"NATO attack could have been avoided"

Clear, straight - one more prove that NATO "humanitarian bombing" had not anything with refugees or "humanitarian" purposes - just to punish stubborn Milosevic - only one not to bow to big project-to sell soul and teritory for hands of dollars. Only goal from beginning was to punish Serbia for not cooperating in Balkan project - and by military means set up humanitarian base - BondSteel.

previous comment is outrageous! I am wondering if the Mexicans in California are also occupied by US or they are mostly immigrants?
How it's possible to say that Albanians on Kosovo were occupied, they all CAME to Kosovo, land that was never part of Albania and they wanted to establish independent government, did not respect any rules of the country they moved in. What if Serbs or any other minority try to do the same in US, would anyone allow that to happen? Don't get me wrong, I was AGAINST Milosevic and the war, participating very heavily in demonstrations in '90s but let's not make wrong conclusions and take sides just like that. I don't like to visit Kosovo, it is poor and abused land, not safe and as Serb, I am scared to visit any of the monuments that should remind me about centuries old culture. Isn't that sad? So, Ben, next time you try to post comment, just be more objective and don't read the latest news, get some more insight about the country and culture you plan to judge.

Sonja, by being against Milosevic and working to overthrow his regime, then that means that the likelihood of you working for the west is big. It is a fact that the West had funded the opposition and helped organize student protests. Remember the ORPOR group? Heck, in 1999 alone the West pumped in tens of millions of dollars into the opposition to ruin our democracy and put in this new regime. You seem to support it, so you support what the west wanted. Then by definition you can not object to Kosovo's independence. That's just plain simple. You can pick the EU and West or your can pick Kosovo and anti-West. Now that that is clear, lets go on to the other more pressing points. The Mexicans in the SW US should be allowed to break off. The reason why is because they are involuntarily colonized people. The US stole that land, in the 1830s and 1840s. Albanians in Kosovo are not an involuntarily colonized people... they are colonizers. Population dats is proof of that. Even the CIA world factbook says that they are migrants into Kosmet. All this aside, the rambulliet ultimatum was designed to make serbs reject it. They purposely said that we had to give up our sovereignty be giving NATO and the West unlimited access to move around the entire country, to use our airwaves, and radiowaves, among many other things. We offered a counteroffer, which included a UN peace presence. They did not want a UN peace presence, because if it is UN then they can not directly colonize it. It was a brutal attack against our socialist project, in which they hit 33 hospitals and 480 education facilities. We should put their criminal leaders in the hague, not ours.

Robert/o-a,

NATO – bombing was planned to happen long before it really started (they decided to punish Slobo and Serbia for non-cooperating in the project). Also it didn’t have anything with Kosovo refugees/ shatro “humanitarian bombing” – it just created hoax and after their intervention we got people running away from war zone.

I just can’t stand anymore your deep hate for Serbian people. I don’t know where you’re getting all that inspiration and what are your root causes of that ill behavior.

I’m really interested in your background and who is fueling your hater and on what basis – because you don’t accept even independent westerners opinions and fact supported reports that try to put different light on highly twisted westerners CNN propaganda.

I lived in Sarajevo and still have the best friends there, had connections with all sides, warlords, politicians and celebrities on all three sides and had all info of situation developments there. Still have friends among political top in Bosnia and even Croatia and always talk a bit about situation and never got even close conclusion you’re ill feeded with.

Serbia paid the price of confusion and non-determination. Everybody else was preparing for secession and creation of new states – secret meetings, internally and with CIA for project management. They are importing arms(using RedCross trucks) and getting intelligence-consulting from outside – CNN – editors and financiers.
Serbia hat terrible leaders (Slobo & Co.), if they were determined to make Great Serbia- no problem – they were the strongest and in matter of days could do that. But most of the people wanted to defend Yugoslavia with Serbian population within. And because of not clear goal they were late to adjust – everybody else were good positioned, armed and supported by the best media and project management available worldwide.

Roberto,

Who started war in Slovenia – who attacked JNA – (was multinational and command too). Who started war in Croatia (remember clip with undercover Spegelj meeting, choking JNA soldiers, turning the back and whistle on anthem Hej Sloveni long before, in Split on Poljud – that were not the Serbs – Roberto/a – and on top President Mesic is proud to say – “ I destroyed Yugoslavia” taking full credit for that)?
Bosnia – remember Lisbon – they made the deal and we’re all celebrating in Sarajevo- Alija signed = no war = cantons same as in Switcland – but project managers in US – said – No to peace – and Alija I. said it’s invalid what I signed – ne pika se, Ja imam svoje misljenje ali se ne slazem s njim.”

Roberto, a – if you need more info or explanations – ask questions, do research from different sources and not stick to you ill-fueled hater, blindness and broken record rethoric.

Many things could have taken other path...

If you Mr Dini did not married the rich lady that inherited a fortune from her previous marriage you would've never become a banker and than a minister...

If Milosevic was democrat and Serbs did not belive being a divine nation Yugo would probably still be alive...

The bottom line is that Yugo(South) Slavia (Slavs) was state of Slavs in which Albanians should have NEVER been part. They were part because they were occupied an forced in this federation. You can play with Dini and other leftists in Europe as much as you want but the bottom line is that Albanians were occupied until 1999.

However, there were not such debates when I was in Bocconi... I wonder who might have organised and where from the actuality...

you can´t be occupied when those you call occupiers are the rightful owners... my dear friend.

Pavaresi

Nobody really cares who was there first or who moved into what area, especially since we are talking hundreds of years here. If this is such a focal point to every argument, why not look at countries that Albanians view as such beacons of democracy, like the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia where the natives were invaded, occupied, assimilated and even outright massacred by the European settlers in those countries even later than the Slavic migrations into the Balkans.

Funny how nobody talks in defense of the native Americans, Maoris and Aborigines and what they endured, only what great democracies those countries are now. Or is it something selective that one chooses to acknowledge or not?

Lazar and Sonja,
you start history a little too late. If Albanians 'moved' there, what did Serbs do? Moved there /occupied it of course and chased the natives into the mountains. Taking back our land is not a crime. Albanians are natives, Serbs are not.

In reality, USA and Western Europe were absolutely reluctant to attack Yugoslavia (because by 1991 it was one of the biggest armies of Europe), dragging their feet for almost ten long years. They preferred appeasement even after the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre.

But the Milosevic’s big project of wiping out most of the original population of Kosovo was too much for the West to merely sit and wait.

NATO had to intervene to stop Milosevic. And it acted right, saving the majority of the population of Kosovo from detah, deportation and rape.

Lazar in a democracy a person has the right to choose their own opinions, not be forced to choose between two opposing opinions given by one person (you).

Judging by your logic you were a supporter of Slobodan Milosevic, after all in your mind he would save Kosovo - in reality he did the opposite.

The fact is that had the opposition forced the authoritarian regime of Slobodan Milosevic out earlier Kosovo may have remained within Serbia. And even if it had not, perhaps war and the ethnic cleansing of hundreds and thousands of Serbs could have been avoided.

Pavaresi, if Serbs are not natives of Kosovo then who built all those Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries?

'Former Italian FM Lamberto Dini says ... the 1999 NATO military intervention against Serbia ...' Maybe, but this does not make it more acceptable. It is still a gruesome event with no excuse and history will remember who did what and when.

"At the same time, Dini assessed that the conflict ended not as a result of the bombing, but rather because "Russia denied Serbia further help"."

Mr. Dini also might say: If Russia didn't exist, Serbia wouldn't exist either!!

let me explain for the 10th (to the exponent i don't know what) why the intervention really occurred. 1999 was only a few short years after 1995, and the world had watched in (mostly impotent) horror while serbia had terrorized the balkans, specifically croatia and bosnia. the intl press was there, in force, and you could not turn on the television and remain clueless about what was going on. i couldn't care less about what all the revisionist "historians" have to say: the essence is we all knew and did nothing, or more to the point, by our mixed signals and representatives of "questionable" ethics (think mac kenzie, but many more) we, the intl community, increased the misery 10 fold. by the time we intervened with any real force, 100s of thousands lay dead, so many tortured, raped, so many lives destroyed, not to mention property. it is true that crimes were committed by all sides, but it was serbia (under milosevic and his very willing executioners) that was ALWAYS the driving force. and if you don't "buy" this analysis, i couldn't care less, since it is the truth.

SO, here we are, 1999 (actually 1998) and all the same tricks, all the same evil, and many of the EXACT same actors were busy working their evil again, but this time in Kosovo/a. and the intl's knew it, they knew exactly what was happening, who was doing it, and what would follow. we all knew what would follow, under (some of your) beloved milosevic.

well, milosevic decided to draw his line in the sand, and the intervention began. i was one person (not in the govt, of course) calling for intervention, as loudly as possible, and i have never regretted it, and never will. it was sad to have to come to that, but to watch another unhampered genocide was more than the civilized world could stomach. period.

in truth, as far as slobo was concerned, the bombing could have gone on forever. just like hitler, he only really cared about himself and his loved ones -- if "his" people had to suffer, that was just too bad. but things started getting pretty unbearable, even for the people of serbia, and there was enough pressure exerted to finally force him to make peace. the genocide was halted, in its tracks.

at the time, i was appalled that it went on for so long, resulted in so many civilian casualties, many that surely were innocent. i was sorry then, i am sorry now. but once fascism really takes root (as it did), it is only a terrible amount of violence that will stop it.

yes, we all made mistakes. i just wish that the other side would take a little more responsibility for the past. it wasn't just "bad actions on all sides." that is the biggest untruth about balkan history.

robert-o

bganon, to explain all this stuff in my opinion would mean b92 not allowing me to post. So therefore I can not get into details. I'll say this. Milosevic was not responsible for Kosovo. It was entirely up to the West, not up to us. We were merely fighting the KLA and did not send any force into places where the KLA was not active, such as Kamenica or Istok. I do not feel that Milosevic was authoritarian. He had a lot of support, and we see how even today there is much support. The fact is that the natinoalists would have won if it were not for our minorities. We respect minorities. It is the minorities that preferred to avoid the democratic process why milosevic remained in power and why there was this problem. Democracy is great. The problem is that milosevic was too popular for a long time.

Alban, please be aware the Dusan actually controlled most of the western balkans i

In reality, USA and Western Europe were absolutely reluctant to attack Yugoslavia
(Bad Gorilla, 28 October 2008 20:02)

that's the version of history that the albanians love to believe in. the reality is something else. the west did intervene in bosnia, but serbia was not directly involved in the war there, so the air strikes were directed only against bosnian serbs. the west actually relied on milosevic (and tudjman) for dayton accords. bombing serbia at that point would be entirely counter-productive and the people in western countries would have been opposed to it as well.

as for the bombing in 1999, americans were actually keen on bombing serbia, but serbs were not committing enough attrocities, so americans had to invent them. first there was a pressure on the finnish forensic team, then when the bombing actually started attrocities were invented and presented to the media (the story of up to 200,000 men missing etc). if the west were so reluctant to bomb serbia they wouldn't have lied so much, would they? the attrocities did happen but the worst things happened after the bombing had already started, so they can't be the reason for it. before the bombings there were many internally dislpaced persons in kosovo. refugees appeared only afterwards.

milosevic was the reason serbia was bombed, but not because of the attrocities he was politically responsible for, but for not following the trends after the collapse of the soviet union - joining the nato, integrating his country into international markets in the right way etc.

of course, i do not expect albanians to accept this version of history. however, this version is the most likely one to get established (including in the west once the political significance of the war takes the back seat). milosevic will remain the main villain in the collective memory, though, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

@Peggy:

although you wanted to write it in an ironic way...you should know that the socalled "Mother Theresa" was not really that angelic like many poeple still believe.

with a little bit of research or if you wanna try a quite explicit critisism take a look into Aroup Chatterjee´s " The final verdict "...

as for all those pseudo-historic references our dear friends are always posting: please don´t make fools of yourselves by presenting some Encyclopedia Britannica articles from the 1920´ies...
or similar non-scientific "sources".

so much for the Albanians being the native population...

if it were not that sad, that you don´t know about your own origin, I would be laughing.

B92, please let this comment in, many Serbs don't know the history or don't care. This is from a scholarly paper and not propaganda



>>> "Albanians in Kosovo are not an involuntarily colonized people... they are colonizers. Population dats is proof of that. "

To all the Serbs, read this before calling Albanians 'occupiers' and 'colonizers,' it's from a scholarly paper:

"The monastery at Decani stands on a terrace commanding passes into High Albania. When Stefan Uros III founded it in 1330, he gave it many villages in the plain and catuns of Vlachs and Albanians between the Lim and the Beli Drim. Vlachs and Albanians had to carry salt for the monastery and provide it with serf labour. A large number of churches were sited strategically at Prizren and in 1348 Dusan is recorded as giving Albanian catuns to a monastery there. Metohija in fact was a great monastic estate."
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1478-4017(1955)1%3A21%3C171%3AJKTEOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9

Why does Dusan's Code mentions Albanian twice, once how to keep them out of 'his' land?

Hey Ben mr.Dini had been lucky with the marriage (very lucky)but that don't mean he was a IMF banker for that...
Anyway he was very reluctant to say yes to the bombing we already knew this at that time was incredebly D'Alema the most pro-Usa in the Italian Governament...

There will never be peace, as long as many Serbs REALLY beleieve that "Albanians CAME to Kosovo", as some comments here suggest.

I dont know where does this historic irritation come from, but I assume from 100 years of occupation acompanied with 100 serb history books full of lies and propaganda.

Generally, such a historic event (Albanians coming into Kosovo) is PHYSICALLY NOT POSSIBLE, as Serbs came to the Balkans only to find Albanians there. This is simply ridiculous !

If the K-Albanians didn't seek independence on ethnic grounds, then why is the flag the way it is...even why do you call yourself K-Albanian?

As for atocities perpetrated by Serbs, let's recognize that the first use of 'ethnic cleansing' was in the NY Times and referred to the Serbs being forced from Kosovo in the 1980's.

Finally, it's no wonder that you don't want to discuss the composition of Kosovo in any historical context. One simply has to ask, "where are all the mosques?" to determine how integral a part of the history of Kosovo the K-Albanians are.

Pavaresi, if Serbs are not natives of Kosovo then who built all those Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries?
(PJD, 29 October 2008 00:20)

It was the Albanians, in honour of mother Teresa, naturally.
As far as they are concerned, Serbs migrated to Kosovo and then were given Kosovo in 1912.
Everything before that was built by Albanians and they were so proud to be Catholic. Never stop bragging about mother Teresa. Being the only decent and famous person everything was built in her honour. I didn't know she was centuries old like the churches and monasteries in Kosovo.

Sonja, Lazar.
It is absolutely irrelevant who came firet to Kosovo. I Presume the Serbs were a majority during the Middle Ages, then after 1690 most were driven out and settled Vojvodina, where there were no Serbs resided hitherto.
What is relevant in Kosovo's case is how the province (the country, whatever could be governed) and how Serbia be governed best!
Kosovo as an integral part of democratic Serbia was nonsense
because on one hand the albanians would regard decisions made in Belgrad as illigitimate and on the other, the Albanians would make too big a minority in Serbia to render it ungovernable (imagine 60-70 Albanian MPs in the Skupstina!)
Kosovo as an sutonomous province was also unworkable proposition, because that would be a move back to square one (1986) when the Memorandum was written: Kosovo would have many ways to influence Serbia, while serbia would have almost none to influence Kosovo!
So the only sensible solution was divorce! There should have been no taboos in those talk, the status of the serbian enclaves, the status of Presevo valley, the status of Pec patriarcate etc.
But all Serbia ever said is: NO

Serbs should attempt to form a majority in Alaska (pop: approx 600k) and claim independence.

Why does Dusan's Code mentions Albanian twice, once how to keep them out of 'his' land?
(Alban, 28 October 2008 20:19)

Alban, please use tinyurl-dot-com to re-direct a long link. There are issues on B92 and if not careful the link will be unusable.

Copy-paste your link in the redirection engine and you will get a much sorter one and no problem with B92.

Please dont disturb the Italians' peace, its cruel.

The Italians would give Serbia a part Sicily, if Milosevic threatened to take it.

So please, leave them alone ok.

Because the USA made its decision to attack Serbia, no matter what,& the USA controls NATO, Serbia was doomed from the start.

The unscrupulous attacks on Albanian origin, like the one in #25 it's simply ridiculous and intended only for provocation. Serbs like the one commenting on #25 will never be taken seriously by anyone, let alone Albanians reading here. The reason is that Albanians, like me, simply don't care what dirt these people can throw in a web site. What matters is that Kosova belongs to the people living in the new born country, whose majority just happen to be Albanian. To make it clear what I am saying is that K-Albanians never claimed Kosova in the name of ethnicity. The notion of claiming the land in the name of pure ethnicity is very outdated and appears to live today only in Serbia. People like the person above, who never stops to amaze me with his persistent same rhetoric, show constantly how far they are from today's contemporary western philosophical ideals of unity and brotherhood. Just like a decade ago when Serbia waged 4 wars on the name of uniting all "Serbian lands", the same concept still rules in most Serbian circles, including here.

Discussion about Albanian origin in the Balkan, when coming from a Serb with vicious intentions, are simply a trap. The goal is to lower K-Albanian strife for freedom, to a cheap "who was here first" type of ethnical claim.

Don't be fooled, Kosova won it's independence due to the gross human rights abuses that were perpetrated for too long. Albanians are a cosmopolitan people who know who they are and are willing to respect and be respected in return.
Thanks,

Many things could have taken other path...

If you Mr Dini did not married the rich lady that inherited a fortune from her previous marriage you would've never become a banker and than a minister...

If Milosevic was democrat and Serbs did not belive being a divine nation Yugo would probably still be alive...

The bottom line is that Yugo(South) Slavia (Slavs) was state of Slavs in which Albanians should have NEVER been part. They were part because they were occupied an forced in this federation. You can play with Dini and other leftists in Europe as much as you want but the bottom line is that Albanians were occupied until 1999.

However, there were not such debates when I was in Bocconi... I wonder who might have organised and where from the actuality...

"At the same time, Dini assessed that the conflict ended not as a result of the bombing, but rather because "Russia denied Serbia further help"."

Mr. Dini also might say: If Russia didn't exist, Serbia wouldn't exist either!!

Lazar and Sonja,
you start history a little too late. If Albanians 'moved' there, what did Serbs do? Moved there /occupied it of course and chased the natives into the mountains. Taking back our land is not a crime. Albanians are natives, Serbs are not.

let me explain for the 10th (to the exponent i don't know what) why the intervention really occurred. 1999 was only a few short years after 1995, and the world had watched in (mostly impotent) horror while serbia had terrorized the balkans, specifically croatia and bosnia. the intl press was there, in force, and you could not turn on the television and remain clueless about what was going on. i couldn't care less about what all the revisionist "historians" have to say: the essence is we all knew and did nothing, or more to the point, by our mixed signals and representatives of "questionable" ethics (think mac kenzie, but many more) we, the intl community, increased the misery 10 fold. by the time we intervened with any real force, 100s of thousands lay dead, so many tortured, raped, so many lives destroyed, not to mention property. it is true that crimes were committed by all sides, but it was serbia (under milosevic and his very willing executioners) that was ALWAYS the driving force. and if you don't "buy" this analysis, i couldn't care less, since it is the truth.

SO, here we are, 1999 (actually 1998) and all the same tricks, all the same evil, and many of the EXACT same actors were busy working their evil again, but this time in Kosovo/a. and the intl's knew it, they knew exactly what was happening, who was doing it, and what would follow. we all knew what would follow, under (some of your) beloved milosevic.

well, milosevic decided to draw his line in the sand, and the intervention began. i was one person (not in the govt, of course) calling for intervention, as loudly as possible, and i have never regretted it, and never will. it was sad to have to come to that, but to watch another unhampered genocide was more than the civilized world could stomach. period.

in truth, as far as slobo was concerned, the bombing could have gone on forever. just like hitler, he only really cared about himself and his loved ones -- if "his" people had to suffer, that was just too bad. but things started getting pretty unbearable, even for the people of serbia, and there was enough pressure exerted to finally force him to make peace. the genocide was halted, in its tracks.

at the time, i was appalled that it went on for so long, resulted in so many civilian casualties, many that surely were innocent. i was sorry then, i am sorry now. but once fascism really takes root (as it did), it is only a terrible amount of violence that will stop it.

yes, we all made mistakes. i just wish that the other side would take a little more responsibility for the past. it wasn't just "bad actions on all sides." that is the biggest untruth about balkan history.

robert-o

In reality, USA and Western Europe were absolutely reluctant to attack Yugoslavia (because by 1991 it was one of the biggest armies of Europe), dragging their feet for almost ten long years. They preferred appeasement even after the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre.

But the Milosevic’s big project of wiping out most of the original population of Kosovo was too much for the West to merely sit and wait.

NATO had to intervene to stop Milosevic. And it acted right, saving the majority of the population of Kosovo from detah, deportation and rape.

B92, please let this comment in, many Serbs don't know the history or don't care. This is from a scholarly paper and not propaganda



>>> "Albanians in Kosovo are not an involuntarily colonized people... they are colonizers. Population dats is proof of that. "

To all the Serbs, read this before calling Albanians 'occupiers' and 'colonizers,' it's from a scholarly paper:

"The monastery at Decani stands on a terrace commanding passes into High Albania. When Stefan Uros III founded it in 1330, he gave it many villages in the plain and catuns of Vlachs and Albanians between the Lim and the Beli Drim. Vlachs and Albanians had to carry salt for the monastery and provide it with serf labour. A large number of churches were sited strategically at Prizren and in 1348 Dusan is recorded as giving Albanian catuns to a monastery there. Metohija in fact was a great monastic estate."
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1478-4017(1955)1%3A21%3C171%3AJKTEOA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9

Why does Dusan's Code mentions Albanian twice, once how to keep them out of 'his' land?

Pavaresi, if Serbs are not natives of Kosovo then who built all those Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries?
(PJD, 29 October 2008 00:20)

It was the Albanians, in honour of mother Teresa, naturally.
As far as they are concerned, Serbs migrated to Kosovo and then were given Kosovo in 1912.
Everything before that was built by Albanians and they were so proud to be Catholic. Never stop bragging about mother Teresa. Being the only decent and famous person everything was built in her honour. I didn't know she was centuries old like the churches and monasteries in Kosovo.

Sonja, Lazar.
It is absolutely irrelevant who came firet to Kosovo. I Presume the Serbs were a majority during the Middle Ages, then after 1690 most were driven out and settled Vojvodina, where there were no Serbs resided hitherto.
What is relevant in Kosovo's case is how the province (the country, whatever could be governed) and how Serbia be governed best!
Kosovo as an integral part of democratic Serbia was nonsense
because on one hand the albanians would regard decisions made in Belgrad as illigitimate and on the other, the Albanians would make too big a minority in Serbia to render it ungovernable (imagine 60-70 Albanian MPs in the Skupstina!)
Kosovo as an sutonomous province was also unworkable proposition, because that would be a move back to square one (1986) when the Memorandum was written: Kosovo would have many ways to influence Serbia, while serbia would have almost none to influence Kosovo!
So the only sensible solution was divorce! There should have been no taboos in those talk, the status of the serbian enclaves, the status of Presevo valley, the status of Pec patriarcate etc.
But all Serbia ever said is: NO

The unscrupulous attacks on Albanian origin, like the one in #25 it's simply ridiculous and intended only for provocation. Serbs like the one commenting on #25 will never be taken seriously by anyone, let alone Albanians reading here. The reason is that Albanians, like me, simply don't care what dirt these people can throw in a web site. What matters is that Kosova belongs to the people living in the new born country, whose majority just happen to be Albanian. To make it clear what I am saying is that K-Albanians never claimed Kosova in the name of ethnicity. The notion of claiming the land in the name of pure ethnicity is very outdated and appears to live today only in Serbia. People like the person above, who never stops to amaze me with his persistent same rhetoric, show constantly how far they are from today's contemporary western philosophical ideals of unity and brotherhood. Just like a decade ago when Serbia waged 4 wars on the name of uniting all "Serbian lands", the same concept still rules in most Serbian circles, including here.

Discussion about Albanian origin in the Balkan, when coming from a Serb with vicious intentions, are simply a trap. The goal is to lower K-Albanian strife for freedom, to a cheap "who was here first" type of ethnical claim.

Don't be fooled, Kosova won it's independence due to the gross human rights abuses that were perpetrated for too long. Albanians are a cosmopolitan people who know who they are and are willing to respect and be respected in return.
Thanks,

previous comment is outrageous! I am wondering if the Mexicans in California are also occupied by US or they are mostly immigrants?
How it's possible to say that Albanians on Kosovo were occupied, they all CAME to Kosovo, land that was never part of Albania and they wanted to establish independent government, did not respect any rules of the country they moved in. What if Serbs or any other minority try to do the same in US, would anyone allow that to happen? Don't get me wrong, I was AGAINST Milosevic and the war, participating very heavily in demonstrations in '90s but let's not make wrong conclusions and take sides just like that. I don't like to visit Kosovo, it is poor and abused land, not safe and as Serb, I am scared to visit any of the monuments that should remind me about centuries old culture. Isn't that sad? So, Ben, next time you try to post comment, just be more objective and don't read the latest news, get some more insight about the country and culture you plan to judge.

Sonja, by being against Milosevic and working to overthrow his regime, then that means that the likelihood of you working for the west is big. It is a fact that the West had funded the opposition and helped organize student protests. Remember the ORPOR group? Heck, in 1999 alone the West pumped in tens of millions of dollars into the opposition to ruin our democracy and put in this new regime. You seem to support it, so you support what the west wanted. Then by definition you can not object to Kosovo's independence. That's just plain simple. You can pick the EU and West or your can pick Kosovo and anti-West. Now that that is clear, lets go on to the other more pressing points. The Mexicans in the SW US should be allowed to break off. The reason why is because they are involuntarily colonized people. The US stole that land, in the 1830s and 1840s. Albanians in Kosovo are not an involuntarily colonized people... they are colonizers. Population dats is proof of that. Even the CIA world factbook says that they are migrants into Kosmet. All this aside, the rambulliet ultimatum was designed to make serbs reject it. They purposely said that we had to give up our sovereignty be giving NATO and the West unlimited access to move around the entire country, to use our airwaves, and radiowaves, among many other things. We offered a counteroffer, which included a UN peace presence. They did not want a UN peace presence, because if it is UN then they can not directly colonize it. It was a brutal attack against our socialist project, in which they hit 33 hospitals and 480 education facilities. We should put their criminal leaders in the hague, not ours.

bganon, to explain all this stuff in my opinion would mean b92 not allowing me to post. So therefore I can not get into details. I'll say this. Milosevic was not responsible for Kosovo. It was entirely up to the West, not up to us. We were merely fighting the KLA and did not send any force into places where the KLA was not active, such as Kamenica or Istok. I do not feel that Milosevic was authoritarian. He had a lot of support, and we see how even today there is much support. The fact is that the natinoalists would have won if it were not for our minorities. We respect minorities. It is the minorities that preferred to avoid the democratic process why milosevic remained in power and why there was this problem. Democracy is great. The problem is that milosevic was too popular for a long time.

Alban, please be aware the Dusan actually controlled most of the western balkans i

Please dont disturb the Italians' peace, its cruel.

The Italians would give Serbia a part Sicily, if Milosevic threatened to take it.

So please, leave them alone ok.

you can´t be occupied when those you call occupiers are the rightful owners... my dear friend.

Clear, straight - one more prove that NATO "humanitarian bombing" had not anything with refugees or "humanitarian" purposes - just to punish stubborn Milosevic - only one not to bow to big project-to sell soul and teritory for hands of dollars. Only goal from beginning was to punish Serbia for not cooperating in Balkan project - and by military means set up humanitarian base - BondSteel.

In reality, USA and Western Europe were absolutely reluctant to attack Yugoslavia
(Bad Gorilla, 28 October 2008 20:02)

that's the version of history that the albanians love to believe in. the reality is something else. the west did intervene in bosnia, but serbia was not directly involved in the war there, so the air strikes were directed only against bosnian serbs. the west actually relied on milosevic (and tudjman) for dayton accords. bombing serbia at that point would be entirely counter-productive and the people in western countries would have been opposed to it as well.

as for the bombing in 1999, americans were actually keen on bombing serbia, but serbs were not committing enough attrocities, so americans had to invent them. first there was a pressure on the finnish forensic team, then when the bombing actually started attrocities were invented and presented to the media (the story of up to 200,000 men missing etc). if the west were so reluctant to bomb serbia they wouldn't have lied so much, would they? the attrocities did happen but the worst things happened after the bombing had already started, so they can't be the reason for it. before the bombings there were many internally dislpaced persons in kosovo. refugees appeared only afterwards.

milosevic was the reason serbia was bombed, but not because of the attrocities he was politically responsible for, but for not following the trends after the collapse of the soviet union - joining the nato, integrating his country into international markets in the right way etc.

of course, i do not expect albanians to accept this version of history. however, this version is the most likely one to get established (including in the west once the political significance of the war takes the back seat). milosevic will remain the main villain in the collective memory, though, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

@Peggy:

although you wanted to write it in an ironic way...you should know that the socalled "Mother Theresa" was not really that angelic like many poeple still believe.

with a little bit of research or if you wanna try a quite explicit critisism take a look into Aroup Chatterjee´s " The final verdict "...

as for all those pseudo-historic references our dear friends are always posting: please don´t make fools of yourselves by presenting some Encyclopedia Britannica articles from the 1920´ies...
or similar non-scientific "sources".

so much for the Albanians being the native population...

if it were not that sad, that you don´t know about your own origin, I would be laughing.

Pavaresi, if Serbs are not natives of Kosovo then who built all those Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries?

Why does Dusan's Code mentions Albanian twice, once how to keep them out of 'his' land?
(Alban, 28 October 2008 20:19)

Alban, please use tinyurl-dot-com to re-direct a long link. There are issues on B92 and if not careful the link will be unusable.

Copy-paste your link in the redirection engine and you will get a much sorter one and no problem with B92.

Serbs should attempt to form a majority in Alaska (pop: approx 600k) and claim independence.

Pavaresi

Nobody really cares who was there first or who moved into what area, especially since we are talking hundreds of years here. If this is such a focal point to every argument, why not look at countries that Albanians view as such beacons of democracy, like the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia where the natives were invaded, occupied, assimilated and even outright massacred by the European settlers in those countries even later than the Slavic migrations into the Balkans.

Funny how nobody talks in defense of the native Americans, Maoris and Aborigines and what they endured, only what great democracies those countries are now. Or is it something selective that one chooses to acknowledge or not?

There will never be peace, as long as many Serbs REALLY beleieve that "Albanians CAME to Kosovo", as some comments here suggest.

I dont know where does this historic irritation come from, but I assume from 100 years of occupation acompanied with 100 serb history books full of lies and propaganda.

Generally, such a historic event (Albanians coming into Kosovo) is PHYSICALLY NOT POSSIBLE, as Serbs came to the Balkans only to find Albanians there. This is simply ridiculous !

Hey Ben mr.Dini had been lucky with the marriage (very lucky)but that don't mean he was a IMF banker for that...
Anyway he was very reluctant to say yes to the bombing we already knew this at that time was incredebly D'Alema the most pro-Usa in the Italian Governament...

Lazar in a democracy a person has the right to choose their own opinions, not be forced to choose between two opposing opinions given by one person (you).

Judging by your logic you were a supporter of Slobodan Milosevic, after all in your mind he would save Kosovo - in reality he did the opposite.

The fact is that had the opposition forced the authoritarian regime of Slobodan Milosevic out earlier Kosovo may have remained within Serbia. And even if it had not, perhaps war and the ethnic cleansing of hundreds and thousands of Serbs could have been avoided.

'Former Italian FM Lamberto Dini says ... the 1999 NATO military intervention against Serbia ...' Maybe, but this does not make it more acceptable. It is still a gruesome event with no excuse and history will remember who did what and when.

Robert/o-a,

NATO – bombing was planned to happen long before it really started (they decided to punish Slobo and Serbia for non-cooperating in the project). Also it didn’t have anything with Kosovo refugees/ shatro “humanitarian bombing” – it just created hoax and after their intervention we got people running away from war zone.

I just can’t stand anymore your deep hate for Serbian people. I don’t know where you’re getting all that inspiration and what are your root causes of that ill behavior.

I’m really interested in your background and who is fueling your hater and on what basis – because you don’t accept even independent westerners opinions and fact supported reports that try to put different light on highly twisted westerners CNN propaganda.

I lived in Sarajevo and still have the best friends there, had connections with all sides, warlords, politicians and celebrities on all three sides and had all info of situation developments there. Still have friends among political top in Bosnia and even Croatia and always talk a bit about situation and never got even close conclusion you’re ill feeded with.

Serbia paid the price of confusion and non-determination. Everybody else was preparing for secession and creation of new states – secret meetings, internally and with CIA for project management. They are importing arms(using RedCross trucks) and getting intelligence-consulting from outside – CNN – editors and financiers.
Serbia hat terrible leaders (Slobo & Co.), if they were determined to make Great Serbia- no problem – they were the strongest and in matter of days could do that. But most of the people wanted to defend Yugoslavia with Serbian population within. And because of not clear goal they were late to adjust – everybody else were good positioned, armed and supported by the best media and project management available worldwide.

Roberto,

Who started war in Slovenia – who attacked JNA – (was multinational and command too). Who started war in Croatia (remember clip with undercover Spegelj meeting, choking JNA soldiers, turning the back and whistle on anthem Hej Sloveni long before, in Split on Poljud – that were not the Serbs – Roberto/a – and on top President Mesic is proud to say – “ I destroyed Yugoslavia” taking full credit for that)?
Bosnia – remember Lisbon – they made the deal and we’re all celebrating in Sarajevo- Alija signed = no war = cantons same as in Switcland – but project managers in US – said – No to peace – and Alija I. said it’s invalid what I signed – ne pika se, Ja imam svoje misljenje ali se ne slazem s njim.”

Roberto, a – if you need more info or explanations – ask questions, do research from different sources and not stick to you ill-fueled hater, blindness and broken record rethoric.

Because the USA made its decision to attack Serbia, no matter what,& the USA controls NATO, Serbia was doomed from the start.

If the K-Albanians didn't seek independence on ethnic grounds, then why is the flag the way it is...even why do you call yourself K-Albanian?

As for atocities perpetrated by Serbs, let's recognize that the first use of 'ethnic cleansing' was in the NY Times and referred to the Serbs being forced from Kosovo in the 1980's.

Finally, it's no wonder that you don't want to discuss the composition of Kosovo in any historical context. One simply has to ask, "where are all the mosques?" to determine how integral a part of the history of Kosovo the K-Albanians are.