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James Byron Bissett is a Canadian former diplomat. He was High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago and later Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria. [1]
James Bissett joined the Canadian government in 1956. He spent the next 36 years as a public servant in the Departments of Citizenship and Immigration and Foreign Affairs. In 1974 he was appointed head of the Immigration Foreign services. During the early 1970s he served at the Canadian High Commission in London, England. In 1980 he became the assistant undersecretary of state for social affairs in the Department of External Affairs. Two years later he was appointed the Canadian High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, where he remained until 1985. He was then seconded to the Department of Employment and Immigration as executive director, to help steer new immigration and refugee legislation through the Parliament of Canada. In 1990 he was then appointed Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania. In the summer of 1992 he was recalled from there[ citation needed ] and retired from foreign service, to accept a job as the head of the International Organization for Migration in Moscow, helping the Russian government establish a new immigration agency and implementing settlement programs for Russians returning to Russia from other parts of the former Soviet Union. He returned to Canada in 1997. [2]
Bissett has been a consistent defender of Serb leader Slobodan Milošević and critic of Western policies in the former Yugoslavia. He testified at the Trial of Slobodan Milošević as a defence witness. [3] In 2004, Bissett claimed that "Canada [has] participated in a series of NATO-sanctioned war crimes against Yugoslavia". He also said that "anti-Serb violence had taken place while an army of 18,000 NATO troops stood by and did nothing to protect the Serbs or their property." [4]
James Bissett appears in two documentary films by Boris Malagurski: Kosovo: Can You Imagine? (2009) and The Weight of Chains (2011).
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian rebel group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The conflict ended when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened by beginning air strikes in March 1999 which resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo.
Serbia and Montenegro was a country in Southeast Europe located in the Balkans that existed from 1992 to 2006, following the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which bordered Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, Macedonia to the south, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west, and Albania to the southwest. The state was founded on 27 April 1992 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, known as FR Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia which comprised the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Montenegro. In February 2003, FR Yugoslavia was transformed from a federal republic to a political union until Montenegro seceded from the union in June 2006, leading to the full independence of both Serbia and Montenegro.
The Račak massacre or Račak operation was the massacre of 45 Kosovo Albanians that took place in the village of Račak in central Kosovo and Metohija in January 1999. The massacre was perpetrated by Serbian security forces in response to Albanian separatist activity in the region. The Serbian government refused to let a war crimes prosecutor visit the site, and maintained that the casualties were all members of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) killed in combat with state security forces.
Milan Milutinović is a Serbian politician who served as the president of Serbia from 1997 to 2002.
Operation Horseshoe was a 1999 alleged plan to ethnically cleanse Albanians in Kosovo. The plan was to be carried out by Serbian police and the Yugoslav army.
Vuk Drašković is a Serbian writer and politician. He is the leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, and served as the war-time Deputy Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 during the rule of Slobodan Milošević and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of both Serbia and Montenegro and Serbia from 2004 to 2007.
Ivica Dačić is a Serbian politician serving as first deputy prime minister of Serbia and minister of foreign affairs since 2022, roles which he previously served under governments of Mirko Cvetković, Aleksandar Vučić, and Ana Brnabić. He has been the leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) since 2006.
The Death of Yugoslavia is a BBC documentary series first broadcast in September and October 1995, and returning in June 1996. It is also the title of a BBC book by Allan Little and Laura Silber that accompanies the series. It covers the collapse of Yugoslavia, the subsequent wars and the signing of the final peace accords. It uses a combination of archived footage interspersed with interviews with most of the main players in the conflict, including Slobodan Milošević, Radovan Karadžić, Franjo Tuđman and Alija Izetbegović, as well as members of the international political community, who were active in the various peace initiatives.
William Graham Walker is a United States Foreign Service diplomat who served as the US ambassador to El Salvador and as the head of the Kosovo Verification Mission.
Kosovo during the 20th century history has largely been characterised by wars and major population displacements. The region formed a part of numerous entities, some internationally recognised, others not.
The political status of Kosovo, also known as the Kosovo question, is the subject of a long-running political and territorial dispute between the Serbian government and the Government of Kosovo, stemming from the breakup of Yugoslavia (1991–92) and the ensuing Kosovo War (1998–99). In 1999, the administration of the province was handed on an interim basis to the United Nations under the terms of UNSCR 1244 which ended the Kosovo conflict of that year. That resolution reaffirmed the territorial integrity of Serbia over Kosovo but required the UN administration to promote the establishment of 'substantial autonomy and self-government' for Kosovo pending a 'final settlement' for negotiation between the parties.
Italy–Serbia relations are diplomatic relations between Italy and Serbia. Kingdom of Italy established formal bilateral relations with the Principality of Serbia on 18 January 1879. The strategic partnership between the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Italy was established in Rome on 13 November 2009. Italy is one of the member states of the European Union which strongly support Accession of Serbia to the European Union. Both countries are members of the Central European Initiative, OSCE, Council of Europe and the World Trade Organization.
Slobodan Milošević was a Serbian politician who was the president of Serbia and president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. Formerly a high-ranking member of the League of Communists of Serbia (SKS) during the 1980s, he led the Socialist Party of Serbia from its foundation in 1990 until 2006.
North Korea–Serbia relations (Korean:쓰르비아-조선민주주의인민공화국관계) are the bilateral relations between Serbia and North Korea. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea had established diplomatic relations on October 30, 1948. Relations had been very close during the time of Josip Broz Tito and Kim Il-sung. Both leaders had taken a neutral stance during the Sino-Soviet split and maintained friendly relations with both the Soviet Union and China. Both Serbia and North Korea are members of the Non-Aligned Movement. Yugoslavia, of which Serbia was a part, was one of the movement's founding members. Both countries closed their embassies in each other's capitals in October and November 2001, respectively, for financial reasons. Nevertheless, they continue to enjoy a close relationship. The Serbian Embassy to North Korea is accredited from Beijing, China, and the North Korean embassy to Serbia is accredited from Bucharest, Romania.
Živadin Jovanović, is a Serbian diplomat and politician, who served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between 1998 and 2000.
Vladislav Jovanović is a Serbian diplomat who was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia.
The war crimes trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) lasted for just over four years from 2002 until his death in 2006. Milošević faced 66 counts of crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
The Weight of Chains is a 2010 Canadian documentary film directed by Boris Malagurski. The film argues that the breakup of Yugoslavia was "orchestrated by Western powers in furtherance of imperial ambitions". According to the filmmaker, it also presents stories of "good people in evil times". It was released on December 17, 2010.
Uglješa Marković is a Serbian politician. He has served in the National Assembly of Serbia since 2020 as a member of the Socialist Party of Serbia.