Nebojsa Malic

Last week’s purge of Bosnian Serb officials by viceroy Ashdown has touched off a political meltdown in the country. Senior Serb officials are resigning left and right, jeopardizing the continued functioning of the current central government, while the general public is trying to guess whether a major revision of the 1995 Dayton Agreement is really … Continue reading “Orwellian Balkans”

The Tyrant of Bosnia struck again Thursday: almost six months after the last purge of such kind, Imperial viceroy Paddy Ashdown has launched another, proscribing officials, confiscating property and threatening further repression if the Bosnian Serb authorities failed to comply with near-impossible demands by next April. The pretext this time, just as this summer, was … Continue reading “Another Imperial Purge”

During the Balkans wars of the 1990s, quite a few people who dared question the Official Truth as presented by the Western media and governments frequently complained that reports from Bosnia and Kosovo at the very least distorted the truth, and sometimes even made it up entirely. As intervention escalated and the shape of the … Continue reading “Deception as a Way of Life”

It was not enough for the UN to whitewash NATO’s illegal invasion and occupation of Kosovo, to sit idly by and even justify the ethnic cleansing and barbaric destruction of Serbs and their cultural treasures, or even to stage sham elections designed to give a veneer of legitimacy to the abomination they have created. Now … Continue reading “Democratic Terrorists, and Other Lies”

Nine years ago this week, after lengthy and exasperating negotiations, leaders of Serbia, Croatia, and the Bosnian Muslims finally agreed to end the Bosnian war. The peace treaty was officially signed on Dec. 14, 1995 in Paris. It was seen as the capstone to American intervention in the Balkans, which supposedly solved the crisis Europe … Continue reading “Once Upon a Peace”

It is not uncommon for countries that have been infected by democracy to fall prey to a malaise in which every sphere of life becomes political, i.e., falls under the control or influence of the state. The amount of power this gives the state becomes so strong a lure that it attracts the very worst … Continue reading “Politics of Destruction”

In a world where “democracy” means anything the Empire wants it to mean, and is used as a tool of conquest, it stands to reason that Powers that Love Democracy meet any actual instances thereof (flawed as they may be) with unrelenting hostility. Conversely, any abuses of democracy – such as elections in occupied Kosovo … Continue reading “The ‘Right’ to Remain Silent”

After a very long night of speculation, Bush II emerged as the clear winner of this year’s state-worshipping ritual. It was a resounding victory for the War Party, as it would have been even if the votes had gone otherwise; Kerry was no less belligerent, only somewhat more polite about it. Both Bush’s victory speech … Continue reading “Democracy Deployed”

Seven months after the horrific pogrom that raged across the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo, the occupiers are poised to lead its perpetrators a step close to their coveted ultimate prize. Elections scheduled for Oct. 23 were designed to establish the Albanian authorities as a legitimate "government" of the province, bolstering their separatist claims just … Continue reading “Tragedy and Farce”

It was only a matter of time before someone said it: "[A]n old question haunts the continent: Where should the borders of Serbia lie?" So began Roger Cohen’s commentary in the International Herald Tribune on Tuesday, titled "The Serbian Question, Still on Europe’s Plate." Though the wars of the 1990s – which he blames squarely … Continue reading “Solving the ‘Serbian Question’”