-Caveat Lector- From http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/NewsST100600.htm }}>Begin Thursday, October 5, 2000 WILL ALBRIGHT STOP SAVING MILOSEVIC? by Srdja Trifkovic With demonstrators commanding the streets of Belgrade, Slobodan Milosevic is fighting for his political life and the issue of his physical survival may not be too far in the background. It is high time, the last minute in fact, for the U.S. policy in the Balkans to adjust to the new reality. For a long time Mrs. Albright and her team at the State Department refused to recognize that Dr. Vojislav Kostunica is a real force in Serbian politics. They tried to hedge their bets: if Milosevic falls, they’ll place his successors into a straightjacket on Kosovo and cooperation with the Hague “tribunal,” while claiming credit for “encouraging democracy” in Serbia. If he survives the turmoil and steals the election, it will justify sanctions and even future bombings. As Tom Fleming put it a few weeks ago, “Albright is licking her bloody chops in expectation of another gory meal.” Things are not going Albright’s way in Belgrade now, however, and unless Washington -- even at this late stage -- changes its tune the U.S. will be rendered irrelevant in the post- Milosevic Balkan architecture, while Russia and the Europeans will be the winners. For some weeks now the Albright game, conducted with characteristically little skill and finesse, amounted to overt verbal condemnation of Milosevic and expressions of support for the opposition, while at the same time everything was done to help Milosevic survive. Let’s look at the facts as reported by others. “Kostunica not Clinton administration's man,” reported UPI’s Martin Sieff on September 25, a day after the Yugoslav election: Kostunica's rise has proven to be far from welcome to the Clinton administration, especially to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. Albright has spearheaded the efforts to make an example of Milosevic by having him handed over to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, capital of the Netherlands, and tried there as a war criminal. But Kostunica implacably opposes having Milosevic or any other prominent Serb tried as a war criminal, no matter how terrible was their conduct during the last nine years of conflict in the fragmented former communist federal state. He also regularly denounces the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia last year as criminal. And he flatly opposes granting independence to Kosovo, Sieff continued, which will present Washington with a far trickier problem than Milosevic does: U.S. leaders -- Republican and Democrat alike – are now used to attacking Milosevic as, if not a Hitler, then at least a Saddam Hussein figure. They have made clear they hope that a pro-American opposition candidate will eventually succeed him and agreed to U.S.-mediated solutions to Bosnia and Kosovo. But Kostunica is not pro-American. He is as virulent a critic of recent U.S. policies as Milosevic himself. And he has said he is determined to not to give an inch on the Kosovo issue . . . From the Clinton administration's point of view, the trouble with Kostunica is precisely that he does appear to accurately express the democratic aspirations of the Serbian people. The only trouble is that they are not the aspirations that the Clinton administration would like them to be. The Administration accordingly went out of its way to scuttle any possible deal between Milosevic and his opponents that would entail a peaceful transition. When Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to mediate by inviting both Milosevic and Kostunica to Moscow last Monday, Mrs. Albright was quick in torpedoing the initiative. The State Department announced that the U.S. would expect Russia to turn over Milosevic to the Hague tribunal the moment he should show up in Moscow. “There's an indictment that calls for any country to hand him over to The Hague,” State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said on Tuesday, October 3. “We expect the indictment to be followed.” Asked how Putin's offer to mediate could take shape if the moment Milosevic showed up he would face extradition to the Hague, Reeker said: “That's a question for Putin and Milosevic to discuss.” Reeker’s final remark left no doubt of the position in Washington: “We believe (Milosevic) should be out of power, out of Serbia and in The Hague to face justice. Period.” Dr. Kostunica accused the United States of placing the destiny of one man ahead of the fate of an entire nation, but admitted that the Hague indictment “brings us a lot of headache”: “It helped convince Milosevic that for him these elections are a question of life or death … The whole of Serbia is being held hostage to one man.” The Russians were more blunt. “Washington has thereby done Mr. Milosevic one more service: He now has a pretext for not traveling to Moscow,” commented even the usually pro-Western Kommersant on October 4, and took exception to the haughty tone as well as the political substance of the warning from Washington: “Moscow is not about to secretly harbor President Milosevic but, on the contrary it wants to persuade him to abandon the confrontation and not oppose the handover of power to the democratic opposition, if its victory in the first round of the election is proved. This is advantageous both for Russia and for the West. Therefore President Putin's initiative made its appearance after consultations with the Western leaders.” Many Western politicians are now coming out in favor of giving a guarantee of personal safety to Milosevic, Kommersant continued, including France and Germany in particular. This initiative was also supported by Jiri Dinstbir, the UN Human Rights Commission's special rapporteur. “To overcome the present crisis and save people, the decision of the International tribunal on former Yugoslavia about bringing charges of war crimes against Milosevic ought evidently to be reviewed,” he declared. Another line of attack against Kostunica took the form of a stream of official “leaks” from Washington about the money given by the U.S. government to the opposition in Serbia. The opening shot came on September 19, five days before the election, with a detailed front-page story in The Washington Post that played right into Milosevic’s hands by ostensibly confirming his constant theme: that the opposition was in the pay of Western powers. The Post story was swiftly translated into Serbian and carried as front-page news by Milosevic’s state controlled media. The same happened ten days later, on September 29, as the post-election struggle in Belgrade intensified. American diplomats in Budapest provided the Associated Press with more pro-Milosevic ammunition. “U.S. Funding Yugoslavian Reformers,” reported George Jahn from the Hungarian capital. “The United States funneled $35 million to opponents of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) in little more than a year as part of efforts to weaken him that culminated in his apparent electoral defeat. The money was part of a long-term Western effort to strengthen anti-Milosevic forces over the past decade… U.S. diplomats in the region say much of the American money was spent on computers for human rights groups, transmitters for independent B2-92 radio and other non-governmental radio stations and other basics for student organizations and labor unions, such as fax machines and telephones. The funds even paid for a rock band that played at events to mobilize voters ahead of the Sept. 24 elections… More money appears to be on the way. The House of Representatives passed a bill Monday authorizing $60 million for further pro-democracy activities in Serbia.” As a matter of fact that bill, far from helping democracy in Serbia, was yet another attempt to impose Clinton’s and Albright’s pax Americana on the Serbs even if Milosevic were to fall. As we have already commented in connection with HR 1064 on this site, those who still doubt that there are powerful forces in Washington that are scared stiff of Milosevic’s defeat are well advised to read some comments made by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) on the Senate floor on Tuesday, September 26, regarding HR 1064. This bill is ostensibly aimed at supporting democracy in Serbia, but in terms of its assumptions and practical consequences it could be called “Saving Slobo’s Skin.” Biden opened by saying that “Slobodan Milosevic is the problem, not the Serbian people,” but then he explained that under HR 1064 the array of sanctions punishing Serbia -- not Milosevic and his cronies - will be re-codified and kept in place until Vojislav Kostunica (or any other successor to Milosevic) complies with every demand from Washington, including the delivery of all indicted war criminals to The Hague tribunal. Dr. Kostunica has repeatedly stated that this he will not do. Even if this “tribunal” wasn’t a purely political construct devoid of legal basis – which it is - Kostunica would be right to loath sending any of his countrymen to The Hague, just as any real American should shudder at the thought of sending any U.S. citizen, however culpable, to be tried by a United Nations court. Throwing the challenge of HR 1064 at Kostunica – and doing so at the very moment when he is locked in a life-and-death struggle with Milosevic – is either utterly insane, or deeply devious. Bad, or mad, or both, Biden is very much in charge of Senate foreign relations, and the context of his remarks makes it evident that this bill enjoys full Administration support. It is not promoting democracy in Serbia but preventing it. To Milosevic’s infinite delight Biden has condemned Kostunica in advance as an “ultra-nationalist” if he does not agree to become exactly the kind of NATO-friendly quisling the Belgrade regime accuses him of being. The spirit and true intent of the bill is fully betrayed by the following comments at the end of Biden’s address: “To be blunt: respect for Dayton and cooperation with The Hague Tribunal must be litmus tests for any democratic government in Serbia. I fervently hope that Mr. Kostunica emerges victorious in the Yugoslav elections. If he does, the United States should immediately extend to him a sincere hand of friendship, with the assistance outlined in the pending legislation. … If, on the other hand, Mr. Kostunica comes to power and thinks that his undeniable and praiseworthy democratic credentials will enable him to pursue an aggressive Serbian nationalist policy with a kinder face, then we must disabuse him of this notion.” In summary, to lay prostrate merits a friendly hand. The refusal to submit is aggressive nationalism. Plus ça change: in June 1992 I attended a meeting in Washington with then-assistant to the National Security Advisor for European affairs, Jenone Walker. Referring to the sanctions against Serbia - in the context of Milosevic’s offer to resign if they were lifted - she stated that (“quite apart from Milosevic”) they would stay in force until “all current and potential sources of conflict in the former Yugoslavia were removed, agreements signed and sealed, and respected by the Serbs to the satisfaction of the U.S. government.” Eight years later HR 1064 proves that, on some issues at least, there IS remarkable continuity and consistency in Washington. But back to Biden. His concluding remarks had a threatening air: “Should our West European allies choose to embrace a post-Milosevic, democratically elected, but ultra-nationalistic Serbia, then I would say to them good luck; we’ll concentrate our policy in the former Yugoslavia on preparing democratic and prosperous Slovenia for the next round of NATO enlargement, on continuing to help reconstruct Bosnia and Kosovo, and on supporting the democratic governments in Macedonia, Croatia, and Montenegro.” This is the kind of challenge America’s European partners may well accept this time. Some are keen to lift all sanctions against Serbia regardless of who prevails in Belgrade. They’ve had enough of this kind of neoimperial arrogance – French planes are landing in Baghdad these days -- and they could easily turn the policy towards Belgrade after Milosevic into a litmus test of their ability to say “no” to Washington. The writing has been on the wall ever since the EU foreign ministers had announced that all sanctions against Serbia would be unconditionally lifted if Milosevic were to fall, and the country itself welcomed “with open arms” into Europe, and helped financially. This prospect is anathema to Joseph Biden and his like-minded friends and colleagues in Washington. They don’t want a democratic Serbia reintegrated into the community of European nations, but a Gauleiter-ruled colony in which any attempt to assert one’s dignity, let alone pride in one’s identity, would be equated with “aggressive ultra-nationalism.” That much has become clear in their attempt to sabotage Milosevic’s opponents while he is struggling for survival. As a UPI report noted last Monday, from Washington’s point of view a Kostunica victory would “derail U.S. hopes of negotiating a broad settlement to Yugoslav issues on Washington’s terms.” Those terms entail acceptance of the loss of sovereignty (The Hague) and loss of territory (Kosovo), plus whatever else is ordered from Washington. Last Monday night Kostunica replied when he said that Yugoslavia must not become “anybody’s protectorate.” In the eyes of Biden & Co. this merely confirms that he is an “ultra-nationalist,” which proves that we need HR 1064 enacted before Milosevic falls. As Serbia’s true democrats struggle against that misshapen despot whose strongest trump card is to accuse them of being pro-NATO traitors, a concerted attempt is under way in Washington to impose humiliating conditions on them that no democratically elected leaders of any nation could ever accept. The participants in that endeavor know not what is shame. The rest of us do, living – as we do – in the eighth year of the Clinton-Gore presidency. Copyright 2000 The Rockford Institute -- Center for International Affairs End<{{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ >>>Another war hero. I almost want to have law that mandates anyone advocating war should have some military experience (i.e., anyone elected to Congress, House or Senate. With Mad Maddy, she should lead the fight for ALL Americans ages 18-27 to have a Selective Service System card. She should draft herself anyway. Get some first hand battle field experience. A<>E<>R <<< >From http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=B000444 }}>Begin Biden, Joseph Robinette, Jr., 1942-- Years of Service: 1973- Party: Democrat BIDEN, Joseph Robinette, Jr., a Senator from Delaware; born in Scranton, Lackawanna County, Pa., November 20, 1942; educated at St. Helena’s School, Wilmington, Del., and Archmere Academy, Claymont, Del.; graduated, University of Delaware, Newark, 1965, and Syracuse (N.Y.) University College of Law 1968; admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969 and commenced practice in Wilmington; served on the New Castle County Council 1970-1972; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1972 for the term commencing January 3, 1973; reelected in 1978, 1984, 1990 and again in 1996 for the term ending January 3, 2003; chairman, Committee on the Judiciary (One Hundredth through One Hundred Third Congresses). End<{{ A<>E<>R Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The libertarian therefore considers one of his prime educational tasks is to spread the demystification and desanctification of the State among its hapless subjects. His task is to demonstrate repeatedly and in depth that not only the emperor but even the "democratic" State has no clothes; that all governments subsist by exploitive rule over the public; and that such rule is the reverse of objective necessity. He strives to show that the existence of taxation and the State necessarily sets up a class division between the exploiting rulers and the exploited ruled. He seeks to show that the task of the court intellectuals who have always supported the State has ever been to weave mystification in order to induce the public to accept State rule and that these intellectuals obtain, in return, a share in the power and pelf extracted by the rulers from their deluded subjects. [[For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Murray N. Rothbard, Fox & Wilkes, 1973, 1978, p. 25]] <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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