The North Polish Union wrote:Gravlen wrote:Wait, what "hysterical claims"?
Do you not believe that Serbs murdered and raped Kosovo Albanian civilians? Because if you do believe that people were raped and murdered - in the thousands - there's not really a lot of hysteria when it comes to debating intent and legal definitions.
Arguing that the intent was to destroy the group vs. that the intent was to remove the group by violent and terror-inspiring means doesn't come across as hysterical to me. Kinda like how arguing that something was involuntary manslaughter when someone else argues it was voluntary manslaughter doesn't seem very hysterical.The number of victims whose bodies have been burned or destroyed may never be known, but enough evidence has emerged to conclude that probably around 10,000 Kosovar Albanians were killed by Serbian forces.
Do you doubt that this was done systematically in order to force them to leave their homes and cleanse (ethnic cleansing) the area?The evidence is also now clear that Serbian forces conducted a systematic campaign to burn or destroy bodies, or to bury the bodies, then rebury them to conceal evidence of Serbian crimes. On June 4, at the end of the conflict, the Department of State issued the last of a series of weekly ethnic cleansing reports, available at http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/rp ... thnic.html concluding that at least 6,000 Kosovar Albanians were victims of mass murder, with an unknown number of victims of individual killings, and an unknown number of bodies burned or destroyed by Serbian forces throughout the conflict.Death represents only one facet of Serbian actions in Kosovo.Over 1.5 million Kosovar Albanians--at least 90 percent of the estimated 1998 Kosovar Albanian population of Kosovo--were forcibly expelled from their homes. Tens of thousands of homes in at least 1,200 cities, towns, and villages have been damaged or destroyed. During the conflict, Serbian forces and paramilitaries implemented a systematic campaign to ethnically cleanse Kosovo--aspects of this campaign include the following:
• Forcible Displacement of Kosovar Albanian Civilians: Serbian authorities conducted a campaign of forced population movement. In contrast to actions taken during 1998, Yugoslav Army units and armed civilians joined the police in systematically expelling Kosovar Albanians at gunpoint from both villages and larger towns in Kosovo.• Identity Cleansing: Kosovar Albanians were systematically stripped of identity and property documents including passports, land titles, automobile license plates, identity cards, and other forms of documentation. As much as 50 percent of the population may be without documentation. By systematically destroying schools, places of worship, and hospitals, Serbian forces sought to destroy social identity and the fabric of Kosovar Albanian society.
The "hysterical claims" are those of genocide. I have never denied that both Serbs and Albanians committed atrocities against each other.
But why would the claim of a specific intent be hysterical? You're just repeating that it is, but you're not actually providing an argument.
Serbia has been accused of and tried for genocide due to the actions they took during the conflict. Were Bosnia hysterical when it accused Serbia of genocide, before the courts found that Serbia "only" violated international law by failing to prevent the killings?
The North Polish Union wrote:Gravlen wrote:So what? The fact that posecutors of the ICTY were unable to find sufficient evidence to charge individuals with genocide doesn't rule out the possibility of genocide.
Like with Russia's genocide in Ukraine, there doesn't have to be an authority telling me that genocide is taking place. The ICC has not found sufficient evidence (yet) to charge Putin and Lvova-Belova with genocide, for example. Yet I firmly believe it is taking place as we speak, based on the available evidence.
This is a situation where there is an important distinction between Ukraine and Serbia.
In Ukraine the atrocities are ongoing/contemporary, and they are primarily (although not always) happening on lands occupied by the nation accused of committing them who is hostile to international investigation into the goings-on in those occupied territories.
In Serbia the military conflict ended roughly 25 years ago, even the unilateral Kosovar declaration of 'independence' occurred 15 years ago. The areas on which the genocide is alleged to have occurred are de facto administered by the alleged victims of that genocide who have no reason to block international investigation. Additionally, this administration has the backing of the most powerful military on the planet which has used its diplomatic weight to openly prejudice the ICTY in favor of Albanians and against Serbs.
In Kosovo international prosecutors have had ample time to collect evidence of genocide (certainly far more than they had for Bosnia or Rwanda before ruling on those situations) and favorable conditions under which to investigate. Despite this, they have made no claims that genocide occurred. Those who claim it has are, in fact, making hysterical allegations which are not borne out by the reality, no matter what other crimes can be confirmed to have been committed.
That's simply false. What you're saying is that where the prohibited acts took place is under the rule of the Kosovo albanian victims. But again, we're talking about the requirement of specific intent. You don't often find evidence of genocidal intent on the ground where the actions took place. You need to examine orders, stated and unstated reasons, state of mind etc. That evidence would be in Belgrade, and Serbia, which is not under the rule of the victims. If you claim that Serbia has created favourable conditions for investigators, I would need to see a source corroborrating your claim, because I frankly do not believe it.
To again refer to the situation in Ukraine, the evidence for genocidal intent is not found on the ground. It's Putin's orders, it's the reporting by State media, it's the words of the Commissioner for Children’s Rights etc. That evidence comes from Russia.
Either you are failing to understand what we're talking about when we talk about intent, or you are speaking with two tongues, because you seem to refer to physical evidence. Which there's plenty of. The investigators have had no problems finding mass graves or victims of rape.
The North Polish Union wrote:Gravlen wrote:Murder, war crimes, crimes against humanity, possibly even genocide.
Of course, this whataboutism does not in any way diminish what the Serbs did. So call it what you want, but that's an irrelevant aside to the question of whether Serbia committed genocide in Kosovo.
It is hardly irrelevant. The entire raison d'être for Kosovar independence movement is that Kosovar Albanians were the victims of targeted ethnic violence by Serbs. Of course, Kosovar Serbs were (and still are) the victims of targeted ethnic violence by Albanians; hundreds of thousands of them have been killed, disappeared, or been forced to flee the region.
That does not make the crimes perpetrated on the Kosovo Albanians any less of a crime. It does not change whether or not what happened to Kosovo Albanians was a genocide.
I see no reason to participate in your silly attempt at an oppression olympics.
The North Polish Union wrote:Given the facts, one wonders what about the Kosovar Albanians makes them somehow more worthy to administer the region than the Kosovar Serbs. If the spectre of violence made Serbia unfit to administer it, shouldn't that make the Priština administration unfit also?
Yes and no.
I don't think any former KLA fighter who're implicated in crimes is fit to govern. Hashim Thaçi is standing trial for war crimes, and that's a good thing. I wish Kosovo could shake off its past and find new blood. But I respect the democratic processes which, despite their many flaws, do exist in Kosovo.
On the other hand, however, Serbia, as the violent aggressor with a history of persecuting minorities, is clearly both unfit and unwanted.
This, of course, has no bearing on whether or not what happened in Kosovo was a genocide.
The North Polish Union wrote:Gravlen wrote:See, this is a common misunderstanding about what genocide is. It doesn't have to be "more successful" than any other actions. As we've yelled at people in the Ukraine war thread (suddenly forgotten, for some reason), genocide is "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".
When you murder thousands in order to force them off a piece of land, it might be genocide even if you're ultimately unsuccessful in removing them. It all depends on intent. What other people did in different circumstances at other times does not change what the intent was.
And of course all of this applies equally well to both Serbs and Albanians in theory. The only difference in practice is that one side has the support of a major power who is willing to carve up the region in contravention of international norms while turning a blind eye to violence of the sort for which they got involved in the first place.
That simply is not true. The region was not carved up by any major powers. The region was carved up by Serbian aggression, and the consequences of said aggression.
