MAKFAX - FYR MACEDONIA
Macedonia: Thaqi: I wish and certainly the Albanians wish they had ethnic state

Tetovo 7/5/02 1:49:41 PM

'We have no need to delude and play the role of a 'handsome and moderate', there is no need to deny or disregard the wish of Albanians to have their own ethnic state, ethnic Albania, called by others the Greater Albania,' said Menduh Thaqi, the Deputy Head of Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), while making an address to Democratic Youth of Albanians (DPA) conference, held Wednesday in Tetovo.

Skopje's Albanian-language daily Flaka quotes Thaqi as saying the Albanians have been blamed for their aspirations to have three states: Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, however, it seems that they have overlooked the fact that Slavs have a number of states spanning from Russia to Macedonia. Thaqi underlined the need for integration of Albanians into the Western values, European Union and NATO. 'The Albanians should be integrated into the EU structures as a nation, not as a hamlet or village by village,' Thaqi said.

'We are not cynical, we have never been two-faced. We could not agree with our political opponents and their old and newly established ties with Crvenkovski (SDSM Chairman), we could not agree that DPA is running a political marketing when pushing for passage of the law on passports and other issues. It is unacceptable that the 'godfathers' share the view with Crvenkovski and SDSM,' Thaqi said. 'I reiterate once again that DPA is not very much interested in elections, the elections are of minor priority comparing with the implementation of the Ohrid Agreement,' Thaqi said. He gave a message to the 'Aga' Branko Crvenkovski (expression used for high official in Turkish Empire) to vote in favor of two-language passport. 'Once the law on passports is adopted by the parliament, DPA stands ready for elections the very next day,' Thaqi said. /end/

Related issue:
Albanian aspirations in Greece

Intertwined Albanian groups in the region, most of them closely aligned with organized-crime syndicates, have as their objective the carving out of what they call "Greater Albania" — an area that includes 90,000 square kilometers (36,000 square miles) of Kosovo, Greece, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro.

IS THERE A FUTURE FOR THE SERB CHILDREN IN KOSOVO?

Kosovo - A place where freedom of children depends on
their ethnicity and religion - Europe 2002 or 1941? In an Albanian Moslem dominated province Serb children are the only children in Europe today who cannot have normal and free childhood, who live in constant fear that they would be murdered or blown up in a bus just because they do not speak Albanian and do not pray to Alah. Although KFOR is making tremendous efforts to provide a minimum of freedom for the Serbs, the province three years after the war remains a region ruled by ethnic discrimination, indimidation, crime and destruction of old Christian monuments. Quo vadis Europa?

Serbian children living in the Prishtina ghetto are escorted daily by an armoured NATO convoy to school eight kilometres away in the Serbian enclave of Grachanica

The teenager's home is located in a six-story block of apartments. One hundred and seventy-four Serbs live in the apartments, and other buildings housing thousands of Albanians surround the enclave. The Serbs have access to one small store, a fitness center and, when I asked where do the children play, the teenage girl pointed to a dusty courtyard that functions as a football pitch. Twenty British KFOR soldiers live in one of the apartments, and they guard the Serbs day and night. The soldiers are alert, well armed and, like the Serbs in the courtyard, easy targets for those staring in through invisible bars that encircle the enclave.

"We are like prisoners here," said the girl. "We live like animals in a zoo."

By Scott Taylor ON TARGET

Mitrovica, Kosovo - IT HAS BEEN three years since NATO troops first rolled into Kosovo and the last of the Yugoslav security forces withdrew from this embattled province.

At that juncture, the western media hailed NATO's intervention as the "liberation of Kosovo" and a victory for Albanian Kosovars. Many misguided military analysts proclaimed the campaign to be "proof" that overwhelming air power alone was sufficient to win modern wars.

In actual fact, unexpected Serbian defiance and the inability of NATO aircraft to locate and destroy the Yugoslav military had forced NATO to concede to then president Slobodan Milosevic's demands and negotiate a diplomatic settlement.

Originally, NATO planners had expected the Serbs to concede after five days of face-saving resistance. No one had planned for a campaign that would last 78 days without creating a crack in the Serbs' will to resist.

Likewise, despite the exaggerated daily claims of destruction by NATO spokesman Jamie Shea, the top brass knew their planes could not find the well-concealed Serbian forces in Kosovo.

Although Shea boasted of NATO pilots "killing" over 150 armoured vehicles, it was later confirmed that only 13 Yugoslav tanks were destroyed during the fighting.

Of these, five were, in fact, Second World War-vintage, U.S.-made M-10 tank destroyers, museum pieces, that were placed in fields by the Serbs as deliberate decoys.

As a result of the air campaign's failure to achieve its aims, NATO was forced to sign a peace deal with Milosevic, a man they had already indicted as a war criminal.

Under the terms of this deal (United Nations Resolution 1244), an international military occupation force in Kosovo would also include non-NATO contingents (notably the Russians, who rushed in to seize the strategic Pristina airport in advance of the NATO forces); the world would still recognize Kosovo as sovereign Yugoslav territory; the Albanian guerrilla force known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was to be quickly disarmed, at which time Serbian security forces would be allowed to re-enter the province to protect historical sites and border posts; and, finally, NATO's demand to hold a referendum on Kosovo's independence "within three years" was to be postponed "indefinitely."

A typical scene from Serb enclaves - Serb children ready to go to
school in a KFOR military vehicle

However, what has become obvious over the past 36 months is that NATO negotiators never had any intention of fully implementing Resolution 1244. Even after the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic's regime, it is apparent that the United Nations Mission in Kosovo is unwilling to co-operate with Yugoslav authorities.

Furthermore, the KLA was never fully disarmed and was reconstituted as the UN-funded Kosovo Protection Corps. Despite repeated protests from Yugoslav negotiators and the destruction of their religious sites, no Serbian police have been allowed to re-enter Kosovo, in spite of the fact that this province technically remains part of the sovereign territory of Yugoslavia.

More importantly, the arguments to justify NATO's military intervention continue to erode. At the time of the first bombing, we were led to believe that timely action would prevent a humanitarian crisis in Kosovo.

However, it was two days after the air strikes began that first a trickle, then a flood of refugees began pouring from the region.

With 800,000 Albanians housed in squalid refugee camps, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea told us that the bombing had to continue "because Milosevic was committing genocide."

At one stage, in order to encourage support for a military ground campaign, the U.S. State Department claimed that as many as 100,000 Albanians had been slaughtered in Kosovo. However, in the three years since NATO's occupation, United Nations forensic teams have had difficulty in identifying even 2,000 victims that would have been killed during the 78-day crisis. (This number includes over 400 Serbs and 300 other non-Albanians, and does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.)

Given the final death tally, even the newly constituted Albanian Kosovo Supreme Court ruled last month that no genocide had taken place in Kosovo, only the displacement of people.

Nevertheless, despite the presence of 40,000 NATO soldiers and 10,000 international police who patrol the province, over the past 36 months there have been 1,000 murders and 2,000 people were reported missing.

For the 239,000 Serbs who fled Kosovo in 1999, during the period of Albanian "revenge" attacks, displacement into refugee camps remains a reality. For the additional 100,000 Serbs and non-Albanians who stayed in their homes in Kosovo, they continue to live in tiny enclaves under 24-hour NATO protection.

With an unresolved refugee crisis and continued inter-ethnic violence, it is difficult to understand how NATO officials, who were responsible for the intervention, can proclaim Kosovo to be either justifiable or a success.

The Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and Metohija has recently received confirmation that before destruction of more than 100 Orthodox churches, after the war Kosovo, K/Albanians had looted many old artifacts: icons, engravings, old books and other valuables, in order to sell them on the black market. Looting seems to have continued wherever the Serbian holy sites remained without constant KFOR protection.

"KFOR and UNMIK police have a serious responsibility to protect the property of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Recent reports of desecrations and looting of our holy sites and in one documented case even by a KFOR soldier are disgraceful for the international representatives here and deserve outright condemnation of the civilized world. We ask ourselves how many similar cases have happened which have not been investigated and reported in the press. Dozens of churches were destroyed in the last three years and we have seldom received official reports by KFOR or UNMIK police about these incidents. Our Church is not able to fully document these incidents because we lack basic freedom of movement. That is why we can only rely at on good will of KFOR and UNMIK", said Bishop Artemije to the Information Service ERP KIM. MORE

29 June 2002

SERBS PREPARING KOSOVO DECENTRALIZATION PLAN

Pristina – The Serb side is well on its way to preparing a Kosovo decentralization plan and will submit it to the international community prior to local elections in the Province on 26 October, announced Rada Trajkovic, the head of the Return Coalition caucus in the Kosovo Parliament, on Saturday. She said that the plan presupposes multiple municipalities in larger Kosovo cities, “as is the case” in Kosovska Mitrovica, Pristina, Gnjilane and Pec. Trajkovic said that the decentralization plan proposes Gracanica as the Serb administrative center of the Province. “Decentralization is also significant for the return of Serbs to Kosovo, which to us is tantamount to the survival of our people in this region. Unfortunately, the international community has not carried out its task in this area in the past three years. It promised much and did little; therefore, it is definitely up to the Serbs to resolve this problem independently and to force the international community to create conditions for normal life for the Serbs in their centuries-old homes through their organized return,” said Trajkovic. She added that the Serbs in Kosovo are prepared to meet the demand of the international community to integrate into the institutions of the Kosovo system but she emphasized that this cannot be integration into institutions like the Kosovo Protection Corps, in which “there are people who murdered our people.”

UCK in quotations

"Ten years ago we were arming and equipping the worst elements of the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan - drug traffickers, arms smugglers, anti-American terrorists…Now we're doing the same thing with the KLA, which is tied in with every known middle and far eastern drug cartel. Interpol, Europol, and nearly every European intelligence and counter-narcotics agency has files open on drug syndicates that lead right to the KLA, and right to Albanian gangs in this country."

former DEA agent and author Michael Levine
Quoted in the New American Magazine, May 24, 1999

"[The] United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same human values and principles ... Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values."

Senator Jo. Lieberman, quoted in the 'Washington Post', 28 April 1999

"American intelligence agents have admitted they helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army before NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia".

Tom Walker and Aiden Laverty, ‘CIA Aided Kosovo Guerrilla Army’, Sunday Times, 12 March 2000

Speech by Dr. Nebojsa Covic
Deputy Prime Minster of Republic of Serbia

KOSOVO: The Human Rights Black Hole On the Map of Democratic World

The Commentary on the speech by Mr. Veton Surroi at the US Institute of Peace, June 10, 2002

State-building or Simulation of Democracy in Kosovo
by Fr. Sava Janjic

Some Highlights From the Commentary

"Kosovo is overwhelmed by organized crime, corruption and mafia which are definitely not a result of UNMIK's failure to give the power to Albanians. In fact, without UNMIK the things would be far worse. It would be quite absurd to believe that giving more authority to Kosovan political leaders would stop the organized crime because it is directly or indirectly sponsored by many of those leaders themselves."

"A society in which elderly women cannot buy bread in a shop only because they belong to a different ethnic group and speak a different language can hardly encourage Serbs to believe in good will of their K/Albanian neighbors."

"Surroi's claim that Kosovo is "the most pro-American society in Europe, despite its Muslim background", is puzzling and even humorous. It is not quite clear whether he meant that a pro-American sentiment is better demonstrated by following the American patterns of democracy and freedom or by waving U.S. flags above gas stations and displaying "Winston" billboards along bumpy Kosovo roads."