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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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