Kosovo - Opinion - Ambassador’s botched interview

On 15 December, Serbian Deputy Ambassador to the US, Vladimir Petrovic got a rare media opportunity to discuss Kosovo Muslim separatist demands for independence and he botched it. In an interview for a popular cable TV network, C-SPAN, Vladimir Petrovic left many allegations by a New York Times reporter Nicholas Wood unchallenged, was often incoherent and timid in analysis and did not anticipate arguments made by the follow-up guest, a Kosovo Albanian separatist Edita Tahiri.

Before the conversation with Petrovic, Pedro Ecchevarria, the host of the C-SPAN show, interviewed a reporter Nicholas Wood, himself with an extensive resume of biased reporting against the Serbs. Mr Wood skillfully imposed a framework for the issue by arguing that what Kosovo Albanians demand is not violent separatism but rather an innocent demand for freedom and that Serbia simply stands in the way of the freedom.

The problem here is not that Wood is making those assertions, because he is getting paid to do that, but rather the Ambassador’s response that, in effect, accepted the imposed framework for the issue and never attempted to redefine the status of what the Kosovo situation really is: a violent demand by a Muslim minority that has seized power in this Serbian province and is issuing separatist demands while being militarily shielded by a NATO force, there to allegedly keep peace.

Nor did the Ambassador know how to seize the help of the audience.

The first caller from Rockville, Maryland compared the Albanians crossing illegally into Kosovo to the Mexicans illegally coming into the United States and, once here, making demands for their "rights" and even threatening to take California out of the US. Instead of taking the opportunity to compare the two, the Ambassador corrected the caller that he should have compared only Southern California and that all of California would be only a "similar thing".

"Not to compare things but it would be similar," said the Ambassador and went on to talk of a convoluted structure of former Yugoslavia that is incomparable to California... and by then the listener, totally lost, had to endure comparisons to Spain and Soviet Georgia which may have to incur the wrath of the precedent that an independent Kosovo will make. Ambassador Petrovic thus saves California!

Similarly, in another comparative question pertaining to Bosnia the Ambassador went out of his way to debunk the logic that question dictates.

"If Kosovo gets independence, then don’t the Serbs in Bosnia Herzegovina have the right to do the same?" asked the caller to which the Ambassador, as in the question of California, went on to claim how Bosnia is a multicultural this, multireligious that, and how the Serbs respect and intend to live up to Holbrooke’s Bosnian Agreement, an agreement that literally condemns the Serbs to live under the Islamic domination once again, as though 500 years were not enough.

Nor was the Ambassador helped by the callers thereafter.

The next one from Louisiana went on a delusioned rant about conspiracies as did the last caller from Florida who spent valuable media time talking about her private problems regarding paychecks.

Of course, it is not the Ambassador’s job to tell these callers to seek opinion from their local psychiatrist, but the Ambassador should have been skillful enough to revert to his talking points and he didn’t, an indication that he lacked preparation.

"This was horrible! The [Serbian] Embassy should have organized at least 10 sane callers that have a question so the Ambassador can touch up on his talking points," one email we received read after the sender watched the interview.

That there was a significant and serious deficit in preparation for this media opportunity is also suggested by the response the Ambassador gave to hostile callers.

"Does Serbia have an army?" asked the hostile caller and once the Ambassador answered "yes" the caller then accused, "if Kosovo gets it’s independence, will the Serbian army go there to finish the job of "killing" Kosovo Albanians like they did before?

Regrettably the Ambassador merely brought up the fact that since 2000 Serbia has been democratic, a response that could be taken as an admission that the caller is correct and that "Serbs were guilty of trying to kill all Albanians, but don’t do those things any more."

Nor did the Ambassador explicate on the extreme Islamic aspect to the Kosovo Albanian separatism. Although the Ambassador talked about the 200 churches that have been destroyed by Albanian Muslim mobs, he did not emphasize it enough and denied that Kosovo was a religious war. Had I been able to get through, I would have told the good Ambassador, "Sir, this has been a religious war since 1389 at the Battle of Kosovo, and, if it is not a religious war, the Jihad, then why are separatist Muslims destroying Kosovo churches en masse and erecting mosques, everywhere, even naming mosques after Osama bin Laden, the civilized world’s number one terrorist?

The Ambassador failed every opportunity to talk about al-Qaeda elements and influence among Kosovo Muslim Albanians, the rise of militant Wahhabis responsible for indoctrination into suicide attacks, the organized Islamic criminal mob with exclusive import rights to Taliban heroin, and the criminals that are in charge of the Kosovo government.

The Ambassador, however, went out of his way to assure these Jihadists that Serbia will not use military force to protect Serbian enclaves and religious sites in Kosovo nor will it seek to reestablish its territorial sovereignty over the province that is now, temporarily, being held hostage by militant separatists.

Tactically, the Ambassador was comforting to the Kosovo Albanians and to Condoleezza Rice that Serbia is taking the military option off the negotiating table, further removing any incentive for the Albanian Muslims to compromise.

Nor did the Ambassador know how to anticipate the arguements that Kosovo Albanian separatists use and provide clarification, in advance, to their subterfuge. The Ambassador’s failure on that point was readily apparent following his interview when the program continued with a phone conversation with Edita Tahiri, a Muslim separatist from Kosovo, whose justification for independence rested on a mythology that Kosovo Albanians are direct descendants of Illyrians, and that "Kosova [sic] was never part of Serbia" both lies used by Muslims in order to plant doubt about Serbia’s territorial integrity.

You can see the C-SPAN program with the ambassador here. There you will see, Washington Journal Entire Program (12/15/2007) and move your cursor to the interview of Ambassador Petrovic.

Serbianna