Byzantine Blog

This report is as explosive as TNT and could well be detonated by remote control. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was lobbying for Kosovo’s independence only days ago it is only fair to expect that the cover up will be applied at the highest level. One would find it hard to believe that the US, British and French governments are unaware of these goings-on which puts a very different slant on the whole drive to Kosovo's independence in the eyes of those who still nurture the trust that the aggression on Serbia was on humanitarian grounds.

My guess is that the deception factory is about to be decommissioned in favour of a technologically more advanced one, the question whether new developments can be used to successfully silence the truth and logic is yet to be answered.

Predictably, as far as I'm aware, there are no other reports on this subject in the Western Media. I agree that the major governments backing the Kosovo independence plan are most likely aware of the transactions and are actively involved in suppressing the story from leaking out. The difficulty in seizing this opportunity and bringing it to the world's attention is in the lack of objectivity in the Western Media and the ease of refuting the news published in the Bosnian-Serb press. Once more the truth is the casualty of the global politics.

German secret service seems to be doing a hell of a good job. Nothing about the swine Ahtisaari surprises me. I wonder what "payoffs" Bush, McCain, Lantos, etc have gotten.

Quite correct, everything the Empire does not like gets buried and the same will be done with this scandal.

Like Joe, I'm absolutely certain Ahtisaari is far from being the only one whose gears have been heavily greased toward independence "solution". He is only the latest in the long line of "diplomats" who have been receiving hefty compensations for their pro-Albanian lobbying over the years and so far the only one caught red-handed.

The connections between Albanian mafia and the most prominent American senators, congressmen and diplomats has already been proven numerous times. Madeleine Albright has recently become a Kosovo "Entrepreneur", acquiring a telecommunications company there - probably another form of awarding loyal terrorist advocates and protectors. And it is only a matter of time when it will be shown that every single UNMIK Chief, from Bernard Kouchner (currently a Minister in Sarkozy's government), down to the present one, Joachim Ruecker, has been receiving similar "encouragements" from their Albanian mobster-hosts in Pristina. Those rosy reports filled with beautiful words like "democracy", "multiculturalism", "multi-ethnicity", "stability" and "peace" regularly presented to the UN Security Council don't come cheap and it's certainly not the Thaci-Haradinaj-Ceku's inner beauty that could have charmed so many Western diplomats into total blindness.

I found your article and opinions very interesting, especially the Fokus article. Do you know whether there is an English site for them (doubtful, I know)?

Americans, including myself, generally do not have a clear idea of what has happened or what is now going on in the Balkans. Our attention seems to focus momentarily on issues and we are susceptible to accept viewpoints of the MSM too literally, without investigating matters. It seems that is not confined to America, as most people seem to be that way.

I have used your article as a basis for a blog post and will be checking back to see if there is new information.

One thing I find interesting in your comments section is that Putin seems to have a lot of popularity. I'm not sure I would have expected that. Is it due to a genuine like for his policies or is it in reaction to how the US, GB and EU policies have been?

Dear Flanders Fields, nice blog, will have to do some serious digging through :-))

Unfortunately, Banja Luka's Fokus doesn't appear to have an English edition. My entry, apart from subtitles and the intro, is basically a translation of their June 21 article (in Serbian) about the BND report that the journalist who first published the story seems to have a copy of.

After Fokus published parts of the German Intelligence report, Serbia's Parliament president Oliver Dulic has asked for full inquiry into the allegations. Ahtisaari's underling from his Vienna office yesterday said that this report is "rubbish" and tried to underscore his point by "revealing" that Fokus is a Bosnian Serb paper, showing an unprecedented level of anti-Serbian bias and conceit, as if the very fact that Serbian paper published the report is sufficient to thoroughly disprove the claims, without offering any concrete evidence to the contrary.

Western MSM has not carried the story yet, but I noticed that most Western news agencies have stopped mentioning the "Athisaari plan" in their reports about Serbia and its Kosovo province. They now just speak about the "UN plan" and "supervised independence", without mentioning Ahtisaari's name. So, we'll see... Hopefully, there will be a full investigation and the whole scandal won't be buried, as usual. If it is untrue, it should be easily disproved, since it offers a lot of very detailed information, names, even bank accounts. If, on the other hand, it is true, then surely some legal actions ought to be taken.

Putin is really quite popular among the Serbs ever since he stood behind them, fully backing their demand to stop trying to forcefully dismember Serbia, and to open new, real negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, without blackmails, threats and predetermined outcomes. In doing so, Putin has stood on the side of justice, in stark contrast to most of the Western representatives (sadly, led by U.S. and U.K.) which are an embodiment of blunt force and the right of the might.

At the time when everyone was telling Serbs to give up and give their Jerusalem away, from the U.S. State Department and NATO, to EU officials and the itsy-bitsy presidents of the itsy-bitsy banana republics - all cowing to the wishes of the strongest - Russia, with Putin at its helm, stood up and said: Wait a minute, Serbia may be small, but it has rights, and you can't keep beating it into a pulp just because you're bigger and stronger!

Such a gesture could not be left without gratitude, even on a personal, one-to-one level, let alone on a level of an entire nation. So, yes, Serbs are very grateful and they have every reason to be.

Apart from that, most Serbs still like Americans very much, even after the 78-day bombardment, and after past 15 years of official-America's animosity as evidenced by its pro-Muslim, anti-Serbian policies in the Balkans. Personally, I'm glad to see that we are still managing to differentiate between American people and the U.S. administration, mainstream media and lawmakers - the latter ones are a whole other issue for the Serbs for quite a while now.

Thanks for your answer and comments, Svetlana. What you say makes sense and we are all familiar with how the MSM buries items which disagree with official policy and politically connected leaders.

I hope, too, that this matter will receive an airing and that proper investigations are performed. There might be some room for optimism since the Holbrooke payments were given some exposure. There may have to be certain levels of discussion before the mainstream media will be forced to acknowledge the issue.

I regret to say that most Americans, including myself, know very little about your area or politics and history. I had a mistrust of anything Clinton did, so I suspected that there was more than what the public was being told. Since the war, I have read several accounts from those who thought that we (the USA) had made a "mistake" in whom was backed.

I can understand your fondness for Putin after reading your explanation. I suspect that I might feel the same in a similar situation.

You are right to distinguish since many Americans feel that they are not truly represented by their own politicians, media, or law and policy makers. I think we all share a problem with non-responsive governments and with media which tends to propogandize instead of report facts for the public. It seems to be an acute problem in the West according to my view.

Do you have the same problems and issues there? Are there factions who back US positions and EU membership?