PressInfo

 Kosovo Solution Series # 10 Kosovo is moving up again on the international agenda. The time to think about the framework, the alternatives and the consequences of the talks on the future status of Kosovo is now. Despite the highly unlikely possibility that Kosovo will be able to achieve in the next few months the key standards necessary to initiate the final status talks, it would be gullible to believe that these criteria will not be once again downsized, shrunk to fit the path to the status talks. Pro-Albanian lobbyists such as the International Crisis Group, Richard Holbrooke and various US members of Congress argue that “independence is the only option.” However, this option can also be seen as unjust, dangerous, archaic and anti-European. The option of an “independent Kosova” implies that one of the sides (the Kosovo Albanians) would achieve its maximalist goal and that the other side (Belgrade...

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...

 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...

 Kosovo Solution Series # 7 Relevant background links for this series here. May we recommend that you get hold of a copy of the UNDP’s, Human Development Report of 2004 with the title, Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World? It’s a rich source on the problems we seek to deal with here. It informs us that the world’s nearly 200 countries include some 5,000 ethnic groups. Two-thirds of all countries have more than one ethnic or religious minority group that make up at least 10 per cent of the people. Thus, one way or another every country is a multicultural society. No less than 44 per cent of the people living in Toronto, Canada was born outside Canada. There are some 300 million indigenous people in 70 countries representing 4,000 of the world’s 6,000 languages. The Minorities at Risk project at the University of Maryland estimates that 129 groups, or 518 million people,...

 Kosovo Solution Series # 6 Relevant background links for this series here. Belgrade has stated clearly that “full independence”, including the “hidden independence” in the form of “conditional independence” is out of question. The “conditional independence” does not change the negative outcome from the point of view of Belgrade: Kosovo is to be independent once it fulfils certain criteria. Belgrade and the Serb community consider “conditional independence” rhetoric — very popular among near-governmental organizations, policymakers and pro-Albanian lobbyists -a “bluff”. Belgrade has, on the other hand, accepted the recent approach by the European Union which argues that there can be no return to the pre-1999 situation. A new solution, between autonomy as it was and complete independence must therefore be found. Atypical solutions are indeed not a novelty in the post-war former Yugoslavia. Such solutions have been found by the international community and the different sides with the creation of two...

By Aleksandar Mitic & Jan ObergOn March 24, 2005 it was six years since NATO bombsto create peace began to fall.What peace is there today? What will there be tomorrow? PressInfo # 209, March 16, 2005Kosovo Solution Series # 1Why the solution in Kosovo matters to the worldExecutive summary of a series of PressInfos on Kosovo. Twelve reasons why it is important and a mini-analysis of the role of the international community in conflict-management. With a few words about the approach TFF has taken since it got on the ground in Kosovo as early as in 1992. PressInfo # 210, March 18, 2005Kosovo Solution Series # 2The media – strategic considerationsAn unbalance between Belgrade and the Kosovo Albanians in the means put into PR advocacy campaigns and lobbying efforts has led to a one-sided media war in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Serbs still lack a media strategy and, at...

On March 24, 2005 it was six years since NATO bombsto create peace began to fall.What peace is there today? What will there be tomorrow PressInfo # 209, March 16, 2005Kosovo Solution Series # 1Why the solution in Kosovo matters to the worldExecutive summary of a series of PressInfos on Kosovo. Twelve reasons why it is important and a mini-analysis of the role of the international community in conflict-management. With a few words about the approach TFF has taken since it got on the ground in Kosovo as early as in 1992. PressInfo # 210, March 18, 2005Kosovo Solution Series # 2The media – strategic considerationsAn unbalance between Belgrade and the Kosovo Albanians in the means put into PR advocacy campaigns and lobbying efforts has led to a one-sided media war in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Serbs still lack a media strategy and, at least until very recently, a...

Danish diplomat, Søren Jessen-Petersen is the highest authority in Kosovo and SRSG, Special Representative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, there. In spite of that, his unconditional embrace of Mr. Ramush Haradinaj, a former leader of the illegal Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and former prime minister in the non-independent Kosovo and now indicted for war crimes by the Hague Tribunal seems to raise no eyebrows in any capital, media or at the UN in New York. All relevant links here. See also the TFF Kosovo Solution Series beginning here. Mr. Søren Jessen-Petersen’s embrace of Haradinaj In a statement on Haradinaj’s resignation Jessen-Petersen praises him for his “dynamic leadership, strong commitment and vision” and says that thanks to that “Kosovo is today closer than ever before to achieving its aspirations in settling its future status.” He calls him his “close partner and friend.” In spite of the fact that the Prime Minister had no...

Den danske diplomat, Søren Jessen-Petersen, er den højeste autoritet i Kosovo. Han er SRSG, FN-generalsekretær Kofi Annan’s særlige repræsentant dér. Alligevel virker hans ubetingede støtte til Ramush Haradinaj – tidligere leder af Kosovos illegale befrielseshær (KLA) og nu tidligere statsminister det Kosovo, der folkeretligt tilhører Serbien og nu anklaget for krigsforbrydelser af domstolen i Haag – ikke at bekymre nogen af de store medier ej heller FN-hovedkvarteret i NewYork. (Alle relevante links findes her) Søren Jessens-Petersens omfavnelse af Haradinaj I en udtalelse i forbindelse med Haradinajs afgang lovpriser Jessen-Petersen ham for hans “dynamiske lederskab, stærke engagement og visioner”. Han siger at takket være dette “er Kosovo i dag nærmere end nogensinde ved at lykkes med sine bestræbelser for at stadfæste en fremtidig status”. Han kalder ham sin “nære partner og ven”. Selv om statsminister Haradinajs omstændigheder tvang ham til frivilligt at tage til Haag, lovpriser Kofi Annans repræsentant ham for...