Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War Part 1

A documentary which traces how crucial mistakes made by the West helped lead to the unnecessary breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, culminating in the devastating NATO bombing campaign in 1999.

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Report: Kosovo's "fundamental problem" is uncertainty about its future, official says

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The prime minister of Kosovo said Tuesday that the fundamental problem of the U.N.-administered province in Serbia is the uncertainty about its future, a news report said.

"I'm speaking about ... the approach to the future, about having a country one can recognize as one's own," Prime Minister Agim Ceku said in comments quoted by the Austria Press Agency.

He spoke at a meeting of politicians, academics and others in the Tyrolean town of Alpbach.

The people of Kosovo did not know "in which country they were living", which system of government they will have, who was heading the security forces and who was responsible for their energy supply, Ceku said, according to APA.

Kosovo has been administered by the U.N. since mid-1999 when a NATO air war halted Serb forces' crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians. U.N. mediators have been trying to narrow differences between the two sides over how Kosovo should be run in the future. But while Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority insists on independence, the Serb minority and Belgrade both want Serbia to retain some control over the province.

Earlier this month, Kosovo Serbs boycotted a round of talks on minority rights in Vienna, saying they would not accept being treated as a minority group, as they considered themselves citizens of Serbia, where they are in the majority.

Kosovo’s Separation Would Lead to War and to Macedonia’s Partition

30 August 2006 | 16:33 | FOCUS News Agency

Washington. If Kosovo is divided between the Albanians and the Serbs on the ethnical principle this would lead to a new war and to Macedonia’s separation as well. This is what the report of the Institute for Peace in Washington reads, Macedonian newspaper Dnevnik informs. As a solution to Kosovo’s division the Institute proposes the introduction of English as the language of the state institutions which would be acceptable both for the Albanians and the Serbs. The warnings in the report are published only a day after EU Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner stated that Kosovo is threatened by new clashes and rioting. “If the Serbs in Kosovo are given a state the Albanians in Macedonia will want the same. This will also happen with the Albanians in the valley of Presevo,” the report warns.

Russia wants common approach over Kosovo, Abkhazia and Ossetia

Moscow /30/08/ 14:32

Russia insists that a common approach be taken to resolving the problem of Kosovo and other regional, "frozen" conflicts, Russian deputy foreign minister Vladimir Titov said Wednesday.

"It is extremely important to avoid a situation when one approach is taken to the Kosovo problem and another one to similar conflicts in other regions," Titov said.

Russia has repeatedly said that sovereignty Kosovo could have negative consequences for conflicts in the former Soviet Union that erupted in the early 1990s.

Russia has peacekeepers stationed in the zones of three conflicts in the former Soviet Union. Two of them are in Georgia, where the self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia refuse to recognize Tbilisi's rule, and the other is in Moldova, where the unrecognized Transdnestr has sought to break away from the central authorities.

"For us it is obvious that the Kosovo factor has influenced processes in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transdnestr, and other regions in Europe and the world," Titov said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in July against any double standards with regard to the unrecognized republics in Georgia and Moldova and said there had always been contradictions in the principles of international law.

Parliament to discuss Kosovo soon

30 August 2006 | 11:39 | Source: B92 BELGRADE, PRIŠTINA -- The Serbian Government will call for a parliamentary meeting to be held regarding Kosovo.

The Belgrade negotiation team will present a report on the progress of the Kosovo status discussions, said the Government’s Media Office Director Srđan Đurić.

It is still not completely certain whether Belgrade will launch an initiative to have the UN’s Special Envoy for the Kosovo status discussions Martti Ahtisaari replaced because of his recent comment that the Serbian people are to blame for the Kosovo crisis.

Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica said that the Government and the entire negotiation delegation will systematically lead diplomatic actions towards making sure that all relevant international officials know that Ahtisaari, as the Prime Minister said, holds strong prejudices against the Serbian people.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s spokesperson Brandon Varma said that Annan will continue to support Ahtisaari and that he will continue to lead the status talks, adding that his statement was taken out of context.

Ahtisaari’s media spokesperson Remi Durlo confirmed this.

Serbian decentralisation work group official Ranđel Nojkić said that the Chief of the US Office in Priština, Tina Kaidanow, held a meting with party leaders of the Kosovo parliament and commission presidents.

“At the meeting, probably under the influence of Ahtisaari’s statement, a lot of far-reaching statements were heard. Sabit Hamiti, member of the Kosovo Parliament’s presidency and official of the Democratic Association of Kosovo, said that the Albanian team does not have the mandate to discuss Kosovo’s status, because the status has already been defined, and that it can only discuss technical questions. Teuta Sariči, ORA party member, said that the US administration has asked for support in the propaganda fight for highlighting the goals of the Albanian side. We reacted strongly to these statements and asked that the international community to prevent further statements of this nature, because such comments could encourage a new spiral of violence.” Nojkić said.

“It is interesting that officials of non-Albanian communities and officials of parties that have non-Albanians within them showed distrust and disapproval towards the Albanian team. Distrust in the council led by Veton Suroi was also shown and it was asked that he be replaced as chief of the council because he is not helping the matter, rather causing more damage to the interests of the minority communities.” Nojkić said

Belgrade negotiating team criticizes Kosovo Serb leader Oliver Ivanovic

Members of the Belgrade negotiating team for the Kosovo talks, Leon Kojen and Slobodan Samardzic, have openly criticized Kosovo Serb leader Oliver Ivanovic for allegedly dominating talks with UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari during his recent visit to Kosovo, according to a Serbian newspaper report. Ivanovic told the paper that he had essentially presented the same proposals on decentralization as the Belgrade negotiating team and rejected claims that he was a "loose cannon". The following is the text of the report by Biljana Bakovic entitled "Favouring Oliver" published by the Serbian newspaper Politika on 26 August:

The four-day visit to Serbia's southern province [Kosovo] by Martti Ahtisaari, the UN special envoy for the status of Kosmet [Kosovo-Metohija], has exposed divisions on the Serbian side over the issue of the decentralization of Kosmet. Yesterday [25 August] Leon Kojen and Slobodan Samardzic, members of Belgrade's negotiating team, openly expressed displeasure with Ahtisaari's choice of interlocutor among representatives of the Kosmet Serbs.

They said that Oliver Ivanovic (the head of the Serb List for Kosovo-Metohija, who met with Martti Ahtisaari on Wednesday) is "systematically monopolizing the name and authority of the Serb List for Kosovo-Metohija for his own personal proposals". Moreover, the special envoy and his office, UNOSEK [UN Office of the Special Envoy for Kosovo], "are giving stronger political preference to Oliver Ivanovic and the Serb List, as if Ivanovic has made the only proposal for decentralization," Kojen and Samardzic said, thus confirming that the Serbian side in the critical talks on the southern province is experiencing rifts that others are obviously taking advantage of.

At a news conference held yesterday in the Serbian government building, Samardzic and Kojen were also critical of the fact that while in Kosmet, Ahtisaari spent more time talking about the number of municipalities than about their authorities.

The Serbian negotiators expect UNOSEK to inform them directly of what was offered to the Albanian side and what their response was.

Samardzic said that the mayors of the three Serb municipalities in northern Kosovo "presented their position appropriately and properly, a position that is identical to that of negotiating team." However, he added, in talks with the Serbian side UNOSEK gave priority to the leader of the Serb List for Kosovo-Metohija, who used that opportunity to present his own proposal, which differs from Belgrade's official stance.

Leon Kojen noted that the member of the Serb List on Belgrade's negotiating team is Goran Bogdanovic, who did not support Ivanovic's proposal. "What Oliver Ivanovic is doing, both when he submits proposals to Ahtisaari and when he meets with (Kosovo Prime Minister) Agim Ceku, is political manipulation," said Kojen, recalling that Randjel Nojkic, a member of the Serb List with close ties to Ivanovic, protested about his meeting with Ceku.

The harshness of Kojen's attitude towards Oliver Ivanovic was further evidenced by his observation that he has not seen any reports in the Belgrade media about the Serb List leader visiting any Serb enclave in Kosovo and holding open forums anywhere in the province, nor any reports on him having any contact with the populace that he "ostensibly represents". Kojen went on to say that the proposal for decentralization in Kosovo that was presented as a Serb List document is actually a proposal by Oliver Ivanovic and a small group of people, and for that reason the state negotiating team saw no need to respond and react to that plan.

In a phone interview with Politika, meanwhile, the "censured" Oliver Ivanovic responded that it was precisely because of the egos of allies of the Serbian president and prime minister that the Serb List's plan was not considered by the negotiating team. He also says that there are no major differences between the two Serbian plans for decentralization. "The only difference lies in the supporting arguments, which in our case are much more realistic and more attuned to the people since they came from the people, and thus they are also better received by the international community," he says. He emphasizes that the Serb List is seeking greater authorities for municipalities with a Serb majority than the Serbian negotiating team is. "Second, the Serb List has included Lipljan, the urban part (which with Novo Naselje has more than 1,500 Serbs and, among other things, two 14th century churches), but the Belgrade negotiating team does not include it. The Serb List has included Crkvena Vodica and Janjina Vodica, and our negotiating team has not. We are more demanding, but they are listening to us," says Ivanovic, adding that Goran Bogdanovic who, in his words, was sent to the state negotiating team by the Serb List, "has not succeeded in warning them of the danger of making proposals that will not be accepted most of all by the Serb community itself."

"Goran Bogdanovic is unable to win out on that point. What we are talking about here is something that we gave him to convey to the negotiating team, but he did not manage to push that through. We waited three months to take action, and during that time no one reacted, saying either yes or no," he emphasizes.

He adds that more than 100 ordinary people were consulted when drafting this proposal. "We did not consult any outsiders. And Kojen's statement about disagreement within our ranks is not true. The entire Serb List is absolutely unified on this. We spoke with ordinary farmers. Thus, we did have contact. It is totally ridiculous and utterly unnatural for someone who has never seen Kosovo with his own two eyes, except on the map and on the TV screen, to talk about what should be done and how," Ivanovic says.

Since such actions have led some officials in Belgrade, and some representatives of Kosmet's Serbs, to regard him as a "loose cannon", Ivanovic emphasizes that he is certainly no such thing, since he was elected. "The Serb List is not a negotiator, we set the record straight on that, Ahtisaari told us that and we said the same thing to him. Only the Belgrade negotiating team has legitimacy, but does that mean that all of the rest of us have to remain silent in the meantime? We are here only to try to unblock the process with our initiatives," he emphasizes, but he refuses to comment when asked whether he means to say that Belgrade has blocked the negotiating process.

"The fact that Ahtisaari did not come to Belgrade should ultimately be taken as a warning. Much more important than what we think about ourselves and our actions is what Ahtisaari, the Contact Group and the UN Security Council think about what individuals are doing, especially the heads of the negotiating teams," Ivanovic stresses.

Still, he feels that this "dual-track" approach by the Serbian side does not benefit the Albanian side. "That only leaves a bad impression, I must admit, but it does not serve their purposes, because the Serb List's demands are much greater and much better supported by arguments, and thus much more dangerous too," Ivanovic emphasizes.

However, his remarks about unity within the Serb List are refuted by none other than Goran Bogdanovic, the member of the negotiating team and of the Serb List representing the Democratic Party, who says that at a joint meeting with Ahtisaari he "defended" Belgrade's proposal, while Ivanovic presented a "proposal from individuals in the Serb List".

"It is neither my desire nor my intention to assuage the frustrations of certain people in the Serb List. There is no unity within the Serb List, because when the decentralization plan was discussed, I and several other members of the Serb List were opposed to the Serb List presenting its own plan, in the belief that the proposal by the state team should also be the proposal of the Serb List and of all Serbs, especially those in Kosovo-Metohija. It is a fact that a huge number of Serbs agreed with the state team's proposal, so that for me personally there was no dilemma about which side to stand on," says Bogdanovic in a phone interview with Politika.

Emphasizing that no one has the right to torpedo the work of the state team, he notes that there was no need for individuals from the Serb List to put forward this proposal, because in February, when the talks began, he presented the views of the Serb List to the coordinators of the team, Kojen and Samardzic, and they were all incorporated into the negotiating team's plan. He says that this reflected his good intentions in terms of reaching an agreement within the Serb List on such matters in February, but he stresses that the Serb List did not delegate him to the state team, nor did anyone authorize him to present to the team the proposal that Ivanovic is talking about.

Source: Politika, Belgrade, in Serbian 26 Aug 06 pp 1, 7

Kosovska Mitrovica bombing suspect detained

29 August 2006 | 19:19 | Source: Beta KOSOVSKA MITROVICA -- 16-year-old Adem Dibrani has been jailed for a 30-day detention period.

The Priština media is reporting today that Dibrani suffers from hemophilia, while his parents are quoted as saying he had undergone a brain surgery, resulting in memory-loss, and has since always been accompanied by a family member.

On the day of the attack, Dibrani was with his father and sister, in a shop in the southern part of the town. Dibrani’s sister claims he was in the middle of the bridge at the moment of the explosion, and had started running scared toward the southern part, which caused the police to chase after him and arrest him.

The Kosovo media are also reporting on a possibility that the security cameras on the northern and southern ends of the bridge might have malfunctioned at the moment of the explosion.

UNMIK police: Serb leaders helped

UNMIK police has published a report on the events that followed the grenade explosion in a café in Kosovska Mitrovica. UNMIK police communicated that order was established in the wake of the attack, and reported on the events that immediately followed the attack: “Right after the attack, a group of people, approximately 500 strong, gathered around the cafe and at the northern end of the bridge, protesting the violence. The bridge was closed and access points barricaded as a result.”

“Another woman was injured as a result of the events that took place after the incident itself. The 57-year-old was in the passenger seat of a vehicle attempting to drive through a large number of people, and was hit by a stone. The vehicle continued to move through the crowd, passed the barricades and went across the bridge”, the police report says. The local media have earlier reported the woman in question was an Albanian and was hospitalized.

UNMIK’s regional commander Gary Smith said the rapid reaction and the cooperation with the Kosovo Police Service, as well as with the Serb leaders and KFOR, prevented the situation from spinning out of control. “Immediately after the explosion, KPS members who were positioned at the bridge apprehended the person believed to have been involved, and transferred him to the police station. On Saturday night in critical moments the leadership of the Serbian National Council helped UNMIK Police to keep the situation under control and defuse the tension”, Smith said.

Belgrade's criticism cannot harm Ahtisaari's post

Belgrade, 09:08

Belgrade's condemnation can do no harm to the UN special envoy on Kosovo status talks Martti Ahtisaari, Belgrade's daily Blic said.

Blic daily quotes an unnamed diplomat close to Contact Group as saying that Contact Group was pleased with Ahtisaari's handling of negotiations.

The source did not reveal whether the Contact Group shares Ahtisaari's position that "Serbs were guilty as a nation", which angered Belgrade and caused strong condemnation by Serbian government.

The unnamed diplomat stressed that status envoy Martti Ahtisaari implements the Contact Group's policy.

"Nobody in the Contact Group said anything against conditional independence of Kosovo. Certain disagreements could occur regarding the pace of decision-making, as European members could urge slow-down of negotiations," the diplomat said.

Blic daily says Ahtisaari would probably come up with a package of proposals to the UN Security Council by September 18. The next round of direct negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina is likely to take place in Vienna on September 8.

Surroi spells out Serbia's collective responsibility

Pristina, 12:50

Veton Surroi, member of Kosovo's delegation for status talks, said Serbia bears a huge burden of collective responsibility for the wars in the past 10 years.

"Responsibility cannot be individualized, the society had created Slobodan Milosevic's movement and fascist structures in Serbia," Surroi told Radio Free Europe.

Surroi said Hague Tribunal's jurisdiction is to individualize the guilt, adding that he shares the position of the UN special envoy on the Kosovo status talks Martti Ahtisaari if he meant "collective responsibility". /end/

KFOR Chief: Kosovo to Enter a Crucial Political Phase by Year’s End

29 August 2006 | 14:14 | FOCUS News Agency

Berlin. The new KFOR chief German Major-General Roland Kather has said that Kosovo will have entered a crucial political phase by the end of the year and the international forces will aim to provide the appropriate conditions for taking the decisions under stable conditions”, the Serbian agency Tanjug reported. Major-General Roland Kather has also stated that he hopes it won’t be necessary for KFOR to increase its capacity.

The Real 9/11 Conspiracy

By Cliff Kincaid | August 29, 2006

The so-called 9/11 Truth Movement, which has been covered extensively by C-SPAN as well as Al-Jazeera, has confused many Americans and Muslims alike about the nature of the 9/11 attacks. This movement, which includes associates of Lyndon LaRouche, who openly supported Saddam Hussein before the first Gulf war, are telling us that the Bush Administration was really behind the 9/11 attacks and blamed them on the Arabs so it could go to war in the Middle East.

Incredibly, polls shows that about one-third of the American people-and majorities of Muslims in many Arab countries-actually believe this disinformation. In reality, of course, as extensively documented by Al-Jazeera itself, Osama bin Laden's international al-Qaeda terrorist network planned and carried out the suicide hijackings. This information can be considered reliable because Al-Jazeera has been consistently shown to be an outlet for al-Qaeda propaganda with sources inside the terror network. Indeed, its Kabul, Afghanistan, reporter is now in prison because he was convicted of being an agent of al Qaeda linked to the 9/11 plot.

While the Bush Administration can be criticized for ignoring warnings that an attack like 9/11 might occur, it is the Clinton Administration which can be accused of actually facilitating 9/11 by conducting a foreign policy that promoted the rise of radical Islam.

We have looked at some of this evidence before, in an AIM Report published shortly after 9/11, but we must take another look because developments over the years have added to the case against the Clinton Administration.

First, the Clinton Administration was allied with radical Islam when it waged a war on Serbia and the CIA was ordered to assist the Kosovo Liberation Army, some of whose members were trained by bin Laden. That was 1999-two years before 9/11.

One of many stories about such connections appeared in the Washington Times on May 4, 1999, and was written by Jerry Seper. It said, "Some members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has financed its war effort through the sale of heroin, were trained in terrorist camps run by international fugitive Osama bin Laden...the KLA members, embraced by the Clinton administration in NATO's...bombing campaign to bring Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to the bargaining table, were trained in secret camps in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere, according to newly obtained intelligence reports...The reports said bin Laden's organization, known as al-Qaeda, has both trained and financially supported the KLA. Many border crossings into Kosovo by 'foreign fighters' also have been documented and include veterans of the militant group Islamic Jihad from Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan."

After 9/11, Dollars for Terror, an important book by Swiss television journalist Richard Labeviere, explained in detail what was happening and how it had backfired on the U.S. He presented the thesis that the international Islamic networks linked to bin Laden were nurtured by elements of the U.S. intelligence community, especially during the Clinton years.

This is a shocking view, but it puts other developments in perspective, such as Clinton support for radical Muslims in such places as Kosovo and Bosnia before that. The book also suggests that Islamic radicals, who were present in the U.S. in the 1990s and training to fly aircraft, were tolerated because it was believed that they were going to hit targets in other countries, not the United States.

In other words, the CIA was actively assisting the bin Laden network, thinking it would serve U.S. interests.

This background is necessary to consider the revelations about Able Danger, the secret military intelligence network that had apparent knowledge of the 9/11 hijackers being active in the U.S. Despite congressional hearings on this matter, much is still not known about Able Danger and who knew what about the presence of the 9/11 hijackers on American soil. But we do know that Rep. Curt Weldon, who has done the most in Congress to get to the bottom of this intriguing story, is being targeted for defeat by a number of former Clinton Administration officials and former CIA official Mary McCarthy. They have all contributed to his opponent Joseph Sestak. Do they have something to hide?

In this context, it is noteworthy that the CIA issued a January 2000 report that essentially whitewashed the nature of the KLA and claimed it was pro-American. The only public release of this dubious report came through Rep. Elliot Engel, in a posting on the website of the National Albanian American Council, which supports an Albanian Muslim takeover of the Serbian province of Kosovo.

That report is an example of how the CIA was corrupted during the Clinton years. That corruption, of course, was carried forward into the Bush Administration when a faction of the CIA sent Joe Wilson to Niger, supposedly to investigate the Iraq-uranium link, and prompted a Justice Department investigation of the press when it came out in Robert Novak's column that Wilson's CIA wife had been behind the trip.

The CIA, as AIM has documented, also played a curious role in the aftermath of the crash of TWA 800, concocting a cartoon for the Clinton Administration designed to discredit the eyewitnesses who saw a missile hit the plane. An explosion in the fuel tank was blamed for the crash, despite the eyewitness evidence.

But 9/11 was not the first time that the policy had backfired on the U.S. It was during the Clinton Administration that the Iranian-directed bombing of Khobar Towers occurred, and, according to former FBI director Louis Freeh, the Clinton national security apparatus worked long and hard to prevent the truth from coming out. Freeh

wrote, "It soon became clear that Mr. Clinton and his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, had no interest in confronting the fact that Iran had blown up the towers." Berger, of course, would later plead guilty to stealing national security information from the National Archives on what the Clinton Administration did-or did not do-to prevent 9/11. Berger was desperate to cover something up.

We also know that, as part of his pro-Muslim campaign in the former Yugoslavia, Clinton pursued a controversial policy of enlisting Iranian help. A Senate Republican report confirms that the evidence shows that the Clinton Administration approved the shipment of Iranian arms to Bosnian Muslims.

But this isn't all. Questions about a Middle Eastern connection to the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City have never been put to rest. Clinton, however, preferred to blame domestic right-wingers, egged on by "hate radio." The media went along with his propaganda ploy.

Was 9/11, like Oklahoma City and Khobar Towers, the result of a policy of cultivating Muslim extremists that backfired in a deadly way?

The Bush Administration was caught off-guard by the events of 9/11, but President Bush had only himself to blame, having kept on Clinton's CIA director, George Tenet, whose fingerprints were all over the failed policy.

Tragically, some of the misguided Clinton policies have been continued, such as the plan to create a Muslim state in Kosovo, to go along with the Muslim state already established with Iranian help in Bosnia. Bush should reverse course on that one-and fast.

Church say UN envoys for Kosovo biased against Serbs

August 28, 2006 1:57 PM

BELGRADE, Serbia-The Serbian Orthodox Church on Monday accused the United Nations' top two envoys for Kosovo of siding with Kosovo's ethnic Albanians in negotiations over the province's future status.

The church, which wields considerable influence among Serbs, sharply criticized Joachim Ruecker, Kosovo's U.N. administrator, and Martti Ahtisaari, the U.N.'s chief envoy, saying they "have openly declared their pro-Albanian stances."

They "have joined a media campaign for (Kosovo) Albanian interests and wishes. Their recent statements have triggered surprise, worry and bitterness among the Serbian people," it said in a statement.

Later Monday, the Serbian government also accused Ahtisaari of bias, and said it is "taking diplomatic and other steps to resolve the situation over his statements, without jeopardizing the negotiation process." It did not elaborate.

The statements are the latest in a series of recent Serb criticism of U.N. officials, particularly veteran diplomat Ahtisaari, for comments he made on the legacy of the Milosevic regime.

"While today's democratic regime in Belgrade cannot be held responsible for the policies and actions of the Milosevic regime, leaders in Belgrade must come to terms with its legacy and have important responsibilities in this sense," Ahtisaari said last week.

"The historic legacy cannot simply be ignored, but must be taken into account in a search for a solution of the status question," he said in comments that enraged many Serbs.

U.N. officials in Kosovo refused Monday to respond to the allegations. "We do not comment on comments," said Remi Dourlot, a spokesman for Ahtisaari's office.

Gyorgy Kakuk, the spokesman for the U.N.'s mission in Kosovo, also refused to comment.

The U.N.-brokered negotiations on Kosovo's future status began earlier this year, with international mediators hoping to complete the process by the end of the year.

Ruecker, a German diplomat, was recently quoted saying he thought Kosovo would one day be an independent state.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who are predominantly Muslim, want independence for the province while its Serbs, who are mostly Christian Orthodox, insist that the region, which they consider the cradle of their statehood and religion, remain part of Serbia.

The U.N. has administered Kosovo and NATO has guarded it since a 1999 NATO air war to halt the Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists, leaving Serbia with no authority over the region.

Kosovo's future status remains the last outstanding issue from the violent breakup of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Is partition the answer?

21 August 2006
William Montgomery

The conventional wisdom is that the troubles in the former Yugoslavia began with Kosovo and will end with it. That may not be accurate, as there are many other problems, which are still far from being resolved and have major elements of instability.


Bosnia can never be a fully functioning, viable, and dynamic state while saddled with its current Constitution and other aspects of the Dayton Peace Agreement. Serbia lives under the shadow of growing Radical influence, disaffection with the West and its conditionality, and seemingly unbridgeable differences among the parties considering themselves to be "democratic." It is hard to see how, at least in the short term, this can end well.

Macedonia's future (and real peace in Southern Serbia) depends very much on whether extremists in Kosovo will be contained or will resume their efforts to foment revolution. Be sure that the idea of a "Greater Kosovo" is alive and well.

The fact remains, however, that Kosovo is a major source of the current instability in the Balkans and directly or indirectly impacts on all of the regional problems outlined above. It is in everybody's interest that it be "solved" in a way, which contributes to regional instability instead of the opposite.

Kosovo's fate was actually sealed when immediately before and during the initial phases of the NATO Air Campaign, Slobodan Milosević's government decided to solve the problem once and for all by forcing hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians to leave the country. It was the video images of these refugees pouring across the border into tent cities, that both provided the rationale for the NATO campaign to continue (there was widespread unease among member countries about it to begin with and it would have been difficult or impossible to sustain without those images) and also convinced many key players in the International Community that Serbia had forfeited its right to Kosovo.

Opinions were formed at that time that have not changed, despite the democratic transformation in Serbia itself. Members of the International Community, including from the United States, made many statements that helped to convince Kosovo Albanians that Kosovo would inevitably be independent.

It is absolutely clear that the decision on the future status of Kosovo will be a form of conditional independence. That has been telegraphed ad infinitum by leading members of the Contact Group in public and private sessions. There are not and never were "negotiations" in Vienna about Kosovo. This is a play, written and directed by the Contact Group and UNMIK in which each actor has their role to play. It was really all about "form" and not about "substance" at all. The next stage of the play is when the UN/Contact Group arbitrarily announces its decisions. The only issue is whether this particular play should be called a tragedy or a farce.

Serbian government's President of the Kosovo Coordination Center, Sanda Raskovic-Ivić, recently made a statement on BBC that if the parties could not in the end agree, some sort of partition would be a fit solution. She should be congratulated on making the statement for two reasons: first, it united all parties in the region and internationally on an issue for the first and perhaps only time: everybody came out against it! But secondly, for throwing on the table a different approach that has never been fully and fairly analyzed.

It is not a new concept. Partition, cantonization, and the establishment of entities were all in theory legitimate options to consider. Because the reality is that there are absolutely no good options for Kosovo. Every alternative has significant downsides and the potential to make the overall regional situation worse, not better. Because of that, in 2001 and 2002 I persuaded the State Department and Secretary Powell that in our official statements on possible outcomes for Kosovo, we would "rule no solution out, keeping our options open." This was a short term victory, however, as the proponents of independence were so strong, that virtually every other type of solution was arbitrarily ruled out with little thought or analysis. At the same time, due to Washington's eagerness to escape the problems of the region, pressure was put on to resolve the question prematurely.

Ironically, one of the reasons for ruling out entities or cantons such as in Bosnia (which would have been a logical step) was that although few will admit it, virtually the entire International Community believes that the entities and cantons in Bosnia have been a total disaster and have led to stagnation. They privately vowed to never repeat that mistake. They will never say this publicly, however, because it leads to the natural question of when they intend to do something about it in Bosnia itself.

The problems that confront proponents of partition are two-fold. First of all, its opponents believe that it will give precedent and impetus to similar movements in Macedonia and in Bosnia. But those who state this are fooling themselves if they believe that those movements do not already exist and will undoubtedly create significant problems in any case. Moreover, the very independence of Kosovo is a very bad precedent for other parts of Europe, as the Russians are quick to point out (and warn).

Secondly, the international community is wedded to the idea of a multi-ethnic society and extremely reluctant to take steps that formalize ethnic divisions. While absolutely correct as an ideal, in practice Kosovo never really was a multi-ethnic society and the experiences of the past 20 years have only widened the already existing gaps between the ethnic groups there. The Kosovo Albanians, however, have been brilliant at "talking the talk" of multi-ethnicity which the West so loves to hear. That this is a total sham seems to escape the International Community. That the likely outcome will be an exodus of Serbs from Kosovo as we saw in Sarajevo in 1996 also doesn't seem to register.

Prime Minister Koštunica is in an impossible position. No Serbian politician can agree to independence for Kosovo and maintain his/her political standing. Moreover, the Serbs more than most are focused on their history and no one wants to be remembered for generations as the Serb who gave away Kosovo. So he is sticking to a position, which is and will increasingly be in confrontation with the International Community. It would like to see the Prime Minister using this time to "prepare" Serbia for the inevitable instead of rallying Serbs to the Kosovo cause. This has the side effect of making the International Community less receptive to Serbian positions on many of the key areas of disagreement in Vienna.

This is too bad, as the very best that Serbia can hope to achieve is to have significant decentralization take place along the lines of the models they suggested. Given how hard the Kosovo Albanians are fighting this concept, it is likely that the end result will be something that doesn't give the Serbs enough to convince most of them to stay in an independent Kosovo.

One remaining question is timing. There is a debate going on in the International Community over whether to press forward with the Kosovo decision this fall or to wait a while in hopes of early Serbian elections. The strategy would be to wait until after those elections so as to give democratic forces the best chance of prevailing. This option might have more of a chance if the democratic parties seemed to be moving towards those elections in a reasonably short time period, but that is not yet the case. Thus, the pressure to announce the decision on future status continues to increase.

The other new development is that the series of steps by which the conditional independence will be obtained may be far more drawn out that Kosovo Albanians will like and the International Presence and authority more robust than was earlier planned. This is in response to the growing awareness of the impact in Serbia itself. The reasoning seems to be that the pain will be softened if spread out for a sufficiently long period. This would also give time for the treatment of ethnic minorities to improve.

“Kosovo will never have army”

21 August 2006 | 16:07 | Source: Beta

BELGRADE, PRIŠTINA -- DSS says Kosovo will neither have an army nor become independent. Kosovo representatives’ positions couldn’t be farther apart.

Andreja Mladenović

The Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) spokesman Andreja Mladenović said today that Kosovo will never be independent because it is a part of Serbia, as well as that its status will remain that way.

Mladenović accused the Kosovo PM of sabre-rattling as well as that no one should be surprise by this, as Agim Ceku has taken part in various wars, showing that this is the experience influencing the way he sees the life of a state and his own life.

“Ceku can only function as a soldier and it is no wonder Serbia suspects him of committing several crimes throughout the former Yugoslavia”, Mladenović said.

Kosovo Albanians express consensus on Kosovo army

Priština daily Koha Ditore reports that all the relevant political factors in Kosovo support the idea of an army. Prime minister Ceku received support from the Assembly speaker Kolj Berisha and all the political parties.

“Of course Kosovo should have its own armed forces”, Berisha said, adding that they would be used to stabilize the situation in the Balkans, without jeopardizing the NATO forces presence in the province.

Kosovo’s biggest Albanian party the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo spokesman said Kosovo should establish its own army after the status talks have ended.

The opposition Democratic party of Kosovo representatives said that Kosovo should have an army in agreement with the international community since Kosovo should not be isolated.

The reformist ORA party believes that the future army must tightly cooperate with the Euro-Atlantic structures.

Drug Trafficking in Serbia is Organized from Kosovo

Vecernje Novosti

Belgrade. World analysis show that Serbia ranks first in threat by drug mafia because more and more drugs are kept on its territory, ex employee in Serbian criminal police Marco Nicovic claims, Vecerne Novosti reports.
“For years on end Kosovo is something like Columbia in Europe and a bad destiny for the future of Serbia when drug trafficking is concerned”, says Nicovic, who is now leading the anti-drugs department at the International Police Association in New York.
According to him 270,000 Albanians are living around the world and many of them are involved in different crime organizations. Many are dealing with drug trafficking. A leading role in crime world that is threatening nor only Serbia but the USA also, is the fact that these Albanians never refuse to speak their language and family hierarchy in which is known who’s the boss. That was why it was difficult to destroy the crime from inside through informers, Nicovic said.

Kosovo Albanians offer Serbs admin of 24 per cent of territory

Deutsche Presse Agentur
Published: Monday August 21, 2006

Pristina- The ethnic Albanian side in the talks on the future status of Kosovo is to offer Serbs in Serbia's breakaway province administration of 24 per cent of the territory, Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister Lufti Haziri said Monday. "In effect, 82 per cent of local Serbs in Kosovo administer themselves through the local governance ... while 24 per cent of Kosovo's territory is in their direct administration, which is in disproportion with their ethnic composition," Haziri said.

Ethnic Albanians are the vast majority of Kosovo, forming around 90 per cent of the population of what is formally still Serbia's province, though administered by the UN since 1999.

Talks between delegations from Pristina and Belgrade on the future status of Kosovo, held under UN auspices, were launched in February in Vienna, while the first top-level meeting of the prime ministers and presidents of Kosovo and Serbia took place late in July.

Little progress has been made in bringing the positions of the two negotiating sides closer. While ethnic Albanians insist on full independence for Kosovo, Serbia equally insists on not losing its territory and is offering wide autonomy instead.

UN special envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari is due to arrive to the province Tuesday for a three-day visit to Pristina.

The Bulgarian-Macedonian brew

09:00 Mon 21 Aug 2006 - Polina Slavcheva

Author: GOD: “If in my hands I had a gun and a bullet and before me - a Serbian and an Albanian, I would shoot the Serbian with a smile! I hate the Serbians because of Macedonia!”

Author Vasilev explains GOD’s ill will: “Kosovo is to Serbians what Macedonia is to us. In 1918 Serbia did all it could to tear Macedonia off Bulgaria. It will not stop at anything to wipe the Bulgarian spirit out of Macedonia. Now it is being paid back to. With the interest rate! Kosovo will never again be part of Serbia! There is a God!”

Author: Umko: “What the Serbians have done with Macedonia is irrelevant. If Kosovo splits from Serbia, some day the Kurdjali region will split from Bulgaria. The precedent will be set. That is why we should unreservedly support Serbia.”

Author Pitbulla is more clear-headed: “You are wrong, my man... no precedent will be set because we have not been at war against the Kurdjali region, as were the Serbians against Kosovo...”

This comes from a Mediapool forum following an article about Kosovo’s difficult status that was originally published in Der Berliner Zeitung under the headline Embers of a Balkan fire (the translation is The Sofia Echo’s).

So why quote bloggers on Balkan issues?

Because Bulgarian-Macedonian relations, that politicians would call excellent and that ordinary people would call historically strained, have been brewing rather awkwardly lately, with dubious results.

And because the above has such reminiscence of the unhealthy Balkan speculation about who might do what to whom if this or - God forbid - the other, happens.

This article is dedicated to the Gorani who, along with some Serbs and many Kosovars, also live in Kosovo. And which Albanian linguist Skender Gashi recently called the historical and political apple of discord of the Balkans (in a lecture given at the Bulgarian cultural institute in Vienna).

The Gorani are 2000 or so people who live in 24 villages in the Gora region in the Shar mountain in Kosovo, mostly, but also in Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia (see map). And also sometimes in central Serbia, Italy, Turkey...

The Gorani, geographically and linguistically, are an island of Slav-speaking population, Gashi says, but actually speak an archaic version of Bulgarian, and - even more actually - Bulgarians Vlachs, Gashi says.

But Macedonians claim them also. And so do Bosniaks, and Serbs. And, then, in the old Balkan way of things...you know.

For the sake of political correctness, let’s just say that they have the potential to upset.

So, each party claims the Gorani. But we are concentrating on Macedonia and Bulgaria.

On August 14, the Democratic Movement for the Restoration of Macedonia (DOM) said that the question of the Gorani should be included in Kosovo status talks. “This issue is of interest to the Republic of Macedonia because (the Gorani speak) the Macedonian language and are of the Muslim confession,” said DOM leader Liliana Popovska. The Gorani should be guaranteed the freedom to use Macedonian in schools and mosques because that, among all else, would prevent them from being assimilated, Popovska said.

Her statement would seem to prove that, as Director of the Bulgarian National Museum of History Bozhidar Dimitrov says, Macedonians, unlike Bulgarians, have a state policy regarding minorities.

Another thing - Popovska’s statement comes eight months after the Gorani themselves demanded that they be included in status talks. That happened at an international conference of the Gorani in Skopje that Gorani people from Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia and Albania attended, according to Macedonian internet site Prespa Sky.

Apart from being included in status talks by both Serbians and Kosovars, the Gorani asked to receive the status of a Macedonian national minority with an Islamic confession; to have Macedonian passports; to have a cultural centre opened; and get a better infrastructure (more specifically, a Skopje - Dragash bus line).

But, Prespa Sky also noted, on December 26, the Gorani also asked the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) to register “yet another Bulgarian national entity” (the wording is theirs) - that of the Gorani and Muslims from the Gora region.

And also formed a Culture and Education Association Bulgarians - Muslims. The Association, according to the head of the Bulgarian diplomatic mission in Kosovo Nikolai Kolev as reported by Prespa Sky, was not founded with Bulgarian participation.

Ethnic specialists consider the Gorani to be Islamized Macedonians, the publication continues.

When forming their association, the Gorani had sent a note to the Serbian state television, saying that their initiative had never had the ambition to change their age-long national identity, Prespa Sky said.

Also, they were receiving documents proving their Bulgarian descent from the Bulgarian diplomatic mission in Kosovo, but not with the intention to get a Bulgarian or any other country’s passport - because no institution in Kosovo issued passports anyway, Prespa Sky said.

Of course, the Gorani do get Bulgarian passports. “They don’t like getting Macedonian citizenship so much,” Dimitrov says.

For understandable economical EU reasons, “not to speak of this trade (in passports) going on,” a representative of a cultural institution in Sofia told The Sofia Echo, but - let’s say - for language and historical reasons too.

Unfortunately, this touches on another tricky subject - that Bulgaria has of late been issuing an inordinate number of passports. This was described in an August 13 report in the Sunday Telegraph (authored by a Skopje and a Bucharest correspondent) as “a give-away passports bonanza”

The context of the Telegraph article makes it overly important for Bulgaria. The UK is now bracing for about 40 000 to 60 000 (the optimistic version) or up to 400 000 (the pessimistic version) Romanians and Bulgarians expected to arrive in the country after January 1 2007. Some of them criminals. Both scenarios would trouble the British labour market, predictions go. British immigration authorities are reported to be now preparing regulations to temporarily ban the entrance of immigrants.

So, the Telegraph article mirrors the urge to keep hordes of Bulgarians and Romanians away from the UK. And smears Bulgaria’s image.

And what does this reporter, as a Bulgarian, do about that?

This reporter gets upset and angry and goes home. On the way home, thinks about the problem, and then asks an Albanian friend to agree to being quoted that if he was offered a job in Bulgaria, he would jump at the idea, partly because he had become, while living in Bulgaria for four years, somewhat Bulgarianised. And the Albanian friend answered: “You have fallen into the vicious trap of the cheapest form of journalism in the Balkans, the one flared with nationalistic fervour that demonises the other nationalities.”

I suppose that I did fall in the trap, somewhat. And I guess that the Balkans do suffer from their black hole nationalist traps, journalists included.

But, as head of the Macedonian Culture and Information Centre in Sofia said, stupidity affects all people, not specific ethnic groups.

Serbs warn of partition if Kosovo wins statehood

29 Mar 2006 13:37:26 GMT

Source: Reuters
By Branislav Krstic

"No one can force us to accept institutions in Pristina that are unfriendly towards the Serb people," said Ristic, mayor of Zubin Potok, one of three Serb-dominated municipalities in the north bordering Serbia proper. ZVECAN, Serbia and Montenegro, March 29 (Reuters) - Serbs in northern Kosovo warned the United Nations on Wednesday the province would split in two if the Albanian majority clinches independence in talks this year. "Serbs are not in favour of partition but it will come to that if the international community accepts the Albanian ultimatum and Kosovo becomes independent," Serb mayor Slavisa Ristic told reporters after meeting U.N. envoy Albert Rohan in the northern town of Zvecan. Rohan is the Austrian deputy to Martti Ahtisaari, who is leading negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo Albanians in Vienna on the fate of the disputed province, run by the United Nations since the 1998-99 war. The major powers setting international policy on Kosovo have ruled out partition, but as the West makes increasingly clear its preference for independence, the 100,000 remaining Serbs are pushing to distance themselves as far as possible from the Albanian-dominated authorities in the capital Pristina. Asked if the north could win some form of autonomy in the future, Rohan replied: "No". Serbia lost control of Kosovo in 1999, when NATO bombed to drive out Serb forces accused of atrocities against ethnic Albanian civilians in a 2-year war with separatist guerrillas. The United Nations took control, but about half the Serb population fled a wave of revenge attacks. Seven years later, Serbs and Albanians remain divided, watched over by 17,500 NATO-led peacekeepers. Hours before Rohan's visit, U.N. police closed the bridge in the nearby town of Mitrovica after a group of Albanians on Tuesday made a rare foray across the river into the Serb-dominated north and stabbed a Serb man. Of the Serbs who stayed after the war, those in the north enjoy a natural land link to central Serbia. The rest live in scattered enclaves, targeted by sporadic violence. Serbia wants the creation of a Serb entity, if possible within an autonomous Kosovo. But partition is a taboo concept among Western powers, with the threat of forced population movements or a repeat of the dysfunctional ethnic carve-up seen in Bosnia. In negotiations which resume on April 3, Ahtisaari is pushing the Albanians to give Serbs enough local powers for a viable future in an independent Kosovo, stopping short of autonomy or partition.

CRISIS PROFILE: Can Kosovo put violence behind it?

04 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Source: AlertNet - background material
By Ruth Gidley
Kosovo’s sovereignty status has been in limbo since 1999, when Belgrade lost control of the Serbian province after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign and the United Nations took over administration. Kosovo’s 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority wants full independence, which Serbia is reluctant to grant. Tension has been heightened by the March 2005 indictment for war crimes of Kosovo’s prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, a former guerrilla leader considered by many Albanians a national hero. The international community is due to review Kosovo’s status in 2005, and some experts say this is a make or break year, warning that simmering tension could escalate into more deadly violence. What’s the tension about? Kosovo’s Albanian population – mostly Muslims – want total independence from Serbia and Montenegro. Since the end of the 1999, there has been a backlash against Serbs by Albanian extremists angry at Serbian repression during the civil war that engulfed the Balkans in the 1990s. Sporadic vicious attacks have been reported against Serbs with the budding of spring, raising the spectre of a repeat of March 2004, when 19 died and hundreds of Serb homes and churches were torched in riots. The post-war backlash has also hit Roma and other minorities, whom some Albanians accuse of having opposed their liberation from Serb rule. As a result, many minorities live under virtual siege – as in the northern half of the northern town of Mitrovica, which is a Serb haven protected by NATO-led Kosovo Forces (KFOR). Both sides feel and act like victims, and in a way, both sides are. Ethnic Albanians have long felt downtrodden by Serb rule and were heavily targeted in the late 1990s during the latter part of Slobodan Milosevic’s government of Yugoslavia. In the absence of any clear signal that the international community will not allow a return to Serbian rule, many Albanians fear that Serbia - which has for centuries seen Kosovo as a key landmark of Serbian nationalism – will not let the province go quietly. Some Albanian extremists think that by fomenting violence they can force the international community to hurry up and give them sovereignty, analysts say. Kosovo’s Serbs, meanwhile, feel the international community has placed little value on their lives and has failed to protect them from attacks. Who’s actually in charge at the moment? The head of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo is the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Kosovo. A Danish official, Soren Jessen-Petersen, has been in that role since July 2004. Ethnic Albanians have elected a president and prime minister, who lead the so-called Provisional Institutions of Self Government. What are the options for the future? Some kind of legal acknowledgement of Kosovo’s independence is what most people mean when they talk about Kosovo’s “final status”. Belgian-based think tank International Crisis Group argues that this is the only viable solution, and that the international community needs to act decisively to make it happen. What about letting Serb areas stay part of Serbia? Another option is to carve up Kosovo and separate Serb-majority areas, in a kind of partition along the lines of the Serb Republic in Bosnia, an enclave of Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Kosovo, former Prime Minister Haradinaj granted partial autonomy to some Serb-majority areas. Given his reputation for taking a hard line against Serbs and Roma while he was a military leader – he is being charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) with rape and murder - Haradinaj turned out to be a surprisingly astute and generous politician. But partition may not be a realistic solution, since many Serbs live in isolated areas in central Kosovo rather than a single, easily delineated region on the periphery. Why can’t things just stay as they are? The U.N. Mission in Kosovo mandate has no expiry date but the international community is due to judge Kosovo’s progress against a set of standards in mid-2005. Kosovo’s Albanian population will be looking to that deadline with high hopes the international community will legalise Kosovo’s national status. These hopes are fed by the deteriorating economic situation in the U.N. protectorate, with unemployment around 60 percent and numerous villages disconnected from the power grid for non-payment of bills. What do Kosovo Serbs want to happen? There isn’t really a Serb political movement separate from Belgrade. Kosovo’s Serb population obeyed Belgrade’s urges to boycott elections in 2004. Some want to remain part of Mother Serbia, some favour partition, but most just want peace. And what does Serbia want? If Kosovo Albanians continue to lash out against minorities, some analysts say there’s a risk Belgrade’s armed forces could step in to protect Kosovo Serbs, even though politicians don’t really want the drain on their resources and many Serbs in Serbia look down on Kosovan Serbs as backwards peasants. “Since the 17-18 March 2004 riots, many high-ranking (Serbian) officers have begun preparations to re-enter the province in the event of further violence,” International Crisis group said in a January 2005 report entitled “Kosovo: Toward Final Status”. “Few politicians would be willing to stand up to them.” On the other hand, Belgrade wants to move forward towards the holy grail of membership of the European Union, with its promise of prosperity and opportunity. Any impasse over Kosovo could make that goal harder to achieve. Why is Kosovo so symbolically important to Serb nationalists? It was the birthplace of a Serbian state in the 14th century, lost to the Muslim Ottoman Empire in 1389. Serbia regained control of Kosovo in 1913. Kosovo was granted wide-ranging autonomous powers from the 1960s during President Tito’s government, with de facto self-government from 1974, but pressure for full independence built up after Tito’s death in 1980. After the break-up of Yugoslavia, Serb nationalist Slobodan Milosevic whipped up hostility towards Kosovo’s Albanians in order to score popularity points in Serbia proper. Milosevic and four other top officials are charged by the ICTY in The Hague with responsibility for the deportation of 740,000 Kosovo Albanians and the murder of 340 Kosovo Albanians. What does the international community want? The international community’s main yardsticks for deciding if Kosovo is ready for independence are whether treatment of minorities is up to scratch and whether it has made progress building national institutions. Major international players say Kosovo can’t go back to being the way it was before 1999, but they’ve generally stopped short of publicly saying they really are going to support independence. Some analysts say this is a vicious circle – the international community says it won’t grant independence until ethnic Albanians protect Serbs and Roma, but Albanians will likely remain resentful of minorities until they know independence is guaranteed. Russia is the one country that openly backs the Serb position, but International Crisis Group argues that the rest of the world should push for independence even if Belgrade and Moscow refuse. Is Kosovo viable as an independent state? That’s a very important question. Whatever the outcome, Kosovo will probably need large amounts of international aid for the foreseeable future. Tell me more about Haradinaj and his indictment for war crimes. Ramush Haradinaj was commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which grew out of an ethnic Albanian independence movement that had been gaining strength since the early 1990s. The KLA stepped up its attacks in the mid-90s, leading to a major crackdown from the Yugoslav military. Haradinaj is charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia with murder, rape and the deportation of civilians. He was replaced as prime minister of the interim government in March 2005 by former student activist Bajram Kosumi. Why did NATO bomb Kosovo and Serbia? To answer this contentious question, let’s go back a bit. In 1989, Serbian President Milosevic revoked Kosovo’s autonomous status. Ethnic Albanian leaders claimed independence the following year and fighting between the Albanian nationalist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and Serb forces broke out in 1998. That proved a trigger for increased Serbian repression of Albanian civilians. Milosevic, then president of Yugoslavia, rejected the terms of an internationally brokered peace agreement that stipulated that NATO would be the only force stationed in Kosovo and that NATO troops would be deployed throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1999, NATO bombed Kosovo and Serbia, without U.N. approval. Supporters of the air strikes said they were needed to stop Serbian repression of ethnic Albanians. NATO's intervention in Kosovo was supported by many aid workers, especially those who had witnessed the bloody 1992-1995 war and its aftermath in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the Bosnian context, they felt that Muslims had suffered disproportionately and that Serbs had committed more war crimes than other groups, so they thought NATO’s action would prevent more ethnic cleansing. Opponents accused NATO of double standards – for failing to intervene in other humanitarian crises – and said the United States in particular had strategic reasons for wanting to participate in a war in Europe, not least to justify the existence of NATO itself. Meanwhile, Serbian forces stepped up attacks on Kosovo Albanians and about 800,000 fled to Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro. Most returned after the war. When Milosevic capitulated, about 200,000 Serbs fled, the NATO-led Kosovo Forces were deployed and the U.N. Mission in Kosovo took control. What hope if there for a peaceful outcome? It’s not impossible. Slavic peoples – like Serbs -- and Albanians have lived together in Kosovo since the 8th century. In fact, International Crisis Group research shows that some people in areas that experienced heavy losses in 1999 are quite willing to live on peaceful terms with their former neighbours from other ethnic groups.

INTERVIEW-UN could face new role in northern Kosovo

19 Apr 2006 14:39:42 GMT
MITROVICA, Serbia and Montenegro, April 19 (Reuters) - The United Nations may have to extend its stay in Kosovo after a decision on an Albanian demand for independence to oversee a peaceful transition in the Serb-dominated north, a U.N. official said on Wednesday. Gerard Gallucci, the top U.N. official in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica, said an international presence would help "coordinate relations" between Serbs in the north and the ethnic Albanian authorities in Pristina, which will run Kosovo whatever the outcome of negotiations under way in Vienna on the future of the Serbian province. "Everyone now understands there has to be a transitional period in which the international community -- even though it may be getting out of a U.N. role south of the Ibar River -- may continue to play some similar role in the north for some period of time," the American diplomat told Reuters in an interview. "I think the U.N. may be best equipped to play this role," he said from his office which overlooks the Ibar river dividing the town's Serbs and Albanians since a war in 1998-99 in which 10,000 Albanians were killed. Diplomats say the Serbian province of 2 million people, run by the United Nations since 1999, will likely win independence in U.N.-led talks set to end later this year. The main U.N. mission will bow out once a deal is in place and will be replaced by a slimmed-down European Union operation. But at least half Kosovo's 100,000 remaining Serbs hold sway in north Mitrovica and the rocky strip of land that runs up to central Serbia. They reject the idea of being ruled from Pristina and have resisted successive U.N. efforts to reintegrate them with the rest of Kosovo. EXODUS The major powers say splitting the province in two, as some Serbs advocate, is not an option. They are pushing Albanians to give Serbs greater local self-government, perhaps heading off the mass exodus Serbs threaten should Kosovo split from Serbia. Gallucci said the international community recognised the "different reality" in northern Kosovo. Serbs enjoy a level of freedom there envied by thousands of Serbs living in scattered enclaves south of the Ibar, the target of sporadic violence. Around half the Serb population fled a wave of revenge attacks after the war. Gallucci said some kind of international presence would have to help monitor, administer and coordinate relations between the north and Pristina during a period of transition. The United Nations has the experience for the job and the EU may have "its hands full with the security and justice role Kosovo-wide". "It makes sense there be some person overall with some degree of responsibility for the north, whether that person be free-standing or part of a larger mission," said Gallucci. Mitrovica, a shadow of a once thriving mining town, has come to symbolise the ethnic division which still plagues Kosovo, seven years after NATO expelled Serb forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in its war with separatist guerrillas. Divided by the Ibar River and patrolled by French NATO troops, Mitrovica is dominated by Serbs in the north and Albanians in the south. For Serbs, the north represents their last urban centre, linking them to the rest of Serbia. The Albanians say it is the frontline of a Serb bid to divide Kosovo, which Serbs have considered their religious heartland for the past 1,000 years. Recent moves suggest both sides are edging towards dividing the running of the city. "You have two incompatible views of Kosovo which then come down to incompatible views of Mitrovica," said Gallucci.

Kosovo Albanian crime suspect visits army

Apr. 13, 2006

Former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, who faces war crime charges, has told the Kosovo Protection Corps they will be the army of an independent Kosovo.
Haradinaj once headed Kosovo's Liberation Army that fought security forces of the late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
On a visit to the Protection Corps, the Liberation Army's successor, in Pristina Haradinaj said he believed once Kosovo gained independence from Serbia the Kosovo Protection Corps will become "Kosovo's modern army," the KosovaLive agency said.
Early this year, Haradinaj was charged with war crimes by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, but was permitted remain involved in politics as head of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo party while on provisional liberty before he goes on trial. He served as prime minister in 2004 and 2005.
Formally, Kosovo is part of Serbia but it has been ruled by the U.N. mission since 1999, when NATO air attacks drove out Milosevic's troops.
Talks have been conducted to decide who will govern Kosovo once NATO and the U.N. mission leave the province, whose population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian.

United Press International

Eurovision hits a serious note

By Tim Judah BBC Radio 4's Crossing Continents

Choosing a song for Europe may be a frivolous affair for some countries, but in the Balkans it is a sensitive matter which can have serious consequences.

Serbia-Montenegro withdrew after a row over its contest to find a song

Let's face it. Most of Europe doesn't take it very seriously.

But as Aleksandar Tijanic, the powerful head of Serbian Television, reminded me: "It is difficult to understand if you don't understand the Balkans."

We are talking about the Eurovision Song Contest of course.

The first took place in Switzerland in 1956 and only eight countries took part.

Britain, Austria and Denmark were not represented because they failed to get their applications in on time.

What a difference half a century makes.

This year 37 countries will be jostling for the prize in Athens on 20 May and four of them, Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia, will be ex-Yugoslav states who take the contest very seriously indeed.

And next year there could be three more of them: Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo.

Balkan odyssey

I began my Balkan Eurovision odyssey in Kosovo. The reason that they in particular take the contest so seriously is because they are not going.

Technically, Kosovo is a province of Serbia.

In fact, ever since the end of the war here in 1999, it has been under UN jurisdiction with security provided by Nato-led forces.

Kosovo has a population of some two million people, more than 90% of whom are ethnic Albanians.

They have consistently demanded independence, but this has been fiercely resisted by Serbia, which regards it as the cradle of its civilisation.

Some 100,000 Serbs remain in Kosovo, mostly scattered across the province in enclaves.

Rank treachery?

In theory, Kosovo Albanian bands could compete in Eurovision under the flag of Serbia and Montenegro.

Flakareshat would rather compete for an independent Kosovo

In reality, they would never be chosen and besides, no Kosovo Albanian would ever consider doing such a thing, which would be considered rank treachery by fellow Albanians.

So for the last few years, Kosovo Albanian groups such as energetic girl-band Flakareshat have gone to Tirana, the capital of Albania, to compete.

If they had ever won, they would have competed under the flag of Albania.

But no band from Kosovo has been chosen. Yet another reason, say Kosovo Albanians, why it needs independence.

In fact, talks have started on the future of Kosovo and it is quite likely that, despite resistance from Serbia, Kosovo will be independent in time for the Eurovision song contest in 2007.

Political points

Over the mountains to the West is Kosovo's neighbour, Montenegro.

Montenegrin band No Name won for the second time this year

In theory, this tiny republic of some 672,000 people is linked in a loose federation with Serbia.

In last year's Eurovision contest, a boy band called No Name represented the joint state in Kiev.

Much to the irritation of Serbs though, No Name draped themselves in the flag of Montenegro, not Serbia and Montenegro.

The Serbs thought that the band were abusing the contest to score political points.

In the Balkans it was understood that sporting the Montenegrin flag meant supporting independence from Serbia.

There was no political motivation Milica Belevic, Montenegrin judge

This year the contest to choose a band from Serbia and Montenegro took place in Belgrade on 11 March.

A few hours earlier the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic had been found dead in his cell at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

When No Name won for the second year, the Serbs in the audience went berserk. They began chucking bottles at No Name and screaming: "Thieves! Thieves!"

"There was no political motivation," said Milica Belevic, one of the Montenegrin judges.

It is a claim that is widely disbelieved in Serbia.

Independence vote

As far as the Serbs were concerned the Montenegrins were desperate to get their boys back on stage in Athens strutting their stuff and flying the flag for Montenegro.

Montenegro is gearing up for a referendum on 21 May

Why the desperation? Less than 12 hours after the Eurovision contest, the polls open in Montenegro for a very different form of competition.

On 21 May, Montenegrins are set to vote in a referendum on independence from Serbia.

The Belgrade battle of Eurovision means that this year Serbia and Montenegro has had to withdraw from the contest.

Next year, depending on what happens in the referendum, they might be competing as separate states.

"Yugoslavia was divided with guns," laughed Sabrija Vulic of Montenegrin Television, "and Serbia and Montenegro will be divided by songs!"

In neighbouring Bosnia they will not actually say they are happy that Serbia and Montenegro have been forced to drop out of the contest but they are not exactly shedding tears about it either.

It means that the pool of potential votes for Bosnia has risen by several million.

Shrewd choice

Bosnia has chosen Hari - and his band Hari Mata Hari - to sing for them in Athens this year.

It's very important for morale, that at last we win here! Hari Mata Hari, Bosnian entry

It is shrewd choice. Hari was well known before Yugoslavia descended into war in the 1990s and he is still popular across the region.

The Eurovision Song Contest website calls Hari "the nightingale of Sarajevo". He told me he was "the nightingale of the galaxy".

But behind the humour, there is a steely determination to win.

Hari says that ever since the end of the war in Bosnia more than 10 years ago, Bosnians have felt as though they were "losing".

So, he says, "it's very important for morale, that at last we win here!"

And Hari is leaving nothing to chance.

He has already started a gruelling promotional tour across the former Yugoslavia and in parts of the rest of Europe with a significant diaspora from the former Yugoslavia.

Bosnia and Serbia may be slugging it out these days at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where Bosnia is pursuing its claim that Serbia tried to commit genocide in Bosnia, but none of that is going to stop former Yugoslavs voting for one another in Athens on 20 May.

"The state still exists, it seems," says head of Serbian TV Aleksandar Tijanic, referring to the Yugoslav ghost.

"You can't erase 70 years of a joint state despite all the wars."