What a surprise...

It is clearly noticeable that some contributors on this blog feel disappointed by what happened in Serbia today. I am honestly surprised by their reactions considering how deeply the Serbian society is divided on fundamental socio-political issues which date back long before Milosevic came to power. This partition on backward nationalists elements on one side and democratic oriented citizens on the other was further magnified during the last 20 years of political turbulence in the Balkans.

I believe such actions were actually secretly celebrated by those parties who recently lost elections in Serbia. Their argument is that aggression against Western companies and embassies will entail a sharp response from abroad which would further alienate the people in Serbia from the West. In addition, Kosovo’s crisis, evocation of the Kosovo's mythology, and calls for national unity are actually going to serve the purpose of diverting attention from more important domestic issues such as war crimes, economic issues, and origins of “dirty money” for a period to come.

On the other hand, there is an obvious responsibility of the West for the situation in Serbia. The ultimate questions that most of the Serbs would ask their counterparts in the West are: "How would you feel if 15% of your territory is forceably taken away from your country by breaking the international law (U.N. resolution 1244)? How would you feel if your country is bombed for three months because of the so-called humanitarian crisis? How would you feel if every nationality except yours has rights to self-determination?"

Additionally, the E.U., represented by the E.U. High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Mr. Javier Solana, actually put pressure on the Democratic Party to accept Mr. Vojislav Kostunica as the prime minister of Serbia even though he got only 13% of votes on the last parliamentary elections held last year in Serbia. This move kept the common and secret police under the control of nationalists. Moreover, due to a strong U.S. pro-Albanian stand, the so-called talks between the Kosovo and the Serbian leaders were condemned even before they started. Not to mention the U.S. claim of Mr. Milosevic as a "factor of stability and the main peacekeeper in the Balkans" in the mid-1990's as well as the role of the former U.S. ambassador in Serbia, Mr. William Montgomery, in defaming the reputation of the former pro-liberal prime minister of Serbia Mr. Zoran Djindjic.

Finally, I would like to address to Americans who found themselves hurt by seeing the pictures of the U.S. embassy on fire. At the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States ambassador, said he was “outraged” by the attack on the Embassy and would be seeking a unanimous statement today from the 15-member Security Council condemning it. “The government of Serbia has the responsibility under international law to protect diplomatic facilities, particularly embassies.” Now, I would like to quote my friend’s response, a graduate student of the New School at New York, Mr. Rados Piletich to Mr. Khalilzad’s demand. “Responsibility under international law, huh? Like the kind of responsibility when we invaded Iraq without UN Security Council approval? Or maybe the kind of responsibility we took when we decided not to pay Nicaragua one penny of the $17 billion in reparations that the International Court of Justice ordered it to pay for arming, training, and supporting the Contras, and mining the coast off of Nicaragua to prevent international trade? Or, perhaps the same kind of responsibility exhibited by the country that bombed Cambodia from 1969 to 1973, leading to the deaths of scores of thousands of civilians in that country, and preparing the way for the genocidal Khmer Rouge?
Mirror, mirror, on the wall... eyes wide shut."