byronica's blog
Tomislav Nikolic's victory in the Serbian presidential election has panicked the boys of the press. The Washington Post has particularly hysterical account, typical of the Post's purely ideological coverage of foreign affairs.
Some of the falsehoods presented as fact about what was happening in Yugoslavia in the 1990s in order to justify foreign intervention have been long known, but they remain unacknowledged by the mainstream media. A recent German TV program about Rudolf Scharping, (l.) former German defence minister, is a notable exception.
(Published in The Jerusalem Post on February 14 and available online at JPost.com)
February 17 marks the fourth anniversary of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia. Since that time successive Israeli governments have come under pressure from Washington to recognize Kosovo, but on this issue the raison d’etat has wisely prevailed across the political spectrum.
It’s been some years since Tom Fleming and I have indulged in seven-day mad dashes across the Balkans, speaking, lecturing and giving interviews, meeting interesting people over good food and drink. Last December’s tour had the tempo and feel of the old times, but it was on balance a melancholy affair. After two decades of trials and tribulations, Serbia is on what appears to be an irreversible downward spiral.
(Presented at the IIIS & EU-Russia Centre Conference in Munich on September 15, 2011) -- To truly unite Europe by helping Russia modernize and by integrating it into the common European home, we need “Europe” but not in its current EU form. We don’t need arbitration from Brussels when major European nations seek common ground. Bismarck would see this, Putin does; the German political and business elite should do likewise during Putin's next mandate.
Since the Conservative government decided in mid-July to publish the identity of suspected war criminals living in Canada, there have already been seven of the 30 fugitives turned in to authorities. A couple of months ago I bumped into a high-profile alleged war criminal at a European defence exhibition. Unfortunately, he is not on Canada’s wanted list.
On July 20 Serbian authorities arrested Goran Hadžić, the last remaining fugitive sought by the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. By giving up wartime fugitives President Tadić may win the praise of EU leaders, but as Srdja Trifkovic, foreign affairs editor at Chronicles magazine told RT, this will hardly pave Serbia’s way to the EU.
Our attention has been belatedly drawn to a news item over a month old: Valentin Inzko, the International High Representative of Bosnia-Herzegovina, has decreed that it is “deeply deplorable” that the Republika Srpska (RS) – the Serb half of the Balkan non-country – plans to help fund the defense of General Ratko Mladić at The Hague Tribunal.
(Keynote address at AIU Round Table, Kiev, June 14, 2011) An outsider looking at the map of Pridnestrovie could be forgiven for assuming that it is an island or a peninsula, a rugged-edged Baja California lookalike, rather than a landlocked aspiring country. Its unnatural shape reflects the circumstances attendant to its birth.
The circumstances surrounding the arrest of the wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, General Ratko Mladić, seem puzzling. In the closing months of his life. he will now have to endure a show trial at The Hague, where his guilt for genocide, crimes against humanity etc. is treated as a long-established fact.
