Kosovo: 21 NATO soldiers wounded in clash with Serbs

 The clash happened overnight in a Serbian enclave in Northern Kosovo. Serbs clashed with KFOR --NATO Kosovo Force--as they tried to remove barricades set up by the Serbs. The standoff has been ongoing since Kosovo tried to send border police to the north last July.
     The Serbian government is under pressure from the European Union to remove the barricades or risk the failure of its candidacy for future membership in the Union. Given the state of the European Union that might not be a huge loss for Serbia.
    A more pressing issue for the Serbian government is that the opposition supports the Serbs in the enclave very strongly. The government may lose votes if it gives in to EU pressure. Even though the government is pro-Western it may be hesitant to do anything that could rouse Serb nationalists against them.
    Serbia lost control of Kosovo  in 1999. Formerly Kosovo was part of Serbia and before that Yugoslavia. NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days after an attempt by then leader Milosevic to expel Albanians from Kosovo.  After the Albanian separatist insurgency won there was in effect a cleansing of Serbs and other non-Albanians from Kosovo except that in the north a Serbian majority enclave remains.
   Kosovo declared independence unilaterally and was recognized by more than 80 countries even though the terms of independence were supposed to be negotiated with Serbia. For more see this article.

Serbian leader calls snap polls

This is from the BBC. Given that many in the West particularly the U.S. have recognised Kosovo it would not be surprising if the nationalists opposed to Western influence should triumph in these elections. Perhaps the Serbian enclaves in Kosovo may attempt to join Serbia.\
As expected from an august organisation such as the BBC the legality and issues surrounding the unliteral declaration are left undscussed. BBC is now over the pond Fox news lite with British characteristics.

Serbian leader calls snap polls
Serbian President Boris Tadic has dissolved parliament, calling snap elections for 11 May.
The move follows last week's collapse of the governing coalition led by Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.

Ministers failed to agree on whether to suspend ties with the European Union, in protest at recognition of Kosovan independence by some EU members.

EU officials have said they hope Serbia's pro-EU parties will win the May elections.

The fresh ballot is seen as a way out of Serbia's deepening political crisis, says the BBC's Helen Fawkes in Belgrade.

Belgrade's dilemma

"The elections are a democratic way for citizens to say how Serbia should develop in years to come," President Tadic said in a statement.

Mr Kostunica, who leads the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), says recognition of Kosovo by major EU states is illegal.


"All parties want Serbia to join the EU, but the question is how - with or without Kosovo," he said last week.

President Tadic says Belgrade will only be able to defend its right to Kosovo if it joins the EU.

He says the main difference between himself and his prime minister is not on Kosovo but Serbia's "European and economic outlook".

Kosovo's declaration of independence on 17 February came nearly a decade after Nato forces expelled Serbian forces from the majority ethnic Albanian territory.

The US and most EU states have recognised Pristina's unilateral move.

Serbia and its ally Russia say they will never accept it.

Kosovo and Greater Albania

The Greater Albania push is an aspect of Kosovo's declaration of independence that is ignored by much of the media. Imagine those seeking independence are carrying mostly Albanian flags. I noticed that there were also many U.S. flags in some demonstrations since the Kosovans are quite appreciative of the fact that the U.S. had assured them that they would recognise Kosovo.

The recognition just ignores that the U.N. recognises the "sanctity" of existing borders so that parts of a country cannot simply secede without the consent of the country as a whole. There was not even a referendum held in Kosovo. While there is little doubt the vast majority in Kosovo do not want to be part of Serbia the unilateral declaration has split the global community. Other countries that face separatist challenges such as China, Russia and Spain have not recognised the state. Canada is still sitting on the fence but in the end will no doubt go along with the U.S. U.K. Italy etc.



Operation Independence Kosovo: NATO and the New Step Toward "Greater Albania"
Sungur Savran
The celebrations by the Albanian people of Kosovo upon the declaration of an "independent and sovereign" state were aired on television extensively. Two flags were waved during these celebrations. One was the familiar U.S. flag. And the second one? This flag with a double-headed black eagle on a red background, which country might that belong to? Better not to be too rash and say that it is the flag of the newly "independent" state of Kosovo, for that would be misunderstanding the true nature of what has happened. In the newly "independent" state of Kosovo, the people celebrating on the streets were waving the flag of another country. This was the flag of Albania!
The declaration of the "independence" of Kosovo is, first and foremost, a vast step forward for one of the pet projects of the U.S. in the Balkans, the creation of a "Greater Albania." This fact is so tangible, so concrete that when Martti Ahtisaari, the Special Envoy of the United Nations (UN), in a report he submitted in spring 2007 after two years of negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia had reached a deadlock, recommended the "independence" of Kosovo, he had to qualify this by a special formula, "supervised independence." And against what would the "independence" of Kosovo be "supervised"? Why, the first precondition that Ahtisaari had to propose was to rule out unification with Albania! The mere imposition of this qualification demonstrates, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the real aspiration of the Albanians of Kosovo (and of the U.S.) is the creation of a "Greater Albania" through unification with the present state of Albania. Hence, the "independence" of Kosovo is sham independence.
And who is supposed to "supervise" the "independence" of Kosovo? The answer to this question gives us the second dimension of Kosovo's "independence." It is a well-known fact that, after the seventy four-day air strikes inflicted on the former Yugoslavia by NATO, Kosovo was delivered to the civilian rule of UNMIK (the UN Kosovo Mission) and the military control of KFOR (the Kosovo Peace Force). According to the terms of the resolution adopted by the UN after the termination of the Kosovo War, Kosovo was to remain Serbian territory, but was also to be converted into a "UN protectorate." This was a legal formula that was permeated with contradiction, since the status of "protectorate" is an entirely colonial status and to declare a territory that is under the sovereignty of an independent state (the former Yugoslavia and today's successor state of Serbia) a colonial belonging defies logic.
The "independence" granted today to Kosovo removes this contradiction, making it thereby a straightforward colony, one under multilateral rule. The initiative regarding the declaration of "independence" does not belong to Hashim Thaci, the leader of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army become prime minister in January this year, but Ahtisaari on behalf of the UN. It is a travesty to pretend that Thaci is a "hero." Imperialism has offered "independence" to the KLA on a golden platter. Today Kosovo is controlled by 17 thousand NATO troops. It is being delivered to the rule of the EU, which will be sending an additional force of 1800 to police the territory. "Independence" on the force of arms of others is sham independence!
The real historic significance of this sham independence resides in this, that the U.S. and the EU have, through the Kosovo War, forcibly wrested a part of Serbia away from the country! (It would not be futile to remind EU fanatics that, in contrast to the Iraq War of 2003 for instance, all the big EU countries were comrades in arms with the USA, and even led, the Kosovo war.) The 1999 war was fought on the declared grounds of stopping the cruel treatment and ethnic cleansing the Albanians of Kosovo were suffering at the hands of Milosevic. But the final outcome nine years later demonstrates that the real aim was to carry to its conclusion the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. "Operation independence Kosovo" is but the belated consummation of the forcible destruction of Yugoslavia in the years 1991 to 1999.
A clear understanding regarding the aims of this imperialistic policy is of paramount importance. To start with, the Balkans are the South-western tip of Eurasia, an immense region that has come up for grabs as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the other degenerated workers' states in Europe between 1989 and 1992. It was imperative for imperialism to prevent the survival of a state (Federal Yugoslavia) that had the capacity of obstructing imperialist plans in the Balkans. The dismemberment of Yugoslavia was the most violent form that capitalist restoration took in this historical period. Secondly, for the smooth implementation of EU plans to annex central and Eastern Europe, it was necessary to carve Federal Yugoslavia into mini-states and subsequently to destroy the historically strong identity of the Balkans through the imposition of the concept of "Southeast Europe." The so-called "Southeast Europe Stability Pact" (of which Turkey is such an ardent protagonist) is a product of this operation. Third, the Albanians were promoted as a special ally of the USA. Albania has today become the stronghold of reaction and pro-imperialist policies, as well as the Balkan centre of trafficking in drugs and prostitution. The project of "Greater Albania" is a U.S. initiative, developed as a counterweight to the preponderance of the Southern Slavs in the Balkans. Today Albania and Kosovo seem to embody the two heads of the eagle on the Albanian flag. Tomorrow, the eagle may become triple-headed, with the Albanians of Macedonia joining the band wagon. The "independence" of Kosovo should be situated in this overall picture.
The Albanians of Kosovo seem to be overwhelmingly in favour of secession from Serbia. Would it not be appropriate under these circumstances, it might be asked, for internationalists to support this "independence" on the basis of the right of nations to self-determination? The specific evolution of Kosovo history and the existence of a project to establish a "Greater Albania" complicate matters. Before it came under Ottoman domination in the wake of the notorious Kosovo War of 1399, Kosovo used to be the historic centre of Serbia. It was only towards the end of the 19th century that Albanians became the majority in this territory as a result of the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs under Ottoman colonial policy and the support extended by the Empire to Islamised Albanians as against the Serbs. Add to this the fact that Albanians already wield a state that neighbours the Serbian state. Under these circumstances the national question in Kosovo overlaps with that of the quest of one state to expand its territory (and population) at the expense of another. Beyond the plain and simple principle of the right of nations to self-determination, we see here a struggle for power between two sovereign states. But all these arguments pale beside the fact that the status accorded to Kosovo today has nothing to do with "independence." A new colony is born. How long the status of protectorate will last is totally unforeseeable, given the policy of imperialism in the Balkans.
That Turkey should have recognised the "independence" of Kosovo immediately, on the same day as the U.S. and the larger states of the EU, and this despite its own Kurdish question and its fears regarding the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, has certainly nothing to do with respect for the rights of oppressed nations. The ruling classes of Turkey have made it a principle to serve the policies of imperialism, and of U.S. imperialism in particular, in the region of Eurasia, as long as these do not come into direct conflict with its own interests as in the case of the Kurdish question. The Eurasia policy of Turkey, pursued since Özal established it in 1991, has taken the form of military support to all kinds of imperialist endeavours (Somali, Afghanistan, Lebanon etc.)
During the Kosovo War, Turkish bombers poured death over the Serbian people arm in arm with the air forces of imperialist powers, three military air strips were allocated to imperialist fighter jets (but were not ultimately used because the war ended earlier than predicted), and the supposedly nationalist prime minister Ecevit declared, in the early stages of the war, that Turkey was prepared for land combat. The recognition of the "independence" of Kosovo implies that Turkey continues to play the game of imperialism and is directly connected to the agreement of 5 November 2007 between Bush and Erdogan related to the bombing of Kurdish (PKK) targets in Northern Iraq. Given the oppression of the Serbs by the Turks and the role they played under the Ottoman Empire in the forcible Islamisation of Kosovo, this policy becomes all the more shameless.
Sungur Savran is editor of the newspaper Isci Mucadelesi (Workers' Struggle) in Istanbul, Turkey (http://www.iscimucadelesi.net/).

Serbia rejects UN Kosovo independence plan.

Most of Kosovo has been purged of Serbs and other minorities under the watchful eye of the UN mission. There are only a few Serb enclaves remaining. It is hard to see that the Serbs can keep Kosovo as part of Serbia but there could be continuing trouble if Russia vetoes the UN plan as it might well do.


UN mediator briefs Security Council on Kosovo independence
Published: Tuesday April 3, 2007



The Security Council met behind closed doors Tuesday to hear UN chief mediator Martti Ahtisaari detail his contentious plan to grant supervised independence to Kosovo.

The 15-member body also agreed to meet informally and separately later in the day with Serbian Prime Minister Vojislac Kostunica as well as Kosovo's ethnic Albanian president Fatmir Sejdiu ahead of further consultations.

Ahtisaari's recommendations for the future status of the Albanian-majority province have already been endorsed by Kosovo Albanians, the European Union and the United States.

But his plan, unveiled last week, is strongly opposed by Belgrade and Moscow, a veto-wielding, permanent council member.

The council, which must approve Kosovo's future status, will not make any decision nor adopt any resolution during Tuesday's closed-door consultations, diplomats said.

"My sense is that it is too early to speak about a resolution," Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin told reporters.

But his French counterpart Jean-Marc de La Sabliere made it clear that the Ahtisaari plan was the only viable option for Kosovo.

"We should not delay ... It would be very risky," he added. "To keep the status quo is not an option."

"What is at stake is the stability of Europe. This is the completion of the process of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia," the French envoy said.

Diplomats, however, said the discussions on Kosovo were likely to last for weeks before a decision on whether to endorse the Ahtisaari plan is made.

They added that before that happens, the council was likely to undertake a fact-finding mission to Kosovo and Belgrade as requested by the Russian delegation.

Kosovo has been administered by a UN mission since mid-1999, after a NATO bombing campaign ended the brutal crackdown by Serbian forces against the province's ethnic-Albanian majority.

Meanwhile, NATO warned on Monday that it would not tolerate any violence in Kosovo ahead of the UN consultations.

"No one should have illusions that violence or threats of violence could in any way be an element in the final solution" to the status of the ethnic Albanian majority province, said NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Some 10,000 ethnic Albanians died and hundreds of thousands fled Kosovo during the 1998-1999 conflict.

"Independence is the only option for a politically stable and economically viable Kosovo," Ahtisaari said in his latest report, hailed by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders who represent 90 percent of the province's two million people.

He made it clear that in the initial phase, international supervision of an independent Kosovo would be required.

Under the scheme, the province would adopt a constitution within 120 days of its new status being confirmed, by which time the mandate of the current UN mission in Kosovo would end.

General and local elections would be held within nine months of the new status being introduced.

An international civilian representative, who would be a European Union representative, would oversee the implementation of the plan while having no direct role in administering Kosovo.

He would be aided by a NATO-led military mission and an EU police force which would "monitor, mentor and advise on all areas related to the rule of law."

That international supervisory role "would come to an end only when Kosovo has implemented the measures set forth in the settlement proposal," the UN mediator added.

However, Serbia, which views Kosovo as the cradle of its civilization, remained bitterly opposed to its proposed independence.

And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned that Ahtisaari "will fail" if he pursues his current plan for Kosovo.



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Final negotiations on Kosovo

Most of the Serbs have already been purged from Albania. Serbia has already been dismembered so it will just have to suffer one more amputation. The severed limb is 90 per cent Albania already. UN supervised ethnic cleansing obviously works. I wonder what happens if Russia vetos the plan?

Serbs, Albanians open last talks on UN Kosovo plan
Reuters

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VIENNA - Serbs and Albanians began final talks today on a UN plan for Serbia’s breakaway Kosovo province, with mediator Martti Ahtisaari inviting the two fundamentally opposed sides to find something to agree on.

“We want to give the parties a chance to go through the plan,” which offers Kosovo a path to independence supervised by the European Union, Ahtisaari told reporters.

“If we can agree on something that is not there at the moment, we will seriously consider it.”

But Ahtisaari has warned against expecting the “miracle” of a compromise between the Kosovo Albanian demand for full independence and Serbia’s offer of autonomy within Serb borders, and there was no hint of conciliation from the delegates.

“We are not rejecting the entire plan. We reject only the provisions violating the territorial integrity of Serbia,” said Serbian negotiator Slobodan Samardzic.

But sovereignty is the crunch issue.

“We believe Kosovo will be independent and we will go back with that conviction,” said Veton Surroi, speaking for the Albanians who make up 90% of Kosovo’s population of 2 million.

“Belgrade has gone through the whole year talking about territory and not about people,” he added. “What we want from our people is to have patience in the last few laps of this marathon.”

Kosovo was the cause of NATO’s first “humanitarian” war in 1999 to drive out Serb forces who killed 10000 Albanians and drove out almost 1 million in a two-year conflict with rebels.

The United Nations took control, but left Kosovo’s status open. The West sees no prospect of reimposing Serb rule.

Ahtisaari says his proposal for the people of Serbia’s ancient religious heartland is a compromise between diametrically opposed demands.

Serbia insists it must retain sovereignty, while Albanian leaders have accepted the plan but want to water down provisions for a foreign overseer and self-government for the Serb minority, which have angered many Albanians.

Serbia vows to reject all elements implying the amputation of 15% of its territory, impoverished land the size of Qatar or Connecticut.

“Serbia cannot agree to its dismemberment and the loss of its sovereignty over any part of Serbian land,” Serbian presidential adviser Vuk Jeremic told Reuters on Monday.

Today’s meeting comes a year and a day since former Finnish president Ahtisaari opened direct talks between the two.

Discussions have produced little but disagreement. Ahtisaari made public his blueprint on February 2 and said he expected the UN Security Council to impose a settlement within months.

“There is no realistic alternative to the UN proposal,” his deputy, Albert Rohan, said in comments published on Monday.

“Continuation of the current situation is impossible.”

Ahtisaari hopes to wrap up talks by March 10 and send his finished plan to the Security Council later in the month.

The bargaining looks certain to continue in New York, where UN veto holder Russia has warned repeatedly it will not support an imposed solution that Serbia does not accept.

Serbia is banking on a Russian veto.

Serbs resist independence for Kosovo

This article does not mention the reverse ethnic cleansing practiced by the Albanians after the "succesful" intervention of NATO into Serbia's attempt to drive out many Albanians. Now the UN mission still has not convinced Serbia to allow independence. Probably in the long run Serbia will have no choice. After the UN intervention most Serbs and also gypsies were driven out or in the case of Serbs into small enclaves. Interesting the Serb guards are called "thuggish"!



Serb-Albanian gap wide as others decide Kosovo's fate
February 5, 2007

Thuggish Serbians maintain a vigil on the north of the Ibar River, ready to punish ethnic Albanians who cross the unofficial boundary in Europe's unfinished war.

Kosovo, a province of Serbia, is bitterly divided between Serbian enclaves, including a big part of the north, and the rest of the territory, which is ethnic Albanian. Now, as the UN nudges Kosovo towards what it calls final status and what Belgrade calls independence, Serbs in northern Kosovo are threatening to break away.

"Northern Kosovo will secede," said moderate Serbian politician Oliver Ivanovic. Mr Ivanovic said he had warned the UN, NATO, the European Union and the US that, nearly eight years after NATO bombing drove the Serbian army and other security forces out, it was too early to settle Kosovo's status.

"Kosovo's independence will leave no space for the moderates to act," he said.

Kosovo — more than 90 per cent ethnic Albanian — has struggled since early last century to free itself from Belgrade. With the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s the fight began anew, but Serbia resisted.

UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari presented his plans for Kosovo's final status to officials in Belgrade and Pristina on Friday.

Serbian President Boris Tadic rejected the plans as a prelude to independence, while Kosovo Albanians welcomed them. With the blessing of the US, they have said they will accept nothing less than independence.

Most Kosovo Serbs will never accept an independent Kosovo.

"It would create a situation like Iraq or Lebanon here in Serbia," said Milan Ivanovic, head of Kosovo's hardline Serbian National Council. "We would fight to get Kosovo back with all legitimate means."

Kosovo Albanians and their international supporters hope that a high degree of autonomy in Serbian areas with guarantees for the protection of Serbian rights and strict international oversight will persuade Serbs in the territory to accept an Albanian-led government.

"Hopefully, with independence, a local Serb leadership will emerge to address the needs of the Serbs within the Kosovo system," said Muhamet Hamiti, an adviser to Kosovo's President Fatmir Sejdiu.

Kosovo is home to the Serbian Orthodox Church's most sacred sites. "This is the spiritual centre of the Serbian church," said Sister Dobrila, a nun at the monastery of the Patriarchate of Pec, built around a Byzantine church from the 13th century that holds the tombs of Serbia's medieval archbishops.

Birds are woven into Serbian folklore. The birds are the souls of the dead from the 14th century battle of Kosovo, in which a Serbian-led Christian army sought to stop the Ottoman advance — an advance whose legacy is the nominally Muslim Albanian majority in the province today.

NEW YORK TIMES