Did Ibrahim Rugova die a Christian?

As someone who has been following and writing about the events in the Balkans for over a decade, the announced death in myriads of newspapers throughout the world of President Ibrahim Rugova of Kosovo, was of deep interest to me. Virtually nothing is mentioned in the media nor in Congress anymore of the dire situation for the remaining Christian Serbian population in Kosovo. It is as though the Balkan war never happened, nor the consequences of that war. While Rugova's method of achieving independence for Kosovo is described as nonviolent he often found himself allied with Hashim Thaci, the leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, many of whom were trained in Osama bin Laden's terrorists camps.

On 22 January 2006, Vecerje Novosti in Belgrade, reported, "Rugova died a Christian." The Albanian Roman Catholic priest Don Lush Gjergji stated that the late Albanian leader died a Christian but could not publicize his conversion to Christianity due to political opportunism, especially because former KLA Albanian gunmen opposed plans to bury Rugova in Kosovo's Martyrs' cemetery, a memorial complex initially dedicated to the victims of World War II, but since has become a graveyard for members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the ethnic Albanian rebel force that fought Serb troops in Kosovo's 1998-1999 war.

Reuters News Agency reported that the decision to bury Rugova alongside fallen KLA fighters was based on "Rugova's wishes," according to "a source close to Rugova's Cabinet." Left unanswered was the question of whether the grave of the new convert to Christianity, who would be buried according to Muslim tradition, would be marked by a Christian cross. Why is that important? Because it goes to the heart of the conflict in Kosovo, a long and tragic story.

In an attempt to stop the maurading Islamic hordes in Europe, the Serbs fought against the Ottoman Turks in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo. Led by Prince Lazar and knowing they were going to die, they put on their finest garments and with the blessings of God, faced death in a battle to delay the onslaught of the Ottoman invasion of Europe. Over 77,000 of Serbian warriors died in a single day. This loss ushered in almost 500 years of miserable Turkish oppression of the Serbian people. The day of the battle, 28 June is heralded as a national holy day by the Serbs. Prince Lazar was beheaded by the Turks and his wife taken as a concubine.

Now the the U.S., NATO, and the U.N. are trying to decide the future of Kosovo. All indications are that the move for independence for Kosovo, a sovereign part of Serbia, will be the result. What right do we now have to usurp their most precious holy land which they suffered to defend, the cradle of their Orthodox Christian religion and their national identity and hand it over to the enemy of Christ?

Would Jews concede their Jerusalem to the Palestinians? Would Islam concede Mecca to the infidels? Would Roman Catholics concede their Vatican? Recently, a Jerusalem Post reporter wrote, "One of the [Serb] participants [in conference] turned to me. 'Please understand. we are talking about the equivalent of Jerusalem. It is our Judea, our Samaria' "and "There exists great empathy for Israel in Serbia.

In contrast to the Croats and the Slovenes, the Serbs suffered terribly at the hands of the Nazis. They, more than most nations in Europe, understand and sympathize with the plight of the Jews during the Second World War...'Can a man be asked to give up his heart'?" yet that is exactly what is being demanded of the Serbs: to hand over their heart, their holy land, their Jerusalem to their Muslim Albanian tormentors.

How did President Rugova intend to accomplish his Islamic miracle through pacifist means, which, by the way, is generally viewed as of little importance, having been overshadowed by events in the Middle East and the War on Terror? It appears that Hashim Thaci, espousing war instead of pacifist tactics, has already won the day through pogroms against the Serbs committed by Albanian mobs and by Thaci's brutal assault against the remaining Serbian population which has resulted in the nearly complete eradication of Serbian culture, language and religion, while the Western nations look on and do nothing. Albanian thugs have prevailed, while the West stands by and watches the Albanian Muslim victory over the Christian Serbs.

Under Rugova's watch, National Review reported in 2004, "A pogrom started in Europe this week, with one U.N. official being quoted as saying, 'Kristallnacht is underway in Kosovo.' Serbs are being murdered and their 800-year-old churches are aflame. Much of the Christian heritage in Kosovo and Metohija is on fire and could be lost forever. By these deeds too many of Kosovo's Albanians have shown that their rhetoric about 'democracy' and 'ultiethnicity' is false, and demonstrations also that the international community's acceptance of them have been naive."

Since KFOR peacekeepers entered Kosovo, more Serbian Orthodox churches have been destroyed than under the 415 year Turkish occupation. "The wave of violence has been too coordinated to be a spontaneous popular reaction to rumors. It was planned in advance," said Derek Chappell, the U.N.'s Kosovo mission spokesman. "All that was needed was a pretext. It is clear that some in the Kosovo Albanian leadership believe that by cleansing all remaining Serbs from the area (having already achieved the cleansing of two-thirds of Kosovo's Serbs after its "liberation" in 1999) and destroying Serbian cultural sites, they can present the international community with a fait accompli. But ethnic purity cannot be allowed to be the foundation for either democracy or independence." Derek Chappell also reported on sex slavery, prostitution and rape that are rampant in Kosovo.

To add salt to the wound, Under Secretary for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns recently met with Hashim Thaci. Joseph Farah's G2 bulletin titled "In bed with terrorists," writes "Hashim Thaci, also known as 'the Snake,' wartime leader of the Kosovo Albanian terrorist group KLA, and now leader of UN-administered Kosovo's second largest party, the Democratic Party of Kosovo or PDK, visited Washington Jan. 13, when he was received by U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns to 'discuss the situation in Kosovo, including the status talks,' according to a State Department spokesman." The State Department's royal treatment of "The Snake" is a continuation of what happened during the negotiations for the Rambouillet Agreement in 1999, an agreement that was the recipe for war against the Christian Serbs, when Hashim Thaci sat inside a cozy room discussing the fate of Kosovo, while the Bishop of Kosovo, Artemije could only stand outside in the snow in order to be interviewed by journalists.

The same people who were running President Clinton's "disasterous" (a word used recently by Christiana Amanpour referrencing the Iraqi war - while she crows about our victory in the Balkans) foreign policies in the Balkans, such as Nicholas Burns, are still in the State Department. President Bush should have cleaned house when he came into office - but unfortunately, he did not. Forrmer UNPROFOR Canadian Commander, Maj. General Lewis MacKenzie, said it best. "The Kosovo-Albanians have played us like a Stradivarius." They, as in Bosnia, have triumphed over the Christian Serbs with the help of the West.

For Christians, martyrs are those who suffered and died for their Christian faith. Rugova's reported wish to be buried in the Pristina cemetery of martyrs with the fallen fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army strongly suggests that his dedication to the jihad of the terrorist "martyrs" is stronger than his doubtful claim to any form of Christianity.

After reading the history of the Battle of Kosovo, how can we, in good conscience, now condemn the Christian Serbs to live in dhimmitude* once again? What right do we have to do that?

*Dhimmitude. The Arabic-root term to identify the dehumanized condition of Christians and Jews under the humiliating domination of Moslem power. (The Jerusalem Post, January 2, 1997.)

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE
March 19, 2004, 8:42 a.m.

KRISTALLNACHT IN KOSOVO

The burning of churches raises questions about independence.
By Damjan de Krnjevic-Miskovic
Senior Fellow

A pogrom started in Europe this week, with one U.N. official being quoted as saying, "Kristallnacht is under way in Kosovo." Serbs are being murdered and their 800-year-old churches are aflame. Much of the Christian heritage in Kosovo and Metohija is on fire and could be lost forever. By these deeds too many of Kosovo's Albanians have shown that their rhetoric about "democracy" and "multiethnicity" is false, and demonstrates also that the international community's acceptance of them has been naïve.

How did this week's events begin? Just as in the 1930s, a rumor became a fact and prearranged plans were put into action. Members of the victimized community (in this case, Serbian children) were accused of chasing four Albanian children into a river and causing the death of three of them. Hours later, the U.N. Mission which is what passes for authority in Kosovo issued a statement that the accusation against the Serbs was false, adding that the surviving Albanian child had told the U.N. that no Serbs had been involved in the drownings. Nevertheless, anti-Serb violence did not abate. And today Kosovo burns still.

Beginning in the ethnically divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica, a horde of armed Albanians crossed into the Serbian half of the city and breached a Polish peacekeepers' line. Half a dozen people of both ethnic groups were killed.

Hours later, busloads of Albanians were transported to areas where Serbs are concentrated in some cases, clashing with international peacekeepers on the way. In some places, entire Serbian villages have been razed. The U.N., ever courageous, evacuated its missions from at least three cities in Kosovo. In two of them, Serbian Orthodox churches were set aflame. And it only got worse during that first night, and then again the next day.

Monasteries and churches dating back to the 12th century are burning; 14 have been completely destroyed so far. Their cultural significance is irreplaceable. Photographs and memories are now all that remain. But instead of protecting them, the U.N. fled.

The wave of violence has been too coordinated to be a spontaneous, popular reaction to rumors. "It was planned in advance," said Derek Chappell, the U.N.'s Kosovo mission spokesman. All that was needed was a pretext. It is clear that some in the Kosovo Albanian leadership believe that by cleansing all remaining Serbs from the area (having already achieved the cleansing of two-thirds of Kosovo's Serbs after its "liberation" in 1999) and destroying Serbian cultural sites, they can present the international community with a fait accompli. But ethnic purity cannot be allowed to be the foundation for either democracy or independence.

Upon hearing the news of the pogrom and the burning of churches in Kosovo, a small crowd of Belgraders surrounded the city's mosque in retaliation. Windows were broken, and a fire was started. (They did the same in Serbia's second largest city, Nis.) In contrast to the scene in Kosovo, the Serbian government dispatched several hundred police to try and control the crowd; joining them was a Serbian Orthodox bishop who tried to talk the crowd down. They did not succeed entirely. The Serbian mob was as despicable as its Albanian counterpart, but it was far smaller (numbering in the hundreds, not the tens of thousands; and there were a few isolated incidents, not a systematic campaign of destruction), and it had to fight government authorities and disregard the pleadings of a bishop to commit its deeds. And 78 of the rioters have been arrested. In Kosovo, where are the Albanian politicians standing in front of the Serbian holy sites? Who was guarding the Serbian churches and villages? Why are they in flames? There are 18,000 foreign troops in Kosovo. Why are they not doing more?

The Kosovo Albanian leadership, while insisting they are capable of governing an independent state, also claim that they were unable to control their constituents and stop the pogrom. So, while the leader of the most influential political party in Kosovo, Hasim Thaci, travels abroad preaching the virtues of multiethnicity and a civic-based identity, all five Serbian holy sites in his hometown of Prizren were burned. Meanwhile, his political party (and the other Kosovo Albanian parties) issued statements blaming the conflagration on the Serbs.

This does not mean that individual Albanian leaders and ordinary Albanians have not acted honorably. Thaci did not want this to happen, and his hastily arranged return to Kosovo may well calm the situation. As a former KLA man, he might be able to reign-in some of the pogrom's leaders. The Kosovo Albanian prime minister, Bajram Rexhepi, and Ramush Haradinaj, a former KLA terrorist commander and the leader of one of their political parties, have been commended by local officials and Serbian Orthodox Church figures for their assistance. But on the other hand, these same men have been promising for six years to rebuild Serbian churches and homes, and to investigate the approximately 3,000 ethnically murders and kidnappings, that have taken place since June 1999. Their words did not translate into actions. Where have they been for the past five years? Their inaction certainly contributed to the perception by Albanian extremists that they could get away with murder and with arson. And they have. How many arrests will we see this time? Will an Albanian judge convict one of his own for a crime against a Serb? It hadn't happened before Kristallnacht in Kosovo. Can it happen now?

Post-June 1999, Kosovo's Serbs were willing to reject the lessons of history and wanted to work with, even to trust, their Albanian neighbors. They believed Kosovo's Albanian politicians who promised that religious freedom and multiethnicity would be made permanent that the values of the West would take root in Kosovo.

At the same time, Kosovo's Serbs have for years been warning of the real nature of Albanian nationalism, and the U.N. and the West have assumed they were exaggerating. But as the diocese of Kosovo's statement this week makes clear, "What has happened today and is happening this evening in Kosovo and Metohija represents a horrible defeat for the entire U.N. mission which has been deceiving the world for the past five years with their alleged successes when in fact they were enabling militarization."

Murder upon murder, kidnapping upon kidnapping, arson upon arson, and now finally this pogrom, have led the Serbs to the realization that they are at the mercy of barbarians. This is ethnic aggression of the worst sort "in the heart of Europe" (as Madeleine Albright famously called Kosovo before she bombed Serbia). Today, we see the true face of the "multiethnicity" of which all spoke so highly. And all this is happening under U.N. and NATO administration. Imagine how bad it could get if Kosovo becomes independent.

Senator Sam Brownback (R., Kan.), after having met Bishop Artemije of Kosovo several weeks ago in Washington, wrote a letter to President Bush in which he concluded, "We should not consider advancing the cause of independence of a people whose first act when liberated was to ethnically cleanse a quarter of a million of their fellow citizens and destroy over a hundred of their holy sites." This week's dismal events have proved him all too right. Perhaps this pogrom will force the Bush Administration to take seriously the warnings of Belgrade, and help stop the rivers of Kosovo from flowing red with blood..

Damjan de Krnjevic-Miskovic is the managing editor of The National Interest and a senior fellow at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy.

Lame? I don't think so.

To preface the commentary by Canadian Maj Gen Lewis MacKenzie, in order to discredit him, he was accused of having raped and murdered four Bosnian girls. In his book, ""Peacekeeper, The Road to Sarajevo," Pg. 326-327, he writes, "The story made headline news during the Islamic conference in Saudi Arabia, attended by President Izetbegovic. Fortunately, the North American press showed an encouraging degree of good taste and at first declined to carry the story. The story did, however, receive wide coverage in the Islamic press, and in Croatia, Germany and Italy." His book was not sold in the United States. The only books you could buy in the U.S., were all anti-Serbian.

National Post(Canada) April 06, 2004

We bombed the wrong side?
Lewis MacKenzie

Five years ago our television screens were dominated by pictures of Kosovo-Albanian refugees escaping across Kosovo's borders to the sanctuaries of Macedonia and Albania. Shrill reports indicated that Slobodan Milosevic's security forces were conducting a campaign of genocide and that at least 100,000 Kosovo-Albanians had been exterminated and buried in mass graves throughout the Serbian province. NATO sprung into action and, in spite of the fact no member nation of the alliance was threatened, commenced bombing not only Kosovo, but the infrastructure and population of Serbia itself -- without the authorizing United Nations resolution so revered by Canadian leadership, past and present.

Those of us who warned that the West was being sucked in on the side of an extremist, militant, Kosovo-Albanian independence movement were dismissed as appeasers. The fact that the lead organization spearheading the fight for independence, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), was universally designated a terrorist organization and known to be receiving support from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda was conveniently ignored.

The recent dearth of news in the North American media regarding the increase in violence in Kosovo compared to the comprehensive coverage in the European press strongly suggests that we Canadians don't like to admit it when we are wrong. On the contrary, selected news clips on this side of the ocean continue to reinforce the popular spin that those dastardly Serbs are at it again.

A case in point was the latest crisis that exploded on March 15. The media reported that four Albanian boys had been chased into the river Ibar in Mitrovica by at least two Serbs and a dog (the dog's ethnic affiliation was not reported).Three of the boys drowned and one escaped to the other side. Immediately, thousands of Albanians mobilized and concentrated in the area of the divided city. Attacks on Serbs took place throughout the province resulting in an estimated 30 killed and 600 wounded. Thirty Serbian Christian Orthodox churches and monasteries were destroyed, more than 300 homes were burnt to the ground and six Serbian villages cleansed of their occupants. One hundred and fifty international peacekeepers were injured.

Totally ignored in North America were the numerous statements from impartial sources that said there was no incident between the Serbs, the dog and the Albanian boys. NATO Police spokesman Derek Chappell stated on March 16 that it was "definitely not true" that the boys had been chased into the river by Serbs. Chappell went on to say that the surviving boy had told his parents that they had entered the river alone and that three of his friends had been swept away by the current. Admiral Gregory Johnson, the overall NATO commander, further stated that the ensuing clashes were "orchestrated and well-planned ethnic cleansing" by the Kosovo-Albanians. Those Serbs forced to leave joined the 200,000 who had been cleansed from the province since NATO's "humanitarian" bombing in 1999. The '"cleansees" have become very effective "cleansers."

In the same week a number of individuals posing as Serbs ambushed and killed a UN policeman and his local police partner. During the firefight one of them was wounded which caused an immediate switch from Serbian to Albanian as he screamed, "I've been hit"! The UN pursued the attackers and tracked them to an Albanian-run farm where they discovered weapons and the wounded Albanian who had died from his wounds. Four Albanians were arrested. Once again, the ambush had been reported in the United States but not the follow-up which clearly indicated yet another orchestrated provocation by the Albanian terrorists.

Kosovo is administered by the UN, the very organization many Canadians have indicated they would like to see take over from the United States in Iraq. The fact the UN cannot order its civilian employees to go or stay anywhere -- they have to volunteer -- combined with recent history that saw the UN abandon Iraq after a single brutal attack on their compound in Baghdad and the reality that Kosovo, under the organization's administration, is a basket case, disqualifies it from consideration for such a role.

Since the NATO/UN intervention in 1999, Kosovo has become the crime capital of Europe. The sex slave trade is flourishing. The province has become an invaluable transit point for drugs en route to Europe and North America. Ironically, the majority of the drugs come from another state "liberated" by the West, Afghanistan. Members of the demobilized, but not eliminated, KLA are intimately involved in organized crime and the government. The UN police arrest a small percentage of those involved in criminal activities and turn them over to a judiciary with a revolving door that responds to bribes and coercion.

The objective of the Albanians is to purge all non-Albanians, including the international community's representatives, from Kosovo and ultimately link up with mother Albania thereby achieving the goal of "Greater Albania." The campaign started with their attacks on Serbian security forces in the early 1990s and they were successful in turning Milosevic's heavy-handed response into worldwide sympathy for their cause. There was no genocide as claimed by the West -- the 100,000 allegedly buried in mass graves turned out to be around 2,000, of all ethnic origins, including those killed in combat during the war itself.

The Kosovo-Albanians have played us like a Stradivarius. We have subsidized and indirectly supported their violent campaign for an ethnically pure and independent Kosovo.We have never blamed them for being the perpetrators of the violence in the early '90s and we continue to portray them as the designated victim today in spite of evidence to the contrary. When they achieve independence with the help of our tax dollars combined with those of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just consider the message of encouragement this sends to other terrorist-supported independence movements around the world. Funny how we just keep digging the hole deeper!

Maj-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, now retired, commanded UN troops during the Bosnian civil war of 1992.

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