This week marks the 10th anniversary of NATO’s entry into the war-torn Balkan province of Kosovo. For 78 days the allied NATO air force — including Canadian aircraft — had pounded infrastructure targets throughout Kosovo and Serbia in a failed attempt to force the Serbs to capitulate and accept the terms U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had proposed at the 1999 Rambouillet peace talks. What the nearly $13 billion worth of explosive ordnance dropped in that campaign failed to achieve was any substantial downgrading of the Serbian military forces; more importantly, it did not diminish the will of the Serbian people. After days of protracted negotiations, UN Resolution 1244 was ratified by both parties on June 10, 1999. Two days later the ceasefire went into effect. Despite NATO’s proclamations of a decisive victory, the terms of 1244 conceded to all the demands which had been put forward by the Serbs at Rambouillet. During the interim, Serbia would still control the checkpoints of Kosovo and a small number of Serb security forces would remain to protect the centuries-old orthodox churches and monasteries. The most important element of 1244 was the formal recognition that Kosovo was the sovereign territory of Serbia. When drafted and signed, Resolution 1244 rendered all the death and destruction inflicted during the 78-day bombardment absolutely unnecessary. The Serbian will to resist had forced the mightiest military alliance in history to concede to their demands. But NATO had no intention of abiding by the terms of Resolution 1244. The signing was just a ruse to get Serbian air defences out of Kosovo and NATO ground troops in without a fight. NATO planners had no intention of letting any Serbian troops remain in Kosovo, no intention to ever let them return and no intention of disarming the Kosovo Liberation Army. Incumbent in the ceasefire agreement, NATO was to provide a secure environment for both ethnic Serbs and ethnic Kosovar Albanians in the province when they assumed responsibility for security. Instead, as expected, NATO troops did little to curtail the wave of violence inflicted on Serbs by the emboldened Kosovar Albanians. Unable to protect themselves, some 200,000 Serbs fled Kosovo. Not surprisingly, over the past decade the continued presence of NATO troops in Kosovo has not prevented inter-ethnic violence. Rather than clarifying its future, the February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence by the Albanian Kosovars only complicated things further. For now, Kosovo remains in a diplomatic limbo, unable to join the United Nations, economically dependant on foreign aid and occupied by foreign troops for the foreseeable future. The irony is that the U.S. State Department considers the Kosovo intervention a "success" when compared to their subsequent fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the country’s National Assembly should debate a ban on the burqa, the Muslim garment that conceals a woman’s face and body, saying it was “not welcome” in France. “The burqa is not a religious sign, it’s a sign of servitude,” Sarkozy said today in a speech to both houses of parliament at the Versailles Palace on the outskirts of Paris. Calling it a violation of women’s “dignity and freedom,” Sarkozy said the burqa “will not be welcome on French soil.” A group of French lawmakers have called for a total burqa ban. The clothing rule would come five years after France outlawed head scarves and other “ostentatious” religious symbols, including large Christian crosses and Jewish skullcaps, in state offices and schools. The 2004 law prompted protests in France and criticism from some Muslim groups, including the second-in-command of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Struggle against terrorism in Chechnya and Ingushetia will be intensified and continue until participants in illegal armed bands are completely exterminated, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has told journalists in Moscow. According to him, “criminals want to intimidate authorities, to demoralize them, to back people into the corner, to commit terrorist attacks against officials, heads of administrations, policemen, they don’t show any signs of dignity, honesty, morals... Chechen police search woods and mountains round the clock, tracing bandits and demolishing them. Militants are searched for everywhere. Wherever they hide, their end is near,” Kadyrov said. “State leaders support us, peoples of our republics are with us, we act in compliance with our religion that teaches us to exterminate them,” the President said.
The threat of a Chechnya-style insurgency in Russia's volatile North Caucasus is looming after a leading ally of President Dmitry Medvedev was badly wounded in a suicide bombing. Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the president of Ingushetia, was fighting for his life following an attack on his convoy that killed at least two of his bodyguards. Mr Medvedev denounced the assassination attempt as an "act of terrorism" by anti-Kremlin insurgents in Ingushetia, a tiny quasi-autonomous republic on Chechnya's western border. Although there was no official claim of responsibility, analysts said the attack appeared to represent a major escalation in an increasingly intense campaign by Ingushetia's Islamist rebels. The upsurge in violence, which threatens to undermine prime minister Vladimir Putin's boasts of having pacified the North Caucasus, is likely to trigger a swift military response from the Kremlin. Mr Yevkurov, who is seen as a moderating influence in the most unstable of the North Caucasian republics, was flown to Moscow last night after undergoing emergency surgery. His spokesman described the president's condition as "critical but stable". While summer traditionally sees an upsurge in rebel attacks, the escalation this year has demonstrated the growing boldness and cohesion of Ingushetia's main rebel group, the Ingush Jamaat. A decade ago, Mr Putin launched a brutal campaign against rebels in Chechnya that killed up to 100,000 people. Although he largely succeed in pacifying the republic, the weakened rebel movement expanded its campaign into neighbouring republics. Ingushetia has gradually inherited Chechnya's mantle as Russia's most dangerous province.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that European hostility towards Turkey's European Union bid has caused a "serious erosion" in the country's enthusiasm in the accession process. "Turkey's [reform] efforts have not diminished at all...But certain attitudes on the E.U. side have laid the ground for a serious erosion in public enthusiasm and public consensus" on joining the E.U., Erdogan told a gathering of ambassadors of E.U. countries in Ankara. "No country will gain anything from making Turkey's membership issue a matter of domestic politics...It must be seen that this will harm Turkish-E.U. relations in the mid- and long-term," he said. The leaders of E.U. heavyweights France and Germany have been particularly vocal in their opposition to Turkey's full membership, arguing that the country should be offered a lesser alternative such as "privileged partnership." Turkey began membership talks in 2005 but it has so far opened negotiations in only 10 of the 35 policy areas that candidates must complete. The process has been slowed down also by Turkey's refusal to recognize E.U. member Cyprus and by its sluggish pace of reform.
Greece retains only 36 of the 115 original panels from the Parthenon frieze, which depicts a procession in honor of the goddess Athena. Britain has long asserted that when (British Ambassador) Lord Elgin chiseled off the sculptures some 200 years ago, he was acting legally, since he had permission from Greece’s Ottoman rulers. Ottoman law has also been invoked in defense of a very different sort of theft: namely Israel’s nationalization of Palestinian land in the Occupied Territories. From a 2005 B’tselem report: The declaration of the territory as state land was grounded on a manipulative use of the Ottoman Land Law of 1858, which was absorbed in the British mandatory legislation, and later in Jordanian law. According to the 1858 law, the state may take possession of land that is not worked for three consecutive years. In accordance with the military legislation, through which the Ottoman Law was applied, the burden of proof was on the person contending that his parcel of land is not state land.
Don Maclean, who hosted Good Morning Sunday for 16 years, claimed that the corporation is biased against Christianity and had embarked on a movement to "secularise the country... They're keen on Islam, they're keen on programmes that attack the Christian church," he said. "I know there are things that need to be brought forward, but you don't see any programmes on Anglicanism that don't talk about homosexual clergy and you don't see anything on Roman Catholicism that don't talk about paedophiles. They seem to take the negative angle every time. They don't do that if they're doing programmes on Islam. Programmes on Islam are always supportive." He expressed concerns that the BBC had appointed Aaqil Ahmed as its new head of religious programmes. A document published on Monday said that the appointment of a Muslim in the role was a "worrying" development that could undermine corporation's coverage of Christianity. The document accompanies a proposed motion to the General Synod of the Church of England. Members will have an opportunity to sign up to the motion in July. A BBC spokesman said: "As the majority UK faith Christians remain central to the BBC's religious programming. Songs of Praise celebrates Christianity every Sunday, we're showing a major series on the history of Christianity later this year and Good Morning Sunday, Worship, the Daily Service and Choral Evensong are among our most popular regular religious programmes on our radio networks."