Further disintegration of Serbia bad

March 31, 2008
SERBIANNA

In search of a coherent explanation behind recent Western decision to recognize Serbian separatist province of Kosovo, a little known letter by a German Bundestag member Willy Wimmer has surfaced as a prophetic diplomatic document that shed's light on events taking shape in the Balkans now.

Writing in 2000 to the then German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Wimmer's letter warns that during a meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, that was jointly organized by the American State Department and the American Enterprise Institute, the participants of which a large number were prime ministers, declared that the union of Serbia and Montenegro called Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was outside of the legal framework of the Helsinki Final Act referring to the inviolability of state borders and that Serbia, as its successor will have to be dismembered.

Wimmers letter to German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder"The war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was waged in order to rectify General Eisenhower’s erroneous decision during World War II. Therefore, for strategic reasons, American troops must be stationed there, in order to compensate for the missed opportunity from 1945," notes Wimmer in his fourth point to Schröder.

In the letter, Wimmer also noted that the 78-day bombing of Serbia in 1999 was to overcome the legal obstacle of NATOs New Strategic Concept of April 1999 which stipulates that the alliance cannot participate in military missions outside its member countries.
"Serbia (probably for the purposes of securing an unhindered US military presence) must be permanently excluded from European development," concluded Wimmer in his eighth point of the letter to Schröder.

European Union's foreign ministers on Saturday agreed to help the pro-European camp in Serbia led by Serbia's President Tadic in order to pave the way for its integration and that signing a Stabilization and Association Agreement which is a trade and aid pact and a visa-free agreement would help the pro-European forces at the May 11 elections in Serbia.

Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said that May 11 election in Serbia are crucial in determining the future coarse of the country.

"The result (of the elections) will produce radical consequences for the future development of Serbia and the Western Balkans," Jeremic said, adding that "no one's choice will be unaffected by the issue of Kosovo."

In light of Wimmer's letter, to many in Serbia such hopeful pronouncements by the EU appear as a deception.

In a recent interview, Kosovo Serb Bishop Artemije alluded to Wimmer's document citing his eighth point as the foregone conclusion to any of Serbia's efforts to join the EU.

"It is rather impossible that our President [Tadic], besides so many of his advisers, not to be privy on a letter that Willy Wimmer wrote," said Artemije. "One has to be honest to his people and say it bluntly that... there is no European perspective" for Serbia.

In an interview for a Serbian daily Vecernje Novosti, Willy Wimmer noted over the weekend that it is up to the EU to create preconditions for Serbia's membership into EU and NATO.
"Preconditions must be made by EU. I underline this sentence," says Wimmer. "Precisely over this I have the most reservations. Mission EULEX for Kosovo clearly indicates that EU in its actions is no longer on the clear legal basis."

Wimmer also says that the reason for American military presence in Kosovo has more to do with controlling land routs from the Black Sea into Europe then over local issues.

"NATO summit in Bucharest will show whether Russia will be pushed out of Europe in the future as well," says Wimmer and assesses that "It is hard to conclude what will be of Serbia in the near future... The worst out of the already difficult position is for Serbia to internally disintegrate."