Serbian genocide claims about Kosovo were greatly exaggerated but not baseless.

Evidence

By any reasonable definition of genocide, this charge was greatly exaggerated, although according to one foreign observer sympathetic to the Albanians, “during the 1980s Albanian nationalists were responsible for a number of violent assaults on Serbs, and for the destruction of some Serb property.” — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 724 (#expands, via linked claim)

Western policy makers maintain that the conflict in the Balkans is “age old.” Yet contiguous ethnic and religious groups throughout the world have old antagonisms. Armed conflict between Serbs and Croats is confined largely to this century. The conflict between Serbs and Slavic Muslims dates back to the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, the development of the Kosovo story in which Slavic Muslims and Serbs are ancient and fated enemies is more recent; it was constructed by nationalist Serbs in the nineteenth century and projected back to the battle of Kosovo in 1389, and then back further, even to the very creation of the universe. It is this rather recent national mythology which was revived in the late 198os in Yugoslavia. — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 133 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Serbs exaggerated the Kosovo threat as genocide despite real Albanian violence — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 724; Actual Kosovo vandalism was trivial compared to the genocide rhetoric — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and…, 178; The Kosovo myth of ancient Serb-Muslim enmity is a recent nineteenth-century construction — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and…, 133 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Serbs exaggerated the Kosovo threat as genocide despite real Albanian violence #expands (0.93) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 724
• The Kosovo myth of ancient Serb-Muslim enmity is a recent nineteenth-century construction #complicates (0.72) — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 133