|
September
19, 2003
ERP KIM Newsletter
19-09-03
How many Serb returnees to Kosovo
will spend winter in their tents?
Konic Stanija (75) in Grabac near Klina
WITH WINTER AT HAND
2003 WAS EVERYTHNIG BUT YEAR OF RETURNS
Although Kosovo Albanians cannot
envisage any kind of negotiations which will not go in direction of formal
independence, for Kosovo Serbs the primary interest will be the practical
improvement of living conditions for all communities and establishing of
necessary legal and security standards. This is exactly what Kosovo Serbs
will expect from the international community knowing that a roof of a
house cannot be built without solid foundations and walls. Any other
procedure will be completely wrong because such a house would collapse
even before it is built.
Editorial, Fr. Sava Janjic
Gracanica, September 19, 2003
As the winter is
approaching every day and can say can hardly say that the of 2003 was a
year of returns. At the end of 2002 UNMIK's officials were solemnly
promising brighter future to 250.000 Serbs who had fled from Kosovo
and Metohija after the war. However, only a few hundred returnees
eventually came back to their destroyed homes and desecrated churches. The
most of them still continue living in deplorable conditions in collective
centers and fail to understand how the international community could not
create even minimum of conditions for normal and free life of all
ethnicities in Kosovo and Metohija.
The main reason for this failure lies in general lack of basic security
and alarming increase of interethnic violence which is targeting primarily
Kosovo Serbs. Only in the five last months 8 Serbs fell as victims of
Albanian extremists. Two of the victims were teenagers killed in a
massacre in which several more Serb children were seriously wounded. Not a
single one of these major ethnic crimes has been resolved by UNMIK police
despite promises that not a stone would remain undisturbed before the
perpertrators are brought to justice. In such an atmosphere of legal
deadlock members of the Serb community continue living in constant fear
for their lives. In their eyes Kosovo and Metohija is a province which can
hardly promise peaceful future for anyone who is not of ethnic Albanian
origin. They are also rapidly loosing confidence in UNMIK and KFOR the
role of which is seen more in conserving the present ethnic Albanian
domination in Kosovo rather than in making any radical changes to the
better, for the benefit of all communities.
For their own part local Albanian authorities have done almost nothing to
help citizens of other ethnicities feel Kosovo as their own home. On the
contrary, they keep complaining that Serbs do not want to integrate in
society and accept the new reality and what they call "freedom". Indeed it
would be very hard to expect Serbs to normally integrate in society which
offers them absolutely nothing, not even the basic use of their language
and elementary freedom of movement. Kosovo Serbs would like to see a new
reality in Kosovo which will not be to detriment of any ethnic group. At
least this is what all inhabitants of Kosovo and Metohija deserve after a
decade of war and post-war suffering which claimed so many innocent lives
on both sides.
With the approaching of negotiations Kosovo Serbs will therefore naturally
more rely on Belgrade and will request their Government to insist on equal
treatment of all communities in its southern Province prior to any
discussion on Kosovo's status with ethnic Albanians. Although Kosovo
Albanians cannot envisage any kind of negotiations which will not go in
direction of formal independence, for Kosovo Serbs the primary interest
will be the practical improvement of living conditions for all communities
and establishing of necessary legal and security standards. This is
exactly what Kosovo Serbs will expect from the international community
knowing that a roof of a house cannot be built without solid foundations
and walls. Any other procedure will be completely wrong because such a
house would collapse even before it is built.
CONTENTS:
 NEGOTIATIONS
DESTROYING DREAM OF INDEPENDENT KOSOVO AND METOHIJA
Zoran Zivkovic, the Serbian Prime Minister, evaluated that the Albanians
from Kosovo and Metohija, do not want negotiations on the status of the
Serbian southern province because "negotiations are destroying the dream
of independent Kosovo".
IVANIC
- KOSOVO STATUS CAN INFLUENCE BOSNIA
Mladen
Ivanic, the Bosnia and Herzegovina chief of diplomacy, stated that the
change in the status of Kosovo can have negative impact on Bosnia and
Herzegovina, because this would open the question of the status of the
Serbians and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
30
SERB FAMILIES POSTPONE RETURN TO KOSOVO DUE TO INTIMIDATION
Some 30 Kosovo Serb families have
postponed their return to the province claiming the Albanian-language
press has called on ethnic Albanians to demolish their homes.
SEVERAL
MORE BODIES OF SERBS KILLED AFTER WAR RETURNED FROM KOSOVO
The families took the bodies of 87-year-old
Jovan Lazarevic who was abducted in Djakovica, Petar Djuric who was
murdered in his Istok home, Gordana Jovanovic (48), murdered in Prizren
together with her husband and another Prizren murder victim, Radivoje
Drakulovic (67)
ITALY
OFFERS 3.5 MIL. EUROS TO HELP SERB RETURNS TO KOSOVO
Italy has promised a 3.5 million euro (4.2
million dollar) contribution to a UN programme to encourage Serb refugees
from Kosovo to return home, the foreign ministry said Thursday.
MACEDONIA:
INTERETHNIC TENSIONS MOUNTED IN HIGH SCHOOLS
Ethnic tension left for a while the
mountainous volatile northern region of Macedonia, where clashes between
police and criminal gangs seriously threatened fragile peace in this tiny
Balkan state recently... But, new victim appeared as result of ruined
confidence between two largest ethnic communities in Macedonia -
education.
AIM:
WESLEY CLARK'S TIES TO MUSLIM TERRORISM
The media refer to Clark's impressive
military credentials but they fail to note that his main accomplishment
under President Clinton was presiding over the establishment of a base for
radical Islamic terrorism, including Osama bin Laden, in Kosovo.
INET
- FLASH NEWS FROM KOSOVO AND METOHIJA
PERPETRATORS OF GORAZDEVAC MASSACRE STILL NOT ARRESTED - DAY 36...
More News Available on our:
KOSOVO DAILY NEWS LIST (KDN)
KDN Archive
This newsletter is available on our
ERP KIM Web-site:
/erpkiminfo.html
THEY SAID....
Lt. Gen FABIO MINI, KFOR COMMANDER
KOSOVO'S MAIN CHALENGE
- ABSENCE OF TOLERANCE
Prior to the termination of his
mandate as chief of staff of the military peacekeeping mission in Kosovo,
the KFOR commander, Italian general Fabio Mini gave an interview to daily
Bota sot where he assessed the current situation, the progress achieved so
far and the challenges ahead.
According to the outgoing KFOR commander, the main challenge Kosovo will
have to deal with in the future is the absence of tolerance, which is
dominant at all the levels and which is slowing down positive
developments. He described this lack of tolerance as incapacity to look
ahead and establish cooperation so that history would be looked upon as a
mean to stimulate progress. Describing intolerance as a "virus that
contaminates Kosovo’s software", he added that hatred is relying on
"hardware" in the form of armed groups of extremists and forces that
advocate violence and promote organized crime. General Mini underlined
KFOR’s engagement in combating this "hardware" but that this isn’t
sufficient and that the virus should be expelled from the hearts and minds
of those infected.
Speaking of the outlawed Albanian National Army (AKSH), the KFOR commander
described this organization as a terrorist group "with nothing in common
with democracy and the right of the people". He added the AKSH maintains
close relations with the criminal milieu and is gathering funds from the
Diaspora, allegedly for national ideals. Fabio Mini claims this
organization receives support from a number of organizations in Kosovo
including certain war veteran groups. He concluded by saying that the AKSH
is an obstacle to freedom and reconciliation and that its members should
face legal consequences for their actions.
(Report from Albanian language media)
NEGOTIATIONS ARE DESTROYING DREAM OF INDEPENDENT KOSOVO AND METOHIJA
Zoran Zivkovic, the Serbian Prime Minister, evaluated that the Albanians
from Kosovo and Metohija, do not want negotiations on the status of the
Serbian southern province because "negotiations are destroying the dream
of independent Kosovo".
TOP
FREE SERBIA
Podgorica, 18 Sep
Zoran
Zivkovic, the Serbian Prime Minister, evaluated that the Albanians from
Kosovo and Metohija, do not want negotiations on the status of the Serbian
southern province because "negotiations are destroying the dream of
independent Kosovo".
"Everybody knows this. Albanian leaders in Kosovo, also known this. But
the problem is that they were talking something else till yesterday, and
now they will be caught in a lie," stated Zivkovic in his interview for
Podgorica weekly "Monitor". He also stated that the new UNMIK chief Hari
Holkeri has to raise the question on the starting of the Belgrade –
Prishtina talks and added that Holkeri will do this when "analysis show
that there are conditions for such thing".
Zivkovic pointed that the Serbian negotiation team has still not been
formed and added "Belgrade awaits for a proposal from the representatives
of the international community or the Kosovo Albanians on when and where
is the start of the talks. He also stated that Serbia is ready for an
immediate start of talks on the Kosovo and Metohija status, but
conditioned the start of the talks with the presence of international
community representatives.
"The adopted topics of discussion for the talks will determine who will
participate in our delegation. Our people will be on the same level of
importance as the level of importance of the people from their
delegation," added Zivkovic. "Only possible topics of discussion for us
are return, security, destiny of missing persons, freedom of movement,
denationalization of Kosovo and Metohija, and talks on purely technical
questions such as energy issues, transport, pensions, and social welfare,"
stated the Serbian premier.
TOP
IVANIC
(BIH) KOSOVO STATUS CAN INFLUENCE BOSNIA
Mladen Ivanic, the Bosnia and Herzegovina chief of diplomacy, stated that
the change in the status of Kosovo can have negative impact on Bosnia and
Herzegovina, because this would open the question of the status of the
Serbians and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
TOP
Sarajevo, 18 Sep (RTS-NS)
Mladen Ivanic, the Bosnia and Herzegovina chief of diplomacy, stated that
the change in the status of Kosovo can have negative impact on Bosnia and
Herzegovina, because this would open the question of the status of the
Serbians and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Ivanovic added that the decision on the Kosovo status has to postponed,
emphasizing that if the province inhabited mostly with Albanians gets
independence then this would immediately open the status question of the
Croats and the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
TOP
30
SERB FAMILIES POSTPONE RETURN TO KOSOVO DUE TO INTIMIDATION
Some 30 Kosovo Serb
families have postponed their return to the province claiming the
Albanian-language press has called on ethnic Albanians to demolish their
homes.
TOP
B92,
Belgrade
September 19, 2003
Podujevo -- Friday – Some 30 Kosovo Serb families have postponed their
return to the province claiming the Albanian-language press has called on
ethnic Albanians to demolish their homes.
"The press has strongly criticised the project, saying that each and every
Albanian has the right to demolish every such house," said Caslav Bojovic,
the head of the Vidovdan Association of Serb Refugees from Kosovo. Bojovic
said that construction of the new homes in Podujevo had been stopped.
Some 30 families had signed up to return to the municipality just over the
border from Serbia proper.
Just 20 of the 2,000 Serbs who lived in the municipality before the
conflict are left.
Example of misusing media for
ethnic intimidation:
KOHA DITORE IS INCITING VIOLENCE AND ETHNIC HATRED
English translation of the article published in Koha Ditore: Beware of
Serb plans to colonize Kosovo, 04-03-03
/erpkim10mar03.html
TOP
SEVERAL
MORE BODIES OF SERBS KILLED AFTER WAR RETURNED FROM KOSOVO
The families
took the bodies of 87-year-old Jovan Lazarevic who was abducted in
Djakovica, Petar Djuric who was murdered in his Istok home, Gordana
Jovanovic (48), murdered in Prizren together with her husband and another
Prizren murder victim, Radivoje Drakulovic (67)
TOP
FoNet News Agency, Belgrade
September 18, 2003
Serb bodies returned from Kosovo | 20:39 | FoNet
MERDARE -- Thursday - The bodies of four Serbs killed in Kosovo were
handed over to their families at the Merdare border crossing today.
The families took the bodies of 87-year-old Jovan Lazarevic who was
abducted in Djakovica, Petar Djuric who was murdered in his Istok home,
Gordana Jovanovic (48), murdered in Prizren together with her husband and
another Prizren murder victim, Radivoje Drakulovic (67)
More than 209 bodies, eighty of which have been identified, have been
exhumed in Kosovo this year according to Belgrade figures.
TOP
AFP:
ITALY OFFERS 3.5 MILLION EUROS TO HELP SERB RETURNS TO KOSOVO
Italy has
promised a 3.5 million euro (4.2 million dollar) contribution to a UN
programme to encourage Serb refugees from Kosovo to return home, the
foreign ministry said Thursday.
TOP
AGENCE
FRANCE PRESSE
Thursday,
18-Sep-2003 6:20AM
ROME, Sept 18 (AFP) - Italy has promised a 3.5 million euro (4.2 million
dollar) contribution to a UN programme to encourage Serb refugees from
Kosovo to return home, the foreign ministry said Thursday.
It is estimated that some 220,000 Serbs fled the province, which has a
predominantly Albanian population, after a NATO bombing campaign against
Yugoslavia in 1999 forced Belgrade to withdraw its security forces which
had been pursuing a brutal crackdown in the region.
A NATO-led peacekeeping force, KFOR, moved into the province, which became
a UN protectorate, but many Serbs left fearing Albanian reprisals for
years of oppression from Belgrade, and few have returned.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and the UN administrator in
Kosovo, Harri Holkeri of Finland, signed a memorandum of understanding on
the contribution.
Frattini said Italy, which currently holds the European Union's rotating
presidency, was trying to keep attention focused on Kosovo.
He said it was essential "to reach appropriate standards in the areas of
politics, economics and ethnic cohabitation before facing up to the
question of the final status" of the province.
Holkeri said that future talks between the authorities in Kosovo and
Serbia "needed the impetus and the collaboration of all the parties
concerned by the region."
Talks due to open at the end of July have been postponed several times
because of the gulf between the two sides -- the Albanians seeking
independence and the Serbs a re-establishment of their authority.
The atmosphere was further poisoned last month when two Serbian boys were
shot dead and four others wounded in a suspected hate crime.
Today, around 80,000 Serbs live in Kosovo, mainly in KFOR-guarded
enclaves.
TOP
MACEDONIA:
INTER-ETHNIC TENSIONS MOUNTED IN HIGH SCHOOLS
Ethnic tension left for
a while the mountainous volatile northern region of Macedonia, where
clashes between police and criminal gangs seriously threatened fragile
peace in this tiny Balkan state recently... But, new victim appeared as
result of ruined confidence between two largest ethnic communities in
Macedonia - education.
TOP
Makfax, Skopje
SKOPJE 9/18/03 2:21:14 PM
Ethnic tension left for a while the mountainous volatile northern region
of Macedonia, where clashes between police and criminal gangs seriously
threatened fragile peace in this tiny Balkan state recently... But, new
victim appeared as result of ruined confidence between two largest ethnic
communities in Macedonia - education.
Ethnic tensions entered largely into classrooms since last week and break
out as violence on the streets.
Several thousand (more than 3000) Macedonian students are marching for a
days on the streets of southern town of Bitola (about 200 km south of
Skopje), protesting Education Minister decision to establish for the first
time a high school class for ethnic Albanians in that town.
Police were forced to intervene when enraged teenagers rushed into the
building, breaking windows and destroying classroom in a temporarily
designated building.
Few hundreds of students and their parents massed outside government
building on Wednesday, urging the Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski to
avert the Education Minister Aziz Polozani from dislocating seven forms of
ethnic Albanian students from one to another high school building. Their
Albanian schoolmates, together with their parents, attempted Thursday to
enter the building by force. School security averted a major incident.
One student was seriously wounded on Wednesday whengroups of Macedonian
and ethnic Albanian students clashed outside a high school in Skopje.
Police intervened and averted escalation of violence.
Two groups of ethnic Albanian students, marching toward Education Ministry
building to protest against their Macedonian schoolmates, had destroyed
two busses in their anger.
"Ethnic tensions don't occur in education only, but everywhere", Education
Minister, ethnic Albanian Aziz Polozani said in an interview with a local
newspaper "Utrinski Vesnik".
"A lot of job needs to be done for improving interethnic relations in
education process. That is the base where people should build better
atmosphere", Polozoni said.
But, many accused Education Minister of "creating problems for his
political reasons".
"No one can deprive the ethnic Albanians in Bitola from the right to study
in their native language. But, unfortunately, Polozani put them in
crossfire. The consequences could be dangerous, because he never appeared
in public to explain why only 34 ethnic Albanians in Bitola should study
in separate classroom", an analyst Hristo Ivanovski, editor in Skopje's
daily "Dnevnik" said.
More than 5.000 students in Macedonia, both of Macedonian and Albanian
nationality, are boycotting school classes for days, amid strong
opposition to recent decisions of authorities. The education problems,
apart from Skopje and Bitola, occurred in schools in Tetovo and Kumanovo.
As regards the mass protests of high-school students in Bitola, who
protest the opening of Albanian form in their city, the OSCE 's
spokeswoman Isabelle De Ruyt said "intimidating demonstrations are
unhelpful and unacceptable".
"This kind of intimidating demonstrations are unhelpful and unacceptable.
It is disappointing to see people mobilized against normal education
opportunities for the students", De Ruit said.
The High-school Students Union issued an appeal for the students "to
return to class-rooms" and to "avoid problems crated by others".
"We want to believe that young people have learnt the lesson for
co-habitation, which, unfortunately, many of the elders will never learn",
the Union President Jovana Bazerkova said./end/
TOP
AIM:
WESLEY CLARK'S TIES TO MUSLIM TERRORISTS
The media refer to
Clark's impressive military credentials but they fail to note that his
main accomplishment under President Clinton was presiding over the
establishment of a base for radical Islamic terrorism, including Osama bin
Laden, in Kosovo.
TOP
http://www.aim.org/publications/weekly_column/2003/09/17.html
ACCURACY IN MEDIA
WEEKLY COLUMN
Wesley Clark's Ties To Muslim Terrorists
By Cliff Kincaid
September 17, 2003
The retired General who had been refusing to declare himself a Democrat or
Republican is now declaring himself a Democratic presidential candidate.
But more important than his party affiliation is Wesley Clark's bizarre
view on how to fight terrorism. The media refer to Clark's impressive
military credentials but they fail to note that his main accomplishment
under President Clinton was presiding over the establishment of a base for
radical Islamic terrorism, including Osama bin Laden, in Kosovo.
Clark, who has been making headlines by claiming that the U.S. decision to
go to war in Iraq was a misjudgment based on scanty evidence, ran
Clinton's NATO war against Yugoslavia on behalf of the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA). The House of Representatives failed to authorize the war under
the War Powers Act, making it illegal. Thousands of innocent people in
Serbia, Yugoslavia's main province, were killed to stop an alleged
"genocide" by Yugoslavia that was not in fact taking place. Investigations
determined that a couple thousand had died in the civil war there.
Kosovo was a province of Yugoslavia and the military intervention of the
U.S. and NATO, a defensive alliance, was unprecedented. It was far more
controversial than the policy of regime change in Iraq, which was a policy
of Clinton, Bush and the Congress. Kosovo was never a threat to the U.S.,
and Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic didn't even pretend to have
weapons of mass destruction.
Clark wrote a Time magazine column, "How to Fight the New War," in which
he said we need new tactics and strategies against terrorists. He also
said, "We need face-to-face information collection: Who are these people,
what are their intentions, and what can be done to disrupt their plans and
arrest them?"
For the answer, Clark should ask his old friend, Hashim Thaki [Thaci], the
commander of the KLA. The 1998 State Department human rights report had
described the KLA as a group that tortured and abducted people and made
others "disappear." Yet a photograph was taken of Clark and Thaki with
their hands together in a gesture of solidarity.
The KLA's ties to Osama bin Laden were also well-known and reported.
An article in the Jerusalem Post at the time of the Kosovo civil war had
said, "Diplomats in the region say Bosnia was the first bastion of Islamic
power. The autonomous Yugoslav region of Kosovo promises to be the second.
During the current rebellion against the Yugoslav army, the ethnic
Albanians in the province, most of whom are Moslem, have been provided
with financial and military support from Islamic countries. They are being
bolstered by hundreds of Iranian fighters, or Mujahadeen, who infiltrate
from nearby Albania and call themselves the Kosovo Liberation Army. U.S.
defense officials say the support includes that of Osama bin Laden, the
Saudi terrorist accused of masterminding the bombings of the U.S.
embassies" in Africa.
Another Democratic presidential candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, has tried
to prohibit funding for the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), the successor
to the KLA now being protected by U.N. troops as a result of the outcome
of the conflict. Kucinich said an internal United Nations Report found the
KPC responsible for violence, extortion, murder and torture.
After the war, Milosevic was ousted and put on trial, where he has been
making the case in his own defense that Serb troops in Kosovo were
fighting Muslim terrorists associated with bin Laden. At a hearing before
the U.N. court trying him, he brandished an FBI document concerning al
Qaeda-backed Muslim fighters in Kosovo.
The FBI document was a congressional statement by J. T. Caruso, the Acting
Assistant Director of the CounterTerrorism Division of the FBI, who cited
a terrorism problem in Albania, the base for the Muslim terrorists that
attacked Serbia forces in Kosovo.
Clark's presidential decision suggests that he believes the media will not
ask him about supporting the same extremist Muslim forces in Kosovo that
militarily attacked us on 9/11. He's right: during interviews on ABC's
Good Morning America and the NBC Today show on September 17, the subject
didn't come up. Clark did say that he would not have gone to war with
Iraq, and that he would have turned the matter over to the U.N. There was
no "imminent threat" from Iraq, he claimed.
So where was the "imminent threat" to the U.S. from Yugoslavia? And why
did the Clinton administration bypass the U.N. on that illegal war? Clark
is counting on not hearing those questions from the same media going after
Bush on Iraq. They are all worse than hypocrites.
Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at
aimeditor@yahoo.com.
TOP
INET -
NEWS FROM KOSOVO AND METOHIJA, SEP 17
ERP KIM info service subarticle
TOP
www.inet.co.yu
I*Net News, Belgrade
KOSOVO AND METOHIJA NEWS
Wednesday 17 September 2003
20:40 The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff general Richard Myers
said today that US peacekeeping troops will not be withdrawn unilaterally
from Kosovo and Metohija or Bosnia and Herzegovina.
20:20 The director of the Balkans Initiative in the US Institute for
Peace, Daniel Serwer, who just returned from a trip to Pristina, assessed
that the situation in Kosovo had improved from his previous visit but that
violence against Serbs is on the rise.
20:00 Kosovo premier Bajram Rexhepi asked European Union commissioner
Chris Patten to try to create a legal basis to enable Kosovo to get
foreign loans.
19:40 Return Coalition (Povratak) whip in the Kosovo parliament Dragisa
Krstovic confirmed today that at tomorrow's session of the Kosovo
parliament MPs are to discuss the announced talks between Pristina and
Belgrade.
10:00 During his visit to Kosovo on September 19 former US president Bill
Clinton will receive a honorary doctorate from Pristina University. At
Pristina University Clinton is to address representatives of Kosovo
institutions, professors and students. The former US president first
visited Kosovo at the end of November 1999 when he visited US troops in
the military base Bondsteel near Urosevac where he delivered a speech. "We
have been in contact with the former US president for some time and we
wanted him to be a guest of the University of Pristina. After accepting
our invitation, we began preparations for this momentous event," said
Hairen Kuci, the director of international relations at the University of
Pristina.
TOP
ERP KIM
Info-Service is the official Information Service of the Serbian Orthodox
Diocese of Raska and Prizren and works with the blessing of His Grace
Bishop Artemije.
Our Information Service is distributing news on Kosovo related issues. The
main focus of the Info-Service is the life of the Serbian Orthodox Church
and the Serbian community in the Province of Kosovo and Metohija. ERP KIM
Info Service works in cooperation with
www.serbian-translation.com as well as the
Kosovo
Daily News (KDN) News List
Disclaimer:
The views expressed by the authors of newspaper articles or other texts
which are not official communiqués or news reports by the Diocese are
their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Serbian
Orthodox Church
Our Newsletters are
available on our ERP KIM Info-service Web-Page:
/erpkiminfo.html
SUBSCRIBE TO ERPKIM
NEWSLETTERS:
/erpkim_mailinglists.html
Additional
information on our Diocese and the life of the Kosovo Serb Community may
be found at:
Copyright 2003, ERP KIM Info-Service
|
