PRISTINA (AP)--Serbian authorities Wednesday were returning the bodies of 84 ethnic Albanians killed during the 1998-99 Kosovo war - the largest single return of war dead in the province.
The bodies, which were exhumed from a mass grave on the grounds of a police training center just outside Belgrade, will be handed over to their families and U.N. officials in the border area of Merdare, 25 miles north of the provincial capital, Pristina.
The remains are believed to be those of ethnic Albanian civilians killed by Serb forces during the war and removed from Kosovo in an apparent cover-up attempt by former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. NATO launched a bombing campaign in 1999 to halt the crackdown of his troops on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Since then the province has been administered by the United Nations.
Authorities in Serbia said that, out of 836 bodies of Kosovo Albanians found in mass graves in Serbia, 566 had been identified and nearly 500 returned to their families. The remaining 270 bodies were expected to be identified by the end of the year.
The families have repeatedly demanded that all the war dead exhumed be returned immediately. Nearly 3,000 people were still listed as missing.
Hundreds of bodies recovered from mass graves in Kosovo and Serbia were to be identified through the matching of DNA from bone samples with that of the relatives of missing people.
Earlier this year, Serbian and Kosovo officials resumed talks aimed at establishing the fate of ethnic Albanians, Serbs and others who vanished during the war - one of the most sensitive and emotionally charged issues between the two former foes.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
I suppose NATO bombs killed them and in the process also burried them in a mass grave. NATO bombs also burned hundreeds of other Albanians in industrial ovens all around Serbia.
Yes that would be the version of denial.
We should never ever forget this.
And who is so damn sick to tell Kosova Albanians that they should live under Belgrade. Serbs can live in independent Kosova as minority only, period.
We shoud forgive but not forget to what happen in Kosova.
Where's Ibro now? These are the kind of things why Serbia comes up in a blog named kosovareport.
Here I am,
Do you expect me to say that I’m glad about dead Albanians or Serbs? Mind you since august 1999 143 dead Serbian bodies have been sent to Serbia from Kosovo. If you work out your percentages it says that both sides have killed at the same rate. And I would like you to tell me that killing of Serb civilians is morally right. Well is it?
Ibro
first of all there are more bodies of Albanians waiting to be sent back to Kosovo from Serbia but due to the "good" will of the Serbian government this process is delayed. It is tragic to see the lack of willingness from the Serbian government to at least not politisize the issue of war victims. Secondly, there are still bodies of killed Albanian civilians (women and children) being found throughout Serbia, so talking about the final numbers of victims is unreasonable.
Ibro you should put it this way if you want to talk about percentages; most of the Serb killers came from Serbia and if you take percentage of killed Serbs in comparison to Albanians then you should take into account not only the Kosova Serbs but Serbs from Serbia as well.
As long as Kosova Serbs listen to Serbs from Serbia (Belgrade) they will live in enclave and suffer on their expanse.
By equating the victims you are sounding happy that these Albanians were killed. You are a Serb, it is understandable.
Don't pull other issues out, but discuss the one that is being discussed. For example you can explain why Albanians were killed and burried in Serbia. If you were fighting terrorism and killing terrorists you didn't have to hide behind your actions.
How many Serbs you said were killed by Albanians and were sent to Serbia? 99% of that number (which is overestimated by you) were military forces and police who terrorized the population and thus deserved to die - and were killed in action. That explains why we did not transport their bodies and burry them in Albania.
Deal with the issue please - once you admit what you have done then you can start arguing about other things that seem to favor you a bit more.
So, when will Kosovareport post a headline about this:
Church Desecration Video Serves as Jihad Fund-Raiser
A violent video showing the desecration of a church and the murder of a Serbian soldier is one of many "jihad" videos currently making the rounds in Western countries to raise funds for Muslim terrorists, according to counter-terrorism experts.
See story and video here:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=%5CSpecialReports%5Carchive%5C200508%5CSPE20050811a.html
And here I was told that Muslims revere Jesus.
Serbian Faith-Based Atrocities
Serge Raymund Doucette,Jr.,Ph.D
Religious faith and places of worship are ≥sacred,≤ and many of us become horrified when we learn that someone is physically attacking a religious leader, follower, church, synagogue, mosque or any formal place of religious worship. However, this horror evaporates when members of one faith believe that another is threatening their faith or individual existence, and a ≥religious crusade≤ of one form or another becomes justified as necessary for survival. Unfortunately, it can be argued that religion has been one of the greatest sources of conflict and war, and ≥In The Name of God≤ countless millions of people have died over the centuries. It is also sad that the three major religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, who profess belief in the same God, continue to debate, argue and kill over who is truly following the ≥will of God.≤
Historically, significant problems developed when a particular faith attempted to impose it beliefs on others, rather than accepting the right of others to practice what they believe. In other words, when any religion had temporal power, such as weapons and an army, and was ≥in charge≤ of the creation and enforcement of civil law; faith or belief became law and religious tolerance disappeared.[1]
It is important to keep in mind that religious intolerance and wars have not been limited to conflicts between different faiths, but have often occurred within a given faith. Unfortunately, many faiths throughout history, including Islam, Judaism and Christianity have gone through periods of leadership that have distorted the word of God; in teaching and practice, and this continues right up through the present day.
Historically, we have extremists or radicals who profess their interpretation, and use the name of God to justify the atrocities that they commit, and no formal religion has escaped being marred from these practices. Fundamentalists or radicals believe that they alone have true insight into the will of God, and they cannot abide by ≥Live And Let Live.≤ They either believe that they are Godπs messengers and they must convert or punish others, or they believe that to allow others to live, they will die at the hands of ≥non-believers.≤ In either case, they cannot accept ≥religious tolerance,≤ and these twisted worshipers invoke the ≥Name of God≤ to promote their superiority and impose their belief on others.
The events of 911 placed the focus of fanatical worship on Islam and its leader, Bin Laden, and there is a worldwide manhunt for him and the elimination of the terrorists that he has helped to create. And in our fight against perverted Islamic terrorism, it has at times become necessary to attack mosques where they have hidden, and perpetrated their terrorist activities.
As an American, I ask you: If we could locate the place where Bin Laden and his followers ≥worship God≤ in their fanatical manner, without respect for the innocent, would we bomb or otherwise destroy their place of worship?
I am sure that there are many who would say that this question poses a difficult choice, even though it is obvious Bin Laden and others are distorting the teachings of a legitimate religion. However, we must not forget that when the teachings of God are twisted to be used to justify the killing of the innocent in order to impose their will on others, this is no longer a legitimate worship or religion that reflects and protects Humanity.
True followers of Islam abhor the acts of Bin Laden, and they stand together with Christians, Jews, and all followers of legitimate faiths who understand and respect humanity. We are now in a religious war of terrorism that is based on a perversion of the teachings of Islam, but the spectacular atrocities of 911 and the acts in Iraq and the Middle East have overshadowed the fact that many have been suffering from religious perversion long before Bin Laden.
Many can understand the atrocities committed by Bin Laden warrant full and complete reprisal in order to protect Humanity, but they somehow overlook the historical and current ≥faith-based atrocities≤ committed by others, such as Christian Orthodox Serbia.
The following material deserves careful review and consideration, especially by those who are inadvertently assisting the continued Serbian distortion of the truth and the appeasement policy of Serbia by Europe. This paper will demonstrate that the Serbian Orthodox Church has, since its inception, distorted Christian faith in a manner that is no different from the distortion of Islam by Bin Laden and his followers. Yet Bin Laden and his perpetrators of atrocities have been labeled terrorists, while this label has eluded the Serbs and their church for centuries.
This paper is dealing with one aspect of Balkan history, but it is an important aspect to be understood, especially in dealing with ≥modern terrorism≤ resulting from perversion of religious faith. I do not attempt in this paper, nor is it possible, to address all of the related facts and issues that have contributed to the behavior of Serbians and the governments they have created. There are numerous historical accounts of the Balkans, and an extensive history of the Slavic (especially Serbian) Albanian conflict from the Middle Ages right up to the democratic elections in a liberated Kosova in 2000 can be found in my book recently published in Kosova.[2]
I have made a strong statement about the Serbian perversion of Christianity and the following material will present the facts and the situation that continues today. The Serbian people would have you believe that the recent conflict in Kosova (1999) was one of Albanian Muslim oppression of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and they were ≥simply≤ repressing uprisings and protecting themselves and their church. In discussing the ≥Kosova question≤ they divert from any action that addresses their previous wars against Slovenia and Croatia (with a majority Protestant and Roman Catholic populations) and Bosnia Herzegovina. They ignore the fact that Kosova has always been a majority of Albanians, and just prior to the 1999 war, 90% of the population was ethnic Albanian, 5% was Serbian and the remaining 5% consisted of other minorities.
The truth is that ethnic Albanians, and their ancestors the Illyrians have never been territorial aggressors; have never killed in the name of God; and have not killed the fleeing enemy following their defeat. They have fought Serbs and others who have invaded their lands and committed atrocities against them, and this has remained true right through the recent war with Serbia ending in June of 1999. Unlike the Serbs and many other peoples of the world, religion or ≥faith≤ has never been a reason for the Albanian to go to war.
Being the direct descendents of the Illyrians, they are the only indigenous population in the Balkans, with the Slavs first coming into the area around the 6th and 7th centuries. Ever since the arrival of the Slavs and their destruction of the existing civilization, they have constantly waged war among themselves and against others. The Serbs, although they have in the past aligned themselves with other Slavic people (Montenegrins, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Russians) and Greeks, they have consistently viewed themselves as the superior race. And when they achieved their independence from the Greek Orthodox Church, they began a legacy of Christian superiority that was inseparable from their nation. For the Serbs, there is only one true faith, the Serbian Orthodox Faith, and all others are not to be accepted nor tolerated. In their perversion of Christianity, they see themselves as a superior race with a superior relationship with God that must be accepted and followed by others.
There must be careful reflection and those who are criticizing the Albanians in Kosova must base their response on facts, not fiction or distortion, and they must take into account the legitimate reasons that the Serbian Orthodox Church has been attacked.
≥Attacks≤ Against The Serbian Orthodox Church
Since violence erupted against Serbs following the end of the war in 1999 and later during the riots of March of 2004, countless ≥believers,≤ especially Christian Americans, are having a difficult time dealing with reports in the newspapers that there have been a number of Albanian aggressions against Orthodox Churches in Kosova.
Unfortunately, the Kosova riots in March 2004, in which a number of Orthodox churches were burned is being used as ≥evidence≤ of Albanian Muslim oppression. However, by the time that you finish this article, you will see how this continues to be a distortion of the truth, and how it has been the Serbian Orthodox Church in collusion with the Serbian government that has precipitated violence in the region. The Serbian churches were not attacked on religious grounds; they were attacked as representative of Serbian oppression. The Church and government are inseparable, and attacking the church was no different from attacking government buildings of an oppressive regime. They did not attack a legitimate Christian faith, as we know it in America; they attacked a de facto fusion of perverted Serbian leaders and their patrons in the Serbian Orthodox Church. And although I do not cover it in this paper, a review of the events of March 2004 clearly shows that they were not ethnically motivated, but they arose from continued suppression of Albanian expression of free will and the political repression of the Albanian people.
Also most people are not aware that historically, it was Albanian Muslims and Catholics who guarded and protected Serbian Orthodox holy sites in Kosova from harm, with their life when necessary. It was only following increased Serbian aggression, atrocities and repeated attempts at ethnic cleansing of Albanians that this practice stopped after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and with the formation of Serbian dominated Yugoslavia (including Kosova) in the beginning of the 20th century. It is truly amazing, that for the crimes Serbs and their ≥Church≤ have perpetrated against the Albanians that they have not reacted violently on more occasions.
From 1989 ≠ 1999, Serbia waged five wars of aggression. In this period, it occupied Kosova ≠ all in pursuit of an ethnically pure Greater Serbia and with the support of the Serbian Orthodox Church!
Uniformed and misinformed Americans (including our own State Department) who are ≥aghast≤ that some Albanians have attacked Serbian Churches, have not held the Serbian government or its people accountable for the historical and recent commissions of terrorism and atrocities. They condemn Bin Laden and others, and have sworn to seek them out and destroy him and those who support him, but do little, if anything, to condemn Serbian atrocities against Albanians and Bosnians. (Even President Bush has clearly stated that in the war against terrorism, ≥You are either with us, or you are with the enemy.≤) These same people are forgetting the reasons that the United States and Great Britain led NATO against the Serbs in the first place. The United States supported Europeπs appeasement policy in the drafting of the ≥Dayton Accord[3],≤ and the ignoring of the ≥Kosova situation≤ set the stage for the Serbians to predictably move on to Kosova.
You will come to understand that for Serbs, religion is not governing their daily way of life, and they rarely attend church on a regular basis. However, unlike Albanians and Americans Serbs do not have a moral code. They believe that if their ≥Church≤ is destroyed, they will cease to exist, and it is this belief that is effectively manipulated by Serbian religious and political leaders. The Serbian Orthodox Church becomes the motivation to create and sustain aggression, violence and atrocities against others. Serbian repetition of crimes against humanity can been seen as the result of a Serbian ≥mentality≤ developed and fostered by a mystical relationship with their Orthodox Church which is inseparable with the existence of the Nation. The following except from Noel Malcolmπs book provides some elaboration.
≥These issues are relevant to any study of the Kosovo question, not only because of the quasi-religious fervor of some Serbian writers and politicians on this subject, but also because the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church is located at the Western Kosovo town of Pec (Alb: Peja). Let the last word on the general question of the Serbs, and their religion go to a distinguished Serbian diplomat and historian, Čedomil Mijatović, whose remarks, written at the beginning of the twentieth century, may be equally valid at its end:
The religious sentiment of the Servians (i.e. Serbians) is neither deep nor warm. Their churches are generally empty, except on very great Church festivals, and on political festivals. The Servians of our day consider the Church as a political institution, in some mysterious manner connected with the existence of the nation. They do not allow anyone to attack her, nor to compromise her, although, when she is not attacked, they neglect her.≤[4]
Unlike many other historical aggressors, the Serbs have never been interested in the domination of others, unless they were sure they could be assimilated into Serbian philosophy and religion. Serbia has been historically landlocked and the Serbs have concentrated on expanding their territory to the sea, and the creation of an ethnically pure greater Serbia. In their many wars against others, they have forced Muslims, Catholics and others to convert to Serbian Orthodoxy, or die. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed over the centuries, including their own people who would not convert to Serbian Orthodoxy.
Historically, when religious leaders have recognized its transgressions or been held accountable by others, there has been remorse and attempts to correct any ≥wrongs.≤ However, the Serbian Orthodox Church has a history since its inception in the 13th century of avoiding moral investigation; fostering misconceptions; and utilizing the selfish tendencies of man for personal and national gain. The Serbian Orthodox Church is significantly different from Catholic Church and other Christian denominations.[5]
The Serbian Orthodox Church:
- Has never admitted wrongdoing, nor has it ever shown any remorse for past and current behaviors.
- Has fostered a belief in the superiority of Serbs over all others;
- Promotes that the Serbs, ≥As A People≤ will cease to exist if their Church is destroyed;
- Has promoted the need to defend the church by taking proactive action against any who threaten or might threaten the Church;
- Has systematically murdered and massacred thousands of Muslims and Catholics who refused to convert to Orthodoxy, including their own Serbian people.
- Has celebrated and blessed the perpetrators of atrocities against their ≥enemy;≤
- Has never accepted the rights of other than the Serbian people;
- Views the ethnic Albanian as a particular threat to Serbs; (1) fearful that they will one day take revenge for the historical aggression, atrocities and attempts at ethnic cleansing; and (2) they (and others) remain ≥in the way≤ of an ethnically pure Serbian land that brings them to the sea.
The Serbian Orthodox Church, has over centuries, consistently manipulated and distorted the Christian faith in service of the Serbian goal of power, territorial gain and the creation of an ≥ethnically pure Serbian land.≤ The teachings of Christ have been distorted and manipulated to serve the needs of a corrupt people and their government. For those American leaders who have expressed outrage at attacks on the Serbian Church, they need to be aware of the historical destruction of Catholic churches by the Serbs.
The Serbs have destroyed Catholic churches, saying that they are Austrian constructions and must disappear from the face of the earth.[6]
Serbian Historical & Recent Inhumanity
The Serbian government used the pretense of isolated and limited violence in Kosova[7] as a justification for the Serbian campaign of rape, torture, murder and ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Albanians. The violent events by Serbs in the Balkans need to be carefully reviewed by all nations of the world or we face the danger of loss of the moral component of democracy.
Many, especially the Serbs, have attempted to make the world believe that there is no difference between the actions of Albanians and Serbs, and the situation in Kosova has been a historical Albanian Muslim threat against their Serbian Orthodox Church. In reality, the true historical and current issue in Kosova is simply one of Serbian oppression, territorial expansion, ethnic cleansing and genocide that is documented later in this paper. Unlike the Middle East, and other areas of the world, the situation in Kosova has not been a mutual religious conflict between people of different faiths! As shown earlier, the Serbs are mystically tied to the Serbian Orthodox Church, and this, together with their belief that they are a ≥superior race≤ has been used to motivate Serbs to aggress and commit atrocities against non-Serbs and non-orthodox faiths, including Catholics. Their barbarity even extends to Serbs who defy the ≥will of the Church,≤ and they have massacred their own people who were Catholic or Muslim. In the quest for ≥Greater Serbia,≤ there must be total respect for the Serbian Orthodox Church, or face expulsion or death. It must be kept in mind that many of the atrocities from the Balkan wars described here were repeated during the Serbian wars from 1991 through 1999.
On 20 March 1913, the Albanische Korrespondenz published this item: We have received the following report from reliable Albanian sources in Skopje. Serbian troops and volunteers are committing unspeakable atrocities in the vicinity of Skopje against the population of the territories they have occupied. European circles have been particularly outraged by the following events which were reliably recorded. The Serbian army took the village of Shashare at the end of February. Having removed all men and boys from the village, the soldiers then proceeded to rape the women and girls. Serbian soldiers committed the same heineous crimes in the village of Letnica. It must be stressed that both Shashare and Letnica have an exclusively Slavic and Catholic population. Serbian troops, thus, do not even stop at committing such degenerate acts against their own Christian people. Shashare is a settlement of over one hundred families.[8]
Why?
Territorial Expansion, an ≥ethnically pure nation,≤ a landlocked nation looking for an unobstructed path to the sea, and the fulfillment of greed and desire for power has been the historical ≥why≤ in Serbian behavior, and it continues today.
It becomes easier to understand Serbian modern mentality by simply going back and reviewing the status of the Balkans just prior to the fall of the Ottoman Empire. As you can see in the following map, the lands occupied by the Serbs were significantly smaller than the lands occupied by the Albanians under the Turks, and the Serbs were ≥landlocked.≤ Serbs try to claim that the territory presented in this map had at one time ≥belonged≤ to Serbia, but in reality Serbs may have once conquered portions, but they were only able to be but a small minority in any of these areas.
It is true that when individual Serbs are left alone, or not inflamed by their corrupt government, they have lived together with Albanians in a fragile peace. Serbs also have a strong view of family, and a sense of hospitality that is, on the surface, similar to the Albanian, but enough very significant differences are present to create a barbaric history of repeated Serbian aggression against ethnic Albanians and others. Kosovars have elaborated on the mindset of Serbians, stating that the Church teaches Serbians, that because they are ≥superior,≤ they have been the victims of conquerors throughout history, and in order to protect the Church and themselves from conquerors, they must attack the ≥enemy≤ first when any potential threat is present. Throughout Serbian history, corrupt Serbian leaders have manipulated this Serbian relationship with the church to achieve power, wealth and peopleπs territory.
Serbian modern efforts at ethnic cleansing and genocide began with ≥NaÁÎrtanje, and since ≥NaÁÎrtanje≤ was initiated in 1844, right through to 1986, Serbia issued thirteen programs for the annihilation of Albanians; it passed eleven racist and discriminatory laws and waged several wars perpetrated with grave and genocidal atrocities against Croats, Bosniaks, Albanians and Hungarians.[9]
≥NaÁÎrtanje≤ came about as a creation of the Serb Foreign Minister Ilija Garašanin. The ≥necessity≤ for the extension of the Serb state was presented, at a time when the Ottoman Empire was facing a deep and hopeless crisis, and the unorganized Albanians were an easy prey for victimization. ≥Nacertanije≤ says: ≥äif Serbia is to rightly assess what it is today, on what position it is, and of what people it is surrounded, then it will be convinced that it is still too small and it cannot stay like thatä≤[10] NaÁÎrtanje was a program of territorial expansion by which Serbia would extend southwards to the border of Greece, including in it all Albanian territories under the rule of Ottoman Empire. Working in unison with the Greek National Program, ≥megalla ideja≤ (great idea), Greece and Serbia would come to dominate over the Balkans, and to bring these projects into reality, we will see that Serbia and Greece will use any means available.[11]
The following material is drawn from several books, and the excerpts will provide further foundation regarding an understanding of the Serbs, their government and their church.
The Crimean War; The Eastern Crisis, The Balkan Wars, etc.[12]
The beginning of the 20th century marked great turns in the history of the Balkans and the world in general. The Ottoman Empire, finally exhausted its efforts to reform by returning to its 1908 Constitution, and they failed to survive. The Young Turks that came to power were not flexible enough and not really supportive of the reforms they declared. Hence, continuing with their oppressive policy against the Albanians, the latter waged their final war declaring in 1912 their independence.[13]
On the eve of Turkish defeat, the Balkan countries, Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Greece established a Balkan Alliance and made a plan for the partitioning of territories that were still under the rule of the Ottoman Empire (Albanian, Macedonian and Northern Thrace territories). In an effort to gain more territory, two Balkan Wars were waged. The first war occurred between the Alliance and the Ottoman Empire, but in reality the Balkan Allies were really fighting against the Albanians whose territories were now falling under a new rule. In these wars the Albanians fared the worst.
The plan of Balkan division, gave most of the territory to Serbia, the strongest of the Allies. After the Balkan wars of 1912-1913, the Allies opposed the principle set by Serbia, according to which each of the Allies would keep those countries it occupied, and it fell into conflict with Bulgaria, creating the Second Balkan War. Although Albanians had declared their independence, this was ignored and Albanian territories were partitioned between Serbia, Montenegro and Greece.
Brutalities committed by the Serbs and Montenegrins against Albanians were similar to those committed in the Sancak of Nis in 1878. Serb brutality was expressed in the killing, slaying and burning alive of 140,000 Albanians between 1912-1913. Alongside this, Serbia occupied around 39,000 square km of Albanian territory from the Kosova and Manastir Vilayet, territories that the London Conference in 1913 unjustly recognized as being Serbian. So, once again in an international conference, the Great Powers of the time were not only tolerant with Serbia, but instead of condemning it for the genocide committed, they awarded it new territories.
Historical Documentation of Serbian Oppression & Atrocities
The following excerpts are taken from ≥Gathering Clouds,≤ which contains five seminal texts regarding Serbian ethnic cleansing that were written from 1913 to 1944 and include both viewpoints; victims and the perpetrators. (1) Albaniaπs Golgotha. Indictment of the exterminators of the Albanian people; Leo Freundlich (1913); (2) The situation of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia. Memorandum presented to the League of Nations; Catholic Priests, Father Gjon Bisaku, ShtjefÎn Kurti & Luigj Gashi (1930); (3) The expulsion of the Albanians. Memorandum by Vaso Cubrilovic (1937); (4) Draft on Albania; Ivo Andric; and (5) The minority problem in the new Yugoslavia. Memorandum by Vaso Cubrilovic (1944). Not only are the Serbian atrocities documented, but the Serbs themselves present their plans for territorial expansion and the creation of an ≥Ethnically Pure Greater Serbia.≤
The Mode of Evacuation[14]
As we have already stressed, the mass evacuation of the Albanians from their triangle is the only effective course we can take. In order to relocate a whole people, the first prerequisite is the creation of a suitable psychosis. This can be done in various ways.
It is well known that the Moslem masses are generally readily influenced by religion and are prone to superstition and fanaticism. Therefore, we must first of all win over the clergy and men of influence through money and threats in order for them to give their support to the evacuation of the Albanians. Agitators, especially from Turkey, must be found as quickly as possible to promote the evacuation, if Turkey will provide them for us. They must laud the beauties of the new territories in Turkey and the easy and pleasant life to be had there, and must kindle religious fanaticism among the masses and awaken pride in the Turkish state. Our press can be of colossal assistance by describing how gently the evacuation of the Turks from Dobruja took place and how easily they settled in their new regions. Such information would create the requisite predisposition for the masses of Albanians to be willing to leave.
Another means would be coercion by the state apparatus. The law must be enforced to the letter so as to make staying intolerable for the Albanians: fines, imprisonment, the ruthless application of all police regulations, such as the prohibition of smuggling, cutting forests, damaging agriculture, leaving dogs unchained, compulsory labour and any other measure that an experienced police force can contrive. From the economic aspect, this should include the refusal to recognize old land deeds. The work of the land registry should be accompanied from the start by the ruthless collection taxes and the payment of all private and public debts, the requisitioning of all public and municipal pasture land, the cancellation of concessions, the withdrawal of permits to exercise an occupation, dismissal from government, private and municipal offices etc., all of which will speed up the process of evacuation. Health measures should include the harsh application of all regulations, even within homes, the pulling down of encircling walls and high hedges around private houses, and the rigorous implementation of veterinary measures which will result in a ban on selling livestock on the market, etc. All these measures can be applied in a practical and effective way. The Albanians are very touchy when it comes to religion. They must therefore be harassed on this score, too. This can be achieved through the ill-treatment of their clergy, the demolition of their cemeteries, the prohibition of polygamy, and especially the inflexible application of the regulation compelling girls to attend elementary school, wherever they are.
Private initiative, too, can assist greatly in this direction. We should distribute weapons to our colonists, as need be. The old form of Chetnik action should be organized and secretly assisted. In particular, a mass migration of Montenegrins should be launched from the mountain pastures in order to create a large-scale conflict with the Albanians in Metohija. This conflict should be prepared and encouraged by people we can trust. This can be easily achieved since the Albanians have, indeed, revolted. The whole affair can be presented as a conflict between clans and, if need be, can be ascribed to economic reasons. Finally, local riots can be incited. These will be bloodily suppressed by the most effective means, tough by colonists from the Montenegrin clans and Chetniks, rather than by means of the army.
There remains on more method. Serbia employed with great practical effect after 1878, that is, secretly razing Albanian villages and urban settlements to the ground.[15]
Reasons why the minority problem in Yugoslavia must be solved.[16]
Quite aside from the disloyalty of the minorities, there are other important interests of state which compel us to take advantage of the current war to solve the problem of minorities by expelling them. Our minorities, as we have previously stressed, do not constitute a danger to us because of their numbers but rather because of their geopolitical position and the ties which they maintain with the neighbouring peoples to whom they are related. It is because of such ties that the neighbouring peoples have been able to use them to wage war against us. At present, the minorities are nothing more than stumbling-blocks in our relations with these neighbouring states. The democratic federation of Yugoslavia will only achieve peace and ensure its development if it can be made ethnically pure and if, by solving its minority problems, it can remove the causes of friction with neighbouring states once and for all.
Commission of Atrocities
The above sheds some understanding on the reasons for being aggressors, and how they come to justify their oppression and aggression, but we need to now address their ability and willingness to rape, mutilate, torture and kill women and children, and to wipe out entire families all with the support of their Church. The words ≥expulsion,≤ and ≥ethnic cleansing≤ provide the goal, and additional insight. The point is not merely to ≥attack first≤ as a ≥defense strategy,≤ it is one of territorial expansion that does not see a ≥need≤ or real ≥use≤ for these potential conquered and if not eliminated, they may become another real threat in the future.
The reader needs to keep in mind that all of the following atrocities that were done by Serbs in 1912-1913 had been done previously and were repeated again in 1987 ≠ 1999. In the following excerpts, although all is especially relevant, I have taken the liberty to boldface sections that I thought need special attention.
A courageous people full of character is being crucified before the eyes of the world and Europe, civilized Christian Europe, remain silent!
Tens of thousands of defenceless people are being massacred, women are being raped, old people and children strangled, hundreds of villages burnt to the ground, priest slaughtered.
And Europe remains silent!
Serbia and Montenegro have set out to conquer a foreign country. But in that land live a freedom-loving, brave people who despite centuries of servitude have not yet become accustomed to bearing a foreign yoke. The solution is obvious. The Albanians must be exterminated!
A crazed and savage soldateska has turned this solution into a gruesome reality.
Countless villages have been razed to the ground, countless individuals have been butchered. Where once the humble cottages of poor Albanians stood, there is nothing left but smoke and ashes. A whole people is perishing on Calvary cross, and Europe remains silent!
Leo Freundlich
Vienna, Easter Sunday 1913[17]
The Serbs took a man, an old woman and two children captive and burnt them alive in this village. In Gjylekar / Djelekare a pregnant woman had her belly slit open with a bayonet and the offspring wrenched out of her body.[18]
In its issue of 21 March, the Neue Freie Presse reports: We have been told by informed sources that, according to recent reports, Catholics and Moslems are being persecuted both in the district of Gjakova / Djakovica and in the district of DibÎr / Debar. Many deaths occur every day. The population has fled, leaving behind all their possessions. It is not only the Albanians who are the object of such persecution, but also Catholic and Moslem Slavs.[19]
On 20 March, the Neue Freie Presse reported: On 7 March, the soldateska joined fanatic Orthodox priests in and around Gjakova / Djakovica to forcefully convert the Catholic population to the Orthodox faith. About 300 persons, men, women and children, among whom Pater Angelus Palić, were bound with ropes and forced under threat of death to convert. An Orthodox priest pointed to the soldiers standing by with their rifles in hand and said, ≥Either you sign the declaration that you have converted to the one true faith or these soldiers of God will send your souls to hell.≤
All the prisoners then signed the forms prepared for them which contained a declaration of conversion to the Orthodox faith. Pater Angelus was the last. He was the only one of them who had the strength, in a calm and dignified manner, to refuse to give up his faith. Pater Angelus stood by his word, even when ordered three times to convert and even when entreated by the other forcefully converted Catholics. The result was one of the most appalling scenes imaginable in twentieth-century Europe.
After a sign from the Orthodox priest, the soldiers fell upon the Franciscan, ripped off his tunic and began beating him with the butts of their rifles. Pater Angelus collapsed after several of his bones and ribs had been fractured. At this moment, the Orthodox priest stopped the soldiers and asked him if he was now willing to convert. Again he shook his head and said placidly, ≥No. I will not abandon my faith and break my oath.≤ Pater Angelus was beaten with the rifle butts again until one of the soldiers plunged a bayonet through the priestπs lungs and put an end to his suffering.[20]
The Serbs have destroyed Catholic churches, saying that they are Austrian constructions and must disappear from the face of the earth.[21]
In Prizren, the Catholic Priest was not allowed to administer communion to the dying. Whoever approached the parish priest was brought before a military tribunal.[22]
On 20 March, the Reichspost published a letter from Albania, reading as follows: The parish priest of the sanctuary of Cenagora or Setnica, Don Tommaso, was robbed by Serbian soldiers of all the funds belonging to the church. The soldiers drew their bayonets, forced him to open the safe and took out all the money belonging to the pilgrimage site.
The parish priest of Gjakova / Djakovica was threatened with death. He was told, ≥Either you give up your links with the Austrian protectorate or we will roast your brains!≤ The courageous reaction of the priest blew the wind out of their sails, however. For three months now, the Serbs have been hindering the parish priest of Ferizaj / Uroševac in his freedom to exercise his office. They have been jailing anyone who talks to him or who goes to mass or confession. The same thing has happened to two priests from Prizren.
All imaginable pressure has been exerted against the Catholics of Janjeva / Janjevo (four hundred families, almost all of whom are ethnic Slavs) to convert to the schismatic church.
For hundreds of years now, about 8,000 Catholics, so-called Laramans or secret Catholics, have been living in this archdiocese. Because of Turkish persecution, they did not profess their faith openly. When the Serbs arrived, several hundred of these Laramans wanted to declare openly that they were Catholic. When a representative of the new government got word of this, they were ordered, ≥Either Moslem or Orthodox. Not Catholic!≤
Near the sanctuary of Letnica is the village of Shashare (ninety families, all of them Catholic). Serbian soldiers took the village, assembled the men on a field and tied them up with ropes. They then looted the homes and brutally raped the women and girls.
Countless Albanian Catholics have been murdered. In Ponoshec / Ponoševac, for instance, thirty men were slaughtered one day while they were going about their business in the village. Their only crime was to admit that they were Albanian Catholics. Near Zhur / Žur, entire families of innocent Catholic tribesmen who had come down to Prizren to purchase salt, oil, sugar etc. were treacherously murdered on their way. The same thing happened near Gjakova / Djakovica where a further seventy Catholics from the parish of Nikaj were slaughtered. The Catholics are persecuted, whereas the native Orthodox are left alone.
In the vicinity of DibÎr / Debar and Monastir / Bitola, as well as in Kosovo, many villages have now been burnt to the ground. The looting is unspeakable. It is sufficient to note that sheep are now being sold at a price of two francs each because nobody knows what to do with them all. So many have been stolen from the Albanians by the Serbs and Montenegrins.
They are now trying to stop us from speaking Albanian. A number of schools teaching Albanian have already been closed down.
The letter ends with the words, ≥May God have mercy upon us, and Europe come and save us. Otherwise we are lost!≤[23]
All the young women and girls of Strumica have been raped and forcibly baptized. The rest of the wretched Moslem population is dying of starvation, destitution and disease ä[24]
All the inhabitants of Drenova / Drenovo were put to death. Between this village and Palikura, a number of graves were found with the heads sticking out of the earth. These are the graves of wretched individuals who were buried alive![25]
The Serbian thirst for blood: The special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph reported the following: All the horrors of history have been outdone by the atrocious conduct of the troops of General Janković. On their march through Albania, the Serbs have treacherously slaughtered not only armed Albanians, but in their savagery even unarmed individuals ≠ old people, women, children and babies at their motherπs breasts.
Drunk with victory, Serbian officers have proclaimed that the only way of pacifying Albania is to exterminate the Albanians. They slaughtered 3,000 people in the region between Kumanova / Kumanovo and Skopje alone. 5,000 Albanians were murdered by the Serbs in the Prishtina area. These people did not die with honour on the battlefield, but were slain in a series of gruesome raids. The Serbian soldiers have found new methods of butchery to satisfy their thirst for blood. Houses were set on fire in several villages and the inhabitants slaughtered like rats when they tried to flee the flames. The men were slain before the eyes of their wives and children. The wretched women were then forced to look on as their children literally hacked to pieces.
Executions were a daily entertainment for the Serbian soldiers. All inhabitants who had been found with weapons in their homes were executed. They were either shot or hanged. Up to thirty-six executions took place a day. How strange it is that the Serbian nationalists living in Hungary should complain about massacres in Albania. Mr Tomić, the former secretary to the Serbian Prime Minister Pašić, reported on his trip from Prizren to Peja / Pec that on both sides of the road he saw nothing but the remnants of burnt-out villages which had been razed to the ground.
The roads were lined with gallows from which the bodies of Albanians were hanging. The road to Gjakova / Djakovica had become a Boulevard of Gibbets.
The Belgrade newspapers reported quite without shame on the heinous atrocities of the Serbs. When Colonel Osbićπs regiment took Prizren, he commanded his compatriots, ≥Kill!≤ When his order was heard, so the Belgrade papers report, ≥the Serbian soldiers stormed into homes and slaughtered every human being they could lay their hands on.≤
The Daily Telegraph then gives the authentic statement of an Albanian notable: Anyone who denounces an Albanian to the Serbs can be sure that the Albanian will be executed. There were people who owed money to Moslem Albanians. They went and denounced them to the Serbs as traitors. The wretched Albanians were immediately hanged and the informers later found ways of acquiring the home and land of their victims for a ridiculously low price.
In Skopje, unarmed Albanians were simply shot and killed by Serbian officers. If even a hunting knife was found in a home, its owner was executed.
In Ferizaj / Uroševac, the Serbian commander invited Albanian fugitives to return to their home and surrender their weapons. When over four hundred of them did return, they were slaughtered. There were no more than a dozen Moslem families left alive in Ferizaj / Uroševac. The way correspondent of the Messaggero has confirmed this report.
In Pana, the Serbs killed their prisoners, in Varosh / Varoš and Prishtina the population was literally decimated. Serbian officers admitted themselves that they were on the åhuntπ for Albanians, and one of them boasted having killed nine Albanians in one day with his own hands.
A doctor working for the Red Cross reported, according to the same source: The Serbs have been massacring throughout Albania with no sign of mercy. Neither women nor children nor old people have been spared. I have seen villages burning in Old Serbia every day. Near Kratovo, General Stefanović had hundreds of prisoners lined up in two rows and machine gunned gown. General Živković had 850 Albanian notables put to death in Senica because they had offered resistance.≤[26]
The following report was received from Durres (Durazzo) on 6 March: Serbian troops have burnt the following villages to the ground: Zeza, Larushk, Monikla, Sheh and Gromni. In Zeza, twenty women and girls were locked in their homes and burnt alive.[27]
Three Albanian villages in the vicinity of Prizren were totally destroyed and thirty local officials slain. They were accused of being pro-Austrian. In one of these villages, the soldiers forced the womenfolk out of their homes, tied them to one another and forced them to dance in a circle. They then opened fired and amused themselves by watching one victim after another fall to the ground in a pool of blood.
Women and children were tied to bundles of hay and set on fire before the eyes of their husbands and fathers. The women were then barbarously cut to pieces and the children bayoneted.[28]
The Albanische Korrespondenz reports from Podgorica: After the battle of Brdica, which resulted in a sound defeat for the Serbs, Serbian forces entered the village of Barbullush on their retreat. The terrified inhabitants came out of their homes with crucifixes in the hands and begged for mercy, but to no avail. The crazed troops attacked the unarmed villagers and slaughtered men, women, old people and children. The maimed body of an eight-year-old child was found to contain no less than six bayonet wounds.[29]
Summary
In my opinion, the Eastern Orthodox Church, unlike the Catholic Church in the West (and all the Christian derivative religions) celebrates the liturgy, nothing more! As difficult as this may be for western nations to believe, there is no moral intellectualism or development within the Serbian Orthodox Church that did, and does occurs in the West. In the West, the church, through its development of moral intellectualism, and writings, had significant influence in the development of Nations, Governments and their laws. Therefore, the civil code arose from a morality base, which means that the people had an internalized understanding and respect for the laws and the reasons they were written.
Serbs do not have a moral code in the Church and no historical moral code as contained in the Albanian Kanun[30]. Therefore their laws, derived from their government are civil laws that are designed to control behavior but they do not arise from an internally developed sense of what is ≥right.≤ In the absence of a conscience and in the presence of what Serbs claim to be a threat to their existence, they will act on their primitive emotions and drives, and therefore, ≥anything goes.≤ It is not that Serbs were taught how to be capable of committing such atrocities; it is the fact that they were not taught that such behavior is an atrocity, and that we are all ≥capable≤ and it is our conscience that keeps us civilized!
In essence, there is ≥no moral guardianship≤ within the Serbian Orthodox Church or the Serbian Government, with the resultant lack of any establishment of an individual or group Serbian conscience. Violence, in any form, is condoned and encouraged when Serbs view that the ≥church≤ and ≥nationalism≤ are threatened, and this Serbian view of ≥Nationalism≤ places them above all others, superior in all ways, and motivates the necessity for assimilation, or ethnic cleansing of others.
The lack of a conscience is not relevant in the absence of a threat and people are getting their needs met and this is likely why there have been situations or periods of Serb peaceful coexistence with Albanians. Also, in the absence of ethnic conflict on a broad scale, the Serbs definitely know about the Albanian Kanun, the Albanianπs strong sense of Honor, and that if they dishonor an Albanian, ≥blood≤ will be shed to restore their honor. In these cases, Serbs are simply using the rules of the Albanian Kanun as their ≥external conscience,≤ in the same manner they do in following any written laws that have consequences they wish to avoid.
≥Greater Serbia≤
For ten years, during the rule of Slobodan Milosevic (1989-1999) Serbia created five wars; there have been thousands of civilians killed, millions of others deported, and in these wars the Serbs committed some of the worst atrocities and mutilations and massacres. The Serb forces were organized in several different formations, formal and paramilitary, but all were under the direct command of Milosevic and fully supported by the Serbian people. This repetition of Serbian history was another attempt to develop their ≥Ethnically Pure Greater Serbia,≤ a desire and plans that they boast about in their own writings.[31]
In 1999 the international community was again convinced that Serbia had to be stopped, but some Serb allies were hesitant, and they covertly and overtly supported Serbiaπs efforts. Thanks to the stand taken by the USA, and its sincere allies, this bloodshed machine of Milosevic was stopped. But even after this recent Serbian horror in the eyes of world, we have some nations, such as France that continue to support Serbia. Some European countries, under the ≥leadership≤ of France, help Serbia to remain free from accountability as a State, and ≥as a people,≤ while they attempt to only punish a few Serbian leaders in the Hague International Tribunal.
After several wars that Serbia made at the end of the twentieth Century, Serbia tried to preserve the name of Yugoslavia, in spite of the fact that only Serbia, Montenegro and Vojvodina[32] remained. The ≥Final Status≤ of Kosova has not been determined as yet, but it is not under the rule or domination of Serbia, and there is no way that the people of Kosova will ever return to any form of Serbian rule. Serbia Attempts to survive in their artificial formation, Serbia-Montenegro, are ignoring the existence of Vojvodina, and camouflaging the ≥Kosovo Situation≤ with their latest Constitution Preamble, where Kosova was included as a territory of Serbia. Serbia has never been held accountable; therefore her goal and policies of an ≥Ethnically Pure Greater Serbia≤ continue to exist even into 2005.
It is interesting to note that since it lost the war in 1999, Serbia has demanded that all efforts ensure a ≥multiethnic≤ Kosovo in order to ≥protect≤ the rights of the Serb minorities. When not in power, the Serbs are the first to demand equality and protection; something that they have never provided to others.
During the ethnic cleansing attempt by Serbia in Kosova from 1997 to 1999, the Patriarch of the Serbian Church, Bishop Artemije encouraged the commission of atrocities, and blessed the troops (and Para-military, such as Arkan) who committed them. The Patriarch Artemije was never removed; he never expressed or demonstrated remorse; and was even rewarded in positions of recognition following the war. Mr. Bernard Kushner, the Special Representative to the Secretary General of the UN (1999-2000) met with this leader of atrocities in Kosova on several occasions, seeking his guidance and input in post-war management. His meetings with this priest elevated his position, and they were seen as an open slap in the face against ethnic Albanians and morality.
Conclusion
We have only been able to become ≥civilized≤ through the establishment of a ≥conscience≤ developed and shaped by a moral code, resulting in an internalized self regulating system that allows us to develop a ≥feeling,≤ or ≥respect≤ for others, with a recognition of ≥equality,≤ and a ≥respect≤ for our laws that is demonstrated by ≥honor.≤ It is important to keep in mind that the lack of a conscience does not make a person inherently ≥bad,≤ but it does mean they behave in a self-directed manner, without regard, or respect for others and they have the potential to do just about ≥anything≤ if their ≥need ≥ or fear is strong and they believe that there will be no consequences.
In my criticism I am not claiming that the Serbian Church is any worse than any other fanatical interpretation of the word of God; for by their behavior in the violation of Humanity, they are all beyond the sanction of God. Any faith that promotes the killing of innocent men, women and children in the name of God is actually blaspheming in word and deed while they carry out the mission of the Devil himself. There is no such thing as a justified atrocity.
Serbs, Bin Laden and others have clearly demonstrated that there are justifiable reasons to ≥attack a faith,≤ and its places of ≥worship,≤ when that ≥perverted faith≤ condones, supports and assists in the commission of atrocities against Humanity. Perversion of ≥faith≤ and the commission of terrorism in the ≥name of God≤ are not limited to Islam.
The Serbian Orthodox Church and Serbian Governments have been inseparable since it gained its independence in 1219. Serbs believe that they are a superior race, above all others, and as a result they are envied by inferiors who wish to destroy them.
Serbs believe that their existence and superiority is derived from a special relationship with God that is embodied in their Christian Orthodox Church and all other forms of Christianity are false.
≥As a people,≤ the Serbs are without a social conscience and they have no remorse for their historical and current behaviors, as they see themselves to be justified in their superiority. They have never been held accountable; therefore, there is no reason to expect that their behavior will change. Anyone who professes that the Serbs will not take any further aggression against Albanians or others is either naÔve, or is in collusion with the Serbs; who are already making plans for the next attempt at a ≥Greater Serbia.≤
In the meantime, Serbs continue to promote their lies and distortions of the truth in order to remain free of responsibility and accountability. The Patriarch of the Serbian Church, Bishop Artemije has over the years following the war, incited many to charge ethnic Albanians for atrocities committed against Serbs. In spite of the lack of any evidence of Albanians ≥as a people≤ committing atrocities against Serbs, the Serbs and their European brothers have managed to make allegations and even bring people to The Hague without any evidence supporting this action. In all the actions by the ≥Resistance≤ in Nazi occupied countries during World War II, no ≥resistance fighter≤ was ever brought up on war crimes! Books and movies about World War II have celebrated the fact that when resistance fighters caught traitors, they were executed without mercy, and wherever possible civilian officials of the oppressive government were killed. How is it possible that Albanian resistance fighters are now being persecuted?
Many see the Serbian Church as the instigator of the propaganda that Albanians are no different from the Serbs, and that they too have committed atrocities against others. However, there have never been any Albanian atrocities committed, and acts of Albanian resistance fighters are being raised to the level of atrocities to divert attention away from the historical actions of Serbs.
Temporary peace with Serbs can only be achieved in the absence of political incitement, and political incitement can be only reduced or eliminated by securing the existence of the Serbian Church in the minds of Serbs.
Any hope of achieving a permanent peace with Serbs must include their development of a moral code and the establishment of a Conscience, and without this there can never be a Serbian moral democracy.
And none of this is possible until nations, especially those in Europe, hold Serbia accountable for the atrocities committed by the Serbian People. But this level of accountability will likely only be achieved when the truly moral nations of the world hold European nations accountable for their Serbian appeasement policy.
Christians, Muslims, Jews and members of other legitimate faiths must unite and condemn the Serbian Orthodox Church as a perversion and label its supporters as terrorists, and impose sanctions on the Serbian Church and the nation of Serbia until its renounces its past. We cannot effectively or morally prosecute a war on one form of religious perversion and terrorism, while we ignore Serbian Christian perversion and terrorism!
[1] Religion is Manπs interpretation of Godπs will and it sets the life-style we should lead. However many forget or ignore the fact that all three major religions of the world profess that our relationship with God is an individual relationship; that no person shall interfere with that relationship; and that formal worship or congregation helps in achieving the ≥one on one≤ relationship with God. All three also believe that God wants us to choose him, and he created humanity so that choice can be made. If God desired otherwise, he could have simply created us to worship him, but there is no greater recognition of God than to have the choice to accept or reject and to overcome primitive drives and chose him.
[2] Kosova or Kosovo; Moral Democracy or Greater Serbia? Prishtina Kosova, 2005.
[3] Agreement reached that ended the fighting in Croatia and Bosnia in 1995
[4] Malcolm, Noel; Kosovo A Short History, PAPERMAC, London 1998.
[5] The origins of Orthodoxy compile into many volumes by many historians and our mention here is to highlight the rise of the Serbian Orthodox Church. A good presentation in considerable depth can be found in Noel Malcolmπs work, ≥Kosovo; A Short History, PAPERMAC, 1998. ≥Sava Nemanja achieved independence (≥autocephaly≤ or autonomous status) from the Greek Orthodox Church in 1219 and he reorganized the Serbian Orthodox Church, making himself ≥autocephalous Archbishop.≤ Sava chose the monastery of Zirca in the Serbian town of Kraljevo as the seat of the newly independent Serbian Orthodox Church. At the end of the 13th century, the seat of the archbishopric was moved to Pec (Alb: Peja) to a church built there earlier when the Serbian Church was still under Greece. Although historians attribute this move to the fact that Zirca was burned by invaders, there are those who believe that this gave an excuse to exercise more control in Kosova; cementing their claim to the lands. Zirca was rebuilt, and actual control of the Church remained there until sometime in the late 14th century.≤
[6] ≥Gathering Clouds,≤ compiled and translated by Robert Elsie, 2002; Albaniaπs Golgotha. Indictment of the exterminators of the Albanian people; Leo Freundlich (1913); page 44
[7] In the years up to January 1999, a loosely organized citizenπs defense group known as the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) had killed 10 Serbian Police and 11 Serbian Collaborators.
[8] ≥Gathering Clouds,≤ compiled and translated by Robert Elsie, 2002; Albaniaπs Golgotha. Indictment of the exterminators of the Albanian people; Leo Freundlich (1913); page 26
[9] Dr.Hakif Bajrami: Politic of disgorging of Albanians äl844-l995 pg.14
[10] Ibid pg. 73
[11] From ≥Kosova or Kosovo; Moral Democracy or Greater Serbia; Serge R. Doucette, Jr. and Hamdi ThaÁi; Prishtina Kosova, 2005
[12] Ibid pg. 127
[13] Dr.Hakif Bajrami: pg.80;
[14] Memorandum: The expulsion of the Albanians; Vaso Cubrilovic; 1937; In ≥Gathering Clouds,≤ compiled and translated by Robert Elsie, 2002.
[15] Everything described here was repeated again beginning in 1987, and it continued until the end of the war in 1999.
[16] ≥Gathering Clouds,≤ compiled and translated by Robert Elsie, 2002;.Memorandum; The minority problem in the new Yugoslavia; Vaso Cubrilovic; 3 November 1944
[17] ≥Gathering Clouds,≤ compiled and translated by Robert Elsie, 2002; Albaniaπs Golgotha. Indictment of the exterminators of the Albanian people; Leo Freundlich (1913).
[18] IBID page 27
[19] IBID page 41
[20] IBID page 41
[21] IBID page 44
[22] IBID page 38
[23] IBID page 39
[24] IBID page 31
[25] IBID page 18
[26] IBID page 29
[27] IBID page 38
[28] IBID page 26
[29] IBID page 45
[30] The Albanian Kanun is an extensive moral and civil code originating over 2000 years ago that contains the principles of individual honor and governing.
[31] Gathering Clouds; The roots of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Macedonia; Robert Elsie; Dukagjini Press; Kosova 2002
[32] Vojvodina is an autonomous province that like Kosova, Serbia has claimed it is a part of Serbia.
Back to top
View users profile Send private message
illirus
OVER DUE!
Joined: Jul 22, 2004
Posts: 2560
Location: SHQIPERI
PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2005 7:58 am Post subject: Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post
Historical Documentation of Serbian Oppression & Atrocities
The following excerpts are taken from ≥Gathering Clouds,≤ which contains five seminal texts regarding Serbian ethnic cleansing that were written from 1913 to 1944 and include both viewpoints; victims and the perpetrators. (1) Albaniaπs Golgotha. Indictment of the exterminators of the Albanian people; Leo Freundlich (1913); (2) The situation of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia. Memorandum presented to the League of Nations; Catholic Priests, Father Gjon Bisaku, ShtjefÎn Kurti & Luigj Gashi (1930); (3) The expulsion of the Albanians. Memorandum by Vaso Cubrilovic (1937); (4) Draft on Albania; Ivo Andric; and (5) The minority problem in the new Yugoslavia. Memorandum by Vaso Cubrilovic (1944). Not only are the Serbian atrocities documented, but the Serbs themselves present their plans for territorial expansion and the creation of an ≥Ethnically Pure Greater Serbia.≤
The Mode of Evacuation[14]
As we have already stressed, the mass evacuation of the Albanians from their triangle is the only effective course we can take. In order to relocate a whole people, the first prerequisite is the creation of a suitable psychosis. This can be done in various ways.
It is well known that the Moslem masses are generally readily influenced by religion and are prone to superstition and fanaticism. Therefore, we must first of all win over the clergy and men of influence through money and threats in order for them to give their support to the evacuation of the Albanians. Agitators, especially from Turkey, must be found as quickly as possible to promote the evacuation, if Turkey will provide them for us. They must laud the beauties of the new territories in Turkey and the easy and pleasant life to be had there, and must kindle religious fanaticism among the masses and awaken pride in the Turkish state. Our press can be of colossal assistance by describing how gently the evacuation of the Turks from Dobruja took place and how easily they settled in their new regions. Such information would create the requisite predisposition for the masses of Albanians to be willing to leave.
Another means would be coercion by the state apparatus. The law must be enforced to the letter so as to make staying intolerable for the Albanians: fines, imprisonment, the ruthless application of all police regulations, such as the prohibition of smuggling, cutting forests, damaging agriculture, leaving dogs unchained, compulsory labour and any other measure that an experienced police force can contrive. From the economic aspect, this should include the refusal to recognize old land deeds. The work of the land registry should be accompanied from the start by the ruthless collection taxes and the payment of all private and public debts, the requisitioning of all public and municipal pasture land, the cancellation of concessions, the withdrawal of permits to exercise an occupation, dismissal from government, private and municipal offices etc., all of which will speed up the process of evacuation. Health measures should include the harsh application of all regulations, even within homes, the pulling down of encircling walls and high hedges around private houses, and the rigorous implementation of veterinary measures which will result in a ban on selling livestock on the market, etc. All these measures can be applied in a practical and effective way. The Albanians are very touchy when it comes to religion. They must therefore be harassed on this score, too. This can be achieved through the ill-treatment of their clergy, the demolition of their cemeteries, the prohibition of polygamy, and especially the inflexible application of the regulation compelling girls to attend elementary school, wherever they are.
Private initiative, too, can assist greatly in this direction. We should distribute weapons to our colonists, as need be. The old form of Chetnik action should be organized and secretly assisted. In particular, a mass migration of Montenegrins should be launched from the mountain pastures in order to create a large-scale conflict with the Albanians in Metohija. This conflict should be prepared and encouraged by people we can trust. This can be easily achieved since the Albanians have, indeed, revolted. The whole affair can be presented as a conflict between clans and, if need be, can be ascribed to economic reasons. Finally, local riots can be incited. These will be bloodily suppressed by the most effective means, tough by colonists from the Montenegrin clans and Chetniks, rather than by means of the army.
There remains on more method. Serbia employed with great practical effect after 1878, that is, secretly razing Albanian villages and urban settlements to the ground.[15]
Reasons why the minority problem in Yugoslavia must be solved.[16]
Quite aside from the disloyalty of the minorities, there are other important interests of state which compel us to take advantage of the current war to solve the problem of minorities by expelling them. Our minorities, as we have previously stressed, do not constitute a danger to us because of their numbers but rather because of their geopolitical position and the ties which they maintain with the neighbouring peoples to whom they are related. It is because of such ties that the neighbouring peoples have been able to use them to wage war against us. At present, the minorities are nothing more than stumbling-blocks in our relations with these neighbouring states. The democratic federation of Yugoslavia will only achieve peace and ensure its development if it can be made ethnically pure and if, by solving its minority problems, it can remove the causes of friction with neighbouring states once and for all.
Commission of Atrocities
The above sheds some understanding on the reasons for being aggressors, and how they come to justify their oppression and aggression, but we need to now address their ability and willingness to rape, mutilate, torture and kill women and children, and to wipe out entire families all with the support of their Church. The words ≥expulsion,≤ and ≥ethnic cleansing≤ provide the goal, and additional insight. The point is not merely to ≥attack first≤ as a ≥defense strategy,≤ it is one of territorial expansion that does not see a ≥need≤ or real ≥use≤ for these potential conquered and if not eliminated, they may become another real threat in the future.
The reader needs to keep in mind that all of the following atrocities that were done by Serbs in 1912-1913 had been done previously and were repeated again in 1987 ≠ 1999. In the following excerpts, although all is especially relevant, I have taken the liberty to boldface sections that I thought need special attention.
A courageous people full of character is being crucified before the eyes of the world and Europe, civilized Christian Europe, remain silent!
Tens of thousands of defenceless people are being massacred, women are being raped, old people and children strangled, hundreds of villages burnt to the ground, priest slaughtered.
And Europe remains silent!
Serbia and Montenegro have set out to conquer a foreign country. But in that land live a freedom-loving, brave people who despite centuries of servitude have not yet become accustomed to bearing a foreign yoke. The solution is obvious. The Albanians must be exterminated!
A crazed and savage soldateska has turned this solution into a gruesome reality.
Countless villages have been razed to the ground, countless individuals have been butchered. Where once the humble cottages of poor Albanians stood, there is nothing left but smoke and ashes. A whole people is perishing on Calvary cross, and Europe remains silent!
Leo Freundlich
Vienna, Easter Sunday 1913[17]
The Serbs took a man, an old woman and two children captive and burnt them alive in this village. In Gjylekar / Djelekare a pregnant woman had her belly slit open with a bayonet and the offspring wrenched out of her body.[18]
In its issue of 21 March, the Neue Freie Presse reports: We have been told by informed sources that, according to recent reports, Catholics and Moslems are being persecuted both in the district of Gjakova / Djakovica and in the district of DibÎr / Debar. Many deaths occur every day. The population has fled, leaving behind all their possessions. It is not only the Albanians who are the object of such persecution, but also Catholic and Moslem Slavs.[19]
On 20 March, the Neue Freie Presse reported: On 7 March, the soldateska joined fanatic Orthodox priests in and around Gjakova / Djakovica to forcefully convert the Catholic population to the Orthodox faith. About 300 persons, men, women and children, among whom Pater Angelus Palić, were bound with ropes and forced under threat of death to convert. An Orthodox priest pointed to the soldiers standing by with their rifles in hand and said, ≥Either you sign the declaration that you have converted to the one true faith or these soldiers of God will send your souls to hell.≤
All the prisoners then signed the forms prepared for them which contained a declaration of conversion to the Orthodox faith. Pater Angelus was the last. He was the only one of them who had the strength, in a calm and dignified manner, to refuse to give up his faith. Pater Angelus stood by his word, even when ordered three times to convert and even when entreated by the other forcefully converted Catholics. The result was one of the most appalling scenes imaginable in twentieth-century Europe.
After a sign from the Orthodox priest, the soldiers fell upon the Franciscan, ripped off his tunic and began beating him with the butts of their rifles. Pater Angelus collapsed after several of his bones and ribs had been fractured. At this moment, the Orthodox priest stopped the soldiers and asked him if he was now willing to convert. Again he shook his head and said placidly, ≥No. I will not abandon my faith and break my oath.≤ Pater Angelus was beaten with the rifle butts again until one of the soldiers plunged a bayonet through the priestπs lungs and put an end to his suffering.[20]
The Serbs have destroyed Catholic churches, saying that they are Austrian constructions and must disappear from the face of the earth.[21]
In Prizren, the Catholic Priest was not allowed to administer communion to the dying. Whoever approached the parish priest was brought before a military tribunal.[22]
On 20 March, the Reichspost published a letter from Albania, reading as follows: The parish priest of the sanctuary of Cenagora or Setnica, Don Tommaso, was robbed by Serbian soldiers of all the funds belonging to the church. The soldiers drew their bayonets, forced him to open the safe and took out all the money belonging to the pilgrimage site.
The parish priest of Gjakova / Djakovica was threatened with death. He was told, ≥Either you give up your links with the Austrian protectorate or we will roast your brains!≤ The courageous reaction of the priest blew the wind out of their sails, however. For three months now, the Serbs have been hindering the parish priest of Ferizaj / Uroševac in his freedom to exercise his office. They have been jailing anyone who talks to him or who goes to mass or confession. The same thing has happened to two priests from Prizren.
All imaginable pressure has been exerted against the Catholics of Janjeva / Janjevo (four hundred families, almost all of whom are ethnic Slavs) to convert to the schismatic church.
For hundreds of years now, about 8,000 Catholics, so-called Laramans or secret Catholics, have been living in this archdiocese. Because of Turkish persecution, they did not profess their faith openly. When the Serbs arrived, several hundred of these Laramans wanted to declare openly that they were Catholic. When a representative of the new government got word of this, they were ordered, ≥Either Moslem or Orthodox. Not Catholic!≤
Near the sanctuary of Letnica is the village of Shashare (ninety families, all of them Catholic). Serbian soldiers took the village, assembled the men on a field and tied them up with ropes. They then looted the homes and brutally raped the women and girls.
Countless Albanian Catholics have been murdered. In Ponoshec / Ponoševac, for instance, thirty men were slaughtered one day while they were going about their business in the village. Their only crime was to admit that they were Albanian Catholics. Near Zhur / Žur, entire families of innocent Catholic tribesmen who had come down to Prizren to purchase salt, oil, sugar etc. were treacherously murdered on their way. The same thing happened near Gjakova / Djakovica where a further seventy Catholics from the parish of Nikaj were slaughtered. The Catholics are persecuted, whereas the native Orthodox are left alone.
In the vicinity of DibÎr / Debar and Monastir / Bitola, as well as in Kosovo, many villages have now been burnt to the ground. The looting is unspeakable. It is sufficient to note that sheep are now being sold at a price of two francs each because nobody knows what to do with them all. So many have been stolen from the Albanians by the Serbs and Montenegrins.
They are now trying to stop us from speaking Albanian. A number of schools teaching Albanian have already been closed down.
The letter ends with the words, ≥May God have mercy upon us, and Europe come and save us. Otherwise we are lost!≤[23]
All the young women and girls of Strumica have been raped and forcibly baptized. The rest of the wretched Moslem population is dying of starvation, destitution and disease ä[24]
All the inhabitants of Drenova / Drenovo were put to death. Between this village and Palikura, a number of graves were found with the heads sticking out of the earth. These are the graves of wretched individuals who were buried alive![25]
The Serbian thirst for blood: The special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph reported the following: All the horrors of history have been outdone by the atrocious conduct of the troops of General Janković. On their march through Albania, the Serbs have treacherously slaughtered not only armed Albanians, but in their savagery even unarmed individuals ≠ old people, women, children and babies at their motherπs breasts.
Drunk with victory, Serbian officers have proclaimed that the only way of pacifying Albania is to exterminate the Albanians. They slaughtered 3,000 people in the region between Kumanova / Kumanovo and Skopje alone. 5,000 Albanians were murdered by the Serbs in the Prishtina area. These people did not die with honour on the battlefield, but were slain in a series of gruesome raids. The Serbian soldiers have found new methods of butchery to satisfy their thirst for blood. Houses were set on fire in several villages and the inhabitants slaughtered like rats when they tried to flee the flames. The men were slain before the eyes of their wives and children. The wretched women were then forced to look on as their children literally hacked to pieces.
Executions were a daily entertainment for the Serbian soldiers. All inhabitants who had been found with weapons in their homes were executed. They were either shot or hanged. Up to thirty-six executions took place a day. How strange it is that the Serbian nationalists living in Hungary should complain about massacres in Albania. Mr Tomić, the former secretary to the Serbian Prime Minister Pašić, reported on his trip from Prizren to Peja / Pec that on both sides of the road he saw nothing but the remnants of burnt-out villages which had been razed to the ground.
The roads were lined with gallows from which the bodies of Albanians were hanging. The road to Gjakova / Djakovica had become a Boulevard of Gibbets.
The Belgrade newspapers reported quite without shame on the heinous atrocities of the Serbs. When Colonel Osbićπs regiment took Prizren, he commanded his compatriots, ≥Kill!≤ When his order was heard, so the Belgrade papers report, ≥the Serbian soldiers stormed into homes and slaughtered every human being they could lay their hands on.≤
The Daily Telegraph then gives the authentic statement of an Albanian notable: Anyone who denounces an Albanian to the Serbs can be sure that the Albanian will be executed. There were people who owed money to Moslem Albanians. They went and denounced them to the Serbs as traitors. The wretched Albanians were immediately hanged and the informers later found ways of acquiring the home and land of their victims for a ridiculously low price.
In Skopje, unarmed Albanians were simply shot and killed by Serbian officers. If even a hunting knife was found in a home, its owner was executed.
In Ferizaj / Uroševac, the Serbian commander invited Albanian fugitives to return to their home and surrender their weapons. When over four hundred of them did return, they were slaughtered. There were no more than a dozen Moslem families left alive in Ferizaj / Uroševac. The way correspondent of the Messaggero has confirmed this report.
In Pana, the Serbs killed their prisoners, in Varosh / Varoš and Prishtina the population was literally decimated. Serbian officers admitted themselves that they were on the åhuntπ for Albanians, and one of them boasted having killed nine Albanians in one day with his own hands.
A doctor working for the Red Cross reported, according to the same source: The Serbs have been massacring throughout Albania with no sign of mercy. Neither women nor children nor old people have been spared. I have seen villages burning in Old Serbia every day. Near Kratovo, General Stefanović had hundreds of prisoners lined up in two rows and machine gunned gown. General Živković had 850 Albanian notables put to death in Senica because they had offered resistance.≤[26]
The following report was received from Durres (Durazzo) on 6 March: Serbian troops have burnt the following villages to the ground: Zeza, Larushk, Monikla, Sheh and Gromni. In Zeza, twenty women and girls were locked in their homes and burnt alive.[27]
Three Albanian villages in the vicinity of Prizren were totally destroyed and thirty local officials slain. They were accused of being pro-Austrian. In one of these villages, the soldiers forced the womenfolk out of their homes, tied them to one another and forced them to dance in a circle. They then opened fired and amused themselves by watching one victim after another fall to the ground in a pool of blood.
Women and children were tied to bundles of hay and set on fire before the eyes of their husbands and fathers. The women were then barbarously cut to pieces and the children bayoneted.[28]
The Albanische Korrespondenz reports from Podgorica: After the battle of Brdica, which resulted in a sound defeat for the Serbs, Serbian forces entered the village of Barbullush on their retreat. The terrified inhabitants came out of their homes with crucifixes in the hands and begged for mercy, but to no avail. The crazed troops attacked the unarmed villagers and slaughtered men, women, old people and children. The maimed body of an eight-year-old child was found to contain no less than six bayonet wounds.[29]
Post a Comment