Western
peace prevention
continues in former
Yugoslavia*
PressInfo #
234
March 9,
2006
By
Jan
Oberg,
TFF director
In
English
In
Swedish
In
Danish
If you believe that Western
politics should serve as a model of decency, fairness and
principled policies, consider these topical news from
ex-Yugoslavia:
•
Kofi Annan's envoy on Kosovo, former Finnish President
Martti Ahtisaari, tells Der Spiegel that Kosovo is
heading for independence. In a tone that can only be
characterized as arrogant, he tells the Serb side that
they should know the rules of the game and know their own
best interests. This simply means he is no mediator who
listens to and respects all sides with a view to find a
fair solution. He is an agent for powers who can dictate
their solution. Is Kofi Annan concerned?
•
Kosovo which was bombed off from Serbia and occupied by
NATO's illegal war in 1999 thus seems lost for Serbia.
Will the remaining Serbs in Kosovo run away, start a
guerrilla movement, try to join Serbia? Will there be a
border war at some point? While all experts agree that
Kosovo's leaders have not lived up to minimum standards
for human rights, tolerance and refugee returns over the
last seven years, the status will now come before
standards; it is the exactly opposite of what the West
decided a few years ago.
•
Kofi Annan's Representative, Danish diplomat Søren
Jessen Petersen, running UNMIK in the province, for a
second time praises a suspected war criminal. Is Kofi
Annan concerned that top-level UN staff does that?
Earlier it was Ramush Haradinaj, the former Prime
Minister indicted in the Hague. Now it is Agim Ceku, the
new PM. Denmark has enough of scandals on its desk right
now, so Jessen Petersen's flirtation with ethnic
cleansers perhaps doesn't add much.
•
Ceku was a leading officer
in the Croatian Army when - in 1995 with the help of CIA
and mercenary companies - it ethnically cleansed about
200.000 legitimate Croatian Serb citizens out of Croatia.
90% of them are still refugees in Serbia, no one
supporting their return. Thus, all Yugoslavia's
minorities were not and are not protected by Western
human rights; Serbs are not worthy victims.
From 1993, Ceku went down and
helped the most extremist people in his native Kosovo to
build the KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army behind the back
of Dr. Rugova, the only pacifist leader in the now
chopped-up country. (I know what Ceku did because I have
had him tell me the story himself). KLA and Ceku was
generously assisted by the German Intelligence Service,
BND and - after the US took KLA off its list of terrorist
organizations - by CIA. The moderate, pragmatically
non-violent Kosovo-Albanian leader Dr. Rugova, who
recently passed away, was dangerous; imagine he had
achieved an independent Kosovo by non-violent means: what
a catastrophe for those who believe in violent
intervention, bombings and occupations as roads to
peace.
•
Immediately after the West's UN-NATO-EU-OSCE occupation
of Serbia's province, we were told that they disarmed the
KLA. They didn't, and everybody knew. KLA was a leading
agency in effecting about 200.000 Serbs to leave Kosovo;
proportionately it was the largest ethnic cleansing in
the Balkans. But it was ours, so the Western free press
turned a blind eye. KLA people also orchestrated the
warfare across the border in Southern Serbia, and the
8-months war in Macedonia. It's all conveniently
forgotten today; it has to be since Western interests are
heading for an independent Kosovo/a. It's the logical
consequence of NATO's bombing in 1999. And it does not
seem to bother too many that this whole process is also a
violation of UN Security Council resolution 1244. With
Mr. Ceku entering the scene as the West's preferred
statesman, Dr. Rugova is dead in more than one
sense.
•
The West, NATO, the UN and lobby groups like the
International Crisis Group (of which Ahtisaari has been a
leading member) argued that Kosovo-Albanians should not
be criticised for forcing another good 200.000 Serbs out
of Kosovo in the months after NATO's KLA-assisted
destruction of both Kosovo and Serbia proper. The reason?
They had suffered so much under Milosevic. While there is
no doubt that Albanians suffered heavily under Milosevic
police-state repression in Kosovo, there is also no doubt
that a) Serbia is the only country to have wiped out
their old leader by non-violent means and that b) reverse
ethnic cleansing is disgusting and unacceptable. Together
with Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia, these Kosovo-Serbs
are still living as virtually non-noticed and forgotten
refugees in Serbia, there are about 500.000 of
them.
•
Former Kosovo PM, Ramush Haradinaj - accused of serious
war crimes - has been permitted by the Tribunal in the
Hague to live in Kosovo. In contrast, Milosevic's request
to be granted permission to go to Russia for urgent
medical treatment in Russia has been turned down.
•
The West requires Serbia to deliver Karadzic and Mladic
to the Hague. The problem is that both CIA and FBI have
been granted access to Serbia long ago and they have not
been able to locate them. What game do Western powers
play when they pretend that they have not been able to
arrest these two people in Bosnia or elsewhere since
1995?
•
Just a few days ago, the EU decided that Montenegro, the
smaller partner in today's Serbia and Montenegro, may
hold a referendum on independence. Remember, EU's foreign
policy chief, Javier Solana, was S-G of NATO at the time,
the highest civilian person behind the destruction of
Yugoslavia.
The International Herald Tribune
writes that the EU suggests "that Montenegro be allowed
to secede from the two-state federation if 50 percent of
the electorate takes part in the vote and 55 percent of
voters opt for independence." Amazing indeed; a new
European state can be created with only 27.5% or less
that 200.000 voters behind it. And, remember, there are
more Montenegrins living in Serbia than in Montenegro.
So, the EU here uses a recipe for a) deep divisions or
civil war inside, and b) population exchanges -
Montenegrins in Serbia to Montenegro, Serbs in Montenegro
to Serbia.
Furthermore, an independent
Montenegro and an independent Kosovo will make the Serbs
in Bosnia ask why on earth they should keep on being
loyal with the independent "Dayton" Bosnia that 99% of
them never voted for and which they - like all other
citizens in Bosnia - was never asked to accept in a
referendum.
The
international "community's" peace prevention continues
Today few remember or know what
happened 15-25 years ago in the Balkans. Few if any
bother to see patterns and underlying structures. Few
dare be politically incorrect and challenge the basic
interpretations and the conflict (mis)management by the
"international community" or the Balkanization of the EU
and the U.S. Peace-making has become interventionism and
occupation in disguise. The free Western media feel free
to turn the blind eye to the absurdities and lack of
principle that has become the brand of Western politics.
If they did, there would be some who could point out the
complete moral bankruptcy on which the above-mentioned
policy initiatives are based.
Imagine that Serbia - the
predictable net loser par excellence in the Yugoslav
dissolution process since the 1980s - reacts to all the
above by stalling, dragging its feet as they say, seeming
to be uncooperative and even embittered. Imagine that
these developments will make life impossible for
moderates and Western-oriented actors in Serbia and play
into the hands of the nationalist hardliners such as the
Radical Party and that, together with other Chetnik
sentiments, it wins the next election. Imagine that
Serbia and its citizens turn inward, feel humiliated and
become nationalist again.
Then all those who have understood
absolutely nothing of Yugoslavia the last 15 years will
ask oh-so-innocently: How come these Serbs are so
stubborn? Why don't they modernize themselves and become
good European like the rest? Why don't they see their own
best interest which is what we offer them? How strange
that they won't just give up everything they cherished -
Yugoslavia, autonomy for Croatian Serbs, Republika
Srpska, Kosovo, Montenegro and - who knows when in the
future - Voivodina and Sandjak in exchange for - exactly,
you're right - nothing!
After 15 years of conflict
mismanagement the West still seems to understand none of
the complexities, psychology or history here. So be sure
of two things: the U.S. and various EU members have their
interests and when the next Balkan crisis erupts, they
will stand united with two arguments: 1) we did nothing
wrong and 2) the Serbs remain the problem! Remember
Ahtisaari - the UN and State Department in one - says it
bluntly: it is in Serbia's best interest to play
according to our rules and forget whatever interests it
may have.
We have not seen the end of the
suffering in former Yugoslavia. Whether sooner or in a
few decades ahead, we are likely to see violence erupt
again.
The Holbrookes, Ahtisaaris and
Jessen-Petersens as well as those whose puppets they are
will know to blame one or more local parties and never
ask: did we, the international community, perpetuate the
Balkan tragedy?
Perhaps with the exception of
Slovenia, genuine peace is found nowhere in former
Yugoslavia. If Western actors were able to learn any
lessons, we would see some change in the conflict
"management" policies in the region. But that won't
happen, because that would amount to a recognition of the
counterproductive policies pursued the last 15 years.
Thus, predictably, Western peace prevention continues,
and -how cruel! - innocent Balkan citizens, not the
conflict mismanagers, will pay the prize.
* The PressInfo is purely critical.
The constructive, principled alternatives concerning
Kosovo have been presented earlier in the
Kosovo
Solution Series and in
PressInfo
228.
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