Kosovo Clock Runs Out
by Nebojsa Malic
There is one constant in the proclamations of those championing the independence of the occupied Serbian province of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2526: the more they claim it is “inevitable” and just around the corner, the less likely it becomes. The drive to officially sever the province – occupied in 1999 by NATO, following an illegal war, and administered by a corrupt UN bureaucracy in league with the terrorist KLA – from Serbia began almost immediately following the 2004 pogrom against the remaining ethnic Serbs. It continued in 2005 with the Bush administration adopting their predecessor’s Balkans agenda, and in 2006 with the appointment of a pro-Albanian envoy to chair the “negotiations” between Belgrade and the separatists. Then, in June this year, it ran into the brick wall of rejection – mostly from Serbia and Russia, but also some dissenters within the EU, Africa and Asia.
Thus came about http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2512 – an arbitrary date set by the U.S. and the EU for the end of the new “negotiations” on Kosovo, chaired by a troika of envoys from Washington, Brussels and Moscow. The talks were a sham from the very beginning; as the U.S. envoy told the Albanians, backed by the Great Decider, after the failure of talks, the U.S. would support the “inevitable” independence. All the provisional government in Pristina had to do was run out the clock, while the Western media would declare the Serbs and Russians as “obstinate” and “defiant.”The Clock Runs Out
What happened between June and now has been entirely predictable. The troika would meet with the Serbs and the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2503; Belgrade would offer a plan for autonomy, the Albanians would answer “No, independence.” Next time, Belgrade would offer another mode of autonomy, and the Albanians would answer “Independence!” And so on, down to this past weekend in Baden, Austria, when the clock finally ran out and the EU envoy Ischinger, presiding over the troika, declared the talks were over. The Albanians echoed his statement, while Serbia and Russia have called for more negotiations.
The issue is now back before the UN, it appears, where it will be debated in the Security Council on December 19.
Exit Agim, Enter Snake
It is still unclear what elections in the occupied province, organized by UNMIK on Nov. 18, were supposed to accomplish. But with less than half the Albanian electorate bothering to vote, and Serbs boycotting the election, the office of “Prime Minister” passed from one KLA leader to another.
Agim Ceku, the darling of the West, was appointed Prime Minister after the sudden resignation of his predecessor in March 2006. Ceku fought in the Croatian Army during the 1991-95 war, taking part in atrocities against civilians. He later became the “military commander” of the KLA, and its postwar, UN-sponsored successor, the TMK. One of his last actions as Prime Minister was writing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing for independence.
The likely new PM is now his former boss, KLA supreme leader http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2476, whose party won 34% of the votes cast. Although both Ceku and Thaci have been indicted in Serbia for terrorism, murder, extortion and a host of other crimes, they’ve always enjoyed protection of UNMIK and NATO – meaning, ultimately, Washington.