Friday, June 30, 2006

Serbia warns of break with west over Kosovo
By Daniel Dombey in London and Neil Macdonald in Pristina

Published: June 28 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 28 2006 03:00

Serbia yesterday warned it could break with the west unless the international community took a more conciliatory approach over the issues of Kosovo and the apprehension of an indicted war criminal.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

http://www.at.ns.co.yu/CivilizedBeheading/

No, this guy isn't angry at ALL....just comparing the plight of the Serbs to the treatment of Native Americans and the destruction of Kosovo Orthodox churches to deforestation....
Of course, this kind of rhetoric doesn't help the situation....

Serbia PM: Kosovo will be Serbian for ever
PRISTINA, Serbia, June 28 (UPI) -- Serbia's prime minister said Wednesday the predominantly Albanian Kosovo province has been, and will remain part of Serbia forever.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060628-112159-4517r

Thursday, June 22, 2006

I haven't said much about the World Cup because, as most of you know, there is nothing to say...

MUNICH, Germany -- Serbia-Montenegro existed only at the World Cup.
With the team's humiliating exit from the tournament -- three defeats in three matches -- the final vestige of old unified Yugoslavia came to an end.
Playing its last match as a national team on Wednesday, Serbia-Montenegro ended with another loss, this time after squandering a two-goal lead in a 3-2 defeat to Ivory Coast.
"We should feel happy that we were at the World Cup at all," coach Ilija Petkovic said. "I'm only sorry that our last appearance didn't go the way we planned."
http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=102519
Thu Jun 22, 11:28 AM ET
Two US F-16 fighter jets landed for the first time at a military airbase in Serbia, seven years after similar planes took part in a NATO-led bombing campaign on the country.
Serbia's defence ministry said the two jets had touched down at the Batajnica military airport on a "visit that is a part of the process of increasing military cooperation between Serbia and the United States."
The ministry described the visit as a "historic event" as it was the first time that American fighter planes had landed at a Serbian military base.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060622/pl_afp/serbiausmilitary_060622152855

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Serbs no closer to arresting war fugitive despite aid cut
By Tom Hundley, Chicago Tribune June 18, 2006
BELGRADE, Serbia -- The general still has his admirers.
In the musty headquarters of the Center for the Investigation of War Crimes Against Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, his portrait is prominently displayed on the wall behind Ljubisa Ristic's desk.
``My personal opinion is that he is a true soldier and a hero of the Serbian people," Ristic said.
It is not clear how many other Serbs feel that way about General Ratko Mladic, the wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb army and chief executor of its ethnic cleansing campaign.
``I'd say 75 percent of the Serbs see him as a war hero," said Aleksandar Tijanic, who heads the state-run television network in Serbia. ``But if you ask them if he should he go to The Hague to save the Serbs from more suffering, 75 percent would say yes."
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/06/18/serbs_no_closer_to_arresting_war_fugitive_despite_aid_cut/
THE HAGUE Among the unfinished business left by the death of Slobodan Milosevic is the central question of whether he was guilty, as charged, of genocide in Bosnia.
But while his death brought a sudden end to his trial at the UN war crimes tribunal here, the genocide issue is very much alive. It may well be decided by another UN court based in The Hague: the International Court of Justice.
That court, also known as the World Court, recently finished nine weeks of hearings on a case filed 13 years ago, in the middle of the Bosnian war.
With Muslim villages under attack and civilians driven into detention camps, Bosnia's lawyers turned to the court, accusing Yugoslavia of violations "on all counts" of the UN Convention on Genocide. The case was held back by the slow-paced institution and by repeated legal moves from Belgrade to block it. In the meantime, Yugoslavia became Serbia and Montenegro in 2003, and in May simply Serbia...
Should the court rule in Bosnia's favor, the Serbian state will suffer the stigma of having committed genocide, an outcome that would implicate the entire Milosevic government.
For Serb citizens and their fledgling economy, that could mean also being saddled with hefty war reparations. Bosnia has asked the court to award damages for the loss of life and property.
During the war, 100,000 people died, the majority of them Muslims, and entire Muslim towns and villages were destroyed, including their mosques and monuments. No figure was set.
Serbia has argued that there were excesses of war but no genocidal campaign, that Belgrade did not control events in Bosnia and that a verdict favoring Bosnia will make reconciliation even more difficult. Bosnia says the opposite, and argues it needs "recognition of Serb guilt" even more than reparations.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Boy, this doesn't sound good at all....

June 13, 2006
For Albanians in Kosovo, Hope for Independence From Serbia
By NICHOLAS WOOD
BELGRADE, Serbia, June 8 — Seven years after Kosovo was placed under United Nations control, it appears increasingly likely that the province will be allowed to break away from Serbia formally and become an independent nation.
Members of the United Nations Security Council appear to be leaning toward permitting Kosovo to go its own way. The Council is expected to vote on Kosovo's fate by the end of the year, unless the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians, who have been negotiating unsuccessfully for months, reach a resolution.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/world/europe/13kosovo.html

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Lord, what won't they blame them for!!!!!

Serbia told to drop "negative" influence on Kosovo
Thu Jun 8, 8:05 AM ET
Serbia must drop its "negative" influence on Serbs in Kosovo and tell them to re-engage with the ethnic Albanian majority, the major powers said on Thursday, as a decision nears on the province's fate.
The West holds Belgrade responsible for a Serb boycott of political life in the United Nations-run province, which it says is complicating efforts to decide Kosovo's future this year in U.N.-led talks.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060608/wl_nm/serbia_kosovo_dc_1

Monday, June 05, 2006

Well, I guess it's better to just accept the situation than allow the hardliners to use it to their advantage....

Left alone, Serbia declares its independence too
by Filip RodicMon Jun 5, 10:39 AM ET
Serbia sealed the final act of Yugoslavia's turbulent history when it proclaimed independence after Montenegro, its last ally, abandoned its formal 88-year association with Belgrade.
After an extraordinary session of parliament, officials lowered the flag of the defunct federation of Serbia and Montenegro from the building in Belgrade and raised the Serbian standard in its place.
Lawmakers proclaimed independence before transferring solely onto Belgrade the international status of the federation, including its seat on bodies such as the United Nations.
Serbian President Boris Tadic wrote to Svetozar Marovic, a Montenegrin who had headed the federation, saying he considered the break-up to be a "personal loss."
But he insisted that he was "ready to lead my country along democratic and European path that would bring better life to its citizens."
Serbia effectively became a sovereign state after all 126 deputies present in the 250-seat assembly backed an order to the government and state bodies to complete all formalities about the succession and resolve all disputed issues with Montenegro within next 45 days.
It follows Montenegro's own formal independence declaration Saturday after the tiny Balkan state voted on May 21 to secede from the union that had bound together the last remnants of the former Yugoslavia.
Neither Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica nor Tadic was present as deputies gathered in gloomy mood.
"Montenegro's separation is a sad reality for me," said Milos Aligrudic of Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia.
He added: "I urge you that we continue considering all the people who live in Montenegro as our brothers and not to have hard feelings towards them."
The move by Montenegro, sandwiched between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea with a population of just 650,000, ended the painful, 15-year dissolution of former communist Yugoslavia, after Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia went their separate ways in the early 1990s.
Yugoslavia has existed in three separate forms during the 20th century.
The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, created in 1918, was renamed as Yugoslavia in 1929 and existed in that form until it was invaded in 1941.
A communist Yugoslavia emerged after the end of World War II in 1945, but it, too, crumbled amid conflict in the early 1990s.
Federal Yugoslavia then came into being, although it was effectively just Serbia and Montenegro, and that union was renamed as a federation in 2003 when the name Yugoslavia was discarded.
Under the constitution of Serbia-Montenegro, Serbia inherits its membership in the United Nations and all other international and financial organizations.
The former union's ambassadors would now represent solely Serbia, Beta news agency reported, quoting foreign ministry officials.
Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party -- the biggest group in parliament -- said he was "really sorry that Montenegro, with enormous help from the European Union, gained so-called independence and many members of our people were left out of our borders."
It was under EU pressure that Serbia and Montenegro formed their union with the proviso that each republic could leave the federation if that was the wish of their majority.
Brussels also helped Podgorica's push for a referendum -- stipulating, for instance, the minimum 55-percent threshold for the vote to be validated -- and persuaded all sides to accept the result.
"It is not the time for sorrow," said Dusan Petrovic, of Serbia's opposition Democratic Party. "The citizens of Montenegro decided to live separately from Serbia ... I congratulate them.
After Monday's ceremonies, the flags of Serbia-Montenegro will be sent to a museum, officials said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060605/ts_afp/serbiamontenegropolitics_060605143411

Thursday, June 01, 2006

And, of course, this doesn't help the situation much, either.

US again suspends some aid to Serbia over Mladic
Thu Jun 1, 5:45 AM ET
The United States has suspended some aid to Serbia's government for the fourth year in succession over its failure to arrest and extradite Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic.
The cut-off of $7 million in government-to-government aid is not so much a financial penalty as a political gesture, since Washington will continue to provide much more in economic assistance to the Serbs.
It follows a decision by the European Union in early May to suspend talks on closer ties with Serbia after it missed the latest in a string of deadlines to hand over Mladic.
A statement from the U.S. embassy in Belgrade said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been unable to certify to Congress that Belgrade was cooperating with the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, which indicted the wartime Bosnian Serb military commander with genocide in 1995.
"This decision will result in the withholding of $7 million in assistance specifically to the central government of Serbia for the year 2006/2007, as required by U.S. law," Ambassador Michael Polt said in a statement.
Polt said Washington would go on sending more than $62 million in aid "to the people of this country in an effort to see your economy develop and provide jobs and hope for its citizens."
"I do not want the people of Serbia to suffer any longer for the sake of fugitive indictees," he said.
"It is time for the government of Serbia to make the right decision, to deliver Mladic to The Hague, and to free its citizens from this dark chapter of their past."
Mladic is charged alongside Bosnian Serb former leader Radovan Karadzic with genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys and the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo which killed about 10,000 civilians.
U.N. chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte says he is hiding in Serbia with the help of army and intelligence hardliners.
Serbia admits Mladic had such help in the past but Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica now says he has gone to ground.
A flurry of reports forecasting Mladic's imminent arrest dominated headlines in the run-up to the May 1 EU deadline, but the speculation has since died down.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060601/ts_nm/serbiamontenegro_usa_aid_dc_1
I found this earlier in the month. Funny, why aren't these guys being called backward nationalists and being kept out of the EU?

Croatia champs aid Hague suspects
By Nick Hawton BBC News, Zagreb
Croatia's football champions are to donate proceeds from their last league match of the season to help Croatian war crimes suspects at The Hague.
Dinamo Zagreb's Maksimir stadium was filled to its 45,000 capacity, after the club urged as many fans as possible to attend Saturday's game.
They saw the team complete a convincing win of the league championship.
Croatia's most notable defendant in The Hague is ex-Gen Ante Gotovina - accused of atrocities against Serbs in 1995.
Prominent individuals and institutions in Croatia have expressed support for Croatian war crime suspects - but perhaps not in such a public way.
Riot film
The team beat rivals Hadjuk Split 1-0.
Before the game a short film was shown marking the 16th anniversary of the infamous football riot which took place between Serbian and Croatian fans in May 1990 and which many still see as a symbol of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.
For Saturday's game Dinamo's coach had appealed for as many fans as possible to attend the match.
The club announced that all the money received was being given to the Foundation for the Truth about the Homeland War, which raises money to support Croats facing trial at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Many of the fans attending the game said they had come merely to watch their team celebrate winning the championship and did not care where their money was going.
The most notable beneficiary is likely to be Gen Gotovina, who until his arrest at the end of last year was one of The Hague's most wanted war crimes suspects.
Defendants in The Hague receive support in varying amounts from their home governments as well as donations from individuals.
Prosecutors at The Hague have refused to comment on Dinamo's plans, saying it is a private matter.
But the decision by Dinamo Zagreb shows that there is still popular support for former soldiers facing trial in The Hague.
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/4768605.stmPublished: 2006/05/13 20:20:14 GMT© BBC MMVI
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4768605.stm