The Jeremic Dossier
With Vuk Jeremic at the helm of Serbia’s diplomacy, the Republic of Kosova is considered by its proponents more attainable than a week ago. Not for the first time in her troubled history, Serbia’s leaders appear hell-bent on clenching defeat from the jaws of victory.
When Count Aleksandr Izvolsky, Tsar Nichols II’s foreign minister, was humiliatingly duped by Count Aehrenthal during the Annexation Crisis of 1908, a wit in a St. Petersburg salon was quick to dub him “our Minister of Austrian Foreign Affairs.” The quip was unfair: Izvolsky was a conscientious public servant, guilty of naivety and ineptitude, but not of disloyalty to his Master or to his country.
The new foreign minister of Serbia, Vuk Jeremic, by contrast, deserves a similar designation. He’ll be “Serbian minister of foreigners’ affairs,” says a senior retired Belgrade diplomat. His appointment, announced last Monday, is the exact political equivalent of entrusting a troop of teenage girl scouts to Bill Clinton.
As our regular readers may recall, last December I wrote that the belief in some Western capitals that Kosovo can be detached from Serbia with Belgrade’s agreement
was reinforced by none other than President Boris Tadic’s chief foreign policy advisor Vuk Jeremic, one of very few Serbian enthusiasts for John Kerry’s victory in November 2004. Mr. Jeremic (who happens to be a Muslim on his mother’s side) came to Washington on 18 May 2005 to testify in Congress on why Kosovo should stay within Serbia; but in some of his off-the-record conversations he assured his hosts that the task is really to sugar-coat the bitter pill that Serbia will have to swallow anyway—and to ensure that the nationalist Radical Party does not score excessive gains in the process.
I have subsequently repeated this statement—validated by reliable sources—in Serbia itself, in several prominent print publications (Glas javnosti, Geopolitika) and widely read webzines. It was neither denied nor otherwise challenged by Mr. Jeremic.
Four months later another advisor to Tadic, Dr. Leon Kojen, a leading member of the Serbian team negotiating on the future of Kosovo, resigned both those posts in a blaze of publicity. Kojen said he made that decision after Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer declared, in a Reuters interview on April 13, “We are working with (Serbian President) Boris Tadic and his people to find a way to implement the essence of the Ahtisaari plan.”
Tout Belgrade knew that “Tadic’s people” meant—Vuk Jeremic. Herr Gusenbauer’s indiscretion amounted to the revelation that Serbia’s head of state and his closest advisor were engaged in secret negotiations aimed at facilitating the detachment of Kosovo from Serbia—which, of course, IS “the essence of the Ahtisaari plan.” Jeremic’s quest for sugar-coating the bitter pill was evidently continuing, two years after his intrigues in Washington that I had made public.
Kojen’s disgust was shared by many ordinary Serbs: from the highest authority in a country supporting Kosovo’s secession they were offered a clear pointer that Tadic and Jeremic were pursuing a dual-track policy on Kosovo. That policy clearly contravened the country’s constitution and violated Tadic’s earlier political agreement with Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica to maintain a united front vis-à-vis Ahtisaari, the U.S. and the EU.
In a normal country a high-level commission of inquiry would be formed immediately, to look into prima facie case of high treason by the head of state and/or his closest advisor. Serbia is not a normal country, however. Prime Minister Kostunica decided to cut a deal with Tadic instead, and last week he formed a new coalition with the latter’s “pro-Western, reformist, pro-European” Democratic Party (DS). “This is likely the greatest blunder of his career,” says one of Kostunica’s former collaborators who asked to remain anonymous. “He should have fought a new election instead, instead of stabbing [the Radical Party leader] Toma Nikolic in the back. In any event he should never have given the foreign ministry to Tadic, if that effectively meant giving it to Jeremic.”
His appointment has prompted rumors of pending mass resignations by several senior diplomats. Off-the-record some of them recall Jeremic’s debacle in Paris, when he assured a low-ranking Quai d’Orsay desk officer that “Mister Milosevic was not Mister Hitler”—whereupon the Frenchman curtly replied that in his country they do not refer to Hitler as “Mister,” and told the visitor that the interview was over. Tadic was subsequently asked by the French embassy in Belgrade not to send his advisor to Paris ever again.
Jeremic’s success in forging an almost symbiotic relationship with his mentor Tadic is said to be partly due to his father’s personal fortune. Mishko Jeremic is an archetypal “Milosevic tycoon,” a communist apparatchik who, in the sanctions-ridden 1990s, prospered as a top manager in Serbia’s oil giant Jugopetrol. “Young Vuk has used his father’s ill-gotten gains not only to obtain costly Western degrees,” a Belgrade source comments, “but also to court influence with Tadic—one of few successors to Milosevic who is not wealthy in his own right.”
An additionally piquant detail concerns the manner Vuk Jeremic obtained admission, in 2002, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard to study public administration. At the request of his friend and Jeremic’s mentor Boris Tadic, then-prime minister Zoran Djindjic personally wrote a recommendation for Jeremic; he even employed him at his cabinet as an assistant, to help him gain some experience before leaving for the United States. That was supposed to improve his chances of being accepted at the School.
Serbian counterintelligence service soon thereafter alerted Djindjic that Jeremic was unreliable, however, and that the BIA (security service) had conclusive proof of Jeremic’s treachery in the form of unauthorized copying and removal of classified documents from the Cabinet and unreported contacts with foreign nationals (including Bosnian-Muslim mafia boss Damir Fazlic, his father’s buddy from college). Tadic intervened with Djindjic to prevent further investigation, so Jeremic was merely thrown out—literally so: he was physically escorted from the Prime Ministerial office into the street by one of Djindjic’s aides after only three weeks’ tenure. The file on his case is allegedly still active, according to the daily Kurir, and—presumably—available to Kostunica.
On his return from Boston to Belgrade Jeremic was nevertheless hired by Tadic—Serbia and Montenegro’s defense minister by that time—as special advisor for “Euro-Atlantic integrations.” The fact that Jeremic had evaded compulsory military service (a criminal offence in Serbia) was not considered a problem.
The armed forces have never recovered from their tenure. The country unilaterally destroyed its stockpiles of anti-aircraft missiles under the benevolent gaze of then-US Ambassador in Belgrade William Montgomery. All senior officers on active duty during NATO attack in 1999 were forced to retire, including capable field commanders in their prime. The budget was so drastically reduced that many conscripts went literally hungry in the barracks, the air force was no longer able to train pilots because of the chronic lack of fuel . . . The head of the military security service, General Aca Tomic, was en pensioned off by Tadic, for daring to arrest (in March 2002) former Chief of General Staff General Momcilo Perisic, who was videotaped giving classified documents to an American diplomat, David Neighbor, in return for a cash payment. It was a clear signal that, in relation to his Western partners, Tadic had no secrets.
A former Yugoslav foreign minister says that each public servant will have to make his own choice, but that “no true [diplomatic] professional could endure the humiliation” of serving under Jeremic. And Dr. Kojen even refuses to serve on the same team: last Wednesday he rejected a key position in the new government, that of Secretary of State for Kosovo and Metohija. “I could not accept Prime Minister Kostunica’s offer when I saw the names of some other ministers who are going to influence our policy on Kosovo and Metohija,” Kojen declared, obviously referring to Jeremic.
Unsurprisingly, the proponents of Kosovo’s independence are delighted with the new Serbian government and with Jeremic’s appointment in particular. “When the Wall came down,” one well-placed Washington insider comments, “we were pleased to discover the availability of former commies ready to carry out orders from Washington with the same lickspittle eagerness they had brought to the service of their former masters.” Regarding such people, he adds, it is hard to know where opportunism ends and personal pathology begins:
In any case, we can always be sure bothersome and outmoded scruples like love of country won’t present a problem. At a time when loosening Serbia’s grip on Kosovo has been harder than expected, the presence of at least one reliable representative of this type in the new government in Belgrade may prove useful indeed.
In other words, with Vuk Jeremic at the helm of Serbia’s diplomacy, the Republic of KosovA is considered by its proponents more attainable than a week ago. Not for the first time in her troubled history, Serbia’s leaders are trying to clench defeat from the jaws of victory.
29 Responses »
Trackbacks
- News | Serbian Unity Congress » The Die is Cast - Empire’s Fate is Decided, antiwar.com/Nebojsa Malic
- Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture | Your Home for Traditional Conservatism » The E.U.’s Double Game in the Balkans
- News | Serbian Unity Congress » The E.U.’s Double Game in the Balkans, The Chronicles Magazine (Srdja Trifkovic)
Entries(RSS)
I wonder if this is the same Vuk Jeremic who was a prominent OTPOR member during the final years of Slobodan Milosevic.
There was one Vuk Jeremic, who did benefit from the Soros foundation's "seminars" held in Budapest, Temisoara and elsewhere "teaching" the ways of "passive resistance", aside from which they provided computers, printed posters, buttons etc. etc.
At that time I had been their money channeling operator in the United States having assisted in collecting money from the sale of the famous Otpor T-shirts.
http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_1100/ob.htm
I did have some second thoughts abou the whole operations, but I was compelled to help in some fashion - in spite of the geographical distance. Oh well, the road to Hell is indeed paved with good intentions.
Serbia has never had so many traitors in its history! It is hard to name one Serbian politician, except for Dr. Kostunica, that would rather resign than to serve Serbia’s adversary!
Let us hope that Mr. Jeremic will soon be forced to step down!! In fact, he should step down now!
Resign? He should never have been appointed in the first place!
If Dr. Trifkovic's information is accurate (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), then he is a draft-dodger, and can - and should! - be arrested and indicted for that. Even though I personally oppose the draft, the "democrats" always talk about the rule of law. Let's see how they walk the walk.
TO BE PRECISE, Vuk Jeremic is formally not a draft dodger -- although he is physically fit for service, and although he has never served -- because Boris Tadic, as Defense Minister of Serbia-Montenegro, in 2004 formally recognized Jeremic's tenure at the Ministry (as his "Advisor on Euro-Atlantic Affairs") as a special assignment that satisfied the requirements of military service. (I kid you not!)
How could Dr. Kostunica ever allow the foreign office to go to Tadic's gang... incredible.
Wait... wait... can someone get military service credit for being an adviser to the Minister of Defense? I thought that would violate the whole "military under civilian control" doctrine so dear to NATOcrats.
Oh yes, now I get it. Laws, rules and principles don't apply to "democrats," only to "nationalists." Anything Jeremic does is golden, and anything, say, Nikolic does is evil. The times we live in...
I mean, for crying out loud, *I* would make a better FM than Jeremic by several orders of magnitude, and anyone's who's read my stuff over the years knows diplomacy isn't my strong suite.
Only alternative to choosing a foreign minister ready to give away Kosovo would be to choose a minister of internal affairs capable to keep it inside Serbia. It is said that all deals between the political parties lead directly only to increasing wealth of the leaders involved, disrespecting any damage for the state or community. Everything is just a matter of price. And it is even sadder that the Serbian voters accept those deals, too.
With such players, it shall be a miracle if in the Kosovo game Serbia gains even mere stalemate draw… and does anyone in the world need such outcome?
A BETTER FM? ANY ONE randomly chosen Serb would do a better job (let alone Mr. Malic). It's a no-brainer: the likelihood is infinitesimally small that a randomly chosen person -- from the streets of Surdulica or Subotica -- would combine mendacity, venality, duplicity and ruthlessness the way Mr. Jeremic does.
Unfortunately, the "nationalists" seem to play into the hands of Western propagandists with party names like "Radical Party." I'm sure it has a different connotation in Serbia, but to an American (I'm just a bland, Anglo-American), "radical" conjures up unfavorable associations.
Of course, having read Dr. Trifkovic for years, I have an understanding of the "real deal", as we'd say. Given that the entire Western Alliance launched an illegal war against Serbia, I've never had any reason for optimism that the US and its allies would do justice towards the Serbs. Propaganda prevails. Doubtless, I can read about this knave in the NY Times or Washington Post and learn that he is a "Western-educated" "pro-American" "democrat"--proving that those words mean nothing now, if ever they did.
To Mr. Wilder: Indeed, in Europe Radicals are not "radical," Liberals are (generally) not "liberal," Conservatives are (definitely) not "conservative," and even Socialists are (hardly ever) "socialist." Who is real, then? Well, in Istanbul (still in Europe, just) and at all points east, across the Bosphorus, we have tens of millions of PM Rejep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party voters, supporters, sympathizers and activists who are dubbed "post-Islamist" by our mainstream media -- but who are red-in-tooth-and-claw Muslims of the tested and true Ottoman sort.
I'm "sure" PM Kostunica won't move a finger to disrupt an agreement that he made with Pres Tadic...then, I have a bridge that I'd love to sell to you. And, trusting that Dr Trifkovic is correct and that he has far superior sources of information than I, or most of us readers, I am absolutely certain that something is being done...who and/or how, stay tuned, I'm sure. Besides the implication that Vuk is not a patriot, I think that his biggest fault lies in the fact that he's an idiot, and that's something that he can't change about himself. Either way, "Nikolic" will happen to him.
I was going to say something along the lines of a few of the above posters but since those have been said, I'll settle for the fact that he looks like the fat, incompetent, idiotic cop from the new Movie Hot Fuzz.
Well, I am sorry that Kostunica did not offer the position of the "Minister of the Foreign Affairs" to either Dr. Trifkovic or Mr. Malic, but such is politics! However, I fail to see how Mr. Jeremic, whatever his failings may be, can trump the official policy of the new government. I suppose that this is an informal way that the two are telling Mr Jeremic to behave, since he might have been indoctrinated by the Harvard Serbophobes due to being susceptible to robotic thinking on account of his wealthy family's communist past! Rest assured, if Serbia does lose Kosovo, it won't be because of Mr. Jeremic, alias the "Manchurian Candidate". After all, how can he be any worse than the previous foreign minister, Mr. Draskovic, with such misguided pronouncements as "Kosovo is the Serbian Jerusalem". (The Moslem members of the security council may have plenty trouble with stuff like that). That is not to say that Leon Koen does not have a point and that Mr. Jeremic is not the best of candidates, but again such is politics. On another aspect of the Serbian politics that was touched upon: that some politicians and media are financially supported by the West and that this is bad. There are politicians who are not, but they are financially supported by Milosevic's tycoons, individuals who were able to appropriate huge wealth during his reign and are now exerting a decisive influence from behind the scenes. Shouldn't that be just as bad? As to the most important aspect of the Kosovo soap opera: If Kosovo stays in Serbia and when this victory is hijacked by those who do not believe in democracy, how did the country gain anything? What good is it, if the country continues to be disfunctional, with an unworkable electoral system, a broken judiciary and capitalism for only a chosen few? It is obvious that the current political establishment does not believe in democracy, not really. They are most likely to interpret the victory with Kosovo as a mandate to do nothing about the sad state of social and economic conditions in the country. Instead, they will continue to exort the myth of their own righteousness and nationalist political correctness. The problem is, that the rightist parties, the force that should counter these effects, to demand capitalism and some form of internationalism, does not exist. The rightists, (or what would be equal to the conservatives in the US) trace their origins to pre WW2 royalists in Serbia but they hardly exist as they were almost completely wiped out by Tito. After Tito's death, to this day the right still has not been able to revive itself to the point where it can be a significant force. Therefore, there is no political dialogue between the right and the left, only the dialogue between the different shades of the left and the nationalist left, which means there is very little meaningful dialogue in the public sphere on any topic. It will take a long time for such a rightist political force to get revived and for it to be strong enough to counterbalance the overwelmingly leftist polity that now exists. Right now there is very little difference between the Radicals and the DPS and paradoxically to the Western observer, even the Democratic party and LDS are just as leftist as the first two. They are all still leftists! They all believe in some form of socialism and look at capitalism that is being imposed in Serbia as some temporary aberration. There is a great deal of nepotism and corruption within the political establishment and in reality none of them are really interested in establishing a functioning democracy. Instead, they are interested in a cleptocracy. So let everything stay the way it was after WW2, in the 60s and 70s, the heydays of an earlier cleptocracy, while we change the name of the game a little! If Serbia retains Kosovo and the political establishment claims a victory, this will be interperted by themselves as a vindication of all their policies across the board whether economic or nationalist. Unfortunately, the little criticism of this mentality that does appear on occasion comes from people like Mrs. Pesic and Srdja Popovic or the journalist Lukovic, but they are only the lonely voices in the wilderness, voices that are about to get tarred and feathered out of the country for being trecherous. It is unfortunate that Dr. Trifkovic and Mr. Malic never write about this or about how a functioning democracy should be organized in Serbia. It's also unfortunate that they never write in defense of a few voices who criticize the present political establishment as a whole and the establishment's reverence of the past and of the failed leftist and nationalist policies. Why imply that these critics are traitors? They are not traitors, the points that these critics are making are valid. How else will any type of rigtist movement ever happen in Serbia if a few people in the country that are somewhat on the right (I am definitely not talking about the NGOs) are being discounted by the two premier English speaking pundits, gentlemen who have a great deal of insight into what a democratic society should be like? Frankly, despite some great articles by both Dr. Trifkovic and Mr. Malic, I am always surprised anew at the relish and pettiness with which they go after some fairly marginal figure like Mr. Jeremic from time to time, as if this will make a difference in the big picture. It does not. Furthermore, where is the merit in mimicking the narrative of the Radicals and using their playbook, while using some nefarious subliminal message there somewhere in reference to Mr Jeremic? At times like these, I almost get the impression that the Radical Party will get back in power again because the language to counter them does not exist even in the writings of Dr. Trifkovic and Mr. Malic, knowing full well that if the Radicals do get in power again, they will repeat the mess of the 90s, the mess which was completely avoidable. Maybe things need to get worse again before they can get better. However, it is one thing to try to rescue Serbs from the misconceptions of the Serbophobes as the two authors do, but at some point one has to face up to the reality of what that country is like after the catastrophic years of self-inflicting misery of Milosevic, socialists, former communists and especially the radical lumpenproletariat. The real question is how the country should be transformed. Why does it seem that the bogaboo of the Radicals has to be revived again and again as a way to shut people up and why is doing this so persuasive? Perhaps some of these critics are right: perhaps the only way to change that country is by bringing in the "missionaries". (whether Mr. Antonic, the sociologist from the magazine "New Serbian Thought" likes it or not). Yes, Kosovo should stay within Serbia in some form, however the Russian help in the international arena should not be used as a pretext to preserve a social order in Serbia that is inherently unjust and an economic system that is dedicated to permanent failure, while the society as a whole is being under the imminent threat of the Radicals forever.
And just where does Jack Bailey, who is such a critic of the Serbian political system hail from?
It has to be purer than pure.
It certainly cannot be here in Britain where our politicians are generally considered as the lowest form of life in the country, having irreversibly transformed it into an increasingly overpopulated living hell in the last 10 years.
Tony Blair is not only a war criminal (and his deputy about to assume power has supported all his policies in these matters) but he has instituted a repressive, eaves-dropping and snooping society where basic freedom has become a distant memory. Babies are fined £80 for dropping potato crisps. 300 cameras watch each of us in a course of the day - there are now five million of them and they are soon to be given voices to chivy our sins and check our 'gait' .
As for the majority of our members of parliament: How low can they sink?
Having used their power to vote themselves massive pay increases, expense accounts the size of lottery wins and 'gold plated' pensions we now have them putting through legislation to circumvent the freedom of information act so that they are above such a law allowing them to line their pockets with little or no public scutiny.
Serbia for all its failings cannot be worse than that!
As for the US - a few ultra wealthy families take it in turns to buy the presidency. The senate and the congress - with few exceptions - are corrupt and crooked, and little more than double dealers with nothing but contempt for the public's view once elected.
Seeing the standard of these two mighty and noble political institutions and with the disgraceful self serving politicians within them, anyone pointing a finger at Serbia does so with either ignorance or malice.
Those of us outside Serbia should clean up our own backyards before preaching to the Serbs about how they should govern themselves !
Even the obviously appalling Mr Jeremic cannot be much worse than 'Condi' Rice or Blair's little lap dog Margaret Beckett who makes most of us Brits cringe in shame.
Best wishes to all in Serbia, and if your politicians betray you and steal from you, take heart - you have just joined the great and the good: western democracy, Britain and America.
E Sutherland
1 - Mr Jeremic autobiography:
http://web.archive.org/web/20001211183000/www.ossi.org/organizacija/clan.asp?clanID=37
2 - Foreign Ministers of major countries:
EC: Javier Solana ( born 1942)
Russia: Sergej Lavrov (1950)
USA: Condoleezza Rice (1954)
Italy: Massimo D'Alema (1949)
Germany: Frank-Walter Steinmeier (1956)
France: Michel Barnier (1951)
China : Li Zhaoxing (1940)
Austria : Ursula PLASSNIK (1956)
SERBIA: Vuk Jeremic (1975)
Interesting how everyone that hates Serbia is wanting democracy there in 15 years. How long is western world working on democracy? Unfortunately their democracy is working great for rich and powerful and we expect those to know what it means to be poor-so they make our laws and they convince those that are hungry that they realy are not.
Consider what rich and powerful have done to Serbia in last 15 years. Consider that west is fighting terrorists accross the globe but the only onse that can not fight terror in their own country are Serbs because West said so-their way was lets demonize Serbs so when everyone hates them they will fall apart and serbs will simple vanish as nation. If west knew Serbs just little better, their troubled history w/Ottoman empire and all wars since they would think twice.
Kojen's resignation and recent rejection of high position within Ministry for Kosovo is serious warning and must ring the bells. It is obvious that whatever Kojen have done publicly to keep Kosovo in Serbia, Jeremic was doing opposite in conspiracy. If not, why would Tadic hide it from one of his former advisors?
There is a general convention that the post of FM goes to those who have spent at least 20 years serving their country abroad.
The only person I know of who is qualified enough is Dr. Vladeta Yankovich. I wouldn't object to seeing Dr. Leon Kojen in the role of FM, either -- or even you, Dr. Trifkovich.
Yeremich is not only green (32 yrs old, 0 yrs. diplomatic experience, 4 courses in Public Admin and 50 pages of text!), but seems to be 'dragging quite a few tails.'
I was convinced Drashkovich was definitely the worst possible choice after that travesty with Svilanovich. The appointment of Yeremich proves me wrong.
This is by no means a surprise. The current president of Serbia was once the country's telecom minister and then he took over as the Minister of Defence. He has a B.A. in PSYCHOLOGY. Go figure.
The post of FM is the position of highest priority and importance. This is especially true when we talk about Serbia. This guy is a joke.
I wish more ministers, directors and secretaries would follow in Mr. Kojen's steps. I don't understand how Dr. Koshtunitsa could've let this one slide.
Something ought to be done and fast.
@ "Jack Bailey":
Why don't I write about a way Serbia could become democratic? Because I despise democracy! Look at the two countries that always boast about it - the US and the UK. What has "democracy" brought them? Near-unlimited government, Bush and Blair, a chronic collapse of society. No, sir, democracy is shaping up to be one of the tree great totalitarian deceptions of the 20th century, next to fascism and communism.
Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that anyone can claim to be on the "right" with a straight face after mentioning Vesna Pesic, Srdja Popovic and Petar Lukovic as positive voices. I would sooner call them examples of everything that is wrong in Serbia these days.
You are right in that the political spectrum in Serbia goes from hard left (LDP) to soft left (Radicals). How can it not? The royalists were either killed or exiled by Tito, and have melted away in America and Australia since. Unlike their Croatian counterparts, who worked for decades to resurrect the NDH, the Serb emigres had no idea to work towards, as their last point of departure was the 1941 Yugoslavia. Hardly something to hang a cause on. Communists were replaced by the socialist Milosevic, who was replaced by the "democratic" DOS - all firmly anchored in the modern model of omnipotent state. They've just coated it in different flavors, but it's all the same manure underneath.
If we would like to tell plain and simple, Mr. Boris Tadic is Serbian Gaius Baltar and Mr.Jeremic is his Number 6. Their symbiotic connection is almost perversive.
I have to disagree with you there, Peter. Gaius Baltar has more intellect and integrity, and Number Six is much better looking.
The possibility of a homoerotic component in the symbiosis, while prima facie unlikely, should not be excluded altogether.
Let reason prevail
I read the article and you comments, Messrs. Serbs and having read it I understood why Serbia has landed in such a situation.
Not only the Serb leaders, but also people like the author of the article and those who wrote the comments are responsible for the lamentable situation of Serbia and the Serb people, who are supposed to be like all the other peoples if it had not been for their indoctrination by the ruling cliques with ultra nationalism.
Reading your comments on the article makes me come to the conclusion that you are out of touch with reality and possessed of a very backward mentality. May be, Vuk Jeremic is one of the very few Serbs who has begun to come to his senses and has understood that yours is a losing war. Serbs’ daydreaming is their undoing. As long as there are Serbs who daydream of restoring Kosova to Serbia, Serbia will keep going downhill. One day you may wake up but, given what you say and how you think, that day will be far off. It is a pity to think that such a mindset is the source of evil and of the situation of your country today, which is going from bad to worse.
If you don’t change your ways, Messrs. Serbs, if you don’t hand over the war criminals to the Hague, if you don’t repent and atone for your sins, if you do not stop fighting against the whole world, if you seek support from Russia to challenge the West, you will go from defeat to defeat and a bleak future lies in store for you and your country. You set out to create Greater Serbia, and look, what is left of her, you started four wars and look, you lost them all. You are responsible for hundreds of thousands of victims in the Balkans. God sees everything and there is no place you can hide in.
I am so sorry for the author who cannot bring himself to see the reality in the eye, instead he urges the Serbs to stand up to the West and to those, among them, who “soften” their stand. I am also sorry for all of you who have written the comments on his article. You are the willing victims of your rulers who think only of their pockets, who have brainwashed and duped you into thinking that the world is doing an injustice to you. Unaware of the blind alley you have landed in, you still support those who have convinced you that they are right and the world wrong. You, who wrote this article and all of you, who have written the comments, are the puppets who are jigging as your leaders are pulling the wires.
I, who wrote these lines, wish your country well but I cannot help expressing my disapproval of your views, which are obsolete and contrary to common sense. I am so sorry to say that such a mindset as yours is pushing your country closer and closer to the abyss. I hope that reason will finally prevail.
The last reply to Mr. Trifkovic's wonderful article (nothing new, I have been reading his writings for years now) made me sick to my stomach but this world has been completely senseless since 1991 and an entire people, the Serbs, may disappear if this absurd trend isn't stopped. I guess the West needs badly the dirty money of their separatist friends in Kosovo and Metohija to keep the stumbling Western economies afloat....I am just worried for my Serb friends, in Serbia and elsewhere, but also for what could happen around the world, anywhere in the world if Kosovo and Metohija is detached from Serbia. In my opinion, it would be interesting to see if things could actually improve if and when the Radicals will be finally able to form a government on their own. Couldn't things only be better than they are now? It isn't much of a hope but I keep trying to find a way not to think about what could happen if the province isn't retained...
perhaps nobody else thinks that there's a hope to retain it?
In view of current developments, I believe this article to be misguided. The key for Serbia to keep Kosovo is EU integration. The EU is based on legalistic principles - as long as Serbia pursues EU integration, its legal claims cannot be ignored. This is why the EU has declared that a UN mandate is strictly necessary for the recognition of Kosovo. Since revocation of 1244 is not forthcoming, they are now willing to listen to alternative scenarios. To have Jeremic - the brave young OTPOR student who risked his life fighting Milosevic - traveling to European capitals and spreading good vibes about New Serbia, is then actually a good idea. It is interesting that the ICG seems to be quite uncomfortable with the new government, where Kostunica is able to "hide" behind Tadic.
To Marco:
You say, "this world has been completely senseless since 1991 and an entire people, the Serbs, may disappear if this absurd trend isn’t stopped. I guess the West needs badly the dirty money of their separatist friends in Kosovo and Metohija to keep the stumbling Western economies afloat…I am just worried for my Serb friends, in Serbia and elsewhere, but also for what could happen around the world, anywhere in the world if Kosovo and Metohija is detached from Serbia."
This paragraph makes me draw a few conclusions and ask a few questions:
The world has not been completely senseless since 1991. The Serb rulers have been all along.
Thank heaven, the Serbs will not disappear and I do not wish that. They are supposed to be like all the other peoples if not brainwashed with hatred for other people that happen to belong to other races and religions.
If the Serbian leadership does not put an end to this trend, in fact, Serbia will get smaller and smaller while the Serbs will have to live in other independent entities with full rights as citizens of those entities and human beings, of course. By independent entities, I mean not only Kosovo, but others too, such as Novi Pazar and Voivodina, for example.
Can the "dirty" money of the West's separatist friends in Kosovo keep the stumbling Western economies afloat? Too far fetched.
Does the destiny of the world hinge on the outcome of the Kosovo issue? An absurdity pure and simple.
I do not think Serbia is the center of the world. You Serbs think so. This mindset has taken you to the brink of the precipice. Step back, please, before it is too late. Replace your incompetent leaders with real democrats. But can real democrats be found in Serbia? They must be scarce there. Don't look to Russia for "salvation". Putin is seeking to grab some concessions from Bush. He can leave you in the lurch if Russian interests dictate so. Find a common language with the Albanians, which means learn their language to understand their sufferings under your Serbia. Otherwise, you will be snapping to the moon and become the laughing stock of the world. Four wars that you started and lost are more than enough. How many more defeats will you suffer and commemorate? Enough is enough. Loss of Kosova will not be the end of the world. A bright future lies in store for the Serbs and Serbia if they get along with the Albanians and other neighbors. The world would respect your open hearts and great soul and you'll have your rightful place among the enlightened peoples of Europe. How far off is the day when you'll shed your past and start life again with a clean slate? I can in no way know that. You tell me.