NATO Wades Into License Plate Dispute Between Serbia and Kosovo

Record-breaking heat waves and economic hits as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted governments in the United States and the United Kingdom to consider enacting a Green New Deal (GND). But how might these GNDs play out? Will they curb emissions? More importantly, will they curb emissions while upholding the principles of social justice and equity?

In May 2021, Leon Sealey-Huggins, assistant professor in the global sustainable development division at the University of Warwick, wrote a detailed critique of GNDs, including those adopted by the U.S. Democrats and the U.K. Conservatives. Titled, “‘Deal or No Deal?’ Exploring the Potential, Limits and Potential Limits of Green New Deals,” the report calls for closer scrutiny. “GNDs that fail to address the fundamental questions of power, ownership and control will also fail to adequately ameliorate the injustices of climate breakdown,” the report stated.

GNDs also fail to address the need for drastic emissions reductions. 

“Zero by 2050 is a global average target, and to be compatible with the principles of equity and justice under the Paris Agreement, rich nations have a responsibility to reduce emissions much more quickly than this, reaching zero by around 2030,” Jason Hickel, an economic anthropologist in Eswatini, the southern African country formerly known as Swaziland, told Toward Freedom. Hickel serves on the advisory board of the Green New Deal for Europe and on the Harvard-Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice. Hickel said GNDs need to include clear and explicit language on scaling down fossil fuels to zero, with binding annual targets. 

“Right now, this language is totally absent,” he added.

Current Green New Deals Will Perpetuate Injustice 

Max Ajl, an associated researcher with the Tunisian Observatory for Food Sovereignty and the Environment, said Sealey-Huggins’ critique is spot on. Ajl explained GNDs aim at “recolonizing the Third World through monocrop tree plantations, converting the Third World into biofuel plantations and other coercive mechanisms, rather than figuring out ways to reconstruct the United States and the European Union, so they remain socially complex, modern and industrial, but become sustainable, egalitarian and non-imperialist societies.” (“Third World” originally referred to developing states that did not align with the United States nor with the former Soviet Union. In this context, it refers to countries in the global South.) Ajl also is author of the recent book, A People’s Green New Deal.

Others, too, have expressed similar fears about further colonialism via GNDs. For instance, in a op-ed for Al Jazeera, Myriam Douo, a steering group member of Equinox

Initiative For Racial Justice, writes that by employing corporate solutions for climate change, the “EU’s Green Deal will entrench further European neocolonial practices.” Douo notes demand for metals such as nickel, cobalt and lithium has been driving labor abuses and environmental destruction. Such is the case in the cobalt mines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in lithium mines of Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.

The transition to clean energy requires metals like cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, nickel and zinc for battery technology in electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines. A March 2021 report identified that about half the global supply of cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); over 80 percent of the global supply of lithium comes from Australia, Chile and Argentina; and 60 percent of the global supply of manganese comes from South Africa, China and Australia.

Between 2010 and 2020, a total of 276 allegations of human-rights abuses were identified in connection with companies that hold a majority-market share in clean energy minerals like cobalt, lithium and manganese, according to the Transition Minerals Tracker report released in February 2021.

Community impacts in the areas of health, violence and Indigenous rights constitute the biggest chunk of human-rights violations, while environmental impacts rank second. Pays to note that many of the countries that hold vast reserves of such minerals are already vulnerable—whether in terms of climate impacts or quality of human life in general.

Space for Improvement

Hickel noted that GNDs, as drafted, focus on emissions to the exclusion of resource use. 

“We are overshooting a number of other planetary boundaries, which is being driven by excess resource use,” Hickel said. “Rich nations are overwhelmingly responsible for this problem, with per capita resource use vastly in excess of sustainable levels. The GNDs need to incorporate binding targets to reduce resource use.”

Ajl agreed. “The existing GNDs, including those from most progressives, are oriented to maintaining private control over the means of production, to ignoring climate debt, and to using materials-intensive technologies to solve what are often social more than technical problems,” Ajl said.

In the critique, Sealey-Huggins references versions of the GND Resolution, which the Biden administration might adopt. The resolution first was introduced in 2019 by U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-OR), both a part of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. It cites itself as the first comprehensive plan in the United States that aims to tackle the scale of the climate crisis by recognizing deep-rooted economic inequalities. In April 2021, they re-introduced the legislation after it failed to advance in the Senate in 2019.

The GND resolution aims to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers. More specifically, it calls for actions like overhauling the transportation system, supporting family farming and investing in sustainable farming and land-use practices that increase soil health and restoring natural ecosystems. Biden’s plan for clean energy and environmental justice references the GND as “a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face.”

But according to Ajl, even the original GND legislation progressives are promoting has its share of problems because it doesn’t do enough to fundamentally transform the system.

Sealey-Huggins too pointed out GNDs in the United States and the United Kingdom show a preference for highly technical, emissions-focused policies. And that by doing so, fail to democratize ownership and control via tools like social organization, redistribution and repair. He went even further to criticize roles adopted by institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has conditioned aid on cuts to welfare services.

Sealey-Huggins suggests “reparative justice” as a path forward. That would involve global redistribution of power, wealth and resources; building grassroots power;  and recognizing “shared goals” with movements led by the world’s Indigenous, African and oppressed peoples.

Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bangalore, India.

The European Union’s process to add new member states has stalled over the last decade. Quite aware that their nations will not join the EU anytime soon, if at all, leaders of three Balkan nations—Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania—have started their own economic integration process.

On July 29, in the North Macedonian capital of Skopje, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and prime ministers of North Macedonia and Albania, Zoran Zaev and Edi Rama, respectively, agreed to abolish border controls between the three countries starting January 1, 2023. The Balkan leaders also signed agreements facilitating trade and movement, cooperation in dealing with disasters, and freeing the labor market by removing work permit requirements and simplifying procedures. The initiative has been dubbed “Open Balkans.” Initially, it was named “Mini Schengen,” in an ode to the Schengen Area, the EU’s passport-free and duty-free zone made up of 26 European countries. During the Skopje summit, the initiative was re-branded “Open Balkans.”

Such moves were welcomed by the EU and the United States, two major powers operating in the Balkans. In fact, it is believed Richard Grenell, then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Balkans, initiated economic integration between Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania in October 2019.

It may have been a coincidence that a day after the Skopje summit, Grenell was spotted with Serbian Finance Minister Sinisa Mali in a local night club in the Serbian capital of Belgrade. Just a couple of days later, he went to Albania, where he met with Rama.

Although the former U.S. diplomat is not part of the new U.S. administration, he appears to wield influence in the Balkans. The role he plays on behalf of the United States is unclear. During a recent visit to Albania, he reportedly said the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo—which is the subject of a long-running political and territorial dispute between the Serbian government and Kosovo leaders based in the city of Pristina—made a mistake by not joining the Open Balkans initiative. Besides Kosovo, Montenegro, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, also remain skeptical about this project. The EU, on the other hand, supports the German-backed Common Regional Market, which includes Serbia, North Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo. In other words, it seems certain U.S. players, namely Grenell and the Atlantic Council, support the Open Balkans project, while Germany pushes for Balkan nations to more deeply integrate into the Common Regional Market.

Integrating the Balkans

It is worth noting, however, that EU member Austria, which has significant economic influence in the region, supported the creation of Open Balkans, which some see as a Serbia-centric, Yugoslavia-style initiative, especially if Montenegro as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina—where ethnic Serbs comprise around 30 percent of the population—become part of Open Balkans. Many Serbs, on the other hand, fear Open Balkans could turn into a “Greater Albania” if Kosovo—where ethnic Albanians make up over 90 percent of the population—joins the initiative. In reality, this entity could unite all the Serbs and Albanians living in the Balkans.

“This initiative is changing everything in the region,” said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. “We will have to work a lot and I believe that we will succeed.”

The initiative might already be changing the region. For instance, Serbian and North Macedonian national postal services have reportedly agreed to initiate the establishment of a common postage stamp and a single price for parcel services, in order to provide citizens of Open Balkan countries with services at a single tariff. This move has been viewed as an initial step in practically implementing Open Balkans.

On the other hand, prime ministers of Montenegro and Albania, Zdravko Krivokapic and Edi Rama, have recently opened a joint border crossing between the two Balkan countries. Montenegro now has three common border crossings, two with Albania and one with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moreover, on July 1 the region became a “roaming-free zone,” which means no roaming charges for people using their mobile phones while travelling between or in Serbia, Albania, North Macedonia, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo. The European Union supported this initiative, which suggests that both Brussels and Washington aim to include the Balkan nations that are still out of the EU into a joint regional entity, be it Open Balkans or Common Regional Market.

Neocolonialism in the Balkans?

No part of either project, however, is Balkan-made. Rather, these efforts are intended to advance foreign powers’ wider geopolitical strategies. 

In the past—particularly in the 19th and in the first half of the 20th century—the people of the Balkans were clear the Balkans should belong to them. When they were freed from the centuries-old feudal system the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian monarchy had imposed, the newly formed nations took the first political steps in an effort to emancipate themselves and cease to be colonies in Europe. To this day, however, the Balkan nations remain heavily dependent on Western powers, and some claim the EU treats the region in a neocolonial manner. Neocolonialism involves an outside power ruling a country by indirect means.

The United States has applied a similar pattern with Balkan countries, regardless of which political party’s representative sits in the White House. Nowhere was that more obvious than in the White House in September 2020, when leaders of Serbia and Kosovo signed a “historic” economic agreement, although the document they signed looked more like a list of U.S. demands that was addressed to its Balkan client states. The major points in the document involved normalizing relations with Israel. 

But some speculated the Serbian president didn’t know what he had signed, based on video footage that went viral on social media. In that video, when Trump mentioned the Embassy of Serbia located in Tel Aviv would move to Jerusalem, Vucic began to turn the pages of the document, looked to his right and brought his hand to his head.

Moreover, a photograph of Vucic sitting in the Oval Office also went viral because some said Vucic looked like a schoolboy who had been summoned by Trump, further cementing the popular notion that Serbia is under the U.S. thumb.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s relationship to the Balkans has been similar to the Trump administration’s. That is, until Biden indicates otherwise.

“We still don’t know what the Biden administration’s attitude is towards the Balkans,” said John Bolton, a national security advisor in the Trump administration. “Biden’s campaign has avoided answering many foreign and domestic questions, and I think the Biden administration is focusing on domestic issues at the moment, not foreign policy, so I don’t know when we will get an answer to that question.”

For now, self-determination for the region is unlikely with an initiative like Open Balkans. The region appears to remain stuck in the waiting room to join the EU, while foreign powers fight for influence and redistribution of Balkan nations’ wealth.

Nikola Mikovic is a Serbia-based contributor to CGTN, Global Comment, Byline Times, Informed Comment, and World Geostrategic Insights, among other publications. He is a geopolitical analyst for KJ Reports and Global Wonks.

For twenty years, two dominant narratives have shaped our view of the illegal U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and neither one of these narratives would readily accept the use of such terms as ‘illegal’, ‘invasion’ and ‘occupation.’ 

The framing of the U.S. “military intervention” in Afghanistan, starting on October 7, 2001, as the official start of what was dubbed as a global ‘War on Terror’ was left almost entirely to U.S. government strategists. Former U.S. President George W. Bush, his vice president, Dick Cheney, his Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and an army of spokespersons, neoconservative ‘intellectuals’, journalists and so on, championed the military option as a way to rid Afghanistan of its terrorists, make the world a safe place and, as a bonus, bring democracy to Afghanistan and free its oppressed women. 

For that crowd, the U.S. war in an already war-torn and extremely impoverished country was a just cause, maybe violent at times, but ultimately humanistic. 

Another narrative, also a Western one, challenged the gung-ho approach used by the Bush administration, argued that democracy cannot be imposed by force, reminded Washington of Bill Clinton’s multilateral approach to international politics, and warned against the “cut and run” style of foreign policymaking, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere. 

Although both narratives may have seemed at odds, at times, in actuality they accepted the basic premise that the United States is capable of being a moral force in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Whether those who may refer to themselves as ‘antiwar’ realize this or not, they, too, subscribe to the same notion of U.S. exceptionalism and ‘Manifest Destiny’ that Washington continues to assign to itself.

The main difference between both of these narratives is that of methodology and approach and not whether the United States has the right to ‘intervene’ in the affairs of another country, whether to ‘eradicate terrorism’ or to supposedly help a victim population, incapable of helping themselves and desperate for a Western savior. 

However, the humiliating defeat suffered by the United States in Afghanistan should inspire a whole new way of thinking, one that challenges all Western narratives, without exception, in Afghanistan and throughout the world. 

Obviously, the United States has failed in Afghanistan, not only militarily and politically—let alone in terms of “state-building” and every other way—the U.S.-Western narratives on Afghanistan were, themselves, a failure. Mainstream media, which for two decades have reported on the country with a palpable sense of moral urgency, now seem befuddled. U.S. ‘experts’ are as confused as ordinary people regarding the hasty retreat from Kabul, the bloody mayhem at the airport or why the United States was in Afghanistan in the first place. 

Meanwhile, the ‘humanistic interventionists’ are more concerned with Washington’s ‘betrayal’ of the Afghan people, ‘leaving them to their fate’, as if the Afghans are irrational beings with no agency of their own, or as if the Afghan people have called on the United States to invade their country or have ‘elected’ U.S. generals as their democratic representatives.

The U.S.-Western propaganda, which has afflicted our collective understanding of Afghanistan for twenty years and counting, has been so overpowering to the point that we are left without the slightest understanding of the dynamics that led to the Taliban’s swift takeover of the country. The latter group is presented in the media as if entirely alien to the socio-economic fabric of Afghanistan. This is why the Taliban’s ultimate victory seemed, not only shocking but extremely confusing as well. 

For twenty years, the very little we knew about the Taliban has been communicated to us through Western media analyses and military intelligence assessments. With the Taliban’s viewpoint completely removed from any political discourse pertaining to Afghanistan, an alternative Afghan national narrative was carefully constructed by the United States and its NATO partners. These were the ‘good Afghans’, we were told, ones who dress up in Western-style clothes, speak English, attend international conferences and, supposedly, respect women. These were also the Afghans who welcomed the U.S. occupation of their country, as they benefited greatly from Washington’s generosity.

If those ‘good Afghans’ truly represented Afghan society, why did their army of 300,000 men drop their weapons and flee the country, along with their president, without a serious fight? And if the 75,000 poorly-armed and, at times, malnourished Taliban seemed to merely represent themselves, why then did they manage to defeat formidable enemies in a matter of days?

There can be no argument that an inferior military power, like that of the Taliban, could have possibly persisted, and ultimately won, such a brutal war over the course of many years, without substantial grassroots support pouring in from the Afghan people in large swathes of the country. The majority of the Taliban recruits who have entered Kabul on August 15 were either children, or were not even born, when the United States invaded their country, all those years ago. What compelled them to carry arms? To fight a seemingly unwinnable war? To kill and be killed? And why did they not join the more lucrative business of working for the United States, like many others have?

We are just beginning to understand the Taliban narrative, as their spokespersons are slowly communicating a political discourse that is almost entirely unfamiliar to most of us. A discourse that we were not allowed to hear, interact with or understand. 

Now that the United States and its NATO allies are leaving Afghanistan, unable to justify or even explain why their supposed humanitarian mission led to such an embarrassing defeat, the Afghan people are left with the challenge of weaving their own national narrative, one that must transcend the Taliban and their enemies to include all Afghans, regardless of their politics or ideology. 

Afghanistan is now in urgent need of a government that truly represents the people of that country. It must grant rights to education, to minorities and to political dissidents, not to acquire a Western nod of approval, but because the Afghan people deserve to be respected, cared for and treated as equals. This is the true national narrative of Afghanistan that must be nurtured outside the confines of the self-serving Western mischaracterization of Afghanistan and her people.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.