The Poisoned Fruits of Clinton's War

Srdja Trifkovic:

In practice, however, the results of this intervention have been far worse than the preceding conflict itself. Prior to the bombing of Serbia in 1999 we had a low-level, low-intensity conflict primarily between the members of so called KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) and the Serbian security forces. In the years prior to the bombing, rebel attacks and counter-insurgency operations have resulted in a total of 2,000 deaths on all sides, including members of the Serbian security forces and the KLA, as well as Serbian and Albanian civilians.

In the aftermath of the bombing, however, and with tens of thousands of NATO soldiers occupying Kosovo, we’ve had massive destruction of the priceless Serbian mediaeval heritage in the province, we’ve had wanton murders of hundreds of Serb and other non-Albanian civilians in the province, and wholescale ethnic cleansing of the Serbs resulting in their near-disappearance from their ancestral lands. As we know, Kosovo was the birthplace of the Serbian state and the cradle of its culture.

By all objective standards, the “international community” has failed in its self-appointed task. In the aftermath of the wave of attacks on the remaining Serbs and a new round of destruction of Serbian monuments on March 17 last year—and we cannot call it “interethnic violence” because it was entirely one-way violence by the Albanians against the Serbs—the attackers have been effectively rewarded. Instead of insisting on certain “standards” of the rule of law that need to be fulfilled before we can consider the long terms status of Kosovo, at the UN, the EU and in Washington we are now increasingly witnessing the reversal of these priorities. Some advocates of Kosovo’s independence are now saying that status has to come first, and somehow when the status is resolved the standards will come all by themselves.