Text of report by Augustin Palokaj entitled "Little criticism of our American friends" published by the Kosovo Albanian newspaper Koha Ditore on 16 May
Kosova [Kosovo] has a very careful president who does not miss a single opportunity to thank our friends for the contribution they have made and are making for Kosova. The United States is always at the top of the list of those for whom our president expresses appreciation. No doubt that such a courtesy of our president should have created room for him to also criticize our friends, whenever there is reason for that. And, today there is a big reason to criticize the Americans, even though the actual US Administration is not directly linked to this reason. By bestowing a decoration for special merits on Chetnik movement leader Draza Mihailovic, which was presented to his daughter, perhaps the Americans expressed gratitude because he had allegedly rescued 500 US pilots during the World War II. But, that award heavily insults hundreds of thousands of victims of the Chetniks in Kosova, Croatia, and Bosnia-Hercegovina. It is surprising that the Kosovar public, including the media, did not show any interest in this event, even though we pretend to be a country that is very sensitive whenever speaking about the consequences of the war and crimes.
The official US explanation, at least based on what the media officials of that country have said, is that "The decoration for Draza Mihailovic has nothing to do with the present-day US policy, and that the medal was given in 1948 by President Harry Truman." However, even if symbolic, this gesture on the part of the Americans greatly harms the image of the United States, which is first on the list of those countries that condemn war crimes and urge dealing with them. It offends the victims and rehabilitates a movement that was the biggest motivation for the movements that caused the latest wars in the territories of the former Yugoslavia. It was precisely the Chetnik idea about a greater Serbia - which was so extensively applied by [former Yugoslav president] Slobodan Milosevic - that motivated hundreds of thousands of Serbs to join the ranks of the Yugoslav Army to crack down on Vukovar, to destroy Dubrovnik, to keep Sarajevo under siege for years, and to slaughter 8,000 Bosnians in Srebrenica. With that very idea, they continued their campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosova, by committing the heaviest crimes in the same place that Draza Mihailovic's Chetniks had done in Kosova, in Drenica [central Kosovo].
The anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre is this year, while the 60th anniversary of the victory against fascism is also currently being celebrated. The Serbian diplomacy, led by [Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister] Vuk Draskovic, who is an open follower of Chetnik ideology, can say with delight that he has succeeded in convincing the whole world that all Serbs were "antifascist." In this way, Serbia emerges as one of the rare countries in the world where everyone, including the Chetniks and partisans, were antifascists. And this happens at the time when, even for the recent wars, Belgrade is trying to gradually write Serbian history, and to sell to the world its variant as the truth. And, this truth suggests that in the Balkans everyone fought against everyone and that all committed crimes, a prejudgment that, to a great extent, has been employed by the Hague tribunal [International Criminial Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia - ICTY] to accuse all the parties. Later on, the Serbs will start a campaign of convincing the world that they were victims of all those wars, and were not the aggressors. If one looks at what they now succeeded in explaining in World War II, it is no surprise that after several years they will be rehabilitated even for the Serbian forces' crimes committed in the recent wars. If the Americans decorate Draza Mihailovic for having rescued some US pilots, it may easily happen that after several years France will also decorate [Bosnian Serb leader] Ratko Mladic, who may have rescued some French pilots in Bosnia.
Perhaps it is understandable for the Americans that whoever has saved an American life deserves merits, but for us it cannot be acceptable seeing those that who committed heinous crimes against our people are being rehabilitated. Our grandparents who know better than former US President Harry Truman what Chetniks did in Kosova still speak about the horrible crimes committed by them. The United States is big and we are small, but this does not mean that we do not have the right to at least tell them that the medal awarded to Draza Mihailovic offends us. We can do that at least to the extent that Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia have done, because the Americans may think that we have nothing against if they decorate Draza Mihailovic. Whenever Albanians mention the heinous crimes committed by Draza Mihailovic's Chetniks in Kosova and Drenica, in particular, they have to be careful not to annoy our American friends who have recently decorated Draza Mihailovic for special merits on the anniversary of the victory against fascism.
We cannot change the US decision to decorate "Draza," but we have the right and even moral obligation to criticize such an act, because even though some may argue that this is history now, some things from history must be remembered so that they do not repeat. Perhaps it would be good if our American friends listened carefully to Ibrahim Rugova speaking about the experience of his family with the Chetniks, because at least what our public knows, his family was a victim of Chetnik crimes. Therefore, this should be a right and moral obligation to react against the Americans' decoration of Draza Mihailovic. If we do not react, even our American friends do not take us seriously.
Source: Koha Ditore, Pristina, in Albanian 16 May 05 p10
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28 comments:
Well if they gave this medal in 1948 instead if hiding it to please Tito, we would not have this problem today. Sorry, but the truth is that General Mihailovic saved 500 American pilots and that those veterans are alive beccause of him and they are crying for recognition. Too bad but the truth is that ALL Serbs were antinazi.
Dear Mr. Anonymous,
If all Serbs were antinazi, Adolf Hitler was antinazi.
Kindest regards
L-E Morin
Swedem
America cares only about what or who they can use.
As for the Serbs if they are so good why is it that no one wants to be with them?!
How is it that Albanians who had the SS Skenderbeg Division and the modern narco-sex-trade-mafia KLA claim that Draza Mihailovic and the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland (Chetniks) were Nazi's!
Get lost! Bedo!
Because there was an extra 50 thousand healthy Jews living in Albania during and after WWII. Because not a single Jew from Albania was ever sent to a concentration camp and because unlike any other country in Europe the number of Jews in Albania was significantly after the war than before the war. Now coming back to Serbia it was the first capital in Europe to be declared free of Jews by the NAZI commanders. All the Jews were totally anihilated. If you don't call that collaboration with the NAZIS and the genocide makers then Serbia is the cradle of democracy and great protector of human rights, (Albanian, and Jewish rights especially)
the number of Jews in Albania was significantly greater after the war than before the war.
Because u can find the names of thousand of Albanian families in the righteous among gentiles memorial in Jerusalem and the WWII memorial in the USA. Ni Cetniks mentioned there, but there's a lot of NAZI documents and filled archives with their names and the dirty deeds they did for the NAZIS.
Bend over, baxhelle, buce.
We helped the Jewish nation, and our friendship with them shows this. Nazi Albanians can't exist, its against our culture to be racist. Proof is our acceptance of even Turks after their occupation ended, as well as the fact that even after all the murder/rape, we were still willing to join the new Tito's Yugoslavia.
We are grateful to country of Albania and the people that were sheltering Jews. However, that does not apply to Albanians from Kosovo who collaborated with Nazis openly and committed notorious crimes against my people. Jews have a very long memory and we are not forgetting what was done to us in the past. Serbs however, sheltered so many Jews and hid them from Nazis, including family of Madeline Albright.
Kosovo Albanians expelled all Jews from Kosovo again in ’99. History repeats…
So spare me please of your empty rhetoric, because no matter what you say we know what went on.
You even wanted to build a monument to your “patriots” from SS Skenderbeg Division, when whole world celebrates victory over Nazis. Monument to a same division that was killing my people!
Maybe author of this text should also keep that in mind. If Chetniks killed someone in Kosovo, that is probably because they were Nazis themselves.
Draza Mihailovic was a great Serbian hero.
A Jewish American airman rescued by the Chetniks said that thousands of Serb men, women and children were killed by the Nazis because the Chetniks refused to hand over the airmen to the Nazis. Also many Chetniks died fighting the Nazis were protecting the pilots.
I am proud that both my grandparents fought against both against the twin evils of this century Nazism and communism while kosovo Albanians supported both when they had the upper hand.
Shame on you for wanting to build a monument to Albanian Nazis but then you have foced Serbs and gypsies into ghettoes.
Actually the number of Jews that lived in Albania during the war was about 500. They were all saved. That was not just Albanian hospitality. There were also other factors:
- most of the war Albania was occupied by the Italians, who didn't care about Jews.
- when the Germans took over they mainly occupied the cities. From the rest of the country they demanded that the roads that connected the cities be safe, but they didn't actively occupy the villages. So when the Albanians moved the Jews from the cities to the countryside they were rather safe.
- Albania has no railroad connections with the rest of the Balkan. So the Nazi's favorite way of removing Jews was here not possible.
In Kosovo the SS Skanderbeg division took actively part in the prosecution of the Jews and a considerable part of the Jews perished.
who believes all this rubbish, seems like some of the comments above are organized
There is little wonder that the Balkans are forever embroiled in fighting when there seems to be so many aggrieved people who have to propensity to pass down their hatred.
These are the simple facts, as documented by Nuremberg. 700,000 Serbs and Jews were killed in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. The Serbs formed the first resistance group to battle the Nazi's (thus prompting Churchill's quote "the Yugoslav nation has found it's soul.."). And from the "expert" on this topic himself, Hitler said in a much publicized 1939 quote: "I have three enemies: The Serbs, the Jews and the Communists"
These are the indisputable facts. It certainly appears that the Nazis were unfriends with the general population of the Serbs--for whatever reason.
The Chetniks was not nazis. They had no thoughts about making a "Greater Serbia". The Chetniks served in the first hand God. After God came the King with the people and Homeland. But it is true that Chetniks was with German forces in the start of the war. But that was for some other reasons. They were also anticomunists. But later in the war they began to fight Germans. Thanks to Chetniks many soldiers of many countries are alive AND civilian people. America was good once. And it is horrible to watch their million dollar PROPAGANDA movies going on TV all over the world. Showing how the american soldiers died. Those assholes create only the movies just for propaganda. They don't care about the dead people. And you L-E Morin, weird answer... hitler antinazi??? Weird kid. Please don't say anything. The only thing you swedes did was helping nazis. And those who were against throw rocks on the fucking trains. LOL ROFL You are ignorant people and who doesn't know anything. You only watch the american propaganda shit that is on TV every day on swedish tv. Here in Greece , in Serbia, Croatia and all other countries who don't eat shit after Bush & Co show their own TV shows. And by the way, the real nazis were the bosnian muslims and the croatians ustasha which killed more than 4 million Serbs in the 1:st and the second world war. Please just shut up and READ DAMN MORE BOOKS.
The Chetniks was not nazis. They had no thoughts about making a "Greater Serbia". The Chetniks served in the first hand God. After God came the King with the people and Homeland. But it is true that Chetniks was with German forces in the start of the war. But that was for some other reasons. They were also anticomunists. But later in the war they began to fight Germans. Thanks to Chetniks many soldiers of many countries are alive AND civilian people. America was good once. And it is horrible to watch their million dollar PROPAGANDA movies going on TV all over the world. Showing how the american soldiers died. Those assholes create only the movies just for propaganda. They don't care about the dead people. And you L-E Morin, weird answer... hitler antinazi??? Weird kid. Please don't say anything. The only thing you swedes did was helping nazis. And those who were against throw rocks on the fucking trains. LOL ROFL You are ignorant people and who doesn't know anything. You only watch the american propaganda shit that is on TV every day on swedish tv. Here in Greece , in Serbia, Croatia and all other countries who don't eat shit after Bush & Co show their own TV shows. And by the way, the real nazis were the bosnian muslims and the croatians ustasha which killed more than 4 million Serbs in the 1:st and the second world war. Please just shut up and READ DAMN MORE BOOKS.
albanians were nazis.
they were under control by the italian fascists and croatians were ustase.
serbs were the second genocide next to the jews.
kosovo is serbian
it was in the past
it is today
and it always will be serbian
my advice to albanian is to try and annex greek or macedonian states.the truth is...there are more albanians living outside of albania then within...this is possible because they are a 3rd world country. serbia has 3 times the population of albania and this clearly shows the serbian culture existed longer.KOSOVO.KOSOVO.KOSOVO JE NASE!
th best way to see what kind of people are serbians is to take a look at how many bosnians and croatians and albanians were killed in the yugoslavian war. Killing 300 000 people that means you are not a part of civilised world anymore. The remaining problem is that they think that they did good by killing those people.
Simply fashists and idiots.
it is generally recognized today that the Albanians are the most ancient race in southesatern Europe. All indications point to the fact that they are descendants of the earliest Aryan immigrants who were represented in historical times by the kindred Illyrians, Macedonians and Epirots. According to the opinion of most ethnologists and linguists, the Illyrians formed the core of pre-Hellenic, Tyrrhenopelasgian population, which inhabited the southern portion of the Peninsula and extended its limits to Thrace and Italy. The Illyrians were also Pelasgians, but in a wider sense. Moreover it is believed that of these cognate races, which are described by the ancient Greek writers as "barbarous" and "non-Hellenic," the Illyrians were the progenitors of the Ghegs, or Northern Albanians, and the Epirots the progenitors of the Tosks, or Southern Albanians. This general opinion is borne out the statement of Strabo that the Via Egnatia or ®gitana, which he describes as forming the boundary between the Illyrians and the Epirots, practically corresponds with the course of river Shkumbini, which now seperates the Ghegs from the Tosks. The same geographer states that Epirots were also called Pelasgians. The Pelasgian Zeus, whose memory survives even today in the appellation of God as "Zot" by the modern Albanians, was worshiped at Dodona, where the most famous oracle of ancient times was situated. According to Herodotus the neighborhood of the sanctuary was called Pelasgia. music kosova
Cetniks are proud Serbian People that fought for freedom. When Serbs are in war then there is Cetniks in war, because we fight for freedom. Freedom or Death. For King And Serbia
Serbian cities were destroyed becuase Drazo didnt want to give up the pilots. Drazo is a Hero... u albanians ,croats,bosnians, dont like him cuz he was a Serb, now u guys are making all this bullshit propaganda... Truth Comes Out Sooner Or Later...ZIVELA VELIKA SRBIJA
The Chetniks are heroes.
The Chetnik Ideology for a united Serbia is much older than Mihailovic.
This idea started when Austrio-Hungary invaded Bosnia and Croatia which had a large Serb population.
The Serbs wanted the Austro-Hungarians to give freedom to this area, so that the Serbs could make a united country.
The only collaborations the Serbs made with the Nazis were against Tito's communist regieme and his Partisans, which were responsible for the death of thousands of Serbs, because of their Nazi-fighting strategy(they attacked German medics, which are civilians, even though the Nazis promised to kill 100 Serbs for every dead German).
The Partisans also killed Chetniks, because they wanted to take power.
The only Chetnik leader was the king, who never made anti-Roma or anti-Jewish collaborations with the Nazis.
The king and the Chetniks wanted to stay neutral in the WW2. That's like saying Switzerland collaborated with the Nazis, bacause they refused to fight Germany, and bacause they refused to allow German-Jews to enter Switzerland, to save thir life.
The Albanian Nazis (Bale prljave fasisticke)didn't kill Jews, but they did kill Serb civilians and Roma. Cheniks wern't responsible for the Srebrenica massacre, because the Chetiks consider Muslims to be Serbs as well, they would never kill civilians.
Mihailovic and the Chetniiks helped free Albania of Nazis, and thir Rebel allies, which were civilians with weapons, so before you say your friend's family was killed by Chetniks, ask yourself what he was doing with the Nazis.
Nadic never met Hitler, the picture was proven to be fake, because after the war, the Communists took power, and made fake documents about the Chetniks, to make them look evil, bacause the Chetniks were for the good king, and against the Mini-Stalin, Tito.
The Nazis claimed that Belgrade was "free of Jews"(Judenfrei), but the truth is, the Church and Government made fake files for Jews and Roma, and helped them escape.They also saved the lives of Madeline Albright, and her family.The Albanian Nazi Government was willing to endanger the lives of its Jews and Roma, by becoming an Ally, but Serbia wanted to be neutral, like Portugal and Switzerland, that didn't lose any Jews nor Roma.
I am glad to ba a Chetnik, bacause they fought for Freedom, Justice, and Liberty.
serbia saved thousands of jews and risked thir own life
read the List:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteous_Among_the_Nations
albania only saved about 300 jews but killed many many many many many serbs roma and italian partisans (but not all albanians and kosovars are bad i have alot of albanian and kosovar friends)
I live in Australia and I must say that Albanians are a filthy race of 3rd worlders who peddle human beings, drugs & death. They're even known for these crimes here in Australia! Regardless of who owns what or who helped the Nazi's or who didnt, Albanians are filthy animals whose country has a criminal economy. As for the USA, they screwed up by picking the wrong side...yet again. Remember the KLA were labelled TERRORISTS by Washington then all of a sudden (when it suited them) they were labelled FREEDOM FIGHTERS. Pathetic. I reckon Kosovo should be partitioned so that the Albanian cancer can be quarantined.
I would also like to add that if Kosovo becomes independent then the UN has no meaning anymore. The 1999 NATO war ended on the agreement to UNSC Resolution 1244 that stated Kosovo be returned to the Serbs. What a massive backflip we have seen. Independence will mean that Serbia was bombed for 15% of its territory not to protect a bunch of Wahhabist wankers. ie: NATO = NAZI
Unfortunately all this was bound to happen. Serbia was the last free country in Europe...before it was taken in the 90's by the EU-US Neocons.
>> Freedom or Death
start another war and you'll see.
I am a Jew myself(a proud one) and have many Albanian friends. There are very clear facts which show how the Albania was the ONLY country of Europe that saved my people during WWll. Serbs only come with propaganda. The Chetnics were the ones who killed most Jews in Yugoslavia!!! Albanians from Kosovo and other spaces of the Albanains such as Macedonia,Montenegro and Greece fixed documents for the Jews so that they safetly could travel for Albania where they were being hidden by Albanians families. Albanians from Kosovo couldn't keep the Jews at their place because the chetniks wanted to kill them because they were Albanians and if it came out that they were also hiding Jews, then it would emediatley lead to their dead.
I am truly thankful to the Albanian ppl. We will never forget your help!
Regards
Josef Katz
I am a Jew myself(a proud one) and have many Albanian friends. There are very clear facts which show how Albania was the ONLY country of Europe that saved my people during WWll. Serbs only come with propaganda and I am ashamed over some of my ppl who believe their propaganda machine! The Chetnics(Serbs) were the ones who killed most Jews in Yugoslavia!!! Albanians from Kosovo and other spaces of the Albanains such as Macedonia,Montenegro and Greece fixed documents for the Jews so that they safetly could travel for Albania where they were being hidden by Albanians families. Albanians from Kosovo couldn't keep the Jews at their place because the chetniks wanted to kill them aswell!
I am truly thankful to the Albanian ppl. We will never forget your help!
Regards
Josef Katz
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