Japan Times - March 1, 2011
Wrong choice in Kosovo
A recent Council of Europe report says that during and after the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict, militia leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) tortured and killed hundreds of Serbs and political rivals in secret Albanian hideouts, removed their organs for sale and dumped their bodies in local rivers.
The report added that these people were also heavily involved in drug, sex and illegal immigrant trafficking across Europe. Yet while all this was going on, the NATO powers had decreed that Serbia should be bombed into accepting the KLA as Kosovo's legitimate rulers — rather than the more popular Democratic League of Kosovo headed by the nationalist intellectual Ibrahim Rugova advocating nonviolent independence.
Recent years have not been kind to Western policymakers. They have shown an almost unerring ability to choose the wrong people for the wrong policies. Think back to the procession of incompetents chosen to rescue Indochina from the communist enemy. Does anyone even remember their names today? Yet at the time they were supposed to be nation-savers.
Before that the United Kingdom, United States and Australia had banded to try to prevent Lee Kuan Yew from being elected prime minister of Singapore. He was seen as a crypto-communist. They preferred the incompetent pro-British Lim Yew Hock.
Then we saw the West, and Japan, throw their support behind the hapless Afghan President Hamid Karzai as the strongman to defeat the evil Taliban whom the U.S. had once embraced as the good Taliban.
If not for the end of the Cold War, we almost certainly would be seeing the U.S. and U.K. today once again backing Middle East dictators against their protesting masses.
And now we discover that the people chosen to take over Kosovo from Serbia were not quite the heroes they were made out to be at the time.
Western involvement in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia had more than its share of such mistakes. The Serbian forces resisting the breakup were accused of war crimes and ethnic cleansing. But anyone aware of that nation's troubled history should have realized that the Serbian minorities in Croatia and Bosnia would not accept domination by the successors to their former pro-Nazi oppressors.
Retaliations and violent resistance, including even the shocking Srebrenica killings, were inevitable. Besides, the final result was that close to a million Serbs had to seek refuge in Serbia itself. So who had been cleansing whom?
Kosovo too had seen wartime ethnic cleansing against Serbs by pro-Nazi elements. The cleansing continued during the 1990s as U.S.-trained KLA guerrillas targeted Serbs isolated in rural districts and towns (by then Belgrade's efforts to give the province autonomy had failed on the rock of ethnic Albanian noncooperation).
When Belgrade finally sent in troops to resist the guerrillas, it was accused of war crimes even though the illegitimate force used was much less than what we see when most other Western nations, the U.S. particularly, intervene against guerrillas they do not like.
When many ethnic Albanians fled temporarily after the NATO bombing intervention, that too was supposed to be Serbian ethnic cleansing.
Even after gaining power, the KLA violence and cleansings continued. Their victims included the Jewish and Roma minorities and ethnic Albanians who had cooperated with Serbia's attempt to offer autonomy. The trafficking of drugs, women and body organs continued, right under the noses of the U.N. forces sent in to maintain order. Rugova supporters were eliminated.
The U.S., U.K. and Germany bear most of the blame for this horror; Germany especially should have realized the passions that would be unleashed by any sudden breakup of the former Yugoslavia. But they seemed more interested in the geopolitical gains.
In exchange for helping the KLA, the U.S. got to add the strategic Bondsteel military base in Kosovo to its global base network. And the feisty U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright got to play world leader at the 1999 Rambouillet conference by decreeing that the dashing, handsome KLA leader Hashim Thaci was far preferable to the elderly, unpretentious Rugova as Kosovo's future leader, and that Serbia should be bombed if it did not agree. Belgrade's agreement to Rugova as leader of an independent Kosovo was dismissed as irrelevant.
One wonders how the Serbs saw this performance. Two generations earlier, they had been the only European nation with the courage to resist Nazi attack. They had been bombed and massacred as a result. Now they were to suffer again at the hands of the NATO-supporting European nations, most of whom had spinelessly succumbed to, or had even collaborated with, that former Nazi enemy.
True, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has now resolved that it is "extremely concerned" over the recent KLA revelations. But is that not rather too late?
And will we see apologies from the people behind the past policies, particularly from the likes of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair who still boasts that his firm resolve against Serbian "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo led him to support the U.S. in Iraq? I doubt it.
*Gregory Clark is a former Australian diplomat and longtime resident of Japan. A Japanese translation of this article will appear on www.gregoryclark.net
“The international community avoids going below the surface and looking into problems, it avoids admitting that Kosovo was a huge mistake, the biggest one in the past 12 years,” he told Tanjug.
“We created a mafia state and we care only about not letting the truth come out,” the Italian MEP added.
He pointed out that as a mission EULEX had so far been a complete failure, pointing out that the EU and the international community should stop having a false image of Kosovo as a stable place.
“The EU countries should start facing the truth and taking measures. The political situation in Kosovo and the fact that organized crime dominates its territory represent a huge threat to the security of the EU and the regional countries, even Albania,” said Arlacchi, a member of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament who actively took part in the creation of Italy's structures for combating mafia in the 1980s.
“EULEX has been a complete failure. They have no strategy or idea what to do, and they did not take into account Europe's experience in combating organized crime,” he underscored.
NATO's next stop? It will have to be somewhere where there are Islamist terrorists to side with, somewhere whose population can be easily bombed, meaning somewhere defenceless and somewhere where the worst dregs of society can be turned into governors, politicians and ministers. Where could that be?
When we speak about Serbia and Kosovo, let us get certain things right from the start. Facts: Kosovo is Serbian. The Serbian nation has always included Kosovo. Kosovo is the heart that beats at the centre of the Serb psyche. The ones who planned for a Greater Albania were Hitler and Mussolini. Kosovo is Serbia. Kosovo always was Serbia, Kosovo always has been Serbia and Kosovo always will be Serbia, however many lines they draw on maps.
The history book proves NATO wrong
"Gradual and unconditional" independence for Kosovo, ripping the heart out of Serbia, a meddlesome and intrusive, unwelcome and unasked-for act of blatant arrogance from non-Balkan peoples. This is the legacy of NATO the world over.
The Albanian government has claimed at various times that the Albanians are the descendants of the Illyrians, the original inhabitants of this region, and that therefore they have a right to this Province of Serbia.
However, for anyone who bothers to do any research, this is utter nonsense. However much one adulterates the word "Illyria", one does not get anywhere as near to "Albania" as the "Albani", a tribe which had lived on the Caspian Sea and which many centuries after the Illyrians had been conquered by the Romans, moved westwards into their mountainous refuge, where these tribes remained as the "Shqiperi" or "eagle people". Polybius (200 - 118 BC) writes that the Albani and Illyrians spoke two distinct languages and needed interpreters to understand each other. Indeed, it was under the Ottoman domination of the Balkans that the Albanians settled definitively in the area which is Albania today. Besides, the Illyrians never referred to themselves as a single people or group of peoples, simply because they were not, neither did they speak a common language.
A study into the ethnic composition of Kosovo over history shows very clearly that the Serbs are the original inhabitants and therefore have a birthright to retain Kosovo. It was the Serbian army, led by prince Lazar, which fought the heroic battle of Kosovo Polje (Blackbird Field) on June 28, 1389, gaining an honourable draw against the might of the Ottoman Turks, but being so weakened that by 1459, all of Serbia had been occupied. However, Kosovo Polye stood firm in the hearts and minds of generations of Serbs for hundreds of years as their rallying cry.
NATO's violence
With the Serbs now penned into Northern Kosovo, the northern part of their own province, that terrorist mafia filth NATO backs (similar to the filth it backs in Libya) has run amok. These are the rapists, terrorists, murderers, looters, arsonists and torturers, organ traffickers which NATO cavorts with then labels "Minister" or some such nonsense. When was Hashim Thaçi "minister" of anything? He has been accused of organ trafficking and NATO calls him "Prime Minister" of Kosovo, a country that does not exist. Why not call him King of Saturn, or better still, King of Mercury and send him and his Shiptari terrorists there to burn in Hell?
To protect this filth, NATO forces have given the Serbs a further 24 hours to take down their road barricades, set up to protect the Serbs and to allow ambulances to pass, to get them to hospital after Albanian mafia thugs dressed as policemen strafe civilians with gunfire; these barricades were set up to ensure that anti-Serb elements were not placed at the only escape routes Serbs would have into Serbia if the long-awaited ethnic cleansing (backed by NATO) went ahead and drove them out of Kosovo, their own homeland.
It would be a bit like forcing all US citizens out of, say, Virginia and replacing them with Arabs, or telling the English that Kent was not to be French, or telling the French that the English possessions of the Medieval era were to be returned, a bit like giving Italy's Trieste to Slovenia, giving the Sudetenland and Rhineland back to France, telling Portugal it is part of Spain or giving Spain's Galicia to Portugal.
The Kosovo mafia terrorist leader, accused of organ trafficking, Hashim Thaçi, can bray like a donkey or bleat like a goat about the "rule of law" being applied, but what rule of law were he and his Ushtria Çlirimtare ë Kosovës applying when they were beheading Serbs and raping women, including Albanian girls?
Correct - the law of the jungle, where apes belong.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Ottawa Citizen - October 24, 2011
NATO still getting it wrong in Kosovo
In the three years since Kosovo, urged on by the United States, declared its unilateral independence, there has been no final resolution of this long-festering wound in the heart of the Balkans.
After the expulsion of the Serbian military from Kosovo in 1999 there was a systematic purging of the non-Albanian population and a rampage of revenge killing, and destruction.
In March, 2004, the Albanian mobs burned or dynamited more than 204 Christian churches and monasteries - some of them heritage structures dating back to the 14th century. This veritable orgy of devastation was accomplished under the watchful eyes of NATO troops who did nothing to stop the violence.
On Sept. 15, the Secretary General of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, visited Pristina, the capitol of Kosovo, and again repeated the usual refrain that NATO was there to maintain a secure and safe environment and emphasized that "We will continue to do so - firmly, carefully, and impartially."
Less than two weeks after his departure from Kosovo on Sept. 27, his impartial NATO troops opened fire with live ammunition on a crowd of Serbian civilians demonstrating against the establishment of Kosovo customs posts along the border between Serbia and northern Kosovo, effectively cutting them off from Serbia proper. At least six of the demonstrators were wounded. The standoff continued over the weekend.
This incident took place at the same time our NATO leaders were vigorously protesting the shooting of protesters in Syria and Yemen.
So far, there have been no apologies from the NATO leadership and no demands for a full inquiry.
Kosovo, since its so-called liberation from Serbia, has become a failed state with massive unemployment, crime and corruption prevalent, and a leadership deeply involved in the importation of heroin and arms, and human smuggling - not to mention serious allegations about the harvesting of human body parts.
Nevertheless, Kosovo is the stepchild state of the U.S.-led NATO powers, and therefore must be seen to be a success. NATO cannot admit to failure.
After all, we are told 80 countries have recognized its independence. Little mention is made that there are 113 countries of the United Nations who refuse do so - including Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Slovakia - all members of NATO.
There is a larger than life statue of president Bill Clinton in Pristina. Shortly after the occupation of Kosovo the Americans constructed the enormous Camp Bondsteel. Kosovo is their baby and at all cost it must be accepted as a sovereign state. Unfortunately, the costs are high and may well spell the demise of NATO as a respected champion of the rule of law and democratic freedom.
Canada was involved in drafting Article 1 of the North Atlantic Treaty that stated that NATO would never use or threaten to use force in the resolution of international disputes and would always act in accordance with the principles laid down by the United Nations Charter. Alas, we never hear anything more about Article 1.
After the collapse of the Soviet empire, Article 1 came to be seen by the United States as an obstacle in preventing NATO (read the United States) from intervening in out-of-area disputes and in using force to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives, frequently under the guise of humanitarian intervention.
The first opportunity of doing this was the bombing of Serbia on the false grounds that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was planning to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of its majority Albanian population and that genocide was taking place there.
Without consulting the United Nations and in violation of its own treaty, NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days and nights and was successful in tearing away an integral part of that country's territory.
The United States and some of the NATO countries, including Canada, have gone further by recognizing the declaration of independence of Kosovo, despite UN Resolution 1244 that reaffirmed Serbia's sovereignty over that province.
By doing so they have opened Pandora's Box and issued an open invitation to the many groups and tribes around the world aspiring for their own state to do so by simply declaring independence. Can anyone really blame the Palestinians for expecting anything less?
*James Bissett is former Canadian ambassador to the former Yugoslavia.
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