"You don’t win a Nobel Peace Prize without having blood on your hands"

Russia was outraged at the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Martti Ahtisaari last week. The former Finnish president was the UN envoy to Kosovo until 2007, when he quit amid vehement Russian opposition to Kosovan independence from Russian ally Serbia. Deputy leader of the Russian parliamentary foreign affairs committee, Leonid Slutsky, likened Ahtisaari's peace plan for Kosovo to the opening of a “Pandora's box”. Kosova declared independence on February this year.

- The Budapest Times, Monday, 13 October 2008

As if the committee wasn't discredited enough - Ahtisaari wins Nobel Peace Prize. First Kissinger, then Gore, now Ahtisaari?

This man's "supervised independence" plan for Kosovo and Metohija was a complete failure, a plan which solution was tacitly predetermined from the start. Ignoring Serbian interests, imposing one side's interests over another, and providing Kosovo's criminal overlords with all the prerogatives of a state (constitution, border/air traffic control, army, secret service, etc), has resulted in Kosovo's declaration of secession early this year. In addition, Ahtisaari's plan legitimizes the post-war discrimination of minorities, and fails to guarantee restitution of state, social or church property, resulting in widespread acts of violence against the remaining Serbs in Kosovo, as well as the continued destruction of churches and monasteries.

Johan Galtung, Norwegian founder of peace studies, hit the spot when describing Ahtisaari as a man who does not hesitate to favour solutions that bypass the United Nations and international law. "Ahtisaari does not solve conflicts but drives through short-term solutions that please western countries", Galtung adds - and his words will prove to be prophetic.

Kosovar secession is not "the last step in the disintegration of Yugoslavia", as so many have happily mentioned, but rather, the first step in further destabilization in the Balkans.