Socialist Unity says it is.
It amazes me that some on the left support this Albanian fascism, due to an utterly mechanical understanding of the politics of nationality.
From Splintered Sunrise
There is a strong case in the abstract for Kosovo Albanians having the right to self-determination. In the here and now, I’m opposed to independence for Kosovo because the place is run by a bunch of mafiosi, its economy is based on the trafficking of drugs, arms and women, and giving this basket case the attributes of statehood will make a bad situation worse.
From a comment to the post.
So you support resistance movements only when you find the politics of its leadership somewhat compatible from your own point of view?
Ouch. Good point though, does a group of people who others consider to be thugs have the right to self-determination? If not, what are the limits, and why?
From another comment.
The most important thing to get about the various laws and norms of international relations theory is that it’s all total fantasy. In reality, it’s pure power games.
Aided and abetted by more powerful countries like the US and Russia for their own ends, of course.
See here
http://tinyurl.com/yofnuu
Kosovo – another swamp to get mired in to meet US colonial and imperial ambitions – this time in the Balkans – AGAIN
“Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent (Daily Telegraph) reports that 1,000 troops of the 1st Bn Welsh Guards are off to what will tomorrow be the newly independent state of Kosovo .
This unexpected deployment has been ordered (he reports) in response to fears that the celebrations of the event could so easily “slide” into “ethnic cleansing”.
A bit rich when the Prime Minister of the state is a war criminal like Hashim Thaci (his nom de guerre “Gjarpëri” [the Snake]) whose KLA thugs ethnically cleansed 250,000 Serbs under the umbrella of US and RAF bombing.
Hashim Thaci had / has enormous power in the “Drenica-Group” a shadowy criminal organization that controlled/ controls between 10% and 15% of all criminal activities in Kosovo (smuggling arms, stolen cars, oil, cigarettes and prostitution, people trafficking). The Group can rely on exterior links with close connections to the Albanian, Czech and Macedonian mafias locally and throughout Europe; Thaci’s sister is married to Sejdija Bajrush, one of the most notorious Albanian mafia leaders”
He may be a sonofbitch , but…….
You asked, “where are the limits?” It’s an interesting and poignant question. The militant groups I’m familiar with arose because democratic means failed a minority group within the country. Should the minorities have a right to self-determination when domocratic means fail to address grievances? In principle I would say yes. But when their new “representatives” are no more democratic than the oppressive regime they seek independence from, I think that principle fails. “Power games” is indeed an appropriate label.
Take Sri Lanka for example: all three combatants have committed war crimes against the civilian population. The two militants involved (LTTE and the Karuna faction) do not support democracy, and the Government never did care much about the minorities, and becomes less democratic (even for the majority) every day. Which of these is better? (D) None of the above.
To take a superficial bumper sticker and apply it to a real problem: “War is not the answer.” In the post-modern (4GW) world, someone with enough power to gain independence is all too often a thug. Thus the question is, how can we support self-determination through democratic means, empowering the majority of the people in each concerned group?
OTOH, if the people were empowered, independence would likely be unnecessary.
There are groups working on this, and there have been some successes. Check out Sarvodaya and Commonway, for example. But at this point, there’s not enough interest, manpower, or money to apply it on a wider scale.
On a more cynical note, it’s hard even to care about your own freedom when you’ve got a thousand TV channels to watch. Most people just don’t care about the freedom of someone living half a world away.