Posted on 08/28/2008 11:03:44 AM PDT by kronos77
28 August 2008 Belgrade _ The French Foreign Minister says Serbia has a right to seek a world court ruling on the legality of Kosovo’s independence but warned the EU would not fully accept it.
In a statement to Serbia’s state news agency Tanjug in Paris, Bernard Kouchner warned that “if eventually the International Court of Justice will consider the case, something I am not certain about, it would have to take into account all relevant elements.”
“Do not forget that are international agreements, the United Nations and international community stand (on the issue)… The court will take all of that into consideration. We did not make up Kosovo’s independence,” Kouchner said at the sidelines of the French envoys’ gathering.
Asked if France was considering any reaction to Serbia’s bid to get UN member states on side for a world court ruling, Kouchner argued that “just like the whole world, they (Serbia) have the right to seek an opinion.”
But he warned, “We have said that Serbia cannot ask Europe if it can join it and at the same time ask from Europe to entirely agree with the request.”
"They asked the UN General Assembly, we will see what will happen, what the answer will be,” he said, adding that “that does not change our position” regarding Kosovo.
Despite similar warnings and Belgrade’s own view that any ruling will only carry moral weight, Belgrade has launched a diplomatic offensive to get support within the UN for its draft resolution seeking the International Court of Justice’s opinion on whether Pristina’s February move to secede form Belgrade was in line with international law. Read more: http://balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/12398
(Excerpt) Read more at balkaninsight.com ...
Restoring law and order to Kosovo will not be much different from United States efforts to deporting illegal aliens. Only the criminals will have anything to fear.
Oh, let me guess, “Srebrenica Squawk”?
Why was nothing done to stop the Jihadists from conducting murderous raids against Serb villages from the “safe zone” of Srebrenica?
The more you get in bed with Clinton’s policies, the more you become like him.
These are not a few thousand illegals at a chicken plant. This is an operating government with security forces and two million people, over a million of whom have been living on that land for generations.
Retaking Kosovo will not be policemen arresting one or two percent of a neighborhoods inhabitants. It will be a bloody street-to-street, house-to-house war against a prepared enemy.
Serbia has the numbers to eventually prevail, but it will cost both sides tens of thousands of lives and will become an enormous, ongoing financial burden to Serbia.
Why was nothing done to stop the Jihadists from conducting murderous raids against Serb villages from the “safe zone” of Srebrenica?
No Albanian war criminals have ever been put on trial for their crimes? None have ever been apprehended by NATO or UN forces? Oh, wait. They have. Just like Milosevic.
The more you get in bed with Clinton’s policies, the more you become like him.
You seem much better at dropping names (Soros, Clinton) and sloganistic epithets (jihadist, anti-Christian) than providing rational analysis.
The right policy for NATO to employ in the Balkans was to separate out the various combatants into different states and statelets to minimize the unending bloody reprisals between the parties.
But don't worry - Serbia still has Hungarian and Rumanian minorities it can now turn on. Maybe an independent republic of Voivodina will be next.
>And yet there are Serbs and Jews and Roma living in Kosovo.
I was under the impression that all of the Jews left Kosovo. As for the Serbs and Roma, all too often they were subjected to ethnically motivated attacks, pogroms, and at the least harassement or discrimination.
“We chose scenario two and stepped in before scenario one could come to pass.”
I doubt that scenario one would have come to pass anyways. But that’s just my opinion.
“But don’t worry - Serbia still has Hungarian and Rumanian minorities it can now turn on. Maybe an independent republic of Voivodina will be next.”
I doubt it. Serbs make up a majority of Vojvodina’s pouplation, even if a narrow one.
What "second genocide" are you referring to?
There were almost no Jews in Kosovo when Serbia was in power and there are almost no Jews in Kosovo now that Kosovars are in power.
There weren't that many to begin with, and most of them left for Israel when the Balkan wars broke out.
As for the Serbs and Roma, all too often they were subjected to ethnically motivated attacks, pogroms, and at the least harassement or discrimination.
In the case of the Serbs, I'm sure the harassment and discrimination charges are absolutely true. After all, the shoe was on the other foot just months ago. No people in the Balkans seems able to let bygones be bygones.
I've heard no credible reports of any pogroms.
The actions of Belgrade in Kosovo were reminiscent of the runup to the last genocide.
Absolutely correct.
But if they turn on their last sizable remaining minority - the Hungarians - they could lose yet more territory.
One would assume that they would know better than to do this - Hungary is a much stronger nation than Albania, is a full member of NATO, has a modern military with officers who are combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and who have good knowledge of Serbian geography, etc. - but the Serb faction represented by the Radical Party have never been the type to think before acting.
What arrogant and corrupt people. But, it doesn’t matter, France will be a Muslim nation within this lifetime. They will feel the same pain Serbs are feeling in due time.
There is ultimately a higher court than any man can make. Justice will be served. One way or another.
Serbia was raped for Kosovo and given to drug running thugs and these crooks think they will get away with it. They have set free murderers like Nasir Oric and they talk about justice like they invented it.
Serbia was raped for Kosovo and given to drug running thugs and these crooks think they will get away with it. They have set free murderers like Nasir Oric and they talk about justice like they invented it.
No, he was way too young for that.
"Between 1975 and 1979, after South Vietnam had fallen to North Vietnam, there was the emigration of millions of Cambodians to Thailand to avoid the Khmer Rouge. In response MSF set up its first refugee camp missions in Thailand.[6] When Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia in 1989, MSF started long-term relief missions to help survivors of the mass killings and reconstruct the country’s health care system.[9] Although its missions to Thailand to help victims of war in Southeast Asia could arguably be seen as its first war-time mission, MSF saw its first mission to a true war zone, including exposure to hostile fire, in 1976"
That's where this former Commie had tasted first blood.
“But don’t worry - Serbia still has Hungarian and Rumanian minorities it can now turn on. Maybe an independent republic of Voivodina will be next.”
Hungarians and Romanians are loyal, hardworking people.
BTW, Hungarians are quite known as reliable officear in Serbian army. One of them col. Zoltan Dany shot down F-117A in 1999.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that Milosevic was intent on genocide. If anything, I think that his methods were probably more like the Sandinistas with regard to the rebellious Miskito indian community.
Ah, so you admit that many are recent arrivals from elsewhere? Very interesting Freudian slip there.
Ignoring the destruction of all of those Christian Churches, eh?
Or were you cheering them on with this crowd?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsSswNz7lBU
Aw, whiny little Frenchies can’t deal with the prospect that the Serbs might actually have enough backbone to fight for themselves and their ancient homeland (Kosovo, where the Serbs battled the Turks in 1389)? Maybe it’s something the French don’t realize, but some people, like the Serbs, actually think that some things are worth fighting for.
To be fair, it’s not just the French who are the problem— Fuhrerin Angela Merkel in Germany has also been desperately trying to hide all the details about the Islamofascist KLA’s atrocities against the Serbs after 1999, since this would rightfully show her up as a fool. Merkel’s days are numbered as Germany’s chancellor— the vultures are circling around her and will soon expel her from the Chancellor’s office.
The entire Kosovo fiasco was a result of Bill Clinton’s attempts to wag the dog on Blowjob-gate back in 1999. It’s inexcusable that George W. Bush and the magnificently incompetent Condi Rice then continued the blundering of Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright.
Of course, John McCain wants to continue the stupidity in Kosovo as well, one more reason that nobody in my neighborhood will be voting for him— it’s all Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr these days. And good riddance to another RINO like John McCain that we don’t need.
To all you idiots tossing out the accusations of Putin sympathizers here— nobody here supports the rapacious plundering that Putin is doing in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He needs to get out of Georgia, period.
At the same time, the USA and NATO need to get out of Serbia, and stop pretending that we can carve out Islamofascist KLA-led narcostates out of a sovereign nation. Both sides here are full of s**t. Just withdraw and let peacekeepers from both sides patrol in autonomous Kosovo, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Neither Serbia nor Georgia should have its sovereign territory infringed upon, so both sides need to step back and stop opening Pandora’s Boxes all over the place, since soon enough, it’ll be Aztlan and Hawaii that use the Kosovo precedent in support of their own independence.
I’m sorry, but you are late to the game. We have people here who support what Putin is doing in S. Ossetia simply because of what NATO did in Serbia. Fact.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.