Ariel Rusila's Conflicts [Ex-BalkanPerspective]

The UN General Assembly chose January 27 as the official day for the commemoration, as it was on this day in 1945 that Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz extermination camp, the last such camp still functioning. Throughout Europe, tributes will be paid to the 53 million people who died during World War II, of whom 31 million were civilians. Commemoration has linked usually also to International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest extermination center created by the Nazis. It has become the symbol of the Holocaust and of wilful radical evil in our time. Few people know that 3 rd biggest extermination center was Jasenovac. Two reasons maybe explain this: 1 st it is located in Croatia and 2 nd the main part of victims were Serbs. The death tolls in extermination centres vary but rough estimations are following ( source Wikipedia ): Auschwitz II 1,400,000 B elzeg 600,000 C helmno 320,000 Jasenovac 600,000 Majdanek 360,000 M aly Trostinets 65,000...

I wonder how many readers saw anything in western mainstream media related to informal statement of outgoing Croatian President Stjepan Mesic - published on 19.1.2010 - which he gave during informal meeting with journalists . Here quote: “ If Milorad Dodik (head of Republica Srpska, AR) scheduled a referendum for secession of Republika Srpska from Bosnia and if I were the president…I would send the army,” and would ‘break the Bosnian Serb region in half’. The Serbian half of Bosnia is split in two and connected by a narrow corridor that runs along the River Sava on the border with Croatia. Militarily cut off the corridor in Bosnia’s Posavina region would split Republika Srpska in two. It is quite sensational that the president of country which joined Nato 2009 and is soon to be an EU member-state aims to attack neighbour country and split its province due that he does not like possible democratic referendum. Sure Bosnia-Herzegovina is a quasi-state, an artificial creation o...

“ When we get Russian gas, the problem is not the supplier, but the fact that 80 percent of the pipeline is located in the Ukraine. We should look for independence not from Russia, but from such transit schemes, ” (Gerhard Schroeder) Just after 2004 Orange Revolution Ukraine took course towards Nato and EU, the new leadership had popular backing to fulfil fast forward hopes its policy. Instead of the fast forward progress scenarios the outcome has been a totally different crisis scenarios including possible confrontation between Ukraine and Russia in Crimea due the Black Sea Fleet, a new dispute over the supply of Russian natural gas to and via Ukraine, different ethnic tensions with minorities and of course declining economy with all social impact. The dominant factor in Ukrainian political life has been the inability of political leaders - President Victor Yushchenko and his prime ministers - to work together to promote high-flown ideas. Now however the course is changing agai...

The last election in Croatia can bring a refreshing change with new President Ivo Josipovic – a university law professor and a composer of classical music – but he will find a much tougher struggle ahead of him. This struggle not only due economical problems (national debt and unemployment) but also problems related to Croatia's past. These problems are highlighted when Croatia is on final round to come next EU member state. President elected Mr Josipovic took already new direction towards Croatia's neighbour Serbia. Croatia and Serbia have filled genocide lawsuits against each other in international court about events during the war of the 1990s. Mr Josipovic told that he is ready to find common solution by direct negotiations with Serbs without trial. “I will negotiate with Belgrade about the missing persons, war crimes trials and the return of cultural treasures. If they accept these conditions there is no reason to proceed with the genocide suit,“ said new Croatian pres...

“ Somebody in our government said to me in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, Iraq was yesterday’s war. Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act pre-emptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war. ” (Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.) On December 25 US authorities arrested a Nigerian named Abdulmutallab aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from to on charges of having tried to blow up the plane with smuggled explosives. He was “suspected” of having been trained in for his terror mission in Yemen. A new target for the “War on Terror” has been found. Is it really so that a guy who burnt his trousers with some powder hidden there has so big influence to geopolitics – I have some doubts. More than from trousers of this desperate Nigerian wannabe terrorist the hidden agenda may be found again from great energy game and from interests of military-industrial complex. Yemen has a population 23.8 million is located a t the tip of the Arabian Peninsula , bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, Oman to the ea...