Kosovo: News, Politics & Issues

[Struja]

08 September 2008 Pristina _ Kosovo leaders say any move by Macedonia to condition its recognition of Kosovo’s independence on Pristina’s honouring of Macedonia’s constitutional name is unacceptable.

Kosovo’s President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said they are committed to “good neighbouring relations with Macedonia” but they would oppose such conditions.

Although there have been no public statements from Skopje on linking the two, there has been speculation that Skopje leaders could ask Kosovo to first recognise the name ‘the Republic of Macedonia’ before Macedonia recognises Kosovo’s independence from Serbia.
“For Kosovo it’s important that relations with Macedonia continue to be good as they are. This way recognition will come too,” said Sejdiu who besides his optimism said he would not speculate on a date when Macedonia would recognise Kosovo.

Prime Minister Thaci on the other hand did not want to say anything on whether Kosovo would recognise Macedonia’s constitutional name. However, all politicians and most government and other public documents refer to Kosovo’s southern neighbour as Macedonia and not its provisional name, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/12950/

[Struja]

MK leaders are doing the right thing, first recognise the name ‘the Republic of Macedonia’ then will recongnise your Republic of Kosovo.

[Risto the Great]

Too bad, so sad.

[osiris]

the bullshit about kosovo must go down as one of the best propaganda campaigns in the history of the world, not even the nazis were as effective in selling such nonsense.

here is an interesting article about kosovo and nato

from www.antiwar.com

Don't Forget Yugoslavia

by John Pilger

The secrets of the crushing of Yugoslavia are emerging, telling us more about how the modern world is policed. The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in The Hague, Carla Del Ponte, this year published her memoir, The Hunt: Me and War Criminals. Largely ignored in Britain, the book reveals unpalatable truths about the West's intervention in Kosovo, which has echoes in the Caucasus.

The tribunal was set up and bankrolled principally by the United States. Del Ponte's role was to investigate the crimes committed as Yugoslavia was dismembered in the 1990s. She insisted that this include NATO's 78-day bombing of Serbia and Kosovo in 1999, which killed hundreds of people in hospitals, schools, churches, parks, and television studios and destroyed economic infrastructure. "If I am not willing to [prosecute NATO personnel]," said Del Ponte, "I must give up my mission." It was a sham. Under pressure from Washington and London, an investigation into NATO war crimes was scrapped.

Readers will recall that the justification for the NATO bombing was that the Serbs were committing "genocide" in the secessionist province of Kosovo against ethnic Albanians. David Scheffer, U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes, announced that as many as "225,000 ethnic Albanian men aged between 14 and 59" may have been murdered. Tony Blair invoked the Holocaust and "the spirit of the Second World War." The West's heroic allies were the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), whose murderous record was set aside. The British foreign secretary, Robin Cook, told them to call him anytime on his mobile phone.

With the NATO bombing over, international teams descended upon Kosovo to exhume the "holocaust." The FBI failed to find a single mass grave and went home. The Spanish forensic team did the same, its leader angrily denouncing "a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machines." A year later, Del Ponte's tribunal announced the final count of the dead in Kosovo: 2,788. This included combatants on both sides and Serbs and Roma murdered by the KLA. There was no genocide in Kosovo. The "holocaust" was a lie. The NATO attack had been fraudulent.

That was not all, says Del Ponte in her book: the KLA kidnapped hundreds of Serbs and transported them to Albania, where their kidneys and other body parts were removed; these were then sold for transplant in other countries. She also says there was sufficient evidence to prosecute the Kosovar Albanians for war crimes, but the investigation "was nipped in the bud" so that the tribunal's focus would be on "crimes committed by Serbia." She says the Hague judges were terrified of the Kosovar Albanians – the very people in whose name NATO had attacked Serbia.

Indeed, even as Blair the war leader was on a triumphant tour of "liberated" Kosovo, the KLA was ethnically cleansing more than 200,000 Serbs and Roma from the province. Last February the "international community," led by the U.S., recognized Kosovo, which has no formal economy and is run, in effect, by criminal gangs that traffic in drugs, contraband, and women. But it has one valuable asset: the U.S. military base Camp Bondsteel, described by the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner as "a smaller version of Guantanamo." Del Ponte, a Swiss diplomat, has been told by her own government to stop promoting her book.

Yugoslavia was a uniquely independent and multi-ethnic, if imperfect, federation that stood as a political and economic bridge in the Cold War. This was not acceptable to the expanding European Community, especially newly united Germany, which had begun a drive east to dominate its "natural market" in the Yugoslav provinces of Croatia and Slovenia. By the time the Europeans met at Maastricht in 1991, a secret deal had been struck; Germany recognized Croatia, and Yugoslavia was doomed. In Washington, the U.S. ensured that the struggling Yugoslav economy was denied World Bank loans and the defunct NATO was reinvented as an enforcer. At a 1999 Kosovo "peace" conference in France, the Serbs were told to accept occupation by NATO forces and a market economy, or be bombed into submission. It was the perfect precursor to the bloodbaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[El Bre]

Simply Amazing.

[Pelister]

Wow.

Carla Del Ponte says "the Hague judges were terrified of the Kosovar Albanian..."

Right on our doorstep.

Kosovo is a sham, and the Macedonian are right asking to be recognized first.

[malenka]

Crap! I just googled this lady and read some more articles about her book. I hope we will be given the chance to read it in english.

[I of Macedon]

Originally Posted by osiris

the bullshit about kosovo must go down as one of the best propaganda campaigns in the history of the world, not even the nazis were as effective in selling such nonsense.

here is an interesting article about kosovo and nato

from www.antiwar.com

Don't Forget Yugoslavia

by John Pilger

The secrets of the crushing of Yugoslavia are emerging, telling us more about how the modern world is policed. The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in The Hague, Carla Del Ponte, this year published her memoir, The Hunt: Me and War Criminals. Largely ignored in Britain, the book reveals unpalatable truths about the West's intervention in Kosovo, which has echoes in the Caucasus.

The tribunal was set up and bankrolled principally by the United States. Del Ponte's role was to investigate the crimes committed as Yugoslavia was dismembered in the 1990s. She insisted that this include NATO's 78-day bombing of Serbia and Kosovo in 1999, which killed hundreds of people in hospitals, schools, churches, parks, and television studios and destroyed economic infrastructure. "If I am not willing to [prosecute NATO personnel]," said Del Ponte, "I must give up my mission." It was a sham. Under pressure from Washington and London, an investigation into NATO war crimes was scrapped.

Readers will recall that the justification for the NATO bombing was that the Serbs were committing "genocide" in the secessionist province of Kosovo against ethnic Albanians. David Scheffer, U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes, announced that as many as "225,000 ethnic Albanian men aged between 14 and 59" may have been murdered. Tony Blair invoked the Holocaust and "the spirit of the Second World War." The West's heroic allies were the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), whose murderous record was set aside. The British foreign secretary, Robin Cook, told them to call him anytime on his mobile phone.

With the NATO bombing over, international teams descended upon Kosovo to exhume the "holocaust." The FBI failed to find a single mass grave and went home. The Spanish forensic team did the same, its leader angrily denouncing "a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machines." A year later, Del Ponte's tribunal announced the final count of the dead in Kosovo: 2,788. This included combatants on both sides and Serbs and Roma murdered by the KLA. There was no genocide in Kosovo. The "holocaust" was a lie. The NATO attack had been fraudulent.

That was not all, says Del Ponte in her book: the KLA kidnapped hundreds of Serbs and transported them to Albania, where their kidneys and other body parts were removed; these were then sold for transplant in other countries. She also says there was sufficient evidence to prosecute the Kosovar Albanians for war crimes, but the investigation "was nipped in the bud" so that the tribunal's focus would be on "crimes committed by Serbia." She says the Hague judges were terrified of the Kosovar Albanians – the very people in whose name NATO had attacked Serbia.

Indeed, even as Blair the war leader was on a triumphant tour of "liberated" Kosovo, the KLA was ethnically cleansing more than 200,000 Serbs and Roma from the province. Last February the "international community," led by the U.S., recognized Kosovo, which has no formal economy and is run, in effect, by criminal gangs that traffic in drugs, contraband, and women. But it has one valuable asset: the U.S. military base Camp Bondsteel, described by the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner as "a smaller version of Guantanamo." Del Ponte, a Swiss diplomat, has been told by her own government to stop promoting her book.

Yugoslavia was a uniquely independent and multi-ethnic, if imperfect, federation that stood as a political and economic bridge in the Cold War. This was not acceptable to the expanding European Community, especially newly united Germany, which had begun a drive east to dominate its "natural market" in the Yugoslav provinces of Croatia and Slovenia. By the time the Europeans met at Maastricht in 1991, a secret deal had been struck; Germany recognized Croatia, and Yugoslavia was doomed. In Washington, the U.S. ensured that the struggling Yugoslav economy was denied World Bank loans and the defunct NATO was reinvented as an enforcer. At a 1999 Kosovo "peace" conference in France, the Serbs were told to accept occupation by NATO forces and a market economy, or be bombed into submission. It was the perfect precursor to the bloodbaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I think this article should also be placed as a seperate thread on exposing lies and propaganda

[Pelister]

Originally Posted by Struja

08 September 2008 Pristina _ Kosovo leaders say any move by Macedonia to condition its recognition of Kosovo’s independence on Pristina’s honouring of Macedonia’s constitutional name is unacceptable.

Kosovo’s President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said they are committed to “good neighbouring relations with Macedonia” but they would oppose such conditions.

Although there have been no public statements from Skopje on linking the two, there has been speculation that Skopje leaders could ask Kosovo to first recognise the name ‘the Republic of Macedonia’ before Macedonia recognises Kosovo’s independence from Serbia.
“For Kosovo it’s important that relations with Macedonia continue to be good as they are. This way recognition will come too,” said Sejdiu who besides his optimism said he would not speculate on a date when Macedonia would recognise Kosovo.

Prime Minister Thaci on the other hand did not want to say anything on whether Kosovo would recognise Macedonia’s constitutional name. However, all politicians and most government and other public documents refer to Kosovo’s southern neighbour as Macedonia and not its provisional name, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/12950/

Kosovo really isn't in a position to be holding back on the Macedonians.

I'd like to see the Macedonian government start making more demands from other States, particularly Albania.

[Pelister]

I thought I would open this up discussion.

Kosovo needs the recognition of more countires. It has asked the Macedonians to recognize it, and at the same time, if refuses to recognize the Macedonian Republic by its constitutional name.

What should the Macedonians do?