Posted on 01/22/2002 2:59:16 PM PST by enrg
Belgrade, 21 January: A deputy chairman of the Democratic Party of Serbia [DSS, President Kostunica's party], Dragan Marsicanin, said today that the DSS was proposing, in its basic principles for a new Serbian constitution, that Serbia should be divided into five regions whose centres would be Belgrade, Kragujevac, Nis, Novi Sad and Uzice.
"Kosovo-Metohija is an integral part of Yugoslavia and thereby Serbia and it would be the sixth region in Serbia after the issue of its status is resolved," Marsicanin said at a news conference.
Another DSS deputy premier, Zoran Sami, added that Vojvodina, according to the DSS's concept, was one of the five regions, adding that the DSS did not think that the 1974 constitution was a good solution for Vojvodina.
"As far as Sandzak is concerned, it will largely or as a whole belong to the region whose centre is Uzice," Sami said.
"Kosovo-Metohija is an integral part of Yugoslavia and thereby Serbia and it would be the sixth region in Serbia after the issue of its status is resolved," Marsicanin said at a news conference.I have an idea, guys. Let's divide and conquer ... ourselves.
That's not the only problem. Another one is that an official of DSS refers to Rashka by its Turkish name.
Hi there Balkan lot still going for the we have the most freepers with V as are first letter thread.
Cheers Tony
You mean what attracts 6% of the (Vojvodina) voters to him? I don't know. 6% is an acceptable percentage of absolute lunatics... I suppose.
BTW, this has nothing to do with the DSS. The DSS MPs didn't vote for it. The DSS has drafted a proposal for the new Constitution of Serbia (which is open to discussion and amendments). However, my sources tell me that Mr. President is hardly in favour of the draft proposed by his own party, primarily because of Vojvodina and Rashka (so-called "Sandzak").
What I find stupid is the fact that the DSS has proposed this new Constitution which envisions Serbia as a 6-region republic ( [autonomous] Vojvodina, Kosmet, Belgrade, Nish, Uzhitse and Kraguyevats) but at the same time they do not appear to be in favour of giving autonomy to Vojvodina.
The other thing, my opinion is that Banat, Bachka and Srem should be separate regions (in other words - abolish the Province of Vojvodina) of Serbia. Other parts should have no autonomy because Serbia was never a republic or a kingdom made up of regions or provinces. Never in its entire history. Vojvodina, on the other hand, has always been a union of regions. The region of Baranya also used to belong to Vojvodina but that bastard Tito annexed it to Croatia.
My solution would be to decentralize the state and give more power to the municipalities (opsthinas) without creating some new regions, provinces, etc.
As for DSS using a foreign name for Rashka, I noticed that DSS sometimes tries to be too politically correct. Even DSS itself is a mini-DOS within -- fractured into various factions and special interest groups. Disunity has been Serb enemy number one from day one. They can never agree on a common goal and exaggerate their differences to extremes.
Vojvodina is correct. Srem, Banat and Batchka should be considered instead of the so-called Vojvodina. BTW, Baranya was given to Croatia by a "Serb from Montenegro" as he used to refer to himself at the end of his miserable life -- that bastard Milovan Djilas, not that "bastard [Josip Broz] Tito" as Vojvodina claims. That "gift" on Serbia's behalf was in return for Croatia's "generous" agreement to grant Bosnia a tiny sliver of land as access to the Adriatic sea by Vladimir Bakaric, Croatia's communist party boss and Tito's confidant.
BTW, Voyvodina means "Dutchy" (from voyvoda, or voyevoda, which is duke in Serbian). Since Serbs do not have dukes, obviously the name refers to the Austro-Hungarian dutchy, not a Serbian possession. Srem, Banat and Batchka (SBB) is therefore a more appropriate name for the region, which no longer belongs to foreign dukes. However, historically, Vojvodina was settled by Serbs pretty much in the same fashion as Kosovo was settled by Shiptars. The fact that Vojvodina voted for union with Serbia in 1918 is about as legitimate as Kosovo voting for union with Albania. For all practical purposes, the Serbs stole that region by overpopulating it.
Yosif Rayachich was not a "voyvoda" but a 19th century Bishop of Karlovtsi, and later a Serbian patriarch. His sad contribution to the Serbs in Voyvodina was to change the character of their 1848 revolutionary uprising and support the Austrian court against Hungarians. The "reward" his loyalist work brought to the Serbs in Voyvodina was that the Serb status of the province was abolished by Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and turned into an administrative region.
Some of these Serbs fled from the Turkish occupation and ethnic cleansing of Kosovo (see Arsenije III Charnoyevitch)
Yes that was at the end of the 17th century. They fled Kosovo because they rebelled against the Turks during the Austro-Turkish war, after the Austrians were routed by the Turks leaving the Serbs behind to pay the price...starting with the destruction of the Patriarchy of Pech and a decimation of the Serb pipulation. Had it not been for Montenegrins, the Serbian Orthodox Church would have been extinsguished, so we are forever to be mindful of that.
The Great Resettlement of Serbs was therefore a self-inflicted, but understandable misery, fueled by their desire to be free for which we can never fault them. But they can be faulted for their lack of common sense. Despite the fact that the Serbs have always ben let down by the great "allies" they chose in the past (and present), they nevertheless trusted Austrians to somehow protect their miserable lives after Austria was defeated. Yet, right after they were abandoned they went right back to them -- settling in the Banat, Bachka, Srem and Baranya regions which were scarcely populated, but nevertheless populated by non-Serbs. Krayina is diferent: it was not populated by Croatians, and Krayina was created a few centuries earlier. So, I stand by what I wrote in my reply to Tamodaleko and you. We need to come to grips with our own past and reality.
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