Free Republic

BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia toughened its stand on Kosovo Tuesday as parliament decided that a planned new constitution would refer to the disputed province as an "integral" part of Serbia, regardless of U.N.-led negotiations on whether to grant it independence. The parliamentary vote effectively ruled out Belgrade's consent if the international talks decide in favor of the majority ethnic Albanians who want the province to be independent. The talks began this year to try to resolve the future of Kosovo _ a province about the size of Connecticut that has been run by the United Nations since NATO launched a...

Since World War Two you have had three major conflicts in the Balkans involving Orthodox Christian communities and Islamic communities; this applies to Cyprus, Bosnia and Kosovo respectively. On all three occasions the United States supported the followers of Islam and maybe one day the same will happen to Orthodox Christians in Macedonia? Yet unlike the large Christian communities of Bosnia and Cyprus, it is the land of Kosovo which is being Islamized and Albanianized under NATO, the UN, and other international institutions who are meant to be neutral. The media in the West is once more turning a 'blind...

The AFP reported last month that there was an explosion at the grave of Bosnia's wartime president and Muslim hero Alija Izetbegovic. Izetbegovic, who was finally, reluctantly, being investigated by the Hague for war crimes against Serbs and others at the time of his death, is buried in a "martyrs'" cemetery, as he requested. Naturally, we are meant to think that the grave bombing was committed by a Serb or Serbs, especially with AFP adding this tidbit: "Tensions have risen in Bosnia in recent days after the broadcast of footage showing a former Muslim general, Atif Dudakovic, ordering his troops...

"The main goal of the symposium is to shed light on how Islam spread in these territories based on undisputed historic facts," professor Morina told IOL. PRISHTINA — The Islamic Community of Kosova (ICK) and the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Prishtina (FIS) will co-organize on September 16-17 an international symposium celebrating 600 years of Islam among Albanians. "The main goal of the symposium is to shed light on how Islam spread in these territories based on undisputed historic facts," professor Qemajl Morina, one of the organizers, told IslamOnline.net. Debates about this issue and the role of Islam among Albanians...

BANJA LUKA -- Banja Luka’s ATV station broadcasted footage of Hamdija Delalić ordering murders and the destruction of villages.Hamdija Delalić, commander of the V corps’ 502 brigades of the Muslim military, can be clearly seen and heard in the video calling for an attack on Fikret Abdić and the Republic of Srpska Military. “A breach must be made. Kill all that stands in front of you. I am permitting and ordering that the enemies be killed using all necessary means, knives, bombs, hunting knives, teeth.” Delalić said to his soldiers in the video. “Can we rape?”Commanders of the 505 and...

Ahtisaari said that a group of experts will visit Belgrade shortly and he hopes that they in Belgrade will show a positive attitude to these proposals. During the press conference, Ahtisaari dismissed the charges of the Serbian delegation that during his Aug 8 with them he told them that the Serbs are guilty as a nation.” Particularly, Ahtisaari said that the Belgrade authorities should understand that the Milosevic policy (historical legacy) should be taken into consideration during the determination of Kosovo status and that “each nation in the world has its guilt and must pay for it.” The Serbian side...

30 August 2006 | 14:52 | FOCUS News Agency Banja Luka. USA military forces started preparing for their pullout of the Eagle base near Tuzla, Serbian agency TANJUG informs citing Bosnian newspaper Oslobojdenje. The news of the pullout of the American troops has caused concern among Sarajevo political circles. Citing reliable sources the Bosnian newspaper announced the Americans will leave the base by the end of the year as they will be replaced by a Dutch battalion. The chair of the Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Presidency Sulejman Tihic could not confirm definitely the news of the pullout of the US troops...

Sarajevo, 24 August (AKI) - Bosnian Muslim leader Sulejman Tihic has told local Serbs to stop talking about a possible referendum on independence, because Bosnia was indivisible and those who don’t like it should leave the country. Tihic, who currently chairs Bosnia’s three-man rotating state presidency, has been an outspoken advocate of Muslim demands for the abolition of Bosnia’s Serb entity, Republika Srpska (RS). Local Serbs for their part have threatened to hold a referendum on independence. The quarrel prompted the high representative of the international community in Bosnia, Christian Schwarz Schilling, to intervene last week demanding that politicians on...

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aug. 23 — For a month usually devoid of political activity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, August has been unusually fraught, as several incidents have raised ethnic tensions to a level not seen in years. On Aug. 11, a bomb severely damaged the tomb of Alija Izetbegovic, the former Bosnian president. Last week in eastern Bosnia, a group of Muslims forced their way into a Serbian church built on the former site of a mosque. And the broadcast of a videotape showing the wartime killing of an unarmed Bosnian Serb by Muslims prompted calls for a senior...

Forensic experts have excavated over 1,000 bodies from a mass grave in the village of Kamenica in eastern Bosnia.

Serbias Foreighn Ministery oficialy strongly supported UN resolution on sending 15,000 peacekeepers to south Lebannon expressing hope that UN securiti councile will be as much as firm regarding future status of Kosovo and Serbias legal claims as souvereign nation. Serbias foreighn ministery said "Hezbollah millitants are eaqualy danger in their beligrance and unacceptance of existing state of Israel as are Kosovo (Muslim) Albanians in their belligrance and millitantism and unacceptance of souvereign borders of Serbia." This i sthe first time that Serbia is officialy eaqulising its own problems with problems of Israel.

A senior Serbian government official has said she would accept a partition of Kosovo if no other long-term solution can be found. The president of Serbia's Co-ordination Centre for Kosovo, Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, also said no Serb leader would ever sign a deal giving Kosovo independence. She said Belgrade's policy was for Kosovo province to have substantial autonomy within the Serbian state. Kosovo is technically part of Serbia but has been run by the UN since 1999. The vast majority of Kosovo's population are ethnic Albanian who have been pressing for independence. Kosovo's Prime Minister Agim Ceku has ruled out...

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aug. 9 (AP) — Bosnia’s president, Sulejman Tihic, on Wednesday rejected accusations that a wartime Muslim commander had committed atrocities against Serbs, saying that Serbian and Bosnian officials should instead capture the two suspects most wanted on war crimes. He was responding to a statement issued Tuesday by the Serbian government in Belgrade, demanding that the Muslim commander, Atif Dudakovic, a retired Bosnian Army general, be brought to justice. Bosnian Serb officials said they would press charges against him. A recently released video appears to show General Dudakovic ordering the destruction of Bosnian Serb homes in...

WASHINGTON DC -- 25 U.S. Senators are asking that the U.S. president supports the democratically elected Serbian government. The letter argues that Serbia’s role is of vital importance for the future of South-Eastern Europe and America’s regional interests and that Belgrade has grown into a strong U.S. regional partner. “In order to help transform Serbia, the U.S. should support the reforms in the military and the security sectors, encourage cooperation with the Serbian Army and enabling its officers to attend military colleges and courses in the U.S.”, the letter said. The Senators remind that it is Serbia’s strategic goal to...

Footage shown on Serbia RTS central TV shoved amateur footage of muslim Bosnian general Atif Dudakovic openlz ordering his soldiers via hand-radio to burn Christian Serb villages. tape sows Dudakovic telling "Burn this village, burn this haste, burn it all" ant than it ontinues "The boys are already down there, Iw ordered village to be burned" tape continues with male voice telling Dudakovic "This i sSerbian, this is all on fire" This was un continuation of Croate-Muslim offensive "Oluja" (Storm) that ethicaly cleansed 250,000 Christian Serbs in september 1995. During Dudakovic action over 870 Christian Serb civilliand and 400 soldiers...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told European leaders to stop preaching to him about civilian war casualties in an interview published on Sunday in German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. Olmert also said it would not be possible to completely destroy Hizbollah and insisted he did not underestimate them, saying they had fired just 3,000 of their arsenal of 15,000 rockets so far. PHOTOS The week's events from around the world, captured in pictures. » VIEW THIS WEEK'S PHOTOS Diplomatic Dispatches Nora Boustany 's column reporting on Washington's diplomatic community appears each Wednesday and Friday in The Post....

BBC Monitoring International Reports - August 4, 2006 Friday Excerpt from report by Belgrade-based Radio B92 on 4 August Belgrade, Zagreb, Banja Luka, 4 August: The 11th anniversary of Croatia's military Operation Storm was marked with a commemoration in St Mark's Church and a gathering in Nikola Pasic Square [in central Belgrade] today. Following the commemoration, a protest walk from St Mark's Church to Nikola Pasic Square was organized by the Association of Families of Missing Persons from Krajina [part of Croatia formerly with Serb majority]. A resolution was read out in Nikola Pasic Square to several hundred Serbs from...

BELGRADE (Reuters) - The major powers voiced concern on Friday at tensions in northern Kosovo, where there are growing signs of Serb resistance as the majority Albanian province pushes for independence from Serbia. It did not specify which developments. Reports suggest Serbs there are strengthening what they say are self-defense groups made up of former military and police officers. "Both Belgrade and Pristina should take immediate steps to reduce tensions in northern Kosovo, particularly to encourage responsible leadership and build confidence among communities," said the statement, issued by the U.S. liaison office in Kosovo on behalf of the United States,...

On Serbia and Madeleine Albright. 7/29/2006, Volume 011, Issue 44 SPARRING OVER SERBIA STEPHEN SCHWARTZ's "Free at Last" (July 24) left me greatly surprised and somewhat disappointed, both by the distortion of historical and political facts and by the argumentation based on malicious and trivial political comments. Describing Serbia as a "mafia state" is intentionally overlooking the well-known fact that the Milosevic regime met its end when the Serbian people, investing enormous effort and encountering the greatest possible risk, overthrew it in their bloodless revolution of October 2000. Serbian democratic authorities, in their crackdown on organized crime, and with the...

Tomislav Nikolic said that the armed defense must be the last resort, should the future Kosovo status talks produce independence for the province. ;We have already had a chance to defend Kosovo against much stronger enemies”, Nikolić said in an interview with the Serbian state television (RTS), stressing that armed defense is the last option and that diplomacy must be given every chance. Nikolić said that the Radicals will take it to the streets and lead the citizens against the Serbian prime minister and president, Boris Tadić and Vojislav Koštunica, should they fail to start with preparations to return Kosovo...