Kosovo in flames as Albanians renew war on Serbs

telegraph.co.uk ^ | 18/03/2004) | Harry de Quetteville

[Hoplite]

Alas, I'm unable to figure out your relationship to Fusion.

Happily, I could care less.

Get lost.

[wtc911]

Aside from a recent visit w/KFOR in Kosovo I spent time in pre-war B/H (Split, Dubrovnik, Mostar). I clearly remember a chopper pilot chomping at the bit for the killing to start. This was summer '90. I often wonder how long he lasted and, if alive, what he thinks about the killing now. I do know that even if he's long dead there are thousands on all sides keeping their knives sharp for the day we leave.

[Lion in Winter]

Every single Albanian man they came in contact with had knives and usually a pistol OR TWO. He really did not give much description. It was a comment made to me in a letter last year. Then at the recent family re-union he told a bunch of us old guys that he hated the place and was never so glad to get away from a group of, his words: "feral so-called muslims".

Oh, and he thinks clinton was an idiot to get involved there in the first place.

I agree. It is time to close the Camp and leave it to the Serbians to sort out. It is their country after all. Enough already.

[pointsal]

ping

[Fredy]

"""I agree. It is time to close the Camp and leave it to the Serbians to sort out. It is their country after all. Enough already.""""

AMEN Brother

[ma bell]

This is the Northside during a Serbian rally about 300 meters up the main road directly leading into the Ibar Bridge.

These are the infamous "3 Towers", where the Albanians are allowed to live due to the KFOR forcing the local populace to "accept" these living arrangments.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

Please look up the word "jocularity" in the dictionary, beave.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

Since when? It's 90% Albanians and the Serbs lost the war. It's no more Serbia than Silesia is German. Get over it.

[ma bell]

When and how did the Albanians settle within Kosovo? When and how did the Serbs settle Kosovo?

How did each ethnic group come about in Kosovo AND the region?

Kosta, you mind enligthening both of us?

[Moby Grape]

Our thanks and graditude to the United Nations for the GRAND job of keeping the peace.

[mpreston]

Spain repeats 1938 and the following week war breaks out Kosovo. An indication of Europe's future.

[wtc911]

Cool pix. Any hassles taking them?

[Fredy]

Well, are you really sure that German got over it ??

Kosovo is Serbia even 100% of people living there is from Mars. No politician can not erase that.

Israel was waited almost 1000 years to be returned on their land and Jerusalem. Serbs will wait as much as needed. If necessary we will start to greet each other with : "Next year at Kosovo."

[claudiustg]

Here's some more historical information on Kosovo:

---Over the centuries, the land called Kosovo has been home to many peoples. Often serving as a buffer between hostile groups, it reached its peak as a European political and cultural center under the Serbians from the 12th to the 14th centuries. Now viewed by Serbians as the cradle of their nation, the maintenance of Kosovo as part of Serbia has become a cornerstone of the appeals of the nationalists and ultranationalists who have come to dominate Serbia's politics following the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

Illyrians, Thracians, and Celts lived in the Kosovo area in the 2nd century AD, when Rome finished incorporating what was to become Yugoslavia into its empire. Rome's hold was relatively short lived, however. Late in the 4th century, Slavs moving south from the Carpathian Mountains attacked and conquered Roman strongholds in the area. Two centuries later, Slavic groups began to settle permanently. By the 10th century, the region's Slavic tribes had become three discernible groups: Croatians, Slovenians, and Serbians. The Serbians became dominant in Kosovo as well as in what are now Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. While Croatians and Slovenians were Christianized by Rome, thus becoming Roman Catholics, Serbs were largely Christianized through Byzantium, becoming Eastern Orthodox.

Kosovo—and the other lands controlled by the Serbians—was repeatedly a point of contention among Bulgarian, Hungarian, Byzantine, and Roman leaders into the 12th century. Over the next two centuries, Serbians enjoyed independence under the Nemanje dynasty; the reigns of Stephen (1169-89), Milutin (1281-1321), and Dusan (1331-55) were particularly golden eras. Kosovo and settlements immediately to the north became the political and cultural heartland of the Serbians during this period. The economy prospered—largely as a result of the use of migrant labor brought in from Transylvania to exploit the minerals of the region—and the royal court came to rival that of other monarchies in Europe in both its power and splendor.

After the death of Dusan, the Serbian kingdom came on bad times. Turkish raiders defeated the internally bickering Serbians in the battle of Kosovo Polje—on the plains west of what is now Pristina—on 28 June 1389. Because this marked the end of the glory days and the beginning of centuries of struggle against neighbors bent on dominating Serbia, no date is more significant and no place dearer to Serbians. Nevertheless, Turkey's preoccupation with the Mongol threat from the east allowed Serbia to remain more or less independent for another 70 years.

In 1459, Serbia finally fell to the Turks. For the next 250 years, what are today Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia were part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman's chief threat from the west, the Hapsburg Empire, controlled Croatia and Slovenia and established Vojvodina and Krajina as a homeland for Serbians fleeing Turkish rule. Brutal Turkish suppression of Serbian rebellions resulted in waves of Serbians abandoning Kosovo in 1690 and 1738. While some Serbians remained in Kosovo, Albanians began trickling into the Metohija.

By the latter half of the 19th century, Serbians began seeking to regain their lost lands. The Ottomans, in an effort to hinder Serbian expansion, encouraged more Albanians, now largely Muslim converts, to settle in Kosovo, where Pristina became the transportation and administrative hub and Prizren the birthplace of the first organized Albanian nationalist movement—the Albanian League of Prizren—in 1878.

What is now Serbia proper gained de facto independence in the early 1800s, a status that became de jure as a result of the Treaty of Berlin of 1878. Not until the two Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, however, did Serbians regain Kosovo. Albania became independent during the same period, although its border with Yugoslavia was not agreed on until 1926. This border separated nearly a half-million Albanians in Kosovo and Macedonia from what they perceived to be their homeland. According to historians, between 1926 and 1941, more than half of all Kosovars (ethnic Albanians of Kosovo) may have emigrated, primarily to Albania and Turkey, as Serbians began to trickle back to the area.

During World War II most of Kosovo was controlled by Italy. After the war, the status of Kosovo within Yugoslavia became an issue that has yet to be resolved. In an effort to redress the perceived ethnic imbalance within Kosovo, the new republic's government unsuccessfully sought to entice Serbians to migrate to these areas, offering veterans of the war special benefits to do so. Government policies in Kosovo vacillated between those aimed at suppressing Albanian nationalism and those aimed at appeasement and assimilation. Kosovar demands for republic status within the federation were continuous, however, and sporadic Serbian crackdowns yielded massive outmigrations; during 1954-57, for example, as many as 200,000 Albanians may have left, according to historical accounts.

The province's status changed in 1974 when the new Yugoslav Constitution removed Kosovo from direct political dominance by Serbians and proclaimed it an autonomous province of the federal republic. Meanwhile, Kosovo remained an economic backwater. Many Serbians—as well as many Kosovars—left the province during this period because of a shortage of economic opportunities. A sizable flow of Serbians out of Kosovo continued into the 1980s. According to official statistics, between 1961 and 1987 more than 100,000 Serbs left Kosovo.

Following the death of Tito in 1980, the predominantly Albanian population of Kosovo commenced demonstrations aimed at forcing the Yugoslav Government to recognize the province as a federal republic on an equal footing with the six existing republics. In the spring of 1981, acts of civil disorder and economic sabotage, led largely by students at the University of Pristina, escalated. The demonstrators publicly proclaimed issues of discrimination and freedom as the bases of discontent, but some historians believe that students and elites also were frustrated by their inability to find employment in Kosovo commensurate with their training. As a result of the unrest, the national government sealed off Kosovo, sent in the militia to restore order, and closed educational institutions. Virtual occupation of the region by the Yugoslav People's Army followed.---

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/docs/980600-kosovo-cia.htm

[Cronos]

Sorry, but Kosovo is not Israel and the Albanians are not muslim extremists.

Thank you. The Balkan solution is not a simple one -- after all people have been worried about that area since the 18th century.

[Cronos]

It is their country after all. Enough already.

In terms of historical claims BOTH sides have right to the land. But, you can't give all of it to one side or the other. The Serbian government has brought up the plan of dividing Kosovo along ethnic lines, so that both sides are safe from the other. This seems a good idea.

[Cronos]

• Well: briefly:
• The Albanians are descendents of Illyrians who lived in most of what became South Jugoslavia in pre Roman and Roman times.
• The Slavs moved into the area in the 600s and took the land from them, pushing these illyrians into the mountains of Albania.
• at that time the Albanians were 100% Christian (Albanian Orthodox church and the Catholic church)
• The Serbs formed their first kingdom based in Kosovo and got Christianized.
• The Albanians were on the dividing line between the Western and Eastern churchs and were buffetted about.
• The Turks came around the 14th century and conquered most of the land.
• They carried out forceful conversions in the 16th and 17th centuries (after Constantinople had fallen), but many Albanians stuck to their religion or practised in secret.  Some left like Mother Teresa.
• The Serbs were able to hold off the Turks and, being gutsy people fought them.  However they mostly lost and escaped from Kosovo.  The Albanians were then moved in by the Turks.
• The ones who did convert took a form of Islam (Bashkazi dervishes) which seems more Christian (usage of wine in holy ceremonies, equality of status for women).
• The Communists came and declared God was dead.  The suppression of religion in Albania was harsher than any other commie state.
• So, BOTH have equally valid claims to the land of Kosovo, historically and to ask either to give it up completely is incorrect.
• There's too much propaganda about painting Albanians and Kosovar Albanians as islamic fundamentalist terrorists.  This is a lame attempt to coutn this as part of the war on Terror. 
• Well, the war is between ethnicities, not religions.

[Cronos]

Israel was waited almost 1000 years to be returned on their land and Jerusalem. Serbs will wait as much as needed. If necessary we will start to greet each other with : "Next year at Kosovo."

If you're going on prior historical claim, then the Albanians can come back and say all of the land was Albanian before 600. That's Not going to work. Both sides have claims and no one side can have it , "100%"

[Lion in Winter]

9/11 is all the history I need to know about islamics/Muslims.... they are FANANTICS and they murdered thousands of my fellow Americans.... and I am still steamed about it!

Quite frankly, I appreciate your efforts to give me a History lesson.... but right NOW all over the world these slimy islamics are trying to kill CHRISTIANS and JEWS and they are succeeding.... so, right NOW and THE FUTURE is all I am concerned with. Thanks anyway, OK?

Islamics are working in Kosovo, in Russia, in Georgia, in Sudan, in Israel and everyplace else they have an outhouse established!! THEY KILL CHRISTIANS AND OTHER NON-MUSLIMS. The islamics have no genuine gripe with anybody as far as I am concerned... they just want control/power/women/goats/little boys/little girls/money/falafel.

I have relatives ... alot of them in the US Military... I found out yesterday that I have a third cousin fighting In Afghanistan.

It is the here and now and the future of our way of life and our way of freedom... that we have to be concerned with. I got grand-babies and a great-grandbaby that I do not want to see enslaved by commies or islamics.

DOWN WITH THE ISLAMICS IN KOSOVO AND EVERYPLACE ELSE FOT THAT MATTER!!

LET'S ROLL!!!!!