FEBRUARY 2008

From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 2/18/2008 6:50 PM
Monday, February 18, 2008
Window on Eurasia: Despite Kremlin Opposition, Russia’s Muslims Back Kosovo’s Independence

Paul Goble

Baku, February 18 – Kosovo “has the right to independent existence as a state,” a leader of the Council of Muftis of Russia (SMR) said last night, because the conflict there between Serbs and Albanians has such “deep roots” and has cost so many lives that the coexistence of these two communities in a single state is “impossible.”
In making this declaration, Nafigulla Ashirov, the SMR’s deputy head and one of the most outspoken of Russia’s Muslim leaders, added that it was important that the European community “assume responsibility” for the security of Kosovo’s Serbian population (http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=164142&cid=9).
Other Islamic leaders in Russia, including Talgat Tajuddin, the Supreme Mufti of the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD), are likely to echo the Kremlin’s opposition to Kosovo’s independence when they issue statements today ...
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From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 2/19/2008 3:44 AM
Abkhazia, South Ossetia want independence
Publication time: 18 February 2008, 13:56

As Western capitals stood poised to recognize an independent Kosovo yesterday, separatist leaders in Georgia's breakaway territories said they would petition for similar recognition while Moscow warned of revising its stance on their independence.

"Kosovo is a precedent," de facto Abkhaz president Sergey Bagapsh told Russian news agency Interfax yesterday, saying that Abkhazia and South Ossetia would resubmit requests for the recognition of its independence to Russia, the UN and the CIS.

"If anyone thinks that Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdniestria will stop after the recognition of Kosovo, they are making a big mistake," he said.

"We said one and two years ago that the recognition of Kosovo was immaterial to us. We started our [independence] campaign earlier and would continue it to the end," he said.

As far as one is concerned, South Ossetian President Eduard ...
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From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 2/19/2008 3:47 AM
February 19, 2008

Statement by the ChRI Ministry of Foreign Affairs

CHECHENPRESS, Official information section, February 16, 2008



The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya welcomes Kosovo’s declaration of independence and casts no doubt over the right of the people of Kosovo to distance itself from the state which has terrorised it. Kosovo lost thousands of its citizens as a result of Belgrade’s aggressive policies. In the light of the new political realia and in view of the international political institutions’ tendency of adhering to the policy of double standards the ChRI Ministry of Foreign Affairs states as follows:

For the last fourteen years the Chechen people have waged an armed struggle against the most aggressive and militarised power in the world. Our people who have been methodically and purposefully decimated by all types of Russian military units is at the brink ...
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From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 2/19/2008 4:17 AM
Monday, February 18, 2008

East: In Post-Soviet Breakaway Regions, Eyes Look Longingly To Kosovo

By Brian Whitmore

Albania -- A billboard in support of the independence of Kosovo in Tirana, 13Feb2008
(epa)
The ink has hardly dried on Kosovo's independence declaration. The celebrations have barely abated in the streets of Pristina. And already, reactions are flowing from frozen conflict zones in the former Soviet Union as if on cue.



Eduard Kokoity, the leader of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia, said he intended to petition the United Nations and the CIS for independence from Georgia, arguing that his separatist enclave had "a stronger case" for statehood than Kosovo.

Sergei Bagapsh, president of a second Georgian breakaway region, Abkhazia, said he plans to make a similar appeal, adding "the situation with Kosovo is a precedent."

The two appeared at a joint press conference in Moscow today to make their case. The ...
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The Kosovo Example

Generally whoever the colonial oppressor and whoever the oppressed victim, the relationship between the imperial authority, being the occupying power and the occupied subjects, peoples, or nations, as the relationship between the beast and the sheep, that normally would be full of fear and terror until the beast is forced and kicked out or neutralized by a greater and more dominating force, which is in this case is the well of the people of restoring dignity, freedom, and independence which are not negotiable for nations that seek to be liberated from the tyrant imperialists.

Finally another oppressed nation has just declared its independence. This time it is Kosovo that decided the practice of its own self-determination which is considered a legitimate right of freedom to choose the nation’s own destiny that is guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Serbia showed and proved to be stubborn about the acceptance ...
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