My problem with RS is that it's stopping Bosnia from improving. Pretty much every single good thing that was suggested to change some things in laws or wherever else, which needed approval from other side, was stopped by the likes of Dodik for reasons only known to him.
Balkan Discussion
- Thread starter Mihajlovic
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
My problem with RS is that it's stopping Bosnia from improving. Pretty much every single good thing that was suggested to change some things in laws or wherever else, which needed approval from other side, was stopped by the likes of Dodik for reasons only known to him.
Food prices increasing, electricity getting more expensive,
thousands of small business closed and no plan of how to revive this sector, services in the health and care sector getting worse, corruption everywhere, government/administration spending on increase, import is on the increase, natural catastrophes caused additional strains on the budget, number of pensioners growing and the pension fund going going into more debt..... but you just blame it all on Dodik and RS. Typical.
You asked me what's my problem with RS, and I answered you. I never said RS is the only problem, but it's definitely one of the problems.
Mihajlovic when trying to explain crimes/massacres committed by Bosnians links it to their religion. It's those pesky Muslims again! When explaining the same crimes, atrocities committed by Serbs or Croats no religious connotations come into his reckoning.
I found Serbs were more into religion than Bosnians/Albanians on my visit prior to the Balkan wars.
I found Serbs were more into religion than Bosnians/Albanians on my visit prior to the Balkan wars.
More than Albanians for sure, more than Bosnians hard to say.
On general though, I wouldn't say that Balkanian nations are more religious than the rest of Europe. And religion didn't had much * to do with the wars.
* Well, Izetbegovic seems to have been partially motivated from religion. The church of Serbia also had quite a big influence on Serbian politics.
That's because this is how we were referring to Bosnian Muslims back then. If you check any census prior to 1991 this is how demographic distinctions were made. I'm not going into the subject of religion.
I found majority of Albanians hardly knew the declaration of faith if they were Muslim. I also found a large number of youths claiming to be both Christian and Muslim at the same time. Not sure if that has changed in the last 2 decades.
I think your assessment of Serbs being overly religious is wrong. The majority of Serbs were marxist/ communist orientated. Only Serbs who supported the monarchy were religious. Religion slowly creeped into the conflict being embraced by all three sides. There's no denying Izetbegovic was the most religious amongst the whole bunch, already being imprisoned for writing the Islamic Declaration etc.
That's for sure. In fact, 20 years ago you would have barely find many (especially on the cities) who know it, and even less who prayed, fast etc. Though they would have identified themselves as muslim.
About claiming to be both Muslim and Christian, I haven't seen anything like that (if you're talking for Kosovo). There have been some who converted to Christianity after the war, but we are talking for only a few hundreds.
I think that things have slightly changed. There have been a lot of 'investments' from Arabian states after the Kosovo war. And a lot of people got manipulated from those persons. The result is that 17 Kosovan Albanians have died on the war of Syria and likely a hundred or so are there now. Which would have been unimaginable only as near as 10 years ago. But being a poor state makes it easy for many organization who are linked with terrorist groups to convince and brainwash youth people.
Anyway, we are talking for an absolute minority here. Still the majority of people are non practicing muslims and the number or atheists/agnostics is on the rise. The most important thing is that the relation between Albanian Muslims, Catholics and non religious people are excellent and Christmas or Eid are basically celebrated from all people there. Fortunately we also don't have ER classes which might have been used from people to influence the youngsters.
There's a bit of Pascals wager going on over there. When me and my one of my aunts talked about religion she said "you might as well pick one, just in case" and for the most part, they just pick the one their parents picked, like most people do football teams. So when they're related to people of both, and most Albanians are, they sometimes go 'yeah, alright, I'll take both'. Being a mandatorily Atheist country for a few decades didn't help either and religious dialogue was largely limited to parents, who were almost entirely uneducated and illiterate telling their kids they were either Muslim or Catholic. And by the time people did come literate almost all of the Qurans and Bibles had been done away with. When communism fell, most people didn't have enough religious conviction to read the books.
It really does. I know people who'll praise Allah and the pope simultaneously and to the same extent.
I remember there was an uproar of a peaceful nature whilst I was in Tirana due to Central Mosque cancelling its daily call to prayer due to mother Teresa being in the city.
Pretty much exact same scenario I encountered on my visit.
In Kosovo, nope. Or at least haven't seen anything like that. On Albania, it is differently.
Anyway, where are you from?
Oh, in Albania yep. 50 years of persecuting anyone religious made it possible. By the nineties, pretty much most of the population was completely non-religious and so it became possible for people who didn't know what they wanted, to actually choose two religions.
Indeed. My grandma, a Muslim, actually goes on a yearly pilgrimage to a church on a nearby mountain which is an awful lot more than she does in relation to Islam. I used to go with her as a child and she'd buy me loads of sweets, it was pretty good.
Bulqize, we actually had some your cousins come live with us when the war kicked off. I'd ask the same, but I barely know the geography of the street I live on let alone entire countries.
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Never knew that you're from Albania. Good to know that! 
Well, the majority of refugees went to Albania during the war and it was an excellent solidarity.
Well, the majority of refugees went to Albania during the war and it was an excellent solidarity.
I think I've been to the village. I remember it being very small. Is the Mosque next to cemetery or am I thinking of another village?
Faleminderit, Silva.
I'm not sure pal, the country looks very similar in most places, and most of the mosques have cemeteries (and sometimes tombs) near or inside them. More so 2 decades ago when the rural layout was still almost identical to what the commies built. If there was a really big river a few hundred meters then it's the same one.
No problemo.
Bosnians are/pretend to be more religious than the others(Croatians are similar too) , and Serbs are more nazi oriented than others.
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Seems like you got your reaction.
Please, Raoul, I'm actually disappointed he held back all this time. I also feel offended that I wasn't called bloodthirsty and genocidal. Surely that's worth an infraction!
Pardon my lack of "political vocabulary", I will edit my post if it offends anyone, because I didn't have any intention to be offensive. I actually wanted to be funny. My bad.
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Ah don't worry about. As you can see I did laugh quite hard
@Revan According to the 1974 constitution Yugoslavia was paradoxically a federation of republics and a federation of people. As I mentioned earlier, republics had the right to secession if it's agreed by its people. A Croatian secession was never agreed by the Serbian people. Both sides could argue that they are acting upon the constitution.
Also, according the the 1974 constitution of Croatia, the socialist republic of Croatia was a national state of the Croatian people and the "state of the Serbian people in Croatia" (The text literally says Socijalisticka Republika Hrvatska je nacionalna drzava hrvatskog naroda, drzava srpskog naroda u Hvatskoj i drzava narodnosti koje u njoj zive).
In 1990 Croatia changed its constitution and declared Croatia a national state for Croats and for all its minorities such as Serbs, Italians, Jews, Slovaks, etc. This change, combined with all the shit-stirring (the JNA-Split incident in May 91, Koranski bridge incident, the Zagreb murders, Borovo Selo, etc), from the Croatian nationalists, contributed towards the escalation.
Fact is Yugoslavia was an impossible construct only kept alive by Tito. As a matter of fact you could argue that the dissolution of the country started before before the 74 constitution- recently I was listening to a talk where a panelist argued that the creation of national guards across all republics (teritorijalna odbrana) in 1968 was already the start of it.
All of this only highlights and adds to the complexities of conflict. It would have taken us years to properly dissolve the federal uni so that it's fair to all the people. Needless to say Europe and U.S. blindly pushing for unilateral declarations of independence without the consideration of any of those complexities only pushed the country deeper into a civil war crisis. So no matter how hard you try, blaming everything on Milosevic, the man who apparently started four wars, is ignorant and stupid.
Adding this book to my reading list
https://greatersurbiton.wordpress.c...-up-of-yugoslavia-a-groundbreaking-new-study/
https://greatersurbiton.wordpress.c...-up-of-yugoslavia-a-groundbreaking-new-study/
Of course I remember the US Government being quite vocal about trying to slow down the dissolution of Yugoslavia fearing it would take the region into Civil War.
@Revan, as for Kosovo- I still remember the student protests in the 1980s right after Tito died. There have been protests already in the 60s and 70s calling for a creation of Kosovo as a socialist republic, so all the stories
U.S. changed their tone drastically when they got involved in Bosnia 1992 encouraging Izetbegovic to reject the Lisbon plan. Afterwards they supported Izetbegovic in many different ways, openly siding with one war party. The U.S. was also actively involved in the operations Bljesak and Oluja. Such deep concern, heartbreaking really.
U.S. changed their tone drastically when they got involved in Bosnia 1992 encouraging Izetbegovic to reject the Lisbon plan. Afterwards they supported Izetbegovic in many different ways, openly siding with one war party. The U.S. was also actively involved in the operations Bljesak and Oluja. Such deep concern, heartbreaking really.
Indeed there were protests. Which in my opinion were completely justified. Albanians in Yugoslavia were by far the most discriminated nation and there wasn't a single reason why Kosovo shouldn't be a republic (within Yugoslavia of course). I mean, Macedonia was a republic despite being quite artificial so why Kosovo wasn't? The answer is quite simple, Albanians aren't Slavic population.
I think that Albanians would have been very pro Yugoslavia if we would have got republic status. And frankly speaking, the relations between Albanians and Serbians were quite good in the eighties (or so my dad says) despite some incidents. Some of my father's best friends (be it on university, army or on his jobs) were Serbs. He wa a member of the parliament on the eighties and he said that Albanians and Serbs had excellent relations on the parliament and agreed for pretty much everything.
It all changed after Slobo's talk on 87' and especially ater his talk on 89 when he mentions the possibility of war. Then there was a big exodus of Albanians, hundreds of thousand of people losing their jobs and an unprecedented disrimination and pretty much no right for us. That happened all way before the creation of KLA and the Kosovo war.
Sorry I didn't even finish my response, it was saved in draft and posted separately.
My point was that Albanians were protesting for an independent Kosovo long before there was any talk of discriminatory actions towards the Albanians instigated by Milosevic. So the question should Kosovo become independent has nothing to do with Milosevic, really. After all, if the only reason Kosovo was given to the Albanians because of Milosevic's mistreatment of the Albanians, surely after Milosevic was gone and was replaced by Western-orientated leaders, Kosovo could have stayed part of Serbia.
You can't deny one fact though, Serbs started leaving Kosovo in the 80s already due to aggressive Albanian nationalism. Albanians were incredibly growing in numbers, just look at the demographics from the 1948 census and compare to the ones in 1991. Again here we have a situation in which apparently life for Albanians was nothing short of hell and genocide, yet its population grows like no other in Europe. Let's not kid ourselves, life for Serbs in Kosovo was not cool at all. I'd argue that life for no one in Kosovo was good, it was the poorest part of the country, no doubt.
To be fair to Milosevic, though, you should really read the speeches for yourself, I'd be interested if you could point out where did he call for war.
In the end I think a solution should have been found and I would have preferred Dobrica Cosic's proposal (I think it was him) to split Kosovo into a Serbian and Albanian part. I think this could have worked.
Re. the 1974 constitution, I have yet to find the part that would allow for a autonomous province to secede. I don't think it's there although it wouldn't surprise if one could interpret the passages that speak about the 'right of the people' to self-determination, which would then obviously include the Albanian people also.
Yes once it became inevitable that Yugoslavia was going to dissolve the US backed it. But in the lead up, the US did try and slow things down so that if the process did take place it was done in an orderly fashion. But those living in the region were not so keen on waiting around.
Yes that's true. Crucial mistakes were made, however, by all countries, incl. US, who decided to recognize the independence of the former Yugoslav republics. That was done far too early. Instead the EU and the US should have insisted that all internal issues need to be resolved first and only then a formal recognition can follow. Recognizing Croatia's and Bosnia's independence was the worst possible thing to do at that time.
The Kosovo was given to Albanians because Albanians are absolute majority there. It was always only a matter of time. Obviously, Milosevic's mistreatment made the process more rapid.
Some (a lot) of Serbs were leaving Kosovo, true. Was that because of Albanian 'nationalism' or because of economy can be debated though. I seriously doubt (from what I have read and heard) that the Albanian nationalism was more agressive than Serbian or Croation nationalism. What is true though, is that after 1974 the majority of decisions were on the hands of the Albanians, mostly because 80-90% of the population were Albanian. Some Serbs might not have liked it (compared to prior 1974 when everything was on the hands of Serbs).
My dad said that he voted and talked for a law which would make able for the Serbs who left Kosovo to return and get the properties which they have sold (most of the to Albanian) by minimally compensating those Albanians who have bought them. This wasn't a populist decision, but was on the spirit of Yugoslavian brotherhood.
The problem in my opinion was the poor economy. Kosov - not surprisingly - was economically the poorest region on Yugoslavia. And a lot of Serbs left Kosovo for other regions (mainly Serbia and Montenegro) which were economically better. In fact, a lot of Albanian left Kosovo - be it for other parts of Yugoslavia or other states like Germany - for the same reasons. My grandfather worked for 30 years or so on Belgrade leaving his entire family here. For a lot of people - be it Albanians or Serbs - that was the only way of providing goods to their families.
The increase on number is true, but then we can say the same for Palestina who might have the highest natural growth in the world despite people there are on some of the worst conditions (and far worse than it ever was in Kosovo). It can be easily shown that nations which are in bad positions 0 be it economically or politically, in the case of Kosovo most of times - bar the period 1974-1989 - it was both) have more natural growth than nations don't have those problems.
In 1989 he mentioned the possibility of war (though he denied that was the case in Hague). In 1987 it was his other famous speech 'you will not be beaten'. Both of them were highly nationalist speechs. Didn't his former mentor, Stambolic, said that he had seen the end of Yugoslavia after that speech.
And then shit happened, and everything changed.
It would have been the maximum you were ever going to get from Kosovo. After the nineties, Kosovo was lost once and forever - although the process might have been delayed if you wouldn't have been as stubborn and inflexible in Rambouillet conference. It also would have prevented the deaths of 15000+ people (counting all deaths there).
Now the best you're going to get is a new Republica Srpska (though with far less autonomy and pretty much without no say on the other parts of Kosovo).
Oh, constitution can be changed. Serbia is on the process of doing so. The will of many, etc etcm. What I was saying is that there was no logic reasons (bar Albanians not being Slavic population, but in the end we were as communists as the others) for Kosovo to not be Republics on Yugoslavia. Montenegro who was significantly smaller (and had much more diversity) was a republic, Bosniaks were also on smaller numbers than Albanians, Macedonia was as artificial as a state can be (probably Tito decided so to decrease the number and territory of Serbs/Serbia and Albanians/Kosovo) and was a republic. Kosovo should have been too and likely would have been if Tito would have srvived for another 10 years or so.
Twenty years after the Srebrenica massacre, Serbia has made its first arrests, taking eight suspects into custody
Serb police have arrested eight people suspected of taking part in the Srebrenica massacre in 1995.
It is the first time Serbia has arrested anyone in connection with Europe's worst mass killing since the Second World War, when 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were rounded up and killed by Ratko Mladic's Serb troops.
The massacre still casts a long shadow over attempts to heal the wounds of the bloody Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.
The arrests, carried out across the country, targeted former members of a Bosnian-Serb special police unit, and focused on the murders at a warehouse on the outskirts of Srebrenica in July 1995. Serb prosecutors said they were also working with their Bosnian counterparts to track down others linked to Srebrenica living outside Serbia.
“We have never dealt with a crime of this magnitude before,” said Bruno Vekaric, a Serbian war crimes prosecutor. “It is very important for Serbia to use the judicial process to make its position on Srebrenica known.
“The significance of today’s operation is that we have sent a clear message that the victims of the Srebenica massacre and its perpetrators will not be forgotten,” he continued.
Serbia's war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic (Darko Vojinovic/AP)
The Serb authorities only referred to the suspects by their initials but the Associated Press claimed one of those arrested was Nedeljko Milidragovic, a former platoon commander known as “Butcher Ned,” while the Serbian and Bosnian press claimed Aleksa Golijaninwas also behind bars.
Both men face genocide charges in Bosnia in connection with their alleged activities around Srebrenica in July 1995.
According to official documents, they belonged to a Bosnian-Serb police unit called the Jahorina Training Centre.Prosecutors have charged Milidragovic with a litany of human rights crimes including ordering the deaths of 100 people in one incident alone, and personally shooting dead a disabled prisoner.
He is also suspected of ordering the murder of a 10 to 13-year-old boy on July 17, 1995.
Golijanin, the platoon’s deputy commander, stands accused of participating in the round up of thousands of Bosnian Muslims, and ordering Training Centre members to shoot 15 to 20 men dead in a meadow near Srebrenica. He has also been charged with the murder of one man.
Long overdue, but a great step forward by Serbia.
Important step forward, yes. I'd welcome if Croatia and Bosnia would follow this example and bring to justice those responsible for the thousands of murdered Serbian civilians in the Srebrenica area and elsewhere.
Today Serbia marks 16th anniversary of NATO attacks
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2015&mm=03&dd=24&nav_id=93575
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2015&mm=03&dd=24&nav_id=93575
Kosovo and Bosnia: the EU’s Iraq
Posted by ap507 at Apr 13, 2015 01:20 PM | Permalink
Dr Tara McCormack suggests that it's not just Iraq that has been destroyed by Western intervention
Image credit: Spiked Online
It is now widely accepted that the 2003 intervention in Iraq was disastrous, with many commentators arguing that the lack of any kind of forward planning and military policy exacerbated religious and ethnic tensions there. But little seems to have actually been learned from the invasion, as the recent US-backed, Iraq government-led use of a Shia militia to conduct ascorched-earth attack on the ISIS-controlled city of Tikrit demonstrates.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis fled after the West’s invasion in 2003, and the ensuing internal conflict. Today, new waves of refugees are fleeing both ISIS and the Iraqi government’s counterattacks. Iraq is a state that exists in a formal sense only. America has helped create a facade of democracy in Iraq – installing leaders favoured by the West. The recent rulers of Iraq have had no relationship to the people and therefore inevitably rule through extreme coercion, corruption, religious division and pork-barrel politics. The advantage for America and its allies is that this allows them to wash their hands of responsibility by blaming the ongoing catastrophe on the Iraqi elite.
However, it is not just Iraq that has been destroyed by Western intervention. Although there is far less public discussion about the European Union’s interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, these cases clearly demonstrate the problems with intervention and the limitations of external rule. Both cases are notable because, like Iraq, they are widely presented as successful examples of intervention and post-intervention governance. Yet both Bosnia and Kosovo are collapsing internally. As has happened in Iraq, the EU has set up facades of democracy in both states, in which corrupt EU-chosen political elites rule.
Not only was Bosnia created by America and the EU, following the break-up of Yugoslavia and the bloody civil wars that followed, but it is a country that continues to be controlled by the EU through the office of the High Representative. The High Representative has just recently announced that, 20 years after the end of the Bosnian war, the office is still vital. This is because, without EU rule, Bosnia would no longer exist. The anti-government riots that broke out last spring revealed that the state itself can barely function at all. Even the Guardian, one of the most belligerent cheerleaders of Western military intervention in the Yugoslav wars, painted a devastating picture in a recent editorial.
Bosnia is a moribund country with high unemployment, high levels of corruption and a totally disillusioned and disaffected citizenry. This should come as no surprise. After the break-up of Yugoslavia, the EU set up a system in which rule was sustained through ethnic groups, led by EU-favoured politicians. The only way in which the West could cobble together a Bosnian state was effectively to bribe Muslim, Serbian and Croatian political elites.
Meanwhile, a quiet crisis is occurring in Kosovo. Kosovo, too, is a state that only exists because of Western military intervention. In 1999, NATO went to war in support of the Kosovo Liberation Army’s (KLA) military campaign to secede from Serbia. In 2008, Kosovo formally declared independence from Serbia and has been recognised by most EU member states. Now, even relations with Serbia are normalising following the Brussels Agreement. The only problem is that no one wants to live there anymore. In the last few months, thousands of Kosovo Albanians have been leaving Kosovo to claim asylum in Germany and other places. An estimated 50,000 people and rising (out of a population of about 1.8million) have left since the start of this year.
Speculation abounds as to why Kosovo is now unravelling. The immediate cause is probably to do with visa changes with Serbia, which make it easier for citizens of Kosovo to leave. But the deeper, underlying causes are numerous. Kosovo has a 60 per cent unemployment rate for young people. It is a small state run by a clique of racketeers and murderers and there is no economic plan beyond personal enrichment. To add to the mix, the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), a deployment of EU police and civilian resources to Kosovo, has itself been embroiled in a vast corruption scandal. EULEX is the EU’s biggest foreign-policy mission, which was set up following independence in 2008 and the winding up of the United Nations mission, UNMIK. It employs 1,600 people and costs €110million each year.EULEX’s mandate is astonishingly vast. Its job is to set up and oversee Kosovo’s justice system, police, border controls, maintain the rule of law, integrate minorities and investigate and prosecute war crimes, corruption and organised crime.
Unfortunately, due to EULEX corruption, illegality and murder has boomed. The KLA-run government has conducted large-scale harassment of Serbs and Roma, and has engaged in serious human-rights abuses and political murders. Moreover, despite a wealth of evidence of political murders, embezzlement and corruption at the highest levels of government, EULEX has singularly failed to prosecute any important figures. EULEX itself has, according to some observers, more or less fused with Kosovo’s political elites, and has also been accused of covering up corruption within its own ranks.
In Kosovo, as in Bosnia, Western intervention has effectively created these states and is the only force keeping them together. The EU has put in place elites which owe their position to Western intervention. Democratic processes in these countries are stage-managed, with no real political process or connection to their citizens. The EU has a major stake in maintaining the fiction that these are democratic, functioning and self-governing societies; poster children, no less, for benevolent humanitarian intervention and the EU’s more ‘ethical’, normative style of changing societies, through influence and example rather than outright rule. Having set up their political systems and slotted agreeable elites into them, the EU rules these states using opaque and unaccountable systems of bureaucratic organisation. These systems sit above the political process, but, every step of the way, they allow the EU to disavow its own control. However, as we have seen in Iraq, the real consequences of this kind of external rule cannot be hidden. Citizens either vote with their feet and try to get out of the country, or they become increasingly angry and disaffected. As with Iraq, it is only when the citizens of Bosnia and Kosovo take their futures into their own hands that things can get better.
Tara McCormack is a lecturer in international politics at the University of Leicester. She is author of Critique, Security and Power: The Political Limits to Critical and Emancipatory Approaches to Security, published by Routledge.
http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/...tions/2015/kosovo-and-bosnia-the-eu2019s-iraq
Posted by ap507 at Apr 13, 2015 01:20 PM | Permalink
Dr Tara McCormack suggests that it's not just Iraq that has been destroyed by Western intervention
Image credit: Spiked Online
It is now widely accepted that the 2003 intervention in Iraq was disastrous, with many commentators arguing that the lack of any kind of forward planning and military policy exacerbated religious and ethnic tensions there. But little seems to have actually been learned from the invasion, as the recent US-backed, Iraq government-led use of a Shia militia to conduct ascorched-earth attack on the ISIS-controlled city of Tikrit demonstrates.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis fled after the West’s invasion in 2003, and the ensuing internal conflict. Today, new waves of refugees are fleeing both ISIS and the Iraqi government’s counterattacks. Iraq is a state that exists in a formal sense only. America has helped create a facade of democracy in Iraq – installing leaders favoured by the West. The recent rulers of Iraq have had no relationship to the people and therefore inevitably rule through extreme coercion, corruption, religious division and pork-barrel politics. The advantage for America and its allies is that this allows them to wash their hands of responsibility by blaming the ongoing catastrophe on the Iraqi elite.
However, it is not just Iraq that has been destroyed by Western intervention. Although there is far less public discussion about the European Union’s interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, these cases clearly demonstrate the problems with intervention and the limitations of external rule. Both cases are notable because, like Iraq, they are widely presented as successful examples of intervention and post-intervention governance. Yet both Bosnia and Kosovo are collapsing internally. As has happened in Iraq, the EU has set up facades of democracy in both states, in which corrupt EU-chosen political elites rule.
Not only was Bosnia created by America and the EU, following the break-up of Yugoslavia and the bloody civil wars that followed, but it is a country that continues to be controlled by the EU through the office of the High Representative. The High Representative has just recently announced that, 20 years after the end of the Bosnian war, the office is still vital. This is because, without EU rule, Bosnia would no longer exist. The anti-government riots that broke out last spring revealed that the state itself can barely function at all. Even the Guardian, one of the most belligerent cheerleaders of Western military intervention in the Yugoslav wars, painted a devastating picture in a recent editorial.
Bosnia is a moribund country with high unemployment, high levels of corruption and a totally disillusioned and disaffected citizenry. This should come as no surprise. After the break-up of Yugoslavia, the EU set up a system in which rule was sustained through ethnic groups, led by EU-favoured politicians. The only way in which the West could cobble together a Bosnian state was effectively to bribe Muslim, Serbian and Croatian political elites.
Meanwhile, a quiet crisis is occurring in Kosovo. Kosovo, too, is a state that only exists because of Western military intervention. In 1999, NATO went to war in support of the Kosovo Liberation Army’s (KLA) military campaign to secede from Serbia. In 2008, Kosovo formally declared independence from Serbia and has been recognised by most EU member states. Now, even relations with Serbia are normalising following the Brussels Agreement. The only problem is that no one wants to live there anymore. In the last few months, thousands of Kosovo Albanians have been leaving Kosovo to claim asylum in Germany and other places. An estimated 50,000 people and rising (out of a population of about 1.8million) have left since the start of this year.
Speculation abounds as to why Kosovo is now unravelling. The immediate cause is probably to do with visa changes with Serbia, which make it easier for citizens of Kosovo to leave. But the deeper, underlying causes are numerous. Kosovo has a 60 per cent unemployment rate for young people. It is a small state run by a clique of racketeers and murderers and there is no economic plan beyond personal enrichment. To add to the mix, the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), a deployment of EU police and civilian resources to Kosovo, has itself been embroiled in a vast corruption scandal. EULEX is the EU’s biggest foreign-policy mission, which was set up following independence in 2008 and the winding up of the United Nations mission, UNMIK. It employs 1,600 people and costs €110million each year.EULEX’s mandate is astonishingly vast. Its job is to set up and oversee Kosovo’s justice system, police, border controls, maintain the rule of law, integrate minorities and investigate and prosecute war crimes, corruption and organised crime.
Unfortunately, due to EULEX corruption, illegality and murder has boomed. The KLA-run government has conducted large-scale harassment of Serbs and Roma, and has engaged in serious human-rights abuses and political murders. Moreover, despite a wealth of evidence of political murders, embezzlement and corruption at the highest levels of government, EULEX has singularly failed to prosecute any important figures. EULEX itself has, according to some observers, more or less fused with Kosovo’s political elites, and has also been accused of covering up corruption within its own ranks.
In Kosovo, as in Bosnia, Western intervention has effectively created these states and is the only force keeping them together. The EU has put in place elites which owe their position to Western intervention. Democratic processes in these countries are stage-managed, with no real political process or connection to their citizens. The EU has a major stake in maintaining the fiction that these are democratic, functioning and self-governing societies; poster children, no less, for benevolent humanitarian intervention and the EU’s more ‘ethical’, normative style of changing societies, through influence and example rather than outright rule. Having set up their political systems and slotted agreeable elites into them, the EU rules these states using opaque and unaccountable systems of bureaucratic organisation. These systems sit above the political process, but, every step of the way, they allow the EU to disavow its own control. However, as we have seen in Iraq, the real consequences of this kind of external rule cannot be hidden. Citizens either vote with their feet and try to get out of the country, or they become increasingly angry and disaffected. As with Iraq, it is only when the citizens of Bosnia and Kosovo take their futures into their own hands that things can get better.
Tara McCormack is a lecturer in international politics at the University of Leicester. She is author of Critique, Security and Power: The Political Limits to Critical and Emancipatory Approaches to Security, published by Routledge.
http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/...tions/2015/kosovo-and-bosnia-the-eu2019s-iraq
So, it was the 20th anniversary of Srebrenica a week or so ago.
The genocide of our generation.
They have recently found the remains of an additional 136 bodies to bury with the 6,000 they had already found. They are still searching for the rest.
The genocide of our generation.
They have recently found the remains of an additional 136 bodies to bury with the 6,000 they had already found. They are still searching for the rest.
http://m.independent.ie/world-news/...tenced-to-40-years-imprisonment-34569712.html
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2016-03-24/radovan-karadzic-sentenced-to-40-years-in-prison/
The trial is finally finished and he has been convicted few mins ago.
Up to 40 years is ridiculously low for one of the biggest genocides in Europe. It doesn't matter for him because he is already 70, but it does send the wrong message.
Good number of serbs, including political figures, are still hailing this monster publicly, really sad times here.
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2016-03-24/radovan-karadzic-sentenced-to-40-years-in-prison/
The trial is finally finished and he has been convicted few mins ago.
Up to 40 years is ridiculously low for one of the biggest genocides in Europe. It doesn't matter for him because he is already 70, but it does send the wrong message.
Good number of serbs, including political figures, are still hailing this monster publicly, really sad times here.
Does it really send the wrong message? He's dying in jail, what would be fitting is execution. What I find is the wrong message is not bringing to trial many others who are responsible for genocide, torture, etc.