Moscow will send any military assistance Serbia requires and will make no secret of it

Some Congressional aides say that in the event of a Russian Security Council veto, pressure will grow for the United States and allies to recognize Kosovo directly, outside the U.N. framework."The Kosovo independence train has left the station," said Antony Blinken, Biden's staff director, in a statement sent to The Associated Press.

Biden's counterpart in the House of Representatives, Democrat Tom Lantos, also conveyed a sense of urgency on the issue by proposing a resolution on January 5, the second day of the new Congress, that backs Kosovar independence and warns that further delay could lead to instability. The measure was co-sponsored by the top Republican member on Lantos' Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Republican Sen. George Voinovich, also a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, who is of Serbian descent, has expressed concern in the past about rushing toward independence. But he said it is in Serbia's interest to eventually let the province go. He remains insistent that any settlement protect Kosovo's minority Serb population and have the support of the Serbian government.

"It is absolutely critical that before the UN Security Council decision is finalized, there is infrastructure for enacting the plan and protecting the rights of Kosovo's minority populations," Voinovich said."This plan cannot be successful without adequate infrastructure, including funding, troops, international police, international prosecutors, and the help and support of the government of Serbia."

US policy long has favored Kosovar independence, although some within the administration of President George W. Bush and in Congress have warned against alienating Serbs and undermining liberal and democratic Serbian politicians. Pressure has increased on the White House from the new Democratic Congress. Democratic leaders of the committees that deal with foreign policy are strong proponents of independence for the mostly Muslim province. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Joseph Biden, is urging the Bush administration to make the final push for independence with muscular diplomacy.

Moscow has just had its representative to the Council of Europe, Konstantin Kosachev, politely and diplomatically, refuse to support in any way Strasbourg's decision to declare Kosovo independent, "It is not within the competence of the Council of Europe or PACE, but with the competence of the UN Security Council to determine the status of Kosovo." But Russia has also made no secret of being ready to veto any UN resolution supporting the province's independence. And when war breaks out, before this year is half over (either re-started by the Serbs or the Albanians), Moscow will send any military assistance Serbia requires and will make no secret of it. The schism between Russia and Europe will then become official.

Moscow will re-assert its influence into Northern and Western Europe by supporting the war effort of Balkan people as they attack the military occupation of the Western-led international organizations still under control of the West. These same international bodies will have to recognize the new military-international reality when the West no longer has the influence it once did, a significant re-alignment in international relations. Moscow had Kosachev continue to state, "If today the assembly gives its backing to proposals granting Kosovo independence, on certain conditions, then the Russian delegation will not be able to support the resolution as a whole."

When fighting resumes, Moscow will, very publicly, stage a walk out of the Council of Europe. Other capitals within Moscow's re-emerging sphere of influence will follow. The club of Western leaders will have to be replaced by those in touch with international reality instead of with their prestigious, unrealistic decision making.

History of Kosovo

From the 2nd millennium BC, the Illyrian tribe of Dardanae occupied a territory that included present-day Kosovo. The region was later subdued by the Romans, and toward the end of the 12th century the Serbian ruler Stefan Nemanja annexed Kosovo. In 1389 an invading Ottoman army inflicted heavy casualties on the Serbian army in the Battle of Kosovo, leading to the subsequent conquest of all of Serbia by the Ottoman Empire in 1459 and driving many Serbs northward. In 1878 Albanians in the region formed the League of Prizren to resist Ottoman rule, a provisional government was formed in 1881. But it was not until 1912 that resistance in Kosovo succeeded in expelling the Ottomans. Kosovo was included in the newly independent state of Albania in 1912, but the following year the Great Powers (Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Russia) forced Albania to surrender Kosovo to Serbia. In 1918 Kosovo was incorporated into the newly established Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia.

During World War II (1939-1945) Kosovo was briefly assigned to Albania. In 1946 it was granted autonomous status within Serbia. Periodic uprisings by ethnic Albanians gradually led to greater autonomy for Kosovo, but riots in 1981 fuelled a Serbian backlash. Rising Serbian resentment against Albanians resulted in protest marches and helped facilitate the rise to power of Slobodan Milosevic in 1987. Kosova, once an autonomous federal unit of Yugoslavia, was stripped of its autonomy by the government of Milosevic in 1989. Milosevic’s later actions would result in the break-up of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and in war with Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. In August 1995 Kosovo became the destination of ten thousand of Serbian refugees from the Krajina region of Croatia; Krajina had been recaptured by Croatia after several years of Serb occupation. The government of Albania protested the resettlement of Serbs in the predominantly Albanian province.

After the revocation of Kosova's autonomy, the Serbian authorities closed schools in the Albanian language, massively dismissed Albanians from state-owned enterprises, and suspended Kosova's legal parliament and government. Serbia instituted a regime of systematic oppression of the Albanian population in Kosova, and flagrant violations of basic rights of Albanians occurred frequently. Initially the Albanians responded to the repression with peaceful and passive resistance. In 1992 the people of Kosova held free elections in which they chose their leadership, expressed their determination for the independence of Kosova in the 1991 referendum, and in the same year the Kosova parliament declared the independence of Kosova. They formed a shadow government, found means of continuing Albanian-language education outside of occupied premises and providing health care (most Albanian doctors were dismissed from state-owned hospitals by Serb installed authorities).

In early 1998 the Serbian government began a crackdown against the Kosova Liberation Army (UÇK), a guerrilla movement which emerged after it became apparent that the peaceful approach was ineffective in face of the brutal regime of Milosevic. After 1998 Serbian security forces conducted a scorched earth policy in Kosova, burning villages to the ground, creating an exodus of over one million refugees and internally displaced persons, and committed horrific atrocities against unarmed civilians, including women and children.

The NATO bombing campaign, which began in March 1999 after Serbia's refusal to sign a peace-accord for the settlement of the conflict in Kosova, lasted until June 1999 when the Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic capitulated and agreed to withdraw all Serbian security forces from Kosova. United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 established a United Nations civilian administration in Kosova (known as the United Nations Mission in Kosova; UNMIK) and setup a NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosova to ensure security.

The war in Kosova had created over one million refugees and internally displaced persons, left over 300,000 people without shelter, an estimated 25,000 dead, and mass graves containing bodies of up to one hundred civilians, including women and children, who have been summarily executed. The Kosovars, UNMIK, NATO and the international community are now making efforts to rebuild Kosova, revitalize its economy, establish democratic institutions of self-government, and heal the scars of war, however that is not easy as you will study the present economic situation.