Talk:Kosovo War

Unexplained removals

@Pincrete the question whether a genocide has happened is irrelevant to the lead, as its not being discussed there. It’s clear that a certain POV is trying to be portrayed with that sentence. And btw, being sourced doesn’t warrant the inclusion into the article nor the lead. You did not make any argument to why the content should remain in the lead.

„Vague and sourced content“ what exactly is vague about the expulsion? You easily could have looked up the article that is linked in this sentence, there you will find every source you need, but okay, if you insist on sources, I’ll add them later if I have time despite the case of WP:BLUESKY we have here. You know what would be vague? Including Albanian and Serbian estimates. But I did not do that. AlexBachmann (talk) 17:37, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

The lede is supposed to summarise the most important contents of the article, and whether the violence was judged to constitute genocide seems like an important point. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:17, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

You said that It’s clear that a certain POV is trying to be portrayed with that sentence. For me it actually is not that clear - what POV is being portrayed by including the information that it was not ruled to be a genocide by the UN Supreme Court? That seems like a crucial, lede-worthy piece of information. Brat Forelli🦊 21:09, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I'll agree that the this high-court ruling may be relevant, but I'll take out the quotes at [...] found that there had been "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments" against the Albanian population, but that Yugoslav troops had tried to force them out of Kosovo, but not to eradicate them, and therefore it was not genocide. To me, this looks like an attempts to make the "systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments" look like an opinion. AlexBachmann (talk) 22:04, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I also sourced the "vague" content and readded it. AlexBachmann (talk) 22:13, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Comment: I wish to contribute to this discussion by shining some light on other aspects in the background section:

1. The very first line - The modern Albanian-Serbian conflict has its roots in the expulsion of Albanians in 1877-1878... - is somewhat questionable. Albanians and Serbs (as a distinct population group) have been fighting since the Middle Ages, whereas the Balkan Slavs in general (whom the Serbs descend from) invaded territories inhabited by the ancestral populations of the Albanians all the way back in the 6th-7th centuries CE. The conflict between Albanians and Serbs goes back to over a millennia, not a century and a half ago. However, I notice the word "modern" there. Perhaps something else is meant by this line, but this should be clearly and explicitly stated.

2. I removed an unsourced line for the same reason used by editors above; it's simply too vague. In fact, one of the articles I removed - Attacks on Serbs during the Serbian–Ottoman Wars (1876–1878) - barely has any information on specific attacks and does not include any figures whatsoever. Contrast that to the Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars, where attacks are quite clearly recorded and figures exist on the matter. The only line mentioning somewhat specific attacks on that article is the following: Tensions in the form of revenge attacks arose by incoming Albanian refugees on local Kosovo Serbs... If the article in question cannot be expanded upon soon, I genuinely question whether or not it should even exist. All of its content fits into the Expulsion of the Albanians, 1877–1878 article, or even the Serbian–Ottoman Wars (1876–1878) article. It does not seem to warrant an article of its own, and I may propose it for deletion if it's not expanded upon soon. Nonetheless, that's a discussion that is more fitting on the TP of the article in question.

3. The other linked article that I removed - 1901 massacres of Serbs - is also quite lacklustre in terms of content and sources, and also makes no mention of any figures whatsoever. Nonetheless, it does say that Serbs were massacred, and although we have no info on the article discussing who or how many Serbs were killed, I'd assume it'd be good enough to stay, although it should also be expanded upon. It can also be mentioned in this article, but in a more accurate way than it was previously; did the Muhaxhirs seriously wait nearly 15 years or so to exact revenge on the Serbs in Kosovo? This article should perhaps be mentioned more explicitly, as the previous mention was quite vague. Botushali (talk) 01:06, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Concerning Botushali's first argument, I think what is meant here by "modern" is the beginning of the Kosovo problem. I mean - if we're being honest - Serbia shot itself in the foot with every action that they've taken against the local Albanian population. Kosovo, which already had had an Albanian-dominated population, kept getting more and more Albanian after the Albanians of Nish and Toplica were expelled. On top of that, the local Serbian population of Kosovo fled, creating a vacuum that Albanians naturally and quickly began to fill. Several attempts have been made afterwards to restore a supposed "status quo" by colonizing Kosovo. I think that's what scholars mean with roots of the modern Albanian-Serbian conflict.

With that being said, it is, however, evident that the Albanian-Serbian conflict is much more than that. AlexBachmann (talk) 21:31, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

As it was argued, I've also noticed the lack of reliable and precise recordings of the massacres on Serbs, whereas testimonies of Serbian massacres of Albanians are precise and detailed. AlexBachmann (talk) 21:37, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Statements with outright ridiculous sources

The statement "...thousands killed and between 70,000 and 100,000 expelled from Kosovo or sent to concentration camps in order to Albanianize the province..." references a book, which does mention those numbers, HOWEVER said book itself calls these numbers literally, and I quote, "pure fantasy".

This is a clear case of someone taking something out of context in order to try and make fantasy (it is a fantasy, according to their own source) into reality.

By the way, that was the first link I checked. I have no doubt there are countless more here. If Wikipedia wants to be a pillar of truth, there should be more work being done in checking these claims and not just approving them because they seem legit at first sight. 84.22.48.91 (talk) 09:21, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

The Malcolm book describes Serbian nationalists' claims about the number of Albanians moving to Kosovo in the 1940s were "pure fantasy". It doesn't describe estimates of the number of Serbs expelled as such. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:16, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Also Sabrina Ramet mentions these estimates without any qualifications or caveats in The Three Yugoslavias. Alaexis_¿question? 18:17, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

KLAs own casualtie claims

Daalder & O'Hanlon 2000 is used to claim that the KLAs casualties were 1,500 dead, according to their figures. This is what the source says; "KLA commander Agim Ceku estimated that perhaps 1,500 KLA fighters were among the dead (his tally numbers included cumulative losses over fifteen months, however)". I propose removing this 1,500 number because it seems to be a pretty early estimate by one commander rather than an official listing. Durraz0 (talk) 21:55, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I tend to agree (see WP:AGEMATTERS and Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/The effect of aging sources). On a related point, the infobox casualty figures for the Yugoslavian side are also inexplicable. It says that NATO killed 1,008–1,200 Yugoslav security personnel and 1,084 were killed by the KLA, which implies there were 2,000+ military fatalities on the Yugoslavian side. This is not only a clear example of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, but also a blatant misrepresentation of the HLC study cited, attributing the Yugoslavian side's total 1,084 military deaths from Jan 1, 1998 to Dec 31, 2000 (including 276 incurred by NATO) solely to the KLA. I mean, the citation is right there, and it's even in English. So, I'm at a loss as to why such misleading claims have been up for so long. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 17:32, 19 August 2024 (UTC)