BULLETIN - Serbian Unity Congress

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WASHINGTON SCENE Tina Hone Tomasevic, the niece of SUC founding member Desa Tomasevic, paid tribute to her late aunt ner for the USA. His glowing description of the blossoming military cooperation showed another side of the US relationship with Serbia, one far different from that reflected in President Bush’s recent comments in favor of Kosovo separation. The two days Serbian American political action attracted a record turnout of U.S. Senators, Representatives and other officials, including leaders of other ethnic communities who strongly endorsed Serbia’s historic, legal and moral claim on Kosovo. Secretary Rice’s Irresponsible Kosovo Remarks Undermine U.S. Security Serbian Unity Congress Press Release During a recent visit to Portugal, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that “we’re committed to an independent Kosovo and we will get there one way or another.” In the current delicate political juncture, when key international players (including UN Security Council members and EU nations ) involved in helping determine a fair resolution to the Kosovo issue have agreed that a new round of good-faith negotiations between the parties, with no fixed time limits or default solutions, is necessary to move forward from the current stalemate - the present statement amounts to a sabotage that mocks the process and dooms the outcome. A similar - though less brazen - stance by the State Department at the outset of the 2006 Vienna status talks likewise wiped out any substantive negotiations between the parties and directly led to the current political impasse. With a continuing American responsibility for assisting a just resolution to this political conflict, its ability to act as honest and independent broker is virtually destroyed with such an irresponsible bias towards one particular solution. Furthermore, the current insistence on this specific outcome compromises US foreign policy on multiple levels. Defying international law by pressing the dismembering of a state that has clearly committed to its territorial integrity is bound to open a Pandora’s box of secessionist claims worldwide, resultant instability and sundry blow back of a kind historically poorly handled by the US. Moreover, the abandonment of the earlier sensible “[human rights] standards before status” policy for the province, in the face of naked threats of violence by a narco-mafia clique with reported Al-Qaeda ties, is certain to bode ill for both our ongoing efforts in the War on Terror and the perceived sincerity of our worldwide human rights agenda. If there was any question about the effect of the Secretary’s public comments, that was promptly removed when the provincial Prime Minister Agim Ceku stated he will call on the Assembly of Kosovo to have November 28th as the day when the province will unilaterally declare its independence. This plan (called “Plan U” for “Unilateral Independence”) was presented to the Kosovo Albanian delegation in advance of its trip to Washington DC this week, to meet with Secretary Rice. This is sadly a very predictable outcome of a very irresponsible remark. We now have the Kosovo governmental institutions poised for a declaration of unilateral independence, an outcome feared by all other international factors, but with the explicit support of the United States. While the rest of the Inter- national Community is desperately trying to figure out a sustainable solution and bring lasting peace to the region, the Secretary of State is presenting the United States foreign policy as one where terrorism is not only tolerated, but rewarded. The Serbian Unity Congress strongly condemns such destructive statements, especially coming from a key player in the ongoing discussions on the future of this province. Furthermore, the Serbian Unity Congress calls on members of Congress and Senate to come out strongly against such acts, exerting their mandated oversight of the State Department, raise the level of scrutiny of the Administration’s policy regarding Kosovo-Metohija, and its implications on US security and national interest. Greetings from the Serbian Unity Congress to our Brothers and Sisters in Serbia on this Vidovdan 2007 and the 618th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo! We all know the special history, the symbolism and the legend that the very word “Vidovdan” means to Serbs. We cannot even say “Vidovdan” without stopping to think about its cascade of meaning. For those of us who are born or living abroad, on Vidovdan we all remember our roots. It is a focal point of our identity as people tied together by our ancestors, their actions and their values. While we remember Tsar Lazar and the loss on Kosovo Ravno, we are also proud of the outcome. In the early summer of 1389, our 4 www.serbianunity.net Serbian Unity Congress Newsletter, No. 282, Summer 2007
ancestors went bravely forth from their castles and fortresses, their wooden huts and farms to face a vast and powerful enemy. They knew full well that they might not return. But they went in defense of their homes, their families, their pleme and their Holy Orthodox Christian faith. This would be the second major and awful encounter between Serbs and the Ottomans after the Battle of Marica in 1371. The short time between these battles was not even adequate to raise a new generation of warriors to bolster the losses sustained in 1371. Nonetheless, when faced with a choice of submitting to tyranny or fighting for freedom, our ancestors chose the latter. They chose to do what is right and honorable regardless of the cost. More than six hundred years later, we gather to remember and honor the actions of all of our ancestors – from the Battle of Kosovo to the 1804 uprising, from two Balkan wars to two world wars, from their fights against tyranny to their struggle to survive today in Kosovo and Metohija. We thank them for their deeds of chivalry and valor. We thank them for their willingness to fight and die for what is right. We thank them for setting an example for us to follow every day of our lives. We thank them for showing by their deeds what it means to be a Serb – not so much a matter of genetics but, rather, a matter of moral values and conscious choice, the choice of the Kosovski zavet. The battle of Kosovo in 1389 and today is both internal and external. Each of us has a daily struggle to do what is right, to live true to the values of our shared culture and our faith. There is also the external battle. Today our people in Kosovo and Metohija face daily terrorism and occupation. Today we openly stand with them and work towards justice and fairness for all. While we may lose in the short-run, in the long-run doing what is right is always a victory. In this we are no different from our ancestors. Jasmina Theodore Boulanger President Serbian Unity Congress Poet Charles Simic is next U.S. laureate Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic, who learned English as a teenage immigrant, will be the new U.S. poet laureate, the Library of Congress announced Thursday. The native of Yugoslavia, who lives in Strafford, N.H., will replace another New Hampshire poet, Donald Hall, Wilmot, as head of the poet laureate program, which promotes poetry across the nation. “I’m overwhelmed,” Simic said. Simic taught at the University of New Hampshire for 34 years before moving to emeritus status. He won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1990 for his book “The World Doesn’t End.” He also is an essayist, translator, editor and professor emeritus of creative writing and literature. “When you read it, you feel like he’s talking to you,” Marilyn Hoskin, dean of the college of liberal arts at UNH, said of Simic’s work, which she called “beautifully phrased.” Later Thursday, Simic received another honor, the 14th annual Wallace Stevens Award, a $100,000 prize from the Academy of American Poets for “outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry.” Simic starts his duties as poet laureate with a speech at the library’s National Book Festival on Sept. 29. Parenting Serbian- American way S. Simich Most parents agree that parenting teenagers is not easy. What I did not know is that in addition to the regular “Get off the phone! ” phrase , I would be yelling “ Who is your social studies teacher ?! “ at our 15-year-old daughter. I was not warned that parenting American-born children of Serbian descent would include defending their heritage WASHINGTON SCENE from bigotry and defamation. It all started with our daughter’s involvement in the “Save Darfur” campaign, which had us driving to Washington rallies on several occasions. And than early in May of this year, the Jacob Burns Film Center and the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center in New York, began publicizing a fundraising event to raise finds for Darfur. The event was the 24 Hour Human Rights Film Marathon, with a vision to initiate a collaboration of high school students countywide, whose collective efforts as “ upstanders” would raise funds and awareness for the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. They partnered with social studies teachers of 25 New York area schools involving thousands of students, and distributed pamphlets outlining six genocides in the 20th century. Descriptions included “Bosnia 1992-1995” as well as “World War II -The Holocaust”. Our daughter’s high school was one of the participants. The write-up on Bosnia opened with the following statement : “In the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, conflict among the three main ethnic groups, the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, resulted in genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims in Bosnia.” It continued describing “Serb snipers continually shot down helpless civilians in the streets, including eventually over 3,500 children… The Serbs continued to engage in mass rapes of Muslim females. By late 1995, more than 200,000 Muslim civilians had been systematically murdered. More than 20,000 were missing and feared dead, while 2,000,000 had become refugees.” Among the students involved in this film marathon were several Serbian- American children from the New York area, whose friends started making remarks related to the write-up. Defamatory generalizations were made by some of the teachers involved. Ironically, some of the students involved had relatives who were killed in the Bosnian conflict or were refugees from Bosnia. Our family’s Bosnian-Serb relatives were scattered as refugees across Europe and 1-202-463-8643 5
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