[OT]please read this so i wont look like an idiot

[Tionlee@xxxxxxx]

Ethnic conflict in Serbia
Thaniel ion lee
October 8th 2003

    Most people view the Serbs as one group of people, but the truth is that 
Serbia people should be viewed as a collection of separate ethnic groups that 
all had different belief systems [Muslim, Albanian Orthodox, and Roman 
Catholic], political concepts [communism, and democracy], and ways of living [farm 
based life and city based life]. Some of these groups are the Serbs, Slovenes, 
Croats, Bulgarians, Albanians, and Macedonians, all of these groupings of 
people where at one point their own country and/or city states that where grouped 
together after war war one to make the country that once was Yugoslavia. 
    Before they where forced by communist ideals to become the federal 
People's Republic of Yugoslavia there where conflicts over various issues, but when 
the nazis invaded Yugoslavia during war war two some of the groupings of 
people viewed the nazis as liberators from the country that they where forced to be 
apart of after war war one, and other groupings of people [one of them being 
the Serbs] fought against the nazis. Josip Broz Tito led the anti-nazi forces. 
Tito was dedicated to global communist ideals that went beyond nationalism, 
Individual ethnic nationalism was suppressed, and kept Yugoslavia together with 
an iron communist fist, and was essential in the reconstruction of the war 
torn Yugoslavia after war war two. He did this by recognizing the threat and the 
strength of the province of Serbia, and its ability to undermined the 
republic of Yugoslavia. One of the ways he reduced Serbian power in Yugoslavia was to 
split the province into two provinces [Vojvodina in the north and Kosovo in 
the south] after his death in 1980 things seamed stable, but in 1989 after the 
fall of most of the communist countries in Europe. The Serbs and the 
Macedonians where the only two groupings of people in Yugoslavia that wanted to 
continue to be communist, and Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina 
wanted to be independent of communism.
    The decision of the Serbs to remain communist is what caused the first of 
many civil wars and conflicts that the Serbs have been involved in, and the 
break up of Yugoslavia in to the many countries it is today. 
    In 1990 underneath the rule of the Milosevic regime Serbia [in an attempt 
to reunified the province] took over both Kosovo and Vojvodina governments 
and that action was the beginning of eight years of strife and oppression of the 
people of Kosovo, and especially the group of people known as the Albanians.
Albanians are the traditional people of the former Yugoslavian province of 
Kosovo. Over 70 percent of Albanians are Muslim, and the primarily orthodox 
catholic Serbs saw them as a threat, and feared they would turn the area that they 
lived into an Islamic state. When the Albanians began to fight back and ask 
for international help to get their independence back from the Serbian 
government. The Serbian regime began a violent police and military crackdown against 
the separatist insurgents and civilian population in Kosovo. In 1999 they had a 
talk in Rambouillet to try to end the conflicts, but the talks failed, and 
the Serbian government re-started their campaign against the Muslim Albanians.
    After the failed talks in Rambouillet, Serbian forces continued the 
campaign of genocide against the people of Kosovo. This policy of ethnic cleansing 
and genocide forced eight hundred and fifty thousand Albanians to flee the 
Kosovo, and hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians were forced to become 
refugees. In an attempt to stop the genocide of the Albanians by the Serbian 
government NATO stepped in and started an air war against the Serbian forces and 
regime. In early June the NATO air campaign finally succeeded, and the Milosevic 
government was forced to withdraw its troops from Kosovo and let the ethnic 
Albanian refugees return home. 
    The Serbian opinion of the situation, and the conflicts with the Republic 
of Albania is very much different from the world's opinion of the situation. 
In their opinion they were attempting to reunify the former Serbian state that 
existed before war war one, preserve the former communist country of 
Yugoslavia, and protect them selves from what they saw as a potential Muslim threat.

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