Kosovo - Lesser Serbia (Prop. Uncle Sam) gets nearer

Mark Mardell on the BBC 4 World This Weekend does what the BBC can do very well - a serious, detailed, long and considered report on Martti Ahtisaari's UN report and the response in Kosovo to his plans for this beautiful relict of Ancient Illyria - Ἰλλυρία , the home of the flaxen haired Dardani, for a thinly veiled independence. Lord Patel posted about this on Friday (pic Illyrian Stater 250-350BC - From the Robert Schonwalter Collection.Triton V Sale, 16 Jan 2002, lot 1340.Lot sold for $2000, plus buyers fees.)

You can listen to the whole 25 minute BBC piece here or slect and listen on standalone Real Player - Listen now (it expires in 7 days) for a superb analysis on the ground in Prstina and elsewhere in Northern Kosovo. BBC at it's best.

The comedy element is provided by Mark's interview with gormlesss Jeff Hoon who tells us he is off next week to meet Serbian President Boris Tadić and Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica - they can hardly wait one supposes.

Boris Tadić is quoted as remarking to the dour Finn on Friday, "I told Mr. Ahtisaari that Serbia and I, as its president, will never accept Kosovo's independence."
"Imposing independence (for Kosovo) would violate the fundamental principles of international law and serve as a dangerous political and legal precedent," Tadić continued - a precedent the Basque separatists will be watching carefully, as well as a variety of Bulgarian, Romanian and fractions of the CSI States and the Northern (Turkish) Cypriots.

Kostunica, as predicted, refused to meet with Ahtisaari on Friday, he dismissed the U.N. envoy's proposal as "illegitimate" because it "violates the U.N. Charter ... by undermining sovereignty of U.N. member Serbia." He recently threatened to sever diplomatic ties with countries that might recognize Kosovo as a state - which will probably do more harm to Serbia than anyone else.

In London , Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett talked diplomatic bollocks as usual, she commended Ahtisaari and said his draft formed a basis for a "fair and sustainable settlement ... which will enhance regional stability and the region's Euro-Atlantic prospects." WTF are "Euro-Atlantic prospects" ?

A Serbian view of the "Kosovo Jihad" or as they see it, "The Muslim extermination of Kosovo Christians" can heard here

"KFOR will respond firmly to any attempts to use violence to disrupt the political process," threatened NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Brussels.

Sean McCormack at the US State Department called it "a fair and balanced plan" but he would wouldn't he ? he prattled on that this recipe for continuing ethnic cleansing and handing Kosovo on a plate to the Albanians ...""is a blueprint for a stable, prosperous and multi-ethnic Kosovo. The settlement proposal's broad provisions to protect the rights of all citizens will help advance Kosovo's democratic development."... simply extending the historic US view of ethnically cleansing Serbs - this time for the Albanians rather than the Bosnians.

Human sacrrifice played a major role in Illyria and historian Arrian that the the Illyrian King Kleitus (317 to 303 BC) sacrificed 3 boys, girls and rams setting out for battle with Alexander the Great (He lost and headed for the hills!) For Uncle Sam, human sacrifice, being driven from your homelands is no big deal.

What is there in it for Ahtisaari ? A senior Finnish diplomat in 1977 he was named the U.N. envoy for Namibia, where guerrillas were battling South African apartheid rule. Since then he has negotiated an end to a conflict between the Indonesian government and the leaders of the separatist guerrilla movement in Aceh. This conflict started 130 years ago where the once-powerful Sumatran sultanate have been fighting for independence intermittently since it was occupied by Dutch colonialists in the 1870s.

The Nobel Peace Prize nomination by the grateful and impatient Yanks ?

Meanwhile the Russians who liberated Pristina airport under Gen.Viktor Zavarzin, and so upset General Mike "Janus" Jackson in June 1999, are keeping quiet so far. No doubt they relished the clearing up the mess at the airport which the USAF / NATO had so successfully destroyed in the name of "peacekeeping". At the time General J said he had a "good relationship" with Zavarzin, a former Russian liaison officer to NATO. Ho.Ho.Ho.