Serbia: Anger, disbelief over proclamation of Kosovo independence

Ortodox church, Pristina, Kosovo and MetohijaOrthodox Church, cc-licensed photo from Flickr by decafinata.

Kosovo provincial parliament declared unilateral independence from Serbia, yesterday. In his reaction Vojislav Kostunica, prime minister of Serbia, criticized America for inspiring these acts against a sovereign country. He said:

The United States have also humiliated the European Union, and forced it to trample on the principles it is built upon,” Koštunica added, and warned that Europe, “which has lowered its head”, will be responsible “for all the serious consequences that Kosovo's independence carries with it.”

Kosovo and Metohija is province in southern Serbia. Metohija means monastery land. This reefers to great number of historical monuments mostly represented in about 2000 Christian orthodox monasteries.

Ivan Jankovic sums up all the news that stroke southern Europe yesterday:

The declaration was celebrated loudly with firecrackers and music on the streets of Pristina and other cities in the province. On the other side [in Serbia], it was not so happy. Except few bomb explosions in front of UNMIK building in [northern] Kosovska Mitrovica [where Serbs are majority], riots happened in Belgrade, Novi Sad and other cities. Hooligans […] were mad, so they crashed everything that came in their way. They stoned Slovenian and American embassies, McDonald restaurants etc. […] This caused great material damage.

Petarj cited local news and president of Socalist Party of Serbia, Ivica Dacic:

[…] [Less than 100] of citizens and police have been wounded in street clashes that broke out after unilateral declaration of Kosovo independence. Protesters attacked police in front of American and Slovenian embassies. […] [Dacic said:] “We should protect all foreign embassies in Belgrade, but those countries should think about their attitudes. They took 15% of territory from us. What should we do? Should We Applaud them? Breaking story was that crowd destroyed a kiosk. Kiosks are destroyed every day, but Kosovo is taken from us only once […].

Popkitchen titledher blog post “confused”. She adds:

[…] There is no one reason why I would wish to have smaller […] country than it is. The fact, that international law is neglected indicates how unimportant we are […].

Zivot says:

[…]Of course I am against independence. This is similar to one simple situation. Think one person coming to my house and taking away one of the rooms from me. So if that person stays there so long and finally proclaims the room his or her own. My comparison is ridiculous, because this [Kosovo] problem is greater in its proportions. […]

He then cites words of medieval Serb nobleman Stefan Nemanja ):

[…]Where our word is heard […], know my child, that is still our land, no matter who governs it. Emperors change, countries vanish, but people and their language stay, so conquered people and land will come back to the people and country they originate to”

Cika Miloje reacts to B92 blog post titled Independent Kosovo by writing:

[…] Kosovo was under Turkish governance since Battle of Kosovo (in 13th century), all up to 20th century. This time, we shall wait less, until Muslims get into some kind of big conflict with America. Taiwan is produced by America so it can defend its “independence” from China. Relations of China and Taiwan are getting closer and it may take few decades until they merge on economical grounds. East Germany got stolen from Germany. Marionette regime was placed in power there. It lasted 50 years, and now the country is united. I know the latest news sound like Armageddon to us, but history is long term process, and everything changes. […]

Mariopan reacts to the same post by foreseeing implications of this unilateral decision:

[…] This is not end of anything […], this is beginning. As soon as tomorrow or day after tomorrow, every ethnic group in the world will start terrorizing someone and proclaiming independence of some territory. I am so glad this circus will kick off around the globe so [they will understand implications of their actions when its late]. The [international community] tried hard to find a model to make this happen. So they made it and deserve to suffer all the consequences. […]

In his personal blog Avram says:

[…] It’s all the same to me. I am not so patriotic [to say out laud, all the time] “Kosovo is Serbia but I see double standards applied by the West, in first row, USA and EU. They broke UN declaration which guarantees territorial integrity to all internationally recognized countries. To be frank I would love to see Kosovo independence triggers independence declarations of all autonomous regions around the world, like that one in Spain. Abut republic of Srpska [entity of Bosnia Herzegovina], I am not sure what the situation is there. This is not autonomous province like Kosovo, but it would be nice if they could proclaim independence too. If Kosovo can do it, why can’t the others?

This is only small chunk of reactions which are written throughout Serbian blogosphere as we speak.

18 comments

  • aleks

    What is wrong with people?????? Kosovo is obviously SERBAN TERITORY, and of coerce Bush is going to be on the Albanians side, has he done one right thing so far? Its not that hard to get, Albanians have this theory that Albania has to be big country, and that all of the Balkan countries belong to them. Newsflash THEY DON’T!!!! If the Albanians are not stopped now how much more countries will they want? How much of us Balkans will have to suffer because of them?

    All I know is this is not right Kosovo is SERBIAN and should STAY THAT WAY.

  • Gjipeja

    Dear alex and all serbian blogers that are talking on behalf of albanians. You are not really able to understand an albanian because your blog is only linked with other serbian ones. Independence is not about territory. Is about people. and albanians deserved to be free from a regime that maltreated, killed and terrorized them for 100 years. Is all right to be sorry and feel anger because kosovo proclaimed independence. I totally understand and I would have felt the same. However don’t speak about “theories” of albanians. Is not fair since your knowledge about Albania and Republic of Kosovo is too limited because of different factors. . I may tell to you and who ever is concerned. Is not about territory… (like serbia is concerned) or the speculations of great albania…. is about freedom and prosperity people, rights without discrimination and living without a “big brother”. Kosovars deserves independence more than anyone else, regardless the implications on the internal and international arena. Albanians should blog more and give some insights to their nationalist fellows from serbia.

    • jstuxx

      Its not about territory? Then why didn’t the people move back to their Albania, instead more came in. With the current actions of Albanians, they have justified the Serbs regime, cause if this is what they are then there is no way to keep them under control other than oppressing them.

  • beth

    How can you say that the kosovars deserve independence?

    Nobody has mentioned that there were more srbian people killed by these albanians(yes albanians, there is no such thing as kosovars) after the UN came in , than the nuber of lives lost before the UN. These uncultured, uneducated albanians burned churches and monastaries while the UN SOLDERS WATCHED.
    Now they want to live in peace? What kind of peace can you expect when you forcefully take something that doesn’t belong to you?
    KOSOVO WAS SRBIJA
    KOSOVO IS SRBIJA
    KOSOVO WILL ALWAYS BE SRBIJA

    WE ARE PATIENT PEOPLE
    WE ARE GODS PEOPLE
    WE WILL PREVAIL

  • Sneza

    Guys, if you want to feel “independence” please go to your country (ALBANIA) and feel it there,and don´t spread yourself over ours. This artificial KOSOVARS are something you created – but it´s not existing. There are Albanians and there are Serbs. That´s it….
    How funny you talking about nationalist serbian bloggers. Terrorized for 100 years? What about times of Tito?? PLEASE!!! You had the widest autonomy ever, you could speak your language, you had schools in your language, you had an YU passport, but always considered yourself not YU, but Albanian. Then please, got to Albania!!!!!!
    I don´t say there hasn´t been violation against Albanian people, but what about the other way round?
    What is UCK f.e.? What about Albanian guys drawing a serb sign on the door of my house (like the Germans did with the Jews f.e.)? What about people taking a part of a foreign country, isn´t that nationalsim at it´s best?

    Thanks,
    Sneza

  • Mark

    Serbia claims that Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. However, did Serbia not loose the moral authority when the engaged in ethnic cleansing of the Albanians? Isn’t Kosovo independence is equally justified as was Croatia’s, Bosnia’s or Macedonia’s?

    • jstuxx

      No because Croats did not have a state, Bosnians did not have a state, Macedonians did not have a state Albanians had a state Albania. Also why was the ethnic cleansing caused, if Albanians were asking for territory and Ethnic Albania then ethnic cleansing is highly justified to prevent annexation of territory due to ethnic demographics. Bulgarians did that to Turks because Turks were asking for ethnic Turkey and asking for territory even though they already have a country 7 times the size of Bulgaria

  • Mark, ethnic cleansing everyone is talking about never happened. Prosecutors made it up, as a reason to bomb Serbia. This was part of propaganda. Bombing itself triggered war crimes on both sides.

  • Ljubiša, it is easy to claim ethnic cleansing didn’t happen somewhere if you weren’t there! Then again, come to think about it, being at a specific place doesn’t necessarily mean you will always know what’s happening anyway! And of course, it’s also easy to claim that someone else made something up.

    I’m not impressed by your comment, especially because you are a blogger for Global Voices Online. But then again Ljubiša, your sentiment is something I’ve encountered before in my life. Hey, even I used to be distrustful of the West and think it was all propaganda. But now I know that that’s what Slobo, along with the populist Radicals, wanted us Serbs to think and still want us think.

    • jstuxx

      Don’t be an idiot, if you realized what Slobo said was propaganda you should not believe everything the west tells you know. In fact your realization of the propaganda should be telling you that you can’t believe anything the media tells you. Slobo used propaganda, Hitlet used propaganda, Stalin used propaganda, the west currently uses propaganda and here’s an example of it telling how its “liberating” and spreading democracy in the middle east when what its actually doing is overthrowing the elected governments and handing power over to unelected terrorists under the name liberators.

  • berti

    ther is albanian in secili did this albanian ask for independenc

  • CaillouVert

    Crimes were committed bith sides ! Don’t forget to mention it !
    Kosovo is Serbia !

  • Kosovar

    It’s so sad, when I read through these lines and I see that people are commenting on lot of different things about Kosovo, without any arguments at all. I’m from Kosovo and believe it or not more than anybody here I know the history of Kosovo and what Serbs did to the Albanians. I’m an Albanian and I’m going to explain what Serb Police did to us (my family). We established a computer company and started working, they came and took everything all of our equipment and money, because the reason was that they had some information that we were working against Serbian Government. That was not true at all; we were just selling computers and developing different software’s for the needs of other companies. Now, I was tired of this because on the top of that my father and I had to go to the Police station every week where each policeman that will come in would start beating on us, they didn’t even now why we were there. That was something that I personally was tired of and believe me we did not enjoy, I repeat we did not enjoy freedom at all. We were scared to go to downtown and hang out late because “Crna Ruka” as they called it which is “The Black Hand” would continuously kidnap people and you will disappear forever. Making the long story short…now when I go to Kosovo I’m free thanks to the Western Countries that helped us. Even though I’ve been through all this, I would like to explain you what is my dream for the future: I hope that one day we will all be in EU and together with Serbs we would not even look what happened in the past. We would call our self’s European Citizens and Serbs would come and live in Pristina, or even I would go to live in Belgrade, because then it will all be European Union, just like the United States.

    • jstuxx

      Thing is outside observers cannot tell who is in the wrong here, first Serbs are the oppressors then Albanians so its unfair to say that one side are the victims and the others are the oppressors because as it appears to me both have been oppressing each other time and time again and both have committed crimes against each other and both are equally wrong. I disagree with independence because the situation is already fragile and independence just made a whole lot worse (referring to Northern Mitrovica)

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