The following event has been planned for public consumption at Harvard University as a prelude to the scheduled "troika" discussions to be held later this month in New York. Vuk Jeremic, Serbia's controversial Foreign Affairs Minister, will be speaking at the Kennedy School of Government THIS FRIDAY as detailed below.
In coordination with our Albanian colleagues at Harvard, Boston University, Boston College, MIT, and Wellesely College, there will be a meeting this Thursday (Sept. 20) at approximately 6:00 p.m. at NYU's Bobst Library. The meeting will entertain the possibility of attending the event at Cambridge and preparing questions for Jeremic that entail the position of support for independence in Kosova. We are all very well aware that Mr. Jeremic's political career will be short-lived once Kosova achieves sovereignty, hence the Harvard platform is very important, albeit prestigious, for his political survival.
We call upon our counterparts in Ann Arbor, East Lansing and Detroit to consider attending as well. As always, we will continue these discussions over coffee that same evening.
Friday, September 21, 2007
4:00 p.m.
'Serbia and the future of the Balkans"
A Public Address by H.E. Vuk Jeremic, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia
Kennedy School and Kokkalis fellow
John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, Littauer Building
79 John F. Kennedy Street
Cambridge, MA
In coordination with our Albanian colleagues at Harvard, Boston University, Boston College, MIT, and Wellesely College, there will be a meeting this Thursday (Sept. 20) at approximately 6:00 p.m. at NYU's Bobst Library. The meeting will entertain the possibility of attending the event at Cambridge and preparing questions for Jeremic that entail the position of support for independence in Kosova. We are all very well aware that Mr. Jeremic's political career will be short-lived once Kosova achieves sovereignty, hence the Harvard platform is very important, albeit prestigious, for his political survival.
We call upon our counterparts in Ann Arbor, East Lansing and Detroit to consider attending as well. As always, we will continue these discussions over coffee that same evening.
Friday, September 21, 2007
4:00 p.m.
'Serbia and the future of the Balkans"
A Public Address by H.E. Vuk Jeremic, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia
Kennedy School and Kokkalis fellow
John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, Littauer Building
79 John F. Kennedy Street
Cambridge, MA
9 comments:
One bit of important information: We will be on the 9th floor (Room 944).
demonstration outside??????????????
Food for thought:
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE: "In an interview with Al Jazeera English to be broadcast on Friday, Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic warned that trouble could once again erupt in the Balkans."
"Jeremic urged caution. 'I think that right now we are in an unstable equilibrium and I think that if rumbles are made and if all of us are not careful enough, I think, we could push the Balkans back into strife and discontent,' Al Jazeera quoted him as saying."
Yes, we know the political rhetoric of this Serbia nationalist all too well. His speech at Harvard will receive a wide audience for the topic is hot and his position is important in the on-going negotiations. What if we invited Hashim Thaci to counter balance his arguments, who would be better received? It all depends on the ideologies of the student/faculty audience in the forum, but it is without doubt that Jeremic (for the moment) attracts a much wider following because it is Serbia that is playing the trump card, and it is they that have Russia on their side, the wild card.
We must challenge his argument that calls for a "legal" recognistion/respect for Serbian territorial integrity of Serbia that includes a Kosova within it.
The prescedent that this decision will have to world politics will set a hostorical norm in international law and politics for years to come and for litertaure to cite. Let us not be passive in this; the window is open for intellectual debate that is critical for the future of our people and the future of this region.
OUr meeting will disseminate these issues and propose realist solution to an ever-populat term: NATIONALISM!
We will discuss more broadly tomorrow night.
Did you guys attend? How did it go?
Summary of his speech at Harvard can be found by clicking:
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ksgnews/Features/news/092107_vuk_jeremic.html
In response to a question later in the program about Serbia’s opposition to Kosovo’s desire for independence, Jeremic said under international law established in 1999, Kosovo has never been a republic and consequently was not given the right to secede.
“Those were the terms,” he said, “of a peace imposed on a defeated tyrant. Now, fast forward eight years, there’s a very different Serbia. There’s a democratic Serbia . . . that has done everything right since the overthrow of Milosevic up to now. There’s a Serbia that’s democratic, that has rule of law, that has a market economy, that has regional reconciliation at the top of its agenda that wants to join the European Union,” said Jeremic.
“If the independence of Kosovo was not imposed on a pariah Serbia, there is no way you can explain why it would be imposed on a democratic Serbia, especially given that we’re prepared to go a long way, a very long way working with Albanians on making sure that the peace treaty . . . is defined in the most generous way you can imagine.”
http://iopforum.harvard.edu:8080/ramgen/fr20070921serbia.rm
THIS IS THE VIDEO OF HIS SPEECH
A handful of us drove out to Cambridge to listen to Jeremic but were not able to sit in the room where he addressed the audience because there was limited seating. The room was quite small.
His remarks on Kosova, as indicated above, were nothing more than what was expected and uttered before.
We regret that we could not ask questions but did stick around in hopes that we could confront him on his way out and kindly request a coffee with international and peaceful-minded students -- to no avail, however.
We decided to meet with a few friends from the Harvard School and discussed some of the same issues he raised about Kosova and the "legality" of its territory. I think we exhausted the issues to some two kilos of espresso.
We decided that it would be a good idea to assemble in such a way for future forums and engage in discussions -- but hopefully face-to-face.
Thanks to Mark, Donika, Milot, Ention, and Agim for attending.
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