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Kosovo's economic viability and serbian avarice!
U. N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari, mediating yearlong talks between ethnic Albanians and Serbs submitted his final report highlighting UN failures in Kosovo and recommending Kosovar independence. His efforts provoked a new international row in the UN Security Council where some members of the international community behaved like scavengers picking at the bones of genocide’s victims!
Kosovo is sitting on one of Europe’s most lucrative mineral deposits. The potential wealth of northern Kosovo’s Trepça Complex coveted by Serbia is vast! It alone could solve either nation’s desperate economic problems. The debate is no longer about democratic decentralization; this is really about Serbian Lebensraum, as international interests divvy up the spoils of war.
Perhaps more telling is Russia’s indignant response to Ahtisaari’s diplomatic footnote that "Kosovo is a unique case that demands a unique solution. It does not create a precedent for other unresolved conflicts." Given its’ blood-soaked record in Chechnya, Russia fears precisely such UN precedent. If the UN can stymie the creation of a "Greater Serbia" built on genocide's charnel remains, Russian ambitions in former Soviet Union territories can be similarly thwarted. China is similarly worried.
It would appear that America and her new Balkan allies (including Macedonia and Montenegro) are about to force the issue by unilaterally granting de facto independence to Kosovo. America is yet again acting with honor; siding with the victims of genocide; who, this time, happen to be Muslim. Go figure!
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