Protest against Kosovo independence

Holy shit, Monkstown... you are a Marxist? That makes the smoking "debate" all the more ironic, I love it.

The Kosovan "Working class", you mean that 'working class". You mean the 40% who are out of work and currently destitute. Are you sure joining the EU would be bad for them?

by the way I was walking past Marienplatz at close to three yeasterday and though there were police in riot gear I saw no protesters. Did the protest happen in the end?

Well, if we're going to talk about international law, methinks we cannot ignore the fact that Serbia's control over Kosovo was the result of the former's military occupation of the latter in 1912, an aggression during the First Balkan War which was not justified under international law. Then, as now, the Serb proportion of Kosovo's population was only about 10%. Serb control of Kosovo from 1912 on was illegal in the first place under international law, and should never have been recognized.

Kay, the nationality and ethnicity of the man who was found dead in the US Embassy is irrelevant if he was killed by other Serbs engaging in violence. Is it too much to ask for the Serbs to demonstrate peacefully without killing or injuring people and damaging property?

Heh?

There's a fair bit of truth in Marxist analysis I think but I'm not sure if I'd call myself a Marxist.
What does that have to do with my position on the badly introduced and currently impotent anti smoking law in Bavaria?

Treaty of London (1913)

Treaty of Bucharest (1913)

Serbia's gain in territory

The eastern frontier of Serbia was drawn from the summit of Patarika, on the old frontier, and followed the watershed between the Vardar and the Struma rivers to the Greek-Bulgarian boundary, except that the upper valley of the Strumica remained in the possession of Bulgaria. The territory thus obtained embraced central (Vardar) Macedonia, including Ohrid, Bitola, Kosovo, Å tip, and KoÄ?ani, and the eastern half of the Sanjak of Novi Pazar. By this arrangement Serbia increased her territory from 18,650 to 33,891 square miles and her population by more than 1,500,000.

You may not have noticed that b_r's question was about the United Nations - you know, the international organization founded in 1945 and "somewhat" relevant to recent events in Iraq and Kosovo - so I'll quote his post again, just for you:

William Pfaff on Serbian nationalism: The curse of national grievance, Spiegel online int., Feb 19th.

Regarding the question of the legality of the Kosovo independence, here is what an expert on int. law thinks: Georg Nolte: Kein Recht auf Abspaltung, FAZ.net, Feb. 13th.

According to him, there is no right to secession in itself, and it would set a dangerous precedent, but this doesn't mean that the proclaimed state of Kosovo cannot be recognized by parts of the international community. Nolte thinks that UN Council Resolution 1244 can be read in two different ways: Its purpose was to provide for the political preconditions for an open final solution by creating an interim solution under international surveillance. The territorial integrity of Serbia is only guaranteed until the interim framework agreement is reached. The resolution doesn't say what should happen if there is no agreement after year long negotiations. Some say that there must be a solution in accordance with Serbia or the Security Council, others say that exhaustive efforts is all that can be demanded.

Related to this two-way interpretation of Resolution 1244 is the now unclear status of international presence in Kosovo. The new Intern. Civil Office and Rule of Law missions need to operate on the basis of a UN mandate. Alternatively, the author suggests a treaty between Kosovo and EU states on the necessary continuing international supervision and support.

EDIT: International law doesn't start with the UN, there is e.g. the 14 Points Declaration by Woodrow Wilson concerning the right to self-determination in 1918, and there were certainly precursors, so the Serbian expansion wasn't really in tune with advanced non-codified international law.

Not exactly the way a sovereign State is supposed to function. Sounds more like a protectorate than an independent country, doesn't it?

Yesterday I came across an interesting EU article that raises this and a number of other highly relevant questions. Let me look it up and post the link.

Here it is. The article was published on Friday in EUobserver.com: We shall all pay for Kosovo independence.


I find the article makes some very valid points and is well worth reading in its entirety (no, it's not very long, the above excerpts make up one-quarter of the whole text).

The Treaty of London ended the First Balkan War, in which the illegal Serbian takeover of Kosovo occurred. The Treaty of Bucharest ended the Second Balkan War, which came about as a result of disagreements between the victors of the first Balkan War. The Kosovars were a signatory to neither treaty and no one had any business handing over Kosovo to an aggressor, in this case Serbia.

From the euobserver article cited by Kay:


Rather insulting, as well as being inaccurate, to refer to Kosovo as a "colony".

Kay, feel free to comment on the legality of Serbia's takeover of Kosovo in 1912, e.g., its invasion and occupation.

It is indeed an ongoing historical process rather than "just" a result of Milosovic's attempted ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The issues didn't suddenly appear in the late 1980s and they most certainly are not gone away now after Kosovan independence.

Asshole, when will you and others understand that no one protects Serbs and other "current" minorities on Kosovo except Serbs themselves.

This ignorant garbage you say acting knowledgeable is what spreads filth through the minds of other young people who care about what is happening.

If UN and KFOR were doing their Job, they wouldn't allow over 200 Serbian churches and monasteries to be looted and burned down. These monasteries are 3 times older than America, more history , value and meaning for the Serbs than you could ever understand because what your culture taught you to value ( I am guessing, I don't know you personally) is very different from what my culture teaches me.

So many of you underplay the significance of Kosovo holds for the Serbs. It has not as much to do with "old churches and history from hundreds of years ago�, as it does with the fact that the Serbian orthodox population has always been oppressed on this land by foreign, primarily Islamic invaders. And we have always been able to fight them off. Ask any Muslim Bosnian why he is Bosnian and he will tell you shamelessly “I am Muslim because when the Turks came giving us the option of converting or dying we chose to convert". The Serbs that didn't convert but fought instead are the orthodox Serbs today, a proud people who have a rich and proud history.

And you think Kosovo will go with a few signatures from Pristinas Serb hating terrorist leaders like Thachi. Goto be kidding me.
Bush says he will recognize Kosovo because its leadership has shown a fair treatment and democracy for everyone including the minorities. Get the fuck out of here, might as well have spat on the whole Serbian population by saying some shit like this. And it isn’t as if he doesn’t know what is going on down there. But we all know his righteousness and his ‘Christian’ values have proven time and time again to be those worth following.
Talk about war crimes.

And why mention Milosevic. He is dead now and was overthrown by Serbs themselves in 99. Perhaps you didn't know that. So why didn’t these countries recognize Kosovo then? It has been almost a decade.

Genocide? What genocide? Where is this proof of massive genocide conducted by the Serbs? And if it is so abundant why has NO ONE been charged for it. No one. How do you know when you see pictures of graves you are not looking at Serbs? Because CNN says so?
Show me some proof, unbiased and fair. Don’t tell me what the Hague says and what Washington says. I suppose it is fair to say you will have to go find the mass graves yourself and identify the bodies not to be Serbian, and not to be fighters in the wars.

How do you know when you see pictures of fleeing refugees that you are not watching Serbs instead? Because BBC says so? Do you know this fact that since 1999 not one Kosovo Albanian returned to Albania (due to persecution I am talking about of course) but 250,000 Serbs were forced to leave their homes from Kosovo and live now in Serbian refugee camps you know nothing about since you never knew Serbian refugee camps exist. There wasn’t always this 90-10 population in Kosovo it is a very new occurrence. Who built all the churches from the 13 the century? The Muslim Albanians? You know not what has happened on the Balkans and why, all education on the matter you receive from western media sources-propaganda. Although naturally it happens on both sides. What makes me a more of a reliable source is that I didn't need news to tell me what is going on, I could look out of the window. Sometimes you only hear the chaos since the bomb shelters have no windows naturally. But you can always taste, smell and feel the injustice and death caused by our loosing the media war and being "punished" for our "horrible actions". Get out of here-since when is America or the UK eligible to be the world most noble moral leader. Be serious.

Don’t get me wrong though I personally believe the US Constitution is the most wonderful, fair and beautiful document ever written of its kind, one that is invaluable in its ideas and power. But it is a shame it is being ignored and abused today.

The Muslims are ashamed from the Kosovo Muslim population-Albanians. They wave American flags and name streets after Bush while at the same time he is killing them like goats. And at the same time the western public has this horrific idea that Islam is a dangerous threat to our lives and is our enemy. Talk about spreading hate.
And we need not mention the Bosnian Muslims. They break basic Islamic principles dictated by the Koran and are just about as Muslim as Bush himself.
Dumb example but alcohol and nightclub are both legal there.

So needless to say not every Serb feels so passively toward the Islam issue on the Balkans but I don't hate anyone. There was a lot of blood shed from this hate both sides expressed and people are sick of it down there bu these things are never forgotten. You say forgive and forget? How the hell is a human being with the ability to experience and be influenced by emotions, on either side, supposed to forgive and forget? It shows that you have NO idea what has happened throughout the Balkans. None so you would do best to stay out of the issue.

Even the pope in the Vatican has expressed his support for the Serbs, for the first time ever, not because the Vatican loves his fellow orthodox Christian-couldn't be further from the truth- but because he is also scared like the others on the Balkans of another "Islamic" state (Islamic of the type I described previously) in Europe.

This is why. It is all bullshit spread by the media you listen, controlled by the same governments that lead aggression against Serbia which need support for their acts of Violence.

War is nasty you know most of you never felt it. I grew up in it on the Balkans and know I dare say better than most if not all here why, how and who. No one side is guiltier than the other when it comes to killing. And you would be stupid to believe things like this get solved by one-sidedly declaring independence, especially when we talk about Kosovo.

So I have sincerely called all my accusers and all interested to meet with me so that we can discuss this face to face.
In three additional pages NO ONE has answered my call? WHY? What is the reason you refuse to discus in person? I am calling you to step up and defend your words where all can see both parties. Where there can be a better chance to show your knowledge of the matter and to prove yourself. Why have you denied this challenge? It is easy to talk whatever when your face is unknown and you are well hidden.

It takes a man to call for a discussion to take place in public and it takes a man to support his opinion in public. I am the first described in this sentence, who is the second? Have we any here?

Peace. I have nothing left to prove here and I am now convinced after 20 pages of replies you don’t either. Kosovo je Srbija. Always was always will be. Nothing has changed.

Pray for peace.

You are painting yourself into a corner now big time.
There have been a number of posters on here who aren't 100% behind Kosovan independence as it is now or as it has occurred but such rubbish will lose you any potential allies in the argument

Serbs, either in official state forces or irregular militia's behaved in a gencidal matter. the deliberate killing of other ethniciites is hardly to be disputed.
Why do you follow such dreadful revisionism?

Serbia and Serbs need to recognise the mistakes of the past and strive that such horrors don't happen again.
But that doesn't mean letter other gulty parties off the hook either, whether they sit in Zagreb, Pristina or indeed, London or Berlin.

People often don't have the time or the energy or the desire to go to a meet up.
I don't think peoples' opinions are worth any less because they write them rather than say them in person.
To be honest I don't see there would anything else to be gained by a meet up on this issue.

Neither do we "hide" here. This is a site for English speakers in Germany.
We are not a huge community and I know personally at lest five of the other contributors to this thread.

And the "you're not man enough" jibe is dick waving tosh of the highest order and especially piffle as at least one of the posters who has been arguing that there are "issues" with Kosovan independence is a woman.

What MT said, plus I feel no need or urgency to meet someone in person who addressed me as Bato did.

As for Milosevic's downfall in 2000, it speaks volumes that the Serbian people were only able to get him out of power after he changed the constitution in one day so that he could continue in power and then rigged the subsequent "election". War crimes, ruining the Serbian economy, and losing wars weren't enough to get him out.

Than I feel no need to defend my possition any more, or to visit this thread to view your opinions.

Hiding is exactly what it is if I call you to meet and discuss this face to face. This is the only fair way to listen and be heard. I on the other hand have nothing to hide and am willing to meet and defend my position in the open. You are not so your oppinion officialy doesnt matter.

You don't find the time to do this the right way but you do find the time to type in these 20 pages and read everyhting others say? This doesn't make sense to me it seems it would take less time to discuss this issue verbaly.

If time is not the issue than it must be that you don't think this it is important enough. If this is the case than shut your mouth and say no more about anything and anyone in regard to Kosovo, Have your oppinion and hold it deep down inside, quietly since you are not man enough to answer my challange and express and defend it in the open. But don't you dare point fingers and accuse certain groups of Genocide and Ethnic cleansing and other nasty lyes. You officialy striped your self of this right by being a coward and not answering my challenge.

I am done here. Nothing more to be said or heard. All the best to all of you.

I will appologise for my opening remark and name calling directed to you. It was very immature form my side so I am sorry for that.

All else I said stays the same.

Good riddance. You might also want to drop the "religious war" mentality, if for no other reason than you are badly outnumbered by Muslims.

One more thin I have to add is that I let myself get angry by what is being said. I have been called many nasty things by many here and I do not wish to act the same.

Emotions are a powerful human chaacteristic, hence the actions of the idiotic protestors in Belgrade a few days ago. Emotions should be left o a minimum when it comes to problems like this and only sound reasoning should be utilized. Every post here has their own way of raising strong emotional responses in the readers and it is all done through language. I only say this to raise awarness that such words as Genocide and Ethnic cleansing are words coined by all those that were agains the Serbs in 99. They carry alot of weight and should be used carefuly if they deserve to be used at all in this example. I think not when it comes to this case but you all know my oppinion on that.

You should listen to the speeches of the president Boris Tadic on the matter. Especialy when he adresses the UN and the rioters. He seems like a very wise man and one can perhaps learn a thing or two.

Bato: there have been a couple people to express interest. TheFireLane did a few pages back (though I'm not sure how serious he was), and I did as well. Here's the thing though: Why would anyone want to take time out of their day to debate a subject with someone who's obviously not going to listen to rhyme or reason? It means sitting down and preparing clear and concise arguments for someone who's only going to retort with "asshole!" or "fuck off, you're wrong". Even after this thread was closed and the last several pages deleted (I'm assuming that has something to do with four straight pages of "fuck you!""no, fuck you!""asshole, fuck you!" "fuck you", though I could be wrong) you insist on starting your latest reply with "asshole" and calling us all cowards (or "unmanly", as it were... personally, as I'm not a man, I'm much less insulted by this as I likely would be if you'd called us all men, or something equally ridiculous). Why would anyone want to bother? what incentive could you possibly offer, since it's obviously not openmindedness, a willingness to debate like an adult, the offer of trying to see the other points of view or well thought-out, clear, concise arguments. What could people gain from meeting you? I'd been thinking of meeting you, if only so that I could ask you some of the questions which have been posted and ignored here on this thread to get an honest response, but you've made it perfectly clear that it's just not going to happen, even when confronted with these questions in person, so why bother? I have better things to do with my time than sit around listening to you spewing hate and ignorance.

You've mentioned a couple of times about the mass exodus of the serbs and how the albanians weren't leaving yada yada yada. To that I have to say this: In 1999, 5000 Albanian Kosovar refugees came to Halifax, where I grew up. In a city of 300,000, five thousand people arriving at once was a big enough deal that even I managed to take notice of it, despite being in the throws of eleven-year-old-girl-hood. I knew who they were, and had a rough idea of why they were leaving home. If enough people were arriving in Halifax that I, as an eleven-year-old, off-in-her-own-little-world, girl was aware of it, chances are pretty good that a lot of other Albanian Kosovars were also fleeing and claiming refuge other places as well. From looking, I gather that Australia also took in a fair number of the Albanian Kosovar refugees.

I said this before, and it got deleted, but I do think it bears repeating:
A wise man once said "you're not English and I'm not Dutch. We're both South African"
I don't see how the same sort of thing doesn't apply here. The rest of Serbia doesn't seem to want the Kosovo Serbs, and the rest of Albania doesn't seem to want the Kosovo Albanians. Both peoples have apparently been occupying the territory for an extended period of time, and both seem reluctant to leave/ reluctant to submit to ethnic cleansing, so perhaps it would be better for both peoples if they accepted Kosovo as a nation in it's own right, with two cultures living side by each, and leave both Albania and Serbia out of it, oder?

It's a very emotional topic Bato I know, but you need to stop digging.
I'd suggest you look at the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland as an indicator of the pre-requisites to finding eace in a seemingly impossible situation.

That includes the admittance of past mistakes
That includes compromises on territorial claims
That includes reform of state structures and state security organs and militias that have links to the state of one political/ethnic etc faction.

And that applies to ALL sides.

I never said "Riligious war". There are people that hate each other on the Balkans due to riligious reasons but I am not one of them. This is far from simply a religious war, you should know that by now. I said there ae muslims and orthodox christians and I said why there are muslims and what I beleive other muslims' opinions are on these Balkan muslims. That is all I said. Kosovo is a religious symbol for the Serbs but one can not simply say it is a religious war. As always Justice against injustice.

Quote me next time please don't put words in my mouth. This is exactly why I wand to discus this in the open, face to face.

By the way what is up with your nicname. Conquistador? Why would you choose this to be your nicname. They are as guilty as Hitler when it comes to human rights. Don't you agree? I hope this isn't some kind of an idol for you. Its like if someone used used "Himler" for his nicname.

Post of the week surely there!

Indeed.

Yeah Bato, I was actually serious. But you failed to give any reason why Serbs should control Kosovo... you only argument is "It's a holy place to us, we want it".

Sorry, I think people and their freedom are more important that a couple churches. I support political self determination. You apparently simply want to control others and make them subject to you. That doesn't win support from me.

You are 100 percent right.

Further dialogue alone can solve this problem. BUT Thatchi and Bush are done with talking, they say all talking has been exausted-what is their point? every interview you hear where a Serbian Polititian is talking, he stresses further diplomacy.

What the hell is a unilateral proclamation of independence if not a direct break of dialogue? Am I wrong?

And what pisses me off is when I see the half bald guy in the White hause say the Serbs don't want to talk anymore. How can he dirrectly LYE and contradict what the Serbian polititians are saying themselves on TV. You hear it and see it coming from their mouthes. That is the media we have today.

One more thing that got me so angry is when I read the guardian yesterday and there was a long article on the situtation. They interview the Alabanian side and than they find some serbian student (if this is at all true, impossibe to prove or missporove) a 29 year old student from Belgrade Snezana Ivanovic- so Serbian but she said that the Albanains have every right to demand what they demand and we the Serbs should be sorry for what we did to them and should be quiet.

Talk about BULLSHIT. if you walk through the whole of Serbia, Monenegro ... you will have a hell of a time finding a person with this oppinion and feeling free to express it so openly as a matter of fact. (some of you will argue now "freedom of Speech". You don't need to. Everyone knows how 99.9 percent of the Serbs feel about this sitution. These .5 have a good reason to hide their oppinions from the open.)
How does (not how but why) the Guardian interview just such a person and fails to intervue a normal Serbian walking down the strees. How is this not suppposed to get me angry. MEDIA WAR is what it is and BE CAREFUL what you read and where you get your info from.

If I am right that ALL sides need to be preapred to compromise and admit past mistakes, why attack me for daring to mention attorcities carried out by Serbs?

The argument that 99.9% Serbs are all of your opinion and anyone who isn't is implicitly not Serbian is a dangerous totalitarian argument.

Or the legality of the American Empire´s takeover of Hawaii in 1893, e.g., its invasion and occupation ... and its official annexation on July 7, 1898

Thanks for the permission. I didn't know you'd been designated to preside over the discussion.

FYI, I have no interest in commenting on 1912. I'm much more interested in today and tomorrow.

Speaking of EU development funds, your post made me think of this bit from that EUobserver.com article I mentioned earlier:

well that I cam agree with at least

Washington I'll give you. But the international court of justice at the Hague is surely well above a narrow partisan view of the situation? Are you really telling me that the United Nations, EU, International Criminal Court and it would appear everyone in the entire world appart from the one or two people who agree with your warped world view are biassed and not to be trusted? Get real for heaven sake otherwise your nation will be a pariah forever. Do you really want that?

heaps arrived in London and other UK cities and there are a fair few here in Germany too.

they might be doing this now but there has been a diplomatic process underway for the last 7 years where all the Serbs seemed to do with stick their fingers in their ears and shout "lalalalalalala - I can't hear you . . . lalalalala"

Large numbers ended up in Switzerland, in part because even before 1999 there was a sizeable Kosovo Albanian community there. I don't know how many refugees were taken in at the time, but in Switzerland there are currently almost 200,000 (that's five zeros, yes) Kosovo Albanians.

Edit: According to an official Swiss source (admin.ch), "La Suisse a accueilli près de 30 000 personnes à protéger pendant la guerre en Bosnie-Herzégovine (1992-1995) et 53 000 au cours du conflit au Kosovo (1998-1999)."

What? you mean that's not an efficient diplomacy tactic? really? well, I'll be damned!

The UNHCR estimates in 1999, when things started getting really bad, one million kosovan Albanians sought asylum mostly in other European nations. In contrast 200,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians have left Kosovo, mostly since the conflict was concluded and are mostly contained in refugee camps in Serbia proper. While comparisons may be distatseful I think those figures speak for themsleves in underlining quite how distorted Bato's view of this is.

Serbia isn´t the only country with large numbers of internal refugees/displaced persons:

Number of internal refugees soars in Iraq

Internal Displacement in Afghanistan

@miwild: True enough, but no one said it was. What it is, though, is the country/conflict under discussion here. Besides, the main source of dispute when it comes to Iraq is "how do we manage to get the american troops out of there without f*cking things up even more than they already have?"

That's odd. Is that from a 1999 UNHCR report or a later source? While looking for figures for Switzerland I found the following on the UNHCR site. It's undated, but definitely post-2004. (Btw, it's not because the numbers are different, it's just that here they say that in 1999 most ethnic Albanians returned to Kosovo within a few months.)

yeah its the same report though I read a paraphrased version that said 'almost a million'

You could ask the same question regarding NATO/KFOR troops in Kosovo ...

We were at Marienplatz yesterday and saw the protest. Didn't see much in the way of counter-protesters or riot police, but we didn't stay for long (maybe we missed the good part). I put a couple photos up on my blog:
http://www.zurika.com/2008/02/as-seen-on-m...oday-angry.html

Thanks for the post, Zurika.

Wow, there were a lot more people there than I would have expected!

the riot police I saw with kevlar vests were down in the Sbahn station under Marienplatz. I guess they were there ready to be deployed if violence broke out but since it didn't they were not deployed

There wasn't anything about this on the news yesterday, so I assume nothing untoward happened?

No surprise that you would like to ignore it, although without that Serbian invasion and occupation, no one would have been recognizing the false claim of Serbia to Kosovo after that date, thus invalidating your argument.