KLA Attacks

by Grey Falcon

For a long time now, the Empire has worked on a way to stamp out the last vestiges of Serb freedom in the occupied province of Kosovo (declared "independent" by its Albanian government in February 2008, with Imperial support). They put the plan into effect this week.

The pathetic quisling regime in Serbia - which has been doing everything in its power to implicitly recognize the "Kosovian" government without overtly doing so - responded by mewling about "diplomatic solutions" and "negotiations" with KFOR, EULEX and other Imperial institutions put into place to help the KLA regime carve out Kosovo. Not surprisingly, the Imperial envoy Peter Feith endorsed the Albanians' actions, saying that every sovereign state has a right to control its territory. Except Serbia, of course, because rules do not apply in her case.

According to reports from the province, Albanian special forces were beaten back from the two checkpoints at the "border", with one casualty. KFOR, commanded by a German general, is helping the Albanian "police" occupy the checkpoints. EULEX is silent. Russia is demanding an urgent, closed session of the UN Security Council.

Belgrade is rolling over and playing dead. But the Serbs in Kosovo don't give a rotten rodent's posterior for the regime currently running Serbia - they are fighting for their survival with everything they have. In the rest of Serbia, there are rumors of protest marches, which the government has banned. God forbid anyone resists the Empire! All the mainstream media are toeing the government line, so the public is rapidly turning to Facebook, Twitter and blogs to find out what is going on.

Yesterday evening Moscow time, I commented on the situation for RT. What puzzled me was the presenter's seeming belief that this was an issue that "Serbia and Kosovo" would have to resolve in order to get into the EU. Far as I know, Russia refuses to recognize the self-proclaimed Albanian state. And this is much more than a border dispute - it's an attempt to snuff out Serb presence in the province altogether, under the guise of "law and order."

What law? What order? By rights, it is Serbia that ought to be establishing its sovereignty over the occupied province, instead of Hashim Thaci's mafia clan posing as government.

Of course, President Tadic has already said his government would not fight. In any case, Serbia's military is busy taking part in NATO's exercises in Ukraine (and just who might those be aimed at? Venezuela?). Yet he and his regime are quickly being rendered irrelevant. The KLA/Imperial takeover was thwarted by the local Serbs, who seem to have preserved both their courage and their convictions.

Had the Albanians waited just a few months more, the spineless slugs in Belgrade would have given them their recognition. By launching this idiotic adventure, they may have ensured the fall of Tadic, and the end of Imperial control over Serbia.

Oft evil will shall evil mar...

Council of Europe Adopts Kosovo Organ Trafficking Report

Sofia News Agency reports:

The human rights committee of the Council of Europe adopted Thursday a resolution requesting investigation of the traffic of drugs, weapons and human organs carried out by organizations in Kosovo under the heading of Hashim Thaci (in civilian clothes on the photo below).

Council of Europe Secretary-General Thorbjørn Jagland has called the information in the report "very serious and concerning" and has requested that the allegations not be left unanswered.

Thaci, a former Kosovar PM, who just won snap elections over the weekend, was a combat leader of the controversial KLA that fought with Serbian authorities for independence with heavy backing from Western countries, especially the USA.

Now the Council of Europe report, drafted by Swiss deputy Dick Marty, and passed by a large 2/3 majority, argues that Thaci and other Kosovar leaders organized the traffic not only of weapons and narcotic, but also of human organs, sometimes harevested from involuntary donors.

“Numerous indications seem to confirm that, during the period immediately after the end of the armed conflict, organs were removed from some prisoners at a clinic in Albanian territory, near Fushë-Kruje, to be taken abroad for transplantation," reads the report.

There has been substantial evidence that Serbians - and some Albanian Kosovars - had been secretly imprisoned by the KLA in northern Albania "and were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, before ultimately disappearing," the report says.

In Kosovo, the government of Thaci dismissed the report as fabrications designed to smear its leaders.

For the full text of the Marty report, read HERE.

Serbia Surrenders Kosovo to the EU

By Diana Johnstone for Counterpunch

On September 10, at the UN General Assembly, Serbia abruptly surrendered its claim to the breakaway province of Kosovo to the European Union. Serbian leaders described this surrender as a “compromise”. But for Serbia, it was all give and no take.

In its dealings with the Western powers, recent Serbian diplomacy has displayed all the perspicacity of a rabbit cornered by a rattlesnake. After some helpless spasms of movement, the poor creature lets itself be eaten.

The surrender has been implicit all along in President Boris Tadic’s two proclaimed foreign policy goals: deny Kosovo’s independence and join the European Union. These two were always mutually incompatible. Recognition of Kosovo’s independence is clearly one of the many conditions – and the most crucial – set by the Euroclub for Serbia to be considered for membership. Sacrificing Kosovo for “Europe” has always been the obvious outcome of this contradictory policy.

However, his government, and notably his foreign minister Vuk Jeremic, have tried to conceal this reality from the Serbian public by gestures meant to make it seem that they were doing everything possible to retain Kosovo.

Thus in October 2008, six months after U.S.-backed Kosovo leaders unilaterally declared that the province was an independent State, Serbia persuaded the UN General Assembly to submit the following question to the International Court of Justice for an (unbinding) advisory opinion: “Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?’”

This was risky at best, because Serbia had more to lose by an unfavorable opinion than it had to gain by a favorable one. After all, most of the UN member states were already refusing to recognize Kosovo’s independence, for perfectly solid reasons of legality and self-interest. At best, a favorable ICJ opinion would merely confirm this, but would not in itself lead to any positive action. Serbia could only hope to use such a favorable opinion to ask to open genuine negotiations on the status of the province, but the Kosovo Albanian separatists and their United States backers could not be forced to do so.

One must stop here to point out that there are two major issues involved in all this: one is the status and future of Kosovo, and the other is the larger issue of national sovereignty and self-determination within the context of international law. If so many UN member states supported Serbia, it was certainly not because of Kosovo itself but because of the larger implications. Nobody objected to the splitting of Czechoslovakia, because the Czechs and the Slovaks negotiated the terms of separation. The issue is the method. There are literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of potential ethnic secessionist movements within existing countries around the world. Kosovo sets an ominous precedent. An armed separatist movement, with heavy support from the United States, where an ethnic Albanian lobby had secured important political backing, notably from former Senator and Republican Presidential candidate Bob Dole, carried out a campaign of assassinations in 1998 in order to trigger a repression which it could then describe as “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” as a pretext for NATO intervention.

This worked, because US leaders saw “saving the Kosovars” as the easy way to save NATO from obsolescence by transforming it into a “humanitarian” global intervention force. Bombing Serbia for two and a half months to “stop genocide” was a spectacle for public opinion. The only people killed were Yugoslav citizens out of sight on the ground. It was the lovely little war designed to rehabilitate military aggression as the proper way to settle conflicts.

The reality of this cynical manipulation has been assiduously hidden from Americans and most Europeans, but elsewhere, and in certain European countries such as Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Slovakia, the point has not been missed. Separatist movements are dangerous, and whenever the United States wants to subvert an unfriendly government, it has only to incite mass media to portray the internal problems of the targeted government as potential “genocide” and all hell may break loose.

So Serbia did not really have to work very hard to convince other countries to support its position on Kosovo. They had their own motivations – which were perhaps stronger than those of the Serbian government itself.

What did Serb leaders want?

The question put to the ICJ did not spell out what Serb leaders wanted. But it had implications. If the Kosovo declaration of independence was illegal, what was challenged was not so much independence itself as the procedure, the unilateral declaration. And indeed, there is no reason to suppose that Serb leaders thought they could reintegrate the whole of Kosovo into Serbia. It is even unlikely that they wanted to do so.

There are very mixed feelings about Kosovo within the Serb population. It is hard to know how widespread is the sense of concern, or guilt, regarding the beleaguered Serb population still living there, vulnerable to attacks from racist Albanians eager to drive them out. The sentimental attachment to “the cradle of the Serb nation” is very strong, but few Serbs would choose to go live there, even if the province were returned to them. In former Yugoslavia, the province was a black hole that absorbed huge sums of development aid, and would certainly be a heavy economic burden to impoverished Serbia today. Economically, Serbia is probably better off without Kosovo. Nearly twenty years ago, the leading Serb author and patriot Dobrica Cosic was arguing in favor of dividing Kosovo along ethnic and historic lines with Albania. Otherwise, he foresaw that the attempt to live with a hostile Albanian population would destroy Serbia itself.

Few would admit this, but the proposals of Cosic, echoed by some others, at least suggest that in a world with benevolent mediators, a compromise might have been worked out acceptable to most of the people directly involved. But what made such a compromise impossible was precisely the US and NATO intervention on behalf of armed Albanian rebels. Once the Albanian nationalists knew they had such support, they had no reason to agree to any compromise. And for the Serbs, the brutal method by which Kosovo was stolen by NATO was adding insult to injury – a humiliation that could not be accepted.

By taking the question to the UN General Assembly and the ICJ, Serbia sought endorsement of a reopening of negotiations that could lead to the sort of compromise that might have settled the issue had it been taken up in a world with benevolent mediators.

International Court of No Justice

On July 22, the ICJ issued its advisory opinion, concluding that Kosovo’s “declaration of independence was not illegal”. In some 21,600 words it evaded the main issues, refusing to state that the declaration meant that Kosovo was in fact properly independent. The gist was simply that, well, anybody can declare anything, can’t they?

Of course, this was widely interpreted by Western governments and media, and most of all by the Kosovo Albanians, as endorsement of Kosovo’s independence, which it was not.

Nevertheless, it was a shameful cop-out on the part of the ICJ, which marked further deterioration of the post-World War II efforts to establish some sort of international legal order. Perhaps the most flagrant bit of sophistry in the lengthy opinion was the argument (in paragraphs 80 and 81) that the declaration was not a violation of the “territorial integrity” of Serbia, because “the illegality attached to [certain past] declarations of independence … stemmed not from the unilateral character of these declarations as such, but from the fact that they were, or would have been, connected with the unlawful use of force or other egregious violations of norms of general international law…”

In short, the ICJ pretended to believe that there has been no illegal international military force used to detach Kosovo from Serbia, although this is precisely what happened as a result of the totally illegal NATO bombing campaign against Serbia. Since then, the province has been occupied by foreign military forces, under NATO command, which both violated the international agreement under which they entered Kosovo and looked the other way as Albanian fanatics terrorized and drove out Serbs and Roma, occasionally murdering rival Albanians.

The ICJ judges who endorsed this scandalous opinion came from Japan, Jordan, the United States, Germany, France, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, Somalia and the United Kingdom. The dissenters came from Slovakia, Sierra Leone, Morocco and Russia. The lineup shows that the cards were stacked against Serbia from the start, unless one actually believes that the judges leave behind their national mind-set when they join the international court.

Digging Itself Deeper Into a Hole

Probably, the Tadic government had expected something better, and had planned to follow up a favorable ICJ opinion with an appeal to the General Assembly to endorse renewed negotiations over the status of Kosovo, perhaps enabling Serbia to recover at least the northern part of Kosovo whose population is solidly Serb.

Oddly, despite the bad omen of the ICJ opinion, the Tadic government went right ahead with plans to introduce a resolution before the UN General Assembly. The draft resolution asked the General Assembly to state the following:

Aware that an agreement has not been reached between the sides on the consequences of the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo from Serbia,

Taking into account the fact that one-sided secession cannot be an accepted way for resolving territorial issues,

1. Acknowledges the Advisory opinion of the ICJ passed on 22 July 2010 on whether the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo is in line with international law,

2. Calls on the sides to find a mutually acceptable solution for all disputed issues through peaceful dialogue, with the aim of achieving peace, security and cooperation in the region.

3. Decides to include in the interim agenda of the 66th session an item namely: "Further activities following the passing of the advisory opinion of the ICJ on whether the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo is in line with international law.”

The key statement here was “the fact that one-sided secession cannot be an accepted way for resolving territorial issues”. This was the point on which the greatest agreement could be attained. The United States made it known that it was totally unacceptable for the General Assembly to hold a debate on such a resolution. The main Belgrade daily Politika published an interview with Ted Carpenter of the Cato Institute in Washington saying that the Serbian draft resolution on Kosovo was "irritating America and the EU's leading countries". American diplomats were “working overtime” to thwart the resolution, he said. Carpenter said that the Serbian resolution was seen in Washington as an unfriendly act that would lead to a further deterioration in relations, and that as a result of its Kosovo policy, Serbia’s EU ambition could suffer setbacks that would have negative consequences for the Serbian government "and the Serb people".

Carpenter conceded that this time around, the country would not be threatened militarily, but noted that the United States was influential enough to "make life very difficult" for any country that stood up against its policies. He concluded that Serbia would "have to accept the reality of an independent Kosovo", and that Washington would thereupon leave it to Brussels to deal with the remaining problems.

The American stick was accompanied by a dangling EU carrot. Carpenter expressed his hope that the EU would consider various measures, "including adjustment of borders, regarding Kosovo, and the rest of Serbia", but also, he noted, Bosnia-Herzegovina, suggesting that Serbs could be satisfied if a loss of Kosovo were compensated by a unification with Bosnia's Serb entity, the Republika Srpska. Giving his own opinion, Carpenter said such a solution would at least be much better than the current U.S. and EU policy, “which seems to be that everyone in the region of the former Yugoslavia, except Serbs, has a right to secede”.

Carpenter, who was a sharp critic of the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia, and who warned that secessionist movements around the world could use the Kosovo precedent for their own purposes, said that such a solution was possible “in the coming decades”… a fairly distant prospect.

The decisive arm twisting was perhaps administered by German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle on a visit to Belgrade. Whatever threats or promises he made were not disclosed, but on the eve of the scheduled UN General Assembly debate, the Tadic government caved in entirely and allowed the EU to rewrite the resolution.

The resolution dictated by the EU made no mention of Kosovo other than to “take note” of the ICJ advisory opinion, and concluded by welcoming “the readiness of the EU to facilitate the process of dialogue between the parties.”

According to this text of the resolution, which UN General Assembly adopted by consensus; “The process of dialogue by itself would be a factor of peace, security and stability in the region. This dialogue would be aimed to promote cooperation, make progress on the path towards the EU and improve people's lives.”

By accepting this text, the Serbian government abandoned all effort to gain international support from the many nations hostile to unilateral secession, and threw itself on the mercy of the European Union.

Still More to Lose

In a TV interview, I was asked by Russia Today, “What does Serbia stand to gain?” My immediate answer was, “nothing”. Serbia implicitly abandoned its claim to Kosovo in return for nothing but vague suggestions of “dialogue”.

A usual aim of all policy is to keep options open, but Serbia has now put all its eggs in the EU basket, in effect rebuffing all the member states of the UN General Assembly which were ready to support Belgrade as a matter of principle on the issue of unnegotiated unilateral secession.

Rather than gain anything, the Tadic government has apparently chosen to try to avoid losing still more than it has lost already. After the violent breakup of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines, Serbia remains the most multiethnic state in the region, which means that it includes minorities which can be incited to demand further secessions. There is a secession movement in the ethnically very mixed northern province of Voivodina, which could be more or less covertly encouraged by neighboring Hungary, an increasingly nationalist EU member attentive to the Hungarian minority in Voivodina. There is another, more rabid separatist movement in the southwestern region of Raska/Sanjak led by Muslims with links to Bosnian Islamists. Surrounded by NATO members and wide open to NATO agents, Serbia risks being destabilized by the rise of such secession movements, which Western media, firmly attached to the stereotypes established in the 1990s, could easily present as persecuted victims of potential Serb genocide.

Moreover, no matter how the Serbs vote, the US and UK embassies dictate the policies. This has been demonstrated several times. Little Serbia is actually in a position very like the Pétain government in 1940 to 1942, when it governed a part of France not yet occupied but totally surrounded by the conquering Nazis.

It would take political genius to steer little Serbia through this geopolitical swamp, infested with snakes and crocodiles, and political genius is rare these days, in Serbia as elsewhere.

EU to the rescue?

Under these grim circumstances, the Tadic government has in effect abandoned all attempt at independence and entrusted the future of Serbia to the European Union. Serb patriots quite naturally decry this as a sell-out. Indeed it is, but Russia and China are far away, and could not be counted on to do anything for Serbia that would seriously annoy Washington. The fact is that much of the younger generation of Serbs is alienated from the past and dreams only of being in the EU, which means being treated as “normal”.

How will the EU reward these expectations?

Up to now, the EU has responded to each new Serb concession by asking for more and giving very little in return. At a time when many in the core EU countries feel that accepting Rumania and Bulgaria has brought more trouble than it was worth, enlargement to include Serbia, with its unfairly bad reputation, looks remote indeed.

In reality, the most Belgrade can hope for from the EU is that it will muster the courage to take its own policy line on the Balkans, separate from that of the United States.

Given the subservience of current EU leaders to Washington, this is a long shot. But it has a certain basis in reality.

United States policy toward the region has been heavily influenced by ethnic lobbies that have pledged allegiance to Washington in return for unconditional support of their nationalist aims. This is particularly the case of the rag-tag Albanian lobby in the United States, an odd mixture of dull-witted politicians and gun-running pizza parlor owners who flattered the Clinton administration into promising them their own statelet carved out of historic Serbia. The result has been “independent” Kosovo, in reality occupied by a major US military base, Camp Bondsteel, NATO-commanded pacifiers and an EU mission theoretically trying to introduce a modicum of legal order into what amounts to a failing state run by clans and living off various criminal activities. Since Camp Bondsteel is untouchable, and the grateful hoodlums have erected a giant statue to their hero, Bill Clinton, in their capital, Pristina, Washington is content with this situation.

But many in Europe are not. It is Europe, not the United States, that has to deal with violent Kosovo gangsters peddling dope and women in its cities. It is Europe, not the United States, that has this mess on its doorstep.

The media continue to peddle the 1999 fairy tale in which heroic NATO rescued the defenseless “Kosovars” from a hypothetical “genocide” (which never took place and never would have taken place), but European governments are in a position to know better.

As evidence of this is a letter written to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on October 26, 2007 by Dietmar Hartwig, who had been head of the EU (then EC) mission in Kosovo just prior to the NATO bombing in March 1999, when the mission was withdrawn. In describing the situation in Kosovo at a time when the NATO aggression was being prepared on the pretext of “saving the Kosovars”, Hartwig wrote:

“Not a single report submitted in the period from late November 1998 up to the evacuation on the eve of the war mentioned that Serbs had committed any major or systematic crimes against Albanians, nor there was a single case referring to genocide or genocide-like incidents or crimes. Quite the opposite, in my reports I have repeatedly informed that, considering the increasingly more frequent KLA attacks against the Serbian executive, their law enforcement demonstrated remarkable restraint and discipline. The clear and often cited goal of the Serbian administration was to observe the Milosevic-Holbrooke Agreement to the letter so not to provide any excuse to the international community to intervene. … There were huge ‘discrepancies in perception’ between what the missions in Kosovo have been reporting to their respective governments and capitals, and what the latter thereafter released to the media and the public. This discrepancy can only be viewed as input to long-term preparation for war against Yugoslavia. Until the time I left Kosovo, there never happened what the media and, with no less intensity the politicians, were relentlessly claiming. Accordingly, until 20 March 1999 there was no reason for military intervention, which renders illegitimate measures undertaken thereafter by the international community. The collective behavior of EU Member States prior to, and after the war broke out, gives rise to serious concerns, because the truth was killed, and the EU lost reliability.”

Other official European observers said the same at the time, and in 2000, retired German general Heinz Loquai wrote a whole book, based especially on OSCE documents, showing that accusations against Serbia were false propaganda. While the public was fooled, government leaders have access to the truth.

In short, EU governments lied then, for the sake of NATO solidarity, and have been lying ever since.

Now as then, there are insiders who complain that the situation in reality is very different from the official version. Voices are raised pointing out that Republika Srpska is the only part of Bosnia that is succeeding, while the Muslim leadership in Sarajevo continues to count on largesse due to its proclaimed victim status. There seems to be a growing feeling in some leadership circles that in demonizing the Serbs, the EU has bet on the wrong horse. But that does not mean they will have the courage to confront the United States. In Kosovo itself, the most radical Albanian nationalists are ready to oppose the EU presence, by arms if necessary, while feeling confident of eternal support from their U.S. sponsors.

The Betrayal of Serbia

If the latest self-defeat at the UN General Assembly can be denounced as a betrayal, the betrayal began nearly ten years ago. On October 5, 2000, the regular presidential election process in Yugoslavia was boisterously interrupted by what the West described as a “democratic revolution” against the “dictator”, president Slobodan Milosevic. In reality, the “dictator” was about to enter the run-off round of the Yugoslav presidential election in which he seemed likely to lose to the main opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica. But the United States trained and incited the athletically inclined youth organization, Otpor (“resistance”), to take to the streets and set fire to the parliament in front of international television, to give the impression of a popular uprising. Probably, the scenarists modeled this show on the equally stage-managed overthrow of the Ceaucescu couple in Rumania at Christmas 1989, which ended in their murder following one of the shortest kangaroo court trials in history. For the generally ignorant world at large, being overthrown would be proof that Milosevic was really a “dictator” like Ceaucescu, whereas being defeated in an election would have tended to prove the opposite.

Proclaimed president, Kostunica intervened to save Milosevic, but not having been allowed to actually win the election, his position was undermined from the start, and all power was given to the Serbian prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, a favorite of the West who was too unpopular to have won an election in Serbia. Shortly thereafter, Djindjic violated the Serbian constitution by turning Milosevic over to the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague – for one of the longest kangaroo court trials in history.

Pro-Western politicians in Belgrade labored under the illusion that throwing Milosevic to the ICTY wolves would be enough to ensure the good graces of the “International Community”. But in reality, the prosecution of Milosevic was used to publicize the trumped up “joint criminal enterprise” theory which blamed every aspect of the breakup of Yugoslavia on an imaginary Serbian conspiracy. The scapegoat turned out to be not just Milosevic, but Serbia itself. Serbia’s guilt for everything that went wrong in the Balkans was the essential propaganda line used to justify the 1999 NATO aggression, and by going along with it, the “democratic” Serbian leaders undermined their own moral claim to Kosovo.

In June 1999, Milosevic gave in and allowed NATO to occupy Kosovo under threat of carpet bombing that would destroy Serbia entirely. His successors fled from a less perilous battle – the battle to inform world public opinion of the complex truth of the Balkans. Having abandoned all attempt to assert its moral advantage, Serbia is counting solely on the kindness of strangers.

Diana Johnstone is author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (Monthly Review Press). She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr

Kosovo is American

by Hannes Hofbauer for the Strategic Culture Foundation

“Kosovo is Serbian”, is one of the key slogans in every political statement throughout Belgrade and Serbian Diaspora-meetings all-around the world. Orthodox monasteries all over the country seem to prove this point of view. “Kosovo is Albanian territory”, is the answer of the majority of the 1,9 million people living on this territory. Their proof seems to be based on the simple quantity of ethnic majority, which – by the way – does not necessarily have to do with statehood. “Kosovo is European”, is the statement of Brussels authority underlining the fact of Kosovo being part of the “Euro”-zone and under EU-supervision. Historically Serbian, ethnically Albanian, economically European periphery. Yes and no. However, geopolitically, Kosovo is American.

What about statehood? On the 22nd of July 2010, 10 out of 14 judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague approved the Kosovarian declaration of independence as compatible with the standards of international law. Independence had been declared on the 17th of February 2008 by an “Assembly of Kosovo” in the parliament in Prishtina. The statement of the ICJ is restricted to the proclamation of the independence and does not refer to the legality of secession. This is a minor contradiction. A more serious contradiction lies in the fact that the Kosovarian assembly in the parliament at the time formally was (and is till today) not representing Kosovo in international belongings. The UN-Resolution 1244 of 1999 put in a “Special Representative of the Secretary General“ as the official representative of the province, which is defined as an integral part of Yugoslavia respectively Serbia. To put it strictly: The Kosovarian parliament was not entitled to represent Kosovo on the international arena. According to international law, no legal body had asked for independence. In the Press release of the ICJ one can read about legality of the „Assembly of Kosovo“ which declared independence: “On this point, the Court arrives at the conclusion that the authors of the declaration of independence . . . did not act as one of the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government within the Constitutional Framework, but rather as persons who acted together in their capacity as representatives of the people of Kosovo outside the framework of the interim administration (..) The authors of the declaration of independence were not bound by the framework of powers and responsibilities established to govern (...)“. Therefore the ICJ “finds that the declaration of independence did not violate the Constitutional Framework”. In other words: because the body which declared independence did not consist of legal representatives of Kosovo, rules of international law were not broken. This is a major contradiction.

The ICJ with its verdict de facto followed the position of the USA and the majority of the EU-states. The Western alliance had already tried before the declaration of independence to implement a so-called “independence under surveillance” by the United Nations. The Ahtisaari Plan was wrecked by Russia (and South Africa). So Washington, Paris, London and Berlin implemented this plan without UN-mandate.

De jure, UN-resolution 1244 is still valid. Kosovo thereby is a part of Serbia and the UN-administration officially rules status-neutrally.

The appeal to the ICJ put the question of state independence on an international level. And it was Serbia asking for it. So Belgrade cannot simply ignore the verdict of the ICJ. To repeat the slogan “Kosovo is Serbian” will not help to overcome its defensive position. Not to speak of the Serbian refusal to take into account the Kosovarian reality. 90% of the population is not willing to accept Serbian national markings. This fact cannot be ignored.

Precedent case

As a precedent the ICJ-verdict on the declaration of Kosovarian independence is far reaching. First of all it underlines the shift from international law towards a human rights preponderating conflict management. In the last two decades Western conflict management more and more operates with human rights arguments instead of international law. The whole NATO-war on Yugoslavia, which broke international law when it started in March 1999, followed the human rights argument to rescue the Albanian population assuming a Serbian aggression. The code of the law of nations thereby was put aside, outruled. NATO war on Yugoslavia also put an end to the juridical framework of e.g. CSCE guaranteeing national sovereignty, territorial integrity and respecting national borders. Since then, instead of codified international law, human rights served as arguments for military aggressions and interventions (e.g. also in Afghanistan). The range of possible interpretations of human rights makes it easy to use them as manipulative arguments serving as instruments for one’s interest.

The acceptance of Kosovo’s independence against the will of Belgrade also is a precedent for many concrete cases. On the territories of Ex-Yugoslavia foremost. After the verdict of the ICJ, it will be harder to explain, why “Republika Srpska” should stay within the federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and why it should be impossible to split and unite with Serbia. Equally it will not be easy to explain to the Albanian minority in Makedonia, why it should be against international law to declare independence from Skopje or unite with Albania and/or Kosovo. Not to speak of the Serbs in the north of Kosovo who do not accept Prishinta’s authority. Why should they stay in a common state with Albanians? Their possible independence and/or unification with Serbia would follow the same ICJ’s logic.

ICJ’s declaration deepens the argument of national independence far beyond Ex-Yugoslavia. As a precedent it is important e.g. also for Tiraspol. The Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR) since 20 years asks for independence from Moldova and for international recognition. Only hours after the ICJ-verdict on Kosovo the PMR-authorities underlined their point of view. And in the Georgian periphery the precedent case of Kosovo already led to a reaction from the Russian side when Moscow recognised the declarations of independence of Abchasia and of South-Ossetia in August 2008.

Self-determination versus colonial governance

Kosovo’s declaration of independence, its recognition by – at the moment – 69 states (out of 192) and the ICJ-verdict cannot hide that Kosovo in reality is not independent at all. This was not intended by the USA anyhow. Self-determination is far out of reach.

In military respect this is most evident. After Russian troops withdrew in June 1999 and later in 2003, the US-led NATO settled down in every corner of the country. In Camp Bondsteel, named after an US-officer who was killed in Vietnam, the US-army installed its biggest military camp in Europe covering a territory of almost 4 square kilometres. But also the civil administration is not in the hands of the local government or parliament. The Ahtisaari Plan of March 2007 is the blueprint of the Kosovarian constitution. This constitution clearly notes the colonial status in article 143: “All authorities in the Republic of Kosovo shall abide by all of the Republic of Kosovo’s obligations under the Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement dated 26 March 2007 (which is the Ahtisaari-Plan; HH). (...) . The provisions of the Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement dated 26 March 2007 shall take precedence (priority, HH) over all other legal provisions in Kosovo. (...) If there are inconsistencies between the provisions of this Constitution, laws or other legal acts of the Republic of Kosovo and the provisions of the said Settlement, the latter shall prevail.”

“Independence under surveillance” was (and is) the key word of Western politics planned for Kosovo. The profiteers of this “independence under surveillance”, besides the organised criminals knowing to handle businesses between legal and illegal structures, are tens of thousands of colonisers. Under abbreviations like UNMIK, EULEX and thousands of NGO’s they fill their bank accounts with monthly wages 10 to 20 times higher than an average local employee. Kosovo is a huge field for experiments: military, political, juridical, administrative. Respecting the fact that executive and legislative power are not divided under the administration of UNMIK’s “Special Representative of the Secretary General” (SRSG) and EULEX’s “International Civilian Representative” (ICR), this shows how politics can be made without Western political proceedings. The SRSG- and the ICR-administrations stand above local laws and international standards.

Since Russia could not stop the implementation of the Ahtisaari Plan, there seems to be no alternative to the colonial status of the region. Belgrade’s proposal from 2007 to combine territorial integrity and substantial autonomy for Kosovo doesn’t even find enough support in Serbia any more. The most reasonable solution would be to divide Kosovo along the river Ibar. The Serbian population north of it would become what they de facto are: Serbian citizens. South of Ibar a second Albanian state has become reality since 1999. Parallel to this split an anti-colonial move could lead to self-determination within Albanian Kosovo.

Several obstacles stand against this vision: the government in Prishtina, which acts as an extended body of Washington and lately threatened with a military intervention in case of Serbs in the north would declare independence from Prishtina; the government in Belgrade, which follows Brussels’ guidelines; and the geopolitical and economic interests of the United States and the European Union. Vague promises from the side of Brussels to integrate Kosovo into the framework of the European Union are not to be taken seriously. Already today Brussels has all economic means in its hands and controls currency and privatisation process. A closer integration would confront Brussels with US-interests. So the status quo is practical for both sides, although it is realised by playing off Serbs and Albanians against each other.

Kosovo Case in the International Court of Justice: Time to Shed Illusions

by Pyotr Iskenderov for the Strategic Culture Foundation

On July 22, the UN International Court of Justice in the Hague will issue its opinion on the status of Kosovo, the breakaway province which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008. For the first time in its history, the Court is to judge on the legality of the proclamation of independence by a territory of a UN-member country without the consent of the latter. The ruling is sure to set a precedent for scores of likewise cases, including those in the post-Soviet space.

The International Court of Justice has been looking into the legality of the unilaterally proclaimed Kosovo independence from the standpoint of international law since the fall of 2008. The request was submitted to the Court by the UN General Assembly following Serbia's demand. After heated debates, the delegations voted in Belgrade's favor: 77 voted for having the case examined by the International Court of Justice, 6 voted against, and 74 abstained. The countries which chose to abstain were mostly the EU members which at the time regarded Kosovo's independence as a decided matter but did agree that Serbia had the right to present its position in the Court. The countries which voted against were the US and Albania as the key architects of the Kosovo independence and a number of Asia-Pacific countries.

The International Court of Justice was supposed to unveil its ruling in April, 2010 but, as the media found out, serious disagreements surfaced among the Court judges and the process took longer than initially expected. Moreover, there were indications that the West deliberately postponed the ruling to exert additional pressure on Belgrade over the extradition of former commander of the army of Bosnian Serbs R. Mladic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

At the moment it is clear that the architects of the new world order are not going to wait any longer, especially considering that the ruling will yet have to be examined by the UN General Assembly which is entitled to make the final decision. Serbia's foreign minister V. Jeremic said the Court verdict would not put the final dot in the dispute over Kosov. He projected that the struggle over votes in the UN General Assembly would be much more serious. Jeremic said Belgrade realized that it would have to face aggressive and heavily funded Albanian propaganda and demands to drop its position, but stressed that Serbia should do its best to preserve domestic political unity and that the peaceful diplomatic struggle for Serbia's territorial integrity and a compromise over Kosovo and Metohija should continue. Jeremic expressed the hope that the verdict of the International Court of Justice would become a moment of truth and ring a warning to those in Pristina who thought they would be able to tailor the international law to their wishes. Are there real grounds for Jeremic's optimism and what verdict can we expect from the International Court of Justice?

One of Serbia's officially stated objectives behind getting the case examined by the International Court of Justice was to impede the recognition of Kosovo's independence across the world. To an extent, the plan has worked. Whereas 48 countries recognized the independence of Kosovo within the term of six months prior to the October 8, 2008 UN General Assembly's decision to send the Kosovo case to the International Court of Justice, only 21 country did the same over nearly two years since the date. As of today, the independence of Kosovo is recognized by 69 of the 192 UN countries. On the other hand, only one country – Costa-Rica – stated officially that it may reverse its decision depending on the Court verdict. As for the EU, the countries still denying recognition to Kosovo are Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Romania, and Slovakia.

Serbia's problem is that the disposition in the International Court of Justice happens to be the opposite of that in the UN General Assembly. In the Court, 9 of 15 judges including the presiding one represent Japan, Sierra Leone, Jordan, the US, Germany, France, New Zealand, Somali, and Great Britain, namely the countries which have recognized the independence of Kosovo. The opposite position is espoused by Slovakia, Mexico, Morocco, Russia, Brazil, and China. Therefore, Serbia's other officially stated goal – to achieve international acknowledgement of the illegitimacy of the unilateral proclamation of independence by Kosovo – appears unrealistic.

There is information that in the past several months the International Court of Justice judges considered three potential rulings. The first one can be indefinitely worded, contain condemnations of both the Kosovo unilateralism and Serbia's politics under S. Milosevic, and say neither Yes nor No to the independence of Kosovo. This gentle option will materialize if Serbia capitulates in what concerns the extradition of Mladic.

The second potential ruling, which was mainly advocated by France, was supposed to carry the statement by International Court of Justice that the issue is purely political and can only be addressed at the level of the UN Security Council. The scenario does appear improbable at least because to make such a statement the Court would not have had to get bogged on the case since October, 2008 or hold closed hearings in December, 2009.

There is also the third potential ruling, and the current impression is that the majority of the judges are going to opt for it. The verdict can be premised in the assumption that, allegedly, the Kosovo case is unique, the coexistence of Kosovo Albanians and Serbia within a single statehood is impossible, the talks on the status of the province collapsed, and therefore the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo – and its subsequent recognition by a number of countries - were a forced step and a smaller evil. The verdict will be accompanied by the dissenting opinions of some of the judges who do not recognize the independence of Kosovo due to fundamental regards, but this will not change the fact that the verdict will be favorable to Albanians.

By the way, Kosovo administration is absolutely convinced that the coming verdict of the International Court of Justice will be news to it. Kosovo foreign minister Skender Hyseni has already broadcast the Kosovo administration's determination to gain control over the whole territory of the province, which practically means subduing its northern, Serb-populated part. The verdict of the International Court of Justice can provide a legal backing for the hard-line policy.

While the judicial contest over Kosovo is likely lost for Serbia and the countries supporting it, the long-term repercussions of the coming verdict and the role it can play in other conflict cases should be assessed from a broader perspective. The conclusions and even more so the arguments of the International Court of Justice will be studied carefully with an eye to similar conflicts, including those in the Caucasus and other parts of the post-Soviet space. The options open to Russia in this context certainly deserve attention.

From the outset, the Russian leadership stated quite reasonably that its decision to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was based on an understanding of the situation in the Caucasus and not in any way on the Kosovo precedent. Nevertheless, the fact that the International Court of Justice would express no opposition to the independence of Kosovo would automatically weaken the West's case against the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by Russia. Moreover, opportunities would arise to subject to an overhaul the general principles of conflict resolution in the Balkan and the Caspian regions, for example, in Bosnia, Macedonia, or Karabakh. In fact, Russia is confronted with the following dilemma. As far as the international law and the territorial integrity principles are concerned, Moscow would certainly prefer to see the International Court of Justice issue a pro-Serbian verdict, but a Realpolitik approach can help discern alternative horizons in the situation, and then the Serbian cause is not completely lost regardless of what the Court eventually says. Perhaps, it is time for Moscow to shed counterproductive illusions in domestic politics and geopolitics. Unlike Belgrade's efforts aimed at securing the Serbian interests in the Balkan region and supporting Serbs in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and elsewhere, the plan centered around the International Court of Justice has never looked really promising.

Petr Iskenderov is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Science and an international commentator at Vremya Novstey and the Voice of Russia.

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Commentary: The court, predictably, did what it was expected to do: in the words of the BBC, the International Court of Justice rejected Serbian claims that the move had violated its territorial integrity. One may wonder what it would take to actually "violate Serbian sovereignty" if an illegal seizure by a alliance of foreign powers and a violent imposition of a new sovereignty does not.

The International Court of Justice also seems to have 'forgotten' the admittedly 'minor' 'detail' that the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia was absolutely illegal. Just like the 'liberal' pundits who blame Dubya for his illegal war forget that it was Clinton who engaged in the first such aggressions.

Truly, the absolute hypocrisy of international community towards the issue of the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo is without precedent. When these wars took place, the international community, the pundits, the journalists, the commenators - in one word everybody, showed an amazing, breathtaking lack of integrity, honesty or courage. Basically, the big powers wanted to make an example being smashing Yugoslavia and nobody said word.

The famous words of Pastor Martin Niemöller about how "First they came..." were forgotten or, more accurately, ignored.  As they say in the USA, when you head is in the sand, your ass is in the air and what began in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo lead directly to what happened later in Iraq and is about to happen in Iran.  Somehow, nobody understood that what happened in the former Yugoslavia was not only the end of a mult-cultural state in the Balkans, but the death of international law.  Just as the infamous 1938 Kristallnacht was not about broken storefronts but about the end of the rule of law and ushering into a new era of endless violence and murder, so the NATO wars in the Balkans ushered us all into the era of endless wars of aggression.

I can hardly express my total disgust with this topic and with all the parties involved - Serbs included (for those who forgot, the "Serbian Serbs" - those in rump Yugoslavia - agreed to impose a blockade on the Bosnian Serbs; nowadays the Serbian government is basically a stooge for the EU and NATO).  The only people who had the guts to do the right thing were the Russian paratroopers who dashed from Bosnia into Pristina but who were betrayed by the Elstin regime.  You know the motto of the Russian paratroopers?  "Никто кроме нас" (Nobody except us).  How true and how sad.

The Saker

Serbia’s sovereignty under attack: EU calls on recognition of Kosovo’s independence

by Anna Filimonova for the Strategic Culture Foundation

The EU’s project on the Western Balkans, which implies the final settlement of the Kosovo problem (namely: the integration of Northern Kosovo where most of the population are Serbs, into “Prsitina government authorities”) is entering its final stage.

On July 8, the European parliament adopted the resolution, which welcomes the recognition of Kosovo’s independence by the EU. The resolution, adopted by 455 votes to 155 calls on the EU member-states to stick to the single position on Kosovo and on the International Court (in late July the court is expected to bring its verdict on the legitimacy of the unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence).

The resolution calls on the European Commission and member states to take practical steps to make the benefits of EU cooperation more tangible to people in Kosovo – such as allowing visa liberalization for its citizens once the necessary criteria have been met. It also urges reforms against corruption and organized crime to decentralization and transformation of the administrative system.

Earlier during the discussion on Kosovo and Albania European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy Štefan Füle expressed his support to the resolution. Seeing that not all the EU member-states share the same view on Kosovo’s status. (five countries do not recognize its independence), the European parliament decided to take the matter fully under its control and to use as a geopolitical reference point - “common European future of Kosovo and Western Balkans”.

Füle expressed confidence that the work with “Pristina authorities” will continue whatever the decision of the International Court on the unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence is. The EU wants Pristina to fulfill a number of conditions, first of all “to return displaced persons in satisfactory manner”; and what is required from Serbia is “pragmatic approach to the status of Kosovo”.

Greek deputy Takis Hadjigeorgiou opposed the resolution of the European parliament, saying on behalf of the United Leftists that its adoption is impossible, just like it is impossible to call on all EU members states to recognize the unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence. An independent deputy from Austria pointed out to the fact that the resolution of UN Security Council N 1244 is still effective and the EU has no right to force the recognition of Kosovo’s independence (1).

The West has a plan regarding Northern Kosovo. It is likely that the future verdict by the International Court is already known because once it is announced the talks will begin on the status of Northern Kosovo. The plan implies giving Kosovo Serbs a special status similar to the models applied in Tyrol and Northern Ireland. But the plan excludes an option of talks on the status and division of Kosovo. It claims that Northern Kosovo will not be fully divided from Serbia and the Serbs in the north of Kosovo will enjoy a “wide autonomy”, wider than it was envisaged by the plan of Martti Ahtisaari, with Pristina and Belgrade acting as guarantors of this autonomy.

What is special about the current approach of the Western diplomacy towards Serbia is that the recognition of Kosovo’s independence is not an obligatory condition – what is required is a “constructive position” concerning the participation of Pristina authorities in regional institutions - in other words in means everything except the official recognition of the independence. In return the European Parliament promises Serbia (that has become a sad tradition since 1991) to facilitate its entry in the EU.

The EU proposed Belgrade to jointly elaborate a draft resolution on Kosovo after the International court brings its verdict. But the Serbian authorities rejected the proposal and said they would work out their own draft resolution and submit it to the UN General Assembly in September.

For almost 20 years Serbia has facing threats and this time Germany, France and Great Britain warned it that any attempts to start talks on the status of Kosovo would be prevented. They see the Serbian draft resolution for UN General Assembly as a “campaign of the General Skupstina in the UN against the EU members”, which will have “inevitable consequences” for Serbia’s plans to enter the EU”. But if Serbia obeys, Berlin, Paris and London promise to initiate the procedure of Serbia’s entry into the EU in September (2).

The feelings run high. On July 6, the UN Security Council held an emergency session on the request of Serbian President Boris Tadic. The session was held following following last week's grenade explosion at a flashpoint area in the country's north. An unknown assailant threw two bombs at a demonstration of about 1,000 Kosovo Serbs protesting Pristina's move to open a community service centre in the ethnically-divided town of Mitrovica. A Bosniak paediatrician ( M. Jekovic), who did not attend the rally, was killed in the attack. Eleven others, all ethnic Serb protesters, were wounded. Later one more attack took place in which “Kosovo parliament deputy” representative of the Serbian Independent Liberal Party Petar Miletic was wounded.

The opening of Pristina’s community service centre is seen as characterizes as the first practical step to establish executive power in order to integrate the region of North Mitrovica. “Kosovo Prime Minister” Hasim Taci said that the attack was “an act by Serbian extremists”, “Kosovo Foreign Minister” Skender Hyseni accused Serbs and Belgrade of what had happened. He expressed confidence that “the community service center as part the Kosovo government will function” because “Kosovo government is determined to establish its power on the entire territory of Kosovo”.

At the session of the UN Security Council the US supported Pristina saying that its move was a “legitimate step of a sovereign state”, the assault in North Mitrovica was “a purely criminal act and not a terrorist attack” and that Miletic was wounded by local Serbs. France's representative at the session said that was a “local scale incident”, the situation in Kosovo is “stable” and that “the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, (EULEX) is successful in keeping peace and order in Kosovo”. The resolution adopted by the European parliament on July 8, states that this last attack in Mitrovica was an act done by uncertain radical groups and organized criminal gangs.

Speaking at the session of UN Security Council Boris Tadic called on the implementation of the Six Points Plan proposed by the UN Secretary General in November 2008, and supported by the UN Security Council. Tadic accused the International civilian service headed by Pieter Feith of establishing an illegal and undesirable regime, said that the attempt to open a service of Kosovo government in Mitrovica was a provocation. He also said that the position of the US which supported the move as “arousing deep concern”. According to Tadic, Serbia will have to reconsider its attitude to the presence of the international mediators in Kosovo if they do not stop to support Pristina’s steps on destabilization. He said that EULEX should investigate all the attacks against Serbs while NATO should keep a certain number of its servicemen in Serbian monasteries to protect Serbian people. He said that Belgrade won't tolerate the establishment of any centers, courts and telecommunication network of temporary Pristina administration in the region. He added that Kosovo problem cannot be resolved beyond the contexts of the region’s status and it is necessary to resume talks with Albanians in order to find a comprehensive compromise solution. (3).

The UN Security Council characterized the attack as a terrorist attack of Albanian separatists and said that Pieter Feith as the head of the International civil service was responsible for it. It said that the terrorists must be punished and any attempts to open temporary institutions of Kosovo administration should be prevented because they threaten the stability of Kosovo Mitrovica and the entire region.

However, “the international presence” itself represented by the administration of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, (EULEX) – urged restraint. Their presence did not hamper the complete integration of Kosovo’s South into “Pristina government institutions”. The main danger is first of all that the “Kosovo style” integration also means assimilation abandoning the national identity (the language, the culture, the history). Besides that, among those who have power in the Republic of Kosovo are the people whose names are connected with severe crimes – murders, tortures, kidnapping; these people took part in the war against the Serbian state and in the expelling of Serbs from Kosmet. Over 11 years the north of Kosovo has been a “non-integrated territory”, plus it is linked with Serbia geographically. But despite angry statements of the Serbian President in reality the Serbian authorities provide almost no help to the Serbian communities of Kosovo (first of all economically and in terms of human personnel), though it is here where the educational and health care institutions are located which are not subordinate to the international authorities in Kosmet. In general the most important and difficult ethnical and state issue – the Kosovo issue – is not the priority on the agenda of domestic and foreign policy of the Serbian government.

Secondly, “Pristina’s integration process” is not limited by Kosmet. The Albanian side is now paying attention to “the problem of Presehvo-Buyanovats-Medvezhya” naming this region the Eastern Kosovo, as well as to the western Skopje, Tetovo and Kumanovo in Macedonia (where Albanian campaigns are regularly held with the demonstration of symbols of the Kosovo Liberation Army), and right to the Montenegrin region of Lake of Scadar…

The goal of the project of “the international community” declared by the current resolution of the European parliament to show that Northern Kosovo cannot be separated from the rest of its territory and the relevant “reforms” should be carried out on the entire territory of Kosovo (first of all on decentralization of the North) with the prospect of the integration, which would inevitably lead to the assimilation of the Serbian population.

______________________

(1) http://www.rts.rs/page/stories/sr/story/9/Srbija/734458/Dve+godine+rada+Vlade.html

(2) http://www.rts.rs/page/stories/sr/story/9/Srbija/734700/Poseban+status+za+sever+Kosova%3F.html

(3) http://www.rts.rs/page/stories/sr/story/9/Srbija/733802/Savet+bezbednosti+o+severu+Kosova.html

Iran and the Balkans: Russia Risks Making the Same Mistakes

by Pyotr Iskenderov for the Strategic Culture Foundation

The recent UN Security Council resolution slapping new sanctions on Iran is likely to become the worst defeat suffered by the Russian diplomacy over the past years. Its negative impact may be persistent and more serious than that of the proclamation of Kosovo's independence to which Russia continues objecting. What we are witnessing seems to be an unexpected recurrence of the syndrome of unilateral concessions to the West which eroded Russia's international politics, especially its Balkan part, in the 1990ies. Following the Western lead in dealing with Iran, Russia is risking to lose both its positions in a region much more extensive than the Balkans and its hard-earned key role in the raising multipolar world.

Commenting on the vote in the UN Security Council (where Russia's BRIC peer Brazil and NATO member Turkey voted against the sanctions), the influential Tehran Times wrote: “The fact that Turkey and Brazil, two U.S. allies, voted against the resolution provides further proof that the actions against Iran and the latest decision of the Security Council are based on secret deals struck by the major powers. Thus, those who say the U.S. abandoned its Eastern European missile shield plan in order to win the support of Russia were probably correct”.

In 2009, the Russian foreign ministry was on a number of occasions forced to deny that — as Western media kept suggesting — there existed a «missile defense for Iran» swap deal. Indeed, it probably did not exist as a formalized agreement, but the truth is that at a certain moment Russia adopted a much tougher stance on Iran and froze its arms transactions with the country (suspending the supply of the S-300 air defense systems), as well as that currently Moscow risks loosing its strategic partner in the Middle East without any visible reasons for such sacrifice. Can the invisible reason be an obscure deal with US President B. Obama?

Recent developments signal a complicated array of shifts in the region and outside of it. The mediation successfully undertaken by Turkey and Brazil in the talks over the enrichment of Iran's uranium stockpile outside of the country, the escalation in the Middle East, the tensions between Turkey and Israel, new geopolitical maneuvers around the Karabakh settlement and related energy projects (in which Turkey, Iran, and Azerbaijan, the country with a special position, are to play the key roles) altogether confront the US with the threat of isolation and loss of leadership. As for Iran, it is no secret that the three rounds of sanctions imposed on the country in 2006-2008 failed to undermine its capability to implement a nuclear program, which has become an element of the Iranian national identity. There are no indications that the situation is going to change from Iran's perspective this time.

The situation is going to change from Russia's perspective, though, and certainly for the worse. Loosing Iran, demonstratively distancing itself from the Turkish-Brazilian mediation (for which President Medvedev expressed support previously), and siding with the US Moscow put in jeopardy the political gains of the recent years such as independence and assertiveness in international politics and the clarity of geopolitical priorities. Voting for new sanctions and constructing the nuclear power plant in Bushehr at the same time is an example of the very double standards that Moscow justly rebelled against whenever it encountered them in Western policies.

Russia evidently tried to recoup some of its geopolitical losses immediately after the vote in the UN Security Council. Russia's foreign ministry promptly posted an extensive comment saying: “However, we can’t ignore the signals indicating that some partners intend, almost immediately after the decision in New York, to move to considering additional sanctions against Iran, more stringent than those provided by the UNSC resolution. We regard this as the manifestation of a policy that runs counter to the principles of joint work within the Six and the UNSC format. Unacceptable to us are attempts in such a way to place oneself “above” the Security Council. We also categorically reject any national decisions on the imposition of “extraterritorial sanctions,” i.e., restrictive measures under one’s own legislation with regard to individuals and legal entities in third countries. Such decisions, should they affect Russian legal entities or individuals, would entail retaliatory response by us.

The new resolution leaves extensive room for further cooperation with Iran in the trade and economic field and on energy, transport and peaceful space exploration. As applied to Russian-Iranian bilateral ties, all of these areas have significant potential and growth opportunities. Of fundamental importance for us is the further development of cooperation with Iran in the construction of light water reactors”.

The arguments seem OK but still reek of an attempt to save face. It is unlikely that the US and the EU, overwhelmed with gratitude to Russia, will in the future show greater respect for its interests or adapt to the Russian foreign ministry's position on Iran. The Russian diplomacy's pledges to go on cooperating with Iran would have been more credible if Russia at least abstained during the UN Security Council vote, as, for example, did Lebanon.

Washington pursued its own interests without exceptions throughout the Russian-US debates over Iran. Obama's decision against deploying missile defense infrastructures in Poland and the Czech Republic was predictable due to purely economic regards and did not take Russia's consent to sanctions against Iran. In fact, the missile defense program is still on but will employ more advanced technologies ensuring radar surveillance over a greater area. In the foreseeable future Russia will be confronted with an evasive network of mobile systems instead of two undisguised stationary installations. The Persian Gulf zone and the Black Sea region will be given key roles in the framework of the initiative. It did not go unnoticed that the US Administration carefully avoided linking any of the provisions of the New Start treaty with the state of the US missile defense program.

The most alarming aspect of the current situation is the analogy it invokes with the 1990-ies — early 2000i-es Balkan developments. In that epoch Russia also demanded on the formal level that all sides in the Balkan conflicts equally abide by the international law, called for compromises, and voted for sanctions in the UN Security Council, holding that this was the only way to stop escalations. The overall result was progressing imbalance in the Balkan and broader European security architecture. The norms declared were supposed to be mandatory for all nations, but the Serbs invariably ended up disadvantaged. The format of the international contact group which handled Balkan crises is frighteningly similar to that currently employed in dealing with Iran (the six-party talks). Russia was defeated in the five-party talks on Kosovo when it consented to the so-called three principles, one of them being that the situation should not revert to the 1999 condition. The provision was eventually used by the proponents of Kosovo independence to justify its unilateral declaration.

Now Russian envoys quite reasonably blame the UN and its Secretary General for being either reluctant or unable to address the Kosovo problem and charge the EU and the US with bias and unilateralism. But isn't the West demonstrating bias and acting unilaterally when it consents to the nuclear statuses of India and Pakistan, shields Israel from criticism over its nuclear program, but keeps pushing for ever tighter sanctions to be imposed on Iran?

The Balkan settlement has shown the inadequacy of international negotiating formats like five-party or six-party talks and the pointless character of UN discussions. In practice, the West relies entirely on its own mechanisms to promote its own geopolitical interests. Russia chose to be on the side of the US and the EU instead of strengthening its commercial ties with Iran (including the Caspian Sea delimitation and the energy projects), involving countries with unbiased positions in the talks over the Iranian nuclear dossier, and supporting the independent and successful mediation contributed by Turkey and Brazil. Will the US and the EU return the favor — for example, in the form of concessions in Kosovo, Caucasus, or energy politics? Based on the Balkan experience, it is clear that they will not.

Petr Iskenderov is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Science and an international commentator at Vremya Novstey and the Voice of Russia

NATO's Kosovo War, 11 Years Later

By Ambassador James Bissett for Balkan Studies

Eleven years ago NATO opened its bombing campaign against Serbia, illegally and without provocation. It started on March 24, 1999, and continued for 78 days and nights. It was the most intensive air offensive suffered by any country since the end of the Second World War.

Over a thousand people were killed and the civilian infrastructure of Serbia was destroyed, but it proved unable to degrade the Serbian military. It caused far more suffering than it prevented. For the first time since its founding the North Atlantic Alliance, led by the United States, acted in violation of its own treaty and the United Nations Charter by using violence to resolve an international dispute. This illegal act marked a historical turning point and was a fatal step in dismantling the framework of peace and security that had governed international relations since the end of the Second World War. It set precedents that will continue to plague international affairs for years. The bombing also revealed a disturbing reality that has continued to haunt us: the ease with which our democratic countries can be led into committing acts of violence and war by political leaders prepared to tell us lies.

President Clinton, Prime Minister Blair and other NATO leaders told their citizens that the bombing of Serbia was a humanitarian intervention to stop President Milosevic of Serbia from committing genocide and the ethnic cleansing of the Albanian majority in Kosovo. This of course was not true: forensic times have found some 2000 victims of the Kosovo conflict so far – Serbian and Albanian, civilian and military – who had been killed prior to NATO’s air war in March 1999. Distressing as this figure may be, it is not genocide. Nevertheless, the accusations that genocide took place in Kosovo continue to be accepted without hesitation by the western media.

The claim about ethnic cleansing was also a falsehood. While it is true that several thousand Albanians had been displaced within Kosovo by the armed conflict between the Serb security forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the large-scale exodus of the Albanian population occurred after the bombing started. United Nations figures show that the mass of refugees fled Kosovo after the first bombs began to fall In other words, it was the bombing that caused the flight from Kosovo. Despite the proof of this we continue to hear in the western media that the NATO bombing “stopped ethnic cleansing.”

In reality the bombing of Serbia had nothing to do with genocide or ethnic cleansing. The bombing had everything to do with demonstrating that NATO was still a viable military organization and was needed in Europe. There is ample evidence now to show that the United States and British secret services aided and abetted the KLA in its efforts to use violence to destabilize Kosovo and to create the excuse for NATO intervention.

The Kosovo crisis and the 78 day bombing campaign against Serbia was from the outset a carefully planned fraud. Because bombing people for humanitarian reasons was an obvious contradiction, it had to be portrayed as an urgently needed rescue mission to stop the “genocide” that was allegedly taking place in Kosovo. This was done by a highly organized publicity campaign designed to deceive a compliant media and a gullible public that Milosevic was evil and that the Serbs were barbarians who had to be stopped. Hailed as the man who brought the Bosnian war to a conclusion at Dayton four years earlier, he was now depicted as the “butcher of the Balkans” and conveniently charged by The Hague War Crimes Tribunal as a war criminal. The duplicity and the deception which reached their height during the bombing itself has continued to this day.

The subsequent policies followed by the United States and its NATO allies have not only continued to be based on falsehood and hypocrisy, but also continue to pose a threat to world peace and security.

The heart of the problem has been what appears to be a determination of the United States policy makers, whether Democrat or Republican, to look upon the Western Balkans as their special fiefdom where international rules of conduct do not apply. It is as if they regard these Slavic lands as lesser breeds without the law, and therefore can do with them whatever they deem desirable. This hubris has lead the United States and the obedient but morally bankrupt leaders of Germany, France and Great Britain to follow wrong-headed policies such as the bombing of Serbia and the recognition of Kosovo independence – and to do so without scruples.

Perhaps it is too much to hope for that the critical financial problems faced by the United States and many European countries will curtail their meddling in the affairs of smaller nations and give them pause to reflect that the rule of law applies to all and that international disputes must be resolved without the use of force. This is the hope – however tenuous - expressed by our Foundation's members, friends and associates on the eleventh anniversary of the bombing of Serbia.

Kosovo Albanians brown-nose US imperialism with statue

Comment: whatever comes their way in the future, the Kosovo Albanians will have deserved it. The Saker

From Pristina to La Paz: Expelled US Ambassador to Bolivia had been in charge of Kosovo Secession

The Balkanisation of Bolivia

By Wilson García Mérida

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10187

Global Research, September 13, 2008

Rebelion.org - 2007-01-17

George Bush sent to Bolivia his Ambassador of Ethnic Cleansing [original title translated from the Spanish]

He presented his credentials before President Evo Morales on October 13, 2006; but three months before his arrival in Bolivia, when he was still in Pristina fulfilling his role as head of the US mission in Kosovo, it was already being said that the new US ambassador designated by George Bush for this Andean country, Philip Goldberg, would come to take part in the separatist process that was being cultivated in the background to pierce the Bolivian regime.

On July 13, 2006, the journalist for El Deber of Santa Cruz, Leopoldo Vegas, published a report indicating that "in the view of three political scientists interviewed after learning about the White House's decision, the experience acquired by Goldberg in eastern Europe which produced ethnic conflict after the separation of the former Yugoslavia can be used in Bolivia, using as an opportunity the changes that the government itself is trying to introduce."

One of those interviewed by Vegas was the academic Róger Tuero, former head of the Political Science department at Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University (Uagrm) in Santa Cruz, who stated that characteristics of each ambassador are determined by US diplomacy. "It's not by chance that this man was moved from Kosovo to Bolivia," said Tuero.

Ambassador Goldberg today is one of the principal political and logistical supporters of still-Governor of Cochabamba, Manfred Reyes Villa, who created the worst ethnic, social, regional, and institutional crisis one can remember in the history of the Republic of Bolivia.

Who is Philip Goldberg?

According to the curriculum vitae officially distributed by the United States Embassy in La Paz, Philip Goldberg was involved from the beginnings of the civil war in Yugoslavia that erupted in the nineties, until the fall and prosecution of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.

Between 1994 and 1996 he was the State Department's "Bosnia Desk Officer", at the point when the conflict between Albanian separatists and Serbian and Yugoslav security forces erupted.

During the same period, he served as Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who was the author of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the fall of Milosevic. "In the latter capacity" – states the Embassy - "he was a member of the American negotiating team in the lead-up to the Dayton Peace Conference and Chief of Staff for the American Delegation at Dayton."

Ambassador Goldberg was also a political-economic officer in Pretoria, South Africa, and later a consular and political officer at the US Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, where he began to become interested in Latin American politics.

After exercising his charge as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Santiago, Chile from 2001 to 2004, Goldberg returned to the Balkans to direct the US mission in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, where he supported the prosecution in The Hague of the former dictator Milosevic (who died March 11, 2006).

From Kosovo to Bolivia

Before his transfer to Bolivia, Goldberg worked from Kosovo for the separation of the states of Serbia and Montenegro, which occurred in June of last year, as the last remaining aftertaste of the disappearance of Yugoslavia.

The disintegration of Yugoslavia unfolded during a bloody decade of civil war created to divide up through processes of "decentralization" and "autonomy" that which was finally imposed with the US military intervention and the presence of NATO and UN troops who occupied the Balkans to pacify the region.

The Yugoslav civil war had as its principal feature what is called "ethnic cleansing," which consists of the expulsion or annihilation of the traditional ethnic groups that make up the territory of Yugoslavia. The cruelest of this racial extermination occurred between the Serbs and the Croats.

Bolivia, only three months since the arrival of Ambassador Goldberg, began to suffer an exacerbation of racism and separatist autonomous movements, as in the Balkans, which was initiated from the eastern city of Santa Cruz, where the governing elite made up of, among others, Croatian businessmen, created a federalist movement called "Camba Nation."

One of the main Santa Cruz leaders of this separatist movement is the agro-industrial businessman and partner of Chilean capitalists, Branco Marinkovic, who in February 2007 became head of the Civic Committee of Santa Cruz, the entity behind the mobilization of pressure against the government of Evo Morales.

The separatist autonomous movement

The "Camba Nation" lumps together with Santa Cruz the departments [states] of Beni, Pando and Tarija (where one finds the largest reserves of natural gas in Bolivia), whose populations voted in favor of departmental autonomy in a referendum held in July of 2006, comprising the so-called "half moon" that represents the eastern half of the country.

The western departments of La Paz, Chuquisaca, Potosí, Oruro and Cochabamba voted "no" on autonomy, maintaining their direct link to the central government of Evo Morales and in effect separating the four autonomous departments of the "half moon."

This autonomous separatism – which should be recognized by the new constitution by virtue of a Law of Incorporation in the Constituent Assembly [the body drafting a new constitution] – was made worse by a off-the-cuff decision taken by former president Carlos Mesa in 2004, when the "Camba Nation" was creating pressure through city governments and civic strikes for the direct election of prefects (department governors). Previously, prefects were chosen directly by the president, maintaining the unity of the Executive Branch, a power that new president Evo Morales was not able to exercise and who is now obligated to govern almost completely separated from the four autonomous prefects.

In Cochabamba, a department that falls exactly between the east and the west – and where an alternative to separatism, with the proposal of mega-regional autonomy instead of departmental autonomy, began to gestate – its prefect, Manfred Reyes Villa, abusing his elected position, attempted to reject the results of the July 2, 2006, referendum and illegally force another vote in order to annex Cochabamba to the "half moon," breaking the fragile balance between autonomous and non-autonomous departments.

The attack in Cochabamba

Despite it being something decided by the ballot boxes, Reyes Villa tried to force a new autonomous referendum to unite Cochabamba with Santa Cruz, mobilizing the most conservative urban sectors of Cochabamban society.

The popular movement and above all the agrarian and indigenous organizations from the 16 provinces of this department, came to the city demanding an agrarian joint partnership in the prefect's administration in the face of the exclusionary, nepotistic and corrupt manner with which Reyes Villa governed from the city of Cochabamba (capital of the department), they arrived here to demand from the prefect a change in his politics.

Instead of seeing to the just demands from the provinces, Reyes Villa encouraged the organization of a group of fascist youth, advised by the Santa Cruz Youth Union (UJC) which operates in Santa Cruz, with the objective of "expelling the Indians from the city." In this manner erupted the tragic day of January 11, 2007, when a violent attack was provoked, culminating in two dead and 120 gravely injured; the majority being farmers. In pursuit of the truth, the September 14^th Plaza (the prefect's seat and symbol of departmental power) has been occupied by more than 50,000 indigenous from the 16 provinces, demanding the resignation of Reyes Villa.

The day that thousands of "daddy's sons" carried out the attack armed with clubs, baseball bats, golf clubs, iron tubes and firearms, Reyes Villa abandoned the city and headed to La Paz to meet with the four autonomous prefects and individuals from the US Embassy.

Though the government could have opened many spaces for dialog, Reyes Villa systematically refused meet with the provincial representatives, "self-exiling" himself in Santa Cruz, where until now he tries to transform the problem into an explosive national conflict, threatening the stability and democracy of this country, presided over by an indigenous man.

The CIA and Reyes Villa

The influence of the CIA and of Ambassador Goldberg on the political actions of Reyes Villa (a former captain of the army associated with the dictatorships of Banzer and Garcia Meza) is irrefutable.

The separatist prefect has systematically blocked a peaceful solution to the conflict and in its place has developed a raging campaign of misinformation that seeks to create the conditions for confrontation on a national scale.

The US Embassy is deploying an effort of collective indoctrination against the indigenous crisis, promoting racial hatred and separatism that was evident during the events of January 11, 2007, in unison with business organizations such as the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (Cainco) in Santa Cruz, which openly supports Reyes Villa and his "advisors."

But the US meddling during this conflict is not only occurring on the ultra-right, but also through the infiltration of the government of MAS [Movement Towards Socialism – Morales' party].

In mid-January 2007, the morning paper La Razón in La Paz published a photo which revealed the diversion of provisions and supplies belonging to the state Civil Defense body (that are destined for victims of natural disasters) to the farmers in the September 14^th Plaza in Cochabamba.

It's been established that a former NAS agent (a DEA-financed anti-drug program) identified as Juan Carlos Chávez, who strangely functioned as an advisor to the Ministry of Justice, involved himself with Civil Defense without having the authorization to order the diversion of state resources. The photograph of the irregular act, taken by outsiders, was curiously published by a paper in La Paz, 650 kilometers from Cochabamba. Chávez was fired for the act and will have to make clear he is a former DEA agent exercising powerful influence inside the Ministry of Justice.

The media campaign to tarnish the indigenous mobilization in Cochabamba is part of a psychological war, CIA-style, and is one point in the separatist strategy headed from Santa Cruz by the still-prefect of Cochabamba, Manfred Reyes Villa.

The Balkanization of Bolivia seems to have begun.

This text was translated from theSpanish. First pubished by Rebelion.org, 19 January 2007