Multiple weekend ultimatums by NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) have slipped with the Kosovar Serbs refusing orders by the military to remove roadblocks in the region. A 24-hour deadline issued Saturday gave way to a “by Monday” deadline.
The ethnic Serbs in Northern Kosovo have been blocking the roads to military and regime forces off and on since late July, when Kosovo and NATO troops invaded the region and seized border posts to prevent trade with neighboring Serbia.
The Serbian government warned NATO against using military force to remove the roadblocks, saying that attempting to crush the unrest in the north violently would only add to the tension in the region.
The Kosovo government is dominated by ethnic Albanians, and is hostile to Serbia, from which it formally seceded in 2008 (after a nine year run under UN rule). The northern portion of the nation is ethnic Serbian, and objected to being included in the secession. They have called for secession from Kosovo, but it is opposed by NATO.
Mr. Ditz, I found this utterly insulting to call Serbs of Kosovo "KOSOVARS".
There is not a nation by this name. You probably favor the idea of lately
propagated as a 'nation building'. The Serbian people got a long history
and identity no matter how you call them.
There are not now or ever a national group in Kosovo called 'KOSOVARS'.
There are Serbs and these coming from Albania – Albanians.
Also, why are you treating the subject of Kosovo in your column? I just wonder?
Actually, it is perfectly fine to refer to Serbs from Kosovo as Kosovars. They are Kosovars, Kosovo being an old Serbian region with a Serb name and Kosovar being their regional designation.
The error is just usage in the phrase "Kosovar Serbs". You can either speak of "Kosovo Serbs" or of "Kosovars". But "Kosovar Serb" is grammatically wrong, since "Kosovar" is a noun, never an adjective.
What is ridiculous, however, is to talk of "Kosovo troops" to refer to the anti-Kosovo troops of the US backed Albanian government in Priština. Those were no "Kosovo troops". At most they were "Kosovo Albanian troops". But "troops of Kosovo" can only be Serbs. Just as in a fight between Lakotan and white troops, it is the Sioux who are "Dakotans", not the South Dakota national guard.
strange, it seams backwards, the teacher & the student of democracy as oppossed to mob rule, thats a minority thare huh, correct, ha
No they have not called for "secession from Kosovo". To do that they would first have to recognize the 'Independent State of Kosovo' and they have no intention of doing that. Why the blatant disinformation?
They have nothing to secede from. They are neither legally, nor as a matter of fact subject to the KLA government in Priština.
No wonder. The peace threaty that ended the war, did include, that Serbia stays united including Kosovo. So the Serbs just use their right.
NATO does breach all treaties. UN resolutions made to protect people in Libya is currently turned to bombing and attacking towns with hundredthoousands of civilians, which are secretly carpet bombed and are shelled by artillery and tanks surrounding the town Beni Walid, Sirte and others.
NATO and UN provides war crimes ! Under NATO protection the black town Tawerga with 30,000 inhabitatants has been completely ethnically cleansed under this UN mandate !
Gaddafi speech UN assembly 2009 englisch translation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKMyY2V0J0Y
Also his speech to the world 1st July 2011 in Tripoli was interesting:
Why can't Kosovo be partitioned? If it was "okay" for Kosovo to secede from Serbia, why can't part of Kosovo be detached as well? Wasn't this the logic used by good old honest Abe to create West Virginia? (And what a success story that place has been ever since).
And Kosovo wasn't "under UN rule". It was occupied by NATO forces and the legal authority of the Serbian state was prevented from being exercised there. There was no UN mandate over some region that legally seceded from UN's full member Serbia, it was pure territorial theft, don't make it look like the "UN rule" was some kind of obvious transition to "independence" (which is still not recognised by most of the UN member states).
Jason Ditz,
from the get go you were biased: you are anti – Russian and pro – German. Why don't you have the guts to respond to these posts?