Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Serbian president: UN decision to open talks on Kosovo status "expected"

Text of report by Serbian news agency Beta

Belgrade, 24 October: Serbian President Boris Tadic said this evening that Serbia faces a period of hard and complex talks on the future status of Kosovo-Metohija.

In a statement to the Beta news agency, Tadic said that the UN Security Council's decision to open talks on Kosovo-Metohija's status was an expected one.

"The scope for defending our interests has been narrowed down by a legacy of difficult consequences of the rule of Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbian Radical Party," the Serbian president said.

"We will protect our legitimate national and state interests with the force of arguments and with a mutually agreed plan and strategy," Tadic stressed.

Source: Beta news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1942 gmt 24 Oct 05

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stop blaming Radicals and Socialists. Any and all governments since Milosevic (except Dindic maybe) have done everything possible to make life in Kosova terrible. Tadic, if you are different and don't approve of Milosevic, why don't you try apologizing for the genocide your state committed.

Anonymous said...

10k rebel deaths doesn't constitute genocide!

Anonymous said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_war

Criticism of the Case for War

Some critics have accused President Clinton of leading the United States to war in Kosovo under the false pretense of genocide [6]. Others have accused him, and his administration, of inflating the number of Kosovar Albanians killed by Serbians[7]. Clinton's Secretary of Defense William Cohen, giving a speech, said, "The appalling accounts of mass killing in Kosovo and the pictures of refugees fleeing Serb oppression for their lives makes it clear that this is a fight for justice over genocide [8]." On CBS' Face the Nation Cohen claimed, "We've now seen about 100,000 military-aged men missing...They may have been murdered[9]." Clinton, citing the same figure, spoke of "at least 100,000 (Kosovar Albanians) missing[10]". Later, talking about Serbian elections, Clinton said, "they're going to have to come to grips with what Mr. Milošević ordered in Kosovo...They're going to have to decide whether they support his leadership or not; whether they think it's OK that all those tens of thousands of people were killed...[11]". Clinton also claimed, in the same press conference, that "NATO stopped deliberate, systematic efforts at ethnic cleansing and genocide[12]." Clinton even compared the events of Kosovo to the Holocaust. CNN reported, "Accusing Serbia of 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosovo similar to the genocide of Jews in World War II, an impassioned President Clinton sought Tuesday to rally public support for his decision to send U.S. forces into combat against Yugoslavia, a prospect that seemed increasingly likely with the breakdown of a diplomatic peace effort[13]." Clinton's State Department also claimed Serbian troops had committed genocide. The New York Times reported, "the Administration said evidence of 'genocide' by Serbian forces was growing to include 'abhorrent and criminal action' on a vast scale. The language was the State Department's strongest yet in denouncing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević[14]." The State Department also gave the highest estimate of dead Albanians. The New York Times reported, "On April 19, the State Department said that up to 500,000 Kosovar Albanians were missing and feared dead[15]."

However, the numbers given by Clinton and his administration have been proven false. The official NATO body count of the events in Kosovo was 2,788 (not all of them were war crimes victims)[16], with Slobodan Milošević charged with the "murders of about 600 individually identified ethnic Albanians[17]". Critics have noted that these numbers can not be considered genocide. The headline of The Wall Street Journal, which had launched an investigation into whether genocide had occurred in Kosovo, on December 31, 1999 was "War in Kosovo Was Cruel, Bitter, Savage; Genocide It Wasn't"[18]. The Wall Street Journal wrote, "the U.N.'s International War Criminal tribunal has checked the largest reported sites first, and found most to contain no more than five bodies, suggesting intimate acts of barbarity rather than mass murder... Kosovo would be easier to investigate if it had the huge killing fields some investigators were led to expect. Instead, the pattern is of scattered killings[19]."

In addition, a United Nations Court had previously ruled that Serbian troops did not commit genocide against Albanians. The court wrote "the exactions committed by Milošević's regime cannot be qualified as criminal acts of genocide, since their purpose was not the destruction of the Albanian ethnic group[20]". According to BBC, "the decision was based on the 1948 Geneva convention which defines genocide as the intent 'to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such'[21]". Milošević was not charged with genocide in Kosovo by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) but the more broader "crimes against humanity"[22]. Spanish forensic surgeon Emilio Perez Pujol, who led the Spanish forensic team in Kosovo, gave an interview to the British paper The Sunday Times. The paper wrote, "In an outspoken interview, Pujol complained he had been sent to head a large investigation team attached to the ICTY, consisting of pathologists and police specialists, to work in the north of the country. But he found that what was publicised as a search for mass graves was 'a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machines, because we did not find one—not one—mass grave.'[23]".

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it is ok to kill pregnant women and babies that doesnt constitute genocide.

Anonymous said...

Dindic was behind the plan of Kosova partition...they are all milosevics...

Anonymous said...

First, let us hope that our friend is implying Kosovo by his (deliberate, I fear) misspelling ("Kosova"). Second, it true that Mr. Djindjic was truly striving for a rational and reasonable solution to the Kosovo Crisis. Also, I hope our friend realizes that any president after Mr. Milosevic has had no jurisdiction over Kosovo because the province has been under UNITED NATIONS control. As we can all clearly see, our friend’s knowledge of the situation is at par with his ability to spell.

PS Whoever posted a "Winkipedia" article must take into consideration that ANYONE with an internet connection can post an article on Winkipedia.

Anonymous said...

Kosova is the right way to spell Kosova, kosovo is a misconception used by serbs and all slavics in an effort to make kosova sound like its a part of them...and serbia has had a big impact after the war..funding illegal instution, sending criminals to kosova, and even distabalizing the whole Europe...Serb's will inherit a punishment when Kosova become a country soon.

Anonymous said...

I wonder why by the same reason they do not call it SerbiO i Montnegro.

Anonymous said...

I hate to again be the bearer of bad news for our ideologically driven friend, but the civilized world relies on history, anthropology, and common sense (something our friend seems to ignore from time to time). With all do respect to all nationalities, ethnic groups, and religions currently inhabiting Kosovo; the region was inhabited by Slavs (not Slavics; Slavics is not a word) and Goths long before the occupation of the Balkans by the Ottoman Empire (estimated to have begun around 1389). If our friend likens history to “misconception[s],” he or she is surely mistaken. I also hate to break it to our naïve friend, but the region has been polluted with organized crime for a better part of two decades. These large volumes of crimes have long-stemmed roots in organized crime and opium trade in neighboring Albania. As for the supposed destabilization of Europe, an educated student of history would argue that—considering all that the continent has persevered over the course of the previous century, the state of Europe could be characterized as relatively stable. However, one cannot ignore the Kosovo Crisis. Independence alone—unfortunately—will not solve the problem. Again, if our friend were an astute student of history (or had any common sense at all), he or she would realize that complex, deep-rooted problems call for complex and thoughtful solutions. It is my sincere hope that the U.N. Security Council will reach an agreement that will satisfy ALL groups of Kosovo and Metohija. I truly urge our friend to put the current crisis in a historical perspective. The current relative instability in the Balkans is not the first stream of instability. Let us all hope that our knowledge of history and respect for all peoples of the Balkans will allow us as an untied world to ensure it is the last stream of instability. I challenge our friend to comprise a thoughtful and accurate rebuttal to my assertions. Perhaps, he or she may elaborate on their envisioned solution for the region??

Anonymous said...

Look at the Balkans in the last 15 years. Serbia tried to messed up with Slovenia. You had unrest. Slovenia got its independence, no Serbs messing around anymore, no more problems progress and bright future ahead.
Serbs messed up with Croatia. War, chaos, killing of civilians by Serb military. Croatia becomes independent, we have progress, peacefull society, bright future ahead. Serbs messed up in Bosnia, there was War, chaos, thousands of civilians killed by the Serb military. Now Bosnia is in progrss and looking at a brighter futurebecause they're independent. Serbs messed up and still messing up in Kosova through its politicians , through secret service, and by influencing the 5% Serbs living in Serbia. So from other examples after independence we'll see progress, and a brighter future. That is what we saw as soon as all the other countries got their independence and Serbia with their colonialist agenda could not mess up with them anymore.

This is not a complex problem at all. Its the same problem that the international community has solved succesfully for Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia by granting independence. All of the countries above had a Serb minority and in some case in much larger numbers than in Kosova. So when you talk about a solution satisfying both you look for progress and a brighter future. History has shown us that this solution is obtain when Serb colonialist agendas are shut down by the recognition of independence. Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia are the best examples. Nothing is differnet in the case of Kosova. Again we're hearing the same colonialist arguments from the Serb part we heard in Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia. Independence is the only solution, any other thing will cause bloodshed that will be of greater magnitude than any of the last three wars in the Balkans. Self determination is a God given right and nothing can stop the aspiration of 95% of the popullation for independence.

Anonymous said...

i mean how ignorant are u sheep loving albaniacs u are telling someone that the correct word is kosova??? HAHAHAHAH KOSOVO OR KOSOVA BOTH SERBIAN WORDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA PATHETIC!

Anonymous said...

At least we made you laugh dear Martyr le Serb. It is nice to know that there is a light of hope that you will reach eternal happines.

peace and love to you,

Anonymous said...

Kosova is how we call it...the grammar freak can continue talking about how it's written or can give some anthropological or historical wikipedia info-s(hej don't worry they are ''all true and everybody believes in them'')...the fact is that now we call it how ever we like and we will change the name if we wan't...serbs lost the right over KosovA and that's a real fact, and you don't have to look wikipedia cause you can't find that there...we are the masters of Kosova and that matters...you serbs played filthy and you tried to cleans albanian popullation cause you knew and you know that that was the only way for you to keep something that never belonged to you...thing's are simple here...you hated us and we learned to hate you too...with independence maybe we will hate you a bit less...it's simple as that, black and white no grey in between

Anonymous said...

serbs played filthy u say? HAHAH how can i not laugh at this? it is true that the albos are funny comedians. HELLO U DID NOT PLAY AT ALLLLLLLLL U HAD OTHERS FIGHT FOR YOU AS USUAL!!!! U WOULD BE NOWHERE WITHOUT THE US N NATO!!!! just like Hitler and the Turks you are allied with the occupier NATO! hahaha I mean dont u feel like a bunch of morons when the entire world of your Muslim brothers are fighting and hate the USA while you are the only muslim nation that loves them!!!!!! hahah I mean how typical of albos just like when the Turks came, all the christains fought them while u sat back and became the front line soilders for the ottomans! always kissing ass and always having someone fight your battles for you.
also i cant wait for kosovo to become independent, serbia will finally win its battle with cancer and a land poluted with thousands of tons of depleted uranium! hahahah Rugiva has cancer, oh I wonder from what? could it be from the poison that your "allies" dropped in your backyards? nice friends.

Anonymous said...

alos KOSOVO HAS BEEN SERBIAN FOR OVER 1000 years (vast majority of the population) until teh early 20th cen, KOSOVO WAS ALBANIAN ONLY ONCE for 4 years when Hitler gave it to you in ww2 for your loyalty to him! FACT! look that up anywhere!

Anonymous said...

Do you have a tape stuck in you Martyr or do you just love to repeat yourself...

My you must be a boring date...

Anonymous said...

What to say???? Kosovo has been a part of Serbia for many centuries and never a part of Albania (or Albanian- except a few years when Hitler rulled).

It is sad that civilised people of the world have succumb to an orchestrated propaganda campaign which aims to amputate Kosovo from Serbia on lime excuses (i.e. humanitarian bombardment, "ethnic cleansing", "GENOCIDE", "Serbian treating Albanians as low-lives"...)At the same time, getting rid of Kosovo, which is overwhelmingly Albanian populated would only be a relief to Serbia, provided that effective barrier for further Albanian infiltration are enforced.

Alas, what do we do with unfortunate Serbs who live(ed) in Kosovo before? If Croatia was able to wipe out near-entire Serb population with hardly any consequence what can we expect to happen to those unfortunate Serbs in Kosovo when Albanians take over on wings of NATO intervention? Aftermath for the Serbs will no doubt be worse then what heppened to the Serbs in Croatia or in Sarajevo after various peace treaties, when entire Serb populations were expelled under watchfull eyes of NATO soldiers (to dismay of any decent person).

As one of ex-Sarajevo Serbs, I sincerely simpathise with all remaining Sebs in Kosovo.

Anonymous said...

You only have yourselves to blame for becoming refugees. And don't give us shite about Bosnian Serbs, we know who has most of the territory in Bosnia.

Anonymous said...

The “grammar freak” (as I’ve been dubbed by our oh-so clever friend) will again bring some reality to this ideologically driven and nationalist frenzy. First and foremost, I am neither Serb nor Albania (sorry to burst your bubble). Second of all, what Mr. Milosevic committed in Kosovo in the latter part of the twentieth century was “ethnic cleansing” and not “genocide” (I would refer anyone interested to the charter and by-laws of the International Criminal Court and various treaties dating back to the Helsinki Accords in 1975. Going back to our original debate, Slovenia is ethnically homogeneous; therefore, it does not apply to our debate. Croatia—despite her beginning talks with the EU Integration team—is far from stable economically, and is responsible for ethnic cleansing for which the Hague Tribunal has indicted the responsible parties. Bosnia is not a “simple independent state” as our naïve friend put it, it is a complex federation in which all three ethnic and religious groups are granted representation. I agree with our fanatical friend that the 90% majority of ethnic Albanians (yes, 90% I would direct you to the United Nations data for Kosovo) do have a right to self-determination but internal self-determination and external self-determination. However, the concept of self-determination comes with many aspects—only one of which is independence. (Note: Self-determination is not “God given.” The concept was first formally proposed by President Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points presented at the Treaty of Versailles and was officially ratified as part of the CSCE at Helsinki in 1975. Please, friend, educate yourself and then maybe you can arm yourself with facts, reason, and logic rather than nationalistic-fanaticism.) Serbia and Montenegro are also on slightly rocky terrain as of late, but all the instabilities cannot hold a candle to what instability Europe survived during the last century.
In closing, to be quite frank, I am quickly becoming bored of this debate. Everyone has begun to resort to ad-hominem arguments, and our charming friend even suggested that history and anthropology have no place in a debate. What if the literacy levels of all fanatic Kosovars were directly proportional to the amount of “God given self-determination” you were allowed, to how much would that amount? If one takes the intelligence you have demonstrated thus far, it would not amount to much at all…

Anonymous said...

where is the proof of teh "ethnic cleansing"??? where??? where are the video images or satelitte images (rememebr the images Albright showed up graves that were tampered with in Bosnia) where is documentation of this type of campaign, it is a well know fact taht the socalled "operation horseshoe" was a forgery by the German BND even the Germans tehmselves admit it was a forgery of a Bulgarian document. WHERE IS ANY PROOF OF SERB SOILDERS FORCING ALBOS TO LEAVE KOSOVO AFTER 6 years????? idiot what did u think that the albanians in kosovo were going to sit around while a ground war was being prepard and depleted uranium was raining on theri heads???? funny how you dont say a word about the 250,000 SERBIAN refugees kicked out of kosovo (their own country) and will never return!

Anonymous said...

The ethnic cleansing I'm referring to occured before the NATO bombing. Defending the Serbian position (as I did in my previous posting) becomes hard when people refuse to cease their defense of war criminals like Mr. Milosevic. Please, friend, move past nationalism and self-vicitimzation; become and intricate part of Europe and the world once again--for you own good and the well-being and prosperity of your children.

Anonymous said...

dude pre NATO bombs or post what is the difference if ethnic cleansing happened (and u are citing Milosevics crimes, he is being tried for the deaths of 600 albanians, look at the indi.) then show some proof of serbs soilders kicking these people out for good and not letting them return to their homes, it is so strange that the "ethnic-cleansing" only occurd in areas where the KLA was active!!! dude I hate milosevic but watch his trial on domovina.net all teh archives are there he has 100% totally discredited every single perosn taht has been in front of him all these silly claims of "forced expulsions" what they hell do u call what the USA is doing in Iraq if kosovo was ethnic cleaning? it should be mass genocide then. I mean what should the serb police and army have done when the KLA shot at them??? WHAT? stood by as targets? which army in teh world would do that? no they shot back as any naiton would, civillinas that were in the way wanted to get out to save themsleves.

Anonymous said...

"The 48 victims of the Suva Reka massacre -- among them 14 children, two babies, a pregnant woman and a 100-year-old woman -- were among hundreds of ethnic Albanians killed during the war in Kosovo whose bodies were later transported to Serbia.

They were dumped in mass graves near a high security police facility at Batajnica outside Belgrade, the Serbian capital. Autopsies showed the victims were executed."



The dude that was talking about self-determination. Freedom is a God given right and the only way Albanians can taste this right is through independence. Cut the crap and the embellished words. All the indepndent countries in the world were created through self-determination. Nobody in the world has the authority to deny 2 million people the right to be free, govern themselves, and be fully in charge of their fates bacause there's 80 thousand people that oppose it. No country in the world would be independent if we were to follow this logic. Why then the double standards. The case could not be more simple. Independence- peace, brighter days ahead, international forces ( NATO) in charge of security for a period of time.
No independence- back to the years of war, to the claws of Serbian colonialism, to the butche of the balkans responsible for crimes such as the ones given above, whith nobody in the world being able to guarantee that what happened before won't happen again. Its as clear as a sunny day. Independence- stability for the whole region. No independence, bloodshed, war, ethnic cleansing, chaos in the near future. That is what has happend many times in the last century and it is going to happen again if independence is not granted.

Anonymous said...

again what about the serb victims? 250000 kicked out and thousands of women kids killed as well. WHAT IS UR POINT? where is the 500,000 dead?

Anonymous said...

THE SUNDAY TIMES (UK), Sunday, September 3, 2000 EUROPE
KLA faces trials for war crimes on Serbs

Inquiry turns on Albanians

Tom Walker, Diplomatic Correspondent

INTERNATIONAL war crimes investigators are for the first time focusing on atrocities against Serbian civilians that were committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Sources close to prosecutors in the Hague confirmed last week that its forensic experts were checking five sites where war crimes were allegedly carried out by members of the KLA. Their findings could lead to a request to Nato's Kfor troops to arrest several senior figures in the new Kosovo Albanian elite, including possibly Hashim Thaci, the KLA's former political leader, or Ramush Haridinaj, one of his main political rivals.

United Nations sources have already revealed that Agim Ceku, the guerrillas' former commander, may be the subject of a secret "sealed" indictment for his activities while fighting for the Croatian army against the Serbs. Like Thaci and Haridinaj, Ceku, who now heads the Kosovo Protection Corps, the local defence force, has denied wrong-doing.

The investigation could radically alter the international perception of the conflict, in which Albanians were seen as the largely innocent victims of Serbian aggression. After a year of growing concern about hundreds of revenge killings of Serbs by Albanians in the province, there are signs that the public relations pendulum may begin to swing the Serbs' way.

The investigations by the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia are among its most secretive, with officials fearing retaliation by the Albanians. "The operations of the KLA clearly involved many activities we should scrutinise," said one Hague official.

"There's a real problem in unravelling their cell structure, but we may well end up pointing the finger at senior figures. The difficulty then will be persuading any Nato nation to arrest them."

All five sites were discovered by the Serbian police as they regained territory lost to the KLA in the summer of 1998. As Albanian villages were being destroyed in the Serbian police offensives that grabbed the international media spotlight, the plight of the rural Serbian peasantry was often ignored and dozens of villagers and farmers were abducted, tortured and left in mass graves.

Three of the areas under investigation are thought to be the villages of Klecka and Glodjane and the town of Orahovac.

The killings in Klecka have been linked to Thaci, who now heads the Democratic party of Kosovo. The Belgrade media made great play of the discovery in August 1998 of what it claimed were 22 Serbian bodies in a lime kiln in Klecka.

Glodjane, further west in the Decane area bordering Albania, was fiercely contested by the Serbs and Albanians. In September 1998 the Serbian media centre in Pristina claimed that the bodies of 34 people had been found in a canal there. They were a mixture of Serbian farmers, some gypsies and Albanians suspected of being collaborators. The local commander at the time was Haradinaj, now head of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo.

In Orahovac, an ancient Balkan maze of cobbled streets and mixed ethnicities, at least 50 Serbs were abducted by the KLA in July 1998, never to be seen again. In the autumn hundreds of angry Serbs marched six miles through the hills to Dragobilj, the local KLA headquarters and one of the few places where Islamic mujaheddin fighters were seen. The protest failed to persuade the KLA to give any details of the missing Serbs.

Most inquiries made so far have been met with silence and few witnesses are thought likely to be brave enough to reveal the brutality of the KLA.

One former Albanian commander, who now lives in the West, told The Sunday Times that he saw two Serbian policemen tied to the backs of Jeeps and dragged to their deaths during the fighting around Glodjane. He said he had no intention of talking to the war crimes prosecutors and wished to forget Kosovo altogether.

The Serbs, too, are unlikely to co-operate with the Hague because Belgrade refuses to recognise the tribunal. Milosevic and Milan Milutinovic, the Serbian president, are both indicted by the tribunal, and Milosevic is believed to have offered a bolthole to Radovan Karadzic, the most wanted suspect of the Bosnian conflict.

"We're not permitted to make any interviews in Serbia proper and that is a considerable hindrance," said Paul Risley, spokesman for Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal's senior prosecutor.

It is also not clear whether investigations into the KLA's activities can be extended into the period after Nato entered Kosovo in June 1999. Authorities in Belgrade claim there have been 1,041 murders in the province since then - with 910 of the victims being Serbs or Montenegrins. In the most recent attacks on Serbs, an eight-year-old child was killed by a hit-and-run driver near the town of Lipljan last month, and a hand grenade was lobbed into a basketball court injuring 10 children north of Pristina. A farmer aged 80 was machine-gunned to death in the nearby village of Crkvna Vodica while he was tending his cattle.

The claims of genocide being made by the Albanians at Belgrade two years ago are now being thrown back at them, but the war crimes tribunal remains dispassionate. "We're not seeing genocide at the moment, but severe human rights violations. There is no evidence that any group wants to annihilate the Serbs rather than just force them out," said an official.

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