A few articles on Kosovo
[ Il generale canadese Lewis MacKenzie - ex comandante delle truppe ONU
in Bosnia, rimosso dall'incarico all'epoca per difetto di razzismo
antiserbo - commenta: forse in Kosovo nel 1999 abbiamo bombardato la
parte sbagliata?
Piu' alcune ciliegine:
"The Telegraph" rivela la logica della provocazione negli scontri dello
scorso mese: estremisti albanesi hanno attaccato una vettura della KFOR
(ed ucciso un poliziotto del Ghana) cercando di farsi passare per serbi;
"The Economist" gia' nel 1978 spiegava alla opinione pubblica
occidentale che nei Balcani si andava risvegliando il progetto
neonazista grande-albanese;
infine, riproduciamo una lettera di sostegno al Presidente Milosevic
datata 2000 e firmata da 828 albanesi-kosovari di orientamento
anti-segregazionista e progressista ... ]
1. We bombed the wrong side?
(Lewis MacKenzie - now retired, commanded UN troops during the Bosnian
civil war of 1992)
2. Albanians posed as Serbs to stoke ethnic fires in Kosovo (The
Telegraph - UK)
3. FLASHBACK 1 : The Eastern Question again
(The Economist - June 10, 1978)
4. FLASHBACK 2 : Letter of Support to the President of the Republic by
828 Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija as published in "Serbia in the
World" No 98/99 June/July 2000
=== 1 ===
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/comment/
story.html?id=46d92
5b4-8d36-470a-accd-34642b09c5bf
National Post (Canada) April 06, 2004
Comment A14
We bombed the wrong side?
Lewis MacKenzie
Five years ago our television screens were dominated by pictures of
Kosovo-Albanian refugees escaping across Kosovo's borders to the
sanctuaries of Macedonia and Albania. Shrill reports indicated that
Slobodan Milosevic's security forces were conducting a campaign of
genocide and that at least 100,000 Kosovo-Albanians had been
exterminated and buried in mass graves throughout the Serbian province.
NATO sprung into action and, in spite of the fact no member nation of
the alliance was threatened, commenced bombing not only Kosovo, but the
infrastructure and population of Serbia itself --
without the authorizing United Nations resolution so revered by
Canadian leadership, past and present.
Those of us who warned that the West was being sucked in on the side of
an extremist, militant, Kosovo-Albanian independence movement were
dismissed as appeasers. The fact that the lead organization
spearheading the fight for
independence, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), was universally
designated a terrorist organization and known to be receiving support
from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda was conveniently ignored.
The recent dearth of news in the North American media regarding the
increase in violence in Kosovo compared to the comprehensive coverage
in the European press strongly suggests that we Canadians don't like to
admit it when we are wrong. On the contrary, selected news clips on
this side of the ocean continue to reinforce the popular spin that
those dastardly Serbs are at it again.
A case in point was the latest crisis that exploded on March 15. The
media reported that four Albanian boys had been chased into the river
Ibar in Mitrovica by at least two Serbs and a dog (the dog's ethnic
affiliation was not reported).
Three of the boys drowned and one escaped to the other side.
Immediately, thousands of Albanians mobilized and concentrated in the
area of the divided city. Attacks on Serbs took place throughout the
province resulting in an estimated 30 killed and 600 wounded. Thirty
Serbian Christian Orthodox churches and monasteries were destroyed,
more than 300
homes were burnt to the ground and six Serbian villages cleansed of
their occupants. One hundred and fifty international peacekeepers were
injured.
Totally ignored in North America were the numerous statements from
impartial sources that said there was no incident between the Serbs,
the dog and the Albanian boys. NATO Police spokesman Derek Chappell
stated on March 16 that it was "definitely not true" that the boys had
been chased into the river by Serbs. Chappell went on to say that the
surviving boy had told his parents that they had entered the river
alone and that three of his friends had been swept away by the current.
Admiral Gregory Johnson, the overall NATO
commander, further stated that the ensuing clashes were "orchestrated
and well-planned ethnic cleansing" by the Kosovo-Albanians. Those Serbs
forced to leave joined the 200,000 who had been cleansed from the
province since NATO's "humanitarian" bombing in 1999. The '"cleansees"
have become very effective "cleansers."
In the same week a number of individuals posing as Serbs ambushed and
killed a UN policeman and his local police partner. During the
firefight one of them was wounded which caused an immediate switch from
Serbian to Albanian as he screamed, "I've been hit"! The UN pursued the
attackers and tracked them to an Albanian-run farm where they
discovered weapons and the wounded Albanian who had died from his
wounds. Four Albanians were arrested. Once again, the ambush had been
reported in the United States but not the
follow-up which clearly indicated yet another orchestrated provocation
by the Albanian terrorists.
Kosovo is administered by the UN, the very organization many Canadians
have indicated they would like to see take over from the United States
in Iraq. The fact the UN cannot order its civilian employees to go or
stay anywhere -- they have to volunteer -- combined with recent history
that saw the UN abandon Iraq after a single brutal attack on their
compound in Baghdad and the reality that Kosovo, under the
organization's administration, is a basket case, disqualifies it from
consideration for such a role.
Since the NATO/UN intervention in 1999, Kosovo has become the crime
capital of Europe. The sex slave trade is flourishing.
The province has become an invaluable transit point for drugs en route
to Europe and North America. Ironically, the majority of the drugs come
from another state "liberated" by the West, Afghanistan. Members of the
demobilized, but not eliminated, KLA are intimately involved in
organized crime and the government. The UN police arrest a small
percentage of those
involved in criminal activities and turn them over to a judiciary with
a revolving door that responds to bribes and coercion.
The objective of the Albanians is to purge all non-Albanians, including
the international community's representatives, from Kosovo and
ultimately link up with mother Albania thereby achieving the goal of
"Greater Albania." The campaign started with their attacks on Serbian
security forces in the early 1990s and they were successful in turning
Milosevic's heavy-handed response into worldwide sympathy for their
cause. There was no genocide as claimed by the West -- the 100,000
allegedly buried in mass graves turned out to be around 2,000, of all
ethnic origins, including those killed in combat during the war itself.
The Kosovo-Albanians have played us like a Stradivarius. We have
subsidized and indirectly supported their violent campaign for an
ethnically pure and independent Kosovo.We have never blamed them for
being the perpetrators of the violence in the early '90s and we
continue to portray them as the designated victim today in spite of
evidence to the contrary. When they achieve independence with the help
of our tax dollars combined with those of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just
consider the message of encouragement this sends to other
terrorist-supported independence movements around the world.
Funny how we just keep digging the hole deeper!
Maj-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, now retired, commanded UN troops during the
Bosnian civil war of 1992.
(c) 2004 National Post . All Rights Reserved.
=== 2 ===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/28/
wkos28.xml&
sSheet=/news/2004/03/28/ixnewstop.html
Albanians posed as Serbs to stoke ethnic fires in Kosovo
By Neil Barnett in Pristina
(Filed: 28/03/2004)
telegraph.co.uk
The murder of a United Nations policeman in Kosovo last week was
committed by ethnic Albanians who posed as Serbs in an effort to cast
their bitter rivals as villains, the Telegraph has learned.
The UN policeman, from Ghana, and a local Albanian police officer were
killed when their car was sprayed with bullets near the town of
Podujevo, the centre of Albanian resistance against the Belgrade
government.
Kosovo, in which Serbs make up only about 10 per cent of the
population, is nominally part of Serbia and Montenegro but has been
administered by the local UN mission since the war in 1999.
The ambush has heightened fears that the mob violence against Serbs
which recently broke out in the disputed enclave will usher in a new
campaign of attacks against Nato Kosovo Force (Kfor) troops and the UN
mission by Albanian extremists impatient for Kosovo's independence.
The UN car was hit after a man flagged it down at the roadside. As the
gunmen opened fire with Kalashnikovs, they were heard speaking Serbian.
According to a senior security official, however, when one gunman was
shot by a survivor, he instinctively screamed in Albanian: "I've been
hit."
Afterwards the gunmen were forced to hijack a passing Mercedes when
their getaway car failed to start. Security officials said that police
officers gave chase for several miles, exchanging fire with gang
members, but failed to capture them.
Soon after, however, Kfor troops raided a local Albanian-owned farm
where they found two Kalashnikovs and a corpse with gunshot wounds,
believed to be that of the gunman hit in the attack. Four people were
arrested.
During the riots a fortnight ago in the towns of Mitrovica and Pristina
- the first serious unrest for five years - 28 people died and 500
houses were destroyed, as well as 42 Serbian Orthodox churches and
monasteries.
Major Tim Dunne, a Kfor spokesman, said that there was evidence that
the mob violence had been carefully orchestrated. "We stopped numerous
buses carrying men aged 18 to 40 from going to Mitrovica," he said. The
troops believed that the men were being bussed in to take part in the
unrest.
The violence flared when three Albanian children drowned after
allegedly being chased into a river by Serbs. Unrest quickly spread
and, according to one UN official, the "subsequent disturbances all
over Kosovo, and their prolonged nature, point to widespread
orchestration".
Doubts have also been cast over how the children came to drown as
suspicions grew that the blame had been wrongly placed on Serbs.
Allegations that they were involved were made by a fourth child who
survived, yet during the violence a spokesman for the UN mission, Derek
Chapple, said that police had no conclusive evidence. Last Wednesday,
Mr Chapple was "moved to other duties" on the orders of senior UN
mission officials, who are believed to think he had been too frank.
Last week, after mainly British reinforcements arrived, the streets of
Kosovo were largely calm. With more than 3,800 Serbs still displaced,
however, tensions remained. Major James Daniel, second in command of
the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, said that
his troops had been "well received" by both communities.
=== 3 ===
FLASHBACK 1
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/economist061078.htm
The Eastern Question again
The Economist - June 10, 1978 (Page 17)
"Just as we are not and do not want to be Turks, so we shall oppose
anyone who would like to turn us into Slavs. . . . We want to be
Albanians"
That message was sent to the Congress of Berlin 100 years ago today,
on June 10, 1878, by an assembly in the town of Prizren in Kosovo,
then still a province of the Turkish empire. The congress was not
impressed. Bismarck dismissed the message with the curt remark: "There
is no Albanian nationality". Bismarck was wrong. A century later, the
aspirations of this fiercely nationalist people, one of Europe's
oldest, look like presenting Europe with a new version of the Eastern
Question that tested the statesmanship of Bismarck, Disraeli and
company.
To be sure, most Albanians have had a state of their own since the
first world war. But the 2.5m Albanians who live in Albania proper
have more than 1.5m fellow-Albanians living across the border in
Jugoslavia, most of them in Kosovo, now an automomous province of
Serbia, one of federal Jugoslavia's six republics. Unlike other
European peoples with close relatives outside their national
frontiers, the Albanians of Albania have never stopped claiming the
right to unite themselves with these other Albanians. The Albanian
communisit party newspaper Zeri i Popullit last week sternly
maintained, apropos the Prizren message, the "principle of the
integrity of the lands inhabited by the Albanians".
That is empty talk so long as Albania, far smaller and poorer than
Jugoslavia, has no powerful friend to help it. It has lately
quarrelled even with China, its great patron ever since the break with
Russia in the late 1950s. But the Russians may see the split with
China as their opportunity.Their growing navy still lacks a regular
port opening on to the Mediterranean, and they might be happy to
return to the base at Vlore (Valona) they lost in 1960. Russian support
for Albania's claim on Kosovo might buy the Soviet government a return
to Vlore, with the bonus of reminding post-Tito Jugoslavia that Russia
can make life distinctly unpleasant for it if it goes on refusing to
toe the Soviet line.
Jugoslavia, sensing the danger, does what it can to keep its Albanians
quiet. The new federal government formed a few weeks ago has two
Albanians in senior posts. The vice-presidency of Jugoslavia, which
rotates among the constituent republics, has just devolved on an
Albanian, Fadilj Hodzha, a distant cousin of Albania's ailing party
leader Enver Hoxha. But the Albanians-in-Jugoslavia still have cause
for discontent. Those who continue to campaign for union with Albania
go to jail. Those who, as an alternative, want their own republic
inside Jugoslavia on a par with Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and the
rest are still denied it. Serbia does not want to give up its ancient
overlordship of Kosovo. Macedonia, part of which is also inhabited by
Albanians, fears that it would be carved up in the making of a new
Albanian republic.
The matter could come to a head when 86-year-old Tito and 69-year-old
Hoxha die, which could happen any day. It will present a challenge to
western diplomacy. It is not easy for the west to get closer to an
intensely xenophobic, anti-western regime such as Albania's. Britain
still has no diplomatic relations with it because of the mining of two
British destroyers by the Albanians in 1946; West Germany because of a
large Albanian claim for wartime reparations; the United States just
because it is powerful and "imperialist". The EEC may be the best way
for the western world to get back on terms with this prickly little
nation. The European community should be ready to offer Enver Hoxha's
successor a package of hard-currency aid that will help him to develop
his country. That might divert Albania's attention from the Kosovo
claim; keep the peace between Jugoslavia and Albania; and make it
possible for the west to be friends with both of them.
Copyright 1978 The Economist Newspaper Ltd.
Posted for Fair Use only.
=== 4 ===
FLASHBACK 2
Letter of Support to the President of the Republic by 828 Albanians
from Kosovo and Metohija as published in "Serbia in the World" No 98/99
June/July 2000
Pristina, June 6 (TANJUG) - The Democratic Reform Party of the
Albanians of Kosovo and Metohija, sent a letter of support today to the
President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic
stressing his implementation of the policy of joint life and equal
rights of all the inhabitants of Kosovo and Metohija, and of the policy
of peace, tolerance and reason. The letter, signed by 828 Albanians
from all over Kosovo and Metohija states:
"Dear Mr President,
We hereby greet you and address you in this form to offer our full
support to your political struggle for the unity and prosperity of our
country - the Republic of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
We Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija can no longer endure nor tolerate
the wave of terror against our citizens, neighbours and friends. This
avalanche of terror, crime and anarchy reflects the one year mission by
KFOR and UNMIK.
Many of our neighbours have disappeared, others have been killed or
expelled. What has been going on the past year Kosovo and Metohija -
the ethnic cleansing in the presence of the so-called peacekeepers and
of the local traitors and their helpers - is certainly the biggest
crime in the history of mankind.
Hoping for a better future, trusting our democratic parties and above
all the Democratic Reform Party of the Albanians, its leadership and
our activists who have been with us all this time, encouraging us and
urging us to resist, we have managed to sift the good from the bad and
to prove who are the terrorist gangs, and who are peaceful and loyal
citizens, albeit at the price of human lives.
The recent murders of our members and activists are nothing else but
the defeat and a sign of cowardice of our fellow Albanians, i.e. of the
groups of Albanian bandits and traitors now pillaging and rampaging
with ample support by the UN mission in Kosovo and Metohija, with the
intention to destroy and obliterate the voice of reason and tolerance.
Dear Mr. President,
We believe in the future of Kosovo and Metohija with all the ethnic
communities united. We trust your policy of joint life in the struggle
for the equality of all of us living in Kosovo and Metohija, the policy
of peace, tolerance and reason".
[ Il generale canadese Lewis MacKenzie - ex comandante delle truppe ONU
in Bosnia, rimosso dall'incarico all'epoca per difetto di razzismo
antiserbo - commenta: forse in Kosovo nel 1999 abbiamo bombardato la
parte sbagliata?
Piu' alcune ciliegine:
"The Telegraph" rivela la logica della provocazione negli scontri dello
scorso mese: estremisti albanesi hanno attaccato una vettura della KFOR
(ed ucciso un poliziotto del Ghana) cercando di farsi passare per serbi;
"The Economist" gia' nel 1978 spiegava alla opinione pubblica
occidentale che nei Balcani si andava risvegliando il progetto
neonazista grande-albanese;
infine, riproduciamo una lettera di sostegno al Presidente Milosevic
datata 2000 e firmata da 828 albanesi-kosovari di orientamento
anti-segregazionista e progressista ... ]
1. We bombed the wrong side?
(Lewis MacKenzie - now retired, commanded UN troops during the Bosnian
civil war of 1992)
2. Albanians posed as Serbs to stoke ethnic fires in Kosovo (The
Telegraph - UK)
3. FLASHBACK 1 : The Eastern Question again
(The Economist - June 10, 1978)
4. FLASHBACK 2 : Letter of Support to the President of the Republic by
828 Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija as published in "Serbia in the
World" No 98/99 June/July 2000
=== 1 ===
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/comment/
story.html?id=46d92
5b4-8d36-470a-accd-34642b09c5bf
National Post (Canada) April 06, 2004
Comment A14
We bombed the wrong side?
Lewis MacKenzie
Five years ago our television screens were dominated by pictures of
Kosovo-Albanian refugees escaping across Kosovo's borders to the
sanctuaries of Macedonia and Albania. Shrill reports indicated that
Slobodan Milosevic's security forces were conducting a campaign of
genocide and that at least 100,000 Kosovo-Albanians had been
exterminated and buried in mass graves throughout the Serbian province.
NATO sprung into action and, in spite of the fact no member nation of
the alliance was threatened, commenced bombing not only Kosovo, but the
infrastructure and population of Serbia itself --
without the authorizing United Nations resolution so revered by
Canadian leadership, past and present.
Those of us who warned that the West was being sucked in on the side of
an extremist, militant, Kosovo-Albanian independence movement were
dismissed as appeasers. The fact that the lead organization
spearheading the fight for
independence, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), was universally
designated a terrorist organization and known to be receiving support
from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda was conveniently ignored.
The recent dearth of news in the North American media regarding the
increase in violence in Kosovo compared to the comprehensive coverage
in the European press strongly suggests that we Canadians don't like to
admit it when we are wrong. On the contrary, selected news clips on
this side of the ocean continue to reinforce the popular spin that
those dastardly Serbs are at it again.
A case in point was the latest crisis that exploded on March 15. The
media reported that four Albanian boys had been chased into the river
Ibar in Mitrovica by at least two Serbs and a dog (the dog's ethnic
affiliation was not reported).
Three of the boys drowned and one escaped to the other side.
Immediately, thousands of Albanians mobilized and concentrated in the
area of the divided city. Attacks on Serbs took place throughout the
province resulting in an estimated 30 killed and 600 wounded. Thirty
Serbian Christian Orthodox churches and monasteries were destroyed,
more than 300
homes were burnt to the ground and six Serbian villages cleansed of
their occupants. One hundred and fifty international peacekeepers were
injured.
Totally ignored in North America were the numerous statements from
impartial sources that said there was no incident between the Serbs,
the dog and the Albanian boys. NATO Police spokesman Derek Chappell
stated on March 16 that it was "definitely not true" that the boys had
been chased into the river by Serbs. Chappell went on to say that the
surviving boy had told his parents that they had entered the river
alone and that three of his friends had been swept away by the current.
Admiral Gregory Johnson, the overall NATO
commander, further stated that the ensuing clashes were "orchestrated
and well-planned ethnic cleansing" by the Kosovo-Albanians. Those Serbs
forced to leave joined the 200,000 who had been cleansed from the
province since NATO's "humanitarian" bombing in 1999. The '"cleansees"
have become very effective "cleansers."
In the same week a number of individuals posing as Serbs ambushed and
killed a UN policeman and his local police partner. During the
firefight one of them was wounded which caused an immediate switch from
Serbian to Albanian as he screamed, "I've been hit"! The UN pursued the
attackers and tracked them to an Albanian-run farm where they
discovered weapons and the wounded Albanian who had died from his
wounds. Four Albanians were arrested. Once again, the ambush had been
reported in the United States but not the
follow-up which clearly indicated yet another orchestrated provocation
by the Albanian terrorists.
Kosovo is administered by the UN, the very organization many Canadians
have indicated they would like to see take over from the United States
in Iraq. The fact the UN cannot order its civilian employees to go or
stay anywhere -- they have to volunteer -- combined with recent history
that saw the UN abandon Iraq after a single brutal attack on their
compound in Baghdad and the reality that Kosovo, under the
organization's administration, is a basket case, disqualifies it from
consideration for such a role.
Since the NATO/UN intervention in 1999, Kosovo has become the crime
capital of Europe. The sex slave trade is flourishing.
The province has become an invaluable transit point for drugs en route
to Europe and North America. Ironically, the majority of the drugs come
from another state "liberated" by the West, Afghanistan. Members of the
demobilized, but not eliminated, KLA are intimately involved in
organized crime and the government. The UN police arrest a small
percentage of those
involved in criminal activities and turn them over to a judiciary with
a revolving door that responds to bribes and coercion.
The objective of the Albanians is to purge all non-Albanians, including
the international community's representatives, from Kosovo and
ultimately link up with mother Albania thereby achieving the goal of
"Greater Albania." The campaign started with their attacks on Serbian
security forces in the early 1990s and they were successful in turning
Milosevic's heavy-handed response into worldwide sympathy for their
cause. There was no genocide as claimed by the West -- the 100,000
allegedly buried in mass graves turned out to be around 2,000, of all
ethnic origins, including those killed in combat during the war itself.
The Kosovo-Albanians have played us like a Stradivarius. We have
subsidized and indirectly supported their violent campaign for an
ethnically pure and independent Kosovo.We have never blamed them for
being the perpetrators of the violence in the early '90s and we
continue to portray them as the designated victim today in spite of
evidence to the contrary. When they achieve independence with the help
of our tax dollars combined with those of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just
consider the message of encouragement this sends to other
terrorist-supported independence movements around the world.
Funny how we just keep digging the hole deeper!
Maj-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, now retired, commanded UN troops during the
Bosnian civil war of 1992.
(c) 2004 National Post . All Rights Reserved.
=== 2 ===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/28/
wkos28.xml&
sSheet=/news/2004/03/28/ixnewstop.html
Albanians posed as Serbs to stoke ethnic fires in Kosovo
By Neil Barnett in Pristina
(Filed: 28/03/2004)
telegraph.co.uk
The murder of a United Nations policeman in Kosovo last week was
committed by ethnic Albanians who posed as Serbs in an effort to cast
their bitter rivals as villains, the Telegraph has learned.
The UN policeman, from Ghana, and a local Albanian police officer were
killed when their car was sprayed with bullets near the town of
Podujevo, the centre of Albanian resistance against the Belgrade
government.
Kosovo, in which Serbs make up only about 10 per cent of the
population, is nominally part of Serbia and Montenegro but has been
administered by the local UN mission since the war in 1999.
The ambush has heightened fears that the mob violence against Serbs
which recently broke out in the disputed enclave will usher in a new
campaign of attacks against Nato Kosovo Force (Kfor) troops and the UN
mission by Albanian extremists impatient for Kosovo's independence.
The UN car was hit after a man flagged it down at the roadside. As the
gunmen opened fire with Kalashnikovs, they were heard speaking Serbian.
According to a senior security official, however, when one gunman was
shot by a survivor, he instinctively screamed in Albanian: "I've been
hit."
Afterwards the gunmen were forced to hijack a passing Mercedes when
their getaway car failed to start. Security officials said that police
officers gave chase for several miles, exchanging fire with gang
members, but failed to capture them.
Soon after, however, Kfor troops raided a local Albanian-owned farm
where they found two Kalashnikovs and a corpse with gunshot wounds,
believed to be that of the gunman hit in the attack. Four people were
arrested.
During the riots a fortnight ago in the towns of Mitrovica and Pristina
- the first serious unrest for five years - 28 people died and 500
houses were destroyed, as well as 42 Serbian Orthodox churches and
monasteries.
Major Tim Dunne, a Kfor spokesman, said that there was evidence that
the mob violence had been carefully orchestrated. "We stopped numerous
buses carrying men aged 18 to 40 from going to Mitrovica," he said. The
troops believed that the men were being bussed in to take part in the
unrest.
The violence flared when three Albanian children drowned after
allegedly being chased into a river by Serbs. Unrest quickly spread
and, according to one UN official, the "subsequent disturbances all
over Kosovo, and their prolonged nature, point to widespread
orchestration".
Doubts have also been cast over how the children came to drown as
suspicions grew that the blame had been wrongly placed on Serbs.
Allegations that they were involved were made by a fourth child who
survived, yet during the violence a spokesman for the UN mission, Derek
Chapple, said that police had no conclusive evidence. Last Wednesday,
Mr Chapple was "moved to other duties" on the orders of senior UN
mission officials, who are believed to think he had been too frank.
Last week, after mainly British reinforcements arrived, the streets of
Kosovo were largely calm. With more than 3,800 Serbs still displaced,
however, tensions remained. Major James Daniel, second in command of
the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, said that
his troops had been "well received" by both communities.
=== 3 ===
FLASHBACK 1
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/economist061078.htm
The Eastern Question again
The Economist - June 10, 1978 (Page 17)
"Just as we are not and do not want to be Turks, so we shall oppose
anyone who would like to turn us into Slavs. . . . We want to be
Albanians"
That message was sent to the Congress of Berlin 100 years ago today,
on June 10, 1878, by an assembly in the town of Prizren in Kosovo,
then still a province of the Turkish empire. The congress was not
impressed. Bismarck dismissed the message with the curt remark: "There
is no Albanian nationality". Bismarck was wrong. A century later, the
aspirations of this fiercely nationalist people, one of Europe's
oldest, look like presenting Europe with a new version of the Eastern
Question that tested the statesmanship of Bismarck, Disraeli and
company.
To be sure, most Albanians have had a state of their own since the
first world war. But the 2.5m Albanians who live in Albania proper
have more than 1.5m fellow-Albanians living across the border in
Jugoslavia, most of them in Kosovo, now an automomous province of
Serbia, one of federal Jugoslavia's six republics. Unlike other
European peoples with close relatives outside their national
frontiers, the Albanians of Albania have never stopped claiming the
right to unite themselves with these other Albanians. The Albanian
communisit party newspaper Zeri i Popullit last week sternly
maintained, apropos the Prizren message, the "principle of the
integrity of the lands inhabited by the Albanians".
That is empty talk so long as Albania, far smaller and poorer than
Jugoslavia, has no powerful friend to help it. It has lately
quarrelled even with China, its great patron ever since the break with
Russia in the late 1950s. But the Russians may see the split with
China as their opportunity.Their growing navy still lacks a regular
port opening on to the Mediterranean, and they might be happy to
return to the base at Vlore (Valona) they lost in 1960. Russian support
for Albania's claim on Kosovo might buy the Soviet government a return
to Vlore, with the bonus of reminding post-Tito Jugoslavia that Russia
can make life distinctly unpleasant for it if it goes on refusing to
toe the Soviet line.
Jugoslavia, sensing the danger, does what it can to keep its Albanians
quiet. The new federal government formed a few weeks ago has two
Albanians in senior posts. The vice-presidency of Jugoslavia, which
rotates among the constituent republics, has just devolved on an
Albanian, Fadilj Hodzha, a distant cousin of Albania's ailing party
leader Enver Hoxha. But the Albanians-in-Jugoslavia still have cause
for discontent. Those who continue to campaign for union with Albania
go to jail. Those who, as an alternative, want their own republic
inside Jugoslavia on a par with Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and the
rest are still denied it. Serbia does not want to give up its ancient
overlordship of Kosovo. Macedonia, part of which is also inhabited by
Albanians, fears that it would be carved up in the making of a new
Albanian republic.
The matter could come to a head when 86-year-old Tito and 69-year-old
Hoxha die, which could happen any day. It will present a challenge to
western diplomacy. It is not easy for the west to get closer to an
intensely xenophobic, anti-western regime such as Albania's. Britain
still has no diplomatic relations with it because of the mining of two
British destroyers by the Albanians in 1946; West Germany because of a
large Albanian claim for wartime reparations; the United States just
because it is powerful and "imperialist". The EEC may be the best way
for the western world to get back on terms with this prickly little
nation. The European community should be ready to offer Enver Hoxha's
successor a package of hard-currency aid that will help him to develop
his country. That might divert Albania's attention from the Kosovo
claim; keep the peace between Jugoslavia and Albania; and make it
possible for the west to be friends with both of them.
Copyright 1978 The Economist Newspaper Ltd.
Posted for Fair Use only.
=== 4 ===
FLASHBACK 2
Letter of Support to the President of the Republic by 828 Albanians
from Kosovo and Metohija as published in "Serbia in the World" No 98/99
June/July 2000
Pristina, June 6 (TANJUG) - The Democratic Reform Party of the
Albanians of Kosovo and Metohija, sent a letter of support today to the
President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic
stressing his implementation of the policy of joint life and equal
rights of all the inhabitants of Kosovo and Metohija, and of the policy
of peace, tolerance and reason. The letter, signed by 828 Albanians
from all over Kosovo and Metohija states:
"Dear Mr President,
We hereby greet you and address you in this form to offer our full
support to your political struggle for the unity and prosperity of our
country - the Republic of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
We Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija can no longer endure nor tolerate
the wave of terror against our citizens, neighbours and friends. This
avalanche of terror, crime and anarchy reflects the one year mission by
KFOR and UNMIK.
Many of our neighbours have disappeared, others have been killed or
expelled. What has been going on the past year Kosovo and Metohija -
the ethnic cleansing in the presence of the so-called peacekeepers and
of the local traitors and their helpers - is certainly the biggest
crime in the history of mankind.
Hoping for a better future, trusting our democratic parties and above
all the Democratic Reform Party of the Albanians, its leadership and
our activists who have been with us all this time, encouraging us and
urging us to resist, we have managed to sift the good from the bad and
to prove who are the terrorist gangs, and who are peaceful and loyal
citizens, albeit at the price of human lives.
The recent murders of our members and activists are nothing else but
the defeat and a sign of cowardice of our fellow Albanians, i.e. of the
groups of Albanian bandits and traitors now pillaging and rampaging
with ample support by the UN mission in Kosovo and Metohija, with the
intention to destroy and obliterate the voice of reason and tolerance.
Dear Mr. President,
We believe in the future of Kosovo and Metohija with all the ethnic
communities united. We trust your policy of joint life in the struggle
for the equality of all of us living in Kosovo and Metohija, the policy
of peace, tolerance and reason".