr. Jeremic said in an interview on the eve of the Orthodox Christmas here last week.

"This place, Kosovo, is our Jerusalem; you just can't treat it any other way than our Jerusalem," he said.

As if to underscore the point, his mentor and psychology teacher two decades ago at the First Belgrade High School, the current Serbian president, Boris Tadic, spent the holiday at the Visoki Decani monastery in Kosovo, under guard amid protests by local ethnic Albanians.

Mr. Jeremic quickly added that Serbia was not pressing its case through the use of arms, directly or in the form of paramilitary groups, but through institutions like the International Court of Justice, which will rule on the manner in which Kosovo declared independence. But the stakes are different, with vastly improved relations with the European Union and an end to Serbia's isolation on the line.

Mr. Jeremic is at pains to explain to Western audiences that Serbia's reputation from the Milosevic years had overshadowed the reality that it is now a democracy, and one whose voters twice chose pro-Western candidates in the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2008 — despite the inflamed nationalist sentiment in the wake of Kosovo's secession.

He was appointed foreign minister at 31, too young and inexperienced in the eyes of many Serbs to be trusted with their most important national issue — the impending secession of Kosovo. Yet, he has fought hard for Kosovo, lobbying governments around the world against recognizing its independence and becoming along the way one of Serbia's most popular politicians.

Mr. Jeremic's stridency on Kosovo has led his opponents to charge that he was a closet nationalist, talking one line when he was abroad and quite a different one at home in the Balkans. "Personally, I don't think I'm a nationalist," he said. "I'm half Bosnian and half Serb."

Mr. Jeremic's great-grandfather on his mother's side was Nurija Pozderac, a prominent Muslim politician before World War II who joined Tito's Partisans to fight the Nazis and was killed in 1943. His paternal grandfather was an officer in the king's army and spent much of the war as a prisoner at Dachau. Once he was liberated by the Allies, he returned to Serbia on foot, Mr. Jeremic said.

HE described a normal childhood in Belgrade, including a close relationship with his psychology teacher, Mr. Tadic. But his father, who worked for the state-owned oil company, and his mother went into exile after running afoul of the regime, and Mr. Jeremic finished high school in London before moving on to Cambridge, where he studied theoretical physics.

His time at Cambridge, which coincided with the war in Bosnia, helped him to understand Serbia's image abroad in a very personal way. "It was hard to explain that you come from Serbia and you're not a children-eating radical," said Mr. Jeremic, who had family members fighting on both sides of the war in Bosnia.

Mr. Jeremic opposed the regime of Mr. Milosevic and was a founder of the Organization of Serbian Students Abroad in 1997, but it was during the NATO bombing of Serbia that he hardened his resolve to work for his country. He said he had high school friends who were also opposed to Mr. Milosevic's reign but were called up for compulsory army service at the time of the airstrikes in 1999. Once they were wearing their uniforms, they were "legitimate targets," as he put it ruefully, and some were killed.

He recalled thinking at the time: "This regime, this government, this guy, Slobodan Milosevic, he has to be removed, because he's going to get us all buried. If he stays, he's going to get us all buried."

Mr. Jeremic traveled to Serbia to support the student movement there, known as Otpor, the Serbian word for resistance. After Mr. Milosevic's ouster Mr. Jeremic followed Mr. Tadic through a succession of ministries as an adviser, taking a break for a degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, before himself becoming foreign minister.

With Serbia's scant resources and tattered public image, his options for fighting the diplomatic might of countries supporting Kosovo, like the United States, Germany and Britain, seemed limited. But Mr. Jeremic, who still looks and sounds a bit like an overachieving college class president, turned himself into a one-man road show, traveling to 90 countries in the two years since becoming foreign minister. Last year alone he spent 700 hours in the air, or roughly 29 days, much of that in a 30-year-old French-built Falcon 50 jet that was bought for Tito.

MR. JEREMIC sees his age, which many consider a weakness, as one of his assets. "When you're young, and when you come and they see you for the first time, a lot of them are just kind of surprised. They say, 'Who's this kid?'

"That's actually a good thing because it opens up their minds. They're curious. They want to hear what you have to say to them because you're different," he said. An afternoon with Mr. Jeremic, whose wife, Natasa Lekic, is a news anchor on Serbian public television, is a pleasant but intense experience, not complete without a glass of Serbian Carigrad red wine and a stream of articulate defenses of the country's claim to Kosovo.

Smoking a cigar and sipping his wine, Mr. Jeremic refused to say what Serbia would demand if it managed to force Kosovo back to the negotiating table by winning its case before the International Court of Justice. He insisted that the mistake the United States and its allies made before Kosovo's declaration was dictating rather than discussing terms.

Their other big mistake, he said, was expecting Serbia simply to acquiesce to the loss of the province, cowed in the face of American and Western European recognition for Kosovo. "This energy we invested, you know, in going around the world, has surprised a lot of people," Mr. Jeremic said. "A lot of people didn't expect us to dare to try."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/16/world/europe/16jeremic.html

Bill Clinton’s Statue Is in Kosovo

2010-01-15T14:57:00.001-05:00

Bill Clinton's Statue Is in Kosovo

January 15, 2010 | From theTrumpet.com

But who's really responsible for the breakaway republic?

Stephen Flurry

In November, former U.S. President Bill Clinton attended the unveiling of an 11-foot bronze statue of himself before a large crowd of cheering Albanians in downtown Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.

"I am profoundly grateful that I had a chance to be a part of ending the horrible things that were happening to you 10 years ago," Clinton said in front of the adoring crowd, referring to nato's 1999 bombing campaign against Serbia. The U.S.-led campaign forced Slobodan Milosevic's army to evacuate its sovereign territory in the province of Kosovo, effectively paving the way for Kosovo's secession.

NATO, we should note, was established in 1949 as a defensive alliance among 10 European nations, the United States and Canada. Under terms of the alliance, nato members agreed to defend any member state invaded by an enemy nation.

In October 1998, however, nato "expanded" its mandate to include missions that would extend "freedom" and "human rights" throughout Europe—even if it meant going beyond the boundaries of nato member states.

Like Kosovo, for example.

With its newly revised mandate, nato immediately set its sights on Serbia, which had been cracking down on separatist forces in Kosovo throughout 1998. This culminated in the 78-day aerial campaign that President Clinton authorized in early 1999.

It is, however, Germany that is responsible for both starting and ending the war in Kosovo. From the beginning of Yugoslavia's dissolution, the German government covertly supplied separatist forces in Kosovo, known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (kla), with military intelligence, training and weapons. The KLA had also been linked to the Albanian mafia and various Islamic terrorist groups, including Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

"Without any questions," the kla is a "terrorist group," said President Clinton's special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, on Feb. 23, 1998. "The future of Kosovo is within Yugoslavia," Gelbard added, after meeting with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for several hours. The Clinton administration set up the Belgrade meeting with Milosevic to inform him that the United States was ready to reward Yugoslavia for its "good will" in implementing the peace accords the U.S. had brokered in 1995. Milosevic took that as his cue to stamp out the separatist rebellion in Kosovo.

Then, practically overnight, America—after being pressured by Germany—hung Milosevic out to dry.

Just three weeks after the Belgrade meeting, the State Department accused Milosevic of ethnically cleansing Albanians from Kosovo. President Clinton threatened the use of force against Serbia if violence in Kosovo didn't simmer down.

When asked by Congress if he still considered the kla a terrorist group, Gelbard told lawmakers that while the kla had "committed terrorist acts," it had "not been classified legally by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization" (emphasis mine throughout).

They committed acts of terrorism, but were no longer terrorists!

"Unfortunately and tragically, terrorist acts have occurred," said Gelbard, "and they have provided an excuse for Milosevic here. But, as I said, there is no question at all that the overwhelming, brutal, repressive, despicable violence—the criminal actions, I believe, committed by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia here—are responsible for the tragedy we have at hand right now."

Three weeks earlier, there had been no question that the kla was responsible for the violent unrest in Kosovo. Now, no question, it was Milosevic.

Germany, the kla's primary state sponsor, had spoken. And the United States abruptly switched sides in the Balkan conflict.

A few days before Gelbard's flip-flop at the congressional hearing, the so-called "contact group" of Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Russia and the United States met for an emergency meeting in London to discuss Kosovo. During the meeting, the group of six decided to punish the Milosevic government with sanctions intended to pressure Yugoslavia into granting broad autonomy to the Albanians in Kosovo.

This, just two weeks after an American envoy assured Milosevic that the future of Kosovo is within Yugoslavia!

"This time, we must respond before it is too late," said U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. "When the war in the former Yugoslavia began in 1991, the international community did not react with sufficient vigor," she remembered.

Of course, as our regular readers know, it wasn't the international community's failure to act in the Balkans that caused war to break out in the former Yugoslav republics. It was our failure to stand up to Germany (and the Vatican) after it insisted on moving forward to recognize Slovenia and Croatia, despite strenuous protests (initially) from the United States, the European Union and the United Nations.

As much as the U.S. might want to forget about this history, the new, German-backed breakaway states haven't forgotten. In 1993, for example, Croatia erected a bronze statue in honor of German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the first diplomat to recognize Croatian independence.

According to the Associated Press, the onetime foreign minister "championed Croatia's independence in 1991 and pushed a hesitant Europe to recognize its secession from federal Yugoslavia" (June 3, 1997).

Kosovo's 2008 declaration of secession was merely the final chapter of Germany's Balkan conquest. Besides disempowering its traditional enemy Serbia, "Berlin was able to successfully reassert its claim as hegemonic power in Southeast Europe," wrote German-Foreign-Policy.com.

There may be a bronze statue of President Clinton in Kosovo commemorating the American firepower that ousted Milosevic from his former Yugoslav republic. But Germany is the one responsible for the breakaway.

This is why, when they declared their independence in 2008, Kosovars waved German flags alongside their American counterparts.

And this is why, on one of the banners celebrating Kosovo's proclamation, it read, "Thank you Germany!" •

Stephen Flurry's column appears every Friday.
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http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=6892.5404.0.0

Rifkind: Britain must be prepared to defend its place in the world

2010-01-03T00:52:00.000-05:00

"Britain has been at war for almost the whole of the past 12 years of Labour government. Two of these wars, in Iraq and in Kosovo, could, and should, have been avoided."

It is a great pity Sir Malcolm is not in charge of the Tories - instead twits like William Hague are more likely to be spouting the usual stuff we have seen recently.

Britain must be prepared to defend its place in the world

A new defence review must reflect foreign policy, not budgets, says Malcolm Rifkind.

By Malcolm Rifkind

Published: 6:19PM GMT 01 Jan 2010

Comments 101 | Comment on this article

Britain has been at war for almost the whole of the past 12 years of Labour government Photo: EPA

It was once remarked that "a diplomat is a person who can be disarming even though his country isn't". While I was serving as minister of defence and then as foreign secretary, I was acutely conscious of this strong and proper relationship between diplomacy and military capability. The Armed Forces do not exist in a vacuum. They are the ultimate means by which, when other methods have failed, a country's vital interests can be protected or enhanced. It was with that in mind that Churchill observed that "jaw-jaw is better than war, war".

Awareness of this relationship is crucial at a time when we are at war in Afghanistan; when the Ministry of Defence budget is in crisis; and when there is all-party agreement on the need for a defence review.

The priority, however, is for a wide-ranging review. Decisions cannot be taken on frigates and aircraft carriers, on fighter aircraft or on infantry regiments without knowing the kinds of wars that we may have to fight. Could they be at sea, like the Falklands; in the air, as with Kosovo; on land, as with the Taliban; or with tanks, as in the Gulf War for the liberation of Kuwait? Will future wars be fought against other states, against insurgents, or terrorist organisations?

No defence review can answer such questions. The chiefs of staff can give their advice to governments only when the Cabinet has decided the foreign policy of the United Kingdom for the years ahead. In particular, we need to determine whether it is to continue to be a global foreign policy or one that confines itself to the defence of our territory and that of our immediate allies.

Of course, Britain is not a superpower and has no aspirations to be one. That status is reserved for the United States. It will one day include China. The United Kingdom is, however, one of a small number of countries that do have a global foreign policy and have either the military power or economic strength with which to advance it.

In Europe, only France, because of its armed forces, and Germany, because of its economic strength, share that role with Britain. Italy and Spain, though comparable in size, do not. Put simply, the question for the British people, as well as for the politicians, is whether we wish to remain a power like France and Germany, or have a greatly reduced role like Italy and Spain.

I hope, therefore, that the Conservative Party will commit itself to an unprecedented joint foreign and defence policy review to be begun immediatly after the general election. Furthermore, I hope the outcome of that review will be the recognition that we continue to have global interests that need both a diplomatic and defence capability no smaller than we have at present.

Before addressing the affordability of such a policy, one has to justify why it is necessary for Britain to remain a global player. It is not because of nostalgia for our imperial past, when much of the world was coloured pink on the map.

Nor is it a desire, as with Tony Blair, to impose regime change and a so-called ethical foreign policy at the end of the barrel of a gun. Britain has been at war for almost the whole of the past 12 years of Labour government. Two of these wars, in Iraq and in Kosovo, could, and should, have been avoided. Only Afghanistan was forced upon us and the international community by the terrorist attacks of September 11 in the United States.

The reasons why we need to retain a global foreign policy are twofold. First, as a relatively small island trading nation, our security and our prosperity benefit from international stability, the rule of law, open trading markets and democratic accountability.

Second, our ability to help deliver these objectives is far greater than most other countries around the world. Uniquely, we can help shape events by the combination of our permanent membership of the UN Security Council; our major influence in Nato; our leading role, along with France and Germany, in the European Union; our status in the Commonwealth; our membership of the G8; and our substantial military capability. Indeed, other than the United States, only Britain and France can deploy serious military strength to any part of the world.

Few, if any, other countries combine these major assets, which enhance our ability to determine events. As a stable, democratic nation we would be failing in our duty not only to ourselves and to our own interests, but also our duty to the international community if we did not play our part to the maximum of our capability.

But that brings us to the question of affordability. The objectives may be worthy but can we, in our current straitened financial circumstances, do what we ought and would like to do?

So far as diplomacy is concerned, affordability is not a serious issue. The Foreign Office budget of just over £2 billion is only 0.5 per cent of Government spending. While the Treasury will, understandably, not exempt the Foreign Office from spending cuts, any savings will make an insignificant contribution to reducing the public deficit.

The Ministry of Defence is another matter. The defence budget can hardly expect to be totally immune when the public finances are in such a mess. But nor can our national interests in a dangerous world be ignored or endangered. Four principles must be rigorously applied.

First, the costs of the Afghan war must not be funded, even in part, from the core defence budget. Bob Ainsworth has been the first defence secretary, Labour or Conservative, in living memory to have failed to block the Treasury's grasping hand in such a situation. He is competent, but politically weak. The Armed Forces are suffering as a result.

Second, the most serious problem has been the inability of the Ministry of Defence to control the escalating costs of procurement. The recent Gray Report has made excellent recommendations which need to be implemented urgently. Procurement decisions and costs must be controlled from the very top of the Ministry of Defence. They cannot continue to be the result of the competing demands and aspirations of the individual Services, who do not have ultimate responsibility for the defence budget.

Third, where reductions in capability may be unavoidable, they should be restricted to low priorities and, in particular, should exclude reductions in our fighting strength, which would be irreversible even when the health of the public finances has been restored.

Fourth, we should recognise that any major military operations will be in alliance with our closest friends in Nato and Europe. There are areas where we do not need each Nato country to duplicate what others already have. This could provide major savings. While the United States will remain our closest ally, we need more substantial partnerships with France and other serious European military states, such as the Dutch, the Poles and the Danes.

For 300 years, the United Kingdom, both as an island state and as the British Empire, has helped shape the world we now live in. The British public continues to have a world view shaped by that accumulated experience. It is a valuable asset, which serves not only our own interests but those of our allies in the United States, in Europe and in the Commonwealth.

So our diplomats should still be disarming when appropriate. But our Armed Forces must not be disarmed unless and until the global lions learn to live with the global lambs.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind was Defence Secretary and Foreign Secretary between 1992 and 1997. He is MP for Kensington and Chelsea

Broken Bosnia needs western attention

2009-12-29T23:18:00.001-05:00

Uh-oh! OR Ha-ha?

Date: Tuesday, December 29, 2009, 9:25 PM

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bf60a826-f4af-11de-9cba-00144feab49a.html

Broken Bosnia needs western attention

By William Hague and Paddy Ashdown

Published: December 29 2009 20:14 | Last updated: December 29 2009 20:14

The 14th anniversary of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords passed unnoticed in November. The collapse of a US-EU diplomatic initiative in Bosnia-Herzegovina last month went virtually unreported too, as has the fact that Bosnia 's cold peace is under serious threat.

Bosnia may seem less significant than it used to be to the US and her allies. Pressing challenges in Afghanistan and beyond need great attention. But the risk of a failed state taking root in Europe cannot be ignored by Europe or in Washington .

Brussels struggles with serious Balkan diplomacy – so many capitals to confer with and tactics to co-ordinate, and so little political will to take difficult decisions. The EU hopes that its all-carrots, no-sticks approach linked entirely to the promise of an eventual EU accession process will change the domestic politics of Bosnia and neighbouring Serbia , and produce political co-operation. The US backs this approach, despite the fact that Bosnia is further from EU membership than any other aspirant country.

Bosnia's economy has grown with foreign aid, but the state has not grown, and today it does not work. The Bosnian Serbs have exploited the autonomy they were granted at Dayton , relying on stalling tactics to keep the country divided, its government dysfunctional, and their hopes of secession alive, while some Bosniak leaders can be equally rigid. Some resistance has been overcome when the international high representative overseeing Dayton has insisted on it. But even this level of effort has overtaxed the patience and capacity of the EU and US. The high representative's office has been allowed to be demeaned so that none of the parties, particularly the Bosnian Serbs, heed its efforts. It is now proposed to weaken the role further by recasting the high representative as an EU special representative and stripping out real authority – the " Bonn powers".

With the election season in Bosnia imminent, nationalist rhetoric will certainly increase in all parts. Even the Bosnian Croats increasingly talk of their own entity and a break with their federation with the Bosniaks.

What happens in Europe's backyard matters: the consequences of Bosnia 's disintegration would be catastrophic. The breakdown of the country into independent ethnic statelets would not only reward ethnic cleansing – surely a moral anathema – but would also risk the creation of a failed state in the heart of Europe; a fertile breeding ground for terrorism and crime, and a monstrous betrayal of all those who survived the concentration camps, mass graves and displacement of the 1990s. Bosnia will not solve itself, nor will the prospect of EU integration be enough to pull the country back from the brink.

Instead we must recognise that all the countries in the region are linked and cannot be dealt with in isolation.

We urge the US and EU to each appoint a special envoy to the region, who would work in lockstep to deliver a united message and drive forward progress. We must impress on Bosnia 's leaders that the sovereignty of the country is unquestionable and its break-up unthinkable. But we must also say to European candidate countries Serbia and Montenegro that they are expected to uphold EU policy towards Bosnia .

A robust international approach should focus on a single goal: a central government in Bosnia effective enough to meet the responsibilities of EU and Nato membership. Each Bosnian leader should have to stand for, or against, that simple idea – and face consequences for his or her answer.

The international community should be prepared to use sticks as well as carrots. There is a strong argument for the threat of targeted sanctions against politicians who undermine the Bosnian state.

Talk of timelines for the closure of the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina is premature. The Office should only be closed once constitutional reform has been achieved. Meanwhile, the high representative must have the solid backing of the EU and US so that all parties know they cannot sit out the international presence in the country.

Finally, the EU peacekeeping mission in Bosnia must be retained, and reinforced if necessary, to send a strong signal that neither secession nor violence will be tolerated.

Today Radovan Karadzic is finally on trial in The Hague on charges of alleged genocide and war crimes in Bosnia . As he and others are called to account over their part in the horrendous events of the 1990s, it would be a supreme irony if their plans for carving up Bosnia-Herzegovina were to be realized simply because the international community was too busy to care.

Mr Hague is UK shadow foreign secretary, Lord Ashdown is a former high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina . This article was co-written by James O'Brien, a former US presidential envoy for the Balkans, Morton Abramowitz, former US ambassador to Turkey and a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, and Jim Hooper, a managing director of the Public International Law and Policy Group

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.

Grim reality of Serbia's EU 'dream'

2009-12-25T19:04:00.001-05:00

Grim reality of Serbia's EU 'dream'

Federalists bleat buzzwords about Serbia's European ambitions but the EU, like Nato, only wants to force it into neoliberal line

Comments (96)

A blizzard of platitudes has been unleashed by Europe's leaders this week as Serbia formally applies for EU membership. No opportunity to declare the occasion "historic" or to assert that Serbia has a European "vocation" is being passed up.

Yet once these asinine buzzwords have been uttered, there will be no reason to rejoice. Belgrade's treatment by some EU governments has long been characterised by a brazen hypocrisy. Until the beginning of this month, the Netherlands was blocking Serbia's efforts to strengthen its relations with the union over suspicions it was not co-operating fully with the war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

The zeal of Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch foreign minister, in insisting on accountability for offences against humanity would be praiseworthy if it was consistent with his approach to other conflicts. How odd it is, then, that Verhagen has vigorously opposed efforts to probe (never mind prosecute) alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

With just two of the men on its wanted list – Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic – still at large, isn't it time that the Hague tribunal was given a fresh mandate, or even better that an entirely new investigative body is set up? This body should be tasked with finally unearthing the truth about why Nato bombed Serbia in 1999.

None of the alliance's personnel has yet been charged by an international tribunal with crimes relating to that war, even though it was conducted with the use of cluster bombs, weapons that literally slice the limbs of their victims. Nor should it be forgotten that the war lacked UN approval and helped usher in the dubious concept of "humanitarian intervention", under which military action can be taken on the flimsiest of pretexts.

I'm sure that I will soon hear or read some federalist (or should I say fantasist?) trying to wax lyrical about the significance of Serbia embracing countries that were attacking it little over a decade ago. What the fantasists won't acknowledge, though, is that Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia's then president, didn't earn his status as a favourite bogeyman of the west purely because he did dreadful things to the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo, as the official narrative would have us believe.

The west could probably have tolerated his autocratic streak if he was more favourable to its pervading ideology. But Milosevic's refusal to accept the neoliberal precepts on which the global economy is being run seem to offer a more plausible explanation as to why Bill Clinton and his then cronies in Europe insisted he must go.

Such a conclusion seems to me inescapable when you examine the fine print of what the EU and America have been pressing Serbia to do over the past 10 years. Privatising state-owned industry is now a standard condition of EU accession, as many countries in central and eastern Europe have discovered, often at enormous social cost.

But what makes Serbia unique is that many of the facilities it has been required to sell off were first damaged by Nato bombs, with the result that western firms could snatch some of them up at bargain basement prices. More than 1,800 privatisations have occurred since Milosevic was ousted; much of the country's metal industry is now in the hands of US Steel, which has been busy shedding jobs, while the national car company Zastava has been bought by Fiat.

The European commission's latest "progress report" for Serbia states that finalising privatisation is a priority for the country's "partnership" with the EU. Moreover, it indicates that the welfare state that has provided a lifeline to the country's citizens must be radically altered. It is no exaggeration, then, to say that the austerity budget rubber-stamped in Belgrade, also this week, was to a large extent written in Brussels and Washington, home to the IMF, which has so generously come to Serbia's "rescue".

No doubt, the pensioners whose income has been reduced at the behest of foreign institutions aren't weighed down by the hand of history on their country's shoulder at the moment. Instead, they will face 2010 with the dreaded sensation of a hair shirt on their backs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/22/serbia-eu-dream-neoliberal

Russian New Security Pact (Trifkovic on Russia Profile)

2009-12-15T15:47:00.001-05:00

http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=Experts%27+Panel&articleid=a1260553754

Russia Profile Weekly Experts Panel:

Russia's New European Security Pact

Last week, the Kremlin published its draft of the European Security Treaty, first proposed in June 2008 as President Dmitry Medvedev's first major foreign policy initiative. Moscow has been criticized for offering few specifics of this proposal, and thus failed to move its European partners toward a meaningful discussion of its initiative. It has now taken this step by putting forward a draft treaty, consisting of 14 articles. [...] Is it possible to imagine that this treaty could serve as a viable replacement of or a substitute for the existing security structures, particularly those offering specific security guarantees, like NATO or the Collective Security Treaty? Would it improve the efficiency of the existing conflict resolution mechanisms in Europe? Would it restrict NATO's ability to operate in Europe? Would it increase Russia's influence over security decisions in Europe? Will it receive a broader discussion among European and Transatlantic powers, or will it die the quiet death of many other grand plans for European security?

Srdja Trifkovic, Director, Center for International Affairs, the Rockford Institute, Rockford, IL:

Quite apart from its details and nuances, Moscow's proposal can be taken seriously because it comes after a notable shift in U.S. rhetoric and behavior over the past year. This shift reflects U.S. President Barack Obama's evolving strategic priorities caused in part by the ongoing crisis in Pakistan and the escalation of fighting in Afghanistan. The two key elements are his U-turn on missile defense deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic, and the quiet acceptance on both sides of the Atlantic that there will be no NATO expansion along the Black Sea coast anytime soon.

The problem is still what to do about NATO, and the Russian proposal offers ambiguous guidance. The alliance has morphed into something it was never intended to be: a vehicle for the attainment of American ideological and geopolitical objectives outside the core area. It is necessary to halt and reverse NATO's recently invented mission as a self-appointed promoter of democracy and humanitarian intervention and guardian against instability in strange and faraway places.

Bill Clinton's air war against the Serbs marked a decisive shift in that mutation. The trusty keeper of the gate of 1949 had morphed into a roaming vigilante in 1999. This event had a profound effect on Russian thinking. A decade later, the National Security Strategy approved by President Medvedev last May identified the two gravest threats facing Russia as Ukrainian accession to NATO and predatory Western designs on its energy and other natural resources. The paper explicitly called the United States a major threat to Russian national security.

Such a conclusion was unsurprising. By virtue of its location, Russia controls the crossroads of Eurasia and therefore access to its fabulous natural resource wealth. Washington craves cheap and easy access to that wealth, and under the presidency of George Bush, the United States had developed an ideology to complement such geo-strategic ambitions. Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described it succinctly 18 months ago: in U.S. foreign policy there is no distinction between ideals and self-interest. U.S. foreign policy is its values, and America will stop at nothing to ensure that its values prevail. The world is divided into two camps: one is made up of states that share U.S. values; the other of states (implicitly Russia and China) which were consigned to a lesser status because their relations with the United States are rooted more in common interests than in common values. Washington has changed its tone since, and that change appears to be for the better. Obama now has an opportunity to execute a paradigm shift and inaugurate a process in which the East-West Security Pact would be just the first step on a long journey, not its conclusion.

In principle the Russian proposal is not ranged against NATO, but it could help the United States sort out the incoherent mess NATO has become by restoring the alliance's proper legal mission as defender of the territory of its member states. The proposal's shortcoming, however, is that it neglects the potential scope in Europe for a robust and independent EU defense capability under the auspices of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP).

To devise a more inclusive European security architecture - one that includes NATO, but more than just NATO - would require the establishment of an organization that would replace the moribund OSCE. A new security architecture embracing the main parts of North America, Russia and Europe, would allow for the collective reallocation of forces so as to counter threats emanating from outside: cross-border terrorism, drug trafficking, sex slavery, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and - most importantly - efforts to export jihad.

These threats, unconventional yet real, are a factor for unity from Vancouver to Vladivostok. That vast region is united above all by the moral, spiritual and intellectual values derived from the Judeo-Christian and Greek tradition, values that are far deeper than any issues which divide it. The real threat to the security of pan-Europa thus defined comes from Jihad, from the deluge of inassimilable immigrants, and from collapsing birthrates. All three are caused by the moral decrepitude and cultural decline, not by any shortage of soldiers and weaponry.

Strategy is the art of winning wars, and grand strategy is the philosophy of maintaining an acceptable peace. In considering Moscow's proposals in good faith, Western powers would display an aptitude for grand strategy, an inspired grasp of the essential requirements of the moment which has been sadly lacking in Washington for the past two decades.

The Nonexistent "Serbian Lobby"

2009-12-12T14:26:00.001-05:00

http://www.novireporter.com/look/reporter/nr_article.tpl?IdLanguage=11&IdPublication=2&NrIssue=352&NrSection=5&NrArticle=4488

NOVI REPORTER, Banja Luka, No. 352, December 9, 2009.

Interview: Srdja Trifkovic

THE "SERBIAN LOBBY" IN THE UNITED STATES DOES NOT EXIST AT ALL

At a hearing before the Helsinki Committee of the House of Representatives last spring, at which Ivo Banac, Paddy Ashdown and others opened fire from all weapons on the Republika Srpska and [its prime minister Milorad] Dodik, demanding the abolition of the entities and the appointment of an American envoy to the Balkans, they were not countered by a single Congressman, or a representative of the [Serbian] Diaspora, or a lobbyist, or a visitor from the Republika Srpska, although they would not have been denied the platform had they asked for it.

For the past two decades the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia have been subjected to a hostile treatment by the Western power centers. In Serbia and the Republika Srpska alike, the attempts to correct or even reverse such trends in the U.S. and the European Union have often relied on the impact of the Serbian diaspora in the United States and in the leading countries of the EU. Such expectations and the reality are in a chronic discord, however.

Dr. Srdja Trifkovic debunks many flawed assumptions in the Old Country about the political potential of our kin in America... He points out the remarkable inertness of the official Belgrade and Banja Luka vis-a-vis the Serbian diaspora and also regarding attempts to convince the influential Western interlocutors of the validity of arguments advanced by Serbia and by the Republika Srpska in the ongoing Balkan unravellings:

"The Serbian diaspora has no influence on the formulation of the U.S. policy. It is the least well organized among all ethnic groups of comparable size. A concrete example: when an appeal went out, some ten years ago, for the survival of Serbian studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago, barely $30,000 was collected and the chair was extinguished. On the other hand, the Lithuanian community in Chicago - far smaller than the Serbian one - threw a benefit dinner for a similar purpose and collected a million dollars in a few hours. The Serbian community has no excuse for this state of affairs. The diaspora has neither the money nor the will to work for the defense and promotion of the Serbian-American community's interests - and money as the precondition of all activity. As Mark Twain pointed out 150 years ago, America has "the best Congress money can buy!" It is naive to assume that Bob Dole, Joe Biden, the late Tom Lantos, Joe Lieberman and other Serb-haters have acted for so many years in the manner well known to us out of purely moral principles and deepest conviction. Someone had to approach them, to present the specific views to them, to motivate them to accept those views - which means money - and to promt them to act accordingly - again money! Those four steps represent the essence of lobbying. The principle is the same, regardless of whether you are advocating a centralized Bosnia-Herzegovina or Federal subsidies to dairy farmers in Wisconsin.

Novi Reporter: How do you explain the fact that, nevertheless, encouraging news has reached Serbia and the Republika Srpska of certain successes of the lobbying in the US?

Trifkovic: There are people in the Diaspora who are sparing no effort to project, on the Serbian public scene, an image of themselves as very influential players closely connected with various Congressmen and Senators. Having paid a few hundred dollars to their journalist contacts to write suitably intoned fairytales in some Belgrade tabloids, they flaunt those cuttings back home to prove that they are influential in Serbiaâs public and political life and that they should be taken into due account in some future combinations. This reflects the infantile vanity of some diaspora leaders with bombastic-sounding titles and negligible influence, and the syndrome is well known to the American Serbs. It is noteworthy, however, that the U.S. Administration is not interested in nurturing the ambitions of any potential Serbian B-Team, because the Americans find the present government in Belgrade perfectly suited to their interests.

To this very day there is no Serbian Lobby in the U.S. it simply does not exist. The Serbian Congressional Caucus is a Potemkin's Village, which is in any event in the state of deep hibernation. The members of the Caucus merely express some interest in the Balkans, but they do not necessarily support Serbian positions on The Hague, Kosovo, Dayton... To give you but one example, at a hearing before the Helsinki Committee of the House of Representatives last spring, at which Ivo Banac, Paddy Ashdown and others opened fire from all weapons on the Republika Srpska and [its prime minister Milorad] Dodik, demanding the abolition of [the Dayton-provided] entities and the appointment of an American envoy to the Balkans, they were not countered by a single Congressman, or a representative of the [Serbian] Diaspora, or a lobbyist, or a visitor from the Republika Srpska, although they would not have been denied the platform had they asked for it.

Are there within the Serbian diaspora in the U.S. persons and institutions which do not act under the patronage of the well known organizations, but which nevertheless make a respectable contribution and are worthy of attention?

There are, but the less they act under the Serbian banner, the more effective they are. The ability to act independently is the precondition of success.

How would you define the key common objectives which could unite the Serbs in North America? What are the realistic, and what are the optimal potential results of their work?

The key objective is to articulate the interests of the Serbian community and to present it competently through the prism of American interests. The theme of the Balkans as the weak link in the war against terrorism is essential, as it may be related to American concerns. However, more than eight years after September 11, there is no “White Book” which would contain a consolidated dossier of the Sarajevan political establishments Jihadist connections. All kinds of terrorist attacks since that time, from Riyadh to Casablanca to Madrid or Bali, indicate that there is a Bosnian Connection. This remains an unused capital.

How do you see the relations of the Serbian diaspora in the U.S. with the political instances in Serbia and the Republika Srpska?

The biggest problem of the Serbian diaspora in the U.S. is the absence of legitimate authority and hierarchy. The split within the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1963 undermined its role of the moral pillar, and there is no leadership from the old country. On the other hand, it is unrealistic to expect the diaspora to achieve that which neither Belgrade nor Banja Luka are doing. Let us face the facts: official Serbian guests often come to Washington, not in order to make a serious impact on the political decision-making process relevant to the Serbian people and its interests, but to create back home a convincing illusion of the alleged results of their visit. A textbook example of this we have seen recently, in early November, with a frankly futile Republika Srpska mission to the capital of the United States. The visit was effectively a fiasco, yet it was presented in the Republika Srpska media as a success.

How do you evaluate the results of that visit?

Who are those people trying to hoodwink, or are they deluded themselves, and cherish ungrounded illusions about such visits? Who is enriching their scant itineraries with the meetings with political lightweights, or else with antagonists who only receive them in order to give them a stern dressing-down? Is the goal simply to fill in the slots, to justify expenses? Why do they deceive themselves, and others, talking of a successful mission crowned with a half-hours visit to the deputy under-secretarys aide in a windowless office? Or visits with those few members of Congress who are already known as friendly to the Serbs, but who have no influence on the formulation of policy? I am inclined to think that they are simply not up to the task, rather than mendacious. They do not defend Serbian national interests adequately, because they are not attuned to the Washingtonian discourse and therefore unable to articulate those interests in the manner that may have some operational value in the perception of their U.S. interlocutors.

With the current setup of the Serbian diplomacy and lobbying structure in Washington, things will not get any better. The same applies to Serbia’s foreign and every other policy. Almost two decades since the beginning of Yugoslavia’s disintegration nothing has been learned, things merely change in order to remain the same. There is an old Jewish proverb, to the effect that if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you ll keep getting what you are currently getting. What the Serbs have got over all these years we know very well, and there should be no illusions that the slicing of the Serbian salami is by any means over. Quite the contrary!

What are the main causes for the lack of adequate response of the diaspora to the anti-Serb trend which is still largely present in the Western political, media, and academic elite?

There are three key elements of failure. The first is in the lack of strategy for defending the image and identity of the community, based on a clear methodology for the attainment of such goals. The second is the short-sighted focus of many Serbs on the reactive critique of the Western policy and its media presentation, without any strategic elaboration of alternative positions and constant advancement of new concrete solutions as an alternative to the current flawed policy.

And finally, the attempts to influence foreign media and political circles are characterized by complete amateurism of the leadership of organizations with impressive names which nevertheless lack true legitimacy within the Serbian diaspora community. This undermines their credibility among the policy makers and public opinion creators. The consequence is clear: the views and decisions detrimental to the Serbs could be advocated in the Western media, approved in legislative bodies, applied by governments, and verified by the academic and analytical institutions. There was a visible change of tone after October 5, 2000, but it was short lived.

Kosovo - partitioning what from what?

2009-12-03T10:20:00.001-05:00

- partitioning what from what?

Though partition is far from the best way to resolve the Kosovo question, it is a political option for Kosovo as part of a final status resolution and has been used by one side already.

By Gerard Gallucci

Keywords: Serbia, Kosovo, EULEX, Ahtisaari, partition

Talk about partitioning Kosovo remains taboo. Almost everyone officially rejects the idea - the Albanians, the Serbs (in both Serbia and Kosovo), and the EU and U.S. However, only the Albanians probably really mean it and only if it applies to carving out pieces of "their" Kosovo and not so much as it might apply to the partitioning of Kosovo from Serbia. The Western Europeans and U.S. stand against partition arguing that Kosovo is a unique case and maintaining that Kosovo is and can be a flourishing multi-ethnic democracy. (Some EU members, and perhaps some in EU Brussels, may actually prefer partition as the neatest way to get rid of the lingering Kosovo status issue and get out of the morass into which their EULEX mission has fallen. Perhaps prematurely, EU envoy Wolfgang Ischinger even put partition on the negotiating table in August 2007.) The U.S. supports the official EU position because this keeps it off the Kosovo hook and because it has its own reasons – think Caucasus and Russia – to reject ethnic partition. The Serbs in southern Kosovo might support partition if somehow they could remain attached to Serbia. As this is unlikely, they do not. Kosovo Serbs north of the Ibar would probably welcome partition – remaining in Serbia – but, as it is not yet Serbian state policy, cannot say so. Belgrade may accept partition at some point but cannot say so while still making a case against losing Kosovo. Russia stands ready to pick up the pieces however it goes.

So, partition is the elephant in the room. Everyone pretends it is not there as they try to look busy finding other ways to finish determining Kosovo's final status. The arguments against partition appear serious. 1) It could lead to renewed pressure for partitioning along ethnic lines including elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. 2) It would seem to abandon the principle and possibility of truly multi-ethnic democracy, which everyone agrees is better than mono-ethnic mini-states. 3) Kosovo enjoyed autonomy as a province (though not a republic) under Tito until later simply revoked by Milošević. It is worth considering these arguments one by one.

The issue of Kosovo's partition establishing a precedent or somehow encouraging further such actions elsewhere begs the central question of Kosovo's very partition from Serbia. Serbia was and remains a sovereign state and member of the United Nations. Dismembering it, arbitrarily changing its state borders through military occupation, sets a huge precedent with implications in many places around the globe. To argue that a state loses the right over some part of its territory or population because of the way a particular government treats its people raises the issue of who decides, when and by what standard. Answers to these questions would be pertinent to many other situations, such as the treatment of native people by Australia, Brazil and the United States as well as the cases of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Congo, Macedonia, Georgia, Iraq, and Spain, to name a few. The plain fact is that with Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence – recognized by leading members of the international community – partition is already a fact.

One cannot argue credibly that Kosovo's partition from Serbia is not along ethnic lines. To do so, one would have to make the case that Kosovo is in fact a flourishing multi-ethnic society or can become one. But Kosovo is essentially a mono-ethnic Albanian state. According to the CIA Factbook, 88 percent of its 1.8 million people are Albanians. Seven percent are Serbs and five percent others. Take out the 40-60,000 Serbs living in the north and the Albanian majority is over 90 percent. The Pristina institutions are Albanian institutions and non-Albanians' role will be – if they are lucky – to have some say in how they are governed in their own communities and to play the occasional window-dressing role. Keeping Kosovo whole to support the case for multi-ethnic democracy is hypocrisy masquerading as high policy.

Kosovo's history can support almost any conclusion one wishes to draw. One hundred years ago Kosovo was part of the Ottoman Empire so perhaps it should now be part of Turkey? Tito practiced ethnic gerrymandering – manipulating boundaries and legalities – on a grand scale to keep the truly multi-ethnic Yugoslavia balanced and more or less stable. The only thing perhaps we can learn from him is that in the end, ethnic loyalties prevail. Western Europe lost the opportunity to preserve multi-ethnicity in the Balkans when it rushed into the recognition of Yugoslavia's break-up rather than finding a way to help it to a soft landing. In any case, Kosovo cannot now argue the sanctity of its borders based upon precedent from Yugoslavia having itself thrown over the boundaries of the successor state, Serbia.

None of this is to argue that partition is the best way to resolve the Kosovo question. But it may at some point have to be part of the final package. The Ahtisaari Plan remains the best option [sic] for southern Kosovo, where non-Albanians remain with little choice but to accept the reality that surrounds them. But the north? Why should people there born in one country be forced to accept now living in another? Some will say, what about the Albanians living in Serbia or Macedonia. Indeed. Irredentism is a danger. But it should not be allowed to become the basis of geopolitical blackmail.

In the end, partition is a political option for Kosovo as part of a final status resolution and has been used by one side already.

http://www.transconflict.com/News/2009/December/Kosovo_partitioning_what_from_what.php

Pentagon and NATO Complete Their Conquest of The Balkans

2009-11-28T17:26:00.001-05:00


Geopolitical Crossroads: Pentagon and NATO Complete Their Conquest of The Balkans By Rick Rozoff
Global Research, November 28, 2009
Stop NATO
Bosnia and Montenegro being incorporated as full NATO members and Macedonia following suit would expand the world's only military bloc to 31 nations, almost twice that of ten years ago when it first began its drive into Eastern Europe. And with Serbia and Kosovo, which even before becoming a member is the world's first NATO political entity, included the Alliance's numbers will have more than doubled since 1999, a decade after the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. All seventeen new acquisitions would be in Eastern Europe, and the majority of NATO member states would be former Warsaw Pact members or Yugoslav republics and a province. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen visited the capital of Montenegro on November 26 and that of Bosnia the following day. A Balkans news source wrote of the visits that Rasmussen would "discuss the possibility of approving Montenegro's action plan for NATO membership" and "discuss strengthening NATO and BiH [Bosnia and Herzegovina] cooperation." [1] Ahead of the Balkans tour Rasmussen was in Germany to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel and recruit more troops for the war in Afghanistan. The NATO chief has been even busier than usual of late, simultaneously recruiting troops from nations throughout Europe for Afghanistan on Washington's behalf, working on the bloc's new Strategic Concept, drumming up support for a continent-wide, U.S.-led interceptor missile system and preparing for a NATO foreign ministers meeting on December 3-4. The Balkans fit into all the above aspects of what has in recent years routinely been referred to as 21st Century, global and expeditionary NATO, one feverishly seeking new "third millennium challenges" and invoking "a myriad deadly threats" [2] as pretexts for increasing its already widening role in five continents and the Middle East. Several days before Rasmussen arrived in the world's newest (recognized) nation, Montenegro, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Alexander Vershbow was in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo to preside over the fifth meeting of defense chiefs of the US-Adriatic Charter, set up by Washington in 2003 to fast-track Balkans nations into NATO. The first three members enlisted by the U.S. were Albania, Croatia and Macedonia. The first two were formally inducted into full NATO membership at the bloc's sixtieth anniversary summit this April and Macedonia also would have been dragged into the Alliance except for the lingering dispute with Greece over its name. Bosnia and Montenegro were added to the Charter last year and Serbia - and breakaway Kosovo - are to be next. With Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia becoming full member states at the Istanbul summit in 2004 and Greece and Turkey members for decades, all of Southeast Europe has been transformed into NATO territory, from the Adriatic to the Black and from the Aegean to the Ionian Seas. The November 17 meeting in Bosnia was attended by, in addition to the Pentagon's Vershbow (who was U.S. ambassador to NATO during the 1999 war against Yugoslavia), the deputy defense minister of Albania and the defense chiefs of Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro. Also present were the defense ministers of Serbia and Slovenia, Dragan Sutanovac and Ljubica Jelisic, the last two nations in a category labeled "guest and observer countries." "Vershbow reiterated US support for the early approval of BiH and Montenegro's applications for the Membership Action Plan (MAP). He also said full NATO membership for Macedonia will be backed, as soon as the issue of its name is resolved." Additionally, the defense chiefs "agreed to sign a joint statement on enhancing co-operation through regional centres in the Western Balkans." [3] An Associated Press dispatch at the time of the Adriatic Charter meeting mentioned of the December 3-4 assembly in Brussels (which will also be a forum for enlisting thousands of more NATO troops for the Afghan war) that "An upcoming meeting of NATO foreign ministers will provide a boost for Bosnia and Montenegro to become the 29th and 30th members of the trans-Atlantic alliance." [4] Bosnia and Montenegro being incorporated as full NATO members and Macedonia following suit would expand the world's only military bloc to 31 nations, almost twice that of ten years ago when it first began its drive into Eastern Europe. And with Serbia and Kosovo, which even before becoming a member is the world's first NATO political entity, included the Alliance's numbers will have more than doubled since 1999, a decade after the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. All seventeen new acquisitions would be in Eastern Europe, and the majority of NATO member states would be former Warsaw Pact members or Yugoslav republics and a province. The Pentagon has already secured seven new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania [5] which border the Black Sea in the Northern Balkans, including the Graf Ignatievo and Bezmer airbases in the first country and the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in the second. The airfields have been used for "downrange" military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Romanian installation now hosts the Pentagon's Joint Task Force – East. The U.S.'s colossal Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo is now ten years old and the use and upgrading of Croatian and Montenegrin Adriatic harbors for U.S. Navy deployments is an imminent possibility. The further the fragmentation of former Yugoslavia proceeds, the more thoroughly the region will be transformed into a string of so-called forward operating bases and "lily pads" (Donald Rumsfeld's term) for military action to the east and south. The 2006 Western-supported dissolution of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, itself a transitional mechanism devised by Javier Solana, NATO Secretary General during the 1999 war and since then the European Union's High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, completed the breakup of the former Yugoslavia into its six federal republics. The unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia by Kosovo in 2008, not only backed but engineered by NATO and its civilian complements, the government of the United States and the European Union, began the second phase of the dismemberment of the nation: The breaking apart of former republics into mini-states. [6] Behind Kosovo lie Vojvodina, the Presevo Valley and Sandzak in Serbia, where ethnic separatism, cross-border armed attacks and outright terrorism have raised their heads, respectively. Macedonia faces the same alarming prospect. Attacks by adjuncts of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army - the National Liberation Army (NLA) of Ali Ahmeti - from inside Kosovo in 2001 placed the new nation on the precipice of all-out war and violent fragmentation. Last week Menduh Thaci, head of the Democratic Party of Albanians, called on his sponsors in the West to reduce Macedonia to an international protectorate. Speaking of a current political crisis largely of his making, Thaci said "I am convinced that the only way out is an urgent international protection, which will be a preventive measure for possible events." The next step is for the name of the nation to be changed or adjusted and for whatever it will then be called to be brought into NATO. Both the Greek government and pan-Albanian forces in Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, South Serbia and Montenegro will be satisfied with the result and NATO will acquire its 29th (or 31st) member state. [7] Montenegro, barely three years old, will soon deploy the first contingent of its armed forces to serve under NATO in Afghanistan. When it arrives it will join troops from Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia. The last seven nations also provided soldiers for the military occupation of Iraq after 2003. Montenegro didn't exist as an independent state at that time, so its initiation as a NATO candidate country will be in Afghanistan. With Serbia as an observer nation of the Adriatic Charter and with it having joined NATO's Partnership for Peace transitional program in 2006, Washington and Brussels will also soon call on it to prove its right to Alliance candidacy by dispatching troops to the Afghan war front. As the U.S. and NATO are on the verge of a qualitative escalation of the war in South Asia, the Serbian foreign and defense ministries have announced the opening of a mission at NATO headquarters in Brussels. "[T]he point of the mission will be to improve cooperation and everyday communication with NATO, participate in the work of 100 expert committees, and improve...cooperation with '50 member-states' of the 'political' alliance." [8] Fifty states are almost exactly the number that have provided NATO troops for the war in Afghanistan. Serbia could be the 51st. Even for the representative of a battered, splintered, demoralized nation, recent statements by current Serbian Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac are offensive in their shameless fawning and obsequiousness. He will soon be the first Serbian defense chief to visit the Pentagon in a quarter of a century, a fact he is proud of, and recently said that his trip will be "without a doubt, politically and militarily very important," as much of the money - $500 million - Washington has bribed Belgrade authorities with since the overthrow of President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 "[was] used by the Serbian military." Sutanovac, who graduated from the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, jointly run by the U.S. Department of Defense and the German Defense Ministry, and who is described as "speaking perfect English," added these revealing details: "The Serbian MoD [Ministry of Defense] has stable relations with the U.S. military and we can say that cooperation in defense is the backbone of relations between the United States and Serbia at the moment." "Considering the fact that the U.S. defense budget is as large as the defense budget of the rest of the world, it is crystal clear what the most important thing is to U.S. foreign policy and international relations." [9] The former Kosovo Liberation Army, then Kosovo Protection Corps (and now Kosovo Security Force) offered troops to the U.S. for the war in Iraq shortly after the invasion of 2003 and the NATO-equipped and trained Kosovo Security Force, a nascent national army in all but name, will offer troops to NATO for the Afghan war as it drags on indefinitely. [10] During recent municipal elections in Kosovo, the first since its nominal independence, one not recognized by 140 of 192 nations and by few outside the NATO world (the exceptions including Afghanistan, Liechtenstein, Monaco, the Marshall Islands, San Marino, Belize, Malta, Samoa, the Maldives, the Comoros, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and Palau), supporters of former KLA chieftains Hashim Thaci - the Western-recognized prime minister - and war criminal Ramush Haradinaj were at daggers drawn and "people used rocks to attack a line of cars that transported Hashim Thaci....Thaci's party accused Haradinaj of directly inciting and organizing [the] attack...." [11] A Russian report on the Western-endorsed and -celebrated elections placed the West's Kosovo strategy in a broader context: "EU officials are the ones forcing the Serbian government to accept several very unpleasant decisions - recognition of the municipal elections in Kosovo, dissociation from Russia and the pullout of joint energy projects with Russia. "As for democratic values in the EU policy with regard to Serbia, they are hard to believe in, given the EU officials' open sympathies with the Albanian militants of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Incidentally, the supporters of two KLA leaders, former 'prime minister' Ramush Haradinaj and his successor Hashim Thaci, caused a violent clash in one of the Albanian enclaves. "It is worth reminding here that Haradinaj was allowed to leave the Hague occasionally 'to rule' Kosovo during his trial, while Thaci was eventually cleared by the Hague Tribunal of all charges of genocide against Serbs." [12] Nevertheless the United States and its NATO allies, the self-proclaimed "international community" and champions of democracy, human rights and so forth wherever and whenever it suits their political purposes, continue to embrace the Kosovo entity as a brother-in-arms in the new global order. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton was in the Kosovo capital of Pristina on November 1 for the unveiling of a particularly vulgar and meretricious gold-sprayed statue of himself [13], the ceremony presided over by the former head of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Hashim "The Snake" Thaci, the creation of whose pseudo-nation is a cause of great pride in Western capitals. The Associated Press reported on the event in Europe's drug-smuggling criminal black hole: "The statue portrays Clinton with his left arm raised and holding a portfolio bearing his name and the date when NATO started bombing Yugoslavia, on March 24, 1999. "Many waved American, Albanian and Kosovo flags and chanted 'USA!' as the former president climbed on top of a podium with his poster in the background reading 'Kosovo honors a hero.'" [14] That Albanian flags were flaunted reveals what NATO mercilessly bombed the length and breadth of Yugoslavia for 78 days to achieve. Three weeks afterward the mayor of a town in Albania - the distinction between that nation and Kosovo is now a strictly academic one - announced plans to follow suit and dedicate a statue to George W. Bush. Bush and Clinton have jointly sired the Kosovo/Greater Kosovo aberration. "The small Albanian town of Fushe-Kruje plans to erect a statue of former U.S. President George W. Bush to commemorate his June 2007 visit, when he was feted as a hero in an outpouring of love for America." The town's mayor, Ismet Mavriqi, was quoted as saying, "If I had the final say, I would very much like a three-meter statue, probably in bronze, that captures his trademark way of walking with energy." [15] The legacy that Washington and Brussels have left the people of Kosovo - those remaining that is, as hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Roma and others have fled for their lives since June of 1999 - was detailed in a recent Reuters report. It said that although "Over the past decade it has received 3 billion euros in aid, according to the World Bank, and is expecting another billion by 2011," nevertheless "unemployment is 40 percent and average per capita income is 1,760 euros. That compares with average joblessness of just under 10 percent in the European Union and an average salary of about 24,000 euros ($35,930)." [16] Ten years of NATO-KLA collaboration have produced this human catastrophe. This is the stability and prosperity that the West has brought to the Balkans. That afflicted part of Europe has been the testing ground for NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe and since into Asia, Africa and the Middle East, starting with Bosnia in 1995 when NATO dropped its first bombs and deployed its first troops outside the territory of its member states. As early as January of 1996 the now deceased American scholar Sean Gervasi warned that "There are deeper reasons for the dispatch of NATO forces to the Balkans, and especially for the extension of NATO to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary in the relatively near future. These have to do with an emerging strategy for securing the resources of the Caspian Sea region and for 'stabilizing' the countries of Eastern Europe - ultimately for 'stabilizing' Russia and the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States." [17] NATO now has solidified military partnerships, conducts regular war games and has established permanent bases in several countries on and near the Caspian Sea - Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, not to mention Afghanistan. It has absorbed three former Soviet republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - and continues to insist that former Commonwealth of Independent States member Georgia and current one Ukraine will become full members of the Alliance. Thirteen years ago Gervasi also warned that "The United States is now seeking to consolidate a new European-Middle Eastern bloc of nations....This grouping includes Turkey, which is of pivotal importance in the emerging new bloc. Turkey is not just a part of the southern Balkans and an Aegean power. It also borders on Iraq, Iran and Syria. It thus connects southern Europe to the Middle East, where the US considers that it has vital interests....With the war against Iraq [1991], the US established itself in the Middle East more securely than ever. The almost simultaneous disintegration of the Soviet Union opened the possibility of Western exploitation of the oil resources of the Caspian Sea region." [18] Events in the interim have proceeded exactly as Gervasi indicated they would and for the motives he attributed to them. Having undermined the United Nations, violated international law, humiliated Russia and moved NATO forces into the Balkans, the West was embarked in earnest on its drive for global domination in the post-Cold War world. As NATO's first war, the Operation Allied Force bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, was dragging on and assuming ever more ominous dimensions, even before the destruction of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO bombs, then Russian President Boris Yeltsin appeared on his nation's television and said: "I told Nato, the Americans, the Germans, don't push us towards military action. "Otherwise there will be a European war for sure - and possibly world war." [19] That Yeltsin was the dependable friend of Washington that he was made the statement even more foreboding. Less than a month afterward the Chinese embassy was in ruins as the war raged on. Europe and the world avoided a broader war ten years ago. But NATO, using the Balkans as its global springboard, may yet succeed in triggering a conflict that will not be contained and will not remain within the realm of conventional warfare. Notes 1) Macedonian Radio and Television, November 26, 2009 2) Thousand Deadly Threats: Third Millennium NATO, Western Businesses Collude On New Global Doctrine Stop NATO, October 2, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/thousand-deadly-threats-third-millennium-nato-western-businesses-collude-on-new-global-doctrine 3) Southeast European Times, November 20, 2009 4) Associated Press, November 18, 2009 5) Bulgaria, Romania: U.S., NATO Bases For War In The East Stop NATO, October 24, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/bulgaria-romania-u-s-nato-bases-for-war-in-the-east 6) Adriatic Charter And The Balkans: Smaller Nations, Larger NATO Stop NATO, May 13, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/adriatic-charter-and-the-balkans-smaller-nations-larger-nato 7) Threat Of New Conflict In Europe: Western-Sponsored Greater Albania Stop NATO, October 8, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/new-threat-of-conflict-in-europe-western-sponsored-greater-albania 8) Vecernje Novosti, November 4, 2009 9) Politika, November 27, 2009 10) Balkans: Staging Ground For NATO's Post-Cold War Order Stop NATO, February 9, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/balkans-staging-ground-for-natos-post-cold-war-order 11) Tanjug News Agency, November 12, 2009 12) Russian Information Agency Novosti, November 17, 2009 13) Kosovo: Marking Ten Years Of Worldwide Wars Stop NATO, October 31, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/kosovo-marking-ten-years-of-worldwide-wars 14) Associated Press, November 1, 2009 15) Reuters, November 21, 2009 16) Reuters, November 20, 2009 17) Sean Gervasi, Why Is NATO In Yugoslavia? http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/GER108A.html 18) Ibid 19) BBC News, April 9, 1999

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Americanthinker: Bill Clinton in Kosovo

2009-11-21T14:09:00.001-05:00

November 14, 2009

Bill Clinton in Kosovo

By Georgy Gounev

Inevitably, some extraordinary security measures were taken in Kosovo's capital in connection with William Jefferson Clinton's recent visit. The former president of the United States undertook a long journey to the middle of the Balkans in order to take a look at his own figure standing twelve feet above the rest of humanity.

There could be little doubt that those extraordinary measures added additional tension in the life of the current and former residents of the area. Let's clear up a possible confusion: many of the current Albanian residents of Pristina live in the houses of the former Serbian owners who were forced to leave, very often at gunpoint. My thoughts went back two weeks before the former president's visit to Kosovo, when I had to spend some rather uncomfortable hours in the company of a small group of former residents of Pristina.

On a cold morning that had the Serbian city of Prokuplje in its wet and foggy embrace, a friend of mine and I joined a small group of Serbian teachers, nurses, and doctors, all of them Pristina natives. Every morning, this group traveled to their jobs at a tiny Serbian enclave in the vicinity of the city where they were born and raised. The preparation for their seemingly endless working day starts at four in the morning.

We joined them an hour later as we boarded the overcrowded van. The three-hour journey had to be undertaken so early because of the long wait at the border. Those doctors, nurses, and teachers, most of them women, have been taking this killing journey back and forth at the beginning and the end of each working day for several years. If they are lucky, they will be back home somewhere after nine, when their children are already sleeping. The nightmare will repeat itself again the next morning at 4 a.m.

Obviously, some of the smiling and applauding Albanian observers of the unveiling of the monument were living in the houses of the Serbian doctors and teachers currently making the demanding journey across the border that separates their city from their country. Did this fact disturb the former president of the United States? No, not a bit. Should it have disturbed him? Yes, and not only him, but the American people as well.

In justifying the war the United States waged against Serbia back in 1999, the Clinton administration pointed out the moral obligation of the most powerful democracy on earth to defend the victims of persecution and ethnic cleansing. The actions of this administration, however, defied such a noble obligation. To put it bluntly, in the course of the Serbian-Albanian conflict over Kosovo, the United States was successful in defending the rights of the Albanian residents of Kosovo when those rights were violated by the dictatorial regime of Slobodan Milosevic.

However, the United States failed miserably in the other important goal of its voluntarily accepted responsibility: the protection of the Serbian residents of the area who became the victims of persecution and ethnic cleansing of the same magnitude that had provoked the American involvement in the Kosovo conflict in the first place. Tens of thousands of Serbians were forced to leave the area, and more than one hundred Christian churches and monasteries were desecrated and destroyed.

Regardless of the fact that the United States is in possession of "Camp Bondsteel" -- a large military base in Southeast Kosovo -- its human and technological resources have never been used to protect the Serbian victims of the Albanian ethnic cleansing. As a result, the Serbian presence in Kosovo has been almost eradicated.

Bishop Artemije, the spiritual leader of the Serbian community in Kosovo, who moved to a small monastery in Pristina after his residence was set on fire several years ago, told me shortly after the end of my tortuous journey to Grachaniza Monastery, "We are conducting our conversation on a tiny archipelago consisting of Serbian and Christian islands surrounded by an Albanian and Muslim Sea..."

This situation outlines not only the moral deficiency of the United States' Balkan strategy, but a strategic deficiency as well. The American regional strategy gave birth to a growing anti-Americanism in Southeastern Europe.

What at least should be done is an American attempt to improve U.S. relations with Serbia. An important component of such an attempt could be the initiation of a dialogue between the mutually hostile communities of Kosovo at a local level. It is possible as well to create some arrangement with regard to the American protection of the Serbian enclaves -- particularly those in the South, where the residents are completely isolated from Serbia. A third dimension of such an activity could be the work on an agreement that would address the humanitarian problems involving the plight of the Serbian refugees. What the Albanians could get in return could be financing of joint projects benefiting equally their communities and the Serbian enclaves.

With the theoretical opportunity to take part in this kind of activity, President Clinton, undoubtedly a skillful negotiator, will have the opportunity to undo at least part of the mistakes committed during his presidency with regard to the Kosovo conflict. If the situation remains the same, the present shape of the Pristina monument would require two important additions. A group of statues portraying smiling and deeply grateful Albanian residents should be situated on the left side of the monument, while on the right side should be displayed a replica of an overcrowded van filled with dead-tired Serbian teachers and doctors dozing while waiting their turn to cross the border.

Dr. Gounev earned his Ph.D. at the Moscow Institute of Foreign Relations in history and political science. He currently teaches comparative history and international studies at two Southern California Colleges and has authored several books. His website is foraff.org.

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http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/clinton_in_kosovo.html

Republika Srpska: After Independence

2009-11-20T23:44:00.001-05:00

Republika Srpska: After Independence

| 19 November 2009 | By Matthew Parish

Bosnia's gradual disintegration would appear inevitable. The only question is how the international community will, and should, react to this process.

A new state – "Republika Srpska" - is shortly to be born in South Eastern Europe, the eighth to emerge from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. The delivery of this troubling new child will be neither easy nor straightforward.

People may die, and diplomatic isolation may follow. The choices the international community makes in the aftermath of these events will be critically important to the welfare of all the people of the region. For Western policymakers it will be a matter of choosing the lesser evil.

Ever since the 1995 peace agreement at Dayton divided the country into two highly autonomous "entities", it was manifest, even from its name, that the Republika Srpska had pretensions towards statehood. But after the atrocities committed by Serb forces in the Bosnian war, the West viewed the creation of Republika Srpska as a necessary evil at best, a "genocidal creation" in the words of the current Bosniak President, Haris Silajdzic, to be eventually dismantled. This goal, once achieved, would compensate the Bosniaks for the collective guilt the international community felt for having failed to intervene earlier during the conflict.

To pursue this objective, the High Representative was invested with broad and unchecked legal authorities to dismiss elected officials, impose legislation, and freeze parties' bank accounts. Although the constitution agreed at Dayton limited central government authorities to a paltry catalogue, by 2006 the number of functions performed by the state were significant, including prosecution of war crimes and financial crime, foreign affairs, indirect taxation, central banking, and EU negotiations. These structures were created by threatening Bosnian Serb politicians, sullied by associations with wartime crimes, with a one-way ticket to the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, ICTY, if they refused to cooperate. The new central institutions were funded from outside Bosnia's bankrupt domestic economy through foreign aid.

But then two things changed. Most fundamentally, everyone who could be deported to The Hague had been, and the wartime Bosnian Serb political party, the Serb Democratic Party, SDS, had been emasculated through the measures taken by successive High Representatives.

This led to the rise of Milorad Dodik, a different brand of Bosnian Serb politician, untainted by participation in the war. His new party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, could not be bullied by High Representatives' threats, as his officials had no wartime record to hold against them.

Second, international interest in Bosnia faded, and the high levels of development funds needed to keep state institutions operating dried up. The Bosnian tax system, chronically inefficient and corrupt, was increasingly relied upon to fund the central state. These two factors, combined with a withdrawal of foreign peacekeeping troops, coalesced just as Milorad Dodik became Prime Minister of Republika Srpska in January 2006.

Dodik shares many of the qualities of Russia's Vladimir Putin. Tough, shrewd, uninterested in democracy, and determined to elevate his nation's status after a decade of weakness, he is a formidable opponent for the weak and ineffective international figures remaining in Bosnia. Uncontaminated by the Republika Srpska's wartime past, and buoyed by international criticism of the heavy-handed tactics previously employed by Bosnia's international governors, he is invulnerable to the High representatives' traditional methods.

He has taken to embarrassing the High Representative by frustrating his every endeavour. The High Representative can do little to constrain him. He has no money to withhold – Republika Srpska now receives investment from Eastern Europe and Russia – and no troops to send; international peacekeepers remain in only negligible numbers. When the High Representative's office tried to pin corruption charges on Dodik, he shut down the State Court. He then shut down the state electricity company. When the international community tried to impose a centralised police management on the country, Dodik frustrated it. When the High Representative tried to change voting in the State Council of Ministers, Dodik had the State Prime Minister, a Serb, resign, throwing the central government into paralysis.

In theory, the High Representative can dismiss Dodik. But the High Representative's notional authority is now bereft of might because there is no way of enforcing it. There are no foreign troops to evict Dodik from office.

The State Police are small in number and ethnically divided and no match for Dodik's RS Police. Bosnia has no army of substance. The RS controls its own tax revenues and can financially withdraw from the rest of the country without significant sanction.

Dodik's agenda in the short term is to detach the Republika Srpska from dependence upon the central state institutions. This will be straightforward to achieve, because central government and indeed the Dayton Constitution incorporate "consociationalist" principles whereby decisions can only be taken by consensus of all three of the country's ethnic groups. Provided he can continue to control most Serb officials, Dodik can block every decision of substance. The writ of the State Police and the State Court already runs weakly in Republika Srpska, which has its own police, courts, tax system, national flag and legal regime.

The only significant institutions it shares with the rest of the country are a currency, a vehicle licence plate regime, a common system of VAT and excise collection, border controls and the State Court. These will all be easy to dismantle. The euro could be formally adopted overnight. The central state account for indirect taxes is situated in Banja Luka and it would be no hard task to divert all indirect tax revenues received from RS territory into an exclusive RS account. In any event the RS finance minister can veto all decisions of the state indirect taxation authority, rendering it effortless to destroy the system from within.

The theoretically unified State Border Service is almost exclusively manned by Serb officials where Bosnia's borders fall within RS territory. On the RS's frontiers with Serbia, borders are almost invisible.

The State Court was once a force to be reckoned with, but since 2003 it has been reliant upon international judges and prosecutors and funded by foreign donors. Such an arrangement was never sustainable; and the Court's international officials are now fleeing in light of Serb politicians' threats to block their reappointment. The courts of the RS are loyal to Dodik, and will not faithfully apply state laws against RS interests.

Dodik's motivations in pursuing a detachment agenda are plain. Whereas politics in the Federation are divided between warring politicians from two ethnic groups, five major political parties and ten cantons, politics in the RS is remarkably unitary. Everything is managed within one political party, and, ultimately, by one man.

Compellingly, detachment from the rest of Bosnia is what the overwhelming majority of Bosnia's Serbs want.
They share a collective paranoia about cultural and political dominance by a Bosniak majority. Fears of dominance and persecution have driven politics in the Western Balkans for centuries, and nothing has happened in the past fourteen years since the end of Bosnia's war to extinguish them.

The only force preventing the RS's detachment since 1995 has been the Office of the High Representative, issuing centralizing decrees backed by military force and diplomatic pressure. But since 2006, as the peacekeeping troops have departed and international interest in the region has waned, the High Representative's powers have faded. Dodik has publicly pronounced on several occasions that he considers the actions of the High Representative illegal and will ignore them.

The current High Representative, Austria's Valentin Inzko, dares not attempt to dismiss Dodik by decree lest Dodik makes good on his threat to march 50,000 Serb demonstrators to Sarajevo. Moreover a change of leader in the RS would make things worse, not better.

It is often forgotten that by Bosnian Serb standards, Dodik is a moderate. It may be tough for international community negotiators to accept but Dodik represents the most liberal wing of mainstream Bosnian Serb political thinking. Any replacement might be far more extreme, seeking independence within a more truncated timescale, or being more prone to creating inter-ethnic provocations that may precipitate violent clashes.

Dodik's plan for the RS is incremental. Independence will be pursued piecemeal, as one tie to the central state after another is sequentially cut. By the time the RS is de facto independent, already not far off, the international community will barely have noticed.

As with the case of Montenegro, by the time the formal declaration of independence is made the event will be a fait accompli.
It might once have been possible to strike a grand bargain between Bosnia's three ethnic groups: Bosniaks would accept a loose confederation structure in exchange for Serb and Croat relinquishment of separatist aspirations. Alas, the prospects for this moderately optimistic scenario have all but evaporated, due in large measure to clumsy interference by OHR. For example, a domestic political procedure known as the "Prud Agreement" was an initially promising series of meetings between the Bosniak, Croat and Serb leaders of Bosnia's three principal parties that mapped out a structure for the country's constitutional future after the OHR's departure. Ultimately, however, the OHR-sponsored criminal investigation into Dodik's finances disrupted this initiative.

If therefore the independence of Republika Srpska looks increasingly inevitable, what should the international community do when it happens?

Bosniak politicians and the OHR will urge the High Representative to dismiss Dodik, "annul" independence, and perhaps rewrite the Bosnian constitution to abolish the Republika Srpska or eradicate the consociational voting system that allows Serbs and Croats to veto state-level initiatives. Such a radical course – tearing up the entire post-war constitutional structure – is tempting, but exceptionally dangerous.

If such radical measures were applied only after independence (or a referendum on independence) had been declared, they would be too late. Dodik would either ignore them or use them as a pretext to accelerate his agenda. They could be enforced only by armed intervention in the RS, and occupation by foreign troops; but the necessary soldiers are neither available nor are their political masters willing to commit them in an era in which foreign military adventurism has a bad name.

To stand any hope of success without massive military commitment, High Representative imposition would have to occur before the momentum for independence is irreversible. It would have to take place tomorrow. But at this time there is no international consensus about the desirability of actions of this enormity. It would have to be a US initiative; the EU would almost certainly not support such a measure, considering proconsular constitutional restructuring incompatible with its regional programme.

Moreover, it is almost certainly too late. The time unilaterally to rewrite Bosnia's constitution was in 1999, when the RS was at its weakest and foreign troops were still present in significant numbers. But to act then would have made Bosnia an internationally administered colony indefinitely, a responsibility which nobody wanted to undertake, which is why it was not done. The contemporary situation is quite different. If it were possible for the High Representative to dismiss Dodik, it would have happened in the last two years. The OHR is now too weak and the RS too strong to expect such dramatic orders to be enforced. Ultimately, they would destroy what is left of the international community's credibility in the country, because they would not be obeyed.

In that scenario – a hastened declaration of RS independence triggered by dramatic OHR action – Bosniaks, in the name of defending the Constitution and the authority of the High Representative, might take up arms. The flashpoint would be Brcko, the free city formerly administered by the US government but which has since been abandoned, having not a single US citizen (beyond a couple of Bosnian-American dual nationals) now residing there.

The greatest single impediment to RS independence is geography: its extended territory is difficult to defend and Brcko is its weakest point. Bosniaks might reclaim the officially neutral territory using military force, seeking to cut the RS in two. The international community could then send a small military force into Brcko, ostensibly to stabilize inter-ethnic conflict but in fact to give themselves bargaining power with Dodik through military division of his territory.

If Croatia's support could be garnered, the borders with the western RS could be closed, encircling the RS capital Banja Luka with hostile neighbours. But this strategy would be exceptionally risky. What would be the exit strategy for the foreign troops? How would they avoid being drawn into sporadic acts of violence?

The gravest danger in this scenario would be the reactions of Bosnia's neighbours. Serbia might supply material aid to Bosnia's Serbs. Irregular militias might cross the border from Serbia to the RS as happened in the 1992-95 war. Croatia might refuse to cooperate, due to the likely reaction of Bosnia's Croats. They have their own separatist aspirations. The fact that the entire region's stability is at stake if a clumsy approach is taken to the RS's separatist ambitions is why nothing has been done, and why Dodik remains in office under the international community's sufferance.

This impotence may be unfortunate, but the international community must reckon with its own lack of power if it is to make sound policy decisions. The High Representative's recent strategy is to engage in domestic politics with Dodik: to use such institutions as he has at his disposal against him, such as investigations by the State Court. The aim is apparently to weaken Dodik, and occupy him with domestic political battles rather than the pursuit of an RS statehood project.

But this approach has no end game. Sooner or later the High Representative and his fellow international officials will leave; Dodik will stay. Second, even if it succeeds, a successor to Dodik will almost certainly be more extreme and push the country into crisis more rapidly. Third, the plan of moderating separatist ambitions through creation of ancillary political problems may have the opposite political effect. It may accelerate separatism as the most effective means of counter-attack.

It is, therefore, not hard to conclude that the current strategy of the High Representative is part of the problem rather than the solution. What other options are available? One is to do nothing – abandon hard power in post-war Bosnia and let the country's domestic politicians make of it what they can, at least in the short term. Perhaps they will dust off a grand bargain and catastrophe can be averted. Left to its own devices, the RS might find reason to cooperate with the Federation over a number of issues, leaving some state institutions formally intact.

There is plenty of commercial activity between Bosnia's entities. This would suggest an economic rationale for retaining a common currency (now pegged against the euro and remarkably stable), common transport and infrastructure, free movement of goods, people and services, harmonized legal systems, and even a common regime of indirect taxation.

If and when some act of de jure independence does occur, the international community may be forced reluctantly to accept it. Short of military intervention, there is little it will be able to do. Russia would veto UN sanctions. The EU probably would refuse to recognise RS passports and other documents but it is not clear what this would achieve beyond imposing fresh hardships on the population. In any event most Bosnian Serbs hold Serbian passports. Current foreign investors in the RS, many of whom are from Eastern European members of the EU, would lobby against economic isolation of the RS. Its situation appears economically and politically stable: in the centre of Europe, it has a tolerably professional government, a measure of foreign investment, and an unsubsidised, balanced, government budget.

International isolation of an independent RS will prove difficult and in all likelihood unproductive as it is unlikely to achieve any significant result. A diplomatic black hole in the centre of Europe will also be dangerous to Western Europe's security interests. If a self-proclaimed independent RS is not recognised, it cannot sign extradition treaties, it cannot be a member of INTERPOL, and it is difficult to send international technical assistance to support domestic police and security forces (as happens currently).
If formal recognition of Republika Srpska as an independent state by Western Europe and the United States is unrealistic, there are some prudent steps that pragmatic Western powers can undertake to guard against the danger of violent conflict erupting when Bosnia collapses. Every measure should be used to ensure that even if gradual de facto independence is inevitable, and to a great extent has already occurred, any act of declaration of de jure independence – which might incite Bosniaks to take up arms, and Croats to themselves secede – is postponed indefinitely. If the proper aim is delay, the international community can do nothing better than to leave the country alone, at least for now. The current strategy – of giving Dodik pretexts to detach himself from the rest of Bosnia – can only catalyse the secessionist agenda.

Second, temperate politicians must be supported. The Prud negotiations showed voices of moderation exist in post-war Bosnia. The international community must restrain Bosniaks from doing what will come naturally to them – fighting to prevent the disintegration of their country. However much sympathy for the Bosniaks' situation one may have, knowing the atrocities perpetrated against them, their political aspiration of a unified Bosnia governed by majority rule is possible only for so long as the international community is prepared to run the country as a colony. That level of commitment has evaporated. The Bosniaks must thus be gently disabused of their unitary political agenda, or they surely will be prepared to go to war for it, and foreign Muslim fighters will again be drawn in as they were in the 1992-95 war.

For international politicians familiar with the injustices of Bosnia's first war, this is an unpalatable message. But the time is long past for pursuit of perfect moral ideals. There danger of catastrophe unfolding in Bosnia is real and the overwhelming aim must be to prevent a second Bosnian war. The least bad option is to preside over Bosnia's inevitable gradual disintegration with a moderating hand, ensuring it happens slowly, so its citizens become accustomed to the evolving political landscape. We must keep all parties calm and moderate, to prevent outbreaks of local violence or wholesale mobilisation. In this unenviable position into which the international community has manoeuvered itself, this is the best we can now do.

Matthew Parish was formerly Chief Legal Adviser to the International Supervisor of Brcko. His book on international intervention in post-war Bosnia, A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia, is published by I.B. Tauris. www.matthewparish.com

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Patriarch PAVLE Obituary (S. Trifkovic in Orthodoxy Today)

2009-11-17T19:46:00.001-05:00

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles-2009/Trifkovic-Obituary-Serbian-Patriarch-PAVLE-May-His-Memory-Be-Eternal.php

Obituary: Serbian Patriarch PAVLE

– May His Memory Be Eternal

Srdja Trifkovic

Let us guard against inhumans, but let us guard even more against becoming inhuman ourselves. – Patriarch Pavle

When the man destined to become the 44th Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church was conceived in the the winter 1913-1914, horses and steam moved the world. That world appeared ordered and stable. The calamities of the 20th century – two world wars, revolutions and civil wars, genocides and expulsions, and the suffering of tens of millions of Christian New Martyrs – could not be foreseen. In the Old World the Serbian nation, although divided into two small kingdoms and two mighty alien empires, the Habsburg and the Ottoman, appeared vigorous and full of hope for the future.

Shortly after "the lights went out over Europe," on September 11, 1914 (n.s.) – the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist – a boy was born to the Stojčević family in the village of Kućanci, in today's eastern Croatia. The family's ancestors came to the Turk-devastated borderlands of the Habsburg Monarchy with the Great Serb Migration of 1690 from Kosovo, the martyred Serbian province with which the future Patriarch's life was destined to be closely intertwined.

The weeks that followed the outbreak of World War I were a trying time for the Serbs in the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy: they were collectively blamed for the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo and subjected to mob violence and police persecution. For newborn Gojko's mother Ana, however, the main worry was the fact that the war was raging, the prices were soaring, and her husband Stevan was far away: he had left for America only months earlier in search of work.

In early 1917, just before the United States joined the fray and made the war truly global, Stevan Stojčević came back home – without a penny to his name – to die of tuberculosis contracted in the workshops and rented rooms of western Pennsylvania. A year later Ana remarried but died in childbirth soon thereafter. Gojko and his elder brother Dušan were left in the care of their paternal aunt who raised them as her own children. He was a sickly child unfit for farm work, but the aunt recognized his aptitude for learning and – although poor herself – endeavored to give him a good education.

After graduating from the Fourth Gymnasium (high school) in Belgrade young Gojko enrolled at the Orthodox Seminary in Sarajevo. During World War II, suffering from tuberculosis, he took refuge in the Holy Trinity monastery in Ovčar, in central Serbia. In 1944 he was given only three months to live. His recovery, miraculous in those pre-penicillin times, prompted him to take monastic vows in 1946 and assume the name of his favorite saint, Pavle (Paul)..

The Serbian Orthodox Church, which had a quarter of its shrines destroyed and a fifth of its clergy killed during World War II, was left in 1945 at the mercy of Tito's militantly atheist clique. Most of its property was confiscated immediately after the war, religious education was effectively banned, and the political cost of liturgical attendance was high, often prohibitive. Yet monk Pavle visibly thrived in those years, spiritually and intellectually. In 1954 he was ordained hieromonk. After completing postgraduate studies in Athens (1955-1957) he became archimandrite, and only months later elected the Bishop of Ras and Prizren. Bishop Pavle remained at the helm of that ancient diocese, which includes Kosovo and Metohija, for 33 years – until he was elected Patriarch in 1990.

The long decades of Tito's autocracy were a trying time for the Serbian Orthodox Church. Patriarch German, elected in 1958, had to strike a sensitive balance between the imperative of keeping his Church alive in an inherently hostile political environment and the necessity of establishing a workable modus vivendi with the communist regime. The dilemma, well known to the Russians, had a similar consequence in the misnamed "American Schism" (raskol) of 1963. The split soon spread from the United States to all other communities in the Diaspora. It caused deep divisions that left a lasting scar on the Serbian community as a whole. It is now known that the split was surreptitiously encouraged by the regime in Belgrade, and fanned by the divisive work of its agents infiltrated into the émigré ranks.

As the Bishop of Kosovo, Pavle faced tribulations that were of different nature but similar magnitude. In seeking to win over the Albanians of Kosovo during his wartime struggle to seize power, Tito promised them autonomy and duly proceeded to change the character of the province in their favor after the war. Over 100,000 Serbs were forced out of Kosovo by Albanian Quislings during World War II; incredibly, they were not permitted to return after 1945. An additional 200,000 Serbs left the province, often under duress, between the late 1950s and early 1980s. On the other hand, 200,000 Albanians from Albania settled on deserted Serbian farms after 1945. Their "cadres" took control of the local Communist apparatus. In 1948 the Albanians made a half of the population of Kosovo; by 1981 78 percent; and over 90 percent today.

By the 1970s Orthodox priests in Kosovo were routinely harrassed. Bishop Pavle himself was assailed by an Albanian while walking to the post office in Prizren, and slapped in the face by another at the city's main bus station. The authorities were invariably "unable" to identify the culprits, however, let alone to bring them to justice. Monastic properties were damaged or confiscated, well before the wave of KLA destruction unleashed by NATO in 1999. The biggest church in Metohia, in Djakovica, was demolished by the authorities to make room for a massive "Partisan" monument. The secessionist movement of the Albanians in Kosovo, derived from the logic of the Titoist order, eventually produced Slobodan Milosevic – the neo-communist quasi-nationalist. The violent disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991-1999 was the belated revenge of Tito and his ideological heirs.

Bishop Pavle was elected to the Throne of St. Sava in December 1990, on the eve of that disintegration. He did not seek the post but was chosen as a compromise candidate because neither of the two front-runners could secure the necessary majority in the Assembly. In the dark years that followed he would repeat many times that "there can be no interest, individual or national, which could be used as an excuse for becoming inhuman." As the former Yugoslavia descended into violence, he appealed on the faithful to pray not only for those of good will but for those of ill will, too, as "they are in an even greater need of salvation." When meeting the late U.S. Ambassador Warren Zimmermann in 1991, he was asked what could America do to help him and the bChurch. He replied, without batting an eyelid, "Your Excellency, the most you can do to help us is not to do anything to harm us!"

This was not to be. Yugoslavia was a deeply flawed polity, and there could have been no serious objection to the striving of Croats and Bosnian Muslims to create their own nation-states. But equally there could have been no justification for forcing over two million Serbs west of the Drina River to be incorporated into those states against their will, and without any guarantees of their rights. Yugoslavia came together in 1918 as a union of South Slav peoples, and not of states. Its divorce should have been effected on the same basis. This is, and has been, the real foundation of the Yugoslav conflict ever since the first shots were fired in the summer of 1991. This political essence of the war has been systematically hidden, all over the Western world but especially in the United States, behind the portrayal of the Serbs as primitive ultranationalists who sought to conquer other peoples' lands. The most vehement such accusations, coming from Muslim and Croat sources, went wholesale into the media machine, Congressional resolutions, the pseudolegal fatuities of The Hague "tribunal," and finally into NATO's marching orders.

Sadly, there are many Serbs who have not followed Patriarch Pavle's instruction: "If we live as people of God, there will be room for all nations in the Balkans and in the world. If we liken ourselves to Cain, then the entire earth will be too small even for two people." But the systematic portrayal of the Serbs as demons, and the Muslims of Bosnia or Kosovo as innocent martyrs in the cause of multi-ethnic-cultural tolerance, was a crude exercise in the construction of postmodern quasi-reality. Patriarch Pavle was painfully aware of this fact, but decided to refrain from statements that could be construed as political. He remained silent even when the Croatian authorities demolished the Orthodox church in his native village, in which he was baptized in 1914. He was often criticized in the Western press for making appearances at official functions attended by Milosevic, even though the protocol and tradition demanded his presence, but in 1997 he also appeared, silently, at a rally demanding Milosevic's resignation.

Patriarch Pavle was deply pained by the Mammonic spirit that became dominant in Serbia in the aftermath of the collapse of communism: "I wish I could stand and beg outside the banqueting halls and other gathering venues of the rich, beg for our poor brothers and sisters and their children. We should actively shame those who sink into arrogant greed so openly, instead of expressing our anguish behind closed doors." His proverbial modesty was reflected in his use of public transport and dislike of chauffeur-driven cars. During the Assembly of Bishops in 2006 he walked our of the Patriarchate and saw a long line of shiny black Mercedes-Benz, Audi and BMW cars parked outside the building. "Who do these belong to?" Pavle asked his secretary. "Em, to the Bishops who came to the Assembly, Your Grace." "I only wonder," the Patriarch commented, "what would they have driven if they had not taken the vow of poverty…"

Serbia was blessed with several politically astute Patriarchs in some critical moments of its history, notably Arsenije III (Charnojevich) at the time of the Turkish wars and Great Migration of 1690, and Gavrilo (Dozhich) during World War II.

Patriarch Pavle belonged to a different tradition. He was a mystically prayerful monk, rather than a sanguine Prince of the Church. He was a Patriarch who blended, harmoniously, three key functions of his throne: that of the father, of the priest, and of the prophet. He understood, and lived, the legacy of Prince Lazar, martyred at Kosovo in 1389: "The Kingdom on Earth is but paltry and small; yet the Kingdom of Heaven is forever and knows no bounds.

Letter to LA Times written by Bill Dorich

2009-11-17T17:06:00.001-05:00

Letter to the Editor

The Los Angeles Times

Re: Serbia's Orthodox Leader

Published on numerous Serbian websites

Dear Editor:

The Los Angeles Times demonized Serbian Patriarch Pavle, spiritual leader of the Balkans admired by more than 10 million Serbian Orthodox Christians. I never dreamed the Times would stoop to such appalling bad taste. Reducing the Patriarch to a political opportunist is beyond the pale. Did Carol Williams pen this disgusting obituary; it reeks of her brand of Serbophobia?

The Patriarch was the Bishop of Kosovo for two decades. In 1989, a gang of Albanian teenagers led animals into the bishop's church to defecated on the alter. They scribbled filthy Albanian words over the 13^th century frescoes then proceeded to nearly beat the bishop to death. He was 75 years-old and remained in intensive care for 3 months nearly dying of his wounds. Shockingly you omitted this Albanian violence from this obituary but utilized the space to call this holy man a Serbian "nationalist." Have you no shame?

When Communist dictator Tito granted Albanian "autonomy" in 1978, three Serbian churches and a monastery went up in smoke. Over 140,000 Serbs were forced to leave Kosovo. Albanian authorities removed all Serbian books from schools and libraries and burned over 2 million volumes including numerous priceless 12^th and 13^th century manuscripts.

In 2004 during 4 days of Albanian violence, 32 Serbian Christian churches were razed along with the burning of 500 Serbian homes, right under the noses of 17,000 NATO troops, yet you place the blame for "ethnic wars" at the feet of this Patriarch. More than 90% of the Serbs in Kosovo have been ethnically cleansed. Your newspaper continues to omit the fact that 40% of the Albanians in Kosovo are illegal aliens who cross the border from Albania into Kosovo as easily as Mexicans who cross our border each night in San Diego.

Claiming that the Patriarch "struggled to rally international support for protection of ancient Serbian churches and monasteries that came under attacks" and then failing to inform your readers that Albanians destroy 151 ancient Serbian Christian churches reveals your immoral racism. Carol Williams has been a one-woman hate fest. Her disgusting duplicity is now crowned by this appalling obituary of the highest spiritual leader of the Serbian people… Is your editorial department proud of such unbridled bigotry?

Your obituary ignores more than one million Orthodox Christians in Los Angeles including 150,000 Serbs in Southern California. What a repugnant misuse of freedom of the press. The freedom you denied the Serbian people for the entire decade of the 1990s when the Los Angeles Times, like the New York Times, refused to publish one single article written by a Serbian journalist, author, scholar or political leader during these dismemberment Civil Wars in the Balkans. You were expert at muzzling tactics. Now blasphemy is part of your hate crimes.

When Patriarch Pavle visited Los Angeles in 1992, the first visit of a Serbian Orthodox Patriarch to this country and this city you gave him 62 words on page 11. Your staff ignored every invitation to interview this spiritual leader and to attend our Sunday High Liturgy at St. Steven Serbian Cathedral in Alhambra. You preferred to punish the Serbs in this community with collective guilt. This obituary is a disgraceful display of your continued demonization. When will your editorial hatred be enough?

William Dorich

Los Angeles, CA

The writer is the author of 5 books on Balkan history and music including his 1992 book, Kosovo. He received the Order of St. Sava, the highest recognition given to a layperson by the Holy Synod of Serbian Orthodox Bishops.

Balkan Shadow of Berlin Celebration

2009-11-14T20:01:00.000-05:00

Pyotr ISKENDEROV

Balkan Shadow of Berlin Celebration

The celebration of the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is over. Tens of high-ranking foreign visitors, many of whom had nothing to do with the historical development at the time it took place, spoke about the enormous importance of the German unification and the symbolic significance of the event which put the final dot in the history of the Cold War. The truth, however, is that there are parts of Europe where the fall of the Berlin Wall is not regarded as a totally positive change since immediately upon the alleged completion of the bloodless Cold War Europe had to face a proliferation of real armed conflicts.

The widely held view is that the 1989 German unification opened the era of the demise of totalitarian regimes across the continent and ultimately made the creation of the united Europe possible. Numerous private conversations with the residents of the Balkans actually led me to a different conclusion. The disintegration of Yugoslavia — a process that cost thousands of lives - commenced only a year after the demolition of the Berlin Wall, notably, the unified and extremely powerful Germany was one of its drivers. Germany was behind the urgent declaration of independence by Slovenia and Croatia, as well as behind their snap recognition by the international community regardless of the fact that the latter clearly lacked a viable model of coexistence of its Serbian and Croatian populations. Besides, the origin of the ethnic conflict that erupted in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the spring of 1992 can only be grasped if the activity of outside forces is taken into account.

Why did Germany, a country just rebuilt after the traumatic partition imposed on it after World War II, take the active role in the Balkan geopolitical overhaul? Napoleon used to say that every nation's politics stems from its geography. The concept applies perfectly to the late 1980ies — early 1990ies situation in Europe on the whole and at the Balkans in particular.

It should be realized that following the collapse of the eastern bloc and the unification of the two Germanies Berlin saw itself as the strongest player in Europe and actively sought European leadership over which it traditionally competed with France. US military bases that Germany continued to host in the framework of its international obligations after the withdrawal of the Soviet forces presented the main obstacle in the way of the country's aspirations. There were indications that Germany hoped to have the problem resolved by shifting the bases to the Balkans, where their existence could be based not on Soviet-era international agreements but on a NATO mandate, and where Germany could be guaranteed a place among the key players. What it needed to make the plan materialize was a serious pretext for the Balkan expansion, and the process including the break-up of Yugoslavia and the emergence of several protracted ethnic conflicts spread over its former territory conveniently provided one. The implementation of the scenario began in Slovenia and Croatia, where, due to historic reasons, the German influence was deeply rooted. Already in the 1980ies the German intelligence service had strong positions in Slovenia and especially in Croatia as various émigré nationalist and extremist groups it sponsored gradually made inroads into the administrations. German advisers and NGO envoys flocked to Croatia in numbers in 1989-1990. It was due to their activity that eventually the republic became the scene of the first armed clashes in the former Yugoslavia, which scared even the no less active US representatives.

In May, 1990 Croatia's First President Fanjo Tudman introduced a new constitution (put together largely under German advisers' supervision) via the parliament dominated by pro-independence forces. It proclaimed that Croatia was a national state of the Croats and other peoples inhabiting it rather than, as formulated previously, the state of the Croatian and Serbian peoples as well as of others inhabiting it. The legal subtlety automatically left Serbs who used to be a state-forming nation in the position of a minority. Discontent with the downgrade, Serbs launched a referendum of their own in August 1990, during which, however, their response was limited to asserting their right to sovereignty and autonomy within Croatia. Secession was not on the agenda, but the Croatian government nevertheless resorted to force to prevent the referendum from taking place, and the moment marked the onset of the armed conflict in the republic.

Serbs of Croatia offered a political solution even after the incident. On September 30, 1990 the Serbian National Council proclaimed the autonomy of the Serbian people on the ethnic and historical territories they inhabited within Croatia as a member of Yugoslavia, but Zagreb's course agreed with German advisers remained unchanged. The new Croatian constitution entered into force on December 22, and the very next day the neighboring Slovenia called an independence referendum during which 94% of the ballots were cast in favor of separation from Yugoslavia. Interestingly, over the weeks preceding the enactment of Tudman's constitution Washington kept calling the Croatian leaders to exercise restraint and to avoid steps prone with an armed escalation. Still, Berlin's influence prevailed, and German advisers managed to convince their Croatian protégées to act resolutely. On May 19, 1991 the Croatian administration held a referendum with over 94% of those who went to the polling booths opting for immediate secession. The Serbs of Croatia did not attend, and Germany assisted by Vatican promptly ensured the European recognition of the two new independent countries. Soon Sarajevo followed the suit, massive fighting swept across the Balkans, NATO got the desired pretext for intervention, and Germany emerged as the key force in the new European geopolitical architecture.

Praising the German unification, we should not forget how the fall of the Berlin Wall cast a shadow over other countries and their peoples.

http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=2584