the the hello, i'm manila chan you are tuned into modus operandi. if you haven't already heard ukraine, is it the only hot spot in europe these days? serbia is back in the news, but this time not from being home to the world's best tennis player. but the serbs are serving up some hot language at coast about the volume violence over the past year. has some concerns that this could be a throwback to 1999 will explain. all right, let's get into the m o. the a little less than half the world recognizes it's independence. the world literally split on what to call it. some global key players like russia and china don't recognize its sovereignty, but the united states and most of the european union,

se, kosovo is independent as of 2008. the wes favorite line of rules based order, condemn the tit for tat sparring between serbia and their smaller neighbor, kosovo, even when the smaller neighbour seems to agitate the former take. for example, the issue of license plates when comfortable was carved out of the former yugoslavia. after the turn of the millennium, many ethnic serbs still lived in the newly divided territory and the comfortable government said, serbian registered cars must also register in color to flow. and then swap out plates any time they enter the territory that could get frustrating, right? think of it like this. while most people who work here in washington, d. c, actually live in virginia. and you would have to pull over each time you were about to enter the district and screw your license plate on your car and put on the d. c

one before you can drive into work each morning. that's a nuisance, right? what to make it worse? what of the district said this is only a clickable to certain races of people? nobody would stand for that, i imagine. but that's precisely what's happening at the serbian coast of our border . and that's just the trivial parts. it gets a lot heavier than that. to explain all the heavier stuff we're going to bring in our in studio guest. the boys are mileage. he is a serbian american writer historian an analyst. he wrote a regular column for anti war dot com for nearly 20 years. he looks so young, he's dealt with senior writer for r t dot com. net still good to see you again live and in person. think it's good to be here. so we have the 1st. can you give us an update as to the latest happenings between serbia and kosovo after you know, several violent spates and clashes between the 2 sites since last fall of 2022. so

the latest round of the unpleasant, this really began last august. at the end of july, when the think i'll be in the in prime minister of, of kosovo, which i refer to as a break away serbian province. i've been quoted, the decided den um, those licensed lease had to go. and he's invoking a 2013 agreement with serbia regulating traffic across the boundary line, which was signed by now present to serbia, marks on the voltage. the problem is that he quote, these government has an implemented any of the provisions from that agreement themselves. and so they're insisting on selective enforcement of things that are in their interpretation bolstered their state who the benefits and they're going after things that are, you know, validating rule of law as they see it. meanwhile, they're refusing to carry out any of the obligations they took on themselves such

as guarantee political autonomy to the actual ethnic serbs lived there and think she's got worse from them. because after do us specifically and most of the e u because they're still 5 members that don't recognize great, wasn't an independent se, ironically including spain, which is where the current, the us for policy commissioners from, with the pressure towards the interest backing down. and then he went ahead and started doing other things. and if it's not one thing, it's the other of late getting to the point where the serbs who were actually to participating. and of course, we will, government institutions decided to step away and we caught them as a legitimate as a sign of protests at which point they will properly replaced in trim elections that had like a single digit turn out the floor. i left the companions and things just kept getting worse and worse and worse, and you had the rhetoric from the u. s. and, and you basically costello's western protectors condemning all sides into urging

everybody to exercise restraint, but not actually doing anything to get cookie to stop friend. he, on the other hand, kept saying, well, we're a southern country, we do whatever we want. we, we just want to apply the law on every inch from our territory and you know, fast forward almost a year. things have gotten so bad that you know is that you've, you've got to serve your military on high alert. you've got cruelty sending, hire a heavily armed special police to drag people off the street and you know, but he has, he's making lists of prominent serves to sort of decapitate the local community and accused him of shame or crimes in a conscious efforts to basically destroy this community and get them removed and nobody's doing anything the, the us in the you are threatening sanctions and i'm using air quotes because they're sanctions amount to a hill of beans. there are literally not in forcing their, their own rules in their own. so all the things better and i got on the record for years and years and years before that phrase was even put together condemning coast

of always an example of how western who is don't work. right. right. so the serbian president alexandra roach, which he has used some very strong language about what the cost of our government is doing to the minorities terms. there are things like words like programs um ethnic cleansing. you know, these are trigger words usually in the west, but what evidence has he provided to back such claims? i mean, are, are those choice of words really a fair characterization of what's actually happening on the ground can stream that last summer. when i at the height of the license plate business, uh the uh, coastal authorities literally went to a family winery, a served family winer. it's been a family in the family for generations. and they insisted on confiscating all of their wine for alleged non payment of tax and brought in several tanker trucks to

pour the wine into and destroy it. and basically decided to move ahead with that, even though people offer to pay whatever fine was what they were supposed to pay, just don't destroy a wind race. know they moved ahead and destroyed the wind to make a point. that's just one example of what's been going on there. you've had people kidnapped from the workplace is just guy was working at a car wash deal, half a dozen cops full battle dress long, barrel rifles check. right. we're talking like swat team wiles, a, converge on him from 7 directions to arrest him at one more wash. one guy shirtless work in the car wash for he didn't do anything, but they, they used to spin all day. they said, oh, well, he planned war crime of insurrection, against republic of coast of, or whatever, whatever to hell. he came up with the, the arrest people for in t shirts. they arrested they've for the 1st time. and in years the serbian church

had to move the site of their annual commemoration of this 1389 battle against the autumn and turks from the actual site to a monastery nearby. because there's, there security couldn't be guaranteed this. these are tiny little moves that add up to decimals, 1000 cuts. they're not yet rampaging across the province, like they did the 1004. but they got away with that in the less than of 2004 in the minds of ethnic albanians, specifically quote, the is that they can, if they can do this, they can get away with it. so are these people getting disappeared or what's, what's happening? cuz you've got a prominent community, not even community leaders, prominent people in the community getting disappeared, or arrested on bogus charges or, you know, they, they draw them up on war crimes charge from 20 years ago. and they find 3 witnesses who swear that you know, this person personally did something and there's nobody to corroborate it, but they don't care that's enough to throw them in jail, beat them up. they will hold them indefinitely. and they do, they do the systematically to basically decapitate the local community to the point

where the locals are actually making the joke. because which it said something like po you'll be hunted like rabbits and they started calling themselves the rabbits. me as opposed to being with the resistance, but they are definitely not showing signs of pursuit, you know, stopping resistance. they're basically saying this is our, this is our home. we're staying here. we don't care how much they're terrorizing us, but please do pay attention to the fact that we're being terrorized right. so you know, some of the latest tensions stem from, as you alluded to earlier, those elections in kosovo where the serbian population effective we all are, every single one of them boy caught it. they didn't turn up to the poles in april. tell us what happened there to prompt, you know, a whole population of people to boycott elections. and so the, there is, there are pockets of serbian serbs living throughout the province who stayed there after to mass ethnic cleansing of 1999 when nato occupied it. and turn it over to the convenience of the largest contiguous population lives in the

north, in several of the counties up there. and they had their own local municipal officials . and then these people resigned in protest over of course these abuses last fall with the license plate business and, and other other things like sending special police to paralyzed people. and then courtney decided to use this and call a new election in which he ran ethnic albanian officials who would you know, get like 5 volts or even one percent. and so let her know when she, you know, we'd be with carpet bag people in and then they would get votes of local ethnic albanians because maybe a dozen serbs altogether participated in this trade. and you said all of these are legitimate, you know, municipal officials now and they're taking their own, you know, it's of office, you know, being in, they're taking down serbian flags and putting up albany and ones and so on and so on. and when the local service protested at the end of may, there,

the cookie called in his special forces. and when those special forces got too scared, she called and made a peacekeepers. right. and then there was neither peacekeepers open fire on the ethnic serbs who will probably take peace because that's, i mean, yeah. and then to the shock and surprise of everybody, those local service walk back. and there's this iconic image of a local man who took the riot baton from one of the peacekeepers. any beating if he's deeper with it, as he's trying to trample one of his bodies on the ground. yeah. he's, he's, he's hurting the piece baton back on the beach 1st. yeah. it'd be basically, these people resisted and then of course, put these order went out to find everybody responsible and arrest them for terrorism. so it's just in this endless spiral. so instead of setting up the association of serbian disability, which he's been supposed to do, so right inside the 2013 um, she's basically said, well, there's no serbian disability. so there's no problem. right?

she's literally trying to race these people that were real quickly now. but i mean, album, curtis seems to be now tacitly agreeing to you intervention or, or assistance. i mean, it is sort of like a, an election do oh for. is that going to be enough? know what, what she's, what he's trying to do is the, you gave him as much as that you can be straight about anything. v gave him, here's what you're supposed to do, instructions or else and the or else was less vague, you know or, or else we'll stop giving you as much money that that sort of thing. there sanctions are sure. we won't support you a 110 percent only 99 percent. well, and she came up with a code of proposal in the account of proposals i do whatever i want and i'm going to organize a new election. but only if these people petition me on the official letterhead of my government and recognize and bend the need to my, well, i'm translating, obviously, but this is what it means and effect. and so far,

that's where things stand. because obviously the point is not to have a municipal official, but the serve name. the point is to have a municipal official that has not been the need to do to put these government. i say because every think he's been doing is been in a function of not necessarily making anything function but to break the local serbs and make them bend in need of his government, make them read, make them my way or the highway the clear. now it's that she's the legitimate ruler and, and you'll get recognition from serbia ethridge or what can we, because he doesn't have that. and, and he wants it to, because everything he does have, you know, the whole thing of being that to introduce thousands after to nato occupations. the whole, well, all of these problems that we have in society, you know, from, from the following birth rates for economic collapse. to be moving, everything was going to lack of independence, independence will fix it, independence will fix it,

do dependents to fix everything while they declare independence in 2008 and it doesn't fix anything for things. keep getting worse and keep getting where we are. and now, well, here's the thing they need just shifted. well it's not a lack of independence is lack of sort of recognition. so now they're pushing. this is the universal excuse. you know, as the problem is that this is the cradle of serbian statehood. it's not just a piece of territory. if it was just a piece of territory, that would be bad enough. but it's it's, it's got multiple levels of meaning for the serbian people as a whole. never mind the government, never mind the republic of serbia to say that it's a home that thought because i wanna, i wanna dig into that this piece of real estate on the other side of this break. right? coming up next is serbia gearing up for war with its neighbor. we'll discuss it when we return more with no voice and mileage. so tight to m. o will be right back . the. the

the west deep involvement in the brain complex suggest getting negotiations are off the table. in fact, only escalation is all the horizon. is nato spoiling for an app like conflict with russian certainly seen. so the, the only one main thing is important for not as an internationally speaking is that is at nations because that's, are allowed to do anything, all the mazda races, and then you have the mind, the nation. so as a slave, americans rock obama and others have had a concept of american exceptionalism. international law exist as long as it serves the american interest. if it doesn't, that doesn't exist by turning those russians into this dangerous boy,

a man that wants to take over the world. that was the cartridge strategy. so the, the new one exist v i, v, i not the least, it's often zuba and tablet block. nato said it's ours, we move east. the reason us, hey jim, it is dangerous. is it the by the sovereignty of the countries, the exceptionalism that america uses and its international war planning is one of the greatest threats to the populations of different nations. of nature where this founded shareholders in the united states and elsewhere in large arms companies would lose millions and millions or is business businesses good. and that is the reality of what, what we're facing, which is fashion, the

welcome back to the m. o. i'm a know a chan. serbian president alexander voltage seems to be at his wits end on how to handle what he's described as a belligerent neighbor and is calling on the un security council now to weigh it. so back with us to discuss is serbian american journalist negotiate mileage. so now while patrick boot judge says he's ready to work with the you to de escalate. he also said this take a list that serbia is not preparing for, or it is ready to protect the lives of our people, to serve you as ready to protect its country from all those who would potentially want to jeopardize its integrity sovereignty and the lives of our people and our citizens right now, so we didn't play the lead up to that, but boot church made it a point to say that in belgrade has fulfilled all of the requests from the you. but luther to imply that his close of our counter parts have not. but now troops are on high alert. given what happened to serbia with nato bombings in the late ninety's.

is that kind of fair to argue that the serbian government is, you know, worried it could happen again. partly i think voltage is keenly aware of the present situation in europe being sort of in a wider context. i think with what he's saying. and i think he's correct about this, that the cost of, of situation is being exploited both by quarter and the west, each to the, for their own ends of as a way to pressure serbia to fall in line of over all of the ukraine question. because serbia hasn't imposed sanctions on russia, it's trying to stay neutral, right? a, he cannot align politically with nato and stain power. no, president of serbia, canada, there's mean 80 percent. 85 percent public opposition to this. you cannot govern in the face of those numbers. if you try to run this policy problem, is that the u. n. b u. s. and need a really want him to and they're trying to pressure him using kosovo as, as

a way to break is will there a bridge? all great britain? yes. track. there was what they've been using, close them as a cultural for years. and the voltage has formulated this way. he says, basically says, why are you depict demanding of us to recognize, to give up our territorial integrity and sovereignty in the name of protecting ukraine's. it makes no sense. this is not just a popular. see, this is just nonsense. you know, we support ukraine sovereignty and territory integrity. but the very least, we demand that you put the, uh, respect our site. and that hasn't happened. and so he's been sort of bouncing this ball back into their faces. now, course he's not making it easier. i think she's sort of off the reservation. and i'm very deliberately using this during the phrase, because he's actually been ousted once before by the americans. a couple of years ago when he tried to do things that they didn't necessarily prove off. right. uh,

essentially a good ruler of kosovo is the one who does whatever the american baset or says it is what independence we're talking about, right? it's actually a pretty humiliating position for ethnic albanians as well. and i think corte actually what he wants to do and what he's pledge to do. and would you be what he's been trying to do was get some sort of de facto and even to your a union with helping you? and i think he was hardest hit. when do y'all being the president and prime minister rama said, well, you know, as long as you're doing this an incognito behavior, i'm not going to hold the joint meeting of our government. so i'm going to back away. i can't, i can't, you know, collaborate with you with, if you're going to of anger might need a master's. but they didn't stop him from organizing as nato loved fest the other day of you know, trying out all of these kids need bill clinton, nor hillary or whatever to on or bill clinton is visit. yeah. and, and basically,

you know, to do some pretty pathetic things. an independent country wouldn't really stupid down to doing in north carolina. no naturally, well, hang onto that thought of bill clinton because i'd like for you to take us back to serbia. in the late 19 ninety's bill clinton was president of the united states. back then, he told the media here that you know, the serbs are caring out ethnic, cleansing of albanians, the media here, 8 that up, and be propagated, those narratives. happily, nato jumped in, bombed, what was then yugoslavia even striking the chinese consulate there killing chinese nationals. you lived through those events. how is that shape the situation that we're seeing now? well, that's fine. large determine where we're at. now, the fact that the intervened, in course will,

based on the lie of genocide that was never substantiated, a leader emerge that all of these tall tales were essentially fabrications by intelligence officials. they could never be substantiated. total number of depths was something like 2000. they keep talking about 10000, that's a, that's a ballpark estimate that they never substantiated. the nato literally started the completely illegal war of aggression on, based on a lie. and that we were, we saw that repeated a few years later in the rock. we should, we saw sure, perpetuated later enough to understand and now we're having situation ukrainian or as a matter of fact, the ukraine situations i would argue as a direct consequence of what happened in 1999. because nato that went from what was supposed to be a defensive alliance to an unmistakable, the aggressive one house that was destined a very clear message for russia that the west can be trusted. you actually had boris hilton's government for he resigned at the end of that year and put and

became president up multiple people have said that this is not just me making this up, that the cost of a war has a lot to do with that. and so this is sort of the root of this is where if you're in to altering history, this is the branch off. this is this, this is the inflection point. this is where things for rolling the road before can row. this is the worst things go in a certain direction and you know, the chinese embassy bombing that was of the chinese have never forgiven and never forgot. sure. it was officially the only mission that the c i itself planned. they send some blood money to the chinese, but the chinese government just recently memorialize that in a, in a very um, unmistakably, we're still mad about this way. sure. so that sort of, um, you know, defined relationships with china for years. and you, you centrally, you know, some years ago i was trying to tongue in cheek make a suggestion, to the trumpet ministration that the way to disarm rush on this whole ukraine issue

was to, wasn't recognized, kosovo, and get rid of that precedent. because you know, it was trump, he could do crazy things and get away with that because he's just now that someone usual and just unrecognized kosovo sort of press the reset button. sure. everybody's going to treat, but they're gonna shriek any way and they did. right. but you're, you're essentially removing the biggest argument from the table, right? you're, you're taking that off the board, right? and of course, you would almost pay all of it. right. and nobody took my advice because, you know, when you're a nurse has a pulse of powerful drug power, more powerful than cocaine, apparently. and you know, they went ahead and kept doing what they were doing. and then now they ended up with some sort of tree deal that nobody ended up caring for. and the only beneficiary and that being israel. but i stand by that date. he could have actually diffuse that situation by on recognizing cultural because that would have essentially domino affected all the way to your brain. and maybe maybe maybe mens

made the mistake agreements work. but it's one of those. what could have been because we'll never know. right. cool. so from those ashes, we know obviously kosovo was officially carved out, you know, this tiny nation created just instantly, just like that. now for all the new surrounding that area, you and i were talking about this before the break. um, you would think that this is some vitally important piece of real estate to the west that it had oil or it had cobalt or something like that. and that the entire world recognized its sovereignty. but that's just simply not the case. there is mineral wealth there, but that's not why it's important. it's important because for the west, for the us, for nato. and it said set the precedent that they can create the countries that they can rom, whoever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want and make yeah. exceptions to the rule, suffering to see who decides exceptions kind of just like i look what i can do, right, to the ethnic albanians. it's important because it's of,

as it forms the nexus of this greater i'll be any of that they've been trying to set up since the 18 seventy's even though they have a nation state as of a 1913 for the serbs. it is not the real estate. it is. i mean obviously it is a real estate because it's part of the constitution and you don't give up a part of the territory. but this is the territory. it's at the a precisely re establish their statehood to regain. oh i say it's me when they say that, i'm sorry i miss right. this is our jewish one. this is the vision. you know when service say this is our jerusalem, the mean? this is the holiest of holies. this is the place where would that we need to retake as a resurrection of our statehood. without it, we don't exist, no matter what territory we hold with it. no matter if we have no territory, we can, we can continue to exist. it's just, it's

a spiritual issue and you complete me. it's that it is not just a territorial dispute, even though i don't want to minimize the territorial this be a great question. but so it, it's multiple things to multiple people. and unfortunately with western involvement, it's one of those will look here, what would we can do? ill creating the rules and the rules based ordered doesn't actually function last thing. now, we're running out of time, but looking at u. s. foreign policy. taiwan, for example, the us says it's a biased by the one china policy, while at the same time, you know, selling missile arms to taiwan convoluted mixed messages from bite. in the direct contradiction from blinking is kosovo. comparable to the taiwan situation, while in so far as you can use the way the us is behaving with regard to kosovo. to understand that none of these words matter. none of these treaties matter, nothing you you hear from the state department or the white house actually matters . at the end of the day, you have to look what the, what they're doing and not what they're saying. right?

right, absolutely. i gotta leave it right there. unfortunately, the boys and the boys are malice. geopolitical analyst, senior writer at r t dot com. thank you so much for sharing your insight and some of your personal story with us. that is going to do it for today's episode of motors operandi the show that things deep into foreign policy and current affairs. i'm your host manila chan. thank you for tuning in. we'll see you again next time to figure out the ammo . the, the t i, a programs ame wasn't, don't need to create fearless and ruthless soldiers, but also to control the minds of thousands of unsuspecting people with narcotics. we should look at the nature of your opinion of morning, richard, almost as we shall start when you put the instruct me over to the waiting. so i'm

glad you asked me to call me on monday just symbol of caution. the pay on fire in front of the new model and the moon on the printer. no, they chased a virus is under the impression that the on the deal is extra. but the one is most of the i'm going to do right now is for us let's see i a m k ultra project involving the use of special drugs for military and political purposes. first on my dad. and then in the ukranian army, i've shifted towards a large scale technical trials, but ongoing to stop any time soon. the,

the on open, political pro vacation china responds to a girl in after germany's foreign minister called present. been she a dictate, sharp, and also this hour perhaps a troop rotation or perhaps the of the supplies. why munition to forward positions at any rate. it's on the far as russian troops advance on the battlefield, ukraine's military chief scrambled to keep things together and made a must've waive up dismissal among their colleagues. party reports on not um, from the front lines of ton african active. this is really 6 hours off for a rest on airport infiniti.