I am sadly reminded over and over again as I read the posts on pen- l that, as Santayana pointed out, those who do not know their history are bound to repeat it. Some historical facts. Today is the anniversary of opening up of German bombing of Belgrade. This followed the demand by Germany that it be allowed to put an occupying force in Serbia or be bombed. The government of the day agreed but two days after was overthrown by the Serb population who would brook no voluntary occupation. Hence, the bombing and invasion of Serbia in WW2. Sound familiar? Before the opening of the second world war, the Germans invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia. What was the reason given. Humanitary support for the oppressed german population. Sound familiar? During the second world war, Italy occupied southern Yugoslavia and Albania and established a Quisling government with ethnic albanians in Kosovo. At that time Serbs made up about 35% of the Kosovo population (note the figure Barkley. I did some more research and got more exact figures.) The Quisling government followed a similar policy as that of the Ustashe -- exterminating or ethnically cleansing Kosovo of Serbs. (Many of my friends are refugees from Kosovo who were driven out during the war by the Albanian fascists, some of who returned after the war, others who were not able to.) This was the second attempt to cleanse Kosovo of slavic peoples. This was the declared intention of Ottoman- Albanian League of Prizren founded in 1878 and was followed by persecution of the slavs driving many out of the region. The third purge of Slavs from the province began in the early 1980s which culminated in the lifting of Kosovo's autonomy in 1989 which Barkley and I disagree about. (He sees it as a cause, I see it as a result.) Nevertheless, there was never any attempt to ethnically cleanse or to persecute the Albanian population until the KLA began its military operations in Kosovo killing Serbian police, soldiers and harrassing and killing Serb civilians. So, it would seem that aiding the KLA as NATO and the Ramboulliette agreement did was just the final stage of ethnic cleansing of Serbs to add a few hundred thousand more refugees in Serbia to add to the 3-400,000 already purged from Croatia with US and NATO help. How about a big cheer for NATO supported genocide and ethnic cleansing. It is so much nicer when you do it yourself by dropping bombs on civilian populations. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
