Balkan Cleansing

Dateline: 03/27/99

Why do the press and politicians use "ethnic cleansing," a Proctor and Gamble-sounding, neutralizing phrase put forth by homicidal, maniacal, genocidal murderers to describe the horror in the Balkans?
Star Tribune 3/27/99

Rooted in national pride and ancient legend, the conflict in and around Yugoslavia is hard for us melting pot people to understand. Predecessors of and the "Ethnic Albanians" have been struggling to maintain their national identity in the face of invaders and conquerors for three millennia. As a reader wrote:

"Well, we're bombing it, how about telling us something about it? A call-in on a CNN program (/community.cnn.com/cgi-bin/ WebX?14@94.zc6H4tx6^0@.ee721ec) insisted Kosovo is the "cradle" of the Serbs ... since the 10th century", please tell me more. How and why do people establish lineage starting places, and why do they have murderous loyalty to ancestors they never knew?"

[From The Ancient Illyrians (http://kosova.vukovar.com/illyrians.html)]
The Albanians are said to be descendants of Indo-European tribesmen known as Illyrians who settled the Balkan area around 1000 B.C. They were soon distinguished from the (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text? lookup=encyclopedia+macedonia&word=illyrian) Macedonians, with whom they may have shared ancestry, by the Macedonian adaptation of Greek culture. Illyrians also mingled with the Thracians.

[From (http://www.klpm.org/question.htm) The Albanian Question]
The Illyrian tribes fought, but also formed alliances with one another, the most important of which was the Federation of Taulantis comprised of western Illyria, Dardania (Kosova and western Macedonia), and Epirus.

Starting in 358 B.C., the Macedonian Phillip II and his son Alexander (the Great) began to conquer Illyrian tribes. After Alexander's death the Illyrians asserted themselves and by the end of the 3d century B.C., an Illyrian kingdom ruled parts of northern Albania, Montenegro, and Hercegovina.

Then in 229 B.C. the Romans, provoked by Illyrian piracy, began a prolonged but eventually successful attack on the Balkans. According to URL = www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Track/4165/historia.html, in A.D. 9, Tiberius divided the area that is now Albania into 3 parts: Dalmatia, Epirus, and Macedonia. Several later emperors and many soldiers came from Illyria.

Christianity came early to Illyria -- in the 1st century. When the Empire split, the land that is now Albania fell under the rule of the Eastern Empire (despite being on the west of the dividing line), but owed religious allegiance to Rome. In the 8th century, the area was put under the patriarch of Constantinople. Rome and Constantinople continued to vie for allegiance in the area that is now Albania.

Barbarian hordes, first the Visigoths (395 A.D.), then the Huns, and Ostrogoths (461) invaded Illyria. The Slavs invaded in the late sixth century. From the Slavs emerged 4 groups we know today

1. Serbs,
2. Croats,
3. Slovenes, and
4. Bulgarians.

In the north, the Romanized Illyrians were assimilated, but those in Epirus (modern Kosova), western Macedonia, and Montenegro maintained their identity, although the term Illyrian disappeared and was replaced with the name Albanian during the Middle Ages. (The Medieval History site covers the period of the Byzantine Empire after the Fall of Rome.)