Ariel Rusila's Conflicts [Ex-BalkanPerspective]

United States Foreign policy during last decades could be described as series of strategical errors. When Soviet Union splintered, the US saw possibility to widen its influence through breakaway republics and former satellites, do whatever want in the rest of world and feed her powerful military-industrial complex. Supporting on one hand nationalist/populist leaders (Georgia, Ukraine, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo) and with one hand elsewhere dictatorships (Asia, South & Middle America); making alliances with terrorist groups (Al Quida, KLA) shows that the aim was only reach short term tactical gain. Attacks to Serbia and Iraq were made on base of fabricated information/propaganda and probably also the intelligence from Afghanistan was not better. From polarization to dialogue All above mentioned has now lead to polarization of world and confrontation between Russia and the US. When the US has acted (lunatic style) as one's own discretion one effect is that UNSC has been guided to si...

Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, is backing independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - Georgia's two rebel provinces. The vote came after a brief war between Russia and Georgia following Georgia's assault on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali Aug. 7. Both countries won de-facto independence in the 1990s after wars with the government in Tbilisi. The road which started from Kosovo UDI seems to continue long because it is estimated that there is about five thousend ethnic groups on globe. After Georgia's separatists my bet is that in Europe Transnistria could be the next breakaway province. Let's look this maybe next new state closer: Pridnestrovie - also known by the unofficial name, Transnistria - is a new and emerging country in South Eastern Europe, sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine. Although widely seen as part of Moldova, historically, Pridnestrovie and Moldova were always separate. Throughout 2500 years of history,...

Caucasus suffers about US Cowboy policy Georgia is one again failed example about US Foreign policy which aims to create classical “banana republic” to Eastern Europe where US controls crucial foreign and/or domestic policies of another nation through ties with its military and intelligence institutions. EU's military, political, and corporate elites have already increasingly become dependents or confederates of the US military-industrial complex. While Russia wishes to safe its "inner courtyard" - sc "Russian World" US is doing the same with its MacWorld. However today it seems that those two worlds have more and more common zone: Many ex Soviet republics have joined or are dreaming of joining NATO, missiles and radars are coming closer and closer Moscow - it feels that new cold war, old polarization/confrontation, is coming. The bluff of US Foreign Policy has normally been "western democracy" etc. However the record in Georgia was questionable. In on...

Bearing in mind the risks for Poland's allies in the Caucasus, Georgia above all, Warsaw's recognition of the Kosovo Albanians' secession was described as an irresponsible move by Nobel Peace laureate and former Polish president, Lech Walesa. "Recognizing Kosovo will bring nothing but trouble. No one can be denied the right to self-determination, but only within the bounds of common sense," he was quoted as saying at the time. Walesa stressed in his statements to the Polish media that Kosovo was "with its irresponsible behavior, causing new divisions in Europe and globally and undermining international relations". Jiri Dienstbier, former UN human rights rapporteur for former Yugoslavia and former Czech foreign minister has stated that "It is clear and certain, after all that’s been said and done, that Kosovo will never, but really never, be a legal and legitimate independent country.” Spark & fire Making references to both prestigious politician...

Originally published 14/08/2008 During last twenty years war for humanitarian reasons has came quite popular in political vocabulary e.g. in Balkans and now with Georgia case. The ideal to use power in the service of ethics is good. The problem is the low level of ethics when US is using her power in world. I remember their actions in Chile to establish dictatorship, their support to killing squads in middle and south America. In 1983, U.S. troops invaded Grenada because it – a tiny island with 110,000 inhabitants - represented a military threat to the USA. In Balkans US made alliances first with Serb leaders (who later came ICTY wanteds) and after with KLA (which before was described as terror organization), al Quida (1 st ally then one element in “axis of terror”) etc. US started to bomb Serbia – without UNSC approval and based purpose-oriented reports from field - supporting separatist movements. Later US repeated the same in Afghanistan and Iraq (again based false reports). Befo...

Originally published 12/08/2008 Very interesting interview of former Hague Tribunal spokeswoman Florence Hartmann popped to my eyes from newspaper Blic . Referring the arrest of Radovan Karadzic she told, that " information about the fugitives' whereabouts was abundant, however, it would always turn out that one of the three countries – the U.S., Britain or France – would block arrests. " She adds that former Bosnian secret police chief Momir Munibabi? was sacked on former High Representative Paddy Ashdown's orders, " for being efficient in his search for Karadži?, and for sending information to Del Ponte ". " Now that Karadži? has finally been arrested, he can tell a lot about secret deals that led to the fall of Srebrenica. His testimony represents a great risk for the great western powers ," Hartmann is convinced. These statements of ICTY insider arouse few associations to my mind, such as Is the Holbrooke-Karadzic deal existing, like the a...

Originally published 09/08/2008 Georgia launched a major military offensive against South Ossetia on Friday in a bid to regain control of its breakaway province. The attack started few hours after declared ceasefire, just before opening Day of Olympics. The death toll can already be as high as 1400 including some Russian peacekeepers .Kosovo's unilateral proclamation of independence from Serbia last February played a key role in these developments. There may be endless disputes over whether this has created a legal precedent or not, but realpolitik takes its course regardless. The claim of Great (western) Powers that Kosovo is an absolutely unique case showed be a joke almost immediately when UDI based to their orchestration opened the Pandora box. Moscow and quite a few other capitals considered the move a serious step toward the degradation of international law and the triumph of arbitrary approaches to the resolution of global problems. Nonetheless, Russia has chosen a course...

Originally published 05/08/2008 Today 13 years has went since the massive ethnic cleansing of more than 250,000 Serbs from Krajina in Croatia. Thirteen years ago, on August 4 1995, 200,000 Croat army and police troops from Croatia and the Croat Defense Council from Bosnia-Herzegovina, under the command of Franjo Tudjman, attacked the United Nations protected zones (safe havens) with Serbian population in northern Dalmatia, Lika, Kordun and Banija. They were helped on the Bosnian side by the Bosnian Muslim fighters and had the operation backed, coordinated and logistically supported by the leading Western powers. A day later, on August 5, Croat troops have entered the ethnically cleansed town of Knin which was under the heavy missile barrage earlier where, prior to the “Storm”, more than 90 percent of the population were Serbs. In a few days, the complete Serbian population from Krajina in Croatia was forced to flee towards Serbia and Republic of Srpska. Columns with over 250,000 expel...

Originally published on 01/08/2008 Israel's ambassador to Croatia, Shmuel Meirom, harshly criticized on Thursday 31 July 2008 the funeral given to a head of a World War Two concentration camp in Zagreb, saying also that it insulted the memory of those killed in the camp run by Croatia's Nazi-allied Ustasha regime. Sakic died aged 87 on July 20 while serving 20 years in prison for war crimes he committed as head of the notorious Jasenovac camp, the worst of about 40 camps run by the then Nazi puppet regime of Croatia. According to Croatia's Vecernji List daily, Sakic was buried in the Ustasha uniform and described by the priest at the funeral as "a person Croats must be proud of"'. "I'm convinced that the majority of the Croatian people are shocked by the way the funeral of the Jasenovac commander and murderer, dressed in an Ustasha uniform, was conducted," ambassador Meirom said in a written statement to the state news agency Hina. "At th...

Originally published on 30/07/2008 This night I was watching news from Belgrade where some 15.000 demonstrators were involved running battles with riot police after a Belgrade rally in support of Radovan Karadzic. In every capital one can find hardliners, extremists or simple hooligans so this event itself is not very dangerous. However the serious question from my point of view is, that according to my rough estimate more than a half of average Serbs in some degree is against the government's plan to extradite Karadzic to the UN war crimes tribunal. I can find few reasons why one opposes the extradition Mr. Karadzig: The picture of crime itself has changed during his 13 years on the run. Even today's headlines are describing Srebrenica with slogan "worst civilian massacre in Europe since WWII", there is also many arguments about political PR game behind exaggerated death numbers, misrepresentation of early reports and manipulated pictures. Probably a massacre h...

Originally published on 23/07/2008 The European Commission is set to withdraw the accreditation of two Bulgarian agencies and bar them for using EU funds after details of a European Commission report on Bulgaria’s fight against corruption and organised crime will be officially issued on July 23. Two agencies under the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works and the Finance Ministry will lose their permits to operate with EU funding under the bloc’s pre-accession programme PHARE. This could deprive Sofia of about €600 million. Two other agency/programme can meet the same procedure. Some average reader could think that some clever crocks have put nice sum in their pockets because the report highlights corruption, organized crime and economical fraud activities in Bulgaria. Undoubtedly this kind of crimes has happened. However the question about administration of EU funds is more complex than simple crimes. I have worked some 15 years with EU projects and would like bring forwar...

Originally published 18/07/2008 One may have noticed that I have had here as well in some discussion forums quite negative or critical comments about today´s Balkan events and politics. In one forum a question was made if I belief Balkan region to have any future. Yes I do. Western Balkans will have a future and at least following scenarios can be seen: "Laizez faire" /frozen conflict -model: West does not revise its politics, East keeps positions. EU will "supervise Kosovo some 20 years backed with Nato, north part lives its life integrated to Serbia - same case with Bosnia. Maybe the most realistic and easy (no one needs to do anything) scenario. Deal scenario: US revises its foreign policy after elections and withdraws recognizing of Kosovo, real talks are starting and ending to bitter compromise (e.g. partitioning Kosovo, applying Hong Kong model ...), Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia are independently concentrating more to economical/social questions instead of quarreling...

Originally published on 11/07/2008 A European Union-hosted donors' conference for Kosovo hopes to collect up to 1.5 billion euros on Friday to start turning from an aid-dependent protectorate to a viable economy. USA is throwing in some 400 m$ and Germany with 100-200 m€ are probably the biggest donors at country level so it is fair that their taxpayers know a little bit where the money goes as well people in Kosovo have right to know what to expect. Here some remarks based to my own experiences in Kosovo: Long travel from conference to field Donors´conference ends to statement or promise to give some estimated sum of money to Kosovo. If this promise will be kept or not we shall see, anyway in many similar conferences the implemented figures have been more or less short f original ones. When some sum of donor money actually will be paid from donor so in most cases the donating country takes some percentage for donors own administrative costs before sending rest to management au...

Originally published on 05/07/2008 This week U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried said that the U.S. is satisfied with the progress Kosovo. He also add that: “ It is a place completely independent, regardless of whether a UN resolution says that exists or not. It is independent. Kosovo has been recognized by two-thirds of the EU sates, Europe, Japan and Australia. It is as an independent country. I feel sorry that Russia has chosen to make this thing more difficult rather than to ease it, risking the stability but also the European future of Serbia”. Few comments: Completely independent must be a joke. Kosovo is UN protectorate where UN and EU are arguing who has authority to supervise it, Kosovo is occupied by KFOR troops owns one of the biggest Nato bases in its territory and has all symptoms to come next “failed state” in World. Recognizing as argument fails also: 40 countries is not the world, some World´s biggest countries - Brazil, C...

Originaly published on 02/07/2008 This Monday Head of the International Civil Office (ICO) Pieter Feith expressed his optimism that EU Rule of Law Mission (EULEX) would soon have access to the entire terriory of Kosovo, including the northern Serb-dominated area. He also said that an Assembly of Serbs - established last Saturday - with representatives of 24 municipalities in Kosovo, has no legal effect. This statement came after forth meeting of the international Steering Group (ISG) which is described as an international body with the authority to supervise Kosovo´s independence. Reading this kind of statements I feel, that words as International, Law, Legal, Authority and Independence are used quite flimsy in mainstream media. Let´s look more some definitations: ISG and ICO as international body consists of 25 member countries that have recognized Kosovo´s independence . ISG is like an self-named association more than international body. If e.g. 100 countries those do not hav...

All non-EU states in western Balkans have been sad to have European perspective e.g. that sooner or later BiH, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania and even Kosovo - inside or outside Serbia - would be future EU members. I can not avoid some questions, like Can EU any more absorb new members and simultaneously keep alive some its ideas? Are European perspective and EU membership the same? Are benefits from joining to EU bigger or less than being outside it? Is there any alternative strategic alliances to EU? Today´s EU EU was meant to be an association of independent regions that pursue their own policies and serve the interests of their people. Today´s EU has Parliament sitting and travelling between Strassbourg and Brussels with zero power and authority. Instead Commission, their army of bureaucrats, lobbyists from different interest groups are keeping EU as their playground. Due the high risk of corruption EU tries to limit damages with Auditors (In Brussels I once hea...

Very interesting interview of John Bolton, former US Undersecretary of State and Ambassador to the United Nations popped to my eyes today. The highlights of his comments in Interfax interview were e.g. following: * US recognition of severed Kosovo province was a serious mistake, leading to an escalation of tensions, instead of calming down the situation in the Balkans. * "support to the independence of Kosovo is an atavism that might have made sense 15 years ago, but makes no sense today." * "consensus boils down to the fact that nobody knows where Kosovo is" Extract from the interview you may find from http://byzantinesacredart.com /blog/2008/06/bolton-kosovo-mistake.htm and original interview from http://www.interfax.com/17/406278/Interview.aspx Mr Bolton really hit the nail on the head. I also think that the cause to the main problems in Kosovo is hesitation to admit old mistakes. The solution would be starting from clean table. Shall we wait US elections...

Year 2008 has showed the chaotic stage of international Kosovo administration. Local administration has been in same situation already earlier due parallel institutions, corruption, ethnic tensions, tribe dynasties etc. When Albanian majority declared Independence Feb. 2008 the idea was to transfer international administration from UN to EU. However the only internationally accepted resolution 1244 - which says that Kosovo is part of Serbia - stayed valid. So that about independence which in mistake was was accepted through some 40 countries. The unclear situation between UN and EU has now came conflict also between Nato and EU in relation cooperation between Kfor troops and EULEX-mission. Already earlier Kosovo status as special case has served as example to many other ethnic conflict around the world. Isn´t it now finally time to confess the made mistakes and start new chapter through local stakeholders in stead of quackery by outsiders. I think that the best international crisis ...

An outstanding document named as "National Programme for Integration of Serbia into EU" has been published on Serbain government´s web-site (you may find it from my main blog's document library ). This massive work - total 817 pages - outlines activities which Serbia is planning to undertake in all sectors of it society politics and law in order meet challenge/goal to integrate EU. Serbia (then Yugoslavia) started its EU integration with Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP) in November 2000 and Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) was signed April 2008. Parallel to the SAA negotiations Serbia started its National Strategy for the whole process of European integration with goal to reach membership status by 2012. If/when Serbia gets status of an EU membersip canditate the mentioned National Programme is coming one of the key documents of the government for future. It serves as reform guide, base of Government´s anual work plans etc. but most of all...

Kosovo quasi-independence and it´s economical base Published June 15, 2008 BalkanBlog 0 Comments Edit Tags: crisis management, economy, EULEX, EUSR, Kosovo, self-governance, Serbia, UN, UNMIK Today Kosovo had proclamation of it´s constitution. The mainstream media has highlighted conflicts of administration between UN and Kosovo institutions as well between UN and EU. The fact is anyway that the highest authority is the UN resolution 1244, which says that Kosovo is part of Serbia (ex-Yugoslavia). Indepence declarations, local constitutions, Ahtisaari plan and EULEX are only at secondary level. More important factor by my opinion for future of Kosovo is the economical base of this province. Official statistics from year 2006 shows that export from Kosovo amounted to 71.3 millon Euro while import increased to 1,241.7 million Euro (u by 802 million Euro compared with 2005). So the increase of import was more that the whole export. From where is money coming to this consumption. The estima...

Ari RUSILA's Resume Ari Rusila is a development project management expert from Finland with a special interest in the Balkan region . His other interests include civil crisis management issues and middle East. Contacts Name: Ari RUSILA Address: Polttolinja 17 B 10, FIN-40520 Jyväskylä, FINLAND, EU E-mail: rusilaari@yahoo.se Personal Home: Jyväskylä, FINLAND Nationality: FIN Work history: 06/2004-06/2007 Project manager, Jyväskylä university of Applied Sciences/INR/ NorWat project. Total progress and financial responsibility of NorWat funded by EU Intrerreg IIIB NPP. Locations in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Scotland. Budget > 1.2 MEUR 01/2000-10/2002 EU Municipal Expert, European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR). Seconded to UNMIK in Leposavic, Mitrovica Region, Kosovo, SCG. Capacity building of local administration, project management/ coordination, business registration; youth, culture and sport sectors 06/1998-12/1999 Proj...