On
Kosovo,
Post-Coup Mali
Grants
Recognition,
Guinea-Bissau
UNclear
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 21 --
While each
time the
Kosovo
"debate"
in the UN
Security
Council gets
more rote, on
Tuesday Kosovo
announced two
new
recognitions
of its
independence:
from Chad and
Mali.
The
fact that Mali
just had a
coup d'etat,
and doesn't
control the
northern half
of the
country, was
not mentioned.
Inner City
Press
ran back from
the day's UN
noon briefing
to try to ask
Prime Minister
Hashim Thaci
for the
specifics of
the Malian
recognition,
and about
the
administration
of programs in
north
Mitrovica.
(Inner City
Press
asked about
that at the
noon briefing
and hopes to
have more.)
But
Thaci at the
stakeout
wasn't
answering in
English, and
there was no
translation,
nor Press
question
taken.
Back
in May 2010,
incoming
President of
the General
Assembly Vuk
Jeremic as
foreign
minister of
Serbia praised
pre-coup Mali
for NOT
recognizing
Kosovo, saying
"it is not
easy to
support
sovereignty
and
territorial
integrity of
Serbia
nowadays. It
takes
autonomy,
principle and
courage to do
so, and Mali
definitely has
that."
Now,
after the
coup, Deputy
Prime Minister
of Kosovo
Behgjet
Pacolli has
bragged of
recognition.
Why
would a
government in
the middle of
a coup, and
negotiations
with
ECOWAS, go and
recognize
Kosovo? The
next target,
and Pristina
says
last, target
in West Africa
is Togo.
In
January
2011, US state
media Radio
Free Europe
broadcast that
Guinea-Bissau
had recognized
Kosovo,
calling it the
74th
recognition.
Then in September
2011 it was
reported that
Guinea-Bissau
and Oman
rescinded
recognition.
Which is it?
No questions
were
taken. Watch
this site.
, 
