Vladimir Putin defends missiles at arms parade

Outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended plans to roll tanks and missiles through Moscow at the end of the week, declaring that the display is not intended to “threaten anyone.” It is the first time in many years Moscow’s Victory Day parade will include armaments.

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The United Nations and Kosovo’s Independence

by John R. Bolton, former Permanent US Representative to the United Nations & Senior Vice President for Public Policy Research at the American Enterprise Institute

Washington DC, Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence creates an extraordinary risk of instability in the Balkans. It has immediately exacerbated ethnic tensions, invited further border alterations along ethnic or religious lines, provided a potentially inviting base of operations for radical Islamists from outside Europe and has expanded the growing range of issues once again threatening to divide Russia from the West.

However, one issue that has received only peripheral attention is the hypocrisy of those European Union members that have recognized Kosovo’s declaration despite the lack of authorization by the United Nations Security Council.

Indeed, the declaration is not only unauthorized, but flatly contrary to the controlling U.N. authority on the subject, Security Council Resolution 1244 of 1999. That resolution states explicitly that the United Nations is “Reaffirming the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other States of the region, as set out in the Helsinki Final Act. . . .”

While Resolution 1244 undoubtedly contemplates that Kosovo’s status could change, its sponsors intended for that to occur under Security Council auspices, which it did not. Given the near-certainty of a Russian (and perhaps a Chinese) veto if anyone proposed a draft resolution to do so, it will not happen, now or well into the future. Effectively, therefore, the Security Council, having once defined Kosovo’s status, now lacks the ability to change it.

Serbia, Russia and some European governments have complained, but their protests have been swept aside. Serbia and Russia argue that splitting apart a U.N. member government without its consent will set a precedent for future such actions under “international law,” which neither they nor many other governments would like to see. At a minimum, they argue, by acting outside the Security Council, and in fact in violation of a valid council resolution, those states recognizing Kosovo’s independence and sovereignty are weakening the council and the U.N. generally.

For the United States, acting outside the Security Council is nothing new. Indeed, NATO conducted its 1999 military campaign against Serbia, and that led ultimately to Resolution 1244, without Security Council authorization. At that time, Europe’s NATO members fully approved the decision to bomb Serbia into submission, conveniently ignoring the absence of Security Council action. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, however, roundly criticized the decision, saying, “Unless the Security Council is restored to its pre-eminent position as the sole source of legitimacy on the use of force, we are on a dangerous path to anarchy.” Annan later said actions such as NATO’s constituted threats to the “very core of the international security system. . . . Only the Charter provides a universally legal basis for the use of force.”

The real issue, however, is the contrast between what has just been done regarding Kosovo’s declaration, and the extensive criticism in Europe for the United States decision to overthrow the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Although many European governments, including the Italian government of then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, supported the international coalition that eliminated Saddam’s threat to international peace and security, many others, notably Russia, France and Germany, vigorously opposed the operation. They argued vociferously that the absence of an express Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force to overthrow the Iraqi regime meant that the U.S.-led military action was illegitimate.

The United States, by contrast, contended that the coalition’s military campaign was fully legitimate for many reasons, at a minimum because Saddam’s repeated violations of the 1991 cease-fire provisions embodied in Resolution 687 authorized the resumption of military hostilities. Faced with the likelihood of a French veto (and possibly also Russian and Chinese vetoes) over Iraq, the United States relied on the implicit authority of Resolution 687, and on its inherent right to individual and collective self-defense, guaranteed by Article 51 of the U.N. Charter.

However one views the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam, or NATO’s 1999 air campaign against Serbia, or the current recognition of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration (including by the current government of Italy), one theme ties all three of these decisions together. All were taken without express Security Council authorization. Indeed, as explained above, recognition of Kosovo’s declaration is “worse” from that perspective, since recognition effectively violates Resolution 1244’s reaffirmation of Serbian sovereignty over the territory.

This commonality is significant not, as Serbia and Russia assert, namely that recognizing Kosovo violates “international law.” Instead, what is really significant is the unwillingness of many in Europe to appreciate that what they are doing in Kosovo today (and did in the 1999 air war) is precisely what they roundly criticized the United States for doing in Iraq in 2003.

Criticizing American policy in Iraq may reflect a legitimate difference in policy. What is not legitimate is to criticize the lack of Security Council authorization for overthrowing Saddam, unless those Europeans are willing to concede that in Kosovo, Europe is simply following in America’s footsteps.

In short, the question of Kosovo, today as in 1999, cannot be resolved satisfactorily to major European powers by Security Council decisions. While I personally disagree with recognizing Kosovo at the present time because of its risks for stability in the Balkans, I do not question the propriety of EU members so acting. It is neither surprising nor illegitimate that, in light of the existing political reality, European countries did what they needed to do outside of the Security Council.

All that I and many other Americans ask is that, in the future, Europeans not criticize the United States when we do exactly the same thing.

This essay was originally published in the San Diego Union Tribune, Sunday, March 2, 2008. Reprinted with kindly permission of The American Enterprise Institute.

Discours du Général de Gaulle du 12 mars 1941

9 mars 1941: Le Congrès des États-Unis vote le Lend-Lease Bill.

Discours prononcé par le Général de Gaulle à la radio de Londres le 12 mars 1941

Au nom de la nation française, je remercie les États-Unis d’Amérique de la décision qu’ils viennent de prendre, sur l’initiative du Président Roosevelt, en ce qui concerne l’armement des peuples qui combattent pour la liberté.

Cette décision a une portée morale immense.

Elle aura, dans l’ordre matériel, des conséquences colossales.

Du point de vue moral, cette décision signifie que l’Amérique a pris ouvertement parti. Elle a jugé, une fois pour toutes, que la tyrannie des dictateurs constitue le plus grand danger et la plus grande infamie qui aient jamais menacé le monde.

L’Amérique a résolu d’assurer la défaite de l’ennemi par le plus vaste effort d’armement que l’univers ait jamais vu. Mais, en outre, les États-Unis, témoins très bien renseignés, manifestent avec éclat leur confiance dans la victoire des Alliés. Car un peuple aussi avisé, quelles que puissent être ses sympathies, ne prêterait pas à fonds perdus d’aussi gigantesques ressources à des gens qu’il croirait condamnés.

Du point de vue matériel, le concours illimité de l’Amérique apporte à nos alliés et aux Français Libres la certitude d’une supériorité croissante et implacable des moyens. Cette guerre est une guerre mécanique. La puissance militaire s’y mesure presque exclusivement au nombre et à la qualité des machines de combat. Il n’y a pas eu, depuis le premier jour du conflit, il n’y aura pas, jusqu’au dernier, de résultats tactiques, ni stratégiques, importants, sinon par l’action des engins mécaniques. Or, l’industrie américaine est en mesure de produire, et va produire effectivement, pour les donner aux Alliés, tant de navires, tant d’avions, tant de chars, que l’ennemi, martyrisé plus durement chaque jour, n’échappera pas à l’écrasement final.

Aucun homme sensé ne niera qu’il doive se produire jusque-là de multiples péripéties. L’ennemi auquel nous avons affaire est tout à fait capable de remporter encore des succès. Mais la décision prise par les États-Unis le place dans une situation sans issue. Le filet est jeté sur le fauve.

La France continue la guerre.

Elle la continue par sa résistance nationale à la soumission et à la collaboration. Elle la continue par l’effort guerrier d’une partie de ses territoires, de son armée, de sa marine, de son aviation. Des hommes sans conscience ou sans réflexion ont pu croire que le rôle de la France dans la guerre était terminé. Or, depuis l’effondrement momentané qui suivit le soi-disant arrmstice, ce rôle n’a cessé de s’étendre. La volonté nationale est maintenant redressée, là même et là surtout où la présence de l’ennemi se fait le plus lourdement sentir. La France a des marins belligérants sur toutes les mers. Elle a des aviateurs combattant dans tous les ciels. Ses drapeaux flottent sur tous les champs de bataille. A mesure que passeront les jours, j’affirme que ce poids pèsera plus lourd dans la balance. La France, elle aussi, gagnera la guerre.

Quant aux traîtres ou aux malheureux qui, abusant de la confiance et de la détresse du peuple et faisant le jeu de l’ennemi, ont saisi le pouvoir pour souscrire à la servitude, pour interdire le chemin du devoir à tant de bons Français dans l’Empire et dans la flotte et pour s’enfoncer, heure par heure, plus avant dans le déshonneur de la collaboration, leur provisoire fortune s’écroulera à mesure que reparaîtra la fortune éternelle de la France. Malheur à ceux qui ont joué la défaite de la patrie! Il vaudrait mieux, pour eux, qu’ils ne fussent jamais nés.

La France, avec nous!

Général de Gaulle

In the Navy

Die Anerkennung des Kosovos ist ein Fehler

Zur unilateralen Kosovo-Unabhängigkeit am 17. Februar 2008, die gewiss ein historischer Moment der Weltpolitik mit unvorhersehbaren Folgen für die Stabilität des europäischen Kontinents sowie eine neue Sternstunde der zunehmenden Bedeutungslosigkeit des Völkerrechts darstellt, meint Alan Posener, Kommentar-Chef der Welt am Sonntag:

“Das Kosovo anzuerkennen, birgt eine ganze Reihe geopolitischer Probleme. So ist etwa die territoriale Einheit diverser Staaten von Spanien bis zum Irak bedroht, deren ethnische Minderheiten sich in ihrem Unabhängigkeitsstreben bestätigt sehen. Vor allem aber droht eine weitere Spaltung der EU.”

Zum Artikel.

The Implications of Kosovo’s Independence for U.S. Foreign Policy

On February 3, 2008, Boris Tadic was reelected president of Serbia on a platform calling for greater integration with Europe. Shortly afterwards, and as expected, Kosovo’s prime minister announced that the Kosovar parliament would within days declare Kosovo’s independence from Serbia.

Kosovo’s declaration of independence on February 17, 2008, presents a significant diplomatic challenge for Europe and the United States. Some within the European Union worry that recognizing Kosovo’s independence will undermine Serbian progress toward deepening democratic rule, destabilize the historically volatile Balkans, and empower separatist groups elsewhere.

Other EU powers, however, appear to agree with the Bush administration that recognizing Kosovo as an independent state is necessary if the region is to make progress toward integration with the rest of Europe, and that it is justified given past Serbian misrule and aggression toward Kosovo.

On February 15, 2008, John R. Bolton, former U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, discussed at The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) the issues surrounding Kosovo’s declaration with Bruce P. Jackson, the president of the Project on Transitional Democracies and a former member of the International Commission on the Balkans.

Click here to download or listen to audio of the event at The American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Special thanks to Veronique Rodman, AEI’s Director of Communications, for recording and streaming this event.

Kosovo: A declaration of independence - or war?

After a decade in political limbo, the Serbian province of Kosovo declared itself an independent country today.

The United States of America and most European countries recognized Kosovo’s sovereignty, though a handful, including Spain, refused. Serbia and Russia maintain that Kosovo’s declaration violates international law and sets a dangerous precedent.

Only because it’s Sunday would we dare to say: HIRAM7 REVIEW told you so, in these following stories:

Kosovo’s Independence

Serbian Split over Kosovo

Kosovo isn’t going to wait forever, says German General

UN Security Council readies for Kosovo session

U.N. Security Council unable to break impasse over Kosovo’s future

Kosovo solution in UN, status quo untenable

Balkan Tensions

Kosovo Tensions

Kosovo’s troubled end game

Kosovo’s Independence

EU leaders said they are confident that the Serbian province of Kosovo will remain calm following a widely anticipated declaration of independence this coming weekend.

The Financial Times reports that EU officials aren’t expecting a large-scale exodus of Kosovo’s Serb population, as some analysts had feared.

Check out also our stories from the past months:

Kosovo Tensions

Kosovo’s economic prospects

Former U.S. ambassador Richard Holbrooke discusses Russia, Georgia and Kosovo

Kosovo’s economic prospects

German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports on Kosovo’s economic prospects should the Serbian province declare itself independent in the very near future, as it is widely expected to do. The article says Kosovo would have to rely heavily on coal deposits but questions whether that can sustain its population.

Read full story.

Serbian PM blocks EU pact

Serbia’s prime minister has blocked the signing of an EU aid-and-trade deal, in the process thwarting the European Union’s strategy for dealing with the breakaway province of Kosovo as well as the Serbian president’s wish to sign the pact.

This could lead to the fall of the Serbian government, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Read full story.

Serbian Split over Kosovo

The Associated Press (AP) reports that just days after the election of Serbian President Boris Tadic, Serbia’s coalition government is on the verge of collapse over a European Union plan to send a mission to the province of Kosovo, which is poised to declare independence.

Read full story.

Tadic Win in Serbia

Boris Tadic won Serbia’s presidential election yesterday, scraping by with just over 50 percent of the vote over a nationalist candidate.

The BBC says questions loom about what Serbia will do if its province of Kosovo declares independence. Further, while Tadic will make joining the European Union a priority, internal political dynamics will complicate the bid.

Read full story.

World Jewish Congress presídent Ronald S. Lauder on Holocaust commemoration: Draw lessons for today, protect Israel

In an opinion piece for Germany’s leading newspaper ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the president of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald S. Lauder, argues that Holocaust remembrance should be “more than just a regular gathering of dignitaries listening to solemn speeches by important people.”

He noted that, although solemn acts were important in their symbolism, the remembrance of the Shoah also had practical consequences for today’s world.

“Is it acceptable to organize big Shoah commemorations on one day, and to provide the Islamist regime in Tehran with technology to develop weapons or even nuclear capabilities the next? Can we put our head in the sand and ignore the warning signs, like so many Europeans now do after the US intelligence report published in December?, ” Lauder asks.

He also criticizes the attitude of some Europeans: “The rejection of the ‘Zionist state’ is not just found among Islamists and those who want ‘to wipe Israel off the map.’ It can also be detected in Europe where self-proclaimed ‘principled people’ often apply much stricter standards when judging Israeli actions than in comparable cases. This is, in itself, a form of discrimination and leads to a ‘demonization’ of Israel.”

The WJC president concludes that protecting the State of Israel was part of honouring the memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

Full text:

Sunday’s speeches, Monday’s actions

Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany
25 January 2008

by Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress (WJC)

Holocaust memorial day on 27 January is important - the Iran crisis will show if European politicians draw their lessons

In June 2006, the Holocaust survivor Noach Flug was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit by Germany’s President Horst Köhler, for promoting mutual understanding between Jews and non-Jews and between Israel and Germany. Seventy years earlier those in power in Germany then wanted to murder Flug for being Jewish. He was the only of over a hundred family members who survived Auschwitz.

In November 2005, the United Nations designed 27 January as annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It was on that day in 1945 that Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau. In its unanimously adopted resolution, the UN General Assembly also pledged to “develop educational programmes that will inculcate future generations with the lessons of the Holocaust in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide.” The UN has since invested considerable resources to educate young people. More and more countries have now adopted January 27 as their national Holocaust memorial day.

The UN resolution was a milestone, because we owe it to the victims that their suffering is not forgotten. We owe it to them not to point fingers at others, but to remind ourselves constantly what terrible crimes human beings are capable of committing. We also owe it to survivors like Noach Flug to make sure that commemorations are more than just a regular gathering of dignitaries listening to solemn speeches by important people.

Don’t get me wrong: of course we need official ceremonies and declarations. They are important in their symbolism and remind us that the past has a bearing on the present. Yet for me, the most powerful form of remembrance has always been when a survivor has told me his or her story. Even though such stories may have been repeated a thousand times, they always remain as shocking and vivid as the first time.

Official acts of commemoration are one part of a culture of remembrance. The other part is trying to answer the question: What lessons can we draw from this for ourselves? How does this influence us as political leaders and as citizens?

The most obvious consequence to me is this: we have to achieve a small measure of justice for those few remaining Shoah survivors who are still among us. It is true that much has been achieved in this field over the past decades. We must not forget that there are many survivors - notably in eastern Europe, but also in Israel - who are old and frail, who cannot afford expensive medicines or the intensive care they need therefore cannot live in dignity. Although many agreements have been concluded and governments have looked for “legal closure”, I believe there is still a moral obligation on responsible politicians to listen carefully when people like Noach Flug speak out on behalf of survivors.

After World War II, many Holocaust survivors left Europe for the Holy Land. Noach Flug was one of them. The fact that the State of Israel came into existence was due to a UN resolution that partitioned Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Arabs rejected this and waged war on the fledgling Jewish state. They failed repeatedly. Despite continuing attacks Jews in Israel and the Diaspora will thus be able to celebrate 60 years of Israel’s existence next May. Even though the history of Zionism and Jewish settlement in the Holy Land is much older, Israel was to some extent built on the ashes of the Holocaust. Like many other survivors, Noach Flug helped to build and defend Israel. He became president of the International Auschwitz Committee and the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel.

Yet even six decades after its proclamation, Israel is the only country in the world whose existence is not accepted by a large number of governments and people in the world. The rejection of the “Zionist state” is not just found among Islamists and those who want “to wipe Israel off the map.” It can also be detected in Europe where self-proclaimed gutmenschen often apply much stricter standards when judging Israeli actions than in comparable cases. This is, in itself, a form of discrimination and leads to a ‘demonization’ of Israel.

It is strange: Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has had a stable plural democracy in the last 60 years. A sizeable minority of one million Arabs holds Israeli citizenship and is represented in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Most of them would probably not want to swap their passport for any other document. Yet some less well-meaning people say that Israel should not be a Jewish state. To me, this is just another way of questioning Israel’s right to exist.

When commemorating the Holocaust, we Jews always have Israel’s well-being in the back of our mind. It should be in the back of everyone’s mind. But then the question is: Is it acceptable to organize big Shoah commemorations on one day, and to provide the Islamist regime in Tehran with technology to develop weapons or even nuclear capabilities the next? Can we to put our head in the sand and ignore the warning signs, like so many Europeans now do after the US intelligence report published in December?

Seventy years ago, there was a British Prime Minister who proudly talked of “peace in our time” when returning from a conference in Munich with Hitler and Mussolini. He thought the “appeasement” of dictators was possible. Less than a year later, Europe was in flames and the Nazis were sending millions to the death camps. We must not let history repeat itself. We owe it to Noach Flug and all the others who perished in the Shoah. Therefore, 27 January should always be a date to reflect precisely about that.

The original German language version can be seen here.

European Union approves Kosovo stability mission

The European Union announced it is ready to send a “stability mission” to Kosovo to replace the United Nations mission currently established there should the Serbian province declare itself independent.

Read full story.

Kosovo isn’t going to wait forever, says German General

German broadcaster Deutsche Welle interviews the top German commander in Kosovo about daily operations and the province’s prospects for independence.

Read full story.

Serbia’s Vote

The first round of voting in presidential elections this weekend saw the leader of Serbia’s Radical Party win a slightly larger percentage of the vote than the country’s moderate incumbent.

TIME says the follow-up vote, which is scheduled for February 2, 2008, will answer important questions about the extent of nationalism in the country.

A paper from a Slovenian think tank says the Radical Party candidate, Tomislav Nikolic, is most likely to win.

Serbian Elections

RFE/RL previews Serbia’s weekend presidential elections. It says a “low-intensity struggle between Russia and the West for influence in the country is casting a long shadow over the vote.”

Read full story.

UN Security Council readies for Kosovo session

Serbia’s B92 news network previews highly anticipated UN Security Council meetings on Kosovo’s status, scheduled for today in New York.

Read full story.

Kosovo focus for Slovenia’s EU presidency

RFE/RL reports on the special challenges facing Slovenia, the Balkan state which on January 1 took over the EU presidency for six months.

With tensions simmering in nearby Kosovo and high expectations riding on EU ministers, the article says Ljubljana has a politically fraught half-year ahead of it.

Read full story.

U.N. Security Council unable to break impasse over Kosovo’s future

UN Security Council negotiations over the future of the Serbian province of Kosovo broke down yesterday, ending a last-ditch effort to secure a diplomatic resolution to Kosovo’s status.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad said the parties have reached “irreconcilable positions” and the “current situation is unsustainable.” Serbia’s president warned that it could trigger a “serious crisis” if Kosovo unilaterally declares independence.

At the meetings, Russia said recognizing Kosovo would be antithetical to the UN’s charter, illegal under the Security Council resolution that established Kosovo as a protectorate and would necessitate similar action in other provinces globally.

The New York Times says the breakdown signals that any resolution to Kosovo’s conflict will have to come from outside the United Nations, setting the stage for a politically messy process through which some countries will recognize an independent Kosovo and others won’t.

Kosovo’s End Game

Kosovo is expected to declare independence this month. Russia says this could trigger instability in other nearby breakaway regions.

Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, the architect of the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnia war, says Russia’s uncooperative attitude in Kosovo combined with western inaction could sparked renewed conflict.

Interviewee: Richard C. Holbrooke, Vice Chairman, Perseus LLC

Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, The Council on Foreign Relations

New York, December 5, 2007

On December 10, 2007, the three-man group-U.S. envoy Frank Wisner, Russian representative Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko and EU envoy Wolfgang Ischinger-that the United Nations set up last summer to bring about a negotiated solution between Kosovo and Serbia ends its work in failure. It’s widely expected that Kosovo, the autonomous province of Serbia, will soon announce its independence. Do you have any idea when that may happen?

To the best of my knowledge, the Kosovo Albanian leaders, who were elected last month, will make a unilateral declaration of independence about a month or so after December 10.

And they will ask all countries of the world to recognize them, as well as the United Nations?

Yes.

Now the European Union, at the moment, from what I can tell, has about five member states that are nervous about recognizing an independent Kosovo.

The United States, Britain, France, and Germany have already said they will recognize Kosovo. Most of the EU, but not all, will recognize them. Some will recognize them on a slightly slower time frame than others. Russia will not recognize them. Other countries will be up for grabs. There will be a lot of pressure in both directions. And I’m assuming the Islamic states will recognize them.

This will leave the new country of Kosovo in somewhat of an awkward position. UN membership will not be possible as long as the Russians are prepared to veto their admission, and the Russians have indicated that will be their policy. The EU will have to find ways of giving them economic assistance, even when not all EU members recognize them. Most importantly, a new basis for the continuation of international security forces-the sixteen thousand NATO forces that are now there-must be found. If those forces were to leave, the chances of violence would be even greater.

How many Serbs still live in Kosovo?

There is no accurate census, but the best estimates are that there are about two million Albanians, and somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 Serbs left. But I stress, those are estimates.

Serbs have a majority in the most northern part of Kosovo that borders on Serbia.

Around the town of Mitrovica in the north is a predominantly Serb population and then there are Serb communities scattered throughout other parts of Kosovo. It is my assumption that Serbian-populated districts, which did not participate in the recent elections at all, will announce that they do not accept the fact that they are part of a newly declared independent state of Kosovo. They’ll say, “No, we’re still part of Serbia.” So you’ll have another one of these breakaway conflicts, which have dotted Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the last fifteen years, such as in Nagorno-Karabakh [a de facto independent republic within Azerbaijan but claimed by Armenia], South Ossetia [a rebellious part of Georgia backed by Russia], Abkhazia [an independent republic within Georgia that is not recognized by any state but backed by Russia] and Trans-Dniester [a breakaway part of Moldova also backed by Russia]. I suspect these Serbian areas in Kosovo will fall into that category.

Talk a bit about the situation in Belgrade. The Serbian government is supposedly pro-Western, right? And they’ve been talking about trying to get in the EU.

Calling the Serbian government in Belgrade pro-Western is a bit of a stretch. They are intensely nationalistic, particularly Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. He is a real nationalist. Former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was a fake nationalist. He’s the real deal. He has a mystical attachment to Kosovo as the birthplace of the Serb people. Some of the greatest religious monuments in Europe are these ancient Serb monasteries that are all over Kosovo-twelfth-, thirteenth-, fourteenth-century monasteries. So the Serbs have been there a long time, but over time this area has become overwhelmingly Albanian.

The Serbs suppressed the Albanians and denied them their political rights, particularly under Milosevic, but ever since 1912, Serbs have been the minority rulers of Kosovo and now the situation is about to be reversed in the most dramatic manner imaginable.

Will the Serbs in the north make some declaration to definitely be part of Serbia itself?

It’s very possible that the northern districts will do the same thing which the Serb portions of Bosnia did in 1992, when the Bosnian Muslims declared Bosnia an independent country. You’ll recall that the Bosnian Serbs refused to accept it, and instead started the terrible civil war, which was so costly.

The difference between Kosovo in 2007 and Bosnia in 1992, however, is twofold: One, the overwhelming majority of the people in Kosovo-over 90 percent are Albanian, where as in Bosnia there was a relatively even balance between the three groups, Bosnians, Serbs and Croats. Secondly, there just isn’t the appetite anymore for the kind of all-out, brutal, genocidal war, which took place in that area for so long.

Still, there’s a real threat of violence as this escalates, and for that reason I have called, in my recent column in the Washington Post, for the United States and NATO to put additional troops into both Kosovo and Bosnia as quickly as possible. Not an enormous amount of troops, because those aren’t available anyway, but enough to let both sides know that a slide back into violence is not acceptable to the international community.

NATO is stretched to the hilt with its troop obligations in Afghanistan right now.

They’re stretched very thin, but they have troops. And I’m just talking about a couple of companies, a battalion or so, and it doesn’t have to be primarily American. We have two choices here: You send troops in beforehand, to prevent the violence, or you rush troops in after it breaks out and the social fabric has been further torn apart.

We always talk about “preventative diplomacy.” The Council on Foreign Relations has a Center for Preventive Action. Everyone talks about it, but no one ever does anything about it. Here is a classic case where a few troops now might prevent the need for more troops later, and we have to try to get some additional troops in fast. I am very pessimistic that the suggestion I just made for more troops will be acted on, because of the problem you just raised: Iraq, Afghanistan. Also the passivity of the European Union, the mistakes that the U.S. government has made in the last few years, and the opportunistic actions of the Russians have been a poisonous combination.

On the Russian side, has the United States pressed President Vladimir Putin on this at all?

Not adequately. It’s been discussed at lower levels, but President Bush has not brought it up with Putin in a firm, determined way that would indicate to Moscow that this really matters. And the U.S.-Russia relationship is not a very good one anyway. This administration misjudged Putin from the beginning. In effect this administration gave Putin complimentary words, which he didn’t deserve. And he just kept taking advantage of it-not just in Kosovo, but all over the place.

So you think there’s about a month between the end of the UN mission and some declaration of independence. Do you think Kosovo can work out any kind of deal with the Serbs on their own?

No. The only chance for a deal was if the Russians had joined the EU and the U.S. in the search for a solution. They did this in 1999, while the United States and NATO were bombing Serbia for seventy-seven days, and that group, run by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari for the EU, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott for the U.S., and Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin, produced UN Resolution 1244, which ended the bombing and created the UN trusteeship over Kosovo, which has lasted eight years. That was a pretty successful operation, because when the Serbs, Milosevic specifically, realized that there was no more chance for him to get Russian help, that’s when he came around. But this time around, Putin is playing a very different game. He is in effect enabling the Serbs. He’s put no pressure on them at all to reach an agreement. On the contrary he’s become their encourager, and thatis the reason we’re headed towards such a huge diplomatic train wreck.

Is there any chance the Serbs will try to send troops into Kosovo?

There’s a chance, and the only way to prevent that is twofold: One, the international community must prevent Albanians from taking vengeance against the Serbs. That’s a real danger and it’s a big one. Secondly, the presence of additional international troops, NATO troops in particular, is the best guarantee to reduce the chances of that happening. Serb troops moving into Kosovo would be such a provocation that it’s hard to imagine, but this year everything has gone wrong in the region because of the Russian encouragement of the Serbs.

Are there problems in Bosnia, too?

In Bosnia, after twelve years in which the Dayton Accords have worked pretty well, and there have been no casualties, a very serious dilemma has now arisen. In the Serb portion of Bosnia, the Serb leader, Milorad Dodik, has previously been pro-Western and worked with the United States and the EU quite well, but he now seems to have been turned into something of an anti-Western, pro-Russian, pro-separatist leader. I believe it’s because the Russians have been showering petrodollars on him and he’s under intense pressure.

When I wrote this in the Washington Post last week, he wrote a very angry letter back to the Post, in which he said the Dayton agreement was still “sacrosanct.” I wrote a letter saying, “Well, I’m glad things are sacrosanct, but I’m not sure we interpret it the same way and, besides which, some of his words have undermined it.” So that’s the problem, but it’s also true that some of the Muslim politicians in Sarajevo have been provocative lately as well. Bosnia is a federal state. It has to be structured as a federal state. You cannot have a unitary government, because then the country would go back into fighting. And that’s the reason that the Dayton agreement has been probably the most successful peace agreement in the world in the last generation, because it recognized the reality.

I’ll conclude on Kosovo. You were talking about the possibility again of the Albanians seeking retribution against the Serbs. They already had a kind of brief massacre a couple years ago, right?

Yes. Very serious.

I would have thought by now things had calmed down, but I guess not.

Who knows? Most people hate each other, really hate each other, much more than in Bosnia. In Kosovo, there was almost no intermarriage, there are completely different languages, different cultures sitting in the same land-it’s much more like Arabs and Israelis. Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs all spoke the same language, all went to the same schools, all lived together-it wasn’t the kind of apartheid that you’ve got in Kosovo. And there’s so much history there. Even in the Middle East, you will not find people who hate each other as much as these people.

Reprinted with kindly permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

For more analysis on international news, go to www.cfr.org.

Seeking ‘Plan B’ on Kosovo

Serbia’s B92 station reports on EU-UN discussions over transferring the UN mission in Kosovo to an EU mission in early 2008, assuming that Kosovo unilaterally declares independence after December 10, 2007.

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Gespräch mit der Schauspielerin Anica Dobra

Eine oscarverdächtige Rolle spielt die bildhübsche serbische Schauspielerin Anica Dobra in der anspruchsvollen deutsch-serbisch-ungarischen Kinoproduktion Klopka - Die Falle.

Im Gespräch mit der Tageszeitung Die Welt spricht sie über ihr Leben zwischen Deutschland und Ihrer Heimat Serbien.

“Wenn man in einem Land lebt, als Gast, oder für immer, egal, wo auf der Welt, sollte man natürlich authentisch bleiben. Aber man muss sich auch assimilieren und die Sprache beherrschen. Das finde ich zivilisiert und fair. Und dann wird man auch in seinem Anderssein akzeptiert. Später habe ich dann davon profitiert, als ich 1988 in Deutschland meinen ersten Film gemacht habe.”

Vollständiges Gespräch lesen.

Bildmaterial: Mit freundlicher Genehmigung von David Cuenca.

The End of Impunity

Newsweek International says the arrest and prosecution of Peru’s former President Alberto Fujimori signals that rogue leaders worldwide are being increasingly called to task for their actions.

“The first breakthrough came in the 1990s when the United Nations Security Council set up special international courts to prosecute Yugoslav and Rwandan officials accused of gross human-rights abuses. Slobodan Milosevic died before The Hague tribunal could render its judgment. But a tribunal established in Tanzania sentenced former Rwandan prime minister Jean Kambanda to life imprisonment in 1998 for his role in the genocide carried out against that nation’s ethnic Tutsi population-the first time a former chief of state had been held responsible for human-rights violations committed during his tenure.”

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Kosovo solution in UN, status quo untenable

The “contact group” of ministers involved in efforts to solve Kosovo’s political situation met in New York and released a statement that retaining the status quo in the province in “untenable”.

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