Matt,
Last I read "clashed" meant throwing rocks at the NATO troops, hadn't heard anything worse. Yet...
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Matt,
Last I read "clashed" meant throwing rocks at the NATO troops, hadn't heard anything worse. Yet...
I was watching CNN International as this was breaking and they kept switching back and forth between images of people praying in church and people throwing rocks and cocktails at the US Embassy. They kept saying there were something like 150,000 protestors, but it took them about 20 minutes to clarify that only a small fraction of those were violent. For awhile, they were more or less saying that all of them were up in arms. We get Jim Clancy over here and his knuckle-headed commentary makes me want to throw my TV out the window. For example, he said, "It appears that the police are on the street to deal with the violent protestors". I think it's time to send him back to Iraq where he can say things like, "It appears, from the window of my hotel, that there's an increased/decreased level of violence."
The Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor, 21 Feb 08:Quote:
Originally Posted by MattC86
Kosova and the "Frozen" Conflicts of the Former USSR
Quote:
The leaders of the breakaway mini-states of Transnistria in Moldova, Karabakh in Azerbaijan, as well as Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia welcomed Kosova's unilateral declaration of independence this week and its subsequent recognition by the international community. At a joint press conference this week in Moscow, the presidents of self-proclaimed South Ossetia and Abkhazia Eduard Kokoiti and Sergei Bagapsh, announced they will “address Russia, other CIS countries, and international organizations to defend and approve our rights to independence.” The Transnistria foreign ministry issued a statement announcing, “The declaration and consecutive recognition of Kosova are of principal importance since they create a new model of conflict settlement based on the priority of the right for self-determination”.
Transnistria , Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Karabakh proclaimed their sovereignty in the early 1990s as the USSR collapsed, but no international actor has recognized them. Only Abkhazia is seeking outright independence; Transnistria and South Ossetia have expressed a desire to join Russia, while Karabakh wants to join Armenia......
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/wo...in&oref=sloginQuote:
SFANTU GHEORGHE, Romania — Dozens of wreaths trailing ribbons in red, white and green, the colors of the Hungarian flag, covered the base of a memorial to the 1848 revolution in the town park here on a recent day. Deep in the heart of Romania, just one lonely garland bears the country’s own blue, yellow and red banner.
New Year’s is celebrated twice here, first at the stroke of midnight and then an hour later, when it is midnight in Budapest. When Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in February, hundreds of the town’s Hungarians took to the main square to demonstrate in favor of Kosovo, and by extension their own aspirations for autonomy.
A Hungarian minority group is pressing for greater autonomy in a region where its members outnumber Romanians. A new and more radical organization, the Hungarian Civic Party, has risen to challenge the establishment Hungarian party, which has been a member of each coalition government since 1996.
Those who argue that independence for Kosovo has set a bad precedent tend to talk about frozen conflicts outside the European Union — Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in Georgia, and Transnistria in Moldova. But even in the European Union, borders are often arbitrary. Many ethnic minorities, like the Basques and the Roma, remain stateless while others, like the Hungarians in Romania, as well as in Slovakia and Serbia, are still separated from their brethren.
ICG, 25 Sep 08: Kosovo's Fragile Transition
Quote:
....Kosovo is proving to be a difficult test for EU security and defence policy. The political will mustered before the February joint decision on the deployment of EULEX and a EUSR is dissipating. At a time when the EU is engaged in tough talks with Russia about the deployment of a new ESDP mission to Georgia, it would be dangerous to show lack of resolve so close to home.
The effects are not yet clear on Kosovo of recent events in Georgia, where Russia has cited western actions in Kosovo as part of its justification for unilaterally recognising the breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent. Moscow may be more ready than ever to demonstrate its blocking capacities in the UN and tempted to encourage territorial fragmentation in the EU’s backyard; or it may be more ready to show its cooperative side after having demonstrated its new and troubling self-confidence. There is more need than ever for the EU to muster a strong foreign and security policy in its immediate neighbourhood.....
Berghof, 21 Sep 10: The KLA and the Kosovo War: From Intra-State Conflict to Independent Country
Quote:
As with other papaers in the Resistance/Liberation Movements and Transition to Politics series, this paper analyses the origins, development and post-war transformation of the Kosovo Liberation Army from the specific perspective of its members, who made the transition from opposing an oppressive state regime to participating in the construction of a new, more democratic system. In particular, it looks at commonalities between the KLA and other resistance/liberation movements across the globe, while also reflecting on distinct historical traits which make Kosovo’s transition to statehood quite unique and arguably unprecedented.