Northern Kosovo: Serbs make their last stand

Tensions run high on Serbia's border with northern Kosovo, as neither of the conflicting sides is prepared to rule out a further escalation of violence.

Local Serbs say NATO forces are to blame, for breaking an agreement by trying to remove a barricade blocking the way to one of a number of disputed checkpoints.

Last night in Northern Kosovo passed without violence though this does not mean that the source of tensions has disappeared.

On November 23 the NATO’s KFOR forces attempted to remove a barricade put up by ethnic Serbian minority of the region. The resistance was tense so the soldiers used tear gas. More than 20 people were injured but the Serbs got it their way and the KFOR operation was ceased.

RT crew traveled around the area and saw the barricades that have been there for the last four months still up. They are constantly maintained and people there say they are not going to abandon them in any case and in fact are planning to build more of them.

To an untrained eye those barricades seem to be mere piles of rubble, amateurishly constructed. One would never say they could become a cause of armed conflict.

But in order to comprehend why the barricades appeared in the first place, the developments in July in Kosovo must be remembered.

The Serbian minority, that constitutes 10 per cent of the Kosovo population, lost any kind of legal status once Kosovo unilaterally proclaimed independence from Serbia in 2008. The Kosovo Serbs still consider themselves the citizens of Serbia. Needless to say that the Kosovo Albanians do not consider Northern Kosovo to be independent and expect Serbs to leave their homes and move to Serbia.

Until July the Serbs in northern Kosovo were allowed a measure of self-independence and an ability to be in free contact with mainland Serbia. But then the official Pristina (Kosovo capital) decided to take the border with Serbia under control, to install customs stations to administrate the goods flow and all the cars and trucks coming into the area.

The Serbs did not see that as a mere formality, but as an infringement of their remaining freedoms. They called it a slippery slope, first comes the customs control – then they become hostages of a political will of Albanian Pristina.

Then it appeared a compromise was found when it was announced that the customs stations will be controlled not by Albanians, but by KFOR forces.

The only matter is that the Serbs never trusted KFOR, seeing it as a force that conducts NATO policies in the region, making the separation of Kosovo from Serbia possible in the first place and protecting Albanian interests only.

And Serbs have every right to stick to their opinion since KFOR has never been noticed in any sympathies with Serbs.

This time it was exactly the same. Once the tensions run high and an attempt to remove the barricades was made, KFOR opened fire at protestors with live ammunition, later claiming they were using rubber bullets.

But doctors of that region that were treating the wounded – they have seen enough to tell the difference between a rubber bullet wound and a real one. Luckily enough, no one was killed.

In the last decade of November KFOR started another operation to remove the barricades and again the Serbs who were born in Kosovo made a stand, clearly understanding this might be their last one, saying firmly they will not leave their land.

The Serbs of Kosovo represent where we will all be in the near future if we don’t make our choices very carefully, because the same globalist elite that went after them decades ago are the same enemies we, as Americans, face today.

“Song of Defiance” by Dobrica Eric, 1993
(translated from the original Serbian)

I, the servant of God,
the Serb,
announce willingly
through chains and wires
before the witnesses
Power, Agony and Injustice,
that I am guilty and admit my crime!

I am guilty that I am a somebody
and not a nothing and a nobody.
I am guilty that in a time of general
Serb-hating
I go to an Orthodox Christian church
and make the sign of the cross like this,
with three fingers!
I am guilty of being,
when I ought not to exist.
I have been guilty for a long time now
of standing upright
and gazing upon Heaven, instead of the grass.

I am guilty of having stood up to injustice.
I am guilty,
of once again honoring my patron saint.
I am guilty of reading and writing Cyrillic.
I am guilty of singing, of laughing, and
I am guilty, this I admit,
of knowing what I do know,
and knowing what I do not know.
I am guilty, to end with my greatest crime.
I am guilty of being stubborn
and of being an Orthodox Christian
and a follower of Saint Sava and of not believing
in such things as “a holy crime”.

I am guilty
then
of existing,
and while already being and rudely standing,
of not admitting that I do not exist.

If I admit that I do not exist
in order to save my head,
I will lose the venerable Cross and my patron saint.
If I do not admit that,
my outlook is bleak,
then the entire world will harass my nation.
Hoards of former people
thieves and vagrants,
packs of robots and other monsters,
will attack my orchards and fields
and my white house along the road
around which, as the loveliest of maidens,
blossom cherries, apples, and plums.

So here,
I admit this too,
for the salvation of my people.
I no longer exist.
Remove me from your list.
I am from now on only
air, light and water,
three useful elements.
And this thing that before you walks and talks,
that is what you have made of me!

My enemy with a thousand hands,
a thousand servants and false handmaidens,
you have plucked my sun as you would an apple
and my joy as you would a poppy among the rye.

My descendents shall drink despair and bitterness.
But yours already drink bitter honey-wine
for the blood money which fills your money belt
from the sale of my ancestral land.
Fate will give you a straight jacket,
and then there will come daylight,
or the planet will burst from shame ,
and bury us all in the abyss!

You must be very important,
you, my dear Land,
and your sisters
Truth and Justice,
since so many powers have arisen against you,
and Untruth and Injustice
stand before you with jaws agape.

Hoards of former people,
thieves and vagrants,
packs of robots and other monsters,
already surround your orchards and fields
and my white house along the road
around which, as the loveliest of maidens,
blossom lindens, apples, and plums.

What do these warriors of jihad,
and of crusade, these farmers
that torture your sons and daughters
seek?
These worldly bands must have heard
that we have golden hearts,
so they are removing them
to transplant them into their own torsos
in hopes that they, too, will become people.

My respected prosecutors,
my judges and executioners,
you have written out your commandments for me
all over your pupils,
of the finest of glass.
The harder it is for me to live,
the easier it will be for me to die.
You have gone too deep into a late dark night,
but you will lynch in vain the most hospitable nation on the planet,
because human hearts,
miracle of miracles,
cannot be transplanted into your inhuman torsos!

We do not fear death,
or the darkness,
but rather we fear a slave’s life and lengthy illness.
Death is a frequent occurrence among the Serbs
just like spring, summer, autumn and winter,
and it is no worse,
especially by day,
than drought, floods, earthquakes, and frost,
when a man meets these on his own land
with censed soul and clear conscience.

You who wish us harm,
satiated and mad,
you have forbidden me all in my own home,
but nobody can forbid me
to sing and to laugh while dying,
two things you no longer do
even while celebrating a marriage
or birth of your kind.

Spare me the stake and rope,
and crucify me on a mountain top
just as your forbearer crucified my forbearer,
Jesus Christ the Nazarene.

I shall watch,
but you shall close your eyes,
otherwise they will burst
from the glow of my face.
Just hurry -
because the sooner you crucify me
the sooner I will resurrect.

The United States has been out-manuevered in the Caspian Sea petroleum war. With the recent consessions by Turkey on the Black Sea Treaty to permit a Southern Pipeline, Russia is poised to build it. It has financing and futures-contracts for delivery.

On the other hand, its competitor, the EU and US’s so-called NABUCCO pipeline (Turkey to Austria) has no funding. It was supposed to be built to lessen Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas. However, it will not be built. The EU is broke. America is broke. There is no will to build it.

Therefore, NATO, the EU, and the US are doing everything they can to pry-away any pro-Russian terrain in Southeastern Europe. (The harassing of villagers by NATO, the world’s biggest military alliance, is so out of proportion and seems so trite.) Serbia and Kosovo are two places that have been targeted for years (decades).

30% of Western Europe’s gas is now supplied by Russia in the newly completed Northern Pipeline (under the Baltic Sea). Should Russia complete the Southern Pipeline, it is possible that Western Europe will be more than 50% dependant upon Russia for natural gas. Under that scenario, Russia will increasingly call the shots in Europe, not the US.

Kosovo is a last-ditch effort by the Western petroleum interests to keep Russia gas out of Europe. It won’t work. The free market is too strong and they need the supplies.

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