lol..you're funny:


What happened to Kosovo could never happen here
Written by Hana Marku, Contributor
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Assessing the situation, Canada’s stand on Kosovo

In 1989, the autonomy of Quebec was revoked by a single decision by Brian Mulroney. This decision was to be a final solution to the “Quebec problem.” Quebec ceased to exist. French-speaking schools closed and French-speaking Québécois children learned how to read and write French in basements and backrooms. All French-speaking citizens employed in governmental agencies were forced to sign “loyalty” pledges to Ottawa or resign and submit to police questioning. The Canadian military moved en-masse into the province and established military bases in Montreal and Quebec City. Police and military forces patrolled the streets, enforcing strict identity checks and making sure no one was on the street past curfew. Student protests, which sought the reestablishment of provincial autonomy, were repressed with tear gas and tanks. Charter rights were suspended for the province, and a state of emergency was announced. Ottawa declared Quebec’s legislature unconstitutional. English-speaking enclaves were favoured and granted special privileges, and anglophones across the country believed Quebec was the very soul of their civilization.A francophone shadow government was created, which held a referendum in 1990. Eighty-seven percent of the population voted, and 99 percent voted for secession from the federation of Canada. Ottawa responded by relocating anglophones from other provinces into Quebec, expelling francophones from their houses and apartments to make room for the newcomers. Independent francophone TV stations, newspapers and radio stations were shut down. Between 1989 and 1999, half of the adult population of Quebec would be interrogated, beaten, arrested and detained by police forces.
A Quebecois Liberation Army (QLA) was formed in 1995, which used guerrilla tactics to attack governmental military bases and police stations. Clashes with the QLA and the military increased in intensity and frequency throughout the 1990s.
Rumours of routine civilian massacres performed by Canadian military forces were verified when 45 bodies were found in Joliette. Humanitarian agencies reported 70 bodies found in Trois Rivieres, 14 bodies found in St. Honore and 100 bodies found in Barraute. These massacres included close-range shootings, rape and mutilation. Images of burnt and disfigured bodies were broadcast to the rest of the world.
A massive expulsion of francophones began in the spring 1999. The QLA had grown in size, but were not equipped well enough to present a great threat to the Canadian military. The American border with Quebec became a site for massive refugee camps, overcrowded tent sites with little food, no electricity and no running water. The international community, seeing no other solution despite attempts at a negotiated settlement, opted for a NATO military intervention to halt the ethnic cleansing of the province. Only when a heavy air campaign was well underway and major Anglo-Saxon cities of Canada were bombed did the Canadian military begin to pull out of the province. The exact figures of dead and missing francophones are still unknown.
The above dates and numbers are directly taken from the history of Kosovo, the last piece of former Yugoslavia to break away from Serbian control. NATO’s mission in Kosovo was launched to stop Serbian genocide and to allow for the return of Kosovar refugees. Since 1999, the UN and a locally elected government have administered Kosovo, though it remained legally a part of Serbia, until last Sunday when it announced its independence.
Canada currently has no position on Kosovo out of fear of what legal precedent may be created in future clashes with Quebec by doing so.
“We are assessing the situation,” was the statement of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Drawing a parallel between Quebec and Kosovo is not only historically irresponsible, it is shameful. Canada did not choose to intimidate, attack or deport any of its Quebecois citizens, despite its historical political difficulties with the province. Arguments for the integrity of state borders become irrelevant when those living within those borders find life intolerable. If a precedent is set by Kosovo, it is one of warning as to what the singling out and mistreatment of an ethnic group can result in.
Serbia has lost the moral authority to rule in Kosovo. Through its brutality and unexplainable hatred towards all non-Serbians, Serbia has broken its own borders and the country which once was called Yugoslavia. This is why Kosovo’s declaration of independence is a legal and long-delayed act of justice. This is why it has been recognized by 19 UN members and counting. The United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany all recognized Kosovo within three days of its declaration.
Will Canada have the courage to join, or will it continue to draw non-existing parallels? I will end this letter by quoting journalist Roger Cohen: “Persecute a people with enough savagery, and they will in the end unite, rise up, fight and go their own way.”

http://www.excal.on.ca/cms2/index.ph...=5797&Itemid=2

__________________
Jesus beat the devil with two sticks. Colossian 2:13,15

Proud American!

Communism/Socialism is similar to legalizing burglary and murder!

It doesn't matter if Canada or the U.N. recognizes Kosovo.
The United States has thats all that matters...

What are you, a soothsayer?

Only colonies have legitimate right of secession, as seen by international law. Since the process of decolonization is long finished, the only legitimate way now for a piece of country to secede from the motherland is the consent of the motherland itself.

If there is oppression - international institutions empowered to deal with such issues are to deal with such issues.

For example, if the Security Council of UN adopted a resolution in which oppression is recognized and if it decides to use force in order to stop the oppression, and then create a new country for the oppressed nation and recognize it - then we can talk of legitimate secession.

The world is deeply divided when it comes to the Kosovo independence. Two permanent members of the Security Council - Russia and China, do not recognize this false state. I believe that Kosovo's independence would not even manage to win majority in the General Assembly itself.

Having in mind that Security Council's Resolution 1244 which is still in power - recognizes Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia, such declaration of independence is ILLEGAL in terms of international law.

Palestine is recognized by some 100 countries of the world, and yet it is no country in terms of international law. The same goes for Kosovo.

No, Kosovo is not on the St. Lawrence
Eddie Goldenberg
The Globe and Mail
samedi 1er mars 2008



Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence on Feb. 17 has provoked a spate of articles and comments relating it to Canada — in particular, to a hypothetical act of that kind by Quebec.

The knee-jerk reaction of the Parti Québécois, the Bloc Québécois and their supporters is that any such declaration by any entity anywhere, followed by some countries’ recognition, is a precedent for an enacting of unilateral secession by a vote of the National Assembly of Quebec.

That is nonsense unsupported by international law.

Daniel Turp, the PQ’s international relations critic, said in a CBC-TV interview : "A people decides to become a country and other countries recognize that fact. And in this case what is special is that Serbia is against [the] independence of one of its component parts, and the United States, France [and] other countries ignore this objection.

"So if one day Quebec decides to become a country and Canada objects . . . we’ll remind other countries that an objection of a state should not have precedence over the will of the people."

Instead of likening Quebec to Kosovo, Mr. Turp ought to have looked at how Montenegro, another part of the former Yugoslavia, became independent in 2006 — with some real influence from Canadian experience.

Canada has wisely chosen to wait and think before recognizing Kosovo, because there are good arguments on both sides.

But whatever Ottawa decides, no such recognition would be a precedent that could be used for the independence of Quebec.

Quebec separatists do themselves a grave disservice in drawing any analogy between Quebec and Kosovo.

The ethnic conflicts in the Balkans go back a thousand years, and the way Yugoslavia broke up is like nothing that Canada has ever known.

In the mid-1990s, Serbian forces massacred several thousand ethnic Albanian Muslim Kosovars.

NATO — with Canada’s full support — intervened to stop the ethnic cleansing, bombed Belgrade, sent troops, including Canadians, to Kosovo, expelled the Serbian army from that province and removed the Serbian authorities.

Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian president, was jailed and sent for trial as a war criminal in The Hague before the International Criminal Court.

For the past nine years, Kosovo has been governed as a United Nations protectorate, while 90 per cent of the people enthusiastically supported their elected officials in their drive for independence.

Independence was declared in accordance with a plan prepared under UN auspices by the former Finnish president, Martti Ahtisaari.

In contrast, no Canadian death squads have massacred thousands of Quebeckers. Nor has NATO bombed Ottawa after a declaration of war on Canada. NATO troops have not occupied Quebec for nine years, nor has its government been under UN control for almost a decade.

And ninety per cent of Quebeckers have not supported a government dedicated to achieving independence after years of violence and subjugation.

YES MEANS YES AND NO MEANS NO

In the absence of such improbable circumstances, the only way for a Canadian province to secede and achieve its independence is in accordance with Canadian constitutional law and international law.

I was involved as an adviser to Jean Chrétien, when he was the minister of justice at the time of the first Quebec referendum in 1980, and when he was the prime minister at the time of the 1995 referendum.

In both cases, the Quebec government asked deliberately ambiguous questions in order to get a "yes" majority for separation.

After the fact, Canadians learned that the PQ government of Jacques Parizeau was prepared in 1995, if they won by even the narrowest majority on an unclear question, to declare independence unilaterally, if necessary, and then seek international recognition of the new country of Quebec.

Both times, Quebeckers voted "no," on unclear questions.

After the close result in 1995, Mr. Chrétien decided to settle, once and for all, whether either a unilateral declaration of independence or a possible "yes" to an ambiguous question would be legitimate, as well as the margin of victory that would be required to break up a country. His government posed these issues to the Supreme Court of Canada in what is known as the Secession Reference.

In 1998, the Supreme Court held that international law recognizes that "a people" has a right to secede under the principle of self-determination, but only if that people has been governed as part of a colonial empire, has been subjugated, dominated or exploited, or denied any real exercise of political rights within the existing state’s framework.

Otherwise, the court said, that "people" may work for independence, but a government that represents the whole population in its territory, in a non-discriminatory way, has the right to maintain that territory as a whole. It said that Quebeckers are not a colonial or oppressed people, and have not been denied meaningful access to political activity.

The court concluded that neither the legislature nor the government of Quebec has a right under international law to carry out secession from Canada unilaterally.

The Supreme Court also held that a province can only separate in accordance with Canadian constitutional law and that negotiations on the terms of separation can begin only after a referendum with a clear question and a clear majority in favour of secession.

In 2000, Parliament passed the Clarity Act, which laid down those requirements as preconditions for any such negotiations.

MONTENEGRO DID IT RIGHT

In fact, much to the dismay of Quebec separatists, the Clarity Act and the Secession Reference have had international ramifications of major significance.

There is now one important international precedent, which I mentioned earlier, to determine the legitimacy of a secession from Serbia. It is directly relevant to Canada as a result of the Secession Reference and the Clarity Act.

But it is not Kosovo.

In 2006, the Republic of Montenegro, in accordance with the constitution of Serbia-Montenegro, decided to hold a referendum on independence from Serbia.

Before the referendum could be held, the European Union cited both the Clarity Act and the Supreme Court’s Secession Reference decision, in setting as minimum requirements a clear question and a majority of at least 55 per cent, as conditions for the international community’s recognition of a new state after the referendum.

Only after both these conditions were met, was the new state recognized.

While the recognition of Kosovo by Canada today would not have any future implications for the status of Quebec, there are good arguments that it may still be premature for Canada to do so, until some difficult issues for the future stability of the international community are resolved.

Many countries around the world with very different histories and political regimes from Canada’s are made up of countless diverse ethnic, religious and linguistic groups, who, like the Serbs and the Kosovar ethnic Albanians, have quarrelled on and off for centuries.

There are, as a result, many small and not so small separatist movements, associated sometimes with terrorism and sporadic violence, in many countries in Africa and Asia, and particularly in many of the new ones formed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

So it is not surprising — and indeed understandable — that Russia, China and other countries, concerned about their own internal affairs and stability, and about the stability of their neighbours and their regions, have objected to the recognition of Kosovo, fearing that it might open the floodgates to many more secessions with all the instability that can accompany them.

PARTITIONING

Furthermore, the possibility of a partition — a word that is anathema to Quebec separatists — of a new state of Kosovo itself is very real. One secession can very easily lead to another.

There are Kosovar districts with ethnic Serb majorities in the north of Kosovo, which, with the encouragement of the Serbian government, have formed a movement to reunite with Serbia. They reasonably ask why the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo should be able to separate from Serbia, if they cannot separate in turn from Kosovo.

On the other hand, there is a powerful argument that the special circumstances of Kosovo over the past decade fundamentally distinguish its case from those of other potential secessions promoted by other ethnic minorities. As a result, much of the European Union, many Muslim countries, the United States and others have decided to recognize the independence of Kosovo as legitimate.

The stark memories of the atrocities committed in the 1990s in Kosovo are such that any reconciliation with Serbia in the near future is highly unlikely.

In these particular circumstances, especially the history of ethnic cleansing, and combined with the fact that we were active participants in the NATO mission, Canada would be justified in according recognition to Kosovo.

On balance, we should do so.

***

Eddie Goldenberg was chief of staff in 2003 and senior policy adviser from 1993 to 2003 to former prime minister Jean Chrétien

__________________
Jesus beat the devil with two sticks. Colossian 2:13,15

Proud American!

Communism/Socialism is similar to legalizing burglary and murder!

Your former country, Yugoslavia, was a recognized entity by every nation on earth. It collapsed in 1992, way after colonial times. Yugoslav republics were therefore no part of any colonial empire. What gave them the right to Independence then? I suppose the motherland agreed to it? Not even. The Yugoslav army (at that time controlled and financed by Serbia) even attacked them to prevent their leaving of the country. What happens if a people wants to live on its own and feels it can't do it inside a federal entity? They shut up because they're not a colony and daddy doesn't want it to leave the house? This is like a couple staying together for the kids while there's no love anymore between them: it lasts for a while and then conflicts arise. Should have Slovenia shut up and obey to daddy Slobodan because he didn't want it to live on its own? According to your principles, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia should not have been recognized as Independant nations. Yet they were. Why were they? Because there is no unique way of doing things in the world and international recognition of a nation works on a case by case basis.

Slovenia was an integral part of Yugoslavia when it declared independence, just like Kosovo was with Serbia before February 17, 2008. This is no argument. If it was, there wouldn't be close to 200 countries in the world. I love the example of Slovenia as you can see. What amuses me the most is that this country today recognizes Kosovo.

We all know Goldenberg here in Quebec. He was one of the guys who worked hard to steal the 95 referendum. They accelerated naturalization of immigrants prior to the referendum in exchange for a NO vote, they falsified voting lists to make dead or imaginary people vote NO, they made western canadians vote on the promise to move to Quebec within the following two years and after the vote we never heard from them again. On legal matters, this guy doesn't have any lessons to give anybody.

That being said, he's totally right when he says Kosovo doesn't set a precedent at all for Quebec. Every case is unique. Kosovo lived oppression from the Serbian government and therefore Belgrade lost all authority over it. The word ''oppression'' is extremely far-fetched for Quebec as it enjoys a relative autonomy on certain questions within the canadian federation. But what if Quebecois want more than just a relative autonomy? What if they democratically decide for Independence? What would be the reason to deny them the same rights that many nations enjoyed throughout history? Some countries gained their independence through war, why would the world not recognize a peaceful democratic decision?

About his partition threats, the northern part of Kosovo that has a majority of Serbs is contiguous to Serbia. That would thus make sense to let them join Serbia in order to prevent civil war. As for the english-speaking minorities or the first nations of Quebec who could want to stay with Canada, their territories are not contiguous to any canadian province and not even contiguous to one another. The international community will not recognize small and not contiguous pieces of a country inside another just like it never recognized Boputhatswana that represented not contiguous territories within South Africa.

Why do you quote anti-Quebec stuff in here TrueAlbo? Do you think that by lowering the legitimacy of Quebec's independence movement it will facilitate Canada's recognition of your new country? If so you are wrong. Quebec's sovereigntists are your best allies because we were the first in Canada to recognize the legitimacy of your unilateral declaration of independence, don't forget it.

I am not putting down no one's aspirations for freedom! The UN charter guarantees everyone's right for self-determination. Every case is different. Things have to evolve. Besides the genocide serbs committed on us, Republic of Kosova had equal rights in the Yugoslavian Federal Government. Republic of Kosova was only part of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia is dead. - Quoting Stepan Mesic, former Yugoslavian president, now President of Croatia.
But, Republic of Kosova should not be a precedent for no one in the world. The issue is sui generis. Does not apply to other conflicts in the world.

I was just rather responding to the Serb since he quotes irrelevant articles pertaining to the very issue!

__________________
Jesus beat the devil with two sticks. Colossian 2:13,15

Proud American!

Communism/Socialism is similar to legalizing burglary and murder!

Hopefully Canada will at least be interested in trade if nothing else.

Also I found this while bumping around:

The hilarity of it is that if Russia (and China) had agreed than Kosovo would be independent under international law. That's a difference I hope a lot of countries appreciate. The situation in Kosovo had been placed in the hands of NATO and the UN to decide. For the other territories that other nations are worried about losing this is not the case, and that is why they do not have to worry so much about a Kosovo precident.


Also it is interesting to note that the Serbs friend James Bissett was fairly certain as far back as two years that Kosovo was going to become independent in the way that it has. And yet the Serbs did not heed him then any more than Canada is likely to heed him now despite him being friendly to them. And I still think that the Serbs might have been able to accomplish something.

In the time since they have been quite busy. Wikipedia and the content of the articles on the subject that you get in a google search have been turned on their head in the weeks after independence. Soon all the easy to find stuff may say that it was actually the KLA that killed all the Albanains and there weren't even any Serbs in the area.

Yugoslavia was no entity, it was a federal state. Western powers supported the secession because such an action was seen as destroying of another communist country in the world and the 4th military power in Europe after the Soviet Union had failed. And Russia was too weak at the time to prevent such things from happening.

You miss western propaganda and lies? Well, my friend - no more. Serbs won't act stupidly any more. They felt on their own skin what good propaganda can cause.

The Question of Kosovo

March 5, 2008 - 10:55pm
By Rob Coniglio

A lot happened in Versailles in 1919. Germany was crippled economically and began down the path towards the rise of the Nazi Party, the state of Iraq was born out of three dissimilar Ottoman provinces and Yugoslavia was created as the state for the South Slavs of the Balkans. The errors of Versailles have haunted us for a century, and with the independence of Kosovo, one of those mistakes has been settled. Independence in Kosovo has been conceived as the first of a series of dangerous “dominos” of unilateral declarations of independence by separatists across the world, from Quebec to Georgia. To me, however, Kosovo’s independence is the not the beginning of a wave, but instead one of the closing lines in the bloody and tragic dissolution of Yugoslavia.

The original Yugoslavia was conceived as a monarchy under the Serbian royal family. The new state was politically unstable and during World War II conflicts arose between Serb and Croat fascists and the partisans under Tito. In the post-war era, Yugoslavia was a federation of the republics of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. Within this federal structure, each ethnic group should have had a home and some control over its destiny. But under Tito, the strong-arm of the state that kept ethnic tension in check also stifled the growth of any unity across ethnic groups, besides the cult of personality around Tito.

Yugoslavia, too, has often been used as a vehicle for Serb nationalism, rather than as a genuine attempt at a union of all the South Slavs. Christopher Hitchens discusses the self-defeating nature of Serb nationalism in one of his articles. As to the argument of historical continuity that opponents of Kosovo’s independence like to reference, Hitchens reminds us that from the 1300’s until 1912, Kosovo was held as part of the Ottoman Empire. At the time that Serbia first lost Kosovo, the King of England was still claiming large parts of France as his domain. But alarmists continue to say that Kosovo is the first domino in a series of nascent states, as separatist groups around the world will be encouraged to intensify conflict.

Why do so many people consider Kosovo to be the first domino? It is not the first part of post-Balkan war Serbia to declare independence. After all, just last year Montenegro voted in a referendum to strike its own path and commentators had nothing controversial to say. Before Montenegro, the rest of the Yugoslavia’s republics also broke away. The unique history of Yugoslavia makes it unlikely that the Kosovo situation is one that will be repeated elsewhere. In fact, it is the last domino, not the first. The first domino fell when Slovenia voted for independence over seventeen years ago. Slovenia, which is now a member of NATO and the EU, is a model for the Balkans that both the Serbs and Kosovars should consider when contemplating their moves in the current dispute over independence. When considering the Balkans, it is important to remember that Yugoslavia is not Canada and Kosovo is not Quebec.

__________________
Jesus beat the devil with two sticks. Colossian 2:13,15

Proud American!

Communism/Socialism is similar to legalizing burglary and murder!