Ariel Rusila's Conflicts [Ex-BalkanPerspective]

Former Italian FM Lamberto Dini says the 1999 NATO military intervention against Serbia could have been avoided. According to this, the 78 days of attacks would have been averted "if a single word had been removed from the agreement which was offered at the Rambouillet conference". The problem was one adjective and Serbia insisted that the word “military” be taken out of the agreement leaving only “international presence” in Kosovo, but the United States insisted that the NATO gets permission to enter the province, Dini said while addressing students at the Bocconi University in Milan. (Sources Tanjug and B92 Oct.28th2008) Rambouillet Rambouillet negotiations were the decisive moment to go either for peace or war in Kosovo. The Rambouillet Agreement - Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo - includes two parts – the political part and the implementation part. The later part has two appendix A and B. By the end of the first round of Rambouillet in Febru...

Former Kosovo PM Agim Ceku told reporters on Sunday 26th Oct. 2008, that the government in Priština should declare the northern part of Kosovo "a zone of special interest". "If this part of Kosovo is declared a zone of special interest, that means presence of state officials of Kosovo must be secured there. Those officials would work there and be the state authority of Kosovo,..., such measures in the Serb-dominated north which rejects Priština's authority would be "temporary". Ceku, who is the leader of the Social Democratic Party, said the Thaci government has no concrete plan to spread its authority in the north. For his part, Ceku did no rule out using force to achieve this. "Use of force is the task of every security organ. I would not say use of violence, but of force, if necessary. The functioning of the state and government in every part of the country is the task of institutions, which have their instruments and powers. Force is one of those...

Recently I wrote here an article named ” Competitiveness of Balkans ” where I sited a comprehensive annual survey “Global Economic Competitiveness Report 2008-2009” published by the World Economic Forum. (Article and report can be found from here ). The report has calculated sc. “Global Competitiveness Index Rankings” (GCI) 134 countries poled. Now I was reading a report of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP about a ranking of attractive emerging markets, which approach some Balkan countries from different angle. PricewaterhouseCoopers – one of the leading global companies on its field of activities – published now the second year of its EM20 Index (‘the PwC EM20 Index’) generated by PwC’s innovative Risk & Reward Model. Report can be found from here . PwC EM20 In order to be considered for inclusion in the PwC EM20 Index, countries needed to meet certain criteria associated with emerging market status. These were as follows: GDP per capita in 2007 less than $1...

Some of you may have been reading my earlier column " Do you hear Mr. Nobel rolling in his grave ? on 12th Oct.2008. Now I was reading an shocking article " How the Nobel Peace Prize Was Won " by Gregory Elich at CounterPunch. Original article can be found from here. One of the main points highlights Ahtisaari's mediator tactics when he is threatening President Milosevic that those whom Ahtisaari represented were willing to flatten Belgrade and to kill 500.000 people in a week unless President Milosevic does not sign his offer. Sign or get 500.000 bodies! “Ahtisaari opened the meeting by declaring, “We are not here to discuss or negotiate,” after which Chernomyrdin read aloud the text of the plan. Ahtisaari says that Milosevic asked about the possibility of modifying the plan, to which he replied, “No. This is the best that Viktor and I have managed to do. You have to agree to it in every part.” Ristic reports that as Milosevic listened to the reading of the tex...

Forensic dentist Helena Ranta says that officials of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs had tried to influence the content of her reports in 2000, when Ranta was commissioned by the European Union to investigate the events of Racak in Kosovo. Ranta put forward her allegations on Wednesday October 15th at the publication of her biography in Helsinki. More than 40 Albanians were killed in the village of Racak in January 1999. The investigation by Ranta’s working group was very charged from the beginning. It was commonly assumed that Serb forces had perpetrated a massacre, which helped persuade NATO to launch bombings of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. According to Ranta, in the winter of 1999 William Walker, the head of the OSCE Kosovo monitoring mission, broke a pencil in two and threw the pieces at her when she was not willing to use language about the Serbs.sufficiently strong language about the Serbs. ( Source HS 15/10/2008) There is a widespread belief, that Walker's role in...

Georgia 08/08/08 is the date when headlines in Western mainstream media started to tell how big, bad aggressive Russia attacked to tiny, democratic, good Georgia. After that the West continued accusations about occupation a free sovereign state started rethink enforcing its frontlines around Russian border in new cold war era. Al this despite the fact, that day earlier 7 th August 2008 Georgia had started the moths before planned war against its separatist province (look my article “OSCE report fault Georgia - one trivial statement more from EU summit” 4 th Sept.2008 from my BlogArchive). All this despite he fact, that USA had already showed the way how to break international law e.g. by bombing Kosovo and orchestrating the quasi-independence of that separatist province. While speaking about new confrontation between East and West the (mostly western) political commentators have used first nice, warm words like freedom, democracy, sovereignty, humanitarian catastrophe t...

The criteria for Nobel peace prize outlined in Alfred Nobel's will 1895 was “to contribute to fraternity in the world, to reduce armies and to establish peace congresses”. The choice of Martti Ahtisaari as this years winner undervalues - again – those original ideas. Ahtisaari got the prize probably about his actions as mediator in Namibia, Aceh and Kosovo. Namibia went according UN peace plan, Aceh was acceptable compromise and Kosovo everything else. Norwegian founder of peace studies, Johan Galtung, has criticized heavily Ahtisaari's way to handle peace processes. Galtung claims that "Ahtisaari does not solve conflicts but drives through a short-term solutions that please western countries". He further says that Ahtisaari "let's EU to abuse himself". According to Galtung Ahtisaari does not hesitate to favour solutions that bypass United Nations and international law. With Kosovo case would see three serious – intentional or unintentional – mistakes...

The UN General Assembly is backing Serbia’s draft to request an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) about the legality of the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo. October 8th UNGA, by a recorded vote of 77 in favour to 6 against (Albania, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, United States), with 74 abstentions, adopted a resolution drafted by Serbia. The resolution In initiating the resolution, Serbia had responded to Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence on 17 February with “maximal restraint”, said Serbian Minister for Foreign Affairs Vuk Jeremi?, as he introduced the text. The resolution was asking the 192-member Assembly to convey its request to the Court--the United Nations’ highest judicial body--for an advisory opinion, in line with its powers under the Organization’s Charter. Sending the question to the Court “would prevent the Kosovo crisis from serving as a deeply problematic precedent in any part of ...

Coming week will be show again one significant step in international politics and especially in Western Balkans. 1st at its plenary session called for 8th October, the 192-member UN General Assembly is to debate Serbia’s draft resolution calling for an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice on Kosovo’s unilaterally declared independence. 2nd EU tries again find some common position about Kosovo case and the forecast is that EU member-states will probably abstain from the vote at the UN. 3rd Portugal, Macedonia (FYR) and Montenegro are under huge pressure to recognize Kosovo independence. UDI and ICJ in UN Serbia has filed a draft resolution in which it asks from the UN General Assembly to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on the legality of the unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) of Kosovo. Belgrade has proclaimed two objectives with this initiative. The first, immediate goal is to have the ICJ provide its sta...

Earlier this week Serbian President Boris Tadic stated, that he would not rule out partitioning Kosovo if all other options on Kosovo’s final status have been exhausted. "Intellectuals in Serbia and the international public are debating the issue of a partition and this is one of the options that have been emphasized all these years in searching for a solution to Kosovo's future status. I can only think about this when all other possibilities have been exhausted” Tadi? told a news conference. (B92, 1/10/2008) Partition Although Tadic did not specify where the line of partition would run, it is most likely to include the municipalities of Zvecan, Leposavic and Zubin Potok as well as the northern half of the flashpoint town of Mitrovica. This area in northern Kosovo is overwhelming ethnic Serb and Pristina’s influence holds little weight here. However just half of the 100,000 Serbs living in Kosovo actually live in northern areas while the rest are in isolated enclaves that d...