ENB-KOSOVO

Russia recognise independence of breakaways reigions South Ossetia and Abkhazia

2008-08-26T04:39:00.000-07:00

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Medvedev backs independence for Abkhazia and South Ossetia
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has declared that Russia will recognise the independence of Georgia’s breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He made the announcement in Sochi following a unanimous vote for the republics’ independence by both houses of the Russian Parliament in Moscow on Monday.
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News
Bulent Kilic August 25, 2008, 15:46
South Ossetia and Abkhazia to follow in Kosovo's footsteps?
After Kosovo declared independence in February this year, Russia warned that other breakaway regions would follow suit. It now seems that the Pandora's box has been opened. The first regions to take the opportunity are Georgia's breakaway republics. The leaders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia immediately looked towards Moscow to demand the prize Kosovo had been granted by other countries.
Georgia had unsuccessfully attempted to bring the two regions under its control in by force in the early 1990s. A frozen conflict ensued, with Russian peacekeepers stationed in both regions.
Throughout this period the self-proclaimed republics held several referendums calling for full independence. The overwhelming majority voted to become separate sovereign states, but their will was not put into action. Now they hope to follow in Kosovo's footsteps.
Georgia doesn't want to let the two regions go for historical and territorial reasons. Georgia's president has offered the regions what he calls "broad autonomy", but after the recent invasion, Ossetians and Abkhazians may have little reason to trust the offer. The return of the breakaway regions has been one of Saakashvili's main aims since he came to power in 2003.
NATO membership is another ambition of the Georgian president, but unsettled territorial conflicts are a major obstacle.
Now Georgia's territorial integrity is being backed by countries which supported Kosovo's separation from Serbia. The EU envoy to the south
Caucasus, Peter Semneby, says: “I will not overemphasise and pay too much attention to parallels. Every conflict has its specific character”. However, the three regions share a common historical experience - a will to set up a state on their own and wars of independence with their
central governments.
Neither Abkhazia nor South Ossetia will be part of Georgian state
25.08.2008 Source: AP
Russian lawmakers voted unanimously Monday to ask the president to recognize the independence of two unrecognized republics within Georgian borders, a move likely to anger the United States, the European Union and other Georgian allies.
The twin votes by the upper and lower houses of the Russian parliament came after intense fighting between Russia and Georgia over the two provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The votes were not legally binding and it was up to President Dmitry Medvedev to make the final call on diplomatic recognition. Still, experts say the blessing by lawmakers gives the Kremlin an extra bargaining chip in its dealings with the West as it tries to reassert influence in the
former Soviet republics and resist moves by Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.
"Today we must fulfill what is I think our historic mission - to defend small countries from aggressors," Federation Council member Boris Spiegel told Associated Press Television before the vote.
Currently, neither Russia nor any other member of the United Nations recognizes the two provinces' independence claims. Both won de-facto independence in the 1990s after wars with the Georgia, and have survived ever since with Russia's financial, political and military support.
"Neither Abkhazia ... nor South Ossetia will be part of the Georgian state," Abkhazian leader Sergei Bagapsh told lawmakers Monday.
After Georgia tried to retake South Ossetia by force Aug. 7, Russian troops overwhelmed the Georgians, and for nearly two weeks occupied positions deep within Georgia. Most of those forces withdrew Friday, although some Russia troops continue to operate near the Black Sea
port of Poti and in Georgia outside the boundaries of the breakaway regions.
The fighting has brought relations between Russia and the West to a post-Cold War low, as Western nations accuse Russia of falling short of its commitment to withdraw forces from its smaller neighbor.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is convening a special meeting of European Union leaders Sept. 1 to determine the next steps the 27-member bloc will take in terms of aid to Georgia and future relations with Russia. France holds the EU's rotating presidency.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, however, said Monday the EU was not considering any sanctions against Russia.
On Sunday, a U.S. Navy destroyer loaded with humanitarian aid reached Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi, bringing baby food, milk, bottled water and a message of support for an embattled ally.
"The population of Georgia will feel more safe from today from the Russian aggression," Georgian Defense Minister David Kezerashvili told
The Associated Press on the aft missile deck of the USS McFaul after greeting U.S. Navy officers on shore. "They will feel safe not because the destroyer is here but because they will feel they are not alone facing the Russian aggression," he added.
The guided missile cruiser USS McFaul, carrying about 55 tons of humanitarian aid, is the first of three American ships scheduled to arrive this week.
A U.S. official said the American ship anchored in Batumi, Georgia's main oil port on the Black Sea, because of concerns about Russian damage to the Georgian port of Poti.
In central Georgia, a few miles west of the city of Gori, a fire tore through an oil train Sunday after an explosion, sending plumes of black smoke into the air. The cause was not clear, but Georgian officials have accused Russian troops of targeting their oil facilities and transport
links.
Georgia straddles a key westward route for oil from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and other Caspian Sea nations, giving it added strategic importance as the United States and the European Union seek to decrease Russia's dominance of oil and gas exports from the former Soviet
Union.
Bush’s Unrealistic Response to Georgia Conflict
26.08.2008 Source: Pravda.
By Patrick Basham
“The New American Realism” is the title of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s recent article in Foreign Affairs, the influential policy journal. But there is little that is realistic about the American response to the conflict in the Caucasus.
Both President Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain are unambiguous in their condemnation of Russia’s military aggression and in their support of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. In domestic political terms, the crisis played into McCain’s hands
because he does “tough” so well. Unfortunately, “tough” is not the best move in this particular diplomatic chess match because it ignores two realities.
First and foremost, the U.S. is in neither a political nor a logistical position to expend blood and treasure in Russia’s backyard. Tuesday’s emergency meeting of NATO ministers begs the question, what can NATO actually do about the Georgia conflict? Beyond bold rhetoric and
diplomatic gesturing that won’t bother Moscow, there is really very little than NATO can do.
If we could do something, there is an obvious, tangible downside to Western action against Russia. If relations between Russia and the West are disrupted, the West would suffer, for example, on the security side of the equation. Russian participation is integral to a number of security measures, including counterterrorism policy and assistance in dealing with the Iranian regime.
Second, any American action, be it diplomatic or military, reeks of hypocrisy. The U.S. repeatedly rallied to the cause of self-determination in circumstances where separatism and independence constituted a political blow to Moscow. In stark contrast, the U.S. clearly does not
bestow upon South Ossetians and Abkhazians the same right to self-determination as it does Kosovars and Chechens.
A cynic might suggest that the U.S. reaction reflects no more than a longstanding (and questionable) desire for Georgian membership in NATO, a desire reinforced by the Georgian military’s noteworthy service in Iraq. At least that reasoning possesses the advantage of
consistency.
The Georgian government’s ill conceived attempt to restore control over South Ossetia provided Russia with a ready-made excuse both to defend its natural supporters in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and to stress the larger point that Russia is the preeminent power in this region.
Russia 's unwillingness to back off is unquestionably distasteful and, from a strategic vantage point, arguably unnecessary. However, it is entirely predictable given Moscow's worldview.
The American reaction to Russia’s intervention in Georgia was intended to persuade Russia to step away from the conflict. The sad irony is that US ignorance of the nature of its Russian adversary, combined with a crude rhetorical delivery, contributed to Moscow's decision to take
further steps in the direction of Tbilisi.
At this point, could any U.S. action really prove productive—either for mitigating the violence in Georgia or for repairing relations with Russia?
First, the Bush Administration could swallow hard and recognize, at least implicitly, the inherent inconsistency in its position regarding South
Ossetia and Abkhazia’s respective futures. That, of course, is not altogether likely.
Second, Dr. Rice could then offer the Russians some of what they really want: a commitment to pursue an international agreement on the preconditions for self-determination that would bind both the U.S. and Russia to a common metric for resolving these kinds of disputes.
The Russians may find such an offer irresistible on public relations grounds alone. Consequently, such an apparently constructive American offer may actually incentivize Russia to pull her troops back within the borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, at least temporarily.
However, the potential for an acceptable diplomatic conclusion to events in Georgia will diminish exponentially if, out of this crisis, the Bush administration seeks a larger diplomatic victory over Russia. A deeply unsatisfactory draw is the best anyone in the West can realistically hope
for.
Russia is clearly a very irritating—but, in truth, a very manageable—foreign policy challenge. In her article, Dr. Rice insightfully writes, “It is useful to remember that Russia is not the Soviet Union. It is neither a permanent enemy nor a strategic threat.”
If President Bush had read Dr. Rice’s article en route to the Olympics, perhaps his ill-advised response to the crisis in Georgia may have been avoided. Such restraint in U.S. foreign policymaking would be both new and realistic.
Patrick Basham is director of the Washington-based Democracy Institute

Russian lawmakers recognize Georgia separatists

2008-08-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

Russian lawmakers recognize Georgia separatists

By MANSUR MIROVALEV, Associated Press Writer18 minutes ago
Russia's parliament voted unanimously Monday to urge the president to recognize the independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions, a move likely to stoke further tensions between Moscow and the small Caucasus nation's Western allies.
The votes by both chambers of Russia's parliament, which were not legally binding, come as the White House announced Vice President Dick Cheney would travel to three former Soviet republics next week — Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan.
"Russia's historic role of the guarantor of piece in the Caucasus has increased," said Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the lower chamber. "The Caucasus has always been and will remain the zone of Russia's strategic interests."
The continued presence of Russian troops in Georgia after a lightning war over the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has sunk relations between Russia and the West to a post-Cold War low. Western nations have accused Russia of reneging on its commitment to withdraw forces from U.S.-allied Georgia.
The vice president's office described Cheney's trip, which begins Sept. 2 and also includes a stop in Italy, where the U.S. has a major base, only in the broadest terms, saying President Bush wants his No. 2 to consult with key partners on matters of mutual interest.
Experts say the Russian parliament's blessing of the Georgian separatists gives the Kremlin extra leverage as Russia tries to reassert its influence in the former Soviet republics and resist moves by Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.
But it was up to President Dmitry Medvedev to make the final call on establishing full diplomatic relations with South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Currently, neither Russia nor any other member of the United Nations recognizes the two provinces' independence claims. Both won de-facto independence in the 1990s after wars with Georgia, and have survived since with Russia's financial, political and military support.
"Neither Abkhazia ... nor South Ossetia will be part of the Georgian state," Abkhazian leader Sergei Bagapsh told the upper chamber of Russia's parliament Monday.
Despite their desire for independence, one or both regions could eventually be absorbed into Russia.
After Georgia tried to reassert control of South Ossetia by force Aug. 7, Russian troops overwhelmed the Georgians, and for nearly two weeks occupied positions deep within Georgia.
Most of those forces withdrew Friday, although some Russian troops continue to operate near the Black Sea port of Poti and just outside the boundaries of the breakaway regions.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called a special meeting of European Union leaders Sept. 1 to determine what steps the EU will take in terms of aid to Georgia and future relations with Russia. France holds the 27-member bloc's rotating presidency.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, however, said Monday the EU was not considering any sanctions against Moscow.
Russia's critics say the conflict in Georgia heralds a new, worrying era in which an increasingly assertive Kremlin has shown itself ready to resort to military force outside its borders.
On Sunday, a U.S. Navy destroyer loaded with humanitarian aid reached Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi, bringing baby food, milk, bottled water and a message of support for an embattled ally.
The guided missile cruiser, carrying about 55 tons of humanitarian aid, was the first of three American ships scheduled to arrive this week.
The deputy chief of Russia's general staff suggested Monday the arrival of U.S. and other NATO warships in the Black Sea would increase tensions. Russia shares the sea with NATO members Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria as well as Georgia and Ukraine.
The steps taken by the United States "add another degree to the tension in the region," Anatoly Nogovitsyn said Monday in televised remarks.
A U.S. official said the American ship anchored in Batumi, Georgia's main oil port on the Black Sea, because of concerns about damage to the Georgian port of Poti. Russian troops still hold positions near Poti, and Georgians say the Russians inflicted extensive damage on port facilities there.
In central Georgia, a few miles west of the city of Gori, a fire tore through an oil train after an explosion Sunday, sending plumes of black smoke into the air. The cause was not clear, but Georgians have accused Russian troops of targeting oil facilities and transport links.
Georgia straddles a key westward route for oil from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and other Caspian Sea nations — as the United States and the European Union seek to decrease Russia's dominance of oil and gas exports from the former Soviet Union.
Associated Press Writers Jim Heintz in Tbilisi, Georgia and Maria Danilova in Moscow contributed to this report.

Russia may hit USA very hard below the belt

25.08.2008 Source: Pravda.

US leading experts analyzed punishing opportunities of both Russia and the West after the recent armed conflict in Georgia. Specialists came to conclusion that the list of potential Western sanctions pales in comparison with what Moscow could do in response. However, the US administration hopes that Russia will not resort to radical measures not to harm its own financial and security interests.
The US administration has issued yet another warning to Moscow recently claiming that Russia’s actions in Georgia would question the future of its WTO bid, as well as Russia’s position in the Group of Eight.
The list of Washington’s threats also includes the blocking of Russia’s membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the boycott of Russia’s hosting of Winter Olympics in 2014 and a freeze of US-Russian strategic dialogue.
US experts warn that the list of Moscow’s potential sanctions is a lot longer. Angela Stent, the director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies, Georgetown University, said that Moscow may respond at the UN Security Council, where it can put obstacles on the way of US intentions to punish Iran for its nuclear ambition. All anti-terrorist programs, the struggle against drug mafia, Syria, Venezuela and Hamas can be added on the list too. There are many questions, on which Russians may stop their cooperation with the USA, with the cooperation in the energy industry on top of that list, the expert believes.
The International Herald Tribune wrote with reference to US outstanding analysts that Washington needed a lot more from Moscow than vice versa. The US needs to ensure the security of Soviet nuclear weapons, to obtain Russia’s help in the endeavor to make Iran and North Korea shut down their nuclear programs.
The sale of Russia’s arms is another problem. The governments of Western countries and Israel are concerned about reports saying that Russia started the shipments of first components of its S-300 missile system to Iran. The latter may subsequently use the powerful systems to down US and Israeli aircraft.
Russia may complicate USA’s and NATO’s supply of the coalition in Afghanistan In April, Moscow gave France and Germany a right to transit non-combatant cargoes via Russia. Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said that the West should not bite the hand that feeds 50,000 servicemen in Afghanistan. Moscow can offer show pressure of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, which the USA would like to use for their operations in Afghanistan.
In addition, Russia is capable of blocking any sanctions at the UN Security Council. Moscow can also pull out from a number of disarmament treaties, including the one signed with the USA about the liquidation of short and smaller range missiles after the expiry of START-1 Treaty in 2009.
Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council senior director and CIA senior analyst, said that Moscow was becoming a very important buyer of US Treasury bonds and US government agency issues. The specialist believes that those officials, who urge Washington to put forward various ultimatums to Russia, would hardly prefer Moscow disposing of its dollar assets. Leverett wrote for The National Interest that Moscow was sounding out opportunities of selling Russian crude for roubles, which would obviously affect long-term dollar positions.
Washington hopes that Russia will not go too far. For example, Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons and the abrupt devaluation of Russian dollar assets would be highly undesirable for Russia as well. However, Moscow’s further actions will depend on new sanctions of the West that will have to think twice before reacting to possible recognition of South Ossetia’s and Abkhazia’s independence by Russia.
© 1999-2006. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.

Russia’s reversal: Where next for humanitarian intervention?

By Quentin Peel
Published: August 22 2008 19:49 Last updated: August 22 2008 19:49
On March 24 1999, Sergei Lavrov, then Russia’s long-serving ambassador to the United Nations, issued a forceful defence of national sovereignty. It fell to him to present his government’s outrage at the Nato air strikes that had just been launched against Serbian forces attacking ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
In a scathing performance before the UN Security Council, Mr Lavrov condemned the operation as an offence against international law and demanded that it cease forthwith. “The members of Nato are not entitled to decide the fate of other sovereign and independent states,” he declared. “Attempts to justify the Nato strikes with arguments about preventing a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo are completely untenable.” He went on to accuse the western allies of blackmail.
Today, as foreign minister in Moscow, Mr Lavrov is using arguments similar to those of Nato in Kosovo, justifying Russia’s attack on neighbouring Georgia as necessary to protect Russian citizens in South Ossetia. He and Dmitry Medvedev, his president, have accused Georgia of a massive onslaught on civilians amounting to “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”. Again echoing Nato in Kosovo, Russia has declared its determination to defend the rights of South Ossetians, and the Abkhaz in Georgia’s other secessionist region, to decide their own future.
On the surface, it looks like an extraordinary conversion on the part of a Russian ruling establishment that has long regarded “humanitarian intervention” as a rhetorical fig leaf for American-led military adventurism and has been bitterly opposed to any suggestion of “self-determination” for secessionist minorities in a larger state. Two bitter wars have been fought by the Russian army in Chechnya since the collapse of the Soviet Union to deny just such an outcome.
Others see it as a deliberate exercise to reassert effective Russian control over former Soviet territory, block Nato membership for a country in its “backyard”, and simultaneously expose the hypocrisy of US foreign policy in Kosovo and subsequently in Iraq.
Whatever the justification, the Russian action threatens to disrupt its entire relationship with the US, the European Union and Nato. It may also call into question the fragile international consensus on clear rules for humanitarian intervention, agreed only three years ago by the UN general assembly.
Many Russian commentators argue that the language of humanitarian intervention was abused – particularly by Tony Blair, when UK prime minister – not just in Kosovo but also as belated justification for the war in Iraq. Now, by using the same arguments in Georgia, Russia has left the concept sorely and perhaps deliberately damaged.
“I think it has been profoundly damaged, even before this, because of Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Mary Kaldor, professor of global governance at the London School of Economics. “The tragedy is that there is a case for limited humanitarian intervention, but this middle position is very difficult to hold on to. This conflict will make it even harder.”
The idea of codifying rules for humanitarian intervention was first raised by Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, in a lecture to the UK-based Ditchley Foundation in 1998. “Our job is to intervene: to prevent conflict where we can, to put a stop to it when it has broken out or – when neither of those things is possible – at least to contain it and prevent it from spreading,” he said.
Mr Blair took up the idea with enthusiasm while the Kosovo conflict was still under way. “This is a just war, based not on any territorial ambitions but on values. We cannot let the evil of ethnic cleansing stand,” he told the Chicago Economic Club in April, 1999, calling such intervention a new “doctrine of the international community”.
It took another six years for Mr Annan to win support, on the basis of recommendations by his high-level panel on UN reform, for the so-called Responsibility to Protect (R2P in diplomatic jargon) initiative. It was seen as the most important reform agreed – unanimously – by all the countries that attended the UN general assembly in 2005. It made up for a failure to agree any changes in the make-up of the UN Security Council itself.
Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister and president of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, was one of the architects of the R2P concept. He rejects the idea that the Russian intervention in Georgia qualifies under that heading.
“Even though it has been characterised in R2P terms, this is not really about protection of civilians but protection of [Russian] nationals,” he says. “That has been the basis for all sorts of interventions in the past that were not humanitarian.
“This was not a situation with a risk of mass atrocity crimes. It is not one that meets the precautionary criteria [for R2P] that we defined.”
Those criteria include a just cause – imminent danger of ethnic cleansing or a large-scale loss of life, for example. All peaceful alternatives to military intervention must have been exhausted and use of force must be proportional. Any such intervention also requires legal authority, ideally from the UN Security Council. “You have got to be really careful how you apply this,” says Mr Evans. “You cannot play ducks and drakes with the criteria.”
In the case of South Ossetia, he argues, the seriousness of the situation was “not so obvious as to justify prima facie military force”, peaceful alternatives had not been exhausted and the response was not proportional.
Dmitry Kosyrev, a political commentator with the semi-official Russian news agency, RIA-Novosti, retorts that “sending armed forces into the territory of a sovereign state without the UN’s authorisation, so called ‘humanitarian intervention’ ”, is an American invention.
. . .Mr Blair’s belated use of humanitarian arguments to justify the war in Iraq also undermined the cause. “There would have been a strong case for humanitarian intervention in Iraq if it had happened in 1988, when the Kurds were being gassed,” says Edward Mortimer, senior vice-president of the Salzburg Global Seminar and former speech-writer to Mr Annan. “Having not intervened then, to say we were involved in a humanitarian intervention 15 years later” was less credible.
David Malone, president of Canada’s International Development Research Center and an author on past interventions, says there is a constant confusion “between the notion of humanitarian intervention as a military operation, to impose assistance for victims of conflict, and the peaceful provision of assistance. Thoughtful people in favour of the latter are very cautious about the former.”
When asked to cite a successful example of humanitarian intervention, he can name only tiny Sierra Leone in west Africa, where UN peacekeepers, with backing from British troops, managed to bring stability over a long period. In Darfur, where the international community has been strongly criticised for its failure to intervene more forcefully, “there has never been any serious discussion about western military intervention. The scale of the military challenge is overwhelming.”
Indeed, failed interventions have also proved devastating. In Somalia in 1992-93, for example, US troops suffered grievous casualties and withdrew – a big factor in the subsequent refusal of Washington and many others to intervene to stop the genocide in Rwanda.
On the other hand, there has been one recent intervention that fits the R2P criteria and has so far been a notable success: stopping the threat of ethnic warfare in Kenya after that country’s disputed election last year. “That was a real R2P situation where we did not need military intervention, because there was peaceful negotiation in time,” says Mr Evans.
Mr Annan brokered a power-sharing agreement in Kenya between Mwai Kibaki, the president, and Raila Odinga, now prime minister. “When we talk of intervention, people think of the military. But under R2P, force is a last resort. I think we have seen a successful example of its application [in Kenya],” he told The New York Times.
That is a hopeful example. But Martti Ahtisaari, former Finnish president and now head of the Crisis Management Group, an organisation specialising in conflict resolution, says there is a more profound problem. “Why can’t we get more countries to support European positions?” he asks. “Because we have allowed too many frozen conflicts to remain just that: frozen.
“Why do we let the Sri Lankans fight, and we don’t do a damn thing? I don’t say we should intervene militarily, but we should do something. Darfur is a failure, I agree, but far more serious are the conflicts that have been there for ages, such as Kashmir.
“Above all, our credibility as the west is very much geared to starting to solve finally the Middle East conflict. Everyone knows that is central.”
The Financial Times Limited 250808

UN split on Ossetia resolutions

2008-08-21T22:03:00.000-07:00

UN split on Ossetia resolutions

The UN Security Council is deadlocked over the situation in Georgia with the US and Russia rejecting rival resolutions on the crisis.
Washington says it is prepared to veto a Russian resolution seeking to implement a six-point ceasefire plan.
Russia has reiterated its opposition to a rival French text, reaffirming Georgia's territorial integrity.
Most Russian soldiers are due to leave Georgia shortly but 500 will stay in a "buffer zone" around South Ossetia.
Russia has set itself a deadline of Friday night to pull back all its combat troops .
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has told the BBC the Russians are still consolidating their hold on parts of his country, and he again accused them of trying to paralyse the Georgian economy.
Russia fought a four-day war with Georgia after it tried to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia by force on 7 August.
Moscow has had peacekeeping troops in the province, which it borders, since it broke away in the early 1990s.
Rival resolutions
There is no sign of agreement over the rival resolutions, one backed by Russia and the other by Western European countries and the US, the BBC's Laura Trevelyan reports from New York.
Two days ago, France circulated a draft resolution, calling for an immediate Russian withdrawal from Georgia and reaffirming Georgia's territorial integrity.
Russia rejected this because it said Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia wanted independence.
Moscow circulated its own draft calling on the Security Council to endorse the six-point peace plan brokered by France and agreed by Moscow and Tbilisi.
"Our draft resolution is a reconfirmation of the six-point agreement, and there's no territorial integrity in the six principles," said Russia's UN Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin.
Now Russia's ambassador says his resolution is going into its final form, so it can be voted on.
But the US and its allies insist Russia is not respecting the ceasefire plan because it is not withdrawing from Georgia quickly enough.
The US Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Alejandro Wolff, said under the circumstances he thought America would be prepared to oppose Russia's resolution.
'Dictating the pace'
Russia's land forces commander, Gen Vladimir Boldyrev, has said that all Russian combat troops will move back from Georgia proper to South Ossetia by the weekend.
Most of the soldiers sent to the region as reinforcements will return from South Ossetia to Russia within 10 days, he added.
However, Moscow will retain 500 peacekeepers in a security zone stretching 7km (four miles) beyond the border of South Ossetia into Georgia proper - a move Tbilisi says is unacceptable.
Despite international condemnation, Russia is still dictating the slow pace of this withdrawal, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford reports from Moscow.
Tbilisi says any Russian soldier on its soil is an occupier and Nato has condemned the Russian approach.
In response, the Russian defence ministry said on Thursday it was halting all military cooperation whilst it re-considered its relationship with the alliance.
Story from BBC NEWS:

Russia-Georgia WAR- 070808

2008-08-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

மூன்றாம் உலகப் போரை நோக்கிய திசை வழியில் மற்றொரு போர்முனை திறப்பு
ரசியா- ஜோர்யியா போர்முனை:

* ரசிய சமூக ஏகாதிபத்தியத்தின் வீழ்ச்சிக்குப் பின்னால் உருவாகிய ஒற்றைத்துருவ உலக ஒழுங்கமைப்புக்கு அமெரிக்கா தலைமை தாங்குகிறது.
* முதலாளித்துவத்தின்- ஏகாதிபத்தியத்தின் ஏற்றத்தாழ்வான வளர்ச்சி விதி காரணமாக பொருளாதார ரீதியாக அமெரிக்கா ஐரோப்பிய யூனியனுக்கு பின் தங்கிவிட்டது
* இதனால் மூன்றாவது உலகப் பொது ஏகாதிபத்திய பொருளாதார நெருக்கடிக்குத் தீர்வாக உலகை மறுபங்கீடு செய்யும் தேசிய, பிராந்திய ஆக்கிரமிப்பு யுத்தங்களை கட்டவிழ்க்கும், தேசங்களை கபளீகரம் செய்யும் நவீன காலனியாதிக்க கொள்கைகளை நடைமுறையாக்க- பலவந்தமாக திணிக்க- ஒன்றுபடும் அதேவேளையில், அமெரிக்கா தனது சுய மேலாதிக்கத்தை நிறுவ தனது அணிகளுக்குள்ளேயே போராடுகிறது.

* இந்த உலக மறுபங்கீடு சமாதான வழிகளில் நடந்த காலகட்டம் முடிவுக்கு வந்துவிட்டது.

* உலக மறுபங்கீட்டிற்கான பொது வழி 'ஆட்சிக்கவிழ்ப்புகளை நோக்கமாகக் கொண்ட தேசிய ஆக்கிரமிப்பு யுத்தங்கள்' என்பதாக ஆகிவிட்டது.

* இந்தப் பொது வழியில் மற்றொரு போர்முனை மத்திய ஆசியாவில் ரசியாவின் காலடியில் திறக்கப்பட்டுவிட்டது.

* தற்காலிக செயல்தந்திர திருப்பங்கள் எதுவும் இந்தப் பொதுத் திசைவழியை மாற்றாது.

________________________________________________________

Georgia Russia: WAR

For S. Ossetians, Bitterness After Attacks

Residents of Separatist Zone Describe Georgian Assault That Destroyed a Swath of Their Capital
By Peter FinnWashington Post Foreign ServiceSunday, August 17, 2008; A10 TSKHINVALI, Georgia, Aug. 16 --

The windows were blown out of the old synagogue here, and the wooden bimah splintered and partially collapsed. Shattered glass covered the floor, and parts of the ornately painted walls were ripped off. But the old building held, and it protected 40 people who took shelter in its spacious basement as the neighborhood above them was reduced to rubble.

"Three days we were here, without water, without bread," said Zemsira Tiblova, 60. "We had 14 children with us."
"Unforgivable," said her husband, Georgi Bestaev. "It was inhuman to bomb us."
The war between Georgia and Russia was centered on this town of at most 10,000 people, and it cut a swath of destruction, severely damaging many homes and apartment buildings. Gaping holes scar five-story blocks of apartments, the detritus of what was once ordinary life
blown onto shattered balconies. In one neighborhood, along Telman Street, house after crumpled house was a scorched shell, bricks piled high in basements exposed to the sunlight. The area is about 200 yards from destroyed separatist government buildings in central Tskhinvali, an acknowledged target of
Georgian forces.
A school, a library and a kindergarten were blackened and pockmarked from small-arms fire, as were the houses around them. And the city was strewn with the ruined armor of both Georgian and Russian forces.
At certain moments, in certain places, the smell of rotting corpses was in the air.
Here in Tskhinvali, there was no doubt that Georgia started the war with Russia and much bitterness about the rain of artillery and rockets that the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili used in its efforts to capture the city. The Georgian government said much of the destruction of Tskhinvali was caused by a Russian counteroffensive, but that argument carries no weight with residents here, some of them clearly traumatized.
People insist that a terrible barrage struck the city late Aug. 7 and continued into the morning -- accounts supported by Western monitors who were also forced into their cellars. Indeed, buildings used by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were damaged, one
severely.
"Grad came and hit us," said Garik Gabayev, referring to the fearsome BM-21 multiple rocket system employed by Georgian forces. "Grad" is a word that has entered the vocabulary of this town, cited by one resident after another as they described what they experienced.
Gabayev sat outside Saturday afternoon, just down the street from his father-in-law's pancaked home.
"I don't remember anything," he said, visibly shaking. "All the walls collapsed."
The scale of the destruction is undeniable; some streets summon iconic images of Stalingrad during World War II or Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, which was leveled in two wars between Russian and Chechen separatists.
But the number of dead remains in dispute. Mikhail Minsayev, the minister of interior in the separatist South Ossetian government, told
reporters Saturday that as many as 2,100 people had been killed. When challenged on that figure by reporters, who cited statements by medical workers and human rights groups that there was no evidence of such a high death toll, he said people quickly buried the dead in their
yards or took the bodies to North Ossetia in Russia for burial.
In conversations here, everyone interviewed said they had lost either no family members or one person. But those were interviews with people whose cellars had held. Many clearly had not.
Traveling here from the Georgian city of Gori and out to the Roki Tunnel that connects with Russia, the revenge taken by some of the inhabitants of South Ossetia was visible in the Georgian fields set on fire and the blackened, abandoned homes in Georgian villages north of
Tskhinvali. Two homes in those Georgian villages were ablaze Saturday night.
Russian military officials blamed the destruction on marauding South Ossetian militias and said they are attempting to restore order.
The headquarters of Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali was destroyed. The barracks where 500 soldiers slept took direct hits from tank fire.
A destroyed Russian tank sits by the barracks wall. The base's headquarters, dining hall and recreation center are ruined.
Vladimir Ivanov, deputy commander of the Russian peacekeeping force that was stationed here, said that 15 Russian peacekeepers were
killed during the war and that many more were wounded.
Russian peacekeepers have been in South Ossetia since the early 1990s, when a cease-fire was declared after an earlier conflict. This breakaway province of Georgia has since had de facto independence from the central authorities in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.
Georgian officials accused the Russian peacekeeping force of backing the South Ossetian separatists and failing to rein in their attacks on Georgian villages and territory in Georgia proper.
The war has poisoned people here against any future connection with Georgia although the province remains within Georgia's internationally recognized borders.
"Georgia is finished here; they are never coming back," Bestaev said. "We cannot live without Russia. We must become part of Russia, because we can't handle the problem independently."
Russia signs up to Georgia truce

Russia has followed Georgia in signing a French-brokered peace plan for ending their nine-day-old conflict.
But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the withdrawal of Russian forces from deep inside Georgia depended on extra security measures being put in place.
He said Russian forces were encountering "problems caused by Georgia", and refused to put a timetable on their departure.
US President George W Bush again demanded Russian forces withdraw. *****************************************

PEACE PLAN

No more use of force

Stop all military actions for good

Free access to humanitarian aid

Georgian troops return to their places of permanent deployment

Russian troops to return to pre-conflict positions

International talks about future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia ******************************************

A simmering conflict between Georgia and Russia erupted on 7 August when Georgia launched an assault to retake its Russian-backed separatist province of South Ossetia. It led to a massive counter-offensive by Russia, with Russia moving deeper into Georgian territory.
Scores of people have been killed by the fighting and tens of thousands displaced.
US-backed Georgia has vowed it will not accept any loss of its territory, but Russia insists that following the recent violence, residents are unlikely to want to live in the same state as Georgians.
The future of another breakaway region, Abkhazia, is also at stake.
Georgia's foreign ministry said on Saturday that Russian-backed separatists from the province had seized 13 villages and a power plant within Georgia.
The claim could not immediately be independently confirmed.
Security steps On Saturday Russian President Dmitry Medvedev followed his Georgian counterpart, Mikhail Saakashvili, in signing the truce.
Among the six points in the agreement, both sides agree to pull back their forces to pre-conflict positions.
George Bush on the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia
But reports say the agreement contains a provision that allows Russia to implement additional security measures on a temporary basis ahead of the arrival of international ceasefire monitors.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters it was these security measures that would be implemented "first and foremost".
Diplomats have said that the UN Security Council is expected to vote this weekend on a draft resolution formalising the ceasefire agreement.
Russian forces are now far beyond South Ossetia's borders in Georgian territory.
They are reported to have occupied the central town of Khashuri, giving them control of all but one of the major towns on the highway across Georgia from the Black Sea to the capital Tbilisi.
And the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse puts them within 35km (22 miles) of Tbilisi itself. He says they do not look like they are pulling out - and in fact seem to have dug in.
'Barbarians'
The US has called a number of times for Russian forces to leave its ally's territory, and President Bush repeated the message from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Saturday.
He said Mr Medvedev's signing of the truce was "hopeful", but that there could be no question that South Ossetia and Abkhazia would remain within Georgian borders - borders that were internationally recognised.
There was "no room for debate on this matter", Mr Bush said.
President Saakashvili signed the ceasefire agreement on Friday, after a meeting lasting more than four hours with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Reports suggest Mr Saakashvili only reluctantly agreed to another of the plan's clauses - international talks about the future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
After the meeting he launched a bitter attack on Moscow, calling Russian troops "21st Century barbarians" and accusing them of war crimes.
He criticised the West for not granting Georgia membership of Nato, saying it could have prevented the fighting.
Russia argues its forces are there to ensure civilians face no threat from Georgian troops.
South Ossetia has had de facto independence since the end of a civil war in 1992.

Georgia fallout felt in Iraq

U.S. troop withdrawal plans could be affected by the exit of 2,000 Georgian troops from IraqBy Peter SpiegelLos Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 15, 2008
WASHINGTON — Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, is being forced to grapple with one of the unexpected byproducts of the conflict in Georgia: His plan to withdraw American forces in Iraq was predicated on all partner nations keeping their troop levels intact.
With nearly 2,000 Georgian troops returning home in the midst of the crisis there, the coalition has lost what one senior military official called one of the largest and most capable contributions to the Iraq effort. As a result, the official said, Petraeus is now assessing whether he will have
to change his plans, including possibly delaying the return home of some U.S. forces this year.
"One of the assumptions for the future in Iraq was that coalition contributions would remain relatively stable," said the senior military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Iraq troop deployments publicly. "This is the third-largest contingent, and a very capable contingent. This changes the calculus."
A military officer in Baghdad cautioned that Petraeus had not completed his assessment on force reductions when the Georgians left, and added that U.S. and Iraqi forces had so far been able to take over the vacated positions.
But another military official familiar with Iraq planning said Georgian troops had been central to a new push to block weapons shipments coming across the border from Iran into southeastern Iraq, setting up a base in the city of Kut and patrolling nearby border regions.
"You can't lose the Georgian component without some impact," said the military official, who also requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Iraq troop deployments publicly. "If you had to assess the 30 countries in Iraq as a coalition force, Georgia was among
the top tier, both in number and capabilities."
Petraeus' 45-day assessment period began at the end of last month when the last of the five U.S. brigades deployed in the troop buildup last year departed from Iraq. At the end of the assessment, he is to deliver his recommendation on whether U.S. troop drawdowns can resume in the fall. Over the course of this year, American force levels have gone from a peak of about 170,000 to approximately 140,000, just above pre-buildup levels.
The sharp reduction in violence in Iraq in recent months has led many at the Pentagon to believe that Petraeus will call for additional troop reductions by the end of the year. Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said after a visit to Iraq in July that he
expected to be able to recommend a resumption of withdrawals next month.
The rising violence in Afghanistan has also put pressure on military planners to withdraw troops from Iraq, since significant increases in Afghan forces cannot occur without them. According to Pentagon officials, Mullen's staff is weighing a recommendation to send the next unit
scheduled to deploy to Iraq -- the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 4th Infantry Division -- to Afghanistan instead, perhaps as early as December.
One of the military officials said that although the Georgian contingent was the size of about half a U.S. brigade, it was unlikely that its departure would derail plans to send the U.S. brigade to Afghanistan.
But the official said that the Georgian mission along the border had begun to have some impact and that the withdrawal schedule of smaller U.S. units could be affected, because it is unlikely another allied military would take up the task.
In addition to the border mission, Georgian troops were responsible for providing security to the U.N. mission in Iraq.
"They were beginning to establish some real capability along the border to help ramp up [Iraqi security forces] and slow down the Iranian flows of illegal arms across the border," the official said.
The departure of the Georgians and the continued withdrawal of British and Polish troops has drastically reduced the number of non-U.S. foreign troops available to Petraeus. Britain maintains 4,100 troops in Iraq, the largest contingent after the U.S., but British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown outlined a plan last month that would resume withdrawals over the next year to where few would remain in southern Iraq.
Times staff writer Julian E. Barnes contributed to this report.

International Relations 14.08.2008 Poland,

US Sign Missile Defense Deal

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Poland said it was promised US Patriot missiles as part of the deal Poland and the United States have reached agreement on stationing 10 interceptor missiles on Polish soil as part of an American missile defense system, according to Polish Prime Minister Tusk.
"We have reached a deal with the United States on the shield," after Washington agreed to meet Poland's key demand for defense aid separate from the anti-missile system, Tusk told Polish news channel TVN in a live interview.
"We would start with a battery under US command, but made available to the Polish army. Then there would be a second phase, involving
equipping the Polish army with missiles," Tusk added, emphasizing that negotiators had reached a "preliminary deal."
The agreement has been reached after more than 18 months of back-and-forth, often terse, negotiations between the two countries. Its
conclusion carries an especially symbolic weight in the aftermath of Russia's incursion into Georgia in recent days.
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Tusk said Poland's demands had been metIn return for agreeing to host 10 US missile interceptors on its soil, Poland will receive Patriot air defense missiles and increased military
cooperation with the US, according to a report by Poland's PAP news agency

US and Polish negotiators were meeting in Warsaw on Thursday in the latest in a series of talks that formally began in May 2007.

Czech deal already complete

In July, the Bush administration signed a deal with the neighboring Czech Republic on hosting a radar base -- the other part of the system to be based in the two ex-communist countries. Poland and Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

Before the latest talks in Warsaw, top Polish government officials said a new US proposal was on the table and that Russia's military assault on Georgia had given an impetus to the missile defense talks.

A key Polish concern is boosting its air defenses after Moscow threatened to target the planned bases in its former direct sphere of influence.

Russia strongly opposes the US plan, despite assurances from Washington that the shield would target ballistic missile threats from countries like Iran and was not meant to undermine Russia's nuclear deterrent.

The Interfax news agency cites Konstantin Kosachev, who chairs the foreign affairs committee in the Russian lower house of parliament, as saying the agreement will spark "a real rise in tensions in Russian-American relations."

US and Poland rush to secure missile defence shield

America and Poland are rushing to secure a deal to build a controversial missile defence shield in Eastern Europe in response to Russia's invasion of Georgia.
By Harry de Quetteville in Berlin Last Updated: 7:12PM BST 14 Aug 2008
The Warsaw government said that talks with Washington to locate a missile silo in Poland to accompany a radar site in the Czech Republic were almost "at the finishing line".
US negotiations with Warsaw over the project, which would see a silo of 10 interceptor missiles housed in the north of the country, have been dragging on for more than a year.
But in the wake of Russia's advance into Georgia, both America and the centre-Right government of the Polish prime minister Donald Tusk appear determined to cement their alliance and complete the missile shield deal.
"We feel at the moment a greater concern for our safety," said Bogdan Klich, the Polish defence minister, evoking fears of a resurgent Russia widespread in the former Eastern Bloc.
"That's why every installation of the western world on the Polish territory has its meaning, because it anchors Poland more deeply to the West."
While America says the shield is designed to destroy lone-missiles from "rogue states" such as Iran, Russia considers it a strategic encirclement that undermines its nuclear deterrent. If agreed now, the system, which would twin the Polish missile silo with a radar station in the Czech Republic, would be ready by around 2012.
Mr Klich said that Poland and the US were "really at the finish line of these talks" over missile defence, hinting that Washington was finally prepared to meet Polish security demands in return for housing the missile silo.
Most significantly, Poland wants American-run Patriot missile batteries on its territory, in what it considers the best defence against potential Russian retaliation.
"It seems that the Americans have changed their view due to the situation in the Caucasus," Mr Klich said.
"In the eyes of Washington, this conflict has proven that Russia isn't a stable partner and continues to consider its international surroundings as its exclusive sphere of influence."
Analysts suggest that the conflict in Georgia has sent shockwaves through countries that once lay behind the Iron Curtain.
"Appeasement is over," said Carina O'Reilly, European Security Editor of Jane's Defence Weekly. "With Russian tanks rolling into Georgia, there's a feeling [among former eastern bloc states] that the tanks could roll over their borders too.
"There's a certain urgency now."
Mr Tusk, once considered to considerably more Russia-friendly than his Moscow-sceptic predecessor Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is now making that urgency clear.
"Our arguments about the need for a permanent presence of US troops and missiles on Polish soil have been taken seriously by the American side," he said. "The events in the Caucasus show clearly that such security guarantees are indispensable.
"As soon as we are sure that Poland's security has been reinforced to the degree we want, we're not going to wait for hours to sign a deal."
Russian general says Poland a nuclear 'target'

Poland has made itself a nuclear target for Russia’s military by hosting elements of a US anti-missile system, a senior Russian general warned. By Damien McElroy in Tbilisi Last Updated: 5:45PM BST 15 Aug 2008
General Anatoly Nogovitsyn said that Russia?s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons 'against the allies of countries having nuclear weapon'

Moscow issued the direct threat to another US ally.
“Poland is making itself a target. This is 100 percent” certain, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted General Anatoly Nogovitsyn as saying.
“It becomes a target for attack. Such targets are destroyed as a first priority,” Gen Nogovitsy was quoted as saying.
He added that Russia’s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them,” Interfax said.
George W Bush, speaking in Washington accused Russian President Dmitry Medvedev of "bullying" his neighbours and said the tactics were working against Russia's interests on the international stage.
Following months of discontent over the planned siting of the US missile shield, Russia reacted furiously last night when Washington sweetened its package with an agreement to sell a Patriot defence battery to Warsaw. “The fact that this was signed in a period of very difficult crisis in
the relations between Russia and the United States over the situation in Georgia shows that, of course, the missile defence system will be deployed not against Iran but against the strategic potential of Russia,” said Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to Nato.
“I consider that the United States is not acting in a cautious manner in this situation.”
The US Secretary of State arrived in Tbilisi today to secure the withdrawal of Russian combat forces to ceasefire lines but Russian forces maintained a stranglehold on key strategic points from the west to the east of Georgia, though the military appeared to have begun a staged
withdrawal from the flashpoint town of Gori.
Miss Rice brought with her a draft French-brokered ceasefire that would require Russia to withdraw its combat troops from Georgia but would allow Russian peacekeepers to remain in the flash-point separatist region of South Ossetia and temporarily patrol outside the area.
However, Miss Rice said the document would preserve the long-term principle of Georgia’s territorial integrity. “It needs to be a formal ceasefire, which is what we are working on,” she said. “But in order to get to that point there really does have to be important clarifications on
a couple of these points (in the ceasefire) in order to make sure that Georgian interests are protected. Because the United States would never ask Georgia to sign on to something where its interests are not protected.”
By holding Gori, Russian forces effectively cut the country in half because the city sits along Georgia’s only significant east-west highway. But restrictions on movements in and out of the town were being lifted as Russia moved back. “It’s quiet there, but now there are problems with
food,” said Alexander Lomaia, the head of Georgia’s national security council, who entered the town yesterday.
The Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said there are no Russian troops in the city of Kutaisi, Georgia’s second-largest city, despite reports they were headed in that direction overnight. Georgian officials said that troops remain in the Black Sea port city of Poti.
The UN refugee agency raised its estimates of the number of displaced by the conflict. It said that 118,000 people had fled their homes because of fighting between Georgia and Russia and marauding by militias.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Antonio Guterres, will visit Tblisi and Moscow next week and will demand greater access for aid agencies to the conflict zones, according to his spokesman, Ron Redmond.
He said: The latest estimates of displacement related to the conflict now total more than 118,000, based on figures provided by the governments.”
Russia rejected a Human Rights Watch report that its aircraft had used cluster bombs in two separate raids on the towns of Ruisi and Gori on Tuesday, killing at least 11 civilians and injuring dozens. Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff, said:
“We never use cluster bombs. There is no need to do so.”
US, Poland strike deal for anti-missile bases

Russia expresses its displeasure with the agreement, which is seen as a response to the Georgia invasion.By Arthur Brightfrom the August 16, 2008 edition
The United States and Poland have announced an agreement to put US anti-missile interceptors in Poland to defend the US and Europe from "rogue" missile attacks. But Russia, having recently invaded Georgia, sees itself as the agreement's target.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the deal, reached Thursday, would allow the US to place 10 anti-missile interceptors in Poland, in exchange for upgrading Polish military defenses with a battery of Patriot missiles.
Washington says the planned system, which is not yet operational, is needed to protect the U.S. and Europe from possible attacks by missile- armed "rogue states," such as Iran. The Kremlin, however, believes it is aimed at Russia's missile force and warns that it will worsen
tensions....
In recent days, Polish leaders have said the fighting in the Caucasus justified Poland's demands it get additional security guarantees from the U.S. in exchange for allowing the antimissile base on its soil. But after the deal was announced, American and Polish officials sought to play
down any connection to the current conflict.
"This is not linked to the situation in Georgia," the chief U.S. negotiator, John Rood, said after the pact was signed. But in announcing the deal, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk noted that it included a "mutual commitment" between the US and Poland, which, the Times adds, appears "to be a reference to Russia, which has threatened to aim its nuclear-armed missiles at Poland – a former Soviet satellite – if it allows the U.S. site on its soil."
Russian officials were quick to express their displeasure with the missile deal.

Russia's envoy to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO), Dmitry Rogozin, told Reuters that the timing of the agreement proves that Russia is its intended target.
"The fact that this was signed in a period of very difficult crisis in the relations between Russia and the United States over the situation in Georgia shows that, of course, the missile defense system will be deployed not against Iran but against the strategic potential of Russia,"
Dmitry Rogozin said in a telephone interview....
"I consider that the United States is not acting in a cautious manner in this situation," Rogozin said when asked about U.S.-Russian relations and the situation in Georgia.
"Instead of getting full moral and political support in the struggle against real aggression and ethnic cleansing, we have heard a mass of unpleasant words and threats. That will of course not strengthen our relations."
Mr. Rogozin was not the only Russian voice to criticize the deal. The Associated Press writes that Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian general staff, warned that the deal "cannot go unpunished."
A Polskie Radio website, The News, reports that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cancelled a trip to Warsaw meant to improve
Polish-Russian relations while a Russian parliamentary official warned that Russia may now aim its rockets at Poland.
The BBC reports that US President George Bush was "very pleased" with the deal, but notes that a White House spokesperson denied that the agreement had anything to do with Russia. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski made similar comments to the BBC.
"We agreed this negotiating phase a week ago, which was ... before the events in Georgia, and because of the US calendar there was some urgency," [Sikorski] said.
"But, what is crucial, and what decided the success of the talks over the last couple of days, was that the US offered us new proposals."
The Times of London suggests that the "new proposals" that cinched the deal were the US's agreement to deploy Patriot missiles, which will bolster Polish air defenses and "are supposed to reassure Poland in case the Russians start rattling their sabres."
At least one Russian official has said that the agreement's practical military impact is minor, however. RIA Novosti reports that Andrei Klimov,
deputy head of the State Duma's international affairs committee, downplayed the strategic importance of the missile base as well as the timing of the agreement. "There might be a psychological element in it, but talks with Poland had been dragging on long enough beforehand," he said.
The agreement saw criticism not only in Russia, but in the West as well. TheHuffington Post blogger Joe Cirincione wrote that the missile deal brings no security gains and is instead driven by proponents of an unproven technology.
The proposed deployment of missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic and the Russian-Georgia conflict are two separate issues.
This is not about defending the democracy in Georgia; this is about ideologues trying to save a weapons system they have supported despite mounting evidence of its irrelevance to the threats America faces....
With the exception of those who have been drinking the missile defense Kool-aid, experts agree that long-range missile interception does not work. That is why Congress wisely ordered that no funds be spent on these European bases until after realistic tests can show the weapons
can work and the Czech and the Polish parliaments approve any deal. Neither is likely before 2010.
Meanwhile, F. William Engdahl of the Center for Research on Globalisation, a Montreal-based think tank, argues that the US-Poland deal is "the most dangerous move towards nuclear war the world has seen since the 1962 Cuba Missile crisis."
Far from a defensive move to protect European NATO states from a Russian nuclear attack, as military strategists have pointed out, the US missiles in Poland pose a total existential threat to the future existence of the Russian nation. The Russian Government has repeatedly warned of this since US plans were first unveiled in early 2007. Now, despite repeated diplomatic attempts by Russia to come to an agreement with
Washington, the Bush Administration, in the wake of a humiliating US defeat in Georgia, has pressured the Government of Poland to finally sign the pact. The consequences could be unthinkable for Europe and the planet.

From The Times UK August 14, 2008
George Bush squares up to Vladimir Putin over Georgia

Tom Baldwin in Washington

President Bush dispatched US military hardware to the heart of the Caucasus yesterday and warned Russia that it could be frozen out of international bodies as punishment for its aggression in Georgia.
In his toughest criticism of Russia since becoming President, Mr Bush accused it of breaching the provisional ceasefire agreed with Georgia only 24 hours earlier.
He cited intelligence showing that Russian troops had again taken the town of Gori and could threaten the capital, Tbilisi. He insisted that Moscow respect the former Soviet republic’s territorial integrity. There were also reports of Russian-backed militia in South Ossetia looting ethnic Georgian villages and killing inhabitants.
“To begin to repair the damage to its relations with the United States, Europe and other nations, and to begin restoring its place in the world, Russia must keep its word and act to end this crisis,” Mr Bush said.
The US is in talks with allies about whether to suspend Russia’s membership of the G8 club of industrialised nations. There is a growing clamour to block Russia’s membership of the World Trade Organisation and to rescind an invitation for it to join the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development.
Mr Bush’s statement, delivered in stern tones outside the White House, was stronger than his cautious comments last week, which reflected the State Department’s unhappiness with Georgia’s use of force against pro-Russian separatist rebels in South Ossetia.
Although direct military intervention is not being considered, Pentagon sources have hinted that a limited number of troops could be deployed to support what Mr Bush described as a vigorous and continuing humanitarian mission headed by the US military.
The first US air force transport aircraft arrived last night, and the navy was heading to the Black Sea – which is controlled by Russian warships – to deliver humanitarian and medical supplies direct to Georgian ports. “We expect Russia to honour its commitment to let in all forms of
humanitarian assistance,” Mr Bush said.
President Saakashvili of Georgia seized on the announcement to say that Tbilisi airport and Poti port would be placed under US military
control, a claim the Pentagon swiftly denied.
Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, flew to France last night to meet President Sarkozy before heading to Tbilisi. Sergei Lavrov, her
Russian counterpart, said that the US must choose between supporting the Georgian leadership and maintaining a partnership with Russia on
international issues. Dr Rice said: “This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbours, occupy a
capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed.”
The Georgian President had accused the US of squandering its support among former Soviet republics. Diplomats say that they have little
leverage against a Kremlin in which the strings are still being pulled by Vladimir Putin, the former President. The most likely sanctions are those that would damage Russia’s prestige.
Mr Bush said: “Russia has sought to integrate into the diplomatic, political, economic and security structures of the 21st century. Now Russia is putting its aspirations at risk by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with the principles of those institutions.”
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that the EU should reassess plans for a partnership agreement with Russia. For the time being, measures being taken have been limited to a US boycott of a Nato meeting with a Russian delegation and the likely cancellation of a joint naval
exercise.

December 20, 2007

Central Asia on Front Line in Energy Battle

By ANDREW E. KRAMERBUKHARA, Uzbekistan — In the scrub brush desert south of this ancient Silk Road town, the natural gas wellheads are built on modest concrete platforms about the size of basketball courts. Because the gas is naturally pressurized, pumps are not needed to bring it to the surface. Pipes simply kiss the ground and gas pours through them.
The issue is where the gas goes from there.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the United States and its European allies sought to ensure that Central Asia’s enormous oil and gas wealth would flow through pipelines bypassing Russia. It was the latest version of the Great Game, the 19th-century contest between Imperial
Britain and Czarist Russia for dominance in the region. Lately, however, the West is falling behind, as a torch lighting ceremony last month made clear.
Executives from Lukoil, the Russian oil company, and government officials from Moscow had come to inaugurate the latest Central Asia gas
field to come online. Developed by Lukoil, the Khauzak field is estimated to hold 400 billion cubic meters of natural gas, which Lukoil has sold
in advance for the next 32 years to Gazprom, the Russian natural gas giant.
Coming as some political developments in the region had renewed Western companies’ hopes of doing business in Central Asia, the Nov. 29
ceremony — held before a planeload of Moscow-based journalists flown in for the occasion — seemed tailored to remind the world of
Russia’s lead in the new Great Game.
“We have a good head start and we will use it,” Russia’s first deputy prime minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, said from a makeshift podium above
the red sands of the Kyzylkum desert.
The Bush administration has identified Central Asia as a promising alternative to the volatile Middle East as a source for oil and natural gas. As American officials pursue a policy of encouraging energy exports that bypass Russia, they are also trying to pry open Central Asia to Western oil investment.
Russia is countering by raising its investment in Central Asian fields and pipelines.
Much is at stake. Russia is the world’s largest natural gas producer and a major supplier to Europe. It relies on Central Asian supplies to meet these commitments.
“The Russians are very keen to fight their corner in Central Asia,” Jonathan Stern, a natural gas expert at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said in a telephone interview.
“The Russians are not just cozying up” to Central Asia’s autocratic leaders to achieve their aims, Mr. Stern said. “Russian companies have put their money where their mouth is.”
Flush with cash from their own oil boom, the Russians are investing heavily in new development, posing a challenge to Western companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips that are eager to expand their Central Asian operations.
After an investment of $3.5 billion, the Lukoil project will tie together three natural gas and gas condensate fields by 2011 to produce 11 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year for export.
In the three years since Lukoil signed the production sharing agreement with the Uzbek government for Khauzak, Uzbek politics have taken a sharp turn in Russia’s favor, shutting Western oil majors out of Uzbekistan.
In May 2005, President Islam A. Karimov’s troops opened fire on a mixed crowd of escaped prisoners, gunmen and antigovernment demonstrators in a square in the Fergana Valley town of Andijon, killing hundreds in what human rights groups say was the worst massacre of
street protesters since Tiananmen Square in 1989.
The episode led to deep strains in diplomatic relations with the United States. Even before the shooting, human rights groups accused Uzbek authorities of abuses, including two incidents in which political prisoners were reportedly boiled to death in an Uzbek prison. Prospects for a
Western role in the country’s natural gas industry waned.
In contrast, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin visited Mr. Karimov in Uzbekistan after the Andijon shootings and endorsed his justification.
In 2006, Lukoil expanded its presence here in a consortium with the China National Petroleum Corporation, Petronas of Malaysia and the Korea National Oil Company to explore a natural gas deposit beneath the dry bed of the Aral Sea estimated to hold more than one trillion
cubic meters of gas.
And in neighboring Turkmenistan, Mr. Putin secured an agreement in May to expand natural gas exports via a branch of the Central Asia- Center natural gas pipeline, which runs along the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, north toward Russia. It was the most significant energy
deal in that country this year. And this summer, crews from China, another country ascendant in Central Asia, began exploration drilling for gas on the eastern bank of the Amu Darya river, according to Mr. Stern, the Oxford Energy analyst.
To be sure, in the 1990s European and American companies made great gains in Kazakhstan — which has emerged as the leading commercial power in Central Asia. Chief among those gains was Kashagan, the largest oil find in the world since the discovery of Alaska’s
Prudhoe Bay in the 1970s. But the deal has been mired in dispute, with Kazakh authorities forcing a renegotiation of terms with consortium partners Eni of Italy, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips of the United States, Royal Dutch Shell and Inpex Holdings of Japan.
Kazakhstan has also turned its attention to the east, planning a natural gas pipeline over the Tian Shan mountains to the neighboring Chinese province of Xinjiang, a snub to American and European companies and governments. The West supports a western route under the Caspian
Sea, via Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, and on to world markets — threading the pipes through a narrow corridor between Russia and Iran to plug into the Central Asian oil and gas fields.
The BP-operated BTC oil pipeline and a parallel gas pipeline now stop in Azerbaijan, on the western shore of the Caspian, and the grand project seems to be stalled there for now.
The next step is to build the trans-Caspian leg, which Russia is blocking through a mix of political and business strategy. The Russians are buying up much of the natural gas production capacity to make the Western plan commercially nonviable because of a lack of available gas.
With the help of Iran, they are also contesting the legal status of the Caspian Sea that the oil and gas pipelines would pass under.
Moscow is also offering guarantees of support to the Central Asian potentates if a Ukrainian-style domestic uprising should take place, leading to a change in government, something the United States and Europe cannot do.
In one encouraging sign for the Western majors, the death last spring of the longtime leader of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, has brought a modest political thaw and heightened expectations of new oil and gas concessions. During the rule of Mr. Niyazov, who gave himself
the name Turkmenbashi, or Father of all Turkmens, and who had commissioned golden statues in his likeness, Turkmenistan had mostly dropped off the agenda of Western oil companies.
So it was no surprise that Western companies rushed to sponsor this year’s Turkmenistan Oil and Gas Conference in Ashgabat last month;
Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger and Statoil were among the sponsors, though no deals were signed.
Sharing the upbeat mood, Samuel Bodman, the United States secretary of energy, delivered a speech on Nov. 15, noting “opportunities are opening that could not have been imagined even a year ago,” according to an Energy Department transcript.
Still, as Mr. Bodman spoke, a few hundred miles away, across the Kyzylkum desert in Uzbekistan, Russian engineers were welding the last
pipes into place at Lukoil’s field. At the Nov. 29 opening ceremony, the pipes glistened with fresh paint and hissed with natural gas flowing northward toward Russia.

Kosovo: American and German geo-strategic plan to tame Russia.

2008-04-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

Former Leader in Kosovo Acquitted of War Crimes
By MARLISE SIMONSPublished: April 4, 2008PARIS —
The United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Thursday acquitted a former commander of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army of all charges of
war crimes in a decision that could inflame anti-Kosovo sentiment in Serbia just weeks after Kosovo unilaterally declared independence.
Times Topics: KosovoThe commander, Ramush Haradinaj, who also briefly served as prime minister of Kosovo three years ago, was found not guilty of murder,
persecution, rape and torture of Kosovo Serb civilians. The crimes were said to have been carried out by men under his command in 1998, when the rebels fought to
free their largely ethnic Albanian region from Serbian rule.
Another rebel commander, Idriz Balaj, was also acquitted, while a third defendant, Lahi Brahimaj, was sentenced to six years in prison for torture and cruel treatment
of prisoners.
The men who were acquitted may return home as early as Friday, and they are expected to be given a hero’s welcome. But in court, in summarizing their verdict, the
judges said that the case presented had many flaws. They cited vague evidence and widespread fear among witnesses, suggesting that the full version of events had
not been told.
The complete text of the judgment was not available, but in their summary, the judges gave much weight to the fear and the evident intimidation of witnesses. Lawyers
said that in no other case before the tribunal had witness intimidation been so widespread.
The judges said that they had serious difficulties in getting many of almost 100 witnesses to testify freely. They said that they had to permit 34 witnesses to hide their
identities from the public, that 18 were subpoenaed because they refused to testify and that others said they dared not talk once they were in court.
The case against Mr. Haradinaj was fraught with difficulties from the start. Western diplomats tried to dissuade Carla Del Ponte, who was the chief prosecutor, from
indicting Mr. Haradinaj, arguing that he was a respected political leader who played an important role in stabilizing Kosovo.
Within the prosecutor’s office, some lawyers also had warned that the case against Mr. Haradinaj was weak because it would be hard to link him to the crimes.
Prosecutors complained repeatedly about pressure on the witnesses, saying that those most afraid were former rebel fighters who had been expected to testify as
insiders. At least three designated witnesses were killed before the trial, prosecutors said.
In November, the trial ground to a halt when the defense lawyers for all three accused unexpectedly announced that they would not call any witnesses because they
considered the prosecution case so weak.
For Serbs, the acquittal of two of the former rebel commanders, whose forces were backed and supported by the West, was likely to be viewed as one more insult.
Kosovo has long been portrayed as a victim of Serbia. Only one other case at the tribunal has focused on the abuses and killings by fighters of the Kosovo Liberation
Army. Human rights groups have documented numerous killings and instances of mistreatment of those not siding with the rebels.
Oliver Ivanovic, who represents Kosovo Serbs, told the FoNet news agency in Belgrade that the acquittals would make it even more difficult to demand that the
Serbian government arrest Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, wartime Bosnian Serb leaders who remain fugitives.
Serbs will now see the tribunal as even more of a political, rather than a legal, institution, Mr. Ivanovic said. He added, “It will be now very difficult to convince any
Serb that this is not an anti-Serb tribunal.”
In Thursday’s ruling, Mr. Brahimaj was sentenced to six years for the abuse of prisoners detained in a camp where he was in charge. It said that he had personally
participated in beatings and torture.
Mr. Brahimaj, who has already served three years, is likely to be freed in a year if he gets the usual reduction for good behavior that is common in European countries
where he may serve his time.
After Mr. Haradinaj surrendered to the court, in 2005, he was allowed to return to Kosovo to await his trial. Much to the frustration of Ms. Del Ponte, he was
treated favorably when the court permitted him to play a limited political role at home, a privilege granted to no other detainee.
It was not clear if prosecutors would appeal.

Is Kosovo the end of Europe?
Rene Magritte, the celebrated Belgian surrealist painter, once painted an apple and wrote on it, “This is not an apple.” He did the same on a pipe. Today, he could as
well paint his country, Belgium, and certainly Kosovo, the youngest nation in the world, and write, “This is not a country.”
(Ash Narain Roy, Mainstream, India) Monday, March 31, 2008 Catalonia)
Ethnic Albanians in Macedonia have also intensified their autonomy demands, an obvious road to independence. Many believe the upsurge of violence in
Tibet is not unrelated to Kosovo.
What is the American gameplan in Kosovo? Russia certainly sees a red signal. Kosovo is a dress-rehearsal for redrawing boundaries in Eurasia and the Middle East.
It is a new balkanisation, part of American and German geo-strategic plan, to tame Russia. The goal is to drive a wedge in the Balkans to advance a spurious form of
European integration. A clear pattern is discernible. Since the former Yugoslavia was a thorn in the American-German flesh, it has been systematically targeted. The
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 was a well-devised plan. It was no coincidence that Bosnia-Herzegovina was divided along ethnic and religious lines-Serb,
Croat, Bosniak, Christians and Muslims. To these ethnic-religious divides have been added further sectarian divisions within Christianity-Eastern Orthodoxy versus
Roman Catholicism.
Facts speak for themselves. Bosnia's Constitution was written at a US Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio by American and European experts. Efforts are now on to
establish a Greater Albania which will bring together what are now Albania and Kosovo as well as adjacent parts of Serbia and Montenegro, Western Macedonia
and the north-western regions of Greece.
Kosovo has created a new divide even in the ranks of European states. While, Germany, Britain, Italy and France have recognised Kosovo, countries like Spain,
Greece, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus have opposed Kosovo's independence. There is a perception among multinational, multi-ethnic and multicultural
states that Kosovo's independence will give a new lease of life to separatists in their own midst-Basques in Spain, Tiroleans in Italy, Hungarians in Romania and the
like.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has reacted most vehemently calling Kosovo's independence as the "beginning of the end of Europe". Moscow is right in
maintaining that Kosovo's independence will rekindle fire in the frozen conflict zones-Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria etc. Way back in 1992, South Ossetia
had declared independence from Georgia. Only thanks to the presence of Russian peacekeepers a bigger conflict was avoided. Russia has not recognised South
Ossetia as yet, but it could exercise that option. Moscow has also hinted that the Kosovo precedent could be invoked in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-
Karabakh. In fact, Moscow has decided to withdraw from a CIS treaty imposing sanctions against Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia. It is not hard to imagine
what happens if Russia decides to use the Kosovo approach to resolving conflicts in its own backyard. Even supposing Russian troops are sent to Serb-dominated
northern Kosovo, it could create a flashpoint of conflict.
Is the US trying to appease the Muslim world by its support for Kosovo and thus seeking to make up for the folly of the Iraq war? It is possible that some Muslim
regimes may see the American gameplan in that light. But what kind of message is Washington conveying to the Iraqi Kurds? The US says it is backing a federal Iraq
where Arabs, Kurds, Turkomans, Assyrians as also Shias and Sunnis could live together. Can Iraqis be blamed for thinking that the federal formula is a cover to
break the country?
The West's stance is inconsistent and self-contradictory. If it supports Kosovo's independence, why does it oppose the independence of Flanders in Belgium? Few
believe Kosovo will actually be free; it will become a protectorate of the EU. What is worse, Kosovo is likely to see the Serb-dominated parts walking away. In
pursuing their geo-strategic interests, the US and Germany may end up reviving old chauvinist passions and creating a monster that may turn their dream into a
nightmare. It is too dangerous to fiddle with the Balkans' fault lines. The US smiles at Kosovo only to frown at Russia. Come on America! Your bare teeth are
showing.
The author is the Associate Director, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi.

Bush urging Nato expansion east
US President George W Bush has repeated his call for Nato to expand eastwards.
Speaking in Romania ahead of Nato's summit in Bucharest, he said the former Soviet states of Ukraine and Georgia should be offered paths to membership.
"We must make clear that Nato welcomes the aspirations of Georgia and Ukraine for membership in Nato," said Mr Bush.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said his country would not sulk over the expansion plans - but stressed that they would not "go unanswered".
"This will not be left without an answer, I can assure you," Mr Lavrov told parliament in Moscow.
"But we will respond pragmatically, not like small boys in school who sulk at those who bully them, run out of the room, slam the door and start crying in the corner.
"We must concentrate on increasing our economic power and taking our defence capabilities to a higher technologic level."
More time
Mr Bush said Georgia and Ukraine should be offered "a clear path" towards the goal of Nato membership.
"Nato membership must remain open to all of Europe's democracies that seek it, and are ready to share in the responsibilities of Nato," he went on.
The prospect of more ex-Soviet states joining Nato is opposed by Russia, while Nato members France and Germany have warned that it will worsen relations with
Moscow.
The Cold War is over and Russia is not our enemy George W Bush
German defence minister Franz Josef Jung said on Wednesday that Berlin did not oppose Nato membership for Ukraine and Georgia, but added: "It will still take
some more time to create the exact conditions for Georgia and Ukraine to be able to contribute to guaranteeing security."
French prime minister Francois Fillon said on Tuesday of Ukrainian and Georgian membership: "We think that it is not the correct response to the balance of power in
Europe."
Mr Bush spoke at the Black Sea resort of Neptun on Wednesday, where he met Romania's President Traian Basescu.
In a joint press conference, Mr Bush said he "strongly believed" Croatia, Albania and Macedonia should be able to join Nato as full members.
He added that Membership Action Plans should be extended to Ukraine and Georgia, and strongly supported calls by Montenegro and Bosnia-Hercegovina for
"intensified dialogue" on membership. "We ought to open the door to closer cooperation with Serbia," he also said.
He also urged Nato allies to send more troops to Afghanistan.
Open door
Earlier, Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told the BBC he supported membership for the former Soviet states.
"There's no way that the door will be locked for Ukraine and Georgia," he said.
"The Nato Treaty very clearly states that European democracies fulfilling their criteria for Nato membership are welcome."
Mr de Hoop Scheffer said he understood Russian concerns but added that the "final decision will be taken by the allies and not by anybody else".
The three-day summit of leaders from the 26-nation alliance is due to start in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, later.
It is being billed as the most important in the alliance's 59-year history.
Nato enlargement and efforts to rally support for the Nato-led force in Afghanistan are the topics expected to dominate the agenda.
Mr Bush also spoke of his forthcoming talks with outgoing Russian president Vladimir Putin - whom he will meet at the summit, and again at private talks in the
Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi at the weekend.
The US leader said he would make clear to Mr Putin that "the Cold War is over and Russia is not our enemy".
"This is a good chance for me to sit down and have yet another heart-to-heart with him," he said.
"I call it an opportunity to sit down and have a good frank discussion again."

The concept of Tamil “Eelam” is very different from the concept of an independent Kosovo-RAW

2008-03-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

Paper No 2636 21-March-2008
THE KOSOVO EFFECT:
By R.Swaminathan
The recent Declaration of Independence by the legislature of Kosovo and the prompt “recognition” of the new State by USA and many EU governments have the
potential for far-reaching and not-too-desirable effects on many other similar situations and “separatist” movements around the world. Of immediate international
consequence would be the effect on Taiwan (which is holding its referendum on 22 March 2008). The effect on LTTE in Sri Lanka would be of great significance to
India. This paper will consider only these two issues and not the entire scene that would include the effects on other “separatist” movements.
Kosovo and Taiwan
Historical
2. (a) Kosovo had been the battleground where contesting entities had been fighting (for centuries) for sovereignty over the territory. The fight was between the
Turkish Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire at one time, then between the Turks and the Serbs and later between the Albanians and the Serbs. When
the victor-imposed Treaty of Versailles (28 June 1919) created the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Kosovo was made a part of Serbia. The Kingdom was
renamed in 1929 as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During World War II, Kosovo was a strong base for Tito-led AVNO (Anti-Fascism Council of National Liberation
of Yugoslavia). After the war, when the new state of SFRJ (Socialist Federated Republics of Jugoslavia) was proclaimed, Kosovo (along with Vojvodina) became
one of two “autonomous” provinces of the Republic of Serbia. Many places in Kosovo are of religious and cultural significance to the Serbs; and Kosovo has many
important landmarks (like Jajce) of the Partisan struggle during World War II.
(b) The first “foreign” or “outside” presence in Taiwan (also known as Formosa, or beautiful island) could be traced to the establishment of a commercial base on the
island by the Dutch, in 1624. Troops from southern Fujian defeated the Dutch in 1662 and the Qing dynasty formally annexed the island to the Fujian Province of
China, in 1683. In 1887, Taiwan was upgraded into a regular province of China. Imperial Japan, which had been trying to since 1592 to control Taiwan, defeated
China in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894-95; and Taiwan was ceded to Japan “in perpetuity” by the Treaty of Shinonoseki. Around 1935, Japan started the
process of assimilation and appointed tens of thousands of Taiwanese in the Japanese Army. During 1942-45, Japan based a massive camp for Allied Prisoners of
War in Taiwan; and the Japanese Navy used it as an operational base. The signing of the (victor-imposed) Instrument of Surrender on 15 August 1945 signalled the
end of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. The KMT-ruled Republic of China accepted the surrender of Japanese forces in Taihoku on 25 October 1945. Since that
date till now, Taiwan has been in the possession of the “Republic of China”. By the time the Civil War (Maoist Revolution) ended with the proclamation of the
People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949, the KMT had moved the seat of government of the “Republic of China” from Nanjing to Taipei; and about 1.3
million refugees had moved from the mainland to Taiwan.
Changing Status
3. (a) The resentment of the Albanian majority in Kosovo against discrimination caused by Serbian nationalism and chauvinism was held in check during the Tito (who
hailed from Croatia) era, mainly because of his iconic status. However, when SFRJ ultimately broke up into its component units, the demand and justification for an
independent Kosovo became stronger. The Declaration of Independence by Kosovo could, in effect, be termed as a reversal of the earlier non-consensual and
externally-imposed inclusion in Serbia. An independent status for Kosovo had been recommended in 1997 by the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General, but
was not accepted by Security Council. The status of Kosovo since 1999 has been of a territory under UN administration and NATO (read EU in recent years)
protection. Even now, Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence may not get the approval of UNSC, because of possible veto by Russia and China. The new state,
however, has received and would receive recognition from many powerful states. Kosovo is a new addition to the list of religion (Islam) based states; and is the first
such one in Europe. It is likely to remain non-viable (politically, economically and militarily) for a long time. A realistic assessment would be that it would effectively be
an EU protectorate for the foreseeable future.
(b). Since the establishment of the PRC in 1949, Taiwan has been the only remnant of the erstwhile Republic of China. USA continued to have diplomatic,
commercial and military relations with Taiwan for more than two decades – considering it to be the legitimate government of China. Even now, some governments
continue with that policy; and many countries have commercial relations with Taiwan, without having diplomatic relations. In effect, the present effort at asserting an
identity separate from China (based on a resolution passed by the Democratic Progressive Party on 30 September 2007) is aimed at accepting the reality of the past
six decades. The referendum on 22 March 2008 is about seeking admission to the UN as “Taiwan” instead of as “China”. It is about giving up the fantasy of being
the “sole” government of China and living with the reality of being a small remnant of old China; and changing the name of the country from “Republic of China” to
“Taiwan”.
“Recognition”
4. (a). In a different era, diplomatic recognition of a State was normally based on whether or not that entity had the attributes of a nation-state. However, recognition
has increasingly become a political act rather than a legal determination. Governments decide on the recognition of a new state (or of a state which has undergone a
systemic change) on the basis of self-interest and not of any prescribed values. This self-interest is considered from two angles, i.e. whether according recognition
would further one’s interests with the new entity and whether such act would adversely affect one’s relations with other countries; and a balance is struck between the
two considerations. To expect value-based decisions on “recognition” is to ask for a utopian international order.
(b). In the case of Kosovo, USA and some major EU countries seem to have determined that the recognition of Kosovo as an independent (Islamic) state would
further their overall interests. The anger aroused in Serbia may be considered inconsequential and the opposition of Russia (and China, because of implications to the
Taiwan situation) would not, in their determination, detract from the advantages. That Russia would feel marginalized and that China may feel offended may be
considered to be additional bonus. However, in the case of Taiwan, though it would more be a case of the change of name (in accordance with reality) of an
independent country than of a declaration of independence, recognition of the changed entity may be more difficult to come by. Recognition of Taiwan would offer
very little extra commercial benefits and would lead to direct confrontation with PRC. Very few major countries may want to take that risk. I doubt if the people of
Taiwan want this and if the referendum would give a clear mandate in favour of the change in name and status of their country. They may find it difficult to live with
being spurned even after such a change.
L T T E
5. The historical facts relating to the claims of Kosovo and Taiwan to be independent states would not apply to many guerrilla movements, including LTTE. It would
therefore not be easy for these to become valid precedents for them to follow. The Declaration of Independence by Kosovo and the change of name by Taiwan are
very different from the LTTE’s demand for a separate Tamil State.
6. The sovereignty over Tamil majority areas in Sri Lanka has never been contested in history. Tamil and Sinhala peoples had been living in reasonable harmony for
centuries, till the post-independence phenomenon of aggressive Sinhala nationalism and chauvinism imposed severe discrimination against the Tamils. Essentially, this
may be the only common feature between Kosovo and the Tamils in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The concept of Tamil “Eelam” is very different from the concept
of an independent Kosovo. A Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Pirabhakaran is very unlikely to find any supporters in the international community, as
recognition of an independent Tamil Eelam may not pass the dual tests of self-interest. If one looks at the analogies of Kosovo and Taiwan, I doubt if the Tamils in Sri
Lanka would appreciate the idea of their homeland becoming a “vassal” or “client” of any external state or group of states.
[This paper was prepared on 20 March 2008 by R. Swaminathan, Vice President of the Chennai Centre for China Studies.]

Breakaway regions’ independence dream a step closer?

2008-03-14T20:07:00.000-07:00

March 13, 2008, 23:27
Breakaway regions’ independence dream a step closer?
Russia's lower house of the parliament has discussed the possibility of opening diplomatic missions in three breakaway republics. Thursday’s State Duma hearings considered statehood appeals from Georgia's regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Moldova's Transdniester. The delegations from the three regions, encouraged by Kosovo's independence, came to Moscow for support.
“Russia didn’t have enough courage or boldness, like the U.S. had with Kosovo, to go ahead to go ahead and recognize the three republics. But the fact remains the breakdown of the Soviet Union has to be concluded. Russia has to take care of its citizens in these states and recognize their independence,” said Igor Smirnov, the President of Transdniester.
The speaker of the Abkhazian parliament, Nugzar Ashuba has called on Russia to take the lead in recognising Abkhazia’s independence.
Evgeny Shevchuk, the speaker of Transdniester parliament, said they want to “draw attention to arguments we have both historically and judicially”.
“I think taking account of the changes in the world resulting from the Kosovo precedent, it is necessary to review Russia's stance towards Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdniester,” he said.
The representative of South Ossetia, the vice-speaker of the parliament, Yury Dzitsoiti, said “Kosovo was artificially cut off from Serbia”.
”Kosovo had no right to independence. This is a violation of international law. We have never violated Georgia's territorial integrity. We formed our independence earlier than Georgia had become a member of the international community at the United Nations,” he said.
The Russian deputies, for their part, have suggested Russia should open its missions in the three breakaway regions.
In addition, they propose that the country’s government should consider allowing joint ventures with Russia, which are operating in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transdniester, to sell their goods to the country free of any duties.
It all started in the early 1990s with ethnic tensions that were partly connected to political causes. In Abkhazia the ethnic population was strongly against breaking away from the Soviet Union while native Georgians supported independence.
The breakaway republics proclaimed independence but to date haven't been recognised internationally.
They issued an appeal to Russia and the international community to recognise them as sovereign states.
Moscow has called Kosovo a dangerous precedent and warned it could unleash a chain reaction in other regions of the world.
Russia has repeatedly said that fundamental principles of international law - sovereignty and territorial integrity of states - should be respected.
At Thursday’s session the State Duma was expected to issue draft recommendations concerning measures to deal with the three republics. It was not a formal session and any resolution won’t be an official position of the Russian parliament.
Russia has its interests in these breakaway regions. For instance, Abkhazia is using the Russian rouble as its currency and it is also a popular destination for tourists. It’s located very close to Sochi, the Russian resort on the Black Sea that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics. Officials of both Russia and Abkhazia have suggested that Russia may use some Abkhazian facilities and resources for the Olympic construction projects.
Moscow has already reconsidered its ties with Abkhazia, and lifted economic sanctions, urging other CIS countries to follow its lead. Other break-away regions expect to get the same.
Russia wants to develop relations with the three regions and the he issue will be discussed at a special session of the State Duma.
Georgia doesn’t need Abkhazian nation, it needs its territory: Abkhazian president
In his interview to RT, Sergey Bagapsh, the President of the de-facto independent Republic of Abkhazia explained why the region is trying to develop friendly relations with Russia and not Georgia.
“Abkhazia has always had its statehood. It was also part of the Russian Empire. Abkhazia was part of the USSR – just like any other republic. Unfortunately, it was incorporated into Georgia by Stalin during the 1920s. So if the international community believes Stalin’s actions were right, I can only welcome such international law,” he said.
Abkhazia, Bagapsh says, is a sustainable nation.
“If you look at the world, bigger nations are also joining the unions. Abkhazia is no exception. It may join into a union of states, for example Russia, because the Abkhazian nation has always pinned its hopes on Russia,” the president said.
He said Georgia has had numerous wars against Abkhazia, which were ‘the genocide against the Abkhazian nation’.
“During the war of 1992-93 they destroyed our monument, archives – our legacy. They wanted to destroy the Abkhazian ethnicity because of a minority of Georgians. Georgia does not need the Abkhazian nation, it needs the Abkhazian territory,” he noted.
Russia, Bagapsh says, was the only country that intervened during the hard war years, acted as a mediator after the war, and still keeps the territory peaceful.
Protests in Georgia
Georgian politicians are also watching the parliamentary hearings in Moscow very closely and they have heavily criticised Russia’s move last week to lift economic sanctions on Abkhazia.
They have also said that if Russia makes some real steps towards recognising Abkhazia or South Ossetia, that would have a direct impact on Russia’s negotiations with Georgia about WTO membership.
Some Georgian officials say this public hearing in Moscow is yet another attempt of Russia to derail Georgia’s bid to join NATO and Russia is trying to set the stage for the upcoming NATO summit in Romania next month. It is expected at this summit the issue of Georgian membership will be discussed.
Protests have taken place in the Georgian capital against the Russian parliament's discussion of the issue. Several dozen people have picketed the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi.
They've been calling the parliament's discussion a provocation saying Moscow is giving false hope to Georgia's breakaway regions, because it will not recognise the states.

Camp Bondsteel Pictures

2008-03-14T19:19:00.001-07:00

Camp Bondsteel [CBS] is quite large: 955 acres or 360,000 square meters. If you were to run the outer perimeter, it is about 7 miles. Bondsteel is located on rollinghills and farmland near the city of Ferizaj/Urosevac

It's not just a camp.

Camp Bondsteel Pictures:

Camp Bondsteel and America’s plans to control Caspian oil

2008-03-14T19:09:00.000-07:00

Camp Bondsteel and America’s plans to control Caspian oil
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Camp Bondsteel
The United States agreed to provide a force of approximately 7,000 US personnel as part of the NATO KFOR to help maintain a capable military force in Kosovo
and to ensure the safe return of Kosovar refugees. The US supports KFOR by providing the headquarters and troops for one of the four NATO sectors. The US
also provides personnel, units and equipment to other components of the KFOR organization.
Camp Bondsteel [CBS] is quite large: 955 acres or 360,000 square meters. If you were to run the outer perimeter, it is about 7 miles. Bondsteel is located on rolling
hills and farmland near the city of Ferizaj/Urosevac. There are two dining facilities at Camp Bondsteel: one in North town and one in South town. The food is very
well prepared and there are always a variety of main and side dishes to choose from. There are also salad bars, potato bars and multiple dessert offerings. Due to
General Order #1, only alcohol-free beer is served, but it is better than nothing! There are set hours for meals, but each dining facility also has a 24-hour section for
sandwiches, coffee, fruit, and continental breakfast items.
Soldiers live in SEA (Southeast Asia) Huts. There are about 250 SEA Huts for living quarters and offices. The buildings have five living areas that house up to six
soldiers each. Each building has one large bathroom with multiple shower and bathroom stalls. A few buildings have smaller bathroom facilities as well. Female and
male sea huts are separate. The beds are comfortable and each room has its own heating/air conditioning unit. Soldiers get their own wall-locker for personal storage,
and most opt to purchase a small set of plastic bins for additional storage. You can buy almost anything from the PX to make your living space more comfortable,
such as TVs, DVD players, coffee makers and sound systems. Rooms are routinely inspected to make sure they adhere to fire and safety codes. The best way to
improve the safety of your room is to purchase an approved surge protector for European voltage, and plug all of your lights and equipment into that. Adaptors are
also available so you can plug your 220-compatible devices, like laptops, into the European outlets.
The Bondsteel PX offers soldiers the latest CDs, DVDs, electronics, souvenirs, clothing, uniforms and everything to make your stay in Kosovo comfortable. With
two stories of merchandise, the PX draws lots of multinational soldiers from throughout Kosovo. Also located at CBS are Burger King, Anthony’s Pizza and a
Cappuccino bar.
There are Morale Welfare and Recreation (MWR) buildings in North town and South town. The facilities offer billiards, ping-pong, video games, interenet access
and a video teleconference room. They also offer movies to check out and watch on several TVs in the MWR facilities. There are a total of three gyms at CBS. Two
gyms (north and south) have basketball/volleyball courts, exercise equipment, weight machines and free weights. The third gym is strictly a weight room.
There are two chapels on Bondsteel, North and South, and one on Camp Monteith. All Chapels offer services in several denominations. The Laura Bush education
center offers a variety of college courses to suit your needs. Want to learn Albanian, Serbian, or German? Improve your computer skills? The variety of college credit
and certificate courses is staggering. There are two colleges represented at US base camps: the University of Maryland and Chicago University. For those with easy
access to the Internet, online courses are offered too.
The US sector is in southeast Kosovo. Headquarters for US forces is located at Camp Bondsteel, built on 750 acres of former farmland near Urosevic. Bondsteel
has about a 6-mile perimeter. The 1,000-acre camp was built from the ground up on a former field. Basecamps Bondsteel and Monteith were established in June
1999 in Kosovo to be used as staging points for the bulk of US forces stationed in the Multi National Brigade-East. About 4,000 US service members were
stationed at Camp Bondsteel in the farm fields near Urosevac, and another 2,000 were at Camp Montieth, near Gnjilane. Both camps are named after medal of
honor recipients, Army Staff Sgt. James L. Bondsteel, honored for heroism in Vietnam, and Army 1st Lt. Jimmie W. Montieth Jr, honored for heroism in France
during World War II. Camp Able Sentry, located near the Skopje Airport, Macedonia, serves as a point of entry for supplies and personnel into Kosovo. Another
500 Americans support the operation from Camp Able Sentry in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The US contingent is known as Task Force Falcon.
There are a number of locations within Kosovo, other than the base camps, at which US soldiers maintain a presence.
US forces entered Kosovo in June 1999 following NATO Operation Allied Force. Since then, military officials worked to rapidly improve service members' quality
of life. At the outset, planners wanted to use the lessons learned in Bosnia and convinced decision makers to reach base-camp “end state” as quickly as possible.
Because of uncertainty about the Bosnian mission’s duration, when the Army moved across the Sava River into Bosnia in 1995, soldiers were housed first in tents –
in the winter! Only years later were they moved to semipermanent Southeast Asia (SEA) huts (a theater-of-operations design that first made its debut in Vietnam) on
base camps. Engineer planners knew it was much more cost effective to forego this gradual approach in Kosovo in favor of building end-state SEA huts right away,
and operational commanders agreed with this approach.
In contrast to the Bosnia peacekeeping mission where troops lived in tents for many months before moving into hardened structures, DoD decided to erect the
SEAhuts from the start. The single-story SEAhut wooden structures were first used in Southeast Asia and then in Bosnia. The military redesigned the SEAhuts
specifically for Kosovo. Each wooden structure has a male and a female latrine and six rooms housing six service members each. The huts have heat, hot water, air
conditioning, plumbing, electricity and telephones.
Effective force protection is critical for Camp Bondsteel, which is situated on a series of rolling hills with nearby woods on several boundaries. After the 9th Engineer
Battalion (Mechanized) used its armored combat earthmovers to create a hasty perimeter, the 94th ECB(H) and Brown & Root Services Corporation jointly
completed a 2.5-meter-high earthen berm around the entire perimeter. They removed trees to allow sufficient fields of fire and built nine wooden guard towers around
the perimeter. Due to soil, pests, and line-of-sight requirements, the battalion modified the towers by placing each on a concrete pad and adding safer and more
accessible entrance ladders. Five of the nine towers were placed on two MILVANS welded together to allow greater visibility. The added elevation enables soldiers
to view the area from 18 feet aboveground rather than from the usual eight feet.
Because of the topography and population of the camp, it eventually had two independently serviced life-support areas, with semipermanent wooden buildings known
as Davidson-style Southeast Asian huts (SEA huts) (see article). The battalion also created SOCCE huts (modified for the Special Operations Command and
Control Element) and officer/senior noncommissioned officer SEA huts that have 10 rooms with separate latrine facilities for each pair of rooms.
The 94th ECB(H) created Camp Bondsteel's road system, which was critical to alleviate blinding dust storms and enable mobility when torrential rains made the clay
soil impassable. They built the hardstand for the camp's hospital, created the road to the military and civilian materials yard, and laid a double-base surface of bitumen
on the camp's eastern access road. The battalion upgraded the main briefing room and other areas throughout Task Force Falcon's command center. It also created a
storage system for confiscated weapons and built floors for 200 tents, so soldiers would be out of the mud while SEA huts were being constructed.
To create life-support areas, the 94th ECB(H) transformed the topography of Camp Bondsteel to maximize use of the ground. The primary earthmoving mission,
dubbed Operation Wolverine Mountain after the battalion's mascot, required that more than 150,000 cubic meters of earth be moved and redistributed. That is
equivalent to the area of one football field that is 100 feet deep. To save time, the battalion lowered the two major hills in Camp Bondsteel and simultaneously filled
the large ravine between them. Combining the efforts of all four organic companies, the battalion worked two shifts totaling 20 hours per day. At times twelve 621B
scrapers, eight D7G dozers, three 130G graders, and six vibratory and sheepsfoot compactors operated on the hills. In 30 days, the battalion widened the life-
support areas, created areas for the camp's wash rack and more than half of the camp's motor pools, and built a foundation for the northern access road.
Simultaneously, the battalion created the hardstand for the American logistical supply support activity. This 600- by 160-meter area, which required 70,000 cubic
meters of earthen cut-and-fill operations, will eventually include a chapel, a morale and welfare tent, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, and a barbershop.
Equipment and operators from nine Wolverine platoons worked around the clock to complete the project.
Shortly after site preparation began at Camp Bondsteel, a 36-inch natural-gas pipeline was discovered under the camp – right where we wanted to make a 3-foot
cut! It was easier to redesign the camp around the pipeline than dig it out, and that’s why today a “no-construction” strip of land runs northwest to southeast among
the SEA huts. The total absence of civilian sewage-treatment facilities in Kosovo forced early diversion of critical horizontal equipment to build sewage lagoons. This
project is environmentally critical since there were no sewage-treatment plants in Kosovo, and local people (including those serving military units) emptied raw
sewage into streams. The lagoon is a technically challenging mission that requires all four of the 200- by 300-meter areas to have depth deviations from final design
grade of no more than 3 inches. Led by the 535th and 568th Engineer Companies (CSE), the first area completed has a maximum deviation of only two inches across
its entire 60,000-square-meter area.
Camp Bondsteel has an improved detention facility, with a 250 by 350 foot temporary structure composed of tents with plywood sidewalls and floors, electricity,
heat, and lights. The project also includes a separate shower point and security measures - perimeter fencing, triple-standard concertina wire, locking gates, and an
upgraded guard tower. The facility replaced an interim holding cell at Bondsteel and provides space for persons detained in incidents throughout the US sector in
Kosovo.
In August 1999 the 9th Combat Engineer Battalion (Mechanized) at Camp Bondsteel altered the southwest perimeter at Camp Bondsteel to make room for the new
helicopter landing zone. Engineers reworked triple-standard concertina wire to pull it out farther from the area targeted for landings. To make this change to the
perimeter, engineers first had to cut down several trees both to make room and to afford proper line of sight from the guard tower. They worked with Civil Affairs to
coordinate the tree removal with local villagers whose property adjoins the area.
In August 1999 the helicopter landing area used since Camp Bondsteel opened moved from the command operations area to a site on the post's south perimeter.
Five new helipads made of AM2 aluminum matting handled helicopter landings for a few months until an expanded aviation area was completed with 52 helipads. The
94th Engineer Battalion also completed separate areas for landing sling loads and Chinooks (CH47s). The vacated landing site allowed engineers to expand the main
access road and prepare the ground for erecting four clamshells, which are temporary frame-and-fabric structures. The plan was to transition all aircraft from Camp
Able Sentry, Macedonia, to Camp Bondsteel as a home base.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/camp-bondsteel.htm
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Camp Bondsteel and America’s plans to control Caspian oil
By Paul Stuart29 April 2002
Camp Bondsteel, the biggest “from scratch” foreign US military base since the Vietnam War is near completion in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. It is located
close to vital oil pipelines and energy corridors presently under construction, such as the US sponsored Trans-Balkan oil pipeline. As a result defence contractors—in
particular Halliburton Oil subsidiary Brown & Root Services—are making a fortune.
In June 1999, in the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Yugoslavia, US forces seized 1,000 acres of farmland in southeast Kosovo at Uresevic, near the
Macedonian border, and began the construction of a camp.
Camp Bondsteel is known as the “grand dame” in a network of US bases running both sides of the border between Kosovo and Macedonia. In less than three years
it has been transformed from an encampment of tents to a self sufficient, high tech base-camp housing nearly 7,000 troops—three quarters of all the US troops
stationed in Kosovo.
There are 25 kilometres of roads and over 300 buildings at Camp Bondsteel, surrounded by 14 kilometres of earth and concrete barriers, 84 kilometres of
concertina wire and 11 watch towers. It is so big that it has downtown, midtown and uptown districts, retail outlets, 24-hour sports halls, a chapel, library and the
best-equipped hospital anywhere in Europe. At present there are 55 Black Hawk and Apache helicopters based at Bondsteel and although it has no aircraft landing
strip the location was chosen for its capacity to expand. There are suggestions that it could replace the US airforce base at Aviano in Italy.
According to Colonel Robert L. McClure, writing in the engineers professional Bulletin, “Engineer planning for operations in Kosovo began months before the first
bomb was dropped. At the outset, planners wanted to use the lessons learned in Bosnia and convinced decision makers to reach base-camp ‘end state’ as quickly as
possible.”
Initially US military engineers took control of 320 kilometres of roads and 75 bridges in the surrounding area for military use and laid out a base camp template
involving soldiers living quarters, helicopter flight paths, ammunition holding areas and so on.
McClure explains how the Engineer Brigade were instructed “to merge construction assets and integrate them with the contractor, Brown & Root Services
Corporation, to build not one but two base camps [the other is Camp Monteith] for a total of 7,000 troops.”
According to McClure, “At the height of the effort, about 1,000 former US military personnel, hired by Brown & Root, along with more than 7,000 Albanian local
nationals, joined the 1,700 military engineers. From early July and into October [1999], construction at both camps continued 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Brown & Root Services provides all the support services to Camp Bondsteel. This includes 600,000 gallons of water per-day, enough electricity to supply a city of
25,000 and a supply centre with 14,000 product lines. It washes 1,200 bags of laundry, supplies 18,000 meals per day and operates 95 percent of the rail and
airfield facilities. It also provides the camps firefighting service. Brown & Root are now the largest employers in Kosovo, with more than 5,000 local Kosovan
Albanians and another 15,000 on its books.
Staff at Camp Bondsteel rarely venture outside the compound and their activities are secretive. Whilst other KFOR patrols are small and mobile with soldiers wearing
soft caps and instructed to integrate with the local population, US military personnel leave Bondsteel in either helicopters or as part of infrequent but large heavily
armed convoys.
In unnamed interviews US troops complain that hostility to their presence is growing as local inhabitants compare the investment in Camp Bondsteel with the
continuing decline in their own living standards.
Those visiting Camp Bondsteel describe it as a journey through 100 years in time. The area surrounding the camp is extremely poor with an unemployment rate of 80
percent. Then Bondsteel appears on the horizon with its mass of communication satellites, antennae and menacing attack helicopters circling above. Brown & Root
pay Kosova workers between $1 and $3 per hour. The local manager said wages were so low because, “We can’t inflate the wages because we don’t want to over
inflate the local economy.”
The escalating US presence at Bondsteel was accompanied by increased activity by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Since its appearance most Serbs, Roma
and Albanians opposed to the KLA have been murdered or driven out. Those remaining dare not leave their houses to buy food at the local stores and the need for
military escorts stretch from children’s swimming pools to tractors taken away for repair. According to observers the KLA continue to act with virtual impunity in the
US sector despite the high tech military intelligence facilities at Bondsteel.
When US troops arrive at Camp Bondsteel, they are more likely to be met by a Brown & Root employee directing them to their accommodation and equipment
areas. According to G. Cahlink in Government Executive Magazine (February 2002), “Army peace keepers joke that they’re missing a patch on their camouflage
fatigues. ‘We need one that says Sponsored by Brown & Root,’ says a staff sergeant, who, like more than nearly 10,000 soldiers in the region, has come to rely on
Brown and Root Services, a Houston based contractor, for everything from breakfast to spare parts for armoured Humvees.”
The contract to service Camp Bondsteel is the latest in a string of military contracts awarded to Brown & Root Services. Its fortunes have grown as US militarism has
escalated. The company is part of the Halliburton Corporation, the largest supplier of products and services to the oil industry.
In 1992 Dick Cheney, as Secretary of Defence in the senior Bush administration, awarded the company a contract providing support for the US army’s global
operations. Cheney left politics and joined Halliburton as CEO between 1995 and 2000. He is now US vice president in the junior Bush administration. In 1992
Brown & Root built and maintained US army bases in Somalia earning $62 million. In 1994 Brown & Root built bases and support systems for 18,000 troops in
Haiti doubling its earnings to $133 million. The company received a five-year support contract in 1999 worth $180 million per-year to build military facilities in
Hungary, Croatia and Bosnia. It was Camp Bondsteel, however, that was dubbed “the mother of all contracts” by the Washington based Contract Services
Association of America. There, “We do everything that does not require us to carry a gun,” said Brown & Roots director David Capouya.
The aim of outsourcing military support and services to private contractors has been to free up more soldiers for combat duties. A US Department of Defence (DoD)
review in 2001 insisted that the use of contractors would escalate: “Only those functions that must be done at DoD should be kept at DoD.”
In sectors controlled by other Western powers, KFOR soldiers who are living in bombed out apartment blocks and old factories joke, “What are the two things that
can be seen from space? One is the Great Wall of China, the other is Camp Bondsteel.”
More seriously a senior British military officer told the Washington Post, “It is an obvious sign that the Americans are making a major commitment to the Balkan
region and plan to stay.” One analyst described the US as having taken advantage of favourable circumstances to create a base that would be large enough to
accommodate future military plans.
Camp Bondsteel has become a key venue for important policy speeches by leading officials of the Bush administration.
On June 5, 2001 US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld explained to troops at Camp Bondsteel what role they played in the new administration’s economic
strategy. He declared, “How much should we spend on the armed services? ...My view is we don’t spend on you, we invest in you. The men and women in the
armed services are not a drain on our economic strength. Indeed you safeguard it. You’re not a burden on our economy, you are the critical foundation for growth.”
One month later, President George W. Bush made his first trip abroad to see US troops at the camp. He traveled directly from the Rome G8 summit, where tensions
with European governments had come to the fore. In a speech described as a “retrenching” of the US in Europe, he insisted that US troops were in Kosovo to stay,
had gone in together and would “leave together”. In a break from normal procedure, in front of cheering troops, Bush signed into law a Congress-approved increase
in military spending of $1.9 billion.
Since then Camp Bondsteel has continued to grow, as it spearheads the first phase in a realignment of US military bases in Europe and eastward. The Bondsteel
template is now being applied in Afghanistan and the new bases in the former Soviet Republics.
According to leaked comments to the press, European politicians now believe that the US used the bombing of Yugoslavia specifically in order to establish Camp
Bondsteel. Before the start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the Washington Post insisted, “With the Middle-East increasingly fragile, we will need
bases and fly over rights in the Balkans to protect Caspian Sea oil.”
The scale of US oil corporations investment in the exploitation of Caspian oil fields and the US government demand for the economy to be less dependent on
imported oil, particularly from the Middle-East, demands a long term solution to the transportation of oil to European and US markets. The US Trade &
Development Agency (TDA) has financed initial feasibility studies, with large grants, and more recently advanced technical studies for the New York based AMBO
(Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria Oil) Trans-Balkan pipeline.
Announcing a grant for an advanced technical study in 1999 for the AMBO oil pipeline through Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania, TDA director J. Joseph
Grandmaison declared, “The competition is fierce to tap energy resources in the Caspian region....Over the last year [1999], TDA has been actively promoting the
development of multiple pipelines to connect these vast resources with Western markets. This grant represents a significant step forward for this policy and for US
business interests in the Caspian region.”
The $1.3 billion trans-Balkan AMBO pipeline is one of the most important of these multiple pipelines. It will pump oil from the tankers that bring it across the Black
Sea to the Bulgarian oil terminus at Burgas, through Macedonia to the Albanian Adriatic port of Vlore. From there it will be pumped on to huge 300,000 ton tankers
and sent on to Europe and the US, bypassing the Bosphorus Straits—the congested and only route out of the Black Sea where tankers are restricted to 150,000
tons.
The initial feasibility study for AMBO was conducted in 1995 by none other than Brown & Root, as was an updated feasibility study in 1999. In another twist, the
former director of Oil & Gas Development for Europe and Africa for Brown & Root Energy Services, Ted Ferguson, was appointed as the new president of AMBO
[1997] after the death of former president and founder of AMBO, Macedonian born Mr Vuko Tashkovikj.
According to a recent Reuters article, Ferguson declared that Exxon-Mobil and Chevron, two of the worlds largest oil corporations, are preparing to finance the
AMBO project.
The building of AMBO risks antagonising Turkey, the US’s main ally in the region. According to the Reagan Information Interchange, “While the United States is
making an advantageous economic decision, it is overlooking its crucial strategic relationship with Turkey.”
The US is also antagonising its European allies and Russia with Camp Bondsteel and other smaller military bases run alongside the proposed AMBO pipeline route. It
has been built near the mouth of the Presevo valley and energy Corridor 8, which the European Union has sponsored since 1994 and regards as a strategic route
east-west for global trade.
In April 1999, British General Michael Jackson, the commander in Macedonia during the NATO bombing of Serbia, explained to the Italian paper Sole 24 Ore
“Today, the circumstances which we have created here have changed. Today, it is absolutely necessary to guarantee the stability of Macedonia and its entry into
NATO. But we will certainly remain here a long time so that we can also guarantee the security of the energy corridors which traverse this country.”
The newspaper added, “It is clear that Jackson is referring to the 8th corridor, the East-West axis which ought to be combined to the pipeline bringing energy
resources from Central Asia to terminals in the Black Sea and in the Adriatic, connecting Europe with Central Asia. That explains why the great and medium sized
powers, and first of all Russia, don’t want to be excluded from the settling of scores that will take place over the next few months in the Balkans.”
source: wsws

Abkhazia does not need to use Kosovo as a precedent for its own claim for independence

2008-03-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

March 13, 2008, 20:39
Abkhazia does not need to use Kosovo as a precedent for its own claim for independence,
the Abkhazian president Sergey Bagapsh has said. "This was because the
unrecognised republic has always had its own statehood both within the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union".
He added his people have historically relied on and are committed to Russia.
“We are a small but self-sufficient country today. Big countries merge into unions and alliances. Abkhazia is no exception here, it might join in union with Russia. Our
hopes are on Russia, and it’s not only the position of the leadership but of the people,” he said.

U.N. tells Serbia to quit interfering in Kosovo
By Matt RobinsonWed Mar 12, 8:53 AM ET
U.N. authorities in Kosovo told Serbia on Wednesday to stop interfering in Serb areas of the new state, where a Serb boycott has fuelled speculation Belgrade is
trying to partition the territory.
The U.N. mission called on Serbia to respect its mandate in the former Serbian province, where the 90-percent Albanian majority declared independence with
Western-backing last month.
It said Serbia should cooperate in re-establishing customs points on Kosovo's northern border, which were burned down by Serb mobs, allow Serb police officers to
return to work and stop strengthening Belgrade-financed "parallel structures" in health, education, courts and administration.
"If Belgrade says publicly that (U.N. Security Council Resolution) 1244 should be respected, we expect them to put their money where their mouth is," U.N. mission
spokesman Alexander Ivanko told a news conference.
"We are trying to re-establish the courts, we are trying to re-establish the customs," he said. "This will take time, it will not happen tomorrow."
Kosovo declared independence on Feb 17, nine years after NATO bombed to drive out Serbian forces and halt the killing and ethnic cleansing of Albanians in a
two-year Serbian counter-insurgency war.
Backed by big-power ally Russia, Serbia has rejected the secession and is instructing the 120,000 remaining Serbs to do the same, deepening an ethnic divide that
almost nine years of international administration since the war has failed to tackle.
NO FORCE
Hundreds of Serb officers in the Kosovo police have been suspended after refusing to take orders from the Albanian-dominated command.
The Serb stronghold of north Kosovo is bidding to take control of the main U.N. court in the area, blocking its Albanian staff from traveling to work, and has also
claimed control over the railway line running up to Serbia.
NATO troops now secure the two main border points in the north after they were torched by Serbs followed Kosovo's declaration and U.N. and Kosovo police
pulled out. The U.N. has yet to re-establish customs points.
A 2,000-strong European Union law and order mission is taking over much of the role of the U.N. mission, under the authority of International Civilian Representative
Pieter Feith.
The Dutch diplomat has accused Serbia of trying to sever ties between Kosovo's Albanian majority and minority Serbs, in a strategy he said bordered on partition.
In a newspaper interview on Wednesday, Feith said it could take years for the mission's presence to be fully accepted in the north, where an advance EU staff has
already pulled out over security fears.
"There are two things we certainly won't do," he told the Belgrade daily Vecernje Novosti. "We won't use force or start World War Three in order to deploy our
mission."
(Additional reporting by Ellie Tzortzi; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Moscow Warns NATO on Georgia

2008-03-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

Moscow warns Nato on Georgia
Rogozin said beginning Georgia's accession to Nato would be a 'very dangerous process' [EPA]
Georgia's separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are likely to break away if Nato seeks closer ties with Tbilisi, Russia's ambassador to the military alliance
has warned. Dmitry Rogozin said: "In the case of any invitation to Georgia on the part of Nato, driven by the US, we can expect the separation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia."
Abkhazia and South Ossetia split from Georgia in conflicts in the early 1990s in which thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands of ethnic-
Georgians were forced to leave their homes. Most of their population hold Russian passports and both territories are funded by Moscow. 'Dangerous process' The regions have called for international recognition of their self-declared independence, citing Kosovo's decision last month to break away from Serbia as a
precedent.Rogozin underlined that a national referendum on whether to join Nato organised in December by Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's president, was not held in its two
breakaway republics.
The ambassador said on Tuesday: "This is why I think that if Nato accepts that Georgia takes part in the Membership Action Plan (Map), that this could provoke the
secession of the two territories.
"This would be enough for the separatists to go through with secession."
The Map programme, seen as a preliminary to Nato membership, helps aspiring countries meet alliance standards and prepares them to join.
Rogozin said: "It is a very dangerous process because it could reheat the conflict. All this is of concern to us, because it's happening near our borders.
"Many citizens of the northern Caucasus have links with South Ossetia and Abkhazia."
'Blackmail'
Elene Khoshtaria, Georgia's deputy minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, said that Russia was trying to blackmail Georgia into not joining Nato.
She said: "The statement... is nothing but an attempt to blackmail allied nations and Georgia. Georgia's Nato membership bid is not against Russia, it's about our
dedication to the common values of democratic nations.
"I am confident that Nato member states will make a decision on Georgia's membership independently and that third-party blackmail cannot hamper this process."
Meanwhile, the United States said on Tuesday that it regretted Russia's decision last week to lift trade sanctions imposed on Abkhazia and reaffirmed its support for
Georgia's territorial integrity.
The Russian sanctions were imposed in 1996 as part of efforts to limit the separatist aspirations of Abkhazia.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said: "The United States regrets Russia's decision to withdraw unilaterally from the CIS
(Commonwealth of Independent States) sanctions on Abkhazia.
"We do not see how it contributes to stability in the South Caucasus, resolution of the Abkhazian conflict or improvement of Russian-Georgian relations.
Moscow said it was lifting the trade restrictions but denied it had been influenced by Western support for Kosovo's independence.
The Russian foreign ministry said that Moscow "no longer considers itself bound by the terms" of a sanctions accord approved by the ex-Soviet CIS in 1996.
Vladimir Putin, Russia's outgoing president, has accepted an invitation to a Nato summit in Bucharest, the Romanian capital, in April.
Source: Agencies

South Ossetia:Russian, Georgian...independent?

2008-03-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

South Ossetia: Russian, Georgian...independent?
Shaun Walker
A decisive referendum result has done nothing to resolve the small Caucasian statelet's future, reports Shaun Walker.15 - 11 - 2006
On Sunday 12 November 2006, South Ossetians went to the polls to vote in a referendum confirming the region's independence from Georgia. The result was an
overwhelming "yes" to independence, with a turnout above 95% from those among the territory's 70,000 people who were eligible to vote. There was a similar vote
in favour of a new term for South Ossetia's president, Eduard Kokoity. Neither outcome came as a surprise, but the chances are that nobody in the international
community will take the slightest bit of notice of the results.
South Ossetia is a bite-sized chunk of land on the southern slopes of the Caucasus mountains, one of four "breakaway states" that - along with fifteen recognised
nation-states - emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union (the other three are Abkhazia, Transdniestria, and Nagorno-Karabakh). The Ossetians are a largely
Christian people, whose language is related to Farsi, and the majority of whom live on the northern side of the Caucasus in North Ossetia, which is part of Russia.
South Ossetia was part of the Georgian republic within the Soviet Union, but in the early 1990s tried to gain autonomy from Tbilisi, which led to violent clashes in
which many died and thousands were made refugees, both Georgian and Ossetian.
Since then, South Ossetia, with the exception of a few villages controlled by the Georgian government in Tbilisi, has been run as a de facto independent state,
although its proclamations of independence have been ignored by the international community. The territory is heavily reliant on Russian support. As in Abkhazia,
Moscow has infuriated the Georgians by granting passports to the majority of the South Ossetian population, and providing significant economic backing. Shaun
Walker is a journalist based in Moscow, where he writes for RussiaProfile.org
Also by Shaun Walker in openDemocracy:
"Anna Politkovskaya: death of a professional" (9 October 2006) A state of limbo
The United States, the European Union, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Nato all issued statements before the 12 November
vote that branded the referendum meaningless and unhelpful. Georgia repeatedly derided it as illegitimate, though it had no problems with backing an "alternative"
election and referendum that took place in the villages that Tbilisi controls. Even Russia's quiet endorsement of the result has stopped short of official recognition.
The authorities in South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali, managed to gather some "international monitors" to oversee the voting, largely from members of other
breakaway states but including Russians, Venezuelans, and a few renegade European communists. Few foreign correspondents turned up to cover the events, and the
chances are that the results will be forgotten as quickly as those of the referendum held in Transdniestria, Moldova's breakaway statelet, on 17 September.
When the dust has settled on the ballot-boxes, everyone will be back to square one. Russia is highly unlikely to recognise South Ossetian independence or initiate
procedures to facilitate the accession of the region to the Russian Federation. But equally, it is likely to continue antagonising Georgia through informal support for
South Ossetia. The lastest example of this came days before the referendum when Moscow followed its announcement of sharp increases in gas prices for Georgia
proper by declaring that a gas pipeline would be built directly across the Caucasus mountains to South Ossetia. President Putin has hinted that he sees no reason why
South Ossetians and Abkhaz shouldn't be granted independence if Kosovo and Montenegro can be.
There is certainly an element of cynical politicking behind Russia's South Ossetia policy. Georgia is public-enemy-number-one in Moscow right now, and meddling in
the breakaway zones is a sure-fire way to annoy Tbilisi. But aside from the Russians installed into high positions in the South Ossetian leadership, and the giant "our
president" posters featuring a grinning Putin dotted around Tskhinvali, any visitor to South Ossetia will notice significant ground-level pro-Russian sentiment, or at least
an appreciation of the possibilities that being close to Russia offers them.
A Russian passport is akin to a lifeline for South Ossetians - a way to get an education or a job in North Ossetia or Moscow. There are very few jobs in the region,
so most families have at least one person working in Russia and sending money home. It becomes obvious when talking to people that reintegration into the Georgian
state will not be an easy process - to start with, only the eldest generation even speaks the language. People would not be able to get jobs or study in Tbilisi - Russia
provides them with their only chance to make something of their lives.
Moreover, aggressive statements from Tbilisi setting deadlines for the recovery of the territory, and military construction of a base in Gori (just twenty-five kilometres
from the South Ossetian capital), do nothing to reassure the South Ossetians. With a highly militarised population, and a lack of crisis-management mechanisms, there
is always the chance that localised incidents or skirmishes could escalate into something that quickly gets out of control. Also in openDemocracy on Caucasian
fractures :
Alexander Rondeli, "Georgia: a rough road from the rose revolution" (4 December 2003 )
Neal Ascherson, "Tbilisi, Georgia: the rose revolution’s rocky road" (15 July 2005)
Thomas de Waal & Zeyno Baran, "Abkhazia-Georgia, Kosovo-Serbia: parallel worlds?" (2 August 2006)
Donald Rayfield, "Georgia and Russia: with you, without you" (3 October 2006)
Robert Parsons, "Russia and Georgia: a lover's revenge"(6 October 2006)
George Hewitt, "Abkhazia: land in limbo" (10 October 2006)A landlocked predicament
There is some irony in the fact that the South Ossetian and Georgian outlooks share similarites. Both see a much larger and aggressive neighbour (Russia for Georgia,
Georgia for South Ossetia), and thus feel forced to seek comfort in third countries in ways that might not serve their interests best in the long run (the United States for
Georgia, Russia for South Ossetia). Just looking at the map makes it obvious that it would be in Georgia's best interests to find a way to coexist peacefully with
Russia, and in South Ossetia's to do the same with Georgia.
The South Ossetian leadership, despite having legitimate grievances against the Georgians, is mired in suspicion and introspection, making endless statements about
"provocations" and "conspiracies" from the Georgian side, but reluctant to let in people (such as foreign journalists, regional analysts and constitutional experts) to
whom they could put their side of the story.
The Georgians have their public relations a little better organised. When Mikheil Saakashvili's young, western-educated government came to power in Tbilisi in the
"rose revolution" of 2003-04, it quickly understood that the best way to get the west onside would be to speak to it in a language it understands; there followed
copious worthy pronouncements about freedom, human rights, and the path of the courageous Georgian people to be free from the jealous paws of the post-imperial
Russian bear. Amid the rhetoric, Tbilisi made it abundantly clear that one of the key markers of its success would be the restoration of Georgia's territorial integrity.
But "territorial integrity", when examined closely, is as nebulous a concept as "fighting terror": open to many convenient interpretations. The breakaway states
(including South Ossetia) are ready to cite Kosovo as a precedent if that territory is recognised as an independent state. This was not possible in the case of
Montenegro's independence from Serbia (sanctioned by the referendum on 21 May 2006, and agreed to by the Serbian government in Belgrade), but Kosovo's
claim to independence (which Serbia strenuously objects to, citing numerous legal objections) offers the opportunity for Tskhinvali to demand the same right.
At the same time, the arbitrary borderlines of some of the constituent republics within the Soviet Union (which its successor states inherited) often do not translate
easily into a basis for modern statehood. Indeed, in many cases the communist elite explicitly drew frontiers for "divide and rule" reasons. In sum, the contested and
imprecise idea of territorial integrity can still be used by the Georgians (with international support) in their efforts to recover South Ossetia, while the South Ossetians
can invoke the concept's flaws to argue that their right of self-determination should override it.
In the case of Abkhazia, many experts and even some western diplomats privately admit that it may never be part of Georgia again. But South Ossetia is a different
story. Abkhazia has a strategic coastline providing an outlet to the world beyond Russia and Georgia, as well as vast tourism potential. Even sliver-thin Transdniestria
has a Soviet-era industrial complex that provides jobs and revenues. South Ossetia has nothing. It combines a small population with no industrial infrastructure, no sea
access and only one road that leads anywhere except Georgia. It also has a number of ethnic Georgian villages scattered across its territory that are under the control
of the Georgian government in Tbilisi.
In short, South Ossetia is unviable as a fully independent state. This makes South Ossetia a zero-sum game between Georgia and Russia. in turn, it means that South
Ossetian separation from Georgia is a much more worrying prospect for western policymakers than Abkhazian.
Between north and south
The removal on 10 November of bellicose Georgian defence minister Irakli Okruashvili (who was born in South Ossetia and has frequently implied that South Ossetia
could be won back by force) may be a sign that Georgia intends to adopt a more tactful approach to the conflict. The timing is symbolic on more than one count;
perhaps the Georgians had one eye on Washington, where a far more powerful defence secretary had left office two days earlier.
The recent crisis between Georgia and Russia has proved what should have been obvious to them all along - that while Tbilisi can rely on kind words and lobbying
from the United States when it comes up against Russia, they can't rely on anything more. And with the US election on 7 November delivering a crushing blow to the
George W Bush administration, perhaps Saakashvili has also started to wonder if the next occupant of the White House will buy his freedom-and-democracy lines as
much as Bush has.
Indeed, this might signal the start of a more sensible South Ossetia policy from the Georgian side. It is clear that mutual suspicion runs high, and the reintegration into
Georgia of a people who have lost linguistic and cultural ties with that country will not be an easy process. Without war, wholesale destruction and ethnic cleansing,
Tbilisi won't win control of South Ossetia any time soon.
At present, no attempts are being made to engage the people of South Ossetia or suggest that Georgia has anything to offer. The Georgians should focus on
rebuilding Georgia proper and ensuring continued economic growth, and to reach past the obstructive South Ossetian leadership to prove to the Ossetian people that
a newly prosperous and tolerant Georgia is a better option than Russia's troubled north Caucasus. It won't happen quickly. But even though 99% of South Ossetians
have just voted for independence, a Tbilisi that plays down the aggressive precondition that South Ossetia must be part of Georgia might just - in a very Caucasian
paradox - become the catalyst for its eventual reintegration into that country.

US Chides Russia For Lifting Sanctions On Georgian Region

2008-03-14T18:01:00.000-07:00

US Chides Russia For Lifting Sanctions On Georgian Region
UNITED NATIONS (AFP)--The U.S. Tuesday chided Russia for its decision to lift trade sanctions imposed on the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia and
reaffirmed support for Georgia's territorial integrity.
"The United States regrets Russia's decision to withdraw unilaterally from the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) sanctions on Abkhazia," U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters.
"We do not see how it contributes to stability in the South Caucasus, resolution of the Abkhazian conflict or improvement of Russian-Georgian relations," he added.
Last week, Moscow said it was lifting the largely symbolic trade restrictions imposed on Abkhazia, but denied it had been influenced by Western support for
Kosovo's independence.
The Russian foreign ministry then said that Moscow "no longer considers itself bound by the terms" of a sanctions accord approved by the ex-Soviet CIS in 1996.
The sanctions were imposed as part of efforts to limit the separatist aspirations of Abkhazia, one of two such breakaway Georgian territories that lie on Russia's
southern border, the other being South Ossetia.
Georgia's U.N. envoy, Irakli Alasania, restated his country's view that Moscow's action could open the way for Moscow to sell arms to the region and to allow
Russian citizens to join separatist forces in Abkhazia.
He told a press conference that that lifting of the Russian sanctions, "under the pretext of promoting a resolution of the situation in Abkhazia, creates the conditions for
destabilization and undermines the legal framework underpinning the process of a return to peace initiated by the CIS."
"We support the territorial integrity of Georgia and the settlement of the territorial dispute within its internationally recognized borders," Khalilzad reaffirmed Tuesday.
"Most alarming is the prospect that Russia's withdrawal from sanctions could lead the way to arms transfers to the separatists," he added.
"This is a time when renewed dialogue between Georgia and Russia is most needed to address a number of bilateral issues. It is our hope that Russia would play a
constructive role in the region helping resolve the conflict through peaceful means and dialogue.
Khalilzad conceded that Russia has "legitimate interests in the region which we hope Russia would pursue in a way consistent with Georgia's territorial integrity."
Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, dismissed suggestions that Moscow's action on Abkhazia was linked to the West's support for Kosovo's declaration of
independence.
But he emphasized "the negative impact which the Kosovo example has been setting" while stating Moscow's call for "a negotiated outcome of complex situations."
Russia's ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Dmitry Rogozin, meanwhile, said Tuesday that "in the case of any invitation to Georgia on the part of
NATO, driven by the United States, we can expect the separation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia."
Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke away from Georgia in conflicts in the early 1990s in which thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands of ethnic
-Georgians were forced to leave their homes.
Both have called for international recognition of their self-declared independence, citing Kosovo's move to separate from Serbia as a precedent, a move recognized
by several European NATO nations and the U.S.

Kosovo Walks out

2008-03-14T17:51:00.000-07:00

Back
WORLD AFFAIRS
Kosovo walks out
JOHN CHERIAN
Albanian-dominated Kosovo declares independence from Serbia with the blessings of the West, especially the U.S.
DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP Kosovars wave an Albanian flag (left) and the flag of independent Kosovo after the declaration of independence from Serbia, on February 17 in Pristina.
THE unilateral declaration of independence by the Serbian province of Kosovo on February 17 has once again put the Balkan tinderbox in the international spotlight.
The Albanian-dominated enclave in Serbia with a population of less than two million is another mini-state that has emerged from the wreckage of the Yugoslav
Federation. Last year, it was the turn of Montenegro (with a population of 800,000) to break away from Serbia.
The backing of the West was crucial in both cases. In Kosovo, the wild celebrations that followed the declaration of independence lasted for days. The United
States’ Stars and Stripes in fact outnumbered the national flag of Kosovo in the jubilations on the streets of the capital Pristina. Kosovo Albanians acknowledge U.S.
President George W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton as their political godfathers.
The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was secretly armed and trained by the U.S. and Germany in the 1990s. This was despite Washington officially labelling the
KLA a “terrorist outfit” after it was accused of trafficking in drugs, arms and women. It was Clinton who unleashed the three-month-long North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (NATO)-led war in 1999 against Yugoslavia mainly on the pretext of human rights violations in Kosovo by the Yugoslav state. The assault wrought
great havoc on Yugoslavia’s infrastructure. Bridges, passenger trains and television stations were among the targets hit by NATO planes and missiles. That war had
led to the occupation of Kosovo by the West under the umbrella of the United Nations. A permanent U.S. military base was concurrently established there.
An independent Kosovo fitted into the grandiose plans of the U.S. to gain hegemony over the strategic Balkan region and isolate Russia further. The U.S. military
base in Kosovo, called “Camp Bondsteel”, is among the string of bases that have come up since the 1990s in the Balkans, East Europe and Central Asia. It has been
used for “rendition” flights, and the interrogation and torture of suspects in the U.S.-led “war on terror”.
False State
With the active connivance of major Western powers such as the U.S., the United Kingdom, Germany and France, the Kosovo leadership laid the groundwork for
secession from Serbia. The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hacim Thaci, declared that the independence of Kosovo signalled “the end of the dissolution of former
Yugoslavia”.
Among the most vocal supporters of Kosovo’s independence is the current French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner. Kouchner was the first U.N.-appointed
administrator in Kosovo and served from 1999 to 2001.
The Serbian Prime Minister, Vojislav Kostunica, criticising Washington’s support for an independent Kosovo, said that the U.S. had by its actions shown that it was
ready “to unscrupulously and violently jeopardise international order for the sake of its own military interests”. Kostunica described Kosovo as a “false state”.
Serbia was quick to recall its ambassadors from the U.S., France, Turkey and Austria. The Serbian Parliament passed a resolution condemning the “declaration of
independence”. Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic asserted that his country would “fight tooth and nail” to have the declaration overturned. He emphasised that
Kosovo Albanians were not the only people in the world to have a grievance against Belgrade. More than 200,000 people staged angry demonstrations in the
Serbian capital, Belgrade. The wrath of the crowds was focussed on the embassies of those countries that had actively connived in the break-up of the Yugoslav
Federation.
Part of the U.S. embassy was set on fire. Angry mobs also set fire to customs posts manned by international peacekeepers along the border with the self-proclaimed
state.
Kosovo has been an emotive issue for Serbians, who consider the territory the cradle of their culture and civilisation. Kosovo fell to the Ottomans in the 15th century.
Until the end of the 19th century, Serbs formed the majority in the province. Successive wars and forcible population transfers reduced them to a minority in the
province in the 20th century. By the 1970s, Serbs constituted only 25 per cent of the population. After the NATO attack on Yugoslavia in 1999, ostensibly to
protect the majority Albanians, it was the Serbs who fled Kosovo. Less than 10 per cent of the population in Kosovo today is Serb.
No Serb politician, even pro-Western ones like the recently re-elected President, Boris Tadic, is willing to give up Kosovo. Tadic, who was conveniently out of the
country when the recent dramatic events unfolded, later said that he would “never give up the fight for our Kosovo”.
International reactions
The fear in the international community is that the events in Kosovo may be a precedent that could be replicated in other parts of the world. Breakaway regions in the
Caucasus are threatening to declare independence. The Serbs in Bosnia have said that they are planning to unite with Serbia. Kashmiri separatists are now loudly
demanding that the Kosovo model should be applied to the disputed territory. Even within Kosovo, the minority Serbs, who still number around 120,000 despite the
ethnic cleansing, have indicated that the territory that they occupy will merge with Serbia. They are threatening to set up their own parliament in the town of Mitrovica.
Branislav Ristivojevic, a close associate of the Serbian Prime Minister, said that his country would take the U.S. to the International Court of Justice if it did not annul
the decision to recognise Kosovo’s independence. The Serbian Prime Minister had earlier demanded that Washington “annul” its recognition of Kosovo’s
independence and confirm Serbia’s sovereignty.
Despite the key role the European Union has played in the creation of the mini-state, many of its member-countries have refused to recognise it formally. E.U.
members such as Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania have sizable minority communities clamouring for separate identity. The Basques in Spain have for
long been waging a violent struggle for statehood. The Basques and the Turkish Cypriot leadership have hailed the declaration of independence by the Kosovo
Albanians.
DARKO BANDIC/AP Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hacim Thaci speaks at the Parliament convention in Pristina, on February 17.
Senior Palestinian officials highlighted the double standards adopted by the West on the issue of statehood. Yasser Abdel Rabbo, a senior Palestinian official, said
that Palestine had a more legitimate case for independence than Kosovo. He emphasised that if the international community could accept Kosovo’s independence,
then it should “happen with Palestine as well”.
Russia has warned the E.U. from recognising Kosovo. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticised the E.U.’s deployment of a task force to supervise
Kosovo’s police, customs and justice systems. He said that the E.U. decision was taken without the approval of the U.N. Security Council. The Security Council’s
Resolution 1244 of June 1999 had ordered the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo and the takeover of the territory by the Kosovo Force (KFOR), the
U.N.-sanctioned military mission. However, the resolution had not made any mention of independence for Kosovo. The preamble of the resolution refers specifically
to the “territorial integrity” of Yugoslavia. Article 10 of the resolution only authorises “substantial autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia”.
The U.S. used the E.U. to circumvent the U.N. and bestow “independence” on Kosovo. Coming in handy was the plan drawn by Martti Ahtisaari, the U.N. special
representative to Kosovo. Ahtisaari, a former President of Finland, had recommended a limited type of independence for Kosovo. According to the plan, Kosovo
would not be allowed to be part of a greater Albania. Its government would be under international supervision.
The E.U. is sending a 2,000-strong police and justice mission called the European Union Rule of Law Mission (EULEX) to replace the U.N. mission in Kosovo.
These forces will be in addition to the 16,000 NATO troops already on the ground in Kosovo.
Many observers feel that these measures have made “independent” Kosovo a “protectorate” of the West. Under the terms of the U.S.-E.U. “supervised
independence”, Kosovo’s leaders will have limited powers. EULEX, under a E.U.-appointed “viceroy”, will have the final say on all important matters. The Kosovo
Albanians had to give up their red flag emblazoned with a two-headed eagle, in favour of an E.U.-sponsored blue flag with the map of Kosovo.
OLIVER BUNIC/BLOOMBERG NEWS Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica at a mass protest rally against Kosovo’s declaration, in Belgrade on February 21.
One commentator described Kosovo as a “post-modern state, an entity that may be sovereign in name but is a U.S.-E.U. protectorate in practice”.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that the declaration of independence by Kosovo would have an impact on Moscow’s relations with Abkhazia and Southern
Ossetia, Georgia’s breakaway republics. Kosovo’s independence, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated, “presupposes a revision of commonly accepted norms and
principles of international law”.
Moscow warned that the development would encourage separatist movements “from Moldova to Indonesia”. President Vladimir Putin had warned the West that any
declaration of independence by Kosovo would be “illegal, ill-conceived and immoral”.
New Delhi has also reasons to be concerned about the developments but has not yet formulated a clear position on the issue. Even when Yugoslavia was being
bombed by NATO forces, New Delhi refused to take a clear stand. An External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said that there were “several legal issues” involved
and that the government was studying the evolving situation.
“It has been India’s consistent position that the sovereignty and integrity of all countries should be fully respected by all states,” he said.

Indonesia and Sri Lanka have been more forthright. Their governments have said that they would never recognise an “independent” Kosovo. China and Vietnam have
expressed the opinion that any solution to the Kosovo problem should not infringe on the sovereignty of Serbia.
An adviser to the German Foreign Ministry, writing in the newspaper Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung warned that the independence of Kosovo created a precedent
which could be directed “in other cases against the Western states”.

The spokesman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Parliament described Kosovo as a “mafia state”. The SPD is a partner in the coalition ruling the country.
Germany has played a key role in the disintegration of Yugoslavia, by first actively encouraging Slovenia and Croatia to secede.

WORLD AFFAIRS
Sri Lankan rebuff
SRI LANKA and Kosovo are continents apart literally. And yet no single event in the global sphere in recent years has caused such trepidation and discomfort in Sri
Lanka as Kosovo’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence. The resounding rejection of Kosovo’s UDI by the government and a vast majority of civil society in the
island is on a par with the consternation in Belgrade and Moscow over the development, and for good reasons.
With its own three-decade-old, unresolved ethnic conflict and the one-point agenda of the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to pursue the goal of a separate
state of Eelam consisting of territories in the north and the east, the island nation is demonstrably alarmed over not only Kosovo’s UDI but also the unabashed manner
in which the United States and its allies rushed to grant recognition to the new state in contravention of all norms of international relations and diplomacy.
For Sri Lanka, Kosovo’s UDI is a painful reminder of what it had gone through 18 years ago and the island nation is understandably horrified at the prospect of the
notion gaining international currency. On March 1, 1990, Varadaraja Perumal, the then Chief Minister of the North-Eastern Province and the leader of the Eelam
People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), made a unilateral declaration of the state of Eelam. (Today, the EPRLF is committed to resolving the ethnic
problem within a united Sri Lanka and is a registered party.) It was no more than a symbolic act of defiance born out of frustration, but for Colombo the ghost of that
action refuses to go away. The LTTE’s decision to write to the United Nations Secretary-General, weeks after the Sri Lankan government ended the Norwegian-
brokered 2002 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) on January 16 this year, seeking recognition of a separate state of Eelam has only increased Colombo’s discomfort.
It was against this backdrop that the Mahinda Rajapaksa government deemed it necessary to let the world and the powers behind Kosovo’s act of defiance know in
unambiguous terms that it could ill-afford to turn a blind eye to the developments in the Balkans. Sri Lanka’s disapproval of the Kosovo UDI is aimed not only at the
LTTE but also at the powerful Western block led by the U.S. In a brief statement on the very day Kosovo declared independence, the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry
put on record its strong note of disapproval.
“We note that the declaration of independence was made without the consent of the majority of the people of Serbia. This action by Kosovo is a violation of the
Charter of the United Nations, which enshrines the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Member States. Moreover, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 of 10th
June 1999 reaffirms commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all States of the region. This action is particularly regrettable, since all efforts at reaching
a negotiated political settlement on the future status of Kosovo, as envisaged by the Security Council Resolution 1244, have not been exhausted. The Unilateral
Declaration of Independence by Kosovo could set an unmanageable precedent in the conduct of international relations, the established global order of sovereign
States and could thus pose a grave threat to international peace and security,” the statement said.
For obvious reasons, the Foreign Ministry did not get into the issue of implications of Kosovo’s independence for Sri Lanka. However, Dr. Dayan Jayatilaka, Sri
Lanka’s Permanent Representative at the U.N. Office in Geneva and a non-career diplomat, felt no such restraints. Incidentally, Jayatilaka was a member of the
North-Eastern Council of 1990. In a signed article titled “Kosovo countdown: Lessons for Sri Lanka”, a day before the Kosovo UDI, he forcefully articulated the
diabolical implications of the move for his own country.
“These then are the lessons for Sri Lanka: never withdraw the armed forces from any part of our territory in which they are challenged, and never permit a foreign
presence on our soil. After 450 years of colonial presence, and especially after the experience of the Kandyan Convention, we Sri Lankans should have these lessons
engraved in our historical memory and our collective identity. The Western imperialists who failed to capture our island militarily were able to take control of it only
because we double-crossed our leader, trusted the West, signed an agreement and allowed the foreign presence into our heartland,” he argued.
Jayatilaka reasoned that there were options other than secession for Kosovo. One was the fullest autonomy within Serbia. The other was the carving out of the
Serbian majority portion of Kosovo and its annexation with Serbia. “However, all options were aborted by the obduracy of the Kosovo leadership, which insists on
independence. It must be noted that the current leader of Kosovo is a former leader of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army,” he noted.
The envoy argued that all tendencies in world politics which weakened, fragmented and destabilised states, undermining their sovereignty and making them vulnerable
to hegemony and intervention, were inimical to Sri Lanka while all tendencies which strengthened and defended state sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, were
friendly and helpful to his country.
Endorsing the sentiments of Jayatilaka, the Sri Lankan English daily The Island noted in an editorial that if independent states were to be carved out haphazardly
according to the whims and fancies of a handful of powerful nations, then the U.N. ought to be given a grand funeral. It further noted that the LTTE, which was elated
over Montenegro’s independence in 2006, are not so upbeat this time round; it felt that the Tigers had chosen to tread cautiously because of India’s fears and
concerns about their Eelam project.
Jayatilaka’s arguments seem sound. However, there is one aspect which the envoy has sidestepped, and that is the failure of successive regimes in Colombo to come
forward with a credible political solution to the grievances of minorities. A political package could provide the much-needed muscle to the moderate forces that are
arraigned against the LTTE. It is the inability of the polity to come out with a solution to the ethnic conflict that provides oxygen to the LTTE.
B. Muralidhar Reddy

A LONG ROAD FROM KOSOVO TO KURDISTAN

2008-03-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

THE ROVING EYE
A long road from Kosovo to Kurdistan
By Pepe Escobar
The precedent of Kosovo is a terrible precedent, which will de facto blow apart the whole system of international relations, developed not over decades, but over
centuries. [The Americans] have not thought through the results of what they are doing. At the end of the day it is a two-ended stick and the second end will come
back and hit them in the face. - Russian President Vladimir Putin
In myriad aspects, Kosovo is the new Kurdistan (and the other way around), as much as Iraq is the new Yugoslavia.
The unilateral independence of Kosovo has nothing to do with "democracy". But then what's the point of this North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO) provocation towards Vladimir Putin's Russia - a historic ally of Serbia?
The ongoing saga revolves around two crucial, interrelated facts on the ground: Pipelineistan and the empire of 737 (and counting) US military bases in 130 countries
operated by 350,000-plus Americans. In short: it revolves around the trans-Balkan AMBO pipeline and Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, the the largest US base built in
Europe in a generation.
It also lays bare continuity from the Bill Clinton to the George W Bush administrations - the US dictating the rules of the game as if in a one-party state.
Yugoslavia and Iraq also "taught" the world two lessons. From Clinton's humanitarian imperialism to Bush's "war on terror", it's all a matter of exclusive Washington
prerogative. Blowback, of course, as Putin has warned, will be inevitable.
Albright's serpentThe 78-day, 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, allegedly to dislodge a "new Hitler" (Slobodan Milosevic) was mirrored by the 2003 "shock and awe" bombing of Iraq, to
dislodge another "new Hitler" (Saddam Hussein). Clinton, demonizing the Serbs, used NATO to sidestep the lack of a United Nations mandate; Bush, also without a
UN mandate, demonized Iraqis and went all the way with just an authorization by the US Congress.
Clinton attacked the former Yugoslavia to expand the post-Cold War NATO right up to the borders of the former Soviet Union. Bush attacked Iraq to seize the "big
prize" in terms of energy resources. Militarization and hegemonic control were at the heart of both operations. Yugoslavia was devastated, fragmented, balkanized
and ethnically cleansed into mini-countries. Iraq was devastated, fragmented, pushed towards balkanization and towards ethnic cleansing along sectarian and religious
lines.
Senator Hillary Clinton considered Yugoslavia's balkanization and now Kosovo's independence (amputation of Serbia, rather) as "democracy" and a "successful"
accomplishment of US foreign policy.
This "model" new independent state saluted by the US, Germany, France and Britain - and virtually no one else - is, according to Vladimir Ovtchinky, a criminologist
and former head of Interpol's Russia bureau during the 1990s, "a mafia state in the heart of Europe". It's basically run by Hashim Thaci, a former Marxist who then
embraced a nationalist socialism with criminal overtones as one of the youngest chiefs of the UCK (the Kosovo Liberation Army), operating under the codename
"The Serpent".
Madeleine Albright, then US secretary of state, pushed "The Serpent" into the limelight when she attributed to him "the brightest future" among those Kosovars who
were "fighting for democracy". Albright is nowadays one of Hillary Clintons' top foreign policy advisers. The UCK was roughly a sort of Balkan al-Qaeda on heavy
drugs - propped up enthusiastically by US and British intelligence. British special forces trained the UCK in northern Albania while Turkish and Afghan military
instructors taught them guerrilla tactics. Even Osama bin Laden had been in Albania, in 1994; al-Qaeda had a solid UCK connection.
Writing in the Russian daily Ogoniok, Ovtchinky describes how Albanian Kosovar clans always controlled opium and then heroin trafficking from Afghanistan and
Pakistan through the Balkans towards Western Europe; then during the late 1990s a 3% tax started to finance all UCK operations. The UCK benefited from more
than 750 million euros (US$1.1 billion) in drug money to buy weapons, he wrote.
According to Interpol and Europol, just in 1999 and 2000, these Kosovar mafias made no less than 7.5 billion euros - also by diversifying from narco-smuggling into
human trafficking and large-scale prostitution. In Germany, they made a killing in Kalashnikov trafficking and fake euro banknotes. And as late as in 2007, Italy's top
three mafias - the Cosa Nostra, the Camorra and "Ndrangheta" - were seriously thinking of creating a unified cartel to face the ultra-heavy Albanian Kosovar mafia.
Get me to my pipeline on timeWashington and the three European Union heavyweights (France, Germany and Britain) have applauded Kosovo's independence. But this core of the self-described
"international community" is caught in silent scream mode when confronted with the possibility of independence for Flanders in Belgium, northern Cyprus, the Serbian
Republic of Bosnia, the Basque country in Spain, Gibraltar - not to mention Indian Kashmir (the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, JKLF, is already making some
rumblings), Tibet, Taiwan, Abkahzia and South Ossetia (both in Georgia and both Russia-friendly), Palestine and Kurdistan. Northern Kosovo itself - totally Serbian
-populated - and western Macedonia also don't qualify to become independent. So why Kosovo? Enter the AMBO pipeline and Camp Bondsteel.
AMBO is short for Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corp, an entity registered in the US. The $1.1 billion AMBO pipeline (also known as the Trans-Balkan),
supposed to be finished by 2011, will get oil brought from the Caspian Sea to a terminal in Georgia and then by tanker through the Black Sea to the Bulgarian port of
Burgas, and relay it through Macedonia to the Albanian port of Vlora.
Clinton's NATO war against Yugoslavia and pro-Albania was thus crucial to secure Vlora's strategic location. The oil will then be shipped to Rotterdam in the
Netherlands and refineries on the US West Coast, thus bypassing the ultra-congested Bosphorus Strait and the Aegean and the Mediterranean seas.
The original AMBO feasibility study, as early as 1995, and then updated in 1999, is by a British subsidiary of Halliburton, Brown and Root Energy Services. AMBO
fits into Vice President Dick Cheney's (and before him, Clinton's energy secretary Bill Richardson's) US energy security grid. It's all about go-for-broke militarization
of the crucial energy corridor from the Caspian through the Balkans, and about trying to isolate or sabotage both Russia and Iran.
Halliburton had to have a deeper hand in the whole scheme, and that's where Camp Bondsteel fits in - the largest overseas US military base built since the Vietnam
War. Bondsteel, built by Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root on 400 hectares of farmland near the Macedonian border in southern Kosovo, is a sort of
smaller - and friendlier - five-star Guantanamo, with perks like Thai massage and loads of junk food. According to Chalmers Johnson in The Sorrows of Empire,
"army wags say facetiously that there are only two man-made objects that can be seen from outer space - the Great Wall of China and Camp Bondsteel". Bondsteel
will also double as Kosovo's Abu Ghraib - the largest prison in the independent entity, where prisoners can be held indefinitely without charges pressed and without
defense attorneys. Taxi to the Dark Side, which has just won an Oscar for best documentary, applies not only to Bagram in Afghanistan but also to Bondsteel in
Kosovo.
Protection racket Kosovo's "independence" has been brewing since 1999. A single 1999 photo tells the whole story - establishing beyond doubt those elusive "international community"
ties. The photo unites Hashim Thaci, then head of terrorist outfit UCK and current prime minister of Kosovo; Bernard Kouchner, then UN administrator of Kosovo
and current French foreign minister in the Nicolas Sarkozy administration; Sir Mike Jackson, then commander of NATO's occupying force and current consultant for
a Blackwater-style mercenary outfit; and general Wesley Clark, then NATO supreme commander and now military adviser to Hillary Clinton.
Kosovo's "internationally supervised independence", which was due to be outlined in a meeting in Vienna this Thursday, has nothing to do with autonomy. Exit the
UN, enter the European Union. Amputated from Serbia, Kosovo will be no more than an EU (and NATO) protectorate. EU officials in Brussels confirm that
thousands of bureaucrats, along with police officers, will be deployed to Kosovo, to live alongside more than 17,000 NATO military personnel already in place.
Neo-colonialism is alive and well in "liberated" Kosovo - which will have to put up with a viceroy and will have no say whatsoever in foreign policy. Think of
"liberated" Iraq under the infamous Coalition Provisional Authority run by viceroy L Paul Bremer.
An array of European analysts, not to mention Russians, has compared the current, dangerous state of play in the Balkans to Sarajevo in 1914 that led to the
outbreak of World War II. Blowback, in the short term, will include Serbs refusing to be part of this "independent" state and Albania not recognizing the current
Albania/Serbia/Macedonia borders. Just like a century ago, Central Europe, Russia and the Muslim world are clashing in the Balkans, but this time subjected to a US
screenplay. Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in tandem, gave the go-ahead to the Kosovo declaration of independence weeks before the fact. Small,
contrarian EU countries like Slovakia, Romania and Cyprus were imperially overlooked.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has characterized Kosovo's independence as the beginning of the end of contemporary Europe. As British journalist John
Laughland, manager of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group stresses, "The current status of the province is established by UN Security Council resolution 1244,"
which determines that Kosovo is part of Serbia. Thus the US and the EU have - once again - made minced meat of international law.
Why not us?Kurds, especially those in Iraq, might be tempted to believe Kosovo is a meaty precedent pointing to the emergence of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan - their dream,
and Turkey's nightmare. Just as in Kosovo, oil is in play (Kirkuk and its pipelines); and Iraqi Kurdistan, since 1991, had been a sort of extended Camp Bondsteel
anyway, an American-protected enclave in Saddam's Iraq and then a haven of stable "democracy" in Bush-devastated Iraq.
But it's hard to dream about independence when Iraqi Kurdistan has been de facto invaded by 10,000 Turkish troops with the help of US intelligence.
According to Baghdad's al-Mada daily, the president of the Irbil-based Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Massoud Barzani, sent an urgent letter to Bush for
him to personally stop the Turkish invasion. Barzani flatly accuses the Turks of destroying his region's infrastructure. Barzani's spokesman, Falah Mustafa, has placed
all responsibility "on the US government". Peshmerga (Kurdish militia) General Muhammad Mohsen is also furious ("We think the United States is making a big
mistake"). This is as good an intimation of inevitable blowback as any.
Dozens of thousands of Peshmerga are now stationed very close to the Turkish-Iraqi border. According to Mohsen, the red line is along the Mateen mountain range.
He said, "The Peshmergas told [the Turks] if you go any further we will kill you." Also according to Mohsen, Barzani theatrically told him, "I will be the first to die in
fighting the Turks."
The official KRG position, endlessly relayed on Kurdish media, is that it has done everything to "limit the activities" of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels in Iraqi
Kurdistan. This has fallen as much on (Turk) deaf ears as Baghdad's feeble official protests. Iraqi Kurdish politician recite the same mantra; the PKK is just an excuse
for the Turks to "prevent the establishment of a Kurdish state".
But then, in the thick of the action, KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani struck quite a different chord. He said the Turks did not attack Kurdish civilians and only
destroyed a few bridges in some desolate mountain passes. Kurdish media though is awash with reports and even video of damage to Kurdish villages. So what's
going on?
Turkey's invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan is a graphic show of force - a sort of "shock and awe" in slow motion, meaning this is a player to be reckoned with in both the
Middle East and Central Asia. Turkey - with much more firepower than Serbia, and a NATO member to boot - has set its objectives with precision: to bomb the
KRG's credibility, and to imprint the extent of its reaction in case the Kurdish go for autonomy, including control of the oil-rich Kirkuk area in Iraq. At the same time,
this is a message to Washington (don't trample us or we destabilize the only "stable" part of Iraq) and to Baghdad (let's do business; we need some of your oil and a
lot of your water for our development).
So much for Kurdistan's dream of independence - inside Iraq as much as for the 12 million Kurds living in Turkey. They are left with a few rumblings, an attempt at
downplaying the whole thing, and the obligation of facing the fact that the US, once again, has sold them short. Not to mention the Kurds, once again, they are sold
short.
The KRG's Barzani and current Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, eternal Iraqi Kurdish leaders, rival warlords and wily opportunists, had already sold PKK Kurds short
15 years ago during a joint offensive with the Turkish army (See Double-crossing in Kurdistan Asia Times Online, November 2, 2007). They had vocally promised
this would never happen again. It's happening right now. Thus Turkey wins, hands down - driving a wedge between Washington and Iraqi Kurds.
Blowback, in this case, may be long in coming, but Washington is bound to taste it. Turkey will clinch an oil deal with Russia and will buy Iranian gas and co-exploit
Iranian oil in the Caspian. As for Iraqi Kurds - seeing red against both Washington and Ankara - more than ever they won't stop dreaming of becoming the new
Kosovo, on their own terms.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007). He may be reached at
pepeasia at yahoo.com.

US Policy in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean

2008-03-14T17:37:00.000-07:00

Special Report;
US Policy in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean:
Time to Stop Choosing Sides, and to Start Choosing Strategic InterestsDefense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis - April 13, 2005 Wednesday
Analysis. By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS.
<1> A nation's foreign and strategic policies exist solely to protect and further the nation's interests, sovereignty, and
security. The furtherance of these interests often necessitates compromise, collaboration, and patience, but the ultimate goal remains constant. Too often, in all
countries, however, the process and structural continuity of the foreign and strategic policy tools are given greater priority and weight than the fundamental goal. As
with all aspects of the ageing process, fear of change takes precedence over the furtherance of survival goals. Arteries calcify and become brittle, and an aloof manner
indicates not strength and calmness but the fact that rigidity has replaced perceptiveness.
There is a saying that insanity is defined by continuing to repeat the same processes and expecting different outcomes. To a large extent, that is what we get when we
give greater priority to the process than to the purpose of our foreign and strategic policy tools.
It is in this context that we can say that US policy toward the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean regions is not based on realistic, current, and balanced
assessments of US strategic interests, nor even on a balanced and realistic accretion of historic friendships, treaty obligations, or past interests. That is not to say that
the matter of interests, treaties, and historic friendships play no part in current US policy in this critical area of the world, but rather these key factors now play only a
secondary role in how the US operates in the region.
But added to the problem of systemic sclerosis, it is also true that nations accustomed to the safety which their strategic power gives them feel that they can afford not
to look too seriously into the consequences of their international activities and policies. Miles Copeland, the author of The Game of Nations, and a seasoned Eastern
Mediterranean and Middle East hand, once made the comment that US foreign policy was merely US domestic politics carried out abroad. Not US domestic policy
carried out abroad: domestic politics .
Certainly there was the logic of US national interests behind the early development of US strategic policies toward the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean: the
need to ensure US access to oil; the need to contain the USSR, the principal strategic rival of the US and the West; the need to bolster NATO -- the principal
alliance structure for US and Western defenses -- and to safeguard US and related transit and trade routes through the Mediterranean and Suez Canal; and so on. All
of these vital interests (and other subsidiary interests) were enabled through the development of treaty and alliance structures designed specifically to achieve the
natural goals of a sovereign state operating as a global power.
In the Cold War, the continued strength of NATO's southern flank was of paramount importance in the containment of Soviet military capability. The US commitment
to Greece and Turkey was key in this, as was the US commitment to Iran. Indeed, by whimsically abandoning support for the Shah of Iran, then-President Jimmy
Carter gave a fillip to Soviet survival, and enabled the Cold War to last longer than it possibly would have.
But since the end of the Cold War in 1990, the US has experienced nothing in this region which could directly and immediately jeopardize the survival of the United
States as an entity. It has experienced only side-shows; enough to give it sufficient pause to re-evaluate only tactically and transitorily some aspects of its policy. As a
result, changes in strategic realities -- particularly with the end of the Cold War and the resultant break-up of the USSR and Yugoslavia -- have been dealt with by
adding patches to a US strategic policy which was formulated to meet an entirely different set of circumstances. Even the attempt to bend the old NATO structure to
the fluid and asymmetric threats which emerged in the 1990s and later was like a farmer attempting to use his tractor in the vegetable patch of his retirement home.
Just because they exist, we tend to use the wrong tools for the job at hand.
By dealing on an ad hoc basis with narrow interests within the region, and dealing with these interests in isolation and with the wrong tools, the ramifications of the
patchwork accretion of actions, dictums, and expediencies have been allowed to build into a grotesque distortion, which has achieved a life of its own. Policies which
should have been reviewed a decade ago have continued to develop unrealistically. Policies which were implemented for domestic US reasons have been allowed to
continue simply because no-one knows how to stop them. US allies in the region try to read US desires and intentions on the basis of logic, but the logic most often
escapes them.
Clearly, the entire Balkans, Caucasus, Black Sea, and Mashreq<2> strategic situations -- not to mention the realities of the European Union states, the aspirations of
Russia, Iran, Ukraine, Georgia, and so on -- have changed beyond recognition merely in the past decade. If this was a purely business environment, it would have
been logical to undertake a clean-sheet re-evaluation of the situation, and to draft a new grand strategy for the region. But that has not occurred. New grand strategic
movements have occurred by default, but they have not been fully, and contextually, thought through, at least in Washington, where historic interest groups -- whether
Arabist in nature, or pro-Israel, or pro-Turkey, or anti-Russian, or anti-European, or pro-European, or pro-energy -- have each fought passionately to retain or
improve their position.
As a result, US policy today is based entirely on how well these respective groups have been able to build and protect their interests. And if US policy, as it is
implemented on the ground in the contiguous and interrelated region of the Middle East, Balkans, and Eastern Mediterranean is misshapen, it is merely a reflection of
what is happening in Washington. There, the battles rage between both vested interests, and vested ignorances.
The thought of a "clean sheet" re-evaluation of US policy clearly frightens bureaucrats in Washington as well as US friends and enemies alike in the region. It is not
something which can be done easily. Nor can US policies, and entrenched interests or structures be "put on hold" while such a re-evaluation is undertaken. An hiatus
or sudden implantation of a totally new policy would be tantamount to a revolution, and revolutions causes chaos and unpredictable results. Rather, this over-arching
reassessment needs to be undertaken comprehensively across all levels of the Administration and Congress so that the underlying essentials can be identified and
gradually strengthened, and the outworn or distorted aspects reduced and eliminated.
Obviously, to get to such a situation implies that the various cultures of the State Department, the Defense Department, and the Central Intelligence Agency would all
be able to agree on what US interests, obligations, and desires are for the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans (as well as for other areas of the world). Herein lies
the problem. The cultures of the State Department, Defense Department, and CIA, are so different that even when they can agree on what constitute US interests,
they cannot agree on implementation, and each propose their own skill-sets as the most vital to achieve the goals. If they have succeeded in anything, then it has been
in preventing "short-timers", the elected and appointed officials (who are the only ones to hold the public's proxy and mandate), from making profound policy
initiatives.
In 2003, I published a report, and made a number of speeches, which said specifically that the US was withdrawing its extensive military force structure from
Western Europe -- principally Germany and Italy -- and that these forces would not return to those old Cold War bases. My report was immediately attacked,
vilified, and ridiculed by a number of US ambassadors in Eastern Europe, and yet within weeks the US Defense Department was making it clear that the report was
absolutely correct. And history has vindicated that reporting.<3>
Apart from the end of the Cold War itself, this was the most fundamental change in US strategic projection in 50 years, and yet the State Department appeared to
believe that it was not happening. They appeared as King Canute, attempting to hold back the tide.
We now have the situation of the sudden decision, announced on November 4, 2004, by the United States Government to recognize a change of name in what had
become known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, to merely "the Republic of Macedonia". I don't particularly have a problem with that. Both Greece
and the former Yugoslav republic can make their respective arguments, although only Greece can claim the lineage which the ancient Macedonian conquest of the
Hellenistic city-states created. By conquering the city-states, Philip of Macedon, and his son, Alexander, assumed the mantle of Hellenism, and conquered and spread
culture in its name. But the fact of US recognition of the name change is interesting because of why it was done, and how it highlights US Government decisionmaking
on the region.
Let us forget, for a moment, that the US decision was taken abruptly and that it offended Greece, the country which is, essentially, now the most significant strategic
partner of the US in South-Eastern Europe. [I say this because Turkey has for some years become a questionable and unreliable ally of the US and Europe, partly
because of corruption, but partly also because the Turks have recognized correctly that the Cold War is over, and that they have other interests to protect, and only
some of these interests coincide with the interests of the US and the West.]
Moving US Strategic Assets Out of Albania. But putting that aside for the moment, the real rationale for the US policy change regarding the former Yugoslav republic
of Macedonia was the fact that US military and intelligence facilities in Albania were being sabotaged and attacked, and this was threatening the continuity of logistical
and other support to US forces in the Serbian province of Kosovo. As a result, the US needed to quickly move its assets out of Albania -- a fact which has yet to be
acknowledged or explained -- and to relocate them in Macedonia. Cooperation by Skopje was fast and effective, and the trade-off regarding the recognition of the
name "Republic of Macedonia" was made, by the US Government, on the basis of simple expedience. No real thought was given to the consequences, or to the real
questions which this decision raised.
Certainly, the State Department would have advised the White House that the change in name recognition would create a backlash from Greece, and from Greek-
American voters in the US. The decision to proceed with the trade-off with Skopje would have been taken because the backlash would have been considered to
have been manageable. After all, where is Greece going to go, strategically? Greece needs its alliance with the US to help counterbalance Turkey, among other things.
But what the underlying cause of the decision -- that is, the attacks on, and insecurity of the US facilities in Albania -- means is that the Albanian security situation
reflects the volatility of the clan-based rivalries and the related narco-trafficking and criminal activities which are linked with global terrorism. But by admitting this as
the basis for the need to move facilities out of Albania, the US would then have to admit that this terrorism-related criminal activity, and particularly narco-trafficking,
is intrinsically linked into the al-Qaida and Iranian-backed terrorist infrastructure of the region, and into the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which now, under new
names, controls the Serbian province of Kosovo.
Significantly, part of the trade-off which Washington made with Skopje was that Skopje backed-off from its vociferous claims about the ethnic-Albanian National
Liberation Army (NLA) which has been attempting to break up the former Yugoslav area of Macedonia. The NLA is a re-emerged part of the KLA; it is linked with
al-Qaida, and with the Iranian terrorist infrastructure in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Raska in Southern Serbia, and in Serbia's Kosovo area.
The irony of this begins to emerge. The US rewards Skopje for stopping expressions of concern about Albanian terrorism which is also the cause of the US having to
move its assets out of Albania itself. Why is this? Because no-one in the State Department or Defense Department is willing to admit that US support for this terrorist
and narco-trafficking base of Albanians in 1999 -- when the US led NATO into attacks on Serbia in order to assist the KLA -- was wrong. This is part of the
distortion of US foreign and strategic policy: no-one will admit that they made a mistake.
There are many Congressmen on Capitol Hill who understand that this distortion exists with regard to Balkan policy. But equally, there are politicians in both major
parties who supported the KLA during the 1990s, so that today it is impossible for a Republican-controlled Bush White House and Congress to attack the logic and
merit of the 1999 war, waged against Serbia by the then-Democratic Party-controlled Clinton White House. It is difficult for the White House, for example, to
criticize the 1990s support by the Clinton Administration for the al-Qaida -linked KLA without also opening up to criticism some senior members of the Republican
Party.
There is ample evidence to support this analysis, but I raise it only as a reflection of the symptoms of the failure to objectively re-evaluate US policy toward the
Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean region.
Again, it may be possible to say that, despite its disingenuous nature and its potential to upset regional allies, such US policy distortion does not seriously threaten vital
US interests. In other words, to say: yes, this is a problem, but not a major problem.
I would argue that this is a grave avoidance of reality. US policy failures in the Balkans and the failure to realistically re-evaluate US-Turkish relations threaten several
things:
Firstly , long-term planning by the Defense Department to move its primary European basing and power projection capabilities from Western Europe to South-
Eastern Europe is thrown into jeopardy by the potential for renewed war over Kosovo, in Macedonia, and in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Secondly , it renders meaningless the war on terrorism if its real core and linkages cannot be acknowledged and attacked. The State and Defense departments, and
the CIA, have been constantly warned about the narco-trafficking and terrorism links in the Balkans, but have swept this aside. The State Department, despite having
been presented with concrete intelligence about the activities of narco-traffickers and terrorists in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and in southern Serbia, Macedonia, and the
like, has, nonetheless decided to say that there is no terrorism activity related to these areas.
Thirdly , by failing to acknowledge the changed strategic contextual realities and the changes and cracks within the Turkish system, the US reliance on Turkey, and its
support for Turkey, become meaningless, and have damaging regional effects, including sustaining the logistical framework of the Islamist terrorist movements, even
those which are against Turkey's own long-term interests. There has been strong Turkish involvement in supporting Balkan narco-traffickers and terrorist groups,
perhaps unofficially, but certainly with considerable effect.
There has been no re-evaluation despite all of this, and despite the proven links between Bosnian terrorism cells and the 9/11 attackers and even to the Madrid
bombers.
It would be a mistake to think that this problem will go away, or that the war on terrorism has successfully moved the tide against the terrorism and narco-trafficking
infrastructure in the Balkans. The fact that the US has been forced to remove its assets from Albania, despite the quiet manner in which this has been undertaken, is
just one indication of the ongoing degradation of the situation there. And yet the US still refuses to acknowledge that this is integrally linked with the Albanian-based
terrorism underway in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, or that it is at the very heart of the creation of what is already a criminal sub-state in Kosovo,
which is directly under the control of the KLA.
A Deal With Haradinaj and the KLA? The fact that the KLA leader and, until March 8, 2005, Prime Minister of Kosovo, Ramush (Hilmi) Haradinaj, was indicted
for war crimes and taken to The Hague for trial still has not penetrated the consciousness of what is transpiring. Moreover, in order to somewhat ease the
embarrassment of having backed the wrong side -- the side of al-Qaida, the narco-traffickers, the true genocidal xenophobists, and the criminal gangs -- in Kosovo,
the US is in some ways actively working to let Mr Haradinaj out of prison, so that he can "fight his legal battle from a position of freedom". This is a man charged with
having directly and personally killed many innocent people, not a politician who allegedly allowed things to happen by default. The scandal of this particular case has
yet to break, but suffice it to say that Albanian mafia linked to the KLA have worked through former US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke -- a close
associate of the KLA and a beneficiary of its support -- to approach the US President of the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia (ICTY),
Theodore Meron, to see Haradinaj released.<4> There are reports from within the ICTY that the State Department would approve the release of Haradinaj, and
had, in fact, agreed with Haradinaj in advance of his surrender to the ICTY, that a deal would be struck to ensure that he did not serve prison time for the charges he
faced.
So in order to refuse to correct mistakes, or even acknowledge them, there are many officials within the US bureaucracy who have allowed themselves to be drawn
into what has become almost a circus of foreign policy juggling which -- even by the kindest interpretation -- fails to help the US, the region in question, or the cause
of US ethical leadership and credibility. This will result in more war, more instability, more narcotics on European and US streets, more instability in South-Eastern
Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. And ultimately it will cost the US the respect and loyalty of those allies it has in the region and elsewhere.
But clearly that's more important than admitting that mistakes were made, and need correction.

Footnotes:
1. Written for presentation at the Capitol Hill Conference on FYROM: The Need for Reassessment of US Policy in the Balkans , Longworth House of
Representatives Office Building, US Congress, Washington, DC: April 14, 2005. Gregory Copley is also Chairman of the International Strategic Studies
Association's Balkan & Eastern Mediterranean Policy Council, Editor of the Defense & Foreign Affairs group of publications, and head of the Global Information
System (GIS) intelligence service. He has written extensively on Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean strategic issues, and is the author of numerous books and studies
on strategic issues. He can be reached at email: GRCopley@strategicstudies.org.
2. Cyprus, Jordan, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestinian Authority, and Syria.
3. See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, May 2, 2003: The New US and the New Europe: The US Prepares Move of German-based Forces to Serbia-
Montenegro, Bulgaria and Romania , and Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, June 30, 2003: US State Dept., CIA War Against Pentagon Breaks Into the Open With
Profound Impact on Strategic Policy . As well, see for example, Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, June 18, 2003: US Interests in the Balkans: Balancing Perceptions,
Realities and Strategic Need . That report noted:
... Despite statements by the US State Department, the US will do what the Defense Department is advocating. It will move most of the US forces out of Germany.
Most, indeed, are already deployed out of the region, in Iraq, for example. Those forces which return to Europe will start to utilize basing in South-Eastern Europe.
Romania and Bulgaria have been mentioned as most likely to be the alliance partners of choice, because they have access to an area long denied to the US: the Black
Sea. Consideration has been given to Serbia-Montenegro, as well, because history has determined that Belgrade, for example, remains a critical cross-road of trade
in the region and its influence on the Danube artery is vital. Albania, too, must be considered by the US, because of its access to the Mediterranean.
All of this will occur over time, and not as a single, sudden move. Indeed, it is necessary to buffer the changes so that they do not also have a negative impact on the
economy of Germany, which benefits enormously from the US investment. And the US cannot afford to allow the creation of a Berlin-centric European Union which
could emerge as a hostile and destabilizing force, opposing the US. It would be foolhardy for the US to encourage such a development.
4. Meron, a professor of law at New York University, was a member of the US official delegation to the Rome talks in 1998, at which the establishment of the
International Criminal Court (ICC) was discussed. At that conference, he reflected the US line, which was in complete opposition to the foundation of the ICC, but
subsequently accepted to be President of the ICC's subsidiary court, the ICTY.

The Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria Oil Pipeline (AMBO)

2008-03-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

The Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria Oil Pipeline (AMBO)

The AMBO pipeline project entails a proposed 570-mile, 750,000-barrel-per-day (bbl/d) pipeline connecting the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Burgas with the
Albanian Adriatic port of Vlore. AMBO allows sea borne oil exports from Russia and the Caspian Sea region to flow overland between the Black Sea to the
Adriatic, bypassing Turkey's increasingly congested Bosporus and Dardanelles (see map). With oil exports from the Caspian Sea region projected to increase rapidly
in the next decade, the AMBO pipeline proposal is one of several "Bosporus bypass" oil pipeline proposals that are currently under consideration or in development.
A feasibility study for the AMBO project, funded by the U.S. government, was successfully completed in September 2002, with the Albanians approving the
proposed route across their territory in December 2003. The project is estimated to cost $1.2 billion, of which $930 million will be provided by international donors
such as the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Export-Import Bank and the U.S.
Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Construction is expected to begin in 2005, and to be completed by 2008. The AMBO Pipeline Corporation, based in
New York, has been established with exclusive rights to develop the project.

Caspian Pipelines War

2008-03-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

CASPIAN PIPELINES WAR
"Fifteen years after the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, a covert Cold War has sprung up over the issue of developing the energy assets of the Caspian,
with Russia and the United States once again at odds.
Both sides have had successes and failures, and the shadow conflict is not destined to end anytime soon. The case of Azerbaijan epitomizes both the promise and
peril of developing Caspian energy. At issue is the exploitation of a vast reserve of oil and natural gas. In May 2007 the U.S. Energy Information Administration
projected that by 2015 Caspian basin energy production could reach 4.3 million barrels per day, concluding that in addition to the region’s proven reserves of 17
billion to 49 billion barrels, comparable to Qatar at the lower estimate and Libya on the high end. The region could contain an additional reservoir of hydrocarbons up
to 235 billion barrels of oil, roughly equivalent to a quarter of the Middle East's total proven reserves. Nor is oil the only energy deposit there. The Caspian’s potential
natural gas reserves are as large as the region's proven gas reserves and could yield another potential 328 trillion cubic feet of gas. In the initial confrontation, the
Russian Federation enjoyed the advantage of the Soviet-era Transneft monopoly pipeline network, but the system had two major flaws: a decrepit infrastructure and
an orientation toward directing products into the western Soviet Union's production system rather than being geared toward exports. For Azerbaijan, the first of the
post-Soviet potential oil states to seek opportunities to export to lucrative Western markets, these shortcomings substantially reduced Baku’s revenue stream.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Azeri President Haidar Aliyev moved swiftly to procure foreign investment, in 1994 signing the Contract of the Century to
develop Azerbaijan's offshore Caspian Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli fields. Three years later the 868-mile, 100,000 bpd Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline opened to export
Azeri oil from the Black Sea to Western markets. The pipeline almost immediately ran into problems, limiting exports initially to approximately 40,000 bpd; problems
included unilateral Transneft transit limitations, disputes over transit fees, as Baku objected to Moscow’s $15 per barrel tariff, and the ongoing conflict in Chechnya.
A further factor causing unhappiness in Baku was the fact Transneft was incapable of “batch shipping,” which meant high-grade Azeri light crude was mixed with
lower-grade Russian Urals crude, resulting in a lower per-barrel price. Prior to 1997 Caspian oil exporters had only one major pipeline option, the 210,000 bpd
Atyrau-Samara pipeline from Kazakhstan to Russia. In 1999 the Chechen conflict motivated Russian President Boris Yeltsin to instruct Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
to begin construction of a pipeline bypass to skirt the 90 miles of Chechen territory traversed by the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline; work began Oct. 26. The conflict
combined with other issues reduced Azeri exports via Baku-Novorossiisk in early 2000 to an average of only 10,000 bpd. In April 2000 construction finished on the
$140 million, 204-mile Baku-Novorossiisk bypass via Dagestan to Tikhoretsk. The bypass had a potential capacity of 120,000 bpd, but by then Baku already had
other plans, having worked with neighboring Georgia to develop an alternative pipeline route to the eastern Black Sea coast completely outside of Russian control.
The $600 million, 515-mile Baku-Supsa 100,000 bpd pipeline, essentially a refurbished Soviet-era pipeline, opened in April 1999. In contrast to Transneft’s
extortionate rates, Georgia only charged Azerbaijan $3 per barrel, in contrast to Russia’s $15. Besides the transit revenue, Georgian authorities considered the
possibility of building a refinery at Supsa to process the pipeline’s crude oil. The Baku-Supsa pipeline, however, shared a problem with its Novorossiisk counterpart
in that its exports were forced to use the Turkish Straits for shipping to global markets, and Ankara was unhappy about the Bosporus and Dardanelles being turned
into an energy corridor. Azerbaijan’s third and final export project would finally end dependence on Russia and mollify Turkey in the bargain.
The $3.6 billion, 1,092-mile million bpd Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which began operations in May 2005, was the final element in Azerbaijan’s drive for
independence from the Kremlin over its energy exports. A decision to proceed with construction of the BTC was reached at a meeting of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe in Istanbul in November 1999, and construction began three years later. Unlike Russia’s insistence on its Transneft monopoly,
Baku showed great flexibility in financing BTC, which is owned by a consortium of energy companies led by BP, with a 30.1 percent stake in the project. Other
significant BTC shareholders include the State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan with 25 percent and Chevron with 8.9 percent. BTC benefited all the transit countries, with
Georgia estimating BTC would boost its national income by 1.5 percent, while Turkey projected $200 million annually in transit fees even as the pipeline lessened the
ecological risks to the Turkish Straits. For Azerbaijan, the fiscal windfall from BTC was projected at as much as $160 billion in revenue over the next 30 years,
though given recent record high oil prices, this is undoubtedly a conservative estimate. The oil revenues generated by BTC in its first year of operation have already
had a significant impact on the Azeri economy, whose gross domestic product grew an extraordinary 41.7 percent in the first quarter of 2007. BTC is also having an
impact on the United States; in May the EIA reported that since the beginning of the year, the United States imported 2.677 million barrels of oil and oil products
from Azerbaijan.
Baku’s energy future seems ever brighter, as many additional projects are on the drawing boards, including a proposed 190-mile pipeline to northwest Iran and the
proposed 6.74 billion 2,485-mile Nabucco natural gas pipeline project, endorsed on June 26 in Vienna by the energy ministers of Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary,
Romania, and Turkey and European Union Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs. Another project under consideration is the $3 billion, 1,242-mile Trans-Caspian
Pipeline Project to carry annually 16 billion cubic meters of Turkmen and Azeri natural gas to Turkey and 14 billion cubic meters to Europe. Taken collectively,
Azerbaijan’s energy deals do indeed represent the Contract of the Century". (UPI)

ENB:KOSOVO IN-neocolonial-DEPENDENCE

2008-02-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

ENB:KOSOVO IN-NEO COLONIAL-DEPENDENCE
Albanian triumph, Serb anger as Kosovo secedes
By Douglas Hamilton1 hour, 45 minutes ago
Kosovo Albanians will proclaim independence from Serbia on Sunday, ending a long chapter in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia but cementing a bitter ethnicfrontline in the Balkans.Kosovo will be the 6th state carved from the Serb-dominated federation since 1991, after Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro, and the last toescape Serbia's embrace.The Serbs vow never to give up the land where their history goes back 1,000 years.They will reject independence in defiance of the Albanians and their Western backers and will keep their grip on strongholds in northern Kosovo, making the ethnicpartition of the new state a reality from the start."The influence of Belgrade has ended," Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said. "The success of Kosovo's independence as a new beginning will be clearlymeasured by respect for the rights of minorities, especially Serbs," the former guerrilla promised.Snow blanketed the capital on Sunday morning after triumphant celebrations the night before, thousands of Albanians pouring into the streets, flags in every hand andcar horns blaring. Banners proclaimed "Happy Independence.""Today, a new life begins. The past should not be forgotten, but it belongs to the past, and should be forgiven," the Kosovo daily Koha Ditore wrote.Ten years ago this week, Serb forces fought an Albanian guerrilla uprising, killing civilians who got in the way. Major Western powers were calling for talks. Russiabacked Serbia in its battle with "terrorists."Determined to end a decade of humiliation from Belgrade under the late autocrat Slobodan Milosevic, the Albanians fought on until the West, unable to sit powerlessafter other Balkan bloodbaths, bombed Serbia into submission in 1999.Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since Serb forces withdrew in June that year. Promised swift recognition by the United States and major EuropeanUnion powers, Kosovo's 90 percent Albanian majority can now ignore Serb warnings.RAZOR-WIRE"This is the happiest day," said Tahir Bajrami, an elderly Kosovo Albanian who flew from New York to join the celebrations. "We were prisoners, but this marks anew beginning," he said.The European Union will deploy a rule-of-law mission of some 2,000 starting next month to take over from the United Nations. A NATO-led peace force of 16,000troops will stay on.Establishing their writ in Serb-dominated land north of the Ibar River will be their toughest challenge. Serbia says the EU mission is illegitimate because it has no U.N.mandate, and its major ally Russia backs that position.Serbia promised reprisals but kept them secret. Analysts believe any trade, diplomatic or bureaucratic blockade will be relatively short-lived. But they sayimpoverished Kosovo, whose population of 2 million is Europe's youngest, will need a lot of development aid and on-the-spot guidance for years to come.Western powers are also nervously watching for any Kosovo fallout in ethnically divided Bosnia, where some Serbs threaten to secede, breaking up their uneasypartnership with Muslims and Croats in what would be yet another Balkan fragmentation.And in neighboring Macedonia, where NATO and the EU stepped in to cut short an ethnic guerrilla war, the Macedonian-Albanian coalition had its fingers crossedfor a soft landing in Kosovo.NATO peacekeepers were not relying on optimism. French troops prepared concrete and razor-wire barriers to separate Serbs from Albanians in the flashpoint cityof Mitrovica.The commander of NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo, French Lieutenant-General Xavier de Marnhac, said his troops "will react and oppose any provocation thatmay happen during these days, whether from the Albanian or the Serb side."Tens of thousands of Serbs fled Kosovo in 1999, fearing Albanian vengeance. Of the 120,000 who stayed, about half live in the northern enclave. But the rest arescattered in small, isolated and vulnerable villages.Kosovo's declaration will come at a session of parliament to begin at 3.00 p.m. (9 a.m. EST). Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica will address his country at4.00 p.m. (10 a.m. EST).The weather forecast was for heavy snow all day.(Additional reporting by Matt Robinson and Shaban Buza; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Resolution 1244 (1999)Adopted by the Security Council at its 4011th meeting,on 10 June 1999
The Security Council,Bearing in mind the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and the primary responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance ofinternational peace and security,Recalling its resolutions 1160 (1998) of 31 March 1998, 1199 (1998) of 23 September 1998, 1203 (1998) of 24 October 1998 and 1239 (1999) of 14 May 1999,Regretting that there has not been full compliance with the requirements of these resolutions,Determined to resolve the grave humanitarian situation in Kosovo, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and to provide for the safe and free return of all refugees anddisplaced persons to their homes,Condemning all acts of violence against the Kosovo population as well as all terrorist acts by any party,Recalling the statement made by the Secretary-General on 9 April 1999, expressing concern at the humanitarian tragedy taking place in Kosovo,Reaffirming the right of all refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes in safety,Recalling the jurisdiction and the mandate of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia,Welcoming the general principles on a political solution to the Kosovo crisis adopted on 6 May 1999 (S/1999/516, annex 1 to this resolution) and welcoming alsothe acceptance by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of the principles set forth in points 1 to 9 of the paper presented in Belgrade on 2 June 1999 (S/1999/649,annex 2 to this resolution), and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's agreement to that paper,Reaffirming the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other States of the region,as set out in the Helsinki Final Act and annex 2,Reaffirming the call in previous resolutions for substantial autonomy and meaningful self-administration for Kosovo,Determining that the situation in the region continues to constitute a threat to international peace and security,Determined to ensure the safety and security of international personnel and the implementation by all concerned of their responsibilities under the present resolution,and acting for these purposes under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,Decides that a political solution to the Kosovo crisis shall be based on the general principles in annex 1 and as further elaborated in the principles and other requiredelements in annex 2;Welcomes the acceptance by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of the principles and other required elements referred to in paragraph 1 above, and demands the fullcooperation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in their rapid implementation;Demands in particular that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia put an immediate and verifiable end to violence and repression in Kosovo, and begin and completeverifiable phased withdrawal from Kosovo of all military, police and paramilitary forces according to a rapid timetable, with which the deployment of the internationalsecurity presence in Kosovo will be synchronized;Confirms that after the withdrawal an agreed number of Yugoslav and Serb military and police personnel will be permitted to return to Kosovo to perform thefunctions in accordance with annex 2;Decides on the deployment in Kosovo, under United Nations auspices, of international civil and security presences, with appropriate equipment and personnel asrequired, and welcomes the agreement of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to such presences;Requests the Secretary-General to appoint, in consultation with the Security Council, a Special Representative to control the implementation of the international civilpresence, and further requests the Secretary-General to instruct his Special Representative to coordinate closely with the international security presence to ensure thatboth presences operate towards the same goals and in a mutually supportive manner;Authorizes Member States and relevant international organizations to establish the international security presence in Kosovo as set out in point 4 of annex 2 with allnecessary means to fulfil its responsibilities under paragraph 9 below;Affirms the need for the rapid early deployment of effective international civil and security presences to Kosovo, and demands that the parties cooperate fully in theirdeployment;Decides that the responsibilities of the international security presence to be deployed and acting in Kosovo will include:Deterring renewed hostilities, maintaining and where necessary enforcing a ceasefire, and ensuring the withdrawal and preventing the return into Kosovo of Federaland Republic military, police and paramilitary forces, except as provided in point 6 of annex 2; Demilitarizing the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and other armed Kosovo Albanian groups as required in paragraph 15 below;Establishing a secure environment in which refugees and displaced persons can return home in safety, the international civil presence can operate, a transitionaladministration can be established, and humanitarian aid can be delivered;Ensuring public safety and order until the international civil presence can take responsibility for this task;Supervising demining until the international civil presence can, as appropriate, take over responsibility for this task;Supporting, as appropriate, and coordinating closely with the work of the international civil presence;Conducting border monitoring duties as required;Ensuring the protection and freedom of movement of itself, the international civil presence, and other international organizations;Authorizes the Secretary-General, with the assistance of relevant international organizations, to establish an international civil presence in Kosovo in order to providean interim administration for Kosovo under which the people of Kosovo can enjoy substantial autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and which willprovide transitional administration while establishing and overseeing the development of provisional democratic self-governing institutions to ensure conditions for apeaceful and normal life for all inhabitants of Kosovo;Decides that the main responsibilities of the international civil presence will include:Promoting the establishment, pending a final settlement, of substantial autonomy and self-government in Kosovo, taking full account of annex 2 and of the Rambouilletaccords (S/1999/648);Performing basic civilian administrative functions where and as long as required;Organizing and overseeing the development of provisional institutions for democratic and autonomous self-government pending a political settlement, including theholding of elections;Transferring, as these institutions are established, its administrative responsibilities while overseeing and supporting the consolidation of Kosovo's local provisionalinstitutions and other peace-building activities;Facilitating a political process designed to determine Kosovo's future status, taking into account the Rambouillet accords (S/1999/648);In a final stage, overseeing the transfer of authority from Kosovo's provisional institutions to institutions established under a political settlement;Supporting the reconstruction of key infrastructure and other economic reconstruction;Supporting, in coordination with international humanitarian organizations, humanitarian and disaster relief aid;Maintaining civil law and order, including establishing local police forces and meanwhile through the deployment of international police personnel to serve in Kosovo;Protecting and promoting human rights;Assuring the safe and unimpeded return of all refugees and displaced persons to their homes in Kosovo;Emphasizes the need for coordinated humanitarian relief operations, and for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to allow unimpeded access to Kosovo byhumanitarian aid organizations and to cooperate with such organizations so as to ensure the fast and effective delivery of international aid;Encourages all Member States and international organizations to contribute to economic and social reconstruction as well as to the safe return of refugees anddisplaced persons, and emphasizes in this context the importance of convening an international donors' conference, particularly for the purposes set out in paragraph11 (g) above, at the earliest possible date;Demands full cooperation by all concerned, including the international security presence, with the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia;Demands that the KLA and other armed Kosovo Albanian groups end immediately all offensive actions and comply with the requirements for demilitarization as laiddown by the head of the international security presence in consultation with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General;Decides that the prohibitions imposed by paragraph 8 of resolution 1160 (1998) shall not apply to arms and related matériel for the use of the international civil andsecurity presences;Welcomes the work in hand in the European Union and other international organizations to develop a comprehensive approach to the economic development andstabilization of the region affected by the Kosovo crisis, including the implementation of a Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe with broad internationalparticipation in order to further the promotion of democracy, economic prosperity, stability and regional cooperation;Demands that all States in the region cooperate fully in the implementation of all aspects of this resolution;Decides that the international civil and security presences are established for an initial period of 12 months, to continue thereafter unless the Security Council decidesotherwise;Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Council at regular intervals on the implementation of this resolution, including reports from the leaderships of theinternational civil and security presences, the first reports to be submitted within 30 days of the adoption of this resolution;Decides to remain actively seized of the matter. Annex 1Statement by the Chairman on the conclusion of the meeting of the G-8 Foreign Ministers held at the Petersberg Centre on 6 May 1999The G-8 Foreign Ministers adopted the following general principles on the political solution to the Kosovo crisis:Immediate and verifiable end of violence and repression in Kosovo;Withdrawal from Kosovo of military, police and paramilitary forces;Deployment in Kosovo of effective international civil and security presences, endorsed and adopted by the United Nations, capable of guaranteeing the achievementof the common objectives;Establishment of an interim administration for Kosovo to be decided by the Security Council of the United Nations to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal lifefor all inhabitants in Kosovo;The safe and free return of all refugees and displaced persons and unimpeded access to Kosovo by humanitarian aid organizations;A political process towards the establishment of an interim political framework agreement providing for a substantial self-government for Kosovo, taking full accountof the Rambouillet accords and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other countries of the region, andthe demilitarization of the KLA;Comprehensive approach to the economic development and stabilization of the crisis region. Annex 2Agreement should be reached on the following principles to move towards a resolution of the Kosovo crisis:An immediate and verifiable end of violence and repression in Kosovo. Verifiable withdrawal from Kosovo of all military, police and paramilitary forces according to a rapid timetable.Deployment in Kosovo under United Nations auspices of effective international civil and security presences, acting as may be decided under Chapter VII of theCharter, capable of guaranteeing the achievement of common objectives.The international security presence with substantial North Atlantic Treaty Organization participation must be deployed under unified command and control andauthorized to establish a safe environment for all people in Kosovo and to facilitate the safe return to their homes of all displaced persons and refugees.Establishment of an interim administration for Kosovo as a part of the international civil presence under which the people of Kosovo can enjoy substantial autonomywithin the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, to be decided by the Security Council of the United Nations. The interim administration to provide transitionaladministration while establishing and overseeing the development of provisional democratic self-governing institutions to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normallife for all inhabitants in Kosovo.After withdrawal, an agreed number of Yugoslav and Serbian personnel will be permitted to return to perform the following functions:Liaison with the international civil mission and the international security presence; Marking/clearing minefields; Maintaining a presence at Serb patrimonial sites; Maintaining a presence at key border crossings.Safe and free return of all refugees and displaced persons under the supervision of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and unimpededaccess to Kosovo by humanitarian aid organizations.A political process towards the establishment of an interim political framework agreement providing for substantial self-government for Kosovo, taking full account ofthe Rambouillet accords and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other countries of the region, and thedemilitarization of UCK. Negotiations between the parties for a settlement should not delay or disrupt the establishment of democratic self-governing institutions.A comprehensive approach to the economic development and stabilization of the crisis region. This will include the implementation of a stability pact for South-Eastern Europe with broad international participation in order to further promotion of democracy, economic prosperity, stability and regional cooperation.Suspension of military activity will require acceptance of the principles set forth above in addition to agreement to other, previously identified, required elements,which are specified in the footnote below.(1) A military-technical agreement will then be rapidly concluded that would, among other things, specify additionalmodalities, including the roles and functions of Yugoslav/Serb personnel in Kosovo: WithdrawalProcedures for withdrawals, including the phased, detailed schedule and delineation of a buffer area in Serbia beyond which forces will be withdrawn; Returning personnelEquipment associated with returning personnel; Terms of reference for their functional responsibilities; Timetable for their return; Delineation of their geographical areas of operation; Rules governing their relationship to the international security presence and the international civil mission.--------NotesOther required elements:A rapid and precise timetable for withdrawals, meaning, e.g., seven days to complete withdrawal and air defence weapons withdrawn outside a 25 kilometre mutualsafety zone within 48 hours;Return of personnel for the four functions specified above will be under the supervision of the international security presence and will be limited to a small agreednumber (hundreds, not thousands);Suspension of military activity will occur after the beginning of verifiable withdrawals;The discussion and achievement of a military-technical agreement shall not extend the previously determined time for completion of withdrawals.
Kosovo Prepares for Independence
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSPublished: February 17, 2008Filed at 3:19 a.m. ETPRISTINA, Serbia (AP) -- A decade after Serbia sent in troops to crush a rebellion, Kosovo prepared to declare independence on Sunday -- a bold and historicmove to carve a new country out of a corner of Europe long bloodied by ethnic strife.By sidestepping the U.N. and appealing directly to the U.S. and other nations for recognition, Kosovo's independence sets up a showdown with Serbia -- outragedat the imminent loss of its territory -- and Russia, which warns of a dangerous precedent for separatist groups worldwide.Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army whose ethnic Albanian guerrillas clashed with Serb troops in a 1998-99 conflict thatclaimed 10,000 lives, was expected to convene an extraordinary session of parliament Sunday afternoon to proclaim the Republic of Kosovo.On the eve of the Serbian province's bid for statehood, Thaci hailed it as ''a historic day in our effort to create a state.''''We are getting our independence,'' he said in a nationally televised address. ''Everything is a done deal. The world's map is changing.''Underscoring Serbian anger, about 1,000 people staged a noisy protest in Belgrade on Saturday, waving Serbian flags and chanting ''Kosovo is the heart of Serbia.''Kosovo has formally remained a part of Serbia even though it has been administered by the U.N. and NATO since the war ended in 1999. The province is stillprotected by 16,000 NATO-led peacekeepers, and the alliance boosted its patrols over the weekend in hopes of discouraging violence. International police,meanwhile, deployed to back up local forces in the tense north.''It would be best for the Americans to take the Albanians to America and give them a part of their territory, so that they could have a small republic there,'' saidLjubinko Stefanovic, a resident of the ethnically divided northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica.Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership kept details of Sunday's ceremony under wraps, but Thaci was to meet with the parliament speaker at midmorning to formallyrequest a special session. A declaration of independence would be read out in the chamber, where the proceedings were to be broadcast live on television, andlawmakers would be asked to adopt it.The speaker, Jakup Krasniqi, would then proclaim Kosovo independent from Serbia, and lawmakers would vote on the new nation's flag and crest.The Kosovo Philharmonic Orchestra planned to play Beethoven's ''Ode to Joy'' at a sports hall, where top leaders would gather for speeches and toasts. Theyplanned to sign their names on giant iron letters spelling out ''NEWBORN'' to be displayed in downtown Pristina, the capital.Fireworks and an outdoor concert were scheduled for later in the evening.Spontaneous street celebrations broke out for a second straight night Saturday, with giddy Kosovars waving red and black Albanian flags and sounding car horns.''This will be a joyful day,'' said Besnik Berisha, a Pristina resident. ''The town looks great, and the party should start.''Ninety percent of Kosovo's 2 million people are ethnic Albanian -- most moderate or non-practicing Muslims, the rest Roman Catholics -- and they see no reason tostay joined to the rest of Christian Orthodox Serbia.With Russia, a staunch Serbian ally, determined to block the bid, Kosovo looked to the U.S. and key European powers for swift recognition of its status as thecontinent's newest nation. That recognition was likely to come Monday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium.Russian President Vladimir Putin, arguing that independence without U.N. approval would set a dangerous precedent for ''frozen conflicts'' across the former SovietUnion and around the world, pressured the Security Council to intervene.Serbia's government ruled out any military response as part of a secret ''action plan'' drafted earlier this week as a response, but warned that it would downgraderelations with any foreign government that recognizes Kosovo's independence.------Associated Press Writers William J. Kole in Pristina, Dusan Stojanovic in Kosovska Mitrovica and Slobodan Lekic in Belgrade contributed to this report.
Russia warns of Kosovo repercussions
Fri Feb 15, 2008 6:29am ESTBy Christian LoweMOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday international recognition of Kosovo would influence its policy towards the Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but it did not say if it would recognize them.Kosovo is expected to unilaterally declare independence from Serbia on Sunday and then be recognized by the United States and most members of the European Union. Russia backs its ally Serbia in opposing the move.Russian officials have linked Kosovo's status to Georgia's separatist regions, saying any recognition of the Serbian province as an independent state would create a legal precedent that would be followed by others."We will, without doubt, have to take into account a declaration and recognition of Kosovo independence in connection with the situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.The statement, posted on the ministry's Internet site .......made no mention of whether Russia would grant recognition to the two regions.Earlier, Interfax news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying Russia would change its policy on the breakaway regions if Kosovo was recognized. It later amended its report, removing the reference to a change in policy.The statement on the Internet site said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had talks on Friday with Abkhazia's separatist leader Sergei Bagapsh and Eduard Kokoity, president of South Ossetia's separatist administration.Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke away from ex-Soviet Georgia in fighting in the 1990s. Some observers have said Russia might grant them recognition in response to Western states recognizing Kosovo.Russia already provides financial aid to both regions and the majority of residents hold Russian passports. Moscow has peacekeeping troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.Russia has stopped short of granting the regions recognition because, analysts say, it fears that could encourage its own separatists.President Vladimir Putin on Thursday described recognition for Kosovo as "immoral and illegal" and said he had a plan on how to respond if Western states back Kosovo's independence.He did not disclose any details of the plan but he said Russia would not "ape" the Western recognition of Kosovo, a signal that Russia's response would not involve Moscow recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia.(Writing by Christian Lowe; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

EU warns Kosovo

2007-11-22T18:43:00.000-08:00

EU warns Kosovo

The European Union on Monday urged Kosovo leader Hashim Thaci, who claimed victory in weekend elections in the Serbian province, to refrain from unilaterally declaring independence.

Pazartesi, 19 Kasım 2007 11:50

"We are trying to convince the Kosovans not to proceed with a declaration of independence without the support of the international community," said Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn.
"With the elections, Thaci, who had a great influence during the war and now in peace time, knows what the score is and that a unilateral declaration of independence would be a very bad thing," Asselbaorn said.
Thaci claimed victory Sunday in Kosovo's elections, and declared that voters had sent the world a message that Kosovo was now ready for independence.
"I see that Thaci made some brave declarations," said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, as he arrived for talks between EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
"We understand that, but what Thaci must understand is that there is a difference between being a politician in the opposition and being a prime minister," he told reporters.
While acknowledging that Kosovo was "de facto independent from Serbia" he warned against making it "independent from the international community".
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said formal independence for Kosovo would require proper preparation.
In the election campaign, Thaci of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) promised ethnic Albanians, who comprise 90 percent of Kosovo's two million population, that he would "immediately" move to declare independence if elected.
Serbia is strongly opposed to any form of independence and is only prepared to offer broad autonomy for Kosovo, a southern territory it regards as the cradle of its history, culture and religion.
Unofficial results, compiled by independent poll observer Democracy In Action after around 80 percent of votes had been counted, indicated that Thaci had secured 34 percent of the vote, well ahead of his nearest rival.
Saturday's elections were boycotted by Kosovar Serbs and were marred by a low turnout with only 43 percent of 1.5 million voters casting their ballots.
Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since NATO's 1999 air war ended a months-long conflict that killed an estimated 10,000 Albanians and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Agencies

"Plan B" for Kosovo

2007-10-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Europe urged to ready "Plan B" for Kosovo

By Mark JohnMon Oct 1, 11:56 AM ET
The European Union must agree a legal basis for dealing with Kosovo, which appears headed for a de facto independence without a United Nations agreement on its future, Western experts on the Balkans said on Monday.
The EU has long sought a U.N. Security Council resolution sealing the future of the breakaway Serb province but that is seen as unlikely given Russian resistance and the deadlock between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians.
Instead, EU capitals who favor an independent Kosovo should find an alternative legal basis for an EU mission there. At the same time they have to persuade doubters in the bloc not to veto the presence of such a mission, the experts said.
A split over Kosovo would not only undermine EU plans to take over police duties in the U.N.-administered province but wreck its credibility in the very region where it was found wanting when the Balkans wars of the 1990s erupted.
"We know that the last half a dozen are not going to be persuaded," Gareth Evans, head of the International Crisis Group think-tank, said of the clutch of mostly small European states which are most reluctant to accept Kosovo's independence.
"But the others can and should be looking to be ready to take a decision early next year," he told a Brussels conference, adding that he doubted last-ditch diplomatic efforts to resolve the stand-off would produce results by a December 10 deadline.
Evans said that in the absence of a new U.N. mandate, legitimacy for the EU presence involving some 1,850 police and judicial personnel could be provided by invitations from the Kosovo leadership and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"It would be a 'double hook'," he said, noting that any effort by the West to remold the existing U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 for a post-independence Kosovo would likely face resistance from Moscow and others.
Major powers have set a December 10 deadline for an agreement on the final status of Kosovo, which has been in legal limbo under U.N. administration since 1999, when NATO waged an air war to drive out Serbian forces and halt ethnic cleansing.
Serbia, backed by Russia with its U.N. veto power, rejects independence for Kosovo. But the territory's 2 million ethnic Albanians -- 90 percent of the population -- will settle for nothing less and have received Washington's backing.
"CONSTRUCTIVE ABSTENTIONS"
Alongside the United States, Britain and France lead a majority of EU states ready to recognize Kosovo's sovereignty. Spain, Hungary, Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus and Romania are reluctant either because of their proximity to the Balkans or fears it could encourage separatists at home.
Former European Parliament President Pat Cox urged reluctant EU countries to allow the EU mission to proceed without them.
"Doubters should be invited to engage in constructive abstentions. It is a capacity that is available when there are opinions short of consensus," he said of an arrangement under which states would not use their right to veto EU policy.
Question marks remain over the reaction of Germany to a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo.
Diplomats say Berlin has concerns over the legal basis of its large contingent within NATO-led 17,000-strong peace force in Kosovo and argues that a simple invitation by Pristina would not provide solid enough grounds for a long-term presence.
They say that while Chancellor Angela Merkel would rally to an independence declaration by Kosovo, her junior coalition partners the Social Democrats are less keen.

2007-09-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

Major powers urge 'constructive' Kosovo talks: Miliband

Major powers urged Serbia and
Kosovo Albanian separatists to show
"a constructive spirit" in their
upcoming direct talks here on the
Serbian breakaway province's future
status, Foreign Secretary David
Miliband said late Thursday.
He made the statement at the end of
closed-door discussions among the
six-nation contact group on Kosovo,
which laid the groundwork for
Friday's talks in New York between
Serbia and Kosovo's Albanian
separatist leaders.

Kosovo News 220607

2007-06-22T15:28:00.000-07:00

Kosovo News: UPDATE 220607

* Revised Kosovo Resolution Submitted to U.N. Security Council
* Russia rejects plan paving way for independent Kosovo
* UPDATE: Serbia Praises Russia's Rejection Of UN Kosovo Plan
* EU warns Kosovo against declaring independence

Revised Kosovo Resolution Submitted to U.N. Security Council

Change would allow for 120-day negotiation period between Serbia, Kosovo
By Judy AitaUSINFO United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- The United States and two European members of the U.N. Security Council have submitted a revised resolution that would pave the way for Kosovo's independence.
Submitted during a closed council meeting June 20, the new draft would allow for a four-month period for negotiations between officials in Serbia and Kosovo to give the two sides time to reach an agreement before the independence plan drawn up by U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari goes into effect. It asks U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "to immediately convoke the parties to continue final status negotiations within the 120-day period" and says that the Ahtisaari plan will go into effect unless the Security Council "expressly decides otherwise after conducting an evaluation."
The council's evaluation of the negotiations would be made "on the basis of a report by the secretary-general or his representatives," the draft says.
The draft also asks that "the parties refrain from making any unilateral declarations regarding final status" during the period of negotiations.
U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said that the 120-day delay "is designed to allow for continuing negotiations, something that several members of the council believed would be useful."
Wolff said that in presenting the new draft, the United Kingdom and France underscored "the importance of the implementation of the Ahtisaari plan and the expectation that this would result in Kosovo's independence."
"There is an expectation among many that the ideal solution would be agreement between the parties. This [delay] allows a little more time to see if that's possible. It may not be possible and the resolution allows for immediate steps after the period of negotiation to implement to Ahtisaari provisions," the U.S. ambassador told journalists after the meeting.
He said that after consultations with all 15 council members, the co-sponsors will decide when to call for a vote.
A 1999 Security Council resolution (Resolution 1244) placed the Serbian province of Kosovo under U.N. administration and set out a political process to determine Kosovo's final status. It gave the council the responsibility of determining a settlement. Following months of exhaustive negotiations with Serbian and Kosovo officials, Ahtisaari concluded that independence was the only option to ensure Kosovo's political and economic stability.
Under Ahtisaari's plan, which was submitted in April, Kosovo would be a multiethnic society with the language, education and cultural aspects of all communities protected and promoted; the Serbian Orthodox Church would be safeguarded. The NATO-led Kosovo force would continue to provide security and an international civilian representative would oversee the settlement.
The United States and many European nations say that open-ended negotiations and further delay in arriving at a long-promised settlement would cause only more instability.
Russia, which has veto power in the council, has called the new draft resolution unacceptable.
United Kingdom Ambassador Karen Pierce urged Russia to work with the co-sponsors on the draft. "We much prefer to stay within the Security Council. There have been 115 resolutions on the Balkans since the former Yugoslavia disintegrated," Pierce said. "It strikes us as right that the last piece, as it were ... should be dealt with by the council."
Pierce said that the co-sponsors expect the negotiation period to be "used wisely and not to press for unrealistic ambitions. We look to [Serbia], in particular, if we do go ahead with a further round of negotiations, to come forward with realistic proposals."
"It is fair to say that one way or another Kosovo independence is going to be inevitable," she said. "It is much better that that is reached through a managed process with proper and adequate guarantees for the Kosovo Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo. We believe that the Ahtisaari provisions provide for that."
A transcript of Wolff’s remarks is available on the U.S. Mission to the United Nations Web site.
For more information on U.S. policies in the region, see Southeast Europe.

Russia rejects plan paving way for independent Kosovo

By Evelyn Leopold, Reuters June 21, 2007

UNITED NATIONS -- Russia rejected as unacceptable yesterday a new UN Security Council resolution drafted by Europeans and the United States that paves the way to independence for Kosovo in four months.
The document, obtained by Reuters, asks for negotiations for another 120 days. But if the talks fail, the resolution would automatically put into effect an independence plan drawn up by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari "unless the Security Council expressly decides otherwise after conducting an evaluation."
Russia, which has veto power on the 15-nation Security Council, still opposes independence for Kosovo, a Serbian province of 2 million people dominated by ethnic Albanians, unless its allies in Belgrade agree.
"It is unacceptable," Moscow's UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said of the draft introduced by Britain and France.
He told reporters that the sponsors now agreed with Russia that more negotiations were necessary. "However, I am afraid that does not really bring us closer," because after four months "Mr. Ahtisaari's proposal will go into force."
Kosovo, seen by Serbia as a cradle of its culture, passed out of Belgrade's control in 1999 when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces who had killed 10,000 ethnic Albanian civilians in a two-year war with guerrillas.
The province has been under UN administration for almost eight years. If Russia refuses to agree to the plan, the West has to decide whether to go ahead.
Britain's deputy ambassador, Karen Pierce, made clear that was an option. "I think it's fair to say that one way or another, Kosovo independence is going to be inevitable," she said.
The draft never uses the word "independence" but points to various provisions in the Ahtisaari plan that pave the way for a break with Serbia.
Russia has argued that having the United Nations split Kosovo from Serbia sets a dangerous precedent that could apply to other regions, such as the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia. But Western leaders say Kosovo is an exception because of the 1990s Balkan wars that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia.

UPDATE: Serbia Praises Russia's Rejection Of UN Kosovo Plan
(This updates an item published at 1129 GMT, with comments, details.)

BELGRADE (AP)--Serbia on Thursday welcomed Russia's rejection of a revised U.N. resolution that it said would only delay internationally supervised independence for its breakaway Kosovo province.
The new text, introduced in the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday and drafted by European Union nations and the United States, would give Serbs and independence-seeking Kosovo Albanians four more months to reach an agreement over the disputed region.
It states that the resolution's provisions, which lead to full independence, would take effect after 120 days "unless the Security Council expressly decides otherwise after conducting an evaluation."
Veto-wielding Russia and its traditional ally Serbia immediately rejected the revised plan, saying it would only postpone and not abolish the proposed independence for Kosovo.
Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica issued a statement urging the U.S. and E.U. countries to withdraw the draft resolution. Kostunica said that "it is clear that, thanks to the Russian principal stand, a resolution which violates basic rules of the international law, cannot pass."
"No resolution is necessary for the relaunching of the negotiating process, only good will (is needed) to sit down and seek a compromise through dialogue," Kostunica added.
Earlier, other Serbian officials said that the new draft wouldn't lead to " real" negotiations as Kosovo Albanians would not have an incentive to accept anything else but the promised independence for their province.
"We highly appreciate Russia's stand on the new resolution," Serbia's Vice Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic said. "We are ready for new negotiations. But, the serious negotiations were not the idea in this resolution."
Serbia's government minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said no new U.N. resolution was needed for reopening talks with rival Kosovo Albanians, " especially not the proposal that gives a time frame and prejudges the result of the negotiations."

EU warns Kosovo against declaring independence

By Matt RobinsonThu Jun 21, 7:53 PM ET

The European Union warned Kosovo on Thursday against an "irresponsible" declaration of independence after Russia again rejected a Western-backed United Nations resolution that would effectively grant the move.
EU Kosovo envoy Stefan Lehne said it "would be a huge step backwards" if Kosovo Albanian leaders were to take the issue into their own hands.
"Unilateral action or other irresponsible behavior in Kosovo would take away all the goodwill that you have received," he told reporters after meeting the ethnic Albanian president of Serbia's breakaway southern province, Farmer Sadie.
"It will not help you overcome the remaining obstacles but build many, many more," Lehne said.
EU foreign ministers discussed the deadlock with Russia at a summit in Brussels and stuck to the EU line that the West should continue efforts to get a U.N. Security Council resolution.
"We are trying to avoid a veto. We are sticking to our position that we need a (U.N. Security Council) resolution," said Luxembourg Foreign minister Jean Asselborn after the talks.
Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said: "More or less most of us believe that more time is needed. We should take it and give the negotiations a chance."
Public pressure is building on the leaders of Kosovo's 90-percent Albanian majority to declare independence. Diplomatic stalemate between the West and Russia has blocked a U.N. plan that would lead to statehood, eight years after NATO drove out Serb forces and the United Nations took control.
Russia on Wednesday declared "unacceptable" the West's third draft of a resolution for the U.N. Security Council, which called for a further 120 days of Serb-Albanian talks.
This would be on top of 13 months of negotiations that ended in March with no compromise whatever on the central issue -- Serbia's total opposition to the Albanians' bottom-line demand.
The latest draft proposed that if there was still no deal, the plan by U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari for EU-supervised independence would take effect.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica called for the resolution to be withdrawn. Serbia is ready for talks, he said in a statement, but without conditions.
"A new resolution is not needed to restart talks, only the good will to sit at the table and search for compromise."
Russia's rejection increased pressure on Kosovo's main supporters, the United States and the EU, to consider backing a unilateral declaration of independence or risk potentially serious unrest among Kosovo's two million Albanians.
Security is in the hands of 16,000 NATO soldiers.
Washington has indicated it would support such a step, but the 27-member EU fears its fragile unity on the issue would crumble and it would not have a legal basis to take over supervision of Kosovo from the eight-year-old U.N. mission.
(Additional reporting by Ljiljana Cvekic in Belgrade and David Brunnstrom and Mark John in Brussels)

2007-06-15T14:51:00.000-07:00

Roundup: NATO defense ministers meet to discuss missile defense, Kosovo issue

The defense ministers from 26 NATO allies met in Brussels Thursday to discuss primarily missile defense and the alliance's role in Kosovo and Afghanistan.
The ministers are expected to agree to look seriously into the implications of the U.S. proposal to base interceptor missiles and a radar station in Poland and the Czech Republic.
"On missile defence we're hoping that they will take a specific decision so that future work on a possible future NATO missile defense system will take into account the implications of the U.S. proposals to base interceptors in Poland and radars in the Czech Republic," NATO Assistant Secretary General John Colston told reporters before the meeting.
"It's quite possible that the United States' capability could be one complementary element of our approach to missile defense in the future. This would not bring the U.S. system under NATO control, but it recognizing that the United States' system would be likely to provide a very substantial degree of coverage of the European continent, and therefore it does make sense for us to examine the U.S. system alongside possible potential future NATO elements," he added.
But he cautioned that no decision is to be made immediately on whether NATO will pursue its own strategic missile defense system.
"But let me say no decision is being taken now and no decision is expected in the near future on whether or not NATO would want to proceed with its own missile defense system. That is a decision for the future."
The U.S. has said that its defense system's deployment in Eastern Europe will cover most of Europe from ballistic missile attacks. But Turkey and parts of Romania, Bulgaria and Greece will not be covered as those areas are too close to the potential sources of missile attack.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Thursday stressed the indivisibility of the security of allies, which means all allies must have the same protection.
"NATO's approach (to missile defense) is based on the principles of the indivisibility of allied security and transparency with our partners, of course including Russia," de Hoop Scheffer said in opening remarks on Thursday.
The NATO defense ministers will also have an opportunity to debate the U.S. plan with Russia's new Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.
Russia is strongly opposed to the U.S. plan.
Colston refused to comment on Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent proposal to have a joint radar site located in Azerbaijan, saying it is far too early for technical evaluation.
But he welcomed the fact that Russia seems to be moving on "from the rhetoric of confrontation to the rhetoric of cooperation."
The defense ministers are also expected to emphasize the alliance's commitment to Kosovo. NATO has a 16,000-strong force in the Serbian province.
Colston said the alliance is still hopeful that the UN Security Council can reach a resolution on Kosovo's status.
"As to speculation about what would happen if a Security Council resolution was not reached, let me first of all say there is as yet no Russian veto. We've all heard the words that have come from some Russian leaders, but there is no Russian veto as yet and we're continuing to work and will continue to work over the coming days and weeks to see if we can reach a negotiated settlement," he said.
He said the alliance is closely watching the situation in Kosovo and is prepared for all eventualities.
"Everyone in Kosovo needs to be aware of NATO's determination to maintain security in Kosovo and that we will not tolerate threats from whatever quarter to such security," he added.
"We are therefore determined to maintain our mission; to maintain it effectively; and to ensure that the security of Kosovo is maintained for the benefit of all its inhabitants until such time as we hope we can transition to a new status under a new resolution in providing the international military presence in Kosovo," Colston said.
On Afghanistan, the ministers are expected to look into ways to ensure that the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force will have the capacity and flexibility to carry out its tasks. They will also discuss ways to reduce civilian casualties in clashes with the Taliban.
The ministers will also discuss NATO's rapid reaction force and hold consultations with NATO's partners.
Source: Xinhua

G-8 fails to agree on Kosovo's future

2007-06-09T02:01:00.000-07:00

By Judy Dempsey IHT

Friday, June 8, 2007
HEILIGENDAMM, Germany: Leaders of the Group of 8 leading industrial countries failed Friday to agree on the future status of Kosovo after Russia rejected a proposal unexpectedly presented by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

Sarkozy, attending his first G-8 summit meeting since becoming president last month, surprised Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and the leaders of Britain, Canada, Italy, Russia, Japan and the United States when he called for a delay in granting Kosovo independence from Serbia.

Diplomats said Sarkozy had not informed Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, about his plan, even though the EU will play the major role in supervising Kosovo's independence.

Speaking at the end of the three-day meeting, where she had won wide admiration for her skillful diplomacy, Merkel had to concede that there were "still differences of opinion" after diplomats spent hours trying to reach a compromise on Kosovo. "Time is pressing. We have to find a solution. We would like to reach a consensus," Merkel said.

Sarkozy proposed that a new United Nations Security Council resolution aimed at paving the way for the province's independence be delayed for six months to allow fresh negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo. If no deal agreement emerged, the UN plan would be applied, he said.

"For the time being, the necessary progress has not been made," Sarkozy said Friday after talks with President George W. Bush.

Apart from Merkel, the other G-8 leaders did not comment on Sarkozy's plan. But diplomats said there was some skepticism, particularly from the United States, over any delay. Merkel said senior diplomats involved in the UN plan for Kosovo would meet next week.

The province has been under a UN protectorate since 1999, when NATO bombed Serbia to stop the killings of the ethnic Albanians who make up more than 90 percent of the province's two million inhabitants.

A plan presented last January by Martti Ahtisaari, the UN special envoy, authorizes EU supervision of Kosovo for at least two years during the transition to independence. In the meantime, the EU would establish strong institutions to protect the small Serb community in the province.

Russia, a member of the Security Council, has repeatedly opposed granting the province independence and has threatened to veto any resolution unless Serbia and Kosovo resume negotiations over the future of the province. Sarkozy said he feared a division in the Security Council would divide the international community and risk the lives of NATO forces who have been in the province since 1999.

Putin said later at a news conference that there had been no change in Russia's position.

"The issue was respecting the territorial integrity of Serbia," he said. And, in a warning to other UN Security Council members about rushing into granting the province independence, he said it could be a precedent for other independence movements, such as Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia.

Serbia's leadership rejected the Ahtisaari plan, but the ethnic Albanians have overwhelming accepted it. All political parties in the province agreed to forego violence to push their claims for independence after pledges by the United States that it could propose a new Security Council resolution that would end Kosovo's protectorate and allow the province to move toward independence.

EU diplomats Friday said they feared that any delays could trigger new violence.

The Kosovo prime minister, Agim Ceku, appealed to the UN Security Council members to "adopt a resolution as soon as possible or to let us take our own path."

"We can't wait anymore. Every day of delay means an increase in frustration and a loss of legitimacy," said Ceku, who has warned that Kosovo would declare independence unilaterally if thwarted by Russia.

President Fatmir Sejdiu called on Western governments to reaffirm their support to Ahtisaari plan

"It is important to for us to continue the dynamic in the Security Council to approve a new resolution," Sejdiu said in Pristina.

The European Union, meanwhile, has been making elaborate preparations to supervise the province's independence by sending hundreds of police officers and judicial experts to establish the rule of law and strong judicial institutions.

Nicholas Wood contributed reporting from Pristina.

2007-06-05T05:19:00.001-07:00

Russia rebuffs West over Kosovo
By Gabriel Partos BBC South-East Europe analyst

As the crunch time for resolving Kosovo's long-term status approaches, the war of words between Russia and the Western powers on the future of Serbia's independence-seeking province shows no sign of abating. Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, on Thursday dismissed a revised UN resolution on Kosovo's future, presented by Britain and backed by the EU and US.
The amendments had "not changed anything as far as we are concerned," he said.
He again hinted that Russia could veto the resolution, telling a reporter: "I don't like this word (veto) until I receive final instructions, but you are guessing well what is in my mind".
The new draft resolution supports a plan drawn up by UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari for internationally-supervised independence for Kosovo. Currently the UN-administered province remains legally part of Serbia.
Attempts to bridge the gap on the draft resolution failed to make headway during talks that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held in Moscow in mid-May.
Russia's publicly stated position is that a solution needs the approval of both parties - the Kosovo Albanians and the Serbs.
Diplomatic manoeuvres
Since Serbia has rejected the Ahtisaari recommendations out of hand, that would imply that Russia might use its veto, as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, to scupper the proposed supervised independence for Kosovo.
The United States and - more reluctantly - the EU have backed the Ahtisaari plan as the best one possible, in the absence of an agreement between Belgrade and Kosovo's overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian community. No such deal emerged from a year-long series of talks Mr Ahtisaari chaired in Vienna until March.
Russia's most senior officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, have tended to avoid using the term "veto", while hinting at its possible use.
That has been viewed as an attempt on the Kremlin's part to keep its options open.
However, in recent months - particularly since the emergence of the Ahtisaari proposals - Russia has adopted a firmer position in arguing for a settlement reached by consensus.
It has made fewer attempts to establish an analogy between Kosovo and the pro-Russian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia. Last year President Vladimir Putin sought to highlight such a link, implying that if Kosovo gained independence, then so should these territories.
Russian withdrawal
Russia's opposition to the West over Kosovo does not appear to be motivated by a history of friendship with Serbia on grounds of a shared Slavic cultural background and Orthodox Christian heritage.
After all, Russia pulled its peacekeepers out of Kosovo in 2003, despite the fact that the Serb minority there were complaining, as they still are, of being the victims of harassment and discrimination at the hands of the ethnic Albanian majority. Russia's early departure from Kosovo, justified on grounds of cost-cutting, was viewed by many Kosovar Serbs as leaving them in the lurch.
The withdrawal from Kosovo four years ago was also in stark contrast with the unannounced arrival of Russian peacekeepers there back in 1999.
The Russian dash to Pristina airport nearly produced a confrontation with the main body of the peacekeeping contingent under Nato's command which the Russian troops eventually joined, as originally agreed.
Russia's conduct both in 1999 and today appears to be motivated by a determination to show the West, and the US in particular, that it should be taken seriously - as one of the key players on the international stage.
The circumstances now are very different, though.
Kremlin confidence
Thanks to its oil wealth in an era of high energy prices, Russia believes it has regained its former status as a great power, which it lost during the economic collapse in the immediate post-communist era.
When it comes to the dipomatic battle of wills over Kosovo, that factor probably accounts for much more than Russia's sympathy for the Serbs - although support for fellow-Orthodox Serbs has a populist appeal to some sections of Russian society. The Kremlin might still decide to abstain in a vote - an option made easier by the fact that the text of the UN resolution, like the main section of Mr Ahtisaari's blueprint, does not include an explicit reference to "independence".
Western diplomats also note that, until very recently, Russia played what they describe as a generally "constructive" role as a member - along with the US, Britain, France, Germany and Italy - of the six-nation Contact Group that has been spearheading the UN's drive to settle Kosovo's status.
However, before the Kremlin reconsiders its stance it may be looking for some concessions, both on Kosovo and other issues.
In the case of Kosovo, these could include a moratorium on the territory's membership of the UN and other international bodies once it becomes independent.
Elsewhere, Moscow may be angling for an undertaking from Nato not to continue its enlargement into former Soviet republics by inviting Georgia, and possibly Ukraine, to join the alliance.
Meanwhile, Washington has also signalled its readiness to bypass Russia, if necessary, by stating that it will recognise Kosovo's independence, even if there is no UN Security Council resolution in place to endorse it.
Russia may want to avoid a confrontation of that kind, and it has repeatedly tried to put off the moment of decision by calling for more talks.
But the US and key Western countries believe the time for further delays has passed.
They are concerned about a build-up of frustration among Kosovo's Albanian majority - and unlike Russia, they have peacekeepers on the ground who may become the targets of possible violence.
The last chance for a deal may now be just a few days away - at the G8 summit of leading industrial nations in Germany on 6-8 June.
If Russia stands by Serbia, Kosovo's assembly will almost certainly vote for a unilateral declaration of independence.
That would be a scenario for diplomatic upheaval and chaotic developments on the ground, which would present further challenges not only to the West but Russia as well.

2007-06-02T07:21:00.000-07:00

Russia rejects U.N. resolution on Kosovo
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press WriterThu May 31, 7:50 PM ET

The United States and European nations introduced a revised U.N. resolution Thursday supporting independence for Kosovo under international supervision, but it was immediately rejected by Russia — who hinted it would veto the measure.
The new draft included several minor changes that sought to address Russia's concerns about ensuring that Kosovo's multiethnic character is preserved. But it did not include Russia's main proposal for new negotiations between the province's majority ethnic Albanians, who are demanding independence, and its minority Serbs, who want to remain part of Serbia.
"The introduction of this updated version of the draft has not changed anything as far as we are concerned," Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said. "We should think in terms of continued effort to find a mutually acceptable solution to the future of Kosovo."
He cited an "important letter" from Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asking the U.N. chief to set up new negotiations on Kosovo's status. Jeremic said the main objective is "to reach a compromise solution" to guarantee Kosovo's long-term stability — but he also reiterated Serbia's opposition to Kosovo's independence.
The resolution's supporters said they want swift action on the resolution, which would end U.N. administration of Kosovo in 120 days and have the European Union take over the province's supervised transition to independence. NATO-led troops would remain to help ensure security and an international civilian representative would oversee the transition.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the current Security Council president, said council experts would meet Friday to discuss the new draft. Churkin said he might send a representative to listen, but said Russia would not discuss a draft that did not address its concerns.
Khalilzad said the U.S. would like a Security Council vote on the resolution by next week. Asked what Russia will do if the new draft resolution is pushed to a vote, Churkin said, "Under those circumstances, unfortunately, the outcome would be obvious."
When asked if that meant he would veto the resolution, he replied: "I don't like this word until I receive final instructions, but you're guessing well what is in my mind."
While Kosovo remains a province of Serbia, it has been under U.N. and NATO administration since a 78-day NATO-led air war that halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.
Last month, U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be granted internationally supervised independence — a proposal welcomed by its ethnic Albanian majority, who comprise 90 percent of the province's 2 million people, but vehemently rejected by its Serb minority. Russia's opposition to the proposal is linked to its strong cultural and religious ties to the Serbs.
The new draft resolution, which is backed by the U.S. and the European Union's Security Council members — France, Britain, Slovakia, Belgium and Italy — would be under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter which deals with threats to peace and security and can be militarily enforced.

Kosovo-news 24-May-2007

2007-05-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

U.S.-EU resolution on Kosovo ready
24 May 2007 09:35 Source: B92, Tanjug NEW YORK, VIENNA, BRUSSELS

The United States will officially submit its draft Kosovo resolution to the UN Security Council by the end of the week.Tanjug news agency has learnt from its sources in the UN that the draft resolution sponsored by the U.S. and EU member states does not explicitly mention the notion of independence, but it suggests the nullification of all previously adopted resolutions regarding Kosovo, which will make room for the implementation of Ahtisaari’s plan of supervised independence for the province.Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated Wednesday in Vienna he was against any imposed solution for Kosovo, stressing that the fundamental principles of the international law, first of all on the territorial integrity principle, had to be respected“The principles of international law can be changed, if someone wishes so, but still they must meet the interests of both sides in the Serbian province of Kosovo,” Putin said at a joint press conference with Austrian President Heinz Fischer.Putin also said that the future status of Kosovo had to be settled by means of a direct agreement between Belgrade and Priština in line with the UN resolution 1244 which said that that Kosovo is an integral part of Serbia.U.S. President George Bush and NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer voiced support for a UN resolution based on UN Special Kosovo Envoy Martti Ahtisaari’s plan.However, if that resolution was not adopted, KFOR troops would remain in Kosovo on the basis of UN resolution 1244, NATO spokesperson James Appathurai said in Brussels.He added that NATO nevertheless expected to see the adoption of the resolution in the UN Security Council, but was prepared for all options. Wednesday, May. 23, 2007Will Russia Block Kosovo Independence?By Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow"We agreed to seek a solution that will satisfy all parties," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on recent talks between President Vladimir Putin and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Kosovo. Except, added Lavrov, "No such solution is immediately in sight."The Serbian province of Kosovo, whose 2 million people are predominantly ethnic Albanians and want independence, has been administered as a U.N. protectorate since NATO's 78-day bombing campaign forced Serbian withdrawal in 1999. Now, U.N.'s special envoy Marti Ahtisaari has proposed de facto independence under European Union supervision for Kosovo, with a view to subsequently integrating both it and Serbia into the EU. Ahtisaari's plan is backed by the U.S. and NATO countries, but Russia strongly objects to what it describes as a dangerous precedent for separatists elsewhere. And as an historical ally of Serbia, Russia cannot turn down Belgrade's pleas of help, particularly at a time when Putin is promoting an image of himself as a strident defender of Russia and its allies against the designs of NATO. In the year of Russia's parliamentary and presidential elections — however token those may be — Putin wants Russians to feel proud of Moscow's growing readiness to challenge the U.S. and bully the EU, which is increasingly dependent on Russian fuel supplies.Still, the grim reality for Russia, summed up by Secretary Rice to Echo Moskvi Radio station during her recent visit, is that "Kosovo will never again be part of Serbia. It's not possible." And Russia does not have sufficient leverage to change that reality — although it can use its U.N. Security Council veto to freeze the process, once the Ahtisaari plan is put to vote. Off the record, Russian officials indicate that this is, indeed, what Russia will most likely do, for the lack of other options.The separatism theme is played differently by Moscow in different contexts: Russia brutally burns out separatism in Chechnya, but it endorses the efforts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to break away from pro-NATO Georgia, as well as those of Moldova's breakaway region of Trans-Dniestria. Russia uses these separatist entities to turn up heat on Georgia and Moldova, and the separatist movements in all three demand Russian recognition, and subsequent incorporation into Russia. Hence, Moscow's headache: Should it go along with the Ahtisaari plan, it must insist that the same approach be applied to Russian allies, lest it loses face both with them and with its own increasingly nationalist population. But should Russia derail the Ahtisaari plan on grounds of opposing separatism, it has to find a better rationale to encourage its own separatist clientele.The issue also has implications for the image of the protagonists in the Islamic world: Helping Muslim Albanians win independence may help the Western powers repair their image in the Muslim world, whereas resisting the Albanians' secession will cause a lot of bad blood in the Muslim world for Russia. Another factor is Serbia's own unreliability. Over centuries, Serbia always asked for Russia's protection first, and ended up siding with the West second, leaving Russia with a lot of egg on the face and in a lot of trouble for all its pains. Even with the current rise of Serbian nationalism, piqued by the West's position on Kosovo, Belgrade is more likely to cut a deal with the West and opt for the EU's patronage rather than for Moscow's.Serbia certainly has reasons to be piqued. Despite the NATO countries pledging even handedness, they appear oblivious to the fact that the tables in Kosovo have been turned since 1999. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 on Kosovo, demanded to guarantee the safe and free return of all refugees and displaced persons to their homes. But since 1999, the Albanians have forced out some 200,000 Serbs, who cannot freely return. NATO peacekeepers always are not always able to calm down clashes between Albanians and the few Serbian enclaves still remaining in Kosovo. Though Kosovo will never again be a part of Serbia, the U.S. might be too hasty seeking to have both peoples integrated into the EU before they have learned how to co-exist. Helping develop functioning — and inevitably cooperative — economies in Serbia and Kosovo might prove a necessary pre-requisite. It takes time. In this respect, the likelihood of a desperate Russian veto may be a blessing in disguise for the region.
source: The Time

UK hopes for UN resolution on Kosovo
Associated PressWednesday, May 23, 2007 (Pristina, Serbia)

A senior British diplomat said on Wednesday that there were no deadlines for a UN resolution on Kosovo's future, but expressed hope a decision will be taken within weeks at the UN Security Council that remains divided over the issue.Mark Lyall Grant, the political director of Britain's Foreign Office, urged patience among Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority who are pressing for independence for the Serbian province, which has been under UN administration since mid-1999.''We hope it will be possible to pass a resolution in the next few weeks in New York,'' said Grant. ''There is no deadline. It is more important to get the right outcome than it is to get a speedy outcome,'' he added.The EU and US circulated a draft UN resolution earlier this month endorsing supervised independence for Kosovo despite strong objections from Russia.Russia, a traditional ally of Serbia, which wants to keep control of the province, has warned against putting the plan to a vote, and said it might use its veto to block it. Western leaders have warned that delaying the vote could provoke violence.

Positions on Kosovo at UN Security Council still widely differingUnitedNations
May 24 (Itar-Tass)

Members of the UN Security Council still do not show any signs of bridging their differences on the Kosovo problem, a diplomat on the Russian delegation told Itar-Tass Wednesday.He recalled that members of a Kosovo contact group, which includes Russia, Britain, Germany, Italy, the U.S., and France, had met in New York Tuesday.“We had another round of discussions of a draft resolution submitted by the U.S. and European Union delegations earlier this month,” the diplomat said.“The differences are not getting narrower and all the problematic provisions the Russian delegation pointed out in that document are still there,” he said.“Russia continues believing that the draft doesn’t offer an acceptable basis for UN Security Council’s decisions on Kosovo,” the diplomat indicated.He did not rule out that the Security Council may discuss Kosovo some time next week.The three-page draft resolution that was co-authored by the U.S., the EU countries having seats on the Security Council at the moment and Germany was submitted May 11.It proposes, among other things, to abandon actions under the Security Council’s resolution 1244 adopted in 1999, to consider Kosovo as a unique case that does not set an international precedent and to grant the much-suffered province of Serbia independence as stipulated by the Martti Ahtisaari plan. Serbs in Kosovo Fear Looming Decision by Emily HarrisEmily Harris, NPRSasha Radosavljevic owns the a café in North Mitrovica, a Serb controlled part of Kosovo that is threatening to not recognize independence for Kosovo, should a decision be made to give the province sovereignty.Emily Harris, NPRMilorad Radivojevic places flowers near the vandalized gravestone of a relative buried in the town of Svinjare. He has been unable to return to his village since an ethnic Albanian mob burned and looted Serb property there in 2004.

Morning Edition, May 23, 2007 ·
This is the second piece in a two-part series.

As the United Nations Security Council ponders a proposal to launch Kosovo as a sovereign nation, dividing it from Serbia, ethnic Serbs express concerns about their futures.

Many Serbs who still live in Kosovo fear that a decision either way about the country's sovereignty — independence or no independence — will force them to leave because of violence or discrimination.Some in this ethnic community have discussed seceding from Kosovo and aligning with Serbia.The small town of Svinjare, in Kosovo, acts as an example of how life has changed.Eight years ago, both ethnic Serbs and Albanians lived in the town. Now stray dogs guard a knot of empty Serbian homes.Milorad Radivoiovich lives in a four room, one story house. It was built by the Kosovo government to replace his home that was burned three years ago by a rampaging crowd of ethnic Albanians during a flare up of violence."They put almost in the same place, connection for a sink and for a stove," Radivoiovich says. "This is a bathroom before, and now is a bathroom. But there's no bath. It was stolen."The proposal for Kosovo's supervised self rule the United Nations is now considering includes detailed guarantees of security and rights for ethnic Serbs. Radivoiovich says it is like wolves caring for sheep."Don't you know how many guarantees we have had by now? A lot of a lot of. And our pockets are full of promises," Radivoiovich says.The place most Serbs feel most secure in Kosovo is not far from here, in the north part of the town of Mitrovica.The main bridge separating the north from the rest of Kosovo is still watched by United Nations and Kosovo police. Cars in the north use Serbian, not Kosovo, license plates. Cell phones use different country codes north and south of the bridge.Money to support Serbs and this double system comes from Belgrade – much through one local Serb politician, Marko Yakshich. He is confident Russia will block the proposal for graduated independence for Kosovo. And if Kosovo simply declares itself independent, Yakshich says Serbs here won't go along."If that happens then Serbs in Kosovo, not only in the north, but Kosovo-wide, are going to declare that this is illegal and not obligatory for us," Yakshich says.He says, if necessary, Serbs in Kosovo would ask Belgrade for political support, and the ask the Serbian military for protection. But there are different voices within the Serb community here."I am not for independence," says Petar Miltic, a politician and former journalist. It's very unpleasant. But I know that will happen. And it's better to prepare people."Miltic is clearly a maverick here – so radical he's banned smoking in his office. He goes out on a limb to say publicly that Serbs should work with Albanians to secure their rights in Kosovo. But he finds that Serbs here are so obsessed and uncertain about independence they can't focus on problems Miltic believes they could affect, like unemployment, or unreliable electricity and water."They're afraid Albanians will try … ethnical cleaning in Kosovo, and they are afraid about that," Miltic says. "So if you speak about water, they will say, oh, give me a break, don't speak about water, we don't know what will happen tomorrow."At the Dolche Vita café in North Mitrovica, Lubisha Radosavlevich predicts a mass exodus of Serbs from an independent Kosovo. He says he'd let his kids decide whether the family would leave."Personally, I will never leave this place," says one of his sons, Sasha Radosavlevich, who owns the café. Most Kosovo Serbs have no where to go in Serbia, he says. His café is right next to the river that separates the north from the rest of Kosovo. That will stay a dividing line, he says, and that's not a bad thing."I'm not a nationalist but I see the reality," Sasha Radosavlevich says. "There is no possibility for us to live together. Probably, yes, to live one next to the other, but not together at the moment."For now Sasha Radosavlevich does business with Albanians. Most goods are cheaper coming through Kosovo than Serbia. In fact, he says, every morning he meets an Albanian friend from grade school to buy oranges for fresh squeezed juice sold at his café.

Kosovo to honor Bill Clinton with statue By Fatos Bytyci
Wed May 23, 9:03 AM ET Kosovo

Albanians plan to honor their "savior" Bill Clinton by erecting a statue of the former United States president in the capital of Serbia's breakaway province.The three-meter (10-foot) tall monument is still under construction in a studio in Podujevo north of Pristina."He is our savior. He saved us from extermination," sculptor Izeir Mustafa told Reuters. "I was thrilled by the work because I know what he did for us."Kosovo has been under U.N. administration since 1999 after 78 days of NATO bombing ousted Serb troops who had killed some 10,000 ethnic Albanians in an 18-month counter-insurgency war against Albanian separatist guerrillas.Ninety percent of Kosovo's 2 million people are ethnic Albanians. They expect to get their own state in the coming months with U.S. and European Union support, despite the opposition of Serbia and its main ally, Russia.Clinton, as leader of the NATO alliance, is seen as the man who decided to bomb Serbia to force the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his forces from Kosovo, effectively handing victory to the Kosovo Liberation Army.Pristina already has a road named after him, graced by a 12-metre (25 foot) tall mural of the former president. Pristina municipal authorities say they expect to erect the statue somewhere along Clinton Boulevard later this summer.Mustafa has several more days to work before he bronzes the sculpture of Clinton, after which he will turn his attention to another soon-to-be former Western leader. . "I definitely will do a statue of (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair," he said. "He saved us as well.

"WorldQ&A:

The State of Kosovoby Emily HarrisEnlarge Lindsay Mangum, NPRKosovo, in yellow, surrounded by its Balkan neighbors. Click to view a larger map of the region.NPR.org, May 18, 2007 · The United Nations Security Council is discussing a proposal to set the province of Kosovo clearly on the path to independence from Serbia.

Here's some background on the situation:

Where is Kosovo?
Kosovo is in southern Europe. It is a landlocked area a bit smaller than Connecticut — north of Macedonia, east of Albania, south of Serbia, and west of Bulgaria. It's at nearly the same latitude as the "ankle" of Italy.

What is Kosovo's legal status?
Kosovo is technically still a part of Serbia, which was the dominant republic in the former Yugoslavia. But since 1999, Kosovo has been run by a U.N. mission and protected by NATO troops. When Yugoslavia existed as a country, Kosovo was — for part of that time — an autonomous area within Serbia. The U.N. Security Council is currently considering a new resolution that would lead to Kosovo becoming an independent country.

What led to the current situation?
In 1999, NATO bombed Serbia in order to stop what the organization called a "campaign of terror" against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, carried out by the then Yugoslav military and irregular Serb paramilitary groups. At the end of the bombing, the Security Council approved Resolution 1244, which gave a U.N. mission the responsibility to administer Kosovo, while developing elements of a local provisional government, until a final political solution could be arranged for Kosovo.The antagonism between Serbs and Albanians has roots that date back to the Middle Ages. These tensions have flared into violence in varying degrees since then, including in the years just prior to the 1999 bombing.Why has it not been resolved until now?There was no deadline to resolve Kosovo's legal status in the Security Council resolution that set up the U.N.-run government there. Several issues have come up in the past that delayed it. There were doubts that the provisional local government was ready, for various reasons, to take on the responsibility of governing — particularly in terms of ensuring the rights of Serbs in Kosovo. (A "multi-ethnic" Kosovo has been the stated aim of the United Nations and the other key group involved in Kosovo's fate – the so-called "Contact Group," which is made up of the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Russia.)Now the United States and many European nations are pushing hard for the United Nations to spell out Kosovo's future by the end of June. The countries back a proposal, put together by a U.N.-appointed envoy, which would lead to Kosovo's independence. Russia is resisting this option, which is making a resolution more difficult than Western diplomats had anticipated.

What is the proposal for Kosovo that is backed by the United States?
It's called the Ahtisaari plan. The plan is named after the U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, a former president of Finland, who attempted for more than a year to negotiate a settlement between the Serbian government and the Kosovo provisional government. The two sides have opposite end goals: Kosovo refuses to be in any way a part of Serbia again, and Serbia refuses to accept Kosovo as an independent country. Ahtisaari put together his own recommendations, which have become the basis for the proposal in front of the Security Council now.The Ahtisaari plan sets up local authorities in Kosovo to take on significantly more power and responsibility than they have under the U.N. mission. European Union oversight would replace that of the United Nations and would be less sweeping. Ahtisaari's proposal would allow Kosovo its own security force, flag and the right to apply for membership in international organizations. It doesn't use the word "independence" in referring to Kosovo's future, but does builds in a review of the situation. It is, however, expected that "supervised" independence would be followed fairly rapidly by full independence for Kosovo.

What parts of the proposal does Russia object to and why?
Russia's major public objection is that the United Nations doesn't have the right to carve up sovereign states and warns this will set a bad precedent. Moscow refers frequently to U.N .Security Council resolution 1244, which mentions the U.N. "commitment" to the "sovereignty and territorial integrity" of Yugoslavia. In addition, Moscow backs Serbia in saying that Serbs in Kosovo have not, and cannot be, adequately protected, and says further talks should be held between Serbia and Kosovo.The United States and the Kosovo government reject the idea of more talks, and the U.N. envoy says the possibilities for discussion are exhausted. The United States also argues Kosovo is a unique case and should not be seen as setting a precedent for other independent minded or "breakaway" regions around the world. The situation in Kosovo is being watched closely by people elsewhere around the world who have been seeking their own states, including the Kurds in northern Iraq and the Basques in Spain. A number of such conflicts directly involve Russia, including in Chechnya, Transdniestr, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Why is this important to the United States?
The United States got involved militarily against the Serbs in Kosovo in 1999 after sitting out similarly horrible wars in Bosnia and Croatia. The U.S.-led NATO bombardment set the stage for U.N. governance of Kosovo — and for the current question of its future status. In the U.S. view, the only possible path to stability in the Balkans region is for Kosovo to become independent.

What are the chances of more violence in this area?
It is unclear. U.S. officials are openly warning of an increased potential for violence if Kosovo's status is not resolved soon. Ethnic Albanians are impatient for independence and, if it is delayed, it's possible that fringe elements, perhaps former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, could take out their frustrations either on the U.N. government there — there have been some attacks on U.N. cars recently — or perhaps on Serbs. Some Albanian politicians in Kosovo disagree, arguing that more violence would only hurt Kosovo's efforts at winning independence, so violence would only be orchestrated by people or groups which would prefer Kosovo not become independent. Serbs, meanwhile, say they fear "show-who's-boss" attacks if Kosovo is set on a path toward independence, or being targeted if the independence plan is delayed.