yugoslavias implosion

protection district”—an Albanian area that Serbia would not control.
He showed the blueprint to Milan Panić, fry prime minister, and to
Dobrica Ćosić, who objected to it on the grounds that Serbia would
end up having many Albanians on its hands. Ćosić arranged to discuss
the matter with Života Panić, but was sacked before they could
meet. 377 The Albanians and the international community objected to
the proposal, objections that Milošević brushed away, saying Kosovo
and Metohija would remain an integral part of Serbia and dismissing
both Albanian demands to reinstate Kosovo’s former status and calls
for international arbitration of the issue. 378
The Kosovo question dominated the media, public political
debate, and academic discussion. The Institute of Geopolitical
Studies held a two-day conference in June 1997 on the subject. The
starting point of the discussion was the political crisis in Albania.
Participants argued against granting territorial autonomy to an ethnic
community whose “mother country falls apart of itself in every
serious crisis.” The introductory report suggested that the Albanian
question be solved on the “model of [Albanians’] rigorous integration
in the states in which they live” and alleged that the Albanian
state was established by powers determined to “prevent Serbian penetration
to the Adriatic.” 379 (Similar arguments had been proposed
around the time the Albanian state was created in 1913. Nikola Pašić,
the prime minister of Serbia at the time, had found such proposals
unacceptable, being of the opinion that “northern Albania belongs to
the Serbian empire.” In the Serbian parliament in 1913, he had insisted
that Albania’s territory be divided between Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece,
and Montenegro.) 380 The dominant argument at the gathering was
377 Branislav Krstić, Kosovo između istorijskog i etničkog prava
(Kosovo between historical and ethnic rights), 1994 .
378 Speech in Pristina, June 25, 1997 .
379 Milivoj Reljin, Očuvanje Kosova i Metohije nacionalni i državni interes srpskog naroda,
i Kosovo i Metohija: Izazovi i odgovori,, Institut za geopoliticke studije, 1997,p .18
380 Olga Popović-Obradović, Kakva ili kolika drzava, Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji, 2008 .
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