Book Review: German Diplomats Remember Kosovo

24 January 2008 For historians it is may still be too early to assess the Kosovo war, but German’s former foreign minister and a retired diplomat provide a valuable insight into Berlin’s role in the 20th century’s last war.

By Paul Hockenos

Diplomacy on the Edge: Containment of Ethnic Conflict and the Minorities Working Group of the Conferences on Yugoslavia, by Geert-Hinrich Ahrens (The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2007, 672 pages.)

Die rot-grünen Jahren: Deutsche Aussenpolitik—vom Kosovo bis zum 11. September, by Joschka Fischer, (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, pp. 444.)

Most of Ahrens's nearly 700-page account of international diplomacy in the Balkans takes place in the early and mid-1990s. Ahrens, a veteran German negotiator, led some of the earliest European efforts to bring together Kosovar Albanians and the Belgrade leadership.

Ahrens’s small mediation teams were able to make sporadic progress improving the situation on the ground in Kosovo — in human rights, education, and healthcare - and defusing tensions that could then easily have, and later did, spiral out of control.

Even though neither the Serbs nor the Kosovar Albanians budged from their maximalist positions on Kosovo's status, Ahrens shows that there was room for negotiation and compromise between moderate factions of both camps. At the very least, "containment" of the potential conflict was possible.

With considerable bitterness Ahrens underscores the thin political support from both the American and major European capitals, which, he argues, caused the international community to miss real chances to make progress. He says Kosovo was, at best, treated as a "side show", and after the 1995 Dayton conference, Kosovo disappeared completely from the international agenda.

As a result, in early 1996, the International Conference on Former Yugoslavia working group on Kosovo, which Ahrens had led, was scrapped for lack of funds. Shortly afterwards, the first Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) attacks began.

Red-Green and Kosova

Armed hostilities in Kosovo had already begun when the autumn 1998 elections in Germany ousted Helmut Kohl's conservative government. The Serbs had responded to KLA guerrilla activity with military offensives that targeted the civilian population. Tens of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees were fleeing their homes, many of whom were homeless as winter approached. The incoming Social Democrat-Green coalition had the Kosovo crisis thrust upon it even before the administration entered office.

The Fischer memoirs cover the first three years of the red-green coalition, from autumn 1998 to September 11, 2001, a formative period for German foreign policy during which the novice leadership struggled with crises of major proportions. At least one-third of the book is about Kosovo (the section aptly titled "The Red-Green Nightmare"), and offers a fascinating look into the decision-making of the German leadership.

Ironically, in foreign affairs, the red-green years delivered anything but the "continuity" the German Greens and Social Democrats had promised beforehand. In fact, it was in Berlin’s Balkans policies that the contradictions between humanitarianism, Germany's historical limitations, and alliance responsibilities would sweep away the Cold War coordinates of German foreign policy.

Fischer responds explicitly to critics, many within his own party, who opposed the military campaign against Serbia. He repeatedly underscores that the purpose of the NATO-led military intervention was humanitarian: to "prevent another Bosnia", as he puts it. "Milosevic," concluded Fischer after visiting Belgrade in early 1999, "obviously wanted to break the Albanian resistance using military might, special police, terror, and expulsion." After having waited much too long to stop genocide in Bosnia, the West had no other choice.

Fischer contends that Germany and its Western allies did everything in their power to bring Milosevic to accept a political solution. At the Rambouillet negotiations in early 1999, the Serbs wasted their last chance to hold on to Kosovo.

Fischer rejects the charge that negotiators had "held the bar too high" for Serbia, making it impossible for them to sign, and thus triggering NATO’s military intervention. Annex B of the draft agreement, which would have given NATO full occupation powers in Yugoslavia, played no role at all in the Rambouillet negotiations, he asserts. It reflected NATO's maximalist negotiating position and would have been addressed after the signing of the agreement's political section, which never happened.

Another bone of contention was the January 1999 massacre by Serbian security forces in the village of Racak in Kosovo, which helped tip the scales in favour of intervention. According to Fischer, the report of Finnish medical specialists affirmed that the dead were overwhelmingly civilians who were shot at close range, not KLA fighters. Moreover, this was not an isolated incident, underlines Fischer, but part of a pattern, the purpose of which was to deprive the KLA of support by driving out the ethnic Albanians.

As for "Operation Horseshoe," an alleged Serbian plan to ethnically cleanse Kosovo, Fischer says he was told of the plan’s existence by the Bulgarian foreign minister on April 1, 1999. Its authenticity was subsequently confirmed by German intelligence services.

The mass expulsion of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo in spring 1999, argues Fischer, was obviously planned in advance, well before the beginning of NATO bombing. The exodus was triggered by the Serb offensive, which commenced four days before the first NATO bombs fell. In other words, atrocities were not “imminent,” they were ongoing.

Fischer has harsh words for the European left that protested against the bombing campaign but never lifted a finger for the Kosovar Albanians during their eight-year campaign of passive resistance. “The fate of the Kosovar Albanians did not seem to interest the radical left in Europe at all," he says.

Equally fascinating is Fischer’s blow-by-blow description of the emergence of the "Fischer Plan" (which he claims he had no role in naming). The peace plan set aside the Rambouillet conditions, and brought the UN and Russia back into the game, paving the way to end the war, which came none too soon for an ever shakier red-green coalition.

Memoirs, by their very nature, are one-sided, self-serving, and self-promoting. Fischer’s account will probably not convince anyone who did not already believe that the 1999 intervention in Kosovo was justified. But the historical record is now richer with these two publications, even if they are not the last word.

Paul Hockenos is an American, Berlin-based writer and author of Joschka Fischer and the Making of the Berlin Republic: An Alternative History of Postwar Germany (Oxford, 2008).

BalkanInsight.com - Book Review: German Diplomats Remember Kosovo

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Nationalism Rising in Serbia? - TIME

A banner reading "Russia Help Us!" is seen in front of a poster of Tomislav Nikolic in the Kosovo town of Mitrovica.

Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP / Getty Images

Nationalism Rising in Serbia? - TIME

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Serbiality

For those of you who are wondering what this word mean, it is a combination of the words Serb and Wikiality. Wikiality is reality based on concensus rather than fact. So, I came up with the word Serbiality to define the Serbian reality (or realities), based on concensus instead of fact. So, for example, if Serbs agree that there was no genocide attempt by Miosevic in Kosovo, then there wasn't. Or, if Srebrenica didn't happen, then it didn't. Serbiality is hard to break through. Only the recent tape showing Serb forces killing young Bosniaks has forced Serbs to come to terms with Srebrenica.

I am writing all this because, Serbiality is very important for Serbia and the Balkans. And, I was inspired to write this by this piece of news:

SANU issues works on Kosovo

The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Art (SANU) published a collection “Kosovo-Metohija – Past, Present, Future”. The government statement says the essays, available in English at SANU’s official website, have been collected from an international meeting held in March last year in Belgrade.The 39 papers by domestic and foreign authors are said to be “analyzing the Albanian impact on the destabilisation of the Balkans, the position of Kosovo within Serbia and Yugoslavia, Albanian secessionism in 1990, Serb and Montenegrin migrations from the province and the Kosovo population under the Ottoman Empire”.

For those that don't remember, SANU is the institution which provided the inspiration, justification and roadmap for the project of Greater Serbia which led to two genocides, ethnic cleansing and a lot of human suffering. Now, SANU wants to prove that it is the Albanians who destabilized the Balkans. This is where SANU and Serbiality mix. SANU has been one of the key producers and solidifiers of Serbiality. SANU's respect among Serbs, provides it with a sponge-like audience. SANU serves to confirm Serbian fears and claims purported by the Serbian government and media.

I have some topics to suggest to SANU for research:

The role of SANU in the destruction of Yugoslavia.

The genocide of Bosniaks and Kosovars.

Kosovo Libre

	January 24, 2007

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Kosovo Libre January 24, 2007 Somewhere along the way from the 1999 war in Kosovo to the current discussions in Western capitals over what should happen to that predominantly ethnic Albanian province of Serbia, recent Balkan history was turned on its head. The aggressor in that war and three previous regional conflagrations of the past decade -- Serbia -- is now treated like the aggrieved party. The Kosovars, victims first of Slobodan Milosevic's apartheid and then of his ethnic cleansing, are told to put their long-delayed dreams of freedom on hold. The Americans, who ended Serbia's bloody march through the region, have ceded the diplomatic lead on the Balkans to fickle and divided Europeans. So the omens aren't good that the negotiations over Kosovo's "final status," which are about to enter their last days, will redeem the long international commitment in arms and treasury to settle the turbulent Balkans. In the next two weeks, U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari will share his vision for Kosovo's future with the Kosovars, Serbs and key diplomatic players. According to our sources, he will go a long way to appease the Serbs and fall considerably short of Kosovar ambitions. The tone was set when Mr. Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president, put off the unveiling, due by end of 2006, to help pro-Western parties contesting last weekend's parliamentary elections in Serbia. To little effect: An ultranationalist group nominally led by an indicted war criminal currently in jail and awaiting trial at the U.N.'s Hague tribunal took the most votes. In further deference to Serbian kvetching, Mr. Ahtisaari will suggest putting the Kosovars on a far shorter leash than anyone anticipated when talks on its future started last year. Russian threats and some vacillating Europeans were another reason why the "international community" scaled back ambitions for an independent Kosovo. The word "independence" probably won't appear in the Ahtisaari document, and Kosovo won't be given a firm timetable to full sovereignty. Instead, the current plan calls for a transitional arrangement of indeterminate duration during which Kosovars will take control of their government under close foreign watch. Led by an EU diplomat, an International Community Office or Mission -- name yet to be decided -- will replace the eight-year-old U.N. administration. This new office will be able to veto legislation or remove elected politicians who are deemed contrary to the "peace process." This would resemble Bosnia's Office of the High Representative. If the EU and U.S. want to pick up another multibillion-dollar tab for another ethnically riven Balkan dependency for the next decade or more, then Bosnia is just the right model. Pushing the Bosniaization of Kosovo further, the Ahtisaari draft plan also enshrines in law ethnic divisions on the ground. Small Serb enclaves will get special powers that will leave them free of control by the capital, Pristina. So, even if Kosovo gets to call itself a state, forget about it being a unitary one. Kosovars expected that any sovereignty would be limited, but not to this extent. Their politicians didn't help their cause by badly mismanaging the few areas of self-rule granted them by the U.N., chiefly over education and health care. The failure to create a safer environment for minority Serbs is also coming back to haunt the Kosovars. But the way to get the Kosovars to grow into self-rule faster is to provide far less intrusive "supervision" and offer clear incentives, say for EU or NATO membership. At the same time, the mooted proposal reflects a serious misunderstanding of Serbian politics. Nationalist demons won't go away if Mr. Ahtisaari just strokes their heads. As the weekend elections showed, a chunk of the Serbian electorate can't accept losing Kosovo and never will. Reformers quietly urge Mr. Ahtisarri to get the Kosovo problem out of the way as fast as possible so Serbs can concentrate on remaking their country into a modern, prosperous European state. But instead the EU indulges Serbia's persecution and entitlement complexes, delays the inevitable and keeps the Kosovo issue alive for nationalists to exploit. Ideally, the Security Council would confirm "independence," in name and fact, while retaining some oversight and keeping NATO troops on the ground. Russia is threatening a veto, if Mr. Ahtisaari were to propose such an option. Their bluff can be called; it's useful to get Moscow obstructionism on the record. More likely is that the Security Council will adopt a hopefully much modified version of the Ahtisaari plan in the spring. Then Kosovo can declare independence and seek international recognition. Serbia will probably try to run interference, but Washington and the bigger European capitals can put that to a quick stop by recognizing Kosovo. Serbia lost its moral and legal claim on Kosovo after the 1999 war. Though it suffers from common Balkan ailments such as organized crime and poverty, Kosovo is full of young, entrepreneurial people. It can one day be a successful, small, free state. To start building that state, Kosovo needs its freedom. The sooner, the better for everyone concerned, not least the Serbs.

Ultranationalists riding high in Serbia after crucial vote

The Associated Press

Published: January 24, 2007

BELGRADE, Serbia: The party that won the most votes in Serbia's elections is staunchly anti-Western, has counted Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein among its allies, and wants to go to war over the breakaway province of Kosovo.

Many in the West had feared the ultranationalist Radicals would come out on top in the weekend parliamentary vote, but their stronger-than-expected performance shows how Serbia is having trouble moving beyond the bloody legacy of its late autocrat Milosevic.

The Radicals, who ruled Serbia together with Milosevic and were his iron fist during his Bosnian, Croatian and Kosovo war campaigns in the 1990s, won 28.7 percent of the vote to give them 81 seats in Serbia's 250-seat parliament.

They don't have a majority to form the next government alone, but may try to woo Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica into a right-wing coalition — perhaps by offering him the premiership.

The pro-Western Democrats, who were second in the polls and won 64 seats, would also need the support of Kostunica and his third-place Populist Coalition to form a government, but don't want him to retain the top job.

They are hoping Kostunica can be convinced that joining their camp is the only way to prevent Serbia from plunging back into international isolation.

Kostunica, long know as a masterful political operator, appears to be relishing his role as kingmaker and throughout the campaign kept open the possibility of aligning himself with either side.

The deputy Radical leader, Tomislav Nikolic, said Serbian President Boris Tadic, also the president of the Democrats, should offer "our strongest party" a mandate to form a government.

"But, I know he won't do it," Nikolic said, predicting new elections by the end of the year because "the so-called Democrats cannot agree on anything, let alone the new government."

"And, after the new vote we'll be even stronger," Nikolic said, appealing to Radical supporters to "have patience because we'll soon be ruling Serbia."

The Radicals' pre-election platform was drafted by their leader Vojislav Seselj who is awaiting a trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

It called for using force to block Kosovo from becoming independent under a U.N.-backed plan, giving up attempts to join the European Union, establishing "brotherly" ties with Russia, and keeping alive Milosevic's dream of uniting all Serbs in the Balkans into a single country.

In the vote, the Radicals won the most votes in almost all Serbian constituencies, including the capital Belgrade, which had been a traditional pro-Democratic Party stronghold.

The Radicals' supporters were active in paramilitary units in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, and are widely blamed for launching campaigns that wiped out non-Serbs near the border regions.

Seselj rallied volunteers for an armed rebellion by Serbs against Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia and threatened to scoop out the eyes of Croats with a rusty spoon. He later claimed the remark was a joke.

During their alliance with Milosevic, the Radicals constantly attacked the United States and "internal enemies" — such as opposition officials — who allegedly supported U.S. policies.

After Milosevic's ouster in October 2000 by united pro-democracy forces, the Radicals slowly sneaked back into the public eye, winning air time with bombastic remarks in parliamentary sessions.

They protested Milosevic's extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in 2001 — support that later prompted Milosevic to urge his supporters to vote for the ultranationalists, rather than his own Socialist Party, in elections.

Radical leaders often visited Saddam during his reign, publicly praising the Iraqi leader for his bravery and defiance of the United States. In return, Saddam's Baath party financed the Radicals' election campaigns. They are also known for maintaining ties to ultranationalists like France's Jean-Marie Le Pen and Russia's Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Ultranationalists riding high in Serbia after crucial vote - International Herald Tribune

"Good Morning, Fascist Serbia!"

Monday, January 22, 2007

Jasmina Tešanović: "Good Morning, Fascist Serbia!"

"Good Morning, Fascist Serbia!"
Jasmina Tesanovic

photo by Stephanie Damoff

These elections, the most important since the toppling of Milosevic seven years ago, have proved that time can stand still. One third of the population still votes for the fascist Radical Party, whose leader Seselj is in jail in The Hague. Between dramatic hunger strikes, Seselj raves politically against the vast conspiracies of "the West." I know a translator who was forced to translate those speeches of his; driven mad, he resigned.

Here in Belgrade, half an hour after the official results were confirmed, my gay friend and a Woman in Black activist were attacked and beaten in the streets by joyful skinheads.

Yesterday, young voters in their early twenties were crying in front of the school where they were supposed to vote. I interviewed them. They told me they were desperate because they cannot vote for what they want in their lives, but only against what they fear.

Their youthful aspirations are overwhelmed by fascists, radicals, wars, global isolation... They have had enough of that treatment in their young lives, for practically all their days. "Never make decisions out of fear," I told them boldly. I wonder how they voted. The gypsy party was first time in history on the electoral list. But death threats, and graffiti "Go Back to India" immediately appeared in their neighbourhoods.

A small and promising new party (LDP) passed the electoral threshold to enter Parliament. The leader of this party, a younger man who personally arrested Milosevic seven years ago, had a tough election campaign. In the last day before the vote, somebody planted a device under his car, apparently a bomb. The police blocked the streets for several panicky hours, then denied that anything hadhappened. I myself was a couple of blocks away, I saw the incident take place, but denial is a big art in Serbia. Who are you going to believe: the official version, or your lying eyes?

A couple of us electoral losers spent the evening waiting for new Serbia to arise. On blog B92, we chatted with our virtual friends from all over the world, many of whom who left Serbia in order to survive. As the new day was dawning, our hopes werefading. Those who left Serbia have no reason to return. If we ourselves leave, then we forfeit the country to the raucous, violent minority who just won the most votes, but can't take power. They want us toleave. Then they'd make life here impossible even for themselves.

I wonder: if every last Serbian left Serbia as a hopeless, dysfunctional mess, would "Serbia" still exist? Would the last Serbs to leave the country turn out the lights? Maybe the last pair standing would become cannibals, in our ultimate political solution: kill and eat.

Boing Boing: Jasmina Tešanović: "Good Morning, Fascist Serbia!"

Ultranationalists win elections in Serbia

Sunday's election in Serbia was a show of nationalist fervor. Seselj's ultranationalist SRS got 28.7% of votes, Kostunica's nationalist DSS got 16.7% of votes, and Slobodan Milosevic's SPS got 5.9 of votes giving the nationalist parties an altogether 51.3% of votes. Clearly, Serbia missed an opportunity to make a break with its nationalist politics of the 1990s. All hope to create a democratic bloc government now lies on Kostunica who fashions himself as a democrat, while at the same time plays the nationalist card. The divided democrats didn't get enough votes to form a government, although the party of the assassinated former Prime Minister Djindjic almost doubled its share of votes to 22.9%. The Liberal Democratic Party of Cedomir Jovanovic also fared impressively gaining 5.3% of votes.

These are the preliminary results according to B92:

Cesid's latest preliminary results translated into the number of seats in the new parliament read as follows:

-Serb Radical Party (SRS) - 81 seats (28.7 percent)

-Democratic Party (DS) - 65 seats (22.9 percent)

-Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS-NS) - 47 seats (16.7)

-G17 - 19 seats (6.8 percent)

-Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) - 16 seats (5.9 percent)

-Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) - 15 seats (5.3 percent)

-Union of Vojvodina Hungarians - 3 seats

-Party of Democratic Action (DSA) - 2 seats

-Serbian Roma Alliance - 1 seat

-Roma Party - Roma 1 seat

Serbia's Radical Party wins 28 percent of vote

Reuters via Yahoo! News - 1 hour, 12 minutes agoThe hardline Radical Party attracted most support in Serbia's general election, dashing Western hopes the nation blamed for a decade of war in the 1990s would finally turn its back on nationalism.

Serbia's ultranationalist Radical Party leader Tomislav Nikolic smiles during press conference, in Belgrade, Serbia, Sunday, Jan. 21, 2007. The Radicals, who ruled Serbia with Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s, gathered about 29 percent of the vote, followed by the pro-Western Democratic Party with 23 percent and the ruling center-right Popular Coalition with 17 percent, said CESID, an independent polling group, citing its own vote count at Serbian polling stations. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Yahoo! News Photo

Voting

A Kosovo Serb man carries a leaflet of the Socialist Party of Serbia, featuring a picture of late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, after voting in Serbia's general election in the monastery town of Gracanica, 7 km (4 miles) south of the Kosovo capital Pristina, January 21, 2007. Serbs went to the polls on Sunday in a national election expected to be a tight race between ultranationalists and pro-Western reformers. REUTERS/Hazir Reka (SERBIA)

Yahoo! News Photo

Top echelons knew about Kosovo crimes

“Top echelons knew about Kosovo crimes”

21 January 2007 | 11:51 | Source: B92, SENSE

THE HAGUE -- Aleksandar Vasiljević listed the crimes against Albanians that the Serbian authorities allegedly knew about in 1999. Aleksandar Vasiljević, a major general and former head of Serbian counter-intelligence (KOS) told the Hague court as he testified in the Kosovo Six trial last week that the army and the police blamed each other, and how Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević dealt with the killings of Albanian civilians. Vasiljević downplayed the responsibility of the Yugoslav Army (VJ) for the crimes against Kosovo Albanians, just as he had done four years ago at the trial of Slobodan Milošević. He did admit, however, that by mid-May 1999, the top Serbian military and political structures had known about them. In April 1999, Vasiljević re-joined the army, agreeing to become the deputy head of the KOS. He had retired seven years earlier after his dismissal as KOS chief. In the first few months after the war broke out the military intelligence service had no information about the crimes in Kosovo, he claims. He received the first reports of the killings, looting and rapes of ethnic Albanians on May 8. Among the incidents he was informed about was the killing of 12 Albanian civilians in Podujevo by the Scorpions (Škorpioni), who were under the command of the Special Antiterrorist Units in the Serbian Interior Ministry (MUP). Vasiljević also testified that he had learned that the police units known as the Operations and Pursuit Groups had expelled Albanians from Kosovska Mitrovica.. He said he reported this to general. General Ojdanić made a telephone call to the FRY president Slobodan Milošević, in Vasiljević’s presence. He told Milošević that "a lot of things are done" in Kosovo; what he meant was that crimes were committed against Albanians. Vasiljević testified that on May 16, Dragoljub Ojdanić, Chief of VJ General Staff, and himself, attended a meeting with General Nebojša Pavković who said that the Interior Ministry Headquarters in Priština, under the command of General Sreten Lukić, "was blaming" the army for the killing of 800 Kosovo Albanians. Pavković, the witness testified, told him and Ojdanić that he had carried out an internal military investigation. He established that there were 326 bodies of Albanians in the areas under the police control and 271 bodies in the areas controlled by the military. High-ranking military officials reported everything they knew to Slobodan Milošević on May 17 at the meeting attended by generals Ojdanić and Pavković, Geza Farkas, head of military intelligence service, Rade Marković, head of police intelligence section, and Nikola Šainović, Milošević's man in charge of Kosovo. Vasiljević recorded Milošević's response to the crimes in Podujevo committed by the Scorpions in his notebook, admitted into evidence by the court. Milošević allegedly referred to the Scorpions commander, Slobodan Medić, by his nickname Boca, saying he should be removed from the post. He ordered Rade Marković to deal with the situation together with Vlajko Stojiljković, police minister, and Vlastimir Đordjević, RJB head. “No heads will roll,” Milošević reportedly added, as a consequence of the crimes that were committed. Vasiljević mentioned two other units that were causing problems, apart from the Scorpions: the Special Operations Unit (JSO) and Arkan’s Tigers. Those units fought in Kosovo under the command of the Interior Ministry. All three units are said to have conscripted criminals who had previously committed a number of crimes in Croatia and Bosnia. General Vasiljević's evidence continues on Monday.

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