Thursday, March 6, 2014

Crimea and Kosovo - what's the difference?

Crimea and Kosovo have much in common: an autonomous status, military bases of other countries on their territories, and a longing for independence among the majority of the population. But there are distinctions, too, - different patrons.
Of late, many people compare the events in Crimea with the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999. And they interpret the events according to everyone’s liking. For example, former US Ambassador in Moscow, Michael McFaul, claimed on CNN that military intervention on the part of Russia was unacceptable, because there was a big difference between the situation in Crimea and in Kosovo in 1999.


We should not compare Crimea and Ukraine with Kosovo and Serbia. Serbia threatened the Kosovars, and Ukraine does not threaten anyone.

But can a state threaten a part of its own territory? Serbs, Albanians, Turks, and others nationalities live in the autonomous region of Kosovo. There is no such nation as “the Kosovars”. Whom did the US protect there? There is not a single American in Kosovo, and there are 1.5 million of Russians in Crimea. It makes a big difference. For the Western media, however, there is much in common between Crimea and Kosovo. Here is what Ian Traynor wrote in The Guardian:

  • “The tactics and methodology used by Milosevic during the wars in the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo, are obvious. If Putin has decided to become a new Milosevic, the West will see a new split in Europe.”

Slobodan Milosevic wanted things to get better, but it turned out the wrong way. He had no strength to resist NATO’s expansion to the East. The US wanted to expand its forces from the West to the East of Europe and chose the Serbian autonomous province of Kosovo and Metohija to create its strategic base. With this purpose they even used the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which was included in the American list of terrorist organizations.

  • The anti-terrorist operation of the Serbian special ops units against the KLA in the village of Račak in January, 1999, was used as a pretext for the bombings of Yugoslavia without permission of the United Nations. 

  • Western media presented the operation in the village of Račak as a mass murder of civilian population and urged the US to act and protect innocent people. And ten years later, Helena Ranta, Finnish forensic doctor, wrote in her autobiography that she had written the report about this incident under pressure from the then head of the OSCE mission in Kosovo, William Walker, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, and that there had been corpses of Albanian terrorists, and not civilians.

After the NATO forces entered Kosovo, the US built the second largest base in Europe there - Bondsteel. It allows US to control the area of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, and also the routes to the Middle East, North Africa and the Caucasus as well as the energy transit from the Caspian region and Central Asia. According to them, stationing in Serbia is perfectly legitimate and it is also very profitable for them. Americans do not pay for the use of state lands in Kosovo. 

  • In contrast to the Americans in Kosovo, Russia pays for its base 100 million dollars a year. And it is for 230 years already that the Russian Black Sea Fleet is stationed in Crimea. “The Black Sea Fleet is not homeless. Its home is in Sevastopol,” - Vice-Premier of the RF Dmitry Rogozin said. 50 years ago, Crimea was a part of the USSR, whereas the US simply occupied a part of the Serbian territory by means of aggression and is doing everything in order to create its puppet state there.

Historical, economic and cultural relations with Ukraine give Russia the full right to interfere in order to protect its people. And what is the US doing in Serbia?
Milena Tsmilyanich

 [6 March 2014, 02:00]
http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_03_06/Crimea-and-Kosovo-whats-the-difference-9908/
6/3/14
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