@Randy McDonald
I don’t know if u have ever been to former Yugoslavia when u think u know so much about it.You really did ur research bad as someone said.Serbia was over 50% of entire then prosperous Yugoslav economy and only Belgrade was bigger economy than Slovenia as a whole.It is hardly to imagine one Croatia or Slovenia to support Serbia economicaly….totally rediculous!
As far as Albanians are concerned they became majority in Kosovo province in the beggining of last century, but real domination was achieved only after the WW2 with help od communist regime.

A primative view. Which nationality or ethnic group has the right to talk about human rights?

The holocaust creators, the country that invented concentration camps, citizens of imperialist country that committed numerous war crimes in Vietnam and continues to do so in Iraq? Perhaps a country that vanquishes or imprisons its political opponents? Or the country that likes to talk about egalite and so on whilst butchering Algerians perhaps?

Oh according to your dumb theory that means we should therefore forget about human rights altogether.

Jeez when will people stop behaving like dumb members of this and that community. WE ARE INDIVIDUALS PEOPLE!

“If you think Serbia was a subsidized state in Yugoslavia, it shows what little research you’ve done. Too bad.”

From the Library of Congress Yugoslavia Country study, Chapter 4’s passage “Regional Disparities”:

“The three northern republics, Slovenia, Croatia, and most of Serbia, emphasized high technology in building production capacity and attracting foreign investment. By contrast, the less developed southern regions, especially Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and southern Serbia, stressed traditional, laborintensive , low-paying economic activity such as textile manufacture, agriculture, and handicrafts. This contrast produced sharp differences in employment, investment, income potential, and social services among the eight political units of the federation. For example, in the late 1980s average personal income per social sector worker in Macedonia was half that of a similar worker in Slovenia. Especially in Kosovo and Macedonia, poor economic and social conditions exacerbated longstanding ethnic animosities and periodically ignited uprisings that threatened civil war.”

Going to the table in this press release http://www.wiiw.ac.at/pdf/RR296_press.pdf reveals not only the depth of the crash in the Serbian economy, but the extent to which even before the great divergence of the 1990s GDP per capita was substantially lower than Croatia and above Macedonia’s by only a small margin.

Indeed, in Časlav Ocić’s 1998 _Acta Slavica Iaponica_ paper “The Regional Problem and the Break-Up of the State: The Case of Yugoslavia,” central Serbia was grouped with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro.

http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/publictn/acta/16/caslav/caslav-1.html

“The stable configuration of republics and provinces according to their levels of economic development over the last twenty five years of the existence of former Yugoslavia suggests a need to define four distinct groups of regions. The name of the group should specify the most important typical features of republics and provinces included. Since many of these features are structural and since only the level of economic development is discussed here the following names were chosen: the most developed, developed, underdeveloped and the least developed groups. During the 1965-1990 period the four groups of regions included the following republics and provinces: (1) the most developed regions: Slovenia; (2) developed regions: Croatia and Vojvodina; (3) underdeveloped regions: central Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia; and (4) the least developed regions: Kosovo-Metohia.”

The amount of subsidies that Serbia–or, at least, Serbia without the two autonomous provinces–received is open to question, since central Serbia was better off than the other have-not regions of Yugoslavia. It was still have-not, though.

Kosova fails the test. By your measures, so does Serbia. This suggests that the test is, at best, only weakly relevant to the question of statehood.

You can twist the pint all you want. I don’t care. If you can’t follow it, too bad.

If you think Serbia was a subsidized state in Yugoslavia, it shows what little research you’ve done. Too bad.

Bye Bye.

“Good rebuttal but the fact remains that Albanians didn’t live in the Valleys that compose much of Kosovo and moved down only after the Serbs settled in the area.”

Does that mean that populations worldwide should be shifted back to their “historical homelands”? Shall the Cajuns be compelled to return to eastern Canada, Soviet Germans to their former homeland by the Volga, third-generation descendants of Maghrebin immigrants to North Africa?

Tailoring current-day realities to match once-upon-a-time historical scenarios is, besides being dangerous, rather silly. Where does one stop? Too often, the answer is “when I’m happy with the outcome.” This brings too much grief.

“It is this: An independent country should be an economically viable entity of the long term.”

Have a history of economic viability? One could argue that by that measure, Serbia shouldn’t be an independent state, between its SFRY-era dependence on transfer payments from richer federal units and foreign loans, the Milosevic-era hyperinflation and war isolation and general penury, and Serbia’s current economically depressed state.

I made a statement concerning about the usually parrotted view that attempts to disguise the true aim - to prevent Serbs from returning.

‘they are welcome if they are not war criminals’ is simply code used by those who dont want returnees.

After all the onus is not on those whose human rights are surpressed the onus is on those who are surpressing them. In no uncertain terms the message from a human rights prospective is to tell those infringing those rights to stop. It isnt prospective returnees that are infringing the rights of minorities in Kosovo.

‘I just wonder how many really want to go back to their neighbours’ ???
When return home from work or after being absent do you ‘return to your neighbours’? You mean ‘return to their homes’, where they live right? Provided those homes have not been looted or illegally occupied that is.

‘democracy automatically means that you have the right to vote for…’ Hold it… thats exactly what democracy means. One has a right to vote for whichever party one chooses. Its not for you or me to decide which parties others will vote for.

‘Milosevic and human rights was impossible from the start’. Of course, I never thought otherwise and just because Milosevic didnt care about human rights doesnt mean that forget them too.

‘There are 100.000 Serbs in Kosova, why isn’t there 200.000 or 300.000? They don’t want to go back because Milosevic can’t give them the privileges he gave them in ‘89?’

Rubbish they dont go back because of the appaling human rights situation. If you dont believe me then check out the reports of various human rights groups such as human rights watch, amnesty international or even the pro Kosovo independence ICG. You obviously have not been to Kosovo recently.

‘I can’t say they were not responsible. If the guilt of the German people can be discussed, so can the guilt of the Serb people’.

Well thats where you and I differ, I dont believe in tripe about collective responsibility, that somehow one is guilty by membership of ethnic group. One is no more responsible for members of ones ethnic group than one is for aliens from the planet mars. We make our own decisions - I believe in individual responsibility.

You dont have to feel sorry for any Serb - simply support the concept of human rights. You owe this to yourself, not to any Serb (or Albanian for that matter). Feeling sorry for people is a pretty good way of ending up with a biased viewpoint. Principles should come first - HUMAN RIGHTS.

‘If you voted for Milosevic or his likes without thinking of Kosova’…

Newsflash, Milosevic is dead! I didnt vote for Milosevic at the election a week or so ago as he didnt stand nor have I ever voted for him (not that its your business) but you excluded the entire country except the five percent that voted for LDP as warmongers. That was completely wrong and you should take that statement back.

Thanks for the short history lesson too. I’m afraid I know it all by heart. But no, your conclusion is incorrect or havent you noticed that the trend for independence of nation states is a world issue, not just a Balkan one. And you might want to look at the subject of economy for reasons for Yugoslav break-up. Putting the blame only on one individual (rather than a scientific explanation) is not only highly unlikely but lazy too. In my opinion Yugoslavia would not have remained as a joint country Milosevic or not.

Incidently I’d be interested in when you formed your view that Kosovo should be independent?