"The Germans [of the Nazi era] were excellent. For us they were good. They drew the borders of Albania as they should be. I missed them." Sejdi Gashi, 84 Albanian refugee awaiting arrival of German troops into Kosovo (quoted in Alex Cockburn/Jeff St. Clair's Counterpunch, http://www.counterpunch.org) ==== NY Times, June 25, 1999 The Western diplomat in the Balkans said he knew of at least two Albanian secret police officers who were fighting with the KLA. "The two officers are brigade or battalion commanders, and they've been in the field fighting," the diplomat said. "They're volunteers from Albania." Albania has long waged a campaign to unite with Kosovo, a Serbian province where Albanians are in the majority. Such unification was briefly achieved during Fascist occupation in World War II and was held out as a goal by radical groups financed and backed by Tirana in the later part of the century. Indeed, the close relationship between Thaci and the Tirana government, which has a reputation for corruption and has been linked by Western diplomats to drug trafficking, is one of the factors that disillusioned many former fighters who were interviewed in Germany, Switzerland and Albania. ==== NY Times, June 25, 1999 CLASHES 3 Serbs Found Slain at University in Pristina By DAVID ROHDE PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- A Serb professor and two Serb workers at the University of Pristina were shot to death overnight in a classroom building, according to the school's dean. Later a Serb and an Albanian were wounded in a gunbattle when a family of Albanians returned to Pristina to find Serbs living in their homes, NATO officials said. Relatives of both families opened fire on each other in the city hospital, wounding a nurse and guard, the hospital said. The incidents point out the growing lawlessness in Kosovo even as NATO spreads out to try to restore order. Looting by Albanians has broken out in the cities of Mitrovica and Vuciturn in northern Kosovo. And two days ago, two Serbs were shot dead by what were believed to be Albanian gunmen in Urosevac in southern Kosovo. More Serbs streamed out of Pristina Thursday, saying they are being threatened by Albanian gunmen and expelled from their apartments. A group of Albanian children looted a Serb newsstand across the street from the new U.N. headquarters in broad daylight. Colleagues of the slain professor and university workers said a series of killings, kidnappings and lootings carried out against Serbs in the last several days are part of an organized campaign by the Kosovo Liberation Army to drive them from Kosovo. "This is not just going on here. It's going on in Pec, in Urosevac, everywhere," said an Serb assistant economics professor who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "NATO promised to protect us, but it's not doing it." Kosovo Liberation Army officials have denied involvement in the attacks and blame them on civilians. They say teenagers or criminals are masquerading as KLA soldiers by placing insignias on their clothes. The bodies of Milenko Lekovic, the professor, Miodrag Mladenovic, a guard, and Jovica Stamenkovic, a waiter in a cafe in the building, were found in the basement, according to Milos Simovic, the dean. The hands of each person were tied, their colleagues said. "They're trying to make all the Serbs leave," said Emilia, a 22-year-old student who was one of a dozen students and professors gathered in the Serb-run department Thursday morning. The heavily armed British paratroopers who patrol the streets of Pristina have prevented large-scale gun battles in the city. But they have been less able to prevent lone criminal acts. Outside Urosevac, Buda Lukic, 61, and Olga Zdravkovic, 57, said their house had just been robbed by a group of young Albanian men. "We have no protection," Ms. Lukic said. "They said we have to go." As they spoke, their Serb neighbor drove out of his driveway in a car packed with luggage and sped off. Only 20,000 of the 45,000 NATO troops to be stationed in Kosovo are in the province and the full deployment of a 3,000-person U.N. civilian police force is up to twelve weeks away. For now, several hundred military policeman stationed in Kosovo are struggling to keep up with a crushing load of criminal cases ranging from disputes over furniture to war crimes. Thursday night, British military police arrested a Serb civilian suspected of taking part in the killing of nearly 50 people in the village of Slovinje. The arrest was the first case of NATO soldiers arresting a potential war criminal inside Kosovo. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
