Kosovo: Yes In NATO – OpEd

Mr. Gerard Gallucci, exactly on January 15, on the 23rd anniversary of the Serbian Massacre in the village of Reçak, not far from Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, published an opinion entitled: Kosovo: Not Up To NATO.

The first sentence of this opinion, as a quote from a January 12 Washington Post editorial, seems to raise the alarm. “Tensions continue in the north of Kosovo.” And then, without explaining at all that the source of these tensions is exactly the official Belgrade, he makes the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, unilaterally responsible, thus unknowingly slipping into the terrain of the teller of fairy tales whose style is the language of La Fontaine and Aesop.

Since Mr. Gallucci was an administrator in Mitrovica for several years after the war, of course he knows how the “time bomb” that today is known as the North of Kosovo was conjured. On the night of February 3 and 4, 2000, the city of Mtrovica, across the Iber River, in the north, under the cold gaze of the French KFOR members (somewhat similar to the non-existent reaction of the Dutch UNPROFOR in Srebrenica), overturned the demographic reality of the city.

It is now a well-known story how this ethnic cleansing happened and what were the political forces that produced it. Right after the end of the war, the command of the French KFOR had deployed its troops of its units on the bridge, creating a post-block there. That checkpoint, right on the Ibri Bridge, reminded Albanian citizens of Milosevic’s gendarmerie checkpoint, which was located there throughout the apartheid period (1989-1999). The Serbian police were there to instill terror in the citizens, that’s why from time to time they checked the citizens who went to the northern part of the city, whether they were residents of that part of the city, and especially those who were minors [guests]. While I set up that unusual checkpoint after the war, it will soon be known why it actually happened.

On the night between February 3 and 4, 2000, eight months after the end of the war, in this part of Mitrovica, there were riots provoked by camouflaged units of the Serbian gendarmerie that would later be known as “Bridge Guards”, meanwhile now they were renamed the “Northern Brigade”. Those protests would determine the fate of this city in a completely different direction from the rest of Kosovo. In the evening, the Serbs came out to protest and attacked the Albanians with various weapons and hand grenades. On the evening of February 4, 10 Albanian citizens were dead and hundreds were injured from the attacks of the previous night, while over 12,000 people would be forced to leave their homes and move as refugees to the southern part of the city and the cities others of Kosovo!

Thus began the policy of producing permanent latent crises in relation to the Albanians, respectively in relation to Kosovo; then it will be applied very demandingly to other neighbors as well.

Edward P. Joseph, lecturer at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, former deputy head of the OSCE mission in Kosovo for a period, in a recent interview given to the Novo portal, clearly states that apart from official Belgrade, the responsibility for the situation in Kosovo and generally in the Western Balkans as a space where the influence of Russia and China is growing, there is the EU, respectively the four members of NATO, which have not yet recognized the independence of Kosovo – Romania, Slovakia, Greece and Spain.

The accelerated accession of Kosovo to NATO would put an end to Serbian politics in “two chairs”. Only then, concludes Professor Edward P. Joseph, would Serbia turn towards the West and with this act, it would also take the historic step for definitive separation from Russian influence and accession to NATO. I am convinced of this, he emphasizes at the end of the interview.

For such a historic step, not only for Albanian-Serbian relations, but also in the interest of Southeast Europe as a whole, the prerequisite is mutual recognition in Kosovo-Serbia relations and the accelerated accession of Kosovo to NATO. Mr. Gerard Gallucc knows this fact. But it seems that he has time left in the last decade of the 20th century, when Kosovo was experiencing apartheid. Otherwise, he would not be looking today for ways to return the criminal to the place of the crime – Serbia in Kosovo!

Mr. Gallucci in his opinion published in the Eurasia Review magazine on January 15, 2023, mentions UN Resolution 1244, the snow of yesteryear would say the wise people of the old Illyricum, today’s Balkans. In this case, not for Mr. Gallucci who seems to have forgotten the opinion of the Court of Justice, which clearly gave Kosovo the right to declare independence on February 17, 2008, but is bringing it back more for the readers.

The decision of the International Court of Justice for Kosovo was an official response to the request submitted by Serbia itself for an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, as a body of the United Nations General Assembly, regarding the Declaration of Independence of Kosovo in 2008.

Let us also remember the fact that this was the first case presented to this honorable Court.

The International Court of Justice based in The Hague, which represents the highest level court of the United Nations Organization, published on the afternoon of July 22, 2010 the advisory opinion regarding the legality of Kosovo’s declaration of independence. During his speech, the President of the International Court of Justice, Mr. Hisashi Owada said, among other things, that: The Declaration of Independence of Kosovo on February 17, 2008 did not violate international law.

Consequently, what is Mr. Galucci talking about, reminding us of Resolution 1244 and the “right” that Serbia had according to it, for the return of 1000 police and military troops to the crime scene?!

The freedom and independence of the peoples, above all those colonized, as Kosovo was for 87 years, do not pass through the corridors of diplomacy and the halls where resolutions are produced. On the contrary, it, that is, liaria, is a product of the political will of the peoples, the efforts of their struggle. KLA was the product of those decades-long efforts. Therefore, Freedom in Kosovo is experienced as synonymous with KLA and NATO.

The help that NATO gave to the Albanian people for the liberation of this part of their homeland was ultimately the result of the coup of mutual strategic interests.

The Albanians are happy that through the KLA they returned you to the Western family, continuing to be for the benefit of Freedom and Democracy, at the forefront of the fight against the Putinist invasion. This invasion in the Balkans bears the stamp of “Little Putin” who is currently the president of Serbia.

The current difficulties that Belgrade has created and is creating are due to the Franco-German Plan. As such, despite the fact that it is not fully in line with the vital interests of the Albanian people, since many things related to the Albanian-Serbian rivalry postpone it for another decade, it remains meanwhile as the only document about which there is unanimity in all instances of the EU and its member countries, enjoying at the same time the strong support of the USA. Gerard Gallucci would have to support this document to avoid a new war in the Balkans. Otherwise, he questions the will and dedication as a former diplomat and former UN administrator, so that the Western Balkans aligns itself with the western liberal democracies.

He has enough information that proves the actual situation in Serbia today. Serbia is the most authoritarian Republic in the Balkans and not by chance the ally of Putin, Orban and Erdogan. Serbia is gradually slipping into the lap of modern fascist circles with complimentary Putinist overtones.

The USA, the EU and NATO, with their intervention in the former Yugoslavia, have put an end to the genocide in Kosovo, which we commemorate today, January 15, with the names of the 45 martyrs of Recak.

The USA, the EU and NATO de facto have also acted in favor of maintaining the authority of the United Nations, preventing it from having the fate of the League of Nations. The same, of course with the nuances that the circumstances allow, this trio is also operating today in Ukraine.