Kosovo – Interview with Nikola Mirkovic, author and anti-NATO activist: “What is certain is that the interference of NATO and the West completely disrupted the Balkans, which have not recovered. Today it is mistakenly believed that peace has returned, but believe me, the Balkans remain a pressure cooker that just needs to explode”.
Almost two decades after NATO’s intervention in the region, the situation in Kosovo has only worsened. This is what Nikola Mirkovic, author of the book “The Martyrdom of Kosovo” and founder of the association West-East, explained to Marco Rumignani for the Visegrád Post.
Marco Rumignani: 18 years later, what can be said today of Kosovo? How is society in Kosovo today?
Nikola Mirkovic: Kosovo is a black hole in the middle of Europe. It is a region trying to separate Serbia by force from UN Resolution 1244. It is a region in the hands of ex-terrorists of the UCK, whose leader is the former head of the UCK, whose Council of Europe report says it is the “most dangerous amongst the sponsors of the underworld”. This is a no-go zone for Christian Serbs who live in the enclaves and are still regularly attacked because of their faith.
Even the Albanians in the region no longer believe in it. They are fleeing massively to the European Union because they know that independence for them is a farce and that the only ones who have pulled their way out of the macabre game of war in the 1990s are the Mafiosos and their NATO allies. For Giuseppe Arlaachi, a specialist in anti-Mafia struggle and a Socialist MEP: “We have created a mafia state and we only care to conceal this truth. “
MR: Did the peacekeeping forces really interfere with each other, or can we talk about occupation, under international law?
Nikola Mirkovic: The UN does not recognize the independence of Kosovo. It made this very clear in its resolution 1244. The peacekeeping forces have done a great deal of work for the Albanians and have turned a blind eye to many of the war crimes they have committed. Moreover, most of these forces came from NATO, that is, the military organization that bombed the Serbs and expelled them from their southern province to the detriment of international law. How do you expect those who have driven out Serbs to help them today?
Since the arrival of NATO in the Balkans, 150 churches have been destroyed, 200 000 Serbs have had to flee, 1 000 Serbs are missing, while at the same time 600 mosques were built mainly with money from the Wahhabi of Saudi Arabia. These forces only have “peacekeeping” in the name and they usurp international law because in reality it is an army of occupation, with few exceptions like the Monastery of Visoki Dečani.
The United States created its largest military base in Europe in Kosovo. For peace? Not really. Why did these peacekeepers close their eyes to the March 2004 anti-Serb pogrom when more than 20 people were killed, 30 churches desecrated, and thousands of Serbs who had survived the attacks of the 1990s, were finally forced to flee. These forces insidiously served ethnic cleansing against the Serbs.
Jacques Hogard, a French colonel who operated on the spot, explained it very well in his book “Europe died in Prishtina”. One day he had to shoot Albanian UCK terrorists who were shooting at a column of Serb refugees. He was immediately reprimanded by his British superior who told him to stop. When the French colonel asked why, the British general blandly confessed to him that among the terrorists of the UCK were … British SAS. The ultimate goal of this whole war has been to try to send the Serbs out of their homes so that Kosovo, which had never been a country before, could become purely ethnic Albanian. This is the opposite of the rhetoric we heard in the media in the 1990s. Lie, lie there will always be something …
MR: What was your experience during the NATO intervention in 1999? Did you see any fighting?
Nikola Mirkovic: During the war I lived in Paris, and I heard news every evening from my family in Serbia. The situation in France was unsustainable because of the propaganda that dripped from the media. In Serbia my family had access to the Western media and to the Serbian and Yugoslav media, it could form an objective opinion. In France we had only the voice of the dominant media which, with very few exceptions, was the spokesman of NATO. There was almost no discordant voice, no substantive debate, only propaganda. So I went to Belgrade with my young French wife and we were human shields a few days on the bridges to avoid NATO bombing them. It was my way of putting my life behind my ideas but I did not participate in the conflicts.
MR: How should conflicts in Kosovo be settled between communities?
Nikola Mirkovic: It was necessary to respect the sovereignty of Yugoslavia and to let the Yugoslavs settle this problem. Instead, Westerners funded and supported factions throughout Yugoslavia to disintegrate. We know all this today, it is not even hidden.
Pierre Péan described it very well in his book “Kosovo, a” just war “for a mafia state”. Kosovo terrorists received training and military aid from NATO members, including Jacques Chirac’s France, to attack Serbian institutions and the Serbs themselves. We found ourselves in this diabolical situation where the Western chancelleries condemned the Serbian police who answered the terrorists (not the liberators) who were themselves supported by these same chancelleries! This was the fireman’s tactic. The peoples of the region had to be negotiated along the framework of their institutions.
Eventually, the UN could have sent emissaries to facilitate the negotiations but in any case it was necessary to let Bill Clinton’s United States to do as it wished in the region. What is certain is that the interference of NATO and the West completely disrupted the Balkans, which have not recovered. Today it is mistakenly believed that peace has returned, but believe me, the Balkans remain a pressure cooker that just needs to explode. That is the direct consequence of NATO’s intervention.
MR: Ramush Haradinaj was released after being arrested in France. It seems that many criminals escape justice. Will the latter ever take precedence, and if so, how?
Nikola Mirkovic: How can we talk about justice? Even before the war began, the Serbs were already accused! The media was pointing the finger at them, the politicians had launched the anathema before even bombing us to justify their wars. At the same time, very few terrorist Albanians were convicted and the moment one of them found himself in the cracks, he was quickly released.
Haradinaj was indeed arrested in France. He had already been arrested in the past and tried in the International Criminal Tribunal of the former Yugoslavia but was acquitted. During his trial 14 witnesses ready to testify against him were killed or found dead in unexplained conditions. Have you seen a single western media questioning the liberation of Haradinaj? Haradinaj said he was innocent, yet in his own book he confessed to killing Serbs and Albanians who were enemies of his cause.
MR: Do the jihadists who have operated since the 1990s in the Balkans possess the same ramifications as those that operate in Syria and which have struck France?
Nikola Mirkovic: The first jihadists came from Iran, it was during the Bosnian war, then the latter were supplanted by those of Wahhabi inspiration financed by Saudi Arabia. There were Islamists in Kosovo but they were a minority. Albanian UCK terrorists came from organized crime circles. Today, on the other hand, since the NATO bombing the Wahhabis have arrived in force throughout the Balkans and in particular in Kosovo. They’ve created businesses, invested in growing mosques like mushrooms after the rain. Some preachers even paid Albanian children to learn the suras of the Koran. In Europe, the countries that provided the most jihadists in the Middle East per capita are Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, that is, the regions where NATO intervened in the 1990s. Believe that it is only the Serbs who are moved by it. Many Albanians like Genc Morina are also worried about the rapid Islamization that is wreaking havoc on society. Unfortunately they are a silent majority.
MR: What are your expectations about the new US administration and its foreign policy?
Nikola Mirkovic: In Serbia everyone pushed a “phew” of relief when Hillary Clinton lost. She and her husband Bill have done a lot of harm to the Serbian people. Trump had a non-interventionist speech, which pleased the Serbs but after three months of presidency, he has already illegally attacked Syria, as Washington had illegally attacked Serbia in 1999. This is not a good sign but we have not yet seen what his plan is for the Balkans. “Wait and see,” as they say.
MR: What is the influence of the European Union on the countries of the former Yugoslavia: on their economies, on their internal policies? Can we talk about the dependence of Slovenia and Croatia on Brussels?
Nikola Mirkovic: It must be understood that the break-up of Yugoslavia served first and foremost the United States, which did not want such an important non-Atlantic region in Europe. Germany was also very pleased to take revenge on past lost wars and extend its economic influence south of its borders and on the shores of the Mediterranean. The European Union, which is a project that the Americans strongly influenced after the Second World War, is merely executing orders from Washington. Today the EU is constantly threatening Serbia to refuse its integration if it refuses to recognize the independence of Kosovo. It’s a shame. The UN recognizes Kosovo as a Serb territory but the EU does not respect anything because the EU executes Washington’s orders.
Croatia and Slovenia are good examples of this information. The current Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović was formerly the Croatian ambassador to the United States and then the NATO Secretary General in charge of public information. One of the most active Slovenian diplomats in the region is the Slovenian Samuel Zbogar, a former Slovenian ambassador to the United States and a key player in the integration of Slovenia into NATO. Unfortunately, these two countries have become protectorates of Washington.
MR: Serbia faces many choices related to the European Union. Do you think Serbia will be a member of the EU?
Nikola Mirkovic: I think so, but will the European Union still exist when Serbia is ready? Serbian politicians want the EU to receive subsidies. Serbia therefore carries out most of its trade with member countries of the European Union. Getting closer to the Union is not meaningless. On the other hand, is it in the interests of the Serbs? Will the Serbs, so attached to their independence as the Ottomans, the Nazis and NATO, be able to abdicate their sovereignty in favor of Brussels, which will take 80% of the political decisions for it? Will Serbia accept the economic sanctions imposed on Moscow when today it refuses to apply them despite strong pressure from Brussels? Will Serbia be able to abandon Kosovo, which seems to be a hidden condition of its accession to the EU? Does Serbia want to follow the same path as Croatia or Slovenia who have already returned to the European Union and for whom no economic miracle has occurred? The Serbian wallet says yes to entry into the European Union, but the Serbian head and heart seem to say that the prices to be paid are not worth the candle.
MR: What are the prospects for the future of the Balkan region?
Nikola Mirkovic: The prospects are not good. The Balkan countries are becoming protectorates that have lost their economic self-sufficiency and sovereignty. The Balkans were dispossessed of their local industries for the benefit of foreign multinationals who settled there after the wars of the 1990s. Unemployment exceeds 20% in all countries, corruption and organized crime plague society and institutions and border problems are not dealt with at all, as we can see not only in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina but also in Macedonia and Montenegro. A veritable Islamic green diagonal crosses the region from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Macedonia through Kosovo under the impassive gaze of NATO soldiers. A spark can unfortunately make everything ignite again as in ’90.
Interview conducted on 12 April 2017
