Serbia 'disgusted' with US Kosovo policy
by SMH via rialator 2007-06-11 13:16:33

Belgrade is "disgusted" with US President George Bush's call for Kosovo to quickly be granted independence, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said on Monday, insisting Washington had no right to give away Serbian territory.

"The United States has a right to support certain states and nations in accordance with its interests, but definitely not by giving away as a gift something which does not belong to it," Kostunica told the Beta news agency.

Kostunica's strongly-worded reaction came a day after Bush underscored the need to speed up the process of granting the ethnic Albanian majority province independence under a United Nations plan vehemently opposed by Belgrade and its ally Moscow.

"We need to get moving and the end result is independence ... Independence is the goal," Bush said in the Albanian capital Tirana on Sunday.

But Kostunica said Serbia was "rightfully disgusted with the US policy on Kosovo".

"America must find another way to show its affection and love for the Albanians, without offering them Serbian territories," he said.

He added the US-led NATO air war on Serbia in 1999, launched to halt a crackdown by the Slobodan Milosevic regime on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians, was "a big enough mistake for the last century, and this one is as well".

"Supporting one-sided independence for Kosovo would be a new mistake, a further act of unjustified violence, which the Serbian people would not forget," said Kostunica.

A fierce opponent of Kosovo's separation from Serbia, Kostunica said Belgrade would "reject and annul any form of independence for its southern province".

"For Serbia, there will never be an independent Kosovo," he said.

Though technically a Serbian province, Kosovo has been UN-run since the end of the NATO assault in mid-1999.

Some 10,000 ethnic Albanians died and hundreds of thousands fled Kosovo during the 1998-1999 conflict between Serbian government troops and ethnic Albanian separatists.

The UN plan for Kosovo's future status was drafted by its special envoy Martti Ahtisaari after a year of mostly fruitless talks between Serbia and Kosovo Albanian leaders.

It has been backed by the United States and European Union, but staunchly opposed by Serbia and Russia, which has threatened to block any imposed Kosovo resolution before the UN Security Council.

© 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/serbia-disgusted-with-us-kosovo-policy/2007/06/12/1181414258809.html

Dissident Challenges U.N. Role on Kosovo
by Nicholas Wood via rialator 2007-06-11 13:40:13

PRISTINA, Kosovo, June 11 — Like countless ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, Albin Kurti spent the weekend glued to his television set, watching President Bush’s visit to Albania. He was eager to see what Mr. Bush would say from just across the border about Kosovo’s efforts to gain its independence from Serbia.

Mr. Bush did say that he supported independence for Kosovo as soon as possible, but Mr. Kurti, who opposes the United Nations’ role in determining the status of Kosovo, was unimpressed.

He says he believes that the United Nations plan for the province would leave the United States and Europe with too much power, noting that it would allow an appointed figure to intervene in Kosovo’s police and judiciary matters.

“This is a typical colonial situation,” he said in an interview on Saturday. “Of course it has modern wrapping, but it remains a colonial situation.”

Mr. Kurti, a former dissident who was jailed for his opposition to the former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, has urged that Kosovo’s future be decided in a referendum rather than in the Security Council.

He has led a series of demonstrations against the United Nations, and was sent to prison in February after one violent protest in which two people were killed and 82 wounded. Last Thursday, he was released and placed under house arrest while awaiting trial.

The treatment of Mr. Kurti has increased nervousness among Kosovo politicians and international officials here as the status of the province remains up in the air. Under the United Nations plan for independence, Kosovo would be supervised by a European-led mission for three years.

The plan awaits approval by the Security Council, but the Russians may well veto it on behalf of their ally, the Serbs.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kurti continues to get his message across. In order for the province to obtain “true independence,” Kosovo must be allowed to run all of its own affairs, he argued from his apartment, as two policemen stood guard outside.

The real reason for the charges against him, he claims, is his opposition to the United Nations plan, and fears among politicians and United Nations officials that the protests will jeopardize Kosovo’s independence. Several human rights groups and the province’s ombudsman have said that the charges appear to be politically motivated.

Mr. Kurti’s stance has made him deeply unpopular with many of his ethnic group. Most ethnic Albanians, who make up an estimated 90 percent of Kosovo’s population, support the Western plan for Kosovo as their best prospect of gaining independence after eight years of rule by a United Nations administration, and seven decades of Serbian domination before that.

Despite the criticism of the arrest and imprisonment of Mr. Kurti, one political analyst said the sympathies of Albanians generally lay with the United Nations in this case.

“People do not oppose his detention,” said the analyst, Besa Shahini, the director of the Kosovar Stability Initiative, a political research group based in Pristina. “There is a sense of relief that he cannot do anything that would jeopardize the final status process.”

Yet his group, Vetevendosja — which means “self-determination” in Albanian — has caught the imagination of the urban youth of Kosovo, who are fed up with the United Nations’ presence in the region.

The group has led numerous eye-catching protests at the United Nations headquarters in Pristina, in one case leading around a donkey bearing a United Nations sign.

On Feb. 10, violent clashes ensued after Vetevendosja protesters tried to force their way through a police cordon in Pristina. The police responded by firing tear gas canisters and rubber-coated bullets, killing two demonstrators.

The unrest was the most serious in Kosovo since rioting in 2004; Kosovo’s interior minister resigned and the chief of the United Nations police force was asked to step down.

Mr. Kurti was arrested and accused of leading a demonstration “that led to the deaths of persons and injury of 82 others.” He also is accused of preventing United Nations personnel from carrying out their duties and faces a maximum sentence of 10 years.

A report by the United Nations mission blamed a Romanian police unit serving with the United Nations for the deaths and injuries, but concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge the police officers.

At another court hearing on May 7, a United Nations prosecutor argued that Mr. Kurti needed to remain in detention in light of “the danger the defendant represents to the future status of Kosovo,” according to a transcript of the hearing.

That comment upset human rights groups monitoring the treatment of Mr. Kurti. “Regardless of the status of negotiations, the premise of freedom of expression should not be jeopardized,” said Hilmi Jashari, Kosovo’s ombudsman.


© 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/12/world/europe/12kosovo.html

ex-pat Serb
by chicago 2007-06-11 14:41:51

Serbs have been fighting against oppressors and insurmountable odds for over 700 years and they have prevailed, ask Hitler and his 12 divisions (less for the invasion of Russia!) I am far enough away from the land of my forefathers to appreciate the broader picture.

Kosovo is Serbian and anyone who would attempt to usurp Serbian sovereignty is looking for trouble. You see, after 700 hundred years of fighting against overwhelming odds Serbs have developed an unusual habit, they only fight hard and well when all the odds are against them -- read your history and understand that you would not be fighting Arab tribalists but a hardened European Slavic force known for its guerilla tactics and strategies that have proven successful over many centuries.

Serbs also have a very peculiar cultural characteristic, they are 'friendly' with death -- visit any Serbian cemetery and witness a Serbian burial and others at gravesites holding dialogues with the deceased. Serbs are the only European CHRISTIAN culture that embraces death without fear.

Know this and listen well, Serbs are currently in every nation on the planet and they will fight if pushed too far. The fight will be in your face on YOUR home soil and the tactics you would have never seen before.

Be advised!

The Field of Blackbirds (Kosovo) is sacred to the Serbian people regardless of the number of shiptas (Albanians) living within its borders.

Also, a regrettable precedent would be set if Kosovo was given independence based on ethnic numbers – Spain-Basques, Latinos-Florida/California and various majority communities living under another flag in the Russias and other regions would most likely begin moves for independence.


There are many things you could say about that idiot Bush, but a point upon which everyone agrees is that he is a dunce in international affairs and so too are his advisers, it would seem.

If you want a fight from which you would never recover or ever forget, then proceed!

Serbia says it won't trade Kosovo for EU or NATO
by Douglas Hamilton via rialator 2007-06-11 22:49:34

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia will never surrender Kosovo to the breakaway province's ethnic Albanian majority or trade its territory for European Union or NATO membership, Serb leaders said on Tuesday.

Serbia "will give up neither Kosovo nor its European future", President Boris Tadic said in a statement which rejected "any compensation for lost territory".

"It would be damaging if any country recognized the independence of Kosovo without a proper decision by the Security Council", he added.

The statement was softer in tone but much the same in substance as a vow by Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, who on Monday said U.S. President George W. Bush had "disgusted" Serbs by promising independence to Kosovo and would not be forgiven.

Kostunica on Tuesday said taking land from a sovereign state "in return for the offer of a bright future" was unacceptable.

The row deepened as Kosovo marked the 8th anniversary of the deployment of 60,000 troops of NATO, which bombed Serbia for 11 weeks in 1999 to compel it to withdraw forces who killed some 10,000 Albanian civilians in a counter-insurgency conflict.

The dispute over Kosovo's independence has turned into a diplomatic standoff between Russia and the West.

Western hopes that pro-Western Tadic would be more amenable than Kostunica to the West's wish to grant statehood to Kosovo's 90 percent ethnic Albanian evaporated on May 15 after he and Kostunica sealed a coalition pact and closed ranks on the issue.

MOSCOW OR BRUSSELS?

In a desperate diplomatic bid to head off the loss of 15 percent of its territory, Serbia now relies heavily on Russia, which has made plain it may veto a U.N. resolution that Serbia does not support.

That reliance on Moscow sits awkwardly with Serbia's bid for EU membership, the prime goal of Tadic's Democratic Party. While there is no formal linkage, dealing a blow to EU diplomacy on Kosovo with Russian help would harm that project.

Kosovo's two million Albanians would make up 22 percent of Serbia's population, if they stayed. No one has come up with a plan to persuade or force them to do that.

They were not invited to vote in Serbia's last several elections, which they ignored, and Kostunica's offer of "full autonomy" foresees no role for them in the Serbian parliament.

Visiting neighboring Albania on Sunday, Bush said he would keep talking to Russia, but at some point, "sooner rather than later, you have to say enough is enough, Kosovo is independent".

Diplomats say the West may take Kosovo to a Security Council vote this month, daring Moscow to veto. Serbia's Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic said Belgrade would immediately "annul" any unilateral declaration of independence.

"We warn of a terrible precedent... when the entire edifice of the international legal system would collapse like dominoes, and consequences would be awful," he said.

NATO and the U.N. are braced for huge protests and possible violence in Kosovo if Russia vetoes an independence resolution.

(Additional reporting by Ivana Sekularac and Fatos Bytyci)

© Reuters 2007

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL1215381120070612