Kosovo syndrome: Pandora's box

"We are told all the time: Kosovo is a special case. It is all lies. There is no special case and everybody understands it perfectly well."
Russian President Vladimir Putin 15/Feb/2008

International law is dead. UN is a farse. Terrorists backed by U.S. and NATO have declared independence from Serbia...Well, it is not over yet. As fas as Serbia is concered self proclaimed Republic of Kosovo doesn't exist...

Kosovo has been part of modern day Serbia since 1912. Centuries before, it had been an integral part of Serbia. Kosovo was never part of an independent Albania, or an independent entity unto itself. Kosovo's historic attachment to Serbia is very real and legitimate.
The Albanian pro-independence argument focuses attention on Kosovo's present day Albanian majority, overwhelmingly favoring separation from Serbia. The past 120 years have seen a process of Albanians replacing Serbs as the majority in Kosovo - a demographic change resulting from a series of ethnic cleansing campaigns, immigration from Albania (much of it illegal) and the comparatively high birth rate of Albanians.

The 1999 NATO led bombing of Yugoslavia in support of the KLA (Albanian secessionist movement) is an example of what happens when a country does not have nukes, Capital Hill lobbying clout and membership to an American club. Reference Russian actions in Chechnya, Israeli strikes against its adversaries and Turkish actions against the Kurds. For that matter, note the number of civilians killed as a result of the 2003 American led attack on Iraq. These examples are given to put into perspective how the Serbs have been mistreated. Where is an evil dictator who deserves punishment now?

This mistreatment is compounded by the thought that as punishment for fighting the KLA, Serbia lost the right to Kosovo. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 contradicts that belief. It specifically states that Kosovo is a part of Yugoslavia. Serbia is internationally recognized as the successor state to Yugoslavia.

Some Albanian nationalist leaders and their Western supporters have hinted that enhanced violence might occur if Kosovo does not become independent. Rather than condemning such comments, they suggest that it is a valid reason for supporting independence. This opinion encourages violence as a means of independence elsewhere.

"The president of the United States, who is responsible for this violence, as well as his European followers, will be inscribed in the history of Serbia with blackletters, but also in the history of international law on which the world's order is based...Today, on February 17, the fake state of Kosovo was illegally proclaimed on [Serbia's] territory under the control of Nato. This was an act of legal violence."
Serbian prime minister

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from albanian perspective