The Herald of Kosovo and Metohija

7/30/2019 The Herald of Kosovo and Metohija

1/28

Scholl-Latour: That was not quite correct. There weretwo countries, if I remember correctly, which I had notvisited. They were Greenland and East Timor. In themeantime I did visit Greenland and this summer I shallprobably visit East Timor. I have been to Serbia severaltimes. I went to Belgrade, Novi Pazar, but also Split,Pritina, MostarIn your book In the Crosshairs of the Mighty, youbegin your travels in the Balkans in Mostar in July 1994. Scholl-Latour: Not by accident. At that time all the

media were in Sarajevo, and they reported the samething. So, according to them, the Serbs were

bombarding the city from up in the hills and destroying it.I was never interested in reports in which everybodykept repeating the same thing. Was I going to parrotwhat others were writing? I was too experienced,

particularly as a war reporter, to believe such navestories. I have been reporting since the Vietnam War,from the time the French were in Hanoi, and right up tothe invasion of Iraq. I immediately found suspicious allthat anti-Serb hysteria of the Western media. There isnothing black and white, even in private lives, let alone inpolitics and civil wars. There has never been a casewhere only one side was guilty, and that was why I wentto Bosnia to see it all with my own eyes. And Mostarpresented the most convincing picture of the degree towhich the Western politicians and the media were one-sided and unconvincing. Here was a city razed to theground, and Serbs had nothing to do with it. I, too, happened to be there at the time

ARE THE EUROPEANS AMARE THE EUROPEANS AMARE THE EUROPEANS AMERICAN ALLIES OR VASSALS?ERICAN ALLIES OR VASSALS?ERICAN ALLIES OR VASSALS?Content

TTTHEHEHE HHHERALDERALDERALDOFOFOF

Dr. Peter Scholl-Latour (84) is one of the mostimportant German journalists of the second half of thetwentieth century the legend of German journalism.

A serious discussion of the Muslim world would beunthinkable without Scholl-Latour. He was prophetic inforeseeing the rise of Islamic terrorism. Several of hisbooks had international success. His book Death in aRice Field ("Der Tod im Reisfeld") was translated intomany languages and was printed in over 1,100,000copies. Equally successful were The Sword of Islam("Das Schwert des Islam") and My Africa.PeterScholl-Latour was born in Bochum on March 9,1924. (In a few weeks time he will celebrate his 84thbirthday.) His is a fascinating biography. According to hismemoirs, he thought of joining the Yugoslav partisans,

but was arrested by the Gestapo in Styria and held inprison until the end of the war. After the war he joinedthe French army as a volunteer and served for twoyears in Indochina in an elite paratroop unit. On hisreturn to Europe in 1947, he studied at the University ofMainz and at the Paris Sorbonne. He continued hisstudies at the French University of Saint Joseph inBeirut. In addition to political science he took courses in

Arabic and Islam. He has French and Germancitizenship and two native tongues. He got his Ph.D. atthe Sorbonne in January 1954; spent a short time inpolitics as a spokesman of the provincial government ofSaarbrucken; reported from Beirut (1956-57) and fromCongo (1960); published the most extensive account ofthe assassination of Patrice Lumumba. He spent sevendays as a prisoner of Vietnam communist guerillas who

treated him well. As a journalist he travelled in the sameplane with Ayatollah Khomeini (1979) when the latterreturned to Iran after several years of exile in France. In1983, he became editor in chief and one of thepublishers of the German magazine Stern. He is arecipient of numerous French and German awards. Tothis day he remains active and provocative. His standingin the world continues to be high. Last year he wasreceived by Putin. His political position is closest to thatof the French degaullists.The motto of his last book Between Two Fronts("Zwischen den Fronten") was taken from Leopold vonRanke: A historian must live long, because a man canunderstand great changes only after he hasexperienced some of them personally.This great journalist is now the topic of German media

stories. On January 8 and 9, the German TV Program 2aired a documentary on his political views. Two weekslater, The Focus published an extensive biographicalinterview with him. The NINreporter from Berlin, Nikolaivkovi asked him for an interview several months ago.Scholl-Latour received him recently on two occasions.Their conversations lasted about four hours. So thereaders ofNINhave before them a comprehensive viewof the political situation in the world, including analysisand details which only a truly seasoned traveler couldgather. The friends of Scholl-Latour call himaffectionately Peessel (Pee-Ess- El for Peter Scholl-Latour). They claim that, except for Greenland, there isno country in the world which Peessel did not visit.

Dr. Peter Scholl-Latour

The Academic West... 7

Kosovo: Lessons... 11

A Foundation of Sand 12

Why India must oppose 13

The Real Lesson for... 14

Washington Gets 15

Kosovar Indepedence... 16

US, Russia: Talks... 18

Geopolitical Diary:... 19

The Strategic Frame... 20

Serbia' s Next Move 21

A System to Enforce... 22

What to about the KLA 23

Wil American Empire... 24

Hillary's Balkan ... 24

Recognizing Kosovo.. 26

Outside View:... 27

Moving NATO Forward 28

Protesters in Mitrovica...

...and Gracanica.


2/28

Scholl-Latour: Then you know what the Muslim part of the city on the leftbank of the Neretva looked like. It was destroyed by the Croats! Thatpicture simply did not tally with the story told by the leading American andEuropean media. And the destruction of Mostar this fact is known byvery few people in the West was far greater than that of Sarajevo. TheMuslim part of Mostar reminded one of the fate of Jewish ghettos inPoland in World War II. The Croats had much more modern armament

and yet they were not able to break the resistance of 50,000 Muslims.They also destroyed the famous Old Bridge. You know, I fell in love withthat city when I first visited it 1975. It looked so oriental so unusual, soattractive.How did you get to Mostar in 1994?Scholl-Latour: I took care not to travel with the herd of my colleaguesfrom France and Germany. I wanted to look at the world through my owneyes. The International Red Cross in Split provided me with a jeep madein South Korea and an excellent companion. His name was Branko. Hewas 26 years old, from Croatia but not a pure-blooded Croatian. Hecame from a mixed marriage. Strong, well-mannered and reliable, hemade a pleasant traveling companion and an excellent guide. He didnthave a particularly high opinion of the military valor or skill of the Croats. Ishared his opinion. I was in Bosnia and Herzegovina in October of 1992also. The Croats strutted around, behaving arrogantly and exaggeratingtheir role and their importance. They provoked and insulted the Muslims.

Neither did the German media cover themselves with glory. There was ayoung member of the Bundestag from the CDU party, for instance, who inall seriousness averred that the Serbian monsters transplanted animalembryos into captured Muslim women. Of course this was untrue, but theatmosphere was such that journalists were constantly under pressure tokeep repeating how shocked they were by Serbian brutality regardlessof the truth or the facts. The journalist who did not write his reports in thisvein could not rely on the support of his editors.Who did you rely on?Scholl-Latour: On Leon Davio whom I knew from the time when hewas Politikas correspondent in Bonn. We have known each other formore than fifty years. In Titos time his father was highly placed in the partyhierarchy. Leon was well-connected and managed to get a well-paid jobwith the United Nations. He worked with the refugees. Rusairii spokevery highly of Davios work. In 1994 Leon was 68 years old. (Do youhappen to know where he is today?) Willi Brandt and Francois Mitterrand,for instance, were among his friends. During the civil war he maintainedgood relations with Miloevi, Tudjman and Haris Silajdi(I could ask around at NIN about Davio.) You stressed the collaborationbetweeniiand Davio

Scholl-Latour: ii, who was appointed by his government to look afterthe Muslim refugees, spoke with great respect of Leon. I was good friendswith Rusair. His ancestors go back three hundred years in Mostar. Hiswife is a Catholic. He asked me: So, what that makes my daughter? MustI now hate my wifes brothers? My meeting with ii put a human faceon the war for me. It showed me private, family tragedies of hundreds ofthousands of people. He kept telling me: The great powers areresponsible for it all. They pull the strings from behind the scenes, and wein Bosnia are like the puppets in a puppet theater. Rusair used to say:Taking a long-term view of things I am an optimist. We shall rebuild thecity. We Muslims are better educated than the Catholics. That is why theytried to destroy our city and its architecture. They have a deep seatedinferiority complex. That is the root of their hatred and aggressiveness.You also visited the Catholic part of Herzegovina?Scholl-Latour: I was in Medjugorje. The Mother of God recentlyappeared to some children. The whole story is not very convincing. Butclever tradesmen have made good use of it, and pilgrims from the wholeworld hurry to buy cheap kitschy souvenirs. Theyve built a huge, uglychurch. It reminds of Lebanon and its Maronite Catholics. They also built achurch, the Lebanese Notre Dame but it was much more lovely than theone in Medjugorje. Dont forget the Turks ruled there also. Both Beirut andMostar were ruled for centuries by the same Sultan in Istanbul.Davio was an important source of information for you?

Scholl-Latour: Of course. He told me, among other things, of hisinterview with Bernard-Henri Levy. They nearly came to blows. And yet,

both Davio and Levy are Jewish. Had it come to that, I am sure thatDavio would have come out of it a victor. I dont have a particularly highopinion of Levy and his followers either. They are not great lovers of truth,nor are their morals anything to boast about. Leon Davio speaks highly ofthe American journalist Flora Lewis. She was the first to discover that theUS secretly supplied Bosnian Muslims with arms.You were in Belgrade in December 1993

Scholl-Latour: Whenever I am in Belgrade I must go to Kalemegdan andenjoy the unique and beautiful view of the Danube, Sava and the Citadel.The new Church of Saint Sava by its immensity reminds one of SaintSophia in Istanbul. Belgrade is not a beautiful city, but it has a soul.Travelers from the West are fascinated by its looks and its charm. It is notof the West, but not entirely of the East either. I first visited Belgrade in1951. It was summer. The presence of Titos Secret Police could be felteverywhere. People were very poor, their lives hard. I lived at the HotelMoskva. I learned my first lessons on Yugoslavia in 1944. I was twentyyears old, lying in a prison hospital bed in Graz. Not far from my bed lay asolder of General Milan Nedi. During the war Serbia and Greece werethe only Balkan countries under German occupation. Other Balkancountries were German allies. General Nedi was a sort of SerbianPetain; he tried to save the lives of as many Serbs as possible. I was inBelgrade in September 1961 for the conference of the non-alignednations.

December 1993 was the time of sanctions Scholl-Latour: I flew to Budapest and from there took a train to Belgrade.Hungarian customs officers addressed me in German and the Serbs inEnglish. Both were polite. In Budapest I met Tibor Varadi. He left anexcellent impression on me. He spoke several languages perfectly. Hetold me that the Hungarian government had made a big mistake inallowing Croatia to be supplied with arms through the Hungarian territory.He described the Serbs in these terms: The Serbs are the strongest andthe most dynamic factor in the Balkans. Its a simple fact. Its a fact no onecan ignore. When I asked him about Bosnia and the language problem,he said: I speak Serbo-Croatian as well as my native Hungarian and,believe me, the differences in the dialects you encounter between Splitand Ni are not as great as those between Munich and Hamburg.Speaking about Miloevi he said tht he was a political realist. Had hebeen serious about Kosovo, he would have settled all Serbs who hadbeen exiled from Bosnia and Croatia in Kosovo. Yet he did not do it.You also had meetings at the Serbian Academy Scholl-Latour: Yes, I met with Milorad Ekmei. Some Germans weresurprised. What? You want to speak with that great Serbian chauvinist? Ihad a long, vigorous and interesting talk with him. And I wasnt sorry. Hewas lucid and consistent. I asked every Serb I got to know a bit better thefollowing question: If you could choose between Croats and Muslims,whom would you choose for your political ally? Like the majority of theSerbs I asked, Ekmei member of the Serbian Academy, said: theCroats, of course! As regards the defense of Serbian national interestsProfessor Ekmei was clear and uncompromising. Yet, with it all, hisexplication was attractive, relaxed and witty.Belgrade was not the only city you visited?

Scholl-Latour: I also went to Novi Pazar. I had a very long andinteresting talk with a monk in the Monastery Studenica. In general, I wassurpised to note that although a foreigner I was unbelievably free and

could travel without police supervision around entire Serbia. Before mydeparture for Serbia, my acquaintances had told me quite a different story.Novi Pazar is another world. There are eighteen mosqs in the town andMuslims make up 80% of its population. There was no tension that I couldfeel.And what were your impressions of Kosovo?

Scholl-Latour: From Novin Pazar I went to Pritina. Kosovo Albaniansdid not live in misery as the American journalist Robert Kaplan describedthem. The presence of Serbian policemen and military personnel was notparticularly noticeable. Here also I noticed very clearly that Pritina streetswere full of people, and mostly young people at that. As is the case ofother Muslim countries, the birth-rate of Albanians is very high.Demography is the most deadly weapon of Islam and represents thegreatest danger for the West. I was in Kosovo also in June 1999. I

THE HERALD OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJATHE HERALD OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJA Page 2


3/28

watched the behavior of the Albanianstowards the isolated Serbian islands.The Serbian rural population was notbeing entitled to the protection ofNATO forces and was left to the tendermercies of brutal Albanian criminalgangs. I dont have a particularly high

opinion of Albanians. The Serbs canexpect no good from them. I wouldadvise the Serbian government to tryand defend the northern part ofMitrovica at all cost. That can bedefended because it abuts on Serbia.

As for other, isolated Serbian villagesin Kosovo, I am not optimistic. Taking along-term view, even Israel, which inmilitary terms is a truly great power,woud find it hard to survive in such ahostile environment.You were in Krajina?Scholl-Latour: It was in April 1994. I

spoke with the Prime Minister of Krajina Djordje Bjegovich. His Englishwas decent. He was helpful but reticent and placatory in his political

prognoses. A well-mannered man. When we crossed to Karlovac, theCroatian army maltreated both me and my television team. They gave methe impression of being insecure and insolent. On that occasion in Knin Ialso met Sava trpac who is now collecting evidence on Croatian crimesagainst the Serbian civil population.You were in Knin, Karlovac...Scholl-Latour: I visited also Zagreb in April 1994. I had visited Zagrebbefore, but briefly. Zagreb remains a small, dull Austro-Hungarian city. Itcannot be compared with the luxury and beauty of Budapest. The onlyimpressive building in Zagreb is Hotel Eslpanad. Even Lvov, a former

Austro-Hungarian city in the western Ukraine today, is much moreattractive and elegant than ZagrebLets return to the Belgrade meetings.Scholl-Latour: In December 1993 I had talks in the Patriarchate with amonk called Jovan. He grew up in German, in Ruhr. He said that his true

fatherland is Mount Athos where he had spent a few years. You know,before coming to Serbia as I did in 1993, Western journalists would get alist of people it was worthwhile talking to, because they were reasonableand, therefore, not infected with the virus of Serbian nationalism andfascism. That list, of course, did not contain the names of eitheracademician Ekmei or the monk Jovan. A glance at that list of namestold me that we were dealing always with the same people. They allworked either for the independent media or for non-governmentorganizations. I had worked for several decades as a journalist and I hadnever relied on lists, instructions from editors or advice from the Germangovernment. I like to sit at a table in a cafe frequented by ordinary people.It is there that I can best catch the mood of the people.You mentioned non-government organizations

Scholl-Latour: Lets understand each other. There are true non-government organizations. I met them here and there in the world, andthey probably exist in Serbia as well. But the majority of non-government

organizations are engaged in subversive activities against the states andthe governments which are not favored by Washington. Do you know howto tell the difference between non-government organizations and non-government ortganizations? Its very simple. Just ask them this shortquestion: Where does your money come from? Who is funding you?You mean who is funding the non-government ortganizations?

Scholl-Latour: I best understood this problem when I was inBelorussia.Lukashenko is by no means nave. He had studied carefullythe mechanisms which brought about the overturn of Miloevis regime inBelgrade, the orange revolution in Kiev and the instalattion ofSaakashvilis regime in Tbilisi. The decisive role in all these events wasplayed by these organizations. In English they are called NGOs. Theseorganizations have nohing in common with true non-governmentorganizations such as Bread for the World or Miseror. We are talking

about professional, mostly young, agitators who, like some travelingcircus, wander around the world to teach half savages which way to go ifthey want to save their sinful souls. Their ideology is irresistibly reminiscentof the seventeenth century Christian missionaries in Africa, or among theIndian tribes of South America. They also have similarities withprofessional Bolshevik revolutionaries from 1917. Non-governmentorganizations have special camps in Poland and Lithvania. Their chief

instructors are either still active or retired CIA agents. In contrast toSlobodan Miloevi, Lukashenko understood exactly where the dangerlay. As early as March 1997, he banned all work of Soros Foundationwhich openly stated that its chief objective was to bring down thegovernment in Minsk. Whoever is well acquainted with the biography ofthe financial speculator Soros can understand well this move onLukashenkos part.What is the guiding idea of an NGO?Scholl-Latour: It is all about the strange behavior of Washington ininternational politics. Under the guise of freedom and democracy, it hascreated a chain of foundations from which NGOs and the independentmedia get their funding. At the same time they go about openly breakinginternational agreements and all norms of behavior by meddling in internalaffairs and politics of foreign countries. Publicly and arrogantly they breakthe laws of other countries. In Belorussia, Serbia, the Ukraine and Georgiathey have started numerous civic initiatives. The missionaries

assignment was to Christianize the pagans, while the aim of the non-government organizations today is to convert the nationalists into thebelievers in the free market and American democracy. Their only failureis Minsk in spite of the large sums of money which the United States of

America, NATO, the International Monetary Fund, OSCE and the WorldBank had put at their dkisposal. The European Union, the Germangovernment, the German radio Deutsche Welle and the London BBC,they all participated in the campaigne against the Belorussiangovernment.Surely, we can point out a series of regimes in Africa, Asia or Europe

which are far from democracies, and yet the West is pointing its finger onlyat Lukashenko?

Scholl-Latour: Of course. Look at Albania, Croatia, or Azerbaijan. TheAliev dynasty rules in Baku with no respect for any rules of democracy.And yet no protests were raised against Azerbaijan by anyone in theEuropean Union or America. Look at the results of the orange revolution.For several decades you have worked as a journalist who always usedhis own head, relied on personal encounters and your own impressions,always reading, always learning. But who has time for that today?

Scholl-Latour: There are still people like that. Very few, I admit. Andthere lies the greatest danger for modern media. You are given, forinstance, two minutes in which to explain on camera the substance of andthe reasons for the conflict, lets say, between the Suni and the Shiite inIraq. Two minutes for Eritrea or Palestine, Kurdistan or Georgia, Quebecor Catalonia, Iraq or Bosnia? Everything is possible, of course, one coulddo this too. But surely it would be at the cost of solidity and truth. Electronicmedia and television cameras facilitate to a great extent the work ofpropaganda and contribute to superficial dissemination of information.It is difficult to see the whole extent of the damage done by that kind ofsuperficiality. Damage certainly was done by the useless attempts of theWest to create secular states and democracies in the Islamic world.

Scholl-Latour: That attempt of the West has completely failed. Thatapplies also to Turkey. Kemalism is nothing but a faade. The Islamicelement in Turkey is stronger today than it was in Kemal Ataturks time.Instead of turning towards Washington or London, as was expected, theattitude in Muslim countries is: For us the West is neither the source northe right way. Islam, on the other hand, is in the ascendant even in theUnited States. The media in the West continually point out that there areabout twenty million Muslims in Russia. But they forget to tell us howmany of them live in London, in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.It is interesting that in spite of all the differences between you two, yousupport Sarcosy in his opposition to allow Turkey to join the EuropeanUnion.Scholl-Latour: Naturally. Turkey has no business with the EuropeanUnion. I hope that he will be able to continue in his opposition because the



4/28

pressure from Wasington is not inconsiderableThe Turkish population is growing at an incredible rate. According to manyforecasts it will soon reach one hundred million...

Scholl-Latour: Today it is no more than 72 milion. But even so, it wouldpose a danger to Europe if Turkey were to join the Union.Dont they understand in the United States what the real problem withIslam is?

Scholl-Latour: Some of the great Islamists live in America. They are veryworried about the Wasington policy towards Muslim countries.And the role of the American press?Scholl-Latour: I find it very bad. The Bush administration is hamperingthe work of journalists who are critical of it. The same can be seen inEurope. Commercialization and the growth of private television haveresulted in a decline of solidity in reporting. The politicians like Bush, ofcourse, salute this trend. If the medias reporting were of a better quality,such politicians would find it harder to get elected. The effects of wars in

Africa and Asia are hardly felt at all by the broad masses in theWest. There are no ill effects of such wars for the West. This preciselyshould be the reason for reporters to go to such places. Only withreporters on the ground can we find out what is actually going on in, say,Iraq.Recent elections in Iraq were described in the West as a victory of

American democracy...Scholl-Latour: Many here believe that the United States of Americabrought freedom to Iraq. That, of course, is ridiculous.The truth is verydifferent. The elections were imposed on the Americans by the Shiite

Ayatollah Sistani. He even set the day for the elections. He is fully awareof the fact that the Shiites represent two thirds of the Iraqi population andthat there was no doubt whatsoever that they would win the elections.You annoyed many peole by saing that in many ways life was better forthe Iraqi under Sadam Hussein than it is today...Scholl-Latour: A great deal better. Look at the number of Iraqis who werekilled after they were liberated by the American soldiers. The Kurds andthe Shiite have a reason to be sorry. The Suni were truly privileged underSadam Hussein. That is true. But it is also true that people did not live infear then, there were no numerous bands of criminals which make normallife impossible.

How different is todays reporting from the time when you began workingas a journalist?

Scholl-Latour: When I was a reporter in Vietnam in 1965, the GermanMinistry of Foreign Affairs complained about my work. The head of theWestdeutschen Rundfunk was Claus von Bismark. He called me to hisoffice. We talked for three hours. In the end he told me to continue with mywork. Today, editors in chief in big media outfits have an aversion toreporters who are not prepared to send politically correct reports.How do you see this grave worsening of the relations between Russiaand the West. The German media mainly speak of Russianresponsibility for it?Scholl-Latour: That view is too one-sided. Let me give you an example.NATO decided to hold its summit in Riga. We all know that that city isclose to St. Petersburgh. The Russians were right to consider it aprovocation. I dont understand why Germany did not protest against thisdecision of NATO. The second problem: why must every new member of

the Eropean Union, which comes from Eastern Europe, become also amember of NATO? Hasnt this military alliance enough members already?The situation today is quite different from what it was when NATO wascreated. All that is conducive to an atmosphere of an imminent new coldwar.What do you think of German-Russian relations?

Scholl-Latour: Economic relations between Germany and Russia areexcellent. I support the joint Russo-German project of a gas pipeline underthe Baltic Sea. But some steps taken by NATO, i.e. Washington, areharmful to German economic interests.The German media also are insisting on Putins undemocratic regime...

Scholl-Latour: At this moment it would not be good for Russia to have

our type of parliamentary democracy. After all, Gobachev and Yeltsintried it. And what has the perestroika achieved? The result of the reformsof Gorbachev and Yeltsin was that a large part of the Russian populationpracticaly overnight became abysmally poor; there was chaos; the statevirtually ceased to function. Democratic reforms and the free marketeconomy destroyed the Russian state. Russia found herself literally on theedge of the abyss. Yeltsin gave huge natural wealth to a few tycoons,

speculators, oligarchs as the Russians call them.They still exist today.But today they are not taking the money out of Russia but are investing itin the Russian economy. Those who did not agree to the deal ended uplike Kodorkovsky. When one talks about such things one should first putoneself into the position of an ordinary Russian. Ask yourself: How did anaverage Russian live under Gorbachev and Yeltsin and how does he livetoday?Many peole believe that Putin was lucky because...C because right then the price of gas reached record heights. That is afact. This gave Moscow the resources with which to govern again like agreat power and to establish order within the country. But it is a question ofnot just luck but also of Putins ability. I believe he would have succeededeven if gas prices had not risen as they have. In that case, the recovery ofRussia would not ave been this fast, but there would certainly have beenbig changes in foreign and domestic policies of the country. In 2007 I hadan occasion to talk with President Putin for fully three hours. One ought to

know something about the history of the country. The Tsar was popularbecause he gave the people a certain measure of protection against thearbitrariness of the boyars. Today Putin gives protection to the broadestmasses of the Russian people against the arbitrariness of the oligarchs.He is, if may say so quintessentially Russian. He knows the Russianmentality well. The claims of some Western experts that the Russians arecrazy about democratic reforms are devoid of all reality. In Moscow, theymust have been speaking only to some not particularly significantintellectuals or non-government organizations which receive money fromthe West and tell them what these experts what they want to hear. But it iscertain that they do not represent the authentic voice of the Russianpeople.What is your impression of Putin?

Scholl-Latour: There is no president in the West who could compare toPutin. At least 70% of Russians stand behind him. No leader in the Westhas this sort of backing. Putin introduced order in the country and gaveback to the Russians their self-confidence and their pride. No one therewould dream of experimenting again with perestroika.What were Gorbachevs and Yeltsins biggest mistakes in foreign policy?Scholl-Latour: When Gorbachev signed the end of the Warsaw Pact andYeltsin on his part confirmed it when he recognized the independence offormer Soviet republics, it never occurred to either of them to make it acondition that NATO can never station its troops on the territory of theformer Warsaw Pact. They simply moved their chess pieces as meredilettantes.It seems that each country should find for itself what the best form ofgovernment is in accordance with its traditions. What would be best forRussia?Scholl-Latour: Russia was led by autocrats for centuries. Its simply thenature of that country. The West will have to part with the idea that theentire world must follow its model of democracy. This applies also to

human rights. We can be proud of these achievements, but it is notpossible to transplant them blindly, mechanically into other cultures. In anycase, these days democracy isnt faring very well in the West either. It is atrisk of turning into plutocracy.Your book, Russia squeezed between NATO, China and her ownMuslim Populationwas published two years ago. Which of these threerepresents the most serious danger for Russia?Scholl-Latour: At this moment, the United States of America are thegreatest danger for Russia. Washington is trying to encircle and isolateRussia, and according to me this policy is entirely senseless and a greatmistake. It is proof of a total absence of any grasp of the situation. In fact,

America has every reason to make an ally of Russia.Washington andMoscow have so many interests in common!



5/28

Violation of human rights and undemocratic tendencies are cited byboth Washington and London as the chief obstacle to their good relationswith Moscow...

Scholl-Latour: Of course, this criticism is a screen behind which to hidethe systematic campaign against Russia, and it is more than obvious towhat end.To what end?

Scholl-Latour: Washington would not like to see the Europeans havingclose relations with Russia. This refers in the first place to economicrelations. Washington is afraid that closer relations with Russia wouldmean Europes greater independence from the United States. Why do theGerman media support wholeheartedly this anti-Russian policy of

America? The only answer is: Germany is not a sovereign state.What is your take on German foreign policy??

Scholl-Latour: It does not existThere is no strategic concept.If you were an adviser to the German government what would yousuggest should be changed in foreign policy?

Scholl-Latour: I would suggest an increase in Germanys military budget!I would start training an elite army which would be capable of quickinterventions, and, of course, I would not let Germany do it by herselfbut in cooperation with With whom? London is out of the questionbecause the British are not following a European policy. They are too

closely tied to Washington. So, there is only France.What would be your advice to the German Chancellor?

Scholl-Latour: To avoid at all cost supporting American war-mongeringmanoeuvres against Russia! Already we have German officers in theUkraine and Georgia. This is our contribution towards preparing thesecountries to join NATO, which means that we are actively supporting ananti-Russian policy. We are also helping these countries to join theEuropean Union. We forget that Russia is traumatized today in a way thatGermany was after WWI. Just as after the Brest-Litowsk Peace Treaty in1917, Russia has once again lost the Ukraine. The Russians feel this lossas a most profound humiliation. Dont forget that Kiev is the mother of allRussian cities. Helped by the European Union, America almost got awaywith taking Belorussia also under its control.When you spoke of the threat to Russia posed by the radical Islamistswere you thinking of Chechnya?

Scholl-Latour: Not only Chechnya. At the moment there is peace inChechnya. But it is a phony peace. Putin appointed Kadirov to be hisrepresentative in Chechnya. Kadirovs father was killed, but in Yeltsinstime he had fought against Moscow. His son is now an ally of Russia, butfor how long? I do not exclude the possibility of his turning his back onMoscow one day. The problem exists in other parts of Russia, inDagestan, for instance. It is perhaps an even greater danger. There aretwenty million Muslims living in Russia today. Their birth-rate is the highestin the country. I also mentioned Tatarstan. At the moment it is peaceful.Then Bashkortostan. There we have a people which belongs to theTurkish language group. They are Muslims and they live not far from theKazakhstan border.But of these three which is the greatest threat to Russia?

Scholl-Latour: Takking a long view, the greatest challenge for Russia isChina. Eastern Siberia is virtually unpopulated. That is Moscows weakestpoint. When I was writing the book on Russia, I visited the Russo-Chinese

border. There are only five million Russians living there. On the other sideof the border, in China, there are 130 million people. New cities, each witha population of some million people, are popping up along the Russianborder. The Chinese are building modern eight-lane highways. Therecould be a conflict between Russia and China, but not for another 20years. At the moment the two countries have good relations with eachother. Clearly, the Chinese are not in a hurry. It is an intelligent and patientpeople. Every year, there are 12 million Chinese more in the world.Relations between Russia and China are good and in some cases evenvery good...Scholl-Latour: greatly due to Wahingtons short-sighted policy.

Amerca is continually chiding China for not respecting human rights.America is continually taking a hostile stance towards Moscow and

Peking. This has led to joint Russo-Chinese military manoeuvres.Officially, these are described as a defense against possible terroristthreat, but in reality the objective of these manoeuvres is to prevent

America from penetrating into the area of Central Asia.What are the prospects for a Moscow-Peking alliance?

Scholl-Latour: That will depend almost entirely on Washingtons futurepolicy. As long as Americans, through NATO , keep trying to isolate

Russia, as long as they keep spy planes in Estonia in the immediatevicinity of Saint Petersburgh, so long as they keep trying to get the Ukraineand Georgia to join NATO, the Russians will maintain close relations withthe Chinese. One asks oneself: what is the sense of this kind of policy ofthe United States of America? Is it possible that they want a war with theRussians? Or with the Chinese? But what is catastrophic in all this is thefact that the German policy and the German press wholeheartedlysupport this fatal course Wash ington has chosen to follow. Our politiciansand our journalists see to it that we are in the front line of this anti-Chinesepolicy. You have only to remember the visit of the Dalai Lama to Berlin.This is another example which shows that after World War II we Germansdo whatever Americans want us to do. Do you believe that it was a merecoincidence that the Head of Tibetan Buddhists was received in the WhiteHouse and by Angela Merkel?Why is this so?Scholl-Latour: Because German foreign policy does not exist, nor dolongterm plans for the defense of the country.You have said publicly that you dont think much of western politicianswho warn Peking, whenever they visit China, that it must respect humanrights, introduce democratic reforms...

Scholl-Latour: I am against this attitude because it is insincere, two-faced, selective and ridiculous. At the same time, peoples heads are cutoff in Saudi Arabia in accordance with shariat law, and no one in America,or Europe says a word against it. It is unbelievably hypocritical! The sameis true about democratic principles. We had democratic elections inPalestine. And what happened? Hamas won, but the West refused toaccept its victory. Or what about Washingtons current efforts torehabilitate Ghaddafi? It has been proved that Ghaddafi had helpedterrorists. But we made a deal with Ghaddafi. Lybia has renounced hernuclear program and agreed to sell oil to the West.How do you see the future of N?

Scholl-Latour: That military organization is an anachronism in our times.The Warsaw pact no longer exists. The Soviet Union has disintegrated.

As NATO still continues to exist, many members of that military alliancemust ask themselves: are we allies or American vassals? Here, too I mustrepeat my assertion: Germany is not a sovereign state either actually ormentally.One of the most important topics in Europe today is the problem of theinstallation of American rockets in Poland...

Scholl-Latour: Since we are talking about it, people in the West haveforgotten that in 1990 the Russians withdrew their rockets to a thousandkilometers east of Europe. And what did they get in return? The ringaround Russia is increasingly being tightened by NATO. The Russianshave every right to regard the placing of American rockets in Poland asprovocation. One simply must ask oneself: what purpose do these rocketsserve?

When you speak of the tightening circle do you mean Georgia?Scholl-Latour: Exactly. I have in mind what is happening in thatcountry. The media in the West talk about the democratic revolution andso forth. Rubbish. America organized a putch and installed Saakashvili, anextremely dubious person. He now rules like a dictator. So nothing haschanged in Georgia. One dictator was replaced by another. The onlydifference is that Saakashvili does American bidding. Washington alsoorganized a putch in Kirghisia and caused a civil war. While Berlinendorses all American moves witout demur.In your last book, Between Two Fronts you criticize the wishy-washyness of Europeans, their lack of will to stand up and defend theiridentity. According to you, this is the fundamental problem in Europetoday. That will has simply disappeared in the West; it has withered away.



6/28

Do I understand you correctly?

Scholl-Latour: You understand me very well. Take, for example, Russia.One of the chief advantages and the starting device of Putins new Russiais not, as some in the West keep repeating, the sudden increase in gasprices on the world market, but the renaissance, the resurrection of theRussian Orthodox Church. Energy prices are an important factor but notthe deciding factor. It is far more important for a man to know who he is, to

have a motive to live, to create, to have children. Todays piety of theRussians is real and profound. I am not talking about a group of Moscowintellectuals mostly from non-government organizations who, by the way,use every occasion before American and British cameras to show off theirknowledge of English. I am talking about the Russian people whose pietyis deep-seated. The Russian Orthodox Church is almost one hundredpercent behind Putin.Who of all Russian intellectuals is principally responsible for that?

Scholl-Latour: Without a doubt Aleksandr Solzhenitsin. He alone had allthe necessary conditions for such an exceptional, such an unrepeatablefeat. He is a great writer and historian, a critical spirit, a moral personality.He is pure, a man who walks erect; who was exiled by the Bolsheviks tomany years of hard labor in Siberia; he is a cancer survivor who is at thesame time deeply devoted to his people and the Russian tradition.Let us return to the European problem. The West talks continually aboutthe danger from the new, self-confident, strong Russia and about the

danger from Islamic terrorism. Are these the biggest problems?Scholl-Latour: Of course not. The problem of the Western Europe isneither the new, strong Russia nor the revolutionary Islamism. It is ourown weakness. That is why it is high time for us to stop whining andspreading the eternal German fear of Russia. Moscow has no plans for amilitary attack on the West. Russia is only opposed to NATOs continuedadvance towards her borders. When I was in Russia I met not only withPutin but also with the former Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov, whodescribed to me in a word the difference between the Soviet Union andtodays Russia. Moscow today has no intention of allocating forty percentof her budget to armament. That was the great mistake of the SovietUnion.Some political commentators talk about the danger of a new cold war.Others say that we are already living through a new cold war. Whichgroup is closer to the truth?

Scholl-Latour: I think the latter. During my recent visit to Moscow I hadthe opportunity of talking to Valentin Falin and Yevgeni Primakov. Theformer was ambassador to Bonn, the latter was Russian minister offoreign affairs. Both of them assured me that the cold war had alreadybegun and turned my attention to the American policy towards theUkraine and Georgia. Washington evidently intends to encircle Russiageopolitically and push her completely out of Europe. I think it is shamefulfor Germany and the European Union to follow this American policywithout a word of protest. We Europeans are truly idiots. We are creatingfor ourselves a new, mighty and unnecessary enemy in Russia, whereasthat country could be a natural friend, in the first place, to Germany.In this context, how do you see the murder of Litvinenko?Scholl-Latour: One must first remember that there have been agents inthe past who changed sides, and that some of them were killed. Thedifference is that this case is widely written about by the Western press.Whereas, in contrast, when a Western agent is killed our media are

usually silent. There is another interesting case. I am talking about thecause of Yaser Arafats death. French military doctors have not madepublic the true cause of his death. According to my information he waspoisoned by a deadly new substance. Russians most certainly hadnothing to do with Arafats death. That is possibly why not much waswritten about the causes of his death in the West. At the same time, wecan deduce from this the direction of future assassinations. And that factshould cause us concern and even fear.Americans have concentrated their war efforts against Islamic terroristson Afghanistan. Is that a good move?

Scholl-Latour: Americans have failed to understand that Afghanistan isonly a side issue and that the main problem in that area is Pakistan. TheTaliban were initially organized in Pakistan, and that with the help of the

United States of America, so that America could better counter the Sovietoccupation of Afghanistan.Benazir Buto was recently killed in Pakistan. Where is that country going?

Scholl-Latour: Pakistan will remain unstable for a long time. That, ofcourse, was no fault of Benazir Buto. She was a woman of great personalcourage, but not the right person for the job. She had already been triedand found guilty of corruption. It was Washingtons intention to bring her

into power in order to limit somewhat the power of todays PresidentMusharaf. Washington had hoped that, with the help of Benazir Buto,Pakistan would be more decisive in its war against Islamic militants. Uderthe pressure from the United States of America Musharaf was forced toabandon his post as the commander of the army. He also is a loyal ally ofWashington. He began by fighting the radical Muslims very decisively andclla borated closely with America. This made him unpopular both with thebroad masses of the population and with the army. Many officerssympathize with the guerilla who are fighting against Americans in

Afganistan. In the meantime, the army is the only institution in Pakistanwhich is holding the country together.Pakistan has an atom bomb.Scholl-Latour: That is a great problem for Wasington. But at the momentit is still under control. Pakistan made its own bomb primarily because ofIndia which is both economically but also militarily far stronger thanPakistan.When speaking about current world crises it is impossible not to mentionthe Middle East, a topic with which you are very famliar. What is the futureof Israel?Scholl-Latour: I also believed for a long time that the creation of a Jewishstate would be a successful project. However, after the events which havetaken place in recent years, I have become a pessimist. I am not thinkinga bout todays situation. I am taking a long-term view of Israel.Why have you become a pessimist?Scholl-Latour: Israel is surrounded by hosile Muslim states. It must fighton several fronts simultaneously. And another thing. Take a close look atthe demographic development. We are witnessing an explosion ofpopulation on the Arab side, the Palelstinian side. Even if a Palestinianstate were to be created it would consist of a number of enclaves: one onthe West Bank and the other is the Gaza strip. Such a state would not beable to offer better living conditions to the numerous young population.

The new Palestinian state would simply be forced to demand from Israelto make ever more territorial concessions. So we are in a vicious circle,and I see no way out. If a new Palestinian state were to include significanthistorical territories, those from before the first Israeli occupation in 1967,that would constitute an existential danger for Israel. Negotiations have

just begun. They are at the embryonic stage. There have been no talksyet about the status of Jerusalem and so on. I should add that the lastIsraeli incursion into Lebanon was not at all successful. The Israelithemselves admit this. Israel paid in heavy human losses for those fewkilometers of Lebanese land. This was the first time that an armed Arabformation could successfully resist an Israeli attack, and Israel has one ofthe best equipped armies in the world. I am talking a bout the Shiiteguerrilla fighters. It is very important for the Arab moral. For the first timethey showed in action that the Israeli are not invincible. The bombing ofLebanon by the Israeli airforce also failed to bring any military successes.Why did Israel attack Lebanon anyway?

Scholl-Latour: The most important reason was the plan to destroy theShiite guerilla fighters, the Hesbolah. But they were not destroyed. Lebnonis an unusual country. Half of their soldiers are Muslims but Shiite. I see noquick solution for that state. A brief survey of its history would make thatclear. A national agreement was reached by the principal political partiesin 1943. Land was divided along the lines of religious affiliation. At thattime Cristians, mostly Maronites, represented one half of the population.The Sunis were the next most numerous and most influential part of thepopulation. Today, the situation is different. The demographic picture haschanged. The Shiite constitute nearly fifty percent of Lebanonspopulation. The time has come for the country to sign a new agreementand write a new constitution.

NIN, January 31, 2008, Belgrade Peter Scholl-Latour



7/28

A territorial dispute as subtle and ill humored as those forestalled byinternational law brought him up against Paul Kelly, the famous leader of

another gang. The boundary line had been established by bullets and

border patrol skirmishes. Eastman crossed the line late one night and wasset upon by five of Kelly's men.

Jorge Luis Borges, Monk Eastman, Purveyor of Iniquities

Sabrina P. Ramet, a professor of political science at the NorwegianUniversity of Science and Technology in Trondheim, has written a bookwhich is most impressive in its scope. Thinking About Yugoslavia:Scholarly Debates About the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosniaand Kosovo is a discussion of more than 130 books, mostl y in English butalso in the languages of former Yugoslavia and few in German and Italian,all listed at the beginning. It is divided into 13 chapters with titles that aremeant to attract the attention not only of scholars but of all interested informer Yugoslavia, such as Who's to blame, and for what? Rivalaccounts of the war or Miloevi's place in history or Debates aboutintervention.

The question that instantly and inevitably springs to mind is, of course,whether Sabrina Ramet has really read all these books or is ThinkingAbout Yugoslaviajust a spectacular example of that dark academic craftof reviewing a book after only leafing through it or reading other reviews?(Perhaps in the not too distant future we may have a New York or LondonReview of Reviews of Books?) Whether or not one believes that Ramethas read 40 000 pages or 16 million words (my rough calculations), her

knowledge is considerable. Yet hers is not a book that can berecommended. Its bane is not to be found in ignorance but, alas, in theauthor's profound bias, which causes her to evade difficulties and concealcomplexities.Professor Michael Mann, America's leading historical sociologist,published in 2005 The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining EthnicCleansing, which soon won international acclaim for its powerful insightsinto some of the most murderous conflicts of the last century. Mannconvincingly rejects any attempt to chastise entire ethnic groups asperpetrators of expulsions and genocide. While such simplistic accountsare characteristic of popular media and everday conversation, they canalso be found in scholarly works. Concentrating on recent sholarship,Mann, for example, criticizes Daniel Jonah Goldhagen for trying to provein his Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaustthat the whole German nation was imbued with exterminist anti-Semitism, and Vahakn N. Dadrian for asserting in his The History of the

Armenian Genocide that Turks, as fierce warriors and intolerant Muslims,were predisposed to mass murder of Christian Armenians.Mann's third example is Norman Cigar's Genocide in Bosnia: The Policyof Ethnic Cleansing, in which the author makes his view of the Yugoslavethnic wars clear with subheads like `The Serbs' Sense of Superiority.'Mann then proceeds to describe the views of Goldhagen, Dadrian andCigar as nationalist since it is nationalists who claim that the nation is asingular actor and because they condemn German, Turkish and Serbiannationalism in ways that reproduce the categories of nationalistthought. (p. 20)Sabrina Ramet, nonetheless, perceives Norman Cigar, professor ofSecurity Studies at the U.S. Marine Corps School of AdvancedWarfighting and a member of the Croatian Academy of America,

completely differently. To her, h e is a meticulous scholar (p. 269) andGenocide in Bosnia a brilliantly executed book. ( p. 16) Indeed, Cigar isone of the heroes of her book and is extensively and approvingly quoted

on dozens of its pages.But not only is Michael Mann correct about Cigar (and Goldhagen andDadrian) what he says about them applies even more so to Ramet. Thetitle of her book postulates thoughtful and learned discussion, yet in thetext she proceeds to viciosly attack true scholars while heapingcompliments on authors whose scholarly credentials is questionable. Onthe one hand, well-known professors who have devoted their lives toYugoslav studies, like Paul Shoup, Susan Woodward, Steven Burg andRobert Hayden, are accused of nothing less than moral relativism. But it isprecisely their successful avoidance of media hype and resistance topolitical pressures while providing a complete picture and balancedanalysis of the wars of Yugoslavia's disintegration that earned themrespect of their peers. On the other hand, Ramet is full of admiration forCroatian nationalists like Branimir Anzulovic, Stjepan G. Metrovi, Ivoani, Branka Maga and her son Marko Attila Hoare, or politicallyinvolved academics like James Gow (his book is classic p. 80), who

served as an adviser to two British ministers of defense, or Westernjournalists like Viktor Meier (his expostulation is brilliant; p. 90 hisdefence of Croatia's president Tudjman spirited p.7), and whose workfor the right-wing Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungearned him a decorationfrom the president of Slovenia.

At the end ofThinking About Yugoslavia , Ramet presents us with the listof authors and their works that are her personal favourites. (p. 310) In myopinion the vast majority of scholars in the field would consider thesebooks to be among the most biased on the Yugoslav conflict. There areexceptions, of course, such as Jasna Dragovi-Soso's excellent accountof the role of Serbia's intellectuals in the revival of nationalism with the fine,ironic title Saviours of the Nation,or works by Ivo Banac who succeedsmiracoulosly in being both a Croatian nationalist with political ambitions aswell as a prominent historian.

After reading Ramet's book and, yes, I did read it carefully I was leftwith the odd yet indelible impression that for her the realm of the

unexplored is either non-existent or irrelevant and elusive truth is obvious so there is no need to search for it; it is enough simply to struggleagainst those who refuse to acknowledge her concept of it. Those whodoubt this truth ally themselves with evil, and to dispute Ramet's dogmaticconclusions is to stand in the way of justice. What Ramet clearly wants inYugoslav studies are polemical, agressive books advocating miltaryintervention against the Serbs (in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, as well asin Serbia) and swift and merciless punishment of defeated Serbianleaders.No wonder then that if one disagrees with her, one is not entitled to theleast respect. Susan Woodward's Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and DissolutionAfter the Cold War, with its 536 pages and plentiful endnotes, could easilybe the most thoroughly researched book on the Yugoslav conflicts until1995. It pays particular attention to the broader international context of thetragedy and includes a courageous exposition of the complicity ofinternational factors, from the pro-separatist Germany , Austria and

Vatican , to the unprincipled European Union and State Department. Italso gives an in-depth analysis of the economic causes, such as IMF'spolicies of demand-repression that led to conditions that could not easilyfoster a political culture of tolerance and compromise. (Woodward, p.383)Ramet scarcely utters a word of criticism of the globally dominant Westerncountries and institutions Germany supported Slovenia and Croatiabecause of the suffering of innocents (p. 91) and NATO's bombing ofSerbia in 1999 was generally surgical (p. 172) yet she accusesWoodward of subscribing to the view that justice is what the rulers say itis. (p. 2) And how did Woodward earn such disapprobation? She invokedthe well-known precept of international law that minorities do not have theright to independent statehood while Ramet, in contrast, supports an


THE ACADEMIC WEST AND THE BALKAN TEST

Sabrina P. Ramet, Thinking About Yugoslavia: Scholarly DebatesAbout the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo,Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2005; 328 pp.; ISBN-10 0-521-61690-5, price ? (pbk)

John R. Lampe, Balkans into Southeastern Europe: A Century ofWar and Transition, Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2006; 338 pp.;ISBN-10: 0-333-79347-1, price ? (pbk)


8/28

independent Kosovo. Woodward's account of the Yugoslav tragedy isalso obscurantist, and since she supposedly does not point out individualpeople as causative agents but presents only blind historical forces,Woodward is like those who believe that the world stands on the back ofan elephant which stands on the back of a giant turtle which stands on theback of another turtle and so on all the way down ad infinitum. (p. 89)Ramet mentions numerous individuals she holds responsible for the

Yugoslav civil war and almost all are Serbian politicians, officers andintellectuals. But she also considers historical forces to be important,though I presume they are not blind since they are to be found withinculture, religion and political tradition. For example, Ramet quotesextensively Branimir Anzulovic's Heavenly Serbia: From Myth toGenocide and we hear of a Serbian tradition of violence fostered byecclesiastical elites and cultural artifacts, (p. 4) Serbs' proclivity towardsgenocide (p. 61) and the destructive ethos in Serbian culture. (p. 61)But it is not only tendentious interpretations and open political sympathiesand antipathies that make Thinking About Yugoslavia: Scholarly DebatesAbout the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia and Kosovosuch anunacceptable book. There is a myriad of factual errors and were known tobe such, or at least were highly suspect at the time of Ramet's writing.Moreover, there are crucial and well-know facts which Ramet simply doesnot mention, for whatever reason.It is a significant error to state, for example, that Macedonia was

partitioned after the two Balkan Wars (p. 281), since it simply did not existas a political unit inside the Ottoman empire. Likewise, Noel Malcolm iswrong to state that within a year and a half after the end of the SecondWorld War, Tito's Partisans murdered a quarter of a million people (p.250). Nor did over 200 000 people die in Bosnia in the civil war of 1992-1995, as Ramet repeats on several occasions according to theinternationally-funded Research and Documentation Centre in Sarajevo itis actually under 100 000: Bosniaks (Muslims) 66 per cent, Serbs 26 percent, Croats 8 per cent. (p. 22) There was no Serbian hegemonism inthe early 1980's (p. 71), nor was Slovenia's move towards independenceprimarily a reaction to Miloevi's Serbia. (p. 116) Serbian intellectualsdid not draw up a nationalist memorandum in 1986 but some membersof the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences made a draft proposal for amemorandum. Admittedly, it was self-pitying and aggressive. (p. 71)Further, Greece did not stand fast at Miloevi's side it accepted thebombing of Serbia by NATO. (p. 95) Finally, how odd to believe that

Yugoslavia under Tito tried for a long time to develop nuclear weapons(p. 131) and that Miloevi compared himself to Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini.(p. 160)Ramet's sins of omission are also numerous. Why did she leave out thatall Bosnian Muslims, and not only Serbs, opposed the internationalrecognition of Slovenia and Croatia, fearing it would destabilize Bosnia?

And would it not be important to mention that many Albanians in Kosovooften pointed out to the self-proclaimed Serbian autonomous unit inCroatia as something closely resembling what they wanted to achieve?In the spring of 2006, the Bosnian Helsinki Committee for Human Rightsin Sarajevo, which is run mostly by Muslims, came out with the figure ofbetween 500 and 600 Serbian civilians murdered by Muslim forces inSarajevo during the war. At the same time, Slobodna Bosna [FreeBosnia], a moderate Muslim weekly also in Sarajevo, maintained thatthere had been as many as 850 Serbian victims. Not only does Ramet notmention any figures for Serbian victims, but there is nothing in her bookthat even suggests such killings. There are now not many Serbs, Croatsor Jews left in Sarajevo, but for Ramet the city's aura of multi-ethnictolerance is untouched and undiminished. The Sarajevo dailyOslobodjenje [Liberation ] received more international awards than anynewspaper in history for its alleged truthfulness and opposition tonationalism; but today even the editors do not deny that at the beginningof the war they made a decision to support Bosnia's president and Muslimleader Izetbegovi and went to his office to offer their services. But again,Ramet is silent.Professor Sabrina P. Ramet sees herself not only as a political scientistand historian but also as a philosopher with an unassailable moralposition. She invokes Universal Reason and Natural Law, quotes from

Plato, supports neo-Kantianism and follows Jrgen Habermas. Now m yphilosophical knowledge is rusty but is it not somewhat difficult to reconcileKant with Marxism? Or is Habermas perhaps admired because hebelongs to idealist-interventionists? (p. 221) Ramet believes that evenJean Bodin is on her side when she attacks Serbia as an ilegitimate statesince the sixteenth century French jurist held that there is no such thingas sovereignty except where the authority acts in accord with Natural Law

and Divine Law. (p. 222)

Ramet's random not to mention bizzare eclecticism in mattersphilosophical is so great that it makes her position not only vague butridden with contradictions. Nor does she clearly demonstrate how herhistorical and political analyses are aided by philosophical exegesis .Weirdly they hover above historical and political reality, their onlyrecognizable purpose being to confer an aura of authority upon Ramet'sstrident and unfair judgements. At the same time, her style of writing could

be defined as post-modern rococo. No, not because it is gentle and prettybut because of its boundless artificiality, unseemly levity and its absenceof earnestness.

At one point, Ramet suddenly and most unexpectedly dons the robes ofMiss Manners and chastises Sumantra Bose, professor of Internationaland Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and PoliticalScience, for being in his book Bosnia after Dayton: Nationalist Partitionand International Intervention, published in 2002, unacquainted withcustomary rules of etiquette in academic debate and for writing parts of itin a state of uncontrollable anger. (p. 191) She then quotes theexpressions he uses when criticizing the work of other scholars:ludicrous, academic ivory tower, dogmatism, breezy, tendentious,superficial.Sumantra Bose has written several books on sovereignty and self-determination. He is a comparativist who roams freely from India to Irelandand from Pakistan to Bosnia, and he argues that while a unified Bosnia

might be preferable, the integrationists' insistence on it being reassembledas soon as possible is dogmatic. It simply does not take into account thatthe overwhelming majority of Bosnia's Serbs and Croats reject suchinstant unity. Such moral righteousness actually harms the prospects ofreconciliation among Bosnia's three constituent groups.Needless to say, Sabrina Ramet is for the directive approach to state-building in Bosnia, that is, for the Western powers simply to abolish thefederal structure agreed at Dayton. I wonder if it is because of her radicalintegrationism that she sanctimoniously reproaches Bose for his proclivitytowards name-calling (p. 192) Noel Malcolm shares her commitment tocomplete revision of Dayton, as well as most of her other politicalsentiments, disguised and undisguised, and is probably the most quotedauthor in her book. So naturally, he receives praise for offense s similar to


Aleksa Djilas


9/28

Bose's though his are far worse. Malcom, along with Quintin Hoare editedBooks on Bosnia and Ramet finds it an invaluable collection of shortreviews (p. 25) which are often witty and with generally reliable (p. 26)

judgments. She admires and shares the contempt of polyglot reviewersand quotes them with glee: half-baked populism, dumbing down, factsare few and far between, dismally unintelligent, rag-bag of a book,picture-book, apparently produced for schoolchildren or dim students.

Sabrina Ramet not only admires Books on Bosnia but is obviouslyinspired by it, and her writing, though less eloquent, seems to be modeledon this and other products of Malcolm's vitriolic pen. To paraphraseRamet's story about the elephant and turtles, Thinking About Yugoslaviastands on Malcolm's back . And i t is infinite Malcolms all the way down.But what i f someone wanted to read a recent book on Yugoslavia and theYugoslav tragedy that is the exact opposite to Sabrina Ramet's? Is therean antipode (and also an antidote) to Thinking About Yugoslavia ?Unfortunate ly, there is not. However, until such a book appears, onecould recommend John R. Lampe's Yugoslavia as History: Twice therewas a Country, published i n 1996, whose revised and updated editionappeared in 2000. Mercifully, i t is free of extremism and excess,

respectful of alternative views,and above all, to use again thequote from Michael Mann,does not reproduce the

categories of nationalistthought. W ell-researchedand accessible, it has becomea standard textbook foruniversity history courses.Curiously, Ramet does notmention it.John R. Lampe is a professorof history at the University ofMaryland, College Park, and aformer foreign service officerwho was stationed inBelgrade in the mid-1960s.Balkan Economic History,1550-1950: From ImperialBorderlands to Developing

Nations, a book of over 700pages he co-authored withMarvin R. Jackson, waspublished i n 1982 andimmediately established him

as a leading authority on the region's economics, past and present, aswell as a competent general historian. (From today's perspective, a more foretelling subtitle would have been: From Imperial Borderlands toDeveloping Nations to Underdeveloped Imperial Periphery.)Now Lampe has given us a new examination of this part of the world.Published last year, his Balkans into Southeastern Europe: A Century ofWar and Transition is a welcome book. Not only students but generalreaders need an updated one volume history of the Balkans in the lastcentury, for reference and also to p rovide us with a unified picture of theregion . Stevan K. Pavlowitch's A History of the Balkans, 1804-1945,published in 1999, sets high a standard of impartiality in presenting the

various nationalist conflicts and probing their causes, and i s in general anauthoritative work. But the portion of the book dealing with the twentiethcentury represents onl y about half the total volume and only goes up tothe end of the Second World War.Balkans into Southeastern Europe begins by providing us with a muchneeded foundation in examining the geography of the region. We learnabout its rivers and mountain ranges, climate and access to the sea,arable land and ore deposits. All this is skillfully connected to economicsand finance, imperial conquest and domination, plus the formation ofnation states. Lampe underlines the individuality of the Balkans but alsopoints out that it is not fundamentally different from the rest of Europewhose culture and institutions it craves while occasionally vehementl yprotesting against them. T he role of the great powers and their rivalry is

also critically presented, from financial loans and weapons sales todiplomatic intrigues. Lampe further explains that during the twentiethcentury progress in the Balkans was limited but real, and that the influenceof Europe, while mostly beneficial, was sometimes harmful, not least inexacerbating nationalist conflicts. Nor were Balkan national ideologies intheir essential characteristics un-European.Emil Cioran, P arisian philosopher of Romanian descent, announced with

typical Balkan modesty that through his metaphysics he wanted to askGod questions which God would not be able to answer. Cioran died in1995 and may now know how successful he was in his endeavor.Students of the wars of Yugoslav disintegration, whether from the Balkansor not, are much less ambitious. But we do know that these wars posed tothe Europeans questions to which they had no answer. And still do not.How do you prevent or halt ethnic wars and ethnic cleansings? Who, andunder what conditions, has a right to separate and create a state? Howshould we decide where to draw borders and how to protect minorities?These and many other only slightly less important questions, aboutreligion and culture, language and identity remain unresolved after ourrecent bloodletting. Europeans are further embarrassed by their ignorancebecause many regions of the world encounter similar problems and lookto them for advice and guidance.Balkans into Southeastern Europe: A Century of War and Transition is astep forward in the search for answers, regional and global. It provides us

with a rich and sophisticated narrative as well as important insights andmature judgments. Although quite realistic, it successfully avoids frequentdepictions of violence and cruelty, so typical of Western writing about theBalkans, which is in general permeated with its own breed of Orientalismin the sense of Edward Said's eponymous book. We should also begrateful to Lampe for his enlightened attitude and optimistic tone.Lampe is a dedicated comparativist and he juxtaposes and contrastsBalkan countries whether discussing u rban planning or literacy levels, freedom of the press or the growth of fascist movements, the struggle forwomen's right to vote or military strategy and tactics. It will probably shockmany Serbs to learn that there was a period before the Second World warwhen Bulgaria was freer than the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and all Balkannations should draw inspiration from the ascent of Greece which wasoften the poorest and is now the richest country of the region.It is most likely of no general relevance but still stirs my imagination thatBalkan undemocratic rgime s had a propensity to put political prisonerson islands. Lampe mentions Bulgaria's Danube island Belene, (p. 186) (p.199) Yugoslavia's Goli otok (Barren Island), (p. 201), and Greece's islandcamps. (p. 194) One could expand this list. Were islands merely theeasiest practical solution to achieve high security or did the governmentsfeel so unsure of themselves that they had to take extraordinary measuresto isolate prisoners?

After the Second World War, Greece was the only Balkan country underthe direct influence of the West, in particular the United States. Academiccontacts were also considerable and Lampe's treatment of Greece istherefore especially knowledgeable. It is also comprehensive with nothingpainful or unpleasant omitted. We see that during the three postwardecades Greece became neither democratic nor prosperous nor was itable to point to other successes. Slav Macedonians were repressed, andboth the expansion of universities and the emancipation of women wereslower than in neighboring communist countries. Lampe elaborates on theinternal causes of the less than satisfactory development.But what about the external ones? Should they not receive at least part ofthe blame? Lampe's account of the British role in Greece towards the endof the Second World War and immediately afterwards disregards Britishtraditional naval and commercial interests in the Eastern Mediterranean,and C hurchill's instinctive imperialism and simplistic anti-communism. (p.173-5) So we are left wondering about the motives of General RonaldScobie when in late 1944 he used the larger part of the SecurityBattalions recruited by the Rallis occupation regime (p. 174) to disarm thecommunist-led ELAS which had been by far the largest resistance force toGermans with whom Ioannis Rallis' government collaborated. Nor is ourcuriosity satisfied about the real causes for the British support of theregency under the Archbishop of Athens, whom Churchill himself had



10/28

previously called, as Lampe fails to mention, a pestilent priest and asurvivor of the Middle Ages.Lampe also tries to soften all criticism of America, and not only inconnection with Greece. Sometimes his method is to point out that aparticular critical argument is wrong and then abruptly drop the issuealtogether. Thus we learn that the United States did not share the Britishinterest in postwar Greece (p. 175) True, but one wants to know how

much attention Americans did pay? Lampe is perhaps right when hereproaches Greek scholars for having insisted for so long that theAmerican intervention in the Greek civil war was decisive. (p. 194) Yetwhat was its exact significance? In the parliamentary elections of 1950,the American Embassy was supposedly all-powerful. (p. 204) However,stating that it was not omnipotent does not explain its political influenceand control. American officials did not initially approve the coup d'tatby the colonels in 1967; their reluctant acceptance came later, after acountercoup by the King and several senior Generals, that would havebeen an acceptable alternative, failed in December 1967. (p. 225) But aroyal-military countercoup is also a coup d'tat, and what is the evidencethat it would have benefited the Greek people? And should any coupd'tat be acceptable to the world's leading democracy? Finally, does notthe United States' entire post-war policy towards Greece resemble

America's disastrous contemporaneous policies in Latin America?Lampe gives a rather uncritical account of the role of the United States in

the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the subsequent wars. This is in starkcontrast to his balanced presentation of the conflict and war betweenCroats and Serbs. For example, he correctly portrays both Croatia'sTudjman and Serbia's Miloevi as essentially similar authoritariannationalists. However, Lampe seems unable to inform us that retired

American generals with a nod from the State Department trained theCroatian army that expelled Serbs from Croatia. To mention anothercharacteristic omission, we learn that Croatia's minister of defence Gojkouak was a returned emigr from Canada but proud of his Herzegovinafamily and its world-war allegiance to the Ustaa (p. 271) but not of themedical treatment he received at the Walter Reed Army hospital inWashington or of the funeral oration given by former U.S secretary ofdefense William J. Perry. Similarly tendentious is Lampe's account of theNATO war with Serbia in 1999. (p. 266) Nothing there even suggests thatthe United States gave aid to the Kosovo Liberation Army (whose tacticsLampe rightly describes as terrorist, p. 265), nor is it mentioned that after

the Serbian forces left Kosovo, the KLA expelled the large majority of allminorities under the noses of the American-led NATO troops.Lampe is particularly severe with Aleksandar (misspelled Alexandar onpage 203) Rankovi, a leading Serbian communist, the Yugoslav party'spre-war and wartime organisational secretary, and the head of thecommunist secret police, which Tito founded in 1944. Lampe calls thesecret police Rankovi's (p. 201) and considers it to have been Serb-dominated (p. 203). Yet loyal and disciplined Rankovi never made amajor decision without consulting Tito first, while Tito, true to his autocraticinstincts, would not put all his eggs in one basket and kept Croatian andSlovene security agencies outside the command and control ofRankovi's Belgrade headquarters.Lampe tells us that Rankovi fell from power in 1966 because his agentsplanted concealed microphones in Tito 's private residence and in thehomes of several other party leaders. However, no such bugging evertook place. It was simply a stratagem contrived to topple Rankovi, which

was sanctioned by Tito. Behind it was Tito's fear of a potential rival, alongwith a succession struggle among the top tier of politicians, efforts of thebureaucracies of the republics to gain more power at the expense offederal institutions in Belgrade which Rankovi protected, and an allianceof economic reformists and party liberals against entrenchedconservatives represented by Rankovi.While correcting these misconceptions about Rankovi in the eyes ofsome, I may even appear to be defending him I feel both discomfortand amusement, for at the time of the security chief's dismissal my fatherMilovan Djilas had been in jail for nine years. Lampe believes that Djilaswas imprisoned in 1956 for publishing The New Class, a critical analyisisof the communist system and ideology, but he actually went to jail forcriticizing Tito's support of the Soviet invasion of Hungary. The publication

ofThe New Class and the trial for it took place in 1957.After Rankovi's fall, Tito hinted that he might have planned a coup d'tat,and the official media increased its slanderous attacks on him. B ut no

juridical proceedings took place. Western journalists and academicsbegan publicly asking questions about Tito's peculiar logic of givingRankovi-the-conspirator and his collaborators clemency and pension,while keeping Djilas-the-critic in jail. On the very last day of 1966, Djilas

was released but prohibited from publishing or making any publicstatements for five years. He would not observe this ban.With the purge of 1966 Yugoslavia entered a period of generalliberalization with the exception of the cult of Tito that continued to grow.Lampe wrongly states that Tito became the president f or life in 1953. (p.203) Such formal conferring of absolute power would have presuppose da personality cult which at that time neither existed nor was possible indeed, it was inconceivable. In 1974, however, Yugoslavia's fourthconstitution promulgated the country as an eight-unit confederation in allbut name, and its article 333 conferred upon the Assembly of the SocialistFederal Republic of Yugoslavia the right to elect Josip Broz Tito presidentof the republic for an unlimited term of office. This is what the Assemblysoon proceeded to do. The party congress immediately followed andelected Tito president for life of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.The official West and especially the United States did not object to the cultof Tito. Perhaps it even welcomed it. American presidents, for example

Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, were not embarassed topublicly flatter Tito, who was supposedly a wise statesman and a symbolof freedom. Nor was Britain's Margaret Thatcher parsimonious whengiving him compliments. Western governments never gave openencouragement to Yugoslavia's reform-oriented communists, or its criticalintellectuals and dissidents, and they rarely protested when Titodismissed, persecuted or imprisoned them. Tito's Yugoslavia wasindependent from the Soviet Union and this was in the interest of theWest. All else was of little importance. Am I wrong to consider suchpolicies of Western countries to have been nationalistic?John R. Lampe's Balkans into Southeastern Europe: A Century of Warand Transition is a good book which could have been better while SabrinaRamet's book is Well, I have said enough about it already. But in spiteof the enormous difference between them in approach and quality, theyare both written from a distinctly Western, and in particular American, pointof view. Lampe and Ramet sometimes even resemble a g ood cop-badcop routine she attacking mercilessly, he all softness and diplomacy.Like most Americans, however, they are completely unaware of theirnationalism. We in the Balkans may be more nationalistic than Americansbut we also have fewer illusions about ourselves.On the 6 th of September 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchillgave a speech at Harvard University, stating famously that the empires ofthe future are the empires of the mind. One can ask, of course, why, afterthe Second World War, Churchill did not practice what he preached. I alsothink that at the time of his speech it was already too late for any kind ofempire and I am certain that no imperialism has a future in the twenty firstcentury. But I do believe that today a country or a group of countries canlead globally only if they firmly embrace high intellectual, moral, andperhaps even spiritual values. Further, I am convinced that the West andespecially the United States has a right and a duty to struggle for theglobal triumph of liberal democracy and that this includes playing an activerole in the resolution of nationalist conflicts. Finally, scholars andacademics who study nationalism should be at the forefront of all suchundertakings. But they cannot intellectually combat nationalist conflicts allover the world, including of course those in the Balkans, if they do not firstsuppress their own nationalism.Western scholars and academics and we in the Balkans too shouldremember a noble dictum attributed to Aristotle, another Balkanphilosopher: Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas. Instead of Plato,we all should put patria. Is it too much to expect that one day the truth willbecome to scholars and academics, West and East, South and North, acloser friend than their country? Let me think about it.Aleksa Djilas, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, Vol. 9 , No.

3, December 2007.



11/28

Kosovo's recent unilateral separation from Serbia set off afirestorm of reaction from Belgrade and its allies, notably Moscow.Serbia withdrew its ambassadors from countries that jumped torecognize Kosovo's independence, while angry protesters sackedand burned the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade.Meantime, there has been debate about what this means for other

regional tension zones, where ethnic groups may use Kosovo as atextbook for their own independence impulses. Here is a look atsome of the lessons of Pristina's 17 February independencedeclaration:The United Nations is ignored

Western recognition of Kosovo's secession is not only about the

UN Charter being broken, about the UN Security Councilresolution on the province's status being creatively interpreted, orabout the Helsinki Final Act being violated. It is also about theWest deciding to take justice into its own hands by coordinatingthe declaration of independence. This coordination was nothingmore than a series of arrogant, unilateral acts decided by theUnited States, NATO, the European Union and instructed to all-too-happy Pristina. These acts were sarcastically taken outside ofthe Security Council and imposed against the will of Serbia, asovereign, democratic member of the United Nations. but it still matters.

Start counting. The United States has recognized Kosovo, Russiawill not. EU members Britain and Germany have recognized, Spainand Romania will not. Tiny Luxembourg did, tiny Cyprus will not.Neighboring Macedonia might, neighboring Bosnia cannot.

Afghanistan did, Indonesia did not. Senegal said oui, SouthAfrica said no. Peru and Costa Rica said si, Brazil andArgentina said no. Australia OKed, New Zealand refused.The stakes are high: the side that goes over the psychologicalbarrier and wins recognition from the majority of the 192 UNmember states will be well placed to fight ultimately forinternational legitimacy. Serbia and Russia have pledged not toallow Kosovo to become a UN member, and for good reason.Without UN membership, Kosovo's international legitimacy willremain in limbo. It is not only about abstract symbols, it is alsoabout practicalities: no UN means no membership in mostinternational institutions.The UN still matters.

There is a double standard for Serbia.In its conclusions from 18 February, the EU's Council of Ministersmade official a double standard for Serbia, by recognizing the rightto territorial integrity of all nations of the world except Serbia. Ithas explained this exception by the uniqueness of the Kosovocase: a conflict in the 1990s followed by a prolonged internationaladministration.However, the Ploughshares Fund, a foundation that finances

peacemaking efforts, found that at the time of the Kosovo conflictin 1998-99, 40 armed conflicts were being waged in the world.None, except Kosovo, led to unilateral secession. There have alsobeen many international administrations in the world, including inEastern Slavonia after the war in Croatia, where the UN missionleft after several years having aided the peaceful reintegration ofthat area into Croatia, and not to a secession of the CroatianSerbs.Kosovo is a dangerous precedent.

The droning about Kosovo's uniqueness was silenced momentsafter Kosovo's unilateral declaration of secession. Immediately

after the unilateral act, the Basque separatists in Spain welcomedthe path, followed by Corsican, Kashmiri, Chechen,Transdniestrian, Taiwanese, Flemish, Scottish, Tamil, Kurdish anddozens of other independence movements. Within three weeks,

Abkhazia and South Ossetia called for their own internationalrecognition, while the Azeri government said the Kosovo precedentprompted its readiness to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict byforce. As one official said last year, the EU and the US can writein a million documents that Kosovo is a unique case, the facts onthe ground worldwide will prove that mantra to be a farce.Serbia faces Ukrainization.The EU is applying a sticks and carrots policy towards Serbia.First, it beats Serbia with a stick, and then with a carrot. This newSerbian aphorism, and particularly the collapse of the Serbiangovernment on 8 March over disagreements on whether tocondition any future moves in the European integration processwith Brussels' recognition of Serbia's territorial integrity, show thedeep impact of EU's decision.Two opposing political blocks have formed in Serbia: those whobelieve the fight for Kosovo precedes European integration andthose who believe these two processes are equally important andachievable. The first bloc believes the diplomatic battle for Kosovowould be better fought through pragmatic relations with bothBrussels and Moscow, while the second believes that in the fightfor Kosovo and despite Brussels' position, there is no alternative toquick EU membership. No matter who wins in Serbia's snapparliamentary elections scheduled for 11 May, the deep division and thesmall overall difference between the two camps presents the risk of aUkrainization of Serbia. Like Ukraine, Serbia could face a long-termdomestic political divide and frequent change of power between twostrategically-opposed blocks one closer to Moscow, the other closer toBrussels and Washington.Russia is back in the Balkans.Just as Pristina coordinated its secession with Brussels and Washington,Belgrade is now coordinating its response and diplomatic initiative withMoscow. Brussels has not only lost its appeal and diplomatic leverage inBelgrade, it has also pushed Serbia closer to Russia. In a recent poll,some 60 percent of Serbs said they were in favor of the closest possibleties with Moscow. During the presidential race earlier this year, neither ofthe candidates the victor, Boris Tadic, and Tomislav Nikolic went toBrussels during the campaign, but both heavily publicized their visits toMoscow.EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn can warn Serbia as much ashe wants about the danger of being suffocated by the friendly Big Bear


KOSOVO: LESSONS LEARKOSOVO: LESSONS LEARKOSOVO: LESSONS LEARNEDNEDNED

Aleksandar Mitic is he Brussels-based directorof the Kosovo compromise project.


12/28

as he did in June 2007 at the time of Moscow's rejection of the MarttiAhtisaari plan for internationally supervised independence for Kos

The Herald of Kosovo and Metohija

Documents

Transcript of The Herald of Kosovo and Metohija