byronica's blog
Chancellor Angela Merkel has confirmed that the EU's eastern enlargement will be ended after Croatia joins the Union. The decision reflects an informal yet well-known Brussels consensus of long standing.
On July 11, the three constituent nations of Bosnia-Herzegovina marked the 15th anniversary of “Srebrenica.” The name of the eastern Bosnian town still evokes different responses from different communities, however. In the West, in the meantime, the complexities of the issue remain reduced to a simple morality play devoid of nuance and context.
A recent Christian Science Monitor article by the LBF Chairman has caused quite a stir in the Balkans. Croatia is nearing the finish line of a multiyear race to join the European Union, Ambassador Bissett notes, but it has some unfinished business to attend to.
The U.S. Department of State human rights report on Croatia, released on March 11, states matter of factly that Jasenovac was "the site of the largest concentration camp in Croatia during World War II, where thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma were killed” [emphasis added; a daily scene from Jasenovac, above]. This remarkable claim is the exact moral and factual equivalent of asserting that “tens of thousands” of Jews and others were killed in Auschwitz or Treblinka.
Julia Gorin reminded us in The Jerusalem Post (Feb. 22) of some facts of life, and death, in the Croatian state established and controlled by the creators of Jasenovac. "Thousands" of men, women and children were killed there, indeed, but in mere days and weeks, rather than years...
Ukraine's decision to say a final "No" to NATO should be a model for Serbia to follow. The government in Belgrade is still intent on seeking NATO membership, and encouraged to do so by various ill-informed and not necessarily well-meaning Americans. Such advice is contrary to Serbia’s interests and detrimental to peace and stability in the Balkans. [Russian translation of this article is at the end of the post]
Joining Europe (postmodern Eurospeak for joining the EU) is the mantra repeated ad nauseam from Belgrade to Sarajevo to Podgorica to Skopje. Behold (from AltRight) the joys of belonging to the institution headed by President Herman van Rompuy (l.)...
The lobbying contract between the Government of Serbia and Milan Petrovic's firm appears still to be in force, but it is hard to be sure since there are no discernable activities being performed. And of course that is the real scandal, in which the “yellow” press organs in Belgrade obsessed with my work for Bishop Artemije seem to take no interest.
The U.S.authority is under strain all over the world, yet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remains unable to leave the Balkans well alone: She told Senators Feb. 24 the U.S. is committed to the integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina ('we worry about that a lot"), and added that there is "a lot of unfinished business there," alluding - not for the first time - to her goal of abolishing the Republika Srpska (RS).
The Balkans region is a major target of global Jihad, Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman says. He addressed a subject that is still taboo in Washington: how the U.S. policy helped create a terrorist hotbed in Europe "that now refuses to go away."
