Kosovo
 

thoughts? opinions?

Funny you should ask. One of my fraternity brothers, a good friend, is just finishing up his service over there. He's with the NDI and was adviser to the Kosovar equivalent of our Speaker of the House, so I guess he's had a hand in shaping Kosovo's internal and external policies over the last 2-3 years.

The biggest challenge right now is getting these people to understand what a democratic government is like. They are (I believe) still drafting a Constitution. I have a lot of specific concerns, but with respect to the position my fraternity brother is in, I'll not post his concerns on a public board.

That said, my personal opinion of the situation is that I'm iffy about it. On the one hand, you have the fact that Serbia did commit acts of genocide in Kosovo, which for the safety of the Albanian people there, a new country might be required. On the other hand, the ethnic Albanians are not exactly pure. The KLA has links to Al Quaeda, they have committed what would be terrorist acts. The former head fo the KLA is now the President of Kosovo.

The Balkans are a powder keg. The whole region is highly unstable. A healthy amount of border drawing and ethnic relocation, I think, might not be a horrible idea when it comes to the long term stability of the region.

The justice of it though? I think it's a mixed bag. The KLA, etc. is not exactly blameless in their situation. I think, however, that a separate country is best for the long term stability of the region. The Serbians have been doing quite a bit of saber rattling lately, so they may prove me wrong.

i think that overall having Kosovo be independant of Serbia would be good, but am concered it might touch off other movements such as the Basque in Spain and those people in Georgia and of course the Chechan movement might get more violent because of this

plus, with Russia and China backing Serbia, will Kosovo even be admitted to the U.N.?

that's cool about your friend, that seems like an interesting position to be in

Russia is supporting Serbia, no doubt, because of the "Chechen Question." Kosovo being granted a homeland is a pretty compelling precedent for the Chechens to get the same -- if "international law" meant diddly squat anyhow.

The Chinese have their Taiwan issue as well. How to deal with minority groups who lay claim to what you think is your real-estate? Neither of these countries want their separatist movements to have anything new to hang their hats on.

I cannot understand why Spain, Turkey, etc. aren't a little more vocal regarding this issue.

I think Turkey is being quiet because they want to join the EU. Turkey shouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell in joining if bellarus is barred from doing so. (Invading northern Iraq makes them look not european.)

Spain, i think the other (big) countries are getting annoyed with them, but most of the smaller ones probably suport Kosovo (Estonia having just gotten free a few years ago)

What i don't understand is, why now? Why not years ago when the rest Yugoslavia was torn apart?

Kosovo has been a separate state since the Serbians and the KLA started going at it. The UN stepped in and formed a UN protectorate. There was no government infrastructure in place, no Kosovar knew how to operate a government. Organizations like my fraternity brothers (the NDI) and the UN stepped in and educated the leaders on how to run a representative democracy.

Also, it goes without saying that Serbia has been slightly opposed to all of this. There are rumors of an incursion by 1,000ish non-uniformed Serbians wreaking havok in northern Kosovo. The source I got that from was from a linked site on digg, so the veracity of such a thing is always questionable.

bump

the US Embassy is being attacked:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080221/...o_independence

Hoooooly crap. Thank goodness it was empty.

Spain's tentatively against the whole issue and has spoken up about it in the article I read recently. They don't want to go against the rest of Western Europe, but they don't want to set a precedent that Basques might take advantage of.

I find the Basques pretty interesting although I don't know that much about them. What seems remarkable superficially is that religion doesn't play much of a role in their separate cultural identity like it does in most of the cases where you have a separatist group.

Ditto, they're a population I'd like to learn more about.

I would as well. Time to google.