Byzantine Blog

Ambassador Bissett: Kosovo, the Most Dangerous Place on Earth

Should southern Serbian province of Kosovo be given a status of an independent state? Former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania, James Bissett claims this would be another in the series of major mistakes Western powers committed in the Balkans:

For the past seven years, Kosovo has become one of the most dangerous places on Earth. It is the centre of heroin, weapons and human trafficking into Western Europe. Murder and abduction of non-Albanians are daily occurrences. Civil society is non-existent and living standards are equivalent to those of Haiti. There is evidence that Islamic extremists with al-Qaeda connections are a growing presence. In short, Kosovo has all the characteristics of a failed state.

Under the eyes of the UN and NATO, more than 200,000 Serbs, Jews, Roma and other non-Albanians have been expelled from Kosovo. Those who remain are in constant danger. And some of those encouraged by the UN to return have been murdered. The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Agim Ceku, a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, has been accused of war crimes by the Serbs. He is the man who led Croatian forces in 1993 that overran Serbian villages protected by Canadian peacekeepers. When his fighters were driven out, the Canadians found that all of the civilians and animals in the villages had been slaughtered.

One of the crimes committed by the Albanian majority in Kosovo has been the razing of over 150 Christian churches and monasteries. Many of these churches dated back to the 13th and 14th centuries. Their destruction has been a deliberate effort to remove all semblance of Christian heritage in Kosovo. Shamefully, there has been no international outrage, no serious attempt to apprehend the perpetrators and no expression of alarm or protest on the part of Christian churches in the West.

The U N resolution that ended the bombing campaign against Serbia guaranteed that Kosovo would have a functioning civil society, democratic institutions, security for all citizens and respect for the rule of law. It called for the disarming of the Kosovo Liberation Army and other armed groups. It provided for the return to Kosovo of limited numbers of Serbian security forces to guard the Christian Holy places. And it reasserted Serbia’s sovereignty over Kosovo.

Sadly, it seems the UN and NATO had no intention of honoring these commitments. These are hard facts and they stand as a testimony of failure. The performance of these two international institutions has been marked by duplicity, double standards and cowardice.

Read the entire article by Ambassador Bissett published in Canada’s Globe and Mail on October 31, 2006.

Amnesty International USA: The UN in Kosovo - a Legacy of Impunity

With its latest report on Serbian Kosovo province, issued on November 8, 2006, Amnesty International USA fully confirms Ambassador Bissett’s assessment.

Openly accusing UN officials, along with other “international” (i.e. Western) organizations operating in Kosovo and their protégées, Albanian Muslim Provisional Institutions for Self-Government (PISG) that includes Albanian “Assembly” and their “police force” operating in the Serbian province (consisting of members of the terrorist KLA/UCK organization, many of whom are charged of war crimes by Serbia) of failure to establish a half-decent society where at least the basic human rights are upheld, Amnesty International concludes:

Amnesty International noted that UNMIK was mandated by the UN to protect and promote human rights, and considered that they had failed to protect the rights of all persons in Kosovo and had failed to abide by and uphold international human rights law including the ICCPR.

Extraordinarily cautious to avoid mentioning that the greatest majority of the victims in Kosovo are Serbs and other non-Albanians, and that all of the perpetrators of violent crimes in the province during the UN administration are Albanian Muslims -- that would be the full-fledged ethnic cleansing then, or genocide -- the report further explains:

Failure to deliver justice for victims of some of the most grave human rights violations in Europe in the last decade has left a legacy of impunity. As European Union (EU) prepares to take over aspects of the UN’s role it must ensure that it does not repeat the UN’s failures. There is a pressing need to ensure that all persons in Kosovo and, particularly minority communities, are able to enjoy all their human rights, including their rights to justice and to return to their former homes in security.

Most of the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the conflict in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999 have escaped prosecution. People in all communities whose loved ones were killed, “disappeared” or abducted have not received justice. Survivors have not received reparation for acts of torture and rape. Lives are blighted in countless ways. Most members of minority communities have been unable to return to their homes or recover their property. Many still live in enclaves, unable to access jobs, education, hospital treatment and justice without risking their lives and security.

Failures by the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) to ensure human rights for all have been compounded by the impunity afforded to the UN and some other international organizations in Kosovo. In scant few cases has immunity from prosecution granted to UN personnel and members of the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) been lifted to allow criminal investigations into human rights violations, including the trafficking of women and girls for the purposes of forced prostitution.

UNMIK was established by the UN Security Council in July 1999 after the Kosovo conflict to administer the territory, with a key part of its mandate to protect and promote human rights and to uphold international human rights law. In June 2006 the then Special Representative in Kosovo of the UN Secretary General said that UNMIK was preparing to leave Kosovo after the final status of the province was determined. UNMIK, or any other international administration that replaces it - including the proposed EU mission - and the Provisional Institutions for Self-Government (PISG) including the Kosova Assembly, remain responsible for ensuring that Kosovo fulfils its obligations under international human rights law.

Citing few out of hundreds of individual cases, Amnesty International USA “summarizes the main areas in which UNMIK and the PISG have failed to uphold international human rights standards in issues of justice relating to the conflict and to the period of UNMIK rule.” They include: unprocessed and unpunished war crimes, “disappearances” and abductions, ethnically motivated abuses, torture and excessive use of force, violence against women, trafficking into forced prostitution, discrimination against minority communities and the non-existent right to fair trial, among others.

So, should Serbian province be forcefully detached from Serbia and handed over to Albanian jihadists with indisputable al-Qaeda connections? Only if you believe the rape of Serbia should be declared consensual and that rewarding ethnic cleansing by putting a seal of approval on the Joint Criminal Enterprise Kosovo has been for the last 6.5 years is a good thing, for the Balkans, Europe and world.

Cartoon by T. Borkovic