Kosovo - February 17 Independence Day
Tuesday - Feb 26, 2008 - 11:05 PM
"It's Sunday. A Bosnian Serb assassinates a known political figure in the town of Sarajevo, a capital of Bosnia and Hercegovina, just a few hundred miles from Kosovo. It later turns out that the motive was strictly political and the objective was for one of the provinces to break away and gain independence. The assassination was backed by the Serbian military officers."
This short paragraph may seem like a brief news announcement you could hear lately on TV or read about in the newspaper. Things have gotten really unstable in the Balkans again especially after Kosovo declared its independence on February 17, 2008. The province of Kosovo is inhabited by the Albanian majority with a few hundred thousands of Serbs living in enclaves. Up until the declaration it has been part of Serbia and is by many Serbs considered an integral and indeed historically very important part of their country. Kosovo, as an independent country, is still to be acknowledged by the majority of the international community, but it already has the support of most of European Union countries as well as strong backing of the United States. Serbia's stand on the issue is strongly supported by Russia and China, to mention the biggest powers. It seems like the only reason we haven't seen a break of a new military conflict in the Balkans yet, is the fact that the NATO troops are still protecting the newly independent state. It looks like they may need to stay there for a while. There have been massive protests of Serbs oposing Kosovo's independence all throughout Serbia including violent demonstration in the border regions.
The first paragraph of this article is not actually current news. It was however big news but not in February of 2008, but in June of 1914. The known political figure was the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his assassination has led directly to the outbreak of the First World War. Over 40 million people died including hundreds of thousands of American troops and the whole continent of Europe was in the state of war for 4 devastating years.
The Balkans have a history of being a fruitful ground for regional and international conflicts. The declaration of independence of Kosovo should be handled very carefully by the international community. Otherwise things could easily get out of control and who knows what could happen next.
