View Full Version : Shtypi i huaj rreth Kosovës
Po hap kete teme, per te postuar reagime (te anetareve te FD), dhe te tjereve, drejtuar te gjithe atyre shkrimeve (te mediave te shkruara dhe elektronike) pro-Shkijeve qe javet e fundit (me nguti) po propagandojne kunder njohjes zyrtare te Pavaresise se Kosoves.
Kosovo deserves independence
As a regular Post reader, I was disappointed by Caroline B. Glick's recent column "Islam and the nation-state" (November 13). It promulgated numerous misconceptions about Kosovo and the Kosovo Albanians.
Glick writes: "Today the US and the EU are leading the charge toward the establishment of a Palestinian state and the creation of an independent state of Kosovo" - as if the two issues were related. There is no connection between being for the establishing of a state of Kosovo and the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is wrong to compare Kosovo with the Palestinian case simply because they have one thing in common - the Muslim religion. Analogy, goes the saying, is no substitute for analysis.
Israel opposes an imposed solution on Kosovo, but the Israeli government has given its full support to the Contact Group principles - one of them being the non-return of Kosovo to the situation before 1999. Kosovo is not a minority-dominated enclave within some other nation-state, as Glick claims. Serbia's power is not being eroded as there is no longer any Yugoslavia. Kosovo, under the UN's mandate since 1999, has already established its state institutions, independent of Serbia.
FOR READERS to better understand why Glick is mistaken in her analogy, it is necessary to know some basic truths about Kosovo: The area was annexed by Yugoslavia, against Kosovar resistance in 1918. This annexation violated the right of the Kosovars to self-determination and, therefore, violated international law.
Although Kosovo Albanians constitute 92% of the population of Kosovo, the autonomy it enjoyed was unconstitutionally removed by Serbia in 1989. After Tito's death in 1980, the situation deteriorated, reaching its nadir in the 1998 genocide.
It is precisely this genocide which explains the uniqueness of Kosovo case. For more than a century, genocide and mass expulsions of Kosovo Albanians transformed Kosovo into a unique case. Albanians suffered extreme repression under the Milosevic regime. Some 12,000 civilians were killed, and 1.5 million Albanian civilians were displaced as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign of the Serbian Army in 1999. Around 3,000 are still missing.
Serbia has lost all legal and moral claim over Kosovo. When a state so discriminates against a national group under its rule, the right of that group to self-determination includes the right to secession. This idea is internationally recognized. The right of Kosovo to self-determination is not restricted to the right of internal, substantial autonomy inside Serbia. It is a right to secede from Serbia, a right to independence, as envisaged by the Ahtisaari Package. Kosovars cannot be forced to go back under the sovereignty of Serbia.
I deliberately use the term "Kosovo Albanians" because "Kosovo Muslims," as Glick calls them, has an underlying propaganda purpose. Why doesn't she refer to "The Serbia Orthodox"?
LET'S BE clear: There is no Islamist trend in the Albanian cause. It is a fundamental mistake to equate Religion with ethnicity.
While referencing Milosevic, Glick writes: "He stood accused of ethnically cleansing Kosovo of its Muslim population, which was perceived as innocent." Thus the genocide against Kosovo Albanians - the most documented event of its kind since WWII - is, for Glick, just a perception. This is beyond belief.
Regarding her claim that "Kosovo Muslims" are financed by Saudis, and their alleged connections to "global jihadists," this is false. No one in the democratic West will swallow this distorted version of the reality in Kosovo.
"Jihadist" and "irredentist" are simply loaded Serbian code-words. Kosovo is strongly supported by Washington, London, Paris and Rome. As Albania's prime minister, Dr. Sali Berisha, has stated: "Kosovo and Kosovars have chosen Brussels."
It is no coincidence that Kosovo was liberated by NATO, a powerful and democratic structure of states with an overwhelming Christian population.
THERE IS social cohesion and religious harmony in Kosovo. Today, the Speaker of the House, Kolë Berisha, is a Catholic. There is also a Christian Democratic Party now in the forefront of the struggle for independence in Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians are more European than any other neighboring country in the Balkans. All surveys make clear that an overwhelming majority of the population supports NATO membership and EU integration.
Any discussion on the independent state of Kosovo should concentrate on the democratic nature of that state. Glick is mistaken when she urges the Olmert government to "immediately and loudly restate its opposition to the imposition of Kosovar independence on Serbia." Her logic of opposing the establishment of Muslim-only states should not apply in the case of Kosovo, because Kosovo is not and will not be a Muslim state.
Attempts to differentiate between the Albanians in Albania and the Albanians in Kosovo are wrong. There is, of course, sub-cultural diversity, as with all nations in the world, but Albanians on both sides of the border share the same culture, ethnicity, history, language, tradition, myths and legends.
The best answer, however, to all the speculations about Albania and the Albanians was given by your reporter Greer Fay Cashman in her Post report, "Sheltered from the Nazis in Albania" (November 4), which noted that Albania saved every one of its Jews during the Holocaust. And most of the Albanians who gave shelter to Jews during WWII were Muslims. Within the context of excellent relations existing between Albanians and Jews, there is no cause for inflammatory statements based on our religious heritage alone. The writer, a sociologist, is the new ambassador of the Republic of Albania to Israel.
Ja nje shkrim pro-Shkije i nje gazetari Britanik...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2214357,00.html
Putin njofton për kundërmasat ndaj zgjerimit të NATO-s
“Duke i shkelur marrëveshjet e arritura më parë, përgjatë kufirit tonë po rriten resurset ushtarake të shteteve të caktuara dhe vendeve anëtare të NATO-së, kurse propozimet ruse për, siç është rasti me krijimin e sistemit unik të mbrojtjes kundër-raketore me një qasje të barabartë në drejtimin e tyre të të gjithë pjesëmarrësve, tani për tani- për fat të keq- mbesin pa përgjigje”, ka thënë Putin, gjatë një takimi me kreun ushtarak rus.
Si një nga kundërmasat ruse ndaj NATO-së, Putin ka vënë moratoriumin për pjesëmarrjen e Rusisë në Marrëveshjen për Armatimin Konvencional në Evropë, suspendimi i së cilës nis, më 12 dhjetor, të këtij viti.
Putin ka thënë se Rusia do ta rris gjendjen e gatishmërisë luftarake të forcave të saj nukleare, “me qëllim që t’i jap përgjigje adekuate secilit agresor”.
Serbs can hurt independent Kosovo, not cripple it
By Ivana Sekularac and Fatos Bytyci
BELGRADE/PRISHTINA, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Serbia could apply hardball tactics if Kosova declares independence, making life harder, more expensive and frustrating for the landlocked province's 2 million people.
Talks between Belgrade and Kosova's ethnic Albanian majority ended in Austria on Wednesday with no agreement, and Serbia is drawing up an "action plan" for the period after Dec. 10, when mediators submit their conclusions to the United Nations.
Kosova Albanians say they will declare independence soon, probably in the next three months. U.S. envoy Frank Wisner urged both sides to keep their promise to avoid a slide to violence.
Serbian Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac has repeatedly said there will be no military reaction. But Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica refuses to discuss other plans for what his deputy calls "the blackest scenario".
He will reject any declaration and, according to Serb media, may withdraw ambassadors from capitals that recognise Kosovo.
Serbia could refuse to recognise Kosovo passports, forcing travellers to make a big detour to get to Western Europe. It could cut off electricity supplies and block power supply routes. Kosovo buys 40 percent of its power from Serbia, the rest from Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania.
"Macedonia and Greece usually have power shortages so Kosovo gets electricity from Serbia or from Bulgaria -- but even then the transit route goes through Serbia," a Serb Energy Ministry official told Reuters.
But it would not make such a move lightly, mindful of its impact on Kosovo's Serb minority, marginalised and looking to Belgrade as the provider of basic services.
"If we cut off the power supply, we would be cutting it to the Serbs as well," the official said.
A source in one Serbian ministry said Serbia "could make life more difficult in Kosovo if it wanted".
"Goods from Serbia are the cheapest in Kosovo, so if Serbia for any reason blocks borders or stops supplying Kosovo it would make life in the province more expensive," the source said.
"Serbia wouldn't necessarily say it is closing the borders, but find a pretext, for example say Kosovo has foot and mouth."
EXAGGERATING POWER
But Kosovo officials say Serbia's moves are unlikely to have any long-term impact.
Reality reflects the eight years the province has spent out of Serbia's reach. Kosovo has been under U.N. rule since 1999, when NATO expelled Serb forces accused of killing civilians while fighting separatist rebels.
It has its own state administration -- part local, part U.N.-run -- and its citizens use midnight-blue "travel documents" issued by the U.N. mission, which are however not recognised by Serbia. Police, schools, and hospitals are all locally managed.
It has an independent water supply, gets mobile telephony services from Monaco, and routes commercial flights outside Serb airspace using NATO air control. Its only practical links with Serbia are in power, trade and road transport.
"If Serbia reacts, they won't only cause problems to Kosovo but Macedonia, Albania and Greece as well. Kosovo is a transit route for these countries," Nezir Sinani, spokesman for Kosovo's power company KEK.
Besim Beqaj from Kosovo's Chamber of Commerce says the Serbs are exaggerating their power. Imports and transit trade from Serbia account for around 15 percent of total trade, and most products come from the European Union and Macedonia.
"We've already thought of this and told our partners in the region what we import from Serbia. If Belgrade acts, they will bring the goods from other countries. There will be a momentary crisis but very soon everything will be normalised," he said. (Writing by Ellie Tzortzi)
Kosovo deserves its independence
I saw the terrible things the Serbians did; they proved themselves a cruel and unjust power
Anthony Loyd
Far beyond the borders of Serbia a sickening form of revisionism has prevailed across the years among critics of Kosovo's desire for independence. Some of it is born from a smug desire for controversy. Much of it comes from ignorance. A part of it derives from racism: inscrutable, impoverished, Muslim, their language and culture unlike any other in Europe, Kosovo Albanians are an easy “white nigger” target for the self-satisfied elements of Western Europe's pseudo-political classes.
The argument of the critics of Kosovan independence rests on two bogus tenets of denial. First, they state that Serbia was not responsible for the widescale massacre of Albanian civilians between 1998 and 1999, and propose instead that Serb security forces were somehow tricked into killing thousands of innocents by the provocation of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Secondly, they advance the theory that the 800,000 Albanian refugees who fled their homes during Nato's 79-day air campaign did so as they were frightened of the bombing rather than Serb military units.
Were these claims true then the fundamental case for Kosovo's independence, in the spotlight since the expiry on Monday of a UN deadline for Pristina and Belgrade to reach agreement on the province's future status, would be fatally flawed.
But they are untrue. I know this not as an assumption, but as a fact. I have many memories of Kosovo acquired during the time I spent reporting there between 1998 and 2000. Among the images of mass graves, burnt villages and swelling bodies that spring to mind is one of particular significance. In the fields outside the town of Istinic in southwestern Kosovo one summer day I watched some 40,000 Kosovans corralled together by rings of Serb police. The young, the old; man, woman, child, they stared in abject fear to the horizon where smoke from their villages, torched in a Serb purge from which they fled, gathered thickly in the skies. “Where is Europe? Where is America?” one refugee beseeched me.
After a day or two the Serb police pushed them back into the hinterland, driving them with stinging switches and robotic threats broadcast from tannoys mounted on the sides of armoured personnel carriers. These people had not fled from fear of Nato bombing.
The first Nato bomb was seven months away from falling. This was the summer of 1998. The world little cared for Kosovo then and in a dry run for their larger purge operations a year later the Serbs were already driving thousands of people from their homes.
The memory is pertinent to Kosovo's case for independence now as it revealed the absolute complicity of the Serbian authorities in human rights abuses in Kosovo and proved them then, as later, a cruel and unjust power from which the oppressed Kosovo Albanian majority thoroughly deserved to be independent.
The KLA were no angels. An everyman insurgent force (rather than a simple mafia entity as suggested by revisionists) comprising freedom fighters, intellectuals, peasants, nationalists, they also had a criminal element and their own human rights record was abysmal. But they reflected the majority population's desire for independence, a wish made credible, more than anything else, by the behaviour of the Serbian Government towards the civilian population.
As the international community wrings its hands over what to do with Kosovo now, it would do well to remember those facts. For time is no longer on anyone's side. Too much of it has already been wasted in vaccilation since 1999.
Earlier this year a resurgent Russia, keen to reinvigorate its influence on the region, torpedoed the UN's reasonable plan for supervised independence for Kosovo. A further five months of fruitless negotiation between Serbs and Kosovans followed before the December 10 deadline passed without result.
The current impasse seems solid. On one side Kosovo's newly elected Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, a former KLA member, is readying himself for a unilateral declaration of independence, backed by the US, Britain, France and most of the EU.
On the other Serbia's nationalist Prime Minister, Vojislav Kostunica, backed by Russia, has made Kosovo's status as part of Serbia a lead issue in Serb politics and has given warning of dire consequences should the EU recognise Kosovan independence.
Doom merchants paint a grim picture in which Kosovo declares independence only to have it challenged by Serbia as being illegal without the imprimatur of the UN Security Council, in turn blocked by Russia. Violence subsequently flares in the province, then across the Balkans as Serbs in Bosnia and Albanians in Macedonia also demand independence. Presto: a new Balkan war made worse by a new cold war.
But the realities suggest otherwise. Mr Thaci knows he needs international recognition for independence and has already said that a declaration will be made in collaboration with the EU and US. He understands that a rash unilateral declaration would only deepen the economic malaise of a province totally reliant on outside financial assistance for survival.
Furthermore, for all the Kostunica hype in Serbia, most Serbs are far more concerned with their own economic woes than Kosovo's status, and may be reluctant to seek Russian patronage if it means worsening relations with the EU. Having fought and lost four wars in 16 years they are in no particular hurry for another conflict, and despite the sabre-rattling there has been no mobilisation of Yugoslav army units.
In Kosovo itself, due to the absence of any reconciliation between the two ethnic groups since 1999, the minority Serb population exists in enclaves largely removed from the Albanians. Low-level civil unrest, rioting and murder are possibilities, but with 16,000 Nato troops in the province it is unlikely that there can be any widescale clash of opposing paramilitaries.
So the road ahead may not be as perilous as it is feared. Wriggle room exists. However, in the meantime the EU should bolster its civilian and military missions in Kosovo, ensuring that the Serb minority is well protected. Though it would be ideal if a way forward could be found with Russian and Serb agreement, the EU should also accept that this is now unlikely to happen.
And when considering how to respond to the inevitable declaration of independence, the EU should also divest itself as best possible from the emotive language of regional players and revisionists alike and remember three simple facts. The Serbs effectively and irreversibly lost control of Kosovo in 1999. The majority of Kosovans want independence. And, above all, they deserve independence.
Guri i madh
19-12-07, 16:58
Ja nje shkrim pro-Shkije i nje gazetari Britanik...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2214357,00.html
arb klikova në ket link po asgjë nuk morra vesh pos do jastaka me lpendra te gusave qata i qkyva
We deserve dhe Independence but they are making it very hard for us!
It is not fair!
Kosovo Struggles to Forge an Identity
PRISTINA, Kosovo (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/serbia/kosovo/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) — When Kosovo recently held a contest to design a flag, the organizers insisted that it reflect the multiethnic population, shunning the nationalist symbols of the past.
But dozens of artists ignored that edict. They submitted variants of the red and black Albanian flag, its two-headed eagle proudly displayed at weddings and on the battlefield for decades. The flag is reviled by many Serbs, who make up a minority in this breakaway Serbian province.
As Kosovo prepares to declare independence — the culmination of a long and bloody struggle — this artistic rebellion underlines the challenge this small territory faces to forge a secular national identity, one that can overcome ethnic and religious resentments.
Hashim Thaci (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/hashim_thaci/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the incoming Kosovo prime minister who was the leader of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/k/kosovo_liberation_army/index.html?inline=nyt-org), expressed the view of many Kosovars when he recently said, “A Kosovo identity does not exist.” But that is starting to change.
“How we create a Kosovar identity is a critical question,” said Migjen Kelmendi, a former rock star who is now a linguist and editor. Mr. Kelmendi is leading the effort to fashion a new self-image for Kosovo. The Albanian Muslims who form a large majority of Kosovo, he said, “think of themselves in terms of their Albanian ethnicity, and they think that questioning that makes them a traitor.”
An important date for Kosovo passed on Dec. 10, the deadline for negotiations to end on the province’s status. Mediators from the European Union (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/european_union/index.html?inline=nyt-org), Moscow and Washington reported to the United Nations (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org) that the negotiations had failed. Expectations are that in due time, Kosovo will simply declare independence.
In anticipation, symbols have been cropping up. Fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army have peppered the province with giant monuments and statues glorifying K.L.A. soldiers and guerrillas, idealized fighters resembling James Dean (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/james_dean/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who wield AK-47 assault rifles and stare down at passers-by on Pristina’s main boulevards. The United States is similarly glorified, with a statue of Bill Clinton (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/bill_clinton/index.html?inline=nyt-per) in the works and a replica of the Statue of Liberty atop the Victory Hotel.
Intellectuals and political analysts argue that this rebranding of Kosovo inevitably trips over history. Albin Kurti, an ethnic Albanian activist who is under house arrest, contends that Kosovar Albanians are wedded to their Albanian identity because they have long defined themselves by the ethnicity for which they were persecuted during decades of authoritarian regimes.
“Our nationalism is a reaction to oppression by Milosevic and war with the Serbs,” Mr. Kurti said, referring to Slobodan Milosevic (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/slobodan_milosevic/index.html?inline=nyt-per), former president of Yugoslavia, who in 1989 ended Kosovo’s autonomous status and dismissed 130,000 ethnic Albanians from their jobs. The subsequent repression of the Kosovo Albanians eventually brought Western sanctions on the Milosevic government and an American-led NATO (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/north_atlantic_treaty_organization/index.html?inline=nyt-org) bombing campaign.
The attempt to forge a new identity also resurrects memories of the Communist period after World War II when Tito tried to stifle ethnic Albanian identity as part of his project to subsume ethnic divisions across Yugoslavia. Instead, Tito’s effort had the opposite effect. He also inadvertently fostered a movement among Kosovar Albanians for the reunification of Kosovo with neighboring Albania — an aim since abandoned in favor of independence from Serbia.
Yet a new identity is needed if Kosovo is to provide for a multiethnic state with a segregated Serbian minority and reduce the divisions that have often led to war, a variety of leaders say.
Agim Ceku, Kosovo’s outgoing prime minister, argued in an interview that Kosovo must create a secular nation and draft a constitution like America’s that recognizes the rights of all citizens. Shortly after becoming prime minister, he was criticized by some Albanian nationalists for asking Kosovo’s Serbs to help build the new Kosovo.
The effort to build a civic society was initially championed by Ibrahim Rugova (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/ibrahim_rugova/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Kosovo’s first president. Mr. Rugova, an ardent secularist, tried to create a national cuisine by serving Kosovar dishes like ice milk and salty cheese. He even tried to rename the Sharr Shepherd, a dog indigenous to Kosovo, as the Kosovo Shepherd. Such was the resistance to his project that when he proposed a new flag in 2000, known as the flag of Dardania — the ancient word for Kosovo — some burned it in protest.
During the cold war, Mr. Kelmendi recalled, Albanians in Kosovo dreamed of reuniting with Albania, which was under a dictatorship and isolated from the rest of Europe. But he said when Kosovar Albanians visited Albania, they saw an impoverished people with whom they had little in common.
“My father had told me about Albania as if it were a fairy tale homeland,” he said, but when he visited, “all I saw was a nightmare.”
Historians are also part of the effort to remold Kosovo. Jahja Dranqolli, a prominent ethnic Albanian historian, said it was time to rewrite Kosovo’s history, which he said had been whitewashed by foreign rulers.
“We were always part of Yugoslavia or Albania or Serbia,” he said. “We have always been living in a shadow world from which we need to escape.”
The ethnic Albanians of Kosovo, who are 95 percent Muslim, could look to their Muslim roots for identity, as some did after the war of the 1990s, when several local imams went to study in Saudi Arabia, and returned preaching Islamic nationalism.
But Shkelzen Maliqi, a leading political analyst and intellectual, argues that Kosovars are far more likely to embrace pro-Americanism. He said that most Albanians were secular, products of a history in which Turks forced mass conversion to Islam upon Christians. The only Islamic party in Kosovo garnered just 2 percent of votes in recent elections. “The national liberation movement against Serbia was always careful to play down Islam and to be pro-Western,” he said.
While the debate about a national identity is taking off, Mr. Kelmendi said it clearly had a long way to go: “When you ask a Kosovar, ‘Are you a Kosovar?’ they will answer, ‘No, I am Albanian.’ If you ask a Serb, ‘Are you a Kosovar?’ they will answer, ‘No, I am a Serb.’”
Kosova's final chapter is still to be written
By Chris Patten
Published: December 17 2007 02:00 | Last updated: December 17 2007 02:00
If the recent wave of commentary on Tony Blair's foreign policy record had to be distilled to a few words, they would be "Kosova good, Iraq bad". For once, the sound-bite is not far from the truth: long before his disastrous venture in the Middle East, Mr Blair did indeed make the right decision to intervene forcefully when Belgrade was ethnically cleansing its southernmost province of its Albanian majority.
What the discussion of the Blair decade generally missed, however, is that the Kosova story is far from over. Today's Pristina may not be like Basra or Baghdad, but its current calm belies the province's underlying instability.
Since 1999, Kosova has been a United Nations protectorate, technically part of Serbia even though Belgrade has no institutions or influence on the ground. With efforts to formalise Kosova's status under discussion at the UN Security Council, the fear is that the longer diplomats delay, the more likely local frustration will turn to bloodshed.
After more than a year of trying to get Belgrade and Pristina to negotiate a settlement on Kosova's final status, the UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari concluded that neither side was going to change its position on the fundamental issue of status. Belgrade is determined to reassert Serbian sovereignty over Kosova and the Kosovars will never give up their independence demands. A compromise solution is impossible.
So Mr Ahtisaari submitted a comprehensive proposal to the Security Council in March. The council is considering a draft resolution that would endorse Mr Ahtisaari's proposal and open the path towards independence.
That clearly riles the Serbs - as well as their self-declared protector in Moscow, which is threatening a Security Council veto - but the move cannot be a surprise to anyone who has followed events in the region. As a European commissioner, I visited Kosova about 10 times after the 1999 war and it was always obvious that independence was the only sustainable outcome.
First, the historic context that makes Kosova a special case. In 1989, it became the first victim of the aggressive nationalism pursued by Slobodan Milosevic when its far-reaching autonomy within Serbia was abolished.
Kosovars were subject to systematic oppression.
A small Serbian minority - less than 10 per cent - ruled over the majority of Albanian Kosovars.
Moreover, with the dissolution of the Yugoslav federation Kosova lost its status as a federal entity, similar (though not equal) to those of the six Yugoslav republics. After years of the peaceful pursuit of independence, Kosovars turned to armed struggle and in 1999 Mr Milosevic launched a massive military operation, including the ethnic cleansing that sparked the international community's intervention.
Expecting Kosova's 90 per cent Albanian population to be ruled from Belgrade again after all that has occurred would be a recipe for renewed violence. This is why the members of the contact group - France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia and the US - formally stated more than a year ago that final status must be acceptable to the people of Kosova.
The truth is, there is no viable alternative to the UN special envoy's proposal. Despite their reluctance to get behind the current Security Council draft, even the Russians have not put forward any competing proposal.
Mr Ahtisaari's plan and the draft resolution will probably never please Belgrade, but they do contain strong elements of compromise.
There would be limitations to independent Kosova's sovereignty, such as restrictions on the future defence force and international civilian and military presence that would supervise the early years of independence. For the Serb minority, there are extensive provisions concerning local self-government and the protection of religious heritage, creating conditions that would allow Serbs to remain and for those who have left to return. Nowhere do minorities enjoy such far-reaching rights.
The European Union has a special interest because if Kosova goes wrong, Europe will be first to suffer. Also, the EU has agreed to carry the main burden of backing Kosova both economically and by providing personnel for the military and civilian missions post-independence.
EU members on the Security Council need to push through the resolution with all their diplomatic might. The Kosova story cannot be added to the international community's success column yet. Mr Ahtisaari's final chapter needs to be added.
Lord Patten of Barnes is the former European commissioner for external relations and is chairman of the board of the International Crisis Group
Albanian nation will one way or another unite: Analyzer
23 December 2007, FOCUS News Agency, Sofia
In distant perspective the Albanian nation will one way or another unite, the Chairperson of the International Center for Studying the Minorities and Intercultural interactions Antonina Zhelyazkova commented in an interview for FOCUS News Agency.
According to her sooner or later the independence of Kosovo will be declared – regardless of whether it would be done by the government of Kosovo, or through some kind of agreement within the EU.
Lufta e Serbise me Historine
Beteja e propagandes shkon deri ne te kaluaren e lashte. Serbia zyrtare krenohet me historine e saj heroike dhe te qendreses. Problemi i vetem jane faktet.
Koment nga Christopher Bennett*
Ndersa Serbia sfidon fuqine e Perendimit, shume Serbe krenohen se historia e tyre provon se pavaresisht nga ndryshimi i fuqise se armeve, ata asnje here nuk do te munden. Problemi eshte se versioni i te kaluares qe tregohet ne Beograd nuk qendron. Serbia nuk eshte duke luftuar vetem kunder NATO-s, ajo eshte ne lufte edhe me historine. Pasioni dhe ekspertiza me te cilat kaq shume Serbe flasin kaq shpesh dhe aq gjate rreth vendit te tyre dhe se kaluares se tij heroike permban nje mungese te madhe balance, paanesie dhe kuptimi. Opinionet bazohen pothuajse krejtesisht ne paragjykime dhe parakushte. Qe prej betejes famekeqe te Kosoves ne vitin 1389 deri ne ngjarjet e ketij shekulli, historia dhe mitet jane nderhturur ne nje besim pothuajse fetar nacional. Cdo njeri qe guxon te vere ne dyshim nenet e ketij besimi etiketohet si heretik. Sipas legjendes se Kosoves, udheheqesit Serb, Princi Lazer, i eshte ofruar ne prag te betejes nje mundesi per te zgjedhur midis nje mbreterie ne toke dhe nje ne parajse. Duke u betuar se “Eshte me mire te vdesesh ne beteje se sa te jetosh me turp,” ai zgjodhi boten tjeter, dhe per kete aresye u vra te nesermen, ne ate qe perkujtohet si nje disfate e lavdishme qe i dha fund perandorise Serbe te Mesjetes dhe qe coi ne pothuajse pese shekuj erresire nen zgjedhen e huaj Otomane. Eshte e vertete, qe nje beteje u be ne diten e Shen Vitus ne 1389 ne Fushe Kosove, fusha e zogut te zi, nete cilen Princi Lazar dhe Sulltan Murati, udheheqesi Otoman, u vrane qe te dy. Deri ketu eshte e qarte. Megjithate, pothuajse cdo aspekt tjeter i betejes--perfshire edhe perfundimin e saj--mbetet nje mister. Bazuar ne provat historike, si ushtria Otomane ashtu edhe ajo Serbe ka shume mundesi qe te kene qene forca shumekombeshe. Ne fakt, ka shume mundesi qe pjesa me e madhe e popujve te Krishtere te Ballkanit, perfshire ketu edhe Shqiptaret, te kene kontribuar me trupa per kauzen Serbe dhe se Serbet dhe Shqiptaret te kene luftuar ne te dyja krahet. Per sa i perket rezultatit, duket se beteja nuk ka qene aq e rendesishme dhe decisive sa eshte pershkruar. Rezultati ka qene me teper nje barazim se sa nje fitore e Otomaneve, sepse forcat Turke menjehere pas kesaj beteje u terhoqen nga rajoni. Vete perandoria Serbe ishte shkaterruar qe perpara 30 vjeteve, megjithese pavaresia e shtetit mbeti ne fuqi edhe per 70 vjete te tjere. Mitet historike ne asnje menyre nuk jane vetem ekskluzive te Serbeve, dhe natyrisht, nuk jane domosdoshmerisht te demshme. Ne te vertete, shume shoqeri kane nxjerre forca nga legjendat--pavaresisht ne se ka qene ajo e Arturit apo ajo mbi Washingtonin dhe pemen e qershise--te cilat, ne se shikohen me sy kritik, nuk kane baza historike. Ndryshimi me marreveshjen e Kosoves, eshte qe me ane te saj eshte abuzuar per te rrenjosur nje ndjenje viktimizimi tek Serbet e cila i ka verbuar ata kunder popujve te tjere te Ballkanit. Plani vdekjeprures per Serbine e Madhe ne fund te shekullit te 20te doli nga mendimet dhe shkrimet e Dobrica Cosic, nje prej romanciereve me te njohur ne Serbi dhe nje shkrimtar i epikave historike popullore. Cosic ka qene partizan gjate Luftes se Dyte Boterore dhe nje mik i Titos per me teper se 20 vjet, por megjithate ai nuk mund te binte dakort me perpjekjet e Titos per te emancipuar Shqiptaret e Jugosllavise dhe u likuidua per nacionalizem ne vitin 1968. Gjate periudhes se frustracionit te tij per renien nga maja e piramides, Cosic zhvilloi nje teori komplekse dhe paradoksale te persekucionit kombetar Serb. Pas me shume se dy dekadave, kjo teori evoluoi ne nje program per Serbine e Madhe te cilin Slobodan Miloshevici fillimisht e beri te tijen dhe pastaj e ndoqi. Psikologjia kombetare Serbe e cila ka revoltuar boten qe prej vitit 1991 nuk eshte pra produkti i nje evolucioni historik ne shekuj, por eshte fabrikuar me qellim dhe eshte kultivuar intensivishtnga media Serbe qe prej ardhjes ne pushtet te Miloshevicit, ne vitin 1987. Mit, fantazi, gjysem te verteta dhe genjeshtra te plota jane transmetuar cdo nate neper lajmet e televizionit. Teoria e nje komploti e enderruar nga nacionaliste te frustruar si Cosic ne fund te viteve 1960, 1970 dhe ne fillim te viteve 1980 eshte bere e vertete. Cdo ngjarje e ndodhur ne historine Serbe eshte rritur dhe shtremberuar per te ushqyer kompleksin e persekutimit te njerezve te thjeshte, te cilet ne nje kohe te renies se madhe te standartit te jeteses, gradualisht u pushtuan nga vala e ksenofobise. Atmosfera ishte aq e nxehte dhe fushata aq gjithe perfshirese sa njerezit humben kontaktin me realitetin. Sipas ortodoksise se re, Serbet ishin viktima te shfrytezuar nga dhe ne rrezik prej popujve te tjere te Jugosllavise. Ndersa ata kishin bere sakrifica te panumerta dhe kishin derdhur gjak per te krijuar Jugosllavine dhe kishin qene fitues neper luftera, ata ishin gjoja mashtruar ne kohe paqe dhe shperndare neper disa republika ne kohen e shtetit te decentralizuar te Titos. Si cdo teori tjeter komploti, ka edhe ketu nje grimce te vertete ne ortodoksine e re Serbe. Por eshte nje grimce teper e vogel. Po te shikohen per shembull, marredheniet ndermjet Serbeve dhe Kroateve. Ndersa propagandistet e sotem (ne te dyja krahet) thone se keta popuj kane luftuar me njeri tjetrin qe prej shume kohesh, rivaliteti Serbo-Kroat eshte ne fakt nje fenomen i shekullit te 20te. Ne shekullin e 19te, nacionalistet Kroate, te cilet ishin te zene duke luftuar ndaj Austriakeve dhe Hungarezeve, kane qene ne fakt admirues te medhenj te Serbise dhe perkrahesit me te medhenj te nje shteti Jugosllav. Dhe partia ne fuqi ne parlamentin Kroat te vitit 1914 e cila votoi per te nisur luften me Serbine ishte Koalicioni Serbo-Kroat. Me pas vjen Lufta e Dyte Boterore. Per Serbet, ky konflikt eshte prova me e madhe qe ata kane pothuaj nje monopol te vuajtjeve dhe si rrjedhim nuk mund te bejne asgje te keqe. Ne fund te fundit, ata do te thone se luftuan perkrah aleateve kunder Nazisteve dhe pesuan shume humbje ne njerez. Por a eshte me te vertete kjo nje pamje e asaj qe ka ndodhur? Ne nje shkalle te madhe Lufta e Dyte Boterore ne Jugosllavi ka qene nje perzierje e disa lufterave civile te cilat kane pasur pak te bejne me luften boterore qe luftohej jashte vendit. Te gjitha grupet, me perjashtim te Slloveneve, kane luftuar kunder Serbeve, megjithese jo te gjithe ne unison, ndersa nacionalistet ekstreme ne te gjitha krahet kane pasur mundesi te nxisin fantazite e tyre me te cmendura. Pjesa kryesore e ushtrise partizane te Titos ne fillim perbehej kryesisht nga Serbe te cilet largoheshin krimet e Ustasheve ne Kroaci dhe Bosnje, por jo nga Serbe prej brenda Serbise. Pervec se nje kryengritje te shpejte ne vitin 1941, e cila u shtyp egersisht, Serbia mbeti pak a shume e qete deri prane fundit te luftes. Hitleri vendosi nje udheheqes Kuisling, Gjeneralin Milan Nedic, i cili ishte besnik ndaj Nazisteve. Ne mungese te luftimeve, Nedic qe ne gjendje te spastronte komunitetin Hebre te Serbise nen mbikqyrjen e Gjermaneve, ne menyre me efikase se sa Ustashet komunitetin Hebre te Kroacise dhe Bosnjes. Megjithate, propagandistet Serbe ne vitet 1990 nuk hezituan te flisnin per nje ndjenje te vecante afersi midis Serbeve dhe Hebrenjve. Edhe ceshtja e te vrareve gjate luftes eshte shtremberuar shume. Numri zyrtar i Jugosllaveve te cilet kane vdekur ne luftime ndaj fuqive te Aksit ishte 1.7 milion. Shifra ishte vetem nje numer i perafert i kalkuluar menjehere pas luftes per qellime te demshperblimeve dhe ato propagandistike. Tito synonte qe nga njera ane te merrte sa me teper kompensime nga Gjermania dhe nga ana tjeter ti tregonte botes shkallen e heroizmit dhe vuajtjeve te Jugosllavise. Por ne qarqet nacionaliste Serbe, te cilat veprojne ne baze te principit “ sa me shume aq me mire”, shifrat e serbeve te vdekur zmadhohen deri ne nivele absurde--ngadonjehere deri ne 700,000 vetem ne kampin famekeqe te perqendrimit ne Jasenovac. Gjate viteve 1980, kerkime te pavavrura mbi kete ceshtje nga dy njerez Bogoljub Kocovic, nje serb i emigruar dhe Vladimir Zerjavic, nje kroat, kane dhene rezultate shume te ngjashme. Te dy kerkuesit nuk jane bazuar mbi numerime te trupave apo mbledhje te kujtimeve te te mbijetuarve por mbi analiza kompiuterike te regjistrimit te popullsise dhe indekseve demografike. Sipas Kocovic, shifrat e te cilit jane pak me te larta se ato te Zerjavic, rreth 1,014,000 ose 6.4% e popullsise se Jugosllavise se vitit 1941, kane vdekur gjate ose menjehere pas Luftes se Dyte Boterore nga te gjitha krahet. Sipas rezultateve te tyre, ne shifra absolute, serbet kane pasur humbjet me te medha, me 487,000 te vdeku. Shifrat jane tronditese--dhe vetem numrat nuk mund te japin ne menyre adeguate tmerret e kryera. Por per fat te mire ato jane shume me te uleta se shifrat zyrtare, dhe natyrisht me te uleta se ato te ekstremisteve nacionaliste. Kontributi i Jugosllavise ne radhet e Aleateve eshte gjithashtu ekzagjeruar shume, se pari nga vete fituesit dhe me vone edhe nga zyrtare shteterore te cilet deshironin te justifikonin politiken e mosnderhyrjes ne konfliktin e tanishem. Per shkak te kaosit te shkaktuar nga lufterat civile brenda Jugosllavise, Gjermania asnjehere nuk ka pasur nevoje te vendose nje numer te madh trupash atje.
Te vetmet here qe Gjermania ka pasur nje numer te madh trupash ne Jugosllavi ka qene gjate pushtimit 12 ditor me 1941 dhe me 1944 kur trupat e vendosur ne Greqi u terhoqen nepermjet Jugosllavise. Perndryshe, Gjermania eshte mbeshtetur ne aleatet e saj, Italianet, Hungarezet dhe Bullgaret, si edhe tek bashkepunetoret vendas per te mbajtur nen kontroll Jugosllavine. Luftimet me te ashpra jane kryer kryesisht ne Bosnje. Pavaresisht se c’fare aspekti te historise Serbe studion, versioni zyrtar i dale nga Beogradi duket se bie ne kundershtim me faktet. Ajo qe eshte vecanerisht e trishtueshme, eshte qe deri pak kohe me pare, perpara daljes ne skene te Miloshevicit , Serbia ka qene republika me liberale dhe progresive ne Jugosllavi. Mediat serbe ishin vecanerisht te hapura ne baze te standarteve te Europes Lindore dhe opozita politika ishte e tolerueshme madje edhe inkurajohej. Duke pare prapa ne historine serbe eshte e mundshme te interpretosh shume ngjarje ne menyra te ndryshme madje edhe te gjesh periudha te bashkepunimit midis serbeve dhe joserbeve. Pavaresisht nga rezultatet e fushates se NATO-s e ardhmja e Serbise mund te varet ne nje pjese te madhe nga lufta me historine e saj.
*Christopher Bennett eshte ish drejtor i Grupit Nderkombetar te Krizave ne Ballkan dhe autor i librit Shkaterrimi i Pergjakshem i Jugosllavise
Serbia at a crossroads as loss of Kosova looms
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By Ellie Tzortzi - Analysis
BELGRADE (Reuters) - When Serbia's leaders appeal to the United Nations on Wednesday to block independence for its breakaway Kosovo province, it will be a plea based on history, emotion and the bitterness of 15 years of defeats.
It will also be a reminder to the West that although nationalist Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic is dead, the hardline defiance and victim complex he exploited in his people is still part of the national psyche.
"Most Serbs have never visited Kosovo and don't want to go to Kosovo, but they see it as part of their founding legend," said James Lyon, senior Balkans adviser of the International Crisis Group think-tank.
Serbs are brought up on poems of the medieval kingdom, defeated by the Ottomans in the epic Kosovo battle of 1389. The national myths are tied to the symbolism of a land that is home to the Serbian Orthodox church and hundreds of monasteries.
"Even for Serbs who are not religious, Kosovo is a defining point," Lyon said. "Once you bring up Kosovo, rationality goes out the window. Serbs are so sold on this legend and myth, they don't know what the reality is."
The U.N. Security Council meets on Wednesday to discuss Kosovo's future after negotiations failed to secure agreement. The Kosovo Albanians have said they plan to declare independence within months, despite Serbia's fierce opposition.
Multi-ethnic as far back as the Middle Ages and contested by warring neighbors, Kosovo had a mostly Albanian population by the early 1900s. In Josip Broz Tito's socialist Yugoslavia after World War Two, it had a high degree of autonomy and relative social and ethnic peace.
Milosevic's rise to power -- heralded by a bellicose speech he delivered in Kosovo in 1989 -- rolled back many of the rights of the 90-percent Albanian majority.
When a guerrilla war against Serb forces began in 1998, the crackdown was brutal. About 10,000 civilians were killed, mostly Albanians, and 1 million were expelled for months.
WESTERN INTERVENTION
NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days in 1999 until Milosevic withdrew troops. The U.N. took over Kosovo, keeping a lid on Albanian independence dreams.
Croatia and Bosnia fought free of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia to internationally recognized independence but Serbia kept a fig leaf of sovereignty over Kosovo through U.N. resolution 1244.
Serbs were never told they had been defeated, said Srdjan Bogosavljevic, analyst at Strategic Marketing polling agency.
"Generals were given medals and Milosevic presented it as a big victory," he said. "All those in power since have stuck to that line, never spelling out that Serbia lost the war. This denial will last as long as the political elite insists on it."
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica is at the vanguard of the new battle for Kosovo. Once hailed by the West as a moderate, he now epitomizes the hardline challenge to the West.
"For us, Kosovo independence does not exist and cannot be," he told Russian television last week. If the West recognizes Kosovo it would be to create "a puppet state", but Serbia was relying on Russia to block U.N. recognition forever, he said.
Tim Judah, an author and commentator on the Balkans, said Serbs would feel they would be losing yet another war, although many mistrusted their politicians and knew Kosovo was lost.
"There is a feeling that we are at the end, that the destruction of Yugoslavia started in Kosovo and will end in Kosovo," Judah said. "But Kosovo has another resonance, it's more important historically and spiritually."
MAXIMUM AUTONOMY
Serbia has offered the Albanians "maximum autonomy", all the trappings of statehood without the borders, army and U.N. seat.
A plan to give Kosovo independence under European Union supervision was blocked by Russia but a majority of EU member states plan to implement it anyway.
Some 70 percent of Serbs want Serbia to join the wealthy EU, government polls say. But 75 percent would reject membership if it were conditioned on Serbia recognizing an independent Kosovo.
Kosovo is expected to declare independence in the first few months of 2008. Analysts expect protests, hardline rhetoric and maybe a resurgence of nationalism or a symbolic tilt to Russia.
"The 'Greater Serbia' idea feeds on crisis," said Andjelko Milardovic of the Zagreb-based Centre for Political Studies. "It would take a transformation of Serbian society, and improvement of social and economic conditions, for it to lose its appeal."
The EU has offered Serbia a fast track to membership to help overcome the loss of Kosovo, once it arrests the last four Serbs wanted by the Hague war crimes tribunal.
No matter what the West does, Serbia's destiny is in the hands of rival leaders Kostunica and President Boris Tadic. Tadic, seen as a pro-Western moderate, faces ultra-nationalist Tomislav Nikolic in a presidential election next month.
"There is an ideological conflict going on right now," Judah said. "How that conflict is resolved in the next weeks and months will determine Serbia's future in the next 10 years."
(Editing by Timothy Heritage)
http://www.euronews.net/images/en/lien_video.gif (http://www.euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=461346&lng=1#)Kosova Catholics call for independence
The head of the Catholic Church in Kosovo has added his voice to calls for independence. In the wake of inconclusive talks at the UN Security Council over the province's political future, the stage is set for the majority Albanian community to go ahead with its proposed declaration of independence from Serbia.
Bishop Gjergji said the people of Kosovo deserve independence as do other democratic nations.
These sentiments were echoed on the streets of Pristina, where many people, regardless of their religion (most in Kosovo are at least nominally Muslim), are wishing for independence next year.
"Apart from the goodness of people I want an independent Kosovo," one man said.
"My wish is for an independent Kosovo, as well as goodwill among people to help others, especially children lost without their parents." said one woman.
EuroNews
The Balkans in 2008
20 December 2007 Grim warnings about Kosovo’s future after its expected independence may have overstated the troubles ahead, but they have also blinded many to a host of other problems Serbia and the rest of the region will have to face. By Tim Judah in London
The Kosovo deadline of December 10th at the United Nations came and went. At the same time large numbers of foreign journalists descended on the region. Their predictions were dire. The region faced a new war concluded many.
But I would argue that while they have ignored the region since 1999, it has changed, although that is not such a sexy story is it? Here are my predictions for 2008.
Barring the unexpected, we know that the key event for the region in the next few months will be Kosovo’s declaration of independence and its recognition as an independent state by the vast majority of EU countries, the US, most Muslim states and many more.
The key questions for the rest of the region concern the fallout from this and how it is managed.
The first group of issues relate to the situation on the ground. In the north of Kosovo we will see a new frozen conflict as this Serbian-dominated region continues to live as a de facto part of Serbia. Several questions will follow. Who will control the border points from the north to Serbia? Will the vital water pipeline from Gazivoda to the rest of Kosovo, which serves the vital, albeit aging power plant at Obilic, be turned off?
The second group of issues concern the Serbian enclaves. Will they continue to operate as Serbian islands surrounded by an Albanian sea? Security is an oft-cited issue but I suspect it will be less so, than is often imagined.
Less talked about is the question of money. Many people in the enclaves (but numbers are uncertain,) survive thanks to double salaries paid from Serbia to civil servants, many of them in basically fictitious jobs. In other words they are paid to stay in Kosovo.
If these people are safe and continue to receive these salaries they will stay, for now. If not they will have to leave sooner rather than later.
Serbia has implied it will place an economic blockade on Kosovo, or rather its Albanian parts. This will probably not be sustainable. Serbia exports €150-200m a year to Kosovo but Kosovo exports nothing to Serbia. Sanctions busting will boom via Montenegro and Macedonia and all the local mafias will do well from this. The Serbian enclaves will suffer especially, as prices will soar. Albanians will be able to source many imports, e.g., construction materials, from elsewhere.
A blockade will give a major impetus to Albania to accelerate the ongoing construction of the highway from Kosovo to the port of Durres.
Independence for the Albanian parts of Kosovo will soon provoke soul searching amongst Albanians as living standards fail to improve simply because the country is independent. However a blockade from Serbia will give politicians an excuse to blame Serbia for this and they will rely heavily on help and direction from the incoming EU mission in Kosovo and the so-called International Civilian Office.
Serbia’s future for the next decade depends on how it will react to the formalisation of its loss of most of Kosovo. Dusan Pavlovic of the Belgrade Faculty of Political Science could not have put the issue more succinctly than he did in a piece for the daily Politika on December 19: “The most important political issue in 2008 will be whether the country should be moving towards the European Union or keep up its struggle for Kosovo as an inalienable part of Serbia, even at the price of suspending European integration.”
Key questions here are the following. If EU states decide to shelve their demand that General Ratko Mladic, wanted for genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague be arrested – which seems possible – then Serbia will be invited to sign a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, SAA, next month. An SAA is widely regarded as the first formal step on the road to eventual EU accession.
Serbia might decide however, as Vojislav Kostunica, its prime minister has hinted, that it will not to sign, regarding this as an insulting attempt to compensate Serbia for Kosovo.
At its simplest, and whatever they say in public, leaders of President Boris Tadic’s pro-Western Democratic Party believe that Serbia has no choice but to pursue European integration. Kostunica’s conservative party, with whom they are in coalition, is by contrast officially aligned with Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.
The third player in this Serbian ménage à trois is the Radical Party, whose founder Vojislav Seselj is currently on trial for war crimes in The Hague. Tomislav Nikolic, the party’s acting leader in Serbia, stands a fair chance of winning the presidential elections in January with a run-off in February.
The key related question is whether, under the strain of the Kosovo issue, the current government collapses and Kostunica enters a coalition with the Radicals.
The effects of a Radical as president and/or the Radicals in government would not necessarily be seen immediately. On December 18 Mladjan Dinkic, Serbia’s Minister of Economy, said he expected $6 billion worth of foreign direct investment in 2008. This would undoubtedly suffer as potential investors would most likely lose interest in a country whose EU accession process would now slow considerably, if not grind to a halt.
Ironically, if Serbia took the position that continuing to fight for Kosovo was more important than European integration, this could have beneficial fallout for Serbia’s neighbours. The EU would more than likely step up help to Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia to accelerate their accessions and thus to try and inoculate them from potential instability emanating from Serbia.
The same would be the case with NATO, and in these circumstances it would be hard for Greece to justify its threatened veto for a Macedonian invitation to join at its Bucharest summit in April, where Albania and Croatia are also expected to receive invitations.
The recent political breakthrough in Bosnia also heralds an important signal. That is to say while the leadership of the Republika Srpska, RS, the Serb part of Bosnia, is happy to use the Kosovo issue and Serbian backing to defend its rights under the Dayton peace accords of 1995, it is also keen to look after its own interests, and these may increasingly diverge from those of Serbia.
The interests of the RS leadership are simply to remain in full control of their largely-autonomous republic. Clearly they want to prevent power draining to Bosnia’s central authorities in Sarajevo. But while happy when there is a coincidence of interests with Belgrade that does not mean that they want to be told what to do by Serbia either.
If Serbia turns away from the path of EU integration then we can expect its influence in the RS to wane.
Bulgaria took 14 years to join the EU from signing an initial agreement. If Serbia and Bosnia proceed at the same speed, if the clock starts in 2008, then they would only accede in 2022. Both could proceed faster, if the political will is there. If not, isolation beckons.
Finally, with regard to the even longer term futures of the former Yugoslav states, and in this regard Kosovo is an exception, action needs to be taken over the looming demographic and pensions crisis.
Just take Serbia alone. Despite the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees since 1991 it is losing 25,000 to 30,000 people a year or 0.3% of the population. According to Bozidar Djelic, Serbia’s deputy premier, “it is the fourth oldest nation in the world, with an average age of 40.2.” Although since the fall of Milosevic in 2000, he says the birth-rate has risen slightly, Serbia; “is still at the bottom of the list of European countries with less than one child per marriage,” far less than the 2.1 required to keep the population at its current level.
The next year will tell whether Kosovo remains the key issue for the region for the next few years or whether politicians such as Djelic can advance work on their political portfolios, in his case European integration, and begin to deal with other issues, such as declining and aging populations.
Tim Judah, a leading Balkan commentator, is the author of The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia; and Kosovo: War and Revenge. Balkan Insight is BIRN's online publication.
KOSOVO'S NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION: INDEPENDENCE
Sun Dec 23, 7:56 PM ET
WASHINGTON -- If you're pausing to consider what 2008's biggest trouble spots might be, take your finger and travel on the map to the belly of the Balkans, and stop at Kosovo, the enduring trouble spot.
Actually, Kosovo is not yet a country in and of itself, although that is what it wants to be. Serbia claims it as a province, which is exactly what Kosovo does NOT want to be. The United Nations has been administering the 2 million Kosovars, 90 percent of whom are ethnically Albanians. But the Kosovars do not have the faintest taste for joining Albania and are not interested in staying under the control of the U.N., either.
When you add the fact that the United States and the European Union support independence for Kosovo, while Russia supports Serbian nationalist intentions, you begin to understand that this is a problem that cannot be easily worked out.
Personally, I gave up the notion that these two peoples could live together as early as September 1992, when the Balkan wars were raging and Serb Gauleiters had taken over Kosovo.
Because journalists were forbidden from seeing what a wonderfully progressive "occupation" the Serbs were imposing upon the innocent Kosovars, I found myself in neighboring independent Macedonia, utterly determined to get in. Well, just try it, I thought -- so I got the wiliest Kosovar cab driver I could find, and we "attacked" the always crowded and dangerous border crossing.
My choice was a good one. Sam (for such, strangely enough, was his name) saw no reason for waiting in line. No, at the border he simply swerved around long, snaking lines of cars, waved our two passports at his "friends," the border guards, and whisked me into the capital of Pristina, one of the most run-down cities I have ever seen. He also managed to get me nearly shot by machine gun-bearing Serb soldiers when I innocently tried to stroll about the university.
In a run-down shack by the river, I spoke at some length with the melodramatic Ibrahim Rugova, head of the anti-Serb Kosovars whose Democratic League of Kosovo had set up a parallel state -- their own schools, banks, hospitals, universities, underground police, etc. A truly original 21st-century independence movement at its birth!
This man, who would have seemed more at ease in a great dramatic work, at one point mused with me: "Kosovo ... It would be a tiny state, but we could do it ... It would be a good solution, sometime."
By 2001, all of this had miraculously changed. By then he was the elected president of the parliament of Kosovo. They were freed from the Serbs' oppression, even though Kosovo still was officially a province of Serbia. Everything had changed because, after four years of NATO and the Europeans doing nothing to stop the Serb repression, in 1999 the United States bravely led NATO bombardments of Kosovo and drove the Serbs out.
But something strange had happened during the Balkan war of the '90s with Serbia invading Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, all of whom became independent, as well as Kosovo, which did not.
The Europeans sent peacekeepers to the region under the U.N., ostensibly to impose a United Nations brand of neutralism. But they insisted, in one of the most curious operations of modern times, that the U.N. could not take action, even when it was clear that the Serbs were the aggressors, having massacred tens of thousands of Kosovars. In effect, they declared that no one was innocent or really guilty, and so they would never have to take action -- and they never did.
While the larger and more important parts of Serbia were going their independent ways, Kosovo, from 1999 until today, has been imperfectly run by the U.N. Now, as Serbian elections loom on Jan. 20, Serbia is demanding its solution -- keep Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia.
Yet, in preparation for the independence that the vast majority of Kosovars want and the Europeans support, the European Union this fall pledged 1,800 police and administrative officials to Kosovo as part of a package of aid and diplomacy intended to move Kosovo quickly toward independence, while offering Serbia a "fast track" to membership in the E.U.
The words of Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica recently revealed the attitudes of the Serbs. "It is unacceptable to speak of Kosovo, a province of Serbia, as a future state," he said. "It is especially insulting to offer to a crippled Serbia a reward of fast track to the E.U. in exchange for its consent to violence."
Others might think that it is insulting to the world to pretend that the Serb violence against Kosovo never happened, and that it is deeply immoral to ask the Kosovars now to live with their oppressors.
Moreover, a new Kosovar identity is emerging in the region. Kosovars are designing a new national flag, one, it is hoped, that would reflect a multi-ethnic identity and include the 10 percent of Kosovars who are ethnically Serbs. And President Rugova, before he died, even tried to rename Kosovo's indigenous dog the "Kosovo shepherd."
What is clear here is that both Europe and the United States have every reason to stand by Kosovo in its natural desire and demand for independence. Indeed, what is the alternative? Stand by the Serbs who slaughtered some 250,000 of their "neighbors" during the '90s? There is a chance here for Europe, as well, to make up for its moral casualness in the Balkans during the '90s, and for the U.S. to embrace a truly righteous cause.
As Charles A. Kupchan, professor of international affairs at Georgetown University, wrote recently in Foreign Affairs: "Kosovo's independence ... should not be held hostage to Serbia's inability to trust itself to behave responsibly. The United States and its European partners were too timid in confronting Serbian nationalism throughout most of the 1990s, and much blood was shed as a result. The international community should not make the same mistake today. Serbia's darker instincts need to be extinguished, not accommodated."
The First Military Victim of World War III
From the booklet The Rising Beast—Germany’s Conquest of the Balkans by Gerald Flurry »
Copyright © Philadelphia Church of God
Once again the Germans are structuring an empire. They have moved their capital from Bonn back to Berlin and the Reichstag. “Reichstag” means empire. It is the building from where Hitler launched a war that cost about 50 million lives.
That is how badly the Germans wanted an empire in World War ii. Their whole history reveals a similar pattern.
Some of the best foreign-affairs analysts are beginning to wake up to what is happening in Europe—and it all started in the Balkan Peninsula.
This is how one intelligence periodical sees the outcome of the past decade’s Yugoslav wars, started, as we will see, by Germany’s recognition of Croatia and Slovenia in 1991: “The European empire is acquiring colonies fast. Currently engaged in negotiations with nato in order to take over the running of Macedonia, the EU has acquired de facto control of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the extent that the new High Representative, Lord Ashdown, has appointed a German and a French deputy but no American. This is the first time there has not been a U.S. deputy in the body which governs Bosnia. It means that the ‘big three’ EU states are now in control of the former Yugoslav territory” (European Foundation Intelligence Digest, May 2, 2002).
Did you get that? The German-dominated EU now has control of the first colonies of its new empire!
In 2002, nato began withdrawing troops from the Balkan Peninsula. With Croatia and Slovenia firmly attached to the EU, the Union is now in the process of imposing its version of “security” on other nations that once formed the old Republic of Yugoslavia. The first EU police mission under the European Security and Defense policy began in Bosnia in January 2003, taking over from the United Nations International Police Task Force. This ended the direct involvement of the UN, nato and the U.S. in Bosnia and set the pattern for the ultimate takeover of the entire Balkan Peninsula by this European force.
Concerning the other old Yugoslav countries, Serbia and Montenegro are now virtually vassal states of the EU, almost totally dependent on the Union for financing reconstruction and development following the Yugoslav wars. Now the question of Macedonia’s position remains to be finalized. With a nato security force already on the ground in Macedonia, Germany has contributed the greatest number of troops of the 11 nations involved in this force. The force is under a German commander. To all intents and purposes, Macedonia is already in the bag for Europe.
Europe has effectively conquered Yugoslavia! We will prove in this booklet that the former Yugoslavia is in fact the first victim of World War iii.
Backing Germany
Let’s begin our analysis of this nightmarish situation with a look at events in 1995. Here is a segment of the August 11-25, 1995, issue of Intelligence Digest (emphasis mine throughout): “American generals trained and advised the recently triumphant Croatian army, and German pilots have been training the Croatian air force (UN sources at Zagreb airport say air-traffic control frequencies ‘resound to the voices of German pilots’). Yet the recent events in the former Yugoslavia, important (and dangerous) as they are, form only a small part of an overall U.S.-German plan for Europe. …
“America’s solution is to encourage and support German hegemony [domination] in both east and west Europe.
“Germany’s control of Western Europe is exercised through the European Union (EU), and American support for German dominance of the EU has been evident since at least 1990. At that time a pro-German U.S. State Department under James Baker started a whispering campaign against British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher because of her opposition to any further surrender of British sovereignty to the German-dominated EU (or European Community as it then was).
“This whispering campaign was partly responsible for Mrs. Thatcher’s ouster from … the British premiership. …
“[Washington] is following an intentional policy the purpose of which is to leave both east and west Europe under complete German domination. …
“So Germany, with the full backing of America, is to be the sole great power of Europe. …
“Washington urgently needs to think again before it is too late: Its policy for Europe is not a policy for future stability; it is the reverse.”
This was a shocking revelation! American foreign policy supported German dominance in the EU. And both America and Germany supported the breakup of the Balkans. The question is, why?
For the answer, we must look a little further back into the history of this war-torn region of former Yugoslavia.
Germany’s Opening Move
In December 1991, serious events began to take shape within Germany and Eastern Europe. Germany—although strongly opposed by the European Economic Community, the U.S. and the UN—recognized the breakaway states of Croatia and Slovenia. Pope John Paul ii quickly did the same. (This was not a coincidence; the people of these two Balkan states are staunchly loyal to the Roman Catholic Church.) The European Economic Community caved in and recognized the two states on January 15, 1992.
The New York Times wrote about this watershed event in a front-page article, “Moving Defiantly on Yugoslavia, Bonn Threatens Rift With Allies”: “Germany will go ahead with its plans to extend diplomatic recognition to the breakaway Yugoslav republics of Slovenia and Croatia, German officials said today, increasing prospects for a pronounced rift on the issue in the Western alliance.
“Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s spokesman, Dieter Vogel, said on Friday that the Bonn government would wait until after a meeting of European Community foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday before announcing recognition, which has been opposed by the United Nations, the United States and by the European Community. But officials made clear that Bonn’s decision would not be affected by the outcome of Monday‘s meeting” (Dec. 15, 1991).
Germany was opposed by virtually the whole world on this matter! Yet Germany stood firm in its decision. Why? How could a nation with Germany’s recent past attempt such a thing? It makes a lot of sense if you understand the history of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire!
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Germany started World Wars i and ii. Let’s not forget that mind-numbing history. That same war spirit was thriving in Germany‘s support of these breakaway states! The Germans were strongly opposed by the whole world and still got their way.
The first blow of World War iii has already been struck. That is because this same nation—Germany—will continue this aggressive war spirit until the whole world is dragged into a nuclear World War iii! So says history and Bible prophecy.
The habit of starting every world war dies hard.
The U.S. did a complete turnaround on their political stance, caving in to Germany. Not only that, they used their power to win this Yugoslav war for Germany!
The “world’s only superpower” was despicably weak. The Yugoslavia debacle was another spectacular demonstration that America is no longer a superpower.
What America did in Yugoslavia will come back to haunt us forever. History thunders to us that it was a monumental mistake. Bible prophecy relates that it was part of a massive curse on our land.
The final outcome is going to be good news. But the suffering that precedes it will be the worst ever.
Germany’s Power
Another New York Times article, “UN Yields to Plans by Germany to Recognize Yugoslav Republics,” said, “The Security Council backed away from a confrontation with Germany over Yugoslavia today after Germany’s European allies on the council decided that they did not want a major clash with Bonn” (Dec. 16, 1991).
Why did the UN decide not to fight against Germany’s decision? Because Germany’s European allies “did not want a major clash with Bonn.”
The historical plan of the European Union was to control a dangerous Germany. But it is clear that Germany is controlling the EU!
The horrendous truth that this world refuses to face is that Germany has not repented of starting two world wars. The warlike spirit of World Wars i and ii is still very much alive!
It doesn’t take a lot of vision to see where this is headed. Bible prophecy says it will lead to the worst destruction this world has ever experienced!
It is time for us to wake up. Even if we don’t believe the Bible, sound reasoning should awaken us.
Let’s continue in the New York Times article: “The incident underscored Germany’s growing political power within the 12-nation European Community, diplomats said. Some added that it marked the single most visible demonstration of that power since reunification of the two Germanys more than a year ago [in 1990]” (ibid.).
It was “the single most visible demonstration of that power” since Germany was reunited. What does that mean? It means that Germany is on the same track they were on when they started World Wars i and ii! This is the grisly truth that most people don’t want to face. So we bury our heads in the sand. But that doesn’t remove the truth or change events.
Again, the Germans have not repented of what they did in World Wars i and ii—or they would not be acting this way!
Why can’t we be logical about something so terrifying? Are we too decadent even to care?
If our reasoning doesn’t shake us, events certainly will—one thousand times over!
“Troubling Historical Associations”
The article continued, “Moreover, in its unusual assertiveness in moving ahead with a plan to extend diplomatic recognition to the breakaway Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia, Germany has stirred troubling historical associations …. Nazi Germany dominated the two Yugoslav regions during World War ii, absorbing Slovenia into the Third Reich and creating a puppet regime in Croatia” (ibid.).
“Germany has stirred troubling historical associations.” But just how troubled are we? Even the New York Times doesn’t seem troubled anymore. I hear almost no discussion of that troubling history—or, more importantly, what it means for the future! That is why it is so troubling.
Are we afraid to face this troubling truth? America and Britain should be so troubled that they would even risk a military clash with Germany. But those kind of superpower actions are past history.
After all, Germany could easily be stopped now if we had the will to use our power. But we are dangerously weak. So Germany’s power (with the EU) will grow until we can’t stop it.
We are in a far worse scenario than we were in the 1930s when Winston Churchill was warning the West about Adolf Hitler. We ignore that terrifying history, and are dangerously weak because of it.
Once again we fear to face the mind-jarring reality. Have we forgotten that we almost lost World War ii? And we did so because almost everybody rejected Churchill’s strong warnings against Germany.
Now is the time to face that unpalatable truth.
Germany was determined to recognize Croatia, in spite of this recent and horrifying past! But why would the U.S. support such a move? At first, America did not. But that quickly changed once Germany flexed its political muscle. America shamefully let Germany lead it.
“Germany has long historical ties, both glorious and shameful, to Slovenia and Croatia. Slovenia was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and many people there still identify with the German-speaking world. There has also been German influence in Croatia, and during World War ii Croatia was ruled by a pro-Nazi regime.
“This aspect of Croatian history, and the fact that the Tudjman government has refused to disassociate itself from the Croatian fascists who ruled the republic in the 1940s, has made European leaders unwilling to move quickly toward recognition. German public opinion is strongly pro-Croatian and anti-Serbian” (New York Times, Dec. 8, 1991).
This is a shocking article. German public opinion was strongly pro-Croatian and anti-Serbian, or in reality anti-Yugoslavian. The German people are emotionally involved with these two republics.
This is just another of many signs that the German people have not repented of causing about 50 million deaths in World War ii!
They would be horrified at these emotions if they deeply understood and hated their Nazi past. They should hate the monstrous crimes inflicted on the world by their eagerly following Hitler.
But the West is more to blame than the Germans. Our denazifying of Germany after World War ii was a shameful farce. How can we calculate the suffering that mistake will cause? This work has written on and documented this tragedy for years.
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So brace yourselves: A strong militaristic Germany is marching once again, and its destruction this time will make its crimes in World Wars i and ii look like child’s play!
Most of the words we hear from the Germans and others will indicate otherwise. But watch what they do—their deeds.
Isn’t it also disturbing that the Croatian leader—the late Franjo Tudjman—would not disassociate himself from the Croatian fascists, or Nazis, of the 1940s, yet was still a respected leader in a Roman Catholic country? If these people were good Roman Catholics, how could they honor fascism in this way? Isn’t this rather alarming? Croatian leaders wouldn’t disassociate themselves from such a horrible past, yet the pope openly recognized Croatia in its struggle for independence, despite being opposed by most of the world. These facts suggest the development of something dangerously ominous.
Do you understand the importance of this history? How quickly the world has forgotten the events surrounding World War ii. How quickly the world has forgotten that Germany has historically considered it a primary duty to protect the Roman Catholic Church! During the various reigns of the Holy Roman Empire, they have felt it their duty to enforce the church’s desires. That helps us to understand why Germany will stand up against the European Union, America, the United Nations and the entire world!
Something very dark and sinister is stirring in Europe. What happened in Croatia was only a small sample of what is about to spread over the entire region! This is the “straw that will stir the drink” to unify all of Europe. It will not be long before Europe is reunited as the Holy Roman Empire. It will be led very assertively by Germany.
Two republics now have their independence because of Germany and the pope. The whole world would have been against the independence of these two republics had not Germany and the pope spoken out in support of them! These events revealed a great deal about the power Germany has developed. But more importantly, they projected where Germany and the Vatican are headed in the future!
Now a German-led EU virtually controls all of Yugoslavia. As you continue reading, we will prove to you that this is the first nation conquered by the reviving Holy Roman Empire.
World War iii has already begun! Soon all of Europe will be under Germany’s control—and that is only the beginning. America, Britain and the nation called Israel today will be conquered by the Holy Roman Empire if we don’t repent!
The Holy Roman Empire will soon become more powerful than Russia, China or the U.S. Please open your eyes and watch it happen.
Germany forced the issue in Yugoslavia and exposed how weak America and the West really are. And the whole world was watching and learning. World leaders clearly know how weak America is. That is why so many challenge it. This trend has only intensified since that time, and it will get far worse.
Many Serbian leaders believe the driving force behind the independence of Croatia and Slovenia was the Roman Catholic Church! This is only a small part of a rising Holy Roman Empire. Germany and the Vatican were willing to offend the whole world to recognize two little Roman Catholic republics! These events show anybody willing to take note that something dreadful is stirring in Germany and the Vatican.
For the most part, what is happening in Europe, politically and religiously, is invisible to the world. Even many political leaders in Europe will be moved with great emotion in support of European unity, not truly understanding what they are doing.
Germany’s World Dominance
Shortly after Germany recognized the breakaway republic of Croatia, civil war broke out in Yugoslavia. Many people blame Germany for this civil war, and rightfully so.
All of Europe and America were openly hostile to Germany’s action at that time, but Europe quickly caved in when Germany threatened to pull out of the European Union.
America saw the flow of events and, as usual, weakly changed its public view by submitting to Germany.
Mr. Tudjman, Croatia’s leader at that time, had publicly and repeatedly said his country was right in supporting Hitler! He was very adamant and unrepentant about that.
In 1995, Alexander Cockburn wrote this in the Detroit Free Press: “When Germany led the Western powers to recognize Croatia, Slovenia and finally Bosnia at the start of the ’90s, the Serbs remembered vividly what had happened to them at the hands of the Nazi-backed puppet state of Croatia in World War ii. At least 700,000 Serbs—some say as many as 1.2 million—along with 30,000 Jews, were slaughtered by Croats in the Jasenovac concentration camp. [Even if there were only 700,000 Serbs killed, that was still a colossal disaster.]
“The Croat lobby in the United States has displayed eel-like slipperiness when pressed about the fascist predilections of Croat leader Franjo Tudjman. Inquiries into his character and intentions are very much to the point: Tudjman has written books of spine-chilling anti-Semitism and apologetics for mass extermination.
“This is the man pampered by the West, even as he drives toward a greater Croatia built in the image of Ante Pavelic’s Croatian Republic of the 1940s” (Aug. 24, 1995).
That reminds me of the years leading up to World War ii, after Hitler had already written his hateful diatribe, Mein Kampf. Yet Neville Chamberlain and other weak leaders were actually cozying up to and pampering this man who would head the Nazi war machine.
An inquiring mind might ask how Germany and the Vatican could openly and flagrantly support a Nazi-type leader, considering their own recent history. Nazi atrocities and the Vatican’s involvement in protecting and hiding Nazi leaders during and after World War ii are overwhelmingly documented! The great majority of the Nazis who escaped were assisted by the Catholic Church (request our free booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire).
Now Germany and the Vatican are headed in the same direction again. There is a frightening spirit there that we should be acutely concerned about. America’s national survival depends on it.
According to some reports, America signed a secret agreement to continue operating with the Croatian military. Remember, this is the same nation that we were bullied into accepting as an independent republic in 1991! Where Germany leads, we seem to follow.
America’s foreign-policy shift in 1991 enraged its traditional allies Britain, France and the Netherlands. These nations saw what Germany was doing, not only in Yugoslavia, but all over Europe. The European Union collectively had hoped to keep powerful Germany under control—with help from the U.S.! Instead, America helped Germany enforce its will on Europe! Europeans, who are being helplessly swept along, are painfully aware that Germany has caused two world wars—in living memory—and the death of over 60 million people!
Has America forgotten its loyal allies of World Wars i and ii and in 50 years of the Cold War? Germany has bullied the U.S. into nearly wrecking that alliance!
These traditional American allies know a great deal about Germany’s desire to control Europe. U.S. leaders, however, seem to be ignorant of the dangers. It seems that they learned little or nothing from World Wars i and ii.
The Serbs fought on the side of America and Britain in two world wars. In the 1990s, the Serbs were the only power to resist Germany in the Balkans. Now Germany is having its way in that part of the world. And the European Union is now openly discussing global ambitions—challenging America.
No wonder America is losing allies in Europe. Historical alliances and friends seem almost meaningless to the U.S. At the same time, America is helping to build a Frankenstein monster that is about to turn on its creator!
America and Britain clearly do not understand history. And worse, they are totally ignorant of Bible prophecy.
This is an amazing scenario! The most powerful foreign policy in this world comes out of Germany! At first, America was bitterly opposed to Germany recognizing the republic of Croatia. Then it turned around to help Germany fight for Croatia‘s independence! What a pathetic turnaround.
These events set the stage for 1999’s nightmare in Kosovo. •
How German Fascism Conquered Kosovo
From the booklet The Rising Beast—Germany’s Conquest of the Balkans
by Gerald Flurry »
Copyright © Philadelphia Church of God
The Serbs fought on our side in two world wars, and Germany fought against us in both of those wars. How strange to see that alliance reversed today.
We have failed to learn from this history, and we are going to pay a terrifying price!
The simple truth is, Serbia is no threat to Europe or America. But Germany has routinely been a dangerous threat to Europe and the world! And whether we realize it or not, they still are today—far more so than in the past.
The only real winners in 1999’s war in Yugoslavia were Germany and the Vatican. Time will show that America and Britain were the great losers. The Kosovo conflict made them weaker as Germany grew in power.
It has often been said that truth is the first casualty of war. That probably has never been more true than in that war.
Germany Backs Albania
Yugoslavia lost the states of Croatia and Slovenia because of Germany. In the last chapter I showed how Germany recognized these breakaway republics and then supported them with troops and armaments. America (and almost the whole world) strongly opposed Germany’s undemocratic plans in the beginning. But the U.S. weakened and then even decided to support Germany in its war to control the Balkans! Europe and the United Nations meekly followed along.
Germany’s approach to taking over Yugoslavia was anything but democratic. This was good old-fashioned German fascism, supported by America and Britain. It makes you wonder how deeply we love freedom.
Germany has the most destructive military history of any nation ever on Earth! But America has supported them as though they have been the peacekeepers of the world. It’s as if the whole world has habitually learned to fear Germany—fearing to speak out against them.
After Croatia and Slovenia, the civil war spread into Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Serbs lost control of a large portion of this republic also.
Still the Germans were not satisfied. The Serbs saw Germany supporting a guerrilla army of Albanians. The guerrillas called themselves the Kosovo Liberation Army (kla)—though they were never freedom fighters. Many of the authorities likened them to the Mafia. Kosovo was comprised of 90 percent Albanians. These Kosovar Albanians, along with Albania and Germany, supported the guerrilla army against the Serbs.
“The German ambassador made evident the very good relations between the two countries [Albania and Germany] and voiced the will of his government to consolidate and promote further these relations. He highlighted the efficiency of various projects of the German assistance in Albania and stressed that they will be expanded in the coming months.
“Albanian Foreign Minister [Paskal] Milo stressed that Germany is one of the most important countries in the foreign policy of Albania” (Albanian Telegraphic Agency, Aug. 6, 1997; emphasis mine throughout). Germany is probably the strongest foreign industrial power in Albania. So their ties are unusually close.
There was also direct support coming from Germany. There are 600,000 Albanians in Germany. Many of the kla guerrillas left their families behind in Germany to fight against the Serbs in a civil war that the German-supported Albanians started. Is that German democracy, or German fascism?
Germany also gave financial support to the kla. According to bbc News, “In addition to money sent home to relatives [in Germany], Kosovo’s internationally unrecognized government-in-exile has been collecting a tax of 3 percent of earnings. Its prime minister, Bujar Bukoshi, who is based in Germany, has repeatedly denied that the money is used to buy arms—he says that it’s spent on running the health and education services” (Aug. 5, 1998). But did anybody believe that?
Kosovo’s “internationally unrecognized government-in-exile” had a prime minister who was based in Germany and operated freely with the blessing (perhaps even the direction) of the German government! So Germany recognized Kosovo’s government-in-exile when nobody else did. But the international community submissively followed Germany’s lead.
The kla guerrillas didn‘t just happen. They were essentially raised up and directly supported by Germany—the powerhouse of Europe.
All of Germany’s actions in this Yugoslav war have been blatant and brutal fascism. We can call it democratic if we choose to do so, but that doesn’t make it true. This is still the country that started World Wars i and ii. And they have already started World War iii in an unofficial way! It is time that we came out of our dream and recognized this very dangerous reality. The spirit of war has been resurrected again in Germany. Now only superior will and military force can stop it.
How many nightmares must we experience before we wake up to what is happening in Germany?
Germany encouraged nato attacks with the strongest language. The German defense minister, Rudolf Scharping, said in a March 1999 television interview on zdf that “genocide is starting.” His alarmist vocabulary caused many to think about genocide. It became common to hear that word being used in relation to Kosovo.
The Australian reported on April 1, 1999, “With thousands of refugees continuing to stream out of the war-torn province, German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping claimed in Bonn last night that evidence had emerged of concentration camps being set up by Serb forces.”
People watched television and saw the streams of Albanian refugees. Then they totally blamed the Serbs. Most knew very little about Kosovo, yet spoke of “genocide”—the deliberate and systematic destruction of a race. Then came talk about “concentration camps.” Genocide and concentration camps—words introduced by the German defense minister.
We see today that most of those claims were built on a foundation of ignorance, deceit and lies.
It is true that after a powerful nato air attack, the Serbs responded violently to save what remained of their country. But there was little mentioned about refugees before the nato attacks. In fact, nato’s initial purpose in the war was to protect the Kosovar people in their homeland. That purpose shamefully failed.
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Why? Because that was not what Germany wanted! Now this province too dances to Germany’s tune.
Is nato blameless?
Germany Pressured nato
Stratfor Systems issued this most alarming report in 1998: “Serbian Radio in Belgrade on September 22 broadcast a scathing commentary charging Germany with ‘warmongering’ and warning Europe against the alleged rebirth of German fascism” (Sept. 25, 1998).
Call the Serbs what you like, but that is exactly what happened in Yugoslavia! And German fascism is accelerating all over Europe. This is the deadly truth that Europe and the U.S. refuse to face!
The report continued, “More pointedly, Serbian Radio cited Germany’s record in the two world wars, and charged that Germany harbors ‘open ambition to become the master of Europe.’ Questioning Europe’s silence on Germany’s behavior, commentator Milika Sundic said, ‘It is difficult to comprehend and accept that Europe has become Germany’s slave.’ Sundic went on to claim that ‘Germany contributed the most to the breakdown of the former Yugoslavia,’ and that ‘Serbia has known for some time that Germany was behind the [kla] terrorism in [Kosovo].’”
Who can present any evidence to refute these powerful words?
Was the German-supported kla a band of freedom fighters, or were they terrorists? Nato has had serious problems controlling them.
The truth is, they were German-supported terrorists—used to achieve Germany‘s fascist goals. The world quickly forgets the ugly truth about Germany‘s aims. But the sledgehammer of events will jar our memory as never before.
“The fact is that Germany [was] one of the leading voices pushing for nato intervention in Kosovo. In a meeting of nato defense ministers in Portugal on September 24 [1998], which resulted in a virtual ultimatum to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to cease the fighting in Kosovo or face nato air strikes, only Germany‘s [then Defense Minister Volker] R�he called for a firm deadline to be set for intervention. R�he said, ‘We must move quickly to an ultimatum in the next 10 days or less …. We must do something for the people on the ground and not just issue one more resolution after another’” (ibid.). Was Germany’s penchant for blitzkrieg warfare beginning to surface?
“R�he has argued against awaiting a [United Nations] mandate on the use of force against Serbia. [Not even the United Nations could deter Germany from their goal.] Said R�he, ‘Pictures of people [in Kosovo] camping out in the open … are in themselves an ultimatum.’ Moreover, and more to the point, R�he said, ‘We must avoid to be dependent on a Russian veto.’ He claimed that the current relationship between nato and Russia presumes that ‘Russia has no veto whenever nato needs to act.’ …
“Germany is leading the campaign for a quick and, if necessary, military solution to the conflict in Kosovo ….
“Germany is also extremely concerned about U.S. vacillation in its military commitment to European stability, particularly to the use of nato as a policing tool. That U.S. vacillation has led to the utter disdain in which Serbia holds nato. Germany is looking ahead to the day when it must take a leading role in the defense of Western Europe, and it does not want to take on that role with a dull knife” (ibid.).
Even in 1998, Stratfor saw that Germany’s ambition reached beyond Yugoslavia.
Fascist History
Ralph Giordano, television journalist and author, writing in 1993 on the spate of neo-Nazi hate crimes against foreigners that had swept Germany in the previous decade, mused on what he calls Germany’s “second guilt” as the reason for the revival of old fascist sympathies in today’s Germany.
“A specter is haunting united Germany … the specter of a brown resurrection! This time, unlike its appearance in the mid-’60s, it is no temporary phenomenon, but is today deeply rooted in the society, and tomorrow will have established itself in the parliamentary structure at both the federal and provincial level” (The Future of German Democracy).
Giordano went on to expose one of the historical connections between the sleaziest aspects of the Allies’ approach to post-war German reconstruction and the rise of fascist tendencies in that country today. “With only a few exceptions these perpetrators not only were let off in the end unpunished, but they were also allowed to continue their careers with impunity …. Well into the 1970s the elite of finance, industry and government was almost identical to that under Hitler” (ibid.).
East and West Germany are reunited; Germany’s capital is once again Berlin; the country sits astride the crossroads of Eastern and Western Europe. Thus it is now the politics of Germany that powerfully influence politics in all Europe. Just as the embracing of fascism by Hitler’s government spread to become the dominant form of governance in Europe prior to World War ii, what emerges from the present-day political melee in Germany will spread to influence its EU partners in their political persuasion.
German fascism has virtually conquered Yugoslavia. People can scoff all they like. But watch Germany. Yugoslavia is only the beginning. German fascism is back, just as we have prophesied for over 50 years. Soon the whole world will understand that.
The Serbs see clearly that Germany was behind the breakdown of former Yugoslavia. We cannot forget that all of Europe, the U.S. and the UN were against Germany when it recognized and strongly supported the breakaway of Slovenia and Croatia. But Germany prevailed. Croatia’s breakaway led to civil war. America‘s secretary of state at the time said that Germany had “a certain responsibility” for the Yugoslav civil war. But he was quickly silenced! And no leader in our government has made such a statement since.
That was one of the powerful truths that became a casualty early in the Yugoslav war.
Germany’s Master Plan
Germany has a master plan. We have warned about that master plan since immediately after World War ii. Germany is fast becoming the fascist superpower of the West, as the U.S. collapses as a superpower. You urgently need to understand why this is happening! Please request our free booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.
Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister, said this about the European Union in October 1995: “You have not anchored Germany to Europe; you have anchored Europe to a newly dominant, unified Germany. In the end, my friends, you’ll find it will not work.”
She didn’t see Germany as a democracy-loving country, but as “a newly dominant” country. Mrs. Thatcher clearly said the European Union was not a democratic union. It is dominated by Germany. But it seems nobody wants to admit that they have not repented of their fascist, Nazi past.
Let the world beware!
Bernard Connolly, in The Rotten Heart of Europe, said the European Union was only a “cloak for German ambitions.”
At least we ought to consider such authoritative voices.
First of all, the Germans want to control Europe. To do so, they must gain control of the Balkans, where their fiercest enemy is the Serbs. For the most part, the Serbs have been silenced.
Do you realize that 75 percent of the nato military power in the Kosovo conflict was supplied by the U.S.? That means Germany actually pressured and directed nato—especially the U.S.—to carry out its own fascist ambitions within Europe!
We are going to pay the supreme penalty for such a dangerously misguided foreign policy.
All of Europe, the UN and America caved in to Germany, in spite of its responsibility for the deaths of 60-70 million people in World Wars i and ii!
Germany had all of nato fighting for its cause, and it seems nobody wants to even discuss how it all began.
Is it so hard to understand why the Serbs were enraged? Their country has been systematically destroyed—primarily by Germany. What country would not fight against such an outrage? Does any nation really see the Serbs’ point of view?
Since they were our allies in both world wars, we of all people should see their side of the story.
The German master plan is very similar to what the country has done in the past. The only real difference is, it has been much more subtle—so far.
If the Western world would only remember the recent past of Germany, it would frighten us into reality.
The Germans inherently dislike democracy. And we did almost nothing to change that attitude after World War ii.
The March 26, 1999, New York Times stated, “For the first time since the end of World War ii, German fighter jets have gone to war, taking part in the attack on Yugoslavia as part of a nato force and marking this country’s definitive emancipation from post-war pacifism. …
“Still, the German participation in air raids on Yugoslavia is potentially explosive, for it will confirm every dark Serbian suspicion about the West. If there has been a single obsession in Serbian policy this century, it has been to prevent what Belgrade sees as German expansionism in the Balkans.
“‘We are not ready to make a distinction between the bombs of Adolf Hitler from 1941 and the bombs of nato,’ Vuk Draskovic, the Yugoslavian deputy prime minister, said.
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“Strong German support for Croatian independence from Yugoslavia, and Croatia’s adoption of the hymn ‘Danke Deutschland‘ when that independence came in 1991, only reinforced Serbian misgivings.” Croatia clearly knew its revolt succeeded because of Germany. After all, they didn’t sing “Danke nato“!
The leaders of America and Britain don’t see what is happening in Yugoslavia because they refuse to see. That attitude of sinful weakness is going to cause us to suffer more than any people ever have in history!
It seems the Serbs were the only ones who recognized the dangerous resurgence of a militant Germany. Germany poses a danger thousands of times greater than the Serbs could ever pose to Europe and the world.
The Serbs have good reason to fear, since they were victims of the German and Croatian Nazis of World War ii. One Trumpet reader from Indiana wrote to us, “After reading your article ‘Croatia Reveals the Rising Beast’ in the January 1999 issue … I would like to … express my deepest gratitude to you for what you have done for me as a human being by publishing that article so that millions of other human beings in the world can understand the Serbs.
“As an American of Serbian descent and a survivor of the horrible Croatian holocaust during World War ii, I would like to tell you, my dear friend, how much I appreciate your personal involvement and effort, and how immensely I am grateful to you for your courage, humanity and patriotism for publishing that article in your magazine. I can assure you that from now on, you’ll be my dear friend as long as I live.”
A Warning Unheeded
In 1996, a shocking World War ii intelligence document was made public. The document, detailing an August 1944 meeting between top German industrialists, reveals a secret post-war plan to restore the Nazis to power. Several of Germany’s elite industries were represented, including Messerschmitt and Volkswagenwerks. These companies, the document asserts, were to “prepare themselves to finance the Nazi Party which would be forced to go underground.” When the U.S. declassified this document, it received only sparse news coverage. Yet even more disturbing than the deep stupor of the press is the fact that the U.S. government did not make it public until 1996—over 50 years later!
By 1944, the Germans knew they would lose World War ii and were already planning for the next round! “Existing financial reserves in foreign countries,” the document says, “must be placed at the disposal of the party so that a strong German Empire can be created after the defeat.”
Those at the 1944 meeting understood that the most prominent members of the Nazi Party would be condemned as war criminals. “However,” the document maintains, “in cooperation with the industrialists it is arranging to place its less conspicuous but most important members in positions with various German factories as technical experts or members of its research and designing offices.”
How alarming! Why was so little written about this in 1996? Why did it take so long for it to be declassified? America and Britain have fallen asleep—our people don’t understand what is happening behind the scenes!
That is why we feel compelled to return to these issues again and again. Hardly anyone else will!
Historians have long debated whether or not a secret Nazi plan was made for a post-war, international network. Now that it has been confirmed, as Elan Steinberg of the World Jewish Congress said, “the central question is whether it has been carried out.”
The obvious answer is, it has!
Brian Connell, in his 1957 book A Watcher on the Rhine, offered abundant proof of that plan being carried out. He drew attention to a watershed event in 1947, just two years after the war, when Allied authorities foolishly handed over denazification responsibilities to, of all people, the Germans! After 1947, denazification in Germany, according to Connell, was a farce!
Consider the province of Bavaria for example. “The Bavarian administration,” Connell wrote, “is largely in the hands of those who controlled it under Hitler …. Almost all of the 1,000 teachers who were removed for political reasons have been reappointed, representing roughly 60 percent of the teaching staff employed by the Ministry of Education. Sixty percent of the 15,000 employees in the Finance Ministry are former Nazis, and 81 percent of the 924 judges, magistrates and prosecutors in the Ministry of Justice.”
There was an attempt made by the Allies to liberalize a narrow method of teaching in German education. Connell stated, “New teachers were appointed, and a degree of independence assured to individual instructions, which should have made education for democracy a feasible proposition. But many of the former Nazi teachers have found their way back.”
Later, Connell wrote, “In Western Germany, the newly prosperous Ruhr industrialists, the still impenitent core of former Nazis … represents a challenge to the democratic order.”
Nazism is far from being dead in Germany! Today, right-wing extremism continues to increase dramatically—even in German elections! Should that surprise us?
Let us now look at another important report that never received much press coverage.
The report was given by Herbert W. Armstrong from the United Nations on May 9, 1945, just nine months after the secret meeting between German industrialists. In it Mr. Armstrong said, “The war is over, in Europe—or is it?”
What did he mean by that? Did he know something no one else did? He certainly did!
“We don’t understand German thoroughness,” he said. “From the very start of World War ii, they have considered the possibility of losing this second round, as they did the first—and they have carefully, methodically planned, in such eventuality, the third round—World War iii! Hitler has lost. This round of war, in Europe, is over. And the Nazis have now gone underground.”
Many scoffed at Mr. Armstrong’s warning message in 1945. Yet look at how closely his report mirrors what was said in the secret document that was not made public until 50 years later!
Only God’s messenger could give such a prophetic message over 50 years ago!
Think about what he said.
Think about what was determined at that secret meeting among top German industrialists.
Think about what Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt said right after the war: “It is our inflexible purpose to destroy German militarism and Nazism.”
Yes, think about those issues, and then consider what is happening now. Our leaders today keep acting as though Germany has repented. But the Germans continue in their militant, fascist spirit, in spite of the unparalleled crimes they have committed!
We have forgotten our strong commitment after World War ii to control Germany, and we will pay an indescribable price for that weak and despicable failure in leadership!
You don‘t prevent Germany from starting World War iii by helping them build their empire in Yugoslavia and Europe!
The spirit of that intelligence document is being implemented in Yugoslavia today—and also in other parts of the world. Germany‘s actions are not those of a people deeply repentant for the deaths of 60-70 million people in two world wars!
Remember, the Bible says our end-time “lovers” will be the ones who inflict great suffering upon us—not our obvious enemies. However, we like to think of ourselves as righteous, while we reject God’s warnings!
What Herbert Armstrong prophesied for over 50 years has now come to pass in frightening detail! The Philadelphia Church of God continues to proclaim the same message.
This is all prophesied in your Bible. But you don’t even need the Bible to see that terror is about to strike our peoples!
Once the U.S. released and then supported this fascist beast in Croatia and Slovenia, there was no stopping it. It didn’t cease until all of Yugoslavia was under its strong influence or control. Now if we think the beast will return to its cage, we are very naive. This world is headed for a nightmare unparalleled in the history of man. And the beast is going to lead us there!
The American and British peoples are without excuse. And so are you. Only God can save you from a disastrous future. Now is the time for every wise person to heed this message. There is so little time left to respond.
Kosovo was a turning point in the Yugoslavia war. After this state essentially came under German influence and control, the rest of Yugoslavia was certain to fall. When Germany’s oppressive influence moved beyond Croatia and Slovenia, the careful observer could see that Germany’s ambition was to control all of Yugoslavia.
But their ambition goes far beyond even that goal. •
German-led EU Conquers Former Yugoslavia
From the booklet The Rising Beast—Germany’s Conquest of the Balkans
by Gerald Flurry »
Copyright © Philadelphia Church of God
State by state, the country of Yugoslavia has been conquered. Even the name Yugoslavia is being discarded.
Most of this conquering was accomplished with U.S. military power. But it is Germany and the European Union that are taking control of the former Yugoslavia. And Germany is giving the U.S. no credit, though it does often blame America for many of the problems that have developed.
Former Yugoslavia is a part of the Balkans, or Balkan Peninsula, along with Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece and European Turkey. The Balkan Peninsula is an extremely important strategic area.
The Adriatic Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea. The German-led EU is also working hard to get control of the Mediterranean Sea—of even greater strategic importance.
Look at any map and you can see the strategic value. However, it seems only Germany fully realizes the significance of these areas. The Germans are willing to fight the whole world to gain control of them. It seems nobody has asked why these areas are so important to Germany!
Where is this leading?
The same spirit that caused Germany to start two world wars still prevails in that land! Soon the whole world will understand. Shocking as it may be, your Bible predicts that people by the multiple millions will once again suffer from Germany’s violent attacks, as the Germans lead Europe.
This major turnaround in the Balkans has caused Europe to look to Germany once again.
Notice what Sir Winston Churchill said, May 31, 1935: “Everywhere these countries are being made to look to Germany in a special way.”
And today all of Europe is looking to Germany in a special way. The outcome will be frighteningly similar to World War ii—except it will be about a thousand times worse!
It seems we have learned nothing from Germany’s history. Even terrifying events like World War ii taught us nothing—just as Winston Churchill warned the world in the 1930s that it had learned nothing from Germany’s history and World War i.
Here is what he said February 7, 1934: “Not one of the lessons of the past has been learned, not one of them has been applied, and the situation is incomparably more dangerous.”
And the situation today “is incomparably more dangerous,” with our weapons of mass destruction, than it was in World War ii!
When Germany starts World War iii, we will finally learn some lessons—but only after America, Britain and the little nation called Israel today have become victims.
We have been teaching this message for over 50 years.
The only way for our people to prevent this coming catastrophe is to repent of their evil ways. May God help us to hear the trumpet sounding.
EU Adopts Balkan States
EUobserver.com posted the following on January 10, 2003: “EU Commission [EC] President Romano Prodi promised today in Athens that all Balkan countries ‘can become members of the EU one day.’ Speaking after meeting the Greek prime minister and current holder of the EU presidency, Costas Simitis, he said the Balkan countries would not necessarily become members on the same day, as each of them would follow their own course and be judged on their own merits. ‘But in the long run, Balkans belong strictly to the EU,‘ he said.
“Bulgaria and Romania are already negotiating EU membership, while Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Croatia, Macedonia and the former Republic of Yugoslavia—Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia—all are part of the Stabilization and Association Process (sap) with the EU. …
“Both for the EU Commission and the Greek presidency, future EU membership for all Balkan countries is a priority, Mr. Prodi said. He went on to add that an EU policy for the Mediterranean area was in the making. The Commission is drafting a letter to Mr. Simitis in Greece as well as the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, to make sure that the current Greek EU presidency and the following Italian EU presidency make the Mediterranean area a priority.”
Back in March 2000, Prodi stated, “Malta is the southern pillar of Europe …. I want to see Malta in the EU.” Trumpet journalists heard these words of the EC president with their own ears in Malta at conferences concerning the country’s future EU membership. Read those words again: “Malta is the southern pillar of Europe …. I want to see Malta in the EU.”
At the same conferences, Gunter Verheugen, European commissioner for enlargement, said if Malta joined the EU it would “become a gateway. … For Europe, Malta has been described as a springboard to the whole Mediterranean region, and especially to the African and Middle Eastern shores.”
What ambition! The EU is already planning to reach into the Mediterranean and Africa, and across to Cyprus and the Middle East. They have a dangerous global ambition. Such ambition is leading to unparalleled violence and terror in this world. But very few people seem to understand.
Yet again, the world is destined to see Islam pitched against Vatican-dominated Christianity in a “holy war,” with Jerusalem as the prize (Dan. 11:40). Cyprus could figure prominently in Europe’s battle for control of the strategic Middle East.
Why all this strategic interest? Because the German-led EU wants to rule the world!
If you think that is far-fetched, just look at the history of the bloody Holy Roman Empire. It has been the exact opposite of “holy.” And it has always had the goal of ruling the world!
Thankfully, this next resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire will be the last.
Ten Nations
We are seeing a resurrection of the medieval Holy Roman Empire. Ten kings or presidents will combine into one world superpower. They will all give their power to the “beast” (Rev. 13 and 17).
Germany and the Vatican had to get control of the Balkan states to develop the eastern leg, or foot, of the Holy Roman Empire. This too was prophesied.
Notice what Herbert W. Armstrong wrote in June 1956: “Perhaps even this coming military-political leader does not yet know how many, or precisely which, European nations will join in this United Nazi Fascist Europe. But you and I can know the number—for God Almighty wrote it down for us 1,900 years ago, in Revelation 17! There will be 10 dictatorships, exerting iron rule over 10 European nations. These 10 will give all their military power to the central over-all leader—pictured under the prophetic symbol, ‘the beast.’ …
“The strong indication of these prophecies, then, is that some of the Balkan nations are going to tear away from behind the Iron Curtain.”
Remember, that was written in 1956—nearly 50 years ago!
Are we too groggy to comprehend how dramatically Mr. Armstrong’s prophecy was fulfilled? Only God could have revealed to him the future fate of nations!
These prophecies have been and are being fulfilled before our eyes. Only the blind fail to see! We must awaken out of our sleep.
Here is what Mr. Armstrong wrote February 18, 1980: “There will now be an effort to bring Yugoslavia into the Holy Roman Empire alliance! There will be strong pressure from the Vatican, in view of the pope’s visit to his native Poland, to bring Poland into the new United States of Europe. [That is now happening!] If Yugoslavia and Poland go in, then expect at least Romania also to go in. [‘”Croatia definitely intends to become an EU member in its second enlargement wave,” penciled in for 2007 when Bulgaria and Romania also hope to join, Minister for European Integration Neven Mimica told afp‘ (Agence France Presse, Jan. 28, 2003).]
“You may be sure the West European leaders are conferring hurriedly and secretly about how and how soon they may unite and provide a united European military force so they can defend themselves! [That has already happened.] And so they will no longer have to give in meekly to Russia! And who will they blame for their humiliation and their necessity now to have a united Europe, with a united government, a common currency, and a common military force as great or greater than either the ussr or the U.S.? They will blame the United States! And when they are strong enough to assert themselves, they will first attack Britain for standing firm with the U.S., and then they will return a lot of hydrogen bombs the U.S. has stored now in Europe!
“So says Almighty God in His Word!
“They can unite only through the Vatican. It will be a church-state union. It won’t last long, but will create havoc unprecedented!”
How could Mr. Armstrong possibly have known these staggering events would unfold? Because of Bible prophecy!
What an astounding prophecy! It is being fulfilled in detail.
Never has anti-Americanism been stronger in Europe, and it is growing astronomically.
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The EU now has 15 member nations, and it is still growing. But it will take the Vatican to unite them into one mind. Eventually, there will be 10 nations or kings, essentially Catholic, that form this frightening power. They will choose the “best” and reject the rest!
The map of the world’s future is laid out in striking precision.
On August 27, 1980, Mr. Armstrong wrote this comment in a member and co-worker letter: “Will Poland free itself from Soviet domination and join with Yugoslavia, Romania and possibly Czechoslovakia—and with Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and Austria—in a resurrected medieval ‘Holy Roman Empire’ to dominate Europe and equal the ussr and the U.S. in world power?”
December 27, 1981, Mr. Armstrong wrote, “What the world does not realize is that, under cover, secret planning is proceeding furiously, uncovered by the news media, unknown by the public.
“But suddenly, unexpectedly, as biblical prophecy reveals, the whole world will be startled and shocked into wonder, to learn that a new third super world power has suddenly burst forth onto the world scene—a resurrection of the medieval Holy Roman Empire by a union of 10 nations in Europe—very possibly five in Western Europe, and five broken loose from the Communist orbit in Eastern Europe! The crisis in Poland is tremendously significant, and with it the fact that there is now a Polish pope!”
Mr. Armstrong knew well the meaning of the image described in Daniel 2, of a great statue with legs of iron and feet of iron mixed with clay. These legs represent the eastern and western legs of the Roman Empire. Mr. Armstrong had the two legs of Daniel’s image on his mind—or, more specifically, the two feet: the last resurrection of that empire.
Finally, here is a statement Mr. Armstrong wrote on May 20, 1982: “Now what will actually trigger the Great Tribulation? It will last approximately 31/2 years—right up to the real Second Coming of Christ with His eyes as flames of fire and His face shining as the sun full strength for all to see.
“Revelation 13 and 17, coupled with Daniel 2 and 7, say that a union of ten nations in the area of the old Roman Empire will plunge the world into the Great Tribulation! … The uprising against Soviet domination in Poland can easily lead to Poland, and such Eastern European nations as Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and even Greece, joining in a union with Roman Catholic nations in Western Europe. The Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church could join with the Roman Catholic. The 10 nations of Revelation 17 will be Catholic.”
How could Mr. Armstrong have prophesied these events so accurately? Because he had a deep understanding of Bible prophecy.
These prophecies should strike fear in the minds of our peoples! Soon these prophetic events will be fulfilled with a sledgehammer impact! Nothing can stop them, except repentance.
Are you ready for what lies ahead?
The Beast of Revelation
In Revelation 17:1-3, the angel says to John, “Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. … [A]nd I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.” God says a wondrous beast shall arise which will affect all inhabitants of the Earth.
Continuing in verse 7: “And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.” God revealed to Mr. Armstrong, through these verses in Revelation 17 and other scriptures, a great political beast rising in Europe, which will be joined by a great European religious beast in an unholy alliance to conquer the world. Religion is going to emotionally stir the Europeans. And then a megalomaniac will come on the scene to stir up the people as only someone like Hitler could.
Verse 8 of Revelation 17 says, “The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder … when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.”
The word translated “bottomless pit,” or abyss, in verse 8 actually means underground. That’s where the Nazis have been since before the end of World War ii.
The so-called Holy Roman Empire is going to rise to power one final time. Verses 9-12 read, “And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five are fallen and one is”—that’s when Mr. Armstrong came on the scene and began to understand all of these prophecies—“and the other is not yet come”—but it is rising now—“and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.”
The Bible shows that Satan the devil is the real power behind European unity. “And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon [Satan, see Rev. 12:9] gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority” (Rev. 13:2). Satan knows he has little time left, and he is pushing political events and leaders in order for Europe to unify quickly.
“Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Rev. 12:12). The devil is using human emotion to achieve his ends. Even Satan must use something to unite people. A strong religion is often his best tool. Satan can use the ideals of the Holy Roman Empire to unite Europe. Europe thinks this will be for the world’s good. The Bible says otherwise.
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This unholy union won’t last long, but “these have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast” (Rev. 17:13). Their entire existence will revolve around doing what Satan commands them to do. And it will be dreadful! “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matt. 24:21).
In Revelation 18:3, God tells us more about this great satanic system called Babylon. “For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.”
And this great religious power—this woman on the beast—what will she do with her power? Verses 12 and 13 say she will make merchandise of “slaves, and souls of men.”
The Vatican
EUbusiness.com wrote this on January 12, 2003: “European Parliament head Pat Cox has invited Pope John Paul ii to address the assembly, to mark the pontiff’s key role in reuniting Europe, his spokesman said Sunday. The Irish head of the Strasbourg assembly hopes the visit will occur in the second half of this year, at a historic time for the European Union ahead of its enlargement next year.
“The spokesman said the hoped-for trip was not directly linked to the current debate on a future European constitution, which has been marked by fierce exchanges about references to religion. …
“His trip to the European Parliament would reflect his dual status as head of the Vatican State and as a ‘global spiritual leader.’”
Actually, there have been very few “fierce exchanges about references to religion.” Otherwise, why are they inviting the pope to speak in the European Parliament? And when religion is discussed, it is almost always the Catholic religion. That religion—and no other—is going to be a vital part of the EU constitution! The Vatican will guide the European Union. Bible prophecy makes that very clear (Rev. 13:11-15). Otherwise, it would not be the “Holy Roman Empire.”
The pope is addressing the European Parliament “to mark the pontiff’s key role in reuniting Europe.” And you can be certain that he will also guide Europe’s future!
The deadly, very bloody Holy Roman Empire is being resurrected! Let the world beware!
The Vatican’s impact globally has never been more intense. But it is about to become 100-fold greater!
The clouds are black and ominous, and the thunderbolts are about to come crashing down on our heads!
Jeremiah spoke of a “seething pot” (Jer. 1:13). That pot is seething violently in Europe right now. And it’s about to boil over. Anti-Americanism is raging. Satan knows he has only a short time left, and his wrath is the worst ever! (Rev. 12:12). We should already feel the heat from this fiery, seething pot!
People could see, and even feel, the seething if they only understood a little history. But they refuse to be taught by history—even quite recent history!
Time is the supreme factor in every event. There are only a few short years before the pot boils over. We should ratchet up our lives to the emergency level. We can no longer afford to squander time.
Our “indulgent press” (Winston Churchill’s words) leaves many of our people confused, because its writings are so vague and lacking in facts. Too often they report “smooth things” (Isa. 30:10) and call the truth “alarmist.” But we are going to have to lay aside the easy, pleasurable way if we heed God’s warning.
God’s curse is upon our peoples, and it will intensify until we repent. We hold the key to how intensely we are punished.
Is your life geared to the “last hour” of this supreme crisis at the close?
In the mid-1930s, Winston Churchill warned his people, “Something quite extraordinary is afoot. All the signals are set for danger. The red lights flash through the gloom.” He was concerned “that Europe, and indeed the world, may be rescued from the catastrophe with which the future is loaded.”
Our crisis-laden future will be at least a thousand times worse than what Churchill faced. We face the worst suffering ever in man’s history—mega-death! There will be unburied piles of dead bodies around the Earth.
Is this what it will take to revive us from the coma we are in now?
Churchill and Germany
In his biography of Winston Churchill, William Manchester wrote: “The Germans, after all, had been belligerent for 2,000 years; British public school boys were taught that ‘Civilization stops at the Rhine and the Danube, the frontiers of the Roman Empire,’ or, as Winston put it, ‘A Hun alive is a war in prospect.’ In the past 70 years Germany had writ her name large on battlefields ….”
If you understand Bible history and prophecy, you know the Germans have indeed “been belligerent for 2,000 years”—and throughout their history!
The Bible states that Germany has a warmongering heart, when they are militarily strong (Isa. 10:5-7). Assyria is the ancient name of Germany (for more information, write for our free booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire).
Churchill emphasized this problem before World War ii. He said, “Nothing but a change of the German heart can avert another catastrophe,” and that was “unlikely to come from within, for the true German nature has never changed“! (ibid.). The Germans are a great people, but they have been victims of a cruel system. Their nature has been nurtured by the Holy Roman Empire, which has been directly led by the most evil being in the universe!
Manchester also wrote, “By the early 1930s, however, the strongest emotion aroused in Germany’s neighbors was primitive terror. The Germans knew it; they had deliberately provoked it in two wars, and had even given it a name, Schrecklichkeit (frightfulness). The 19th-century Prussian strategist Karl von Clausewitz had encouraged it as a means of shortening wars by putting the enemy ‘in a situation in which continuing the war is more oppressive to him than surrender.’ Teutonic troops, armed and dangerous, were frightful. They had practiced Schrecklichkeit in 1914, when bands of French and Belgian guerrillas defending their own soil had led to German executions of civilians, hostages and prisoners of war. ‘Suddenly,’ Barbara Tuchman writes, ‘the world became aware of the beast beneath the German skin.‘ [And the worst aspects of that ‘beast’ are to be manifested in the imminent future!]
“In the 1920s and 1930s, accounts of these crimes were suppressed by pacifists in das Ausland, that revealing German term which welded all nations outside the Reich into a single collective noun. The new line was that all tales of German atrocities in the Great War had been Allied propaganda. But Belgians who had treated their invaders with disrespect had in fact been led before firing squads as early as the second day of the war. German records proved it. If Belgian refugees slowed the German advance, hostages were picked at random and killed. One can find their gravestones today, inscribed ‘1914: Fusill� par les Allemands’—‘Shot by the Germans’” (ibid.).
Meekly caving in to—or empowering—Germany today is leading to a far worse disaster than Hitler and World War ii!
A militarily powerful Germany loves to frighten other nations. Repeatedly it has become what the Bible calls a “beast.” And it is the beast of all beasts!
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How long will it take the world to learn what Winston Churchill knew so deeply? He taught us that lesson so effectively before and during World War ii. But we have refused to learn. Now the most terrifying events ever must engulf us—because of our sins.
America the Target
In 2000, Germany gave then-U.S. President Bill Clinton the Charlemagne Prize. Yet Charlemagne waded through blood to conquer Europe (as Bismarck and Hitler did)! We can see why President Clinton was given such honor by the Germans. When Mr. Clinton was president, he knowingly empowered Germany to become the greatest political force in Europe. That criminal act will prove to be America’s worst foreign-policy disaster ever!
This is a strange paradox. The U.S. is giving Germany control of the very nations that Hitler fought a bloody war attempting to conquer!
Notice these startling media reports:
“Europe has begun a Balkans offensive. At the end of June, the European Union plans to take the reins of the peacekeeping mission in Macedonia from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Around the turn of the year, responsibility for the international police force in Bosnia and Herzegovina is to pass from the United Nations to the EU. Europeans hold the top posts in the interim UN_administration in Kosovo, and the kfor peacekeeping is increasingly becoming a European operation. Moreover, the EU, in the person of Javier Solana, its high representative for foreign and security policy, has taken over sponsorship of the Balkans’ latest political entity, Serbia and Montenegro” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 19, 2002).
“Nato is making a big push for the Europeans to take over the alliance’s military operations in Macedonia by March and in Bosnia early next year as the U.S. continues its steady withdrawal from the Balkans and the Europeans assume full responsibility for the region” (Financial Times, London, Jan. 11, 2003).
“In addition to the significant amounts of EU aid these countries receive, all five (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) benefit from generous trade preferences. Since December 2000, the vast majority of products from southeast Europe have enjoyed duty-free and unlimited access to EU markets—these arrangements are even more generous than those enjoyed by the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe” (www.europa.eu.int (http://www.europa.eu.int/)).
“The western Balkans have always been a turbulent area, and that tradition certainly continued over the last decade, when wars and conflicts scarred the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. The cluster of little states that emerged from the wreckage now often looks to the European Union as a guarantor of future prosperity and stability, as do its neighbors” (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Jan. 7, 2003).
“… Brussels will have no choice but to take over the Balkan peacekeeping mission for its own practical security and as a proving ground for EU military ambitions. …
“With more pressing concerns in other parts of the world, the United States—and nato by extension—is seeking to disengage permanently from the Balkans. … That puts the onus on Europe to take full responsibility for its fragile southern flank” (www.stratfor.com (http://www.stratfor.com/), April 29, 2002).
“With the United States committed to disengaging from the Balkans, Germany will emerge as the dominant power in there and, by extension, in European defense policy. …
“The current struggle for influence over the region is rooted in history. Germany has always been closer to Croatia and Slovenia, and former Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s early recognition of their break from Yugoslavia helped to precipitate the Balkan wars of the 1990s. …
“Germany is seeking to reassert itself at the center of Europe, and the Balkans play a big part in that strategy. It is an area where Germany can expand its military reach without frightening either itself or its neighbors. Berlin also would like to build on its ties with Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Bosnia and Bulgaria to pull both southern and Eastern Europe under its wing as the EU expands” (www.stratfor.com (http://www.stratfor.com/), March 6, 2002).
All of these journalists see that Germany is leading the EU. Now the Germans have an area (former Yugoslavia) to test and build their military—relatively unnoticed by the world! At the same time, the second leg, or foot (Eastern Europe), of the empire is developing.
However, it gets even more troubling. Notice this revealing quote: “Berlin Plus [an agreement between nato and the EU] gives the Europeans access to nato planning and assets for missions that they want to carry out independently of nato, provided that nato does not want to take the lead in the first place” (Financial Times, London, Dec. 17, 2002).
That means that the EU uses “nato planning and assets”—mostly U.S.—to build this Frankenstein monster. And the monster is already turning against its primary builder—America!
It is leading to the worst world war ever. And America, the world’s number-one superpower, is going to be the number-one target! Our military power has beaten the Germans in two world wars. Germany plans to obliterate us first in the next war.
World War iii will outstrip any destruction mankind can even imagine, by many times over! Now is the time to wake up.
Doting on Her Lovers
In Ezekiel 23:12, God condemns Israel—primarily America and Britain—for doting on the Assyrians, or Germans. Verse 17 says the mind of Israel is “alienated” from the Chaldeans, or the German-led Holy Roman Empire. The recent history of the two world wars show you our minds are indeed “alienated” from Germany. God condemns Israel for making the Germans our lovers and not trusting Him. Unless we wake up, the Holy Roman Empire will betray us and fight against us! Then we shall know very deeply what God thinks about our “lovers”!
After an open-skies treaty, the Germans are now making surveillance flights over the United States. Also, all of our nuclear weaponry is now controlled from Washington d.c. There are no more submarines with independent authority to launch nuclear missiles. America and Britain are becoming dangerously vulnerable to their lovers, who will soon betray them!
“And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours …. Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted” (Ezek. 23:5, 9). This is a specific prophecy aimed at Israel—the American and British peoples in this end time! “And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols: and ye shall know that I am the Lord God” (v. 49).
In spite of this colossal tragedy, there is still good news. This towering crisis will bring our nations to repentance. Then they will really get to know the great God! Most of our peoples only think they know God today. What a shame that it takes such a terrifying crisis to awaken our peoples. But it doesn’t have to be that way, if they would heed this message.
God’s Protection
“Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired [God’s faithful people]; Before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger come upon you. Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger” (Zeph. 2:1-3). God is saying that if His people are loyal to what they have learned from Him, they can be hidden from the horrors that are soon to come upon this Earth!
What is the key to being protected? We must seek God before the Tribulation strikes. That is the formula for escape: Seek God now! “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:6-7).
What has happened in former Yugoslavia over the past decade is a major sign of how close Germany is to achieving its worldwide ambition.
The history of Germany reveals where the events in Europe today are leading. More importantly, God’s prophecies give us a preview of what is about to occur in Europe—and how it will affect the whole world. What can you do before it is too late? Seek God while He may be found.
Any political or economic crisis could strongly unite the 10 nations very quickly. The final prophesied version of the Holy Roman Empire could be here in a few short years—or even months. Watch Germany. As Germany goes, so goes the European Union.
But look at the good news—the best news we could ever receive!
This evil and profoundly deceitful political, 10-nation superpower will attempt to fight the returning Jesus Christ!
Of course, Christ and His army will win. They will usher in a new civilization that will last forever. There will be peace, joy and abundance forever.
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This is the most important news we could ever hear!
Sidebar: The Shocking Document
Proof that during wwii, Nazi leaders and top German industrialists planned to rebuild the Nazi empire
Enclosure No. 1 to despatch No. 19,489 of Nov. 27, 1944, from the Embassy at London, England.
S E C R E T
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2
7 November 1944
INTELLIGENCE REPORT NO. EW-Pa 128
SUBJECT: Plans of German industrialists to engage in underground activity after Germany’s defeat; flow of capital to neutral countries.
SOURCE: Agent of French Deuxieme Bureau, recommended by Commandant Zindel. This agent is regarded as reliable and has worked for the French on German problems since 1916. He was in close contact with the Germans, particularly industrialists, during the occupation of France and he visited Germany as late as August, 1944.
1. A meeting of the principal German industrialists with interests in France was held on August 10, 1944, in the Hotel Rotes Haus in Strasbourg, France, and attended by the informant indicated above as the source. Among those present were the following:
Dr. Scheid, who presided, holding the rank of S.S. Obergruppen-fuhrer and Director of the Heche (Hermandorff & Schonburg) Company
Dr. Kaspar, representing Krupp
Dr. Tolle, representing Rochling
Dr. Sinderen, representing Messerschmitt
Drs. Kopp, Vier and Beerwanger, representing Rheinmetall
Captain Haberkorn and Dr. Ruhe, representing Bussing
Drs. Ellenmayer and Kardos, representing Volkswagenwerk
Engineers Drose, Yanchew and Koppshem, representing various factories in Posen, Poland (Drose, Yanchew and Co., Brown-Boveri, Herkuleswerke, Buschwerke, and Stadtwerke)
Captain Dornbuach, head of the Industrial Inspection Section at Posen
Dr. Meyer, an official of the German Naval Ministry in Paris
Dr. Strossner, of the Ministry of Armament, Paris.
2. Dr. Scheid stated that all industrial material in France was to be evacuated to Germany immediately. The battle of France was lost for Germany and now the defense of the Siegried Line was the main problem. From now on also German industry must realize that the war cannot be won and that it must take steps in preparation for a post-war commercial campaign. Each industrialist must make contacts and alliances with foreign firms, but this must be done individually and without attracting any suspicion. Moreover, the ground would have to be laid on the financial level for borrowing considerable sums from foreign countries after the war. As examples of the kind of penetration which had been most useful in the past, Dr. Scheid cited the fact that patents for stainless steel belonged to the Chemical Foundation, Inc., New York, and the Krupp company of Germany jointly and that the U.S. Steel Corporation, Carnegie Illinois, American Steel and Wire, and national Tube, etc. were thereby under an obligation to work with the Krupp concern. He also cited the Zeiss Company, the Leisa Company and the Hamburg-American Line as firms which had been especially effective in protecting German interests abroad and gave their New York addresses to the industrialists at this meeting.
3. Following this meeting a smaller one was held presided over by Dr. Bosse of the German Armaments Ministry and attended only by representatives of Hecho, Krupp and Rochling. At this second meeting it was stated that the Nazi Party had informed the industrialists that the war was practically lost but that it would continue until a guarantee of the unity of Germany could be obtained. German industrialists must, it was said, through their exports increase the strength of Germany. They must also prepare themselves to finance the Nazi Party which would be forced to go underground as Maquis (in Gebirgaverteidi-gungastellen gehen). From now on the government would allocate large sums to industrialists so that each could establish a secure post-war foundation in foreign countries. Existing financial reserves in foreign countries must be placed at the disposal of the Party so that a strong German Empire can be created after the defeat. It is also immediately required that the large factories in Germany create small technical offices or research bureaus which would be absolutely independent and have no known connection with the factory. These bureaus will receive plans and drawings of new weapons as well as documents which they need to continue their research and which must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy. These offices are to be established in large cities where they can be most successfully hidden as well as in little villages near sources of hydro-electric power where they can pretend to be studying the development of water resources. The existence of these is to be known only by very few people in each industry and by chiefs of the Nazi Party. Each office will have a liaison agent with the Party. As soon as the Party becomes strong enough to re-establish its control over Germany the industrialists will be paid for their effort and cooperation by concessions and orders.
4. These meetings seem to indicate that the prohibition against the export of capital which was rigorously enforced until now has been completely withdrawn and replaced by a new Nazi policy whereby industrialists with government assistance will export as much of their capital as possible. Previously exports of capital by German industrialists to neutral countries had to be accomplished rather surreptitiously and by means of special influence. Now the Nazi party stands behind the industrialists and urges them to save themselves by getting funds outside Germany and at the same time to advance the Party’s plans for its post-war operation. This freedom given to the industrialists further coments their relations with the Party by giving them a measure of protection.
5. The German industrialists are not only buying agricultural property in Germany but are placing their funds abroad, particularly in neutral countries. Two main banks through which this export of capital operates are the Basler Handelsbank and the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt of Zurich. Also there are a number of agencies in Switzerland which for a five per cent commission buy property in Switzerland, using a Swiss cloak.
6. After the defeat of Germany and the Nazi Party recognizes that certain of its best known leaders will be condemned as war criminals. However, in cooperation with the industrialists it is arranging to place its less conspicuous but most important members in positions with various German factories as technical experts or members of its research and designing offices.
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For the A.C. of S., G-2.
WALTER K. SCHWINN
G-2, Economic Section
Prepared by
MELVIN M. FAGEN
Distribution:
Same as EW-Pa 1,
U.S. Political Adviser, SHAEF
British Political Adviser, SHAEF
Sidebar: Ahead of His Time
Excerpts from a radio broadcast given May 9, 1945: Herbert Armstrong warned of Germany’s post-war rise.
The war is over, in Europe—or is it? We need to wake up and realize that right now is the most dangerous moment in United States national history, instead of assuming we now have peace!
Men plan, here, to preserve the peace of the world. What most do not know is that the Germans have their plans for winning the battle of the peace. Yes, I said battle of the peace. That’s a kind of battle we Americans don’t know. We know only one kind of war. We have never lost a war—that is, a military war; but we have never won a conference, where leaders of other nations outfox us in the battle for the peace.
We don’t understand German thoroughness. From the very start of World War ii, they have considered the possibility of losing this second round, as they did the first—and they have carefully, methodically planned, in such eventuality, the third round—World War iii! Hitler has lost. This round of war, in Europe, is over. And the Nazis have now gone underground. In France and Norway they learned how effectively an organized underground can hamper occupation and control of a country. Paris was liberated by the French underground—and Allied armies. Now a Nazi underground is methodically planned. They plan to come back and to win on the third try.
The Bible foretells that third round—and it spells doom for us, as God’s punishment, because we, as a nation, have forsaken Him and His ways! The third round is termed, in prophecy, an invasion by ‘babylon’—a resurrected Roman Empire—a European Union. I have been proclaiming that since 1927….
Even at this conference, classes and races are demanding their ‘rights.’ This conference, and the United Nations Organization it is forming, must solve three problems to succeed. First, Big Three unity; second, the serious problem of what to do with Germany to prevent World War iii; and third, solve the world’s injustices against smaller nations, and the growth and tactics of Communism toward world domination. Can it succeed?
Sidebar: A Nice Gift From the U.S.
Under the umbrella of nato, Germany has in recent years obtained complete acceptance by the West of the deployment of both its ground and air forces in combat roles. Not only that, the Kosovo conflict is gaining for Germany that which it has sought all along in the Balkans: a warm-water port.
Durr�s, the principle port on the coast of Albania in the warm Adriatic Sea, is the plum. The port of Durr�s, located near the junction of the Adriatic and Mediterranean seas, is within closest proximity of any port in either sea to the largest concentration of ballistic and anti-ballistic weaponry in the entire Mediterranean region. The German-dominated EU is spending $17 million to renovate this port as it busily reconstructs Albania’s infrastructure.
Albania became the main base of operations for the peacekeeping forces in Yugoslavia during the Kosovo war. The trade-off was the huge benefit to its weakened ex-Maoist economy. As the U.S. and nato withdraw from the Balkans, their place is being taken by the emerging Euroforce. The German-led EU will eventually take over all of the infrastructure put in place and maintained to that point largely by U.S. and British taxpayers’ money in support of their defense contribution to lame-duck nato.
In the Balkan Peninsula, it will then be game, set and match to Germany. Germany—the peace-broker in Kosovo, the future administrator of Kosovo and of the whole Balkan Peninsula—the lead nation in the Eurocombine shortly to rule the European continent and extend its powerful reach globally to impact all nations. •
SHTYPI NDËRKOMBËTAR PËR ZGJEDHJET NË KOSOVË
Kosova duket se do të ecë drejt pavarësisë nën udhëheqjen e një koalicioni të gjerë qeverisës, pas zgjedhjeve të së shtunës të cilat u karakterizuan me apatinë e votuesve shqiptarë dhe bojkotin e votuesve serbë. Kështu shkruan në numrin e sotëm e përditshmja “Independent”, duke rikujtuar rezultatet preliminare, në bazë të të cilave Partia Demokratike e Hashim Thaçit është rradhitur e para.
Në Kosovë, investime të mëdha nuk kanë ndodhur që prej përfundimit të luftës më 1999, papunësia është në nivelin prej 50 për qind dhe qytetarët përballen me reduktime rryme dhe uji në baza ditore. Janë këto çështje me të cilat duhet të merret zoti Thaçi, përveç ldershipit të tij në rrugën drejt pavarësisë.
E njejta gazetë, “Independent”, në një shkrim editorial, shkruan se fitorja e qartë në zgjedhjet e përgjithshme të së shtunës duket se i takon Partisë Demokratike të Hashim Thaçit, partia e të cilit ka qenë më e zëshmja në pritje të pavarësisë së plotë për Kosovën. Independent, duke thënë se pjesëmarrja në votime ka qenë më e ulta deri më tash dhe kjo tregon se madje edhe votuesit nga rradhët e shumicës shqiptare tani janë të frustruar dhe cinikë në raport me procesin politik.
Në kuadër të ofertës politike, Hashim Thaçi është zotuar se do ta shpallë pavarësinë formale nga Serbia pasi të ketë skaduar afati për arritjen e një marrëveshjeje më 10 dhjetor. Por, shkruan “Independent”, një deklaratë e njëanshme e këtij lloji është rezultat i asaj të cilën Kombet e Bashkuara, Bashkimi Evropian, qeveria Serbe dhe mbështetësit e saj rusë, kanë bërë përpjekje maksimale për ta shmangur. Rruga drejt pavarësisë së Kosovës nuk është menduar asnjëherë se do të jetë e lehtë. Përderisa fuqitë perëndimore nuk tregojnë një vëmendje më të madhe mbi rreziqet aktuale, Kosova rrezikon të shndërrohet në një vend në të cilin do të jemi të përfshirë më shumë se c’duhet, shkruan në fund “Independent”.
E përditshmja tjetër, “Financial Times”, shkruan se zoti Thaçi, megjithatë mbetet i përkushtuar në arritjen e një shtetësie të njohur ndërkombëtarisht nëpërmjet bashkëpunimit me Perëndimin dhe jo nëpërmjet veprimeve të përshpejtuara që do të mund t’i thellonin problemet ekonomike në Kosovë. Megjithë faktin se shqiptarët synojnë pavarësinë, pjesëmarrja e ulët në votime, është tregues i zhgënjimit me partitë politike, në një vend ku papunësia arrin në 50 përqind, shkruan “Financial Times”.
Guri i madh
01-01-08, 18:19
SHTYPI NDËRKOMBËTAR PËR ZGJEDHJET NË KOSOVË
Kosova duket se do të ecë drejt pavarësisë nën udhëheqjen e një koalicioni të gjerë qeverisës, pas zgjedhjeve të së shtunës të cilat u karakterizuan me apatinë e votuesve shqiptarë dhe bojkotin e votuesve serbë. Kështu shkruan në numrin e sotëm e përditshmja “Independent”, duke rikujtuar rezultatet preliminare, në bazë të të cilave Partia Demokratike e Hashim Thaçit është rradhitur e para.
Në Kosovë, investime të mëdha nuk kanë ndodhur që prej përfundimit të luftës më 1999, papunësia është në nivelin prej 50 për qind dhe qytetarët përballen me reduktime rryme dhe uji në baza ditore. Janë këto çështje me të cilat duhet të merret zoti Thaçi, përveç ldershipit të tij në rrugën drejt pavarësisë.
E njejta gazetë, “Independent”, në një shkrim editorial, shkruan se fitorja e qartë në zgjedhjet e përgjithshme të së shtunës duket se i takon Partisë Demokratike të Hashim Thaçit, partia e të cilit ka qenë më e zëshmja në pritje të pavarësisë së plotë për Kosovën. Independent, duke thënë se pjesëmarrja në votime ka qenë më e ulta deri më tash dhe kjo tregon se madje edhe votuesit nga rradhët e shumicës shqiptare tani janë të frustruar dhe cinikë në raport me procesin politik.
Në kuadër të ofertës politike, Hashim Thaçi është zotuar se do ta shpallë pavarësinë formale nga Serbia pasi të ketë skaduar afati për arritjen e një marrëveshjeje më 10 dhjetor. Por, shkruan “Independent”, një deklaratë e njëanshme e këtij lloji është rezultat i asaj të cilën Kombet e Bashkuara, Bashkimi Evropian, qeveria Serbe dhe mbështetësit e saj rusë, kanë bërë përpjekje maksimale për ta shmangur. Rruga drejt pavarësisë së Kosovës nuk është menduar asnjëherë se do të jetë e lehtë. Përderisa fuqitë perëndimore nuk tregojnë një vëmendje më të madhe mbi rreziqet aktuale, Kosova rrezikon të shndërrohet në një vend në të cilin do të jemi të përfshirë më shumë se c’duhet, shkruan në fund “Independent”.
E përditshmja tjetër, “Financial Times”, shkruan se zoti Thaçi, megjithatë mbetet i përkushtuar në arritjen e një shtetësie të njohur ndërkombëtarisht nëpërmjet bashkëpunimit me Perëndimin dhe jo nëpërmjet veprimeve të përshpejtuara që do të mund t’i thellonin problemet ekonomike në Kosovë. Megjithë faktin se shqiptarët synojnë pavarësinë, pjesëmarrja e ulët në votime, është tregues i zhgënjimit me partitë politike, në një vend ku papunësia arrin në 50 përqind, shkruan “Financial Times”.
me sa më kujtohet i ndjeri DR RUGOVA thoshte se vetem duhet te behet shpallja formale e pamvarsis po at,here kta kmeret e kuq e kritikojshin e tash po thojn shpallje formale hiq nuk po muj me i kuptue
Dear A - I am writing this because some of my best friends are Serbs, and because of the historical links between Serbs and Jews. Some of my best friends are also Kosovar Albanians, and as Jews, who have been stateless for such a long time, many of us understand and support their quest for self-determination and independence.
This is a crucial time for Serbia, and it appears that because of a fixation on the past - revered and sacred as it may be - Serbia may be forfeiting its chance of future association with the European Union, to which by history and culture your country certainly belongs.
Let us first start with the incontrovertible facts of the present: 90% of the population of Kosovo is ethnic Albanian, and they will never willingly revert to Serbian rule, which after the annexation of Kosovo to Serbia in 1913 has been to them a continuous history of exclusion, discrimination and eventual ethnic cleansing. Nor will the democratic West accept a return of Serbian rule.
Does it mean that the Kosovar Albanians are blameless? Of course not. In ethnic conflict no side is totally right or totally wrong.
I know you view Kosovo as your Jerusalem, and this argument falls on willing ears in Israel and among Jews generally.
But if the population of Jerusalem would have been 90% Arab, the Israeli claim to it would certainly be very tenuous.
I know you have deep historical associations with Kosovo, which since the emergence of Serbian nationalism in the 19th century has been christened "the cradle of Serbian civilization."
Yet one cannot draw 21st century borders according to historical links which overlook the wishes of the present population. The question is not territory, but people. It is for this reason that most Israelis today are willing to give up claims to the historical regions of Judea and Samaria, even willing to consider Palestinian rule over parts of Jerusalem. History clashes with reality: this may be unfortunate, but one has to confront it.
I KNOW you claim that for centuries Serbia has been a bulwark of Christian Europe against Islam. I leave aside the unpleasant "clash of civilizations," if not racist overtones, of this claim. But - let's again be realistic: after all, you lost the battle of Kosovo in 1389 to the Ottomans, so you were not that successful in defending Europe against Islam (whatever this may mean).
You offer the Kosovo Albanians autonomy, not independence. Put yourself in their shoes. Was "autonomy" under Turkish rule in the 19th century sufficient for the Serbs? What's the difference?
I know all this may be very painful to you; and with some justification you may ask me: How can you call yourself a friend of the Serbs after saying all these things?
For a simple reason: I would like to see Serbia join Europe, just a Slovenia did and Croatia may in the future. Do not exclude yourself because of historical memories, do not be your own worst enemy. Do what modern nations - the French and the Germans, for example - have done after centuries of warfare: emancipate yourself from the shackles of the past, cut you loses (yes, modern nations have to do this too) and shape your future according to the values of self-determination and mutual acceptance.
And those Serbs, who would like to visit the monasteries and other historical sites in Kosovo, could do this - as today ethnic Germans visit their ancestral sites in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, without laying claims to these regions because of their centuries-old associations with them.
Serbia is a proud nation. It has a bright future ahead of it. Don't let the past steal it away from you.
The writer is professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the author of a recently published intellectual biography of Theodor Herzl.
50 cent, emergency generators and contraband tobacco
With unemployment at more than 40%, the black market economy and a lack of political clarity acting as weights around the country's neck, the Kosovar market is searching for a way into the wider world and a definitive boom in its growth levels.
http://www.cafebabel.com/photos/pristinavendor_020108.jpgAfter midday prayers at the historic Carshi Mosque, crowds of people bustle constantly around the entrance to the bazaar in the centre of Pristina.
Cars, pedestrians and people carrying merchandise share a pavement full of puddles, which has been severely punished with the passing of time.
In all directions, vendors are selling a huge variety of products at top speed: vegetables, spicy pepper sauce, feta cheese, and all kinds of product with the Albanian 'brand': flags, biros, etc.
These businessmen claim to have the best prices in the city: a kilo and a half of bananas for 1 euro, a kilo of oranges for 80 cents, and even a T-shirt bearing the Albanian national emblem, the double-headed eagle, for 3 euros.
But what really catches one's attention is the sale of contraband tobacco from western Europe under the indifferent eyes of the local police.
In the opinion of Bedri Ahmeti, a shoeseller with ample experience in the market, the black market economy is a trend on the decline. 'Just after the war, we had a period of great benefits because we could import whatever we liked from Turkey since there was nothing in the way of law or control.
Now, with the introduction of a value-added tax, the need to obtain import permits and the growing control of public powers, business isn't quite so good for us'. With a certain amount of irony, Ahmeti concludes that it was easier to bribe the Serbian police than it is the police of today.
'People need to be educated in paying taxes'
Away from the bazaar, the feeling is quite the opposite. Dozens of improvised shops are strategically situated near to the seat of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK - the interim civilian administration).
According to the European commission's economic adviser in Pristina, Freek Janmaat, 'the importance of the black market economy in Kosovo is enormous.
You only need to look at the over-estimated figure of 45% of the active population being unemployed to understand the size of the black market economy'. And the fact is that many citizens prefer not to formalise their situation in order to keep on receiving subsidies. For this reason, the Dutch diplomat emphasises the need to implement 'reforms in the legal and fiscal systems' to strengthen observance of the law and, as a result, economic growth.
Akan Ismaili is the young founder of Ipkonet, Kosovo's first internet service provider. He shares Janmaat's view: 'Over more than ten years Kosovars have become used to not paying taxes. We have to change people's mentality, teach them to pay taxes and respect the rules,' he says, from the watchtower that is his modern office in the tower of Kosovo's Radio Television. Ismaili's words take on an importance, coming as they do from the mouth of the person who holds the reins of the first internet service provider, which will soon be the second mobile telephone network in Kosovo, thanks to the support of foreign investor Slovenije Telecom.
With exultant optimism, the director of Ipkonet stresses that although the risks could be high, foreign investors value the return on their investments and the great opportunities that the country offers. According to Ismaili, 'after losing the revolutions and living in one of the most isolated countries during the 1990s, Kosovars want to be a part of the whole world.' As proof of this psychological opening-up, the entrepreneur points to the high numbers of Kosovar homes equipped with the internet.
The intermittent lights of the economy
http://www.cafebabel.com/photos/pristinasatellite_020108.jpgWalking through the streets surrounding the UNMIK building, the profusion of satellite dishes, the growing number of clothes shops carrying Western brands, art galleries and designer bars worthy of any great European capital city all seem to be signs of a certain level of growth in the country, thanks in part to income from Pristina's international community. But it is not only due to this.
According to the latest report from the European commission, for the first time since the war, economic growth has been based 'on internal consumption and not on external aid or gifts sent from the diaspora,' in the words of Freek Janmaat. The Kosovar economy grew throughout 2006 by 3% while the level of foreign aid fell, settling at 20.5% of GDP, according to UNMIK's 2007 report on economic perspectives for 2007.
Nevertheless, the presence in those same streets of generators to provide guarantees in the face of periodic power cuts, problems with the water supply, the precarious nature of the infrastructure and of public services, and high unemployment bring one back to the day-to-day reality in Kosovo, eight years after the UN began its administration of the territory.
Young people and women suffer the consequences of the weakness of the Kosovar labour market. According to Freek Janmeet, they will need to 'see whether the 35, 000 - 40,000 of young people who join the labour market every year can be absorbed by the Kosovar economy in the next five or six years.' This figure is particularly worrying if we take into consideration the fact that young people represent 50% of the Kosovar age pyramid.
The low level of employment is, for Luljeta Vuniqi, executive director of the Kosovar Centre for Gender Studies, another of the most alarming factors in the Kosovar economy, since according to the feminist activist, '80% of the unemployed are women.' Both Janmaat and Vuniqi agree on the need to make the educational system more robust, and, in particular, studies at intermediate and higher level as a way of offering future opportunities to young Kosovars (http://www.cafebabel.com/en/article.asp?T=T&Id=13385).
Whatever happens, a good part of the future in Kosovo is being illuminated once and for all in a definitive statute and through the promotion of good government of the country. Only then will foreign investors have the necessary confidence to invest on a large scale in Kosovo. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Pristina will have to live out the illusion of a better future through initiatives such as the concert given on 17 November by the American rap artist 50 Cent in Pristina's football stadium, financed by Ipkonet.
Educating Pristina
Leaving an area scarred by ethnic conflict and fifty years of communism is a tempting prospect for young Kosovars. However, most of those who leave to study or work abroad decide to return for good
http://www.cafebabel.com/photos/pristinagirls_020108.jpg
45% unemployment, a pervasive black market, a GDP of 1000 euros per capita per year and widespread corruption: Kosovo’s economic situation is far from ideal. Those who are able to leave may choose not to come back. This brain drain threatens to rot the whole of eastern Europe, and Poland is an example. Despite a flourishing economy, many young qualified Poles (doctors, engineers, architects) have migrated westward without a second thought, seduced by the European dream. The Warsaw government’s current attempts to bring them back have been in vain.
This situation is quite different to what is happening with young Kosovars. ‘Why should I work in Sweden?’ asks Miranda, a young IT technician who was awarded her masters last year in Scandinavia. ‘I was offered a job over there, but I turned it down to come back to Kosovo, so I can work for my country’s future.’
Miranda is part of a new generation who reached adulthood when NATO took action against Serbia in 1999. NATO’s success meant that more young people were able to study, unlike their parents who lived under the cultural repression of the Milosevic era. Between 1986 and 1999, the University of Pristina was completely closed to Albanian speakers despite their majority. Education was only available to Serbian speakers.
Visions of the future
http://www.cafebabel.com/photos/pristinamotherteresa_020108.jpg
Walking along the city's main Mother Teresa boulevard, in imminent construction (Photo: ©Andrea Decovich)
Miranda considers her experience abroad to be beneficial to Kosovar development. ‘Now that I’m back and I’m working, why not think about a future partnership with research laboratories in Sweden? I learnt a lot about the country and now I have contacts there. We could set up a programme with Pristina and send more young people over to study. This way, my experience could help other people.’
Young Kosovars represent almost half the area’s two million inhabitants, and they believe that, nowadays, it is important to be able to go and study or work abroad. However, most people come back to Kosovo afterwards.
Velmir and Besart are studying international relations at the University of Pristina. They have not yet left Kosovo and already know that they will return there. Velmir wants to go to France and Besart to the United States. ‘If I want to leave, it is primarily so that I can come back,’ explains Besart. ‘To bring everything I learn back with me - new ideas, new ways of doing things.’ Besart explains how this desire to return is partly due to their constitution. ‘It says that we must serve Kosovo,’ he points out, ‘but it is more than a duty. I don’t know how to explain it in words. It’s something you feel inside.’
Grants and visas
The University of Pristina encourages students to go abroad and the international relations office is not shy about its ambitions despite the difficulties it faces. ‘About 200 students go abroad each year but only fifty receive a study grant. The others have to fund themselves,’ comments Jehona Lushaku, office manager.
‘One of the biggest problems is getting a visa. We are not part of the European community and the application process is long and expensive, about 60 euros per student.’ Most students who leave Kosovo go to Europe because many of them have family who emigrated there.
When Miranda, Velmir and Besart say that they want to bring new skills back to Kosovo, they are indirectly following government policy. ‘Students are sometimes sent abroad for very specific reasons. For example, if the Ministry for Energy realises that Kosovo needs two specialists in a particular area, they will put forward two grants for students to go abroad and study that subject, and then employ them on their return,’ underlines Lushaku.
In order to be in line with European practices and allow exchanges to take place, the University of Pristina hopes to work more and more closely with the Bologna Process. ‘Our aim is not only to send our students abroad, but also to encourage others to come here, from all over Europe. A new program called CEEPUS will be set up next year and 100 of our students will go elsewhere and we will receive 100 foreign students in their place.’
Foreign organisations such as the Institut Français, the Goethe Institute and the British Council have also put forward financial incentives to encourage young people to go abroad. ‘Students have to sign a contract with a clause saying that they have to come back when they finish their studies,’ continues Lushaku. ‘These organisations also want young qualified people to settle in Kosovo, the place where they are needed most.’
Post-1999 generation
‘The young people who are leaving today will come back because they know that they have a better chance of finding a good job here than anyone else does,’ states Ilir Hoxha, head of a youth project financed by both the World Bank and the Pristina government. Ilir has himself received a Masters in management of healthcare systems from the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE) in Great Britain.
‘Before the war, people left out of desperation because Kosovo had no future. Today, things are different. Independence is a huge challenge that could bring positive results, but it is difficult to achieve. We need young people for this,’ reiterates Hoxha.
If qualified young people are prepared to come back and live in Kosovo to build a new country, what about those who are less fortunate? Miranda is well aware of the answer. ‘Their only dream is to go and work in America. They would die for the chance. That’s why we have to develop our country, so that they want to live here.’
In-text photo: Walking along the city's main Mother Teresa boulevard, in imminent construction (Andrea Decovich)
Lajme nga shtetët e Ballkanit : http://balkans.courriers.info/
Keeping Moscow at Bay - In Kosovo
January 3, 2008 1:30 AM
Stephen Schwartz makes the case for Kosovar independence now and why the U.S. must support the ethnic Albanians (http://dardania.de/vb/upload/) against Serbia and Russia. The alternative, he warns, will be “the return of Russian power, enriched by energy and bent on reestablishing a bipolar world in which only the U.S. and Moscow count.”
By Stephen Schwartz
World War IV is real. It began not on September 11, 2001, but in 1978 when the Russians installed a puppet regime in Afghanistan.
The Russian incursion south toward the Indian Ocean reproduced the history of more than a century before, beginning in 1875, when the tsar incited the Balkan Christians to rebel against the Ottomans. But events never repeat themselves exactly. Developments today follow the cycle between the Austrian absorption of Bosnia-Hercegovina in 1908 and the Sarajevo assassination of 1914. Europe claims that, like the Habsburgs in Bosnia, it will bring progress to Kosovo, now demanding independence. Russia seeks aggrandizement. But while those are the permanent features of the political landscape, the details have been distorted to appear new.
Kosovo has dropped off the political map for most Americans, who are diverted by continuing terrorism in the core Islamic countries – exemplified by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Similarly, Western obliviousness has encouraged Turkey to attack Iraqi Kurdistan with impunity. Westerners find it difficult to perceive clearly how, while the U.S. is absorbed with the headlines in the battle against jihadists, other malign interests – Russian and Chinese imperialism no less than Turkish ultranationalism – pursue their own aims. The appetites of Moscow could again set Europe afire, beginning in Kosovo - just as war was touched off in Sarajevo.
While Kosovo appears most important to Albanians and their friends, the territory’s independence is significant for another reason – as a bulwark against revived Russian designs beyond its borders.
Kosovo independence has been promised, explicitly or implicitly, by the U.S. and some European countries since 1999. There are no special “processes” required for the attainment of independence, except, when necessary, a struggle against the colonial power. Indeed, the United Nations (http://dardania.de/vb/upload/)declared (http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/01/”www.gibnet.com/texts/un1514.htm”) in the great age of decolonization – the 1950s and 1960s – that “Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.”
Failure to secure independence for the Kosovar Albanians will have further negative consequences. First, it would be a betrayal by the U.S. of one of the few majority-Muslim communities in the world that is wholly pro-American – a threat also visible in the alienation of Kurdish affections by American hesitation to restrain Turkey in Iraq. But most importantly, it will encourage Serbian adventurism, as well as similar attitudes elsewhere – beginning in Turkey and Russia, but opening a road without a predictable end, except probable disaster. While Western media and pseudo-experts prattle about the dangers of “separatism” in Europe, the real menace comes from the arrogance of the established powers, not from the oppressed small nations. Giant Russia has always backed nearby Serbia against the Albanians, except briefly during the Tito era, while the few million Albanians have real friends only in distant America. The balance is hardly as even as it should be.
When I went to Kosovo in mid-December – expecting a declaration of independence at that time – Kosovars were still trusting and enthusiastic about America, but consumed with rage at the obstruction of Russia and the endless delays proposed by the Europeans.
Russian imperialism has been the bulwark of obscurantism and collective hatred in Europe since the 18th century, and the division of Poland beginning in 1772. The regime of Vladimir Putin (http://dardania.de/vb/upload/) has revived the strategy of encroachment and belligerence pursued by his predecessors. Few of us who fought for and celebrated the defeat of Soviet Communism imagined that it would be succeeded by mafia capitalism, and then by a neo-tsarism that exploits its speculative prosperity to demand submission from its neighbors.
In accord with this legacy, Putin and his cohort have repeatedly stated bluntly that the Kosovo question must be deferred to the United Nations Security Council, where Moscow will veto independence. The anticolonial principles that the Russians claimed to support in 1960, when the issue was that of the Congolese versus the Belgians, are elided now that Moscow wishes to reincorporate Ukraine and China continues to exercise a cruel domination over Tibet.
Kosovo has gained the renewed, if vague, attention of the Western press, which unfailingly covers the bid for statehood in two ways, both mendacious. The first turns victims of a 20th century attempted genocide into the victimizers. Thus the British dailies tearfully elicit sympathy for Kosovo Serbs who allegedly face “ethnic cleansing (http://dardania.de/vb/upload/)” from their supposed “cultural cradle.” The second way reduces the issue to irrelevance, treating the Kosovars as yet another quixotic separatist movement in which the arguments of “both sides” merit equal attention. The Kosovar Albanian viewpoint – the land was theirs centuries before the Slavic invasions 1,500 years ago – is seldom heard or read in the Western media.
Srebrenica – the site of the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys by Serbian terrorists – is the most prominent recent symbol of Moscow-backed genocidal aggression in Europe. While Boris Yeltsin (http://dardania.de/vb/upload/), then the titular leader of post-Soviet Russia, pursued inconsistent policies on the issues created by Russia’s imperial history, powerful interests in the former USSR backed Serbian and other terrorist crimes against whole communities. Throughout the Bosnian conflict, Russian nationalist media and politicians supported Serb claims, and Russian volunteers served alongside Serbs in committing bloody atrocities in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo. I argued in my 2002 book The Two Faces of Islam (http://www.amazon.com/Two-Faces-Islam-Fundamentalism-Terrorism/dp/1400030455/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199128535&sr=8-1) that a Muscovite strategy of Slav-Orthodox assault on vulnerable Muslims had been visible not merely in Afghanistan, but in Europe, too. Communists expelled Bulgaria’s Turkish minority and “nationalized” domestic Bulgarian Muslims in the 1980s. Armenia also assaulted Azerbaijan, and Russia’s devastation of Chechnya began as the Soviet Union (http://dardania.de/vb/upload/) collapsed. In other words, the wars against the Bosnian Muslims and Kosovar Albanians came after many warnings, for those capable of understanding them.
Kosovo has a Srebrenica, which is much less well-known. It is called Korenica and is located in the western section of Kosovo, near the city of Gjakova.
In Korenica, on April 27, 1999 – a month after the commencement of the NATO bombing of Serbia – nearly 400 Albanians were wantonly murdered by Serbian irregulars. But Korenica is significant for more than its having seen the largest number of Albanian victims in a single Serbian assault during the 1998-99 conflict.
While Serbs and their apologists portray their role in the long battle for Kosovo as a defense against a jihadist offensive by Albanian Muslims hateful of Slav Christians, their churches, and their sacred heritage, the majority of the Albanians killed at Korenica were Catholics. The aim of the Serbs, like that of their Russian protectors, has always been to promote the dominance of the Orthodox Christian identity over all the peoples that follow religious traditions different from it.
I first learned of the crime of Korenica only months after it took place, during a visit to Gjakova. I found out about the killings accidentally, when I drove along a rural road and found a Sufi turbe or mausoleum. Inside the structure, I was shocked to discover the coffins of 24 infants. It was then that I learned about the Korenica slayings, and was taken to a graveyard that included many wooden markers with the initials “N.N.” for an unidentified corpse.
I believe I was among the first foreigners, aside from some human rights monitors, to thoroughly research the Korenica incident, and in the years that followed I continued an extensive inquiry into it. First, in 1999, I interviewed a brave Albanian Catholic priest from Gjakova, Pater Ambroz Ukaj, who had defied Serbian officers to learn what had transpired in Korenica. Later I learned that a Sufi, Shaykh Rama of Gjakova, had been killed at Korenica. In recent years, the Center for Islamic Pluralism, of which I am Executive Director, has supported reconstruction (http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/01/www.islamicpluralism.org/articles/2006a/appealsupportmixedalbanian.htm) of a primary school in the Korenica district, the Pjetër Muqaj School in the hamlet of Guska, that educates both Catholic and Muslim children.
Europe seems not to understand that in refusing to repudiate Serbian and Russian blandishments, and in failing to assist the Kosovar Albanians consequentially, it is committing a slow suicide. Spain is afraid of demands for rights by the Basques and Catalans; Slovakia and Romania have a bad conscience about their treatment of their large Hungarian minorities, which possess capacity for resistance unknown among the Roma, those other martyrs to Slovak and Romanian nationalism. Cyprus should probably not have been admitted to the EU without the participation of its Turkish-minority northern zone (a topic so convoluted as to require a separate article.)
But rather than deal with stateless nations and minorities fairly, resolve its fear of Turkish Islam, and recognize the unquenchable desire of the Kosovar Albanians for freedom, Europe may blindly submit to the return of Russian power, enriched by energy and bent on reestablishing a bipolar world in which only the U.S. and Moscow count.
The U.S. still counts, more than either the hallucinated Serbian and Russian leadership or the Europeans – the latter with a disgraceful record of preferring peace to freedom. America must support Kosovar independence, without dishonorable concessions to Belgrade or Moscow, and without delay.
Kosova E. Albanian organization slams EU mission plan
09/01/2008
Prishtina, dtt-net.com - A youth organization of Ethnic Albanians argues in an open letter addressed to the European governments that the EU civilian and police mission expected to be deployed in Kosovo soon will be based on the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 which doesn’t support the independence but autonomy under Serbia.
Below is the letter of Vetevendosja (Self-determination) led by Albin Kurti addressed to the foreign ministers of the EU member nations:
Open letter to EU foreign Ministers
We are writing to you with regard to the new EU mission that will shortly be established officially in Kosova under the authority of the existing UN Security Council Resolution 1244, according to news reports.
This new EU mission has been described as a ‘state-building’ mission and one which will lay the groundwork for an independent Kosova. But in reality, it will be fundamentally non-democratic. Furthermore, it will be based upon a Resolution which expressly states in Article 10, that the international mission has as its goal the restoration of ‘substantial autonomy’ for Kosova within Serbia.
We firmly believe that the objective of the European Union, and the values which its peoples and their sovereign states espouse, are those of democracy and justice. We demand the right to enjoy the same rights as your own peoples and we question how the European Union can justify to its citizens the imposition of a non-democratic regime in our country.
First, the establishment of this new EU mission has been agreed without consulting the people of Kosova. Its existence is based on the (Martti) Ahtisaari Settlement which has not been accepted officially as part of any ‘status’ agreement for Kosova. This Settlement was negotiated by politicians who were elected by approximately 49% of the people of Kosova in 2004, and less than 40% in November 2007. They have no mandate to make deals over our freedom, and nor do international powers have any right to make decisions about how we want to live our lives, and who we want to govern us. This is a decision that can only be made by all the people of Kosova, voting in a referendum as an expression of our right to self-determination guaranteed by international conventions to which all of your member states subscribe.
If 600,000 people in Montenegro can have the right to vote in a referendum to determine their political future, why should we be denied the same right?
Second, this new EU mission is doomed to fail because although it proclaims that it is coming to help build democracy in Kosova, it will be undemocratic. The International Civilian Office (ICO) will hold executive power in Kosova, ensuring that the political pluralism we enjoy remains simply a façade, hiding the fact that the representatives for whom the people vote have no real power to implement the policies on which they campaign. Political pluralism without sovereignty simply helps to divide us amongst ourselves and to make easier our rule by others.
Furthermore, there are no mechanisms within this ICO to provide for accountability, leaving us at the mercy of their interpretation of justice. Once again the people of Kosova will be taught the lesson of democracy from a foreign regime which is not elected by and not accountable to the people whom it governs.
Finally, the International Civilian Representative (ICR) will have the power (without any system of redress) to sack from office any official or elected politician who opposes the mission of the Ahtisaari Plan, thus ensuring that the voice of dissent, critical to the functioning of democracy, will be repressed.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
We want the EU to be in Kosova helping us to build our institutions and monitoring minority rights, but we do not need to be governed by the EU. Democracy cannot be established through a system which is undemocratic. It can only be slowly destroyed. The turnout in the last election is evidence enough to prove this point.
Third, the EU mission will by its very presence here deny us the sovereignty and independence we demand. There is no such thing as ‘supervised’ freedom. You are either free or you are not free.
If the mission comes under the auspices of Resolution 1244, then it will be a mission preparing Kosova for ‘substantial autonomy’. If it is established under a new Resolution, it will be our jailor because its mission is to implement the Ahtisaari Settlement. This settlement does not state that Kosova will become independent and sovereign. It promises us the continuance of non-democratic and foreign rule.
Fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement won their battle to end segregation in the USA, and nearly twenty years after people pulled down the Berlin Wall physically and psychologically, Ahtisaari is proposing to divide Kosova along ethnic and religious lines.
Ahtisaari’s Settlement will accentuate the ‘ethnic’ nature of the Kosova conflict, rather than resolving its political causes. It prescribes decentralization along ethnic lines which will create a Serb entity inside Kosova, like Republika Srpska in Bosnia. Six new Serb majority municipalities will be created, containing most of the key mineral and water resources of Kosova, for example, the reservoir of Gazivodë which supplies 60% of Kosova’s water. These municipalities will be linked territorially and administratively, and have the right to be funded by Belgrade. The parallel structures which have functioned in these areas, without obstruction by UNMIK since 1999, will be legalized and all the Serbs who work in these structures will still receive their salaries from Belgrade. Thus, Serbia’s influence in Kosova will be strengthened by this plan, not weakened. Once more, Serbs in Kosova will be instrumentalized by Serbia, which has consistently refused to allow them to integrate.
Decentralization is not being implemented in order to bring government closer to the people. It is being used as a tool for apartheid.
The plan will also lay the groundwork to transform the political conflict into a religious conflict by recognizing all Orthodox monuments, churches and monasteries in Kosova as the sole property of the Serbian Orthodox Church. By claiming the Orthodox cultural heritage of Kosova as Serb this legitimizes Serbia’s claim to Kosova as its ‘Jerusalem’ and the cradle of its nation. It also denies this heritage to all the people of Kosova. Many Albanian families have an Orthodox heritage. Many of their ancestors worshipped in Orthodox churches until the 18th century when the majority of conversions took place under the Ottoman Empire.
They protected these buildings, built them and worshipped in them before people thought of themselves in terms of ‘nations’.
The Ahtisaari Plan establishes the absurd logic that should an Albanian want to convert to Orthodoxism, he will also have to become a ‘Serb’. To exacerbate this religious division, the plan envisages the creation of special zones around selected monasteries, further isolating them from the community and including hundreds of hectares of socially owned and private property. In the zone surrounding the Monastery of Deçan, villagers have only been allowed the right to cut hay on their land, nothing more.
When the villagers oppose the creation of these zones, their resistance will be interpreted as religious and ethnic, rather than the defense of their property rights.
The plan will undermine the potential development of our economy because an internally divided territory automatically means a divided market.
The economic relations of the decentralized municipalities will be much closer with Serbia than the rest of Kosova.
Therefore, what will be known as Kosova’s single market will be much smaller than it is today (and today it is very small). A small market is not attractive to investors. Moreover, the internal division will cause severe difficulties to Kosova’s unified taxing system, while the lack of control of our borders will increase the possibility of goods smuggling. All this paints a bleak picture for Kosova’s future economy. Kosova needs a unified market and an integrated economy. To develop our economy for ourselves, and not for others, we need to be able to control our resources and to have political control over our economic affairs. The EU stands for integration. Yet it is planning a mission for Kosova’s segregation!
In sum, the Ahtisaari Settlement denies us ability to create a sovereign state with a functional central government. It proposes the division of Kosova into two ethnic entities, one Serb and one Albanian. The Serb entity will be de-facto controlled by Belgrade and the Albanian will be controlled by the EU and held hostage to Belgrade by mechanisms such as a double majority voting system for the Serb minority, which gives them the right to veto changes to the constitution and to a number of domestic laws. Belgrade will be guaranteed the ability to destabilize Kosova’s government at will. The plan denies Kosova the right to form and train an army capable of defending its borders, despite Serbia’s constant threats to our security. It denies us a sovereign and democratic future. It denies us freedom.
We want the right to decide about our political future ourselves. There are archives in London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin overflowing with records of international conferences in which foreign diplomats have drawn lines on maps and made decisions about the lives of other peoples. We hoped that this was from times past. But it seems that nothing has changed. Still sovereignty, democracy and freedom are the privilege of the few. Still Europe is ready to justify and explain why we do not deserve the right to be free.
• We call on you to recognize our right to self-determination and to allow us to democratically decide our political future through a referendum of all the people of Kosova.
• We call on you to recognize our fundamental right to be free and independent and to govern ourselves so that we can build a country that protects the rights and freedoms of all its citizens, and offers them a future.
• We call on you not to become the next in a long line of foreign occupiers of our home. By doing this, you will be betraying the principles on which your country and the EU are based, and you will be betraying the people of Kosova. We do not want to view you as an enemy, but as a friend.
www.vetevendosje.org , Prishtina, Kosova
Is there a European Islam? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2008/01/is_there_a_european_islam_1.html)
This is my first visit to Albania (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1004984.stm)and it is a fascinating, beautiful country: Tirana much more impressive (http://www.albaniantourism.com/display/content/107?a=512&l=1)than I had been led to believe; the run-down Durres tower blocks and shanties (http://www.albaniantourism.com/display/content/107?a=372&l=1) more in keeping with my preconceptions.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/Teke-in-Albania.jpg
I am here to report on Albania’s reaction to the looming independence of Kosovo and my report will be on Radio Four and the World Service next week and I will link to it when it is ready.
But that is for another day.
Today, religion.
On the way up into the town of Kruja (http://www.albaniantourism.com/display/content/107?a=517&l=1), perched on the side of a mountain, we stop at a small road side shrine, a Teke, a green-domed, white walled, small building.
Down a few stone steps is a neat little room, covered with small, Turkish-style rugs. But a little area of the floor is bare, and what looks like limestone.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/albanian-saint-004.jpg
There’s a hole, about eight inches deep and it doesn’t take much imagination to see it as a footprint.
The shrine’s guardian, 79 year-old Masmut Subashi, tells me this is the footprint of Sari Saltik (http://www.superluminal.com/cookbook/essay_sari_saltik.html).
Holy man
The holy man’s portrait hangs on one wall, robed, with long dark hair, his hands apparently resting on the hilt of a sword. Masmut tells me how he was taken to the shrine by his father as a small boy and now he tends to it. Then he tells me the story of the saint.
A nearby village was terrorised by a monster who demanded a human life every day. Sari Saltik cut off the monster’s seven heads and for 25 years lived in the large cave which the beast had inhabited.
When he left, he first stepped on this mountainside. His next foot print was a hundred miles away and his next in Crete (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crete).
He tells us that the legend is that Sari Saltik had a brother who was a Christian, St Anthony, who had his own cave not far from here.
Please don’t hold me to the highest standards of BBC accuracy on this one.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/albanian-saint-003.jpg
A Muslim saint, a Muslim portrait, acknowledging a Christian brother?
Well, yes, Albania is the headquarters of the Bektashi, a Sufi group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bektashi).
Sunni Muslim
Muslims are said to make up 70% of the population in Albania, and most of them are not Bektashi, who are Shia, but Sunni.
It’s mildly curious to me that while some people argue Turkey shouldn’t join the European Union because most of its population is Muslim, I have never heard the same argument applied to Kosovo or Albania.
Perhaps it’s because they are so small. Perhaps it’s because, for many, the religion is only nominal. As I write this, in Albania’s capital Tirana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirana), I can hear the call to prayer but the approach to religion seems much more European than the more profound attachments one may find in other parts of the world.
I hasten to add I am not just talking about Islam and the Middle East: America’s devoutness seems very shocking to many worldly Europeans.
Anyway while some websites warn that Albania could be a base for “extremism ” or “fundamentalists” there seems little sign of even moderate conservatism or devotion on the streets or indeed in the villages.
Not a headscarf in sight, let alone a hijab or burkha. Is there a European Islam that is as different from Wahhabism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabi)as the Church of England is from Baptists of the Bible Belt? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Belt)
Is it to be found in these lands?
Rock-and-roll poet
Ervin Hatibi is a poet and intellectual (http://www.albanianliterature.net/authors3/AA3-13poetry.html), a Sunni Muslim, who became serious about his religion after living a rather rock-and-roll lifestyle.
While some, like the historian Bernard Lewis, (http://www.princeton.edu/~nes/faculty_lewis.html) argue that secularism is a specifically Christian phenomenon, Ervin says Islam has its own secularism and should not be seen as a monolithic whole.
“Everywhere Islam is different,” he says.
“As an everyday experience in the Balkans, for centuries it has created unique features. I consider Islam as part of the European landscape. It was for centuries. It kept changing, especially in Europe, the continent of continuous change.
“As a believer I may have fantasies about a society that moves towards certain values, and so will an Albanian Orthodox, or an atheist from a Muslim background or one of the new Protestant Christians, but we all have to live within an Albanian space.
“We have to live in harmony with the will of the majority and this is our culture, a more and more European and Western culture. It has something special that is not only Islam, but Ottoman and from the communist regime, so we have our special flavour that gives more beauty to the European experience and is not something dangerous.”
Is he right ? Could the much derided Ottoman Empire (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1749539.stm),multi-ethnic and relatively religiously tolerant, have got something right in the Balkans?
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is to be honoured by the University of Pristina
23 January 2008 Pristina
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is to be honoured by the University of Pristina this spring, University officials announced on Tuesday.
Mr Blair will be named Doctor Honoris Causa in recognition of his role during the 1998-99 Kosovo war.
“This award is given to those who display distinctive merit in the promotion of knowledge, peace, security and human prosperity,” Pristina University Rector Enver Hasani told a meeting of the University Senate. Mr Blair, Hasani said, “is one of those personalities who meet the criteria for the award.”
Enis Halimi of the university's Public Affairs deparment told Balkan Insight that the date of the award ceremony has not been fixed yet since "the place and time will depend on Mr.Blair’s engagements.”
This Friday Albanian President Bamir Topi will receive the same honour from the university when he visits Kosovo.
Other well known figures who have been honoured by Pristina University include former US president Bill Clinton, Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, and former UN administrator in Kosovo and current French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
Tony Blair is popular among Kosovo Albanians for his contribution during and after the conflict with Serbia.
ANALYSIS: Catastrophic defeat of Yugoslavia to separatism
Belgrade - Forged as the home of mostly stateless southern Slavs in the aftermath of the Great War and forged again as an ethnic melting pot in the Second World War, the former Yugoslavia was vaporized by separatists the moment the mould was lifted. The country fell apart immediately after democratically elected authorities - dominated by separatists - replaced the Communist regime that had been pushing the late president Tito's concept of "brotherhood and unity" over the previous five decades.
The Socialist Federative Republic Yugoslavia - which was the longest lasting and best-known incarnation of the country during its 88-year lifespan - disintegrated in violent convulsions that started with the secession of Slovenia and Croatia in 1991.
Even before the process ended, the country half the size and population of Spain has spawned six new states, with the seventh on the way.
Five wars and 17 years later, separatism still torments three of the new states. Kosovo is splitting from Serbia, while partition along ethnic lines in Bosnia and Macedonia still cause concern.
Ethnically monolithic and small, Slovenia needed to fight just 10 days to win independence in mid-1991 despite being the first of the six Yugoslav republics to split.
Croatia, where come 12 per cent of the population, or 600,000 people, was Serb, had to fight the Yugoslav Army and a Serb insurgency until finally asserting its sovereignty in 1995.
Bosnia, an ethnic mix of the dominant Muslims, but also large Serb and Croat communities, was the scene of the most brutal among the Yugoslav wars and today remains divided.
Macedonia also declared independence in 1991, and was the only Yugoslav republic which did not have to fight for secession. But it did have to fight Albanian separatists a decade later to assert control over a large chunk of its territory.
Montenegro decided at some point in the later half of the 1990's that it did not want to be Serbia's sister republic in more wars and has started isolating itself first within the rump Yugoslavia, then even within a loose union of Serbia and Montenegro.
It took the tiny Adriatic republic eight years for a bloodless divorce from Yugoslavia with a referendum in 2006.
After that date, the largest of the former Yugoslav republics, Serbia, was left standing alone and had independence enforced upon it for the first time after 88 years of life in various unions. But a fresh status did not mark a refreshing start for the new country.
Most commonly blamed for the bloodshed is Serbia, which wanted the all Serbs united in a single country, though a fifth of them lived in Croatia and Bosnia.
With the Yugoslav military might under its control, Belgrade had spurred Serbs across the border into a war for their own secession, aiming to create a Greater Serbia - which remains a policy goal of the largest, ultra-nationalist political party in the country.
At the end of the day, Serbia and Serbs became the largest victim of Belgrade's appetite for territory - apart from lost lives and economic hardship, the country is on the verge of becoming the only ex-Yugoslav republic to diminish in size.
In Serbia's own heartland province of Kosovo, Albanian separatists seized the moment when Belgrade was weakened by wars, economic decline and unimportant to the international community because peace was safe in Bosnia and Croatia to step up their campaign.
After a decade of non-violent resistance to the increasingly harsh rule, Albanian extremists raised the stake and launched an insurgency in 1998, attacking police, soldiers and terrorizing Serbs civilians.
Serbia, which had been refusing to talk with moderate Albanian leaders, reacted with a heavy-handed, indiscriminate response of the army, police and feared paramilitaries.
Conflict and rumours of murder started an avalanche of Albanian refugees and drew NATO to bomb Yugoslavia in 1999 until Belgrade pulled its forces from Kosovo.
Now again in the focus, Kosovo is about to declare a split from Serbia with Western support. Backed by Moscow, Belgrade warns that recognizing Kosovo would boost separatist movements around the globe.
Though Kosovo may be looking at a very long diplomatic battle for a seat in the UN, the apparent success of Albanian separatists has been closely watched by nations with a potential problem, as Slovakia, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Romania in Europe alone.
But, to remain in former Yugoslavia, even in Kosovo separatists have already been working hard. Serbs in the Mitrovica enclave have established parallel structures with Belgrade's aid and refuse to work with the UN administration.
Partition is the word that has come into increased use in Kosovo affairs, either as a good solution or as an unthinkable mistake, depending whether a Serb or an Albanian speaks of it.
Serbs also say that if Kosovo Albanians should have the right to win their own state on the soil where they are a majority, then so should also Serbs in northern Kosovo and in Bosnia, where they control half of the country.
That would not be the end - Croats would ask for their chunk of Bosnia, but even more quickly would the Albanians in Macedonia and southern Serbia again ask to join their compatriots in a single state, which could again spark violence.
"Albanians live in four countries other than Albania," Kosovo's former premier Agim Ceku recently said. "If Kosovo is partitioned along ethnic lines, those would want to talk about uniting with Albania."
Kosovo's future hangs in balance
The international community “cannot afford to fail the people of the Balkans yet again” as Kosovo heads for independence, according to an expert at The University of Nottingham.
Professor Stefan Wolff, Director of the Centre for International Crisis Management and Conflict Resolution, School of Politics and International Relations, said Kosovo's future is crucial for stability in the Balkans and will set an important precedent for similar conflicts worldwide, from the Basque country and Northern Cyprus to the Caucasus, Iraq, and Taiwan.
The government of Kosovo is widely expected to declare independence in the very near future — in the teeth of strong opposition from Serbia and Russia. Formally a province of Serbia, Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since 1999 after a Nato-led bombing campaign drove out Serb forces, who had been accused of persecuting Kosovo's majority ethnic-Albanian population.
International mediators have so far failed to persuade Serbia and Kosovo to agree on Kosovo's future status. The region's new government — led by a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Hashim Thaci — is now expected to declare a permanent parting of the ways from Serbia. The issue of Kosovo is also an important one for Serbia's development as a democracy, as it concludes its own presidential elections on February 3.
Professor Wolff has extensive research expertise in the settlement of ethnic conflicts and post-conflict reconstruction in deeply divided and war-torn societies and is an advisor on conflict resolution to governments and international organisations.
He said: “The way in which Kosovo gains its independence seems clear. Serbian, and Kosovo Albanian intransigence has made it impossible for a consensual solution to be achieved in negotiations. A new resolution in the Security Council confirming the conditions of Kosovo's independence is equally unlikely because of Russian opposition.
“Hence, a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo will be followed by recognition of Kosovo's independent statehood by the US, the EU and its member states, and by countries organised in the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.”
Professor Wolff said the three most immediate dangers of this scenario are:
· violence in Kosovo and increasing instability in the region,
· a split in the European Union,
· a further worsening of relations between the West and Russia.
He said: “Violence in Kosovo in the event of the region's declaration of independence is likely given the radicalisation of elements in both Serb and Albanian communities in Kosovo, the lack of trust and in many cases even contact between them, and the abundance of small arms and explosives.
The danger is initially less one of organised campaigns of violence strategically directed by political leaders in either community, rather than one in which demonstrations, celebrating or condemning independence, can turn into riots and escalate into prolonged inter-communal violence that is difficult to control and contain.
“Throughout the region, the potential for increasing instability must not be underestimated either. Albanian communities in southern Serbia could quickly find themselves to be the target of revenge attacks by Serbian extremists 'concerned' about the fate of their ethnic brethren in Kosovo. Elements within the large Albanian population in Macedonia might easily take a declaration of independence by Kosovo, and its subsequent international recognition, as an indication that the post-Yugoslav borders are far from set in stone.
“Renewed calls for independence by Albanians in Macedonia would pose a serious threat to the political stability of a country that is hoping to join NATO later this year alongside Croatia and Albania. Nor should it come as a surprise to anyone if Serbs in Bosnia would argue that they should have the same right to self-determination as Kosovo Albanians.
“The second immediate danger is a split in the EU. Several countries have serious domestic concerns about recognising Kosovo following a unilateral declaration of independence, among them Romania, Spain, and Slovakia. The most serious opposition can be expected from Cyprus, fearing that Kosovo would strengthen Turkish Cypriot claims to their own state — despite the fact that Turkish Cypriots accepted the Annan Plan for reunification in 2004, just before Cyprus's accession to the EU, unlike their Greek Cypriot counterparts.
“While the procedures for the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy now allow for 'constructive abstentions', that is, countries disagreeing with a particular Union position can abstain from voting rather than using their veto, the EU's ability to act in unity over Kosovo would be seriously undermined, and with it its aspiration to take the lead role in supervising Kosovo's transition to independent statehood.
“With the UN discredited among the local population after nine years of administering Kosovo, the EU potentially incapacitated because of a lack of unanimity, it might fall once again to the US to provide leadership. It is obvious that this would seriously undermine the credibility of any EU aspirations to take on a more global role in providing peace and security.”
Russia's position on Kosovo has remained unchanged, Professor Wolff said, in that it remains opposed to Kosovo's independence unless Serbia agrees and it has threatened 'serious consequences' if the West were to recognise an independent Kosovo against the wishes of Serbia. While it is unlikely that Russia would rush to recognise the independence of break-away regions in Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan, Western recognition of Kosovo in the face of clearly stated Russian opposition would do nothing to improve the anyway strained relations between the two.
This would further strain cooperation between the EU and NATO and Russia and put serious pressure on cooperation in the Security Council, he said — a situation that either side can ill-afford in a situation in which the crises in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the shaky peace process in the Middle East, and the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea demand more than ever constructive and joint approaches among the major players in the international community.
Professor Wolff added: “Kosovo's independence is inevitable, and this fact, a reality on the ground for almost a decade, must finally be accepted. The possible negative consequences that it might entail are not automatic. They can be avoided if politicians in Prishtina and Belgrade, Skopje and Banja Luka, Nicosia and Brussels, Moscow, Washington and New York show vision, responsibility and leadership.
“Neither the international community nor local leaders can afford to fail the people of the Balkans yet again.”-University of Nottingham
INDEPENDENCE
Kosovo is ready
By Hashim Thaci
Independence is here. In close coordination with our U.S. and EU allies, my government and the Kosovo Parliament will declare it in days. We have negotiated with Belgrade and the international community for almost two years. Some progress has been made on some important issues, like the return of refugees, decentralization and cultural heritage. But we have failed to make any progress on the fundamental point, the future of Kosovo.
Now we are turning to a new beginning. An independent Kosovo is a fact. Serbia and Kosovo have a common future as two independent countries in the European Union. It is our goal to work closely with Serbia and other neighbors in order to receive the full benefits of regional cooperation and European integration. Kosovo is confident because we know we are headed toward the European Union. The re-election of President Boris Tadic suggests this is also Serbia's direction. This is a positive development for the region.
Kosovo has come a long way since 1999, when NATO intervened to stop Slobodan Milosevic. The United Nations Mission in Kosovo is a temporary set-up that has helped us build and develop our own institutional capacity. Kosovo is obliged to the good job done by the international community thus far, which made it possible for Kosovo to be ready for self-governance.
Moreover, we have a plan. First, we need independence declared and recognized. The phase of convincing is over. We have proved that we can be a responsible partner and are serious about a multi-ethnic future. The international community, except for a few countries, has come to understand and support our legitimate right to be an independent state. I am confident that Kosovo will be recognized by a majority of European countries and the United States immediately after we declare independence.
But we need more than independence. We need economic, social and political development. After independence we are responsible for Kosovo. This is a massive mental shift, which Kosovo will have to make very soon. The way we live from here on will depend on how well we manage development. Responsible governance is tied in principle to having a vision and the rule of law. My government is fully committed to this goal.
Hence, my third point: the need to chart a vision for Kosovo. First, there is the regional dimension. Kosovo will invest in becoming a link between Serbia, Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro. We have the geographic location to become a regional hub. We will upgrade our roads, airport and rail lines. We are eager to capitalize on the potential cargo trade. We are ready to invest in building logistic centers near Pristina, coupled with tax-free industrial parks.
Promoting open borders and the free flow of goods, capital and labor will be a priority of my government. This is also good news for our Serbian minority. We want our citizens to be able to travel freely, and to trade, first regionally, and later within the EU borders.
Kosovo Serbs are part of our system. We are ready to move with them to build a future founded on European values and European institutions.
My government's vision for integrating the Serbs is aligned with the proposals made in the Ahtisaari plan - we are committed to decentralization, affirmative action, property rights and favorable representation in the government for the Serbs, and to protecting the rights of Serbs to run their local affairs. I am determined to set up a special office for promotion of minority rights in my government.
The population of Kosovo is young, a major asset for a continent that faces a retirement crisis. With independence investor confidence should return. We are preparing a number of stimulants to attract businesses, including tax incentives, zero-tolerance on corruption, and promoting law and order.
Europe is welcomed in Kosovo. I say this on behalf of our citizens, who overwhelmingly endorse Kosovo's European future. Kosovo will be a success story if we are realistic and inclusive. We want reforms for the good of Kosovo. Independence and reform are our gateway to Europe.
Hashim Thaci is prime minister of Kosovo.
Why should anybody visit Kosovo these days and what would be the unusual things to deal with?
by Krenar Gashi
If you by any chance decide to come to Pristina these days, then first thing you will notice when entering the city from the airport is not going to be the huge Bill Clinton picture in the Bill Clinton Boulevard. Usually this would be the case. But these days, a strange well-designed red billboard will be the first object to drag your attention.
“20% discount for citizens of countries who recognise Kosova’s independence”, says a billboard of one of city’s hotels. Similar ones are placed all around the capital of the territory that is waiting to become an independent state in the upcoming days.
http://www.balkaninsight.com/cgi-bin/get_img?NrArticle=7649&NrImage=5Pristina
Now, in Kosovo, days matters more than ever! Dates matter too! The Prime Minister Hashim Thaci claims that he knows the date when Kosovo’s Assembly will declare independence. Many citizens believe him. Some others don’t.
The counting down for independence, or for pavaresia as Albanians call it, has started in a very strange way: without knowing the deadline. But hey, everything about Kosovo is so unique. Sui Generis - the diplomats would say.
If by any chance you are about to visit Kosovo in the upcoming days, and YES - Kosovo is an interesting place to visit after all, you might find yourself into another sui generis trouble.
It has nothing to do with security issues, as everybody from the western world would probably assume. It’s much simpler indeed. You might not have a place to crash.
Lodging in Kosovo became a sudden problem. Tens of new, most of them jerry-built, hotels in Kosovo’s capital Pristina are full. In hotels which would never be using more than 10% of their capacities, one can hardly book a room nowadays.
And it’s not that hard to find out who these guests, coming out of blue, could be. In a small phone-based survey that a colleague of mine did, it appeared that about 90% of the guests in Pristina’s top five hotels are foreign journalists. And all of them are planning to stay in Kosovo at least between February 1st and 15th. Hum! Interesting!
Similar case happened on December 10th last year, the date that the international community had set as deadline for the negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia over Kosovo’s political status.
They came here, spent few days, and went home. Some of them were able to do some reports, but many others who were seeking for troubles, tensions, radical groups and bloodshed went home disappointed.
This time it will be different. Some journalists will be looking to report the independence happening, celebration, concerts, joy and fireworks, while others will be running after the so called CNN-images – stories of inter-ethnic clashes, Serbs fleeing Kosovo and dark side of independence.
But despite their aims and reports, they will be still using the hotels. Thus for, in case you’re one of those who would still like to come to Kosovo, you should either rush with your booking, either rely on an old traditional Albanian hospitality and decide to knock on somebody’s door at the last minute, asking for them to host you.
And if you reached this line in this blog, you should by now understand that Kosovo is the place to be in February. If you cannot find any better reason to come, just think of the fact that countries don’t become independent every day. Use this chance!
Kosova prepares for independence
It's not known exactly when Kosovo will declare its independence from Serbia, but speculation as to the date is running rife. Comments in the press are repeated endlessly in gossip in the street.
The people of the province await the day with differing emotions - some with joy, many with apprehension, others with nostalgia. Shops have been stocking up with souvenirs to mark the occasion.
In the capital Pristina, shelves are stacked with items printed with the red and black motif of the Albanian flag. Store owner, Faton Zeqiri, said shoppers are snapping up the goods and he's ordering more to keep up: "This week we've sold more than in past six months," he said. "It's all to do with independence."
Kosovo has never had a crest of its own, nor a constitution, anthem or flag, apart from one borrowed from Albania, stamped on a yellow star representing Albanian people in Yugoslavia.
In the lead up to the declaration of independence, a group of twelve experts has been working on filling the gap.
The Head of the Symbols Commission Fadil Hysa said: "We have made our selection based on suggestions from the international community that the flag and crest not contain any national symbols, like the eagle, and are not made up of only two colours, red and black, the symbols of Albanians."
But there's less excitement among Serbs in the province. After the war nearly 200,000 fled Kosovo. Those who stayed or returned are watching events with concern. Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci travelled to the Serb village of Rubovac to allay fears.
"My message to Serbs of Kosovo is to stay in Kosovo," Thaci said. "Kosovo is the country of everybody. We will respect them though affirmative action. I will stay with them, near them, for the best life to have in Kosovo for everybody."
It's a sentiment European leaders and supporters of independence affirm: Kosovo is to be multi-ethnic or not exist at all. The people of the province hope all the brave words are followed by actions.
With independence looming, Kosovo to pick a flag
The province, expected to declare statehood in coming days, is also drafting a constitution and will choose an anthem.
By Andrew Wander | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor from the February 8, 2008 edition
Pristina, Kosovo - Kosovo's bid for independence edged a step closer this week with the news that the new state's constitution, flag, and national emblem are to be decided in parliament in coming days.
After months of drafting, senior officials in the Kosovo government have said that the constitution upon which the new state will rest is almost complete, and they have short-listed designs for the flag and emblem.
The short list was supposed to be kept secret, but a source close to the Kosovo Symbols Commission, tasked with choosing the flag, described the final three designs that are to be presented to the parliament for selection.
The first, according to the source, is an outline of a map of Kosovo on a blue background, with yellow stars representing the aspiring state's ambition of eventual membership in the European Union. The second is a simple tricolor of red, white, and black vertical stripes. The third design is identical, but carries a spiral motif on the white segment.
The three designs have been whittled down from almost 1,000 entries in a public competition launched last year. The rules stipulated that the flag must not carry any image associated with an ethnic group but should be politically neutral to avoid aggravating tensions between the Albanian majority and Serb minority in Kosovo.
The condition has meant that designs based on Albania's flag, the black double-headed eagle on a red background that flutters above graves of Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla fighters throughout the breakaway province, would not be considered. The flag is synonymous in Kosovo with the Albanian community and is the first choice of many Kosovars.
"I can't believe that these are the choices for the flag," says Shqipe Abazi. "None of the designs have anything to do with Albanian people. It should be red and black. It's a big deal – how many times does a country get to choose a flag?"
But officials were adamant that Kosovo's flag would not resemble Albania's. "We will not have the flag of any other country," said Fadil Hysa, the government adviser tasked with heading the Symbols Commission. "It cannot have an eagle," he added.
The competition attracted entries from as far as New Zealand and South Africa. There were even seven entries from Serbia.
The parliament will be presented with the designs, one of which must secure two-thirds of a parliamentary vote to be adopted. The new national flag and emblem are expected to be revealed on the day the province declares independence from Serbia.
A national anthem is not expected to be agreed until about a week after the declaration. In Pristina, the Kosovo Philharmonic Orchestra has been practicing Beethoven's Ode to Joy, which they said they would play on independence day, according to Reuters.
The Kosovo government's secretive preparation for independence has come under criticism in recent weeks. None of the trappings of statehood – a flag, national anthem, or even constitution – have been agreed on, despite a declaration of independence being expected in a matter of days. One Pristina-based newspaper predicted it would come on Feb. 17. A meeting of European foreign ministers is scheduled for the next day.
"The public consultations on the constitution have only just started." says Alex Anderson of the International Crisis Group. "None of the major laws or the constitution are in the public domain." He said there was a danger the public consultation process had been started too late, and people could be left "trying to work out what sort of state Kosovo has become" after the independence declaration.
The US diplomatic office in Pristina has been said to have been heavily involved in the process of drafting the document. But a spokesperson said that the constitution was a matter for the Kosovo government. "The Kosovar people are leading the process in drafting their constitution and are handling the constitution themselves," she said.
On the streets of Pristina, excitement is building. One hotel has paid for billboards across the city announcing it is "ready" for independence. The Gallery of Arts has prepared an Independence exhibition, and young people in bars and cafes are planning parties for what some say will be the biggest day in Kosovo's history.
The Christian Science Monitor
Independent Kosovo? Why Not Vermont?
By WILLIAM J. KOLE – 8 hours ago
Sean Connery thinks a Scottish nation is a bonnie notion. How about Spain's Basque country becoming a REAL country? And what's wrong with a People's Republic of Vermont?
Kosovo's looming independence raises all those questions and more. For starters: Why is statehood OK for some people but frowned on for others? After all, isn't the right to self-determination the essence of democracy itself?
There are at least two dozen secessionist movements active in Europe alone, and scores of others agitating for sovereignty around the globe. All of them, experts warn, will be emboldened by Sunday's expected proclamation of the Republic of Kosovo.
"We live in a world which is based around states," said Florian Bieber, a professor of politics and international relations at England's University of Kent.
"The United Nations is based on states. The European Union is based on states," he said. "It's going to continue to happen. New states will emerge, and states will disappear, like East Germany."
Not all independence movements are created equal.
Some are quirky, such as Second Vermont Republic — Thomas Naylor's small but spirited campaign to break off his corner of northern New England and make it a nation.
With his spectacles, bald spot and long white hair, the retired Duke University economics professor looks like Benjamin Franklin and quotes Thomas Jefferson. He believes that if Kosovo can become a country, so can Vermont, which was independent until it joined the Union in 1791 as the 14th state.
Yet Naylor concedes: "It's a tough sell. This is not kid stuff. Secession is a radical act of rebellion driven by anger and fear."
Thousands have died in long-running quests for statehood mounted by the Palestinians, and by rebels fighting to gain Kashmir's independence from India and Pakistan.
The Basques have achieved sweeping autonomy from Spain, but militants continue to fight for full independence. On the Mediterranean island of Corsica, birthplace of Napoleon, nationalists still set off bombs to press for independence from France.
There are also many strictly nonviolent movements willing to settle for autonomy rather than secession. And sometimes new states are born by mutual consent, such as Slovakia and the Czech Republic — Czechoslovakia until they split in 1993.
Kosovo formally remains part of Serbia, but it's been run by the U.N. since 1999, when NATO intervened to stop Slobodan Milosevic's brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.
Although the U.S. and key allies — including Britain, France and Germany — support its bid, Serbia and Russia fiercely oppose it.
Russian President Vladimir Putin insists that if Kosovo gains independence without U.N. approval, it will set a dangerous precedent for secessionists in Chechnya, Georgia, Azerbaijan and further afield.
Trouble is, there's no internationally accepted standard for independence, said Marc Plattner, coeditor of the Washington-based Journal of Democracy, which analyzes movements worldwide.
You can let the people decide, he says, but first you have to decide: Who are the people?
"This is the great hole in democratic theory," Plattner said. "There isn't a sound theoretical or moral answer. One simply looks at the individual case."
Skeptics say the increasing flow of cash, goods and information across national boundaries has taken the shine off statehood.
Others wonder if the already unwieldy EU and U.N. can handle much more. The 27-nation EU already has 23 official languages, and many doubt it could cope if it had to add Albanian and Welsh to the mix.
"At a time when borders are coming down in the EU, freeing up the markets and trade, it makes no sense to put them up here," said Angus MacGregor, an insurance broker in Scotland, whose nationalist minority government is pressing to break away from Britain.
The Scottish National Party has promised to hold a referendum on independence by 2010. Although a vote looks unlikely, it's not for lack of trying.
After 700 years of struggle dating back to William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, Scotland's latest "Braveheart" is Connery.
"All of my life experience tells me that an independent Scotland will be successful," the James Bond actor said in TV spots aired last year.
Belgium could be the next country to face a big breakup: A nasty rift between Dutch-speaking Flanders to the north and French-speaking southern Wallonia has raised speculation that the kingdom may split in two.
Other movements have been around for decades.
There's the drive to gain independence for Biafra in Nigeria's oil-rich east, and the fringe Puerto Rican Independence Party, still seeking to wrest back the island the U.S. seized in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American War.
The United Kingdom looks pretty disunited, too, and not just because of Scotland.
Some in Northern Ireland still advocate unification with Ireland. The Party of Wales wants an independent Welsh state. And in southwestern England, a boisterous secessionist group is trying to carve a country out of Cornwall.
In the U.S., separatist movements advocate independence for Alaska, Texas and the southern states.
And more obscure groups abound.
Ex-Soviet Moldova, just half the size of West Virginia, already has one breakaway republic, Trans-Dniester. But there's also Gagauzia, an autonomous no man's land. Though it doesn't have a prayer of gaining independence, it still sports a flag featuring a snarling red wolf's head.
Other "stateless nations" range from the Veps — people of Baltic Finn extraction in northwestern Russia — to the Sorbs, a Slavonic people who occupy parts of the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland.
"One thing's for sure," said Vermont's Naylor. "We didn't start this. We're just continuing the process."
Associated Press Writer Ben McConville in Edinburgh, Scotland, contributed to this report.
EU Prepares for Kosovo Independence Despite Divisions
http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,3127992_1,00.jpg (http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_lupe/0,,3129863,00.html)
The EU is working to reach agreement to help ease the transition to Kosovo's independence despite continuing divisions among member states over recognizing the breakaway Serbian province.
Despite strong resistance from Serbia and Russia, both of whom stepped up their rhetoric against the Serbian province this week. Kosovo is expected to announce independence on Sunday, Feb 17, though Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci would not confirm the date.
The European Union, where at least half a dozen member states have said they will not recognize Kosovo's independence, is already preparing to send in a 2,000-strong police and legal mission to ease the province's transition to independence.
"It is already more or less clear," Slovenian Prime Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the EU presidency, told a Polish daily Dziennik in an interview published on Friday. "The European Union will send a mission to Kosovo to replace the United Nations."
Kosovo has been under UN administration for 10 years since a NATO bombing campaign ended ethnic violence there.
Easing the road to independence
http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,3058051_1,00.jpg (http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_lupe/0,,3129863_ind_1,00.html)Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: German peacekeepers in Kosovo (http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_lupe/0,,3129863_ind_1,00.html)
The EU's mission will consist of a political entity to supervise the transfer of powers from the UN mission to the local authorities. EU experts will train and mentor police, justice and customs officials and have wide-ranging legal powers for the transition period. Some 100 members of an advanced planning team are already in Pristina.
The European Commission and the World Bank are also planning an international donors' conference to help build Kosovo's economy. Kosovo, which will not be admitted to the United Nations because of Russian and Serbian opposition to its independence, faces huge challenges to tackle mass unemployment and become a viable state.
The EU rejects Russian arguments that the EU presence will be illegal. It argues the existing UN Security Council resolution 1244 on Kosovo provides a legal basis for the mission and cites a Jan. 3 report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noting the EU's readiness to play "an enhanced role."
Not speaking with one voice?
Though most EU states as well as the United States plan to recognize Kosovo, at least six EU members -- Cyprus, Greece, Slovakia, Spain, Bulgaria and Romania -- have said they will not do so immediately.
(http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_lupe/0,,3129863_ind_2,00.html)
"Our position remains the same: we will not recognize a unilateral declaration of independence," Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou Marcoullis told news agency Reuters. "Our position is based on principles of the UN charter, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states and the role of the UN Security Council."
Kosovo, home to 2 million ethnic Albanians, has raised fears in some European capitals that separatist movements in their countries may use the Serbian province as a precedent for their own unilateral decelerations of independence.
EU supporters of Kosovar independence say Serbia has no moral right to rule the province because of the brutality it perpetrated against the province's ethnic Albanian majority under the late Slobodan Milosevic.
Rupel sought to play down differences in the EU over recognizing Kosovo.
"It is not the independence declaration that is most important," he said. "Of course, there have been doubts or negative feelings in some countries. But there are not that many after all. When the moment comes, I think the EU will speak with one voice."
Serbia remains opposed
Serbia, backed by Russia, has vowed that it will never accept Kosovo's independence.
On Friday, Boris Tadic who was sworn in as president of Serbia reiterated his opposition.
"I will never give up fighting for our Kosovo and I will, with all my might, fight for Serbia to join the European Union," Tadic said.
Tadic is at odds with Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica over Serbia continuing to pursue EU membership if EU states approve Kosovo's secession.
Kostunica called the EU's mission plans as a "brutal violation" of international law, and his government has already officially "annulled" in advance Kosovo's independence move.
But Tadic has said Serbia would risk losing its international influence if it cut ties to countries and institutions that recognize Kosovo.
"If some countries, including some European Union members, recognize Kosovo, it is in my opinion that we will certainly enter a frozen conflict," he said. "It will be a challenge for Serbia, but also for the EU and the international community."
DW staff
Ripple effect warning of Kosovo independencehttp://www.euronews.net/images/print.gifhttp://www.euronews.net/images/t_smaller.gifhttp://www.euronews.net/images/t_bigger.gif
After nine years of UN administration, nine years of uncertainty and fruitless negotiations, Kosovo is poised go its own way with a unilateral declaration of independence. But, in the international arena at least, the debate is not over with heated discussion on the possible ramifactions of the breakaway.
The EU itself is divided. On one side countries including Spain and Greece fear a ripple effect in their own states while the bloc's Big Four, Britain, France, Germany and Italy, are positive about the future.
Russian President Vladimir Putin shares the first group's concerns. Those nations have similar situations on their own soil and question the legality of an independence born out of a NATO military operation launched without UN backing:
The immediate effect, it is claimed, could be felt in Bosnia where the Serb Republic in Bosnia whose leaders have talked of seccession or becoming part of Serbia.
Further afield there are worries that Kosovo sets a precedent for independence movements in Georgia's Abkhazia region, Transnistria in Moldovo and Transylvania in Romania. Putin is primarily concerned about Chechnya, which has already seen years of conflict between separatists and Russian forces.
There are also questions about the impact on the Albanian diaspora who see events in Kosovo as a partial putting-to-rights of previous injustices.
Albanians make up a quarter of the population in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. There are also big communities in Montenegro and southern Serbia. Among these communities there are some who regard Kosovo as the first step in the creation of a greater Albania.
As for the Serbs of Kosovo their worst fears have been realised. Some anaylsts predict their solution will be to push for re-unification with Serbia.
EuroNews
No "Greater Albania" wave seen from Kosovo
Fri Feb 15, 2008 6:28am EST
By Benet Koleka
TETOVO, Macedonia (Reuters) - Kosovo Albanian independence from Serbia will boost the confidence of Albanians in neighboring Macedonia, but prospects of EU membership will outweigh dreams of a "Greater Albania", political leaders say.
Albanians form a 90 percent majority in Kosovo, which is set to declare independence on Sunday. Macedonia's Albanians are a 25 percent minority.
Ethnic Albanian leaders say the best insurance against Macedonia breaking up in ethnic conflict as it nearly did in 2001 is the country's membership in NATO soon and in the European Union in a few years.
"Why talk about building or removing classical borders when Europe has drawn lessons from its old conflicts and decided to build a joint future for its states?" said Ali Ahmeti, head of Macedonia's main Albanian political party.
"We love this country as much as the Macedonians love it," he told Reuters. "Long-term stability in Macedonia will be achieved by solving the problem of Albanians living in Kosovo. It is a victory for us, too.
In 2001, Ahmeti led a 6-month uprising which came close to igniting full-scale civil war, before NATO and the EU brokered peace talks that resulted in more rights for Albanians.
Fears mounted during that period that Albanians were gearing up for a fight to unite all the lands they live in Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro, with the republic of Albania. The mountainous borders between them are porous, and weapons left over from Albania's paranoid Stalinist dictatorship abound.
But opportunities offered by a common future in the EU and the NATO alliance seem to have overtaken the old dream of a single ethnic Albanian state.
An invitation to Croatia, Macedonia and Albania to join NATO at its April summit would be "a guarantee for peace, stability and security", Ahmeti said. Macedonia has EU candidate status.
OPPORTUNITY
Businessman Ridvan Pajaziti in Macedonia's capital, Skopje, said Kosovo's independence would be a boon for business at home.
"With two Albanian states as neighbors, Albanians in Macedonia would have more rights and economic gains," he said, adding it would also mean freer travel and more professional opportunities.
Landlocked Kosovo lies north of Macedonia, and east of Albania and Montenegro, where Albanians account for 7 percent of the 600,000-strong population. Albania and Montenegro could offer the new republic access to their Adriatic ports.
Ferhat Dinosa, head of Montenegro's main Albanian party, said Kosovo's quest for independence had played an important role in his community's decision to back Montenegro's own split from Serbia two years ago.
"We backed the independence of Montenegro because we were convinced it was the ante-chamber of Kosovo's independence," Dinosa told Reuters. "No serious political Albanian party in the Balkans speaks of such a thing (as Greater Albania)."
In Macedonia's ethnic Serb village of Pobozje, near the border with Kosovo, Serbian farmers were not so sure.
"I don't feel good. The border is too close. If something happens there, it can come here," said Trajan, 64, who would not give his full name.
"Kosovo will be independent, but this will be dangerous because they will take a part of Serbia and then they will want a part of Macedonia and Montenegro. This is going to happen in the next few years and we expect trouble," he added.
Despite their leaders' comments, some Macedonian Albanians still hope for an ethnic homeland. Along the highway linking Skopje to the mainly Albanian city of Tetovo, a graffiti artist has scrawled the words "Republika Ilirida", or Greater Albania.
"We want to see Kosovo become independent as soon as possible because it is going to benefit Albanians everywhere," said Luziana Beqiri, 28, who makes traditional costumes.
"We would love to unite. It would be good to be all together, to have no borders. But we do not really know. We fear that because these are big things and nobody wants war."
(Reporting by Benet Koleka; Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Caroline Drees)
Kosovar PM: Our independent nation will not be Islamic http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifBy Adar Primor http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifTags: kosovo (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/tags/index.jhtml?tag=kosovo), islam (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/tags/index.jhtml?tag=islam)
Just days before declaring Kosovo's independence, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, the "Ben Gurion of Kosovo," called on Israel to recognize his nation's independence. "We would like and we expect Israel to be on board with all those democratic countries of the world which will immediately recognize Kosovo's independence," says Thaci in an interview with Haaretz. And he also wants to reassure us: Under no circumstances will independent Kosovo be an Islamic nation.
Next Sunday, February 17, is the date on which, according to most indications, Thaci will declare Kosovo's independence. It will put an end to hundreds of years of Ottoman, Yugoslavian and Serbian rule, which saw oppression and ethnic cleansing in the region. The bloodshed ended only in 1999 after NATO's bombing campaign against Slobodan Milosevic's Serbian forces.
Independence Day celebrations are already underway. As is the declaration of independence. "The declaration of Kosovo's independence is inspired by the Kosovar people's will.," says Thaci. "Regarding the issue of flag, anthem and other national symbols, there are specific committees set up for these purposes. Kosovo's state symbols will all be ready on Independence Day."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/0.gifAdvertisementIsrael is also a source of inspiration. "I love Israel," said Thaci in December 2007 to a JTA reporter. "It's a wonderful country," said the man who used to be the tough political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), sounding to the journalist like a child recalling his last trip to Disney World.
His impressions were apparently influenced by the network of contacts he made here. Dov Weisglass, former prime minister Ariel Sharon's adviser, was involved in a recent trip he made to Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu's former adviser, American Arthur Finkelstein gave him political advice, and the former governor of the Bank of Israel, David Klein offered him economic advice.
Common ties
Subsequently it might not be surprising that Thaci considers Sharon a "great leader." He has the same opinion of Benjamin Netanyahu. Actually it is surprising: Sharon was one of the few leaders who supported Slobodan Milosevic, and in 1999 came out against the separatist Albanians. As foreign minister during the Kosovo war, Sharon warned of the establishment of "Greater Albania," which would become a center for spreading Islamic terror in Europe. Because he was afraid of creating a precedent whose consequences were liable to affect the Middle East as well, Sharon added that belligerent intervention of the kind used by NATO in Kosovo should not be legitimized.
The Serbs say they are very close to Israel due to a "common history and common heritage." In some circles in Jerusalem, there are those who compare Serbia to Israel, and on the other hand, compare the Kosovars to the Palestinians who aspire to their own independence. Thaci is put off by these claims. "The arguments for the abovementioned comparison are false. I cannot speak for Israel or for Serbia," he said, "but I can speak for my country and my people. Kosovo cannot be compared with any other country elsewhere, Kosovo is a unique case."
"I don't know what kind of support Milosevic was given (by Israel - A.P.) ," says Thaci in a dig at Israel, "but I know very well that the whole democratic world has punished Milosevic for genocide, not only for the crimes committed in Kosovo but also in other former Yugoslav republics. And I don't have to remind anybody about his ultimate fate as a war criminal indicted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague."
Thaci also denies the "Greater Albania" scenario: "Albanians living in Albania live in their own independent country. Kosovars [90 percent of whom are ethnic Albanians] will also live and build their future in their independent Kosovo. The phrase of the so-called 'Greater Albania' is also false and Serbian propaganda. The future of Kosovo and Albania together with the rest of the Western Balkan countries lies within the European Union and this is the only point which brings all of us together."
The argument that Kosovar independence would create an Islamic state in the heart of Europe, a state that would rely on Saudi and Iranian support, is even more insulting to him. "This question does not even deserve a comment," he says, and nevertheless decides to reply. "If there is any model in the world that illustrates the good coexistence of various religious communities, it's Kosovo. These false arguments have been launched by the Slobodan Milosevic regime and belong to the past."
At a time when in Turkey, which also wants to join Europe, the battle over the religious character of the state is heating up, Thaci promises: "Kosovo is going to be a democratic and secular state of all its citizens, and the freedom to exercise religion without any hindrance is granted by the Kosovo Constitution."
Experts on the Balkans believe that Kosovo can in fact become a unique model. The Kosovars tend to emphasize their nationality far more than their religious identity, which was forced on them by the Ottomans in the 15th and 16th centuries. Even today, it is claimed, one can find many more radical Islamists in London or Brooklyn than in all of Kosovo. Kosovar society is mainly secular, its Islam is moderate and will remain so, one reason being that the new state will not be able to survive outside of the European arena.
Thaci, 39, was born in the Drenica Valley - a bastion of Albanian nationalism in Kosovo and the focus of the armed struggle against Serbian rule. He studied philosophy and political science at the University of Pristina, and was one of the student leaders in the years 1989-1991.
He was involved in organizing demonstrations against Belgrade and in clandestine training of armed groups. In 1995 he continued his studies in Switzerland, where he was also involved in raising money to fund the rebellion. When he returned to Kosovo, Thaci assumed the nom de guerre "the Snake," and within a short time became the political leader of the KLA - "the Gerry Adams [former leader of the political arm of the IRA] of Kosovo," was the nickname given to him in some Western capitals.
His abilities and his political cunning were first revealed at the Rambouillet Conference, which was held in France in 1999, and during which he represented Kosovar interests against Serbia. He was then under heavy pressure from his colleagues in the leadership of the KLA, who refused to support any arrangement that did not grant full independence to the district. His insistence on signing the document led to the isolation of the Serbs, who refused to withdraw their forces from the province as required of them in the agreement. That was the signal that launched the NATO bombings of Kosovo, which lasted for 78 days and during which the Serbian forces expanded the campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Albanians. Thousands were murdered and hundreds of thousands became refugees.
'Snake' turned moderate
There are some who see similarities between the Snake, who in the past was involved in acts described as "terrorist," between the tough fighter who removed his uniform, became a moderate politician and won the elections - and former Israeli prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, who rebelled against British rule.
The comparison seems to embarrass Thaci. He uses it to downplay his role and to point out that he was only a link in a chain. "I was lucky and at the same time very proud that I had my chance to serve my country and my people. The struggle for freedom has long roots in the past and many of my fellow citizens have sacrificed their lives for that. When our turn came, we did our part also and we succeeded because we got the support of all the Kosovo people and the support of the biggest military alliance: NATO."
When asked to share his feelings with the readers of Haaretz, a moment before the global spotlights are turned on him, he declares: "Well, I had three main objectives in my life. The first one was to mobilize and organize my people in the struggle for freedom. This goal was achieved on June 1999 with the support of NATO. My people today breathe freely. The second goal, immediately after the war, was to convince the democratic world to recognize the legitimate right of the Kosovo's people for independence. In very few days, Kosovo will become the newest independent democratic state recognized internationally. My third goal is to make Kosovo economically developed. Kosovo has great potential and has both the human and natural resources to achieve this goal."
Thaci's associates say his warm attitude towards Israel is based on four components: what he sees as the similar fate of the two nations; the state-building model he wants to adopt; his total reliance on the United States and its international policy; and the assistance that he hopes to receive from Israeli and Jewish investors to fulfill his third objective - economic stability. "All the necessary prerequisites for safe and successful investments are in place" here, he says, turning to Israeli investors.
The speculation that the independence of Kosovo will create a "domino effect" that will undermine regional stability and will lead to the outbreak of new and existing conflicts and to global deterioration, does not change his assessments: "I consider these threats as pure rhetoric used by Serbian politicians for domestic consumption in Serbia."
And as for Russian intervention? "The Cold War is over, and in any case together with UNMIK [the UN Civil Administration] and KFOR [the NATO peacekeeping force] we have undertaken all necessary steps to be able to respond promptly to any kind of situation."
"Kosovo is a unique case," he claims repeatedly, without elaborating. "It should not represent any precedent. Kosovo's independence will be the cornerstone for the peace and stability in the Balkans. This excludes completely the possibility of any negative domino effect. Kosovo's independence will usher in a long period of peace and cooperation."
Björk - Declare Independence
Serbet po shkulin floket nga paraqitja dhe ovacionet e kengetares me fame boterore ish Sugar Cubes tani Bjork e cila ne koncertin e saj, Tokio (Japoni) ne Nippon Budokan para mbi 14000 fansave interpretoi kengen: "Declare Independence", (Shpallne Pavaresine) me c'rast kishte brohoritur Kosova,,, Kosova, gje qe u perserit edhe nga publiku japonez me brohoritje, dhe flamuj te kuq qe valonin si remineshence e flamurit shqiptar qe ne fund ti drejtohet publikut me fjalet: "Kosova duhet te jete e pavarur, serbet nuk guxojne te sundojne mbi Kosove"
Björk: Kosovo, Kosovo, Hooray for Independence
Feb 21, 2008
Icelandic music star Björk, has greeted the independence of Kosovo, during her tour in Japan.
The singer, appearing in the Tokyo "Nippon Budokan" hall in front of 14.000 people, opened the concert with her "Declare Independence" (Volta, 2007) song, originally dedicated to Faroe Islands -- a group of North Atlantic islands comprising an independent province of the Kingdom of Denmark, but also traditionally and directly linked with Iceland, the homeland of the singer.
"Uh, I really love this song!" - announced Björk under the stage lights and immediately started shouting "Kosovo, Kosovo, Kosovo", whereas the public followed in thunderous cheers waving red flags creating the impression of the Albanian flag.
Next, according to the Serbian Blic reporter, Björk addressed the public with the following words: "Kosovo must be independent, Serbs don't merit anymore to rule over Kosovo".
Teksti i Kenges
Björk - Declare Independence
Declare independence!
Don't let them do that to you!
Declare independence!
Don't let them do that to you!
Justice
Start your own currency!
Make your own stamp
Protect your language
Declare independence
Don't let them do that to you
Declare independence
Don't let them do that to you
[x4] Make your own flag!
[x6] Raise your flag! (Higher, higher!)
Declare independence!
Don't let them do that to you!
Declare independence!
Don't let them do that to you!
Damn colonists
Ignore their patronizing
Tear off their blindfolds
Open their eyes
Declare independence!
Don't let them do that to you!
Declare independence!
Don't let them do that to you!
With a flag and a trumpet
Go to the top of your highest mountain!
And raise your flag! (Higher, higher!)
[x5] Raise your flag! (Higher, higher!)
Declare independence!
Don't let them do that to you!
Declare independence!
Don't let them do that to you!
Raise the flag!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGC0VVobi6E (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGC0VVobi6E)
Deconstruction (http://dardania.de/vb/upload/) of the Declaration of Independence by Lëvizja VETËVENDOSJE! (Kosovo Movement for Self-Determination!) (http://www.vetevendosje.org/), 23 February 2008
http://www.tamilnation.org/images/fourthworld/vetevendosje.gif (http://www.tamilnation.org/intframe/080217kosovo.htm#Deconstruction)"Kosova does not lack status, but our people lack freedom. This declaration will not give us freedom. In fact, it does not even represent a change in status, as we will continue to be ruled over by an anti-democratic and unaccountable international mission... The international presences here based on Resolution 1244 are not democratic nor are they promoting democracy. Instead, they are authoritarian and executive. Asking NATO to stay until Kosova is “capable” of assuming military “responsibilities” is self-devaluating. By talking about “peace, prosperity and stability” the international community’s focus on stability and peace, not freedom and progress, is revealed.... It is incorrect to say that “the world” intervened. e.g. Russia was against intervention and did not participate. To say that the intervention “removed Belgrade’s governance” and placed Kosova under UN administration makes it sound like the whole thing was no more than an administrative shift... Ahtisaari does not provide a framework for “development”, but will in fact block development, and even deprive us of the possibilities for development by perpetuating the paradigm of stability the international community in Kosova is operating within... if the Ahtisaari plan represents the “highest European standards” for good governance, how come no other European country has implemented it? "
Comment by tamilnation.org Those Tamil groups who rushed to congratulate the current Kosovo leadership on its 'supervised independence' may want to read carefully the Deconstruction of the Kosovo Declaration of Independence by Lëvizja VETËVENDOSJE! (Kosovo Movement for Self-Determination!) as well as the Manifesto of the Kosovo Movement for Self Determination (http://www.tamilnation.org/selfdetermination/fourthworld/kosovo.htm). If we do not wish to become hostages to fortune, it is important that the Tamil people should take a principle centered approach and not an opportunistic approach to happenings in an asymmetric multi lateral world.
Preamble
Convened in an extraordinary meeting on February 17, 2008, in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo,
Answering the call of the people to build a society that honours human dignity and affirms the pride and purpose of its citizens, “Answering the call of the people”, i.e. not their will.
Committed to confront the painful legacy of the recent past in a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness,
.. “in a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness”. This signals that Kosova is ready to forget its history – the losses and suffering, the violence and genocide from the past. This declaration is not presented as the culmination of history, but as its start. The declaration annuls history by presenting itself as a new beginning. This is a “historical act” without history.
Dedicated to protecting, promoting and honoring the diversity of our people, Reaffirming our wish to become fully integrated into the Euro-Atlantic family of democracies,
“Reaffirming our wish” – this very vague word does not signal any intent to undertake any action to realise this wish. Will become “fully integrated”, but not necessarily as a sovereign state or a member. Indicates that Kosova will integrate into Euroatlantic structures as a democracy, but not necessarily as a state.
Observing that Kosovo is a special case arising from Yugoslavia's non-consensual breakup and is not a precedent for any other situation,
The issue of Kosova is “arising from Yugoslavia’s non-consensual breakup”. The breakup was not only “non-consensual”, but violent, because of Serbia: Serbia created Yugoslavia in order to expand, and destroyed it in order to expand. The issue of Kosova’s status did not “arise”, as a secondary effect, from the breakup, but is a part of that breakup. Kosova is in fact also where the breakup started, in 1987-89. Stressing that Kosova is not a precedent is intended to signal that oppressed people elsewhere in the world will stay oppressed also after this declaration. Including this is the result of a typically colonial mindset on behalf of the international bureaucrats that have dictated this declaration: by turning colonised people against each-other, by making them not support each-other, one can prevent them turning against the colonisers.
Recalling the years of strife and violence in Kosovo, that disturbed the conscience of all civilised people,
To say that the violence in Kosova “disturbed the conscience of all civilized people” makes it sound like the wars here merely caused some emotional distress to international observers watching the events on their TV. Instead of underlining how the war violated international law and fundamental human rights, how many people lost their lives, were injured, raped and had to flee, the declaration simply points to the spiritual pain it caused “civilised people”. This phrase is also intended to imply that Serbs should not be blamed for the violence here. Talking about the violence in Kosova in this neutral way absolves Serbia of any blame for it.
Grateful that in 1999 the world intervened, thereby removing Belgrade's governance over Kosovo and placing Kosovo under United Nations interim administration,
It is incorrect to say that “the world” intervened. e.g. Russia was against intervention and did not participate. To say that the intervention “removed Belgrade’s governance” and placed Kosova under UN administration makes it sound like the whole thing was no more than an administrative shift. Besides, it was not mainly Belgrade’s governance that was removed with the intervention, but the violence of Serbia’s criminal police and military forces. Since it is not saying that Belgrade no longer has “control over” or the “right to” Kosova, all this point is saying is simply that Belgrade is not governing Kosova’s daily affairs anymore.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Proud that Kosovo has since developed functional, multi-ethnic institutions of democracy that express freely the will of our citizens,
“institutions of democracy” again does not show in any way that this refers to a sovereign independent state. This point also reduces the will of the people to the non-sovereign and corrupt local institutions in Kosova. The first time any word close to “free” is mentioned, “freely” merely refers to the freedom of expression of Kosova’s institutions, not their rights or freedoms to take action as an independent state.
Recalling the years of internationally-sponsored negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina over the question of our future political status,
“our future status” makes it clear that our status is not final, and that we are going from transition to transition.
Regretting that no mutually-acceptable status outcome was possible, in spite of the good-faith engagement of our leaders,
Saying that no negotiated solution was possible is nothing more than avoiding blaming Serbia’s obstructionism for the breakdown of talks.
Confirming that the recommendations of UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari provide Kosovo with a comprehensive framework for its future development and are in line with the highest European standards of human rights and good governance,
Ahtisaari does not provide a framework for “development”, but will in fact block development, and even deprive us of the possibilities for development by perpetuating the paradigm of stability the international community in Kosova is operating within. The plan will also separate people institutionally and territorially on an ethnic basis. The Ahtisaari plan has nothing to do with “human rights”, but demands ethnically based strong decentralisation before sovereignty, without dismantling Serbia’s parallel structures in Kosova. This will not protect human rights, but can lead to new violations. Also, if the Ahtisaari plan represents the “highest European standards” for good governance, how come no other European country has implemented it?
Determined to see our status resolved in order to give our people clarity about their future, move beyond the conflicts of the past and realise the full democratic potential of our society,
Kosova does not lack status, but our people lack freedom. This declaration will not give us freedom. In fact, it does not even represent a change in status, as we will continue to be ruled over by an anti-democratic and unaccountable international mission. About “clarity” – this declaration does not bring clarity, but entails a number of serious contradictions and ambiguities. Besides, clarity is not the point: we need freedom and dignity. In order to achieve that, the people should decide on changing of Kosova’s status through a referendum on independence. The call to “move beyond the conflicts of the past” is again a call to erase history. It is impossible to talk about “democratic potential” when we are being deprived of democracy by the people that rule over us.
Honouring all the men and women who made great sacrifices to build a better future for Kosovo,
The last point is so vague that it could refer to some people being injured while working on a construction site. Again, the vague formulation is chosen in order to erase the past and not blame Serbia for our historical tragedies.
Numbered points 1. We, the democratically-elected leaders of our people, hereby declare Kosovo to be an independent and sovereign state. This declaration reflects the will of our people and it is in full accordance with the recommendations of UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari and his Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement.
1. This point is seriously self-contradictory. Being an independent sovereign state is completely incompatible with the Ahtisaari plan and his recommendations. He does not suggest sovereignty, but an extremely supervised independence. Either the MPs do not understand what “sovreignty” means, or they want to fool us. The so-called democratically elected leaders of Kosova are neither democratically elected nor leaders. Less than 50% of the population voted at all, in an externally imposed framework and process from above having nothing to do with democracy. This declaration cannot reflect the “will of our people” when we are deprived of the right to hold a referendum.
2. We declare Kosovo to be a democratic, secular and multi-ethnic republic, guided by the principles of non-discrimination and equal protection under the law. We shall protect and promote the rights of all communities in Kosovo and create the conditions necessary for their effective participation in political and decision-making processes.
2. This declaration will not provide people equal protection under the law, but will establish an international office to rule over us, with officials completely unaccountable and immune to the laws they impose on us. This point talks about “communities”, not citizens, and confirms the international community’s ethnic fixation regarding Kosova.
3. We accept fully the obligations for Kosovo contained in the Ahtisaari Plan, and welcome the framework it proposes to guide Kosovo in the years ahead. We shall implement in full those obligations including through priority adoption of the legislation included in its Annex XII, particularly those that protect and promote the rights of communities and their members.
3. Again it mentions “communities” instead of citizens, and obligations instead of rights.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
4. We shall adopt as soon as possible a Constitution that enshrines our commitment to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all our citizens, particularly as defined by the European Convention on Human Rights. The Constitution shall incorporate all relevant principles of the Ahtisaari Plan and be adopted through a democratic and deliberative process.4. Ahtisaari’s plan is not compatible with the ECHR. In fact, in the plan, there are no human beings, but only communities, which will be more segregated and separated by the plan.
5. We welcome the international community's continued support of our democratic development through international presences established in Kosovo on the basis of UN Security Council resolution 1244 (1999). We invite and welcome an international civilian presence to supervise our implementation of the Ahtisaari Plan, and a European Union-led rule of law mission. We also invite and welcome the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to retain the leadership role of the international military presence in Kosovo and to implement responsibilities assigned to it under UN Security Council resolution 1244 (1999) and the Ahtisaari Plan, until such time as Kosovo institutions are capable of assuming these responsibilities. We shall cooperate fully with these presences to ensure Kosovo's future peace, prosperity and stability.5. This point basically says that Kosova does not want to become independent. It empties even a formal independence of any meaning and substance. The international presences here based on Resolution 1244 are not democratic nor are they promoting democracy. Instead, they are authoritarian and executive. Asking NATO to stay until Kosova is “capable” of assuming military “responsibilities” is self-devaluating. By talking about “peace, prosperity and stability” the international community’s focus on stability and peace, not freedom and progress, is revealed.
6. For reasons of culture, geography and history, we believe our future lies with the European family. We therefore declare our intention to take all steps necessary to facilitate full membership in the European Union as soon as feasible and implement the reforms required for European and Euro-Atlantic integration.6. It should not be necessary to give “reasons” for why Kosova is European. We are. This point does not mention that Kosova intends to become an EU member as a sovereign state, but states that “our future lies with the European family”.
7. We express our deep gratitude to the United Nations for the work it has done to help us recover and rebuild from war and build institutions of democracy. We are committed to working constructively with the United Nations as it continues its work in the period ahead. 7. UNMIK has not helped our democratic development. UNMIK is anti-democratic and a failure even from the views of its own officials, and according to its self-proclaimed goals. This point also says that UNMIK will continue to stay here indefinitely. So an “independent” Kosova will be run by two international missions, not just one!
8. With independence comes the duty of responsible membership in the international community. We accept fully this duty and shall abide by the principles of the United Nations Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, other acts of the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the international legal obligations and principles of international comity that mark the relations among states. Kosovo shall have its international borders as set forth in Annex VIII of the Ahtisaari Plan, and shall fully respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all our neighbors. Kosovo shall also refrain from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.8. This point talks about the duty of responsible membership in international organisation, but not about rights and internationally equal relationships. This is because Kosova’s rights will continue to be in the hands of the international administration here. Ahtisaari doesn’t say anything about “international” borders in annex VIII, but he does mention in Article 3, that Kosova must adhere to the border agreement signed between Yugoslavia (Serbia) and Macedonia in February 2001 in which Macedonia got 2.500 hectares of Kosova’s land.
9. We hereby undertake the international obligations of Kosovo, including those concluded on our behalf by the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and treaty and other obligations of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to which we are bound as a former constituent part, including the Vienna Conventions on diplomatic and consular relations. We shall cooperate fully with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. We intend to seek membership in international organisations, in which Kosovo shall seek to contribute to the pursuit of international peace and stability.9. While the previous point talks about duties, this point mentions Kosova’s obligations and the contributions this declaration will commit us to. Our rights and freedoms are still not being mentioned. Talks again about peace and stability, but not development, progress, prosperity.
10. Kosovo declares its commitment to peace and stability in our region of southeast Europe. Our independence brings to an end the process of Yugoslavia's violent dissolution. While this process has been a painful one, we shall work tirelessly to contribute to a reconciliation that would allow southeast Europe to move beyond the conflicts of our past and forge new links of regional cooperation. We shall therefore work together with our neighbours to advance a common European future. 10. The disintegration of Yugoslavia does not necessarily end with the independence of Kosova. By saying this, the declaration wants to discredit the efforts of the Hungarians in Vojvodina, the Albanians in the Valley of Presheva and Bosniaks in Sandjak to get out from Serbia’s rule. And again, this point emphasises reconciliation in order for the past to be forgotten.
11. We express, in particular, our desire to establish good relations with all our neighbours, including the Republic of Serbia with whom we have deep historical, commercial and social ties that we seek to develop further in the near future. We shall continue our efforts to contribute to relations of friendship and cooperation with the Republic of Serbia, while promoting reconciliation among our people. 11. This point is an attempt to neutrally describe our relation to Serbia, when everyone knows what this relation in fact meant: our exploitation, suppression and domination by Serbia.
12. We hereby affirm, clearly, specifically, and irrevocably, that Kosovo shall be legally bound to comply with the provisions contained in this Declaration, including, especially, the obligations for it under the Ahtisaari Plan. In all of these matters, we shall act consistent with principles of international law and resolutions of the Security Council of the United Nations, including resolution 1244 (1999). We declare publicly that all states are entitled to rely upon this declaration, and appeal to them to extend to us their support and friendship.12. This important point, the last one, does not mention independence, but Ahtisaari’s plan and Resolution 1244. This point does not ask explicitly for recognition, signalling that we will understand if someone decides not to recognise us.
tamilnaton.org
Bush getis rightUs knows a NATION when it sees one
The Bush administration has lurched for so long from one foreign policy disaster to another, we almost have forgotten what it's like to see the United States do the right thing.
But we did last week.
After decades of oppression and struggle, the two million Albanians of the former Yugoslav/Serb province of Kosovo finally achieved their long-sought independence. This was the final welcome act in the death of the abortive state, Yugoslavia.
The U.S. was the first major power to recognize the new Republic of Kosovo -- as it should henceforth be called. There were almost as many American flags in the streets of its capital, Prishtina, as Albanian ones. President George W. Bush deserves a hearty salute.
The U.S. had once more rescued the Albanians. In 1918, victorious Serbia was about to annex tiny Albania to gain its deep-water Adriatic ports. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson ordered Serbia back, saving Albania.
After communist demagogue Slobodan Milosevic sought to build a Greater Serbia in the 1990s through ethnic terrorism, Washington forced NATO to halt Serb genocide in Bosnia.
In 1999, while Europe watched impotently, Milosevic's forces killed 13,000 Kosovar Albanians and drove one million Albanian Kosovars into frigid winter fields where they would have died of exposure without outside help. The U.S. saved the Kosovars by launching a short air war on the Serbs.
Outraged Serbs claimed they were victims of an American-German conspiracy. Kosovo was their historical medieval heartland, they insisted. Serbia's very soul. But by 2008, Kosovo's population was two million Albanians and only 60,000-80,000 Serbs and gypsies, mostly in the Mitrovica enclave. About 100,000 more Kosovo Serbs had moved to Serbia.
Historical claims are often of questionable value. Kosovo was indeed the heartland of medieval Serbia after Serb tribes invaded the region in the 6th Century AD. But the original inhabitants were Illyrians -- ancestors of today's Albanians.
ETHNIC CLEANSING
Serbs sought to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of Albanians three times: In the 1911-12 Balkan Wars after they seized it from the Ottoman Empire; in 1945; and in the 1990s. This brutal record, and persecution of Albanian Kosovars in the post-Tito era, invalidates any legitimate claims Serbia has to Kosovo.
Wounded pride aside, Serbia is better off without Kosovo. History teaches it's often counterproductive to try to retain by force a region that wants out (the U.S. Civil War is a major exception).
Serbs became international pariahs after the demagogue Milosevic intoxicated them with Nazi-style bogus historical mythology and primitive nationalism. Serbia's future lies in the European Union, not in dubious medieval mythical glories.
America once again saved Albanians from extinction.
By contrast, it was noteworthy that Romania refused to join Britain, France, Germany and Italy in recognizing the new Kosovo republic.
That's because Romania also has its own dirty secret. The post-First World War Treaty of Trianon was every bit as evil and immoral as the 1938 Munich Pact. At Trianon, the victorious allies handed over 66% of the Hungarian people to Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Romania got the lion's share, including Transylvania. Hungarians want freedom from Romania.
DIVIDED PEOPLES
Albanians also were divided between Albania proper, and Yugoslavia's provinces of Kosovo and Macedonia. So Albanians and Hungarians remain Europe's divided peoples.
But there is no hint free Kosovo will join neighbouring Albania anytime soon. The Kosovar leadership, under able PM Hasim Tachi, rejects any talk of union; so does Albania's capable prime minister, Dr. Sali Berisha. Kosovars are not eager to merge with impoverished, struggling Albania; they want to be in the EU.
It certainly is a tonic seeing people abroad joyously waving American flags and blessing the U.S. This is what my America used to be about.
I pray that under new presidential leadership, the U.S.A. will resume this honourable tradition as liberator and defender of human rights.
Key dates in Kosovo's decades-long — and often bloody —drive to gain independence from Serbia:
1968 — First pro-independence demonstrations by ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, when it was part of Yugoslavia; many arrested.
1991 — As Yugoslavia implodes, separatists proclaim Kosovo a republic, which is recognized by neighboring Albania.
1996 — Pro-independence Kosovo Liberation Army emerges, claims responsibility for bombings of police targets.
March-April 1998 — Dozens killed in Serb police action against suspected Albanian separatists. Serbs overwhelmingly reject international mediation on Kosovo in referendum. New international sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia.
July-September 1998 — KLA seizes control of 40 percent of Kosovo before being routed in Serb offensive. Serb forces attack villages; 22 ethnic Albanians found massacred in central Kosovo.
October 1998 — NATO allies authorize airstrikes against Serb military targets.
Jan. 15, 1999 — 45 ethnic Albanians slain outside Racak. International officials demand war crimes investigation.
March 1999 — Belgrade authorities reject the internationally brokered peace deal, while ethnic Albanians sign it.
March 24, 1999 — NATO launches 78 days of airstrikes against Yugoslavia.
March-June 1999 — Serb forces push out 800,000 ethnic Albanians who flee Kosovo into Albania and Macedonia.
June 10, 1999 — Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic agrees to withdraw troops from Kosovo after agreeing to a proposal for NATO to move in and the province to be run by U.N. Airstrikes halted. Some 50,000 NATO-led peacekeepers begin deploying in Kosovo, refugees stream back while Serbs flee in the wake of revenge attacks.
Oct. 6, 2000 — Milosevic resigns after mass demonstrations protesting his refusal to accept electoral defeat.
June 28, 2001 — Milosevic extradited to The Hague to face trial for war crimes, dies before trial ends.
February 2002 — Kosovo elects parliament and government with Ibrahim Rugova as president.
October 2003 — First direct talks between Serbian and Kosovo Albanian leaders since 1999 end without agreement.
March 2004 — Ethnic Albanian mobs attack Serbs in worst outbreak of violence since the war.
January 2006 — Rugova dies of lung cancer in Pristina.
February 2006 — U.N.-mediated talks on Kosovo's future status begin.
October 2006 — In Serbian referendum, Kosovo is declared an integral part of Serbia.
Jan. 26, 2007 — U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari unveils recommended guidelines to Kosovo's eventual statehood.
April 2007 — Russia rejects Ahtisaari proposal at U.N. Security Council.
June 2007 — U.S. President George W. Bush says Kosovo needs to be independent "sooner rather than later."
July 2007 — Kosovo's prime minister says U.N.-sponsored process has failed and calls for declaration of independence by year's end.
Feb. 17, 2008 — Kosovo declares independence.
Kosovo Builds Economy From the Ground Up http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/03/05/world/05kosovo-span-600.jpg Andrew Testa for The New York Times
Crowded cafes and malls like the Ben-af shopping center in Pristina belie the weakness of Kosovo’s economy. Imports far exceed exports and the infrastructure is dilapidated.
By DAN BILEFSKY
Published: March 5, 2008
PRISTINA, Kosova — Bekim Kuqi has braved civil war, exile, bombs falling on his factories and the detonation of a car filled with explosives in one of his stores. So he says he is prepared for the daunting challenge of doing business in the newly independent Kosovo.
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Enlarge This Image (http://javascript<b></b>:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/03/05/world/europe/05kosovo.inline.ready.html', '05kosovo_inline_ready', 'width=720,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,r esizable=yes'))
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Miners near Mitrovica at the Trepca mine, which has extensive mineral deposits but significant debt. More Photos » (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/03/05/world/20080305KOSOVO_index.html)
For years the electricity grid has been so unreliable that just keeping the lights on in his retail stores has been a daily struggle, forcing Mr. Kuqi to spend more than $1,000 a day on backup generators. Even then, shoppers browse with the lights flickering on and off.
And given that the average monthly wage here is about $220, he laments that most people can afford little more than a Coca-Cola at one of the restaurants in his stores.
“I put my faith in God,” said Mr. Kuqi, 33. He added: “I often think that staying here requires too much sacrifice, and I should just leave. But I belong to this place.”
Two weeks after Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership declared independence from Serbia, with the backing of Washington and the European Union (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/european_union/index.html?inline=nyt-org), Pristina continues to pulsate with young crowds at stylish new cafes and shopping malls. But such superficial signs of economic success mask the harsh uncertainties of a newborn nation, whose very existence is not recognized by Serbia, Russia or some European countries.
Even if Kosovo can overcome those political hurdles, its economy has been so devastated by war that it imports even staples like milk and meat. It is ranked by Transparency International, the Berlin-based anticorruption watchdog, as the world’s fourth most corrupt economy, after Cameroon, Cambodia and Albania.
Whether Kosovo can build a successful economy will help determine whether it can become a full-fledged country and stabilize the Balkans, or will remain a poor adopted orphan of the West.
Slobodan Milosevic (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/slobodan_milosevic/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the former Serbian leader, revoked Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989 and fiercely repressed ethnic Albanians, who make up most of its population. Some of them eventually turned to armed rebellion. NATO (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/north_atlantic_treaty_organization/index.html?inline=nyt-org) intervened in 1999 to halt Mr. Milosevic’s violent response to the rebels, and for the past eight years this landlocked territory has been administered by the United Nations (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org).
For the foreseeable future, Western analysts say, Kosovo’s economy will remain dependent on generous aid, its security assured by 16,000 NATO troops and its political affairs overseen by a European Union mission that will shortly take over from the United Nations.
“It could take at least 10 years for Kosovo to stand on its own two feet,” said Joost Lagendijk, who oversees Kosovo policy in the European Parliament (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/european_parliament/index.html?inline=nyt-org). “Kosovo is a poor agricultural country where the energy supply is chaotic, the rule of law needs to be upheld and the economy is almost starting from scratch.”
Scrap metal from old cars is Kosovo’s biggest export. Infrastructure is creaky, businesspeople complain that bribery is commonplace and unemployment is about 50 percent, government officials say.
“For years, we have used not having our independence as an excuse for everything,” said Shpend Ahmeti, an economist who runs the Institute for Advanced Studies, a Pristina-based research organization. “Now that we have it, we need to show that we deserve to be a country and that we can create a viable economy.”
For that, economists say, Kosovo needs to foster local industry; imports run at about $1.9 billion a year, but exports are a paltry $130 million. Success will depend partly on the gumption of entrepreneurs like Mr. Kuqi, the son of a farmer.
He started by selling clothing from a kiosk in his hometown, Suva Reka, a poor, industrial city in southern Kosovo. The business quickly grew. But during the war between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in 1998-1999, his factories were set on fire and he was forced to flee to Albania.
Mr. Kuqi returned to Kosovo in 2000 and rebuilt the business; four years later, the police say, a jealous rival rammed a car filled with explosives through his flagship store. Today, Mr. Kuqi has 13 stores and malls across Kosovo, which he built in part by harnessing a low-wage, ambitious work force. “People here are willing to work hard,” he said.
Ahmet Shala, Kosovo’s economic minister, dismissed people’s doubts about Kosovo’s economic prospects, pointing to success stories in neighboring countries like Slovenia, a former Yugoslav republic of similar size.
Mr. Shala argued that, until now, Kosovo’s uncertain status prevented it from having some of the tools of a functioning economy, from bar codes for supermarket products to access to international railway networks.
Independence, he asserted, will allow Kosovo to work with financial institutions like the World Bank (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/world_bank/index.html?inline=nyt-org) and the International Monetary Fund (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/international_monetary_fund/index.html?inline=nyt-org), helping it to attract foreign investors.
“Until now, Kosovo was a baby in an incubator, with donors providing the oxygen,” he said. “Now, the baby needs to learn how to breathe on its own.”
Still, Kosovo’s lack of recognition by Serbia, Russia and several countries in the European Union — including Spain, Slovakia, Greece, Romania and Cyprus — could also deter investment, hamper its ability to get loans, impede the European Union from signing trade and cooperation deals with it and place limitations on the travel of Kosovars.
Kosovo also faces the threat of an economic embargo by Serbia. Economists say that would hurt Serbia more than Kosovo, because Serbia exports so many goods to Kosovo. Yet, Mr. Ahmeti said: “Serbia can hurt us by keeping us in the news. We need to overcome our image problem.”
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Many here are pinning their hopes on Kosovo’s untapped mineral wealth, including 14 billion tons of lignite coal reserves that will be tapped to fuel a new power plant by 2012, if all goes as planned.
British geologists conducting a recent survey of Kosovo’s resources say the territory has vast amounts of minerals, including deposits of nickel, lead, zinc, cadmium, bauxite and even small seams of gold. Yet the infrastructure for extracting minerals is outdated, and mining analysts say Kosovo’s most important mining complex, the Trepca mine, will need hundreds of millions of dollars in outside investment to create a profitable exporting business.
On a recent day at the Trepca mine, which has been ravaged by war and mismanagement since its glory days in the former Communist Yugoslavia, miners wearing battery-lighted hard hats descended about 2,000 feet below ground to a labyrinth of hot, dark tunnels. Mr. Milosevic is widely rumored to have used the tunnels to hide the bodies of Albanians killed during the war.
Dozens of workers — some wielding pickaxes, others driving mechanized trucks with electric drills — bored holes and inserted sticks of dynamite to dislodge lead and zinc deposits. “This could be the future of Kosovo,” said Xhafer Peci, a miner, holding glistening stones in his hands.
Yet Trepca has become politically explosive because it is run jointly by ethnic Albanians and Serbs, and its mines and processing factories are spread between Kosovo’s Serbian-dominated north and the ethnic Albanian-dominated south. With Serbia determined to expand its hold over northern Kosovo, Trepca’s future is in doubt.
Nazmi Mikullovci, Trepca’s ethnic Albanian director, said he hoped Serbian and Albanian cooperation at the mine would continue. He stressed that geological surveys showed that 88 percent of Kosovo’s mineral wealth is in the south of the country; however, the mine has up to 300 million euros ($456 million) in debt and must also finance the pensions of several thousand Albanian workers fired when Mr. Milosevic took over the mine in the 1990s. “Trepca will not be the savior of Kosovo, at least for now,” Mr. Mikullovci said.
Even with the challenges, there are a few brave investors here. Ekrem Luka, the head of a sprawling conglomerate called Dukagjini that owns everything from breweries to a television station, said he planned to build a 23-story complex in downtown Pristina, complete with a 100-room hotel, three stories of shopping and private apartments.
“The business attraction of Kosovo is that we are starting at zero and need everything,” he said. “Exporters, importers, retailers, you name it.”
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