Kosova e ka marr pavarsin

    Kosovo gains independence

 Erica Nachman
Entertainment/Copy Editor

   February 17, 2008.  A day of freedom.  Freedom from ties to a place that shredded families, destroyed lifestyles, and suppressed a culture.  Kosova e ka marr pavarsin! (Kosovo gains independence!)

  Kosovo, formerly a province of Serbia, went through terrifying war which ended in 1999. It was  political, physical, and cultural genocide.  The downward slope began with the election of Slobodan Milosevic to the Presidency of Serbia from 1989 to 1997 and his decision to demolish any political institutions in Kosovo and replace all elected leaders with leaders in his favor.  Kosovo’s autonomy was destroyed in Milosevic’s pursuit to push Serbian nationalism with Milosevic’s knowledge that Kosovo was gradually growing in Albanian nationalism.

  In Milosevic’s attempts to expel everything Albanian, the cost was much greater than removing “stuff” from Kosovo.  The “stuff” included banning Rilindja, the only Albanian-language newspaper, TV and radio broadcasting in Albanian, and the expulsion of professors and thousands of students at the University of Pristina, a city in the heart of Kosovo.  What was so terrifying was that Milosevic’s promotion to President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1997 came right in the middle of this path to remove the “stuff;” the stuff that was now men, women, and children.

  The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) privately emerged to fight back against the Serbians, but unnecessary actions were taken in the Serbian mission to extinguish the KLA, the supposed terrorists of Serbia.  Children, babies, little girls and boys were killed in the streets in front of their families.  They were not terrorists, but was there any mercy shown for them? No.  These innocent men, women, and children were killed without thought or reason.

  Accounts from Serbian soldiers show that the attacks were not planned.  Villages were taken on impulse.  One after the next, without thinking.  Basic orders seemed to be to fire at anything moving. 

  So why should tortured, abused, and broken families get the satisfaction of living in/coming from their own country?  Raped, burned, slaughtered.  After all that Kosovo’s citizens have been through, giving Kosovo its independence is the least that can be done.

  Hundreds of thousands of refugees were left to find a way for themselves, one of whom is now a local resident.  A boy only twelve years old, now twenty and living in Newport News, was separated from his family for three weeks and was only reunited with his family after being spotted on television news coverage.  “As a twelve year old kid, I saw things I had never dreamt of.  The Serbian men were nasty.  They raped all the young girls during the war—just thinking about it makes me want to kill them,” he said.

  How can these children, these survivors, be expected to continue to live in a part of some place that is called Serbia?  The same goes for the adults who were just as innocent.  Kosovo, as a former province of Serbia, was and is still stuck in a stew of terrorism, surrounded by many countries that do not like the recently proclaimed country.

  As its own country, Kosovo is able to start anew, have their own flag, and be able to remove themselves from any feelings of living on Serbian soil.  The newly received independence has already started to cause unrest once again in the former Yugoslavia region, but now the people of Kosovo can fight as a country for their country.  They will not have to conduct themselves in any manner under any form of Serbian rule or dictatorship, and political stability, after Milosevic’s brutal removal of Kosovo’s autonomy, can be restored more easily without Serbian resistance.

  Kosovo’s new leader Hashim Thaci offers hope of a “melting pot” country that includes Serbians living peacefully with the people of Kosovo, but the success of this mission could be futile.  For now, we must accept and welcome Kosovo as a new country on the map.