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- Don't Blame the World for Milosevic's Crimes |
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Written by News Desk
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Thursday, 30 August 2007 |
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In regard to Alan J. Kuperman's Aug. 16 op-ed ("The U.N.'s Flawed Kosovo Plan"): He got it all wrong. Bloody ethnic wars in the Balkans did not happen because the "the international community prematurely supported the independence of a former Yugoslav territory before addressing the concerns of its Serb minority."
Blaming the world for the consequences of the fascistic ambitions of the Serbian dictator, Slobodan Milosevic, is a wrong approach to the Balkans' recent history. If anything, the contrary of what Mr. Kuperman wrote is true. Had the world recognized immediately, without public hesitation, the right of the former Yugoslav nations to secede, it would have discouraged Milosevic from using force and many Serbs from believing that it was fair game to deny the right of self-determination to the other Yugoslavs. Furthermore, Mr. Kuperman's amendment would push the Ahtisaari Plan further in creating an ethnic segregated Kosovo, instead of inspiring and institutionalizing integration and an interethnic future for its citizens. Worst of all, an autonomous northern province -- within the former province -- would only encourage Kosovo Serbs to believe that a new secession is feasible and tacitly approved by the world. It would be also a signal to secessionist aspirations of the Serbs of Bosnia and Montenegro, Albanians of Serbia and Macedonia, and so on. Instead of closing the last chapter of the Yugoslavian dismemberment, Mr. Kuperman's proposal risks opening a new one, a phase of territorial exchanges that not only would provoke the revision of many borders in the Balkans, but that would end up accomplishing Milosevic's nation-state project. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 30 August 2007 )
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