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To: wonders
OK:

I found this commentary on the "Die Welt" site. I translated this, however, since the article is on a (free) members only page, you'll have to take my word on the fact that my translation mirrors the original German. Unless you're a (free) member, of course.

I found this commentary typical, somehow. Funny in a (real) sad way. I can actually visualize groups of people at the Stammtisch sanctimoniously parroting this same line.

After reading this you should understand the German perspective of the Kosovo situation, and that anything written previously about German behavior there is most likely accurate.

Here we go:


Robbers' Dens

by Ulrich Clauss

Much speaks for the fact that the representatives of the United Nations in Kosovo are correct in their assessment that the murders of two UN policemen aren't directly connected with the most recent ethnic disturbances. Whoever is at the wrong place at the wrong time in Kosovo, even with an UN insignia on the hood, is just as less sure of his life as those on the Mitrovica Bridge where Serbian and Albanian hotheads went at each other to the hilt. Despite the still deep trenches between the ethnic parties in the region, devastated by three Balkan wars, the inhabitants have one thing is common, involvement in the rampant organized crime. The unresolved status of Kosovo, namely, has attracted every flavor of bandit and fortune hunter. With little fanfare the German Military has taken on the organized crime in Prizren with great skill. Their reports make your hair stand on end. Of course, as long as the European Union believes the question of Kosovo's status has to hang in the balance, little improvement, from a political order perspective, can be expected. Particularly, also, since one hears less about Kosovo as the hotbed of a European-wide network of organized crime than they do of the occasional flaring up of ethnic disturbances accompanied with a great deal of political bellowing. Drug pushers there are a danger for all of Southern Europe - and the terror-mafia there, as well.

As long as the status of Kosovo is not defined clearly, none of the problems there can be solved, because the authority questions are only provisionally in place and no tough security structures have been established. If Europe doesn't act soon, not only will the ethnic conflicts there increase again, but Kosovo and adjacent regions will definitely degenerate into the robbers' dens of South-eastern Europe, as well.

"Die Welt"..Commentary....Räuberhöhle

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Tranlated by longjack

14 posted on 03/26/2004 3:53:42 PM PST by longjack
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To: longjack; starys; MarMema; Wraith; getoffmylawn; vooch; kosta50; DTA
Wow, longjack, you're my hero! (Blowing lots of grateful kisses) Thank you so much for taking all the time and trouble to dig up and translate for us *balkanites. I really, really appreciate it! The subject also happens to be of great personal interest to me, and you've helped me enormously.






15 posted on 03/26/2004 5:14:08 PM PST by wonders (Whoever said "All's fair in love and war" probably never participated in either.)
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