6418 JOE BIDEN, SPONSOR DI TUTTI I SECESSIONISMI, E' IN SERBIA

(english / italiano)

JOE BIDEN, SPONSOR DI TUTTI I SECESSIONISMI, E' OGGI IN VISITA DA CONQUISTATORE IN SERBIA

1) A note and articles sent by Diana Johnstone:
Serbia nationalists opposed to Biden visit (DPA)
Joe Biden Caught Virulent Serbophobia from the Ustasha Clergy Back in the Early 1980s (http://byzantinesacredart.com/)
Glimmer of hope in Balkans (Joseph R. Biden Jr.)
Does Joe Biden Belong in the White House or the Nut House? (Andy Wilcoxson)

2) L'ANSA CHIAMA "CONSERVATORI" QUELLI CHE CRITICANO LA VISITA DEL GUERRAFONDAIO JOE BIDEN IN SERBIA

3) More articles from Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato:
Biden bypasses Bulgaria but will visit Serbia / Sejdiu: Biden visit historic  / US may appoint new Balkan envoy / US refocusing on Balkans with Biden visit


LINKS:

THE VIDEO: Joe Biden, Ramush Haradinaj, Joseph DioGuardi: the US-Kosovo lobby

Sulla personalità di Joe Biden, nemico della Jugoslavia e della pace, attivo come "lobbista" per Slovenia, Croazia, Bosnia, Kosovo e tutti i secessionismi possibili, oggi vicepresidente USA nell'amministrazione Obama, leggi:
e tutti i messaggi rilevanti nella lista JUGOINFO:


=== 1 ===

NOTE (received by Diana Johnstone):

According to the news report below, some of these horrid nationalists displayed Biden quotes about Serbia to justify their lack of hospitality.  The report doesn't bother to tell readers what those quotes were.  Here is a sample:
"Serbs are illiterate degenerates, baby killers, butchers and rapists".
"...all Serbs should be placed in Nazi-style concentration camps".
Moreover, he was a main advocate during the Clinton administration of bombing Serbia and giving its territory to Albanians, with whom he maintained very close relations.
So one doesn't have to be a Serbian "nationalist" to oppose the Biden visit, which looks like the biggest provocation since Austria sent its Archduke Francis Ferdinand to be assassinated by Gavrilo Princip so it could declare war on Serbia and get rid of its "Serbia problem" in the Balkans.
Here is a some documentation on this outrageous display of imperial arrogance.
The most important is the video, in case you haven't seen it already.
Diana
 
---
 
Serbia nationalists opposed to Biden visit

DPA, Friday, May 15, 2009 

BELGRADE, Serbia-Serbian nationalists on Friday expressed their opposition to the upcoming visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, accusing him of being anti-Serb.
Biden arrives in Serbia next week as part of a Balkan tour that also includes visits to Bosnia and Kosovo. He is expected to meet with local political leaders and U.S. military and other personnel stationed in the region.
The tour is widely seen in Serbia as an important sign of continued U.S. support for the stabilization of the Balkans, which was embroiled in a series of ethnic conflicts during the 1990s.
But many in Serbia still view the U.S. as anti-Serb because of Washington's support for Kosovo's statehood. The former Serbian province declared independence last year.
The U.S. also led a NATO bombing campaign in 1999 that ended Belgrade's crackdown against the separatists in Kosovo, and Serbia's rule in the region.
Several nationalist parties handed a list of alleged Biden statements to the Foreign Ministry and accused him of supporting the 1999 NATO bombing.
"We believe that the statements and policies of Joseph Biden are contrary to the interests of Serbia and the Serbian people," said Jovan Palalic, of the Serbian Democratic Party.
Another politician, Aleksandar Vulin, added that Biden "is not welcome in Serbia."
The U.S. Embassy did not immediately comment on the nationalists' statements about Biden.
Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said Thursday authorities were boosting security measures to the highest level for Biden's visit.
 
---
 
THE VIDEO:
Joe Biden, champion of Albanians against Serbs (that's called "multiculturalism"), promising to save Europe, in company of Ramush Haradinaj, perhaps the most murderous of Kosovo Albanian clan leaders, arrested by the Hague Tribunal for various massacres (also multicultural, by the way -- he killed unfriendly Albanians as well as Serbs), but finally released, after heavy Anglo-American pressure, because prosecution witnesses were intimidated (and sometimes killed). The second speaker is an Albanian-American ex-Congressman, Joseph DioGuardi, lobbyist for Kosovo Albanians.
 

---

Joe Biden Caught Virulent Serbophobia from the Ustasha Clergy Back in the Early 1980s


When Obama's running mate Joe Biden stated that "all Serbs should be placed in Nazi-style concentration camps" during Senatorial deliberations in 1999 over NATO aggression on Serbia, most of the world was unaware of the source of such virulent Serb-hatred one would generally be ashamed of harboring, let alone advertising. But issuing a statement that amounts to approval of the genocide Serbian nation had already been subjected to during the WWII, by the Croat fascists -- Ustashe -- and that it should, indeed, have been entirely exterminated in the death camps of which Ustasha-run Jasenovac was the most macabre chain of slaughterhouses in Europe, could have been inspired only by the pathological Croat Ustasha ideology fueled and grown on pure, undiluted hatred of everything Serbian.
Indeed, as Croatia's Jutarnji List reports, it was the Croat Franciscan clergyman who planted the poisonous anti-Serb virus in Joseph Biden's heart and instilled unvarnished, thunderous Serbophobia in him, exemplified by Biden filing Senate resolutions, motions, holding speeches and giving interviews that are so blatantly hateful, biased and fanatically anti-Serb, one would have a hard time to match that level of vitriol against a nation in the statements of any and all the other American politicians.
As a good Roman Catholic, Senator Biden apparently chose to filter out some of the less popular bits about the shameful role Vatican has played during the Second World War and the Holocaust. He also seems to be blissfully unaware of the fact that Croat Franciscans were among the most rabid butchers who simply adored their ally -- Third Reich, both the German and Croat fuhrers (Ante Pavelic was a Croat fuhrer -- "poglavnik" -- during the WWII) and have actively helped Hitler-adoring satellite, Independent Republic of Croatia (NDH, spanning both present-day Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) to commit one of the most horrific genocides in the European history, tearing -- eye-by-eye and limb-by-limb -- 750,000 Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 30,000 Gypsies in the Jasenovac concentration camp-complex alone.
So, when a Croat Franciscan clergyman Ilija Zivkovic spoke to Biden against the Serbs, Senator Biden listened and, as evident in the past two decades of his career, took all the pathological hatred for a factual source of information against the Serbian nation. What his Croat ultra-nationalist, Ustasha descendant advisers taught him about the Serbian nation was most evident on CNN's Larry King Live where Senator Biden, stricken by one of those Hitler seizures, proclaimed that "Serbs are illiterate degenerates, baby killers, butchers and rapists".
 
---

THE WASHINGTON TIMES - COMMENTARY 24 July 2004

Glimmer of hope in Balkans
By Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Last week's inauguration of Boris Tadic as president of Serbia offers a window of opportunity for the former Yugoslavia. The Bush administration should seize the moment to reverse its policy of disengagement from the Balkans and resume America's indispensable role in the region as a proponent of human rights and democracy.
Mr. Tadic, a psychologist and former colleague of assassinated Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, is a rare politician in that part of the world: a genuine democrat, untainted by association either with Josip Broz Tito's communists or with post-Tito ultranationalists. As defense minister, Mr. Tadic courageously undertook reform of the Serbian military, an essential task as yet uncompleted.
In contrast to current Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and other leading figures, and at personal risk to himself, Mr. Tadic has publicly called for full cooperation with the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague. Nonetheless, he was criticized by some for going ahead with his planned inauguration on the anniversary of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs.
Instead, Mr. Tadic deftly used his nationally televised inauguration speech to drive home responsibility to a Serbian public often in denial about war crimes by mentioning Srebrenica in the same breath as Jasenovac, the World War II death camp run by the Croatian Ustasha fascists.
Ratko Mladic, the "Butcher of Srebrenica," remains at large, as do four former Serbian generals indicted by the war crimes tribunal for their actions in Kosovo. Until they are delivered to The Hague, Serbia will be denied membership in NATO's Partnership for Peace, the country's primary short-term foreign policy goal.
Now the small human-rights community in Belgrade is abuzz with rumors the U.S. may settle for a deal whereby, if Mr. Mladic is handed over, the four generals could be tried by Serbian courts.
Such a concession would be a serious mistake. First, it would undercut The Hague war crimes tribunal. Second, it would be totally impractical. Despite recent courtroom security improvements, many Kosovar Albanian witnesses would be afraid to testify in Belgrade. Moreover, Serbian law does not prohibit a chain-of-command defense, which the defendants would clearly use.
Although President Tadic has advocated return of Serbian sovereignty to Kosovo, no serious observer believes the province will ever again be ruled from Belgrade. The violent anti-Serb riots that claimed nearly 20 lives last March and destroyed hundreds of homes and churches showed that resolution of Kosovo's final status can not be postponed much longer.
The U.N. Mission in Kosovo has done a poor job and lost credibility in the province. It must be reformed under its newly appointed Danish director who will probably have an experienced American diplomat as his deputy. KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force, also showed grave weaknesses in the March riots, with the U.S. troops providing the only major example of professionalism.
The international community should give the Kosovo Provincial Assembly the maximum authority possible, so it can prove to the world the ethnic Albanian leadership is capable of governing and can guarantee basic human rights for all ethnic groups. Just as victims of Serbian war crimes have a right to expect the perpetrators will be brought to justice, the remaining Serbs in Kosovo, and Serbian refugees who wish to return, have a right to expect personal security.
These and related questions provide a lengthy agenda for good faith negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, which must resume promptly. The new Serbian foreign minister is Vuk Draskovic, the flamboyant anti-Milosevic politician from the 1990s who has gained Western respect as a thoughtful diplomat. The Kosovar leadership would do well to test Mr. Draskovic's seriousness.
The U.S. is in a unique position to facilitate negotiations. Bolstered by the image of American troops who protected Kosovo Serbs in the March riots, U.S. credibility has never been higher in Belgrade, which for the first time has a democratic president with cordial ties to Washington. The Kosovar Albanians remain deeply suspicious of other Europeans but still trust the U.S., whom they thank for overthrowing Slobodan Milosevic's tyranny.
Instead of ceding the leadership of Balkan affairs to the European Union, as we are about to do in Bosnia, President Bush should take advantage of this fortuitous constellation to re-engage in the Kosovo question by appointing a special envoy to the Balkans, a position that proved effective in the 1990s.
The special envoy, working with Serbs and Kosovars, with our European allies, and with the United Nations, could make a full-court press to resolve Europe's most volatile dispute. The stakes are too high to wait any longer.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware is the Ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
 
---

BALKAN REPORT

Does Joe Biden Belong in the White House or the Nut House?
Vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden's demonstrably false rhetoric about the Kosovo war and his repeated plagiarisms indicate that he may be mentally unfit to assume the presidency.
by Andy Wilcoxson
(Libertarian)
Friday, September 12, 2008

In 1990 Sen. Joe Biden told a C-SPAN interviewer, "I made mistakes and I've said them straightforwardly, but I've never done some of the things that were alleged. I never plagiarized in law school."
Biden's law school records tell a different story. The records show that he stole 5 1/2 pages from an article published in the Fordham Law Review and submitted them as his own work. He even changed the numerical sequence of the footnotes to match his own numbering system. When his professors detected the plagiarism they gave him an F in the course, but Biden insisted that he didn't knowingly cheat.1
As David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers University, recently explained in the Washington Post "Few remember the details surrounding the many incidents of word-theft, dating to law school, that disqualified him from the 1988 presidential race. Biden lifted words from Bobby Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and the British politician Neil Kinnock; in the last instance, Biden stole autobiographical material, in effect making false claims about his own life. That suggests something pathological about Biden, for wholesale deceptions aren't easily explained away. The media opted not to reopen those incidents when Biden ran for president this year, but they should have. Character doesn't change easily; something troubling may still lurk beneath the smile and the logorrhea."2
Is Joe Biden is a pathological liar? If he's going to be one heartbeat away from the presidency, it's a question worth asking. Research has shown that pathological liars often believe their lies to such an extent that they can pass a polygraph exam.
It may not matter that Biden plagiarized parts of his autobiography, or that he cheated in law school and lied about it. But it does matter that he lies about foreign policy issues. Robert Gibbs, senior advisor to the Obama campaign, explained that Biden was chosen as Obama's running mate because of his "unparalleled foreign policy experience".3
Biden has a track record of lying about foreign policy issues. During the conflict in Kosovo Biden said, "People are calling this a civil war. You know, that's a little bit like calling the Nazi cleansing of Jews a civil war. What the hell are we talking about here? We're talking about a guy who is engaged in genocide."4
Admittedly, Biden wasn't the only one accusing Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic of genocide in Kosovo. The State Department told us that half a million Kosovo-Albanian men were missing and feared dead at the hands of Milosevic's troops.5
Although Biden wasn't the only one alleging genocide, nobody appeared more certain of it than he was. When the war ended he went on CNN and said, "We're going to find that the atrocities far exceed anything anyone's known. We're going to find mass graves with thousands of people in them, and we're going to have to unmask for the Serbs and all the world what has happened here so it doesn't happen again."6
Biden was so sure of his claims that he wanted them held up to scrutiny. He said, "At the end of the day the Serb people have to be made aware about what happened. There are trials going to take place in The Hague and everybody in Serbia should have to see them. Otherwise there will continue to be this notion of oppression, and people I think you have got to have an awakening."7
In 2001 Biden got his wish. Slobodan Milosevic was delivered to The Hague and put on trial for war crimes. Serbia's B-92 television network broadcast the entire trial proceedings live, wall-to-wall, for all of Serbia to see. It was a fiasco for the prosecution, by the time of Milosevic's death in 2006 he was more popular than he was when the trial started and the Tribunal was viewed with scorn and suspicion.
As it turned out, the evidence unearthed by Hague investigators was nothing like the modern-day Holocaust alleged by Biden and the State Department. After more than a year of investigating, Hague spokesman Paul Risley announced, "The final number of bodies uncovered [in Kosovo] will be less than 10,000 and probably more accurately determined as between 2,000 and 3,000."8
When they wrapped up exhumations UN investigators had found a total of 2,788 bodies in Kosovo9 and the International Red Cross listed another 2,150 missing.10
The Humanitarian Law Center, a U.S.-funded NGO based in Belgrade, claims to have documented 9,702 people dead or missing from the war in Kosovo. Of this number, 4,903 are Albanians, 2,322 are Serbs, with the rest belonging to other nationalities or their ethnic identity remaining uncertain.11
Regardless of the numbers you use, the war in Kosovo was nothing like the systematic slaughter and genocide alleged by Joe Biden. The numbers of dead and missing don't even begin to approach the hundreds of thousands that were used to justify the U.S.-led NATO assault on Serbia.
Biden was the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the Kosovo war. He was in a position to know that he was saying things that weren't true. Presidential Scholar Stephen Hess recently told Voice of America that Biden "knows a lot about the world, maybe of all the United States Senators, he knows the most."12
Biden was in a position to know that in Kosovo the Albanians provoked the war by attacking the Serbs in their own country. The Kosovo-Albanians were as subtle about their hostile intentions as a brick through a plate-glass window.
One doesn't have to look further than the public communiques that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) published in the Albanian media in the years and months leading up to the war to see who started all of this. The KLA made no secret of the fact that they intended to forcibly seize the Serbian province of Kosovo and turn it into an Albanian state.
In 1996, two years before the war started, the KLA published a communique in the Albanian media that said, "Through this communique we would like to state clearly to the current Serbian political leadership that they must withdraw from our territories as soon as possible, or our attacks to liberate the country will be fierce and merciless."13
In a 1997 communique the KLA appealed to the Kosovo-Albanian public saying "Kosova and the other Albanian territories will not be liberated down the telephone or from an office, but only by a serious commitment in support of the armed struggle."14
The KLA published another communique in 1997 threatening the international community with "a greater slaughter than in Bosnia-Herzegovina" and warning the Serbs of a fate "worse than their Russian brothers in Afghanistan and Chechnya" unless their demands were met.15
The KLA was open about its mission, explaining in one communique that their "first fighters were the most fervent idealists for the independence of Kosova" They said, "The people of Kosova did not form their own liberation army for the purpose of a social revolution or to oppose government with a national tinge, but they are carrying on a struggle to be liberated from the century-old occupier. If you confuse these two things, this means that you are making a mistake on purpose."16
The Albanian grievance wasn't with Milosevic's government in particular; it was with Serbia "the century-old occupier". The Albanians were upset because the 1913 Treaty of London returned Kosovo to Serbia after 500 years of Ottoman occupation. That was the real issue.
If Milosevic had been the problem, the violence wouldn't have predated his political career. In 1981 nobody had even heard of Slobodan Milosevic, but Albanian separatists in Kosovo were rioting and carrying out deadly attacks against Yugoslav security forces. When the New York Times reported on the rioting they called it "the worst riots in Yugoslavia since World War II".17
In 1982 Becir Hoti, an ethnic Albanian official in Kosovo's government, explained the situation to the New York Times saying, "The nationalists have a two-point platform. First to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger with Albania to form a Greater Albania."18
Biden must have known that the Albanians had been making threats and carrying out attacks against the Serbs for years before serious fighting broke out in 1998. A man in his position would have had to know.
By the latter part of 1998 the United States had involved itself in the conflict. The U.S. brokered what was supposed to be a cease-fire between the Serbs and the KLA.
On November 12, 1998 the UN Secretary-General issued a report on the cease-fire implementation, which found that "there has been a continued withdrawal of the Serbian security forces from Kosovo and numerous checkpoints and fortified positions have been dismantled."19
While the Serbian side was complying with the cease fire, the Secretary-General's report noted that "Kosovo Albanian paramilitary units are asserting their own authority to supplant that of the Serbian police in areas from which the police have withdrawn, and have established their own checkpoints on a number of secondary roads. ... Recent attacks by Kosovo Albanian paramilitary units have indicated their readiness, capability and intention to actively pursue the advantage gained by the partial withdrawal of the police and military formations. Reports of new weapons, ammunition and equipment indicate that the capacity of those units to re-supply themselves is still fairly good."20
The Serbs were bending over backwards to make peace with the Albanians, and the Albanians took that good will as an opportunity to ratchet-up their attacks and conquer more territory. When the Serbs realized that they were being double-crossed they sent their forces back in, and NATO used that as an excuse to start bombing them.
When you realize how the war started, what it was about, and how few people actually died in it, Biden's rhetoric about the Serbs waging a modern-day Nazi Holocaust against the Albanians sounds insane.
The media reported a genocide, but well-informed people knew better. Dietmar Hartwig, the chief of the European Union Monitoring Mission in Kosovo, commented on the media coverage saying, "I didn't think it had anything to do with reality. [The] reporting was always very one-sided. There was only one perpetrator and always one victim."21
As the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden must have known better too. Did he know that was lying about the "Serbian genocide" in Kosovo, or is he a pathological liar who actually believes his own rhetoric? Given the absolute certainty with which he spoke, and his history of lying and serial-plagiarism one has to wonder.
When it comes to Joe Biden we face a tough dilemma. Which is more dangerous, a belligerent leader who attacks another country based on a lie that he knows is a lie, or a mentally ill leader who attacks another country because he concocts a lie in his own mind and comes to believe that it's true?

NOTES
1 - The Washington Times; August 23, 1990; Biden changes his story, insists 'I never plagiarized in law school'
2 - The Washington Post; August 24, 2008; Assessing Joe Biden
3 - Fox News Network; August 24, 2008 Sunday; Fox News Sunday 9:00 AM EST; Interview With Robert Gibbs
4- CNN; April 5, 1999; Larry King Live 21:00 pm ET
5 - The Boston Globe; April 20, 1999; Pg. A1; Up to 500,000 unaccounted for in Kosovo; Missing men feared dead, US reports
6 - CNN; June 10, 1999; CNN Today 13:00 pm ET
7 - CNN; May 20, 1999; Larry King Live 21:00 pm ET
8 - Evening News (Edinburgh); August 18, 2000; Kosovo Death Toll 'Exaggerated' Say Experts
9 - The Guardian (UK); Friday August 18, 2000; Serb killings 'exaggerated' by west Claims of up to 100,000 ethnic Albanians massacred in Kosovo revised to under 3,000 as exhumations near end
10 - UPI NewsTrack; December 6, 2006; 2,150 people missing in Serbia's Kosovo
11 - Globus (Zagreb, Croatia); February 2, 2007; Establishing the number of victims in the Yugoslav wars of succession
12 - Voice of America News; September 10, 2008; Obama-Biden Ticket Aims at Working Class Voters
13 - Text of KLA Communique No. 22 published in the Swiss-based Albanian-language newspaper 'Bota Sot' on 10th August 1996
14 - Text of KLA Communique No. 40 published in the Kosovo-Albanian newspaper 'Bujku', in Pristina, on 5th December 1997; p10
15 - Text of KLA Communique No. 35; published in the Kosovo-Albanian newspaper 'Koha Ditore', in Pristina, on 8th August 1997; p3
16 - Text of KLA Communique No. 78; published by the Kosovapress news agency web site on 16th May 1999
17 - The New York Times; April 20, 1981; Roots of Yugoslav Riots: Vague 'Enemy' Blamed
18 - The New York Times; July 12, 1982; Exodus of Serbians Stirs Province in Yugoslavia
19 - Kosovo: SG Report pursuant to Security Council resolutions 1160, 1199, 1203 (1998) S/1998/1068; 12 November 1998
20 - Ibid.
21 - Milosevic trial transcript; March 2, 2005; Testimony of Dietmar Hartwig; pg. 36991-36992


=== 2 ===

SERBIA-USA: VISITA BIDEN, CONSERVATORI CRITICANO VISITA

(ANSA) - BELGRADO, 15 MAG - Il Partito democratico serbo (Dss) dell'ex presidente ed ex premier Vojislav Kostunica, insieme all'alleato di coalizione di Nuova Serbia (Ns), ha diffuso un documento di critica e condanna della visita che il vicepresidente americano Joe Biden effettuera' a Belgrado la prossima settimana. Come riferisce l'agenzia Tanjug, nel documento - intitolato 'Mai nella Nato' - si stigmatizza la politica di Biden, che sarebbe contraria agli interessi della Serbia. ''Noi siamo convinti che le dichiarazioni e la politica seguita da Biden siano contrarie agli interessi della Serbia e dei suoi cittadini'', ha detto Jovan Palalic, deputato del Dss. A suo avviso, proprio la politica seguita da Biden porto' ai bombardamenti della Nato sulla Serbia e all'appoggio per la secessione e l'indipendenza del Kosovo. Secondo Palalic, Biden durante la sua visita potrebbe cercare di fare nuove pressioni sulla Serbia. Nei colloqui a Belgrado, ha affermato il deputato, il vicepresidente americano ''esercitera' molto probabilmente nuove pressioni sulla Serbia affinche' stabilisca relazioni di buon vicinato con il falso stato del Kosovo, indebolisca le istituzioni della Republika Srpska e rinunci alla neutralita' militare per cominciare il processo di adesione alla Nato''. Biden comincera' il 18 maggio un giro nei Balcani occidentali, visitando Serbia, Bosnia-Erzegovina e Kosovo. Secondo la tv B92, il vicepresidente dovrebbe fare tappa a Belgrado il 20 maggio. (ANSA). QN 
15/05/2009 16:26 


=== 3 ===

Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

===

http://www.sofiaecho.com/2009/05/02/713881_biden-bypasses-bulgaria-but-will-visit-serbia

Sofia Echo - May 2, 2009

Biden bypasses Bulgaria but will visit Serbia

by Gabriel Hershman 


US vice president Joe Biden will be visiting the Western Balkans in May but...Bulgaria would appear not to be on his planned itinerary.

The news came from the press service of the office of the Vice President of the United States.

According to the official message, Biden's Balkans tour will not reach Bulgaria because it will concentrate on the Western Balkans. Biden will be visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Kosovo. Biden's tour of the Balkans is due to start on May 18. He will be meeting with political leaders as well as with American troops stationed there.

His trip to Serbia could potentially be tense because Biden was one of the strongest supporters of the allied bombing of Belgrade in the 1990s.

According to reports, Biden did not hesistate to call former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic "a thug" to his face.

A Serbian political analyst, Obrad Kesic, was on record last year as saying that it would not be good for Serbia if Joseph Biden were elected US vice-president.

"He was not only one of those who the tabled resolution to bomb Yugoslavia in 1999, but he is also firm in his belief that changes in Serbia came as a result of pressure from Washington," Kesic told Belgrade daily Blic.
....
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and is recognised by at least 58 countries including the United States and most EU member states. 

Serbia, along with Russia, had protested against the Bush administration's recognition of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence last year. 

According to statements from the press service, Kosovo's capital, Pristina, is likely to be Biden's first stop on his Balkans visit. There, one can assume, Biden will be assured of a warm welcome. 


---

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2009&mm=05&dd=14&nav_id=59139

Beta News Agency - May 14, 2009

Sejdiu: Biden visit historic 


PRISTINA - Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu says that the upcoming visit of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden to Kosovo will be a historic event. 

“The visit will be special, and of historic significance,” Sejdiu said, adding that the arrival of American officials was a sign of support for Kosovo, democracy and the successful development of all the countries in the region. 

Sejdiu said that Biden’s visit would be an opportunity to underline common and bilateral commitment to further, strong cooperation “between the two countries.” 

Kosovo media have identified Biden as one of the most prominent supporters of Kosovo independence over the last two decades. 

In a report previewing Biden’s visit to Kosovo, Radio Television Kosovo stated that the vice-president’s visit was expected not only to confirm continued U.S. support for Kosovo independence, “but the sanctity of territorial integrity” as well. [No doubt said with a straight face.]

Kosovo will be Biden’s first stop on his tour of the Balkans, before he moves on to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia.  

---


http://www.makfax.com.mk/en-Us/Details.aspx?itemID=4254

Makfax - May 14, 2009

US may appoint new Balkan envoy  


Brussels/Belgrade - Washington is displeased with the development of events in the Balkans, particularly with the EU's policy on Balkans' integration into the bloc, and it is likely to appoint a new envoy for the region.

U.S. Assistant Deputy Secretary of State Stuart Jones conveyed Washington's position at a meeting with journalists accredited to Brussels, the Makfax news agency said.

It's not a secret that the US is deeply concerned by frequent messages by some EU members challenging the Balkans' accession into the EU and NATO, Jones said.

He stressed that Washington wants to double efforts with the EU to speed up the Euro-Atlantic integration of the Balkans.

"The EU and NATO membership perspective is an important encouragement for reforms and stabilization of the region. Any halt of the process could jeopardize the reform process and the stability of the entire region," the US diplomat said.

He added that Vice President Jospeh Biden, who is due to visit Sarajevo, Belgrade and Pristina next week, will send a message that the new administration in Washington is very much interested in Balkan events.

Although the decision on appointing a new US envoy on the Balkans is still under consideration, his task would be to speed up the Euro-Atlantic integration of the region. 

---


http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2009/05/17/2003443780

Deutsche Presse-Agentur - May 17, 2009

US refocusing on Balkans with Biden visit


-[The] US led airstrikes against Serbs in Bosnia and Serbia, as well as anchoring [military] missions in Bosnia and Kosovo.
In Kosovo, Biden on Thursday is expected to affirm US support for Kosovo and discourage ***separatist ambitions of the Serb minority*** dominating the northernmost section of the new country. 


WASHINGTON AND BELGRADE - US Vice President Joe Biden will embark this week on a tour of the Balkans to “refocus” on the region and “reset” uneasy relations with Serbia, the largest and central former Yugoslav republic.

Starting on Tuesday and ending on Thursday, Biden will visit Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo. Although the West remains frustrated by the stalled progress of Bosnia and concerned about the potential for violence in Kosovo, Biden’s task will be to offer a new start to Belgrade.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to make it very clear to the government of Serbia ... that we hope to be able to press the reset button with Serbia,” a senior US official said, acknowledging “realistic expectations” that some differences “we’re not going to resolve, particularly over Kosovo.”

The task will not be easy, with relations burdened by the US role in the bombing a decade ago of Serbia — over former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic’s actions in Kosovo — and Washington’s backing of Kosovo’s secession last year from Serbia.

“Biden would probably try to perform a small miracle and demonstrate that America is fully open toward Serbia, ready not only for correct but good relations,” Washington-based Serbian analyst Obrad Kesic told the Voice of America radio.

“That will, however, be difficult within the context of conditioning, particularly that linked to the independence of Kosovo,” Kesix said.

The US official said that Biden, who ix expected in Belgrade on Wednesday, would not press Serbia to recognize Kosovo’s independence, asking only that Serbia refrain from undermining Kosovo’s independence.

“We’re very realistic about this. We’re going to have to agree to disagree,” the official said. “We have an opportunity to reset and restart the relationship between the United States and Serbia.”

Biden’s visit signals a refocusing under new US President Barack Obama on the Balkan region, which was in the international spotlight during the wars of the 1990s, but largely off the top-priority agenda during the post-Sept. 11, 2001, US preoccupation with the Middle East.

Along with diplomatic leadership in the Balkans in the previous decade, the US led airstrikes against Serbs in Bosnia and Serbia, as well as anchoring peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo.

In Kosovo, Biden on Thursday is expected to affirm US support for Kosovo and discourage separatist ambitions of the Serb minority dominating the northernmost section of the new country. 

===

Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato