http://www.apisgroup.org/article.html?id=4322
APIS GROUP (SERBIA) Four years ago Piotr Bein The March 17-18, 2004 pogroms of Serbs and other non-Albanians in Kosovo prove professor Michel Chussodovsky's thesis: "In postwar Kosovo, 'ethnic cleansing' implemented by the KLA has been accepted by the 'international community' as a 'fait accompli'". Kosovo Albanian top politician and war criminal Hashim Thaci wrote positively about the return of Serbs to Kosovo (Christian Science Monitor 17.11.2003). Four months later, his hordes set torches to houses prepared for Kosovo Serb returnees, and funded from tax and private contributions of Western Christians. On the eve of the pogroms (16.3.2004), while the European Parliament held hearings on abysmal human rights violations by the Kosovo extremists, Thaci visited the US deputy assistant secretary of Europe and Euro-Asia, Kathleen Stephens who appreciated Thaci's "effort for creating necessary conditions for the well being of the citizens in areas such as the rule of law, the fight against crime and corruption, the dialogue, the returns, freedom of movement, economic development and privatization" (UNMIK press report). After the visit, Thaci appealed to his cohorts to stop "protests and violence", pretending a surprise, but his regime's daily Epoka e re published a story titled "Serbs drowned three Albanian children", starting the pogroms. The falsehood triggered Albanian "demonstrations" in Mitrovica, certainly not as spontaneous as the media presented. Cyber-monks report On 17.3.2004, Serb Orthodox Church authorities in Kosovo recognized a plot (ERP KiM Info-Service 4.11.2003): "The story of the Albanian leaders about so-called multiethnicity and democracy has been and remains pure deception of the international community in order to gain time and complete the process of complete rearmament and creation of paramilitary forces." The "international community" had long lists of KLA war criminals, commanders and soldiers alike, but had done little to prosecute them. Based on their own intelligence, the Serb Orthodox authorities in Kosovo informed the public after the first attempts at pogroms in Ceglavica that "there is a general campaign by Kosovo Albanians organized by extremist groups in progress whose purpose is to destabilize the Province and expel the remaining Serbian population." Some Western spokesmen, intelligence sources and strategic analysts, including those from NATO, its Kosovo forces KFOR and UN's Kosovo administration UNMIK, admitted the pogroms were "systematic" and "planned". A Kosovo Albanian journalist with Koha Ditore, Veton Surroi said that Albanians had organized the "orchestrated phase" of violence in Kosovo in order to expell the Serb population. Jihadist mob screaming "UCK!", "Allah Akbar!", and spraying graffiti "Death to Serbs!" and "UNMIK go home!" required cooperation with KFOR and UNMIK to do proper job. Typically a mob marched on a Serbian object or village, KFOR provided security, KPS police arrived and evacuated Serbs into awaiting buses, ostensibly to protect them. KFOR retreated, "helpless" in the face of the mob. The mob finished the rampage, by plundering and burning everything Serbian. While busloads of hordes burned Serbian homes and churches, truck-delivered trays of sandwiches and Molotov cocktails kept them going (ERP KiM 10.4.2004). In Gregory Copley's analysis (Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily 19.3.2004) of the pogroms, KFOR-UNMIK were accomplices in a "forecast series of unrest, guerilla warfare and terrorist activity planned by radical Islamist leaders in Bosnia, Albania, Iran and in the Islamist areas of Serbia, and directly linked with the various al-Qaida-related mujahedin and terrorist cells in the area." Bush said when declaring "war on terror", "If you harbour terrorists, if you feed them...", but US troops sat quiet in Camp Bondsteel while terrorists torched Kosovo. Copley absolved Serbs from any role in the pogroms weren't "an isolated expression of frustration, but, rather, part of a planned "season" of unrest designed explicitly to pull US and Western strategic focus away from Iraq, and to ensure that US and Western peacekeeping forces [...] will need to be held in the Balkans." Intelligence analysis Defense & Foreign Affairs (15.10.2003) forecasted the "season". In preparation for it, the National Albanian American Council (NAAC) called for "recognition of independence" of Albanian Kosovo and "resolving Kosova's final status in accordance with the will of the people", and blamed Belgrade for any future unrest. After the pogroms, NAAC blamed Serbian intelligence. The violence reflected growing impatience of the Albanian majority (NYT 18.3.2004), whose leaders and parliamentarians used the self-created "opportunity" to call for independence (Reuters 18.3.2004). US neocon Morton Abramowitz who has had his arms full since the beginning of the breakup of Yugoslavia in early 1990s, blamed Serbia, NATO and EU for delaying independence and thus causing the violence (Washington Times 19.3.2004). "Moderate" president Ibrahim Rugova believed only independence would cure extremism (Tanjug 5.4.2004). Serbia-Montenegro army's gen. Mladen Cirkovic in charge of intelligence accused UN and NATO that they ignored his advance warnings of looming pogroms (Beta 27.3.2004). General secretaries of NATO and UN condemned the pogroms as if KFOR and UNMIK knew nothing. Thanks to Serbian intelligence, Kostunica could point to the perpetrators, including KLA veterans and their comrades in Southern Serbia, all of them tied to KFOR, UNMIK, KPS, KPC paramilitary, and political parties (Glas Javnosti 27.3.2004). In my 2003, travels in Kosovo, I saw posters of the supposedly outlawed KLA in the window of Thaci's party offices, business premises in Kosovo, and on a road sign next to an UNMIK police station in Dechani. Those responsible for Kosovo security knew about Albanian pathological hatred of Serbs, but didn't intervene. KFOR security was even relaxed at the checkpopints at Serb villages and at the Serb Orthodox Patriarchate in Pec, as if inviting the extremists. KFOR-UNMIK forces were unable to provide such basic service as a timely passage of an ambulance with a dying child to a hospital. According to Visoki Dechani Monastery cyber-monks (ERP KiM 20.3.2004), Milena Markovic reported from ethnically cleansed Serbs in various KFOR shelters; an elderly Serb from Priluzje, Trojan Kovacevic said, "I asked the police commander if he could do anything for us to get us back to our homes. He answered, I cannot do anything even if you die here like animals". After visiting the ruins of Holy Archangels Monastery, Kosovo monks commented: "German KFOR has resumed protection of the ruins of the monastery (sic!) which is currently not at all habitable." German KFOR commander Dieter Hintelmann forbid the monks to return to the ruins, until a post-pogrom "political agreement" was reached - as pre-planned? Two thousand French KFOR troops watched Svinjare village (130 houses, 800 residents) burn to the ground. KFOR was instructed not to intervene, otherwise the Albanian mob wouldn't dare to rampage for several hours at each place of destruction. But French captain Frederic Vareilles said the troops couldn't intervene because they were busy keeping Serbs and Albanians apart! Future US ambassador to Belgrade, Michael Polt stated the extremists had not achieved the terrorization goal thanks to KFOR's intervention (Beta 27.3.2004). He must have watched the CNN. The culprits Glas Javnosti named the culprits: Rugova, Bujar Bukoshi and gen. Agim Ceku, an unindicted Kosovo Albanian war criminal from ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Croatia. KPS played a special role, guarding everything but the safety of minorities. KPS induced the terrorized population to move out, and even evicted people, set fire and looted their houses. In some cases, Kostunica stressed, shortly after evacuation by KFOR and UNMIK, deserted homes were set on fire, as if planned beforehand. One of the groups accused of the pogroms was the National Movement for Liberation of Kosovo (NMLK), supported from abroad by former Kosovo province premier Bukoshi, also by Rugova and Selim Shatri. Bukoshi and Rugova had negotiated a union of NMLK and Rugova's party with a group of former Albanian officers in Yugoslav army working in the KPC and KPS. The leaders of all the organizations and the commander of local mudjahedins were suspects. The pogroms were carried out by 30,000 KLA soldiers from Kosovo, Southern Serbia, and Albanian National Army; 4,000 armed men of Rugova's and 8,000 of Thaci's parties, and 1,500 of another war criminal, Ramush Haradinaj; 4,000 KPC troops of Ceku; and 6,000 KPS men. 50,000 civilian hordes doubled by the second day of pogroms. Among them were fighters alien to the region, probably international Jihadists. 18,000 KFOR and 4,000 UNMIK troops faced hordes that put women and children armed with stones, sticks and Molotov cocktails in the front, "disarming" the peacekeepers who later excused their inaction with this "surprise" Albanian tactics. In Prizren, German KFOR watched and photographed the rampage as if it was a tourist attraction, as the Maroccan KFOR did in Mitrovica. To Chussovosky, the UN-NATO service in Kosovo is a case of "the outright "criminalisation" of civilian State institutions and the establishment of what is best described as a "Mafia State". The complicity of NATO and the Alliance governments (namely their relentless support to the KLA) points to the de facto "criminalisation" of KFOR and of the UN peacekeeping apparatus in Kosovo. The donor agencies and governments (eg. the funds approved by the US Congress in violation of several UN Security Council resolutions) providing financial support to the KLA are, in this regard, also "accessories" to the de facto criminalisation of State institutions. Through the intermediation of a paramilitary group (created and financed by Washington and Bonn), NATO ultimately bears the burden of responsibility for the massacres and ethnic cleansing of civilians in Kosovo." Reel back In the March 2008, Kosovo pogroms, it was women and children with sticks and stones, because the media were near. It was professional, US- and German-trained Croat army with fuel trucks and flame throwers, and neo-Nazi mercenaries in tanks in Western Slavonia and Krajina in 1995. US private mercenaries MPRI Inc. who collaborated with the Croatian Armed Forces in 1995 was later on contract with the KLA. In August 1994, veteran of Yugoslavia break-up, Richard Holbrooke, the then US assistant state secretary, persuaded his department to license MPRI to provide training to the Croatian army (Scotsman 2.3.2001). After June 1999, "liberation" of Kosovo by NATO, some key military personnel and UN staff previously stationed in Croatia and Bosnia went to Kosovo. One of them, gen. Mike Jackson, while commanding IFOR in Croatia, had warned that the resettlement of Serbs must not be rushed, ostensibly to avoid conflicts with the Croats and the land mine threat (Jane's Defence Weekly 14.2.1996). Very few Serbs were allowed to return to Western Slavonia and Krajina taken by Croatian forces. In Kosovo, KFOR commander Jackson tolerated the acts of KLA terror that had the same "land mine" effect. War criminal for Croat bloody ethnic cleansing operations, gen. Ceku was later nominated KLA commander. NATO officials, Western heads of government and many statesmen, as well as officials at the UN and the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) knew of Ceku's war crimes. The ICTY found the Croat forces operated in "arson squads", leaving complete destruction to prevent the return of Krajina Serbs. The ICTY alleged that hundreds of Krajina Serbs were murdered or disappeared in the wake of the 1995, Operation Storm, of which unindicted war criminal Ceku was "one of the key planners" (Jane Defence Weekly 10.6.1999). Three European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM) teams observed (7-22.8.1995) whole Serb villages after systematic burning, within co-ordinated ethnic cleansing that was approved at the highest Croat level, to prevent Serb returns. Soren Liborious (ECMM 23.8.1995) estimated the remaining Serbs (mostly the elderly) at 2-5% of pre-hostility total in the area. A classified report cited by Robert Fisk (Independent, 4.9.1995) reported bodies being discovered daily, mainly of the elderly, many mutilated, with bullet holes in the back of the head, or throats cut. The atrocities persisted a year after: "Serbian villages, towns and homesteads were systematically torched and laid waste [.] to eliminate every vestige of Serb occupation; it included the systematic ploughing up of cemeteries, destruction of churches and even the leveling of the stone walls which had divided their land-holdings for centuries. Today, one year after the event, the torture, harassment and slaughter of those too old, infirm or just too stubborn to leave continues, and with the full knowledge of the US and the wider international community." ------------------------- *Piotr Bein is an independent author and researcher who travels in various cultural regions. The International Comparative Genocide Research project at the Hiroshima City University has commissioned two research papers from him: one on Polish-Jewish relations and another on the Balkan conflict. He has committed two books on the latter topic. 17. mart 2008. godine
