The Voice of Russia / 2
1. KOSOVO CRISIS CAN EMBRACE THE WHOLE OF THE BALKANS
(Vladimir VOLKOV, director of the Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian
Academy of Sciences)
2. MOSCOW URGES TO END ETHNIC PURGES IN KOSOVO
(Novosti, 24/3/2004)
3. MOSCOW CALLS FOR USING UN RESOLUTION 1244 IN KOSOVO SETTLEMENT
(Itar-Tass, 24/3/2004)
4. KOSOVO: SELECTIVE SILENCE OR SOMETHING ELSE?
(Igor Motsnyi, Lawyer, Leiden University, the Netherlands)
See also:
The Voice of Russia / 1
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/3596
1. 206 paratroopers who shocked the world
(A. Khramchikhin, PRAVDA.Ru, 15/6/2004)
2. Kosovo: still the seat of Balkan instability
(Pavel Kandel, Novosti, 19/3/2004)
3. Genocide in Kosovo
(V. Bubnov, PRAVDA.Ru, 19/3/2004)
=== 1 ===
http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?msg_id=4089262
Russian Information Agency (Novosti) - March 23, 2004
KOSOVO CRISIS CAN EMBRACE THE WHOLE OF THE BALKANS
Prof. Vladimir VOLKOV, director of the Institute of
Slavic Studies (Russian Academy of Sciences), for RIA
Novosti
NATO started bombing Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999,
allegedly in reply to ethnic cleansing campaigns and
the ousting of Albanians from Kosovo. Today, five
years after it, one can say that the result of NATO
actions was diametrically opposite to the goals
proclaimed at the beginning of the military operation.
The Western powers, which spoke about their desire to
prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo, actually
provoked it. Large-scale ethnic persecution campaigns
against Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, Turks and all other
non-Albanian groups began in Kosovo with the
deployment of "blue helmets." Since then, about
400,000 have fled the province.
The campaign of creating an "ethnically pure Kosovo,"
launched with NATO connivance by Albanian extremists
who seized power in the region, has had its ups and
downs, with another aggravation, apparently planned in
advance, in Kosovo Mitrovice in the past few days. As
a result, more than a score Serbs were killed and
hundreds forced to leave the province, Serb villages
and churches torched, anti-Serb hysteria is gaining
momentum and new demands for the independence of
Kosovo have been made by Albanian extremists. These
demands run counter to UN Security Council Resolution
1244, which seals the territorial integrity of the
former Yugoslavia (and now Serbia and Montenegro),
Kosovo as its inalienable part.
In fact, Kosovo has long escaped the jurisdiction of
Belgrade and turned into a mandate territory of NATO,
whose peacekeepers do not control the situation in the
province. Albanian extremists are its true masters.
Their terrorist organisation - the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA), against which fought ex-President Slobodan
Milosevic, who is now facing the Hague tribunal on
charges of ethnic persecution - has not been dissolved
after the deployment of the NATO forces in the
province, though the bloc had pledged to disarm the
bandits.
But the KLA only changed its name to the Kosovo
Protection Corps, whose "men and officers" not only
bring death and destruction to the province but also
make raids to the southern districts of Serbia, where
they attack people and even police stations. The KLA
bandits also infiltrate Macedonia, joining the local
Albanian extremists, fanning their separatism and
encouraging them to begin an armed struggle for the
"independence" of Albanians. As a result of the
legalisation of the KLA through the creation of the
Kosovo Protection Corps, dozens of bandits received
posts in the province's bodies of authority and are
now applying their extremist ideas quite legally.
Regrettably, many politicians in the West are
encouraging the separatist plans of Albanian
extremists, saying that in this situation, there is no
alternative to the independence of Kosovo, as US
ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright used to say.
This is an extremely dangerous stand, as it implies
not only the creation of an independent state of
Kosovo but also the implementation of a more ambitious
plan of creating Greater Albania, which would
incorporate Albania, Kosovo, and a part of Montenegro,
Macedonia and Greece. The appearance in Europe of such
a state as a result of border re-carving, with a
quickly growing population of 6-7 million, would
seriously change the situation in the Balkans and the
rest of Europe. It would thus become extremely
difficult to get rid of the Balkan splinter.
Kosovo has calmed down a bit now after several days of
Serb pogroms, and President Ibrahim Rugova has even
announced a day of mourning for the dead. But this
calm, ensured by the emergency deployment of
additional KFOR units and harsh military-police
measures, is deceptive and, worst still, temporary.
There will be a new outbreak of violence, which can
grow to dangerous proportions, because the Kosovo
problem has not been solved and the West does not seem
willing to bring to order the unruly extremists who
made terror the main instrument of implementing their
separatist plans.
Moscow believes that the situation in Kosovo can be
stabilised if the sides strictly abide by Resolution
1244 and Belgrade's jurisdiction over Kosovo is
restored in practice. "Regrettably, the Albanian
leaders seldom fulfil the demands of the Security
Council," Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
the other day in an interview with a Russian
television channel. "Besides, some Western spokesmen
closed their eyes to this and did not call Albanians
to their senses in time. The recent tragedy in
Mitrovice confirmed our fears that such connivance
with the Albanians' intention to cleanse the province
of other ethnic groups is harmful and dangerous." The
minister added that Russia demands compliance with the
basic provisions of the settlement sealed by the UN
Security Council.
Ethnic groups cannot live at peace with each other in
Kosovo, and so we should probably accept the idea of
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica on dividing
Kosovo into ethnic cantons. This scheme is actually
used in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Serbs and
Muslims have been living separately after the
hostilities of the early 1990s.
To restore order in Kosovo, the world should really
disarm the KLA or whatever it is called now and call
to account the Albanian "hawks," such as Hasim Taci,
ex-leader of the KLA who has become a "respected
politician" and the leader of the so-called Democratic
Party of Kosovo. He committed many crimes in the past
and is playing politics in Kosovo now, politics that
is fraught with violence and might eventually blow up
the Balkans.
=== 2 ===
http://en.rian.ru/rian/
index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=4095196&startrow=21&date=2004-03-
24&do_alert=0
Russian Information Agencies (Novosti)
March 24, 2004
MOSCOW URGES TO END ETHNIC PURGES IN KOSOVO
MOSCOW, March 24, 2004. (RIA Novosti) - Alexander
Yakovenko, the Russian Foreign Ministry's official
spokesman, has issued a statement today, which marks
five years since NATO's air campaign against
Yugoslavia. The campaign was not authorized by the
United Nations Security Council and was a grave
violation of the UN Charter, emphasized Mr Yakovenko.
It took a lot of effort, above all on the part of
Russia, to end the aggression and bring the situation
under the UN control, reads the statement.
Kosovo continues to be "an open wound" despite UN
Security Council resolution 1244, which was passed
overwhelmingly in the wake of the war and outlined the
principles of the Kosovo settlement effort, wrote Mr
Yakovenko.
"There is not a single opportunity today to find a
long-term solution to the Kosovo problem, which would
envisage equal right for all province residents
regardless of their ethnic origin. Moreover, ethnic
purges of non-Albanian population, above all Serbs,
continue in the province," Mr Yakovenko stressed.
The NATO-led international peacekeeping contingents,
which pledged to maintain legal order and security in
Kosovo, assured that life would return to normality,
while the province would be developing in line with
European democratic standards, recalled the diplomat.
"What we are witnessing in reality resembles medieval
savageness: dozens of people were killed, hundreds of
homes and dozens of Orthodox churches and monasteries
under the UNESCO's protection were plundered and burnt
down [in the latest attacks]," said the Russian
diplomat.
Moscow believes the Kosovo settlement effort has
nearly come to a dead-end, which aggravates the
settlement processes in other parts of the former
Yugoslavia, Bosnia, for example.
Russia insists that all available means should be
employed to reinvigorate political settlement in
Kosovo. The global community and the peacekeeping
forces deployed in Kosovo must to this end focus on
fulfilling resolution 1244, which makes the only
available legal basis for settlement, reads the
statement.
This document must be implemented in an "impartial and
consistent" manner, emphasized the diplomat.
"The old methods of conniving at radicals must be
abandoned. Drastic measures need to be taken to end
ethnic purges," says the statement.
=== 3 ===
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=600318&PageNum=0
Itar-Tass (Russia)
March 24, 2004
Moscow calls for using UN resolution 1244 in Kosovo
settlement
MOSCOW, March 24 (Itar-Tass) - Russia insists on using
"the opportunities which are still available for
deploying the Kosovo settlement process along a
political course," Foreign Ministry spokesman
Alexander Yakovenko said on Wednesday in connection
with the 5th anniversary of the beginning of NATO's
bombings of Yugoslavia.
"These bombings were carried out in violation of the
UN Charter and in circumvention of the UN Security
Council. It was possible to stop, with tremendous
difficulties, the use of force -- in many respects
thanks to Russia's efforts -- and bring the situation
to the legal fold of the United Nations, where
resolution 1244 was unanimously approved," Yakovenko
said.
Kosovo remains a nonhealing wound of the new state
community of Serbia and Montenegro, and, generally, of
all the Balkans. At present, one is unable even to see
an opportunity for reaching a long-term solution of
the problem, which would envision observation of the
rights of all residents of the province regardless of
their nationality. Moreover, ethnic cleansings of
non-Albanian population -- foremost Serbs -- are
underway in the region, the spokesman said.
"We witness another exodus of Serbs from Kosovo, who
found themselves, as did dozens of thousands of
previous Serb refugees, without basic conditions of
life," Yakovenko said.
As before, Russian Emergency Ministry planes supply
tents, food and medicines for residents of the
province.
The NATO-led international forces which took the
responsibility for maintaining security in Kosovo
"assured that life was coming back to normal there."
But in actual fact, "we see the manifestation of
flagrant medieval barbarism -- dozens of people have
been killed these days, hundreds of homes plundered
and burnt, as well as dozens of Orthodox temples and
monasteries which had been under UNESCO protection,
according to the diplomat.
The global community should focus its efforts on full
implementation of UN SC resolution 1244, the only
legal basis for a settlement.
"It is necessity to take urgent actions to stop ethnic
cleansings," the diplomat said, "only after this we
can have a serious discussion over how to make
progress in the settlement."
=== 4 ===
http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/98/387/12347_Kosovo.html
Pravda.ru (Russia) - March 25, 2004
Kosovo: selective silence or something else?
Igor Motsnyi
Lawyer, (LL.M in European Community Law, Leiden
University, the Netherlands)
One may call it selective silence. I call it fascism.
Once upon a time everything was quite simple and
self-explanatory. The public knew who bad guys were.
Once upon a time human rights activists knew very well
what they should protest against. Just five years ago
there was a hot topic for all western media:
humanitarian crisis in Kosovo. We were reading,
watching and listening to horrific never-ending
stories of gang rapes and mass murders perpetrated by
Serbs. By that time the international community was
already prepared to this sort of information. [The]
Anti-Serb campaign started soon after the beginning of
the war in Croatia. It was far too easy: Serbs are
bad, all others are good (or not as bad as Serbs,
depending upon circumstances). Just keep it simple and
the whole world knows what is going on.
Kosovo is not a big deal anymore. Having looked
through Yahoo! headlines a couple of days ago I
discovered that stories from Kosovo were far behind
the Iraqi war on terrorism, US presidential elections
and the issue of gay and lesbian marriages. CNN just
briefly mentioned Kosovo uproars in its world news
report. Well, I guess I should not have been
surprised. Sure, gays and lesbians have the right to
get married and the right to be heard, US presidential
candidates have the right to explain their views to
the US and international public.
Serbs do not have right to live and practice their
religion on their own land.
Who cares about Serbs after all? Serbs are evil. It is
a postulate.
Since the end of the World War Two there were no
particularly serious military conflicts in Europe.
This peaceful state of affairs ended after the
collapse of Yugoslavia. Soon after unhappy events had
happened the whole world had a chance to see the new
evil. In the whole chain of occasions the people
quickly forgot the simple principle: there are no good
and bad nations, there are good and bad individuals.
The wars in Croatia, Bosnia, an armed conflict in
Kosovo and NATO bombings provided hundreds if not
thousands of jobs for various kinds of writers,
reporters and political analysts who played a major
role in forming international opinion in respect of
the former Yugoslav republics. One of the most
prolific and successful Balkan writers was Tim Judah.
His books "The Serbs. History, Myth and the
Destruction of Yugoslavia" and "Kosovo: War and
Revenge" instantly became authoritative sources of
information on recent Balkan wars. Trying to explain
the nature of Serbs and Serbia's "sad present in the
light of its past" the author comes up with an example
of a famous Serbian (Montenegrin) poem "The Mountain
Wreath" or "Gorski Vijenac" (Serbian) by Petar Njegos,
a Montenegrin prince. The poem tells about the
historic happenings of the end of the 17th century
known as "the exterminations of the Turkish converts."
The main outcome of the author's reasoning was: only
[a] mentally crazy nation may glorify such deeds and
consider the mass killings of one religious group an
act of heroism. Tim Judah however overlooked the fact
that the history of every nation is in a certain way
based on wars against others, particularly on wars
against those considered oppressors. The whole Jean
d"Arc legend is based upon the war against the
British. I would not go so far as to call the French
an insane nation though. Tim Judah was just one of the
many proponents of Anti-Serb hysteria and by all means
not the worst one. He was just one of the myriad of
contributors to "insane nation" myth.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called
burning down Serbian churches and expelling Serbs from
their homes where the lived for centuries "a very bad
thing". His further message to Serbs was to be
self-restrained and avoid any violence.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer could have used stronger terms
to describe the current situation in Kosovo, but why
should he?
Who cares about Serbs? Serbs are mentally sick. Just
read Tim Judah's books.
Walking along a Danube embankment in the city of Novi
Sad with a Hungarian friend of mine we were talking
about some insignificant stuff that pals normally
discuss at 11 p.m. "Serbia seems nice and the people
are so extraordinary friendly"- she said to me,
suddenly. "I did not expect this. I watched some
footages from Serbia before, our TV always showed
Albanian women who were raped by Serbs, they looked
terrified," she added a few seconds later.
For the period between the 17th and the 19th March
more than 20 Orthodox churches and monasteries were
set on fire. Some of them were built in the 14th
century and protected by UNESCO. More than 3,000
(three thousand) Serbs had to leave their homes.
Harri Holkeri, Kosovo's UN administrator, said attacks
"came so suddenly the security forces were not in the
right place at the right time". United Nations
condemned violence in Kosovo. What else could they do?
Condemnation is already too much.
Who cares about Serbs? Serbs are rapists. Just watch
TV to understand this.
During last ten years the whole world has been
learning by heart only one phrase: "Serbs are bad". It
turns out they finally succeeded. No one seems to be
disgusted by the fact that for the past several days
thousands of Serbs were expelled from their homeland
and many Orthodox churches were destroyed. An average
American is more concerned about same-sex marriage
than about burning Orthodox churches. An average
British is more interested in Kylie Minogue-Oliver
Martinez relationship than in thousands of Serbian
refugees.
Nobody talks about ethnic cleansing or genocide this
time, ethnic cleansing simply does not apply to Serbs;
they are the ones who ethnically clean others but not
the ones who get ethnically cleaned. Nowadays there
are just ethnic clashes between "the majority Muslim
Albanians and the Orthodox Christian Serbs" as Reuters
say.
I just wonder how one should call well-planned and
systematic attacks against ethnic and religious
minority as well as persistent destruction of
religious objects?
It is pretty simple though.
This is just fascism, mere fascism, no more, no less.
If you say the others are inferior just because they
belong to a particular nation it is fascism. No doubt
about that. If no one is going to do anything about
current Kosovo crisis it means they deny Serbs the
very basic human rights: the right to human dignity
and the right to life just because they are Serbs.
I do understand that very few actually expected this.
People in the United States and the EU get used to
receiving information about barbaric acts committed by
Serbs and do not want to learn about crimes committed
against Serbs. As I have said it was all too simple
before and it is a bit more complicated now. Perhaps
the rest of the world does not believe Serbs can
suffer as much as other nations. It may also be they
think Serbs deserve current sufferings and that the
situation in Kosovo is getting better in any case. I
remember very well a talk with a young intellectual
from Czech republic right after the NATO military
campaign against Yugoslavia. He was arguing that NATO
military intervention was inevitable. He admitted some
"collateral damage" had been caused to the country but
said that it had been necessary to prevent further
harm and stop humanitarian catastrophe.
Or they do not have an opportunity to learn more about
the genocide that is going on in Kosovo now.
Looks like just very few of us are appalled at the
images of Serbs leaving their homes and blazing
Serbian churches. The rest of the world does not want
to see these images or does not want to believe them.
They are ignoring the truth.
One may call it selective silence. I call it fascism.
1. KOSOVO CRISIS CAN EMBRACE THE WHOLE OF THE BALKANS
(Vladimir VOLKOV, director of the Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian
Academy of Sciences)
2. MOSCOW URGES TO END ETHNIC PURGES IN KOSOVO
(Novosti, 24/3/2004)
3. MOSCOW CALLS FOR USING UN RESOLUTION 1244 IN KOSOVO SETTLEMENT
(Itar-Tass, 24/3/2004)
4. KOSOVO: SELECTIVE SILENCE OR SOMETHING ELSE?
(Igor Motsnyi, Lawyer, Leiden University, the Netherlands)
See also:
The Voice of Russia / 1
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/3596
1. 206 paratroopers who shocked the world
(A. Khramchikhin, PRAVDA.Ru, 15/6/2004)
2. Kosovo: still the seat of Balkan instability
(Pavel Kandel, Novosti, 19/3/2004)
3. Genocide in Kosovo
(V. Bubnov, PRAVDA.Ru, 19/3/2004)
=== 1 ===
http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?msg_id=4089262
Russian Information Agency (Novosti) - March 23, 2004
KOSOVO CRISIS CAN EMBRACE THE WHOLE OF THE BALKANS
Prof. Vladimir VOLKOV, director of the Institute of
Slavic Studies (Russian Academy of Sciences), for RIA
Novosti
NATO started bombing Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999,
allegedly in reply to ethnic cleansing campaigns and
the ousting of Albanians from Kosovo. Today, five
years after it, one can say that the result of NATO
actions was diametrically opposite to the goals
proclaimed at the beginning of the military operation.
The Western powers, which spoke about their desire to
prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo, actually
provoked it. Large-scale ethnic persecution campaigns
against Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, Turks and all other
non-Albanian groups began in Kosovo with the
deployment of "blue helmets." Since then, about
400,000 have fled the province.
The campaign of creating an "ethnically pure Kosovo,"
launched with NATO connivance by Albanian extremists
who seized power in the region, has had its ups and
downs, with another aggravation, apparently planned in
advance, in Kosovo Mitrovice in the past few days. As
a result, more than a score Serbs were killed and
hundreds forced to leave the province, Serb villages
and churches torched, anti-Serb hysteria is gaining
momentum and new demands for the independence of
Kosovo have been made by Albanian extremists. These
demands run counter to UN Security Council Resolution
1244, which seals the territorial integrity of the
former Yugoslavia (and now Serbia and Montenegro),
Kosovo as its inalienable part.
In fact, Kosovo has long escaped the jurisdiction of
Belgrade and turned into a mandate territory of NATO,
whose peacekeepers do not control the situation in the
province. Albanian extremists are its true masters.
Their terrorist organisation - the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA), against which fought ex-President Slobodan
Milosevic, who is now facing the Hague tribunal on
charges of ethnic persecution - has not been dissolved
after the deployment of the NATO forces in the
province, though the bloc had pledged to disarm the
bandits.
But the KLA only changed its name to the Kosovo
Protection Corps, whose "men and officers" not only
bring death and destruction to the province but also
make raids to the southern districts of Serbia, where
they attack people and even police stations. The KLA
bandits also infiltrate Macedonia, joining the local
Albanian extremists, fanning their separatism and
encouraging them to begin an armed struggle for the
"independence" of Albanians. As a result of the
legalisation of the KLA through the creation of the
Kosovo Protection Corps, dozens of bandits received
posts in the province's bodies of authority and are
now applying their extremist ideas quite legally.
Regrettably, many politicians in the West are
encouraging the separatist plans of Albanian
extremists, saying that in this situation, there is no
alternative to the independence of Kosovo, as US
ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright used to say.
This is an extremely dangerous stand, as it implies
not only the creation of an independent state of
Kosovo but also the implementation of a more ambitious
plan of creating Greater Albania, which would
incorporate Albania, Kosovo, and a part of Montenegro,
Macedonia and Greece. The appearance in Europe of such
a state as a result of border re-carving, with a
quickly growing population of 6-7 million, would
seriously change the situation in the Balkans and the
rest of Europe. It would thus become extremely
difficult to get rid of the Balkan splinter.
Kosovo has calmed down a bit now after several days of
Serb pogroms, and President Ibrahim Rugova has even
announced a day of mourning for the dead. But this
calm, ensured by the emergency deployment of
additional KFOR units and harsh military-police
measures, is deceptive and, worst still, temporary.
There will be a new outbreak of violence, which can
grow to dangerous proportions, because the Kosovo
problem has not been solved and the West does not seem
willing to bring to order the unruly extremists who
made terror the main instrument of implementing their
separatist plans.
Moscow believes that the situation in Kosovo can be
stabilised if the sides strictly abide by Resolution
1244 and Belgrade's jurisdiction over Kosovo is
restored in practice. "Regrettably, the Albanian
leaders seldom fulfil the demands of the Security
Council," Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
the other day in an interview with a Russian
television channel. "Besides, some Western spokesmen
closed their eyes to this and did not call Albanians
to their senses in time. The recent tragedy in
Mitrovice confirmed our fears that such connivance
with the Albanians' intention to cleanse the province
of other ethnic groups is harmful and dangerous." The
minister added that Russia demands compliance with the
basic provisions of the settlement sealed by the UN
Security Council.
Ethnic groups cannot live at peace with each other in
Kosovo, and so we should probably accept the idea of
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica on dividing
Kosovo into ethnic cantons. This scheme is actually
used in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Serbs and
Muslims have been living separately after the
hostilities of the early 1990s.
To restore order in Kosovo, the world should really
disarm the KLA or whatever it is called now and call
to account the Albanian "hawks," such as Hasim Taci,
ex-leader of the KLA who has become a "respected
politician" and the leader of the so-called Democratic
Party of Kosovo. He committed many crimes in the past
and is playing politics in Kosovo now, politics that
is fraught with violence and might eventually blow up
the Balkans.
=== 2 ===
http://en.rian.ru/rian/
index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=4095196&startrow=21&date=2004-03-
24&do_alert=0
Russian Information Agencies (Novosti)
March 24, 2004
MOSCOW URGES TO END ETHNIC PURGES IN KOSOVO
MOSCOW, March 24, 2004. (RIA Novosti) - Alexander
Yakovenko, the Russian Foreign Ministry's official
spokesman, has issued a statement today, which marks
five years since NATO's air campaign against
Yugoslavia. The campaign was not authorized by the
United Nations Security Council and was a grave
violation of the UN Charter, emphasized Mr Yakovenko.
It took a lot of effort, above all on the part of
Russia, to end the aggression and bring the situation
under the UN control, reads the statement.
Kosovo continues to be "an open wound" despite UN
Security Council resolution 1244, which was passed
overwhelmingly in the wake of the war and outlined the
principles of the Kosovo settlement effort, wrote Mr
Yakovenko.
"There is not a single opportunity today to find a
long-term solution to the Kosovo problem, which would
envisage equal right for all province residents
regardless of their ethnic origin. Moreover, ethnic
purges of non-Albanian population, above all Serbs,
continue in the province," Mr Yakovenko stressed.
The NATO-led international peacekeeping contingents,
which pledged to maintain legal order and security in
Kosovo, assured that life would return to normality,
while the province would be developing in line with
European democratic standards, recalled the diplomat.
"What we are witnessing in reality resembles medieval
savageness: dozens of people were killed, hundreds of
homes and dozens of Orthodox churches and monasteries
under the UNESCO's protection were plundered and burnt
down [in the latest attacks]," said the Russian
diplomat.
Moscow believes the Kosovo settlement effort has
nearly come to a dead-end, which aggravates the
settlement processes in other parts of the former
Yugoslavia, Bosnia, for example.
Russia insists that all available means should be
employed to reinvigorate political settlement in
Kosovo. The global community and the peacekeeping
forces deployed in Kosovo must to this end focus on
fulfilling resolution 1244, which makes the only
available legal basis for settlement, reads the
statement.
This document must be implemented in an "impartial and
consistent" manner, emphasized the diplomat.
"The old methods of conniving at radicals must be
abandoned. Drastic measures need to be taken to end
ethnic purges," says the statement.
=== 3 ===
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=600318&PageNum=0
Itar-Tass (Russia)
March 24, 2004
Moscow calls for using UN resolution 1244 in Kosovo
settlement
MOSCOW, March 24 (Itar-Tass) - Russia insists on using
"the opportunities which are still available for
deploying the Kosovo settlement process along a
political course," Foreign Ministry spokesman
Alexander Yakovenko said on Wednesday in connection
with the 5th anniversary of the beginning of NATO's
bombings of Yugoslavia.
"These bombings were carried out in violation of the
UN Charter and in circumvention of the UN Security
Council. It was possible to stop, with tremendous
difficulties, the use of force -- in many respects
thanks to Russia's efforts -- and bring the situation
to the legal fold of the United Nations, where
resolution 1244 was unanimously approved," Yakovenko
said.
Kosovo remains a nonhealing wound of the new state
community of Serbia and Montenegro, and, generally, of
all the Balkans. At present, one is unable even to see
an opportunity for reaching a long-term solution of
the problem, which would envision observation of the
rights of all residents of the province regardless of
their nationality. Moreover, ethnic cleansings of
non-Albanian population -- foremost Serbs -- are
underway in the region, the spokesman said.
"We witness another exodus of Serbs from Kosovo, who
found themselves, as did dozens of thousands of
previous Serb refugees, without basic conditions of
life," Yakovenko said.
As before, Russian Emergency Ministry planes supply
tents, food and medicines for residents of the
province.
The NATO-led international forces which took the
responsibility for maintaining security in Kosovo
"assured that life was coming back to normal there."
But in actual fact, "we see the manifestation of
flagrant medieval barbarism -- dozens of people have
been killed these days, hundreds of homes plundered
and burnt, as well as dozens of Orthodox temples and
monasteries which had been under UNESCO protection,
according to the diplomat.
The global community should focus its efforts on full
implementation of UN SC resolution 1244, the only
legal basis for a settlement.
"It is necessity to take urgent actions to stop ethnic
cleansings," the diplomat said, "only after this we
can have a serious discussion over how to make
progress in the settlement."
=== 4 ===
http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/98/387/12347_Kosovo.html
Pravda.ru (Russia) - March 25, 2004
Kosovo: selective silence or something else?
Igor Motsnyi
Lawyer, (LL.M in European Community Law, Leiden
University, the Netherlands)
One may call it selective silence. I call it fascism.
Once upon a time everything was quite simple and
self-explanatory. The public knew who bad guys were.
Once upon a time human rights activists knew very well
what they should protest against. Just five years ago
there was a hot topic for all western media:
humanitarian crisis in Kosovo. We were reading,
watching and listening to horrific never-ending
stories of gang rapes and mass murders perpetrated by
Serbs. By that time the international community was
already prepared to this sort of information. [The]
Anti-Serb campaign started soon after the beginning of
the war in Croatia. It was far too easy: Serbs are
bad, all others are good (or not as bad as Serbs,
depending upon circumstances). Just keep it simple and
the whole world knows what is going on.
Kosovo is not a big deal anymore. Having looked
through Yahoo! headlines a couple of days ago I
discovered that stories from Kosovo were far behind
the Iraqi war on terrorism, US presidential elections
and the issue of gay and lesbian marriages. CNN just
briefly mentioned Kosovo uproars in its world news
report. Well, I guess I should not have been
surprised. Sure, gays and lesbians have the right to
get married and the right to be heard, US presidential
candidates have the right to explain their views to
the US and international public.
Serbs do not have right to live and practice their
religion on their own land.
Who cares about Serbs after all? Serbs are evil. It is
a postulate.
Since the end of the World War Two there were no
particularly serious military conflicts in Europe.
This peaceful state of affairs ended after the
collapse of Yugoslavia. Soon after unhappy events had
happened the whole world had a chance to see the new
evil. In the whole chain of occasions the people
quickly forgot the simple principle: there are no good
and bad nations, there are good and bad individuals.
The wars in Croatia, Bosnia, an armed conflict in
Kosovo and NATO bombings provided hundreds if not
thousands of jobs for various kinds of writers,
reporters and political analysts who played a major
role in forming international opinion in respect of
the former Yugoslav republics. One of the most
prolific and successful Balkan writers was Tim Judah.
His books "The Serbs. History, Myth and the
Destruction of Yugoslavia" and "Kosovo: War and
Revenge" instantly became authoritative sources of
information on recent Balkan wars. Trying to explain
the nature of Serbs and Serbia's "sad present in the
light of its past" the author comes up with an example
of a famous Serbian (Montenegrin) poem "The Mountain
Wreath" or "Gorski Vijenac" (Serbian) by Petar Njegos,
a Montenegrin prince. The poem tells about the
historic happenings of the end of the 17th century
known as "the exterminations of the Turkish converts."
The main outcome of the author's reasoning was: only
[a] mentally crazy nation may glorify such deeds and
consider the mass killings of one religious group an
act of heroism. Tim Judah however overlooked the fact
that the history of every nation is in a certain way
based on wars against others, particularly on wars
against those considered oppressors. The whole Jean
d"Arc legend is based upon the war against the
British. I would not go so far as to call the French
an insane nation though. Tim Judah was just one of the
many proponents of Anti-Serb hysteria and by all means
not the worst one. He was just one of the myriad of
contributors to "insane nation" myth.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called
burning down Serbian churches and expelling Serbs from
their homes where the lived for centuries "a very bad
thing". His further message to Serbs was to be
self-restrained and avoid any violence.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer could have used stronger terms
to describe the current situation in Kosovo, but why
should he?
Who cares about Serbs? Serbs are mentally sick. Just
read Tim Judah's books.
Walking along a Danube embankment in the city of Novi
Sad with a Hungarian friend of mine we were talking
about some insignificant stuff that pals normally
discuss at 11 p.m. "Serbia seems nice and the people
are so extraordinary friendly"- she said to me,
suddenly. "I did not expect this. I watched some
footages from Serbia before, our TV always showed
Albanian women who were raped by Serbs, they looked
terrified," she added a few seconds later.
For the period between the 17th and the 19th March
more than 20 Orthodox churches and monasteries were
set on fire. Some of them were built in the 14th
century and protected by UNESCO. More than 3,000
(three thousand) Serbs had to leave their homes.
Harri Holkeri, Kosovo's UN administrator, said attacks
"came so suddenly the security forces were not in the
right place at the right time". United Nations
condemned violence in Kosovo. What else could they do?
Condemnation is already too much.
Who cares about Serbs? Serbs are rapists. Just watch
TV to understand this.
During last ten years the whole world has been
learning by heart only one phrase: "Serbs are bad". It
turns out they finally succeeded. No one seems to be
disgusted by the fact that for the past several days
thousands of Serbs were expelled from their homeland
and many Orthodox churches were destroyed. An average
American is more concerned about same-sex marriage
than about burning Orthodox churches. An average
British is more interested in Kylie Minogue-Oliver
Martinez relationship than in thousands of Serbian
refugees.
Nobody talks about ethnic cleansing or genocide this
time, ethnic cleansing simply does not apply to Serbs;
they are the ones who ethnically clean others but not
the ones who get ethnically cleaned. Nowadays there
are just ethnic clashes between "the majority Muslim
Albanians and the Orthodox Christian Serbs" as Reuters
say.
I just wonder how one should call well-planned and
systematic attacks against ethnic and religious
minority as well as persistent destruction of
religious objects?
It is pretty simple though.
This is just fascism, mere fascism, no more, no less.
If you say the others are inferior just because they
belong to a particular nation it is fascism. No doubt
about that. If no one is going to do anything about
current Kosovo crisis it means they deny Serbs the
very basic human rights: the right to human dignity
and the right to life just because they are Serbs.
I do understand that very few actually expected this.
People in the United States and the EU get used to
receiving information about barbaric acts committed by
Serbs and do not want to learn about crimes committed
against Serbs. As I have said it was all too simple
before and it is a bit more complicated now. Perhaps
the rest of the world does not believe Serbs can
suffer as much as other nations. It may also be they
think Serbs deserve current sufferings and that the
situation in Kosovo is getting better in any case. I
remember very well a talk with a young intellectual
from Czech republic right after the NATO military
campaign against Yugoslavia. He was arguing that NATO
military intervention was inevitable. He admitted some
"collateral damage" had been caused to the country but
said that it had been necessary to prevent further
harm and stop humanitarian catastrophe.
Or they do not have an opportunity to learn more about
the genocide that is going on in Kosovo now.
Looks like just very few of us are appalled at the
images of Serbs leaving their homes and blazing
Serbian churches. The rest of the world does not want
to see these images or does not want to believe them.
They are ignoring the truth.
One may call it selective silence. I call it fascism.