PressInfo #208 – The UN in Kosovo praisespotential war criminal – why?

The international community, to put it crudely, is afraid of ending up facing by and large the same challenges from their post-1999 friends as Belgrade leaders did, just much worse because, after all, Milosevic never promised Kosovo any kind of independence.

The international community in general and the Security Council in particular cannot get its acts together, except in one regard because it helps cover up its own failure: blame Belgrade for everything going wrong the last 10 years and praise the Albanians in the role as innocent victims. Such is the political psychology behind the headlines and the statements: Side with one and try anyhow to look like an impartial mediator and negotiation leader. Well, that Jessen-Petersen can no longer be. His statements is a Himalayan mistake from the point of view of building trust with the Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo and with Belgrade. And contrary to what he and many others seem to believe, no sustainable solution to Kosovo’s problems can be found without them.

The differences between Serbs and other indicted people

Serb President Milosevic was thrown out by his own people in a miraculous non-violent action. The people rose against their own leader, something the Croats, Bosniaks or Albanians never even contemplated to express their contempt, if any, for their own leaders’ manipulations, corruption, militarism, nepotism, nationalism and the shame they brought over their own people. Then Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindic got nothing of what he was allegedly promised by the West for delivering Milosevic to the Hague; rather, his action is likely to have been one of the reasons why he was murdered.

Within the last few months, six high-level Serb officers have accepted, like Haradinaj, to go to the Hague. No international praise for them. Instead one hears the mantra that Belgrade must deliver Karadzic and Mladic. Does anyone seriously believe that NATO have not been able for 10 years to find them in Bosnia or that NATO states do not have such intelligence that they know where they are? Belgrade is constantly told that they must be in Serbia and that Belgrade must cooperate with the Hague Tribunal to get any help and see the door to EU integration open just a little. This is as bizarre as can be. CIA and FBI people have been invited by the Belgrade authorities to find them in Serbia. For about a year they have been unable to. Could it be that someone wants to avoid arresting them and have them as a card to play against Belgrade?

Be this as it may, let’s remember two things: First, that “balkanisation” is a much too nice term for the unprincipled games played in that region by the international community during the last 15 or so years. Secondly, Mr. Søren Jessen-Petersen has offered the world a new distinction, namely that between our good, friendly potential war criminals who deserve our sympathy for accepting the law – and the others who, doing the same, deserve no praise.

One wonders how Kofi Annan feels about his representative’s embrace of a man indicted for war crimes at the UN Tribunal? We don’t know but he has reasons to hope that no leading daily will begin to investigate the cosy day-to-day co-operation between the UN and the Albanian extremists – and Haradinaj is not the only one – in the Kosovo province since 1999.

All relevant links here. See also the TFF Kosovo Solution Series beginning here.

© TFF and the author 2005

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