Train of Abuses; 2004 in review
Balkan Express - December 30, 2004

by Nebojsa Malic

There can be no doubt that 2004 has been a bad year for peace in the Balkans. An increase in violence and the escalation of Clinton-era policies that appeared defeated earlier have both contributed to a general deterioration in the region, to the point of threatening renewed conflict in 2005.

A Renewed Interest

Early in the year, the U.S. presidential campaign introduced a renewed interest in the Balkans. With the Iraqi insurgency taking an increasing toll on lives and property of both the occupied and – more importantly in Washington – the occupiers, veterans of Clinton's interventions began calling for a return to the "successes" in the Balkans, with the eye on "finishing the job." Though the Democrats, whose campaign most openly favored Albanian separatism in Kosovo and centralization in Bosnia, lost the election, they seem to have successfully revived Washington's Balkans agenda. Even as U.S. troops were leaving the region for more urgent flashpoints, Imperial diplomacy launched a new offensive in Bosnia, demonstrating that whether Republicans or Democrats run the White House, the Imperialists run America.

Kosovo Burning

Certainly the most significant event of the year was the pogrom in Kosovo this spring. From March 17 to March 19, mobs of over 50,000 Albanians rampaged through the occupied province, destroying dozens of churches and thousands of homes and forcing thousands of Serbs to flee for their lives while the immobilized UN and NATO occupiers looked on in horror. The sheer violence and hatred of the pogrom shocked almost everybody. Everything pointed to the fact that the rampage was organized and planned: a nearly fabricated pretext, simultaneous attacks across the province, and the abrupt end to the violence when it became too much even for the mainstream media to ignore. However, none of the organizers were punished, a few of the perpetrators actually indicted received probation sentences, and the whole thing served as an excuse to ramp up the process of creating a purely Albanian, "independent" Kosovo.

It did not help in the least that the mainstream media termed the pogrom "ethnic clashes," as if they involved two armed opponents, and continued to peddle a fabricated atrocity story offered up by Albanian propagandists as an excuse for the rampage. What little of the truth that managed to get out into the general public generated some outrage and bitterness, but the manic spin and damage control ensured they were short-lived and ineffectual. In the U.S., the Kosovo pogrom didn't even make it onto the list of 2004's top headlines.

Now UN and NATO occupation authorities have conducted another sham election, intended to give the occupation a veneer of legitimacy, and allowed the appointment of an Albanian prime minister who was not only accused of atrocities, but was also reported to have been behind the march pogrom. New UN viceroy Soren Jessen-Petersen refused to block the appointment of Ramush Haradinaj on grounds that it would be "saying no to democracy."

The God-King of Bosnia

Nine years after the Dayton Agreement ended the war in Bosnia, it's become little more than dead letter, as viceroy Paddy Ashdown escalated his purges and "reforms" aimed at centralizing the country far beyond anything envisioned in the Constitution – all in the name of "democracy," "integration," and "progress," of course.

Having already broken the power of Bosnian Croats last year, Ashdown set his sights on the Bosnian Serb Republic, forcing the resignation of its president earlier in the year on trumped-up charges of exporting weapons, sacking 59 officials in June and another nine in December for "failure to cooperate" with the Hague Inquisition, and extorting an official report on the "genocide" in Srebrenica 1995, after research challenged the official claim of 7,000 "massacred Muslim civilians." Three more officials lost their jobs – and civil rights, as happens to all purged by the viceroy – because they would not endorse the Srebrenica report. Speculation that Ashdown has been driven by his personal feelings, perhaps inevitable because of his wartime statements and professed adulation for the late Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic, could not account for the fact that his latest purge had the unequivocal and explicit support of the United States government and the EU. In ruling Bosnia, Ashdown has always exhibited a petty tyrannical streak; the near-absolute power he enjoys now could be producing delusions of grandeur rivaling only those of the current Emperor. That he is driving Bosnia toward a new conflict, and destroying what little the Dayton peace accomplished, doesn't seem to bother him at all. But more disturbingly, it doesn't seem to concern his Imperial patrons, either.

Macedonia Lost

After giving in to terrorist demands in 2001, Macedonians have tried unsuccessfully to limit the damage from the "agreement" that institutionalized ethnic apartheid and gave preferential treatment to Albanians. A crucial supporter of the arrangement, President Boris Trajkovski, died in early March in a plane crash en route to a regional conference. But his death, spun by the media into a tragic end for a saintly figure, only served to cement the current policies. Saddled with unimaginative and venal politicians, like the rest of the region, Macedonia has been unable to claw its way out of the quicksand.

A last-ditch attempt at resistance was the November referendum on the redistricting law, a blatant attempt to give Albanians more political clout by redefining municipal boundaries. Though it was to be expected that the government that authored the law would oppose the referendum, the hostility of Washington and Brussels was shocking. Threats and pressures worked together to derail the referendum, and with the help of a last-minute diplomatic stunt, succeeded.

Two days before the vote, Washington recognized Macedonia under its declared name; until then, it was referred to as the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" at the insistence of Greece, which claims rights to the name. The government in Skopje ran with the "success" and fanned the public euphoria, so that fewer than half the registered voters showed up at the polls that weekend, invalidating the referendum.

Serbia Divided

Elections at the end of 2003 resulted in a body blow to Imperial influence, as Radical opponents of the DOS regime won the largest bloc of votes. The Democratic Party of the late PM Zoran Djindjic found itself out of power, despite the efforts of Washington and Brussels to "persuade" the new PM, Djindjic arch-rival Vojislav Kostunica, to include them in the new government. Instead, Kostunica formed a governing coalition with several former DOS parties and got support from the severely weakened but still politically viable Socialists, thus shutting out both the Radicals and the Democrats.

From the outset, Kostunica's ramshackle government has been under siege from the outside and torn from the inside. Washington and Brussels have continued to demand extraditions of high government and military officials to the Hague Inquisition, threatening aid cutoffs and sanctions. Kostunica called Washington's bluff in March, when the aid was cut off, and absolutely nothing happened.

But a far greater danger for Kostunica came from the inside, as new presidential elections in June brought to power the Democrats' leader, Boris Tadic. An eager ally of Washington ever since he led the efforts to gut the Serbian military under DOS, Tadic immediately flew out to Washington to make promises and pledge allegiance. Two months later, his personal letter to the Emperor was leaked to the Serbian press, where many delighted in exposing the president's sycophancy. Tadic then became an even more pronounced partisan of Washington, breaking ranks with the government to urge Kosovo Serbs to vote – despite Belgrade's support for their boycott – and again in December, when Belgrade rejected the appointment of Ramush Haradinaj as Kosovo's puppet PM.

On a different front, politicians from the Hungarian minority in the northern province of Vojvodina tried to present sporadic felonies there as "Serbian hate crimes." Dedicated interventionists in Washington were more than happy to manipulate the situation to launch new verbal attacks on Belgrade, and the situation even escalated into the EU, which Hungary recently joined. Just as it appeared out of nowhere, the "crisis" vanished off the public radar, no doubt to be resurrected at another convenient time.

The Madhouse "Court"

Meanwhile, the Hague Inquisition continued its embarrassing show trials, even as its support in the Empire began to decline. Of course, neither Washington nor Brussels nor the UN would ever admit setting up a kangaroo court for political purposes, but the antics of "Chief prosecutor" Carla del Ponte and her staff, as well as the "judges," have been a growing embarrassment.

Their attempt to silence Slobodan Milosevic by imposing defense counsel has both failed and backfired. When the "trial" continued in November, it became obvious that the prosecution had little or nothing in the way of evidence to counter his witnesses. Of course, it is institutionally impossible for the ICTY to acquit Milosevic, as this would invalidate the very reason for its existence: to establish that the 1990s Balkans conflicts were all a product of a conspiracy led by Milosevic to create a "Greater Serbia." So even though little of the prosecutors' arguments, or behavior, would be tolerated in a real court, it works at the Hague Tribunal, because it isn't one.

Where Next?

If 2004 is anything to go on, the future promises to be bleak. The Empire won't change, nor are its policies likely to. Its train of abuses will continue. But there is no reason the Balkans politicians – who have caused their people so much grief and suffering already – should be allowed to ride the luxury car aboard it. There is no silver bullet, no magic trick that will miraculously deliver the Balkans from its hatred, conflict, and misery. Recognizing what is causing them, however, and getting rid of it, would be an excellent start. Although there is no indication of such awareness in the region, there are nonetheless hints of potential. Whether 2005 will be the year that potential becomes reality … who knows?

Original URL: http://www.antiwar.com/malic/?articleid=4233
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