2008's Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Peacemaker or Puppet?

Throughout the Western world, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari has been widely hailed, where there has been an outpouring of praise for the man and his efforts.

But there is another side to this man that has not yet received attention:

"It really doesn't matter if Paraguay hasn't recognised," Ahtisaari said. "Well over 65% of the wealth of the world has recognised. That matters."

Ahtisaari said Serbia would have to recognize Kosovo if it wanted to join the European Union.

"You can't be poking the EU in the eye [while] saying you want to join EU," he said.

Although he was supposed to be an impartial mediator, Ahtisaari admitted he had sent private messages to all parties soon after taking his role as mediator, that Kosovo's secession was inevitable.

- Kosovo Compromise, Monday, October 20, 2008

Svetlana wryly remarked, "Well, then what about Russia? And India, or China?"

As if this blatant statement does not indicate whose interests Ahtisaari has served in the fiasco leading up to the Kosovar Albanian declaration of independence early this year, the man's "negotiating" techniques are anything but peaceful (emphasis mine):

Ristic reports that as Milosevic listened to the reading of the text, he realized that the "Russians and the Europeans had put us in the hands of the British and the Americans." Milosevic took the papers and asked, "What will happen if I do not sign?"

In answer, "Ahtisaari made a gesture on the table," and then moved aside the flower centerpiece. Then Ahtisaari said, "Belgrade will be like this table. We will immediately begin carpet-bombing Belgrade."

Repeating the gesture of sweeping the table, Ahtisaari threatened, "This is what we will do to Belgrade." A moment of silence passed, and then he added, "There will be half a million dead within a week." Chernomyrdin’s silence confirmed that the Russian government would do nothing to discourage carpet-bombing.

- CounterPunch, October 14, 2008

Many in the West say the continued Chinese presence in Tibet leads to the "mindless destruction" of monasteries, as well as "cultural genocide".

But they remain strangely silent when the very same occurs in Kosovo and Metohija. Hundreds of mediaeval Serbian churches and monasteries, the few remaining strongholds of Kosovo's Christian history, are being emptied and destroyed by Kosovar Albanians as NATO "peacekeepers" nonchalantly watch on. Truly, the Eastern European bias remains alive and well even after the Red Scare has been deposited in history's rubbish bin.

KFOR soldiers helplessly watch as Serbian homes burn near Priština

Gregory Elich concludes:

The selection of Martti Ahtisaari for the Nobel Peace Price was a reward for services rendered. This was a purely political statement, meant to underline an important principle in international affairs. The same Western nations that forcibly carved Kosovo from Serbia are vociferously complaining that independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia violates international law and the territorial integrity of Georgia. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize affirms the lofty principle that it is only the West that will draw and redraw borders in the manner of 19th-century imperial powers.

It was these imperialist powers who drew the present-day boundaries in the Balkans - sometimes in ink, often in blood. And now they reward this "peacemaker" who has forcibly wrenched Kosovo and Metohija away from Serbia to give Albanian terrorists a country. No Orthodox Christian can ever accept this peace that leaves us with nothing but pain.