Swedish KFOR General Warns About Total Ethnic Cleansing of Serbs

Unless the Serbian minority is protected by a strong international military force, the part of the Kosovo Albanian population that is prone to violence will ethnically cleanse anything Serbian out of Kosovo as soon as it gets an opportunity. Until the violent riots in March, the external world believed that the situation in Kosovo had become stabilized. There were plans to strongly reduce the peacekeeping KFOR troops. Thanks to the disarmament not having gone very far, it was possible to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Serbs. Brigadier Anders Brännström, until recently brigade commander in Kosovo, writes that an international force must remain.

Last Friday I returned to Sweden after serving as brigade commander in Kosovo. During the last six months, Sweden has been responsible for the Multinational Brigade Centre MNB (C) -, one of four brigades in KFOR, the military force in Kosovo. This is the first time that Sweden has been in charge of a brigade reporting directly to a NATO staff.

By this article I want to explain the radical change that occurred during my time in Kosovo. I am not a politician and this is not a political brief. My responsibility has been security. This is a field where I see myself as being well informed after my Balkan missions. Apart from the recently finished mission I was commander of the Swedish batallion in Kosovo in 2000.

Before I continue the argument I would like to comment on what I write about the Kosovo Albanian population. It is important to clarify this part of the analysis in order not to get misunderstood.

The absolute majority of Kosovo Albanians are of course like in other parts of the world honest citizens who aspire to a good life for themselves and their families. I have many good friends among Kosovo Albanians. And I can testify that that friendship is often warmer and more intense then with many of my Swedish friends. We must, however, not disregard the a genuine and encompassing suspicion and aversion against Serbs is found in the Kosovo Albanian population. And let me, for the sake of completeness add that a corresponding suspicion, aversion and in addition fear of Kosovo Albanians is found in the Kosovo Serbian population.

When I travelled to Kosovo in October last year I believed as did the entire international community that the situation in Kosovo was stable. Everybody deemed that Kosovo was ripe within a near future to live in a multiethnic society where the different population groups could live together. It was therefore planned to reduce KFOR drastically, to reduce the international police force correspondingly and to hand over power and competences to local institutions.

As a complete surprise to the entire international community, riots broke out all over Kosovo. Kosovo Albanian crowds burnt Serbian churches, hospitals and houses in the Serbian parts of cities and villages. Women and children were forced to abandon their burning homes and flee for their lives. KFOR succeeded in preventing a total ethnic cleansing, but the damages were nevertheless vast all over Kosovo. Miraculously, no KFOR soldier was killed in the riots.

In hindsight, it is rather embarrassing that we could be this naive. How could we believe that Kosovo &endash; after all that had happened through history &endash; would be ripe already now for its different population groups to live in harmony with each other?

A positive consequence of what happened it that we discovered the frailty of the project in time. If we had had time to disarm even further, it would not have been possible to prevent the ethnic cleansing. Some 100,000 Kosovo Serbs and other minority groups would might in that case have been either dead or assembled in refugee camps, with which Balkan history is replete.

I would like to summarize my analysis of the new situation in Kosovo in four points.

1. Kosovo is not sufficiently ripe to become a multiethnic society within any near future. This was made very evident by what happened on 17-19 march this year.

2. The contradictions and the hatred are so strong that this situation will remain the same for many years. It is quite obvious that we must count with decades until a different situation can be expected.

3. Kosovo Serbian lives and Kosovo Serbian property must be protected by a strong military organization. Existing alternatives are either an international force like KFOR or the army of Serbia-Montenegro. Under present political conditions, the latter alternative is hardly implementable.

4. Unless the Serbian minority is protected by a strong military organization, the violence prone part of the Kosovo Albanian population will cleanse everything Serbian from Kosovo at the first opportunity.

In my analysis I refer to the part of the Kosovo Albanian population that committed the deeds on17-19 March. The UN estimates that there were at least 50,000 people who created the disturbances more or less spontaneously. These are people whose hate of the Serbian population is so great that they will use any means. If this group is permitted to further plan and coordinate its deeds, the destruction would no doubt become even greater.

The conclusion of my analysis is that as long as the international community is not ready to permit ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, a strong international force must be present in the area.

I started by stating that I am no politician; and that is certainly true. I nevertheless wish to conclude this article by using a citizen´s perspective to indicate some possibilities that might be used by skilled and courageous politicians.

- If the international community chooses to continue protecting Kosovo Serbs against ethnic cleansing, would it not be a good idea to attempt to cooperate with Serbia-Montenegro in these issues?

- Would it not thereby be possible for Serbia-Montenegro to enter European cooperation in other ways too?

- Would not that provide an opportunity for Serbia-Montenegro to deal with some of the negative effects of the Milosevic era and perhaps even become able to neutralise some of its radical politicians?

I am completely convinced of the relevance of this analysis of the security situation of the Kosovo Serbian minority population in Kosovo.

The question is whether there is political courage to constructively manage and exploit the opportunities created by the entirely new situation in Kosovo.

Alright, slowly this time...

Your original assertion:

the fact is those arrests were ordered by internationals

requires you to disprove that any of the warrants were issued by the local Kosovar Albanian judges - I was laughing then, I'm laughing harder now.

Not with you, at you.

And while you're at it, why don't you see if you can come up with some creative reason why the Serbs were looting and destroying the K-Albanian's homes "for their own safety" while they were booting them out of them?

Life is just one disappointment after another for you, isn't it.

Tain’t just me calling what happened at Ivaja “fighting”, chief:

Earlier, sources from the OSCE Verification mission in Kosovo (KVM) said that "fighting started in four villages, Straza, where artillery shots were heard, Ivaja, Gajre and Globocica," in a region close to the border with Macedonia.

A U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) convoy which was due to evacuate some 200 displaced people from the region, towards the north, was cancelled, the source added. The refugees had fled fighting between Belgrade forces and the KLA last week.

Serb security forces mounted a massive attack on the Kosovo village of Ivaja Tuesday, razing most houses to the ground and forcing residents to flee, according to the Kosovo Verification Mission. Verifier Otto Bischof told media that the army and police troops had successfully cleared the area of the KLA. . . . According to Reuters the men were separated out and taken away to check if they were affiliated to the KLA. International verifiers described the incident as very worrying.

Verification mission representative said that Serb police had detained 35 Albanians. This figure was disputed by Serbian sources who claimed that only 23 Albanians were in custody after the clashes. Kosova Press, the news agency of the KLA, reported that three KLA fighters were killed and another seven wounded. Before being taken away, one of the men said his group came from the village of Ivaja where fighting between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian rebels began early on Monday.

Since it was a KLA village, it’s neither surprising nor improper that military age men were taken into custody after the terrorists were suppressed (and no, you don’t want to go there), and there’s no allegation that they were mistreated in any way.

I’m duly impressed that you didn’t address my critique. That’s what I call making a virtue of necessity. Don’t worry, there are places that can help . I’d suggest signing onto a correspondence course, but that would be cruel now, wouldn’t it.

razing most houses to the ground and forcing residents to flee

"Razing" Gael, is part of ethnic cleansing.

Whatever - since you're happy to lump all Kosovar Albanians into the generic "KLA", then we'll just lump all Serbs into "Paramilitaries", fair enough?.

Ergo, you have no standing to complain about Serbian paramilitaries being ejected from Kosovo.

Or does your ability to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants only work when Serb civilians are involved?

This war is so over Gael. Nurse your lumps in private and get on with your lives - this constant whining and revising the past to support your victim complex is just sick.

Your original assertion: the fact is those arrests were ordered by internationals requires you to disprove that any of the warrants were issued by the local Kosovar Albanian judges - I was laughing then, I'm laughing harder now.

I have searched for several articles about KLA arrests, and all the ones I found say the arrests were carried out and/or ordered by non-Albanians. That proves my point. If you wish to disprove me, all you need do is show me an article about Albanians being responsible for some of the arrests. Come on, you can do it. Keep searching. I'm sure you would've already triumphantly produced an article if you could find one. Here is an article about Serbs being arrested and tried in Serbia, by Serbian court. Show me the same kind of article, except about Albanians.

That never happened, that's just anti-Serb propaganda. There was NO looting of houses, or intentional destruction of houses, in Kosovo by the Serb army.

I just re-read your post #27 in this thread and #10 from the other thread Hoplite. I also re-read the link you provided to a report by some organisation called USCR (U.S. Committee for Refugees) and I must say that it is interesting that you chose to quote the following from that article: "So far, the fighting in Kosovo has displaced about 400,000, according to UNHCR."

There is no mention of ethnic cleansing or forced expulsion of Kosovo Albanians in that line or anywhere else in that article. You also neglected to mention that, according to the same article: "The only hopeful note is that 20,000 of the newly displaced quickly returned to their homes."

In fact the only time ethnic cleansing is mentioned is in the following paragraph from the very same article you used:

"The souring of negotiations also brought with it Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) attacks aimed at trying to "cleanse" Kosovo of its ethnic Serb civilian population. UNHCR said, "Over 90 mixed villages in Kosovo have now been emptied of Serb inhabitants and other Serbs continue leaving, either to be displaced in other parts of Kosovo or fleeing into central Serbia. The Yugoslav Red Cross estimates there are more than 30,000 non-Albanian displaced currently in need of assistance in Kosovo, most of whom are Serb."

Selective reading Hoplite or?

To all, the course general route is available for viewing. The Topo map is not ready yet, soon.

I even have a stay over in Tuzla, and visit the Priest and the bullet-ridden Serbian Church of Tuzla.

Boze Pravde!

Day 1- Petrinje (Glina), RSK (Dvor - Bosanski Novi - Prijedor - Banja Luka)
Day 2- Celinac, RS (Pribinic - Jelen - Doboj - Gracanica - Puracic)
Day 3- Tuzla, BiH (Zivinice - Stupari - Kladanj - Vlasenica - Milici - Nova Kosaba - Bratunac - Skelani - Bajina Basta
Day 4- Uzice, Serbia (Zlatibor - Novo Varos - Sjenica)
Day 5- Novi Pazar, Serbia (Kosovo)
Day 6- Pec, Kosovo Serbia (Kosovo)
Day 7- Leposavic, Kosovo Serbia (Kosovo)
Day 8- Kursumlija , Serbia (Southern Serbia)
Day 9- Leskovac, Serbia (Southern Serbia)
Day 10- Presevo, Serbia (Southern Serbia)

ahem...:) this is where you recieve your Albanian population boom inside the sovereign borders of Serbia/CG

Click to scroll to commentary.

De-Mining Charity's Chief Arrested after Two Die in Blast (Albania)
scotsman ^ | May 25, 2004 | Antony Stone

Posted on 05/25/2004 2:56:56 PM EDT by joan

North-eastern Albania, which borders Kosovo and Macedonia, remains littered with mines laid by weapons traffickers and the Serb and Macedonian armies during the 1998-99 Kosovo war and the 2001 insurgency in Macedonia.

The armies were trying to prevent ethnic Albanian fighters from crossing the border to pick up weapons.

Burning residences is de facto ethnic cleansing, Jane - it tends to give the impression that the powers that be don't want the residents around any more.

Let's put this in a perspective you can understand, Jane:

At one Kosovo border town, Ivaja, KLA forces burned most of the houses. Reuters news agency found the only remaining civilian in the town, Radovan Lukic, an 84-year-old man. Still in shock and caked with blood, Lukic told the Reuters reporter, "They beat me with rifles and asked me if I knew anyone from the VRS. They asked me if my son was in the VRS and I said no and they beat me again."

About nine miles from the Macedonian border, KLA forces rounded up about 400 of the displaced people who had fled their homes in Ivaja. They separated the military-age men from the women, children, and elderly men, and loaded them onto trucks and took them to a nearby school in Kacanik. The KLA took about 100 of the younger men in armored cars to a police station, telling international monitors on the scene that they would "root out terrorists."

Given this situation, you and your friends here would be going ape - but you have double standards as far as who matters and who doesn't based simply upon ethnicity.

And that's why, Jane, the fact that the article I references mentions the KLA ethnically cleansing Serb residents doesn't factor into the equasion - I accept it as factual, rather than trying to deny it ever happened through misrepresentation of the facts and simple lying, as is the usual, sad spectacle on these threads.

Given that, I'm all for bringing those responsible to justice - just like I was and am for bringing their Serbian counterparts to justice for their crimes.

As far as the USCR not labelling what was going on in Kosovo in regards to the Albanian population as 'ethnic cleansing' you are aware of what happened to individuals who called it like it was - they were expelled by the Serbs.

Racak, William Walker, you know the drill - were Bo to have uttered his take on the matter while he was in Kosovo as administered by Belgrade, he would have gotten his walking papers too.

That proves my point.

No. It most definitely does not.

In the aftermath, UNMIK would do all it could to bring to justice all those who provoked or engaged in the violence, he said, noting that some 270 arrests already had been made. The priority now was to target investigations on the principal organizers, as well as on homicides and arson. Local prosecutors were handling over 130 cases directly related to the riots. Some 50 cases of a more serious nature had been entrusted to international prosecutors.

That means that in 130 cases, where the defendants weren't taken into custody by the police at the scene of the crime, local prosecutors investigated the crimes, and then submitted applications for prosecution to Kosovo's Judges, who then issued orders for arrest for the suspects - per article 270 of the Provisional Criminal Procedure Code of Kosovo.

That never happened, that's just anti-Serb propaganda. There was NO looting of houses, or intentional destruction of houses, in Kosovo by the Serb army.

Yeah, whatever - tell you what, sport, let's try denying something more annoying than history: you, your ignorance, and your stupid prejudices.

Bye.

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