Bitter conflict runs deep in Balkan
history and flared most recently with a terrible spate of ethnic cleansing
and manipulation of international sympathies in the 1990s. Those years showed
us the cunning that prevails on all sides of the former Yugoslavia. This
is perhaps a mix of peasant farmer ingenuity and political intrigue learned
over centuries lived between empires: Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian, Axis
and Alliance, Soviet and capitalist, Islam and Christian. And this acuteness
resides, though the fighting seems to have abated and global interest wanders
elsewhere. The Balkan wars continue silently in different theatres. They
have taken a turn, becoming wars over heritage.
Soldiers of the Kosovo Liberation Army demonstrate in Pristina,
November 2004, against the UN's deliberation over the region's future and
the International Criminal Court's promise to arrest President Haradinaj for
war crimes.