Meet Martti Ahtisaari, our Basque-phobe of the week.The press calls this individual by terms like peace-maker and conflict mediator. His resume includes work in high profile cases like Northern Ireland, Aceh and Kosovo, yet, when it comes to Euskal Herria his response is no, nyet, nein, the Basques do not deserve their independence because he says so.
He is so ignorant in this matter that he thinks that Euskal Herria is occupied only by Spain, not a word about France. Then he insists that Euskal Herria does not deserve its freedom like Kosovo because "the history of both regions is diametrically different". But then he does not care to elaborate why are they so different because then people would figure out that it is precisely because of their history that it is hard to deny freedom to the Basques while granting it to the Kosovars.
After saying that the Basques in their obsession to put forward their invalid call for freedom would go to the extreme of claiming Kosovo as a precedent even if Kosovo was located in a different planet (just try to imagine the amount of euro-pesetas Madrid paid Ahtisaari to say something like that) he goes on to say that it was Milosevic's genocidal campaign in Kosovo what set the background for Kosovo's independence.
What about Francisco Franco? Being a protege of Hitler and Mussolini, bombing the civilian populations of Durango and Gernika, executing hundreds of gudaris after Bilbao's armistice, banning Basque culture and language throughout his four decade reign of terror does not count someone as a criminal like Milosevic? He was worst than Milosevic!
And what about his excuse that the history of Euskal Herria and Kosovo being diametrically different?
Actually it is, Francisco Franco murdered more Basques than Milosevic did Kosovars while perpetuating a 500 year genocidal campaign by Castile/Spain against Euskal Herria.
The note with Ahtisaari's statements comes to us via BalkanInsight:
Ex-Envoy: Kosovo Not Precedent for Basques
23 June 2008 Pristina _ Kosovo’s independence is absolutely no precedent for Spain’s Basque Country, the former UN envoy for Kosovo’s final status, Martti Ahtisaari argues.
Ahtisaari dismissed any connection between Kosovo’s independence and any move towards separatism by Spain’s Basque country saying that the history of both regions is diametrically different.
“Perhaps some people try to turn Kosovo into a precedent and use it so but they would do so even if Kosovo was from another planet,” Ahtisaari told Spanish daily, El Pais.
Appointed by the United Nations Secretary General, Ahtisaari facilitated two-year talks between Belgrade and Pristina over the final settlement of Kosovo’s political status, which has been administered by the UN for nine years since the end of the war between Serb military forces and ethnic Albanian majority in 1999.
At the end of negotiations, Ahtisaari proposed a comprehensive proposal for Kosovo’s ‘supervised independence’ with exclusive rights and provisions for minorities, particularly Kosovo Serbs.
However the internationally-mediated talks failed to produce a mutually-agreed solution, since Serbia insisted on keeping Kosovo under its sovereignty as an autonomous region, while Kosovo asked for nothing less than independence. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17 based on Ahtisaari’s blueprint.
Twenty out of twenty-seven European Union member states have recognised Kosovo’s independence so far but countries like Spain, Romania or Cyprus refuse to do so, arguing that the move violated international law.
Madrid is particularly concerned that Kosovo’s independence sets a bad example for its autonomous provinces, particularly the Basque Country, where demands among Basque hardliners for independence has led to decades of sporadic bombings and shootings.
Recently Britain’s former Minister for Europe, Denis MacShane wrote in an editorial that Spain was lobbying against the recognition of Kosovo’s independence in Latin American countries. Read more: http://balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/11190
“When in the case of Kosovo one defends the international legality, one does not say that it was Slobodan Milosevic who unconstitutionally annulled the autonomy of Kosovo and illegally ordered the slaughters and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Albanians,” Ahtisaari told El Pais.
He said Serbia lost Kosovo as a consequence of the policies of former Serb strongman Milosevic, and that the international community must now help Serbs understand that there is no way back and nothing will change.
Ahtisaari added that EU countries who now oppose the statehood of Kosovo had declared during the final status negotiations that the Kosovo case is unique.
Well, if it is of any consolation for Ahtisaari, his hatred towards the Basques is anything but unique.
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