7366 USA still playing anti-Serbian "card" against Europe


USA still playing anti-Serbian "card" against Europe

1) Yugoslavia’s lessons for Europe’s disunion (Charles Lane)
2) New President, Old Problems (Morton Abramowitz)
3) It is not a crisis, the bills have finally arrived!!! (Nada Pejnović)
4) Reputation of Council of Europe at stake (Nada Pejnovic and Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey)


=== 1 ===


YUGOSLAVIA’S LESSONS FOR EUROPE’S DISUNION


By Charles Lane, Published: May 29 The Washington Post


Once upon a time in Europe, there was a confederation. It stretched from the Alps to the Adriatic and straddled the ancient line between Western Christendom and Byzantium.

The confederation promised an eternal end to the wars that had historically bedeviled its component peoples. It built goodwill and interdependence through a common currency and free movement of labor and capital.

Lane is a Post editorial writer, specializing in economic policy, financial issues and trade, and a contributor to the PostPartisan blog.

Espousing peace, equality and human rights, the confederation offered a “third way” between the callousness of American-style capitalism and the inefficiency of central planning.

It also offered an alternative power center to countries not content to choose their allies from among the United States, China and Russia.

But Yugoslavia collapsed in 1991, after more than a decade of steadily escalating strife. And its downfall was accompanied by renewed ethnic warfare even bloodier than the World War II-era fighting the postwar confederation was supposed to abolish.

I wouldn’t overstate the analogy between Yugoslavia and today’s troubled European Union. Yugoslav “market socialism” was more authoritarian than the social democracy of Europe. For all the talk of “brotherhood and unity” at home and “non-alignment” abroad, what really held Yugoslavia together was the iron fist of its chieftain, Josip Broz Tito, who died in 1980 and was succeeded by a succession of ineffectual, unelected bureaucrats.

The end of Soviet-U.S. competition relaxed the East-West tension that had helped force the Yugoslav peoples together from the outside.

But I wouldn’t understate the analogy, either. Like the European Union, Yugoslavia was constantly trying bureaucratic fixes for deep-rooted rivalries — between Albanians and Serbs, Serbs and Croatians. Leadership shuffles, duplicative institutions and constitutional rewrites papered over but never eliminated them, even though almost all Yugoslav nationalities spoke the same language.

Tito used debt-fueled economic growth to buy peace; when the bills came due, fiscal austerity added yet another political irritant.

So the crisis Europe faces today is not all that unprecedented. It is not merely a financial or economic one. The deeper question is how — or whether — any multinational confederation can survive in the land mass between the Urals and the Atlantic, long after the world war that originally justified it and the Cold War that helped perpetuate it. How is the E.U. to escape the fate of every previous empire and confederation in European history?

When viewed that way, Europe’s predicament looks difficult indeed.

Franco-German rivalry helped cause one continental bloodletting after another, the most monstrous of which was World War II. United Europe was supposed to tie France and postwar West Germany so tightly together, economically, that war would become impossible.

This was both a noble and, potentially at least, feasible project. But it is clear in hindsight that the authors of European unification have oversolved the original problem.

They could have had Franco-German peace without giving Spain and Finland a veto over policies that affect the German and French peoples, and vice versa. They could have had free trade and mobile capital without pretending that Greece and the Netherlands belong in a currency union.

Did the E.U. overexpand and overreach because France wanted a vehicle for its own unrealistic foreign policy ambitions? Or because poorer countries in Europe were eager for privileged access to Germany’s money? It hardly matters now.

The fact is, Europe is stuck with this confederation, yet it is no longer solvent, politically or economically.

Short-term efforts at muddling through occupy the continent’s politicians. But they are pushing against tectonic forces that are shifting against the E.U., just as surely as similar forces ground away at the Holy Roman Empire and Yugoslavia.

There are only two ways forward. One is breakup; though not likely to be as bloody as the Yugoslav meltdown, an E.U. collapse, even a gradual one, would impoverish the continent and leave a toxic residue of nationalist rancor.

The other choice, of course, is to follow the perennial prescription — “more Europe.” The only cure for the ills of today’s relatively loose confederation is a tighter one, it is said.

What this means in practice, however, is the surrender of more national sovereignty to Brussels, to include, for the first time, elected parliaments’ loss of control over basic financial decisions.

Nor will this cession of power be symmetrical: Germany and other wealthy nations will determine the new rules of the game and debtor nations will follow them — not uncomplainingly.

United Europe’s future, if it has one, looks more austere, more contentious and — above all — less democratic than its present. And I repeat: This is the optimistic scenario.


=== 2 ===


New President, Old Problems





Morton Abramowitz   

(The National Interest, June 1, 2012)

Unresolved tensions in Serbia threaten the Balkans' fragile stability.

This week, nationalist Tomislav Nikolic was installed as the new president of Serbia. EU and U.S. officials had hoped for the election of a leader who would ultimately move forward on the Kosovo issue, especially in light of Serbia’s potential accession to the EU. Whether such a leading politician can be found in Belgrade is questionable. But Nikolic is certainly not the West’s cup of tea.
Strong EU and U.S. support could not save former president Boris Tadic after he poorly managed the economy and led a party popularly perceived as corrupt. Instead, the hurly-burly of Serbian politics produced an electoral outcome neither foreseen nor desired by EU foreign-policy chief Lady Ashton. She pulled out all the stops to get Tadic reelected, including getting the Americans to force Kosovo’s government to accept a minor, unpopular deal with Serbia on their contentious border problem, which in turn allowed Tadic to begin negotiations on Serbia’s EU accession. But disgruntled Serbian voters had other ideas and elected Progressive Party leader Nikolic.
The West had treated Nikolic as something of a leper because of his close collaboration with Hague-Tribunal indicted war criminal Vojislav Seselj and his support of Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo—all despite the fact that he broke with Seselj, established his own political party and has strongly supported Serbia’s EU aspirations. His public position on Kosovo is no different than Tadic’s on the essential points. The EU may well have to deal with both men, since the election defeat has not necessarily ended Tadic’s political career. The parliamentary returns make it possible that the new Serbian government could be a coalition, with or without Nikolic’s party and with Tadic’s party playing a key role. Tadic could be prime minister and have more power than Nikolic if the president’s party is not in the coalition.
But EU accession will not be Serbia’s most pressing concern. Rather, the difficult task of preventing further economic deterioration must be the focus of any new government. The Greek debacle and the overall decline of the euro zone are wreaking havoc in the area. The worsening economy is the main reason Nikolic made his first visit to Moscow—to get financial assistance from Putin—although Nikolic also made clear his dedication to relations with the EU and to an early visit to Brussels. An invitation for Nikolic to visit Washington also might help smooth things over.

Rising Tensions in the Balkans
However great the new Serbian government’s attention to restoring the economy, it still must deal with the Kosovo problem: First, there is the very thorny problem of the future of the Serbs of North Kosovo. Ultimately, there must be a resolution of Kosovo’s status before Serbia is admitted to the EU.
The EU has a structural problem—five governments not recognizing Kosovo—making it difficult for Brussels to act vigorously. It is conceivable that may change, but Serb political leaders may believe the EU will do as it did with a divided Cyprus and let Serbia into the EU with the Kosovo-independence issue unresolved. Of course, all this is well down the pike, and much depends on events.
The EU hopes large financial aid and the promise of accession will eventually change the political climate within Serbia, making it possible for the political leadership to somehow tolerate Kosovo’s independence. But it’s doubtful that any major Serb political leader will accept that reality without at least some form of partition of the North of Kosovo. Not surprisingly, Nikolic—like his predecessor—keeps indicating that he will never recognize Kosovo’s independence. But he has also offered the prospect that the Serb people be given a referendum on EU membership and their attachment to Kosovo, which might turn out to be more realistic and different than Serbia’s frozen political leadership. That is Brussels’s hope in exporting the issue to the future. The EU refuses to play tough with Belgrade’s political class, which remains intent on preserving a bad past that has effectively vanished.
Meanwhile, that frequent instigator of change in the Balkans—violence—cannot be precluded. The most immediate problem is in Kosovo’s North, where the possibility of real hostilities remains. Much more is required for advancing Serbia-EU negotiations and deepening Kosovo’s relations with the EU. Even the agreements worked out before Serbia’s elections are hardly being enacted.
Difficulties in Kosovo stem from basic demographic realities: the population of perhaps thirty thousand Serbs wants no part of Kosovo or any tie to a Pristina that insists on exerting some degree of control. There is no magic wand, and partition of northern Kosovo—also the best option for the bigger independence problem—is unacceptable to the West. Thus, the next focus of EU-led negotiations on the North will be whether a plan for virtual autonomy of the Northern Serbs can be accepted by both parties. The EU will be working hard to buttress the Serbian position—and no longer limited by the recent Serbian election, the process may become explosive.
With these fundamental issues unresolved, the West could be in for another difficult ride in the Balkans. And no mention has been made of the instability in Macedonia and the long political deterioration in Bosnia amidst worsening economic prospects in the region. Nothing can be taken for granted with such continuing ethnic divides. Rightly or wrongly, hard decisions always can be avoided, as the West did at Dayton and at the end of the Kosovo war. Once again, it is the hour of Europe with the Americans tagging along, making the bet that time and money will solve the present difficulties.

Morton Abramowitz is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and a member of The National Interest's advisory council. 


=== 3 ===

(sledeci tekst na srpskohrvatskom: 
Није криза, рачуни су коначно стигли на наплату!!!
http://www.beoforum.rs/forum-prenosi-beogradski-forum-za-svet-ravnopravnih/367-nije-kriza-racuni-su-konacno-stigli-na-naplatu.html )


It is not a crisis, the bills have finally arrived!!!


Monday, 04 June 2012

Every now and then we listen about one of the greatest economic crisis’s which hit the world at the end of 2008, and how we must save our state budgets, cut public spending, make all sorts of cuts in public administration, including the number of employees etc. To be honest, at first most of us believed in this fairy tale, repeated over and over again, in known and unknown public media. But let us just go a little bit back in time and we will see the naked truth, as it is, and the sad truth is the bills have finally arrived.

When we talk about an economy we must think of the income into any state budget and all its components, as well as about costs and payments the state has had to make for many services, in terms of goods and works. One would say that there is nothing unusual in this, but the general public has never been privy to seeingthe true cost in expenditure which occurredthrough the military intervention in foreign countries. It is evident that the tax payers were misled by the public media citing all sorts of “human rights” organizations which were mostly located in London and not in the country which was being invaded. That was the case of Libya and now Syria, how convenient, but let us go back now to the economy.

NATO through its acts of aggression against sovereign countries usedcostly long range weaponry, of which the aftermath was the land occupation of the country and deployment of military equipment, to supply the forces in the foreign zone or country etc. Now we are not talking about millions, now we are talking about billions of funds of tax payer’s money. Oh, I forgot to mention all donor conferences for the restoration of a crippled country through the destruction wrought by NATO. Now we come to the question, where does that money come from?It certainlyis not money earned by any Government from the private sector, or from any multinational company. The money used for all NATO aggressions is simply thatwhich has been taken from the citizen states, members of NATO. NATO does not care about any citizens of any country, NATO cares only about itself and about its masters’ interest.

Let me recall an anecdote. When during negotiations the representative of the strongest country was presented with a document signed on behalf of his country, he was asked why his government does not comply with the signed agreement, the answer that followed was striking: “The privilege of the mighty ones is to ignore even own signatures”. The privilege of the powerful then is to blackmail and to suppress other NATO member states, to do as it pleases, regardless of the impact on the weaker countries. Has anyone noticed that it is not feasible to negate your countries membership of NATO?

Membership in NATO means, besides the requirement of a 2% contribution of any given country’s GDP, deployment of military staff, equipment, donor conferences, grants, military members brought back to homeland in coffins, disabled military staff, in one word, a huge hole in the countries budget.

Nowadays we are talking about professionalism, transparency, accountability, values and principles the world desperately need. But the fact remains, whenever anyone in any specific country wants to find out exactly how much in fundinghas been contributed for NATO missions, the information has been declared as not permissible and secret. How come that does not surprise me at all?

So, lets once again get back to the economic crisis…. For more than a decade member states of NATO have spent more than they have had, destroying countries around the globe, starting with Serbia, then Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now they are trying to impose so called democracy in Syria, all at the expense of the citizens of NATO member states. That funding as an investment, will never came back to the source, besides the fact that the budgets of the member states have already been severely depleted.

Besides being a NATO member state, it is worth to mention that the Europeansreal economy was transferred to the East, and as a consequence Europe is nagging about Tiger economies. But who created them, and who is to blame??? Most European countries, instead of making products with new added value, they boosted countless bureaucracy, and through this made all kinds of other stupid mistakes, which will at the end fall on the backs of the common citizens, who were misled and misused for a greater cause because Europe was led by politicians and not by statesman. And at the end let me tell you the name of that greater cause “Our future is gone; it is not a crisis, as the bills have finally arrived”.

Nada Pejnović


=== 4 ===

(sledeci tekst na srpskohrvatskom: 
Углед Савјета Европе на коцки!!!


Reputation of Council of Europe at stake


Tuesday, 29 May 2012 


Those who followed and admired the Council of Europe suspect that in the middle of its reform, this Organization became impotent. Instead of achieving a stronger role to become a true warrior for human rights, democracy and the rule of law in the international arena, it became just another impotent bureaucratic institution unable to deal with questions such as what its members are doing outside borders of Europe.

The Council of Europe was founded on 5 May 1949 just after WWII. The oldest European institution seeks to develop throughout Europe common and democratic principles based on the European Convention on Human Rights and other reference texts on the protection of individuals. It is composed of Parliamentary Assembly and Congress of Local and regional democracy with representatives from all 47 member states. One of the bodies of Council of Europe is European Commission for Democracy through Law also so called Venice Commission and an independent body European Court of Human Rights.

The primary aim of the Council of Europe is to create a common democratic and legal area throughout the whole of the continent, ensuring respect for its fundamental values: human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The European Convention of Human Rights and its ratification is a prerequisite for joining the Council of Europe. It was adopted in 1950 and entered into force in 1953.

More than 200 conventions are a part of the Council of Europe legal framework. They are legally binding agreements with which a member state is obliged to comply once it has signed and ratified them. At the same time countries with observer status are: Holly See, Canada, Japan, Israel, Mexico and United States.

The top priority of the Council of Europe is to protect human rights, pluralist democracy and the rule of law. But after all that has happened in the last decade, the constituencies of Europe are left speechless for something went utterly wrong and here it shall be clearly shown what.

The ones who follow the work of the Council of Europe and the ones who admired its work cannot fight the feeling that in the middle of the reform of Council of Europe this Organization became impotent. Instead of achieving a stronger role to become a true warrior for human rights, democracy and the rule of law in the international arena, the Council of Europe became just another impotent bureaucratic institution dealing with less important issues rather than with burning questions like what its member states are doing outside borders of Europe. Has anyone asked themselves if hereto counties undermine the efforts, reputation and achievements of  the Council of Europe in general?

How can anyone justify the hypocrisy of Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and Romania? In Europe they are obliged to respect human rights, democracy and rule of law but what about their accountability while participating in NATO aggression as listed below:

  • Belgium: 120 personnel, 6 aircraft, 1 vessel, 60 sorties
  • Bulgaria: 160 personnel, 1 vessel
  • Denmark: 120 personnel, 4 aircraft, 161 sorties
  • France: 800 personnel, 29 aircraft, 6 vessels, 1,200 sorties
  • Greece: 1 vessel
  • Italy: 12 aircraft, 4 vessels, 600 sorties
  • Netherlands: 200 personnel, 7 aircraft, 1 vessel
  • Norway: 140 personnel, 6 aircraft, 100 sorties
  • Romania: 205 personnel, 1 vessel
  • Spain: 500 personnel, 7 aircraft, 1 vessel
  • Sweden: 122 personnel, 8 aircraft, 78 sorties
  • Turkey: 7 aircraft, 6 vessels
  • UK: 1,300 personnel, 28 aircraft, 3 vessels, 18 cruise missiles, 1,300 sorties

Even though in the above-mentioned countries economic crisis resulted in lack of funds for health and social services, unemployment and increase of taxes, they still have the funds to finance war. How odd?

Let us go even further and see what was destroyed while "protecting civilians" in Libya as well as in key areas of Council of Europe, i.e. human rights, pluralist democracy and rule of law by date:

  • 30.04.2011. --- The bombing of the Downs Syndrome School in Tripoli (Children's rights)
  • 17.05.2011.---The NATO attack on Libya's Anti-Corruption Agency on May 17 (Fight against corruption)
  • 13.05.2011. The 11 imams (spiritual leaders of Islam) that were killed (Human rights*)
  • 12.06.2011. --- The bombing of the University of Tripoli. 22.06.2011. --- The bombing of the Great Man made Waterway irrigation system, which supplies most Libyans with their drinking water*
  • 24.07.2011. ---The bombing of the Hospital at Zliten. Resulting in the murder of a minimum, of 50 civilians many of them children*.

Or shall we go back in time and see what happened in Kosovo. "More than 80 Orthodox churches have been either completely destroyed or severely damaged since the end of the war. The ancient churches, many of which had survived 500 years of Ottoman Moslem rule, could not survive 8 months of the internationally guaranteed peace. Regretfully, all this happens in the presence of KFOR and UN[1]."

Even today, Serbs and Non-Albanians in Kosovo are just like clay pigeons under the so-called protection of KFOR. Statistical data on ethnic cleansing since KFOR came to this region look worse than a large-scale natural disaster aftermath. Not to mention violation of UN Resolution 1244 on a daily basis.

In Libya, a country which had the highest rates of human rights and development, the member states of the Council of Europe helped in organizing, instigating, assisting or participating in acts of civil strife or terrorist acts within territory of Libya directed towards deterioration of human rights and change of regime. How else can we explain introduction of Sharia law? Women's rights were protected by the former Constitution of Libya, but member states of Council of Europe which participated in NATO aggression in Libya with their military, political and mass media campaign did their best to erase any hope for better future.  

There is even proof that organizing, instigating, assisting and participating in acts of civil strife is institutionalized in the manual Special Forces Unconventional Warfare. Shall we go on?

One might call this vandalism with a mission regardless of the continent in which it happened. At the same time the Council of Europe criticized Russia for banning a gay parade or even worse, the inability of Bosnia and Herzegovina to implement judgment of ECHR in the "Sejdic Finci" case might result in suspension of its membership in Council of Europe.

Does this mean that killing of innocent children, civilians and disabled persons by member states of the Council of Europe in spreading human rights, democracy and the rule of law by bombing, financing terrorism and aggression is eligible and justifiable and inter alia shall not be addressed in the Council of Europe whereas a gay parade in Russia or the implementation of judgment in the "Sejdic Finci" case in Bosnia and Herzegovina are of utmost importance?

As it seems no-one even bothers to recall the judgment of The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America..This was a 1984 case of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in which the ICJ ruled in favor of Nicaragua and against the United States and awarded reparations to Nicaragua. The ICJ held that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. The Court found in its verdict that the United States was "in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State", "not to intervene in its affairs", "not to violate its sovereignty", "not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce", and "in breach of its obligations under Article XIX of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Parties signed at Managua on 21 January 1956."

The findings of the court are applicable in any similar situation and in any similar case, like Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. So, this means that the above-mentioned member states of Council of Europe beyond reasonable doubt regularly, willingly and intentionally violated international law. To get a clearer picture please note the article "Will the ICC react?".http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/16-11-2011/119646-indictment_second-0/

One cannot always be politically and diplomatically correct and from time to time one just has to look straight in the eyes to see the Truth, whether he/she likes it or not.  At the same time, one has to show the strength by defending rights and values. One may say that the Council of Europe has no such mechanisms to impose anything. That is quite understandable, for an Organization which defends human rights, democracy and the rule of law should never ever be politically involved in anything because those rights have nothing to do with politics. Those rights are a question of humanity, one cannot trade them nor calculate them.

When reputation is at stake, it is honorable and dignified to withdraw the signatures from signed memorandums of understanding and to declare them void rather than to silently watch destruction of work done in the last 60 years, or to be a silent participant in crimes and atrocities against humanity. Please spare us of futile excuses, do not even start, we have heard that one before.

There is always a way, it is only a question of will and innovation.


Written by:

Nada Pejnovic and Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey