12.4.2007 by CrniLabudovi.

Only 4 countries vote for Kosovo independence at the United Nations

Only four of the 15 members on the UN Security Council have voted in favor of independence for Kosovo. The vote took place during initial UN discussions Tuesday. Pridnestrovie, or Transnistria as it is known unofficially, has a stronger case for statehood than Kosovo.

By Times staff, 10/Apr/2007

UN mediator Marti Ahtisaari seated before a map of Kosovo. Little initial support for independence.

NEW YORK (Tiraspol Times) - Despite energetic US State Department cheerleading, Kosovo’s independence drive is off to a slow start at the United Nations. A plan by UN Special Envoy Marti Ahtisaari - endorsed and lobbied for by the United States - is attempting to grant Kosovo sovereignty from Serbia, overriding Serbia’s protestations.

Notwithstanding American enthusiasm, during the first round of consultations on the issue Tuesday, only four of the 15 members on the UN Security Council voted in favor of Ahtisaari’s plan.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica believes that the plan contradicts the UN Charter and that this is the reason it has failed to secure any substantial support at the UN.

The UN is not in a position to grant any country sovereignty and has no influence in Pridnestrovie. Kosovo, however, is a special situation since it is currently a UN protectorate. As such, its independence aspiration hinges on UN decisions, a factor which is not required in other cases such as Pridnestrovie (Transnistria) or Somaliland, for instance.

Meanwhile, in the US Senate, a bi-partisan draft resolution submitted by Joseph Lieberman, Joseph Biden and John McCain will urge president George W. Bush to step up the heat in the United Nations, increasing US pressure in the UN Security Council to have Kosovo declared an independent state.

Biden, the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, is known for favoring realistic diplomacy and the democratic right to self-determination over what is seen as “the tired mantra of territorial integrity.” He has proposed a separation of Iraq into three parts; one for Sunnis, one for Shiites and one - Kurdistan - for the Kurds.

Perma-tanned US Senator Joe Biden wants the right to self-determination and democracy to come before territorial integrity.

Lost in the debate is the fact that some parts of Europe have a stronger historical and legal claim to independence than Kosovo. As Pridnestrovie’s president Igor Smirnov has pointed out, the territory east of the Dniester river has never been part of Moldova at any time in history and declared independence (not from Moldova, but from the MSSR, then a part of the Soviet Union) one year before the Republic of Moldova even existed.

Moldova has traditionally been a part of Romania. Pridnestrovie - or Transnistria, by its Romanian name - has never been part of Romania. It has a Slavic majority and has at various times belonged to Kievan Rus, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia.

Unilateral independence declaration a possibility

The failure of the US State Department to achieve traction in its push for imposed Kosovo independence has led some US handlers to recommend that Kosovo “go it alone”, declaring independence on its own and putting the principle of Kosovo’s right to self-determination above the conflicting principle of Serbia’s territorial integrity.

In Podgorica, Montenegro, an aide to Kosovo’s Prime Minister Azem Vlasi expressed Monday his belief that at least three countries - Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania - would recognize Kosovo’s independence in case the Serbian province decides to declare independence unilaterally, reported the Tanjug news agency.

Such a move would make Kosovo a member of a small club of countries around the world which exist as ‘de facto’ independent countries but which have limited international recognition and are not members of the United Nations. Taiwan is the best-known example of such countries, but the group also includes the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Somaliland, Abkhazia, Transdniester (Pridnestrovie) and Western Sahara, among others.

These countries meet the requirements for statehood under international law and are sovereign in all practical regards. The limited extent of their diplomatic relations is caused by political reasons, and not by any practical absence of sovereignty.

Attacks on Christians

In Kosovo, most of the Serb minority of 200,000 people oppose Kosovo independence and wish to remain as a formal part of Serbia. This is in stark contrast to Transdniester, where most of the locally resident Moldovan minority supports independence and oppose unification with Moldova.

The Serb minority in Kosovo has been under persistent attacks and is beleaguered members are afraid to move around freely unless protected by UN soldiers. The violence extends to the Serb’s cultural and religious symbols, including mortar attacks on Christian churches by the Muslim majority in Kosovo.

A mortar attack launched last week on the Serb Decani Monastery in Kosovo was condemned by the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, as the Monastery is on the World Heritage in Danger List.
” - I condemn the attack on the Monastery of Decani,” the Director-General declared. “UNESCO and the whole international community recognized the universal value of this property when they inscribed it on the World Heritage List. I urge the leaders of all of Kosovo’s communities to exercise restraint.”

The Monastery - the largest Medieval church in South-Eastern Europe, featuring vivid and rich Byzantine paintings and Romanesque statues - has come under attack several times since the late 1990s. Other Christian Serbs have also been targeted in recent months. A Seventh Day Adventist church reported vandalism and arson against their place of worship in January 2007, and individual Serbs fear for their lives if they speak Serb in public.

No such events have ever been reported in Transdniester, where Moldovan is one of three official languages and where the ethnic Moldovan minority takes an active part in the public administration of the unrecognized country.

See also:
» “Transnistria independence before Kosovo” says top Washington expert
» Kosovo precedent takes shape as USA rules out return to the past

http://www.tiraspoltimes.com/node/724 

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12.4.2007 by CrniLabudovi.

Fighting for their right…to track torrents

06/04/2007

Did the government err by going after peer-to-peer file sharing? Bulgarian bloggers debate the issue.

By Ivan Tchomakov for Southeast European Times in Sofia – 06/04/07

[Getty Images]

Last month, a government effort to crack down on internet piracy sparked controversy, as hundreds took to the streets to protest a move to control use of a popular file-sharing protocol.

Vowing zero tolerance, the Interior Ministry ordered all ISPs to prevent access to the country’s largest BitTorrent site, saying it was facilitating the theft of copyrighted material. The move prompted an outcry, with critics accusing the government of trampling on civil rights and ignoring perfectly legal uses of the technology, such as for downloads of free software.

“We have seen some high drama unfold in recent days with police officers chasing after the not terribly well-organised and not too criminal characters who operate torrent trackers,” writes Boyan Kalinov. “No one seems to ask the question of why this is happening. It has been pretty obvious for a long time now that the entire concept of intellectual and other property, which serves as a basis for the copyright laws, is absolutely inadequate and obsolete. The means for distributing information are so easily accessible and inexpensive that the ban on the copying and reproduction of software, music, books, and movies is no longer enforced by the mere difficulty of committing such violations. Enforcement is now based on imaginary sanctions.”

“The feeling of impunity is so widespread that when one of the violators is punished, the people feel that he is being victimised by being deprived of certain rights, which do not exist in the law, however,” Kalinov continues.

Alex, a Bulgarian now living out of the country, is not impressed by the government’s crusade. “I do not condone the illegal downloading of anything from the internet but I also doubt the noble goals of our law enforcement agencies,” he writes. “Supply always depends on demand and if demand is particularly strong, then there must be something wrong on the supply side.”

“Perhaps it also matters that a new movie on DVD costs 12 to 15 euros in Finland and the Barbie series which I used to buy for my daughter in Bulgaria about 20-25 leva — while I only earned 20 per day,” he suggests.

Shamanhfel, however, finds all the hue and cry just a little bit disingenuous.

“There is nothing wrong with protesting, but I find absolutely ridiculous the way these protests are organised and the reasons for them,” he writes. “People are staging a rally to protest the fact that they are deprived of access to content that is 99% illegal,” he writes. “As someone said on this occasion in another blog, ‘I am protesting to defend my right to steal’. I also think that the protesters will be just as angry if the trackers are reopened but offer only free content.”

Whether justified or not, the government’s move has generated a media storm and a host of legal conundrums. The country’s main telecom, BTC, reportedly is seeking international counsel. The spokesperson for the Interior Ministry’s organised crime division has resigned — possibly, some say, due to fallout over the issue. Meanwhile, access to the site in question has been restored.

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12.4.2007 by CrniLabudovi.

Turkey considers sanctions against Iraq

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12.4.2007 by CrniLabudovi.

KFOR commander says no troop downsizing in 2007 or 2008

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12.4.2007 by CrniLabudovi.

Serbian court sentences “Scorpions” for Srebrenica killings

11/04/2007

Four members of a paramilitary group received jail terms of between five and 20 years for the torture and murder of six Muslims in July 1995. Relatives of the victims say they are not satisfied with the verdict.

By Igor Jovanovic for Southeast European Times in Belgrade – 11/04/07

Relatives of six murdered Muslims from the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica leave Serbia’s special war crimes court in Belgrade on Tuesday after the trial of four Serb militiamen. [Getty Images]

The Belgrade war crimes court sentenced four members of a Serbian paramilitary unit Tuesday (April 10th) to a combined 58 years in prison for killing six Muslim men from Srebrenica.

A fifth member of the so-called Scorpions unit, Aleksandar Vukov, was acquitted due to lack of evidence of his involvement in the killings, which took place near the village of Trnovo in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

The defendants themselves shot video footage of the execution, used as evidence in court, in July 1995. It shows them taking the six captives, three of them minors, out of a truck. The recording ends with the Scorpions killing the tortured captives one by one, shooting them in the back.

Serbian prosecutors determined that the victims were Admir Alispahic, Safet Fejzic, Sidik Salkic, Smajl Ibrahimovic, Juso Delic and Dino Salihovic.

The footage was first shown at the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic at the UN war crimes tribunal in June 2005. Just days later, Serbian police arrested the five Scorpions. Carla del Ponte, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, has frequently been critical of Belgrade, but on this occasion she praised the Serbian authorities, saying they had carried out a brilliant operation.

The trial in Belgrade started in late 2005. Serbian War Crimes Prosecution spokesman Bruno Vekaric described it as a very important case that would “clearly distance the Serbian society and judiciary from the crimes committed in Srebrenica in 1995″.

The only one to plead guilty was Pero Petrasevic, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison Tuesday. The other defendants claimed that the footage of the killing was not the original tape, and demanded that it be removed from the list of evidence.

Slobodan Medic and Branislav Medic received the maximum prison sentence of 20 years. Aleksandar Medic, charged with assisting in the crime, was sentenced to five years.

Another Scorpions member seen in the recording, Slobodan Davidovic, is in jail in Croatia, where he was arrested.

Explaining the verdict, Judge Gordana Bozilovic-Petrovic said that it had been proven that unit commander Slobodan Medic had ordered the others to commit a war crime against civilians. Medic also ordered the taping of the execution as a “memento”, the judge said.

After the verdict was announced, war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said that he was only “partly” satisfied, adding that he would appeal to the Serbian Supreme Court.

“It is not easy to reach a verdict for such a war crime,” Vukcevic told reporters. At the same time, he praised “the efficiency of the process”.

The representative of the victims’ families, Natasa Kandic, said the verdict “has not brought the victims justice”. During the trial, Kandic claimed that the Scorpions had been under the jurisdiction of the Serbian police, while the court ruled that the unit had mostly operated as part of the so-called Army of the Serbs from Croatia.

It remained unclear how the Scorpions had come to hold the six Bosniaks captive, Kandic said.

Members of the victims’ families were appalled that some indictees received short sentences or, in Vukov’s case, no sentence at all. “They killed children, yet one of them was acquitted and one was sentenced to five years in prison. Where else in the world can you see such a thing? I am not satisfied and I never will be,” said Nura Alispahic, the mother of one victim.

Safeta Muhic, sister of victim Safet Fejzic, described the verdict as “immensely shameful for both the court and the state (of Serbia)”.

The case now goes to the Supreme Court, which can confirm the verdict, modify it, or order a retrial.

http://setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2007/04/11/feature-02

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