February, 2008 | UN-Truth

Satellite shoot-down window nears

The U.S. has announced that air and sea traffic should stay clear of an area of the Pacific starting at 10:30 pm Eastern Standard Time, less than four hours from now, in case an order can be given to fire a missile from a navy ship to shoot down a falling satelite.

U.S. President Bush has decided that the attempt will be made to try to shoot down the satellite. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will be the one to give the order.

The satellite is expected to be at the point of re-entering the earth’s atmosphere by 29 February. Left on its own, it would hit the earth by the end of the first week of March.

The NY Times says the shoot-down should take place during daylight, which would mean not for another six hours.

The newspaper added that “Providing new information about how the mission will be carried out, a senior military officer said Wednesday that three Navy warships were in position in the Pacific Ocean to launch the interceptors, and that radar and other tracking equipment, both in space and on the ground, were being monitored at Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, and at a space command headquarters in Colorado Springs. The operation is being controlled from the Strategic Command headquarters in Omaha, Neb., with additional monitoring of information from the interceptor managed by the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency. Although the satellite circles the globe every 90 minutes, analysts have pinpointed a single overhead pass each day that would offer the best chance of striking the satellite, and then having 50 percent of the debris fall into the atmosphere during the very next three orbits over water or less populated areas of the Earth. When the order is given to carry out the mission, the Navy will have a window that lasts only tens of seconds as the satellite passes overhead, the senior military officer said”. This NYTimes story is here.

The Washington Post says that “The Pentagon wants to hit it with an SM-3 missile just before it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, in that way minimizing the amount of debris that would remain in space”.

The newspaper reported that “Adding to the difficulty of the shootdown mission, the missile will have to do better than just hit the bus-sized satellite, a Navy official said Tuesday. It needs to strike the relatively small fuel tank aboard the spacecraft in order to accomplish the main goal, which is to eliminate the toxic fuel that could injure or even kill people if it reached Earth. The Navy official described technical aspects of the missile’s capabilities on condition that he not be identified. Also complicating the effort will be the fact that the satellite has no heat-generating propulsion system on board. That makes it more difficult for the Navy missile’s heat-seeking system to work, although the official said software changes had been made to compensate for the lack of heat … He said the mission could go forward on any day until Feb. 29, when the satellite is projected to have re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, making it infeasible to attempt to hit it with the Navy missile”. This WPost story is here.

ABC News says that “The Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie is already in the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles west of the Hawaiian Islands. As the primary ship in the mission, it is carrying two SM3 missiles with specially modified tracking systems to hit the satellite 120 miles above Earth. The destroyer USS Decatur is en route to join the Lake Erie with another backup missile … Once the satellite is hit, Northern Command in Colorado will track the debris in an attempt to determine how big the pieces are and where they will land. The military will also be looking to see whether the fuel tank has been destroyed. The satellite is considered a cold target, and technicians will have to rely on the sun’s energy to heat the satellite just enough to produce a heat signature that the missile’s infrared heat sensors can easily target. The tip of the interceptor nose cone also carries optical equipment that helps it lock onto the target. The satellite will travel at a much faster rate of speed than any of the missiles intercepted in past years of testing. Nevertheless, the Navy believes the missile can be maneuvered to hit the satellite precisely on its sphere-size tank carrying the toxic fuel hydrazine. The Pentagon won’t provide advance warning of the shoot-down attempt, but within an hour of an interception the Department of Defense will issue a statement announcing the launch, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Tuesday … The planned hit will take place when the satellite is orbiting just above Earth’s atmosphere, so that most of the debris from the missile’s destruction would fall out of orbit in just a few days, rather than continuing to orbit in space where it could be a hazard to the International Space Station and future shuttle flights. If any debris does get close to the space station, flight controllers will move the orbiting outpost out of the way. They have done so six times in the space station’s 10 years in orbit”… This ABC News story is here.

UN regroups peacekeepers and equiment in Eritrea to Asmara

The UN announced at today’s noon briefing at UNHQ/NY that “Due to the lack of cooperation by Eritrean Authorities in the Mission’s efforts to temporarily relocate into Ethiopia, the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) has been instructed to regroup in Asmara all personnel and equipment in Eritrea. This move will facilitate further relocation out of the country”.

This is in the opposite direction from last week, when UNMEE and its equipment were heading for Ethiopia.

The UN added that troop-contributing countries were informed of this on 15 February, and said that “As UNMEE’s regrouping began this weekend, two flatbed trucks carrying Armored Personnel Carriers from the far western border post of Om Hajer were stopped inside the Temporary Security Zone by Eritrean militiamen on Sunday”.

ITU official tells reporter that damaged undersea cables could have been sabotaged

The operative words are: could have been.

As Agence France Press put it, “Five undersea cables were damaged in late January and early February leading to disruption to Internet and telephone services in parts of the Middle East and south Asia. There has been speculation that the sheer number of cables being cut over such a short period was too much of a coincidence and that sabotage must have been involved”.

So, an AFP journalist covering a conference on cyber-crime in Qatar asked one of the officials attending, Sami al-Murshed, head of development for the Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union (ITU), about this matter.

The ITU official replied: ” ‘We do not want to preempt the results of ongoing investigations, but we do not rule out that a deliberate act of sabotage caused the damage to the undersea cables over two weeks ago’, the UN agency’s head of development, Sami al-Murshed, told AFP. ‘Some experts doubt the prevailing view that the cables were cut by accident, especially as the cables lie at great depths under the sea and are not passed over by ships’, Murshed said”.

The AFP also wrote, in the same article, that “India’s Flag telecom revealed on February 7 that the cut to the Falcon cable between the United Arab Emirates and Oman was caused by a ship’s anchor. But mystery shrouds what caused another four reported cuts. The Falcon cable has since been repaired, along with the Flag Europe Asia (FEA) cable which was damaged off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. The status of the remaining cable is still unclear”. The AFP report has been published here.

OK, the prevailing view, as this article says, is still that these nearly-simultaneous cuts to these cables was an accident.

It would take great technical skill and more to mount an operation to do such damage deliberately, and without really being noticed. No one has claimed responsibility, if it was sabotage.

But, even if it wasn’t, how could this have happened?

UNSC meets on Kosovo without results – to be continued

News reports indicate that, as the Associated Press reported: “The Council met for 2 1/2 hours in New York in the second day of an emergency session on Kosovo but was unable to agree on a resolution or joint statement regarding Sunday’s declaration of independence”.

The AP added that “[UNSG] Ban opened Monday’s Security Council session by citing the many peaceful celebrations that accompanied Kosovo’s declaration but also noting scattered violence. He said the United Nations had achieved ‘peace consolidation and the establishment of functional self-government’ in Kosovo’, including five successful elections. ‘Kosovo has made considerable progress through the he said. Serbian President Boris Tadic, who attended the U.N. meeting, urged the council to oppose Kosovo’s move and to intervene as a last resort. ‘The Republic of Serbia will not resort to force, said Tadic. ‘On the other hand, this arbitrary decision represents a precedent, which will cause irreparable damage to the international order’. He said Kosovo’s declaration ‘annuls international law, tramples upon justice and enthrones injustice’ …
‘America and the European Union are stealing Kosovo from us, everyone must realize that’, said Tomislav Nikolic, the head of Serbia’s ultra-nationalist Radical Party.”

The AP also reported that Serbia’s Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said: “The so-called Kosovo state will never be a member of the United Nations. Serbia will use all diplomatic means at its disposal to block Kosovo’s recognition”. And, the AP said in its report, “Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, Russia’s special envoy to the Balkans, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying Moscow expected U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to abide by a Security Council resolution that recognized Kosovo as part of Serbia”.

As the AP notes, both Russia and China (two of the SC’s five Permanent Members) each have the power to veto any resolution that might be put on the table. A Presidential statement, which has less political and/or diplomatic weight than a resolution, represents a consensus — and thus could be blocked by the opposition of any one member. Even if there were no veto (which in this case is highly unlikely), a resolution would need the assent, and positive votes, of 9 of the 15 SC members.

This AP report is here.

AFP reported that President Tadic’s told the 15-member UN Security Council Monday that “This arbitrary decision represents a precedent, which will cause irreparable damage to the international order … There are dozens of various Kosovos in the world and all of them lie in wait for Kosovo act of secession to become a reality and to be established as an acceptable norm,” he added … [And] As President Tadic appealed to the UN Security Council in New York, in Belgrade, Serbia’s parliament met Monday in special session to ‘annul’ the independence declaration … Russia and Serbia failed again on Monday to persuade the UN Security Council to oppose Kosovo’s declaration — but nor has the Council given its stamp of approval to the independence process. China, like Russia a permanent member of the Security Council, expressed ‘grave concern’ over Kosovo’s declaration, which triggered new tensions between the Chinese and Taiwanese governments. ‘The unilateral move taken by Kosovo will lead to a series of consequences. China is deeply worried about its severe and negative impact on peace and stability in the Balkan region’, foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said. Long-time rival Taiwan warmly welcomed the independence declaration. ‘In no way should the independence of one nation be denied by another’, said the foreign ministry in Taiwan. China claims Taiwan is a renegade province which should be reunited with the mainland”.

This AFP report is here.

Nick Burns on Kosovo's Independence

It’s probably fair to say that fewer states have recognized Kosovo today, a day after its Declaration of Independence, than had been expected or hoped. Many are probably holding off until the results of an open UN Security Council meeting that is to start today.

Today, Nick Burns took questions from journalists in various parts of the world via a State-Department-organized teleconference press briefing.

Among other things, he said that the vast majority of the members of the EU and of NATO will be recognizing Kosovo’s independence today.

His remarks are breath-taking, and are worth quoting in their near-entirety here:

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Teleconference Briefing on Kosovo
Washington, DC
February 18, 2008

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nick Burns

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Okay, on the record. Thanks. Hello, everyone. This is Nick Burns.

This is obviously a historic day for the people of Kosovo and, as you know, Secretary Rice has just issued her statement of congratulations, of recognition. So the United States is today formally recognizing Kosovo as a sovereign and independent state. We are also going to be establishing diplomatic relations. President Bush is sending a letter to the President of Kosovo, President Sejdiu, that we’re responding affirmatively to the proposal made by Kosovo that we do establish diplomatic relations.

I’d just make a couple of major points, then we’ll go right to questions. The first is this. This culminates a decade of U.S. policy to support the people of Kosovo and to support the idea of stability and peace and justice in Kosovo. And the Bush Administration has worked very hard over the last three years to try to prepare for this day. We were among the leaders with the European allies in trying to make sure there was a United Nations process to look into the status of Kosovo. That resulted in President Ahtisaari, Martti Ahtisaari’s report to the Secretary General of the UN a year ago. We’ve worked very hard since then to be part of the international negotiations to see if it was possible to have an agreement between Serbia and Kosovo. That was not the case. And we’ve worked closely with the European countries for today’s decision.

We have recognized Kosovo. Many other states have as well. Just in the last two hours, I’ve been on the phone with my European counterparts, and after a long meeting in Brussels of the EU foreign ministers, you’ve now seen many of the EU countries come forward to recognize Kosovo. We’ve also seen early recognitions by Turkey, and by Afghanistan, and by Australia. And we’ve seen a very strong and supportive comment by the Organization of the Islamic Conference which is meeting in Dakar in Senegal. So think a very good early start for this country.

I also wanted to say that we will be working with the government to try to help it politically as well as economically. There will be a donors conference in a couple of months time in Europe. The United States is already one of the largest donors to Kosovo. In fact, in 2008 we’ll be conveying around $335 million[1] in U.S. aid to Kosovo. That’s a sizeable amount, and we’re encouraging other countries to do as much.

…

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, first of all, we made – Andrea, we made the basic assumption over the last several years, and this is a long-term policy over two administrations, the Bush Administration and the Clinton Administration, that given what happened in the breakup of Yugoslavia, particularly in Kosovo in 1998, the attempted ethnic cleansing of more than 1 million Kosovar Albanian Muslims, the brutal war that Milosevic fought with them, and of course, the NATO intervention in 1999 and nine years of United Nations rule since then, this is an extraordinarily complex situation but it’s rather unique. So we don’t see the independence of Kosovo as some kind of precedent that would – that should encourage in any way, shape or form other groups to break away from nation-states in Europe. But we do think that this is the final death knell, if you will, of Yugoslavia. And Yugoslavia broke up over the period of 1991 all the way now to 2008, and this is the just resolution of that problem.

In terms of volatility and violence, we made the assumption over the last several years, certainly in this Administration over the last three years since we began working very intensively on the final status issue for Kosovo, that not acting and not deciding the final status of Kosovo will be much more likely to lead to violence than action. That’s an assumption we made. That’s an assumption that the European Union made. I think it underlies the report of Martti Ahtisaari, the envoy of the United Nations whose plan provides the basis for the new independent state. They will undergo a period of supervised independence now. The European Union will be introducing a civilian mission to take the place of the United Nations office that has been there for nine years. NATO is going to stay and, in fact, NATO met this morning and reaffirmed its decision to stay in Kosovo. The EU made its decision two days ago.

And so I think that we should see a period of stability. And the goal is to help this country now get on its feet, become fully independent, but to help the entire region of the Balkans be more calm and stable. As Secretary Rice said in her statement, we’re now looking for Serbia, which is obviously going to be extremely unhappy about what the international community is doing today, we’re looking for Serbia, however, to take its place in the European Union in the future and in a better relationship with NATO and as a friend of the U.S. I would just say that this is the right decision for us and it’s the right decision if the international community wants to minimize the chance of violence in the future. Had we not acted, there would have been a tremendous amount of pressure for independence. I think that probably would have encouraged the kind of violence and instability that we are now hoping to prevent.

QUESTION: And what do you say to Putin and to Russia in general?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, you know, we, of course, have worked very closely with Russia for the last decade, but you have to remember that Russia left Kosovo. Russia did not stay in Kosovo along with the rest of the international community. We did stay. We kept our troops in KFOR. We had our political and economic support for Kosovo. We worked with the Russians over the last year. When Ahtisaari came out with his report in the spring of 2007, we had wanted to have an affirmative vote at the Security Council to affirm that plan and to put it into place. Russia did not agree.

So we then agreed to 130 days of negotiations where Russia, the United States and the EU each provided a diplomat, and they shuttled back and forth between Belgrade and Pristina for four months. And we tried to engineer a solution to the problem, but it was not possible. And just as the Ahtisaari plan had said, it wasn’t possible to have a solution between Belgrade and Pristina. Those negotiations, I think, prove that.

So we gave Russia every chance, both in the Security Council last spring and summer, in the negotiations which we co-sponsored with the Russians, but now we have to move ahead. And we are the countries recognizing today – the members of the EU, the United States, Turkey, countries that have played the biggest role in Kosovo. So we know we’re making the right decision. And we’ll have a disagreement with the Russians, but we’re the ones that have been on the ground and we’re the ones that have the responsibility to help Kosovo now get on its feet.

…

QUESTION: The Secretary said in her statement that the U.S. will work with international partners to help implement the Ahtisaari plan.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Yes.

QUESTION: What kind of – what exactly are you going to do?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: The Ahtisaari plan is, in essence, the basis for the statehood of Kosovo. As I said in reply to Andrea’s question, it provides for a period of supervised independence. What that means is that there will be two institutions that will be on the ground in Kosovo playing a major role trying to guide them forward and help them resolve the challenges ahead. The first is the European Union, which will have a civilian mission on the ground relatively shortly. The second is NATO, which has the KFOR mission that’s been there since June of 1999, following the prosecution of the Kosovar war. And so those two institutions will be there to help guide the new Kosovar Government.

But also very importantly, the Ahtisaari plan calls for a set of assurances for the security and safety of the Kosovar Serb population. You know, roughly 92 to 94 percent of the population are Kosovar Albanian Muslims, which also give you an idea of the overwhelming pressure for independence. But there’s a significant Serb minority community. That community has the right to stay in Kosovo, to be citizens of Kosovo, to live peacefully. You know, there’s been violence over the last – well, many, many years, over the last generation, between the major groups. And the Ahtisaari plan asks the Government of Kosovo, the new government, to put in place laws and procedures to safeguard the rights of that community. In fact, I called the President of Kosovo just about a half an hour ago to congratulate him and I’m waiting to speak to Prime Minister Thaci, and I know that they are in session right now beginning to implement – put in place some of the laws that the Ahtisaari plan calls for.

So I think all of us believe that one of the most important features of this new government will be reaching out to the Serbs, encouraging them to stay in Kosovo – those that live there – and providing them the rights and physical security to stay. That’s also the job of KFOR, of the NATO forces, to protect the Serb monasteries and churches that are a big part of Serb culture in Kosovo and have been there for, as you know, hundreds of years, and to provide physical protection should there be any kind of threats or attacks on the minority population. And we take that obligation very seriously.

So the Ahtisaari plan is the bedrock of this, and we will see – we have seen both from President Sejdiu and Prime Minister Thaci – we’ve seen and heard very strong assurances that they intend to implement that plan fully and to protect the rights of the Kosovar Serbs. And if you look at the statement of independence made yesterday by Prime Minister Thaci and the Kosovo Assembly, he spoke part of his address in Serbo-Croatian. He told the Serbs that they would be protected and that the majority population wanted them to stay. So it’s that kind of thing that we’re looking for from the new government.

QUESTION: But do you plan to maintain troops on the ground?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: NATO has decided to maintain the presence of the KFOR troops. We have nearly 17,000 NATO troops in Kosovo. They’ve been there since June 1999, since the war ended. Among – of those 17,000, roughly 1,600 – 1,600 – are American troops.

QUESTION: Okay.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: And we will all stay. NATO met this morning, and you’ll look for a public statement that the North Atlantic Council issued saying that we’re going to stay. But that decision was made, actually, last autumn by the NATO foreign ministers that we would stay should Kosovo status change. And it’s certainly changed today.

QUESTION: Thank you.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: And we’ve not put a time limit, by the way, on how long NATO would stay. And the United States, of course, has reassured all the allies and the Kosovar Government that we intend to keep our troops there as long as the mission is there.

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UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: We see no reason that it should. We’ve worked very closely with the Russians. You remember back in 1999 when we worked with the Russians; the Russians were part of this international effort for many years until they left Kosovo several years ago. But we have worked particularly closely with Russia over the last year, as I mentioned in response to Andrea’s question. We were ready to recognize Kosovo – the United States – a year ago when the Ahtisaari plan was unveiled, but it was the express wish of Russia that we not have a Security Council decision last spring and summer to recognize Kosovo, that we first give the chance – the opportunity for additional negotiations. And we joined the Russians and the European Union in four months of negotiations. We have been in touch with the Russians, you know, on a weekly basis. We have been part of the so-called Contact Group together for many, many years – Russian and American diplomats. Secretary Rice has had innumerable conversations with Minister Lavrov. In fact, they just spoke this morning by phone – Secretary Rice, I think when she was traveling from Kenya to Tanzania. So the Russians aren’t going to be surprised by our position.

And I should also say this is the position of the great majority of the European Union countries who are recognizing today, along with significant countries in the Muslim world and in the Far East. So I think we are – we’re going to be in the vanguard of countries recognizing Kosovo. And certainly among those countries that have done the most for Kosovo, that have had their troops on the ground, that have given economic assistance, that have been involved since ’98, ’99 in preventing the ethnic cleansing of the Kosovar population, this is no surprise to the Russians that this day has come.

I would also tell you, as you already know, that the resolution that we passed in June 1999, UN Security Council Resolution 1244, it foresaw a period of time when Kosovo’s final status would have to be decided. And that resolution was very specific: It essentially required Serbia to withdraw its military, its paramilitary and its police forces from Kosovo; it suspended Belgrade’s governance over Kosovo; it placed Kosovo under UN administration. It’s been under UN administration for nine years.

So for countries to say somehow this is a shock or that this is not the correct move, correct step politically or legally, that we just fundamentally disagree with that point. So I do not expect any kind of crisis with Russia over this. We expect the Russians to be supportive of stability in the region, and I think that all of us are going to be requesting that people remain calm and that the Kosovar authorities be allowed to establish this government and to move forward.

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QUESTION: Great. I just wondered how long you think NATO forces may have to stay in Kosovo. I mean, are you thinking it could be years more? And I think you said a minute ago, you expect stability there. Are you saying that you don’t expect violence now?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, on the first question, we have – NATO has not put a time limit on the deployment of the KFOR force. And we’ll just – we’ll have to take this step by step. The reason for the NATO troops, of course, is to help the new state – the presence of NATO troops is to help the new state through a period of forming itself and getting on its feet, but also to protect the minority populations, specifically the Kosovar Serbs, and to help in training of a police force that can in the future take over the job of security and stability inside the borders of the country itself. So we haven’t put a time limit on it.

In terms of violence, we have specifically called on the people of Kosovo to remain calm. The NATO leaders have, the EU leaders have, the new President and Prime Minister have. And we fully expect that law and order will be maintained. The United Nations police force and the NATO military force are there to maintain law and order, and they have pledged to do so. It has been a relatively quiet first 24 hours and it’s our strong hope that that will be sustained.
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UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, first of all, there have been some small demonstrations in Belgrade. There were yesterday and again today. But we’re very grateful to the Serb police and the Serb Government for maintaining law and order, and for maintaining the security around our Embassy and those of the other European countries.

Secondly, on Serbia, we have made a major effort to reach out to the Serb Government over the last several years. And we’ve made the point to the Serbs that we understand completely that we have a disagreement with them, that they’re going to be – they’re not going to at all support the actions taken by the European Union countries, some of the Asian countries and the United States today; but that we fully expect that Serbia’s future should be in Europe and that some future association by Serbia – of Serbia with the European Union, excuse me, is necessary, that we want Serbia’s relationship with NATO to grow. We see Serbia as part of Europe, and we know that the Balkans is the last part of Europe that has not received the benefits of the end of the Cold War, economic or political.

Yugoslavia had to break up, and it did, and this is the last vestige of the former Yugoslavia – the fact that Kosovo has now become free and independent. Now, we hope the Serb people, the Kosovars, the Bosnians, the Montenegrins, the Croatians, Albanians and Macedonians, all of them can look towards a future in Europe, and that’s with the EU and NATO. And that’s our message.

Secretary Rice called President Tadic yesterday and she had, I think, a good conversation with him. They obviously did not agree on this question, but she reaffirmed the strong interest that we have in a good relationship with Serbia. And we’ll continue that in the days ahead and the weeks ahead.

Finally, I would just say in terms of NATO and the European Union, the vast majority of members of both organizations are recognizing Kosovo today and have already taken that step. Some members have not. We appreciate that they have a disagreement. I would expect that the majority of them will find their way towards recognition in a short period of time, but I don’t want to speak for them. And there may be one or two countries that decide that, for whatever, reason, maybe domestic reasons, they can’t take that step right now. We respect that difference. But I think what’s important is the great majority of countries are recognizing today.

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QUESTION: You talked about helping Kosovo to get on its feet. Can you tell us what ideas you have in that respect? Because they obviously have some economic concerns in Kosovo, a lot of concerns about trafficking of people, and you clearly don’t want to see a Muslim-dominated state in Europe with such problems, especially among the young population. So you do have any ideas in that respect?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, first of all, Kosovo is going to be a vastly majority Muslim state, given the fact that 92 to 94 percent of their population is Muslim. And we think it is a very positive step that this Muslim state, Muslim majority state, has been created today. It’s a stable – we think it’s going to be a stable state.

The people of Kosovo – and I’ve been there many times over the last several years – have been remarkably patient. They’ve been living for nine years not knowing what the future of their country was going to be. And with the exception of an outbreak in violence which was quite serious in March of 2004, nearly four years ago now, there has been relative peace and stability in Kosovo, and we think that should be maintained. What we need to do is reach out politically to recognize them, establish diplomatic relations. And we’re encouraging as many states as possible to do that.

And secondly, the country is going to need a lot of economic assistance. So I mentioned before that there’ll be a donors conference hosted by one of the European countries in several months. We gave – the United States extended $77 million in assistance to Kosovo last year in 2007. We’re going to put forward roughly $334 million[2] in assistance in 2008. And we specifically would like to see the involvement of the World Bank and of the other European development banks to help the people of Kosovo create a modern economy.

We certainly would like to see debt relief for Kosovo because that will be an immediate way to help them. And we would like, obviously, to see as much regional trade and investment as is possible in that region.

And so I think it’s going to be a very tall order. There are many challenges ahead. But it’s clearly the right decision, and I think the European Union will be – will bear the greatest share of responsibility, given the fact that this is a European country. But the United States, given our long involvement, is going to be one of the leaders in this effort as well.

…

QUESTION: Yeah, Nick, I have another question. You said that Secretary Rice called President Tadic yesterday.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Yes.

QUESTION: Did he commit not to break the relations with U.S. after the recognition?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: I don’t believe – I don’t believe that was discussed. You know, we have actually a very active relationship with Serbia. The United States is one of the largest – I think we’re the largest investor in Serbia. If we’re not the largest – it changes month to month – we’re the second largest. A lot of American corporate involvement.

We have a much closer relationship with Serbia, obviously, than we did in the latter part of the 1990s when we twice had to – well, the first time in Bosnia and the second in Kosovo, use force against first the Bosnian Serbs and the Serb Army. We have the beginnings of a military relationship. We have encouraged Serbia to come into a closer partnership with NATO. And so I would expect our diplomatic relationship to continue. I just talked to the Serb Ambassador Friday. He came to see me. We had a long conversation. I expect I’ll talk to him today or tomorrow. And I wouldn’t expect our diplomatic relationship to be downgraded in any way. And our Ambassador, Cameron Munter, in Belgrade has been very active over the last couple of days.

So I don’t think it came up in the conversation between Tadic and Secretary Rice, but I don’t expect a major change in that regard.
…

QUESTION: Yes, sir. Halil Mula with RTV-21. First of all, I would like to thank you, Ambassador Burns, for all your input and help toward Kosovo. Second would be, what do you expect from today’s meeting at the Security Council that is being called? What are they going to participate – President of Kosovo – of Serbia, I’m sorry, Tadic?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, you know, there was a meeting of the Security Council yesterday. There’ll be a second meeting today. We expect President Tadic to come. I imagine that Russia and Serbia will say that the action – the declaration of independence is illegal under international law. That’s what Russia essentially said yesterday. And of course, we fundamentally disagree with that.

And I would just – this is important for those of you writing about this aspect of it. Resolution 1244, which was passed in June ’99, is the basis of the Kosovo situation itself. It envisaged a final status process for Kosovo, but it did not determine what the outcome would be. And as I said before, it ordered the removal of the Serb Army and the Serb Government and it ordered the United Nations to take over the province, and that’s been the status of the province for the last nine years.

There is nothing in Resolution 1244 that would prevent or make illegal a declaration of independence. There is nothing in 1244 that would prevent the establishment of a new state. In fact, 1244 and its major effort essentially says there has to be a UN-led presence to decide the future status of Kosovo, and that’s what we’ve seen over the last two years with President Martti Ahtisaari, the former president of Finland, leading that. He recommended to the United Nations— the United Nations envoy, that there be – that independence come to Kosovo and that it be supervised independence. He recommended the EU go in. He recommended that NATO stay.

So what we will say today is that we have respected 1244, that we have made this decision, as have many other countries, because it’s in the best interest of the stability of Kosovo; but there’s nothing in 1244, nothing at all from a legal point of view, that would indicate that what the Kosovar Government has done is illegal or somehow contrary to 1244. So, frankly, I think the United States, the European countries, the Arab and Muslim countries that are recognizing Kosovo today stand on very solid legal ground. We have been the ones on the ground in Kosovo for the last nine years. We have been the ones who have contributed our soldiers. And I think we’re doing absolutely the right thing for stability in Kosovo and peace, which, of course, is one of the most important objectives of the United Nations.

[1] Total projected U.S. assistance to Kosovo for 2008 is $335 million.

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The transcript of this tele-conference with journalists was sent by email,

China angry with Taiwan's recognition of Kosovo

In a long and tantalizingly-titled article (“Superpower Divide over Kosovo Widens“), the Associated Press is reporting that China is angry with Taiwan’s announcment that it recognizes Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence.

Did Taiwan receive one of the 192 letters that the Kosovar leadership sent out yesterday asking for recognition?

(And if not, why did Taiwan feel obliged to make this announcment?)

The AP said that “China’s Foreign Ministry criticized Taiwan for welcoming Kosovo’s independence, saying the island’s government did not meet the criteria for recognizing other countries. ‘It is known to all that Taiwan, as a part of China, has no right and qualification at all to make the so-called recognition’, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a statement posted on the ministry’s Web site. China has good ties with Serbia and expressed ‘deep concern’ over Kosovo’s independence declaration. For Beijing, the announcement conjures up one of its greatest fears: that Taiwan could some day make a similar declaration, something China says it would meet with military force”…

This AP report is posted This here.

The Israel-Gaza Dialectic – cont'd

Was John Holmes pointing the finger?

Reuters photo of John Holmes and retinue visiting Sderot on 17 Feb 2008

Would a UN official ever do that?

Well, today, the Israeli Foreign Ministry made a highly-publicized complaint directly to Holmes, in a meeting in Jerusalem.

In a statement on the MFA website — which was also sent around to journalist by email, and reported in the various languages of Kol Israel this evening — it said that “Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director-General Aaron Abramovich met today in Jerusalem with John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, who is currently visiting Israel and the Palestinian Authority … [and] rejected out of hand Mr. Holmes’ statement yesterday in Sderot, in which he described the situation prevailing between Israel and the Palestinians as a vicious “circle of violence”“.

According to the Foreign Ministry statement, Abramovich told Holmes that “the use of expressions such as these creates an analogy between the terrorists and those who are defending themselves against terror” — and “emphasized that Mr. Holmes’ remarks do not serve the interests of peace, as they may unwittingly encourage terrorists to believe that the international community will exert pressure on Israel, instead of dealing with the roots of the violence”.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported this evening that “When asked about the Foreign Ministry statement, Holmes said: ‘I think it’s very hard to construe from what I said anything which could be said to be encouraging terrorism’. On Sunday, Holmes warned Israel against an invasion of the Gaza Strip and said that the crisis in the South can be solved only by diplomacy. ‘The only thing that will make a lasting difference is a peace settlement’, he said. ‘You can’t stop these problems militarily. They have to be solved through negotiations’.
In an interview with Haaretz after his visit to Sderot, Sir John Holmes said that the response to the Qassam rocket attacks must be proportional from a humanitarian point of view. The former British diplomat, who had been involved in negotiations regarding Northern Ireland, said that despite the terrorism, the British government never considered bombing that region, and sought other means to resolve the crisis. Holmes said he was aware of the domestic pressure on the Israeli government to respond to the Qassam attacks, as well as the differences between the situation here and in Northern Ireland, but said there were no magic formulas. The senior UN official had requested to meet with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, but was turned down”.

The Haaretz story recalled a recent earlier episode of Israeli irritation with Holmes: “Regarding the continued Qassam rocket attacks, Holmes said during a visit to Sderot, ‘We condemn absolutely the firing of these rockets. There’s no justification for it. They are indiscriminate’. Two weeks ago, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, attacked Holmes for a statement he issued against collective punishment in the Gaza Strip, while ignoring the rocket attacks against Sderot. Holmes said Sunday that Gillerman apologized when he learned that the condemnation also included specific references to the rocket attacks on Sderot”. This Haaretz story is posted here.

In an earlier story today, Haaretz reported that “Israel has said it is targeting Hamas in response to daily rocket fire from Gaza on Israeli towns. [Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Sami] Abu Zuhri said Hamas was ready to halt if Israel ended all military action both in Gaza and the West Bank, and allowed free movement into Gaza. In the meantime, Abu Zuhri said, the rocket fire was a form of ‘self-defense’ — partly because of the ‘psychological’ effect it had on Israelis who were abandoning homes in the line of fire. ‘It encourages our people’, the Hamas official said … Israel says it may target senior Gaza leaders but Abu Zuhri said it would have no effect. ‘Threats to the Hamas leadership are an expression of the bankruptcy of the occupation’, he said. ‘If the end comes serving the people, that is a very honourable way to go. But the occupier will pay the price’.”

The Israel-Gaza Dialectic

On Friday, UN’s Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, visited Gaza and expressed shock about the ‘grim and miserable’ situation there, and he said the Gaza Strip’s borders should be open.

On Sunday, Holmes visited the Israeli city that has been the target of many Qassam rockets fired by Palestinians from Gaza, and said, according to the Jerusalem Post, that “there was ‘no excuse’ for the Kassam rocket fire at the town, which contained no military targets. He said the real victims were the civilians, and that this was a violation of all principles of human rights. He stressed that the children were suffering emotional damage as a result of exposure to the security threat”.

Reuters photo of John Holmes and retinue visiting Sderot on 17 Feb 2008

The JPost added that Holmes “advocated Israel’s keeping up military pressure on the heads of Hamas”. This JPost article is here.

However, Haaretz did not make the same interpretation of Holmes’ words.

Haaretz reported that Holmes told the Associated Press: “We condemn absolutely the firing of these rockets. There’s no justification for it. They are indiscriminate, there’s no military target … We just need to keep on saying to the people in Gaza, to the Hamas leadership, they have to stop these rockets. They do no good. They cause suffering”.

Haaretz said that Holmes said “the only way to solve the problem is through a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. ‘At the end of the day, the only thing that will make a lasting difference is a peace settlement’, he said. ‘You can’t stop these problems militarily. They have to be solved through negotiations’.” The Haaretz report is posted here.

According to an Israeli Cabinet Communique Sunday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke about Sderot and the Israeli communities bordering Gaza during the weekly cabinet meeting, and said that “The Government has several tracks for dealing with this issue. First of all, there is the operational activity of the IDF and the security establishment. I have already said that there is an almost daily war in the south and terrorist leaders are certainly a target and we will not slacken on this issue and we will continue to struggle in order to reduce to nil the threat that is upsetting the quality of life of residents of the south. Of course, there are also other measures that we are using, including sanctions and striking at the supply of materials that could serve the terrorist organizations, including energy, and this is being carried out according to the decision of the Cabinet, in coordination with the considerations of the security establishment at the behest of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, with my assent. I think that this is being done correctly, prudently and responsibly. This may not always be loved but it is an important part of counter-terrorist activity”.

On Thursday evening, the Israeli military was supposed to have ordered another phased reduction in directly-supplied Israeli electricity to Gaza, though there has been no public confirmation of that.

Meanwhile, the also-visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told Israel’s State President Shimon Peres in a meeting today that “the mood emanating from the Palestinian street was one of despair, frustration and lack of hope regarding the chances of a Palestinian state being established. ‘This is a dangerous thing’, Kouchner said and underscored the fact that since the Annapolis conference and donors’ conference in Paris there had been no real progress in the peace process and that it was imperative to immediately start implementing economic-oriented projects on the ground so as to generate some hope in the Palestinian people”.

In the context of Gaza, this sounds almost surreal. (In the West Bank, people are worrying that the situation is so bad it may lead to a new intifada.)

Palestinians detained at Kerem Shalom crossing in Gaza - Haarety

Palestinians detained today at Kerem Shalom crossing

An interesting analysis in the latest issue of MERIP (the Middle East Research and Information Project), by Harvard PHD candidate Darryl Li, who has lived and worked in Gaza before, and who also spent the month of January there, gives a bleak picture of the situation.

Harsh as it is, this analysis is not more harsh than the reality.

Entitled “Disengagement and the Frontiers of Zionism”, it says that “the stranglehold on Gaza is not simply a stricter version of the policies of the past five years; it also reflects a qualitative shift in Israel’s technique for management of the territory. The contrast between Israel’s expedited transfer of animal vaccines to Gaza and its denial of medicine for the human population is emblematic of this emergent form of control, that, for lack of a better term, we may call ‘disengagement’. ‘Disengagement’ is, of course, the name Israel gave to its 2005 removal of colonies and military bases from the Gaza Strip. But rather than a one-time abandonment of control, disengagement is better understood as an ongoing process of controlled abandonment, by which Israel is severing the ties forged with Gaza over 40 years of domination without allowing any viable alternatives to emerge, all while leaving the international donor community to subsidize what remains. The effect is to treat the Strip as an animal pen whose denizens cannot be domesticated and so must be quarantined. Disengagement is a form of rule that sets as its goal neither justice nor even stability, but rather survival — as we are reminded by every guarantee that an undefined ‘humanitarian crisis’ will be avoided … From 1967 to the first intifada of 1987-1993, Israel used its military rule to incorporate Gaza’s economy and infrastructure forcibly into its own, while treating the Palestinian population as a reserve of cheap migrant workers. It was during this stage of labor migration and territorial segregation that Gaza came closest to resembling the South African ‘bantustans’ — the nominally independent black statelets set up by the apartheid regime to evade responsibility for the indigenous population whose labor it was exploiting. During the Oslo phase of the occupation (1993-2005), Israel delegated some administrative functions to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and welcomed migrant workers from Asia and Eastern Europe to replace the Gazans. A new infrastructure of movement controls also emerged. Permits for travel to Israel and the West Bank, once commonly granted, became rare. Ordinary vehicular traffic ceased. In the second half of the decade, Israel erected a fence around the territory and commenced channeling non-Israeli people and goods through a handful of newly built permanent terminals like the ones that have recently come to the West Bank. It was during this period that Gaza under Israeli management most resembled a giant internment camp. The detainee population was, to a certain extent, self-organized and appointed representatives to act on its behalf (the PA) who nevertheless operated under the aegis of supreme Israeli military authority, within the framework of agreements concluded by Israel and a largely defunct Palestine Liberation Organization (which are now basically agreements between Israel and itself) … In any event, in Gaza the Oslo experiment in indirect rule seems to be over. Israel now treats the territory less like an internment camp and more like an animal pen: a space of near total confinement whose wardens are concerned primarily with keeping those inside alive and tame, with some degree of mild concern as to the opinions of neighbors and other outsiders … In order to understand the management differences between an internment camp and an animal pen, it may help to start with the place where Israel’s control over Gaza is most physically manifest: the crossings. Karni crossing is the sole official crossing point for commercial traffic between the Gaza Strip and Israel, a highly fortified facility straddling the frontier on the site of an old British military airfield near Gaza City. Karni has approximately 30 lanes for handling different types of cargo — from shipping containers to bulk goods — needed to meet the diverse needs of a modern economy. Karni is a creature of the Oslo period, concretizing its logic of impressive spectacle and laborious inefficiency in order to balance Israeli control with the image of Palestinian autonomy. The crossing operates on the wasteful principle of ‘back-to-back’ transport: Goods are left by one party in a walled-off no man’s land and then picked up by the other without any direct contact, essentially doubling shipping costs.
In recent months, Israel has completely shut down Karni except for occasional shipments of wheat grain and animal feed. At the same time, Israel has routed a few types of permitted ‘essential items’ mostly through the Kerem Shalom and Sufa crossings further south. Unlike Karni, Kerem Shalom and Sufa are operated entirely by Israel and make no gestures toward Palestinian partnership. They are not commercial crossings but essentially gates in the fence, never designed for trans-shipment of goods and incapable of handling many types of difficult-to-package items such as building materials and piped gases. When open, Kerem Shalom and Sufa together can process perhaps 100 truckloads of cargo per day compared to Karni’s capacity of approximately 750 truckloads. Most revealing, however, is the manner of transfer: Cargo at Kerem Shalom and Sufa is offloaded from trucks and then left on pallets in the open for Palestinians to come and pick up when they are allowed to approach. The contrast with Karni’s elaborate security procedures and regimented distribution system is striking. ‘At least in prison, and I’ve been in prison, there are rules’, Gazan human rights lawyer Raji Sourani told the New York Times. ‘But now we live in a kind of animal farm. We live in a pen, and they dump in food and medicine’. The physical move from Karni to Kerem Shalom and Sufa and the official restriction of passage only to ‘humanitarian items’ embody the shift in Israel’s blockade policy, from trying to punish the Gazan economy to dispensing with the economy altogether (except when Israeli producers need to dump cheap surplus in Gaza). Israel is also selectively disengaging from other economic relations with Gaza: Major Israeli banks have announced their intention to sever ties with Gaza, and Israel has since autumn limited the inflow of US dollars and Jordanian dinars, endangering Gazans’ ability to purchase imports and make use of remittances … In practice, the neat distinction between vital needs and luxuries is often impossible to implement since it ignores the enormous swath of human activities and desires in between that are no less important simply because they can be temporarily deferred. This has been most poignant in the case of permits to leave Gaza for medical treatment, which are now granted only to those with ‘life-threatening’ conditions. Under the scheme, according to Human Rights Watch, permits for mere ‘quality of life’ procedures such as open heart surgery have been denied, leading to patient deaths. In the case of the electricity cuts, the Supreme Court blithely acted as if Gazans could easily redirect remaining power to hospitals and sewage networks despite clear evidence to the contrary. To the extent that electricity can be redistributed within areas, technicians must physically go to substations several times per day and manually pull levers that are designed to be operated only once a year for maintenance purposes. As a result, there have been numerous breakdowns and at least two engineers have been electrocuted. Even if it was possible to implement and was done with the best of intentions, the logic of ‘essential humanitarianism’ (it is unclear what would constitute the ‘inessentially’ humanitarian) promises nothing more than turning Gazans one and all into beggars — or rather, into well-fed animals — dependent on international money and Israeli fiat. It allows Israel to keep Palestinians and the international community in perpetual fear of an entirely manufactured ‘humanitarian crisis’ that Israel can induce at the flip of a switch (due to the embargo, Gaza’s power plant only has enough fuel at any one time to operate for two days). And it distracts from, and even legitimizes, the destruction of Gaza’s own economy, institutions and infrastructure, to say nothing of ongoing colonization elsewhere in Israel-Palestine. The notion of ‘essential humanitarianism’ reduces the needs, aspirations and rights of 1.4 million human beings to an exercise in counting calories, megawatts and other abstract, one-dimensional units measuring distance from death …
Disengagement, however, is not merely the latest stage in a historical process; it is also the lowest rung in a territorially segregated hierarchy of subjugation that encompasses Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and within the Green Line. Half of the people between the Mediterranean and the Jordan live under a state that excludes them from the community of political subjects, denies them true equality and thus discriminates against them in varying domains of rights. Israel has impressively managed to keep this half of the population divided against itself — as well as against foreign workers and non-Ashkenazi Jews — through careful distribution of differential privileges and punishments and may continue to do so for the foreseeable future … As Israel has experimented with various models for controlling Gaza over the decades, the fundamental refusal of political equality that undergirds them all has taken on different names, both to justify itself and to provide a logic for moderating its own excesses. During the bantustan period, inequality was called coexistence; during the Oslo period, separation; and during disengagement, it is reframed as avoiding ‘humanitarian crises’, or survival. These slogans were not outright lies, but they disregarded the unwelcome truth that coexistence is not freedom, separation is not independence and survival is not living”. This analysis, published by MERIP, can be seen in full here.

Russia asks for emergency UN Security Council meeting on Kosovo

Kosovo’s parliament declared independence on Sunday. The Associated Press reported from Pristinia, KOSOVO that the speaker of Kosovo’s parliament declared that “Kosovo is a republic — an independent, democratic and sovereign state” — and the announcement was greeted with a burst of applause.

This AP report said that “Sunday’s declaration was carefully orchestrated with the U.S. and key European powers …But by sidestepping the U.N. and appealing directly to the U.S. and other nations for recognition, Kosovo set up a showdown with Serbia — outraged at the imminent loss of its territory — and Russia, which warned that it would set a dangerous precedent for separatist groups worldwide … Serbia immediately denounced the declaration as illegal [and unilateral] , and Russia also rejected it, demanding an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council”. The AP report from Kosovo is here.

The UNSC held an emergency session behind closed doors on Sunday afternoon at Russia’s request, backed by Serbia. A more formal open meeting is apparently scheduled for Monday. AP reported that Russia’s Ambassador to the UN in NY, Vitaly Churkin, said: “We’ll insist that it should be an open meeting, and we expect that the president of Serbia will participate”. AP also reported that Churkin said: “We’ll strongly warn against any attempts at repressive measures, should Serbs in Kosovo decide not to comply with this unilateral proclamation of independence.” In Sunday’s private meeting, Churkin apparently argued that “the declaration of independence from Serbia made earlier Sunday violates the council’s orders and other UN rules”.

UPDATE: The BBC and other news sources reported Monday that Russia is trying to get the Kosovo Declaration of Independence annulled.

An AP report from Moscow says that “The Foreign Ministry said Russia supports Serbia’s ‘just demands to restore the country’s territorial integrity’ and wants the Security Council to renew efforts to reach a settlement on the issue of Kosovo’s status. Kosovo’s independence declaration violates Serbia’s sovereignty and the U.N. Charter and threatens “the escalation of tension and ethnic violence in the region, a new conflict in the Balkans,” the ministry said in a statement. It warned other nations against ‘supporting separatism’ by recognizing Kosovo. Kosovo has formally remained a part of Serbia even though it has been administered by the UN and NATO since 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic’s crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. Russia has stressed its opposition to any decision on Kosovo’s status that is not accepted by Serbia. It has warned that recognition of Kosovo by the United States and other nations would encourage separatists in the former Soviet Union, across Europe and around the world”. The AP report from Moscow is here.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, on a visit to Israel, said at a press conference in Jerusalem that he wished the Kosovars “good luck”. He said in remarks broadcast on Kol Israel that he was not sure what positions would be taken tomorrow in Brussels, but added with what sounded like a Gallic shrug that UN-led negotiations on Kosovo hadn’t made much progress, and there wasn’t much other choice but to support its independence. Kouchner was one of the first UN commissars of Kosovo.

The Israeli Hebrew-Language newspaper Ma’ariv said, in an editorial, that, “Today, Kosovo will declare independence, against the will of the parent state, Serbia,” and adds that, “The coerced solution is causing concern in Israel and in other states, such as Cyprus and Russia.” The editors assert that, “Kosovo’s declaration of independence is a violation of international law“, and suggest that the US is supporting it, “Because it is simply sick and tired of dealing with these problematic Balkans.” [This summary was supplied by the Israeli Government Press Office.]

The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement Sunday night saying, intriguingly: “Regarding Kosovo’s declaration of independence, Israel is monitoring developments and will formulate its position in due course”.

The implications for Israel are obvious, as it is now negotiating something related to the creation of a Palestinian State, though in the past it warned PLO leader Yasser Arafat not to make a unilateral declaration, as he threatened to do (particularly in 1999 and 2000 –months before the outbreak of the Second Intifada).

UPDATE: The next day (Monday 18 February), the Israeli Hebrew-language newspaper Ma’ariv said in another editorial that “Israeli support for a unilateral declaration of independence is liable to weaken Israel’s position against a similar declaration by the Palestinians.” According to a summary provided by the Israeli Government Press Office, “Ma’ariv editors suggest that Israel will, in the end, recognize Kosovo’s independence but only after many other countries, especially the U.S., have done so”.

Prime Minister Hashim Thaci (a former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) which fought Serbian troops in a separatist war in 1998-99), President Fatmir Sejdiu, and Parliament speaker Jakup Krasniqi signed the declaration of independence, AP reported from Kosovo, and a new flag was unveiled –not the red and black flag of the KLA , which demonstrators waved in celebration in the streets today, but a very new one, which drew heavily on the European Community’s blue background flag, with a golden yellow image of Kosovo, and with just six white stars — apparently one for each of its main ethnic groups.

Thaci, according to the AP report from Pristina, pledged that the new nation of Kosovo “would be ‘a democratic, multi-ethnic state’ … and added that ‘Kosovo will never be ruled by Belgrade again’ … Thaci on Sunday signed 192 separate letters to nations around the world — including Serbia — asking them to recognize Kosovo as a state”.

The AP report added that “Serbian President Boris Tadic rejected the independence bid immediately, declaring Sunday’s proclamation ‘unilateral and illegal’ … Serbia’s government minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said Sunday that Serbia would increase its presence in the roughly 15 percent of Kosovo that is Serb-controlled … Serbia’s government ruled out any military response as part of its secret ‘action plan’ drafted earlier this week as a response, but warned that it would downgrade relations with any foreign government that recognizes Kosovo’s independence”. Again, the AP report from Pristina is posted here.

Russia makes a move – expresses suspicion about U.S. plans to shoot down falling satellite

According to a report from the Associated Press, “Russia said Saturday that U.S. military plans to shoot down a damaged spy satellite may be a veiled test of America’s missile defense system. The Pentagon failed to provide ‘enough arguments’ to back its plan to smash the satellite next week with a missile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. ‘There is an impression that the United States is trying to use the accident with its satellite to test its national anti-missile defense system’s capability to destroy other countries’ satellites’, the ministry said”.

The AP story also reported that “The Bush administration says the operation is not a test of a program to kill other nations’ orbiting communications and intelligence capabilities. U.S. diplomats around the world have been instructed to inform governments that it is meant to protect people from 1,000 pounds of toxic fuel on the bus-sized satellite hurtling toward Earth. The diplomats were told to distinguish the upcoming attempt from last year’s test by China of a missile specifically designed to take out satellites, which was criticized by the United States and other countries … Left alone, the satellite would likely hit Earth during the first week of March …The operation to shoot down the dead satellite could happen as soon as next week”. This AP report is posted here.

Later, China expressed concern, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said on Sunday, according to a Reuters report from Beijing, that the government “is considering what ‘preventative measures’ to take … ‘The Chinese government is paying close attention to how the situation develops and demands the U.S. side fulfill its international obligations and avoids causing damage to security in outer space and of other countries … Relevant departments in China are closely watching the situation and studying preventive measures,” Liu said in a brief statement posted on the Foreign Ministry’s Web site (www.fmprc.gov.cn)”.

Reuters added that “It will be the first time the United States has conducted an anti-satellite operation since the 1980s. Russia also has not conducted anti-satellite activities in 20 years. China launched a ground-based missile into an obsolete weather satellite in January 2007, drawing international criticism and worries inside the Pentagon that Beijing has the ability to target critical military assets in space”. This AP report from Beijing is posted here.

At the time, the U.S. characterized China’s action as “a matter of concern,” since it indicates a possible threat to America’s own satellites, as well as those of other countries. And the Center for Defense Information (CDI), a Washington-based think tank, condemned the Chinese test as “provocative and irresponsible,” saying it “should be roundly condemned” and adding that “the deliberate creation of persistent space-debris in a highly-used orbit is simply unacceptable behavior in space.” The CDI also noted that “some observers have suggested that the ASAT [anti-satellite] test could have been a strategic move by the Chinese to bully the United States into actually discussing such a [Chinese-desired outer space disarmament] treaty.” The CDI went on to warn that: “The United States and the international community need to take the time to finally have the difficult discussion about what actions are acceptable in space, and, more importantly, which ones are absolutely unacceptable.” If no country took China to task, the think tank said, “space will become the new Wild West; a situation … guaranteed to put everyone’s space assets even more at risk.”

Shortly after China’s action was reported last year, China confirmed to the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva that it had indeed conducted an anti-satellite test in outer space. China’s disarmament ambassador to the CD, Cheng Jingye told diplomats that, “as everybody was aware,” China had long been advocating for the launch of talks on the prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS). Ambassador Cheng, who was speaking at the 2007 CD session’s second meeting, also noted that China and the Russian Federation had already submitted to the Conference some suggested points to be included in a draft treaty that they want to begin to negotiate. Such a treaty would be aimed at banning the deployment of weapons in outer space, as well as preventing the use, or threat of use, of weapons against space objects.

The U.S. is the chief objector — and it has the usual support from its friends.

China in particular has been very put out that the U.S. will not agree — the U.S. says, among other things, that the 1972 Outer Space Treaty is perfectly adequate, and that there is no arms race in outer space. China believes that the U.S. does indeed have a space weaponization program, which grew out of the Reagan Star Wars semi-bluff, and which involves the use of satellites in at least targetting and guiding missiles and other weapons.

In January 2007 China shocked the world by successfully shooting down one of its own weather satellites with a ground-launched missile, in a not-too-subtle demonstration of the clear need to negotiate some new rules.

Russia has surprised everybody by sticking with China on this, and Russia now has its own issues with the U.S., related to the stated U.S. intention to deploy part of its “missile shield” in eastern European countries bordering Russia. The two countries have recently submitted a slightly revised proposal that they hope will permit the launch of negotiations.

One way out of this antagonism would be for the U.S. to agree to the start of PAROS talks in Geneva — what is the harm in talking??? China does not want just talks, of course, it wants an eventual treaty — but what’s the harm of another treaty??? China says it has been willing to make concessions, and to accept the start of talks on a Fissile Material cut-off (at least, of production — no one is talking yet about eliminating stockpiles), which is the U.S. top disarmament priority, so long as the U.S. will also recognize and move on China’s top priority, which is PAROS.

Russia and China would view the U.S. as less controlling (and deceptive) and more open and cooperative, if only it would agree to the space talks.

The problems related to this falling U.S. satellite offer the U.S. a way to make this concession that they have fought for years — which will unblock the disarmament stalemate, and defuse the tensions between the world’s major nuclear powers.