News | Serbian Unity Congress

March 28, 2007 on 4:25 am | In In Focus, Kosovo & Metohija, News in English, Press Releases, Washington |

Briefing to Serbian Congressional Caucus

Washington, D.C.

March 27, 2007

Remarks of Jasmina Theodore Boulanger

President, The Serbian Unity Congress

Introduction

I am Jasmina Theodore Boulanger, President of the Serbian Unity Congress. We are one of the largest organizations in the world that consists of Serbs and persons of Serbian ancestry principally resident in the United States.

Thank you for inviting me to speak here today.

I am especially happy that Congresswoman Bean is a co-chair of this Caucus since she is from Illinois; I was born in Wisconsin, just north of “the Land of Lincoln.”

American Values

Speaking of Lincoln, he is considered one of our greatest presidents because he saved the Union and thereby freed a people and laid the foundation of our prosperity in the modern era.

Ironically (not to mention tragically), today, our country’s policy toward Serbia is directed at supporting a forced secession of territory, thereby condemning a people to fear and oppression, and laying the foundation for future instability.

The United States — not unlike Serbia itself — has a tradition of liberation of the oppressed and of standing up for what is right — even in when we stand alone. We have a tradition of not bowing to tyranny and not rewarding gratuitous violence.

Unfortunately, our current policy is not consistent with our values. With respect to Kosovo and Metohija, today the US is cooperating with Western European nations and trying to force Serbia - a sovereign nation (with whom the US has had diplomatic relations for 125 years) - to cede nearly 15% of its territory and to abandon its people who still live there: people who have not (yet) been forced out through killing, violence and other forms of intimidation; people who still live there in ghettos surrounded by barbed wire and “protected” by soldiers from UMNIK or K-FOR; people who are prevented, both by Albanian separatists and the intervention of the international community, from getting protection and basic civil services from their legitimate government. Moreover, while the United States expressly became involved in Kosovo to prevent the internal displacement of populations, there remain hundreds of thousands of refugees denied the right of safe return to their homes in Kosovo.

Earlier this month, we marked the 3rd anniversary of Kosovo’s “Kristallnacht” when the multi-day rampage by Albanian rioters resulted in 35 Serbian Orthodox churches being destroyed, 22 people killed, 600 others wounded, 561 Serbian homes burned down, an additional 218 homes damaged, 6 Serbian villages destroyed, and over 4,000 Serbs and other non-Albanian minorities forcibly expelled from their homes.

Just a few weeks ago, one of the churches damaged in the riots, which had been rebuilt and restored, was again badly damaged. Christian monastics cannot leave their monasteries without the protection of armed UNMIK or NATO escorts. People in Orahovac are dangerously short of food since their thin supply-lines are constantly disrupted. I could go on like this for a considerable time ….

The perpetrators of these atrocities have not been held accountable. And, meanwhile, the drumbeat of United Nations Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari, of certain Western European countries and of the State Department is “independence” for Kosovo — on an artificial and short deadline. There has been hardly any progress in ensuring elemental human rights, standards which include, at a minimum: safety in one’s home, freedom of movement and the right of refugees to return to their homes, freedom of worship. The concept of “standards before status” is now revealed as an empty cliché. Instead, we hear the Chamberlain-esque notion that the West can do business with the Albanian leadership in Kosovo; and, if we do, there will be “peace in our time.”

Instability
The Ahtisaari Plan for resolving the conflict in the UN-administered Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija, denies a key premise: ultimate Serbian sovereignty over its whole territory. The UN Charter, the EU Charter and the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 (among others) all clearly spell out the importance of territorial integrity in international relations.

In addressing Kosovo and Metohija specifically, UN Security Council Resolution 1244 stipulates the importance of this principle. Mr. Ahtisaari’s plan violates these values in a fundamental way.
Our recent ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, has strongly criticized the attempts by the international community to impose deadlines and a pre-conceived settlement for resolving the problem of Kosovo-Metohija. According to him, “this complicated situation can be resolved through pursuing negotiations and a definite agreement between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians.” He also noted that the UN must remain unbiased and create the conditions for pursuing negotiations, contrary to the position being taken by its envoy Martti Ahtisaari.

If the international community can force the redrawing of national boundaries in Serbia, then why stop there? Thinking that this is a “unique” case and will not be precedent setting is naïve at best. Forced partition of Serbia will lead the way for the ad hoc redrawing of boarders elsewhere. If Albanian separatists are seen to get special rewards for their violence, then why not others?

For over six years now, Serbia has been led by a new government, universally acknowledged as democratic and committed to redressing grievances of the Albanian and other minorities in Serbia regarding violations of human and democratic rights under its predecessor. The concerns of the Kosovo Albanian community can be legitimately resolved within broad autonomy solutions, following European standards and without compromising Serbia’s territorial integrity or forcing it to abandon its people. That is the only basis for a real compromise. The Serbian Unity Congress calls upon the United States government to facilitate direct talks to that effect. We believe that any other course would threaten to destabilize the Balkans and set precedents with serious international consequences.

Rewarding violence

After almost eight years of sustained efforts and billions of dollars, the United States and the European Union are determined to create an independent state of Kosovo. “What they are ushering into existence, however, looks set to become a heavily criminalized state in the heart of Europe,” according to Svante E. Cornell and Michael Jonsson writing in The International Herald Tribune (March 22, 2007). Messrs Cornell and Jonsson also note that

“Much of what ails Kosovo today stems in part from the failure to deal with the side-effects of the [1999 armed ] intervention [by the international community] and with the continued power of the now-disbanded KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army]. The war gave the KLA increased legitimacy, following and funding. But the KLA was hardly a poster child for high-minded guerrilla warfare. Considered a terrorist organization by the United States and other Western governments … It [has] received extensive funding from drug trafficking and engaged in serious human rights violations. In spite of this track record, once the war finished, the KLA was allowed to reinvent itself into a political party, the PDK, and to form most of the Kosovo Protection Corps as well as the police force.”

“Albanian organized crime cashed in on alliances created with leading Kosovar Albanian politicians and today control much of the heroin traffic to Western Europe.
Remnants of the KLA - and its funding network - were involved in fomenting unrest in southern Serbia and northern Macedonia, twice bringing the latter to the brink of full-blown conflict. Members of the Kosovo Protection Corps have also been arrested on charges of killing civilian Serbs.”

It has also been reported that Albanian separatist groups in Kosovo have threatened extensive riots if their demands for independence continue to be frustrated. This source of potential instability pales in comparison with the consequences of granting such wishes. It would effectively mean caving-in to terrorists.

It is lonely at the top - the actions and reactions of the sole superpower are scrutinized by friend and foe alike. State Department pronouncements about Kosovo being “unique” aside, the precedent-setting value of such an action would not be lost on anyone - least of all on those whose interests diverge from our own. However, the international community and the State Department show no reluctance to yielding to this type of blackmail and continue to push for independence regardless of international law or the elemental legitimate aspirations of Serbs and other religious and ethnic minorities for a dignified survival.

American Serbs

American Serbs are a diverse group. We have been in the United States for more than 150 years and live in every state of the Union, though primarily in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and California. We or our parents and grandparents came to America for many reasons - seeking freedom from foreign occupation, religious freedom, freedom from communism (like my father), and/or seeking economic opportunity. We can be found in many walks of life - medicine, science, the arts, the military, small business, and proud labor working in America’s factories. We are Republicans and Democrats. We are passionate in our beliefs, in our agreements and disagreements. Regarding the importance of Kosovo and Metohija, however, we are solidly united. We firmly and unequivocally desire the protection of the cradle of Serbian history and culture, of our religious monuments and of our distant brothers and sisters.

Conclusion

At this time, there really are no easy or clean solutions to the Kosovo quandary. Among the remaining ones, independence is the worst from the perspective of legality, morality and a sensibly defined American national interest. Having the parties engage in real negotiations, without artificial time limits or preordained outcomes, with the United States as an active and honest broker, is the only course, taxing as it may be in the short-run, that can lead in the long-run to an outcome that is fair, stable, and one that the US will not come to regret.

We also believe that it is more than time for the international community to stop holding the current government of Serbia accountable for the crimes and other short-comings of its predecessor communist regimes. We call upon the United States to support the nascent democracy in Serbia so that it takes firm root, so that this historic ally of ours can swiftly become a full partner of progress in the world.

Thank you.

Related posts:

• The Kosovo Dilemma, In These Times
• Another Spun Neocon: Totten’s Atheist Muslim Albanians of Kosovo, Republican Riot blog (Julia Gorin)
• The E.U.’s Double Game in the Balkans, The Chronicles Magazine (Srdja Trifkovic)
• Into the Bosnian Quagmire (pt.1), antiwar.com
• Into the Bosnian Quagmire (Part 3), antiwar.com