Great Power Meddling in Kosovo by Counterpunch (reposted) Sunday Jun 3rd, 2007 10:23 AM
After nearly eight years of uneasy occupation of the province of Kosovo that NATO wrested from Serbian control by 78 days of bombing in 1999, the U.S.-led "International Community" is eager to shift responsibility for the intractable situation to someone else. This may be done by imposing a false "solution" that provokes either Serbs or Albanians, or both, into reacting in ways that can be blamed for the impending disaster. The "International Community", the contemporary equivalent of the nineteenth century Great Powers that carved up the Balkans in ways that led to World War I, appointed former Finnish president Marrti Ahtisaari to be "special envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the future status process for Kosovo". Ahtisaari's task was to come up with something that would sound good to Western media and human rights NGOs. Neither international law nor mere reality on the ground were serious considerations. Ahtisaari's "Kosovo Status Settlement" defines the future Kosovo according to the IC wish list. Kosovo, it announces, "shall be a multi-ethnic society, governing itself democratically and with full respect for the rule of law, the highest level of internationally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms, and which promotes the peaceful and prosperous existence of all its inhabitants."_Kosovo "shall be..." Not is. Because that description is about the exact opposite of what Kosovo is now: a poverty-stricken cauldron of discontent characterized by violent ethnic hatred, a political system manipulated by armed clans, a corrupt judicial system, and terrified minorities (notably Serbs and Roma) deprived of the most basic freedoms, such as being able to venture out of their besieged homes in order to shop, go to school or work their fields. Read More http://counterpunch.org/johnstone06022007.html
