Free Republic

COMMENTARY Jeffrey T. Kuhner's Commentary column asked about the prospect for an "Islamist state in Europe" (The Washington Times, Dec. 18). It is not a question of "if," but of "when." We need only look at what is happening in Europe. Today there are more practicing Muslims than practicing Anglicans in England. In one demonstration in front of British Parliament, signs were carried reading, "Islam, our religion today, your religion tomorrow." France is a basket case, plagued with riots between Muslim youths and the government. Young non-Muslims girls there are accosted on the streets for not covering their hair. In...

One Funeral Away From Civil War January 2, 2006: The head of UNMIK (UN operations in Kosovo) believes that 2006 will be an important year for Kosovo. That’s because 2006 appears to be the year Kosovo's "final status" (either independence or an autonomous province of Serbia) is determined. Meanwhile, 17,500 peacekeepers remain on duty in Kosovo. Austria issued a statement asking that "the dignity of the Serbs" (ie, Kosovar Serbs) be respected as Kosovo's "new status" is resolved. This statement and several like it indicate that the UN and nations in the region believe Kosovo will become a separate country....

BELGRADE (AP)--Unknown assailants threw an explosive device at the Albanian embassy in Belgrade, causing minor damage, police said Tuesday. The device was thrown Sunday evening, causing some damage to the facade of the embassy building. Police gave no other details. The incident comes before crucial U.N.-brokered talks on Kosovo, Serbia's southern province which is populated mostly by ethnic Albanians. Albania has supported the desire of the Kosovo Albanians to gain independence from Serbia but Belgrade wants to retain at least formal control over the province. Kosovo has been a U.N. protectorate since 1999, when a NATO air war against Serbia...

PRISTINA -- Tuesday – A bus carrying Serbs from Orahovac and Velika Hoca to Kosovska Mitrovica was attacked this morning. A group of Albanians surrounded the bas and threw bricks and other large rocks at the bus, which was carrying 55 passengers including children. Fortunately, no one was injured in the incident. The bus is a United Nations operated vehicle and was being escorted by the Kosovo Police Service. The vehicle itself suffered numerous damages. After UNMIK officials arrived at the seen, the bus took off and continued on its way to the northern section of Kosovska Mitrovica. According to...

PRISTINA -- Tuesday – According to Polish daily Zecpospolita, the circumstances of the non-Albanian population in Kosovo remain tragic. “The international community continues to look the other way, while it is clear that there is only room for Albanians in the region. The United Nation’s Special Envoy for Kosovo, Kai Eide, states in his report that the situation has improved for minorities, and that the Kosovo status discussions will help improve their circumstances. According to another report, which was done for the international institutions by independent experts, the circumstances of minorities in Kosovo remain tragic.” the daily writes. “Not only...

OSCE/KVM OBSERVERS HAD AN UNOBSTRUCTED VIEW OF THE RACAK GULLY THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE ANTI-TERRORIST OPERATIONWritten by: Andy Wilcoxson Col. Bogoljub Janicevic, the former chief of the Urosevac SUP, continued his testimony at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic on Friday. On Thursday he testified that OSCE/KVM personnel had been spotted plotting the GPS coordinates of tunnels and bridges throughout Kosovo, which causes suspicion that NATO may have been using the Observer mission as a cover to locate potential bombing targets. In addition to this fact, Janicevic testified today that the KLA's activities increased and that it became better armed while the...

Released : Dec 29, 2005 5:59 AM PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro-U.N. and Kosovo police said Thursday they have stepped up security in the tense north of the province following an increase in violent crimes. Police increased patrols and vehicle checkpoints in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, a town divided between the Serb-dominated north and the ethnic Albanian south, a police statement said. The town, 45 kilometers (30 miles) north of the capital, Pristina, and divided by a river, has been the scene of violent clashes in the past and has come to epitomize Kosovo's prevailing ethnic divide. Tensions in that part...

MAGIC FORMULA FOR PEACE IN BOSNIA Consultations, compromise and consensus By Ivan Bacak There are no such categories as "friends" or "enemies" between politicians. Partners, coalitions, oppositions… anything and no emotions. Memories are allowed, but yesterday is history, today's passing and tomorrow? It depends… In a multiethnic or better to say polynational societies all sides should respect the magic formula for peaceful coexistence: C + C + C = C Consultations, Compromise, Consensus could create circumstances for Coexistence. *** There has not been a serious meeting of leading Croatian and Serbian politicians from Bosnia since Karadzic – Boban talks in...

Marking the tenth anniversary of the fall of the 'Republic of Serbian Krajina', an eloquent comment from IWPR's Balkan Crisis Report by a journalist who covered the parastate's four-year existence for The Independent (London)Ten years ago I sat in the front room of a house in west London in company with a number of Croats, all eyes glued to the fast-changing footage of the satellite television that was carrying programmes from Croatian state television. ‘Come round,’ my friend had said. ‘Something’s up.’ That ‘something’, it turned out, was the ignominious fall of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK), the Serb entity that...

December 22, 2005 -- Australian government's travel advisory and consular assistance service has issued a terror alert for Bosnia on Tuesday citing a growing risk of a terrorist attacks and violent crime. Father of the Bosnian Wahhabi leader, Enes Mujkanovic, in the village of Gornja Maoca, Bosnia "Terrorism is a threat throughout the world. There is a risk of terrorist attack in Bosnia and Herzegovina," says the Australian advisory. "We advise you to exercise caution and monitor developments that might affect your safety in Bosnia because of the risk of being caught up in incidents associated with ethnic tension or...

The papers report that a group of U.S. congressmen members of Serb lobby have written a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush where they ask him to support institutions of Serbia and engage in the status of Kosovo issue. The letter reads that direct involvement of President Bush would be necessary to resolve the “delicate final status of Kosovo”. Congressmen in the letter also suggest that several principles would have to be adopted to lead to a successful conclusion of negotiations on Kosovo. The initiative of the Serb lobby in the United States has been welcomed by Serbian President...

Never in my lifetime have I seen the United States so hated and despised around the globe. Only five years ago, the world’s image of the US was generally positive. No longer. Thank the neocon cabal that has been running US foreign policy. But many Americans still don’t know, or care, that much of the outside world sees their nation as a dangerous rogue state, and President George Bush and mentor VP Dick Cheney as the real axis of evil. They are as brainwashed as were Russians who depended on Soviet party-line media for their view of the world. Every...

"We're accustomed to live here. We returned to our own house and we will accept whatever God has prepared for us," said Grandmother Momirka. She is one of 500 residents determined to stay in her home despite the hostile Albanian environment. Located between Djakovica, Decane, Prizren and Pec, Orahovac is one of the smallest Serb enclaves. The former small town with its own municipal assembly, court and secondary school has become a barbed wire-enclosed concentration camp for Serbs. Their freedom of movement is limited to a circumference of 500 meters. In order to go outside this they need an armed...

Imagine yourself away from your home, perhaps vacationing, during which time a self appointed authority sells your home and in anticipation of your grievance sets up a panel of judges that will decide whether you are deserving of a compensation and in what amount. It's bad enough that you lost control of your own property and have to go through unnecessary legal proceedings but when the panel of judges decides to pay you way less then what you could have sold the property... you decide to leave. Congratulations! You've been successfully cleansed from the territory. Well, this is exactly what...

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia 9 (Reuters) - The Bosnian Serb president urged top fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic on Friday to stop holding his region "hostage" and surrender for trial at the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague. Serb Republic President Dragan Cavic issued the latest of many calls to the two men to end their decade-old flight from justice, two days after the capture in Spain of top Croatian war crimes fugitive Ante Gotovina, in hiding since 2001. "I once again call on Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic to surrender to The Hague tribunal," Cavic told reporters on...

Haradinaj, who faces charges of murder, rape and the deportation of Serb civilians and as well of some ethnic Albanians treated as collaborators with Serbian regime, during his time as a leader of ethnic Albanian rebels, has denied the charges. .... The Tribunal’s Appeals Chamber today ruled to stay the Trial Chamber's decision rendered on 12 October 2005 which would have allowed Ramush Haradinaj "to appear in public and engage in public political activities." The court’s chamber said in a statement

AMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo (Army News Service, Dec. 19, 2005) – Multinational Brigade East Soldiers captured escaped fugitive Ramadan Shiti and two associates, Mehmet Dalipi and Ahmet Shkret, Dec. 16 near the village of Drobnjak. Shiti, wanted under both international and Kosovo arrest warrants, was taken into custody at about 9:15 p.m. by military police Soldiers from MNB(E)’s Task Force Dragoon and Kosovo Police Service officers following a nearly six hour pursuit through a rough and remote region of the Kacanik municipality. KFOR soldiers from the Polish-Ukrainian Peacekeeping Battalion and Task Force Shadow, MNB(E)’s aviation support battalion, also assisted in the...

Islamist state in Europe? By Jeffrey T. Kuhner Published December 18, 2005 The Bush administration has decided to get involved in another dangerous nation-building project -- in the volatile Balkans. More ominously, the effects of this intervention will lay the groundwork for an Islamist state in the heart of Europe. Recently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the leaders of Bosnia's three main groups -- Muslims, Serbs and Croats -- met in Washington to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Dayton Accords, which ended Europe's worst bloodletting since 1945. The administration should have limited itself to a symbolic remembrance. Instead,...

Republika Srpska Defense Minister Milovan Stankovic has proposed to donate surplus weapons to Afghanistan, the Banja Luka daily "Nezavisne Novine" reported on 15 December. If the proposal is accepted by Bosnian Serb authorities, the Afghan government would receive thousands of automatic rifles and several hundred machine guns. The surplus weapons were to destroyed, Stankovic said. According to a report the United States proposed that the Bosnian Serb forces send their surplus weapons to Afghanistan. AT

BBC Monitoring International Reports - December 13, 2005, Tuesday Text of report by Kosovo Serb radio Kontakt Plus on 13 December [Announcer] Material evidence suggesting the guilt of the former Kosovo Liberation Army [UCK in Albanian; OVK in Serbian] commander for Klecka, Fatmir Limaj - evidence of giving orders and murdering Serb civilians - was submitted to the Hague tribunal, an investigative magistrate in the Pristina County Court, Danica Marinkovic, today said in Kosovska Mitrovica. However, she added, this evidence had not been used in the proceedings [against Limaj], which resulted in his acquittal two weeks ago. In an interview...