The Indivisibility of Kosovo, and the Mitrovica Serbs

By: Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
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[ Posted On: 2008-03-11 ]

In an earlier article entitled ‘The Indivisibility of Kosovo: Principle of International Law’, we specified that the Mitrovica Serbs do not have right to either secession from Kosova or formation of an independent state. We explained that their arguments, approaches and considerations are erroneous for mainly two reasons, historical and political.

Their errors in historical considerations are due to the fact that the Mitrovica Serbs reject historical developments pertaining to the presence of Albanian majority on a territory that was Serbian before 600 or 500 years (and Illyrian before 2000 years). We expanded on this subject, highlighting the foreign involvement in the pseudo-liberation of Kosova’s territory by the Serbian army in 1912, underscoring the voluntary Serbian abandonment of Kosova, their supposed ‘Jerusalem’, and clarifying that the colonial character of the Serbian 1912 invasion of Kosova does not entitle the Serbs to any anti-Kosovar pseudo-historical rhetoric.

We also affirmed that Mitrovica was never an administrative area, province or district, and consequently the Mitrovica Serbs, who rejected Kosova’s formal independence, arguing that Kosova was only an autonomous province (not a People’s Republic like Macedonia or Slovenia), cannot now present in favour of their position an argumentation that contradicts in all its fundamental principles the argumentation that they had earlier defended against the Kosovar position.

It has to be clearly understood, and the sooner the better, that if an argument, a concept or a principle is used by a political party, establishment, etc. on a certain case, basics of political morality impose that the earlier user is bound to stick to it under any circumstances whatsoever; and if this does not happen, the earlier supported position is totally and irrevocably discredited.

By arguing against Kosova’s independence on basis of administrative logic (an autonomous province is not a People’s Republic), the Mitrovica Serbs and all the nationalistic and chauvinistic realm of Serbia made their point clear: administrative status matters to them. It will therefore matter too, when we will compare Kosova (an autonomous province) to Mitrovica (a non status area, a mere ‘nothing’).

Beyond the need to keep the same standards and refer to the same principles, there is a grave political dimension that the Mitrovica Serbs have to realize. By avoiding to thoroughly assess the Political History of Modern Balkans (over the past 200 years), the Mitrovica Serbs simply destroy their chances of peacefully surviving in that part of the world.

In the present article we will focus on the political reasons for which the Serb secessionist, anti-Kosovar stance is erroneous and biased.

Political, social and cultural persecution entitles to Secession

Kosovars’ persecution, tortures, and massacres have been well documented over the past 16 years; we all know who persecuted whom in Kosovo 1998 and 1999. It was the Serbs paramilitary, army and nationalistic terrorists, who undertook an ethnic cleansing, intending to physically eliminate the Albanian Kosovars from their homeland. In the winter 98, the Serb terrorist state machine and the merciless nationalistic Serbs premeditatedly forced 300000 Albanian Kosovars to seek home in the mountains, the cliffs, the plains, and the woods. This will never be forgotten by the civilized people allover the world.

With a so high number of internally displaced people, the international intervention had become inevitable. During the conflict, more than half the Albanian Kosovar population had to flee. Even worse, no less than 20000 Albanian Kosovar women have been raped, and no less than 11000 killings have been reported to the International Court of Justice. This too will never be forgotten.

Nothing similar happened to the Mitrovica Serbs, who never faced a terrorist state’s paramilitary machine moving against them. Instead of keeping the same, racist, anti-Albanian, anti-Catholic, and Anti-Islamic rhetoric, the Mitrovica Serbs must now conclude that they were never under attack, and they never became the ethnic cleansing target of another nation. As they still complain about eventual atrocities of the KLA, the Mitrovica Serbs have to provide explanations as to the possible reasons the criminal dictator Milosevic reduced Kosova’s autonomous status within Serbia in 1989.

As a matter of fact, the KLA did not exist since times immemorial; the organization was formed in the early 80s as a consequence of the de-albanization process of Kosova that the rising Serbian chauvinism ominously heralded. In other words, the Serbs triggered it all!

It is well known that in the very beginning the main political target of the KLA leadership was an Albanian People’s Republic within the federal state of post-Tito Yugoslavia. Simple rationalism, logic and common sense should make every Serb, and particularly those of Mitrovica, regret that this did not happen.

In fact, in their paranoiac intension to control a land that did not belong to them anymore, the chauvinist Serbs contributed to the rise of the KLA to political supremacy among the Albanian Kosovars. From the March 1981 turmoil to the June 1989 Declaration of Hatred (Milosevic’s speech about a 600 years old battle that did not concern the outright majority of the people of Kosova), every perspective of peace was systematically demolished by the Serbs, and the Mitrovica Serbs, who still do not regret for their mistakes and do not repent for their sins. How Christian of them!

This unacceptable Serbian attitude was therefore castigated by the rightful formal independence of Kosova. And as the Mitrovica Serbs have not become an ethnic cleansing target, they cannot be offered a right that was not accorded to the Albanian Kosovars in 1979: that of bloodless and peaceful secession.

Beyond the political fairness that the international community should deploy by treating two peoples in the same way, there are further political reasons for which the Mitrovica Serbs cannot be entitled to the right of secession and formal independence.

Mitrovica Serbs: the Epitome of Anti-Albanian and Anti-Islamic Racism

In fact, the Mitrovica Serbs have repeatedly failed to demonstrate the ability to cope with the fundamental ideas and concepts of our times. All that represents a Value for the international community is utterly meaningless to them; Humanism, Human Rights, the right of a nation to self-determination, national independence, freedom, democracy, equity, equality among the citizens of a country, and among the various nations, justice and fair treatment of the minorities, ethnic and religious groups, and last but not least, religious tolerance, are all unknown to them. Even worse, their political leaders give long speeches to disapprove of all these globally accepted values.

What is at the epicenter of their perverted rhetoric is the most dangerous nationalistic paroxysm that takes the form of historical irredentism. The reference to territories formerly occupied by peoples / nations other than the present occupants is bound to bring wars, strife, hatred and misery.

The Serb claim to the Serbian historicity of Kosova consists in sheer threat to the entire mankind; any political ramification of this claim can trigger further wars in the Balkans, and similarly in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and last but not least Europe. And it can be easily rejected at the level of historical irredentism; before being Serb, Kosova was Illyrian. If we enter into this ‘logic’, we will soon reach the Neolithic – not as historical analysis but as a lifestyle (due to the wars that will be triggered meanwhile).

As such, the historical irredentism should be formally and solemnly denounced in an International Convention that would help greatly the international community avoid further war adventures.

A great differentiation should be made between Historical Irredentism and Constitutional Irredentism, a term that should be understood as the present constitutional claim of a nation, ethnic and/or linguistic group (consisting in the majority of the population on a territory) for national independence, and eventually for the subsequent merge / union with another country. Any unsubstantiated claim should be categorically denounced, and related action should be immediately taken by the UN.

As far as the Mitrovica Serbs are concerned, it must become clear to them that their only right is to accept the new country in which they find themselves, and after demanding and obtaining respect for their rights as an ethnic and religious minority, to peacefully integrate within the Republic of Kosova. If this is not convenient to them, they should relocate to mainland Serbia – not Sanjak and Voivodina that are non-Serb territories still occupied by the Serbs - by ‘right’ of colonial invasion (1912 – 1919).

Serbia and the Serbs in Kosova, Bosnia and Croatia should become a matter of great concern for the international community. For the following reasons:

1. What happened to the Albanian Kosovars must not occur to the Sanjakis and the Voivodinians. International infrastructure must be deployed in Sanjak and Voivodina beforehand.

2. Secessions from Kosova, Bosnia and Croatia should be declared as danger for the world peace, and impermissible. The spectrum of a new Balkan war over Mitrovica between Albania, Kosova and Serbia, potentially involving Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia and Turkey, should be eliminated as soon as possible.

3. The Serbian chauvinism and irredentism must not be tolerated, and for a certain period Serbia and the Serbs in Kosova, Bosnia and Croatia should be placed under international tutelage that will set among them the foundations of a new tolerant Serbian approach to the adjacent nations and religions. Today’s Serbs should be viewed as 1945 Germans for having tolerated an unspeakably racist regime, and they must be dealt with accordingly. Courts of Justice may certainly contribute to world peace greatly, but in the end, Peace presupposes a Culture for Peace.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis - is Orientalist, Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, Islamologist, Historian and Political Scientist. Dr. Megalommatis, 51, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages.

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