Talk:Kosovo Liberation Army

Should it be designated as a terrorist group in the first paragraph?

This is 50% false information! What I think should be done is editing the first paragraph to define it as a "was a paramilitary ethnic-Albanian separatist militia that sought the separation of Kosovo from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" Gmiletic (talk) 22:33, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

That fact is well-documented, including the UN resolution. There is also a narcoterrorism claim. Which is also false because it is not claimed by any type of organization and no evidence.--WEBDuB (talk) 23:43, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely not. It's basic NPOV to not use loaded terms which present a particular POV in the WP:LEAD in wikivoice. The state of Serbia considered the KLA as a terrorist organization and other states switched the way the viewed it (from terrorists to freedom fighters) based on international politics that can be discussed in the article, but there's no such thing as an "objectively" terrorist organization (with the exception of groups like ISIS). Most organizations of national liberation movements have been branded as terrorists by the states that they fought against, but we don't call the People's Protection Units "terrorists" despite the fact that the main country that is fighting against them views exactly as that.--Maleschreiber (talk) 16:00, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Maleschreiber This is a typical straw man argument- The People's Protection Units is a group of people fighting against ISIS - the terrorist organisation. In Serbia, KLA - the terrorist organisation is kidnaping people and killing officials and civilians from ambush or by direct confrontation.

Your argument is invalid. Second, in 1998 USA has officialy declared the KLA as teh terrorist organisation. At one point the USA saw the opportunity to use them for their agenda and retracted them from the list ( by US law it is forbidden to support the terrorist organisation ), hence we got the crooked name "freedom fighters" Pixius talk 13:07, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

But KLA before the war was perfect example of terrorist organization. There are many sources that well documented the change of the status of the organization. It was generally considered terrorist (including the UN), not only by Serbia.--WEBDuB (talk) 16:11, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

There's no objectively terrorist organization - with exceptions like ISIS. "Terrorist" is a manufactured political term that is used by various factions against their political opponents, but it's not used in historiography as an objective marker.--Maleschreiber (talk) 00:10, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

thanks for your good objective job here, do not let these Serbs to provoke you to implement their narrative into this. Weiter so :) ECasio (talk) 23:22, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Of course that they were seen as a terrorist group, sources are quite clear, see [1]

This relevant info. should be added to the article, not in the first sentence, but in the lead, with more details touched and with serious WP:NPOV.

Another thing, the part "stressing Albanian culture" in the lead should be rewritten, as this little group was not a bunch of museum curators but paramillitary/soldiers who were considered to be a terrorist group by the United States. That is a fact and it's 100% worth mentioning. Editor @Peervalaa: @Local hero: do you have any more sources to add, I think that this topic is your area or interest? ty, Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 16:42, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

There is a source at the bottom in section External links from Federation of American Scientists which should be used in text. There are also plenty of sources here which back up the claim that KLA was a terrorist organization. The biggest evidence is US itself which classified KLA as terrorists. Peervalaa (talk) 09:26, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I oppose the proposed change of the lead which would reflect a biased stance on the whole article. Sadko mentioned sources that quote the statement made by Robert Gelbard, Special Representative of the US, who claimed in 1998 that the KLA “is , without any questions, a terrorist group". What Sadko did not mention is that Robert Gelbard completly changed his approach to the KLA one month later with his statement that the KLA has "not been classified legally by the U.S. Government as a terrorist organization." [2] . The terrorism issue is already distinctly covered as a section in the article. Mentioning terrorism in the lead would bring to much undue weight to this article, since western countries didn't regard it as a terrorist organization and to some point completely abolished any doubts that existed from before 1998. The only countries that support this stance are Serbia and its allies.Crazydude1912 (talk) 22:24, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Sources are not saying that. None of my sources are Serbian. It was seen as a terrorist group world-wide for a period of time. It is a fact. It's currently not covered in the article and WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not an argument. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 00:00, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Good points, @Crazydude1912: --Maleschreiber (talk) 11:31, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

In the first paragraph the statement that the USA recognized KLA as a terrorist organization conflicts the statement in the paragraph Status as a terrorist organization because it claims that the US has categorized and considered the KLA as a terrorist organization by using source a statement of Ambassador Gelbart, a statement which does not represent the position of the US Government and a statement which he had to modify. A statement by a US official which was later modified does not represent the official stance of the US Government on the matter as such it is very misleading and can be considered as agenda pushing. As such the sentence "It was considered a terrorist group by Yugoslavia and the United States until the breakup of Yugoslavia." needs to be modified to "It was considered a terrorist group by Yugoslavia until the breakup of Yugoslavia." thus removing the part "and the United States"Butrint10morina (talk) 17:50, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

>::::::@Butrint10morina: Thanks for explaining. I understand the argument. However, this single sentence in the first paragraph serves as a summary of the corresponding section: Kosovo Liberation Army#Status as a terrorist group (per MOS:LEAD under which the lead is nothing but a summary of the body). In it's current form, the sentence fails to summarize this section. Previously, it also did not summarize it very well, but at least it tried to; the extent to which it failed can simply be seen as an imprecision/incompleteness, rather than agenda pushing. Positions of Yugoslavia, France and the USA all need to be carried over, concisely. It's poor WP:BALANCE to only mention the position of Yugoslavia, and make it seem so isolated in this regard, when other countries expressed similar viewpoints during a certain period. It should be easy to come to a common ground here. tw^sabin 18:33, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

WP:BALANCE combined with WP:TERRORIST means that we shouldn't just lump countries that considered KLA a terrorist organization (otherwise why aren't we adding that most countries didn't consider it a terrorist organization?). Uniacademic (talk) 19:16, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

::::::::Now something is added to the lead which doesn't appear to also be included in the body. You seem to be glossing over the need for the lead to act as a summary. France and the USA are covered in the body for a reason. I don't agree with your change. I will think for a while what the best next step is for this content. tw^sabin 19:29, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@Uniacademic: Adding states that considered KLA a terrorist organization but excluding the bigger picture which is that KLA was not considered a terrorist organization by the vast majority of UN states is WP:UNDUE. I think that we should not treat in moralizing overtones the "terrorist" label. All insurgent national liberation organizations have been considered terrorist groups by the states against which they rebelled and by their allies. If they manage to shift the political narrative and win, they are no longer considered "terrorists". The KLA is no exception to the rule.--Maleschreiber (talk) 19:47, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@Maleschreiber Do you have the statement of all countries about the KLA from 1996-1999?

What does the UNR1160 says? Do you know that the UN Resolution is a binding legal document?

By your argument "All insurgent national liberation organizations have been considered terrorist groups by the states against which they rebelled and by their allies. If they manage to shift the political narrative and win, they are no longer considered "terrorists".", if Hitler has won the war, we would be learning that the Nazism is a good thing Pixius talk 21:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

::::::::I have thought about it, and have moved the sentence which you added to the relevant place in the body, per MOS:LEADNOTUNIQUE (Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although not everything in the lead must be repeated in the body of the text. Exceptions include specific facts such as quotations, examples, birth dates, taxonomic names, case numbers, and titles; this information was not a quotation, example, birth date, taxonomic name, case number, and title, or anything similar to that). There is certainly room for incremental improvement from here. tw^sabin 23:05, 25 February 2022 (UTC) (Sock of Alalch Emis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log))

Lead

@ElderZamzam That's the point. There is a whole subsection dedicated to it. It's better to let the reader to read the whole section than to determine whether it was a terrorist organization or not based on one sentence and opinion. AlexBachmann (talk) 00:42, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

The sentence does not suggest that the KLA was a terrorist organization, it just says that that was the position of the FRY. If anything, the way the sentence is written tends to suggest that the view that the KLA was a terrorist organization is just the FRY's claim. Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:48, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Still better to remove it. There is a whole subsection that describes that. AlexBachmann (talk) 22:09, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I just clarified it. FRY might be mistaken for some international organisation part of the UN. Such as FTO. I wrote the full name so its better to he understood that it was the Federal Reublic of Yugoslavia the one who claimed that. RoyalHeritageAlb (talk) 23:42, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. That's actually what I thought when I heard FRY. AlexBachmann (talk) 00:44, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 February 2024

Changes in Paragraph -War Crimes- & Paragraph -Status as terrorist group- Davud Patrioti (talk) 20:49, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Shaws username . talk . 21:37, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

False claims Removed

[Username] if you are a defender of serbian war crimes and false accusations of the Albanian people. Then It is not your duty to change facts. Davud Patrioti (talk) 10:22, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

'Greater Albania isn't an ideology'

Hi, @Ktrimi991, I don't have any strong opinions on the links you and Botushali removed from the infobox. However, completely removing Greater Albania', backed by four sources, on the basis that 'greater Albania' is not an ideology is simply not valid enough. Similar to Greater Serbia and other irredentist movements, it falls under the ideology of expansionism. I changed the wording but it will redirect to the same article. Hope that fixed the issue. --Azor (talk). 21:27, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

No matter how many sources there are, none of them calls "Greater Albania" an ideology. Anyways, I am not going to keep arguing over a small detail. Ktrimi991 (talk) 23:07, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

@Ktrimi991 pushing your own personal opinion highlights that you just don't like the content. As mentioned by Azor, Greater Albania falls under the ideology of irredentism. ElderZamzam (talk) 06:10, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I ended the dispute, why did you come here to express your anger? Cool down a bit. Ktrimi991 (talk) 09:59, 4 April 2024 (UTC)