Posted on 05/18/2004 8:49:57 AM PDT by Jane_N
Swedish KFOR General Warns About Total Ethnic Cleansing of Serbs
By
Anders Brännström
May 18, 2004
"Do not abandon Kosovo!"
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.
On 17 March that illusion was broken very clearly and brutally.
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.
I was being sarcastic. This is one of the issues that make no sense for President Bush to ignore.
Sorry. You have to remember that there are some posters who still put on the kneepads for Kaiser Willie and declare that we did a good thing in Kosovo.
With that sort of blather going on, it's hard at times to tell when someone's got their tongue in their cheek.
It was a sarcastic comment meant to show how utterly incapable Europe is in taking care of problems in their own backyard but seem to have no problem lecturing us!
Kosovo is lost to the nation of Islam, Italy and Greece are next.
I was being sarcastic too. If it was Moslem or Jewish problem it would be a front page story. Christians get no respect in this country. Ethnic Cleansing in Sudan has killed 2 million Christians, and we never talk about it with a sense of outrage or anger. The Rwandan Genocide killed much less people, by people who are not terrorizing us, and they got better coverage. Here Arab Moslems committing genocides in Sudan, and Nigeria, and we never lift a finger!
Thats understandable. I cannot believe that some freepers actually stick up bill and maddies war. Especially since 9/11 caused us to wake up, well somewhat wake up to the fact that muslims are waging a war against us.
"Only a complete fool..."
Unfortunately there are many complete fools out there and by out there I don't mean just on FR. There are so many people that have a "don't know, don't care" attitude. I can understand to an extent that people living on other continents would think that. The weird thing is that many in Europe have that attitude too. I remember while serbia was getting bombed, having discussions with people about this and their attitude was "why should I care...It's far from here". By here, I mean in Sweden. Yes Sweden is rather far from the former Yugoslavian republics, but not so far that it wouldn't be effected. And it was effected in that Sweden took in many of the refugees from Kosovo (which in it's turn has led to other problems which I won't go into here).
On 17 March that illusion was broken very clearly and brutally.
WRONG! Well over a hundred Serbian Orthodox churches (plus at least one Albanian Protestant church) were destroyed by the KLA/UCK--THE VAST MAJORITY OF THEM before March 17, 2004. And well over 200,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians (plus who knows how many pro-Yugoslav and/or anit-KLA Albanians) were cleansed from Kosovo BEFORE March 17, 2004--most of them in 1999!!
Like most Americans, I remember where I was and what I was doing when the planes hit on 9/11. I also remember where I was on March 17, 2004. I was exactly where I belonged--at a Lutheran Lenten communion service. Among other things, we sang St. Patrick's Breastplate, because it was St. Patrick's day. (St. Patrick is a saint for both Lutherans and Orthodox, as well as Roman Catolic Irish.) What a letdown and a grief it was when--soon thereafter-- I found out what the UCK was doing!!
On another, related subject: Welcome, Srebrenica Squak! All I can say is AMAZING!!!!
This Swedish Officer was disillusioned. He should try walking in the Serbs shoes for one day in Kosovo. He will then understand.
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
About sums it up.
No...This about sums it up.
This quote speaks volumes.
Forced sterilization is the only non-violent way to deal with it. Nobody dies...so the Left should rejoice. Shouldn't it?
No need to thank me for the ping Nennsy, I thought you would be interested in what a foriegner who has just come back from Kosovo had to say about the situation there.
And by the way, thank you for your post about the Austrian contingent. It was interesting to see that even others who are non-biased are more or less saying the same thing. Yet certain people still believe the serbs are to fault, that they deserve it and the albanian actions are justified revenge. It is not revenge. It's a deep inner hatred for serbs, serb culture and religion, yes, everything that is serb by the Albanians.
If nothing is done by the international community and done soon, then Kosovo will be cleansed of all Serbs. We need to remove our blinkers and recognise that major problems exist. If we don't do something now, than we are helping in the cleansing being committed.
Funny actually how so many people were for the bombing of Serbia when there wasn't any real proof of ethnic cleansing being committed by the Serbs against Albanians in Kosovo before the war. Yet now when there is absolute proof of ethnic cleansing against Serbs by Albanians, everyone is silent. Talk about hypocrisy.
The matter has been explained to you, and here you are repeating the lie.
What's the major malfunction Jane?
And that justifies what is happening today or? If we could bomb Serbia because etnic cleansing than we would and are hypoctrites for just standing by and watching on while the same thing is being done by the Albanians. Or do you also believe that the Serbs deserve it as some others tend to do?
No.
The ROE for KFOR units will be changed, and additional pressure will be applied on the Kosovo Albanian leadership to become more proactive in preventing this type of behavior in the future.
No.
Now answer my question - why are you repeating the "no ethnic cleansing prior to Allied Force" lie?
"why are you repeating the "no ethnic cleansing prior to Allied Force" lie"
Because the sources I rely on have been involved with Kosovo before the Yugoslavian wars started. These sources have always worked for peaceful solutions to ethnic problems. And no these sources are not Serb-backed. The major one of these is Transnational Organisation whose founder Jan Öberg is a internationally respected expert in Peace and Reconciliation and has been interviewed many times on CNN among other mainstream media networks. Other sources include albanians from kosovo that have lived in sweden since the early '90's who tell me that yes awful things had been going on but ethnic cleansing it was not. Is this enough for you?
As to your "additional pressure will be applied on the Kosovo Albanian leadership to become more proactive in preventing this type of behavior in the future."
There is a major difference in additional pressure compared to blackmailing (Rambouilett), threatening with bombing and destroying a sovereign state.
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