http://www.antiwar.com/malic/
ANTIWAR, Thursday, October 21, 2004
Balkan Express
by Nebojsa Malic
INTRODUCTION We at Freenations are pleased to be able to reproduce this article from antiwar.com on the “democratic elections” being conducted under the aegis of NATO and the UN in Kosovo. Kosovo is the Serb province from which most Serbs have been ethnically cleansed by Kosovo Albanian terrorists (the KLA) with the passive acquiescence of the UN. There have been repeated attacks on Serbs, Jews and gypsies and the other minorities who lived happily under Serb rule but who are now victims of NATO’s “victims” – the Albanians. So NATO and German Europe have brought about in Kosovo the very kind of ethnic cleansing that they went to war to prevent – except that it is their own allies who have carried out the cleansing. The same happened of course when the Bosnians and the Croats drove out hundreds of thousands of Serbs – once again as NATO and the UN looked on in mock horror!
That anyone should think that it is legitimate to expel 40% of a population and then hold elections on the future of a country or region is just so despicable that only the British media – led by the BBC! – could possibly go along with this scandal. It is of course part of the ridiculous propaganda of the war itself when a justified move against the terrorist KLA by the Serb Government in Belgrade was claimed to be an attempt to “ethnically cleanse” Kosovo of Albanians. Albanians had also been attacked by the KLA. Albanians had lived peaceably alongside Serbs for decades with Albanians even represented in the Government in Belgrade.
It was Serbia which was the most multi-ethnic part of Yugoslavia while Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia today represent the most ethnically pure petty states in Europe – thanks to the war planned by German Europe and carried out by the bovine ignorance of Britain and the USA.
When interviewed after the cessation of NATO hostilities in 1999 a KLA leader said in an interview heard on the BBC that the KLA were “grateful to the fascist NATO armies” for their help! Yes, in Yugoslavia it was always the Serbs who were the allies of Britain, France and the USA in two world wars and the enemies of the Serbs who were the fascists – and that is precisely why the resurgent German Europe set up its Secret Service Headquarters in Albania in 1995 and enticed the USA into the illegal war of 1999.
Now read the article by Nebojsa Malic from the website http://www.antiwar.com
Seven months after the horrific pogrom that raged across the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo, the occupiers are poised to lead its perpetrators a step close to their coveted ultimate prize. Elections scheduled for Oct. 23 were designed to establish the Albanian authorities as
a legitimate “government” of the province, bolstering their separatist claims just in time for the conference on “final status,” projected to take place next year. Serbs in Kosovo, rightly embittered by the complicity of the UN and NATO in their gradual extermination, have by and large refused to give any further legitimacy to the occupation. Washington, Brussels and the
UN have tried to pressure Serbs into abandoning their resistance; it is unclear to what extent they have succeeded so far.
The elections in Kosovo will be illegitimate whether one or one hundred thousand Serbs vote this Saturday. It is impossible to conduct a fair election (if ever there was such a thing) in an occupied, ethnically cleansed and terrorized territory. But the Empire seems determined to
continue its policy of creeping amputation, effectively rewarding the perpetrators of the March pogrom and further confirming its commitment to the rule of force, rather than the rule of law.
“Birth of a Nation”
That is how Time magazine recently described one possible outcome of the upcoming elections. According to Time, “with conflicts brewing around the world, the UN and NATO are now looking to get out, and fast.” Another reason for their haste is the March pogrom, which demonstrated the Albanians’ willingness to use force to get their way. It seems that UNMIK and NATO have wholeheartedly accepted the reasoning of Albanians and their partisans in the West that followed the March terror.
Indeed, this reasoning was recently reiterated by none other than Veton Surroi, the “highly regarded” editor and publisher who recently established a political party. “In March you saw the enormous capacity for destruction in this society,” Surroi told Reuters. “Little has changed since March.”
Surroi may appear a “moderate” in the Kosovo Albanian political spectrum, but his veiled threats of violence in case independence isn’t forthcoming echo those of the terrorist KLA. Its representatives recently raised funds in the United States for both new weapons and John Kerry’s presidential campaign, not only unmolested by American authorities, but joined by former
Clinton administration officials Gen. Wesley Clark (ret.) and Richard Holbrooke (the most aggressive of the Bilderberg anti-Serb protagonists of the war – ed).
In addition to Surroi’s party, Ibrahim Rugova’s “Democratic League of Kosovo” and the two major KLA-affiliated parties, several new political entities have sprung upon among the Kosovo Albanians recently. Their programs are identical: first independent Kosovo, then the creation of an “Ethnic Albania.” One of the parties is called “Balli Kombetar Demokratik” – Democratic National Front. Except for the addition of “democratic,” it is the name of a WW2 movement that supported the Nazis.
UNMIK Lashes Out
Kosovo’s UN and NATO occupiers seem perfectly content to ignore Albanian bellicosity. Some reinforcements have dropped in to boost NATO’s presence during the elections, but there’s been no signal whatsoever that new violence would not be tolerated. Instead, the occupiers have focused their rage on the Serbs, as their withdrawal of consent jeopardizes the Empire’s
Potemkin Kosovo. As Financial Times put it, a Serb boycott “could undermine the credibility of multiethnic democracy in Kosovo.”
As well it should! There is absolutely no such thing, not with Albanians steamrolling over every other community. Even though UNMIK claims that “the best way Serbs can be heard is by electing their leaders to the new Assembly,” (Time) they have had representatives in the previous one, with exactly zero benefit from it. Serbs, Turks, Roma, Ashkali, “Bosniaks” and others serve solely as window-dressing that creates an illusion of “multi-ethnicity” where in reality there is brutal racism and terror. If this is what “becoming an active part of the institutional life” – as
Viceroy Jessen-Petersen puts it – really means, no wonder the Serbs want out.
Jessen-Petersen and his underlings have also demonstrated their utter contempt for Serbs by fiercely attacking the Serbian Orthodox Church, the only remaining Serbian institution in Kosovo. There is little doubt that Viceroy Jessen-Petersen referred to the Church when he said Monday, “Those urging Kosovo Serbs not to vote simply do not have in mind the interest of
their own people.”
After nothing had been done to rebuild or restore any of the churches destroyed in the March pogrom – not to mention over 120 destroyed since 1999 – Kosovo’s Bishop Artemije decided to end the charade and stop pretending the UN is helping. This provoked a fierce attack by UNMIK, which claimed, “The Bishop’s decision . . . runs counter to the overall goal to build a
multi-ethnic Kosovo with full respect and security for all communities and religious sites.” Thanks to UNMIK’s absolute access to Western media, and the Church’s lack thereof, the condemnation appeared before the Bishop’s announcement. When even UNMIK won’t allow the Serbs of Kosovo a voice – in this instance, through preempting a protest by blaming the victim – how does anyone imagine the Albanian-dominated Assembly will?
Betrayed by Belgrade
The UN/NATO abuses in Kosovo have met with appallingly little resistance in Belgrade, where a fractious and confused post-DOS regime lacks any semblance of a coherent plan, whether for Kosovo or Serbia in general. President Tadic may have been right to say that Prime Minister Kostunica’s government is “doing nothing,” but his own obsequious prostrations before the Empire are just as harmful. In an interview to Financial Timeslast week, president of the Serbia-Montenegro Union Svetozar Marovic favored a Dayton-like conference to resolve the Kosovo issue, while supporting (!) the continued NATO occupation.
It appears that official Belgrade has abandoned Kosovo, and loyal citizens residing there, to the mercies of Albanian separatists and UNMIK. Though Albanian partisans see this as indirect acquiescence to their demands for independence, it is more symptomatic of the overall paucity of character in the Serbian political class. A century of suffering – half of which was under Communist rule – followed by Slobodan Milosevic’s confused post-Communism and siege by the Empire, seems to have destroyed the Serbians’ taste for liberty and capacity for principled thought.
Before his violent ouster in 2000, Milosevic’s opponents argued that “the West” would rethink its position on Kosovo if Serbia became “democratic.” What they discovered afterwards is that the definition of “democratic” kept changing with ever-increasing demands from Washington, Brussels and The Hague, while the Kosovo policy changed not one bit. This has surely
contributed to the overall feeling of frustration and apathy in Serbia as much as the broken economic promises of the DOS regime and its heirs.
Rewarding Genocide
Kosovo Albanians’ separatist drive rests on two “facts,” both created by the NATO occupation. Both are mentioned in every wire and agency report from the province: Albanians make up a “90-percent majority” and Kosovo is “still formally a part of Serbia” (emphasis added). The natural assumption from such “facts” would be that Albanians are actual inhabitants of the province, while Serbs and others are interlopers; as well as that a 90% majority is more than good enough for a “democratic” declaration of independence. The trouble with this is that Albanians became a majority through massive illegal immigration, explosive birth rates, and systematic violence against other communities – whether during the reign of Ottoman Turks (1389-1912), Austrian and German occupations (1915-18, 1941-44), Communist dictatorship
(1945-1989), or NATO/UNMIK occupation (1999-present). Creation of an “independent,” Albanian Kosovo would not be recognition of democratic self-determination, or any such nonsense: it would be the ultimate reward for ethnic cleansing, and what amounts to genocide.
Force and Justice
Kosovo is not some “mandate” of the UN; it is the territory of a sovereign state, occupied in an illegal and illegitimate war of aggression. By its very existence, UNSCR 1244 violates the UN Charter and makes the world body an accomplice in a crime against peace and the ongoing crimes against humanity. The only “final status” possible under international law would be
the reintegration of the province into Serbia.
Those who preach to millions about “freedom” and “rule of law” were willing to trample both in the case of Kosovo in 1999. Judging by their conduct ever since, they still are. Their sermons are nothing but lies, and their only argument, when stripped of nonsense and falsehoods, is brute force.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Nebojsa Malic
