Jovanovic: Ahtisaari did a good job of breaking up Serbia

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Zivadin Jovanovic, assessed that the former President of Finland and the UN Special Envoy for the Kosovo future status negotiations, Martti Ahtisaari, who passed away today at the age of 86, would go down in history as an exponent of the unipolar world order of hegemony, imposition, and domination. He also said that Ahtisaari “did a good job in Kosovo, breaking up Serbia, a task assigned to him by Western powers“.

Jovanovic states that during his diplomatic career, he had the opportunity to meet Ahtisaari several times.

"I remember Martti Ahtisaari from the 1980s when he was a UN Secretary and, in that capacity, was the personal envoy of the UN Secretary-General for the Namibian independence process, the leading figure in the world organization for the decolonization process in Africa. At that time, I was the representative of the Group of 17 non-aligned countries overseeing the independence process, and we had daily contacts. Much later, in 1999, we met on June 2 in Belgrade when he brought the so-called proposal to end the NATO aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," Jovanovic says for Kosovo Online in response to the news of Martti Ahtisaari's death.

He adds that Ahtisaari was a very capable diplomat of high international stature.

"He was a well-known European politician because he was the President of Finland, and Finland had the Presidency over the EU at that time. Overall, I believe that he was, both as a diplomat and as a politician, a product of the unipolar world order, and ultimately, he represented Western interests, primarily the geopolitics of the United States. In these positions as a UN Under-Secretary and in other roles as a mediator, he invariably represented US global interests and had their support, and I think that, from the US perspective, he justified the trust he received. Ahtisaari had a changeable character. In Namibia, when I was the Chairman of the Non-Aligned Group of countries, he was very cooperative at that time, and I remember good and constructive conversations with him," Jovanovic recalled.

Years later, Jovanovic says when things changed, and "Yugoslavia became a victim of the unipolar world order, which was then at the height of its power, Martti Ahtisaari was a different man".

"He was sharp, unpleasant, and arrogant. When he brought that plan to end the NATO aggression on June 2 and handed it over to Milosevic at the White Palace, we discussed and made objections. I asked why the plan referred to Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, which is intended for the enforcement of peace by force, and not to Chapter Six, as agreed in previous talks with Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Special Envoy of the then-Russian President for the Kosovo crisis. Ahtisaari looked at me and replied, 'That's how we agreed, my brother Chernomyrdin and I'. He later wrote very unpleasantly in his book about that event, stating that he had confronted the Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He will go down in history as an exponent of the unipolar world order at its height of power, marked by hegemony, imposition, and domination," Jovanovic said.

He adds that in the book he published about his mission on June 2 and 3, 1999, in Belgrade, Ahtisaari wrote that the West must not allow Kosovo's secession because it would automatically impact the unification of Serbia and the Republika Srpska.

"He wrote that, in his opinion, Serbia should seek compensation for the loss of Kosovo, so some solution that would satisfy both Serbia and Kosovo should be found. However, when he presented his plan for Kosovo, he forgot about this and unambiguously pushed the narrative towards separatism and the illegal secession of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia. He played a destructive role and implemented the policy of the United States and Western European countries to break the Serbian national identity, fragment the Serbs and territory, and he did that job well for his instructors," Jovanovic said.