Punitive measures of German KFOR against Serbian monks

Tanjug ^ | February 3, 2004

[joan]

PRIZREN, Feb 3 (Tanjug) - Monks of the monastery of Saint Archangels in Prizren can no longer count on the escort of German KFOR, who have also banned them from using the military power generator, while the duty priest at Vladicanski dvor in Prizren is being denied food, the Raska-Prizren Eparchy stated on Tuesday.

[Hoplite]

Reasoned dialog seems like such an attractive option on Balkans threads until you get to understand their true nature.

They're not about trying to unravel what happened in order to evaluate our current policies and the best way to proceed in the future, they're about misrepresenting the facts, both past and present, in order to perpetuate the idiocy which sunk the region into bloodshed into the 90's.

Caveat emptor

[vooch]

Blue

If you'd take a minute, you'd realize that the monestary served primaryly Albanians who lived in the area.

Albanians came by the score to Decani & escaped Clinton's bombs.

The KLA was attacking those very same Albanians who 'mixed' with anyone else. Since the KLA took over Kosovo and Metohija, it has become Judenfrei, Ziegaunerfrei, and Kristenfrei.

[blau993]

Not sure a minute would have told me all that, but thanks for the information. Are the Albanians the monastery served the same ones that want to kill the monks now, or is this a good Albanian -- bad Albanian thing?

[GeraldP]

There are few, if any, Orthodox Albanians in Kosova. The Christian minority there as well as in Montenegro is Catholic, so it is highly improbable that these monks were serving Albanians.
Kosovar Albanians tend to asociate the Orthodox Church in the area with Serb nationalism, some extremists would even use violence (though this is condemned by the majority of Albanians).

[JMS]

The Yugoslavian government of the time was protecting the monks, Serbs, Albanians who were not separatists, Roma, Turks and all the other people of Kosovo prior to the attacks by Clinton and NATO. Since NATO and Kfor have abrogated to themselves the responsibility for keeping the peace in Kosovo it is Kfor's and NATO's obligation to protect everyone, not just the Albanians who have been attacking and ethnically cleansing everyone who is not an Albanian separatist.

You might try to look up David Binder's articles on the situation in Kosovo going back to the '80's published in the Times were Albanians were open about their plans to drive Serbs out of the province. If your pragmatic plan means that the monks should be chased out of their monastery then where does it stop, in Belgrade or maybe Berlin? Let the Albanians rule the world. The fact is that under Clinton's leadership the principle of sovreignty and the inviolability of national borders was destroyed and this has directly led to the assaults on Macedonia and in fact, backs up Saddam's idea that Kuwait should be his by right of arms.

While the Serbs were fighting the KLA without NATO acting as the KLA Air Force, there were about 3000 deaths on all sides - afterwards that number skyrocketed, particularly after NATO took control of the province and hundreds of thousands have been ethnically cleansed with a mixed population incuding Albanians going - get this, to Serbia which is in fact the only country in the Balkans whose constitution says that it is a country of its Citizens, not just of Serbs.

[GeraldP]

-Are all Albanians this rediculous are ar you the exception?

Are you always so clumsy, or do you just not know how to spell in English?

[vooch]

not a good Albanian - bad Albanian thing. The vast majority of Albanians born in Kosovo and Metohija are decent citizens.

The KLA (whose leadership consists of mainly Albanians from outside Kosovo and Metohija) is guilty of a terror campaign against local Albanians. Both UNMIK and Kfor have come to the same conclusion.

The entire KLA staff of the Llap OZ (Pristina and North) is sitting in prison now, found guilty by UNMIK/Kfor for murdering Albanians before March 1999. This includes the infamous 'Major General" Rustem Mustafa aka Remi.

Commander Remi's men machined gunned a well loved Albanian Doctor while he was walking his daughter home from school. The Doctor's crime: sending his Daughter to a ethnically mixed high school in Pristina.

The simple fact is that the Monks of Decani had a very good relationship with all people living around the area. Albanian, Roma, Turks, and Serbs all took part in festivals there. Albanian farmers took their animals there to be blessed. This was the situation until the KLA outsiders started terrorizing the locals.

There are some KLA extremists who try to paint others as fanatics. However, it is the KLA which UNMIK-Kfor has concluded is the problem.

There is a article on FR in which a Kfor General is quoted "We bombed the wrong side"

[vooch]

you are absolutely correct, after the KLA was unleashed upon the population in June 1999..........the civilian murder rate among Albanians skyrocketed.

[blau993]

Interesting that you purport to know my overall view of the Kosovo situation. I don't recall having met you previously. Perhaps I did and you were merely unimpressive.

[joan]

If all the Serbs are gone from this area, which I gather is the case, what is the congregation that is being served by the monks?

There are very few Serbs within the immediate area, but a few more in further out areas. They do try to visit the monastery on significant days, but because of the situation they have to be escorted. There is no freedom of movement for Serbs - a severe violation of basic human rights and very racist. This is a picture (summer 2002) from an article about the current situation:

German armored transporter heading column of Serb vehicles on their way to celebrate the patron saints' day of Holy Archangels Monastery in summer 2002. Albanian extremists had planted 11 kg. of volatile explosives in the hill above the monastery but only a few hundred grams exploded due to the heavy rain. An explosion would have resulted in the collapse of the cliff on several hundred faithful and the Bishop, who was serving Holy Liturgy in the monastery churchyard at the time. An investigation was never conducted and the entire incident was hushed up to avoid conflict with local Albanian extremists who have been freely operating in the area for years.

Are they some contemplative order, or do they purport to have some other purpose for being where they are?

They serve the people when they are able to come. They also carry on with centuries old traditions and caring for the monastery. I'm sure they worry that if they have to leave that the monastery will be robbed and destroyed. I don't know about this particular monastery, but in others they make icons which they sell or give to soldiers. The Spanish, Italian, and French soldiers do take some of these icons home with them. The monks do produce food. I think at the Decani monastery they bottle and sell honey. Monastery life in the Balkans goes back to early Christianity, and many saints and martyrs come from that area.

The Serbs did some pretty nasty things in the Balkans in recent years, and they are pretty widely hated.

Many of those "nasty things" turned out to be lies, hoaxes and setups. Meanwhile videotapes of headless Serb men were proudly shown by Bosnian Muslim soldier, Naser Oric, to western reporters; pictures of Mujahedeen with the heads of named Serbs killed in 1992; massacred Serbs in Croatia; roasted Serbs in front of Bosnian hotels; etc. were played down or hidden by the media.

Not all Albanians hated the Serb churches and monasteries. Some even went to the monasteries seeking miracles or cures - this was a long tradition among Albanians. Instead of gradually bringing peace or reconciliation, KFOR has, just as SFOR has in Bosnia, exacerbated division and hate. The moderates and friendly people are sidelined, while those with the most rabid hate are given freedom to roam, terrorize, and prevent the groups from working together in even small ways.

The idea of payback, even against monks, shouldn't surprise anyone.

Many of those abusing Serbs were teens and criminals from Albania, not even from Kosovo. The criminal element and mafia from Albania was allowed to come to Kosovo unhindered for several months after the war.

The religious in Kosovo said they gave food and shelter to Albanians (and all who needed help) during the bombing and fighting between the KLA and Serb forces.

Do the monks think they should be entitled to stay where the are and be protected by KFOR forever?

Maybe they naively believed the promises of the international community which went on and on about multiculturalism, human rights, freedom of religion, etc. What's going on shows the lie being NATO's claim that it was a humanitarian mission. If the Kosovo Albanians can't control the cruel and racist among them, perhaps they do need to be permanently babysat.

[mark502inf]

Patriarch Pavle and the Serb Orthodox Church remained true to their faith. They stood up against Milosevic early on and helped who they could in Kosovo.

Monastic refuge for Kosovars

by Steven Erlanger / The New York Times

DECANI, June 16 -- As Serb forces withdrew from western Kosovo, some of them burning and looting as they retreated, Father Iguman and Father Sava moved among them, asking them to spare the houses of their neighbors and bringing terrified Albanians here, to this revered Serbian Orthodox monastery near Pec.

"They are the best people you can ever see," said Venera Lokaj. "They are people of God. They heard Decani was burning, and they came to search for people. They found us there in the open, with everything burning, and they told us, 'We are blessed to see you alive. Please come with us. Please come to the monastery."' Miss Lokaj is an Albanian, one of the 200 or so who have taken refuge in this monastery, under cooling trees, retrieved from misery by the fathers here.

She had lived in nearby Pec, which was destroyed by Serb forces and paramilitaries in their rampage of revenge when NATO began bombing Yugoslavia in March. She moved with her father, Nimon, to Decani, because it had already been destroyed by Serbs the previous summer. "I thought it would be safer," she said.

They were ordered to remain inside by the Serbs, and had little chance to buy food in the destroyed town. But they were otherwise left alone. "We stayed inside for two and a half months," she said. "Until two days ago."

But after Belgrade capitulated and the Serb forces were given six days to pull out of this region, "they got mad at everything," Miss Lokaj said, "and they began to burn again." The Serbs "took anything they wanted, and they started driving people out of the center."

The Serbs arrived at their apartment building about 9 p.m. on Saturday and set fire to the first floor, Miss Lokaj said. "We were terrified and screamed at them from the balcony, 'We're here!' They looked up, but didn't say anything."

They ran downstairs, leaving the canvasses of her father, a well-known painter, to the flames. One Serb neighbor became angry, but was ordered to be quiet, she said. So the the Lokajs and two other families hid outside in the dark, fearing the Serbs would be back to kill them.

Early the next morning, Father Iguman and Father Sava found them and brought them to Decani. Father Sava, a tall man of 33 with a curly tan beard and eyeglasses, said he had only done what anyone would do. "We offered them hospitality and I am very pleased they accepted." Last year, he said, the monastery was host to 50 Serb refugees expelled from surrounding villages by the Kosovo Liberation Army, and they remained here through the bombing by NATO, whose forces here are known as KFOR. "But now, all of them became afraid and left," Father Sava said sadly. "We begged them to stay and told them that KFOR would protect them, but they said there was a vacuum and they couldn't stay."

Of the 2,000 Serbs of Decani, he said, only about 10 remain. "This is a biblical catastrophe, with the flight first of the Albanian population and then the Serb population," Father Sava said as he offered the monastery's home-made brandy, thick bread and pepper spread.

Father Sava is not an overtly political person, but his views are sharply expressed. "National traditions were misused by irreligious and immoral people who don't care about God or tradition at all," he said. "And people were pushed and forced to believe in things that were wrong." The church, he said, took a clear position against violence, ethnic purging and for the democratization of both Serbia and Albania, which was not the policy of the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic.

In his view, NATO's bombing campaign, which the church opposed, set off the very humanitarian disaster it was intended to prevent. Father Sava had himself warned Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright in Washington in February what would happen to the Kosovo Albanians if NATO bombed, he said. "I told her clearly what would happen."

Bishop Artemije of Rasca and Prizren, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo, published an open letter calling the bombing a mistake. "The bombs gave the pretext to the expulsion of a great number of Albanians and gave the pretext to the exodus of the Serbs," he said. "And democratic forces in Serbia are now almost nonexistent, and President Milosevic is triumphant in his phantom victory, and there is a lot of anti-Western feeling among Serbs that will stop democratic processes in this area for a long time to come."

Sincere diplomacy could have solved the problem without war, Father Sava said, and if the unarmed monitors of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had remained in Kosovo, but in larger numbers, "nothing like this would have happened." The problems here "would not have been easy to resolve," Father Sava said. "But it could have been done. And now we've ethnically cleansed Kosovo and destroyed it and produced enormous suffering on all sides."

Miss Lokaj had worked for the security organization in Pec. She speaks fluent English/ She, too, is very angry. "When the OSCE left, they told us they would be back in two weeks and everything would be the way we wanted it," she said bitterly. "We hoped so, but after three days, everything changed. When NATO started bombing, the police and the paramilitaries started destroying everything that was Albanian."

The Serbs "made a war against civilians, against people with empty hands," she said. "There was no KLA in Decani or in Pec, and they had no right to do what they did. This is a catastrophe. And the world saw this, it saw everything, and the world is too late. I know the world felt it had the best intentions, but there is a fatality about good intentions, and they always come too late." She turned away, brushing her brown hair from blazing eyes. "I hate the words, 'I'm sorry,"' she said. "The world always says, 'I'm sorry,' and it's always too late. The British said, 'Be patient. You have the sympathy of the world.' Well, the ground burned under our feet, and the world says we have its sympathy."

Miss Lokaj stopped again, and then said, keeping her voice slow and even: "Don't ever be sorry about the people who are still alive. Just be sorry for the dead."

[blau993]

Joan, with all respect, you have an agenda, and I wandered into your agenda. As several people have pointed out to me, these threads are populated by Serb apologists, of which you seem to be one. I don't have enough interest in the subject to compel me to debate you, although my every sense tells me you are wrong. Sorry, maybe another day. Meanwhile, I will steer clear of all posts that talk, however cryptically, about monks, Serbs or Albanians, OK?

[gershwin]

I am so sorry to read your conclusion. When I saw your post I was overwhelmed with work and I thought, how can I explain this lesituation to somebody who seems to have just chanced on the picture, where to start? I came back a few days later to see you calling Joan, who tried to give you a clear and unemotional explanation, än "apologist." That's so easy to say. Shall we call those who have charged Serbs with every unnameable crime äpologists also? Is everybody an apologist no matter what they say? Why not? Since you so readily jumped at this adjective good luck to you and goodbye. Why should you care anyway? The fable is going into some history books. But there are still plenty of respectable honest writers around and the truth will come out.

[getgoing]

...any info on German strategy? Or bad apple in Bosnia?

2/4/2004 Wednesday – Serbian police have arrested a member of Bosnia’s Stabilization Force on suspicion of illegal purchase, possession, exchange and sale of firearms.

According to a statement from the Organized Crime Division, police found automatic weapons and ammunition in a hotel room in Belgrade used by Stevan Grba (22).

Grba, a permanent member of the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia, holds citizenship of both Germany and Serbia-Montenegro.

[kimosabe31]

Of course I am not suggesting that the monks commited atrocities. But the Serbs did, and the local population (albanian muslims...right), whether they are there legally or illegally, is probably not going to make that distinction.

You're watching too much CNN Blau. If you look around the world, everywhere muslims have parked themselves they cause trouble. They cause trouble (terrorism)in order to force the authorities to crack down on them (i.e.,Kosovo, Chechnya, Kashmir, Phillipines, etc). Then they scream that their human rights are being violated in order to win the sympathy of the world community and create a pretext for further violence against the traditional inhabitants of the targeted land...the ultimate goal being to dispossess and ethnically cleanse the rightful inhabitants and make them refugees in their own land as are many Bosnian and Kosovo Serbs at this time and as will be the Orthodox monks if they even survive their ordeal of KFOR "protection".

You want to "slough off" the fact that the behavior of german KFOR is a direct threat to the religious rights as well as the physical safety of Christian Serbs in the Prizren area with the justification that "Serbs did some pretty nasty things". That tells me that you are either a clinton "groupie" or an al qaeda. Bottom line: you have to be an a$$hole in either case.

[vooch]

Miss Lokaj is an Albanian, one of the 200 or so who have taken refuge in this monastery, under cooling trees, retrieved from misery by the fathers here.

so much for the KLA's race hatred which GeraldP promotes.

[vooch]

Father Sava said, and if the unarmed monitors of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had remained in Kosovo, but in larger numbers, "nothing like this would have happened."

This jives with what the International Observers stated. Rollie Keith a Canadian soldier with the OSCE has written quite a bit on the subject.

Hmmm............the evil, sinister, cunning, mad-dog, bad haircut, conspiritorial, authoritarian, communist, fascist, dictator..........Milosevic and the Yugoslav Government wanted almost double the number of observers and also wanted them to stay.

Clinton and Clark forced the observers to leave.

[vooch]

I believe that Joan's info backs up the general picture we've been presenting.

Joan, could you provide a link to the "Raimunda" fabrication ? and possibly to the WSJ article written by Daniel Pearl discussing the media parroting KLA lies.

Note that Daniel Pearl exposed the KLA as liars in the WSJ and a few years later he is murdered by Al-Queeda. hmmmmm.