Boris Tadic just doesn't get it

Serbian president Boris Tadic really doesn't know when to sit down and shut up. True enough, few politicians do - but this one makes choking on his own foot a veritable art form.

It's bad enough that he wanted to go to Kosovo to attend the funeral of Albanian separatist leader Ibrahim Rugova (who is being buried today at the KLA "martyrs' cemetery" in a ceremony celebrating not so much the man, but the idea of Greater Albania), and that he "requested permission" to do so from the UN occupation authorities. Now that the UN hasn't responded one way or another, but the Albanians have erupted in howls of protest about how Tadic - or any other filthy, criminal, disgusting, evil Serb - is not welcome to Rugova's funeral, or to their precious "Kosova" for that matter, Tadic "deeply regrets" it. Not asking permission to visit his own territory, or wishing to support Albanian separatism, but the fact that Albanians have snubbed him so.

According to the AP, Tadic issued a statement Wednesday saying that he "respected the stand of the Rugova family to whom the 'presence of a Serbian president was unacceptable',” and that his "desire was to pay respects to a man who was of a different political persuasion than myself, but who campaigned peacefully for his ideas and who was the legitimate representative of the Kosovo Albanians.”

Where to begin...? I do hope that Tadic is "of a different political persuasion" than Rugova - that is, that the current president of Serbia doesn't share Rugova's ideal of forcible separation of Kosovo from Serbia, involving by necessity the disposal of non-Albanians (Serbs, first and foremost) from the territory. And though many people - including the mainstream Serbian media and politicians - persist in the misconception that Rugova was a pacifist, it is worth noting that the crux of Rugova's strategy was never to negotiate, deal or otherwise engage the Serbs, but to get someone else (specifically, the American Empire) to achieve Albanian goals for them. It is worth noting that the "pacifist" Rugova also had an "army" (FARK) that was eventually absorbed by the KLA simply because the KLA had stronger foreign backing.

Tadic went on to say that, "Unfortunately neither political representatives of the Kosovo Albanians nor the international community realized what a chance this was for us to start changing relations between Serbs and (ethnic) Albanians.”

Let's face it, between the shameless cheer-leading for the separatist cause by viceroy Jessen-Petersen, and the ever-present fear of UNMIK that rampaging Albanians mobs might go medieval on them at the next perceived slight (much as they did to Serbs in 2004 and before), it should be obvious to a blind man that UNMIK doesn't give a rotting roadkill's posterior for Serb-Albanian relations. And neither do the Albanians, if the vitriolic response to Tadic's offer is anything to judge by.

Tadic himself, however, doesn't get it. “If the presence of a Serbian president at a funeral in Pristina is unacceptable, the begging question is whether we are acceptable to one another and whether we shall ever be so in the future,” he said (AP).

Judging by a lengthy history of Albanian violence against the Serbs in Kosovo; the establishment of "Greater Albania" including that territory in 1941-45; the periodic riots demanding independence since 1945; the emergence of the KLA and the NATO aggression in 1999; and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Serbs ever since - should there be any doubt in anyone's mind that the majority of Kosovo Albanians have decided that no, Serbs are not acceptable to them in any way, shape or form? Not even when they come to validate their separatist agenda, making a complete mockery of themselves (as Tadic would have done)?

That's some powerful hatred there, folks. And Boris Tadic is either too naive, or unbelievably stupid not to see it. Neither of which is exactly a desirable characteristic in a president, however ceremonial his post might be.

Albanians 1, Tadic 0

The not-unexpected death of Ibrahim Rugova last weekend may have delayed the sham talks about the separation of occupied Kosovo, but is, predictably, being used to make that separation just about inevitable. It has also offered yet another opportunity for Serbian president Boris Tadic to humiliate himself and the nation he supposedly represents.

As Reuters reports, Tadic "made a request" to attend Rugova's funeral, and was rejected by the outraged Albanians, who saw this as an insult and provocation. After all, Reuters continues, "the Albanian majority rejects any return to Serb rule after years of discrimination and often violent repression."

First of all, if Tadic really believed Kosovo was Serbian territory, he would not be asking permission to visit - not of KFOR or UNMIK, but especially not of the separatist, Albanian "provisional government." Secondly, why would he, or any other Serbian official, want to attend the funeral of a separatist leader like Rugova, especially when it will be taking place at a KLA cemetery?! Last time I checked, Serbia was still classifying the KLA as a terrorist organization. So how does the president going to a terrorist monument (KLA cemetery) to pay homage to a terrorist ally (Rugova) represent anything remotely legal, legitimate, constitutional or proper?

Oh, some may quibble that Rugova was really opposed to the KLA, a pacifist, a democrat and whatnot. Did he fight for an independent "Kosova"? Yes. Does the KLA? It does. Did Rugova ally himself with the KLA as "president" of the occupation government? He sure did (Ramush Haradinaj's AAK is part of the "government" with Rugova's LDK). QED.

Which brings us back to Tadic. A man who has shown himself to be a sycophant of the Empire, with a penchant for posturing in just the wrong way, in the wrong place, at the wrong time (Srebrenica commemoration, anyone?), has gone and done it again. I don't much care that he's embarrassing himself - stupidity like that deserves a comeuppance - but that, through the misfortune of being the president of Serbia, he gets to project that embarrassment onto an entire nation.

Blackened by the vilest propaganda as the intellectual heirs of the Third Reich, blockaded, bombed and put on show trials by kangaroo courts and two-bit hack journalists, displaced from homes, stripped of rights and land - all over the past 15 years of "democracy" and "liberation" by the Empire - the Serbs at least had some remaining dignity in their tragedy. Boris Tadic and others like him are working real hard to destroy that dignity. Makes me wonder if they are doing it on purpose.

With malice for Tadic

Reporting on last week's visit by Serbian president Boris Tadic to Kosovo, AFP took care to note that “Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian-dominated government has barely acknowledged Tadic’s visit and there were no plans for him to meet any local officials.”

Reuters claimed that “Kosovo’s Albanian prime minister Ramush Haradinaj—whom Serbia has branded a war criminal—left the province before Tadic arrived.”

But the New York Times – or rather, its European avatar, the International Herald Tribune – published a hatchet job on February 15, berating Tadic for “giving [Kosovo’s] majority Albanians little overt sign of the kind of reconciliation that would be needed for a lasting solution” and “deliberately [having] no meetings with leaders of the majority Albanian community.”

The NYT/IHT reporter Nicholas Wood also quoted Albanian media, who described Tadic as a “criminal” and objected that he “did not ask for forgiveness for all the crimes that the Serbs have done in this country.” Furthermore, the article was rife with insinuations and outright lies about Kosovo (such as the “10,000 Albanians killed”), exemplifying the worst kind of official propaganda. Given the Reuters and AFP reports cited earlier, presenting Tadic’s visit as deliberately snubbing Albanians was not only dishonest, but untrue.

The Associated Press also chose to interpret the visit maliciously. “President’s Visit Fuels Tensions,” the headlines proclaimed, going on to say that “U.N. officials had hoped the visit by Boris Tadic would promote reconciliation… [but] Tadic’s declarations that Serbia would never accept an independent Kosovo angered ethnic Albanians.”

Also, the AP questioned Tadic's practice of handing out "giant" Serbian flags to enclaves he visited. Why should the Serbs not have a right to fly their own flag, in their own country? Albanians fly the flag of Albania proper, and UNMIK, AP or anyone else says not a word.

To repeat something I said a little while ago, this isn't double standards - it's no standards at all.

What Tadic Really Said

Western media were quick to trumpet that during his state visit to Sarajevo, Serbian president Boris Tadic "apologized" to "Bosnians" for crimes Serbians committed during the 1992-95 war. Left unsaid - but assumed, as per years of propaganda - was that this "proved" Serbia's involvement in the war and the systematic nature of the alleged atrocities.

Here's the problem: Tadic actually said no such thing.

And here's another: even so, the assumption remained.

According to Beta, a Serbian news agency with Western funding (i.e. definitely mainstream), he apologized to all those "who were victims of crimes perpetrated by ethnic Serbs," but also said he expected apologies from all who perpetrated crimes against Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks [sic].

"The Serbian nation as a whole did not commit crimes. Individuals did. So it is impossible to accuse an entire nation. We all owe each other an apology," Tadic told the press. (Serbian original here)

According to Beta, he also said that there were atrocities on all sides in the region, and that he expected others to apologize for their crimes committed against Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks [sic], and that there should be no exceptions where crimes are concerned.

"The history of atrocities in this region is long. The International Court [sic] in The Hague isn't the only institution that has to foster reconciliation," said Tadic, and pointed out that politicians now have the responsibility to build a future in which the following generations would cooperate and foster peace and reconciliation.

While what Tadic says sounds entirely rational, politically it is the very definition of stupidity. First of all, he is not a head of state (yet), so he has no standing to visit Bosnia as one. Second, he has no standing to make an apology of any sort; he doesn't represent even the people of Serbia (unless one counts 27% of the entire electorate as unanimous endorsement), let alone the Serbs of Bosnia.

The Bosnian Muslims ("Bosniaks" mentioned above) blame Serbia for "aggression" against Bosnia; U.S. efforts to sideline the Bosnian Serb leadership and impose Serbian president Milosevic (yes, that Milosevic) as their chief negotiator at the Dayton talks were meant to provide substance for this claim. After all, if Milosevic had nothing to do with the Bosnian Serbs, as he claimed, how could he negotiate a peace deal on their behalf? The logic is obvious.

Now Tadic walks headlong into the same trap: by issuing an apology on behalf of all Serbs - i.e. both Bosnian Serbs and Serbia - he implicitly agrees Serbia was somehow complicit in the atrocities. Leaving aside the issue of whether this is actually true (I argue that it isn't, but that's another topic entirely), this is most definitely not how politics, or diplomacy, is done.

This man is either hopelessly naive, or really, really stupid. Or both.