tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5657459.post113294317626931857..comments2023-09-09T17:41:33.146+03:00Comments on HISTOLOGION: taloshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13680864841710474232noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5657459.post-1133012157234567042005-11-26T15:35:00.000+02:002005-11-26T15:35:00.000+02:00[skipping the prison stuff, which deserves a post ...[skipping the prison stuff, which deserves a post of its own]<BR/><BR/>Kudos to Tadic for taking this step. Now it's time to see if the international community will be willing to meet him half way. Partition is the least-bad option, but it's going to drive a lot of people on both sides mad with outrage.<BR/><BR/>Serb ultranationalists: not really. Hanging on to Kosovo is, unfortunately, still the mainstream of Serbian public opinion. And when a party consistently polls 35% - 40%, as the Radicals do, I don't know if you can call its positions "ultra". I'm very fond of the Serbs, but they still have some demons to exorcise.<BR/><BR/>Kosovo Roma: agreed, 260,000 is very unlikely. Half that many still seems high. But yeah, however many there are, they're pretty screwed. The Serbs used them as allies and agents... an arrangement the Roma were willing to accept, because it lifted them a step or two above the normal miserable position of Roma in this part of the world. But it caused the Albanians to hate them bitterly; and when the Albanians took over, the ugly combination of traditional anti-Roma prejudice with this more recent grudge meant that most of them were expelled within days after the end of the war.<BR/><BR/>Now they're stuck in Serbia, where the Serbs have no use for them. Even the local Roma community resents them as outsiders and rivals. Yeah, it's pretty bad.<BR/><BR/>Exploration licenses: they go into a trust fund which is administered by KTA, the Kosovo Trust Authority. The money is supposed to go into safe investments (i.e., bonds and things, outside Kosovo) and accrue until there's an agreement on how to divide Kosovo's state-owned assets. Which there isn't, and won't be for a while, because both Belgrade and the Kosovar government claim total ownership of all state-owned assets in the province. But when and if they finally agree, the KTA will release the money, divided appropriately.<BR/><BR/>This doesn't mean that pockets won't be lined, of course. Business in Kosovo is pretty crooked at the best of times. And big state contracts and procurements tend to be spectacularly corrupt. To give just a single example, the monopoly provider of mobile phone services is a French company, and the service it provides is truly horrible. Mobile tariffs are by far the most expensive in the region, coverage is patchy, reception is bad, calls often cut off suddenly, and there's no roaming. (I remember my shock when I arrived in Pristina and my mobile phone stopped working. I have Orange! Orange works in Timbuktu, in Samarkand, and north of the Arctic Circle. But not in Kosovo.)<BR/><BR/>It's an open secret that the French company paid millions to various persons in Kosovo Telecom to get that monopoly (with, some say, the connivance of the French government). Attempts to amend the contract, or bring in a second provider to compete, have so far been stonewalled.<BR/><BR/>On-the-other-hand, exploration licenses are pretty key. Agriculture and mines are all Kosovo has, and the mining industry hasn't seen any new exploration -- never mind development -- for nearly 20 years. Slobo's first act was to fire all the miners, including mining engineers and geologists, and they've been unemployed since. The old mines are in horrible shape. So, it's probably a good idea to explore a little.<BR/><BR/>An important role for Greece: Given the Greek statee's track record in the Former Yugoslavia, this sounds like a really bad idea. Molyviatis says Greece "is viewed by all of the immediately interested parties as a reliable, consistent and effective interlocutor". Well, no; that's just not true. The Albanians view Greece as a hostile neutral, at best. Memories of Greek support for Milosevic are conflated with continuing resentment at the treatment of Albanians in Greece. They don't like you guys, and they have some good reasons for that.<BR/><BR/>I note in passing that while Molyviatis is clear on what he doesn't want (partition, joining Kosovo to another country), he has nothing to say about what /should/ happen... other than to say that Greece should be involved. Hmm.<BR/><BR/>Serb interests are already protected by Russia and China; I don't really see what's gained by bringing Greece in.<BR/><BR/>BTW, I've been posting about Kosovo lately over on the <A HREF="http://www.bookcase.com/~claudia/mt/" REL="nofollow"> home blog</A>... FYI, if you're interested.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Doug M.<BR/><BR/>P.S. I've been away for a while... what's with the moderation? Trolls? Spam?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com