Independent of what? Go experiment in Texas. Stop tearing independent Serbia. If you hanker for others' independence so much ask the hispanic people in Boston what they want. Think why San Diego, San Francisco, LA have not exactly English names.
Should the Basks in Spain be independent? should we bomb England for Irish humanitarian catastrophy? Should we spill napalm over Istanbul for the Kurds? Should Navaho / Cherokee people be independent? Should we cut Canada in two? Why the f**k not to use tomahawks as butcher's knife and call everything a sweet pie for Solana and Clark?

No one has the right to take away a part of Serbian land. Clinto started promising Albanians Kosovo and warning Milosevic he will lose Kosovo.
Is Kosovo Clintons personal property and he can give it away? Why doesn't he give away Arkansas if he so wishes? If he wants to be so generous.

All countries in the world, look out, he might be giving away a part of your country one day soon!!!

Maja, I don't see any genocide going on in Arkansas or any other state in the USA. You must be for genocide or you would be against what Milosevic is doing to Yugoslavia. If he were doing this to the Serbs would you feel as you do now? I think not! I'll bet you would be crying for someone, anyone to help.

I would not be crying for help. I fear the day when USA gets the need to help my country. That will be the day when we all can say we are doomed.
As USA doomed that region. Brought so much hate. Devide and rule, that's the tactic. USA wants to set up its own army complex where Azia, West and East colides. Kosovo is has a great stretegic importance. Under the pretence of giving Kosovo to the Albanians Kosovo will really become America.

You missunderstood my point about Arkansas. Kosovo is not yours to give. Just like you can not give me your neighbours car, America can not give Kosovo. If you can not understand that on the international lever try the property law. Ancient Romans had the famous saying: YOU CAN NOT GIVE AWAY SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT YOURS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Here I do agree with both Sergey and Maja. Kosovo should not be given independence and such a thing is ridiculous. Restore Albanian autonomy, be sure to put Ibrahim as the negotiating party for the Albanians, stop the bloodshed. There is no reason to set up a situation which will lead only to greater bloodshed later on. This mess started when Milo took away Kosovar autonomy. Give it back and lets get this over with.

And by the way, American Indians in the US **do** have autonomy. Indian tribal territories have their own governments, their own laws, and their own police. Even the FBI has to have express Indian permission to set foot on Indian land.

The Canadian reservations have even greater autonomy and are in practice, independent nations within Canada.

american people can ask them self:
is kosovo worth dying for?
if the answer is no, than stay out, and say NO!!
it is clear that serbs will not surender,
bombs can not solve anything, it is sad that
people have learn nothing during the history.
This can very well be 3.world war, think about
that..... and do something about it now!
demonstrate have civilian courage, dont belive politicans, they have lie to us before, and they
are doing that again.. just try to stop the war what ever it takes to do that.

I see that a lot of people here has a rather dim perception of events that led to this, so I'll give my view on it. But before that, I'll try to sketch, as briefly as possible, the historical background of Kosovo - just because it is important to what's going on now.


Slavic tribes, from which Serbs originate, moved to Balkan during IX and X century. To stay on Kosovo they suppressed, during several decades, native Iliric tribes (from which Albanians originate) that withdrew further to south. First Slavic state in south Europe was formed around city of Ras (today Raska, you can find it in, say, Encarta), and Serbian Empire in it's strongest moments held Albania, Macedonia and a big part of today's Greece. Things stayed the same, more or less, for next four centuries, when the Ottoman forces arrived in their foray to the west. Serbian Empire refused to subjugate and it resulted in battles at Marica river (1371.) and Kosovo (1389.). Battle on Kosovo was a very big clash - more than 200.000 soldiers took part in it - and result was, more or less, drawn - both leaders got killed, Serbians had lost but Turks were stopped for next thirteen years. For Battle of Kosovo, all the power that Serbia could amass was employed - anybody who could hold weapon was there, legend says, and a great deal died, in defence of Christianity. Although it was lost, Serbs consider The Battle of Kosovo as the highest, brightest moment in the national history.


On Kosovo, Serbs remained in good majority until the WWII. During that war, some 400.000 Serbs had moved, under pressure from Albanians(i) to north. Situation in Kosovo remained unsettled long after The War(ii), and at the same time some very dirty political games started(iii). First, in early 50's (or late 40's), in National Constitution an infamous law which considered circulation of real estate was accepted, and it directly prevented that people from going back!


Anther event that strongly influenced the demographic situation in Kosovo was the, how can I call it, birth-arousing policy. It consisted of strong funding of families with much kids - funding that was more than symbolic, especially at the beginning - and that had a strongest response, what was completely predictable, from Albanians(iv).


Under these circumstances, and with slow but permanent migration of people from Albania to Kosovo (Albania was, for the long time, European country with lowest standard), demographic picture of Kosovo started to change. At the same time political map of the country had changed seriously - in 1974., when new Constitution was adopted, two parts of Serbia got a new status: Kosovo and Vojvodina became Autonomic Regions(v). That was preceded with the first significant conflict between Serbian politicians and Tito, what resulted with removal of many of the Serbian politicians.


Tito died in 1980., and in 1981. Albanian separatistic movement declared Independent Republic of Kosovo. That was followed with violent pro-separatistic demonstrations and led to another wave of Serbian exodus, primarily from regions with Albanian majority. All these years, there was a slow but steady exodus of Serbs from Kosovo, and after these events Kosovo became a really hot potato to anyone who wanted to manage things there. Albanians started to completely boycott elections, some refused to pay taxes, to even have ID's, and Government was completely inept to find a common language with separatistic leaders. Still, Albanian rights remained - regional police, schools, high schools and TV-broadcasts on Albanian(vii), multiple-language plates on public buildings (on Albanian, Turkish and Serbian), only the money-per-kid decreased. Important aspect of these years is also the economical crisis, crisis that slowly but significantly lowered the standards of all of us, and proportionally inspired the dreams of Great Albania.


Then, in 1989., Milosevic got to the scene, and his first move was to change the status of Vojvodina and Kosovo (a legally legitimate decision, although drastic and, in my opinion, unwise). Unable to find a common language with other leaders of the Republics (as mentioned in v), and with quarrels that became wars, Milosevic simply did nothing to solve the things on Kosovo. Albanians were also quiet during the war-years - I guess that everybody waited the conclusion and the cards to open.


From 1994. to now, it became clear that Milosevic would, again, do nothing to settle things - Albanians were still unsatisfied, pressure on Serbs increased, as they exodus - whole areas of Kosovo became ethnically clean, and incidents with armed terroristic groups became more and more frequent. Woods were full of armed people that halted civilian vehicles on roads, disturbed Serbian clerics, killed lone travellers... To travel at night became impossible, then also in the day. Militia didn't manage to control things and in march 1998., exactly a year ago, a considerable part of central Kosovo was under the terrorist control. Encouraged with this, terrorists started to attack police stations and Serbian villages, and sharp fraction of separatists gained more and more credibility. Than Milosevic decided to hit back - he deployed the heaviest police units(vi) he had, and world heard about it.


. . .


One could ask, if such things were happening for decades, why nobody mentioned anything. To understand that, it's good to have in mind the relations between blocks in times of cold war - Yugoslavia was just between the zones of influence, with borders to either NATO- or SSSR-oriented countries. None of the blocks dared to intervene, they rather tried to be polite - thanks to Tito, who was an ingenious statesman. 🙂


Then, if such exodus of Serbs was happening, why recent Yugoslavian government was quiet about it? Well, to someone who grew in the Age of Information and is freely using it's benefits (as we netizens, obviously, do), it would seem very strange that a government totally neglects a value of telling it's own story to the world. Still, that's just what's happening in the heads of Yugoslavian officials - they seem to be completely unaware of a need to place such information. Negative selection(viii) took it's debts, even the our ambassadors are often muffed in public.


. . .


After all, who's to blame? I believe that all actors have their part of guilt - Tito's government for his "after me, deluge" - politics, recent Yugoslavian government for being unable to find the common language with Albanian separatists (i.e. unwillingness to compromise even when it became clear that there will be trouble in Kosovo), Albanian warhawks(ix) for resorting to guns, America and Germany (above all) for selling them that guns, NATO for using both Serbs and Albanians as a pawns in order to get another playground.


Share responsibility as you wish.


Emil Bicok

---

i - Albania was on side of The Axis, probably on purpose for this - it would be very beneficial for them to move from mountainous north Albania to much richer Kosovo, and Germans let them do the dirty work of exterminating the Slavs.

ii - it's said that in 1949. there was a riot in Drenica region, armed riot that required an intervention from the army to calm, during which Yugoslavian army had more than thousand victims. It was never officially confirmed, though.

iii - it is very important, to understand events I'm writing about, to know about the relations in former Yugoslavia. Croatians and Slovenians have catholic, and Serbians, Macedonians and Montenegrins have the orthodox (Christian) background. In Bosnia, there were catholics, orthodox and Muslims in very similar proportions. Two groups, united at will, still watched each other suspiciously, and president Tito, who held the country with the "iron fist in a silk glove", was Croat. Please note that I refer to these groups' religion only to illustrate "sides", there were other misunderstandings and conflicts between them were far, far from religious.

iv - like everywhere in the world, birth rate descends with the level of education and standard. It works in the opposite way though - more kids you have, less schooling you can assure them. With Albanians, in Kosovo and in Albania, both was the case and this policy led to demographic explosion.

v - before that, none of this regions had any administrative specificity. And the rights they got were very, very similar to rights of other republics - unproportional to, say, number of residents - enabling them to block any political initiative from Serbian side (i.e. right of veto on republican level). Years later, this was used by Milosevic - he found a hole in Constitution that gave him control over those Houses, and thus two additional votes to his one. That led, very quickly, to disintegration of Yugoslavia. It's also fair to say that presidents of Croatia, Mr.Tudjman, and of Bosnia, Mr.Izetbegovic, both weren't too cooperative themselves.

vi - Army was kept aside, with primary goal to close ways for armed groups that kept coming from Albania. Engagement of the Army indicates, in terms of international laws, that problem exceeds internal matters of a country.

vii - all of this financed by State of Yugoslavia, not to be forgotten

viii - there is a theory, completely proven on this case, that incapable leaders who intend to keep all the leashes, always look for even more incompetent subordinates - the ones that are easy to control, if nothing else than with assigning them to a much higher positions than they could possibly reach in a normal situation. In case of Serbia (Montenegro seems to get rid of this stupid relic), it works on all levels of authority, with possible exception of the Army.

ix - I don't think that a major part of Albanians on Kosovo wanted separation, especially after the civil war that stroke Albania year before. At least not 'till last March, when things start burning - bye to common sense. ;( It's also interesting that highest Kosovo- Albanian intellectuals were against turning to weapons.

What was the question ?

Q : SHOULD KOSOVO BE INDEPENDENT.

A1 : YES, if the majority of the population so desire!

A2 : NO, if the majority of the population don't want.

Analogies with independence for American states are idiotic. When the people of that country wanted independence they fought for it and got it.

Do you see an independence movement in Texas, Arkansas or Los Angeles ? Be real.

Do you really think the Koso-Albanians will want to live with Serbs without protection of NATO troops? Or do you suggest we empower the cats to protect the fish ?

Your majority analogy is wrong. There is no law that majority can have it's country. Besides they are not a majority. They are a minority in Serbia.

You are right. If you want indepencance go fight for it. Do not flee and cry for help and have other peoples children die for your indepencance.

You are wrong. There was a group who wanted Texas to be independant. Three of them were imprisoned caused they represented a threat to society.

The group of three people that wanted Texas to be independent should indeed be imprisoned because they represent only themselves and their guns.

The analogies stand.

Oh, so those three should be inprisoned, them and their guns, but KLA should be given more arms. Double standard indeed.

If this book gets into Serb hands we are done for!
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801849535/
secretdiscount

B.W.
My cousin who knows what the higher ups read including the Pres. say that this book is the blue print for their strategy in the Balkans.
My question is how come we let something like this to be published?
If the serbs read this book they will know our plans!