Word: nationalistic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...anyone else. The obscure 56-year-old constitutional lawyer is an unlikely savior of his nation. He is calm to the point of boring. He has labored for years in the backwaters of Serbian politics without making much of an impression. As a staunch anticommunist--and a zealous Serb nationalist who criticized past Yugoslav leaders for compromising Serb rights--he riled communist boss Josip Broz Tito enough in 1974 to get himself fired from his professorship at Belgrade University. When the opportunistic Milosevic, in a campaign to win over intellectuals, offered him the job back in 1989, Kostunica refused. Considered...
International attention is finally being focused on Kostunica, a 56-year-old lawyer who is backed by 18 opposition parties. Kostunica has stylized himself as a moderate nationalist and a firm proponent of democratic principles. The voices of Serbs have indeed gone unheard long enough. Kostunica would be wise to use this moment in the limelight to convince Serbs and the international community of his commitment to a real, working democracy. It is about time for a new, more peaceful chapter in Yugoslavia's troubling history...
...what made Kostunica the perfect candidate now was what he was not. He was a humble, bookish scholar, not a brash firebrand pol. He was a vigorous nationalist, not an ethnic killer. He subscribed to multiparty democracy and market economics but never kowtowed to the West. He wanted to end confrontation with Europe and the U.S. but harshly condemned NATO's air war and slammed Washington's aggressive support for the Serbian opposition this past year as "the kiss of death." He vowed not to deliver Milosevic to the Hague, calling the war-crimes tribunal an illegitimate instrument...
...against Milosevic, he ran for Serbia. Without that platform of patriotism, he never could have won, but it wasn't pandering. His nationalist sentiments run deep. He railed repeatedly against the West for bombing his homeland. He positioned himself as a firm advocate of Serbian interests in Kosovo, promising to negotiate the safe return of the thousands who fled Albanian retribution after the war. He said protecting Milosevic from international war-crimes prosecution was a matter of constitutional sovereignty. He made it clear his Yugoslavia would not become "anybody's protectorate...
...opposition (except Kostunica's party, which received no foreign help) with direct grants, training and equipment. The U.S. is ready to deal with anyone but Milosevic, although it realizes President Kostunica could prove a handful. He's not the Serb devil Washington knows, but he's still a determined nationalist with contrary goals...