DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) – President George W. Bush recognized on Tuesday the independence of Kosovo from Serbia and said it would bring peace to the Balkans.
I am not an expert, nor I know all the aspects of this conflict and its origin. From my point of view and resulting from the events of the latest 48 hours this is so stupid to declare that “it would bring peace to Balkans”.
Independence for Kosovo is an opportunity to move beyond past conflicts and towards stability and peace, Bush said.
Or I am very young and unintelligent or I don’t understand something…
How he can say this words after the fact that NATO steps in as Serbs torch Kosovo border post, Serbs burned down one border post and were attacking a second. Kosovo police manning the post called for help from the NATO peacekeeping force, KFOR, which said it was stepping in.
and now….
NATO closes Kosovo border crossings to Serbia amid violence. One of the crossing points the Serbian side was torched and the other one blown up in an explosion.
I think what will happen in the next few days will determine the result of this Independence…
Hi Nadejda! After you made comments on my blog, now this is my turn
Kosovo, Kosovo, Kosovo, the internet, TV and the whole media is full of news regarding this conflict and the 17th of February. We are lucky since we are facing historical moments…
Kosovo conflict can not bring peace, and what said Bush is a really stupid declaration. I am afraid it will seriously disturb the situation in Balkans and will increase the tensions between Serbians and Albanian till the “hottest point”. What we can see now is just the beginning. The Kosovo’s declaration of independence is “too unconstitutional” to agree with it.
I am wondering also what will happen in the next days…
Appears a question, are we really lucky?.. Historical moment of the beginning of the end?
It is unusual to find you such pisimistic, what’s wrong?
Don’t panic, just analyse how the world is changing…
I am analyzing and the analysis is not optimistic one.
Its a question of the perspective: On the one hand the question, if people shell have the right for their cultural identity and – if not allowed to realise it – to defend it. Nationalisim may have two facets – A) emancipatoric progressive regarding the cultural identity or B) reactionary, regressive hostile. The problem is, if people – by external influences – are not allowed to live A) their cultural identity, defending A) might turn into B). The Albanians in Kosovo have good reason to seperate from Serbia.
Those who destroyed their country, were the Serbs themselfs with their former leader Milosevic. On the current demonstrations you could see many slogans praising Mladic and further criminals of war. Differnt from that, the Kosovars cooperated with Den Haag. The serb nationalists are in contradiction to their own arguments. They want the independence or even unification with the Bosnian Republika Srbska but are against the same right for the Kosovars – With the difference, that the serbs in Bosnia are able and allowed to realise cultural identity – and with the difference, that the far majority of Kosovars do not aim at a state unification with Albania. To quote my own Blog: “The Serb president Milosevic annulled the rotation procedure of the Yugoslav presidential board and the autonomy status of Kosovo: All Kosovans of Albanian ethnicity were fired from their posts as civil servants and workers in public enterprises. As this was the far biggest employer in a former socialist country, almost all ethnical Albanians in Kosovo suddenly were unemployed – with almost no chance to find a new occupation. Although 88 percent of the Kosovo population is Albanian and speaks Albanian, all Albanian teachers from schools and universities were pushed out. In their own country the majority of the population was forced to feel like foreigners. It was a Serb colonial apartheid regime aiming to destroy all ethnical Albanian cultural roots. At least, there it started, Milosevic launched his statement, that wherever there is living a Serb, it is Serbia”. And this describes only the actual discrimination. The Serb apartheid system in their former Colony Kosovo has a long lasting history. The question is not, whether others will take the independence of Kosovo as an example for their own cases – the question is, if their is a good reason to do so. And I see this in particular for the Kurdish and the Kosovan people. For Moldawia I can not judge this. I just heard, that it is an artificial construction with former parts of Romania and Russia – what also keeps alive the question of cultural identity.
Thanks Julius for the comment from the other part of the world. You are definitely right, there are two sides of the problem.
I really hope there will be no deaths. Till now (what I know) there are over 100 of injured but none dead.
Be careful there and keep me updated about the situation.
there is one dead, he is Serbian who burned alive when the USA embassy in Belgrad was in fire, but this is the official data…
Oh my God…no comment.