Archive 1986 – 2017

Still, the Albanian lobby suffered a blow with the outcome of the US presidential elections: Wesley Clark lost the Democratic nomination race, Richard Holbrooke’s bid to become Secretary of State in the John Kerry administration failed, the hopes of George Soros and the “Albright group” to become the key ideologists of the reborn Clinton-era policy slant towards the Balkans also miserably vanished. On the other side, the problem remained: Belgrade does not have an effective PR strategy to counteract this impressively well-organized, well-oiled and paid pro-Albanian lobby campaign, nor does it follow a pro-active media approach which could put its objective demands on the table. Even Belgrade analysts do not agree on whether Serbia has a lobby in Washington and Brussels, let alone whether it is effective. Belgrade is thus left behind again in a disproportionate media battle. Failing to hear Belgrade’s views in the media and among think-tanks and...

Mohamedkarikatyrerna (1): Förtryckfrihet Engelsk version Dansk version Mohamedkarikatyrerna (1) Förtrycksfrihet Mohamedkarikatyrerna (2): Det finns ju ett sammanhang ! Mohamedkarikatyrerna (3): Vi måste lära att se vår egen kulturblindhet Jyllands-Postens teckningar är tendentiösa karikatyrer. De förknippar Profeten med terrorism, brottslighet och kvinnoförtryck. Ingen av bilderna skulle rimligen någonstans kunna fungera i dialog eller för ömsesidig förståelse eller för att åstadkomma den bildning som det finns stort behov av i förhållandet mellan danskar och muslimer. De är illvilliga. Intensiteten i de negativa reaktionerna kan förvåna. Men om man ser karikatyrerna i ett samanhang av vår nutida globaliserade värld, är publiceringen av bilderna både tanklös och meningslös. Den avslöjar en fullständigt ofattbar brist på allmänbildning och god (journalistisk) uppfostran. Den danska regeringen har tappat greppet Värre är att den danska regeringen varken begrep affären eller behovet att på ett tidigt stadium begränsa skadan. Statsminister Fogh Rasmussen avvisade maningar till dialog och följde därmed...

1. The solution has to be acceptable, optimally satisfactory, for all parties inside Kosovo and surrounding Kosovo. The idea that anyone can get or should be given all it wants must be given up at the outset. 2. No solution can be imposed, it must be negotiated by all relevant parties. To solve a conflict means that the parties voluntarily accept to live with a new order of things. Thus, any talk about deciding the final status outside a comprehensive negotiation structure – something that will invariably take time – should be avoided. Also, the process toward a solution should neither be influenced by one side’s pressure or the other side’s dragging its feet. 3. The same principles must be applied to the parties. If the international community respects the Albanian demand not to be ruled by Serbs/Belgrade, it must also respect that Kosovo-Serbs who do not wish to be...

  Independence, perhaps – but where is the logics? This “independence agenda” has been pushed more and more overtly by near-governmental organizations and some Western officials. Talks about the independence of Kosovo as the only solution possible is however a great paradox and an example of the lack of principled, consistent policies by the international community. Here are some of the reasons:   1) Republika Srpska – the Bosnian Serb entity under the 1995 Dayton accords – has nearly the same number of people as the province of Kosovo, between 1,5 and 2 million people. It is also a protectorate and has had the same kind of NATO force on its soil like Kosovo. It has a very similar structure of the population as Kosovo – some 90% belong to one ethnic community. Strategically, its Bosnian Serb population has the same aspirations as the Kosovo Albanians: to become independent. Yet,...

In short, the Albanians – the winners of the war – have monotonously argued the same thing for decades while the Serbs side – losers of the war – have moved positions and views in accordance with changes on the ground. Pro-Albanian lobbyists like Richard Holbrooke and other, primarily American, policymakers and lobbyists are often using the argument of Serbia as “a traditional Russian ally” to argue that the West must put itself on the side of the Serb opponents. This “metaphor of Russia ” must be rejected. Serbia indeed respects Russia due to historical, religious and Slavic ties, but Serbia is far from Russia and punishing Serbia does not mean punishing Russia. Finally, attempts to give independence to Muslim-dominated Kosovo in order to balance the aggressive policy towards the Islamic world in the Middle East should be rejected no matter how convenient they appear to geo-strategic analysts in Washington....

Relevant background links for this series here. The pro-Albanian lobby program in Brussels, Washington, New York and other Western capitals has been up and running for decades now. An advocacy campaign pushing for the independence of Kosovo as the only alternative to bloody conflict and instability has been the primary theme of this campaign, fought through well-established consultants, PR groups, think-tank lobbyists, contacts with key policymakers and the media. The fight for the agenda-setting and the context of the Kosovo issue has been set by Albanian lobbyists during Tito’s communist Yugoslavia – well before anyone ever heard of a man called Slobodan Milosevic. The quest for the independence of Kosovo has been a long and strategic policy of the Albanian community in Kosovo and abroad at a time when Serb politicians in Belgrade and in Pristina were still loyal to a “dream” of a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia and unable to formulate a...

Kosovo Solution Series # 3 Relevant background links for this series here. In the first PressInfo of this series, we outlined four general criteria (a-d) for what it means to have solved a conflict. To arrive at a sustainable solution in the concrete case of Kosovo, a minimum of professional principles and considerations are necessary. This PressInfo offers the following: 1. The solution has to be acceptable, optimally satisfactory, for all parties inside Kosovo and surrounding Kosovo. The idea that anyone can get or should be given all it wants must be given up at the outset. 2. No solution can be imposed, it must be negotiated by all relevant parties. To solve a conflict means that the parties voluntarily accept to live with a new order of things. Thus, any talk about deciding the final status outside a comprehensive negotiation structure – something that will invariably take time – should be avoided. Also, the process...

Kosovo Solution Series # 4 Relevant background links for this series here. Not even the hardest pro-Albanian lobbyists deny the importance that Kosovo plays in the hearts and minds of the Serbs. Kosovo holds the cultural, religious and national heritage of the Serbian people. It is home to 300,000 Serbs – currently in Kosovo or displaced since 1999 – not to mention the hundreds of thousands who left the province for economic or other reasons in the decades before. Some 1,300 monasteries, churches and other religious objects testify of the richness of Serb presence in the province. There is however an attempt on the behalf of pro-Albanian lobbyists to present the issue as simply the “Kosovo myth” which the Serbs must get rid of if they want to get “closer to Europe”. Near-governmental organizations such as the ICG and newly-born Balkan specialists tell the Serbs: leave Kosovo as the French left...

 Kosovo Solution Series # 5 Relevant background links for this series here. While the ICG, the International Crisis Group, and other pro-Albanian lobby groups argue that the independence of Kosovo is a means or necessity in order to avoid another “March 2004” and general chaos, the counterargument would be this: wouldn’t the granting of full independence to Kosovo be a reward for years of policies of ethno-nationalism and ethnic cleansing led by Albanian extremists? Would it not mean rewarding violent struggle by the KLA and punishment of the largest non-violent movement in ex-Yugoslavia – that of the Kosovo-Albanians before KLA became the dominating force? Would it not mean rewarding the two aggressions that to a large extent was instigated by factors in Kosovo, namely that in Southern Serbia and that in the 8 months war in Macedonia? When the Hague war crime indictee and Kosovo’s now former Prime minister Ramush Haradinaj promises that...

Emina Babovic från människorättsorganisationen Medborgarforum i bosniska Tuzla, är uppgiven. “Alla vill ge sig av från Bosnien. Ingen ser någon framtid där.” Kriget i Bosnien upphörde med Daytonavtalet 1995. Tio år senare råder en bräcklig fred. Krigsekonomin har inte ersatts av en fredsekonomi. Folk med bakgrund i paramilitära banditband och krigsprofitörer behärskar en maffiaekonomi, med förgreningar in i den politiska makten. “Vem vann krigen på Balkan? Dayton och konsekvenserna för världsordningen” var titeln för en tvådagarskonferens i dagarna med ett 30-tal deltagare, arrangerad av Göteborgs universitet.* * * Dayton gjorde lite eller inget för att läka och lindra de interna konflikter som låg till grund för kriget. Bosniens uppdelning i två eller rentav tre enheter har inte lett till en gynnsam fredsprocess och det stärkande av ekonomin som skulle kunna ha varit motorn i fredsbyggandet. Den bosniska civilbefolkningen far illa. Maffian i Bosnien omsätter lika mycket som statsbudgeten. Landets styrs...

LONDON – When in 1964 China first tested a nuclear weapon the West had every reason to be worried. Here was a country that had recently fought the U.S. in Korea, had threatened countries as far afield as India and Indonesia and which supported revolutionary movements all over the Third World. But today China’s policies of would-be military domination worry us very little. Its nuclear arsenal is rather small – a mere 24 intercontinental nuclear missiles that are able to reach the U.S.; no aircraft carrier battle groups for projecting its power; very few destroyers; it is constructing no long-range bombers; and has no military bases abroad. Its seventy submarines rarely venture outside Chinese territorial waters. Even vis a vis Taiwan, against which it has deployed 600 short-range missiles, it does not have the makings of an invasion force that could overwhelm Taiwan’s defenses. Nevertheless, both the White House and...

 Kosovo Solution Series # 8 Relevant background links for this series here. Imagine… Imagine we are in the year 2025. If all goes well – which admittedly it doesn’t always – by that time Serbs and Albanians as well as other EU member citizens will have a hard time understanding why so much hurt and harm took place long ago, why there was a war and so much hate in Kosovo. Well, of course, the dissolution of old Yugoslavia was a much more difficult process than the Americans and the Europeans thought at the time. After all, throughout the 20th century, there had been only three cases of federations splitting without bloodshed, namely Norway from Sweden in 1905, Singapore from Malaysia in 1965 and the Slovak from the Czech Republic in 1993. As we know, former enemies have learnt to live and work together. For example Americans and Russians after the Cold...