YOU ARE INVITED to The Lord Byron Foundation Roundtable panel organized jointly with the Institute of European and Russian Studies (EURUS) and Centre for European Studies NATO IN THE BALKANS: HOW LONG AND WHAT FOR? To be held on October 19, 2001 in OTTAWA Carleton University, Senate Room (6th Floor Robertson Hall) from 1:00 - 2:30 p.m. Terrorist attacks on September 11 have changed the strategic calculus all over the world. They will have far-reaching ramifications in the Balkans, too, where Macedonia is the latest victim of a crisis partly caused by the shortsighted policy of the Western powers. Ten years after its independence ethnic Albanian rebels have brought Macedonia, once a haven of Balkan stability, to the brink of all-out war. On August 13 the former Yugoslav republic reluctantly signed a Western-backed peace accord that paved the way for NATO troops to collect arms from the rebels.Two months later those rebels remain armed and dangerous; our politicians and NATO pretend otherwise. Before we witness yet another open-ended NATO mission in the Balkans it is time to ask some pertinent questions: - What is the link between Osama bin Laden, the Islamic militants in Bosnia, and the KLA/Albanian extremists in Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia? - Is the trouble in Macedonia linked with the disaster next door in Kosovo? Could it have been foreseen, and thus prevented? - Is the issue in Macedonia that of "human rights" for the Albanians, or that of aggressive ethnic expansionism? - Are there any institutional arrangements, short of ethnic partition that will assuage the separatists? - What specific policy alternatives are available to the "international community"? Can it become a truly honest broker and act robustly to disarm the KLA/NLA? Should it simply disengage? Or turn the task of policing the Balkans to the Europeans, as France suggests? To discuss these and other connected issues we are pleased to present a powerful panel of experts: + James Bissett, former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania and Chairman of The Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies; + John Fraser, adjunct research professor, consultant on Balkan affairs to the Privy Council, and former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia + Dr. Ronald Hatchett, Director of the Center for International Studies + and holder of the Cullen/Sarofim Chair in International Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. Director of The Lord Byron Foundation + Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, director of the Center for International Affairs + at The Rockford Institute and foreign affairs editor of "Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture" and Executive Director of The Lord Byron Foundation. For more information contact Yana Kuzmin at 613/ 520-2888, or email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and/or The Lord Byron Foundation Canadian Office: (613) 852-1971 or 225-3378 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** If you are unable to attend and want to support our work, you can donate to The Lord Byron Foundation PO Box 1246 Chicago, IL 60690, USA<
