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The Lithgae Jambo · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 11:47 am Post subject: Braver than us

I wish Kosovo well.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7247428.stm

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Aventinian · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 12:51 pm Post subject:

Most of them would probably rather be part of Albania, but realise there's not the faintest chance of it being allowed by the UN for fear of annoying Russia and Serbia too much. In that respect, it's rather like Northern Ireland with the population numbers reversed.

Unless 'independence' comes with a great deal of international oversight, I can see it turning into a disaster.
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RFM · Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:01 pm Post subject:

They certainly regard Kosovo as part of Albania. Look at the flags they are waving in the streets of Pristina today.

Dave Coull · Independentista Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 998

The heading on this topic is "Braver than us".

Would the person who decided on that heading like to try to explain in what way the Muslim sectarian fanatics who have taken over from the Christian Orthodox sectarian fanatics as top dogs in Kosovo are "braver than us"?

Is it because they have approved a constitution written in German which most of the population, of all religious and ethnic backgrounds, can't even read? Is it because their "independent" statelet is being propped up by foreign troops? No? Well what, then?

RFM · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:57 am Post subject:

How about it Lithgae jambo?

We are all ears.

iainmhor · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:04 am Post subject:

The KLA and the people of Kosovo fought for their freedom as is their inalienable right. Faced with Serbian national chauvinism and oppression backed by Russia is it any wonder that like the Kurds, they adopt the position, my enemys enemy is my friend?

A potential by product could be Russian and Serbian support for Scottish independence.

Dave Coull · Independentista Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 998

Iainmohr says "The KLA" (a sectarian militia) "and the people of Kosovo" (or at least some of them, some opposed the KLA, some supported neither side) "fought for their freedom as is their inalienable right. Faced with Serbian national chauvinism and oppression backed by Russia is it any wonder that like the Kurds, they adopt the position, my enemys enemy is my friend?"

That doesn't answer the question which I raised. In what way are they "braver than us"?

iainmhor · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:48 am Post subject:

Id say they were braver than us now because they were prepared to fight and die for their independence. Most Scots are only prepared to fight and die for Englands glory.

Shameful.

Aventinian · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:07 pm Post subject:

William_Cleland · This is Ma' Life! Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 777

Rinty · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 1:16 pm Post subject:

Aye, the situation is very similar to NI, the albanians being the ulster scots (only more % population).

I would bet that Kosovo will eventually be part of albania, it is the natural progression from this step. Their independence and vision of indeopendence is based entirekly on their albanian ethinicity just as unionism in NI is based on the British Identity.

William_Cleland · This is Ma' Life! Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 777

Bring back the days of workers' self-managment and jedinstvo i bratsvo. Smile

Agreed on a Greater Albania being the end game. Next on the agenda will be western Macedonia. If demographic trends continue Albanians will form the majority in Macedonia in about another generation's time so another ex-Yugo partition is most definitely on the cards unless the ethnic Macedonians want Albania to wind up having a border with Bulgaria.

Dave Coull · Independentista Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 998

Iainmohr wrote "Id say they were braver than us now because they were prepared to fight and die for their independence"

That shows several mis-understandings of the actual situation.

First of all, you completely ignore the RELIGIOUS or sectarian aspect. Serb equals Christian Orthodox, Albanian equals Muslim.

The KLA was/is a Muslim militia. I don't think the KLA were fighting for "independence" as such. I'd say most of them were fighting for two things, (1) as a defence of Kosovo's Muslim/Albanian community against attacks by Serbian Orthodox Christian extremists, and (2) for their own extremist end of a Union with Greater Albania (still not achieved yet).

Kosovo "independence" is (for now, at least) what has actually happened, but it wasn't what folk were fighting for, and it is unlikely to be the end result.

As for the comparison with Scotland, we Scots include at least two major Christian groupings, as well as Muslims. While there can be some tensions between the various groups, and while there may have been some increased hostility towards Scotland's Muslims in recent years, the sectarian situation here isn't even remotely anything like as bad as in Kosovo. Since nobody's religious community is actually threatened with physical extinction or expulsion, we don't have anything like the KLA fighting to defend "their" community from sectarian attacks. Also, many KLA fighters were seeking Union with an external "homeland", namely Albania. The equivelant here in Scotland would be if we had an Irish Catholic militia seeking Union with Ireland, or if we had a Muslim militia seeking Union with Pakistan. Since neither of these things exists here, it makes no sense to compare Kosovo with Scotland.

The reality is that few people in Kosovo actually wanted "independence" as such. They wanted either Union with Serbia, or Union with Albania. Here in Scotland, we really do have a significant INDEPENDENCE movement. But since we are not threatened with physical extinction, we are prepared to seek independence peacefully and democratically. To claim that the Kosovars who were prepared to take up arms in a totally different situation, and for completely different aims, are somehow "braver", is nonsense.

RFM · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 4:55 pm Post subject:

To iainmhor,

The comparison of Kosovo with Northern Ireland is not even remotely close, and notions of their fighting for their independence betrays a want knowledge of the history of the area.

The KLA appeared on the scene initially in 1995, but was listed by the USA and the UN as a terrorist group, that engaged in white slavery and drug trafficking. By 1997, Paul Gelbhard, US representative to the Balkans was quoted as saying the KLA was without question a terrorist group. However the next year it was quietly removed from the US State Department terrorist list and from a small band, grew enormously with funding, arms and munitions believed to have been provided by the CIA. This at the same time the State Department began to fear for the safety of its diplomats in Albania and with a KLA assassination plot uncovered against Secretary of Defense Cohen.

The likely reason for the reversal was the rise of Slobodan Milosovic, an undistinguished communist party functionary, who was elected President of the Yugoslav Federal Republic in 1997 on a one line platform of protecting the Serbs and the Serbian autonomy of Kosovo. After Tito died in 1980, the USA and western european nations, including specifically Germany all had hopes of a western friendly and western oriented Balkan. With Milosovic that was not to be. Ibrahim Rugova, the elected president of Kosovo denied knowledge of the KLA until after it was clear he could not control them and could only hope to follow along. The KLA sought an open armed conflict with Serbia, which Rugova did not, and with the backing of the USA under the guise of NATO, KLA suddenly emerged as the "freedom fighters" for Greater Albania, a notion along the lines of Hitlers "Gross Deutchland".

What is little talked about in the press these days is the information that the KLA had direct links to Al Queda and Osama bin Laden, apparently no longer newsworthy after 1998. And although the so-called International Tribunal of the Hague to prosecute war crimes keeps calling for Serb, Croat and Montenegren army officers, they seem to have developed a blind spot about the ethnic cleansing carried out by the KLA.

RadgeJougal · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 4:56 pm Post subject:

That's ye telt, Iainmohr!

"What is little talked about in the press these days is the information that the KLA had direct links to Al Queda and Osama bin Laden, apparently no longer newsworthy after 1998"

I heard Dave Coull had links to Brechin, but he denies it. Laughing

Red Justice · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:01 pm Post subject:

In allowing analogies between Kosovo independence and the situation here in the Celtic countries it is stark that the British government are all willing to see it right for there to be freedom for Kosovo but not for Scotland, Wales, Cornwall or Isle of Man.

If partition (North Kosovo wants to stay with Serbia) is wrong in Kosovo, why is it correct in Ireland?

It seems to the British themselves it can be seen as acceptable for some to divide or partition a country but not viewed as acceptable to do so by others elsewhere.

What is clear my television is switched off to British propaganda over domestic or international matters and long may it continue that way.
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William_Cleland · This is Ma' Life! Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 777

Cymro · Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 1:14 pm Post subject:

At the end of the day regardless of who the KLA where and why they where fighting, Scotland at the moment does not have a majority wanting indepedence, whereas Kosovo does. That doesnt make them braver than "us", merely lucky that at last (regardless of where they may end up in the future) has got what the majority wanted.

RFM · Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:01 pm Post subject:

To WIlliam Cleland:

The Vilayet of Kosovo was created by the Ottomans from the Kingdom of Serbia in 1389 after the battle on the plains of the blackbirds (ravens actually, eating the dead). Although the Serbs lost, it became from that time forward, an enclave for converts to Islam from the Slavs, but as an automonous region within the Serbian Kingdom.

Northern Ireland has its origins in the reign of William of Orange, seventeenth century, to protect the Scots and English settlers who wanted partition and separation from Ireland. It became, and still remains a part of the British Empire, now known as the UK.

The essential differences are found not only in their origin, but in their historical accommodation. The Ottomans governed indirectly by allowing regions to choose their own governors and holding those governors responsible for what ever happened under their control. Northern Ireland was never governed by Ireland after William of Orange, and its laws and administration comes directly from Westminister since then.

Kosovo never gained or achieved "meaningful" or any other kind of autonomy, if by that you mean Islamic government. Enver Hoxa, dictator of Albania, was plagued with nationalist, anti-communist movements, armed, equipped and inspired by America and England. Tito on the other hand understood that the Nazi occupation had awakened and inspired nationalist and separatist dreams in Yugoslava, which he dealt with by rapid, but not ruthless, suppression. Tito knew better than anybody that religion was the flag around which the separatist call to arms was proclaimed, and went to great lengths to pacify the Islamic majority in Kosovo.

But if we want to talk of "meaningful" autonomy, what about Texas, in the good old USA which always raises the claim to the right of succession, or South Korea, or Macedonia, or Greece, or Cyprus, or even the former DDR?

To Cyro;

There was never a majority of Islamists in Kosovo who wanted succession and independence; that is the western propaganda put out to justify the American intervention under the guise of NATO. Ibrahim Rugova, the elected president at that time was very clear that the majority of people, Serb and Muslim simply wanted to live in peace. It was the KLA that turned up in 1989 that sought armed confrontation and began by killing Serb policemen and bombing police stations. The result was war, death to hundreds of thousands of Muslim, Serbs and Montengrens.
When Madeline Albright, Secretary of State at that time was asked how America could justify the deaths of so many children in Iraq due to the Iraq sanctions,(more than died in Hiroshima), her answer was it was a small price to pay. She also saw nothing wrong with the genocide in Rawanda, but where Kosovo and the KLA was concerned she was a source of embarassment in the UN by her constant demands for unleashing the American war machine.

William_Cleland · This is Ma' Life! Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 777