It seems that contrary to the wishes of Kosovo's Serbian minority, Serbia, and Russia Kosovo has declared independence from Serbia and various western countries will recognize their declaration. Given the status quo as it existed last week, this is the right thing to do, but that the situation reached the present impasse was a pretty serious failing. It seems likely that the main price will be paid by people in Georgia (former Soviet Georgia, that is) where Russia will retaliate by recognizing the independent of Abkhazia and possibly touching off some intensified conflict there.
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Kosovo Independence
17 Feb 2008 12:10 pm
Comments (85)
I hope Matt's wrong about Russian recognition of Abkhazia. They have an incentive to withhold it at least until the legality of the Kossovan declaration is made more clear.
I don't think we need any more states at the moment, at least not until the UN reforms its relationship with the one's we've already got.
Aren't Serbs in northern Kosovo now going to say they are going to leave Kosovo and rejoin Serbia? And why not really? If Albanian Kosovars are allowed to secede from Serbia why shouldn't the local Serbians enjoy the same right? I'm not that familiar with the demographics, but my understanding is that there are some Serb majority areas near the border.
This whole situation is a total mess.
Civil war in the future because of Kosovo independence? Russian retaliation? Looks like Bill Clinton's much vaunted "victories" in the Balkins were another failure. Last thing we need is President Hillary to continue the mistakes of the past.
Actually Matt the likelihood of Russia recognising Abkhazia is pretty slim. Moscow's major issue with Kosovan independence has little to do with pan-Slavic solidarity with the Serbs - its all about putting a precedent in international law that a province can break away from a state without its consent. Its tricky in the case of Kosovo, but I think the Russians are broadly right on this. They of course have more than a little self-interest in this, not wishing Tatarstan or Ingushetia to get any ideas, as well as the problem of the 'frozen conflicts' in Georgia and Moldova which Russia has no wish to re-ignite.
The problem is after granting independence to Kosova (which is possibly an economically unsustainable unit as a state in any case) what do you say tomorrow to Rspblika Srpska in Bosnia? Or indeed to the Basques, Bretons, Quebecois and any other national minority that wants to go its own way?
On an even more urgent note, and one more politically contingent on the West right now, what do you say to the Kurds?
ikl:
There are majority Serbs on the northern border, but if they secede and join Serbia they and Serbia are recognizing that Kosovo is independent. Thus, it is in their and Serbia's interest to have the situation where they are de facto part of Serbia (which they basically are) but not officially separate from Kosovo. ALso there are some Serbs in the south and the monasteries and whatnot that make up the mythical Serbian heartland of Kosovo are also in the south. Serbs don't want to officially recognize that this is no longer part of Serbia, adding reasons for northern Serbs in Kosovo not to break away.
"If Albanian Kosovars are allowed to secede from Serbia why shouldn't the local Serbians enjoy the same right?"
Because Milosevic and Serbia started this whole bloody mess, and thus should end up with the anti-spoils.
Germany lost some territory after World War II too.
Serbia should consider itself lucky that the entire world didn't decide to burn Belgrade and scatter salt upon the ruins.
Where's the anti-Bush angle? Surely there's someway we can blame this on Bush?
"The problem is after granting independence to Kosova (which is possibly an economically unsustainable unit as a state in any case) what do you say tomorrow to Rspblika Srpska in Bosnia?"
Go fuck yourselves.
Recent history matters in terms of international sympathy.
Except Petey, not everyone reads the same history as us, and perceptions of the 1990's with regards Yugoslavia are very different on all sides. Its not like the Serbs were the only ones who committed atrocities.
The bottom line is that Serbia lost Kosovo when its troops were kicked out in 1999;the declaration today is just the follow-up, as the Serbs and Russians know full well. Anyone who has seriously studied the region knows that it is basically impossible to keep the Kosovar Albanians(who are linguistically, religiously and culturally distinct from the Serbs and make up 92% of the population)under the jurisdiction of Belgrade after the recent brutal conflicts with Milosovic's Serbia. Russia understands very well that any solution that falls short of Kosovar independence would be untenable but continues to insist on the impossible scenario of a Serb-Albanian agreement as well as linking the unique Kosovar case with other situations in the Caucasus that could potentially benefit them.
The "intensified conflict", that may occur in the former Soviet states as a result of Kosovo's declaration will be Russia's fault alone. It will be an opportunity to continue its mission to further extend its influence in a region (Georgia, Ukraine, ect.)that Russia considers beholden to it.
Daragh, true. Also, Petey should recognize that the KLA essentially gambled that if they stepped up their provocations the could get the West to intervene, which is what happened. That doesn't excuse Serbian atrocities by any means, but it was a little more complicated than Nazi Germany.
At least we can rest assured that nothing that happens in that corner of Europe ever really affects the rest of the world.
"Except Petey, not everyone reads the same history as us, and perceptions of the 1990's with regards Yugoslavia are very different on all sides. Its not like the Serbs were the only ones who committed atrocities."
The French, British, and Americans committed atrocities in Germany during World War II. That doesn't change the obvious truth of the bird's eye view that the Nazis were the bad guys.
Anyone who wants to defend the Serbs during the '90's by saying "everyone did it" is either ignorant or a stooge. Plain and simple.
Where's the anti-Bush angle? Surely there's someway we can blame this on Bush?
Posted by Juan | February 17, 2008 12:46 PM
1. Bush needlessly poked the bear with missile defense nonsense, tearing up the ABM treaty and threatening to base interceptors along Russia's border. He essentially made opposing American designs a point of Russian pride and patriotism.
2. Bush needlessly destroyed America's international capital and credibility with his Iraq misadventure, making it much harder for us to assume any kind of leadership position or bring pressure to bear.
All peoples have the right to self-determination. Including the Kosovar Serbs, the Abkhazians, and anyone else. The contrary is fascist.
Very good Al, so every family in the US has the right to secede their property from said US.
Regarding Bosnia, one might make the case that the whole state of 'Bosnia' has, arguably, no real right to exist. There is little historical precedent for a state called Bosnia, and the territory on which it now sits historically belonged either to Serbia or Croatia. Muslims have never been a majority in Bosnia and they are not one today. The only reason that they form a _plurality_ today is because during World War II, the Croatian government killed 700,000 Serbs (who had traditionally been the majority in Bosnia). The US government, by giving in to the demands of the Bosnian Muslims and Croats, was in effect placing the stamp of approval the Ustashe massacres of World War II.
Bosnia belongs by rights to Serbia, as Serbians were traditionally a majority in that province, and a plurality until the 1970s. But the US, caring little about either history or religion, created a completely artificial and ahistorical entity called Bosnia, and the Islamists all over the world rubbed their hands in glee.
"All peoples have the right to self-determination. Including the Kosovar Serbs, the Abkhazians, and anyone else. The contrary is fascist."
For the most part, I think this is false. I don't think Vermonters have the right to secede from the USA, for example.
But the former Yugoslavia is an exception to the general rule for some specific reasons that end up being somewhat complex to explain.
Petey,
The Serbs held the line for a thousand years against Turkish and Nazi aggression, and this is how you thank them. Are you aware that part of the reason there are so many Albanians in Kosovo today is because the Fascist government of Albania settled tons of Albanians there (and deported the Serbs) during WWII.
It's ridiculous for you to compare others to Nazis, when _your side_ (the Croatians and the Muslims) are actually the direct beneficiaries of the Nazi/Fascist actions against the Serbs during World War II.
Petey's attitude is pretty revealing here with his need to find good guys and bad guys (defined in ethnic terms!) and view everything through that lens (i.e. OK to minimize killings of Serbs in Kosovo because they are the "bad guys"). This is silly and morally obtuse. Real life is a lot more complicated especially in the Balkans.
Though I agree with Petey that the self-determination for everybody principle is pretty silly and not how one would want to justify Kosovar independence.
"The Serbs held the line for a thousand years against Turkish and Nazi aggression, and this is how you thank them."
I truly fail to see how what happened in the fifteenth century affects the grievances of today.
The Petey statute of limitations on collective guilt only lasts a generation or so. I'm cool with the Germans these days, despite Hitler, and I'll be cool with the Serbs in another decade or so.
But the Serbs did commit a collective crime, and they still haven't finished serving their sentence. They'll be out on parole soon enough.
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I'll add another condition to my sentence from upthread with Hector in mind:
Anyone who wants to defend the Serbs during the '90's by saying "everyone did it" is either ignorant, a stooge, or someone who wants to go crusading against the Muslims.
Hector:
Read fairy tales much?
"The Serbs held the line for a thousand years against Turkish and Nazi aggression, and this is how you thank them."
Held the line against the Turks? I presume you are referring to the battle of Kosovo in which the Serbs were crushed? Or are you referring to the fact that Serbia was part of the Ottoman empire until the 19th century?
"Are you aware that part of the reason there are so many Albanians in Kosovo today is because the Fascist government of Albania settled tons of Albanians there (and deported the Serbs) during WWII."
Are you aware that there are so many Serbs in much of today's Serbia because the Hapsburgs invited them there and that waves of people left Kosovo becuase it kind of sucks?
"It's ridiculous for you to compare others to Nazis, when _your side_ (the Croatians and the Muslims) are actually the direct beneficiaries of the Nazi/Fascist actions against the Serbs during World War II."
Nice logical fallacy. Why don't you go read some more nationalist fairy tales...er, I mean history.
Yeah Hector, it was totally cool to slaughter (secular) muslim men and boys because their grandfathers *weren't* the targets of fascist Croatian paramilitaries.
And "the Serbs held the line for a thousand years"? So the Ottomans were aggressively expanding into Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries? Or are you just giving the Sieges of Belgrade and Vienna 500 years of extra credit?
"Petey's attitude is pretty revealing here with his need to find good guys and bad guys (defined in ethnic terms!) and view everything through that lens (i.e. OK to minimize killings of Serbs in Kosovo because they are the "bad guys"). This is silly and morally obtuse."
I find it morally pretty clear. Similarly, I find it difficult to summon up much sympathy for the plight of the Hutu following the Tutsi counterattack after the Rwandan genocide.
Complex and bloody situations can still contain some clear moral lines, if you follow the whole situation.
OK, so now we have bizzaroworld arguments on both sides. This is clearly not heading toward a productive discussion.
"OK, so now we have bizzaroworld arguments on both sides."
Just because there are competing narratives doesn't mean that they're both bizarrworld.
If you listen to one person saying that pizza comes from Antartica and one person saying that pizza comes from Italy, you could conclude that "now we have bizzaroworld arguments on both sides." But that would be a lazy (at best) conclusion.
"This is clearly not heading toward a productive discussion."
Discussions like this never reach consensus, for reasons that should be obvious. Ever participated in a Israel/Palestinian discussion?
As I said, you are being morally obtuse here. Some old person in a Serbian village in Kosovo has pretty much nothing causally to do with atrocities in Bosnia. They just happened to be born with the "wrong" ethnicity. You, however, seem to think that it is OK to take out whatever some Serbs do on all Serbs everywhere. Perhaps you think that Stalin deporting the Volga Germans to Central Asia was OK as well . . .
"There is little historical precedent for a state called Bosnia, and the territory on which it now sits historically belonged either to Serbia or Croatia."
This is just silly. Bosnia and Herzegovina "belonged" successively to the Roman Empire, various medieval kingdoms (most of which the Serbs would claim, and some of which the Croats would call theirs), the Ottomans, the Austrians, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and Yugoslavia. Among others, for example the Germans in WWII.
Balkan arguments from history!
I wonder if Al believes in self-determination for the Iraqis.
I generally don't for the same reason. But one would think that there are less partisans around on this issue in the Anglophone world.
Narratives that depend on some sort of collective ethnic responsibility to discount the interests of certain people generally fall into the bizzaroworld category. That is what is going on on both sides here, in my view. Serbian atrocities in Bosnia (under a former government) don't make it OK to mistreat Serbs in Kosovo or dismember Serbia (though this might be justified for other reasons); whatever happened 500 years ago doesn't justify mistreating non-Serbs.
Here's a simple litmus test for all of you arguing that Kosovo should remain under Serbian control: have you heard of any Serbian politician talking of giving 2 million Albanians equal voting rights in a multi-ethnic Serbian state which comprises Kosovo?
The reason they wouldn't do this is because there are only 8 million Serbs in Serbia proper today. They could never grant 20% of the popular vote to a group of people who would without doubt always vote together as a block, especially given recent history.
Serbs are like the proverbial dog chasing a car: they chase it because they know there's not chance of them ever catching it. If, by some turn of events they did catch it, they wouldn't know what to do with it.
Damir outlines the serious case for Kosovar indepedence. It's not a matter of deep principle, just that things are likely to turn out better that way for almost everyone involved (except for the Serbs actually in Kosovo and their extended families). The thing is that if this is the justification, there is no good way to tell Serb majority areas in the north not to secede (they will call it refusing to recognize Kosovo) and join Serbia.
Damir,
You raise a good point. On top of that, of course, there is the fact that the Albanian Muslims have a much higher birth rate than Serbs, and would presumably be a much bigger share of the population within a few generations.
I don't know exactly what should have been done about the Muslim regions of former Yugoslavia. Perhaps it's fair to say that once the wars had begun, there was too much bad blood between Serbs and Muslims to allow them to live in a state together. I'm open to the argument that, _in practice_ the best thing to do in 1996 was to let Bosnia go, just as the best thing today might be to let Kosovo go. I do think that the Serbian atrocities against Bosnians (and remember, it wasn't all one sided- the Croats massacred plenty of Serbs as well) would never have happened if the secessionist struggles had never happened and those in turn would never have happened if the Western powers had not ignorantly lent their support to secessionist movements.
What I do insist on is that while there may not be any better alternative to secession for Kosovo and Bosnia, there is absolutely no abstract _right_ for Bosnia and Kosovo to exist as nations. Each of them is as artificial a country, and with as little right to exist, as Pakistan, Taiwan, or the former East Germany. What happened was a tragedy for Serbia and for anyone who believed in the promise of Yugoslavia, the most successful of all the East European countries, and we should remember that.
Hector's logic is odd. By his logic, since the majority of people on American soil are white and only a majority because of a genocide that took place over a century ago, we should turn the US over to Native Americans only because failure to do so legitimates that genocide. Genocide does matter, but demographics do too, especially considering the Utashe were Croatian Catholics, not Bosnian Muslims (nor Kosovars, for that matter). Besides, you can flip the argument on its head and point out that failure to recognize Bosnian independence then legitimizes the genocide the Serbs unleashed there, which just happens to have taken place less than a generation ago. Pretending that Kosovo or Bosnia are really part of the same nation as Serbia today serves no one's long-term interest, especially considering that neither group thinks so.
Petey is correct in asserting that just because things are historically complicated doesn't mean we can't tell right from wrong in situations like Yugoslavia in the '90's. Serbia, and many Serbs individually and in groups, were wrong. Period. It is just a fact of history that many communist apparatchiks like Milosevic who punished expressions of ethnic/sectarian difference in Yugoslavia under Tito found it a convenient device for manipulating the situation to their short-term advantage when Yugoslavia collapsed. Similar events played out all over the former Soviet empire, including most recently in Iraq. When all traces of civil society are wiped out in a totalitarian system, it's collapse tends to exaggerate what vestigal group identities remain. Clever political hacks know how to take advantage of this.
2 Damir et al,
what a hell are you talking about? Albanians do have and have always had equal voting rights in Serbia!
Dirty little secret is that during Milosevic's rule, Albanians boycotted Serbian elections even though the future of Milosevic regime was squarely in their hands. They could have stopped wars in Croatia and Bosnia had they and their political parties taken part in Serbian elections.
They didn't do it, since they never cared about democracy, human rights, stopping genocidal war and that sort of thing. They were always focused on pursuing the goals of Albanian nationalism.
The big question is why the West never pressured Albanian political parties to join Serbian opposition in toppling Milosevic's regime. Does anybody know?
Or indeed to the Basques, Bretons, Quebecois and any other national minority that wants to go its own way?
Well, in the case of the former, one of the perceived advantages of the EU is its attitude towards regions. The catch-22 is that the kind of regional or ethnic problems that might be addressed with EU assistance now count against EU entry.
Each of them is as artificial a country, and with as little right to exist--
'Right'? The claim to self-determination underpinning the modern nation state is hardly something inherent; it's no less artificial than the claims of the old dynastic state. It's the product of historical circumstances, no more or less.
People like Al who argue everyone has a right to self-determination including Kosovars and Abkhazians ignore a small detail. Whereas ethnic Albanians are now more than 90% of the population of Kosovo, when the ethnic Abkhazians attempted to secede from Georgia, they did not form anywhere near a majority of the population of Abkhazia. In the last census conducted before the collapse of the Soviet Union, ethnic Abkhazians were less than 20% of the total population of Abkhazia.
A whole bunch of you fellas talk like friggin racists here. Serbs are bad? Albanians are bad? - what the heck is this all about? There's a country called Serbia and if everyone in that country is an equal citizen regardless of their ethnicity or religion and that's all the self-determination they need. If anyone is like the Nazis it's definitely the ethnic nationalists of all kinds and in this particular case it's mostly Albanian separatists.
Ethnic Riot, though you're technically right, it's also quite a bit more complicated than you make it out to be.
Albanians chose to stop participating in Yugoslav institutions in the late 80s-early 90s because they were losing rights that they had accrued during the 70s under Tito--rights to autonomous status within Yugoslavia. These rights were taken away by Milosevic in 1989, and sounded an alarm among the other republics making up Yugoslavia. Slovenia and Croatia in particular were trying to reform post-Tito Yugoslavia as a confederation of republics. Milosevic's ideal was a unitary Yugoslavia with all control staying in Belgrade. Kosovo's fate under Milosevic was a klaxon warning to the remaining republics to prepare for similar treatment.
The idea that democracy functioned in the 1990s in Milosevic's Yugoslavia is a fantasy. That the Kosovars could have stopped the bloodletting in the 1990s had they only exercised their right to vote is ahistoric best. Part of Milosevic's calculus in trying to cleanse Kosovo in 1999 was the demographic threat of voting Albanians should they choose to exercise their rights.
There's an interesting counterfactual here, however: What if the Kosovars had decided to start participating in Serbian institutions after the fall of Milosevic? My guess is that the Serbian nationalist right would be far less enthusiastic today about keeping Kosovo than they have been.
ikl, I agree 100%. I hardly think that this was the best way to go about things, and contra Matt, I'll say that the big losers here won't be Georgians, but rather the peoples of the Balkans.
I'm surprised by Jake's comment - comment #1. The Serbs I know - young, liberal, emigrated in the early 90s - are outraged by Kosovo's declaration of independence and the Bush administration's cavalier acceptance of it. The disintegration of Yugoslavia was a lot more complicated than ignorant Westerners like to pretend, and history didn't start in 1990.
Anyone who can write a sentence like this: Serbia should consider itself lucky that the entire world didn't decide to burn Belgrade and scatter salt upon the ruins. is just a vile, vile human being - I don't even have words for the contempt and pity I have for someone that arrogant in their meanness and ignorance.
anyone who passed the second grade can see how a recognition of Kosovar independence threatens the Bush agenda of a "democratic, secure and unified" Iraq. If you agree that the Kurds were treated far more badly than were the Kosovars, they have just as much of a right to seperate.
Not good enough? How about Chechnya seperating from Russia? Or the Punjab from India? How about Colorado, Utah, California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico? What about Quebec seperating from Canada?
Where precisely do you stop? And how does the rest of the world respond to American ignorance and arrogance on the issue?
I think it's highly ironic that after several decades in which the United States successively backed the Bosnians against the Serbs, the Albanians against the Serbs, the Afghans against the Soviets, the Chechens against the Russians, Pakistan against India, Azerbaijian against Armenia, the Indonesians against the Timorese, as well as complaining that Egypt and Syria were mean to the Muslim Brotherhood, we now start complaining that Islamic extremism is taking over the world. Gee, you think?
Al Qaeda and their ideological allies must be rubbing their hands with glee right now, that Kosovo has been liberated from the hands of the infidel, thanks to the United States.
There sure is a lot of hand-rubbing going on in your fantasy world, isn't there Hector?
Mr. Powell,
A minor correction but Tito-era Yugoslavia, in contrast to some other Eastern European countries, is generally considered an authoritarian society, not a totalitarian one, to use Ms. Kirkpatrick's distinction. There was a certain amount of civil society, and much of the economy was under the control of market-oriented workers' cooperatives, and there was even a certain amount of free expression as long as one did not challenge the overarching economic and political system. It can't be fairly called totalitarian. There was nothing inevitable about the rise of ethnic nationalism in Yugoslavia, it happened because of the machinations of Milosevic, Tudjman, and other opportunistic politician.
vanya, Petey is mean, but not ignorant (the jury's out on "vile"). So let me put a little more nicely.
Historically, nations that have initiated the policies that Serbians did (when they had the whip hand) that led to such suffering, who have THEN found themselves on the losing end of the equation after having made life so difficult for their more powerful neighbors...well, those nations traditionally don't do as well as Serbia is doing right now.
Had everyone gone all Dresden/Carthage on Belgrade, it may well have been vile, but it sure as hell wouldn't have been unprecedented, or even all that surprising.
Re: Al Qaeda and their ideological allies must be rubbing their hands with glee right now, that Kosovo has been liberated from the hands of the infidel, thanks to the United States.
Hector, you are aware that the majority of Albanians have no religion at all, courtesy of 40 years of Communism tyranny? And that there are also Albanians who are Orthodox or Catholic, of which latter faith Mother Teresa was a very famous Albanian member?
You can't shoehorn this Balkan mess into some Grand neo-Crusade against Islam. To the extent that it's not the heritage of 25 centuries of ethnic hatreds, it's a hangover from the Cold War, courtesy of Comrade Tito's Divide and Rule policies. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Middle East. Indeed, Wahhabi missionary preachers went home to Saudi Arabia muttering in their beards in disgust at the laxness of Balkan Islam even where it was still practiced.
Man, it sure was simpler back when the Ottoman Empire was still around. Couldn't we just give the Balkans to Greece?
Hector seems to have a serious blind spot. It's not because of Serb behavior in Bosnia that Serbs are being punished in Kosovo. It's because of Serb behavior in Kosovo. You know, the whole massacring of entire families, the ten thousand plus dead Albanians (some of whom were transported in refrigerator trucks to Serbia and dumped in rivers so their bodies wouldn't be discovered), the million or so that Serbia ethnically cleansed by deporting them to Macedonia and Albania. That's why Serbia lost the moral right to Kosovo.
The problem with Serb areas in Northern Kosovo seceding is that Albanian areas in central Serbia (that border Kosovo) will then also secede. It's very messy when things like that happen.
"Historically, nations that have initiated the policies that Serbians did (when they had the whip hand) that led to such suffering, who have THEN found themselves on the losing end of the equation after having made life so difficult for their more powerful neighbors...well, those nations traditionally don't do as well as Serbia is doing right now" That's history lesson Nº1, right?: Don't lose. Nothing else matters, as long as you find yourself on the winning side. I agree, but that aside, I fail to see exactly WHO would have had the balls to go all "burn Belgrade and scatter salt upon the ruins." ¿The same guys who didn't dare to send ground troops into Kosovo? And I guess that Russia would have watched happily while hundreds of thousands of Serbs were massacred, right? We can say that other nations which did comparable things, in other circumstances, suffered much more than Serbia, but I fail to see what "luck" had to do with it. On the other hand, it's a bit funny to see Kosovo declare independence while it's still under NATO occupation. Let's face it, declaration or not, the main reason all out civil war hasn't started again in the region it's because several thousands NATO troops have become permanent part of the region.
"A minor correction but Tito-era Yugoslavia, in contrast to some other Eastern European countries, is generally considered an authoritarian society, not a totalitarian one, to use Ms. Kirkpatrick's distinction."
Very true. Chalmers Johnson's argument that Tito's Yugoslavia and Mao's China showed a lot more independence from Moscow because those regimes were initiated by local nationalist communist forces, not brought from above by Moscow, probably has something to do with that. Add in the fact that Tito didn't seem to have a totalitarian disposition, just an authoritarian one, and you get a communist authoritarian state, but not the Gulag.
I have to say my liberal Serbain friends living in the US and the UK are pretty pissed about this. I have to say though that that's the breaks for doing things like having your soldiers force fathers and sons to orally castrate each other at gunpoint while raping their mothers and sisters.
No, that's the breaks for doing that and LOSING. If you win, everything it's hunky dory.
"I have to say my liberal Serbain friends living in the US and the UK are pretty pissed about this. I have to say though that that's the breaks for doing things like having your soldiers force fathers and sons to orally castrate each other at gunpoint while raping their mothers and sisters."
Exactamundo.
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Tangentially, I have known some otherwise liberal Serb émigrés in the US who have an incredible blind spot about the horrors of the Milosevic regime.
The closest analogy for me is the blind spot of some otherwise liberal American Jews for the problems with the post-'67 Israeli regime.
In reading about Yugoslavia, one thing I found fascinating is how the Serbs, like the Jews, were a major target of Nazi genocide. It's worth noting how that seems to have produced, in Israel and Serbia, two of the modern industrialized nations that are most paranoid and have been most willing to embark on Nazi-tinged policies to try to ensure their own security.
"It's not because of Serb behavior in Bosnia that Serbs are being punished in Kosovo. It's because of Serb behavior in Kosovo."
Disagree in a practical sense. Without Bosnia having already put the world on notice, Serbia likely would've been able to get away with their plan in Kosovo.
"Tangentially, I have known some otherwise liberal Serb émigrés in the US who have an incredible blind spot about the horrors of the Milosevic regime."
I know the feeling and can relate to it personally. I find my generation of Indian-Americans and South Asian-Americans in general to have more Hindu-Muslim-Christian understanding and toleration than previous ones for a variety of reasons. However, things still do get heated when it's largely just a strict Hindu vs. Muslim argument about things like Indian-Pakistani relations or over Kashmir, especially when there are no Kashmiris present. If I bring up my idea how it would probably be better if Kashmir became indepdent (either just Jammu & Kashmir or all of Kashmir currently in multiple countries) as a buffer state, things get even worse, which is why I usually don't mention it. (However, throw a proud Kashmiri into the mix and all of a sudden no one wants to diss the Kashmiri and I turn into Mr. Popular).
Those pointing out that the dictatorship in Yugoslavia wasn't as "totalitarian" as in other parts of the Soviet empire are right-my sloppy generalization, although everyone should admit that the Yugoslav dictatorship was pretty severe. Things were more totalitarian in Albania, which was Maoist; and surely no one is asserting that China wasn't totalitarian are they? In any case, I think it's more than just coincidence that as the communist regimes collapsed right round the East Bloc, similar patterns of opportunistic civil war emerged.
I find Petey's attempt at equivalency between Serbian behavior and that of Israel to be repugnant, and unsupportable by any data. The relevant point in this regard is made by nolaboyd and alluded to by Charrua--"history lesson No. 1". If anyone is analogous to the Serbs here it's the Arabs. If you launch an unprovoked war of aggression against a legally-recognized nation state and lose, there will be negative consequences. Just ask the millions of Germans ethnically cleansed from all over Eastern Europe around the same time.
If anything the Arab case is even weaker than the Serbs'. While the State of Israel was recognized by the UN and most of the other nations of the world in 1948, polite opinion in the US and the EU clearly preferred to support the idea of Yugoslav territorial integrity until the bitter end.
There were tens of millions of Poles, Ukrainians, Balts, Tartars, Finns, and others expelled from their traditional homelands in the aftermath of WWII, and most of them were victims of aggression rather than its perpetrators. Any suggestion of a "right of return" was likely to result in a one-way ticket to Siberia, or a bullet in the neck. Arguably, the Serbs got off light for their crimes, but not as light as the Arabs or the Croats.
Robert Powell: On the one hand, Tito suppressed political dissent fairly harshly by sending prisoners to the prison camp at Goli Otok for everything from sympathy for Stalinism to free markets. His secret police, the UDBA, assasinated as many as 200 enemies of the state, often times in foreign countries.
On the other hand, especially in the later period, Yugoslav life just wasn't that bad. People could travel fairly freely abroad, and the mood at home was worlds removed from the totalitarian experiences depicted in Milan Kundera novels or in The Lives of Others.
I remember as a child growing up in the United States being puzzled by questions about my homeland, and the puzzled looks on the faces of people at my replies. "How does it feel to have escaped a communist regime?" "I don't know, we go back every summer to visit family..."
"I find Petey's attempt at equivalency between Serbian behavior and that of Israel to be repugnant"
I'm not asserting equivalency. I compared "the horrors of the Milosevic regime" with "the problems with the post-'67 Israeli regime".
What Israel has been up to post-'67 is quite obviously not up to the level of repugnance of the '90's Serb regime. Compared to the Serbs, Israel has been relatively restrained in its attempts to extra-legally gain territory by displacing people, and that restraint is an important moral advantage.
Similarly, noting that a car thief and a rapist are both criminals isn't normally considered an "attempt at equivalency". Most folks who can see shades of grey understand that some crimes are considerably worse than others.
Damir,
your experience tallies with Yugoslav friends of mine who still look back fondly on the pre-1990 era. The fact that they did have freedom to travel is a good point. It's also interesting that many of the people that Tito sent to the prison camps were actually Stalinists or former Fascists who would, if anything, have been crueller to their political opponents. Under Tito, Yugoslavia also boasted, for a period of about 20 years, the highest economic growth rates in the world, and if I recall correctly per capita income by the mid-1980s in Yugoslavia was comparable to Greece or Portugal.
Ironically, Tito appears to have wanted to cede Kosovo to Albania, although this plan was never enacted.
JonF,
I thought that Mother Theresa was Macedonian, wasn't she?
Petey,
yes, obviously the Serbs did some horrible things in Bosnia and Kosovo, and probably there is, in practice, no better alternative to independence for both of those countries. I do think it should be recognized, though, that both regions were _historically_ a part of Serbia and that it's unfortunate that opportunistic Yugoslav politicians and the Western countries decided to incite secessionism and ethnic hatred. It should also be recognized that in general, the Orthodox world has not had an easy time of it the last thousand years, being squeezed between Rome on one side and Mecca on the other.
If you launch an unprovoked war of aggression against a legally-recognized nation state and lose, there will be negative consequences. Just ask the millions of Germans ethnically cleansed from all over Eastern Europe around the same time.
If any body has the power to determine whether a nation-state should be punished for aggression, it's the UN Security Council. But the UNSC reaffirmed the the "sovereignty and territorial integrity" of of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (now Serbia) in Resolution 1244 in 1999. Whatever arguements there are for Kosova's independence, punishing Serbian aggression is not one of them.
Citing the expulsion of ethnic Germans after World War II as precedent for international relations today is like citing the firebombing of Dresden & Toyko. Deliberately bombing civilians is illegal; so are mass expulsions of individuals belonging to particular ethnic groups, regardless of whether the individuals belong to groups that were the victims of aggression or the perpetrators of it.
Clearly, no "body has the power to determine whether a nation-state should be punished for aggression". It gets done in more practical terms. You are quite correct on Resolution 1244. Let's see how much difference it makes.
I don't "cite the expulsion of ethnic Germans after WWII as precedent for international relations today". I cite it as context for the expulsion of the Arabs in the wake of their failed offensive in the same time period. These were contemporaneous, and linked, events.
Petey-
"Comparing horrors with problems"?. Lame, and you know it.
"Comparing horrors with problems"?. Lame, and you know it."
No, I don't know it. You just happen to disagree with me. Don't question my sincerity just because you have blind spots in how you view Israel.
I always saw the Milosevic policies as Israel's post-'67 policies on steroids.
And again, degrees of criminality matter. What the Israelis have done is considerably less reprehensible than what the Serbs did. But it's a difference in degree, not a difference in kind.
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And tangentially, you seem rather confused about who actually launched hostilities in the Arab/Israeli war in '67. You're not alone in your confusion, but that doesn't make you any less confused.
(This is confusion is central to your point, but only very tangential to mine. Even if Israel had been attacked first in '67, it wouldn't dramatically change the moral status of the occupation and Israel's effort to extra-legally create 'facts on the ground' to make the occupation permanent. It's still ethnic cleansing, even if it's ethnic cleansing done with a very light touch.)
Petey--I don't question your sincerity. Just your objectivity, and grasp of the relevant facts.
--The war was launched by the Arab states in 1948, which is also when the relevant refugee issue developed. The idea that there was any kind of peace between 1948 and 1967, or that Israel engaged in anything remotely analogous to Serbia's behavior in former Yugoslavia, is counter-factual, not to mention preposterous. The situations were different in KIND, not just degree. Maybe you've got some evidence of vast armored columns mobilized by the Bosniaks (who were under an arms embargo at the time), poised to take Belgrade?
--The idea that Israel launched an unprovoked war in 1967 ignores most of the relevant facts, including the arrangements between Egypt and Syria, the air actions in the North, Egyptian and Syrian troop movements (especially those of Egypt), Nasser's radio broadcast announcing the imminent attack in the Sinai, and many more relevant facts.
--The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was a bad idea, but what was the alternative? Jordan and Egypt should have negotiated to reclaim sovereignty in these areas, but they preferred to keep the "Palestinians" warehoused like livestock for use as bargaining chips, cheap labor, and terrorist recruits. Simply turning over control to the competing tribal mafias currently claiming to the the Arab leadership in these areas remains, objectively, unappealing.
Petey,
yes, obviously the Serbs did some horrible things in Bosnia and Kosovo, and probably there is, in practice, no better alternative to independence for both of those countries. I do think it should be recognized, though, that both regions were _historically_ a part of Serbia and that it's unfortunate that opportunistic Yugoslav politicians and the Western countries decided to incite secessionism and ethnic hatred. It should also be recognized that in general, the Orthodox world has not had an easy time of it the last thousand years, being squeezed between Rome on one side and Mecca on the other.
Hector,
I'm wondering in which era are you living? You seem coming mentally from the previous milleniums.
You clearly hate Rome and those who followed it from Catholicism to Protestanism (basically the West) and the Mecca (of course),any thing that is not Orthodox. So you are clearly left only with Russia who is the one to decide through the Security Council whether it is right or at least legal for Kosovo to become independent or not! I agree that you and the kind of thinking that you represent is that of criminals portraying themselves as victims.Be sure that this means being much closer to the Arabs than anybody else. Closer to Mecca? You are still so confused!
"The war was launched by the Arab states in 1948"
As repeatedly noted, my problem with Israeli behavior exclusively concerns the post-1967 era.
The pre-'67 Israeli borders have legitimacy.
The post'-67 effort to create 'facts on the ground' to enlarge Israel's permanent borders by gradual ethnic cleansing is pretty much exactly what Milosevic's Serbia attempted to do, albeit with far less savage methods.
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"The idea that Israel launched an unprovoked war in 1967..."
Did I ever say that?
I'm generally careful about which words I choose to use. I ask you to be equally careful in reading my comments, unless you prefer arguing with strawmen. (Some people do enjoy just that, of course...)
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"The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was a bad idea, but what was the alternative?"
I'd be far more sympathetic to Israel's plight had both major Israeli parties not immediately embarked on a project to use the occupation to change the demographic realities of the occupied territories. There's a fundamental difference between occupying the West Bank for an interim period, and attempting to use the occupation to shift the demographic patterns of the West Bank to permanently shift future borders.
There is little fundamental difference between Serbia trying to make areas of Bosnia more Serbian under force of arms and Israel trying to make areas of the West Bank more Jewish under force of arms.
If you prefer to live in an alternate reality which doesn't involve acknowledging the settlements, well then, I guess I understand why you find the Israel/Serbia connection so difficult to understand.
The Serbs and Israelis both faced legitimate security and territorial concerns. That doesn't give them carte blanche to employ extra-legal land grabs in response any more than the French occupation of the Rhineland in the '20's justified Nazi behavior.
As LBJ said to the PM after the '67 war, Israel now had to decide what kind of nation it wanted to be. And it chose to be a mildly evil nation. Just because it didn't chose to be as evil as Serbia doesn't change that fact.
Comparing the Arabs living under the Occupation to the Serbs is apples and oranges. By 1967, there was already a growing sense of Palestinian identity that was distinct from other Arab identities (Egyptian, Syrian, etc.). The people living under the Occupation are Palestinians, not Egyptians, Syrians or Jordanians.
There are a couple of principles that are in conflict here: the idea of nation-self determination and the power of the UNSC to maintain order. Both are good. However, if Russia vetoes an attempt to allow Kosovo to be independent, they will be doing so out of a form of ethnic chauvinism, which also drove their support for Milosevic. Different countries have a right to recognize different nations. After all, some countries still recognize Taiwan. If they wish to, shouldn't the Basques, the Kurds, the Kashmiris, the Tamils of Sri Lanka, the Palestinians, etc. be allowed to have their own nation if they so choose? This is not to say the US should recognize all of these issues - after all, we will still have our own national interest to consider - but that doesn't violate any moral right of a group to seek independence for itself. I'm currently behind the Great Firewall of China, so I won't say certain things out of self-preservation, but if a couple of ethnic groups were able to organize themselves to declare independence from a permanent member of the UNSC, we may not want to recognize them, but they would still have the moral right to seek independence.
If a nation's government wishes to maintain its historic homeland, they need to maintain good will with the local population. Just because your people started out somewhere where they are no longer the majority doesn't give you any real right to control that area indefinitely. Nobody forced such a high number of Serbs to support Milosevic. Nobody made Milosevic to commit genocide. After all, if German Jews had been the majority pre-Holocaust in some part of Germany that Germans saw as their homeland, launched the Holocaust and then Jews were still the majority there, would Germans have any moral standing to objecting to the creation of a Jewish state on this soil? I don't think so. In the end, a patch of land doesn't have an innate value. The people who live there have a right to that land and give it its value.
Mr. Powell,
Re: The idea that Israel launched an unprovoked war in 1967 ignores most of the relevant facts, including the arrangements between Egypt and Syria, the air actions in the North, Egyptian and Syrian troop movements (especially those of Egypt), Nasser's radio broadcast announcing the imminent attack in the Sinai, and many more relevant facts.
I wouldn't say that Israel's attack in 1967 was unprovoked. It was certainly provoked, but they were still the ones to start the fighting- and whether or not the provocation was strong enough to start a war is an open question. There was considerable doubt at the time whether Nasser had any intention of invading or was simply engaging in brinkmanship in order to look tough. Top Israeli military commanders _acknowledged_ after the war that they did not believe Nasser actually had any intention of invading, since much of his army was at the time tied down in Yemen.
The Israelis were looking for a chance to grab some land and destroy the army of their strongest enemy, and they got one. They are not some kind of paragons of virtue here.
Linda,
That's absurd. I have no particular animus against Rome, nor against Protestantism, and my dislike of 'the West' stems from my anti-liberalism, not from any anti-Protestantism. I'm Anglican, not Orthodox. What I said was that Eastern Christianity has been squeezed for a thousand years, which is simply objective fact. The Vatican did play power politics during the Crusades, the last siege of Byzantium, and through the succeeding centuries- I don't intent that as a term of abuse, but just as a statement of fact. They did put heavy pressure on the last few emperors of Byzantium to convert to Catholicism in order to get military aid, and they did try to extend their influence into Eastern Europe during the centuries after the fall of Byzantium.
Stating the facts is neither 'propaganda' nor 'hatred'.
Petey,
Just as a point of information, the ICJ concluded that Serbia did not commit genocide during the Bosnian or Kosovo wars. They found identified one case which matched the definition of genocide, (Srebrenica) which was committed by Bosnian Serbs, not by Serbia. They did find that Serbia "failed to stop" the genocide at Srebrenica. This was much like Israel's indirect responsbility for the massacres at Sabra and Chatila.
Under Tito, Yugoslavia also boasted, for a period of about 20 years, the highest economic growth rates in the world, and if I recall correctly per capita income by the mid-1980s in Yugoslavia was comparable to Greece or Portugal.
Ironically, Tito appears to have wanted to cede Kosovo to Albania, although this plan was never enacted.
Hi Hector. Might be true, but you forget to mention that it was thanks to generous aid from West, to promote a less harsh communist regime as a better example versus more Orthodox ones. The gratitude.....? One can see with the fight against Mc.Donalds in Belgrade .. those agly symbols of Western Culture. How bitter and paranoic.
Under Tito, Yugoslavia also boasted, for a period of about 20 years, the highest economic growth rates in the world, and if I recall correctly per capita income by the mid-1980s in Yugoslavia was comparable to Greece or Portugal.
Ironically, Tito appears to have wanted to cede Kosovo to Albania, although this plan was never enacted.
Hi Hector. Might be true, but you forget to mention that it was thanks to generous aid from West, to promote a less harsh communist regime as a better example versus more Orthodox ones. The gratitude.....? One can see with the fight against Mc.Donalds in Belgrade .. those agly symbols of Western Culture. How bitter and paranoic.
Damir et al,
what a hell are you talking about? Albanians do have and have always had equal voting rights in Serbia!
Dirty little secret is that during Milosevic's rule, Albanians boycotted Serbian elections even though the future of Milosevic regime was squarely in their hands. They could have stopped wars in Croatia and Bosnia had they and their political parties taken part in Serbian elections.
They didn't do it, since they never cared about democracy, human rights, stopping genocidal war and that sort of thing. They were always focused on pursuing the goals of Albanian nationalism.
The big question is why the West never pressured Albanian political parties to join Serbian opposition in toppling Milosevic's regime. Does anybody know?
Posted by ethnic riot
Dear ethnic riot!
Are you really sober? What are you trying to say, that Albanians were the ones that had into their hands the future of Miloshevic regime? They were responsible for keeping it, not the Serbs? And you wanted them to come to Belgrade to oppose it for Serbs while in Kosovo they have finally got rid of him? You simply fail to understand that Albanians never wanted to be part of the Yugoslavia because they have suffered attrocities long- time ago before Miloshevic was even born. Kosovo was made made part of Yugoslavia against its will with the belssing of the same coutries that now finally understood what a deep mistake it was and are trying to remedy. Rights to vote? What about right to live? Albanians didn't even have that one. Are Kostunica and Nikolic better guys and have the Serbs from devils turned into angels in a few years? Just look at the pictures on what is happening these days in Serbia and Srpska to understand that oen can not sleep with the enemy.These people are really sick. They need thousands of doctors, I mean psychiatrists and intensive therapies to cure their hearts and souls.
G.W.Bush & Elizabeth 11 are relatives of Leka 1 king of the albanians and they are attempting to backdoor him into a power sharing agreement, and with the realization of the greater albania. The CIA & MI6 are very familiar with Leka & his father Zog, who assissted them with their illegal arms dealing & drug smuggling operations & intrigue around the globe. Regarding the alledged non-religiousity of the albanians due to commie rule for 40 years be serious.More than 80% of albanians are muslim. After the serbs were driven from kosovo, over 1000 churches (not mosques) were destoyed. Where do you suppose the christian & jewish albanians are going to worship? Probably prison.Regarding Fascism (govt.of business, by business,for business) Hmm,sounds sorta familiar huh? Hitler once said "the U.S. will not be ready for fascism until the 80's",the little rat bastard was right about that. G.W.'s granddaddy played a part in Hitlers rise to power providing financial($20,000,000)and moral support to the NAZI's. In fact one of his partnerships (union bank) was siezed under the trading with the enemy act.Look it up.Furthermore the Bush family were involved with the eugenics movement out-lawed in the U.S. in 1933 the same year hitler took power.Coincidence ? I think not.
lil bush has a severe case of short cheney complex complicated by obamas the size of mustard seeds. destroying people and things with american military might makes him feel bigger. he is truly dangerous to us all. He is an example of what you get when humans are heavily inbred. his ma&pa are related through multiple branches of his family tree.Blue-blooded "hillbilly's"!!! Slightly off point but important to americans is that obama is not only cheney's cousin he is also bush's. funny thing about the constitution it prohibits the president and vice- president coming from the same state but doesn't prohibit relatives like bush/cheney from serving at the same time. cheney has certainly given the term "VICE"-president a whole new meaning
Hector - Bosnia is historically Croatian land up to the Drina river - as matter of fact, historical Croatian land goes deep into Vojvodina province to Zemun (just north of Belgrade). The Ottomans sent the Serbs west...the Bosnian muslims were predominantly Croatian catholics before the Turks forced conversion.
You need to brush up on your history, before you make statements like that. Serbia has ethnically cleansed whole areas of Bosnia, thereby a means to justift the separation of Republika Srpska.
If they feel so strongly against Kosovo's independence on account of historical grounds, then they should all clear out of Bosna (up to Drina) and western Vojvodina on account of historical Croatian grounds!
@Hector - Bosnia is historically Croatian land up to the Drina river - as matter of fact, historical Croatian land goes deep into Vojvodina province to Zemun (just north of Belgrade) and east into Montenegro (known as historic Red Croatia). The Ottomans sent the Serbs west in efforts to evade persecution...the Bosnian muslims were predominantly Croatian catholics before the Turks forced conversion.
Orthodox churches only sprung up in Bosna once the Ottomans began occupying, prior to that only Catholicism reigned. Several Orthodox patriarchs led mass exoduses of fleeing Serbs out of Serbia proper and into Croatia and Bosnia.
You need to brush up on your history, before you make statements like that. Serbia has
I have family that emigrated to the U.S. during the 80s from Serbia and they're neither surprised nor outraged by Kosovo seeking independence. They tell me that a lot of Serbs, particularly rural, conservative Serbs who may have backed Milosevic during the wars, may have a harder time getting used to this. But since the wars, most (particularly younger) Serbs moved into Belgrade and the surrounding suburbs and have taken a pragmatic view with Kosovar separation. And, Serbia in general has a huge relationship with the United States, both diplomatically and socially (with millions of immigrants already in the U.S.). The impasse with Russian recognition is a problem with Russia, which views any diplomatic action in Eastern Europe without their explicit involvement as a slight against them.
Posted by Jake in Milwaukee | February 17, 2008 12:24 PM