Working behind the scenes in order to gain political favors, influence votes, gain popularity or discredit opponents is nothing new, but we always get surprised when we see it done so crudely - not that anybody ever condones it.
As a matter of routine, I read IHT, NYT, WSJ, Le Figaro, Frankfurter Algemeine, Izvestiya, Pravda, O Globo, El Pais, etc. I added Al Jazzera just recently. I found some very unnatural events within the Serbian press recently.
It is no coincidence that some slight Serbian advantage (ever since the Albanians manage to demonstrate their bloodthirsty attitude towards non-compliant Albanians, Serbs, Eastern Orthodox churches, white slavery (people trafficking), drug trafficking, etc. Just as the world was beginning to see what a monstrous state Kosovo was promising to be (there were strong signs that Spain, Romania and Slovakia) would vote against the Kosovo enforced independence. All of that was well and fine (unethical, bloodthirsty and true to the nature of Islamic expansionism), but it just wasn’t enough.
The slight Serbian advantage melted away over the last week very quickly. This meltdown was rather fast and somewhat uncharacteristic for the nature of Serbia as a nation. These two event were particularly at odds with Serbian values and simplest standards of democracy:
a) City of Novi Sad (3 days ago), a powerless, symbolic, weak, poorly organized group of Serbian skinheads (NeoNazis) organizes a gathering and on their march to the city hall they get attacked (rocks, stones, insults), by “peaceful, democratic, Serbians” – in all likelihood cleverly planted NGO members from any of the many agencies working to destabilize Serbia for the last 10+ years. In the end we get the picture where Serbian police is brutally beating a group of kids without hair. Not entirely dissimilar from the days when Milosevic’s thugs were beating on the Otpor protesters. Democracy 0, Well-organized pro-Kosovo forces: 1
b) Two days ago within the Southern Serbian region of Sandzak (just North of Kosovo), during the inner power struggle among two Islamic leaders of Serbian Muslims, the police enters one of the mosques and beats up the whole lot. Completely out of character with Serbian applied democracy, however very much in the interests of the voices against Serbia’s interest in the future talks about amputation of Kosovo: Democracy 0, Well-organized pro-Kosovo forces 2
Demonizing of Serbia had been going on for quite some time and now it becomes rooted in fact (through the in-vitro, artificial insemination). As Dr. T. observes “There would be additional ingredients, such as the possibility of Kosovo joining various international organizations, such as the World Bank and the IMF. Kosovo’s Albanians would enjoy full legislative and judicial autonomy. Effectively Serbia would only retain the nominal sovereignty over Kosovo and its external representation at the UN. It would be the model of the highest autonomy short of independence, the equivalent of which we do not have anywhere else in the world.” – If that is not enough, I don’t know what is.
Rejecting autonomy of this magnitude leads me to believe that Kosovars Albanians are represented by some other forces which will profit from the continued unrest in this part of Serbia. I was always in favor of “peace-keeping maneuvers consisting of multinational forces of Serbia, Russia, Romania, Greece, Macedonia, Republika Srpska, possibly Ukraine or Belorussia – the more the merrier.