Support for talks on splitting Serbia, Kosovo

The European Union and the US will back direct talks between Serbia and Kosovo that could help end one of the last outstanding disputes to dog stability and security in the Balkans.

Diplomats hope the talks could eventually lead to Serbia and Kosovo agreeing on how they could peacefully separate from each other, with internationally recognised borders.

The talks, expected to take place next month outside the region, were agreed in principle at the EU-western Balkan summit in Thessaloniki, where European leaders at the weekend promised the countries integration and eventual membership under stringent conditions.

In particular, EU leaders spelt out how the region had to combat corruption, human and drug trafficking and smuggling, which is rife in Albania, Serbia and Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia.

These countries were told their chances of becoming closer to Europe depended on strengthening the rule of law and, crucially, co-operation among the police forces across the region to weaken criminal gangs.

"These countries have a road open to the European Union. They know what they have to do," said Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief.

The EU has provided €4.6bn (£3.2bn) for 2000-2006 to the region, topped up by an additional €200m pledged at the summit.

But diplomats said the changing attitude at the summit reflected a growing consensus by the EU and US that any stable, long-term integration into Europe by the western Balkans will not be possible until the territorial and border disputes are resolved.

Constitutionally, Kosovo is still part of Serbia. In practice, since 1999 it has been under a United Nations-sanctioned international protectorate.

"We now support a dialogue," said Zoran Zivkovic, prime minister of Serbia. He insisted, however, that talks with Kosovo would only begin once Michael Steiner, the UN's special envoy for the province, left his job later this month.

Mr Steiner has proved a controversial figure in Kosovo. Diplomats said that he had quickly alienated the Serbs in both Kosovo and Serbia.

* Pope John Paul yesterday urged Bosnians to heal the war wounds of the 1990s and renew faith in the future through forgiveness, Reuters reports from Banja Luka. Visiting Banja Luka, he also asked Serbs to forgive wrongs committed by the Catholic church in the second world war.

Infinitely better. One of the great glories of the West was the development of the nation-state that comprised various ethnic/language groups, and of course, it reached its highest point in the US, which formalized the individual (rather than the ethnic group, clan, etc.) as the base unit of society.

The odd thing is that I think you can trace much of what is happening now, outside of areas where Islam is attempting to extend itself (which is an entirely different problem), to 19th century Romantic nationalism, when intellectuals went about discovering and cultivating quaint little ethnic or linguistic groups.

When it was limited to the area of folk songs and ethnic dress, it was perfectly harmless and even a positive thing. But it became political very rapidly, and even places like Spain - where Basques had never regarded themselves as, nationally, anything but Spaniards - suddenly began to discover old grievances and determine that they were somehow different, special, and deserved collective treatment as an offended group.

And then came Marxism, another late-Romantic intellectual movement which began, in some cases, by stoking the fires of 19th century ethnic indignation, and ended, paradoxically, by subjecting all groups to an almost unimaginable uniformity of misery.

It's an enormously complicated situation. Personally, I think the US has got to really put forward the model of the secular, non-ethnic state. (Notwithstanding the fact that we are increasingly losing the non-ethnic state with our forays into affirmative action....)

I am including Livius (I hope it's okay) because he/she decied to jump in and join us.

You know the answer ro your question, in the spirit in which it was presented. People of different ethnic background and religious persuasions get along much better because, as you said, it is all about individuals not groups.

America has no autonomous provinces for that same reason. Instead, those who cannot be asked to assimilate -- America's Natives -- are simply placed on reservations! I like that! I think the Serbs should do the same with Hungarians and Bosniacs and Albanians! On reservations! American style!. But how did Amereica come to be such a wonderful place (and it is -- now)? After many of it Natives have been forcefully displaced or even ethnically cleansed, my friends. Sure, everything is hunky dory here after 250 years of cleaning house, bloody civil war and an "equal but separate" society of racial nature way into the 20th century. Bravo! I think there is a kind of romanticism, belated or not, flourishing here as well. We are all in awe with the results, but have forgotten what it took to get to this point.

Now imagine what this place would have looked like if every time someone tried to do something someone slapped sanctions on us here? In other words, if every time we tried to do something (and it wasn't always noble either), someone came here to intervene on the world's behalf.

What? You have race riots? Obviously you can't handle race issues! Let's send UN troops to San Francisco and Chicago and appoint a governer from France to administer the areas under 'UN protection.'

After all, Serbia is the only former Yugoslav republic that has some 23 odd nationalities living there. Obviously, they must have some sense of individual rights! No one is revenging Serb death in Kosovo by mugging Albanians in the streets of Belgrade, or God forbid, for using their language as the Albanians are doing to Serbs in Kosovo.

Serbia is closer to Israel in that sense than to the US. It's history. It's so intervowen in the culture that you cannot separate one from the other. After 80 years of communism, the Russians never stopped calling Sunday "Resurrection."

Serbs and Croatians don't fight in America, but don't hang out with each other either. The story changes when one group forces another group from their homes.

The Balkan nations cannot be parceld out every so many decades because one super power or another is unhappy with the arrangement. It only perpetuates the unsettled problem. They too need their time to make everything hunky dory. But no one will leave them alone. It's time to let them arrange their house without any help.

The latest from Kosovo:

[Source: B92]

UNMIK confirms Thaqi arrest | 11:25 | B92

BELGRADE -- Tuesday – The United Nations mission in Kosovo last night confirmed that Kosovo Albanian political leader Hashim Thaqi was arrested in Budapest yesterday and released after a phone call from governor Michael Steiner.

UNMIK spokesman Simon Haselock told B92 that Steiner was released Steiner spoke to Hungary’s foreign minister.

“This is not intervention from the highest level, it’s cooperation at the highest level,” added Haselock.

The head of Belgrade’s Kosovo Coordination Centre, Nebojsa Covic, also confirmed the arrest and Steiner’s intervention. “Eventually a guarantee was given and Mr Thaqi released,” said Covic.

Thaqi’s Democratic Party of Kosovo warned last night that the arrest of their leader could endanger peace and stability in the region.

The former Kosovo Liberation Army leader was detained on an international arrest warrant issued during the time of the Milosevic regime.

Serbian Interpol cowardly withdrew both warrants issued for Thaqi's arrest as soon as it was informed of the incident, while the pathetic Serbian government's Justice Minister Vladan Batich "protested" for domestic consumption, calling Thaqi's release "outrageous."

Thaqi was arrested based on a warrant for such arrest issued in 1997. by the Miloshevich regime. Serbian Prime Minister, Zoran Zhivkovich, hurridly denied that Serbia withdrew the warrants but charged, instead that some unnamed "European countries" demanded his release. Of course, the countries were never identified.

Zhivkovich rationalized that of course "None of us, naturally [sic] will never withdraw the warrant, but we, however, must be realistic. Ask yourselves what would have happened to the Serbs in Grachanitsa, Mitrovitsa, Kosovo Polye [NATO occupied and KLA-run Kosovo and Metohia, my comment] ... if the Hungarians extradited Thaqi to Belgrade? I am not brave enough to sacrifice Serb lives in Kosovo and Metohia because of a 1997 warrant, which is, nevertheless, warranted." (but not worth is, it seems he is implying).

This is truly pathetic, because ever so soon some poor Serb is murdered in Kosovo, another church bombed, stoned or set on fire, for no reason whatsoever other than that the Albanians are simple hellbent on exterminating anything Serb there with or without provocation. And the UN, with US benediction, presides over this genocide.

Rest assured, no American official will be arrested for allowing such crimes against humanity to happen on his or her watch. And Zhivkovich's cowardly and servile lack of resolve and character will not spare the lives of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia either. Zhivkovich has already earned his place in history alonside spineless characters such as General Nedich, another "realist" who collaborated with Nazi German occupation of Serbia in order to "spare lives." In vain, of course. Under his "realpolitik," Jews were rounded up and sent to camps in Zemun (at that time part of the fascist so-called Independent State of Croatia), Serbia printed anti-Semitic postage stamps, and collaborated with German authorities in their attempt to "establish order."

Zhivkovich also learned pragmatism from his hero Zoran Djindjich, a cameleon who could change colors on a moment's notice -- a trait some called pro-western and pragmatic (hmmm!). Djindjich knew when to roast an ox with Radovan Karadzhich as much as he knew how to pelase his Marxist professors to get his PhD on a Marxist-inspired thesis dealing with revolutionary destabilization. That same Djindjich was all XOXOXO with the Yugoslav spineless Clown Prince Aleksandar, in St Andrea, in 1999. A Marxist philospher knew how to get close to the Serbian Orthodox Church, and became a frequent visitor to the temple of St Sava in Belgrade shortly before his assassination. And, on assuming the post of his idol, Zhivkovich said he could never be Djindjich, but that he learned a great deal from him and will continue his policies. That much is obvious.

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