Posts on Kosovo

[KoTeMoRe]

Hey, I have a question about the Partition Plan. Can anyone tell me what parts besides the North (Mitrov. area), Serbia wants partitioned? What are the community sizes (number of people?) in other locations?

This is an insanity, stop with it already. A partition is a de facto divorce legitimated. Kosovo should either be a Zone Franche, either stay Serbian.

I'm appalled that Serbians are giving up this. If this passes, then we should already kick the bucket of international procedure and Law and get back to the 17th century.

[Pleonasm]

This is an insanity, stop with it already. A partition is a de facto divorce legitimated. Kosovo should either be a Zone Franche, either stay Serbian.

I'm appalled that Serbians are giving up this. If this passes, then we should already kick the bucket of international procedure and Law and get back to the 17th century.I have to inform you that we already live in the 17th century. We may have stealth fighters and computers, but sadly it's nonetheless the 17th century. And to be honest I think the politicians in Belgrade realized that a partition is the best they can get.

While we're at it: A couple of day ago I was busy reading Austrian newspapers from the 19th century and the news back then were just as great as today: Russia pictured as a great menace, Brits fighting around Kandahar, Serbs busy stiring up the Balkans... History doesn't repeat itself but there are striking resemblances. :D

[ssal]

Hey, I have a question about the Partition Plan. Can anyone tell me what parts besides the North (Mitrov. area), Serbia wants partitioned? What are the community sizes (number of people?) in other locations?


Appart from the North (Leposavic, Zubin Potok) Serbs also live in South-East Kosovo in Strpce. Should there be a division (highly unlikely) this area is impossible to get attached to Serbia Proper. It is bordered by FYROM. Kosovo's political boundaries, unlike Slovenia's are not the same as the ethnic ones. Therefore there are only 2 REAL solutions, however highly unlikely for Kosovo's situation that can guarantee a peaceful future for this region:

1- Population change: Maintain the current borders but swap Serb population of Kosovo, with Albanian population in Serbia (Bujanovac, Presevo)

2- Redraw Kosovo's map, where North Kosovo is attached to Serbia and the Serbian regions of Bujanovac and Presevo (with significant Albanian population) are added to Kosovo.

Only then will the ethnic and political boundaries match and you have some sort of stability.

[KoTeMoRe]

I have to inform you that we already live in the 17th century. We may have stealth fighters and computers, but sadly it's nonetheless the 17th century. And to be honest I think the politicians in Belgrade realized that a partition is the best they can get.

While we're at it: A couple of day ago I was busy reading Austrian newspapers from the 19th century and the news back then were just as great as today: Russia pictured as a great menace, Brits fighting around Kandahar, Serbs busy stiring up the Balkans... History doesn't repeat itself but there are striking resemblances. :D


First as a tragedy, next as a farce.

[SrB-23Q]

Appart from the North (Leposavic, Zubin Potok) Serbs also live in South-East Kosovo in Strpce. Should there be a division (highly unlikely) this area is impossible to get attached to Serbia Proper. It is bordered by FYROM. Kosovo's political boundaries, unlike Slovenia's are not the same as the ethnic ones. Therefore there are only 2 REAL solutions, however highly unlikely for Kosovo's situation that can guarantee a peaceful future for this region:

1- Population change: Maintain the current borders but swap Serb population of Kosovo, with Albanian population in Serbia (Bujanovac, Presevo)

2- Redraw Kosovo's map, where North Kosovo is attached to Serbia and the Serbian regions of Bujanovac and Presevo (with significant Albanian population) are added to Kosovo.

Only then will the ethnic and political boundaries match and you have some sort of stability.

interesting how none of this happened for the serbs in Krajina and Republika Srpska during the 90s

[cinoeye]

Good Read-Graphic Warning!!!
(not fresh but great)

http://www.balkanpeace.org/index.php?index=/content/balkans/kosovo_metohija/beginners/beginners.incl
The New York Times of Saturday, March 27, quotes Laura Leslie, a senior from Miramonte High School, San Francisco: "I don't want to see another thing like what happened with Hitler, with a terrible person taking over countries". Laura reads the newspaper and listens to the news, and in her innocent way sums up the message of the propaganda war-supporting machine. She is not to be blamed for oversimplifying what is going on in Kosovo and why her country is at war again. The media and the President try to convince you that this is true and that you should support the men and women of your armed forces for the sake of your values and your children's future. But I would like to offer you a less simplistic explanation.
To begin with, the rebellion in Kosovo is not the result of the last 10 years. Albanian separatism is the oldest nationalistic movement in what used to be Tito's Yugoslavia, and it has started the circle of mutual mistrust, hatred and eventually war in there. At the beginning of this century, Albanians made only one third of the Kosovo population. At the beginning of the fifties, after somewhat prolonged fight with the remains of what used to be the Albanian quisling state established by Mussolini's Italy, Tito's regime decided to give this part of Serbia a political, cultural, economical and juridical autonomy, as well as generous subventions from the federal budget.
http://www.balkanpeace.org/content/balkans/kosovo_metohija/beginners/assets/Prekale.jpgAt the beginning of sixties, Albanian population made 2/3 of the Kosovo population. At that time the first public demand for independence was raised during the riots in 1968 and again in 1981, several months after Tito's death. None of us had at that time heard anything about Milosevic, who was a banker with no political influence whatsoever. Their demand for independence had nothing to do with repression, for if there was any repression at that time, it could only have been an Albanian repression against the Serbs in Kosovo. The New York Times, which can hardly be said to be in favor of the Serbs, wrote at that time: "Serbs have been harassed by Albanians and have packed up and left the region. The Albanian nationalists have a two-point platform, first to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then to merge with Albania to form a greater Albania. Some 57.000 Serbs have left Kosovo in the last decade" (NYT, July 12, 1982). Rape, murder, threats, the destruction of property were the instruments of such a platform, and with the police and courts in Albanian hands, nobody could get protection from the state.
Milosevic rose to power and gained popular support in 1988 with the promise that he would put an end to the violence against Serbs in Kosovo. The autonomy of the region was abolished in 1990, several months before the dismembering of Yugoslavia started, just as the regional parliament declared Kosovo's independence from Serbia. At that moment Albanians started to organize parallel state institutions, such as schools, a tax collecting system, courts and the police.
There is no doubt that during the nineties Albanians in Kosovo were exposed to repression. The police searched their houses looking for arms, arrested them without warrant and often avoided the legal procedure. However, at the same time, Serbs were exposed to the same police harassment by the same regime in Serbia.
http://www.balkanpeace.org/content/balkans/kosovo_metohija/beginners/assets/policecar1.jpgAll political forces among Albanians have publicly acknowledged that their aim was not the democratization of Kosovo, but independence, which means secession form Serbia, and joining Albania. They differ as to what means should be most appropriate for achieving this goal, but they have never made a secret that the creation of Great Albania, and not democracy in Serbia or autonomy in it, is their aim.
http://www.balkanpeace.org/content/balkans/kosovo_metohija/beginners/assets/policecar2.jpgRefusing to take part in Serbia's political life, especially in elections, Albanians helped Milosevic stay in power. Instead of Albanian elected political representatives, Kosovo was represented in Serbia's parliament by representatives of the tiny Serbian population from Kosovo, who were all, needless to say, Milosevics supporters. If Albanians had decided to vote for their representatives only once, and they had a chance four times in the last ten years, Milosevic would have lost the power. The Serbian democratic opposition and independent intellectuals close to the
http://www.balkanpeace.org/content/balkans/kosovo_metohija/beginners/assets/policeman.jpgopposition have tried to organize meetings with leading Albanian politicians several times during this period in order to convince them to vote, to take part in Serbia's political life, which would immediately mean the fall of the Milosevic regime, the protection of Albanian political rights and the end of repression, but Albanian leaders declined any such proposal, with the answer that the only thing they were interested in would be independence for Kosovo. Thus Milosevic and Albanian leaders helped one another: he ruled Serbia by using their votes, and, on the other hand, with repression helped them radicalize the political situation in Kosovo.
http://www.balkanpeace.org/content/balkans/kosovo_metohija/beginners/assets/KLA.jpgLast year the Kosovo Liberation Army emerged as an important player in Kosovo's political game. Reading The New York Times or listening to NATO leaders, one might get the impression that the KLA is something like The Red Cross, or a group of peaceful old ladies who every day bring flowers to Serbian houses. But it is not so. It is an armed paramilitary formation which last summer had two thirds of Kosovo under its control. The KLA has ethnically pure and independent Kosovo as its only aim. It struggles for it not with political, but with violent means: attacking police patrols, Serbian civilians and their houses, forcing them to leave Kosovo, and bombing coffee-shops in which Serbian kids gather. I would like to stress the fact that what they do is ethnic cleansing as well. Killing civilians is killing civilians, and I expect your indignation to be the same in any criminal case of this sort. Not a single day has passed in the year and a half without a report that at least three people were killed by the KLA, Serbs as well as Albanians loyal to the state. It would be highly hypocritical to refer to the KLA as to "unarmed civilians", when it calls itself an Army.
Last October a peace agreement between the Serbian authorities and the leaders of the KLA was reached. According to it, the Serbian government would withdraw all the special police and some of the military units, and the KLA would cease its operations until the final peace agreement was reached. Only the first part of this deal was fulfilled. The KLA never stopped the killings, the excuse being that it had no central command and that the local units cannot be controlled by anyone. After the Serbian police and military units withdrew from Kosovo, the K.L.A. simply walked into the empty space and gained control over a large part of Kosovo and continued the violence.
http://www.balkanpeace.org/content/balkans/kosovo_metohija/beginners/assets/woman1.jpgA Serbian widow packs two rifles as she leaves her home in the village of Bukos in northern Kosovo, February 23. The night before, her husband Mirko Milosevic was shot to death outside their house by ethnic Albanian rebels. (Bela Szandelszky — AFP)
As you can see, the demand for Kosovo's independence led to the repression, the repression led to KLA and terrorism, terrorism led to Serbian military and police intervention, and it led to NATO's assault on Yugoslavia. None of the steps I have listed was unavoidable. Nevertheless, everything eventually comes down to the question of Kosovo's independence. As I was never tempted to support the idea of Great Serbia, I do not understand why anyone should think that Great Albania is a noble aim. This aim can be achieved only at the cost of changing borders and by ethnically cleansing Kosovo of Serbs in the first phase, and then by repeating the same procedure in Macedonia, which also has a numerous Albanian minority.
Not Milosevic, but Yugoslavia is being bombed today for the failure of its representatives to sign the document offered in Rambouillet. This document is not the result of negotiations and peace talks, and it meets all the demands of only one side in the conflict. According to it, Kosovo will stay in Serbia as a self-governed region only for the next three years, after which period it may declare its independence. The Albanian delegation has signed the document, but they have enclosed a written statement which says that they do not give up their central aim, the independence or Kosovo. The Serbian side accepts a broad autonomy, but declines both the possibility of independence, and the occupation by some 28000 NATO solders.
As the leaders of the NATO countries say, the bombing will stop the moment "Milosevic", who has become a general name for 10 million Serbs, their state and their president, agrees with the Rambouillet document. This means that the bombing will last as long as there is anything in Serbia left. Neither Milosevic, nor anybody in Serbia can sign such a document, for it would mean signing that part of our country will become part of Albania in three years. Even though I think that Serbia would be better off without Kosovo, I wouldn't sign it either. This is neither a matter of Serbian sentimentality, nor has it anything to do with the battle of Kosovo in 1389, as some crash-course experts would have it. It has to do with the principles and with the right of any country to protect its borders and its integrity. In spite of repeated claims that the NATO countries are not in favor of Kosovo's independence, this is exactly what they are supporting by their military intervention. In Rambouillet Serbia was confronted with the alternatives to agree with the secession, or to be bombed and thus forced to agree with it; not much of a choice, as you see.
http://www.balkanpeace.org/content/balkans/kosovo_metohija/beginners/assets/wounded1.jpgA seriously wounded Serb policemen clenches his fist in pain, during a clash with ethnic Albanian rebels. Five Serb policemen were wounded February 23 when KLA soldiers attacked a judge and her team that arrived in Bukos to investigate after rebels killed a Serbian villager and wounded three others the previous day. (Srdjan Ilic — AP)
If the term ethnic cleansing is to be used, it has been committed by both Albanians and Serbs over the last 20 years, but a genocide has not taken place, and the killings happen on a much smaller scale than in Algeria or Ethiopia, to name only two current crises in the world. Yugoslavia is a sovereign state and Kosovo is a part of it; Yugoslavia has not committed an aggression against any neighboring state. On the contrary: it is being threatened by Albania as a KLA base and by Macedonia as a NATO base. (Leaving the Yugoslav territory the other day U.S. diplomat William Walker said "Next time I will not need a visa to enter Yugoslavia", a sentence which, as you might assume, does not mean that the visa regime between our countries will be suspended.) The assault on Yugoslavia is a clear case of violating the UN Charter, and no rhetoric can change this fact. If Serbia refuses to allow a province to secede, outsiders have no right to label such defense of its national borders an "aggression" and to support the rebels. Great Britain fought for the Folkland Islands, the small leftover of its colonial empire, and nobody bombed London for that.
The ongoing bombing of Serbian cities has taken its first victims. As I write this text, the number of civilian casualties among Serbs is 1000, and I invite you to compare it with the number of Albanian casualties in the village of Racak in January this year, which was 40. Among other things, NATO bombs have destroyed or damaged 50 schools, the printing facilities of Koha Ditore, the leading Albanian daily newspaper, the ice cream factory in Sombor, the 600 year old monastery Gracanica in Kosovo and the monastery Rakovica in Belgrade. Recalling high human values and morality, the NATO leaders do exactly the same thing of which they accuse the Serbs.
The bombing of Yugoslavia has produced exactly what NATO claims to have tried to prevent: more destruction, more dead bodies, more violence. While the KLA is in offensive, rightly understanding the NATO missiles and planes as its own airforce, Serbian extremists can be expected to try to take their revenge, and thus take into the conflict the parts of Kosovo spared killings and destruction so far. Contrary to the media reports I hear and read in the U.S., French intelligence sources from Kosovo do not confirm that the Serbian counter-offensive has taken place yet, which does not mean that such a possibility is improbable in the future.
http://www.balkanpeace.org/content/balkans/kosovo_metohija/beginners/assets/bukos.jpgA Serb trooper runs for cover behind a Yugoslav army T-55 tank after fighting erupted with the Kosovo Liberation Army outside Bukos, Kosovo. (Attila Kisbenedek — AFP)
The further result of NATO's aggression on Yugoslavia seems to me easy to foresee. A new era of insecurity has begun, for nobody knows when the NATO leaders are going to invoke values and principles, moral imperatives and, last but not least, American geopolitical interests, as a pretext of attacking some other country without the authorization of the UN. It can be Macedonia when Albanians take arms, or Romania, with its huge Hungarian minority, or any other multi-ethnic state in the world. I am pretty sure it will not be Turkey, even if a new Kurd upsurge breaks out, and you probably do not need my help to understand why not. Second: from now on no argument can prevent Bosnian Serbs to secede stating the very same arguments the NATO leaders used in case of Kosovo, - to be able to live in their own country- and that means the end of the Dayton peace agreement. Thirdly: it doesn't take much to predict that Yugoslavia cannot defend itself against the overwhelming power of NATO. It is only a matter of time when NATO accomplishes its goal of seceding Kosovo from Serbia. The new, greater Albania will not be a democratic and peaceful state, but aggressive and violent, and the region will be shaken with violence and conflicts even more than so far. As far as Serbia is concerned, Milosevic will emerge from this crisis even stronger than before, but no Western oriented and democratic Serb will be able to say aloud words like democracy, the rule of law, and justice. If the states usually identified with these values were able to violate international laws and the UN Charter, hypocritically recalling the values that were renounced by their deeds at the same moment, in order to help dismember Yugoslavia, then we in the opposition are left without any argument. The same applies to the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, established to investigate war crimes against the civilians committed in last ten years in the former Yugoslavia, for there is no difference between Serbian officers who planned and executed the bombing of the Croatian city of Vukovar, and people who plan and execute the bombing of Serbian cities and villages today. They can both list their reasons endlessly, and the words like "moral imperative", "defenseless people", "our children", as well as the sentence "the enemy understands only the language of force" can be heard from them very often. Moreover, this will give a perfect justification for all those who during the wars in the former Yugoslavia supported or took part in assaults on civilians, and a perfect excuse for further crimes.
What are the rules in the game of dismembering the former Yugoslavia? Addressing the nation President Clinton made a hardly understandable analogy with the holocaust, which would suppose that the Jews in Germany had a Jewish Liberation Army, that they controlled part of, say, Bavaria and intended to join it with Israel. However, the real analogy with Albanians in Kosovo can be found in comparison with Serbs in Croatia. As Albanians in Kosovo, Serbs in Krajina, Croatia, were the majority. As Albanians in Kosovo, Serbs in Krajina were repressed and frightened by President Tudjman's resurrection of Ustasa-Nazi ideology and its symbols. As Albanians were deprived of their autonomy, Serbs in Krajina were deprived of their constitutional rights. And, finally, as Albanians now, Serbs then took arms and started to fight. In August 1995 the Croatian forces attacked Krajina, bombed cities and villages and killed civilians, even fleeing refugees. In only three days 250 000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Croatia and made to join other 200 000 who came to Serbia from other parts of Croatia, without being so far allowed to return to their homes. NATO was silent and nobody said a word about bombing Croatia. On the contrary: Warren Christopher, who was the State secretary at that time, said: Let us wait and see, maybe there is something good for us in it. Consequently, the U.S. did not cooperate in this matter with The Hague Tribunal, which investigated it as a case of large-scale ethnic cleansing, by refusing to give the satelite photos taken during the action of the Croatian army.
What were the principles and the values defended by the U.S. in 1995? The principle was that no border in the former Yugoslavia could be changed, and that no national minority had the right to form a new state on other state territories. Four years later, the principle has been changed, new values defended, and we witness the U.S. pushing Kosovo towards independence, helping Albanians change the borders within three years and form a new state on Yugoslavia's territory. This is what happened in Rambouillet, and no high-flown rhetoric can make it look better, as no rhetoric can diminish the fact that the number of refugees, according to NATO sources, was 40 000, and six days after the assault on Yugoslavia the same sources claim almost half a million. If this is not just a belated justification for the assault like the case of the Kuwaits ambassadors daughter, who appeared in the Security Counsel during the Golf War to testify that she has been raped by the Iraqi solders in Kuwait, although she was safely in Washington all the time then somebody must be able to recognize the fact that the number of refugees increased during the assault, and that the assault produces the result NATO leaders say they want to prevent. Smart bombs fall on Albanian heads as well.
http://www.balkanpeace.org/content/balkans/kosovo_metohija/beginners/assets/HolbrookeJunik1998.jpgUS envoy Holbrooke at his first Kosovo meeting with KLA, Junik 1998 (AP)
If the U.S. are really interested in the peace in the region, then their policy is totally counterproductive. Instead of supporting non-nationalist and democratic forces, the U.S. keep supporting one nationalistic and anti-democratic group against the other. Robert Gelbard, the U.S. diplomat and former Clinton's special envoy to the Balkans, was the first to understand that. He publicly said that the KLA was a terrorist organization, and promised moral support for democratic forces in Serbia, thus isolating extremists on both sides and announcing the only solution for this part of Europe: Kosovo without terrorism and Serbia without autocracy. The current U.S. policy towards Yugoslavia took another turn: supporting terrorism and antagonizing even democrats among Serbs.

[cinoeye]

In Yugoslavia, Rising Ethnic Strife Brings Fears of Worse Civil Conflict
By DAVID BINDER, Special to the New York Times
The New York Times
November 1, 1987, Sunday, Late City Final Edition
Section 1; Part 1, Page 14, Column 1;

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Portions of southern Yugoslavia have reached such a state of ethnic friction that Yugoslavs have begun to talk of the horrifying possibility of "civil war" in a land that lost one-tenth of its population, or 1.7 million people, in World War II.
The current hostilities pit separatist-minded ethnic Albanians against the various Slavic populations of Yugoslavia and occur at all levels of society, from the highest officials to the humblest peasants.
A young Army conscript of ethnic Albanian origin shot up his barracks, killing four sleeping Slavic bunkmates and wounding six others. The army says it has uncovered hundreds of subversive ethnic Albanian cells in its ranks. Some arsenals have been raided.
Vicious Insults
Ethnic Albanians in the Government have manipulated public funds and regulations to take over land belonging to Serbs. And politicians have exchanged vicious insults. Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls.
Ethnic Albanians comprise the fastest growing nationality in Yugoslavia and are expected soon to become its third largest, after the Serbs and Croats.
Radicals' Goals
The goal of the radical nationalists among them, one said in an interview, is an "ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself." That includes large chunks of the republics that make up the southern half of Yugoslavia. Other ethnic Albanian separatists admit to a vision of a greater Albania governed from Pristina in southern Yugoslavia rather than Tirana, the capital of neighboring Albania. There is no evidence that the hard-line Communist Government in Tirana is giving them material assistance.
The principal battleground is the region called Kosovo, a high plateau ringed by mountains that is somewhat smaller than New Jersey. Ethnic Albanians there make up 85 percent of the population of 1.7 million. The rest are Serbians and Montenegrins.
Worst Strife in Years
As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially strongly since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981-an "ethnically pure" Albanian region, a 'Republic of Kosovo' in all but name. The violence, a journalist in Kosovo said, is escalating to "the worst in the last seven years."
Many Yugoslavs blame the troubles on the ethnic Albanians, but the matter is more complex in a country with as many nationalities and religions as Yugoslavia's and involves economic development, law, politics, families and flags.
As recently as 20 years ago, the Slavic majority treated ethnic Albanians as inferiors to be employed as hewers of wood and carriers of heating coal. The ethnic Albanians, who now number 2 million, were officially deemed a minority, not a constituent nationality, as they are today.
Were the ethnic tensions restricted to Kosovo, Yugoslavia's problems with its Albanian nationals might be more manageable. But some Yugoslavs and some ethnic Albanians believe the struggle has spread far beyond Kosovo. Macedonia, a republic to the south with a population of 1.8 million, has a restive ethnic Albanian minority of 350,000.
"We've already lost western Macedonia to the Albanians," said a member of the Yugoslav party presidium, explaining that the ethnic minority had driven the Slavic Macedonians out of the region.
Attacks on Slavs
Last summer, the authorities in Kosovo said they documented 40 ethnic Albanian attacks on Slavs in two months. In the last two years, 320 ethnic Albanians have been sentenced for political crimes, nearly half of them characterized as severe.
In one incident, Fadil Hoxha, once the leading politician of ethnic Albanian origin in Yugoslavia, joked at an official dinner in Prizren last year that Serbian women should be used to satisfy potential ethnic Albanian rapists. After his quip was reported this October, Serbian women in Kosovo protested, and Mr. Hoxha was dismissed from the Communist Party. As a precaution, the central authorities dispatched 380 riot police officers to the Kosovo region for the first time in four years.
Officials in Belgrade view the ethnic Albanian challenge as imperiling the foundations of the multinational experiment called federal Yugoslavia, which consists of six republics and two provinces.
'Lebanonizing' of Yugoslavia
High-ranking officials have spoken of the "Lebanonizing" of their country and have compared its troubles to the strife in Northern Ireland. Borislav Jovic, a member of the Serbian party's presidency, spoke in an interview of the prospect of "two Albanias, one north and one south, like divided Germany or Korea," and of "practically the breakup of Yugoslavia." He added: "Time is working against us."
The federal Secretary for National Defense, Fleet Adm. Branko Mamula, told the army's party organization in September of efforts by ethnic Albanians to subvert the armed forces. "Between 1981 and 1987 a total of 216 illegal organizations with 1,435 members of Albanian nationality were discovered in the Yugoslav People's Army," he said. Admiral Mamula said ethnic Albanian subversives had been preparing for "killing officers and soldiers, poisoning food and water, sabotage, breaking into weapons arsenals and stealing arms and ammunition, desertion and causing flagrant nationalist incidents in army units."
Concerns Over Military
Coming three weeks after the ethnic Albanian draftee, Aziz Kelmendi, had slaughtered his Slavic comrades in the barracks at Paracin, the speech struck fear in thousands of families whose sons were about to start their mandatory year of military service.
Because the Albanians have had a relatively high birth rate, one-quarter of the army's 200,000 conscripts this year are ethnic Albanians. Admiral Mamula suggested that 3,792 were potential human timebombs. He said the army had "not been provided with details relevant for assessing their behavior." But a number of Belgrade politicians said they doubted the Yugoslav armed forces would be used to intervene in Kosovo as they were to quell violent rioting in 1981 in Pristina. They reason that the army leadership is extremely reluctant to become involved in what is, in the first place, a political issue.
Ethnic Albanians already control almost every phase of life in the autonomous province of Kosovo, including the police, judiciary, civil service, schools and factories. Non-Albanian visitors almost immediately feel the independence - and suspicion - of the ethnic Albanian authorities.
Region's Slavs Lack Strength
While 200,000 Serbs and Montenegrins still live in the province, they are scattered and lack cohesion. In the last seven years, 20,000 of them have fled the province, often leaving behind farmsteads and houses, for the safety of the Slavic north. Until September, the majority of the Serbian Communist Party leadership pursued a policy of seeking compromise with the Kosovo party hierarchy under its ethnic Albanian leader, Azem Vlasi.
But during a 30-hour session of the Serbian central committee in late September, the Serbian party secretary, Slobodan Milosevic, deposed Dragisa Pavlovic, as head of Belgrade's party organization, the country's largest. Mr. Milosevic accused Mr. Pavlovic of being an appeaser who was soft on Albanian radicals. Mr. Milosevic had courted the Serbian backlash vote with speeches in Kosovo itself calling for "the policy of the hard hand."
"We will go up against anti-Socialist forces, even if they call us Stalinists," Mr. Milosevic declared recently. That a Yugoslav politician would invite someone to call him a Stalinist even four decades after Tito's epochal break with Stalin, is a measure of the state into which Serbian politics have fallen. For the moment, Mr. Milosevic and his supporters appear to be staking their careers on a strategy of confrontation with the Kosovo ethnic Albanians.
Other Yugoslav politicians have expressed alarm. "There is no doubt Kosovo is a problem of the whole country, a powder keg on which we all sit,"said Milan Kucan, head of the Slovenian Communist Party. Remzi Koljgeci, of the Kosovo party leadership, said in an interview in Pristina that "relations are cold" between the ethnic Albanians and Serbs of the province, that there were too many "people without hope." But many of those interviewed agreed it was also a rare opportunity for Yugoslavia to take radical political and economic steps, as Tito did when he broke with the Soviet bloc in 1948.
Efforts are under way to strengthen central authority through amendments to the constitution. The League of Communists is planning an extraordinary party congress before March to address the country's grave problems. The hope is that something will be done then to exert the rule of law in Kosovo while drawing ethnic Albanians back into Yugoslavia's mainstream.
Copyright 1987 The New York Times Company

[KoTeMoRe]

In Yugoslavia, Rising Ethnic Strife Brings Fears of Worse Civil Conflict
By DAVID BINDER, Special to the New York Times
The New York Times
November 1, 1987, Sunday, Late City Final Edition
Section 1; Part 1, Page 14, Column 1;

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Portions of southern Yugoslavia have reached such a state of ethnic friction that Yugoslavs have begun to talk of the horrifying possibility of "civil war" in a land that lost one-tenth of its population, or 1.7 million people, in World War II.
The current hostilities pit separatist-minded ethnic Albanians against the various Slavic populations of Yugoslavia and occur at all levels of society, from the highest officials to the humblest peasants.
A young Army conscript of ethnic Albanian origin shot up his barracks, killing four sleeping Slavic bunkmates and wounding six others. The army says it has uncovered hundreds of subversive ethnic Albanian cells in its ranks. Some arsenals have been raided.
Vicious Insults
Ethnic Albanians in the Government have manipulated public funds and regulations to take over land belonging to Serbs. And politicians have exchanged vicious insults. Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls.
Ethnic Albanians comprise the fastest growing nationality in Yugoslavia and are expected soon to become its third largest, after the Serbs and Croats.
Radicals' Goals
The goal of the radical nationalists among them, one said in an interview, is an "ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself." That includes large chunks of the republics that make up the southern half of Yugoslavia. Other ethnic Albanian separatists admit to a vision of a greater Albania governed from Pristina in southern Yugoslavia rather than Tirana, the capital of neighboring Albania. There is no evidence that the hard-line Communist Government in Tirana is giving them material assistance.
The principal battleground is the region called Kosovo, a high plateau ringed by mountains that is somewhat smaller than New Jersey. Ethnic Albanians there make up 85 percent of the population of 1.7 million. The rest are Serbians and Montenegrins.
Worst Strife in Years
As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially strongly since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981-an "ethnically pure" Albanian region, a 'Republic of Kosovo' in all but name. The violence, a journalist in Kosovo said, is escalating to "the worst in the last seven years."
Many Yugoslavs blame the troubles on the ethnic Albanians, but the matter is more complex in a country with as many nationalities and religions as Yugoslavia's and involves economic development, law, politics, families and flags.
As recently as 20 years ago, the Slavic majority treated ethnic Albanians as inferiors to be employed as hewers of wood and carriers of heating coal. The ethnic Albanians, who now number 2 million, were officially deemed a minority, not a constituent nationality, as they are today.
Were the ethnic tensions restricted to Kosovo, Yugoslavia's problems with its Albanian nationals might be more manageable. But some Yugoslavs and some ethnic Albanians believe the struggle has spread far beyond Kosovo. Macedonia, a republic to the south with a population of 1.8 million, has a restive ethnic Albanian minority of 350,000.
"We've already lost western Macedonia to the Albanians," said a member of the Yugoslav party presidium, explaining that the ethnic minority had driven the Slavic Macedonians out of the region.
Attacks on Slavs
Last summer, the authorities in Kosovo said they documented 40 ethnic Albanian attacks on Slavs in two months. In the last two years, 320 ethnic Albanians have been sentenced for political crimes, nearly half of them characterized as severe.
In one incident, Fadil Hoxha, once the leading politician of ethnic Albanian origin in Yugoslavia, joked at an official dinner in Prizren last year that Serbian women should be used to satisfy potential ethnic Albanian rapists. After his quip was reported this October, Serbian women in Kosovo protested, and Mr. Hoxha was dismissed from the Communist Party. As a precaution, the central authorities dispatched 380 riot police officers to the Kosovo region for the first time in four years.
Officials in Belgrade view the ethnic Albanian challenge as imperiling the foundations of the multinational experiment called federal Yugoslavia, which consists of six republics and two provinces.
'Lebanonizing' of Yugoslavia
High-ranking officials have spoken of the "Lebanonizing" of their country and have compared its troubles to the strife in Northern Ireland. Borislav Jovic, a member of the Serbian party's presidency, spoke in an interview of the prospect of "two Albanias, one north and one south, like divided Germany or Korea," and of "practically the breakup of Yugoslavia." He added: "Time is working against us."
The federal Secretary for National Defense, Fleet Adm. Branko Mamula, told the army's party organization in September of efforts by ethnic Albanians to subvert the armed forces. "Between 1981 and 1987 a total of 216 illegal organizations with 1,435 members of Albanian nationality were discovered in the Yugoslav People's Army," he said. Admiral Mamula said ethnic Albanian subversives had been preparing for "killing officers and soldiers, poisoning food and water, sabotage, breaking into weapons arsenals and stealing arms and ammunition, desertion and causing flagrant nationalist incidents in army units."
Concerns Over Military
Coming three weeks after the ethnic Albanian draftee, Aziz Kelmendi, had slaughtered his Slavic comrades in the barracks at Paracin, the speech struck fear in thousands of families whose sons were about to start their mandatory year of military service.
Because the Albanians have had a relatively high birth rate, one-quarter of the army's 200,000 conscripts this year are ethnic Albanians. Admiral Mamula suggested that 3,792 were potential human timebombs. He said the army had "not been provided with details relevant for assessing their behavior." But a number of Belgrade politicians said they doubted the Yugoslav armed forces would be used to intervene in Kosovo as they were to quell violent rioting in 1981 in Pristina. They reason that the army leadership is extremely reluctant to become involved in what is, in the first place, a political issue.
Ethnic Albanians already control almost every phase of life in the autonomous province of Kosovo, including the police, judiciary, civil service, schools and factories. Non-Albanian visitors almost immediately feel the independence - and suspicion - of the ethnic Albanian authorities.
Region's Slavs Lack Strength
While 200,000 Serbs and Montenegrins still live in the province, they are scattered and lack cohesion. In the last seven years, 20,000 of them have fled the province, often leaving behind farmsteads and houses, for the safety of the Slavic north. Until September, the majority of the Serbian Communist Party leadership pursued a policy of seeking compromise with the Kosovo party hierarchy under its ethnic Albanian leader, Azem Vlasi.
But during a 30-hour session of the Serbian central committee in late September, the Serbian party secretary, Slobodan Milosevic, deposed Dragisa Pavlovic, as head of Belgrade's party organization, the country's largest. Mr. Milosevic accused Mr. Pavlovic of being an appeaser who was soft on Albanian radicals. Mr. Milosevic had courted the Serbian backlash vote with speeches in Kosovo itself calling for "the policy of the hard hand."
"We will go up against anti-Socialist forces, even if they call us Stalinists," Mr. Milosevic declared recently. That a Yugoslav politician would invite someone to call him a Stalinist even four decades after Tito's epochal break with Stalin, is a measure of the state into which Serbian politics have fallen. For the moment, Mr. Milosevic and his supporters appear to be staking their careers on a strategy of confrontation with the Kosovo ethnic Albanians.
Other Yugoslav politicians have expressed alarm. "There is no doubt Kosovo is a problem of the whole country, a powder keg on which we all sit,"said Milan Kucan, head of the Slovenian Communist Party. Remzi Koljgeci, of the Kosovo party leadership, said in an interview in Pristina that "relations are cold" between the ethnic Albanians and Serbs of the province, that there were too many "people without hope." But many of those interviewed agreed it was also a rare opportunity for Yugoslavia to take radical political and economic steps, as Tito did when he broke with the Soviet bloc in 1948.
Efforts are under way to strengthen central authority through amendments to the constitution. The League of Communists is planning an extraordinary party congress before March to address the country's grave problems. The hope is that something will be done then to exert the rule of law in Kosovo while drawing ethnic Albanians back into Yugoslavia's mainstream.
Copyright 1987 The New York Times Company

Underlined, the tree that hid the forest.

[V.I.D.]

The most recent news:


B92 (http://www.b92.net/eng/) http://static.b92.net/images/news/item-new-black.gif News (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/) http://static.b92.net/images/news/item-new-black.gif Crime & War crimes (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/crimes-article.php) http://static.b92.net/images/news/item-new-black.gif Crime & War crimes
26 March 2008 | 17:12 | Source: Tanjug
NEW YORK -- The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has released a new report
UN: Kosovo heart of Balkan drug route
It warned that the axis between South American drug cartels and the Albanian mafia have reached "alarming proportions", while reports by several intelligence agencies show that Kosovo is a distribution center on the crossroads of global routes and pathways of drug trafficking.

This presents reason for concern, primarily because of the new pathways of drug trafficking, and "inclusion of cocaine in the range of products offered by the groups that are active along the Balkan drug route", the UNODC annual report for 2007 said.

The Albanian mafia has recently begun taking over the control of ports in Romania, in addition to the already solid network existing in Albania and Montenegro, the report said.

This warning by UNODC is the latest in a series of alarming reports by a number of agencies in charge of fighting organized crime, including the FBI, Interpol and Europol, which state that the Albanian mafia is the most serious criminal organization in Europe because it controls a huge part of the heroin trade in a number of European state - Switzerland, Greece, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Norway, and, recently, in Great Britain.

The western European heroin market, of which 40 to 75 percent is controlled by Albanians, brings annual earnings of around USD 7bn, which makes the trafficking in this type of narcotic by far the most profitable activity in the Balkans, western intelligence services have reported.

The territory that includes Albania, Kosovo and western Macedonia is a huge drug warehouse. Its contents are drugs measured not in kilograms, but in tons, a western diplomat posted in the Balkans said in a statement for Tanjug new agency, explaining how intelligence sources estimate that there are at least seven tons of heroin in this region at all times, ready to be moved to the West.

Former official of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Michael Levine has said that one of the wings of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was "linked with every known narco-cartel in the Middle East and the Far East", and that almost every European intelligence service and police has files on "connections between ethnic Albanian rebels and drug trafficking".

"Albania and Kosovo are the heart of the Balkan drug trade route which links Pakistan and Afghanistan with Europe. That route is worth around USD 7bn annually and around 80 percent of the heroin intended for the western European market is smuggled along this route," said a report presented to the U.S. Congress.

International representatives in Kosovo complained in the recent years that it is "difficult to estimate, in the complicated relations on the political scene of the Kosovo Albanians and ethnic Albanians in Macedonia or southern Serbia, whether politics controls organized crime or the mafia controls politicians".

The agency says it its report that it is "also possible, however, that organized criminal groups in Kosovo in fact have no influence on the authorities because they are actually those who are in power, as Italian General Fabio Mini said on his departure from the post of commander of KFOR, the international peacekeeping force in Kosovo".

[ssal]

The most recent news:


B92 (http://www.b92.net/eng/) http://static.b92.net/images/news/item-new-black.gif News (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/) http://static.b92.net/images/news/item-new-black.gif Crime & War crimes (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/crimes-article.php) http://static.b92.net/images/news/item-new-black.gif Crime & War crimes
26 March 2008 | 17:12 | Source: Tanjug
NEW YORK -- The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has released a new report
UN: Kosovo heart of Balkan drug route
It warned that the axis between South American drug cartels and the Albanian mafia have reached "alarming proportions", while reports by several intelligence agencies show that Kosovo is a distribution center on the crossroads of global routes and pathways of drug trafficking.



Ahhhh the Serbian media with it's unbiased relaxed attitude, which is another strong indication that people will believe whatever the f thwey have already decided to believe, just throw some flame. This is the official site of UNODC: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/index.html I spent a few minutes trying to find this "report" that shows the axis with "alarming proportions", but what do you know, it is NOT there. Maybe you can check the page and see if you have more luck, maybe was just me. Kosovo might be mentioned once or twice, but there is no mentioning of "alarming proportions"comming from there, and surely not more than any other country in Europe. In that page you might also find that Kosovo is not the "center" of drug routes and Kosovars are not in the helm of managing the trades. I let you do the research and find for yourself who is. if you can't find it there, maybe you can remove your propaganda garbage form this site, in return if you do find it, I will appologise to you and remove my post.

[V.I.D.]

ssal, feel free to post anything you find on Serbian mafia and in relation to Kosovo. I gave you the link/source and I am glad you visited that source and made a comment as to what you have found. If I wrote this article myself, I would certainly apologize to you if I went overboard with it ("alarming proportions" part). I took it from a trustworthy B92 website (funded by U.S. dollars) and had no reason not to believe it. Regards, V.I.D.

[KoTeMoRe]

He's Ad Patres, I presume ad vitam aeternam.

No answers there what so ever.

[KVLG]

Ahhhh the Serbian media with it's unbiased relaxed attitude, which is another strong indication that people will believe whatever the f thwey have already decided to believe, just throw some flame. This is the official site of UNODC: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/index.html I spent a few minutes trying to find this "report" that shows the axis with "alarming proportions", but what do you know, it is NOT there. Maybe you can check the page and see if you have more luck, maybe was just me. Kosovo might be mentioned once or twice, but there is no mentioning of "alarming proportions"comming from there, and surely not more than any other country in Europe. In that page you might also find that Kosovo is not the "center" of drug routes and Kosovars are not in the helm of managing the trades. I let you do the research and find for yourself who is. if you can't find it there, maybe you can remove your propaganda garbage form this site, in return if you do find it, I will appologise to you and remove my post.

Actually, B92 is a Soros funded site which basically has tried to foist support or tolerance for Kosovo independence on the Serbs. B92 may have exageratted, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're wrong. They could have derived their report from what they've found on UNODC combined with local sources.

[V.I.D.]

Thousands in Banja Luka Kosovo rally 28 March 2008 | 11:33 | Source: Beta BANJA LUKA -- Several thousand people have attended a rally entitled “Kosovo is Serbia, let the Republic of Srpska be independent.”

http://www.b92.net/news/pics/2008/03/189609836647ecdc2166ed0010454606_MidCol.jpgYesterday's rally (Tanjug)

The Serb “The Choice is Ours” movement organized yesterday’s meeting in Banja Luka and initiated the signing of a petition for the declaration of the Republic of Srpska’s (RS) independence.

Movement President Dane Čanović said that the RS needed to secede from the “imposed Bosnia-Herzegovina,” adding that standards would improve as an independent country, with more political stability and security.

“We need to tell the world that the Serbs are very unhappy with their position in the Balkans. Minority communities are creating states on Serbian territory, while at the same time, the Serb national issue has not been resolved in its entirety,” he explained.

Čanović said that the Serbs had agreed to the Dayton Accords with “heavy hearts,” and that little was left of the RS’s statehood since the agreement’s conclusion.

He said that the citizens of the Serb entity “are no longer staying silent, while the family of the first president of the RS is being harassed,” alluding to the searches conducted this week of homes belonging to Hague fugitive Radovan Karadžić’s family.

The protesters at the rally carried banners with slogans such as “Kosovo, the Most Expensive Serbian Word”, “We Will Keep Fighting”, “We Will Give Up Bosnia for Srpska”, while pictures of Russian President Vladimir Putin were also visible.

There was a large police presence in Banja Luka during the rally, especially in the street leading to the U.S. embassy in Banja Luka, which was attacked in earlier protests following Kosovo’s unilateral independence declaration.

There were no incidents reported at the rally.

[Bongopete]

'The Choice is Ours' and they are carrying Russian flags?

[Royal]

'The Choice is Ours' and they are carrying Russian flags?

No, they're carrying Republika Srpska flags.

[Bongopete]

No, they're carrying Republika Srpska flags.

Ohhh....ok, thanks for the correction.

[Mate]

Just heard the news: Kosovo is recongnized by Norway,South Korea and Liechtenstein.
And Switzerland opens it`s embassy.

Cheers

[Afro-European]

'The Choice is Ours' and they are carrying Russian flags?

Weren't Kosovars carrying the US flag on the day of its "independance"?

[Bongopete]

Weren't Kosovars carrying the US flag on the day of its "independance"?


Were they? Thats silly, its not their flag.

[Afro-European]

Were they? Thats silly, its not their flag.

Yes they were.I think you are the only that didn't see that(which i highly doubt).

[Bongopete]

Nope, didnt see it. Wish they wouldnt do that sort of thing actually.

[Afro-European]

Nope, didnt see it. Wish they wouldnt do that sort of thing actually.

They did it to show their "gratitude" to the US. *cough* .

[cinoeye]

No, they're carrying Republika Srpska flags.
Or to be more corect, It's a Serbian NAtional flag or flag of Serbian people, wich is also an officail Flag of Republic of Srpska. :)
Srpska's flag has ratio 1:2, while Serbian National Flag and Serbian STate Flag have ratio 1,5:1.
It is true, it is in pan-slavic colors(red, blue, white), wich in this Serbian order looks like upside down Russian State FLag(Or Slovakian and Slovinian , but withaiut COA). ;)
Most Slavic countries have this R-B-W scheme.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Slavic_colours


Serbian State Flag-
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/r/rs.gif (http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/r/rs.gif)

Serbian National FLag(Or Serbian FLag)-
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/r/rs-civil.gif (http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/r/rs-civil.gif)



REpublika Srpska-
http://www.crwflags.com/FOTW/images/b/ba-rs.gif (http://www.crwflags.com/FOTW/images/b/ba-rs.gif)


Russia-
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/r/ru.gif (http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/r/ru.gif)

[Mamont]

i missed those flags too, actually.. 3 mins in google.
http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2007/12/10/image3599883.jpg
the poster saying, in English, “USA kick some Putin Ass. Serbia Burn in Hell Forever”. surely this will be a peacefull neighbor.

[[WDW]Megaraptor]

No, they're carrying Republika Srpska flags.

Obviously they carrying of the Russian flag upside down signifies their dissatisfaction with Putin's reluctance to invade Kosovo p-)

[just kidding]

[cinoeye]

Been everywhere, know nothing


You know someting, for sure!!! ;)

[KoTeMoRe]

i missed those flags too, actually.. 3 mins in google.
http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2007/12/10/image3599883.jpg
the poster saying, in English, “USA kick some Putin Ass. Serbia Burn in Hell Forever”. surely this will be a peacefull neighbor.

Ohh why are you so touchy, we have members in MP.net overtly claiming that, I don't see them trying Barabarossa again.


So don't be worried, idiots can only be fueled by your remarks. Some times filth does not fly high enough to reach the eagle.

[Mamont]

Ohh why are you so touchy, we have members in MP.net overtly claiming that, I don't see them trying Barabarossa again. You obviously missed something, i never payed much attention to Kosovo marches, so found remark about them carrying US flags interesting and went to check it out.


So don't be worried, idiots can only be fueled by your remarks. Some times filth does not fly high enough to reach the eagle.Are you feeling ill or something? Any sane person understand, that hatred is not the good basis for relations. And it's really is a very powerfull move to bark in the shadow of a giant..

[Flamming_Python]

You obviously missed something, i never payed much attention to Kosovo marches, so found remark about them carrying US flags interesting and went to check it out.

Are you feeling ill or something? Any sane person understand, that hatred is not the good basis for relations. And it's really is a very powerfull move to bark in the shadow of a giant..

Problem is that there is hatred on both sides. I don't support partitioning of Kosovo one bit, but I fear the nationalism that can result out of it much more. Both Albanians and Serbians are being screwed by this divide & conquering going on in the Balkans, and both groups need to realise this.

[KoTeMoRe]

You obviously missed something, i never payed much attention to Kosovo marches, so found remark about them carrying US flags interesting and went to check it out.

Are you feeling ill or something? Any sane person understand, that hatred is not the good basis for relations. And it's really is a very powerfull move to bark in the shadow of a giant..

Hatred is a very good basis for a relationship when they're not determined by the persons in touch (I know you get my point).

It was merely an attempt to tell you that all they do is barking. But you figured it out already.

Edit: Flamming renders my post superflous.

[Paya]

It was merely an attempt to tell you that all they do is barking. But you figured it out already.
Barking, in time, usually degenerates into a full-blown war in our beautiful peninsula. It's a prologue, if you will.

God save us from ourselves.

[KoTeMoRe]

Barking, in time, usually degenerates into a full-blown war in our beautiful peninsula. It's a prologue, if you will.

God save us from ourselves.

Pal, It will be hard for most of us to get involved in another war. An ammo dump went off and we're still picking the pieces. What such a State can represent militarily speaking. Even when we were more concerning, we managed to isolate ourselves DPRK style. Believe me (or not) there is no way we're going to harm any one in the region. Just wait when the prices will bring down the roof in Albania, you'll see how bellicose we really are.

The Kosovars (I know I shouldn't use it) themselves, as Mamont stated are simply barking in the shade of a bigger player. That should indicate you where the problems are coming from...p-)

[SrB-23Q]

.......................................................................

[V.I.D.]

I don't know if anyone posted this already, but it has some material for a tragicomedy.

B92 (http://www.b92.net/eng/) http://static.b92.net/images/news/item-new-black.gif News (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/) http://static.b92.net/images/news/item-new-black.gif Politics (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php) http://static.b92.net/images/news/item-new-black.gif Politics http://static.b92.net/images/trans.gif Bush: Kosovo real state one day 31 March 2008 | 14:57 | Source: Tanjug BERLIN, KIEV -- U.S. President George Bush spoke about Kosovo in an interview for a German weekly.

http://www.b92.net/news/pics/2008/03/104489379047f0e1d58abbe211301505_MidCol.jpgGeorge Bush (Beta)

Bush told the Berlin-based Der Welt in an interview published Monday that he is "confident independent Kosovo will be able to stand on its own feet one day" and become a "real state," but underscored that it will "need world support" for this.

"To me, it is very important to support every nation to overcome a difficult situation and become a democracy. That is why I am cautious when speaking about time," said Bush in his response to a question on whether he "really believes that Kosovo will be a real state capable of standing on its own feet in 10 or 20 years time".

"That, however, will not be quite easy," President Bush said, comparing Kosovo with Iraq and Afghanistan.

"t is hard in Iraq, and it is hard in Afghanistan, and it will also be a difficult process in Kosovo," said Bush.

In a separate interview for a Ukrainian paper, the U.S. president said he hopes that Ukraine will recognize Kosovo's unilateral independence.

"We truly hope that Ukraine will recognize Kosovo's independence, which we have already done," Bush told Glavred Magazine at the start of his European tour.

He added that Kiev "should decide on the decisions it needs to make".

Bush also said that the "independence in question is supervised independence", and added that Washington had "strongly supported the idea of Kosovo independence from the very beginning".

"We also backed such a UN plan that would help achieve that kind of controlled independence and which at the same time would guarantee the minority rights in Kosovo," he continued.

Ukraine's officials said, following the unilateral declaration, that Kiev was consulting with strategic partners – the U.S., the European Union and Russia – on the stance it would take regarding Kosovo.

[V.I.D.]

After yesterday's stoning incident, there's more happening today:
New attack on Serbs in K. Mitrovica 31 March 2008 | 20:18 | Source: Beta, Tanjug KOSOVSKA MITROVICA -- The situation is calm but tense this evening in Kosovska Mitrovica following the latest incident there.

Ethnic Albanians shot at a group of Serbs this afternoon near the divided town's Brđani neighborhood, Beta news agency said. No one was injured.

At this point, between 300 to 400 Serbs and some 20 Albanians are gathered near the spot, but there are no reported clashes.

Local Serbs met with KFOR representatives, who guaranteed them safety, Siniša Lazić, who took part in the meeting, told the agency.

According to him, in another meeting held at 15:00 CET, the Serbs received the same promise from KFOR, but an hour and a half later the incident took place.

The Ministry for Kosovo office in Kosovska Mitrovica issued a statement about the fresh incident, which came in the wake of yesterday's attack (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/crimes-article.php?yyyy=2008&mm=03&dd=30&nav_id=48947).

"A group of ethnic Albanian terrorists opened fire Monday about 17:30 CET on Serb residents of the Brđani community in northern Kosovska Mitrovica," the statement from the ministry reads.

"The terrorists came from the ethnic Albanian village Muađer near Suvi Do," the release continued.

KFOR troops are protecting Brđane from new attacks, the ministry's statement concluded.

Tanjug news agency quoted local Serb residents who said that Kosovo police, KPS, and KFOR members "were also targeted in the attack".

[Meteor]

Russia shows the right way:

http://en.rian.ru/world/20080402/102796882.html

[Pleonasm]

HARADINAJ AND BALAJ ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES, BRAHIMAJ GUILTY OF CRUEL TREATMENT AND TORTURE IN JABLANICA COMPOUND


The Tribunal's Trial Chamber I today acquitted Ramush Haradinaj and Idriz Balaj of all charges which alleged they were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo between March and September 1998. The third accused, Lahi Brahimaj was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for cruel treatment and torture of two persons at the Jablanica/Jabllanicë headquarters of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Haradinaj, Balaj and Brahimaj faced charges of participation in a joint criminal enterprise whose aim was to consolidate the KLA’s total control over Dukagjin area in north-western Kosovo by the unlawful removal, mistreatment and murder of Serbian and Kosovar Roma civilians, as well as Kosovar Albanian citizens who were perceived to have been collaborating with Serbian forces. more: http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/2008/pr1232e.htm

[V.I.D.]

"Ruecker, Rossin threaten resignation" 3 April 2008 | 13:05 | Source: Beta PRIŠTINA -- The UNMIK chief and his deputy will quit unless Gerald Galluci’s resignation is accepted, writes a Priština daily.

http://www.b92.net/news/pics/2008/04/109574693247f4c76e7a5cb222804188_MidCol.jpgJoachim Ruecker (FoNet, archive)

Zeri understands from diplomatic sources that the UNMIK chief and his deputy do not intend to concur with the decision of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to turn down the UNMIK regional representative’s resignation.

Galluci’s resignation (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2008&mm=04&dd=02&nav_id=49013) following the March 17 riots was accepted by Rossin, who, at the time, was carrying out the duties of the UN chief in Ruecker's absence.

However, the resignation was turned down by Ban’s cabinet, with the explanation that Galluci was a good link between UNMIK and Serb leaders from northern Kosovo.

The same sources said that after Galluci’s return to Kosovo, Ruecker and Rossin contacted the UN secretary-general’s office, insisting that there was not enough room in Kosovo for the two of them and Galluci.

Should the decision to retain Galluci remain in force, then the UNMIK chief and his deputy will immediately tender their resignations, writes the daily.
_______________________________________________________________

And I thought they don't make decent Westerns anymore p-).

[Stefan850]

when you type "kosovo" or "serbia" in google sponsored link is
Sponsored Links

<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Serbia Human Rights Abuse (http://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=BAMaB4c32R8WkE5u0-wLVhqGcBqWzkR_t9vjhA-7AlZYBwIQ9EAEYASC2VCgCOABQ9rv6kfn_____AWD89vuN9CXIAQGAAgHZA93qJoEIls2P&num=1&sig=AGiWqtyozFS24afrSiXYXHNYRtB5Vpo4Xg&q=http://www.MDRI.org)
Torment Not Torture - the Crisis in
Serbia Institutions as shown on NBC
www.MDRI.org

this can almost be funny, this 10+ anti serb media campaign

[FlankerFlyer]

"Serbia is not an isolated island, Serbia is a part of Europe. Without the Community there is no life for anybody, icluding Serbia, without the victory of the Community Serbia can expect certain death.

Serb, you rightfully want a better future, you justifiabkly seek freedom. Order, labour, social justice according to effort, right to cultural development, right to life, who can guarantee these things? Will the nations that do not form the part of the Community bring you this?"


Tadić? Dinkić?,NATO?,EU representative? Some other member of the kapo coalition?

Nope! This is an excerpt from a German propaganda poster in occupied Serbia circa 1941 or 1942. Here it is.


The mentioned text is in the upper left-hand corner. Other parts say:

1) Upper right-hand corner: Germany has work for everyone
2) Lower left-hand corner: What would happen if Bolshevism triuphed? After that in smaller letters comes a lithany of every possible evil on Earth
3) Lower right-hand corner: What will happen when national-socialism wins? With it the decriptions of nazi "paradise".
4) Bottom: The choice is yours - Germany, meaning life, or bolshevism meaning death

[KoTeMoRe]

"Serbia is not an isolated island, Serbia is a part of Europe. Without the Community there is no life for anybody, icluding Serbia, without the victory of the Community Serbia can expect certain death.

Serb, you rightfully want a better future, you justifiabkly seek freedom. Order, labour, social justice according to effort, right to cultural development, right to life, who can guarantee these things? Will the nations that do not form the part of the Community bring you this?"


Tadić? Dinkić?,NATO?,EU representative? Some other member of the kapo coalition?

Nope! This is an excerpt from a German propaganda poster in occupied Serbia circa 1941 or 1942. Here it is.


The mentioned text is in the upper left-hand corner. Other parts say:

1) Upper right-hand corner: Germany has work for everyone
2) Lower left-hand corner: What would happen if Bolshevism triuphed? After that in smaller letters comes a lithany of every possible evil on Earth
3) Lower right-hand corner: What will happen when national-socialism wins? With it the decriptions of nazi "paradise".
4) Bottom: The choice is yours - Germany, meaning life, or bolshevism meaning death

I perfectly see what you did there but I think it would be wiser not to bragg about this. It's a matter of fact Mods around here don't like this kind of analogies.

Although it makes me laugh a bit (laugh of desperation, because there is some truth, somwhere in it, I swear I can feel it) you're going to have a rough ride in MP.net.

As a former commie, I can find at least a couple of leaflets with Uncle Mao being source of freedom, wealth and harmony, and Ze Soviets being treacherous petty/pe**** bourgeois in disguise.

And Albania was not isolated, it was part of the greater revolutionnary coalition. :roll:

But you're good at Agit-prop, yet you're too angry young one.

Calm down.

[kNikS]

Like it or not, FlankerFlyer had a good point - it is stunningly similar (or same :|) to stuff that Serbs are forced to listen to on daily basis, from both european and some domestic politicians, and it perfectly represents degree of propaganda... Not sure that you can understand it completely, and I'm not sure what's your problem with it...

[KoTeMoRe]

Like it or not, FlankerFlyer had a good point - it is stunningly similar (or same :|) to stuff that Serbs are forced to listen to on daily basis, from both european and some domestic politicians, and it perfectly represents degree of propaganda... Not sure that you can understand it completely, and I'm not sure what's your problem with it...


I will take some time and discuss this with you.

As serbians are submitted to this outrageous campaign of blackmail (you're with us and "rich?" or you're against and pennyless) we albanians suffered from the very fact that we, from the beggining were supposedly to be with them.

I know too well the whole EU mantra. If you've tried to file my previous posts, I've stated that the EU mirage is there to relief the political front of local leaders as they have no real ideas of their own. This is blatant in Albania, where EU accession is seen as the Holy Graal.

Yet in practical terms it will mean little to us. We're underdevelopped, our politicians are inept and when they aren't, they're simply powerless. We need a regional policy, but right now we're too busy taking advantage of one of those historical twists and stirring up memorial brawls. Even worse that advantage is of very short duration. Since the existence of the Kosovar Entity will pose new challenges. They're not Albanians stricto-sensu, they're part of a sovereign entity with it's own needs and own supporters.

The fact is that we already were double crossed.

1.We lost the hypothetical US base that could have brought some hard-cash to the locals and with it the financial support.

2. We're now entrenched with most of our neighbours and this doesn't help when you have the general picture of the albanian structural reliance on foreign currency. Brought by people that work abroad in the Immediate Neighbourhood. For some unknown reason, as we were the first victims of a civil war that led to the spread of Albanian weaponery in the Balkan Region, we're seen as the masterminds of this less-than perfect situation.

3. Most Serbs are still enraging that we dared to steal their land, when in fact we did nothing. The point is that we have and will have issues with our neighbours regarding crime, property rights and probably territorial (with our supposed brothers). You're listening well, WE WILL HAVE ISSUES regarding our Territorial Integrity if some crackpot from either side decides it's time for him to reclaim his grand grand fathers land.

As for the analogy itself. Well Good luck trying to push down the throat of the mods that NATO is the contemporary pendant of the Axis.

I may share with huge reserves a trifle of that viewpoint, but nonetheless my opinion will matter jack**** in front of a moderator. And he will still get the boot.

It's really a matter of propaganda, why not comparing the current blackmail with ottoman times. I mean a lot converted in order to avoid paying the dhimmi tax. Hell yeah. Why not?:roll:

Edit: And I'm not starting the whole off shore paradise rumble, kosovo will turn out to be in the next decade. So much for Albanian Supremacy.

[kNikS]

I will take some time and discuss this with you.

As serbians are submitted to this outrageous campaign of blackmail (you're with us and "rich?" or you're against and pennyless) we albanians suffered from the very fact that we, from the beggining were supposedly to be with them.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear enough - I'm not saying that Albanians don't have their share of problems and that you don't understand "the whole EU mantra", what I'm saying is that messages in question have their own uniqueness, as they are tailored for Serbian public, mainly for purpose of backing up pro-western parties. Weather is it blackmail or not.. that's not the issue here, but anyway - Serbs are free to define what are their national interests and how are they going to defend them, and I find it pretty.. distasteful, to say the least, from EU, US or NATO officials to suggest us what option we should pick, as well what are we going to do if we pick the option they don't like. Regarding domestic politicans - the less I say about that bastards, the better.


3. Most Serbs are still enraging that we dared to steal their land, when in fact we did nothing.

Apart from shelling from your side of the border and a few more things? I'm sorry, I hope that some of Serbian posters will have more motivation to debate this...


As for the analogy itself. Well Good luck trying to push down the throat of the mods that NATO is the contemporary pendant of the Axis.

Ok, where exactly I did imply such thing?


I may share with huge reserves a trifle of that viewpoint, but nonetheless my opinion will matter jack**** in front of a moderator. And he will still get the boot.

I think that mods are pretty capable of interpreting posts without your help.

[KoTeMoRe]

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear enough - I'm not saying that Albanians don't have their share of problems and that you don't understand "the whole EU mantra", what I'm saying is that messages in question have their own uniqueness, as they are tailored for Serbian public, mainly for purpose of backing up pro-western parties. Weather is it blackmail or not.. that's not the issue here, but anyway - Serbs are free to define what are their national interests and how are they going to defend them, and I find it pretty.. distasteful, to say the least, from EU, US or NATO officials to suggest us what option we should pick, as well what are we going to do if we pick the option they don't like. Regarding domestic politicans - the less I say about that bastards, the better.


Apart from shelling from your side of the border and a few more things? I'm sorry, I hope that some of Serbian posters will have more motivation to debate this...


Ok, where exactly I did imply such thing?


I think that mods are pretty capable of interpreting posts without your help.

Well what did he meant by comparing the actual propaganda with a nazi leaflet? Or didn't he meant that too?

I actually agreed with his point, when it came to the blackmail. But the analogy was too much.

Oh so actually Albania has made an Anschluss with Kosmet? Please I have no issues on debating the events of 1998/1999 but come on!

[FlankerFlyer]

I perfectly see what you did there but I think it would be wiser not to bragg about this. It's a matter of fact Mods around here don't like this kind of analogies.

Although it makes me laugh a bit (laugh of desperation, because there is some truth, somwhere in it, I swear I can feel it) you're going to have a rough ride in MP.net.

As a former commie, I can find at least a couple of leaflets with Uncle Mao being source of freedom, wealth and harmony, and Ze Soviets being treacherous petty/pe**** bourgeois in disguise.

And Albania was not isolated, it was part of the greater revolutionnary coalition. :roll:

But you're good at Agit-prop, yet you're too angry young one.

Calm down.

Oh *rolls eyes* here we go again, so predictable,where I'm at,KoTeMoRe strikes again,with his usual call for calm,misplaced characterization of anger and youthfulness. As,IF.That is just so laughable, I'll have to share it! You slay me!

All you managed to do, is keep projecting AGAIN.

The only one on this forum who threatened by previous posted observation are the ones that see themselves
in it and don't like to see their own reflection so glaringly displayed.

And with all of his call for outrage he's proving my points brilliantly. Keep it up

[KoTeMoRe]

Oh *rolls eyes* here we go again, so predictable,where I'm at,KoTeMoRe strikes again,with his usual call for calm,misplaced characterization of anger and youthfulness. As,IF.That is just so laughable, I'll have to share it! You slay me!

All you managed to do, is keep projecting AGAIN.

The only one on this forum who threatened by previous posted observation are the ones that see themselves
in it and don't like to see their own reflection so glaringly displayed.

And with all of his call for outrage he's proving my points brilliantly. Keep it up

Whatever makes you running young one. You might inform yourself with my views on the matter before lining me up.

As for for the glaring reflection, oh my, you should learn the meaning of tact. I love it.

[Lokos]

Take it easy, guys. You're about to start a blue-on-blue incident.

Lokos

[kNikS]

Well what did he meant by comparing the actual propaganda with a nazi leaflet? Or didn't he meant that too?

I actually agreed with his point, when it came to the blackmail. But the analogy was too much.

As far as I'm concerned, it might be a good wake up call for deluded compatriots, and an idea how an outcome of ongoing propaganda could be harmfull to the country, not too different from what happened to us in WWII.. it doesn't matter if parties invloved are nazis, commies or whatever, they don't need to be that to fnck us up. Anyway, people are free to draw their own conclusions.


Oh so actually Albania has made an Anschluss with Kosmet? Please I have no issues on debating the events of 1998/1999 but come on!
Well, you are the one who should elaborate a bit on "in fact we did nothing" part...

[Paya]

3. Most Serbs are still enraging that we dared to steal their land, when in fact we did nothing.
Well, aside from the artillery shelling, which was already mentioned, your Government hosted KLA bases in the North of Albania. Those were the reason behind the cross-border raids of the VJ.


The point is that we have and will have issues with our neighbours regarding crime, property rights and probably territorial (with our supposed brothers). You're listening well, WE WILL HAVE ISSUES regarding our Territorial Integrity if some crackpot from either side decides it's time for him to reclaim his grand grand fathers land.
Believe it or not, the Serbs do make the distinction between the Albanians of Kosovo and Albania itself. Right or wrong, we tend to assume that the difference is similar to that between the residents of Belgrade and, for instance, Uzice. We tend to assume that Albania Albanians are more, shall we say, urbane and open minded. No offence to the Kosovo Albanian members.

[Lokos]

Belgrade and, for instance, Uzice

You know, I was born in Uzice. Watch yourself. :)

Lokos

[epictetus]

And Albania was not isolated, it was part of the greater revolutionnary coalition. :roll:




:-*$ dam straight, u tell em

[Paya]

You know, I was born in Uzice. Watch yourself. :)

Lokos
Hey, I'm not the one to judge, my folks are from Bijelo Polje... :oops:

[KoTeMoRe]

Well, aside from the artillery shelling, which was already mentioned, your Government hosted KLA bases in the North of Albania. Those were the reason behind the cross-border raids of the VJ.


Believe it or not, the Serbs do make the distinction between the Albanians of Kosovo and Albania itself. Right or wrong, we tend to assume that the difference is similar to that between the residents of Belgrade and, for instance, Uzice. We tend to assume that Albania Albanians are more, shall we say, urbane and open minded. No offence to the Kosovo Albanian members.


You want a picture of the Albanian State and its CC chain in 1998/99? Well It's safe to say we "hosted" as much KLA bases in Northern Albania as (and I'm going to regret this dearly) as Kampuchea "hosted" NVA and VC bases during the Vietnam War. In such a turmoil it was quite an achievment that the War did not spread further into my country (wich I have to put partly on the credit of the US forces, partly on the real spreading of these KLA bases wich were really entrenched in "historical" relationships among let's face it clanic families).

Lokos: I'm not going to mumble about a Blue on Blue incident. It's perfectly normal that people resent what happened. I'm quite relaxed about it.

But I would also like these members, in order to understand the Albanian reality, to have a look on the latest Gërdec ammo dump incident. Just the greater lines of it. Things happen in oscuro in Albania, all the time. It is a case study. We're probably the first state to have a stealthy Internal Policy.

[KninGrad]

Well, aside from the artillery shelling, which was already mentioned, your Government hosted KLA bases in the North of Albania. Those were the reason behind the cross-border raids of the VJ.


Believe it or not, the Serbs do make the distinction between the Albanians of Kosovo and Albania itself. Right or wrong, we tend to assume that the difference is similar to that between the residents of Belgrade and, for instance, Uzice. We tend to assume that Albania Albanians are more, shall we say, urbane and open minded. No offence to the Kosovo Albanian members.

Lol Payo I lived in Knin/Kg/Pristina/Beograd and can tell you with confidence that I would pick any of those over Beograd :) ... I just dont like large cities because people are more materialistic and seem to not care so much about others unlike people living in smaller towns/villages .....

You know, Belgrade can be the heart but then what are the veins? hmm

something just for u "urban guys" hahaha ........http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQW_jPwev0

[kNikS]

Lol, were you about to tell him that he is beogradski shupak? p-)

[SrB-23Q]

^^^^lmao^^^^

[Royal]

Lol, were you about to tell him that he is beogradski shupak? p-)

Language children - lets keep it in English (and slightly less offensive) :)

[kNikS]

Just a little friendly bashing... :)

[Afro-European]

Draft Kosovo constitution signed, parliament to ratify



BELGRADE, April 7 (RIA Novosti) - A draft constitution for Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in February, was signed on Monday, Albanian-language Kosovo media reported. "This is a constitution of possibilities, not obstacles," Deputy Kosovo Prime Minister Hajredin Kuci, who co-chairs the Constitutional Commission, said.
Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence on February 17, adopting a new national flag and national emblem. The province's sovereignty has so far been recognized by 36 countries including the United States and most European Union members.
Russia and China have consistently backed Belgrade's position that Kosovo must remain a part of Serbia.
The Constitutional Commission has been working on Kosovo's constitution for several months. Former UN Kosovo settlement envoy Martti Ahtisaari's proposals were taken as a basis for the document. These envisioned internationally supervised independence for the breakaway region.
The signing procedure will not automatically bring the constitution into force, as the commission will submit the document to parliament for further approval, but lawmakers are likely to adopt the constitution in its present form. It could enter into force in mid-June.
The draft constitution, which runs to over 60 pages, calls Kosovo a multiethnic republic with an Albanian majority, where ethnic minorities' rights must be protected. The document also envisions international forces in the region.
http://www.en.rian.ru/world/20080407/103963044.html

[Paya]

Lol Payo I lived in Knin/Kg/Pristina/Beograd and can tell you with confidence that I would pick any of those over Beograd :) ... I just dont like large cities because people are more materialistic and seem to not care so much about others unlike people living in smaller towns/villages .....

You know, Belgrade can be the heart but then what are the veins? hmm

something just for u "urban guys" hahaha ........http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQW_jPwev0
"Stoj ili ubivam na mestu, 'bem li ti nanu!" rofl

You are aware that Nislije hate us Belgraders by default?


Language children - lets keep it in English (and slightly less offensive) :)
That's quite alright, I pride myself on being a beogradski shupak.... p-)

[Mate]

Just heard the news,US Embassy opens in Prishtina
Cheers

[Paya]

Just heard the news,US Embassy opens in Prishtina
Cheers
You have to be careful with those things, they catch fire easily.

I know, bad joke.

[Sanat-e-naft]

I would recommend people stop burning embassies. It seems to cost "innocent" lives.

But seriously, who else has opened an embassy in Kosovo?

[Afro-European]

I would recommend people stop burning embassies. It seems to cost "innocent" lives.

But seriously, who else has opened an embassy in Kosovo?

None of all those countries that have recognized Kosovo's "independance".

[Sanat-e-naft]

I believe the Swiss may have is that correct?

[Josip Broz]

I believe the Swiss may have is that correct?

Why does that not surprise me.

[FlankerFlyer]

In a race to demonstrate who is the most terrified of Albanians, not only did Switzerland quickly recognize Kosovo independence, it hauled ass to Pristina to be the first to open an embassy. Unfortunately, Germany, France and Britain placed ahead of Switzerland — home to the second-largest diaspora “Kosovar” community after Germany — but it nonetheless deserves an honorable mention:
Swiss embassy opens in Kosovo (http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/foreign_affairs/Swiss_embassy_opens_in_Kosovo.html?siteSect=1521&sid=8907818&cKey=1206731628000&ty=st), March 28:
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey opened an embassy in Priština on Friday, a month after Bern recognised the independence of Kosovo.
[Reading her Albanian-provided cue card:] “Only an independent Kosovo can develop economically and politically, and Switzerland is contributing to the stability of the region by helping the construction of this state,” she said.
…
She described the 170,000 Kosovars living in Switzerland as a “strong link” and said it was important to make it easier for them to obtain travel documents.
“For all these reasons Switzerland did not want to wait before opening an embassy in Priština,” she explained.
Switzerland is the fourth country to have an embassy in Kosovo, after Germany, France and Britain. It replaces the liaison office.
…
Some parliamentarians in Switzerland have expressed disquiet at her visit to Kosovo.
**** Marty, the head of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said there was no reason for the country’s foreign minister to go there so soon.
…
The western Balkans have been a priority for Swiss foreign policy since the 1990s.
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) has a budget of SFr 13.9 million ($14 million) in aid to Kosovo for 2008. Calmy-Rey said Bern is considering ways of increasing the money available in time for an international donor conference to be held in Brussels in June.
…
Calmy-Rey had been an open and long-term supporter of independence for the country.
Her language here certainly differs from her November, 2005 rationalizations:
SWITZERLAND SUPPORTS KOSOVO INDEPENDENCE (http://www.mfa.gov.yu/Policy/CI/KIM/301105_1_e.html)
BRATISLAVA (Slovakia), November 29 (Tanjug) - Switzerland supports independence of Kosovo, Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said on Tuesday in Bratislava.
Switzerland and the Kosovo province have very intensive relations, as about 10 percent of the Kosovo population live in Switzerland and should there be any instability in Kosovo, Switzerland will suffer the consequences, Calmy-Rey told a joint press conference with her Slovakian counterpart Eduard Kukan, AFP reports.
So we have it from the horse’s mouth as to why the famously neutral country has lined up on the same neutral side it did 70 years ago.
Speaking of 1938 here is some enlightenment from the Washington chapter president of the Serbian Unity Congress, John Bosnitch:
[Kosovo independence] has always been about repeating Hitler’s 1938 feat at MUNICH of getting the world’s leading democracies to agree to violate international law by ripping the majority ethnic German region of Sudetenland out of Czechoslovakia…It was indeed to cover precisely this gaping hole in the US case that former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tried to inaccurately stand the 1938 Munich precedent with Hitler on its head by citing it as grounds for bombing Serbia. The Western media was able to dupe the Western public with that false parallel…
[Hitler said] the Sudeten Germans needed independence because they were the “victims of Czech persecution,” a false claim that history has proven to be just as absurd as that made by the Kosovo Albanians today.
Note: Axis powers Hungary, Bulgaria and Croatia as a bloc recognized (http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=91437) Kosovo independence on March 19-20, the fourth anniversary of Kosovo’s March 2004 pogroms against Serbs.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/xobix_media/images/keystone/2008/keyimg20080328_8904800_2.jpg
The new Swiss embassy in Pristina
http://www.swissinfo.ch/xobix_media/images/sri/2008/sriimg20080328_8908127_0.jpg
The smile of a dhimmi on double duty: Calmy-Rey opens the Swiss “embassy” in Kosovo.
BERN (Associated Press) — Switzerland remained shocked Wednesday shortly after the publication of the rape of a five year old young girl by schoolboys of 11 and 13 years made in June in the Grison commune of Rhazuns.
“It is alarming…,” declared the Minister for Justice, confirming that the two perpetrators were Albanians from Kosovo.
…
According to newspapers’ Swiss German “Blick” and “Sudostschweiz”, which made the public affair, the young girl was attracted into the neighbourhood park and then ******ly mistreated by the two schoolboys. The small victim was held by the smaller boy when the 13 year old teenager violated her. The younger boy then also violated her.
And a 13 year-old Swiss girl (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/switzerland-europes-heart-of-darkness-401619.html):
The statistics are clear, [Swiss Peoples Party member Dr. Ulrich Schlüer] said, foreigners are four times more likely to commit crimes than Swiss nationals. “In a suburb of Zürich, a group of youths between 14 and 18 recently raped a 13-year-old girl,” he said. “It turned out that all of them were already under investigation for some previous offence. They were all foreigners from the Balkans or Turkey. Their parents said these boys are out of control. We say: ‘That’s not acceptable. It’s your job to control them and if you can’t do that you’ll have to leave.’”
Comments (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1693333/posts) posted on the FreeRepublic site bring up some good points:
…Didn’t/don’t Hashim Thaqi and KLA soldiers and funders spend a lot of time living there? Isn’t Switzerland very lenient to drug traffickers and junkies? Haven’t their diplomats spoken of being for an independent Kosovo/a and weren’t they for the military intervention and occupation to help the militant Albanians?
Indeed (http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=6&leader=3):
…Hashim Thaci, who joined the Albanian political migration in Switzerland in the early nineties, where he founded the “National Movement for Kosovo”, the Marxist-Leninist political party whose only aim was to unite all of the regions where Albanians lived into one country…
And (http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3773004a7528.htm):
Thaci was involved, along with Haliti, in arms smuggling from Switzerland in the years before the 1998 uprising, say current and former senior rebel commanders. Thaci and Haliti both have wives and children in Switzerland…[A] former colonel named Ahmet Krasniqi…organized some 600 former officers, most living in Switzerland and Germany, to join the fight…
The answer from another comment poster:
Switzerland is in a position of someone with split personality disorder. Swiss banks and investment funds launder Albanian ill gotten money and profit handsomely from that. At the same time, Albanian immigrants present [a] problem for the Swiss authorities. The Swiss problem is how to keep Albanian dirty money and at the same time expel Albanians from Switzerland to keep their coockoo land undisturbed.
Swiss solution? Support stealing of Kosovo on behalf of Albanian terrorists to make a terrorist parastate there, then expel Albanians from Switzerland to Kosovo while at the same time keeping the money, the proceeds of laundering of Albanian criminally gotten funds…
Summary comment:
So in other words, the Swiss are so scared of their local Albanians that they hope that if they help them steal Kosovo from Serbia & give it to them, it will mean that the Albanians in Switzerland will leave & go to Kosovo.
Meanwhile, just when we thought Switzerland at least won the contest for fastest-moving foreign minister, once again it’s merely the runner-up: Sweden’s Carl Bildt got to Pristina first. That would be this Carl Bildt:
UN Commissioner to Balkan calls for recognizing Islam as European culture (March 2005): (http://www.kuna.net.kw/Home/print.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=712746)
UN Commissioner to the Balkans Carl Bildt on Saturday called for recognizing Islam as part of the European culture, asserting that Muslims in Balkan[s] formed a unique and positive factor in European affairs…Bildt told KUNA that Muslims in the Balkans, especially in Bosnia and Kosovo, proved that they are characterized with tolerance and cooperation with other societies…The official demanded the developing of the Balkans as a whole, calling for accepting all the region’s countries together in the EU to prevent any issues or conflicts that might be generated by keeping some Balkan countries outside the EU.
I can feel the vibrations from the shaking in Bildt’s boots all the way over here. At least the Kosovo question unites Sweden’s officials with (http://www.thelocal.se/10210/20080302/) its neo-Nazis:
A group of 20 neo-Nazis were detained by police in Stockholm on Saturday. The neo-Nazis were on their way to disrupt a demonstration by 400 Serbs protesting Kosovo’s independence.
…
“They were stopped near Riksbron. They were behaving badly and were armed with golf-clubs and stones,” said police spokesperson Ann-Charlotte Wejnäs to TT.
Just a conjecture as to who these Swedish neo-Nazis could be. Recall the unrequited Serb-blood-thirsty neo-Nazi mercenary warriors, from all over Europe, flocking to the Balkans to fight for the Croats during the 1990s:
“Swede on trial for war crimes in Bosnia (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/crimes-article.php?yyyy=2006&mm=11&dd=10&nav_id=37897)”
STOCKHOLM — Proceedings opened against a Swedish national for war crimes committed when he served as a Bosnian army volunteer…In interviews on the eve of the trial, [Jackie] Arklov has admitted to many of the alleged crimes including threatening and assaulting victims when he served as a volunteer with Bosnian-Croatian forces in 1993…
Although Liberian-born — as a boy he was adopted by Swedish parents — he was part of a neo-Nazi group that [in] 1999 robbed a bank in southern Sweden, and shot two police officers who had set up a road block.
Wiesenthal Center World Report, Fall/Winter 1995/96:
There have been growing fears about the activities of neo-Nazis in the former Yugoslavia since a former German member of the French Foreign Legion, Eugen Kammerer, revealed he had spent 18 months with the mercenaries in Bosnia for German intelligence. “There are over a thousand foreigners there, mostly Germans, fighting on all sides.” Ewen Southby-Tailyour, a former Royal Marine colonel who served with the European Community monitoring mission in Croatia from 1993-1994, said recently he had met German mercenaries, some wearing swastika armbands, serving in the Croatian army.
Anyway, the Sweden that rushes to kiss Kosovo is the same Sweden that grants (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=712090&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1) entrance visas to Hamas “ministers” and whose “Chancellor of Justice” said (http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/2006/04/010932print.html) that Muslim calls for “Death to Jews” are just “part of the debate on the Middle East” and discontinued a pre-trial investigation into the Stockholm mosque where audio cassettes exhorted listeners to kill Jews.


Calmy-Rey, who hightailed it to Kosovo to be first in line to open an embassy in Kosovo. Less than a week after she did so, there emerged this handy psychoanalysis analyzing this psycho. (Note that it’s the European edition of the Wall St. Journal, since the American edition would never carry anything so bold and plainly worded.): http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-BG000_oj_koe_20080403182005.jpg
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey in Tehran.

Somebody Stop Calmy-Rey (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120726161788787931.html?mod=djemEditorialPage)

By ROGER KÖPPEL, Wall Street Journal Europe, April 4, 2008 - ZURICH

Switzerland is seen as harmless and boring, at best a site for conferences, banking and skiing. The Confederation, as its founders intended, is supposed to keep out of big-time politics. This neutrality has not always been heroic, but generally wise and proper for a small country.
Since taking office nearly six years ago, Social Democratic Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has preached and practiced a break with this past. What critics at first dismissed as the annoying activism of a naive self-promoter has become a threat to Swiss interests.
The embarrassing low point in a chain of clumsy gestures and mistakes was Ms. Calmy-Rey’s recent appearance in Tehran, where she was photographed, smiling and wearing a headscarf, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The photo was gratefully registered by the mullahs as a propaganda coup for the ostracized theocracy. Although Ms. Calmy-Rey claims she harshly criticized the president for his policies, such as stoning adulterers, the prevailing impression was that she let herself be manipulated as a useful idiot by a brutal regime.
What’s more, Ms. Calmy-Rey was in Iran for the signing of a $20 billion gas deal, which rightly caused displeasure in the U.S. Washington requested a copy of the contract. The agreements might violate the U.S. Iran Sanctions Act and the United Nations’ sanctions against Tehran. If so, this would be a diplomatic embarrassment for Switzerland, to say the least.
It is wrong to see the minister’s lapses as the result of a clever master plan. The reality is more banal and more dangerous. Ms. Calmy-Rey acts by instinct, erratically, emotionally, without any strategic framework. What she argues today with the greatest sincerity is no longer of interest tomorrow. The aim is not lasting effectiveness, but media effect.
In 2003, the camera-hungry Social Democrat walked across the North Korean border in red sneakers to make a statement that no one understood. In the same year at the Davos World Economic Forum, she almost violently thrust herself upon then U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to read him the riot act about the impending Iraq war. Her foreign policy actions are reminiscent of the student movement’s agit-prop methods: much moral indignation and narcissism, little realism. Ms. Calmy-Rey calls it “active neutrality.”
Critics speak of “finger wagging” and “emotion diplomacy.”
Ms. Calmy-Rey wants to turn Switzerland into a moral superpower. It is a morality, however, that is firmly anchored in the left-liberal mainstream that seems to have lost its moral compass. She shares the aversion of Europe’s general public toward the U.S. and Israel. There is an emotional resentment of globalization and a belief against all evidence that, in the end, only broad-based development aid can improve the lives of the poor.
It was only logical then that Ms. Calmy-Rey would recommend the old socialist Jean Ziegler, of all people, as a human rights adviser to the United Nations. The controversial co-founder of the “Moammar Gadhafi Human Rights Prize” is a friend of Fidel Castro and an advocate of Hugo Chávez and naturally an unmerciful critic of “American imperialism” and Israel. Switzerland was also the only European country to vote in favor of last month’s one-sided anti-Israel resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council. Ms. Calmy-Rey has a natural talent for alienating Switzerland’s most reliable partners.
It is a miracle that her most disastrous act so far went almost unnoticed. In December 2006, she received an Iranian delegation for talks on the nuclear program. To the horror of her closest colleagues, she came up with the idea of improving relations by holding a “seminar on differing perceptions of the Holocaust.” One must understand the enormity of this: Ms. Calmy-Rey suggested a debate in Switzerland with Iranian Holocaust deniers on whether the murder of six million Jews actually happened. Fortunately, nothing came of this idea. It would not only have been outrageous, but also illegal, since genocide denial is a crime in Switzerland. She is isolated in the government, and her colleagues seem to grow more skeptical. But they do not speak out openly against her.
To avoid any misunderstanding, Ms. Calmy-Rey is no Holocaust denier, and is undoubtedly against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. But the episode makes clear the carelessness with which the foreign minister risks her country’s reputation for the sake of public appeal. Her “active neutrality” threatens to destroy neutrality through sheer, usually misguided, activism.
Most important, it’s counterproductive. The point of the talks with Iran was to convince the mullahs to make their nuclear plans transparent. Instead, the regime in Tehran gained time and a positive image through the contact. The problem is that Ms. Calmy-Rey is forcing a foreign policy role on Switzerland that the small country cannot and should not play. This new, wrong-headed visibility harms Switzerland and causes international confusion. The very fact that Swiss foreign policy has become an issue at all is evidence enough that Ms. Calmy-Rey must be stopped.



Of course, there’s also the obvious: The Swiss bow down before the geld, as they did in WWII, and the mideast Muslims have the geld. Simple as that.

[KoTeMoRe]

In a race to demonstrate who is the most terrified of Albanians, not only did Switzerland quickly recognize Kosovo independence, it hauled ass to Pristina to be the first to open an embassy. Unfortunately, Germany, France and Britain placed ahead of Switzerland — home to the second-largest diaspora “Kosovar” community after Germany — but it nonetheless deserves an honorable mention:
Swiss embassy opens in Kosovo (http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/foreign_affairs/Swiss_embassy_opens_in_Kosovo.html?siteSect=1521&sid=8907818&cKey=1206731628000&ty=st), March 28:
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey opened an embassy in Priština on Friday, a month after Bern recognised the independence of Kosovo.
[Reading her Albanian-provided cue card:] “Only an independent Kosovo can develop economically and politically, and Switzerland is contributing to the stability of the region by helping the construction of this state,” she said.
…
She described the 170,000 Kosovars living in Switzerland as a “strong link” and said it was important to make it easier for them to obtain travel documents.
“For all these reasons Switzerland did not want to wait before opening an embassy in Priština,” she explained.
Switzerland is the fourth country to have an embassy in Kosovo, after Germany, France and Britain. It replaces the liaison office.
…
Some parliamentarians in Switzerland have expressed disquiet at her visit to Kosovo.
**** Marty, the head of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said there was no reason for the country’s foreign minister to go there so soon.
…
The western Balkans have been a priority for Swiss foreign policy since the 1990s.
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) has a budget of SFr 13.9 million ($14 million) in aid to Kosovo for 2008. Calmy-Rey said Bern is considering ways of increasing the money available in time for an international donor conference to be held in Brussels in June.
…
Calmy-Rey had been an open and long-term supporter of independence for the country.
Her language here certainly differs from her November, 2005 rationalizations:
SWITZERLAND SUPPORTS KOSOVO INDEPENDENCE (http://www.mfa.gov.yu/Policy/CI/KIM/301105_1_e.html)
BRATISLAVA (Slovakia), November 29 (Tanjug) - Switzerland supports independence of Kosovo, Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said on Tuesday in Bratislava.
Switzerland and the Kosovo province have very intensive relations, as about 10 percent of the Kosovo population live in Switzerland and should there be any instability in Kosovo, Switzerland will suffer the consequences, Calmy-Rey told a joint press conference with her Slovakian counterpart Eduard Kukan, AFP reports.
So we have it from the horse’s mouth as to why the famously neutral country has lined up on the same neutral side it did 70 years ago.
Speaking of 1938 here is some enlightenment from the Washington chapter president of the Serbian Unity Congress, John Bosnitch:
[Kosovo independence] has always been about repeating Hitler’s 1938 feat at MUNICH of getting the world’s leading democracies to agree to violate international law by ripping the majority ethnic German region of Sudetenland out of Czechoslovakia…It was indeed to cover precisely this gaping hole in the US case that former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tried to inaccurately stand the 1938 Munich precedent with Hitler on its head by citing it as grounds for bombing Serbia. The Western media was able to dupe the Western public with that false parallel…
[Hitler said] the Sudeten Germans needed independence because they were the “victims of Czech persecution,” a false claim that history has proven to be just as absurd as that made by the Kosovo Albanians today.
Note: Axis powers Hungary, Bulgaria and Croatia as a bloc recognized (http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=91437) Kosovo independence on March 19-20, the fourth anniversary of Kosovo’s March 2004 pogroms against Serbs.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/xobix_media/images/keystone/2008/keyimg20080328_8904800_2.jpg
The new Swiss embassy in Pristina
http://www.swissinfo.ch/xobix_media/images/sri/2008/sriimg20080328_8908127_0.jpg
The smile of a dhimmi on double duty: Calmy-Rey opens the Swiss “embassy” in Kosovo.
BERN (Associated Press) — Switzerland remained shocked Wednesday shortly after the publication of the rape of a five year old young girl by schoolboys of 11 and 13 years made in June in the Grison commune of Rhazuns.
“It is alarming…,” declared the Minister for Justice, confirming that the two perpetrators were Albanians from Kosovo.
…
According to newspapers’ Swiss German “Blick” and “Sudostschweiz”, which made the public affair, the young girl was attracted into the neighbourhood park and then ******ly mistreated by the two schoolboys. The small victim was held by the smaller boy when the 13 year old teenager violated her. The younger boy then also violated her.
And a 13 year-old Swiss girl (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/switzerland-europes-heart-of-darkness-401619.html):
The statistics are clear, [Swiss Peoples Party member Dr. Ulrich Schlüer] said, foreigners are four times more likely to commit crimes than Swiss nationals. “In a suburb of Zürich, a group of youths between 14 and 18 recently raped a 13-year-old girl,” he said. “It turned out that all of them were already under investigation for some previous offence. They were all foreigners from the Balkans or Turkey. Their parents said these boys are out of control. We say: ‘That’s not acceptable. It’s your job to control them and if you can’t do that you’ll have to leave.’”
Comments (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1693333/posts) posted on the FreeRepublic site bring up some good points:
…Didn’t/don’t Hashim Thaqi and KLA soldiers and funders spend a lot of time living there? Isn’t Switzerland very lenient to drug traffickers and junkies? Haven’t their diplomats spoken of being for an independent Kosovo/a and weren’t they for the military intervention and occupation to help the militant Albanians?
Indeed (http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=6&leader=3):
…Hashim Thaci, who joined the Albanian political migration in Switzerland in the early nineties, where he founded the “National Movement for Kosovo”, the Marxist-Leninist political party whose only aim was to unite all of the regions where Albanians lived into one country…
And (http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3773004a7528.htm):
Thaci was involved, along with Haliti, in arms smuggling from Switzerland in the years before the 1998 uprising, say current and former senior rebel commanders. Thaci and Haliti both have wives and children in Switzerland…[A] former colonel named Ahmet Krasniqi…organized some 600 former officers, most living in Switzerland and Germany, to join the fight…
The answer from another comment poster:
Switzerland is in a position of someone with split personality disorder. Swiss banks and investment funds launder Albanian ill gotten money and profit handsomely from that. At the same time, Albanian immigrants present [a] problem for the Swiss authorities. The Swiss problem is how to keep Albanian dirty money and at the same time expel Albanians from Switzerland to keep their coockoo land undisturbed.
Swiss solution? Support stealing of Kosovo on behalf of Albanian terrorists to make a terrorist parastate there, then expel Albanians from Switzerland to Kosovo while at the same time keeping the money, the proceeds of laundering of Albanian criminally gotten funds…
Summary comment:
So in other words, the Swiss are so scared of their local Albanians that they hope that if they help them steal Kosovo from Serbia & give it to them, it will mean that the Albanians in Switzerland will leave & go to Kosovo.
Meanwhile, just when we thought Switzerland at least won the contest for fastest-moving foreign minister, once again it’s merely the runner-up: Sweden’s Carl Bildt got to Pristina first. That would be this Carl Bildt:
UN Commissioner to Balkan calls for recognizing Islam as European culture (March 2005): (http://www.kuna.net.kw/Home/print.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=712746)
UN Commissioner to the Balkans Carl Bildt on Saturday called for recognizing Islam as part of the European culture, asserting that Muslims in Balkan[s] formed a unique and positive factor in European affairs…Bildt told KUNA that Muslims in the Balkans, especially in Bosnia and Kosovo, proved that they are characterized with tolerance and cooperation with other societies…The official demanded the developing of the Balkans as a whole, calling for accepting all the region’s countries together in the EU to prevent any issues or conflicts that might be generated by keeping some Balkan countries outside the EU.
I can feel the vibrations from the shaking in Bildt’s boots all the way over here. At least the Kosovo question unites Sweden’s officials with (http://www.thelocal.se/10210/20080302/) its neo-Nazis:
A group of 20 neo-Nazis were detained by police in Stockholm on Saturday. The neo-Nazis were on their way to disrupt a demonstration by 400 Serbs protesting Kosovo’s independence.
…
“They were stopped near Riksbron. They were behaving badly and were armed with golf-clubs and stones,” said police spokesperson Ann-Charlotte Wejnäs to TT.
Just a conjecture as to who these Swedish neo-Nazis could be. Recall the unrequited Serb-blood-thirsty neo-Nazi mercenary warriors, from all over Europe, flocking to the Balkans to fight for the Croats during the 1990s:
“Swede on trial for war crimes in Bosnia (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/crimes-article.php?yyyy=2006&mm=11&dd=10&nav_id=37897)”
STOCKHOLM — Proceedings opened against a Swedish national for war crimes committed when he served as a Bosnian army volunteer…In interviews on the eve of the trial, [Jackie] Arklov has admitted to many of the alleged crimes including threatening and assaulting victims when he served as a volunteer with Bosnian-Croatian forces in 1993…
Although Liberian-born — as a boy he was adopted by Swedish parents — he was part of a neo-Nazi group that [in] 1999 robbed a bank in southern Sweden, and shot two police officers who had set up a road block.
Wiesenthal Center World Report, Fall/Winter 1995/96:
There have been growing fears about the activities of neo-Nazis in the former Yugoslavia since a former German member of the French Foreign Legion, Eugen Kammerer, revealed he had spent 18 months with the mercenaries in Bosnia for German intelligence. “There are over a thousand foreigners there, mostly Germans, fighting on all sides.” Ewen Southby-Tailyour, a former Royal Marine colonel who served with the European Community monitoring mission in Croatia from 1993-1994, said recently he had met German mercenaries, some wearing swastika armbands, serving in the Croatian army.
Anyway, the Sweden that rushes to kiss Kosovo is the same Sweden that grants (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=712090&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1) entrance visas to Hamas “ministers” and whose “Chancellor of Justice” said (http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/2006/04/010932print.html) that Muslim calls for “Death to Jews” are just “part of the debate on the Middle East” and discontinued a pre-trial investigation into the Stockholm mosque where audio cassettes exhorted listeners to kill Jews.


Calmy-Rey, who hightailed it to Kosovo to be first in line to open an embassy in Kosovo. Less than a week after she did so, there emerged this handy psychoanalysis analyzing this psycho. (Note that it’s the European edition of the Wall St. Journal, since the American edition would never carry anything so bold and plainly worded.): http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-BG000_oj_koe_20080403182005.jpg
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey in Tehran.

Somebody Stop Calmy-Rey (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120726161788787931.html?mod=djemEditorialPage)

By ROGER KÖPPEL, Wall Street Journal Europe, April 4, 2008 - ZURICH

Switzerland is seen as harmless and boring, at best a site for conferences, banking and skiing. The Confederation, as its founders intended, is supposed to keep out of big-time politics. This neutrality has not always been heroic, but generally wise and proper for a small country.
Since taking office nearly six years ago, Social Democratic Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has preached and practiced a break with this past. What critics at first dismissed as the annoying activism of a naive self-promoter has become a threat to Swiss interests.
The embarrassing low point in a chain of clumsy gestures and mistakes was Ms. Calmy-Rey’s recent appearance in Tehran, where she was photographed, smiling and wearing a headscarf, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The photo was gratefully registered by the mullahs as a propaganda coup for the ostracized theocracy. Although Ms. Calmy-Rey claims she harshly criticized the president for his policies, such as stoning adulterers, the prevailing impression was that she let herself be manipulated as a useful idiot by a brutal regime.
What’s more, Ms. Calmy-Rey was in Iran for the signing of a $20 billion gas deal, which rightly caused displeasure in the U.S. Washington requested a copy of the contract. The agreements might violate the U.S. Iran Sanctions Act and the United Nations’ sanctions against Tehran. If so, this would be a diplomatic embarrassment for Switzerland, to say the least.
It is wrong to see the minister’s lapses as the result of a clever master plan. The reality is more banal and more dangerous. Ms. Calmy-Rey acts by instinct, erratically, emotionally, without any strategic framework. What she argues today with the greatest sincerity is no longer of interest tomorrow. The aim is not lasting effectiveness, but media effect.
In 2003, the camera-hungry Social Democrat walked across the North Korean border in red sneakers to make a statement that no one understood. In the same year at the Davos World Economic Forum, she almost violently thrust herself upon then U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to read him the riot act about the impending Iraq war. Her foreign policy actions are reminiscent of the student movement’s agit-prop methods: much moral indignation and narcissism, little realism. Ms. Calmy-Rey calls it “active neutrality.”
Critics speak of “finger wagging” and “emotion diplomacy.”
Ms. Calmy-Rey wants to turn Switzerland into a moral superpower. It is a morality, however, that is firmly anchored in the left-liberal mainstream that seems to have lost its moral compass. She shares the aversion of Europe’s general public toward the U.S. and Israel. There is an emotional resentment of globalization and a belief against all evidence that, in the end, only broad-based development aid can improve the lives of the poor.
It was only logical then that Ms. Calmy-Rey would recommend the old socialist Jean Ziegler, of all people, as a human rights adviser to the United Nations. The controversial co-founder of the “Moammar Gadhafi Human Rights Prize” is a friend of Fidel Castro and an advocate of Hugo Chávez and naturally an unmerciful critic of “American imperialism” and Israel. Switzerland was also the only European country to vote in favor of last month’s one-sided anti-Israel resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council. Ms. Calmy-Rey has a natural talent for alienating Switzerland’s most reliable partners.
It is a miracle that her most disastrous act so far went almost unnoticed. In December 2006, she received an Iranian delegation for talks on the nuclear program. To the horror of her closest colleagues, she came up with the idea of improving relations by holding a “seminar on differing perceptions of the Holocaust.” One must understand the enormity of this: Ms. Calmy-Rey suggested a debate in Switzerland with Iranian Holocaust deniers on whether the murder of six million Jews actually happened. Fortunately, nothing came of this idea. It would not only have been outrageous, but also illegal, since genocide denial is a crime in Switzerland. She is isolated in the government, and her colleagues seem to grow more skeptical. But they do not speak out openly against her.
To avoid any misunderstanding, Ms. Calmy-Rey is no Holocaust denier, and is undoubtedly against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. But the episode makes clear the carelessness with which the foreign minister risks her country’s reputation for the sake of public appeal. Her “active neutrality” threatens to destroy neutrality through sheer, usually misguided, activism.
Most important, it’s counterproductive. The point of the talks with Iran was to convince the mullahs to make their nuclear plans transparent. Instead, the regime in Tehran gained time and a positive image through the contact. The problem is that Ms. Calmy-Rey is forcing a foreign policy role on Switzerland that the small country cannot and should not play. This new, wrong-headed visibility harms Switzerland and causes international confusion. The very fact that Swiss foreign policy has become an issue at all is evidence enough that Ms. Calmy-Rey must be stopped.



Of course, there’s also the obvious: The Swiss bow down before the geld, as they did in WWII, and the mideast Muslims have the geld. Simple as that.

Son you need to get a look on the CHB lists during WW2. Among customers of swiss banks you could find as much Germans as Allies. Switzerland's secrecy has profited to all during the last three centuries. Stating the contrary is vulgus slander.

I'm appalled on so much finesse while debating this.

[AK-Lover]

"Stoj ili ubivam na mestu, 'bem li ti nanu!" rofl

You are aware that Nislije hate us Belgraders by default?


That's quite alright, I pride myself on being a beogradski shupak.... p-)

heheh, Munze Konza rodjaci ;)

[V.I.D.]

from BBC website:

Kosovo 'organs sale' probe urged


http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44628000/jpg/_44628580_delpafp.jpg Ex-war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte carried the claims in a book



Human Rights Watch has called for an investigation into claims that ethnic Albanians in Kosovo abducted and killed Serbs and may have sold their organs.
The claims, relating to 1999, had been set out in a book by former UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte.
Human Rights Watch said it had new evidence to back up the allegations.
But Albanian PM Sali Berisha said the claims were like "an Agatha Christie novel" and had been investigated by national and international prosecutors.
Kosovo's assembly is due to convene in the coming weeks to discuss whether to sue Ms Del Ponte for allegedly tarnishing the image of Kosovo.
'Clear investigation'
Ms Del Ponte said in her book that she had learned that organs were being sold from "credible journalists".
She said the sources had told her that between 100 and 300 mostly Serb civilians were taken from Kosovo into Albania where "doctors extracted the captives' internal organs".
At the time UN and Nato forces were deploying to Kosovo as the war between Serbian forces and separatists was ending.
Human Rights Watch said it had reviewed investigations done at the time and that it believed there were "serious and credible allegations" over the issue.
Human Rights Watch senior researcher Fred Abrahams called on Kosovo and Albania to "show their commitment to justice and the rule of law by conducting proper investigations". But Mr Barisha said: "There has been a clear investigation by both national and international prosecutors and they have found no evidence." He added: "Carla Del Ponte never presented an official request to my government on the matter."

[Josip Broz]

i have been following this story. quite frankly, it's raising more questions and doubts about her and the hauge than about what happened.

why didn't she do something about it back when it's was part of her job to do something about it? she was the "war crimes prosecutor" was she not?! and what other things did she and the hauge roll under the carpet? and how just was the justice that the hague dished out? makes you wonder on and on..

[INAT]

i have been following this story. quite frankly, it's raising more questions and doubts about her and the hauge than about what happened.

why didn't she do something about it back when it's was part of her job to do something about it? she was the "war crimes prosecutor" was she not?! and what other things did she and the hauge roll under the carpet? and how just was the justice that the hague dished out? makes you wonder on and on..


Well a few reasons that I can think of is that it did not fit the story that was being sold Serb=agressor Albanian/Muslim/Croat=victim.And it would have made taking Kosovo-Metohija a lttle more difficult in the public opinion arena and third the Hague court clearly has anti-Serb bias the double standards are ridiculous anyone can see this.The Hague was NEVER about justice and trying to correct wrong doing.It was strictly a political tool.When they saw the Bosnian Serb intransigence in the mid 90s and later the NATO bombing did not go as planned they issued a blanket indictment against Serb military as well as civilian leadership.