LINK:
PHOTOS FROM GORAZDEVAC, AUGUST 14, 2003
Reality Macedonia - August 15, 2003
The Massacred Children of Kosovo
VICTIMS OF ALBANIAN TERRORISM IN KOSOVO
For Photo Display, click on:
http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/news_page.asp?nid=2729
---
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m082103.html
ANTIWAR, Thursday, August 21, 2003
Balkan Express
by Nebojsa Malic
Antiwar.com
Fresh Blood in Kosovo
Occupied Province Terrorized Again
Even as north-eastern United States clawed its way from a weekend
blackout, and the UN mission in Iraq gasped in shock at Tuesday's
massacre at its Baghdad headquarters, the occupied Serbian province of
Kosovo was once again in the headlines. A week ago, British historian
Kate Hudson noted that the attack on Yugoslavia over Kosovo in 1999
established a "pattern of aggression" that was applied to Iraq in 2003.
Of course, the US did not occupy all of Serbia, as it did with Iraq
only its one province, settled with Albanians bent on carving out an
independent state, or possibly annexing Albania. While Iraqis shoot at
occupation troops, the Albanians actually welcomed them. These
differences, while rightly irrelevant to Hudson's argument, have also
meant years of abject misery for non-Albanians living in Kosovo.
Last Tuesday, the government in Belgrade finally announced its official
position on the status of its occupied province, rejecting outright the
notion of independence but pledging "substantial autonomy" within
Serbia.
The unexpectedly firm line by the otherwise spineless Dossie leadership
came a day before Kosovo's new international viceroy, Harri Holkeri,
was to make his first visit to the occupied province.
A Clear Response
Belgrade and UNMIK probably expected an official Albanian response
filled with righteous indignation at the very thought of anything but
full independence for the province. But the unofficial response that
came on August 13 was loud, clear and disgusting. An "unknown" gunman
fired at children swimming in the Bistrica river, killing two and
injuring
several others. The attack took place just outside Gorazdevac, a Serb
enclave surrounded by Albanian villages. Serbs in Kosovo have long
since been disarmed by the NATO occupation force; the assailant had
used an AK-47 assault rifle.
Another attack followed on Sunday, only this time no one was hurt.
Earlier that week, and again on Saturday, Serbian military outposts
near the border with Kosovo came under fire. The attacks were claimed
by the AKSh, the "Albanian National Army," the newest incarnation of
the KLA. It seems to
have reawakened following the announcement of Presevo area Albanians
that they would form an Albanian National Council to promote annexation
to Kosovo.
Anger and Loathing
The attack on children was condemned by both Kosovo Serbs and the
Belgrade government. As angry Serbs protested in the streets of their
ghettos, the UN authorities and NATO occupiers pledged to find the
assailants. That pledge has remained unfulfilled as of yet, as have all
others before it.
Father Sava, the famous "cybermonk" at Decani, wrote that the
Gorazdevac attack was "first and foremost a shocking indicator of the
real situation in Kosovo and Metohija that the majority of UNMIK and
KFOR representatives, together with Albanian political leaders, are
persistently attempting to hide from the global public in order to
rationalize their own failures..."
Even Bishop Artemije, who once collaborated with the UN-NATO occupiers,
is embittered. "All words have been used already; everything that
should have been said has been said so many times already," he told
KFOR political officer Frederick Mathias during their meeting Saturday,
quoted FoNet news
agency.
When even the most conciliatory Serbs who have condemned Slobodan
Milosevic's government on many occasions and repeatedly reached out to
Albanians - are this embittered, it should be obvious that few if any
Kosovo Serbs trust the occupying authorities any more. KFOR may be the
only thing standing between them and the Albanian lynch mobs, but it
clearly isn't doing it well; besides, NATO occupation enabled those
lynch mobs to operate in the first place, a fact Kosovo Serbs have not
forgotten, if others have.
Mr. Covic Goes To The UN
While the murders at Gorazdevac were ghastly, they should not have been
a surprise to anyone familiar with the situation in Kosovo. Truly
surprising was the reaction of official Belgrade, where the normally
ambivalent Dossies actually did something.
Nebojsa Covic, deputy Prime Minister charged with Kosovo affairs,
quickly traveled to New York for the emergency session of the UN
Security Council. What he said there was surprisingly frank:
"[T]he hideous attack on innocent children swimming in the river near
their homes in Kosovo and Metohia had taken place only because they
were Serbs. It was an attempt to send a message to all Serbs that they
had to leave and there is no chance for a multi-ethnic society,"
official UN reports quoted
Covic, who added that "it was necessary to accept the fact that last
week's crimes were not unique they belonged to a pattern of activity
by a determined minority of the Albanian population to bring the ethnic
cleansing of the province to completion."
The UN Ambassadors gave him a polite hearing and said the obligatory
words of concern and condolences, then rejected his claims outright.
According to US government-sponsored Radio Free Europe, British
Ambassador Emyr Jones-Parry said the attacks "must still be considered
as isolated acts of
extremism," offering no explanation as to why. And the Council said "it
was important for leaders in Pristina and Belgrade to redouble their
efforts to cooperate in building a multiethnic Kosovo."
Let's see, double of zero is still zero. The UN gets to sound all
proper, but do nothing. Impressive.
Lie and Deny
While at first apologetic, after Covic's presentation UN officials
began an all-out effort at spin control. Derek Chappel, UN police
spokesman in Pristina, glibly dismissed the danger of terrorism in the
occupied province in an interview to Agence France-Presse. The agency
played along, labeling the manifestly one-sided campaign of murder
"inter-ethnic violence."
Here are some of Chappel's more ludicrous statements from Tuesday's AFP
story:
* "They [the AKSh] have been classified as a terrorist organisation
but we don't believe they can seriously threaten the stability of
Kosovo."
* "We've always said that we don't believe there are any
large-scale terrorist organisations in Kosovo but there are always
people who are capable of carrying out terrorist acts."
* "Kosovo is still awash with explosives, hand grenades and
military weapons and it is certainly true that there are people here
who do not want reconciliation and want to create instability. They
wouldn't hesitate to use violence to drive the communities apart. I
think that is a very serious threat..."
* (paraphrased by AFP): "the extremists' failure to generate a
popular uprising against the international police and judiciary
following the recent war-crimes conviction of an ethnic-Albanian
guerrilla commander showed that most people, whether Serb or Albanian,
wanted to bury the past."
Chappel is either insane, or deliberately lying. To him, the AKSh
exists - but not really - and is certainly not a threat. But of course,
there are people who threaten "the stability of Kosovo," (!) and since
he pointedly avoids mentioning Albanians (and everyone knows they want
a stable, Serbenfrei Kosovo of their own), then who else could possibly
be responsible than those dastardly Serbs again ?
Describing people who have systematically killed and expelled their
neighbors of all other ethnicities, then stole or torched their
property as "people who do not want reconciliation" is surely the
pinnacle of cynicism.
In case he'd been living under a rock these past four years (which is
entirely possible), he could not have helped but notice that
"communities" in occupied Kosovo had already been separated into
Albanians (forcibly ruled by KLA thugs) and everybody else (killed,
expelled, or terrorized into ghettos). How many more people need to die
for Chappel to snap out of
his auto-colonoscopy and confess the truth? Why, all of them, in all
likelihood. Kosovo would be very stable then.
Now Chappel isn't just some faceless UN bureaucrat. He is the official
spokesmanfor the UN police force, the people who are supposed to
prevent attacks like Gorazdevac from happening - or at the very least
catch their perpetrators. Which they have markedly failed to do over
the past four years.
There are no signs they would perform differently in the future. That
"failure to generate a popular uprising" Chappel incredulously
mentioned had in reality been a week-long bombing spree against police
stations and a fatal sniper attack against a UN policeman. It appears
the UN police have heard the KLA's message, loud and clear.
Distort and Divert
AFP is not the only news service deliberately obfuscating the issue.
The Associated Press reported on the Serbian government's Tuesday
declaration with obvious derision and distortion of facts. For example,
its reporter claimed "dozens" of Serbian churches were destroyed in
"revenge attacks" since 1999, while in reality the number has been over
112, and the
attacks were motivated not by "revenge" (what have the churches done?)
but sheer hatred.
The Guardian article about the Bistrica beach atrocity referred to
"brutal Serbian occupying forces," dismissed the Belgrade position as a
"wish list" that had "fat chance of becoming reality," and claimed that
"indicted war criminal" Slobodan Milosevic had "set up a police state"
in Kosovo. It did call the attack on children "exceptionally brutal"
and "extreme," but it
almost sounded as a pretext for lambasting Belgrade.
Obviously, the media refuse to see the pattern in the attacks so
obvious to Covic and the Kosovo Serbs. They have toed the UN-NATO line
for so long, it has become impossible to drop it, even in face of
overwhelming evidence.
So what happens in Kosovo must be distorted and the audience diverted
from obvious conclusions.
Until last week, under Imperial pressure and that of their regime, the
Serbs had gone along with this charade. No more.
Awareness of Empire
Three weeks ago, Helle Dale of the Washington Times quoted Dossie Prime
Minister Zoran Zivkovic, who supposedly said that, "There are three
things Serbs cannot stand an independent Kosovo, NATO and the United
States." Dale
was trying to be malicious and smear the Serbs as Nazis and barbarians.
But she really did them a favor.
In a letter of response, the Serbia-Montenegro embassy did not deny the
quote's accuracy, only its context: namely, that Zivkovic was trying to
tell the media how he was governing against the will of the people,
like every good modern, progressive, freedom-loving, democratic etc.
vassal of the
Empire.
Zivkovic was right, then. As reactions from both the government and the
people show, Serbs really cannot stomach an independent (and needless
to say, Albanian) Kosovo. After what happened in 1999, they cannot
stand NATO, either. Dossies are working hard to join the Alliance, but
they might
well choke themselves trying. Regarding the United States, perhaps the
Serbian peasants have figured out something that has eluded most
Americans: that the United States, once venerated by Serbs as a
friendly and fellow freedom-loving nation, has turned into a
freedom-crushing Empire, an
abomination and antithesis of itself. What it has done to Kosovo is all
the evidence they need.
And that is definitely something to ponder.
PHOTOS FROM GORAZDEVAC, AUGUST 14, 2003
Reality Macedonia - August 15, 2003
The Massacred Children of Kosovo
VICTIMS OF ALBANIAN TERRORISM IN KOSOVO
For Photo Display, click on:
http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/news_page.asp?nid=2729
---
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m082103.html
ANTIWAR, Thursday, August 21, 2003
Balkan Express
by Nebojsa Malic
Antiwar.com
Fresh Blood in Kosovo
Occupied Province Terrorized Again
Even as north-eastern United States clawed its way from a weekend
blackout, and the UN mission in Iraq gasped in shock at Tuesday's
massacre at its Baghdad headquarters, the occupied Serbian province of
Kosovo was once again in the headlines. A week ago, British historian
Kate Hudson noted that the attack on Yugoslavia over Kosovo in 1999
established a "pattern of aggression" that was applied to Iraq in 2003.
Of course, the US did not occupy all of Serbia, as it did with Iraq
only its one province, settled with Albanians bent on carving out an
independent state, or possibly annexing Albania. While Iraqis shoot at
occupation troops, the Albanians actually welcomed them. These
differences, while rightly irrelevant to Hudson's argument, have also
meant years of abject misery for non-Albanians living in Kosovo.
Last Tuesday, the government in Belgrade finally announced its official
position on the status of its occupied province, rejecting outright the
notion of independence but pledging "substantial autonomy" within
Serbia.
The unexpectedly firm line by the otherwise spineless Dossie leadership
came a day before Kosovo's new international viceroy, Harri Holkeri,
was to make his first visit to the occupied province.
A Clear Response
Belgrade and UNMIK probably expected an official Albanian response
filled with righteous indignation at the very thought of anything but
full independence for the province. But the unofficial response that
came on August 13 was loud, clear and disgusting. An "unknown" gunman
fired at children swimming in the Bistrica river, killing two and
injuring
several others. The attack took place just outside Gorazdevac, a Serb
enclave surrounded by Albanian villages. Serbs in Kosovo have long
since been disarmed by the NATO occupation force; the assailant had
used an AK-47 assault rifle.
Another attack followed on Sunday, only this time no one was hurt.
Earlier that week, and again on Saturday, Serbian military outposts
near the border with Kosovo came under fire. The attacks were claimed
by the AKSh, the "Albanian National Army," the newest incarnation of
the KLA. It seems to
have reawakened following the announcement of Presevo area Albanians
that they would form an Albanian National Council to promote annexation
to Kosovo.
Anger and Loathing
The attack on children was condemned by both Kosovo Serbs and the
Belgrade government. As angry Serbs protested in the streets of their
ghettos, the UN authorities and NATO occupiers pledged to find the
assailants. That pledge has remained unfulfilled as of yet, as have all
others before it.
Father Sava, the famous "cybermonk" at Decani, wrote that the
Gorazdevac attack was "first and foremost a shocking indicator of the
real situation in Kosovo and Metohija that the majority of UNMIK and
KFOR representatives, together with Albanian political leaders, are
persistently attempting to hide from the global public in order to
rationalize their own failures..."
Even Bishop Artemije, who once collaborated with the UN-NATO occupiers,
is embittered. "All words have been used already; everything that
should have been said has been said so many times already," he told
KFOR political officer Frederick Mathias during their meeting Saturday,
quoted FoNet news
agency.
When even the most conciliatory Serbs who have condemned Slobodan
Milosevic's government on many occasions and repeatedly reached out to
Albanians - are this embittered, it should be obvious that few if any
Kosovo Serbs trust the occupying authorities any more. KFOR may be the
only thing standing between them and the Albanian lynch mobs, but it
clearly isn't doing it well; besides, NATO occupation enabled those
lynch mobs to operate in the first place, a fact Kosovo Serbs have not
forgotten, if others have.
Mr. Covic Goes To The UN
While the murders at Gorazdevac were ghastly, they should not have been
a surprise to anyone familiar with the situation in Kosovo. Truly
surprising was the reaction of official Belgrade, where the normally
ambivalent Dossies actually did something.
Nebojsa Covic, deputy Prime Minister charged with Kosovo affairs,
quickly traveled to New York for the emergency session of the UN
Security Council. What he said there was surprisingly frank:
"[T]he hideous attack on innocent children swimming in the river near
their homes in Kosovo and Metohia had taken place only because they
were Serbs. It was an attempt to send a message to all Serbs that they
had to leave and there is no chance for a multi-ethnic society,"
official UN reports quoted
Covic, who added that "it was necessary to accept the fact that last
week's crimes were not unique they belonged to a pattern of activity
by a determined minority of the Albanian population to bring the ethnic
cleansing of the province to completion."
The UN Ambassadors gave him a polite hearing and said the obligatory
words of concern and condolences, then rejected his claims outright.
According to US government-sponsored Radio Free Europe, British
Ambassador Emyr Jones-Parry said the attacks "must still be considered
as isolated acts of
extremism," offering no explanation as to why. And the Council said "it
was important for leaders in Pristina and Belgrade to redouble their
efforts to cooperate in building a multiethnic Kosovo."
Let's see, double of zero is still zero. The UN gets to sound all
proper, but do nothing. Impressive.
Lie and Deny
While at first apologetic, after Covic's presentation UN officials
began an all-out effort at spin control. Derek Chappel, UN police
spokesman in Pristina, glibly dismissed the danger of terrorism in the
occupied province in an interview to Agence France-Presse. The agency
played along, labeling the manifestly one-sided campaign of murder
"inter-ethnic violence."
Here are some of Chappel's more ludicrous statements from Tuesday's AFP
story:
* "They [the AKSh] have been classified as a terrorist organisation
but we don't believe they can seriously threaten the stability of
Kosovo."
* "We've always said that we don't believe there are any
large-scale terrorist organisations in Kosovo but there are always
people who are capable of carrying out terrorist acts."
* "Kosovo is still awash with explosives, hand grenades and
military weapons and it is certainly true that there are people here
who do not want reconciliation and want to create instability. They
wouldn't hesitate to use violence to drive the communities apart. I
think that is a very serious threat..."
* (paraphrased by AFP): "the extremists' failure to generate a
popular uprising against the international police and judiciary
following the recent war-crimes conviction of an ethnic-Albanian
guerrilla commander showed that most people, whether Serb or Albanian,
wanted to bury the past."
Chappel is either insane, or deliberately lying. To him, the AKSh
exists - but not really - and is certainly not a threat. But of course,
there are people who threaten "the stability of Kosovo," (!) and since
he pointedly avoids mentioning Albanians (and everyone knows they want
a stable, Serbenfrei Kosovo of their own), then who else could possibly
be responsible than those dastardly Serbs again ?
Describing people who have systematically killed and expelled their
neighbors of all other ethnicities, then stole or torched their
property as "people who do not want reconciliation" is surely the
pinnacle of cynicism.
In case he'd been living under a rock these past four years (which is
entirely possible), he could not have helped but notice that
"communities" in occupied Kosovo had already been separated into
Albanians (forcibly ruled by KLA thugs) and everybody else (killed,
expelled, or terrorized into ghettos). How many more people need to die
for Chappel to snap out of
his auto-colonoscopy and confess the truth? Why, all of them, in all
likelihood. Kosovo would be very stable then.
Now Chappel isn't just some faceless UN bureaucrat. He is the official
spokesmanfor the UN police force, the people who are supposed to
prevent attacks like Gorazdevac from happening - or at the very least
catch their perpetrators. Which they have markedly failed to do over
the past four years.
There are no signs they would perform differently in the future. That
"failure to generate a popular uprising" Chappel incredulously
mentioned had in reality been a week-long bombing spree against police
stations and a fatal sniper attack against a UN policeman. It appears
the UN police have heard the KLA's message, loud and clear.
Distort and Divert
AFP is not the only news service deliberately obfuscating the issue.
The Associated Press reported on the Serbian government's Tuesday
declaration with obvious derision and distortion of facts. For example,
its reporter claimed "dozens" of Serbian churches were destroyed in
"revenge attacks" since 1999, while in reality the number has been over
112, and the
attacks were motivated not by "revenge" (what have the churches done?)
but sheer hatred.
The Guardian article about the Bistrica beach atrocity referred to
"brutal Serbian occupying forces," dismissed the Belgrade position as a
"wish list" that had "fat chance of becoming reality," and claimed that
"indicted war criminal" Slobodan Milosevic had "set up a police state"
in Kosovo. It did call the attack on children "exceptionally brutal"
and "extreme," but it
almost sounded as a pretext for lambasting Belgrade.
Obviously, the media refuse to see the pattern in the attacks so
obvious to Covic and the Kosovo Serbs. They have toed the UN-NATO line
for so long, it has become impossible to drop it, even in face of
overwhelming evidence.
So what happens in Kosovo must be distorted and the audience diverted
from obvious conclusions.
Until last week, under Imperial pressure and that of their regime, the
Serbs had gone along with this charade. No more.
Awareness of Empire
Three weeks ago, Helle Dale of the Washington Times quoted Dossie Prime
Minister Zoran Zivkovic, who supposedly said that, "There are three
things Serbs cannot stand an independent Kosovo, NATO and the United
States." Dale
was trying to be malicious and smear the Serbs as Nazis and barbarians.
But she really did them a favor.
In a letter of response, the Serbia-Montenegro embassy did not deny the
quote's accuracy, only its context: namely, that Zivkovic was trying to
tell the media how he was governing against the will of the people,
like every good modern, progressive, freedom-loving, democratic etc.
vassal of the
Empire.
Zivkovic was right, then. As reactions from both the government and the
people show, Serbs really cannot stomach an independent (and needless
to say, Albanian) Kosovo. After what happened in 1999, they cannot
stand NATO, either. Dossies are working hard to join the Alliance, but
they might
well choke themselves trying. Regarding the United States, perhaps the
Serbian peasants have figured out something that has eluded most
Americans: that the United States, once venerated by Serbs as a
friendly and fellow freedom-loving nation, has turned into a
freedom-crushing Empire, an
abomination and antithesis of itself. What it has done to Kosovo is all
the evidence they need.
And that is definitely something to ponder.