Author: Nebojsa Malic

Serbian Orthodox Church’s electronic information service carried the statement of Kosovo Ombudsman Marek Nowicki late Thursday. All emphasis mine:

Ombudsman office, Pristina, Kosovo
Statement to the Media, 18 March 2004

I once again take the opportunity to appeal to the Albanian part of the population of Kosovo, not only as Ombudsperson in Kosovo, but also as a man who has been living among and working with people from Kosovo for the last four years. Throughout these years, I have been trying to help you by raising your problems and questions with the responsible people in UNMIK and the local administrative structures. I tried to be a people’s advocate and at the same time the friend of all Kosovans.

I had done all of this because I had assumed that you, the people of Kosovo, had chosen to take a path leading to a prosperous future for you and your families, a future in which you would live in a society that would be based on openness, tolerance and the protection of the rights of others.

The recent developments have, however, suggested that not all members of the Albanian community in Kosovo really want this prosperous future. Instead, the current pictures of horrible violence and heinous criminal acts against members of the Serbian community and the international security forces create the impression in and outside Kosovo that there exists the intent to cleanse this land from the presence of all Serbs, in total rejection of the idea of a multi-ethnic cohabitation in Kosovo.

However, there is still time to turn back from this dangerous and violent path of action, which will and can only lead to a dead-end. I cannot do more than to ask you to reconsider your present attitude, in the hope that even if you do not agree to listen to others, you will at least take into account the concerns and serious objections of the Ombudsperson.

Marek Antoni Nowicki
Ombudsperson in Kosovo

In addition to spinning the organized Albanian pogrom of Serbs as “ethnic clashes,” newspapers and wire services include in their reports a claim that Albanians rose up after three Albanian boys drowned in the Ibar river “because Serbs chased them with dogs.”
The story appeared in Albanian newspaper Wednesday, just as the pogrom began, but UNMIK officials – in the past all too eager to accept Albanian ‘grievances’ – this time issued a clear denial. Two boys did drown, and one is still missing, but there is no indication whatsoever that Serbs or dogs played any role in their death.
According to my sources, UNMIK”s denunciation of this accusation as false has been public knowledge since around 1700 local time Wednesday. So far, none of the agency or newspaper reports have quoted it, though all mention the Albanian allegation.
But if, as many UNMIK officials say, this pogrom is obviously organized and premeditated, then the “drowning story” is just a deliberate piece of inflammatory propaganda, aimed to both incite the mob and create a justification for outside observers. Encountering fertile minds in both instances, it seems to have succeeded splendidly.

Media reports coming from Kosovo uniformly refer to what is going on as “inter-ethnic violence” or “clashes.” That is nothing but a transparent attempt to spin the situation and pin the blame anywhere but on the real culprits: Albanian mobs, organized and instigated by the KLA.
Since June 1999, Kosovo has not seen “clashes” or even “fighting,” but a systematic, one-sided persecution of Serbs, Turks, Roma, Goranci and generally all non-Albanians by the KLA-dominated Albanian regime, operating under UN/NATO protection. You need two sides for a fight of any kind; everything else is just a massacre. And ever since June 1999, there’s only been one side with the ability to do so – the KLA.
What is currently happening in the occupied province is a coordinated, premeditated pogrom. Continue reading “Pogrom, not “clashes””

As I mentioned Thursday, the extradition of two Croatian generals to the Hague Inquisition has occasioned comments in the media about how Serbia now needs to arrest and extradite its own “indictees” in order to remain in the Empire’s good graces. In the words of Associated Press, “The country risks losing badly needed financial support from the United States and the European Union if it fails to bring suspects to justice.”
The sort of “justice” the Inquisition metes out aside, what exactly does Serbia stand to lose? Continue reading “Losing what, exactly?”

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: In the Balkans, everything is politics. Thus with the recent story concerning a folk festival marked by consumption of the world’s biggest pork sausage, the Serbian Orthodox Church’s reaction to it, and the coverage this drew in the Western press.
One SOC bishop threatened to excommunicate believers who attended the Turija town festival – a 20-year old tradition with the world’s biggest pork sausage at its centerpiece (this year, it was 2.2 kilometers long!) – because it took place during the feast of Lent. Another has threatened similar measures against newlyweds who chose to consume their marriage during Lent. Most Serbs, who follow Orthodox customs as part of their ethnic identity but don’t adhere strictly to church rules, shrugged off the threats and went about their business. But the Church outbursts definitely fed the grist mill of secular humanists and elements in foreign press with Serbophobic tendencies… Continue reading “Press, Priests and Pork Sausage”

Abuse of death is nothing new in the Balkans or, indeed, the Empire. It was perhaps too much to expect that Boris Trajkovski’s tragic end in the Herzegovina mountains would be spared the same fate.
Antiwar.com’s resident Macedonia expert Chris Deliso has a great piece on his site Balkanalysis, examining the misleading and manipulative eulogizing of Trajkovski over the past 48 hours. I think much of what he says can be applied retroactively to several notable Balkans luminaries who passed away recently (e.g. Zoran Djindjic, Alija Izetbegovic). Definitely worth a read…

Continue reading “Manipulating the Dead”