your story Jack. Hopefully the violence will be kept under control or to a minimum.

Viva Kosovo!

Now let's hope the Serbs don't start killing everybody. One thing we know for sure is that George Bush won't help defend a struggling new nation. He's too busy stealing oil from Iraq.
.
"Adapt or perish." Murphy's Law? Nope, Darwin's Guarantee.

I'm not trying to knock your first-hand account of the experience, but it seems to me like the Neoliberal establishment accelerated the breakup of Yugoslavia, paralleling the Iraq breakup as well as the Rwanda/Uganda border messes.

The general model seems to favor breaking larger states into less powerful ethnic statelets. The mini-states can be run as cantons by strongmen, and heavily propped up by oil pipelines or drug smuggling (in the case of Kosovo, the KLA were gendarmes for both). Splintering resource rich, or otherwise geopolitically key, areas, away from larger nations seems like a big agenda for the NED, IRI and other state dept cats (US-AID / EX-IM bank might fall in this group too). Knocking out large socialist-industrial bases like Iraq and Yugoslavia seems to be a big neoliberal/neocon agenda item. The energy corridor thing has brought money to Kosovo, but by splintering it, the control stays in a tighter circle of the KLA/clans/etc. instead of the more pro-Russian Serbs.

The major energy corridor, newly built AMBO pipeline, which has the massive U.S. Camp Bondsteel nearly athwart it (Bondsteel is also on top of a gas line), runs thru Albania near the Kosovar border. This is pretty much the only geopolitical fruit worth having around here, except also the new USAF base at Burgas, Bulgaria, which sits at the beginning of AMBO pipeline. How do you think the Russians parse this?

If you want to see Yugoslavia keep breaking down to bits, then what about Iraq/Kurds? What about North/South Ossetia, Abkhazia and other haywire provinces of the Caspian region? (and um I guess the United States as well - I've been watching CBS 'Jericho' today)

This geopolitical tendency for the big guys to spin off monocultural easily controlled statelets is not really a 'good' trend necessarily. The Russians realize that their confederation will have a similar fate without the FSB's intervention.

And who can doubt that the Neo Cons will float the "Kosovo Model" to justify breaking up Iraq AND Iran?

[shorter: Kosovo is teh PWNed]
--
Hongpong.com

http://balkaninsight.com/

info straight from the region

Now what? ...

Now what? Who knows, but at least Kosovars will be making those decisions themselves, and I couldn't be happier for them. Too many have suffered too much for too long. It's time for Kosovo to have the opportunity to sink or swim.

---------------------------------
Last in line for a Nobel Prize, but first in line for pie

...is that this is independence whose foundational act was the ethnic cleansing of the Serb minority. Because ultimately this 10% of Serbs living in the province was pushed out with the same violent tactics that the Serbs themselves used on Albanians. Good luck with the project of statehood but do remember that this break up is a dangerous precedent. Let us see what happens with Albanians in Macedonia now. And on the basic assumption that Kosovo can go its way on the basis of ethnic purity, the Serbs in Bosnia could call for the same. Of course the EU carrot may keep them quiet for a while. To me the greatest irony will come when all these countries come into the EU and then the vicious nationalists on every side will have to accept the return of people who according to EU law have every right to be wherever they want. By then all the killing would have been for nothing.

BTW plenty of the more liberal Serbs see the loss of Kosovo as the cutting away of a cancer which poisoned Serb public discourse and enabled the nationalists.

And of course the other issue is: What is the economy of Kosovo other than smuggling? And how will Kosovo deal with Albania proper?

Interesting times, but I would be cautious with declaring Clinton's attack on Serbia back then as a major foreign policy coup. Things are yet to be played out.

On another note, since this is a celebratory thread, we can rejoice at the defeat of one more nationalist in the person of Tassos Papadopoulos, the man who will go down in history as the person who was offered in a plate a solution of the Cyprus question with a clear time-line for unification and gradual removal of the Turkish troops and decided he did not want one. The tiny minority of liberal, anti-nationalist Greeks is joyful today.

Kosovo if FREE. First it was Tito, then Serbia, now Islam. Free at last, free at last, thank Allah that we are free at last! The Kosovars are as free as the students at Liberty College. What an absolute joke and future tinder box.

Albanians in Canada say Kosovo's independence shouldn't raise fears about Quebec

TORONTO - Undeterred by the freezing rain and low temperatures, thousands of jubilant Albanian-Canadians gathered Sunday in Toronto to celebrate the newly-declared independence of Kosovo, eagerly waiting to hear if Ottawa would recognize their homeland's changed status.

But there was no word from the Conservative government Sunday and a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs repeated a comment from the previous day that "the government is still discussing the decision."
===
The similarities between Kosovo's drive for independence and Quebec's separatist aspirations are believed to be behind Ottawa's reluctance to join its traditional Western allies in supporting the independence of Europe's youngest state, speculate some political experts.

A retired Canadian general who commanded UN troops during the Bosnian war of 1992 warned that the message Kosovo is sending to a number of independent minded movements around the world is troubling.

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What does this bode for north Kosovo, whose population is mostly Serbian?

Irrespective of the ethnic Albanians, Turks and Serbs, it's the Roma who are going to get the dirty end of the stick--the way they always do.

Serbia has recalled its ambassador from Washington in protest at US recognition of Kosovo's independence, saying the US has "violated international law".

Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica also threatened to withdraw envoys from other countries which recognised the territory's secession from Serbia.

Mr Kostunica said the envoy's recall was Serbia's "first urgent measure".

France, the UK, Germany and Italy have all recognised the new state following its declaration of independence.

In New York, Serbian President Boris Tadic asked the UN Security Coun
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US, EU powers recognise Kosovo: some fear precedent
18 Feb 2008 23:30:12 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Douglas Hamilton

PRISTINA, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Europe's major powers and the United States said on Monday they recognised Kosovo's new independence, as Serbs reacted with anger and some states warned that its secession from Serbia set a dangerous precedent.

Serbian President Boris Tadic told the U.N. Security Council that unless it stopped Kosovo's independence, it would tell the world that no country's sovereignty and borders were safe.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica ordered the immediate recall of Belgrade's ambassador from Washington.

He said envoys would be recalled from other capitals that recognised Kosovo. Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said later his ambassador would be withdrawn from France, the first to recognise Kosovo after a European Union foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels. Britain, Germany and Italy followed.

"The United States has today formally recognised Kosovo as a sovereign and independent state. We congratulate the people of Kosovo on this historic occasion," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said -- words Kosovo's 2 million ethnic Albanians had long dreamed of hearing.

"In light of the conflicts of the 1990s, independence is the only viable option to promote stability in the region."

Washington led NATO allies to bomb Serbia over its treatment of Kosovo Albanians in the 1998-99 guerrilla uprising.

Recognition was a relief for Pristina, which had nervously awaited the West's expected blessing of its secession, but a black day for Serbia, which vowed never to concede the loss of a spiritual homeland steeped in myth.

"The recognition of Kosovo is as important as the declaration of independence," Kosovo Albanian Deputy Prime Minister Hajredin Kuci told Reuters. "We are grateful."

In Banja Luka, capital of the Bosnian Serb Republic, protesters demanding Serb independence from Bosnia threw stones at U.S., French and German consulates. They chanted "Kill, Kill Shiptars", a pejorative name for Albanians.

Serbs marched peacefully in Belgrade, where riot police were on alert after Western embassies were attacked on Sunday night. A few Albanian-owned shops had their windows smashed, but there was no new rioting.

"I appeal to citizens to stop all protests which lead to violence and unrest, because that is not the way to help either Serbia or the defence of Kosovo," Kostunica said, calling Serbs to a major rally on Thursday.

DISSENT

Around the globe, states with their own restless minorities are dubious or critical of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence -- Spain, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Sri Lanka and China among them.

Tadic asked the Council: "If you cast a blind eye to this illegal act, who guarantees to you that parts of your countries will not declare independence in the same illegal way?"

"Who can guarantee that a blind eye will not be cast to the violation of the charter of the United Nations, which guarantees the sovereignty and integrity of each state, when your country's turn comes up?"

Serbia's parliament voted unanimously on Monday night for a resolution "annulling the illegal act of declaring unilateral independence by the provisional institutions in Kosovo".

The vote was one of a series of legalistic moves by Belgrade that are unlikely to have any practical effect.

Russia stood by its ally Serbia in refusing recognition. Moscow has vowed never to allow Kosovo to win a U.N. seat. The West insists Kosovo is a "European issue" in which Russia should not interfere.

Turkey recognised Kosovo, a territory it ruled for 500 years in Ottoman times, and neighbouring Albania -- anxious not to be first, to avoid charges that it covets Kosovo -- joined the list ready to send in their ambassadors.

Kosovo Albanians poured onto streets of the capital Pristina waving and kissing French, German, British, Italian and U.S. flags. Britain's envoy in Kosovo announced an immediate upgrade to embassy status.

Spain, facing its own separatist struggles, led a minority of EU states saying "no" to independence, complaining the move had "no international legal basis".

Italy, sensitive to Serbia's sense of grievance, noted that it "recognises Kosovo as an independent state under international supervision" -- a reminder that Kosovo will remain under outside control, as it has been for the last nine years since NATO drove out Serb forces to protect ethnic Albanians.

"Around 17 (EU) states have decided to react quickly so as to avoid creating a vacuum with indecisive behaviour," said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Bulgaria, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, Hungary joined or were joining the early recognisers.

The Czech Republic, Netherlands, Portugal, Greece and Slovakia were still making up their minds.

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The Big Question: Why are so many countries opposed to Kosovo gaining its independence?

Independent Graphics: Ethnic makeup of Kosovo, by municipalities(?)

* Photos enlarge

Related Articles:

* Serbia recalls its US ambassador as Bush hails Kosovo independence
* Serbs dismiss Albanian talk of reconciliation

By Paul Vallely
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
The Independent

Why are we asking this now?

Because Kosovo this week declared itself to be Europe's newest country. Some 17 years after the dissolution of Yugoslavia – and after a ghastly cavalcade of ethnic cleansing, gruesome atrocities, forced expulsions and a civil war that killed 10,000 before Nato intervened – the people of Kosovo have declared themselves independent.

Since 1999 they have lived under a United Nations protectorate while conducting negotiations with the neighbouring Serbs to find a mutually acceptable constitutional status for the region. When the talks broke down, the provisional government unilaterally declared independence as the Republic of Kosovo. Some 90 per cent of the two million people are ethnic Albanians, just 10 per cent Serbs. Now the creators of the world's 193rd independent country have sent 192 letters to governments around the world seeking formal recognition of their independence.

What do the Serbs think?

They are very unhappy. They regard Kosovo as the heart of its state since medieval times, even though 90 per cent of its population is of a different ethnicity. The Serbian prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, described Kosovo as a "fake country".

So who's on what side?

The countries who participated in the Nato strikes against Serbia to end the atrocities, led by the United States. President George Bush has already officially recognised Kosovo as an independent state. So will most of the big European nations – Britain, France, Germany and Italy – and the Japanese government is "moving toward recognising" Kosovo, pronouncing developments in line with Japan's criteria for recognising states.

Other EU members – Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia, have said they will not. Other countries opposed to an independent Kosovo include Sri Lanka and Indonesia. The neighbouring Balkan states are also divided. Croatia and Macedonia are pro Kosovo, but Bosnia and Herzegovina is not. Other states, like Malta and Portugal, want Kosovo's future be decided at the UN Security Council.

Why is the international community so divided?

In part it reflects each government's differing sense of whether the ethnic Albanians, now Kosovans, were primarily the victims of the Serbs in the war a decade ago. "Serbia effectively lost Kosovo through its own actions in the 1990s," said the Irish foreign minister, Dermot Ahern. "The bitter legacy of the killings of thousands of civilians in Kosovo and the ethnic cleansing of many more has effectively ruled out any restoration of Serbian dominion in Kosovo."

In part it reflects convictions about the solutions to intractable foreign relations problems. In part it is a reflection of the domestic priorities of some governments who fear that support for Kosovo's unilateral declaration could fan separatism in their own countries.

What are the arguments?

The Americans, and most of Nato, believe that a definition resolution of the status of Kosovo is essential for the Balkans to become stable. "A negotiated solution was not possible," said the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. "Peace and stability are the order of the day," said the British foreign secretary, David Miliband. Such is the population imbalance between ethnic Albanians and Serbs that autonomy was inevitable.

The other side counters with high-minded arguments about the inviolability of national sovereignty. "We will not recognise [Kosovo] because we consider," said the Spanish foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, "this does not respect international law".

But it is perhaps significant that those opposing recognition mostly have problems with their own separatist or secessionist movements. "Cyprus, for reasons of principle, cannot recognise and will not recognise a unilateral declaration of independence," the Cypriot Foreign Minister, Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, said. "This is an issue of principle, of respect of international law, but also an issue of concern that it will create a precedent in international relations."

It had, she said, perhaps protesting too much, "nothing to do with the occupied Cyprus, it's not because we're afraid that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) would declare independence because they already did it in 1983 and got a very strong reaction from the (UN) Security Council."

There was similar talk from Sri Lanka. "We note that the declaration of independence was made without the consent of the majority of the people of Serbia and is a violation of the Charter of the United Nations, which enshrines the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states," a Sri Lankan government statement said, suggesting Kosovo could create an unmanageable precedent in "the conduct of international relations and the established global order of sovereign states".

Those on the other side dismiss this. Kosovo, said the British Foreign Secretary, was a "unique situation which deserves a unique response".

What about the Russians?

It too has its secessionists. Usman Ferzauli, the man who styles himself the Foreign Minister of Chechnya, has just, helpfully, backed Kosovo's declaration. But when he talks about "leading an armed struggle against the world's most aggressive and militarised power for the latest 14 years" he is not talking about the ethnic Albanians but their fellow Muslims in Chechnya, who enjoyed a brief period of autonomy before Moscow re-established control.

There are bonds of cultural and ethnic kinship between the Serbs and Russians. Europe is increasingly wary of the Slavic Bear. The Russians still have their carrier fleet anchored not that far away. Russia insists there is no basis for changing a 1999 security council resolution on Kosovo's status – and says that Belgrade must agree to any change.

What is likely to happen?

The US and the European members of the UN Security Council will back Kosovo's independence. But Russia and China will not. Russia will block Kosovo's membership of the United Nations. Serbia will use all diplomatic means at its disposal to block Kosovo's recognition – and will probably block Kosovo's access to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe.

The real questions are less glamorous and more profound. Unemployment in Kosovo is over 40 per cent, corruption and organised crime is bad, and wealth per person is just 5 per cent of the EU average. The troubles are far from over yet.

Is independence for Kosovo a good thing?

Yes...

* 90 per cent of its people are non-Serbs and should be allowed to determine their own fate

* Serbia effectively lost Kosovo through its own actions in the atrocities and ethnic cleansing of the 1990s

* Kosovan independence is the logical working out of the collapse of Communist Yugoslavia after the Berlin Wall came down

No...

* Kosovo has formed the heart of the state of Serbia since medieval times

* All the people of Serbia should have been allowed to vote on the issue of Kosovan independence

* It sets a dangerous precedent for other parts of the world where rebels want to break away

Border violence mars Kosovo's new start

19 Feb 2008 18:56:20 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Updates with NATO protecting border)

By Matt Robinson

PRISTINA, Feb 19 (Reuters) - U.N. police pulled out of a Kosovan border post that was destroyed on Tuesday by Serbs who vow never to submit to the authority of Kosovo's Albanian government and its Western backers.

Danish troops of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force later moved up to secure the border with Serbia proper, KFOR said. It did not say if they were controlling entry to Kosovo.

Kosovan Prime Minister Hashim Thaci played down the attacks on two border posts in the north, one of which was burned out.

"Everything is under the control of the NATO authorities, Kosovo police and the United Nations, and no isolated incident will undermine Kosovo's independence celebrations," he told a news conference with EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana.

"Kosovo is integral, inseparable and Kosovo territory is guaranteed and recognised internationally," said Thaci, who declared the southern Serbian province independent on Sunday despite Serbia's adamant opposition.

Reuters witnesses saw U.N. police destroy official documents and remove computers from the half-wrecked border post, then leave in a convoy of vehicles escorted by armoured cars.

The crossing known as Gate 3-1, north of Zubin Potok town, was abandoned. Cars wit no number plates were passing unimpeded.

A U.N. source who checked later said he saw only one jeep with two Estonian soldiers on the actual border.

ENFORCEMENT

Asked if the European Union would be ready to call on NATO to enforce the authority of its planned post-independence law-enforcement mission in Kosovo, including the northern Serb stronghold, Solana said the 2,000-man mission was not there yet.

"Don't ask for the mission to do something today they are not in a position to do," he said. "I would like to say that it will be deployed in the territory of Kosovo, in all of Kosovo."

"KFOR is here and KFOR has used its responsibility, its obligations, already today," Solana added.

The NATO-led, 35-nation force of 17,000 troops has French, Belgian, U.S. and Danish soldiers deployed in the north.

The border post vandalism highlighted the challenge facing a EU as its moves in to take over from the United Nations the task of supervising Kosovo.

Until 1999, this was an unmarked Serbian provincial border. Until last week, it was a U.N.-supervised crossing. Now it is an international frontier, at least for states recognising Kosovo.

Serbia has said it will not let a new frontier separate Serb from Serb. Its ally Russia has no troops in the Balkans but has promised to oppose Kosovo's "illegitimate" independence.

FLAG RUMOUR

A Serb journalist told the BBC the attacks were triggered by rumours Kosovo's new flag was about to be raised at the posts.

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I think there is a beautifully logical solution for preserving peace & freedom in the Balkans.

The Serbs who are living in Kosovo will organise elections on their own, elect a Parliament, which will choose a government and freely decide to declare the independence of the Mitrovica province -perhaps for joining it to Serbia later, who knows (freedom is freedom)-.

In order to uphold coherently the established principle of independence of free collectivities, the United States and the EU will support enthusiastically this declaration and recognize immediately the new mini-statelet. Kosovo will be firmly warned that any attempt of aggression against Mitrovica would result in bombings of Pristina, for the sake of peace. A NATO peacekeeping force will be anyways sent to the Mitrovica-Kosovo border, and hefty international aid will be elarged to the new Mitrovica state.

As a protest, Kosovo will recall its ambassadors from all the states who will recognize the Mitrovica state. On the contrary, Serbs will sent theirs back to all the capitals which recognise Mitrovica, first of all Washington, then London, Berlin ...

Since we can probably find a half-kosovar village in the Mitrovica nation, and within this village a bunch of serbian households, and so on, the procedure could then be applied again and again -principle of induction- with always smaller states of alternating political sign. Peacekeeping will become easier and easier, cheaper and cheaper, since hot borders will be increasingly shorter, and national armies increasingly smaller. We will certainly arrive to a last-in-the-series state, who cares if s-oriented or k-oriented, so tiny and powerless -perhaps an old woman plus two or three fat purring cats- that nobody will care in the least about it.

And the cats won't neither elect a parliament, nor appoint ambassadors. Blessed be them! Thanks to their common sense, and after creating a score of new european states, there will be happiness for everybody.

It does sound nice and neat, doesn't it? It just requires political coherence from the USA and the EU ... 'stay the course', as somebody used to say ...

Welcome to the new world of international law, guys!

Serbs mass in Belgrade, say Kosovo forever theirs
21 Feb 2008 17:31:09 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Adds colour, quotes, mood)

By Ellie Tzortzi

BELGRADE, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Up to 200,000 Serbs massed in Belgrade on Thursday to protest against Kosovo's secession, refusing to accept the loss of their religious heartland.

"As long as we live, Kosovo is Serbia," Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica told the crowd from a stage in front of the old Yugoslav parliament building in Belgrade, to applause.

"We'll never give up Kosovo, never!" protesters chanted back, as they waved national flags. A huge banner reading "Kosovo is Serbia" draped the front of the building.

"We're not alone in our fight. President Putin is with us," Kostunica said, paying tribute to the Russian leader who has opposed U.S. and European states' recognition of Kosovo.

A few people waved the flags of Russia and of Spain -- which has also refused to recognise Pristina's secession on Sunday.

Police estimated 150,000 people packed the square, with columns of at least 10,000 more demonstrators filling up nearby boulevards. Eye witnesses reported big crowds elsewhere in the city.

The "people's rally" was Serbia's biggest since protesters filled the streets in 1999 to protest at NATO bombing and then in October 2000, when they stormed the same parliament building to oust nationalist autocrat Slobodan Milosevic.

In the crowds were many hardline nationalist Radicals, from Serbia's biggest party, who shouted anti-Albanian slogans.

"Today Kosovo is in all our hearts," their leader Tomislav Nikolic told the rally.

The atmosphere was largely calm, even subdued, as Serbs of all ages listened to speeches, melancholic patriotic songs and poems about Kosovo, seen as the birthplace of a glorious medieval kingdom but now home to an Albanian majority.

CONFLICT FATIGUE?

A certain lack of passion in the crowd appeared to support comments by Western analysts and some ordinary people here that most Serbs were bitter at, but resigned to, the loss of Kosovo, and tired of long years of conflict with neighbouring states.

"The politicians are trying to take advantage of the situation. This is not what people wanted. Not these empty words," said one protester, Dejan Pavlovic.

A few score protesters, some in balaclavas, later threw flares and stones at the U.S. embassy and tried to rip up boards covering its windows since they were smashed in riots earlier in the week.

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Europe’s new addition — a Muslim country without a veil
BY CLAUDE SALHANI (View from Washington)

22 February 2008

MAPMAKERS will need to update Europe’s maps once again. As of this week Europe has a new country, Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, made up of a Muslim majority of ethnic Albanians and a Serb minority.

The latter, backed by Belgrade, refuse to recognise Kosovar independence, as do other countries that fear that it will set a precedent other minorities will wish to emulate. Such is the case with Spain, worried by a move by Basque separatists, or Russia, who faces similar problems with Chechnya, among others. The United States, Britain and France are supporting Kosovo’s move to independence.

Kosovo, population around 2 million according to a 2005 survey by the Statistical Office of Kosovo, is made up of 92 per cent of ethnic Albanians; 4 per cent of Serbs (who are Orthodox Christians), the remaining include Bosniak Muslims (1.9 per cent), Roma (1.7 per cent), and Turks 1 per cent. The ethnic Albanian population can in turn be divided into roughly 93 per cent Muslim, with the rest composed of Catholics and a tiny minority of Protestants. Kosovars are ethnic Albanians, not to be confused with Albania, the former Stalinist nation next door, and with whom they share a border, a language, and a religion, Islam. To those who believe that a milder, kinder form of Islam cannot exist, allow me to paraphrase former US president John F Kennedy by saying, "Let them come to Pristina."

Standing in the shadow of the Berlin Wall in June 1963, at the height of the Cold War, Kennedy said: "There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin."

Years later, in 1987, another US president, Ronald Reagan, also stood in Berlin, pointed at the wall that cut the city in two – foremost symbol of the East-West divide – and challenged the Soviet Union's last leader before its collapse: "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

Today, communism is defeated, the Cold War is over, and all that remains of the Berlin Wall are a few relics and bad memories. However, the Cold War has been replaced by a scorching conflict being waged by radical fanatics whose brand of Islam has replaced communism as the greatest threat to democracies around the world. And while the Berlin Wall eventually came down, a far more formidable one is rising; only this time dividing cultures and civilisations.

Much as Berlin stood as a symbol of resistance against the spread of communism, so too has the former Serbian province of Kosovo – which on Monday declared its independence – proved that there is a moderate form of Islam capable of resisting the attempted spread of radicalism. Kosovo has been struggling against serious odds, trying to mature into an independent nation. Unemployment hovers around a whopping 60 per cent, while some put it as high as 70 per cent. Corruption and crime are rampant. The average income is around 1.5 euros, or one dollar, a day.

As a country in the heart of Europe with an overwhelming Muslim majority, Saudi Arabia and a number of Islamic governmental and non-governmental organisations quickly jumped in after the war in the late 1990s to help out. Among them were groups believed to have links to fundamentalist organisations, as was the case in neighbouring Bosnia. Kosovars however, many people in Pristina say, resisted being enticed into following a stricter Islam, despite financial incentives to do so.

Unlike Bosnia, another Muslim and former Yugoslav republic, Kosovars have refused offers to build madrassas, demanding instead that the donations be allocated towards building hospitals, secular education facilities, and "more useful institutions."

Kosovars have also strongly resisted offers from extremist groups to "behave in more Islamic ways," such as their demand that women adopt the traditional veil and men grow beards, as some groups have tried to impose on Kosovars, according to officials from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

"We are European Muslims," Fatmire Terdevci, a Kosovar journalist working for Koha Ditore, a daily Albanian language newspaper told this reporter about two years ago.

"I am a Muslim, but in my own way," she said. "We belong in Europe. But still, I consider myself a Muslim." Terdevci, and other Muslims in Kosovo, stress they want Islam, but not on hard line terms. One could compare their belonging to Islam in the way a large number of French belong to the Catholic Church. They "belong" but rarely venture into one.

"Religion is part of the identity and culture of Kosovars," said Sven Lindholm a senior Press officer with the OSCE mission in Kosovo at the time, "but it is not always practiced."

"Unlike in Bosnia, outsiders have had very minor success here," added Lindholm. "In Buzim, a village in Bosnia," the OSCE executive said, "(financial patrons) have built no less than five mosques. They have printed postcards showing the five mosques." The Kosovars have gone a different way.

Indeed, one is more likely to see veiled women and bearded men in the streets of London, Amsterdam and Paris, than in Pristina. Kosovar Muslims — who handle their religion with ease and total lack of inhibition — offer hope that the barrier being erected by fanaticism will also one day crumble, as did the Berlin Wall.

Claude Salhani is Editor of the Middle East Times and a political analyst in Washington, DC. He may be contacted at claude@metimes.com