84

Thursday, 28.06.2007.

11:02

"Serbia, U.S. wage new Kosovo battle"

Vojislav Koštunica says that a battle for Kosovo between Serbia and U.S. is on display for the whole world to see.

Izvor: FoNet

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84 Komentari

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Walter

pre 16 godina

MR. GASHI so you rest your case? I did not realize that this was a trial and that we were in some sort of “I got him now game”. You claim that anti-war.com, is “a Greater Serbian propaganda site par excellence!” This is the most respected bog in America that will print Albanian material in equal proportion to material dealing with all world issues. You must have come to this conclusion that this is a Serbian blog since Nebjisa Malic writes occasional articles here. You have every opportunity to refute Mr. Malic’s evidence but that will be a task like bringing the mountain to Mohammed. What is most interesting here is you pointing to a blog as bogus evidence rather than the scholars that I cited in one of my comments. You are grasping at straws sir just like the evidence that you provide.

The evidence that you provide would have been thrown out in any Canadian court of law. I am using the example of the court of law since you seem to think that this discussion is some sort of trial. Since I am unable to replay the TV clips (PRIMARY EVIDENCE) of the after effects of bombs thrown by your compatriots into Cafes in Kosovo including Pristina that I saw with my own eyes on western media outlets, I provide evidence of others which you can find at the following link. http://www.globalresistance.com/analysis/spin.htm

The above evidence is substantiated by many scholars and it tends to be more believable than your web pages which educated people know serve an agenda of American Global expansion. You also skim over Chomsky’s (Google Chomsky if you are unfamiliar with his work) analysis where he writes about the “killing of six Serbian teenagers by masked men spraying gunfire in a cafe in the largely Serbian city of Pec” None of the material that you provide is PRIMARY. Similarly much of the material that I provide is not primary but SECONDARY. The worst type of evidence is found on the web and we are all guilty of using it, however, I tend to rely on scholarly analysis which I don’t find in your evidence. Here is my SECONDARY evidence Jane’s Defense Review where you can find the KLA's strategy:” Do you recall the spate of KLA terrorist bombings in December of '98 and January of '99? Serbian civilians were blown up as they sipped a drink in Pristina cafes [---] the KLA has assassinated many ordinary Serbian civilians because that was their strategy over the past 20 months.”

You further put a question to me “Walter I asked you to "Bring evidence that any bomb was thrown into a cafe by the time when the mass expulsions occurred in Prishtina” but neglect to tell us when this started while you play a game with dates. Maybe the above answer will not suffice, however I have put dozens of questions to you which you have not answered but asked “how dare I” question your assertions of the “mass exodus, innocent civilians, killing of thousands, and monstrous crimes,” a true language of a propagandist who dares others to ask him questions.

Again for your information people leave war zones or about to become war zones, and like the Japanese Times reports the exodus was also KLA induced. Kosovo was not a special case since every war zone produces refugees, you only need to look at Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Chechnya to name a few. You are dishonest sir if you are unable to see why a Serb Muslim Kosovo resident who now lives in my town sent his wife and children to Serbia as NATO was ready to attack. Can you see why he would do that and he said hundreds of his neighbors did the same thing? I am waiting for your answer sir? Instead of daring me to ask the question answer mine just like you request that I answer yours.

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

Walter, to substantiate your claims, I asked you to "Bring evidence that any bomb was thrown into a cafe by the time when the mass expulsions occurred in Prishtina."

So, I guess you have no evidence, then. No PRIMARY documentation?

I rest my case!

Walter

pre 16 godina

I have gone to your links and have found the same old rhetoric, “killings of thousands of innocent civilians and non-combatants, and the mass expulsions, burning and destroying of property, pillaging etc are in direct violations of the International Law,” the inflated numbers, and contradictions that that you write about and others have used to justify what you want today. I agree with you that you cannot verify what I say about my past any more than I can about yours. I can tell you this and again you will not be able to verify this I had a nephew from Niksich who attended a metallurgical school in Kosovo in 1970 who had to leave because of harassment by Albanians. I will place more credence on the scholarly work by Chomsky and others from which I provide quotes and the link http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/eo20070702gc.html than to websites that serve the NATO interests. ).” I do not dismiss out of hand some of the information that you provide nor will I comment on your selection of evidence since much of it is micromanaged by NGO’s attached to NATO, that said, atrocities done to anyone when substantiated the perpetrators need to be brought to account. As Chomsky writes “In Kosovo, in contrast, evidence of terrible crimes can be adduced to provide retrospective justification for the NATO war, on the interesting principle that has been established by the doctrinal system.” He further writes “NATO stepped up its claims about Serb ‘killing fields’" when it "saw a fatigued press corps drifting toward the contrarian story: civilians killed by NATO’s bombs." NATO spokesman Jamie Shea presented "information" that can be traced to KLA-UCK sources. Many of the most lurid and prominently-published atrocity reports attributed to refugees and other sources were untrue, the WSJ concludes. Meanwhile NATO sought to deny its own atrocities, for example, by releasing a falsified videotape "shown at triple its real speed" to make it appear that "the killing of at least 14 civilians aboard a train on a bridge in Serbia last April" was unavoidable because "the train had been travelling too fast for the trajectory of the missiles to have been changed in time."
Chomsky quotes the The Wall Street Journal “The "most serious incidents" reported by the ICRC in December are clashes along the FRY-Albanian border, and "what appear to be the first deliberate attacks on public places in urban areas." The UN Inter-Agency Update (December 24) identifies these as an attempt by armed Albanians to cross into Kosovo from Albania, leaving at least 36 armed men dead, and the killing of six Serbian teenagers by masked men spraying gunfire in a cafe in the largely Serbian city of Pec. The next incident is the abduction and murder of the deputy mayor of Kosovo Police, attributed by NATO to the KLA-UCK (327). Then follows a report of "abductions attributed to the KLA." The UN Secretary-General’s report (December 24) reviews the same evidence, citing the figure of 282 civilians and police abducted by the KLA as of December 7 (FRY figures
You speak of Albanian virtue and Serbian collective guilt when only individuals can be guilty or innocent of crimes that they are charged with. My problems with your comments sir are that you protect your child while you are silent when Serbian and Albanian children were killed. Anyone capable of loving his child must love all children equally. I don’t trust you sir when you provide evidence of refugee camps here and killings there but you close your eyes to the plight of refugees and the killings of innocent persons who belong to your adversaries, including Albanians who opposed the KLA.

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

Walter, you are funny, you dismiss my experience (and obviously every testimony given by the refugees to the intl organizations) as something you can not verify and then you proceed in telling your experience, as if that is something I can verify. Yet, on the other hand, you also dismiss the evidence collected during the conflict, by numerous independent organizations (HRW, OSCE, ICTY, Red Cross, Medicine sans frontiere, Amnesty international, UNHCR etc etc) and international monitors (for example about Racak masacre) as a NATO propaganda, and all you can come up with is ... anti-war.com, a Greater Serbian propaganda site par excellence!
Judging from your post, it seems that you are of Serbian heritage, which obviously explains your bias. But if you were interested in the peace and reconciliation between Albanians and Serbs, the worst thing is to deny the monstrous crimes that were very visibly, very publicly and very well documented, committed by the Serbian government.

Let me break it down to you once more.
1 - You say that there were "bombs thrown into cafés by the KLA in Pristina". Bring evidence that any bomb was thrown into a cafe by the time when the mass expulsions occurred in Prishtina.
2 - A bomb thrown into a cafe - even if we were to take your unsubstantiated word for it - does not indicate that a place is a war zone, that warrants a mass exodus of the city's population. In fact it has been well documented that this mass exodus has been caused by the Yugoslav army and police. See below.
3 - The actions of the Yugoslav army and police, namely the killings of thousands of innocent civilians and non-combatants, and the mass expulsions, burning and destroying of property, pillaging etc are in direct violations of the International Law, namely the Geneva conventions. Therefore the Yugoslav government was responsible for breaking the International Law.



http://www.osce.org/odihr/item_11_17755.html - OSCE, as seen as told
http://www.helsinki.org.yu/confront_detail.php?lang=en&idgnrc=691 - Helsinki comitee for human rights in Serbia
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/ - HRW - Under orders
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/fry/ - HRW - RAPE AS A WEAPON OF "ETHNIC CLEANSING"
http://hrw.org/campaigns/kosovo98/reports.shtml - HRW reports archive
http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/kosovoeng.htm - Medicine sans frontiere
http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/p403-e.htm - ICTY, Indictment of Miolesevic
http://www.ideajournal.com/articles.php?id=24 - Kosovo: Orders of Magnitude
http://www.freeserbia.net/Documents/Kosovo/Cleansing3.html - FreeSerbia.net - Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo

Walter

pre 16 godina

ADRIAN GASHI: You say that I asked for the Geneva Convention, but you interpret it selectively and emotionally because of your personal experience which I have no way of verifying. You ask how dare I “lecture you”. I am not lecturing you I am simply asking you questions and I am asking for your evidence which you neglect to answer and provide, while at the same time like a tyrant question “how I dare and how I have a nerve” to point out “your selective memory and morality. You obviously don’t practice what you preach since you forget the bombs thrown into cafés by the KLA in Pristina and other towns in Kosovo that killed children belonging to other mothers and fathers.

Kosovo is all about “global ideological issues” and anyone that does not understand history allows himself/herself to be manipulated in the name of capital. We are all manipulated by nations who have lost the moral imperative in world leadership when they practice tyranny in the Balkans, the Middle East and elsewhere. We as individuals are to blame for this because we are unable or refuse to see the connection between our own experience and the wider world. Many of us judge things from a moment in time without looking at the consequences of our decisions. My arguments are very clear you only need an open mind and some books to understand them.

Yes I have been to Kosovo once and I have met Albanians from Kosovo. Many years ago I met two Albanian laborers in Dubrovnik working on a house under construction. They were uneducated, very poorly paid, poorly dressed and worked long hours for very low pay. I also met Serbs from that region who were uneducated, bare footed and worked for the same exploitive wages. This left a lasting impression on me about the regional economic disparity in Yugoslavia.

While at University in Vancouver I had an Albanian friend whose name was D. Cekli who was short and stocky, one of the toughest men I ever met. It was from him that I learned about Kanun. As young men we used to go to a bar called Oil Can Harry’s and one night the bouncer beat up his brother who only had one arm and when D found out about it he put the bouncer into the hospital. He than followed the ambulance to the hospital pulled the bouncer off the stretcher and almost killed him in the hallway of the hospital. D was sentenced to seven years for this. D is still my friend.

I have met dozen Albanians recently for whom I translated documents so that they could get their driver’s licenses and credential themselves for better jobs. Some are Serbs, some are Croats, some are Muslim Serbs, some are Albanians, many are intermarried and some are simple peasants who thought that they could raise chickens in their apartment. The ones that are intermarried left because of your kind of mentality Mr. Gashi –intolerance and your inability to contemplate anything beyond your own experience and I have no way of knowing if the experience you write about is true, however if it is not true than with people like you on any side of the argument the Balkans will remain very unstable, very chaotic and dangerous for all the families in the region.
One Albanian that I mention above had a nervous breakdown and went back to Serbia because he just could not adjust to the life here. Many men who came from Yugoslavia Serbs, Croat and Muslim who are my age were unable to adjust and had breakdowns

Does this disqualify me from commenting on International Law and Kosovo? In your opinion Mr. Gashi it does since you seem to think that only you are qualified since you claim that your suffering gives you some sort of priority. We all suffered Mr. Gashi! As a young boy I saw my father and seven uncles in a village of five houses killed by Fascist element in which Albania and Kosovo Albanians participated. Half of my family brother and sisters and mother remained in Yugoslavia while I went to Canada to be raised by other relatives. Does this qualify me more to comment on events of WWII than you? Absolutely not! In fact you may be more objective since you did not have the same experience.

Mr. Gashi anger clouds reason and I see this in your post. That was not my intention in asking you for evidence in what you say since emotion is not evidence. Our people and I include you here Mr. Ghasi are an enigma to me. Once in Canada you judge each other on character rather than by ethnicity while over there you kill each other’s children. You fight like cats and dogs in the Balkans but when you come to Canada you search each other out, socialize over coffee, play on the same soccer teams, help each other to find jobs, fix each other’s homes, and hug each other when you greet in the street. It would be wonderful if this was practiced over there.

Nick

pre 16 godina

B92 Mods,

Editing my latest comment was highly innapropriate considering what i was respoding too:

from Canadien:

"By the way how did you like being treated like a second class human being when you arrived at US Customs showing your passport"

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

"ADRIAN GASHI: Thank you for the link to the Geneva Convention which I have read many times.. Maybe you need to send it to ..."

No, I sent it to you since you asked for it, and now that you are left with no arguments, you change the subject telling me about George Bush Sr and his Iraqi policies. I understand that you a Socialist and that's fine, but you bring global ideological disputes to a local issue that has nothing to do with them.
You want facts and I'll bring you one. In 1999, there was a gun pointed to my child's face by a SERBIAN police officer, who warned me that I had to leave immediately for Albania if I wanted to see my family live, and he just like you told me to blame Clinton for this. You have the nerve to tell me I benefited from it, who are you, you live thousands of miles away from Kosova, you have probably never been in Kosova, you most likely never even met a Kosovar in your life, and you dare to lecture me? What KLA? There was no KLA whatsoever in Prishtina, there was not even fighting there, so how you explain?
You sir seem to be the typical of the Serb supporters in this site, armchair warriors. How can you possibly be so arrogant!

Stevan

pre 16 godina

"…you do not defend ……. by loosing …"


Hmm, it seems James that military history isn't your thing. Ever heard of Thermopylen?

But back to Serbs and Turks, guess who did Austro Hungarian Empire choose to defend their vulnerable eastern border for centuries?

lazer

pre 16 godina

In the SC of UN in New York, China is not going to vote at all.
They will be paying back an old friend who sponsored them to become a UN member 1961, and that is....take a wild guess....Albania!

Nick

pre 16 godina

Canadien,

Actualy i never had any problems, i had a visa from the US Embassy here in Kosova and they let me pass through without any problems.

I was at no time treated like a second class citizen, quite the contrary.

Walter

pre 16 godina

LUCA, ADRIAN AND MASSIMO in the seedy world of espionage and counter espionage everything is possible. We can spend the rest of our lives debating the crimes of the KGB and the CIA and I will provide you a link to a list of those CIA crimes which by the way is not an attempt on my part to justify the crimes of the KGB or any other agency. I asked you and several persons on this blog to provide PRIMARY evidence for the question we were discussing you provided Wikipedia. Fine, but in any academic paper this would be very poor evidence no better or worse than if you cited The Readers Digest which is written for persons with a grade eight education. I have lived in the West for 55 years and have followed world events with keen interest and I know how the spin doctors work. Only lack of knowledge on one or both sides will cause a difference of opinion between us.
I am sure that you and I can resolve our differences over FACTS while we will seldom resolve our disputes over VALUES. I subscribe to the principle that nations and individuals can live together when there is mutual trust and common goals I subscribe to the rule of law in international affairs, without which we would have anarchy.
To build mutual trust and establish common goals we need knowledge and that is why I come back to ask you what are your facts, where do you get them from, who benefits from them, and how do you interpret them. I get some of my facts from Seymour Heersh, Samet Gideon, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Nafeez Mosaddeq the Guardin and the Independent as well as several blogs of which antiwar.com is my favorite. As you can see I tend to favors the left wing political analysts so don’t read any further just call me a Socialist and dismiss me and go back to your Wikipedia.
You write about Litvinenko and point a finger at Putin. You may well be correct but I see his death differently. Do I know who killed him? No, but neither do you. I like to rely on the Independent as a primary source which states “it is clear that Mr Litvinenko made enough enemies in enough places who could now make it on to the list of suspects for what the Yard was last night calling his "unexplained death". Here is the list of the leading players in this drama of politics, theft, money and power. After you read the list ask yourself who had the most to benefit from Litvinenko’s death. You may say Vladimir Putin and I say nonsense. Litvinenko was no more and no less than an annoyance to Putin’s popularity. Then look at the circle of Litvinenko’s friends, sponsors, and benefactors which include Berezovsky the thief, Zakayev the Chechen separatist, Tim Bell the spin doctor, Alex Goldfarb the chemist a great cast for a De Care novel or a movie thriller. Let’s take a look at the cast of characters and see if we can guess who did the deed:
Vladimir Putin: The Russian president was accused by Mr Litvinenko of sanctioning his murder. The Kremlin has rejected the claims, but the death of the former agent will add to the perception that the FSB security service is running an assassination policy.
Mario Scaramella; The Italian academic and KGB expert met Mr Litvinenko at a sushi restaurant on the day he fell ill. There is no suggestion that Mr Scaramella was involved in the poisoning. He said he had met his friend to discuss a death threat aimed at them.
Andrei Lugovoy; The Moscow-based businessman and former KGB bodyguard held a meeting with Mr Litvinenko at a hotel on 1 November. Mr Lugovoy had tea with Mr Litvinenko and two other men. Mr Lugovoy said the meeting had been to discuss business and he had been in London to see a football match.
Boris Berezovsky: The exiled Russian oligarch had become an ally of Mr Litvinenko. Mr Berezovsky, a critic of Mr Putin, is thought to own the house in north London where Mr Litvinenko was living and financed his book, which leveled corruption and murder allegations against the FSB and Kremlin.
Akhmed Zakayev: The former actor and foreign minister of the Chechen government in exile was a visitor to Mr Litvinenko's bedside. The two men were neighbours. He accused the Kremlin of exporting "gangster politics" to London.
Lord Tim Bell: Bell Pottinger Communications, of which Lord Bell is chairman, includes Mr Berezovsky among its clients. The company handled media calls about Mr Litvinenko and arranged for the distribution of photographs taken of him in hospital.
Alex Goldfarb: The biochemist is director of a human rights group set up by Mr Berezovsky in 2000. Mr Goldfarb has put forward the allegation that the Kremlin is responsible for Mr Litvinenko's death.
John Henry: The leading toxicologist claimed that thallium was to blame for Mr Litvinenko's condition. But the hospital said he had made his remarks without seeing test results. The professor said he has withdrawn from the case.
Obviously you have come to the conclusion it was Putin and I ask you where your facts are, but when I look at the cast of characters and who benefited from this I go back to the CIA activities since WWII. In particular I would like you to look at PAPERCLIP operation in 1945 where US recruits Nazis, SS officers, Jew killers: such as Reinhard Gehlen, Alfred Six, Emil Augsburg; Klaus Barbie, and Otto von Bolschwing. I am not saying that the CIA did this but since WWII I can cite hundreds of bogus events created by the CIA to discredit the political rivals of America and I am sure we can find many to attribute to the KGB.
In response to your emotive language where you provide a list of the “bloodiest terrorists of the world” I would like you to take a look at this link which will explain the origin of people that you cite but of course you forgot to mention Ceku, Tachi and the old boy Enver Hoxa and Company
Luca you write that Putin’s policy in the Balkans is not about International Law but about oil pipelines. Just because you claim that Putin’s policy is self serving at least he is not breaking International Law to achieve his objective but signing contracts beneficial to both parties. NATO leaders claim to be enforcing international law while they violate it in the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia in order to secure those same pipeline routs. .
ADRIAN GASHI: Thank you for the link to the Geneva Convention which I have read many times.. Maybe you need to send it to Pristina or Tirana and to every NATO government that has violated this convention in their dismemberment of Yugoslavia. Send it to George Bush Sr. whose economic blockade of Iraq killed over a million Iraqi children; send it to his son who is killing Iraqi civilians by the hundreds every day. Send it to Bill Clinton, Tony Blair whose bombing of Kosovo and Tachi and Ceku whose threats and intimidation forced the population of Kosovo to flee. Just ask the Krasnicki family about the Geneva Convention if you can find any members who are still alive. As a child I remember my peasant mother hiding us in the bush as the Nazis bombed our town. People flee war zones – 4 million Iraqis, 2 million Afghans and in the Kosovo case 1 million fled which included Serbs, Roma, Muslim, Serbs and Albanians of which many fled to Serbia.
You ask “Out of hundreds of thousands that the Serbian government expelled from Kosova, did anyone of them had a fair trial, in which he was condemned to an exile?” ADRIAN GASHI you need to put this question to Clinton, Blair, Ceku and Tachi they know the answer since they were the instrument of these events. You place this blame on Serbia who had nothing to gain from what you write and neglect to ask who benefited from Racak and the refugees. KLA benefited, NATO agenda benefited, you sir benefited and you did not care one iota about your people fleeing as long as your agenda remained intact. If you cared about any of this you would speak out about what is going on in Kosovo today. You cite International Law but support its violation every day as I see that in your posts. Sir this is hypocritical and you know it. Go to this link http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=7&no=364036&rel_no=1 and see why your position is hypocritical.
ADRIAN GASHI you ask me “What are you talking about” in respect of the media outlets.. You write that foreign media to use your word “retransmits” information that they choose. My point is try and get a license to establish a media outlet in America. Good luck! The United States Department of State has Foreign Press Centers in Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles. The Foreign Press Centers support U.S. policies by helping foreign media cover the U.S. Their goal is to promote the depth, accuracy, and balance of foreign reporting from the U.S., by providing direct access to authoritative American information sources.” “Representatives of the foreign media" cannot travel to the United States under the Visa Waiver program, but must seek a "Media I Visa;" a requirement that has deterred many bona fide reporters, writers and filmmakers from making a trip.”
As to my paranoia about NATO destruction of Yugoslavia I have posted on this until cows come home but you Mr. Gashi refuse to question what I write because you are afraid of the answer. Look at the link that I provide above it may enlighten and educate you.
MASSIMO I live just north of the American border and travel often to the United States. American people on the average are wonderful, friendly but extremely ignorant about world event and they are not much better informed about their own nation. Look at my comment to Mtr. Gashi above concerning the Media in America. We could spend our lifetime discussing the Media in America but I am not sure if you have read “Manufacturing Consent” by Michael Parenti which deals with this issue at length.
As to Anna Politkovskaya's “the first thing that comes to mind is that Anna was killed for her professional activities. We don't see any other motive for this terrible crime” {BBC.} I agree with this but I don’t agree with your thesis. What evidence do you have to support your position? I don’t have any to support mine but like in Litvinenko’s case and even in Djindjic’s case nationalists have no conscience, so that is where I place the blame; Have a good day gentlemen.

Jovan

pre 16 godina

it is quite strange how some Albanians would like to present the whole thing here like they are "glad about Serbs arguing that way, glad about Koštunica" and so on...

get real, kids! there is simply no reason to be glad about this, since you are losing support and what is best german chairmanship is over ( germany is the real force trying to take away Kosovo ) and nothing happened! the time of US presidency in the UNSC elapsed - and surprise- nothing happened!

if you were reasonably acting, you would accept broad autonomy and that´s it, we all could start a better future.
but unfortunately Albanians still dream of myths that are already proven wrong...

Canadien

pre 16 godina

Nick,

I did not say you could not travel "anywhere" with your UNMIK passport... I in fact said you could not travel to most places with it, about half the world would reject it or not give you a VISA. I know for fact that Brazil, and most South American countries would not recognize it. Most of the Caribbean Islands would not give you a VISA. You would have a difficult time to get into Canada, this is a fact, maybe 1 in 10 applications for VISA in Canada are granted to people with UNMIK passports. The UK is the same, as are the French, forget about most of the Asian countries, they won't grant you visas. Germany would be hard too! Spain will reject you for certain. This is what I am talking about! By the way how did you like being treated like a second class human being when you arrived at US Customs showing your passport, don't bother denying it. I live in Canada and go into the US almost every month and witness how their customs treat people from certain countries, especially countries that are considered Muslim, secular or not! A Serbian passport would get you to far more placeses with far less complications.

BlueJ

pre 16 godina

Olf and johny,

I agree with you. Very good posts amid all this sarcasm, "tit-for-tat" and one-sidedness.

I would like to add that I think that Cvele and Blacky and the other "hardline" Serb supporters are actually pro-Albanists in disguise. The same goes for the apparent "hardline" K-Albanians posting here.

Nick

pre 16 godina

Ana,

That is precisely what i was saying a couple of days ago. If they were really interested in keeping Kosova then by now they would have presented a detailed plan on how such new relationship would work.

The problem is Kostunica and the Serbian government have no idea what to do with Kosova. The only thing that really matters to them is for Serbia to theoretically retain its sovreignty over the land and for the moment they can only do that by delaying a solution and calling for more negociations.

Nick

pre 16 godina

Konstantin Gregorevic,

The birthplace of Serbia was in Raska not Kosova. The state of Raska may have anexed Kosova later, but the point is Serbia begins in Raska.

If the best you can do is "go back to school" then i seriously doubt your level of competence to discuss any of these issues.

Olf

pre 16 godina

Really unbelievable what Kostunica has stated. Were there no lessons learned during 1999 for Serbian politicians? Kostunica is talking on behalf of Serbia. If you read the postings on B92 Serbian language site you will find something surprising for all Serbs and especially those that support Serbian politics. Imagine, 90% of posting of Serbians on Serbian language B92 site are horrified of what Kostunica has stated. Most of them really just want to have a proper life and stay away from trouble steered from failed politicians, politician s that would send everyone to war except themselves.
Thanks god that Serbia has wise people and does rely on failed politicians and people that support them.
Kosova, Serbia future is EU integration. For those that want to live with mother Russia, before you decide ask the Bulgarians of their lives during Russian rule and than decide.

Ana

pre 16 godina

Seems like a perfect opportunity for Kostunica and his advisors to explain to the Serbian people- including the people of Kosovo - just what their plan is for the future of a Kosovo within Serbia. Why are they wasting this opportunity? Why so we still not know what they have in mind for the future, except more talks? We dont need more talks, we need more substance.

massimo

pre 16 godina

Dear Walter,
it seems to me that you are a not requested Putin's advocate.
When you talk about Uzbekistan you should know that Karimov, after the bloodshed in Andijon, is a Moscow friend. It is very hard to defend your position (Putin's advocate) since the spy war that is running is not the most embarrassing case in which the Moscow government is involved: let me remind you the case of Anna Politkovskaya's murder (I am waiting that you say that Putin opponents had organised the killing just to attack the Russian regime).
By the way, you should know that many foreign brodcasting news agencies work in the USA with their journalists: at the end USA is not Cuba, Russia, Iran, Burma or North Korea...

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

"Provide me with PRIMARY documentation how international law was violated in the breakup of Yugoslavia and WHO violated it."

You are kidding right? Geneva conventions specifically deals with the protection of non-combatants in a case of an armed conflict. Under Geneva conventions collective punishments such as the killings of civilians, forced expulsions, pillage and damage to their property that the Serbian government inflicted upon the general population of Kosova are a clear case of war crimes.
"Article 33. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Pillage is prohibited.
Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited."

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states specifically: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile." Let me ask you a simple question: Out of hundreds of thousands that the Serbian government expelled from Kosova, did anyone of them had a fair trial, in which he was condemned to an exile?

Under International Law, states have a responsibility to protect.

http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/

"The international community has a responsibility to protect the world’s populations from genocide, massive human rights abuses and other humanitarian crises. This responsibility to prevent, react to and rebuild following such crises rests first and foremost with each individual state. When states manifestly fail to protect their populations, the international community shares a collective responsibility to respond. This response should be the exercise of first peaceful, and then, if necessary, coercive, including forceful, steps to protect civilians."

"USA does not allow foreign broadcasting agencies on their soil. Ask yourself why?"

What are you talking about???? US is probably the country that has the most foreign broadcasting agencies in their soil, and in many cases broadcasting in their own language. Even Public Broadcasting Service, randomly retransmits foreign broadcasts. In US, you can watch not only English, French, Italian, German channels, but also from countries such as China, India, Russia, and yes even Serbia. You can watch Al-Jazeera if you liked.

"America and some NATO members aim this propaganda..."

Oh boy, if you believe that NATO propaganda destroyed Yugoslavia, I really have no way of fighting that paranoia.

Luca

pre 16 godina

Walter, your effort to patronize me doesn't constitute an argument. The whole world knows who killed Litvinenko, because he made it public himself, no one better than him could've possibly known the intrigues and the risks to his life. He was a smart man, a lieutenant-colonel and deputy head of the Seventh Section of the FSB, a man that knew a lot about Putin and the way he operated and by taking him out so publicly, Putin told effectively everyone else, that "I can kill you whoever or wherever you are, whenever I want, and there's nothing that anybody can do to protect you." Litvinenko's death is a chilling statement and shows the true nature of the Russian dictator. It makes me sick to my stomach, to hear him talk about International Law, and blackmail his way in European affairs. His intentions in the Balkans are not about International Law, but about securing a monopoly over pipelines and transit routes, so he can in the future blackmail EU at will. Here's what Litvinenko, btw said about Russia's connection to international terrorism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko

"all the bloodiest terrorists of the world" were connected to FSB-KGB, including Carlos Ramírez the "Jackal", Yassir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Abdullah Öcalan, Wadie Haddad of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Hawi who led the Communist Party of Lebanon, and Ezekias Papaioannou from Cyprus. He said that the "terrorism infection creeps away worldwide from the cabinets of the Lubyanka Square and the Kremlin". These claims are supported by Mitrokhin archive.

S. Harris

pre 16 godina

The battle for Kosovo is America's attempt at getting away with rape, with US ambassador Michael Polt insisting that; but we are friends, it won't hurt, just love me.
Kostunica is correct, when he states, we do have a battle of force/power over law.
Whatever the internal problems of a sovereign state such as Serbia, it must be solved from within, otherwise a precedent will be set to rip countries apart.

Boriska

pre 16 godina

The United States aims to help all the citizens of Serbia achieve their dreams...we are your friends, not your enemies,” Polt concluded.
---------------------------
Gee, that really reminds that old comic movie - "Mars Attacks". Remember ? Main Marsian trick there was to keep repeating "we are your friends ! we come with peace ! we are to help you !" while shooting their ray guns at unsuspecting Earthlings. I can just imagine Polt in alien spacesuit...yeah sure, he is here to help you guys, keep dreaming. Isn't it interesting how Hollywood movies can influence Washington foreign policy thinking.

johny

pre 16 godina

I read almost all the posts here regarding to Kosovo/a from both sides Serbs and Albanians. Sometimes I wonder after I read posts from the Serbs If I am really reading from a European media. So much hatred towards the US and the West. I wander how much different it would be reading from an Iranian media lets say.
If I were a Serb I would be worried by people who see the US and Western Europe as their enemies; with that kind of attitude Kosovo/a is lost for sure. Instead of playing it smooth they put Kostunica there who with a couple of sentences undoes all the work and diplomatic effort of Tadic, who seems to be a lot more effective than Kostunica or any other Serb politician out there. I mean one has to be so naive and a complete fool not to understand that Serbia and the Serbs don't need to do much to convince Russia. That is in your pocket. However out of naivety or foolishness some Serbian politicians, such as Kostunica, and the Serbian public instead of trying to bring the other side closer(US and Western Europe),and trying to convince them, they threaten them and treat them as if they were some weak enemies which "strong" Serbia can easily defeat, can do without them and can easily disregard them.
As an Albanian, of course I am pleased to see this happening. I want this kind of attitude to remain there for a couple of more months until the Kosovo/a issue is closed, after that nobody will care anymore. As an Albanian I am glad Serbia has politicians such as Kostunica, I am glad the Radical party won the majority of votes, I am glad when international media shows large crowds of Serbian people backing Milosevic,Karadzic, and Mladic. I am glad when Serbian leaders such as Kostunica who in the world, lets be truthful here, is the leader of a small insignificant country, tries to play the role of the tough guy and bully the US and its allies by threatening them. I am glad when I see Kostunica and other Serb politicians refer to Albanians as terrorists. I am glad to see how Serbia each day pushes the US and the West away from them. This is very good for us, because each time this happens it proves our point, that because of the Serbian leaders and population attitudes towards us, and the West it is impossible to live under Serbia. We say this once, Kosunica proves it a hundred times; and for that service that he is doing for our cause I want to thank him again, and I want to thank all of those who think like him, even the average Joes out there such Jovan, Princip, Dragan, Cvele, Kate, Blacky,Walter, Kostantin Gregovic etc. Pardon me if I left anyone out. I also invite all of these people I mentioned above to write in the same style and manner here and in many other forums, to write in the same style and manner and push the Serbian politicians into taking a stronger stance against the US and its allies. I hope people like Mike will continue not to have a strong voice, and remain a minority in the Serbian politics and public for the near future.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

Serbs in general have to destroy their myths (Nick, 28 June 2007, 13:40)

The only myth is that Kosovo is, was and every will be Albanian.

jerseyshore

pre 16 godina

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erion-veliaj/washington-shouldnt-be-f_b_53869.html

Good post Walter. Above is a link about life in Albania, written by a young Albanian citizen. Read the comments too, quite informative.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

300 people gathered to celebrate Vidovdan.... It must have been a good sight from half a million 17 years ago.
(John 2, 28 June 2007, 13:26)

The KLA did a good job of Ethnic Cleansing.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

Walter,
does the International Law conceive that a people could not decide its own fate? (massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)

The UN charter was created in 1946 with protocals including provisions of self determination, not destruction and revolution.

Does the International Law protect the basic human rights?(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)

The constitution and rule of law which was firmly written into the Yugoslav constitution. This was compromised when Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia declared indpendance without as the Yugoslav chamber was deadlocked at four votes a piece representing each of the federations and autonomies including Vojvodina and Kosovo & Metohija.

Does the International Law admit that an external power could intervene in a country(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)


Both the UN and NATO charter cannot invade another country unless attacked by that sovereign nation. That is why the NATO and UN bombing of Yugoslavia broke international law.

...to protect people from aggression and genocide or, (massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)


There is a difference between Genocide and Civil war, Rwanda was a Genocide, Yugoslavia was a civil war.

if the UN Security Council does not give its authorisation, everybody should be a spectator(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)


The western nations were spectators as NATO killed over 1000 Yugoslav civlians, dropped Uranium Depleted bombs and illegal cluster bombs, broke several Geneva conventions including targeting civilian infrastructure(telecommunications/oil/electric/radio stations/civilians/embassies)


of any terrible event that could happen (see Rwanda for example)?(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)


Stop talking nonsense and try to discover what really happened in the former Yugoslavia.
(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

Thats like a convicted rapist who has not served his sentence yet, has not acknowledged his crime or apologised, preaching to women about law and his legal rights.
(nikshala, 28 June 2007, 13:19)

Funny how the convicted rapist KLA Terrorist Agim Ceku is a the leader of so called Kosovo.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

The battle is also between unjustice and justice, between right and wrong.
(Victor K., 28 June 2007, 13:00)

How inciteful, do you still own a black and white TV?

The CIA against the Geneva conventions set out to assasinate Cuban Prime Minister , Fidel Castro. Now, do you understand why Russian PM Kuruchev(s) was banging his show at the UN?

The CIA also set up a bounty on Milosevic head also during the NATO illegal bombing of Yugoslavia.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

RE; Rebuttal for the rebuked

Christine,

1. The Serbian Kingdom/State was born in Raska NOT Kosova, and the importance of Kosova only begins with the church contruction program of the Nemanjic dynasty.


RASKA IS KOSOVO


2. For hundreds of years the territory of Kosova was a Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire and rarely if at all had administrative links with Serbia.

Kosovo was occupied by the Ottoman Turks after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389-Vilayet or whatever you want' to call it, it was occupied under Turkey, Ottoman Empire, not Albania, not Iraq, not Croatia.

3. Kosova was anexed by Serbia in 1913.

Kosovo was indeed annexed by Serbia after 600 years of Ottoman dominance.

4. Kosova has remain a part of Serbia since then, with various level of autonomy, the highest of which was the one provided by the 1974 constitution, which gave Kosova and Voivodina all the competencies of a Republic without actualy saying so.

Kosovo was part of Serbia UNTIL 1974 when Tito allowed autonomy along with Vojvodina.




You need to read those maps again.
(Nick, 28 June 2007, 15:52)

I think it's the other way around. You need to go back to school.

Walter

pre 16 godina

Mr. Luca, Mr. Luca please read and educate yourself.. Assassination is a tool used for centuries by all sides. Read the recent declassified documents from the CIA. They read like a Mafia hit movie. You don’t know who killed Litvanenko, and the hit may well be on orders from Moscow but the people that have the most to gain are those who wish to discredit the new direction in Russia’s foreign and domestic policy, particularly the Oligarchs who stole billions and USA and Britain who now need to deal with a real leader .
Luca let me tell you another story that just emerged from Uzbekistan. I will assume that you know where Uzbekistan is and its role in the oil industry, proximity to Afghanistan as well as that it is an ‘‘authoritarian’’ state with a ''very poor'' human rights record. Uzbekistan under its leader Karimov, reminds me of Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, Recently the British Attaché to Uzbekistan complained to Blair and Bush that the Uzbek government was torturing political opponent and in fact he had evidence that they have placed opponents into boiling water and boiled several opponents alive. The answer from Blair was that the Attaché was too aggressive in defending Human Rights and dismissed the man on the spot. Get my point Luca?

Konstantin Gregovic

pre 16 godina

RE: Albanian Propoganda

(1) Raska Is Kosovo
(2) Raska (Kosovo) Zeta (Montenegro) first founding nations of Serbia.

(3) King Lazar was the prince of the Serbs and was the leader of the coaltion that fought the Ottoman Turks-why deny that Serbs comprised the largest nobles who faught against the Ottomans. Why deny that Albanians were fighting against the Serbs in most cases with the Ottomans.

(4) The Rule of Law shall prevail as set forth in the Serbian Constitution and now guaranteed by Russia.

(5) Kosovo is led by the KLA terrorist, Agim Ceku.

(6) What does John Hunyadi have to do with Kosovo? He is honored by both Serbs and Hungarians as a great historical figure and liberated Belgrade.

(7) Fascists Admiral Horthy (Hungary) Adolf Hitler(Germany) and Ante Pavelic (Croatia) Envar Hodza (Albania) are not honored as heroes by the mentally sane.

(8) Kosovo was under the Ottoman empire, never under Albania.

(9) Kosovo was annexed in 1913, the population between Serbs and Albanians was 50%.

(10) Albanians were the gatekeepers of the Serbian Orthodox Church, some still are.

(11) Many Albanians civilians were protected by the Decani Monastery while being chased by Serbian Extremist Paramilitaries. Fr. Sava would protected tham and would not release them.

(12) Hacquim Thaci is another KLA terrorist.

(13) Illyrians are not Albanians, Croatians, Hungarians, Serbians, Macedonians, Greeks-no proof exists on the descendants.

Albanians have a better chance of being descendands of Avars or the Huns than Illyria.

On Vidovdan, Slobodan Milosevic was illegally arrested and shipped to the Hague Tribunal.

On Vidovdan in 1915, Belgrade was relieved by the Serbian Army and the Austro-Hungarian army was driven back to Vienna.

On Vidovdan, 1389 Tsar Lazar died on the battlefield along with Sultan Murat, the Turkish leader. The Ottoman Turks did not move forward but had to stop and pause for Murat's burial.

For Six Hundred Year's of Ottoman Occumpation, Serbia celebrated Vidovdan, a few years under illegal Albanian rule wont' stop the truth.

Long live Kosovo & Metohia,
Happy St.Vitus Day

Nick

pre 16 godina

Canadien,

In fact, i have visited the US just recently with that same UNMIK passport you believe will not get me anywere.

Serbia will not rule Kosova.

Serbia will not retain sovreignty over Kosova.

That is our promise to you.

What you fail to understand is that we have been through this before, and we are ready to go through it again in order to protect our children from the likes of Milosevic and Kostunica.

The minimum we will get is the Partition of Kosova. So either way WE WIN.

Walter

pre 16 godina

Yes Massimo, Jim and Adrian part of International Law is human rights. Provide me with PRIMARY documentation how international law was violated in the breakup of Yugoslavia and WHO violated it. Look at your post gentlemen. The following words from your post: aggression and genocide, terrible event, whipping up paranoia, hangover, and international law is worthless, Rwanda for example, thousands of innocent civilians, and mass murder is your evidence.

Yes gentlemen these were terrible events and innocent people were hurt but if you submitted these comments as evidence for your thesis to a grade nine teacher in any social setting be they in Serbia, Albania or Italy you would get a failing grade. You gentlemen have been influenced by the way NATO propaganda is limited to only a few cardinal points, conceived entirely for the masses and tirelessly repeated and you have been convinced since now you echo their sentiments.

NATO and America in particular promote their vision of the world by aiming their propaganda at the masses in their home country and use CNN to sell it world wide. USA does not allow foreign broadcasting agencies on their soil. Ask yourself why?

America and some NATO members aim this propaganda at the emotion of the masses rather than their intellect and they target the intellectual level of the most limited in the audience and it is designed so that the bigger the audience, the lower the intellectual level of the message..

Hitler used this effectively “The intellectual capacity of the broad masses is only very limited, their understanding small, their forgetfulness on the other hand great. As a result of these three facts every effective propaganda has to be limited to only a very few points and to repeat these slogans until every last person is able to picture what is intended by a particular word. As soon as this basic principle is sacrificed for the sake of comprehensiveness, the effect will be dissipated, as the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered to them.”

These same phrases and words that you use have been used ad-nausea to destabilize Yugoslavia as they have been used to invade Iraq. The working people are being used and it never fails to amaze me how easily the working class marches to a tune of government propaganda echoed by their paid media outlets.

Most of the people who post here have no primary reference to what they write. They just take a little bit of truth and then they mix it with untruth, or their nationalistic theory as espoused by their media outlets, and they present this as fact, and those who are intellectually lazy believe it? Bush's lies as well as some of the comments that you post here rely on repetition. The media in Bush’s case is his echo chamber. Your echo chamber gentlemen are the like minded posters who use emotive language to persuade like the phrases that I site. This gentlemen is the fundamental tenet of propaganda. “The Nazis practiced it. If I repeat a lie long enough, people will believe it. Hitler even said the bigger the lie, the better. People expect you to tell little lies, but they never expect you to be so audacious as to tell a big lie, because that's something they don't do themselves, so they're more likely to believe a big lie than a little one.” The BIG LIE on Kosovo is that this is a special case and international law will not be compromised, which all of you know is nonsense.

Jovan

pre 16 godina

to Nick:

you could have broken the silence by saying, come on folks, let´s compromise, it´s the best we can reach.

otherwise if the situation "explodes" as you want to suggest..it is clear that Albanians will lose the little bit of goodwill they had anyway.

so, come to reason and start doing something productive for your own future.

for all non-albanian readers here who wanna read some unbiased info:

www.kosovocompromise.com

Canadien

pre 16 godina

Nick the maps you read are only published and read in Pristina and no where else in the world. You need to get out and see the world, oh wait! You can't because you have thrown out your Serbian passport and your UN passport is not accepted in many countries, getting a visa is hard with one of those temporary passports. It is time that the Albanins accept the facts and move forward in developing a future for their children if not for themselves.

Brian Doyle

pre 16 godina

Kostunica is stating the obvious, and Polt is stating the absurd.

Polt says that the United States is Serbia's "friend" eventhough the United States wants to steal 15% of Serbia's territory and give it to a billigerent ethnic minority. In Polt's mind this is just a "difference of opinion".

With friends like that who needs enemies?

Kostunica isn't paranoid, he's stating the obvious. He isn't immagining that the U.S. wants to steal Kosovo and give it to the Albanians. The U.S. has said, in the most official way possible, that it wants to do that. That's why Bush got the hero's welcome in Albania.

johny

pre 16 godina

I, as an Albanian, want to thank Mr. Kostunica for his speech directed against the US. I am very grateful to his rhetoric and I would like to encourage him again to keep these kind of speeches coming. I also like to thank him because after I asked for more anti-American rants last week he did not disappoint me this week.
Thank you Mr. Kostunica for doing so much for the Albanian cause.

Cvele

pre 16 godina

James


Here is the battle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kosovo

B92 allow me to educate him since he belives Europe fought when they sold themselves out down the river. Meanwhile Serbs fought for what they believed in then as they do NOW.

There is no nation that deserves as much praise as Serbia does for the sacrifices of its people and what they believed in and fought for. We have fought off countless opressors while albanians croats and the rest have conformed.

CCCC

ved

pre 16 godina

No, no. Polt is completelly right.
United States was a friend of Serbia and had no intention of engaging in any kind of battle with Serbia or its citizens.
"There is no battle, fight or anger between the two countries, there are simply differences of opinion over some issues,”
Absolutelly right.
"The United States aims to help all the citizens of Serbia achieve their dreams."
Yes, Mr. Polt. Even as a small child, my dream was to have independant Kosovo. My side dreams were to have Serbia's economy and infrastructure destroyed, to have my teenaged causin crippled by the cluster bomb, and to be undemployed.
US is doing what it can to make all these dreams come true.
Your efforts around the globe are not without their awards.
There are groups of people who are equally kind to Americans as you are with Serbs.
Just look at 9/11.
Just remember they are your friends. There is no battle, fight or anger between the two of you, there are simply differences of opinion over some issues.
Did Polt say something else? I don't know, I was too bussy looking East where our real friends are.

Joe

pre 16 godina

Walter,

This is the XXI century. You are too late to sell the serbian interpretation of international law or "international law a la serbe.

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

Walter, your international law is worthless to me since it failed to protect the lives of thousands of innocent civilians, and it was used instead to justify mass murder. To me such a law is not worth the paper it is written on. Kosova will be independent!

Cvele

pre 16 godina

Adrian
What we use to justify 99 is ur terrorist attacks. The law simply states Kosovo is Serbia and Serbia is Kosovo. You can ignor it all you want. The law outweighs your opinion.
There is no diffrence to what KLA did with its terrorist attacks in KOSOVO and what the Al Quaida did in New York in 2001.
My answer to your question A.

Jim

pre 16 godina

It is sad to see Serbia still resorting to this kind of rhetoric. Worst of all, civilized world thinks other Balkan nations are the same. Serbia started these wars by whipping up paranoia among its people [everybody is out to get them -- US, Vatican, Free Masons, New World Order..] That's sad, given that Serbia was the most advanced E European nation in the sixities and seventies. I don't know how this will end, but one thing is sure and that's Serbia's recovering from hangover will last for decades.

massimo

pre 16 godina

Walter,
does the International Law conceive that a people could not decide its own fate?
Does the International Law protect the basic human rights?
Does the International Law admit that an external power could intervene in a country to protect people from aggression and genocide or, if the UN Security Council does not give its authorisation, everybody should be a spectator of any terrible event that could happen (see Rwanda for example)?

massimo

pre 16 godina

Kostunica wants to keep 2 millions Albanians in Serbia.
So it is time for Belgrade to start planning how to rule Kosovo again and to give back what Belgrade stole (money in the banks for example).
Serbia should also vote a new constitution since the 22% at least of its citizens did not have the chance to participate in the referendum for the constitution approval.

massimo

pre 16 godina

Christine,
there are maps showing that Western Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East were united under Rome.
So, please, All of you, submit to Italy!!!!!!!!

Walter

pre 16 godina

Kosovo is between knowledge and disaster. Many of you use emotion over knowledge which is an attempt to inflame rather than see the other point of view. I believe in the rule of law. My government in Canada is a partner in subversion of International Law. I believe in the rule of law because my country educated me to believe that without it we descend into anarchy. My government in Canada is hostile to my people and here I include all those who lived in Yugoslavia. My government is hypocritical in that they support international law selectively. Some years ago my government rebuked France, when Charles De Gaulle stood at a window in Quebec City and said “vive la Quebec libre” .The Prime Minister of the day rebuked France for their disregard of international protocol and interference in the internal affairs of Canada. What Kostunica did here is no different.
All of you and I have done that in some of my posts as well, see events from the past as a right to violate the rule of law, due process and international protocol when it suits you. History is present and the future and you cannot create a sustainable peace in the future by violating the present. Your comments Serbs did this Albanians did that is an appeal to the base side of human nature a tool used by propagandists throughout history. Once the propaganda machine plants this base element into the population they start to use the same method in dealing with their neighbor and the propagandist has achieved his/her goal. The only thing that will reverse this process is knowledge. You need to ask yourself are we better off with international law or without it? Should international law apply to me and not to my neighbor? Is it fair that nations apply international law selectively? How will this decision affect world peace? The most important question that we all need to ask is who benefits from this? Once you have answered these questions honestly I am not sure if you will be any wiser but I am sure you will be more knowledgeable and hopefully more honest with yourself.

Nick

pre 16 godina

After a conference in Grand Hotel here in Prishtina i was returning to work this morning, i could hear a women’s voice from a van of one of the political organizations here promoting “independence now”, i think it was Albin Kurti’s Vetvendosja Movement, but i cant be sure.

Anyways, who the van belonged to is irrelevant compared to what she was saying. In a very emotional speech she was inviting the citizens of Prishtina to a massive protest that will be held in the next few days.

Behind the van there were two Kosova Police Service cars, and the look on the policemen’s faces was a very worried one. Last time this happened it was followed by a protest where two young people were killed.

Most people stopped to listen to her on the roadsides with almost emotionless expressions on their face; it seemed as if though at that moment everyone asked themselves one question, “what am i going to do? Will i just sit buy and let people postpone my future forever or should i join these people and be what it may?”

These were normal people, shopkeepers, salesmen, and people going to work or going to have a coffee in one of the many bars in Prishtina.

But the most terrifying thing of all was the absolute silence.

I hope whatever decision is made is made soon and satisfies those people on the roadsides or this whole thing will explore and we will all lose.

james

pre 16 godina

I am beginning to realize that many here post bizarre comments in spite of Albanians in Kosovo. How else can one interpret comments like "if I am not mistaken but the reality is Vidovdan is being celebrated in the Serbian province of Kosovo & Metohija!" coming from Princip. If not spite than what else?

However a statesmen like Mr. Kostunica to talk gibberish about a new heavenly battle being waged between USA and Serbia for Kosovo tops everything I have managed to read today about the marking of the Battle of Kosovo this year. May I add that this kind of behavior is only damaging to Serbia and its people and that this person is irrational at best and who knows what at worst. Next I am expecting him to name who is Vuk Brankovic, as it appears he has proclaimed himself as Lazar (I bet Car Lazar is turning on his grave from all this).

All I can suggest is for you all to read the Serb section of this site and comments that many Serb in Serbian have written about Mr. Kostunica's statements. A sad state of affairs is this that this man has led his nation into.

In the end for many of revisionists on this site, you do not defend Christianity by loosing wars. And this war was a war between a coalition of Balkan nations and Ottomans, not Serbs alone against Ottomans. Stop hijacking history to suit your interests. Janos Hunyadi of Hungary, Count Dracula of Romania and Scanderbeg in Albania did more to stop Ottomans advances in Europe and protect Christianity and won wars for that matter and nobody is making a big deal out if it. At least I did not hear of great celebrations or events to mark these victories. If one would follow your way of thinking e.g. in 1443 Hunyadi defeated Ottomans in Serbia, does that mean Serbia belongs to Hungary now? It appears that Hungarians have a stronger case to make here. You know they won the battle. Don’t you agree?

Zoran

pre 16 godina

Hello, we (US) are your friends, we don't want to fight you, this is just a difference of opinion. Your (Serbia's) silly opinion is that Kosovo, Serbia's historical heartland should stay Serbian, and our (US) infallible opinion is that the Serbian province of Kosovo should be forcefully torn from you and given to a people that will better serve US global ambitions. Oh, and forget the fact that we bombed the snot out of you 8 years ago for reasons that were fabricated, stop fighting us! Sincerely, Your super great friend and ally the United States of America. PS; forget about the fact that we are also occupying part of your country because in our opinion it belongs to Albania. Who needs Russia when the Serbs have an ally like the US?

Mike

pre 16 godina

I have to say reading the excerpts from Kostunica's speech here made him sound like a true populist: "we" are struggling against "them". "We" have always strived for peace, while "they" want to destroy us. I'm not one to usually lend my voice to the choir of Serb critics, but it did have an eerie ring to speeches and proclamations made under the Milosevic era.

All the same, if Polt wanted to be sincere in his message of friendship, tangible actions reinforcing an acknowledgement of Serbian sensitivities in Kosovo could and should be followed. In any event, it seems politicians are more concerned with sound bytes than actual substance these days.

nikshala

pre 16 godina

Christine

Thanks for reminding me of my nationality, and since you said it, i might just consider moving to Albania!!!

These serbian historical claims are so flawed, they are quite enteraining.

Even by serbian nationlistic mythology, kosova was "lost" in 1389 and then "liberated" in XX century, so how could Kosova be part of serbia withing that period and in the maps, if it was lost?

If you want to base it on maps, than turks have more claim to Kosova than the serbs, since they occupied for 5 centuries, unlike Serbia for only 2.5 centuries overall.

So from the birth of Christ (20 centuries) Kosova was only part of the Serbian state for around 2.5 century!!!!

All this is irrelevant anyway, since the very idea of analyzing what happened hundred of years ago to dictate the life of 2 million people now, is wrong and illogical.

adi

pre 16 godina

interesting threats from serbian politicians: mr. duric is threatening the US to give up supporting the kosova’s independence, otherwise they will lose something very precious, the serbian friendship!!! this is absolutely ridiculous! serbs still dream that they are divine people. statements like this confirm that serbian regime has not changed anything since milosevic’s regim. it is the same mentality, even though the political context is different now.

dear neighbors, you are totally unmasked now.

now that serbian regime threatened the US to give up from supporting the kosova's independence, or they will lose the serbian freindship, they will immediately behave accordingly. i am sure that the us will be missing a lot the serbian friendship.

kosova’s statehood is unstoppable. not that much because americans like us, but above all, there is no any other solution that would bring stability in this region. am sure mr. kalashnikov & co are absolutely aware of this. the hatred, old political culture, national chauvinism, old mental maps prevent them admit the reality.

cheers

kate

pre 16 godina

Avni: "Long live Albania"

Are you moving there? I can't imagine what 'Long Live Albania' has to do with an argument for an independent Kosovo.

Nele

pre 16 godina

Avni what’s all this nonsense about a pension for an Albanian isn’t that the job of Albania. I am sure that if you went to Belgrade took out your Serbian citizenship and contributed to the wealth building of Serbia you too will be eligible for a pension. As far as taking money out of Kosovo Banks I thought Alabamians savings account were under their beds.

Long Live Serbia and all who live in her including Serbs with an Albanian heritage living peacefully in KOSOVO.

Joe

pre 16 godina

Christine,

If you are by the old maps than you should also notice that Hungary extended up to present day Belgrade starting the XXI century. So there is history and current reality.
Concerning your approach to wanting to send Kosovars to Albania: please try to be more moderate. Time to be arrogant with Albanians is long gone.

Ahmet Isufi

pre 16 godina

Dragan, don't ypou know that Switzerland was not a UN mmeber untill resantly and that was no obstcile to that country, and also look at Taiwan is managing without UN seat.
I got some news for Princip and others, regarding todays celebration, as follows; serbs from Osejane refused to go to gazimestan to celebrate , istead they decided to stay put in Osejane and celebrate right there. Oh, not even 300 people gathered at gazimestan. I wonder WHY.

Nick

pre 16 godina

Christine,

1. The Serbian Kingdom/State was born in Raska NOT Kosova, and the importance of Kosova only begins with the church contruction program of the Nemanjic dynasty.

2. For hundreds of years the territory of Kosova was a Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire and rarely if at all had administrative links with Serbia.

3. Kosova was anexed by Serbia in 1913.

4. Kosova has remain a part of Serbia since then, with various level of autonomy, the highest of which was the one provided by the 1974 constitution, which gave Kosova and Voivodina all the competencies of a Republic without actualy saying so.

You need to read those maps again.

louie

pre 16 godina

Dear,Mr.Serbian Prime Minister,the "battle"for Kosova/o has been lost in 1999.And then power(Serbia)lost against justice(now foreign power).
Your previous government "gambled"Kosova/o,
they were greedy,they wanted all.
This days you are offering to Kosovan Albanians greater autonomy,but you really never gave us the details of what you really mean by that!!!
Today in Gazimestan we saw Serbs wearing T-shirts with the picture of Ratko Mladic,some of them they had T-shirts with "PAT"or "RAT"which means "WAR until we get freedom".Some of you may say that these are not provocations but I disagree.Kosovan Albanians have suffered enough.Kosovan Serbs are suffering because of politics from Belgrade.
I condemn again what happened in 2004,,but you are forgetting what happened to Kosovan Albanians in 1998 and 1999.Sometimes you make fun of numbers of victims,that is sad.Attrocities happened on both sides.We have to remember them and should all condemn what's happened.
Now you as Serbian Prime Minister you should come up with something more concrete and tell to Kosovan People what you have to offer even though I think personally that you are a bit late!!!

Christine

pre 16 godina

Have just been looking at historical maps of Serbia and Albania.
Kosovo is included in Serbian territory back as far as 1169.
If people of Kosovo want to live in an Albanian country than move to Albania.
Otherwise if you are born in Kosovo are you Serbian.

laki bani

pre 16 godina

Yes, happy Vidovadan Balkanians, the day when Coalition of the Balkanian nations had tried something, but unfortunately failed.

Dragan

pre 16 godina

Very well said Vojo! 'Power vs. Justice' - that is exactly what we have here. David vs. Goliath. David is going to win this one. The so called 'unity' in Europe is alredy cracking and will soon fall completely apart, with the US and UK the only backers of creating a greater albania.
For all those albanians who insist that they are already independent - let me ask you a few questions: Where is your seat in the UN? Where is your flag and national anthem? Where is your soccer team? Where is your national currency? Look on any map and show me where your country is? Resolution 1244 clearly states that Kosovo is Serbia and Serbia is Kosovo, and that was signed by your beloved americans and brits. You guys are dreaming in technicolour if you think you have a country. Oh and Happy Vidovdan!!

Joe

pre 16 godina

This very worried looking Kostunica could undertake few importent steps to promote justice in Serbia by arresting all the war criminals and allowing more autonomy in Vojvodina, stopping discrimination against the biggest still remaining minority in Serbia, the Hungarians.

nikshala

pre 16 godina

Its quite funny how all of the sudden Serbia has 'turned' into this 'peacful' country (ingoring the fact that Radicals are most popular party) that promotes justice, internatinal law, is against use of force etc etc.

Thats like a convicted rapist who has not served his sentence yet, has not acknowledged his crime or apologised, preaching to women about law and his legal rights.

Dardan

pre 16 godina

Vojo sounds like someone did around the same time 20 years ago.

Hopefully this will not be followed by a decade of violence, death and destruction like the last time in the name of the Heavenly Serbian Nation.

Nick

pre 16 godina

When all else fails he retreats to victim hood. Kostunica’s description of the ‘battle’ between the US (brute power) and Serbia (justice) is yet another example of how much myths influence Serbian politics even today.

When reading the article, one can not help but wonder if he took his speech from the parts on the Battle of Kosovo in the notorious www.kosovo.com.

Serbs in general have to destroy their myths and for once perceive themselves as they really are (a real factor in the Balkans) rather then constantly hang on to ‘victimhood’ as their justification for any and all measures. It was precisely this sense of victimhod that caused the Yugoslav wars, fueled by politicians on all sides but by Milosevic particularly.

laki bani

pre 16 godina

The transformation is a human characteristic that function when an individual encounters factors which impact the need to change, either in one or another way. I don’t know what do you all think, but I am happy to see the one who is preaching in so nonviolent manner. Recall a few years ago, the same man had waggled AK (Kalashnikov) as a gesture of a strong determination to use that "thing" if Albanians disobey Milosevic’s democracy. That’s for I am little bit confused, but happy that he is so adhered to the law, no matter if national or international it was.
To be honest, in his place I wouldn’t dear to be so direct in my speeches, unless I was 100 % sure that I am right.
By the way, Avni Gjoni I agree with you.

Loznicanin

pre 16 godina

If you (Albanians) were going to get independence as you want it, you would have got it by now. The fact is it will take a different form. So back down and start talking, otherwise it can only get worse as it gets protracted. Lets be realistic and stop using the word Kosovar's, it's pathetic as this doesn't exist!

Ahmet Isufi

pre 16 godina

The last basttle between US and serbia,as I remeber it was serbia who suroundered and packed up and left Kosova.This time around I will not call it a battle at all, becasue there is no need for any battle since serbia does not rule Kosova. Therefore , I have no idea what Koshutinca is talking about.

Princip, UK

pre 16 godina

Ahmet, Nikshala,

if I am not mistaken but the reality is Vidovdan is being celebrated in the Serbian province of Kosovo & Metohija!

You keep believing in the US but you can't deny the State you are in and you will only progress when you learn to "conform to it" and accept the state you are in.

Avni Gjoni

pre 16 godina

Kostunica calling for justice… Lets start with justice within the country and then we can talk about justice…
1 War criminals,
2 nondiscrimination against local non Serbs in Serbia,
3 pay back all the money taken by the Albanians taken from Kosovo banks, in the early 90s,
4 pensions for all the Albanians since the 90s.
5 Giving back all the land that was expropriated from the Albanians, that was never paid by the Serbian state.

1997
1998
1999 three years of military violence exercised by the STATE against civil population.



Well now we can talk about justice…

Long live Albania

Ahmet Isufi

pre 16 godina

The last basttle between US and serbia,as I remeber it was serbia who suroundered and packed up and left Kosova.This time around I will not call it a battle at all, becasue there is no need for any battle since serbia does not rule Kosova. Therefore , I have no idea what Koshutinca is talking about.

Avni Gjoni

pre 16 godina

Kostunica calling for justice… Lets start with justice within the country and then we can talk about justice…
1 War criminals,
2 nondiscrimination against local non Serbs in Serbia,
3 pay back all the money taken by the Albanians taken from Kosovo banks, in the early 90s,
4 pensions for all the Albanians since the 90s.
5 Giving back all the land that was expropriated from the Albanians, that was never paid by the Serbian state.

1997
1998
1999 three years of military violence exercised by the STATE against civil population.



Well now we can talk about justice…

Long live Albania

Princip, UK

pre 16 godina

Ahmet, Nikshala,

if I am not mistaken but the reality is Vidovdan is being celebrated in the Serbian province of Kosovo & Metohija!

You keep believing in the US but you can't deny the State you are in and you will only progress when you learn to "conform to it" and accept the state you are in.

nikshala

pre 16 godina

Its quite funny how all of the sudden Serbia has 'turned' into this 'peacful' country (ingoring the fact that Radicals are most popular party) that promotes justice, internatinal law, is against use of force etc etc.

Thats like a convicted rapist who has not served his sentence yet, has not acknowledged his crime or apologised, preaching to women about law and his legal rights.

Dardan

pre 16 godina

Vojo sounds like someone did around the same time 20 years ago.

Hopefully this will not be followed by a decade of violence, death and destruction like the last time in the name of the Heavenly Serbian Nation.

Loznicanin

pre 16 godina

If you (Albanians) were going to get independence as you want it, you would have got it by now. The fact is it will take a different form. So back down and start talking, otherwise it can only get worse as it gets protracted. Lets be realistic and stop using the word Kosovar's, it's pathetic as this doesn't exist!

Nick

pre 16 godina

When all else fails he retreats to victim hood. Kostunica’s description of the ‘battle’ between the US (brute power) and Serbia (justice) is yet another example of how much myths influence Serbian politics even today.

When reading the article, one can not help but wonder if he took his speech from the parts on the Battle of Kosovo in the notorious www.kosovo.com.

Serbs in general have to destroy their myths and for once perceive themselves as they really are (a real factor in the Balkans) rather then constantly hang on to ‘victimhood’ as their justification for any and all measures. It was precisely this sense of victimhod that caused the Yugoslav wars, fueled by politicians on all sides but by Milosevic particularly.

laki bani

pre 16 godina

The transformation is a human characteristic that function when an individual encounters factors which impact the need to change, either in one or another way. I don’t know what do you all think, but I am happy to see the one who is preaching in so nonviolent manner. Recall a few years ago, the same man had waggled AK (Kalashnikov) as a gesture of a strong determination to use that "thing" if Albanians disobey Milosevic’s democracy. That’s for I am little bit confused, but happy that he is so adhered to the law, no matter if national or international it was.
To be honest, in his place I wouldn’t dear to be so direct in my speeches, unless I was 100 % sure that I am right.
By the way, Avni Gjoni I agree with you.

Dragan

pre 16 godina

Very well said Vojo! 'Power vs. Justice' - that is exactly what we have here. David vs. Goliath. David is going to win this one. The so called 'unity' in Europe is alredy cracking and will soon fall completely apart, with the US and UK the only backers of creating a greater albania.
For all those albanians who insist that they are already independent - let me ask you a few questions: Where is your seat in the UN? Where is your flag and national anthem? Where is your soccer team? Where is your national currency? Look on any map and show me where your country is? Resolution 1244 clearly states that Kosovo is Serbia and Serbia is Kosovo, and that was signed by your beloved americans and brits. You guys are dreaming in technicolour if you think you have a country. Oh and Happy Vidovdan!!

Joe

pre 16 godina

This very worried looking Kostunica could undertake few importent steps to promote justice in Serbia by arresting all the war criminals and allowing more autonomy in Vojvodina, stopping discrimination against the biggest still remaining minority in Serbia, the Hungarians.

Christine

pre 16 godina

Have just been looking at historical maps of Serbia and Albania.
Kosovo is included in Serbian territory back as far as 1169.
If people of Kosovo want to live in an Albanian country than move to Albania.
Otherwise if you are born in Kosovo are you Serbian.

laki bani

pre 16 godina

Yes, happy Vidovadan Balkanians, the day when Coalition of the Balkanian nations had tried something, but unfortunately failed.

Nele

pre 16 godina

Avni what’s all this nonsense about a pension for an Albanian isn’t that the job of Albania. I am sure that if you went to Belgrade took out your Serbian citizenship and contributed to the wealth building of Serbia you too will be eligible for a pension. As far as taking money out of Kosovo Banks I thought Alabamians savings account were under their beds.

Long Live Serbia and all who live in her including Serbs with an Albanian heritage living peacefully in KOSOVO.

Ahmet Isufi

pre 16 godina

Dragan, don't ypou know that Switzerland was not a UN mmeber untill resantly and that was no obstcile to that country, and also look at Taiwan is managing without UN seat.
I got some news for Princip and others, regarding todays celebration, as follows; serbs from Osejane refused to go to gazimestan to celebrate , istead they decided to stay put in Osejane and celebrate right there. Oh, not even 300 people gathered at gazimestan. I wonder WHY.

kate

pre 16 godina

Avni: "Long live Albania"

Are you moving there? I can't imagine what 'Long Live Albania' has to do with an argument for an independent Kosovo.

Nick

pre 16 godina

Christine,

1. The Serbian Kingdom/State was born in Raska NOT Kosova, and the importance of Kosova only begins with the church contruction program of the Nemanjic dynasty.

2. For hundreds of years the territory of Kosova was a Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire and rarely if at all had administrative links with Serbia.

3. Kosova was anexed by Serbia in 1913.

4. Kosova has remain a part of Serbia since then, with various level of autonomy, the highest of which was the one provided by the 1974 constitution, which gave Kosova and Voivodina all the competencies of a Republic without actualy saying so.

You need to read those maps again.

louie

pre 16 godina

Dear,Mr.Serbian Prime Minister,the "battle"for Kosova/o has been lost in 1999.And then power(Serbia)lost against justice(now foreign power).
Your previous government "gambled"Kosova/o,
they were greedy,they wanted all.
This days you are offering to Kosovan Albanians greater autonomy,but you really never gave us the details of what you really mean by that!!!
Today in Gazimestan we saw Serbs wearing T-shirts with the picture of Ratko Mladic,some of them they had T-shirts with "PAT"or "RAT"which means "WAR until we get freedom".Some of you may say that these are not provocations but I disagree.Kosovan Albanians have suffered enough.Kosovan Serbs are suffering because of politics from Belgrade.
I condemn again what happened in 2004,,but you are forgetting what happened to Kosovan Albanians in 1998 and 1999.Sometimes you make fun of numbers of victims,that is sad.Attrocities happened on both sides.We have to remember them and should all condemn what's happened.
Now you as Serbian Prime Minister you should come up with something more concrete and tell to Kosovan People what you have to offer even though I think personally that you are a bit late!!!

Joe

pre 16 godina

Christine,

If you are by the old maps than you should also notice that Hungary extended up to present day Belgrade starting the XXI century. So there is history and current reality.
Concerning your approach to wanting to send Kosovars to Albania: please try to be more moderate. Time to be arrogant with Albanians is long gone.

Mike

pre 16 godina

I have to say reading the excerpts from Kostunica's speech here made him sound like a true populist: "we" are struggling against "them". "We" have always strived for peace, while "they" want to destroy us. I'm not one to usually lend my voice to the choir of Serb critics, but it did have an eerie ring to speeches and proclamations made under the Milosevic era.

All the same, if Polt wanted to be sincere in his message of friendship, tangible actions reinforcing an acknowledgement of Serbian sensitivities in Kosovo could and should be followed. In any event, it seems politicians are more concerned with sound bytes than actual substance these days.

nikshala

pre 16 godina

Christine

Thanks for reminding me of my nationality, and since you said it, i might just consider moving to Albania!!!

These serbian historical claims are so flawed, they are quite enteraining.

Even by serbian nationlistic mythology, kosova was "lost" in 1389 and then "liberated" in XX century, so how could Kosova be part of serbia withing that period and in the maps, if it was lost?

If you want to base it on maps, than turks have more claim to Kosova than the serbs, since they occupied for 5 centuries, unlike Serbia for only 2.5 centuries overall.

So from the birth of Christ (20 centuries) Kosova was only part of the Serbian state for around 2.5 century!!!!

All this is irrelevant anyway, since the very idea of analyzing what happened hundred of years ago to dictate the life of 2 million people now, is wrong and illogical.

adi

pre 16 godina

interesting threats from serbian politicians: mr. duric is threatening the US to give up supporting the kosova’s independence, otherwise they will lose something very precious, the serbian friendship!!! this is absolutely ridiculous! serbs still dream that they are divine people. statements like this confirm that serbian regime has not changed anything since milosevic’s regim. it is the same mentality, even though the political context is different now.

dear neighbors, you are totally unmasked now.

now that serbian regime threatened the US to give up from supporting the kosova's independence, or they will lose the serbian freindship, they will immediately behave accordingly. i am sure that the us will be missing a lot the serbian friendship.

kosova’s statehood is unstoppable. not that much because americans like us, but above all, there is no any other solution that would bring stability in this region. am sure mr. kalashnikov & co are absolutely aware of this. the hatred, old political culture, national chauvinism, old mental maps prevent them admit the reality.

cheers

Zoran

pre 16 godina

Hello, we (US) are your friends, we don't want to fight you, this is just a difference of opinion. Your (Serbia's) silly opinion is that Kosovo, Serbia's historical heartland should stay Serbian, and our (US) infallible opinion is that the Serbian province of Kosovo should be forcefully torn from you and given to a people that will better serve US global ambitions. Oh, and forget the fact that we bombed the snot out of you 8 years ago for reasons that were fabricated, stop fighting us! Sincerely, Your super great friend and ally the United States of America. PS; forget about the fact that we are also occupying part of your country because in our opinion it belongs to Albania. Who needs Russia when the Serbs have an ally like the US?

Nick

pre 16 godina

After a conference in Grand Hotel here in Prishtina i was returning to work this morning, i could hear a women’s voice from a van of one of the political organizations here promoting “independence now”, i think it was Albin Kurti’s Vetvendosja Movement, but i cant be sure.

Anyways, who the van belonged to is irrelevant compared to what she was saying. In a very emotional speech she was inviting the citizens of Prishtina to a massive protest that will be held in the next few days.

Behind the van there were two Kosova Police Service cars, and the look on the policemen’s faces was a very worried one. Last time this happened it was followed by a protest where two young people were killed.

Most people stopped to listen to her on the roadsides with almost emotionless expressions on their face; it seemed as if though at that moment everyone asked themselves one question, “what am i going to do? Will i just sit buy and let people postpone my future forever or should i join these people and be what it may?”

These were normal people, shopkeepers, salesmen, and people going to work or going to have a coffee in one of the many bars in Prishtina.

But the most terrifying thing of all was the absolute silence.

I hope whatever decision is made is made soon and satisfies those people on the roadsides or this whole thing will explore and we will all lose.

massimo

pre 16 godina

Kostunica wants to keep 2 millions Albanians in Serbia.
So it is time for Belgrade to start planning how to rule Kosovo again and to give back what Belgrade stole (money in the banks for example).
Serbia should also vote a new constitution since the 22% at least of its citizens did not have the chance to participate in the referendum for the constitution approval.

james

pre 16 godina

I am beginning to realize that many here post bizarre comments in spite of Albanians in Kosovo. How else can one interpret comments like "if I am not mistaken but the reality is Vidovdan is being celebrated in the Serbian province of Kosovo & Metohija!" coming from Princip. If not spite than what else?

However a statesmen like Mr. Kostunica to talk gibberish about a new heavenly battle being waged between USA and Serbia for Kosovo tops everything I have managed to read today about the marking of the Battle of Kosovo this year. May I add that this kind of behavior is only damaging to Serbia and its people and that this person is irrational at best and who knows what at worst. Next I am expecting him to name who is Vuk Brankovic, as it appears he has proclaimed himself as Lazar (I bet Car Lazar is turning on his grave from all this).

All I can suggest is for you all to read the Serb section of this site and comments that many Serb in Serbian have written about Mr. Kostunica's statements. A sad state of affairs is this that this man has led his nation into.

In the end for many of revisionists on this site, you do not defend Christianity by loosing wars. And this war was a war between a coalition of Balkan nations and Ottomans, not Serbs alone against Ottomans. Stop hijacking history to suit your interests. Janos Hunyadi of Hungary, Count Dracula of Romania and Scanderbeg in Albania did more to stop Ottomans advances in Europe and protect Christianity and won wars for that matter and nobody is making a big deal out if it. At least I did not hear of great celebrations or events to mark these victories. If one would follow your way of thinking e.g. in 1443 Hunyadi defeated Ottomans in Serbia, does that mean Serbia belongs to Hungary now? It appears that Hungarians have a stronger case to make here. You know they won the battle. Don’t you agree?

massimo

pre 16 godina

Christine,
there are maps showing that Western Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East were united under Rome.
So, please, All of you, submit to Italy!!!!!!!!

Walter

pre 16 godina

Kosovo is between knowledge and disaster. Many of you use emotion over knowledge which is an attempt to inflame rather than see the other point of view. I believe in the rule of law. My government in Canada is a partner in subversion of International Law. I believe in the rule of law because my country educated me to believe that without it we descend into anarchy. My government in Canada is hostile to my people and here I include all those who lived in Yugoslavia. My government is hypocritical in that they support international law selectively. Some years ago my government rebuked France, when Charles De Gaulle stood at a window in Quebec City and said “vive la Quebec libre” .The Prime Minister of the day rebuked France for their disregard of international protocol and interference in the internal affairs of Canada. What Kostunica did here is no different.
All of you and I have done that in some of my posts as well, see events from the past as a right to violate the rule of law, due process and international protocol when it suits you. History is present and the future and you cannot create a sustainable peace in the future by violating the present. Your comments Serbs did this Albanians did that is an appeal to the base side of human nature a tool used by propagandists throughout history. Once the propaganda machine plants this base element into the population they start to use the same method in dealing with their neighbor and the propagandist has achieved his/her goal. The only thing that will reverse this process is knowledge. You need to ask yourself are we better off with international law or without it? Should international law apply to me and not to my neighbor? Is it fair that nations apply international law selectively? How will this decision affect world peace? The most important question that we all need to ask is who benefits from this? Once you have answered these questions honestly I am not sure if you will be any wiser but I am sure you will be more knowledgeable and hopefully more honest with yourself.

massimo

pre 16 godina

Walter,
does the International Law conceive that a people could not decide its own fate?
Does the International Law protect the basic human rights?
Does the International Law admit that an external power could intervene in a country to protect people from aggression and genocide or, if the UN Security Council does not give its authorisation, everybody should be a spectator of any terrible event that could happen (see Rwanda for example)?

Jim

pre 16 godina

It is sad to see Serbia still resorting to this kind of rhetoric. Worst of all, civilized world thinks other Balkan nations are the same. Serbia started these wars by whipping up paranoia among its people [everybody is out to get them -- US, Vatican, Free Masons, New World Order..] That's sad, given that Serbia was the most advanced E European nation in the sixities and seventies. I don't know how this will end, but one thing is sure and that's Serbia's recovering from hangover will last for decades.

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

Walter, your international law is worthless to me since it failed to protect the lives of thousands of innocent civilians, and it was used instead to justify mass murder. To me such a law is not worth the paper it is written on. Kosova will be independent!

Cvele

pre 16 godina

Adrian
What we use to justify 99 is ur terrorist attacks. The law simply states Kosovo is Serbia and Serbia is Kosovo. You can ignor it all you want. The law outweighs your opinion.
There is no diffrence to what KLA did with its terrorist attacks in KOSOVO and what the Al Quaida did in New York in 2001.
My answer to your question A.

Joe

pre 16 godina

Walter,

This is the XXI century. You are too late to sell the serbian interpretation of international law or "international law a la serbe.

Cvele

pre 16 godina

James


Here is the battle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kosovo

B92 allow me to educate him since he belives Europe fought when they sold themselves out down the river. Meanwhile Serbs fought for what they believed in then as they do NOW.

There is no nation that deserves as much praise as Serbia does for the sacrifices of its people and what they believed in and fought for. We have fought off countless opressors while albanians croats and the rest have conformed.

CCCC

johny

pre 16 godina

I, as an Albanian, want to thank Mr. Kostunica for his speech directed against the US. I am very grateful to his rhetoric and I would like to encourage him again to keep these kind of speeches coming. I also like to thank him because after I asked for more anti-American rants last week he did not disappoint me this week.
Thank you Mr. Kostunica for doing so much for the Albanian cause.

ved

pre 16 godina

No, no. Polt is completelly right.
United States was a friend of Serbia and had no intention of engaging in any kind of battle with Serbia or its citizens.
"There is no battle, fight or anger between the two countries, there are simply differences of opinion over some issues,”
Absolutelly right.
"The United States aims to help all the citizens of Serbia achieve their dreams."
Yes, Mr. Polt. Even as a small child, my dream was to have independant Kosovo. My side dreams were to have Serbia's economy and infrastructure destroyed, to have my teenaged causin crippled by the cluster bomb, and to be undemployed.
US is doing what it can to make all these dreams come true.
Your efforts around the globe are not without their awards.
There are groups of people who are equally kind to Americans as you are with Serbs.
Just look at 9/11.
Just remember they are your friends. There is no battle, fight or anger between the two of you, there are simply differences of opinion over some issues.
Did Polt say something else? I don't know, I was too bussy looking East where our real friends are.

Brian Doyle

pre 16 godina

Kostunica is stating the obvious, and Polt is stating the absurd.

Polt says that the United States is Serbia's "friend" eventhough the United States wants to steal 15% of Serbia's territory and give it to a billigerent ethnic minority. In Polt's mind this is just a "difference of opinion".

With friends like that who needs enemies?

Kostunica isn't paranoid, he's stating the obvious. He isn't immagining that the U.S. wants to steal Kosovo and give it to the Albanians. The U.S. has said, in the most official way possible, that it wants to do that. That's why Bush got the hero's welcome in Albania.

Jovan

pre 16 godina

to Nick:

you could have broken the silence by saying, come on folks, let´s compromise, it´s the best we can reach.

otherwise if the situation "explodes" as you want to suggest..it is clear that Albanians will lose the little bit of goodwill they had anyway.

so, come to reason and start doing something productive for your own future.

for all non-albanian readers here who wanna read some unbiased info:

www.kosovocompromise.com

Walter

pre 16 godina

Yes Massimo, Jim and Adrian part of International Law is human rights. Provide me with PRIMARY documentation how international law was violated in the breakup of Yugoslavia and WHO violated it. Look at your post gentlemen. The following words from your post: aggression and genocide, terrible event, whipping up paranoia, hangover, and international law is worthless, Rwanda for example, thousands of innocent civilians, and mass murder is your evidence.

Yes gentlemen these were terrible events and innocent people were hurt but if you submitted these comments as evidence for your thesis to a grade nine teacher in any social setting be they in Serbia, Albania or Italy you would get a failing grade. You gentlemen have been influenced by the way NATO propaganda is limited to only a few cardinal points, conceived entirely for the masses and tirelessly repeated and you have been convinced since now you echo their sentiments.

NATO and America in particular promote their vision of the world by aiming their propaganda at the masses in their home country and use CNN to sell it world wide. USA does not allow foreign broadcasting agencies on their soil. Ask yourself why?

America and some NATO members aim this propaganda at the emotion of the masses rather than their intellect and they target the intellectual level of the most limited in the audience and it is designed so that the bigger the audience, the lower the intellectual level of the message..

Hitler used this effectively “The intellectual capacity of the broad masses is only very limited, their understanding small, their forgetfulness on the other hand great. As a result of these three facts every effective propaganda has to be limited to only a very few points and to repeat these slogans until every last person is able to picture what is intended by a particular word. As soon as this basic principle is sacrificed for the sake of comprehensiveness, the effect will be dissipated, as the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered to them.”

These same phrases and words that you use have been used ad-nausea to destabilize Yugoslavia as they have been used to invade Iraq. The working people are being used and it never fails to amaze me how easily the working class marches to a tune of government propaganda echoed by their paid media outlets.

Most of the people who post here have no primary reference to what they write. They just take a little bit of truth and then they mix it with untruth, or their nationalistic theory as espoused by their media outlets, and they present this as fact, and those who are intellectually lazy believe it? Bush's lies as well as some of the comments that you post here rely on repetition. The media in Bush’s case is his echo chamber. Your echo chamber gentlemen are the like minded posters who use emotive language to persuade like the phrases that I site. This gentlemen is the fundamental tenet of propaganda. “The Nazis practiced it. If I repeat a lie long enough, people will believe it. Hitler even said the bigger the lie, the better. People expect you to tell little lies, but they never expect you to be so audacious as to tell a big lie, because that's something they don't do themselves, so they're more likely to believe a big lie than a little one.” The BIG LIE on Kosovo is that this is a special case and international law will not be compromised, which all of you know is nonsense.

Canadien

pre 16 godina

Nick the maps you read are only published and read in Pristina and no where else in the world. You need to get out and see the world, oh wait! You can't because you have thrown out your Serbian passport and your UN passport is not accepted in many countries, getting a visa is hard with one of those temporary passports. It is time that the Albanins accept the facts and move forward in developing a future for their children if not for themselves.

Konstantin Gregovic

pre 16 godina

RE: Albanian Propoganda

(1) Raska Is Kosovo
(2) Raska (Kosovo) Zeta (Montenegro) first founding nations of Serbia.

(3) King Lazar was the prince of the Serbs and was the leader of the coaltion that fought the Ottoman Turks-why deny that Serbs comprised the largest nobles who faught against the Ottomans. Why deny that Albanians were fighting against the Serbs in most cases with the Ottomans.

(4) The Rule of Law shall prevail as set forth in the Serbian Constitution and now guaranteed by Russia.

(5) Kosovo is led by the KLA terrorist, Agim Ceku.

(6) What does John Hunyadi have to do with Kosovo? He is honored by both Serbs and Hungarians as a great historical figure and liberated Belgrade.

(7) Fascists Admiral Horthy (Hungary) Adolf Hitler(Germany) and Ante Pavelic (Croatia) Envar Hodza (Albania) are not honored as heroes by the mentally sane.

(8) Kosovo was under the Ottoman empire, never under Albania.

(9) Kosovo was annexed in 1913, the population between Serbs and Albanians was 50%.

(10) Albanians were the gatekeepers of the Serbian Orthodox Church, some still are.

(11) Many Albanians civilians were protected by the Decani Monastery while being chased by Serbian Extremist Paramilitaries. Fr. Sava would protected tham and would not release them.

(12) Hacquim Thaci is another KLA terrorist.

(13) Illyrians are not Albanians, Croatians, Hungarians, Serbians, Macedonians, Greeks-no proof exists on the descendants.

Albanians have a better chance of being descendands of Avars or the Huns than Illyria.

On Vidovdan, Slobodan Milosevic was illegally arrested and shipped to the Hague Tribunal.

On Vidovdan in 1915, Belgrade was relieved by the Serbian Army and the Austro-Hungarian army was driven back to Vienna.

On Vidovdan, 1389 Tsar Lazar died on the battlefield along with Sultan Murat, the Turkish leader. The Ottoman Turks did not move forward but had to stop and pause for Murat's burial.

For Six Hundred Year's of Ottoman Occumpation, Serbia celebrated Vidovdan, a few years under illegal Albanian rule wont' stop the truth.

Long live Kosovo & Metohia,
Happy St.Vitus Day

Walter

pre 16 godina

Mr. Luca, Mr. Luca please read and educate yourself.. Assassination is a tool used for centuries by all sides. Read the recent declassified documents from the CIA. They read like a Mafia hit movie. You don’t know who killed Litvanenko, and the hit may well be on orders from Moscow but the people that have the most to gain are those who wish to discredit the new direction in Russia’s foreign and domestic policy, particularly the Oligarchs who stole billions and USA and Britain who now need to deal with a real leader .
Luca let me tell you another story that just emerged from Uzbekistan. I will assume that you know where Uzbekistan is and its role in the oil industry, proximity to Afghanistan as well as that it is an ‘‘authoritarian’’ state with a ''very poor'' human rights record. Uzbekistan under its leader Karimov, reminds me of Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, Recently the British Attaché to Uzbekistan complained to Blair and Bush that the Uzbek government was torturing political opponent and in fact he had evidence that they have placed opponents into boiling water and boiled several opponents alive. The answer from Blair was that the Attaché was too aggressive in defending Human Rights and dismissed the man on the spot. Get my point Luca?

Nick

pre 16 godina

Canadien,

In fact, i have visited the US just recently with that same UNMIK passport you believe will not get me anywere.

Serbia will not rule Kosova.

Serbia will not retain sovreignty over Kosova.

That is our promise to you.

What you fail to understand is that we have been through this before, and we are ready to go through it again in order to protect our children from the likes of Milosevic and Kostunica.

The minimum we will get is the Partition of Kosova. So either way WE WIN.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

RE; Rebuttal for the rebuked

Christine,

1. The Serbian Kingdom/State was born in Raska NOT Kosova, and the importance of Kosova only begins with the church contruction program of the Nemanjic dynasty.


RASKA IS KOSOVO


2. For hundreds of years the territory of Kosova was a Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire and rarely if at all had administrative links with Serbia.

Kosovo was occupied by the Ottoman Turks after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389-Vilayet or whatever you want' to call it, it was occupied under Turkey, Ottoman Empire, not Albania, not Iraq, not Croatia.

3. Kosova was anexed by Serbia in 1913.

Kosovo was indeed annexed by Serbia after 600 years of Ottoman dominance.

4. Kosova has remain a part of Serbia since then, with various level of autonomy, the highest of which was the one provided by the 1974 constitution, which gave Kosova and Voivodina all the competencies of a Republic without actualy saying so.

Kosovo was part of Serbia UNTIL 1974 when Tito allowed autonomy along with Vojvodina.




You need to read those maps again.
(Nick, 28 June 2007, 15:52)

I think it's the other way around. You need to go back to school.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

The battle is also between unjustice and justice, between right and wrong.
(Victor K., 28 June 2007, 13:00)

How inciteful, do you still own a black and white TV?

The CIA against the Geneva conventions set out to assasinate Cuban Prime Minister , Fidel Castro. Now, do you understand why Russian PM Kuruchev(s) was banging his show at the UN?

The CIA also set up a bounty on Milosevic head also during the NATO illegal bombing of Yugoslavia.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

300 people gathered to celebrate Vidovdan.... It must have been a good sight from half a million 17 years ago.
(John 2, 28 June 2007, 13:26)

The KLA did a good job of Ethnic Cleansing.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

Thats like a convicted rapist who has not served his sentence yet, has not acknowledged his crime or apologised, preaching to women about law and his legal rights.
(nikshala, 28 June 2007, 13:19)

Funny how the convicted rapist KLA Terrorist Agim Ceku is a the leader of so called Kosovo.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

Serbs in general have to destroy their myths (Nick, 28 June 2007, 13:40)

The only myth is that Kosovo is, was and every will be Albanian.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

Walter,
does the International Law conceive that a people could not decide its own fate? (massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)

The UN charter was created in 1946 with protocals including provisions of self determination, not destruction and revolution.

Does the International Law protect the basic human rights?(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)

The constitution and rule of law which was firmly written into the Yugoslav constitution. This was compromised when Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia declared indpendance without as the Yugoslav chamber was deadlocked at four votes a piece representing each of the federations and autonomies including Vojvodina and Kosovo & Metohija.

Does the International Law admit that an external power could intervene in a country(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)


Both the UN and NATO charter cannot invade another country unless attacked by that sovereign nation. That is why the NATO and UN bombing of Yugoslavia broke international law.

...to protect people from aggression and genocide or, (massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)


There is a difference between Genocide and Civil war, Rwanda was a Genocide, Yugoslavia was a civil war.

if the UN Security Council does not give its authorisation, everybody should be a spectator(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)


The western nations were spectators as NATO killed over 1000 Yugoslav civlians, dropped Uranium Depleted bombs and illegal cluster bombs, broke several Geneva conventions including targeting civilian infrastructure(telecommunications/oil/electric/radio stations/civilians/embassies)


of any terrible event that could happen (see Rwanda for example)?(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)


Stop talking nonsense and try to discover what really happened in the former Yugoslavia.
(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)

jerseyshore

pre 16 godina

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erion-veliaj/washington-shouldnt-be-f_b_53869.html

Good post Walter. Above is a link about life in Albania, written by a young Albanian citizen. Read the comments too, quite informative.

johny

pre 16 godina

I read almost all the posts here regarding to Kosovo/a from both sides Serbs and Albanians. Sometimes I wonder after I read posts from the Serbs If I am really reading from a European media. So much hatred towards the US and the West. I wander how much different it would be reading from an Iranian media lets say.
If I were a Serb I would be worried by people who see the US and Western Europe as their enemies; with that kind of attitude Kosovo/a is lost for sure. Instead of playing it smooth they put Kostunica there who with a couple of sentences undoes all the work and diplomatic effort of Tadic, who seems to be a lot more effective than Kostunica or any other Serb politician out there. I mean one has to be so naive and a complete fool not to understand that Serbia and the Serbs don't need to do much to convince Russia. That is in your pocket. However out of naivety or foolishness some Serbian politicians, such as Kostunica, and the Serbian public instead of trying to bring the other side closer(US and Western Europe),and trying to convince them, they threaten them and treat them as if they were some weak enemies which "strong" Serbia can easily defeat, can do without them and can easily disregard them.
As an Albanian, of course I am pleased to see this happening. I want this kind of attitude to remain there for a couple of more months until the Kosovo/a issue is closed, after that nobody will care anymore. As an Albanian I am glad Serbia has politicians such as Kostunica, I am glad the Radical party won the majority of votes, I am glad when international media shows large crowds of Serbian people backing Milosevic,Karadzic, and Mladic. I am glad when Serbian leaders such as Kostunica who in the world, lets be truthful here, is the leader of a small insignificant country, tries to play the role of the tough guy and bully the US and its allies by threatening them. I am glad when I see Kostunica and other Serb politicians refer to Albanians as terrorists. I am glad to see how Serbia each day pushes the US and the West away from them. This is very good for us, because each time this happens it proves our point, that because of the Serbian leaders and population attitudes towards us, and the West it is impossible to live under Serbia. We say this once, Kosunica proves it a hundred times; and for that service that he is doing for our cause I want to thank him again, and I want to thank all of those who think like him, even the average Joes out there such Jovan, Princip, Dragan, Cvele, Kate, Blacky,Walter, Kostantin Gregovic etc. Pardon me if I left anyone out. I also invite all of these people I mentioned above to write in the same style and manner here and in many other forums, to write in the same style and manner and push the Serbian politicians into taking a stronger stance against the US and its allies. I hope people like Mike will continue not to have a strong voice, and remain a minority in the Serbian politics and public for the near future.

Boriska

pre 16 godina

The United States aims to help all the citizens of Serbia achieve their dreams...we are your friends, not your enemies,” Polt concluded.
---------------------------
Gee, that really reminds that old comic movie - "Mars Attacks". Remember ? Main Marsian trick there was to keep repeating "we are your friends ! we come with peace ! we are to help you !" while shooting their ray guns at unsuspecting Earthlings. I can just imagine Polt in alien spacesuit...yeah sure, he is here to help you guys, keep dreaming. Isn't it interesting how Hollywood movies can influence Washington foreign policy thinking.

S. Harris

pre 16 godina

The battle for Kosovo is America's attempt at getting away with rape, with US ambassador Michael Polt insisting that; but we are friends, it won't hurt, just love me.
Kostunica is correct, when he states, we do have a battle of force/power over law.
Whatever the internal problems of a sovereign state such as Serbia, it must be solved from within, otherwise a precedent will be set to rip countries apart.

Luca

pre 16 godina

Walter, your effort to patronize me doesn't constitute an argument. The whole world knows who killed Litvinenko, because he made it public himself, no one better than him could've possibly known the intrigues and the risks to his life. He was a smart man, a lieutenant-colonel and deputy head of the Seventh Section of the FSB, a man that knew a lot about Putin and the way he operated and by taking him out so publicly, Putin told effectively everyone else, that "I can kill you whoever or wherever you are, whenever I want, and there's nothing that anybody can do to protect you." Litvinenko's death is a chilling statement and shows the true nature of the Russian dictator. It makes me sick to my stomach, to hear him talk about International Law, and blackmail his way in European affairs. His intentions in the Balkans are not about International Law, but about securing a monopoly over pipelines and transit routes, so he can in the future blackmail EU at will. Here's what Litvinenko, btw said about Russia's connection to international terrorism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko

"all the bloodiest terrorists of the world" were connected to FSB-KGB, including Carlos Ramírez the "Jackal", Yassir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Abdullah Öcalan, Wadie Haddad of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Hawi who led the Communist Party of Lebanon, and Ezekias Papaioannou from Cyprus. He said that the "terrorism infection creeps away worldwide from the cabinets of the Lubyanka Square and the Kremlin". These claims are supported by Mitrokhin archive.

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

"Provide me with PRIMARY documentation how international law was violated in the breakup of Yugoslavia and WHO violated it."

You are kidding right? Geneva conventions specifically deals with the protection of non-combatants in a case of an armed conflict. Under Geneva conventions collective punishments such as the killings of civilians, forced expulsions, pillage and damage to their property that the Serbian government inflicted upon the general population of Kosova are a clear case of war crimes.
"Article 33. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Pillage is prohibited.
Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited."

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states specifically: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile." Let me ask you a simple question: Out of hundreds of thousands that the Serbian government expelled from Kosova, did anyone of them had a fair trial, in which he was condemned to an exile?

Under International Law, states have a responsibility to protect.

http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/

"The international community has a responsibility to protect the world’s populations from genocide, massive human rights abuses and other humanitarian crises. This responsibility to prevent, react to and rebuild following such crises rests first and foremost with each individual state. When states manifestly fail to protect their populations, the international community shares a collective responsibility to respond. This response should be the exercise of first peaceful, and then, if necessary, coercive, including forceful, steps to protect civilians."

"USA does not allow foreign broadcasting agencies on their soil. Ask yourself why?"

What are you talking about???? US is probably the country that has the most foreign broadcasting agencies in their soil, and in many cases broadcasting in their own language. Even Public Broadcasting Service, randomly retransmits foreign broadcasts. In US, you can watch not only English, French, Italian, German channels, but also from countries such as China, India, Russia, and yes even Serbia. You can watch Al-Jazeera if you liked.

"America and some NATO members aim this propaganda..."

Oh boy, if you believe that NATO propaganda destroyed Yugoslavia, I really have no way of fighting that paranoia.

massimo

pre 16 godina

Dear Walter,
it seems to me that you are a not requested Putin's advocate.
When you talk about Uzbekistan you should know that Karimov, after the bloodshed in Andijon, is a Moscow friend. It is very hard to defend your position (Putin's advocate) since the spy war that is running is not the most embarrassing case in which the Moscow government is involved: let me remind you the case of Anna Politkovskaya's murder (I am waiting that you say that Putin opponents had organised the killing just to attack the Russian regime).
By the way, you should know that many foreign brodcasting news agencies work in the USA with their journalists: at the end USA is not Cuba, Russia, Iran, Burma or North Korea...

Ana

pre 16 godina

Seems like a perfect opportunity for Kostunica and his advisors to explain to the Serbian people- including the people of Kosovo - just what their plan is for the future of a Kosovo within Serbia. Why are they wasting this opportunity? Why so we still not know what they have in mind for the future, except more talks? We dont need more talks, we need more substance.

Olf

pre 16 godina

Really unbelievable what Kostunica has stated. Were there no lessons learned during 1999 for Serbian politicians? Kostunica is talking on behalf of Serbia. If you read the postings on B92 Serbian language site you will find something surprising for all Serbs and especially those that support Serbian politics. Imagine, 90% of posting of Serbians on Serbian language B92 site are horrified of what Kostunica has stated. Most of them really just want to have a proper life and stay away from trouble steered from failed politicians, politician s that would send everyone to war except themselves.
Thanks god that Serbia has wise people and does rely on failed politicians and people that support them.
Kosova, Serbia future is EU integration. For those that want to live with mother Russia, before you decide ask the Bulgarians of their lives during Russian rule and than decide.

Nick

pre 16 godina

Konstantin Gregorevic,

The birthplace of Serbia was in Raska not Kosova. The state of Raska may have anexed Kosova later, but the point is Serbia begins in Raska.

If the best you can do is "go back to school" then i seriously doubt your level of competence to discuss any of these issues.

Nick

pre 16 godina

Ana,

That is precisely what i was saying a couple of days ago. If they were really interested in keeping Kosova then by now they would have presented a detailed plan on how such new relationship would work.

The problem is Kostunica and the Serbian government have no idea what to do with Kosova. The only thing that really matters to them is for Serbia to theoretically retain its sovreignty over the land and for the moment they can only do that by delaying a solution and calling for more negociations.

BlueJ

pre 16 godina

Olf and johny,

I agree with you. Very good posts amid all this sarcasm, "tit-for-tat" and one-sidedness.

I would like to add that I think that Cvele and Blacky and the other "hardline" Serb supporters are actually pro-Albanists in disguise. The same goes for the apparent "hardline" K-Albanians posting here.

Canadien

pre 16 godina

Nick,

I did not say you could not travel "anywhere" with your UNMIK passport... I in fact said you could not travel to most places with it, about half the world would reject it or not give you a VISA. I know for fact that Brazil, and most South American countries would not recognize it. Most of the Caribbean Islands would not give you a VISA. You would have a difficult time to get into Canada, this is a fact, maybe 1 in 10 applications for VISA in Canada are granted to people with UNMIK passports. The UK is the same, as are the French, forget about most of the Asian countries, they won't grant you visas. Germany would be hard too! Spain will reject you for certain. This is what I am talking about! By the way how did you like being treated like a second class human being when you arrived at US Customs showing your passport, don't bother denying it. I live in Canada and go into the US almost every month and witness how their customs treat people from certain countries, especially countries that are considered Muslim, secular or not! A Serbian passport would get you to far more placeses with far less complications.

Jovan

pre 16 godina

it is quite strange how some Albanians would like to present the whole thing here like they are "glad about Serbs arguing that way, glad about Koštunica" and so on...

get real, kids! there is simply no reason to be glad about this, since you are losing support and what is best german chairmanship is over ( germany is the real force trying to take away Kosovo ) and nothing happened! the time of US presidency in the UNSC elapsed - and surprise- nothing happened!

if you were reasonably acting, you would accept broad autonomy and that´s it, we all could start a better future.
but unfortunately Albanians still dream of myths that are already proven wrong...

Walter

pre 16 godina

LUCA, ADRIAN AND MASSIMO in the seedy world of espionage and counter espionage everything is possible. We can spend the rest of our lives debating the crimes of the KGB and the CIA and I will provide you a link to a list of those CIA crimes which by the way is not an attempt on my part to justify the crimes of the KGB or any other agency. I asked you and several persons on this blog to provide PRIMARY evidence for the question we were discussing you provided Wikipedia. Fine, but in any academic paper this would be very poor evidence no better or worse than if you cited The Readers Digest which is written for persons with a grade eight education. I have lived in the West for 55 years and have followed world events with keen interest and I know how the spin doctors work. Only lack of knowledge on one or both sides will cause a difference of opinion between us.
I am sure that you and I can resolve our differences over FACTS while we will seldom resolve our disputes over VALUES. I subscribe to the principle that nations and individuals can live together when there is mutual trust and common goals I subscribe to the rule of law in international affairs, without which we would have anarchy.
To build mutual trust and establish common goals we need knowledge and that is why I come back to ask you what are your facts, where do you get them from, who benefits from them, and how do you interpret them. I get some of my facts from Seymour Heersh, Samet Gideon, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Nafeez Mosaddeq the Guardin and the Independent as well as several blogs of which antiwar.com is my favorite. As you can see I tend to favors the left wing political analysts so don’t read any further just call me a Socialist and dismiss me and go back to your Wikipedia.
You write about Litvinenko and point a finger at Putin. You may well be correct but I see his death differently. Do I know who killed him? No, but neither do you. I like to rely on the Independent as a primary source which states “it is clear that Mr Litvinenko made enough enemies in enough places who could now make it on to the list of suspects for what the Yard was last night calling his "unexplained death". Here is the list of the leading players in this drama of politics, theft, money and power. After you read the list ask yourself who had the most to benefit from Litvinenko’s death. You may say Vladimir Putin and I say nonsense. Litvinenko was no more and no less than an annoyance to Putin’s popularity. Then look at the circle of Litvinenko’s friends, sponsors, and benefactors which include Berezovsky the thief, Zakayev the Chechen separatist, Tim Bell the spin doctor, Alex Goldfarb the chemist a great cast for a De Care novel or a movie thriller. Let’s take a look at the cast of characters and see if we can guess who did the deed:
Vladimir Putin: The Russian president was accused by Mr Litvinenko of sanctioning his murder. The Kremlin has rejected the claims, but the death of the former agent will add to the perception that the FSB security service is running an assassination policy.
Mario Scaramella; The Italian academic and KGB expert met Mr Litvinenko at a sushi restaurant on the day he fell ill. There is no suggestion that Mr Scaramella was involved in the poisoning. He said he had met his friend to discuss a death threat aimed at them.
Andrei Lugovoy; The Moscow-based businessman and former KGB bodyguard held a meeting with Mr Litvinenko at a hotel on 1 November. Mr Lugovoy had tea with Mr Litvinenko and two other men. Mr Lugovoy said the meeting had been to discuss business and he had been in London to see a football match.
Boris Berezovsky: The exiled Russian oligarch had become an ally of Mr Litvinenko. Mr Berezovsky, a critic of Mr Putin, is thought to own the house in north London where Mr Litvinenko was living and financed his book, which leveled corruption and murder allegations against the FSB and Kremlin.
Akhmed Zakayev: The former actor and foreign minister of the Chechen government in exile was a visitor to Mr Litvinenko's bedside. The two men were neighbours. He accused the Kremlin of exporting "gangster politics" to London.
Lord Tim Bell: Bell Pottinger Communications, of which Lord Bell is chairman, includes Mr Berezovsky among its clients. The company handled media calls about Mr Litvinenko and arranged for the distribution of photographs taken of him in hospital.
Alex Goldfarb: The biochemist is director of a human rights group set up by Mr Berezovsky in 2000. Mr Goldfarb has put forward the allegation that the Kremlin is responsible for Mr Litvinenko's death.
John Henry: The leading toxicologist claimed that thallium was to blame for Mr Litvinenko's condition. But the hospital said he had made his remarks without seeing test results. The professor said he has withdrawn from the case.
Obviously you have come to the conclusion it was Putin and I ask you where your facts are, but when I look at the cast of characters and who benefited from this I go back to the CIA activities since WWII. In particular I would like you to look at PAPERCLIP operation in 1945 where US recruits Nazis, SS officers, Jew killers: such as Reinhard Gehlen, Alfred Six, Emil Augsburg; Klaus Barbie, and Otto von Bolschwing. I am not saying that the CIA did this but since WWII I can cite hundreds of bogus events created by the CIA to discredit the political rivals of America and I am sure we can find many to attribute to the KGB.
In response to your emotive language where you provide a list of the “bloodiest terrorists of the world” I would like you to take a look at this link which will explain the origin of people that you cite but of course you forgot to mention Ceku, Tachi and the old boy Enver Hoxa and Company
Luca you write that Putin’s policy in the Balkans is not about International Law but about oil pipelines. Just because you claim that Putin’s policy is self serving at least he is not breaking International Law to achieve his objective but signing contracts beneficial to both parties. NATO leaders claim to be enforcing international law while they violate it in the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia in order to secure those same pipeline routs. .
ADRIAN GASHI: Thank you for the link to the Geneva Convention which I have read many times.. Maybe you need to send it to Pristina or Tirana and to every NATO government that has violated this convention in their dismemberment of Yugoslavia. Send it to George Bush Sr. whose economic blockade of Iraq killed over a million Iraqi children; send it to his son who is killing Iraqi civilians by the hundreds every day. Send it to Bill Clinton, Tony Blair whose bombing of Kosovo and Tachi and Ceku whose threats and intimidation forced the population of Kosovo to flee. Just ask the Krasnicki family about the Geneva Convention if you can find any members who are still alive. As a child I remember my peasant mother hiding us in the bush as the Nazis bombed our town. People flee war zones – 4 million Iraqis, 2 million Afghans and in the Kosovo case 1 million fled which included Serbs, Roma, Muslim, Serbs and Albanians of which many fled to Serbia.
You ask “Out of hundreds of thousands that the Serbian government expelled from Kosova, did anyone of them had a fair trial, in which he was condemned to an exile?” ADRIAN GASHI you need to put this question to Clinton, Blair, Ceku and Tachi they know the answer since they were the instrument of these events. You place this blame on Serbia who had nothing to gain from what you write and neglect to ask who benefited from Racak and the refugees. KLA benefited, NATO agenda benefited, you sir benefited and you did not care one iota about your people fleeing as long as your agenda remained intact. If you cared about any of this you would speak out about what is going on in Kosovo today. You cite International Law but support its violation every day as I see that in your posts. Sir this is hypocritical and you know it. Go to this link http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=7&no=364036&rel_no=1 and see why your position is hypocritical.
ADRIAN GASHI you ask me “What are you talking about” in respect of the media outlets.. You write that foreign media to use your word “retransmits” information that they choose. My point is try and get a license to establish a media outlet in America. Good luck! The United States Department of State has Foreign Press Centers in Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles. The Foreign Press Centers support U.S. policies by helping foreign media cover the U.S. Their goal is to promote the depth, accuracy, and balance of foreign reporting from the U.S., by providing direct access to authoritative American information sources.” “Representatives of the foreign media" cannot travel to the United States under the Visa Waiver program, but must seek a "Media I Visa;" a requirement that has deterred many bona fide reporters, writers and filmmakers from making a trip.”
As to my paranoia about NATO destruction of Yugoslavia I have posted on this until cows come home but you Mr. Gashi refuse to question what I write because you are afraid of the answer. Look at the link that I provide above it may enlighten and educate you.
MASSIMO I live just north of the American border and travel often to the United States. American people on the average are wonderful, friendly but extremely ignorant about world event and they are not much better informed about their own nation. Look at my comment to Mtr. Gashi above concerning the Media in America. We could spend our lifetime discussing the Media in America but I am not sure if you have read “Manufacturing Consent” by Michael Parenti which deals with this issue at length.
As to Anna Politkovskaya's “the first thing that comes to mind is that Anna was killed for her professional activities. We don't see any other motive for this terrible crime” {BBC.} I agree with this but I don’t agree with your thesis. What evidence do you have to support your position? I don’t have any to support mine but like in Litvinenko’s case and even in Djindjic’s case nationalists have no conscience, so that is where I place the blame; Have a good day gentlemen.

Nick

pre 16 godina

Canadien,

Actualy i never had any problems, i had a visa from the US Embassy here in Kosova and they let me pass through without any problems.

I was at no time treated like a second class citizen, quite the contrary.

lazer

pre 16 godina

In the SC of UN in New York, China is not going to vote at all.
They will be paying back an old friend who sponsored them to become a UN member 1961, and that is....take a wild guess....Albania!

Stevan

pre 16 godina

"…you do not defend ……. by loosing …"


Hmm, it seems James that military history isn't your thing. Ever heard of Thermopylen?

But back to Serbs and Turks, guess who did Austro Hungarian Empire choose to defend their vulnerable eastern border for centuries?

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

"ADRIAN GASHI: Thank you for the link to the Geneva Convention which I have read many times.. Maybe you need to send it to ..."

No, I sent it to you since you asked for it, and now that you are left with no arguments, you change the subject telling me about George Bush Sr and his Iraqi policies. I understand that you a Socialist and that's fine, but you bring global ideological disputes to a local issue that has nothing to do with them.
You want facts and I'll bring you one. In 1999, there was a gun pointed to my child's face by a SERBIAN police officer, who warned me that I had to leave immediately for Albania if I wanted to see my family live, and he just like you told me to blame Clinton for this. You have the nerve to tell me I benefited from it, who are you, you live thousands of miles away from Kosova, you have probably never been in Kosova, you most likely never even met a Kosovar in your life, and you dare to lecture me? What KLA? There was no KLA whatsoever in Prishtina, there was not even fighting there, so how you explain?
You sir seem to be the typical of the Serb supporters in this site, armchair warriors. How can you possibly be so arrogant!

Nick

pre 16 godina

B92 Mods,

Editing my latest comment was highly innapropriate considering what i was respoding too:

from Canadien:

"By the way how did you like being treated like a second class human being when you arrived at US Customs showing your passport"

Walter

pre 16 godina

ADRIAN GASHI: You say that I asked for the Geneva Convention, but you interpret it selectively and emotionally because of your personal experience which I have no way of verifying. You ask how dare I “lecture you”. I am not lecturing you I am simply asking you questions and I am asking for your evidence which you neglect to answer and provide, while at the same time like a tyrant question “how I dare and how I have a nerve” to point out “your selective memory and morality. You obviously don’t practice what you preach since you forget the bombs thrown into cafés by the KLA in Pristina and other towns in Kosovo that killed children belonging to other mothers and fathers.

Kosovo is all about “global ideological issues” and anyone that does not understand history allows himself/herself to be manipulated in the name of capital. We are all manipulated by nations who have lost the moral imperative in world leadership when they practice tyranny in the Balkans, the Middle East and elsewhere. We as individuals are to blame for this because we are unable or refuse to see the connection between our own experience and the wider world. Many of us judge things from a moment in time without looking at the consequences of our decisions. My arguments are very clear you only need an open mind and some books to understand them.

Yes I have been to Kosovo once and I have met Albanians from Kosovo. Many years ago I met two Albanian laborers in Dubrovnik working on a house under construction. They were uneducated, very poorly paid, poorly dressed and worked long hours for very low pay. I also met Serbs from that region who were uneducated, bare footed and worked for the same exploitive wages. This left a lasting impression on me about the regional economic disparity in Yugoslavia.

While at University in Vancouver I had an Albanian friend whose name was D. Cekli who was short and stocky, one of the toughest men I ever met. It was from him that I learned about Kanun. As young men we used to go to a bar called Oil Can Harry’s and one night the bouncer beat up his brother who only had one arm and when D found out about it he put the bouncer into the hospital. He than followed the ambulance to the hospital pulled the bouncer off the stretcher and almost killed him in the hallway of the hospital. D was sentenced to seven years for this. D is still my friend.

I have met dozen Albanians recently for whom I translated documents so that they could get their driver’s licenses and credential themselves for better jobs. Some are Serbs, some are Croats, some are Muslim Serbs, some are Albanians, many are intermarried and some are simple peasants who thought that they could raise chickens in their apartment. The ones that are intermarried left because of your kind of mentality Mr. Gashi –intolerance and your inability to contemplate anything beyond your own experience and I have no way of knowing if the experience you write about is true, however if it is not true than with people like you on any side of the argument the Balkans will remain very unstable, very chaotic and dangerous for all the families in the region.
One Albanian that I mention above had a nervous breakdown and went back to Serbia because he just could not adjust to the life here. Many men who came from Yugoslavia Serbs, Croat and Muslim who are my age were unable to adjust and had breakdowns

Does this disqualify me from commenting on International Law and Kosovo? In your opinion Mr. Gashi it does since you seem to think that only you are qualified since you claim that your suffering gives you some sort of priority. We all suffered Mr. Gashi! As a young boy I saw my father and seven uncles in a village of five houses killed by Fascist element in which Albania and Kosovo Albanians participated. Half of my family brother and sisters and mother remained in Yugoslavia while I went to Canada to be raised by other relatives. Does this qualify me more to comment on events of WWII than you? Absolutely not! In fact you may be more objective since you did not have the same experience.

Mr. Gashi anger clouds reason and I see this in your post. That was not my intention in asking you for evidence in what you say since emotion is not evidence. Our people and I include you here Mr. Ghasi are an enigma to me. Once in Canada you judge each other on character rather than by ethnicity while over there you kill each other’s children. You fight like cats and dogs in the Balkans but when you come to Canada you search each other out, socialize over coffee, play on the same soccer teams, help each other to find jobs, fix each other’s homes, and hug each other when you greet in the street. It would be wonderful if this was practiced over there.

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

Walter, you are funny, you dismiss my experience (and obviously every testimony given by the refugees to the intl organizations) as something you can not verify and then you proceed in telling your experience, as if that is something I can verify. Yet, on the other hand, you also dismiss the evidence collected during the conflict, by numerous independent organizations (HRW, OSCE, ICTY, Red Cross, Medicine sans frontiere, Amnesty international, UNHCR etc etc) and international monitors (for example about Racak masacre) as a NATO propaganda, and all you can come up with is ... anti-war.com, a Greater Serbian propaganda site par excellence!
Judging from your post, it seems that you are of Serbian heritage, which obviously explains your bias. But if you were interested in the peace and reconciliation between Albanians and Serbs, the worst thing is to deny the monstrous crimes that were very visibly, very publicly and very well documented, committed by the Serbian government.

Let me break it down to you once more.
1 - You say that there were "bombs thrown into cafés by the KLA in Pristina". Bring evidence that any bomb was thrown into a cafe by the time when the mass expulsions occurred in Prishtina.
2 - A bomb thrown into a cafe - even if we were to take your unsubstantiated word for it - does not indicate that a place is a war zone, that warrants a mass exodus of the city's population. In fact it has been well documented that this mass exodus has been caused by the Yugoslav army and police. See below.
3 - The actions of the Yugoslav army and police, namely the killings of thousands of innocent civilians and non-combatants, and the mass expulsions, burning and destroying of property, pillaging etc are in direct violations of the International Law, namely the Geneva conventions. Therefore the Yugoslav government was responsible for breaking the International Law.



http://www.osce.org/odihr/item_11_17755.html - OSCE, as seen as told
http://www.helsinki.org.yu/confront_detail.php?lang=en&idgnrc=691 - Helsinki comitee for human rights in Serbia
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/ - HRW - Under orders
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/fry/ - HRW - RAPE AS A WEAPON OF "ETHNIC CLEANSING"
http://hrw.org/campaigns/kosovo98/reports.shtml - HRW reports archive
http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/kosovoeng.htm - Medicine sans frontiere
http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/p403-e.htm - ICTY, Indictment of Miolesevic
http://www.ideajournal.com/articles.php?id=24 - Kosovo: Orders of Magnitude
http://www.freeserbia.net/Documents/Kosovo/Cleansing3.html - FreeSerbia.net - Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo

Walter

pre 16 godina

I have gone to your links and have found the same old rhetoric, “killings of thousands of innocent civilians and non-combatants, and the mass expulsions, burning and destroying of property, pillaging etc are in direct violations of the International Law,” the inflated numbers, and contradictions that that you write about and others have used to justify what you want today. I agree with you that you cannot verify what I say about my past any more than I can about yours. I can tell you this and again you will not be able to verify this I had a nephew from Niksich who attended a metallurgical school in Kosovo in 1970 who had to leave because of harassment by Albanians. I will place more credence on the scholarly work by Chomsky and others from which I provide quotes and the link http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/eo20070702gc.html than to websites that serve the NATO interests. ).” I do not dismiss out of hand some of the information that you provide nor will I comment on your selection of evidence since much of it is micromanaged by NGO’s attached to NATO, that said, atrocities done to anyone when substantiated the perpetrators need to be brought to account. As Chomsky writes “In Kosovo, in contrast, evidence of terrible crimes can be adduced to provide retrospective justification for the NATO war, on the interesting principle that has been established by the doctrinal system.” He further writes “NATO stepped up its claims about Serb ‘killing fields’" when it "saw a fatigued press corps drifting toward the contrarian story: civilians killed by NATO’s bombs." NATO spokesman Jamie Shea presented "information" that can be traced to KLA-UCK sources. Many of the most lurid and prominently-published atrocity reports attributed to refugees and other sources were untrue, the WSJ concludes. Meanwhile NATO sought to deny its own atrocities, for example, by releasing a falsified videotape "shown at triple its real speed" to make it appear that "the killing of at least 14 civilians aboard a train on a bridge in Serbia last April" was unavoidable because "the train had been travelling too fast for the trajectory of the missiles to have been changed in time."
Chomsky quotes the The Wall Street Journal “The "most serious incidents" reported by the ICRC in December are clashes along the FRY-Albanian border, and "what appear to be the first deliberate attacks on public places in urban areas." The UN Inter-Agency Update (December 24) identifies these as an attempt by armed Albanians to cross into Kosovo from Albania, leaving at least 36 armed men dead, and the killing of six Serbian teenagers by masked men spraying gunfire in a cafe in the largely Serbian city of Pec. The next incident is the abduction and murder of the deputy mayor of Kosovo Police, attributed by NATO to the KLA-UCK (327). Then follows a report of "abductions attributed to the KLA." The UN Secretary-General’s report (December 24) reviews the same evidence, citing the figure of 282 civilians and police abducted by the KLA as of December 7 (FRY figures
You speak of Albanian virtue and Serbian collective guilt when only individuals can be guilty or innocent of crimes that they are charged with. My problems with your comments sir are that you protect your child while you are silent when Serbian and Albanian children were killed. Anyone capable of loving his child must love all children equally. I don’t trust you sir when you provide evidence of refugee camps here and killings there but you close your eyes to the plight of refugees and the killings of innocent persons who belong to your adversaries, including Albanians who opposed the KLA.

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

Walter, to substantiate your claims, I asked you to "Bring evidence that any bomb was thrown into a cafe by the time when the mass expulsions occurred in Prishtina."

So, I guess you have no evidence, then. No PRIMARY documentation?

I rest my case!

Walter

pre 16 godina

MR. GASHI so you rest your case? I did not realize that this was a trial and that we were in some sort of “I got him now game”. You claim that anti-war.com, is “a Greater Serbian propaganda site par excellence!” This is the most respected bog in America that will print Albanian material in equal proportion to material dealing with all world issues. You must have come to this conclusion that this is a Serbian blog since Nebjisa Malic writes occasional articles here. You have every opportunity to refute Mr. Malic’s evidence but that will be a task like bringing the mountain to Mohammed. What is most interesting here is you pointing to a blog as bogus evidence rather than the scholars that I cited in one of my comments. You are grasping at straws sir just like the evidence that you provide.

The evidence that you provide would have been thrown out in any Canadian court of law. I am using the example of the court of law since you seem to think that this discussion is some sort of trial. Since I am unable to replay the TV clips (PRIMARY EVIDENCE) of the after effects of bombs thrown by your compatriots into Cafes in Kosovo including Pristina that I saw with my own eyes on western media outlets, I provide evidence of others which you can find at the following link. http://www.globalresistance.com/analysis/spin.htm

The above evidence is substantiated by many scholars and it tends to be more believable than your web pages which educated people know serve an agenda of American Global expansion. You also skim over Chomsky’s (Google Chomsky if you are unfamiliar with his work) analysis where he writes about the “killing of six Serbian teenagers by masked men spraying gunfire in a cafe in the largely Serbian city of Pec” None of the material that you provide is PRIMARY. Similarly much of the material that I provide is not primary but SECONDARY. The worst type of evidence is found on the web and we are all guilty of using it, however, I tend to rely on scholarly analysis which I don’t find in your evidence. Here is my SECONDARY evidence Jane’s Defense Review where you can find the KLA's strategy:” Do you recall the spate of KLA terrorist bombings in December of '98 and January of '99? Serbian civilians were blown up as they sipped a drink in Pristina cafes [---] the KLA has assassinated many ordinary Serbian civilians because that was their strategy over the past 20 months.”

You further put a question to me “Walter I asked you to "Bring evidence that any bomb was thrown into a cafe by the time when the mass expulsions occurred in Prishtina” but neglect to tell us when this started while you play a game with dates. Maybe the above answer will not suffice, however I have put dozens of questions to you which you have not answered but asked “how dare I” question your assertions of the “mass exodus, innocent civilians, killing of thousands, and monstrous crimes,” a true language of a propagandist who dares others to ask him questions.

Again for your information people leave war zones or about to become war zones, and like the Japanese Times reports the exodus was also KLA induced. Kosovo was not a special case since every war zone produces refugees, you only need to look at Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Chechnya to name a few. You are dishonest sir if you are unable to see why a Serb Muslim Kosovo resident who now lives in my town sent his wife and children to Serbia as NATO was ready to attack. Can you see why he would do that and he said hundreds of his neighbors did the same thing? I am waiting for your answer sir? Instead of daring me to ask the question answer mine just like you request that I answer yours.

Ahmet Isufi

pre 16 godina

The last basttle between US and serbia,as I remeber it was serbia who suroundered and packed up and left Kosova.This time around I will not call it a battle at all, becasue there is no need for any battle since serbia does not rule Kosova. Therefore , I have no idea what Koshutinca is talking about.

Avni Gjoni

pre 16 godina

Kostunica calling for justice… Lets start with justice within the country and then we can talk about justice…
1 War criminals,
2 nondiscrimination against local non Serbs in Serbia,
3 pay back all the money taken by the Albanians taken from Kosovo banks, in the early 90s,
4 pensions for all the Albanians since the 90s.
5 Giving back all the land that was expropriated from the Albanians, that was never paid by the Serbian state.

1997
1998
1999 three years of military violence exercised by the STATE against civil population.



Well now we can talk about justice…

Long live Albania

Princip, UK

pre 16 godina

Ahmet, Nikshala,

if I am not mistaken but the reality is Vidovdan is being celebrated in the Serbian province of Kosovo & Metohija!

You keep believing in the US but you can't deny the State you are in and you will only progress when you learn to "conform to it" and accept the state you are in.

nikshala

pre 16 godina

Its quite funny how all of the sudden Serbia has 'turned' into this 'peacful' country (ingoring the fact that Radicals are most popular party) that promotes justice, internatinal law, is against use of force etc etc.

Thats like a convicted rapist who has not served his sentence yet, has not acknowledged his crime or apologised, preaching to women about law and his legal rights.

Dardan

pre 16 godina

Vojo sounds like someone did around the same time 20 years ago.

Hopefully this will not be followed by a decade of violence, death and destruction like the last time in the name of the Heavenly Serbian Nation.

Loznicanin

pre 16 godina

If you (Albanians) were going to get independence as you want it, you would have got it by now. The fact is it will take a different form. So back down and start talking, otherwise it can only get worse as it gets protracted. Lets be realistic and stop using the word Kosovar's, it's pathetic as this doesn't exist!

Nick

pre 16 godina

When all else fails he retreats to victim hood. Kostunica’s description of the ‘battle’ between the US (brute power) and Serbia (justice) is yet another example of how much myths influence Serbian politics even today.

When reading the article, one can not help but wonder if he took his speech from the parts on the Battle of Kosovo in the notorious www.kosovo.com.

Serbs in general have to destroy their myths and for once perceive themselves as they really are (a real factor in the Balkans) rather then constantly hang on to ‘victimhood’ as their justification for any and all measures. It was precisely this sense of victimhod that caused the Yugoslav wars, fueled by politicians on all sides but by Milosevic particularly.

laki bani

pre 16 godina

The transformation is a human characteristic that function when an individual encounters factors which impact the need to change, either in one or another way. I don’t know what do you all think, but I am happy to see the one who is preaching in so nonviolent manner. Recall a few years ago, the same man had waggled AK (Kalashnikov) as a gesture of a strong determination to use that "thing" if Albanians disobey Milosevic’s democracy. That’s for I am little bit confused, but happy that he is so adhered to the law, no matter if national or international it was.
To be honest, in his place I wouldn’t dear to be so direct in my speeches, unless I was 100 % sure that I am right.
By the way, Avni Gjoni I agree with you.

Dragan

pre 16 godina

Very well said Vojo! 'Power vs. Justice' - that is exactly what we have here. David vs. Goliath. David is going to win this one. The so called 'unity' in Europe is alredy cracking and will soon fall completely apart, with the US and UK the only backers of creating a greater albania.
For all those albanians who insist that they are already independent - let me ask you a few questions: Where is your seat in the UN? Where is your flag and national anthem? Where is your soccer team? Where is your national currency? Look on any map and show me where your country is? Resolution 1244 clearly states that Kosovo is Serbia and Serbia is Kosovo, and that was signed by your beloved americans and brits. You guys are dreaming in technicolour if you think you have a country. Oh and Happy Vidovdan!!

Joe

pre 16 godina

This very worried looking Kostunica could undertake few importent steps to promote justice in Serbia by arresting all the war criminals and allowing more autonomy in Vojvodina, stopping discrimination against the biggest still remaining minority in Serbia, the Hungarians.

Christine

pre 16 godina

Have just been looking at historical maps of Serbia and Albania.
Kosovo is included in Serbian territory back as far as 1169.
If people of Kosovo want to live in an Albanian country than move to Albania.
Otherwise if you are born in Kosovo are you Serbian.

laki bani

pre 16 godina

Yes, happy Vidovadan Balkanians, the day when Coalition of the Balkanian nations had tried something, but unfortunately failed.

Nele

pre 16 godina

Avni what’s all this nonsense about a pension for an Albanian isn’t that the job of Albania. I am sure that if you went to Belgrade took out your Serbian citizenship and contributed to the wealth building of Serbia you too will be eligible for a pension. As far as taking money out of Kosovo Banks I thought Alabamians savings account were under their beds.

Long Live Serbia and all who live in her including Serbs with an Albanian heritage living peacefully in KOSOVO.

Ahmet Isufi

pre 16 godina

Dragan, don't ypou know that Switzerland was not a UN mmeber untill resantly and that was no obstcile to that country, and also look at Taiwan is managing without UN seat.
I got some news for Princip and others, regarding todays celebration, as follows; serbs from Osejane refused to go to gazimestan to celebrate , istead they decided to stay put in Osejane and celebrate right there. Oh, not even 300 people gathered at gazimestan. I wonder WHY.

kate

pre 16 godina

Avni: "Long live Albania"

Are you moving there? I can't imagine what 'Long Live Albania' has to do with an argument for an independent Kosovo.

Nick

pre 16 godina

Christine,

1. The Serbian Kingdom/State was born in Raska NOT Kosova, and the importance of Kosova only begins with the church contruction program of the Nemanjic dynasty.

2. For hundreds of years the territory of Kosova was a Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire and rarely if at all had administrative links with Serbia.

3. Kosova was anexed by Serbia in 1913.

4. Kosova has remain a part of Serbia since then, with various level of autonomy, the highest of which was the one provided by the 1974 constitution, which gave Kosova and Voivodina all the competencies of a Republic without actualy saying so.

You need to read those maps again.

louie

pre 16 godina

Dear,Mr.Serbian Prime Minister,the "battle"for Kosova/o has been lost in 1999.And then power(Serbia)lost against justice(now foreign power).
Your previous government "gambled"Kosova/o,
they were greedy,they wanted all.
This days you are offering to Kosovan Albanians greater autonomy,but you really never gave us the details of what you really mean by that!!!
Today in Gazimestan we saw Serbs wearing T-shirts with the picture of Ratko Mladic,some of them they had T-shirts with "PAT"or "RAT"which means "WAR until we get freedom".Some of you may say that these are not provocations but I disagree.Kosovan Albanians have suffered enough.Kosovan Serbs are suffering because of politics from Belgrade.
I condemn again what happened in 2004,,but you are forgetting what happened to Kosovan Albanians in 1998 and 1999.Sometimes you make fun of numbers of victims,that is sad.Attrocities happened on both sides.We have to remember them and should all condemn what's happened.
Now you as Serbian Prime Minister you should come up with something more concrete and tell to Kosovan People what you have to offer even though I think personally that you are a bit late!!!

Joe

pre 16 godina

Christine,

If you are by the old maps than you should also notice that Hungary extended up to present day Belgrade starting the XXI century. So there is history and current reality.
Concerning your approach to wanting to send Kosovars to Albania: please try to be more moderate. Time to be arrogant with Albanians is long gone.

Mike

pre 16 godina

I have to say reading the excerpts from Kostunica's speech here made him sound like a true populist: "we" are struggling against "them". "We" have always strived for peace, while "they" want to destroy us. I'm not one to usually lend my voice to the choir of Serb critics, but it did have an eerie ring to speeches and proclamations made under the Milosevic era.

All the same, if Polt wanted to be sincere in his message of friendship, tangible actions reinforcing an acknowledgement of Serbian sensitivities in Kosovo could and should be followed. In any event, it seems politicians are more concerned with sound bytes than actual substance these days.

nikshala

pre 16 godina

Christine

Thanks for reminding me of my nationality, and since you said it, i might just consider moving to Albania!!!

These serbian historical claims are so flawed, they are quite enteraining.

Even by serbian nationlistic mythology, kosova was "lost" in 1389 and then "liberated" in XX century, so how could Kosova be part of serbia withing that period and in the maps, if it was lost?

If you want to base it on maps, than turks have more claim to Kosova than the serbs, since they occupied for 5 centuries, unlike Serbia for only 2.5 centuries overall.

So from the birth of Christ (20 centuries) Kosova was only part of the Serbian state for around 2.5 century!!!!

All this is irrelevant anyway, since the very idea of analyzing what happened hundred of years ago to dictate the life of 2 million people now, is wrong and illogical.

adi

pre 16 godina

interesting threats from serbian politicians: mr. duric is threatening the US to give up supporting the kosova’s independence, otherwise they will lose something very precious, the serbian friendship!!! this is absolutely ridiculous! serbs still dream that they are divine people. statements like this confirm that serbian regime has not changed anything since milosevic’s regim. it is the same mentality, even though the political context is different now.

dear neighbors, you are totally unmasked now.

now that serbian regime threatened the US to give up from supporting the kosova's independence, or they will lose the serbian freindship, they will immediately behave accordingly. i am sure that the us will be missing a lot the serbian friendship.

kosova’s statehood is unstoppable. not that much because americans like us, but above all, there is no any other solution that would bring stability in this region. am sure mr. kalashnikov & co are absolutely aware of this. the hatred, old political culture, national chauvinism, old mental maps prevent them admit the reality.

cheers

Zoran

pre 16 godina

Hello, we (US) are your friends, we don't want to fight you, this is just a difference of opinion. Your (Serbia's) silly opinion is that Kosovo, Serbia's historical heartland should stay Serbian, and our (US) infallible opinion is that the Serbian province of Kosovo should be forcefully torn from you and given to a people that will better serve US global ambitions. Oh, and forget the fact that we bombed the snot out of you 8 years ago for reasons that were fabricated, stop fighting us! Sincerely, Your super great friend and ally the United States of America. PS; forget about the fact that we are also occupying part of your country because in our opinion it belongs to Albania. Who needs Russia when the Serbs have an ally like the US?

Nick

pre 16 godina

After a conference in Grand Hotel here in Prishtina i was returning to work this morning, i could hear a women’s voice from a van of one of the political organizations here promoting “independence now”, i think it was Albin Kurti’s Vetvendosja Movement, but i cant be sure.

Anyways, who the van belonged to is irrelevant compared to what she was saying. In a very emotional speech she was inviting the citizens of Prishtina to a massive protest that will be held in the next few days.

Behind the van there were two Kosova Police Service cars, and the look on the policemen’s faces was a very worried one. Last time this happened it was followed by a protest where two young people were killed.

Most people stopped to listen to her on the roadsides with almost emotionless expressions on their face; it seemed as if though at that moment everyone asked themselves one question, “what am i going to do? Will i just sit buy and let people postpone my future forever or should i join these people and be what it may?”

These were normal people, shopkeepers, salesmen, and people going to work or going to have a coffee in one of the many bars in Prishtina.

But the most terrifying thing of all was the absolute silence.

I hope whatever decision is made is made soon and satisfies those people on the roadsides or this whole thing will explore and we will all lose.

massimo

pre 16 godina

Kostunica wants to keep 2 millions Albanians in Serbia.
So it is time for Belgrade to start planning how to rule Kosovo again and to give back what Belgrade stole (money in the banks for example).
Serbia should also vote a new constitution since the 22% at least of its citizens did not have the chance to participate in the referendum for the constitution approval.

james

pre 16 godina

I am beginning to realize that many here post bizarre comments in spite of Albanians in Kosovo. How else can one interpret comments like "if I am not mistaken but the reality is Vidovdan is being celebrated in the Serbian province of Kosovo & Metohija!" coming from Princip. If not spite than what else?

However a statesmen like Mr. Kostunica to talk gibberish about a new heavenly battle being waged between USA and Serbia for Kosovo tops everything I have managed to read today about the marking of the Battle of Kosovo this year. May I add that this kind of behavior is only damaging to Serbia and its people and that this person is irrational at best and who knows what at worst. Next I am expecting him to name who is Vuk Brankovic, as it appears he has proclaimed himself as Lazar (I bet Car Lazar is turning on his grave from all this).

All I can suggest is for you all to read the Serb section of this site and comments that many Serb in Serbian have written about Mr. Kostunica's statements. A sad state of affairs is this that this man has led his nation into.

In the end for many of revisionists on this site, you do not defend Christianity by loosing wars. And this war was a war between a coalition of Balkan nations and Ottomans, not Serbs alone against Ottomans. Stop hijacking history to suit your interests. Janos Hunyadi of Hungary, Count Dracula of Romania and Scanderbeg in Albania did more to stop Ottomans advances in Europe and protect Christianity and won wars for that matter and nobody is making a big deal out if it. At least I did not hear of great celebrations or events to mark these victories. If one would follow your way of thinking e.g. in 1443 Hunyadi defeated Ottomans in Serbia, does that mean Serbia belongs to Hungary now? It appears that Hungarians have a stronger case to make here. You know they won the battle. Don’t you agree?

massimo

pre 16 godina

Christine,
there are maps showing that Western Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East were united under Rome.
So, please, All of you, submit to Italy!!!!!!!!

Walter

pre 16 godina

Kosovo is between knowledge and disaster. Many of you use emotion over knowledge which is an attempt to inflame rather than see the other point of view. I believe in the rule of law. My government in Canada is a partner in subversion of International Law. I believe in the rule of law because my country educated me to believe that without it we descend into anarchy. My government in Canada is hostile to my people and here I include all those who lived in Yugoslavia. My government is hypocritical in that they support international law selectively. Some years ago my government rebuked France, when Charles De Gaulle stood at a window in Quebec City and said “vive la Quebec libre” .The Prime Minister of the day rebuked France for their disregard of international protocol and interference in the internal affairs of Canada. What Kostunica did here is no different.
All of you and I have done that in some of my posts as well, see events from the past as a right to violate the rule of law, due process and international protocol when it suits you. History is present and the future and you cannot create a sustainable peace in the future by violating the present. Your comments Serbs did this Albanians did that is an appeal to the base side of human nature a tool used by propagandists throughout history. Once the propaganda machine plants this base element into the population they start to use the same method in dealing with their neighbor and the propagandist has achieved his/her goal. The only thing that will reverse this process is knowledge. You need to ask yourself are we better off with international law or without it? Should international law apply to me and not to my neighbor? Is it fair that nations apply international law selectively? How will this decision affect world peace? The most important question that we all need to ask is who benefits from this? Once you have answered these questions honestly I am not sure if you will be any wiser but I am sure you will be more knowledgeable and hopefully more honest with yourself.

massimo

pre 16 godina

Walter,
does the International Law conceive that a people could not decide its own fate?
Does the International Law protect the basic human rights?
Does the International Law admit that an external power could intervene in a country to protect people from aggression and genocide or, if the UN Security Council does not give its authorisation, everybody should be a spectator of any terrible event that could happen (see Rwanda for example)?

Jim

pre 16 godina

It is sad to see Serbia still resorting to this kind of rhetoric. Worst of all, civilized world thinks other Balkan nations are the same. Serbia started these wars by whipping up paranoia among its people [everybody is out to get them -- US, Vatican, Free Masons, New World Order..] That's sad, given that Serbia was the most advanced E European nation in the sixities and seventies. I don't know how this will end, but one thing is sure and that's Serbia's recovering from hangover will last for decades.

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

Walter, your international law is worthless to me since it failed to protect the lives of thousands of innocent civilians, and it was used instead to justify mass murder. To me such a law is not worth the paper it is written on. Kosova will be independent!

Cvele

pre 16 godina

Adrian
What we use to justify 99 is ur terrorist attacks. The law simply states Kosovo is Serbia and Serbia is Kosovo. You can ignor it all you want. The law outweighs your opinion.
There is no diffrence to what KLA did with its terrorist attacks in KOSOVO and what the Al Quaida did in New York in 2001.
My answer to your question A.

Joe

pre 16 godina

Walter,

This is the XXI century. You are too late to sell the serbian interpretation of international law or "international law a la serbe.

Cvele

pre 16 godina

James


Here is the battle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kosovo

B92 allow me to educate him since he belives Europe fought when they sold themselves out down the river. Meanwhile Serbs fought for what they believed in then as they do NOW.

There is no nation that deserves as much praise as Serbia does for the sacrifices of its people and what they believed in and fought for. We have fought off countless opressors while albanians croats and the rest have conformed.

CCCC

johny

pre 16 godina

I, as an Albanian, want to thank Mr. Kostunica for his speech directed against the US. I am very grateful to his rhetoric and I would like to encourage him again to keep these kind of speeches coming. I also like to thank him because after I asked for more anti-American rants last week he did not disappoint me this week.
Thank you Mr. Kostunica for doing so much for the Albanian cause.

ved

pre 16 godina

No, no. Polt is completelly right.
United States was a friend of Serbia and had no intention of engaging in any kind of battle with Serbia or its citizens.
"There is no battle, fight or anger between the two countries, there are simply differences of opinion over some issues,”
Absolutelly right.
"The United States aims to help all the citizens of Serbia achieve their dreams."
Yes, Mr. Polt. Even as a small child, my dream was to have independant Kosovo. My side dreams were to have Serbia's economy and infrastructure destroyed, to have my teenaged causin crippled by the cluster bomb, and to be undemployed.
US is doing what it can to make all these dreams come true.
Your efforts around the globe are not without their awards.
There are groups of people who are equally kind to Americans as you are with Serbs.
Just look at 9/11.
Just remember they are your friends. There is no battle, fight or anger between the two of you, there are simply differences of opinion over some issues.
Did Polt say something else? I don't know, I was too bussy looking East where our real friends are.

Brian Doyle

pre 16 godina

Kostunica is stating the obvious, and Polt is stating the absurd.

Polt says that the United States is Serbia's "friend" eventhough the United States wants to steal 15% of Serbia's territory and give it to a billigerent ethnic minority. In Polt's mind this is just a "difference of opinion".

With friends like that who needs enemies?

Kostunica isn't paranoid, he's stating the obvious. He isn't immagining that the U.S. wants to steal Kosovo and give it to the Albanians. The U.S. has said, in the most official way possible, that it wants to do that. That's why Bush got the hero's welcome in Albania.

Jovan

pre 16 godina

to Nick:

you could have broken the silence by saying, come on folks, let´s compromise, it´s the best we can reach.

otherwise if the situation "explodes" as you want to suggest..it is clear that Albanians will lose the little bit of goodwill they had anyway.

so, come to reason and start doing something productive for your own future.

for all non-albanian readers here who wanna read some unbiased info:

www.kosovocompromise.com

Walter

pre 16 godina

Yes Massimo, Jim and Adrian part of International Law is human rights. Provide me with PRIMARY documentation how international law was violated in the breakup of Yugoslavia and WHO violated it. Look at your post gentlemen. The following words from your post: aggression and genocide, terrible event, whipping up paranoia, hangover, and international law is worthless, Rwanda for example, thousands of innocent civilians, and mass murder is your evidence.

Yes gentlemen these were terrible events and innocent people were hurt but if you submitted these comments as evidence for your thesis to a grade nine teacher in any social setting be they in Serbia, Albania or Italy you would get a failing grade. You gentlemen have been influenced by the way NATO propaganda is limited to only a few cardinal points, conceived entirely for the masses and tirelessly repeated and you have been convinced since now you echo their sentiments.

NATO and America in particular promote their vision of the world by aiming their propaganda at the masses in their home country and use CNN to sell it world wide. USA does not allow foreign broadcasting agencies on their soil. Ask yourself why?

America and some NATO members aim this propaganda at the emotion of the masses rather than their intellect and they target the intellectual level of the most limited in the audience and it is designed so that the bigger the audience, the lower the intellectual level of the message..

Hitler used this effectively “The intellectual capacity of the broad masses is only very limited, their understanding small, their forgetfulness on the other hand great. As a result of these three facts every effective propaganda has to be limited to only a very few points and to repeat these slogans until every last person is able to picture what is intended by a particular word. As soon as this basic principle is sacrificed for the sake of comprehensiveness, the effect will be dissipated, as the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered to them.”

These same phrases and words that you use have been used ad-nausea to destabilize Yugoslavia as they have been used to invade Iraq. The working people are being used and it never fails to amaze me how easily the working class marches to a tune of government propaganda echoed by their paid media outlets.

Most of the people who post here have no primary reference to what they write. They just take a little bit of truth and then they mix it with untruth, or their nationalistic theory as espoused by their media outlets, and they present this as fact, and those who are intellectually lazy believe it? Bush's lies as well as some of the comments that you post here rely on repetition. The media in Bush’s case is his echo chamber. Your echo chamber gentlemen are the like minded posters who use emotive language to persuade like the phrases that I site. This gentlemen is the fundamental tenet of propaganda. “The Nazis practiced it. If I repeat a lie long enough, people will believe it. Hitler even said the bigger the lie, the better. People expect you to tell little lies, but they never expect you to be so audacious as to tell a big lie, because that's something they don't do themselves, so they're more likely to believe a big lie than a little one.” The BIG LIE on Kosovo is that this is a special case and international law will not be compromised, which all of you know is nonsense.

Canadien

pre 16 godina

Nick the maps you read are only published and read in Pristina and no where else in the world. You need to get out and see the world, oh wait! You can't because you have thrown out your Serbian passport and your UN passport is not accepted in many countries, getting a visa is hard with one of those temporary passports. It is time that the Albanins accept the facts and move forward in developing a future for their children if not for themselves.

Konstantin Gregovic

pre 16 godina

RE: Albanian Propoganda

(1) Raska Is Kosovo
(2) Raska (Kosovo) Zeta (Montenegro) first founding nations of Serbia.

(3) King Lazar was the prince of the Serbs and was the leader of the coaltion that fought the Ottoman Turks-why deny that Serbs comprised the largest nobles who faught against the Ottomans. Why deny that Albanians were fighting against the Serbs in most cases with the Ottomans.

(4) The Rule of Law shall prevail as set forth in the Serbian Constitution and now guaranteed by Russia.

(5) Kosovo is led by the KLA terrorist, Agim Ceku.

(6) What does John Hunyadi have to do with Kosovo? He is honored by both Serbs and Hungarians as a great historical figure and liberated Belgrade.

(7) Fascists Admiral Horthy (Hungary) Adolf Hitler(Germany) and Ante Pavelic (Croatia) Envar Hodza (Albania) are not honored as heroes by the mentally sane.

(8) Kosovo was under the Ottoman empire, never under Albania.

(9) Kosovo was annexed in 1913, the population between Serbs and Albanians was 50%.

(10) Albanians were the gatekeepers of the Serbian Orthodox Church, some still are.

(11) Many Albanians civilians were protected by the Decani Monastery while being chased by Serbian Extremist Paramilitaries. Fr. Sava would protected tham and would not release them.

(12) Hacquim Thaci is another KLA terrorist.

(13) Illyrians are not Albanians, Croatians, Hungarians, Serbians, Macedonians, Greeks-no proof exists on the descendants.

Albanians have a better chance of being descendands of Avars or the Huns than Illyria.

On Vidovdan, Slobodan Milosevic was illegally arrested and shipped to the Hague Tribunal.

On Vidovdan in 1915, Belgrade was relieved by the Serbian Army and the Austro-Hungarian army was driven back to Vienna.

On Vidovdan, 1389 Tsar Lazar died on the battlefield along with Sultan Murat, the Turkish leader. The Ottoman Turks did not move forward but had to stop and pause for Murat's burial.

For Six Hundred Year's of Ottoman Occumpation, Serbia celebrated Vidovdan, a few years under illegal Albanian rule wont' stop the truth.

Long live Kosovo & Metohia,
Happy St.Vitus Day

Walter

pre 16 godina

Mr. Luca, Mr. Luca please read and educate yourself.. Assassination is a tool used for centuries by all sides. Read the recent declassified documents from the CIA. They read like a Mafia hit movie. You don’t know who killed Litvanenko, and the hit may well be on orders from Moscow but the people that have the most to gain are those who wish to discredit the new direction in Russia’s foreign and domestic policy, particularly the Oligarchs who stole billions and USA and Britain who now need to deal with a real leader .
Luca let me tell you another story that just emerged from Uzbekistan. I will assume that you know where Uzbekistan is and its role in the oil industry, proximity to Afghanistan as well as that it is an ‘‘authoritarian’’ state with a ''very poor'' human rights record. Uzbekistan under its leader Karimov, reminds me of Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, Recently the British Attaché to Uzbekistan complained to Blair and Bush that the Uzbek government was torturing political opponent and in fact he had evidence that they have placed opponents into boiling water and boiled several opponents alive. The answer from Blair was that the Attaché was too aggressive in defending Human Rights and dismissed the man on the spot. Get my point Luca?

Nick

pre 16 godina

Canadien,

In fact, i have visited the US just recently with that same UNMIK passport you believe will not get me anywere.

Serbia will not rule Kosova.

Serbia will not retain sovreignty over Kosova.

That is our promise to you.

What you fail to understand is that we have been through this before, and we are ready to go through it again in order to protect our children from the likes of Milosevic and Kostunica.

The minimum we will get is the Partition of Kosova. So either way WE WIN.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

RE; Rebuttal for the rebuked

Christine,

1. The Serbian Kingdom/State was born in Raska NOT Kosova, and the importance of Kosova only begins with the church contruction program of the Nemanjic dynasty.


RASKA IS KOSOVO


2. For hundreds of years the territory of Kosova was a Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire and rarely if at all had administrative links with Serbia.

Kosovo was occupied by the Ottoman Turks after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389-Vilayet or whatever you want' to call it, it was occupied under Turkey, Ottoman Empire, not Albania, not Iraq, not Croatia.

3. Kosova was anexed by Serbia in 1913.

Kosovo was indeed annexed by Serbia after 600 years of Ottoman dominance.

4. Kosova has remain a part of Serbia since then, with various level of autonomy, the highest of which was the one provided by the 1974 constitution, which gave Kosova and Voivodina all the competencies of a Republic without actualy saying so.

Kosovo was part of Serbia UNTIL 1974 when Tito allowed autonomy along with Vojvodina.




You need to read those maps again.
(Nick, 28 June 2007, 15:52)

I think it's the other way around. You need to go back to school.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

The battle is also between unjustice and justice, between right and wrong.
(Victor K., 28 June 2007, 13:00)

How inciteful, do you still own a black and white TV?

The CIA against the Geneva conventions set out to assasinate Cuban Prime Minister , Fidel Castro. Now, do you understand why Russian PM Kuruchev(s) was banging his show at the UN?

The CIA also set up a bounty on Milosevic head also during the NATO illegal bombing of Yugoslavia.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

300 people gathered to celebrate Vidovdan.... It must have been a good sight from half a million 17 years ago.
(John 2, 28 June 2007, 13:26)

The KLA did a good job of Ethnic Cleansing.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

Thats like a convicted rapist who has not served his sentence yet, has not acknowledged his crime or apologised, preaching to women about law and his legal rights.
(nikshala, 28 June 2007, 13:19)

Funny how the convicted rapist KLA Terrorist Agim Ceku is a the leader of so called Kosovo.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

Serbs in general have to destroy their myths (Nick, 28 June 2007, 13:40)

The only myth is that Kosovo is, was and every will be Albanian.

konstantin gregovic

pre 16 godina

Walter,
does the International Law conceive that a people could not decide its own fate? (massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)

The UN charter was created in 1946 with protocals including provisions of self determination, not destruction and revolution.

Does the International Law protect the basic human rights?(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)

The constitution and rule of law which was firmly written into the Yugoslav constitution. This was compromised when Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia declared indpendance without as the Yugoslav chamber was deadlocked at four votes a piece representing each of the federations and autonomies including Vojvodina and Kosovo & Metohija.

Does the International Law admit that an external power could intervene in a country(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)


Both the UN and NATO charter cannot invade another country unless attacked by that sovereign nation. That is why the NATO and UN bombing of Yugoslavia broke international law.

...to protect people from aggression and genocide or, (massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)


There is a difference between Genocide and Civil war, Rwanda was a Genocide, Yugoslavia was a civil war.

if the UN Security Council does not give its authorisation, everybody should be a spectator(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)


The western nations were spectators as NATO killed over 1000 Yugoslav civlians, dropped Uranium Depleted bombs and illegal cluster bombs, broke several Geneva conventions including targeting civilian infrastructure(telecommunications/oil/electric/radio stations/civilians/embassies)


of any terrible event that could happen (see Rwanda for example)?(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)


Stop talking nonsense and try to discover what really happened in the former Yugoslavia.
(massimo, 28 June 2007, 18:07)

jerseyshore

pre 16 godina

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erion-veliaj/washington-shouldnt-be-f_b_53869.html

Good post Walter. Above is a link about life in Albania, written by a young Albanian citizen. Read the comments too, quite informative.

johny

pre 16 godina

I read almost all the posts here regarding to Kosovo/a from both sides Serbs and Albanians. Sometimes I wonder after I read posts from the Serbs If I am really reading from a European media. So much hatred towards the US and the West. I wander how much different it would be reading from an Iranian media lets say.
If I were a Serb I would be worried by people who see the US and Western Europe as their enemies; with that kind of attitude Kosovo/a is lost for sure. Instead of playing it smooth they put Kostunica there who with a couple of sentences undoes all the work and diplomatic effort of Tadic, who seems to be a lot more effective than Kostunica or any other Serb politician out there. I mean one has to be so naive and a complete fool not to understand that Serbia and the Serbs don't need to do much to convince Russia. That is in your pocket. However out of naivety or foolishness some Serbian politicians, such as Kostunica, and the Serbian public instead of trying to bring the other side closer(US and Western Europe),and trying to convince them, they threaten them and treat them as if they were some weak enemies which "strong" Serbia can easily defeat, can do without them and can easily disregard them.
As an Albanian, of course I am pleased to see this happening. I want this kind of attitude to remain there for a couple of more months until the Kosovo/a issue is closed, after that nobody will care anymore. As an Albanian I am glad Serbia has politicians such as Kostunica, I am glad the Radical party won the majority of votes, I am glad when international media shows large crowds of Serbian people backing Milosevic,Karadzic, and Mladic. I am glad when Serbian leaders such as Kostunica who in the world, lets be truthful here, is the leader of a small insignificant country, tries to play the role of the tough guy and bully the US and its allies by threatening them. I am glad when I see Kostunica and other Serb politicians refer to Albanians as terrorists. I am glad to see how Serbia each day pushes the US and the West away from them. This is very good for us, because each time this happens it proves our point, that because of the Serbian leaders and population attitudes towards us, and the West it is impossible to live under Serbia. We say this once, Kosunica proves it a hundred times; and for that service that he is doing for our cause I want to thank him again, and I want to thank all of those who think like him, even the average Joes out there such Jovan, Princip, Dragan, Cvele, Kate, Blacky,Walter, Kostantin Gregovic etc. Pardon me if I left anyone out. I also invite all of these people I mentioned above to write in the same style and manner here and in many other forums, to write in the same style and manner and push the Serbian politicians into taking a stronger stance against the US and its allies. I hope people like Mike will continue not to have a strong voice, and remain a minority in the Serbian politics and public for the near future.

Boriska

pre 16 godina

The United States aims to help all the citizens of Serbia achieve their dreams...we are your friends, not your enemies,” Polt concluded.
---------------------------
Gee, that really reminds that old comic movie - "Mars Attacks". Remember ? Main Marsian trick there was to keep repeating "we are your friends ! we come with peace ! we are to help you !" while shooting their ray guns at unsuspecting Earthlings. I can just imagine Polt in alien spacesuit...yeah sure, he is here to help you guys, keep dreaming. Isn't it interesting how Hollywood movies can influence Washington foreign policy thinking.

S. Harris

pre 16 godina

The battle for Kosovo is America's attempt at getting away with rape, with US ambassador Michael Polt insisting that; but we are friends, it won't hurt, just love me.
Kostunica is correct, when he states, we do have a battle of force/power over law.
Whatever the internal problems of a sovereign state such as Serbia, it must be solved from within, otherwise a precedent will be set to rip countries apart.

Luca

pre 16 godina

Walter, your effort to patronize me doesn't constitute an argument. The whole world knows who killed Litvinenko, because he made it public himself, no one better than him could've possibly known the intrigues and the risks to his life. He was a smart man, a lieutenant-colonel and deputy head of the Seventh Section of the FSB, a man that knew a lot about Putin and the way he operated and by taking him out so publicly, Putin told effectively everyone else, that "I can kill you whoever or wherever you are, whenever I want, and there's nothing that anybody can do to protect you." Litvinenko's death is a chilling statement and shows the true nature of the Russian dictator. It makes me sick to my stomach, to hear him talk about International Law, and blackmail his way in European affairs. His intentions in the Balkans are not about International Law, but about securing a monopoly over pipelines and transit routes, so he can in the future blackmail EU at will. Here's what Litvinenko, btw said about Russia's connection to international terrorism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko

"all the bloodiest terrorists of the world" were connected to FSB-KGB, including Carlos Ramírez the "Jackal", Yassir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Abdullah Öcalan, Wadie Haddad of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Hawi who led the Communist Party of Lebanon, and Ezekias Papaioannou from Cyprus. He said that the "terrorism infection creeps away worldwide from the cabinets of the Lubyanka Square and the Kremlin". These claims are supported by Mitrokhin archive.

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

"Provide me with PRIMARY documentation how international law was violated in the breakup of Yugoslavia and WHO violated it."

You are kidding right? Geneva conventions specifically deals with the protection of non-combatants in a case of an armed conflict. Under Geneva conventions collective punishments such as the killings of civilians, forced expulsions, pillage and damage to their property that the Serbian government inflicted upon the general population of Kosova are a clear case of war crimes.
"Article 33. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Pillage is prohibited.
Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited."

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states specifically: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile." Let me ask you a simple question: Out of hundreds of thousands that the Serbian government expelled from Kosova, did anyone of them had a fair trial, in which he was condemned to an exile?

Under International Law, states have a responsibility to protect.

http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/

"The international community has a responsibility to protect the world’s populations from genocide, massive human rights abuses and other humanitarian crises. This responsibility to prevent, react to and rebuild following such crises rests first and foremost with each individual state. When states manifestly fail to protect their populations, the international community shares a collective responsibility to respond. This response should be the exercise of first peaceful, and then, if necessary, coercive, including forceful, steps to protect civilians."

"USA does not allow foreign broadcasting agencies on their soil. Ask yourself why?"

What are you talking about???? US is probably the country that has the most foreign broadcasting agencies in their soil, and in many cases broadcasting in their own language. Even Public Broadcasting Service, randomly retransmits foreign broadcasts. In US, you can watch not only English, French, Italian, German channels, but also from countries such as China, India, Russia, and yes even Serbia. You can watch Al-Jazeera if you liked.

"America and some NATO members aim this propaganda..."

Oh boy, if you believe that NATO propaganda destroyed Yugoslavia, I really have no way of fighting that paranoia.

massimo

pre 16 godina

Dear Walter,
it seems to me that you are a not requested Putin's advocate.
When you talk about Uzbekistan you should know that Karimov, after the bloodshed in Andijon, is a Moscow friend. It is very hard to defend your position (Putin's advocate) since the spy war that is running is not the most embarrassing case in which the Moscow government is involved: let me remind you the case of Anna Politkovskaya's murder (I am waiting that you say that Putin opponents had organised the killing just to attack the Russian regime).
By the way, you should know that many foreign brodcasting news agencies work in the USA with their journalists: at the end USA is not Cuba, Russia, Iran, Burma or North Korea...

Ana

pre 16 godina

Seems like a perfect opportunity for Kostunica and his advisors to explain to the Serbian people- including the people of Kosovo - just what their plan is for the future of a Kosovo within Serbia. Why are they wasting this opportunity? Why so we still not know what they have in mind for the future, except more talks? We dont need more talks, we need more substance.

Olf

pre 16 godina

Really unbelievable what Kostunica has stated. Were there no lessons learned during 1999 for Serbian politicians? Kostunica is talking on behalf of Serbia. If you read the postings on B92 Serbian language site you will find something surprising for all Serbs and especially those that support Serbian politics. Imagine, 90% of posting of Serbians on Serbian language B92 site are horrified of what Kostunica has stated. Most of them really just want to have a proper life and stay away from trouble steered from failed politicians, politician s that would send everyone to war except themselves.
Thanks god that Serbia has wise people and does rely on failed politicians and people that support them.
Kosova, Serbia future is EU integration. For those that want to live with mother Russia, before you decide ask the Bulgarians of their lives during Russian rule and than decide.

Nick

pre 16 godina

Konstantin Gregorevic,

The birthplace of Serbia was in Raska not Kosova. The state of Raska may have anexed Kosova later, but the point is Serbia begins in Raska.

If the best you can do is "go back to school" then i seriously doubt your level of competence to discuss any of these issues.

Nick

pre 16 godina

Ana,

That is precisely what i was saying a couple of days ago. If they were really interested in keeping Kosova then by now they would have presented a detailed plan on how such new relationship would work.

The problem is Kostunica and the Serbian government have no idea what to do with Kosova. The only thing that really matters to them is for Serbia to theoretically retain its sovreignty over the land and for the moment they can only do that by delaying a solution and calling for more negociations.

BlueJ

pre 16 godina

Olf and johny,

I agree with you. Very good posts amid all this sarcasm, "tit-for-tat" and one-sidedness.

I would like to add that I think that Cvele and Blacky and the other "hardline" Serb supporters are actually pro-Albanists in disguise. The same goes for the apparent "hardline" K-Albanians posting here.

Canadien

pre 16 godina

Nick,

I did not say you could not travel "anywhere" with your UNMIK passport... I in fact said you could not travel to most places with it, about half the world would reject it or not give you a VISA. I know for fact that Brazil, and most South American countries would not recognize it. Most of the Caribbean Islands would not give you a VISA. You would have a difficult time to get into Canada, this is a fact, maybe 1 in 10 applications for VISA in Canada are granted to people with UNMIK passports. The UK is the same, as are the French, forget about most of the Asian countries, they won't grant you visas. Germany would be hard too! Spain will reject you for certain. This is what I am talking about! By the way how did you like being treated like a second class human being when you arrived at US Customs showing your passport, don't bother denying it. I live in Canada and go into the US almost every month and witness how their customs treat people from certain countries, especially countries that are considered Muslim, secular or not! A Serbian passport would get you to far more placeses with far less complications.

Jovan

pre 16 godina

it is quite strange how some Albanians would like to present the whole thing here like they are "glad about Serbs arguing that way, glad about Koštunica" and so on...

get real, kids! there is simply no reason to be glad about this, since you are losing support and what is best german chairmanship is over ( germany is the real force trying to take away Kosovo ) and nothing happened! the time of US presidency in the UNSC elapsed - and surprise- nothing happened!

if you were reasonably acting, you would accept broad autonomy and that´s it, we all could start a better future.
but unfortunately Albanians still dream of myths that are already proven wrong...

Walter

pre 16 godina

LUCA, ADRIAN AND MASSIMO in the seedy world of espionage and counter espionage everything is possible. We can spend the rest of our lives debating the crimes of the KGB and the CIA and I will provide you a link to a list of those CIA crimes which by the way is not an attempt on my part to justify the crimes of the KGB or any other agency. I asked you and several persons on this blog to provide PRIMARY evidence for the question we were discussing you provided Wikipedia. Fine, but in any academic paper this would be very poor evidence no better or worse than if you cited The Readers Digest which is written for persons with a grade eight education. I have lived in the West for 55 years and have followed world events with keen interest and I know how the spin doctors work. Only lack of knowledge on one or both sides will cause a difference of opinion between us.
I am sure that you and I can resolve our differences over FACTS while we will seldom resolve our disputes over VALUES. I subscribe to the principle that nations and individuals can live together when there is mutual trust and common goals I subscribe to the rule of law in international affairs, without which we would have anarchy.
To build mutual trust and establish common goals we need knowledge and that is why I come back to ask you what are your facts, where do you get them from, who benefits from them, and how do you interpret them. I get some of my facts from Seymour Heersh, Samet Gideon, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Nafeez Mosaddeq the Guardin and the Independent as well as several blogs of which antiwar.com is my favorite. As you can see I tend to favors the left wing political analysts so don’t read any further just call me a Socialist and dismiss me and go back to your Wikipedia.
You write about Litvinenko and point a finger at Putin. You may well be correct but I see his death differently. Do I know who killed him? No, but neither do you. I like to rely on the Independent as a primary source which states “it is clear that Mr Litvinenko made enough enemies in enough places who could now make it on to the list of suspects for what the Yard was last night calling his "unexplained death". Here is the list of the leading players in this drama of politics, theft, money and power. After you read the list ask yourself who had the most to benefit from Litvinenko’s death. You may say Vladimir Putin and I say nonsense. Litvinenko was no more and no less than an annoyance to Putin’s popularity. Then look at the circle of Litvinenko’s friends, sponsors, and benefactors which include Berezovsky the thief, Zakayev the Chechen separatist, Tim Bell the spin doctor, Alex Goldfarb the chemist a great cast for a De Care novel or a movie thriller. Let’s take a look at the cast of characters and see if we can guess who did the deed:
Vladimir Putin: The Russian president was accused by Mr Litvinenko of sanctioning his murder. The Kremlin has rejected the claims, but the death of the former agent will add to the perception that the FSB security service is running an assassination policy.
Mario Scaramella; The Italian academic and KGB expert met Mr Litvinenko at a sushi restaurant on the day he fell ill. There is no suggestion that Mr Scaramella was involved in the poisoning. He said he had met his friend to discuss a death threat aimed at them.
Andrei Lugovoy; The Moscow-based businessman and former KGB bodyguard held a meeting with Mr Litvinenko at a hotel on 1 November. Mr Lugovoy had tea with Mr Litvinenko and two other men. Mr Lugovoy said the meeting had been to discuss business and he had been in London to see a football match.
Boris Berezovsky: The exiled Russian oligarch had become an ally of Mr Litvinenko. Mr Berezovsky, a critic of Mr Putin, is thought to own the house in north London where Mr Litvinenko was living and financed his book, which leveled corruption and murder allegations against the FSB and Kremlin.
Akhmed Zakayev: The former actor and foreign minister of the Chechen government in exile was a visitor to Mr Litvinenko's bedside. The two men were neighbours. He accused the Kremlin of exporting "gangster politics" to London.
Lord Tim Bell: Bell Pottinger Communications, of which Lord Bell is chairman, includes Mr Berezovsky among its clients. The company handled media calls about Mr Litvinenko and arranged for the distribution of photographs taken of him in hospital.
Alex Goldfarb: The biochemist is director of a human rights group set up by Mr Berezovsky in 2000. Mr Goldfarb has put forward the allegation that the Kremlin is responsible for Mr Litvinenko's death.
John Henry: The leading toxicologist claimed that thallium was to blame for Mr Litvinenko's condition. But the hospital said he had made his remarks without seeing test results. The professor said he has withdrawn from the case.
Obviously you have come to the conclusion it was Putin and I ask you where your facts are, but when I look at the cast of characters and who benefited from this I go back to the CIA activities since WWII. In particular I would like you to look at PAPERCLIP operation in 1945 where US recruits Nazis, SS officers, Jew killers: such as Reinhard Gehlen, Alfred Six, Emil Augsburg; Klaus Barbie, and Otto von Bolschwing. I am not saying that the CIA did this but since WWII I can cite hundreds of bogus events created by the CIA to discredit the political rivals of America and I am sure we can find many to attribute to the KGB.
In response to your emotive language where you provide a list of the “bloodiest terrorists of the world” I would like you to take a look at this link which will explain the origin of people that you cite but of course you forgot to mention Ceku, Tachi and the old boy Enver Hoxa and Company
Luca you write that Putin’s policy in the Balkans is not about International Law but about oil pipelines. Just because you claim that Putin’s policy is self serving at least he is not breaking International Law to achieve his objective but signing contracts beneficial to both parties. NATO leaders claim to be enforcing international law while they violate it in the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia in order to secure those same pipeline routs. .
ADRIAN GASHI: Thank you for the link to the Geneva Convention which I have read many times.. Maybe you need to send it to Pristina or Tirana and to every NATO government that has violated this convention in their dismemberment of Yugoslavia. Send it to George Bush Sr. whose economic blockade of Iraq killed over a million Iraqi children; send it to his son who is killing Iraqi civilians by the hundreds every day. Send it to Bill Clinton, Tony Blair whose bombing of Kosovo and Tachi and Ceku whose threats and intimidation forced the population of Kosovo to flee. Just ask the Krasnicki family about the Geneva Convention if you can find any members who are still alive. As a child I remember my peasant mother hiding us in the bush as the Nazis bombed our town. People flee war zones – 4 million Iraqis, 2 million Afghans and in the Kosovo case 1 million fled which included Serbs, Roma, Muslim, Serbs and Albanians of which many fled to Serbia.
You ask “Out of hundreds of thousands that the Serbian government expelled from Kosova, did anyone of them had a fair trial, in which he was condemned to an exile?” ADRIAN GASHI you need to put this question to Clinton, Blair, Ceku and Tachi they know the answer since they were the instrument of these events. You place this blame on Serbia who had nothing to gain from what you write and neglect to ask who benefited from Racak and the refugees. KLA benefited, NATO agenda benefited, you sir benefited and you did not care one iota about your people fleeing as long as your agenda remained intact. If you cared about any of this you would speak out about what is going on in Kosovo today. You cite International Law but support its violation every day as I see that in your posts. Sir this is hypocritical and you know it. Go to this link http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=7&no=364036&rel_no=1 and see why your position is hypocritical.
ADRIAN GASHI you ask me “What are you talking about” in respect of the media outlets.. You write that foreign media to use your word “retransmits” information that they choose. My point is try and get a license to establish a media outlet in America. Good luck! The United States Department of State has Foreign Press Centers in Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles. The Foreign Press Centers support U.S. policies by helping foreign media cover the U.S. Their goal is to promote the depth, accuracy, and balance of foreign reporting from the U.S., by providing direct access to authoritative American information sources.” “Representatives of the foreign media" cannot travel to the United States under the Visa Waiver program, but must seek a "Media I Visa;" a requirement that has deterred many bona fide reporters, writers and filmmakers from making a trip.”
As to my paranoia about NATO destruction of Yugoslavia I have posted on this until cows come home but you Mr. Gashi refuse to question what I write because you are afraid of the answer. Look at the link that I provide above it may enlighten and educate you.
MASSIMO I live just north of the American border and travel often to the United States. American people on the average are wonderful, friendly but extremely ignorant about world event and they are not much better informed about their own nation. Look at my comment to Mtr. Gashi above concerning the Media in America. We could spend our lifetime discussing the Media in America but I am not sure if you have read “Manufacturing Consent” by Michael Parenti which deals with this issue at length.
As to Anna Politkovskaya's “the first thing that comes to mind is that Anna was killed for her professional activities. We don't see any other motive for this terrible crime” {BBC.} I agree with this but I don’t agree with your thesis. What evidence do you have to support your position? I don’t have any to support mine but like in Litvinenko’s case and even in Djindjic’s case nationalists have no conscience, so that is where I place the blame; Have a good day gentlemen.

Nick

pre 16 godina

Canadien,

Actualy i never had any problems, i had a visa from the US Embassy here in Kosova and they let me pass through without any problems.

I was at no time treated like a second class citizen, quite the contrary.

lazer

pre 16 godina

In the SC of UN in New York, China is not going to vote at all.
They will be paying back an old friend who sponsored them to become a UN member 1961, and that is....take a wild guess....Albania!

Stevan

pre 16 godina

"…you do not defend ……. by loosing …"


Hmm, it seems James that military history isn't your thing. Ever heard of Thermopylen?

But back to Serbs and Turks, guess who did Austro Hungarian Empire choose to defend their vulnerable eastern border for centuries?

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

"ADRIAN GASHI: Thank you for the link to the Geneva Convention which I have read many times.. Maybe you need to send it to ..."

No, I sent it to you since you asked for it, and now that you are left with no arguments, you change the subject telling me about George Bush Sr and his Iraqi policies. I understand that you a Socialist and that's fine, but you bring global ideological disputes to a local issue that has nothing to do with them.
You want facts and I'll bring you one. In 1999, there was a gun pointed to my child's face by a SERBIAN police officer, who warned me that I had to leave immediately for Albania if I wanted to see my family live, and he just like you told me to blame Clinton for this. You have the nerve to tell me I benefited from it, who are you, you live thousands of miles away from Kosova, you have probably never been in Kosova, you most likely never even met a Kosovar in your life, and you dare to lecture me? What KLA? There was no KLA whatsoever in Prishtina, there was not even fighting there, so how you explain?
You sir seem to be the typical of the Serb supporters in this site, armchair warriors. How can you possibly be so arrogant!

Nick

pre 16 godina

B92 Mods,

Editing my latest comment was highly innapropriate considering what i was respoding too:

from Canadien:

"By the way how did you like being treated like a second class human being when you arrived at US Customs showing your passport"

Walter

pre 16 godina

ADRIAN GASHI: You say that I asked for the Geneva Convention, but you interpret it selectively and emotionally because of your personal experience which I have no way of verifying. You ask how dare I “lecture you”. I am not lecturing you I am simply asking you questions and I am asking for your evidence which you neglect to answer and provide, while at the same time like a tyrant question “how I dare and how I have a nerve” to point out “your selective memory and morality. You obviously don’t practice what you preach since you forget the bombs thrown into cafés by the KLA in Pristina and other towns in Kosovo that killed children belonging to other mothers and fathers.

Kosovo is all about “global ideological issues” and anyone that does not understand history allows himself/herself to be manipulated in the name of capital. We are all manipulated by nations who have lost the moral imperative in world leadership when they practice tyranny in the Balkans, the Middle East and elsewhere. We as individuals are to blame for this because we are unable or refuse to see the connection between our own experience and the wider world. Many of us judge things from a moment in time without looking at the consequences of our decisions. My arguments are very clear you only need an open mind and some books to understand them.

Yes I have been to Kosovo once and I have met Albanians from Kosovo. Many years ago I met two Albanian laborers in Dubrovnik working on a house under construction. They were uneducated, very poorly paid, poorly dressed and worked long hours for very low pay. I also met Serbs from that region who were uneducated, bare footed and worked for the same exploitive wages. This left a lasting impression on me about the regional economic disparity in Yugoslavia.

While at University in Vancouver I had an Albanian friend whose name was D. Cekli who was short and stocky, one of the toughest men I ever met. It was from him that I learned about Kanun. As young men we used to go to a bar called Oil Can Harry’s and one night the bouncer beat up his brother who only had one arm and when D found out about it he put the bouncer into the hospital. He than followed the ambulance to the hospital pulled the bouncer off the stretcher and almost killed him in the hallway of the hospital. D was sentenced to seven years for this. D is still my friend.

I have met dozen Albanians recently for whom I translated documents so that they could get their driver’s licenses and credential themselves for better jobs. Some are Serbs, some are Croats, some are Muslim Serbs, some are Albanians, many are intermarried and some are simple peasants who thought that they could raise chickens in their apartment. The ones that are intermarried left because of your kind of mentality Mr. Gashi –intolerance and your inability to contemplate anything beyond your own experience and I have no way of knowing if the experience you write about is true, however if it is not true than with people like you on any side of the argument the Balkans will remain very unstable, very chaotic and dangerous for all the families in the region.
One Albanian that I mention above had a nervous breakdown and went back to Serbia because he just could not adjust to the life here. Many men who came from Yugoslavia Serbs, Croat and Muslim who are my age were unable to adjust and had breakdowns

Does this disqualify me from commenting on International Law and Kosovo? In your opinion Mr. Gashi it does since you seem to think that only you are qualified since you claim that your suffering gives you some sort of priority. We all suffered Mr. Gashi! As a young boy I saw my father and seven uncles in a village of five houses killed by Fascist element in which Albania and Kosovo Albanians participated. Half of my family brother and sisters and mother remained in Yugoslavia while I went to Canada to be raised by other relatives. Does this qualify me more to comment on events of WWII than you? Absolutely not! In fact you may be more objective since you did not have the same experience.

Mr. Gashi anger clouds reason and I see this in your post. That was not my intention in asking you for evidence in what you say since emotion is not evidence. Our people and I include you here Mr. Ghasi are an enigma to me. Once in Canada you judge each other on character rather than by ethnicity while over there you kill each other’s children. You fight like cats and dogs in the Balkans but when you come to Canada you search each other out, socialize over coffee, play on the same soccer teams, help each other to find jobs, fix each other’s homes, and hug each other when you greet in the street. It would be wonderful if this was practiced over there.

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

Walter, you are funny, you dismiss my experience (and obviously every testimony given by the refugees to the intl organizations) as something you can not verify and then you proceed in telling your experience, as if that is something I can verify. Yet, on the other hand, you also dismiss the evidence collected during the conflict, by numerous independent organizations (HRW, OSCE, ICTY, Red Cross, Medicine sans frontiere, Amnesty international, UNHCR etc etc) and international monitors (for example about Racak masacre) as a NATO propaganda, and all you can come up with is ... anti-war.com, a Greater Serbian propaganda site par excellence!
Judging from your post, it seems that you are of Serbian heritage, which obviously explains your bias. But if you were interested in the peace and reconciliation between Albanians and Serbs, the worst thing is to deny the monstrous crimes that were very visibly, very publicly and very well documented, committed by the Serbian government.

Let me break it down to you once more.
1 - You say that there were "bombs thrown into cafés by the KLA in Pristina". Bring evidence that any bomb was thrown into a cafe by the time when the mass expulsions occurred in Prishtina.
2 - A bomb thrown into a cafe - even if we were to take your unsubstantiated word for it - does not indicate that a place is a war zone, that warrants a mass exodus of the city's population. In fact it has been well documented that this mass exodus has been caused by the Yugoslav army and police. See below.
3 - The actions of the Yugoslav army and police, namely the killings of thousands of innocent civilians and non-combatants, and the mass expulsions, burning and destroying of property, pillaging etc are in direct violations of the International Law, namely the Geneva conventions. Therefore the Yugoslav government was responsible for breaking the International Law.



http://www.osce.org/odihr/item_11_17755.html - OSCE, as seen as told
http://www.helsinki.org.yu/confront_detail.php?lang=en&idgnrc=691 - Helsinki comitee for human rights in Serbia
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/ - HRW - Under orders
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/fry/ - HRW - RAPE AS A WEAPON OF "ETHNIC CLEANSING"
http://hrw.org/campaigns/kosovo98/reports.shtml - HRW reports archive
http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/kosovoeng.htm - Medicine sans frontiere
http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/p403-e.htm - ICTY, Indictment of Miolesevic
http://www.ideajournal.com/articles.php?id=24 - Kosovo: Orders of Magnitude
http://www.freeserbia.net/Documents/Kosovo/Cleansing3.html - FreeSerbia.net - Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo

Walter

pre 16 godina

I have gone to your links and have found the same old rhetoric, “killings of thousands of innocent civilians and non-combatants, and the mass expulsions, burning and destroying of property, pillaging etc are in direct violations of the International Law,” the inflated numbers, and contradictions that that you write about and others have used to justify what you want today. I agree with you that you cannot verify what I say about my past any more than I can about yours. I can tell you this and again you will not be able to verify this I had a nephew from Niksich who attended a metallurgical school in Kosovo in 1970 who had to leave because of harassment by Albanians. I will place more credence on the scholarly work by Chomsky and others from which I provide quotes and the link http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/eo20070702gc.html than to websites that serve the NATO interests. ).” I do not dismiss out of hand some of the information that you provide nor will I comment on your selection of evidence since much of it is micromanaged by NGO’s attached to NATO, that said, atrocities done to anyone when substantiated the perpetrators need to be brought to account. As Chomsky writes “In Kosovo, in contrast, evidence of terrible crimes can be adduced to provide retrospective justification for the NATO war, on the interesting principle that has been established by the doctrinal system.” He further writes “NATO stepped up its claims about Serb ‘killing fields’" when it "saw a fatigued press corps drifting toward the contrarian story: civilians killed by NATO’s bombs." NATO spokesman Jamie Shea presented "information" that can be traced to KLA-UCK sources. Many of the most lurid and prominently-published atrocity reports attributed to refugees and other sources were untrue, the WSJ concludes. Meanwhile NATO sought to deny its own atrocities, for example, by releasing a falsified videotape "shown at triple its real speed" to make it appear that "the killing of at least 14 civilians aboard a train on a bridge in Serbia last April" was unavoidable because "the train had been travelling too fast for the trajectory of the missiles to have been changed in time."
Chomsky quotes the The Wall Street Journal “The "most serious incidents" reported by the ICRC in December are clashes along the FRY-Albanian border, and "what appear to be the first deliberate attacks on public places in urban areas." The UN Inter-Agency Update (December 24) identifies these as an attempt by armed Albanians to cross into Kosovo from Albania, leaving at least 36 armed men dead, and the killing of six Serbian teenagers by masked men spraying gunfire in a cafe in the largely Serbian city of Pec. The next incident is the abduction and murder of the deputy mayor of Kosovo Police, attributed by NATO to the KLA-UCK (327). Then follows a report of "abductions attributed to the KLA." The UN Secretary-General’s report (December 24) reviews the same evidence, citing the figure of 282 civilians and police abducted by the KLA as of December 7 (FRY figures
You speak of Albanian virtue and Serbian collective guilt when only individuals can be guilty or innocent of crimes that they are charged with. My problems with your comments sir are that you protect your child while you are silent when Serbian and Albanian children were killed. Anyone capable of loving his child must love all children equally. I don’t trust you sir when you provide evidence of refugee camps here and killings there but you close your eyes to the plight of refugees and the killings of innocent persons who belong to your adversaries, including Albanians who opposed the KLA.

Adrian Gashi

pre 16 godina

Walter, to substantiate your claims, I asked you to "Bring evidence that any bomb was thrown into a cafe by the time when the mass expulsions occurred in Prishtina."

So, I guess you have no evidence, then. No PRIMARY documentation?

I rest my case!

Walter

pre 16 godina

MR. GASHI so you rest your case? I did not realize that this was a trial and that we were in some sort of “I got him now game”. You claim that anti-war.com, is “a Greater Serbian propaganda site par excellence!” This is the most respected bog in America that will print Albanian material in equal proportion to material dealing with all world issues. You must have come to this conclusion that this is a Serbian blog since Nebjisa Malic writes occasional articles here. You have every opportunity to refute Mr. Malic’s evidence but that will be a task like bringing the mountain to Mohammed. What is most interesting here is you pointing to a blog as bogus evidence rather than the scholars that I cited in one of my comments. You are grasping at straws sir just like the evidence that you provide.

The evidence that you provide would have been thrown out in any Canadian court of law. I am using the example of the court of law since you seem to think that this discussion is some sort of trial. Since I am unable to replay the TV clips (PRIMARY EVIDENCE) of the after effects of bombs thrown by your compatriots into Cafes in Kosovo including Pristina that I saw with my own eyes on western media outlets, I provide evidence of others which you can find at the following link. http://www.globalresistance.com/analysis/spin.htm

The above evidence is substantiated by many scholars and it tends to be more believable than your web pages which educated people know serve an agenda of American Global expansion. You also skim over Chomsky’s (Google Chomsky if you are unfamiliar with his work) analysis where he writes about the “killing of six Serbian teenagers by masked men spraying gunfire in a cafe in the largely Serbian city of Pec” None of the material that you provide is PRIMARY. Similarly much of the material that I provide is not primary but SECONDARY. The worst type of evidence is found on the web and we are all guilty of using it, however, I tend to rely on scholarly analysis which I don’t find in your evidence. Here is my SECONDARY evidence Jane’s Defense Review where you can find the KLA's strategy:” Do you recall the spate of KLA terrorist bombings in December of '98 and January of '99? Serbian civilians were blown up as they sipped a drink in Pristina cafes [---] the KLA has assassinated many ordinary Serbian civilians because that was their strategy over the past 20 months.”

You further put a question to me “Walter I asked you to "Bring evidence that any bomb was thrown into a cafe by the time when the mass expulsions occurred in Prishtina” but neglect to tell us when this started while you play a game with dates. Maybe the above answer will not suffice, however I have put dozens of questions to you which you have not answered but asked “how dare I” question your assertions of the “mass exodus, innocent civilians, killing of thousands, and monstrous crimes,” a true language of a propagandist who dares others to ask him questions.

Again for your information people leave war zones or about to become war zones, and like the Japanese Times reports the exodus was also KLA induced. Kosovo was not a special case since every war zone produces refugees, you only need to look at Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Chechnya to name a few. You are dishonest sir if you are unable to see why a Serb Muslim Kosovo resident who now lives in my town sent his wife and children to Serbia as NATO was ready to attack. Can you see why he would do that and he said hundreds of his neighbors did the same thing? I am waiting for your answer sir? Instead of daring me to ask the question answer mine just like you request that I answer yours.