http://www.mymountainmail.com/stories/opiletmess20080403.php
Mountain Mail (New Mexico) U.S. Helped Make Kosovo Mess 3 April 2008 To the Editor: Kathryn Albrecht's article, "History of Kosovo Is A Yugoslavian Mess," (13 March) very effectively encapsulated the sordid story of the demise of Yugoslavia, of which the latest act in the dismemberment of that sovereign nation is the unilateral declaration of an independent Kosovo. However, to understand the mess we find ourselves in today we must go back to where it started. In Lisbon on March 18, 1992, the three Bosnian leaders representing the Croats, Muslims and Serbs, endorsed a proposal that the republic be a confederation divided into three ethnic regions. It was then that our American Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Mr. Warren Zimmermann, advised Mr. Izetbegovic, representing the Muslim party of Bosnia, that "if he didn't like it, why sign it?" Although the 1992 Lisbon Agreement was the best opportunity to achieve peace, it was primarily due to the misguided advice given to the Bosnian president by our state department official that encouraged Mr. Izetbegovic not to sign the agreement which he had originally accepted in Lisbon, a decision which made the war inevitable. "In retrospect," Mr. Zimmermann said, in a interview, "The Lisbon Agreement wasn't bad at all." By this account, all of the suffering, all of the destruction and all of the deaths, on all sides, could have been avoided had it not been for the meddling by our U.S. Ambassador. Fast forward. As a result of the Clinton administration siding with the Bosnian Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic and the continuation of those anti-Serbian policies by the Bush administration, we come to U.S. recognition of the self-declared independent Kosovo government that is today, as Ms. Albrecht stated, in the hands of war criminals. One of these criminals, Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, known to his comrades as "The Snake," was even welcomed into the White House by our Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. The argument for Kosovo independence is that the population of the Kosovo region is 90% Albanian, an imbalance that came about partly from Tito's policy of "invited guests," but also by tens of thousands crossing illegally from Albania. However, ethnic Albanians are only 15% of Serbia as a whole, of which Kosovo is legally one province. Kosovo is to the Serbs what the Wailing Wall is to the Jews and what Mecca is to the Muslims. Recognition of Kosovo independence assures the final eradication of Serbia's language, culture and religion by Albanian mobs with the government's blessings. Furthermore, it is inexplicable why President Bush intends to send more weapons to the Kosovo government and into the hands of the war criminals as though the creation of an overwhelmingly Muslim state in the heart of Europe wasn't enough? Thanks to Clinton holdovers like Nicholas Burns, our State Department has made a mess of the Kosovo situation, resulting in incredible damage to our foreign policy in the Balkans. It should serve as a lesson to stop sticking our noses into other peoples' sovereign business. But will it? "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" (George Santayana) Stella Jatras Camp Hill, PA
