Posted on 07/24/2006 6:44:49 AM PDT by Valin
Podgorica, Montenegro: IT WAS a Balkan love feast!" said James Lyon, regional expert for the International Crisis Group, about Montenegro's independence celebration beginning on July 12. In a notoriously fractious part of the world, the festivities drew Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians, Albanians, and even some Serb politicians, as the Montenegrins breathed an enormous sigh of relief at their divorce from the Belgrade regime.
Montenegro has fewer than 700,000 people, a tormented history, and plenty of challenges. But it also has magnificent assets: beautiful mountains and beaches, and basic amity between its Slav Orthodox majority and its Muslim Slav and Albanian minorities. Both of the latter voted overwhelmingly, in a May referendum, for the country's exit from its dysfunctional marriage with Serbia, which dated back to the end of the First World War.
If anything symbolized the unhappy relationship of Montenegro with the Serbian mafia state, it was the humiliation of the last team to represent a conjoined Serbia and Montenegro in the soccer World Cup. Argentina rolled over the team like a tank, 6-0, on June 16, devastating the demoralized sportsmen from a country that had ceased to exist.
On the ground, Montenegro is prospering. New businesses are burgeoning, and the tourist trade is beginning to revive after years of stagnation caused by the fall of Titoite communism, the Balkan wars, and gross corruption. President Filip Vujanovic of the Democratic Party of Socialists has led the world's newest republic into the United Nations, which admitted Montenegro on June 28. The date was significant: the anniversary of the legendary defeat of Serbia at the battle of Kosovo in 1389--and the anniversary as well of the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian prince Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie by a Serb terrorist in Sarajevo in 1914, which touched off the First World War.
Montenegrin independence also has loud echoes in neighboring Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Kosovar Albanians joke that Serbia is like a Nokia cell phone: It keeps getting smaller and smaller. The proclamation of Montenegro's freedom means that the full political independence of Kosovo very likely cannot be prevented, notwithstanding bluster by extremist Serb politicos and noise from Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Chinese Communist bureaucrats, and other enemies of capitalism and freedom.
The main lesson to be learned from Montenegro's success in extricating itself from the Serbian swamp is that neither it nor the other success stories emerging from the former Yugo slavia--Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia--allowed their political processes to fall under the control of the "nation-building" operatives of the United Nations. Slovenia and Croatia won their liberty by their own blood, and have run their countries rather well since then, without submitting to the oppressive assistance of the global "humanitarian" bureaucrats. Macedonia underwent a short war between its Slav majority and large Albanian minority in 2000-2001, but has also managed to rebuild its economy without international meddling.
By contrast, Bosnia-Herzegovina remains very far from economic rehabilitation, with unemployment at a steady 40 percent; and Kosovo, which formerly exported electrical power to its neighbors, still undergoes energy and water cuts for days at a time--seven years after the liberation of the province by NATO. Kosovar independence is necessary for the territory to accumulate state debt and attract foreign investment. But it is also important psychologically, because the international caste that now makes the final decisions in Kosovo (about such matters as maintenance of the energy grid) insists that reconciliation between the Albanians, who constitute 92 percent of the population, and the Serbs, who exploited and murdered them for 87 years, must come before privatization of major enterprises.
The pattern should sound familiar. Unfortunately, the Bosnia-Kosovo model of nation-building has now been exported to Iraq, where the demands of brutal Sunni extremists, representing a minority that also formerly ruled by abuse, are considered by many foreign officials more legitimate than the needs of the Shia and Kurdish majority. Bosnians have begun to turn away from their former affection for the United States, incited by bad news from Baghdad, but Kosovar Albanians proclaim their love for Americans to any who will listen.
Bosnians and Kosovars often allege that the fate inflicted on them by the U.N. and other international bodies reflects Western European anxiety about Islam in the Balkans, but it would be more accurate to attribute the failure of nation-building to the U.N.'s prejudice against free enterprise. All the international bodies responsible for the future of Bosnia and Kosovo--the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as well as the U.N.--are dominated by Russian, Scandinavian, and even British officials who evince a deep nostalgia for socialism and a profound suspicion of entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, the way forward for Kosovo, Bosnia, and Montenegro is clearly marked by the enthusiasm of small business owners, hard-working peasants who own middle-sized parcels of land, and investors in new technology.
Montenegro and Macedonia have bigger problems with Serbian Christians than with Albanian or other Muslims. The Serbian Orthodox Church continues to control the properties of the Montenegrin and Macedonian Orthodox believers. Balkan Muslims express support for the autonomy of the non-Serb Orthodox, no less than for their own religious freedom. Feeble Serbian lobbyists in Washington and elsewhere try to portray Balkan Islam as jihadist, but the truth is obviously otherwise. Local Sufis, for example, express greater resentment of Saudi-backed Wahhabi infiltrators than of Serbs. The Wahhabis have duped young people into joining their death cult not only with the promise of religious education and self-improvement, but also with bribes to induce men to grow Wahhabi beards and women to cover themselves completely in the Saudi manner.
Montenegro still has its problems. A local Muslim figure noted to me that constitutional rights for the small minorities--Bosnians (13 percent of the population), Croats, and others--remain unsecured. This is a cause of anxiety for one in four Montenegrins, lest ethnic demagogy reappear.
But Montenegrin president Vujan ovic will hold the new country's first general election on September 10. So far, there is every indication that new borders, a new flag (red with a black eagle resembling that of Albania), and a new, clean ballot will lift Montenegro out of the black hole into which it was dragged by Serbia, and in which Belgrade seems stuck for at least another generation.
Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
Good suggestion.
We also need to take some kind of political action.
The Democrats are worse than useless, and many Republicans are usless.
"Montenegro and Macedonia have bigger problems with Serbian Christians than with Albanian or other Muslims"
Really ? KLA tried to carve up part of Macedonia shortly after Serbian withdrawal from Kosovo and there were a series of fighting stopped after NATO moved in.
Stephen Schwarz is another Islamist Propagandist.
Ironically, most of that "diverted money" went to support Kosovo, the original welfare state. The rest went to supporting bloated bureaucrats in Belgrade -- but that's the rub. Many of those "bloated bureaucrats in Belgrade" were also Croat & Slovene government reps, some of whom still live there. It wasn't like the Serbs were wolfing all the money for themselves.
The Croats & Slovenes had a legitimate gripe, the same legitimate gripe we would have about our taxes being too high. The place they pointed to was Belgrade, the capital of the country, just as we would point to DC. But because Belgrade was also the capital of Serbia, it was all too easy to say "those damn Serbs" and convince themselves and everyone else of it.
People also seem to forget that before the break-up, the largest ethnic group in the whole of Yugoslavia was "the Serbs". Even in a democratic country, they as a single ethnic group, would have the largest say in politics -- much as "White Anglo-Saxon Protestants" do in the US. But now, with the gerrymandered borders, Serbs are "a minority" everywhere except in Serbia & Montenegro. And Serbia keeps getting smaller and smaller.
"Of course my ancestors come from the British Isles, and all of my different ethnic groups fought each other for centuries: England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.."
Britain was lucky that it happened before the UN & EU got involved, or the fighting would still be going on!
There is this bizarre thinking that all you need are lawyers, judges and bureaucrats to end a war. It doesn't work. There must be a will for peace first, and no intervention can create that.
Please don't mistake what I am saying -- if you have something like "a Nazi Germany style, pick innocent civilians off the street who have no political agenda and simply kill them because they are Jews and you want to get rid of all the Jews in your country" kind of event, like even Rwanda was, it is incumbant upon those with a conscience to intervene and save the innocents. But the break-up of Yugoslavia was a civil war -- an "ethnic civil war", which means that people did divide along ethnic lines, but FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES. If any side won, it was likely going to result in a disproportionate loss of life in one of the ethnic groups. Is it "genocide" when one group fights another for political puposes but the political divisions between the groups happen to be along ethnic lines? Every civil war has its civilian casualties, and some of those civilian casualties are war crimes because they are in fact, prosecutable "murders" -- but is that "genocide" in an ethnic civil war? Again, the same question arises in the difference between military "mopping up" and "ethnic cleansing" in an ethnic civil war.
I believe that the break-up of Yugoslavia was made out to be what it was not -- "genocide"-- in order to get outside intervention by the ethnic groups who could not win a military or political victory without outside help. It was orchestrated, because that German and Iranian help was already waiting in the wings. The only real outside "wildcard" was the US, and the American people were duped into intervening where we had no business, against people who were our allies in two World Wars. We were lied to, most of us know it, but President Bush keeps acting like "the Clinton lie was the truth" in order to save face for the US. The problem is that we have already created one base for al Qaeda in the Balkans (Muslim Bosnia), and if we go along with granting Kosovo independence, we will grant al Qaeda another -- and we will sign the death warrants for the last of the remaining Kosovo Christian population in the process. In addition, the Albanians will be emboldened to demand more land completely destablizing the region in their quest for a Greater Albania.
Below is the map that ran on the Albanian American Civic League website for years, until they removed it because political commentators started referring to it. It shows that the Albanians want not only Kosovo, but pieces of Montenegro, Macedonia, Southern Serbia and Greece. Kosovo is only the Albanians "first step" if we give it to them. I say that we don't give it to them!
This is another thing Croatia and Slovenia did, according to Croat-Serb Yugoslav who used to post here:
What they [Kosovo Albanians] use to do is to go and study in Zagreb, Croatia and came back with Masters or PhDs of very dubious quality. I know it first hand. Croats would let them pass the exams knowing that they will go back and work in Kosovo. The result is lots of "intellectuals" but very low quality, believe me. Albanians had it so good, for a long time!...The scholarship for Albanians was paid by Serbian Ministry of Education. It was a system in which Fund for Education from ones resident municipality would foot the bill. Some of the post-grad education (Masters and PhDs ) were paid personally, or by ones company. Or hospital. The point I want to make is that Croats and Slovenes had low criteria for Albanians because they wouldnt be allowed to stay or work with their diplomas! Take the money for the course, let them pass and send them back to annoy Serbs!
Excellent comments. Thank you
Julia Gorin's response to Stephen Schwartz and this article: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1672785/posts?page=1
Actually, this is a Serbian joke. Anyway, calling Lyon an "expert" is seriously stretching it.
I'd say 8-9% Bosnian Muslims + 5% Albanians. About 14-15%.
Simultaniously, he confirmed that Ceku and Thaci were protected from any snatches, persecution and given protection from all things.
How is the deep jungle of Afrika, errr, the desert sands?..:)
I've never heard of this...However, I KNOW that the Islamic Charities give money to Albanians to become Saudi Muslims.....the moderate Albanians are not taking the money because they know what is expected as in calling in favors. The Italian Carbanarri gave me the bank account numbers, banks, and names of those receiving the money from Saudi Arabia. In one account they received $100,000 per month. I did pass this one to the several government agencies due to some contacts. I don't know if this info has been used or not. In any case, the poorer Albanian families are taking the money due to having no jobs. If you take the money, you make your wife wear the head gear, with full face..lolol.., five times per day prayer.....read Koran, (Terrorist: How to manuel), and recruit or work for the Mosque. wow, do you really think Ceku is protected...:)) /sarc......
Oh, about Africa.....I'm going to kill my travel agent. He said it was like Hawaii....big lie.. lolol...:) Don't come here for sure. It's another political mess.....rock and roll....
Hell, If my wife were albanian, i'd hide her uglyness underneath the berka too!
I really don't want to ever visit Afrika, though I had the chance to do Djibouti but turned it down.
Happinness is that when in doubt, unload the mag then slap in a full one!
Hey, watch your a$&, er, I mean your Donkey....you and I both know there WILL be one heck of a war soon, when Russia deploys to the ME, landing first, being welcomed in Iran and Syria. It's not an if..it's only a matter of when.
I wrote a short, very short assessment as follows:
"First of all we know that Russia is an enemy of Israel. Israel knows that Russia has been helping Iran to get ready to build or has already built Nuclear Weapons for a number of years.
Watch first for the EU to jump in and broker a peace accord with Israel at some point. This current offensive may start the ball rolling, but I sense that this one may come to a slow down point. However this will only last a short time for reorganization and consolidation of both sides. The trick will be when the U.S. and/or Israel bombs Iran because of the notion or even the actual existence of a serious effort being made to develop Nuclear weapons. Doesnt matter if they have them or not, this will be the impetus or justification.
Once that happens, all hell will break loose. This will bring Russia to the Middle East, because they wont have a choice. There are several reasons why Russia wants to dominate Israel. One, they need a warm-water entrance to the oceans of the world. Under Putins leadership, Russia made a 50 billion dollar oil contract with Saddam Hussein some time ago. This has also allowed Russian scientists to direct Irans nuclear weapons programs to destroy Israel. Putin has done a masterful job of removing the democratic process from Russia and at the same time, charmed us into becoming neutral. He was the former director of the KGB and is very slick. Second reason, and one of the most important, Russia needs the oil to regain its military superpower status. They long to have the status they had before. In order to recover from the crash of the former Soviet Union they need the Arabian oil. Last but not least, Russias economy is going south
.meaning down the tubes. The mineral deposits in the Dead Sea offers a financial gain that is off the scale (with 2 billion tons of potassium chloride; potash to enrich soil; 22 billion tons of magnesium chloride and 12 billion tons of sodium chloride. For these reasons, they just need a little push and there they come. We wont be able to do a thing to stop it
.especially if we get a Democratic heavy government by then. They wont have the drive or guts to get involved with us still in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. Kosovo is just getting ready to heat up again with or without independence and soon. If North Korea sees our faltering and unsteady hand in dealing with this situation I have described, they will become unpredictable as to their intentions against South. They already threatened to launch attacks when we went to Iraq
but Bush put bombers on standby alert and gave N. Korea a strong warning. A Democratic government in the U.S. will be the death. By Bushs actions of late, even Republicans are turning against him.
Oh, by the way, Russias allies will be Iran, Syria, Ethiopia, Libya for starters. There are two indicators to watch for
.one, when a peace accord will be signed between the EU and Israel
secondly, bombing of Iran
.My best guess, the bombing of Iran, bringing the Russians in, and then the peace accord
China is a wild card in all of this. China made a huge shift in their oil policies when we went to Iraq in 2003. Most of Chinas oil came from Iraq until then. So, China could not put all of its oil in one basket so to speak. A man named Pan Rui, stated that Iraq changed the governments thinking. Remember not long ago China tried to purchase one of our foremost oil companies..forgot the name, myself
..This would have been a significant issue relative to our national security if it had been purchased. China will make a move at some time after Russia enters the picture
..
I firmly believe that before Bush goes out of office he will authorize a bombing of Iranian reactors, which will stir the pot even more
or, Israel will go after them, either way this will be the touch off, between now and when Bush leaves. Also, Israel will be counting on our help which it will not receive. The thing that will hold Bush back will be a Democratic Congress."
I also believe that Kosovo becoming independent, is supposed to set a precedence for particular Russian states to also go for independence and thus causing Russia to become even less of a threat. This would be concurrent with the future upheaval of Macedonia. However, I suspect it won't happen in time and Russia will deploy to Iran as I said before for the many reasons.......especially to regain oil and power.........2-3 years or less.....
Oh, about the muny....yes, I do believe that the SJRC, gave them the money to be better Muslims.......that is the only reason they would embrace Islam......Also, many Albanian village politicans complained to the UNMIK as to why they allowed the Saudi "Charities" to come in with promises of building schools, hospitials etc....but, with one requirement first before building....You MUST BUILD A MOSQUE first.....then we build you the school, hospital or recreation center etc....
Oh,...clarify one thing....I know for a fact that the SJRC and other Charities gave money to be Muslim.....like the IMAMs wanted, not the Mullah's.
What I "believe" was referring to was the notion that this could of been what the Dipl. was talking about.
as usual , fascinating article and analysis...i'll post soon...all the best.....
"People of the village have not seen these people before and are complaining that they are praying and acting in different ways than the Albanians are accustomed to doing."
my god , it's like a stencil......the "soft" arabic cum islamic theory is slowly but slowly introduced...remember , slowly but ever so surely....
once that is completed , then you get the radicals coming into the forefront.....the bullying , the vectoring.....
like it or not , we are the FRONT LINE....fight for every inch....every micro inch.....
I'm afraid that that fight is not far off.....
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