Serbia threatens to use force if West recognizes Kosovo

[Lucas Corso]

Serbia threatens to use force if West recognizes Kosovo
By Nicholas Wood

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

BELGRADE: Serbia is ready to use force to prevent Western nations from recognizing Kosovo as an independent state, a senior Serbian official warned Wednesday.
Dusan Prorokovic, Serbia's state secretary for Kosovo, outlined an array of tough measures to squeeze Kosovo - including the possible deployment of Serbian forces to the province, the sealing of its borders and a trade embargo - that he said Serbia was ready to take in the event that Kosovo's Albanian-dominated government declared independence and was recognized by Western governments.
The potential steps are the harshest outlined so far by the government here and come as negotiations between the two sides and overseen by Russia, the European Union and United States appear to be deadlocked. The United Nations has set a Dec. 10 deadline for the conclusion of the talks, after which the United States has indicated it will recognize Kosovo unilaterally.
International officials in Kosovo, regional analysts and Albanian politicians have repeatedly said that a return of Serbian troops would spark a renewed conflict in the region.
Until now Serbia has shied away from making any threats that could associate it with the repressive response by its security forces to an ethnic Albanian insurgency during the 1990s, when Slobodan Milosevic was the president of Yugoslavia.
In an interview in the Serbian capital, Prorokovic warned that unilateral recognition by Western states would give Serbia the right to return its troops to the region, and to annul an eight-year agreement between NATO and the then-Yugoslav government regulating their exclusion. Prorokovic is also a senior member of Prime Minister Kostunica's Serbian Democratic party.
"In case of self-proclamation, it is not an active paper anymore," Prorokovic said, referring to the Kumanovo military accord. "Without Kumanovo our army can go back without any legal limits. It can cross the boundary and go everywhere in Kosovo without any legal problems."
Serbian-dominated forces were forced to withdraw from Kosovo in June 1999 after a 78-day NATO-led bombing campaign. Since then the United Nations has administered the region. UN officials estimate that as many as 10,000 ethnic Albanians lost their lives in the conflict. Prorokovic said the redeployment of the Serbian Army was one of up to 16 options Serbia was considering if Kosovo declared independence. He also reinforced his government's stance that continued talks on Kosovo's future were the only option worth considering.
"We do not have an alternative," he said.
If Kosovo Albanian leaders proceeded with their plans to declare unilateral independence at the end of current talks, Prorokovic said, Serbia would launch a trade embargo on the province, which relies on Serbia for much of its imports, and seal its boundaries with Serbia.
"We will block every kind of commercial activity and every kind of route," he said. The warning come ahead of the announcement of a detailed package offered to the ethnic Albanians during the negotiations in Vienna last week. It will be made public Monday.
A foreign policy adviser to Kosovo's prime minister, Agim Ceku, said Prorokovic's statement would not deter the Kosovo Albanian leadership from seeking recognition after negotiations finish in December.
"How do they a walk over NATO troops in the region, and what do they do when they are exposed to open conflict?" said the adviser, Borut Grgic. "Occupation is out of the question. The international community would block it."
But Grgic conceded that the region was likely to face the possibility of renewed tension by the end of the year as Kosovo's Albanian leaders move ever closer to proclaiming their own state.
"No matter what happens, there will be a period of high instability and potential for conflict," said Grgic, who is also director the Institute for Strategic Studies, a foreign policy research group based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. "This will come after December; there will be a period of six months of uncertainty, and you will have a lot of actors who want assert themselves and stake their claim," he said in a telephone interview.
One leading political commentator in Belgrade said Serbia's increasingly tough stance on Kosovo, bolstered by Russia's refusal to accept recognition of the province within the UN Security Council, may test the nerves of European states that are divided over the region's future.
The Serbs "know that security is not fantastic in Kosovo," said the commentator, Bratislav Grubacic, editor of VIP News.
"In a way they are threatening the others. You know the situation is not great," he said, referring to the possible deployment of Serbian troops in the region.
Most European states have troops deployed with the 17,000-strong NATO force in the province. The European Union has also agreed to lead a new mission to supervise the region once the UN administration leaves the province.
Several European states, including Greece, Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia, have said they will not recognize Kosovo's independence without a un resolution. "Disunity of Europe," Grubacic said, "is the one of the Serbs' main weapons in their negotiations."



Source: Serbia threatens to use force if West recognizes Kosovo - International Herald Tribune

[Galaico]

I know this won't make happy Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, but if I was Serbia I would try to trade Kosovo for the Republic of Srpska.

I know Kosovo is one of the historical territories of Serbia with a long Serbian tradition, but do Serbs really want to keep all those Albanians within their borders? Let's see, if Serbs are allowed to keep Kosovo they'll have to keep all the Albanian population, they won't be allowed to expell them or whatever.

There are two main reasons why the International Community is supporting Kosovo's independence (or annexation to Albania): the ethnic Albanian composition of the region, and the alleged Serbian agression.

Those two same reasons can be used to defend the independence or an annexation to Serbia of the Republic of Srpska.

That's my opinion, for example let's imagine that in 10 years Moroccoans (with Spanish passport) outnumber Spaniards in Ceuta and Melilla (not far from reality), and we weren't allowed to clean them, I wouldn't like to keep Ceuta and Melilla with such a population, I would prefer to give them up to Morocco, no matter how sad that would make me.

[Theobald]

Originally Posted by Galaico

That's my opinion, for example let's imagine that in 10 years Moroccoans (with Spanish passport) outnumber Spaniards in Ceuta and Melilla (not far from reality), and we weren't allowed to clean them, I wouldn't like to keep Ceuta and Melilla with such a population, I would prefer to give them up to Morocco, no matter how sad that would make me.

On a side note I would even go further than that, and say that I would be ready to give up most of the French territory if only the politically conscious ethnic French were allowed to have their own state (in a small region, say, Alsace or Normandy for instance). It would not even make me sad, at least not sadder than the current situation. Because I know very well that a state ruled by ethnic French, ethnically homogenous and free from democracy, socialism and other nonsenses, thus economically efficient, would outclass everyone else - and sooner or later reconquer the whole national territory, and even more. In a similar way as it happened during the Reconquista.

Political fight for Kosovo is probably a very lucrative electoral business for Serbian nationalists, but from a pragmatic preservationnist point of view that's just stupid.

[Laocoon]

The recognition of Kosovo independence would be an avowal of weakness for Serbia vis à vis immigration and the colonisation of its territory. Not only for Serbia but for Europe. You give them a bit, they will take even more.

Originally Posted by Galaico

That's my opinion, for example let's imagine that in 10 years Moroccoans (with Spanish passport) outnumber Spaniards in Ceuta and Melilla (not far from reality), and we weren't allowed to clean them, I wouldn't like to keep Ceuta and Melilla with such a population, I would prefer to give them up to Morocco, no matter how sad that would make me.

Yes, but Ceuta and Melilla are in Africa not in Europe. Now would you leave them Andalusia?

I would say it'd be better for us to take roots wherever we are, where communities of peoples with strong ethnic feelings are to be found, not to have them all in a small territory.

[Galaico]

Originally Posted by Carnyx

Yes, but Ceuta and Melilla are in Africa not in Europe. Now would you leave them Andalusia?

But Albania is already in European soil, Morocco isn't.

[Theobald]

Originally Posted by Carnyx

I would say it'd be better for us to take roots wherever we are, where communities of peoples with strong ethnic feelings are to be found, not to have them all in a small territory.

A "mixed" solution can be envisaged. What I am thinking of is a core area of five or six millions of ethnic French. Take the Jews for instance : there are millions of them living everywhere in the world, lobbying for their cause, with strong communautarist feelings; and in their stronghold, Israel, six millions of them make fear hundreds of millions of Arabs, and created the most powerful, modern and wealthy country in the region.

We shall face the truth : in the next ten or fifteen years many French regions will no longer have an ethnic French majority (Ile-de-France, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Rhone-Alpes, PACA, perhaps Alsace and Languedoc as well). What is happening today in more and more suburbs in Paris, Lyon or Strasbourg - anti-native "ethnic cleansing" - will happen in a far greater, regional extent. Natives living there are going to face an unprecedented wave of persecutions, humiliations, segregation, violence. Like the European Jews earlier, or the poorer French today (or the modern Brits and Dutch for that matter), many of them will look for an "external" solution, and territorial separation. That is an unique chance; we have no interest in having persecuted minorities living among hostile, violent, racist foreign majorities. If nationalists are able to offer them a solution to their daily problems, they will join them.

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by Galaico

I know this won't make happy Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, but if I was Serbia I would try to trade Kosovo for the Republic of Srpska.

Well, things are not as simple as that, especially with regard to Bosnia. Although I do favour a solution to the Bosnian question, that would include a tripartite division of the artificial country, whereby the western parts would be annexed to Croatia and the eastern ones to Serbia, with a state in between, within the confines of the medieval Bosnia, as a state of Bosniaks (there are countries of such size in Europe and they do function), however, the incorporation of Republika Srpska in its present territorial extension into Serbia is hardly a viable option. Look at the map of the present-day Bosnia with its internal divisions and you will see what I mean.

Certain corrections of the present frontiers will be indispensable if a partition of Bosnia will be carried out.

[Lucas Corso]

Originally Posted by Plethon

Well, things are not as simple as that, especially with regard to Bosnia. Although I do favour a solution to the Bosnian question, that would include a tripartite division of the artificial country, whereby the western parts would be annexed to Croatia and the eastern ones to Serbia, with a state in between, within the confines of the medieval Bosnia, as a state of Bosniaks (there are countries of such size in Europe and they do function), however, the incorporation of Republika Srpska in its present territorial extension into Serbia is hardly a viable option. Look at the map of the present-day Bosnia with its internal divisions and you will see what I mean.

Certain corrections of the present frontiers will be indispensable if a partition of Bosnia will be carried out.

This was the aim of an agreement between Milošević and Tuđman: a small muslijm stated centered on Sarajevo and Hercegovina to Croatia and Kraijna to Serbia, but the USA didn't permitted it and together with the Saudis, Iranians and Chechens supported the Army of muslim Bosnia...

[Marulus]

Originally Posted by Lucas Corso

This was the aim of an agreement between Milošević and Tuđman: a small muslijm stated centered on Sarajevo and Hercegovina to Croatia and Kraijna to Serbia, but the USA didn't permitted it and together with the Saudis, Iranians and Chechens supported the Army of muslim Bosnia...

First of all, there is nor ever was such thing as Krajina. It was a "geographical term" that Serbs had artificially resurrected from the past (from the times of the Austrian military frontier of yore) to designate the occupied parts of Croatia, which were ethnically cleansed from Croats, villages burned, churches destroyed, unimaginable crimes and murders committed thereby. Those were the temporarily occupied territories of Croatia (liberated in 1995. with the operation Storm). No Croatian politician ever considered an option to cede those territories to Serbia. Apart from the fact that it would have been a treason of national interests, it would also permanently disable Croatia from normally functioning, since the country would be split in two (look at the map and you'll see what I mean). And those territories were never part of Serbia.

The Bosnia was, however, a point of contention and different plans of division were set forth at negotiating tables at variious periods, some of them even backed by the so-called international community. There were several meetings between the leading Serbian and Croatian politicians with the aim of reaching an eventual agreement on Bosnia. There are even indications that an important faction of the political leadership of the Bosniak Muslims was inclined to accept a possibility of the tripartite division of the country.

One of the most important meetings of the kind was held in winter 1992/1993, between the Croatian President Franjo Tuđman and the Yugoslav (Yugoslavia was the name used back then to denote only Serbia and Montenegro) President Dobrica Ćosić. Of course, Ćosić was just the spokesman of the President Milošević, who was formally only the President of the one of two republics (Serbia) of the reduced Yugoslavia, but detained the real power.

At that meeting a principle of humane exchange of population was mentioned as one of the possible options to resolve the Bosnian murderous quagmire. And a tripartite division of the country was on the table as well.

On some other negotiations, assisted by the international community, negotiations at which the representatives of the Bosniaks took part as well, they also showed certain inclination to accept the concept of divided Bosnia. Most of those negotiations failed, because of the intransigence of the Bosnian Serbs, who were extremely unwilling to cede even an inch of militarily conquered territory (they had a huge military adavntage at the outbeark of the war). A tremendous amount of pressure was exerted by the Serbian government itself on the Bosnian Serbs, with the aim to force them to accept different peace proposals and agreements, but without success.

But let's return to the 1992. Serb-Croatian meeting (Tuđman-Ćosić). Tuđman was subsequently much reviled by the world media (and by some Croatian leftists) for his mentioning the humane exachange of the population at the press conference after the meeting, but I don't see what's so intrinsically wrong with such an approach. Better a humane exchange than ongoing inhumane massacres on all sides.

[Laocoon]

Originally Posted by Galaico

But Albania is already in European soil, Morocco isn't.

So is Morocco with its millions of nationals established in our countries. a small piece of Morroco.

Originally Posted by Theobald

A "mixed" solution can be envisaged. What I am thinking of is a core area of five or six millions of ethnic French. Take the Jews for instance : there are millions of them living everywhere in the world, lobbying for their cause, with strong communautarist feelings; and in their stronghold, Israel, six millions of them make fear hundreds of millions of Arabs, and created the most powerful, modern and wealthy country in the region.

Yes, true; though Israel has America behind its bottom, this state is not viable without the USA. Basically it's a 3rd world country with a transatlantic and european financial aid/assistance. There's no wonder why so few of jews want to do their alyah.

Like the European Jews earlier

If we make as good as them, our survival is assured.

That is an unique chance; we have no interest in having persecuted minorities living among hostile, violent, racist foreign majorities. If nationalists are able to offer them a solution to their daily problems, they will join them.

I believe we can have strongholds outside this havoc. It's in our interest to maintain our position wherever we are able to. Not all Christians feld to the north when the muslims took over Spain.

[Marulus]

And, as far as Kosovo is concerned, the whole Kosovo military action in 1999 was one of the classical examples of the international banditry of USA-UK, in the glorious tradition that started with the Opium Wars (1839) and has been going on until the day of today. Kosovo Albanians were not the stake in the whole game, but it was about blackmailing Serbia to dance along the tunes played by the Western powers and to detach itself from the Russian influence. Kosovo Albanians were just means to achieve an end, not the purpose itself of the whole military adventure.

One must not forget that Slobodan Milošević wasn't always considered villain by the "West". In the period between 1995 (Dayton Agreement that brought peace, but also shaped the present-day inviable Bosnia) and 1998 (beginning of the Kosovo crisis) Milošević was hailed by the West as the biggest peace-maker and a constructive element in the Balkans. Serbia was courted by the West, it was promised that she would become part of the euro-atlantic integrations, on conditions that she accepts the modern Western rules of the play and changes her internal policy in order to please the criteria of the human rights and similar. Milošević understood all this courtship and lurings as an unacceptable meddling with the internal affairs of his country and declined to comply wuth the Western demands, and rightfully so, in my opinion.

Then, in 1998, the so-called Kosovo insurgency started (KLA) and the pressure was repeatedly exerted on Milošević to accept foreign troops into his country, which he always staunchly refused, clinging to the "old-fashioned" idea of the national sovereignity. It was after this categorical refusal that he once again became the "butcher of the Balkans" in the eyes of the "international community" (whatever that means) and of the Western media.

You all know what ensued: the bombing campaign and the forceful occupation of the province (1999), which was put under the UN protectorate, with NATO troops securing it militarily, with one of the biggest US military bases in Europe (Bondsteel) established there.

I personally don't believe in the "independence" of Kosovo. Even if something like that would ever be enforced, you know what kind of independence it will be. A laughing stock that will erode the very notion of independence in general. Anyway, the independence of too many Eastern European post-Communist countries is a highly problematic and questionable category (due to the political elites of those countries giving up all sovereignity and trading it for some imagined protection by the USA), but this would be an extreme example, unseen so far.

But I don't believe it will be enforced. The issue of the status of Kosovo is, in my opinion, just a means to blackmail Serbia. The message is: lest you don't play by our rules, we will take Kosovo from you. A kind of eternal threat. There are attempts of the USA to make Serbia their most reliable ally in the Balkans, a puppet state, but Serbs are still unwilling to accept that role and that's why this comedy with Kosovo lasts for so much time.