There was yet another letter to the editor of the New York Times today completely ignoring (and I suspect misconstruing) the Kosovar perspective regarding their still-withheld autonomy. It touted the same nonsense as advanced by the previous letter, that because the Kosovars reacted harshly against the Serb minority within its territory, it should be denied autonomy.
I tend to at least glance at the NY Times letters every day, and I don't think I ever saw a letter articulating the Kosovar point of view. Very likely because there's no one to do it. Serbia, as a sovereign nation, can represent itself on the world stage (and in the NY Times letters section), but without its autonomy Kosovo lacks the same ability.
What's really galling about the letters, however, is how they talk about withholding Kosovo's autonomy. Serbia has a legitimate concern about Kosovo becoming a separate nation in that it would involve officially splitting Kosovo off from Serbia, something that has not actually happened yet (at least not officially). But the Serb letter writers camoflauged that interest with patronizing language about how the Kosovars, being naughty little children, should be sent to bed without dessert and not get their autonomy until they learn to behave better. True, no Kosovar should be violent towards anyone. But as I've already pointed out, the violence has stemmed from a very real sense of frustration that has resulted from still not having their autonomy, even all these years after the war that nearly destroyed them.
It's further repugnant that anyone would claim the right to exercise such paternalism in deciding when a local population would "deserve" to get the right of self-determination. If democracy is a value the global community wants to foster around the world, presuming the authority to deprive a local population of it is a serious straying from that ideal.