What next for Kosovo?

[JR-]

* There's a minefield just ahead in Kosovo *
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m.../09/do0906.xml

Kosovo seems a right mess, what are your thoughts on the future direction it should take?

[JR-]

Remain Not an option because Kosovar Albanians will unilaterally declare independence anyway.

Gain Will never get UNSC recognition and will leave the 10% of Serb Kosovars as a festering sore in the country.

Perpetual Oh joy, create another Palestine under UN mandate, bound to be a winner.

Partition Possibly the least dreadful choice of the lot, and the one that gets my vote.

[KrooK]

Kosovo must belong to Serbia. If it declare independence we will be having another terror zone into Europe.

[Fragony]

I know quite some people from there, it's never going to work. They don't even dislike eachother that much. It's history.

[rvg]

Kosovo must belong to Serbia. If it declare independence we will be having another terror zone into Europe.

That about sums it up. NATO should never have interfered there.

[Papewaio]

If it declare independence we will be having another terror zone into Europe.

How, and why would having independence would make it a terror state?

[rvg]

How, and why would having independence would make it a terror state?

More instability more war, and another conflict to draw in a whole bunch of mujaheddin from all over middle east.

[Papewaio]

Next drilldown:

How and why would it be more unstable as a smaller state?

Norway and New Zealand are tiny states yet some of the most stable and nicest places to live in the world.

[Tribesman]

Kosovo must belong to Serbia. If it declare independence we will be having another terror zone into Europe.

That makes no sense at all , if 90% of the population are forced to stay under the government that represents 10% of the population you are going to have trouble anyway .
If 10% of the population are forced to stay under a new government that represents 90% of the people you are going to have trouble too .

[CountArach]

I can't see any of them being sustainable in the long-term. The Partition is the one that makes the most sense to me, but I think that both sides would be unhappy with the arangement. I'm not sure what could be done to be honest.

More instability more war, and another conflict to draw in a whole bunch of mujaheddin from all over middle east.

Wow, you really don't understand why Terror bombings occur, do you? Here's a hint: It isn't because they are Arabs.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Bah, the Balkans were a threat to European peace 100 years ago and they will still be a threat 100 years from now.
No state coincides with a nation there. And if you carve any one up, the new states still won't. There will be a new minorities. And if you would carve the Balkans up all the way into 6000 etnically homogenous little valleys, it would be even more instable than it is now.

An independent Kosovo will be another drama. Serbia can not accept a Kosova-less Serbia, and the Kosovarans will only accept a Serbian-free Kosovo.

I'm no fan of either Serbian or Kosovaran nationalism. Nor of having troops stationed there indefinately. Wherever you station troops there will only decide to which nationalistic hotheads you have just made yourself an accomplice. Bloody quicksand. Nor am I interested in a showdown with czar / secretary-general / president / whatever Putin over a midget mujahedeen statelet.

In my darker moments I wonder if we shouldn't just carve up the Balkans along a few rough etnical lines, and then let each area etnically cleanse itself before we return peacekeepers.
[/bitter cynicism]

Where's Brenus when I need him to help make sense of it all?

[Papewaio]

[Ultra Cynic]

Or France goes all Limpet Mine Colonial on Kosovo. Takes it over and all new immigrants to France can live in the Republic of French Kosovo until they show that they can integrate. It worked so well in Algeria didn't it?

[Mikeus Caesar]

Can't we all just get along?

Srsly, it's a load of ****. Why don't all these little ethnicities realise they can preserve their culture irregardless of what country they're in? Surely they'd realise that if they all grouped up as a single nation, they could throw their weight around Europe quite considerably.

[CBR]

A Slesvig solution of partioning it is best solution. In some parts of the Balkans it seems like its either ethnic cleansing or drawing some new borders.


CBR

[Odin]

Perpetual stasis via UN protection

Dosent look like Mr Putin is going to allow anything to come out of the security council on status, and the Serbians dont want it to go. Its going to remain status quo for awhile IMHO, the fight over the balkans has been going on for awhile now. The killing has stopped (at least I think it has), no need to press this one straight away.

[Vladimir]

Where's the Forced Relocation option?

[rvg]

Next drilldown:

How and why would it be more unstable as a smaller state?

Norway and New Zealand are tiny states yet some of the most stable and nicest places to live in the world.

I just doubt that Serbs will give up Kosovo without a fight. Both the local Kosovar Serbs and the ones from the Serbia proper. There will be more fighting, it's pretty much a given. They have as much right to Kosovo as Albanians do, and they will not simply let it go.

[caravel]

Partition Possibly the least dreadful choice of the lot, and the one that gets my vote.

I've yet to see a case where partition actually worked out for the best. (i.e. Germany, Ireland, Korea, Ottoman Empire, India etc)

Kosovo is still part of Serbia. I doubt the US would give up an entire state due to a larger proportion of that state's population being of a different ethnicity? I fail to see why Serbia should be any different.

[KrooK]

Some one asked why kosovo might be terror zone.

I compare it with Albania.
Majority into Kosovo are Albanians. Same Albanians live into... Albania and are majority there. Albania is full of drug dealers, women traders and generally criminals. I see no big efforts made by Albanian government to stop that. I doubt Albanians from Kosovo into similar situation (new country and similar...) will behave different than Albanians from Albania so Kosovo soon turn into....drug, women trade and crime land. And this is just a step from country controlled by people that are (rightfully or not ) called terrorists.

Anyway I think that we should mark situation into Montenegro. Lets check what was happening there since they became independent. This might help us debating here.

[Don Corleone]

I've yet to see a case where partition actually worked out for the best. (i.e. Germany, Ireland, Korea, Ottoman Empire, India etc)

Kosovo is still part of Serbia. I doubt the US would give up an entire state due to a larger proportion of that state's population being of a different ethnicity? I fail to see why Serbia should be any different.

There's one primary difference between the United States and Serbia. The United States government is required to be pluralistic and represent all minorities equally. In fact, there are legal protections for minorities built into our legal structure. No such tradition or mechnanisms exist in Serbia. I voted for partition, only because if Kosovo tries to leave Serbia with Serbs still within their boundaries, they will be getting invaded for the next couple of centuries, to liberate them. When you come right down to it, Serbia itself is a partitioning.

[Vladimir]

There's one primary difference between the United States and Serbia. The United States government is required to be pluralistic and represent all minorities equally. In fact, there are legal protections for minorities built into our legal structure. No such tradition or mechnanisms exist in Serbia. I voted for partition, only because if Kosovo tries to leave Serbia with Serbs still within their boundaries, they will be getting invade for the next couple of centuries, to liberate them. When you come right down to it, Serbia itself is a partitioning.

Your statement is misleading. Our government is not designed to represent all minorities equally but to prevent tyranny of the majority. One such protection is the US Senate.

If we can't have a forced relocation how about a voluntary one to the US? Just leave your 1,000 + years of baggage in Europe.

[Don Corleone]

Yes, Vladamir, you're right... we don't have specific requirements that the desires of the minorities are acted upon. But we do have pluralism, something that is heartily lacking in that particular part of the world.

[Vladimir]

Agreed. The "solution" of giving them their own country instead forcing them to work together isn't progress. If it took 1,000 years to split them apart I have no problem with it taking 100 years to put them together.

[Tribesman]

Some one asked why kosovo might be terror zone.

and you replied with racist bile
Poland shouldn't have indedpendance because Poles live there and some of them are drug dealers , prostitutes , people traffickers and generally criminal . The government doesn't do enough to stop it so they should be part of Russia or Germany .

[Slug For A Butt]

Where's the Forced Relocation option?

Quite. If those Albanians that crossed into Kosovo don.t like living under Kosovo's government, forcefully repatriate them to bloody Albania (the poorest country in Europe). There is an economic reason these people relocated to Serbia in the first place, now they want to make an area of Serbia into an Albanian enclave.
Shame on the U.N. for interfering in the first place. I know how I'd feel if the citizens of Bradford or Birmingham wanted to declare independance from Britain and alliegance to Pakistan because they have chosen to colonise these areas. The E.U. powers condoning it doesn't make it any more ethically or morally correct, this is economic migrants claiming their adopted country as their own.

EDIT: I have chosen not to vote as there is no choice that gives the Serbs anything approaching rights within their own ancient homeland. How about an option that says "U.N. get the hell out and take the immigrants with you and let Serbia remain a whole sovereign state".
And I know that now everyone is going to start Googling Kosovan history and come up with blah blah about the Illyrians, but that was 2 thousand years ago. We have to look into more recent history I think, and that favours the Serbs. Or else the French would be German (again... oops sorry!), the Tunisians would be Middle Eastern, the Irish would be Norse and the English would be French (sorry, Norman) etc...

[Ser Clegane]

There is an economic reason these people relocated to Serbia in the first place, now they want to make an area of Serbia into an Albanian enclave.

Perhaps you would like to expand on how and when the 88% Albanian population of Kosovo came to "Serbia" for economic reasons?
I think that might be quite interesting...

[Brenus]

“ That makes no sense at all , if 90% of the population are forced to stay under the government that represents 10% of the population you are going to have trouble anyway .”
If 10% of the population are forced to stay under a new government that represents 90% of the people you are going to have trouble too .”
Funny that, because Albanian population represents/ed around 10 % of all Serbia’s population and they’ve got the right for independence, but the 10% of the Serbia population living under a future Kosovo State won’t have any choice, like the 10 (former) % of the Croatian Serbs whom were bombed to stay within Croatian (respecting former Tito’s borders by the way) new State. The same right of auto determination was denied to the Croat and Serbs in Bosnia…

“Where's Brenus when I need him to help make sense of it all?” Voilà, voilà, coming, I am coming…

“Where's the Forced Relocation option?” What? Ethnic Cleansing? It was tried but didn’t work properly, lot of complication, human rights abuses, properties exchanged, documents lost, slaughters on the roads, you know, all these kinds of administrative problems. But as said I thing the German Ambassador Klaus Kinkel after the Ethnic Cleansing (Operation Oluje, Tempest. 200 000 Serbs expelled in 48 hours, 90 % of the Serbs population in Croatia) by the Croats of the Serbs of Croatia: “Croatia has to do what Croatia must do”

“No such tradition or mechanisms exist in Serbia”: That is absolutely not true. Tradition existed from Yugoslavia… And according to me, it was one of the roots of the Civil Wars which lead to the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
In Serbia, I think, around 15 minorities, recognised as such, in term of so-called ethnicity, religions and beliefs…

All went wrong from the start. Nationalists did win the war, the Karadzic, Tudjman, Izetbegovic, Milosevic, and the Albanian one…
It is impossible to cut in piece following natural borders, or ethnical belonging, or language community… But, thanks to an absurd policy followed by the Great Powers, it is not any more possible to let people live together.
Now, I think a partition is the solution. In fact Serbs don’t give too much importance about Kosovo. What they care is Methojia (the Land of the Church), the Religious heart of the Serbian Identity, the place of Kosovo Polje, where Prince Lazar met Murad and they both died, ignoring the fact that Maritsa River battle (4 years before) was where Serbs lost really… Last time I went to Serbia (last summer) my friends were more or less happy not to have to pay for Kosovo. The motorway between Novi Sad and Belgrade was finally finished, bridges were rebuilt, only the road of Unity, built under Tito was in the state of Yugoslavia’s unity, in tatters..

Kosovo is a political nightmare because it officially, in the Internationally Recognised Borders of Serbia. Theses borders were the pretexts to keep Serbs of Croatia and Bosnia in their Tito’s Administrative borders because some Countries, against the Badinder’s commission, hastily recognised Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia… That why we bomb the Serbs, at first. The Peace Treaty for Bosnia denies to Serbs and Croats to claim Independence and they represent more than 10% of the population….
So, if Kosovo declares Independence, and if it is recognise by US and EU, but not by Serbia (and Russia, but Russia is not really the problem, an old Serbian saying is telling “God, protect as from the Russian Friendship”) Kosovo could face at least a blockade from this side. Macedonia won’t help too much neither because having a Serbian Minority, and an Albanian Minority, the last one having tried a secession not so long time ago. Macedonia has as well a problem wit Bulgaria which wishes to take back some river bed etc, so independence of a minority is not what really Macedonia wants, but can’t tell because it depends on EU money…
Do not count on Albania, because in fact Albanians are (I simplify) share between Gueg (Sp) and Tosk. I do not remember which is which, but I do know that Kosovo Albanians are not from the majority in Albania, but if they unit with Albania, it will change the balance…
So we will have a very bad economical viable half recognised and completely illegal according the UN rules Kosovo, with a majority (Kosovo, ex-victims) willing to kill the minority (Serbs ex-aggressors), with a neighbours (Serbia) just waiting the first drop of Serbian blood to point out that if the EU and Us don’t take THEIR responsibilities and protected the Serbian populations Serbia think they should bomb the Kosovar on the name of the Humanitarian Intervention blab la bla…
So we will have to deal (most probably) with not so pleased Albanians because we will have to protect the last Serbs (others minorities were expelled under Kouchner, don’t worry), and the Serbs not so pleased because we don’t protect their populations.

If you need more information, I will be glad to answer your questions…

And you thought Lebanon was complex? Yerk yerk yerk.
That is why in History, we always avoid Balkan History…

[Slug For A Butt]

Perhaps you would like to expand on how and when the 88% Albanian population of Kosovo came to "Serbia" for economic reasons?
I think that might be quite interesting...

The population of Kosovo didn't "come" to Serbia because Kosovo WAS Serbia. The Albanians "came" to Kosovo/Serbia, and due to high birth rates and continued immigration now outnumber the ethnic Serbians, that doesn't make it right. If that is the way the world is going we'll all be living under Shariah law in a couple of generations. Is that right?

[HoreTore]

Where's the option for "will explode into another war within 10 years"?

Oh and Slug, Moldova is the poorest country in europe, not Albania. And Serbia ain't exactly what you'd call a land of milk and honey either...

[Ser Clegane]

The population of Kosovo didn't "come" to Serbia because Kosovo WAS Serbia. The Albanians "came" to Kosovo/Serbia, and due to high birth rates and continued immigration now outnumber the ethnic Serbians, that doesn't make it right. If that is the way the world is going we'll all be living under Shariah law in a couple of generations. Is that right?

Not really answering my question. How and when did "Albanians" come to "Serbia" for "economic reasons"?
Also, when and how in your opinion does a people gain the right to call a country "their country"?
How does "recent history" favor the Serbs and for how long do Albanians have to be the majority population of Kosovo before recent history favors them?