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June
12, 2003
Remember
Kosovo?
And Why You Should
There has
been lately a great deal of commotion in the press as to
whether Emperor Bush the Lesser and his satellites have lied
to their people about the supposed "weapons of mass
destruction," which have not been found even after six weeks
of occupation and unfettered access to all parts of Iraq. As
if the notion of the Emperor deceiving his subjects was
something new!
Does anyone remember Racak, the
"massacre" used to justify the Rambouillet ultimatum and the
subsequent bombing of Serbia in 1999? Or, for that matter, the
"genocide" that took place in Kosovo during the bombing
only, it
didn't? Apparently not. Nor is it remembered that even
after these lies were decisively debunked, their peddlers
never suffered any adverse consequences. In the specific case
of Kosovo, the train of lies and abuses is so long a thick
book would hardly do it justice.
What is happening in Iraq now is merely a re-run of
what happened in Kosovo. Because the Empire got away with
murder, literally, launching a clear war of aggression and
occupation while spinning all sorts of preposterous lies about
it, Kosovo made Iraq possible. Never forget that.
Even as Tony Blair was trying to lie its way out of
Iraq lies, the Guardian featured a series of articles
seemingly critical of British support for Imperial
interventions, titled "Did
we make it better?" In the segment
on Kosovo, writer Jon Henley creates an impression that even
as poverty, crime and violence are rampant, NATO's bombing and
invasion in 1999 and the subsequent occupation is one
hundred percent justified. Four years after the Operation
Allied Force ended, the lies behind it persist.
Reign of Terror
On June 9,
1999, representatives of the Yugoslav government and NATO
signed an armistice
in a tent outside Kumanovo, Macedonia, ending NATO's 78-day
air assault. Within a week, NATO troops occupied the Serbian
province of Kosovo, and their KLA allies began a reign of
terror that has continued ever since.
In June 1999 alone, over 250,000 Serbs, Roma, Turks,
Muslims, and Jews were forced
to leave Kosovo, often with little or no property. In
addition to targeting Serbs, Albanians launched special
pogroms against the Roma ("Gypsies"), in the best
tradition of their WW2
ancestors.
In July 1999, 14 Serb farmers were murdered while
harvesting their fields outside the hamlet of Staro
Gracko. (An IWPR hack aptly named Fron Nazi claimed they
were victims of "Serb
subterfuge," even as KFOR statistics showed one Serb was
being murdered every 24 hours.)
In October 1999, an Albanian mob murdered Bulgarian UN
worker Valentin
Krumov for speaking what sounded like Serbian.
In February 2001, a bus full of Serbs who were coming
to visit their cemeteries was blown
up by a remote-controlled mine. Three Albanians arrested
in connection with the bombing were released
by December 2001, and one "escaped"
from the US fortified base Camp Bondsteel.
Throughout Kosovo, Serbs have retreated into towns and
villages that have become virtual concentration camps. If they
venture outside those areas, which are guarded by NATO troops
and not infrequently cordoned off with barbed wire, they risk
death. The most notorious ghetto has been Orahovac.
Other enclaves, like Gracanica and Decani monastery, are frequently
under attack.
In the north of Kosovo, local Serbs have managed to
stop the Albanian takeover on the southern side of the Ibar
River, in Mitrovica.
Together with several towns in the north, this is the only
remaining territory in Kosovo not dominated by the Albanian
separatists, which has made it a target for constant attacks
by Albanians, occupation authorities, and their cheerleaders.
Even Albanians have been targets of organized violence,
as the terrorist KLA targeted "collaborators,"
political
rivals and witnesses
to its murderous deeds.
Albanian militants have demolished or
desecrated over 110 churches, chapels and monasteries.
They have destroyed hundreds of monuments and even libraries,
renamed towns, streets, and the entire province ("Kosova")
in an effort to completely eradicate any non-Albanian presence
in Kosovo.
Reign of Lies
Reports
often say all of this has happened despite the presence of
30,000 NATO troops, but the truth is, it happened because
of their presence. The vast majority of attacks were never
solved. Yet it is a public secret that most perpetrators are
"former" KLA now employees of the UN-funded "Kosovo
Protection Corps," commanded by the notorious KLA leader and
former Croatian officer Agim
Ceku.
In April 2002, two men were killed while trying to plant
a bomb under a railroad track used by Serbs. They belonged
to the "Albanian National Army," the newest incarnation of the
KLA, declared shortly thereafter a "terrorist
organization." They were also members
of the KPC!
On June 3, 1999, NATO was still attacking Yugoslavia
and the Alliance mouthpiece Jamie Shea gave his usual afternoon
briefing. When a reporter asked if there were any
indications that the KLA was prepared to be disarmed by NATO
"peacekeepers," Shea responded coyly: "Well, we will have to
wait and see, won't we?"
We didn't have to wait for long. The KLA entered Kosovo
perched upon NATO tanks, rampaged through the province
unchallenged, made a big show of handing over a handful
of obsolete weapons, changed uniforms and went
legit, with a UN paycheck as an added bonus.
A Deadly Message
Four years
after NATO's "humanitarian war" ended, it still claims lives.
UN police found the butchered bodies of Slobodan, Ljubinko and
Radmila Stolic [Stolich] inside their burnt-out home early on
June 4 this year. It was an ax murder sloppily contrived to
look like an accident.
UN police spokesman Derek Chapelle is quoted in a June
4 Reuters
report, "The people were attacked as they were lying in
bed in the middle of the night. These people died as a result
of a brutal beating, not a fire." At the very bottom of the
article, tucked into near-oblivion, is a note that local Serbs
told the reporters the Stolic family was under Albanian
pressure to sell their house and leave Kosovo. That their
murder was meant as a message to other Serbs is abundantly
clear. But is this mentioned? No.
In fact, reporting
that some 400 Serbs decided to pack up and leave town after
the murders, Agence France-Presse never once mentioned
possible perpetrators of the attack, let alone the motive.
Official American propaganda carried the same story, but
focused on dismissing
Serb concerns about their security, and again, never even
hinted at the obvious identity of the murderers. These are but
the latest examples of an ongoing pattern of denial and
obfuscation, pervasive throughout the Imperial media when it
comes to reporting on Kosovo.
Murders of Serbs by Albanians were initially excused as
"revenge
attacks," implying some sort of "payback" for Serb
atrocities. But as the attacks continued and atrocities
accusations became increasingly impossible
to substantiate, a new euphemism was created: "ethnic
violence." This implies that Serbs and Albanians are attacking
each other. Yet no one can cite a single case of Serbs
wantonly attacking and murdering Albanians in these past four
years. Not one! When Albanians suffer violent
deaths in Kosovo these days, it is at
the hands of other Albanians members of crime syndicates
or "former" KLA (often one and the same).
Spin the Murder
The Stolic
family was murdered again this time metaphorically when
the politicians took the stage. UN Viceroy Michael Steiner claimed
the Obilic murders were "clearly aimed at stopping
reconciliation
a perfidious crime which was directed against
multi-ethnicity in Kosovo." What reconciliation?
What multi-ethnicity? What planet does Steiner live
on?
Kosovo Albanian "prime minister" Bayram Rexhepi issued
a statement expressing condolences to the Stolic family (!)
and termed
the murders a "criminal act
directed against the stability,
peace, and prosperity of Kosovo and its future."
But of course! Why hasn't anyone thought of this
before? All these brutal murders, abductions and massacres are
really a sinister plot to make the innocent, victimized Kosovo
Albanians look bad and ruin their future of peace, prosperity,
multi-ethnic democracy and independence! Why, the dastardly
Serbs must have massacred themselves!
Official Serbian
news agency cites an interview UNMIK spokesman Simon
Haselock gave BBC radio, where he is quoted as saying that "no
police force in the world is capable of protecting every
family and every individual" and that the security situation
in Kosovo has lately "improved dramatically."
Like the rest of NATO apologists to be fair, this is
actually his job Haselock uses the diminishing frequency of
attacks to claim improvement. But that attacks on Serbs now
happen once a month instead of once a day has largely been a
function of the diminishing number of Serbs, not the
diminishing desire of Albanian segregationists to attack
them.
The platitudes of Steiner and Rexhepi and Haselock's
tautological nonsense are trying to divert attention from the
realities of the occupation. Kosovo Serbs and other ethnic
groups are targets of an organized, systematic Albanian
campaign of ethnic cleansing, aimed at creating an ethnically
pure, independent
Albanian Kosovo. Sounds familiar? That's because this was
an accusation leveled at the victims, the Serbs, by the
Albanians and the Empire in an effort to preclude their
defense.
Good Riddance
On the eve
of the murders in Obilic, Viceroy Steiner announced he would
be quitting
the job at the end of June. Kosovo Serbs should bid him good
riddance. From his first act in office forging a unified
Albanian political front to his most recent prevarications,
Steiner has pushed the occupied province on the road to
ethnically cleansed independence. However welcome his
departure may be, one must remember that Steiner was never the
real problem.
Conceived, established and perpetuated by violence, the
occupation of Kosovo is itself the greatest enemy of peace,
liberty and prosperity in the southern Balkans.
Bloody Hands
Many
opponents of the Kosovo war supported George W. Bush in 2000,
fooled by the neocons' loud opposition to the bombing, which
was nothing more than opportunistic
posturing, into believing Kosovo was "Clinton's war." But
Bush the Lesser has made no
changes to Clinton's policy in Kosovo or anywhere in the
Balkans, for that matter. And why would he? It was Kosovo that
made Iraq possible: both illegal, illegitimate wars resulting
in equally illegal and illegitimate occupations, not to
mention the toll in destroyed human lives and property, or the
destruction of social and cultural heritage.
Senator Joseph Lieberman, who would like to be Emperor
after Bush, said in 1999 that the blatantly fascist KLA was
"fighting
for American values." Lieberman came close to being
elected vice-president in 2000, and this statement was never
held against him. There have been several proposed resolutions
in the Congress supporting the independence
of Albanized Kosovo, but not one not one!
demanding an end to the occupation. Today, Kosovo is an issue
almost forgotten in the American political discourse, even
though the United States is chiefly responsible for the
current state of affairs in that Serbian province. Empire's
hands are drenched with blood of the massacred and tears of
the dispossessed.
It is not surprising that those who should be ashamed
of their actions have forgotten Kosovo. But those who care
about honor, justice and liberty have every reason to
remember.
Nebojsa
Malic
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