Catholic propaganda? I’m a Catholic and I never got the memo. Heads will roll! Rool I say!
Raska a little to the north is where Serbia began as a nation in the most direct sense in the late 11th century. Kosovo was conquered from the Byzantines ~100 years later by Stephen Nemanja in the period of 1180-1190. It was generally not the center of any of the Serbian states. It’s emotional appeal ties less to its importance as some sort ancestral Serb homeland, of which there are better candidates, than the fact that Serbia’s most important epic cycle revolves around the Field of Blackbirds, the battle of Kosovo-Polje in 1389. That and memories of the large scale exodus of 1690 and later in fear of the Ottomans.
Just like those Serbs did with the Byzantines ;).
The Albanians have been a demographic majority for quite some time, at least as earl;y as the 1910’s. That poor Albanians have continued to pour over the borders is true. It’s a somewhat, but not entirely analogous situation to the U.S. and Mexico. But the Serb presense has been on the wane for many centuries - this is nothing new. Not excusing the actions of the frequently terroristic KLA, but Milosevic did help touch off the conflagration by revoking autonomy in 1989 and playing to Serb nationalism in the area ( including some blatant anti-Albanian bias ).
- Tamerlane
Spoken like a true believer of the Serbian nationalist propoganda. In 1974, Kosovo was granted a measure of autonomy, and the majority ethnic Albanian population was granted equal protection. Then, when Milosevic came to power on a platform of hatred and nationalism, he decided to wage war against the 90% majority of Kosovo, dismantled their self-government, and, as casdave pointed out, instituted a program of apartheid against ethnic Albanians.
Albanians were a 9 to 1 majority in Kosovo in the 90’s. The president of Kosovo, Rugova, tried a campaign of passive resistance in the 1990’s only to be met by more violence and discrimination at the hands of the Serbs. The Kosovo Liberation Army, an equally evil group, was responsible for many violent, terroristic attacks, but they were a minority. Rather than allow self-rule in Kosovo, Milosevic upped his terroristic activities, including the murder, forced relocation, and imprisonment of Albanians, led by Arkan, who also will have a special place in hell.
There is no excuse for the atrocities committed against the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, just as there is no excuse for the atrocities committed against Serbians at the hands of the KLA. But the fact remains that Milosevic refused to acknowledge Kosovo’s government, instituted a policy of apartheid, refused to cooperate with the UN’s peacekeeping efforts, and instituted a policy of ethnic cleansing of Albanians from Kosovo.
There is one good thing about ybeaf ignorant posts, it allows and indeed compels others to post more information about Milosevic and thus increase the knowledge of other posters.
Milosevic is not the only one with plenty of blame for the war taking off, Franjo Tudjman also must take a huge amount of responsibility too.
The differance between them is not all that great either, however Milosevic had much more scope for harm, he also had the time to learn about consequencies given that he was aware of atrocities arried out in furtherance of Bosnian and Krajina Serb objectives, and knowing these, he still took the actions he did in Kosovo, its not just that he was a monster, its also that he knew it and continued, fully knowing what the likely consequencies would be.
Milosevic did not set up or instigate any kind of procedure to control his military units, he did not stop supplying the Serb militias when is was aboloutely obvious what they were getting up to, he lit the blue touchpaper and instead of standing back, he poured weapons into the area and fanned the fire with his rhetoric.
His intelligence was unquestioned, he is not some idiot upstart, he did not rise to his position by being stupid and its frankly only the territory of wilfully ignarant fools who imagine that somehow Milosevic did not know what he was doing, or what the outcome would be.
I wonder, does Iran denounce that this ever took place?
In Soviet Russia, dictator kills you!
One should speak only good of the dead.
Slobodan Milosevic is dead.
Good.
Miloscevic allowed elections in Serbia, reliquished power after losing and submitted to being sent to Hague tribunal. That makes him a whole lot better then Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Saddam and even Khrischev or Brezhnev. Allowing free elections and abiding by results is a Real Big Deal. On the scale of evilness he’s somewhere in vicinity of Nicaraguan Sandinistas.
I think he got what he deserved by dying in prison as a pathetic has-been.
The only good dirty filthy commie bastard is a dead dirty filthy commie bastard.
So there’s no reason to hold him responsible for anything done before that “election”?
He relinquished his throne. “Just kidding!” All is well and good.
He wasn’t a Tito, but Tito avoided civil war. Comparing countries that have dictator’s that quash civil war, I’d put Tito right up there with Milosevic, Hussein, Stalin and Mao. Throw in Pol and Ho, and we can come up with a bunch of people that should never have been allowed to rule the people.
If I ever make it to Amsterdam, the beer is on me if you act as the tour guide for my wife and I. 
Nominations for Humanitarian of The Year are now closed. The bookies have stopped taking bets.
You should be ashamed to be an apologist for a war criminal.
Ashamed.
[QUOTE=New Iskander]
Miloscevic allowed elections in Serbia, reliquished power after losing and submitted to being sent to Hague tribunal. /QUOTE]
This is a joke, right? *Allowed elections in Serbia? *
The vote count for this “election” put Koštunica ahead of Milošević but, under the 50% needed to win outright. (Massive fraud by Milošević forces was apparent, but not good enough to give him the needed majority.) Milošević ignored these results and that led to mass demonstrations in Belgrade on October 5, 2000 that caused the collapse of his regime. He only relinquished power when it was clear the military would not support his corrupt murdering government any longer.
A warrent for his arrest was issued by the Yugoslav authorities on charges of corruption and abuse of power shortly after. He was then forced to surrender to security forces on Saturday, March 31, 2001. This surrender followed an armed stand off at his fortified villa in Belgrade. He was then transferred by YUGOSLAV officials into the custody of the UN, who then transported him into the custody of the Hague tribunal.
Does no one else remember this? I do. The murdering son of a bitch bastard got caught being a murdering son of a bitch bastard and was going to be held accountable. Comparing him to Stalin, Hitler or any other murdering fuck is beside the point.
Milošević was a self serving egotistcal piece of shit who caused years of bloodshed in the Balkens, period. Tens of thousands are dead because of his genocidal policies and this world is better off by his death whether by natural causes or the firing squad he deserved. And the sooner the Serbian people swallow their nationalistic pride and acknowledge what a horrible stain he is on their nation the sooner they will be accepted by their neighbors and the world at large.
[QUOTE=Kolak of Twilo]
Absolutely. I remember all that - which is why I bashed the apologist. I spent a lot of the 90’s convulsed with rage (exaggerating) over the spineless European approach to the region when it was clear to any informed person that a Serbian war of aggression was in progress and dreadful things were happening.
And I agree with your Serbian people bash. As far as I’m concerned they are still guilty as a people and until they accept their guilt and hand over all their war criminals for trial they should be treated as international pariahs.
Want to join the EU? Pony up the criminals, punish all those hiding them, nationally accept your collective guilt and in 5 years we can talk about it.
I did the same but my rage about this (and yours) was never exaggerated. It was just.
But I would want to be clear that I don’t intend to bash the Serbian people. I feel a great deal of sympathy for them as individuals who have been exploited and used by their leaders for years. The victim mentality has been very well exploited by successive governments to this day.
It’s the sickening ‘Greater Serbia’ nationalism that made me so angry with the nation as a whole. Like the German people before and during they were at best complicit cheerleaders, turning a willful blind eye to outrageous atrocities perpertated in their name.
Nationalism and patriotism are a disease.
On a related tangent, where the heck does this willful blindness come from?
There’s a sizeable expatriot Serbian community in this region and, of those I’ve talked to about Milosevic and the war, the vast majority consider him a “Hero of the Serbian people, tragically slandered by the outside world.”
I even got into a shoving match with a friend of a friend on this subject (not one of my prouder moments but since both of us were drunk nothing really came of it but a lot of flailing limbs and tragically spilled drinks). There seems to be a little bit of a persecution complex, there, but I’m afraid I don’t know really know enough about the historical roots.
That’d be great. Then we could hitch up with Gum and Kimstu. Of couse once drinks are up, I’ll be forced to put your head on a stake and sell your wife into slavery at a Turkish harem for the awful crime of mistaking Denmark for the less deserving Netherlands. Nothing personal, but the law is the law.
There were enough misery and persecution for all to have second helpings. And also the Serbs were subjected to ethnic cleansing, killings and massacres of women and children. Th e smaller number of Serbs than “Bosnians” and Albanians harmed was due to lack of means not want of trying. Serbs are still persecuted in Kosovo. And now Serbs in Bosnia have problems with Islamic idiots styling themself Mujahadins come to help them from all over the Middle East wanting to spread their disgusting version of Islam. The whole initial idea of declaring Bosnia independent was very questionable, since the vote in favour was just above 50% and under widespread boycott by Serbs. Such a controversial move should be supported by a large majority not forced through on a tiny majority. etc. There’s plenty for the Serbs to be upset about too.
What really upsets me, is that western Europe and the EU seems to have learned absolutely nothing from its despicable and cowardly inaction during the whole debacle. There was in the years following a spirit of never again, now finally we in Europe ought be able to handle our own problems, and not have to come crawling to the US begging for assistance. But nothing has changed. Should it happen tomorrow (and there’re plenty of European candidate states), Western Europe would be just as pathetically impotent and unwilling and unable to do anything about it, beyond the useless diplomatic protests through the EU and UN and a naive wish to resolve matters entirely through dialogue, ith no creditable threat of force to back it up.