The
Systematic Destruction of Orthodox Christian Churches and Cemeteries
in Kosovo-Metohija and Macedonia
MUSUTISTE,
CHURCH OF THE VIRGIN HODEGETRIA - The endowment of the main accountant
John Dragoslav and his family is located above the village of Musutiste,
10 km south-east of Suva Reka. It was built in 1315 which is evidenced
by a long and neat stone inscription above the western portal. The
Church of the Virgin Hodegitria was destroyed by Kosovo Albanian extremists
in summer 1999, despite the deployment of German KFOR troops in the
area. In the meantime the pine grow around the church was cut and
the enclosure wall was demolished and used as building material for
neighboring Kosovo Albanian houses.
Carl K. Savich
December, 2002
Introduction:
Erasing the history of Christianity in Kosovo
and Macedonia
On November 17, 2002 UNMIK police reported that the Serbian Orthodox
Church, St. Basil the Miracle Worker of Ostrog (Sveti Vasilije Ostrovski)
in Ljubovo village between Istok and Banja near Pec, had been totally
destroyed with explosives, with only the front façade still
intact. In Djurakovac, 30 miles west of Pristina, a second Serbian
Orthodox Church was bombed/mined and heavily damaged, the Church of
All Serbian Saints. The interior of the church was gutted following
three explosions. This brought the number of Orthodox Churches destroyed
or damaged since NATO and the UN occupied Kosovo to 112. This has
been an unprecedented act of genocide. The planned and systematic
destruction of the Christian history of Kosovo-Metohija under US/NATO/EU
sponsorship. Churches that had survived for over 500 years under Ottoman
Turkish rule were reduced to rubble under the protection of 30,000
NATO troops.
How did UNMIK react to this systematic destruction? UNMIK did not
contact Serbian representatives of the Orthodox Church following the
destruction. Instead, the event was spin doctored. After inspecting
the destruction with Bajram Rexhepi, the "Prime Minister",
SRSG Michael Steiner stated: "We will not speculate on who is
responsible." Investigators had not yet determined the cause
of the explosions. The UNMIK police report filed on November 16, 2002,
was in the passive form: "An explosion occurred inside a Christian
Church." The UNMIK report by William T. Burgstiner gave the location
as Gurakoc, the Albanian name for Djurakovac, in the Istok district.
The UNMIK report stated incorrectly that only the doors and windows
were damaged by the explosion. In fact, the entire interior of the
church was gutted and destroyed by three explosions. The destruction
of two Orthodox Churches was dismissed as random, unconnected acts
of arson by unknown persons with an unknown motive. Steiner did not
wish to speculate on who was responsible because he wanted to negate
responsibility entirely. Was the destruction of the church random?
The mining of the churches came days ahead of a visit by UN General-Secretary
Kofi Annan. The destruction was politically motivated, intended to
send a message that the UCK rejected a "multi-ethnic society".
Even the dead have not been spared. Since the NATO occupation of Kosovo,
over 10 Orthodox cemeteries have been vandalized and desecrated. Not
even the innocent dead are immune from Albanian "revenge".
On June 10, 2002, vandalism of the Orahovac Orthodox cemetery was
discovered. In a RIA Novosti article of June 27, 2002, "Russian
Church Denounces Vandalism with Cemeteries Desecrated in Kosovo",
the Russian Orthodox Church protested the genocide being carried out
in Kosovo under NATO/US supervision. The global media and international
human rights groups, however, ignored the vandalism of Orthodox graves
in Kosovo. In Orahovac and Djakovica, Orthodox gravestones had been
smashed and UCK/KLA symbols had been spray painted on them. In the
Orahovac Orthodox cemetery, 50-60 Orthodox tombstones were desecrated
and vandalized. Bishop Artemius/Artemije reported that the Albanians
had exhumed human remains and had scattered them around the graves
in Siga and Brestovik Orthodox churchyards near Pec in Metohija. Bishop
Artemius stated that over 10 cemeteries and over 100 Orthodox churches
had been ransacked and destroyed. Human rights groups such as Human
Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI), and the Helsinki Human
Rights Group have ignored these acts of genocide. KFOR and UNMIK have
done nothing to prevent this vandalism. Bishop Artemije was incredulous
how NATO/KFOR/UNMIK could not prevent the destruction of 110 Orthodox
churches and 10 Orthodox cemeteries:
It is absolutely incredible that 30,000 best and NATO led troops and
UNMIK police have not managed to prevent systematic destruction of
the Serb holy sites and cemeteries.
On December 2, 2002, 46 tombstones at the Orthodox cemetery in Kosovo
Polje and Decani were destroyed following celebrations of Albanian
Flag Day held on November 28 near the Visoki Decani Monastery. The
KFOR troops did nothing to protect the cemetery. The Orthodox cemetery
is one hundred meters from the Italian checkpoint and the KFOR base.
The Serbian Orthodox Church representative stated that "the cemetery
is now completely desolate with not a single grave intact." These
acts of vandalism and wanton destruction "threaten to erase any
trace of Serbian presence in the region." The Serbian Orthodox
Church of Kosovo called for the protection of Serbian churches and
cemeteries. UNMIK and KFOR had done nothing to prevent these acts
of genocide. The Church dismissed Steiner's actions as a "theatre
play", a farce, PR. The Church stated that 112 Serbian Orthodox
churches had been destroyed or damaged since the NATO/UN occupation
of Kosovo, 982 Kosovo Serbs had been killed, and 1,083 had been kidnapped.
No only were Orthodox Churches attacked and destroyed. On the same
day as the two churches were bombed and destroyed, a Serbian family
in Vrbovac near Kosovoska Vitina was attacked by Albanian gunmen while
working in the fields. Earlier in 2002, 50 elderly Serbian pensioners
were attacked in Pec by Albanian mobs. Moreover, Albanians have prevented
the delivery of food to Serbian residents in the area to starve them
out and force them to leave. The US/NATO policy is to create an ethnically
pure Albanian Kosova, ethnically homogeneous, with the goal to become
an independent country. US/NATO had established a de facto ethnically
pure Albanian state. All that remained was de jure recognition. But
first US/NATO had to make sure all traces of an Orthodox Christian
and Serbian presence in Kosovo was eliminated and erased. What about
the stated US/NATO objective to create a "multi-ethnic society"?
That is where propaganda and information war comes in.
In Macedonia, the UCK has destroyed and damaged over 30 Orthodox churches
and has vandalized a cemetery near Tetovo. The modus operandi of the
UCK has been replicated in Macedonia.
Genocide or "Multi-Ethnic Society"?
Why are the US, NATO, the UN, UNMIK and KFOR, and the EU unable to
prevent the systematic, planned, and organized destruction of Orthodox
Churches and cemeteries in Kosovo-Metohija? Is not NATO/KFOR complicit
and responsible for this genocide?
Reporters and observers have documented the systematic policy of the
UCK to destroy Orthodox churches in Kosovo. In "NATO Turns a
Blind Eye as Scores of Ancient Christian Churches are Reduced to Rubble,
in The Independent (UK), for November 20, 1999, by Robert Fisk in
Djakovica, gave eyewitness accounts of how US/NATO was sponsoring
the genocide. Fisk reported how a Serbian Orthodox Church outside
Pristina was destroyed by Albanians. He noted:
[T]he church was in ruin. A single wall stood. The rest was pulverized
stone. Goodbye, then, to the icons and the saints with the staring
eyes. Goodbye to Jesus. Goodbye to the Serb Orthodox Church. All across
Kosovo I found identical scenes, places of worship---sometimes 600
years old---levelled with explosives and hammers, the very identity
of Serb history turned to dust amid fields and hillsides by Nato's
Kosovo Albanian allies.
The systematic destruction of Orthodox churches was reported in the
mainstream media. In the Montreal Gazette article "God's Houses
in Ruins" for February 27, 2000, Mark Abley noted: "The
world keeps silent as Serb churches, monasteries are destroyed in
Kosovo under noses of peacekeepers." Abley saw KFOR, NATO, and
US complicity in the church destructions. Abley pointed out that on
January 14, 2000, the Orthodox Church of St. Elias in Cernica was
destroyed by explosives just 70 meters from a US checkpoint. KFOR
troops from the United Arab Emirates were supposed to protect church
property but they withdraw. The UCK then attacked the St. Nicholas
Orthodox Church. Abley described the outcome: "It was soon blown
to pieces." He argued that many of the churches were not only
important for the Serbian Orthodox, but were a part of the European
historical heritage. The destruction of the churches was a crime not
only against the Serbs, but against the Orthodox religion, and against
all Europeans, in fact, against mankind. These were crimes against
humanity itself. But not as far as the US/NATO/KFOR were concerned.
Abley concluded:
Some of the buildings were jewels of European civilization. Now they
are rubble.
In Keston, the systematic destruction was examined in "Kosovo:
Dynamiting of Orthodox Churches Continues", July 28, 2000. The
Los Angeles Times in an article for September 22, 1999, "Christian
Sites Being Decimated in Kosovo" noted the destruction with blasé
indifference. The Times noted that "Serbs accuse ethnic Albanian
rebels of systematically destroying places sacred to Orthodox."
The destruction of churches was thus not a fact but merely an "accusation"
or "claim" or "allegation" by the Serbs. The Times
quoted unsubstantiated counter-claims by supporters of the UCK. The
end result, a systematic policy of genocide is spin doctored into
non-existence. Welcome to the free world, welcome to the free press
of the New World Order. Welcome to the morality of the New World Order.
Was this an attempt to create a "multi-ethnic society" or
was it in fact a planned and systematic campaign of genocide? Was
this an instance of "revenge" or a systematic policy to
create a ethnically pure Albanian state of Kosova? Fisk himself wondered
whether this was random vandalism or a systematic policy of genocide.
Fisk soon found the answer. Fisk interviewed a Kosovo Albanian, Ymer
Qupeva, who was at the scene of a blown-up and bombed out Orthodox
Church in Klina. Qupeva said: "I have come to view the professionalism
of the destruction. They did very well---they planted explosives against
all four walls...It was good," Fisk described Qureva as a "graduate
of 'pyrotechnics' at the University of Zagreb." The destruction
of the churches was thus by professionals and troops with a military
background and military training. The policy was systematic and planned,
not random acts of violence by civilians seeking "revenge".
Who is responsible for this destruction of Christian churches? KFOR
is responsible for the prevention of these wanton acts of destruction
and genocide. But KFOR has stood by and done nothing while Orthodox
churches have been destroyed. This reflects policy. Troops enforce
policy. Troops do not make policy decisions. The decision has been
made politically to allow for the destruction of the Christian churches
in Kosovo. It was reported on August 18, 2000 that two Orthodox churches
were destroyed that were protected by United Arab Emirate soldiers
of KFOR. There is, however, a conflict of interest here. UAE had pledged
to build 50 new mosques, to turn Kosovo into a Muslim province and
to erase the Christian history. What motive did Muslim troops of the
UAE have to protect Orthodox churches? Not surprisingly, the UAE troops
did nothing to prevent Albanians from destroying the St. Elijah Orthodox
Church built in 1834 in Vucitrn, which was blown up. The St. Nicholas
Orthodox Church blown up on January 30 in Banjska was also protected
by UAE troops.
Bishop Artemije of the Diocese of Raska and Prizren in a statement
before the Helsinki Commission Hearing in the US Congress in Washington,
DC, on February 28, 2000, described the policy of genocide in Kosovo:
More than 80 Orthodox Churches have been either completely destroyed
or severely damaged since the end of the war. The ancient churches,
many of which have survived 500 years of Ottoman Muslim rule, could
not survive 8 months of the internationally guaranteed peace. Regretfully,
all this happens in the presence of KFOR and UN.
NATO and the UN were supposed to prevent destruction and genocide.
But since NATO occupied Kosovo in June, 1999, 240,000 Kosovo Serbs,
Roma, and Jews have been ethnically cleansed/expelled. NATO was supposed
to prevent genocide. In fact, NATO has committed a genocide. The systematic
policy of the UCK/KLA to destroy the Serbian Orthodox Churches of
Kosovo began with the NATO occupation of Kosovo and was sanctioned
by the US and NATO. Before the US/NATO occupation of Kosovo, Yugoslav
police, security forces, and army troops were able to protect Orthodox
churches and cemeteries and to prevent the expulsions of non-Albanians
from Kosovo. But this changed with the military occupation of Kosovo
by NATO and the UCK, the NATO proxy forces. Between June 13 and October
30, 74 Orthodox Churches had "been turned to dust or burnt or
vandalised."
The CIA propaganda network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
rationalized the systematic destruction of 112 Orthodox churches in
Kosovo by US/NATO allies/clients/proxies the UCK/KLA as legitimate
and appropriate because they were symbols of Serbian "colonization".
How can churches 700 years old be symbols of colonization? Who are
the colonists? Serbs? Albanians? The CIA is merely recycling Albanian
propaganda from the 1920s and 1930s. This CIA propaganda can be easily
disproved. The Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church in Musutiste was
built in 1465. This 15th century Orthodox monastery was "leveled
with explosives" by the UCK/KLA "freedom fighters".
The Serbian Orthodox Monastery of the Archangel of Vitina built in
the 14th century was burned. The Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas (Sveti
Nikola) in Djurakovac was built in the 14th century. This church was
destroyed in 1999. The Orthodox Church of the Archangels in Gornje
Nerodimlje and the St. Paraskeva Orthodox Church near Pec were destroyed.
The St, Nicholas Orthodox Church in Prekoruplje was razed to the ground
and the 16th century icons in the church were lost. Following the
destruction of the Zociste Orthodox Monastery near Orahovac, Bishop
Artemije requested that there should be increased protection of these
religious sites and that more should be done to repair and rebuild
them. He was told by Dieter Skodowsky of the German contingent that
KFOR/NATO would not support the rebuilding of the Orthodox Churches
because Albanians opposed this.
The UCK targeted Serbian Orthodox priests, nuns, men, women, and children.
In a speech on September 16, 1999, Amfilohije noted the murder of
a Serbian Orthodox priest by the UCK and the disappearance of another:
Recently, a hole has been discovered in the vicinity of Istok and
in it 40 corpses were found, among which was the body of Father Stefan
from Budisavac monastery. Father Hariton is still unaccounted for.
He described the murder and mutilation of Serbian women by the UCK:
On the eve of the Vidovdan liturgy...[w]e laid to rest the bodies
of Mileva Vujosevic, 50, shot dead with a bullet, her brains in which
I stepped on entering her house, strewn and Marica Maric, a retarded
girl, who was raped in her poor abode in Belo Polje. We found her
on a broken couch, dead, disfigured.
Islamic Revival in Kosovo? The Islamization of Kosovo-Metohija
The NATO occupation was seen by Arab/Muslim countries as an opportunity
to transform Kosovo-Metohija into a Muslim state. Terry Boyd in the
Stars and Stripes article "In Kosovo, Islamic groups work to
rebuild country, attract followers," September 21, 2001, examined
how Muslim countries were seeking the Islamization of Kosovo. The
US State Department listed Kosovo as having active cells of al-Qaeda,
Ossama bin Laden's terrorist network. Al-Qaeda and Ossama bin Laden
were aiding the UCK jihad in Kosovo. Iran was also active in Kosovo
and Bosnia. Boyd reported that an Iranian Islamic group offered 120-300
German marks a month for Albanian Muslim women to wear headscarves
and other Islamic religious attire. He noted that Arab/Muslim countries
had set up aid and relief agencies in Kosovo. Saudia Arabia had established
the Saudi Joint Committee for Kosovo and al-Haramain, a Arabic language
center. Saudi Arabian Abdullah Al Turki, the Secretary General of
the Muslim World League, was providing aid to "Kosovo refugees"
, which was announced on March 25, 2002 by the Saudi government. Bahrain
had funded the El-Asla Society, Islamic youth centers and instruction
in Islam and in the Arabic language of the Koran. Sudanese nationals
had set up youth centers, the World Association of Muslim Youth.
What was the motive for Arab/Muslim "humanitarian" aid to
Kosovo? Was Muslim aid to Kosovo based on humanitarian concerns or
to transform Kosovo into a radical new Muslim state? Boyd, however,
noted another goal: "But nations hostile to the United States
may be using begin efforts to camouflage more sinister plans, including
creating an Islamic republic---similar to Iran---on Europe's southern
flank, according to sources." On July 19 and 22, 2001, four Iranians
"gun runners" were arrested by KFOR. But as early as 1999,
US Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, in the Congressional debate on Kosovo,
stated that the KLA is "a collection of Maoist drug-peddlers
and terrorists who have been armed by Iran and provided with training
and support by Saudi terrorist financier Osama bin Laden." Boyd
revealed the goal of the Islamic relief/aid groups to be to achieve
the independence/secession of Kosovo from Serbia as an ethnically
pure Islamic nation/republic. He noted that if the US/NATO could not
achieve this, the Islamic countries would be willing sponsors: "That
plan is to present fundamentalist Islam as an alternative to Western
reluctance to grant independence to Kosovo."
Concomitantly with the destruction of Orthodox churches, Islamic countries
are being encouraged by the US and NATO to build mosques and Islamic
centers in Kosovo, further erasing the Christian history of Kosovo.
On August 20, 2000, the United Arab Emirates announced that they would
finance the construction of 50 new mosques in Kosovo. In "Mohammed
Orders Building 50 Mosques in Kosovo", in the UAE Interact, it
was reported that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Dubai
Crown Prince and Defense Minister, would fund this project.
Ahmadiyya is an extremist Islamic movement from Pakistan that came
to Kosovo to educate Muslims. Ahmadiyya offered help only if Albanian
Muslims would accept the radical Islamic doctrines of the group and
if they would train Muslim preachers. Naim Berisha said: "The
Ahmadiyya came with copies of the Islamic holy texts in Albanian,
plus pamphlets promoting their leaders, and especially their hatred
of the West." Two other Muslim groups were in the Balkans seeking
to recruit Albanian Muslims: Ahl as-Sunna and Wa'al Jama'at.
Roman Catholic Revival in Kosovo?
Roman Catholic organizations in the US saw the NATO occupation of
Kosovo as an opportunity for proselytizing and a chance to Catholicize
the population. The goal was to supplant and eliminate the Orthodox
presence in Kosovo. The MO was the same as that followed in Croatia,
Bosnia-Hercegovina, and in Krajina. The Roman Catholic-Orthodox conflict
is long-standing in the Balkans. Historically, the Vatican sought
to exert influence in the Balkans and to eliminate Orthodox influence.
This has sometimes meant that the Vatican has engaged in unholy alliances
with Islam and with Judaism. The Vatican has historically sought to
create a bulwark against Orthodox Christianity in the Balkans, necessitating
an anti-Serbian policy. The Vatican opposed Orthodoxy, then "Bolshevism",
Communism, and "Titoism" because they threatened Vatican
control of the Balkans. The issue was always control.
The NATO occupation of Kosovo became a focus for US Roman Catholics
who sought to exert and expand Catholicism in the Serbian Orthodox
province. In "Catholic Revival in Kosovo?", September, 1999,
in the San Francisco Faith, Stephen Schwartz, noted how the Roman
Catholic Church was, like Islam, seeking to transform Kosovo-Metohija
into a Roman Catholic nation. Like Islam, Roman Catholicism was silently
supporting a genocide against the Serbian Orthodox population, supporting
the destruction of Orthodox churches and the expulsion/ethnic cleansing
of the Orthodox population. Now that 240,000 Serbian Orthodox were
expelled and 112 Orthodox churches and over 10 Orthodox cemeteries
were destroyed, Kosovo was ideal for conversion and transformation.
Schwartz noted that "at least 15 percent of the Kosovar population"
was Roman Catholic. Kosovo Albanians are mostly Sunni Muslims, Bektashi
(Shia, Shiite) Muslims, and Orthodox Christians. But religion is secondary
in Albanian nationalism. As Pashko Vasa, an Albanian nationalist figure
stated, "the religion of the Albanians is Albanianism",
i.e., Greater Albania is the overriding ideology of Albanians, not
any particular religion. Historically, Kosovo Albanians converted
to Islam in Kosovo during Ottoman Turkish rule to obtain land and
privileges in Kosovo, thereby displacing the original Serbian Orthodox
inhabitants.
Catholic Charities and Professionals International Evangelical Christians
were recruiting in Kosovo. Evangelicals came to the Rakovica refugee
camp "attacking Islam and calling the Albanians to become Evangelicals."
Evangelicals provided aid only if Albanians would convert to Evangelicalism.
The family of Osman Hamdi had a son who suffered from a congenital
heart defect. The Evangelicals offered to pay for his treatment if
he would convert to the Evangelical sect. American Joe Horning was
an Evangelical who had come to Kosovo from Chicago to convert Albanian
Muslims to Evangelicalism. Horning stated: "Allah as the Muslims
say is not the same as the God we Christians and Jews worship."
Horning brought an intolerant and racist anti-Islam perspective that
was current in the US. "Muslims worship the pagan moon god"
according to Horning.
Schwartz emphasized that the Roman Catholic Church was at the forefront
of anti-Orthodox and anti-Serbian activity for centuries. The Vatican
had been first to recognize the secession/independence of Roman Catholic
Croatia and Roman Catholic Slovenia in 1991. The Vatican gave Roman
Catholic Austria-Hungary authorization in 1914 to declare war and
thereby destroy Orthodox Serbia by sanctioning the declaration of
war, beginning World War I. In 1941, the Roman Catholic hierarchy
led by Alojzije Stepinac in Croatia, with support from the Vatican
in Rome, was at the forefront in the genocide of the Serbian Orthodox
population of Croatia and Bosnia, the Ustasha NDH, Nezavisna Drzava
Hrvatska. The Vatican has never acknowledged its complicity and responsibility
for this genocide of Orthodox Christians. The genocide committed against,
at a minimum, several hundred thousand Orthodox Serbs in Croatia organized
by Roman Catholic priests remains an unacknowledged and unknown genocide
in the so-called West. Is this by accident or by design? Schwartz
noted that the program to Catholicize Kosovo was based in Santa Clara
and San Francisco in the US: "Much of the education of Kosovar
and other Albanians about their Catholic heritage is a consequence
of the work undertaken in Santa Clara and San Francisco." Gani
Murtezi, a UCK/KLA member, was quoted: "We were Catholics before
the Turkish conquest in the 15th century and many of us will now return
to Catholicism." Founded by Gjon Sinishta, Ray Frost now heads
the Albanian Catholic Institute in the US and has the support of Roman
Catholic Cardinal Vinko Puljic of Sarajevo.
Destruction of Orthodox Churches in Macedonia
by the UCK
When the UCK invaded Macedonia from Kosovo in 2001, the modus operandi
evolved in Kosovo was duplicated in the terrorism conducted in Macedonia.
Like in Kosovo, Orthodox churches were targeted for destruction and
desecration. Why did the UCK target Orthodox churches for demolition
and attack?
A terrorist war seeks to foremost destroy the morale of the target
population, to destroy the will to resist. Terrorism seeks to create
panic and fear and insecurity. The ultimate objective is to demoralize
the civilian population by attacking the symbols of unity and national
cohesion and order. Terrorists create fear and insecurity by attacking
and killing police, security forces, and representatives of state
authority. Terrorists can rarely ever win a conflict by a direct assault.
Instead, the battle is mostly psychological, targeting morale. Moreover,
by creating instability and political, economic, and social crises,
the terrorist can exert disproportionate pressure on the country.
In many cases, intervention is sought. Terrorism can induce intervention.
Why target Orthodox Churches and cemeteries? There are several reasons
why the UCK is targeting Orthodox Churches in Serbia and Macedonia.
First, by destroying the churches, the UCK is able to erase the Orthodox
history of the region. By eliminating the Orthodox history of Kosovo
and Macedonia, the UCK can then manufacture its own history for Kosovo
and Macedonia, with the assistance of NPR, the CIA, CNN, RFE/RL, the
VOA, the IWPR, ICG, and the US State Department. Before the US can
manufacture a history for the UCK, however, the Orthodox history must
be destroyed without leaving any trace. Second, by destroying symbols
of the religion of the Serbian and Macedonian populations, the UCK
is able to destroy the belief systems of their intended targets by
showing the impotency of their Christian faith. What good is Christianity?
What is the good of the Christian teachings and faith? By attacking
religious symbols, the UCK seeks to demoralize by attacking the source
and foundation of the belief system of the Serbs and Macedonians.
That belief system is Christianity, Orthodox Christianity. Third,
the goal is genocide, the total and complete elimination of the target
population. Targeting churches sends the message that the UCK has
a total contempt for Serbs and Macedonians as human beings. The UCK
regards the Serbs and Macedonians as cattle and swine. Nothing shows
this more than the systematic and planned destruction of Orthodox
churches and monasteries and cemeteries. Not even the dead are immune
from the genocide of the UCK. The UCK systematically attacks gravestones
and cemeteries and desecrates graveyards. Why target cemeteries? What
offense could the dead have committed against the UCK? The UCK seeks
to totally and completely destroy and eliminate all traces and vestiges
of the Serbian and Macedonian presence in the regions. The goal is
genocide, to create a fait accompli.
In Macedonia, the UCK destroyed or damaged over 30 Orthodox churches
in the Tetovo region of Western Macedonia under the control of the
UCK. Mirko Stankovski of the Tetovo diocese submitted these facts
in a report submitted to the Macedonian Government, the OSCE, and
EU.
On December 10, 2001, the St. George (Sveti Gjorgjij) Orthodox Church
in Golema Rechica in the Tetovo district, built in the 14th century,
was burned down. The walls, icons, frescos, and screen were also burned.
The destruction of the church was timed to coincide with the Orthodox
holiday of St. George. The Orthodox Church St. Nikola in Slatina was
burned down by the UCK. The St. Atanasije Orthodox Church in the Leshok-Brezno
region, built in 1924 and dedicated in 1936, was completely destroyed
by the UCK. Icons, church and religious books and documents were stolen,
damaged, or destroyed in the St. Bogorodica Orthodox Church in Leshok,
the St. Gjorgjija Orthodox Church in Mala Rechica, the St. Atanasij
Orthodox Church in Tetovo Kale, St. Ilija and St. Gjorgjij in Neprosteno,
St. Gorgjij in Otunje, St. Gjorgjija in Lavce, St. Nikola and St.
Bogorodica in Tetovo, St. Kuzman and Damjan in Jedoarce, St. Petka
in Varvara, and Uspenie na Bogorodica and Sveto Blagovestie in Jelosnik.
On August 21, 2001, the St. Atanasije Orthodox Monastery in Leshok
in the southeast corner of the Shar Planina mountain range in the
Polog valley was totally destroyed with explosives by UCK troops.
The conachs or monastic cells were also stolen by the UCK. Built in
the 13th century, rebuilt in 1818, the Leshok monastery was one of
the oldest Orthodox churches in western Macedonia and had been the
cultural and religious center for Macedonia. The church was on the
UNESCO list of Heritage sites. The church was an example of Byzantine
and Orthodox architecture which was irreplaceable. The church was
in territory occupied by the UCK. The UCK mined the church with explosives
and detonated the explosive devise with a car battery that was left
at the crime scene. A small donkey was killed in the explosion, upon
which the letters "UCK" were painted. The tombstone of Macedonian
educator and Orthodox prior Kiril Pejcinovic was destroyed and his
memorial statue in Tearce was demolished. Why did the UCK fear even
the dead? Not even the dead were spared by the UCK. The UCK and their
US and European handlers even concocted an outrageous and mind-boggling
conspiracy theory. US/NATO/EU propaganda accused the Macedonian government
of blowing up the Leshok monastery to discredit the UCK and to sabotage
the Ohrid peace agreement. RFE/RL, the BBC, and other British and
US news agencies disseminated this absurd conspiracy theory. Not everyone,
however, was deluded or fooled by this media propaganda. The World
Catholic News headline for August 22, 2002, was: "Macedonian
Orthodox Church Blown Up by Rebels". The truth managed to sneak
through the mainstream US media, the Western news agencies, the "independent"
press, the "free" press of the free world. This represented
the nadir of the US/NATO/EU propaganda war against the Orthodox. It
is a perfect example of the morality of the New World Order. Nothing
shows the utter moral and ethical bankruptcy of the NATO countries
that this propaganda hoax. Nothing better shows the soulless and undemocratic
nature of NATO.
The Matejce Orthodox Monastery was damaged, vandalized, and desecrated
by UCK troops who used the church as a headquarters. The frescoes
of St. Matejce were damaged and vandalized when the UCK used the church
as a command post during the "insurgency" in 2001. The UCK
had written graffiti on the Orthodox frescoes, writing the name of
the Argentinean soccer star, "Diego Armando Maradona" and
painting a black beard and sunglasses on the fresco. A black double-headed
eagle, the symbol of Albania, the national flag of Shqiperia or Albania,
with the letters "UCK" was painted on the Church wall. This
showed with what racist contempt the Albanian "freedom fighters"
held the Orthodox populations of Kosovo and Macedonia. The UCK symbolically
defecated /urinated on the most sacred religious sites of both Serbs
and Macedonians. How could they do this without US and NATO sponsorship
and support? What makes them think they can get away with such racist
and bigoted acts? Why do they so brazenly and arrogantly commit genocide
if they were not supported by the US and NATO, by the massive US propaganda
machine? For anyone with any common sense would know that these acts
violate the Geneva Conventions on Genocide and violate basic human
rights. Only if the US propaganda machine supports you can you get
away with genocide. Only if the CIA propaganda machine is in your
corner can you do it so shamelessly and arrogantly.
On February 9, 2002, an attempt was made by the UCK to mine the St.
Petka Orthodox Church in Galate in the Gostivar district. Investigators
found 400 grams of unexploded explosives inside the church with a
fuse and detonation devise. The frescos in the church were damaged
by the discharge by automatic weapon.
The UCK continued its modus operandi from Kosovo-Metohija to Macedonia
with the desecration of Orthodox cemeteries. New damage to the Orthodox
cemetery and to the XVth century St. Nikola Orthodox Church in Dolna
Lesnica near Zelino was reported. The UCK was replicating the Kosovo
MO.
Systematic Policy of Genocide or "Revenge" Attacks?
The US/NATO propaganda line is that the murders of Serbian civilians,
men, women, and children, and the expulsion of 240,000 Kosovo Serbs
can be explained as the "revenge" attacks or "revenge
killings" due to the "repression" and "oppression"
of the Slobodan Milosevic regime. In other words, the US propaganda
rationalizes genocide and murder and ethnic cleansing on the grounds
that it was justified due to the "repression" of Slobodan
Milosevic. But this US State Department/CIA/NATO propaganda argument
can be disproved easily. The destruction of Serbian Orthodox churches
and the murder and expulsion of Kosovo Serbs did not begin after 1989
when Milosevic began "repressing" Albanians with a "crackdown".
The Albanian objective to create an ethnically pure Greater Albania
began with the Ottoman Turkish occupation of Kosovo. Following the
1878 League of Prizren, a Greater Albania ideology emerged that would
incorporate Kosova, Kosovo-Metohija, southern Montenegro, Illirida,
western Macedonia, southern Serbia, and northern Greece, into an Ethnic
Albanian state. The destruction of Orthodox churches and the murder
of Serbian civilians in Kosovo did not start with Slobodan Milosevic.
In a July 12, 1982 article in the New York Times, "Exodus of
Serbians Stirs Province in Yugoslavia", the goal of Albanian
violence was noted:
The [Albanian] nationalists have a two-point platform...first to establish
what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then the
merger with Albania to form a greater Albania.
So there was a planned and systematic policy of ethnic cleansing and
genocide in Kosovo before Slobodan Milosevic arrived on the scene.
But it did not originate with Slobodan Milosevic. In fact, Milosevic
tried to prevent a genocide from occurring, to prevent the expulsion
of the non-Albanian population. The New York Times report noted: "Some
57,000 Serbs have left Kosovo in the last decade."
In the Washington post article "Ethnic Rivalries Cause Unrest
in Yugoslav Region," November 29, 1986, Jackson Diehl correctly
identified the two central issues in the Kosovo crisis: 1) the genocide
of the Serbian population of Kosovo through murder and expulsion;
and, 2) the separatist policies of Albanian political leaders to create
an independent state of Kosovo, a second Albania. Diehl noted that
"separatist and nationalist groups" were "seeking Kosovo's
independence from Serbia." He noted that the crisis was precipitated
by the "forced emigration of Serbs from Kosovo". Diehl reported:
"More than 20,000 have emigrated since 1981."
David Binder wrote in The New York Times, on November 1, 1987, "In
Yugoslavia, Rising Ethnic Strife Brings Fears of Worse Civil Conflict",
that "separatist-minded ethnic Albanians" were seeking not
greater rights due to repression, but an ethnically pure Albanian
state that would secede from Serbia and become an independent Albanian
nation, Kosova. Binder described the separatist policies of the Albanians
in 1987:
Slavic Orthodox Churches have been attacked. Wells have been poisoned
and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young ethnic
Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls.
Binder explained that the goal for the violence was never about "repression"
but about the creation of Greater Albania:
The goal of the radical nationalists among them, one said in an interview,
is an "ethnic" Albania that includes western Macedonia,
southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself...Other
ethnic Albanian separatists admit to a vision of a greater Albania
governed from Pristina in southern Yugoslavia rather than Tirana.
Binder noted that there were 40 racially-motivated attacks against
Serbs in 1986. The goal was not "revenge" but to create
"an 'ethnically pure' Albanian region" in Kosovo. Another
method of ethnic cleansing was by quasi-legal means, by using legal/institutional
means to dispossess Serbian landowners in Kosovo. Binder noted: "Ethnic
Albanians in the Government have manipulated pubic funds and regulations
to take over land belonging to Serbs."
There was incitement to genocide. Fadil Hoxha, a leading Albanian
political leader in Yugoslavia, said that "Serbian women should
be used to satisfy potential ethnic Albanian rapists." Such incitements
created an anti-Serbian, anti-Orthodox climate. Aziz Kelmendi murdered
four Yugoslav army recruits based on anti-Slav racism. The climate
of insecurity and fear forced Serbs to flee the province. Binder reported
that in 7 years, 20,000 Serbs have left Kosovo because of the climate
of racism.
The genocidal policy against the Serbian population was not motivated
by "repression" or the lack of democracy. Indeed, greater
autonomy in Kosovo had only encouraged Albanian leaders to seek to
create an ethnically pure province. Albanians controlled all aspects
of life in Kosovo during this period from 1974 to 1989. Binder noted:
"Ethnic Albanians already control almost every phase of life
in ...Kosovo, including the police, judiciary, civil service, schools
and factories."
In the Newsweek article of October 24, 1988, "Power to the Serbs",
Harry Anderson and Theodore Stanger reported on the genocide in Kosovo:
One account speaks of 1,119 attacks on Serbs and Montenegrins by ethnic
Albanians since 1986. Many of the stories allege rape and other atrocities.
One described how a group of Albanian adolescents dug up the corpse
of a Serbian child from a Kosovo cemetery and began tossing it around.
"It is hard for anyone who calls himself a Serb to remain cool
when he hears of such outrages," said Stefan Pilic, a medical
student in Belgrade. "We are on the verge of a revolution,"
said Milovan Djilas, Yugoslavia's best-known dissident.
On April 19, 1993, British author Nora Beloff wrote a letter to British
MP Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd explaining the Kosovo crisis:
On Kosovo, I told him I happened to be one of the rare Westerners
who knew the province when it was still ruled by the pitiless Albanian
thugs to whom Tito and his successors gave power, patronage, and bags
of money...I knew very well that, for years, the Serb minority, particularly
the Orthodox priests, had often been beaten and constantly harassed.
She stated that Milosevic should "have invited foreign diplomats
and journalists to go and see what life had been previously like for
the Serbs." They should "have visited demolished churches,
desecrated cemeteries, and the Kosovo villages 'cleansed' of Serbs."
The US State Department/NATO/CIA propaganda machine---National Public
Radio (NPR), RFE/RL, Voice of America (VOA)---attributed ethnic cleansing
to Slobodan Milosevic. But objective and unbiased observers of the
Balkans knew that ethnic cleansing was developed in Kosovo and used
against the Kosovo Serbian Orthodox population. Nora Beloff witnessed
the first post-World War II instance of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo-Metohija:
"Indeed, it was in Kosovo in 1980, while writing my book, that,
for the first time since the Nazi era, I heard that epithet."
Albanians in Kosovo were ethnically cleansing the province to create
an ethnically pure Kosova/Kosove to create a Greater Albanian state.
Beloff noted that separatism/secession/independence were the goals
of the ultra-nationalist Greater Albania movement, not human rights.
She stated that Albanians have "not the faintest interest in
human rights." Amnesty International (AI), Human Rights Watch
(HRW), the UN, the US State Department, which has made "human
rights" the cornerstone of US foreign policy, censored and suppressed
this silent and unknown genocide in Kosovo.
The destruction of Serbian Orthodox churches did not begin with the
NATO occupation of Kosovo in 1999. The Serbian Orthodox Monastery
in Devic was destroyed during World War II when Adolf Hitler and Benito
Mussolini made Kosovo and western Macedonia a part of Greater Albania.
The pro-fascist Balli Kombetar, the Ljuboten battalion, and the Nazi
21st Waffen SS Division "Skanderbeg", made up mainly of
Kosovo Albanians, instituted a policy of genocide against Kosovo Serbs,
Jews, and Roma. Following the creation of the Second League of Prizren,
which revitalized the Greater Albania ideology, under the sponsorship
of Nazi Germany, Orthodox churches were destroyed and Serbian Orthodox
priests were murdered in order to create an ethnically pure Kosova.
This policy continued after World War II. On March 16, 1981, the 13th
century Orthodox monastery at Pec was set on fire and burned in an
attempt to kill the priests. On January 7, 1983, Orthodox Christmas,
human feces and excrement were left around the Prizren Orthodox church
and a cross made out of feces was placed on the church door. The Albanian
destruction and desecration of Orthodox cemeteries did not start with
the NATO/KFOR occupation of Kosovo either. Gravestones and monuments
in Orthodox cemeteries were vandalized throughout the 1980s, before
Milosevic even appeared on the scene. The goal was genocide, the creation
of an ethnically pure or clean Albanian Kosova. In the village of
Dvorane, Albanians destroyed and vandalized 29 newly erected Orthodox
Christian gravestones.
Under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide, Resolution 260 A (III), promulgated on December 9, 1948,
genocide is defined as follows:
Article II
[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious
group, as such: (a) (a) Killing members of the group; (b) (b) Causing
serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) (c) Deliberately
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin coined the term "genocide"
in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government,
Proposals for Redress (1944) in which he defined genocide as follows:
By "genocide" we mean the destruction of a nation or of
an ethnic group...It is intended...to signify a coordinated plan...aiming
at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national
groups...The objectives of such a plan would be...the destruction
of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity...Genocide is directed
against...members of a national group.
Is not the expulsion of 240,000 Serbs from Kosovo, the destruction
of 112 Orthodox churches and the desecration and vandalism of over
10 Orthodox cemeteries genocide under these fundamental formulations.
First we need a coordinated plan of genocide. US/NATO/KFOR always
report that the systematic and organized destruction of 122 Orthodox
churches was random. There is no organized plan. This is why epistemology
is crucial. It is all in how you report it. One man or woman can see
a terrorist and another a freedom fighter/patriot. This is why US/NATO/KFOR
never know who is responsible and why no one is ever apprehended or
punished. No one knows who is destroying Orthodox churches. They are
"Albanian extremists". This negates responsibility. This
also negates an organized and systematic policy of genocide. This
also explains why human rights groups are blind to genocide in Kosovo.
If they don't report it, it is like it never really happened. It is
your word against theirs. And the CIA has the most massive propaganda/infowar
machine ever assembled. As A.J. Liebling noted, "Freedom of the
press belongs to those who own one." Censorship is crucial. Gen.
William C. Westmoreland, the commander of US troops in Vietnam, explained
the need for censorship: "Vietnam was the first war ever fought
without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly
confused in the public mind." NATO is not making the same mistake.
NATO is preventing any confusion whatsoever in the "public mind".
Why didn't international human rights groups such as Amnesty International
and Human Rights Watch and UN human rights organizations notice this
glaring genocide in Kosovo in the 1970s and 1980s, at the end of the
20th century? For the same reason that they don't notice the genocide
in Kosovo now. If you don't report on a genocide, if you censor and
suppress it, it is like it never occurred at all. The concept of human
rights was devised to allow its use as an instrument of US foreign
policy, to advance US policy. Human rights is merely a CIA propaganda
construct. Nothing proves this more than Kosovo. How can a genocide
be allowed to occur there? What genocide?
Conclusion:
Kosovo, "Black Hole" of Human Rights
What has been the result of NATO military occupation of the Serbian
province of Kosovo-Metohija? Kosovo Ombudsman Merek Nowicki announced
the findings of his investigations on December 19, 2002. Nowicki concluded
that Kosovo might become a "black hole" of human rights
in Europe. UN Resolution 1244 was not being followed. Nowicki concluded
that UNMIK was "not respecting human rights regulations established
by international community." He found that the remaining Kosovo
Serbs lived in Holocaust-style ghettos in Kosovo. The Serbian population
has no human rights protections and is under daily pressure to leave
Kosovo.
What has US/NATO/ KFOR done to allow for the return of the 240,000
Serbian refugees expelled by the UCK in 1999? According to Nowicki,
NATO and UNMIK have done absolutely nothing: "The possibility
of a Serb return to urban areas is almost zero, because a minimum
of conditions for their return have not been secured." He found
"severe violations of human rights". He examined the status
of Serbs living in the village of Gorazdevac near Pec. The Serbs were
heavily guarded, living under constant protection by FKOR troops.
They were living in ghetto-like conditions. KFOR could not obtain
food for them because the Albanian leaders were attempting to starve
them out, thereby forcing them to leave Kosovo permanently. NATO was
supposed to be ensuring democracy, but was in fact violating the fundamental
tenets of democracy. Nowicki concluded: "UNMIK was not established
in line with the principles of democracy and it represents a surrogate
state." He found that UNMIK and KFOR had complete immunity for
their actions in Kosovo. Thus there were no protections from violations
of civil or human rights. There was no rule of law.
This is what NATO occupation has achieved: The genocide of the Serbian
Orthodox population of Kosovo-Metohija. The UCK has expelled over
240,000 Kosovo Serbs, Roma, and Jews. The UCK has destroyed 112 Serbian
Orthodox Churches under NATO/KFOR/UNMIK protection. The UCK has desecrated
and destroyed over 10 Serbian Orthodox cemeteries. Life in Kosovo
for the remaining Serbian population is like life in a Nazi ghetto!
This is what NATO has accomplished in 3 and a half years of military
occupation.
Is this way towards Europe?
Ruins of the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Djakovica
destroyed by ethnic Albanians in July 19999
