Bill Clinton named new UN Envoy to 'stabilise' Haiti, a country he helped destabilise!
by Jeremy Scahill via quill 2009-05-20 01:43:30

While president, Bill Clinton forced neoliberal policies on Haiti, delayed President Aristide’s return after a US-backed coup and held Haitian refugees at Gitmo without rights. [He's just what the 'doctor' ordered!]

Former US President Bill Clinton has been named by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as his special UN envoy to Haiti. Clinton will reportedly travel to the country at least four times a year.

“[It’s] an opportunity to bring in resources to address the economic insecurity that plagues Haiti,” says Brian Concannon, a human rights lawyer who works extensively in Haiti. “But if the nomination is to be more than a publicity stunt, the UN needs to honestly shed a spotlight on the international community’s role in creating that instability, including unfair trade and debt policies, and the undermining and overthrowing of Haiti’s constitutional government.”

Shining such a spotlight on those who created the instability, as Concannon suggests, would mean examining Clinton’s own role as president of the US during one of Haiti’s most horrifyingly dark periods.

Reuters news agency quotes a diplomat as saying Clinton is “an ‘excellent choice’ to help unlock Haiti’s potential as an investment target,” adding that his appointment “could attract investment in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation and help stabilize the country.”

That last statement about “stabiliz[ing]” Haiti would be humorous for its irony if the reality—and Clinton’s history in Haiti—wasn’t so deadly serious. The fact is that, as US president, Clinton’s policies helped systematically destabilize Haiti.

Dan Coughlin, who spent years as a journalist in Haiti in the 1990s for Inter Press Service, said he was “incredulous” when he heard the news. “Given the Clinton Administration’s aggressive pursuit of policies that profitted Haiti’s tiny elite, the IMF and big corporations at the expense of Haiti’s farmers and urban workers, the appointment does not bode well for the kind of fundamental change so needed in a country that has given so much to humankind,” Coughlin says.

In September 1991, the US backed the violent overthrow of the government of Haiti’s democratically-elected leftist priest President Jean Bertrand Aristide after he was in power less than a year. Aristide had defeated a US-backed candidate in the 1990 Haitian presidential election. The military coup leaders and their paramilitary gangs of CIA-backed murderous thugs, including the notorious FRAPH paramilitary units, were known for hacking the limbs off of Aristide supporters (and others) along with an unending slew of other horrifying crimes.

When Clinton came to power, he played a vicious game with Haiti that allowed the coup regime to continue rampaging Haiti and further destabilized the country. What’s more, in the 1992 election campaign, Bill Clinton campaigned on a pledge to reverse what he called then-President George HW Bush’s “cruel policy” of holding Haitian refugees at Guantanamo with no legal rights in US courts. Upon his election, however, Clinton reversed his position and sided with the Bush administration in denying the Haitians legal rights. the Haitians were held in atrocious conditions and the new Democratic president was sued by the Center for Constitutional Rights (sound familiar?).

While Clinton and his advisers publicly expressed their dismay with the coup, they simultaneously refused to support the swift reinstatement of the country’s democratically elected leader and would, in fact, not allow Aristide’s return until Washington received guarantees that: 1. Aristide would not lay claim to the years of his presidency lost in forced exile and; 2. US neoliberal economic plans were solidified as the law of the land in Haiti.

“The Clinton administration was credited for working for the return to power of Jean Bertrand Aristide after he was overthrown in a military coup,” says author William Blum. “But, in fact, Clinton had stalled the return for as long as he could, and had instead tried his best to return anti-Aristide conservatives to a leading power role in a mixed government, because Aristide was too leftist for Washington’s tastes.” Blum’s book “Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II” includes a chapter on the history of the US role in Haiti.

The fact that the coup against the democratically-elected president of Haiti was allowed to continue unabated for three full years seemed to be less offensive to Clinton than Aristide’s progressive vision for Haiti. As Blum observed in his book, “[Clinton] was not actually repulsed by [coup leader Raoul] Cédras and company, for they posed no ideological barrier to the United States continuing the economic and strategic control of Haiti it’s maintained for most of the century.  Unlike Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a man who only a year earlier had declared: ‘I still think capitalism is a mortal sin.’”

Blum added: “Faced ultimately with Aristide returning to power, Clinton demanded and received — and then made sure to publicly announce — the Haitian president’s guarantee that he would not try to remain in office to make up for the time lost in exile. Clinton of course called this ‘democracy,’ although it represented a partial legitimization of the coup.” Indeed, Haiti experts say that Clinton could have restored Aristide to power under an almost identical arrangement years earlier than he did.

When Aristide finally returned to Haiti, as Blum notes, “Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s reception was a joyous celebration filled with optimism.  However, unbeknownst to his adoring followers, while they were regaining Aristide, they may have lost Aristidism.” 

As The Los Angeles Times reported at the time:

In a series of private meetings, Administration officials admonished Aristide to put aside the rhetoric of class warfare … and seek instead to reconcile Haiti’s rich and poor. The Administration also urged Aristide to stick closely to free-market economics and to abide by the Caribbean nation’s constitution — which gives substantial political power to the Parliament while imposing tight limits on the presidency. … Administration officials have urged Aristide to reach out to some of his political opponents in setting up his new government … to set up a broad-based coalition regime. … the Administration has made it clear to Aristide that if he fails to reach a consensus with Parliament, the United States will not try to prop up his regime. Almost every aspect of Aristide’s plans for resuming power — from taxing the rich to disarming the military — has been examined by the U.S. officials with whom the Haitian president meets daily and by officials from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other aid organizations. The finished package clearly reflects their priorities. … Aristide obviously has toned down the liberation theology and class-struggle rhetoric that was his signature before he was exiled to Washington.

“While Bill Clinton oversaw the return of President Aristide in 1994, he also put significant constraints on what Aristide was able to do once back in power,” says Bill Fletcher, Jr, the Executive Editor of BlackCommentator.com and the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum. “Clinton advanced a neo-liberal agenda for Haiti thereby undermining the efforts of an otherwise progressive populist administration (Aristide’s). There is no reason to believe that [as a UN envoy] ex-President Clinton will introduce or support efforts to radically break Haiti from under the thumb of the USA and the dire poverty which has been a significant consequence of said domination.”

Author retains copyright.

http://rebelreports.com/post/109822009/bill-clinton-named-new-un-envoy-to-stabilize-haiti-a

War & Torture: Subterfuge and the Science of Repeating Lies
by Roberto Rodriguez via rialator 2009-05-20 02:09:55

It is apparent that regardless of who is in power, conservative ideals are firmly entrenched not simply in the American psyche, but are an integral part of U.S. policies. One could blame liberals for not having a backbone when combating conservatives, but chances are that the real reason may be even more onerous; one likely explanation is governmental psychological warfare.

Why did Congress last week quietly approve almost another $100 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? Why are displaced Mexican migrants scapegoated for all the ills of U.S. society? Why does the United States escape blame for its insatiable thirst for drugs [in fueling the drug wars in Mexico]? Why is the United States always supposed to side with Israel, without ever having a debate? Why does “war as peace” continue to be U.S. policy?

With President Obama, things were supposed to be different; the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars were supposed to come to a screeching halt. Guantanamo would be immediately closed down and torture would unequivocally be denounced and those flouting U.S. and international laws would finally be held to account in a court of law.

Instead, we see vacillation or escalation on virtually every front. Just on economic grounds alone, one would think that shutting down both wars would be a no-brainer. So the question is logical; with Obama in the White House and Democrats in control of Congress, why do conservative ideals and policies – such as the right to permanent war – continue to be entrenched throughout the U.S. political landscape?

Most assuredly, the answer lies in the lies that this nation has swallowed as part of its national narrative. For example, several years ago, as I was finishing up my PhD studies, one of my professors was explaining how language and minds can be manipulated – simply by the words we employ and the order in which they are employed. Such a sophisticated process can pre-determine not only what we think and discuss, but when we do this. Who delivers the words and ideas can also influence how people will feel towards any given issue. One example is the use of Colin Powell [and his contrived account] to convince a skeptical world before the UN about the need to invade Iraq [Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld and Rice had zero credibility].

As the seminar professor was explaining this process, I raised my hand: “This sounds like psy-ops – like CIA work.”

At this, the professor laughed: “You must not be too familiar with our field. The great majority of all mass communications research is funded by the defense department.”

This confirmed what I had always suspected; this would explain how the Iraq War was sold – through an unquestioning media that simply acted liked stenographers – repeating complete fabrications, affirmed by “military experts” (in the employ of Defense contractors) that even grade school children could see through. Yet that would not have been enough to have convinced a skeptical public.

For such a special operation to work, fear, hate and ignorance had to be thrown into the mix, helping to advance the nonsensical argument that Iraq constituted a grave threat to the world. Yet, on the heels of the Cold War – in which the United States was pitted against a superpower that actually had a nuclear arsenal of thousands – Americans were supposed to be afraid of a country that, in effect, used slingshots as part of its air defense. While fear, hate and ignorance usually work in any society, all this was not enough to sell this war.

To sell the war – in fact, to sell the notion of a right to permanent worldwide war (The so-called War on Terror) – required bringing in three additional factors: God, hyper-nationalism and a “homeland.” If Bush could convince the public that God was siding with the United States against fanatical Arab/Muslim terrorists who were responsible for 9-11, then all that remained was to convince the public that it was their patriotic duty to support the president in this God-inspired civilizational war to protect the Fatherland against infidels. This civilizational Jihad or Crusade included warring against Iraq, a nation that had nothing to do with 9-11 and that had not ever been a threat to the United States (see Rumsfeld’s “religious” memos to Bush in this week’s issue of GQ.)

This war – for the hearts and minds of Westerners – appears to have failed except amongst the FOX-TV-viewing public and its right-wing radio auxiliaries.

And yet, even with a change in administrations, conservative ideals and the conservative agenda continue to dominate the national agenda. Specifically, in regards to Iraq and Afghanistan – the wars continue and Dick Cheney and his ultra-conservative cohorts continue to dictate the nation’s political agenda. The reason: think psy-ops and think subterfuge. While we discuss the proprieties of torture and other enhanced interrogation techniques – we never get around to discussing illegal wars that have resulted in the deaths and maiming of tens of thousands and the displacement of millions. Within this context, we ignore the larger crimes against humanity by the Bush administration and instead debate whether torture works or not.

In a nation of laws – beyond a bad cliché, “going forward” – or not pursuing justice – has now become “conventional wisdom.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi advanced this nonsensical conservative idea when she refused to hold impeachment hearings. In a poetic sense of justice, her strategy of “not looking back” is coming back to bite her. Rather than the architects of the criminal war being investigated, she now is on the hot seat. It is possible that this same “going forward” agenda – which has also been accepted by President Obama – may come back to derail the president’s seemingly naïve agenda.

Author retains copyright.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/18-5

Quarter of a million Sri Lankans face two years in camps
by Gethin Chamberlain via fleet 2009-05-20 11:46:52

Government is unrepentant about squalid conditions, saying Tamil Tigers must be weeded out from among civilians.

Many of the quarter of a million people held in internment camps in Sri Lanka face up to two years behind razor wire, a government official said today.

Despite international concern over conditions inside the camps, the defence ministry spokesman, Lakshman Hulugalle, said Sri Lanka was not prepared to let the UN dictate terms over the length of time people could be held.

A UN spokesman, Gordon Weiss, said he was "shocked" at the revelation, which ran counter to previous government assurances.

"It was our understanding that the government was to return 80% of the people to their homes by the end of the year, or at least try to," said Weiss.

The UN, Britain and human rights groups have been pressing the government in Colombo to release people from the camps as soon as possible. But Hulugalle said: "The UN can't dictate terms to us. They can always make a request but the UN hasn't asked us to release people. The government has a plan to resettle them. Let these agencies come and join us."

Hulugalle said the government had already resettled almost 200,000 people after the east of the country was liberated from Tamil Tiger control. "We were able to resettle them within nine months. This operation will take a little longer – one and a half to two years," he said.

Some elderly people with close relatives who could look after them had been released, but many others would have to stay behind for up to two years.

Responding to criticism of conditions inside the camps, where detainees have told the Guardian they are short of food, water and medicines, Hulugalle said: "You can't expect five-star hospitality in an area like that. What we are providing are the basics – security, food, health and schools. These are basic. You can't expect an Oxford college."

Hulugalle said the government had turned down an offer of 750 previously used blankets from the Hilton hotel group because people did not want to be treated as second-grade citizens. "They are not beggars," he said.

The government says it needs to hold the civilians until it can establish whether or not they are Tamil Tigers.

The news came as the Red Cross suspended delivery of supplies to displaced civilians after the Sri Lanka blocked access to camps it controls in the country's north.

"There is no access to these camps at this particular moment," said a Red Cross official in Geneva.

A second Sri Lankan official revealed that hardcore rebels were being held and interrogated in a secure unit in the south of the country. The defence ministry has refused to discuss their fate. Thousands of other former fighters are being held in what the government describes as "rehabilitation centres".

Suhada Gamalath, the man in charge of the jails where the majority of Tamil Tigers who surrendered are being held, said about 100 fighters were being held in a prison in Boosse, in the south of the country. He said they would eventually be brought to trial and could face up to 20 years' jail if convicted of murder.

Gamalath said between 2,000 and 3,000 former Tamil Tigers were imprisoned, with up to 60 more arriving every day. Most had given themselves up, he said. The total included about 250 below the age of 18, he said, with some as young as 14.

Save the Children claims that at least a quarter of pregnant and breastfeeding women in the internment camps are acutely malnourished.

Another government minister disputed the military's assessment of the timescale for rehabilitation, but admitted the task posed particular problems. The disaster management and human rights minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe, claimed that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had infiltrated the camps and there was a danger that some of those being held were potential suicide bombers.

Samarasinghe said the area where the civilians once lived had been heavily mined by the LTTE and would take time to clear. He insisted the government was committed to getting the lives of its citizens back to normal at the earliest possible opportunity and that they would be consulted throughout the process. But he said it was likely to take longer than the year it took to resettle civilians displaced by fighting in the east.

Samarasinghe also criticised some of the efforts of the UN agencies involved, claiming that tents supplied to house detainees were inadequate and unable to stand up to rain, and that toilets supplied by Unicef were not good enough.

"As much as they tell us to maintain international standards, it is incumbent on us as a government that if there are shortcomings on their part we tell them," he said.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is due to arrive in Sri Lanka on Friday to press the government to work towards reconciliation after 26 years of war and to allow humanitarian groups access to the camps.

The UN said Ban had met the Sri Lankan health minister in Geneva to press for access to the former battlefields. He said in a statement that the situation in Sri Lanka was of "grave and growing concern" and said more care needed to be provided for those affected by the conflict.

© 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/20/refugees-face-two-years-in-srilanka-camps

"Rumblings about the impossibility of closing Guantanamo": Action, cut!
by Eric Walberg via fleet 2009-05-20 11:59:01

Pornography, feminisation of the enemy? Confused over what Obama’s view on Guantanamo and the backlog of torture images from Abu Ghraib? Join the club.

The centrepiece of United States President Barack Obama’s PR campaign to show the world the US is the nice cop was to end the military tribunals, which he called “an enormous failure” during last year’s presidential campaign, and close the infamous Guantanamo prison. This was Obama’s first major “achievement” upon assuming office.

Rumblings about the impossibility of closing Guantanamo were being heard even as Obama took office. It appears there’s no place to send the prisoners, most of whom are innocent of anything other than fighting invaders, if that. Congress does not want to allow them to come to stay in equally notorious US jails, where overcrowding, violence, drugs and AIDS are endemic. Nor is Congress willing to fork over any money to close Guantanamo. Of course this is nonsense. Venezuela’s president offered to take them all, but Obama dare not accept any favours from someone so principled, lest his house of cards come tumbling down.

As for the tribunals, Obama faces two deadlines: his 120-day review of the tribunals has now ended, and on 27 May the trial of Ahmed Al-Darbi, a Saudi accused of plotting to attack a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, was scheduled to begin, and it appears it now will, but under slightly improved conditions, including restricting hearsay evidence. The tribunals now must move quickly in a race against the clock before Guantanamo is scheduled to be closed next January. If the prison is indeed closed and the trials are still going on then, the detainees will have to be brought to the US, where they will receive greater legal rights.

About 20 of the 241 detainees currently at Guantanamo will now be tried by military tribunals along with 13 already in the works. The rest of the detainees must either be released, transferred to other nations or tried by civilian prosecutors in US federal courts. It’s also possible that some could continue to be held indefinitely without trial as prisoners of war, though government officials insist they will now receive full Geneva Conventions protections.

The decision to persist with the tribunals was immediately attacked by critics. “It’s disappointing that Obama is seeking to revive rather than end this failed experiment,” said Jonathan Hafetz of the American Civil Liberties Union. “There’s no detainee at Guantanamo who cannot be tried and shouldn’t be tried in the regular federal courts system.”

How did this sorry state of affairs come about so soon after all the fanfare?

Obama stressed to families of victims of the USS Cole attack when he met them in February that he would not free “potential jihadists", but when Binyam Mohamed, suspected in a plot to set off a “dirty bomb” inside the US, was repatriated to Britain and released, this was greeted by a hysterical outcry in the US, ignoring the fact that Mohamed was determined to be innocent by the world’s oldest upholder of due process. The pressures on Obama to hold the Bush course are immense, with former vice president Richard Cheney brazenly attacking him as a wimp on US television.

Then there’s Obama’s decision to block the court-ordered release of more torture photos. He was for the pictures being released before deciding last week he was against it, apparently convinced by military officials the photos would increase danger for US troops.

Dawdling, of course, just confirms the view of the rest of the world, especially among Muslims, that Obama is not the principled liberal they were led to expect, that he is afraid to make a clean breast of the past atrocities, that he is merely a politically correct Bush lite. The irony being that, contrary to Cheney’s ravings, it is his very indecisiveness that increases the danger for US troops.

The legal intricacies of Guantanamo vs US incarceration and jurisdiction are less sensational than the torture pictures. But the likelihood of many Muslims actually seeing the latest shots of US troops in Iraq sodomising those who resist them is remote. In any case, the pictures were originally intended for possible publication by the torturers themselves. This startling revelation was made by Seymour Hersh in 2004 when he exposed the logic behind the officially-condoned US strategy of sexual torture. The idea was to use blackmail to encourage victims to work for the occupiers as spies, threatening to publish the photos unless the victims agreed to collaborate with the occupiers. A government consultant revealed to Hersh, “I was told that the purpose of the photographs was to create an army of informants, people you could insert back in the population."

The strategy, of course, failed spectacularly, and the photos — old and new — are being consumed primarily by jingoistic Americans revelling in such scenes of violence inflicted on the “enemy”, inured to the monstrosity of this by their regular diet of media violence and Islamophobia. Already the “blocked” photos are being leaked all over the net, making Obama’s last minute efforts a fool’s errand.

How such unconscionable behaviour became official US policy is fascinating. American pilots were trained during the “first” Gulf War by watching pornographic films, according to the Washington Post at the time. In order to better subjugate Arab Iraq, according to Joseph Massad, “American imperial military culture supermasculinises not only its own male soldiers, but also its female soldiers who can partake of the feminisation of Iraqi men.” The pornographic pictures are merely the logical outcome of this strategy to subdue the so-called enemy, constructed by diabolical Pentagon strategists. The 2003 invasion updated this strategy, though with unintended consequences, as new technology allowed simple soldiers to produce their own DVDs of their sadistic frolics.

This stark reality is inverted in Washington, as interpreted by Obama’s envoy of peace to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, who told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about US media efforts in Pakistan: “Concurrent with the insurgency is an information war. We are losing that war.” Rather than acknowledging past sins, however, he advocates even more TV and radio propaganda supporting the US wars. Holbrooke is referring to the $100 million propaganda campaign launched by the Bush regime in Iraq in 2005 by a Washington-based PR firm to plant administration propaganda in the Iraqi news media and to pay Iraqi journalists to write favourable stories about the occupation.

So it appears withholding the Abu Ghraib photos is really part of the US government media war, just as the question mark over Guantanamo is really part of the military plans to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan come hell or high water. And that these policies are not up for discussion. The reversal of Obama’s key policies after only a few months does not bode well for him or the US.

Perhaps withholding the photos is also connected with the appointment of Stanley McChrystal as head of the military in Afghanistan, which should brace itself for more Abu Ghraib-style action. McChrystal cut his teeth in Iraq, where he directed the Joint Special Operations Command’s special operation teams, which carry out assassinations and terrorise local populations opposed to the occupation. McChrystal was a favourite of Rumsfeld and Cheney. He was a direct participant in overseeing torture, according to a report by Esquire and Human Rights Watch in 2006.

Just about everyone but the US officials conducting their war on terrorism realise by now that it is this very policy that is producing more and more jihadists, and will continue to produce them until Obama, or some future less timid president, declares an end to this campaign of terror being conducted by the US itself, with its allies dragged kicking and screaming behind it.

This is no time for Obama to be indecisive. Guantanamo must be closed and remaining prisoners must be tried in US courts or repatriated. If that’s a problem, he can always take up Chavez’s offer. And patch up relations with him and Castro in the process. Hell, why not give back Guantanamo to Cuba as a peace offering while he’s at it? The important thing is not to blink while he’s doing what’s right, or else the jackals of war will chew him to shreds.

The latest fear among Democrats is that the gulf between them and the Republicans is widening, even as Democratic policies are gaining support among the people. Huh? They should take a leaf from FDR’s book, to fear nothing but fear alone. Let the Republicans march into the wilderness. Take control of US politics for the next two decades by following truly popular, socially just policies. Americans are not imperialists at heart. They will follow you. And be sure to close Guantanamo.

© 2009 Eric Walberg, Al Ahram Weekly

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13677

U.S. gets cheers in Kosovo after cool Serb welcome
by Adam Tanner via dusan 2009-05-21 07:59:02

US VP, Joe 'loose ends' Biden, took time out from his normal duties of driving tourist mini-buses around the White House to visit the Balkans and affirm America's criminal role in illegally amputating Kosovo from the sovereign state of Serbia!

Biden revealed the naivety and ignorance of America by stating that Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence is "irreversible." Really! We suggest Biden read a book on European history prior to reading issues of LAW relating to Sovereign European States!

But reading LAW is definitely out of the question for American politicians. The USA has broken and flouted more Laws and Conventions in the past decade than all other nations combined!

But we prefer to take a philosophical approach in response to Biden's feeble and IGNORANT statement. Nothing is 'irreversible' in this universe, Joe; we suggest you stick to taking tourists on guided tours of the White House in future; do not strain your pea brain attempting to determine what is legal or what is permanent.

Keep your eye on New York City if you imagine in your wildest delusions that stealing Kosovo ensures "stability." I resisted the temptation to add 'you screaming idiot!'

Reuters report follows:

PRISTINA (Reuters) - Vice President Joe Biden received a tumultuous welcome in Kosovo on Thursday just hours after leaving Serbia where thousands of police kept streets empty to avoid anti-American protests.

The contrasting welcomes on a three-day tour of the Balkans highlighted both warm Kosovar feelings for the United States which has supported its independence, and the still uneasy relations between Serbia and Washington.

"Welcome and Thank You," said posters across Pristina, showing pictures of Biden, a former U.S. senator known for his support of Kosovo independence from Serbia.

Thousands of schoolchildren lined his route into town, holding up American and Kosovo flags. They cheered wildly as his black limousine passed, and some chanted: "USA, USA."

"The United States and God saved us in 1999. Biden is our man and I came here to see him," said Shukri Morina, who traveled 30 kilometers (19 miles) to Pristina.

In Serbia, police cleared the streets of people who still bitterly remember the NATO 1999 bombing of Belgrade, and some offices were told to keep their windows shut with the curtains drawn. Hundreds of police lined Biden's route to the airport and even the tarmac itself.

Kosovo, where more than 90 percent of its two million people are ethnic Albanians, declared independence last year, but Serbia is suing in an international court, claiming it had no right to do so.

International troops still patrol, including about 1,400 from the United States. Over the past decade the international community has given billions of dollars in aid to landlocked Kosovo, the Balkans' smallest geographic country.

"I think the government has made considerable progress in the first year, it's remarkable," Biden said in a meeting with Kosovo's prime minister and president. "The United States has made it clear that the recognition of Kosovo is irreversible."

Unemployment is still very high and crime and corruption remain serious. With several European Union countries refusing to recognize Kosovo, it is the only Balkan country without any EU prospects at present.

"We have given our commitments to continue good governance, transparency, rule of law and fight corruption," said Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. Biden's visit "is a reconfirmation of powerful support from the U.S. for the progress that we have achieved in Kosovo."

CHURCH DISPUTE

To highlight American support for the rights of the ethnic Serb minority, Biden plans to visit the 14th century Decani monastery, one of the jewels of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

But Orthodox Church leaders in Kosovo with jurisdiction over Decani criticized the plans.

"The U.S. vice president is visiting Kosovo as an independent state, to confirm the forceful secession of Serbia's territory and its handover to Albanian terrorists who were not punished for numerous crimes against Serbian people, Serbian property and Serbian cultural and religious heritage," they said in a press statement.

"Does Joseph Biden want to confirm with his gesture that Decani is an American base in Kosovo, the same as camp Bondsteel?" the statement asked, referring to a military base Biden was also to visit on Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Fatos Bytyci in Pristina and Branislav Krstic in Decani; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

© 2009 Thomson Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE54K1SC20090521

Must see doco -- "Orwell Rolls In His Grave"
by fleet 2009-05-21 22:18:34

Orwell Rolls In His Grave - PART 1 of 11

[CFR]:Money Out Of Nothing (1 of 3)

[CFR]:The Unseen Guardian Angels (2 of 3)

[CFR]:Media Controlled and Manipulated by Corporate (3 of 3)

Dick Cheney ex-director of CFR talks to David Rockefeller


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrnfPha8nXc