Obama lied about a referendum in Kosovo by David Morrison In Brussels yesterday (26 March), President Obama lied about a referendum in Kosovo. He said: “And Kosovo only left Serbia after a referendum was organized not outside the boundaries of international law, but in careful cooperation with the United Nations and with Kosovo’s neighbors.” That is simply untrue: no referendum of any kind was organised in Kosovo to endorse the declaration of independence by the Assembly of Kosovo in February 2008. (The only referendum on Kosovos independence occurred in 1991, after the Assembly of Kosovo made a declaration of independence in September 1991. This declaration was endorsed overwhelmingly in the referendum, but at that time the only state to recognise Kosovo’s independence was Albania.) Obama told this lie in an attempt to counter the assertion that the recognition of Kosovo as a state independent of Serbia by the US and most EU states set a precedent that Russia has followed in recognising the independence of Crimea from Ukraine. A key difference, he falsely claimed, is that a referendum was held, “organized … in careful cooperation with the United Nations and with Kosovo’s neighbors”, as opposed to the referendum organised by the Crimean authorities themselves on 16 March 2014. The key similarity, which he doesn’t mention, is that there is overwhelming popular support for secession in both Kosovo and Crimea (though secession is opposed by a majority in Serbia and Ukraine as a whole). Yet, the US and most EU states support Kosovo’s secession, but declare Russia’s support for Crimea’s secession to be an outrageous infringement of international law. That could be considered a double standard. See my Kosovo and Crimea: US/EU Double Standards Best wishes David Morrison
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 07:35:12 +0000
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