Kosovo's Independence
After the Read More! Kosovo's Independence: who's for it, who's against. Who will protect the Serbs? Will it work?
President Bush backs the UN designed independence plan: "On Kosovo, our position is that its status must be resolved in order for the Balkans to be stable. Secondly, we have strongly supported the Ahtisaari plan," Bush said, referring to a so-called "supervised independence" plan put forward by the former Finnish president and UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari."
Ahtisaari presented a plan in early 2007 calling for independence under international supervision for Kosovo, the southern province of Serbia which has a 90-percent ethnic Albanian population.
A roundup of who will recognize the new state is reported by the Guardian.
Serbia said a declaration would be 'a flagrant and unilateral act of secession of a part of the territory of the Republic of Serbia and... therefore null and void'. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said it 'would be immoral and illegal'. Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro are also likely to reject it. The US and most EU countries will recognise Kosovo. Cyprus, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Greece are against it.
Some 120,000 ethnic Serbs live in Kosovo, many next to the border with Serbia. Half of that number live under Nato protection in scattered enclaves south of the Ibar river. The VOA reports that "The European Union gave its final approval Saturday for a security force, which it calls a civilian peace and justice mission, to keep the peace and safeguard human rights in Kosovo after the the departure of the U.N. team that has administered Kosovo since 1999, when NATO airstrikes halted a Serbian crackdown on the province's ethnic Albanians.."
In one of the most ironical turnabouts, the mission of the West in the Balkans has shifted from protecting the Muslims to protecting the Serbs. What happens if the Serbs living in contiguity with the Serbian border join it, claiming their territory with them? This seems to be exactly what the Serbs have in mind. (See below)
The International Crisis Group provides the reasoning behind the acceptance of the Atisaari plan.
Forcing Kosovo Albanians back into a constitutional relationship with Serbia would reignite violence. Belgrade has offered little beyond proposing that Kosovo remain an integral part of the Serbian state. ... Instead it has tried to establish the basis for an ethnic division of Kosovo and partition along the Ibar River, which runs through the northern city of Mitrovica. It has done so by trying to delay the adoption of a Security Council resolution in the expectation that this would trigger a Kosovo Albanian overreaction, including violence, and so create the conditions for such partition. Partition, however, would not only destroy the prospect of multi-ethnicity in Kosovo but also destabilise neighbouring states.
The Ahtisaari plan is apparently a plan to keep the fractured egg of Kosovo glued together by a combination of EU money and police advisers, as the International Crisis Group goes on to describe.
The Ahtisaari plan is a compromise that offers Kosovo Albanians the prospect of independence, Kosovo Serbs extensive rights, security and privileged relations with Serbia, and Serbia the chance to put the past behind it once and for all and realise its European future. It is the best recipe for the creation of a multi-ethnic, democratic and decentralised society and fits within the European Union’s multi-ethnic project for the Western Balkans, which ultimately offers the prospect of accession. The EU is already the largest donor in Kosovo and plans to assume the lion’s share of responsibility for the post-status Kosovo civilian mission. Ultimately, Kosovo is, and will remain until resolved, a European problem.
But the egg is unlikely to stay glued together. A partition may eventually occur. The Serbs have clearly concentrated their ethnic population in anticipation of Kosovo's independence the better to prise a piece of it off. The Kosovars will be glad to be rid of the Serbs, but probably want the land. However, it will probably be too expensive to drive the Serbs from it as long as they are supported from Belgrade and Moscow. So they may have to cede the land to Serbia in the end. The EU will fold like a cheap suit the moment their representatives start taking casualties. If any sort of trouble breaks out look for them to make as quick an exit as possible. Either that or they will yell for NATO support. But even with that they will fold anyway.
In a decade the Balkans may have reorganized itself along ethnic lines. The intervention of Europe and NATO will have made the process more orderly and humane but it would not have succeeded in changing the basic outcome. The whole Balkan adventure is a cautionary tale about the limitations of specifying the "multicultural" idea as the cornerstone of the modern state.
posted by wretchardthecat at 2/17/2008 03:17:00 AM
35 Comments:
I fail to see the benefit of creating another Muslim state anywhere in the world, much less on Europe's doorstep.
I also must rethink the long term benefit of interfering in regional conflicts unless it's very clear that one side or the other is being used as a proxy by a strategically hostile interest. I do not think that was the case with Kosovo, and if it was then we were on the wrong side.
I'm for Kosovo independence because (1) it demonstrates further the ineptitude of the UN, and (2) it demonstrates that the only way to live with Muslims is to segregate them off on their own which, incidently, is also what Israel is doing.
If Kosovo succeeds, I wonder if we'll be looking at bits and pieces of GErmany, France, and Norway given over to their Muslims with the proviso that they can do any damned thing they want to to each other, but they *must* stay behind their walls. France already has more or less done this, segregating its Muslims into certain areas where the police don't go, and the youths are free to BBQ cars to their heart's content because, after all, what does it matter if dozens of cars are ruined since they all belong to Muslim parents any way?
What good did a partition do India they have a hostile Pakistan next door which is now nuclear armed, almost all the Hindus in Pakistan has been ethnically cleansed; and they still have Moslems in India who breed like roaches. They have reached the point demographically where they feel confident in asking for another partition and if not stopped India will be whittled away to nothing and Hindus cleansed from the face of the earth.
There is no point in giving these people anything ever.
NahnCee: If Kosovo succeeds, I wonder if we'll be looking at bits and pieces of GErmany, France, and Norway given over to their Muslims with the proviso that they can do any damned thing they want to to each other, but they *must* stay behind their walls.
Don't forget Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands.
The Germans officially endorsed Croatia and the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Croatia. Then, in an effort to distract from that, helped the Albanians in a propaganda war against the Serbs. The end result, another short sighted alliance with Jihadis.
Russia was killing Jihadis. Now, thanks to idiotic US intervention, these same Jihadis are killing us.
Ceding parts of sovereign states in Europe to Muslims is a recipe for the Rightists to sweep to power.
I expect it to happen.
"another short sighted alliance with Jihadis"
i think germany is relatively safe, they have the one thing in common that is very near and dear to both their hearts.
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i think germany is relatively safe, they have the one thing in common that is very near and dear to both their hearts.
Would this be Jew-hatred, or am I being too black-hearted trying to interpret your fluffy comment?
Bill Clinton was only doing for his masters what the Dhimmicrats are saying GWB did. Extending the Ummah in Europe was pretty much part of the plan all along. Why we did not see this back in the mid-nineties just blows my mind.
I dont think you all are really getting the point of the issue. Kosovars have proved to be a unified country with its multiple existing religions (moreover, kosovars are Sunni for those of you who have a clue - else you should first get informed properly before making statements). The true point why independence was claimed for over 96 years, is that kosovars were mistreated, abused, and massacred by their occupier. The U.S. and EU have done one thing right! And now, a new country is born!
Wow. Illire knows that Kosovo Muslims are Sunni.
Whoop de do. That means that he/she/it knows a whole lot about one itty-bitty shit-hole that never did nothing but kill each other, which means that all those brain molecules taken up knowing about Sunni's in Kosovo have squeezed out other knowledge that might actually be useful.
I think, if you don't mind, Ilire, I'll withhold my amazed awe at your knowledge and intelligence, and use it to be awed at people who actually *do* something. Like an American military sniper who knows how to kill Muslims, or an American lawyer who knows how to sue their asses into bankruptcy, or even an American bureaucrat who knows how to deport them back to places like ... Kosovo.
As a believer in self-government and popular sovereignty, I of course support Kosovo independence, but I hope that the Kosovars will have the good sense to be negotiable on borders. If the Serbs on their borders want to be in Serbia, let them.
However, I think that the EU/State Department people who have been pushing secular, ethnically diverse states in the Balkans are idiots who need their heads examined. The only people who care about this program are the international bureaucrats, the professors and the lawyers. Had the US and EU aimed for partition from the outset, both in Kosovo and in Bosnia-Herzegovina -- and helped buy-out people who lived on the wrong sides of borders, the whole process of undoing Yugoslavia might have been a good deal less bloody and expensive for everyone.
I too am a little dubious about a new Muslim state in Europe, but only a little. A Muslim country in Europe is not exactly a new condition: the Ottoman Empire was in Europe for centuries, and the breakup of this entity (to the immediate benefit of a number of Christian kingdoms) contributed a good deal to the ruination of Europe and Christian civilization generally. There is no reason a Muslim state has to be impermissible per se
Finally, watching the Kosovars with their Albanian flags, I wonder if independence is what the Kosovars really want, or whether this landlocked little statelet is going to wind up in Greater Albania?
"Greater Albania?"
Do you really need to ask?
for all of you here's one documentary that show serbian "guilty" in all wars in former yugoslavia... http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4070552
People you need to wake up. The religion of Albanians is Albanianism!!! I am an albanian and not religious and never was neither was my family, friends, or my whole town where i grew up!!
Those of you who like taking without knowing facts, go visit Kosova and then come back here anc comment on this.
And I forgot to mention that all this stuff about how Kosovars are muslims and extrimists are BS propaganda from Serbia who use it to make the world against us cause they are SICK people and nasty people and that's the only way that they might actually make someone against us.
Historically, Kosova never belonged to them, it makes no sense of how a country of 95% Albanians could be a part of serbia land!!! Are you peole dumb? Use your common sense!!
There is no way Albanians and Serbs could of ever and never live together again! WE have around 3000 missing victims from 1999 that serbians killed and never let us know where those graves are.. again sick MFs...
Kaltrina, thanks for your comment. The fact is Kosovo is a long way from here and few of us know much about it. News reports have described Albanians as Sunni Muslim. And I could have sworn there was a confirmation of that on Wikipedia just yesterday.
But checking today I see no such statement and am somewhat encouraged by the following article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Albania
In addition the pictures I see from Kosovo, and for that matter the Albanians I've met here in NYC, don't seem at all similar to the typical Muslim scarf wearers. There are no Hijabs and the cars that go by with Albanian flags are also flying American Flags - something your typical muslims wouldn't do, not even if they needed our help and support.
At any rate I'm not thrilled our country is getting involved in that region on either side, but I'd be greatly relieved to know that this is not another pathetic attempt at appeasing our mooslim enemies.
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Ooops! I take it all back. The KLA collaborated with Osama. Why in hell are we supporting these dirt bags?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_Liberation_Army
"trying to interpret your fluffy comment"... passing the torch back and forth. more fluff.
Did all completely forget the Albanian Waffen SS , the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and their joint efforts to exterminate the Jews and the Serbs in Kosovo and in any other place in the Balkans? The Moslems who are acclaiming Clinton and Bush today do acclaim Hitler and Mussolini as well - two great forerunners and creators of Kosovo's "independnce" and of a Greater Albania.
Kosovo has already become -under NATO control- one of the biggest drug and arms markets and a transit road for criminal gangs and women(from Moldova, Ukraine etc.) traficking. C. 150 churches, monasteries and chapels have been desecrated, destroyed and levelled to the ground under the "watchful" eyes of the brave NATO "liberators". At the same time c. 400 mosques have been erected across Kosovo - most of them financed by America's good "friends" - the Saudis. What will happen next? To my mind , with independent Kosovo a European Afghanistan has been created. Aghanistan , independent of "bad" Russians, produced 9/11. Wait a little more and you'll see soon that independent Kosovo will produce a European (or American) 9/11 or worse - Albanian-style...
'I am an albanian and not religious and never was neither was my family, friends, or my whole town where i grew up!!'
Make fools of other people, not of us, Albanian! Who and for whom has built the 400 brand-new mosques across Kosovo? How many have been built in your birth town? You're not religious...the Chechens were also believed to be such people ...until the Saudis and other Moslems came to remind them of who they are and so the pious belief turned out to be a lie.
'There are no Hijabs and the cars that go by with Albanian flags are also flying American Flags - something your typical muslims wouldn't do, not even if they needed our help and support.'
Watch some photos from Kosovo during WWII and you'll realize how 'beautiful' the Albanian flags look when accompanied by swastikas, not just by the Stars-and-Stripes.
'Why in hell are we supporting these dirt bags?'
Salustius , a historian of the end of the Roman Republic, remarked in one place : "In Rome all things are for sale. This republic will perish the moment it finds a determined buyer." The man who bought the Roman Republic was called Julius Caesar.
It seems that the American Republic is being bought up by the House of ibn Saud.
first, there's around 107 orthodox monasteries and churches destroyed by albanians since KFOR (UN forces) arrived on kosovo in '99 and large number of it before then (some even built in 13th and 14th century)...
reason for NATO campaign (or NATO aggression how are they call it in serbia) was killing of 45 albanians in place called rachak, but in our western medias it was never mention that those people were full armed terrorists killed in attack on serbian military (and of course why it should be cuz they were armed with weapons given to them by american & other governments)...
for that albanian girl who claims that kosovo had never belonged to serbia, i need to tell you that serbs are living on kosovo since 7th century (that's around four time older then usa)...
biggest battle in serbian history happend on 28.06.1389. against turkish's for (guess what) kosovo! they've lost that battle and turkish's have ruled on them for 5 centuries... they were paying muslim taxes called harach and for all that time they've destroyed less monasteries than albanians for few years (now tell me who's savage here?!)...
war in bosnia officially started with killing of one serb on serbian wedding in sarajevo... i'm connecting this cuz half of albanians have fought on muslim and croatian side in that war...
our medias were showing to us how serbs are bombing hospitals and stuff but they've not told us that from that hospital muslim's were shooting on serbs and then run away, after that camerman record serbian bombing of hospital and we watch only that part (very simple, isn't it?)...
i'm telling you all this cuz i was in serbia (belgrade) and on kosovo and i've met both serbs and albanians (by the way belgrade have bigger population then whole kosovo and they can occupy kosovo for few hours if they want to) and i feel free to say that serbs are very much better people then albanians and if we watch little back in history we'll see that they were always on our side except now when we turned our back to them... and i feel sorry and responsibility for that... my proposition to you: go in belgrade and you'll see that belgrade is completly normal megalopolis with completly normal people living in it... you won't be dissapointed...
greetings from france
'Tis a conundrum, as to which are the biggest liars, pillagers, rapists, cheaters and thieves: the Serbs, the Albanians, the Muslims ... or the French.
If it pisses off the Serbs then I'm for Kosovo independence. In centuries of so-called civilization, all the Albanians have managed to do is create an exquisite national flag.
And the French deserve to have the whole rotten mess dumped in their laps to make it all better. Yeah. Right.
george1776, look at the resources you are gathering your information grom.. wikipidia!!! What a reliable resource, which can be changed by anyone and put anything you want in there!
Go get your history and facts straight.. and the only way you can do that if you actually go in Kosova yourself!
Jan: Seriously, I don't understand, how can you claim me to be something I am not when I say that I am not! Do you know me more than I know myself??!
In any case, look what serbs are doing now... if you think they are better then us, who's burning the American Embassy? And the American flag?? Not just now, they did this all the time...
Anyone who wishes to argue, go to Kosova and Serbia, gather your history facts by people who lived and live there, not WIKIPIDIA, and then come and talk to me here..
You people act like you know so much, by reading one or two articles??!
Kaltrina, you seriously misunderstand. No one in America nor any place else in the civilized West gives a rat's ass about either Serbia nor Kosovo. And certainly not enough to voluntarily go and actually feel the dirt of centuries or smell the smog of decay just to say we'd been.
What we're mainly concerned about is preventing the inhabitants of those two cesspools from starting another world war, and to please keep their mutual genocide to a dull roar so we can ignore it in peace.
We (Europe, America, Russia, et al) are also mildly interested in using Kosovo and/or Serbia as chess pieces to flummox our enemies, but you don't actually have to BE at a world-wide chess game to make the pieces move around.
As far as your centuries of history, it makes as much difference to today as the Arabs "rich cultural background". As in, yeah, right. What have either Serbia or Kosovo done today? Or last month? Or in the last decade? Nothing, you say? Quel surprise.
When Albania can put a satellite up in orbit, keep it there for decades, and then shoot it out of orbit from an ship in the ocean bouncing around on waves, then we'll pay more attention to your protestations about the importance of that little bit of the world.
'When Albania can put a satellite up in orbit, keep it there for decades, and then shoot it out of orbit from an ship in the ocean bouncing around on waves, then we'll pay more attention to your protestations about the importance of that little bit of the world.'
How wrong and naive you are, dear friend! The same sort of thinking paved the way in Afghanistan for Osama bin Laden and his gang. You first paid attention to him when it was too late. If I may make any predictions, America will first notice and admit what evil and self-defeating act it has done by creating another Moslem state in Europe when an Albanian Osama bin Laden emerges in the skies of America to destroy the Statue of Liberty or spread a lethal gas in a subway of New York or any other place. One thing America will never get from its new Moslem protectorate is gratitude. As the ancient Greeks used to say : Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
People must understand Albanians are not extremists such as the typical Muslims. According to some peoples logic since some Albanians are muslim by religion they are terrorists. Lets look at the flip side now, some Black people as an example are Christian by religion, does that make a White anglo-saxon a nigger. Any white Christian would give the same response HELL NO. Albanians are the exact same example, some are Christian and some are Muslim, but to the ill-informed out there use what you claim to be a mind. A 5 year old child could distinguish this fact. Albanians love America and everything it stands for, Our President George W, has never gotten such a Heros welcome as he did in Albania, sound like something a typical Muslim would do????
I dunno. If you're a typical Albanian and you're so damned dumb that you don't understand that when you're trying to sway people with your eloquent arguments, you don't call them "nigger", then I'm absolutely positive I don't want you for an ally, a friend or even a far-removed acquaintance.
So if all Albanians are as wonderful as you are, then the Arabs can chew you up and spit you out, before we get tired of playing patty-cake with them and nuke them out of existance. Sort of the termites eating the ants before both pests are bug-bombed.
Who gives a fuck about you and who the fuck is even trying to sway you like you are correct on this issue or something. I sure as hell dont want to be your ally or friend you are nothing to me. Lets see you nahncee go through what the Kosovars have gone through killing, rape of women, and slaughtering of children and see if you would have the same ideologies as you have. On a prior comment close to the top of the page you state that the only way to live with muslims is to segregate them. Is that not the most racist thing you can say?? Chances are you have had the best in life no war, education, freedom of speech. When you have these civil liberties taken from you, you will do whatever to whomever to get them back. And dont try to mix up things the muslims you speak of that have gone to other coutries have left their original country. Kosovo is the Albanians country. Seems to me you hate everyone Muslim , jew, etc.... Anyways the only country in the world to save Jews and risk their own lives for the Jews during WW2 was Albania and the Albanians, dont believe me look it up, u think you are smart. The worlds most caring woman too was an Albanian, BEAUTIFUL MOTHER TERESA. Albanians have the biggest hearts and a nationalistic trait is compasion.
John McCain and Joe DioGuardi working for a GREATER ALBANIA.
Just taking back what was originally ours. FUCK EUROPE GOD BLESS AMERICA THE HOME OF THE BRAVE
AMERICAN EAGLE+ALBANIAN EAGLE FOREVER...
It's about time to recognize the historical right of Kosova (Dardania) to have its destiny fulfilled-That is full independence. Kosova never was a Serbian province. It was there, since the times of birth of European civilization, a very distinct Dardanian/llyrian identity. Always populated by Dardanias who, although under constant pressure of forcefully migration by Serbian shovinism, Tito's Yugoslavia & Milloshevic's Serbia, still make up 92% of the population. They speak ilirian language with the dialect GEGE. Serbs always have been a minority there. We know that Serbs appeared in Balkans (then llyria) only by the 6th Century AD, and they speak a language more similar to Ukrainian then Russian. They have always been a minority and 'the story' of Kosova being the Heartland of Serbia is just a pure Serbian nationalist fantasy. Facts Speak Louder Than Words and Serbian’s Lies Will Collapse by Themselves. Serbs always have been considered as oppressors there, not just by Albanian majority, but also by other ethnic groups too. Serbs just occupied Kosova during the rise of the Serbian nationalism early 20th century from Ottomans, who by then were loosing the Balkans after 500 years of occupation. The borders of Kosova are well established and recognized. Now Kosova should be Free! http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/62/094.html
I can’t comprehend how a minority of 7% of the population, pretend to take off the land, the language, culture and the life of the rest of Kosova. Kosovars have the right to live free and independent in their land where they are born, generation after generation, live and will die.
http://www.gendercide.org/case_kosovo.html
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