Power-sharing in Kosovo
Ethnic Albanian parties break stalemate, Rugova expected to lead new coalition
Posted on 03/01/2002 12:21:53 PM PST by henbane
Power-sharing in Kosovo
Ethnic Albanian parties break stalemate, Rugova expected to lead new coalition
By Shaban Buza - Reuters
March 1, 2002
PRISTINA - Kosovo's main ethnic Albanian parties overcame differences and pledged yesterday to share power, breaking a stalemate that had delayed self-rule for the Yugoslav province since a general election in November.
They agreed Ibrahim Rugova, veteran leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), would be elected president of Kosovo by its new assembly while the prime minister would be from a party with its roots in the guerrilla group that fought Serb rule.[The Albanian terrorist KLA]
«We have taken an important step,» said Rugova, who led the passive resistance of Kosovo Albanians to harsh Serb control for a decade. Under the deal signed by main party leaders, the new premier will be Bajram Rexhepi, a senior member of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), which grew out of the Kosovo Liberation Army that fought Serb forces in 1998 and 1999.
Rexhepi is a 47-year-old surgeon who worked as a field doctor for the KLA and later became mayor of the Albanian part of the ethnically divided northern Kosovo city of Mitrovica.
The deal is a minor triumph for the province's new United Nations governor, Michael Steiner, a top German diplomat who has been in Kosovo for less than a month. He arrived saying that reaching a deal to kickstart self-rule was his priority.
«What is now important is that this agreement is implemented and is made a reality by Kosovo's assembly,» he said after the signing ceremony. «My wish is that, if everything goes in accordance with the plan, this will happen on Monday.»
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and EU foreign policy supremo Javier Solana had called to welcome the deal, he said.
«It is absolutely important they stick to the agreement, form the government and get about the business of governing and focus on the affairs of the people,» Annan told a joint news conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
If the 120-seat assembly approves the appointments it will clear the way for Kosovo's majority Albanians to take control of day-to-day administration of their province for the first time in more than a decade. The UN retains overall control.
BTW, is this new "premier" of Kosovo, Bajram Rexhepi, the same guy who earned the title of "Dr. Terrorist " back when he was patching up the KLA mujahadeen as the Albanian Muslim jihaders attacked the Serb police force and kicked off the NATO takeover of this Serbian territory?
Under Resolution 1244 Kosovo remains part of Serbia and yet the UN and Nato sees it as a triumph that they've installed a guerrilla separatist who will continue to fight against their own Resolution? Good grief, they never fail to amaze me with their short-term fixes. Besides which it was Rugova who didn't want these people in the administration.
Since when did a province have a 'cabinet', 'prime minister' or 'president'??!
The ICDSM is a front organization for the Socialist Party of Serbia, which is essentially the communist successor of the LCY, minus the 'Yugoslav Brotherhood' plank which kept Yugoslavia together. If you can point to any meaningful differentiation between the economic or governing policies of the two organizations, please feel free to do so.
So, in effect, you're soliciting funds for rebranded communists on FreeRepublic.
Congratulations, I'm sure this is a first.
What a brilliant political philosophy - tell me again how Saddam Hussein didn't make the list of 'friends'? I mean, unlike Milosevic, he was at odds with Clinton for the whole 8 years, and never claimed to be Bill's friend (unlike Slobo - or have you forgotten that already?).
10 years later, after instigating two bloody fiascoes of wars in the name of Serbian nationalism (do you really expect to be allowed the statement "basically innocent" here?), Milosevic finally turned to Kosovo, having nowhere left to create the conflict that he needed to keep countrymen's minds off his criminal mismanagement of Serbia.
In 1998, his forces displaced ~250,000 Kosovar Albanians, who, after negotiations in the Fall and the withdrawal of the JNA, were allowed to return home. In the Spring of 1999, Milosevic's forces picked up where they left off last Fall, and Milosevic got his sorry ass bombed and kicked out of Kosovo.
End of story.
Now you tell me, Clinton's opponent in 1992 was Bush Senior, who had already told Milosevic not to jack around, and Clinton's opponent in 1996 was Bob Dole, who was with Bush in 1989 in telling Milosevic not to jack around, and subsequently developed a strong dislike of Milosevic. What exacly would you have expected America to do if Clinton wasn't elected? Besides justifiably taking Milosevic out to the tanning shed a couple years prior to 1995?
Like I said, however, the kicker was the Broaddrick story; without that, even Klintler would not have done Kosovo. Serbia is not some sort of an ideological exercise to Russia; it is a slavic, orthodox nation, blood kin. The potential for a nuclear war was there.
Other than that, the genesis of the recent problems was Milosovic rescinding the autonomy of the Kosovo region in 89. He had no options; every other ethnic group in Kosovo was being brutalized by the Albanians.
Any sort of a thorough research will turn up the reality that the whole problem in Kosovo was always the Albanian Kosovars and not the Serbs. The present problems seemingly began with Miloshevich rescinding the autonomy of the region in 1989. The truth is that he had no options, and that all other ethnic groups in Kosovo were being brutalized by the Albanian Kosovars
Further readings and articles from the 80's tell much the same story
What about before that? The truth is that, despite the endless villification and demonization which they come in for from the Clinton spin machine and the NATO propaganda arm, the Serbs are the closest thing there is to normal, rational, decent people in the balkans. They fought with the allies in WW-II and in fact held Hitler for seven months and sent him into Russia in the dead of winter rather than on schedule, but for which the whole world might be sporting swastikas now. They in fact saved 500 allied airmen who were shot down on raids over Ploesti and other targets in the region
Needless to say, any allied airman who was ever shot down over one of the states surrounding Serbia was killed. The states surrounding Serbia all sided with Hitler, e.g.
The Serbs paid a horrific price for all of this. Hundreds of thousands of them were murdered, many in Nazi-style death camps set up in the surrounding states.
Aside from that, as I note, Milosevic and Serbia were basically innocent. It turns out that the entire case against Serbia was never anything but a bunch of bullshit. There was never any "ethnic cleansing" going on:
and there was never anything remotely like genocide going on, as Stratfor articles and other reports from the region noted.
Nothing but a bunch of fabricated bullshit and a bunch of poor sorry people having to defend themselves against an armed insurrection supported and supplied by outside powers and drug money.
Sorry, you lose.
You seem to have eaten quite a diet of Serb Nationalist disinformation there, no wonder you're suffering from indigestion - here, let me help:
Trepca - worthless: Would require more money to bring it into compliance with European environmental standards than it's worth - hence, like most other communist resources, it's been turned into a liability through years of mismanagement.
Pipeline - another bs story - just how economically sound is it to unload tankerfuls of crude in Bulgaria, transship it across the Balkans, paying transit fees to 3 or countries, and then reload it onto ships in the Adriatic? It's not - that's why any pipeline will come out on the Mediterranean in the first place, or will parallel the Bosphorus and save somebody a couple hundred kilometers of pipeline.
As to Serbia/Yugoslavia being a thorn in NATO's side - big frigging deal? Like they've got an Army that can do anything other than kill civilians? Wars cost money, and NATO isn't in the business of losing their government's (all democracies who are very cognizant of their defence expenditures, btw) tax revenues unless they can't avoid it, and in the case of Slobodan Milosevic, given Serb treatment of UN forces in Bosnia, he stuck his head on the anvil and now it's gone squish - boo hoo.
Bob Dole taking KLA drug money, huh? Care to back that up with something other than simple prejudice and wishful thinking? Feel free.
Russia? Done. Finished. Unable to even muster a meaningful whine when their aircraft were denied overfly rights - slavic unity is just meant to make you feel good, not actually do anything.
As to the Albanians being the sole problem in Kosovo - it takes two to tango, buddy, and two sets of Nationalists will give you two sets of people pointing the finger at the other side rather than looking in the mirror.
Go look in the mirror.
Ok, World War II: The Viet Minh, the Korean Communists, the Chicoms, and the Russians were allies during that conflict - should your claims of solidarity have held true for them as well when we were given the choice of watching them expand their borders or actively opposing them? Not all allied airmen shot down over non-Serb held areas of Yugoslavia were killed either, btw - surprised you even repeated that one.
As to the Serbs being the nearest thing to decent, rational people in the Balkans, that may have held true under Tito, but under Milosevic they turned into either bystanders or active participants in the biggest bloodletting in European history since the 1940's, and are now engaged in the biggest mass denial since Germans decided that none of them were ever members of the Nazi Party - it's strange how the Serbs, victimized as they were during the 1940's, chose to emulate their antagonists from that era, complete with sonderkommando and concentration camps, albeit on a necessarily smaller scale.
Which obviously brings us to your 'basically innocent' attempt.
No how, no way, not to my face. If you want to sell that lie to someone else, feel free, but if you persist in repeating it to me, I will cut you down without mercy - Slobodan Milosevic relied on the ignorance and gullibility of his followers to sustain himself in a position of power, and now that the bill for that power has become evident, there is no excuse, I say no excuse for repeating the lies he told his followers.
It just won't work, and is as discreditable an exercise as you can find.
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