Constitution, Kosovo, and Media Misdirection
Inventing Irrelevance
By Nebojsa Malic
On Saturday and Sunday, the citizens of Serbia are expected to vote in a plebiscite on the new constitution. In a rare display of political unity, the draft constitution was supported in the parliament by both the government and the opposition parties. However, remnants of the former DOS regime and the “non-governmental” organizations that support them have launched a campaign against the document; these Jacobins are assailing the constitution as “undemocratic,” and particularly object to its preamble, which defines occupied Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia.
This, rather than any other feature in the constitution, is the real point of contention between those who seek its passage, and those in Serbia – and elsewhere – who would like to see it fail. Inclusion of Kosovo in the new Serbian constitution complicates the efforts to force Belgrade into giving up the territory NATO occupied in 1999 on behalf of ethnic Albanian separatists.
What Bothers the New York Times
The New York Times, a stalwart supporter of NATO’s 1999 war and a pillar of Empire’s Official Truth, launched a sloppy attack on the new Serbian constitution on Monday, calling the document “faulty.”
Despite mentioning “critics” of the constitution at least five times in the article, the Times’ Nicholas Wood comes up with only two: Omer Hadzimerovic, a regional judge, and Goran Jesic, mayor of a small town near Belgrade. There is not a single mention of the constitution’s loudest critics: DOS leftovers, such as Cedomir Jovanovic, Zarko Korac, Vladan Batic, Nenad Canak, and their micro-parties; or the Western-backed “human rights” groups and quasi-NGOs that endorse their political agendas.
It’s impossible to verify some of the claims the unnamed “critics” are making. The text of the proposed constitution is publicly available (found here, in Serbian, as a .pdf file), but the document itself has 206 articles (!) in nine sections. For the sake of comparison, the United States Constitution has seven articles and 27 amendments. Much of the language in the proposed Serbian constitution is vague, subject to external definition (what are “European values,” anyway?), and rather than providing a cornerstone for future legislation actually depends on it to be functional. In short, it’s a constitution of a decidedly modern, social-democratic welfare state, whose guiding spirit was not God, John Locke, or even Serbian tradition, but the bloated bureaucracy of the EU.
None of these bother the New York Times much, though. This part does:
“Whereas the province of Kosovo and Metohija is an integral part of Serbian territory, with essential autonomy within the sovereign state of Serbia, and that this position of the Province of Kosovo and Metohija obligates the government to protect and represent the national interests of Serbia in Kosovo and Metohija, in all its internal and external political affairs….”
Given that the adoption of the constitution would cause new elections in Serbia and make the surrender of Kosovo an act of treason, the Times’ claim that the constitution “will not have any effect on Kosovo’s future” is not a statement of fact, but rather wishful thinking posing as such.
“My Albanian Friends”
The tough talk about the constitution’s irrelevance and independence’s inevitability seems calculated to soothe the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo, who are growing increasingly frustrated that their main political objective has not been achieved for over seven years, despite overwhelming Imperial support. In the past, they’ve taken that frustration out on the few Serbs who survived their ethnic cleansing in 1999. Now that most Serbs inconveniently live in barbed-wire enclosures guarded by NATO troops, they are targeting the UN and even NATO occupiers directly.
AFP reported last Friday that “a U.S. soldier from the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo (KFOR) was assaulted and injured by three civilians” at a gas station in Urosevac. As befits every other act of violence in Kosovo over the course of NATO occupation, the perpetrators were not identified. But as the mainstream media so helpfully reminds us daily, “ethnic Albanians are the overwhelming majority in the province.”
Perhaps this is what motivated Frank Wisner, U.S. envoy to the Kosovo talks, to appeal to “my Kosovar Albanian friends” (AFP) not to attack the Serbs during the referendum this weekend. [...]
Entire article by Nebojsa Malic, Inventing Irrelevance
Cartoon by Toso Borkovic