Here We Go: Serbs Go Ape Shit, Set U.S. Embassy on Fire

Bubba Clinton’s Balkans abortion has come back to haunt us.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Scores of protesters broke into the U.S. embassy in Belgrade on Thursday and set rooms on fire in protest at Kosovo’s independence, before riot police moved in and dispersed the crowd.

Police had earlier been nowhere to be seen at the building which had been closed and boarded up after rioters stoned it earlier in the week.

Black smoke billowed out of the embassy. Papers and chairs were thrown out of the windows, with doors wedged in the window frames and burning.

One protester climbed up to the first floor of the building, ripped the Stars and Stripes off its pole and briefly put up a Serbian flag in its place.

Some protesters jumped up and down on the embassy balcony, holding up a Serbian flag as the crowd below of about 1,000 people cheered them on, shouting “Serbia, Serbia.”

Some 200 riot police finally arrived about half an hour later, beating and arresting some of the rioters and driving the rest away. Some protesters sat on the ground, bleeding.

The storming of the building came during a state-backed rally to protest at Kosovo’s secession on Sunday attended by some 200,000 people, which was largely peaceful.

While the embassy was attacked, the main rally proceeded as planned with a march to the city’s biggest Orthodox cathedral for a prayer service, just several hundred meters (yards) away.

State television switched between scenes of the rioting and the choral singing of the church service. http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL2174715620080221

Kosovo’s announcement of independence has set off a firestorm of violence across Belgrade.
This popular uprising is being pushed by two things: generational hatred and the Serbian government.  The Croatians, Serbians, and Bosniaks (Bosnian muslims) have been at each others’ throats for hundreds of years.  Each of them has shed the blood of the other two throughout their turbulent history. Contention over ancestral territory, as well as religious differences, is at the crux of the anger.

For a good, comprehensive history of the Balkans, go here:

http://www.answers.com/topic/history-of-the-balkans

My previous blogs on this:

http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/kosovo-declares-independence/

and here:

http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/kosovo-declares-independence-update/

We went into Bosnia in 1995, (Operation Joint Endeavour, Link: http://www.answers.com/topic/operation-joint-endeavor) as part of a NATO contingency (IFOR) to stop the “ethnic cleansing” by the Serbs on the Bosniaks. I was there in 1999 as part of SFOR.

Since our entry into Bosnia (Kosovo, in particular) as part of Clinton’s wag-the-dog tactic, the reactions of three major groups have been sharply divided. The Bosniaks loved us, the Croatians were somewhat ambivilent, but cautious, and the Serbians just outright hated our guts.

The U.S. and Britain encouraged Kosovo to move forward with independence, while Russia and Serbia have vehemently opposed it.

This could very well result in another civil war in Bosnia.

Kosovo Declares Independence (Update)

Didn’t have to wait long for the reactions:

BREAKING NEWS:

Kosovo — An explosion rocked a U.N. building in northern Kosovo, causing slight damage but no injuries, just hours after ethnic Albanian leaders in Pristina proclaimed Kosovo’s independence.

The blast — apparently caused by a hurled hand grenade — damaged a concrete wall of the building housing a courthouse and jail. Another unexploded hand grenade was discovered across the street near a motel that houses European Union officials, said Besim Hoti, spokesman for Kosovo police.

Kosovska Mitrovica, a city of 60,000 in Kosovo’s north divided between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, was tense Sunday after ethnic Albanian leaders in Pristina declared Kosovo’s independence.

Helicopters buzzed overhead and police officers patrolled the streets to prevent violence in one of the few areas of Kosovo populated by minority Serbs, who make less than 10 percent of Kosovo’s 2 million people.

……The Serbian government in Belgrade has assured Kosovo’s defiant Serbs that they will remain Serbian.

Serbia’s red, blue and white flag fluttered in the north of Kosovska Mitrovica, which is dominated by Serbs, while ethnic Albanians across the Ibar River in the south launched fireworks and fired guns to celebrate.

“The Albanians can celebrate all they want but this stillborn baby of theirs will never be an independent country as long as we Serbs are here and alive,” said Djordje Jovanovic as Serbs chanting “This is Serbia” gathered near the bridge separating them from ethnic Albanians.

Serbia’s government minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said Serbia will increase its control over the 15 percent of the province that is inhabited by the Serbs — an apparent attempt to partition Kosovo.

“It’s a historic day for the Albanians, but not for us,” said Milan Jankovic, sitting in a restaurant sipping plum brandy as Serbian folk music drowned out TV coverage of the declaration.

“Maybe this is good for everyone. At least we’ll split for good. We belong to Serbia, and they belong to Albania,” Jankovic said.

Ethnic Albanians, who are mostly Muslim, saw Sunday’s declaration as a final victory over Serbs in their decades-long struggle over the impoverished territory.

Kosovo’s minority Serbs, mostly Christian Orthodox, vowed to defend the province they consider the heart of their medieval statehood and religion.The Serb attachment to Kosovo dates to 1389, when the province, then the seat of a Serbian state, fell to the Ottoman Turks.

“Serbs have oppressed us, taken our homes, killed our people and downgraded us for decades,” Jashari said. “Now this has formally come to an end. We finally have our country.”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330980,00.html

Look for more widespread violence. The Serbs are not happy campers.

Kosovo Declares Independence

This could get real interesting….

PRISTINA, Serbia — Kosovo declared itself a nation on Sunday, mounting a brash and historic bid to become an “independent and democratic state” backed by the U.S. and key European allies but bitterly contested by Serbia and Russia.

“Kosovo is a republic — an independent, democratic and sovereign state,” parliament speaker Jakup Krasniqi said as the chamber burst into applause after a unanimous vote to approve the document.
Across the capital, Pristina, revelers danced in the streets, fired guns into the air, waved red and black Albanian flags and honked car horns in jubilation at the birth of the world’s newest country.

Krasniqi, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and President Fatmir Sejdiu signed the declaration, which was scripted on parchment, before the unveiling of a new national crest and a flag: a bright blue banner featuring a golden map of Kosovo and six stars, one for each of its main ethnic groups

Sunday’s declaration was carefully orchestrated with the U.S. and key European powers, and Kosovo was counting on swift international recognition that could come as early as Monday, when EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels, Belgium.

By sidestepping the U.N. and appealing directly to the U.S. and other nations for recognition, Kosovo’s independence set up a showdown with Serbia — outraged at the imminent loss of its territory — and Russia, which warned that it would set a dangerous precedent for separatist groups worldwide.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Moscow supported Serbia’s “just demands to restore the country’s territorial integrity.”
And Serbia’s government minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said Sunday that Serbia would increase its presence in the roughly 15 percent of Kosovo that is Serb-controlled — an apparent attempt to divide the province.

“From today onwards, Kosovo is proud, independent and free,” said Thaci, a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which battled Serbian troops in a 1998-99 separatist war that claimed 10,000 lives. “We never lost faith in the dream that one day we would stand among the free nations of the world, and today we do.”

“Our hopes have never been higher,” he told the assembly during the ceremony, which was televised live nationwide. “Dreams are infinite, our challenges loom large, but nothing can deter us from moving forward to the greatness that history has reserved for us.”

Thaci pledged that the new nation would be “a democratic, multiethnic state” — an attempt to reach out to Serbs who consider Kosovo the cradle of their medieval culture and religion.

But he also had stern words for the Serbian government, which last week declared secession illegal and invalid, saying in the Serbian language: “Kosovo will never be ruled by Belgrade again.” Thaci also signed 192 separate letters to nations around the world — including Serbia — asking them to recognize Kosovo as a state.

Kosovo has formally remained a part of Serbia even though it has been administered by the U.N. and NATO since 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic’s crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

The province is still protected by 16,000 NATO-led peacekeepers, and the alliance boosted its patrols over the weekend in hopes of discouraging violence. International police, meanwhile, deployed to back up local forces in the tense north — and the European Union and NATO both called for restraint throughout the Balkans.

U.S. President George W. Bush said on a visit to Africa that the United States “will continue to work with our allies to the very best we can to make sure there’s no violence.”

“We are heartened by the fact that the Kosovo government has clearly proclaimed its willingness and its desire to support Serbian rights in Kosovo,” Bush said. “We also believe it’s in Serbia’s interest to be aligned with Europe and the Serbian people can know that they have a friend in America.”

……Spontaneous street celebrations broke out anew on Sunday, with giddy Kosovars waving Albanian and American flags, and thousands of ethnic Albanians streamed into Pristina from neighboring Macedonia.

In Albania, Prime Minister Sali Berisha said Kosovo’s independence would make the Balkans “freer and fairer” and end “the hegemony of one nation over others.”

Herein lies the ethnic/religious divisions:

Ninety percent of Kosovo’s 2 million people are ethnic Albanian — mostly nominal Muslims who are secular and eschew radical Islam — and they see no reason to stay joined to the rest of Christian Orthodox Serbia.

Croatians, not mentioned here by the way, are Catholic. When the Ottoman Empire extended into the Balkans, some coverted to Islam, and were considered traitors for doing so. The denominational differences caused a lot of tension over the years. The only thing that kept a lid on the pressure cooker was the Yugoslavian dictator Marshal Tito, who ruled with an iron fist. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall and subsequent dissolusion of Eastern Europe for the Soviet empire, all hell broke loose.

With Russia, a staunch Serbian ally, determined to block the bid, Kosovo looked to the U.S. and key European powers for swift recognition of its status as the continent’s newest nation. That recognition was likely to come Monday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, arguing that independence without U.N. approval would set a dangerous precedent for “frozen conflicts” across the former Soviet Union and around the world, pressured the Security Council to intervene.

Serbia’s government ruled out any military response as part of its secret “action plan” drafted earlier this week as a response, but warned that it would downgrade relations with any foreign government that recognizes Kosovo’s independence.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330951,00.html

NATO currently maintains around 16,000 peacekeepers in Kosovo, and the numbers are dwindling.

Link: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/27/europe/EU-GEN-EU-Bosnia.php

The European Union took over the peacekeeping duties in 2004, when SFOR officially handed over control. There are only a few hundred U.S. troops remaining in Bosnia.

At one time Al Qaeda used Bosnia and Albania as support bases for training, operations, and recruiting. With cooperation from countries across the Balkan region and effective intelligence assests, those operations were shut down.

Link: http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/62663.pdf

Now that Kosovo has declared sovereignty, we’ll have to wait and see how Serbia reacts and if Putin decides to get more involved than just ‘appealing to the U.N.’