Free Republic

In March 2007 it will be eight years since the Kosovo war and the US-led NATO intervention in gross violation of a host of international laws including the UN Charter. The Western part of the international community was determined to resolve the Kosovo status issue by the end of 2006. However, the UN Kosovo mediator, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, has delayed his proposal until after the Serbian parliamentary elections on January 21, 2007 in order to reinforce the democratic camp within Serbia. The Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija, Kosmet in Serbian but for brevity reduced to Kosovo in...

UN negotiator on Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari wanted to honor and commemorate Finnish Nazi SS troops in 1999 when he was the President of Finland. He wanted to have the Finnish taxpayers and the Finnish government fund and finance the construction of a plaque in the Ukraine to commemorate the deaths of Finnish Nazi SS troops killed during Operation Barbarossa. Ahtisaari is not, alone, however, in seeking to honor and celebrate the legacy of Nazis and the SS. Kosovo Albanian teacher gives Nazi salute to Nazi German occupation forces as she escorts Kosovo Albanian schoolchildren in Kosovoska Mitrovica, 1942. Kosovo Albanians...

January 2, 2007 -- A Kosovo Serb, Vladimir Radosavljevic and his wife Bosiljka were shot at in the Kosovo Muslim Albanian stronghold of Klina after Radosavljevic filed papers with the Kosovo Housing and Property Directorate to have his illegally confiscated home returned. Radosavljevic's were asleep when unidentified gunmen fired a round from an automatic weapon at their temporary shelter in Kosovo town of Klina where they were awaiting the authorities to evict the illegal Muslim Albanian occupiers of their property. Police found 23 bullets among the broken glass and empty chargers in the street. The evidence, according to the police,...

There is a popular sport in Serbia in which two groups of young men tug on opposite ends of a rope, in a test not only of strength, but also of unity. Tug-of-war is an interesting contest, as the outcome does not depend solely on the strength of individual members of the team. What matters is the ability to pull the rope in a coordinated fashion, counter the pressure applied by rivals, and spot their weaknesses. The losing team is not injured or harmed in any way by this process. Victory is simply a measure of one side's greater strength...

BRUSSELS, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Russia is against an imposed solution for Kosovo because any decision must be acceptable to all parties to work, Moscow's foreign minister said on Friday. "It can only be a compromise, it has to be a decision which is acceptable to all parties," Sergei Lavrov told a news conference after talks with the European Union in Brussels. An imposed top-down decision in the breakaway Serbia province would "just simply fall apart" and there was no point in taking a decision that would not be adhered to, he said. The United Nations, which has run Kosovo...

Belgrade, Oct 31, 2006 - Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said today during discussions with the US Special Envoy for Kosovo talks, Ambassador Frank Wiesner that the people of Serbia voted for the new Constitution of their own free and sovereign will and clearly confirmed that Kosovo-Metohija is an integral and inalienable part of Serbia, in line with the UN Charter. Kostunica underlined that the Constitution was voted for at the referendum under the strictest rules and that more than half of the registered voters voted for it, which unambiguously confirms that a national consensus has been reached in the...

Just when you thought the situation in Kosovo couldn't become more complicated, Serbian voters approve a new constitution that reaffirms Serbia's sovereignty over Kosovo. What does it all mean? James Bissett, Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1990 to 1992, explains in the Canadian Globe and Mail (subscription required). For one thing, Western powers are now impotent when it comes to granting independence to the troubled province because doing so without Serbia's approval would violate the U.N. Charter on territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders, says the author. Regardless, Martti Ahtisaari, U.N. special envoy to the region, will recommend that...

Serbian voters have approved a new constitution that, among other things, reaffirms sovereignty over Kosovo, which, since the bombing of Serbia in 1999, has been administered by the United Nations with the help of NATO troops. The weekend referendum result will further complicate efforts of Western policy-makers to grant independence to Kosovo since, to do so without Serbia's consent, would violate the UN Charter on territorial integrity and inviolability of borders. Nevertheless, there have been indications that UN special envoy Marrti Ahtisaari will soon recommend that Kosovo be separated from Serbia and become an independent country. This would be a...

Serbia set itself against the international community and Kosovo's ethnic Albanians yesterday by endorsing a new constitution declaring Kosovo for ever part of Serbia, only a few months before it is expected to lose the province. The new constitution, Serbia's first as an independent state since 1918, was rushed through by the nationalist prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, to pre-empt a UN security council decision on the status of Kosovo due by the end of the year. US, EU and Kosovo Albanian officials dismissed the vote as irrelevant, but Mr Kostunica insisted the new constitution would safeguard Serbia's "territorial integrity". "We...

The Belgrade-based Center for Free Elections and Democracy said their sample count after polls closed in the two-day vote indicated the draft charter secured a 51.6 percent of voters' support. Related news Serbia votes to keep breakaway Kosovo Serbian voters narrowly approved a new constitution reasserting Serbia's claim over the breakaway Kosovo province, according to independent observers. The Belgrade-based Center for Free Elections and Democracy said their sample count after polls closed in the two-day vote indicated the draft charter secured a 51.6 percent of voters' support. The group estimated the turnout among Serbia's 6.6 million electorate was 53.5 -...

A conspicuous Reuters headline in Tuesday’s Washington Post: “Kosovo Islamic leaders join call for independence.” This wouldn’t have anything to do with helping form the eventual caliphate, would it? Noooooooooo, according to the article, which desperately fishes out distinctions between Muslims and Kosovo Muslims. Note the language used: “In a rare foray into politics, Islamic leaders in Kosovo on Monday added their voice to the Albanian majority’s call for independence from Serbia.” Nor is the following strident tone opposing any partition of the land or compromise with the Serbian infidel characteristic of Muslims either: “Marking the Eid al-Fitr feast in...

On October 28 and 29 Serbs will vote on a new constitution, their country's first in the post-Milosevic era. The constitution is controversial because its preamble declares the breakaway, ethnic- Albanian majority province of Kosovo an integral part of the Republic of Serbia. Former Belgrade diplomat Vladimir Matic, who is now a political scientist at America's Clemson University, says Mr. Kostunica has skillfully used the constitution to strengthen Serbia's position in the negotiations on Kosovo's future. "It [discussion of the constitution] was remade into an issue about Kosovo," said Matic. "And a national consensus was formed on the platform of...

Plain-speaking Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president who is widely tipped to win the Nobel peace prize tomorrow, let the Kosovo cat out of the bag this week with potentially unpredictable consequences for stability in the Balkans. As UN envoy charged with brokering a settlement by the end of the year between Serbia and the ethnic Albanian leadership in Pristina, Mr Ahtisaari conceded the negotiations were not going well. In fact, he went further. Agreement on Kosovo’s final status was not on the cards, “at least not in my lifetime", he said. “The parties remain diametrically opposed." The breakaway province...

Moscow, October 12, Interfax - An independent Kosovo would lead to an irreparable tragedy for all of Europe, Bishop Artemije of Ras-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija has said. "I would compare an independent Kosovo to a cancer, which would affect all of Europe, not only the regions surrounding it," Bishop Artemije said at a press conference at the Interfax main office in Moscow on Thursday. In the seven years the peacekeeping contingent has been present in Kosovo, that province "has become a European black hole where crime, drugs, weapons, and human trafficking thrive," he said. "An independent Kosovo would become a base...

BRUSSELS, MOSCOW -- Russia told the EU Kosovo solution cannot be imposed on Serbia. Moscow also said it would not support such a solution neither within the Contact Group nor in the UN Security Council. Beta has learned that Moscow believes negotiations on a solution acceptable to both parties should be continued in 2007, if one cannot be reached in 2006. Sources in Brussels have confirmed that the Russian position has been relayed to some Contact Group partners as well as to Martti Ahtisaari. The Russian message states that the Contact Group has asked Ahtisaari to provide a comprehensive solution...

MILITARY forces pursuing the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf bandits captured a bandit on Wednesday in the hinterland of Sulu province, an official said here Thursday. Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom) chief Maj. Gen. Eugenio Cedo identified the captured Abu Sayyaf bandit as Nadzmir Abduraji Amad, 22, of Talipao town of the said province. Cedo said Amad was captured by patrolling troops from the Army's 2nd Scout Ranger Battalion, following information from residents about the latter's presence in Barangay Bandang, Talipao. Talipao is said to be the turf of slain Abu Sayyaf leader Ghalib Andang alias Commander Robot, who gained international notoriety for...

Guy Dinmore, of the Financial Times, reports on the new mission shared by US evangelicals and Serbia's Christian Orthodox Church: quashing US support for an independent Kosovo. Leading evangelicals, such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, have called on their supporters to pressure the United States to not permit independence for this Muslim-majority province. Along with Bishop Artemije, Kosovo's most senior Orthodox cleric, Robertson and Falwell are concerned that an independent Kosovo will become a new haven for Islamic terrorism. For those of you in need of a refresher on US-involvement in Kosovo, Jurist gives a brief and useful overview...

According to information obtained by journalists of KIM Radio from Caglavica, major construction work has been going on for the past few weeks near the monument to Kosovo heroes in Gazimestan near Pristina. According to eyewitness testimony, the work, which is being done by a Kosovo Albanian company, has arrived to almost one hundred meters from the memorial, next to which stands a KFOR security checkpoint. A UN official from Pristina who wished to remain anonymous stated that Albanian businessmen want to take advantage of the period until the status of protected zones around Serbian cultural and historical buildings is...

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In the much talked-about Chris Wallace-Bill Clinton interview on Fox, Clinton made several pointed insistences to Wallace that "at least I tried" to confront terror. This of course implies that the Clinton administration gave a damn in the first place. But how does one reconcile that with the fact that this man allied us with al Qaeda in the Balkans? That Clinton had a tantrum over an obvious question asking why he didn't go after bin Laden, that he would consider such an interview a "hit job," is high comedy. This diva, unused to being challenged by the...

SERBIA remains firmly stuck in the past, paying little attention to the changes taking place all around it. The country has presented a serious challenge to the UN and world community by adopting a new constitution that claims Kosovo as its own. Now Kosovo is currently being administered by the United Nations. The UN was forced to enter Kosovo in the 1990s when the marauding Serb army (then Yugoslavian army) unleashed what has come to be known as the ethnic cleansing against the ethnic Albanian people of Kosovo. Tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians were hunted and killed like animals....