 |
|
February 26, 2003 ERP KIM Newsletter 26-02-03c Part 1 30 GIORNI -
DOPO LE BOMBE IL CAOS
- Febbraio 2003 Four years after the “humanitarian war”
In these years not even the presence of the Italian
contingent have spared the monastery of Decani from “provocation” of
Albanian extremists: desecration of the communal cemetery, the surrounding
wood destroyed, falling of several mortar grenades near the church. And whoever does the shopping for the community can only move
around the city if escorted by the Italian soldiers. “Task force “Sauro”,
Father Sava adds, “is the only place where we can get medical assistance
and other urgent necessities. We’re not allowed to make use of any
institution, there in the city”. Now that the time is also approaching for
the handover from the UN police to the local police force, in which a
large part of the former Albanian extremists of UCK have been recycled,
the appeals of the monks for task force “Sauro” to remain in the Decani
area have taken on an alarmed note. “The long term plan”, Father Sava
insists, “is to force us to leave the monastery, then perhaps transform it
into a museum or into a ‘Christian monument’ of independent Kosovo. But I
have faith in the Italian soldiers. During the World War it was your
Carabinieri who saved the monastery from the Balli Kombetar, the
paramilitary Albanian nationalists who fought alongside the Nazis and
wanted to destroy it ....”. An Italian Colonel who spent two years in
western Kosovo and wishes to remain anonymous, has few doubts about the
fate of the ancient Orthodox churches should the international
peacekeepers withdraw: “The extremists are only waiting until we leave to
make a clean sweep of the Orthodox holy places concentrated in Kosovo.
They think that only by razing them to the ground will the churches and
sanctuaries lose their power of eternal summons for the return of the
Serbs”.
After the humanitarian war, the chaos The uncertain fate of the Orthodox churches is only
a stray piece of the shattered Kosovo mosaic. Almost four years after the
NATO intervention, the most recent bloodshed in the Balkans history is
being prolonged by the confusion and randomness in which Kosovo is
dragging itself along under international protection. A powder-keg fused
with latent conflicts, without any credible prospects of political
stability. The ambiguous UN resolution 1244, which blocks any discussion
on the definitive status of the region by tying it to the return of
Serbian and gypsy refugees and the respect of their rights, is judged by
observers to be an unattainable utopia. In it, the Rambouillet agreements
of 23 February 1999 are explicitly restated, with reference to the
principle of self determination of people as a criterion for establishing
the definitive arrangement of the region. And this confirms the
overwhelming Albanian majority in their conviction that, sooner or later,
the complete independence of the Kosovan nation will be officially
recognized. But the same resolution does not justify any unilateral
violation of the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty of the
equally agonized Yugoslav Federation.
The church of St. Nicolas near Pristina (Slovinje), construced in 16th century and destroyed by Kosovo Albanians in summer 1999 In the background, the forgotten question about the definitive status of Kosovo in itself keeps the situation suspended in a limbo fraught with tension. With a fragmentary international presence, with astronomical costs (UNMIK, the UN Administration which manages the political and administrative institutions, also pays the salaries of many public employees, as well as those of its own personnel), and on which ever more palpable popular hostility is concentrated. In the last months, intimidation, small-scale attacks and manifestations of public intolerance towards UN dependents have increased greatly. The arrest of members of the UCK guerilla movement, accused of horrendous crimes, often committed against moderate Albanians, has in recent months provoked clashes between the fringes of the population closest to the former paramilitary and the international police forces. And on 22 January last, an antitank missile hit the UN police command in Pec. This was the most serious attempt against the peacekeeping forces in all of the “postwar” period. At the same time, the prospect of a UN protectorate prolonged for decades, marking time on the crucial question of the definitive status of the region while waiting for atavistic hatreds to wither, is in the long run in danger of merely modifying power relations within the Albanian sector. At the municipal elections of 26 October last, when less than 60% of the electorate went to the polls, the party of President Ibrahim Rugova (LDK), even though maintaining its pre-eminence, lost ground to the more radical parties (PDK and AAK), which still nurture the dream of the “great Albania” and are led by former militiamen of the UCK, Hashim Taqi and Ramush Haradinaj. And in recent times Albanian extremist groups carried out a series of attacks intended to strike directly at the moderate forces who side with Rugova. In October, the day after the vote, the mayor of Suhareka, a member of the LDK, was killed. On 13 December, an explosive device was set off in Pristina and injured 25 people. On 4 January, Tahir Zemaj, a noted former guerilla leader, he too associated with Rugova’s party, but more especially a key witness in the trials against the former UCK militiamen, was shot by terrorists along with his twentyone year old son and a cousin. Now that the usual mountebanks are preparing the world for
a new “morally justified war”, there might be a point in looking at how
the humanitarian bombs left things in Kosovo. Where, four years later, in
a mess from which nobody knows how to emerge, the most stable reality
appears to be the enormous US military base of Ferizaj/ Urosevac. A true
and proper town of five thousand soldiers, with houses and barracks built
in record time on ground which the American military strategists have
“rented” until 2099.
Please feel free to distribute newsletters of the ERP KIM Info-Service to your friends. By doing this you will support our efforts to bring more public attention to the suffering of the Serb Orthodox Christians and their Church. 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. If you received this message by error or you don`t want to receive our e-mails anymore, please write to us: erpkim@kosovo.net Our Newsletters are available on
our ERP KIM Info-service Web-Page: Additional information on our Diocese
and the life of the Kosovo Serb Community may be found at:
http://www.kosovo.net |
At
Decani, which is still, nominally, a city of the autonomous province of
Kosovo belonging to Serbia, there are no longer any Serbs. Only in the
monastery dedicated to the Ascension of the Lord, the 35 monks and some
old people, permanent residents of the community, ensure through the
ordinary rhythms of their daily life, that this place, so dear to the
memory and devotion of Serbian Orthodoxy, has not already been transformed
into a monument to past glories. Among them there is Father Sava Janjic,
the “cyber monk”, who for four years has run a much visited Internet site
where he has recounted the horrors of the conflict and now the life, under
siege, of the few Serbs who remained in Kosovo after the ethnic cleansing
which followed the “just war” waged by NATO in 1999. At five o’clock,
along with his fellow monks, be goes for morning prayers to the church
which is without electricity. Prayers have been recited here in the same
way for almost seven hundred years. Likewise with the holy liturgical
rites, which are those written by Saint John Chrysostom in the fourth
century. Then to work immediately in a room full of computers, modems and
scanners. 
Between
1998 and 1999, during the reprisals of Milosevic’s army in Kosovo, more
than two hundred mosques were , according to the local Islamic community,
destroyed or damaged. But now, in all the areas in which the region is
divided under international protectorate, minarets sprout by the dozen
among the building sites of the cities and towns under reconstruction,
thanks not least to diligent Saudi financiers. With the churches the
opposite has occurred. Since the arrival of the UN troops 112 have been
destroyed or damaged, while dozens of cemeteries have been desecrated. Most
of the damage was done between 1999 and 2000, when the Albanian thirst for
revenge raged against everything identified with Serbian political
domination. In different cases, as in Djakovica, or in Pristina, the
churches were blown up under the eyes of the KFOR soldiers. Then the
international troops strengthened defenses around sensitive objects of a
religious nature. Especially around monasteries and ancient churches – not
only the monastery of Decani, but the Patriarchate of Pec, the monastery
of Gracanica, the Cathedral of the Madonna of Ljevisa, at Prizren – which
the Orthodox consider to be the cradle of the Orthodox tradition itself.
Lots of other churches were also placed under guard. But once the fury had
passed, and the majority of the two hundred thousand Serbs had fled, the
military surveillance of the extended network of churches and chapels,
almost always empty and often already damaged, was gradually reduced for
understandable reasons to do with the management of resources. And the way
was thus opened for the nuisance of sporadic but persistent attacks, which
apart from giving vent to the seething ethnic hostility, followed a
calculated, systematic plan to permanently take over places and symbols
dear to the historical and religious memory of all Serbs. The last
churches dynamited, on the night of 16-17 November last, were those of All
Saints in Djurakovac and of Saint Basil in Ljubovo. They are both in the
western district of Istok, from where the permanent garrisons were
withdrawn in recent months, removed and replaced by a level of “indirect
protection”, barriers, twenty-four hour floodlighting, sporadic patrols
and the operations of the civilian police, composed of Albanians. The day
after, a note from the KFOR command confirmed the decision of the NATO
peace-keeping force to maintain fixed garrisons only around religious
sites “of artistic or historical importance or which are still used for
worship”. On 20 January last, the Minister for Education in the
provisional government actually spoke of the “authorized” destruction of
the church of Christ the Savior, in the center of Pristina, still
unfinished when building was interrupted by hostilities, on the pretext
that the building stood “illegally” on land belonging to the local
university campus. Finally, on 23 January, the KFOR command took a partial
step backwards, making known its decision to freeze plans to remove the
check-points set up to guard threatened places of worship. These and other
similar episodes reopen the questions about the existence or not of a long
range plan for the safeguarding of Serb-Orthodox churches. And also
questions about the odd difficulties expressed by monochord western
opinion. Always ready to collect and publicize any signs of Islamic
hostility towards the self styled western Christian civilization, but
keeping lips sealed about the violence still perpetuated by Albanian
Islamic extremists in the heart of Europe. The same people were in the UCK
militia during the war, and enjoyed, wouldn’t you know it, widespread and
documented political and military complicity on the part of the centers of
western power. 
