Separatists and states see hope and fear in Kosovo
Tue 19 Feb 2008, 12:40 GMT

By Peter Apps

LONDON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Newly independent Kosovo might be a unique case, experts say, but it has nonetheless given fresh hope to separatist movements around the world and created a worrying precedent for nations with restive regions.
Effectively under international administration since NATO bombing forced the withdrawal of Serb forces in 1999, Kosovo follows the former Indonesian region of East Timor into independence -- and others are hoping to achieve similar status.
That worries countries from Spain to Sri Lanka, who are fighting their own insurgencies and independence movements and whose concern has led them to refuse to recognise Kosovo.
Almost all of those who have accepted Kosovo as the world's newest state have been keen to stress its uniqueness, citing its history, a near decade under international administration and its status as the final part to break away from former Yugoslavia.
The United States and others recognising Kosovo say Serbia lost the moral authority to the region because of atrocities, massacres and ethnic cleansing, and after negotiations repeatedly failed to find another solution.
"The mere fact that everyone is going to such great lengths to say it is a unique case and doesn't set a precedent means that ultimately it does set a precedent," said international relations lecturer Spyros Economides at the London School of Economics.
"It establishes a precedent that you can overturn national sovereignty for apparent moral or humanitarian reasons -- but we only apply it selectively."
For example, Western powers were happy to recognise Kosovo, but not Chechnya or Kurdistan, he added, for fear of overly upsetting Russia or Turkey.
Essentially, NATO had intervened militarily to back a separatist rebel group and Western states had nine years later formalised that independence, he said -- a significant shift from previous ideas of state sovereignty.
That is a step beyond what happened with the birth of other new nations born in recent years such as Eritrea, which broke away from Ethiopia, or East Timor. Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor was never recognised by the United Nations.
"There is a conflict between two key legal standards," said Sabine Freizer, head of European programmes at the International Crisis Group. "There is the principle of territorial integrity which conflicts with the right to self-determination."

NEVER WITHDRAW

Kosovo's independence announcement rippled through the world's separatist movements and breakaway states, which range from disputed slivers of former Soviet republics to remote rebel enclaves in Asia or Africa.
A pro-Tamil Tiger rebel Web site said the recognition "debunked" arguments that a separate ethnic Tamil state in northern and eastern Sri Lanka was unviable.
Georgia said it feared Kosovo's independence may embolden breakaway movements in the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions.
Moldova, with its own Russian-speaking breakaway region of Transdniestra, also warned it could be a "factor of destabilisation in Europe".
Ultimately, Economides said there was a risk countries -- possibly including Russia, a long-term Serbian ally angry at Western recognition of Kosovo -- might recognise other breakaway states in their neighbours in an attempt to destabilise them.
Experts say that, at the very least, Kosovo's fate acts as a drastic disincentive for countries to allow large multinational peacekeeping forces into areas such as Sudan's Darfur region that might in future want independence or greater autonomy.
Sri Lanka's ambassador to Geneva and the United Nations Dayan Jayatilleka said Serb forces should have held their ground in 1999 and fought NATO troops back. [Right!!!- TP]
"The...independence of Kosovo is the result of the failure of political will on the part of the ex-Yugoslav leadership," he wrote in a Sri Lankan newspaper, drawing lessons for his own country, where government forces are launching an assault into rebel territory where Tamil Tigers run a de facto state.
"Never withdraw the armed forces from any part of territory in which they are challenged, and never permit a
foreign presence on (your) soil."

(Editing by Kate Kelland and Jon Boyle)
© Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved. Learn more about Reuters

http://www.esquire.com/features/food-drink/sandwiches

McRib takes its rightful place among nation’s best.

"Free Kosovo a Door for Islamic Radicals," from Javno :

Independent Kosovo will endanger the stability in the Balkans once again, estimated the American ambassador at the UN, John Bolton.

I think that there is a significant risk that the instability in the Balkans will continue in Bosnia and other areas where ethnic groups do not live in a country they refuse, said Bolton in an interview for Glas Amerike reported in Serbian language.

Kosovo will be a weak country submissive to Islamic radical forces which will spread its influence in the area with the support of singular Albanians and so potentially open the door to radicals in Europe, Bolton estimated.

Mini-muscleman: Meet the world's smallest bodybuilder

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=513820&in_page_id=1811

Fedor/Hong Man Choi 12/07

Sorry, Pal

The recent border crisis between Egypt and Gaza has led to a drastic change in the attitude the pro-government Egyptian press takes toward the Palestinians. Noha El-Hennawy, blogging for the Los Angeles Times Web site, describes the shift:

The new content replaces headlines that showed sympathy with the Palestinians, stressing President Hosni Mubarak's statements that Egypt would not let the Palestinians starve. However, 10 days later, a change of heart has become crystal-clear. Rosa-al-Yousef, a state-owned paper known as the most vocal mouthpiece of the regime, has spearheaded the anti-Palestinian campaign. "Egypt is generous and patient but its patience has limits," warned a front-page headline that appeared after skirmishes the Egyptian-Palestinian borders earlier this week.
The paper even questioned whether Gaza had a humanitarian crisis, hinting that Gazans were well-off. "It is not true that the siege imposed on Gaza caused a serious humanitarian crisis that eventually led to the Palestinian flood [into Egypt]," wrote Abdullah Kamal, Rosa-al-Yousef's editor-in-chief and a staunch proponent of Mubarak's regime. "Each [Gazan] comer spent an average of US$260 in three days. . . . The total spending during that period [where the Gazans broke through Egypt] reached US$220 million. These figures raise real questions about the financial situation in the Gaza Strip."

Arabs love Palestinians in the abstract--as a symbol of the putative evil of the hated Jews. But they're not so crazy about Palestinians as actual human beings.

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