Masses of information from the media constantly bombard us. Yet paradoxically often what is most significant goes unreported. Take for instance Tony Blair’s recent visit to Africa. Suddenly countries such as Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Ghana come under the spotlight. But one country which forever remains off the UK/US media map is Chad, lying just to the south of Libya and “over three times the size of California”, according to the CIA’s official website. Read the rest of this entry »

NATO’s much heralded “New Strategic Concept,” adopted at the summit in Lisbon on November 20, provides a few additional reasons why those Balkan countries that are still outside the Alliance should stay out of it. Read the rest of this entry »

Srdja Trifkovic:

Excerpts from a speech to the H.L. Mencken Club, Baltimore, October 23, 2010) On October 10 the first “gay pride parade” was staged in Belgrade, causing a massive civic distturbance. The event was prominently attended by the U.S. Ambassador in Belgrade Mary Warlick, by the head of the European Commission Office, and by the head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission in Serbia. None of them had attended the enthronment of the new Serbian Patriarch a week earlier. Two days later, Hillary Clinton came to Belgrade and praised the Tadic regime for staging the event.

Serbia’s “pro-European” government had been promoting the event as yet another proof that Serbia is fit to join the European Union, that is has overcome the legacy of its dark, intolerant past. Thousands of policemen in full riot gear had to divide their time between protecting a few hundred “LBGT” activists (about half of them imported from Western Europe for the occasion) and battling ten times as many young protesters in the side streets. Mrs. Clinton et al are enjoying the fruits of one man’s two decades of hard work in Eastern Europe. George Soros can claim, more than any other individual, that his endeavors have helped turn the lands of “Real Socialism” in central and eastern Europe away from their ancestors, their cultural and spiritual roots. The process is far from over, but his Open Society Institute and its extensive network of subsidiaries east of the Trieste-Stettin line have successfully legitimized the notions that only two decades ago would have seemed bizarre, laughable or demonic to the denizens of the eastern half of Europe.

The package was first tested here in America. Through his Open Society Institute and its vast network of affiliates Soros has provided extensive financial and lobbying support here for

· Legalization of hard drugs: We should accept that “substance abuse is endemic in most societies,” he says. Thanks to his intervention the terms “medicalization” and “non-violent drug offender” have entered public discourse, and pro-drug legalization laws were passed in California and Arizona in the 90s.

· Euthanasia: In 1994 Soros—a self-professed atheist—launched his Project Death in America (PDIA) and provided $15 million in its initial funding. (It is noteworthy that his mother, a member of the pro-suicide Hemlock Society, killed herself, and that Soros mentions unsympathetically his dying father’s clinging on to life for too long.) PDIA supports physician-assisted suicide and works “to begin forming a network of doctors that will eventually reach into one-fourth of America’s hospitals” and, in a turn of phrase chillingly worthy of Orwell, lead to “the creation of innovative models of care and the development of new curricula on dying.”

· Population replacement: Soros is an enthusiastic promoter of open immigration and amnesty & special rights for immigrants. He has supported the National Council of La Raza, National Immigration Law Center, National Immigration Forum, and dozens of others. He also promotes expansion of public welfare, and in late 1996 he created the Emma Lazarus Fund that has given millions in grants to nonprofit legal services groups that undermine provisions of the welfare legislation ending immigrant entitlements.

Soros supports programs and organizations that further abortion rights and increased access to birth control devices; advocate ever more stringent gun control; and demand abolition of the death penalty. He supports radical feminists and “gay” activists, same-sex “marriage” naturally included. OSI states innocently enough that its objectives include “the strengthening of civil society; economic reform; education at all levels; human rights; legal reform and public administration; public health; and arts and culture,” but the way it goes about these tasks is not “philanthropy” but political activism in pursuit of all the familiar causes of the radical left—and some additional, distinctly creepy ones such as “Death in America.”

Soros’s “philanthropic” activities in America have been applied on a far grander scale abroad. His many foundations say that they are “dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an open society.” What this means in practice? Regarding “Women’s Health” programs in Central and South-Eastern Europe, one will look in vain for breast cancer detection programs, or for prenatal or post-natal care. No, Soros’s main goal is “to improve the quality of abortion services.” Accordingly his Public Health Program has focused on the introduction of easily available abortion all over the region, and the introduction of manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) abortion in Macedonia, Moldova, and Russia. Why is Soros so keen to promote more abortions? Overpopulation cannot be the reason: the region is experiencing a huge demographic collapse and has some of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Unavailability of abortions cannot be the answer either: only five European countries had more abortions than live births in 2000: the Russian Federation, Bulgaria, Belarus, Romania and Ukraine. The only answer is that Soros wants as few little European Orthodox Christians born into this world as possible.

Soros’s Public Health Programs additionally “support initiatives focusing on the specific health needs of several marginalized communities,” such as “gays” and AIDS sufferers, and promote “harm reduction” focusing on needle/syringe exchange and supply of methadone to adicts. His outfits lobby governments to scrap “repressive drug policies.” Over the past decade and a half the Soros network has given a kick-start to previously non-existent “gay” activism in almost all of its areas of operation. The campaign for “LGBT Rights” is directed from Budapest, publishing lesbian and gay books in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia, opening Gay and Lesbian Centers in Ukraine and Rumania. Its activists routinely attack the Orthodox Church as a key culprit for alleged discrimination of “LGBTs.”

Education is a key pillar of Soros’s activities. His Leitmotif is the dictum that “no-one has a monopoly on the truth” and that “civic education” should replace the old “authoritarian” model. Even under communism Eastern Europe has preserved very high educational standards, but the Soros Foundation seeks to replace the old system with the concept of schools as “exercise grounds” for the “unhindered expression of students’ personalities in the process of equal-footed interaction with the teaching staff, thus overcoming the obsolete concept of authority and discipline rooted in the oppressive legacy of patriarchal past.” The purpose of education is not “acquisition of knowledge”: the teacher is to become the class “designer” and his relationship with students based on “partnership.” Soros’s reformers also insist on an active role of schools in countering the allegedly unhealthy influence of the family on students, which “still carries an imprint of nationalist, sexist, racist, and homophobic prejudices rampant in the society at large.”

“Racism” is Soros’s regular obsession, but he had a problem finding it in racially non-diverse East European countries. This has been resolved by identifying a designated victim group—gypsies (“Roma”). His protégés now come up with policy demands to “protect” this group that could have been written by Rev. Jesse Jackson:

· anti-bias training of teachers and administrators;

· integration of Romani history and culture in the textbooks at all levels;

· legally mandated arffirmative action programs for Roma;

· tax incentives for employers who employ them;

· access to low-interest credit for Roma small family businesses;

· setting aside a percentage of public tenders for Roma firms;

· legislation to fight “racism and discrimination” in housing;

· adoption of “comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation”;

· creation of mechanisms “to monitor implementation of anti-discrimination legislation and assist victims of racial discrimination in seeking remedies”;

· recognition by governments of “the Roma slavery and the Holocaust through public apology along with urgent adoption of a package of reparatory measures.”

A budding race relations industry is already in place, with the self-serving agenda of finding “discrimination” in order to keep itself in place for ever.

To make his agenda appear “normal” to the targeted population, millions of East Europeans are force-fed the daily fare of OSI agitprop by “the Soros media”—the term is by now well established in over a dozen languages—such as the B-92 media conglomerate in Serbia.

The social dynamics Soros uses to penetrate the target countries is interesting. To thousands of young East Europeans to become a “Soroshite” represents today what joining the Party represented to their parents: an alluring opportunity to have a reasonably paid job, to belong to a privileged elite, for many to travel abroad. The few chosen for the future new Nomenklatura go to Soros’s own Central European University in Budapest. In all post-communist countries Soros relies overwhelmingly on the sons and daughters of the old Communist establishment who are less likely to be tainted by any atavistic vestiges of their native soil, culture and tradition. The comparison with the janissary corps of the Ottoman Army is more apt than that with the Communist Party. The new janissaries, just like the old, have to prove their credentials by being more zealous than the Master himself.

The key ideological foundation for Soros’s beliefs is the same: that all countries are basically social arrangements, artificial, temporary and potentially dangerous. A plethora of quotes from his writings will make it clear that he thinks that owing allegiance to any of them is inherently irrational, and attaching one’s personal loyalty to it is absurd. Like Marx’s proletarian, Soros knows of no loyalty to a concrete country. He could serve any—or indeed all—of them, if they can be turned into the tools of his Wille zur Macht. In 1792, it could have been France, in 1917 Russia. Today, the United States is his host organism of choice because it is so powerful, and its media scene is open to penetration by his rabidly anti-traditionalist and deeply anti-American worldview and political agenda.

Textbooks and educational curricular reforms pushed by Soros in Eastern Europe indicate that he is trying to perform crude dumbing down of the young. Within months of coming to power in October 2000 the “reformists” within Serbia and their foreign sponsors insisted that schools—all schools, from kindergarden to universities—must be reformed and turned from “authoritarian” institutions into poligons for the “unhindered expression of students’ personalities in the process of equal-footed interaction with the teaching staff, thus overcoming the obsolete concept of authority and discipline rooted in the opressive legacy of patriarchal past.” They started with primary schools, with a pilot program of “educational workshops” for 7-12 year olds. The accompanying manual, sponsored by UNICEF and financed by the Open Society, denigrades the view that the purpose of education is acquisition of knowledge and insists that the teacher has to become the class “designer” and his relationship with students based on “partnership.”

The reformers devote particular attention to the more active role of schools in countering the allegedly unhealthy influence of the family on students, which “still carries an imprint of nationalist, sexist, [anti-Roma] racist, and homophobic prejudices rampant in the society at large.” The time-honored Balkan tradition of slapping childrens’ bottoms when they exceed limits is now presented in the elementary classroom as a form of criminal abuse that should be reported and acted upon. Traditional gender roles are relativized by “special projects” that entail cross-dressing and temporary adoption of opposite gender names.

Soros’s vision is hostile even to the most benign understanding of national or ethnic coherence. His core belief—that traditional morality, faith, and community based on shared memories are all verboten—is at odds even with the classical “open society” liberalism of Popper and Hayek, by whom he swears. His hatred of religion is the key. He promotes an education system that will neutralize any lingering spiritual yearnings of the young, and promote the loss of a sense of place and history already experienced by millions of Westerners, whether they are aware of that loss or not. Estranged from their parents, ignorant of their culture, ashamed of their history, millions of Westerners are already on the path of alienation that demands every imaginable form of self-indulgence, or else leads to drugs, or suicide, or conversion to Islam or some other cult.

To understand Soros it is necessary to understand globalization as a revolutionary, radical project. In the triumph of liberal capitalism, the enemies of civilization such as Soros have found the seeds of future victory for their paradigm that seeks to eradicate all traditional structures capable of resistance. The revolutionary character of the Open Society project is revealed in its relentless adherence to the mantra of Race, Gender and Sexuality. His goal is a new global imperium based that will be truly totalitarian. But he is making a colossal miscalculation. He does not realize that the unassimilated and unassimilable multitudes do not want to be the tools of his will to power. Illegal aliens in America, Algerians in France, Turks in Germany and Pakistanis in Britain have their own, instinctive scenario, and it does not entail leaving Soros and his ilk in positions of power, or alive.

Probably, the Tadic government had expected something better, and had planned to follow up a favorable ICJ opinion with an appeal to the General Assembly to endorse renewed negotiations over the status of Kosovo, perhaps enabling Serbia to recover at least the northern part of Kosovo whose population is solidly Serb. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past eight years, Prime Minister Rejep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist government and his AKP (Justice and Development Party) have successfully undermined Mustafa Kemal’s legacy and the character of the state founded upon that legacy. What remained, until last Sunday’s referendum, was an increasingly empty shell of constitutional secularism. Read the rest of this entry »

New serious inter-ethnic conflicts are brewing in Europe as it battles the global economic crisis. Typically they are deeply rooted in history, but the very fact that the renaissance of ethnic separatism in Europe is taking place in the epoch of European integration is noteworthy. Obviously, the enlargement of NATO and the EU neither brought stability to the continent nor precluded the recurrence of the phenomena commonplace in the XIX century but totally unexpected in the united Europe boasting a common currency. The truth to be faced is that the conflicts – unresolvable within the existing legal framework, especially given its condition after the notorious Kosovo case – undermine the cohesion of the EU.

Just recently, on August 3, the UN Security Council’s debates over Kosovo once again highlighted the divisions among great powers and the inability of the top international body to pass resolutions sending clear messages to the world. Now the UN finds itself confronted with an equally disturbing historical problem as three Hungarian associations linked to The Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania submitted a report to the UN charging Bucharest with violations of ethnic Hungarians’ rights at all levels. The associations demand a special legal status in line with the European legislation – a de facto autonomy – for the regions of Romania compactly inhabited by ethnic Hungarians. The report says 1,500,000 Hungarians in Romania have no intention to abandon their right to national identity and homeland. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has put the examination of the document on its agenda, and the opening of debates on a higher level, perhaps involving Austria, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Croatia, looms on the horizon.

According to the report, Hungarians in Romania are treated as second-grade citizens. Making up almost 80% of the population in some of the country’s regions, Hungarians are represented at the level of at most 20% in the corresponding local administrations. The report also carries charges of economic discrimination against the Hungarian-populated territories, stating that they remain underdeveloped compared to Romania’s other provinces and that their key natural resources such as salt and mineral water are under the control of the central administration.

The problem of the Hungarian minority in Romania is historical. It dates back to the collapse of Austria-Hungary whose defeat in World War I entailed an overhaul of European borders. As prescribed by the 1920 Trianon Treaty, Hungary’s territory was reduced by 72% and its population thus shrank by 64%, from 21 to under 8 million people. Roughly a third of Hungarians – 3.3 out of 10.7 million people – had to accept that the areas where they lived were no longer parts of Hungary. Since the time, over 1.5 million Hungarians inhabit Romania’s Transylvania – and periodically complain about the pressure exerted on them by the country’s administration. It could be partially attributed to the ethnic factor that in 1989 the uprising against Romania’s long-time communist leader N. Ceausesku began in Timisoara, Transylvania. The discontent currently expressed by Hungarian associations in Romania is a manifestation of quite traditional grievances.

As for South East Europe, its persisting sore is, of course, the Cyprus problem. Having joined the EU as an entirety, Cyprus nevertheless has the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) on its territory. To complicate things further, TRNC is recognized by Turkey, which is a NATO country. The TRNC problem is not even inching towards any kind of a solution, and the triumph of Turkish nationalists advocating closer ties with Turkey during the recent elections in the northern part of Cyprus widened the gap between its Greek and Turkish communities.

This particular problem actually mirrors a broader trend. The allegations voiced by the Hungarian associations in Romania and their demands replicate the programs incessantly floated over the recent years by the leaders of Albanian communities in Macedonia, South Serbia, Montenegro and elsewhere. The Albanian leaders in the above regions, on their part, are following the lead of their Kosovo brethren. The domino effect triggered by separatism in Kosovo is unfolding and spreading beyond the confines of the Balkan region.

The current developments have a geopolitical dimension. Hungary and Romania are members of the EU and NATO, the two alliances which truly hate to see discord in their ranks. Yet, the discord is not limited to the case of Romania’s Hungarian community. Hungarians in Slovakia and Slovaks in Hungary are locked in similar disputes (which are also instances of the Trianon legacy). The Basque problem both destabilizes Spain and tells on its relations with France, which, by the way, also faces the problem of separatism in Corsica. In Italy, Lega Nord – the Northern League openly seeking self-determination for the country’s northern regions in the form of the Republic of Padania – is customarily represented in the Italian government. Belgium is left with a caretaker government due to the disagreements between Flanders and the Walloon Region. On top of all that, there is Northern Ireland and Scotland where separatists enjoy steady public support.

As for South East Europe, its persisting sore is, of course, the Cyprus problem. Having joined the EU as an entirety, Cyprus nevertheless has the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) on its territory. To complicate things further, TRNC is recognized by Turkey, which is a NATO country. The TRNC problem is not even inching towards any kind of a solution, and the triumph of Turkish nationalists advocating closer ties with Turkey during the recent elections in the northern part of Cyprus widened the gap between its Greek and Turkish communities.

It is an accomplished fact that the enlargement of NATO and the EU failed to deliver on the promises of European stability and did not prevent the rise of ethnic separatism across Europe. On top of the practice of double standards which explicitly surfaced in the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion on the Kosovo independence, the renaissance of ethnic separatism in Europe stems from the lack of sizable benefits of the EU membership for many of the alliance’s members. Not only the global economic meltdown, but also the difficulties encountered in the process of adopting the European constitution, the Treaty of Lisbon, and other basic documents, the unchecked swelling of the Brussels bureaucracy, and the barely disguised discrimination against some of the EU members in Europe’s decision-making tend to depreciate the ideal of united Europe. As a result, some of the nations are disappointed in the European integration and increasingly turn to ethnically based statehood. That in itself could be a tolerable condition, but altogether the Great Albania, the Great Hungary, the Great Romania, etc. have no chance to fit into limited geographic space, while their potential conflicts are prone with new interethnic conflicts and religious wars.

Petr Iskenderov is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Science and an international commentator at Vremya Novstey and the Voice of Russia.

SCF

Srdja Trifkovic: The ICJ has done more than its share of norm-creation. Its advisory opinion is deeply flawed and non-binding, but the government in Belgrade now has a perfect alibi for doing what it had intended to do all along.

Ever since the U.S. intervened in Serbia’s domestic politics two years ago and helped the current coalition take power in Belgrade, Boris Tadić and his cohorts have been looking for a way to capitulate on Kosovo while pretending not to. The formula was simple: place all diplomatic eggs in one basket – that of the International Court of Justice – and refrain from using any other political or economic (let alone military) tools at Serbia’s disposal. On July 22 the ICJ performed on cue, declaring that Kosovo’s UDI was not illegal. Read the rest of this entry »

To claim that the traditional Right is “anti-Jewish” is to imply that it is gripped by an irrational prejudice. Such accusation is untrue and unfair.

Srdja Trifkovic: It is essential for the Jews to grasp that the survival of European gentile identity and institutions is a sine qua non of their own survival. It is desirable for the traditional Right to overcome its instinctive impulses, historically justified as they are, and to consider this possibility and its implications.

It is true, however, that the traditional Right is inevitably antipathetic to certain modes of thought and feeling, to a peculiar Weltanschauung and the resulting forms of public and intra-communal discourse, which are quite properly perceived as specifically Jewish.

Historically, Talmudic Judaism’s insistence on the Jews’ racial uniqueness — emphasized by the ritual and dietary laws of Talmudic Judaism and on its view of Christians as idolaters — has ensured that a Jew steeped in his own tradition could not view traditional European or American conservatism with sympathy. His tradition was a form of elaborate survival mechanism based on the zero-sum view of a world divided into “us” and “them.” The Gentile was “the Other” ab initio and for ever.

In addition, since the late 1800’s the Jews have had a disproportionate impact on a host of intellectual trends and political movements which have fundamentally altered the civilization of Europe and its overseas offspring in a manner deeply detrimental to the family, nation, culture, racial solidarity, social coherence, tradition, morality and faith. Spontaneously or deliberately, those ideas and movements — Marxism (including neoconservatism as the bastard child of Trotskyism), Freudianism, Frankfurt School cultural criticism, Boasian anthropology, etc. — have eroded “the West” to the point where its demographic and cultural survival is uncertain. The erosion is continuing, allegedly in the name of propositional principles and universal values, and it is pursued with escalating ferocity.

Only one group and one nation-state remain exempt from the dictates of pluralism and diversity, and from the condemnation (heading towards criminalization) of any form of group solidarity based on blood, culture and faith.

In our own time, however, the process of erosion has reached the stage where it is to be expected that increasing numbers of Jews — those who love their own people more than they loath what the traditional Right loves — will realize that, in the long term, their only viable survival strategy is to support the principles and objectives of the traditional Right.

To put it bluntly, the survival of the West which is recognizably Christian in spirit and European in genes is “objectively” becoming the optimal survival strategy for the Jewish community as a whole, Israel included. (I’ve known several Jews who understand, notably my late friend Sir Alfred Sherman.) In the postmodern mélange of races, cultures and cults still desired by the likes of Abraham Foxman, the narrative of victimhood and its associated claims will carry little weight with the brown, black, and yellow multitudes blissfully devoid of European self-loathing, guilt and shame. The results may easily exceed in ferocity and magnitude the events of 1942-45.

It is essential for the Jews to grasp that the survival of European gentile identity and institutions is a sine qua non of their own survival. It is desirable for the traditional Right to overcome its instinctive impulses, historically justified as they are, and to consider this possibility and its implications.

Alternative Right, 29 july 2010

The situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina will get strained soon as Bosnian Serbs are going to hold a referendum on their constitutional status. Its aim is not to let the leaders of Sarajevo, US and EU put an end to Republika Srpska. The outgoing Croatian President, Stjepan Mesic, promised that in case the referendum takes place, the regular army of Croatia will enter the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina to cut off the 15-km Posavina corridor, which connects the western and the eastern parts of Republika Srpska in the area of Brcko, close to the Croatian border.

“If Milorad Dodik (Prime Minister of Republika Srpska) decides to hold a referendum on separation, I will send the troops to divide the region inhabited by the Bosnian Serbs”,- the Croatian President said, adding that in case of success, a sovereign state of Bosnian Serbs will ‘seize to exist’. He made the announcement during an informal press-conference in Zagreb on January 18.

A military campaign against Banjaluka may be held simultaneously with an armed action by Kosovo`s Albanian authorities against the city of Kosovska Mitrovica and Serbian communities in Northern Kosovo. In this case the US, NATO and the EU will manage to complete separation of the Serbian territories. The Serbian Republic will be surrounded by hostile states and thus will be no longer able to carry out independent foreign policy. The defeat of the Kosovan and Bosnian Serbs will become Russia`s biggest loss in the Balkans over the past two decades and will harm Moscow’s attempts to play an active role in other strategically important regions in Eurasia.

The first reaction of Serbia and Russia to such rude interference of the Croatian leader into affairs of the neighboring state was surprisingly reserved. Serbia’s President Boris Tadic made an attempt to respond to the remarks made by his Croatian counterpart at the UN Security Council meeting on Kosovo on January 22. But he commented on the issue not during his main speech (though parallels between what was going on then in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo were more than obvious). He spoke during the debates because he found such kind of issues could not be discussed during official reports. Mr. Tadic also met the UN Chief Ban Ki-moon to tell him that Mesic`s ‘dangerous words were unwelcome in political discourse’ but immediately noted that Serbia did not want to worsen relations with Croatia.

Such peace-loving rhetoric was accepted in Zagreb. Croatia’s Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor told journalists that Serbia and Croatia should abandon debates and work together to develop neighborly relations. However, the Prime Minister did not disavow the President’s announcement.

Russia’s reaction is still too vague. Summing up the results of 2009 at the press-conference on January 22 in Moscow, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov commented on Mr. Mesic`s announcement: “We insist that all the sides involved respect the Dayton Agreement and avoid the use of force”. (1)

Meanwhile, the way the situation is developing in the region in recent months proves quite the contrary: the West and the leaders of Sarajevo are definitely going to undermine the Dayton agreement. Two rounds of talks held by the heads of the Bosnian political parties in October 2009 at a NATO base in Butmir outside Sarajevo, revealed the the western strategy toward Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bosnian Serbs are demanded to abdicate their authorities settled in the Dayton Peace Agreement. Though formally Russia is a member of the Dayton Agreement Peace Implementation Council, it did not take part in the discussions in Butmir. So, it would be a fatal mistake to expect the US, EU and NATO to abandon their new political course. It would also mean to be inexcusably weak in regard to Russia’s interests in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the Balkans in general.

It was not accidentally that the International Crisis Group, which traditionally deals with promoting the western political propaganda in conflict regions, in every detail commented on the future of the Balkans a few months before the recent events. Experts in the Group believe that Moscow and Belgrade remain the West`s major rivals in the region because “an international approach to the Balkans is dominated by concern over Serbia`s reaction to the independence of Kosovo”. In their opinion, Russia “has become stronger to oppose to the Western policy it sees hostile to its interests”. (2)

Under these circumstances, Moscow should better revise its policy in the Balkans. Russian diplomats should no longer view the Dayton agreements as too weak to withstand political attacks. This all will make it logical to put in question political status of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This approach will help Moscow no longer be an outsider in Bosnia and launch a series of international talks on territorial, political and ethnocultural problems in the Balkans, where peoples and their interests are in jeopardy. Taking into consideration intentions of the West to put an end to the Serbian Orthodox community in the Balkans, revision of the existing borders in the conflict regions may become the only way for Russia to defend its interests. As of today, there are at least three self-proclaimed states which statuses are being doubted: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia. Their territorial and administrative revision could become the least painful way to avoid new wars in the Balkans.

It is remarkable that recently the authorities of Sarajevo have been urging Russia to contribute to the ‘implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement’, the Bosniak Muslim member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haris Silajdzic, said at the meeting with the Russian special envoy for Kosovo, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko. And this is a very disturbing sign because Silajdzic has long been known for his extremist views about Republika Srpska. The majority of people in Western Europe cannot but be aware that the Bosnian Serbs remain the only counterbalance to radical pan-Islamic tendencies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And this it what gives Russia the right to boost its activities in the Balkans.

Dr. Pyotr A. Iskenderov is a historian, senior researcher at the Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Science, and the Vremya Novostey and the Voice of Russia radio station international politics commentator.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17551

Notes

(1) http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf

(2) Bosnia`s Incomplete Transition: Between Dayton and Europe. Sarajevo-Brussels, 2009. P.14

Gerard Gallucci

Sovereignty is usually thought to be indivisible, zero sum.  But quantum physics tells us that reality may simply be in the eye of the beholder.  This insight could offer the key to unlocking the Kosovo status problem.  Perhaps both sides – Belgrade and Pristina – can get what they want by seeing status each in their own way, with nods and winks from the rest of us.

The concept of sovereignty goes back to the age of kings.  Ever since mankind has lived in groupings larger than clans, who gets to be the boss and why have been central political issues.  Kings and emperors claimed authority through descent from the gods. When the divine-right sovereigns were finally overthrown, sovereignty came to rest on the people or nation.  Wikipedia defines sovereignty as the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a territory and adds that it can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided.  Sovereignty is the claim to rule over a place that has as its basis the assertion of that claim.  Of course, not all claims to sovereignty are recognized or actionable.

During recent debate and speculation about Kosovo’s status and possible renewed diplomatic efforts after the ICJ renders its judgment, there has been increased mention of a possible scenario that could be seen as a way to sidestep the sovereignty issue and also avoid partition.  At the core of such a solution would be increased autonomy for the Serbs north of the Ibar and some form of role for Serbia vis-à-vis the southern Serbs and the Church.  This would have to go somewhat further than the Ahtisaari Plan, which left important details – of how Pristina and Belgrade would have to interact to enable local self-rule and to operationalize links to Serbia – either unsettled or open to manipulation or blockage by the Kosovo government.  For the north, links to Pristina would probably have to be kept minimal while in the south, where the Serbs must live in the midst of independent Kosovo, such links would have to be somewhat more organic.  The role of Belgrade would be a mirror image of this. In the north, local institutions would function in practice as part of Serbia while in the south, Belgrade would have defined access and the ability to support local Serb communities but no role in governing them.  Oversight of the Church (and Church land) might be done simply as a matter of the recognized authority of the Serbian Orthodox Church.  All of this would require agreed and clear rules of the road – and the devil is always in the details – and close monitoring and supervision by the internationals.

During recent debate and speculation about Kosovo’s status and possible renewed diplomatic efforts after the ICJ renders its judgment, there has been increased mention of a possible scenario that could be seen as a way to sidestep the sovereignty issue and also avoid partition. At the core of such a solution would be increased autonomy for the Serbs north of the Ibar and some form of role for Serbia vis-à-vis the southern Serbs and the Church. This would have to go somewhat further than the Ahtisaari Plan, which left important details – of how Pristina and Belgrade would have to interact to enable local self-rule and to operationalize links to Serbia – either unsettled or open to manipulation or blockage by the Kosovo government.

As difficult as the negotiations might be to settle these Ahtisaari-plus elements of a possible agreement, it would still leave the question of status and how local Serb autonomy would be “dressed up” (i.e., what uniforms would the Serb police wear, what flags would fly and where, who gets any customs fees, how would Serbian courts in the north and Kosovo courts in the south relate, what utility companies can operate and where).  But autonomy itself need not be the problem.

When the Western supporters of Kosovo independence first designed the Ahtisaari Plan, it was seen as a way of avoiding creation of autonomous ethnic regions such as was done in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH).  Conventional wisdom held that this had led to continuing problems in BiH and should not be repeated elsewhere.  But increased autonomy – within the boundaries of Kosovo – may make more sense there than in BiH, where autonomy could be seen to challenge the status of the state boundaries as defined by the pre-existing Yugoslav republic.  (The war in BiH was, after all, an effort to carve up that state.)  In the case of Kosovo, both Belgrade and Pristina agree that its boundaries are not in question and both continue to reject partition.  This could offer real grounds for compromise.  Belgrade could continue to claim that all of Kosovo remains part of Serbia but limit itself to exercising some form of control over the north and only access in the south (vis-à-vis the southern Serbs).  Pristina could maintain that its borders and independence are inviolate.  Serbia would not have to recognize Kosovo independence (nor would the EU insist) but Pristina would presumably also get Serbia’s quiet acquiescence to Kosovo being further incorporated into the international system (including the UN).

An agreement along these lines is certainly conceivable and could be achieved if the parties both understood that they were expected to reach a mutually acceptable solution in which neither would necessarily receive all they want.  Agreement within a resuscitated Contact Group – U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy and Russia – to keep the two sides at the table and to not allow either to simply stone-wall would be essential.  The Western Quint countries also would have to resist seeking to simply impose the current “solution” that has so clearly not resolved the Kosovo status issue so far.

There might eventually be a new UNSCR resolution and a continued UN role in Kosovo – or at least in the north – may remain necessary for some time with a more effective EULEX perhaps allowed to try to get it right in the south.

Behind all this would be the possibility that both sides could see the issue of sovereignty over Kosovo in their own way and be left to do so. Serbia could continue to claim sovereignty over all of Kosovo, as could the government in Pristina.

Behind all this would be the possibility that both sides could see the issue of sovereignty over Kosovo in their own way and be left to do so.  Serbia could continue to claim sovereignty over all of Kosovo, as could the government in Pristina.  The Serbs would have a high degree of local self-rule within what everyone recognized as Kosovo.  The Albanians would be able to take comfort in the fact that Serbia would not formally rule any part of Kosovo.  With both sides getting the international support and “tough love” required to make this complicated formula work, and over time, perhaps the issue of Kosovo status could be subsumed within membership in the EU.

Perhaps some will still say that this would only “freeze” the Kosovo conflict and not resolve it.  But this misses the point that the conflict between Serbs and Albanians over Kosovo remains at this time irresolvable except perhaps through using force to drive one or the other side off the field.  A detailed and practical agreement to disagree on sovereignty may be the best outcome for now.  There could be much to talk about after the ICJ rules.  Maybe the preliminaries can start now.  Maybe they already have?

Gerard M. Gallucci is a retired US diplomat. He served as UN Regional Representative in Mitrovica, Kosovo from July 2005 until October 2008.

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