Officer gets two years for ignoring Srebrenica atrocities
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Arthur MaxAssociated Press
Amsterdam, Netherlands - A former police officer who commanded troops defending the Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica was handed a lenient two-year sentence Friday for failing to prevent murder and torture of Serb captives.
The U.N. war crimes tribunal, which imposed the sentence, ordered Naser Oric's immediate re lease since he has been in jail for more than three years.
Oric, 39, was acquitted of direct involvement in the murder of prisoners in the early years of the 1992-95 Bosnia war. But the court found he had closed his eyes to their mistreatment and failed to punish their killers.
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The three judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia acquitted him of all charges related to the wanton destruction of Serb villages.
The trial was closely watched in the Balkans. Muslims, who hail Oric as a war hero for his three-year defense of the enclave against Serb forces, had anticipated exoneration.
Serbs had hoped a conviction would counterbalance earlier judgments that found Bosnian Serbs guilty of genocide at Srebrenica. More than 8,000 Muslims were slaughtered there in one week in July 1995, Europe's worst civilian massacre since the Holocaust.
Prosecutors had sought an 18-year prison term. Defense lawyers said any punishment would be inappropriate.
The judges found that during two periods in 1992 and 1993, Oric's troops battered Serb prisoners with wooden planks, iron rods and baseball bats, and pulled the teeth of some of them with rusty pliers. At least six prisoners died in custody.
Oric should have known the prisoners were at risk and taken steps to prevent their mistreat ment, the judgment said. But the judges said they unanimously decided on leniency because of the untenable situation in the besieged town.
Oric, then 25, was responsible for a population swelled by refugees, without food, and in charge of ill-equipped and poorly trained forces. He had no military or administrative experience, his authority was scorned by other Muslim leaders and he had no communications with his superiors outside the area, the judges found.
"It was a continuous uphill struggle that, in actual fact, achieved very few results," the verdict said.
Bosnian Serbs denounced the sentence as "a farce," while some Muslims survivors of Srebrenica were disappointed he was found guilty of anything. In Belgrade, Serbia's President Boris Tadic called the sentence "scandalous."
"People who steal at supermarkets are given two-year prison sentences," Tadic said.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1151754912315440.xml&coll=2
July 02, 2006
Kosovo a Serbian Jerusalem
Bishop Artemy calls Kosovo a Serbian Jerusalem
Moscow, June 29, Interfax - Administrator of the Raska and Prizren diocese of the Serbian church bishop Artemy called Kosovo �a spiritual and cultural cradle� of the Serbs, �a Serbian Jerusalem.��The entire Serbia is a church, while Kosovo is this church�s sanctuary,� the hierarch said at the divine worship in the Gracanica monastery, Vremya Novostey daily writes on Thursday. Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica visited the monastery last Wednesday. He met with the leaders of the Serbian community and had a meal with the brethren. His visit was timed to the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo between the Serbs and the Turks on 28 June 1389.An expert of the Serbian Academy of Sciences Institute of History Slavenco Terzic said that the defeat of the Serbs tragic implications for the entire Balkan region.He noted that the Ottoman yoke had delivered a �strong blow on the rich heritage of the Christian nations in the Balkans. Their political, social and cultural elite was exterminated, and medieval towns, Orthodox churches and other monuments of culture had been destroyed.�The tragedy was exacerbated by the fact that the coming of the Ottoman Empire to the Balkans �had brought about contacts of the Balkan people with the militarized branch of Islam, rather then with high achievements of the Arab Muslim civilization,� the scholar added. Deputy director of the Institute of Slavonic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Dr. of history Andrey Shemyakin said that from historical perspective Kosovo was indeed the cradle of the Serbian statehood and Orthodox culture. �If these are taken away from the Serbs, they will never accept it and will be quite right,� he underscored. Serbian Jerusalem
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=1642
Moscow, June 29, Interfax - Administrator of the Raska and Prizren diocese of the Serbian church bishop Artemy called Kosovo �a spiritual and cultural cradle� of the Serbs, �a Serbian Jerusalem.��The entire Serbia is a church, while Kosovo is this church�s sanctuary,� the hierarch said at the divine worship in the Gracanica monastery, Vremya Novostey daily writes on Thursday. Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica visited the monastery last Wednesday. He met with the leaders of the Serbian community and had a meal with the brethren. His visit was timed to the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo between the Serbs and the Turks on 28 June 1389.An expert of the Serbian Academy of Sciences Institute of History Slavenco Terzic said that the defeat of the Serbs tragic implications for the entire Balkan region.He noted that the Ottoman yoke had delivered a �strong blow on the rich heritage of the Christian nations in the Balkans. Their political, social and cultural elite was exterminated, and medieval towns, Orthodox churches and other monuments of culture had been destroyed.�The tragedy was exacerbated by the fact that the coming of the Ottoman Empire to the Balkans �had brought about contacts of the Balkan people with the militarized branch of Islam, rather then with high achievements of the Arab Muslim civilization,� the scholar added. Deputy director of the Institute of Slavonic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Dr. of history Andrey Shemyakin said that from historical perspective Kosovo was indeed the cradle of the Serbian statehood and Orthodox culture. �If these are taken away from the Serbs, they will never accept it and will be quite right,� he underscored. Serbian Jerusalem
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=1642
Making the Belgrade
Making the Belgrade
By Andrea SachsWashington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 2, 2006; Page P03
Q. I will be attending classes in Belgrade. What destinations outside of the city should I see?
Jodi Winship, Arlington
With its cafes, nightclubs and 7,000-year-old history, the Serbian capital never sleeps. But for a break from urban life, just follow the Danube. "There is plenty to see in Belgrade," says Kathy Kutrubes, who runs Kutrubes Travel (800-878-8566, http://www.kutrubestravel.com/ ), a Boston travel agency specializing in the Balkans. "Outside is more of a rural atmosphere."
One of Serbia's best-known destinations is Novi Sad, the capital of Vojvodina province that sits on the river and is crammed with attractions, such as the Petrovardin fortress. Near the city lies Fruska Gora, a national park lush with orchids and linden trees, as well as boars and lynx. Also stop by Sremski Karlovi, home of the 18th-century Grammar School and the art-filled Orthodox Church.
Grab a meal at a salas, wealthy estates offering food, lodging, music and more. "Spending time on salas (one of them is Salas 84) is a unique experience," Serbian Embassy spokeswoman Jelena Cukic Matic said by e-mail, "and worth keeping your stomach empty during the day."
Belgrade has a beach on an artificial lake, but for wild water, go rafting down the Ibar River, which streams past the medieval city of Maglic. If "Black Beauty" is more your scene, the 227-year-old Zobnatica horse farm offers forest rides and the Museum of Horse Breeding. Fifty miles south of Belgrade is Topola, whose distractions include the prehistoric Risovaca cave; the Park of Bukovicka Banja and its sculpture garden; and the village of Orasac, which honors the first Serbian uprising against the Turks. When it's meal time, pair such specialties as Karadjordje's steak (stuffed and fried pork or veal) with local wine: The Oplenac Wine Route features wines that have been compared with French vintages.
For more quietude than cocktails, overnight at a monastery, such as Soko Grad. Find more holy centers in Kraljevo, including the UNESCO-protected Studenica. The region also touts earthly retreats: The Vrnjacka spa, for instance, is Serbia's largest modern spa, with mineral springs and treatments.
Info: Embassy of the Republic of Serbia/ National Tourism Organization of Serbia, 202-332-0333, http://www.yuembusa.org/eng%20.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/06/30/AR2006063000269.html
By Andrea SachsWashington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 2, 2006; Page P03
Q. I will be attending classes in Belgrade. What destinations outside of the city should I see?
Jodi Winship, Arlington
With its cafes, nightclubs and 7,000-year-old history, the Serbian capital never sleeps. But for a break from urban life, just follow the Danube. "There is plenty to see in Belgrade," says Kathy Kutrubes, who runs Kutrubes Travel (800-878-8566, http://www.kutrubestravel.com/ ), a Boston travel agency specializing in the Balkans. "Outside is more of a rural atmosphere."
One of Serbia's best-known destinations is Novi Sad, the capital of Vojvodina province that sits on the river and is crammed with attractions, such as the Petrovardin fortress. Near the city lies Fruska Gora, a national park lush with orchids and linden trees, as well as boars and lynx. Also stop by Sremski Karlovi, home of the 18th-century Grammar School and the art-filled Orthodox Church.
Grab a meal at a salas, wealthy estates offering food, lodging, music and more. "Spending time on salas (one of them is Salas 84) is a unique experience," Serbian Embassy spokeswoman Jelena Cukic Matic said by e-mail, "and worth keeping your stomach empty during the day."
Belgrade has a beach on an artificial lake, but for wild water, go rafting down the Ibar River, which streams past the medieval city of Maglic. If "Black Beauty" is more your scene, the 227-year-old Zobnatica horse farm offers forest rides and the Museum of Horse Breeding. Fifty miles south of Belgrade is Topola, whose distractions include the prehistoric Risovaca cave; the Park of Bukovicka Banja and its sculpture garden; and the village of Orasac, which honors the first Serbian uprising against the Turks. When it's meal time, pair such specialties as Karadjordje's steak (stuffed and fried pork or veal) with local wine: The Oplenac Wine Route features wines that have been compared with French vintages.
For more quietude than cocktails, overnight at a monastery, such as Soko Grad. Find more holy centers in Kraljevo, including the UNESCO-protected Studenica. The region also touts earthly retreats: The Vrnjacka spa, for instance, is Serbia's largest modern spa, with mineral springs and treatments.
Info: Embassy of the Republic of Serbia/ National Tourism Organization of Serbia, 202-332-0333, http://www.yuembusa.org/eng%20.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/06/30/AR2006063000269.html
Lighting up the world -- again
Lighting up the world -- again
KEVIN CHONG
Globe and Mail Update
Nikola Tesla harnessed the alternating current, invented radio technology and patented 700 inventions, including the wireless remote control and spark plugs. But by 1943, the inventor died alone of a heart attack in a New York hotel room -- a fringe figure, an also-ran in the scientific community. He was impoverished, obsessed with the number three and saw the Nobel Prize awarded to another man for an invention he had created years earlier.
"Nikola Tesla's ideas," The New York Times wrote in his obituary, "bordered increasingly on what some considered the fantastic as he advanced in age." Still, as Tesla once insisted: "The present is theirs, the future is mine."
That future, it seems, is now. This year -- the 150th anniversary of Tesla's birth -- Belgrade International Airport will be renamed the Nikola Tesla Airport. On the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, a statue will be unveiled to honour the man whose work enabled the construction of the world's first hydroelectric power plant. And starting this month, scientists from around the world are recognizing Tesla at conferences in Serbia, Croatia, Australia, Canada and the United States.
Tesla is also the mad scientist of choice among hipsters. He's appeared in novels, plays, an opera and a Japanese manga comic and is the subject of numerous songs -- including a few by a popular 1980s band named after him. In Jim Jarmush's 2004 film Coffee and Cigarettes musician Jack White demonstrates the Tesla coil. Later this year, David Bowie will play the Serbian-American in The Prestige, a film directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins).
On the stroke of midnight July 9, 1856, Tesla was born to Serbian parents in Smiljan, Lika, in what is now Croatia. His father was a Serbian-Orthodox priest; his mother was the inventor of a number of household appliances including the mechanical eggbeater.
Tesla's own ability to visualize inventions in precise detail started in early childhood. When he saw a steel engraving of Niagara Falls, for instance, he imagined a wheel being turned by the water -- thirty years before a hydroelectric plant became reality.
After studying mechanics, physics and engineering in Austria and Czechoslovakia, Tesla worked as an electrical engineer in Hungary and France. He then emigrated to New York in 1884, where he joined Thomas Edison's laboratory.
Within a year the two had split over the alternating current. Edison tried to show the dangers of AC by using it to electrocute dogs and horses in public exhibitions. Tesla later responded with a demonstration at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. As Paul Auster writes in his novel Moon Palace, Tesla -- who was 6 foot 6 and cut an impressive figure in a black Prince Albert coat and derby hat -- performed "magic tricks with electricity, spinning little metal eggs around the table, shooting sparks out of his fingertips."
Tesla won the "war of the currents," of course. The industrialist George Westinghouse eventually purchased the patent for AC power. And as W. Bernard Carlson, a history professor at the University of Virginia who's writing a biography of Tesla, says, "He was as popular, if not more, than Edison."
Other battles proved more challenging. Though Tesla invented the radio in 1895, Guglielmo Marconi -- who used one of Tesla's oscillators to send signals across the English Channel -- snagged the patent in 1904 and later won the Nobel Prize. Despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that awarded the patent posthumously to Tesla in 1943, Marconi continues to be considered the father of the airwaves.
Radio proved problematic in other ways, too. In 1899, while experimenting with high-voltage, high-frequency electrical currents on a high plateau in Colorado, Tesla believed he received radio signals from aliens. This made him a laughingstock among his peers (though it did inspire cults who believed Tesla himself was an alien).
Tesla's reputation might not have deteriorated over his lifetime if his financial savvy was anywhere close to his scientific genius. Marconi, a wealthy Italian nobleman, had strong financial backing for his quest to win the radio patent. Tesla was so inept in his finances that he tore up his royalty agreements with Westinghouse -- foregoing millions -- when the industrialist went through a temporary financial crisis brought on by the costly P.R. battle with Edison.
Money troubles also prevented Tesla from continuing research on one of his great obsessions: the wireless transmission of electricity. Tesla's dream was to provide energy freely to everyone, but because financiers did not see much profit in this utopian scheme, the deed to his laboratory had to be sold to settle debts.
Tesla's revival first picked up steam around the 1980s, when his outlandish claims begun to make sense to scientists. Take those alien signals. Dr. Jasmina Vujic, a nuclear engineering professor at UC Berkeley says, "We now know that many stars -- pulsars -- do emit radio emissions."
Science historians also noted that Tesla's work on a "death ray" -- a final project that he claimed could destroy 10,000 airplanes from 260 miles away and that he hoped would end all war -- was similar to Ronald Reagan's Space Defence Initiative or "Star Wars" project. (Conspiracy theorists point out that, after Tesla's death, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI confiscated his research and other belongings.)
Tesla's work on robotics and wireless communications networks have proved prescient as well. And his designs for a bladeless turbine and a pump without any moving parts (modelled after a diode) still intrigue contemporary engineers. "I would say that most of Tesla's concepts have been built upon and extended," says Todd Wilkie, an electrical engineer who's worked with Intel.
According to Mr. Carlson, Tesla is especially relevant in 2006 because "technology is dehumanizing; it debases us. Tesla allows people to celebrate technological progress in a very intuitive, spiritual way."
Moreover, Tesla is a unifying figure in the Balkans. Serbia and Croatia both regard him as a "native son." He appears on the Serbian 100-dinar banknote. He's also been commemorated with his own stamp in the United States, and societies of Tesla admirers burnish his memory in over 20 countries -- including Greece, Brazil and Korea. The scientific community has even honoured him by naming a unit of magnetic-flux density, which is used to calibrate MRI machines, "the tesla."
Then there's the alternating current. Dr. Alan Bristow, a researcher in physics at the University of Toronto says, "AC motors are the workhorse of modern-day society, without which we would not have most of our household appliances or any forms of modern industry."
As for Tesla's presence in pop culture? "He was an inventor and an artist," says playwright Kevin Kerr, who co-wrote Brilliant, a play about Tesla. "He loved beautiful things. The objects he designed were highly practical and usually revolutionary inventions, but they also always had to be aesthetically pleasing."
The story of a visionary who died with his genius unrecognized is of obvious interest to artists too. Tesla appears as a doomed romantic figure in the Handsome Family song Tesla's Hotel Room. The inventor's final days are elegiacally called "the last days of wonder, when spirits still flew/round bubbling test tubes in half-darkened rooms."
In the end, it's not Tesla's now-recognized achievements that capture the public imagination, but his failures -- so idealistically and extravagantly conceived -- and his bold unfulfilled promise.
Kevin Chong is a Vancouver novelist and freelance writer.
> <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060701.wxtesla01
> /EmailBNStory/Science/home
KEVIN CHONG
Globe and Mail Update
Nikola Tesla harnessed the alternating current, invented radio technology and patented 700 inventions, including the wireless remote control and spark plugs. But by 1943, the inventor died alone of a heart attack in a New York hotel room -- a fringe figure, an also-ran in the scientific community. He was impoverished, obsessed with the number three and saw the Nobel Prize awarded to another man for an invention he had created years earlier.
"Nikola Tesla's ideas," The New York Times wrote in his obituary, "bordered increasingly on what some considered the fantastic as he advanced in age." Still, as Tesla once insisted: "The present is theirs, the future is mine."
That future, it seems, is now. This year -- the 150th anniversary of Tesla's birth -- Belgrade International Airport will be renamed the Nikola Tesla Airport. On the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, a statue will be unveiled to honour the man whose work enabled the construction of the world's first hydroelectric power plant. And starting this month, scientists from around the world are recognizing Tesla at conferences in Serbia, Croatia, Australia, Canada and the United States.
Tesla is also the mad scientist of choice among hipsters. He's appeared in novels, plays, an opera and a Japanese manga comic and is the subject of numerous songs -- including a few by a popular 1980s band named after him. In Jim Jarmush's 2004 film Coffee and Cigarettes musician Jack White demonstrates the Tesla coil. Later this year, David Bowie will play the Serbian-American in The Prestige, a film directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins).
On the stroke of midnight July 9, 1856, Tesla was born to Serbian parents in Smiljan, Lika, in what is now Croatia. His father was a Serbian-Orthodox priest; his mother was the inventor of a number of household appliances including the mechanical eggbeater.
Tesla's own ability to visualize inventions in precise detail started in early childhood. When he saw a steel engraving of Niagara Falls, for instance, he imagined a wheel being turned by the water -- thirty years before a hydroelectric plant became reality.
After studying mechanics, physics and engineering in Austria and Czechoslovakia, Tesla worked as an electrical engineer in Hungary and France. He then emigrated to New York in 1884, where he joined Thomas Edison's laboratory.
Within a year the two had split over the alternating current. Edison tried to show the dangers of AC by using it to electrocute dogs and horses in public exhibitions. Tesla later responded with a demonstration at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. As Paul Auster writes in his novel Moon Palace, Tesla -- who was 6 foot 6 and cut an impressive figure in a black Prince Albert coat and derby hat -- performed "magic tricks with electricity, spinning little metal eggs around the table, shooting sparks out of his fingertips."
Tesla won the "war of the currents," of course. The industrialist George Westinghouse eventually purchased the patent for AC power. And as W. Bernard Carlson, a history professor at the University of Virginia who's writing a biography of Tesla, says, "He was as popular, if not more, than Edison."
Other battles proved more challenging. Though Tesla invented the radio in 1895, Guglielmo Marconi -- who used one of Tesla's oscillators to send signals across the English Channel -- snagged the patent in 1904 and later won the Nobel Prize. Despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that awarded the patent posthumously to Tesla in 1943, Marconi continues to be considered the father of the airwaves.
Radio proved problematic in other ways, too. In 1899, while experimenting with high-voltage, high-frequency electrical currents on a high plateau in Colorado, Tesla believed he received radio signals from aliens. This made him a laughingstock among his peers (though it did inspire cults who believed Tesla himself was an alien).
Tesla's reputation might not have deteriorated over his lifetime if his financial savvy was anywhere close to his scientific genius. Marconi, a wealthy Italian nobleman, had strong financial backing for his quest to win the radio patent. Tesla was so inept in his finances that he tore up his royalty agreements with Westinghouse -- foregoing millions -- when the industrialist went through a temporary financial crisis brought on by the costly P.R. battle with Edison.
Money troubles also prevented Tesla from continuing research on one of his great obsessions: the wireless transmission of electricity. Tesla's dream was to provide energy freely to everyone, but because financiers did not see much profit in this utopian scheme, the deed to his laboratory had to be sold to settle debts.
Tesla's revival first picked up steam around the 1980s, when his outlandish claims begun to make sense to scientists. Take those alien signals. Dr. Jasmina Vujic, a nuclear engineering professor at UC Berkeley says, "We now know that many stars -- pulsars -- do emit radio emissions."
Science historians also noted that Tesla's work on a "death ray" -- a final project that he claimed could destroy 10,000 airplanes from 260 miles away and that he hoped would end all war -- was similar to Ronald Reagan's Space Defence Initiative or "Star Wars" project. (Conspiracy theorists point out that, after Tesla's death, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI confiscated his research and other belongings.)
Tesla's work on robotics and wireless communications networks have proved prescient as well. And his designs for a bladeless turbine and a pump without any moving parts (modelled after a diode) still intrigue contemporary engineers. "I would say that most of Tesla's concepts have been built upon and extended," says Todd Wilkie, an electrical engineer who's worked with Intel.
According to Mr. Carlson, Tesla is especially relevant in 2006 because "technology is dehumanizing; it debases us. Tesla allows people to celebrate technological progress in a very intuitive, spiritual way."
Moreover, Tesla is a unifying figure in the Balkans. Serbia and Croatia both regard him as a "native son." He appears on the Serbian 100-dinar banknote. He's also been commemorated with his own stamp in the United States, and societies of Tesla admirers burnish his memory in over 20 countries -- including Greece, Brazil and Korea. The scientific community has even honoured him by naming a unit of magnetic-flux density, which is used to calibrate MRI machines, "the tesla."
Then there's the alternating current. Dr. Alan Bristow, a researcher in physics at the University of Toronto says, "AC motors are the workhorse of modern-day society, without which we would not have most of our household appliances or any forms of modern industry."
As for Tesla's presence in pop culture? "He was an inventor and an artist," says playwright Kevin Kerr, who co-wrote Brilliant, a play about Tesla. "He loved beautiful things. The objects he designed were highly practical and usually revolutionary inventions, but they also always had to be aesthetically pleasing."
The story of a visionary who died with his genius unrecognized is of obvious interest to artists too. Tesla appears as a doomed romantic figure in the Handsome Family song Tesla's Hotel Room. The inventor's final days are elegiacally called "the last days of wonder, when spirits still flew/round bubbling test tubes in half-darkened rooms."
In the end, it's not Tesla's now-recognized achievements that capture the public imagination, but his failures -- so idealistically and extravagantly conceived -- and his bold unfulfilled promise.
Kevin Chong is a Vancouver novelist and freelance writer.
> <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060701.wxtesla01
> /EmailBNStory/Science/home
Kosovo will always be ours, says Serb PM
Kosovo will always be ours, says Serb PM
Patrick Bishop, Gracanica, SerbiaJune 30, 2006
AN emotional show of defiance against the outside world, the Serb Prime Minister has insisted that Kosovo will always belong to the Serbs.
Vojislav Kostunica made his declaration outside a 14th century monastery on Wednesday, the holiday of Vidovdan or St Vitus' Day when Serbs remember a centuries-old battle.
He spoke to an anxious crowd of about 1000, some of the few Serbs remaining in the province since NATO invaded in 1999 to rescue the Albanian majority.
"Kosovo has always been and always will be part of Serbia," he said to cheers in the town of Gracanica, in a Serb enclave of Kosovo. However, he emphasised his "willingness to talk, to negotiate and to compromise".
Serbia is in the midst of a diplomatic offensive aimed at retaining sovereignty over the province, which it regards as the cradle of the nation. Mr Kostunica, a nationalist but also a sincere democrat, has just been in London to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Belgrade's offer of autonomy has failed to attract any support from the 90 per cent Albanian population, who are increasingly frustrated at their lack of progress towards full independence.
The Serb Government has been accused by the UN, which administers the province, of promoting ethnic tensions in an attempt to hang on to Kosovo.
On the grimmest day in the Serb calendar, one Bosnian Serb recalled his nation's epic defeat more than 600 years ago as if it occurred within his memory.
"We were defending all of Europe, trying to save Christianity," Dejan said of the 14th-century battle of Kosovo, at which the Balkans fell to the Turks. "We were betrayed."
Montenegro abandoned its union with Serbia last month and declared independence. Kosovo is also being taken away. The country's negotiations to join the European Union have been suspended.
The country is at a crossroads.
TELEGRAPH, GUARDIAN
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/kosovo-will-always-be-ours-says-serb-pm/2006/06/29/1151174331969.html#
Patrick Bishop, Gracanica, SerbiaJune 30, 2006
AN emotional show of defiance against the outside world, the Serb Prime Minister has insisted that Kosovo will always belong to the Serbs.
Vojislav Kostunica made his declaration outside a 14th century monastery on Wednesday, the holiday of Vidovdan or St Vitus' Day when Serbs remember a centuries-old battle.
He spoke to an anxious crowd of about 1000, some of the few Serbs remaining in the province since NATO invaded in 1999 to rescue the Albanian majority.
"Kosovo has always been and always will be part of Serbia," he said to cheers in the town of Gracanica, in a Serb enclave of Kosovo. However, he emphasised his "willingness to talk, to negotiate and to compromise".
Serbia is in the midst of a diplomatic offensive aimed at retaining sovereignty over the province, which it regards as the cradle of the nation. Mr Kostunica, a nationalist but also a sincere democrat, has just been in London to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Belgrade's offer of autonomy has failed to attract any support from the 90 per cent Albanian population, who are increasingly frustrated at their lack of progress towards full independence.
The Serb Government has been accused by the UN, which administers the province, of promoting ethnic tensions in an attempt to hang on to Kosovo.
On the grimmest day in the Serb calendar, one Bosnian Serb recalled his nation's epic defeat more than 600 years ago as if it occurred within his memory.
"We were defending all of Europe, trying to save Christianity," Dejan said of the 14th-century battle of Kosovo, at which the Balkans fell to the Turks. "We were betrayed."
Montenegro abandoned its union with Serbia last month and declared independence. Kosovo is also being taken away. The country's negotiations to join the European Union have been suspended.
The country is at a crossroads.
TELEGRAPH, GUARDIAN
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/kosovo-will-always-be-ours-says-serb-pm/2006/06/29/1151174331969.html#
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