Free Republic

The Bosnian government is bringing to a close five months of work reviewing how some 1,500 people - most of them fighters who came to Bosnia from Muslim countries during the 1992-1995 war - gained Bosnian citizenship. ... The 1,500 naturalized Bosnian citizens were given until last week to provide all documents used to gain Bosnian citizenship between 1992-1996. ... The Syrian-born Abu Hamza is also among those who are facing deportation. He arrived in Croatia in the early 1990s as a student and moved to Bosnia at the beginning of the war. Investigators say he lied on his citizenship...

By Mark John BRUSSELS, July 7 (Reuters) - NATO is looking at ways to allay a growing sense of isolation in Serbia, possibly with an offer of closer ties short of a full partnership, alliance diplomats said on Friday. The alliance has denied Serbia and its neighbour Bosnia entry to its Partnership for Peace programme, the first rung on the ladder to possible membership, until fugitive Bosnian Serb war crimes suspects General Ratko Mladic and wartime leader Radovan Karadzic are brought to international justice. But now Montenegro has ended its union with Serbia and Kosovo is set to go its...

"As todays Belgrade "Novosti" dayly sais, sources from Serbian goverment confirmet that Amrti Akhtisaary, UN negotiator on kosovo status talks have offered to Serbian goverment, facing his own failiure as mediator of negotiations, DEAL in which Serbia should give indipendance to Muslim occupied Kosovo region and recive in return 1. Serbia joining "Partnership For Peace" without extradicting Ratko Mladic to hague 2. Serbia Joining to EU, without extradicing ratko Mladic to Hague 3. US financial aid 4. EU financial founds access 5. Growing of direct foreighn investments in Serbia. As source add, this was rejected strongly by Serbian goverment, that...

CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo (Army News Service, July 5, 2006) –Soldiers from the Texas National Guard’s 36th Infantry Division and Multi-National Task Force (East) marked America’s 230th year of independence during a July 4 ceremony on the Camp Bondsteel parade field. Brig. Gen. Darren Owens, commanding general of MNTF(E), spoke about America’s struggle for independence. “We as Americans can proudly say the Declaration of Independence, signed in 1776, gave birth to the ideals of freedom that others in the world only dream about,” Owens said. “We are free to love, worship and live as we want – but freedom does have...

Some of the Dutch United Nations soldiers who failed to prevent the massacre of Srebenica in July 1995 gave the Serbs a back-slapping welcome, handed over their uniforms and even actively helped to separate Bosnian men from their families, say relatives of the 8,000 men and boys who were murdered. A German attorney is preparing a lawsuit against the UN and the Netherlands. They are unbelievable scenes that Sabaheta Fejzic, a bookkeeper from Vogosca near Srebenica, will never forget. War had been raging for years in Bosnia, and in the summer of 1995 everyone in Srebrenica was scared to death...

Belgrade, 2 July 06. (Tanjug) – The Coordination Center for Kosovo and Metohija announced that UNMIK Chief Soren Jesen-Petersen “leaving Kosovo in an armored vehicle”, showed that the international community did not fulfill its basic task for seven years, such as the creation of elementary security conditions of free living and freedom of movement. “Petersen’s earlier statement, stated that he is leaving Kosovo for private reasons. Before his departure he clearly stated slogans on behalf of Albanian lobbyists who use all means in the fight for independence of the Serbian southern province”, states the Center at the Sunday announcement. Coordination...

Serbia must accept a "different vision" for the future make-up of south-east Europe or face increasing isolation and diminishing prospects of closer relations with the European Union, Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, will tell Vojislav Kostunica, his Serbian counterpart, tomorrow --- Belgrade is under pressure from the UK, US and the UN administration in Kosovo to accept independence as the "least problematic solution". However, Mr Kostunica faces formidable domestic pressure not to abandon Serbia's historical claims to the province, now dominated by ethnic Albanians. Belgrade continues to offer "the widest possible autonomy" without conceding sovereignty. --- Serbian state-run newspapers...

Peter Handke has once again shocked the German public but this time in such a way that not even the most extreme do not dare criticize him for it. He has given up the alternative Heinrich Heine award that the actors and intellectuals of Berlin wished to bestow upon him in favor of the Serbs of Kosovo, who live "surrounded by barbed wire and tanks". www.novosti.co.yu Vecernje Novosti daily, Belgrade June 24, 2006 By D. Sekulic, June 23, 2006 Peter Handke has once again shocked the German public but this time in such a way that not even the most...

A picturesque valley in the western province of Kosovo is home to the largest and most urgently preserved monastery in Serbia. The 14th century Visoki Decani monastery has not only survived the passage of time but also the ravages of war. Even though around half the Serb population fled a wave of revenge attacks after the war, the 100,000 who stayed are still targeted by sporadic violence. Stoning of police and attacks on individuals are not uncommon. In 1998, Slobodan Milosevic, who was president at the time, led troops against Albanian forces in an effort to reclaim parts of Kosovo....

A picturesque valley in the western province of Kosovo is home to the largest and most urgently preserved monastery in Serbia. The 14th century Visoki Decani monastery has not only survived the passage of time but also the ravages of war. Even though around half the Serb population fled a wave of revenge attacks after the war, the 100,000 who stayed are still targeted by sporadic violence. Stoning of police and attacks on individuals are not uncommon. In 1998, Slobodan Milosevic, who was president at the time, led troops against Albanian forces in an effort to reclaim parts of Kosovo....

PRISTINA, Serbia - Kosovo's top leaders travel to Washington next week to hold talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the president's office said Friday. President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Agim Ceku are to meet Rice on Monday, said Muhamet Hamiti, the president's adviser. Sejdiu will visit the United States for the first time since he was elected in February, succeeding Kosovo's late President Ibrahim Rugova, who died of lung cancer earlier this year. During his trip, Sejdiu will meet other officials in the State Department and the White House, the statement said. Ceku is also scheduled to...

PRISTINA, Serbia-Two British tourists were shot at Thursday in western Kosovo, officials said. No one was injured. The shooting occurred near the western village of Babaloc, an ethnic Albanian area, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) from the province's capital, Pristina, Kosovo police spokesman Veton Elshani said. The circumstances of the shooting were not immediately clear. Security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident, said the tourists' vehicle bore registration plates from Serbia's capital, Belgrade.

But Kerry may have some competition. On Memorial Day, another former Democratic presidential candidate, retired General Wesley Clark, tried to rewrite the history of the war in Kosovo in order to make himself into a great military hero. "Last week," he said, "I returned to Kosovo for the first time since I retired from military service. For me, this trip was very personal. In 1999, I commanded the NATO forces that stopped the genocide against ethnic Albanians by Slobodan Milosevic and his Serbian forces." That sounds pretty impressive-commanding the forces that stopped genocide. Too bad it's not true. Genocide is...

Sarajevo, 8 June (AKI) - Bosnian Muslim religious leader Reiss ul-Ulema Mustafa Ceric has accused the country's Catholic and Orthodox Christians of undermining the country and advocating the partitioning of Bosnia. Ceric was quoted by the Sarajevo daily, Dnevni Avaz, as saying that former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and Croatia's Franjo Tudjman deal, allegedly made in the early nineties to divide Bosnia, had been taken over by the Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Catholic Church. As a proof of an alleged conspiracy, Ceric said that the bishops of the two churches have been meeting without Muslim representatives. "It is well known...

So let's talk about Yugoslavia! Finally, after more than a decade of one-way journalistic language that in no way made sense, an opening seems to have been created in France in the press (1), and perhaps not only in France, to speak about things differently? or simply to start speaking about Yugoslavia. A debate, a discussion, a discourse, a fruitful discussion seems to have become possible, a general questioning, of reports that speak for themselves... Previously: nothing, and still more nothing? defamations instead of a debate, expressed by exclusively prefabricated words, repeated ad infinitum, used like an automatic weapon. So...

(Translation from Serbian) " ...Negotiations between Tudjman and Milosevic to devide Bosnia are nowdays held in different manner. Catolic and Ortodox bishops are holding series of meetings without inviting us. That is something problem, that is call to war." Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric said to gratuates uf Islamic school in Sarajevo that attacks on Islamic community in Bosnia must stop, also he attacked local TV station for accusing Islamic community in Bosnia that it "Builds Teheran out of Sarajevo" "

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP)--Bosnian authorities, responding to media reports that they gave Canada information leading to the arrest of 17 militant suspects there, said Wednesday only that they had cooperated with intelligence services in many countries. Leader of Bosnian Muslim Wahabis, Enes Mujkanovic, calls for destruction of the West. Canada arrested the suspects Friday and Saturday and said it had foiled plans for attacks in southeast Canada. Officials said the arrests were ordered after the group acquired three tons of ammonium nitrate, which can be mixed with fuel oil to make a powerful explosive. The Bosnian daily newspaper Nezavisne Novine from...

BBC Monitoring European 5 June 2006 Serbian researchers say 5,515 Serbs killed in wartime Sarajevo Source: SRNA news agency, Bijeljina, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 5 Jun 06 Text of report by Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA BELGRADE, June 5 (Srna) -- Milivoje Ivanisevic, director of the [Belgrade] Centre for Researching Crimes against Serbs, has pointed out that 5,515 Serbs were killed in Sarajevo between 1992 and 1995. "We have the lists of all the names of victims from all municipalities and settlements in Sarajevo. We have been patiently collecting evidence of atrocities committed by Muslims. For this reason, we have the name...

NOVI PAZAR -- Ten young men donning long beards, short pants and white hats broke up a concert of the Balkanika orchestra. The hooligans were dressed like members of the vehabit movement. They climbed up onto the stage and threw around the instruments that were set up for the musicians to play. One of the young men toko the microphone and told those attending the concert: “Brothers, go home, they are working against Islam here. This is Satan’s work.” He then threw the microphone, which was damaged, as were the speakers, mixing board and some of the lighting. Four police...

There is no evidence to suggest that former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was poisoned, according to a United Nations investigation. The Hague tribunal's report said he died of a heart attack - despite claims "in some segments of the media that he was the victim of murder". Mr Milosevic died in his cell on 11 March while on trial for war crimes. The report said security breaches did allow him to self-medicate but said he had received "proper care"... Doctors from Serbia, Russia, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, who had treated him before or during his time in detention were...