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Old 27-03-2007, 03:53   #41
haku haku is offline
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Originally Posted by crazy malchik View Post
We are not going to give Kosovo.
I don't think there's anything Serbia can do about it.

Not that i support further balkanization of former Yugoslavia, all that cutting in always smaller pieces is getting ridiculous, even for the Balkans. In 10 years from now, all those small pieces of former Yugoslavia will be EU states, with free movements of people, goods, capital, etc, with no borders and a single currency eventually, making the whole dissolution of Yugoslavia rather pointless (and tragic considering how many people died in that senseless war).

And there's indeed something unsettling about Albanian claims, there is already an Albanian country, so it's not like they absolutely need a homeland. I could understand if Kosovo was detached from Serbia and merged with Albania, many border regions have been transferred like that from one European country to another in the course of history, but why create Albania 2 right next to Albania 1?
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Old 27-03-2007, 17:49   #42
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I don't think Yugoslavia split was exactly pointless. There are absolutely huge nationalistic tendecies behind every nation that formed the artificial unity. It's not about borders really. It's about a sense people get that they're living in their own country and that has nothing to do with EU opening up it's borders to all it's current and future members. I'm sure today in Schengen times Austria and Germany wouldn't be all that fond of being merged into one de iure state, eventhough it wouldn't really make all that much difference in practical terms.

As far as Kosovo goes... very difficult situation. It's a matter of ethnic majority and what THEY want for themselves. Like it or not, though - Albanians ARE an ethnic majority. And it's not like Kosovo's been a part of Serbia since the prehistroric ages. They've conquered it and it had a vague international status ever since. I don't think Kosovar Albanians want AlbaniaII either. I think they want Kosovo. A soverign intependent country, with no special ties to any of it's neigbours. Saying they want a big Albania is like renaming the Wallonic Part of Belgium to Eastern France and Quebec to Western France.
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Old 28-03-2007, 01:26   #43
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Quote:
Originally Posted by crazy malchik View Post
I don't really know where you life … but I think it wouldn't be easy for you to "cut" your country.
I live in Normandy, France.

And well, historically you could say that my country was cut in half, France is the Western half of the Frankish Realm. France (Western Francia) and Germany (Eastern Francia) have a historical claim on each other as they are both direct descendants of the Frankish Empire.
After the death of Emperor Louis I (son of Charlemagne and last common Frankish monarch), Western Francia and Eastern Francia have repeatedly tried to recreate a unified Frankish Empire, leading to many French-German conflicts.
Fortunately, after 1200 years of bickering, we've moved on and are now trying to do the same thing peacefully within the EU.

Regardless, i am still the product of a rather large unitary state, which was originally made up of rather different provinces, so it's not always easy for me to understand why it has never been possible for South Slavic people to unite into a unitary state, because in the end, i don't think that there are more differences between the various South Slavic countries than between the various provinces that united to make up France, Italy, or Germany.
I could say the same thing about Scandinavian people that didn't unite even though they are definitely less different than the people who made up France for example.

Anyway, my advice to Serbia would be to let it go and move on within the EU, Greater-This or Greater-That are things of the past, the only greatness will come from a United Europe that can hold its place in the world as one of the superpowers.
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Old 28-03-2007, 04:08   #44
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Serbia and Russia react differently to Kosovo independence plan

Serbia has firmly rejected an EU and US-backed UN plan to give "supervised independence" to Kosovo in late May, with the Serb prime minister calling for a "historic" Russian veto. But Russia appears to be mellowing its previously tough stance on accepting an imposed solution on the UN-run Serb province.

"Today Serbia once again declares that Kosovo-Metohija will never be independent, and that Serbia rejects in advance any attempt at seizing Kosovo-Metohija as an act of legal aggression," the country's acting prime minister Vojislav Kostunica told state media on Tuesday (27 March), shortly after the EU, US and the other 25 NATO states backed UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari's independence blueprint.

"We are convinced that Mr Ahtisaari's proposal will not be upheld by the [UN] security council and that will open the doors to a new process of negotiations with a new mediator," the Serb politician added. He called on Russia to use its veto at UN security council level to stymie the process in a move that would have "the deepest sense of historical importance for Serbia and the Serbian nation."

Mr Kostunica's administration minister, Zoran Loncar, was even more hostile, saying the Ahtisaari plan "meets the interests of separatists which are to let the ethnic Albanian minority create another Albanian state on Serbia's territory," Balkans agency DTT-NET.COM reports.

The more moderate Serb president Boris Tadic told US diplomat Nicholas Burns by phone on Monday that "any form of independence for Kosovo-Metohija is unacceptable for Serbia, and we will strive to express the need to reach a compromise solution through continued negotiations in our contacts with the UN security council member states."

He added that there is "room for further dialogue" and that "peace and stability in Kosovo" is his main concern, however.

The Russian reaction to Monday's developments has also been largely negative. An official statement on the Russian foreign ministry website said "The establishment of an independent state in Kosovo is fraught with serious complications for stability in Europe."

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov added that if the UN imposes a solution on Kosovo that is unacceptable to Belgrade, he would launch a probe into whether the existing UN resolution 1244 guaranteeing Serbian territorial integrity and allowing the deployment of some 1,000 Serb soldiers in Kosovo has been properly implemented or not.

"We will be checking how existing UN Security Council resolutions on Kosovo, particularly resolution 1244, are being implemented," he said, Russian state news agency Ria Novosti reports.

Is Russia mellowing?
But the Russian reaction - which appears to entertain the possibility of an imposed solution - is less harsh than might be expected given Moscow's previous statements on the issue and does not pick up on Mr Kostunica's fiery rhetoric.

In February, Russian EU ambassador Vladimir Chizhov explicitly told EUobserver: "If it is a negotiated solution, Russia will not oppose it. But if it is an imposed solution, Russia will oppose it."

Mr Chizhov opted not to take the floor during a seminar in Brussels on Monday, when the US' Mr Burns gave his strongly-worded support of the Ahtisaari plan as the way to bring a "century of stability" to the Balkans, with some western analysts now speculating that Russia may abstain from the UN vote rather than use its veto.

"Up till now they have been holding out hoping for some kind of advantage from a blocking position. What kind of advantage is hard to understand - the general idea is that to be indispensable and as difficult as possible is a tactical advantage in international negotiations," CEPS expert and former EU ambassador to Moscow, Michael Emerson, said. "They understand the Serb position is untenable, and therefore they will have to find a way of accepting the inevitable."

Moscow has also started changing its message on the implications of an imposed Kosovo solution for rebel entities in Moldova and Georgia in recent weeks, with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on 21 March telling the Russian parliament that Kosovo would form a de facto precedent for separatists, but that Russia rejects the validity of such a comparison.

"We admit that any decision made about Kosovo's status will set a precedent," he said. "But projection of this situation in respect to Abkhazia, South Ossetia [in Georgia] and Transdnistria [in Moldova] would not be a correct step. I repeat there is no connection," he added, in contrast to several statements made by Russian president Vladimir Putin over the past year.

"We need universal principles to find a fair solution to these problems," Mr Putin said for the first time on state TV on 24 February 2006. "If people believe that Kosovo can be granted full independence, why then should we deny it to Abkhazia and South Ossetia?" he asked, with his diplomats also needling EU states Spain and Cyprus by reminding them they have separatists of their own in recent months.

The US' Mr Burns as well as the EU's envoy to South Caucasus Peter Semneby have ruled out any kind of "trade off" between the pro-Russia rebel entities and the Kosovo veto, while analysts have in the past pointed out that Russia has plenty of separatist problems of its own in the North Caucasus, to mention Chechnya alone.

Self-fulfilling prophecy
But Europe's breakaway movements have been listening to Moscow on the Kosovo precedent and may try to take advantage of the situation despite Russia's recent flip-flopping. Spain and Cyprus - both facing separatist problems of their own - are among the least keen EU states to give Pristina what it wants.

In the Balkans, the Serb enclave in Bosnia - Republika Srpska - has made noises about independence in recent months. This week, the Muslim or "Bosniak" town of Srebrenica - located inside Republika Srpska - said it should get a "special" legal status after the war crimes court in The Hague blamed Serbia for an infamous 1995 massacre.

In the South Caucasus, Mr Semneby says that Kosovo regularly comes up in his conversations with the de facto leaders. In Trasndniestria, the Tiraspol Times on Tuesday ran a story quoting self-imposed ruler Igor Smirnov as saying "Pridnestrovie [Transdniestria] has a much stronger legal and historical basis for recognized sovereignty than Kosovo."

EU Observer


This article points out how balkanization is indeed a neverending process once it's started, there's always a smaller territory that wants to break away from a larger one… Bosnia broke away from Yugoslavia, but now the Bosnian Serbs want to break away from Bosnia, but then the Muslim Bosnians want to break away from the Bosnian Serbs…
Aaaaaaaaah, where does it end?
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Old 30-03-2007, 09:06   #45
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Quote:
Originally Posted by haku
Regardless, i am still the product of a rather large unitary state, which was originally made up of rather different provinces, so it's not always easy for me to understand why it has never been possible for South Slavic people to unite into a unitary state, because in the end, i don't think that there are more differences between the various South Slavic countries than between the various provinces that united to make up France, Italy, or Germany.
Probably becuase those provinces never developed a sense of national belonging or more likely - weren't even familiar with the concept of national states, while most national countries in the balkans even enjoyed brief moments of independence in the past. Sure it all started out as one proto south-slavic tribal community, but that was more than a thousand years ago. Yugoslavia (and the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes before it) was an atempt of patching those ancient ties back together, but at that point we were too estranged to coexist together. It's just as artificial as the Soviet Union and we all know how that ended. In the same way I doubt Sweden, Norway & Denmark would be too keen on dropping their nationalistic tendencies and join forces into a Nordic megastate just because of their common history and similar languages...
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Old 10-04-2007, 17:31   #46
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For the first time, Serbia's war crimes court condemns Serbs involved in the Srebrenica genocide.

Sentences are relatively light though compared to the seriousness of the crimes.
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Old 10-04-2007, 23:37   #47
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These were one of a few senseless slaughters which were actually caught on tape. My mind boggles at the thought of all other crimes that WEREN'T recorded for history to see and abhor. Of course crimes like that were done by Croatians as well, while Bosnians always seemed to be on the recieving end.

It's funny though Serbs I've met were all great and decent people. Very relaxed, very generous and joyful. It's hard to believe something so horrid can stem from an otherwise healthy national psyche. And all it takes is a pinch of nationalism mixed with some good old fashioned Balkan arrogance. Then on the other hand - it doesn't take much to turn a man into an animal. Just look at the (today ultra liberal) Germans. It's hard to grasp such tame and disciplined people were capable of producing idealism of pure evil only 60 years ago.
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Old 11-04-2007, 18:08   #48
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Originally Posted by freddie View Post
Then on the other hand - it doesn't take much to turn a man into an animal. Just look at the (today ultra liberal) Germans. It's hard to grasp such tame and disciplined people were capable of producing idealism of pure evil only 60 years ago.
Well, it was the 'virtues', nothing else, that caused such cruelties - obedience and loyalty. We call it "vorauseilender Gehorsam" (anticipating obedience) and "Nibelungen - Treue" (Nibelung - fidelity). Nazis were perfect in rememorizing the old saga - virtues. Together with the teutonic thoroughness we got such consequences. The deal was: We give you prosperity and glory, you give us your "old germanic virtues".

So, if you want to see it a bit from the wicked side: the best advice is: Fuck the virtues! Live the life as you want and let others do the same!
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