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Alternative News on Kosovo

Our picks of insightful news and analysis of the Kosovo crisis. Updated three days a week.

July 30

Push to try NATO leaders for war crimes
Louise Arbour, the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, has already indicted Slobodan Milosevic on charges of war crimes. However, efforts are also being made to try Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and Tony Blair, among others, for their own respective contributions to the carnage in Kosovo. COUNTERPUNCH has posted this letter to Arbour, written by a Canadian law professor, expressing concern at the Tribunal's apparent lack of impartiality in solely pursuing Milosevic. "Charging the war's victors, and not only its losers, would ... [demonstrate] that no one is above the law, not even the leaders of the world's most powerful countries."

KFOR trapped between militias
It has become apparent by now that it is the KLA, not KFOR, that is running the show in Kosovo. STRATFOR, which continues to provide excellent information and analysis of post-war Kosovo, warns that one of the dangers of the KLA's de-facto administration of the province is the probability of Serb paramilitary forces entering Kosovo to seek revenge against Albanian targets. In fact, it was reported on Albanian state television that a group of Serb forces attacked the village of Moistir on July 27. Furthermore, as Serb reprisals increase, disarming the KLA -- which will claim a need for self-defense -- will become practically impossible. At that point, KFOR troops will most likely find themselves "caught in between warring paramilitaries on the ground ... in unfamiliar terrain, facing irregular forces that oppose NATO interference, during winter."

July 29

Russia warns US about global policing
Although the war in Kosovo is slowly drifting out of the papers, its political and personal aftermath remains severe. On the political side, the NEW YORK TIMES ran this story about the continuing strain on US-Russian relations after the war. Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, on a visit to the US, told a group of journalists that the US policy of acting as the world's policeman was "very dangerous." Despite his critical statements, Stepashin said relations between the two nations are much improved. He also announced that the countries would discuss reduction in nuclear arms and spies sent to each other's countries.