Youth Initiative for Human Rights

It is less of a problem that in the previous decades we have gotten used to seeing violence, living in it every day and doing it spontaneously to people around us. It is more of a problem that the state politics of Slobodan Milosevic, the politics of violence, has officially returned as the main, driving force, that on which there is a consensus even of the democratic Presedent Tadic, and almost President Nikolic and all the other actes gathered around the leader of the defense of Kosovo, Vojislav Kostunica.

This rock bottom, and this fear that every normal citizen feels regarding what is going to happen the next day, is actually another big chance that we are once again missing. It is a chance for the society in Serbia to face their errors of judgement, to reconsider the politics of the past few decades, to look back and draw the line underneath the decade of conquest, murder, ethnic cleansing, terror over their own citizens and the inhabitants of the region. Kosovo has not been under the rule of Serbia since the day Slobodan Milosevic ended his project by retreating the army and police forces from Kosovo. The politics of conquering territories and nineteenth-century centralistic nationalism is facing a breakdown. Whether it will take something else on its way down, depends on the elite groups in Serbia. Or maybe new politics will arise in its place, appropriate for the modern age, based on cooperation and respect.

Everyone is in wonder because 17 February has happened to us, because there was a celebration and declaration of something we knew had happened in June 1999. Everyone makes excuses for violent behaviour, ancient rights and other mythologies by "our" right to rule "them". Breaking things in Belgrade, they say, is not much in relation to what has happened to us. They talk of cultural heritage, NATO bombing, the Serbs that died in Kosovo.

There is no mention of the Albanians except as "separatists, terrorists, immature people, uncivilized snatchers of our land". Everyone is silent about Albanians. Because, I guess, one does not mention the name of evil. And the evil that Belgrade has done to the Albanians has symbolically ended for them on that very 17 February.

State enemy No 1 is human rights defender Natasa Kandic, because she dared to sit in the Kosovo Parliament in the name of different values. Some media say that she shouldn't exist. Others have a problem with Sonja Biserko, Biljana Kovacevic Vuco. The rest would be satisfied with banning and destroying LDP or the expedition to the apartment of Ceda Jovanovic and insulting and lynching the politics and citizens which he represents. These steps are well known, Milosevic used them too. Kostunica is now simply applying the matrix he had inherited from his predecessor. Just as he had copied the rhetoric, he also did everything to leave Serbia in the gutter and through fear and terrot enforce the final establishment of the new Russian province, which is obviously his goal.

The last colony in Europe gained its freedom on 17 February 2008. From 1912 Kosovo has been ruled by boot and sabre. The people living there had no say in anything. Military authorities were imposed on them since the occupation. At that time, they were pronounced to be a nation not mature enough for democracy. Instead of a civil state and civil management, they recieved a hoard of officers and officials, mostly the worst ones, sent by punishment to Kosovo. Many testimonies from that time speak of violence, discrimination and collonial behaviour of the new masters towards the Albanian population in the region.

While Kosovo was ruled by the army, the intelligence in Belgrade was making plans on how to change the national make-up of the population. The documents of the Serbian Culture Club lead by Slobodan Jovanovic speak of horrible and cruel entertainment of the Serbian national elite. People are refered to as merchandise, something not alive, calculations are made about how many people should move in and move out from different places. The exact same standards will be applied much more efficiently at the end of the 20th century by academics, writers, poets, bishops... "Humane displacement" will become the official politics which will finally result in the creation of Republika Srpska. That is why it is possible today to speak of territory, but not the people, to pledge in Kosovo, but not give pensions to the Albanians, to erase the complete population from the electorial register or the share of free stocks.

The parties changed names, from the National Radical to the League of Communists, from the Socialist Party of Serbia to the Serbian Radical or the Democratic Party of Serbia. The continuity of colonial rule was maintained after the Second World War through military management. Even though the former colonists were forbidden to return to Kosovo, new ones soon arrived. Authority was established through bloody massacres in Drenica and all over Kosovo. Once again there were no "conditions" for civil authorities. The UDBA (State Secret Agency) sovereignly ruled Kosovo until 1966. Many people, rich today, owe their family posessions to the gold stolen from Kosovo Albanians. After the Brioni Plenum there was an ease, but as soon as the ruling circles saw that Kosovo inhabits people who want their rights and who will not reconcile with the existing situation, everything went to the way it used to be.

One year after Tito's death, the Yugoslav National Army "establishes order" in the streets of Pristina, Pec, Prizren... The number of killed Albanians has never been revealed. In the end, in 1989, the "easily promised speed" completely overtakes the legitimate politics. The sovereignity of Kosovo is annuled by tanks, martial law is established and a system very similar to apartheid.

During the nineties, if you were an Albanian, you could not live without fear, let alone work in a school, hospital, the police, or government institutions. Even when the Albanians reacted to such a situation with violence, the elite circles in Serbia did not wonder why, but ravaged villages, civillians, women and children. To be an Albanian, male or female, meant a death sentence. Many were saved by some money or gold. For others, there was no way out.

The nineties are a disgrace for Serbain history, and that must be said out loud in reference to Kosovo. Today in Kosovo, as well as Serbia and the other countries in the region, a large number of people is waiting for the answer to the question where their loved ones are, what happened to them, who killed them. Vojislav Kostunica and his security services hide the answer to that question. Boris Tadic surpresses the answer to that question becase of "stability and the future" and tycoon interests. There is no justice for the Serbs either, if we do not tell the others what we have done to them. There will be no other future if we conceal the facts. And it is futile to rant about crimes over Serbs, world injustice, double standards... Ivica Dacic (Milosevic's party President) clearly stated on the parliamentary speakers stand that the politics of the nineties has been confirmed once more.

When in 1999 revenge and retaliation against the Serbs started, there were no academics or scientists who would look for the cause in the behaviour of the state of Serbia. Or even to be determined according to the 800.000 banished people, mass murders in Meja, Djakovica, Suva Reka, Podujevo, Izbica, Vucitrn... Maybe that would have saved more Serbs than any books written in the name of the defense of Kosovo and such politics. Or any journalist scribblings which announced lynching, which the newspapers are full of these days.

The complete state apparatus was involved in hiding the tracks of mass crimes. Bodies were buried all over Serbia, burned in factories and power plants, sunk into the Danube or Perucac. The policemen, officers, members of National Security, politicians, local tycoons and enterpreneurs, judges and prosecutors, the Government and political parties were involved too. And after all that, Serbia is in wonder. Not a trace of regret, sense of responsibility, readiness to change behaviour. The people directly responsible for Serbia's loss of the right to rule the Kosovo people, today decide our own fate. They will not admit to their mistakes. Instead of that, they will try to tailor the international legislature according to their own dreams. To turn it into a calcified shell which cannot be adjusted to new situations. Because that is how one rules Serbia. That is how laws and constitutions are made here. Full of strong words and phrases, but inapplicable.

Legitimately and legally, the democratic and free part of the world estimated that we cannot terrorize our own citizens forever. Maybe Russia or China still can, but that time will soon pass too. Then the people in Chechnya or Tibet will also gain their deserved place in the community of independent nations. The world's decision (at least the better part of it) to recognize Kosovo, should not be taken as punishment by Serbia. It is not a punishment, it is an opportunity. Not only for Serbia, but for the whole world to strengthen the mechanisms of the protection of human rights and more decisively defy the terror of local dictators. From Beijing to Havana, from Teheran to Moscow.

Serbia is obliged to recognize the Republic of Kosovo. To give a hand of friendship to their legally elected representatives, to help them establish a modern, democratic society. Not because we are more advanced or cultured, but because we owe at least that much to the Kosovo society. And through Kosovo, we can open the issue of the society in Serbia. To reconsider all the illusons and false values, reform institutions, start creating a critical conscience in young people, to reverse the value system and set things in their place. Serbia must, from the mistakes of the past, learn the lessons which will take us to building a new society and a different future. By making violence legitimate and attacking people with different political opinions, the authorities are only continuing the old and already seen practice.

Those who think that they will destroy critical thinking and the need for different relations with the neigbours in this way, are sadly mistaken. The mass "events of the people" just take us back and create new mistakes which will cost us dearly.

By Andrej Nosov and Dragan Popovic

Andrej Nosov is President and founder of YIHR and Dragan Popovic is International Justice Program Coordinator.

Comments (5)

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Albi said:

... For Ana: Excuse me Ana, but from what i can see, you are really the stereotype that the main article refers to. Many serb people talk about million deaths in the world wars. Well, do you know that there are many albanian deads too? And please don't tell me that they were on the nazi side, 'cause the i could reply that the chetniks were too. You talk so much about the battle of Kosovopolje, but forget to mention that you fought alongside with the albanians and many other people. It seems from what serbs sustain that only them fought against the turks. Not to mention then other deals you made with turks to prevent balcan armies from uniting against them, but i'm not going to talk about it here, it happened 600 years ago, and none of us was there to tell what happened. Than you forget about various projects to displace albanians from Kosovo, projects such as "Nacertania" which came out even form the Serbian Accademy of Sciences or people like Garashanin. You forget to tell about what yugoslav partizans have done to albanians after WW2, i.e. the Tivari massacre and so on. Instead, what you say is that serb people have suffered so much to defend christianity and western values. And that's the only thing you got to say?? A country who has always had the backing of Russia and all other slavic nations? Then what must we albanians say? Nobody backed us up or stood on our side, yet we're not victimizing all the time. Stop victimizing yourself, and you will live better. I understand that it's hard to accept the independece of kosovo, but mind my words: time will tell that was the right solution for everybody, and everybody will have JUSTICE!!

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March 02, 2008
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tony said:

... Well Done Gent's Im so happy to see that there are serbs who really know that what their past people done to Albanians in kosova was very wrong and inhuman..... I always believed that there must be some serbs who are not fooled by the False stories that have been told to serbian people for so many years. I just hope that other young serbs learn from these people not to hate Albanians or other nationallities... I dont have to add anything more about Albanians in kosova what they whent through.... However Kosovar's are ready to Forgive, and leave the past behind, but i dont think they will forget as is unforgatble.... I just Hope that serbian people will start to realise soon that they have to hang there hands Up and say SORRY about our past leadres and the pain that they have coused to you, but we would like to move forward and try and build a very good future for everyone in Serbia, Kosova, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia and ect..... Lets Wish That Serbia will be soon democratic and New country(NO HATERS).... God Bless KOSOVA

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February 27, 2008
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Ana said:

... It's funny you talk of "critical thinking". I suppose you suggest that Serbs should addopt the "critical thinking" of the drug and human trafficing, terrorist Albanian thugs who are in control in Kosovo. Or perhaps they should adopt the "critical thinking" of the US who wreack havock all over the globe in the name of "democracy" (where democracy = oil, vested self interests, political agenda and the like). Forgive me if I don't agree that this is an "opportunity" for the Serbs to change the error of their ways. Serbs sacraficed millions of lives defending Europe and Christian values in BOTH world wars. They stood their ground despite being surrounded by Axis contries and despite having been offered a deal by Hitler (which they turned down to defend the greater good). That is who they were then. That is who they are now. The heart of a people does not change in a few decades. Forgive the Serbs for having tried to suppress Al-Quida trained terrorists in their own backyard. Thank the US for handing said terrorists a country all their own smack dab in Europe. No doubt Europe will be a happier place, as Macedonia already is. Anti-serb propaganda can impact the corrupt and ignorent, but it cannot convince the Serbs to abandon their innate sense of justice, reason, logic and morale. The fact that everything is upsidedown in the world is beyond their control. It does not mean however, that they must accept the same. Doing so is shaking hands with the devi, as is recognizing Kosovo.

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February 26, 2008
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Doce said:

	... Two forward thinking men! Sadly there are only a handful of these people in Serbia
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February 26, 2008
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Heku said:

	... God, if we could take time to talk about that to young brainwashed people riotting in the streets of Belgrade on Thursday. What a beautiful message you guys are sending but who will listen to you?
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February 25, 2008
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