Condoleezza Rice On Kosovo And Serbia, It's Time To Move Forward
 Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

  

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a press conference yesterday regarding international relations in North Korea, Iran, and Serbia, including responding to the protesting in Belgrade.  After Kosovo's unilateral decision to break off from Serbia and form its own Declaration of Independence, violence in both regions has escalated, including an attack by a few hundred (of about 150,000 protestors) on the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade.  President George W. Bush announced his support for Kosovo's independence this week, and Condi was on C-Span yesterday defending his decision.

Well, actually, saying it wasn't really the U.S.'s decision (though Bush's exact words on February 17th were "It's something I've advocated along with my government").

"Kosovo's independence has ignited a substantial amount of anger among the Serbian population," one participant in the State Department's news conference said.  Her question was, "How would you respond to the Serbs who claim the U.S. support for Kosovo's independence is solely to maintain a military presence in the region?"

Solely is a rather strong word, isn't it?

Condi maintained that international presence continues to be needed in the Balkans because of tensions that have existed for years.  She also said:

"I don't think anybody will be happier than the American President on the day that Kosovo is capable of having the kind of security forces that can take care of its people and contribute to regional stabilities."

No one will be happier than President Bush?  Doesn't that kind of say it all?

"We want to have a friendly relationship with the Serb people," Rice said.  "I talked to uh--Prime Minister Thaci a couple of days before, uh, the U.S. support for the recognition of Kosovo, and I said to him, 'We want to be a friend of Serbia."

Why was she telling that to Prime Minister Thaci of Kosovo, then (whose name she incidentally mispronounced), and not the Prime Minister of Serbia (Vojislav Kostunica)?  As mentioned in our last article, Hashim Thaci is a convicted terrorist in Serbia and is now being accused of treason by the Serbian government.

"It was a [United Nations] envoy," Rice said, "Mr. Ahtisaari, who really laid the foundation for what the resolution was going to be.  This wasn't a U.S. decision.  This was a well-respected diplomat, uhm, who took a hard look, who did hard negotiations and hard discussions and came to the conclusion that, uh, Kosovo's status was going to have to be resolved in this way.  And the U.S. has supported that."

So now we are relying on the research of Martti Ahtisaari, the Prime Minister of Finland?  Finland's entire population is half of Serbia's and less than 2% of America's.  And Ahtisaari - a former member of the Social Democratic Party of Finland - is unbiased to Thaci, former head of the Democratic Party of Kosovo and leader of the KLA?  Which, by the way, regularly used violence and intimidation of rivals to gain political control)?

In this writer's opinion, if we want to be so "friendly" to Serbia, our current administration could have at least pretended to have thought harder before immediately proclaiming the U.S.' support to the world, for a region that is breaking away from its mother country against Serbia's will.

Though we also could have decided not to take sides in a battle that has been waging, as Condi says, since 1389.

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