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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Machaon who wrote (12296)	6/17/1999 6:43:00 PM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

<<You definition of "ethnic cleansing" was too clinical>> Precision is the key to clear thinking Robert. Broadly defining ethnic cleansing, genocide may be a subclass of ethnic cleansing, and hence all genocide is ethnic cleansing, but all ethnic cleansing is not genocide. It is entirely possible to be guilty of ethnic cleansing, without the intention of genocide, rigorously defined. However, you are correct that the Serbs have killed people in ethnic cleansing, and it may be apparent that Arkan and others have once again been responsible for using terror to accomplish the state goals in Belgrade. But from most reports, Albanians fled Kosovo after being "thrown out" by Serb soldiers, this from the mouths of the Albanians themselves. Most where seperated from their men, whose fate is uncertain. If there was a "slaughter" in Kosovo, it was in connection with this. <<This is what I dislike, the trivializing of the barbarity of the Serbs. There was a slaughter in Kosovo by the Serbs>> See above. I do not trivialize it. But I do not blow it beyond its verifiable proportions either. <<Why radical? After many years of Serb brutality do you think it impossible that regular fathers and sons would join up to defend their families? Why do they have to be radicals? Were all American Revolutionaries radicals?>> Well, yes, American revolutionaries were radicals. And so are the KLA, but of a different breed. The KLA is an extremist group, extremist in the sense that they espouse ideas that are not shared by a majority of ethnic Albanians, namely, Kosovar independence and joining with Albania to form a Greater Albania. Most Kosovars, to my understanding, just want to live their lives and have a say in how they are governed, a moderate and respectable desire that is uncontroversial. Until this past year, the KLA was an obscure, radical, violent organization that had little popular support. It still does not have the legitimacy to claim to be the voice of all Kosovar Albanians. The fact that the KLA has had to forceably press male refugees into service in the camps in Albania and Macedonia should say something about the allegedly universality of the KLA. The fact that they are just as ready to kill Albanians as Serbs, belies a less than desirable character. <<What would you have done? Unemployment was around 85%. Albanians schools had been closed. Albanians were being jailed and brutalized without cause>> Its a hard place to be put in, and Im glad Ive never had the misfortune to be put in it. But one has a choice in such a circumstance. One can choose to take the moral high ground, or one can choose to fight barbarity with barbarity. The KLA has chosen a dubious path, and is as such, as guilty of crimes as Serbs. There are no innocents in this Robert. And KLA actions have done as much to contribute to the Albanian condition as Serbian nationalist intentions. Derek