KOSOVO DRAMA STILL ESCALATING

• Far from seeking isolation or confrontation, Serbia is seeking nothing more, and demanding nothing less, than any other sovereign member-state of the European club takes for granted: the respect for territorial integrity

Those same European and North American countries that keep lecturing Russia's President Vladimir Putin on the virtues of Western-style "democracy" take a very different attitude to those self-proclaimed principles when it comes to the Balkans. "Manipulation" does not even start to describe the cynical game with the Serbian electorate that "the West" has been playing for over a year now in order to help its chosen local lickspittles in the long-suffering Balkan country.

Almost a year ago, the unveiling of the infamous Ahtisaari "plan" for Kosovo -- the blueprint for the province's illegal secession from Serbia -- was delayed from January 1, 2007, until after the parliamentary election in Serbia on January 20.

The reason was frankly stated in all Western capitals that matter: the need to help the "pro-Western, reformist" Democratic Party (DS) of President Boris Tadic in its bid to secure as many seats in the national legislature as possible by pushing its old agenda of "Euro-Atlantic [i.e. EU-NATO] integrations."

It was assumed, reasonably enough, that Tadic's starry-eyed Europhoric supporters may have second thoughts about continuing their support for Serbia's integration into those same institutions that underwrite and condone amputation of one-seventh of her sovereign territory for the benefit of a bunch of blood-soiled jihadist pimps and heroin kingpins.

Well, we are witnessing the same ploy all over again. Tadic and his allies in the Assembly of Serbia have conspired with the European Union to gerrymander a "quickie" presidential election on January 20, in order to preempt the looming unilateral declaration of "independence" by Kosovo and the subsequent recognition by the United States and some of the EU countries (not to mention the Muslim world and ex-Yugoslav satellites of Washington DC). Just one day after the election was announced -- illegally and unconstitutionally, according to Prime Minister Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), which is (absurdly enough) DS's partner in the current coalition -- a top EU official was quoted as saying that "it may take until the spring" before the status of Kosovo is finally determined.

Of course the DS, the Bush Administration, and the EU bureaucratic machine all have a common agenda in pushing ahead with the election now. If the presidential race is over before Kosovo declares its independence, Thaci's pending declaration, amply aided and abetted by Washington and Brussels, supposedly won't impact the outcome of the race. Tadic gets duly reelected, to provide the "reasonable" (read: collaborationist) voice in the Serbian leadership that will not veer away from the cherished "integrations" come what may.

Cheat me once, shame on you; cheat me twice, shame on me -- says the old American proverb. It is to be hoped that Serbia will not fall for the same ruse again. "Integration" into the European Union -- let alone NATO -- is neither desirable nor possible on the condition of self-mutilation. Far from seeking isolation or confrontation, Serbia is seeking nothing more, and demanding nothing less, than any other sovereign member-state of the European club takes for granted: the respect for territorial integrity.

Any club asking for the prospective member to amputate a limb in order to be admitted should not only be shunned by the despised applicant. If the European Union persists in its transparent attempt to recognize Kosovo's pending illegal secession by default, it should be actively opposed by Serbia and unmasked for what it really is: a destroyer of identities, an enemy of truly European cultures, a totalitarian bureaucracy devoid of legitimacy.