Pajamas Media

101 Comments

1. dan:

I’d just like to throw out there the, in my amateur opinion, high probability that the “rioters” who assaulted the US embassy were actually Russian FSB agents, or their agents inside Serbia.

Secondly, while I disagree with Schwartz, who is a buffoon on all subjects he touches, I think the equation Milosevic=Serbians was not entirely unjustified, as sympathetic as I may be to the tales of Albanian pomposity and depravity. Pomposity and depravity seem to be the glowing fire of the Southeastern European soul, however unpolite it may be to point it out.

Mar 12, 2008 - 5:02 am 2. Aleksandra:

The problem is not only associated with foreign media, it is something we got used to. This democracy (definitely the one I’ve been fighting for) brought foreign capital, creating medias which would do anything to make any decent Serbian who loves his country (and I do, what doesn’t mean I do not like others, actually I think no one can like others if doesn’t love his own) look like potential treat to peace. So, if you ask them, it is better to be a slave and do whatever told, instead having national dignity. So after the protests, which were so touching, the only picture they shown, were those idiots who destroyed OUR city.

One more question appeared – why US embassy asked NOT TO BE protected? Am I the only one who finds it not logical?

“They believe that Kosovo is just the start of this project and that the Albanians of Macedonia and Montenegro will eventually seek to join a Greater Albania too, using Kosovo as a precedent.”

You forgot Greece. They are experiencing the same problem on north. I remember the petition they’ve been signing few years ago while I was there. But Albanians and their supporters are clever, it is better to start with Serbia which already has bad reputation and leave Greece as member of EU for the end, when it will be too late to see what was done.

“fool NATO into attacking the Serbs to force them out of Kosovo and do this by convincing the world that the war crimes of Bosnia are being repeated in Kosovo.”

Here I must disagree a bit, I really do not find NATO “stupid” and “fooled”, I think it is opposite – they are fooling all of us (both Serbians and Albanians) for bigger and more important things – minerals for example and good geographical position for their base.

“the disinformation machine we saw operating so effectively over the second Iraq war was also deployed against the Serbs to support an illegal war also based on pretexts and lies.”

That frightens me a lot… If we compare Iraq and Serbia, new bombing is on my mind all the time, and knowing that USA, UK and their EU “slaves”, it is not so unrealistic.

“but there are also striking parallels between Iraq and Serbia that highlight the double standard applied to Serbia: the Kurds of northern Iraq.”

And what is Turkey doing? Shameless.

“What has been the Serb’s “reward” for reforms, compliance, and liberation from tyranny?”

The idea “I don’t want to become part of EU” maybe? I really don’t… Like Norway for example, and they live very well, aren’t they?

“It is no wonder the Serbs are exasperated, angry, and emotionally exhausted.”

How dare we?

“The decent people of Serbia, the people who have struggled to build a modern inclusive democratic Serbia, remain trapped between the fury of a lost generation at home and a hostile world beyond. They are a people powerless to change their painful past, unable to accept the injustices of the present and facing what appears to be a grim future as either Russia’s vassal or Europe’s whipping boy.”

I am signing up this, and one more addition – never liked Russia, but now I despite USA, UK and … similar.

And for the end, I will never accept “democratic lesions” from the “nation” who is responsible for destroying old cultures like Iraqi’s, Indians, Afghan… Thanks a lot, but no thanks.

Mar 12, 2008 - 5:48 am 3. Jensen66:

Well, I am really glad to hear a different voice from the crowd … It is quite curios that almost anyone who have visited Serbia has a very different opinion about the people and the country, compared with a nasty image usually presented by the official media…
The reality is never black or white, but rather gray (more or less), and when ever I hear about a case too white or too black, it makes me suspicious…
The “serbian case” has been presented too black and nasty, over a last decade, there is no doubt about that. For that reason, I welcome the articles like this one, with a hope that they can make a certain balance in the name of a more realistic truth …

Mar 12, 2008 - 6:23 am 4. ujaklija:

What an insiteful, balanced article. Regarding the mass exodous of Albanians from Kosovo, it would seem that the KLA and Mr. Rugova may have played a part in it qas well…and this aspect bears more investigation. See this blog and its thursday, April 5th 2007 entry entitled “Expelled?”. It certainly raised my eyebrows.

http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&updated-max=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=50

Mar 12, 2008 - 6:39 am 5. MelP:

Excellent article!

It does not surprise me that you would disagree with Stephen Schwartz, because Stephen Schwartz is not what he seems. Schwartz converted to Islam in Bosnia http://www.naqshbandi.org/events/articles/conversion_schwartz.htm
That’s not rumor, it is fact, that even appears in his Wikipedia profile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Schwartz_(journalist) Since that time, Schwartz has been called “The Trojan Horse for Islam” — especially as an apologist for Balkan Islam. http://www.serbianna.com/images/schwartz.jpg Schwartz can always be counted on to take the anti-Serb side of every argument, for that very reason.

Mar 12, 2008 - 12:55 pm 6. Sarah:

Very seldom is it that I post comments on blogs, but having read Mr Schwartz’s diatribe, I felt I really had to come out in defence of this author. Firstly, I’d like to thank him for trying to give us as balanced a view as possible. His position and standpoint is diametrically opposed to that of Mr Schwartz, in that, his approach to the topic is to be as fair as possible, whereas Mr Schwartz is so full of bigotry, anger and bull, he can’t even get his facts straight. Whilst this author writes with integrity and justice, Mr Schwartz writes with fury and venom. This author seems to have no hidden agenda, he is simply telling it as it is from his standpoint (backed by absolute historical fact) which he cites on his blog (www.limbicnutrition.com/blog/open-serb-hatred-must-be-answered), and that of those around him. He is an Irishman living in Belgrade, why would he want to defend the indefensible, if the indefensible were the case; it makes no sense. Mr Schwartz on the other hand has distinguished himself on many forums with his outrageous, if not downright insane remarks, comments and writings. This author mentions the “flat earth news” theory, with which I wholly concur. It seems people are all too keen to take up a viewpoint which slots neatly into their personal “belief system”, whilst carelessly tossing out any truth or reality which doesn’t fit in with their preconceived ideas. Very few of we mere mortals are willing to keep an open mind, throw out old bigotries and see things from a different perspective. This is what distinguishes this author from those around him, he seeks the truth!! And does it brilliantly.

Mar 12, 2008 - 1:43 pm 7. Yokes:

Dear Mr. Davis,

you forget to mention that almost 40% of Serbs vote for Radical party which publicly favours extinction of Muslims and Croats and claims those nations don’t even exist.

What is that if not fascist? Also, you seem to forget that Albanians have been under oppression for more than 20 years. If you ever went to Kosovo, trust me, you would not have any doubts. US Bombings in 1996 in 1999 as well as US help to Bosnian and Croatian military operations made an end to the slaughter of 100 000 people. Let me remind you that 90% of that number was killed by Serbs.

And still, you find it in your hart to judge these things. Do you judge attacks on Germany in WWII? Or would you prefer sitting in your living room and waiting it to end.

It is nice to sit and write articles, but please do understand, that these are human lives.

I never supported any wars. And don’t support many US actions. But go to Bosnia, and ask people what do they think about Wesley Clark, Clinton and US politics in the 1990’s. You will hear only words of appraisal. The bloodshed would have been much bigger without it.

Unfortunately help came too late for many.

Mar 12, 2008 - 3:01 pm 8. john:

Thankyou for telling the truth, may god bless you with good health!

Mar 12, 2008 - 4:30 pm 9. GK:

This article is one of the most dishonest pieces of journalism to ever stain PJM.
Take for example this line :
“”Operation Storm,” where in 1995 around 200,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Croatia. Not only is this war crime virtually unknown in the West but it is celebrated as a national holiday in Croatia.”

From the WikiP page :
Peter Galbraith, U.S. ambassador to Croatia at the time said: “The fact is, the [Serb] population left before the Croatian army got there. You can’t deport people who have already left.” Several videos supporting this appeared later. In 2004, one video showed the Serbian politician and paramilitary leader Vojislav Seselj saying: “If they (the Croatians) come, we must tell our people to leave Croatia, rather than letting them live under Croatian rule”. In 2007, Croatian OTV television aired regular daily TV programs recovered after capture of Knin. Among others, these videos showed the Krajina Serb military instructing the local population how to evacuate, one month before the Storm.

You are a very dishonest journalist.

Mar 12, 2008 - 6:01 pm 10. GK:

Another important point missed here is that is was the Serbs who started all 4 wars – first Slovenia 1991 – which the Serbs has no historical claim over. Then Croatia in 1991, which again, the Serbs had never in history had an inch of Croatian land. They have no historic claim to any of Croatia. Then in 1992 they started the Bosnian war. In Bosnia, the Serbs have ruled at some stages in history, as have the Croatians and Bosniaks – but the fact is, it was the Serbs who invaded and started the war. Then in 98/99 they started the 4th war in Kosovo.

None of this is in dispute.

It is also not in dispute that the Serbs slaughtered the entire male population of Srebrenica – 7000, they set up concentration camps like Omarska, when they captured the 60,000 pop. Croatian city of Vukovar, they sieged the city for 3 months and destroyed every single building, killed 20% of towns population and when they finally captured the city, they executed all the doctors, nurses and patients at the hospital. And lets not forget the siege of Sarajevo for 3 years – 50,000 killed

NO ONE else in the balkans came even CLOSE to these sorts of atrocities. For this article to rewrite history it to share the blame is un-acceptable for the standards of PJM.

I have some sympathy for the Serbs losing Kosovo because of demographics of muslims out breeding them. And the part about “Greater Albania” is spot on.

But this article is the exact equivalent of the Palestinian re-writing of middle eastern history.

Mar 12, 2008 - 6:24 pm 11. MT:

You should all ignore the comments made by “Yokes” and “GK.” They are obviously Serb-haters – probably nationalist Croats or Bosnian Muslims – just like Stephen Schwartz, whose virulent polemic was nothing less than pure libel. Replace the word “Serbs” with “Muslims” or “Americans” in his seething, scornful diatribe and it would rightfully be dismissed.

Thank God for Jonathan Davis, a Westerner who truly knows and understands the situation. As he stated, “more Serbs have been permanently ethnically cleansed in the former Yugoslavia than all the other ethnic groups put together.”

You should all believe in him.

Mar 12, 2008 - 10:06 pm 12. DT:

I am signing up this, and one more addition – never liked Russia, but now I despite USA, UK and … similar.

And for the end, I will never accept “democratic lesions” from the “nation” who is responsible for destroying old cultures like Iraqi’s, Indians, Afghan… Thanks a lot, but no thanks. (from Aleksandra)

It is quite curios that almost anyone who have visited Serbia has a very different opinion about the people and the country, compared with a nasty image usually presented by the official media…(Jensen66)

Subscribe!!!

Mar 13, 2008 - 12:29 am 13. Jonathan:

Dear GK,

Jonathan here, the author of this piece.

A quick response to your two posts:

There is no dispute that the Serbs were Ethnically Cleansed from the Krajina . Unlike the temporarily displaced Kosovar Albanians, the Serbs of Eastern Croatia and Kosovo have been permanently expelled.

Since you cite Wikipedia, please note the definition of “Ethnic Cleansing” below and the fact that the Ethnic Cleansing of the Krajina Serbs is a listed instance:

“Ethnic cleansing defies easy definition. At one end it is virtually indistinguishable from forced emigration and population exchange while at the other it merges with deportation and genocide. At the most general level, however, ethnic cleansing can be understood as the expulsion of a population from a given territory. (See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing#Definitions )

Regarding the Yugoslav wars, it is a common claim that Serbia “started” 4 wars. This betrays a fundamental ignorance about what actually happened.

I invite you review this article, one of a great series, that gives a quick overview of what happened:

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/media_analysis/2006/03/18/the_origin.html

You invite us to remember war crimes and massacres committed by Serbs – the same crimes everyone knows about – yet you fail to remind us that Serbs were also victims of massacres, Ethnic Cleansing and unjust bombardment. You are living proof of the widespread success of anti-Serbian propaganda and the Western public’s widespread ignorance of what really happened in Yugoslavia.

If you are claiming that ALL Serbs are somehow culpable for the acts of Bosnian Serb forces then I invite you to support that with arguments. As to my “dishonesty”, I invite you to show me a single instance where I am even factually wrong, not to mention penning falsehoods.

You might ask yourself how sure you are what you think you now about Serbs and Serbia. Could it be that you are just another victim of the Flat Earth News? I sure was about Serbia and I am damned sure I am about many matters where my information is based only on press reports. Is it possible that it is you, not me, who is signed up to the false version of history? Have the courage to ask yourself these questions honestly and educate yourself on these matters. I suspect what you learn may shock you.

Mar 13, 2008 - 4:43 am 14. Yokes:

I thought we are to trust facts and not Jonathan Davis? I guess I was wrong.

Mr. Davis, if you had seen that war from first hand it would have been clear to you that you are talking nonsense.

“Flat Earth News”? Yes, sorry you are right. While you are certainly not influenced by your beloved girlfriend and her friends brainwashing you.

Seeing war is different than watching television talk about it. You should have seen Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia when your friends were “cleaning” it. You would have different thoughts.

I leave you to your “Flat Earth” theories. Both you and Handke

Mar 13, 2008 - 9:24 am 15. Yokes:

As for facts Mr. Davis, you very well know them, but let me illustrate them to the public:

http://www.bih-x.com/vijesti/grafika/izbori_srbija_2007.jpg

88 seats in Parlament by Tomislav Nikolic, a radical fascist claiming Croatians, Bosnians and Montenegrins are actually Serbs, they just don’t know it yet. His head of party is a war crimes convict, notorious Vojislav Seselj (google him).

http://cm.greekhelsinki.gr/index.php?cid=810&sec=194

Does that not show the state of thought in current Serbia? Does that not illustrate what ideas they support?

Kostunica, the current Prime Minister is no better. All this makes normal people think they are Balkan tribe with no respect for the ir neighbours, other nations, fellow humans.

George Bush (who many here dislike) is a kindergarten material for these guys. He just has more power than them.

Official position of Nikolic is that Serbia’s border is on Adriatic sea (deep inside Croatia). Is that not fascism?!

Mar 13, 2008 - 9:37 am 16. Jonathan:

Dear Yokes,

You have become even more incoherent.

As I requested, please address my points with either counter arguments or factual challenges. Speculations about me and personal attacks are both futile and bad mannered.

The only brainwashing I have even been subjected to is a form you have clearly never experienced. It is known as “education”.

Mar 13, 2008 - 9:52 am 17. Jonathan:

Dear Yokes,

Regarding your post about Nikolic and the Serbian Radical party, even though I loathe them I need to correct your attempt at slandering all Serbs.

The Serbian Radical Party got just over 28% of the national vote in the 2007 election.

That is in a country blighted by war, still being bullied and badly mistreated.

It is a miraculously LOW turnout for them.

Similar parties in Austria, Denmark, and Italy get similar results, and they are EU.

You are also lying about its leader Vojislav Seselj. He is not a war crimes CONVICT he is a war crime SUSPECT currently on trial.

“Does that not show the state of thought in current Serbia? Does that not illustrate what ideas they support?”

It shows that 70% of people REJECTED the Serbian Radical Party! The whole point of my article was to educate people about the existence of the ignored Serbian MAJORITY who repudiate the likes of Seselj.

How do the decent Serbs of the Democratic and Liberal Parties feel when they see you lumping them in with their bitter enemies like the SRS?

Does Mr Bush represent you? Did Mr Clinton? Does the existence of the Klu Klux Klan “prove” Americans are a racist country? Does 54% Bush support mean the country supports torture and Abu Graib? Of course not.

You are applying a grossly unfair double standard, but I and people like me are not letting people like you get away with it any more.

Mar 13, 2008 - 10:10 am 18. PercivalWalks:

Mr Davis excellent article! Finally someone who can see through the smoke and mirrors of wartime propaganda!

P.S. Yokes you are apparently an Albanian ( Muslim) supporter,fair enough,but at least be factual.You love to make statements that show your bias but are so short on facts.Personally,all readers like I expect is rather less propaganda, and rather more honesty and an acceptance that this is not a simple ‘black’ and ‘white’ choice.

Mar 13, 2008 - 11:26 am 19. Andreas:

Oh, Yokes and GT. Not again an anti-Serb attack. It’s getting tedious and even some liberals might be reconsidering Kosovo as a cause celebre in the light of the vitriol by you and others.

A bit more evenhandedness towards war criminals on the side of the Croats and Albanians and a recognition of a similarity between Rep Srpska, Rep Krajina and Kosovo, and I might start taking your Mladic/Karadzic/Seselj/Nikolic campaign seriously.

Mar 13, 2008 - 3:07 pm 20. Wills:

Yikes Yokes, getting personal just shows the limitations of your arguments. If you really had anything of any substance to say, you’d be focusing on your message not on attacking the author personally. If this forum is, supposedly, for the so called intelligent elite, I shudder to think what sort of sub-species we’re co-habiting with. Mr Davis, I implore you to keep up your valiant effort to liberate the minds of the less than hopeful candidates of the world. Let us not forget Copernicus.

Mar 13, 2008 - 4:36 pm 21. GK:

To Jonathan

haha !! So they Serb leaders themselves ADMIT that they gave the orders for the Krajina Serbs to leave Croatia BEFORE the Croatian army got there – and you call this “ethnic cleansing” !! Why dont you watch the videos of the Serb leaders calling for the population to leave 2 days before the Croatian army there ?? I doubt you will.

This is exactly what the Arabs did in 1948 and now claim that Israeli`s expelled them.

At least the Arabs werent silly enough to leave it all on video !!

Mar 13, 2008 - 6:17 pm 22. Jonathan:

Dear GK,

Why don’t you post your evidence?

Once you have we can discuss it and if I have the time I will explain the nature of Ethnic Cleansing and civilian movements in wartime.

The trial has just started of former Croatian General General Ante Gotovina.

Allow me to quote the BBC (not known for its love of Serbs):

The indictment, dating from 2001, says they planned the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from their self-declared republic.

“This trial arises from the forcible elimination of Krajina Serbs from Croatia and the destruction of their communities in August 1995 and the roles and responsibilities of the generals in that process,” prosecutor Alan Tieger said in his opening statement.

“The Serb community was a scarred wasteland of destroyed villages and homes.

“The case is about three men who were instrumental in those crimes.”

Mr Gotovina, a former French Foreign Legionnaire, is charged with responsibility for the murder of about 150 Serbs and persecution and deportation of thousands.

About 200,000 Serbs, many of them elderly, were forced out of the region during the offensive.

[Emphasis mine]

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7288994.stm

That the Serbs were Ethnically Cleansed is beyond question – it was textbook Ethnic Cleansing – the only questions is, was it officially sanctioned and if so, was General Ante Gotovina involved?

Mar 14, 2008 - 1:24 am 23. Yokes:

There is plenty of evidence. See “Death of Yugoslavia” for start. It’s very convenient to be liberal, but I lived for some time in Serbia (not that long ago), and I can say that majority has radical views, except for a few intellectuals in Belgrade.

I am not sure has Mr. Davis visited some of the “events” that often take place in Serbia and are even supported by government, but when you see that it’s clear where the wind is blowing from.

Also Kostunica is not much different from Seselj and Nikolic. Still 30% is a lot, and it’s the LARGEST party in Serbia. Also, don’t forget that no Le Pen ever had such radical views as serbian (even mainstream) politicians do.

You call Kosovo “nationalist mini-state”, but forget to mention that 90% Albanians live there. More than the count of Serbs in Serbia.

Also, people here tend to call everyone “muslim” as long as he says something they don’t like. Very “intellectual”.

Serbian politics likes to call everything “ethnic cleansing”. The facts show otherwise. These people were ordered to leave by their own government.

Trial to Gotovina: statement of UN Translator and other civilians found in the area at the time.

Also video footages exist of them training evacuation to Bosnia/Serbia.

Do we have first world known case of Auto-Ethnic-cleansing. Clean yourself out? Or is it called “refugees” in the rest of the world?

Mar 14, 2008 - 3:02 am 24. Yokes:

Also my comment on Mr. Davis’s girfriend was not an attack on him (since when is having Serbian girlfriend a crime?

It was just to say that he is biased by the environment that he lives in, and people he makes contacts with (and how they perceive him).

It’s an old story of priest saying how all people give him a lot to eat and drink, therefor people have enough supplies. Where he didn’t notice to see it’s not because they are rich. It’s because he is a priest.

Mar 14, 2008 - 3:05 am 25. Jonathan Davis:

Dear Yokes,

Your comments on my girlfriend are a perfect illustration of your fatal flaw: You THINK you know something but in fact you are completely ignorant of the facts.

Here come the knockout blow: My girlfriend is not Serbian.

How does that sit with your preconceived notions and prejudices? It is so easy to go to a forum and read something about me and then start making guesses. It is much harder to get the facts not to mention understand the truth.

Even if I did have a Serbian girlfriend, even if I was a full blooded signed up Serb, my provenance, personal relations and characteristics have nothing whatsoever to do with this discussion. You are attempting argumentum ad hominem, which is a fallacy.

I suggest you familiarise yourself with what fallacies are (so you can avoid embarrassing yourself further) and perhaps have a read of “A Code of Conduct for Effective Rational Discussion” (http://tinyurl.com/3y74eq).

I invited you to post evidence and instead you just repeat you claim that there is “plenty of evidence”. If there is plenty, then post it and lets assess it. Your problem and you know it, is that evidence destroys your slanders. They thrive on half-truth and innuendos. The truth, and its messenger evidence, are against you.

For example, had you actually watched “Death of Yugoslavia” you may have noticed how sympathetic it is to Serbs.

You say you lived for some time in Serbia and you found that the “majority” had “radical views, except for a few intellectuals in Belgrade”. My experience flatly contradicts this. The majority are angered by mistreatment of Serbs, the situation in Kosovo and slanders from the likes of Schwartz and you. Despite that, a minority support the Serbian radicals and a massive part of that minority consists of refugees and other Serb victims of war crimes seeking recognition and justice.

By the way, exactly where and when did you live in Serbia?

You mention certain “events” that are “supported by government” that show “where the wind is blowing from”. What are you talking about? You are big on glittering generalities and short of facts, specifics, arguments or evidence.

I can (and if any other commentator asks for it, I will) post dozens of links to sources as diverse as Encyclopaedia Britannica and Amnesty International establishing beyond any doubt that Serbs were Ethnically Cleansed from the Krajina. If they did not, then there is no such thing as Ethnic Cleansing.

You are, of course, welcome to keep denying that Serbs have suffered Ethnic Cleansing in the Krajina, Kosovo and parts of Bosnia just as you are welcome to deny the world is round. But now that you are in denialist territory you have completely discredited yourself. I see little point in continuing this discussion. I would not waste my time on a Srebrenica denier or a racist, so why should I indulge this anti-Serb bigotry of yours?

Mar 14, 2008 - 6:34 am 26. Gaza:

Yokes,

It is a terrible shame that there aren’t more people capable of supplying valid arguments for your point of view so that we could all enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed Mr. Davis’ article.

Attacking the author on a personal level completely disarms and disqualifies anything meaningful you might’ve presented.

Mar 14, 2008 - 6:43 am 27. LF:

GK, some of what you say is interesting, but we’d far rather laugh with you, not at you.

Mar 14, 2008 - 8:09 am 28. Yokes:

Mr. Davis, I can admit that you are a better rhetoric than me. You ask me to present a case around something you can’t confirm either. You either can’t present “evidence”. What would that evidence be? Evidence of what?

That “everyone is guilty”. Well, had you lived in Yugoslavia for a bit longer, you would have seen that you are a victim of Flat Earth News, and not me. But from another side (minority side?).

you claim that 200 000 people were cleansed, although all evidence (recordings, video tapes, documents), show that those people were ordered to leave by their own “dogs of war”. They were told that Muslims and Ustashi will kill them, slay them,… Reading transcripts from Gotovina, Cermak and Markac trial could reveal some facts to you.

Your girfriend “attack” as I said was not an attack. But you cannot impose yourself as non-biased observer when you are biased. And obviously here to promote Serbian point of view.

I strongly beleive NATO bombings in Bosnia and Serbia, as well as operation Storm have saved more lives than destroyed.

Mar 14, 2008 - 8:26 am 29. Jonathan:

Dear Yokes,

Humour me, what would you say to a situation:

It is 2013. Serbia launch “Operation Mayhem”, massive military assault to “liberate” Kosovo from the “occupation”. They are helped by Russian planners and aircraft. The Kosovo Albanian authorities order Albanian civilians to flee for their lives in the face of the Serbian assault. Those civilians flee mostly to Albania, the ones that do not flee are killed. Thousands of their properties are destroyed. All of this is witnessed by Canadian NATO peace-keepers.

13 years later, those refugees are still in Albania where they are both poor and their plight ignored. They form a large bloc of support for Radical Albanian political parties, mostly because people in the West are ignorant of their plight and deny they suffered any wrongs.

Yokes, would you say those people are “Ethnically Cleansed” or not? Would you say that what happened to them was justified? How do you think the world would react to Serbia celebrating that “liberation” of Kosovo as a national holiday?

I am sure you can see what I am saying now that I have illustrated what happened in the Krajina using more traditional victim groups and villains.

A double standard always applies when it comes to Serbs and Serbia. When Serbs are the victims they are not “Ethnically Cleansed” but Voluntarily Repatriated or merely “displaced”. When Croats forcibly suppress a regional rebellion within their sovereign borders (and permanently expel nearly the entire population) it is described as justified liberation, when the Serbs suppress an insurrection in a province within their sovereign borders, it is a war crime that requires NATO intervention.

This is my gripe with you and others. You seem to be constitutionally incapable of fairness when it comes to the Serbs. You treat them unfairly, you malign them, you insult them and you deny historical wrongs perpetrated against them and then you marvel at their rejection of the people and countries who are treating them so unjustly.

You want it both ways. You want the Serbs to be guilty of crimes they have committed but then you want exactly the same crimes to be reclassified as justified actions (i.e. NOT crimes) when Serbs are the victims.

I am afraid the magic power of the “Blame the Serbs” fairy dust is wearing off. People like me are waking up to the bigotry and hypocrisy of people like you. Democratic Serbia is limping but still on its feet. And if we can just get bigots like you to shut up and stop giving ammunition to the radicals and grievance mongers here, we may be able to finish the job started when Milosevic was toppled by the young European-inclined people of Serbia, the job of building a prosperous democratic pluralist Serbia at the heart of a stable, peaceful and prosperous Balkans.

Mar 14, 2008 - 11:19 am 30. Catherine:

Unbelievable. We have an honest and unbiased report and all we see slogans,personal attacks and propaganda replacing a deeper and more profound analysis,coming from likes of Yokes kind.Moreover, the aggressive and intimidating atmosphere generated by these ‘Kosovar’ hoodlums, , is what apparently awaits anyone who dares to oppose the creation of a gangster state within Europe: do not oppose drug trafficking, do not oppose people trafficking, accept foreign domination and a dog eat dog existence, such will be the reality of stealing this territory from Serbia.

The behavior of the ‘Kosovars’ at the web is typical. Over the years since around 1992 they would install themselves into the audience at public meetings or on the web and within a short time launch into their act – of course in those days they appeared in the form of ‘Bosniaks’ having miraculously escaped the Bosnian Serb ‘torture chambers/concentration camps’ to present themselves as ‘innocent ethnically cleansed refugees.

This “Yokes”, “GK” characters have never done anything but post the typical propaganda that NATO posted to fool the public that bombing the Serbs was just.

That might explain why our mainstream media initially reported to the public that the Fort Dix gang was a group of terrorists from the former Republic of Yugoslavia. What a disgusting dirty little trick, the majority of the western zombies listening to that crap were believing these guys were Serbs. That is an intentional use of words intending to fool people.

Well,get your facts straight, we all know the propaganda lies without you, “Yokes”. I really hope you just go away and blog on some JIHADI sites where you might be welcome.

Mar 14, 2008 - 12:30 pm 31. Steve:

It does not matter what is driving Yokes prolific posting. The general style and of-the-hip fired references are reminiscent of the professional propagandists from the CNN/BBC message board during the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. There is nothing that can be said that will make him change her philipiques against Serbs. Logically, should anyone in the West try to deport their Muslim immigrants for the sake of survival of their own country, or a part thereof then they should never be allowed to ever control the area again. It is stunning how far some people would go in imposing their view on everybody, only to feel good about their own views and attitudes. Arguing with their kind is literally a headache.

My real reward came some 5 years after the Yugoslavian war, at an air show in Omaha. A recogniscance helicopter pilot asked me about my home country, and then told me that he was stationed in Kosovo for a couple of years. I did not express any opinion about his mission, we only talked about flying in the Balkans – weather, terrain etc. Than, at the end he added: “As for the war, I think Miloshevic was right.” Yes it is just one opinion of one Midwestern guy, it was not official, not recorded, may be or may not be the opinion of the other soldiers stationed there etc., etc.
Thus a million Yokes or pro-Albanian supporters postings can not change it.

Mar 14, 2008 - 1:20 pm 32. Luka:

Dear Mr. Davis, et al.

Yes, my name is Luka and I am clearly a Serb. Unfortunately, much to your chagrin (i.e. GK and YOkes), I live in CANADA and have a largely unbiased view of my native Jugoslavija due to my Western education. Unlike your Albanian, or Croatian, universities (university, singular, in Albania) we have not been taught to forget the crimes perpetrated by the Ustasha regime in WWII. As Mr. Davis is keen to point out Yokes, you, like most of the world, have a dual-standard in regards to the Serbian people. I am sure that you are quite eager to move on and forget about the 1.2 million Serbs, Jews, and Roma killed in WWII at the hands of the Croats. Unlike the Serbs, the Croats were quick to join forces with the Nazis in an attempt to become de facto rulers of the Balkans. Furthermore, contrary to your primitive views of Serbs, I am NOT a radical, murderer, or ethnic cleanser. In fact, with my annual summer visits to my home in Belgrade, I am filled with joy to see a new direction for Serbia. It is a future that I take great pride in as I will be able, as a member of the next generation, to shape the socio-economic path of my trouble nation. Moreover, the majority of my friends and family in Belgrade are like-minded. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of contemporary Serbs are tired and fed-up of politics in war, and just want to return to a normal life. For example, during the most recent demonstrations in Belgrade, I was not shocked by the destruction of the U.S. Embassy. To me, that was just an outlet for a frustrated people that have been perennial scapegoats for the West’s quest to appease the Islamic world. However, the friends I spoke to were APALLED at the U.S. Embassy fiasco, and called me a fool for condoning such outbursts of violence.

Overall Mr. Davis, I must thank you for presenting a well structured and critical text. I am sure I will get many responses claiming that I am biased, but that is far from the truth. Although I am a Serb at heart, and will always love my country and people, I am more of a Westerner by common classification. IN any case, kudos to the author for trying to sort through the rubble of modern journalism and propaganda, and attempting, albeit in vain, to educated the less fortunate (i.e. GK and Yokes).

Mar 14, 2008 - 3:42 pm 33. Yokes:

I fail to see any difference between Serbia led by Nedić in WWII and Croatia by Ante Pavelić.

Anyway, what does all this have to do with WWII? Or Muslims? Or Croats?

FYI Mr. Davis, Croatia did not harras Serbs for 30 years, as Serbia did Kosovars. On the contrary 60% of policemen employed in Croatia during Yugoslavia were Serbs by nationality (out of 10% Serbs total).

Same was on Kosovo. Albanians were treated as worthless. Situation escalated when their independence was deleted by Slobodan Milosevic with the support of the nation. This is clear to majority of the world.

I won’t be posting here anymore, not because i don’t have any arguments but because i despise salon politics and feel pitty for myself (much like Serbs?) for commenting in the first place.

To all you here, I wish you never have to live through real wars and real deaths. I’ve seen all of them on the Balkans, and I don’t want to see anymore. I beleive Serbs should live through what Germans did after WWII. To understand what they did to all of their surrondings. To feel sorry for that. And to live in peace. Not to call for more wars and deaths (like they do currently).

Mar 14, 2008 - 4:55 pm 34. Troskya:

Yokes what is truly shocking is that you don’t even question the possibility that any of this could have happened to the Serb population. Is it because you think that the Serbs are invincible or is it because it would change the whole picture of Muslim victimhood? The Serbs have only wanted justice to be done. ALL sides in the conflict have done unspeakable things but the only side which has been systematically demonised are the Serbs.

“I believe Serbs should live through what Germans did after WWII. To understand what they did to all of their surroundings”

I’m sorry but I do not see you as victim,your attitude displayed here is uncomfortably reminiscent of the bystanders who lined up to shout ‘dirty Jews’ at those being deported by the Germans in the scene from “Schinders List”. Indeed your gloating at the place being lost to Serbia and Serbs deserve that in this mentality has more than a touch of “Judenfrei” satisfaction about it.

“I won’t be posting here anymore…” Be my guest, since your Albanian propaganda, doesn’t have any effect here,try maybe on CNN or BBC.

As for the rest,what amazes me by reading postings by such people as Yokes there are there still people out there so naive to think the USA or UK governments do anything unless they are going to gain from it? The USA and UK are not do-gooders, not by a long shot. Don’t you watch the news?! i.e. USA wanting bases in Poland and Czech Republic ?! WAKE UP! If Georgian states want to break away from Russia’s hold, the USA and UK will oppose Russia as openly as they oppose Serbia? Not likely. The USA and UK are akin to bully’s in a worldwide playground, pushing the smaller kids around but too cowardly to go head to head against someone their own size. And just like any bully, the only way to stop them is for someone their own size to come along and give them a good hiding to put them in their place.

Who knows where the current Kosovo situation is going to lead, but it’s certainly clear it’s not aiding the current east / west tensions. Just how far do the USA and it’s allies have to push until Russia finally bites and says enough is enough? Is this an underlying plot? Keep pushing until Russia has no choice but to intervene? And then the world blames the Balkans for a world war? If such a war does ensue, the Balkans certainly cannot be held accountable because the true antagonists are the USA and their allies (UK lapdog included).

But it’s unlikely such a world war will ensue when the modern war is not masterminded by men in arms and medals, but is a cloak and dagger war drawn up in the boardroom by men in suits. Kosovo Albanians may be celebrating now but they’ll rue the day they took a handshake of friendship from the USA and their western European allies, after they have bled them dry and put them into ridiculous amounts of debt that they will never be able to repay. Today’s weapon of mass destruction is not the missile, it’s a shrewd combination of destabilization and finance. Cripple a country by introducing so much foreign investment that the foreign banks and countries end up owning/ruling the country behind the scenes, simultaneously forcing political hands and reducing the income of it’s workforce in order to enrich their own pockets. That’s the cloak and dagger intension of what they call free market reforms.

The game was over for Kosovo Albanians as soon as they welcomed the UN / KFOR troops. Their children and grandchildren for generations will be nothing but slaves to their ’so called’ saviors.

Mar 14, 2008 - 6:46 pm 35. Luka:

What the current situation has to do with WWII is to illustrate the absurdity in the erroneous statements you have made Yokes. I am simply stating that Croats, as well as much of their Western sympathizers and tourists, have rather rapidly dismembered any connection between themselves and their atrocities committed in WWII. In my humble opinion, 1.2 million people killed in Ustasha death camps is FAR WORSE than any thousands that have been killed during the 90s in the former Yugoslavia. I am in no way condoning the haphazard politics of Milosevic or his Western-puppet successors, but I am merely emphasizing the duality of the situation: on one hand you are unwilling to move on and forget Serbia’s struggle with Albanians, yet on the other Croats are quick to properly hide their past history. My argument is that war is war, and you cannot forget ANY ONE SIDE’S ATROCITIES. Nobody will ever forgive the U.S. for Agent Orange and Napalm in Vietnam. South Korea will surely never pardon Japan’s capture and subsequent use of “pleasure girls” as prositutes for their army. Heck, I doubt I as a Canadian can ever truly feel at ease in my adopted home knowing what the Canadian AND U.S. governments (albeit non-existent at the time)did to the Native Indians. Moreover, the Native Indians keep getting harassed and live in plight. I don’t see you calling the U.S. or Canada butchers (smallpox blankets to Native Indians anyone?) and demanding that they hand over territory. Learn your history, then talk. And for your information yokes, I saw the wars in Yugoslavia. I left after the first one, and was subsequently joined by my cousin who had to flee from Kosovo at the hands of Albanian mobs.

Mar 14, 2008 - 9:22 pm 36. Land of de Free:

Today in so -called West it is politically incorrect to attack blacks, Asians, Arabs/Muslims and homosexuals, but perfectly acceptable to attack a Serb-a name that has become synonymous with evil.
Terminology that demonizes Serbs with collective guilt thrives,we have Stephen Schwartz a.k.a. “Suleyman Ahmad” ( his own Muslim/Arabic name,since he converted in Bosnia to Islam as MelP rightly pointed out earlier)as evidence of it.

I honestly believe that all the intense hatred displayed at the Serbs stems directly from their refusal to take orders from the Empires of history. All the other members of the former Yugoslavia only wish they had that kind of fortitude.The Albanians have been totally opportunistic and obedient to whatever great power has wielded influence over the Balkans and have absolutely no historical record of principled behavior whatsoever. Even their newly found “secularism” in Kosovo is a convenient placation of the neo-marxist Eurocrats who frown on faith.

NATO led by the USA and hates Serbs for not being sufficiently “compliant” in the way that so many vassal states of Europe are. Who in eastern Europe has had the temerity to resist America’s/NATO “invitation” to host garrisons, permanent military bases or missile installations – other than “hated” Serbia and Belarus? Contrary to what mainstream media says on daily basis, Serbia suffers precisely because she does not regard EU/USA as her “master”.Look at all Balkan countries, they have all benefited at the expense of Serbia, because Serbian voice is ignored and never heard.

When Kosovo inevitably becomes a member of the EU the real fun will start. As I understand it rather a lot of Al Quaida “freedom fighters” ( PC mantra) settled in the region before, during and after the war. I suppose they will be entitled to invite their rather extended families to come and join?

BTW,it’s well documented by now,the most senior leaders of al Qaeda have visited the Balkans, including bin Laden himself on three occasions between 1994 and 1996. The Egyptian surgeon turned terrorist leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has operated terrorist training camps, weapons of mass destruction factories and money-laundering and drug-trading networks throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia. This has gone on for a decade. Many recruits to the Balkan wars came originally from Chechnya, a jihad in which Al Qaeda has also played a part.

These activities have been exhaustively researched by Yossef Bodansky, the former director of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. The February testimony of an Islamist ringleader associated with the East Africa bombings have also helped throw light on these actions.

They have however been disguised under the cover of dozens of “humanitarian” agencies spread throughout Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania. Funding has come from now-defunct banks such as the Albanian-Arab Islamic Bank and from bin Laden’s so-called Advisory and Reformation Committee. One of his largest Islamist front agencies, it was established in London in 1994.

With all that,I just don’t get it. The Western MSM media and leadership seems to have two al-Qaedas – west of the Aegean lies good al-Qaeda, whose opponents must be jailed, while the East is home to bad al-Qaeda, whose presence justifies the massacre of nigh on a million souls.

In closing a message to Serbs reading this. Whilst it may appear most of the world is against you, there are some of us who sympathize with your situation and while I understand burning our embassies and flags is purely an inevitable act of venting frustrations and anger against our governments, please don’t hate all Americans because not every American blindly believes everything our government says or agrees with what they do.

Mar 15, 2008 - 11:10 am 37. Simon Saivil:

Mr. Davis:

It is commendable of you to side with a very unpopular cause in the West – the injustice done to the Serbs.

Stephen Schwartz is a man with an agenda. Most commentators of your article seem to have understood that.

One point that I find disconcerting about your, otherwise praiseworthy and bold article, are the assumptions about Mr. Milosevic. In that respect you yourself seem to be a victim of the “flat earth news.”

Nationalism, “greater-Serbia” ambitions, lack of democratic credentials, and such are taken granted about Mr. Milosevic. I think that all of these can, and to a large extent have been proven as charges without merit. In fact they are easily disproved.

The problem with defending the Serbs but agreeing with the West’s assesment of Milosevic leads nowhere but to where the West wants it to lead. That logic remind me of a crude anecdote:

Monied, good-looking man asks young female acquaintance:

-If I gave you $10,000 would you sleep with me?

-That’s a lot of money, yes I would!

-What if I offered you $100.00?

-Of course not! she snapped, What do you think I am? A slut?

-We’ve already established that. We are now haggling over the price, he answered calmly.

William Safire of NYT said that Milosevic was not a dictator who oppressed the Serbs but the one who led them. In other words Serbs were the opressors of the Balkans.

Agreeing apriori to the West’s characterisation of Mr. Milosevic deligitimizes much of your otherwise exceptional article.

Sincerely,

Simon Saivil

Mar 16, 2008 - 12:29 pm 38. Joseph1832:

I agree that the west have unfairly demonised the Serbs, although it must always be noted that they did much in the 1990s worthy of condemnation. I have always thought of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia as being about secession and counter-secession. When they escalated to war, the wars were brutal, but civil wars usually are.

However, the West’s analysis was always hampered by its limited historical horizons. In fact, it scarcely exaggerates to say that much of the West carries around two historical precedents:

a) Munich – if you see a bad guy, not hitting him is appeasement.

b) Holocaust – brutal conduct combined with ethnic hatred is likely to end in extermination camps.

With these as precedents, the West has an awful tendency of trying to fit what it sees into one or both of these categories. It was impossible to say that both Bosnian Serbia and Bosnian-Muslims were fight wars of secession, with the Serbs committing the most number of war crimes. It had to be a Hitleresque figure fighting for the Third Reich style “Greater Serbia” out to exterminate Muslims.

The West could not see that, had the former Yugoslavia been divided up in the style of Wilson’s 14 points, then Serbia would have received an awful lot of Croatia and Bosnian territory. What Serbia specifically asked for was the right of Serbian areas for self-determination, which is hardly of itself repugnant. Of course, if your only precedent is Hitler, it all sounds scarily familiar. but if your knowledge goes beyong GCSE Grade C, then it is a not unreasonable demand. (Instead, we insisted that the earlier pre-secession borders were sacred (mis)applying the great 1986 ICJ authority of Burkina Faso v Mali – which concerned rewriting international borders that had long appeared on world maps as such.)

So, in Kosovo, we were well primed to believe the worst – well, I wasn’t!! When 33 Albanians die after a battle in Racak, it must be a death squad. (I dare say most in the west would have called it an Einsatzgruppen if their knowledge stretched that far, but doubtless they made the connection.) Yet, to those who know better, post-battle massacres are depressingly familiar parts of all conflicts. Perhaps had we looked to Mai Lai or to the Belgian massacres of 1914 we could have better understood the nature of the war crimes in the former-Yugoslavia.

Heaven knows, our leaders (even those who bombed Serbia) are for more understanding of the dynamic of anti-insurgency when our own troops walk away with a 70-0 scoreline in Iraq and Afganistan.

Mar 16, 2008 - 2:22 pm 39. Anna:

To the writer regarding evidence:

” conflict – is now suspected of being a KLA-orchestrated media stunt (although I have yet to see proper evidence of this).”

Well I can provide you one story regarding propaganda – Nancy Durham 1998 and CBC ”

Nancy Durham became a journalist at the age of 25 and she came to the Balkans at the beginning of 90s to report for the biggest world television stations. Contrary to her colleagues, she always went alone carrying a little Sony camera. In September 1998, reporting on an illegal KLA hospital, she met an 18-year-old girl Rajmonda Reci. Rajmonda was in the hospital allegedly for stress, caused by her sister’s death, who was murdered by Serb forces. She said that she had joined the KLA because of that loss, that her sister had died for the future of Kosovo and that she was ready to do the same. The story about Rajmonda’s sad destiny went around the world.

Several days after KFOR entered Kosovo in June 1999, Nancy Durham returned in order to see what happened with the main character of her film during the war. Truth was very painful: it turned out that Rajmonda lied and used her to spread Albanian propaganda.

“I had the impression that I was sinking. I thought: “This is a catastrophe.” I sympathized with those people and they deceived me. I was very depressive,” Durham said.

http://www.mediaonline.ba/en/?ID=198

http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws001/cbc01.htm

Do you need more? Please if you can open your eyes and look pass the media brain washing regarding Slobodan Milosevic – visit web http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org – a great collection of articles collected over years – doing exactly that – exposing lies.

Mar 16, 2008 - 2:51 pm 40. Mr. R:

The Radical Party does not want to exterminate anyone. They are a a party “of love”, as Seselj put it during his testimony. He considers most Croats and Muslims in Bosnia to be Serbs. Thus, they are to be a part of his Greater Serbia, not to end up as smoke up a chimney or landfill for a mass grave.

Milosevic was elected and was in fact less nationalist than the opposition during his time in power (except the 1998-2000 SPS-SRS governments). Captain Dragan and people of his kind said things like “I want to see that man hang” not because he helped Krajina Serbs but because he did not do so sufficiently and they ended up being expelled.

Mar 16, 2008 - 6:49 pm 41. Trenox:

Milosevic is a scapegoat!
As catastrophic policies, dictated by diseased “geopolitics” go, Kosovo independence must rank among the very top. This is not the first time in history, of course, that cutthroats are elevated to “legitimacy” by the intervention of outside powers, but Muslim, organized crime-controlled, jihadist-heaven Kosovo must figure a special case.

Its prime sponsor, the United States, has suffered a devastating attack by Muslim terrorists, the very same who have been repeatedly linked to Albanian Kosovar terrorists, drug smugglers, arms traffickers, and prostitution kingpins, and is currently fighting a life-and-death struggle with Muslim terrorist insurgents in Iraq and the Taleban Muslim fundamentalist sect in Afghanistan.

It is indeed remarkable that while the US is pressing its European “allies” to contribute more military means against the Taleban, it is simultaneously moving to create an Islamic fundamentalist hub in the heart of Europe.

Europe won’t be approaching the establishment of HRK in a united fashion; several EU countries are not happy with the prospect. Those European countries that are clamoring for “justice” for the Kosovar Albanians, like Britain and France, do so though in the face a major internal threat in the form of both dormant and active Muslim fanatical cells, not to mention foreign Muslim terrorists instigated by such paragons of world stability as Iran and Syria; by declaring Kosovo independent, these countries offer Muslim terrorism a fantastic logistics and training base, and one that will be protected and babysat by a European law enforcement group to boot!

The claim by the European Union that a 1,800-member “policing and administrative” unit will be able to take hold of the situation in the HRK sounds surreal, not to say asinine and laughable, in view of a record of overwhelming European indecision and ineffectiveness in times of crisis. The Europeans, the very same who failed miserably in controlling the disintegration of Yugoslavia; the very same who are still debating and forming committees in order to decide on how to treat homicidal Muslim fundamentalism inside their own countries; the very same who have learned nothing from the London and Madrid bombings; the very same whose law enforcement agencies warn of the Albanian Mafia and the links between organized crime and Islamic terrorism to no apparent avail will be the ones to control the UCK and its genocidal scheming? Please …!

In America, even diehard conservatives, like John Bolton and Lawrence Eagleburger, have their doubts about allowing the HRK to come into being and are not afraid to state them in public, including the fact that even if HRK “… is allowed [to declare itself] an independent state, it would be a dysfunctional one and a ward of the international community for the indefinite future…:”

The train has left the station though and the Kosovar Albanian killer bandits are celebrating the stupidity and shortsightedness of their Western saviors. Now, let’s watch as a new Albanian rampage unfolds in an effort to bring the Final Solution upon Kosovo’s remaining Christian population and their cultural and religious monuments as NATO and the rest of the armed Westerners sit by idly and observe the carnage.

PS: There’s a YouTube clip with John Bolton making his point.

Mar 16, 2008 - 8:43 pm 42. Cliff:

CONGRATULATIONS and what a phenomenal elucidation of the inside story. Well done, Johathan Davis. As an outsider from South Africa, this article has really stirred my curiosity. I have taken the time to read the original article and your reaction is well justified given the generalisation of the important issues – the people mostly affected.

We will be entering into a new age shortly and I pray that when we emerge from Photon Belt the world will become a better place.

Mar 17, 2008 - 12:48 pm 43. MikeL:

Even thoung Mr. Davis has been in Serbia Belgrade etc. He hasn’t been in Kosovo or Bosnia. I don’t think he was shown what serbs have done to Albanians In Kosovo. They were denied the right to use their language, to go to schools, practice their religion freely, their autonomy granted to them in 1974 was stripped. I have Kosovar friends that told me that their albanain friands and them were expelled from school simply for being Albanain and to quote on what the Serbian police told them: “This school is for Serbians only, not for Siptar dogs”. They had to be home schooled. Also they were aways regarded as 2nd class citizens since they were not slavs. People need their rights to exist in order to coexist with their neighbors.

Now not all Serbs are radicals as they are portrayed in the media, and they are very nationalistic people like most in the world. Granted that Serbia has moved forward into more moderate leadership and removed Milosevic from power, the Kosovars could not take the chance of having Serbian misrule again. But previous governments have mismanaged and oppressed the Albanians to a point that there isn’t an easy coexistence between the Serbs And Albanians. Thus Kosovar Albanians cannot trust to being ruled as they were before.

Mar 31, 2008 - 5:34 pm 44. Andy:

How biased can this article get??
Not only has he not been to Bosnia or Albania! He lives in Belgrade and is founder of the Belgrade Foreign Visitors Club lol..

Serbia has been the aggressor in every war in the Balkans and oppressor of non-serbs under their government. I think the facts speak for themselves, just have a look at why Yugoslavia broke up?? Do u think it was because everyone was being treated fairly and equally??

Like Mike puts it ‘people need rights to exist to coexist with their neighbours’ and their government failed to do that, instead choosing to provoke hate against other ethnic groups through carefully planned propaganda. Not to mention that a large percentage of the population still supports the Serbian Radical Party which embraces the ideology of the Milosevic regime and who is lead by no other than Serbian War Criminal Vojislav Seselj!

It is time for Serbia to move on and succumb to reality instead of living in fantasyland! They need to accept the consequences of their actions and stop continuing the same politics.

Mar 31, 2008 - 10:32 pm 45. Edd:

Ah Jonathan.
What a great humanitarian you are.
You have the patience of a saint, to keep responding with fairness and objectivity in the face of such predjudice,intransigence and hatred.
My hat is off to you Sir.

Edd

Apr 1, 2008 - 11:53 pm 46. Anon User:

Yeah, Serbs always the civilized and peaceful people. How many wars have they started so far? Oh, I forgot those concentration camps and rapes were either hoaxes or self-defense. How many catholic churches did the Serbs destroy? How many houses did they burn in Kosovo (40% of them) ? Rape, murder, mass graves and looting and they still deny it. Cry me a river.

I can understand why the hate Albanians (Not Slavs, refuse to assimilate to “superior” Serb culture, been living in “Serbia’s Jerusalem” for ages before Slavs came) but the Bosnians are 100% Serbs in blood. Preach hate and eventually people will act on them. You will then reap the benefits.

“Small enough is this our land,
Yet two faiths there still may be
As in one bowl soups may agree
Let us still as brothers live.

No single seeing eye, no Muslim tongue,
escaped to tell his tale another day.
We put them all unto the sword
All those who would not be baptised.
But who paid homage to the Holy Child,
were all baptised with sign of Christian cross.
And as brother each was hail’d and greeted.
We put to fire the Turkish houses,
That there might be no stick nor trace
Of these true servants of the devil!”

May 1, 2008 - 7:36 pm 47. Anne:

Pro-Albanian supporters and/or Albanians themselves commenting on this well writen article propaganda lies with you.

First of all isn’t it peculiar how so called Serb genocide in Kosovo fast forward eight years of illegal NATO intervantion and creation of Kosovo ’state’ became DISAPPEARING GENOCIDE!

truly astonishing is revealed by media coverage of the death of Slobodan Milosevic. Because it could not be clearer from current media reporting that journalists have come to understand that the 78-day NATO bombing of Serbia from March 24 to June 10, 1999 was also based on lies. It is therefore clear to them that the government deceived the public and, once again, the media supported the deception. And yet, despite this, despite the endless horror of Iraq, journalists cannot bring themselves to expose either the earlier lies of government or their own complicity in them.

Virtually to a man and woman, journalists sold the lie to the public in 1999. This makes them complicit in the killing of 500 Serb civilians and $100 billion worth of destruction. More importantly (for the media), the lies about Kosovo provided a template and justification for the subsequent lies surrounding the “humanitarian intervention” in Iraq. An Observer editorial gives an idea of the significance, explaining that the West’s “belated response to political thuggery” in the Balkans resulted in “a new doctrine of humanitarian intervention”. It was led “at first by President Clinton over Bosnia, and again in Kosovo. The rationale behind those interventions was then invoked for the invasion of Iraq”. (Leader, ‘Let a dictator’s death remind us of the evil of unchecked nationalism,’ The Observer, March 12, 2006)

Dissident writer Alexander Cockburn translates this into meaningful English: “the legal, military and journalistic banditry that have accompanied the Iraq enterprise from the start were all field-tested in the late 1990s in the Balkans”. (Cockburn, ‘Did Milosevic or His Accusers “Cheat Justice”? The Show Trial That Went Wrong,’ CounterPunch, March 14, 2006; http://www.counterpunch.org)
Kosovo – Genocide It Wasn’t

Just as they knew Iraq possessed WMD in 2003, so in 1999 politicians and journalists knew exactly what the Serbs were doing in Kosovo. Bill Clinton, then President, talked of “deliberate, systematic efforts at ethnic cleansing and genocide”. (John M. Broder, ‘Clinton underestimated Serbs, he acknowledges,’ New York Times, June 26, 1999)

British defence Secretary, George Robertson, insisted that intervention in Kosovo was vital to stop “a regime which is intent on genocide”. (Nic North, Kevin Maguire And Harry Arnold, ‘A pilot saved,’ Daily Mirror, March 29, 1999)

A year later, Robertson conjured up the ghost of Nazism to justify NATO’s action:

“We were faced with a situation where there was this killing going on, this cleansing going on – the kind of ethnic cleansing we thought had disappeared after the second world war. You were seeing people there coming in trains, the cattle trains, with refugees once again.” (ITV, Jonathan Dimbleby programme, June 11, 2000)

US Defence Secretary, William Cohen, claimed: “We’ve now seen about 100,000 military-aged men missing… They may have been murdered.” (Quoted, Philip Hammond and Edward S. Herman, Degraded Capability, Pluto Press, 2000, p.139)

Across the spectrum, the media instantly rallied to the cause. A Daily Mail news report was titled: “Flight from genocide; as half a million Kosovans flee their homes in terror from Milosevic, a haunting echo of another war 60 years ago.” (Steve Doughty, Daily Mail, March 29, 1999)

The Mirror referred to “Echoes of the Holocaust.” (Quoted, John Pilger, ‘The lies that brought hell,’ Morning Star, December 13, 2004) The News of the World declared: “The aim of this war is to stop Serbian genocide in Kosovo.” (Cited, Monitor, The Independent, April 19, 1999) A 2002 BBC documentary on the alleged Serbian genocide, ‘Exposed’, was billed as a programme marking Holocaust Memorial Day. (Exposed, BBC2, January 27, 2002)

As we will see, this constitutes a tiny sample – in fact British media were filled with hundreds of claims of genocide in Kosovo. A Lexis Nexis database search similarly showed that between 1998-1999, the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and Time used ‘genocide’ 220 times to describe the actions of Serbia in Kosovo.

And yet, following the war, NATO sources reported that 2,000 people had been killed in Kosovo on all sides in the year prior to bombing. In November 1999, the Wall Street Journal published the results of its own investigation. Instead of “the huge killing fields some investigators were led to expect… the pattern is of scattered killings (mostly) in areas where the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army had been active”.

The Journal concluded that NATO had stepped up its claims about Serb killing fields when it “saw a fatigued press corps drifting toward the contrarian story – civilians killed by NATO bombs. The war in Kosovo was cruel, bitter, savage. Genocide it wasn’t.” (Quoted, Pilger, op., cit)

In 2004, Neil Clark, a Balkans specialist, reviewed Milosevic’s trial in the Guardian, noting that the charges relating to the war in Kosovo were expected to be the strongest part of the case. But “not only has the prosecution signally failed to prove Milosevic’s personal responsibility for atrocities committed on the ground, the nature and extent of the atrocities themselves has also been called into question”. (Neil Clark, ‘The Milosevic trial is a travesty,’ The Guardian, February 12, 2004)

Philip Hammond of South Bank University summarised the extent of the political and media deception:

“We may never know the true number of people killed. But it seems reasonable to conclude that while people died in clashes between the KLA and Yugoslav forces… the picture painted by Nato – of a systematic campaign of Nazi-style ‘genocide’ carried out by Serbs – was pure invention.” (Degraded Capability, The Media and the Kosovo Crisis, edited by Philip Hammond and Edward S. Herman, Pluto Press, 2000, p.129)

What A Difference Seven Years Make – The Genocide Disappears

Without recognising their earlier role in propagandising for war against Serbia, and without drawing attention to the implications for US-UK criminality, the media has completely re-written its own history on Milosevic. A media database search by Media Lens has failed to turn up a single example of any British journalist describing Kosovo as ‘genocide’ since Milosevic’s death.

The Sunday Express provides a typical example of the kind of language used:

“He [Milosevic] was facing 66 counts of genocide and crimes against humanity for his central role in the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo during the 1990s, in which 200,000 people died. The worst incident was the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995, when an estimated 8,000 Bosnian men were murdered.“ (Tominey, ‘Milosevic cheats justice by dying in his jail cell,’ Sunday Express, March 12, 2006)

Thus, also, the Guardian website:

“Milosevic faced 66 charges including genocide in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. The most egregious act committed under his watch was the Srebrenica massacre, in which up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys died.” (Guardian Unlimited, ‘Closure perhaps, but no justice,’ March 11, 2006)

It seems the earlier massacre at Srebrenica in 1995 is now Milosevic’s worst crime. Of the 1999 ‘genocide’ in Kosovo, the alleged mass slaughter of tens of thousands, there is not a word.

And yet in 1999, the Guardian’s Timothy Garton Ash observed that the Nato attack on Serbia was intended to stop “something approaching genocide“. (Garton Ash, ‘Imagine no America,’ The Guardian, September 19, 2002)

Francis Wheen ridiculed opponents of the war who believed, “that genocide is a lesser evil than bombing military installations“. (Wheen, ‘Why we are right to bomb the Serbs,‘ The Guardian, April 7, 1999)

Also in the Guardian, Jonathan Freedland wrote of Milosevic‘s plan “to empty a land of its people“. (Freedland, ‘No way to spin a war,’ The Guardian, April 21, 1999)

A Guardian editorial described the war as nothing less than “a test for our generation“. (Leader, The Guardian, March 26, 1999)

This month, Ian Traynor of the Guardian wrote of Milosevic‘s death:

“… he left a legacy of more than 200,000 dead in Bosnia and 2 million people (half the population) homeless. He ethnically cleansed more than 800,000 Albanians from their homes in Kosovo”. (Ian Traynor, ’Obituary: Slobodan Milosevic,’ The Guardian, March 13, 2006)

Traynor mentions forced displacement in Kosovo, but does not mention the ‘genocide’ described by the Guardian in 1999.

Admirably, John Laughland has even noted in the Guardian how “witnesses have been trooping into The Hague for nearly two years now, testifying that there was neither genocide in Kosovo nor any plan to drive out the civilian ethnic Albanian population“. (Laughland, ‘Criminal proceedings,’ The Guardian, March 14, 2006)

But Laughland made no mention of what virtually the entire British media, including the Guardian, had been insisting just seven years earlier.

In 1999, a team of Observer reporters wrote:

“His [Slobodan Milosevic's] troops in Serbia are out of barracks. But in Kosovo they are scouring the fields, villages and towns, pursuing their own version of a Balkan Final Solution.” (Peter Beaumont, Justin Brown, John Hooper, Helena Smith and Ed Vulliamy, ‘Hi-tech war and primitive slaughter,’ The Observer, March 28, 1999)

An Observer leader declared:

“There are already grounds for considering events in Kosovo as genocide.” (Leader, ‘Time, now, to raise the stakes,’ April 4, 1999)

Leading Observer commentator, Andrew Rawnsley, wrote of how Milosevic had “embarked on his latest campaign of ‘ethnic cleansing’, that vile euphemism for genocide”. (Rawnsley, ‘You can’t deal with barbarism by washing your hands – nor by wringing them,’ The Observer, March 28, 1999)

But ‘genocide’ has now also disappeared from the Observer’s vocabulary:

“Europe and the US watched and failed to act for far too long. The consequences were the massacres of Srebrenica and Gorazde, the prolonged siege of Sarajevo and the forced displacement of a large part of Kosovo’s Albanian population.” (‘Leading article: Let a dictator’s death remind us of the evil of unchecked nationalism,’ The Observer, March 12, 2006)

Again, the emphasis is on Srebrenica. Again, the crime is “forced displacement” rather than ‘genocide’.

In 1999, David Aaronovitch – then employed by the Independent – described Serbian actions in Kosovo as “the worst crime against humanity committed in Europe since the Second World War“. (Aaronovitch, ‘The reality is that war, tragedy and incompetence go together,‘ The Independent, May 11, 1999)

In a tragicomic moment, Aaronovitch even asked:

“Is this cause, the cause of the Kosovar Albanians, a cause that is worth suffering for?… Would I fight, or (more realistically) would I countenance the possibility that members of my family might die?”

His answer: “I think so.“ (Aaronovitch, ‘My country needs me,’ The Independent, April 6, 1999)

And yet in reviewing the death of Milosevic in the Times last week, Aaronovitch wrote of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica:

“In front of our eyes, just about, with our full knowledge, thousands were taken to European fields – just as they had been 50 years earlier – and murdered en masse. It was the most shaming moment of my life. We had let it happen again.” (Aaronovitch, ‘The meaning of Milosevic: how the Butcher of the Balkans changed us,’ Times, March 14, 2006)

Aaronovitch made passing mention of Kosovo four times in the article, but he made no mention at all of the extent of the killing. Instead, he wrote:

“If Bosnia was the betrayal through inaction and appeasement, Srebrenica the consequence and Kosovo the determination not to let it happen again, then the line runs clear.”

But, according to Aaronovitch in 1999, Kosovo was all about the fact that “it” +had+ happened again in a more extreme form. We wrote to Aaronovitch:

“Why no mention of this, given that Kosovo was ‘the worst crime against humanity committed in Europe since the Second World War‘? Do you still believe there was a genocide in Kosovo 1998-1999? If so, what is your evidence for this?” (Email, March 14, 2006)

We have received no reply.

In 1999, Marcus Tanner wrote in the Independent:

“NATO stepped up the air war against Yugoslavia last night in what appeared a desperate race against time to stop the Serbs from committing ‘genocide’ against Albanian civilians in Kosovo.” (Tanner, ‘NATO targets troops as refugees flee genocide and tells Serbs to pull back or die,’ The Independent, March 29, 1999)

A month later, Tanner wrote:

“RTS [Radio Televisija Serbija] has turned into a vehicle that whips up genocidal passions, a vital cog in the business of psychologically preparing the entire Serbian nation for the necessity of exterminating its enemies.” (Tanner, ’I watched as “TV Slobbo” turned into voice of hate,’ The Independent, April 24, 1999)

This month, Tanner notes that in the spring of 1998 a new group, the Kosovo Liberation Army – which in fact was funded by the CIA – organised an insurrection that spread rapidly across the province:

“Milosevic responded with the ruthless brutality that had become his trademark, pouring special police units and paramilitaries into the province and burning down villages where the rebels were based.“ (Marcus Tanner, ‘Obituaries: Slobodan Milosevic,’ The Independent, March 13, 2006)

Tanner writes of how the “conflict worsened” and how “the policy of burning villages and expelling Kosovar Albanians was stepped up, massively so after Nato began air strikes” – but about the alleged “genocide” there is not one word.

Likewise, an Independent leader last week referred, not to ‘genocide’, but to “thousands killed in Kosovo and Croatia“. (‘Leader, ‘A death that cheats justice and Serbia’s democracy,’ The Independent, March 13, 2006)

The Independent on Sunday also noted blandly: “1998: Milosevic sends troops to crush uprising in Kosovo.” (‘The bloody life and times of the butcher of Belgrade,’ The Independent on Sunday, March 12, 2006)

In 1999, in an article titled, ‘Europe’s turn in the killing fields,’ Jon Swain wrote in the Sunday Times:

“The symbols of death found in Cambodia under Pol Pot are everywhere in Kosovo today – in the blackened ruins of houses where the victims of ‘ethnic cleansing’ lie, in the broken and homeless people on the move in their tens of thousands.

“Only this is Europe. This continent has not seen such a procession of human misery since the end of the second world war, and for it to be allowed to happen again has diminished us all.” (Swain, ‘Europe’s turn in the killing fields,’ Sunday Times, April 4, 1999)

Last week, the same newspaper argued:

“It was only in 1998-99, when Milosevic reacted to Albanian guerrilla tactics in Kosovo with large-scale repression, that the West finally ended its long courtship and took up arms against him.“ (Brendan Simms, ’The butcher is dead,’ Sunday Times, March 12, 2006)

Again, no genocide – the description cannot be compared to the picture painted by the Sunday Times in 1999.
Conclusion – Safety In Numbers

In 1999, moving as an intellectual herd, almost all journalists portrayed Serbian actions in Kosovo as ‘genocide’ and supported military action. The Blair government needed a black and white picture of the world to generate public support for the killing. A civil war was not enough, “scattered killings” were not enough. The state needed atrocities, Nazi-style horror – it needed a ‘genocide’. And the media obliged. How ironic that politicians and journalists used comparisons with the Nazi ‘Final Solution’ to sell their war. In August 1939, one week before invading Poland, Adolf Hitler declared:

“The wave of appalling terrorism against the [minority] inhabitants of Poland, and the atrocities that have been taking place in that country are terrible for the victims, but intolerable for a Great Power which has been expected to remain a passive onlooker. We will not continue to tolerate the persecution of the minority, the killing of many, and their forcible removal under the most cruel conditions.” (Hitler, August 23, 1939, from letters sent to the UK and French governments, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor, April 2003; http://www.swt.org/share/ancientciv.htm)

In 2008, again moving as a herd, journalists have now silently rejected their own fraudulent claims of ‘genocide’ from 1999. Moreover, they have rejected the need to examine how they got it wrong, why, what it tells us about Clinton, Blair and Bush.

May 15, 2008 - 4:17 pm 48. Taylor:

Anon and rest of you claiming “Serbs started it all” I have only to say to you in the words of Howard Zinn, If we don’t know history, then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives. But if we know some history, if we know how many times presidents have lied to us, we will not be fooled again.

The lies on the Serbs have been supported, forcefully distributed, continuously since 1988, or even created by the occidental media and/or governments, in particular by the Clinton Government of the USA, such as the following that contradict shamefully the truth:

- The false claim that the Republics of ex-SFR Yugoslavia had a legitimate right for their secessions.
The legitimate right for self-determination including separation was given exclusively to Yugoslav nations, and not to Yugoslav Republics. This is clearly expressed by the first sentence of the Constitution of ex-SFRY. The occidental countries anti-constitutionally and forcefully recognised the secessions of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia from ex-SFRY. This forced the Serbs to defend their lives, rights and properties in their ancestral land. The Serbs have had the equal right for self-determination including separation as all other Yugoslav nations, which is clearly expressed also by the UN Charter (Paragraph 2 of the Article 1 of the UN Chapter). The occidental Governments recognised the rights and the results of the referendums of all Yugoslav nations except those of Serbs.

- The false claim that the Serbs started the wars in Slovenia and Croatia.
The Serbs did not start any war in ex-SFR Yugoslavia, but they were forced to defend themselves in Croatia. Majority of the federal army soldiers and officers in the federal Yugoslav Army in Slovenia were not Serbs. The majority of the federal Yugoslav Army leaders were not Serbs. Besides, Serbs were not majority in the Presidency of ex-SFRY. The last President of Yugoslav Presidency was not Serb. The federal Prime Minister was not Serb. The Republic of Croatia eliminated the status of the Serbs as one of two constitutive nations from the Constitution, which was recognised to the Serbs in the Constitution of the former Socialist Republic of Croatia. Moreover, the Republic of Croatia rejected to recognise either the autonomy of the Serbs in Krayina and Slavoniya or the result of their referendum. Such changes and increasing campaign against the Serbs, which forced them to remind themselves of their history in the Hitler established Nazi Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War, pressed them to defend themselves and their rights in Krayina and Slavoniya — the parts of Croatia inhabited by the Serbs for at least last six centuries. The accusation was false also due to the following facts:

it was the Croatian paramilitary unit that started fighting against the Serbs in Krayina and Slavonia in order to prevent Serbs in their endeavours to realise their equal human and national rights and to implement the result of their constitutional referendum,
the Serbs became constitutionally one of national minorities in the Republic of Croatia,
the Serbs were forced to accept the treatment as minority in their ancestral land where their number was inherently reduced due to the genocidal torture by the Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War,
the Serbs in Krayina and Slavoniya were pressed to separate from Yugoslavia against the result of their referendum, and
several hundreds of thousands of Serbs were expelled from their ancestral land Krayina and Slavoniya during the well prepared and actually supported by the Clinton USA Government military offensive “Storm” for the ethnic cleansing (1995).
- The false claim that the Serbs were aggressor in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Serbs were severely forced to defend themselves, their rights and their heritage. Bosnia and Herzegovina have been a part of the ancestral land of the Serbs, who were one of three constitutive nations of S. R. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbs were inhabiting more than 73% and were possessing and defending through centuries more than 62% of the land being their family heritage private property for ever. The accusation was false also due to the following facts:

it was a Muslim group that killed the groom’s father Mr. Nikola Gardovitch and wounded another their cousin at Serbian wedding in Sarajevo, (beginning of 1992),
it was a Croatian paramilitary unit that entered Bosnia and massacred Serbs in Bosanski Brod including its Mayor (1992),
the Croatian paramilitary unit continued the next day jointly with a Muslim paramilitary unit to fire Serbian village Siyekovats together with its inhabitants,
it was the further escalation of the atrocities committed against Serbs when Muslim paramilitary units massacred more than thousand two hundred of innocent civil Serbs around Srebrenitsa, Skelani, Militchi and Bratunats in Bosnia,
it was the series of these events which forced Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina to defend themselves military in order to escape the repetition of the destiny that their parents had passed under the Hitler Nazi occupation during the Second World War,
the Serbs were forced to suffer in silence for Muslim killing of more than thousand innocent Serbs on orthodox Christmas in the village Kravitse (7 January 1993) and in burnt several villages: mainly women and children since the men were on the front,
the Serbs were forced to be silent when they were falsely accused that they had organised concentration camps in Bosnia, which should have been proved by showing a falsified photo,
the Serbs were forced to suffer also in silence for video cassettes showing Muslim commander Naser Oriæ holding heads of Serbs, or showing him killing Serbs, which were circulating at that time in Bosnia in order to please those who were financing Mujahedeens’ participation in the war.
- The false accusation against the Serbs that they committed bombing of civilians at the Sarayevo market Markale.
The Serbs did not commit that crime. This fact has become well known, but still shamefully hidden from the occidental nations.

- The false accusation against the Serbs that they committed massacre of 7-8 thousands of innocent Muslims in Srebrenitsa.
Such massacre did not take place. The truth has been severely forbidden to be publicised in the occidental media.

The above false accusations against the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina were world-wide used to justify unjustifiable bombing of Republic of Srpska (1995) and to enforce their demonisation.

- False accusation against the Serbs that Albanians had lost their human rights, that they were tortured and subjected to genocide.
This contradicts the truth that Albanian immigrants into Serbia enjoyed the human rights equal to or even greater than what immigrants have had in occidental countries and that Albanian terrorist were torturing Serbs for decades.

The Serbs were exposed to the fascist Great Albania inhuman occupation in the South West part of Serbia — in the Serbian cradle Kosovo and Metohiya, which is their ancestral land, during the Second World War. This resulted in a more than hundred fifty thousands of expelled autochthon Serbs and more than hundred thousands of Albanian Nazi protected newcomers.
The Serbs were forbidden by the communist Government of Josip Broz Tito to help the expelled autochthon people to return to their homes and properties in Kosovo and Metohiya after the Second World War.
Serbia was admitting after 1948, by understanding the suffering of the Albanian people under Stalinist dictatorship of Enver Hoja, hundreds of thousands of Albanian immigrants to Kosovo and Metohiya.
Serbia was enabling the Albanian immigrants to live in freedom, with equal political rights and employment opportunities, full social and health security, cheap good apartments, and free of charge scholarship for education in their native language.
The Serbs had to observe silently and to suffer from the continued terror after the Second World War of those Albanians who were forcing Serbian families to leave their houses and properties in order to get ethnically clean Albanian region and then to separate Kosovo and Metohiya from the other part of Serbia.
The artificially granted autonomy to Kosovo and Metohiya was changed legally and legitimately by the valid decision of its Assembly (1989).
- The false accusation against the Serbs that they committed the massacre of innocent civil Albanians in Racak (1999).
Such a massacre did not ever happen. This false accusation, together with the former false accusations that Albanian people did not enjoy human, social and political rights in Serbia, was used as the reason and justification to start unjustifiably bombing the people of Serbia and Montenegro (1999).

- The false accusation against the Serbs for the exodus of the Albanian people.
It started only on the third day of the NATO bombardment as its consequence. This lie was used not only to demonise further the Serbs but also to justify the continuous bombing of the people of Serbia through 78 days and nights altogether.

- False information that the UN forces are liberating troops in Kosovo and Metohiya.
The Serbs have been forbidden to defend themselves and they have been subjected to the recovered Hitler-like fascist occupation in their ancestral land. The Albanian terrorists, partially organised by Mujahedeens and instructed by Bin Laden, who came freely to fight in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Serbia – Kosovo and Metohiya, partially instructed by the USA military experts, have become protected, sometimes even supported, by KFOR. In the presence of the so called international peacekeeping forces, the Serbs have been expelled almost completely (more than two hundred fifty thousands) from Kosovo and Metohiya. Their ancient invaluable and internationally appreciated monuments, monasteries, as well as private properties, have been destroyed in the presence of the international UN troops. The innocent civil Serbs (more than three thousands only after the NATO bombardment 1999) have been massacred every day in the presence of the international UN troops.

- Hidden information that more than 7 thousands children were killed in Yugoslavia’s Civil Wars, twice as many as Croat and Muslim children combined. Tragedy for all three nations.
The lies on the Serbs were used to justify unjustifiable:

treatment of the Serbs as the aggressor,
eight years long exhaustive sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro,
the propaganda against the Serbs and the world-wide their demonisation,
expulsion of Serbs from Krayina and Slavoniya,
the reduction of the land belonging to the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 64% to 49%,
the Clinton USA Government led bombing of the Serbs in Republic of Srpska,
the unacceptable reduction of human and national rights of the Serbs in all parts of ex-SFR Yugoslavia,
the Clinton USA Government led NATO bombing of Serbia and Montenegro,
the continuous escalation of the Hitler-like Albanian fascistic occupation of Kosovo and Metohiya and crimes under the protection of KFOR against the autochthon Serbs.

Your lies are seen for what they real are.But the worst lies are the lies you tell to yourself.

May 15, 2008 - 4:30 pm 49. DianaJ:

MikeL, what Serbs did? Here we go again * rolls eyes* You need to re-educate us what Clinton ‘good’ war was all about?

But while the WMD deception has been exposed, the founding lie behind the Kosovo war is still widely believed. It effectively distracts from the very existence of the what Marshall calls the “parallel goal”of strengthening NATO. Aside from the crippling material damage inflicted on the targeted country, the Kosovo lie has caused even more irreparable damage to relations between the Serb and Albanian inhabitants of Kosovo.

The situation in that small province of multiethnic Serbia was the result of a long and complex history of conflict, frequently encouraged and exploited by outside powers, notably by the support to Albanian nationalism by the Axis powers in World War II. Each community accused the other of plotting “ethnic cleansing” and even “genocide”. But there were reasonable people on both sides willing to work out a compromise solution. The constructive role of outsiders would have been to calm the paranoid tendencies in both communities and support constructive initiatives. Indeed, the Kosovo problem could have been easily managed, and eventually solved, had the Great Powers so desired. But as in the past, the Great Powers exploited and aggravated the ethnic conflicts for their own purposes. In total ignorance of the complex history of the region, sheeplike politicians and media echoed and amplified the most extreme nationalist Albanian propaganda.

This provided NATO with its pretext to demonstrate “credibility”. The Great Powers have in effect told the Albanians that all their worst accusations against the Serbs were true. Even Albanians know who know better (such as Veton Surroi) are intimidated and silenced by the racist nationalists backed by the United States.

The result is disastrous. Empowered by their official status as unique victims of Serb iniquity, the Albanians of Kosovo — and especially the youth, raised on a decade of nationalist myth — can give free rein to their cultivated hatred of the Serbs. Armed Albanian nationalists proceeded to drive the Serbian and gypsy populations out of the province. Those remaining do not dare venture out of their ghettos. Albanians willing to live with the Serbs risk being murdered. Ever since the NATO-led force (KFOR) marched into Kosovo in June 1999, violent persecution of Serbs and Roma has been regularly described as “revenge” — which in the Albanian tradition is considered the summit of virtuous conduct. Describing the murder of elderly women in their homes or children at play as acts of “revenge” is a way of excusing or even approving the violence.

Last March 17, following the false accusation that Serbs were responsible for the accidental drowning of three Albanian children, organized mobs of Albanians, including many teenagers, rampaged through Kosovo destroying 35 Serbian Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries, some of them artistic gems dating from the fourteenth century. Well over a hundred churches had already been attacked with fire and explosives in the past five years. The objective is quite clearly to erase all historic trace of centuries of Serb presence, the better to assert their claim to an ethnically pure Albanian Kosovo.

The self-satisfaction of the “international community” was severely shaken by the March violence. The occasional KFOR units that tried to protect Serb sites found themselves in armed clashes with Albanian mobs. In the wake of the rampages, Finnish politician Harri Holkeri resigned two months before expiration of his one-year renewable mandate as head of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) supposed to administer the province. He was the fourth to get out of the job as fast as he could. Apparently on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Holkeri lamented to a press conference that UNMIK has no intelligence service of its own, and had received no prior hint of the March pogroms. In short, the mass of international administrators, military occupation forces and non-governmental agencies have no idea what is going on in the province they are theoretically running. Indicating his awareness that the only role left for UNMIK was that of scapegoat, Holkeri warned of “difficult days ahead”. That is a safe prediction.

Trouble ahead

On June 11, the former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army leader Hashim Thaci, the protege of Madeleine Albright and her press officer James Rubin, denounced UNMIK as a “complete failure” and announced that, if he wins Kosovo’s forthcoming elections in October, he will implement his “vision of Kosovo as an independent and sovereign state”.

The circumstances suggest that not only Thaci, but any newly elected Kosovo may do the same. Proclamation of Kosovo’s independence on the eve of U.S. presidential elections could be shrewd timing. With Iraq exploding, American leaders need to maintain the myth of the “success” in Kosovo. Getting into open conflict with the Albanians could be politically disastrous.

At the same time, many Europeans saw the anti-Serb pogroms in March as evidence that Kosovo has a long way to go to reach the “standards” of democratic human rights and ethnic harmony which UNMIK is mandated to achieve before any final decision on the province’s status.

There are serious reasons not to give in to the Albanian demand for an “independent and sovereign Kosovo”.

First of all, there is the minor question of legality: minor, inasmuch as the NATO powers have ignored it from the start. The war itself was totally devoid of any legitimate basis in international law. It was officially concluded in June 1999 by a peace accord incorporated into U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, which, among other things, obliged the occupying powers to :

– “ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants of Kosovo” – which logically should mean “all”, and not solely the Albanians;

– “ensure the safe and free return of all refugees and displaced persons” – by which the U.S. negotiators probably meant the Albanians who had fled during the bombing, but since they promptly returned on their own, without difficulty, this stipulation in reality refers to Serbs, Rom and other non-Albanians forced to flee;

– establish an interim political framework “taking full account of [...]the principles of sovereignty and integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” – which amounts to recognition that Kosovo remains part of a larger political entity made up of Serbia and Montenegro;

– permit the return of an agreed number of Yugoslav and Serbian personnel, including border control police and customs agents;

– effect the maintenance of civil law and order and the protection of human rights.

In reality, once the United States got its big military foot in the door, Resolution 1244 was scarcely worth the paper it was written on. The United States had other priorities:

– First, in record time, the Pentagon built an enormous military base, “Camp Bondsteel”, on a thousand areas of illegally expropriated farmland strategically located near trans-Balkan transit routes, on the approaches to the Middle East and Caspian Sea oil transport.

– The other obvious U.S. priority was to preserve the clandestine wartime alliance with the “Kosovo Liberation Army”, not only against the Serbs, but also, implicitly, against any European allies which might seek influence in post-conquest Kosovo. After a sham “disarmament” disposing of a few obsolete light arms, the KLA was renamed the “Kosovo Protection Force” and put on the U.N. payroll. Certain of its officers proceeded to mount armed actions to extend “greater Albania” to neighboring Macedonia and parts of Southern Serbia next to Kosovo. These operations were launched from the American sector, next to Camp Bondsteel.

– As for the internal organization of Kosovo itself, the U.S. priority is, as usual, privatization of the economy. Privatization in practice starts with dismantling whatever government services existed, on the theory that without government interference, private initiative will flourish.

In a very special sense, this has indeed proved to be the case. Kosovo, already a transit area for the largest amount of heroin smuggled from Turkey to Western Europe, has rapidly become the center of a new trade in women sex slaves. The Albanian mafia is by far the biggest operator in these trades. The “internationals” who have come to “civilize” the province provide a thriving local market for prostitutes. If they ever go home, the Albanian mafia can count on the networks it has developed throughout Western Europe to keep business going.

In socialist Yugoslavia, Kosovo was by far the poorest area in Yugoslavia, with the highest rate of chronic unemployment. It still is. But then, it benefited from injection of the largest amount of development funds from the rest of the country. Although the sentiment that their poverty was a result of exploitation contributed to the rise of Kosovo Albanian nationalism, the fact is that Kosovo was always heavily subsidized by the rest of Yugoslavia, and as a result was considerably more developed than neighboring Albania.

Since the NATO occupation, Kosovo lives off other sources of income, mainly the flourishing drugs and sex trades. The “international community” has contributed a patchwork of social services (from UNMIK police to NGO counselos) that provide a temporary substitute for the expulsion of the local branches of the Serbian government. Camp Bondsteel provides the largest number of legitimate jobs to Albanians, and may continue to do so even after the demand for chauffeurs and interpreters dries up as the NGOs go home. Saudi Arabia can be counted on to finance mosque construction. But with a per capita income of about $30 per month, it is hard to see where an “independent Kosovo” could scrape up the tax base to pay for a government, especially since so much of the real income is illicit, outside the reach of tax collectors.

Kosovo is only an extreme case of the “transition” from socialism to the free market, as imposed on Eastern Europe by the “international community”. The State and its services were removed by NATO military force, whereas elsewhere the demolition process has been more gradual and less dramatic, the result of pressures from the IMF, the World Bank and the European Union. The mass of unemployed young men have little prospect of earning a living other than by getting in on the crime business. It is hard to see what can prevent “independent Kosovo” from being an uncontrollable crime center.

At the end of World War II, in order to defeat the Fascists and combat the Communists, U.S. intelligence services cynically brought the Mafia back to Sicily. The parallel with Kosovo does not go beyond that. For unlike Kosovo, Sicily is an essentially rich island, with a diversified economy and numerous centuries-old sophisticated urban centers where large sectors of a highly educated population have courageously resisted the corruption and violence of the mafia. This aspect of Sicilian society is insufficiently appreciated abroad, where it is more “romantic” to glorify the gangsters. In comparison, Kosovo Albanian society simply does not possess such material or cultural resources for resisting the power of the new mafias that, while feeding on certain clan traditions, are above all a product of neoliberal globalism.

The protection of “human rights” was the pretext for the 1999 war. In terms of everyday human relations, the situation is far worse than before. This is not widely recognized for two reasons. One, since the “international community” rather than Milosevic is in charge, media interest in Kosovo has virtually evaporated. Second, the victims of persecution and harassment, the children whose school buses are stoned, the old people who are beaten and whose houses are set on fire, the farmers who do not dare go out to cultivate their fields, the hundreds of thousands of refugees from “ethnic cleansing” … are Serbs. Or sometimes gypsies. Western media early on identified “the Serbs” as the enemies of “multi-ethnic society” and the perpetrators of “ethnic cleansing”. The curious result seems to be that the absence of Serbs is understood as the best guarantee of a multi-ethnic society. This, at any rate, is the logic of the attitude taken by the international community in regard to the Ibar valley region of Kosovo north of Mitrovica.

That area, which forms a sort of point reaching into central Serbia, is the largest remaining part of Kosovo where Serbs retain a traditional majority sufficient to defend themselves from Albanian intimidation. When, as happens from time to time, Albanian militants from the ethnically purified region south of the Ibar attempt to cross the river, they are stopped by Serb guards. In this situation, “international community” spokesmen almost invariably take the line that Serb extremists are standing in the way of “multi-ethnic” Kosovo. The fact is deliberately overlooked that, while a certain number of Albanians are still living in Serb-controlled northern Mitrovica, all Serbs and Rom have been driven out of southern Mitrovica, and that if the Albanian activists were granted free access to the north, the probable result would be further ethnic cleansing of what remains of the Serb population.

For some in the “international community”, that would be an ideal solution. Once all non-Albanians have been driven out, the professional humanitarians can declare that Kosovo is “multi-ethnic”, and there will be nobody left there to dispute this triumphant assertion.

The overriding concern of the West now is to get out of the Kosovo mess in a way that will allow it to continue to celebrate the Kosovo war as a great humanitarian success. Having left the Balkans in a shambles, the human rights warriors can go on to other victories. The only thing to stop them might be a belated recognition of the truth.

May 15, 2008 - 9:28 pm 50. MikeL:

DianaJ

Yes Kosovo was in a better position than Albania in Comi times, I lived in it. But Albania is considerably better than Kosovo now since democracy entered. Yes Kosovo was the poorest of the FYR. Second was Macedonia and then BiH. The southern area of FYR was the poorer and was heavily subsidized by the north. The difference is still visible in the new republics. Kosovo and that money was always mismanaged by Yugoslav and its Albanian poeple abused throughout decades and of that there is no way for anyone to convince me on the contrary. I deeply think that if Albanians were treated as equals to Serbs than we wouldn’t be here in this mess. They were never treated as equals but as 2nd class citizens. They were not allowed to use their language in schools, in public etc. Try to deny that. Why would they revoke the right of language? Human rights have to be honored in order to rule them. Serbs abused those basic rights. Kosovars will try to choose and regain their own future on their own terms. Do you think since Kosovo is so poor then it would be better in Serbia that hate Albanians or to be poor and guide their own lives. They deserve that chance. The status quo could not be maintained.

Atrocities have happened in both sides as either side is guilty, but what would you want someone to do when you are oppressed? Its like when someone is punching you, you’ll punch back or let em hit you.

As for mafia in Kosovar government, look at the serbian one. Who Killed Djindjic? I think Serbian Mafia. Hmmm

May 16, 2008 - 11:04 pm 51. DianaJ:

Mike spare me your revisionism. Doesn’t work anymore. Perhaps Albanians succeeded to convince their fabricated second-class citizenry status in ex-Yugoslavia unifnormed Americans and the rest of the West, but There is always intense pressure in wartime for media outlets to serve as propagandists rather than journalists. While the role of the journalist is to present the world in all its complexity, so that people can make up their own minds, the propagandist simplifies the world in order to mobilize the public behind a common goal.

One basic simplification is to interpret a conflict in terms of villains and victims, with no qualification allowed for either role. Conflicts in the real world rarely fall into such simple categories: Particularly in ethnic conflicts, both sides usually have legitimate grievances that are often used to justify a new round of abuses against the other side.

In presenting the background to the Kosovo conflict, U.S. news outlets usually begin with Serbia’s revocation of the Kosovo Albanians’ autonomy in 1989. This was a crucial decision, one of the major reasons for the rise of the Kosovo Liberation Army. It also destabilized the Yugoslavian system and contributed to the country’s breakup.

Yet media accounts have rarely explained why Serbia lifted Kosovo’s autonomy. The attached article, from the New York Times in 1987, gives important background to this decision. Although the article is easily found in the Nexis database, little to none of this information has found its way into contemporary coverage of Kosovo, in the Times or anywhere else.

If one read a similar history of Kosovo written today, one would likely dismiss it as pro-Serb propaganda. Yet this was written 12 years ago, when Kosovo was an obscure corner of the world, and the New York Times would not seem to have any particular interest in defending Serbs or attacking Albanians.

The New York Times
November 1, 1987, Sunday, Late City Final Edition
Section 1; Part 1, Page 14, Column 1;

“In Yugoslavia, Rising Ethnic Strife Brings Fears of Worse Civil Conflict”

By DAVID BINDER, Special to the New York Times

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia

Portions of southern Yugoslavia have reached such a state of ethnic friction that Yugoslavs have begun to talk of the horrifying possibility of ”civil war” in a land that lost one-tenth of its population, or 1.7 million people, in World War II.

The current hostilities pit separatist-minded ethnic Albanians against the various Slavic populations of Yugoslavia and occur at all levels of society, from the highest officials to the humblest peasants.

A young Army conscript of ethnic Albanian origin shot up his barracks, killing four sleeping Slavic bunkmates and wounding six others.

The army says it has uncovered hundreds of subversive ethnic Albanian cells in its ranks. Some arsenals have been raided.

Vicious Insults

Ethnic Albanians in the Government have manipulated public funds and regulations to take over land belonging to Serbs. And politicians have exchanged vicious insults.

Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls.

Ethnic Albanians comprise the fastest growing nationality in Yugoslavia and are expected soon to become its third largest, after the Serbs and Croats.

Radicals’ Goals

The goal of the radical nationalists among them, one said in an interview, is an ”ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself.” That includes large chunks of the republics that make up the southern half of Yugoslavia.

Other ethnic Albanian separatists admit to a vision of a greater Albania governed from Pristina in southern Yugoslavia rather than Tirana, the capital of neighboring Albania.

There is no evidence that the hard-line Communist Government in Tirana is giving them material assistance.

The principal battleground is the region called Kosovo, a high plateau ringed by mountains that is somewhat smaller than New Jersey. Ethnic Albanians there make up 85 percent of the population of 1.7 million. The rest are Serbians and Montenegrins.

Worst Strife in Years

As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially strongly since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981 – an ”ethnically pure” Albanian region, a ”Republic of Kosovo’ ‘ in all but name.

The violence, a journalist in Kosovo said, is escalating to ”the worst in the last seven years.”

Many Yugoslavs blame the troubles on the ethnic Albanians, but the matter is more complex in a country with as many nationalities and religions as Yugoslavia’s and involves economic development, law, politics, families and flags. As recently as 20 years ago, the Slavic majority treated ethnic Albanians as inferiors to be employed as hewers of wood and carriers of heating coal. The ethnic Albanians, who now number 2 million, were officially deemed a minority, not a constituent nationality, as they are today.

Were the ethnic tensions restricted to Kosovo, Yugoslavia’s problems with its Albanian nationals might be more manageable. But some Yugoslavs and some ethnic Albanians believe the struggle has spread far beyond Kosovo. Macedonia, a republic to the south with a population of 1.8 million, has a restive ethnic Albanian minority of 350,000.

”We’ve already lost western Macedonia to the Albanians,” said a member of the Yugoslav party presidium, explaining that the ethnic minority had driven the Slavic Macedonians out of the region.

Attacks on Slavs

Last summer, the authorities in Kosovo said they documented 40 ethnic Albanian attacks on Slavs in two months. In the last two years, 320 ethnic Albanians have been sentenced for political crimes, nearly half of them characterized as severe.

In one incident, Fadil Hoxha, once the leading politician of ethnic Albanian origin in Yugoslavia, joked at an official dinner in Prizren last year that Serbian women should be used to satisfy potential ethnic Albanian rapists. After his quip was reported this October, Serbian women in Kosovo protested, and Mr. Hoxha was dismissed from the Communist Party.

As a precaution, the central authorities dispatched 380 riot police officers to the Kosovo region for the first time in four years.

Officials in Belgrade view the ethnic Albanian challenge as imperiling the foundations of the multinational experiment called federal Yugoslavia, which consists of six republics and two provinces.

‘Lebanonizing’ of Yugoslavia

High-ranking officials have spoken of the ”Lebanonizing” of their country and have compared its troubles to the strife in Northern Ireland.

Borislav Jovic, a member of the Serbian party’s presidency, spoke in an interview of the prospect of ”two Albanias, one north and one south, like divided Germany or Korea,” and of ”practically the breakup of Yugoslavia.” He added: ”Time is working against us.”

The federal Secretary for National Defense, Fleet Adm. Branko Mamula, told the army’s party organization in September of efforts by ethnic Albanians to subvert the armed forces. ”Between 1981 and 1987 a total of 216 illegal organizations with 1,435 members of Albanian nationality were discovered in the Yugoslav People’s Army,” he said. Admiral Mamula said ethnic Albanian subversives had been preparing for ”killing officers and soldiers, poisoning food and water, sabotage, breaking into weapons arsenals and stealing arms and ammunition, desertion and causing flagrant nationalist incidents in army units.”

Concerns Over Military

Coming three weeks after the ethnic Albanian draftee, Aziz Kelmendi, had slaughtered his Slavic comrades in the barracks at Paracin, the speech struck fear in thousands of families whose sons were about to start their mandatory year of military service.

Because the Albanians have had a relatively high birth rate, one-quarter of the army’s 200,000 conscripts this year are ethnic Albanians. Admiral Mamula suggested that 3,792 were potential human timebombs.

He said the army had ”not been provided with details relevant for assessing their behavior.” But a number of Belgrade politicians said they doubted the Yugoslav armed forces would be used to intervene in Kosovo as they were to quell violent rioting in 1981 in Pristina. They reason that the army leadership is extremely reluctant to become involved in what is, in the first place, a political issue.

Ethnic Albanians already control almost every phase of life in the autonomous province of Kosovo, including the police, judiciary, civil service, schools and factories. Non-Albanian visitors almost immediately feel the independence – and suspicion – of the ethnic Albanian authorities.

Region’s Slavs Lack Strength

While 200,000 Serbs and Montenegrins still live in the province, they are scattered and lack cohesion. In the last seven years, 20,000 of them have fled the province, often leaving behind farmsteads and houses, for the safety of the Slavic north.

Until September, the majority of the Serbian Communist Party leadership pursued a policy of seeking compromise with the Kosovo party hierarchy under its ethnic Albanian leader, Azem Vlasi.

But during a 30-hour session of the Serbian central committee in late September, the Serbian party secretary, Slobodan Milosevic, deposed Dragisa Pavlovic, as head of Belgrade’s party organization, the country’s largest. Mr. Milosevic accused Mr. Pavlovic of being an appeaser who was soft on Albanian radicals. Mr. Milosevic had courted the Serbian backlash vote with speeches in Kosovo itself calling for ”the policy of the hard hand.”

”We will go up against anti-Socialist forces, even if they call us Stalinists,” Mr. Milosevic declared recently. That a Yugoslav politician would invite someone to call him a Stalinist even four decades after Tito’s epochal break with Stalin, is a measure of the state into which Serbian politics have fallen. For the moment, Mr. Milosevic and his supporters appear to be staking their careers on a strategy of confrontation with the Kosovo ethnic Albanians.

Other Yugoslav politicians have expressed alarm. ”There is no doubt Kosovo is a problem of the whole country, a powder keg on which we all sit,” said Milan Kucan, head of the Slovenian Communist Party.

Remzi Koljgeci, of the Kosovo party leadership, said in an interview in Pristina that ”relations are cold” between the ethnic Albanians and Serbs of the province, that there were too many ”people without hope.”

But many of those interviewed agreed it was also a rare opportunity for Yugoslavia to take radical political and economic steps, as Tito did when he broke with the Soviet bloc in 1948.

Efforts are under way to strengthen central authority through amendments to the constitution. The League of Communists is planning an extraordinary party congress before March to address the country’s grave problems.

The hope is that something will be done then to exert the rule of law in Kosovo while drawing ethnic Albanians back into Yugoslavia’s mainstream.

May 17, 2008 - 10:34 pm 52. DianaJ:

As for your Independence claim, well Kosovo will not be any kind of an independent state. It will be a native satellite, a kind of hinterland for the United States Camp Bondsteel. I think what the United States and a few of its usual cast of suspects of EU allies have done is seized part of another country and in violation of international law, in violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1244, have eschewed any attempt to negotiate a resolution of this problem and have just simply announce that, well, this was now to be a new state. They have no intention of respecting its—in any case—sovereignty. I mean, one only has to look at the Ahtisaari plan to see that there’s no way that Kosovo will actually be self-governing.the place will be run by a high representative. This is, you know, like a colonial viceroy. Its security and foreign policy will effectively be dictated by Brussels and Washington. It will have the usual NATO military presence. On almost all key issues, whether it’s on foreign policy, on security, on taxation, those issues will be decided on by the high representative on orders from Washington or Brussels.I think what is very dangerous is that the United States and the key EU countries have abandoned any attempt at following the dictates of international law, and they’ve even abandoned the very principles that they enunciated during the breakup of Yugoslavia, which was that they would recognize the individual territorial—federal territorial units of the SFRY as the new nation states. So then they suddenly turned around and said, well, yes, we’ll recognize it for every other republic in Yugoslavia, except Serbia. Serbia will just have, you know, a vast chunk of its territory just taken away from them.

May 17, 2008 - 11:35 pm 53. Nacho:

Diana, you got it right. Concerning Kosovo, truth is like letters written in the sand as the tsunami of propaganda comes thundering in.

A way back in 80’s when that place of the world was not ‘hot’ spot Serbs were a minority in Kosovo, and the Kosovo government discriminated against them, and many began to leave. A member of the Serbian parliament described what the Kosovo government was doing as “ethnic cleansing” (thus adding a new term to our language), and accused the Kosovo government of trying to drive all the Serbs out of Kosovo. Aside from the province’s chronic poverty, unemployment, and mismanagement of development funds contributed from the rest of Yugoslavia, the main social problem was the constant exodus of Serb and Montenegrin inhabitants under pressure from ethnic Albanians. At the time, this problem was reported in leading Western media.

For instance, as early as July 12, 1982, Marvine Howe reported to the New York Times that Serbs were leaving Kosovo by the tens of thousands because of discrimination and intimidation on the part of the ethnic Albanian majority:

“The [Albanian] nationalists have a two-point platform,” according to Beci Hoti, an executive secretary of the Communist Party of Kosovo, “first to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the merger with Albania to form a greater Albania.

Mr Hoti, an Albanian, expressed concern voer political pressures that were forcing Serbs to leave Kosovo. “What is important now,” he said, “is to establish a climate of security and create confidence.”

And seven months after Milosevic’s visit to Kosovo, David Binder reported in the New York Times (November 1, 1987):

Ethnic Albanians in the Government [of Kosovo] have manipulated public funds and regulations to take over land belonging to Serbs. Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls.

The goal of the radical nationals among them, one said in an interview, is an “ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself.”

As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially strongly since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981–an “ethnically pure” Albanian region

This was in fact the first instance of “ethnic cleansing” in post-World War II Yugoslavia, as reported in The New York Times and other Western media, and the victims were the Serbs. The cult of “memory” has become a contemporary religion, but some memories are more equal than others. In the 1990s, the New York Times evidently forgot completely what it had said about Kosovo in the 1980s. Why? Perhaps because meanwhile, the Soviet bloc had collapsed and the unity of independent, non-aligned Yugoslavia was no longer in the strategic interest of the United States.

the Kosovo problem could have been easily managed, and eventually solved, had the Great Powers so desired. But as in the past, the Great Powers exploited and aggravated the ethnic conflicts for their own purposes. In total ignorance of the complex history of the region, sheeplike politicians and media echoed and amplified the most extreme nationalist Albanian propaganda. This provided NATO with its pretext to demonstrate “credibility”. The Great Powers have in effect told the Albanians that all their worst accusations against the Serbs were true. Even Albanians know who know better (such as Veton Surroi) are intimidated and silenced by the racist nationalists backed by the United States.

The result is disastrous. Empowered by their official status as unique victims of Serb iniquity, the Albanians of Kosovo — and especially the youth, raised on a decade of nationalist myth — can give free rein to their cultivated hatred of the Serbs. In 2004, Pogrom happened in the Occupied Serbian Province.Armed Albanian nationalists proceeded to drive the Serbian and gypsy populations out of the province. Those remaining do not dare venture out of their ghettos. Albanians willing to live with the Serbs risk being murdered. Ever since the NATO-led force (KFOR) marched into Kosovo in June 1999, violent persecution of Serbs and Roma has been regularly described as “revenge” — which in the Albanian tradition is considered the summit of virtuous conduct. Describing the murder of elderly women in their homes or children at play as acts of “revenge” is a way of excusing or even approving the violence.

In 2004 March 17, following the false accusation that Serbs were responsible for the accidental drowning of three Albanian children, organized mobs of Albanians, including many teenagers, rampaged through Kosovo destroying 35 Serbian Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries, some of them artistic gems dating from the fourteenth century. Well over a hundred churches had already been attacked with fire and explosives in the past five years. The objective is quite clearly to erase all historic trace of centuries of Serb presence, the better to assert their claim to an ethnically pure Albanian Kosovo.

The self-satisfaction of the “international community” was severely shaken by the March violence. The occasional KFOR units that tried to protect Serb sites found themselves in armed clashes with Albanian mobs. In the wake of the rampages, Finnish politician Harri Holkeri resigned two months before expiration of his one-year renewable mandate as head of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) supposed to administer the province. He was the fourth to get out of the job as fast as he could. Apparently on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Holkeri lamented to a press conference that UNMIK has no intelligence service of its own, and had received no prior hint of the March pogroms. In short, the mass of in international administrators, military occupation forces and non-governmental agencies have no idea what is going on in the province they are theoretically running. Indicating his awareness that the only role left for UNMIK was that of scapegoat, Holkeri warned of “difficult days ahead”. That is a safe prediction.

Since the NATO occupation, Kosovo lives off other sources of income, mainly the flourishing drugs and sex trades. The “international community” has contributed a patchwork of social services (from UNMIK police to NGO counselos) that provide a temporary substitute for the expulsion of the local branches of the Serbian government. Camp Bondsteel provides the largest number of legitimate jobs to Albanians, and may continue to do so even after the demand for chauffeurs and interpreters dries up as the NGOs go home. Saudi Arabia can be counted on to finance mosque construction. But with a per capita income of about $30 per month, it is hard to see where an “independent Kosovo” could scrape up the tax base to pay for a government, especially since so much of the real income is illicit, outside the reach of tax collectors.

Kosovo is only an extreme case of the “transition” from socialism to the free market, as imposed on Eastern Europe by the “international community”. The State and its services were removed by NATO military force, whereas elsewhere the demolition process has been more gradual and less dramatic, the result of pressures from the IMF, the World Bank and the European Union. The mass of unemployed young men have little prospect of earning a living other than by getting in on the crime business. It is hard to see what can prevent “independent Kosovo” from being an uncontrollable crime center.

The protection of “human rights” was the pretext for the 1999 war. In terms of everyday human relations, the situation is far worse than before. This is not widely recognized for two reasons. One, since the “international community” rather than Milosevic is in charge, media interest in Kosovo has virtually evaporated. Second, the victims of persecution and harassment, the children whose school buses are stoned, the old people who are beaten and whose houses are set on fire, the farmers who do not dare go out to cultivate their fields, the hundreds of thousands of refugees from “ethnic cleansing” … are Serbs. Or sometimes gypsies. Western media early on identified “the Serbs” as the enemies of “multi-ethnic society” and the perpetrators of “ethnic cleansing”. The curious result seems to be that the absence of Serbs is understood as the best guarantee of a multi-ethnic society. This, at any rate, is the logic of the attitude taken by the international community in regard to the Ibar valley region of Kosovo north of Mitrovica.

That area, which forms a sort of point reaching into central Serbia, is the largest remaining part of Kosovo where Serbs retain a traditional majority sufficient to defend themselves from Albanian intimidation. When, as happens from time to time, Albanian militants from the ethnically purified region south of the Ibar attempt to cross the river, they are stopped by Serb guards. In this situation, “international community” spokesmen almost invariably take the line that Serb extremists are standing in the way of “multi-ethnic” Kosovo. The fact is deliberately overlooked that, while a certain number of Albanians are still living in Serb-controlled northern Mitrovica, all Serbs and Rom have been driven out of southern Mitrovica, and that if the Albanian activists were granted free access to the north, the probable result would be further ethnic cleansing of what remains of the Serb population.

For some in the “international community”, that would be an ideal solution. Once all non-Albanians have been driven out, the professional humanitarians can declare that Kosovo is “multi-ethnic”, and there will be nobody left there to dispute this triumphant assertion.

The overriding concern of the West now is to get out of the Kosovo mess in a way that will allow it to continue to celebrate the Kosovo war as a great humanitarian success. Having left the Balkans in a shambles, the human rights warriors can go on to other victories. The only thing to stop them might be a belated recognition of the truth.

May 18, 2008 - 8:11 am 54. Astrit:

To all,

Western media does not have to “tell” me that Albanians were 2nd class citizens. I was. I’m from Kosova and as a child I was never treated the same as the other Serbians or Montenegrins Never. I also was forced to leave from my homeland due to horrible conditions. So stop with the Serb innocence as they have done much to the detriment of the Albanian people under their rule. They portrayed us as animals and incapable to do anything in our own.Stop with the lies. We are not perfect, but Kosovar Albanians need their chance to take care of themselves.

May 18, 2008 - 9:49 am 55. MikeL:

Since I do not have the patience and time to write what I want to say, I will cite Vanja Custovic’s article which is exactly what I feel to write.

Kosovo: a long time coming
Why independence was necessary
Vanja Custovic

How many of you would know if someone was lying about the history of Kosovo?

I asked myself this as I read the article “The heart of Serbia,” published in the Manitoban on March 5. The goal of the article was to convince Canadians not to support the world’s newest state which, declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17, 2008.

To begin, the original article was full of historical inaccuracies and wrong dates. One example being that the Bosnian war ended in 1993, when in reality the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the war was signed in 1995. Yugoslavia did not start to crumble in 1992 but in 1991 when Slovenia and Croatia split.

The writer conveniently omitted all history where Kosovo was not under Serbian rule — like the fact that before the Serbs claimed it in 1190, Kosovo was Dardania and was inhabited by Thracians and Illyrians, both strong candidates for the ancestors of the modern Albanians. And the fact that the Ottoman Empire ruled Kosovo for almost 500 years from 1445 to 1912. And even though those facts show medieval Serbia only held it for about 250 years, this article even claimed Kosovo was “the cradle of Serbian civilization” for “10 centuries,” starting at 1190. Do the math and marvel at this time-travelling civilization.

It was during that 500 years of Ottoman rule that the Serbs gradually shrank away and Albanians became the vast majority. By 1912, Serbs were less than 25 per cent and when Serbian forces reclaimed Kosovo, Albanians saw this as nothing short of an occupation. Their birth rate grew while the Serbs’ birth rate shrank. By the late ’80s, Albanians went from 75 per cent to 90 per cent of Kosovo.

Then there was the argument that “Kosovo is the size of an average Manitoba farm.”

Kosovo is 10,887 square kilometres, about the same size as Jamaica. The “average Manitoba farm” is about 900 acres. Kosovars can breathe easy knowing no farmer will mistake their country for his or her farm and plough through downtown Pristina with a tractor, planting grain in the streets.

One of the biggest things “The heart of Serbia” tried to do was paint Albanians as nothing but drug-trafficking, human-smuggling terrorists in an attempt to demonize them, as this would prove that these “criminals” don’t deserve their independence. It failed to mention Kosovo was the poorest part of Yugoslavia and it failed to mention that drugs have always been smuggled into Western Europe through the Balkans. Serbian mafia figures like Željko “Arkan” Ražnatovic have achieved legendary status. Arkan leads his own paramilitary group, “The Tigers,” which had direct ties to Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serb president and indicted war criminal. Arkan was also later indicted for war crimes in Kosovo.

That’s not to say the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Albanians were clean, because they were far from it. But if we do indeed call them terrorists, then what possible title do we bestow upon Serb forces that the CIA says committed 90 per cent of the atrocities in the Yugoslav wars? Who committed genocide on 8,000 Bosnian villagers in Srebrenica. Who had to be bombed by NATO for three months in 1999 to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo? So no, the KLA isn’t clean, as many of them were charged with war crimes of their own; but everything they did the Serbs did tenfold. Nothing is black-and-white.

When Milosevic snuffed out the autonomy Kosovo had in 1989, unemployment grew while Albanian media was almost completely banned. Albanian was no longer one of the official languages. What possible result could one expect from this but resistance?

From 1991 to the present day, all the other Yugoslav republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro) have gained independence — some peacefully, others through brutal wars. The very fact everyone wanted independence in the first place speaks volumes. Only Kosovo was left with Serbia, and we all knew it was inevitable.

In the end, both sides can make historical claims to the land or talk about injustices done to them, but we’re still left with the current situation which is this: over 90 per cent of Kosovo does not want to be part of Serbia. Either there will be independence or a never-ending fight for it. History shows that without a doubt. Serbians needs to let go of the land 99 per cent of them don’t live on.

On Tuesday, March 18, 2008, Canada joined a growing majority in the international community in recognizing Kosovo. The Kosovars have a country. And no amount of pulled ambassadors or rocks thrown at NATO will change this.

Vanja Custovic was born and raised in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He immigrated to Canada in 1996 and is an aspiring musician and writer.

May 18, 2008 - 7:23 pm 56. DianaJ:

This is Albanian supporter, you cited and her Main Argument for Kosovo’s Secession is Bogus. I on the other hand cited MSM’s NY Times articles before destruction of Yugoslavia , surely no one alive can claim that NY Times today is pro-Serb.Back then they were just that-neutral.

NATO and you as well as this Vanja person claim that the government in Belgrade was oppressing the Kosovo Albanians. This was a lie. The Kosovo Albanians, in fact, were the best treated ethnic minority in the world — bar none. What was true was that the Kosovo Albanians, who were a minority in Serbia, but a majority in Kosovo, and in control of all Kosovo institutions, including the government, the police, the educational system, etc., were persecuting the Kosovo Serbs, who were a minority in Kosovo. This piece documents that this was the assessment of the US army, no less, though this was never shared with the public after the NATO demonization of the Serbs began.

On March 24th 1999, NATO began bombing civilian Serbia because, it claimed, this was the only way to stop widespread ethnic cleansing against Albanians by the Yugoslav government.

Ordinary Westerners accepted this.

One cannot blame them, exactly. For years, the Western media had been alleging that nationalist unrest by separatist Albanians in Kosovo stemmed from the fact that they were supposedly a besieged minority, persecuted by an ultranationalist Serbian state. Given this media barrage, by the time NATO bombed Serbia, the Western public easily believed NATO’s claims that this was necessary to prevent a genocide against Albanian civilians in Kosovo.

But suppose I told you that the following list summarizes the political facts in Kosovo in 1981, when the separatist activity by radical Albanians began in earnest:

(1) Kosovo Albanians controlled the provincial government;

(2) Kosovo Albanians controlled the cultural institutions;

(3) Albanian was the official language in the province (and in fact Serbs in Kosovo were forced to learn Albanian, not the other way around);

(4) Education was conducted in Albanian;

(5) Albanians were the overwhelming majority of students at Pristina University;

(6) Albanians were the overwhelming majority in the Kosovo police force;

(7) As The Economist reported in 1981, “Mr Fadil Hoxha [was] a member of Jugoslavia’s collective state presidency and a Kosovo Albanian.” What does this mean? The collective presidency of the Yugoslav federation was composed of representatives from its constituent republics, and also representatives from Kosovo and Vojvodina. However, Kosovo and Vojvodina were not republics of Yugoslavia but provinces of Serbia. Thus, Kosovo was treated as if it were a republic of Yugoslavia as far as the collective presidency of the federation was concerned.

(8) Since 1974, the Kosovo parliament in Pristina (Kosovo’s capital) could veto decisions taken in Belgrade that corresponded to the entire Republic of Serbia (of which Kosovo is a province), but Belgrade had no say on matters that were decided in Pristina (!).

(9) Albanians were discriminating against Serbs in industry and in the political administration.

(10) Kosovo Serbs, apparently starting in the 1970s, were subjected to low-level terrorism and harassment by either the Albanian KLA or its precursors. This caused a trickle, then a flood of Kosovo Serbs to flee the province out of fear for their lives.

Is this the picture of an oppressed Albanian minority in Serbia? Or is this the picture of an oppressed Serbian minority in Kosovo?

But should you believe me that the above list summarizes the political facts in Kosovo when Albanian separatists wrecked it? You don’t have to. In 1982, the US military — the same establishment that would later make the decision to bomb Serbia — published a country study of Yugoslavia:

Nyrop, R. F. 1982. Yugoslavia: A country study. Headquarters, Department of the Army, DA Pam 550-99: American University

Such country studies are published all the time to assist diplomats and others who may need a crash course on a particular country. This particular study was completed immediately after the 1981 riots that set in motion the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and it comments at length on the social and political situation in Kosovo, as well as on the riots themselves. As you will see below, this country study substantiates — and for most points explicitly and directly — the above assertions about the political facts in Kosovo, as I will document further below. Skeptics can get the book above from a library, and check whether I misquoted or distorted.

Now, as it bombed Serbia, NATO claimed that, underneath the shower of bombs, Milosevic was murdering 100,000 — or else 500,000 (who’s counting?) — Kosovo Albanians.

A large number. But what if I told you that all the people who died in the bombing, put together, add up to no more than 788 people?

And that’s not even the Albanian civilians — that figure represents all deaths, and therefore includes dead Serbian soldiers and civilians, as well as Albanian KLA terrorists.

You reasonably might suspect that I got my numbers wrong. But these are not my numbers, they are NATO’s! In fact NATO has not produced even one Albanian civilian murdered in Kosovo by the Yugoslav army or security services! [1]

Are you scandalized by that?

If not, then perhaps this will do it: NATO’s excuse to start the bombing was an allegation that there had been a massacre in the Kosovo town of Racak, but Racak was a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) hoax set up in collaboration with NATO!

In other words, the entire war against Serbia was a put up job by NATO and the mainstream Western media. Those who know a bit about the war on Viet Nam, which was justified with a faked attack on US troops that never happened (Gulf of Tonkin, and which was carried out by lying to the American people repeatedly, consistently, and massively, will see the similarities.

And which is the bigger scandal, here?

Is it that NATO lied to us repeatedly in order to start a war of aggression against innocent Serbs? Is it that NATO allied itself with the worst fascists, terrorists, and Islamic fundamentalists — people who took pride and joy in massacring thousands of Serbian civilians?

Or is the bigger scandal the fact that none of this ever became a front-page-headline scandal in the Western press (unlike Viet Nam, where the lies did, eventually, surface)? Is the bigger scandal the fact that ordinary Westerners, whose taxes paid for the slaughter of innocent Serbs, still don’t know what truly happened in Yugoslavia?

It’s a tough call…

The KLA, on whose behalf NATO bombed Serbia, claimed to be defending Kosovo Albanians from the oppression that the mainstream media said they were suffering at the hands of Serbs, generally, and at the hands of the government of Serbia in particular. It is this media portrayal that helped build plausibility in Americans’ minds for the idea that the Yugoslav army was about to commit genocide. Since Americans did not — and still do not — know much about Yugoslavia, the portrayal was believed, accepted on the faith and trust they place on what they perceive to be an ‘independent’ and ‘free’ press.

Had Americans known a bit about Yugoslavia, however, they would have laughed out of court the claim that the Serbs had been oppressing the Albanians, let alone the accusation that a genocide against Albanians was in the wings. Had Americans known what the social and political situation was in Kosovo in the early 1980s, when violent separatist activity in Kosovo began in earnest, the propaganda campaign that explained Albanian terrorist violence and secessionist sloganeering as produced by Serbian oppression of the Albanians could never have succeeded.

As for “humanitarian justification for intervention this “victim argument” has long been used as justification for NATO’s bombing, the subsequent expulsion and persecution of Serbs (“revenge attacks”) and others by Albanians, and indeed for claiming the “right” to independence. Supporters of independence have repeatedly claimed [link available in the original article] that Serbia has somehow “forfeited” its sovereignty through actions in Kosovo in 1999 and before.

As NATO bombs began raining on Serbia and Montenegro in March of 1999, media in NATO countries began manufacturing atrocity stories from the mold perfected just a few years earlier in Bosnia. Refugees, ethnic cleansing, genocide, massacres, rape camps — everything was there. In addition to propaganda injected into the mainstream media by U.S. and other NATO governments, there was also KLA propaganda directly fed to gullible reporters.

Even today, veteran propagandists dutifully repeat the claim that Serb “ethnic cleansing” of Albanians led to the NATO attack. Nothing can be further from the truth. NATO launched the attack in March 1999 after failing to coerce Serbia into accepting an occupation force, during the false negotiations in France. The official justification for the bombing was to force Belgrade to sign the “agreement” presented by the U.S. envoys in Rambouillet. Alleged atrocities are all said to have happened subsequent to the start of the bombing. Indeed, the ICTY indictment against Slobodan Milosevic included only one alleged crime dated prior to March 23, and that was the faux massacre at Racak.

By late 1999, it was obvious that the death toll in Kosovo was much less than the alleged 100,000 — or even the more commonly used 10,000, often falsely qualified as Albanian civilians (That number was actually a wild claim by UK Foreign Minister Geoff Hoon, who sought to justify the bombing.) The total number of bodies exhumed by ICTY’s investigators was 2,108, of all ethnicities and with varying causes of death. It is unclear whether that death toll included the numerous Albanians killed by the KLA, the KLA’s own substantial casualties, or those of the Yugoslav Army. In any case, horror stories presented as facts in a State Department “report” were later proven false. For example, the “Trepca mines” story was debunked by Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl. True, several other mass graves were discovered in the province since 1999. However, the victims buried there were Serbs, so the discoveries quickly faded from memory.

Although many Kosovo Albanians suffered terribly during the KLA insurrection and the NATO bombing, their claim that “Serb atrocities” have earned them the right to independence holds very little water.
Goose and Gander

However, neither the Albanians nor their Western sponsors actually believe the “atrocity argument” on principle. For if they did, and it was universally applicable, they would have forfeited all right to Kosovo themselves!

We could start from the beginning: NATO’s war itself was illegal and illegitimate. In the course of the war, NATO pilots targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure. The Alliance naturally claims those were “unfortunate mistakes” and that bombs were dropped “in good faith,” yet Gen. Michael Short publicly stated that the campaign was designed to force Belgrade to surrender by terrorizing civilians.

Korisa, Grdelica, Aleksinac, Surdulica — these were just some of the NATO atrocities during the “humanitarian” war of 1999.

Once the government in Belgrade agreed to withdraw from Kosovo and allow the UN to occupy the province (in practice, it was NATO occupation), Albanian separatists began terrorizing Kosovo. Violence against Serbs has been amply documented, in photographs, in print, and on film. It is important to note that Serbs were not the sole victims of Albanian attacks; Roma and other communities in Kosovo have also been exposed to violence, intimidation, extortion and murder.

Here are just some of the more gruesome incidents of anti-Serb violence:

* July 1999: fourteen Serb farmers massacred in the fields near Staro Gracko (graphic photos);
* October 1999: Valentin Krumov, UN official from Bulgaria, slain for “speaking Serbian”;
* February 2000: bus carrying Serbs to a cemetery service hit by a missile;
* February 2001: roadside bomb blows up another bus;
* June 2003: brutal slaying of a Serb family in Obilic;
* August 2003: Serb children swimming in the river near Gorazdevac machine-gunned down;
* March 2004: massive pogrom throughout the province targets Serbs; 8 dead, 4500 expelled, several villages razed.

All this was accompanied by systematic destruction of Serbian Orthodox churches, chapels, monasteries and cemeteries.

Albanian separatists and NATO leaders claim that Serbia’s violent suppression of the terrorist KLA in 1998-99 merited not only an illegal aggression in response, but also forfeited Serbia’s sovereignty over Kosovo. Yet the Albanians have not “forfeited” their right to Kosovo because of systematic terrorism under NATO occupation — they are being rewarded for it by independence!
The Croatian Precedent

Further proof that the “atrocity argument” was made up for the specific purpose of fabricating a reason to separate the occupied province from Serbia and make it into an Albanian state is the absolute absence of any such argument in the case of Croatia, which once had a considerable Serb population.

No “humanitarian” interventionist has ever claimed that atrocities of the Ustasha regime between 1941-1945, in which hundreds of thousands of Serbs perished (Croat and Nazi estimates were over half a million!), somehow disqualified Croatia from sovereignty over territories with majority Serb population that rebelled in 1991? Nor have any of them claimed that Croatia “forfeited” its sovereignty after the ethnic cleansing of Serbs in 1995, following a brutal Croat military incursion that ended the Serb rebellion and “reintegrated” the disputed territories. So how is Kosovo different?

When Croatia engaged in suppression of a Serb rebellion, it was an ally of the United States and NATO, enjoying their full support — military, political, intelligence and diplomatic. When Serbia tried to suppress the Albanian rebellion three years later, the U.S./NATO support was there again — on the side of the Albanians! This is why the same logic does not apply to Krajina and Kosovo, Croatia and Serbia, or even the Serbs and the Albanians. There is no logic here, no principle, no coherent concept of right or wrong — beyond the naked argument of force: whomsoever the Empire supports is a righteous victim, and its enemy an irredeemable villain.
The Final Leap

Empire’s pattern of aggression has by now torn the fragile tapestry of international law to shreds. The UN has already lost so much credibility and respect in the world, unable to stop the abuses by the Washington-run “international community,” the Ahtisaari Show is but a final nail in its coffin. Over the past fifteen years, many lines have been crossed. Appeasement of NATO and Albanian aggression in Kosovo might just be that last step over the edge, and into the abyss from which what remains of Western civilization may never return.

May 19, 2008 - 12:27 am 57. End of Delusions:

To Astrit-I by no means support wartime atrocities – or war for that matter. I am a libertarian, and therefore do not hold that virtue is something defined by the will of the majority.But I am disgusted with victim politics, and revolted at propaganda efforts to use suffering as an excuse to inflict suffering.
Many fall for it,they embraced a fallacy that allowed them to flog the Serbs (who lack standing to defend themselves, having been demonized for a decade as Nazis Reborn) for some cheap emotional points.
Pardon me if I’m not surprised.Albanians in Kosovo have adopted a cult of victimhood because that is what they have been fed by leaders who use the notion of victimhood to their own ends.

I very much understand and appreciate Albanian extreme desire for freedom and higher standard of living which in reality they never had. For the first time in their history there are able to live closer to the European standards. But values are still that of the most backward, most undeveloped, the least educated country in Europe with vendetta legal system.
Instead of being thankful for what Yugoslavia gave them and for an opportunity to live in “little America” (at the time in comparison to Enver’s Albania) they use their primitive and aggressive tactics.

Because of their mafia mentality, culture, customs, vendetta laws, intolerance towards others they already have very well recorded history within the New York City’s Police Department, especially in the Bronx.
The same goes across any major European city.

Because of horrible standards of living and their own mentality, every Albanian wants to leave not only Kosovo, but Albania as well. They will all build huge homes in their own villages just to show off, but will continue enjoying the civilized Europe, and USA and will continue to import vendetta, drug sales, brothels and other criminal operations.
Albanians will continue to arrange for more business style marriages to get more families out of Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro.
Albanian money is 60% of the world’s heroin market from Afganistan. Who in the West is going to dare to end this circle and say enough is enough? Hey EU and USA just do not do it at the expense of the Serbian Kosovo!!!
What Albanians are offered by Serbia is independence de facto but not de jure. They refuse that. They want a secession. If that was a lone entity of Albanians in Balkans one would perhaps be willing to understand. But Kosovo is adjacent to an Albanian state. This is no matter how you want to phrase it annexation.

Kosovo was an integral part of Serbia when the area was conquered by the Turks in the fifteenth century. In Serbian history books it is often called Old Serbia. Albanians began arriving in the seventeenth century during the Turkish occupation. It has been recognized as an integral part of Serbia by the international community since 1912.

When the Axis powers invaded and dismembered Yugoslavia in 1941, they attached Kosovo and Albanian-speaking regions of Montenegro, Macedonia, and Greece to Albania to form a greater Albania under the rule of a fascist dictator. The Kosovo Albanians formed military units to fight for the Nazis, killed more than 10,000 Kosovo Serbs, and drove more than 100,000 out of the province into the rest of Serbia. They brought immigrants in from Albania to fortify the Albanian presence in the province.

When the Croatian Communist dictator Tito came to power in Yugoslavia in 1945, he forbade the Serbian refugees to return to their homes in Kosovo. He then signed a deal with the new Communist dictator of Albania to bring in another 100,000 Albanian settlers. The Albanian majority in Kosovo appears to date from the years around World War II.

An upsurge of Albanian Kosovo violence in 1969-1974 caused another 200,000 Serbs and Montenegrins to leave Kosovo and gave Tito an excuse to separate Kosovo from Serbia. He made it an autonomous province under the total control of the now Albanian majority.

Autonomy under Kosovo Albanian control did not result in ethnic peace. Once in control of the province, the Kosovo Albanians continued harassing non-Albanians through legal and extralegal means. They required Gypsies to use Albanian first names. They enacted zoning legislation designed to break up non-Albanian residential communities. They outlawed use of the Cyrillic alphabet even among the Serbs, who had always used it. They refused to permit federal authorities to participate in census-taking, claiming they didn’t know how to count Albanians.

The Kosovar Albanians required mandatory instruction in Albanian for all inhabitants of Kosovo, and they imported history and social science texts books from Albania for use in the schools. These taught Albanian nationalism rather than Yugoslav citizenship and praised the era of Turkish control over the Balkans. There were continuing incidents of violence against Serbs and frequent attacks on Orthodox churches, shrines, and monasteries. More Serbs and Montenegrins left. Ignoring Yugoslav immigration laws, the Albanian Kosovars permitted more illegal aliens to immigrate from Albania. By the early 80s, the province was three-fourths Albanian, large numbers of them born in Albania.

After Tito’s death, there was another upsurge of Albanian violence beginning in 1981. Throughout the 80s, Western news media, including the New York Times, reported on the ongoing murders and rapes of Serbs and Montenegrins perpetrated by Albanians, the constant attacks on Orthodox churches and monasteries, and the inability of the local Albanian authorities ever to punish anyone.

Yugoslavia finally reversed the autonomy decision in 1989 because of obstructionist constitutional tactics by the Kosovo provincial government. This decision was not a unilateral act of Slobodan Milosevich, the newly elected president of Serbia, though he pushed for it. It was made jointly by all the republics of Yugoslavia, including Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Macedonia.

As Republican Senate aide Jim Jatras wrote: “One of the ironies of the present Kosovo crisis is that Milosevic began his rise to power in Serbia in large part because of the oppressive character of pre-1989 Albanian rule in Kosovo, symbolized by the famous 1987 rally where he promised the local Serbs: “Nobody will beat you again.” In short, rather than Milosevic being the cause of the Kosovo crisis, it would be as correct to say that intolerant Albanian nationalism in Kosovo is largely the cause of Milosevic’s attainment of power.”

The KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) was formed shortly thereafter from a Maoist organization dedicating itself to free Kosovo. As recently as a year ago, the United States government condemned the KLA as a terrorist group, linked closely to Iran, the Islamic fundamentalist Osama bin-Laden, and the heroin traffic in Europe. Europeans have likened it to a Mafia because of its lawless involvement in organized crime, including prostitution.

The stated goal of the KLA is to create a greater Albania by attaching Yugoslav Kosovo and Albanian-speaking regions of Montenegro, Macedonia, and Greece to Albania. Using Albania as a base and conduit for weapons, the KLA began carrying on a terror campaign against the Yugoslav government in Kosovo, assassinating and kidnapping not only Serbs but also Albanians and other ethnic groups who opposed their desires for independence.

Kosovo continues to be home not only to Albanian-speaking Muslims, but also to nearly half a million other people. The goal of the KLA is to create an ethnically pure Kosovo by driving out or culturally assimilating the rest of the population. Their claims of 1.8 million Albanians in Kosovo are demographically impossible, even with immigration, for there were only 645,000 Albanians in the last full federal census carried out in 1961. There have also been many emigrants from Kosovo to other parts of Yugoslavia and Europe.

With the collapse of the Communist regime in neighboring Albania in the 1990s and the nearly anarchic conditions in that country, more Albanians crossed the porous borders with Yugoslavia into Kosovo.

Within Kosovo, Yugoslav forces were attempting to deal militarily with KLA terrorism. Using as an excuse an alleged massacre of Albanian Kosovars at Racak by Yugoslav security forces in mid-January, 1999, Mrs. Albright and Mr. Clinton demanded to “mediate” at Rambouillet. The massacre was quickly identified as a KLA set up. This did not deter Mr. Clinton and Mrs. Albright from pursuing their designs. It is now known that Mr. Clinton had made a decision months earlier to seek to destroy Milosevich. Racak was the pretext.

The Yugoslav delegation that came to Rambouillet included Muslim Albanians, Muslim Serbs, Christian Serbs, and Turks. They were prepared to talk directly with the KLA, but Mrs. Albright never permitted this to happen. Instead, her team went back and forth between the two groups laying down terms.

The Yugoslav government accepted the basic principle that there should be autonomy in Kosovo (guaranteeing the rights of all Kosovars, not just Albanians) and consented to an international peace keeping force provided it be brought in under the auspices of the UN. Mrs. Albright insisted on bringing NATO troops in. She finally issued an ultimatum to the Yugoslav government to accept her terms or be bombed. This ultimatum is referred to as the Rambouillet Accord.

The ultimatum laid down detailed guidelines on how the province was to be governed. It demanded that Kosovo have the right to override any laws or judicial decisions made by the Yugoslav government, be permitted to conduct its own foreign policy, and be organized economically along lines dictated by NATO. It said nothing about protection of the rights of the non-Albanian Kosovars. It demanded that Yugoslavia permit NATO troops to be brought into Kosovo and to have free passage anywhere else in Yugoslavia without subjection to Yugoslav laws (a venerable imperialist practice called “extraterritoriality”). NATO troops were also to have the right to commandeer media facilities as they saw fit. The NATO forces would themselves conduct a plebiscite in Kosovo in three years on the status of the province.

There was no way Yugoslavia could accept the Rambouillet “Accord” without surrendering her sovereignty, possibly losing part of her national territory, and becoming a satellite state of NATO. Both President Milosevich, as elected president sworn to defend Yugoslav sovereignty, and the Yugoslav parliament rejected the ultimatum. An ultimatum, after all, is not an act of diplomacy. It is an act of war.

Mrs. Albright’s and Mr. Clinton’s have manipulated the ethnic diversity issue to suit their immediate purposes. In the case of Slovenia and Croatia, they accepted and actively promoted societies whose sole reason for seeking independence from an already multiethnic Yugoslavia was ethnic exclusivism. They are now doing the same thing in Kosovo on behalf of one ethnic group the Albanians. As one Canadian journalist put it in writing of Kosovo, “to first say that countries shouldn’t be organized along ethnic lines, and then demand self-government for one group within a nation on the sole basis of ethnicity, is an exercise in self-contradiction.” He adds: “This is endorsing one ethnic group at the expense of another. It’s saying the Albanians may use their ethnic majority in Kosovo to assert their political identity, but the Serbs in Yugoslavia may not.

May 19, 2008 - 1:44 am 58. MikeL:

(1) Kosovo Albanians controlled the provincial government;
• Yes they did, but after 1989 Belgrade did and all the institutions.
(2) Kosovo Albanians controlled the cultural institutions;
• Yes, after 1989 Serbs did.
(3) Albanian was the official language in the province (and in fact Serbs in Kosovo were forced to learn Albanian, not the other way around);
• Yes, in 1989 it was abolished. No Albanian media, schools, speech etc. Albanians were always forced to learn Serbian before these happened. If Albanian is a recognized minority language than why wasn’t Albanian taught in areas other than Kosovo?
(4) Education was conducted in Albanian;
• Yes, in 1989 was only in Serbian.
(5) Albanians were the overwhelming majority of students at Pristina University;
• Yes demographics show that. They didn’t in early 90’s.
(6) Albanians were the overwhelming majority in the Kosovo police force;
• Yes they weren’t any more since all Albanians were fired and replaced by incoming Serbian police.
(7) As The Economist reported in 1981, “Mr. Fadil Hoxha [was] a member of Jugoslavia’s collective state presidency and a Kosovo Albanian.” What does this mean? The collective presidency of the Yugoslav federation was composed of representatives from its constituent republics, and also representatives from Kosovo and Vojvodina. However, Kosovo and Vojvodina were not republics of Yugoslavia but provinces of Serbia. Thus, Kosovo was treated as if it were a republic of Yugoslavia as far as the collective presidency of the federation was concerned.
• True
(8) Since 1974, the Kosovo parliament in Pristina (Kosovo’s capital) could veto decisions taken in Belgrade that corresponded to the entire Republic of Serbia (of which Kosovo is a province), but Belgrade had no say on matters that were decided in Pristina (!).
• True but Serbia had no say in maters of Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, B&H or Macedonia. But status of Kosova and Voivodina was complex.
(9) Albanians were discriminating against Serbs in industry and in the political administration.
• Discrimination was on both sides. Serbs were no angels.
(10) Kosovo Serbs, apparently starting in the 1970s, were subjected to low-level terrorism and harassment by either the Albanian KLA or its precursors. This caused a trickle, then a flood of Kosovo Serbs to flee the province out of fear for their lives.
• Harassment has been subjected on Albanians for decades. And this is no Victimization mentality. They were and there’s no argument to refute it NONE.

Listen if the pre-1989 status quo was being kept then we would never be here in the first place. There would be no grounds for war. And the current autonomy offer is less than it had in FYR times. So why offer less than it had. Also what are the guarantees that the autonomy would not be reduced or stripped again? If a minority is removed their rights then what do you think they should do? What would you do if you were in their place? Atrocities have happened on both sides but Serbs will not acknowledge it.
And to portray Albanians and a mafia run government come on. Russia is also mafia influenzed. Serbian government is also. Who killed Djindjic? Serb mafia tied to politics. Albanians can run their lives as well as others. Serbs can do better to run other’s lives? So please look at both sides and not be one sighted. In a way I saw the Autonomy as a good short term solution, but for the long term it needed to be larger and more concesions.

May 19, 2008 - 9:02 am 59. DianaL:

MikeL: You are delusional. You are just offering your opinion but are NOT backing them by solid evidence. You said and keep saying ” And this is no Victimization mentality. They were and there’s no argument to refute it NONE.”

This is not only a false statement, it is a grotesquely meaningless metaphor. Milosevic tried to suppress an armed secessionist movement, secretly but effectively supported by neighboring Albania, the United States and Germany, which deliberately provoked repression by murdering both Serbs and Albanians loyal to the government. Like the Americans in similar circumstances, Milosevic relied too heavily on military superiority rather than on political skill. But even the NATO-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in The Hague had to abandon any charges of “genocide” against Milosevic in Kosovo. For the simple reason that there was never a shred of evidence for such a charge.

Milosevic is no longer alive, and Russia is far away. But what about the Serbs who still live in the historic part of Serbia called Kosovo? Cohen takes care of that problem in a few words: “Some of the 120,000 Serbs in Kosovo may hit the road.”

As Aldous Huxley pointed out, “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”

Then you can tell them to “hit the road”.

Russia has warned that Kosovo independence will set a dangerous precedent, encouraging other ethnic minorities to follow the example of the Albanians and demand secession and an independent State. The United States has dismissed such concerns by flatly asserting that Kosovo is “unique”. Well yes, Kosovo is a unique case, and is the only one recognized by the United States until the next “unique case” comes along. When legal criteria have been thrown out, we just have one “unique case” after another.

The “uniqueness” claimed by the United States is a propaganda construction. It is based on the supposed “uniqueness” of Milosevic’s repression of the armed secessionist movement, which was not unique at all. It was standard operating procedure throughout history and the world over, in such circumstances. Deplorable, no doubt, but not unique. It was minor indeed compared to the similar but endless and far bloodier anti-insurgency operations in Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Chechnya, not to mention Northern Ireland, Thailand, the Philippines And unlike the counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which kill incomparably more civilians, it was carried out by the legal, democratically elected government of the country, rather than by a foreign power.

The propaganda “uniqueness” is an abstraction. Like every place on earth, Kosovo is indeed unique. But in ways that have nothing to do with the U.S. pretext for taking it over and turning it into a military outpost of empire.

To know how a place is unique, you have to be interested in it.

I have not visited Kosovo since before the 1999 NATO war. On one occasion, in August 1997, I drove around the province in a failing Skoda, at my own expense, just looking. Driving in Kosovo was a bit risky, partly because of the number of dead dogs in the road, and mostly because of local drivers’ habit of passing slower vehicles on hills and curves. In northern Kosovo, just outside the town of Zubin Potok, this habit produced one of its inevitable consequences: a head-on collision with serious casualties, which shut down the two-lane highway for hours while ambulances and police sorted things out.

Unable to proceed toward Pristina, I drove back to Zubin Potok to pass the time on the shaded terrace of a roadside restaurant. I was the only customer, and the lone waiter, a tall, handsome young man named Milomir, gladly accepted my invitation to sit down at my table and chat as I sipped glass after glass of delicious strawberry juice.

Milomir was happy to talk to someone familiar with the French city of Metz, which he had visited as a student and remembered fondly. He loved to read and travel, but in 1991 he got married and now had two small daughters to support. Job prospects were poor, even though he had been to university, so he had no choice but to stay in Zubin Potok. As for Europe, even if he could get a visa (impossible for Serbs anyway), he spoke no language more Western than his mother tongue, Serbo-Croatian. He had studied Russian (he loved the literature) and Albanian as his foreign languages. He learned Albanian in order to be able to communicate with the majority in Kosovo.

But such communication was difficult. Milomir was very much in favor of a bilingual society, and thought everyone in Kosovo should learn both Serbian and Albanian, but unfortunately this was not the case. The younger generation of Albanians refused to speak Serbian and learned English instead.

The town of Zubin Potok was located near the dam on the Ibar River built in the late 1970s to create hydraulic power. Coming from Novi Pazar, I had driven along the 35-kilometer-long artificial lake created by the dam, looking in vain for a nice place to stop. It seemed that there must have been villages along the Ibar River before the dam was built, and I asked Milomir about this. Yes, he said, the artificial lake had flooded a score of old villages, of ethnically mixed, but mostly Serb population. The Albanian Communist authorities in Pristina had resettled the Serbs outside of Kosovo, around the town of Kraljevo. There were about 10,000 of them.

This was a minor example of the administrative measures taken to decrease the Serb population during the period, before Milosevic, when Albanians were running the province through the local Communist League.

Milomir was not complaining, but simply answering my questions. He did not go too often (by bus–he had no car) to the nearest large city, Mitrovica, because he was afraid of being beaten by Albanians. This was just a fact of life, at a time when (according to Western media) Albanians in Kosovo were being terrorized by Serbian repression.

While we were chatting, a friend of his came along and the conversation turned to politics. There was a presidential campaign underway. The two young men wanted to know which candidate I thought would be best for Serbia in the eyes of the world. Milomir was tending toward Vuk Draskovic, and his friend was for Vojislav Kostunica. Neither would dream of voting for either Milosevic or Seselj, the nationalist leader of the Radical Party.

Zubin Potok Today!

I have no idea what has become of Milomir, his wife, his two daughters, or his friend. Zubin Potok is the western-most municipality in the heavily Serb-populated north of Kosovo. From the internet I learn that the population of Zubin Potok municipality (including surrounding villages) has nearly doubled since I passed through. It now comes to approximately 14,900, including about 3,000 internally displaced Serbs (from other areas of Kosovo where the Albanian majority has driven them out), 220 Serbian refugees from Croatia and 800 Albanians. The local assembly is overwhelmingly dominated by Kostunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia, but includes two Kosovo Albanian representatives.

Up until now, schools, hospitals, and other public services, as well as the local economy, have continued to function thanks mainly to subsidies from Belgrade. The Albanian declaration of Kosovo independence will create a crisis by demanding an end to such vital subsidies–which, however, an “independent Kosovo” is unable to replace. Moreover, bands of Albanian nationalists are declaring that Zubin Potok “is Albanian” and must be “liberated from the Serbs”. They can be seen on You Tube, using the Statue of Liberty as their symbol, and threatening Serbs in Albanian rap.

The European Union is moving in to provide law and order. But the “order” they claim to be protecting is the one defined by the Albanian nationalists. What does that mean to people like Milomir and his little family?

For you and other Albanian supporters in the West the answer is easy: “hit the road!”

Serbia, by the way, already has the largest number of refugees in Europe, victims of “ethnic cleansing” in Croatia and Kosovo. And Serbs cannot get visas or refugee status in Western Europe. They have been labeled the “bad guys”. Only their enemies can be “victims”.

Before and After

Kosovo before the NATO war and occupation was, nevertheless, a multiethnic society. The accusation of “apartheid” was simply Albanian propaganda, as the Albanian nationalist leaders chose to use that heavily-charged term to describe their own boycott of Serbs and Serb institutions. Every police action against an Albanian, for whatever reason, whether for suspicion of armed rebellion or for ordinary crime, was described as a “human rights violation” by the Albanian human rights network financed by the United States government.

It was an extraordinary situation that the Serbian and Yugoslav governments allowed an illegal separatist “government of Kosovo”, headed by Ibrahim Rugova, to hold shop in the center of Pristina, regularly receiving foreign journalists and regaling them with tales of how oppressed they were by the horrid Serbs.

But the laws were the same for all citizens, there were Albanians in local government and in the police, and if there were cases of police brutality (in what country are there no cases of police brutality?), the Albanians at least had nothing to fear from their Serb neighbors.

Even then, it was the Serbs who were afraid of the Albanians. Only outside Kosovo could anyone seriously believe that it was the Albanians who were under threat of “ethnic cleansing” (much less “genocide”). Such a project was simply, obviously, out of the question. It was the Serbs who were afraid, who spoke of sending their children to safety if they had the means, or who spoke bravely of remaining “no matter what”.

Later, in March 1999, when NATO began to bomb Kosovo, Albanians fled by the hundreds of thousands, and their temporary flight from the war theater was presented as the justification for the bombing that caused it. The press did not bother to report on the Serbs and others who also fled the bombing at that time.

In Kosovo, in 1987, in Pristina and Pec, I observed a peculiar sort of group behavior that reminds me only of school playgrounds in Maryland in my childhood. A gang of kids get together and by various signs, body language, and a minimum of words, convey to some outsiders that they are excluded and despised. I have seen Albanians act in this way toward stray Serbs, especially old women. This variety of “mobbing” was not violent in 1987, but turned so after NATO occupied the territory. It was encouraged by the official NATO stamp of approval of Albanian hatred for Serbs, delivered by bombs in the spring of 1999.

Of course, there must have been Serbs who hated Albanians. But in my limited, chance experience, what struck me was the absence of hatred for Albanians among Serbs I met. Fear, yes, but not hatred. A great deal of perplexity. Sister Fotina at the Gracanica monastery had a very Christian explanation. We tried to help the Albanians care for their many children, she said, and yet they turn against us. This must be God’s way of punishing us for turning away from Christianity during the time of Communism, she concluded. She blamed her fellow Serbs more than the Albanians.

The divine punishment has not been confined to Christians, however. In the southernmost corner of Kosovo live an ancient population called Gorani (meaning mountain people), who converted to Islam under the Ottoman Empire, like most of the Albanians. But their language is Serbian, and this is unacceptable to the Albanians. Estimates vary, but it is agreed that at least two thirds of the Gorani have left since NATO “liberation”. Pressure and intimidation have taken various forms. Albanians have moved into the temporarily vacant homes of Gorani who went to Austria and Germany to earn money for their retirement. The NATO-protected Albanian authorities have found ways to deprive Gorani children of schooling in the Serbian language. In the main Gorani town of Dragash, an Albanian mob attacked the health center and caused health workers to flee. Then, last January 5, a powerful explosion destroyed the bank in Dragash. It was the only Serbian bank still allowed to operate in the south of Kosovo, and served mainly to transfer the pensions that allowed local Gorani to survive.

As usual, the crime went unpunished.

David Binder, who used to report on Yugoslavia for the New York Times, before he was excluded for knowing too much, reported last November * on a long investigation of conditions in Kosovo commissioned by the German Bundeswehr. The existence of this report is proof that the Western governments, while publicly claiming that Kosovo is “ready for independence”, know quite well that this is not true. Among other things, Binder reports:

The institute authors, Mathias Jopp and Sammi Sandawi, spent six months interviewing 70 experts and mining current literature on Kosovo in preparing the study. In their analysis the political unrest and guerrilla fighting of the 1990s led to basic changes which they call a “turnabout in Kosovo-Albanian social structures.” The result is a “civil war society in which those inclined to violence, ill-educated and easily influenced people could make huge social leaps in a rapidly constructed soldateska.”

“It is a Mafia society” based on “capture of the state” by criminal elements.

In the authors’ definition, Kosovan organized crime “consists of multimillion-Euro organizations with guerrilla experience and espionage expertise.” They quote a German intelligence service report of “closest ties between leading political decision makers and the dominant criminal class” and name Ramush Haradinaj, Hashim Thaci and Xhavit Haliti as compromised leaders who are “internally protected by parliamentary immunity and abroad by international law.”

They scornfully quote the UNMIK chief from 2004-2006, Soeren Jessen Petersen, calling Haradinaj “a close and personal friend.” The study sharply criticizes the United States for “abetting the escape of criminals” in Kosovo as well as “preventing European investigators from working.”

It notes “secret CIA detention centers” at Camp Bondsteel and assails American military training for Kosovo (Albanian) police by Dyncorp, authorized by the Pentagon.

In an aside, it quotes one unidentified official as saying of the American who is deputy chief of UNMIK, “The main task of Steve Schook is to get drunk once a week with Ramush Haradinaj.”

Who Goes and Who Stays

Schook has been fired by UNMIK, but UNMIK, the nominally United Nations mission, is being taken over arbitrarily by the European Union. The EU “mission” is a sort of colonial government which, alongside NATO, plans to govern the ungovernable Albanian territory. However, already movements of armed Albanian patriots are planning their next “war of liberation” against the Europeans.

So, after the Serbs, the Roma, the Gorani, will the Europeans have to “hit the road”? Only the Americans seem sure of staying. Ensconced in their gigantic “Camp Bondsteel”, they control the strategic routes from Serbia to Greece, and incidentally offer the mass of unemployed Kosovo Albanians their best-paying employment opportunities, notably by taking menial and dangerous jobs serving U.S. forces in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The reality of this shameless land-grab is available to all. . The Russians, the Greeks, the Rumanians, the Slovaks and many others know about it. But in the Brave New World Order, it does not exist. People don’t know.

May 19, 2008 - 3:12 pm 60. DianaJ:

MikeL: You are delusional. You are just offering your opinion but are NOT backing them by solid evidence. You said and keep saying ” And this is no Victimization mentality. They were and there’s no argument to refute it NONE.”

This is not only a false statement, it is a grotesquely meaningless metaphor. Milosevic tried to suppress an armed secessionist movement, secretly but effectively supported by neighboring Albania, the United States and Germany, which deliberately provoked repression by murdering both Serbs and Albanians loyal to the government. Like the Americans in similar circumstances, Milosevic relied too heavily on military superiority rather than on political skill. But even the NATO-sponsored International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in The Hague had to abandon any charges of “genocide” against Milosevic in Kosovo. For the simple reason that there was never a shred of evidence for such a charge.

Milosevic is no longer alive, and Russia is far away. But what about the Serbs who still live in the historic part of Serbia called Kosovo? Cohen takes care of that problem in a few words: “Some of the 120,000 Serbs in Kosovo may hit the road.”

As Aldous Huxley pointed out, “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”

Then you can tell them to “hit the road”.

Russia has warned that Kosovo independence will set a dangerous precedent, encouraging other ethnic minorities to follow the example of the Albanians and demand secession and an independent State. The United States has dismissed such concerns by flatly asserting that Kosovo is “unique”. Well yes, Kosovo is a unique case, and is the only one recognized by the United States until the next “unique case” comes along. When legal criteria have been thrown out, we just have one “unique case” after another.

The “uniqueness” claimed by the United States is a propaganda construction. It is based on the supposed “uniqueness” of Milosevic’s repression of the armed secessionist movement, which was not unique at all. It was standard operating procedure throughout history and the world over, in such circumstances. Deplorable, no doubt, but not unique. It was minor indeed compared to the similar but endless and far bloodier anti-insurgency operations in Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Chechnya, not to mention Northern Ireland, Thailand, the Philippines And unlike the counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which kill incomparably more civilians, it was carried out by the legal, democratically elected government of the country, rather than by a foreign power.

The propaganda “uniqueness” is an abstraction. Like every place on earth, Kosovo is indeed unique. But in ways that have nothing to do with the U.S. pretext for taking it over and turning it into a military outpost of empire.

To know how a place is unique, you have to be interested in it.

I have not visited Kosovo since before the 1999 NATO war. On one occasion, in August 1997, I drove around the province in a failing Skoda, at my own expense, just looking. Driving in Kosovo was a bit risky, partly because of the number of dead dogs in the road, and mostly because of local drivers’ habit of passing slower vehicles on hills and curves. In northern Kosovo, just outside the town of Zubin Potok, this habit produced one of its inevitable consequences: a head-on collision with serious casualties, which shut down the two-lane highway for hours while ambulances and police sorted things out.

Unable to proceed toward Pristina, I drove back to Zubin Potok to pass the time on the shaded terrace of a roadside restaurant. I was the only customer, and the lone waiter, a tall, handsome young man named Milomir, gladly accepted my invitation to sit down at my table and chat as I sipped glass after glass of delicious strawberry juice.

Milomir was happy to talk to someone familiar with the French city of Metz, which he had visited as a student and remembered fondly. He loved to read and travel, but in 1991 he got married and now had two small daughters to support. Job prospects were poor, even though he had been to university, so he had no choice but to stay in Zubin Potok. As for Europe, even if he could get a visa (impossible for Serbs anyway), he spoke no language more Western than his mother tongue, Serbo-Croatian. He had studied Russian (he loved the literature) and Albanian as his foreign languages. He learned Albanian in order to be able to communicate with the majority in Kosovo.

But such communication was difficult. Milomir was very much in favor of a bilingual society, and thought everyone in Kosovo should learn both Serbian and Albanian, but unfortunately this was not the case. The younger generation of Albanians refused to speak Serbian and learned English instead.

The town of Zubin Potok was located near the dam on the Ibar River built in the late 1970s to create hydraulic power. Coming from Novi Pazar, I had driven along the 35-kilometer-long artificial lake created by the dam, looking in vain for a nice place to stop. It seemed that there must have been villages along the Ibar River before the dam was built, and I asked Milomir about this. Yes, he said, the artificial lake had flooded a score of old villages, of ethnically mixed, but mostly Serb population. The Albanian Communist authorities in Pristina had resettled the Serbs outside of Kosovo, around the town of Kraljevo. There were about 10,000 of them.

This was a minor example of the administrative measures taken to decrease the Serb population during the period, before Milosevic, when Albanians were running the province through the local Communist League.

Milomir was not complaining, but simply answering my questions. He did not go too often (by bus–he had no car) to the nearest large city, Mitrovica, because he was afraid of being beaten by Albanians. This was just a fact of life, at a time when (according to Western media) Albanians in Kosovo were being terrorized by Serbian repression.

While we were chatting, a friend of his came along and the conversation turned to politics. There was a presidential campaign underway. The two young men wanted to know which candidate I thought would be best for Serbia in the eyes of the world. Milomir was tending toward Vuk Draskovic, and his friend was for Vojislav Kostunica. Neither would dream of voting for either Milosevic or Seselj, the nationalist leader of the Radical Party.

Zubin Potok Today!

I have no idea what has become of Milomir, his wife, his two daughters, or his friend. Zubin Potok is the western-most municipality in the heavily Serb-populated north of Kosovo. From the internet I learn that the population of Zubin Potok municipality (including surrounding villages) has nearly doubled since I passed through. It now comes to approximately 14,900, including about 3,000 internally displaced Serbs (from other areas of Kosovo where the Albanian majority has driven them out), 220 Serbian refugees from Croatia and 800 Albanians. The local assembly is overwhelmingly dominated by Kostunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia, but includes two Kosovo Albanian representatives.

Up until now, schools, hospitals, and other public services, as well as the local economy, have continued to function thanks mainly to subsidies from Belgrade. The Albanian declaration of Kosovo independence will create a crisis by demanding an end to such vital subsidies–which, however, an “independent Kosovo” is unable to replace. Moreover, bands of Albanian nationalists are declaring that Zubin Potok “is Albanian” and must be “liberated from the Serbs”. They can be seen on You Tube, using the Statue of Liberty as their symbol, and threatening Serbs in Albanian rap.

The European Union is moving in to provide law and order. But the “order” they claim to be protecting is the one defined by the Albanian nationalists. What does that mean to people like Milomir and his little family?

For you and other Albanian supporters in the West the answer is easy: “hit the road!”

Serbia, by the way, already has the largest number of refugees in Europe, victims of “ethnic cleansing” in Croatia and Kosovo. And Serbs cannot get visas or refugee status in Western Europe. They have been labeled the “bad guys”. Only their enemies can be “victims”.

Before and After

Kosovo before the NATO war and occupation was, nevertheless, a multiethnic society. The accusation of “apartheid” was simply Albanian propaganda, as the Albanian nationalist leaders chose to use that heavily-charged term to describe their own boycott of Serbs and Serb institutions. Every police action against an Albanian, for whatever reason, whether for suspicion of armed rebellion or for ordinary crime, was described as a “human rights violation” by the Albanian human rights network financed by the United States government.

It was an extraordinary situation that the Serbian and Yugoslav governments allowed an illegal separatist “government of Kosovo”, headed by Ibrahim Rugova, to hold shop in the center of Pristina, regularly receiving foreign journalists and regaling them with tales of how oppressed they were by the horrid Serbs.

But the laws were the same for all citizens, there were Albanians in local government and in the police, and if there were cases of police brutality (in what country are there no cases of police brutality?), the Albanians at least had nothing to fear from their Serb neighbors.

Even then, it was the Serbs who were afraid of the Albanians. Only outside Kosovo could anyone seriously believe that it was the Albanians who were under threat of “ethnic cleansing” (much less “genocide”). Such a project was simply, obviously, out of the question. It was the Serbs who were afraid, who spoke of sending their children to safety if they had the means, or who spoke bravely of remaining “no matter what”.

Later, in March 1999, when NATO began to bomb Kosovo, Albanians fled by the hundreds of thousands, and their temporary flight from the war theater was presented as the justification for the bombing that caused it. The press did not bother to report on the Serbs and others who also fled the bombing at that time.

In Kosovo, in 1987, in Pristina and Pec, I observed a peculiar sort of group behavior that reminds me only of school playgrounds in Maryland in my childhood. A gang of kids get together and by various signs, body language, and a minimum of words, convey to some outsiders that they are excluded and despised. I have seen Albanians act in this way toward stray Serbs, especially old women. This variety of “mobbing” was not violent in 1987, but turned so after NATO occupied the territory. It was encouraged by the official NATO stamp of approval of Albanian hatred for Serbs, delivered by bombs in the spring of 1999.

Of course, there must have been Serbs who hated Albanians. But in my limited, chance experience, what struck me was the absence of hatred for Albanians among Serbs I met. Fear, yes, but not hatred. A great deal of perplexity. Sister Fotina at the Gracanica monastery had a very Christian explanation. We tried to help the Albanians care for their many children, she said, and yet they turn against us. This must be God’s way of punishing us for turning away from Christianity during the time of Communism, she concluded. She blamed her fellow Serbs more than the Albanians.

The divine punishment has not been confined to Christians, however. In the southernmost corner of Kosovo live an ancient population called Gorani (meaning mountain people), who converted to Islam under the Ottoman Empire, like most of the Albanians. But their language is Serbian, and this is unacceptable to the Albanians. Estimates vary, but it is agreed that at least two thirds of the Gorani have left since NATO “liberation”. Pressure and intimidation have taken various forms. Albanians have moved into the temporarily vacant homes of Gorani who went to Austria and Germany to earn money for their retirement. The NATO-protected Albanian authorities have found ways to deprive Gorani children of schooling in the Serbian language. In the main Gorani town of Dragash, an Albanian mob attacked the health center and caused health workers to flee. Then, last January 5, a powerful explosion destroyed the bank in Dragash. It was the only Serbian bank still allowed to operate in the south of Kosovo, and served mainly to transfer the pensions that allowed local Gorani to survive.

As usual, the crime went unpunished.

David Binder, who used to report on Yugoslavia for the New York Times, before he was excluded for knowing too much, reported last November * on a long investigation of conditions in Kosovo commissioned by the German Bundeswehr. The existence of this report is proof that the Western governments, while publicly claiming that Kosovo is “ready for independence”, know quite well that this is not true. Among other things, Binder reports:

The institute authors, Mathias Jopp and Sammi Sandawi, spent six months interviewing 70 experts and mining current literature on Kosovo in preparing the study. In their analysis the political unrest and guerrilla fighting of the 1990s led to basic changes which they call a “turnabout in Kosovo-Albanian social structures.” The result is a “civil war society in which those inclined to violence, ill-educated and easily influenced people could make huge social leaps in a rapidly constructed soldateska.”

“It is a Mafia society” based on “capture of the state” by criminal elements.

In the authors’ definition, Kosovan organized crime “consists of multimillion-Euro organizations with guerrilla experience and espionage expertise.” They quote a German intelligence service report of “closest ties between leading political decision makers and the dominant criminal class” and name Ramush Haradinaj, Hashim Thaci and Xhavit Haliti as compromised leaders who are “internally protected by parliamentary immunity and abroad by international law.”

They scornfully quote the UNMIK chief from 2004-2006, Soeren Jessen Petersen, calling Haradinaj “a close and personal friend.” The study sharply criticizes the United States for “abetting the escape of criminals” in Kosovo as well as “preventing European investigators from working.”

It notes “secret CIA detention centers” at Camp Bondsteel and assails American military training for Kosovo (Albanian) police by Dyncorp, authorized by the Pentagon.

In an aside, it quotes one unidentified official as saying of the American who is deputy chief of UNMIK, “The main task of Steve Schook is to get drunk once a week with Ramush Haradinaj.”

Wh

Schook has been fired by UNMIK, but UNMIK, the nominally United Nations mission, is being taken over arbitrarily by the European Union. The EU “mission” is a sort of colonial government which, alongside NATO, plans to govern the ungovernable Albanian territory. However, already movements of armed Albanian patriots are planning their next “war of liberation” against the Europeans.

So, after the Serbs, the Roma, the Gorani, will the Europeans have to “hit the road”? Only the Americans seem sure of staying. Ensconced in their gigantic “Camp Bondsteel”, they control the strategic routes from Serbia to Greece, and incidentally offer the mass of unemployed Kosovo Albanians their best-paying employment opportunities, notably by taking menial and dangerous jobs serving U.S. forces in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The reality of this shameless land-grab is available to all. . The Russians, the Greeks, the Rumanians, the Slovaks and many others know about it. But in the Brave New World Order, it does not exist. People don’t know.

May 19, 2008 - 3:15 pm 61. absurdity of independence:

Mike it’s my understanding that you believe Kosovo Albanians that they were “oppressed” under the “Belgrade regime.” You said, their autonomy was revoked, they say, and they were victims . But Kosovo was not the only Serbian province to see its quasi-statehood revoked in 1989. Vojvodina has had the same status as Kosovo in the past decade, and it never spawned a Hungarian separatist movement, let alone a parallel society, or a NATO intervention. Stubborn refusal of the Albanians to be a part of any common state with the Serbs is another claim often used to justify separation. But if one was to go on commitment to the cause alone, then many other peoples – Ulster Catholics, Basques, Bosnian Serbs, Karabagh Armenians or Kurds – would have a much better claim. No one is backing their independence just yet!

From a Realpolitik standpoint, Kosovo’s independence would be both inevitable – as nothing but a stronger military might can stop it – and counterproductive, as it would antagonize the hub of the Balkans and lock the region into constant conflict. Current decision-makers, however, ignore real-political analysis in favor of a more ephemeral ideology of “end of history” – an eerie dialectic that sees capitalist democracy as the inevitably triumphant force in the world that will rule forever. A truly messianic vision, indeed. But historical experience teaches otherwise.

Sooner or later, the castle must either come back to the ground, or fly into the heavens.

And while NATO military might and Albanian obstinacy are not to be scorned, it would be well to remember that the Serbs waited for 523 years before regaining Kosovo the first time. Why anyone would think they would accept another loss of Kosovo as final remains an unfathomable mystery.

Now let’s turn to argument that Kosovo Albanians deserve independence.

The right of self determination for peoples considering themselves as distinct national groups is and always should be recognized. No higher right can be substituted for the will of the ethnic or national community wishing to fulfill its destiny. World history has taught us endless lessons about the consequences of obstructing the desire of peoples for free expression and choosing their way of life. However two necessary conditions must be fulfilled to guarantee this inalienable right:

1) Not to cause injustice to others; and

2) Not to abuse this right for the sake of totalitarian ideologies.

Two Stories

The Ethnic Albanian separatists claim that as a “distinct” national community, they form a numeric majority in one of Serbia’s provinces, and thus they have the right to separate and create a new state.

The Serbian Government responds that this province is a geographical entity that is part of the national territory of the Serbian people. It argues that the ethnic Albanians have migrated into the territory and concentrated their settlement so that inside the province they now form a majority.

So far this is a classical case of ethnic conflict over land, although it presents its own special characteristics. Unlike many regimes in the Middle East which deny the cultural difference of their minorities, Serbia doesn’t argue with the fact that Kosovo’s Albanians are distinct from the Serbian cultural identity. The crisis is rather about the right of this minority (within Serbia as a whole) to separate on the ground that in one province of that state (Kosovo), it constitute a majority. Here is the heart of the matter, but unfortunately this classical ethno-crisis was transformed into a conflict affecting justice to others and has been manipulated by international radical ideologies.

The first striking injustice in treatment is clearly seen inside what was formerly the Yugoslav Federation. The bloody wars of the 1990s ended with geopolitical realities that affect the question of Kosovo today. While the independence of Slovenia from the Yugoslav Federation, following the brief Ten Day War, went somewhat smoothly for lack of a “minority question,” the separation of Croatia and Bosnia caused bloody wars, massacres and ethnic cleansing.

The international community, led by the US and Western Europe, immediately recognized the right of separation for the two breakaway Republics, but at the same time opposed the same right for self-determination for the Serbian national minorities within these two newly recognized countries. The following question has never been answered:

Why can Croats and Muslims separate from Yugoslavia while Serbs cannot implement that same right toward Croatia and Bosnia?

Each side will say their cause is more legitimate than the others but this doesn’t supply any solutions.

The end result was that with the help of the West in 1995, both Republics separated and formed new states and were accepted in the United Nations. The Serbs inside Bosnia, forming about 31 percent of the country, were denied a state of their own.

In 1999, ethnic Albanians, who are 14 percent of Serbia (but a majority in Kosovo Province), called for forming a state of their own. Strangely the United States and Western Europe rushed to accept statehood for a group (Albanians) accounting for 14% of a country (Serbia) but rejected the same treatment for another group (Serbs) which accounts for 31% of another country (Muslim Bosnia).

The ethnic Albanians are indeed a numeric majority in the province they claim, but so are the Serbs in the Province/Republic they’ve claimed in Bosnia. Hence according to the fundamental principle of equal treatment, if the Albanians of Kosovo are to be granted self determination, the Serbs of Bosnia should be granted the same right. Such an equation would be fair and would open a path for global reconciliation in the Balkans.

In addition to equal treatment for Serbs and non-Serbs, minorities on both sides should be protected under international law. The non-Serbs in the “Republika-Serpska” should be granted their fundamental rights and the same principle should be applied to the Serbs inside Kosovo. If ethnic enclaves exist and refuse to separate from their ethnic kin, they should be given the option of forming administrative areas linked to the original nation state of their choice. For if self-determination is to be applied to the separating entity, the same principle must be applied to smaller enclaves who wish to separate from the separating provinces.

In the case of Kosovo, if a global Balkans agreement is reached (including independence for the Republika-Serpska) ethnic Albanians should accept that the ethnic Serbian populations also can secede from them and choose their destiny. Furthermore all historic places with great value to all parties must be protected by international law and the UN.

So why is it that Washington’s and Brussels’ policies are applied unfairly in this particular crisis? Why is it that the US seems to side automatically against one particular group regardless of their claims? In Bosnia the Serbs were denied separation from the Bosnian Muslims and in Kosovo the Serbs are being forced to accept separation of the Albanian Muslims.

The Serbs have a special problem: they are dealing with “Islamic claims”, or technically “claims of Muslims”. Statements made by US legislators arguing that helping in the formation of a Muslim state in Europe would send a positive message to the Muslim world and serve America’s image in the War on Terror make this point Such assertions, in addition of being legally unfounded, are also dangerous.

There is no basis in modern international law for forming states to satisfy a religious bloc of states. This strange logic, instead of weakening the Jihadist view of the world, would further strengthen al Qaeda and its ilk. The United States is not the Byzantine Empire, nor is the Organization of the Islamic Conference a Caliphate, and they should not behave as if they were.

If the ethnic Albanians have the right of self-determination in Kosovo, it should be granted fully under international law, not as a result of PR attempts to mollify a virtual Caliphate. These pre-9/11 attitudes can be very dangerous. Linking partitions and breakups of countries to American success in rallying Muslim diplomatic support could bring great harm elsewhere around the world.

Will the US also please the Wahhabis by forcing India to relinquish Kashmir, the Philippines to let go of Mindanao, Russia to cut Chechnya loose, Cyprus to abandon its Turkish north and last but not least, Israel to slice out half of the Galilee to its own Muslim minority?

Playing this Jihadi-inspired card would ultimately strengthen al Qaeda’s lexicon of “Islamic causes” at the expense of potential legitimate causes for ethnic minorities, including those who happen to be of Muslim background. Western gaming of these crises with an Islamic dimension, including Kosovo, can only backfire and cause even more tension.

If Washington initiates a world-religious parameter on the issue of Kosovo, it will open a Pandora’s Box worldwide. Other enclaves forming in Europe would demand secession within existing liberal democracies based on their majority status in many suburbs of big cities, such as the recently riot-torn Parisian banlieues. Will the US press a future French (or German, Dutch or British) heads of state to concede secessions on their own soil to please Riyadh, Khartoum or eventually Tehran?

This logic applied in Kosovo will serve as a precedent to be applied to force Sharia enclaves everywhere else in the West and beyond. The leaders of any ethnic minority, including the Kosovars themselves, should not allow their cause to be seized by the Wahhabis or catered-to by Western politicians seeking accommodation with them. It is too dangerous for everyone.

On a much greater scale, the Kosovo separatist crisis opens the floodgates for rethinking the whole international process of granting full independence to minorities and ethno-national groups seeking breakups. This is not only one of the oldest problems in international politics, it is also the most abused and dangerous to peace and progress.

The principle should always remain a relentless support for self determination, a value honored by Woodrow Wilson, and later recognized by the UN Charter’s Chapter One, second paragraph. There should not be a return to the times of oppression and obstruction in this early stage of the 21st century.

But selectiveness among favored and dis-favored groups would be damaging and hurtful to the principle. Indeed, why would Kosovo separation be accepted and not the Republika Serpska? In addition to the cases I mentioned earlier, think also of southern Sudan, Darfur, Algeria’s Berbers, Biafra, the Sahara, southern Thailand, China’s Uighur, the Maluku and Celebes islands in Indonesia, Sri Lanka’s Tamils, Ahwaz Arabs in Iran, the Kurds of Turkey, Chechnya and Dagestan, and a plethora of other potential crisis. But also think of Northern Ireland, Corsica, the Basques, the Belgian linguistic conflict, the Scots in Western Europe.

On the Eastern side of the continent no country is spared: Germans in Poland, Poles in Ukraine and Russia, Russians in the Baltic countries, Moldova, Rumania’s Hungarians, Bulgaria’s Turks and many other ethnic labyrinths. Even in the Americas, think of Quebec, Chiapas and the multiple ideological claims over the Southwestern parts of the US.

In short, Kosovo is not the first, nor would it be the last separatist phenomenon to be addressed. But it certainly could become the beginning of a new era, where rights would be granted equally among seekers of self determination if addressed fairly, equally and smartly.

The United States and Western Europe must avoid is unevenly forcing Serbia to accept a territorial loss without reshaping the entire peace process in the former Yugoslavia in a way to address the ethnic rights of all groups and in a manner to contain the rise of future Jihadism in several zones backed by Western policies. To be successful, the following are few guidelines:

1) Equate self determination for the Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo with self determination for the Serbs in Bosnia. Grant equal rights to both communities, from the farthest autonomy possible to potential independence, on the basis of negotiations and mutual referenda. If Kosovo’s Albanians will reach statehood so should Bosnia’s Serbs.

2) Insure internationally protected rights to non-Albanian minorities in Kosovo, including a reciprocal right of self-determination.

The crisis of Kosovo is a crossroads with two directions. Either the Western alliance will acquiesce to wrong policies and end up being responsible for future ethnic violence and the spread of Jihadi forces in the region; or a new democracy alliance would become enlightened enough to find the appropriate solutions to all ethnic crisis in the former Yugoslavia on the one hand and stop the advancing Jihadi tentacles from reaching the belly of southern Europe.

May 19, 2008 - 3:34 pm 62. DianaL:

MikeL-The issue was self-determination or the inviability of borders. Kosovo was not unique; if the solution was independence, then questions remained about the Serbs in Republika Srpska in Bosnia, the Albanians in Macedonia, Montenegro, or Greece. Lord Russell-Johnston had said ten years ago that he favored independence for Kosovo, so your argument is nothing new.

Albanian Muslims in Serbian Kosovo province demanded independence before Slobodan Milošević came on the scene! Before 1999, Serbs had formed a majority in Kosovo, but as a consequence of ethnic cleansing they were now in a minority. The rapporteur was telling a state to accept a division of itself, but how would he have reacted if somebody had proposed independence for Northern Ireland, Catalonia, Chechnya, South Ossetia or Nagorno-Karabakh? If, in a hundred years’ time, Albanians were the majority in Strasbourg, should Strasbourg become an Albanian state?

The Albanians say they were treated like second-class citizens in Yugoslavia with the best jobs and most powerful positions reserved for Serbs.There is no support among them for a return to rule from Serbia, and they have the sympathy of Western powers who believe Serbia forfeited its moral right to govern the province with its brutal handling of the 1998 revolt.

But since 1999, acts of violent revenge against Serbs and other non-Albanians and a strain of extremism apparently bent on driving them out of Kosovo have tarnished the Albanian cause.

Rushing to grant Kosovo independence would be to “succumb to the blackmail of those who argue that violence will follow if their demands are not met.

Again you claim Serbia lost it’s moral right to govern Kosovo, by the same token Albanians in Kosovo lost that right too.For the past eight years, since June 1999, these principles and ethical norms have been expelled from Kosovo and Metohija, despite of the presence of the international community as represented by KFOR, UNMIK, the OSCE, as well as other international institutions and organizations.

Innumerable crimes have been committed in Kosovo and Metohijia over these eight years: Ethnic cleansing, by expelling 250.000 Serbs and members of other non-Albanian communities — Roma, Ashkali, Egyptians, Jews … ; the killing of innocent civilians (roughly 1.300), from infants to 90-year old men and women; the abduction of more than 1.000 persons whose fate remains unknown this day; the razing of hundreds of villages to the ground; reducing tens of thousands of houses to ashes, sacking and brutally usurpating them;burning down 150 churches and monasteries, devastating and vandalizing them. You shall find a complete account in “Kosovo Crucified” and “The March Pogrom”). Not even the dead could rest in peace. Many graves have been vandalized, the tombstones destroyed, the graves dug open and the remains scattered.

These crimes have reached their culmination in an atrocious pogrom perpetrated by more than 50.000 Albanian extremists against the Serbs and other non-Albanians on the 17 th and the 18th of March of 2004.

One third of the Serbs who had been living in Kosovo and Metohija prior to 1999, and who continue to live here, has entered their eighth year of living in ghettos, camps, enclaves surrounded by barbed wire. These people are completely deprived of all of their human rights: The right to life, the right to free movement, the freedom of religion and worship (visiting places of worship, cemetaries), the right to work (even working their own fields), the right to normal health care, the education of their children, and so on.
The Serbian province of Kosovo has been ethnically cleansed from Serbs Roma and other non-Albanians while 150 churches and many medieval monasteries have been destroyed during 10 years of U.N. governance!

the interim Albanian government often turned a blind eye to reprisal attacks against Kosovo Serb civilians (often allegedly by KLA splinter groups) and watched with indifference as Serbs, Roma and other minorities were expelled, trapped and harassed in enclaves. Now Pristina claims the moral high ground, with Agim Ceku calling on the international community to stand up to Serbian extremists to protect Kosovo’s freedom.
Pristina will get nowhere by insisting on the purity of its moral position while remaining blind to the sins of the KLA or to the needs of its most vulnerable!

Milosevic as well as his era is gone . Serbian democratically elected pro-EU, post Milosevic government offered Albanians in Kosovo self-rule ,the broadest possible autonomy similar to Hong Kong’s status within China or Oland Islands .One country, two systems” kind of policy. But Kosovo Albanians Took No Part in Negotiations, Passively Waiting for what they were Promised by Western Sponsors.It all boiled down to Serbs constantly offering new models, showing the kind of flexibility which is without precedent, and offering the most one country can offer — everything but independence, while the Albanian separatists simply ignored all of it.

Behind almost all these Western pledges that Kosovo will be independent even contrary to the will of the United Nations lies the theory that the Albanians will be pleased, that the Serbs will swallow the bitter pill, and that the Western Balkans’ ‘Euro-Atlantic integrations’ will receive new impetus and move forward at a faster pace.

Rather than the multiethnic democracy U.S. President Bill Clinton invoked on the day he dispatched the bombers, Kosovo is nowadays one of the most ethnically pure regions in Europe. I repeat yet AGAIN, hundreds of Serb medieval monasteries, churches and cemeteries have been desecrated, dynamited, burned or razed to the ground. The few Serbs left in Albanian-majority areas live in NATO-guarded enclaves, fearful for their lives. Lawlessness is pervasive, crime is rampant, intolerance is the norm. Compared to Kosovo, post-Milosevic Serbia is a multiethnic paradise.

Why, then, the unseemly rush to grant Kosovo independence? Serbs are told “Milosevic lost Kosovo”, and that they should blame him for the fate of the thousands and thousands of our co-nationals who have been cleansed from the mythical “old Serbia.” But Milosevic is six feet under, and in Belgrade Serbs feel as if they’re witnessing the resurgence of the notion of “fundamentally evil” groups. If the Serbs’ repression of Albanians in the 1990s lost them the right to govern Kosovo, as we were repeatedly told while NATO bombs rained on our heads, surely the Albanians lost political and moral high ground through ruthless discrimination against Serbs, Roma and other minorities?

Whatever Milosevic’s transgressions, the Albanians’ radical nationalism should neither have been encouraged nor rewarded in Kosovo

May 19, 2008 - 4:28 pm 63. Incorrigible:

Schwartz’s comments ( Other Albanian-supporters on PajamasMedia) on Kosovo are immoral. More than 40% of the Albanians in
Kosovo are illegal aliens who cross the border from Albania into Kosovo as
easily as Mexicans cross our border each night in San Diego California.
Granting Albanians superior rights over the 350,000 Serbian citizens whom they
have successfully cleansed shows the contempt Schwartz and his supporters here have for international law and equal human rights.

I remind this political opportunist that during the 1999 NATO bombing over
90,000 Albanians fled to Belgrade… into the arms of their Serbian enemies?

The only time Albanians “will no longer treat the Serbs as a threat” is when there is not a single Serb or a single Serbian church left standing and a total ethnic cleansing has been accomplished in Kosovo.

Serbs were the majority (80 percent) in Kosovo for a thousand years and built
more than 1,500 churches and monasteries. Serbia was internationally recognized
as a nation at The Congress of Berlin in 1878 and it was ONLY Serbia who gave
up her statehood to form Yugoslavia with her former Slovene and Croat enemies
in WWI. A good reason why the new nation was called The Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes in 1918.
When that country was formed the Albanians
represented less than 5% of the population according to numerous historical
documents. It was also a time when the nation of Albania was formed, do we really need two Albanian nations in the heart of Europe or all we all pretending, like Schwartz, that a “Greater Albania” is not the end game here?

In my lifetime, Serbs have become a minority in Kosovo, starting with the
Holocaust under Benito Mussolini when the liquidation of Serbs reduced their
numbers to 45 percent. After the war, Croat Coomunist leader Broz Tito forbade the 155,000 ethnically cleansed Serbs from returning to Kosovo, giving their land to Albanian Nazis thereby reducing Serbs to 39 percent.

When the dictator Tito granted Albanian “autonomy” in 1974, the Serbian language was banned and 100,000 Serbs lost their jobs—in the process over 2 million books on Serbian religion, history and music were burned—more
than 120,000 Serbs were cleansed as Serbian farms were burned and Serbian girls
and nuns were raped, reducing the Serbs to 29 percent. Just seven years ago the Serbs represented 21% of Kosovo, how shocking that some pro-Albanians here acknowledge
that Serbs are now “6%” but looks the other way as to why they suddenly dropped to this appalling level. It is apparent that some of you do not believe Serbs are entitled to equal human rights or justice.

If the 350,000 recently cleansed Serbs and the 90,000 non-Albanian minorities were allowed to return to Kosovo and the 40 percent undocumented Albanians were forced to go back to where they came from, there would not be this fictitious “90 percent Albanian” population to seek independence. It is more
than clear that there is a “Greater Albania” at work here as the Albanians have already exposed their hand in wanting other parts of Serbia,Montenegro, Macedonia and northern Greece where large minorities of Albanians
live.

But Kosovo is not just about population count, it is about the “jihad” taking place in the Balkans. Pro-Albanians here fail to mention the dozens of new Islamic mosques that have been built in Kosovo including the
Osama bin Laden Mosque. I wonder what the attitude will be once Serbia is totally
destroyed and the Muslims start coveting Bulgarian territory?

P.S. I found this article about Albanian movement for unification!

Albanians form “movement for unification”
B92 ^ | May 17, 2008

“PRIŠTINA — A movement whose goal is the unification of “all Albanian territories” was founded in Priština today.

The organization, dubbed Movement for Unification, also appointed Avni Klinaku as president.

“The main goal of this party is the unification of Albanian territories into one country and the resolution of the social problems of the citizens of Kosovo,” Klinaku told the founding assembly.

Klinaku was also the founder of the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo, an organization which was one of the founders of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA.”

Mr.Bush what say you? It is more than clear that there is a “Greater Albania” at work ?

May 19, 2008 - 7:14 pm 64. MikeL:

The current slaughter in the former Yugoslavia began under the sign of a myth about a battle fought 600 years ago. In 1389 at the Battle of Kosovo Field a multinational Christian force was defeated by its Ottoman foe. This was part of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire that eventually spent itself at the gates of Vienna some three centuries later. What actually happened in the Battle of Kosovo is a matter of dispute. But its importance to all the people of the region is undeniable: Bosnians, Serbs and Albanians all commemorate it in their folk songs. Yet it was only the Serbs who turned the defeat on Kosovo Field into a powerful national myth.

This happened in the second half of the nineteenth century when Serbia became an internationally recognized kingdom and was able to contemplate the ‘liberation of ancestral lands’ – the sandjak of Novi Pazar, Kosovo, Macedonia – from Ottoman rule. Since much of this territory was inhabited by non-Serbs, it was necessary to reinterpret the Kosovo battle as an exclusively Ottoman-Serb affair. The aim was to present the Albanians in particular, ethnically dominant throughout the Kosovo region, as usurpers of Serbian historic territory. They were portrayed as a ‘people without history’: a barbarian tribe genetically incapable of cultural or political development. Serb-Albanian conflict was thus built into the very foundation of the Kosovo myth. Indeed, from its early days the Serbian state practised a policy of mass expulsion and/or forced assimilation of non-Serb populations, thereby turning an ethnically heterogeneous region into a homogeneous Serb one.

The Kosovo myth is a textbook case of how national history is often reinvented in response to contemporary political needs. It implies that Serbs were the original masters of this part of the Balkans and that their great empire (itself actually fleeting and multinational in character) was extinguished on Kosovo Field. The reconquest of Kosovo, by implication, was not just a matter of revenge for the past, but a precondition for the very existence of the Serbs as a free people.1

The mythical reworking of the Kosovo battle also ignored the fact that the Ottoman side included the Sultan’s Christian vassals, some of them ethnically Serb – the conflict was presented instead as one between Christianity and Islam. And the strongly religious character of the Kosovo myth is what separates it from other national myths developed in the region during the nineteenth century.

According to the ‘classic’ Serb version, the defeat on Kosovo Field had a spiritual cause: Tsar Lazar’s conscious preference for a ‘heavenly’ rather than an ‘earthly’ empire. His choice made the Serbs by extension into a ‘heavenly’ people, a people chosen by God. The Serbian Orthodox Church survived the ensuing centuries as the only Serb national institution in both Ottoman and Habsburg lands. Other key components of national integration – such as codification of the vernacular as the printed language, or political independence – were acquired by the Serb nation only in the nineteenth century.

The Serbian Church was thus a state in embryo – a spiritual state in anticipation of a secular one. Whereas in Russia the church always remained subordinated to the secular authorities, in the Serbian case the church substituted for the state, preparing the ground for its eventual rebirth. When the multifaith state of Yugoslavia came into existence at the end of World War One the Church remained the most jealous guardian of Serb state and nation, imparting a strongly mystical dimension to Serb nationalism that has even survived modernization. It is here that critical intellectuals in present-day Serbia have found the seeds of Serb fascism.

Yugoslav nationalism took over the spiritual aspect of the Kosovo myth. Yugoslav nationalists hailed the creation of the south Slav state as an historic revenge against the original defeat in Kosovo and as an affirmation of the state’s divine origin. Here is how the prominent sculptor Ivan Mostrovic, ironically a Croat, rendered the Kosovo myth way back in 1915: ‘Kosovo is a crown of thorns borne by the suffering Yugoslav nation… There, on Kosovo, its Tsar spoke to God the night before the battle and chose the heavenly kingdom as the only eternal empire, thus making himself and hence also his people eternal… Only one soldier of this holy army remained, his eyes gouged out by the Turks. This farsighted blind gusle-player… set off among his enslaved people, preaching to them that justice is gained not by arms but by sacrifice and repentance… and the whole of the Yugoslav nation has become Tsar Lazar’s soldiers.’2

In 1986, a year before Slobodan Milosevic came to power, the Kosovo myth resurfaced to mobilize Serbs for an all-out conflict with other Yugoslavs. Tsar Lazar’s bones were dug up and carried in procession through the cities and villages of Serbia, where they were waited upon by Communist functionaries. Several hundred prominent intellectuals signed an anti-Albanian petition, in which the aggressive content of the Kosovo myth was revealed to the full. The Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences produced a notorious memorandum, which in essence was nothing but a revamped version of the myth. It was a call to arms against the racial Other – the Albanian Barbarian, the Muslim Infidel, the Ustasha Croat, the Slovene Servant of Austria, the Turncoat Montenegrin – behind whom stood ‘century-old’ enemies such as the Vatican, Lenin with his policy of national equality and of course the ‘decadent’ West. All were charged with the attempted murder of the Serbs: genocide became the most frequently used word in Greater Serbian agitprop.

The crowning event was a mass rally organized in June 1989 to celebrate the 600th anniversary of Kosovo Field and held on the original site of the battle. Milosevic, flanked by generals dressed in the uniforms of the Yugoslav People’s Army – an army born in a national liberation war meant to liberate Serbs and Yugoslavs from the Kosovo curse – announced his readiness for war against other Yugoslavs.

In this latest attempt to ‘right the wrongs of Kosovo’ the Serbian state started to prepare its army and its people for a war of territorial aggrandisement. Some of its conquests took place even before the actual war began, while Yugoslavia was still formally in place. Between 1987 and 1990 Serbia imposed its rule on three of the other seven members of the Yugoslav Federation: Vojvodina, Montenegro and Kosovo. As for the rest, Slovenia was attacked frontally in June 1991, Croatia in August of the same year, Bosnia-Herzegovina in April 1992. Only Macedonia has so far escaped unscathed. Serbia’s wars in Croatia and Bosnia quickly revealed its true aims: the destruction of these states and the expulsion of all non-Serbs (‘ethnic cleansing’) from conquered territory. The original charge that the Other was intent on destroying Serbdom turned out to be a simple case of displacement – an outward projection of the government’s own murderous designs.

This is a war driven by obsession not reason. Two years after its inception it has lost all meaning beyond its self-perpetuation. What will follow, even in the event of victory? This is a question to which the Serbian regime has no answer. Winning has become as dangerous for it as losing. Six centuries after Kosovo, Serbia is fighting another lost war. The Kosovo myth has turned out to be not just an irresponsible adventure, but the nemesis of modern Serbia. In the view of the democratic opposition, the war amounts to Serbia’s historic defeat. As Bogdan Bogdanovic, ex-mayor of Belgrade and an early opponent of Milosevic, said in the summer of 1991: ‘Serbia has lost this war. When I say “this war”, I am thinking not only of the current one, but of all our modern wars and our entire modern history… A feeling of failure lies at the very heart of Serb nationalism… This history gambled away – a century and a half gambled away – is what can be described as a lost war.’

May 19, 2008 - 9:21 pm 65. Astrit:

There are a number of historic, political and legal arguments and facts that convincingly speak that Kosovo was occupied by Serbia in an unlawful manner, which is why Albanians, as a majority population in Kosovo, should enjoy the right to self-determination, whether that is as a majority population in an individualized territory or as their national right.

Firstly, given that Kosovo was annexed by Serbia in an unlawful manner Kosovo’s independence will in no way be in contradiction with international law. On the contrary, Kosovo independence even before being qualified as a “classic case of secession from a sovereign state”, as Serbs argue, should be considered as “annulment of an unlawful annexation.”

In fact it was Serbia that acted in contradiction with international law in 1912 when it annexed Kosovo through military occupation during Balkan nations wars against Ottoman Empire and its withdrawal from the region, even though Kosovo had its historic and ethnic identity, accompanied by its right to liberation, whether that was from the Ottoman occupation (1912) or Fascist occupation (1944), and in spite of its geographical demographic and cultural integrity.

Consequently, instead of admitting its unlawful act, which committed while violating international law in a bold manner, Serbia is now using an argument which is scientifically and historically unsustainable, namely to “preserve its sovereignty over Kosovo”, which Serbia held in an unlawful manner for a long period of time without ever asking the majority population of Kosovo or having their consent.

Kosovo was occupied during Balkan wars (1912-1913) in contradiction with the aspiration of the Albanians, expressed during their national liberation movement 1878-1912. In this manner Serbia, in spite of getting the “international legitimacy” for the occupation of Kosovo, in no way was able to justify the legitimacy of its act. In addition to this, Serbian possessive attitudes towards Kosovo which refer to history are unfounded.

Firstly they are unfounded in its methodological qualification of the national character of a territory because if history is to be taken as a criteria, in light of contemporary national-territorial realities, Hungary has the right to the Panonic part of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Hungary would argue about their rights over Belgrade, Greece would claim a right over Istanbul, Albania over Janina, Mexico over Florida and California, Sweden over Finland and Norway, Germany over Shlezi and Sudet regions, Denmark over Shlezivik, Iraq over Kuwait etc. Secondly, Serbia’s possessive attitudes towards Kosovo are unfounded in the aspect of material truth, since Kosovo, in spite of allegations of such nature “in neither a cradle of Serbian nation, nor of Serbian state”. Finally, imperialistic ambitions with “historic rights” could not be defended by England, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, which, as it is known “with centuries held many nations under their occupation. Therefore “with the destruction of colonial empires over 120 new states were created”. Serbia was “under the occupation of Ottoman Empire for over five centuries (1389-1878). And it was not only Serbia, Albanian territories as well.

Spain “had conquered all Latin America in the beginning of XVI century. Neither do “Russians ever mention their historic rights over Ukraine”. Historic arguments speak very clearly that “Serbs were placed in Kosovo with their expansion under the rule of Nemanjics’”.

As a result of occupations during the Ottoman Empire, many ethnic minorities, such as Serbs, Turks and Roma, were placed in the ethnic Albanian territories. The Serbian minority was greatly expanded with the violent colonization that occurred between two world wars; nevertheless their percentage never exceeded 10% of the overall population. On the basis of these facts the conclusion is very clear: it was in deed the Serbian aggression, occupation and annexation of Kosovo that violated the international law and not otherwise, namely that Kosovo independence would violate international law.

History is a witness of denationalization policies; of gross crimes against Albanians during 1912-1918; for genocidal Serbian plans for the extermination of Albanians; for the deportation of Albanians in Turkey and for confiscation the lands of the population and its colonization with Serbs and Montenegrins. The time period between February 1998 and June 10, 1999 only exceeded these special cases and took the gravity of a general genocide of the Serbian regime against Albanians.

Secondly, the decision for Kosovo’s future cannot ignore the constitutional position of Kosovo in former Yugoslavia although Kosovo did not enjoy the status of a republic. However, most importantly, Kosovo was a constitute part of former Yugoslavia with a defined territory and borders, which could not be changed without its consent. Kosovo was directly represented in the former Yugoslav federation same as the other republics, not through Serbia because we would create a paradox as in that case Serbia would have three votes in the Federation, while the other units would have only one vote. With its political-territorial identities, its constitution, Kosovo was a federally constitute unit of the multinational federation of Yugoslavia.

That Kosovo was not part of Serbia can be proven by the following historical and political facts: Kosovo was not part of the independent sovereign state of Serbia with its international personality recognized in the Berlin Congress (1878); Kosovo was not part of Serbia in the Second AVNOJ Congress (1943); Kosovo was not part of Serbia during its establishment as a federal unit in the Anti-Fascist Popular Liberation Council (1944); Kosovo was not part of Serbia in the structure of Constitutional Assembly of Yugoslavia when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was founded (1945). Kosovo was not included in the sovereign Serbia, except in federal Serbia within federal Yugoslavia, during the military occupation of Kosovo (1945).

Finally it is worth mentioning that the abolishment of Kosovo’s autonomy with the amendments in the Constitution of Serbia, an act, which occurred on March 28 1989, was done in an unlawful manner. Even if we didn’t have the essential deficiencies regarding the declaration in the Kosovo Assembly, deficiencies that are proven, “lack of free will”, as a result of extraordinary political pressures, makes the declaration for constitutional amendments unconstitutional.

Thirdly, the future of Kosovo cannot be compared with secessions in some other parts of the world. The states that remain reserved towards Kosovo independence should be mindful of this fact. They should instead look and find the “common ground” between Kosovo and certain other countries of the world, which have agreed to the removal of sovereignty over other territories. In this regard, the relations between Kosovo and Serbia are comparable with the relations of Indonesia and East Timor. As it is well known, East Timor was occupied and annexed by Indonesia in 1975, contrary to the will of Portugal as the external sovereign, a fact which makes the annexation of Indonesia unlawful. In 1988 Indonesian government recognized the right to self-determination to the East Timor people. Singapore is another example that should be taken under consideration. This country was partitioned from Malaysia in 1965. The example of Eritrea is also meaningful for Kosovo. It was the Ethiopian government that recognized the right to self-determination to Eritrea in 1991. The case of Kosovo is also similar to the case of Namibia. Partition of Namibia from South Africa and its independence occurred in 1991.

Therefore Kosovo’s independence should not be compared with secession of territories that were not annexed in a unilateral manner (against the will of the people of the original sovereigns), which joined existing states but that they are operating in territories that were part of these states at the time when they were established. In this way even the separatist movements in Transdnjestrovle (Moldavia), in Southern Osetia and Abkazia (Georgia) that do not have the ethnic basis that Kosovo has and which didn’t have an autonomous or federal status at the time of dissolution of former Soviet Union as Kosovo had at the time of dissolution of former Yugoslavia. Finally, Kosovo Albanians are not comparable with Catalonians, Scots, Wellsians, Basks or Corsicans… because they did not face a massive deportation from the states, which controlled them.

Fourthly, the existence of Albania as an Albanian state cannot hinder the independence and sovereignty for Kosovo, because as we can recall from history neither did the status of Romania hinder the independence of Moldavia nor did the existence of France hindered the establishment of the canton-state of Switzerland. Finally, even if Kosovo was constituted as an Albanian state in the Balkans, this would be a handicap rather than an advantage of Albanian population in the Balkans. Consequently Kosovo fulfills all the criteria for being an independent and sovereign state. If it is about the size of the territory, 34 states with smaller territory are members of the UN. If it is about the population, 58 states with a smaller number of population are members of the UN. If it is for the acceptance or not of new states in the UN, it should be noted that between 1990 and 2002, UN has accepted 34 new member states. The proverb that “wherever we have facts, words become unnecessary” is not meaningless.

On the basis of these arguments and facts emphasized, in broad lines, the new political legal and international status of Kosovo should be the equivalent, without any doubt, with independence and sovereignty with internationally recognized personality in all of its territory, in the manner to ensure the consistent enforcement of law, including the northern part of Kosovo and the so-called municipalities with Serbian majority, which in the proposal of Ambassador Martti Ahtisari have gained significant competencies in the name of an asymmetric territorial and ethnic based decentralization, which in spite of its well intentions threatens the future of Kosovo.

Serbian claims for the creation of two entities or for partitioning of Kosovo are unacceptable for Kosovo. These claims ignore the fact of expressively different demographic and national quantum and proportions. In the end we would like to emphasize the fact that Kosovo is not an ethnically diversifiable territory of an enclave character. Therefore the violent surrounding of one part of Kosovo’s territory, in spite of painful compromises that Kosovo delegation agreed to with decentralization, protective zones around Serbian heritage sites and favorable legislative procedures for minorities would directly contradict the derivative political entity of that territory and would not be in accordance with it.

It is about time that Kosovo gets out from the “closed circle” in which it was for so many years. Kosovo is awaiting a new resolution from the Security Council of UN, which should be characterized from:

Firstly, political, legal and international clarity regarding the status of Kosovo, which would prevent ambiguity in regard to it.

Secondly, full international personality which would enable Kosovo to seek membership in international mechanisms, including UN.

Thirdly, territorial integrity, which would ensure the extension of Kosovo governing institutions and consistent enforcement of the law in its entire territory.

Fourthly, functional state of Kosovo, which would prevent its possible invalidation.

May 19, 2008 - 9:26 pm 66. Astrit:

‘Kosovo is Serbia’, ‘Ask any historian’ read the unlikely placards, waved by angry Serb demonstrators in Brussels on Sunday. This is rather flattering for historians: we don’t often get asked to adjudicate. It does not, however, follow that any historian would agree, not least because historians do not use this sort of eternal present tense.

History, for the Serbs, started in the early 7th century, when they settled in the Balkans. Their power base was outside Kosovo, which they fully conquered in the early 13th, so the claim that Kosovo was the ‘cradle’ of the Serbs is untrue.

What is true is that they ruled Kosovo for about 250 years, until the final Ottoman takeover in the mid-15th century. Churches and monasteries remain from that period, but there is little or no more continuity between the medieval Serbian state and today’s Serbia than there is between the Byzantine Empire and Greece.

Kosovo remained Ottoman territory until it was conquered by Serbian forces in 1912. Serbs would say ‘liberated’; but even their own estimates put the Orthodox Serb population at less than 25%. The majority population was Albanian, and did not welcome Serb rule, so ‘conquered’ seems the right word.

But legally, Kosovo was not incorporated into the Serbian kingdom in 1912; it remained occupied territory until some time after 1918. Then, finally, it was incorporated, not into a Serbian state, but into a Yugoslav one. And with one big interruption (the second world war) it remained part of some sort of Yugoslav state until June 2006.

Until the destruction of the old federal Yugoslavia by Milosevic, Kosovo had a dual status. It was called a part of Serbia; but it was also called a unit of the federation. In all practical ways, the latter sense prevailed: Kosovo had its own parliament and government, and was directly represented at the federal level, alongside Serbia. It was, in fact, one of the eight units of the federal system.

Almost all the other units have now become independent states. Historically, the independence of Kosovo just completes that process. Therefore, Kosovo has become an ex-Yugoslav state, as any historian could tell you.

May 19, 2008 - 9:34 pm 67. DianaL:

I forget to address Killing of Djindjic and claim that somehow Albanian mafia is the same as Serbian. First of all around 1000 people have been arrested in relation to Djindjic’s killing .It clearly shows the fact that Government and all others CONDEMN the attack and that priority is given to find the attackers! It’s called the rule of law, Serbia adheres too.

In its latest March 19 issue, Brussels weekly TeleMoustique offers an exclusive dossier about the mafia in Belgium where, according to the Belgian police department specialized for Albanian organized crime, Albanian mafia clans dominate, leading in the illegal trade, including human trafficking and the sale of cocaine and heroin.

The Albanian gangs are spread throughout the Europe, the report says, adding that Albanian brutality and networks of prostitution rings have made them notorious and dominant in the human trafficking in the West.

Belgium is regarded as the most important country in the Albanian human trafficking, being the last port before the entry to Great Britain, considered the “El Dorado of the illegal immigration”.

It is estimated that up to 100,000 illegal immigrants have been transferred to Belgium by the Albanians, while some observers warn that this number represents the illegal immigrants in Brussels alone, the city with some 1M residents, the report claims.

Albanian Clans Use Kosovo Province to Launder the Prostitution/Drugs Cash
Apart from human trafficking, Albanian clans are most involved in the drug trafficking—mainly cocaine and heroin—and thefts.

According to the TeleMoustique report, one of Albanian ’specialties’ remains banditry, ranging from the cigarette theft on the gas stations, store thefts to the robberies of the trucks transporting goods, Belgian police commissar assigned to the department of Albanian organized crime said.

In the field of prostitution, Albanian clans have advanced to a new stage, becoming the ones who are now renting out the bars and buildings to Bulgarians for prostitution brothels.

The same inspector revealed that they are now witnessing massive laundering of the moneys Albanians are making through the organized crime in the Western Europe. Belgian police has found the Albanian mafia is most often sending this money by other expats to Albania and Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija, to be “invested” in the building of houses and gas pumps.

Btw, CNSNews.com reported back in 2005,Following five years of United Nations control and billions of dollars of international aid, Kosovo is a lawless region “owned” by the Albanian mafia. It is characterized by continuing ethnic cleansing and subject to increasing infiltration by al-Qaida-linked Muslim jihadists, according to a whistleblower.

First of all, relays the IHT:

“‘We are seeing a terrorist threat that keeps changing,’ Pierre de Bousquet, the head of France’s domestic intelligence service, said in an interview in Paris. ‘Often the groups are not homogenous, but a variety of blends.

“‘Hard-core Islamists are mixing with petty criminals. People of different backgrounds and nationalities are working together. Some are European-born or have dual nationalities that make it easier for them to travel. The networks are much less structured than we used to believe. Maybe it’s the mosque that brings them together, maybe it’s prison, maybe it’s the neighborhood. And that makes it much more difficult to identify them and uproot them.’”

As usual, what is news to Western Europe has long been known here. Yet a jittery “international community” has largely ignored it, being eager not to rock the boat of alleged ethnic “confidence-building” by pointing fingers. However, this public front does not mean that EU intelligence services have been ignoring the issue

IPS News reported on 25 July that in the wake of the London bombings, the powers that be are looking at the Balkans with renewed interest – and specifically, at the intersection of terrorism and crime here.

According to IPS, new CIA chief Porter Goss visited Sarajevo and Tirana last month, in the words of British military and defense analyst Paul Beaver, “to express grave concerns of Washington because of [these governments'] cooperation with radical Islamic groups.” According to Beaver, “a part of the investigation dealing with the London blasts is aimed at links between radical Islamists in Bosnia and Kosovo with international terrorist groups” in cahoots with powerful Albanian mafia clans. A Bosnian Serb news source added that Goss handed the government a list of 900 names of potential al-Qaeda-linked individuals.

The contention that the former Albanian paramilitary group that fought Milosevic in Kosovo, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA, UCK in Albanian) was connected with Islamic terrorist organizations has been fiercely contested. The pro-Albanian lobby denies it vehemently, whereas the pro-Serb faction upholds the thesis. The facts, however, lend at least partial support to the latter, for the period up to and during NATO’s 1999 intervention. The argument that the KLA has always been funded by organized crime is also beyond doubt.

Whether the post-1999 KLA continued to foster ties with foreign fundamentalists is a more difficult question. After all, with the war concluded victoriously, what use would the secular enough KLA have for such people?

After NATO, the KLA was officially “decommissioned.” A large number of these former “freedom fighters” were assimilated into the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), the heavy-handed police force that has served side-by-side with the UNMIK police. But behind it all were the powerful warlords from various clans, the most famous being Hasim Thaci and Ramush Haradinaj, the erstwhile Kosovo “prime minister” currently facing trial in the Hague. Even perceived peaceniks such as President Ibrahim Rugova were said to have their own “private armies,” or at least a very substantial security detail.

Still, as in every post-revolutionary situation, not everyone could be satisfied. Kosovo quickly descended into gangland murders as the numerous factions and interests staked out their turf. The events of 9/11, and the resulting crackdown on Islamic fundamentalists across the Balkans, only exacerbated this splintering process, which has heated up over the past few months.

By early 2002, the Albanian militant/criminal movement had divided into at least three different groups, says Thomas Gambill, a former OSCE security chief with responsibility for the eastern part of Kosovo. “You had the hardcore nationalists; the common criminals, and the Islamic fanatics,” says the burly, silver-haired former Marine, describing the groups he was tasked with monitoring.

A red-blooded American and spirited supporter of the “war on terror,” Gambill worked in Kosovo from October 1999 until a tense departure in spring 2004, not long after the March riots. Throughout his tenure, he believed that UNMIK was trying to avoid the escalating threat of terrorist attacks, the increasing chokehold of the Mafia, and their connections with Islamic fundamentalists. But when he started to blow the whistle, Gambill was ignored, then reprimanded. “They just didn’t want to hear it,” he says. “For them, I was a headache.”

When CNSNews.com with Tom Gambill in Pristina, just prior to his departure from the mission, he spoke with frustration of a series of e-mails he had sent back to a State Department staffer, which apparently had been received with little interest. Recently, Gambill repeated to me his claims that OSCE superiors had “warned” him repeatedly regarding his habit of “sending out ‘unsolicited’ reports to official sources concerning the Albanian extremists’ strategy, activity of the Islamic extremists, and other bits of information that I had confirmed concerning criminal activity.” While it’s difficult to prove, Gambill believes his whistleblowing had something to do with his OSCE contract not being extended.

Aside from fighting over the loot, the KLA split was also caused by candid assessments of what path would most satisfy common interests. But by early 2003, when the so-called Albanian National Army (ANA, or AKSH in Albanian) started up a high-profile series of bombings, the camps were defined.

The nationalists were split between diehard ANA supporters and those less keen on the “Greater Albania” project. Both sides were fearful of upsetting their relationship with the United States, and they sought to distance themselves from the Islamists, whom they correctly regarded as being unhelpful in respect to winning their ultimate goal of an independent Kosovo. The Islamists, however, were motivated by religion and supported by foreign governments and their NGOs – chiefly those of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Iran. Many of these charities were shut down in the aftermath of 9/11, though others hung on. The goal of these governments throughout has been to proliferate their own brands of Islam in Kosovo, under the guise of humanitarian relief and with the tangible result of mosque-building.

Both groups had a lot in common with the third, the armed common criminals; in fact, this bunch was spawned by and predated both (along with those recruits drawn by money and not ideologies). Now, the overlap is almost total. The powerful Albanian Mafia has long had a large share of the European heroin market and also trades in women, weapons, and stolen antiquities, among other goods. By necessity, maintaining such an operation in the global age involves “cooperation” with diverse and far-flung groups. Foreign Islamists make up merely one.

Contrary to what spirited defenders of the Serbs argue, it does not seem that Islamic ideology has played the key role in drawing most Albanians to fight. So why would the Albanians – nationalists, criminals, or otherwise – need the Islamists?

For the answer to this question, we must keep in mind three things: global trafficking routes; sustaining the rule of lawlessness; and unique services provided by foreign Islamic factions.

One of America’s enduring achievements in Afghanistan has been the renaissance of poppy cultivation there. Britain’s Sunday Telegraph revealed that while Britain has been tasked to lead the eradication of Afghanistan’s drug trade, instead, “after 18 months, the level of opium cultivation in Afghanistan has reached an all-time high of nearly half a million acres.”

The route of heroin trafficking continues strongly from that country through Central Asia and Turkey. Indeed, as a Turkish professor once described the country’s huge foreign debt to his students, “50 billion dollars worth of foreign debt is nothing – it is two lorry loads of heroin.”

However, once the drugs cross into the Balkans, there is lawless Kosovo – one of the epicenters of European heroin distribution and processing, with spillover operations in border areas of neighboring states.

Take Macedonia’s Albanian-populated village of Aracinovo, tucked into the hills of the Skopska Crna Gora mountain range just over the border with Kosovo. A former Macedonian special policeman involved in the botched raid on Aracinovo during the 2001 war says that he was amazed but what he saw: “there were heroin labs, a series of well-constructed tunnels, and better Western medical equipment than even we have in the State Clinic! To this day, I can’t believe what I saw there.”

The battle of Aracinovo descended into farce when NATO evacuated armed Albanian militants, who clambered aboard the “fun bus” along with foreign mujahedin and 17 American MPRI military advisors. While the U.S. denies this covert involvement, a Dutch intelligence report from 2002 affirmed it, claiming that the EU was furious. This damning 2001 report quotes another soldier involved, who provides details regarding not only American involvement but that of mujahedin on the Albanian side.

The second factor is that of lawlessness. Keeping Kosovo outside the rule of law is key for both the Mafia and the Islamists. As long as it remains a gray zone with indefinite borders, legislation, and competencies, not to mention an international administration too timid to exert much authority, organized crime can flourish. And, in the villages especially, the vendetta-based rule of the clans trumps any so-called “Western” style of governance.

Nevertheless, UNMIK, KFOR, and other international security organizations have fallen short repeatedly in their quest to stifle extremism in Kosovo. In some cases, they have shut down charities that were probably benign; in other cases, they have neglected potentially dangerous ones, despite the objections of security officers such as Tom Gambill, who lists some by name.

A failure to cultivate good ties with Serbian intelligence has also been a problem. Usually Serbian warnings of Islamic terrorist activities are met with suspicion by a cynical West. However, they incontestably have the experience, the knowledge, and the intelligence to make a contribution to the fight against terror – if the West really is sincere about that particular campaign.

A second major restriction on good policing efforts in the province is the poor quality and limited mandates of security personnel in Kosovo. Most U.S. personnel in the UNMIK police come on six-month to one-year contracts, hired through domestic security contractors, with the previous experience of being small-town, doughnut-shop cops. There are few Jean-Claude Van Dammes to be found amongst the UNMIK ranks. And, given the high turnover rate since 1999 (very few officials from that time still remain), there is also little chance for continuity or coordination of information-gathering, either in terms of technique or of content.

Says Gambill, “they [the UN] didn’t really understood what was going on – and they didn’t want to know. There was no continuity of mission, or pass-on intel.” According to him, despite repeated efforts to educate the American authorities about the presence of al-Qaeda-related groups and their connections with organized crime, “they weren’t interested.” However, before returning to America, where he has established a trucking firm, Gambill made sure to take his four-gigabyte collection of police reports, photos, and other incriminating evidence about the presence of Islamic terrorist factions in Kosovo. He is looking for a publisher for the book he is writing about his experiences there.

A third restriction is a quite obvious one, and it in part explains the timidity of most UN officials in Kosovo: that is, securing their own lives. All internationals in Kosovo are sitting ducks; they live in the apartments, frequent the restaurants, stay in the hotels, and shop in the stores owned by locals. At any given moment, any of them, from the lowliest secretary to the highest UN representative, can be killed. So where’s the incentive for these officials, waiting out their lavishly overpaid term before heading for yet another peacekeeping mission somewhere else, to take on the Albanian Mafia or the Islamic fundamentalists?

In one of those bizarre cases of blowback-in-waiting, celebrated illegal alien/KLA weapons smuggler Florin Krasniqi recently vowed from New York that if the UN does not vacate Kosovo and give it independence, “we will throw the United Nations out … we have a team of snipers here in the U.S. ready to be dispatched on very short notice.”

Note that this is the same man who donates heavily to the Democrats and who said, “with money, you can do amazing things in this country. … Senators and congressmen are looking for donations, and if you raise the money they need for their campaigns, they pay you back.”

in the end, one can’t blame all the intelligence failures and radical disconnects on American naiveté and their own unqualified staff. Even though they share a single currency, European states still watch protectively over their own intelligence services first. In this respect, the Balkans in 2005, and particularly UN-controlled Kosovo, remain a tower of Babel, a refuge for competing national and individual interests, a realm of unshared or ignored data.

In such an environment, it’s not hard to understand how terrorists and criminals have the upper hand – and why patriots like Tom Gambill feel so frustrated.

May 19, 2008 - 9:45 pm 68. Saying it, so you don’t have to:

Astrit nothing could be further from the truth.

Ten Facts Why Kosovo is a Serbian Land

Fact 1. When Serbs settled the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries, and in subsequent centuries, they fought the Byzantnine and Ottoman Turkish Empire. Not Albanians. See the Wikipedia encyclopedia.

Fact 2. Only Albanians claim to be descendants of the ancient Illyrians but most of the world does not support this theory. See the Wikipedia encyclopedia. In any case, Serbs did not fight the Illyrians, because the Illyrians were not there when Serbs had initially settled the Balkans.

Fact 3. Kosovo was the center of Serbian statehood, medieval Empire and the birthplace of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Numerous medieval churches and monasteries, which Albanians are now destroying, testify to the centuries of Serbian religion, culture, history and civilization in the area.

Fact 4. In 1389 Serbs fought the Ottoman Turks at Kosovo, not Albanians. When Kosovo was not part of Serbia (from 1389 till 1912), it was part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, not part of Albania.

Fact 5. From 1912 till 1999 Kosovo was part of Serbia and, later, Yugoslavia.

Fact 6. Until the beginning of WW 2, Serbs were the absolute majority population in Kosovo.

Fact 7. The only time Kosovo had EVER been part of Albania was under a Greater Albanian state created by Hitler during WW 2. That should hardly count as relevant.

Fact 8. The genocide of Serbs by Albanians in WW 2, followed by Tito’s Communism – which favored relations with Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha thus forbidding Kosovo Serbs to return to Kosovo after the war, the deacades of flow of illegal aliens from Albania proper into Kosovo, along with the fact most Albanians have 8 or 10 members per family, and the rise of Albanian separatism and later terror, all contributed to the decrease of the Serbian population and to the increase of the Albanian population in Kosovo. That does not make it automatically their land.

Fact 9. According to UN Resolution 1244 adopted in 1999, Kosovo is legally still part of Serbia and Yugoslavia (now the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro), and it’s officially and internationally still called Kosovo, not Kosova, as the Albanians insist on calling it. In a similar way, the Albanians of Kosovo should not be called Kosovars, because that implies to a separate nation or state, which is not the case. They should be called Kosovo Albanians.

Fact 10. If Kosovo is given independence, by the same criteria the Basque region, Corsica, Chechnya, Kurdistan, the Tamil-Tiger controlled part of Sri Lanka, Kashmir, perhaps even Texas and many other places in the world should be given independence.

Conslusion and closing arguments: For several centuries in the Middle Ages Kosovo had played the central part in Serbian statehood, religion and culture, traces of which are evident all over Kosovo. Even after the fall of Kosovo to the Turks in 1389, the legend of the Battle of Kosovo continued to live on for centuries, in epic poems, stories that were told from generation to generation, and, later, it continued to live in history and literature books, and many, many Serbian generations were raised with Kosovo in their hearts. They carried it in their hearts, and they knew all about it, even if they had not visited it. When Kosovo was liberated from the Turks in 1912 – and not taken from the Albanians because they didn’t hold it in the first place, it was reintegrated into Serbia and later Yugoslavia. For most part of the 20th century, Kosovo was part of Serbia and, officially, it still is, even though it’s “administered” by Nato and the UN.

Albanians are telling lies – first that Kosovo was once inhabitted by Illyrians – whom Albanians claim are their distant relatives. Maybe. But, when Serbs came to the Balkans, they did not fight the Illyrians or the Albanians, so we could not have taken it from them in the first place. We did not take it from them then. We did not take it from them in 1912 (as they claim), because in 1912 Kosovo was controlled by Turks, not Albanians. So, Albanians manifest a very big lie when they claim that we had taken Kosovo from them. The facts say that Kosovo – if we exclude the Ottoman Turks, had for most time belonged to Serbs and the Serbian state, and had only been part of the Albanian state once, during the time of Hitler.

The fact that Albanians are renaming towns from Serbian to Albanian, giving them new Albanian names, and not the previous names from the Turkish era, means only one thing – they are trying to rename everything into Albanian so that they can later say that Kosovo had always been Albanian. Another great lie.

The fact that Serbian Orthodox Christians, their churches, monasteries, even graveyards, their historic monuments and traces of their culture and history are disappearing from Kosovo, can only mean one thing. Albanians want Kosovo only for themselves, to be an islamic state, fully and completely Albanian, with no place for any other culture or ethnic group.

The fact that the borders between Kosovo and Albania had been opened in 1999 without any strict control, means one thing – now that Kosovo is given independence, there will practically be a Greater Albania in place. It will not be called that officially, maybe Kosovo will not be allowed to join with Albania officially, but on the ground, with open and uncontrolled borders, it will practically be the Greater Albania Adolf Hitler had created. This time, it would have been created by America, the European Union, Nato and the United Nations.

The fact that Interpol – at the request of UNMIK chief Soren Jesen Pettersen, had crossed out the former Croatian general and KLA terrorist, current Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku from the Most Wanted List, is a horrific example of how the West is playing right into the hands of the Albanians, actually helping them form their Greater Albanian state. Picture it, one large, poor islamic state full of crime, drugs, corruption and arms, in the heart of Europe.

Chilling, isn’t it?

May 21, 2008 - 9:53 pm 69. MikeL:

Saying it, so you don’t have to:

These are a perfect examples of Serbian Nationalistic Propaganda facts.

Fact 1. When Serbs settled the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries, and in subsequent centuries, they fought the Byzantine and Ottoman Turkish Empire. Not Albanians. See the Wikipedia encyclopedia.
• Do you know the meaning of the word Empire? Check Wikipedia that says: An empire (from the Latin “imperium”, denoting military command within the ancient Roman government) is a state that extends dominion over populations distinct culturally and ethnically from the culture/ethnicity at the center of power. The Byzantine and Ottoman Empires were not mono-ethnic Empires of just Ottoman or Byzantine. They were multiethnic since they conquered different countries. The Byzantines were part of the former Roman Empire which was not only comprised of Italican Romans but Greeks, Macedonians, Britons, Goths, Illyrians, Germans etc. Ottomans conquered Greeks, Albanians, Arabs, Slavs, Hungarians etc. Albanians were part of those empires and Slavs settled in those areas due to wars and acceptance. And who lived in those lands in your opinion, Elves and unicorns?
. Fact 2. Only Albanians claim to be descendants of the ancient Illyrians but most of the world does not support this theory. See the Wikipedia encyclopedia. In any case, Serbs did not fight the Illyrians, because the Illyrians were not there when Serbs had initially settled the Balkans.
• An ongoing discussion is still going for the descendants of Albanians. Most accept that Albanians and descendants of the Illyrians. But they claim to be Illyrian because they know they are. And according to Serbian texts who lived there before they moved in? Not “Byzantines”.

Fact 3. Kosovo was the center of Serbian statehood, medieval Empire and the birthplace of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Numerous medieval churches and monasteries, which Albanians are now destroying, testify to the centuries of Serbian religion, culture, history and civilization in the area.
• The center of Serbian statehood was Raska further north not Kosova. This ideology was changed only in the late 19th century so to make claim in those lands Kosova was in Serbian hands for a couple centuries. Just because there are old Serbian churches it doesn’t make it Serbian by default. Because there are ottoman mosques in Serbia does it make it Turk land? Or Roman ruins in England and France does it make them Italian lands?

Fact 4. In 1389 Serbs fought the Ottoman Turks at Kosovo, not Albanians. When Kosovo was not part of Serbia (from 1389 till 1912), it was part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, not part of Albania.
• The forces against the Ottomans were not only comprised of Serbs. There were also Bulgarians, Bosnians, Albanians, Poles, and Hungarians. The Ottomans also had Serbians with them as the Turkish army was helped by the Serbians such as a noble Konstantin Dejanovic. But Serbians are the only ones to use this as a nationalistic anchor. Check history books.
Fact 5. From 1912 till 1999 Kosovo was part of Serbia and, later, Yugoslavia.
• The Young Turk movement supported a centralist rule and opposed any sort of autonomy desired by Kosovars, and particularly the Albanians. In 1910, an Albanian uprising spread from Pristina and lasted until the Ottoman Sultan’s visit to Kosovo in June of 1911. In 1912, during the Balkan Wars, most of Kosova was captured by the Kingdom of Serbia, while the region of Metohija (Albanian: Dukagjini Valley) was taken by the Kingdom of Montenegro. An exodus of the local Albanian population occurred. This was described by Leon Trotsky, who was a reporter for the Pravda newspaper at the time. The Serbian authorities planned a recolonization of Kosova. Numerous colonist Serb families moved into Kosova, equalizing the demographic balance between Albanians and Serbs. Kosova’s status within Serbia was finalised the following year at the Treaty of London.] In the winter of 1915-1916, during World War I, Kosova saw a large exodus of the Serbian army which became known as the Great Serbian Retreat, as Kosova was occupied by Bulgarians and Austro-Hungarians. In 1918, the Serbian Army pushed the Central Powers out of Kosova. After World War I ended, the Monarchy was then transformed into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians on 1 December 1918. In the conference of ambassadors Kosova was not inclued in the Serbian realms.
Fact 6. Until the beginning of WW 2, Serbs were the absolute majority population in Kosovo. Fact 7. The only time Kosovo had EVER been part of Albania was under a Greater Albanian state created by Hitler during WW 2. That should hardly count as relevant.

• Serbs never even in the zenith of the empires were comprised more than 20% of the Kosovo population. The 1918–1929 period of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians witnessed a rise of the Serbian population in the region. Kosova was split into four counties, three being a part of Serbia (Zvečan, Kosova and southern Metohija) and one of Montenegro (northern Metohija). However, the new administration system since 26 April 1922 split Kosovo among three Areas of the Kingdom: Kosovo, Rascia and Zeta. In 1929, the Kingdom was transformed into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the territories of Kosovo were reorganised among the Banate of Zeta, the Banate of Morava and the Banate of Vardar. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia lasted until the World War II Axis invasion of 1941, when the greatest part of Kosova became a part of Italian-controlled Albania, and smaller bits by the Tsardom of Bulgaria and German-occupied Military Administration of Serbia. After numerous uprisings of Partisans led by Fadil Hoxha, Kosova was liberated after 1944 with the help of the Albanian partisans of the Comintern, and became a province of Serbia within the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia.
Fact 8. The genocide of Serbs by Albanians in WW 2, followed by Tito’s Communism – which favored relations with Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha thus forbidding Kosovo Serbs to return to Kosovo after the war, the decades of flow of illegal aliens from Albania proper into Kosovo, along with the fact most Albanians have 8 or 10 members per family, and the rise of Albanian separatism and later terror, all contributed to the decrease of the Serbian population and to the increase of the Albanian population in Kosovo. That does not make it automatically their land.
• Genocide has been done to both ethnicities I’ll not disagree on that. But there were not a lot of Albanian migrations from Albania as are claimed by Serbian authorities. During Enver Hoxha’s regime Albania’s borders were closed thus isolated and mass migrations were not possible. Since Kosovar Albanians were primarily rural and rural areas have a higher population growth than urban areas the rate of growth was greater than the mainly urban Serbs. The growth rate was systematic with growth in rural areas of Bosnia, Serbia etc. The area had always more Albanians that Serbians.
Fact 9. According to UN Resolution 1244 adopted in 1999, Kosovo is legally still part of Serbia and Yugoslavia (now the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro), and it’s officially and internationally still called Kosovo, not Kosova, as the Albanians insist on calling it. In a similar way, the Albanians of Kosovo should not be called Kosovars, because that implies to a separate nation or state, which is not the case. They should be called Kosovo Albanians.
• UN resolution 1244 was made to make a temporary stability in the region so the future was to be determined. There is no Union of Serbia & Montenegro since Montenegro is an independent country. It is called Kosovo since it had been administered by FYR and it was called Kosovo in that language. Kosova is in Albanian. We as Albanians form Albania call Kosovo Albanians as Kosovars or Albanian. There is no difference to us.
Fact 10. If Kosovo is given independence, by the same criteria the Basque region, Corsica, Chechnya, Kurdistan, the Tamil-Tiger controlled part of Sri Lanka, Kashmir, perhaps even Texas and many other places in the world should be given independence.
• Kosovo won its independence militarily and morally. Military due to NATO intervention. Morally through the despicable actions of the Serbs. All of the nations above if they can fulfill these criteria they can win independence just like Serbia did against the Turks with Russian help. Serbs lost Kosovo/a. That’s the end of Argument. If they want to regain it, there’s 2 ways. 1. to attack and occupy it. 2. To get into the EU with Kosova as independent nations, remove barriers and enter the European community of nations. Otherwise stop on who was first or who built what and when and face reality as hard as it seems Kosova is Independent. Nothing will change that. It’s a simple argument and a simple answer. Stop acting like a kid that lost its lollypop because he threw it in the trashcan. Complain all you want but it’ll not solve anything. Work together for a common resolve.

May 22, 2008 - 2:34 pm 70. Saying it, so you don’t have to::

Oh please stop Forging History to Fit your Political Agenda . All Albanians like yourself are trying to do is Carving-Up the World Anew and Rewriting History! That’s all! No evidence whatsoever to back up your assertion.

Some elements of the contemporary projects of historical revanchism taking place in relation to the “independent Kosovo and Metohia” represent a continuity of the Third Reich ideas. And willful disregard of the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo-Metohia between 1878-1912 and after 1945 is the revanchist stance on behalf of the political forces defeated in both World Wars.

Claims that Albanians are “direct descendants of ancient Illyrians” is pretentious, without basis in historic fact, and is pure propaganda. Illyrians were made extinct by the Ancient Roman Empire. What part of the word ‘extinct’ do you not understand? For centuries Albanians were nomads and shepherds and did not represent a large number in the region. When the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was formed in 1918 the Albanians represented less than 5% of the population. But let us take a closer look at Albanian Illyrian propaganda in the 20th century.
In the mid 1970s Albanologists spread rumors that they were on the verge of finding archeological evidence that the Kosovo Albanians were “direct” descendants of Illyrians. Millions of dollars came in from Tirana, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but no such evidence was to be found.
During the construction of the dam on the Fierza River project which flooded parts of Metohija, in the archeological remnants were discovered remains of flooded Vrbnica. The Albanian “experts” were ready to believe it a godsend that they had finally found their traces of an Illyrian settlement.

The money came pouring in for additional research. Meanwhile the discovery turned out to be the remnants of Slav culture and suddenly all financial assistance was discontinued and the project was abandoned. Albanians of influence like Professor Ismalji, at Pristina University, who did not think the Serbs deserved enlightenment of these discoveries, encouraged authorities to sink the site in the newly formed lake.

For my part I only need to use as source not any Western historian nor historian from Serbian Academy of Science but Albanian historian Dr. Kaplan Resuli, who published numerous works from the sphere of the albanian historiography and linguistics, which brought him significant prestige, scientific titles and also an honorary membership in the Albanian Science Academy, to debunk your revision of the universally accepted facts and knowledge about the nations in this part of the continent. Sadly,everyone who debated this Albanians on the internet past several years faced the similar tactics to them rewriting history is as simple as repeating their own talking points until they become accepted as facts.

Now let’s hear it from the ‘horses’ mouth” I do not even have to do talking, how the Albanian racism towards the neighbours is based on historical falsifications. An interview with the persecuted albanian academic prof. Dr. Kaplan Resuli.I need to dispel only one , your side, FAVORITE racists myth on which all the rest are build that you are descended of Illyrians. Once proven lier how can any rational person believe anything else you claim afterwards when it comes to true ownership of Kosovo and Metohija.

VD: – How did the albanian public receive Your albanological research and discoveries?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli: – Once even Enver Hoxha was forced to admit that the albanian science lacks scientific objectivity. The albanian poet Mimoza Erebara in the Science Academy asked them directly what was the situation with my scientific discoveries. They had told her: „We know that very well even before Kaplan, but now is not the time for all of that to be told” Since in the publication „YLBERI” (comes out since 1993, in Geneva) and especially through my albanological collection THE ILLYRIANS AND THE ALBANIANS I demonstrated in written form my points of view, the albanian academic Vincents Golleti, in the printed media stated: „The stances of Kaplan Burovikj about the albanological problems, especially on the problem of the origin of the Albanians, need to be greeted most warmly, while the studies which he publishes in relation with those problems should be propagated throughout the whole of the scholarly world”. After him followed the albanian scholar Dr. Adrian Qosi who in the middle of Tirana openly opposed the hypothesis about the illyrian origin of the Albanians.
With me agreed, via the printed media, several other younger scholars of whom I would especially mention Fatos Ljubonja, Prof. Adrian Vebiu and others. I can say that today appeared a group of new albanian scholars who do not agree with the false myths and courageously accept the scientific truth. I am proud that I lead this group and that they took up from me the necessary scholarly courage. Because, believe me, that is not easy at all, as the extreme albanian nationalists, chauvinists and racists led by Ismail Kadare, through the most severe forms of chicanery and satanising are
attempting to silence us at any cost. The mentioned Dr Adrian Klosi when he stated that the hypothesis for the illyrian origin of the Albanians is unfounded, added: „But it is better not to talk about that because they will declare us anti Albanians”. And they did.

VD: – Since when actually dates the oldest evidence for the existence of the Albanians and the albanian language?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli-: – The oldest evidenced text in an albanian language is „Formula ë paleximit” (Formula for communion), translated from Latin in 8-11-1462 by the Montenegrin Pavle Angjelich, whom the Albanians
have albanised with the name Pal Engylli. The first book in albanian is „Meshari” (The Book of Thoughts), a manual for religious sermons, dates from 1555 and is written by the Croatian Ivan Buzuk and published in Montenegro. And, understandably, they albanise him with the name Gjon Buzuku. For your information, the first primer in albanian, after the proclamation of the albanian independence is a work of „Slavs” and Vlachs. Dositej Obradovich is the first in history who opens a school in albanian language, while it was exactly Serbia which was the first state to recognise
independent Albania. The Macedonians have a significant input in the development of the albanian culture. For example,one of the oldest publishers in Albania is the Macedonian Petar Budi (1566-1622) who has published three books in albanian, and also a Macedonian is Jovan Kukuzel, whom the Albanians have claimed as their own and have albanised with the name Jan Kukuzeli, although it is known that when he was born in Drach, XI century, here there still is not even one Albanian. Let me remind you also of Grigor Prlichev (1830-1893) who for some time is a teacher in Tirana and published
the wonderful poem „Skenderbeg”. Undeniable is the fact that always at the forefront of all of their positive processesthe Albanians had namely non Albanians. Lets mention, as well, at this opportune time only Georgi Kastriot – Skenderbeg, of an undeniable „slavic” ancestry, Naim Frasheri (a Vlach, an albanian national poet) or Fan Noli (a Greek, whose real name is Theofanos Mavromatis), Petar Bogdan, a Serb, or Ismail Kemali, a Turk who was proclaiming the albanian independencein 1912. As you can see, the foundations of the albanian culture and statehood are laid by non Albanians, from which a large number are „Slavs”, but that does not stand in the way of the albanian nationalists, or „marxists-leninists”, all the same, to thump their chests and declare that they have achieved everything by themselves and that the other people (nations), especially the „Slavs” have only been their enemies.

VD: – Undeniable is the fact that in Albania the toponyms are, say, without exception „slavic”. To what is that owed?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli-Burovich: On the territory of today’s Albania, as has already been confirmed by the most distinguished world scholars, from whom I have already mentioned some, first settled the Slavs. In 548 A.D. they enter also in Durrachium (Drach, Durrls). The Albanians come via Transylvania (Romania) and Bulgaria much later, IX-X century.
In the meantime, understandably, the Slavs have already named all mountains, valleys, rivers, towns and villages, and built some new ones, giving them their own names. When the Albanians arrive on the Balkan and today’s Albania, there is nothing else they can do except to take those toponyms. A large part of Albania is flooded with serbian and macedonian toponyms. Just as an example I wish to mention the towns of Pogradec, Korça (Korcha), Çorovoda (Chorovoda), Berat, Bozigrad, Leskovik, Voskopoja, Kuzova, Kelcira, Bels and others.

VD: – In the macedonian community little is known that more than 90 percent of the lexical fund of the albanian language are words taken up from other languages. You especially have analysed the subject of the „slavisms”
in the albanian language. It would be interesting some more to be said about this?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli: – For the first time I graduated in Skopje, exactly with the theme „Slavisms in the albanian language”. The second diploma, as well, at the university of Tirana, I defended with a linguistic theme. Especially in „The Dictionary of the Albanian Language in Ulcinj” I have elaborated the etymology of all words. Actually, it can be supposd that if the Turks did not come to the Balkans, the albanian language in not more than 100-200 years would have been completely „slavicised”. The serbian, macedonian and bulgarian languages have penetrated so much into
the albanian language that they have flooded not only the lexicon, but they have displaced its phonetics, morphology and syntax. Besides the significant cultural prestige of these languages compared to the albanian, this is also due to the significant albanisation of not a small number of Serbs, Macedonians and Montenegrins, especially the ones who were previously islamised. As it is known, the Albanians have a strongly developed power of assimilation. That a good part of them by origin is Serbs, Macedonians or Montenegrins, is witnessed by their patrons, surnames, but many of them even today speak their „slavic” language. In Albania there are whole regions along the border, especially towards Macedonia, settled with a compact „slavic” population, which is even more numerous, lets say, than the Albanians in Macedonia.

VD: – Lets talk a little also about the numerous ethnonyms which from the albanian side, often baselessly, are forced as synonyms. How come so many ethnic names for the Albanians?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli-: – That, as well, witnesses the ethnogenesis of the Albanians after their arrival on the Balkan and populating the northern albanian mountains. I have already mentioned about the Illyrians, but the second ethnonym to which they pretend, the Dardanians, it is known, were not Illyrians, but Thracians. Even if they (Dardanians) had been Illyrians, again they haven’t any connection with the Albanians, because that kind of connection neither have the Illyrians themselves. Science has proven that very clearly. In respect of the Albanoi(an)s, they are a celtic tribe which on the territory of Albania, in the region Mat, arrives in the IV century BC. Today’s Albanians, actually, only much, much later take over their name, as have done today’s Bulgarians from the non slavic Bulgars of Asparuh, or today’s French, from the old germanic Franks, deforming the old celtic name Arlbn/Arlbr. Arbanasi is the other name with which our ancestors the „Slavs” are naming them during the Middle Ages. Arnauts is the name which the Turks use for them. It should be known that not all Arnauts were at the same time Albanians, as well. Because the Arnauts (Albanians) got a reputation as good hired hands in the turkish empire, the other mercenaries were also called Arnauts.
That means that there were Serbs, Montenegrins and Macedonians ARNAUTS, because some of them are also islamised, thus as muslims they serve under the turkish flag not only as common soldiers, but also as arnauts (mercenaries). Skiptar (or Shiptar and deformed Shiftar, all originate from the albanian appellative Shqipltar) is the current national name of the
Albanians, spread amongst them in the XVII-XIX century, influenced by the name Osman, as the Turks were naming themselves. Namely, osman in turkish is „eagle”, while in albanian it is „shquipe”. Thus the Albanians of muslim faith wanted to relate themselves with the muslims Turks, which was also the aim of the Porte, even of the original platform of the Prizren League, which originally is not albanian at all, but pan islamic. And if its primary aims succeeded, most probably the Albanians would not exist today because all of them in the meantime would have become Turks.

VD: – Here as well, is the known division Ghegs-Toscs from which originates the known language question which, it seems, still has not been overcome by the Albanians?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli: – The language question in Albania is not settled even today. Although formally (and by force) Enver Hoxha established as a common, official language the Tosc dialect (until then it was the Gheg dialect),the Ghegs have not given up. They still continue to speak and write in their dialect, although they are persecuted and maltreated because of it. When in 1965 in Albania I published the novel „Treason” in the Gheg dialect the Albanians of northern Albania openly requested the language of this book to be declared as the literary and official language of Albania.
That too was one of the reasons for my satanisation which still continues. You should know that the difference between the Tosc and the Gheg dialects is much bigger than the differences between some „slavic” languages, for example the macedonian and the serbian. From another side, more Albanians, about two thirds, speak in gheg, which is lexically richer, purer and
also has much greater expressional opportunities. With the enforcement of the tosc dialect, which was of a pure political nature (motive), a crime has been perpetrated against the Albanians and their culture.

VD: – One of the fallacies (delusions), unfortunately, it seems somehow silently accepted even outside of Albania is the so called monolithic nature of the albanian population in the Republic of Albania in which allegedly live 97-98% ethnic Albanians, for which You have already said something previously. What is, according to You, the reality in that respect in Albania?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli: – When Albania is proclaimed and recognised as an independent nation (1912-1913) its population numbered 700,000 of which hardly 50% were Albanians, while the other half was made up of Vlachs (around 20%), „Slavs” (Macedonians, Serbs, Montenegrins, around 15%),Greeks (around5%) and others (Turks, Roms, Cherkesians, Italians, Jews and others, around 10%). With the passing of time, mostly by force, with denial of all national rights, including the right to speak in their own languages at home, or to carry their own national family names, they are to a certain extent assimilated. But, even besides the such forced albanisation, in Albania even today over 30% of the population speaks a non albanian language and retains its non albanian national identity, although they are registered as Albanians, as they are not permitted to declare differently. The non albanian origins of the population of Albania is also evident from their surnames Bello, Blushi, Bogdani, Buda, Budi, Dida, Dobraci, Dragovoja, Dragusha, Haveri(ch), Kapisuzi(ch), Mexi, Millani, Milloshi, Mojsiu, Muzaka, Najdeni, Peku, Prela, Ruka, Sillil, Shkura, Shundi, Ziu and many others.

VD: – In Your research You have also paid special attention to the ethnic expansion of the Albanians in the past 2-3 centuries towards its neighbouring (serbian, macedonian, greek and others) regions, for which now, the last several decades, to begin to proclaim exactly them as their „ethnic territories” in which they allegedly lived from eternity?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli-: – This truly is absurd and, in any case it is good that there remain numerous proofs for their undeniable expansion, which I have integrally collected and published in my study „The origins of the Albanians in Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Greece”. One needs to be objective and tell the truth, not because of the truth itself, but because it will contribute toward overcoming of the many problems on the Balkan. That the Albanians only in the past couple of centuries have expanded admitted publicly, via the printed media, the most eminent contemporary albanian scientist, academic professor Elrem Cabej (Tsabej), who, forced by the numerous arguments, was unable, but to conclude that today’s territories on which the Albanians live are not „a zone of RESTRICTION”, but „a zone of EXPANSION”. And not only he! That also is verified in the „HISTORIA Ë SHQIPERISË” itself, compiled by the albanian scientists themselves.

VD: – Recently from Tirana were launched some „evidences” about an existence of 14 million Albanians. Amongst the numerous „Albanians” who had indebted the world civilisation was included, as well, Alexander of Macedonia!?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli: – I’ve read that, as well. The albanian academic, Prof. Dr Skender Rizaj once even in his „scientific” works stated that, also all Serbs, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Bosnians and Herzegovians are, in reality, „slavicised” Albanians. By that method we should „admit” that they are not only 14, but possibly even 140 millions. I have already published a study about the „scientific” work „The Illyrians spoke albanian – The Albanians speak illyrian” published by Preloc Margiljaj. I would like to present for this suitable moment only a few short quotes which can also be found in other albanian historical-linguistic „experts”: „The Albanians are one of the oldest nations (peoples) in Europe” (page 438) „it is clear that Crete is the first fireplace of culture and civilisation in the aegean region and in Europe. Crete from the forgotten times of the past was settled with the pelasgian, rather the illyrian or albanian people, thus in Crete ruled the albanian language, which in other words, is the starting point and the first source of the european culture and civilisation”. (page296). Starting from this, this albanian „scientist” wants the albanian language to be taught in all schools around the world as a compulsory language because, according to him, without knowing that language it would not be possible to comprehend the world culture(!?). In respect of Alexander of Macedonia, even Enver Hoxha has written that he is an Albanian, expressing that also in one discussion with the indian ambassador in Tirana, as if personally he, Enver, had sent him to India, even as an ambassador to establish friendly relations between these two countries and peoples. These undoubtedly racist yearnings of the Albanians are certainly the result of their economic and cultural poverty, of their backwardness and late development in comparison with the other nations, amongst which are those of its neighbours, I would say of their frustration because of all of that.

VD: – Do You believe, regardless, in the possibility that the young, unburdened scientists and politicians in Albania will accept the reality and they, abandoning the greater albanian dreams, to give their own contribution towards the development in real good-neighbourly relations?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli-: – I do believe! I have already cited several names of such young scientists. I can also give you names of young politicians unburdened of the greater albanian yearnings. But they still don’t have the power for that, except their pens and good intentions, with which they can’t act freely because the albanian print media is strictly censured by the greateralbanians, and the streets of the cities, unfortunately, are still patrolled by gangsters who, in the service of the social-fascist band, are ready to hit anyone with a brick on the head or with a bullet in the forehead!

VD: – For ten years, as a political emigrant, You have been living in Geneva, Switzerland. Do you have an impression that the so called democratic Europe and the West, generally, understand our Balkan situations?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli-Burovich: – Democratic Europe, I’m afraid, at least in respect of us, does not exist at all. The antidemocratic one, on the other hand, hand never understood them, nor want to understand our Balkan difficulties. Europe was and still is in the service of The Capital. Its „democracy” is only an expression of that Capital. It uses our Balkan peoples and situations for penetration (expansion) and for ruling the world, for its own battle against the true, real democracy and its carriers.

VD: – Concordant with Your rich life experience, after all that in the past period happened on the Balkan, and which, sadly, culminated with several bloody wars, are You of the opinion that all of that, simply, had to happen?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli: – No! Absolutely not! All of that could and can, even needs to be solved without blood. Let the Albanians prove that even Moscow is theirs, thus give them even it. But until they prove that, they should not be given even one stone from our fatherlands, not only to prevent them from desecrating it, but in order to prevent them from smashing their own heads with it.

VD: – To conclude, I believe it would be interesting to hear Your prediction how the things could be developing in the near future?

Dr. Kaplan Resuli-: – The Americans have reached their aim – on the Balkan they have installed their military bases. Let us hope that they will not support the terrorism and to use the Albanians as cannon fodder. And the Albanians, certainly, in the meantime will wake up and will not allow either the Americans or whoever else to use them as such. For that, understandably, with self criticism, all of us need to assist them.

p.s as for cheap shots, stop acting like kid and such geee thanks ever so! Oh this was RICH. It’s always nice to be reminded how deeply I underestimate the sheer idiocy of the purpordely upright walking. Must be denial for my own comfort’s sale I guess.

May 23, 2008 - 12:48 am 71. Saying it, so you don’t have to:

Now, let’s hear from more Albanian historian disputing revision of the European history.Prof. Adrian Vebiu QUOTE #1:

First, we have no strong historical ‘me’. We had five centuries under Turkish occupation, and at that time, we had a Turkish identity, not an Albanian identity, except for our language. We as Albanians didn’t have a real history during these five centuries. Our history was linked to the Turkish Empire. This is one of the reasons I could say that our nationalism started very late…
Traditionally, the society was organized into clans, families, tribes. And our Christian law—the so-called “Canon of Lek Dukagjini”—was called by one of the popes the least Christian law in the world. It was firmly linked to the blood feud. And Albanians could defend only their own house, their own family, their own tribe, and they didn’t care about others.

QUOTE #2:

Question:

Undeniable is the fact that in Albania the toponyms are, say, without exception – Slavic. To what is that owed?

On the territory of today’s Albania, as has already been confirmed by the most distinguished world scholars, from whom I have already mentioned some,
first settled the Slavs. In 548 A.D., they enter also in Durrachium. The Albanians come via Transylvania (Romania) and Bulgaria much later, IX-X century. In the meantime, understandably, the Slavs have already named all mountains, valleys, rivers, towns and villages, and built some new ones, giving them their own names.

When the Albanians arrive on the Balkan and today¹s Albania, there is nothing else they can do except to take those toponyms. A large part of Albania is flooded with Serbian and Macedonian toponyms. Just as an example, I wish to mention the towns of Pogradec, Kor?a (Korcha), (Chorovoda), Berat, Bozigrad, Leskovik, Voskopoja, Kuzova, Kelcira, Bels and others.

Already in 1995 at the University of Skopje, it became clear to me that there will not be peace on the Balkan until the Albanian question is clarified. For that reason I switched rom the law faculty to the albanological studies and here, contrary to what was being said and written not only by the Albanian, but also by our, Yugoslavian scholars, contrary to what is being taught not only in the Albanian language schools (in Albania, as well as in Macedonia), but also in the schools of ³south-slavic² languages, I discovered that not only the Albanians are not autochthonous people, but they are also not related in any way to the Pelasgians or the Illyrians. Understandably, not one of the professors in Albanology has said this to me. They continued with the tale that allegedly Albanians are autochthonous Pelasgoillyrian descendants.

I discovered that by chance, studying the Albanian language, which, all agree, is of the type SATEM. According to that global division of languages, researching the Illyrian language I discovered that it is of the type KENTUM. The most elementary logic was saying to me that one SATEM language can not be a direct descendant, not even a kind of derivative of some KENTUM language, without a change of its substrate.

Since the Albanian language does not have any changes in its substrate, that means that the Albanians can¹t be, under any circumstance, genealogical descendants of the Illyrians. Later I discovered this, as well, in the works of the world renown professors and scholars…
Paul,
Hirt,
Vaigand,
Tomashek,
Georgiev,
Pushcariu

…and many others, who with numerous scholarly arguments, linguistic and historical, have proven that the Albanians not only do not have anything in common with the Illyrians, not only that they are not autochthonous at any place in the Balkan, but they are not even autochthonous in the territories of modern day Albania.

Vaigand for example has formulated 12 arguments. To all of those I’ve added another five. Unfortunately, these scientists are not being mentioned in (the study) Albanology, nor in Albania, nor are they mentioned in Yugoslavia, or in Macedonia, because the Albanian professors consciously hide the truth about the origins of the Albanians and, instead of (the truth), to their pupils and students they serve up the lies about their autochthony and Illyrian origin.

Via those lies, they poison the whole nation. This is not done accidentally, but with the aim to incite the Albanians against the neighbouring nations, thus, hooking them on the ³fishing line² of some invented, wide ethnic territories, to use them as cannon fodder for the interests of some criminalised leaders and the international Capital.

The primary motive that inspired me to oppose the Albanian pseudo science about their Illyrian origin was the truth, the love for the truth, my special inclination towards it, but second and equally as important motive was the fact that, watching the Albanians being breast-fed with chauvinism and racism, are being encouraged to fight their neighbouring peoples (nations), I was hoping that if the truth is explained to them, they will move away from the tales, legends and myths about their autochthony and illyrom, thus ceasing with their inexcusable and baseless hatred towards their neighbours.

Since in the publication ³YLBERI² (comes out since 1993, in Geneva) and especially through my albanological collection THE ILLYRIANS AND THE ALBANIANS I demonstrated in written form my points of view, the Albanian academic Vincent Golleti, in the printed media stated: “The stances of Kaplan Burovich about the albanological problems, especially on the problem of the origin of the Albanians, need to be greeted most warmly, while the studies which he publishes in relation with those problems should be propagated throughout the whole of the scholarly world”.

After him followed the Albanian scholar Dr. Adrian Qosi who in the middle of Tirana openly opposed the hypothesis about the Illyrian origin of the Albanians. With me agreed, via the printed media, several other younger scholars of whom I would especially mention Fatos Lubonja, Prof. Adrian Vebiu and others.

I can say that today appear a group of new Albanian scholars who do not agree with the false myths and courageously accept the scientific truth. I am proud that I lead this group and that they took up from me the necessary scholarly courage. Because, believe me, that is not easy at all, as the extreme Albanian nationalists, chauvinists and racists led by Ismail Kadare, through the most severe forms of chicanery and satanising are attempting to silence us at any cost.

They mentioned Dr Adrian Qosi when he stated that the hypothesis for the Illyrian origin of the Albanians is unfounded, added: ³But it is better not to talk about that because they will declare us anti-Albanians². And they did.

SERBS, CROATS OPEN FIRST SCHOOLS IN ALBANIA:

The oldest evidenced text in an Albanian language is “Formula paleximit” (Formula for communion), translated from Latin in 8-11-1462 by the Serb Pavle Angelic, whom the Albanians have albanised with the name Pal Engjylli. The first book in Albanian is ³Meshari² (The Book of Thoughts), a manual for religious sermons, dates from 1555 and is written by the Croatian Ivan Buzuk and published in Montenegro. And, understandably, they albanise him with the name Gjon Buzuku. For your information, the first primer in Albanian, after the proclamation of the Albanian independence is a work of ³Slavs² and Vlachs. Dositej Obradovich is the first in history who opens a school in Albanian language, while it was exactly Serbia, which was the first state to recognise independent Albania.

MACEDONIANS DEVELOP CULTURE IN ALBANIA:

The Macedonians have a significant input in the development of the Albanian culture. For example, one of the oldest publishers in Albania is the Macedonian Petar Budi (1566-1622) who has published three books in Albanian, and also a Macedonian is Jovan Kukuzel, whom the Albanians have claimed as their own and have albanised with the name Jan Kukuzeli, although it is known that when he was born in Drach, XI century, here there still is not even one Albanian. Let me remind you also of Grigor Prlichev (1830-1893) who for some time is a teacher in Tirana and published the wonderful poem ³Skenderbeg². Undeniable is the fact that always at the forefront of all of their positive processes the Albanians had namely non-Albanians.

QUOTE #3:

There is an Illyrian myth, with which Albanian culture has been flirting for at least 150 years, and as a myth it can’t be questioned (for it has all the answers). There is also a very tentative Illyrian science, based mainly on archaeology, and on some data transmitted by Ancient Greek and Latin Historians.

These inscriptions, being totally alien to Albanian, show that the Illyrian question is extremely complicated, and that it isn’t likely to be resolved, unless fundamental epigraphic discoveries are made.

The great Illyrologist Hans Krahe himself was no supporter of the Illyrian theory about the origin of Albanians. In his late years he came to understand that most of his paleolinguistic theories were generally wrong. Krahe started by finding Illyrian traces everywhere in Europe, but then it was made clear that all he had found were Indo-European traces — and nobody had any doubt that Indo-European tribes had been in Europe for a long many years.

Onomastics is of no great help in settling linguistic and ethnogenetic issues. Let’s have a look at some important place names in Albanian territories, like Dajti, Shkodra, Durresi, Vlora, Burreli, Drini, Shkumbini, Tirana, etc. Are they Albanian? We can’t say that, for there are no Albanian words that would explain them (as we explain, for example, Kruja with “krue” – fountain).

This might well be true, but seems pathetic in front of the fact that we can’t explain through Albanian words the place names we currently use, let alone the Illyrian ones. So what?

Let’s move up in time, and reach the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages the Albanians were somewhere there, though their first mention is in the 11th century (or 12th, I’m not sure). Where were they living? Where are the places they have named after their common words (technically called appellatives)? The south is full — literally full — of Slavic place names, especially the areas of Vlora, Tepelena, Skrapar, Mallakaster, Gramsh, Cermenike, Moker, Korce, Erseke.

My personal opinion is that the issue of Albanians descending or not from Illyrians doesn’t deserve the interest it has traditionally aroused. There is absolutely NO Illyrian cultural legacy among Albanians today. In a certain sense, Illyrians (with their less fortunate fellows, the Pelasgians) are a pure creation of Albanian romanticism.

QUOTE #4:

Not long ago, for example, I wrote of myths and mentioned Skenderbeg and the Battle of Kosovo. I told of how the Albanians have forgotten that Skenderbeg was a Slav. I was attacked by Ismail Kadare, incensed at how I could possibly say that Skenderbeg was a Slav and that the history and culture of Albanians is on the level of Serbs.

That’s the way it is with our culture, which is mythomaniac, national-communist, romantic, self-glorifying. You can’t say anything objective without people getting angry. The Albanians are a people who still dream. That is what they are like in their conversations, their literature…In light of Hoxha and ‘pyramid schemes, Albanians are a people who still dream. That’s just the way they are

QUOTE #5:

Lets mention, as well, at this opportune time only Georgi Kastriot ­ Skenderbeg, of an undeniable Slavic ancestry, Naim Frasheri (a Vlach, an Albanian national poet) or Fan Noli (a Greek, whose real name is Theophanous Mavromatis), Petar Bogdan, a Serb, or Ismail Kemali, a Turk who was proclaiming the Albanian independence in 1912

_________________________________________________________________

Rest of your opinions you are trying to pass as facts that have been subjected to revisions are as follows.

Uour propaganda that persistently repeats the fallacy that Serbs militarily took and “occupied” Kosovo and Metohia in 1912, as if that was some separate, Albanian political and territorial entity. Within the international political public at least four issues have been presented falsely. First of all, the Kosovo villaet [Ottoman governing unit] was only one among few dozens of such administrative regions within the [occupying] Ottoman Empire. This was not “an Albanian villaet” and it included Raska region, Kosovo, Metohia and the Skopje-Tetovo region.

Secondly, the Albanians did not constitute a majority in this villaet, the majority were the Serbs and other Slavs. Thirdly, in 1912 Serbia did not go to war against Arbanassi [Albanians], instead, together with other Balkan Christians, Serbia went to war to free itself from the Ottoman Empire. Fourth, alongside the Ottoman troops, Albanians have fanatically fought against Balkan Christians until the end of the war.

The Christian Europe knows that Serbs played a significant role in halting the Ottoman march towards the rest of Europe since the end of 17th century. This fact, at some point, motivated Henry Kissinger to point to the centuries of clashes between Islam and Christianity as the basis for the crisis in Kosovo-Metohia.

Although Turkey was pushed out of Europe by the Balkan Christians, it apparently wants to return to the Balkans. Albania and Turkey have an agreement on the military alliance since 1992. Turkey rushed to immediately recognize the self-proclaimed statelet on the territory of Serbia. The former Turkish President Ozal emphasized that the borders of the former Ottoman Empire in the Balkans belong to the Turkish sphere of interest. Some researchers point that the United States entrusted Germany and Turkey with governing the Balkans’ relations.

Regarding the historical background, the Austro-Hungarian Empire took the key role in solving the Balkan and Eastern question at the Berlin Congress in 1878. Vienna’s main goal was banishing the Russian influence and establishing its own control, not only over the western, but also the eastern part of the Balkans. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was, even at the cost of war, working to prevent the creation of a larger, compact, Serbian and Slavic state, but most of all against the Serbian unity. One of the leading ideologues of the Austro-Hungarian Balkan strategy was Benjamin Kalaj, Belgrade consul (1868-1875) and the occupational governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1882-1903). The accent was on creating a system of the mutually hostile small satellite statelets in the Balkans, with the smallest possible Serbian state. Austro-Hungarian foreign minister Gyula Andrássy called this strategy a “programme for the future”. Already in June 1880, Vienna assessed that the Albanians could be used as a “destructive force” in the southeast, where they should play the role of “the Romanians of the southeastern Balkans”.

Historian H. D. Schanderl believes that, at the start, Great Britain had the leading role in organizing the Albanian national movement. Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice asserted in April 1880 that it is in the interest of Europe to create “strong Albania” which would include the Skadar, Janjina, Kosovo and Bitola villaet, under the Sultan’s sovereignty. That role was later taken over by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. What else does today’s policy of West and USA represent, if not the policy of creating the “strong Albania” which is, in fact, the “Greater Albania”
In the Yugoslav Kingdom and later republic, as we can see today, quite a few unfriendly states played the card of the Albanian minority.In the first place, there is an obvious manifold instrumentalization of the Albanian minority for the purpose of destroying the Yugoslav and Serbian state, and spreading of their [Western] influence. Remember that NATO bombarded Serbia to, allegedly, protect the Albanian minority, but we now see that at the core of the issue is seizure of the cornerstone of the Serbian state and cultural identity. The so-called free and democratic world is absolutely unconcerned with the means Albanian separatist movement employs in Kosovo-Metohia, from the individual crimes and ethnic cleansing, to the terrorist actions of [Albanian] kachaks between the two World Wars, or those of KLA at the end of 20th century.

The platform for solving the Albanian national question of the Albanian Academy of Science in Tirana is constructing, since October 20, 1998, among else, some kind of “historical Kosovo” which, alongside present Kosovo and Metohia, includes Vranje Valley [central Serbia] they call an “eastern Kosovo”, then the Kumanovo-Skopje region [FYR Macedonia] – “south Kosovo”, and parts of the northern Montenegro they refer to as the “western Kosovo”. The capital of such Kosovo, which is simply invented as a region, ought to be Skopje [FYR Macedonia] since, they say, that was the capital of the ancient province of Dardania.

: Today’s policy of the leading EU states and the USA toward the Serbs and the southeastern Europe largely echoes the concept of the Great Mitteleuropa of Friedrich Neumann from 1915 (the system of the “satellite states” in the Balkans, though Serbia doesn’t ‘deserve’ to be even a satellite), and in one part it also reminds of certain ideas of the Great German Reich. A society for the southeastern Europe founded in Vienna in 1940, created elaborate work at the end of 1941 for “the Balkans’ order of peace”. We know all too well what their “order of peace” meant.

Doesn’t this irresistibly remind of the years of persistent presenting the destruction of Yugoslavia and dismemberment of Serbia as an effort to “establish stability and peace in the Balkans”? Ahtisaari’s deputy Albert Rohan, at one point an executive director in the Office of the UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, exhibited the obvious revanchism toward the Serbs and Serbia. In an interview to Politika (June 21, 2006) he said: “I wouldn’t want to talk abut the Serbian crimes, I would rather mention the role of Serbia in the First World War. Serbia most certainly has no right to renew its former rule over Kosovo, that must be accepted.”

Serbia was equally demonized in 1914, in 1941 and in 1991, as a factor of disorder that has to be eliminated. United States has now stepped at the helm of that kind of policy. The final goal is reducing Serbia to the borders since before 1912, and perhaps even narrower. In order to install the satellite quasi-statelets on the territory of Serbia, NATO bombarded and was cruelly destroying Serbia in 1999. One would expect that it is clear to everyone today that their aim was not “preventing the humanitarian catastrophe” and “democratization of Serbia”, but mutilation of Serbia.

This is the collapse of the international law and of the system of international relations built during the 20th century. Kosovo and Metohia is the internationally recognized part of Serbia, and afterwards of the Yugoslav state, by the Ambassadors’ Conference in London in 1912/13, by the Bucharest Peace Agreement in 1913, by the Versailles Peace Agreement in 1919, by the decisions of the Paris Peace Conference in 1946 and by the score of other international agreements. The violence over Serbia can only be compared to the Munich Agreement in 1938 between Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain and Daladier, which forced Czechoslovakia to hand its Sudet region over to Germany. At the time, Hitler declared that Germany has no other territorial desires in Europe. Today, almost all the leading Western officials are saying that Kosovo is a “unique case” and will not represent a precedent. This only serves to deceive the world public.

Since the time of the Albanian League (1878-1881) certain influential circles in Europe and in the U.S. are exhibiting the strong anti-Slavic orientation. On the other hand, the Albanians are very skillfully presenting themselves as an obstacle to the alleged “panslavism” in the southeastern Europe. The Albanian writer Ismail Kadare claims that “Kosovo is the land where the Slavic surge has been stopped in the early mid-century. It has destroyed the panslavic dream: conquering and slavicizing of the main European peninsula.”

Unlike Germany, Turkey or Austria—attitudes of which reveal revanchism toward the Serbs and Serbia—United States views the Serbian question in the wider context of its policy from Baltic to Mediterranean. The main target is Russia, and within that strategy, the Near and Mideast and Middle Asia. Aspiring to redivide the world anew, they view Balkans as important in the context of establishing complete control in the rear of the great “penetration to the East”.

It is interesting that Albanians never accepted alliance with other Balkan nations in the war against Turkey. They were always an extended arm of one of the great powers which wished to dominate the Balkans. They think that now the moment has come for creation of the “Great Albania” and they are supported by the West in those plans. So, they emphasize the alleged historical and ethnic “Illyrian-Albanian identity” supposedly existing since the era of an ancient Dardania.

The similarities between the Austro-Hungarian, fascist Italy and Nazi Germany policies from the first half of 20th century on the one side, and the policies of the leadership of the Western powers gathered around NATO and led by the United States from the end of the previous and beginning of this century, on the other, are astounding. All this involves the wider military-strategic and political-religious projects towards the southeastern Europe, Middle East and Middle Asia.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Berlin Gottfried Hohenlohe believed that “support for development and strengthening of the Albanian factor as a counterbalance to Slavs in the Balkan peninsula” is one of the “main pillars” of the Hapsburg monarchy. During the First Balkan War, in 1912, when Kosovo and Metohia were liberated, minister of the foreign affairs Leopold Berthold considered Austro-Hungarian “vital interest” was to create a strong Albania as a “counterbalance to two Serbian sister states”, borders of which have to be pushed “as much as possible eastward, at the expense of the Serbs”.

But since you are calling on working on common cause ( whatever that means) I say, to you and other onlookers in the USA Dear Mark lets forget the myths, history, Turks, invaders, battles, losses, victims… Let me try to explain what hurts the most and explain it in the language you understand: WE HAD A DEAL AND YOU BROKE IT. As you know, Serbia did not fight Albanians in Kosovo. Yes, there was an insurgency. But it was US and Serbia that fought the real war. And it is true: Serbia lost. Serbia lost when it pulled UNTOUCHED AND UNCHALLENGED army from the most sacred part of its country. In my opinion it was a good idea to stop the violence and the killing. However, we had a deal. The deal that in some way, in some small, insignificant way Serbia will return to Kosovo. Not as a ruler but as a helper. Nine years later, when we, democratic, open Serbia ousted Milosevic in the streets, when he is dead in the Hague you have broken that deal. This is the new Serbia you lied to! Why? Because of what happened in the 1990 or 1998 or while Milosevic was alive? Why can’t the US & UK get over Milosevic? When will you stop looking into the past? When will you GET OVER IT?

May 23, 2008 - 1:43 am 72. Guliani:

I must agree with pro-Serb stance.Kosovo has always been an important part of Serbia and it will remain so. The fact that Kosovo is populated mostly with ethnic Albanians is irrelevant. There is no basis for ethnic minorities to declare “independence” under international law. If there were, then it would also be legal for ethnic Mexicans or American Indians to declare their “independence” from the US and then asked other countries to recognize them. But under international law any such declarations would be illegal. If another country “recognized” such a declaration, and then tried to impose changes on US borders, it would be rightly construed by the US as an act of aggression.

It is not legal to change the borders of countries and create new countries inside existing countries just because it suits you. If it were otherwise, then that would turn the whole post-World War 2 political system upside down and open Pandora’s Box. There are would-be breakaway regions everywhere in the world. The breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in post-Soviet Georgia are actively seeking Russian recognition of their “independence” too. Why should Russia now act with restraint in the space where it is capable of acting unilaterally to change national borders, and where there is little that NATO or the US could do about it presently?

By encouraging the Kosovar Albanians to declare independence, and then immediately “recognizing” that independence, the United States acted contrary to international law. This was a cynical act by the Americans in pursuit of US geo-political interests. The US hasn’t put forward a single legal justification for this act, other than essentially “we did it because we could,” which is nothing more than the principle of the “law of the jungle” and “might makes right” in international relations. (This is the same logic that Germany used for invading Austria and Poland.)

There are ethnic minorities located in virtually every country of the world, including Kurds in Iraq, Basque separatists in Spain, Turks in Cyprus, and the list goes on. The US position is that there is something fundamentally “unique” about Kosovo that does not apply in any of these other cases, but the US has declined to explain just what that is. What principle is being applied in Kosovo that should also be applied in other cases of the same type? The US cannot verbalize any such principles; because the US is not acting according to any principle, other than apparently “we can bully whoever we want.”

One thing is certain; Kosovo will never be a “normal” nation. It will remain nothing more than a protectorate of the US and NATO, because it will never have a seat at the UN General Assembly. Russia will veto that, not simply to cause problems, but rather because Kosovo statehood is illegal, and it was done unilaterally, without considering the interests of Russia and its Serbian ally.

So exactly how is it helpful for the world to move away from our present system where every nation is recognized by every other nation, based on universal principle and international law (UN state recognition), to a system where state recognition now becomes merely “subjective,” with some countries and blocks recognizing certain states and other countries and blocks not recognizing them? Wasn’t that exactly the unstable system the world had before our present system of international relations was so painstakingly set up in the decades after the Second World War? What American interest could possibly be served by such a move? But this is exactly what this action means. This just the latest idiotic move from this breathtakingly idiotic US administration!

May 23, 2008 - 1:53 am 73. wilhelmrheiner:

I agree Albanians have NOTHING to do with Illyrians based on latest research, we can most probaly find their origin somewhere in the Caucasus.

Some facts to concider:
a)The Albanians were never mentioned in Byzantine, (not even of the works by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus), Arab, Armenian or any other texts before the 12th cent.

b)Language:
Albanian is classified as an IE language only because no one has been able to classify it into any other group, and this is because no one has yet studied all the Caucasus languages.
Albanian might have IE sounding words, but its basic structure and syntax are more similar to Chechen and Udish than to any IE language. Many Albanian words do sound Indo- European, because Albanian has borrowed over 80% of its vocabulary, more than any other European language.
The Chechen language is similar to Albanian. They both have similar grammar and similar sounds such as SQ, PSHQ, which are not common in any IE languages, but are very common in Caucasus languages like Chechenian.
The Albanians call themselves “Shqip-tari”. This name is not Indo-European in origin and contains in it the Ural-Altaic suffix “ar” or “tar”. Much like: “Khaz-AR”, “Av-AR”, “Magy-AR”, “Bulg-AR”, “Hung-AR”, “Ta-TAR” – “Ship-TAR”. see:
CHECHENIA=ICHQERIA
ALBANIA=SHQIPTERIA

c)Their alphabet interestingly enough, had Arabic letters untill 1908 when the alphabet they use today was adopted.

d)The most ancient loanwords from Latin in Albanian have the phonetic form of eastern Balkan Latin, i.e. of proto-Rumanian, and not of western Balkan Latin, i.e. of old Dalmatian Latin. Albanian, therefore, did not take its borrowings from Vulgar Latin as spoken in Illyria.

e)The Adriatic coast was not part of the primitive home of the Albanians, because the maritime terminology of Albanian is not their own, but is borrowed from different languages.

f)Another indication against local Albanian origin is the insignificant number of ancient Greek loanwords in Albanian. If the primitive home of the Albanians had been Albania itself, then the Albanian language would have to have many more ancient Greek loanwords.

g)Just a few, of the many identical place-names between Albania and Caucasus:
Albo-Arnauti -Caucasus- Arnauti
(Turks and Balkan peoples call Albanians by this name; likely from arch. Turk: Arran)
Albo-Bushati – Caucasus-Bushati (also the name of an Albanian tribe)
Albo-Baboti – Caucasus-Baboti
Albo-Baka -Caucasus-Bako
Albo-Ballagati – Caucasus-Balagati
Albo-Ballaj,Balli – Caucasus- Bali
Albo-Bashkimi – Caucasus-Bashkoi
Albo-Bathore- Caucasus- Batharia
Albo-Bater- Caucasus- Bataris
Albo-Geg – Caucasus-Gegi, Gegeni, Geguti (Term used by Albanians in their language to denote their brethre north of the Shkumbi R.)
Albo-Demir Kapia – Caucasus-Demir Kapia (Turkish term: “iron gates”; term by which Turks refered to the Caspian Sea or arch: Albanian Sea)
Albo-Kish, Kisha… – Caucasus-Kish (Eight different toponyms in Albania begin with “kish”)
Albo-Kurata,Kuratem,Kurateni(villages)-Caucasus-Kura (river) (Nine different toponyms in Albania begin with “Kura”)
Albo-Luginasi – Caucasus-Lugini
Albo-Rusani – Caucasus-Rusian
Albo-Sheshani, Shoshani, Shashani – Caucasus-Shashani
Albo-Sheshaj, Sheshi – Caucasus-Sheshleti
Albo-Skalla – Caucasus-Skaleri
Albo-Shiptari Shipyaki, Shkhepa, – Caucasus-Shkepi
Albo-Shkoder – Caucasus-Shkeder, Shked, Shkoda
Albo-Shekulli – Caucasus-Shekouli
Albo-Skuraj – Caucasus-Skuria

h) The fact that Albanian is totally alien to the Illyrian language based on the Messapic inscriptions found in tombs. So we must come to the conclusion that they either came from a different location (Caucasus theory) or the Illyrian tribes had absolutely NO ability of comunicating with eachother.
(that does sound stupid don’t you think?)

i) The Illyrian city names mentioned in ancient times that were kept do not follow the Albanian sound change laws, suggesting that they were late borrowing from an intermediary language (most likely Romance or Slavic), rather than inherited (for example ancient Aulona should have been inherited in modern Albanian as Alor? instead of Vlore.

j)Ptolemy in Book 5 chapter 15 titled “Location of Illyria or Liburnia, and of Dalmatia” (The Fifth Map of Europe)
Never mentions the alleged “albanopolis” that they support he has, and can be found at 46 degrees and 41 degrees 45′, but when you look up what he really has writen, you find the city of Thermidava
Ptolemy’s Goegraphy can be found at :
penelope.uchicago.edu/Tha…/home.html

k) Now, when we look at apostle Bartholomew’s life, we find he labored in the area around the south end of the Caspian Sea, in the section that was then called Armenia. The modern name of the district where he died is Azerbaijan and the place of his death, called in New Testament times ALBANOPOLIS!!!, is now Derbend which is on the west coast of the Caspian Sea.

l) Out of a list of 40-50 Illyrian city names known to us only 2-5 of the Albanian city names can be connected to them.

m) There is NO MEMORY!!! of the Illyrian past in the Albanian cultural heritage,before 19 century.

n) One of the interesting facts that connect the Albanians to the Caucasus and that they are not the descendants of the Ancient Illyrians is the Turkish name for the Albanians. “Arnauti”, which means “those who have not returned” in Arabic, for the Turks were aware of the origins of the Albanians. And they truly did not return, they stayed in Serbian and Byzantine lands.

o) Hard evidence is the Turkish censuses carried out in 1455, they indicate that Albanian names are found in only 80 of the 600 villages listed in the area, and that they did not constitute territorial groups, ruling out any assumptions that zones evenly and continuously inhabited by Albanians existed at the time.

p) The first Albo dictionary was published in 1635 and contained only 5,000 words, when today any pocket dictionary contains at least 250.000 proving that their language was still under development.

q) The most interesting fact is our knowledge of the Arab conquer of the Albanian Caucasus sometime around the 7th cent based on Byzantine, Arab and Armenian sources.
They were converted to Islam and used as military troops to attack Sicily, dividing it into two parts, (hence there was the kingdom of the two Sicilies). In order to populate their part of Sicily, the Arabs brought with them Old Albanians from the Caucasus.

Then in 1042, the Byzantine Empire attacked the young Serbian state after having defeated the Arabs in Sicily and having brought the Sicilian Albanians under their command and Christianizing them. The leader of the Byzantines who led the Albanians was named Georgius Maniakos. Maniakos brought Albanian mercenaries from Sicily to fight the Serbs and they settled in two waves in modern day Albania, first the mercenaries came, and then came the women and children. After the defeat of Maniakos, the Byzantines would not let the Albanians return, thus the Albanians requested that the Serbs let them stay on the land. They settled under mount Raban and the city of Berat and from this, the Serbs called them “Rabanasi” or “Arbanasi”. The city of Berat was known as Belgrad also, before the Albanians came to settle there. They mostly tended sheep and cattle and lent themselves out to Serbian nobles as brave soldiers.

A fact to support this except the texts them selfs is their flag. I’m sure you know that the Byzantine war flag was a double headed eagle on a red background.

Now to get to the topic, the Serbs propably too aren’t descendants of the Illyrians simply because we know they came from Caucasus.
See:
The Serbs were mentioned by Plinius the Younger in the first century BC (69-75) as living on the Black sea and the Sea of Azov as Serboi in his Geographica.
Herodotus writes in his Persian Wars that Serbs live behind the Caucasus, near the hinterland of the Black Sea.
We also can find the Roman emperor Licinius calling the Carpathians ‘Serb mountains’ so we have proof of the Serbs living in the Caucasus.

Also,the shiptars have been mentioned in Byzantine chronicles for the first time in 1043, over 400 years after the Illyrians have been mentioned for the last time. Historic evidence suggests that they were brought from the Caucasus by Georgios Maniakos, a Byzantine general, that they fought for him (mostly in Sicily), but, when the Sicilians didn’t want them around, he let them inhabit what is now central Albania, which was sparsely inhabited (mostly by Aromanians, ie. Romanized Illyrians, but also by Serbs, who were the enemies of Byzantium) at the time.

The shiptars are even mentioned by the Serbian emperor Dushan, and he calls them “the simple, illiterate Arbanasi”. He made it illegal for Serbs and Greeks to marry shiptars, as can be read in his code (zakonik).

In summary, The shiptars are not descended from Illyrians, and that claim can be refuted in several ways.
- First of all, there is absolutely no proof, historic, linguistic or archaeological, that they are descended from Illyrians. The Illyrian origin of the shiptars was first suggested by Austria-Hungary, and for purely practical reasons. The southern Slavs considered themselves descendants of Illyrians prior to WWI (Ilirski pokret), and the Austro-Hungarian empire wanted to preserve its Slavic provinces by convincing Slavs that they are not Illyrians, that some other people (shiptars) are Illyrians.
- The Illyrian language was centum (as is evident by the Messapian fragments), but the shiptar language is satem.
- Modern Greeks can (at least partially) understand ancient Greek. Italians can understand Latin. Slavs can understand old church Slavonic. shiptars, however, cannot understand a single word of Illyrian.
- All old toponyms in Albania are either Slavic (Serbian) or Greek. The few shiptar toponyms in Albania sound very much like certain toponyms in the Caucasus region, and there’s even a longish list of such toponyms here at SF, made by Slavo-Celtic.
- There is no evidence of any ancient Greek or Latin borrowings in the shiptar language, suggesting that they were not in contact with these ancient civilizations, which is an impossibility considering their location.
- The Illyrians were well known seafarers and fishermen, yet ALL words related to the sea in the shiptar language are borrowed either from Slavic or from (modern) Greek.

How can I help you today about valid source about origin of Albanians (western term) or Squipetharians (their own term) ?
Two theoriies of origin is optimal: arab origin and caucasian origin..

About arab origin :
text by Evlija Čelevija ,from 17.century..
Quote:
… Jabal-i Alhama, ancestor of the Albanian people..since they are descended from the Quraysh tribe of the Arabs. Accordingly, the Albanian people boast that they are from the Quraysh, the companions of the Prophet

http://www.albanianhistory.net/texts/AH1670.html

Whole site was made by Robert Elsi, adorare of Albanians, and good reference for danmark professors..

Quote:
1038, 1042, 1078
Michael Attaleiates:
The First Byzantine References

http://www.albanianhistory.net/texts/AH1038.html
http://www.albanianhistory.net/texts/AH_texts1.html
http://www.albanianphotography.net/

May 23, 2008 - 11:55 am 74. Hawkins1701:

Whether or not Serbs and Albanians could work out a “peace of the brave”, in mutual respect, has been reduced to an academic question by US meddling. Some ten years ago, a few people in Europe were ready to try that peaceful method. Danielle Mitterrand, the wife of the French President, sponsored round table talks in Paris between respected Albanian and Serb intellectuals. Such initiatives never enjoyed the support of the United States, which preferred to promote Albanian gangsters and Serbian flatterers — both eager for the favors of the NATO.

The United States and its “International Community” have done everything to preclude an accord based on mutual respect. The inevitable result is mutual hatred.

It used to be that conquerors grabbed the top spots but left certain essential structures in place, such as police and courts, so as to keep order. The humanitarian conquerors are different: in Kosovo they abolish the police and courts as tainted by whoever it is they overthrew, and attempt to start from scratch. The result is chaos: large-scale chaos in Iraq and small-scale chaos in Kosovo. The province is known as a hub of drug trafficking, transit for prostitutes bought and sold from desperately poor Eastern European areas, notably Moldova, and various other forms of illegal trade. Trash
accumulates uncollected. The local police and courts are described as corrupt and indulgent toward the criminal activities of their Albanian brothers, and neither NATO nor the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) are able to bring order.

In the midst of this mess, the United States operates the huge, self-contained strategic military base, Camp Bondsteel, that it built the moment US forces entered Kosovo — the very symbol of the autistic empire. Revolution could happen in Cuba, but the US military hung onto Guantanamo. Never mind what happens in Kosovo, Bondsteel can remain.

Other, less protected occupiers are more nervous. Already, in March 2004, some of them clashed with huge Albanian mobs that went on a rampage against Serbs and Serbian churches. Everyone knows that this could easily happen again, on a larger scale, and it will be very embarrassing to have to shoot at “the victims” in NATO’s Manichean reality show.

Emissaries of the IC have announced that Serbia “lost its right to govern Kosovo” because of Milosevic’s treatment of the province. But what gave the United States and its satellites the right to dispose of it as they see fit? The answer: 78 days of NATO bombing of Serbian bridges, homes, factories, schools and hospitals, brought to an end when the faithful IC emissary Ahtisaari conveyed to Milosevic the message that if he did not give in, Belgrade would be razed to the ground.

Many Serbs might agree that the burden of trying to govern a violently hostile Albanian population would be too much for Serbia. Perhaps more than Kosovo, Serbs want to keep their sense of honor. Their whole nation has been slandered for close to twenty years by enemies intent on grabbing off pieces of the former Yugoslavia for themselves, on the pretext that they were “oppressed” by the Serbs. In their (successful) effort to curry favor with Western Great Powers, a number of Serbian politicians and journalists have eagerly spread lies about their own country in order to demonstrate that “we are better than Milosevic”. The most significant of these lies is that the Albanians of Kosovo had to be rescued by NATO because they were “threatened with genocide” – a “genocide” no more real than the “weapons of mass destruction” that served as pretext for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The Kosovo issue has been used to punish and humiliate Serbia in a way that no nation could be expected to accept. Serbia cannot resist Great Power dictates, but it can refuse to endorse them. This is not “nationalism” but elementary dignity.

I find it a sad irony that America supports Kosovo’s right of secession while on the other hand has a long established precedent that states cannot secede from the Union. (Texas v. White for starters)

So, the US recognizes a state’s right to secede from a country, so long as it’s not a state of the US. Replace Kosovo with Vermont and we’d see a much different response, I’m sure.

Oh, of course. The hypocrisy is abundant on both sides of the Atlantic. I very much doubt the Brits would countance Northern Ireland voting itself free, nor do I think France would happily see Martinique go their own way.

“Self-determination” is right up there along with “freedom” in the Bullshit Lip Service Department each state proudly operates

May 24, 2008 - 4:40 pm 75. Matuszak111:

MikeL, If Serbia indeed wrestled KosovO from the Ottomans – we must conclude that Ottoman’s home was in Asia Minor not in Europe – so the Ottomans (and their servants, the Arnauts) were on foreign land. How else do we explain all the Serbian presence in Kosovo prior to 1389?

It has been a cradle of Serbian natio, home to the early Christians for a good 600 years prior to the unwanted arrival of the intruders. There are documents that go much further back into the 4th, 5th and 6th Century BC. The Celtic tribes in this portion of Europe intermarried with the locals. The Roman mispronounced city of Singidunum was originaly named Sindidun by the early Celtic Scordiacs – burial sites found at the confluence of Savus and Danubius today’s Avala – showing a considerable presence of an ethnic mix. Lepenski Vir was another site where much wealth was found attesting to people living in these lands even before the arrival of the Roman conquerors. Pottery, jewlery and similar artifacts found in today’s Denmark, Normandy (France) had clearly identified artifacts hand-made on the grounds of today’s Serbia. Even the early cartographers dispatched by Alexander the Great 336-323 BC had maps made of the Morava river region – today’s Serbia and extensive contacts (sometimes even clashes) with the combined people from those regions (Celts and Serbians) – however by a series of treaties and agreements Alexander secured his Northern borders well enough so that he could go deep into Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia and India.

In short the Turkish imports (Arnauts) found themselves in this part of Europe a good 1000 years after the original Serbians. The following mass migration of Slavic tribes (6th century) is mistakingly thought of as the first arrival os Slavic tribes to the Balkans. It is completely baseless to have some alien tribe (Slavs) get into some unknown lands for no apparent reason. Reason they got there was that the prior early Slavs already worked the fertile lands and welcomed their kin-Slavs into the region. If ever there was an intruder in these parts of Europe it was the Muslims (Turks and their servants Arnauts).

Since Albanians are so proud of their achievements, culture, (all alien and unknown to me) they should not be prevented to returning back into Albania where they came from. There are native Arnauts, in any large numbers born on Serbian lands of Kosovo. They have been systematicaly inserted into the Serbian lands since WW1 – and their ethnic explosion (aided by the Muslim polygamy allowing for an abnormal birth rate) seemingly tilted the balance of a nominal head count.

Yes it would have definitely less traumatic for MikeL not to have arrived here and not have learned that Arnauts have been inserted by their Turkish sponsors into Europe

May 30, 2008 - 12:14 am 76. MikeL:

Matuszak111, wow Serbs have been in the Balkans for over 1000’s years before the Turks came? Where did you get this http://www.serbianna.com or http://www.serbianinventedhistory.com? What do they say what the meaning of Arnaut is? Arnaut
Ar·naut” Ar*naout” noun [ Turk. Arnaut , from NGr. ..., for ....] An inhabitant of Albania and neighboring mountainous regions, specif. one serving as a soldier in the Turkish army. Yes they were servants of Ottomans but so were Greeks as they were together with Albanians the preferred soldiers to be janisseries. And all the conquered nations under Ottomans were their servants including Serbs.

Albanians call themselves Shqiptare. Albanian is what the rest of the world calls us for ease of pronunciation. The name “Albania” is Latin, and denotes “mountainous land”, which most of the Albanian lands are. They are NOT from Asia Minor. And according to your comments since there’s an Albania in the Caucasus and Albanians are from there then Iberians were a tribe north of them, thus the Spanish and Portugese are also from the Caucasus?

In Singidunum today’s Belgrade the people that lived there 1000’s of years before Ottomans were Thracians and Celts not Slavs, get it straight. Serbian presence in Kosovo prior to 1389 was due to the Nemanjica Dynasty Empire sprouting in other nations. Slavic tribes were the intruders but they were allowed to settle in Byzantine lands. And keep digging to info to before 6th century and you’ll find Carpathian tribes running away from the Avars south into Byzantine Balkan lands. Thats why Slavs were pushed south into other’s lands.

Since Lepenski Vir is located in today’s Serbia it makes it Serbian or Slav? They are neolothic how can you make the distinction? Oh http://www.serbianinventedhistory.com right. Does it make ruins in Smyrna Turkish? Nothing is known of the ethnicity of the Lepenski Vir people. Ancient artifacts are found in today’s Serbia but does it make them Serbian origin? Get the facts.

Alexander’s northern region was bordered by Thracians and there is no Serb or Slav tribe in that vicinity at that time. Possibly the Narnian Shkies or the Mordor Chetnics fought the Macedonian Empire. Wow Serb imagination at work here. You should be writing children’s books. So what are the Serbian acheivements? I mean appart from ethnic cleansing and genocide. What else is Serbia known for? Not great leaders since Tito was a Croat-Slovene.

Slavs are late comers get over it. And its not traumatic to me at all because I know what and who I am. Do you know who you are? Don’t fabricate History beacause it will bite you hard. It already did since ya’ll lost Kosova the “cradle and heart” of your civilization. Shkijes will not oppress others again. NATO got their asses in a silver platter.

I hate being like this waste my time and write these to morons. I haven’t heard not good comments here about Albanians, none. “Serbs are innocent, and have commited no wrong doing at all and they are the best and the most culturally people in the World.” Right…. We are not all Angels, and accept your misconducts.

I respect Serbs as I do have Serb friends and know that most serbs are great people. People here will not say the same for Albanians. And please get it over your heads, Kosovo/a is gone and there is nothing that will change it. the sooner you realize it the better for everyone.

May 30, 2008 - 11:33 pm 77. Albo:

>>> Since Albanians are so proud of their achievements, culture, (all alien and unknown to me) they should not be prevented to returning back into Albania where they came from. There are native Arnauts, in any large numbers born on Serbian lands of Kosovo. They have been systematicaly inserted into the Serbian lands since WW1 – and their ethnic explosion (aided by the Muslim polygamy allowing for an abnormal birth rate) seemingly tilted the balance of a nominal head count.

It’s alien because you’re still singing about Perfumed Prince Lazar who lost one battle, and died a captive. Serbs after that were GREAT vassals and helped fight Christians in the 2nd Kosovo battle and your main hero is a VASSAL: Krajl Marko. Gjergj Kastrioti–an Albanian, under whose flag KLA fought–won 13 battles against Turks, 13 more than Lazar the Loser and was stopped by Serbs from joining Hungarians in the 2nd Kosovo Battle. Even in 1389, Serbs were fighting against other Serbs. In 1444 Brankovic betrayed Christians again. In Nicopolis Serbs once again join the Turks. You pimped Lazar’s daughter to the Sultan not to fight. Cowards. Russia woke you up and gave you all you have. You don’t care about Christianity, you just want lands: Croatia, Bosnia, Kosova, Northern Albanian, Macedonai…

When we rose against the Young Turks you betrayed us and occupied Albania and Kosovo after our 3 year revolt. We bankrupted the bastards (6 million pounds one year; 25 million the next in debt for Turks) and got nearly wiped out in the process.

Regarding the polygamy: spoken like a true Serb who gets his news from SANU. Unlike Serbs and Russians who are losing population, Albanians are increasing in numbers and you are mad because you couldn’t kill them fast enough–or give them the AIDS as Sesejl, Serbia’s most popular party’s leader publicly advocated.

Search for “Albanian DNA” and you will see that we’ve been there since the Greeks, and that “Albanian DNA” is in England thanks to Roman troops. Kosova is the center of that haplogroup. We have been in Kosova long before Russia threw you out.

“Haplogroup E3b1a2 as an Indicator of Roman Soldiers of Balkan Origin in Britain”
http://www.biodiversityforum.com/showthread.php5?t=33351

Jun 2, 2008 - 10:32 am 78. Albo:

Serbs are truly great fighters too–I mean they start wars and let other fight for them. You took over the Yugoslav army and using rape and criminal scum to terrorize people succeeded initially, only to be bitch slapped by Slovenia and Croatia who got some new weapons. Oh, I will not count NATO. Start another war and see. Kosova will be armed by US, like Croatia was. Are you ready for another Krajina? Albanian troops (NATO members by then) will great you next time, that’s why you don’t dare do more than bark.

Jun 2, 2008 - 10:40 am 79. Alban:

Nothing like having scientists make Serb nationalists look like idiots:

—————-Albanians are Europeans———-
Mitochondrial DNA HV1 sequences and Y chromosome haplotypes (DYS19 STR and YAP) were characterised in an Albanian sample and compared with those of several other Indo-European populations from the European continent. No significant difference was observed between Albanians and most other Europeans, despite the fact that Albanians are clearly different from all other Indo-Europeans linguistically. We observe a general lack of genetic structure among Indo-European populations for both maternal and paternal polymorphisms, as well as low levels of correlation between linguistics and genetics, even though slightly more significant for the Y chromosome than for mtDNA. Altogether, our results show that the linguistic structure of continental Indo-European populations is not reflected in the variability of the mitochondrial and Y chromosome markers. This discrepancy could be due to very recent differentiation of Indo-European populations in Europe and/or substantial amounts of gene flow among these populations. European Journal of Human Genetics (2000) 8, 480-486.
http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v8/n7/abs/5200443a.html

———-Albanian Language Might Be the Oldest In the Balkans—-

(OLD) ALBANIAN – LIVING LEGACY OF A DEAD LANGUAGE?

(openPR) – According to the central hypothesis of a project undertaken by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, Old Albanian had a significant influence on the development of many Balkan languages. Intensive research now aims to confirm this theory. This little-known language is being researched using all available texts before a comparison with other Balkan languages is carried out. The outcome of this work will include the compilation of a lexicon providing an overview of all Old Albanian verbs.

Different languages in the same geographical area often reveal certain similarities, despite there being no evidence of a common origin. This phenomenon, known as “Sprachbund”, is also evident in the Balkan region where the Albanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Romanian languages display common words and structures. The question is whether these languages have influenced one another, or whether one specific language has been decisive in shaping the evolution of the others?
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Jun 2, 2008 - 10:49 am 80. LimbicNutrition Weblog › Michael Trotten on Belgrade and Serbia:

[...] get in touch with me next time you are in Belgrade. I am a fellow writer on Pajama’s Media [here and here ], a fan and an ideological fellow [...]

Jun 2, 2008 - 3:58 pm 81. john:

I am a third generation Australian from early Serbian immigrants (1924). I just want to say thank you for understanding the situation and for what you are trying to do to help. The world needs more people of honour like you. Help the Serbian nation. Best wishes

Jun 3, 2008 - 10:30 pm 82. Bokababe:

Albanians are criminals who do not deserve a second state, or any state at all.

Jun 4, 2008 - 10:49 am 83. We're Back:

To the person who posted the anti-Albanian origin post,
you thought you killed us all, but you didn’t
The Illyrians are back, 6-8 million of us now!

From Noel Malcolm, a Cambridge History PHD, not some loser.

“But if Illyrian survived as Albanian, it did so only by means of physical contraction, withdrawal and isolation, which naturally would have taken place in mountain terrain. This is why the purest element of Albanian vocabulary refers to mountains, high-altitude plants and shepherding: the point is not that the proto-Albanians had never lived any other sort of life, but that the only ones who survived as Albanian-speakers did so precisely because that was the sort of isolated and independent life they led, probably for several centuries. The Illyrians who lived on the coastal plains were Romanized, like the ones on the Dalmatian coast and indeed in most areas of Yugoslavia. By the time the Slavs began arriving in the sixth century, there were only scattered pockets of speakers of the old ‘barbarian’ languages left anywhere in the Balkans, and all of them were in mountainous regions. [54] ”
http://www.promacedonia.org/en/nm/kosovo.html

Jun 7, 2008 - 2:34 pm 84. Titanus:

“We’re back”.. using Noel Malcom as your primary source? That speaks volumes. Noel Malcom is after all concealing his Mission as an Advocate of the Albanian Separatist Movement and disseminating Albanian Nationalist Myths Without a Single Shred of Evidence.

Greater Albanian Ideologists are Malcolm’s Main Source: What Rexhep Qosja Wrote in Albanian, Noel Malcolm Published in English.But, even if he has managed to do so, even to superficial students of South-East European history it is obvious that scientifically dependable references to those allegedly massive materials are absent from his book! Even where a quotation is given, it is evident that it is there rather to prove the author’s pre-set political thesis, and not to illustrate a complex picture of the past of this part of Europe. It is stunning that Malcolm, in spite of his alleged insight into such extensive archival materials and literature, has not advanced a step further than the many times repeated great-Albanian theses launched by national ideologists from Tirana and Priština. All Malcolm’s key theses are found in the 1995 Memorandum of the Forum of Albanian Intellectuals, signed by Rexhep Qosja.[2] The only difference is that Malcolm’s book appeared in English, in London.

On, the personal note…for a scholar who is neither versed in Slav studies nor a balcanologist, and who, judging by his scholarly credentials, until 4-5 years ago never had anything whatsoever to do with the history of the Balkans, it strikes one as unconvincing, even in sheer physical terms, that he could have managed to digest and synthesize, within 2-3 years, such a huge quantity of archives and archival holdings in so many languages, consulted such a massive literature in eleven European languages – a quite heterogeneous literature at that.

Even by the some sheer miracle he managed to do all that, come one this is the same person who strongly believes that Christian Europe Should Not Have Been Liberated from Ottoman Rule!!! Couldn’t get worse than that!

Famous British Historian H. W. V. Temperley Clearly Disagrees with the Albanian Hireling Malcolm.Even if we ignore the views of reputable Europeans, it takes no more than a superficial knowledge of the provisions of the 1878 Prizren League Statute or of later links of the Muslim Albanians with radical Muslim political movements to our day, including the former’s training in well known religious centres of the kind, to conclude that Malcolm is either an ignoramus or, simply, that he intentionally ignores the facts. The Croatian historian Bernard Stuli underlines precisely the pan-Islamic character of the League: in all sixteen articles of its Statute the political subjects of the League are simply Muslims. They refer to the “sublime religious law” Şeriat), advocating alliance with “believers of the same religious affiliation in the Balkans”, whereas desertion of the alliance is qualified, by Article 16, as disloyalty to Islam.[8] That we are dealing with unprecedented partiality blind to the facts is shown by Malcolm’s claim that the Orthodox Serbs, the “Orthodox side”, in contrast to the Albanians, “constantly employs religious rhetoric to justify the defense of ‘sacred’ Serb interests”, this being, in his opinion, “a classic example of religion being mobilized and manipulated for ideological purposes”.[9] According to Malcolm, the Albanians are not only tolerant –they are also guardians of Orthodox religious sites. What that tolerance looked like in the past is best shown today by some eighty Orthodox churches and monasteries, most of them medieval, torn down in Kosovo and Metohija since June 1999, in the presence and under the auspices of NATO forces at that!

Albo, your despicable aggression masked into comment (”Serbs are truly great fighters too–I mean they start wars and let other fight for them. You took over the Yugoslav army and using rape and criminal scum to terrorize people succeeded initially, only to be bitch slapped by Slovenia and Croatia who got some new weapons. Oh, I will not count NATO. Start another war and see. Kosova will be armed by US, like Croatia was. Are you ready for another Krajina? Albanian troops (NATO members by then) will great you next time, that’s why you don’t dare do more than bark”)

makes it more relevant why one like, Serb nation, learns pretty quickly to become a warrior when surrounded by such gross characters. Just take a look at their next door neighbors, aka Albo. And stop making futile threats, especially when it’s taken into account that Southern Serbian province of Kosovo, run by NATO since June 1999, is the fourth region with the highest corruption rate in the world, said a report from the organization Transparency International, an anti-corruption watchdog based in Berlin.

Transparency International’s 2007 Global Corruption Barometer showed that Kosovo province under the NATO-imposed Albanian separatist KLA leadership, well known for its underground roots in illegal trade dominated by the heroin trade and human trafficking, is among the most corrupt regions in the world today.

The survey conducted by Transparency International, which included 60 world countries and territories, shows that Kosovo province ranks fourth in corruption — right after Albania and before FYR of Macedonia, while Cameroon and Cambodia are at the top of the list.

According to the 2007 Global Corruption Barometer, the countries/regions with the highest levels of corruption and bribery are Cambodia, Cameroon, Albania, Kosovo province, FYR Macedonia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania and Senegal.

The Gallup International Association that has conducted the Barometer survey on behalf of Transparency International, cites that 67 percent of Kosovo province residents have stated they have to pay bribes to get services.This says a lot. Kosovo ranks ahead of Gaza-GAZA!

Jun 19, 2008 - 7:51 am 85. Titanus:

Also, I see desperate claims of Albanians on here to prove that they are descend ends of Illyrians .hmmm…simplke not true ..Albanians are not Illyrians…!
…..The modern Albanian lexicon is full of Greek, Slavic and Latin words. In 1990 I heard a lecture at the University of Ljubljana by a Kosovo Albanian professor from the University of Pristina : he demonstrated that Albanian is of northern origin since it shares with Rumanian, up on the Danube , and only with Rumanian, a set of some 60 vocabulary items that are not found in other languages of the region. Tsar Dushan was emperor of the Slavs and “Albanians”, but medievalists know that this term is geographical, not ethnic or linguistic. In Greek dialects of recent times the word can stand for Greeks and Albanians of the region. Lists of the soldiery of Venice designate as “Albanians” names that are mostly Greek, less often Albanian and Slavic. A Street behind the Doge’s Palace is still known for these troops – Via degli Albanesi.
In 1389 Albanians made up 2% of the population of Kosovo. Millennia before the Indo-European Slavs, Romans, Greeks, Albanians and others (e.g. Celts and Goths) arrived there, the Balkans had been inhabited by settlers from the eastern Mediterranean and, in addition, surviving (if any) late Ice Age hunters. Professor Marija Gimbutas [1921-1994], pre-historian, demonstrated that agricultural “Old European” civilizations go back to 7000 BC in the Balkans. No Indo-Europeans were there, hence no Illyrians, no Albanians, no Greeks, no Latins and no Slavs, regarding the languages involved. – However, DNA from the pre-Indo-Europeans is probably to be found yet among Balkan peoples, inherited from ancestors who intermarried with the newcomers.
Previous to Old European civilizations the Balkans were thinly inhabited by hunting bands, e.g. at the whirlpool of Lepenski Vir on the Danube in Serbia. A fairly up-to-date reference work, the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture summarizes:
“The Albanians occupy part of the former territory of the Illyrians. [So does Austria: JPM]. It is a possibility that today’s Albanian language continues the earlier Illyrian.” However, it continues, “such a connection is NOT DEMONSTRABLE. Illyrian is too little known and Albanian is first attested only in the fifteenth century, already having undergone very substantial phonological changes.” [J. P. Mallory and D. Q. Adams, Editors. 1997.. London & Chicago : Fitzroy Dearborn.]
Logically, it is equally possible that that the modern language called Albanian is NOT descended from ancient “Illyrian”. From all evidence, this is the only probable case.

Jun 19, 2008 - 8:14 am 86. Peter Maher:

“Kosovo” is a Serbian place name, more fully “kosovo polje”, meaning the ‘field (or plain) of blackbirds’. “Kosovo Polje” lies just outside the city of Prishtina.

Ornithology lesson: Among North Americans, Australians, and South Africans, only ornithologists can identify the species in question. Kosovo’s “black bird” is no crow, nor raven, no starling nor grackle, but “turdus merula”, European cousin of the North American rusty-bellied thrush (”turdus migratorius”), which Yanks call the “robin”.

In Britain and Ireland “robin” is the name of another species, “erithacus rubecula”.
(The “four and twenty ‘blackbirds’ baked in a pie”, of the English rhyme, were of the species “merula”, in Serbian called “kos”. From this term “kosovo” is the derived possessive adjective.

Like America’s harbinger of spring, the black bird called “kos” in Serbian language sings sweetly in the springtime and early summer.

For North Americans the feel of the Serbo-Croatian place name “Kosovo” can only be had from a free translation, “Field of Robins”.

Albanians have borrowed the word from the Serbs, whose once overwhelming majority was driven down, especially since the Congress of Berlin, by savage aggression from Albanians incited then and in WW I by Austria-Hungary and Germany, in World War II by Mussolini’s puppet Albanians, and after WW II by the discriminatory ethnic cleansing of the Stalinist dictator Josip Broz.

Native Indian place names in America have no meaning in English: e.g. “Michigan” means nothing in English. In Ojibwa “mishshikamaa” means “it is a big lake”.

Just so the place names of Ireland have transparent meaning in Gaelic but are meaningless tags in the colonialist English, e.g. “Dublin” is Gaelic “dubh lin” ‘black pool’, and “Kildare” is “cil dara” ‘church of the oak’. Just so the names of the Serbian province of Kosovo are clear Serbian formations, but have no meaning in the Albanian language.

Proof of the Serbian origin of the name and the loanword status of the immigrant Albanian term is that the word “Kosovo” has a clear etymology to anyone who knows a Slavic language, while Albanian “Kosova” is an opaque, meaningless place name in the Albanian language.

Kosovo is Serbian.

Jun 19, 2008 - 12:08 pm 87. KLA-Washington's grand and noble new ally in the Free World...:

I’m reminded of Carla Del Ponte, the Swiss diplomat who in 1999 became Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, located in The Hague, Netherlands. In accordance with her official duties, she looked into possible war crimes of all the participants in the conflicts of the 1990s surrounding the breakup of Yugoslavia and the NATO (read the United States) 78-day bombing of Serbia and its province of Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians were trying to secede. In late December 1999, in an interview with The Observer of London, Del Ponte was asked if she was prepared to press criminal charges against NATO personnel (and not just against the former Yugoslav republics). She replied: “If I am not willing to do that, I am not in the right place. I must give up my mission.”

The Tribunal then announced that it had completed a study of possible NATO crimes, declaring: “It is very important for this tribunal to assert its authority over any and all authorities to the armed conflict within the former Yugoslavia.”

Was this a sign from heaven that the new millennium (2000 was but a week away) was going to be one of more equal international justice? Could this really be?

No, it couldn’t. From official quarters, military and civilian, of the United States and Canada, came disbelief, shock, anger, denials … “appalling” … “unjustified”. Del Ponte got the message. Her office quickly issued a statement: “NATO is not under investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. There is no formal inquiry into the actions of NATO during the conflict in Kosovo.”[3]

Del Ponte remained in her position until the end of 2007, leaving to become the Swiss ambassador to Argentina; at the same time writing a book about her time with the Tribunal — “The Hunt: Me and War Criminals”, published two months ago but available at the moment only in Italian. It hasn’t been much reported yet what del Ponte has said about NATO, but the book has already created a scandal in Europe, for in it she reveals how the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) abducted hundreds of Serbs in 1999, and took them to Kosovo’s fellow Muslims in Albania where they were killed, their kidneys and other body parts then removed and sold for transplant in other countries.

The KLA for years has been engaging in other equally charming activities, such as heavy trafficking in drugs, trafficking in women, various acts of terrorism, and carrying out ethnic cleansing of Serbs who have had the bad fortune to be in Kosovo because it’s long been their home. Between 1998 and 2002, the KLA appeared at times on the State Department terrorism list; at first because of its tactic of targeting innocent Serb civilians in order to provoke retaliation from Serbian troops; later because Mujahadeen mercenaries from various Islamic countries, including some tied to al Qaeda, were fighting alongside the KLA, as they were in Bosnia with the Bosnian Muslims during the 1990s Yugoslav civil wars.[4] The KLA remained on the terrorist list until the US decided to make them an ally, in some measure due to the existence of a major American military base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel. (It’s remarkable, is it not, how these bases pop up all around the world?) In November 2005, following a visit there, Alvaro Gil-Robles, the human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, described the camp as a “smaller version of Guantanamo”, referring to the detainees there at the time from Washington’s various wars, including the so-called War on Terror.[5]

On February 17 of this year, in a move of highly questionable international legality, the KLA declared the independence of Kosovo from Serbia. The next day the United States recognized this new “nation”, thus affirming the unilateral declaration of independence of a part of another country’s territory. The new country has as its prime minister a gentleman named Hashim Thaci, described in Del Ponte’s book as the brain behind the abductions of Serbs and the sale of their organs. The new gangster state of Kosovo is supported by Washington and other Western powers who can’t forgive Serbia-Yugoslavia-Milosevic — “the last communists of Europe” — for not wanting to wholeheartedly embrace the NATO/US/European Union triumvirate, which recognizes no higher power, United Nations or other. The independent state of Kosovo is regarded as reliably pro-west, a state that will serve as a militarized outpost for the triumvirate, which is intent on further encircling Russia and pushing it out of Europe.

In her book, Del Ponte asserts that there was sufficient evidence for prosecution of Kosovo Albanians involved in war crimes, but the investigation “was nipped in the bud”, focusing instead on “the crimes committed by Serbia.” She claims that she could do nothing because it was next to impossible to collect evidence in Kosovo, which was swarming with criminals, in and out of the government. Witnesses were intimidated, and even judges in The Hague were afraid of the Kosovo Albanians.

In April, the Swiss Foreign Department issued a statement that Del Ponte’s book “contains statements which are impermissible for a representative of the government of Switzerland”, ordered her to return to her ambassadorial post in Argentina, and prohibited any further appearances promoting her book. The Swiss have officially recognized the independence of Kosovo and established an embassy in the country. Kosovo appears likely to remain a highly controversial issue in Europe and Washington for some time to come

Jun 19, 2008 - 12:53 pm 88. Matuszak111::

I say to western readers if they are interested in the history of Kosovo (which is what we were talking about) to find books written before the US media labeled the Serbs to be the only bad guys in the region. Noel Malcolm you mention as a source about Kosovo? Are you serious? This man jumped on the Anti-Serb bandwagon in the early 90s when it was fashionable to make himself some nice amounts of cash. He writes a book about kosovo (by the way Kosovo is a SERBIAN word) and he did not use even 1 Serbian source!! He used only Albanian and Austrian/German sources! It is as if someone wrote a historic book about America without using 1 American source. In his Bosnia book Malcolm argues for a centralized state yet in Kosovo he backs the “right” for Albanians to break away. How is that not a bias?

For anyone seriously looking to find good and truthful books about the region simply look at anything written prior to the early 1990s to see the history of the region. Also do a google search on “what the NY Times wrote about Kosovo in the 1980s” and you will see how back then the NY times was reporting on what the Albanians were doing to the Serbs in Kosovo (rape, killing and intimidation to leave so a “pure” Albanian state could be formed). 2) you say “serbia is responsible for killing thousands”, what about the “thousands” of Serbs killed by Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Albanians? What specific number count are you referring to? Bosnia for example had 100,000 die in a civil war (a tragedy in which all sides share the blame), 36,000 of that number were Serbs, did they “kill themselves”? According to Bosnian propaganda even after Serbia was found not guilty by the World court (for the nonsense accusation of “genocide” in a civil war in which all 3 sides fought each other and committed barbaric acts) the Muslim Albanians and Bosnians continue the “serbs are guilt for everything” lie. How is it that the Serbs are the only ones that are blamed and are the only people that dmit to the crimes they committed? Are you also referring to the “thousands” of Serbs killed and forced out of Kosovo since 99′ by Albanians? Keep bringing more lies here so I can shut you down over and over again. Maybe your claims can work with someone that has no clue about the region but not here. 3) Your “responsible for WW1″ comment doesn’t even need to be addressed, it is simply ignorant. You clearly have no idea that Wall st made millions off of both wars by plunging the world into debt. Clearly you think that the “americans will always fight for the Albanians”. Enjoy it while it lasts as they will drop you as they did Saddam,the Taliban, the contras and countless other groups they support today and drop tomorrow as their geo-political interest changes. 4) What other races in Serbia “don’t want anything to do with them”? who? Serbia is a European nation and one of its most diverse. Even when the Albanians fled Kosovo, fearing a NATO ground invasion, thousands went north towards Belgrade for safety. 5) you say that kosovo is now independent. really? how are Belgrade based institutions then still operating in the North? how come there are still thousands of Nato troops there? how come Kosovo cant event take one step on its own without the EU and US doing it for you? how come it will never be a UN member? The Albanians have reached their height in Kosovo, the thing that is scaring them the most is that the Serbs have now united around this double standard and JUST cause of getting back their territory. If you take a close look at history you will see that the Albanians have inched and weaseled their way into Kosovo slowly for many years (settling and forcing serbs to leave) while the Serb nation was fighting epic battles against the Ottomans, the Austrians, Germans and now NATO. The Serbs have woken up from the illusion of trying to “play their part” in major world affairs (losing foolishly half of its male population in ww1 and close to 2 million in ww2 while fighting the Albanian ally Nazi Germany). The Serbs were today dropped by their old allies; USA, UK and France the same way that these countries will drop the Albanians one day.

Just as a large percentage of people believe there were WMDs in Iraq, there are many people who believe the media excesses (supplied by the Clinton Administration via the KLA)that scores of thousands of Kosovar Albanians were killed. Of the 2000 dead (you are correct) there are no details as to how many died from NATO bombing. Same with the Serb deaths. Which means the whole raison d’etre for the war was moot. For the U.S. and the E.U. to go into a sovereign nation and divide it up is a violation of every international law that exists. Maybe Raul Castro should start agitating the Miami Cubans to declare independence from Florida.

If Kosovo Albanians are such a proud Albanians, how come they prefer to call themselves Kosovars and Kosovans instead of using their national name Sqiptars? They are willing to be what they are not, just so they can rob the land that does not belong to them. BTW, Kosova is Spanglish for Kosovo. Kos means a blackbird and Kosovo means a Land of Blackbirds.
Furthermore, I very much understand and appreciate Albanian extreme desire for freedom and higher standard of living which in reality they never had. For the first time in their history there are able to live closer to the European standards. But values are still that of the most backward, most undeveloped, the least educated country in Europe with vendetta legal system.
Instead of being thankful for what Yugoslavia gave them and for an opportunity to live in “little America” (at the time in comparison to Enver’s Albania) they use their primitive and aggressive tactics – rob, still, poison, rape.
Because of their mafia mentality, culture, customs, vendetta laws, intolerance towards others they already have very well recorded history within the New York City’s Police Department, especially in the Bronx.
The same goes across any major European city. Europeans do not want them in their backyards. The way our for them is to give Serbian Kosovo in a hope that would keep Albanians away.
Because of horrible standards of living and their own mentality, every Albanian wants to leave not only Kosovo, but Albania as well. They will all build huge homes in their own villages just to show off, but will continue enjoying the civilized Europe, and USA and will continue to import vendetta, drug sales, brothels and other criminal operations.
Albanians will continue to arrange for more business style marriages to get more families out of Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro. While Albanian woman are often physically abused, who take care of many children, cook, clean and even go to work, their man pretend not to be married, visit clubs and restaurants, have none Albanian girlfriends, party and lavishly spend. Often they are caught with illegal possession of guns and get arrested.
Albanian money is 60% of the world’s heroin market from Afganistan. Who in the West is going to dare to end this circle and say enough is enough? Hey EU and USA just do not do it at the expense of the Serbian Kosovo!!!
What Albanians are offered by Serbia is independence de facto but not de jure. They refuse that. They want a secession. If that was a lone entity of Albanians in Balkans one would perhaps be willing to understand. But Kosovo is adjacent to an Albanian state. This is no matter how you want to phrase it annexation.

Moreover it is a slow and orchestrated thievery. Kosovo belonged to Serbia from the time the Slaves came to the Balkans. First the Turks cleansed it, then the Germans and Italians and finally Tito turned the blind eye to the massive and mostly illegal influx from Albania proper.
So why do the Albanians want the independence? They want to have a free hand to organize the most efficient drug smuggling and white slavery state in Europe. Nobody could then penetrate into that fortress of corruption and thievery.

Jun 19, 2008 - 3:23 pm 89. last standing:

The Road to Corruption Leads to Albania!

In December, 2007 Transparency International, an international organization dedicated to monitoring the level of corruption in more that sixty countries, released their list of the top most corrupt “countries”. Albania topped their list of “most corrupt countries”(and the contiguous Albanian populated areas of Kosovo and Macedonia were also in the top 5.)

So it should not come as a surprise that if US officials were involved in corruption and/or some “less than legal” dealings, “Albania” would be part of the equation.

Two news stories yesterday, hit the jackpot on that linkage:

NYT: American Envoy Is Linked to Arms Deal Cover-Up
By ERIC SCHMITT

An American ambassador helped cover up the illegal Chinese origins of ammunition that a Pentagon contractor bought to supply Afghan security forces, according to testimony gathered by Congressional investigators.

A military attaché has told the investigators that the United States ambassador to Albania endorsed a plan by the Albanian defense minister to hide several boxes of Chinese ammunition from a visiting reporter. The ammunition was being repackaged to disguise its origins and shipped from Albania to Afghanistan by a Miami Beach arms-dealing company.

The ambassador, John L. Withers II, met with the defense minister, Fatmir Mediu, hours before a reporter for The New York Times was to visit the American contractor’s operations in Tirana, the Albanian capital, according to the testimony. The company, under an Army contract, bought the ammunition to supply Afghan security forces although American law prohibits trading in Chinese arms……..Continued at NYT

And then there is the recent activities of former Homeland Security Chief and PA Governor, Tom Ridge, as investigated by Roll Call:
Roll Call: Ridge Files Very Late for Albania

Former Bush Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge busted by the Justice Department for failing to register for two years for lobbying for Albania, at $40k a month:

For almost two years former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge failed to register a nearly half-million-dollar lobbying contract that he had with the government of Albania. Ridge filed a registration statement on behalf of the country earlier this month after being contacted by the Department of Justice.

‘It was brought to my attention after the contract expired and my lawyer said under the circumstances I probably should have filed,’ said Ridge, who is a national co-chairman of Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign and has been mentioned as a potential vice presidential running mate. ‘I didn’t think it was [necessary] to register.’

The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires agents to register with the DOJ within 10 days of signing a contract with a foreign government and before performing any duties for the client. Additionally, ‘foreign agents’ must file biannual reports detailing any agreements, income received and expenditures on behalf of foreign countries or corporations owned by countries.

Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor, represented Albania from October 2006 through the end of August 2007 on issues ranging from homeland security to NATO membership.

On May 7, 2007, Ridge and Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha met with Sens. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) to discuss ‘various reforms undertaken by the government of Albania to comply with NATO and EU requirements,’ according to the FARA supplemental statement. Ridge and Berisha met with Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) to discuss the same issues on May 8.

The time stamp on Ridge’s registration statement with the Justice Department is dated June 12, 2008. … Ridge’s registration was spurred by a DOJ inquiry after press accounts surfaced noting Ridge’s connection to the country. …

After a meeting with Justice and his counsel at Blank Rome, Ridge decided to file his FARA registration.

‘Once we were made aware of certain contacts by Gov. Ridge, we advised him to register, which he did,’ said Topper Ray, a spokesman for Blank Rome. …

Ridge is in good company. One becomes aware of a lot of unregistered foreign lobbying in Washington, although not always as blatantly in violation as this. ….

So, curious if Ridge knows something about the strange DOD-US embassy-Albanian government-AEY-mothballed $300 million Chinese ammo weapons deal, now under investigation by the Feds and Congress?”

Jun 25, 2008 - 2:59 pm 90. LimbicNutrition Weblog › Michael Totten again, this time On the Road to Kosovo:

[...] I noted in my Pajama’s Media article I believe that most Serbophobia is based on what British journalist Nick Davies calls “flat earth [...]

Jun 29, 2008 - 5:18 am 91. Sebaneau:

The “normal”Serbs are not those mentioned by Jonathan Davis’ nationalist propaganda, which Balkan specialists know by heart. Normal Serbs are those who, unlike him, tell the truth about Serbian imperialism and guilt in Belgrade’s latest wars of conquest and extermination.

http://www.bosnia.org.uk/bosrep/report_format.cfm?articleid=3109&reportid=171
http://pasta.cantbedone.org/pages/TiOJSd.htm
Persistence of the Old Regime in Serbia

Branka Magaš, Bosnian Institute, 31 May 2006

Comment by a consultant for The Bosnian Institute on the significance of the recent violent press campaign in Serbia against the regime’s most distinguished democratic opponent

The recent frontal attack on the respected Serbian historian Latinka Perović by the Belgrade weekly NIN , spread over two issues and eleven pages, reminds one forcefully just how little has changed in Serbia since Milošević’s fall from grace.1 The NIN operation owes much to the old Communist regime’s method of silencing its critics by denouncing them as enemies of the people. Following this recipe, the article portrays Perović and her ‘epigones’ as politically insignificant yet extremely powerful; morally debased yet claiming the moral high ground; harbouring totalitarian ambitions and outlook while pretending to be democrats. By concentrating on the country’s responsibility for the war and for war crimes, they are destroying Serbia’s chances of becoming a normal, modern, democratic and prosperous state. These ‘civic extremists’ are, in fact, far more dangerous to the country than the Milošević heritage or extreme nationalists like Vojislav Šešelj (currently in custody at The Hague)

Reliance on the old recipe is visible too in the method used to establish the ‘evidence’ for these and other accusations of a similar nature. It is based on interviews with individuals none of whom wishes to be identified – for the sake of Serbia’s national interest (!). Thus, according to one of these closet sources:

‘Many scholars, researchers and activists are doing wonderful things for Serbia, but they depend for financial support on various foreign foundations. If they were to speak [openly rather than in secret] about these people, the latter would seek to undermine them, and would maybe succeed in discrediting them, which would stop their projects.’

The editor justifies relying exclusively on anonymous sources by claiming that Perović and her co-thinkers are engaged in ‘non-transparent activity’. As for the validity of the evidence, each statement in the article was confirmed by ‘at least three moral people, i.e. credible sources, drawn from various circles’. What these ‘moral people’ supplied the intrepid journalist with turned out to be nothing but malicious gossip. Here we have a nice example of a paper engaged in ‘non-transparent activity’ charging its victims with that very offence.

Enemies of the people

The charges laid against Latinka Perović and her co-thinkers are both numerous and comprehensive. bIt is thus alleged that Professor Perović has been ‘for years the most influential woman in Serbia’, indeed ‘one of the most powerful women in its history’. Politically, she is a ‘Stalinist Liberal’ (it used to be ‘agent of the KGB and the CIA’). She works behind the scenes ‘cementing lies about Serbia’. She appears ‘at poorly attended meetings’, writes for ‘obscure publications’, and gives interviews to papers that ‘barely sell and nobody reads’. She ‘nurtures the West’s anti-Serb prejudices by supplying it with material which prevents it from forming a rational image of Serbia’. The ways in which her policy and beliefs affect Serbia are ‘quite obscure’: she is ’semi-visible’, ’sphinx-like’, ‘non-transparent’. Or maybe not, for she spreads her influence through her group of ‘civic mujahedeen’, ‘hysterical, aggressive and arrogant’ men and women who are blindly loyal to her. Her chief ’satraps’ are to be found in the Serbian Helsinki Committee (Sonja Biserko et al.), Čedomir Jovanović’s Liberal Democratic Party, and the radio programme Peščanik [Hourglass]. These people are driven by ‘frustration and fury, having succumbed to hatred’. The most vociferous among them, however, are ‘intellectual and moral midgets’. Latinka Perović herself ‘tries to appear nice’, but she too is ‘full of silent fury’.

Her political influence derives not from some great achievement on her part, but from her having ‘marginalised and paralysed’ others. It is her fault that ‘the Other Serbia’ has failed to articulate its voice. Her insistence and that of her circle on Serbia’s guilt has destroyed the option represented by that part of the Other Serbia which believes that cooperating with the government is the best way of helping Serbia make ‘a shortcut to modernity’. She wears ‘the mask of a saint’ and ‘creates a religious atmosphere around her’, but is in reality ‘arrogant and narcissistic’. She is ‘playing an unbelievably dirty game’. ‘The problem lies in her nature’: she is like ‘a religious fanatic’. She used to be shunned, but the Croatians, Slovenians and Bosnians, i.e. people who were ‘on the other side in the war’, have given her a platform. They love her because ’she attacks Serbia’ while overlooking their own crimes. Their endorsement ‘feeds her ego and causes her to lose touch with reality’. Perović thus believes that the modern Serbia’s future lies in having good relations with her neighbours, and in separating from Russia of which she has ‘a morbid fear’. She applies history selectively to argue that Serbia has no future unless it faces up to its responsibility for the war and the crimes committed in its name, and by doing this she prevents ‘a rational discussion about the country’s future’. Defence of Serbia’s national interests for her is nationalism: she and her circle are ‘anti-patriotic’. Indeed she is co-responsible with the extreme nationalists for Serbia’s present predicament. She and her acolytes instead offer reform based on ‘force and punishment’ and ‘loss of territory’. The Serbian Helsinki Committee is a site of ‘destructiveness and primitivism’. The regime critic and satirical journalist Petar Luković, for example, is ‘a new kind of Pol Pot’. These people are driven by material self-interest and ‘psycho-pathology’.

According to NIN, Perović sees herself as ‘a messiah to whom Serbia will sooner or later turn’. On the other hand, her political fall in 1972 (she had been secretary of the League of Communists of Serbia, LCS) ‘led her to believe that all Serbs are evil’. She ‘has slid into naked hatred’. She and her circle ‘hate’ Tadić and Koštunica – without whom, however, there is no democratisation or return to normality. They hold the entire Serbian establishment to be guilty, thereby propagating the wrong image of Serbia. Unlike Perović, who has never made public self-criticism, Dobrica Ćosić – another person ‘hated’ by her circle – is ready to admit that he has made mistakes. Perović has now adopted Čedomir Jovanović as her ‘political heir’; but if Jovanović wishes to advance politically, he has first to drop her, because she is pushing him into ‘apolitical’, ‘irrational’ and ‘non-pragmatic’ behaviour. In fact, ‘his political marriage with Latinka is a dream for the enemies of modern Serbia.’ Jovanović must choose whether to be a pragmatic politician like Đinđić, or a political loser like ‘these empty moralists’. What Jovanović’s type of dogmatism, according to which Serbia must face up to the truth if it is to become a modern state and society. must do is to ‘marry reason and the nation’. His party, and other small parties of the democratic opposition, must abandon Perović.

Character assassination was one of the favourite methods used by the former Communist state security services against political opponents. The trick consists of charging the critics with causing problems that are in reality of the regime’s own making. According to Perović’s critics, she and her circle rather than the Serbian government are responsible for Serbia’s poor relations with the West. It is their insistence on Serbia’s responsibility for the recent wars rather than what Serbia actually did that prevents the country from making a new turn. It is their demand that the political class should account for its role in the war rather than the disastrous policy carried out by that class which is injurious to the national interest. In the view of these critics, the war and its attendant crimes were simply errors committed – wittingly or unwittingly, but always in pursuit of perfectly legitimate aims – by individuals, who either are gone (like Slobodan Milošević) or have mended their ways (like Dobrica Ćosić). It is consequently quite unnecessary – if not downright cruel – to force the Serbian people to acknowledge its country’s role in the recent wars. Only by setting this past aside (and leaving it to ‘objective’ academic research) can Serbia come to feel ‘normal’ and ‘happy’ again.

The trouble with this recommendation is that it cannot work, because Serbia’s past has not passed away. It is still there, choking the country. One of its most glaring manifestations is precisely the regime’s denial of Serbia’s responsibility for the war, despite the great mountain of evidence collected by the Hague tribunal. The tribunal, it is true, has not charged Serbia with ‘crimes against peace’ but, as Professor Paul Garde has recently written in the Paris daily Liberation, the fact that Serbia committed aggression against its neighbours ‘leaps out of the court records everywhere’.2 The attack on Perović and her co-thinkers will not change this reality. Serbia’s real problem lies in the persistence of the old regime, a regime which has generated three wars in quick succession for aims that could not be realised without resort to mass crime, and which continues, moreover, to harbour expansionist ambitions. Key policy makers and party leaders declare openly that the war is not yet over, so that the regime presents a lasting threat to peace in the region. If only for this reason, its nature and durability cannot be treated as a purely internal Serbian affair: so long as it remains in power, it will be a subject of serious concern for both its neighbours and the international community.

When Milošević fell from power in October 2000 Western capitals, keen to see Serbia’s return to international respectability, hailed this as a revolutionary change. It gradually dawned on them, however, that the change was more cosmetic than substantial. Zoran Đinđić, the Serbian prime minister responsible for delivering Slobodan Milošević to The Hague, was assassinated; the genocidal killers Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić are still at large; and the country continues to live in a state of denial.

‘Zoran Dinđić’s murder was possible’, notes Serbian historian Olga Popović-Obradović, ‘not because of the nature of the regime under Milošević, but because that regime was not changed on 5 October, yet had to appear to have done so.’ 3

Changing Serbia turns out to be far more difficult than many had hoped for or predicted, given the persistence of the old regime. The latter has survived the fall of Communism, successive military defeats, NATO bombings, and dramatic changes in its immediate neighbourhood. Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria have either joined or are about to join the European Union; Croatia and Macedonia are on the road to it; Albania and Montenegro are seeking to do the same. Kosovo will join them as soon as it is allowed independent foreign action. Serbia alone appears determined to stay out.4 Given the regime’s extraordinary tenacity, it makes sense to ask just how far back it goes and what are its roots.

But before attempting to answer this question, let us pause for a moment to consider the proposition that Serbia can move forward with this regime in place.

The main message of the article in NIN is not only that it can, but also that this is the only way. The article’s advice to Čedomir Jovanović is to be a hard-nosed politician, like Zoran Đinđić. But if anything can be learnt from Đinđić’s assassination it is that the regime cannot be changed by a pragmatic adaptation to it.5 His murder, which was announced in advance in the Serbian media, was a warning to all those seeking a radical break with the past. The exact circumstances surrounding this political assassination, and especially who ordered it, remain to be established; in the view of most reporters, they never will be. This should come as no surprise, since, as Popović-Obradović adds,

‘all relevant social and state institutions, without exception, took part in it whether directly or indirectly: generals, i.e. the army; clergy, i.e. the church; scholars and poets, i.e. their respective institutions’.

With this regime in power there is no shortcut to normality.

Tenacity of the old regime

It is widely accepted that the present regime was created by Milošević, i.e. that it began with the installation of Milošević as head of the LCS in 1987, followed by a mass purge of the party; the adoption in 1989 of a new constitution making Serbia independent from Yugoslavia; and the proclamation in 1992 of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), now – for a little while longer – ‘Serbia and Montenegro’. An important element of the Milošević order was the creation in 1991-2 of two ‘ethnically purified’ Serb ‘republics’, one in Croatia and the other in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Together with FRY these formed the bulk of the Great Serbia that Dragoljub Mihailović’s Chetniks had tried to bring about in the course of World War II.

The Chetniks fought for a Yugoslavia centred on an ‘ethnically purified’ Great Serbia, and spent much of the war trying to establish the latter’s borders in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Their enterprise failed, but half a century later it was to reappear as an going concern, thanks to the joint efforts of two generations of Serbian Communists – symbolised respectively by Dobrica Ćosić and Slobodan Milošević.

Sonja Biserko notes in a major essay on the reconstruction of history now proceeding in Serbia that during the 1990s most former Partisans came to identify themselves as Chetniks.6 Serbian democrats protested vigorously against the Koštunica government’s recent rehabilitation of the Chetniks, but given the support of old Partisans and long-standing Communists for the Chetnik project this move in fact appeared quite logical. It is questionable, indeed, in view of this Communist-Chetnik symbiosis, whether the division between Chetniks and Serbian Communists upon on which Communist historiography always insisted was ever quite so fundamental with respect to the issue of Yugoslavia. Milošević, after all, was hand-picked for the powerful post of president of the LCS by senior (high-ranking and elderly) Serbian Communist leaders close to the army and security services, for a very specific task: to transform Yugoslavia into Great Serbia. He in turn gave Radovan Karadžić, who had been recommended to him by Dobrica Ćosić, the leading role in implementing this project in Bosnia. The ‘Milošević regime’, which lives on in Serbia and in the Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina, stems directly from the Serbian segment of the pre-war Communist party-state. The whole Milosević phenomenon was indeed the latter’s creation.

The historiography of the Communist period, both Yugoslav and foreign, tends to downplay the diversity of ways in which Communist rule came to be established in the different Yugoslav countries during and after World War II, the variation reflecting both their individual histories and their specific wartime experiences. There exists in this regard a crucial difference between Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, on the one hand, and Serbia on the other – involving the relative extent of popular participation in the Partisan struggle, the timing and tempo of the creation of new state bodies, and the attitudes to federalism. Whereas in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina the Partisans were able to liberate large tracts of land and place their administration on a more or less solid footing before the end of the war, Serbia never became Partisan territory. Moreover, whereas in western Yugoslavia the federal order grew directly out of the anti-fascist resistance, that order had to be imposed on Serbia, where it was constantly to be challenged.

Serbia’s eventual pacification was made easier by the mass entry of Chetniks into the Partisan army in 1944. At the same time, the dearth of indigenous Communist cadres brought into public prominence a score of relatively unknown men – such as Dobrica Ćosić, future president of FRY, and Mihailo Marković, future vice-president of Milošević’s Socialist Party of Serbia – men with close ties to the powerful state security department created and administered by the Serbian Party leader Aleksandar Ranković. Ćosić, an ardent advocate of ethnic separation and the man who many in Serbia hail as the ‘father of the nation’, became early on Ranković’s close friend and collaborator.7 Between the end of the war and 1966, when Ranković was ousted from power, Serbia was in effect Ranković’s fiefdom. Despite its wartime record, it became under Ranković the dominant Yugoslav state, almost Yugoslavia’s alter ego. During these formative years for Ćosić and Marković (and Milošević too: he was born in 1941), it was easy if you lived in Serbia to think that Serbia and Yugoslavia were one and the same thing. Communist Serb nationalists treated ‘Yugoslav’ and ‘Serb’ as synonyms, while charging all who did not declare themselves ‘Yugoslav’ by nationality with being anti-Yugoslav.8 Many of their generation adopted, with suitable rhetorical modifications, the understanding of Yugoslavia as an expanded Serbia that had been prevalent in the pre-World War II Serbian (and especially Belgrade) middle class.

During his time in office, Ranković established an administrative apparatus with the state security service at its core, which penetrated all spheres of civil society, including the Orthodox Church. This rock upon which the Serbian Communist state rested was to be inherited practically unchanged twenty years later by Slobodan Milošević. Ranković, poised to replace Tito at the head of the Yugoslav Communist party, was instead purged, because of the justifiable suspicion that he was seeking abolition of the federal constitutional order. This is precisely what Milošević tried to do in 1987-9, causing in the process the break-up of both the Yugoslav League of Communists and Yugoslavia itself.

Great Serbia as Yugoslavia

It is commonly held that the Serbian regime fought the recent wars in the name of ‘the liberation and unification of all Serbs’. This indeed is what its leaders and ideologues have been saying all this time. Ćosić was calling for the Serbs to separate themselves from other Yugoslavs and create a separate state well before the start of the war. But they have insisted too that all this time they were fighting for Yugoslavia, against people – i.e. all other Yugoslavs – who wished to destroy it. Ćosić, for example, stated recently that

‘the Slovenes fought for an independent Slovenia, the Croats for an ethnically pure Croatia, the Serbs for Yugoslavia and for their national and civic rights, the Muslims for an Islamic Bosnia, and the Albanians for a Great Albania’.9

For Dobrica Ćosić, in other words, there is no contradiction between insisting on the need for the Serbs to have a separate state and claiming that the Serbs were fighting for Yugoslavia.

That the Serbs fought ‘for Yugoslavia and for their national and civil rights’ was the focal point of Milošević’s defence too. Milošević, having destroyed Yugoslavia, promptly gave the Yugoslav name to the state of which he was president. The academic drafters of the notorious 1986 Memorandum, who had insisted that Yugoslavia was Serbia’s graveyard, found nothing amiss with this. For them too this new Serb Yugoslavia was more Yugoslav than the old one with its majority of non-Serbs. Biserko recalls in her essay on historical memory an exchange between one of the Hague tribunal judges and Mihailo Marković, who was testifying on Milošević’s behalf. Presented with a map of Great Serbia published in Belgrade in 1991, Marković denied it was a map of Great Serbia: it was simply Yugoslavia without Slovenia or (a much reduced) Croatia. Some analysts have diagnosed this simultaneous attachment to Great Serbia and Yugoslavia as a form of schizophrenia, but this is to mistake the matter. The war that these Communist Chetniks fought was not for Great Serbia as such, but for a Great Serbia that would be internationally accepted as Yugoslavia.

The calculation was that a Great Serbia recognised as Yugoslavia would be in a better position to lay claim to the bulk of the former Yugoslav territory.

This deliberate confusion between Great Serbia and Yugoslavia has a long history, going right back to the middle of the 19th century.10

It found its clearest articulation, however, in the mind-set adopted by the Serbian middle class after the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918, as a result of which a decade later the kingdom was renamed Yugoslavia. During the intervening decade, this class was completely restructured in size, wealth and ambition. It was in many ways a new class, one that made a fortune out of systematic and unashamed pillage of the new country, and of the former Austro-Hungarian lands in particular. A bloated army, gendarmerie and state security service were its chief tools of wealth extraction. This sudden windfall in the shape of Yugoslavia paid for Serbia’s pre-war and wartime international borrowing; for new factories, shops, banks and railways; for new theatres, museums, galleries and Orthodox churches; and for new palaces and easy living for the new governing class. It paid too for Serbia’s enhanced status in Europe. The achievement of Serb ‘unity and liberty’ paled into insignificance before the glitter of the Yugoslav golden goose: the Serbs of Vojvodina, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were plucked just as greedily as were the Germans, the Hungarians, the Slovenes, the Croats and others.11 For the Serbian elite, ‘Serb unification and liberation’ was an expedient pretext for holding and ruling an area and a population five times larger than Serbia itself. Yugoslavia was the source of its wealth, power and prestige and has ever since remained its great obsession. Ever since 1918, this class has been ‘fighting for’ and ‘defending’ Yugoslavia against all other Yugoslavs.

Serbia’s ruthless exploitation of Yugoslavia caused the latter’s collapse in 1941, but you would hardly be aware of this part of history, if you happened to live in Belgrade after 1945, given the revival of Serbia’s dominance within Yugoslavia and the great Serbian influx into every important department of the federal state: administration, diplomacy, army, police, banking, etc. – indeed into everything spawned by the centralised state set up by the Yugoslav Communist party. Up until 1966, the clock seemed to be turning back to 1918.

But then Ranković fell, Serbia’s hegemony became divested of its main props, Ćosić found a new calling as a dissident, while Marković turned into a ‘Marxist humanist’. Much of the Serbian elite experienced Ranković’s fall as a major defeat, and began to hatch plans for restoring Serbia to its previous position. Reacting against the economic and political reforms of 1968-74, which they could not prevent, they spoke increasingly about ‘the liberation and unification of all Serbs’ – who, in actual fact, were neither unfree nor disunited. But what they had in mind was a new fusion of Great Serbia and Yugoslavia.

The Perović way

It is here that the Perović story properly comes in. After Ranković’s fall, she and her party colleague and friend Marko Nikezić, the LCS president, tried to create a new internal Serbian consensus based on the realisation that Serbian domination of Yugoslavia was unsustainable as well as injurious to Serbia itself, since the political, military and police setup needed to keep it going was preventing the country’s (hence also Serbia’s) modernisation and democratisation. They believed that Yugoslavia was for various reasons the most desirable framework for Serbia, which is why it was worth making the union work.

By this time Serbia had accumulated sufficient internal resources to feel confident that it should be able to beat the more developed Slovenia and Croatia at their own game – i.e. good economic management – without having to rely on threats or subterfuge. Like other Yugoslav states, Serbia had its own national interests to defend; but any conflict deriving therefrom should be resolved through all-Yugoslav dialogue and consensus. Like so much else at the time, however, this sound policy was put aside after the political purges of the early 1970s, which eliminated the pair from active politics. It was finally buried by the national-Communist reaction that brought Milošević to power and directed Serbia onto the opposite course.

Today, however, with the quest for a Serbian Yugoslavia having failed, the regime in Belgrade finds itself at a loss at the precise time when the country is in most urgent need of a fresh start. Its ideologues and sycophants dislike and fear Perović, not only because she reminds them of their failure – and indeed of the very impossibility of the Great Serbia project – but also because she stands for the only viable alternative: that of a Serbia at peace with its neighbours, integrated into Europe, and busy making up for the lost decades. Serbia is today once again at a crossroads, and it can only be hoped that it will return to the Perović way.

The Serbian malady

Serbia spent much of the 20th century trying to establish itself as the hegemonic state in the Balkans, with grave consequences for its own democratic development. In her magisterial work Parlamentarizam u Srbiji 1903-1914, Olga Popović-Obradović traces the development of the country’s parliamentary system in the decade preceding its integration into Yugoslavia. She writes that despite many problems stemming mainly from the backwardness of Serbian society, liberal democracy was gradually taking root; but also that it was held back by the growing influence of army officers in domestic politics, a development made inevitable by the determination of the Serbian political parties to achieve ‘the liberation and unification of all Serbs’ (and much else besides). As Serbia came to include territories populated by overwhelmingly non-Serb populations (Kosovo and Macedonia in 1912, Montenegro and Vojvodina in 1918), the army’s role in politics became ever more pronounced. The shift of power from parliament to the army and the court camarilla was completed in Yugoslavia, whose parliament functioned either as a mere talking shop or not at all.

Following World War II, the Communist party justified its monopoly of political power on ideological grounds, but it was motivated also by the fear that free elections would result in Yugoslavia’s break-up. Despite the official rhetoric of ‘brotherhood and unity’, Yugoslavia was in fact an alliance of disparate states kept together by their voluntary adhesion to the AVNOJ compact deriving from World War II, a compact that rested on acceptance of the existing borders and sovereignties and that had Tito as its chief arbiter.

Once Tito died in 1981, the Serbian elite felt free to challenge this system, thus opening the road to war. The NIN article attacks Perović for her positive assessment of the Titoist phase of Serbian history; but it is clear that her stance has nothing to do with the defence of an undemocratic system, but derives rather from an understanding that peace and cooperation with its neighbours was far more advantageous to Serbia than the post-Tito policy of attrition and war.

The AVNOJ settlement was internationally re-affirmed in 1992 with the recognition of the independence of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. By acknowledging these states, the current Serbian regime too has recognised, formally at least, this arrangement for the former Yugoslav area. But it has done so half-heartedly and under duress. It continues to hope, in fact, for a situation to arise in which a resurgent Russia might help Serbia to achieve its former war aims. This Communist-Chetnik hybrid has long been governing Serbia by evading democratic control. Though the country is formally a parliamentary democracy, all important decisions are taken by a cabal linked to the Academy, the Army, the police, the Church, the mafia, and various interest groups produced by a decade of war and isolation. It is doubtful that this regime can be reformed from within. Nevertheless, change is slowly taking place under the combined pressure of the international community and the determination of Kosovo and Montenegro to be independent. As these last vestiges of Milošević’s FRY come to be wound up, Serbia, finally freed from the Great Serbia millstone, will be in a good position to fashion a new future for itself.

The country has paid a high price for trying to forge a Serbian order in the Balkans. In the process it has lost many of the political, social and economic benefits that had accrued to it during the Tito period, as well as the trust of its closest neighbours. The European Union, which has – or soon will – supersede the AVNOJ arrangement as the right framework for the former Yugoslav republics and Kosovo, has inevitably taken upon itself also the former federation’s task of curing Serbia of its Great Serb malady. This will not be easy, but it has to be done for the sake of Serbia and Europe alike.

1. NIN, Belgrade, 13 and 20 April 2006

2. Libération, Paris, 20 March 2006

3. Helsinška povelja, Belgrade, January-February 2006

4. In early May 2006 the EU decided to suspend its negotiations with Serbia because of the latter’s failure to deliver Ratko Mladić to The Hague

5. See, for example, Miloš Vasić, Atentat na Zorana, Belgrade 2005

6. Monitor, Podgorica, issues 801-7, March-April 2006

7. Ćosić’s long-standing involvement with the state security service is discussed in Dragoljub Todorović, Knjiga o Ćosiću, Belgrade 2005

8. Ćosić thus held against Tito the fact that in 1964, when for the first time party leaders were identified by nationality, Tito called himself a Croat, not a Yugoslav. Todorović, op.cit., pp 78-9

9. Biserko, op.cit.

10. See, for example, Olivera Milosavljević, U tradiciji nacionalizma, Belgrade 2002.

11. The relevant economic figures are in Rudolf Bićanić, Ekonomska podloga hrvatskog pitanja i drugi radovi, Zagreb 1995.

Jul 10, 2008 - 4:04 am 92. Sebaneau:

http://www.bndlg.de/~wplarre/back150.htm
http://pasta.cantbedone.org/pages/1AA5eM.htm
HAVE THE ALBANIANS OCCUPIED KOSOVA?
by Alain DUCELLIER (University of Toulouse, France)

After the recent grave events in Kosova, it is difficult to analyse this problem with all the intellectual seriousness demanded of an historian; furthermore, since, from that time, the press carries articles in support of the “Serbian” thesis, regarded by many as a quite logical one, any voice in opposition to it remains isolated and seems to be inspired by an “Albanophilia” which is a priori considered dubious. Let us make ourselves clear: there is no solid argument today to determine the nationality of this or that region, especially in the Balkans, except for the obvious presence of a national majority. In this sense, Kosova, inhabited by a population two thirds of which is Albanian*, should of course not be treated other than Albanian, and that even without the slightest hint about uniting it with the political entity called “Albania”.
Seeing the persistent use of historical facts to prove that the Serbs, as the oldest inhabitants who were allegedly driven out by Albanians later, have a “right” to Kosova, it would not be irrelevant to demonstrate that in this case, at least, history and the present situation coincide.
In a recent article Michel AUBIN points out that Kosova was the

“economic and political centre of the Serbian mediaeval kingdom in the 13th and 14th centuries [1]“,

which is true.
So, it seems that only the Turkish occupation, after driving the Serbs out of the best lands, finally forced them, especially in 1690 and 1738, to emigrate towards southern Hungary and substituted them with Islamicized elements brought over from Northern Albania.

Let us not insist on the fact that the establishment of a centre of political and economic power on a given territory is by no means a proof, particularly in the Middle Ages, of the ethnic predominance of the rulers.
Thus, the small “Serb” despotate of Seres in Northern Greece from 1355 to 1371 managed to rule over a population the overwhelming majority of which was Greek [2]. Nevertheless, let us agree that the Serbs were the majority in Kosova in the 13th century. But then the question arises: who lived in this region before ?

The Slavs are an Indo-European people who came to Europe at a later period, since the frequent waves of their invasions occurred in the 6th and 7th centuries [3]. At that time, many centuries of Romanization had failed to liquidate the old indigenous peoples: the Dacians in Romania, the Thracians in Bulgaria, the Illyrians in Dalmatia, Albania and Macedonia. As for Kosova, it is an undeniable fact that at least from the 18th century B. C. many Illyrian political entities had emerged, and gradually passed from the tribal stage to real small kingdoms like the Dardanians, the Penestes, the Paeonians (to mention only the most important) [4].
All recent studies, both linguistic and archaeological, tend to prove that the Illyrians are most certainly the direct ancestors of the Albanians [5].
As regards archaeology, the study of ceramics and ornaments (rings, earrings, bracelets, and especially fibulae) testifies to an extraordinary continuity in the designs and technology between the ancient Illyrian and the new artifacts discovered in the mediaeval settlements which may be dated to the 6th and 7th centuries A. D. (the Daimaca castle in the vicinity of Puka, and especially Kruja); this is so true that the Yugoslav archaeologist B. COVIĆ has dated the material found in the Daimaca castle from the 6th-7th centuries A. D. [6]. However, we should remember that the excavations in the Daimaca castle started in the last century and that all agreed then that they were a testimony to the “old Slavonic civilization” [7].
Of course, this Illyrian-Albanian continuity is not only proved on the present-day territory of Albania. The findings in the necropolis of Melje near Virpazar (Montenegro) and in two settlements in the Ohri zone in Macedonia have brought to light artifacts belonging to the same civilization [8]. Of course, the intensive activity of Albanian archaeologists since 1945 is the only one to be considered to explain the very rich troves unearthed on their national territory.

Lacking any document which would prove the liquidation or the emigration of the local Illyrian population in the course of Slavic invasions, it is natural to think that during the Late Middle Ages Kosova, like the rest of Albania, had a predominantly Illyrian population, that is, Albanian.
To be sure, a phenomenon of Slavicization is noted and this is best shown by place names, which have little value in determining the ethnic character of a people. The large number of Slavic toponyms found in Albania at present, has never led anyone to believe that the majority of its population was ever [always ?] Slav.
Indeed, such an argument would never serve the advocates of the “Serbian thesis”. The less so since most of the Slavonic toponyms in Kosova and Albania appear to be more Bulgarian than Serbian, which is quite natural because the Bulgarians had occupied the zone since the 9th century, and especially at the end of the 10th century, at the height of the last Bulgarian Empire, with Ohrid as its capital [9].
At that time the Serbs lived away from Kosova; in fact, in the 9th-10th centuries their first compact colonies were Rascia (Raška) in the Ibar valley, west of Morava, and Zeta which corresponds broadly to present-day Montenegro.
It is precisely when prince Stefan NEMANJIĆ became King in 1217 that the Serbian state began to expand and include the zone of Peja (Peć), while the main body of Kosova territories remained outside its borders. It is unnecessary to dwell any longer on this since no “historical” argument can but refute the “Serbian” thesis, as history points out that the Serbs, in regard to Kosova, are very late comers.

Did the Serbian domination wipe out the ancient Illyrian-Albanian population?
In fact, Serbian texts themselves show the opposite: on the occasion when, in 1348, Stefan DUSAN endowed a gift to the monastery of Saint Michael and Gabriel in Prizren, we learn that in the vicinity of that town there were at least 9 villages described as Albanian (Arbanaš) [10].
The famous code proclaimed by the same sovereign one year later shows that in many villages under his rule, besides the Slavonic population, there were Vlach and Albanian elements, which must have been very dynamic since the Emperor was obliged to restrict their settlement on his lands [11]. If the Vlachs and the Albanians come to be called nomads, it is surely not only because they were “shepherds from birth”, but merely because of the economic and political pressure from the ruling people.
This had been happening since 1328 in the regions of Diabolis, Kolonea and Ohrid, where J. KANTAKUZEN mentions an encounter of the Byzantine Emperor ANDRONICUS III with the “nomadic Albanians” of Central Macedonia [12].

To be sure, the Serbian rule was heavy on the Albanian subjects. Allowing for the obvious propaganda aims of the author, there is certainly some truth in what GUILLAUME D’ADAM, a propagandist for the crusade, writes in 1332,

“… these people, both Latin and Albanian, are under the unbearable and very grave yoke of the prince of the Slavs, whom they despise and hate heartily because they are burdened with heavy taxes, their clergymen are treated scornfully, their bishops and priests are often bound in chains, their noblemen expropriated … All of them together and individually, thought that they would sanctify their hands if they stained them with the blood of the above-mentioned Slavs [13].”

We must add that the Byzantine authors are sensitive about the unity of the people from Albania to Macedonia; the historian, Laonikos CHALKOKONDYLIS of the 15th century, after stressing that the Albanians are quite different from the Serbs and the Bosnians [14], says that no other people resembles the Macedonians more than the Albanians [15].
In these conditions the Turkish occupation began in the second half of the 14th century, and it is true that at this juncture the Albanians affirmed themselves again in Kosova, but, of course, not in the way the question is usually presented, as if the Albanians came on the Turkish band-wagon; on the contrary, from the Shkodra Lake up to Kosova they bound together and resisted along with the other Christian peoples.
At the time of the celebrated battle of 1389, the Greek authors mention, apart from the Serbs and the Bulgarians, also, the Albanians of the North, those of Himara, Epirus and the coastal zone [16]. The Turkish chronicler Idrisi BITTISI, mentions the participation of the Albanians of the Shkodra region, whose prince, Gjergj BALSHA, led 5 000 men into the battle [17] ; the same data are provided by the other Ottoman chroniclers, Ali and Hoca SAADEDDIN [18].

The defeat of 1389 totally disorganized the Serbian state and left a free field of action to the most powerful local princes, including the Albanian princes of the North and the Northeast. The most distinguished among them was Gjon KASTRIOTI, SKANDERBEG’s father, who, from an original ruler of the mountainous region of Mat, extended his principality from the mouth of the Ishem River up to Prizren, in the South of Kosova. In 1420 he granted Ragusa a trade privilege from “his coastal lands up to Prizren [19]“.
This new Albanian state brought about the development of a class of merchants from a population which had been discouraged from such pursuit. The archives of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) show that a number of Albanian merchants of Ragusa voluntarily stayed in Kosova. This is proved by a letter which the Republic of Ragusa sent to Marco of TANI in Prishtina [20], in March 1428, after the KASTRIOTIS had submitted to the Turks, and again in 1448 in the same town we find the other Albanian merchant Kimo MATI of Tani [21].

Therefore, there is no reason to think that, at this stage of their conquest, the Ottomans relied particularly on the Albanians to oppose the Slavs.
It is not futile to recall that the Albanians then were no less Christian than the Serbs and no more ready to submit to the Ottomans.
If this is the place to mention the deeds of SKANDERBEG, who carried out some of his battles on the borders of Kosova, we shall state that the Byzantine historian, DUKAS, in the middle of the 15th century, presents as the main reason for the Turkish triumph the reduction in the number of Albanians, from Dalmatia to Thracia [22].
Whereas the Turkish chronicles refer to Albanian uprisings in Kosova, especially those of 1467, when the “rebels” plundered the herds of cattle in the region of Tetova under the leadership of a “traitor” by the name of ISKENDER [23].

Thus, it is clear that a large Albanian population was still living in Kosova even before the Turkish occupation, and it is redundant to explain this fact by supposing an outburst of mass migrations about which historical sources remain silent.
Indeed, the fact that no mention is made of clashes between the Albanians and the Slavs at the time of Tsar DUŠAN, and the more so during the time of the creation of the principality of Kastrioti, proves that the “Albanian state” extended gradually and was welcomed by the local people in general, because there were many Albanian elements among them.

Despite the new information provided by the Ottoman cadastral registers (defterler) recently put at our disposal, it is virtually impossible to determine the relative number of Albanians in relation to that of the Slavs in Kosova in the 15th century. The best example is the publication in 1974, by S. PULAHA, of the Shkodra sandjak defter from 1485, covering the region of Shkodra, Peja, Podgorica and Bihor [24].
First of all, we must stress the extraordinary objectivity with which S. PULAHA treats the rich toponymy and anthroponymy supplied by this source ; together with him, let us repeat that it is quite ordinary for an Albanian to have a Slav name and vice-versa and that a Slav or Albanian toponym does not dictate any concusions about the nature of the population under discussion [25]. However, it is certain that the common use of a double toponym and anthroponym testifies to an ethnic mixture, the component elements of which may be determined according to regions.
In the Shkodra sandjak (which included the entire zone of Peja), S. PULAHA distinguishes three entities in which the Albanian element is represented in various degrees:
the region of Shkodra where the Albanians make up the overwhelming majority,
the region of Piper, Shestan, Altunili, where an equilibrium seems to have been established between the two populations;
the zone of Peja where the Albanians constitute a considerable minority [26] and where a good number of villages have Slavic names but the majority of the population is Albanian [27].

The main conclusion is that such a mixture of the two groups would be quite unimaginable if anyone of them had recently settled in this zone; the Ottoman register of Shkodra shows that the Albanians constitute a very old component of the local population, especially in the region of Peja, and apart from others, since we lack information about any massive migration of Albanians towards Kosova before the 16th century, we are induced to think that a considerable part of the Kosova Albanians had their roots in the ancient Illyrian-Albanian population living there from Antiquity [28].

As for the other half of Kosova, there is still much to be done, but it must be said that a very old cadastral register including also central Kosova (Vilkili) has been preserved. From that register of 1455, the Bosnian historian A. HANŽIĆ, draws precisely the same conclusions : the very particular mixture of the two peoples implies the permanence of the old Albanian substratum [29].

It must be added that this Albanian element was consolidated from the beginning of the 15th century with the “economic” immigration to the mining zone, especially the rich silver mines of Srebrenica and Novo Brdo. These Albanians, nearly all Christians, were masters who emigrated first towards Ragusa from Northern coastal Albania (Tivar, Shkodra), and from the mountainous zone (Mat) [30]. However, these masters had been established in Kosova for many generations, as is the case with Petar GONOVIĆ PRISTENAZ (from Prishtina) [31], Johannes PROGNOVIĆ from Novomonte (Novo Brdo), and, apparently, many others [32]. It is not without interest to point out that this emigration of the Catholic Albanians, attracted by the possibility of working in the mines, continues well into the 17th century and, according to reports by some envoys of the Pope to that region [33] , resulted in their settlement in Novo Brdo, Gjakova, Prishtina and Trepça.

As a conclusion it emerges that in Kosova, it is certainly the Slavs or the Slavonized peoples, the Bulgarians and then the Serbs, who, beginning from the 7th century, occupied a region the population of which was virtually Illyrian-Albanian from antiquity.
With the settlement of Slavs and the Slavicization of part of the local population at the beginning of the 13th century, Kosova became their main major political and economic centre.
As we pointed out, it is impossible to determine how the two elements stood in relation to one another, though they managed to coexist without major problems. The Ottoman occupation, the gradual weakening of Serbia and, at the same time, the internal reaction and the influx of peaceful immigration of Christian Albanians from the north of Albania resulted in the continuous increase of the Albanian element in Kosova.
Many studies are still necessary to confirm this, but there is a possibility that, even before the mass emigrations of 1690 [a myth] and 1738, the Albanians constituted a large minority in Kosova, if not the majority of the population.

It would be a mistake to forget that the Serbs were not the only ones to leave. With the Serbian emigration of 1737-1738 several thousands of Christian Albanians abandoned the mountainous regions of Shkodra to settle around Karlovac, in Croatia, where the Austrian government used them to implement its policy of military colonization; thus these “Klementiner” [Këlmendi], as they are called in the Austrian literature, found themselves in close contact with the Serbs who had emigrated to the Military Frontier and settled in the same manner. They would preserve their traditions and language until 1910, when their Slavicization was complete [34].

The “deslavicization” of Kosova is thus a fictitious problem: it is only the result of a vast convergent movements of population which have always characterized the history of the Balkan peoples. Based on an ancient substratum that remained Albanian, this migration went on without violence throughout the Middle Ages and in the beginning of modern times. Thus, the events of 1690 and 1738 must be considered only as its final act. Of course, this centuries-old movement of population has nothing in common with the ambitious projects of the Yugoslav government which, between the two wars, tried to bring about the division of Albania with fascist Italy and the mass expulsion of Albanians to Turkey [35].

Notes:

* According to Yugoslav sources, in 1989, the Albanians comprised in fact 80 per cent of the population of the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosova (ed.).

[1] Michel AUBIN, “Du mythe serbe au nationalisme albanais”, Le Monde, 5-6 Avril 1981, p. 2.

[2] Georges OSTROGORSKIJ, Serska oblast posle Dušanove smrti (The Seres region after the death of Dušan), Belgrade, 1965.

[3] On the Serbs, in particular, H. GREGOIRE, “The Origins and Name of the Croats and the Serbs”, Bizantin, 17, 1945, and S. NOVAKOVIĆ, “Srpske oblasti X.-XI. veka” (Serb territories in the X-XIth centuries), Glasnik Srpskoga društva, 1880, p. 48.

[4] The bibliography on the Illyrians is considerable. Suffice it to mention the archaeological collection Illyria (6 published volumes, Tirana 1971-1976); The Illyrians and the Genesis of the Albanians, Tirana 1971 and The Acts of the Conference of Illyrian Studies, two volumes, Tirana, 1974.

[5] S. ANAMALI and M. KORKUTI, “The Illyrians and the Genesis of the Albanians in the Light of Albanian Archaeological Studies”, in the collection with the same title, pp. 11-39; regarding linguistic data, Eqrem ÇABEJ, “The Illyrians and the Albanians”, in the same volume, pp. 41-52.

[6] B. COVIĆ, Osnovne materialne karakteristike Ilira na njihovom centralnom području, “Sarajevo Symposium”, 1964, p. 101. cf. S. Anamaii and M. Korkuti, The Illyrians and the Genesis of the Albanians, p. 35.

[7] S. ANAMALI, “From The Albanian Civilization of ‘the Early Middle Ages”, Illyrians, pp.184-187.

[8] Ibidem, p. 185, 192.

[9] A.M. SELISEV, Slaviansko naselenie v Albanii, Sofia, 1931, to be taken with some care because of his Greater-Bulgarian prejudices.

[10] S. NOVAKOVIĆ, Zakonski spomenici srpskih država srednjega veka (Legal sources from the Serbian states in the Middle Ages), Belgrade 1912, pp. 628-701.

[11] See, in particular, chapters 77 and 82 of the DUŠAN code (N. RADOJCIĆ, Zakonik Cara Stefana Dušana, Belgrade, 1960, pp. 57-58).

[12] J. CANTACUZÈNE, Histoire, Ed. de Bonn, 1, p. 55, vol.1, p. 279.

[13] BOKARDUS, “Directorium ad passagium faciendum”, Historians of the Crusades, Armenian Historians, 11, pp. 484-485. [14] Laonikos CHALKOKONDYLIS, Histoire, Ed. E. DARKO, Budapest 1922-1926, 1, pp. 277-278.

[15] Ibidem, 11, pp. 277-278.

[16] HIERAX, Chronique sur l’empire des Turcs; SATHAS, Biblioteca graeca, 1, p. 247.

[17] Idrisi BITLISI, Chronique sur l’empire des Turcs, fols. 188-190; in Selami PULAHA, The Albanian-Turkish War of the 15th Century (Ottoman sources), Tirana 1968, pp. 134-138, 142.

[18] S. PULAHA, op. cit., pp. 251-252, 297.

[19] Published by RADONIĆ, Gjuragj Kastriot Skanderbeg i Arbanija u XV. veku, Belgrade 1942, p. 2.

[20] The archives of the state of Dubrovnik, “Litterae et Commissiones Levantis”, X, p. 84 v. (March 17, 1428).

[21] Ibidem, XIV, f. 248 (January 5, 1448).

[22] DUKAS, Istoria Turko-Byzantina, XXIII, 8. Ed. GRECU, Bucharest 1959, p. 179.

[23] KEMALPASAZADE, Chronique, p. 254 in PULAHA, op. cit., p. 191.

[24] S. PULAHA, The Cadastral Register of’the Shkodra Sandjak of 1458, vol. 2, Tirana 1974.

[25] S. PULAHA, op. cit., pp. 31-32.

[26] Ibidem, pp. 33-34.

[27] Ibid., p. 34, counts 15 villages in this case.

[28] S. PULAHA, op. cit., pp. 34-35. It must be noted that this is the conclusion of the great Croat historian, Milan ŠUFFLAY, killed in 1931 by the Serb police (Milan ŠUFFLAY, Povijest sjevernih Arbanaša, reprinted in Prishtina 1968, pp. 61-62).

[29] A. HANŽIĆ, “Nekoliko vijesti o Arbanašima na Kosovu i Metohiji u sredinom XV. vijeka” (Some data on the Albanians of Kosova in the middle of the 15th century), Symposium on Skanderbeg, Prishtina, 1969, pp. 201-209. S. PULAHA, “Albanian Element according to the Onomastics of the Regions of the Shkodra Sandjak in the Years 1485-1582″, Studime historike, 1972, 1, pp. 63 ss.

[30] Consult especially the documents supplied by M. DINIĆ, taken from the state archives of Dubrovnik, and particularly Livre de Comptes by Mihal LUKAREVIĆ (M. DINIĆ, Iz Dubrovskog arhiva 1 ; Belgrade, 1957. Example p. 65 (”Dom Marin de Antivaro”, “Andria Nicholich Arbanexo de Matia”).

[31] M. DINIĆ, op. cit., p. 68.

[32] Ibidem, also the State Archives of Dubrovnik, Pacta Matrimonalia II, f. 103 v. (December 11, 1459).

[33] I. ZAMPUTI, Report on the Situation of Northern and Central Albania in the 17th Century, volume 1 (1610-1634), Tirana 1968, and the report of apostolic visitor, Pjetër MAZRREKU, in 1623-1624.

[34] L. VON THALLOCZY, “Die albanische Diaspora”, Illyrisch-Albanische Forschungen (Vienna 1916), vol. 1, pp. 314 ss. This article is based on, apart from the archives of the Karlovac metropolis, the Archiv des Gemeinsamen Finanzministeriums, Vienna, especially, VI, p. 25, 1739.

[35] This is what we conclude from the Vaso CUBRILOVIĆ memorandum of 1937, Iseljavanje Arnauta ["Expelling the Albanians"], which envisaged a mass transfer of the Kosova people to Turkey. These problems (especially, the 1939 report by Ivo ANDRIĆ, and the scale of Albanian emigration to Turkey between the two wars) are dealt with for instance by M. ROUX, “Language and State Power in Yugoslavia. The Case of the Albanians”, Pluriel 22, Paris, 1980.

Jul 10, 2008 - 5:11 am 93. Matuszak111:

Sebaneau,nice try! Using Alain Ducellier as desperate try to prove your point of Kosovo belonging to Albanians? Huh! Try again.

The same author is the one who stated There was no Albanian state before 1912…!!!!! Alain Ducellier proves your side wrong.

As for Albania itself, the views expressed by Alain Ducellier in Studies of Kosovo are of some relevance:

“In this context, the case of Albania may seem astonishing, since this country was the only national entity to emerge from Byzantium which…. never succeeded in pouring her strong ethnic, linguistic and cultural identity into the mould of a political structure. As is known, this failure persisted well beyond the Middle Ages, since there was no Albanian state before 1912.” (Alain Ducellier in Studies of Kosovo, edited by Arshi Pipa and Sami Rephisti, Easter European Monographs, Boulder, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1984)

Today, the Kosovo Albanians appear divided as to what they want – an independent state, autonomy or union with Albania. But it is put out that their ‘right to self determination’ will be protected for three years in the sense that it will be kept in ‘abeyance’. Meanwhile, the ‘international community’ wants to secure effective ‘independence’ for the Kosovo Albanians within the framework of the Serbian state.

Jul 13, 2008 - 4:48 pm 94. Dieudonné:

Imposing a one-sided solution upon Serbia by dismembering it post resolution 1244 – and I might add since which time atrocities against the non-Albanian population in this Serbian province have continued will indeed be a precedence for any like minded secessionist who adopted terrorism and violence as a method to gain Independence.

You are blinkered by your pro-independence stance formulated by events of the 1990’s. What reason other then Serbia’s military being disproportionate in attempting to quel the CIA and BND (US & German “not so” secret services) trained, armed & inspired terrorists are given to the dismembering of a UN recognised member state?

Yes, atrocities in the Serbian province of Kosovo & Metohija happened and those reponsible should be held account just as in any other crime but that does not provide justification for the dismemberment of the State!

In dismembering a UN recognised state that accepted a resolution (1244 reconfirmed it’s territoial sovereignity) to stop the violence – post conflict (State responsible) but not by the seccesionists – what is the International community doing other then setting a precedent for all other secceionists to be inspired by???

Do we hear of the UN partitioning any other nation which was disproportionate in it’s reactions to an internal matter??? Did the UK hand over Northern Ireland or portions of it???

What of other states and how far back do you go??? Does the US give back whole portions to the Mexicans or how about the indigenous people????

More recently, did Rwanda where a real and horrific genocide was indeed commited get partitioned by the UN ???

What are we to make of Sudan and Darfur – does this mean that Sudan should relinquish immediate control of Darfur and more to the point where are the Germans, US & UK with NATO in bombarding all of Sudan????

What about Iraq – does this mean that the US should in fact force a partition rather then just precipitate one as it seems to be doing???

Lebanon – split it between Christians and Muslims???

Which other nations are ripe for humanitarian partition opps sorry I meant intervention???

More importantly, who & how do you decide right from wrong when there is no black & white but many shades of grey??? For instance what happens in a civil war that is not based on ethnic or religious division???

The US & UK were wrong in there use of force before exhausting all diplomatic avenues in 1999 and the approach because they failed to understand (naive) or purposefully (implicit) created the conditions for a one-sided attack and are now trying their upmost to get the job done before it really comes back to haunt them!!! However, it is in their haste of pushing through a poorly thought through objective that the precedence will actually be what could haunt them and the rest of the Globe.

Fortunetly the UN SC is made of 15 members and not just the 4 (US, UK, France & Belguim) who were blinkered to believe that they were not setting a precedent and realised right form wrong and did not pass this plan offered by Ahtisaari!!!

Win-win is the only way forward – yes Serbia must accept its faults and atone for it’s wrong but that does not mean it’s partition on the contrary reconciliation can only be achieved in the acceptance that all must work together for a better future for all in Serbia no mater what ethnic background !!!

Creating borders and walls will only lead to lose-lose for all those in the region and create even more instability globally. You need to re-evaluate your words!

Jul 18, 2008 - 8:17 pm 95. Sebaneau:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc2m8p62_153cbddx9fs
http://pasta.cantbedone.org/pages/gRLQWp.htm
http://www.promacedonia.org/en/nm/kosovo.html
Origins: Serbs, Albanians and Vlachs
By Noel Malcolm, Chapter 2 in ’s Kosovo, a short history (Macmillan, London, 1998, p. 22-40)

All origins become mysterious if we search far enough into the past. And almost all peoples, when we look at their earliest origins, turn out to have come from somewhere else. Before embarking on these origin quests, it is good to keep a few qualifying principles firmly in mind.

First, it can never be said too often that questions of chronological priority in ancient history – who got there first – are simply irrelevant to deciding the rights and wrongs of any present-day political situation.

Secondly, accounts of the earlier movements of peoples or tribes give a very misleading impression when they treat them as if they were unitary items, with unchanging identities, being transferred from place to place in a game of ethno-historical pass-the-parcel. In many cases (such as the migrations of the Franks in early Western Europe) it is the movement of a people into a new territory or society that gives it an identity it did not previously have. Identities continue to develop over time: ‘Serb’ was a tribal label in the sixth century but not in the sixteenth, so that to treat ‘the Serbs’ as an unchanging category is as foolish as trying to identify Jutes and Angles among the subjects of Queen Elizabeth I.

And thirdly, we should never forget that all individual ancestries are mixed -especially in this part of Europe. When a Serb today reads about the arrival of the early Serbs, he may not be wrong to suppose that he is reading about his ancestors; but he cannot be right to imagine that all his ancestors were in that population. The equivalent is true for the Albanians, and indeed for every other ethnic group in the Balkans.

While most details about the movement of the early Slavs into the Balkans are unclear, the basic facts are known. A large tribal population of Slavs – among whom the Serbs and the Croats were two particular tribes, or tribal groupings – occupied parts of central Europe, north of the Danube, in the fifth and sixth centuries ad. The Serbs had their power-base in the area of the Czech lands and Saxony, and the Croats in Bavaria, Slovakia and southern Poland. This central European location was not the earliest known home of the Serbs; most of the evidence points to an earlier migration from the north and north-eastern side of the Black Sea. At that earlier period the Serbs and Croats seem to have lived together with more warlike Iranian tribes, and their tribal names may derive from Iranian ruling elites: Ptolemy, writing in the second century A.D., located the ‘Serboi’ among the Sarmatians (an Iranian grouping) on the northern side of the Caucasus.
Little is known about the Slavs’ way of life in these earlier periods. The first descriptions we have of them are by Byzantine writers, who portray them as a wild people, more pastoral than agricultural, with many chiefs but no supreme leader. [1]
For a tribal population with a fairly low level of material culture, reaching the line of the Danube and looking south was the equivalent of a hungry man pressing his face against the window of a grocery. The Balkans, fully restored to Byzantine control under the energetic Emperor Justinian (527-65), contained many flourishing towns and cities, supported by productive agriculture and active trading routes.
The Slavs were not the first to cross the Danube in search of better things. Germanic Goths had done so (with Byzantine permission, at first) in the fourth century, and had gone raiding as far as Greece and the Albanian coast thereafter; Huns, under Attila, had attacked in the 440s, and Bulgars (a Turkic tribe) had started raiding at the end of that century. [2] But none of these earlier invaders left any imprint on the Balkans comparable to that of the Slavs. Indeed, by the time that the Turkic-speaking Bulgars came to settle permanently in the Balkans in the seventh century, the Slav element was already so well established there that the conquering Bulgars were eventually to lose their own language and be absorbed by their Slav-speaking subjects. [3]

The first major Slav raids took place in the middle of Justinian’s reign. In 547 and 548 they invaded the territory of modern Kosovo, and then (probably via Macedonia and the Via Egnatia across central Albania) got as far as Durrës on the northern Albanian coast. [4] More substantial invasions took place in the 580s, bringing Slavs deep into Greece. Historians used to think that it was only these later invasions that involved any permanent settlement; but there is evidence of Slav place-names in the Balkans – particularly along the river Morava – by the 550s, which suggests a more continuous process of infiltration. [5]
One factor which may have turned the southward movement of Slavs from a trickle to a flood was the arrival, in the north-western part of the Balkans, of an especially warlike Turkic tribe, the Avars, who subjugated or co-opted some Slavic tribes but drove many others away. By the early seventh century the Avar armies were raiding as far as the walls of Constantinople, and threatening the very existence of the Byzantine Empire.

It was at this point, in the 610s or 620s, that the Emperor of the day (according to a detailed but somewhat confused account by a later Emperor-cum-historian, Constantine Porphyrogenitus) invited the Croats to come down from central Europe and deal with the Avar threat. [6] This they did, bringing with them their neighbours, the Serbs. Both populations then settled in the territories abandoned by the Avars: the Croats in modern Croatia and western Bosnia, and the Serbs in the Rascia area on the north-western side of Kosovo, and in the region of modern Montenegro. In some of these areas they supervened on an already existing Slav population, which, as a result, must gradually have taken on a ‘Croat’ or ‘Serb’ identity. The Serbs did not have anything like a state at this stage, but they developed several small tribal territories, each called a župa and ruled by a tribal chief known as the župan. [7]
By the mid-seventh century, Serbs (or Serb-led Slavs) were penetrating from the coastal lands of Montenegro into northern Albania. Major ports and towns such as Durrës and Shkodra held out against them, but much of the countryside was Slavicized, and some Slav settlers moved up the valleys into the Malësi. By the ninth century, Slav-speaking people were an important element of the population in much of northern Albania, excluding the towns and the higher mountainous areas (especially the mountains in the eastern part of the Malësi, towards Kosovo). [8] Slav-speaking people lived in the lowlands of this area, gradually becoming a major component of the urban population too, until the end of the Middle Ages. [9]

What had happened to the local populations of the western and central Balkans during and after the Slav invasions? Something is known about the urban inhabitants, but much less about the people in the countryside. Despite the apocalyptic tone of early Byzantine writers, who give the impression that all civilization came to an end here in about 600, there is good evidence that the main cities survived (or were revived), just as they had done after earlier sackings. Refugees from central Balkan towns such as Niš and Sofia fled to the safety of Salonica at first, but many must have gone back home later. [10] The main towns on the Dalmatian and northern Albanian coastline, too, retained their Latin-speaking populations and stayed under Byzantine rule. (For naval and commercial reasons, Durrës was the most important Byzantine possession on the entire Adriatic coast of the Balkans.) [11] But outside the major cities there are signs of decline and contraction; typical of the seventh to ninth centuries are the remains of small townships based on hill-forts, such as the one at Koman in the mountains of north-central Albania, where a Christian and probably Romanized (Latin-speaking) population must have led a rather limited existence. [12]
As for the rural population, which was also mainly Latin-speaking in most of the territory of Yugoslavia and north-western Bulgaria, it is assumed that large numbers of people were driven southwards by the Avars, Croats and Serbs. Some evidence from place-names suggests a flow of such refugees down the Dalmatian coast into northern Albania; and a folk tradition set down by a later Byzantine writer referred to a large movement of native people southwards and eastwards away from the area of the Danube and the Sava – that is, from northern Bulgaria, northern Serbia and Croatia. [13] No doubt Latin-speaking peasants and farmers continued to live in many of these areas, especially where they were in contact with a large town or city. But sooner or later the majority of them were Slavicized, and the towns in the interior of the Balkans filled up with Slav-speakers too.

Only the remnants of a Latin-speaking population survived in parts of the central and west-central Balkans; when it re-emerges into the historical record in the tenth and eleventh centuries, we find its members leading a semi-nomadic life as shepherds, horse-breeders and travelling muleteers. These were the Vlachs, who can still be seen tending their flocks in the mountains of northern Greece, Macedonia and Albania today. [14] The name ‘Vlach’ was a word used by the Slavs for those they encountered who spoke a strange, usually Latinate, language; the Vlachs’ own name for themselves is ‘Aromanians’ (Aromani). As this name suggests, the Vlachs are closely linked to the Romanians: their two languages (which, with a little practice, are mutually intelligible) diverged only in the ninth or tenth century. [15] While Romanian historians have tried to argue that the Romanian-speakers have always lived in the territory of Romania (originating, it is claimed, from Romanized Dacian tribes and/or Roman legionaries), there is compelling evidence to show that the Romanian-speakers were originally part of the same population as the Vlachs, whose language and way of life were developed somewhere to the south of the Danube. Only in the twelfth century did the early Romanian-speakers move northwards into Romanian territory. [16]

Finally, before turning to the most mysterious problem of all – the origin of the Albanians – it is worth looking once more at the pattern of settlement in the Kosovo area during the early Slav centuries. Kosovo did not fall within the Serb territory of Rascia, which was further to the north-west: the Serbian expansion into Kosovo began in earnest only in the late twelfth century. About the other early Slav settlers in this part of the Balkans we have much less information. Byzantine sources just referred generally to ‘Sklaviniai’, Slav territories, in the Macedonian region; in the few cases when they made more localized references they often used names derived from rivers, so that it is not clear whether these were the names of Slav tribes or just geographical labels. The ‘Moravoi’ or ‘Moravlians’, for example, who are first mentioned in the ninth century, lived somewhere near the river Morava, but that is all we know about them. Historical map-makers, who do not like leaving too many blank spaces, place these Moravlians over much of south-eastern Serbia from as early as the sixth century, with arrows showing them passing into Kosovo; real evidence for this is lacking. [17]
Obviously some Slavs did spread through all these areas sooner or later.

But there is one intriguing line of argument to suggest that the Slav presence in Kosovo and the southernmost part of the Morava valley may have been quite weak in the first one or two centuries of Slav settlement. If Slavs had been evenly spread across this part of the Balkans, it would be hard to explain why such a clear linguistic division emerged between the Serbo-Croat language and the Bulgarian-Macedonian one. The scholar who first developed this argument also noted that, in the area dividing the early Serbs from the Bulgarians, many Latin place-names survived long enough to be adapted eventually into Slav ones, from Naissus (Niš), down through the Kosovo town of Lypenion (Lipjan) to Scupi (Skopje): this contrasts strongly with most of northern Serbia, Bosnia and the Dalmatian hinterland, where the old town names were completely swept aside. His conclusion was that the Latin-speaking population, far from withering away immediately, may actually have been strengthened here (and in a western strip of modern Bulgaria), its numbers swelled, no doubt, by refugees from further north. These Latin-speakers would have thus formed ‘a wide border-zone between the Bulgarians and the Serbs’. [18]
Kosovo’s protective ring of mountains would have been useful to them; and the Roman mountain-road from Kosovo to the Albanian coast – along which several Latin place-names also survive, such as Puka, from ‘via publica’ – might also have connected them with other parts of the Latin-speaking world. (The hill-top town of Koman, mentioned earlier, is only a few miles from Puka, and may well have had a Latin-speaking population too.) If this argument is correct, we might expect many of the ancestors of the Vlachs to have been present in the Kosovo region and the mountains of western Bulgaria; it may have been in these uplands that they developed their pastoral skills.

Only in the ninth century do we see the expansion of a strong Slav (or quasi-Slav) power into this region. Under a series of ambitious rulers, the Bulgarians – a Slav population which absorbed, linguistically and culturally, its ruling elite of Turkic Bulgars – pushed westwards across modern Macedonia and eastern Serbia, until by the 850s they had taken over Kosovo and were pressing on the borders of Rascia. Soon afterwards they took the western Macedonian town of Ohrid; having recently converted to Christianity, the Bulgar rulers helped to set up a bishopric in Ohrid, which thus became an important centre of Slav culture for the whole region. And at the same time the Bulgarians were pushing on into southern and central Albania, which became thoroughly settled by Bulgarian Slavs during the course of the following century. [19]

Kosovo was to remain under Bulgarian or Macedonian rulers until 1014-18, when the army of the Macedonian-based Tsar Samuel died, his empire broke up, and Byzantine power was fully re-established by a strong and decisive Emperor, Basil ‘the Bulgar-killer’. For nearly two centuries after that, Kosovo would stay under Byzantine rule. [20]
One key element is missing from the picture presented so far. While the origins of the Vlachs are obscure enough, the origins of the Albanians have been the subject of a much more bewildering mass of conflicting claims and theories.
The two main rival theories that have emerged identify the early Albanians as either Illyrians or Thracians: in pre-Roman and Roman times, Illyrians lived in the western half of the Balkans and Thracians in the east. Albanian historians, who like the idea that Albanians have always lived in Albania, prefer the Illyrian theory. Romanian scholars, who have to deal with the awkward fact that there are strong early links between the Albanians and the Vlachs, prefer to put them on the Thracian side of the divide (the ancient Dacians, who lived in Romania, were part of the Thracian group), and in this they are sometimes supported by Bulgarian experts. But there is really no point in going into this labyrinth of historical debate unless one is prepared to discard all national prejudices at the entrance.

The Albanians first emerge in the historical record in 1043, when Albanian troops appear fighting alongside Greeks in the army of a rebel Byzantine general. They are mentioned at Durrës in 1078, and again in 1081, when they joined the Byzantine forces resisting an invasion there by the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard. [21]
(Bizarrely, a garbled list of Albanian place-names, picked up by the Normans on this expedition, was soon afterwards incorporated into the Song of Roland: one manuscript of that poem includes a reference to ‘Albanie’, implying that it was a place or area just north-east of Durrës.) [22]

Over the next two centuries the references to Albanians gradually increase, until by 1281 we have a mention in an Italian document of a ‘duca Ginius Tanuschus Albanensis’, who ruled an area between Durrës and Shkodra: ‘Ginius’ must be the Albanian ‘Gjin’ (John), and this ‘duca Gjin’ is presumed to be the founder of the famous ‘Dukagjin’ family. [23]
By the early fourteenth century there are also signs of a long-established Albanian presence in the mountains of Montenegro, and as far north as the Ragusan hinterland. [24]
The name used in all these references is, allowing for linguistic variations, the same: ‘Albanenses’ or ‘Arbanenses’ in Latin, ‘Albanoi’ or ‘Arbanitai’ in Byzantine Greek. (The last of these, with an internal switching of consonants, gave rise to the Turkish form ‘Arnavud’, from which ‘Arnaut’ was later derived.)
Nor is there any mystery about the origin of this name. In the second century Ptolemy referred to a tribe called the ‘Albanoi’, and located their town, ‘Albanopolis’, somewhere to the east of Durrës. Some such place-name must have survived there, continuously if somewhat hazily, ever since; there was an area called ‘Arbanon’ in north-central Albania in the eleventh century, and in the early twentieth century ‘Arben’ was the local name for a region near Kruja (which lies just north of Tirana). [25] Linguists believe that the ‘Alb-’ element comes from the Indo-European word for a type of mountainous terrain, from which the word ‘Alps’ is also derived. (So too, coincident-ally, is the Gaelic word for Scotland, ‘Albainn’, which classicizing eighteenth-century Scots sometimes turned into ‘Albania’.) [26]

The continuity of this name is a striking fact; but it does not amount to proof that the Albanians have lived continuously in Albania. Place-names can endure while populations literally come and go. In any case, the Albanians do not use this word to describe themselves: in their language, Albania is Shqipëria, an Albanian is a shqiptar, and the language itself is shqip. (The only Albanians to use the ‘Alb-’ root are the ones who emigrated to Italy in the fifteenth century, who call themselves ‘Arbëresh’.) [27] The origins of shqiptar, which first crops up as a personal name in late-fourteenth-century documents, are completely obscure: some think it means ‘he who understands’, from a verb shqipoj, while others connect it with the word for an eagle, shqiponjë, which may have been the totem of an early tribe. [28]
Is there any way to bridge the gap between the ‘Albanoi’ of the second century and the medieval Albanians? The historical record is utterly silent: there is one apparent reference in a medieval document to ‘Duchagini d’Arbania’ warring against a king of Bosnia in the seventh century, but it must be discounted, as the document’s chronology is completely unreliable. [29] For some scholars, the argument from silence carries a certain force of its own; it is suggested that any large-scale migration of the early Albanians into Albania would surely have been remarked on by Byzantine authors. [30] But the truth is that those authors were interested in alien tribes only when their actions impinged, militarily or politically, on the Empire. A small pastoral population, moving away from them into some remote mountain region, might never have attracted their notice.

Some Albanian archeologists have tried hard to show that the Koman hill-town culture of the seventh and eighth centuries is the essential proof of Illyrian-Albanian continuity; but material remains do not tell us what language people spoke (unless they include inscriptions, which these do not), and the main cultural affinities here seem to have been with the Latin-speaking Romano-Byzantine towns of the previous centuries. [31]
And one other line of argument, which tries to find striking similarities between Albanian social practices and what classical authors tell us about the Illyrians, must also be described as inconclusive. Certainly the tribes of the ancient Illyrians, political groupings covering large areas and heavily stratified with a powerful ruling caste, were quite different from the modern Albanian clans. [32]

If there is any chance at all of solving this mystery, it lies in the study of the Albanian language. Historical linguistics is a complex science and not, in some of its activities, a very exact one. But by sifting through the evidence of vocabulary and place-names, and sorting out different layers of borrowings from other languages and cultures, linguists can often construct quite a detailed chronology, just like an archeologist examining different layers of wood-ash and broken pots. They can point out, for example, that the Albanian names for the fauna and flora of the high mountain regions are purely Albanian, while the low-altitude vocabulary borrows heavily from Slav; the words for ploughing are mainly Slav, and so are many words for weaving, masonry and milling. Much of the vocabulary of medieval government and society is also Slav-based. [33] This strongly suggests that the early Albanians led a mainly pastoral life in mountainous regions, before settling in lowland areas after the Slavs had extended their culture and rule. And the evidence of place-names shows that Albanian-Slav contacts in the northern Albanian region must have happened before 900 at the latest: a vowel-shift in the Slav language took place by the end of the ninth century, and some Albanian borrowings from Slav preserve the pre-shift form of the vowel. [34]
We have now got back to the ninth century, but that still leaves seven centuries unaccounted for. The most direct way of bridging the gap with the Roman world would be for the historical linguists to demonstrate a link between Albanian and one of the ‘barbarian’ Balkan languages of the region – either Illyrian or Thracian. It is clear that Albanian is indeed the only surviving representative (apart from Greek) of an ancient Balkan language: it belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, but exists in a sub-section of its own, with no immediate relatives. If either Illyrian or Thracian could be identified as its parent, this would at least set some fairly clear geographical limits to the early home of the Albanians: Illyrians lived in Albania and most of Yugoslavia, Thracians in Bulgaria and part of Macedonia, and the boundary between them ran approximately along the Morava valley and down the eastern side of Kosovo. [35] (Kosovo itself was part of the tribal land of the Dardanians, who almost certainly belonged to the Illyrian grouping.) [36]
bbb
Unfortunately, working out the relation between Albanian and Illyrian or Thracian is like trying to solve an equation with too many unknowns. We do not possess a single text in Illyrian. We have two short texts in what is presumed to be Thracian, but no one knows what they mean. The longer one, consisting of sixty-one Greek letters without any word-divisions, has been subjected to eighteen speculative and somewhat comically divergent translations: one version says

‘I, Rolisteneas, son of Nereneas, eat the sacrificial meal; Tyiezypta, originally from Arazea, attached the golden objects to me’,

while another comes up with

‘O Rolisten, I, Nerenea Tiltea, die peacefully next to you, my quietly deceased one, I who raised the children.’ [37]

The linguists who have offered these translations from the Thracian have at least fared better than the one who interpreted an ‘Illyrian’ inscription as ‘Consecrated to the goddess Oethe’: it was later pointed out that this inscription, if read from bottom to top, produced a perfectly normal Greek phrase, ‘Lord help Anna’. [38]
Apart from inscriptions, there are a few ‘glosses’ (comments explaining the meanings of words) in classical authors: here the evidence is too slight to be conclusive. One Illyrian word, rhinon, glossed as ‘mist’, does resemble an old Albanian word for cloud, ren. A Thracian word for a blackberry, mantia, resembles the Albanian for a mulberry, man, and the Thracian for ‘camomile’ could perhaps be linked to the Albanian for ’sweet-tasting’; but those are the only clear resemblances, and the names of edible plants are in any case famously mobile across linguistic frontiers. [39]

Otherwise, the only evidence available consists of proper names: place-names, personal names and tribal names, preserved in Latin or Greek inscriptions and the works of ancient historians. There are several thousand such names altogether; but the difficulties of interpretation are immense. Trying to extract a language from such evidence is rather like some linguists of the distant future trying to work out the true nature of the English language on the basis of ‘Edinburgh’, ‘Lancaster’, ‘Whitby’, ‘Grosvenor’, ‘Gladstone’, ‘Victoria’ and ‘Disraeli’. Place-names are often the remnants of an earlier language; personal names may reflect cultural influences (it has been observed that if future linguists knew only the names ‘Carlo’ and ‘Lodovico’, they would assume that the Italian language was a type of German); and in any case we have no reason to suppose that the ancient Balkans were any less of a linguistic hotchpotch than they have been for most of the rest of their history. [40]
On balance, there are more examples of plausible links between Illyrian names and Albanian words than there are in the case of Thracian (though there are some of both, and some names were common to the two ancient languages). Most of these relate to place-names in the area of central and northern Albania, such as the river Mat (Alb.: mat, river-bank) or the town of Ulqin or Ulcinium (Alb.: ujk or ulk, wolf), or indeed the early name for the Kosovo area, ‘Dardania’ (Alb.: dardhë, pear). [41]

The strongest evidence, however, comes not from the meaning of the proper names (which is always open to doubt) but from their structure. Most Illyrian names are composed of a single unit; many Thracian ones are made of two units joined together. Several Thracian place-names end in -para, for example, which is thought to mean ‘ford’, or -diza, which is thought to mean ‘fortress’. Thus in the territory of the Bessi, a well-known Thracian tribe, we have the town of Bessapara, ‘ford of the Bessi’. The structure here is the same as in many European languages: thus the ‘town of Peter’ can be called Peterborough, Petrograd, Petersburg, Pierreville, and so on. But the crucial fact is that this structure is impossible in Albanian, which can only say ‘Qytet i Pjetrit’, not ‘Pjeterqytet’. If para were the Albanian for ‘ford’, then the place-name would have to be ‘Para e Besseve’; this might be reduced in time to something like ‘Parabessa’, but it could never become ‘Bessapara’. And what is at stake here is not some superficial feature of the language, which might easily change over time, but a profound structural principle. This is one of the strongest available arguments to show that Albanian cannot have developed out of Thracian. [42]
Other linguistic arguments which have been deployed in this Illyrian versus Thracian debate are more technical. Much ink has been spilt, for example, on the question of whether Illyrian was a satem language or a centum language. This is a traditional classification of all Indo-European languages according to their underlying patterns of consonant development. (The labels are taken from the Old Iranian and Latin for ‘a hundred’.) Albanian is a satem language, and Thracian is thought to have been one too. Most scholars believed that Illyrian was a satem language, until linguists analysed the surviving inscriptions in Venetic, a language of north-eastern Italy which was assumed (on the authority of ancient authors) to be related to Illyrian. This turned out to be definitely centum, and persuaded some experts that the whole Illyrian group must therefore have been centum too – in which case Albanian could not have come from Illyrian. [43] However, more recent research has shown that Venetic had nothing to do with Illyrian. [44] (Similar problems caused by another language thought to be related to Illyrian, the Messapian language of southern Italy, have also been resolved in the same way.) [45] Illyrian was probably satem after all.
And in any case, it is increasingly apparent that the whole satem/centum classification system does not correspond to the fundamental distinguishing features of the Indo-European languages: it may be the linguists’ equivalent of one of those classifications of mammals by eighteenth-century biologists, which modern scientists have had to discard. [46] Another technical (and much more speculative) argument for identifying early Albanian with Thracian was put forward by the Bulgarian linguist Georgiev, who divided Thracian into two languages, one north-western, the other south-eastern, and argued on the basis of consonantal changes that Albanian must have come from the north-western one. But his arguments (at least in relation to the supposed Albanian connection) have been thoroughly dismantled by other scholars. [47]

Other linguistic arguments are more closely linked to geography. The place-names of the northern Albanian region offer a valuable linguistic testing-ground. We know what many of them were called in Roman times; it should therefore be possible to tell whether their modern Albanian form derives from a continuous Albanian tradition going back to contact with the Romans, or whether it is derived from the Slav form of the name. If the latter, then this might suggest that the Albanians entered this area only after the Slav immigration of the seventh century. The fact that Slavs developed their own forms of the urban names directly from the Latin (Skadar from Latin Scodra, for example, where the Albanian form developed as Shkodër/Shkodra) is not in itself significant; their contact in the urban areas would have been mainly with Latin-speakers anyway. But if, on the other hand, the Slav names for rivers or mountains show that they were borrowed from Albanian forms of those names, this would indicate that there were Albanian-speakers in the countryside when the Slavs first arrived.
The evidence is in fact very mixed; some of the Albanian forms (of both urban and rural names) suggest transmission via Slav, but others -including the towns of Shkodra, Drisht, Lezha, Shkup (Skopje) and perhaps Shtip (Štip, south-east of Skopje) – follow the pattern of continuous Albanian development from the Latin. [48]
(One common objection to this argument, claiming that ’sc-’ in Latin should have turned into ‘h-’, not ’shk-’ in Albanian, rests on a chronological error, and can be disregarded.) [49]
There are also some fairly convincing derivations of Slav names for rivers in northern Albania – particularly the Bojana (Alb.: Buna) and the Drim (Alb.: Drin) – which suggest that the Slavs must have acquired their names from the Albanian forms. [50]

Finally, one more common-sensical linguistic and geographical argument should also be mentioned: the claim, by the pioneering German Balkanologist Gustav Weigand, that the early Albanians must have lived a long way to the east of the Adriatic coast, because most of the Albanian words for fish, boats and coastal features are borrowed from other languages. [51] Sterling efforts have been made by Albanian scholars to find authentic Albanian fish-words, but the tally, though not insignificant, is still rather poor. [52] However, Weigand’s argument could not be very powerful even if its basic observation were correct (as it may in fact be). A pastoral population might have lived only 50 miles inland in the Albanian mountains without having any contact with fishing or sailing; it is not necessary to push its location eastwards all the way to Thrace. [53] Of course Illyrians did once live on the coast, and would presumably have had their own maritime vocabulary.
But if Illyrian survived as Albanian, it did so only by means of physical contraction, withdrawal and isolation, which naturally would have taken place in mountain terrain. This is why the purest element of Albanian vocabulary refers to mountains, high-altitude plants and shepherding: the point is not that the proto-Albanians had never lived any other sort of life, but that the only ones who survived as Albanian-speakers did so precisely because that was the sort of isolated and independent life they led, probably for several centuries. The Illyrians who lived on the coastal plains were Romanized, like the ones on the Dalmatian coast and indeed in most areas of Yugoslavia. By the time the Slavs began arriving in the sixth century, there were only scattered pockets of speakers of the old ‘barbarian’ languages left anywhere in the Balkans, and all of them were in mountainous regions. [54]

Of these, the only population considered important enough to be mentioned by name in early written sources was the Thracian tribe of the Bessi, who lived in the western and southern mountains of Bulgaria. We know that their version of the Thracian language was still being spoken in the second half of the sixth century, and we also know that they had been converted to Christianity: the most striking piece of evidence refers to monks speaking ‘Bessan’, as well as Latin and other languages, in a monastery on Mount Sinai in the 560s. [55]
Until very recently, this was treated by most scholars as just an intriguing oddity, a last lingering survival which must have been extinguished before long. However, a dazzling new piece of research and speculative reconstruction by the German scholar Gottfried Schramm has proposed that these Thracian Bessi were none other than the real ancestors of the Albanians.
According to Schramm, the Bessi must have moved out of their western Bulgarian homeland and into the northern Albanian region in the early ninth century, probably to escape the persecution of Christians by the still pagan Bulgar khans. [56] The early conversion of the Bessi to Christianity is indeed, in Schramm’s view, the key to the entire question of how and why Albanian survived as a language. We know that the Bessi were converted by an enterprising bishop, Nicetas, in the late fourth century, and from the writings of a friend of Nicetas who celebrated this event we also know that he learned their language and taught them to practise their Christianity in it – in other words, that Bessan was used as a liturgical language. (The evidence of the Bessan-speaking monks supports this point.) Nicetas, whose own mother-tongue was Latin, may also have translated parts of the Bible; the obvious model – or competition – that he must have had in mind was the work of a heretical bishop, Ulfilas, who was using the Germanic Gothic language for liturgy and Bible-translation among the nearby population of Goths in northern Bulgaria. And, as comparison with other linguistic survivals (such as Armenian or Coptic) shows, nothing helps a language to survive quite so much as its use from a very early stage in a kind of national church. [57]

One thing is quite certain: the Albanians did acquire their Christianity from a Latin-speaking teacher or teachers. The Albanian language contains much Latin-derived vocabulary anyway, having obviously absorbed words from nearby Romans or Romanized barbarians from the second century B. C. onwards; but the Latin element is especially rich in the area of Christian belief and Christian practice. Thus we have meshë (mass), from missa; ipeshk (bishop), from episcopus; ungjill (gospel), from evangelium; mrekull (miracle), from miraculum; and a great number of other words, extending far into the vocabulary of psychology, morality and even the natural world (such as qiell, meaning heaven or sky, from caelum). [58]
Many of the words that would need to be put on such a list, in fact, are not special ecclesiastical terms, for which a non-Christian population would have no equivalent of its own; they are simple words such as ’spirit’, ’sin’, ‘pray’, ‘holy’, and so on, for which most languages, even in pre-Christian times, have their own vocabulary.
When other early evangelizers translated the Bible or the liturgy into Armenian, or Gothic, or Anglo-Saxon, they used local words for these things – that, indeed, is what is implied by the whole idea of translation. Why should Nicetas, translating into proto-Albanian, have simply transferred huge quantities of Latin words? Schramm notes the oddity of this in passing, and suggests unconvincingly that there must have been some special cultural reasons. [59] But the oddity is more overwhelming than he admits. For example, even the word for a flock, as used in Christian discourse, was taken from the Latin (grigje, from grex) – of all the things in the world, the one for which a shepherding population must surely have had its own word already. [60]
The solution to this puzzle is blindingly simple. These elements of Latin vocabulary have undergone exactly the same sorts of sound-changes, compressions and erosions as all the other Latin words which entered the Albanian language over several centuries; and the reason why those words entered the language was that the Albanians were in contact, over a long period, with people who spoke Latin. The existence of large quantities of such Christianity-related Latin vocabulary does not show that someone ‘translated’ Christian discourse into early Albanian. It shows the precise opposite – namely, that Albanians were for a long time exposed to the conduct of their religion not in translation but in the original Latin.
This can even be demonstrated grammatically. The term for ‘Holy Trinity’, Shëndërtat, bears a final ‘t’ and an accent on the last syllable: this shows that it developed from the accusative, sanctam trinitatem, not the nominative, sancta trinitas. That is in fact the normal pattern of development in Romance languages, which gives us, for example, Spanish ciudad from civitatem (not from civitas), or French mont from montem (not from mons). (There are many other Albanian examples too, such as grigje, mentioned above, which is really from gregem, not grex.) What this phenomenon reflects is a pattern of usage in spoken Latin: these words were heard much more often as the objects in sentences than as the subjects. If Nicetas had been coining new Albanian words out of Latin for the purposes of his translation, he would surely have taken them from the nominative form. These words entered Albanian because Albanians heard them, over and over again, in spoken liturgical Latin.
Schramm’s theory fails, therefore; and in so doing it performs a signal service. Thanks to Schramm, the Thracians can now be eliminated from these enquiries. His research into Nicetas’s activities does indeed show that the Bessi received their Christianity, so to speak, in translation; this must force us to conclude that the Albanians, who received theirs in the original Latin, cannot be identified with the Bessi. The language of the Bessi must eventually have perished. Since the Bessi were the only Thracian tribe known to have kept their language as late as the sixth century (and Byzantine sources are naturally more detailed on the Thracian areas, which for them were closer to home, than on the Illyrian ones), it is impossible to find any other Thracian candidates. The origins of the Albanians must be sought, therefore, on the Illyrian side of the divide – particularly in the mountains round Kosovo, in the Malësi, and in the tangle of mountains stretching north from there through Montenegro.

The Latin elements in Albanian help to confirm this location. From the fact that so much general vocabulary was absorbed into Albanian from Latin, and so little from Greek, it is clear that the proto-Albanians lived some way to the north of the Latin-Greek linguistic divide.
This language frontier ran from the Adriatic coast near Lezha across the middle of Albania, then up to the line of the Šar mountains, curving southwards to take in Latin-speaking Skopje, and then running northwards roughly along the Serbian-Bulgarian border. [61] At the same time, the fact that the proto-Albanians never actually lost their language indicates that they were somewhat isolated from the main areas of Roman settlement – which included the lowlands and the major roads.
One influential theory therefore places the early Albanians in the part of northern Albania which (according to archeological evidence and place-names) was the most untouched by Roman influence: the ‘Mat’ district north-east of Tirana and west of Debar. From there, according to this theory, the early Albanians were able to expand to fill the region bounded by the river Shkumbin, the Black Drin, the united Drin and the coast. [62]
What this theory fails to account for, however, is another key aspect of the Albanian language’s connection with Latin: its intimate involvement in the development of the Vlach-Romanian language. Linguists have long been aware that Albanian and Romanian have many features in common, in matters of structure, vocabulary and idiom, and that these must have arisen in two ways. First, the ’substratum’ of Romanian (that is, the language spoken by the proto-Romanians before they switched to Latin) must have been similar to Albanian; and secondly, there must have been close contact between Albanians and early Romanian-speakers over a long period, involving a shared pastoral life. (Some key elements of the pastoral vocabulary in Romanian are borrowed from Albanian.) [63] The substratum elements include both structural matters, such as the positioning of the definite article as a suffix on the end of the noun, and various elements of primitive Balkan pre-Latin vocabulary, such as copil (’child’ in Romanian) or kopil (’bastard child’ in Albanian). [64]
If the links between the two languages were only at substratum level, this might not imply any geographical proximity – it would merely show that proto-Albanian was similar to other varieties of Illyrian spoken elsewhere. But the pastoral connections do indicate that Albanians and early Romanians lived for a long time in the same (or at least overlapping) areas.

This has some geographical implications.
Late Latin developed in two different forms in the Balkans: a coastal variety, which survived as a distinct language (known as Dalmatian) until the end of the nineteenth century, and the form spoken in the interior, which turned into Romanian and Vlach. [65] From place-names it is clear that the coastal form, spoken also in Shkodra and Durrës, penetrated some way into the northern Albanian mountains. [66] There are some traces of this variety of Latin in Albanian, but the Albanian language’s links with the inland variety of Balkan Latin are much stronger. This suggests that the centre of gravity ofAlbanian-Vlach symbiosis lay a little further to the east. [67]
When and how did that symbiosis take place? Presumably the Latin-speaking proto-Romanians came to pastoralism later than the early Albanians. If they had been doing it for as long as the Albanians, and in similar areas, they would – just like the Albanians – have escaped Latinization altogether. Some historians have decided that the proto-Romanians must have been Latin-speaking city-dwellers, who somehow extricated themselves from their towns in the early Slav centuries and became long-distance travellers or shepherds instead; but this seems inherently implausible. [68] (Had they come from the towns, their Latin would surely have been closer to standard Latin in its structure, too.) There is in fact enough Latin agricultural vocabulary in Romanian -words for sowing, ploughing, harrowing, and so on – to show that they were farming in Roman times. [69] The shift towards pastoralism was probably quite gradual. One particular factor that may have helped to promote it was the practice of horse-breeding, which was, or at least became, a Vlach speciality: the medieval records are full of Vlach muleteers and Vlachs leading caravans of pack-horses. [70] Such an occupation requires contact with towns (where the trade is), and may be combined with some farming in the towns’ vicinity; but it also involves a form of stock-breeding, which could have given the early Vlachs an entree into the higher-altitude world of Albanian flocks and herds.

The main area of the Balkan interior where a Latin-speaking population may have continued, in both towns and country, after the Slav invasion, has already been mentioned: it included the upper Morava valley, northern Macedonia, and the whole of Kosovo. It is, therefore, in the uplands of the Kosovo area (particularly, but not only, on the western side, including parts of Montenegro) that this Albanian-Vlach symbiosis probably developed. [71]
All the evidence comes together at this point. What it suggests is that the Kosovo region, together with at least part of northern Albania, was the crucial focus of two distinct but interlinked ethnic histories: the survival of the Albanians, and the emergence of the Romanians and Vlachs.
One large group of Vlachs seems to have broken away and moved southwards by the ninth or tenth century; the proto-Romanians stayed in contact with Albanians significantly longer, before drifting north-eastwards, and crossing the Danube in the twelfth century. [72]

Having reached these conclusions, it may be possible, finally, to draw some further implications from them that point back to a much earlier period of Kosovo’s history. The point is a very simple one. If Albanian-speakers were able to live in this area without losing their language during the period from the sixth century to the twelfth, is there any reason to think that they could not have been there in the previous six centuries or more? The Roman province of Dardania contained some Roman towns and several large estates, but it was far from being utterly and homogeneously Romanized: frequent Roman references to Dardanian bandits and robbers, and the presence of many forts and watch-towers, suggest that it was never completely under control. [73] References to Dardanian cheese, a famous and widely exported product, also testify to a large shepherding population. [74] And if the shepherds in the hills were speaking proto-Albanian, then perhaps that is what the ordinary Dardanians had spoken in the valleys too, before the Romans came. This is more a speculation than a conclusion; and it is not meant to exclude other areas in the Albanian (or Montenegrin) mountains further to the west, given that ‘Dardania’ was, essentially, a tribal division, not a linguistic one. Once again it must be emphasized that such ancient history can have no implications for modern politics. Nevertheless, the idea that the Illyrian Dardanians were ancestors of the Albanians may be of some sentimental interest to Kosovo Albanians today.

________________________________________
Chapter 3. Medieval Kosovo before Prince Lazar: 850s-1380s

The previous chapter brought the political history (if such it may be called) of Kosovo up to the final period of Bulgarian-Macedonian rule, before the territory of Tsar Samuel was reconquered by the Byzantine Emperor Basil the Bulgar-slayer. Medieval Kosovo is often referred to in general terms as ‘the cradle of the Serbs’, as if it had been a Serb heartland from the outset; but the reality was rather different. Just over 800 years separate the arrival of the Serbs in the Balkans in the seventh century from the final Ottoman conquest in the 1450s: out of those eight centuries, Kosovo was Serb-ruled for only the last two-and-a-half – less than one-third of the entire period. Bulgarian khans or tsars held Kosovo from the 850s until the early eleventh century, and Byzantine Emperors until the final decades of the twelfth.

Unfortunately there is very little direct evidence about conditions in Kosovo during those earlier centuries of Bulgarian and Byzantine rule. We can assume that the Slav population that had settled in Kosovo was brought within the cultural realm of the Bulgarian empire, which means that it would have been included in the Bulgarian dioceses of the Orthodox church. Thanks to the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius (and their followers) in the ninth century, the Slavs had a liturgy and other texts in their own language, written in either of two newly invented alphabets: Cyrillic and Glagolitic. The western macedonian town of Ohrid developed strongly as a cultural and religious centre in the ninth and tenth centuries, and by the end of Tsar Samuel’s reign the archbishopric of Ohrid included bishoprics in Skopje, Lipjan (Serb.: Lipljan; a town just south of Pristina) and Prizren. [1] Although the formal division of the Christian Church into Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox did not occur until 1054, it would not be anachronistic to describe this Bulgarian Christianity as Eastern in the ninth and tenth centuries; the roots of the conflict between East and West went back a long way. (The Slav liturgy was at first violently rejected by the Roman Church, on the grounds that God spoke only three languages: Hebrew, Greek and Latin).

________________________________________
1. Fine, Early Medieval Balkans, pp. 26-7; Obolensky, Byzantine Commonwealth, pp. 85-6; Goldstein, Hrvatski rani srednji vijek, pp. 88-90.

2. Velkov, Cities in Thrace, pp. 31-46, gives a good summary; V. Popović, ‘L’Albanie’, p. 259, discusses the Goth attacks on Albania in 459 and 479.

3. The Bulgar language disappeared by the mid-ninth century: Runciman, Bulgarian Empire, p. 93. From then on, the term ‘Bulgarian’ can be used generally to refer to the political unit which the Bulgars created, to its mainly Slav population, and to their Slav language.

4. Velkov, Cities in Thrace, p. 49; Skok, Dolazak Slovena, p. 105; Hammond, Migrations, p. 66 (suggesting that they entered Macedonia through the Kaçanik pass).

5. Runciman, Bulgarian Empire, pp. 22-4 (traditional view); Fine, Early Medieval Balkans, p. 28 (new evidence).

6. Fine, Early Medieval Balkans, pp. 49-59. Goldstein, Hrvatski rani srednji vijek, pp. 87-92, gives a more hesitant treatment of Constantine’s story, and Whittow, Orthodox Byzantium, p. 263, rejects it.

7. Fine, Early Medieval Balkans, p. 57; on the social organization of the early Serbs see Gimbutas, Slavs, pp. 140-1.

8. Makushev, O Slavianakh, p. 2; Stadtmüller, Forschungen, p. 128.

9. Nopcsa. ‘Beiträge’. p. 238; Ducellier, Façade, pp. 70, 196; Selishchev. Slavianskoe naselenie, pp. 73-85.

10. Lemerle, ed., Les Plus Anciens Recueils, vol. 1, p. 186; Velkov, Cities in Thrace, pp. 52-3; Howard-Johnston, ‘Urban Continuity’; Whittow, Orthodox Byzantium, pp. 267-8.

11. Jireček, ‘Die Romanen’; Šufflay, ‘Städte und Burgen’, p. 36; Stadtmüller, Forschungen, p. 129.

12. Whittow, Orthodox Byzantium, p. 268; V. Popović, ‘Albanie’, pp. 269-72.

13. Nopcsa, ‘Beitrage’, p. 238 (Dalmatians in Albania); Mirdita, ‘Balkanski Vlasi’, pp. 75-6 (citing and analysing the statement by the eleventh-century writer Kekaumenos).

14. For good general studies of the Vlachs, see Wace and Thompson, Nomads;Weigand, Aromunen; and Winnifrith, Vlachs.

15. Weigand, ‘Albanische Einwanderung’, p. 225.

16. For a powerful presentation of the evidence see Schramm, ‘Frühe Schicksale’.

17. E.g. Niederle, Slovanske starožitnosti, vol. 2, map opposite p. 296; Angelov, Obrazuvane, map on p. 155.

18. See van Wijk, ‘Taalkunde gegevens’; quotation from p. 71. The modern dialect of Serbo-Croat which borders Macedonian and Bulgarian territory, the ‘Timok-Prizren’ dialect, does have some transitional features; but research has shown that it picked them up only after the medieval expansion of the Serbian state into Kosovo and the Morava valley, which brought its speakers into closer contact with Bulgarian (ibid., pp. 62, 71).

19. Runciman, Bulgarian Empire, pp. 88-93, 127-38; Selishchev, Slavianskoe naselenie, p. 61; Stadtmüller, Forschungen, pp. 129-32.

20. Whittow, Orthodox Byzantium, pp. 387-8. Hilferding, Geschichte, p. 35 n., notes that after Samuel’s death in 1014, the local Slav tribes in Eastern Kosovo formally submitted to Byzantine rule.

21. Stadtmüller, Forschungen, pp. 162-4.

22. Géegoire and de Keyser, ‘La Chanson’; Grégoire, ‘La Chanson’; Hammond, Migrations, p. 56.

23. Šufflay, ‘Städte und Burgen’, p. 203; duca is the Italian title.

24. Jireček, ‘Albanien’, p. 69; Šufflay, ‘Povijest’, p. 227.

25. For slightly different eleventh-century locations see Stadtmüller, Forschungen, pp. 167-73, and Ducellier, Façade, p. 80; the twentieth-century name was noted by Father Gjecov, and reported in Dema, ‘Shqypnija katolike’, p. 532 n.

26. The same root gave rise to ‘Albion’, an early name for Britain, and another name derived from it, ‘Albany’. There is also a territory known to classical geographers as Albania in the Caucasus; some earlier writers, such as the French diplomat de Pouqueville, supposed that the Balkan Albanians came from there, but there is no connection between the two areas.

27. This probably derives from another version of the place-name, Arbëria, a term for the highlands between Vlora, Gjirokastra and the sea: see Stadtmüler, Forschungen, p. 177.

28. Šufflay, ‘Povijest’, p. 200 (documents); Stadtmüller, Forschungen, p. 70 (eagle). The ‘he who understands’ argument may possibly be the wrong way round; in Hungarian, for example, magyardzni means ‘to explain’, but only because its original meaning was ‘to put into Magyar’, Çabej notes that the presumed derivation of shqipoj from Latin excipere is very doubtful (’Zur Charakteristik’, p. 194). Another derivation of shqip, suggested by Skok, from the place-name Scupi (Skopje; Alb.: Shkup), requires some unusual sound-changes (see Schramm, Eroberer, p. 361).

29. Curiously, it is treated as authentic by Hammond, Migrations, pp. 56-7. But the document, a Ragusan chronicle written probably in the fourteenth century and surviving only in an eighteenth-century copy, evidently described much more recent events: see Makushev, ‘Issledovaniia’, pp. 204, 303-32.

30. E.g. Çabej, ‘Problem of place’, p. 79.

31. Skëndet Anamali has argued the Illyrian-Albanian case in a series of articles: see ‘Problemi i kulturës’ and ‘De la civilisation’. But as Vladimir Popović points out, the finds at Koman and the Kruja necropolis are simitar to those at other semi-isolated Romano-Byzantine towns of this period in Corfu and Dalmatia: ‘L’Albanie’, pp. 269-72.

32. Durham, ‘Antiquity’; for a strong argument against tribal continuity see Kaser, Hirten, Kämpfer, pp. 39-43.

33. Stadtmüller, Forschungen, pp. 138-9, 145-7; Selishchev, Slavianskoe naselenie, pp. 176-81; Jokl, ‘Slaven und Albaner’, pp. 291-7, 315.

34. Schramm, Anfänge, p. 151. The best evidence is from the area of Debar and the Black Drin.

35. Stipčević, Iliri, pp. 27-30; Wilkes, Illyrians, p. 68; Wiesner, Thraker, p. 27.

36. Stipčević, Iliri, p. 30 and n.; Mirdita, Studime dardane, pp. 7-46; Papazoglu, Central Balkan Tribes, pp. 210-69. As Papazoglu notes, most ancient sources classify Dardanians as Illyrians. Her reasons for rejecting this identification in a later essay, ‘Les Royaumes’, are obscure. There were Thracian names in the eastern strip of Dardania, but Illyrian names dominated the rest; Katičić has shown that these belong with two other Illyrian ‘onomastic provinces’ (see his summary in Ancient Languages, pp. 179-81, and the evidence in Papazoglu, ‘Dardanska onomastika’).

37. Decev, Sprachreste, pp. 575, 579 (by Decev and Georgiev respectively).

38. Katičić, Ancient Languages, pp. 169-70.

39. Ibid., p. 171 (cloud); Dečev, Sprachreste, pp. 543, 544 (blackberry), (Çabej notes a Swiss (Rhaetoromance) word for a raspberry, mani, and suggests that the term was originally an Illyrian word, which spread both west into Alpine Latin and east into Thracian (’L'lllyrien’, p. 52). Cimochowski also argues that ‘mantia’ could be Illyrian: ‘Prejardhja’, p. 38. The oft-cited link claimed by Weigand between the Thracian word for ‘thyme’ and the Albanian for ‘peas’ is now rejected: see Weigand, ‘Albanische Einwanderung’, p. 209; Philippide, Originea Rominilor, vol. 1, p. 375; Decev, Sprachreste, p.554.

40. Mladenov, ‘Albanisch’, p. 183 (Carlo, Lodovico).

41. Çabej, ‘Problem of place’; Schramm, Eroberer, p. 293; Huld, Basic Etymologies, pp.48, 121-2.

42. For this important argument see Gjinari, ‘De la continuation’. On Thracian compound names see Georgiev, ‘Thrace et illyrien’, p. 73; Katičić, Ancient Languages, pp. 139-41.

43. The best discussions of this issue are Pisani, ‘Les Origines’; Cimochowski, ‘Prejardhja’, pp. 41-5. See also Mayer, Sprache der Illyrier, vol. 1, p. 12; Katičić, Ancient Languages, pp. 174, 184. One more recent attempt to prove that Illyrian was centum is by Schramm, Anfänge, pp. 26-7. But his argument rests only on one speculative etymology for a river-name, connecting it with an Indo-European root for ‘knee’: this does not match the known derivation from that root in Albanian (see Huld, Basic Etymologies, p. 70).

44. Katičić, Ancient Languages, p. 163; Rosetti, Thrace, daco-mesien’, p. 81.

45. Polome, ‘Position’; Hamp, ‘Position’, p. 111. Based on the assumed Messapian link was another argument, about the accentuation of the first syllable in place-names (Brindisi, for example, preserves the Messapian accent): some Albanian names do this and others do not. Dropping the Messapian-Illyrian connection removes this problem from the agenda.

46. See Huld, Basic Etymologies, pp. 159-61. Huld finds the classification particularly unhelpful for Albanian, which differs in some ways from satem languages without being identifiable as centum.

47. Georgiev. ‘Albanisch, dakisch-mysisch’. See Hamp, ‘Position’; Rosetti, Thrace, daco-mésien’; and, for the fullest demolition, di Giovine, Tracio, dacio ed albanese’.

48. Çabej, ‘Problem of Autochthony’, p. 43; Katičić, Ancient Languages, p. 186; Mihaescu, ‘Les filements’, p. 325.

49. This claim is put forward as a prime argument against the ‘Illyrian’ origins of the Albanians by Schramm: Eroberer, pp. 33-4; Anfänge, p. 23. It had already been answered by Çabej, who pointed out that the shift to ‘h’ belonged to a much earlier (pre-Roman) period of Albanian: ‘Problem of Autochthony’, p. 44. Schramm’s case can be disproved by a series of Albanian borrowings from Latin, such as shkorse (rug) from scortea, shkëndije (spark) from scantilla, shkemb (rock-formation) from scamnum, and shkop (staff) from scopae: see Capidan, ‘Raporturile’. pp. 546-8; Philippide, Originea Rominilor, vol. 2, pp. 653-4; Çabej, ‘Zur Charakteristik’, p. 177; and the entries in Meyer, Etymologisches Worterbuch.

50. Jokl, ‘Slaven und Albaner’, pp. 287. 618, 627.

51. Weigand, ‘Sind die Albaner?’, p. 233.

52. See Çabej, ‘L’lllyrien’, p. 46, and the comments in Hamp, ‘Position’, p. 98.

53. It is sometimes imagined that the shepherds of the northern Albanian mountains must always have grazed their flocks on the coastal plains in the winter, but this is not correct. Many move only from summer pastures in the mountains to winter pastures in nearby valleys: see Kaser, Hirten, Kampfer, pp. 57-67.

54. Skok, Dolazak Slovena, p. 22 (Plovdiv area); Schramm, Frühe Schicksale’, (ii), p. 104 (Ohrid area); Schramm, Eroberer, pp. 115-30 (mountain areas). St Jerome referred to Illyrian-speakers in Dalmatia or Pannonia in the fifth century, but their location is uncertain: Mirdita, ‘Çështja e etnogenezës’, pp.638-9.

55. Schramm, Anfänge, p. 232. In later Byzantine usage, ‘Bessoi’ became a general name for Vlachs (see Cankova-Petkova, ‘La Survivance’). Perhaps because of this, Tomaschek argued (’Die alten Thraker’, (1), p. 77) that these monks were speaking a Balkan Latin, and that bessam was just added in the manuscript as a gloss on latinam; but this is refuted by the evidence of the two earliest MSS (see Milani. ed., Itinerarium, p. 204). There is other evidence, of Christian ‘Bessi’ in Constantinople and Jerusalem:’ Schramm, Anfänge, pp. 112-20. Irfan Shahid’s attempt to identify Bessan here with Arabic is unconvincing (Byzantium and Arabs, Fourth Century, pp. 320-1), but his location of Lakhmids in the region (ibid., pp. 31-60, and Byzantium and Arabs, Sixth Century, p. 979) must overturn a recent claim that the ‘Lachmienses’ at Sinai were Vlachs (Nandris, ‘Jebaliyeh’).

56. Schramm, Anfänge, pp. 149-56.

57. Ibid., pp. 48-77. Even the Goths held out for a long time: a small Gothic-speaking population existed in the Crimea as late as the sixteenth century.

58. For useful listings see Haarmann, Der lateinische Lehnwortschatz, pp. 105-8; Philippide, Originea Romînilor, vol. 1, pp. 665-76.

59. Schramm, Anfänge, pp. 94-5.

60. There are two common Albanian words for flock, kope and tufe.

61. Jireček, ‘Die Romanen’, (i), p. 13; Philippide, Originea Rominilor, vol. 1, pp. 70-2; Papazoglu, ‘Les Royaumes’, pp. 193-5. Albanian does preserve a very small quantity of borrowings from ancient Greek: see Thumb, ‘Altgriechische Elemente’; Jokl, ‘Altmakedonisch’; Çabej, ‘Zur Charakteristik’, p. 182. This low level of borrowing from Greek is a further argument against the identification of Albanians with Bessi, part of whose tribal territory was Hellenized: see Philippide, Originea Romînilor, vol. 1, pp. 11, 283; Velkov, ‘La Thrace’, p. 188.

62. Stadtmüller, Forschungen, pp. 118-22; Zeitler, ‘Das lateinische Erbe’.

63. Schramm gives a valuable survey of the literature and the evidence: ‘Frühe Schicksale’, esp. pp. 112-15. See also Pipa’s comments on the symbiosis in Albanian Literature, pp. 62-75.

64. On substratum vocabulary see Capidan, ‘Raporturile’, pp. 457-83. For an etymology of copil see Reichenkron, ‘Vorromische Elemente’, pp. 242-3. One key word, vatra (hearth), suggests that the original substratum may have been a widespread ‘Albanoid’ group, of which Albanian is the only survivor: Hamp, ‘Distribution’. But below that there may have been a sub-substratum of pre-Indo-European words: for examples (connected with Basque) see Polak, ‘Die Beziehungen’, pp. 213-15.

65. On Dalmatian, which was recorded just in time from its last speaker in the 1890s, see Mihaescu, La Romanité, pp. 91-130.

66. Weigand, ‘Sind die Albaner?’, pp. 231-2.

67. Earlier studies linked Albanian exclusively with Romanian; more recent ones have tried to prise them apart, especially if written by Albanians trying to keep Albanian origins in Albania, or Romanians trying to keep Romanian origins in Romania: see Çabej, ‘Zur Charakteristik’; Mihaescu, ‘Les Eléments’ Mihaescu uses Latin Christian vocabulary in Albanian to emphasize its divergence from Romanian, but this is highly misleading: Romanian has a different vocabulary here simply because Romanians were later brought under the Orthodox Church.

68. Jireček, Geschichte der Bulgaren, pp. 112-13 (admitting some agriculture too); Howard-Johnston, ‘Urban Continuity’, p. 251 (towns only).

69. Capidan, ‘Romanii nomazi’, pp. 205-8.

70. Dinić, ‘Dubrovačka trgovina’.

71. The Montenegrin highlands are rather neglected in most studies of these issues; but they clearly had a well-established Vlach population by the early fourteenth century, when Vlach place-names are recorded there: see Šufflay, Srbi i Arbanaši, p. 75; Radusinović, Stanovništvo, p. 31 (and for Albanian names in Montenegro, see above, n. 24).

72. Capidan, ‘Raporturile’; Schramm, ‘Frühe Schicksale’. Weigand, ‘Albanische Einwanderung’, shows that some Albanians went with the Romanians into Transylvania.

73. Cerskov, Rimljani, p. 54; Mirdita, ‘Rreth problemit’.

74. Cerskov, Rimljani, p. 55.

1. Gelzer, Patriarchat, p. 4; Gjini, Ipeshkivia, pp. 79-80.

Jul 28, 2008 - 7:57 pm 96. Sebaneau:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc2m8p62_198gvsvvkf5
http://pasta.cantbedone.org/pages/Dslmy2.htm
http://www.bosnia.org.uk/bosrep/report_format.cfm?articleid=3095&reportid=171
The charges have been sufficiently proved
by Dunja Melčić, Helsinška povelja (Belgrade), March-April 2006; Bosnia Report, April – July 2006, New Series No: 51-52

The beginning of the trial of Slobodan Milošević in September 2002 was a historic event: for the first time in Europe a head of state had been indicted by, and brought before, an international court. The second historic moment – the delivery of a verdict – never happened. Milošević died from heart failure just a couple of weeks before the end of the main hearing. This inglorious conclusion does not mean, however, that no opinion is possible on the weight of evidence against the accused and on the credibility of his defence.
Six months after his fall from power, on 5 October 2000, Milošević was charged and arrested in Belgrade for abuse of power and corruption. At the end of June 2001 he was delivered to the International Tribunal for War Crimes in The Hague, which had indicted him already during the war in Kosovo, in the spring of 1999. Contrary to frequent assertions, Milošević’s extradition had an impeccable legal basis. Subsequent investigations carried out by other Serbian courts led to suspicion against him of having prompted others to commit murder in four cases.
Milošević argued before the Tribunal that he did not recognize the court, while at the same time he defended himself in accordance with its rules, at least some of the time and only when it suited him. Srđa Popović, the leading independent Serbian lawyer, commented:

‘According to the rules of the Serbian criminal code regarding court proceedings … a defendant who insults the participants and the dignity of the court – which Milošević does often and in the most boorish manner – can be removed from the court for a limited time or throughout the examination of the evidence (Article 299).’

The trial

The presentation of evidence before the Tribunal started with the case of Kosovo, in February 2002, and ended at the beginning of September 2002, after 90 court days.
The presentation of evidence on the charges concerning the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina began some twenty days later, and ended in February 2004.

The defendant was allowed 150 court days for defence; he began questioning the witnesses in September 2004.
The cases relating to Kosovo on the one hand and to Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina on the other were objectively different.
When Milošević appeared before the Tribunal, several trials of people charged with war crimes in the wars of 1991-5 had already begun, and some had even been concluded.

The factual situation had already been sufficiently proven in accordance with the international criminal code: namely, ‘war crimes’ (articles 2 and 3 of the Statute), ‘crimes against humanity’ (article 5) and ‘genocide’ (article 4).

In the verdict passed in April 2001 on Radislav Krstić, chief of staff of the armed forces of RS, for mass murder at Srebrenica (1995), the fact of genocide had been established – for the first time – and confirmed by the Appeal Council in April 2004.

By contrast, the trial dealing with the punishable acts in Kosovo (the deportation and massacre of Kosovo Albanians) represented at the same time the first general acceptance of that fact as proven.

The external difference between the two parts of the trial was evident in that in the first part many witnesses gave their initial testimony in court, while in the second the prosecution was able to use documents, written testimony and already established facts and bases for decision.

The prosecutors Carla del Ponte, Geoffrey Nice, Dermot Groome, Dirk Ryneveld and Hildegard Uerzt-Retzlaff offered evidence confirming beyond doubt Milošević’s direct link with the gravest crimes. Although the accused ‘did not personally meet the victims’, he ordered that these crimes ‘be committed by use of others’.
This is why the main task of the prosecutor was to prove Milošević’s primary responsibility for already established criminal acts. If this did not always succeed fully from the legal point of view, it was nevertheless proved with a degree of probability bordering on certainty that Milošević was the one who pulled the strings behind this criminal enterprise. A clear image thus emerged of Milošević having all power in his hands. The defendant himself contributed to the consolidation of this image — sometimes unintentionally and sometimes because he could not resist displaying his own grandeur.

Slobodan Milošević was president of Serbia from 1989 on: he was twice elected to that post, in 1990 and 1992, in general and direct elections.
In 1997 he was also elected president of the ‘rump Yugoslavia’ (FRY). Borisav Jović, who was a member of the last presidency of the socialist Yugoslavia (1990-1991) and was at that time Milošević’s closest confidant, s tated before the court in November 2003:

‘Milošević had the final say in all important as well as in some less important decisions.’

This means that Milošević alone decided personal promotions and dismissals.

Jović described this practice:
he and Milošević retired the last Yugoslav defence minister, General Veljko Kadijević, in order to facilitate the realization of their concept of a ‘new Yugoslavia’.
(Jović fancied himself able to influence Milošević up to 1992.)
He confirmed that the ‘new Yugoslavia’ assumed the amputation of one third of Croatia (claimed to be ‘Serb land’).
Milošević changed leading officials of the state, the government, his own party (SPS), the army, the secret service and the media at will, and in accordance with his tactical conceptions.
Jović, who similarly lost his post of deputy president of SPS in just twelve minutes at one party meeting, quoted a series of such sudden personnel changes. One can deduce from this that the Serbs active in the wars were Milošević’s men.

The diplomat Charles Kirudja, who met with Milošević on several occasions in Belgrade, confirmed these allegations.
He was particularly struck by the fact that Milošević did not have a team of advisers: he had a position on all issues and if he wished could take decisive measures at any time.
Kirudja described how Milošević summoned the secret police chief Stanišić and sent him to Ratko Mladić in order to end the crisis created by the Bosnian Serbs’ seizure of 284 UN soldiers as hostages.
A large number of other Western diplomats and negotiators testified many times that Milošević had control over all local warlords.

As for Kosovo, it was possible to prove beyond all doubt that, beginning with 1998, he had the apparatus of repression prepared for conducting terror against, and for deportations of, the Kosovo Albanians.
By transferring the highest-ranking individuals in the police and the army, and by linking up these forces with the secret and security services as well as with various special or paramilitary units, he created a highly coordinated formation.
A coordinated and planned pattern of behaviour could be clearly discerned also in the systematic character of the deportations (which the prosecutors confirmed with the relevant maps) and their speed (around 800,000 Albanians were deported in the course of one week, between 24 and 31 March 1999).

Zoran Lilić, who served as president of FRY between 1993 and 1997 with Milošević’s permission, confirmed that Milošević, not he, made all decisions.
Foreign diplomats supported this in their testimony to the court, saying that they never negotiated with Lilić. It has been proved beyond all doubt –on the basis of statements by Milošević’s subordinates, among other things– that during the war he himself ordered the removal of dead bodies from Kosovo.
In May 2001 the Serbian media wrote about the discovery of a mass grave in Batajnica, a place close to Belgrade, containing, it was suspected, the bodies of Albanian victims. Soon afterwards similar mass graves were found in other parts of Serbia. The Batajnica grave held the bodies of those massacred in Suva Reka (near Prizren). The murdered, including two small children and a pregnant woman, had long before been loaded into a refrigerated van (the property of a slaughterhouse in Prizren) and dumped into the Danube. But the van had floated to the surface and been discovered at the beginning of April 1999, after which the police had investigated the case.
The participants testified before the Tribunal. A policeman who had guarded the spot described how 83 bodies and body parts of people up to the age of 70 wearing civilian clothes were loaded onto another van and taken away. The man who undertook the job confirmed that he was acting under orders, while Radomir Marković, who headed the Serbian state security service at the time, referred at one point to an order issued personally by Milošević at a meeting in April 1999, according to which all evidence of crimes in Kosovo had to be destroyed. DNA analyses made by a Spanish laboratory secured indisputable proof of the victims’ genetic similarity with their relatives in Kosovo.

Three months are unacceptable!

The prosecution offered a large quantity of practically unanswerable evidence in relation to concrete criminal acts.
Around 250 of Milošević’s telephonic conversations with his collaborators (the head of the secret service Jovica Stanišić, the director of the customs service Mihalj Kertes, the leaders of various militias and paramilitary formations such as Željko Ražnatović Arkan and Milorad Luković Legija, or the leaders of the Serb rebels in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina), recorded by intelligence services, were accepted as material evidence by the court.
There is, for example, an exchange with Radovan Karadžić in July 1991 when Milošević, evidently in a good mood, informed Karadžić about his recent conversation with the German ambassador:

‘So this ambassador tells me something like he has information that (Croatian Serbs) have weapons; whereupon I tell him

“Serbs always have weapons! We are that kind of people. We always have weapons.”

Milošević laughs cheerfully and continues:

‘He then shits on, what else can he do, after all? So he says he believes that “they even have mortars”. And I tell him “mortars too are weapons”.’ Karadžić, on the other end of the line, begins to laugh, and Milošević adds:

‘What did he expect? – that I would tell him I had sent them there personally?’

These telephonic conversations confirm that Milošević knew full well all the details and was directly involved in all events, large and small.
In September 1991, when the Bosnian police arrested the leader of the Croatian Serbs Milan Martić, Milošević concerned himself with his liberation, and organized a helicopter to ensure the utmost speed.
He repeatedly sent Jovica Stanišić to initiate actions, or when and where necessary to regulate and correct something.
Milošević decided whether the Croatian Serbs should sign any given agreement, and which one of them would do it.
As early as the summer of 1991 Milošević and Karadžić discussed future strategy for Bosnia-Herzegovina, agreeing that the first necessity was to establish control over the ‘Serb areas’.
In the early spring of 1991 Milošević fretted aloud over the three-month-long suspension of the proclamation of Slovenia’s and Croatia’s independence imposed by the EC. It was a far too long wait, couldn’t be allowed; a radical change had to be initiated immediately:

‘… the only question remaining is to ensure the abolition [of the federal state] in line with our conception’.

All under a single command

Regardless of what his initial plans were, Milošević was in a hurry.
As early as the spring of 1990 he ordered Stanišić to proceed, after which the chief of the Serbian intelligence service sent to the Serb ‘fortress’ of Knin in Croatia his right-hand man Frenki Simatović with instructions to prepare a rebellion and train the Serbs militarily.
These actions were confirmed before the court by Aleksandar Vasiljević, head of the Yugoslav counter-intelligence service, who also stressed that the Yugoslav state security service had supplied weapons to the Serb militia and paramilitary units, including those of the Serb Četnik ‘vojvoda’ Vojislav Šešelj, and that in the end they had all come under the command of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA).
Between 1991 and 1992 some 13,000 JNA (later VJ) officers were engaged in the (occupied) areas of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

A protected witness confirmed that the Chetniks were also transported to the occupied areas in state-owned buses.
According to numerous witnesses, all fighting troops were paid for by Belgrade and most of them were on the payroll of the VJ.
Ratko Mladić’s pension, after all, was paid up to the summer of 2005 by the VJ –albeit, at the end, by way of intermediaries. Seeking to justify himself against the charge of pilfering public money, Milošević himself admitted he had financed the Croatian and Bosnian Serbs.
At the beginning of December 2003 a former JNA officer described how his unit was fired on by another JNA unit from a supposedly Croatian position, in order to be able to ascribe the attack to the Croatian (‘Ustasha’) side and use it as an excuse to march in and drive out the population.

Milošević for his part ignored all this evidence against him, insisting that the JNA had become involved only in order to separate ‘the parties to the civil war’.

Numerous experts provided the prosecution with detailed analyses of the various aspects of the JNA’s conduct of the war.

The Belgian military expert Renaud Theunens analysed the JNA’s confidential documents, and showed precisely how the role of the JNA changed in the course of the war.
The video film he ran on that occasion showed a JNA general praising the participation of Arkan’s units (the ‘Tigers’) in the conquest of Vukovar, with the words:

‘these are not “paramilitaries” but patriots fighting for the Serb people… we surround a village, they march in, kill those who refuse to surrender, and we move on.’

Theunens also produced Milošević’s personal orders to the Serb leaders in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Milošević tried to devalue this evidence, because it involved only an ‘instruction’; but Theunens explained that in the JNA’s terminology ‘instruction’ and ‘order’ had the same meaning.

That Milošević controlled the whole military machine that responded with force to the political changes in Croatia (and Slovenia) –from the top of the JNA via militias and bands of extreme right-wingers to local detachments– was something about which Milan Babić was able to testify at first hand during the hearings.

From the end of 1991 Babić played the role of ‘president’ of the self-proclaimed Republika Srpska Krajina, initially with Milošević’s support.
Babić’s testimony appeared credible, his remorse and admission of guilt sincere.
In July 2003 he was sentenced to thirteen years in prison on the grounds of his personal responsibility for deportation of the Croat population and infringements of human rights in 1991 and 1992.

At the beginning of March 2006 Babić committed suicide in his cell in Scheveningen, to which he had been brought from hiding in order to testify against Milan Martić, charged among other things with a missile attack on the Croatian capital of Zagreb (May 1995).
So far as one can tell from outside, Babić, a dentist by profession, was an unstable personality: he deserved better care than that which he got in The Hague.
His testimony was credible because it was consistent and in conformity with other testimonies; he appeared in full control of himself under Milošević’s cross-examination and displayed a sober realism. The presiding judge, Patrick Robinson, asked him:

‘–Do you mean to say that Mr Milošević was the supreme commander of the JNA?’

Babić replied:

‘–Yes! Formally it was the SFRJ presidency, but de facto it was Milošević.’

Credibly established

The fact that the evidence put forward on the war in Croatia turned out to be so credible is linked to the fact that this was the beginning, and an evident framework in which forces evidently under Milošević’s influence functioned.
There was also the high quality of individual proofs:
testimony by witnesses from informed circles and by neutral observers some of whom had from the start been present as eyewitnesses of what happened in Vukovar and other besieged places –like, for example, EC observers.

Milosević’s responsibility and his presence in the Bosnian-Serbian war could not be proved so easily. Apart from many objective differences between the two countries, this was due above all to the fact that the leaders of the Bosnian Serbs –Radovan Karadžić, Momčilo Krajišnik, Biljana Plavšić and others– were politically more prominent than their counterparts in Croatia; as well as to the fact that the Serb forces in Bosnia were stronger, and that a considerable majority of the country’s second-largest national group supported their option. In Croatia, by contrast, the project was supported by only a (mainly rural) part of the Serb population with the Krajina regime, whereas –as the prosecution underlined– a considerable number lived peacefully in the rest of the country.
The Bosnian Serbs, furthermore, functioned more independently than those in Croatia, in their efforts to create an ethnically pure Serb unit by forcibly deporting the non-Serbs. The JNA in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in addition, consolidated itself on the basis of a new structure of command and enjoyed a much higher degree of operational superiority.
The extensive prior preparations for a lightning war against Bosnia-Herzegovina led to a speedy conquest of cities and whole regions, as well as to the siege of Sarajevo. This gave the impression of a relative autonomy of the army, even though, as Jović described, it had all been planned long before.

The leaders of the Bosnian Serbs united around a ‘six-point strategic plan’ to create an exclusively Serb construction, adopted by the Serb assembly in May 1992.
The first aim was ethnic separation. In Karadžić’s words, ‘our enemies, i.e. the Croats and Muslims’ were to be ‘forcefully driven out of their homes, so that we no longer live together with them in the same state’.
This plan included also the elimination of the Bosnian-Serbian border along the Drina, i.e. according to the confession made by Miroslav Deronjić (one of the main actors) the deportation of the Bosnian Muslims who formed the majority of the population there from a fifty-kilometre-wide band of territory west of the Drina.
The minutes of the assembly meeting provide additional essential evidence of substantial material support for the Bosnian Serb entity, which like its Croatian counter-part was unable on its own either to exist or to wage war.
Milošević’s speech before the Bosnian Serb assembly (at the beginning of 1993) confirms this, as does Karadžić’s admission (May 1994) that without Milošević and Serbia ‘we would not have had the means to wage war’.

The UN official David Harland (who had served in Sarajevo from 1993 to1999) gave evidence to the court of Milošević’s connection with the Bosnian Serbs.
During his testimony, the witness tried hard to differentiate clearly and stress the separate interests of Milošević and Karadžić. This notwithstanding, there was no doubt left in the end that Milošević’s influence was overwhelming, and that he was in a position to prevent or stop the Bosnian Serb crimes.

Srebrenica

Units from Serbia fought in Bosnia and participated in many war crimes. Milošević received reports on a daily basis from various sources about military activities in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, including about the bestialities being committed.

One former JNA member gave testimony via video-link about how with his helicopter he had supplied the front-line troops in eastern Bosnia.
These operations were under the command of the head of the special police Frenki Simatović, who directed from Serbia all the units of the JNA and the police deployed there.

The secretary of the notorious paramilitary chief Željko Ražnatović Arkan gave evidence that his ‘Tigers’ never fought in Croatia or Bosnia-Herzegovina without the knowledge of or instructions from the Serbian security service.

Since many Tribunal sessions were held in camera, it is difficult to say whether the judges were given clearer evidence linking Milošević directly to the massacre at Srebrenica.
His confidant Lilić confirmed that he at least learnt about it very early on; but no investigation was set in train to establish who was involved. This too is a criminal offence.

At all events how the conquest of Srebrenica proceeded, and the plan to exterminate the male inhabitants of the town was implemented, were clearly established in the course of other proceedings before the War Crimes Tribunal. This was done in part with the cooperation of indicted Bosnian Serbs who admitted guilt, such as the above-mentioned Deronjić, who confessed his responsibility for terrible crimes in the east Bosnian town of Bratunac, and two other officers of the Bosnian Serb army, Momir Nikolić and Dragan Obrenović.

We are dealing here with a wide-ranging operation (called Krivaja after the spring of 1995) planned by Ratko Mladić, which means that it is practically impossible that Milošević knew nothing about it. It is more likely that he was kept fully informed. This aside, there is evidence that on 7 July, when the operation was in full swing, Ratko Mladić met with him.
Deronjić himself has stated that on 8 July Karadžić told him in person that all Muslims in Srebrenica would be killed.
It is thus possible to assess the import of Wesley Clarke’s testimony (December 2003). On 13 September 1995 he asked Milošević why, despite his influence with the Bosnian Serbs, he had allowed General Mladić ‘to kill so many people in Srebrenica’. Milošević replied incautiously:

‘Well, General Clarke, I told him not to do it but he would not listen.’

Jul 28, 2008 - 9:40 pm 97. Sebaneau:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc2m8p62_29cms7zccs
http://pasta.cantbedone.org/pages/hWLNrU.htm
http://www.helsinki.org.yu/doc/Roots%20of%20anti%20modern.doc
The roots of anti-modern political culture in Serbia
Olga Popović Obradović

The concentration of all power in the hands of a Radical Party that equated itself with the people – this is the dominant perception and practice of the so-called golden age of Serbian democracy between 1903 and 1914

At the very start of the nineteen-nineties an institutional reform was carried out in Serbia (as in other so-called transitional countries), under the leadership of Slobodan Milošević. Despite numerous deficiencies, this reform did undeniably create the basic constitutional conditions for establishing a modern democratic order. The principle of division of power was introduced, together with a multi-party system and direct elections; a parliament was founded, and the media were liberalised. For the first time in Serbian history, moreover, a civilian was appointed to head the armed forces. Today, a decade and a half later, we witness a complete debacle of these institutions. Instead of tracing the path to pluralist democracy, market economy and the rule of law, modern political institutions have served as a ruse for covering, or rather legitimising, a wholly archaic and anti-modern political project – one that was also criminal. The issues of state borders and ethnic homogenisation were defined as the primary interests of the Serbian people, before which freedom of the individual, as a value in its own right, either disappears or is at best of secondary importance. A patriarchal, authoritarian and strongly monistic culture emerged into full light, its internal image distinguished by collectivism, egalitarianism and intolerance towards the other or the different, its external image by ethnic nationalism and militarism.

The devaluation of personal freedom, and all the other values of liberal democracy, by Slobodan Milošević’s regime does not mean that it did not enjoy a degree of democratic legitimacy – democratic in a populist (narodnjački) sense, but democratic nonetheless. Serbia embraced Milošević’s policy as though unanimously, giving it near plebiscitary support. In this way the Serbians by their own decision entered not a free and open society but a war, whose legacy was impoverishment, self-isolation and a heavy burden of responsibility for war crimes.

Serbia still lives with this legacy. The Serbian electoral body, indifferent in its majority towards the issue of responsibility for the war and war crimes, continues to vote for the advocates of the war policy, for individuals and parties of an ultra-nationalist and populist nature, seduced by their nationalist rhetoric, sugary archaism and obsession with myths, as well as by their social demagoguery of anti-capitalism and anti-Westernism in general. Their accent shifts between the social dimension and the imperialist programme of uniting all ‘Serb lands’, depending on current political needs. We face daily examples of this organic unity of social populism, authoritarianism and imperialist nationalism.
One of the most impressive was the grandiose concluding rally to promote the Radical Party’s candidates for the post of mayor of Belgrade, held in the autumn of 2004, the rhetoric and scenography of which – combined with a disciplined yet passionate hailing and hymning of the Radicals’ ‘father’, now Hague prisoner Vojislav Šešelj – represented an accomplished reproduction of the National-Socialist model. Its result was catastrophic. The oaths of loyalty to the Hague prisoner, and the public identification of the Radical Party with his deeds, have remained firm. At the same time, the general judgement that the Radicals represent the single most powerful political party in Serbia has conditioned the party-political calculations of the so-called democratic parties, especially in relation to the recent developments associated with the adoption of the new Serbian constitution, thus legitimising the Radical Party more effectively than anything else since 5 October 2000. It needed only a month for these parties to shift from public, forceful and firm demands that the Radical Party be banned, as a party that stimulates national hatred, to the position that its participation – with its decisive influence in elaborating the highest law of the Serbian state for the 21st century – was something quite normal and legitimate. Which of these parties will ever again have the right to question the legitimacy of the Radical Party?

Over the past fifteen years, in other words, Serbia has been voting for the same political option, moving the gravitational centre of its expectations from the nationalist to the social-populist component and back. Here – as indeed everywhere else – 5 October brought about no essential change. On the contrary, by giving victory to the policy of so-called legalism, i.e. the policy of continuity with the regime of Slobodan Milošević, it gave back this option its briefly shaken legitimacy and further strengthened it. This is why surprise at its current power is either hypocritical or politically naive, since it can only involve ignoring the fact that the strongest and perhaps decisive blow against the idea of modern Serbia came precisely after 5 October, when we were faced with the most dramatic testimony in our modern history that the transformation of Serbia into a modern state was not merely a labour of Sisyphus but also a punishable offence. The advocates of a modern Serbia, who had earlier been marked out as renegades and political trouble-makers, now became legitimate targets for assassination. This led to the Serbian ‘murder in the Orient Express’, when almost all the country’s relevant political players – from generals and journalists to poets and clerics – in their different ways stuck their knives into the back of the prime minister Zoran Đinđić, who personified Serbia’s modernisation and re-orientation towards the West. Instead of being named murderers, they were called patriots. The brutality of the attack on the modernisers in Serbia has always been in proportion with their potential. Zoran Đinđić in this respect cannot be compared with any other politician in Serbian twentieth-century history. This is why he elicited no mercy. The aim was realised: the vision of a modern Serbia is daily further from reality and increasingly close to the world of science fiction.

Why is it that Serbia, ever since the fall of Communism, has proved unable to recognise its own vital interest in the values of modern society, continuing instead stubbornly and systematically to oppose them? In other words, what are the roots of the anti-modern political culture which, carried on the wave of ‘democratic transition’ at the end of the 1980s, erupted with mighty force to the surface and remained there, choking all differentiation?

The usual answer, which unhesitatingly points the finger at the Communist legacy and remains at that level, is quite worthless. It does not meet even elementary logic, because it is unable to provide the answer to two commonsense questions:
first, why did Milošević gain support not only from Communists but also from anti-Communists, including the Serbian Orthodox Church?;
secondly, why is the kind of resistance to modernisation displayed in post-Communist Serbia not present in other post-Communist states (such as Hungary, the Czech Republic or Poland) where Communism was far more rigid than in Serbia?
The real problem with this answer is that it is socially damaging, because it blocks critical re-examination of our own history and the self-understanding, responsibility and political maturity that come with that.

Here lies the responsibility of the elite, which, by fostering a distorted and mythological understanding on the part of the citizenry regarding the key processes and actors of Serbia’s modern history, helps in fact to preserve the currently dominant cultural and political model. In short, the answer to the question about the debacle of the democratic transition in Serbia lies in far deeper recesses of history, those that preceded the Communist experience and that, after all, account for that very experience.

‘We are not nationalists, but narodnjaci [men of the people]’, declared the president of the Serbian Radical Party, pointing thereby at the political tradition which gave birth to his party and provided the political articulation for contemporary Radicals. It is the tradition that emerged victorious from one of the crucial and lasting historical conflicts of modern Serbia: the conflict between two different concepts of state and society – between, broadly speaking, collectivism and individualism.

The content of this conflict was precisely defined by the Serbian political elite in the last decades of the 19th century, at the time of the first serious challenges posed by modernity. This was the period of the initial political articulation of broad layers of Serbian society, made possible by the introduction of a representative system and popular participation in politics. The above-mentioned political elite hence derived its legitimacy from the electorate.

What essentially marked this elite was a deep internal division over fundamental, strategic questions concerning the development of the Serbian state and society. It was a matter of projects which, whether in open or in latent conflict, were to become a permanent feature of Serbian history in the 19th and 20th centuries. The basic dividing-line was attitude to the West as a cultural and civilisational model in the broadest sense, which implied differences with regard both to questions of social and economic modernisation and to interpretations of the nature of the state and its goals. At that time, and in response to the modernising project of the ruling liberal elite, the first Serbian Radicals headed by Nikola Pašić articulated the project of the ‘people’s state’, with which they succeeded in organising a mass political movement and the largest political party in Serbian history: the People’s Radical Party. Anti-individualism, the state as a patriarchal community, economic egalitarianism, and national-territorial myths of which the Kosovo myth was the most important, were to be the fundamental orientations of society. The party which mobilised, organised and programmatically shaped this political consciousness was the People’s Radical Party. This political force was the first in Serbian history to transform narodnjački socialism into a mass political programme, thereby ensuring that the primary, decisive – and as history would show also fateful – political articulation of wider layers of Serbian society would be carried out on the basis of this programme.
The liberal reforming elite, weak in regard to its social base but nevertheless dominant in Serbia up to the 1890s, was disunited in both the ideological and the practical political sense. Its representatives can nevertheless be treated as belonging to the same ideological current, especially if one bears in mind the nature of the alternative: the enormous power summoned up by the emerging Radical Party. For the nature of this party, and above all its great social force, showed that political options in Serbia were being defined in accordance with specific criteria, the essence of which was not a choice between conservatism, liberalism and radicalism in the European sense of these concepts, but rather the acceptance or rejection of the European civilizational model in its widest meaning, including the nature of the state.

The programme of the ‘people’s state’ in the original Serbian radical thought rested on a patriarchal, collectivist and egalitarian understanding of freedom and democracy. As such it represented a negation of the modern state in all its aspects. At the end of the 19th century the Radical leaders defined their party clearly and unambiguously as a negation of liberal and an affirmation of radical democratic principles of socialist provenance. In contrast to the liberal parties, for whom the chief role of the state lay in protecting individual rights and political freedoms, the Radical Party – according to one of its ideologues at the time, Pera Todorović – took the position that the main task of the state was social and economic, i.e. securing ‘the people’s welfare’, and that political freedoms were only one instrument for pursuing of this goal. Defining the state as primarily a social and economic category, Pera Todorović explicitly stated that it was necessary to know ‘the difference between the aim and the means’.1 Freedom and democracy, wrote another of the party’s theoreticians Laza Paču, stand in opposition to the very essence of class-divided bourgeois society. In Serbia’s case, according to Paču, its society is more or less homogenous in respect of class, which provides a fortunate situation for the immediate building of socialism by way of ‘associated labour’.2 The method of ‘associated labour’, said Nikola Pašić, constituted the programme of the Radical Party. ‘The Radical Party’ wants to prevent the people from ‘adopting the errors of Western industrial society, where a proletariat is being created as well as immense wealth, and to build industry instead on the basis of association.’ It wants ‘to introduce full self-government … as opposed to a bureaucratic system. Instead of capitalist enterprise … there should be workers’ associations.’ That is how Pašić presented the ideological and programmatic positions of the Radical Party.3 ‘We don’t need wealth. The Serb tribe is not the moneyed tribe of Israel…’4, one of the most influential of the Radical leaders, Archpriest Milan Đurić, was to say after the May 1903 coup, with his open antipathy towards the Jews – often publicly aired. 5 ‘We are all equal … we are not divided into classes as other nations are’,6 so legislative policy should aim at preventing the division of the family zadruga, is how M. Đurić explained the essence of the social philosophy that he advocated in the assembly on behalf of the Radical Party.
Many other Radicals thought of the Serbian state in a similar manner. Arguing in favour of universal [male] suffrage, Aleksa Ratarac stated that

‘Serbia [is] one large zadruga, and we are its representatives. It is better when more people are consulted.’7

Laza Popović explained:

‘There are many of us who are literate. When there were few literate people, Christ walked the earth; but a curse came upon us, since the number of those who are literate has grown. That’s how things are, gentlemen! Our learning does not lead to improvement but to decadence.’8

As late as 1910 the coalition government had to invest great efforts in persuading the assembly to accept a legal proposal on the separation of judicial and police powers! The deputies attacked the proposal on the grounds that Serbia had to remain a ‘peasant state’, and that consequently the number of officials should be reduced, not enlarged. The manner in which the leader of the Old Radicals, Ljuba Jovanović, defended the proposal before his party colleagues in the assembly is highly indicative of the social and political state of mind of the Radical-dominated assembly at the end of 1910. He argued that he himself had once been convinced that Serbia should remain a purely ‘peasant country’, but that he had changed his mind under the influence of the Boer War. For when he saw that the peasant Boer people, which did not wish to follow ‘the path of economic development and industrialisation’, had lost its freedom,

‘he became convinced that if Serbia wished to remain free, [it] had to have, in addition to the peasantry, also other social strata.’9

In Jovanović’s estimate, clearly, the interest of national freedom was for the Serbian assembly the strongest argument in favour of capitalism.

In order to create and sustain such a state, the whole nation had to be organised in a form having simultaneously the character of a movement and the character of a party with a robust organisation, military discipline and a strong internal hierarchy. Consolidation of the internal organisation, centralisation and strict inner-party discipline – combined with the unquestionable authority of the leader – became at the end of the 19th century, and especially after the arrival of the Radicals in power following the adoption of the 1888 constitution, one of the Radical Party’s most important tasks. A widespread network of party branches was established throughout Serbia, and a system of party membership cards introduced.

This emergence – in parallel with the first signs of modernisation – of a mass populist-socialist party, organised in a manner that elsewhere would become known only with the appearance of totalitarian ideologies in the 20th century, is what makes Serbia a unique case in modern European history. The mass character of this party, or more precisely its comprehensive nature, made it a ‘people’s party’, and earned its government an unquestionable as well as exclusive legitimacy that was denied to all other political parties on the grounds that they were not of the people [narodne].
The Radicals called those other parties ‘proprietor’s parties’, implying that ‘proprietors’ were not part of the people and hence their participation in government was illegitimate. The opposition deputy Drag. Joksimović stated:

‘Whenever they are in power, the Radicals say: Don’t touch Mother Serbia, don’t rend its bowels…because for them Mother Serbia is the Radical Party.’10

Insisting that ‘demagoguery’ is ‘fundamentally contrary to democracy’, J. Prodanović argued that in Serbia ‘the peasant cloak and sandals’ were being courted, while ‘the [town] coat and the intelligentsia were being attacked. The people are being seduced by flattery and by denigrating the intelligentsia.’11

Being all-inclusive, the ‘people’s’ party is identified with the nation, and its government with government by the people. In this way the difference between people’s state, people’s party, and the people as forming a single and politically homogenous whole is erased, and the principle established that there is no separation between state and society.

This self-evident truth, according to which the party and the people are one and the same, represents that element of the concept of the national state which the Radical Party was to maintain until the very end of its existence. The distinction in Serbia between people’s or Radical party on the one hand and, on the other, anti-people’s parties would provide the foundations upon which the project of the people’s state, following the arrival of the Radicals in power in the 1903 coup, would be transformed into a party-state overlaid with a parliamentary form.
The concentration of all power in the hands of a Radical Party that equated itself with the people – this is the dominant perception and practice of the so-called golden age of Serbian democracy between 1903 and 1914.

For the Radical masses, as well as for their leader Pašić, parliamentary politics meant seizing governmental power fully and for all time. ‘All power had to go to the Radicals, while non-Radicals could live in the state only as second-rate citizens.’ The only ‘measure of a civil servant’s quality’ was his political position in the previous regime: imprisonment under Milan’s government was of greater value than a university diploma’, is how S. Jovanović described the introduction of the Radical regime under the 1888 Constitution. If municipal governments, which according to the new constitution and electoral law were to have the decisive role in the organisation and conduct of elections, happened to be in the hands of the opposition – which was very rare – they were taken by force, if necessary with the help of the gendarmerie. ‘The whole Radical Party rose with the strength of a great wave to the level of a ruling class’, concluded Jovanović.12 ‘The Radical Party has subjugated in every way the state to its party and, upholding the motto that party is more important than the state, treats Serbia as a milch cow that is the exclusive property of the great Radical people’s party’, one of the Radicals’ most strident critics wrote in 1908 in the journal Nedeljni pregled.13

Inherent in this concept of the people’s state was the idea of the internal enemy. Pašić used to warn:

‘The Radical Party must not allow its enemies to again seize power … its opponents do not sleep, they engage in sabotage day and night, they must be carefully watched … one must be on guard.’14

In accordance with the leader’s message, after the Radical Party won power under the 1888 Constitution its political opponents became targets of a systematic and even physical terror, which apart from revenge had the clear practical political aim of taking over the whole state apparatus, from top to bottom.

In order to justify this treatment of the minority, the Radicals proclaimed all members of the opposing party without exception to be traitors.

‘For the past thirty years the people has been told that those who are not with Pašić are traitors, people who have sold their souls to the devil.’

Mr Pašić is ‘the personification of the Radical Party: those who are against him are traitors’, was Slobodan Jovanović’s bitter comment.15 T. Kaclerović, leader of the Social-Democratic Party, whose representatives were called ‘human degenerates’ and ‘sworn enemies of the Serbs’, told the assembly that Pašić’s Radicals ‘believe that they alone are patriots and speak of their country’.16

This perception of the minority parties as enemy and traitors was accompanied by an understanding of the parliamentary system as inter-party war, demanding constant watchfulness, strong organisation and unconditional obedience. In this way the Radical Party introduced the idea of the internal enemy into Serbian political life. The party state that grew out of the project of ‘the people’s state’, coupled with the idea of the internal enemy, represent the most lasting legacy of the original Serbian radicalism.
It developed deep roots, survived all regimes, and became a component part of the Serbian political culture and mentality.

‘Our idea of democracy is negative, because it is founded on the rejection of Individualism and Culture. It is a specific, intimate collectivism’,

wrote contemporary critics of the Radical Party. The journal Nedeljni pregled was most prominent in regard to its perception of the Radicals’ damaging effect on Serbia’s social and state development.
According to these critics, the Radical Party’s triumphal conquest of power after the murder of the last Obrenović in the coup of May 1903 diverted Serbia from its European path and oriented it towards the East, towards Russia. The introduction of the parliamentary system in Serbia meant the Radicals’ supremacy, which was the same as ‘the supremacy of Russo-philism’, i.e. of those people who [like Pašić] in their youth ‘were physically in Switzerland but spiritually in Russia’. For Serbian Radicalism, ‘Western forms’ were merely ‘blatant imitation’ and when it adopted such forms it became ‘wholly amoral’. Such forms were ‘proclaimed as their aim’ by the very same people who, when it became necessary after the Congress of Berlin to turn Serbia into a ‘modern state’ and take it into ‘the European community’, saw railways as ‘instruments of “Austrian agents” designed to export all Serbia and make its people starve’17 – in short, people who in fact ‘hated’ the West with an ‘intimate and sincere hatred.’18

The programme of the ‘people’s state’ contained a further important element: the missionary idea. Although during its formative period the Radical Party paid great attention to the question of the internal reforms that were supposed to save Serbia from capitalism and bring prosperity to its population, its leaders were clear that Serbia’s foreign-policy programme, which the Radical elite always equated with the project of all-Serb unity, had absolute primacy over issues of internal organisation. The fact that the leaders nevertheless gave priority to the latter during the initial years followed from their belief in the programme of the ‘people’s state’ as a strong factor of mobilisation in the projected war of national unification. Rejecting social division into classes, Father Đurić announced at the same time that the task of Serbian teachers had always been

‘to bring up children to know the Testament idea … so that as future citizens they will do penance for Kosovo and create Great Serbia… We must not remain passive while the old Serb kingdom of Bosnia [sic] and St Sava’s duchy of Herzegovina [resic] are being torn from the bosom of the Serb people.’
‘The mother guards the sheep and reaps the barley and the wheat, but she also sings to her little son and prepares him to avenge Kosovo and create Great Serbia’

that was the message of Archpriest Milan Đurić from the assembly podium.19 Other Radical deputies spoke in the same vein:

‘May God grant that we make our budget as soon as possible in Prizren, that we become the strongest power on the Balkan peninsula, that Serbia becomes the Piedmont of all Serbdom, and that we liberate Serbdom there.’20

Milorad Drašković too believed that Serbia’s main interest was not to win and keep the sympathy of ‘so-called Enlightened Europe’, but ‘to keep and safeguard the gains of war’.21

One of the means for realising this national project was the creation of a people’s army.

‘Every Serb must be a soldier. When our elders built houses they also made gun racks, whereas today…’,

the Radicals complained.22 As the mouthpiece of Pašić’s political ideas and views, Archpriest Milan Đurić explained the need to introduce a people’s army, in accordance with his chief’s basic practical and political view that internal questions had been solved with the introduction of the parliamentary system on 29 May, after which the external political programme had come to the fore: expansion of the Serbian state and unification of the entire Serb people.23 According to Đurić, a people’s army was required so that all together, ‘singing heroic folk songs and animated by that holy idea of ours, … we may do penance for Kosovo and create Great Serbia.’24

Nikola Pašić was even clearer. Serbia’s duty, in his view, was to subject unconditionally all issues of its internal development and political organisation to what he understood to be Serbia’s ‘national task’: to the idea of liberating the Serbs outside Serbia and pan-national unification. Pašić revealed his political credo in 1902:

‘I was always more preoccupied by the life and fate of the Serb people outside the borders of the Kingdom of Serbia than by the need to work for internal popular freedoms. The national freedom of the entire Serb people was for me a greater and stronger ideal than were the civic liberties of the Serbs in the kingdom.’25

Pašić practically repeated these words in the national assembly in 1905, when he said that he had always subordinated

‘all internal questions, including the solution of the constitutional issue’ to ‘the idea of a forthcoming liberation’.

This idea ‘led me also to politics and to Radicalism’, he said in 1905, exclaiming:

‘leave everything else aside and concentrate instead on solving that upon which Serbia’s existence depends. The voice of Serbdom and of the Serb Piedmont summons you.’26

Serbia must decide whether it will be Turkey and Piedmont, or Sweden, Denmark and Norway. If one wishes for Norwegian schools and Danish institutes, then military expenditure must be avoided.

‘But if we want to conduct a national policy, to create Great Serbia, then we must turn this country into a military camp’,

declared Vojislav Marinković in the assembly.27 His, however, was a rare voice from the political minority, which had no influence on the main political current in Serbia in 1903-14.

Finally, there is another very important component of the Radicals’ conception of the ‘people’s state’. This is the practically boundless loyalty and closeness to Russia.

Nikola Pašić decided very early on that the closest possible association with Russia, to be achieved at all costs, was to be one of his party’s most important aims.

‘For five hundred years the Serb people fought against Turkey, [yet] it hates civilised Germans more than the barbarian Turks’,

Pašić wrote in 1884. He believed that the Serb people were ‘the most unhappy in the world’, because King Milan Obrenović – whom he called a ‘traitor’ far worse than Vuk Branković – had separated the country from the Russians and ‘subjected it to the Germans’.28
Unlike the Liberal and Progressive parties, the Radical Party did not wish for Western institutions in Serbia, because the Serb people

‘has so many good and healthy institutions and customs, which need only to be protected and perfected with those wonderful institutions and customs that exist among the Russian and other Slav tribes, while one should take from the West only technical know-how and science, and use them in the Slav-Serb spirit’,

wrote Pašić on the eve of, and in relation to, the forthcoming constitutional reforms which gave birth to the 1888 constitution.
To prevent Serbia’s association with Austria and Germany, i.e. with the West, and to re-orient it towards the Orthodox East, i.e. Russia, was for him an aim to which he was willing to sacrifice even state independence. Serbia had ‘refused to be taken in by the seductive Western culture, with all its injustices’, he continued. Instead it has

‘a magnificent vision of the future, in which the mighty and gigantic Russia gathers around herself her younger sisters wrenched from her by a barbarian hand, orders them and takes them into a gentle motherly embrace…’,
wrote Pašić, expressing the wish that ‘the crown of a united Pan-slav empire should soon adorn the head of the powerful and just Russian Tsar’.29

Pašić’s loyalty to Russia, a loyalty that knew no bounds, became after 1903 not only a given but also an uncontested fact of Serbian political life. This refers as much to the country’s cultural and civilisational as to its foreign-policy orientation.
According to the liberals, Pašić was ‘one of Russian policy’s most obedient ministers and leaders in Serbia’.30 This was the view also of the conservative Nedeljni pregled.

‘The struggle which King Milan waged with the Radicals was in fact not a struggle over internal policy issues … but a struggle between King Milan and Russia, which the Radicals faithfully served.’31

The Social-Democrat Triša Kaclerović – whose party, together with a small number of politicians of diverse party-political orientation, alone occupied the opposite pole regarding Russia – interpreted on several occasions the political moves of Pašić’s Radicals in terms of ‘an order coming from Moscow’32
The Radicals themselves openly displayed their loyalty to Moscow, by among other things addressing the Russian emperor not as the monarch of a foreign state, but as ‘our sovereign’.33
Criticisms of the kind mentioned above consequently did not bother them much, and they did not bother to refute them. On the contrary, responding to one such charge in March 1914, Miloš Trifunović stated:

‘Our leader is the personification’ of the policy ‘of alliance and reliance on the fraternal and mighty Slav country of Russia … throughout the decades following the birth of our party; in that sense the name of Pašić represents a state programme.’34

The Radicals, in fact, did not consider this policy to be that of one individual, but rather a policy which, as Đurić explained, was ‘conducted by Serbia’, i.e. by the whole nation, which was tied to the Russian nation

‘by a common church … and the common Slav home whence we derive…’35

The Russian people is ‘great’, Đurić explained to the small section of the Serbian assembly which did not believe such stuff, because it ‘loves God’; and if it has failed thus far to perform its historical mission, this is because

‘other crafty ones have been cheating the Slav tribe, because this tribe is generous and trusting towards everyone including even its enemy.’36

By claiming to be the party of ‘peasant democracy’, the Radicals succeeded in becoming a distinct political force, and in turning the strong resistance that the process of economic, cultural and state modernisation begun in the second half of the 19th century had created in peasant Serbia into a veritable popular movement. Thanks to its programme, the Radical Party became in the words of its contemporaries a ‘popular credo’, a ‘religious dogma’, a ‘new religion … in which the population fanatically believed’, just as it ‘fanatically believed in its archpriests’.37 The Radicals combined this apolitical, irrational, quasi-religious attitude towards the party with a mass conscription of members and the creation of a disciplined party. The result was that as early as the 1880s the Radical Party organised the Serbian population, transformed the idea of the ‘people’s state’ into a mass political programme, and ensured that the primary and decisive political articulation of broad layers of the population would be realised on the foundations of a populist-socialist and simultaneously also Great-Serb imperialist programme.

________________________________________

1 Todorović, at the main assembly of the Radical Party in 1882, in Latinka Perović, Srpski socijalisti 19. veka, Prilog istoriji socijalističke misli, pp 122-3.

2 Lazar Paču, Građansko društvo i njegove društveno-političke partije, reprinted from Samouprava, Belgrade 1881, pp. 61, 164-6.

3 Latinka Perović and Andrej Šemjakin, Nikola Pašić. Pisma, članci i govori (1872-1891), Belgrade 1995, pp 43-4, 51.

4 Stenografske beleške Narodne skupštine Srbije 1903-1914, 1903/1904, p.79. Henceforth: Sten.bel.

5 Disdain and intolerance towards the Jews, who were regularly called Čivuti [yids], was present in all parties except the Social-Democrats. Thus the independent deputy Gaja Miloradović:

‘We must be on the guard against the Jews. The Jews have stolen everything – one day they will grab everything owned by Serbia.’

Sten.bel., 1909/1910, p. 998. Narodnjak Mih. Škorić described himself as ‘the greatest opponent of the Jews’, ibid., p. 964. The Old Radical Miloš Ćosić, deputy-speaker of the assembly, reproached a deputy for calling one journalist a Jew: ‘you should not insult people, if you wish such writing to stop’, Sten.bel. 1906/1907, p. 3875. The editors of the Progressive Party’s journal Pravda rejected in public the ‘false’ allegations about their Jewish origins with the explanations that their families for generations had nothing to do with ‘Semitism’, Pravda, no.71/1908.

6 Sten.bel., 1910/1911, vol.2, p.12.

7 Sten.bel., 12.5.1910, p.2997.

8 Sten.bel., 25.9.1905, p.767.

9 Sten.bel., 1910/1911. 21.10.1910, p.5.

10 Sten.bel., vol.2., 1.2.1908, pp 618-19.

11 J. Prodanović speaking in 1909, Govori na Konferenciji samostalnih radikala, pp 41-2.

12 Slobodan Jovanović, Vlada Aleksandra Obrenovića, Belgrade 1934, vol.1, pp 226-8.

13 Nedeljni pregled, no.2/1908, p.35.

14 Nikola Pašić’s speech in Smederevo on 9.3.1889; addressing the Radical Party in Niš on 28.5.1889; at the rally in Zaječar on 8.9.1891. In Perović and Šemjakin, op.cit., pp 319-36.

15 Sten.bel., 20.6.1907, p. 4452.

16 Sten.bel., 4.3.1909, p. 1156.

17 Nedeljni pregled here had in mind the strong opposition mounted by the Radicals in parliament against the introduction of railways, which Serbia was bound to carry out under the Berlin agreement. See Latinka Perović, ‘Politička elita i modernizacija u prvoj deceniji nezavisnosti srpske države’, Srbija u modernizacijskim procesima 20. veka, Belgrade 1994, pp 237-242.
After 1903 too, senior Radicals retained the same attitude towards railways that had characterised the official position of the Radical Party in the 1890s.

‘The railway has passed like a snake through our country… the Western snake has caught us and our simple yet glorious customs have started to retreat before those of the Western nations…’.,

Milan Đurić stated in 1906.
See Olga Popović-Obradović, ‘On the ideological profile of the Serbian Radicals after 1903′, Tokovi istorije, 1-2/1994, p. 74.

18. J. Jovanović, ‘Srpske stranke i parlamentarizam’ and ‘A Radical’s reaction’, Nedeljni pregled, 32/1908, pp 519-20, p. 114; D. Nikolajević, ‘Naš democratizam’, Nedeljni pregled 5/1910, pp 65-7; Aristarchos, ‘Rezultati radikalske politike’, Nedeljni pregled, 27/1909, p. 409; Boy, ‘Rđavo ortaštvo’, , Nedeljni pregled, 28-29/1909, p. 425; Lannes, ‘Kriza demokratizma’, Nedeljni pregled, 45-46/1909, p. 685; Marc, ‘Opravdana želja’, Nedeljni pregled, 13-14/1910, p.194. The contributors to Nedeljni pregled often wrote under pseudonyms, some of which we have succeeded in deciphering. Perić’s pseudonym was Garrick, S. Novaković’s Dardanus, M. Novaković’s Fox, M. Čekić’s Brutus and Macready.

19. Sten.bel., 1903-1904, vol.2, p. 2245; 3.10.1903, p.78; 5.2.1905, p. 1446.

20. Sten.bel.,10.12.1905, p.1035.

21. Sten.bel., 31.5.1913, p.654.

22. Sten.bel., 1903/1904, vol.1, p. 74.

23.Pašić’s message to the Radicals of 29.8.1903 contained this message. Vasa Kazimirović, Nikola Pašić i njegovo doba, 1845-1926, vol.2, Belgrade 1990, pp. 15, 21,51-52.

24. Sten.bel., 1903-1904, vol.1, p. 78.

25. Nikola Pašić, Moja politička ispovest, Belgrade 1989, p.129.

26. Sten.bel.,1905-1906, 14.10.1905, p. 153.

27. Sten.bel.,30.3.1911, p. 18.

28. Letter to P.A. Kulakovski in 1884, in Latinka Perović and Andrej Šemjakin, op.cit., pp 157-9.

29. Letter to A.I. Zinoviev, 1887, ibid.

30. Sten.bel., 1912/1913, 18.6.1913, p.694.

31. Jovan B. Jovanović, ‘Stranke i parlamentarizam u Srbiji’, Nedeljni pregled, bno. 32/1908, p. 519.

32. Sten.bel., 1909/1910, p.1902; Sten.bel., 1908/1909, p. 323.

33. This mode of addressing the Russian Tsar was used in the message of support sent by the Serbian assembly in connection with the war in the Far east, 2.2..1904. Sten.bel., 1903/1904,vol.2, pp 1295-1296.

34. Sten.bel., 1913/1914, p. 1263.

35. Sten.bel., 1910/1911, 29.3.1911, p. 21. See also Kosta Stojanović, ASANU, ‘Slom i vaskrs Srbije’, 10133, p. 235. That the Serbian people were deeply loyal to Russia was not disputed even by the strongest critics of the Old Radical policy. ‘The most important thing for Serbia is that the “democratic” East should think well of her. She does not need to be praised by the “reactionary West”’, wrote Nedeljni pregled, no. 2/24.1.1010, p. 20.

36. Sten.bel., 1909/1910, pp 950-951.

37.‘The Serb Radical Party, speech delivered by J.M. Žujović at the meeting of the Independent Radicals, 10 August 1903′, Belgrade 1903, p. 9.

Jul 30, 2008 - 3:03 am 98. Katarina:

I liked the article very much, it is not common to read an unbiased article about the Serbs written by a foreigner. However, there are some issues that the author did not know about the Serbs and Serbia – first of all, Milosevic did not try to establish the Greater Serbia, but to defend Yugoslavia where almost all Serbs were able to live in the same country. When Bosnia is concerned – that was not a plan to establish the Great Serbia, but Serbia – namely – Serbia was a common name for the early medieval Serbian land which consisted of two provinces – Rascia and Bosnia, which encompassed the territory from the Maritsa river in today’s Bulgaria to the Serbian Dalmatia – so that was just Serbia Milosevic was trying to restore – with a good reason – the Serbs have always been the majority of population of Bosnia, Herzegovina and the Serbian Dalmatia, so that was a natural move, only he did not want to make the Great Serbia, but to defend Yugoslavia which would include all Yugoslav nationalities. In 90s Serbia was not under Milosevic dictatorship – the stories are exaggerated. As for Kosovo and Metohija (the proper name of the province, but the word Metohija was erased from the common name by the Croat communist Tito, the dictator of Yugoslavia, because it means – the Church land (the medieval Serbian kings and emperors, princes and dukes endowed the Serbian Orthodox Church with the estates to support themselves there. The first known capital of the Serbian land was called Dostinik (around 600) and was situated on today’s territory of Kosovo and Metohija – the heartland of Serbia, the place where the Serbian national identity was born. During WWII the Albanians (who came to the Balkans in the late 10th century) had an SS Division called Skenderbeg. They terrorized the local Serb population, killing many, including the Serbian Orthodox priests. Many Serbs had to flee to Serbia proper and after the war Tito forbade them to return, allowing tens of thousand, even hundreds of thousands of Albanians to illegally cross the border and settle on the Serbian territory. When Croatia is concerned, have you ever wondered what the borders of Croatia were before 1918, when Serbs freed them from the Austrian and Hungarian rule… What territory did Croatia bring into Yugoslavia… What about their territory now… The thing is even in 1903 the Croats killed the Serbs in the streets of Zagreb, because they hated the Serbs even then. Nobody was brought to justice… In 1914 the Croats killed masses of Serbs as the soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian army – my grandfather had to escape from the Serbian town of Trebinje in Herzegovina because (he was 7 years old and came to Serbia on foot) the Croats were committing mass murders in the villages in Herzegovina. Nobody was brought to justice… In WWII the Croats organized masses of extermination camps, the most notorious being the Jasenovac concentration camp where 800,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were slaughtered, raped and tortured on daily bases. On 25 Jews one Serb was killed, on 150 Gypsies a Serb was killed. In the whole of Croatia around 1,000,000 Serbs were killed, 180,000 where banished from the country and 600,000 were killed in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Croats and the Bosnian Muslims… Nobody was brought to justice… These are all known facts and everybody can check whether they are true or not… So, the Western media made the victim look like the murderer. And why – mostly because Austria and Germany are afraid of the Great Serbia (Serbia in its real historical borders and on her historical and ethical territory) and because the Serbs have always been Russian allies – which is not strange, considering that Serbia and Russia have the same religion and are populated by the Slav people… And the USA only wanted to test the world with the Kosovo case – they wanted to attack the peaceful country, the victim of thousand of years of genocide, wars and the Western loyal ally in Europe without the UN resolution to see what happens – so be prepared, more is soon to come – Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Siria, South Osetia, Abhasia, Russia (why not), China…

Sep 9, 2008 - 3:29 pm 99. Katarina:

As for the Albanian origin – only one country and her language has the consonant clusters such as SCHQ, TSHQ, etc – Azerbaijan, and only two nations use them in their language – Albanians and a tribe in Azerbaijan… Look at their own name, the name they call themselves – Shqiptar ! They have no connection to the pre-Serbian population on the Balkans… They came from Azerbaijan, summoned by the Byzantine Emperor, as mercenaries. First they settled on Sardinia and afterwards they came to the Balkans, in 10th century. Their leader was called Maniak – the word maniac originates from his name – and when you see or hear about the Albanian atrocities, it is easy to get the real picture… Americans ran some DNA tests on the Albanian population and came to an interesting conclusion – they are a mixture of Asian and African predecessors… Some Illirians…

Sep 9, 2008 - 3:53 pm 100. Zelgadis:

I think that the ordinary Serbian is in fact barely interested in Kosovo, unless you specifically stimulate him. The problem of Kosovo is that the reality was long ago replaced by a mythical story that seeks no confirmation in reality. Serbians rarely travel to Kosovo. They barely know it, and when they talk about it they take their conclusions from a fund of myths that compensates for the lack of information on what is actually happening there. This irrationality had greatly invaded everyday speech in the months before the proclamation of independence, when the whole political scene was insisting that this would never happen, because Kosovo was part of Serbia. These stories never referred to the fact that over ninety per cent of the population living there are Albanians who refuse to accept the future that Serbia has planned for them. I would say that the average citizen remains to be acquainted with Kosovo.

Jan 13, 2009 - 7:45 pm 101. Political Mavens » What Does Kosovo have to do with the American Psychological Association?:

[...] and fairly, since Pajamas Media has a sense that it has no sense of which side is right, it gives space to the opposing view as [...]

Sep 8, 2009 - 2:11 am

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