By Russell Gordon
Most respected [Nazi] party friend Lammers! I received your letter of
April 29 together with the letter of the president of the central committee of
the Second Albanian League of Prizren. At this time one Albanian SS division is
being formed. As things now stand, I plan to form a second SS division, and
afterwards an Albanian SS corps will be formed… Heil Hitler! Yours very
faithfully,
H. Himmler
Arrogantly strutting around the opulent OSCE restaurant, on an upper floor
of its Pristina headquarters, Richard Holbrooke cut an imposing figure. The
“Balkan peace negotiator” whose bloody legacy stretched from Vietnam and
Indonesia to Belgrade minced no words about US policy for the region.
In front of the five heads of UNMIK he bellowed: “Forget multi-ethnic Kosovo. Forget Resolution 1244. We only signed that to get rid of the Serbs.”
It was a warm August 1999, and the official representatives of the “international community” remained coolly silent. Only one official, Dennis MacNamara, head of UNHCR spoke up, questioning why the UN took on the mission if the expulsion of the Serbs was a foregone conclusion. Holbrooke brushed off his inquiry; the other “dignitaries” remained quiet.
The Serbian province of Kosovo is nearing the artificially imposed time limit for a “final decision” on its status as either an autonomous Serbian province, or an independent state, albeit an international protectorate. And indeed the “decision” has probably already been made, which will see another tragic human exodus.
The casual observer could be forgiven for attributing normalcy to present day Kosovo upon first glance. Pristina’s cafes are filled with reveling Albanian and international patrons. Perhaps a quarter of the cars in urban areas are late-model BMWs, Mercedes or Audis. Shiny new construction projects rise along many major roads and Albanian population centers. It appears that Albanian Kosovo is undergoing an economic boom. The Albanian flag waves proudly beside the Stars and Stripes, perhaps the only Muslim region where it does so. And a spirit of freedom pervades the majority Albanian society. But image is not reality – neither in media, nor in strategic issues. And Kosovo is neither normal, nor stable.
CONTINUED: http://www.serbianna.com/columns/gordon/004.shtml
