Shocking: Warning On Kosovo Recognition

‘Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica warned that any foreign recognition of Kosovo would be viewed as harsh interference in Serbia’s domestic affairs. He also said that integration into Europe would not be considered compensation for any loss of Serbia’s territorial integrity.’ (source:http://www.stratfor.com)

Of course this is not news but I decided to publish if for the sake of being transparent with all sides. Vice-President of Kostunica told me the same thing when I interviewed him in Belgrade in 2000. 

I am not shocked that they don’t want to give up Kosovo. I just don’t get it why? They abused Kosovo in every single way and now they claim that they love it and can’t live without it. Fhew, it’s kind of worrying because they sound like one of those abusing partners who beat the crap out of their partners and then they tell them, with tears and blood in their face:  ’Babe, I can’t live without you. I love you. You know that, don’t you?’

Kind of psychotic, isn’t it? And worrying because they claim to be democrats. Hmmm, democracy in which I’m living in Britain is completely and utterly different. Just take my word for it Mr.Kostunica.

Wake up Serbia, wake up. Check the dictionary and understand the word democracy. Do that for the sake of human rights.

UN Security Council Gets Kosovo Independence Draft

11 May 2007

The United States and its European allies have circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would set Kosovo on the path to independence from Serbia. VOA’s Peter Heinlein at U.N. headquarters reports sponsors are pushing for speedy approval of the measure.

The draft resolution was circulated quietly Friday after a brief discussion among Council members. American Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who has made Kosovo a priority of this month’s U.S. presidency of the Security Council, declined to answer questions after a brief announcement.

http://voanews.com/english/2007-05-11-voa54.cfm

Serbian nationalists have been arrested

Serbian police have arrested 27 nationalist demonstrators who said they were recruiting volunteer guards to fight in Kosovo if the breakaway province tries to separate from Serbia.

Several hundred people, including military veterans and former paramilitaries, gathered at a rally in the central Serbian city of Krusevac to swear allegiance to the “Tsar Lazar Guard”. The group, which claims to have enlisted 5,000 volunteers, is named after a medieval Serbian leader who died fighting the Ottoman Turks in the 1389 battle for Kosovo.

The detainees were wearing black T-shirts with the letters JSO, a symbol of a banned paramilitary group from the 1990s. Authorities said they will start legal procedures against them.

A UN-mediated plan for Kosovo envisions supervised independence for the region, something many Serbs refuse to accept, because they consider the region of Kosovo as Serbia’s historical heartland.

More than 90 percent of Kosovo’s population today is ethnic-Albanian, the Voice of America reports.

http://www.panarmenian.net/news/eng/?nid=22161

A peace that depends on fear is nothing but a suppressed war (Dyke, Henry Van)

No comment.

Another war in Kosovo?

Serb Volunteers Ready To Fight For Kosovo BELGRADE, May 4

A grouping of Serb veterans and hardline nationalist said on Friday they would form a ”volunteer guard” and take up arms to keep Serbia’’s breakaway Kosovo province, which the West wants to make independent in months, Reuters reported.  ”In the event that independence is proclaimed we are going to be ready,” Zeljko Vasiljevic, president of the Serb Veterans’ Movement, told the crowd. “As of today your task will be to unite volunteers and prepare them for defence of Kosovo,” he said. Vasiljevic said on Friday volunteers would not act outside state institutions and would put themselves at the disposal of Serbian army and police. Organisers said 5,000 people, mostly former veterans, had signed up to join. In a move reminiscent of the Serb paramilitary gangs that roamed Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo during a decade of war and atrocities in the 1990s, they said they plan to christen the “Guard of Prince Lazar” in a town in central Serbia on Saturday. Named after the 14th century Serb ruler, the guard, they say, will “never give up” the fight to defend the southern province, if the 2 million ethnic Albanians who now dominate Serbia’’s religious heartland win independence.

http://www.mediafax.ro/english/articole-free/Serb-Volunteers-Ready-To-Fight-For-Kosovo-661546-9.html

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/TZO540161.htm

Kosovo Needs a Multilateral Approach

Permanent representatives from the United Nations Security Council have just returned from a fact finding mission to the Balkans and will soon begin debating whether or not to endorse granting Kosovo independence. There are legitimate arguments both in favor of granting Kosovo independence and against. But an argument currently making the rounds in Washington—that the United States should recognize Kosovo’s independence even without Security Council approval—is almost certainly wrong.

 http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=14366

Is being proud of what you are nationalism?

Etno Engjujt -  Albanian 

A good friend of mine told me that he is worried that nationalism is increasing in Kosovo.

To many individuals, I think that this song, sang by Etno Angels,  Albanian, would seem very nationalistic. The thing is, as a Kosovo-Albanian, I see it from a different perspective.

Let me explain few things briefly. During the war, peoples dignity and identity was stripped off.

People were killed, massacred, raped and majority of the population during 1999 was in exile just because they were Kosovo-Albanians, for nothing else and nothing more. Absurd but true.

Now, I think people have the right to regain what they have lost. They were forced to feel ashamed of who and what they are. They were forced to feel as if they don’t belong to Kosovo.

In this song, you can see young people of Kosovo trying to show that they are proud of who they are. They connect it with history, meaning that they did belong to that land for centuries. In more contemporary way, they try to show that Albanians are not as they are perceived or represented sometimes i.e. Mother Teresa was Albanian; and many other good and famous people are and were Albanians.

As a poor country, Kosovo doesn’t have the means to advertise itself – to show all the good hard-working peoples doings. However, good things and bad things happen in that country, as they happen throughout every country in the world.

But sometimes, or rather usually, talented people are wasted in that country (I’m sure Stephen Hawkings and David Beckham are glad that they are not from that country) but this doesn’t have to be the reason for them not to have human rights.

I see it more as a cry to be respected by others and some sort of defensive mode (especially by youth) as respecting them for what they aren (Albanians), is a must by now, because they have had enough.

Therefore, it’s more of a mixture between pride of what they are and civic nationalism.

One thing that Balkans really needs to learn is to respect and accept each other for whom they are, mind their own business within their own geographical borders and just get on well with their neighbouring or far away countries.

It’s as simple as that.

P.S. Besides, Albanians didn’t ever try to colonize other countries nor try to conquer the world. That is because they are happy to stay where they belong.

Kosovo’s communities remain far apart, says head of UN fact-finding group

Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian and Serbian communities continue to lead largely separate existences and have very different outlooks on the future, which means creating an integrated, multi-ethnic society in the province will require “substantial effort,” said the head of a Security Council fact-finding mission.

 http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=22429&Cr=kosovo&Cr1=

Washington wants sustainable Kosovo

A Washington spokesman said that United States is working toward a sustainable solution for Kosovo. Sean McCormack, spokesman for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told reporters that Washington is trying to accommodate the concerns of Russia and its ally Serbia but it is time to try to craft a solution that will be durable.   He said that he did not hear Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov say that Moscow would veto a U.N. plan giving internationally supervised independence to Kosovo. http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/55739.html

Kosovo Serb refugees still hope to return

Thousands of Serb refugees will gather next week at the boundary with Kosovo to tell a U.N. delegation visiting the contested province that they still hope to return to homes they were forced to flee after the 1998-99 war.

The visiting delegation is tasked with gathering firsthand information on the situation in Kosovo before the Security Council makes a final decision on a proposal by a U.N. envoy to grant Kosovo independence from Serbia but keep it under international supervision.

 http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/22/europe/EU-GEN-Serbia-UN-Kosovo.php