Posted on 12/15/2002 7:10:55 PM PST by bob808
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia - The head of a U.N. Security Council delegation on Sunday urged all citizens of internationally administered Kosovo to help turn it into a multiethnic society.
Visiting this ethnically divided northern town, Ole Peter Kolby, Norway's U.N. ambassador who heads the delegation, called on both the ethnic Albanian majority and Serb minority to create "a more normal society" in order to bring peace and prosperity to the still tense province.
Kosovska Mitrovica is divided — and territorially split by a river — between a Serb-dominated north and an ethnic Albanian southern part. It has been repeatedly the scene of violent clashes in the past and remains one of Kosovo's flashpoints.
"We want Kosovo to be a multiethnic society. There should be room for everybody here, and it's also important that everybody tries to integrate," Kolby said.
The delegation of 15 Security Council ambassadors representing all countries represented on the body were on a three-day fact-finding mission in this U.N.-run province, hoping to put more pressure on its citizens to build a multiethnic and multicultural society.
On their arrival Saturday, Kolby told a gathering of international and local officials that the province could face a bleak future unless it commits itself more fully to building democratic institutions and warned of "self-isolation" if it fails to become a place where the rights of minorities are respected.
He said the majority should show tolerance toward minorities.
But delegation members also appealed to the minorities — mainly ethnic Serbs — to try harder to integrate into the ethnic Albanian-dominated province.
Ethnic Serbs live mainly in NATO-guarded enclaves and are often highly suspicious of any contact with ethnic Albanians. Although ethnically motivated incidents have decreased since the end of the war, hostility persists.
Delegates planned to travel on Monday to Belgrade to meet with Yugoslav leaders before returning to New York the following day.
Kosovo, formally a Yugoslav province, has been administered by the United Nations since June 1999, after a NATO-led air war halted a crackdown by Serb forces on separatist ethnic Albanians. An estimated 10,000 people were killed in the conflict, the majority of them ethnic Albanians.
Translation: Kosovo is so extremely shafted, so very very far on the short end of the proverbial stick.
If you live there now, RUN, don't walk to the nearest border and keep on going.
That's correct. This is the same issue that will come and haunt Israelis -- their proportion of Arabs is about the same as Albanians in Serbia -- roughly 20 percent with a huge birth rate.
Some Israelis are suggesting "deporting" their Arab citizens as "undesirable" potential and real 5th column. Sounds preposterous, but so is their future. In another 50 years or so, Arabs will be the majority in the Jewish state, and then what?
Those who cling to Kosovo solution by "reintegrating" it are wrong. Dead wrong. The only possible "solution" for the Kosovo situation is for Serbs at this point to lick their wounds and try to salvage as much as possible: partition.
But what good will partition do if in the next 10 years or so there is another tidal wave of Albanians spilling into the Serb partition? The partition must be not just geographic but demographic as well. Albanians will have to decide where they will live -- and if they decide to live in Serbia, they will have to accept Serbia as their homeland.
Unlike Israel, Serbia is facing ethnic reality in her face from more than one source and must do something about it -- soon! Today, about 2/3 of Serbia's population are Serbs, which means that ever third person there is not an ethnic Serb. Serbia must come to grips with its ethnic issue and redefine the concept of ethnic groups there, or face national extinction in not such a distant future.
One of the reasons why multiculturalism has worked so far in countries like the U.S is because the immigrants become "absorbed" or "assimilated" in one, two, maybe three generations. Everybody in Amnerica can celebrate their culture, speak their language and so on at home and in private schools, but they are all expected to be Americans and speak English in public life. There are no autonomous provinces in the U.S. Geographic autonomy is simply a no-go.
Indian reservations are the closest thing to it, but they are officially "sovereign nations." In reality, they depend on the Federal Government and are expected to show allegience to it, so their sovereignty amounts to some conditional autonomy. More importantly, the American government can take a non-chalant attitude towards its Indian population because they are but 1% of the total number of Americans.
In Serbia, as it is in Israel, the minorities will not assimilate, and their proportion is physically a lot different and growing. Hungarians in Voyvodina may have been born there for generations, but thye won't say they are Hungarian-Serbians, no -- they call themselves "Hungarians from Voyvodina." In America, people of Italian descent -- one, two generations back -- refer to themselves as Italian-Americans.
In the Balkans, cultural and religious differences are treated as biological or genetic or racial attributes. There are no "Serbian genes" as there are no "Croatian genes." What makes one a Serb is a culutre, a way of life, and that is learned. No one is born a Serb!
So, Serbia needs to work on two issues: (1) secure it geographic and demographic integirty through pragmatic policies, even if it means counting losses and moving on, and (2) re-establishing its national identity and redefining ethnic autonomy to reflect culutral life and not political or territorial concepts. Above all, it must demand loylaty of its citizens to the country of their birth, and not to the country of their ancestoral origin.
Some tribes may have become extinct, but nations usually survive. Jews are a perfect example of that -- they survived because of their culture and not because of their land. Serbs have forgotten who they are; they have lost touch with their past, their history is illegible to them, their language unclear and disunified. They are an amateur nation at this point. We shall see if they have a survival instinct like the Israelis, or if they will go down the history lane as one of the major Darwin Awards recepients.
What gave you an idea that I am a Serb?Maybe I am a Croat?
Racial hatred,Serbs???It is your lot and your Pavelich and Starchevich that surpassed even Nazis in chauvinism and hatred!As far as center of Balkan gravity go,dude,take a good look at the map:who controls major Euro-Asian Corridors?Who is central Balkan nation?630 km of river Danube is in Serbia,one of the major EEC developement projects.Wery well educated people and workforce(just like in Croatia,Slovenia),10 million population...Much better than neighbouring Bulgars,Romanians,Albanians!
You,papak,better take care of yourself,and don`t get into economy!And,don`t pick a fight with me,you`re not qualified!Save your wisdom for a church.
This odious Orwellian newspeak means that the last remaining Serb enclave is to be destroyed.
Besides, they hid in their mountains not to come out until the Turks came, so their contact with wild Slavic tribes was limited.
Yes, your ancestors and mine and everyone else's on this board, whether they care to admit it or not. You speak the truth here.
Mythology tends to idealize one side and villify the other. Crusaders almost never reached the iddle East -- the place they set to go to in order to defend Christ's grave from the "infidels." They would get too distracted raping and pillalging Christian cities on their way that they had more than enough fun and loot to cut their excursions short.
One of the biggest mistakes in invoking the moral fiber of history is that fact that it is almost always "out of context." Trying to imply some modern 21st century moral outrage on illiterate and pagan Illyrians is a joke only and idiot can use as an "argument."
Good to see you confess to the existence of the UCK's planned genocide!
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