Editor’s note: Reporter Aleksandar Pavic has been in Belgrade
covering Yugoslavia’s historic election and its dramatic aftermath for
WorldNetDaily.com.
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia “cannot recognize the results of
the local elections” held in Serbia’s Kosovo province Saturday under the
auspices of the U.N. mission, according to a statement issued yesterday
by the Cabinet of newly elected Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica.
“The elections by their results contribute to the legalization of a
mono-ethnic society, which began being formed with the exodus of the
Serb and other non-Albanian ethnic communities,” after the stationing of
NATO troops in June 1999, said the statement.
Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija had earlier decided to boycott the
elections, with the argument that the basic human rights of freedom of
movement, security of person and home, and refugee return had not been
fulfilled.
On Saturday, Serbia’s provisional government condemned the elections
as well, saying they ran contrary to U.N. Resolution 1244, which
guarantees Yugoslav sovereignty over the province and the equal
protection of all its citizens.
During the time of Slobodan Milosevic’s rule, such sharp tones from
Belgrade would have been dismissed or even condemned by the
“international community.” However, since the Oct. 5 uprising that
deposed the West’s favorite scapegoat, at least the outward tones have
begun to change.
Thus, the chief of the U.N. Kosovo Mission, Bernard Kouchner, was
compelled to admit that “the Serbs wish for new elections to be held”
and confirmed that they would be held “once the results of these local
elections were clear.” As a throwback, Kouchner accused “Milosevic’s
people” of having prevented the Kosovo Serbs from participating in the
elections, but said that they must now be allowed to register for a
future vote.
“I believe that all the communities on Kosovo have realized that the
race with Belgrade has now become a democratic one, especially since the
election of the new president, Vojislav Kostunica,” he went on to say.
This is a fundamental change, which shows just how much a country’s
status can depend on its own internal legitimacy or lack thereof. For
years, many inside Serbia had promoted the view, at the cost of great
personal or political risk, that a democratically-led Serbia and
Yugoslavia would have negated many of the excuses for Western
intervention in the Balkans that Milosevic’s autocratic regime provided.
Evidence is now mounting that the days of vindication seem finally to
have arrived.
Kostunica is sending clear messages that, at least in his own right,
he plans to be nobody’s puppet and seeks to make his country as truly
independent as possible. Following his Friday state visit to Moscow,
Kostunica has gone beyond the “active neutrality” concept touted by his
new foreign policy team. He stated that, while Yugoslavia had an
interest in a balanced presence of the U.S., the European Union and
Russia on the Balkan Peninsula, the relationship with Russia was still
“special.” Special enough, in fact, that the two countries agreed, in
the future, to coordinate their stances at all international gatherings
and before all relevant international institutions.
The first such joint action occurred immediately after the
Kostunica-Putin meeting, when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia sent a
formal request to the U.N. to accept its membership in that body. The
comment of the Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, was that “they
wouldn’t have changed a single comma in the text of the request,” which
was evidence of a concord never seen during the Milosevic years, when
the former Yugoslav president supposedly represented Russia’s ace-in-the
hole in the Balkans.
Yet the Yugoslav request has met with a basically positive reaction
from the U.S. A potential problem that might have arisen, and certainly
would have been exploited prior to Oct. 5, was the fact that, at about
the same time, a request from the ruling DPS party of Montenegro also
arrived to East River, asking the U.N. to hold off on receiving
Yugoslavia until the internal dispute with Serbia was resolved. In fact,
the DPS announced that it would seek a separate U.N. chair for
Montenegro.
The White House and State Department special envoy to the Balkans,
James O’Brien, reacted immediately with statements to the Montenegrin
press, in which he said that he “did not know of a single state in the
U.N. that would support the granting of a new seat to Montenegro.” He
also went on to say that the relations between Serbia and Montenegro
were Yugoslavia’s own internal matter and that the U.S. would accept any
arrangement reached by the two republics. This was a bit of a cold
shower for the Montenegrin leadership, which had grown used to scoring
easy points on the diplomatic scene in the years when they could portray
themselves as victims of Milosevic’s “repression.”
All this may not, of course, necessarily mean that the U.S. or
certain other governments have changed their fundamental views and goals
regarding the region. However, the stated official views have to change
and at least outwardly acknowledge the legitimacy of a democratically
elected government. Any hostile intentions that exist in certain circles
now have to be delegated to other players, such as the media or certain
non-governmental organizations.
Thus, for example, the New York Times can carry articles that
underline the need for mass war crime trials in Serbia: “War crimes
trials would not implicate just Mr. Milosevic and the frontline soldiers
who fought in Bosnia, Kosovo and Croatia, but ordinary people in Serbia
who supported those wars.” One can only wonder what such a massive
manhunt would look like, not to mention who would conduct it.
Or the Washington Post can run articles by globalist agents inside
Yugoslavia, such as Natasa Kandic, director of the Belgrade-based
“Center for Humanitarian Law,” who call on the “international community”
to halt the reintegration of Yugoslavia until Serbia begins to cooperate
with the Hague “War Crimes Tribunal.” In other words, the still
unconsolidated new government, in conditions of extreme economic
hardship, should engage in a dangerous internal conflict. This is hardly
a recipe for peace and long-range stability.
There are, thus, plenty of ways to try to keep the internal situation
in Yugoslavia and the region unstable. However, at least the
establishment of a semblance of a democratic order has knocked the main
argument, the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, out of the troublemakers’
hands.
Related stories:
Yugoslavia’s happy counter-revolution
Aleksandar Pavic served as chief political adviser to the president of Republika Srpska, the Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina and as an adviser to the late Prince Tomislav Karageorgevitch of Yugoslavia. Pavic is currently translating Prince Tomislav’s memoirs into English.
WATCH: The New York Times reporting not to expect results on election night
WND Staff