True, but recognition of that fact is very inconvenient for Serb nationalists. They want to continue to exploit how little most people know about the region in order to portray the Kosovo conflict as religious in nature and Kosovar Albs as Islamists in the hopes of gaining allies among those of us fighting the war on terror.
There are real arguments for maintaining Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo based on history and legally recognized borders versus the Kosovar Albanian arguments of self-determination and the illegitimacy of an oppressive government. The Islamist stuff is a canard.
The biggest problem the Serbs have right now is that the US & other big-power negotiators working on Kosovo have no confidence that the Serbs won't pick up the ethnic cleansing where they left off in 1999.
The Serb Radical Party is still the largest party in Serbia and its leader is still preaching Greater Serbia from where he is on trial for crimes against humanity; a great portion of the Serb population (as reflected by some of our FReepers as well) remains so indoctrinated by the Milosevic propaganda machine that even when videotape of Serb warcrimes is aired and hundreds of bodies of warcrime victims are discovered hidden deep inside Serbia itself, they still do not believe those things happened.
On the Kosovo final status negotiations, here is what is going to happen: as long as the Serb Radical Party still preaches nationalist extremism, as long as Mladic & Karadzic remain unarrested, and as long as the Serbs continue to slow-go on the return of Kosovar-Albanian bodies to their families, the more likely that Kosovo will be independent.
1- I would go get and hand over Mladic in exchange for Ceku and Thaci. Leave Karadzic alone, he has minimal involvement in current day to day politics/life over the Serb people/party. Of course, I would expect the $5 million to be deposited into my account within 24 hours (33% of that would be deposited into the Decani Monastery Relief Fund - and, I'd have to be on "deployable" status for the tax-exempt :)) )
2- Rugovi admit the bodies for Racak were transported in overnight from eastern Kosovo, from a previous killing (this was Alb-on-Alb fighting - anti-KLA Albanians were gunned down, that is who those bodies were).
3- Any bodies that are in Serbia, returned. Same with the Albanians, they return the bodies and identify where they put dead bodies of Serbs.
4- Albanians admit the 2001 major rioting along the Ibar River crossing bridge in Kos. Mitrovica was precipiated by the Albanians raping then murdering a 19 y/o Serbian girl.
For the Serb Radikal Party, the US Military Liason quietly orders Nikolic to shut the f*ck up with ramifications to him personally if he does not go quietly.
In return for Autonomy for Kosovo along the lines of BiH is set up.
I believe that is fair. The Serb Police would be allowed to patrol and do their law enforcement job. EEO would be requirement and a limitation on heavy weapons.
Sounds fair?
So it's OK for your Albanian buddies to wage genocide against everyone else so long as they keep religion out of it, eh? Sounds as if your vision of peace means they kill everyone else and then it's peaceful.