Iowa State Daily

Media Credit: Rashah McChesney Biljana Vukcevic, an instructor in the department of humanities at the University of Belgrade waits for her turn to speak during the Roundtable discussion, "The Status of Kosovo and Metohija," in Beardshear Monday March 3, 3008. There were presentations from both sides of the conflict as well as a speaker from Montenegro, a neighboring country. While all three of the presentations went smoothly there was a heated debate afterwards between both Vukcevis and Jetmir Likaj, an instructor at the University of Pristinia in Kosovo.

Corrections & Clarifications
In Tuesday's article, "Balkan profs debate Kosovo's secession," the fourth paragraph implied that Biljana Vukcevic said former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic had committed atrocities. Vukcevic neither confirmed nor denied that Milosevic committed atrocities, but said the period had been "bad for everyone involved." In the fifth paragraph, Vukcevic is misquoted as saying her mother taught her the meaning of the word "castration" by telling her of an incident in which a Serbian youth was castrated by two Albanian youths. Vukcevic actually said she had read a news report about the incident herself and had to have the word "castration" clarified by her mother. In the sixth paragraph, Vukcevic was attributed as saying she believes that, if Albanians in Kosovo had participated in protests and elections, Milosevic could have been removed from power "before he committed most of his war crimes". Vukcevic does believe Albanian participation could have helped remove Milosevic from power, but did not directly address Milosevic's alleged crimes. Due to an editing error, the sentence that reads "He told a story that reflected the repression Milosevic's regime was notorious for" should have been presented as an opinion, not as a fact. The Daily regrets the errors.

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A panel discussion on Kosovo's recent declaration of independence from Serbia held in Beardshear Hall on Monday night sparked heated debate from the panel's three presenters.

The panel was made up of Jetmir Likaj, an economics instructor at the University of Pristina in Kosovo; Biljana Vukcevic, a humanities instructor at the University of Belgrade in Serbia; and Slavica Stamatovic, an architecture instructor at the University of Montenegro, who gave different perspectives on Kosovo's independence in a discussion moderated by Olga Mesropova, assistant professor of world languages and cultures at Iowa State.

During each 20-minute presentation, the three presenters gave a glimpse of the history of the Balkan region and their personal stories and feelings about the current conflict, before taking questions at the end.

Biljana Vukcevic's presentation was from her point of view, as a Serb. She didn't try to defend the atrocities perpetrated by the former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, but she said Milosevic wasn't the only one committing ethnic hate crimes during the '90s.

For example, she said she learned the meaning of the word "castration" in her teens when her mother told her a group of Albanians had castrated a Serb.

She also said she had protested against Milosevic's regime and believed that if Albanians in Kosovo had participated in protests and elections, Milosevic, who died of a heart attack amidst tribunal proceedings for war crimes committed against Albanians, could have been removed from office before he committed most of his war crimes.

Likaj began his presentation by saying that he would not focus on the history of the two territories; instead, he would recount his own personal tale, which led him to support Kosovo's bid for independence.

He told a story that reflected the repression Milosevic's regime was notorious for.

For example, Milosevic banned public schools from teaching in Albanian, so he and other Albanian students attended high school in neighbors' living rooms.

Although the lack of public education affected many Albanian teens, Likaj also endured personal hardship when he walked for six days and six nights to Montenegro to escape bombing near his town. He also lost contact with his family for three months during this period because they fled the country at different times.

Stamatovic, architecture instructor at the University of Montenegro, discussed her own country's 2006 vote to secede from Serbia. She said Kosovo's claim to independence is not as clear-cut as Montenegro's because Montenegro was an independent country before it was assimilated into Serbia and Kosovo had never been an independent territory. She said the U.N. Resolution that allowed Montenegro to declare independence only applied to regions of Yugoslavia that had been sovereign territories before the formation of Yugoslavia.

"Montenegro was a steady country in 1878, and in 1910, it was the kingdom of Montenegro for eight years," Stamatovic said.

She said there was concern in many of the Balkan countries that Kosovo's independence was part of a larger movement toward the "Great Albania." Despite Montenegro's official support for Kosovo, Stamatovic said she was worried that the Albanian majority in Kosovo would wish to reunite with Albania. Montenegro is located between the two and could be vulnerable to conflict, she said.

Zora Zimmerman, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, asked what the advantages of being independent were.

"The first, biggest advantage is freedom," Likaj said.

Though Likaj and Vukcevic argued fiercely much of the panel discussion, both agreed it was regrettable that people that lost their lives in conflicts between Serbia and Kosovo.

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