Keep Kosovo in Serbia - Ltr by Michael Pravica

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060906-095954-9648r_page2.htm

The Washington Times

Letters

7 September 2006

Keep Kosovo in Serbia

Thank you for publishing "Stability for the Balkans" by Reps. Dan Burton and Joe Wilson (Commentary, Sunday). I sincerely appreciated the congressmen's well-reasoned arguments opposing the illegal granting of independence to Kosovo against the wishes of the Serbian government.

In considering Kosovo, let's bear in mind that the Serbs and Albanians have coexisted in the Serbian province for more than 1,300 years. Former Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito's denial of the right of return of 200,000 Serbians who were cleansed by Albanian fascists during World War II, his encouragement of illegal migration into the province after the war and the granting of local autonomy to the province in 1974 were all in the interest of weakening and reducing Serbia.

These actions fomented an Albanian drive to ethnically "purify" Kosovo of Serbs and their 1,300-year-old cultural presence in the Serbian province for the past 60 years. Granting independence to Kosovo would be an acquiescence to the principle that terrorists can successfully alter the borders of sovereign nations and that national borders mean nothing -- a dangerous precedent for our own nation, which also is battling illegal immigration.

Today's Kosovo is a terrorist haven and black hole of Europe where thriving sex-slave and drug-running trades give plenty of financial support to terrorist training camps for Osama bin Laden's followers within the province. We even have lost our own soldiers in Kosovo because of these fanatics, but our mainstream media has yet to report this.

Our nation's struggle against this sort of barbaric Islamofascist terrorism is completely in contrast to some of our politicians' misguided support for Kosovo's independence. It is high time for President Bush to write a new page in Balkan history by recognizing that Serbia is one of the few truly democratic nations in the Balkans and that it is trying to put the past behind it as it looks toward a more Western-leaning future.

Serbs make up one of the largest ethnic groups in the Balkans, and thus Serbia would be an anchor of stability amidst a Pandora's box of ethnic rivalries there. Serbia also was one of America's staunchest allies in World War I and World War II. Let's stop making Serbia former President Bill Clinton's personal punching bag and endeavor to rewrite the tremendous wrongs that were done in the Balkans. For the sake of global stability and respect for national sovereignty and respect for international laws, Kosovo must stay within Serbia.

MICHAEL PRAVICA
Henderson, Nev.